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I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. For the uninitiated, while Politico is allegedly a news organization, it has a history of supporting Progressive and Leftist causes.
To be fair, the summary lead at the top of the article is pretty good: “A common refrain: Climate policy hurts the poor, and the continued use of fossil fuels is a boon for humanity.“ But, at best, today’s Politico article entitled, “Meet the 4 influencers shaping Chris Wright’s worldview” is a mix of truths, half-truths, and misleading innuendoes. The article is by Scott Waldman. The four alleged influencers of Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s views on climate science and energy policy are, in order, Bjorn Lomborg, me, Alex Epstein, and John Constable.
I will let the others speak for themselves. What follows is, verbatim, the article addressing my influence on Sec. Wright. I don’t need to comment on everything because some of it is true. I will only offer clarifications where appropriate. Why? Because there are a lot of untruths circulating about me and unless I address them from time to time, those things become part of a narrative that is difficult to dislodge.
Quotes from the article are in italics; my response & clarifications are in bold:
Spencer, whose work was cited as a resource in Wright’s report, is a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and is listed as an adviser to the Heartland Institute, which promotes climate misinformation. I used to give talks at Heartland conferences, but haven’t in recent years. I don’t have a formal relationship with them. I don’t speak for Heartland Institute, but I thoroughly disagree with the claim that they promote “climate misinformation”. That shoe fits Politico much better.
While some of Spencer’s work on atmospheric temperatures and other areas of study has been funded by NASA and the Energy Department, he has attacked federal climate researchers as being biased because they receive taxpayer money, and he has claimed that people alive today won’t experience global warming. On the first point… true. On the second point, I believe what I have said is that most people today will never notice global warming in their lifetimes because it is too weak (about 0.02 deg. C per year) compared to natural climate, seasonal, and day-to-day weather variability. In my book, people who believe they have witnessed human-caused global warming are about as delusional as flat-Earthers.
Spencer also served as a visiting fellow for the Heritage Foundation, which produced the Project 2025 policy proposal that has guided the first months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The groups Spencer has been affiliated with have received millions of dollars in donations from foundations that oppose regulations, but he claims the American public has “been misled by the vested interests who financially benefit from convincing the citizens we are in a climate crisis.” That includes environmental groups and journalists, in his telling. And I stand by that claim. Look at the artwork at the top of this article, and see if you can figure out what it implies.
“Climate change is big business for a lot of players,” he wrote in a Heritage Foundation publication. “That includes a marching army of climate scientists whose careers now depend on a steady stream of funding from governments.” True. And I have said my career also depends upon that funding.
For years, Spencer has worked with organizations that have received funding from an interlinked network of fossil fuel companies — a multitrillion-dollar global industry — as well as wealthy foundations with billions of dollars in holdings that support groups opposing climate and energy regulations. What are you implying, Scott? That I’ve been paid off by this multitrillion dollar global industry? I know that’s what you are doing. But they have never funded me. At most, I have giving an occasional invited talk, which I receive honoraria for when offered (standard practice, and the same has applied to environmental organizations I have spoken to).
He states on his website that he has not been paid by oil companies, but a court filing in 2016 revealed that he received funding from Peabody Energy, the coal giant that for years spent millions of dollars on funding climate denial groups. That was one of my invited talks: As I recall, it was a Peabody board of directors meeting, and they wanted someone to provide a counterpoint to a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) talk given at the same meeting. Peabody never funded me to do work.
Spencer has appeared before Congress a number of times, typically as a Republican witness attacking climate policy and downplaying climate risks. He served as the climatologist for the late conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, who regularly promoted climate denialism on his show. Again with the “climate denialism” mantra? You really don’t have a second gear, do you, Scott? I don’t deny “climate”. I don’t even deny recent warming. I don’t even deny that recent warming is probably mostly due to humans.
Like Lomborg, Spencer claims climate policy will hurt the poor even as science has overwhelmingly shown the effects of global warming would disproportionately affect the world’s most vulnerable populations. “Science” has shown no such thing. Opportunistic researchers have indeed made such claims, though. But Lomborg, Epstein, and Roger Pielke Jr. are better at refuting those claims than I am.
He authored a book entitled: “Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies That Hurt the Poor.”
Spencer did not respond to a request for comment. True. I long ago learned which media outlets cannot be trusted to represent what I say fairly.
