A couple of days ago we reported on the Mainau Nobel Conference, on Friday, 3 July, over 30 Nobel laureates assembled on Mainau Island on Lake Constance signed a declaration on climate change. Problem was, there were 65 attendees, and only 30 36 signed the declaration. As is typical of the suppression of the alternate views on climate, we never heard the opinion of the 35 who were in the [nearly equal] majority. Today, one of the Nobel laureates who was an attendee has spoken out.
From Climate Depot: Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Who Endorsed Obama Now Says Prez. is ‘Ridiculous’ & ‘Dead Wrong’ on ‘Global Warming’
Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever: ‘Global warming is a non-problem’ ‘I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong.’
Dr. Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize-Winner for physics in 1973, declared his dissent on man-made global warming claims at a Nobel forum on July 1, 2015.
“I would say that basically global warming is a non-problem,” Dr. Giaever announced during his speech titled “Global Warming Revisited.”
Giaever, a former professor at the School of Engineering and School of Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, received the 1973 physics Nobel for his work on quantum tunneling. Giaever delivered his remarks at the 65th Nobel Laureate Conference in Lindau, Germany, which drew 65 recipients of the prize. Giaever is also featured in the new documentary “Climate Hustle”, set for release in Fall 2015.
Giaever was one of President Obama’s key scientific supporters in 2008 when he joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorsing Obama in an October 29, 2008 open letter. Giaever signed his name to the letter which read in part: “The country urgently needs a visionary leader…We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.”
But seven years after signing the letter, Giaever now mocks President Obama for warning that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change”. Giaever called it a “ridiculous statement.”
“That is what he said. That is a ridiculous statement,” Giaever explained.
“I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong,” Giaever said. (Watch Giaever’s full 30-minute July 1 speech here.)
“How can he say that? I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet,” he added.
“Obama said last year that 2014 is hottest year ever. But it’s not true. It’s not the hottest,” Giaever noted. [Note: Other scientists have reversed themselves on climate change. See: Politically Left Scientist Dissents – Calls President Obama ‘delusional’ on global warming]
The Nobel physicist questioned the basis for rising carbon dioxide fears.
“When you have a theory and the theory does not agree with the experiment then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory,” Giaever explained.
Global Warming ‘a new religion’
Giaever said his climate research was eye opening. “I was horrified by what I found” after researching the issue in 2012, he noted.
“Global warming really has become a new religion. Because you cannot discuss it. It’s not proper. It is like the Catholic Church.”
Concern Over ‘Successful’ UN Climate Treaty
“I am worried very much about the [UN] conference in Paris in November. I really worry about that. Because the [2009 UN] conference was in Copenhagen and that almost became a disaster but nothing got decided. But now I think that the people who are alarmist are in a very strong position,” Giaever said.
“The facts are that in the last 100 years we have measured the temperatures it has gone up .8 degrees and everything in the world has gotten better. So how can they say it’s going to get worse when we have the evidence? We live longer, better health, and better everything. But if it goes up another .8 degrees we are going to die I guess,” he noted.
…
Silencing Debate
Giaever accused Nature Magazine of “wanting to cash in on the [climate] fad.”
“My friends said I should not make fun of Nature because then they won’t publish my papers,” he explained.
“No one mentions how important CO2 is for plant growth. It’s a wonderful thing. Plants are really starving. They don’t talk about how good it is for agriculture that CO2 is increasing,” he added.
Extreme Weather claims
“The other thing that amazes me is that when you talk about climate change it is always going to be the worst. It’s got to be better someplace for heaven’s sake. It can’t always be to the worse,” he said.
“Then comes the clincher. If climate change does not scare people we can scare people talking about the extreme weather,” Giaever said.
“For the last hundred years, the ocean has risen 20 cm — but for the previous hundred years the ocean also has risen 20 cm and for the last 300 years, the ocean has also risen 20 cm per 100 years. So there is no unusual rise in sea level. And to be sure you understand that I will repeat it. There is no unusual rise in sea level,” Giaever said.
“If anything we have entered period of low hurricanes. These are the facts,” he continued.
“You don’t’ have to even be a scientist to look at these figures and you understand what it says,” he added.
“Same thing is for tornadoes. We are in a low period on in U.S.”
Three cheers for Dr. Ivar Giaever!
I wish it were three major media interviews as well.
What about the other 34? And why did 9 others not appear in the group photo?
His Nobel is from 1973, he is probably at the end of his career, so he doesn’t have to fear getting black listed. It is a lot easier to speak the truth if you have nothing to lose.
