Belgian Scientists Frank van Dun & Claude Javeau were paid by the tobacco lobby

The Belgian newspaper Le Soir today published an article Le lobby du tabac recrutait des profs d’unif (in English : The tobacco lobby recruted university professors) in which Le Soir claims sociologist Claude Javeau of the ULB and philopher of law Frank Van Dun of the UGent were paid by lobby tool ARISE to promote the conclusions of the tobacco lobby.
The tactics used by ARISE was putting tobacco in the same line as ‘daily little joys’ like drinking a cup of coffee or eating chocolate, stating these things increase your happiness in life. Tim Lambert had a closer look at the activities of ARISE in his post Just how many astroturf groups did tobacco fund?
The fact Van Dun was part of ARISE has long been known, Tim mentions him in the post above and i had a closer look at Van Dun’s tobacco activities last year in my post Libertarism, climate change and the tobacco lobby.
The online article of Le Soir is referring to the newspaper itself for the full details and unfortunately i don’t have this paper copy so i’m not really sure if there’s a deeper reason why they are publishing this article exactly today. Nor do i know where they get the information that both professors were paid for their affiliation with ARISE.
I always assumed Frank Van Dun was just a libertarian blinded by bias who got manipulated into the tobacco lobby by agents provocateurs and by not being able to switch of his own superstrong personal libertarian bias. And it’s because of this strong bias libertarians tend to end up in industry-spinned astroturf groups attacking ‘unwanted’ scientific conclusions. The only thing the industrial agents-provocateurs need to do is feed the bias. In case of tobacco subjects, the lobbyists just need to use the word “Freedom”.
They did so in the time of ARISE, and they still do so for the TICAP-conferences which show the symbiosis between libertarism and lobby : the TICAP-conferences were organised by libertarians and I’m actually pretty sure they honestly believe the sloganesque language around freedom that was spoken on that conference.
The only problem with the speakers they invited is that those guys were professional tobacco-lobby spokesman. The agents provocateurs feeding the bias. The i’m talking about lobbyists like John Luik, Gian Turci or Gio Batta Gori.
Unless Le Soir managed to find new information, i think Van Dun, even though he participated in conferences of ARISE, was not a tobacco lobbyist but ‘only’ a libertarian.
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Le Soir dugg up a text from Javeau from 1994 titled Choix des plaisirs de vivre et de defense de la democratie (in English : “The choice for the pleasures in life and for defending democracy”) [sic]. in this text Javeau is playing with all the well know libertarians fears. An example of a sentence (p2) : Brave New World isn’t far away and we’ll be meeting to play 1984 with some delay.
So again, just like was the case for Van Dun, libertarism might be the real motivator behind Javeau’s actions. But for Javeau there's more. While in Le Soir he claims he was unaware ARISE was funded by the tobacco industry, a draft version of the IARC action plan for Belgium shows Javeau was deeply involved in a broader strategy to influence policy makers.

While I’m willing to give Frank Van Dun benefit of the doubt, things for Claude Javeau look worse. If i were Brussels University, I’d wanna have a chat with the man.

Hans Labohm doet het weer

De aandachtige lezer zal al wel opgemerkt hebben dat ik omwille van professionele verplichtingen momenteel niet echt vaak aan bloggen toe kom, maar ik kan deze conversatie niet laten passeren :

Goede vriend Hans Labohm schreef vandaag een stukje op De Dagelijkse Standaard getiteld : Klimaatverandering in Duitsland: Angela Merkel laat twee-graden-doelstelling vallen.

Hans baseert zich daarbij op dit artikel uit der Spiegel. Merkwaardig genoeg ondersteunt de oorspronkelijke bron Hans' conclusie niet, en in de comments sectie ontspint zich deze discussie die ik de lezer graag even meegeef :

NN : Hans, hoe kom je aan de kop van dit artikel? Waar heb je gelezen dat “Angela Merkel de twee-graden-doelstelling laat vallen”?

Hans Labohm : NN,Dat staat in het aangehaalde artikel.

NN : Hans, waar staat dat dan? In ieder geval niet in de stukjes die jij aan hebt gehaald.

NN : Het volgende staat in het artikel van Der Spiegel, de basis voor dit blog.“The environment … and the chancellor [Merkel] are “not looking to abandon the 2-degree target, but rather to find new ways to attain it,” says Röttgen.”

Hans Labohm : NN,Tja, zo gaat dat in de politiek.Geloof je het ècht?