“I don’t speak for Heartland Institute, but I thoroughly disagree with the claim that they promote “climate misinformation”
They do spread what can only be described as propaganda:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120503233315/http://climateconference.heartland.org/our-billboards/
I received a free book from them awhile back and it certainly seemed to have some highly misleading graphs and descriptions.
And it did quite poorly in a fact-check by a respected news organization:
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.339G4NM
And it was sent to numerous school teachers.
Nate:
Did you actually read what was in that link you sent, or did you just react to the billboard with Ted Kaczynski’s face? Their point was that the worldviews of environmentalists are often no different from those of mass murderers. Besides, AFP fact checkers are known to be Left-leaning. But in your world, that would be synonymous with “unbiased”.
> are often
Citation needed.
Nate is projecting.
I had received the earlier book sent to educators in 2017 by Heartland. That was the one I read and found to be full of misleading or wrong information.
It was fact-checked by scientists and given a score of F.
https://science.feedback.org/report-heartland-institute-sent-to-influence-us-teachers-on-climate-change-earns-an-f-from-scientists/
Nate, if you are just going to use IPCC scientists as fact-checkers of their own claims, why are you even commenting here? For example, it is now well known most IPCC models have climate sensitivities that are too high compared to observations (one of the “facts” you listed). Seriously… why are you still here? We already know what the IPCC claims… we don’t need you to remind us.
I think the issue with Heartland is that they have particular political point of view that they are promoting.
It makes no sense to get science facts from them, since their goal is not to do science.
Just as it makes no sense to get science from Greenpeace.
The UN has a particular political point of view that they are promoting. IPCC-INTERGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change
The IPCC science reports are reviews written by scientists of the science found in the scientific literature.
Roy,
Instead of complaining about “IPCC scientists”, I suggest you explain why you believe their criticism is incorrect. The actual points addressed, one by one, at https://science.feedback.org/report-heartland-institute-sent-to-influence-us-teachers-on-climate-change-earns-an-f-from-scientists/ are clear enough, so just explain why you disagree with them. From a scientific viwewpoint, not based on some “what do scientists know anyway?” stance.
Nate,
You’re saying good science is only found in literature that you approve?
The World’s most prominent think-tank supporting skepticism about man-made climate change……The Economist
“it is now well known most IPCC models have climate sensitivities that are too high compared to observations”
What on Earth is an “IPCC model”? Please explain. Do you even know what IPCC is and what they do?
And the Heartland claim was that “climate models systematically over-estimate the sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide”. This is clearly incorrect. See https://science.feedback.org/review/heartland-institute-reports-claim-climate-models-sensitive-co2-not-reflect-evidence/
And if you disagree, explain what’s wrong about the debunking.
Well their statements on what has been observed such as sea-level-rise or coral reefs are easy to verify.
Those are a just a couple of items that failed the fact-check.
But feel free to weigh in.
The factoid that seems to get little coverage until recently was how utterly pointless the climate agenda has been. There is a belief that if western economies can curtail CO2 emissions, the climate will get better. But the emissions made in the west just get transferred to Asia and the goods made in Asia with extensive use of fossil fuels simply get exported to the countries who have reduced their emission through de-industrialization. It’s nothing more than squeezing a balloon.
It’s stretch to think the climate can be controlled through reduced CO2 emissions. It turns out it’s even a stretch to think CO2 emissions are being controlled at all.
You cannot be serious. You are making satire. Your claim is that the suggestion promoted in the media, that weather variability is climate change, should now be taken seriously because the uneducated public is buying it.
Weather variability is not something new, even though college students can be convinced that it is. It is the very nature of weather to be variable throughout the seasons and from year to year, as it is influenced by the random movement of large air masses in the atmosphere.
There is not a delete feature on this blog, but this comment rather obviously belongs below and not here.
Sorry about that. I am not sure what happened.
While a person may not consciously notice a global average increase of 0.02°C per year, they can often experience the effects of climate change through changes in frequency and intensity of extreme events.
Statistical studies and perception surveys have documented growing public awareness of climate impacts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_on_climate_change?utm_source=chatgpt.com).
You cannot be serious. You are making satire. Your claim is that the suggestion promoted in the media, that weather variability is climate change, should now be taken seriously because the uneducated public is buying it.
Weather variability is not something new, even though college students can be convinced that it is. It is the very nature of weather to be variable throughout the seasons and from year to year, as it is influenced by the random movement of large air masses in the atmosphere.
This must be a bot since human English speakers typically don’t say “ making satire.” The verb “make” is not typically collocated with the noun “satire” because “make” is generally used with tangible or creative products, but “satire” refers to a genre or approach.
