Stéphane Foucart, Le Monde: Michael Mann, hounded researcher

Michael Mann, hounded researcher

by Andy S, Skeptical Science, December 30, 2011

Here is a translation of  recent article (December 25th, 2011) in the French newspaper Le Monde by science journalist Stéphane Foucart. He reports on a talk that Michael Mann gave at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, in which Mann introduces his forthcoming book  The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. Foucart interviews Mann and discusses the background of the Hockey Stick and Climategate controversies. What is refreshing is the absence of the false balance, both-sides-of-the-story style of reporting that is found so often in English language newspapers. 

Original article (in French) from Le Monde

In early December, at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (the annual grand gathering of the bigwigs of the geoscience world), Michael Mann introduced his forthcoming book to his peers. The lecture was entertaining and the audience laughed heartily. The American climatologist, Director of the Earth System Center at Pennsylvania State University, cracked numerous jokes and made many witty asides. He scoffed at the anti-science of the Republican politicians and mocked their ridiculous statements on climate change; everybody laughed out loud.

But this, surely, is no laughing matter. Michael Mann’s forthcoming book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines (Columbia University Press), is not really a science book; rather, as its title suggests, it deals instead with the war on climate science, which has at times turned into a manhunt, frequently with Mann as the quarry.

Lively, talkative and likeable, passionate about his research, Michael Mann is Conservative America’s most hated scientist. His crime is defined by two words, Hockey Stick, the nickname given to a curve showing how temperature has changed; a diagram that he will now forever be associated with.

In 1998, and again in 1999, with co-authors Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes, he published a “reconstruction” of Northern Hemisphere temperatures, from the year 1000 to the present day. Using the traces of past climates recorded in tree rings, corals and sediments, he succeeded in producing a striking curve in the shape of a hockey stick. The long handle shows a fairly regular decline in temperatures from 1000 to around 1900, whereas the blade displays a sudden and a rather worrying sharp upward increase that is very obvious since 1950. The main conclusion of the Hockey Stick is that the last decade of the twentieth century was probably the warmest in over a thousand years.

“The irony is that I wasn’t originally working on anthropogenic climate change but on natural climate oscillations,” says Michael Mann. “I wasn’t looking for a hockey stick; it simply emerged from the data!”

The curve was given pride of place in 2001, in the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It provided a striking visual image of the climate emergency. It became a symbol, and consequently, for all climate skeptics, an icon to destroy.

There began, at the beginning of the past decade, “an intense campaign of defamation, essentially financed by industry,” according to Mann. A statistician—also a consultant for the fossil fuel industry—disputed the data processing that produced the famous curve. The basic data themselves were subsequently put under suspicion and soon Mann was accused of having deliberately manipulated them. The Internet became awash with all kinds of myths linked to the Hockey Stick, urban legends that are occasionally passed on by scientists misled by the technicality of the arguments put forward. It is impossible today to Google the term Hockey Stick without finding hundreds of pages that detail alleged frauds, intentional errors and manipulations attributed to its creator.

The campaign worked wonderfully. In 2006, an American Congressman asked mathematician Edward Wegman (George Mason University) to prepare a report on the famous curve. The “Wegman Report” piled on with more criticism of the Hockey Stick. The American National Academy of Sciences was soon put to work to produce a report on the Hockey Stick, but they didn’t find much to complain about. “There was a legitimate technical discussion on the statistical method used in the data processing,” said Pascal Yiou (with France’s Climate Science and Environment Laboratory), “but others have processed the same data with different methods and that didn’t change the shape of the curve.”

Above all, as the controversy was artificially kept alive on the Net, a dozen other temperature reconstructions reached the same general conclusions as the original Hockey Stick.

The attacks were not just restricted to the iconic curve, however. Its author also was personally targeted. At the end of 2009, his emails—along with those of a number of other climatologists — were pirated and published on the Web. Most of the sentences, taken out of context, suggested collusion. A Republican Senator called for an inquiry into several researchers, Michael Mann first among them. The Attorney General for Virginia demanded that Mann’s Alma Mater, the University of Virginia, hand over all documents relating to him, including his archived emails, to search for possible evidence of fraud. As for Pennsylvania State University, it was pressured in 2010 to open an investigation on Mann but ended up exonerating him.

