Why Are There So Few "Friends of Science"?

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Rounding up the usual climate change โ€œscepticsโ€ย on the domestic (Canadian front), we have the website www.friendsofscience.org, โ€œProviding Insight on Climateย Change.โ€

FOS embraces that same small group ofย superannuated academicsย who have been so prominent recently in asking the Canadian government to back away from any policy action addressing the problem of climate change. The FOS Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Tim Ball, Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Dr. Chris de Freitas, Dr. Madhav Khandekar, Dr. Tad Murty, and Dr. Tim Patterson, were all signatories to the anti-climate scienceย petition.

FOSย also boasts significant overlap with the U.S.-based deniers who run the Envirotruthย website.

Giving credit where it’s due, Envirotruth acknowledges on its site where its funding comes from, a little detail that FOS apparently decided to skipย over.

That said, the FOS folks can atย leastย count. Where โ€œEnvirotruth has amassed a list of the ‘Top Ten Myths’ surrounding the climate change dialogue. Moreโ€ and then lists 16 โ€œmyths,โ€ theย FOSsickers actually stop at 10. Their myths are noย more credible, but their numerical accuracy isย reassuring.

But, again, why is it that the IPCC can find 2,500 of the world’s top climate scientists to agree that climate change is a real and pressing threat; Dr. Gordon McBean can round up 90 of Canada’s most accomplished experts in the field in less than a week to sign a petition arguing in favour of federal action on climate change; and yet the little cabal of โ€œfriendsโ€ and โ€œtruthโ€ tellers is soย exclusive?

Sometimes being unorthodox means standing up courageously against conventional wisdom. But sometimes it just means that you’reย wrong.

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