Given the dogmatic fervor of global warming proponents, and their intolerance of skeptics who dare to question the latest commandment (see: cap-and-trade) in the green scripture, it is perhaps no coincidence that the environmentalist movement sometimes seems to have more in common with theology than with science. If that is true, then the logical word to describe those scientists who have challenged environmental hysteria and extremism is “heretics.” In a series of profiles, Front Page’s Rich Trzupek will spotlight prominent scientists whose “heretical” research, publications, and opinions have helped add a much-needed dose of balance and fact to environmental debates that for too long have been driven by fear mongering and alarmism. In a field that demands political conformity, they defiantly remain the heretics. – The Editors
In green circles, Steve Milloy is a pariah. But for many scientists who worry that political agendas are corrupting independent research and undermining the scientific method, Milloy is a hero. Using his website, junkscience.com, to deliver his message, Milloy has been a key soldier in the front lines of the battle to maintain the kind of healthy skepticism that is a critical component of scientific endeavor.
It’s not overstating the case to say that Milloy, along with Climate Audit’s Steve McIntyre and Joe Bast’s Heartland Institute, laid the groundwork for an increasingly skeptical public to ask the tough, uncomfortable questions that are making global warming zealots squirm.
There was a time, Milloy recalls, when he was almost a voice in the wilderness, after he first started to speak out on the issue in 1996. “We’ve been slogging away at this all through the decade,” he said. “The first part of the decade was really tough. Today, there are lots of people questioning the science behind global warming, but back in 2000 it was very lonely out there.”
One can measure Milloy’s importance by the vehemence with which his critics denounce his work. The Guardian’s George Monbiot has described Milloy as “the main entrepôt for almost every kind of climate-change denial that has found its way into the mainstream press.” To that, Milloy replies: “Why, thank you, George. We work very hard to deliver the whole counter case.”
As a regular guest on Fox News and the author of several popular books on the environment and science, including his latest work, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, Milloy is one of the most prominent figures offering a dissenting voice when alarmists of all sorts raise a hue and cry.
While he is best known for climate change skepticism, the “Junkman” takes on the questionable science behind popular hysteria wherever he finds it, from “dangerous” consumer products to the swine flu. A common thread runs through all his work: Milloy strives to be a calming, rational influence, patiently and clearly explaining scientific principles to show why some risks are overstated by the media and political figures.
Mention the word “dioxin” to the average person and it will call to mind what is popularly believed to be one of the most powerful toxins on earth. But it hardly rates a shrug in Milloy’s mind. He believes that Environmental Protection Agency’s dioxin standards are ridiculously low and went on to prove the point in one his earlier and most famous moments of, as he puts it, “debunking the junk.”
In 1999 Milloy had a sample of Ben & Jerry’s “World’s Best Vanilla” ice cream analyzed for dioxin. The results showed that the ice cream had over 2,000 times the amount of dioxin that EPA would later say was “the safe level” in its 2003 dioxin report, proving Milloy’s point that dioxin is everywhere in our life, from both man-made and natural sources. The dioxin scare was whipped up by junk science.
The World Health Organization rolled back its ban on using DDT in 2006, a move that will save millions in Africa from dying of malaria. There is little doubt that Junk Science played a role in achieving that result. “100 things you should know about DDT,” authored by Milloy and J. Gordon Edwards, is an invaluable compendium of facts about one of the world’s most useful and needlessly-maligned chemicals. This compellation of data and research makes the convincing argument that DDT presents no threat to human health and the environment; that using DDT to control malaria in the developing world is essential to public health there; and that the reasons DDT was banned in the United States were based on politics and personal profit, not science.
Milloy’s risk evaluation experience gave rise to Junk Science. He was employed as a lobbyist during George H.W. Bush’s term in office, trying to convince the President to sign an executive order that would bring some reason and structure to the EPA’s haphazard risk assessment process. That didn’t happen, primarily, Milloy believes, because doing so would have left EPA bureaucrats with much less to do. “Agencies like the EPA are happy to meet with you and to listen to you,” he recalled. “But, when it comes to doing something, if they don’t like what you say, they just ignore you.”
A likable, well-spoken man with a gift for breaking down complex concepts, one would think that Milloy would become a resource for many news networks. But with the notable exception of Fox, none of the other major outlets call on him any longer, not even to provide an alternative opinion. But then, his non-Fox exposure was minimal, even before global warming took center stage and left him out in the cold among the other networks. “I was on ABC once, with Peter Jennings,” Milloy said, pausing to add with a laugh: “No. Wait. It was with [outspoken libertarian] John Stossel, so I don’t think that counts. And then I used to be on CNBC from time to time, until the CEO of GE took me off.”
One might not know it from the mainstream media, but Milloy’s skepticism about the environmental movement has been repeatedly validated. When a whistleblower released e-mail and data files from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) in November 2009, even some scientists who line up squarely in Al Gore’s camp were shocked by contents. The files revealed that, even at one of the world’s leading centers for climate research, global warming research is not quite as tidy a package of consensus as many alarmists claimed. The scandal, inevitably dubbed “Climategate,” proved to be a vindication for Milloy, demonstrating that many of the things he said were happening among the alarmist community – from data alteration, to “gatekeeping” at scientific journals that rejected inconvenient findings, to the manipulation of the mainstream media – were in fact going on. “It’s amazing,” Milloy said. “I engage in a lot of correspondence with other skeptics and we’ve never had any discussions that even come close to what is in the CRU files. We talk about what the data is telling us, not how we can manipulate the results.”