Time for the Inquisitor squadron to swoop in and forcefully remove his Nobel Prize and staple his lips together…
I’m surely not the only one to be reminded of Percy French’s poem about the Crimean War, called Abdul Abulbul Amir, for the protagonist in that delightful ditty is called Ivan Skavinsky Skavar – lots of scope for a spoof version there!
Here’s a start:
Barakmar Obama Amir
The sons of AlGoria are sly men and cold
And quite unaccustomed to tears,
But the slyest by far in the climate bizar,
Was Barakmar Obama Amir.
If you wanted a man to encourage the lie,
Or harass little boys from the rear,
Spread fear, lies and doubt, you had only to shout
For Barakmar Obama Amir.
Now the heroes were plenty and well known to fame
In the troops that attacked the bizar,
And the bravest of these was a man by the name
Of Ivar ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
One day this bold Russian, he took up his pen
And donned his most truculent sneer,
Downtown he did go where he trod on the toe
Of Barakmar Obama Amir.
Old man, quoth Barackmar, has life grown so dull
That you wish to end your career?
Vile infidel, know, you have trod on the toe
Of Barakmar Obama Amir.
So take your last look at the sunshine and brook
And submit to the climate bizar
For by this I imply, you are going to die,
Count Ivan ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
Then this sly gene-pool fluke drew his trusty skibouk,
Singing, “Allah! Il Allah! Al-lah!”
And with murderous intent he ferociously went
For Ivan ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
They fought all that night neath the pale yellow moon;
The din, it was heard from afar,
And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,
Of Barakmar and Ivan Giaver.
As Barackmar’s long knife was extracting the life,
In fact he was shouting, “Huzzah!”
He felt himself struck by that wily Calmuck,
Count Ivar ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
Satan drove by in his red-breasted fly,
Expecting the victor to cheer,
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh,
Of Barackmar Obama Amir.
There’s a tomb rises up where the Potomac rolls,
And graved there in characters clear,
Is, “Stranger, when passing, oh curse forth the soul
Of Barackmar Obama Amir.”
[With a thousand apologies to Percy French]
I do, of course mean ‘climate bazaar’ and not ‘climate bizar’, though this is a great example of a Freudian Eggcorn (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/).
It actually reads even better with
Bizarre rather than Bizar or Bazaar
For the Prognosticators of Modeled Climate truly do present a “Climate Bizarre”
But all in all…Very well done
Like it, but would replace “Russian” with “Norski” or something similar, since he’s Ivar, not Ivan.
There is music to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6vyZ_q-TjA
Al last a scientist talking sense, but it has taken nearly a week for his views to be made public.
I suppose as wll as distorting science the “believers” will distort mathematics and try to tell us that 30/65’s is 97%
andrewmharding July 7, 2015 at 10:36 am
Public? I’ll believe it when it’s on all the TV networks and cable news, the major newspapers, and on the Bing news crawler. That’s public.
I’ve posted this article as a hint on Drudge.
Now that would help, MarkW. Good job. Let’s see what happens, eh?
If I “accidentally” add a 0 to 65 and divide 650 by 30 and then invert I get 0.04. That’s pretty close to 3%, which is the balance remaining from 97%. When do I get my climate science math grant?
There you have it, the science is now settled! That should shtick it to them, eh? (Dr Mann, is that you?)
Piper
Get it in cash, and, I suggest, not in Euros . . .
Not – Timeo danaos et dona ferentes, but rather the reverse, perhaps:
Say – beware of Greeks bearing sickles and big knives, and maybe knuckle-dusters, heading for Brussels.
Maybe.
Auto
There are easier ways ways to do this – I simply borrowed John Cook’s calculator and 30/65 converted instantly to 97%.
In fact, any fraction I put into the calculator gave the answer 97%
Nonagintaseptemology (n) The art of achieving the answer 97% to any given question. From the latin “nonaginat septem” meaning ninety seven.
Nonagintaseptemologist (n) A person skilled in the art of nonagintaseptemology.
Are you sure you didn’t mean “justifiable adjustment” with the “0”?
This is refreshing more than half of Nobel Prize laureates declined to sign a contrived watermelon document based on a gigantic lie, that is more than half rotten. There’s hope!
Ok then.
We Roman Catholics do have our problems, but we are much more open to discussion inside the church on important issues than are the alarmists on “the team” — now they are dogmatic! We are much more likely to interpret a biblical story as allegory than a climate “scientist” is to even look at the possibility that they are wrong on 33C warming via “back radiation”.
