When it comes to attacking climate scientists, the alarmist Left has the market cornered
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
Global warming alarmists constantly claim they are being “harassed” by climate chaos skeptics. The Climate Armageddon-istas proclaim they are victims, and the American Geophysical Union has even created a “Climate Science Legal Defense Fund,” to pay mounting legal bills that alarmist scientists like Michael Mann have incurred. But the real war on honest science and scientists is being waged by those who have garnered billions of taxpayer, foundation and corporate dollars for alarmist research, and thus have the most to lose when the public finally figures out what’s been going on. No wonder they are in a tizzy.
My article this week explores these issues – primarily by reviewing two cases where scientists really have been singled out, vilified and persecuted: Dr. Patrick Michaels from the University of Virginia, and Dr. David Legates at the University of Delaware.
Left-leaning environmentalists, media and academics have long railed against the alleged conservative “war on science.” They augment this vitriol with substantial money, books, documentaries and conference sessions devoted to “protecting” global warming alarmists from supposed “harassment” by climate chaos skeptics, whom they accuse of wanting to conduct “fishing expeditions” of alarmist emails and “rifle” their file cabinets in search of juicy material (which might expose collusion or manipulated science).
A primary target of this “unjustified harassment” has been Penn State University professor Dr. Michael Mann, creator of the infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph that purported to show a sudden spike in average planetary temperatures in recent decades, following centuries of supposedly stable climate. But at a recent AGU meeting a number of other “persecuted” scientists were trotted out to tell their story of how they have been “attacked” or had their research, policy demands or integrity questioned.
To fight back against this “harassment,” there was actually created (with help from the American geophysical Union) a “Climate Science Legal Defense Fund,” to pay mounting legal bills that these scientists have incurred. The AGU does not want any “prying eyes” to gain access to their emails or other information. These scientists and the AGU see themselves as “Freedom Fighters” in this “war on science.” It’s a bizarre war.
While proclaiming victimhood, they detest and vilify any experts who express doubts that we face an imminent climate Armageddon. They refuse to debate any such skeptics, or permit “nonbelievers” to participate in conferences where endless panels insist that every imaginable and imagined ecological problem is due to fossil fuels. They use hysteria and hyperbole to advance claims that slashing fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions will enable us to control Earth’s climate – and that references to computer model predictions and “extreme weather events” justify skyrocketing energy costs, millions of lost jobs, and severe damage to people’s livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare.
Reality is vastly different from what these alarmist, environmentalist, academic, media and political elites attempt to convey.
In 2009, before Mann’s problems began, Greenpeace started attacking scientists it calls “climate deniers,” focusing its venom on seven scientists at four institutions, including the University of Virginia and University of Delaware. This anti-humanity group claimed its effort would “bring greater transparency to the climate science discussion” through “educational and other charitable public interest activities.” (If you believe that, send your bank account number to those Nigerians with millions in unclaimed cash.)
UVA administrators quickly agreed to turn over all archived records belonging to Dr. Patrick Michaels, a prominent climate chaos skeptic who had recently retired from the university. They did not seem to mind that no press coverage ensued, and certainly none that was critical of these Spanish Inquisition tactics.
However, when the American Tradition Institute later filed a similar FOIA request for Dr. Mann’s records, UVA marshaled the troops and launched a media circus, saying conservatives were harassing a leading climate scientist. The AGU, American Meteorological Society and American Association of University Professors (the nation’s college faculty union) rushed forward to lend their support. All the while, in a remarkable display of hypocrisy and double standards, UVA and these organizations continued to insist it was proper and ethical to turn all of Dr. Michaels’ material over to Greenpeace.
Meanwhile, although it had started out similarly, the scenario played out quite differently at the University of Delaware. Greenpeace targeted Dr. David Legates, demanding access to records related to his role as the Delaware State Climatologist. The University not only agreed to this. It went further, and demanded that Legates produce all his records – regardless of whether they pertained to his role as State Climatologist, his position on the university faculty, or his outside speaking and writing activities, even though he had received no state money for any of this work. Everything was fair game.
But when the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a FOIA request for documents belonging to several U of Delaware faculty members who had contributed to the IPCC, the university told CEI the state’s FOIA Law did not apply. (The hypocrisy and double standards disease is contagious.) Although one faculty contributor clearly had received state money for his climate change work, University Vice-President and General Counsel Lawrence White claimed none of the individuals had received state funds.
When Legates approached White to inquire about the disparate treatment, White said Legates did not understand the law. State law did not require that White produce anything, White insisted, but also did not preclude him from doing so. Under threat of termination for failure to respond to the demands of a senior university official, Legates was required to allow White to inspect his emails and hardcopy files.
