back to article Google grand fromage Eric Schmidt: Backing climate denier lobby a 'mistake'

Google has become the latest tech giant to wonder if backing the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is such a good idea. Last month, Microsoft withdrew its support for the group, saying it was no longer participating in the organisation's Communications and Technology Task Force. Google is another high-profile …

  1. MondoMan
    Unhappy

    A tabloid, yes, but still a shameful title

    Using the term "denier" instead of any of a variety of equally pejorative terms just cheapens the Holocaust.

    (I realize RC likely had no role in this poor choice of words)

    1. Ole Juul

      Re: A tabloid, yes, but still a shameful title

      How you get from denier to Holocaust is beyond me, unless you're talking about global warming in terms of "burnt offering", which is a bit of a stretch. FYI, climate change denial is pretty standard vocabulary these days. In fact, I'm pretty sure the ALEC is used to the reference.

      1. Hans 1

        Re: A tabloid, yes, but still a shameful title

        @Ole Juul

        It is good to link a wikipedia article, next time, you could read it:

        "Several commentators, including Goodman, have also compared climate change denial with Holocaust denial"

        There you go.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Thought About IT
      FAIL

      Nice try

      According to the OED, a denier is "one who denies" something. They cite a few examples of its usage, the first dating from c1475, none of which mention the Holocaust. Of course, AGW deniers have tried strenuously to make that association, in an attempt to discredit the use of such an apposite term against them. Well, if the cap fits ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you

        "AGW deniers have tried strenuously to make that association, in an attempt to discredit the use of such an apposite term against them. Well, if the cap fits ..."

        From the point of view of someone who has been accused of being an "AGW denier" just because they disagreed with some evidence put forward, I can tell you that it was used in the context of the Holocaust.

        No ambiguity was involved.

        It was clearly spelled out.

        You don't forget that kind of thing.

        The choice of the word "denier" was very deliberate.

        1. Thought About IT

          Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you

          "From the point of view of someone who has been accused of being an "AGW denier" ..."

          The plural of anecdote is not data, but AGW deniers are not fond of data.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you @Thought About IT

            It appears that you have it arse about face, it is the AGW supporters that have no hard data - they rely on computer generated models that deviate so far from actual real world measurements that border on the 'think of a number' type of data usage, it is pathetic. Whereas, on the other hand the AGW opponents use the real world data to show that the AGW supporters are acting just like religious adherents.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: computer generated models

              There might be computer generated models out there, but I'd expect that most will be generated by people who merely run them on computers to analyse the outputs :-)

              On the subject of computer climate models, here's an arxiv paper discussing some. Might be an interesting read.

              Stochastic Climate Theory and Modelling

              Franzke et al

              http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.0423

            2. Rik Myslewski

              Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you @Thought About IT

              Here's an actual comprehensive data set that you might find some interest.

              Two other points:

              1. According to the Centre on the Epidemiology of Disasters, over the course of the 1970s, there were 660 recorded weather/climate/whateveryouwanttocallit-related disasters recorded around the world, including droughts, floods, extreme temperature events, wildfires, and storms. In the 2000's, there were 3,322. A completely randomized, unforced increase? If you think so, I ain't going to Vegas with you, baby…

              2. That noted statistician and foreign-policy disaster, Dick Cheney, once said that "even if there is only a 1% chance of terrorists getting weapons of mass destruction, we must act as if it is a certainty." Even climate skeptics/deniers/whatever admit that the majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is real, human-caused, and a reason to take strong action – and yet they demand absolute certainty from the science before taking any effective action. Seeing as how a substantial portion of the right wing still lionizes Cheney, what's wrong with this picture?

              1. Rik Myslewski

                Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you @Thought About IT

                Love the "thumbs down" without a shred of rebuttal...

                Ah, well — shoulda known...

              2. codejunky Silver badge

                Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you @Thought About IT

                @ Rik Myslewski

                1. 70's and 2000's, sounds like an accurate and of course complete set of data which can be analysed and viewed through a scientific and analytical perspective instead of just 2 cherry picked decades (?) to make a point equivalent to a religious argument. I am of course being extremely sarcastic and hugely amused but if you think thats god then I will leave you with your beliefs. Just dont expect me to put money in your collection plate for your next monument to the sky god.

