WUWT reader “Purakanui” emailed me: “I have just read an extraordinary news item. Jim Salinger is the voice of global warming as far as New Zealand is concerned. Until recently he was always there when a new ‘record’ appeared, or a glacier retreated. He was a breathless and apparently wholly convinced warmer. Also he is a good scientist.”
I checked his bio page:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/ncc/contact/staff/jsalinger/bio
And it has been removed. Now if NASA could just get the stones to do this for Jim Hansen for promoting civil disobedience. – Anthony
From TV New Zealand
One of New Zealand’s top climate scientists has just been fired from his job at the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric research (NIWA).
Dr Jim Salinger has been the public face of the organisation for three decades, but says it was his unauthorised talking to the media that’s got him sacked.
Salinger, whose work as a science communicator has earned him accolades and even contributed to a Nobel Peace Prize, says he is now planning to sue his former employer for unjustified dismissal because according to him, he cannot understand why he was sacked.
“It’s not as though I’m doing bad science, it’s not as though I’m not performing and so I’m really astounded”.
What got Salinger fired is something that in the past brought him high praise – talking to the media.
Salinger says he always believed that his media work actually brought NIWA into repute.
Read the complete story here
George E. Smith (15:15:04) :
When it comes to the French Secret Service vs Greenpeace it’s hard to figure out which side to support, although I lean towards the French. If they had really wanted to stop the Rainbow Warrior a couple of live torpedo rounds(“training”) from one of their nuclear boats in the middle of the Pacific at around 2am local would have done the job. Seems they were trying to send the Greenpeace kiddies a message by sinking the boat in the harbour. My understanding is the casualty went back on the boat to get his stuff after the first explosion. Stupidity really.
It is perhaps coincidental that Dr S, a member of the UN thinktank on climate change is dismissed as Helen Clark becomes head of the UNDEP. If the National government imagine there could be a UN conspiracy to hijack NZ’s climate policy, with outside pressure pushing from above assisted by an insider employee in an influential position pushing from below then they have acted to disarm this early on. What people may fail to realise is that NIWA’s mission statement is to be spokespeople for the environmental policy of the current government, whoever that is. There is no mission statement to the effect that individual state-salaried scientists are free to write privately to lobby media in the name of NIWA. Labour needed the Greens, National doesn’t, so National can more afford global warming skepticism until proven otherwise. Just because a person does a phD in global warming doesn’t mean he is correct, any more than if he did a degree in Creationism. It just means he is more likely to be employed by a government needing that kind of figurehead to write its policy reports in scientific jargon. As soon as the government changed Dr S should have started applying for other work. I sympathise with anyone losing their job, and I believe Dr S passionately believed whatever he said, but NIWA’s outlooks are so frequently incorrect the late Augie Auer called for the disbanding of the organisation. Whenever Dr S mentions NZ’s receding glaciers, when he doesn’t also mention all the advancing ones he displays a personal bias that is very bad science and bad for all science. Remember, the taxpayer pays his wages.
Bob Carter (linked to above) will be giving a talk at Waikato University in Hamilton NZ on April 30th this month, at 6.30pm.
Evan Thornley a Victorian State Government Minister resigned his position to take a job with a French Electric Car provider while the his own government was negotiating with aforementioned French company ( although he denies any conflict of interest). However the reason for this post is that he now wants to fill Victoria Australia with useless windfarms to produce electricity for his electric cars – all to save the the planet from warming. This is the man that made a fortune in the dot com boom – I guess always the opportunist!
I think there is more going on here than meets the eye, the BBC for instance is well known for its almost fanatical devotion to AGW/MMCC alarmism, it is also well known that they attack/demean/ignore individuals and governments that dare to contradict the AGW/MMCC doctrines.
The BBC has engaged in the political game with a passion and its feasible that they would try to conspire with AGW believers within governments, the BBC is quite capable of this and I suspect other media tools of the ‘consensus’ are involved.