So there! :-p
Large part of Christianity doesn’t take much notice of the Vatican pronouncements. In my Orthodox branch (to which I was born in) there is no consensus on much, each country has its patriarch, and there is kind of ‘supreme commander’ the Patriarch of Constantinople. I have no idea what his views are on anything, I had to google to find his name; he is 269th since year 39 AD and is called Bartholomew I (1991–present).
Pay attention, as the patriarchs have been in the process of reconciliation with Catholicism since the 1960s. Within our lifetime, full communion might be restored. It’s quite possible that the Vatican is actually taking some environmentalist cues from Bartholomew, who has been called the Green Patriarch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/bartholomew-i-of-constantinoples-bold-green-stance.html?_r=0
TMLutas
Thanks for the link, I’ve read the article. With the respect to the old Bartholomew, he can pursue his ‘encyclical’ on the climate change; I will pursue the natural ‘cyclical’ events in the climate change.
Many years ago I listened to my late grandfather (born in1878) asking his equally aging friend, neighbour and distant relative, the local ‘pop’ (= vicar) by profession, did he believe in existence of god. After bit of a mumble, he said he wasn’t sure. This true anecdote shows how ‘strong’ is embrace of the Orthodox Christianity on the people of my fatherland. Of course as everywhere else, there are exceptions in both directions from the ‘near atheists’ to the fervent believers.
“…You do know, don’t you, that there isn’t even any credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed? And yes, I did all my research years ago on this. It still comes as a shock to many Christians…”
You’ve got this research published or compiled somewhere besides your attic, right? This person did his research as recently as 2012 and seems to find plenty of credible evidence http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/12/24/3660194.htm . Interesting mention here:
‘…. In the library of Macquarie University, home to the largest Ancient History Department in Australia, students will probably find as many historical tomes on Jesus of Nazareth as on Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great combined…’
But I’m sure you can do research that shows there’s no credible evidence for Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great having lived, either, lol.
Now if you want to argue that Jesus wasn’t “the Messiah,” wasn’t “the Son of God,” or wasn’t even a “Prophet,” then ok. If you want to argue that all religions are a hoax, then fine. But somehow in all of your research, you overlooked the fact that Christian and non-Christian historians seem to overwhelmingly agree that there’s much more than “credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed.”
@ur momisugly Michael Jankowski
There are no historical records ….. that were authored pre-70 AD …. that makes mention of any person named Jesus Christ affiliated with the Christian Religion.
Flavius Josephus (37- 100 AD) made no mention of a Jesus Christ in his written record of Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War.
Thus, as the presently known historical evidence confirms, …. any written documents pertaining to the Biblical Jesus Christ has to be consider “hearsay evidence”, …. the product of creative imaginations …… and/or Religious Fiction.
Christianity was just one (1) of many minor religious beliefs until Emperor Constantine mandated it to be the “Empire’s Religion” in 325 AD.
Cheers
Michael Jankowski
Not sure where your Quote is from
“…You do know, don’t you, that there isn’t even any credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed? And yes, I did all my research years ago on this. It still comes as a shock to many Christians…”
but
Problem with stating Jesus might not have existed due to a lack of Physical Evidence after 2000 years, I must ask… In 2000 years hence, how much Proof will there be that You or any other physical entity ever truly existed? Time has a way of equalizing everything.
Bryan,
I happen to think that an itinerant, reformist, Essene preacher named Isho (Aramaic) or Yeshua (Hebrew) did wander Galilee in the 1st century and probably was executed in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilatus, prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, AD 26–36.
But there is little to no historical evidence for his existence, as there is for many other 1st century subjects of the Roman Empire.
Some find it suspicious that Tacitus’ description of Jerusalem in AD 70 is lost, while the chapters of his work just before and after the city’s destruction survive. Chapter 13 of Book Five of his Histories has (future emperor) Titus ready to attack Jerusalem, then Chapter 14 suddenly finds the reader in Germany.
Jesus would have died more than 34 years earlier, but if the NT book of Acts be accurate, there should have been Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, led by Peter and Jesus’ brother James. Any failure by Tacitus to mention them might have been regarded as problematical by monkish scribes.
Religion is nonsense. Catholicism is abject nonsense.
Religion doesn’t impede good science. Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Johannes Kepler, Blase Pascal, Max Planck, William Kelvin, Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon… Its a long list. They did a lot of science. How ’bout you Big Jim? …or are you just denouncing something you can’t make any sense of?
Isaac Newton wrote more about religion than he did about physics.
