The Case of Patrick Michaels
An op-ed by one of the most vocal contrarians, Patrick Michaels, was refuted HERE by the American Geophysical Union. The AGU said: "Mr. Michaels's op-ed reflects a political strategy to sway popular opinion on climate change without regard for facts or the enormous body of scientific evidence...The result damages the scientific community and is a disservice to the public." HERE is a report indicating perhaps why Michaels makes such misleading statements; it says: "And a 2006 leaked industry memo revealed that he received $100,000 in funding from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association to fund climate denial campaigning around the time of the release of An Inconvenient Truth." You can download an IREA memo here. Michaels currently works for the Cato Institute, founded by the Koch Brothers.
Michaels admitted in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Aug 15, 2010, that around 40% of his funding comes from the petroleum industry, see the video HERE. Now Michaels recently submitted a "revised" CV to the US Congress that lists $4.2 millionin cumulative income from sources over $10,000 (he did not reveal his total income). Michaels claims that only 3% is attributed to energy sector industry sources, which is manifestly inconsistent with the 40% figure he gives in the above 8/15/10 video. Henry Waxman has asked for an investigation of Michaels for this inconsistency, which if true could constitute a federal offense of lying to Congress punishable by jail and fines; see HERE for examples.
Dr. Peter Gleick (member of the National Academy of Sciences) recently exposed fallacies in two denier articles in Forbes magazine by "serial climate science conjurer Patrick Michaels with egregious and outrageous claims and errors. This falls well into the category of climate B.S. (bad science)."
See HERE for a scathing review of Michaels' activities, including this gem: Michaels "co-operated with Ross McKitrick on a paper that managed to "prove" that global warming wasn't happening by mixing up degrees with radians." See the RealClimate commentary on this "egregious basic error" HERE.
http://climate.uu-uno.org/
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