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!
CNN World
Tracking down the ‘Climategate’ hackers
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/11/hacking.emails.climate.skeptics/
Michael (10:38:19) :
Has anyone thought about bombing the antarctic to break off the ice so it floats around the world cooling the planet?
There’s really no need for such action. If you look at this graph from CT
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg
you will note that Antarctica already sheds, on an annual basis, an area of ice 1.5-1.75 times the size of the lower 48 of the USA. If you add in the ice lost annually in the Arctic, a great deal of which doesn’t actually melt until it has moved south of Greenland, you’ll see that the polar regions have always been doing their bit to keep the planet cool.
STEPS Institute Grants and Awards: RFP announcement 4/22/09
Request for Proposals:
The 2009 Hammett Fund Student Research Grants
*Due May 30, 2009*
In 2008, community leaders Benjamin and Ruth Hammett made a generous gift to the STEPS Institute to fund research for UCSC students working on climate change and issues related to climate change and water. Dr. Hammett has generously renewed this gift for 2009. As a result of this generosity, the STEPS Institute is pleased to announce the availability of research funds for a second year to support research focused on these critical issues. We offer our grateful appreciation to the Hammett Fund for its continuing commitment to environmental research.
Intent: These funds are intended for research projects focused on climate change and/or the interplay between climate change and water issues. Proposals from any academic area are welcome, and interdisciplinary projects are encouraged.
Amount: Typical awards for graduate support will be up to $1,000. Undergraduate awards will be up to $500. Requests may include travel, equipment, supplies, and/or stipends as these costs relate to the funded student research projects. The budget page should itemize specifically how the funds will be used.
Criteria:
1. These awards are merit-based, and proposals will be evaluated by a subcommittee of the STEPS Advisory Board.
2. The proposal should state explicitly how the research relates to climate change or climate change and water issues.
3. Projects with an interdisciplinary component are encouraged.
4. The proposal should state a clear major research question and plan
5. For undergraduate research proposals, a letter from one faculty sponsor is required, indicating that the faculty member will work closely with the student to oversee the project.
http://www.steps.ucsc.edu/grantsRFP.html
[samples of the grants]:
Recipient: Nicholas Shikuma
Department: Environmental Toxicology
Research Project: Effects of global warming on a water-borne pathogen: genetic responses of Vibrio cholerae to environmental change
Recipient: Brian Petersen
Department: Environmental Studies
Research Project: Identifying and overcoming obstacles to addressing climate change
STEPS Research Grants for 2005
Brian Gareau
Dept. of Sociology
Faculty Advisor: Walter Goldfrank
Politics, Economics and Scientific Knowledge in Ozone Diplomacy: Further support for research on the Politics of Methyl Bromide and the Montreal Protocol
http://www.steps.ucsc.edu/grants_grad05.html
In response to the CNN video;
If anything, Hacking has taught us, it can be very beneficial to humanity. I encourage hackers to continue with their great work of all government agencies and organization in order to bring truth to the light of day.
” 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.”
Hard to believe. From one goofy interest group, yes, but “kept running into”?
If true, heads would roll. This would be a smoking cannon of perhaps greater magnitude than CRUs Climategate.
Ed Scott (08:49:54) :
Climate Change – has it been cancelled?
Great link – thank you
Response to;
Sean Peake (11:10:13) :
AdderW (11:16:28) :
ie
““Michael (10:38:19) : wrote
Has anyone thought about bombing the antarctic to break off the ice so it floats around the world cooling the planet?”
We could also attach tug boats to those ice cubes we bomb off, to bring them to higher latitudes so “Operation Crushed Ice” works better.”
We could also use Nuclear powered air craft carriers to tow the mammoth ice cubes. Don’t worry about the loss of ice, the Antarctic will make more.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8408386.stm
This is a great piece by Clive James. Aussie, retired.
