Rebane dances around CABPRO's legal status

Here.
The comments on that post by Enos, Frisch and Pelline do make the point - which isn't answered.

Rebane in short: CABPRO is a private corporation, and only its members know for sure whether it's a nonprofit or not. He says this even though CABPRO executive director Martin Light and attorney Barry Pruett have said it's a 501(c)(4); and apparently he thinks it's none of our business, whether Pruett and Light have misled us - or, somehow, been misled themselves.

From Pelline:

CABPRO's newsletter states:
"While CABPRO is a not-for-profit organization, we have deliberately declined the 501c3 status for two reasons."

So Barry Pruett said the group is 501c4 nonprofit, George said it is a "private California corporation," and the newsletter said it is a "not-for-profit" corporation.
Which is it? (link)

George Rebane responds:

JeffP - You unfortunately reason as if those descriptors are somehow mutually contradictory. (link)

Well, if they're not contradictory, it's a 501(c)(4), in which case either they'll be showing their paperwork very soon, else the IRS will come 'a'knockin'.

I wonder what the consequences are, for misrepresenting one's organization?

(It could be that CABPRO _is_ a 501(c)(4), but the secretiveness of those involved - failing to return phone calls or email, deleting comments from multiple parties asking for verification, dancing around the "is it or isn't it" question, inviting the SBC's Steve Frisch to "drop by" when the office is always closed, etc - doesn't indicate candor or trustworthiness.)
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Also, KVMR news director Paul Emery comments to Rebane re last month's KVMR Steve Frisch-George Rebane Prop 23 debate:
"George...you completely disregarded the protocol that I established for the show. Hopefully it was your inexperience in media forums that led you to disregard my instructions. " (link)

KVMR climate commentary response to George Rebane

Last Friday KVMR ran a commentary from Dr. Rebane that described&named "camps" who hold various climate views, extolled Bjorn Lomborg, and argued for a Yes vote on Prop 23; and since I'd been told I could reply if Rebane started using his commentary for climate contrarianism, I was invited to respond to that one. My response airs tonight on KVMR's 6pm news.
(As I've said elsewhere, I'm uncomfortable being put in the position of advocating a particular vote - I'm a flashlight-wielder, not an arm-twister or persuader - so after countering Rebane's climate-delay talking points, for the "Prop 23" part I just cribbed from the recent NYTimes editorial.)

Here's the text , with references.

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Last Friday, KVMR ran a commentary by retired engineer George Rebane, who cited author Bjorn Lomborg in arguing for Prop 23, the out-of-state-oil-funded initiative to roll back California's global warming law.

I thought about what to tell you in response. Should I point out it's a red flag when someone doesn't accept climate science and uses the term "true believers" to describe those who do? - including the 29 out of 30 active climate scientists who agree there's a consensus of evidence that global warming is happening and largely human-caused. (The small group of doubters has demonstrably lower expertise. )

Or perhaps I should note that Bjorn Lomborg, the fellow Rebane touted, has no expertise in climate science or environmental economics, his background's in poli sci and game theory. And while he's written several books that are loaded with footnotes and references, a review of the references found they're a sham, they don't support his claims.

Or I could share some pointers on judging who to trust - like, when there are two sides on an issue, if one side has the recycled tobacco PR flacks & the other has pretty much every major scientific organization on the planet, to treat the two sides equally is...unwise.

Or I could point out that Rebane's "there's no proof" argument' is a red herring - science deals in probabilities, not proof - by the time there's proof it'll be too late. If a mom sits back and lets her son play in traffic since there's no *proof* he'll get run over, we call it reckless endangerment.

Or I could share my prediction that the climate delay effort will turn out to be the most pervasive, effective and destructive commercial PR disinformation effort that the world has ever known. The fossil fuels industry is just as threatened as tobacco was; and we *know* what the tobacco folks were doing behind the scenes to confuse the public. This industry's 10 times bigger; you do the math.
(In his Prop 23 [KVMR] debate with Steve Frisch, in the context of climate science Rebane mentioned a scientist who'd lost his position at UCLA - but neglected to say that the guy's a tobacco researcher.)

No, what I should do for you is share some points from the Prop. 23 editorial in Monday's[?] New York Times; it's called The Brothers Koch and AB 32:
Note: I cut out a lot, & did a lot of paraphrasing for brevity/clarity; the link above goes to the original.

"Four years ago, bipartisan majorities in the California Legislature approved a landmark clean energy bill. Now a coalition of right-wing ideologues, out-of-state oil & gas companies & climate-change skeptics is seeking to effectively kill it.