When the current NZ government showed it was less than keen on destroying its economy on the alter of a dodgy theory/belief system the BBC started a campaign of first ignoring, undermining and then critisising the democratic NZ administration, concentrating on giving airtime only to those anti government elements within NZ, the narrative is clear here, toe the AGW line or face the consequences.
The scary thing is that a multi billion pound media empire funded by enforced taxation can indulge in trying to destabilise a foreign government.
Hi Cassandra
From an interested Kiwi – Do you have any links to the BBC critisising NZ democratic administration?
A little OT but mentioned in several comments above.
While most of sane people would be concerned at the effect of CO2 regulation on beer/ale, consider also that many baked goods [risen using yeast] also give off CO2, wine production ditto – you think the French will go along with no more wine?; CO2 fire extinguishers would be banned, dry ice would be a pollutant and no longer be available, CO2 is used as a shielding gas in many welding processes and so would affect many industries.
Not to mention that plants love CO21
I’m sure many readers could contribute many more affects of regulating CO2 – anyone?
I’ve just finished reading the book, and I would recommend it in general. He’s been careful to reference all his sources carefully, and being a journalist he has a fairly racy writing style. I think we’ll see the NZ Greens having a hernia soon about this one.
Nevilee, your link doesn’t work (Server Error), but this one should:
Air Con by Ian Wishart
Link again:
Air Con by Ian Wishart
NZ has some of the most “employee favourable” employment legislation in the world.
If NIWA have not followed the correct procedure Jim could yet get his job back. But he has been annoying people with his public statements for a while. Jim has been to NIWA what James is to NASA. An embarrassment
This is a key point: In New Zealand, before anyone is dismissed, they generally have to have been through a process of numerous verbal and written warnings, although “serious misconduct” can lead to relatively instant dismissal. I doubt that they could argue that this was ‘serious misconduct’, and it sounds like he was warned several times. In short: I would guess that he had been told what not to do, and decided to do it anyway.
And our ‘green’ party aren’t green – they’ve been taken over by the reds.
J. Peden (10:16:34) :
” Alec, a.k.a Daffy Duck (07:55:47) :
… the news from Poland:
Polish Academy of Sciences Questions Gore’s Man-Made Global Warming Theory
By: Kevin Mooney
Examiner Investigative Reporter
04/24/09 9:18 AM
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Polish-Academy-of-Sciences-Questions-Gores-Man-Made-Global-Warming-Theory-43618922.html
The Polish Academy’s 10 points are well worth a click! Thanks, Daffy.”
Interesting piece of work.
I have only missed mentioning the current cooling trend and the current state of the sun. After 10 years of NO warming this is worth mentioning.
Knowing that you can’t win them all I really think this is an important step.
On the other hand, Poland is highly depending on coal and they would benefit enormously if the EU climate madness would be called off.
The trouble is all the AGW Greenie nutjobs are gonna leave NZ and come to Australia…. Can we stop AGW Greenie boat people too 😉
Here is the bio page (from Google’s cache 12 April):
At least the rule of law applies in NZ. Maybe we could expect the same in the USA.
James allison NZ,
Hello there, sorry no links!
Form the the day that the BBCs favoured candidate lost the BBC have ignored the NZ legitimate administration, check the BBC website for hisorical articles, they recently offered a platform to discuss SH AGW the only guests were the party that lost the election and the greens.
Check out BBC world and the website it will surprise you.
OT: What is the streak on the magnetogram and LASCO C3? Did it capture a comet?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html
Hi all, I have a question. Total Solar Irradiance has been diminishing over the past months and now is about 0.6 W/m^2 lower then the average. How this will influence climate? The answer is not trivial and all depends on the nature of “earth+atmosphere” system. Assuming that actual climate is defined by an equilibrium position of this system we must investigate how this position is influenced by initial conditions such as TSI and others. In other words a little variation on the initial conditions may lead either to big variations on the earth mean temperature (if we the system is in a stable equilibrium position) or to little variations on mean earth temperature (if the system is in an unstable equilibrium position). Is there anyone who knows something more concerning this interesting topic?
I really hate to say it, but Hansen and Gore etc. remind me of the novel: Lord of the Flies, where an out-of-control authority is blindly followed by drones. They are really that dangerous I believe.