Michael Mann feels that things can get carried away at times. “One day, a year and a half ago, I received a letter with white powder inside it that looked like it could be anthrax. I forwarded the letter to the police who sent it for analysis: it turned out to be corn flour.” Since then, he won’t open letters unless he knows the sender.

How does anyone survive almost a decade of attacks and slander? “Getting caught in such storms isn’t something that scientific training prepares you for,” he says. “You have to become expert in defending yourself and dealing with misinformation and attacks. But I like a fight!” When the attacks started to focus on him, one of his mentors, the late Steve Schneider (Stanford University), suggested to him that if “they” were coming after him, it was because his work was important. “That was really something that helped me to have the courage to face all this,” he says.

What, ultimately, is the outcome of all this? He suddenly becomes less talkative. “Those who attack us have won in the sense that they have succeeded in delaying any action on global warming by ten, twenty, maybe thirty years,” he concedes with worry as he sees his country succumbing to anti-science. “Denying either anthropogenic climate change or evolution has become a condition of admission to the Republican Party. That’s something quite new and very scary.”

By Stéphane Foucart

(Translated by Andy S. Please note that the quotes attributed to Mann were translated back into English from the French version of his words as reported in Le Monde. They will not therefore correspond exactly to what he originally said.)

http://www.skepticalscience.com/MichaelMann.html

James Hansen: Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient. It would be a prescription for disaster

Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes

ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2011) — New research into Earth's paleoclimate history by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies director James E. Hansen suggests the potential for rapid climate changes this century, including multiple meters of sea level rise, if global warming is not abated.

At the Earth’s current rate of carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, the planet is likely to experience several degrees increase in average temperatures and large-scale changes such as ice sheet loss that could lead to several meters of sea level rise this century, NASA’s James E. Hansen said in a recent paper. (Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio)

By looking at how Earth's climate responded to past natural changes, Hansen sought insight into a fundamental question raised by ongoing human-caused climate change: "What is the dangerous level of global warming?" Some international leaders have suggested a goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times in order to avert catastrophic change. But Hansen said at a press briefing at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Dec. 6, 2011, that warming of 2 degrees Celsius would lead to drastic changes, such as significant ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica.

Based on Hansen's temperature analysis work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Earth's average global surface temperature has already risen 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now warming at a rate of more than 0.1 degree Celsius every decade. This warming is largely driven by increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, emitted by the burning of fossil fuels at power plants, in cars and in industry. At the current rate of fossil fuel burning, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have doubled from pre-industrial times by the middle of this century. A doubling of carbon dioxide would cause an eventual warming of several degrees, Hansen said.

In recent research, Hansen and co-author Makiko Sato, also of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, compared the climate of today, the Holocene, with previous similar "interglacial" epochs -- periods when polar ice caps existed but the world was not dominated by glaciers. In studying cores drilled from both ice sheets and deep ocean sediments, Hansen found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today. If temperatures were to rise 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, global mean temperature would far exceed that of the Eemian, when sea level was four to six meters higher than today, Hansen said.

"The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient," Hansen said. "It would be a prescription for disaster."

Hansen focused much of his new work on how the polar regions and in particular the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland will react to a warming world.

Two degrees Celsius of warming would make Earth much warmer than during the Eemian, and would move Earth closer to Pliocene-like conditions, when sea level was in the range of 25 meters higher than today, Hansen said. In using Earth's climate history to learn more about the level of sensitivity that governs our planet's response to warming today, Hansen said the paleoclimate record suggests that every degree Celsius of global temperature rise will ultimately equate to 20 meters of sea level rise. However, that sea level increase due to ice sheet loss would be expected to occur over centuries, and large uncertainties remain in predicting how that ice loss would unfold.

Hansen notes that ice sheet disintegration will not be a linear process. This non-linear deterioration has already been seen in vulnerable places such as Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, where the rate of ice mass loss has continued accelerating over the past decade. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite is already consistent with a rate of ice sheet mass loss in Greenland and West Antarctica that doubles every ten years. The GRACE record is too short to confirm this with great certainty; however, the trend in the past few years does not rule it out, Hansen said. This continued rate of ice loss could cause multiple meters of sea level rise by 2100, Hansen said.

