Jo Nova has launched a new publication, inspired today by their latest article. Read on.
You might think journalists at a popular science magazine would be able to investigate and reason.
In DenierGate, watch New Scientist closely, as they do the unthinkable and try to defend gross scientific malpractice by saying it’s OK because other people did other things a little bit wrong, that were not related, and a long time ago. Move along ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing to see…
The big problem for this formerly good publication is that they have decided already what the answer is to any question on climate-change (and the answer could be warm or cold but it’s always ALARMING). That leaves them clutching for sand-bags to prop up their position as the king-tide sweeps away any journalistic credibility they might have had.
I’ve added my own helpful notes into the New Scientist article, just so you get the full picture.
Read the whole story at Jo Nova’s website, and tell her I sent you.
UPDATE: More bullying from scientists
In WUWT comments, Keith Minto points out the New Scientist is listed in the Climategate emails
See: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=796&filename=1179416790.txt
From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: More Rubbish
Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 11:46:30 -0400
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
yep, I’m watching the changing of the guard live on TV here!
New Scientist was good. Gavin and I both had some input into that. They
are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point,
including the HS!
I have been reading this publication on and off since Nigel Calder was the editor. It was quite an curious, edgy publication then, willing to push boundaries (it was the first to publish Sir Alister Hardy’s Aquatic Ape Hypothesis) even though it then arrived 3mts late by seamail from Britain.
Nigel Calder co-authored “The Chilling Stars” with Heinrick Svensmark and made it into a very readable cosmic ray/cloud formation story that has captivated so may of us.
Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.
It appears that Mann was discussing this New Scientist article from May 16th, 2007
The 7 biggest myths about climate change
Interestingly, after that fawning article on “a guide for the perplexed” see in the CRU email archive on March 8th there is an email that names one of the authors of the May16th New Scientist article, Fred Pearce, where complaints are lodged about the upcoming March 10th issue and plans are suggested to counter it.
Here are web links for the two people mentioned: Eystein Jansen and Richard Somerville it appears there were BCC’s to CRU, otherwise we’d not have this email in that collection.
Here’s the email: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=784&filename=1173359793.txt
From: Eystein Jansen <eystein.jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Richard Somerville <rsomerville@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Wg1-ar4-clas] Responding to an attack on IPCC and ourselves
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 08:16:33 +0100
Cc: wg1-ar4-clas@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Hi,
just a quick reply. I am in on this, and will respond to a draft letter, in the hope that
you will make the first, Richard? I agree that it can be short. It is strange to see this,
knowing that the delegations I spoke to in/after Paris clearly said that the CLAs got it
their way, and that I believe this is the strong common perception we also had as CLAs
about the outcome.
Best wishes,
Eystein
Den 8. mar. 2007 kl. 03.11 skrev Richard Somerville:
Dear Fellow CLAs,
The British magazine *New Scientist* is apparently about to publish several items critical
of the IPCC AR4 WGI SPM and the process by which it was written. There is an editorial, a
column by Pearce, and a longer piece by Wasdell which is on the internet and referenced by
Pearce.
I think that this attack on us deserves a response from the CLAs. Our competence and
integrity has been called into question. Susan Solomon is mentioned by name in
unflattering terms. We ought not to get caught up in responding in detail to the many
scientific errors in the Wasdell piece, in my opinion, but I would like to see us refute
the main allegations against us and against the IPCC.
We need to make the case that this is shoddy and prejudiced journalism. Wasdell is not a
climate scientist, was not involved in writing AR4, was not in Paris, and is grossly
ignorant of both the science and the IPCC process. His account of what went on is
factually incorrect in many important respects.
New Scientist inexplicably violates basic journalistic standards by publicizing and
editorially agreeing with a vicious attack by an uncredentialed source without checking
facts or hearing from the people attacked. The editorial and Pearce column, which I regard
as packed with distortions and innuendo and error, are pasted below, and the Wasdell piece
is attached.
My suggestion is that a strongly worded letter to New Scientist, signed by as many CLAs as
possible, would be an appropriate response. I think we ought to say that the science was
absolutely not compromised or watered down by the review process or by political presure of
any kind or by the Paris plenary. I think it would be a mistake to attempt a detailed
point-by-point discussion, which would provoke further criticism; that process would never
converge.