As a Ozie its my job to diss the Kiwi’s. But I do know they were the first to give women the vote and first to work 8hr days, first to climb Mt Everest and maybe the first to fly(http://history-nz.org/firsts.html ) Maybe they are also the first to sack charlatan scientists and look at the facts as well.
Doubly scary the new government is no doing mass fiscal stimuluses doling out money rather looking for ways to make their country more viable and competitive… never know the brain drain across the ditch looks like it may turn around .,
Norm Beazer (16:04:28) :
‘“Personally I don’t care what he or Hanson have to say, they can shout it from the rooftops for all I care…” That is all very fine: my point is that denying the right to free expression to one group harms us all. The veneer of civilisation is rather thin at times.’
But the free expression of that one group in the scientific community which is critical of AGW is systematically and institutionally suppressed…..yesterday, today and tomorrow. THAT harms us all.
No one takes satisfaction in Dr. Salinger’s personal misfortune. Further, AGWers hardly lack free expression as a group. It is the prospect of a shift in the debate, that our voice is getting stronger, that is encouraging.
A GOP House source told Climate Depot that the Democrats on the Committee said “absolutely not” to allowing Monckton to appear during today’s Gore hearing. The GOP committee “pushed at multiple levels” to bring Monckton in to testify but the Democrats “refused,” according to the GOP source. Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich was called in to testify after Monckton was rejected by the committee Democrats, according to the Congressional source.]
“The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore’s sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,” Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.
“Waxman knows there has been no ‘global warming’ for at least a decade. Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years’ global cooling. Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore’s mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, ‘the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,’” Monckton explained. Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March.”
Presumably, that was before former committee head Dingell was dispatched in a coup, in favor of the more radical Waxman.
The last thing AGWers want is a genuine debate.
Andrea (06:38:59),
You reference a 0.6 W/m^2 reduction of incoming energy, which sounds like about 1/500th the averaged incidence.
The story I have long been told is the answer to go with, and have recently seen repeated (in conjunction with the low activity of Cycle 24), is that variation on this scale is not significant, that it is too far down in the ‘grass’ of background noises that influence climate.
This becomes an issue, because people notice climate variations in the record which correspond with solar cycles. But the straight physics read says, ‘No, this should not do anything’.
Yet obviously, correlations with solar cycles remain. So, we see efforts to find a solar causation, by e.g. invoking changes in cosmic ray penetration through a charge-reduced upper atmosphere, creating more clouds at low level (just like the dry-ice cloud-chamber in high school physics). Could be, sounds nifty.
Lorentz is of course famous for using the analogy of a butterfly’s wings over the Pacific Ocean, creating or halting major weather systems. Is this what you are pointing to? If so, I think in the case of this particular putative ‘flutter’, we have not yet found the butterfly (which doesn’t mean one isn’t there..).
But everyone I see weigh in on it, says 0.6 W/m^2 etc won’t “drive” the observed effect. That’s only a small fraction of 1%, and the stern physics types say it will take something like a 2-4% solar variation (a good order of magnitude more), before we expect to see it even start to drive climate.
It seems to me that the fact that the Academy of Sciences of a major European Nation (Poland) has just called AGW bunk, if the link is to be believed, is a huge development.
Anthony, perhaps it is worthy of a thread in its own right.
The link is here again.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Polish-Academy-of-Sciences-Questions-Gores-Man-Made-Global-Warming-Theory-43618922.html
Shane
As a New Zealander I was quite amazed to hear that Dr Salinger was sacked. I did miss the first ten minutes of the 6p.m. news tonight (Sunday N.Z. time). I had the pleasure of meeting Dr salinger at a local meeting in Palmerston North back in March 2003 at the height of our last big drought, a drought that NIWA didn’t predict but that many of us canny lay people saw coming a few months earlier (the product of long memories and living in one area for a few decades). A nice guy to be sure, but he didn’t inspire me with his knowledge then, and hasn’t done so since.
