Next time some irrationalist complains about a skeptic sponsored list, that includes scientists that are not climatologists, saying such lists are irrelevant, show them this. Show them also the unspoken pressure that some signers have worried about.
From The Times (emphasis mine):
Top scientists rally to the defence of the Met Office
The Met Office has embarked on an urgent exercise to bolster the reputation of climate-change science after the furore over stolen e-mails.
More than 1,700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the “professional integrity” of global warming research. They were responding to a round-robin request from the Met Office, which has spent four days collecting signatures. The initiative is a sign of how worried it is that e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia are fuelling scepticism about man-made global warming at a critical moment in talks on carbon emissions.
One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work. The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change.
…
One scientist told The Times he felt under pressure to sign. “The Met Office is a major employer of scientists and has long had a policy of only appointing and working with those who subscribe to their views on man-made global warming,” he said.
…
Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which claims man-made climate change has been exaggerated, said the petition showed that the Met Office was rattled.
Complete story here at The Times: Top scientists rally to the defence of the Met Office
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This circular came across my desk at least 5 times from different sources
That’s fine: A sign of desperation….
Let’s get more popcorn!
It says something when proponents of a scientific theory are reduced to bolstering their position with petitions rather than letting a rigorous, open examination of the evidence speak for them.
It tells me:
a) They haven’t got a great deal of confidence in their own position.
b) This isn’t about science so much as politics.
I haven’t read all the posts, so this may have been mentioned before. But this left me wondering why the Met Office had to start a round robin in defence of the Met Office/CRU. Surely they could have phoned a friend to start one for them. It smacks of “my dad’s bigger than your dad”
While the Meteorological office’s ongoing Damage Control Machine continues the hopeless and pointless effort to salvage the reputation of NOT Climate Change Science , but the five scientists exposed so far at the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit , over NOT stolen e-mails , but leaked and Incriminating documents of Data Manipulation, Suppression of Peer-Review Process, Blacklisting, Data Destruction and Willful Violation of the Freedom of Information Act requests , that the Meteorological office refers to as simply ‘ stolen e-mails ‘ .
The Meteorological office has gone to such senseless lengths as to have 1,700 scientists sign a statement defending the “professional integrity” of Pro-Global Warming Research.
NOTE : while 1,700 scientists of the Meteorological office’s Pro-Global Warming Research community has signed this particular petition , ” The Petition Project ” on the internet has been signed by 31,486 American scientists , including 9,029 with PhDs states that the IPCC’s position on Global Warming is Inaccurate , now more evident then ever after the release of the ClimateGate Files .
It is absurd how the Meteorological office could possibly comprehend this petition act as an obvious tentative justification to the Criminal Behavior of five of its own research scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit , the Pennsylvania State University Earth System Science Center , the U.S. Center for Atmospheric Research and the NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who were Supposed to had ” adhered to the highest levels of professional integrity ” , as the petition had worded .
Furthermore , reports of some scientists feeling under pressure to sign the petition for fear or risk of losing work plus the acknowledgment by the Meteorological office itself that many of the signers of the petition did not work directly on climate change only solidifies the intent of the Meteorological office’s posture to assume that it could appropriate the opinion of the world thru a coalition of sympathy that the Pro-Anthropological Global Warming community IS the victim of a simple Hack , and not a Conspiracy against the world as the ClimateGate files have revealed .
How can the Meteorological office and the IPCC insist that Man Made Global Warming is a threat to humanity when it’s sole foundation of their evidence is the very research that the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit , the Pennsylvania State University Earth System Science Center , the U.S. Center for Atmospheric Research and the NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies were manipulating and furnishing to them ?
Simply Amazing !
Plato Says
never tell me that my vote is pointless
Jason F (09:05:19) :
I’ve heard quite often people equate CO2 footprints to breathing and it made me wonder if this was an actual measure used seriously by the alarmists when talking about carbon footprints.
Am I wrong? but isn’t the carbon we exhale not just carbon that was already in the air in the first place? Isn’t breathing carbon neutral in the same way as bio-fuel?
