Friends of Science – ‘With Friends Like These…’
By Phil Plait
12 June 2014 (Slate) – Well, if there’s one thing you can always count on when it comes to organized global warming denial, it’s how Orwellian it is. After all, that’s the only reasonable explanation for the group that calls itself “Friends of Science”. Because friends certainly don’t act the way they do. Ignoring all of science and then saying whoppers about it isn’t something I’d consider exactly friendly to science. For evidence, I present to you a billboard they put up in Calgary recently. It says, “The Sun is the main driver of climate change. Not you. Not CO2.” This is, to phrase it carefully, a huge load of stuff that comes out of the wrong end of a bull. The Sun is not the main driver of climate change. At least, not modern climate change. In fact, the opposite is true, as Skeptical Science shows: The amount of energy emitted by the Sun has gone down slightly over the past few decades as temperatures have risen. In this billboard, Friends of Science is using a mantic trick. Climate change over very long timescales is linked to the Sun, sure, but the modern upward surge in global temperatures is clearly not linked to the Sun. In fact, it can be shown it must be due to human influence. But then, these “friends” of science are flat-out refusniks when it comes to global warming science; they deny the Earth is warming, they deny modern temperatures are spiking upward, they deny carbon dioxide is the main driver of global warming, they deny sea level rise is a problem, they deny deny deny. Perusing their website is fascinating; it could be used as a wiki set up specifically to collect all the ridiculous long-debunked anti-science denial claptrap in one place. I mean, c’mon, they even promote Christopher Monckton with a straight face! None of this is terribly surprising, though, seeing as how they’re funded by—can you guess? Can you?—the fossil fuel industry. Interestingly, the billboard is put up by Pattison Outdoor, which has a checkered history of support for anti-science as well. [more]
Denialist hate science. They hate facts. They hate everything that doesn't fit their pre-concieved and ignorant agendas.
The agenda seems to be "business as usual" (BAU) – no matter what the cost. Species extinctin? Full steam ahead. Near-term human extinction? Who cares!
Pump more oil, burn more coal, fossil fuels were meant to be turned into C02!!!
I see that you've been "discovered" by the denialists. Too bad.
Personally, I hope these assholes are the first to starve to death.