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{{#badges: Climate change |CoalSwarm}}<divstyle="float:right;width:100px;margin:0 0 1em 1em">[[ImageFile:Michaels.jpg|frame|right|alt=Patrick J. Michaels|Source: Cato Institute]] '''Patrick J. Michaels''' (±1942- ), also known as Pat Michaels, is a largely oil-funded [[global warming skeptic]] who argues that [[global warming]] models are fatally flawed and, in any event, we should take no action because new technologies will soon replace those that emit greenhouse gases. Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia served as an Expert Reviewer to Working Group I of the Fourth Assessment Report of the [[IPCC]]<ref>"[http:/div/www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/annexessannex-iii.html]"</ref>.
'''Patrick J. Michaels''' (±1942- ), also known as Pat Michaels, is a largely oil-funded [[global warming skeptic]] who argues that [[global warming]] models are fatally flawed and, in any event, we should take no action because new technologies will soon replace those that emit greenhouse gases.
Undo GEM redirect
==New Hope Environmental Services "advocacy science" consulting firm==
Michaels is Editor of the ''[[World Climate Report]]'', a blog published by the "advocacy science consulting firm" [[New Hope Environmental Services]]<ref>[http://www.nhes.com/ "New Hope Environmental Services"], New Hope Environmental Services website, accessed May 2009.</ref>, which he founded and runs.
===Mission===
In an affidavit in a Vermont court case, Michaels described his firm's "mission" as being to "publicize findings on climate change and scientific and social perspectives that may not otherwise appear in the popular literature or media. This entails both response research and public commentary."<ref name="PMAffadavit">Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, [httphttps://www.sourcewatch.org/images/e/e5/GreenMtDoc521-3.pdf "Affidavit of Dr. Patrick J. Michaels"], United States District Court for the District of Vermont, Green Mountain Chrysler et al. v. Crombie et al., Docket No. 02:05-CV-302, July 6, 2007.(Pdf)</ref> In effect, New Hope Environmental Services is a PR firm.
===Clientele===
Michaels' firm does not disclose who its clients are, but leaked documents have revealed that several were power utilities which operate coal power stations. On a 2007 academic CV, Michaels disclosed that prior to creating his firm he had received funding from the [[Edison Electric Institute]] and the [[Western Fuels Association]]. He has also been a frequent speaker with leading coal and energy companies as well as coal and other industry lobby groups.<ref name="SEJ">[http://www.sej.org/initiatives/climate-change/patrick-michaels-cv-plain-text-file-climate-change-guideskeptics-and-cont "Patrick Michaels CV Plain Text File-Climate Change Guide/Skeptics and Contrarians"], Society of Environmental Journalists, accessed May 2009.</ref>
In a 1992 opinion column, Michaels wrote of government agencies that they "exist to perpetuate themselves, and to expand their territory and their political influence. Government agencies behave just like people. The agency goals cannot be accomplished without the largesse of Congress. Thus begins a peculiar back-scratching in which political patrons define a particular problem as The Most Important in History. The agency responds by testifying that the end is near unless a few billion is spent pronto-and then it probably will be even worse than we thought. Such issues and constituencies include the ozone "hole" (NASA, NSF, EPA); global warming (NASA, NSF, DOE, EPA); sexually transmitted diseases (National Institutes of Health, NSF); or roughage shortages (NIH, U.S. Department of Agriculture). The list is as infinite as is the predilection for Homo sapiens to have nightmares."<ref>Patrick J. Michaels, [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/pmc52c00/pdf?search=%22patrick%20j%20michaels%22 "Give Industry a Bigger Role (Title incomplete"], ''Roanoke Times'', December 29, 1992.</ref>
===Controversies and criticisms===
====In 2011: Rep. Waxman calls for inquiry, re possibly misleading testimony on industry ties, funding sources====