Ice and ocean sediment cores from the polar regions indicate that temperatures at the poles during previous epochs -- when sea level was tens of meters higher -- is not too far removed from the temperatures Earth could reach this century on a "business as usual" trajectory.

"We don't have a substantial cushion between today's climate and dangerous warming," Hansen said. "Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying feedbacks in response to moderate additional global warming."

Detailed considerations of a new warming target and how to get there are beyond the scope of this research, Hansen said. But this research is consistent with Hansen's earlier findings that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would need to be rolled back from about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere today to 350 parts per million in order to stabilize the climate in the long term. While leaders continue to discuss a framework for reducing emissions, global carbon dioxide emissions have remained stable or increased in recent years.

Hansen and others noted that while the paleoclimate evidence paints a clear picture of what Earth's earlier climate looked like, but that using it to predict precisely how the climate might change on much smaller timescales in response to human-induced rather than natural climate change remains difficult. But, Hansen noted, the Earth system is already showing signs of responding, even in the cases of "slow feedbacks" such as ice sheet changes.

The human-caused release of increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere also presents climate scientists with something they've never seen in the 65 million year record of carbon dioxide levels -- a drastic rate of increase that makes it difficult to predict how rapidly Earth will respond. In periods when carbon dioxide has increased due to natural causes, the rate of increase averaged about .0001 parts per million per year -- in other words, one hundred parts per million every million years. Fossil fuel burning is now causing carbon dioxide concentrations to increase at two parts per million per year.

"Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales," Hansen said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111208173647.htm

GOP candidates urged to accept climate change by 50 New Hampshire scientists

GOP candidates urged to accept climate change by scientists

by Andrew Restuccia, The Hill, December 29, 2011

Fifty New Hampshire scientists Thursday called on the Republican presidential candidates to accept the “overwhelming” scientific evidence behind climate change.

The scientists issued the joint statement just weeks before the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary, a key early test for the GOP White House hopefuls.

“We urge all candidates for public office at national, state, and local levels, and all New Hampshire citizens, to acknowledge the overwhelming balance of evidence for the underlying causes of climate change, to support appropriate responses to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, and to develop local and statewide strategies to adapt to near-term changes in climate,” the scientists said.

“Ignoring the issue of climate change places our health, our quality of life, our economic vitality, and our children’s future at risk.”

The GOP presidential candidates have raised questions about climate science, a politically thorny issue in Republican circles.

“My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet,” Mitt Romney said during an October speech. 

Romney has said he believes that climate change is occurring and that human beings contribute to it. But he has said he doesn’t know how much global warming can be attributed to human activity.

Other Republican presidential candidates have been more direct in questioning climate science. Rick Perry, for instance, called global warming “one contrived phony mess” in his book Fed Up!

Scientists at seven New Hampshire institutions, including the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College, signed Thursday’s joint statement. It was sent to the offices of all the presidential candidates as well as New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D).

The statement comes about a month after Iowa scientists issued a similar call for the Republican candidates to accept climate science.

The vast majority of the world’s scientists say climate change is occurring in large part due to such human activity as the burning of fossil fuels.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/201651-new-hampshire-scientists-urge-gop-candidates-to-accept-climate-change

A tide of concern is rising over risk of storm surges in New York City

A tide of concern is rising over risk of storm surges

The Villager, December 29, 2011 | Filed under: News | Posted by: admin

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Photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

A view in August across the Hudson River to Jersey City from Lower Manhattan. Water levels have already risen due to climate change, according to experts.

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER  |  A horror movie could not have been more frightening or more graphic. Hurricane-force winds. Sea levels rising 13 feet over the course of an hour. Thirty-foot storm surges destroying every manmade object in their path. Transportation systems flooded. No potable drinking water. Destroyed ecosystems. Beaches and barrier islands washed away. Two to three million people having to be evacuated.

