Tales from Bizarro World

This is a guest post by Captain Pithart

I report to you on a strange finding that seems to indicate deep cracks in the very fabric of time and logic, which accidentally manifested themselves in several recent posts on the climate "skeptic" blogosphere.

It all began at the time of the Great Oil Crisis, when in 1973 little rascal Stefan Rahmstorf, then 13 years old, drove his future colleague Jan Veizer out of Germany, as chronicled in the testimony of Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, press secretary of the German climate "skeptic" group EIKE, in a December 2010 non-public letter to German television channel ZDF:

Rahmstorf ist der politische Savonarola der deutschen Klimaszene und hat seinen Kollegen Jan Veizer, der im Gegensatz zu ihm mit echten Forschungspreisen überhäuft wurde und inzwischen Weltruhm erlangt hat, durch unappetitliche Anwürfe, unterstützt von deutschen Kolegen gleicher Couleur, aus dem Lande getrieben. Veizer lehrt und forscht heute an der kanadischen Universität in Ottawa als "Distinguished Professor". Insbesondere diese Aktion von Rahmstorf zeigt Parallelen mit den Aktivitäten der "deutschen Physik" im dritten Reich auf, die unsere besten jüdischen Köpfe außer Landes trieb.

Rahmstorf is the political Savonarola of the German climate scene and has driven his colleague Jan Veizer, who as opposed to him was showered with real research awards, out of the country using unsavory slander, supported by German coleagues of the same ilk. Veizer now teaches and researches at the Canadian University of Ottawa as "Distinguished Professor". Especially this action by Rahmstorf shows parallels to the Deutsche Physik of the Third Reich, which drove our best Jewish heads out of the country.

Fast forward to June 10, 2011. Members of the Green Party of Germany hold a meeting at the Bundestag, where a colorful mix of citizens listened to talks by Stefan Rahmstorf (now at the Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung), Dieter Plehwe (LobbyControl) and Tim Nuthall (European Climate Foundation). One of the listeners, Dr. (in dentistry) Michael Kanno of Berlin, succeeded in writing a protocol about the session, which was proudly published by EIKE on July 11. It is a mostly helpful summary, showing the event through the eyes of people that think Big Government is trying to rob them of their hard-earned money by hoaxing them into a scientifically unfounded panic about climate change, which has always occurred, and will always occur, caused by fluctuations in the intensity of our dear mother the Sun, and who are we to be so arrogant to think we could change the climate — but I digress. Ah right, the mind-twisting part of the Kanno protocol, where he summarizes Rahmstorf's talking points:

EIKE arbeite mit argumentativen Tricks. Man wolle Laien für dumm verkaufen. Herr Lüdecke erinnere ihn mit der „deutschen Physik“ an das Dritte Reich.

[According to Rahmstorf] EIKE works with reasoning tricks, trying to fool laypeople. Mr. Lüdecke reminds him with the "Deutsche Physik" of the Third Reich.

This is where it gets interesting. Your humble chronicler happened to be present at what he thought was the same meeting. What I witnessed was a slide by Rahmstorf titled "Nazivergleiche gehören wohl dazu..." ("Nazi comparisons seem to be part of the etiquette..."), followed by this quote:

EIKE-Pressesprecher H.J. Lüdecke in einem Schreiben an das ZDF im Dez. 2010:

»Rahmstorf ist der politische Savonarola der deutschen Klimaszene ... diese Aktion von Rahmstorf zeigt Parallelen mit den Aktivitäten der "Deutschen Physik" im Dritten Reich auf.«

Fans of DC Comics and/or Seinfeld may or may not be familiar with Bizarro World, where according to Wikipedia »Bizarro No. 1 [is appointed] to investigate a crime, "Because you are stupider than the entire Bizarro police force put together"«, and people not entirely unlike us, but behaving diametrically opposed to us, inhabit a cubeiform planet called "Htrae". At this point your humble investigator needs to mention that when he scanned the personae present at said meeting, a name tag with an unusual name caught his attention for the fraction of a second (note: image is for illustration purposes only). I did not give it any importance and soon forgot all about it, until EIKE press secretary Horst-Joachim Lüdecke wrote these strange lines below "Michael Kanno"'s meeting summary:

Zur unappetitlichen Anmerkung, in welcher Rahmstorf mich (Lüdecke) mit der "deutschen Physik" des Dritten Reichs in Verbindung bringen will, erlaube ich mir die Anmerkung, dass es in meiner Familie Opfer der Naziherrschaft gab. Rahmstorfs Nazi-Keule als Argument in wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzungen ist, vorsichtig ausgedrückt, befremdlich.

On the unsavory remark, with which Rahmstorf tries to connect me (Lüdecke) with the "Deutsche Physik" of the Third Reich, I want to remark that there were victims of Nazi rule in my family. Rahmstorf's Nazi cudgel as an argument in scientific debates is, cautiously expressed, odd.