                2. Interesting choice of example. Middle east uprising, Russian bear kicking off and of course 'traitors'/'heroes' all due to an overreaction that has achieved little apart from causing more problems that evidence and reasoning concludes would have been if a more measured approach had been taken. I think your choice of example is perfectly relevant but not quite making the point you expected it too.

                You make a point about absolute certainty and effective action. Lets balance that. First we have no idea of the outcome because the possible end result is nothing to *made up figure to be discredited*. We know the range is that because so far it is either natural or we have an amount of effect but we obviously dont know how much effect and in what direction. So you want to take effective action against nothing up to what is probably another made up figure but possibly an actual factual maximum if we actually know yet.

                So what is effective action? Solutions so far are expensive, politically motivated and do nothing to solve the proposed problem used to justify them. Still wonder why I am sceptical? And of course sceptical is not denier unless you mean deny the absolute belief of a cult. I am willing to wait for the science to know something before spending money economies obviously dont have on projects that dont even try to solve a problem at the expense of reliable energy for all. If that is effective action then you must believe in the apocalypse version of the belief. And somehow you discount the science of discovering the fact instead of making up a conclusion. And you obviously discount the science to mitigate potential problems (assuming we have problems, assuming they are the problems your expecting).

                1. Munix

                  Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you @Thought About IT

                  These comments are the same ones from decades ago.

                  It IS agreed that humans are causing issues with the climate buy burning fossil fuels causing the

                  release of co2 that has been stored over 100,000s of years in under 150 years.

                  Well I suppose you can't fix stupid.

              3. MondoMan

                Re: Rik's request for rebuttal

                Rik, you claim " Even climate skeptics/deniers/whatever admit that the majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is real, human-caused, and a reason to take strong action – and yet they demand absolute certainty from the science before taking any effective action."

                However, your premises are flawed. Here's one example: the IPCC AR5 uses climate expert judgment to conclude that "Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5°C to 4.5°C (high confidence),..." The ECS value is roughly the expected increase in global surface temps once we have doubled the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 level, likely sometime in the the 22nd century. We are already about 40% of the way to this doubling, and so have already experienced some human-caused warming. The IPCC experts are highly confident that additional warming over the next 100-150 years will be roughly 0.6C (ECS at 1.5C) or 1.8C(ECS at 4.5C), or somewhere in between.

                You claim that's a "reason to take strong action". I agree that if the ECS is 4.5C, then having roughly 2C extra warming over the next 100-150 years is reason to take substantial action. However, if the ECS is 1.5C, and we can expect 0.6C of extra warming over the next 100-150 years, we likely won't notice anything amiss. So that's reason *not* to take substantial action.

                Thus, the IPCC AR5 itself gives such a broad range of "likely" outcomes, from essentially nothing noticeable to substantial effects, that it's useless for making policy decisions. Skeptics such as myself aren't asking for absolute certainty -- we're asking for the range of substantiated predictions to be narrowed from the current unhelpful "zero to big" range. If climate science had its act together, it would have focused its funding and research effort to narrow down key policy-relevant values such as the ECS. As it is, the likely ECS range doesn't seem to have been narrowed much in the past 30 years(!) and there seems to be a growing divergence between ECS values calculated from real-world observations and those inferred from GCM models.

                1. Rik Myslewski

                  Re: Rik's request for rebuttal

                  Well, "zero to big" is a bit of an understatement — how about "annoying as hell" to "catastrophic"? But your point is well taken; there still is a lot of wiggle room in the figures in AR5, although the improvements in resolution and the robustness of the latest coupled climate models are a great improvement over AR4.

                  The question, though – and I assume you'll agree with this – is not a matter of certainty, but rather a matter of the amount of risk involved. Suppose, for example, that the ECS turns out to be smack dab in the middle of the range at 3°C? That's not an unreasonable projection, I'd say. Is that a risk you're willing to take?

                  In addition, as you likely already also know, there's been a lot of good economic work done recently about managing a relatively graceful and non-disruptive transition from carbon-based fuels to other energy sources – sadly, none of those studies are at the top of my mind right now, but a bit of Googling should show you what I mean.

                  From where I sit, the risk is well-understood enough to get that transition underway posthaste, seeing as how it appears possible to do so in a manner that can be beneficial, not detrimental, to the world's economy and population.