NN : Waar slaat dat nou weer op?! Je schrijft iets dat apert onjuist is, aantoonbaar op basis van de bron die je zelf aanhaalt.Jij schrijft: Angela Merkel laat twee-graden-doelstelling vallen.

In het stuk zelf staat: “not looking to abandon the 2-degree target”En dat doe je af met ‘Tja, zo gaat het in de politiek’. Nee, zo gaat het niet in de politiek, zo gaat het bij jou. Je bent zo gewend om naast de waarheid te schrijven, dat het je niet eens meer opvalt. Het zou je sieren als je dat toegaf.

Verderop de comments sectie wordt nog een link geven naar een doelbewuste quote-mine die Hans blijft herhalen lang nadat hijzelf op de hoogte was gebracht van de foute context van zijn verhaal. Wat impliceert dat Hans er geen probleem inziet halve waarheden te presenteren, zoals ikzelf eerder ook al had opgemerkt in deze post : Labohm Again Sigh.

Ik blijf dan ook bij mijn eerder gestelde conclusie : Hans Labohm is geen dwalende pseudo-wetenschapper maar een regelrechte intellectuele fraudeur. Harde woorden, maar de feiten onderschrijven keer op keer deze conclusie.

IPCC-Hearings in Dutch Parliament

Tomorrow Monday the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament will keeps it's hearing around all the supposed IPCC-gates and the reliability of the IPCC itself and its reports.

The day is split into the following parts :

1) 10u30 - 11u30 : Working methods and set-up of the IPCC : technical briefing

2) Procedures, errors and content of the AR4:

• 11u30 - 12u30 : Skeptics
• 13u30 - 14u30 : Journalists. I don't have a clue why the parliament invites journalists. Three of the are climate skeptics anyway, rather than journalists.
• 14u30 -15u30 : Contributing authors and lead authors
• 15u45 - 16u45 : Expert reviewers, reviewing editors en overige deskundigen

3) 16u45 - 17u45 IPCC in the future


Even thought he hearings haven't even started the good people of climategate.nl are nagging already John Christy and Richard Tol will not be heared through video-conferencing.

It's not unlikely there will be internet streamings through this link the site of the Second Chamber : http://www.tweedekamer.nl/
=> go to "Commisiezalen" and choose the "Groen van Prinstererzaal" and search for the "Live Debat"

Below is the full agenda (in Dutch) and the hours of the different sessions :

1.

Programma hoorzitting klimaatonderzoek IPCC 1. Werkwijze en opzet van het IPCC 10.00 – 11.30 uur Technische briefing Dr. Leo Meyer van het PBL, voormalig Head Technical Support Unit Werkgroep III Dr. Bert Metz, voorheen werkzaam bij het Milieu en Natuurplanbureau en voormalig co-voorzitter IPCC Werkgroep III Dr. Hein Haak, directeur klimaat bij het KNMI, focal point IPCC voor de Nederlandse regering Dr. Joop Oude Lohuis, hoofd sector Klimaat, Lucht en Energie van het Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving Prof. Dr. Maarten Hajer, Directeur van het Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving 2. Procedures, gang van zaken, gemaakte fouten en inhoud van het Vierde Assessment Rapport (AR4) 11.30 – 12.30 uur Sceptici/Wetenschappers Prof. dr. ir. Henk Tennekes, ex KNMI Prof. dr. Arthur Rörsch, ex TNO Prof. dr. Salomon Kroonenberg, TU Delft Dr. Bas van Geel, Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. ir. Klaas van Egmond, Universiteit Utrecht 12.30 – 13.30 uur LUNCHPAUZE 13.30 – 14.30 uur Journalisten Drs. Marcel Crok (wetenschapsjournalist) Martijn van Calmthout (journalist, Volkskrant) Karel Knip (journalist, NRC) Ir. Hajo Smit (klimaatdeskundige, www.freewriter.nl) Rypke Zeilmaker (wetenschapsjournalist) 14.30 – 15.30 uur Contributing authors en lead authors Dr. Detlef van Vuuren, PBL contributing author WG II CH. 2 & lead author WG III CH. 3 Dr. Rob van Dorland, KNMI, lead author WG I CH. 2 en contributing author WG I, Ch. 9 Prof. dr. Frans Berkhout, instituut voor milieuvraagstukken VU, lead author WG II CH. 7 Prof. dr. Rik Leemans, WUR, lead author WG II CH. 4 15.30 – 15.45 uur THEEPAUZE 15.45 – 16.45 uur Expert reviewers, reviewing editors en overige deskundigen Prof. dr. ir. Bart van den Hurk, KNMI, expert reviewer WG I Prof. dr. Wim Turkenburg Universiteit Utrecht (geen officiële betrokkenheid bij AR4) Dr. Jeroen van der Sluijs, Universiteit Utrecht n.a.v. studie Rathenau Instituut (geen officiële betrokkenheid bij AR4) 16.45 – 17.45 uur Het IPCC in de toekomst Prof. dr. Robbert Dijkgraaf, president van de KNAW en co-voorzitter van de InterAcademy Council Drs. Hans Labohm: expert reviewer van het IPCC Prof. Dr. Maarten Hajer, Directeur van het Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving

I'm expecting lots of complaining tomorrow evening.