While Climategate and Copenhagen are important milestones in the fight to take back science, for Milloy they do not represent the tipping point. He believes that we reached that point a few years ago, when more and more of the public began to take notice of what was going on. When you examine the global warming debate, Milloy believes that even the casual observer realizes that the issue is not about science, but about control. “This is a tribal issue,” Milloy said. “The people on the left who advocate this stuff see the environment as a way to advance their political agenda.”
The overall impression that one takes away from a conversation with the Junkman is that he both enjoys his chosen mission and that he receives a good deal of personal satisfaction every time he convinces another reader to question conventional wisdom. He’s been fighting for rational analysis and scientific integrity over the course of two decades and he’s confident that the future will see more victories. “On my tombstone, it’ll say: he was right,” Milloy concluded. “And I was.”
Actually, I'm saying that federal researchers must answer to much higher ethical standards than Milloy can reach. You're right — he's not bound by any code to tell the truth. Shame on him. You'd think a guy taking money from big business would at least be able to tell things as straight as a Tenderfoot Boy Scout.
Not a straw man. A lament. You can't trust Milloy, and the lies he tells, no matter how many Africans die because of them, he can't be prosecuted for.
We've had laws since at least 1985 that make it a federal crime for researchers to propose projects with factual misstatements such as those Milloy makes habitually, constantly and continuously.
Plus, if a federal researcher were to mis-report USFWS research as Milloy misreports Dr. DeWitt's bird studies, he'd be liable for jail time. Lying is okay for lobbyists like Milloy — they have only their clients and God to answer to. We have much higher ethical standards for federally-funded research.
Which is one reason Milloy can't cite federally-funded research that supports his side. They have to tell the truth in their papers. Milloy can't tolerate that.
No nation can be affected by such a WHO decision. WHO has zero regulatory authority — no UN agency does. WHO could stop using it in programs it operated, but it doesn't even have the power to stop a nation from using malaria-fighting money from going to DDT, even if WHO didn't want that.
Saying WHO's cessation of use of DDT is regulatory is rather like saying Henry Ford's cessation of the Model T was regulatory. Not so, not possible, outside the bounds of reality — and really silly.
WHO stopped using DDT only because it stopped working. You can read the history of the incidents at Malcolm Gladwell's site, where he has preserved his article out of the New Yorker, a great tribute to that ace malaria fighter Fred Soper. Mosquitoes got the alleles to be resistant and immune to DDT. For the UN's malaria eradication program, that was “game over – you and Africa lose.”
After 40 years, some mosquito populations lost some of their resistance. But the reality is that DDT remains pitifully ineffective. So WHO has again stopped using it in favor of other, more effective insecticides (that are generally safer, too).
Malaria is a complex problem. There is no pixie dust solution, and DDT never was pixie dust.
Edarrell wrote: “Lying is okay for lobbyists like Milloy — they have only their clients and God to answer to. We have much higher ethical standards for federally-funded research.”
That's reason enough right there not even to bother reading this person. Anyone who says that his ethical standards are higher than God's – well, that would immediately merit addition to the killfile.
So your argument is that if someone agrees with someone with whom you disagree, they must be wrong too, and this constitutes a complete argument. I must have missed that lesson when I was learning the process of debate.
So, again, you demonstrate a penchant for playing God. The simple reality is that if many of your children die, you have more children.
When your children stop dying, there may be a short term spike in population, then once they're sure it's not a fluke, populations normalize. This has been the pattern throughout the industrialized world.
My claim is that the use of foreign aid funds for DDT was not allowed, from roughly 1972 to just recently.
What is your claim, that is has been widely used, and praised by the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace for 30 years? I thought you said everybody knew it didn't work, and was dangerous, and that only stupid people question this. You know, people like the WHO.
I offered you a primary source.
Let's fast forward to today, though: would you be comfortable with banning most uses of carbon energy in the developing world, even if it meant increased hardship for them?
I looked up the original article, and it is $30, which I'm not going to pay.
Can we agree that you have done NOTHING to refute ANY of the other 108 points, and that you are not only alleging that Milloy lied, but that a confederate literally made up results out of whole cloth, by saying that pheasant eggs hatched at higher rates, and had higher survival rates?
Is that what you are saying? If I look this up, and you are full of it, will you shut up?
BTW, no, I am not a Lyndon Larouche fan. Are you a Stalin fan? Just asking.
I would really like to shut you up, because I don't like you. Please give me the EXACT citation, and if I can't find it at the library, I may well pay the damn money to get it. This is quite obviously your topic, and if you are right, I will admit it, but the evidence in favor of DDT is overwhelming, as is the evidence that positive studies were suppressed in the 70's.
Let's go toe to toe as long as it takes and see what happens. I may lose, but I will not quit. Ever.
Boo-Effin-Hoo!……..Yeah and during the Cold War the USA stole and hacked a lot of documents from the USSR…..so what?
“It was asserted that it was a whistle-blower which is inaccurate. Maybe you can ask FPM why they would lie about such a thing.