Legates subsequently sought outside legal advice. At this, his academic dean told him he had now gone too far. “This puts you at odds with the University,” she told him, “and the College will no longer support anything you do.” This remarkable threat was promptly implemented. Legates was terminated as the State Climatologist, removed from a state weather network he had been instrumental in organizing and operating, and banished from serving on any faculty committees.
Legates appealed to the AAUP – the same union that had staunchly supported Mann at UVA. Although the local AAUP president had written extensively on the need to protect academic freedom, she told Legates that FOIA issues and actions taken by the University of Delaware’s vice-president and dean “would not fall within the scope of the AAUP.”
What about the precedent of the AAUP and other professional organizations supporting Dr. Mann so quickly and vigorously? Where was the legal defense fund to pay Legates’ legal bills? Fuggedaboutit.
In the end, it was shown that nothing White examined in Legates’ files originated from state funds. The State Climate Office had received no money while Legates was there, and the university funded none of Legates’ climate change research though state funds. This is important because, unlike in Virginia, Delaware’s FOIA law says that regarding university faculty, only state-funded work is subject to FOIA.
That means White used his position to bully and attack Legates for his scientific views – pure and simple. Moreover, a 1991 federal arbitration case had ruled that the University of Delaware had violated another faculty member’s academic freedom when it examined the content of her research. But now, more than twenty years later, U Del was at it again.
Obviously, academic freedom means nothing when one’s views differ from the liberal faculty majority – or when they contrast with views and “science” that garners the university millions of dollars a year from government, foundation, corporate and other sources, to advance the alarmist climate change agenda. All these institutions are intolerant of research, reports and classroom instruction by scientists like Legates, because they fear losing grant money if they permit contrarian views, discussions, debates or anything questioning the climate chaos “consensus.” At this point, academic freedom and free speech apply only to advance selected political agendas, and campus “diversity” exists in everything but opinions.
Climate alarmists have been implicated in the ClimateGate scandal, for conspiring to prevent their adversaries from receiving grants, publishing scientific papers, and advancing their careers. Yet they are staunchly supported by their universities, professional organizations, union – and groups like Greenpeace.
Meanwhile, climate disaster skeptics are vilified and harassed by these same groups, who pretend they are fighting to “let scientists conduct research without the threat of politically motivated attacks.” Far worse, we taxpayers are paying the tab for the junk science – and then getting stuck with regulations, soaring energy bills, lost jobs and reduced living standards … based on that bogus science.
Right now, the climate alarmists appear to be winning their war on honest science. But storm clouds are gathering, and a powerful counteroffensive is heading their way.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
Apparently, “harassment” in alarmists terms means have to obey the law. Their examples of proclaimed harassment are simply lawful requests. While their demands of non-alarmists are clearly not lawful requests.
I would love to say this strange behavior is outside of the norm. But when it comes to Climate Science, it appears to be status quo.
Classic Kleptocracy.
When you question the theft of your resources, by bandits claiming to be the State.
You become an enemy of the State.
There may be no peaceful way to restrain thieves and bandits.
For , How do you negotiate with a parasite?
Reblogged this on caprizchka and commented:
The double-standard “rape culture” of warmists.
“….powerful counter-offensive….”
Unfortunately I will only believe it when I see it. To mangle my metaphors, currently us skeptics are simply pissing in the wind as far as getting anywhere near making a dent onto the putrid surface of this AGW scam. And the opposition know it.
Where is all this leading to? In a decade we (society) will be looking back laughing at how paranoid the alarmists were. I bet we are in for a bit of a cold spell in the next ten years. What gets me is how they can be in denial of 17+ years of NO WARMING. Damn the evidence they cry!!
In the US is there no law concerning deception that prevents the fulfilment of the law?
Surely, there is a case for the prosecution of University Vice-President and General Counsel Lawrence White .
“UVA administrators quickly agreed to turn over all archived records belonging to Dr. Patrick Michaels, a prominent climate chaos skeptic who had recently retired from the university. They did not seem to mind that no press coverage ensued, and certainly none that was critical of these Spanish Inquisition tactics.”
Why do otherwise sensible, informed and wise people make silly statements about the Spanish Inquisition. It’s obvious these people have not read any actual data-based research on the Spanish Inquisition. Unfortunately, they seem to want to copy the climate alarmist strategy of believing that if you keep on saying something, no matter how unwarranted, often enough, people will start to believe it.
Just the a battleground in the war of culture and ideology. A grotesque tale.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
(I’ll get my coat)
climate disaster skeptics are vilified and harassed by these same groups
Even self-professed skeptics activity groups [c.f. the Evans debacle on this blog] join in the harassment when their agenda and dogmatism are being scrutinized.
John Boles says:
July 28, 2014 at 12:44 pm
“… I bet we are in for a bit of a cold spell in the next ten years. What gets me is how they can be in denial of 17+ years of NO WARMING. Damn the evidence they cry!!”