On January 25, 2011, Rep. [[Henry Waxman]] sent a letter to Rep. [[Fred Upton]] seeking to call in Michaels for questioning about his science and funding. In the letter, Waxman wrote that Pat Michaels testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee in February 2009 "that widely accepted scientific data had 'overestimated' global warming and that regulation enacted in response to that data could have 'a very counterproductive effect.' Among the scientists who testified before this Committee on the issue of climate change in the last Congress, Pat Michaels was the only one to dismiss the need to act on climate change ... Dr. Michaels may have provided misleading information about the sources of his funding and his ties to industries opposed to regulation of emissions responsible for climate change."<ref name=kd>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kert-davies/rep-waxman-presses-for-in_b_813251.html "Rep. Waxman Presses for Inquiry on Global Warming Denier Pat Michaels"] HuffPo, Jan. 25, 2011.</ref>
====In 2010: Assertion in climate testimony that humans caused less than half 1950+ warming (termed "not credible")====
Climate scientist Benjamin Santer noted that in Michaels' Congressional testimony of November 2010, Michaels had claimed human GHG emissions caused less then half the warming (since 1950), but that this assertion was not credible:<ref>{{cite web
|publisher=Warming101 blog
|title=Ben Santer clarifies his "...legitimate debate..." statement from last fall's climate testimony
|url=http://warming101.blogspot.com/2011/05/ben-santer-clarifies-his-legitimate.html
|accessdate=2011-05-28
|author=Anna Haynes
|date=2011-05-25
|quote=(2011-05-25 correspondence)
}}</ref>
<blockquote>"...Professor Patrick Michaels (in Congressional testimony of November 2010) claimed that human-caused changes in greenhouse gases explain less than half of the post-1950 warming. This claim [by Michaels] is not credible. Michaels arrives at this incorrect result by completely ignoring the cooling effects of sulfate aerosol particles."</blockquote>
====In2009: Cato Institute "just not true" ad, and WSJ Op-ed misdirection re von Storch resignation====
=====Dec. 2009: Wall Street Journal "tip of iceberg" op-ed misrepresentation, and silence=====
An op-ed<ref>{{cite web
|publisher=WSJ.com
|title=How to Manufacture a Climate Consensus
|url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398304574598230426037244.html
|accessdate=2011-10-13
|author=Pat Michaels
|date=2009-12-17
}}</ref> by Michaels in the December 17, 2009 Wall Street Journal argued that the climate science consensus was illusory. Among his arguments was a selective recounting of the Climate Research episode<ref name="stormytimes">{{cite web |author=Clare Goodess |publisher=SGR |title=Stormy Times for Climate Research |url=http://www.sgr.org.uk/climate/StormyTimes_NL28.htm |date=2003-11 |accessdate=2009-12-26 |quote=...Hans von Storch and I were also aware of three earlier Climate Research papers about which people had raised concerns over the review process. In all these cases, de Freitas had had editorial responsibility. }}</ref>: Michaels noted that the "skeptic" paper appeared, whereupon "Messrs. Jones and Mann" threatened to boycott the journal; then half its editorial board resigned. This recounting is chronologically accurate but causally misleading; the resignations had been "because of insufficient quality control on a bad paper — a skeptic’s paper, at that."<ref>{{cite web
|publisher=The Way Things Break
|title=Pat Michaels lying in the Wall Street Journal
|url=http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/pat-michaels-lying-in-the-wall-street-journal/#comment-3556
|accessdate=2011-10-13
|author=Things Break (pseudonym)
|date=2009-12-18
}}</ref>, <ref name="stormytimes" />
Multiple emails sent to Michaels asking whether he'd been aware this was why the editors resigned, before he composed the Wall Street Journal op-ed, did not elicit a response.<ref>Emails from ahaynes, 2009 and 2010</ref>
====In =March 2009: Cato Institute ad, and RealClimate rebuttal=====In March 2009, Michaels, under the auspices of the [[Cato Institute]], circulated a draft advertisement that stated: "Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now ... The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior."<ref>Cato Institute, [http://www.realclimate.org/docs/cato_ad.pdf "With all due respect Mr.President, that is not true."], ''Real Climate'', March 2009.</ref> The ad statements were analyzed and criticized in detail at the RealClimate blog.<ref> [http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/03/with-all-due-respect "With all due respect…"], ''RealClimate'', March 24, 2009.</ref>======Followupto Cato ad: RealClimate rebuttal of recent Feb 2009 Michaels testimony======In support of the statements, [[Chip Knappenberger]] of [[World Climate Report]] referred readers to recent (Feb.) testimony by Michaels to the House of Representatives Energy and Environment sub-committee<ref>[http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090212/testimony_michaels.pdf "Testimony of Patrick J. Michaels"], House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, February 12, 2009.</ref> That too was responded to at length by Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate.org.<ref>Gavin Schmidt, [http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/03/michaels-new-graph "Michaels’ new graph"], ''RealClimate'', March 26, 2009.</ref>