“I guess it's okay and protected by law for these creeps to conspire to rip us all off for trillions of dollars?”
Oh please…
Your opinion is not a primary source.
You're categorically wrong. What was in those emails were specific instructions to delete raw data that had been requested in a Freedom of Information Act request. That is AGAINST THE LAW.
Can you show me?
Also, I don't think the Freedom of Information Act extends to the entire world….it's a US law and the University of East Anglia is a foreign university. Are you sure you aren't thinking about NASA?
“The reason they HAD to be stolen is that the Anthropogenic Global Warming folks are the closest thing to a mafia we have seen since the low fat fraud, or the DDT fraud, take your pick.”
The DDT fraud. You guys are hilarious. Everything a conspiracy to spoil your fun.
“More, and on line with the DDT fraud, the people who will suffer the most from globally mandated reductions in the production of energy are persons of color in the developing world.”
LOL…you're reality is the spin…you can't distinguish. No one is saying that the world needs to produce less energy…only that we are still just digging stuff up and burining it for energy…you know…fossil fuels.
“You know, the EXACT people Leftists claim they care about. Of course, if you never bother to check on the actual outcome of your policies, you will never know what effect was achieved.”
Well, I'm not responsible for what you think is “leftist” and what you think it means. They are not “my” policies…we are simply talking. When you feel that cultic itch snaking up your spine and you want to call someone a Leftist…just try to induce vomitting into the nearest trash can until the feeling passes.
“As far as your point about DDT, look at the paper. He has DOZENS of citations showing NO long term problems in bird populations. Of course, actually doing work would be contrary to the code of the Gentleman Blogger.”
I just haven't been whipped into a frenzy by FPM and others about DDT. You think that for no good reason but greed or just wanting to hurt humanity that people are conspiring to make up problems just to piss you off.
I know those damn environmentalist…caring about people's health…damn them all to hell. DDT is not directly toxic to humans. The asbestos could still kill you and might be in your lungs right now. It's a crap shoot…
Please don't tell me you guys are going to start saying the abestos ban was a communist conspiracy to make people hot.
Truth is indestructible so when we want to know the truth we set up a premise and then, by the process of elimination, try to prove it false. Junk science sets up a premise and then tries to prove it to be true. It is easier to prove a false assumption to be true than it is a true assumption to be false. It it extremely likely that all of us harbor a false assumption or two.
I suppose our current cold weather is the result of too much carbon dioxide. Our gloval warming salesmen do have something to sell that is a fraud without natural value. If we are persuaded to buy they get our money and we get robbed. Lets quit trying to prove Socialism is valid and start asking the questions that will prove that it has no value. What kind of fruit does it bear? These comments are bringing up some good points that we do need to consider. It may be that neither side has the correct answer but through debate we can find that answer.
Whit
Ace,
It was two comments down. I'm new to this format. “Population control advocates blamed DDT for increasing third world population. In the 1960s, World Health Organization authorities believed there was no alternative to the overpopulation problem but to assure than up to 40 percent of the children in poor nations would die of malaria. As an official of the Agency for International Development stated, “Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing.”
I will, Eddarrell has graciously added much the same opinion as expressed by Alduous Huxley, further down.
And you skipped my question: are you prepared to tolerate the inevitable unnecessary pain and suffering which will attend forcing the developing world to use source of energy other than carbon based ones in their on-going efforts to end grievous poverty?
I will note that Eddarrell skipped these points. He (or she) thereby admits that there is he can make no strong argument in favor of the claimed carcinogenic nature of DDT; that he cannot dispute the prominent members of the scientific community–here the editor of Science magazine–worked to prevent publication of evidence that supported the use of DDT; nor that we specifically prohibited foreign aid money from being used to buy DDT. It killed birds, you see–so they told us, at any rate–and birds matter more than people, especially poor black people half a world away.
Why not use the solution that causes the fewest number of people to die? I know if they are black and 5,000 miles away they matter less than if they are pretty girls and blonde, but it would seem to me that you have neither established that DDT is a poison to HUMANS–and I doubt you will be able to sustain your case that is is a poison to any other creature but insects–nor that it doesn't work.
You have professionals, there–people who study mosquitoes for a living–saying DDT works.
You skip around: you say DDT doesn't work, then you say it worked but every insect on the planet developed immunity, then you say mosquito nets are cheaper, and do sort of work. You ignore recent positive statements by the very environmental organizations whose advocacy got DDT banned by the EPA in the US, and which prevented the use of US money anywhere on the planet to buy DDT.
Let me ask you:
Are all of the experts who claim DDT is an effective bug control agent wrong?
Do you dispute the ideas of, say, Greenpeace, which says that DDT IS actually of value, especially when sprayed in homes?
Do you believe that African lives are the equivalent of our own, and that the idea of NOT buying things which can be afforded that save lives is morally odious?
Unless you're an utter cretin, you have done that. Enlighten me. What are the numbers? How many pro, how many against? Absolutely, if Milloy is committing fraud I will chastise him for it.
I will equally chastise you, since as a betting man I suspect you are the one who will look the worst under close scrutiny. You are publicly calling Milloy a liar. That is a strong claim, and the simple fact of the matter is that the article is question is in the public domain. If he has done what you say, he is not just a liar, but stupid.