All freedom loving, “Big Brother” hating people should pray for cold. Any poor souls who might be killed by this cold would be freedom fighters, the minutemen of modern times.
No wonder they feel harassed. They just want to study the ‘science’.
Freud suggested that people, through unintentional slips, reveal hidden beliefs which they suppress in their subconscious. This photo may reveal Mann’s real knowledge about global temperature, as well as his central role in this “circus” (note his Bozo shoes). I promise not to post this again here but hope it is not “disappeared.” http://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/t31.0-8/476395_337058606350348_101913724_o.jpg
These climate ‘scientists’ need the be labeled for what they are, simply climate Nazi’s. Until the correct term for these brown shirts are repeated, the mainstream will think they are on the up and up. If CO2 is the determinant, then why did we have an increase of 0.45 C from ~1915-1945 while only loading the atmosphere with an additional 2.5 billion tons of CO2 annually. Yet, between 1945-1975, we increased our loading from 5 Bt annually to 20 Bt annually (an substantial increase of 15 Bt), but had a decease of global temperatures. Then, during our ‘CAGW” period from 1978 to 1998, the annual loading of CO2 was increased by only 4 Bt. Since 1998, the significant increase of loading from 24 Bt to the current input of 38 Bt, we have the global ‘pause’ in temperatures. This isn’t rocket science, the climate Nazi’s are deliberately providing a fraudulent narrative to continue their funding.
“But storm clouds are gathering, and a powerful counteroffensive is heading their way.”
I sure hope so. I look forward to seeing that.
John Boles says:
July 28, 2014 at 12:44 pm
—-
We could have snow in July in Florida, and the warmistas will still be proclaiming it to be the warmest July ever.
And the medial will back them.
If this was the only thing I ever heard about the climate change issue, I’d know instantly which side the truth sides on.
Nature has an even more powerful counter-offensive headed towards Global Warmists… more Winter 2014-2015 Polar Vortex-related cold outbreaks in North America. 3 or 4 major PV chilldowns in Jan-April this year, and two so far this N hemisphere summer, portends more to come this coming winter. That wii be that powerful reality that destroys the Alarmists’ public relations.
M Courtney says:
July 28, 2014 at 12:46 pm
——
There are laws against such thing.
The problem is that only the state has authority to prosecute such crimes, and the fact is, state AGs are political animals first and foremost.
No such prosecutions would ever occur. The state protects itself at the expense of mere subjects.
RobRoy says:
July 28, 2014 at 1:12 pm
“All freedom loving, “Big Brother” hating people should pray for cold. Any poor souls who might be killed by this cold would be freedom fighters, the minutemen of modern times.”
___________________
That is a sordid statement, fully as wrongheaded as the claims by “greens” that human populations must be reduced. Those using the argument that the end justifies the means whenever human deaths and suffering result and are condoned, never visualize themselves, or their loved ones, among those falling victim to the agenda being promoted.
The typical bizzaro-world of leftist politics wherein they accuse others of what they themselves are doing:
War on women is blamed on the false accusation that those on the right are somehow responsible for lack of wage parity, whereas, eg, the obama Whitehouse pays its female staff markedly less than the men in its employ.
Environmental destruction is blamed on free enterprise and industry but the warmunists engage in wholesale slaughter of bats and birds with energy-ineffectual windmills.
Racism is oft an loudly cried by the left against those who would oppose them, but it is the democrat party that founded the KKK, had KKK-officer Robert Byrd in the Senate until 2010, voted against the Equal Rights amendment, was responsible for the Jim Crow laws, and was founded, in part, to protect property rights of slave owners.
If they are crying “war on science”, it is because they themselves are guilty of it.
All who want power have a “rules for thee and rules for me” approach. I will start believing in CAGW when those behind start to live the way they command us to live.
Regarding the avoidance of debate by those on the alarmist side of the aisle, I think the absolute pasting (and the Bronx cheer Gavin Schmidt got when he plaintively stated the audience wasn’t understanding the issues) they got at the Intelligence Squared debate in Manhattan back in 2007 has something to do with it. Debating the statement, “Global Warming is not a crisis”, the alarmists went from being ahead in the pre-debate audience poll 30% to 57% to being behind, 46% to 42%, after an arguably liberal and educated Manhattenite audience heard what both sides had to say. Lindzen, Crichton and Stott did a great job, Schmidt et al. did their best.
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/559-global-warming-is-not-a-crisis
I should have added that things are hotting up in the Arctic.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Left tactic. Bully, if that doesn’t work, then, become the victim!
OT: Something looks wrong with JAXA sea ice. Is there a WUWT article?
It would certainly be nice to see a “counteroffensive” against the AGW alarm artists. That’s my term for them, “alarm artists”, as I find it to be an art form that only pretends to be backed by science.
