Readers will recall that I launched a volley against former Senator Tim Wirth regarding his recent statement where he wants to “come after” skeptics. I also made him a standing offer to attend the upcoming ICCC6 conference, offering up my 15 minutes to him to address the conference. You can read that essay Bring it, Mr. Wirth – a challenge here.
This morning, doing some web searching to see if the challenge had been picked up elsewhere, I ran across this gobsmacking quote from Wirth in 1993. It was then that I realized that the former Senator is mentally incapable of addressing the issue of global warming on a factual level, and there would never be a response to my challenge and offer.
“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. ” – Timothy Wirth quoted in Science Under Siege by Michael Fumento, 1993
That’s true religion. Wirth’s quote makes Dr. Phil Jones look almost reasonable by comparison.
When asked by Warwick Hughes for this data, Dr. Jones famously replied:
Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.
More wisdom from Wirth here
Be careful when debating a fool, it quickly becomes difficult to tell who is who. He is not in your league, ignore him.
Between the two Phil Jones made the worst comment. He is supposedly a scientist. The purpose of the scientific method is to get at the truth of an idea. He should be looking for those that are trying to take apart his work. His work would be the better for it.
“. . .the right thing, . . .”
So, I wonder what he meant by that. The words “economic” and “environmental” follow but the sense of them as used suggest control of the former in the service of the latter. I’ve not heard of this Wirth person before this week, so, I don’t know about his beliefs, training, goals, religion and so on. At this point, I’d say he is not a nice person.
I could argue that a sitting Senator making that kind of statement is worse, but the level of worse depends on what the rest of the Senate looks like … umm, so not good …
It was in yesterday’s article or Mr. Wirth. It was in a comment by NikFromNYC
Typo:
“…..article on Mr. Wirth…….”
headline news: “politician caught telling lies”. that’s 365 days a year.
In reading the dossier on Tim Worth, I wonder why the concern of population. If there ends up being too many people, then some may starve and die. But isn’t it better to have lived to the age of 80, then die from hunger, than to have never lived at all, which appears to be Wirth’s preference (for others)?
Mr. Wirth is from the government and he is here to help.
Help himself, help the progressive cause, help world government, or …..?
“gobsmacking”
It’s about money. He’s on the dole. He’s the head of the “United Nations Foundation.” How much money does the UN make off it CO2 offset verification program? Do an article on the UN. How about one on Kleiner Perkins and Al Gore too?
“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
Um… because that’s how science works.
As I suspected and stated previously here, these people are of their own self righteous thought and at the root are only capable of expressing themselves with an inner desire to only serve themselves
Good job calling him out! 🙂
I wonder now if Wirth is going to include the US Supreme Court members to his hit list.
Of course you wouldn’t want to make your data available to people trying to find something wrong with it when you are personally aware that something is wrong with it. That’s a no brainer.
I agree with chemmen. Jones’ comment is worse because it is antithetical to the scientific method of which replication is a basic tenet. We expect as much from politicians.
I am embarrassed that I share a name with him.
The old adage is always true: Don’t debate a fool as he will pull you down to his level and beat you with experience.
“when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
Shouldn’t it be “… try to find …” if everything was ok?
“Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. ”
How does Wirth reconcile his honest admission that AGW could be the biggest whopper in human history with his confidence in the AGW policies being the right thing?
For over twenty years these people have run the show. Britons, American, Australians, Germans, French, it matters not from where you hail. These are who you elected to office.
Some ran as progressives, like Mr. Wirth, some ran as conservatives, like Ms. Merkle. Where they differed is far less important than where they agreed. They all have betrayed the people who voted them into office. And for what? I’ll let you all think this one out for yourselves.
In reading the ‘More wisdom from Wirth’ link (at the bottom of the article), it state he is a follower of the teachings of Malthus . . . perhaps that isn’t surprising . . .
Dr. Phil Jones reveals some of the reasons why sceptics think they have a case.
Yet they use the D word for us. Odd world indeed. ;O)
Pascal’s Wager lives. The only problem with it is illustrated here (at ~2:15):
Anthony, wouldn’t it be fair and helpful to have the context in which Wirth’s comment was made? It is very conceivable that he simply meant that even if the evidence was incomplete (1993), it would still be advisable to act conservatively. In making ordinary risk assessments we often have to assume that danger lies ahead, even though we don’t have full knowledge of the perils waiting. Since 1993, there have been thousands of peer reviewed research papers presented which have enhanced our knowledge of climate change appreciably. As a matter of shear honesty, you must be aware of this and it is curious to me why you have not been impacted by this well documented information.
