"Atlantic Media [and National Journal] publisher David Bradley on Monday issued a full-throated defense of the kind of
off-the record, corporate-sponsored "salons"...
Bradley described that revenue as a
legitimate justification for the salons at a time when
"the economic foundation beneath journalism is falling away."
"The imperative," he said, "is to rebuild journalism on different financial pillars. One of them, and not inconsequential to us, is events — of all types."...
They are always off-record, he said, because "there is a great deal of constructive conversation that can take place only with the
promise that no headline is being written." He also emphasized that while corporate sponsors will have input into the dinner, Atlantic Media has the final say in the topics and guest list.
Still, corporate clients clearly help set the agenda.
Atlantic spokesperson Zachary Hooper told Talking Points Memo on Monday that "the corporate sponsor comes to us and says, 'We're interested in having a discussion on a certain topic.'" And some corporate sponsors, TPM reported, have included AstraZeneca ("Healthcare Access and Education”); Microsoft (“Global Trade”), G.E. ("Energy Sustainability and the Future of Nuclear Power"); Allstate ("The Future of the American City"); and Citi ("The Challenge of Global Markets").
When asked by TPM, Hooper declined to comment on how much a corporation pays to sponsor an event."...
================================
In Nov. 2012, National Journal hosted a "renewable energy industry" dinner:
11/14/12, "Obama vows to take personal charge of climate change in second term," UK Guardian, Suzanne Goldenberg
"At a dinner last week for leaders in the renewable energy industry, hosted by the National Journal, the retired general Wesley Clark argued that a climate change agenda could not advance without Obama's personal intervention."
=================================
One of Davenport's commenters says she willfully denied science and facts he presented her:
8/24/12, "Storm Threatening Tampa Puts GOP Climate Position in Spotlight," National Journal, Coral Davenport
A commenter to Davenport's article notes he was interviewed by Davenport but her article only used material that matched her "pre-conceived notions." The commenter's view is substantiated by the 2012 UN report on climate extremes:
Commenter, "Stanley Goldenberg"
========================
Davenport and National Journal say those who don't agree with their general statements show "willful denial of science and facts" but they don't cite science and facts about US CO plunge. CO2 is the entire basis of the "man-caused global warming" hypothesis. National Journal wants to make "science" a political issue, and suggest if the GOP doesn't embrace this view, it will cease to exist. But the GOP is already dead. It was killed off during 8 years of Bush. Failed Bush people still control the election apparatus and money, and are the apparent faces of the party on Fox News. But they have no real ideology except keeping their money and power. So the Civil War National Journal speaks of is already over:
5/9/13, "The Coming GOP Civil War Over Climate Change," National Journal, Coral Davenport
"Science, storms, and demographics are starting to change minds among the rank and file."
"to push Republicans to take action on climate change, out of worry that coming catastrophes could hit the next generation hard, especially the world’s poor."
"willful denial of science and facts, will also abandon the GOP, unless the party comes to an honest reckoning about global warming."...
(Ed. note: "Honest reckoning?" This was a very long story filled with anecdotes, opinions, and no facts.)
==========================
Bob Inglis is praised in the 5/9/13 National Journal piece
for being a former GOP congressman who's job now is selling US human caused CO2 terror. Not mentioned is that Inglis is financed by dirty, fossil fuel cash of billionaire David Rockefeller:.
7/13/12, "George Shultz Endorses Carbon Tax – You Were Surprised?" GlobalWarming.org, Marlo Lewis
"As noted here, earlier this week, former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) launched a new institute with Rockefeller Family Fund backing [oil money] to promote carbon taxes as a ‘Republican idea.’"
========================
6/4/12, "Climate change stunner: USA leads world in CO2 cuts since 2006," Vancouver Observer, Saxifrage
"Not only that, but as my top chart shows, US CO2 emissions are falling even faster than what President Obama pledged in the global Copenhagen Accord."...
====================
News of US CO2 plunge has been described as:
- “Surprising,“
- “little noticed,“
- “dramatic,“
- “stunner,“
- “most people are surprised to learn,“
- “quiet but tremendous progress,”
- “major long term implications,”
- “game changing,”
- “shocker,”
- “huge contrast to the forecast.”