What amazes me, is that there are absolutely no government our publicly funded studies to even look for natural climate drivers. Nor is there any effort to determine what combination of natural forces could even potentially be driving current climate trends. Thus, any research to that end, must be privately funded, often on a shoestring budget. Then the political left, only manage to gain ammunition against “skeptics” by pointing out the sources for such funding, while carefully concealing their own sources.
This is truly a war of information, and the other side controls most of the media. That leaves those like myself, fighting an uphill battle. I continue to believe, that truth will someday prevail.
They say that 97% of scientists agree that humans likely cause some impact on the environment. Is that controversial. I don’t believe that anybody here would suggest otherwise. The question is who are the 3% who think otherwise?
Obviously humans likely have some impact on the environment and temperatures. The question is if that impact is positive, negative, small, large, +2C, +4C, +1C, +0.5C, -0.5C, 6C, 10C????? The debate is that they said “the feedback was +3C +- very little and that this would cause damaging impacts we could not cheaply mitigate”. If 97% of scientists agreed with that then that would be something. However, I’ve never seen a survey of scientists to see what number agree with that statement?
When they say 97% agree with a statement that nobody disputes the obvious intent is to imply that actually 97% believe the second much stronger statement. That is extremely deceptive and lays bare the deceit of their whole argument.
I don’t think reality will dent the Planet Savers bodywork, judging by what happened with DDT and CFCs. Not many know that banning DDT was a ghastly mistake, and the CFC thing has gone so quiet for over a decade that I suspect the truth is being suppressed.
It won’t be long before any pause or drop in temperatures is claimed as a success for CO2 reductions achieved by the brave pioneers, etc.
All empires eventually become decadent and suffer a decline, whilst others grow. Environmentalism is part of the decadence, Europe and USA are in decline, China and others are growing fast.
Can anyone inject some optimism?
logiclogiclogic says at July 28, 2014 at 2:19 pm
1) The margin of error when estimating from a survey is typically 5%. So 97% is 100% with a sciency feel.
2) I am always surprised that only 3% are willing to say that they don’t know if manmade and natural impacts can ever be distinguished – or that only 3% think that the distinction is meaningful (what are we, aliens?)
3) The survey is bollocks anyway.
For the climate to achieve +3.0C by 2100 would require at this point a continuous rise of +0.3C/decade for 9 consecutive decades without stopping. We have now had 2 decades of +0.0C/decade growth. That is only 0.3C/decade from where they say we should be. During the entire 135 year measurement history we have the temperature has NEVER climbed at +0.3C/decade even for ONE decade let alone 9 consecutive decades. The highest rate of change I see on the various charts offered by them is +0.2C/decade during the 80s and 90s. To achieve the path they say the environment is inextricably on to +3.0C/doubling of CO2 now requires a discontinuous increase in the rate of change of temperatures to a rate faster than ever seen and to sustain that record breaking rate of change for 9 consecutive decades without stop.
That sounds like a miracle they are calling for. It is not something the average scientist should be able to credibly say “I am certain this is going to happen.” Given that the last 2 decades temperatures have been virtually unmoving it is hard to understand how somebody who calls themselves a scientist would say that they believe the latter statement of climate alarmism with any certainty. This is much more significant because there is no good explanation offered by the alarmists to explain how the current stoppage in temperature change has happened nor a good explanation of why the current stoppage will cease. It is more like what a religious person might say: I believe. I believe. Temperatures are suddenly going to start moving up faster than ever. I just believe it.
That’s crazy talk. Everybody must see this. Something has seriously gone wrong. The recent NIPCC report is much much more credible than the most recent IPCC report. The NIPCC references the same journals and same scientific establishment the IPCC report claims 97% agree with them. Yet the NIPCC report clearly paints that there is still vast uncertainty in the models, the physics, the basic understanding of forcings, relationships of different aspects of the environment. Any scientific person reading the NIPCC report would have to agree that there is no plausible way that the models could possibly represent a valid prediction of the future. I am completely confused how they think that 97% of scientists if they studied the models for 10 minutes would believe they were credible predictions possible with them.
I suggest everyone read:
TRAGEDY & HOPE 101 – The Illusion of Justice, Freedom and Democracy,
by Joseph Plummer, Brushfire PUblishing, Grafton, Ohio, 2014.
Eye and mind opener, not for the faint-hearted.
logiclogiclogic says:
Logiccubed, A guy on twitter claimed 97% of scientists agree temps will rise 2 degrees by 2050. Since neither of us has a chance to see that, we quartered the time frame and bet on a half of a degree by 2023. I’m feeling pretty good about collecting that $50 for the Heartland Institute.
MikeUK asks at July 28, 2014 at 2:31 pm
They said the same about Japan in the 1980s.
Economic growth comes from hard work (OK, that’s a win for Asia).