However, I have cited another article which quotes from Dewitt's piece at length, and I simply do not find it credible that he made it up out of whole cloth.
You, on the other hand, are an anonymous blogger with an axe to grind.
Still, I will look up the piece. I see you post on this topic all over the place, and I think it's time to put this issue to rest one way or the other. I suspect you are used to people backing down since refuting you takes work. I'm not one of those people.
I see clear structural homologies between the abuse of science with respect to DDT, and the current healthcare “debate” (legislative imposition by a majority without a mandate): in both cases, a problem has been drummed up, by means of which corporations–understood in the abstract, and as something other than the place where all your working relatives work–are demonized; in both cases, the “solution” is a bitche's brew of pseudoscientific pap that will make the lives of the people in question worse; and the solution is used to increase the power of people who have never run a business or held a real job in their lives.
Historically, this process has oftened worked, and the record has been rewritten (or simply forgotten: it's easy to bury things when we reset our memories daily in response to the most recent dose of propaganda). You are a revisionist. I am not going to let you get away with it.
,
Exactly: “WHO is now recommending the use of indoor residual spraying (IRS) not only in epidemic areas but also in areas with constant and high malaria transmission”. Read that sentence carefully. It's announcing that WHO is broadening of the range of situations where it recommends DDT use. They had always recommended the use of DDT in areas of sporadic, episodic transmission, and now they also recommend it in areas of constant, year-round transmission. Ergo, WHO never had a ban on DDT in place. (As a side note, WHO has absolutely zero authority to ban DDT or any other chemical. They can only make non-binding recommendations. And they have always and consistently recommended the use of DDT in areas of sporadic transmission.) Here's a UN document compiling data on recent DDT use. http://www.pops.int/documents/ddt/Global%20stat… Note that 5000 metric tonnes were used in 2003 and 2005. You're claiming that there was a WHO ban on its use until 2006, and you imply that this “ban” had prevented it's use. This is non-sense.
“In South Africa, DDT has been sprayed annually since 1945 in the Vhembe District of Limpopo Province…” – http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle…
Yet more evidence of the lack of a “ban” on DDT. When can we expect to see a correction to this article?
The clear documentation of Milloy's distortion of DeWitt's work is here. DeWitt concluded that DDT kills birds who eat grain — in one case where an almost normal hatch occurred, all the chicks died. That's exactly the opposite of what Milloy claims. He even doctors quotes out of Carson's book to make it appear she wrote differently than she did.
In Silent Spring we learn:
Academic fraud. You know where Milloy is. Go get him.
No, I merely point out that the bizarre kooks at the Larouche organization are pushing the views you claim to like for their odd political reasons. Those of us who have had to defend our nation against the Larouchites probably are a bit affect-loaded to their strange claims and methods of twisting the truth.
The simple fact is this: If it appears in a Larouche publication, it's probably wrong. Instead of making an argument from authority, you're adopting an argument from a source who hates the U.S. and actively works to bring our nation down.
On top of that, it offers no additional information — it was wrong the first time Dr. Edwards delivered the speech, and it's not made any more correct by being copied by political kooks.
That's too bad. I had found a free source at one time — but this is an issue important enough that I've paid such fees many times. If you're close to a research university, it's highly likely they have it in their library. Call your local library to see whether they have a database that has the article, or whether they can get it for you on interlibrary loan. If you wish to read the relevant portions, go to my blog and read it. See especially the comments from Jonathan Buhs, who discussed exactly this issue with Dr. DeWitt before DeWitt died.
No. That would be completely false. Start here and you'll see why. If Milloy is right on any point, it's either by error or because his claim is so non-controversial that it provides no information — such as his noting that Paul Muller won a Nobel Prize for his work with DDT. That fact doesn't change the facts that DDT is wildly dangerous released in the wild, as the National Academy of Sciences found when it urged DDT be phased out, because despite it's great utility, its harms outweigh the benefits.
Consider me as a stone. As Jesus noted, when other try to muffle the truth, even the stones cry out. I can do no other that promote the truth.
Stalin sided with the chemical companies, with DDT. He was no friend of the environment, and he created several of the greatest environmental disasters of the 20th century, perhaps of all time.
I'm curious why you would ask such a bizarre question? Larouche isn't the opposite of Stalin.
I'm a fan of science and life. I'm a teacher and attorney. I'm a great fan of life in America and freedom. I think good health is important. I enjoy watching birds, and otherwise recreating in our nation's outstanding parks and monuments (National Parks and other places).
I'm a father.
Are you none of those things?
I've been working this thing for three years. None of the citations offered to support a claim of no problems in bird populations check out. If the article exists, it says DDT kills birds. In far too many cases, there simply is no such article. Fiction generally is not acceptable for science claims.
I didn't say science standards are higher than God's. I merely note that Milloy can legally get away with telling any tale he can get you and gullible people to accept, without fear that he will face any sanctions until after death.
Of course, most people who have no faith don't fear such a penalty.
Point is the same. Science has standards and Milloy doesn't. Scientists in federal projects go to jail if they tell tales like Milloy tells.
You distort my words only slightly. Enough such distortions and it's akin to claiming DDT, a deadly poison and carcinogen to almost all living things, is “perfectly safe.”
