Is Steven J. Milloy an Expert on Climate Change?

Question

He was one of the 3 "experts" offered by the Heartland Institute:

Expert Availability: 2008 International Conference on Climate Change

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22911

Answer 1

This is the Group the George Bush set up to try to compete with IPCC.  This was right after he admitted he had lied about Global Warming being fake, and right before he admitted he had lied about WMD in Iraq to get us into a war under false pretenses.

Bush's conference was boycotted by the established scientists.  I'm surprised anyone showed up.  I guess a gig is a gig.  I notice one of them is John Coleman, the burnout case who started the weather channel.  Nice picture of William F. Buckley though.

Answer 2

Well, I wouldn't say he's an expert on *climate change* exactly. But an expert on JunkScience (pun absolutely intended)? Certainly. He's been pushing it for years, after all.

Answer 3

He is to science what Tom Clancy is to a professor of military tactics at West Point.

Noble words Gary, except that when presented with solid evidence skeptics just say the data is manipulated or the model has been tuned to give the expected results or that assembled groups of experts are politically motivated instead of objective.  And where does that leave the debate if skeptics are so incredibly biased against data published in peer-reviewed journals but are willing to accept things published in the gray literature or on random websites *after* they have failed peer-review as being true?  The problem is that skeptics continually reject all attempts to get them to actually consider the solid evidence, instead relying on manufactured discord from people who are marginally qualified to have a scientific opinion.

Answer 4

Just as much as John Coleman, who the Heartland Institute also considers an "expert" because he "has been a TV weatherman".

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?art...

Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.

I sure don't see anything in his education that would make him even the slightest bit knowledgable about climate science, let alone an expert.  In fact, I'd say that I'm more of an expert on climate change than either Milloy or Coleman.

Clearly as with many deniers, the only qualification necessary in order to be an "expert" is to be in denial about AGW.

Answer 5

What is this world coming to when someone out of the blue can have an opinion and everyone latches on merely because they hope that persons's opinion is true? These are the days of stealth propaganda. They have mastered the art of exploiting ignorance and obscuring truth on a massive scale.

Answer 6

I guess as much as Betsy Ensley is.

Answer 7

When the typical response changes from "thousands of experts believe" to "I have studied the question and this is the evidence that I found compelling", we will actually advance the cause.  Until then, idiots on both sides can argue about "their" experts and what they believe.

Answer 8

Clearly he isn't an expert on climate change.  But he is a perfect example of "a little knowledge is dangerous".  His greatest skill is to know just a little bit more than his readers about a subject and then to convince them to doubt something that's not doubted by people that know a heck of a lot more than Milloy.

Answer 9

By your logic, guests on Larry Kudlow, a show aired by CNBC, a financial network that receives advertising fees from large corporations, are similarly inherently biased and unqualified, and could not be experts on the markets or the economy.

"Experts" are people who spend their careers learning about specific issues and then finally after 20 years make money by sharing their conclusions and opinions with others.

Answer 10

I know Gore is not and would is qualified as a certified IDIOT!!!!

Answer 11

The purpose of the conference was not just to discuss the science of AGW, but also the effects of implementing reductions in co2 emissions.  

Steven Milloy was not brought in as an expert climatologist, but as a policy expert.