Economic growth comes from meeting a need (OK, that could be a win for Asia).
Economic growth comes from inventing and adopting the most efficient way (Nope!)
Protectionism by cartel or corrupt elites stops the new blood providing this.
The West has a Christian compassion for losers that allows such losers to exist – it ain’t murder.
So we can allow the elites to be replaced. Look at the British aristocracy through the industrial revolution. Look at Hollywood in the 20thC. Look at the modern tech sector.
China can follow more efficiently than the West due to economies of scale and the scalar advantages of monopoly.
But, without freedom, it can’t lead.
Someone with Delingpole like writing skills should write an article or even a book on how this type of activity is helping undermine the rule of law.
The behaviour of UVA and the AAUP is fairly typical of entities that become overweight in ‘leftists’ these days. It is exactly what “the establsihment” were excused of some decades ago by the same sort of people when they did not have the numbers in positions of influence. In its essence it is undemocratic and is the same as that which binds all sorts of organisations from the Mafia to religeous cults to unions executives. It is a commitment not to the general public norms but to the ideology or tribalism of the informal group of like socio – political views. Basically it is a regression back to hillbilly tribalism.
I suggest (as already said elsewhere, but bears repeating, everyone read:
TRAGEDY & HOPE 101 – THE ILLUSION OF JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY,
by Joseph Plummer, Brushfire Publishing, Grafton, Ohio, 2014.
Eye and mind opener, not for the faint-hearted.
The back cover blurb advises: “Read at your own risk.”
A soft introduction might be the interview with Ottmar Edenhofer (IPCC working group chair) at
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html
Repeated for effect:
Here’s the Amazon link to that book:
http://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-Hope-101-Illusion-Democracy-ebook/dp/B00K5KRQ34/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406588860&sr=1-1&keywords=TRAGEDY+%26+HOPE+101+–+THE+ILLUSION+OF+JUSTICE%2C+FREEDOM+AND+DEMOCRACY
James Ard: I will bet with you. Any chance we can get in on that wager? 0.5C 10 years from now? Given that we aren’t finished with the current AMO/NAO cycle it is much much more likely it is 0.0C in 10 years. I grant that sure if you were to go out 40 years you might plausibly argue 0.5C but 2.0C? I sometimes wonder if some people have a math deficiency where they can’t seem to understand how stupid something they are saying is. How do we get to 2.0C from today in 37 years? That’s double the fastest rate of change ever seen in our records. I’m not saying it’s impossible but for 37 years? I just don’t believe that if I talked to them that they would actually repeat such a stupid statement to me in person. If they say that then I question if they are truly a scientist. I just don’t believe anyone with a math background can argue such ridiculous things given any knowledge of the subject and the data.
M Courtney: I remember when they said Japan would go beyond the US years ago. I got started in my career because a finance company paid me to help them “beat” the japanese coming into NYC to win the finance industry from us like they had the car and consumer electronics. I have heard the same argument said about the Chinese. This was told to me by an eminent stanford economics professor. The chinese will grow and grow 9% a year for decade after decade until they are bigger than us. Poppycock. I think anyone who believes that also believes that temperature can go up by 3C by 2100 and is math impaired and common sense impaired. No society ever grows without serious adjustments every once in a while. To predict no errors continuous growth is just stupid.
It is my belief that transparency is a critical aspect to achieving high standards of living and quality of life. Also, as long as Americans are willing to change to suit new models and keep their economic system and political system relatively transparent then we can retain top position in the world as far as overall wealth and productivity.
There are 2 things that I believe will stall economies of China or anyone else that tries to “beat” us.
1) you can’t beat us by exporting to us. Ultimately it makes no sense that we would somehow be able to fund a country which was richer than us by buying their products. Eventually we stop buying their stuff because there is no way we can afford to give them > 100% of our economy so they can be bigger than us. It’s not logically possible. So, eventually their economy must be able to sustain itself on its own demand with its own creativity and goods and not on us. They need to make that transition to creating and having the high valued people and products. Japan never got there. They still run an export oriented economy. They also suffered from an unwillingness to change key industries which hold the overall productivity of Japanese society back substantially. They weren’t willing to change their finance and retail sectors for instance.
2) They must be willing to be transparent, they must be willing to change. In order for them to do these things they must ultimately be us. They must incorporate political and economic modifications which more or less make them identical to us. If they aren’t willing to do that then they can’t match us being non-transparent and unwilling to change. I am not saying we are perfect. I am not saying we are superior. I am saying that unless they can be completely open about their economy and politics and their people have the courage to change with each new technological and other innovation then they can’t match us. These two things being transparent and also changing means having a societal agreement on where to go which requires open political society. Right now the Chinese can force change on their people. They can say this is how we do things but they can’t do that and have a transparent system. Without transparency they will make errors and have massive problems with unbalanced growth that will not be corrected and eventually face a Japanese near death experience or actually will have a worse massive collapse. No economy can grow uncontrolled forever. Eventually problems of one sort or another force a period of adjustment to change and misallocation of resources. Without the political system to support peaceful adaptation they will have trouble.