                  If we wait too long, and the warming turns out to be at the high range of the AR5 ECS analysis — or, heaven forfend, significantly above it (skeptics always tell us "alarmists" not to trust those pesky climate models, y'know) — we'll be forced into an all-hands-on-deck "we've got to turn this sucker around immediately" level of economic disruption, with no guarantee of success.

                  Not worth the risk, IMHO — especially as, as I noted in my original post, there already appears to be a rising level of climate disruption currently underway, statistically at least.

                  1. MondoMan

                    Re: Rik's request for rebuttal

                    Thanks for your (IHMO!) better-reasoned response, Rik. You make some good points.

                    Perhaps our biggest difference is in the sense of urgency necessary, for example in making the energy-source transition that you mention. I look at the IPCC literature review and see "maybe something bad will happen, maybe it won't, but either way significant bad stuff won't happen until the end of the century or later". I also look at the current state of the health and lifestyle of the world's population (not just the developed world) and see that cutting their access to cheap energy will lead to substantial mortality and morbidity among people *alive today*. That is, switching to more expensive energy today in poorly- to partially-developed countries (including China, India, etc) will lead to more illness and death today.

                    Given that, I'd rather help the people alive today and invest in more research to (a) figure out how current trends in emissions will affect the world 4 generations from now, within a factor of 2, and to (b) figure out how to provide the developing world with lower-carbon-emitting energy as cheap as gas and coal.

                    As a relevant side note, my informed guess at "waiting too long" is in the 50-75 year range; presumably yours is closer to 5-10 years?

                    Also, regarding "climate disruption" currently being underway (presumably you are referring to hurricane counts, droughts, and other damaging conditions), check out the IPCC AR5. IIRC, there's yet no scientific evidence that such are increasing in number or intensity. Certainly, for e.g. waterfront damage the dollar values have been rising over recent decades, but that's due to more and more-expensive things being built close to the water, not to more frequent or intense weather conditions.

          2. codejunky Silver badge

            Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you

            @ Thought About IT

            'The plural of anecdote is not data, but AGW deniers are not fond of data.'

            Even if you believe in MMCC AGW or whatever random alphabet arrangement you are fond of you should probably be careful about your use of the word 'data'. Obviously data is for supporting your theories but snide comments about data only highlights the many harmful misuses of data which is the reason for such distrust in the (loosely termed) science.

            One of the most harmful things to happen to the reputation of scientist (apart from admitting quacks) is the climate change debate. Not because scientists wont try to find answers but because of the political layers sitting between the factual results and the people. Those political layers are for example responsible for the climategate email amusement, drawing hockey sticks that couldnt be reproduced, fudging data to such extremes that even the extremists disown it and of course the amusing prophesies which turned out to be off the cuff comments from random scientists who wouldnt stand by such claims.

            There are 2 crazy cults in this debate- the absolute believers and the absolute non-believers. However everyone else in the middle get attacked by only the believers. That has nothing to do with science no matter how much data is made up.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you

            Indeed, so not fond of data are they that they make it up as they go along, as a certain court case involving Michael Mann, the chief of AGW deniers shows.

            In total denial of actual data, and in love with his own ego and a scientific theory that's been totally refuted beyond all reasonable doubt, by the actual evidence.

          4. Trigonoceps occipitalis

            Re: Crap rebuttal, as you would know if it had happened to you

            And some AGW supporters are not fond of correct data.

      2. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Science is self-correcting

        Science is self-correcting. This implies that, at any point in time, some of the generally accepted, peer reviewed, journal published, 'obviously correct' science is actually wrong and awaiting correction. The entire self-correction scheme breaks down (and becomes no better than religion) if everyone goes around telling the skeptics to "STFU" all the time. It doesn't mean that you let the skeptics impeded progress. But you don't *ever* tell them to shut up. People screaming "denier" all the time are no better than the Spanish Inquisition (<- hint, that's religion, not science).

        Contender for QotW follows: Me thinks that the environMentals are simply bad managers of efficient and correctly-prioritized change; so they spend all day blaming the 'skeptics' for the slow progress. In fact, it's their own hair-dresser skill set that's the real impediment to quick, efficient and less painful progress.

