The video showing the climate research work of Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT and Steven McIntyre of Climate Audit is now up on YouTube. One of the most compelling portions of the program has to do with the erroneous reversal of the Tiljander sediments, and Dr. Michael Mann’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge his error, even though other authors of peer reviewed papers have done so. In my opinion, salvation of the hockey stick seems to trump the salvation of good science practice.
The investigative journalism here is refreshing, and well done. It’s the sort of thing CBS 60 minutes used to do.
Here is part 1, a transcript link follows:
McIntyre and Lindzen to appear on Finnish TV documentary – transcript
Update: Here’s a version with English Subtitles courtesy of commentor Apollo. ~ctm
http://dotsub.com/view/19f9c335-b023-4a40-9453-a98477314bf2
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Knowing nothing else of use, let me correct your spelling: compleeing -> compelling 🙂
Anthony,
Being in the “Biz” you should know that most (not all) reporters are chasing ambulances and celebraties – hard news (as opposed to gory) is pretty much swept aside. I’m afraid most of what we see and hear is “bread and circuses”.
Gore, Mann, and their ilk are the science celebraties – therefore quoted most often. The last scientist I can think of that was really both was the late Carl Sagan – and he was a class act in my opinion.
Most of the folks who stop by here just aren’t pretty enough and don’t utter the “sound bites” so loved by TV and its audience….
Where is Edward R. Morrow when we need him? Oh yeah, interviewing Carl Sagan…
Mike
This is probably off topic. Not being able to contribute to the science I do like to sign petitions about hiding data. I signed up for the UK No10 petition to release CRU Data.
This is the reply:
Tuesday 10 November 2009
CRUsourcecodes – epetition response
We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to force the Climate Research Unit, or other publicly funded organisations to release the source codes used in their computer models.”
Details of Petition:
“The Met Office , the climate research unit and various individuals at numerous academic institutions are refusing to release the source codes used in their climate research models. These are tax payer funded institutions, which are influencing government policy decisions which will affect the day to day lives of us all. With the Prime Minister’s belief in a new age of transparency, it is unsurportable that these publicly funded organisations, are not open to public scrutiny.”
· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
The Government is strongly committed to the principles of freedom of information, and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 specifically implement our international obligations over access to environmental information. The Met Office’s commitment to openness and transparency in the conduct of their operations and to the sharing of information is set out clearly on their website (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/legal/foi.html).
Simple and transparent licences are in place to facilitate the re-use of the Met Office’s meteorological and climate data, and large quantities are freely available for academic and personal use, for example through the UK Climate Impacts Programme and the British Atmospheric Data Centre.
The Met Office’s climate models are configurations based on the Unified Model (UM), the numerical modelling system developed and used by the Met Office to produce all their weather forecasts and climate predictions.
You may be interested to know that the UM, including source code, is available for external use under licence. For general research, the licence is free; the Met Office just asks individuals to submit an abstract describing the research to be undertaken, and to provide an annual report describing the work undertaken, the results achieved and future work plans.
To improve access to their climate models, the Met Office has worked with Reading and Bristol Universities and NERC to develop a low-resolution version which can be run on a PC and is available to all UM licence holders.
Further Information on how to apply for a research licence can be found on the Met Office website.
(http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/working_together/um_collaboration.html)
“VO: The climate studies used by the UN affiliated IPCC are usually computer simulations, based on models emulating the behavior of global climate. Some traditional researchers have criticized studies based on just computer simulations, calling it “playstation climatology”.
According to the most prominent computer models, human activity should cause global warming that looks like this:”
And this was peer reviewed.
Do they have no shame?
Well Mike,
Carl Sagan was best known to the public, for describing the esoterica of the universe to people who really had little means of critiquing the validity of anything he said; not that I am suggesting he said anything that was quite wrong; just beyond many of us.
But he was also an avid promoter of SETI, on which countless millions of dollars have been spent; with absolutely not a shred of scientific evidence for any such phenomenon; as in not one single binary digit of observational data even hinting at ETI.
It’s not even clear that there is even any TI.
The whole idea behind SETI, is that somehow Intelligence (I) provides a basis for superior survivability in Mother Nature’s (Gaia) scheme of things; and therefor some entity that has survived for longer than humanity must be much more intelligent; and therefore capable of vastly more advanced technology, and communications capability than we can even imagine. Yet somehow they would want to communicate with us; pretty much in the same way that we have an irresistible urge to communicate with green pond scum algae. Intelligence is just Gaia’s latest gimmic seeking a survivable niche; and not too likely to outperform some of her real successes.
Well the Dinosaurs survived for 140 million years, just by being big and mean and ugly; we have maybe 10,000 years of some sort of technological existence; and maybe 10 times that in our roughly modern format. And the prevailing evidence suggests we may not see another 10,000 years, or perhaps, even one tenth of that; done in by our intelligence run amok.
But I certainly do feel that Dr Sagan didn’t seem to have any nefarious agendas. And if he inspired even one child to seek scientific knowledge of any kind; that made his life worthwhile.
Michael, I have a different view. As people, many journalists are ambitious and are looking to write stories that will get syndicated. Editors know the news appetite of their readers/viewers and cater to it. So journalist will tend to write what the dogs are eating: and the dogs were craving a steady diet of climate apocalypse for the past few years.