No doubt Wirth’s comments reflect the deepest impulse of the liberal greens. The interviewer on the video from yesterday was from The Nation. Wirth himself is with the UN Foundation a Ted Turner invention (from their website):
“Timothy Wirth is the President of the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Fund. Both organizations were founded in 1998 through a major financial commitment from Ted Turner to support and strengthen the work of the United Nations.”
So this is one more “important guy” who attends Davos, who, like Tom Friedman et al., would much rather have a more “efficient” way to manage our country. We need a high degree of vigilance. These people are on the wane right now (cf. Mead)…but they’ll be back. The impulse for command and control will always be there. So, while he is not capable of a technical debate, he must be shown for who he is. I say invite him any where and everywhere.
Hide the data, hide your thoughts. It’s all for our own good.
More quotes from Dr. Phil
This is why people should not immediately trust a word they say. That’s my 2 cents.
Is the source code for any of the global climate models publicly available?
Jones’ remark will live in recorded history as an excellent example of a scientist denying scientific method and the entire ethical framework that is part and parcel of it.
Sounds a lot like “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Anyone have a date for the above Christine Stewart (Minister of the Environment) quote? It’s so heavily prominent on the net that Google hides it among an insane number that don’t have a date.
Senator Wirth is the consummate spokesman for the AGW camp.
Hugh Pepper
June 26, 2011 at 10:39 am
Since 1993, there have been thousands of peer reviewed research papers presented which have enhanced our knowledge of climate change appreciably. As a matter of shear honesty, you must be aware of this and it is curious to me why you have not been impacted by this well documented information.
###
What you mean is, thousands of pal reviewed propaganda pieces packaged as science.
@Curious Canuck
She stated that on December 14, 1998, my daughter’s birthday.
Wirth’s comment isn’t about religion, it’s about politics. Specifically One World Government politics. The dream of every petty tyrant since the dawn of civilizaiton.
My turn:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Maurice Strong (U.N. environmental leader).
Buck Smith says:
June 26, 2011 at 10:59 am
Is the source code for any of the global climate models publicly available?
These have been looked at and there has been some discussion on WUWT and other sites. I did not find a link but remember reading them at the time. I did find a link to “source code” regarding temperature data processing. You might like to have a look and maybe check the 276 comments for additional ideas.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/climategate-the-smoking-code/
Curious Canuck says:
June 26, 2011 at 11:12 am
Calgary Herald, 14 December 1998.
Tracking down an original source for some of the quotes floating around the web on global warming is not easy. Some are out of context. I always try to give a book or magazine publication date and page when quoting something. It really makes it easier to verify.
The Christine Stewart quote used in Curious Canuck’s comment was supposed to be in the Calgary Herald 12/14/98, but I was never able to find it on the web. Doesn’t mean it isn’t there somewhere.
“there would never be a response to my challenge and offer.”
I could have told you that by simply looking at his statements that he wanted climate skeptics silenced….
Oh wait I did tell you that.
Several of your commenters are still obsessed with Phil Jones, as if the entire case for AGW depended on his research. There are at least five other lines of evidence which overlap and support the CRU data. If the Jones team was the only provider of evidence, your correspondents might have a point. But this is clearly NOT the case.
Lines of evidence for what? That we’ve been in a multi-decade warming spell? Yes. We have. Lots of evidence related to that in studies of flora and fauna response to a warming spell. On this site, we file this revelation under: duh.
Or are you talking about the temperature series itself from monitoring stations? Not so fast. Just where did this temperature data come from that these five other lines of evidence used?
“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. ” – Timothy Wirth quoted in Science Under Siege by Michael Fumento, 1993
huh. Would you like some hypocrisy with that order of hubris? Or do you have enough ‘consensus’ with your order?
Juanse Barrose @ June 26, 10:13 am
Yes and No. In any experiment once you’ve accumulated the primary data, you
can do comparisions with other similar studies, treat the numbers mathmatically
to describe the primary data, or pop the numbers into a computer model and
then vary the factors that lead to the data being what it is, or with changing a
factor here or there, what the data might predict.
However, what ever you do you have to show the basic data was reliable and
obtained without sample bias. Your mathmatical treatments have to be shown
and replicable by someone else using your data. If it’s replicable,
then everything is probably OK.