Yes, I agree with Larry above, but one problem which might bring you under the gun for a “too-big” carbon footprint is that, the more you move around the more other people have move and go around in hydrocarbon fueled or produced vehicles, picking up your exhaled CO2 from the hydrocarbon enhanced systems which are capturing it from the air you lost it to, in order to deliver it back to you so that you can continue on with moving around and exhaling more CO2, depending on your level of physical activity.
A heavily exercising person can exhale one pound of CO2 per hour, so your best bet to escape notice of being a “suspicious carbon footprinter” – short of dieing – would be to get someone to make sure you stay in a state of, say, thorazine induced catatonia for as much time as possible.
Conveniently, I am positioning myself to provide just this very service, for a fee depending on what your life is worth to you. There may still be enough time for you to gather enough funds before it’s too late. The Supreme World Dictoriat has started to formulate such “accords” but naturally must exempt itself and people like me to allow you to do your part to prevent “the destruction of Creation”, and thus gain favor with the Master of The Universe, with which “we are partners”.
I hope that clears things up.
I thought James Taranto a WSJ had an appropriate response this afternoon:
“The concept of scientists–or journalists, or artists–signing a petition is ludicrous. The idea is that they are lending their authority to whatever cause the petition represents–but in fact they are undermining that authority, which is based on the presumption that they think for themselves.
The problem with the petition as a form is also a problem with the Met Office petition’s substance. The purpose of the petition is to shore up scientists’ authority by vouching for their integrity. But signing a loyalty oath under pressure from the government is itself a corrupt act. Anyone who signs this petition thereby raises doubts about his own integrity. And once again, the question arises: Why should any layman regard global warmism as credible when the “consensus” rests on political machinations, statistical tricks and efforts to suppress alternative hypotheses?
To be sure, Joseph McCarthy was right about communism even though the ways he combated it were wrong and counterproductive. But that’s all the more reason that honest scientists who view global warmism as credible–if such creatures exist–should rise up against these McCarthyite tactics.”
nuff said!
Pseudo-scientists always rush to defend their belief in their results with every possible trick of the trade, everything goes, except science.
They always blame others for destroying their reputation, when in fact it’s just that lack of science that invariably sink their little ship of doom and gloom.
The MannStickBear parade of england only consists of 1700. Even if one doesn’t subtract the number of people who only signed under psychological duress, maybe due to the historical work climate data perhaps, it’s an astonishing low number. Can’t even fill a decent sized soccer stadium.
So it looks like the heathens, heretics, and deniers, get a bonus point.
vukcevic (13:34:12) : Met Office predict 2010 will be warmest on record
That means they are expecting Jones to be back in time after his whitewash to cook the records
Richard (14:48:16) : T
“That means they are expecting Jones to be back in time after his whitewash to cook the records”
Geoffrey Lean is Britain’s longest-serving environmental correspondent, having pioneered reporting on the subject over 40 years ago:
“Copenhagen: Hottest year in 2010 forecast will embarrass either the Met Office or climate sceptics .”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geoffreylean/100019566/copenhagen-hottest-year-in-2010-forecast-will-embarrass-either-the-met-office-or-climate-sceptics/
Petition:
As professional scientists, from students to senior professors, we uphold the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which concludes that ‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ and that ‘Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’.”
Since when is a student or senior professor considered a professional scientist?? Interesting to inquire how many of these people are funded in whole or in part by climate research grants. About 80% of the signers are employees of UK Universities – almost none from independent laboratories or institutes. Hmmm.
A petition circulated at the place of work that says essentially, “We employees believe the work we do is of value and our paychecks should keep coming.”
Nice to see 17 employees of the Zoological Society and the Royal Veterinary College, signing.
Royal Veterinary College, University of London
vukcevic (15:10:28) : Geoffrey Lean is Britain’s longest-serving environmental correspondent, having pioneered reporting on the subject over 40 years ago
He obviously believes in AGW. He writes:
“But just suppose the forecast turns out to be right. What will the sceptics do then? At the heart of their case is a claim that the world is cooling down – based on fixing the starting point in the anomalously warm 1998 and drawing a line from there, even though beginning in 1997 or 1999 would give very different results. Statisticians have condemned the practice, but they have gone on with it.”
1. It is not at the heart of the sceptic case “that the world is cooling down”. That is either a srawman he has manufactured or he has got things quite wrong.
