A taxpayer-funded fiction

We were tipped off by blogger Adam Siegel that Sen. James Inhofe, (R-OK) the ranking Minority member on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, released a deceptive report purporting that doubts exist among scientists about global warming. Paid for by our tax dollars, the report, which is a work of complete fiction, is a repeat of a similar report they put out last year.

Normally, I would not let this sort of pseudo science get to me. The report is regurgitated talking points of the oil and coal industries. It reminds me of the schlock the tobacco industry used to produce to “prove” there is no connection between cancer and smoking. But I am concerned because a Senate Committee’s tax payer funded regurgitation of this sort of bull should not be accepted as fact. Here is a small example: Blogger Matt Stoller of Open Left reports that the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations posted the Inhofe report on their website. They must have been tempted because of the official sounding “650 scientists say.” But if you look into the “scientists” on the Inhofe list it ends up that most of them are not objective scientists. Most of them have worked for the fossil fuel industry. Some work for or worked for think tanks started by those industries. At least handful are television weathermen. A few are economists of little repute. Most have no apparent expertise in climate science. And at least a few of them have come out to say they were misquoted or their work was misinterpreted.

Joe Romm at Climate Progress published a piece on December 12 with one quoted scientist explaining that the Inhofe Minority report on global warming not just misquoted her work, but actually represented it exactly opposite its actual conclusions. She said, "Our conclusions were misinterpreted" by Inhofe, CO2 — but not the sun — "is significantly correlated" with temperature since 1850.

Romm also reported that several of the scientists quoted in the Inhofe report are in fact very concerned about global warming, and support efforts to address it. One scientist says he was duped into signing the list and regrets it.

At 1Sky, we are building a movement to bring federal solutions to climate change to fruition. When tax dollars are spent on fraud science there should be a public outcry. We are amassing activists who will build the political will to hose down fiction like this Inhofe report.