The idea my professor at stanford had that in 25 years the chinese will be bigger than us defies basic logic in my opinion. It is not a statement of superiority or hegemony of western ideas. It’s a statement of historical fact. Nobody grows 40 years without a hiccup. No growth is perfectly balanced and continuous like that. They aren’t perfect either and they will have serious hiccups and the problem is without transparent economies or politics the consequences when that happens could be far worse.
I totally agree Leif. Victims often become bullies. No matter who’s on first. Let us make sure we do not become the copy cats of such behavior. And strike it down when it raises up, as it surely will among us.
Michael Mann is a compulsory and abusing anti-science name caller
I don’t have a lot of money but I would likr to bet you that the temp drops by 02.c in ten years
on all these wannabe wagers on temps, the data set to be used obviously must be specified. GISS is already cooking their books and datasets.
The storm clouds have been gathering over alarmists for years now but as in all storms requires a catalyst to trigger the gully raker. We are still waiting for the catalyst and whilst ever the MSM and academics continue their shameful cover up of truth it will not arrive. Climategate came at the right time to destroy Copenhagen but we need a few high profile court cases where the creme de la creme of the climate scam are publicly humiliated and their science destroyed.
Whether this post is based on good journalism or not is hard to tell, but this Dr. David Legates that is being defended here said the following. “We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception.”
Hard to believe someone that is called a scientist would buy into “intelligent design”.
logiclogiclogic says…
Thank you for saying so.
The real wealth in the US is in privately held wealth, which is over 70 trillion. China will never reach that under its centralized economy. Even if the US was in fact subjugated and the country made unrecognizable through environmentalist theft and takings by legislation,
our accomplishment in the wealth held by the most individuals – in home and land ownership, capital for business, retirement accounts, and all the rest – will never be matched. The experiment has been done and the results are in: economic, religious, and political freedom work. Yet these must have some foundation in genuine individual integrity and duty, in both relationships and business. No outward system can compensate for the loss of that. ref: “Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”
Zeke says:
July 29, 2014 at 12:46 am
logiclogiclogic says…
Thank you for saying so.
The real wealth in the US is in privately held wealth, which is over 70 trillion. China will never reach that under its centralized economy. Even if the US was in fact subjugated and the country made unrecognizable through environmentalist theft and takings by legislation,
our accomplishment in the wealth held by the most individuals – in home and land ownership, capital for business, retirement accounts, and all the rest – will never be matched.
LOL. The privately held wealth in the US is quickly being matched by the federal governments insatiable desire for cash (which it constantly creates out of thin air and hands private citizens the bill for doing so).
American freedom is being dragged into the quagmire of a federal monetary black hole.
I am very positive that we will see a reversal, that will startle some of the alarmists with the rapidity in loss of prestige, and the rise in universal condemnation of the role they played in this deception.
I base this on a simple understanding of intelligent thinking humans. Many who are now graduating from University, will suddenly realise that their peers and mentors have lied to them, and the truth is the climate has not warmed during their academic lifetime – zilch, nada – heaven help those that lead the deception, and worse still if the downward trend in temperatures continues for the next 10, 20, or thirty years.
Add to that “discovery anger”, the present simmering anger among scientists who resent what has been done to lose the public trust in the integrity of their profession, and you have a very serious problem for those seen as responsible. For those angry scientists the day of reckoning can’t come quick enough!
What is the opposite of diversity?
University, of course!
Michael Mann and the University of Virginia are at risk of turning their conception of objective research into a sort of “Gonzo-science” , where the personality of the investigator and the use of extravagant language submerges the science itself.
“Fear and Loathing in the University of Virginia”?
Well written, Mr. Driessen! I think Dr. Singer was also subjected to the same treatment as Dr. Michaels.
We make a big error when we refer to these people as “scientists”. It takes the use of the scientific method to consider opinion as scientific. Those hiding data and twisting the truth are not, and should not be referred to as scientists. They have forfeited the right and I for one will not consider what they do as science. If you don’t stand for something, you stand for anything.
logiclogiclogic;
A pithy summary for you: “No tree grows to the sky.”
late;
Indeed. Jones’ comment to McKintyre, “Why should I give you my data? You’ll just try to find something wrong with it” has, I have it on good authority, caused Feynman to detonate in his grave. {facepalm}
I have long believed the deception of the “computer models”, Hansen’s and the IPCC’s mistakes would be obvious years ago but even though we now have nearly 2 decades of flat temperatures and they have been unable to coherently explain the lack of movement or why the movement should begin again they continue to find a way to avoid the obvious backlash from what can only be described as painfully obvious failure.