Davenport doesn't mention other countries have spent hundreds of billions on cap and trade and extra taxes, and have seen no improvement in CO2 emissions. Following are 3 citations about that, the second and third from Yale 360 authors who cite 30 years of US government investment in cleaner technology as the US CO2 advantage:
11/23/11, "Europe's $287 billion carbon 'waste': UBS report," The Australian, by Sid Maher
.
"SWISS banking giant UBS says the European Union's emissions trading scheme has cost the continent's consumers $287 billion for "almost zero impact" on cutting carbon emissions."...EU CO2 trading provided "windfall profits" to participants paid for by "electricity customers.""
====================================
4/21/12, "Why [CO2] Emissions Are Declining in the U.S. But Not in Europe," by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, newgeography.com
.
"As we note below in a new article for Yale360, a funny thing happened: U.S. emissions started going down in 2005 and are expected to decline further over the next decade....
Why? The reason is obvious: the U.S. is benefitting from the 30-year, government-funded technological revolution that massively increased the supply of unconventional natural gas, making it cheap even when compared to coal."...
=========================
2/27/12, “Beyond Cap and Trade: A New Path to Clean Energy” Yale 360, by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
And yet, the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which has been in place for almost a decade now and has established carbon prices well above those that would have been established by the proposed U.S. system, has had no discernible impact on European emissions.
The carbon intensity of the European economy has not declined at all since the imposition of the ETS. Meanwhile green paragon Germany has embarked upon a coal-building binge under the auspices of the ETS, one that has accelerated since the Germans shut down their nuclear power plants. Even so, proponents of U.S. emissions limits maintain that legally binding carbon caps will provide certainty that emissions will go down in the future, whereas technology development and deployment — along with efforts to regulate conventional air pollutants — do not." ...
=========================
"Extreme weather"
Warning to National Journal and Davenport: Science and facts follow about "extreme" weather. Regarding the 2012 UN report on extreme weather cited by Davenport in her 8/24/12 article (parag. 9), the US Senate was actually given at least 5 false pieces of information about the report as detailed below. Perhaps Ms. Davenport was victimized by the same misinformation. Unfortunately, National Journal has shown no interest in facts regarding the US and CO2:
.
8/1/12, "IPCC Lead Author Misleads US Congress," RogerPielkeJr blog
"The politicization of climate science is so complete that the lead author of the IPCC's Working Group II on climate impacts feels comfortable presenting testimony to the US Congress that fundamentally misrepresents what the IPCC has concluded. I am referring to testimony given today by Christopher Field, a professor at Stanford, to the US Senate.
This is not a particularly nuanced or complex issue. What Field says the IPCC says is blantantly wrong, often 180 degrees wrong. It is one thing to disagree about scientific questions, but it is altogether different to fundamentally misrepresent an IPCC report to the US Congress. Below are five instances in which Field's testimony today completely and unambiguously misrepresented IPCC findings to the Senate. Field's testimony is here in PDF.
1. On the economic costs of disasters:
Field: "As the US copes with the aftermath of last year’s record-breaking series of 14 billion-dollar climate-related disasters and this year’s massive wildfires and storms, it is critical to understand that the link between climate change and the kinds of extremes that lead to disasters is clear."Field's assertion that the link between climate change and disasters "is clear," which he supported with reference to US "billion dollar" economic losses, is in reality scientifically unsupported by the IPCC. Period. (More on the NOAA billion-dollar disasters below.) There is good reason for this -- it is what the science says. Why fail to report to Congress the IPCC's most fundamental finding and indicate something quite the opposite?
What the IPCC actually said: "There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change"
2. On US droughts:
Field: "The report identified some areas where droughts have become longer and more intense (including southern Europe and West Africa), but others where droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter."
What the IPCC actually said: "... in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, central North America ..." Field conveniently neglected in his testimony to mention that one place where droughts have gotten less frequent, less intense or shorter is ... the United States. Why did he fail to mention this region, surely of interest to US Senators, but did include Europe and West Africa?
3. On NOAA's billion dollar disasters:
Field: "The US experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters in 2011, a record that far surpasses the previous maximum of 9."Field says nothing about the serious issues with NOAA's tabulation. The billion dollar disaster meme is a PR train wreck, not peer reviewed and is counter to the actual science summarized in the IPCC. So why mention it?