Christianity is founded upon the eye-witness testimony of people who recorded their experiences in words. You may call that nonsense if you wish, but then you have to provide reasons why they would lie, and then why they would voluntarily leave their homes and give up their lives if – as you say – it were nonsense. It is much easier and much more cowardly by far to simply type out statements you can’t defend and probably haven’t thought much about. Then again, I am not impressed with the reasoning skills of most atheists, who spend their time angry at someone they claim does not exist – angry enough to make fun of people and shut down discussion wherever and whenever they can.
I only mock my own religion.
Religion isn’t something to be made sense of, willy. Religion is a search for comfort, for a form of understanding; it isn’t a search for truth like science is. For ‘truth’ read ‘best explanation’. Reeling off a list of names of scientists who may or may not have had a religious belief is pointless. I could equally give you a list of eminent scientists today who have no religious belief – equally pointless, willy, so not quite sure why you did that. As an atheist, I have studied religion and religious belief. I had to know what exactly I was rebelling against! Oh, and by the way, I never said religion impedes good science (please don’t suggest that I said something that I did not), I said it was nonsense. It makes no sense, it is nonsensical…other than to offer comfort to those who cannot face the realities of our existence and the existence of the Universe. It is the only ‘purpose’ it serves. My personal thought is that religious belief is mental illness. I find Catholicism immensely amusing, I really do.
My apologoes to Mark Stoval for this thread getting deeper than his light-hearted piece.
Poster,
The only gospel possibly written from eye witness testimony is John. Matthew (so-called) was not written by an apostle of Jesus, nor of course were Mark or Luke.
Much of the material in Matthew was added to the oldest gospel, Mark, in order to make the story more appealing to prospective Christians, in competition with other, originally more popular cults, such as Mithras for men and Isis for women.
Poster, if you’re writing of Christianity, then you have some reading to do. It’s obvious from what you’ve just said that you haven’t read the foundations of Christianity, or much about the Middle East of 2,000 years ago. Seriously, Life Of Brian is actually educational.
I don’t know any angry atheists. I know lots of ones shaking their heads in disbelief though – disbelief that people can be so gullible as to believe something for which there is zero evidence. You do know, don’t you, that there isn’t even any credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed? And yes, I did all my research years ago on this. It still comes as a shock to many Christians.
And it’s not that we want to shut down discussion. I myself was on forums 12 years ago arguing about this. My name has been in newspapers and respected science magazines. I have argued it from all sides and know all the angles religious believers use to twist themselves and their beliefs. The Holy Trinity is by far the funniest. I’m done with it, to be honest, and now rarely bother to respond, sorry. So excuse me if I leave this discussion here, for others to add their little bit. I have come to the conclusion that religious belief is mental illness. It displays many of the facets of it, and because of that, is actually interesting – in psychological terms. It saddens me that faith is causing a plague of terrible suffering on people of the world, and for that reason alone I would ban religious belief if I had the power.
My apologioes, again, to Mark Stoval.
Dear Ghost,
This is not a forum on religion. Take your nonsense and personal opinions regarding religion somewhere more appropriate. There is no need to insult people’s religious beliefs.
Anthony, please consider deleting his comments per violation of WUWT blog policy.
Bigots are always convinced of the rightness of their cause.
SkepticGoneWild: Like many atheists, Ghost has to work hard to convince himself he is in the right.
If he were half as convinced as he portrays himself to be, he wouldn’t feel the need to make an a$$ out of himself so frequently.
I would wager that 97% of Catholics believe in god. And relax SGW, I don’t think Big Jim gives a ……poop.
Only incompetent thinkers can’t find room for other people’s thought processes. You call it a search for comfort. I call it a search for a reason to think we are better than rocks. When there is no reason to think you are better than a rock, than being an atheist makes sense. But if you are an atheist and believe in following the civil rules of civilization, than you are by far the greatest mystery on Earth. Someone that claims that this is their one and only time to shine, and refuses to do so because of the laws of society which, for the most part, are the laws of religion. And your last thought will be, as you expel your last breath, “my God, what if I was wrong.” Don’t worry, Big Jim’s ghost, God loves all his children, even the rocks.
@ur momisugly The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley July 7, 2015 at 2:08 pm
“… It saddens me that faith is causing a plague of terrible suffering on people of the world, and for that reason alone I would ban religious belief if I had the power.
My apologioes, again, to Mark Stoval.”
No need to apologize. Nothing you have said has upset me in the least, well other than the non-libertarian idea of banning a thought or belief.
I dare say, if we had the time and energy to discuss it you would find me to be something outside your past experiences. (a little arrogant of me perhaps — sorry don’t mean to sound arrogant; but I am a heretic)
Anyway, not to worry — I won’t tell the Pope on you! 🙂
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
The wise man says it out loud.
