Archives for July 20, 2005

I have been asked the following question from a reader of this web-log:

What is the evidence for the medieval warm period?
My understanding is that the Vikings were able to settle Greenland and grow grapes in Canada over several hundreds of years because the climate was significantly warmer. Yet this period is not evident in the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph.

End of question.

I don’t like bullies – so I don’t like the environment establishment much anymore.

My first real experience of being at the wrong end of their big stick was when I worked for the Queensland sugar industry and WWF launched its “save the reef campaign”.

The newly launched campaign against Exxon Mobil in the US because of the company’s position on global warming shows a high level of intolerant to different perspectives and the environment movement’s propensity for intimidation and bullying.

According to the New York Times,

A coalition of environmental and liberal lobbying groups is planning a boycott of Exxon Mobil products to protest the company’s challenges to warnings about global warming.

And boycott a company because you think it should be a better environmental steward,

Carl Pope, the Sierra Club’s executive director, said the goal was either to get Exxon Mobil to change or “to encourage other oil companies” to improve their environmental stewardship. The company was chosen, organizers said, because its record is worse than its competitors.

And boycott a company because you don’t like who they fund,

The company has also supported groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, whose work has challenged some generally accepted scientific models that predict the speed of climate change and the severity of its consequences.

This is the campaign site http://www.exxposeexxon.com.