Please send us all your opinions and suggestions for what we should do, using the email
list [1]wg1-ar4-clas@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
I am traveling and checking email occasionally, so if enough of us agree that we should
respond, I hope one or more of you (not me) will volunteer to coordinate the effort and
submit the result to New Scientist.
Best regards to all,
Richard
Richard C. J. Somerville
Distinguished Professor
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0224
La Jolla, CA 92093-0224, USA
—
Here’s the editorial that will appear in New Scientist on March 10.
Editorial: Carbon omissions
IT IS a case of the dog that didn’t bark. The dog in this instance was the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For several years, climate scientists have grown increasingly anxious about “positive
feedbacks” that could accelerate climate change, such as methane bubbling up as
permafrost melts. That concern found focus at an international conference organised by
the British government two years ago, and many people expected it to emerge strongly in
the latest IPCC report, whose summary for policy-makers was published in Paris last
month.
It didn’t happen. The IPCC summary was notably guarded. We put that down to scientific
caution and the desire to convey as much certainty as possible (New Scientist, 9
February, p 3), but this week we hear that an earlier version of the summary contained a
number of explicit references to positive feedbacks and the dangers of accelerating
climate change. A critique of the report now argues that the references were removed in
a systematic fashion (see “Climate report ‘was watered down'”).
This is worrying. The version containing the warnings was the last for which scientists
alone were responsible. After that it went out to review by governments. The IPCC is a
governmental body as well as a scientific one. Both sides have to sign off on the
report.
The scientists involved adamantly deny that there was undue pressure, or that the
scientific integrity of their report was compromised. We do know there were political
agendas, and that the scientists had to fight them. As one of the report’s 33 authors
put it: “A lot of us devoted a lot of time to ensuring that the changes requested by
national delegates did not affect the scientific content.” Yet small changes in language
which individually may not amount to much can, cumulatively, change the tone and message
of a report. Deliberately or not, this is what seems to have happened.
Senior IPCC scientists are not willing to discuss the changes, beyond denying that there
was political interference. They regard the drafting process as private. This is an
understandable reservation, but the case raises serious doubts about the IPCC process. A
little more transparency would go a long way to removing those qualms.
—
Here’s the Pearce column:
Climate report ‘was watered down’
* 10 March 2007
* From New Scientist Print Edition. [2]Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* Fred Pearce
BRITISH researchers who have seen drafts of last month’s report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became
involved in writing it.
David Wasdell, an independent analyst of climate change who acted as an accredited
reviewer of the report, says the preliminary version produced by scientists in April
2006 contained many references to the potential for climate to change faster than
expected because of “positive feedbacks” in the climate system. Most of these references
were absent from the final version.
His assertion is based on a line-by-line analysis of the scientists’ report and the
final version, which was agreed last month at a week-long meeting of representatives of
more than 100 governments. Wasdell told New Scientist: “I was astounded at the
alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review. The
evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific
material is overwhelming.”
He has prepared a critique, “Political Corruption of the IPCC Report?”, which claims:
“Political and economic interests have influenced the presented scientific material.” He
plans to publish the document online this week at [3]www.meridian.org.uk/whats.htm.
Wasdell is not a climatologist, but his analysis was supported this week by two leading
UK climate scientists and policy analysts. Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the
University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per
cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told New
Scientist: “The public needs to know that the policy-makers’ summary, presented as the
united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by
governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it.”
“The public needs to know that the summary has been watered down in subtle but vital
ways by governmental agents”
Crispin Tickell, a long-standing UK government adviser on climate and a former
ambassador to the UN, says: “I think David Wasdell’s analysis is very useful, and unique
of its kind. Others have made comparable points but not in such analytic detail.”
Wasdell’s central charge is that “reference to possible acceleration of climate change
[was] consistently removed” from the final report. This happened both in its treatment
of potential positive feedbacks from global warming in the future and in its discussion
of recent observations of collapsing ice sheets and an accelerating rise in sea levels.
