We recently had a story about the UK Met Office putting out a petition amongst scientists (even non-climatologists) to prop up the image of the CRU. Some scientists said they felt “pressured” to sign.
This story explains how they might feel that way.
WUWT reader Norris Hall commented on this thread: Americans belief of global warming sinking – below 50% for the first time in 2 years
… it is possible that this is just a big conspiracy by climate scientist around the world to boost their cause and make themselves more important. Though I find it hard to believe that thousands of scientists…all agreed to promote bogus science …Pretty hard to do without being discovered.
To which Paul Vaughan responded as follows:
Actually not so hard.
Personal anecdote:
Last spring when I was shopping around for a new source of funding, after having my funding slashed to zero 15 days after going public with a finding about natural climate variations, I kept running into funding application instructions of the following variety:
Successful candidates will:
1) Demonstrate AGW.
2) Demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of AGW.
3) Explore policy implications stemming from 1 & 2.
Follow the money — perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.
Opposing toxic pollution is not synonymous with supporting AGW.
From Planet Gore: This confirms the stories that I’ve been hearing over the last few years.
New maxim: The Carrot Train
h/t to Planet Gore, who got it from Bishop Hill, who got it from comments here on WUWT
Sometimes there’s so much happening on WUWT, it is impossible to take it all in.
Thanks guys!
Ditto. These are serious charges, and should be documented. Otherwise, it’s just hearsay.
/Mr Lynn
It is a combination of the carrot and editors saying “The debate is over” I have heard this repeatedly, like at the AAAS meetings. It just takes a handful of editors to pronounce the “debate is over” to gain control of the journals like has happened at Nature. The MSM repeated “the debate is over” over and over. LIke a virus it became the meme of science despite being antithetical to the foundation of science. Departments seek professors who will act together. Groupthink gets stronger . Editors and grant administrators are picked from those very same departments. It would be suicide to go against all of that, unless you are at a maverick institution.
One of these CRU emails said something like:
“Will attend a climate congress in Tahiti next week.
Hard to resist such an invitation.”
Nice carrots, paid by all taxpayers.
Can I plug Philip Stott here? He deserves an honourable mention for the good work he has done to rationalise debate. I may be preaching to the choir but if anyone hasn’t seen his website(s) you could start here:
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2009/12/10_This_is_Not_Science.html
and search from there.
I may not agree with every thing he says but he is certainly way ahead of the game. He has clear ideals in my opinion, personally I think wind turbines are fine as they are completely takedownable should we in the UK solve the electricity crisis, but apart from that he is spot on.
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2007/12/4_Dimwits.html
Hang on a fricken minute, here we are in the middle of the worst financial crisis in years and Gordon brown can pull £1.5 billion out his backside for this fraud? He’d already budgeted for it? Huh?
“The separation between state and church must therefore be complemented by the separation between state and science.” Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (1975)
I guess this means that AGW has yet to be proven, so far all they have is a cheerleading squad.
Was the application by Paul Vaughan made to a UK source?
If so, then I would say it is true.
An application form for our civil service would have questions like,
‘When did you stop beating your wife?’
Of course there’s a conspiracy, if one is to believe the climatologists that is.
But alas we deny that too. :p
In other news, our local village idiot competition winners are proposing a tax on banks to pay for Climate Change!
I understood that Julia Slingo of the Met Office was in charge of a lot of funding stuff.
There is a huge “social network” link between the Met Office and CRU.
Phillip Bratby (07:37:04) :
What is needed is actual pdfs of these funding application forms. Otherwise it’s just hearsay.
=======================================
I’ll work on that. Meanwhile, here’s a pdf for ya.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ah4XLQCleuUYdFIxMnhMNnlXb2JQcDZUendjUXpWWUE&hl=en
Pamela: I’ve written previously that CAWGery isn’t synonymous with core left values. It’s more of a combination of a fad / PC pressure group / “scientism” (over-confidence that the scientific “net” can realistically capture reality) / sentimentalism / etc. A terrific London-based website cum weekly news-magazine that has been harshly critical of warmmongering from a leftist perspective is Spiked, which I mentioned a few posts above. Here’s a link to its Environment section. (Pam and other leftists might like the other sections too. I haven’t checked them myself,)
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/issues/C32/
Governments, and entities or programs, supported by governments, are reluctant to finance studies which render them obsolete. History teaches us that the science of the moment is usually in support of the entity in power. We would seldom finance our own demise.