        Find a skeptical thinker, tell him that no matter his beliefs, you'll pay him $500k/year, with bonuses for performance, to manage change leading to actual reduced CO2 emissions. He'll probably come back with a simple suggestion for the governments to slowly and very carefully buy-up coal mines and slowly shut them down, and simply don't issue permits for new ones. Coal prices will slowly rise to unacceptable, gently forcing change. Then he'll go for lunch, having come up with a simple policy on the morning of Day 1 that'll make a vast difference over 15 years, a zillion times more efficiently and effectively than all the hair-brained schemes emitted by the granola bar munching, hair-dresser skill set, environMentals in the world.

      3. MondoMan

        Re: the OED and dictionary sophistry

        Your argument that not everyone who uses the 'denier' epithet for their political opponents means to evoke Holocaust denial is true, but it also applies to use of the n-word (which also has a dictionary definition that seems quite innocuous).

        My point is simply that educated audiences associate Holocaust denial with the word "denier", as they associate racist insult with the n-word. Those who respect the Holocaust (or abhor racism) will make the small effort to select an alternate epithet rather than using "denier" or the n-word.

        Examples abound of climate policy activists using the "denier" term and explicitly acknowledging and welcoming its association with Holocaust denial. If you're interested, I can provide examples. Suggestions for alternate epithets are also available upon request. :)

    4. N13L5

      Blaming Climate change on CO2 is just to justify chemtrails and charge for breathing in the future

      Suppose Eric Schmidt came into contact with the real powers and was given a choice.

      Human emission of CO2 amounts to what, 2 or 3% of total CO2, which is needed for life to exist.

      I think its an excuse for chem-trails for the U.S. military's project to weaponize the atmosphere.

      And it'll help corporations start to eventually charge us for the air we breathe.

      They already brazenly call water a "product"

    5. FreemonSandlewould

      Re: A tabloid, yes, but still a shameful title

      Glo-bull warming is a scam and not science. We all know it.

      The Ruling Class Oligarchy keeps trying to sell it though!

  2. big_D Silver badge

    Irrelevant

    To me, it is irrelevant, whether man is solely responsible for climate change, or whether we are just a (small) contributor to climate change.

    We live on a planet with very complex and fragile ecosystem and that ecosystem is constantly changing, so climate change is inevitable. The question is, do we ignore it and possibly accelerate the process through industrial excess or do we do our best to minimize our affect, whilst trying to find ways to stabalize or neutralize the natural effects?

    1. Hans 1
      Thumb Up

      Re: Irrelevant

      @big_D

      Exactly, got my upvote because I know you will get a gazillion downvotes on the grounds of heresy over here.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Irrelevant

      And how do you propose we minimise our 'affect', whatever that is?

      covering 3/4 of the planet land surface with solar panels an blocking sunlight from plants?

      Why dont the greens just all top themselves. The world would instantly be a better place.

      We have to modify the biosphere just to stay alive. Never mind the trivial amounts of plant food we generate.

      If you want to wander the Kalahari desert in nothing but a aper an loincloth, be my guest.

      Just dont demand its me that does it while you sit there with your I-bling commenting on how awful everyone else is except you.

    3. The Axe
      Flame

      Re: Irrelevant

      We live on a planet with a complex and robust ecosystem. The planet changed many times over the millennia from hot periods to cold periods and back. Man wasn't involved in those periods and yet the planet survived and flourished.

      The problem is the complexity, and the models from all the climate scientists keep failing to cover the complexity. They seem to think its simple and that CO2 has warmed the earth and that a very tiny change in CO2 will lead to positive feedbacks leading to a boiling hot temperature. Bit of exaggeration there but you get the point. They don't take into account any negative feedbacks that might exist and that might stop temperatures from running out of control. The fact that the global temperature has flat lined for over 17 years shows that they haven't taken that into account in their models. Even if they come up with the excuse that the heat has disappeared into the oceans it highlights that they were wrong in the past. So all those bad news stories about the sky is falling based on those original theories are bunkum and the current ones aren't going to be much better.

      So what do we do? Do we mitigate like the greenies want us to do and throw away all the progress over the last few hundred years and get rid of all forms of efficient energy and go back to the dark ages or do we adapt just like humanity has adapted to live in climates from 0C to 50C? Looking at how much western nations are spending on mitigation and nothing much is happening to the global climate because China and India and other countries keep on using coal and churning out CO2 it seems that greenies are in the wrong.

