Huffington Post attacks CF

The ultra-liberal Huffington Post’s Kevin Grandia attacks us because of our call for an independent investigation of PSU’s Michael Mann and his role in Climategate. 

Of course, in accusing us of erecting a “straw man”, the HuffPost author erects his own straw man along with some great hyperbole, including “Once Mann is painted as the red-robed leader of the Freemason conspiracy to take over the world…”

This is similar to PennFuture’s attack on us from last week.  Neither the Huffington Post nor PennFuture address the merits of our call for an investigation.  Instead, they resort to calling us “right-wing ideologues, climate deniers, tea party activists and big industry cheerleaders.”

What is even more telling is that when we attempt to engage these kinds of ideologues in a dialogue, they rarely ever take us up on it.  For example, here’s what I wrote to Jan Jarrett, president of PennFuture, in response to her attack on us:

First, with regard to Mann, how are we now “global warming deniers” because we don’t think Penn State can truly conduct an independent investigation with its clear conflicts of interest?  Given the financial and reputational interets at stake, you must agree that an internal review would not be as credible as an external and independent investigation.

Second, do you not agree that Mann’s emails should cause us to question the integrity of his research?  Surely even you can find fault in his actively working to destroy academic journals that printed any research countering his own.  And if there’s nothing there, as you’ve already concluded before any investigation, then wouldn’t that only validate your beliefs?  And if an independent investigation found he was indeed engaging in scientific misconduct, wouldn’t you want to know that too?

Finally, I assume your labeling us “global warming deniers” is intended to encourage your supporters to dismiss us entirely without regard to the merits of our case for an independent investigation.  Of course, your charge has no basis in fact.  The reality, if you’d have bothered to ask, is that we believe in climate change. Indeed, our climate is constantly changing. Yes, even warming at times.  For us, it is a cost/benefit issue — between the costs of lives, prosperity, and freedoms and the benefits of imposing your solutions through governmental and bureacratic dictate.

So in the future, I hope you’d take some time addressing the real and substantive issues at hand instead of making ad hominem attacks on those you disagree with.  Doing both would better advance a reasoned discussion on important public policy topics.

In keeping with their refusal to deal with the facts of the matter, I’ve yet to hear from Ms. Jarrett.

UPDATE: I was informed by one of our readers that Kevin Grandia’s blog, DeSmogBlog, was (and may still be) bought and paid for by a convicted money launderer with the purpose of attacking global warming skeptics. Now we know how/why we entered his cross-hairs.