Global warming: Science harassment and bad "reporting"

Two stories on Yahoo, via Memeorandum, both caught my eye due to their headlines, one of which I know will get reposted again and again by the wingnuts and AGW denialists. That's the bad "reporting" one.

Let's get to the science harassment one first.

It looks like the government's offshore drilling management agency is harassing the two scientists who claim they saw dead polar bears in Arctic Ocean waters in 2004, a report that eventually forced the species to be officially listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

Here's the details of the more serious possible harassment against the lead scientist, Charles Monnett:

Monnett, an Anchorage-based scientist with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE, was told July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending results of an investigation into "integrity issues." But he has not yet been informed by the inspector general's office of specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

On Thursday, Ruch's watchdog group plans to file a complaint with the agency on Monnett's behalf, asserting that Obama administration officials have "actively persecuted" him in violation of policy intended to protect scientists from political interference.

Could Kenny Boy Salazar at Interior, and his flunkies, do this? Certainly, just after BLM oil-lease bidding monkey wrencher Tim DeChristopher got two years in prison.

And, since the government won't let Monnett talk to the media, BOERME is acting as judge, jury and executioner, so far at least.

Beyond all I mentioned above, let's not forget Team Obama's generally ruthless actions in going after whistle-blowers, which kind of relates to that.

Salon has more on just how much this stinks, and on how it, like the bad "reporting," is being exploited by denialists.

Next, the bad "reporting."

It's all over this op-ed, which Forbes apparently first ran as a news story, and then Yahoo picked up as the same.

The BS factor starts with the headline, "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism." And continues in the first graf, lest one think this is just using a headline to sell something:

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing.

As for claims about the peer-reviewed nature of the journal, well, I'll bet that's BS too, but right now, I can't get its website or the parent website to load. That probably indicates small server size and other things, which means right there that "peer reviewed" may be getting stretched.

And, besides that, the author's tagline at the end of the op-ed gives the store away:

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

Yep, it's denialist bullshit all right.

Beyond that, the initial report author, Roy Spencer, not only also works for Heartland, but he's an intelligent design guy as well as an AGW denialist. Phil Plait has more.