Here's a fun little story about how "scientists" and "journalists" fake each other out to misled the public - in a forum on physics and society, no less.

So, this evening while catching up on the news I somehow I followed a link to Drudge where I saw this.

"Group Repping 50,000 Physicists Opens Global Warming Debate..." (I don't link to Drudge.)

The link took me to this Daily Tech story.  

Social Darwininism reared its head last night on PBS' News Hour in the person of John McCain mouthpiece and free-market zombie, Nancy Pfotenhauer. Poor Pfotenhauer seemed oddly out of place in the realtively genteel world of PBS as she sputtered through an economic discussion with Gwen Ifill and Obama Campaign economic advisor Jared Bernstein. Through much head shaking and wide-eyed expressions of disbelief, Pfotenhauer sought to turn aside any talk of corporate responsibility or progressive governance as she distilled the McCain position: you're on your own in the ruthless world of all against all. Indeed, this McCain shill for laissez-faire economics seemed fairly boggled at the thought that anyone could credibly argue that more tax cuts, more deregulation, and more market-based government might not be in the best interests of everyday Americans out there in the heartland.

In this we should not be particularly surprised, for Pfotenhauer is not an economist. Rather, she is in the business of political public relations. Pfotenhauer is just another conservative lobbyist with a "brand" to peddle. Like Bush, McCain and his advisors seem to believe that economic policy is little more than a marketing strategy driven by a few catchy phrases. So who is she and why should we care?

What a coincidence.

Just as the Alaska State Legislature allocates $2 million for a conference promoting climate change deniers' "expert" analysis of why polar bears aren't really endangered, a poster boy for polar bear junk science emerges from the woodwork.

Enter J. Scott Armstrong, who is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. His research emphasizes forecasting methods, which he has used as the cornerstone for - you guessed it - claims  that the IPCC climate change projections are actually all wrong.

Now he's extended his "forecasts" to say that polar bears are doing just fine. He alluded to his research when Sen. James Inhofe called him  as an "expert" to testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee regarding the proposed endangered status of the polar bear; now, Armstrong has released an official statement advertising his paper.

Here's the link  (warning, slow website):

Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

[...]

Professor J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School says, "To list a species that is currently in good health as an endangered species requires valid forecasts that its population would decline to levels that threaten its viability. In fact, the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting restrictions. Assuming these restrictions remain, the most appropriate forecast is to assume that the upward trend would continue for a few years, then level off.

[...]

Prof. Armstrong and colleagues originally undertook their audit at the request of the State of Alaska. The subsequent study, "Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public Policy Forecasting Audit," is by Prof. Armstrong, Kesten G. Green of Monash University in Australia, and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It is scheduled to appear in the September/October issue of the INFORMS journal Interfaces.

Armstrong's claims regarding the increasing polar bear population have been debunked again  and again  (which doesn't stop Inhofe and others  from repeating the claims, of course).

Also, those who are familiar with climate change deniers will recognize Willie Soon's name.  He's one of the true believers that solar activity causes global warming, which has also been repeatedly debunked (quite conclusively, in fact).

Click here  (pdf) to read the paper.

My forecast is that it will be quoted over and over again throughout the deniersphere.  

As the saying goes, "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with..," well, you know the saying.

It's a very bad day for the chronic climate change deniers at the right wing "think" tank, the Heartland Institute.

The folks at DeSmogBlog have discovered an inconvenient truth about the Heartland Institute's "500 climate scientists" list:

Dozens of scientists are demanding that their names be removed from a widely distributed Heartland Institute  article entitled 500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares.

The article, by Hudson Institute director and Heartland "Senior Fellow" Dennis T. Avery (inset), purports to list scientists whose work contradicts the overwhelming scientific agreement that human-induced climate change is endangering the world as we know it.

DeSmogBlog manager Kevin Grandia emailed 122 of the scientists yesterday afternoon, calling their attention to the list.

They updated the news with:

UPDATE: we have received notes now from 45 outraged scientists whose names appear on the list of 500. We've published more quotes here.

A sample quote:

"I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite."

Dr. David Sugden. Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh

Ouch.

Make sure you click all the links, especially the one in the update, and bookmark DeSmogBlog so you can keep up with the story as it develops.

This is an open thread.  The Flat Earth floor is yours, for eco-news and anything else that's on your mind.

And, of course, you can read the Overnight News Digest here.

You guys may be beginning to know me as the shrink who has to work with herself about the global stress I feel when facing the inevitable consequences of climate change and energy/resource depletion. These effects will eventually force us into an unimaginable life style change if we don't begin to act now. I writhe in my own frustration knowing that we could minimize the coming meltdown by just joining together with others to envision a new way of living.

Last night, in Manchester Vermont, the nationally known environmental writer Bill McKibben debated the locally known free-market booster John McClaughry on Global Climate Change. McKibben needs no introduction; he wrote the book on the subject and has been a strong advocate for signing on to the Kyoto protocols. (Check out http://www.billmckibben.com/... McClaughry is head of a small think-tank, the Ethan Allen Institute (see http://www.ethanallen.org/...

I didn't get to the debate, but I've heard McClaughry's views before, and the local paper's report tells me he stuck to his guns:  he concedes that the planet is probably undergoing  climate change, but he's either certain or pretty certain that it's a natural phenomenon.  He argues that calls to take action against it— a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system of limits--are misguided. Measures like that would be expensive and they’d have very large economic consequences:  they’d definitely slow economic growth. For McClaughry, that’s the biggest sin. But his commitment to keeping the engines of economic growth fully stoked leads him into a contradiction.