The Wikipedia Climate Conspiracy

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Resident expert in climate denial at the National Post, Lawrence Solomon, penned a piece recently decrying Wikipedia’s entry for science historian Noamiย Oreskes.

Oreskes is well known for her oft-quoted 2004 article in Science that found that out of a random sample of 928 research articles on climate change, not one questioned the consensus view that human activity is toย blame.

Solomon got his hackles up when Wikipedia disallowed his edit of the Oreskes entry referring to a social anthropologist named Benny Peiser (well known to DeSmog), who apparently had โ€œdebunkedโ€ Oreskes original study. No mention of course that Peiser’s โ€œdebunkingโ€ has never been published in a peer-reviewed journal, the normal route for which discourse and debate in science is undertook.

And rightlyย so.

According to blogger Tim Lambert, who has relentlessly grilled Peiser on his โ€œresearch,โ€ Peiser admitted in October, 2006 that in his attempts to replicate Oreskes’ original work, he only found one article that disagreed with the scientific conclusion of human-induced global warming, and that the single article he had found was NOT peer-reviewed research, but the proceedings of an annual report published by American Association of Petroleumย Geologists.

So what’s the problemย Larry?

A world of wikiality and truthiness might work for Stephen Colbert, but please keep in mind that he’s aย satirist.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea partyย networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on theย political and community organizing platformย NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICTย applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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