From news.com.au it seems bullying those who have an unpopular opinion about climate issues isn’t limited to the Climategate actors.
Clive Spash resigns from CSIRO after climate report ‘censorship’
SCIENTIST Clive Spash has resigned from the CSIRO and called for a Senate inquiry into the science body following the censorship of his controversial report into emissions trading.
Logo and photo from csiro.au
Dr Spash has lashed out at the organisation which he said promoted self-censorship among its scientists with its unfair publication guidelines.
He said he was stunned at the treatment he received at the hands of CSIRO management, including boss Megan Clark, and believed he was not alone.
“I’ve been treated extremely poorly,” he said. “There needs to be a Senate inquiry.
“The way the publication policy and the charter are being interpreted will encourage self-censorship.
“It’s obviously happened before at the CSIRO – and there’s issues currently.”
Last month, Dr Spash accused the organisation of gagging him and his report – The Brave New World of Carbon Trading – and restricting its publication.
The report is critical of cap and trade schemes, like the one the federal government is seeking to introduce, as well as big compensation to polluters.
Dr Spash advocates a direct tax on carbon.
The CSIRO said the report was in breach of its publication guidelines, which restrict scientists from speaking out on public policy.
But it provoked accusations the CSIRO was censoring research harmful to the Government.
Under intense pressure, Dr Clark publicly released the report on November 26 but warned Dr Spash would be punished for his behaviour and his refusal to amend it.
“I believe that internationally peer-reviewed science should be published or, if Dr Clark wishes to have her own opinion, then she should publish her own opinion,” Dr Spash said, who has been on sick leave.
“I’ve been to the doctor under extreme stress.”
He had been ordered not to speak to the media while working for the CSIRO, which originally headhunted him for the job.
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It’s not just in science that this happens.
Try and work in public sector consultancy in the UK and you’d find the same thing happening.
Sadly.
The View from the White House (-and who’s the “denier” now?)
Gibbs: Despite research dispute, “climate change is happening”
The White House on Monday made exceptionally clear that it wants nothing to do with the furor over documents that global warming skeptics say prove the phenomenon is not a threat. Despite the incident, which rocked international headlines last week, climate science is sound, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stressed, and the White House nonetheless believes “climate change is happening.” “I don’t think that’s anything that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore,” he said during Monday’s press briefing.
Climate change skeptics have asserted over the past week that the publication of more than 1,000 private e-mails and documents once housed in the University of East Anglia’s computer system refutes most modern global warming evidence. The documents, unearthed by a blogger who hacked into Climate Research Unit’s (CRU) private system, have since touched off an international debate over the veracity of those scientists’ works.
But the dispute is proving especially troublesome for the Obama administration as it prepares to head to Copenhagen next week for a climate change summit — a forum the president will attend.
Not only has the White House faced criticism from the left for offering too few concessions ahead of the meet, it is now fielding dissatisfaction from the right for participating in a summit sponsored in part by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — one of the research organs touched by the CRU spat.
“I think there’s no real scientific basis for the dispute of this,” responded Gibbs to questions about those scientists’ credibility.
Nevertheless, congressional Republicans this week hope to ramp up their criticism of both global warming policy and the science that informs it.
Most vocal seems to be Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe demanded on Friday a hearing into the IPCC’s research to determine whether it “cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not. This thing is serious, you think about the literally millions of dollars that have been thrown away on some of this stuff that they came out with,” he told reporters, noting it was “interesting” the e-mails surfaced before the Copenhagen summit.
Is anyone serious on this blog saying that CSIRO’s boss is not as political as they get?
ETS or Carbon Tax, that is an economic argument hence a political argument. The paper was an economic paper against ETS.
A carbon tax can be spent in recurrent spending as science changes, ETS is a world government tax.
I am interested in neither tax myself, I think it can come out of revenues with discussions on power techs as they become feasible.
But warmers hitting warmers. Me I am a bloke who saw the decline (plateau) while Boffins were discussing science.
The policy of disclosure or publishing must be decided.
“Dr A Burns (00:31:26) :
Not surprising with the rubbish that comes out of the CSIRO .”
Like the wireless internet access standards we all enjoy today?
not so long ago i was at a conversational farming conference and sat next to two people who had said they used to work with the CSIRO, they quickly added “back when it was a credible organization”
spash is a victim of grievously unethical practices for certain. welcome to the cult. he is a cult member though – he’s still advocating a solution for ‘warming’. it’s just not the solution that oceania, oops, i mean the australian government is advocating & therefore he must be punished. csiro originally wanted him for a reason. now they’ve eaten one of their own for deviating an iota from the party line.
the entire organization is a scientific rubber stamp. it should be disbanded.