This is what might happen if New York City were hit by a hurricane. Some of this is what has happened from time to time in the past but a future storm would probably be even worse. Climate change has already caused sea levels to rise even without the added stress and dangers of a storm.

According to David Bragdon, director of the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, “By midcentury, New York City’s average temperatures will rise by three to five degrees Fahrenheit, and sea levels could rise by more than two feet. By the end of the century, the city’s climate may be more similar to North Carolina than present-day New York City and sea levels could rise by as much as four-and-a-half feet.”

Much of the metropolitan area lies less than three feet above sea level and millions of people live close to New York City’s 520 miles of coastline.

On Dec. 16 in a room packed to overflowing, the grim impact of climate change on New York City was depicted by expert after expert at a City Council hearing convened by James F. Gennaro, chairperson of the Committee on Environmental Protection, and Michael Nelson, chairperson of the Committee on Waterfronts. State Senator Tom Duane and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried testified that their districts are particularly vulnerable. Duane’s district includes the Hudson River waterfront from Vestry St. to W. 70th St. and the East River waterfront between E. 14th and E. 30th Sts. Gottfried’s district runs along the Hudson River waterfront from W. 14th St. to 59th St.

“Significant portions of our districts lie just above sea level and are therefore at risk from rising sea levels and storm surges,” they said. “The high density of human population, infrastructure and enormous monetary and cultural value of existing buildings make adaptation to or mitigation of flooding impossible.”

“New York City is planning to be flooded — and according to the National Hurricane Center, it will be,” said Douglas Hill, consulting engineer and an adjunct lecturer at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. “Based on the historical record, hurricanes of Categories 1, 2 and 3 will strike the New York region on an average of every 17, 39 and 68 years, respectively.”

He said that in a severe hurricane, the Office of Emergency Management has estimated that up to three million people would have to be evacuated from New York City.

There are three conceivable approaches to dealing with the threat of rising sea levels, said Malcolm Bowman, Distinguished Service Professor of Oceanography at the School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences of the State University of New York at Stony Brook: The government could decide to do nothing because of lack of sufficient political will or funds; it could fix problems on a case-by-case basis as they arise; or it could take a regional approach.

Bowman noted that “the Dutch have been busily reclaiming and protecting their lowlands for centuries by creating an intricate network of dikes surrounding low-lying tracts of land.” He said that Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, with more than one million residents, in some places is built on land as much as 18 feet below mean sea level. The Dutch, he stated, “have a highly professional and established engineering, marine hydraulics and governmental infrastructure dedicated to building, maintaining and improving the country’s coastal defenses against the sea. New York should do the same. The city should underwrite feasibility studies by engineering firms, city planners, environmental and community groups to investigate what will work and what will not.”

Hill and other experts advocate protecting the city with strategically placed storm surge barriers. A storm surge is a mountain of ocean water propelled by the winds and low barometric pressure of a hurricane. According to the city’s Office of Emergency Management, a storm surge can make landfall five hours before a hurricane hits and can also move in after a hurricane departs, as high seas slump back into confined spaces like Long Island Sound.

In a presentation before Community Board 2’s Waterfront and Environment Committees on July 19, 2010, Hill described the potential effects of a tidal surge accompanying a category 1 or category 2 hurricane hitting New York City. The committees adopted a resolution asking the federal Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a study about the potential for flooding related to a storm surge and exploring the feasibility of installing sea gates and barriers, and taking other actions to protect New York City.

The C.B. 2 committees’ resolution noted that the potential exists within the next 100 years for New York City to be hit by a major storm that could cause a tidal surge of up to 20 feet.

“The flooding caused by such a surge — which happened in the 19th century — would be calamitous,” the resolution said, “particularly to those living within several blocks of the Hudson River.”

As Hill explained to the committees, sea gates have been built in London and Rotterdam and are being built in Venice to protect those cities. He said that the total cost of building storm surge barriers beneath the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and across the Arthur Kill and Throgs Neck would be around $10 billion.

Community Board 4 has also pleaded with the city for protection. On Feb. 4, 2010, that board wrote a letter to Mayor Mike Bloomberg that said, “Much of Community Board 4 lies within the 100 Year Flood Plain.” The letter asked that “the City petition Congress to appropriate necessary funds to enable the Army Corps of Engineers to begin studying the feasibility of installing sea gates and barriers for protection from the sea.”

