Astroturf is a kind of synthetic grass. The term Astroturfing means 'rabble rousing'. What you do is to employ a PR company to create a rumour, and make it appear to be a genuine grass-roots reaction, whereas it's really just fake grass.

Example:

In August 2006, a science journalist for the Wall Street Journal revealed that a YouTube video, "Al Gore's Penguin Army", which was claimed to be an amateur work, in fact came from the computers of DCI Group, a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm whose client list includes ExxonMobil and General Motors. (See Al Gore's Penguin Army video controversy.) This hoax was discovered when journalist Antonio Ragalado noticed that the YouTube video was the first sponsored listing when he performed a Google search for Al Gore. The fact that someone was paid to have the alleged amateur film promoted was in itself suspicious.


http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115457177198425388-0TpYE6bU6EGvfSqtP8_hHj...

Like 'Pump and Dump'

Grendel wrote on Jun 14^th, 2009 at 11:42am:


Big Corporations do it Grendel. It requires injection of money to make it work. You really don't get it, do you? Look, here's a link to show you how it works:

http://www.one-blue-marble.com/astroturfing-and-misinformation.html

- Low bandwidth too.

Grendel wrote on Jun 14^th, 2009 at 2:53pm:


Pretty broad-based political support when you include Nicolas Sarkozy and Arnold Schwarzenegger behind it. Even GW Bush called it a serious problem, although he didn't do anything about it.

Isn't it funny how the renewable power industry can be accused of 'propagating a myth' when even the big Oil and big Coal companies (the goliaths of the corporate world) are fully supportive nowadays.

The prediction of the IPCC is that over the next century temperatures might rise by a further 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade, and that sea levels might rise by between 15 and 95 centimetres. Some of that impact is probably unavoidable, because it results from current emissions.

Those are wide margins of error, and there remain large elements of uncertainty - about cause and effect ….and even more importantly about the consequences.

But it would be unwise and potentially dangerous to ignore the mounting concern.

The time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven … but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part.

We in BP have reached that point.......

That speech excerpt was dated 1997 - 12 years ago. A lot has been done since then and Energy companies are taking it seriously.

The biggest myth of all is that it's all a socialist plot.

I can show you policies from practically every Oil and Coal corporation that show just how solid the support is.

muso wrote on Jun 14^th, 2009 at 2:34pm:



Everything is big in America, even more so then in Queensland.

Was the "uncovering" paparazzi american or american queenslander?

I'm sorry....  all the graphs I look at except your cooked ones say its been going down even the one you posted on the other topic does..

Oh right...  junked that one now have you?

Grendel wrote on Jun 15^th, 2009 at 10:28am:



You're talking about a SINGLE MONTH, you *******(control yourself muso)**********. FFS can't you get it through your **********(voluntarily censored)  that one month's data is nada! You have to take running averages over at least 5 years.

Now, do you suppose that the article was actually issued by Hadley, or perhaps somebody is just using their monthly data to distort the facts? hmmmm?

Look at the blue line and the link on reply 9.

Give me strength!   (I'm rapidly losing my hair from tearing it out)

Quote:


What - for a whole two and a half years? - that's hilarious.

Grendel wrote on Jun 15^th, 2009 at 12:57pm:


Grendel, You are talking about a 'trend' over 10 years, aren't you? Be honest.

If you understood about running averages, you'd realise that 10 years is a single point on the graph. There are different ways to do this, but here:

Running average over 10 years where y1= data point for year 1 etc.

(y1+y2+y3+y4+y5+y6+y7+y8+y9+y10) divided by 10

Next point on the graph:
(y2+y3+y4+y5+y6+y7+y8+y9+y10+y11) divided by 10
and so on

ok?