“The Copenhagen Diagnosis” is the introductory paper for COP 15. This is the list of the 26 authors involved in preparing it
Allison, Ian
Ian Allison is leader of the Ice Ocean Atmosphere and Climate program in the Australian Antarctic Division, a Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and the President of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences.
Bindoff, Nathan
Nathan Bindoff is Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Bindschadler, Robert
Robert Bindschadler is Chief Scientist of the Laboratory for Hydrospheric and Biospheric Processes at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA, a Senior Fellow of NASA Goddard, an AGU Fellow and past President of the International Glaciological Society.
Cox, Peter
Peter Cox is Professor and Met Office Chair in Climate System Dynamics at the University of Exeter, UK, and a Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
de Noblet, Nathalie
Nathalie de Noblet is a Research Scientist at the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
England, Matthew
Matthew England is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, Professor of Physical Oceanography, and joint Director of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Francis, Jane
Jane Francis is Professor of Palaeoclimatology at the University of Leeds and the Director of the Leeds University Centre for Polar Science.
Gruber, Nicolas
Nicolas Gruber is Professor of Environmental Physics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and a contributing author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Haywood, Alan
Alan Haywood is Reader in Palaeoclimatology at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK, and a recent recipient of the Philip Leverhulme Prize.
Karoly, David
David Karoly is Professor of Meteorology and an ARC Federation Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a Lead Author of the IPCC Third and Fourth Assessment Reports.
Kaser, Georg
Georg Kaser is a glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, a Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and the IPCC Technical Paper on Climate Change and Water, and the Immediate Past President of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences.
Le Quéré, Corinne
Corinne Le Quere is Professor of Environmental Science at the University of East Anglia, UK, a researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, co-Chair of the Global Carbon Project and a Lead Author of the IPCC Third and Fourth Assessment Reports.
Lenton, Tim
Tim Lenton is Professor of Earth System Science at the University of East Anglia, UK and the recipient of the Times Higher Education Award for Research Project of the Year 2008 for his work on climate tipping points.
Mann, Michael
Michael E. Mann is a Professor in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State University, USA, Director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center, and a Lead Author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report.
McNeil, Ben
Ben McNeil is an Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia and an expert reviewer of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Pitman, Andy
Andy Pitman is joint director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a Lead Author of the IPCC Third and Fourth Assessment Reports.
Rahmstorf, Stefan
Stefan Rahmstorf is Professor of Physics of the Oceans and department head at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, a Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and a member of the German government’s Advisory Council on Global Change.
Rignot, Eric
Eric Rignot is a glaciologist and Senior Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA, a Professor of Earth System Science at the University of California Irvine, and a Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is Professor for Theoretical Physics and Director of the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) and a longstanding member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Schneider, Stephen
Stephen Schneider is the Lane Professor of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University, an IPCC Lead Author of all four Assessment and two Synthesis Reports, and founder and Editor of the Journal Climatic Change.
Sherwood, Steven
Steven Sherwood is a Professor of atmospheric sciences at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a contributing author to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Somerville, Richard
Richard C. J. Somerville is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, USA and a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Steffen, Konrad
Konrad Steffen is Director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and Professor of Climatology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, USA, and the Chair of the World Climate Research Programme’s Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) project.
Steig, Eric
Eric J. Steig is Director of the Quaternary Research Center, and Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, USA.
Visbeck, Martin
Martin Visbeck is Professor of Physical Oceanography and Deputy Director of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, IFM-GEOMAR, Germany, Chair of Kiel’s multidisciplinary research cluster of excellence “The Future Ocean” and Co-Chair of the World Climate Research Programme’s Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) Project.
Weaver, Andrew
Andrew Weaver is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, Canada, a Lead Author of the IPCC Second, Third, and Fourth Assessment Reports and Chief Editor of the Journal of Climate.
If you cross check this list to the CRU emails, I believe you’ll find at least 12 names in common. It doesn’t have to be massive to be effective.