Quoting Joshua Friedman of the Office of Emergency Management, the letter went on to say that, “a catastrophic storm surge will affect two million New Yorkers, 740,000 households, 272,000 buildings and 461 miles of roadways. Recognized experts have suggested that sea gates at the Narrows, the mile-wide entry to New York Harbor, and lesser gates near Arthur Kill and where the East River meets Long Island Sound (Throgs Neck) would protect much of Manhattan.” The letter noted that the sea gates could protect against potential flooding caused by sea level rise alone, separate from the extra hazards caused by storms.

“There is no time to waste,” the letter said. “Whole communities may suffer irreparable damage if we don’t act now.”

These letters and warnings elicited no response. At the City Council hearing on Dec. 16, however, Gennaro did listen.

“The majority of Congress dismisses global warming as poppycock,” he remarked. Then he said of what he had heard that afternoon, “I would like the staff to know that this is an official interest of the chairman. This is my pledge to you.”

At least one person who sat through the hours of testimony that afternoon was more than elated by Gennaro’s remark. Robert Trentlyon, a former member of Community Board 4, has been fighting for recognition of the storm surge threat for years.

Photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Storm clouds over New Jersey heading toward Lower Manhattan in August. Two weeks later, Tropical Storm Irene — which had weakened from a hurricane — hit New York.

“About three years ago, I realized that no matter what New York City did we would not be able to stop the rising sea level and would be victims to greater and greater storms,” he said. “I then went on a search for someone who knew about storm surge barriers. That led me to Doug Hill.” Due to Trentlyon’s involvement in community affairs, he soon had five community organizations on board to address the storm surge problem, including Community Boards 2 and 4. What transpired at the Dec. 16 Council hearing was a big breakthrough, in his view.

“Last Friday, at the City Council Oversight Hearing of the Environmental Protection Committee, presided over by James Gennaro, something wondrous occurred,” Trentlyon said last week. “David Bragdon, chairperson of New York City Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, announced that within six months his agency would commence the study of storm surge barriers. Michael Marrela, head of Waterfront Development for the Department of City Planning, announced that they have started studying storm surge barriers, and Jim Gennaro, in response to our testimony, said that his committee is prepared to help us, including talking to the Army Corps of Engineers. Christmas came early this year.”

http://www.thevillager.com/?p=1382

The Year In Dirty Energy: The Koch Brothers

by Farron Cousins, desmogblog, December 27, 2011

Over the last 12 months, DeSmogBlog contributors have helped spread the word about some of the most dastardly deeds of Charles and David Koch. Here are some of the biggest stories we covered this year on the issue of corruption and dirty energy money.

It is impossible to talk about dirty energy money and corruption without mentioning the Koch brothers. Before 2011, two of the wealthiest men in America were able to operate in almost complete secrecy while they spread misinformation about climate change and attempted to dismantle environmental protections:

The money in politics database Open Secrets, run by the Center for Responsive Politics, has a lengthy list of specific legislation that Koch Industries has lobbied for and against. On the "against" list, you’ll find legislation such as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – a bill that would have put Americans to work building a green energy infrastructure; the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act – again, a bill that would have created green energy jobs and infrastructure; and the Clean Air Protection Act – a bill that would limit the amount of acceptable emissions into our atmosphere.

The Koch brothers, through their PACs and other organizations, have funded numerous efforts to defeat legislation aimed at reducing pollution or protecting the environment. After all, their companies don't pay the real cost for the pollution they release.

And then there was their misinformation bus tour:

The Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is taking their misinformation machine on the road in an attempt to convince American consumers that President Obama is causing the spike in gasoline prices.AFP is claiming that the president is intentionally keeping gas prices high because he refuses to allow oil companies to drill for oil in protected areas of the United States.

AFP conveniently ignores the fact that gas prices were north of $4 a gallon during the Bush administration, when they peaked at $4.12, as pointed out by protesters who showed up at one of AFP’s early gas tour events in Nebraska. But in the alternate reality that AFP is creating to enable Koch’s further oil profits, it’s somehow all Obama’s fault.