For instance, the scientists’ draft report warned that natural systems such as
rainforests, soils and the oceans would in future be less able to absorb greenhouse gas
emissions. It said: “This positive feedback could lead to as much as 1.2
================
Here’s the editorial Carbon Omissions and another March 10th article at The New Scientist discussing the WG1 being “watered down”. Looks like they got their way, since the May 17th article was highly pro AGW or as Dr. Mann said:
They are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point, including the HS!
Your tax dollars at work.
UPDATE2:
Interestingly, due to Climategate, WUWT is now within striking distance in terms of reach and traffic of the New Scientist, and Scientific American. Prior to Nov 19th, WUWT was around the world rank 40K mark on a regular basis, now we’ve moved up. In the USA WUWT is now ranked 4823 according to this analysis.
Click for details at Alexa.
WUWT readers can help close the gap by referencing WUWT articles in letters to the editor, other blog posts, and blog comments where relevant. Thanks for your consideration. – Anthony
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Oooh, I really would like a tiff or a big jpg of that, suitable for printing and framing. As to the New Scientist being a “formerly good publication”, hmm – more like Scientific American Lite…. or Popular Science without either the Popular or the Science…
I just read the lates issue of New Scientists which had a short on the CRU e-mails. It included a water tight explaination of why CO2 is responcible for the present warming. I will reproduce thier argument here. The words are not the same but nothing has been lost in the translation:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas which has increased in concentration over the industrial period. We know that this increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming becasue we haven’t been able to attribute it to anything else e.g. increase in solar energy.
I read through Joe Nova’s article and she has it exactly right. I had already, before reading her article, written to the Non Sicnetist why I continued to not purchase their politcal propaganda.
They are losing money; help them lose more!! Write them and rub their noses in it!
Paul Coppin @ur momisugly 18:31:11
Scientific American Light? The Non Scientist has been around almost as long, certainly all my lifetime. I used to read it as a “newspaper of record” of what was going on in the various fields of science and engineering. It was always more immediate than SciAm.
However, now, it is a worthless piece of crap.
Its stuff like this, why i dropped “Scientific” American
AlexB,
You’re joking… I hope.
[REPLY – I think so. My ironometer definitely activated. ~ Evan]
New Scientist is deleting most of the comments about the Denialgate article.
My guess is that anyone who doubts in the AGW hypothesis is in violation of the terms of service.
funny how that works.
the battle is not yet won though – as described by this loon
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-sussex-will-be-desert-before-the-climate-deniers-accept-reality-1841895.html
We used to read every issue of New Scientist when I was at school in the 80s, and back then it was one of the most informative science magazines around. Today, though, I wouldn’t even use it to wipe my backside.
I suspect their big problem is that the web has essentially made them obsolete for science reporting, so their only hope of staying in business is publishing alarmist claptrap in the hope of bringing in new readers who can’t miss the latest ‘Oh my Gore, we’re all going to die!’ scare story.
Will be sad to see them go bust, but after the last few years of Warmist nonsense they won’t really be missed.
New Scientist get a mention in the climategate archive:
http://junkscience.com/FOIA/mail/1179416790.txt
…apparently incorporating Mike Mann’s perspective into New Scientist journalism – and, as being ‘dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point’, ‘including the HS!’ (ie. the Hockey Stick). And this was on Thu, 17 May 2007, in case Al Gore’s team are reading (& sometime after the Hockey Stick should have been at history in journalists minds, if not Jones’ and Mann’s, anyway).
I dropped SiAm in the 80’s for this sort of thing. But Non Scientist is even worse. At least they are no longer trying to hide the fact that they are no deeper than the shallow end of the Kiddie pool.
“If we are going to judge the truth of claims on the behaviour of those making them, it seems only fair to look at the behaviour of a few of those questioning the scientific consensus. There are many similar examples we did not include. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions about who to trust.”
Whom do I trust? Not the New Scientist. Science is not about trust, it’s about truth and there’s darn little of it in their publication.
They are comparing works by skeptics that, at worst, contain errors, with deliberate deceptions perpetrated by people upon whose works the entire “science” of AGW depends. “Non Scientist” is too kind a name for this kind of trash.