The money men include Charles and David Koch, the Kansas oil and gas billionaires who have played a prominent role in financing the Tea Party movement.

The law they want to kill, AB32, aims to reduce] California’s emissions of co2 and other greenhouse gases. The prospect that it could reduce gas sales strikes terror into some energy companies. Much of the $8.2 million raised to stop the law came from just two Texas-based oil and gas companies, Valero and Tesoro. The Koch brothers gave another million, partly because they worry about damage to the Koch Industries bottom line, and also because they think climate change is a left-wing hoax.

Since the law was passed, there's been an enormous increase in investments in clean energy technologies — and the jobs that go with them. Overturning it would threaten that and the effort to fight climate change, since State and regional efforts are crucially important drivers — if California pulls back, other states that are trying to reduce emissions may do so as well.

The Kochs and their allies are disastrously wrong about the science... and wrong about the economics. So AB 32’s many friends — led by Schwarzenegger and another respected Republican, Nixon and Reagan cabinet member George Shultz — have mounted a spirited counterattack to defend the law, which Shultz credits for an unprecedented outburst of technological creativity and investment.

Who wins if Prop 23 passes and our global warming law is repudiated? The Koch brothers, maybe, but the biggest winners will be the Chinese, who are already moving briskly ahead in the clean tech race. And the losers? The people of California, surely. But the biggest loser will be the planet. "

Nobel economist Paul Krugman's New York Times piece Building a Green Economy is a great intro to environmental economics and climate policy.
He sums it up saying,

"We know how to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. We have a good sense of the costs — and they’re manageable. All we need now is the political will. "

Thank you.

This week: Prop. 23 - Kochs give, KVMR/Frisch/Rebane; and McKibben

Prop 23 (essentially, "Paralyze California's Global Warming Solutions Act") news:

The Kansas-based Kochs have now weighed in, as it were, with a hefty million-dollar "Yes on 23" contribution from a Koch Industries subsidiary, Flint Hills Resources. Campaign finance data here.

KVMR hosted a Prop. 23 "discussion, not a debate" with Steve Frisch and George Rebane on Wed. eve; see Jeff Pelline's "before" and "after" posts for details and discussion.
No transcript available, but you can listen to the audio recording.

Acolytes of the Church of Monckton, Nevada County Chapter

Outspoken British public speaker Christopher Monckton is a world-famous colorful character who holds - and holds forth on - eccentric climate and medical science views despite no apparent formal education in either field.

Recently (Utah, Republican, Mormon, science-aligned) BYU geochemistry professor Barry Bickmore, who's been maintaining Lord Monckton’s Rap Sheet to document Monckton's rather wild views and actions, has started a companion page - The Church of Monckton - to document which institutions and national figures appear to consider Monckton a credible source nonetheless.
(This is in anticipation of future furious backtracking.)

"Lord Monckton is a living symbol of the fact that many climate change contrarians will believe anything that seems to support their case, even if it’s coming from a ridiculous crackpot."

By and large, Nevada County folk aren't national figures & so aren't eligible for inclusion on Bickmore's compendium, so this NCFocus post is for listing acolytes of our own local "Church of Monckton" chapter.

Members include two from the Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation board:

• Russ Steele
  ("When a wiser man than thee speaks, one should listen" (link) - "Viscount Monckton of Brenchley does a superb science based review...finds Obama misinformed on the science...")
• and George Rebane
  ("Lord Christopher Monckton gave a recent talk...in which he warns Americans about the loss of our sovereignty. The leftwing promoters of our socialist future simply ignore all this..."(link)).

Do we have any other local Monckton admirers?

True purpose of TechTest from the Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation?

Updates: Apr 4, see response by SESF's Rebane here; March 30, minor updates(*) and edits for clarity; also see "Misc Facts about SESF/TechTest", a response by SESF's McDaniel (link).

For reference: my original posts on SESF from June 2006, from shortly after its resurrection; noting its odd origin and classification, and asking about its funding.

What's the real motivation - and funding - behind the TechTest college scholarships offered by the local climate-denial group Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation (site)?

The nonprofit SESF (its 501(c)(3) status restored; here's its blog) is a local outfit interwined with the local pro-property-rights, anti-regulation group CABPRO (blog).
SESF's principals include local retired engineers/ climate contrarians/ bloggers/ The Union columnists Russ Steele (blog) and George Rebane (blog). (Rebane has also recently been given a "commentator" spot on KVMR news (alas, not I*) ).

