Mastodawn

Doug Bostrom Sep 12, 2025

"In response to the DOE report, the National Academies of Science announced that it would prepare a report describing the current state of climate science. Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight have responded by announcing an investigation of the National Academies "for undermining the EPA.""

#NAS is a bit more firewalled than the Peace Institute etc. but another round of Friday "firings" seems possible. One way or another ~70% of NAS funding is federally derived, so even short of direct HR intervention there's leverage available.

#TotalitarianClimateBunk
#SyntheticIgnorance

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/09/department-of-energy-gets-rid-of-climate-skeptics-group-to-dodge-lawsuit/

Feds try to dodge lawsuit against their bogus climate report

Meanwhile, Congress is trying to keep serious scientists from weighing in.

Ars Technica

Doug Bostrom Sep 6, 2025

More #SyntheticIgnorance on the way?

#ClimateResearch

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/gop-may-finally-succeed-in-unrelenting-quest-to-kill-two-nasa-climate-satellites/

GOP may finally succeed in unrelenting quest to kill two NASA climate satellites

One scientist says it’s like buying a car and running it into a tree to save on gas money.

Ars Technica

Doug Bostrom Sep 1, 2025

Along the lines of "Any CDC operations involving germ theory are terminated."

“Any Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) activities involving climate are terminated,” reads the 2025 budget request, although it is unclear how a climate model can skirt around the climate.""

Bottomless #SyntheticIgnorance

https://undark.org/2025/08/25/earth-models-funding-future/

Earth Models Can Predict the Planet’s Future, But Not Their Own

One of the world’s foremost climate models, a DOE initiative a decade in the works, now faces funding threats.

Undark Magazine

Doug Bostrom Jun 19, 2025

"With ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the country's top health position, use of a long-approved vaccine against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella/chickenpox (MMRV) as well as flu shots that include the preservative thimerosal will now be reevaluated, putting their future availability and use in question. The development seemingly continues to vindicate health experts' worst fears that, as health secretary, Kennedy would attack and dismantle the federal government's scientifically rigorous, evidence-based vaccine recommendations."

#RememberInNovember
#antivax
#SyntheticIgnorance

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/06/after-rfk-jr-overhauls-cdc-panel-measles-and-flu-vaccines-are-up-for-debate/

After RFK Jr. overhauls CDC panel, measles and flu vaccines are up for debate

The new ACIP agenda includes MMRV and thimerosal-containing flu vaccines.

Ars Technica

Doug Bostrom Jun 18, 2025

"Trump's support for asbestos has been welcomed in Russia, a primary asbestos supplier to the US. In 2018, a Russian asbestos company began marketing asbestos with Trump's face and a seal reading "Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.""

#asbestos
#chrysotile
#SyntheticIgnorance

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/06/trumps-epa-to-reconsider-ban-on-cancer-causing-asbestos/

Trump’s EPA to “reconsider” ban on cancer-causing asbestos

Trump has supported use of asbestos and blamed the mob for its bad reputation.

Ars Technica

Doug Bostrom Jun 11, 2025

"When politicians dictate what topics are acceptable in classrooms or the kinds of research that can be carried out in universities, they don’t just chill inquiry, they suffocate it. Scientific breakthroughs do not emerge from politically convenient consensus. More often, they come from scholarly challenge to the status quo, asking uncomfortable questions, and crossing disciplinary and methodological barriers. Undermining academic freedom doesn’t just slow progress—it shuts down the very engines of discovery."

#AcademicFreedom
#SyntheticIgnorance

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adz5024?af=R

Coach Pāṇini ®Apr 17, 2024

@Doug_Bostrom

#SyntheticIgnorance! 🔥

Skeptical Science Mar 25, 2024

"It's all about us!"

Well, no, no really. Too-rapid #AnthropogenicClimateChange is the topic here. Our beat is combating #SyntheticIgnorance about climate science, swatting down #ClimateMyths.

We treated the recently excreted carnival of #ClimateBunk "Climate: The Movie." We're delighted with the performance of our #debunking. So, we're dancing in the end zone with this as our Story of the Week in our latest #ClimateNews roundup.

35 other stories in this roundup!

https://skepticalscience.com/2024-SkS-Weekly-News-Roundup_12.html?utm-source=mastodon&utm-campaign=socialnetworks&utm-term=sks

2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #12

A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch 'Climate - the Movie' and jotting down several pages worth of notes on Friday morning, we were able to quickly put together a blog post debunking the many false and misleading claims made in the film. The first 42-odd minutes of this 80 minute long festival of misinformation are dedicated to 'The Science'. But instead of that, what one is exposed to is a veritable Gish-gallop of climate myths, with the phrase, 'we are told' liberally scattered among them. In addition to a list of the 25 myths identified by John, we also checked them off on our myth rebuttal chart, available for occasions like this. It makes for a neat sharable graphic driving home the point of how much is wrong with the item debunked.

Skeptical Science

Doug Bostrom Feb 29, 2024

"Similar to fossil fuel companies, US animal agriculture companies responded to evidence that their products cause climate change by minimizing their role in the climate crisis and shaping policymaking in their favor. Here, we show that the industry has done so with the help of university experts."

#ClimatePolicyObstruction
#ClimateConflictsOfInterest
#AnimalAgriculture
#SyntheticIgnorance

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-024-03690-w

The animal agriculture industry, US universities, and the obstruction of climate understanding and policy - Climatic Change

The 2006 United Nations report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” provided the first global estimate of the livestock sector’s contribution to anthropogenic climate change and warned of dire environmental consequences if business as usual continued. In the subsequent 17 years, numerous studies have attributed significant climate change impacts to livestock. In the USA, one of the largest consumers and producers of meat and dairy products, livestock greenhouse gas emissions remain effectively unregulated. What might explain this? Similar to fossil fuel companies, US animal agriculture companies responded to evidence that their products cause climate change by minimizing their role in the climate crisis and shaping policymaking in their favor. Here, we show that the industry has done so with the help of university experts. The beef industry awarded funding to Dr. Frank Mitloehner from the University of California, Davis, to assess “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” and his work was used to claim that cows should not be blamed for climate change. The animal agriculture industry is now involved in multiple multi-million-dollar efforts with universities to obstruct unfavorable policies as well as influence climate change policy and discourse. Here, we traced how these efforts have downplayed the livestock sector’s contributions to the climate crisis, minimized the need for emission regulations and other policies aimed at internalizing the costs of the industry’s emissions, and promoted industry-led climate “solutions” that maintain production. We studied this phenomenon by examining the origins, funding sources, activities, and political significance of two prominent academic centers, the CLEAR Center at UC Davis, established in 2018, and AgNext at Colorado State University, established in 2020, as well as the influence and industry ties of the programs’ directors, Dr. Mitloehner and Dr. Kimberly Stackhouse-Lawson. We developed 20 questions to evaluate the nature, extent, and societal impacts of the relationship between individual researchers and industry groups. Using publicly available evidence, we documented how the ties between these professors, centers, and the animal agriculture industry have helped maintain the livestock industry’s social license to operate not only by generating industry-supported research, but also by supporting public relations and policy advocacy.

SpringerLink

Doug Bostrom Feb 29, 2024

#SyntheticIgnorance

https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/28/us_survey_cryptocurrency_power/