My friend in Australia, Joanne Nova, has come up with an interesting essay on why it is so hard for many professional scientists to come out against climate consensus. In fact you might say in this case study it is un-bearable.
For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here
The way some people get treated for expressing a different viewpoint rather reminds me of what Sethi says to Moses upon announcement of exile in the movie The Ten Commandments:
Let the name of Moses be stricken from every book and tablet. Stricken from every pylon and obelisk of Egypt. Let the name of Moses be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of man, for all time.
Nova writes: The price for speaking out against global warming is exile from your peers, even if you are at the top of your field. What follows is an example of a scientific group that not only stopped a leading researcher from attending a meeting, but then-without discussing the evidence-applauds the IPCC and recommends urgent policies to reduce greenhouse gases.
What has science been reduced to if bear biologists feel they can effectively issue ad hoc recommendations on worldwide energy use? How low have standards sunk if informed opinion is censored, while uninformed opinion is elevated to official policy?
If a leading researcher can’t speak his mind without punishment by exile, what chance would any up-and-coming researcher have? As Mitchell Taylor points out “It’s a good way to maintain consensus”.
As others have noted AGW is a socio-political phenomena. But we shouldn’t forget that the AGW phenomena was engineered by the United Nations.
While many people on both the right and left think their national politicians are venal and corrupt, there are large numbers especially on the left who think that everything that comes out of the UN must be good and right. Despite it being run by unelected relatives of third world leaders of dubious legitimacy and staffed by various shades of political activists, with no democratic oversight at all.
A corrupt and incompetent UN allowed activists who saw an opportunity for large scale wealth transfers and global economic engineering to hijack the IPCC, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Bravo Joanna Nova for a very comprehensive essay but “Exile for the Non-Believers” smacks of defeatism. What is required from the gallant minority that frequent this forum is a more positive attitude with more positive articles and slogans such as Steve Jobs’ Think Different that stole a march on Microsoft and took Apple and the ipod to number one in the world in digital music converting millions to believe in its product.
If science is on your side all you need is a sales department to demonstrate it.
http://iphonepartyzone.com/FilesUploaded/SimpleImageGalleryFiles/38/img_569.jpg
@ur momisugly Hans Erren (15:21:39) :
Sooo – I’m sorry but what is your point, Hans?
mvh
Michael
The AGW /CC issue really does separate the wheat from the chaff, and the men from the boys. It takes great courage, principle, conviction, and chutzpah to speak the truth, no matter the consequences.
Those who are simply riding along on the coattails of AGW ideology, simply because it is safe, convenient, and lucrative to do so will eventually pay the price, in one way or another.
This is why many in government employ (myself included) use pseudonyms. Lysenkoists in lab coats control the consensus in this way.
And I’d add that I detect pushback by politicians and others who see how dangerous and corrosive of democracy allowing the United Nations to impose mandates on democratic governments is.
And therein lies the solution. Make politicians represent the people who elected them and vote them out if the don’t.
While exposing and debunking the false and misleading claims made in the name of climate science is fun, it’s a sideshow to resisting AGW in the political arena.
Peter Hearnden – A polar bear expert wants to go to a meeting. He’s been there at every meeting since 1981. He is not given an invitation. No mention of any sort of retirement reason is given at the time. That’s only brought up post hoc. The reason given at the time was his climate views. Who are you to know better?
I think you’ve misunderstood the blog format. Blog posts are designed for relatively small subjects, not an opus such as an examination of all the scientists who have felt career pain due to their global warming positions.
You can contact Dr Andy Derocher at
derocher [ at ] ualberta.ca
I feel sure that Dr Derocher has a more reasonable explanation for this story. Surely this kind of bullying must be completely untrue. I thought the days of bullying & censorship of scientists (like they did to Galileo) were over?
The end result of “sucking your own exhaust” is asphyxiation. That is what such organizations are headed toward. It is the fresh air of contrary opinion that feeds the flame of learning…
I’m happy to stand in the fresh air and let those driven by political goals suffer what the fates may bring. 😎
@Michael T (15:48:55)
Peter Hearden wrote: what’s so special of a retiring polar bear expert?
The facts that he did not retire but was forbidden to speak.
Wait! Scientists can be bought or intimidated? Then they shouldn’t be worshiped as gods?
Then what can I believe in?
“As others have noted AGW is a socio-political phenomena. But we shouldn’t forget that the AGW phenomena was engineered by the United Nations.” Philip_B
Wait! Are you the Philip that tried to get me banned for my economic “insights”?
And I just though you were a narrowly focused scientist.
Now you seem more like a hyprocrite as you sound off with your pseudo-science sociology. Perhaps jealous too?
Change will come only when the underlining evidence of the AWG can be shown to the masses in a simple and humorous way as laughable falsehoods. Making it fodder for late-night talk shows, then and only then has the tipping point has been reached. There is noway in hell you can attack the elites without a massive snicker from the public. 🙂
Back2Bat (16:21:35) :
Wait! Scientists can be bought or intimidated? Then they shouldn’t be worshiped as gods?
“Then what can I believe in?”
Back2back,
You can’t.