This from BBC starts at 18:35:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p1mvf/The_World_Tonight_02_12_2009/
Its a dead giveaway notice how M Mann says he really has nothing to do with what Jones did/said etc and later completely defends what they (All the climate science institutions involved) did and said. He states the same agenda as Jones… my reading anyway. The BBC should not even be interviewing him at this stage. Qudos to the BBC for starting to give this some hearing.
Bloomberg financial (Uk SKY channel 502) Have just announce a week long investigation in to this matter. The advert suggests a fair debate. But i have a very strong feeling, that by Monday, they will be way too late.
Sorry; by “this matter” I am referring to “Climategate”.
Viktor (00:57:29) :
“Dr Spash advocates a direct tax on carbon.”
Yeah, let’s not go overboard in praising this guy.
__________
I agree Viktor – a carbon tax is only slightly less stupid than “Cap’n’Trade.
Both are regressive taxes that hurt the economy and especially the poor.
Even if the science alleging global warming was correct, adaptation strategies would be far superior. And the science is not correct – it greatly exaggerates the impact of CO2 on climate – so no such CO2 abatement strategies are justified.
Re this whole saga: What people should ask: has the weather changed since I was a child (say 20 to 60 years). re temperatures hot days, cold days, rain, cold winter, hot summers etc and the answer would probably be no for most. Ask any meteorologist in your area. In the end this is what counts and people will notice eventually.. no change really….
I’m sure he has more to tell,but will he tell it?
Andrew Orlowski’s mailbag at The Register is a good read …
The BBC, the UN, and climate bullying
Grab an umbrella: it’s global wetting, now…
Does anyone know whether any scientist of the last ten years or so failed to get tenure due to paucity of publication and failed to publish due to climate scientologists like Mann and Phil Jones keeping his submissions out of the journals for reasons other than scientific merits?
Off Topic sorry guys but.
I know there is a response to this http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/the-co2-problem-in-6-easy-steps/langswitch_lang/sw/ some where.
I have been in a debate on a blog and I just cant find it right now.
Would like to post the right response to this.
Thanks
There is no doubt Steve McIntyre is the real hero of this whole saga…with his meticulous analisys of disclosed and undisclosed ring tree data from Mann and Briffa and temp data from other sources. This from a man that has no pro-AGW or anti-AGW views who just wanted the truth. The other hero of Course is Watts and surface data analysis and who used a very efficient site to propagate this truth. It would seem that due to these people (and many others of course), in the end the truth will win. I doubt if climategate will go away…
At least you can’t accuse him either way, but I’m pretty sure he DOES have a view, at least in private. Not very post-normal I know.
Robert (23:43:02) :
My taxes support that organisation and I want to be able to see that report.
I and my fellow taxpayer paid for it.
The search for truth has never been disserved through the publishing of research even when it disagrees with me. Where things go wrong is when some pretext is used to suppress it.
I cannot think of a time when an economic analysis of cap and trade – on one side or the other – is more on point. This occurred just before a major in-country proposal and directly in front of Copenhagen. If not now, when?
If, then, any remote connection with “politics” prevents its publication, then in this environment any paper that touches on any aspect of climate science or the economics of it could be withheld. Less severe but still troubling would be the devaluation of publishing as “unofficial.”
CSIRO was created to inform just this type of debate.
Clearly, Dr. Spash believes that he and others fell under political influence disguised as a policy with a stated purpose just the opposite – that old Orwellian thing again.
If one stands for something, one must stand for it regardless of finding or result.
And the question, I guess, is whether we are willing to walk the walk or just to talk the talk.
Yeh, get on board with Dr. Hansen. Good decision. Lotsa traction there. Ya should be able to go places. Rising star and all that. Good luck with that.
You can’t fix stupid but it sure is fun watching someone try. Who’s holding up the popcorn?
The BBC is starting to crack………..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8392611.stm
Ah well lets go down with a umm Splash ?
Like a cold front in the night — And the clouds parted and the reason we never seem to see any peer review papers which contradict the religious orthodoxy of fraud, becomes crystal clear.
Truth will always win out, the element that is not knowable is how long will it take.
“He had been ordered not to speak to the media while working for the CSIRO, which originally headhunted him for the job.”
I suspect there are a lot of resumes being mailed these days.
Phil W
You are being conned by Black. Black is an alarmist reporter with all the science knowledge of a walrus. He is merely sending out a confusing signal in order to confuse the less savvy among us. You would do well to ignore him and his colleagues. The BBC has long since the declared the science settled and will not be changing its view any time soon.
THE BBC IS NO LONGER AN IMPARTIEL REPORTER, IGNORE IT.