I managed to record a news item from MSM TV on March 7th, 2009 regarding receeding glaciers in the Southern Alps. It featured an aging NZ glaciologist by the name of Trevor Chinn who had been photographically logging mountain glaciers in the Southern Alps for just over 30 years. After a period of time Mr Chinn came to the conclusion that photos taken at the end of the southern summer (presumably March 1st since glaciologists and meteorologists have been out of sync with astronomers for some time) show whether or not the glaciers are receeding or advancing if they are above or below a certain altitude. Having worked this out Mr Chinn could then make pronouncements upon the state of the climate, for the Southern Alps at least ( not that he said that). Flying around they were able to show us all the shocking sight of miniscule glaciers clinging to the tops of mountains. A map was provided that showed the locations of 50 monitored glaciers. Then the beaming, hawkish face of Dr Jim Salinger appeared to give added authority to the pronouncements of the spry Mr Chinn. Jim said, “We have to do the calculations, but maybe another Rangitoto’s worth in terms of ice volume loss (Rangitoto is a large shield vocanoe in the harbour just east of Auckland, N.Z.’s largest city). The reporter then made the announcement that, “It is estimated that 100 years ago there were 100 cubic kilometers of snow and ice in the Southern Alps, now we are down to less than half of that.” I didn’t realize that Richard Pearce’s plane could even get that high, if he flew at all, and his camera must have been state of the art too!
Dr Jim came onto say, ” We’ve only had about 1 degree ( C of warming) since 1900 and if we have had that amount of loss of ice mass, then another degree or two we are going to lose more.”
The final comments from Mr Chinn and someone else in the plane are telling. Mr Chinn states whilst viewing another glacier, “They’ve bloody well wrecked the glacier!” The other voice yells in confirmation over the noise of the engines, “They HAVE wrecked the glacier!!”
I’ll leave it up to you figure out who, “They,” are.
I checked out some of the glaciers positions from a good topo map. Most of the glaciers are on the eastern side of the main divide of the Southern Alps. The prevailing weather for N.Z. mainly comes from the west. The two glaciers that I was interested weren’t mentioned, namely Franz Josef and Fox on the west coast of the South Island. Both of these glaciers have been rapidly advancing since the mid 1980’s, when I made my first visit there. From what I can gather NIWA & others state that these two anomalies are the result of strong El Nino events (1982-83 and 1998 perhaps). It takes about 5 years for the rain that falls as snow at the top, or neve of these 2 glaciers to manifest itself in movement at the bottom, or terminal face. Mr Chinn mentioned the eastern glaciers moving up to 10 metres over a year. He failed to mention the rate of 100’s of m/year that FJ & Fox have been moving. I will be watching for some great movement of both of these glaciers in 4.5 years time based upon the huge rainfalls that South Westland received six months ago during our souuthern spring, at the end of a strong La Nina too BTW. From what I have read here elsewhere, glaciers like FJ & Fox, in narrow, steep valleys and very deep by nature are a better indicator of regional climate than the broader, thinner glaciers typical of the eastern side of the divide.
This small news item is a typical example of Dr Jim abusing his position as a govt. employee to help push the barrow of the AGW zealots like Trevor Chinn. If he was sacked because he thought he was above the law so to speak, then so be it. His little sound bite was not “good science.” Far from it. He did the people who pay his salary, the tax payers of New Zealand a great dis-service by telling only part of the story, and making pronouncements before, “the calculations had been done.” By implication Dr Jim was stating that all he had to do was to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and we could all go home. The good scientists are looking after us. No need for you lay people to worry your silly little heads. We’ve got it under control. In the meantime NIWA still can’t predict the ‘climate’ (i.e a bunch of weather situations) for the next three months accurately, again!
Cheers
Coops
As Science Minister, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days in 1981 with Trevor Chinn’s project measuring glaciers in Victoria Land, Antarctica. As he demonstrated, these glaciers had been retreating consistently throughout the 60s and 70s – now seen as a cooling period.
For those who asked, – there has never been any doubt that Jim Salinger was a convinced disciple of the AGW sect. And very proud of his Nobel Prize certificate.