This is a surprise. Professor Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia suggests that the “I.P.C.C. has run its course”. I agree with him. We really need to remove a wholly political organization, the United Nations, from science.
Republished from New York Times Reporter Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth:
Dot Earth: Insights from Mike Hulme at the University of East Anglia, which was the source of the disclosed files. Hulme, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia and author of “ Why We Disagree About Climate Change,” has weighed in with these thoughts about the significance of the leaked files and emails. In November 2009, Hulme was listed as “the 10th most cited author in the world in the field of climate change, between 1999 and 2009. (ScienceWatch, Nov/Dec 2009, see Table 2).
Hulme Key Excerpt:
[Upcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen] “is about raw politics, not about the politics of science. […] It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science. It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose? The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production – just at a time when a globalizing and wired cosmopolitan culture is demanding of science something much more open and inclusive.
Full Hulme Statement:
The key lesson to be learned is that not only must scientific knowledge about climate change be publicly owned — the I.P.C.C. does a fairly good job of this according to its own terms — but the very practices of scientific enquiry must also be publicly owned, in the sense of being open and trusted. From outside, and even to the neutral, the attitudes revealed in the emails do not look good. To those with bigger axes to grind it is just what they wanted to find.
This will blow its course soon in the conventional media without making too much difference to Copenhagen — after all, COP15 is about raw politics, not about the politics of science. But in the Internet worlds of deliberation and in the ‘mood’ of public debate about the trustworthiness of climate science, the reverberations of this episode will live on long beyond COP15. Climate scientists will have to work harder to earn the warranted trust of the public – and maybe that is no bad thing.
But this episode might signify something more in the unfolding story of climate change. This event might signal a crack that allows for processes of re-structuring scientific knowledge about climate change. It is possible that some areas of climate science has become sclerotic. It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science.
It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose? The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production – just at a time when a globalizing and wired cosmopolitan culture is demanding of science something much more open and inclusive.
h/t to Marc Morano
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Just to add the title on his blog today is
“The Copenhagen summit is of historic importance”…
Ben G. Vote UKIP!
It is a powerful statement but to what effect?
The political establishment gathering in Copenhagen have set their minds on Global Governance, Cap&Trade, Communism and the elimination of the free world.
The first thing they will do as soon as the contracts are signed is to eliminate the IPCC anyway. Why to maintain a tool when you don’t need it anymore.
Don’t let Gorbatchev win the Cold War twenty years after the Berlin Wall collapsed.
Stop Copenhagen from happening.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/11/05/peter-foster-from-berlin-to-copenhagen.aspx
Personally I applaud him, this is a scientist that has now realised that if you dance with the devil, politics, then there is a good chance that you get burned. I just hope that the rest can now step back from the limelight before its too late and hold up their hands in realisation that it all went too far.
Most of us that don’t have that certain flair, intelect and intuition still just dream of being a scientist.
I hope that future generations will not be inhibited by this episode.
What a self-serving and arrogant act to form a panel for climate change in the first place!!! The earth was doing just fine.
No , to World Governance too.
We are all communists now:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8382014.stm
Lee there are more than just a few.
I mean I have taken both hands out of my pockets and have one shoe off with the other ready. You are going to have to take your hands out of your pockets too to count them all.
Too little, too late.
The whole corrupt edifice of a handful of so-called “scientists” peer reviewing each others work, falsifying data, concealing data, destroying data and attempting to ruin anyone not in their magic circle of influence, has to be taken apart piece by piece. What he and his colleagues have done will damage science for ever.
As for the CRU scientists, they are all an abomination. They have been deliberately deceiving the public, and have displayed all the ethics of gangsters operating a protection racket. I couldn’t care less if one of them is contrite now. Everything he says is a self-justifying lie, when what they all should be doing is apologizing to the whole world because their entire careers were forged by conspiring against us.
As for the IPCC – it’s a joke. Look at it. Stuffed full of bureaucrat pen-pushers and self-serving politicians. Must be the most useless organization in the world, and with the most malign influence. How can anyone take anything they say seriously?
THe IPCC never had a course. Right from Rio it was a political fix. Look up the life and times of Maurice Strong.
Meantime a commentator on a (London) Daily Telegraph blog gives an insight into the BBC’s ignorance and bias, and refers to this internal BBC report
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.pdf
It included this passage ….
Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be unpopular. There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate change is definitely happening, and that it is at least predominantly man-made. But the second part of that consensus still has some intelligent and articulate opponents, even if a small minority.
Jana Bennett, Director of Television, argued at the seminar that ‘as journalists, we have the duty to understand where the weight of the evidence has got to. And that is an incredibly important thing in terms of public understanding – equipping citizens, informing the public as to what’s going to happen or not happen possibly over the next couple of hundred years.’