What NOAA actually says about its series of "billion dollar" disasters: "Caution should be used in interpreting any trends based on this [data] for a variety of reasons"
4. On attributing billion dollar disasters to climate change, case of hurricanes and tornadoes:
Field: "For several of these categories of disasters, the strength of any linkage to climate change, if there is one, is not known. Specifically, the IPCC (IPCC 2012) did not identify a trend or express confidence in projections concerning tornadoes and other small-area events. The evidence on hurricanes is mixed."
What the IPCC actually said (p. 269 PDF): "The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornadoes" Hurricanes are, of course, tropical cyclones. Far from evidence being "mixed" the IPCC was unable to attribute any trend in tropical cyclone disasters to climate change (anywhere in the world and globally overall). In fact, there has been no trend in US hurricane frequency or intensity over a century or more, and the US is currently experiencing the longest period with no intense hurricane landfalls ever seen. Field fails to report any this and invents something different. Why present testimony so easily refuted? (He did get tornadoes right!)
5. On attributing billion dollar disasters to climate change, case of floods and droughts:Field: "For other categories of climate and weather extremes, the pattern is increasingly clear. Climate change is shifting the risk of hitting an extreme. The IPCC (IPCC 2012) concludes that climate change increases the risk of heat waves (90% or greater probability), heavy precipitation (66% or greater probability), and droughts (medium confidence) for most land areas."
What the IPCC actually says (p. 269 PDF): "The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses"
and (from above): "in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, central North America"
Field fails to explain that no linkage between flood disasters and climate change has been established.
Increasing precipitation is not the same thing as increasing streamflow, floods or disasters. In fact, floods may be decreasing worldwide
- and are not increasing the US.
- such obvious misrepresentations when they are so easily refuted?
- the science says what the science says.
=======================
.
8/16/12, “AP IMPACT: CO2 emissions in US drop to 20-year low,” AP, Kevin Begos
“In a surprising turnaround, the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the U.S. has fallen dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years and government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal.
Many of the world's leading climate scientists didn't see the drop coming."...
===================
UN IPCC chief notes current 17 year pause in global warming. National Journal ignores this:
2/21/13, "IPCC Head Pachauri Acknowledges Global Warming Standstill," The Australian, Graham Lloyd
.
"The UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office, but said it would need to last “30 to 40 years at least” to break the long-term global warming trend.
Dr Pachauri, the chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that open discussion about controversial science and politically incorrect views was an essential part of tackling climate change.
In a wide-ranging interview on topics that included this year’s record northern summer Arctic ice growth, the US shale-gas revolution, the collapse of renewable energy subsidies across Europe and the faltering European carbon market, Dr Pachauri said no issues should be off-limits for public discussion.
In Melbourne for a 24-hour visit to deliver a lecture for Deakin University, Dr Pachauri said that people had the right to question the science, whatever their motivations.
“People have to question these things and science only thrives on the basis of questioning,” Dr Pachauri said.
He said there was “no doubt about it” that it was good for controversial issues to be “thrashed out in the public arena”.
Dr Pachauri’s views contrast with arguments in Australia that views outside the orthodox position of approved climate scientists should be left unreported."...
=============================
Here's a "fact" Ms. Davenport failed to mention, some "climate "action" taken by US taxpayers:
In November 2012, Obama took 'climate action' by giving $6 billion US taxpayer dollars to the Sultan of Brunei who owns 5000+ cars and to the Pres. of Indonesia, a country so corrupt even the World Bank says crime adds 20% to costs. Below, one of the Sultan's cars:
7/24/12, "The Sultan's Cars," wheel to wheel blog.
- ==============================
In the 8/24/12 article, Davenport's source for proof of climate terror in Tampa is a 2009 report, US Global Change Research Program. The report did no original scientific research and cites no current US CO2 data. US CO2 data is the single statistic on which the entire climate terror industry is perched. If global temperatures decrease while CO2 increases (which is what has happened) the hypothesis is failed. If you want to collect money from starving Americans for no reason, that's something different. Without the US as demon, billions of US taxpayer dollars will go somewhere else.
=======================
David Rockefeller citations:
David Rockefeller Fund merges with Bill McKibben CO2 activist group:
4/21/11, “1Sky and 350.org: Stronger as One,” rbf.org, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Jessica Bailey
“This month marked the exciting marriage of 1Sky and 350.org—two grantees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Sustainable Development program.”…
============================
Forbes profile, David Rockefeller, Sr., net worth “$2.5 billion,” “Source of Wealth: Standard Oil, Banking”
===========================
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