The only thing you can do is to ask questions and be skeptical, especially in regard to your Government.
Skeptic minds provide the safeguard for any society.
They are the “canaries in the coal mine” so to say.
If skeptics encounter massive opposition by a consensus (any consensus for that matter) and people get fired or attacked because they have opposing views, we know something is seriously wrong.
Therefore Skeptics (those who question) are the safeguards of freedom.
If they are silenced, freedom is silenced.
It’s a sad day indeed to come to a place in the history of scientific endeavour, in which all that one needs in order to prove that the Moon is made of Green Cheese….. is 51 percent of opinion.
Not one fact more is necessary.
That was a very sad report from Joanne. I think it is time we stopped hoping for good science, and started demanding it….. It is, after all, our money they are mostly using.
Frustrating that we have this being the situation. It also explains why a lot of academics and government researchers wait till they retire before “rocking the boat”; they no longer have to chant the mantra of AGW (or silently let others do so) for fear of maintaining the income they need to maintain a home and family. The concept of extortion comes immediately to mind. This is also probably a reason we no longer hear many voices of reason who USED TO speak out. It appears that many of what used to be our stalwart academic institutions have determined their quest is more for government and grants and other funding, and increasingly LITTLE attention is to be paid to what was once called “integrity.”
Incidentally, the National Academies Press has a video up on their website regarding the 3rd Edition of their book: “On Being a Scientist; a guide to responsible conduct in research.” Odd coincidence, also, that there is an article on page 29 of Popular Science, October 2009 on the issue of scientific data falsification, fabrication and modification. It reports that up to one third of some 11,000 scientists surveyed (anonymously, I assume) admitted to such things as failing to publish data that contradicted earlier findings.
I fear a day coming soon when the public no longer trusts scientists, at all.
Eugene Langschwager
Executive Director, Climate Science Coalition of America
http://www.climatescienceamerica.org
eo (15:44:31) :
“Talking of polar bear, the Yellowstone has the classic history of the collapse of wildlife population from over protection. Remember the hunting of wolves and over protection of the deer population. Ultimately the deer population collapsed not from the wolves and hunting but from starvation. If the present trend continues there is a big possibility the polar bear population will collapse from mass starvation caused by over population. Blame the death on global warming.”
And it’s not just that they starve to death from over population, but they die leaner and, most of all, not benefitting anyone that might have otherwise hunted them. There’s flies and fungi etc that need that meat more than man, you know! But the animal-worshippers, they get people thinking that only a bunch “ass-backwards rednecks” living in a developed nation abundant with food are the only ones to hunt. They never mention all the people in the world who absolutely depend on hunting to get by.
Anyway, “the consensus” days are numbered. It’s apparent to more and more people what “the consensus” is all about, and they’re juuust not buying the AGWers tactics anymore. Even so… the push grows. The “consensus” will not only be defeated, it’ll be a total route from the field.
Sethi? Sethi who? Science is NOT, and never has been, for the weak and faint of heart. When a “scien-tester” buys into the BS of his contemporaries without expending a single erg of mental energy, he/she has already retired, compromised their integrity, etc, etc, ad nausea. Who would have thunk that a dumb, little, late 19th Century patent clerk would have amounted to anything in the 20th Century? Who would have imagined that some newborn kid floating on a tar covered reed basket would have survived and been remembered through the ages more so than all the rulers of the Upper and Lower Nile. For the patent clerks, or students, or PhD’s, who happen to come upon this material: If you do nothing else in your short little life, at least have the guts to stand on your own hind legs; success is not measured in dollars, yen, euros, rubbles, or the praise of idiots who kiss the hands and backsides of politicians, publishers, contemporaries.
It just isn’t climatology.
Astronomy is the same way (and other scientific disciplines, as well).
Why?
Scientific disciplines that have little objective observation & measurement to support their “consensus” end up enforcing their “consensus” by censorship and banishment from the “community”.
Prior post appears to be MIA? Feedback on what I do next? Thanks. 🙂
So it is written, so let it be done.
So what is the “Gore Effect” all about?
You can own a piece of land, you can own a business, but you cannot own the climate, or any other force of nature.
Sometimes when the plane is going down it’s better to bail out.After this winter
I feel the AGW Ford Trimotor is going to leave a smoking hole in the desert..
-Or tundra,as it will…
A bit OT, but remember that there are big monetary benefits for going along:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html
I would like a show of hands on how many believe this statement from the article:
Asked whether Mr. Gore had any influence on Fisker’s application, the DOE’s Rogers said, “None at all.”
There are some comments worth paying attention to in this thread. Specifically those to do with the societal aspects and consequences thereof. In some ways this entire subject of climate change is merely a skirmish in the never-ending battle for cultural/social supremacy. Merely carried on with new terms and technology. A mix of science and magic, not terribly different than that practiced by Himmler and company, or their various predecessors. And with the same predictable outcome.
COMBING FOR CONSENSUS?
Is there a list of all scientists fired over their positions on global warming?
I have not seen such a list, but are we hearing about a couple random cases, or is this a wide spread COMBING FOR CONSENSUS?
Google Results finds 10,200 for “scientist fired” “global warming”.