Fact-Checking Inconvenient Facts

 

It is worth noting that Whitestone's official biography (found only on the back of his book) fails to state his position as executive director of an organization committed to promoting the virtues of C02.Gregory Whitstone is Executive Director of the C02 Coalition

The CO2 Coalition was established in 2015 as a 501(c)(3) for the purpose of educating thought leaders, policy makers, and the public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy. The Coalition seeks to engage in an informed and dispassionate discussion of climate change, humans’ role in the climate system, the limitations of climate models, and the consequences of mandated reductions in CO2 emissions.

Funding for the C02 Foundation is available here. Donors include the Mercers and the Koch Brothers, always to be found behind right wing causes, including Trump's "big lie". Not surprisingly Whitstone is a frequent "talking head" on the subject of Climate Change (denial) on Fox News (a Mercer creation).

Given this, Whitstone's claims to be an impartial educator are ludicrous. His purpose is to sell C02. He is very transparently on the payroll of interests who want to sell us more fossil fuels at any cost to our future.

Not surprisingly, Whitstone draws his most controversial information from "Big Coal" and career climate change deniers.

"C02 emissions are great for plant growth"

Whitsone's data on this subject comes from Crag Isdo. Looking for wider sources, it seems that Mr. Isdo's ideas are not widely held or supported. The search goes on.

Who is Greg Isdo?

- Former director of Climate Science for Peabody (the biggest of big coal)

- Currently associated with the Heartland Institute - a right wing think tank

Greg's talking points and graphs mirror Writeston's treatment of the subject. This continues Greg's career mantra: C02 is good for you. Trust big coal.

"Additional increase in temperature decreases as C02 concentration increases"

This comes without specific reference from Lord Christopher Monckton, one of the worlds best known Climate Change deniers and another darling of the Heartland Institute. Monkton seems to be an extreme Libertarian, which is how he identifies himself in UK politics. That's right of right.

The graph itself is a bit confusing. It seems to be an upside-down way of saying temperature increases in a logarithmic manner to C02 concentration, which may be true but I'm not sure of the relevance. The source of the math is specifically said to be a logarithmic relationship but this is a queer way of showing that. The formula says that the change in temperature is proportional to the log of the increase in C02.

I suppose we can thank Monkton for turning this simple formula into something that seems to say we need to worry less and less about C02 as we have more and more of it.

Does C02 Lag Temperature Increases?

Yes, but not recently. This is one of the favourite claims of geologist deniers. It is dismissed here. Wrightsone's claim of the "cart getting in front of the horse" subtly undermines confidence in the entire IPCC project, whose models assume C02 is currently driving temperature increases and will do so in the near future. Wrightsone doesn't really challenge this assumption. He just gaslights us with data about how things used to be.

And so on ...

I don't have much to add to this rather scathing take-down of "Inconvenient Facts". While I think Willard MacDonald gets carried away with his own rhetoric sometimes, I generally agree with his overall conclusion that Whitstone is simply shilling for the C02 industry using the old trick of putting the reader to sleep with plausible and mostly true information, then slipping in a few absolutely crucial but totally false "Inconvenient Facts". I am reminded about what we say about Freud:

What's true ain't new. What's new ain't true.