====In 2006-7: Use of "State Climatologist for Virginia" Title====
====In 2004: Michaels-McKitrick Climate paper basic error====
Michaels "co-operated with [[Ross McKitrick]] on another paper that managed to "prove" that global warming wasn't happening by mixing up degrees with radians]."<ref>Tim Lambert, [http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/08/mckitrick6.php "McKitrick screws up yet again"], ''Deltoid'', August 26, 2004.</ref>
====In 2000-2003: Gleick and suit threat, Holdren, Social Epistemology, IPCC's Wigley====
An internal 1995 document (pdf) of the [[Global Climate Coalition]] (GCC) -- an industry front group that disbanded in 2002 -- reviewed some of the "contrarian" arguments used by Patrick Michaels and other climate change skeptics.<ref>Andrew C. Revkin, [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&am "Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate"], ''New York Times'', April 23, 2009.</ref> The document concluded that:
:...contrarian theories raise interesting questions about our total understanding of climate processes, but they do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change. ... Michaels' questions about the temperature record are not convincing arguments against any conclusion that we are currently experiencing warming as the result of greenhouse gas emissions. ...[And] anomalies in the temperature record [do not] offer a mechanism for off-setting the much larger rise in temperature which might occur if the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases were to double or quadruple."<ref name=GCC6">Global Climate Coalition, [httphttps://www.sourcewatch.org/images/8/82/GCC_Primer_Draft.pdf "Primer on Climate Change Science· Final Draft"], January 18, 1996, pages 16-17.</ref>
== Books by Michaels==
===External resources===
* {{cite web
|publisher=DeSmogBlog
|url=http://www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-prefer-pal-review-over-peer-review-chris-de-freitas-pat-michaels-and-their-pals-1997-2003
|title=Skeptics Prefer Pal Review Over Peer Review: Chris de Freitas, Pat Michaels And Their Pals, 1997-2003
|author=John R. Mashey
|date=2011-11-30
}}
* [http://www.sej.org/initiatives/climate-change/patrick-michaels-cv-plain-text-file-climate-change-guideskeptics-and-cont "Patrick Michaels CV Plain Text File-Climate Change Guide/Skeptics and Contrarians"], Society of Environmental Journalists, accessed May 2009.
* [http://www.cato.org/people/patrick-michaels "Patrick J. Michaels: Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies"], Cato Institute, accessed March 2009
* John Carey, "[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_33/b3896001_mz001.htm Global Warming]", ''Business Week'', August 16, 2004.
* [[Joel Achenbach]], "[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305.html The Tempest:] As evidence mounts that humans are causing dangerous changes in Earth's climate, a handful of skeptics are providing some serious blowback", ''The Washington Post Magazine'', May 28, 2006.
* Stanley Lewandowski Jr. "[httphttps://www.sourcewatch.org/images/b/b0/Irea.pdf Memo Intermountain Rural Electric Association memo]", July 17, 2006. (This leaked memo describes IMEA's funding Michaels to the tune of $100,000 in February 2006.) (1MB PDF)
* Clayton Sandell and Bill Blakemore, "[http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=2242565 Making Money by Feeding Confusion Over Global Warming: Electric Utility Pays $100,000 to Global Warming Naysayer]", ''ABC News'', July 27, 2006.
* [http://www.pacinst.org/press_center/censorship/ Science, Climate Change, and Censorship: The Pacific Institute, Patrick Michaels, and the science of climate change]", Pacific Institute, undated, accessed July 2006.
[[Category:Leipzig Declaration signers|Michaels]]
[[Category:Global warming skeptics|Michaels, Patrick]]
[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[categoryCategory:Secrecy]][[categoryCategory:Coal Issues]][[Category:Public relations professionals]]
[[Category:Speaker at the Heartland Institute's Third International Conference on Climate Change]]