“The New Scientist” is AGW’s answer to Leni Riefenstahl. Nah! Forget that. Leni Riefenstahl was competent. These guys are more like “Comical Ali” of Iraq.
There are plenty of magazines and sites out there (e.g., Wired, Ars Technica, Scientific American, Physorg, Slashdot, Reddit, etc.) that get their marching orders from the perpetrators (whoever they are) of the GW scam. I’m beginning to believe that this [snip] is way too vast for it not to be centrally controlled or instigated by a small group of powerful people who can throw a [snip]load of money at their pet projects, if need be. Who could those supercrooks be? And I’m not talking about people like Al Gore, greenies or crooked climate scientists, btw. These guys are just paid puppets.
I’m cynical, I know.
I used to read New Scientist occasionally 20 years ago, but even then I found a lot of hyperventilating although some of the articles were thought-provoking.
It seems the mockery level has ratcheted up lately. Street theater in Copenhagen cuts both ways: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/15/polar-bear-phil-jones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fscitech+%2528FOXNews.com+-+SciTech%2529
One of the lamest defaults for warmers this has been.
“We know that this increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming becasue we haven’t been able to attribute it to anything else”
One honest translation of that is,
“We prefer to speculate that increased concentration of CO2 is causing the warming because every other cause is only specualtion.”
My impression of the greater truth is we know that many things cause climate to fluctuate but are still in early stages of understanding how to adequately measure the changes. Let alone on what to attribute to the changes.
It also seems logical to assume the various sources of influence on the climate and the degree of each influence is in continual flux as well, with the degree of force from some altering the force of others.
However, and unfortunately, it has become obvious the science of measuring climate has been corrupted and set back a number of years.
OT: The Law of Unintended Consequences:
MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.
How do I subscribe?
Re: TJA (18:52:02)
I hope they (New Scientist) are joking.
“Who you gonna call? Gore busters!!”
It’s a good tune…. LOL
I’m pretty sure that AlexB just forgot his /sarc tag.
“The big problem … is that they have decided already what the answer is to any question on climate-change”
Unlike this site, where open-minded inquisitiveness rules the day…
I used to read Scientific American all the time too. Now it is all about global warming and I can’t even stand to look at it. It makes me want to cry. Their web site is even worse.
I’ve taken to reading Science Daily on line. They seem to publish what ever is out there in a more unbiased way. Of course there are articles about warming because that is where the grant money is. I’ve noticed that even articles about research that has nothing to do with global warming tries to mention it somewhere in the text. Presumably for grant requirements or search engines. Unfortunately, they keep running a link under Science Video News: Research Meteorologist See More Severe Storms Ahead- the Culprit Global Warming. They have been running it for months. I don’t see how it is news anymore and there were no severe storms or hurricanes this season anyway.
They can’t even predict the weather two days from now never mind two years or two decades.
NS has friends in high places…
rom: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: More Rubbish
Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 11:46:30 -0400
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
yep, I’m watching the changing of the guard live on TV here!
New Scientist was good. Gavin and I both had some input into that. They
are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point,
including the HS!
I have been reading this publication on and off since Nigel Calder was the editor. It was quite an curious, edgy publication then, willing to push boundaries (it was the first to publish Sir Alister Hardy’s Aquatic Ape Hypothesis) even though it then arrived 3mts late by seamail from Britain.
Nigel Calder co-authored “The Chilling Stars” with Heinrick Svensmark and made it into a very readable cosmic ray/cloud formation story that has captivated so may of us.
Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.
I just watched the CNN/Youtube “debate” featuring Daryl Hannah, Thomas Friedman, Byorn Lomborg, et al, wherein Daryll Hannah proclaimed that she does not use petroleum. Later, the commentator noted that she just flew into Copenhaagendaaz on a red eye flight from Africa. How heroic.
Was that an all elecric jet liner?
Tom – I’ve seen the traffic light problem where I live, along with some amazing swerves and near-collisions. It’s amazing that people will blast through a snow-covered traffic light without caring which color might be showing.
I canceled PopSci in the 80s – they were already too politically correct. Sigh. We clearly live in the age of propaganda.