Roger Mosey, Director of Sport, said that in his former job as head of TV News, he had been lobbied by scientists ‘about what they thought was a disproportionate number of people denying climate change getting on our airwaves and being part of a balanced discussion – because they believe, absolutely sincerely, that climate change is now scientific fact.
The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate.”
They do not say they will deny space to opponents, but the line is clear – they will promote warming on the basis of a private meeting with a cabal of scientists. I wonder who?
The BBC has taken an institutional line and will only pay a formulaic lip service to ‘dissenters’ and, bless, ‘even sceptics’.
Be VERY CAREFUL about Hulme. This is no ‘conversion’!! He long ago decided that climate change wasn’t anything to do with proper science, it is a political idea, so this episode gives him the opportunity to lurch it further into his preferred post-normal science direction, serving his political (socialist) agenda. As he says,”Scientists…must trade truth for influence”, “In the end, politics will always trump science…we need better politics, not better science.”
See here:
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science
Hulme says
“It has been labelled “post-normal” science. Climate change seems to fall in this category. Disputes in post-normal science focus…on the process of science – who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy…The IPCC is a classic example of a post-normal scientific activity.
The danger of a “normal” reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow…exchanges often reduce to ones about scientific truth rather than about values, perspectives and political preferences.
…‘self-evidently’ dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth-seeking…scientists – and politicians – must trade truth for influence. What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy.
The function of climate change I suggest, is not as a lower-case environmental phenomenon to be solved…It really is not about stopping climate chaos. Instead, we need to see how we can use the idea of climate change…to rethink how we take forward our political, social, economic and personal projects over the decades to come.”
The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identifies and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us…Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.
…climate change has become an idea that now travels well beyond its origins in the natural sciences…climate change takes on new meanings and serves new purposes…climate change has become “the mother of all issues”, the key narrative within which all environmental politics – from global to local – is now framed…Rather than asking “how do we solve climate change?” we need to turn the question around and ask: “how does the idea of climate change alter the way we arrive at and achieve our personal aspirations…?” “
My reservoir of skepticism runneth over.
Will we see a renaissance as scientists begin to “come out” after the leaked e-mails? It would seem that institutions, like any other societies are susceptible to centrifugal forces, “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,” etc.
Dr. Judith Curry used the word “tribalism” in her response to Willis Eschenbach’s story about the freedom of information. And now this by Hulme of East Anglia:
I think it might be correct to assume that some of the tribes that have formed in on Climate Change Island were objectionable from the start to many Climate Scientists, and that this may prove an ideal time to vote a few of them off the island.
“Mike (14:06:01) :
The rats desert the sinking ship.”
Perfect, and those that go down are the dance band, or should I be asking what colour are their parachutes? Silly me, green of course!
Funny that the Tyndell centre(well with help from the WWF and Allianz) just released a report this week, http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=2257339&s=Canada , $200 billion or so at risk from global warming, hardly sounds like the same sort of scientist.
Hmmm, bad timing on at least one of those press releases.
Do I see someone positioning to be the next head of CRU, or at least to save his shirt?
I would give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s the first I’ve heard recognise this new reality: thanks to the internet, the ivory towers of academia are increasingly looking like intellectual prisons.
PS
the report includes this footnote by BBC journalist Andrew Marr, who ….. “in his introduction to the September seminar, remarked that ‘the first thing that happens to you as a BBC journalist is that you’re taken down into a dank basement to have your trousers pulled down and your organs of opinion removed with a pair of secateurs by the Director-General and popped in a formaldehyde bottle. You’re told you’re allowed them back when you leave.’ ”
This is what is wrong. ‘Opinion’ is OK. What is important is being open minded and valuing recognising the worth of other opinions.
The BBC has taken an institutional stance on global warming (it has been ‘got at’) and the ‘opinion’ of its employees now no longer matters. their ability to recognise patterns of logic no longe matter. They have not had their ‘opinion tackle’ amputated. They have been lobotomised. Zombiefied.
Caption competition http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8382014.stm
“Hey, Sarky, do you remember when our missiles came in like this and bombed your warships to stop them falling into the hands of the Nazis?”
Again
Philosopher Jerome R. Ravetz introduced the concept of ‘post-normal’ science, which is not the good, old-fashioned science that seeks truth. While we are angry that scientists have been cooking the books, our outrage and response is according to ‘normal science’, which Ravetz and Hulme consider ‘obsolete’. Ravetz and this new breed of ’scientists’ are on a different track – one with a lust for political control. Ravetz, drawing on neo-Marxism, showed them the way. He said:
” …the puzzle-solving approach of ‘normal science’ is obsolete. This is a drastic cultural change for science, which many scientists will find difficult to accept. But there is no turning back…For us, quality is a replacement for truth in our methodology. We argue that this is quite enough for doing science, and that truth is a category with symbolic importance, which itself is historically and culturally conditioned.”