“The Ghost” doesn’t believe in spiritual things. Kind of ironic.
Wherever religion has been banned, government becomes the religion. Would you prefer that, Ghost?
First of all, you might read “Misquoting Jesus” by biblical scholar Bart Ehrman:
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512
before asserting that Christianity is founded on “eye-witness testimony”. It is not. Second, you might want to read Leon Festinger’s book on cognitive dissonance as a measured/observed phenomenon even in our own times, even among people with educations that are hundreds of times better than those available 20 centuries ago.:
http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Cognitive-Dissonance-Leon-Festinger/dp/0804709114
By your standard of truth being determined by the willingness of a very few people to “voluntarily leave their homes and give up their lives”, we can go down a list of cults and world religions that have proposed the most arrant nonsense and yet succeeded in attracting large numbers of people — there are quite a number of would-be-messiahs with followers who have done just that active at this very moment. Should we take their claims seriously? Or is it only the heavily redacted claims made in copies of copies of copies of manuscript copies of documents written decades to centuries after the supposed facts that they relate that we should trust?
I’m tempted to pop Acts 5:1 to 5:10 in here — it neatly refutes your assertion that this was really “voluntary”. Indeed, you might think about what any state district attorney would think if you visited a cult meeting that required you to give up all your possessions and join, but (not being a complete idiot) you thought you might hold onto a few at least for a while to make sure that you were doing the right thing, only the first time you went into a closed room with the cult leader they brought you out dead and buried you straightaway and took your wealth anyway, and later in the day when your wife went in she was brought out dead and buried right next to you. Is there one single person alive dumb enough to think that these two people were “struck down by the lord” as opposed to, say, by Peter and the other “young men” who ran the cult? If so, Scientology has a real deal for you…
Finally — and there is no easy way to say this — accepting this sort of thing as evidence requires a willful failure of common sense. To quote Paine (again — it should be required reading in every science class ever taught and would be if not for the stranglehold religion has on education):
rgb
Willybamboo:
You neglected to add cosmologist Father Georges Lemaitre, who developed the big bang theory.
And your environment may have nurtured you to be:
1) a passionate believer in/of the Catholic Religion.
2) a passionate believer in/of the Christian Religion.
3) a passionate believer in/of the Islamic Religion.
4) a passionate believer in/of the Anthropogenic Global Warming Religion.
5) a passionate believer in/of questioning everything that you are told to believe and reasoning out the truth or falsity of said in order to make your own personal “judgment calls” of what is most probably ….. “the truth of the matter” …. relative to the information you currently have available.
The nurturing of young children to be “passionate believers” in/of a specific Religious doctrine …. is no different than ……. the nurturing of young children to be fluent in the native language of their parent(s) or guardians. The person knows for a fact which Religious doctrine they ascribe to ….. and which language they read, write and speak, ….. but most persons really have no conscious memories of being nurtured to do so.
Remember, …… a person’s “conscious mind” ….. is subserviant to whatever their “subconscious mind” was nurtured with via the environmental stimuli their sense organs were subjected to.
RGB,
I wouldn’t put it beyond Peter to bump off Ananias and Sapphira, since he cut off the right ear of Malchus, servant of the high priest Caiaphas, as reported by John.
Claim was that historian Joes F never mentioned Christ. This statement is false. please read his history before misquoting it.
If it took him until recently to check out the science, is it fair to speculate that many of the “supporters” still have not done equivalent homework?
If they had bothered to do the homework, they wouldn’t be supporters.
Being able to read a teleprompter qualifies you to do the local TV news. It doesn’t make you a visionary leader.
Oh. Bama.
Auto
Mind, – in the UK we have had Tony B.Liar, and the ineffable Gordon Brown, so, as confirmed glass-house denizens, maybe we shouldn’t start heaving big rocks at other folks’ similar dwellings. . . . . . .
So – where can we heave big rocks without pranging some other chaps’ glass-houses.
In 2015 – difficult.
Possibly Australia – and the Ashes Series starts tomorrow, but in Cardiff – great little city, but negligible cricket history: even sobers’ 36 in an over was in Swansea. Sorry – off thread.
Very good obsevation EC. I hope the homework angle is the case for most scientist that support CAGW theory. I think that some are going with the noble lie.
I thought exactly the same thing. It’s well past time for true scientists to speak up.
Giaever is already on the record as a sceptic. He quit the APS a few years ago, and made a public statement about it. (I’m pretty sure there was a posting on WUWT.)
So the interesting question is, what about the other 34 non-signers? Are they undecided, or don’t they have the balls to say anything publicly? Or are they in self-protective mode?
