“DeSmog’s methodology of listing the ‘denier’ qualifications, quotations, and activities–as if the debate was settled toward climate alarmism and forced energy transformation–is utterly unconvincing. Their growing list is impressive and a badge of honor, so let their project continue.”
Stephen Koonin has done much to help “mainstream” the problems with alarmism based on climate modelling–at least for the open-minded and curious. Humility must rule in the face of radical complexity. After all, what can be known in the absence of causal physical equations that are sub-grid scale anyway?
Climate models cannot be expected to “get it right,” if earth modeling is even possible. This is why data-data-data can and should drive the climate sensitivity debate.
Professor Koonin has been profiled relative to Andrew Dessler at MasterResource (here and here). I have noted how DeSmog is fighting quite an impressive–and growing–list of individuals and groups: “Climate ‘Disinformation’ is Everywhere! (as in “we are winning”).
DeSmog’s profiles in our “guilty as charged” series include Robert Bryce, John Christy, Derrick Hollie, Isaac Orr, Vaclav Smil, and myself (Robert L. Bradley Jr.). Also check out the DeSmog piece that began:
Despite the relatively small size of the … Global Warming Policy Foundation, Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), as well as the German Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie (EIKE), the Austrian Economics Centre (AEC), Institut Économique Molinari (IEM) in France, Instituto Juan de Mariana (IJM) in Spain and the Liberales Institut (LI) in Switzerland….
Having the better arguments explains the disproportionate impact of the above groups, and more unnamed.
Excerpted, here is the entry “from the climate disinformation base: Steve Koonin“
Steven (Steve) E. Koonin is a university professor and founding director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress. From 2009 to 2011, Koonin was Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy under President Barack Obama.
Before working in government, Koonin spent five years (2004 to 2009) as Chief Scientist for oil giant BP plc where he helped to establish its Energy Biosciences Institute. From 1975 to 2006, he was a professor of theoretical physics at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and served as provost from 1995 to 2004.
In April 2017, writing at the Wall Street Journal, Koonin advocated for the controversial “red team” approach to climate science. E&E News reported he also met with then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to discuss the topic, and that there were rumors Pruitt was considering Koonin to play a role in the process.
In 2019, Koonin was reportedly assisting the White House in creating a panel to advise President Donald Trump on climate change. The panel, to be led by CO2 proponent Will Happer, has been described as a “slapdash band of climate contrarians.”
In 2014, Koonin chaired a similar workshop for the American Physical Society with “experts” including John Christy, Judith Curry, and Richard Lindzen.
Koonin was featured in a 2021 PragerU video titled “Is There Really a Climate Emergency?” where he claimed it is “hubris” and “either untrue or so far off the mark as to be useless” that “the planet is warming catastrophically because of certain human behaviors,” that we can project climate change from models, or that we can prevent the climate from changing.
Evaluation
There are some low blows such as implying that John Christy, Judith Curry, and Richard Lindzen are not “climate experts.” (DeSmog: want to host a debate with any of these persons present?)
DeSmog’s methodology of listing the “denier” qualifications, quotations, and activities–as if the debate was settled toward climate alarmism and forced energy transformation–is utterly unconvincing. Their growing list is impressive and a badge of honor, so let their project continue.
Why is Dr. Tim Ball always left off these lists?
He was feared and therefore attacked the most by these scumbags.
He was smeared by desmugblag more than anyone, and was sued by two UN climate modellers by a Canadian lawyer used by the same bad actors.
The attacks on Dr. Ball showed that he was the real threat to them.
Please look closer.
Would somebody please give Michael R. Bloomberg a copy of these books so that he doesn’t make an even bigger ass of himself than he already has?
“False Alarm” by Bjorn Lomborg, Ph.D.
“Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” by Steven E. Koonin, Ph.D.
“Apocalypse Never” by Michael Shellenberger.