Wikipedia editors spread Global Warming Propaganda

Fri Jul 11 10:24:12 CDT 2008

Whether you believe in Global Warming or not, I disagree with the form
of editing/bullying that is going on in this case.   If Wikipedia is to
survive as a reliable source of information, uncluding scientific info,
then they need to folow their own rules.   Science should be honest or
truth-seeking, no matter where it leads you.   

Brian
P.S. Sorry for the HTML format.

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Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 3:24 PM

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GreenWatchAmerica<http://e2ma.net/userdata/22952/images/e1214872374.jpg>

Dear Brian,

Today Lawrence Solomon, author of The Deniers
<http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603805/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/
1189716471/1080616/39601790/goto:http://www.richardvigilantebooks.com> ,
has a great piece on National Review Online exposing how the editors of
Wikipedia (supposedly the "people's encyclopedia") have become part of
the global warming propaganda machine. 

And it's not just on Global Warming that Wikipedia pushes the left-wing
line. As Larry says "Wikipedia is the people's encyclopedia only if the
people are not conservatives."

We reprint Larry's NRO piece in full below. 

Our petition to urge John McCain not to get sucked into the myth of
Global Warming continues to gather steam. Next week we will do our
biggest mailing yet in our push to get 100,000 names by mid-July and
half a million before the GOP convention.  

Meanwhile GreenWatchAmerica will continue to update you on what is now
clearly the Left's favorite weapon for pushing its agenda:
Environmentalism twisted into an excuse for seizing control of more and
more of the economy, and forcing Americans  to live out the Left's dream
of the good life, even if it strikes us as a nightmare.

As some of you know, I got motivated on the global warming issue by the
experience of editing and publishing Larry Solomon's book, which
demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt, not only that "the science is
not settled", but that the most eminent climate scientists also tend to
be the most skeptical of Global Warming hysteria.

As book publishers we can only do so much. GreenWatchAmerica gives us a
vehicle to pitch into the fight in a much more timely way.

Richard Vigilante

Publisher 

Wikipropaganda

By Lawrence Solomon

Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get
away with their claim of a "scientific consensus" confirming their
doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a
stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works.

As you (or your kids) probably know, Wikipedia is now the most widely
used and influential reference source on the Internet and therefore in
the world, with more than 50 million unique visitors a month.

In theory Wikipedia is a "people's encyclopedia" written and edited by
the people who read it -- anyone with an Internet connection. So on
controversial topics, one might expect to see a broad range of opinion.

Not on global warming. On global warming we get consensus, Gore-style: a
consensus forged by censorship, intimidation, and deceit.

I first noticed this when I entered a correction to a Wikipedia page on
the work of Naomi Oreskes, author of the now-infamous paper, published
in the prestigious journal Science, claiming to have exhaustively
reviewed the scientific literature and found not one single article
dissenting from the alarmist version of global warming.

Of course Oreskes's conclusions were absurd, and have been widely
ridiculed. I myself have profiled dozens of truly world-eminent
scientists whose work casts doubt on the Gore-U.N. version of global
warming. Following the references in my book The Deniers, one can find
hundreds of refereed papers that cast doubt on some aspect of the
Gore/U.N. case, and that only scratches the surface.

Naturally I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Oreskes's work had
been vindicated and that, for instance, one of her most thorough
critics, British scientist and publisher Bennie Peiser, not only had
been discredited but had grudgingly conceded Oreskes was right.

I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then
corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so.

Peiser wrote back saying he couldn't see my corrections on the Wikipedia
page. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes
had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made
other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were
made.

Turns out that on Wikipedia some folks are more equal than others. Kim
Dabelstein Petersen is a Wikipedia "editor" who seems to devote a large
part of his life to editing reams and reams of Wikipedia pages to pump
the assertions of global-warming alarmists and deprecate or make
disappear the arguments of skeptics.

I soon found others who had the same experience: They would try to
squeeze in any dissent, or even correct an obvious slander against a
dissenter, and Petersen or some other censor would immediately snuff
them out.

Now Petersen is merely a Wikipedia "editor." Holding the far more
prestigious and powerful position of "administrator" is William
Connolley. Connolley is a software engineer and sometime climatologist
(he used to hold a job in the British Antarctic Survey), as well as a
serial (but so far unsuccessful) office seeker for England's Green
party.

And yet by virtue of his power at Wikipedia, Connolley, a ruthless
enforcer of the doomsday consensus, may be the world's most influential
person in the global warming debate after Al Gore. Connolley routinely
uses his editorial clout to tear down scientists of great accomplishment
such as Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. National Weather
Satellite Service and a scientist with dazzling achievements. Under
Connolley's supervision, Wikipedia relentlessly smears Singer as a kook
who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry.

Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, and it
has a code of civility. Those rules and codes don't apply to Connolley,
or to those he favors.

"Peisers crap shouldn't be in here," Connolley wrote several weeks ago,
in berating a Wikipedian colleague during an "edit war," as they're
called. Trumping Wikipedia's stated rules, Connelly used his authority
to ensure Wikipedia readers saw only what he wanted them to see. Any
reference, anywhere among Wikipedia's 2.5 million English-language
pages, that casts doubt on the consequences of climate change will be
bent to Connolley's bidding.

Nor are Wikipedia's ideological biases limited to global warming. As an
environmentalist I find myself with allies and adversaries on both sides
of the aisle, Left and Right. But there is no doubt where Wikipedia
stands: firmly on the Left. Try out Wikipedia's entries on say, Roe v.
Wade or Intelligent Design, and you will see that Wikipedia is the
people's encyclopedia only if those people are not conservatives.

-- Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of
The Deniers. 

If you are interested in Larry's book,  The Deniers is available at
RichardVigilanteBooks.com
<http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603806/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/
1189716471/1080616/39601791/goto:http://www.richardvigilantebooks.com> ,
or at Amaz
<http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603807/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/
1189716471/1080616/39601792/goto:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/
0980076315/richardvcom-20/> on
<http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603808/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/
1189716471/1080616/39601793/goto:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/
0980076315/richardvcom-20/>  or Barnes and Noble
<http://e2ma.net/go/1189762965/1080694/39603809/goto:http://e2ma.net/go/
1189716471/1080616/39601794/goto:http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Denier
s/Lawrence-Solomon/e/9780980076318/?itm=1&afsrc=1&lkid=J24537183&pubid=K
158729&byo=1/>  online. Eventually we will have it up on the Green Watch
America site too. 

GreenWatchAmerica
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