This in turn led North American Pierre Gosselin, who's now located in Northern Germany and writes about the impending Global Cooling on his blog NoTricksZone to write a post titled »Rahmstorf Compares Skeptics' Science To "Aryan Physics Of The Third Reich"«:

Because Lüdecke and EIKE scientists have challenged AGW science, especially Rahmstorf’s alarmist, outlier sea level claims, they are now being labelled as “Aryan physicists”.

There was only one possible explanation for all of this: By some weird coincidence, probably due to cosmic rays, Leachim Onnak and Michael Kanno switched dimensions without noticing, at least on one occasion between June 10 and July 11. This resulted in the summary about Nafetš Frotsmahr's talk ending up in our dimension, but only after Tsroh-Michaoj Eckedül had a chance to comment on it. This, however, is doubtful as an exhausting explanation, mainly because the author goes to great lengths to specifically brand his comment with "Lüdecke" in-text. This would imply that while Lüdecke is originally from our sister sphere, it is Eckedül that was born here and is now roaming the other dimension, forever failing to warn the Bizarro inhabitants about the danger of Global Warming. It is thus highly likely that we are witnessing dimensional entanglement, where members of Bizarro World live amongst us. This would also neatly explain Gosselin's fear of Global Cooling, which is indeed a huge problem where he seems to come from.

Maybe they should appoint our Luboš Motl to investigate (he's a string physicist after all), in a kind of cross-dimensional partnership.

EIKE = CFACT

Michael´s climate blog runs an excellent article (in German though) EIKE-Ein Institut stellt sich vor demonstrating EIKE is nothing but a lobbytool. Recommended literature !
Do notice how the Europäische Institut für Klima und Energie (EIKE) shares its president with CFACT-Europe, has the same postal address as CFACT-Europe and the CFACT-people are exactly the same as the people behind EIKE. It’s one of the clearest examples of astroturfing I know, EIKE is a PR-tool dressed up as science.

The Dutch representative for CFACT/EIKE is Hans Labohm, and indeed his posts on De Dagelijkse Standaard often are nothing more than translations of the same articles running on the EIKE-website

Jean-Paul van Soest over EIKE

Op De Dagelijkse Standaard (DDS) schreef Jean-Paul van Soest een comment over EIKE die m.i. een correcte samenvatting vormt en die uitstekend beschrijft hoe nepwetenschappelijke door lobbygroepen opgerichte “instituten” opereren en elkaars mening verspreiden. Ik kopieer het dan ook graag even want dit hoort niet ergens verborgen in een comments sectie te zitten.

(noot : ik heb hier en daar een link toegevoegd)

Beste Hans [Labohm],

Ik vind het wel fascinerend te zien hoe de klimaattwijfelaars langzamerhand hun eigen paralleluniversum hebben gecreëerd. Ik moet zeggen: het zit verdomd goed in elkaar.

Ik heb de indruk dat EIKE helemaal geen instituut is, alleen maar een website waarop de twijfelbeweging zijn posts kan achterlaten. Alleen, door het woord Institut lijkt het natuurlijk meer dan wat het is. In de gidsen en telefoonboeken van Jena, waar het EIKE gevestigd zou moeten zijn, is geen EIKE te vinden. Er is alleen een postbus. Dat bevestigt mijn vermoedens. De oprichter en voorzitter, dr Holger Thuss, woont wel in Jena.

Het CV van Holger Thuss geeft geen reden om aan te nemen dat hij van de klimaatwetenschap veel kaas gegeten heeft. Hij is jurist en modern geschiedkundige. Een (na het voorgaande overbodige) check via Google Scholar laat zien dat hij geen wetenschappelijke publicaties over klimaatverandering op zijn naam heeft staan. De missie van het ‘Institut’ is dan ook geen wetenschappelijke, maar een politieke: “Viele dieser unsinnigen Maßnahmen sind volkswirtschaftlich sehr schädlich und belasten den Bürgen finanziell hoch ohne jeden Grund. Die daraus resultierende finanziell extreme Belastung macht auch vor den sozial Schwachen nicht halt. Sie ist daher vorrangig ein Krieg gegen die Armen und muß daher umgehend beendet werden.” En als motto geldt: “Nicht das Klima ist bedroht, sondern unsere Freiheit!” – een tegenstelling die geen tegenstelling is.

En zie ik daar niet malle Pietje, oftewel ‘Lord’ Christopher Monckton als lid van de Fachbeirat? Wat is de wereld toch klein. En wat grappig, ik zie dat jij ook af en toe een bijdrage aan EIKE levert.

Holger Thuss is tevens een CDU-prominent en als directeur Europa nauw betrokken bij CFACT, Committee for a constructive tomorrow, een ‘denktank’ en lobbygroep die vanuit een sterk libertair perspectief zijn werk doet. Dat mag, maar lobby is nog geen wetenschap, en als wetenschap vermomde lobby is vilein. Enfin, daarover schreef ik eerder n.a.v. Naomi Oreskes’ boek Merchants of Doubt. CFACT wordt – niet onverwacht – goeddeels door de olie- en mijnbouwindustrie gefinancierd.