      I believe that climate change is happening, I deny that it's all due to man, and I want us to carry on using our sources of energy to progress to a better more efficient world where we spend money on the actual problems not perceived ones based on a crap precautionary principle. A change in climate will produce some good as well as some bad. Greenies think its all bad, but it just means everything changes, some positive some negative.

      1. Tom 13

        Re: keep failing to cover the complexity.

        You should have stopped at just failed. This is what the real deniers in the debate are unwilling to accept: their models have failed. From the theory standpoint, it doesn't matter WHY they failed, only that they have failed and their theory is therefore WRONG. Now, they may have a personal interest in finding why it failed, correcting their model, and testing it again; but until they have a model that actually accurately predicts the future, they are the ones who should STFU.

      2. strum

        Re: Irrelevant

        >They don't take into account any negative feedbacks that might exist

        What utter garbage. Have you actually read any of the IPCC reports? They're full of consideration of possible feedbacks (negative & positive), alternative scenarios, ranges of probability.

        They've done the work. The deniers haven't.

        1. The Axe

          Re: Irrelevant

          @strum, so why are the IPCC reports so wrong with their guestimates of what the global temperature should be. They might have done a lot of work, but their results aren't that good.

          http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/23/its-time-to-stop-the-climate-scare-stories/

      3. Fluffy Bunny
        Angel

        Re: Irrelevant

        "The problem is the complexity, and the models from all the climate scientists keep failing to cover the complexity."

        A big problem with modelling, which was discovered in the early days of computing, was that the more complex your model, the more accurately it modelled the real world. Not a problem on the face of it, except that when you model a complex real-world problem like an economy, or climate, it stops making simple, easily interpreted prediction and starts producing what looks like random noise.

        This would be true also of the climate models our "scientists"* have made, except that they seem to have "tuned"** their models to product the results they desire and only the results they desire. At $100B being put into climate "science" annually, this must mark the biggest fraud in all history. Ponzi was an amateur compared to these guys.

        *-I'll start calling them real scientists when they stop just measuring stuff and do real experiments - oh and running more unvalidated simulations doesn't count.

        **-pronounced as "fudged".

  3. Vociferous

    That huge march in the US had effect.

    I guess manifestations like that aren't completely useless after all, if they can convince megacorps to stop funding and supporting anti-scientific hogwash.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That huge march in the US had effect.

      Did anyone calculate the carbon footprint of all those that travelled to those marches in their SUVs, private jets and so on? Talk about hypocrites!!

    2. itzman

      Re: That huge march in the US had effect.

      The real question is what is the anti-scientific hogwash.

      Right now its 6:1on, on AGW.

      1. Vociferous

        Re: That huge march in the US had effect.

        The real question is what is the anti-scientific hogwash.

        No, there is no such question at all.

  4. i like crisps
    Alert

    How do you 'Carbon-Offset' a Volcano?

    Its not so much a science anymore, as a religion. Instead of facts its all about belief.

    As far as Google is concerned the 'END OF THE WORLD' Dollar is a good Dollar to go for.

    1. Grikath

      Re: How do you 'Carbon-Offset' a Volcano?

      I think it's more "customer-image friendly" they're worried about.

      Even though the whole AGW thing is still very much debatable scientifically, the Activists, Politicos, and Tabloïds have taken it to their sweet little larcenous hearts, and are creating a lot of hot air about it. Which is what Joe Average really encounters, since the Intarwebs and Media are not about who has the correct answer, but about who shouts loudest.

  5. RyokuMas
    Trollface

    Out with the old...

    Microsoft withdrew their support... now Google is thinking about it.

    Seems that Google is determined to become the new Microsoft!

  6. Marcus Aurelius
    Devil

    I'm a little puzzled

    Given Google is a high tech company which tries (not always successfully) not to be Evil, how did it support these guys in the first place? Similarly Microsoft.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm a little puzzled

      I suspect its because they have one or two people that understand computers and computer modelling.

      But marketing won.

    2. Thought About IT

      Re: I'm a little puzzled

      "Google’s chairman, Eric Schmidt, told National Public Radio that the company had joined Alec, a lobby group that shares model legislation, for a campaign on an unrelated issue." Source.