Climate wars

Just a little memo to the People in Belgium and Holland that tonight at 10 pm the Belgian TV-channel Canvas will broadcast the first of the three episode BBC series Climate Wars.

I have to confess i haven't seen the series myself yet, but i did see Iain Stewart's series Ring of Fire in which he talks about the influence of earth's geology on mankind. He's a great communicator and i highly enjoyed watching that series.

And according to what Kate writes at climatesight, Climate Wars seems to be just as promising. So my recorder is set.

How the media can manipulate our viewpoint

What a brilliant illustration of what cherry-picking can do to a message

The inconsistency in the response of the Klimatosoof’s Theo Richel to the Open Letter of 55 Dutch Scientists

Theo Richel and Christopher Monckton

On the Klimatosoof-website DGR’s Theo Richel complains that the “55 Dutch scientists open letter” published on SENSE contains a lot of “non-climate scientists” like biologists. He writes a whole paragraph to say he thinks biologists aren’t able to understand the complex physical processes of climate science. He also wonders about the fact there are economists, politicologists, mathematicians on the list. He concludes :

On the grounds of their education only a minority of all signers is able to judge whether IPCC’s claims on anthropogenic climate change are true.

According to a comment of Bart Verheggen (link in Dutch) most of the names he recognizes actually do work in a domain related with climate research
But given Richel’s argumentation it might be fun to have a little closer look at the people who wrote (or were interviewed) on the Klimatosoof website the past half a year or so :

• Bas Van Geel is a biologist
• Theo Richel himself is a man who apparently has no education after high school
• Hans Labohm is an economist
• Benny Peiser is an anthropologist
• Lord Monckton is a man with no scientific training whatsoever
• Arthur Rörsch was a professor teaching genetics

And of course in the entire advisory board of the Klimatosoof there’s no-one who ever worked in a field even remotely close to climate science.
I think Theo Richel just disqualified his entire website :)

The Inhofe 700 erratum on Belgian climatologist Luc Debontridder

In the end of 2008 i wrote a blog post to show that a misrepresentation of a Belgian climatologist in a Belgian newspaper somehow ended up in the Inhofe 650 report.

It’s been out a while already but i only discovered now that the March 16, 2009 update (aka Inhofe 700) of the Inhofe report acknowledges that Debontridder’s views and his report at the Belgian Royal Weather Institute were incorrectly represented.

These extra lines were added to the original text (my emphasis):

[Note: Though Debontridder dampened climate fears with such quotes as “There's no need either to needlessly frighten the public. Bruges will not be on the coastline by 2050,” he reportedly claims he and his report were not translated correctly in media reports from 2007. (LINK) ]

I think it’s pretty safe to say that Marc Morano, author of the Inhofe minority report, took my blog as a source for his erratum :

1. Morano ends with a link to a Babelfish translation just like the one that appears in the second comment below my original post
2. The part between parentheses is a word-by-word copy of a sentence i wrote. (while the exact Babelfish translation is : “we must people also do not boom on the corsage to hunt. It is not this way that Brugge is due within fifty years to the range”)

Should I be happy now that Morano at least used a reliable source (hear hear) to write his erratum ?

Well, i am not.

Unlike what the placing of Morano’s parentheses suggest the quote he gives actually is the second part of a sentence. Which normally requires you to quote it in this format : “(…) xxx yyy zzzz”

The reason why Morano didn’t insert the first part of the sentence is pretty clear if you look again at the full translation which i already gave in my previous post of December 2008 :

"we cannot go on, following a business as usual policy like this, but there's no need either to needlessly frighten the public. Bruges will not be on the coastline by 2050."

While Morano want to suggest between the lines that Debontridder minimalises the consequences of global warming, truth is that in the VERY SAME SENTENCE Morano quoted Luc Debontridder warns it’s necessary to take actions !

I’m not entirely sure the Debontridder-erratum in the Inhofe 700-list is such an improvement.