But I digress.
I am happy to explain the relationship between a shifting mean and the resulting probability of extreme events, but you must read my post again and respond to what I wrote rather than the opposite of what I wrote.
Saying that the Heartland Institute promotes climate misinformation is probably being generous to them since much of their work can actually be categorized as straight up disinformation.
Anyway, the book Merchants of Doubt discusses the Heartland Institute (and other contrarian think tanks like it) and the strategies they use to peddle unwarranted doubt and undermine the consilience of evidence approach to scientific understanding and established facts.
And it’s not just climate disinformation that the Heartland Institute peddles. Their propaganda includes challenges to the link between smoking and cancer, the link between pesticides and toxicity to humans, the link between CFCs and ozone depletion, the link between pollution and acid rain, etc. The strategies they use to gaslight and deceive the public are generally the same across all of their contrarian stances.
This is a good example of why climate change claims cannot be taken seriously. The liberal media like to weave vague and exaggerated science claims with wild political statements.
The story seems like a typical news organizations smear campaign. Highly speculative claims about climate change are pushed out as “the science” endorsed by “the scientists”. Then they claim that any opposition, whether rational or not, is the work of deniers.
It is not surprising that the resident politician, Nate, has arrived with his standard act which is to argue for the sake of argument, whether it makes sense or not.
You are not addressing anything I posted, just generic bitching. Are you a bot?
Roy, thank you for doing real science.
People get confused between “global warming” and the CO2 nonsense.
We are seeing about a 40-60 year warming trend, well documented by UAH. But there is no REAL science that can link that warming to CO2. In REAL science, a “consensus” means NOTHING.
The belief that 15μ photons can warm a 288K surface is easily debunked with very basic physics. But cultists don’t want science.
“The belief that 15μ photons can warm a 288K surface is easily debunked with very basic physics.”
Nope. What are you talking about? The warming (i.e. increased temperature of Earth’s surface due to increased concentration of CO2) is basic physics. Learn about the atmospheric greenhouse effect. It was discovered in the 1800’s.
Gadden, the fact that you can’t explain how 15μ photons can warm a 288K surface means you don’t have a clue about the basic physics. Can you pass an easy test?
“Warm” means “raise the temperature”. So what is required to warm a surface?
8:22 am A: An increase in its measured avg. thermodynamic internal energy from, for example, absorbed 15μ photons.
To warm a surface, you need net positive energy to it.
Increased CO2 makes the lower atmosphere absorb more upwelling infrared radiation. This leads to a warmer lower atmosphere, assuming all other independent conditions unchanged. The atmosphere consequently radiates more, including downwards. So, increased back radiation. (See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg)
Result? A warmer surface.
Incorrect Gadden!
To increase the temperature of a surface the average kinetic energy of the molecules in the surface MUST be increased. That kinetic energy is related to the vibrational frequency of the molecules. CO2’s 15&mu photons have lower frequency (longer wavelength) than the WDL photon being emitted by a 288K surface. So even if you deny the absorp.tion properties of photons, a “somehow absorbed” 15μ photon would COOL a 288K surface.
Incidentally, that’s why you can’t radiatively warm a glass of water with ice cubes.
You’ve been misled. Let’s see if you can learn, or just keep throwing crap at the wall.
Gadden
Please don’t waste your time trying to convince ignorant and utter deniers like Clint R, Robertson, or some others on this blog of anything.
Such people go so far as to deny Einstein’s work (they even doubt that GPS needs relativistic corrections) or that our Moon (like all major satellites of the solar system) rotates on its polar axis.
That’s beyound the imaginable.
Once again Bindi rushes in with his insults and false accusations.
Just what we would expect from cult children.
So does GPS require realistic corrections for N/S as well as E/W?
The entire evidence deficient “Catastrophic/dangerous, CO2-driven anthropogenic global warming/climate change” CONJECTURE has been accurately described as “The Greatest Scientific Fraud of All Time.”
It is pseudoscience wrapped in politics.
It has no resemblance to actual science or scientific method.
HI Dr. Spencer. Once I was a liberal and now I am not. My usual response to people like Politico is to completely ignore them, because as a famous comedian has said ‘You can’t fix stupid.’ Keep up the good work and ignore the critics. And if you get a chance go over to the IT department and ask them whether climate models can be programmed in such a way as to get any result that the programmer wants. As an ex-programmer in corporate IT, I know the answer to that question.