Various environmental organizations have for decades predicted disasters, predicted ends of species. I can find dozens of these mis-statements, bad predictions and yet they remain blemish free. Each new radical statement of predicted end of this or that is met with renewed belief as if none of the other failures in prediction had happened.
Supposedly there is a difference between the IPCC and “climate scientists” and non-scientific advocacy journals such as National Wildlife, Audubon and many others. I hope so but there is a part of me that wonders if our scientific establishment is so corrupted that essentially they can avoid ever facing the piper. Somehow the false statements, bad predictions will be buried with new predictions and various “explanations.” I have long wondered if they would simply get off with some complicated explanations that the lay public would not understand or care about. There are a lot of people who are invested in this who don’t want to look bad. Maybe they can avoid looking bad forever.
For instance, numerous studies have been done to show that DDT the original “bad” chemical in the environment which was going to cause massive extinction turned out to be not nearly that deadly and that the claims and science done against it were poor and wrong.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240541/
Yet we hear no call for the end of the DDT ban or modification of it in anyway. For all intents and purposes DDT is still banned and its use in third world countries is being prohibited even as that ban may be costing some of those countries many many lives. Even though the science has exonerated DDT from most of the ills it was supposed to cause it continues to be banned as if the science was wrong because the environmentalists seem unwilling to let go of a key selling point. There are many people who believe that chemicals in the environment are killing us and so even if DDT is as safe as any other pesticide or certainly could be used in moderation it seems there is enormous pressure to keep the environmental record clear of wrongness or error even if that means people must die in some countries.
I wonder will the computer models and the whole CAGW somehow stay alive in spite of the fact that we have no significant warming over the next century? I wonder if they will say: See our policies worked. All the policy changes made worked because we averted a major temperature increase even though there is no actual decrease in CO2 total production and the amount is still enough that they thought the world would catastrophically warm. If temperatures don’t go up then they can argue it is because they forced all these policies and people being so dumb will simply accept their explanation just as they do on so many other things that they averted a major disaster with policies that simply cost us a huge amount and did no good whatsoever like they have for other things.
I hope I don’t come across as too cynical because I believe in science. I believe that even if politics is corrupted and people believe what they want that in science only truth prevails. That in science we have to have good methods, truth because we can’t advance science with false data, false theories. Eventually somehow these things must be fixed in the science even if politically somehow the people who led this end up without losing their careers or reputations their theories at least must be discredited.
The question is how do we insure that actual malfeasances and poor science is properly made aware to the public? Does anybody have a clear path through established mechanisms in science whereby the people and organizations are properly discredited?
logiclogiclogic, you really want to defend DDT? Talk about settled science. Most people today don’t use it in the tropics because mosquitoes develop resistance to it after several years. There are safer more effective ways of dealing with the problem today. The study you linked was of breast cancer and DDT and hardly about what you seem to presume it was about.
I suppose you would say it wasn’t necessary to get lead out of gasoline, or CFCs out of the stratosphere, or that tobacco has not been proven to be harmful. Those three campaigns by your predecessors delayed action for 20 years. At least you have left medical science alone for the most part. Most of us know the difference between a good doctor and a quack. Hopefully we get to that point with climate science sooner rather than later.
logiclogiclogic, you really want to defend DDT? Talk about settled science. Most people today don’t use it in the tropics because mosquitoes develop resistance to it after several years. There are safer more effective ways of dealing with the problem today. The study you linked was of breast cancer and DDT and hardly about what you seem to presume it was about.
I suppose you would say it wasn’t necessary to get lead out of gasoline, or CFCs out of the stratosphere, or that tobacco has not been proven to be harmful. Those three campaigns by your predecessors delayed action for 20 years. At least you have left medical science alone for the most part. Most of us know the difference between a good doctor and a quack anyway. Hopefully we get to that point with climate science sooner rather than later.
matayaya says:
July 29, 2014 at 11:14 am
I agree that DDT safety/efficacy is settled science…just not the “settled” that your post seems to imply. Study after study has shown no carcinogenic effects, no “thinning” of shells, no teratogenic effects, and etc. What is demonstrably and unarguably true, is that the countries that used DDT to eliminate/control the mosquito populations, saved countless millions of lives. The DDT ban was the “gateway drug” for the US on it’s path to psuedo-environmental-science addiction.
Also, further to your comment from earlier regarding the beliefs of Legates, and skepticism that any scientist could promote the idea of intelligent design, I think your comment is off-base and out of line. Philosophically speaking, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for anyone to maintain a belief in a created universe. To me, it’s no less scientific than the (also unfalsifiable) belief that the universe, and all life in it, arose through random chance over time.