April E. Coggins (10:42:03) :
Reads similar to the ISE (Informal Science Education) grant app I read 2 years ago.
There is a buzzsaw at work in the educational system: School budgets are getting butchered all day long. The first things to go are Art & Science. NSF is hoping to get things going on an informal or community level to the masses, who have been increasingly dumbed down to science in the public educational system. Hoping to garner interest by tying in geoscience to climate change only works if the climate is changing according to AGW predictions that are visisble to everyone. They are not.
Go to the beach. Has it visibly risen? No.
Was last summer a scorcher everywhere? No. Gardens failed, crops yields fell.
Is this winter mild and pleasant? No.
Do people generally believe that Global Warming causes Global Cooling? No.
What do people generally remember most about the current year of weather? How hot or cold it got. Whichever is greater or made them the most uncomfortable, that is what they remember.
You’d better have a darned good carrot and one heck of a sales pitch ready.
To see how research grants and research in atmospheric science is being influenced by selective invitations to participate in postdoctoral career development, “a collegial peer network,” note the identities of the “mentors”, their affiliations, and roles in the UN-IPCC and related Alarmist activities:
Postdoc Session on Climate Change Research and Adaptation
26/07/09 17:54 Filed in: Research | Conference
The Dissertations Initiative for the Advancement of Climate Change Research (DISCCRS, pronounced discourse), connects natural and social scientists engaged in research related to climate change, impacts and solutions. The goal is to broaden perspectives and establish a collegial peer network to address climate challenges at the interface of science and society. […] Confirmed mentors include Julia E. Cole (University of Arizona), Jonathan T. Overpeck (University of Arizona), Billie L. Turner (Arizona State University), and David A. Randall (Colorado State University). Program Officers from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will also be on site.
http://climatechangewater.org/page3/files/archive-jul-2009.php
I wonder what would be revealed if someone was to hack the IPCC and expose what they are saying behind the curtains.
(Wiz of Oz reference).
Along with other posters here, it’s harder to call AGW a conspiricy than it is to call it deluded belief.
When Saul of Tarsus was trotting around the Mediterranean following his ‘revalation’ on the road to Damascus, he was armed with nothing but unshakeble faith. By itself, tht may have convinced maybe a few people but the time was right for a new religeon to take root. Many of the ideas of Christianity existed before Saul got to a city; so hw was able to focus these people’s thoughts onto his vision, with the added weight of th efollowers he left behind.
The movement he started is still with us today.
Conspiracy? No.
Vincent (08:54:05) :
It’s a nice argument with a lot of merit, but I should point out that George Monbiot already has it convered by extending the conspiracy argument not just through space but through time as well. Monbiot rejects the conspiracy theory because it would have had to extend back “a hundred and fifty years.” I’m sure there’s a fallacy in his reasoning somewhere.
__________________________
Monbiot’s 150 year reference tracks back to the development of the Greenhouse Effect. By one account which seems historically accurate even if I otherwise disagree with the author – http://www.oneclimate.net/2009/03/30/myth-co2-can%E2%80%99t-harm-us-because-there%E2%80%99s-so-little/ – this started in the form of a puzzle by Fourier in the 1820’s (i.e. why isn’t the earth an ice cube?), which was then solved some 50 years later by Tyndall, who demonstrated in a lab that oxygen and nitrogen did not show a temperature reaction to IR, while other types of gases (methane, water vapor, CO2) cause air to warm under the presence of CO2. Essentially, Tyndall is the father of greenhouse gas theory and most likely who Monbiot is referring to.
So from a scientific standpoint, what we *REALLY* know is that in a lab/closed-system environment “greenhouse gases” increase in temperature by a predictable rate when exposed to IR. What we don’t know, and is at the root of the dispute between the Orthodoxy/Consensus/AGW/CAGW’ers and the non-believers/deniers/skeptics/heretics, is how this relates to an open system like our climate. The interesting part here to me is that even after 150 years, a conclusive causal link from higher CO2 levels to higher temperatures has still not been proven. If you listen to the guys from RC they’ll point to the models and/or say they can’t explain the warming without pointing to CO2 as their “proof”.