One major problem that’s not immediately obvious:
There’s not a lot of public or private money floating around to fund studies
aimed to prove/disprove replicability in areas like temperature
reconstructions, climate variability, and proxy sampling and their interpretations.
There’s not a lot of professional credential building or future journal citations
attached to replicating/failing to replicate someone else’s work. The academic
doctorate programs and the post doc and tenure track “publish or perish”
syndrome really only recognizes studies that “advance knowledge in a
given field… not something that is viewed as the research equivalent of
treading water. You sure won’t make friends by trying to replicate a study,
failing to replicate the results, then talking about it or publishing
our finding that the reults couldn’t be replicated. This = not OK.
Please see the “Team” and their supporter’s/cheerleader’s pronouncements
on the subject of Steve McIntire, Climate Audit, and Anthony Watt and WUWT.
Anathema !!
That’s why Mike Mann’s work back in 1998 is crucial to the “warming” crowd.
A myriad of studies since then are based on the data he made available and the
interpretaions he drew from various incarnations of his “models”.
The next generation of climate studies and models sometimes don’t even cite
Mann’s early work… they just rely on studies that deep down inside, relied on
the early (and now controversial) “Team” efforts.
The link above to more Wirthless wisdom – “While in the Senate, he co-sponsored legislation that would, among other things, give priority to international aid programs that “enhance access to… bicycles, carts, pack animals, and similar affordable, non-motorized vehicles” for the purpose of reducing use of fossil fuels (greenhouse gases), relegating the recipient nations to a perpetual Third World status.”
Reminded me of Global 2000 Report to the President in 1980 with its running meme of “population control” –
“The report argued that without countervailing action, by the year 2000 there will be 2 to 4 billion people too many. Therefore, the report said, it is required that the government implicitly direct all policies domestic and foreign toward the elimination of 2 to 4 billion people by the year 2000. ………The Global 2000 Report, however, assumed no diffusion of modern agroindustrial capabilities to the Third World. Instead, it assumed that the Third World would be denied even available forms of technology.” http://compleatpatriot.blogspot.com/2009/11/club-of-romes-nazi-environmentalism-to.html
I think the “climate deniers” slur was a deliberate introduction as too the accusation that “skeptics are funded by big oil” – both have become so prevalent that people using them do so automatically, like using the latest slang, and a common reaction is surprise when the connection to the holocaust is pointed out, and, both are actually applicable to the originators of the AGWScam and their ideology so using this technique for deflecting attention away the originators and their motives has been a success.
Monckton’s ‘error’, I’m not sure it was, was to relate that to an individual rather than the general ideology of many behind these moves to destroy economies. But the picture is out there. It would be interesting to know how any rank and file environmentalists present reacted to it, I doubt they think of themselves in that way regardless how often we note they repeat the slogans.
Someone said that it was time this was taken away from debating the ‘science’ and into the political arena proper, I don’t really agree with that. No reason for this not to be happening at the same time, and there are mps and senators and so on involved now, but I think that would become a natural outcome when the message the science is corrupt gets better known, as in Australia, from the people themselves. It’s difficult because the MSM is controlled by these same interested parties, but I think the emphasis should still be on getting real science back into general consciousness and so the education system and that’s where blogs like this are invaluable. There’s something, perhaps it’s part of stats?, that talks about a ‘tipping’ point in the spread of information, that this can go practically instantly from a few talking about something to mainstream.
“Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
I have seen this quote several times, but every time without a source. Can someone point me to the article / letter / whatever it was from Phil containing that statement? It is a powerful quote to the effect that Phil Jones hasn’t the faintest idea how science works… but only if I can back it up with a reference.
What exactly is his link and loyalty to Hansen?
Hugh Pepper says:
June 26, 2011 at 10:39 am
“Anthony, wouldn’t it be fair and helpful to have the context in which Wirth’s comment was made?”
There is no context under which Wirth’s statement is conscionable. It is simple as that. Evocation of the “precautionary principle” as justification to bamboozle the public is execrable. Considering the events and revelations of “climate science” since 1993, skeptic objection to warmist dirty science tricks, obfuscation and advocacy have been shown to be fully justified. You state that “there have been thousands of peer reviewed research papers presented which have enhanced our knowledge of climate change appreciably” implying that the science since 1993 has advanced the CAGW cause. Well, dream on, Hugh Pepper. The empirical science is not cooperating with the warmists and their desperation is showing, one can imagine the beads of sweat on their brows. Just witness the recent sea level peer reviewed paper Kemp 2011 with Mann as a coauthor. Even a layman can see that it is garbage. Even without the data being archived, In a few days skeptics have eviscerated this turkey. Kyoto is dead, Copenhagen was a farce and skeptics smell blood.