      This bears frequent repetition:

      “The facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone understands climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people — they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: I'm a little puzzled

        @ Thought About IT

        "The facts of climate change are not in question anymore"

        That statement has to be the most valuable and irrelevant statement which sums up the problem. The facts are facts, solid irrefutable and so fact. The problem with the climate debate is the abuse of the word fact and the assumption that the result of a collection of facts (without the required understanding) = the desired result.

        "Everyone understands climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it"

        This oxymoron is amusing but most people accept the climate changes. The problem most people seem to have is the conflating of it is changing with an absolute certainty of how without the knowledge to support that certainty. The lack of knowledge in climate is on display regularly but we are to accept the pre-defined expected result no matter how often it is adjusted and revised due to lack of knowledge. Back to the previous statement about facts- it is fact that we dont have enough knowledge to know why.

        "hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place"

        This is a fantastic rally to the hearts of believers to hold a moral superiority of saving souls while everyone else is a devil who wants to watch the world burn. Or in real terms it is bull. There are many ways of making the world a worse place, including taxing people to poverty, destroying land for monuments and causing shortage of electricity. So it is also true to say the pro-absolute certainty religion followers are and I quote- "hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place"

        I look forward to the time when politics gets out of the climate science and instead we have fact. Until then we have politics. A profession known for its adjustments of the truth, even to the point of outright lies.

    3. Vociferous

      Re: I'm a little puzzled

      how did it support these guys in the first place?

      A couple of years ago there was a debate about whether Google was liberal. The "do no evil" ethos suggested to conservatives that it was, and they started calling for legislation to limit the power of this new, liberal, powerhouse seducing the innocent children of America. In response, Google took up started donating money to conservative causes, among them anti-scientific causes such as climate change denial.

    4. Shannon Jacobs
      Holmes

      Re: I'm a little puzzled

      Microsoft is just pretending to be less EVIL than before, but the transition of the google to EVIL is quite saddening. Yes, you can say that most of the rules of the game predate the google, but they are now major players, and so is ALEC.

      The way the American system works now is that most businesspeople are fine and upstanding. They just want to play by the rules, but they don't have any influence. The actual rules are written by the most cheaply bribed professional politicians working for the least ethical and greediest businessmen. The rules fundamentally require any large company to become an EVIL cancer or die. Of course, the problem with cancer as a growth model is that it eventually kills the host, and then the cancer dies, too.

      Maybe the google could become less EVIL if they have exorcists for companies.

      As for the google's motto, I think it is now "All of your attentions is are belonging to the google!"

  7. itzman
    FAIL

    Everyone understands climate change ...

    “Everyone understands climate change is occurring"

    Ok, yes, we do.

    "and the people who oppose it"...

    I suppose that would be the Greens? and big Government?

    ... "are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,”

    Not much to disagree with there then.

    Many a true word misspoken in haste.

    We know who is denying climate change. The AGW boys. Who deny its stopped warming years ago.

    We know who is damaging our children's future. People who tax the bejasus out of us in expensive, highly profitable but totally ineffective efforts to stop a problem that isn't happening.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Schmidt says on climate change, the ALEC is “literally lying”

    Sure, it takes one to know one.

    “Everyone understands climate change is occurring privacy is essential and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,” Schmidt said.

    Don't mind me, I'm just recycling.

    1. RealFred
      Windows

      That is the best comment all day. Google two-face, the marketing giant who sells everyones private information to the highest bidder. Have several upvotes my friend

  9. Mike 125

    They are the worst.

    Those who make money from scientific achievement, and then deny science when it comes to climate, those people should be the first against the wall. Let's remember their names. And we certainly won't find that particular history on Google, in a few years...

    1. Vociferous

      Re: They are the worst.

      we certainly won't find that particular history on Google, in a few years

      As yet it is only Google Europe and Google China which are actively censored for content, and it is still legal and possible for at least europeans to go to www.google.com for unfiltered results.

  10. Mitoo Bobsworth
    Meh

    Pointless

    This whole debate has been poisoned by politics & pecuniary interest. Google will do what is to Google's advantage - that's the empirical fact here.

    1. Iron Duke

      Re: Pointless

      Not pointless, just foolish. Because the many current or potential customers who consider the science behind of imminent catastrophic AGW to be shoddy (a lot of people, including me) will conclude that Google's products are similarly crappy and buy less of them. And that may damage Google stock.

      On the plus side, the guy has finally convinced me to switch my galaxy for an iphone 6.

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