As REAL science has proven, the gullible people are those who bought into the scare that DDT was hazardous. Milloy is only one of many who have clearly demonstrated that fact (that DDT *is* perfectly safe when used properly).
You keep claiming that Milloy tells lies. All he has done is to examine the scientific studies and point out their fallacies, and then call people on their misstatements, coverups and, yes, lies.
BTW, not that it's particularly relevant to this discussion, but I wonder where you stand on the global warming issue. Have you bought into that nonsense, too?
Oh, and I don't question your faith. I have no idea where you stand with the Lord. That's between you and Him. I only know that I will be very comfortable answering to God, knowing that I've got my Redeemer to cover my sins and answer for me.
Ed: you claim to possess the paper by Dewitt. You say you have read it, right? You say that Carson quoted it correctly, and Milloy quoted it incorrectly, right? From this it follows that you can tell me EXACTLY what citation you are referring to. I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but I want YOU to say EXACTLY where I should look to check out your claims.
You are saying Carson got it right, and Milloy got it wrong. This is verifiable, correct? I am not going to look at your blog. I am going to look at the primary source.
And I just want to make sure I'm looking at the right source, so that you have NO wiggle room. You see, I think you are the liar, but I willing to do the research to find out.
Of course, if you ARE telling the truth, it will be obvious, right? So you have nothing to lose and everything to win. In fact, make it easy for yourself: tell me what page to look for, where Dewitt made the comments you are referring to. Simplest thing in the world.
I'll keep checking back on this site for several weeks. And once you provide the citation, I will hunt it down.
And of course if you are unwilling to do that, the obvious conclusion is that you are either lying, very ignorant, or mentally unbalanced, in all of which cases you can and should be ignored.
Well, we'll find out, won't we? I would have thought you could have extended beyond one critique of one point of 109 by now, if you were “working it”.
We'll start with what you seem to think is your best piece of evidence. Cite it. Tell me what page to go to. I will buy it, if I need to.
Thank you for asking for documentation. I hadn't actually read any of the emails. Everyone should. http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=…
“don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is
trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried
email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.”
A lot of reference to hiding. An explicit vow to break the law.
Why? These are publicly funded researchers, who claim to be scientists. Since when do scientists feel the need to hide data?
To be clear, the claim being made is that computer algorithyms were used to data mine ONLY raw information that amplified warming effects, to create an artificial and false picture of warming from a background that was otherwise neutral.
This clearly shows that is what has in fact been happening.
With respect to Third World, what exactly do you propose as energy, Einstein? Coal is cheap and plentiful. Nuclear power is not, although there is no reason they should not both be pursued.
So your solution is to ignore the problem? Effing brilliant. They raise em big and bright therein Arkansas, don't they?
No one has ever claimed it was banned. It was officially considered a dangerous carcinogen and a disastrous toxin when used in the wild.
That position has been relaxed, and in so many words the EPA and Environmental Defense Fund have said they were wrong. DDT use is again being encouraged, after being demonized for nearly 40 years.
To be clear, the two M's are Steven Mcintyre and another guy whose name I forget who broke the story that Michael Mann's Hockey
Stick used methods which can only be called fraudulent.
No real scientists EVER–EVER–refuse to release raw data.
Milloy distorted the research of Dr. James DeWitt, changed DeWitt's words, and even changed the words of Rachel Carson, to make it appear that DeWitt disagreed with Carson. Milloy misreported, claiming that bird studies show DDT safe for birds. No study ever showed that.
I've provided links to much more extensive debunkings of the hoax claims of Mr. Milloy. Please read them.
Do you claim Milloy is right? Please tell me which study backs his claims.
EPA has never backtracked on the regulation — the courts rather made that impossible, but there's never been any reason to.
ED supports indoor residual spraying, which is extremely limited, non-outdoor use of DDT. That's no change from their position in 1962.
If you've been counting, you've noted that I dealt specifically, at great length, with Milloy's points 6 and 10. Had you been paying attention to the issues, you'd see that I've discussed all of his points on birds.
Here's the fisk on 17, 18 and 19.
20 through 25 don't state anything significant in favor of DDT use, nor against protecting from it. I've already addressed the fact that DDT was not banned for being carcinogenic, so Milloy's points 30 through 38 are moot. Why he bothers to tell lies there about DDT's carcinogenicity, I cannot imagine.
39 through 64 are Milloy's odd claims about eggshell thinning. I noted earlier that there are more than 1,000 peer review studies confirming Carson's statements, and according to my count, not a single contrary study.
69 through 76 are his claims about eagles, the most famous species brought back from the brink of extinction by our ban on DDT overuse. It's unclear what Milloy wants to establish. To the extent that his quotes go to actual publications, the publications either note simply the decline of eagles, or they say nothing in favor of DDT. To the extent the quotes claim DDT didn't harm eagles, those quotes and citations are fictional.
77 through 90 cover the peregrine falcon. Same comments for eagle apply to his claims on peregrine falcons. 91 through 96 are Milloy's claims about the brown pelican, another species brought back from the brink of extinction by stopping DDT use. My comments on eagles apply here, too.
97 through 105 apply generally to birds. And as with the other bird references, where the citations are valid, there is no case for DDT, no case against Carson. Where there is a case for DDT and against Carson, the citations simply don't work.