Science of the future is often in opposition to the thoughts and powers of the moment. That is why any new science of yesterday was usually restricted in the moment, unless it could be shown to support or expand the powers that be.
New science is more often restricted, until the corruption of the old is exposed and or the old die off and allows the revolution of new ideas.
Stephen
Could not possibly be true! Scientists do AGW research because that is what gets funded? Nah.
But seriously folks, I too, would like to see the documents before getting too carried away with this.
In order to become a climate scientist in future, an oath will have to be signed.
“I hereby declare that I will do everything in my power to promote AGW and I pledge to make my findings conform to the understood majority view, that man-made emissions of CO2 are contributing to global warming. If I stray from the true path of enlightenment, I shall be chastised, all my equipment confiscated and be consigned to the nether world of Denierland. I shall not expect any funding from the great and benevolent Gods of AGW, ie the governments of the western world and various interest groups.”
Sign up son!! – or be damned and poor and be forever labelled an AGW heretic.
Anna, university faculty departments are nothing if not political. Galileo ran up against the academic establishment’s Ptolomaic paradigm and political power when he insulted his chief supporter and lost his political protection (that would be the Pope) Things haven’t changed.
If this is a conspiracy, it is qualitatively very different from any previous conspiracy, real or imagined.
The JFK conspiracy as expounded by its adherents, supposedly involved a clique consisting of members of the establishment, planning something that was not only a capital offense, but also something that outraged the population at large.
The “moon landing filmed in Arizona” conspiracy supposedly involved the entire staff at Nasa as well as the Astronauts in an act which would have been extremely difficult to keep secret and which if discovered would have brought outrage from the American population and ridicule from the world.
One could go into more conspiracies, but I think they would all share the same crucial elements – a group of insiders taking on an inordinate amount of risk, possibly in the first case, risking their very lives, in order to carry out an act which the public would have been extremely hostile to in any case. If this is the benchmark of conspiracy theories that AGW is being measured against, then the benchmark is completely invalid.
In the AGW conspiracy, we have, at most, individuals who are arguably NOT breaking the law, who are ideologically motivated for the greater good, and for whom the public would presumably be in support of their attempts at “saving the planet.” This sense of “noblesse oblige” is enough to mark this group as not constituting a conspiracy in the normally understood sense. Indeed, in many eyes even yet, they are viewed as heroes, noblely battling the sabateours of “big oil” which alone vindicates my point that they are NOT in any sense assuming risk. Risk is there for sure, but the risk is outweighed by the rewards of public acclamation.
The previous point I alluded to was that they may not be breaking the law. There may well have been freedom of information laws broken, but these are minor issues compared to the data adjustments. Reviewing the work of people like Briffa, Jones and Mann, seems to suggest that they succeeded in convincing each other that what they were doing was good science. It may have been questionable to apply these techniques, but I am sure they did not see themselves as “cooking the books.” As long as they have assuaged their consciences that they were doing nothing wrong, then they are not knowingly assuming risk. And if they are not knowingly assuming risk, they cannot be categorised with traditional conspiracies.
A better label by far would be a self reinforcing group think.
Roger Knights (09:15:11) :
I have an inbuilt distrust of Spiked! It used to be Living Marxism – http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/5840/
Here is one from U.S. Civilian Research & Development.
http://www.crdf.org/funding/funding_show.htm?doc_id=1014809
1.Climate Change Impacts
2. Climate Change Solutions
This is just one of many, many that a google search came up with and most if not all that I have read tell you what they want your research to show and answer. So why would it be improbable for Paul V. to run into this problem with funding. If all the funding is leading to one predetermined goal then I can see why A. Funding and B. Media don’t report on conflicting science. As far as they are concerned either there is none or there is no money to be made in it.
Last night I watched Ben Stein’s Expelled about Darwin Vs. ID. And as I sat there and watched it, it really reminded me of the very thing going on in Climate science and Climate Change. If you don’t support the line then you get ostracized from academia and there goes your funding. But then you will get labeled a “denier” and giving the identity of a nutcase or “unintelligent” which will also stop you from getting funding for contradictive research …Much like those in the Elite AGW are trying to do to those that have differing views and science about AGW.
The long answer
Speaking of funding and research. I just got this via e-mail:
The UN charter for the IPCC states specifically that their mission is find evidence of human caused climate change.
Now how far would I get with my grant application if I were to say, “…..to discover whether, and to what extent, man has an impact on global climate.
The National Science Foundation. “Where discoveries begin.”
Bingo!
James Hansen appears on David Letterman Show:
“We’re not doomed — just almost doomed.” :-/