Sadly, he’ll be dismissed as an “old crank” as Freeman Dyson has been.
True, but his points were simple and modest, still robust and undeniable. He didn’t deny warming, just told there is no reason to panic.
Freeman Dyson has not been dismissed buy anyone who is worth listening to.
He’s quite exceptional.
Other people’s ‘judgements’ won’t matter in the long run.
Indeed, the NY times called him infinitely smart.
You can’t hide the truth. You can try, but eventually you will be caught in your lies and you can’t go back and change them. As AGW unravels there will be many people who’s credibility will be forever lost.
So, you’ve never heard of the Clintons, eh?
There’s a very funny poster of Monica wishing Hillary the best of luck but don’t … that I won’t finish and post here, but it is easy to find
Funny, first thing I thought of after seeing “Clintons” was the Whitewater scandal they were involved in.
That and thinking the US founding fathers would be spinnng in their graves if they could see what passes for “Leadership” now.
Is the dam about to burst ?
People in the world at large must be realising that there are far more pressing issues to resolve if mankind is to prosper and care for the environment.
Everything the alarmists propose is horrendously irrational and counterproductive even if they were right yet it is increasingly clear that they are not.
We need to use fossil fuels freely so as to make all nations richer as quickly as possible so as to voluntarily limit breeding to or below replacement (as always happens in prosperous free societies) and to provide the research funds to get to a long term solution to our energy needs.
Our current level of expertise in renewable energy technology is hopelessly primitive and arguably more damaging to society and the planet than use of fossil fuels.
Our leaders are suffering from collective madness.
More like collectively blindered by the propagandizing Left.
Our leaders are not suffering from collective madness. They understand that they can raise money through taxes based on climate change. The British government raises £1,500,000,000 through the ‘Climate Change Levy’ ALONE! Never mind CO2 tax on cars, additional value added tax and assorted taxes. If the climate nonsense bubbles bursts, the British government will have to find that money from somewhere else. From 2005 all gas boilers sold here have had to be of the ‘condensing’ type, to ensure efficency and therefore lower emissions. These boilers have been less reliable and cost consumers more. What government didn’t foresee is the way it affects policies.
I think Obama is a clever person..
…good description
Our President is in search of his legacy. To date he doesn’t have one. That he has decided “climate change” is going to be his focus argues against his being clever.
The unintended consequence of Obama’s actions will be the legacy of allowing politics to dictate science to the detriment of civilization.
His legacy will be one that he has no control over: the 1st Black President of the US. That’s it.
I thought Bill Clinton had already been proclaimed the first black president?
He just pushes everything else with ease, perhaps he should declare US metric and finally be done with this stupid system. That would live on as good work. Myanmar and Liberia; good company.
I worry that Obama’s legacy will be a nuclear war in the middle east.
The fact that over 70 Nobel winning scientists endorsed Obama as “visionary” is rather disturbing and draws into question their analytical skills. I’m beginning to think the Nobel is just another prog group hug.
ditto
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
― Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Attended and did not Sign:
Werner Arber
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
Eric Betzig
Bruce A. Beutler
Aaron Ciechanover
François Englert
Albert Fert
Ivar Giaever
Theodor W. Hänsch
Avram Hershko
Robert Huber
Brian D. Josephson
Jean-Marie Pierre Lehn
Rudolph A. Marcus
Hartmut Michel
Luc Montagnier
Erwin Neher
Ryoji Noyori
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Carlo Rubbia
Bert Sakmann
Dan Shechtman
Oliver Smithies
Wole Soyinka
Susumu Tonegawa
Martinus J. G. Veltman
Klaus von Klitzing
Kurt Wüthrich
Ada E. Yonath
Harald zur Hausen
Pope Benedict appointed microbiologist Arber, a Swiss Protestant, as President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2011.
That list of names sounds very undiverse thus can be dismissed out of hand
Huh? Now you’re dismissing folks because of how their names ‘sound’?
Pretty sure Robert meant that sarcastically.
Less than half of obviously the female gender – Ada and Françoise, and . . . . . . .
Probably – not certainly, I do not know the individuals – no Lesbian, nor Trans-sexual, in their number.
Many of above average income, I suggest.
So un-diverse they probably should be treated with the contempt that a certain European organisation treats democratic votes that do not agree with their outcomes.
Indeed at the next European elections [If voting could change anything, would they let us do it?] it is likely that the European Commission will declare the population void, and elect a new population.