I've not bothered with the last four claims on gas chromatography.
It's interesting that no matter how many links I offer, no matter how much of the material I post, you claim I've not. I'm not sure what to make of that.
“don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites…”
Now you're reading these e-mails looking for something insidious. FTP sites are good for sharing files, but they are notoriously short on security. God forbid someone steal a year of e-mails from my company with the intent to make me or any of my guys look bad.
“Why? These are publicly funded researchers, who claim to be scientists. Since when do scientists feel the need to hide data?”
Even in a casual reading, it's clear that “model code” is at issue. These may be programs that these scientists wrote or developed over years. Like you, I really don't know what the hell they are talking about.
“To be clear, the claim being made is that computer algorithyms were used to data mine ONLY raw information that amplified warming effects, to create an artificial and false picture of warming from a background that was otherwise neutral. This clearly shows that is what has in fact been happening.”
Um…actually the claim is that the e-mails revealed the Marxist Global Warming Hoax in vivid detail…leaving not a shred of doubt that Gloabl warming is a made up problem designed to rob the US of money. This is built on the assumption that the University of East Anglia is the epicenter of all climate research around the globe. This is what you were railing against earlier.
“With respect to Third World, what exactly do you propose as energy, Einstein? Coal is cheap and plentiful. Nuclear power is not, although there is no reason they should not both be pursued.”
Right…um…I'm afraid I don't know what the alternatives are. If you want a video made about it, or you want a program developed to manage an energy system, then my skills might come into play. You need engineers and researchers who can explore new ideas about how to generate power. They will need money and big computers I guess and lots of room to tinker with their experiments. That's going to cost some money. Meanwhile, coal is “cheap” because we don't really factor in the pollution…maybe…hmmm…if we had a way to charge for the pollution and put the money toward alternative energy, we might be able to spur the innovation to get something new and interesting done. Somehow I don't see the big coal companies really putting their heart into it otherwise. Nah…it would probably be denounced as a Marxist conspiracy to rob the United States to give to Africa.
They don't care about people's health. That's the point. They care about the health of birds, and if their policies made access to DDT less possible, with the result that people died, well, they don't live in Africa, do they? They live in comfortable brownstones in large cities, and comfortable houses in suburbs.
And they complain about the price arugula.
Given the lack of a response, Ed demonstrates here his inability to respond. This is quite reasonable, since the claim I am making is correct, and he knows it.
This carries in my favor. Leftists–including one of the current Obama Czars whose name escapes me at the moment–have long considered mass death in the developing world preferable to the possibility of overpopulation. You see, if you have too many people, you can't feed them, and, uh, they die. So if they die NOW, it prevents them from dying later.
That is as sound a logical chain as you will find anywhere (on the Left).
Crap, Ed quit. I hate that. I wanted to run that libelous fool into the ground. He apparently realized I was going to, since he is either lying outright, or so contorting the facts that that is still the best word.
Since this is one topic I don't currently own, I am still going to print the list, and check out a few of the citations from Milloy's piece. If I can get access to the Dewitt article in my library, I will.
I will point out, though, that the best way to think of leftists is that they are little machines, that are wound up to repeat certain things, and travel along a certain path. This is both a source of strength and a source of weakness.
The strength, of course, is the strength of a train running on a rail. It has tremendous energy, since no deviations are possible. No alternatives suggest themselves. All you have to do is repeat slogans, and reinforce stereotypes among ideologically vulnerable populations. It's not hard work at all. There's no soul searching, and no agonies of decisions. That's the value, to leftists: their anxiety and sense of disconnection is gone.
The vulnerability is that truth is to them like water was to the Wicked Witch of the East. It melts them. The package HAS to be whole and complete, or all the anxieties come back. This means that they can be forced into forfeiting simply through principled and reasoned persistence.
Where dialogue begins, propaganda ends. That is one slogan even intelligent people can abide.
Ed,
You appear incapable of irony. You use a Communistic meme with respect to Stalin–that there are evil chemical companies–while ignoring the fact that THERE ARE NO PRIVATE COMPANIES IN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES.
Here are the facts: DDT works, and is almost entirely harmless. If you want to argue otherwise, tell me EXACTLY what the citation is for Dewitt that you are claiming to refute with respect to point ten.
Since you claim to have done a lot of research, tell me what OTHER citations you have looked up that proved wrong. Five would do. I will go find them.
Ace,
Let's start with the Dewitt citation. You mentioned it repeatedly. Tell me EXACTLY what the citation is. It's not on Milloy's piece, and if it was on yours, I missed it. It should be easy. You're a thorough guy, right? An attorney. You can read. You can copy citations.
Right here, you say “39 through 64 are Milloy's odd claims about eggshell thinning. I noted earlier that there are more than 1,000 peer review studies confirming Carson's statements, and according to my count, not a single contrary study.”