Personally, I’d be much more concerned about his work containing confirmation bias, since he’s working from the belief that the created order is self-regulating, than I would be that he started from a position of Intelligent Design.
rip
The article was trying to say DDT was still linked to breast cancer but in the process admitting that all recent studies have disproven a relationship. I thought it was fair to point to that. It showed both sides. Also, don’t interpret my statements to say that I am anti-environment or anti-wildlife.
I am just saying that claims made by environmentalists have in many cases been fraudulent not to say industrialists may have lied or done bad science as well. The point is when someone does bad science are they excused if their politics is “better?” I worry that science is going to be no better than the advocacy groups and I worry that nobody cares if science is true to itself. This may already be true because it has been nearly 20 years of flat temps and the advocates of CAGW and the IPCC continue to act as if there is no consequence to stretching the science beyond all recognition. So, given that why should there be any limit? Why can’t they keep doing this for 87 more years and in 2100 when the temps are the same as today or 0.5C higher they can argue their policies worked even though CO2 is twice as high, that their models were almost perfect and nobody will even remember what they predicted 87 years ago just as hardly anybody remembers the things “Silent Spring” said that have not come to pass or that were fraudulent or that the Club of Rome said and never came to pass.
Real science is different. Physicists are famous for pointing out the flaws in each others arguments. Mathematicians are dying to disprove something someone else proved is wrong. They get big credo if they do so. There is no politics in Chemistry. The fact that there is almost a backlash against critics in environmental science is basically admitting that they aren’t really a science. If they were then instead of issuing insults to people who disagree with them or trying to silence their critics or pulling out bogus surveys they would simply do what my physics professor does when someone says something he disagrees with. He puts up the formulas on the board and shows him wrong. I have taken Climate Science at Stanford and nobody ever proved to me or showed me how they get 3C/doubling CO2. They couldn’t do that. The head of the Lawrence Livermore climate modeling project couldn’t tell me the models were correct. He admitted after I questioned him that the models were fits to the data not physical models. He told me that the MWP and LIA were not real. When I asked about the AMO and NAO he said they would disappear and fade away overwhelmed by CO2. He was clearly wrong on all the points he put forward. There doesn’t seem to be a consequence for saying things which are false. I expected him to say he didn’t know. That would be the honest answer. Instead he said what he thought he should say. The models are physical (they aren’t.) The AMO and NAO disappear because the models don’t predict them. The LIA and MWP never existed because the models don’t show them and have no basis for them so they don’t exist. That’s not how science is done but in climate science you can do that and nobody calls you on it. Nobody seems to care. A real scientist would care. That means to me this is not a real science. Other scientists should see this and reject them. It’s just wrong what they’ve already done, how they talk about things, the certainty they put on things they don’t know. No real scientist can accept this. So how come they get away with saying 97% of scientists agree with them. It’s not possible because no real scientist could possibly agree with hardly anything they say.
I found out the hard way, if someone doesn’t trust you it is
They that can’t be trusted.
Twenty years sounds like an exaggeration wrt CFCs. According to Wikipedia, the first report documenting ozone damage from them appeared in 1974. Then:
matayaya, there are many science educated professionals who also nod a recognition towards religious thinking. It does not make them nonscientists. These scientists successfully engage in and discover new scientific understandings in every field with as much professionalism as the secular scientist does. Paradoxically, to dismiss a person’s scientific contribution based solely on that person’s religious thinking is rather unscientific, thus speaks lowly of the accuser, not the scientist.
As for me, the search back in time for beginnings (which is also labeled “Intelligent Design” by proponents), and begs the question of that’s beginning, etc…is interesting to me. What will we find along the way? Don’t know. Are we searching in vein because there is no beginning or end? Don’t know. Is there a power more super than Earth’s humans and that knows about our existence? Don’t know. Is there an order to things that have been discovered so far such that we can use that order to search for new things? It appears so, with numerous examples of such discoveries, the periodic table being just one of them.
Pamela Gray, point taken. I do not mean to broad brush religious thinking. I know there are great scientist who happen to be religious. But, there are also lots of religious people that are anti science. I see it in my brothers and sisters who have no curiosity at all about science. “That’s God’s domain, why should I think about that.” It can be seen in the campaign against Common Core. The U.S. needs to improve is public education to keep from falling even further behind many countries in the world.
People are against anything that seems to involve “government”. Much of the resistance to climate science is not about the science but that it might empower government. Climate science “skeptics” could trash medical science if the politics deemed it to be unduly empowering government. It is more about regulation and government control than about science. That was true with the resistance to the effort to get lead out of gas, CFCs out of ozone, and the truth about tobacco. It’s not the science. Now it is climate science.
oops, semantic error “vain”, not vein.
matayaya, you seem overly enthralled with consensus science as if it has no stain. Thank goodness we have the common people on guard. How many times have the common people raised up in spite of consensus and said, “It ain’t so”? Many, many times.