The warmists claim that warming is ACCELERATING. How can warming be accelerating if there has been no warming for the past 10 years? It has a whole lot of accelerating to do before it can catch up to the IPCC forecasts, in line with CO2 increases
2. At the heart of the AGW claim is that the past 50 years has been warmer than any time in the past at least 1,000 years. This is clearly based on manipulated data and studies. it was in fact about 0.75 C warmer during the Medieval warm period.
3. Anthropogenic warming will only start looking plausible if we go outside the natural range of temperature variability of the holocene.
Not very different from the Alcamo request eh? This PR damage-control mechanism of advocacy stinks of politics, not science. See:
“From: Joseph Alcamo
To: m.hulme@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Rob.Swart@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Timing, Distribution of the Statement
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:52:33 0100
Reply-to: alcamo@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Mike, Rob,
Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.
I would like to weigh in on two important questions —
Distribution for Endorsements —
I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as
possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is
numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed” or “1500
signed”. No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000
without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a
different story.
Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking
them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those
names!”
*SNIP*
Source: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=35&filename=876437553.txt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So the Met Office request is different how?
AndrewG (11:44:57) :
Didn’t the Nazis already try this in 1936 with Relativity?
I seem to recall they published a petition of 1000 scientists refuting relativity.
Nothing about a petition. But Johannes Stark, Nobel Prize winner, mounted a vicious attack on “Jewish physics” and relativity in particular.
“In his book, Nationalsocialismus und Wissenschaft (1934) Stark argued that the scientist’s first duty was to the nation. He denounced theoretical physics and stressed the need for research to be carried out that would help industry and arms production. Stark also argued that leading scientific positions in Nazi Germany should only he held by ethnic Germans. ”
Nothing in the climate debate comes close to this kind of ethnic attack. But we do see a tendency for State-funded institutions to represent the “consensus.”
Possibly, like quarks, for the PC “spin” they are willing to put on their findings.
Now your “bottom” scientists, …well that ‘s a quark of a different “color” if I may mix the metaphor.
Integrity by consensus, what next, will it be politicians signing a petition “We are honest, honestly.” 🙂
It is a war.
This is crazy. Scientific truth is not a democracy! A proposition does not become true just because a majority of “scientists” vote for it. Those signing scientists have not independently verified the results and conclusions by repeating the work, and they have no business stating that they as professional scientists merely “believe” it to be true. Belief does not enter into science. Nor does personal integrity. Scientific truth is absolute truth when science is seen to be done, then God’s truth can be found. Either they have independently verified the work, or they have not. We know that they have not, because the data is not available to them.
They should demand access to all the data and all the methodology and repeat for themselves before they sign anything. What have we become?
Wow a lot of signatures from the East Anglia team LOL
The Met is a government agency. So it is not off base that they did this political action.
One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work.
Huh, one actually spoke up.
“The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change”
Yeah right like Hannah Griffiths, who graduated last year in Religious Studies from York University. She agrees with others that “We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities.”
Statement from the UK science community
We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method. The science of climate change draws on fundamental research from an increasing number of disciplines, many of which are represented here. As professional scientists, from students to senior professors, we uphold the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which concludes that “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”.
Is this the bloody Inquisition again?
I read about this early this morning at about 5:00 a.m. in the Sacramento Bee, only it quoted 1,600 scientists. I commented and questioned why the Bee did not reference the 30,000 scientists along with John Coleman (Weather Channel) who are suing Al Gore for fraud. Then offered them to bring it to a court of law and hash it out there.
I checked back later in the day to see what others had to say and was floored to see that the Bee pulled the article completely out. People who know how to use the wayback machine may be able to pull it up again. Maybe it’s only me, but I am sensing that news media are reading the comments and changing their slant to fit the popularity of a certain view.
With that, I encourage people to keep letting the news media know when they spout mistruths. Perhaps that way the lies will stop, or at least slow down a bit.
F. Ross (16:58:01) :
Possibly, like quarks, for the PC “spin” they are willing to put on their findings.
Now your “bottom” scientists, …well that ’s a quark of a different “color” if I may mix the metaphor.
“Quacks” works too.