Fielding staring at the sun for too long

My reaction to the news of Senator Stephen Fielding coming back from attending an AGW denier's conference hosted by the Heartland Institute, is that he seeks to betray the path of ETS legislation for thirty pieces of Big Fossil-Fuel silver. My evidence? Simply that Fielding is replaying their great canard, 'It's the sun, stupid'.

Professor Barry Brook's reaction is to patiently explain why the peer-review science says Fielding is wrong. He sets out thus:

‘Solar variability does not explain late-20th-century warming’, says the title of a short paper published earlier this year by Philip Duffy, Ben Santer and Tom Wigley in Physics Today. The reason I bring up the topic of the sun and climate now is that an Australian Senator, Stephen Fielding of the Family First party, has recently been concerned that the solar variability could be a cause of recent warming, as the vote for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme comes before the Upper House. Apparently, he got this information from the American Heartland Institute. Well, let me put the good Senator’s concerns to rest.

He puts mine to rest... read it... leaving only concerns about Fielding himself.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Pay the deniers, call the tune

frankbi of the International Journal of Inactivism is onto something:

So, what prompted me to write the above long-winded complaint was a page on the Heartland Institute’s web site, on how people can sponsor their upcoming climate inactivist conference. It’s the kind of jaw-dropping thing that made me think, “Oy, why am I the one writing about this?...

I blogged about their program, earlier. But, with none of the intrepid reportage of citizen frankbi:

Yep, you read that right. First, sponsors will have a hand in deciding what the topics of the conference will be. I must say — my friends — this is totally above and beyond what actual serious scientific conferences do! (My experience is that the conference organizers will just give them some booth space to tout their stuff and recruit folks, and perhaps a time slot for them to talk about their fine work.)

Second, note that there’s no fee for sponsorship — yes, no fee — but “sponsors” are asked to spread the word about the conference and to get people to attend. That is, Heartland is looking for sponsorship not in the form of money, but in the form of noise. The more noise, the merrier.

And… one other thing: According to the registration information for the conference, there’s a 20% registration fee discount for signers of the “Oregon Petition”. I still can’t tell what Heartland’s trying to achieve with this move.

They can use their Frequent Denier's point.

 Global Warning Climate Change Energy