The Koch brothers were also behind the efforts to dismantle the multi-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), by way of their astroturf organizations and ties to prominent politicians:

Governor Chris Christie pulled New Jersey out of RGGI, stripping the ten state agreement of one of its key cornerstone partners. Next door in New York, Americans for Prosperity, a group whose ties to the Koch brothers are well established, sued the state for its continued commitment to RGGI.

Americans for Prosperity celebrated Christie’s decision, even taking direct credit for it in a public press release: Americans for Prosperity Declares Victory over RGGI Cap & Trade!

And you can’t forget about now-disgraced GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain sucking up to the Koch brothers this year:

At the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity event today, Republican presidential contender Herman Cain told it like it is. “I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother.” He added, “And proud of it.”

The Koch brothers were hoping that Herman Cain would be their mouthpiece in the 2012 election. But even with Cain now out of the race, they still have a backup plan: teaching their employees how to vote for environment-destroying candidates:

The Nation magazine has revealed that Koch Industries sent a letter to most of its 50,000 employees before the U.S. midterm elections in November 2010 advising them on whom to vote for. In “Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch,” Mark Ames and Mike Elk expose the urgent “election packet” [PDF] sent to tens of thousands of Koch employees complete with ample libertarian reading materials instructions and a list of eligible vote-worthy (conservative) candidates.

As if this isn’t disturbing enough, the letter warns employees them of the dire consequences to their families, their jobs and their country should they choose to vote otherwise.

Most of this information could have remained a secret from the public, had it not been for the hard work of organizations like The Center for Public Integrity and Greenpeace:

The Center for Public Integrity has an in-depth look at Koch Industries’ “Web of Influence” in Washington, revealing the immense growth in Koch’s spending on lobbyists and influence peddling over the last few years. As the CPI investigation notes, the Kochtopus’s lobbying army has its tentacles wrapped around all kinds of issues, not just its core oil business, but its wide-ranging stakes in everything from Canadian tar sands to ethanol to toxic chemicals to financial regulation (or preserving the lack thereof).

The CPI report lifts the veil on a few individual Koch lobbyists, notably Gregory Zerzan, a name that nobody outside Washington would recognize, yet who has had tremendous impact on the Hill as a Koch toady.

Greenpeace took to the air to raise awareness about the Koch’s deeds:

A Greenpeace airship flew over the secretive Rancho Mirage polluter strategy meeting hosted by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries. Wealthy elite interests and oil tycoons arriving at the posh resort to plot their anti-democracy agenda were greeted with the aerial message “Koch Brothers: Dirty Money.”

Greenpeace also released information collected from tax records confirming that the Koch Family Foundations continue to fund climate denial organizations. The most recent records available document that the Kochtopus dished out $6.4 million in 2009 to front groups and think tanks that spread inaccurate and misleading information about climate science and clean energy policies. That brings the Kochtopus’s confirmed Dirty Money total to $54.9 million since 1997, with the majority, $31.3 million, spent since 2005.

Greenpeace also helped spread the word about the Koch’s dealings with Iran:

Greenpeace USA has called for a full Congressional investigation of Koch Industries and the illegal practices detailed in the Bloomberg Markets Magazine piece, "Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales."

The Bloomberg coverage reveals multiple allegations of Koch Industries bribing government officials around the world and doing business with Iran. In a Huffington Post blog announcing the call for Congress to investigate Koch, Greenpeace USA Executive Director Phil Radford writes, "this new [Bloomberg] investigation reveals a blatant disregard for our laws, so today Greenpeace has called for a full Congressional investigation of Koch Industries and the illegal practices detailed in the Bloomberg report."

Greenpeace has extensively documented the Koch brothers' key role in backing the climate denial machine and other nefarious Koch Industries behavior. Now the Bloomberg revelations raise the heat even further on the $50-billionaire-brothers David and Charles Koch.

There’s no question that the Kochs will put their money to work during next year's presidential election. At least now, with their operations exposed, you can rest assured that their every move will be detailed by the independent media.

http://desmogblog.com/year-dirty-energy-koch-brothers