SESF generously sponsors an annual science-and-engineering TechTest for high school seniors - it's being given this very morning, in fact - and grants the highest scorers a total of up to 15k in college scholarships.

The grueling test (pretty much all physics and engineering) is preceded by two "how to work these problems" workshops by George Rebane, and succeeded by a "Survivor's Breakfast" with SESF principals and, last year, with Tom McClintock staffer Kim Pruett.

Students there today told me that last year's high score was 37%, and that the test was "crazy" - as in, very, very hard. Its difficulty is deliberate, "designed to let the eagles soar", according to Dr. Rebane (link).

The SESF intended further interaction with the students through mentoring (link)(*):

"For the coming term, in addition to TechTest2008, we are also setting up a new tutoring/mentoring program as a teacher resource for their science and math students. SESF has a growing list of volunteers who will be paired with students for augmentation and advanced study assignments. We are currently soliciting more volunteers with technology backgrounds who are willing to work with the county's young people."

The TechTest and scholarships get credulous local coverage.
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You might ask why climate deniers are pouring such energy into science and technology education - when they do, after all, part ways so decisively from the existing consensus (infographics here) on climate change.

And you might ask where the money is coming from, for the scholarships or other aspects of the organization. Their IRS (nonprofit) Form 990 is no help, since with less than 25k income, they've never filed one.
The principals have said they are all volunteers, they're not being paid for their efforts.

I asked SESF's Director of Public Relations, financial advisor Mike McDaniel, about the scholarship funding. It's not a secret, he assured me; just local (*) people who cared about science and technology and educating our young people; I asked if I could know their identities, and he said he'd check.

The outcome: of the half dozen or so substantial ($500 or over) donors, McDaniel said he'd gone to pretty much all of them asking if they minded having their names known, and of all these donors, the only ones willing to be identified (*) were himself and Telestream (although, he said, clearly they were giving "for different reasons"). And he did say that two couples who donated were not local.

So, largely unknown donors.

What gets discussed at the breakfast? Russ reports:

"[Discussion of the weather] soon lead to a discussion [of] long term climate change and the impact of sunspots have on our climate. The discussion gave me an opportunity to introduce a those sitting nearby to my Dalton Minimum Returns blog, and the paper I wrote for SESF on Cooler Temps - Dalton Minimum Returns"

(I also seem to recall Russ saying he quizzed the students on what they were being taught about climate science in school, and [he] was disturbed that there was no requirement to present the "other" (read, not the consensus) side; but a quick google isn't bringing it up.)

Add all of this to the unwillingness of Russ to say that he and family aren't receiving direct-or-indirect compensation for his climate efforts, and the unwillingness of CABPRO executive director Martin Light (blog) to say what firm's name is on the 1099 or W-2 form the Executive Director receives, and, well, it's intriguing.

[2012-02-04 update: I've extensively edited the "in a nutshell" text below, removing allegations of intent - replacing "designed to" with "has the effect of", etc.]

So - in a nutshell, TechTest ends up advancing fossil fuel interests, as follows:

The TechTest lets SESF cozy up to the young sci/tech elite, the smartest - but still-impressionable - young people in Nevada County. Its extreme difficulty, like Dr. Rebane's often-difficult prose, doesn't so much "let the eagles soar" (actually, the eagles looked pretty darn cowed) as send a message of intellectual dominance, that someone designing a test that we-the-takers can't succeed at, or writing text that we-the-readers can't easily follow, must be smarter than us and better informed.

And the breakfast capitallizes on the influence that such an impression provides - the breakfasters will feel that if such smart people believe human-caused climate change is bogus, then this view has credence.

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(Recommended resource for Tech-Test-takers: SkepticalScience.com, for exposing misinformation )

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 "We will be judged by those who come after us, both by what we did do and what we didn't do, in the time given to us."

Exchange with George Rebane

(edited*)
I've had an exchange with local contrarian George Rebane this past week, that I found illuminating - he turns out to be one of those fellows who holds a contrarian view (that "it's the sun [that's been causing the observed global warming]") (which is false - Ed.), and leads you to believe that he's holding it for scholarly reasons, but when you ask what evidence he's basing it on, that he finds most persuasive, unilaterally decides there's no point in pursuing the dialogue.

Here's where it started (I asked what science info sources he relied on, and what sources he'd recommend to others); then it played out on his blog (where it started out nebulous and "like soft snow", but clarified as the exchange progressed.)

He has grandchildren.