Auto
I’m beginning to think that to be recognized as a smart feller that you first have to have a smart feller sounding name. You hardly ever see Billy Bob Jones, Sam Smith or Jimmy Johnson up there. As that 60 minutes guy, Andy Rooney, would ponder… Why is that?
Well, smart feller names are, let’s face it, usually funny-sounding. So, a kid gets picked on ’cause his name is funny and starts to thinkin’, “I’ll show you, I’ll show you all, just see if I don’t”, and viola! a Nobel prize winner!
Actually the best chemist that works for me goes by Bubba. Hard working, extremely intelligent, and a master of both plastics and water compliance. A lot of people would have abandoned the nickname a long time before, but he keeps it out of pride.
To compare, I know a “Billy Bob” that has gone by “William” since college because he thinks it sounds smarter.
Thank you Vukcevic, old chap. Good information. One thing is clear…we have a new hero today, Dr Ivar Giaever. The truth will out.
What shirts were they wearing?
Do you have a list of those that did sign?
This list, as well as their accomplishments, and a similar list of signers, should be part of the article.
There are still 30 on your list – after you removed Brian Schmidt.
Could there be another one who does not deserve to have his name among these noble scientists?
Klaus von Klitzing did sign the declaration
He does not deserve to be on this list.
As with most engineers, which apparently to some have no credence in this debate because its applied science, there is little belief in the warmist theories of impending doom. If you read the actual science, as opposed to the Encyclical or watch a movie, and have an engineering background (I still hold a P.Eng. but it’s in ergonomics and I specialised in computer controlled equipment) it is hard not to be skeptical of the CO2 cabal. All I know is my farm friends use high concentrations of the stuff in the green houses to give nature a boost in the cold spring we get in Canada.
“When you have a theory and the theory does not agree with the experiment then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory,” Giaever explained.
————-
Ahem, says the ghost of Richard Feynman.
Eh… just because Feynman articulated it pretty well doesn’t mean it’s not a universal truth.
Galileo, at the end of the Middle Ages, solidified this principle, though it goes back at least as far as Roger Bacon in the 1200s.
As usually understood, the Middle Ages ended in 1492 (variously 1453 or 1485, depending upon scholar and country). Galileo was born in 1564, same year as Shakespeare, and died in 1642. He was an Early Modern figure, not Medieval.
Sturgis
I think you hit the nail on the head with
– depending on scholar and country.
And for ‘non-scholars’ of Medieval/Middle Ages/les Moyen Ages, all that stuff back then is so Middle Aged . . .
Bacon, Galileo, Feynman, Giaever. The name doesn’t matter. As LeeH indicates – it is true.
Auto
History started in 1979. The 1990’s are the middle ages.
1642 was the year that Abel Tasman discovered New Zealand.
But some Maori residents had some of his crewmen over for dinner, and he decided the place was too hostile.
g
“As usually understood, the Middle Ages ended in 1492”
On a Wednesday, wasn’t it?
History ended in 1946 (which, coincidentally, is the year RoHa was born). Everything since then is current affairs.
RoHa,
The last Muslim stronghold in Spain surrendered to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille on Monday, January 2, 1492. Later that year, they paid for Columbus to sail the ocean blue. He came back with news of having reached what he imagined were the Indies in 1493.
The first battle won with firearms occurred at Cerignola in 1503, where the Spanish under the Great Captain Gonzalo de Cordoba defeated the French during the Italian Wars.
Whenever you date the end of the Middle Ages, it doesn’t extend into the 17th century. To historians, that’s the Early Modern period.
Are pebbles moving near the top of the scree? My sense is that when this global warming catastrophism nonsense starts coming down, its going to come down hard and fast and take a lot of people and institutions down with it.
You mean like this:
https://youtu.be/ZVjr4mii3cE
[snip – off topic, unneeded imagery here -mod]
Climate change strikes again!
Yes, Notanist, people like me won’t let The Royal Society gloss over it.
I imagine that intense pressure is being exerted upon the non-signers to convince them to sign. Very intense.
No. No way. Those guys are all Nobel Laureates. Secure positions. They last thing the Believer crowd wants is to piss them off and make them vocal. From the Scammers view point, its best to let them go away quietly. Dr Giaever didn’t, but the MSM can simply ignore just one voice.
Jorge, I don’t doubt that that these Nobel Prize winners are facing a lot of pressure. Dr. Giaever said as much: ““Global warming really has become a new religion. Because you cannot discuss it. It’s not proper.”
Even so, Nobel Winners have a lot more latitude to say what they think as compared to young people just beginning their careers. Graduate students and assistant professors down to the last man are well advised keep their heads down. It WILL cost them their careers if they oppose the politically dictated narrative.
