Teflon on the local far right

When checking Nevada County Voices I don't usually pay a visit to the far right, since I'd rather read people I can learn something from; but tonight I looked, and a post by contrarian Russ Steele caught my eye, & attracted me enough to try to leave a comment:

"Could you be wrong?"

Five minutes later, it had been deleted; which was also the fate of my 2nd attempt.

Cutting through the climate messaging fog - Nov 2010 Nevada City Advocate column

A comment from Jon Shilling made me realize it's worth reprinting this column - which appeared in the October November 2010 issue of the Nevada City Advocate - on how to know what to think about climate change, when you hear Russ Steele saying one thing about climate, Al Stahler saying another, and Anna Haynes saying something else entirely. I need to incorporate (more) links in it though, to make it more useful.

Judith Curry on our own Russ Steele: not a climate skeptic

It was Dr. Curry in haste, perhaps, but all the same, it does not evince an awareness of the glaringly obvious. Her words (reprinted here):

"Re the “Hockey Stick Illusion,” here are some blogospheric reviews, not from identified “skeptics” (as far as i can tell):
Seth’s Blog
Klimazweibel
NC Media Watch
Facts Plus Logic
Discovery News"

KNCO quotes Steele on Prop 23, credulously

Next day update: KNCO's Rita Stevens told me that they are planning on running an opposing view, from APPLE's Tom Grundy. Thank you Rita, and KNCO.

Here's the SESF blurb, by Rita Stevens.
("S-E-S-F Executive Director Russell Steele says the [SESF] study took a scientific approach....")

um, right.

Ms. Stevens, may I recommend that you talk to Paul Emery...or better yet, Steve Frisch of the Sierra Business Council; Dr. Rebane and Mr. Steele - and CABPRO, parent of SESF - are in a spot of credibility trouble.

And if you have children, please take a look at this infographic (based on peer reviewed research) and consider what contribution you, as a member of the press, are making to their future.

Contest - Steele's "What do you know about global warming?" quiz post

Local contrarian Russ Steele has a blog post up plugging a "What do you know about global warming?" quiz.

I went through the first few questions, and there's a hole in its logic that you can drive a Prius through.

Can you spot it? First person to do so gets a free coffee (from me) at Java John's.

(to make this one easy, here's a hint)

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?

Closed mouths, thin skins at CABPRO

I have questions about Nevada County's antiregulation lobbying group CABPRO; I haven't been able to get answers via phone to the CABPRO office, via phone to executive director Martin Light, or via phone to founder Kim Janousek.

So I left a comment over on Russ Steele's Aug 10 post on the CABPRO blog:

Russ, how do I get in touch with someone from CABPRO, please?

Posted by: Anna Haynes August 12, 2010 at 12:24 PM

It didn't survive moderation.

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."

My comment that local contrarian Russ Steele is deleting from his blog

2012-01-09 update - post removed because it stooped to ad hom personality issues.  My apologies.

A question for Anthony Watts, but no help yet in getting it answered

I'd like to add Chico-based climate inactivist Anthony Watts's academic background to his SourceWatch and Wikipedia pages, but Watts was unwilling to provide this information. So I left a comment over at Russ Steele's blog, noting that his blog displayed Watts's "World Climate Widget" and asking if he could help get this information; but my comment was deemed off topic and deleted, and Russ said in email that he does not know and is not willing to help find out.

So, if anyone knows when and where Anthony Watts got his academic training in climate science and/or meteorology, could you please share this information?