Confucious was so pithy about it: “Argue with a fool and there are two fools arguing.”
But maddeningly, when it comes to climate fools we have no choice but to at least keep correcting them. The environmental echo-chamber is huge and just keeps growing. It’s futile to suppose that reason and evidence will ever get a hearing in there; all we can do is try to contain it and keep it from growing even more.
BTW, delicious irony that Wirth’s statement appeared in a book called “Science Under Siege,” no?
Lee – re the Phil Jones quote: http://climateaudit.org/2005/10/15/we-have-25-years-invested-in-this-work/
Goodness, a lot has happened since 2006. On 15 Feb that year I wrote a letter to our national newspaper, “The Australian”, saying in part about scientists with agendas –
“An example is the selection of Australian weather recording sites used to construct the temperature measurements of the continent, which play a big part in southern hemisphere weather models. From the beginning, most sites that showed little or no temperature rise or a fall from, say, the 1880s to now were rejected. The few sites selected to represent Australia were mainly from capital cities and under suspicion for “heat island” effects.”
The public reaction was severely against my assertion.Then, as I explained further about the early Phil Jones papers and letter to Nature, jaws began to drop. By now, mid 2011, most Australians have come to think that global warming is questionable. (I think that a decade of global non-warming has much to do with that).
Although I lost the original emails in a disc crash, here is something else I wrote on 28 March 2006:
6. I have since asked Phil Jones from East Anglia for a copy of his selection of the original Australian data. He says “We no longer have the Australian station data we were using in the early 1980s. At that time we had a limited network.”
How many variations of the Jones story have you heard since?
Myrrh;
Yes, the science and politics are linked at the root.
The consistent propagandistic effort to identify “science” with the peer-pal-reviewed literature is exemplified by commenters like Hugh Pepper. The next step is to label and slander those who question its validity by equating their stance every clichéed example of anti-scientific thought they can dredge up. Hence come . sneering references to doubters of evolution, heliocentric astronomy, etc.
When the quality of the consensus’ science is questioned, references to the “97% of qualified climate scientists believe” meme or lists of “official” science association pronouncements (from NAS etc.) are appealed to as “authorities”. Again, the intent is to try to make skepticism look like crackpot outlier nattering.
Manipulative efforts like this are justified by Wirth and others, to themselves, as necessary to move the world along towards the “properly managed” state they long to impose on the globe; this is the noble cause to which they end up appealing. Managing the climate and managing humanity are all part of the same control-freaky obsession. So it’s personal when they take on M&M or Anthony; the act of raising questions or doubts is taken as hostility and responded to with hostility. At the political level, that assessment is not too far wrong. At the science level, it’s much too far wrong.
JN says:
“It’s about money. He’s on the dole. He’s the head of the “United Nations Foundation.” How much money does the UN make off it CO2 offset verification program? Do an article on the UN. How about one on Kleiner Perkins and Al Gore too?”
I think there is a misunderstanding about what the UN Foundation is and who runs it. Visit their website. One could easily be convinced by the logos and all that that it’s part of the UN. It is in fact run by the US State Department and is a vehicle for the implementation of US foreign policy, like all Federal development aid.
Readers and contributors: please stop the knee-jerk anti-UN dribbling and first find out something about what you are attacking. And please be a little more skeptical before blindly accepting claims made for or against any person or organisation. It is all about independent investigation of truth, not latching onto cosy phrases.
Pepper,
5 other lines of evidence ? really, how about a link … because along with your “thousands of peer reviewed papers” claim I am inclinded to call BS on those claims … you don’t get to make unsupported claims … in polite circles you would be accused of making stuff up, or lying in less polite circles …
This quote always gobsmacked me:
“Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
Dr. Jones
Isn’t the whole purpose of peer review, “to find something wrong with it”?
Isn’t the whole purpose of the scientific method itself, “to find something wrong with it”?
No wonder these guys only permit their work to be reviewed by people who already agree with them.
starzmom says:
June 26, 2011 at 9:47 am
I am embarrassed that I share a name with him.
I’m embarrased that I’m the same species.
Curious Canuck says:
June 26, 2011 at 11:12 am
Sounds a lot like “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
—
What was it Rahm said? “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Hugh Pepper: The “five lines” have been addressed at this site a few times and they all seem to come back to a common upside down use of one set of contaminated (by recent development – the words of those who collected it) lake sediment sample or one tree. We have seen that the reason for all the obfuscation over source data is because the data that gives the “correct” response is highly suspect and those who published on it KNOW that it is suspect data.