Well, for starters, how about this one, number 39: Cecil, HC et al. 1971. Poultry Science 50: 656-659 (No effects of DDT or DDE, if adequate calcium is in diet); Chang, ES & ELR Stokstad. 1975. Poultry Science 54: 3-10 1975. (No effects of DDT on shells); Edwards, JG. 1971. Chem Eng News p. 6 & 59 (August 16, 1971) (Summary of egg shell- thinning and refutations presented revealing all data); Hazeltine, WE. 1974. Statement and affidavit, EPA Hearings on Tussock Moth Control, Portland Oregon, p. 9 (January 14, 1974); Jeffries, DJ. 1969. J Wildlife Management 32: 441-456 (Shells 7 percent thicker after two years on DDT diet); Robson, WA et al. 1976. Poultry Science 55:2222- 2227; Scott, ML et al. 1975. Poultry Science 54: 350-368 (Egg production, hatchability and shell quality depend on calcium, and are not effected by DDT and its metabolites); Spears, G & P. Waibel. 1972. Minn. Science 28(3):4-5; Tucker, RK & HA Haegele. 1970. Bull Environ Contam. Toxicol 5:191-194 (Neither egg weight nor shell thickness affected by 300 parts per million DDT in daily diet);Edwards, JG. 1973. Statement and affidavit, U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, 24 pages, October 24, 1973; Poult Sci 1979 Nov;58(6):1432-49 (“There was no correlation between concentrations of pesticides and egg shell thinning] .”) ]
Or this one, number 40:
[J Toxicol Environ Health 1977 Nov;3(4):699-704 (50 ppm for 6 months); Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 1978;7(3):359-67 ("acute" doses); Acta Pharmacol Toxicol (Copenh) 1982 Feb;50(2):121-9 (40 mg/kg/day for 45 days); Fed Proc 1977 May;36(6):1888-93 ("In well-controlled experiments using white leghorn chickens and Japanese quail, dietary PCBs, DDT and related compounds produced no detrimental effects on eggshell quality. ... no detrimental effects on eggshell quality, egg production or hatchability were found with ... DDT up to 100 ppm)]
For a lawyer, you are sloppy as hell. You're not dealing with an idiot. IN THE COURSE OF PRETENDING YOU REFUTED THEM, you ignore all the evidence cited, then claim Discover–which is no doubt fully as partisan as Science–has 1,000 studies. You don't even go the extra step to support that statement; you just assert it.
Bubba,
Do you actually consider sarcasm refutation? I don't. I consider it stupid.
The data set that the CRU kept is one of the PRIMARY paleoclimatologic data sets that are used to construct past climate history. Their data set was a primary source for the infamous (and now fully irrelevant and falsified) Hockey Stick graph of the late 90's.
The simple fact of the matter is that the entirety of their effort was to eliminate the Medieval Warming Period from the record, so they could artificially inflate the background warming since 1850.
They have denied this repeatedly, but THEY WON'T RELEASE THE RAW DATA. McIntyre and McKitrick have been after them for at least 5 years.
You miss the most important point, because you are an indoctrinated clown who is not serious: REAL scientists subject their work to replication and peer review. And it isn't peer review if you are asking fellow cultists to do the work. In another set of emails, Michael Mann discussed how they can SUPPRESS alternative viewpoints.
This is not science. This is advocacy. How can I make the words smaller and the concepts simpler so you are capable of grasping this?
As far as the Developing World, my point stands. You punted. Complete failure. Coal is available today, and there are NO credible alternatives NOW, or for the foreseeable future.
What YOU want to do is make decisions for other people that they would not make if given a choice. That makes you are first rate moral cretin.
BS. The same people who were marching in the streets are now–very quietly–admitting that DDT is not the horrible things it was claimed to be.
You have not touched, much less refuted this point. They said it was a carcinogen. That's in Carson's book. Don't deny it.
They said it caused massive wildlife extinctions, even in limited doses, and had NO business being used anywhere, and that it was only evil chemical companies pushing that caused it to be used at all.
This is reality. Don't rewrite the history, even if those were your best years. Here's a hint: your time was not only wasted, it was counterproductive, and to the precise extent you were successful, you facilitated unnecessary human death and suffering, and had virtually no positive effect on birds or other wildlife.
That's my view. I am still open to convincing, but you are not doing a very good job.
I will add, that Milloy freely admits that oil, lead and mercury all cause elevated levels of bird death, and the EPA also effectively limited those. The EPA is not useless, nor are environmental regulations. It is STUPID regulations that need to be opposed.
It's not there, Barry. Am I wrong? Give me a page number. Here, you can search the book, and show us the passage where Rachel Carson said DDT is a carcinogen and should be banned as a result.
Carson worried whether chemicals were being checked to see whether they are carcinogenic, and at that time they were not. She noted the troubling rise in childhood cancers and in other, often pollution-related cancers, as the chemicals themselves rose in number and quantity, and as human exposures increased.
If you find where Carson said “DDT causes cancer,” you'll be the first. Please knock yourself out looking.
Carson, especially Carson, did not call for any ban on any chemical. You've got a searchable version of the book, show us differently.
However, DDT does indeed wreak havoc on ecosystems. Originally advocates said that it disappeared, broke down quickly when sprayed. They based this claim on research that showed DDT sprayed in riparian environments could not be detected within a few days. Alas, what was discovered is that DDT is rapidly taken up by living things. Spray an estuary, and all the primary producers suck it up like sponges. Then, as creatures in higher trophic levels consumer the primary producers, first-level consumers and other consumers, the does multiplies. It's called biomagnification. It means that a “safe” dose to kill mosquito larva sprayed in an estuary will become a fatal dose for fish and birds very quickly. DDT sprayed in water measures 0.000003 ppm; by the time the osprey eats the fish that at the bugs that ate the plants, the dose is 25 ppm — a multiplication of the dose by 10 million times!
