The Necropolitan Sentinel

"I'm concerned! Concerned that someone else will pee on this before I do!"

Remember that time Santa’s little Helper got a credit card? Yeah. That was funny. Even funnier is when you can make your dog a member of a respectable scientific organization whose sound bites and “scientific” polls are often quoted by the mainstream media, which is what Anthony Watts did last year. All his dog Kenji needed was a valid credit card.

Now UCS has come begging again and in the process they’d like you to know that they’re helping to ensure that your new car will cost thousands more due to their efforts promoting more intrusive regulations into industry:

UCS supporters like you helped push through tough emissions standards for new cars and trucks that will require automakers to produce vehicles that emit roughly half of the global warming emissions of a new automobile today.

Thanks, “concerned” “scientists”! Because what we really need at this time of economic uncertainty is products whose costs have been inflated by federal government mandate due to specious, ideologically-driven scientific claims.

But wait, there’s more! They promise that your cash will:

• expose corporations, front groups, and policy makers who mislead the public and undermine understanding of climate science [DENIERS!];
• fight to shut down old and dirty coal plants and increase investment in wind, solar, and other clean, renewable sources of energy [Pay no attention to the flaming, crumpled wind turbine on the horizon!]; and
• actively protect scientists in the government and academia from politically motivated personal attacks. [Remember that time ChimpyMcHitler Bu$h told Jim Hansen to shut his Global Warming hole? God we hate George Bu$h! Don't you?]

The motto they tout on the title bar of their web site is, “Independent Science, Practical Solutions,” but if you look at the “Successes” they’re flogging under each of their areas of concern, you’ll see that they all bend toward Leftist solutions for what Leftists see as problems. And the MSM eats up their conclusions every time. Most notably in this context they’re all in for CAGW (as characterized by the web site ActivistCash–a partisan pro-consumer site):

UCS embraces an environmental agenda that often stands at odds with the “rigorous scientific analysis” it claims to employ. A radical green wolf in sheep’s clothing, UCS tries to distinguish itself from the Greenpeaces of the world by convincing the media that its recommendations reflect a consensus among the scientific community. And that’s what makes it so dangerous. Whether it’s energy policy or agricultural issues, UCS’s “experts” are routinely given a free pass from newspaper reporters and television producers when they claim that mainstream science endorses their radical agenda.

Independent? No. Practical? They don’t have to be.

What we have is an organization which will take money as long as it’s green, uses that money to conduct biased polls (“when did you stop beating your wife”-style), declares these polls “scientific consensus”, and then uses them to flog to the media whatever science-y position is fashionable on the Left, which in turn helps to determine what the general public thinks is scientific “truth”.

So keep in mind that whenever you hear a proclamation from the Union of Concerned Scientists about scientific “truth” that they came to that truth mainly by smelling their own vapors. An activity which I’m sure Kenji, like all other dogs, would heartily approve of.

UPDATE

If you look at the UCS begging e-mail, you’ll see a large number of loaded keywords and phrases. Well, alGore has created a new one: “dirty weather“. Watts seems to contend that alGore must be confusing soot with weather or something, but I’m afraid I have to disagree with him. I think what alGore is talking about has more to do with chakra-releasing than the climate.

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