It all still looks like natural variability to me (which is now and will forever be the null hypothesis). Until someone shows me actual unmanipulated temperature data from properly cited and maintained instruments that show otherwise, that will continue to be my position. (By the way, what sense does it make to anyone that the correct UHI adjustment for a site’s temperature record is to increase the recorded temperature? If one was to “correct for” an upward bias, wouldn’t one decrease from the recorded temperature to remove the apparent bias?)
I am not sure who mentioned the replication issue, but universities really need to look at the concept of confirmation publication as a tenure item. There is a serious need to review and critique published information. The publication of a finding really should be the start of the discussion, not the end of it. The first attempt to confirm general relativity erroneously found no deflection of the star field. If that had been allowed to stand, there would be many physicists out trying to find other explanations for the force of gravity, and all our GPS units would be off by several hundred meters. Subsequent measurements found exactly the predicted deflection of the star field. I still haven’t heard a good explanation to account for what went wrong on the initial photograph, the measurements themselves look to have been done correctly so there must have been something wrong with the setup of the telescope that took the picture.
There is a definite need to replicate others work to catch unworkable items. Off the top of my head I remember great headlines about “room temperature fusion”. Only no one has been able to replicate the effect using the described apparatus. They may have made correct measurements, but they didn’t describe the apparatus correctly if they did. There have been a few other much ballyhooed “discoveries” that have been totally irreplicable because of made up data. Fortunately none of those items required the west to deindustrialize in order to “save the world”.
I’m ashamed to say that in my naive youth I actually voted for Tim Wirth.
At least I’m willing to admit my mistake, unlike Wirth and Jones (and Gore).
Brian H – (27th 3:24 am)
I found this page from a link to Chapter 7 on the JoNova site discussion on Keynes: http://www.keynesatharvard.org/book/KeynesatHarvard-ch08.html Socialism – A Pseudo Science
Besides the connecting up the dots to the Fabians, it touches on an aspect I hadn’t known about Socialism, that it began as a claim to be scientific. The parallels with AGW is uncanny; the same excuse for the failed science to be replaced with ‘faith’ among the hierarchy which understood its failure while maintaining the ‘scientific base’ for the oiks, the same skullduggery in presenting itself as the solution with accompanying callous disregard for those who stand in its way, with the same excuses that extermination doesn’t really mean extermination.. The author notes re something Keynes said – “However, his use of such a term reflects a morbid political attitude.”
Keynes at Harvard by Zygmund Dobbs
afraid4me – in my youth I voted for Maggie… I was so shocked when her policies began to unfold, not the policies, though they were shocking enough, but how ignorant about politics I had been when I cast my vote – the power of advertising.
A good article posted on the JoNova discussion on Keynes – full circle to the Fabians and more connecting the dots to the attacks on individual business enterprise by imposition of rules and regs such as is rampant now in California and the creation of punitive taxations through taking central control.
Such as being achieved through the AGW campaign, the leaders into this direction at the beginning and now manage very well to profit by their inside knowledge enriching their own lives while demanding reduced quality of life for the masses.
All being achieved through the founding principles of Fabianism. The use of deceit and subterfuge as their method of choice to their ultimate goal of imposing central control of individuals in every aspect of their lives themselves excluded, such as in Julia Gillard actions and Wirthless here. And, no wonder the proliferation of those proclaiming themselves ‘skeptics’ at the same time as pushing the science fiction memes of AGW, so dumbing down the population through education, while accompanied by the same call to restrictions of individual liberties or acceptability of higher green taxes by promoting the idea that some solution or other comes from their concerned and considered opinion that agreeing to x of the AGW demands will stop the rot of complete AGW takeover or be in some way good for the environment even if carbon dioxide isn’t a problem..
“It is significant that after spending all their lives using their undoubted creative abilities to destroy the faith of million of people in traditional values and institutions, both Shaw and Wells became increasingly pessimistic about the future of man.”
..created in their own image..
http://www.alor.org/Library/FabianSocialistContributiontotheCommunistAdvance.htm
The links posted come from the discussion here: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/06/keynes-versus-hayek-big-government-versus-individual-rights
Wirth Reminds me of “Captain Red Legs” on “The Outlaw Josey Wales”: “Doing right aint got no end”. Beware the zealot.