But, there’s a well known phenomenon called a hype backlash. After a particular story gets saturated coverage for a long time, people’s appetite’s change – they look for something different in their diet. They start to look for the ‘old lady beats down mugger’ stories. These are the stories that go against convention. Astute journalists sense when the hype backlash starts and fill it with contrarian stories.
I think the hype backlash for global warming has started.
It would be very nice to have this dubbed in English.
Ray (10:24:52) :
“It would be very nice to have this dubbed in English.”
True. This will probably have very limited mileage without it. Ideally broadcast quality to make it easy to export. And to make it more difficult for other broadcasters to ignore.
I wonder if the producers would see this as an opportunity. If there is any controversy … well, you know what they say about publicity.
At this point, I’d prefer to see Spencer and Lindzen.
Here’s an issue no one seems to be covering: no one can forcast the weather an hour in advance within a degree or two. How can these yuks be so brass as to state they can forcast the weather years in an advance, let alone hundreds of years in advance?
Ya get that? Isn’t that something that should be “covered” by the media? Today at 9:30am the forcast for today’s high was 68F. Well, at noon it was 70F and they’d changed the high to 71F. See? In less than three hours the forecast had to be changed 3 degrees F. That’s more than 1 degree per hour. As everyone here well knows, this is common with forecasting the weather. Climate is a strange beast that cares naught for the guesses of man.
Bottom line: if you cannot forcast the weather one hour in advance – you cannot forecast the weather 100 years in advance. Or am I wrong?
I think this is a very good documentary.
It’s hard to imagine it being presented on Dutch, German of US television, only because the lack of dynamics.
The northern countries obviously take more time to make a point.
This is good because people get the time to think.
I really hope that somehow this information is picked up by the MSM and gets through to Copenhagen but I really think we are too late.
The use of the climate scare will be replaced by another doctrine and the political objectives will be met.
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
In this case there might be. The makers of this film are already under fire for revealing that the finnish prime minister had taken bribes. It was just one more revelation in the long list of corruption scandals that are currently ravaging the country. But unlike other cases, the full might of the party PR-machinery managed to spin the case so that the show was the one that ended up taking the heat.
I wouldn’t be surprised is this episode would be used as an excuse to silence a political critic and force the network to cancel the show. The political system has a need to show what happens to those that discuss matters that the political elite would rather not talk about. It’s a shame if that happens. MOT is propably the last fortress of investigative journalism that Finland has.
As much as I liked and respected Carl Sagan (a supernova amongst cosmologists) I seem to remember that he was an avid supporter of the idea of man-made climate change.
SandyinDerby
You have just signed up to the Government denier list. Who is going to save you & me. I’m on the list now for agreeing with you. I’m also on the ASA list for complaining about government propaganda and just about every other list that represents a vestige of democracy left in this country.
We now just have to hope that the ballot boxes are opened in the same way as they have been for over a hundred years, or the ‘Mugabe’ method of lose them for an evening and count them tomorrow (As has been promoted by ‘New Labour’ to allegedly save on overtime payments) never happens.
‘New Labour’ in the UK is now a very extreme version of ‘Old Labour’ which was so marxist in it’s beliefs that it was abandoned for the ‘New Labour’ spin version or they would never see government again. How many ordinary voters realised what they were voting for?
Michael Crichton’s speech is so relevant I am posting a link to it. In it he also criticizes Carl Sagan, global warming, and the Drake Equation. This equation is filled with so many variables it is virtually useless yet today’s climatologists are using it to prove that global warming is a serious threat to humanity on this planet.
http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html
I just watched the whole thing in Finnish and must say that even though I don’t speak a world of the language, it’s very pleasant to listen to. That said, I think it really does need an English translation. Every Finnish person that I have ever met has a very good command of the English language. I’m not sure if that’s an educational requirement in Finland, but I’m sure you could find some sympathetic Finnish person to sort this for you for free.
All we need now is one of the well educated English speaking Finnish to educate our Prime Minister how to spell, he already knows how to spiel, but I doubt he knows the difference.
chillybean (11:14:42) :
you could well be right, I too have complained to the ASA about advert. May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb as the saying goes.
Gary,
“Here’s an issue no one seems to be covering: no one can forcast the weather an hour in advance within a degree or two. How can these yuks be so brass as to state they can forcast the weather years in an advance, let alone hundreds of years in advance?”
Not that I believe them, but you are comparing Apples & Oranges (or climate and weather). I can fairly accurately, and easily, predict how much the temperature where I live will trend higher between March and August, even though I can’t predict within five degrees what it will be tomorrow.
This is a bit off-topic, but it’s been bothering me for a while.
I have been trying to find a definitive answer to the question of how and where sea levels are changing. Some places the sea level is rising, but at the same time sea level is falling somewhere else.
I’ve just found this website
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/
Can anyone say if this data checks out?
Sandy and Chilly. I too am on all lists but there are plenty more of us.
Minun suomeni ei ole oikein hyvä.
I just finished reading the transcript and boy I wish we had journalists over here in the US! It would make such a difference if we had a real press.
I recall Carl Sagan was a big believer in Nuclear Winter and he had similar views on AGW. Sagan was great at educating the public on science but like many, he too readily accepted AGW because it fit his political views.
Sandy and Chilly. I too am on all lists but there are plenty more of us.
Maybe they will start compulsory trench digging courses that we can all take at the local college before they march us up to the hills….
See you then.
English dub will be nice.
REPLY: Beggars can’t be choosy. If one were available, don’t you think I would have posted it? – A