Here’s what he says about climate models, and the deception necessary to produce them:
“…climate change models are a form of “seduction”…advocates of the models…recruit possible supporters, and then keep them on board when the inadequacy of the models becomes apparent. This is what is understood as “seduction”; but it should be observed that the process may well be directed even more to the modelers themselves, to maintain their own sense of worth in the face of disillusioning experience…but if they are not predictors, then what on earth are they? The models can be rescued only by being explained as having a metaphorical function, designed to teach us about ourselves and our perspectives under the guise of describing or predicting the future states of the planet…A general recognition of models as metaphors will not come easily. As metaphors, computer models are too subtle…for easy detection. And those who created them may well have been prevented…from being aware of their essential character.”
More here: http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science
hat tip
terrible turk
c/o Daily Telegraph (who may have lifted it from here for all I know !!!)
What was “leaked” or “stolen” was, as a matter of fact, by law, both UK and USA, public information. This includes the emails, as they were not “personal”, but generated as a part of the work process, and the “work” was funded by government grants.
This public information was requested under the Freedom of Information acts, and the requests were either refused or were delayed endlessly. Refusing to provide this public information as required by law is where the real law-breaking came in.
Muddled Models. The UN will manage billions to curb CO2 emissions in the Third World. Remember the Oil for Food Program?
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/10/29/peter-foster-muddled-models.aspx
Mike Hulme demonstrates that scientists are indeed political amateurs. Imagine thinking out aloud like that! Seriously,the IPCC process is difficult for many,time consuming and complex,but it was a triumph of co-operation and synthesis.”Yes,there will be an AR5,but for what process?” Does this mean that now the science is mature and the work is now in political sphere, forging agreements via the mechanism of international conferencing? A global economic culture has global-scale problems.
If the the IPCC,an institutional innovation ,has perhaps run its course,what mechanism would replace it? A centralised clearing house for peer-reviewed climate related publication,without the political filtering, leaving national academies of science to work together or not on global-scale science information? Peer-review and post-publication scrutiny work pretty well. Perhaps the process would be improved if journals were subsidised to provide immediate open access,but there is no guarantee that greater public access will result in anything more than the mob behavior seen over the CRU hack. There will need to be extra resources devoted to basic science communication. There is no substitute for genuine competence in the field.
So,can this blog also search its soul? Tribalism…hmmm. Will the skeptic blogosphere examine its own role in creating the defensiveness in some scientists? Has skeptic culture the honesty to be frank about the fears that motivate its tactics? Can skeptic culture resist the temptation to bold keywords and phrases in an attempt to provide interpretive guidance? Has it the intellectual energy to work in good faith to improve science communication?
This guy isn’t a climate scientist per se. He studies science in light of society and politics. He should be writing a history book, not running any active science research institution.
“I am currently interested in the representations of climate change in history, society and the media; the interactions between climate change science and policy; and the construction, application and evaluation of climate change scenarios for impact, adaptation and integrated assessment. ”
http://mikehulme.org/
Sour grapes by Hulme.
He knows the jig is up, and now he is looking for the exit signs.
Hulme and his ‘post normal science needs to be tossed out hard onto the ash heap.
And
And another thing. I just searched the emails, in almost every mail he is mentioned the topic is politics.
I think this is a story of stab and run. He just stabbed his colleges and now is running to try and dodge the bullet.
… and etc!
People – Hulme has been interested in the nexus between climate science, psychology and politics for quite some time. What he said above is in accord with many previous statements. Most people here would endorse his previous reflections. Indeed, it’s a bit surprising that he hasn’t been touted here before. For example:
March 2008: http://www.mikehulme.org/wp-content/uploads/the-five-lessons-of-climate-change.pdf
People are weaving Hulme’s latest comments into all sorts of weird confirmation bias narratives to do with ‘sea change’ and climate scientists throwing each other under the bus. So much for ‘skepticism’.
The real revelations are just starting, the personal stories of scientists who were quite deliberately threatened by the reptiles of Climate Gate, and in the light of the stories from those who doubted and were ruthlessly suppressed and threatened, that description includes all of the reptiles!
And Hulme at UEA was just as much part of this as any of them as he no doubt had the knowledge needed to doubt and the authority to blow this whole thing out of the water long ago.
See Jeff Idd’s; The Air Vent; Scientists begin to Tell the Story.
Post modern science? That’s been the problem with AGW from the start – it is the product of post modern science, and the obsession about debating the issues, and the thoroughly post modern approach to making facts fit the theory. Sad to say, the political left have control of the world’s universities and and it is this mindset which created the problem in the first place.
Alas The Daily Telegraph starts to smell the coffee!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6672875/Whos-to-blame-for-Climategate.html