It should be no surprise that Skepticism is strongest among that group of scientists that are not beholden to academic fads and government grants.
Dare I write that Prof. Giaever et al. will not be receiving the special embroidered satin invitation and all expense payed UN cheque (underwritten by the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank in Deutschmarks) from Messier Hollande, Der Merkel and Arc Pope for the party in Paris to celebrate the return of the Prime Meridian to Paris after being in the Pagan lands of England.
Ha ha
Global warming is all wet,
How true.
I was wishing he had a more emphatic denouncement, actually.
It says volumes that some low level flash in the pan researcher hasbeen like me can arm-chair figure out the issues that negate the theory of catastrophic global warming due to rising anthropogenic CO2, along side such luminous brains. At the very least, it calls into question whether or not high level thinking went into the theory in the first place.
High level money and political support went into the theory, and that was all it needed. Welcome to post-rational science.
Post rational? Surely a better label is Lysenkoism 2.0.
Whether it was Mead or Thatcher, it was high level thinking, just not high level science.
How on earth they could think it was simple physics is mind-boggling, but yet there are still people (on here even) who still chant that mantra.
In the words of my old high school physics teacher…
“If it is colourful , it is chemistry.”
“If it moves,it is biology.”
“If it doesn’t work, it is physics.”
People don’t understand the limitations of raw physics unless they have actually done any work in the field. They think “OK, spherical cow means you can model anything”, without thinking that their ideas of a “simple model” would require a Matrix (that is, the fictional movie) to compute, and that small discrepancies would easily push it out of whack.
Chemical Engineers I think get the best whack in the head when we learn about reactors and uncertainties, and how the best method of controlling a complex system is not theoretical rigor, but emperical testing.
Amusingly, the number of Chemical Engineers at the TCEQ makes them an extremely anti-AGW group, further distancing the state and federal regulatory agencies.
Ben of Houston,
Many Electrical Engineers are also skeptics. One reason is that EE’s often have an intuitive understanding of feedback control systems and the claims made by the consensus about feedback don’t even pass the smoke test.
That implies to me that around 35 out of 65 Nobel prizes are given for the quality of science and 30/65 are given because those involved know how to Brown nose the committee.
They gave one to Obama just on the hope that he will do something helpful. How tough can it be to get one now days?
“Problem was, there were 65 attendees, and only 30 signed the declaration.”
Correction: 36 attendees signed the declaration:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/03/oddly-nobel-prize-winner-michael-mann-was-not-invited-to-sign-the-mainau-declaration-for-climate-protection/#comment-1978406
That’s still short of the 97% claimed “consensus” (to be fair, the alleged 97% are supposedly “climate scientists”), but as we all know, scientific truth is determined by majority vote! (/sarc for the humor-impaired)
I noticed that one of the signers, Kailash Satyarthi, is a non-scientist (Peace laureate), but so is one of the non-signers, Wole Soyinka, (Literature). I didn’t find any signers who were not listed as attendees.
Do you remember that lesson at School where they told us “the basis of science …. is that we all vote for the theories we like”?
One thought
I’d be very interested to know how the sceptics and alarmists break down by subject, I suspect that most sceptics will be for the “hard” sciences like physics and chemistry whereas most of the alarmists will be soft scie….
… just realised I was assuming that they are Nobels for science but I don’t see that in the article.
Only a matter of time before it becomes Anthropogenic Bad Weather.
At least one Peace (signer) and one Literature (non-signer). Others for Chemistry, Phys/Med and Physics.
philincalifornia
That’s what I’m calling it from now on. Thanks for a late evening laugh.
You’re welcome, and laugh as loud as you want, you’re just about far enough away from mediaeval heretic witch burning territory.
Finally somebody with authority says what I have been saying for a long time: You just cannot measure the Earth’s temperature!
I will go even further and say the term “global temperature” is simply meaningless.
There is no way to attach a number to the Earth.
Not any number we can measure, anyway.
This is how CAGW will eventually crash and burn.
More and more renowned scientists outside the field of climatology will evaluate the physics, empirical evidence, and CAGW’s hypothetical projections, and conclude CAGW doesn’t meet the Scientific Method’s criteria for confirmation.
Once this rare 3-year El Niño cycle ends and is followed by a La Niña cycle, the “hiatus” will exceed 20 years, despite 30%+ of all manmade CO2 emissions since 1750 being made over the last 20 years…
Once that sinks in, brilliant minds around the world will shake their heads, mumble their favorite curse word, and then say, ‘how can this hypothesis still be taken seriously?’, and that will be all she wrote…