Spread about the wild, DDT can indeed be deadly to entire ecosystems.
Get the history correct, and you can understand the present, and make a better future. But those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it. What you say is not history, but phantasm. Stick to history instead, please.
You refuse to read the citations, you haven't read the book you criticize, and you make all sorts of claims of voodoo history — and then you say you are open to convincing?
Stick to the facts, please.
You refuse to read the material I link to. As I noted, the DeWitt paper is no longer available, free, on-line, and I do not have a copy of it.
But I have read it. I quote directly and accurately from it. Your refusal to read the material does not exactly make me anxious to go find another copy.
Then you say:
Specify for me: Which of these papers have you read?
Right…yeah the “elites” and their arugula. You have this fantasy in your mind that at some point the elites screamed stop and DDT was no longer available to anyone on earth for any reason. A tiny amount of research on your part (outside of the bizarro world) would show you that DDT has been used and is used today. They don't use it on crops and everywhere because that makes the bugs resistant.
Saying that a ban on DDT killed people in Africa is a false argument that FPM has been instrumental in pushing. By your logic the Christian Missionaries in Africa have killed tens of thousands of Africans by giving them AIDS….or by not giving them condoms…same thing.
I know it's a tasty little piece on the overall construction of “lefty” as a do-gooder who kills innovation (and Africans) as they sip lattes and think of new ways to surpress your freedoms…but all that is a lot of hooey.
The Bald Eagle isn't extinct…and you still have Walmart….YOU'RE WELCOME.
I have read the material you link to. What you are providing are allegations. Specifically, let's dilate on Point number ten. I thought you had said you found it, and had it in your possession. You have said that every source you checked was fraudulent, but you have not cited any. The 17,18,19 or whatever has to do with somewhat subjective statements made with respect to the legislative and judicial review process in this country.
Those don't interest me. You are making very broad claims, specifically that Dewitt's paper was intentionally misrepresented by Milloy. You are claiming that 1,000 of studies support the damaging effects of DDT on birds, and none support it being non-harmful. But when I cite studies to the contrary, you punt. Nor do you link to anything saying that according to Discover magazine this is the case. Presumably you're not lying about that, but you could put up a link to support that very broad claim. I don't consider Discover an impartial source, nor is science based on anything but facts (consensus most often in fact betrays a victory of conformity, not rigor), but that would still be a logical step. I will read it.
More to the point, WHICH of the studies–you have implied more than once you have read quite a few of them–have YOU read? I'm not the one calling Milloy a liar. I'm not the one posing as the knowledgable one.
And I will pay the money for the Dewitt study. Don't worry about me. I just want you to tell what the EXACT citation is. Please understand: if you can't cite a piece which is a cornerstone of your libelous accusation, then am I not well justified in viewing you and your claims with something between skepticism and contempt?
To be clear, I'm pretty sure I found it. But when I pull it off, and print it, I don't want there to be any lack of clarity as to EXACTLY what you are claiming. That tells me what to look for.
And if you're telling the truth, I will find just what you said, right?
Would there be any reason I wouldn't? You're telling the truth, correct? You've done your homework carefully, right?
“They have denied this repeatedly, but THEY WON'T RELEASE THE RAW DATA. McIntyre and McKitrick have been after them for at least 5 years.”
Yep, and they got everything they wanted in 2005 when Congress ordered Mann to provide his data, including his source code, archives of all data for all of Mann's scientific publications, identities of his present and past scientific collaborators, and details of all funding for any of Mann's ongoing or prior research, including all of the supporting forms and agreements. Wow. I guess Mann is lucky they weren't allowed to look around in his asshole while they were at it.
“You miss the most important point, because you are an indoctrinated clown who is not serious: REAL scientists subject their work to replication and peer review. And it isn't peer review if you are asking fellow cultists to do the work.”
What isn't peer reviewed? The models have been done and redone by scientists all over the world…the most peer reviewed research to date still shows a warming trend this century. They are just models…projections. And that is just the theoretical side of things. What about the thousands of scientists around the world that are throwing up red flags because of what they are observing real-time on the earth? Are they part of the conspiracy to dupe us all?
“In another set of emails, Michael Mann discussed how they can SUPPRESS alternative viewpoints.”
What other set of e-mails? A different, mystery set aside from the all the hacked ones? Because you can do word searches through all of those online.
“This is not science. This is advocacy. How can I make the words smaller and the concepts simpler so you are capable of grasping this?”
It's not the size of the words but the condescension that counts.
“As far as the Developing World, my point stands. You punted. Complete failure. Coal is available today, and there are NO credible alternatives NOW, or for the foreseeable future.”
LOL…you're so dramatic. Sorry I can't whip up cold fusion or a harness anti-matter or something for you. No one is saying we have to shut off the lights and live in darkness until a new discover is made. But, for it to EVER HAPPEN…it's going to take a serious effort by our society…not just the coal companies making commercials with dancing CG animals. You just seem pissed that anyone would dare want for an alternative.
“What YOU want to do is make decisions for other people that they would not make if given a choice. That makes you are first rate moral cretin.”
LOL…like what?