Ik zie trouwens ook dat je zelf geschreven bijdragen aan CFACT levert, met artikelen die ik ook op DDS zie. Wat is de wereld toch klein, inderdaad.

Zo werkt het dus: een of andere lobby-denktank, vooral gefinancierd door olie en kolen, en vermomd als wetenschappelijk instituut, maakt een artikel of analyse, dat gaat naar andere als instituut vermomde lobbyclubs/denktanks, en af en toe komt er via de blogosfeer, waaronder DDS, ook het een en ander terecht bij de reguliere media die niet de tijd hebben om na te trekken wat de bron van de bron van de bron is. En voor je het weet lijkt het of er een enorme serie instituten en personen het idee ondersteunt dat er geen klimaatverandering is, en dat zo deze er wel is, de mens beslist niet de oorzaak kan zijn.

O ja: dit zijn géén ad hominems, het is alleen een analyse van de achtergronden en geloofwaardigheid van je bron, EIKE. Mijn conclusie: het klinkt als heel wat, , maar het is een libertair-ideologische campagnetool. Maar zoals ik al zei: wel knap in elkaar gezet allemaal. En effectief, want van een krachtig klimaatbeleid is allemaal nog niet zoveel terechtgekomen.

PS: Je kunt via CFACT wel eeuwige roem krijgen, zie ik: prof Frederik Seitz, een van de oer-Merchants of Doubt, staat nog vrolijk en fris genoemd als lid van de Board of Advisors van CFACT, hoewel hij op 2 maart 2008 overleed. Maar misschien ontkent CFACT eenvoudigweg dat de dood bestaat?

It's a fact. A CFACT.

Yesterday i pointed out that the EIKE-group which is behind the '60 German scientists dissent over global warming' open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel has a lot of ties with some well known astroturf groups.

It seems the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) deserves more attention than i gave it, hence this follow up post.


CFACT lobbying international
Like any normal organisation, CFACT needs some humble money to survive. Luckily for them, the organization did find some sponsors as sourcewatch discloses :

Media Transparency calculates that between 1991 and 2006 CFACT gained $1,280,000 from 18 grants from only two foundations -- the Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

The Carthage Foundation granted $1,105,000 to CFACT between 1991 - 2006, while the Sarah Scaife Foundation sent $175,000 to the group between 1996 - 2001.

(...)

Greenpeace's ExxonSecrets website adds that Exxon has contributed a further $577,000 between 2000 and 2007

While looking at climate skeptics, i often see numbers Exxon is spending on different astroturf groups. $577.000 to one and the same group is a lot. Even for Exxon.

So why is this humble organisation receiving all that money ? The website of CFACT says about how things started :

Holger Thuss

In 1985, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) was founded to promote a positive voice on environment and development issues. Its co-founders, David Rothbard and Craig Rucker, believed very strongly that the power of the market combined with the applications of safe technologies could offer humanity practical solutions to many of the world’s pressing concerns.

Actually CFACT is a free-market tool set up specifically to lobby for libertarian solutions for environmental issues. Therefore, it's not a surprise that the advisory board of CFACT is full of well known climate skeptics like Sallie Baliunas, Pat Michaels, Sherwood Idso & Robert C Balling, who all are connected to free-market thinkthanks.


The Good Dr Thuss
According to his own CV, in 2004 Holger Thuss, a master in history, law & politics founded and became executive director of CFACT-Europe.

As you can see from his CV, Thuss is a man who is in the middle of European politics, serving a.o. the former president of the European Union, Jacques Santer. This probably explains why wikipedia tells us CFACT-Europe "quickly garnered a strong reputation for its public policy work in Europe"


For CFACT, Holger Thuss did what a lobbyist for a free-market group has to do : attack climate science. Thuss, together with the Institute for Free Enterprise, was organising the 2007 Berlin Climate conference where G.E. Beck & lobbyist S. Fred Singer were allowed to present their views.

An event repeated in June 2009, where some more well known skeptics were invited to speak. Well, at least Thuss did what his job-description is telling him to do : try to spread and promote climate-skepticism as much as possible.


EIKE
Now you probably all are wondering : why is Jules wining about CFACT all the time, while the '60+ scientists for Merkel' letter was sent by EIKE, not CFACT.

Well, here's the answer : the president of EIKE is noone else but CFACT-Europe's executive director Holger Thuss. Auch.

So in 2009, still the lobby is using fake grassroots organisations, like EIKE, to pollute the climate change debate.

On the open letter to Angela Merkel, EIKE & CFACT director Holger Thuss is signing as nothing but a "concerned citizen". Yarly


As a little bonus, try looking at lobby-tool EIKE's scientific council and see if you recognize any names of scientists.