This says nothing, mind you, of the enhancements added by the CAGW’ers that imply tipping points or that, for example, a CO2 increase that should result in a 1 degree increase per the physics discussed above will be amplified by our climate system to become a 5 degree increase.
This does not necessarily imply conspiracy, but you can’t rule out financial incentives, group-think mentality, and ego when looking at the story presented by RC and the IPCC (do we really have to distinguish between those two anymore? 😉 and their basis in solid science
My background is in Economics and, in my mind at least, there is no better corollary for Climate research than Economics. Rule #1 of Economics… Correlation is NOT Causation. Rule #2, even if you can surmise a causal relationship between two variables it will most likely go out the window when it’s seen in the wild due to other variables in play. Rule #3, modeling is useful for research but not much else – if ever there was a single area where endless piles of money and brain power have been directed it is in the modeling of financial systems and still, a monkey throwing darts at the WSJ can pick as good or better (especially once management fees are applied) of a stock portfolio as the best analysts and technical analysis programs. Rule #4, trend fitting of past data is an absolute waste of time for predicting the future
Current “consensus” thinking on Climate violates everything I was taught in Economics. Anyone who says they can predict a complex system like Financials or Climate is either the smartest person alive, deluded, or lying. That’s my $0.02 at least
John Galt (11:01:36) :
Who is John Galt, and why are you using my handle?
———————————–
Your namesake is a hero in the Ayn Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged.
Another physics “trick” in order to cool the planet would be to rapidly lower the pressure of the entire atmosphere.
This could be accomplished by compressing air and store them in enormous amounts of diving bottles.
Climate Sceptics or Climate Realists? – Part 1
Climate Sceptics or Climate Realists? – Part 2
Climate Sceptics or Climate Realists? – Part 3
Those who oppose the idea of AGW should avoid the word “conspiracy”. It makes you look like cranks. Sorry, but the word is too loaded, even if true.
There is no need to cite a conspiracy when self-interest and group think will suffice. A conspiracy involves active collusion, which is just no present.
There are plenty of examples of group-think off the rails in the world, and they present themselves frequently when three forces collide:
– financial incentive to believe,
– a lack of accepted alternative theories,
– contradictory evidence, that can work many ways with a bit of work.
We see it all the time in the financial world. Economists develop models that seem to work, everyone joins in and it becomes the paradigm. Only a crash is usually enough to wake them up. At present we see the world’s economists in a total tizzy because without their grand models of how banks work they are lost as to how to make banks work. Soon another paradigm will come along, the vast bulk will join in, and it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Until the next crash.
If CRU etc scientists abandon CO2 warming they will be totally lost. They will have no theory to work with, and no idea what is happening. For many it will be the intellectual ruin of their entire careers. There is no way they are going there voluntarily.
David Ball (08:02:51) :
“Unfortunately, it seems that they are successfully minimizing the damage that the e-mail leak should be causing by saying they are being taken out of context.”
They said the exact same thing about Obama’s nutbag pastor – that he was taken out of “context.” Of course, then that screwball got up at the National Press Club and proved that he was very much the person portrayed in those videos.
Since all this money is suddenly (magically) available why don’t they start building desalination plants along the entire coast of Africa and wherever water is needed as to provide people with clean drinking water and water for irrigation?
[snip – thanks but way off topic for this thread]
Speaking of Antarctic ice cubes: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091211/wl_afp/australiaantarcticaiceberg
There’s one 2x the size of Manhattan (now that’s robust!) lurking about 1,000 mi. from Australia, and drifting ever closer. They figure one that size probably hasn’t been seen since the era of the clipper ships, meaning the end of the LIA. Glaciologist Neal Young “described the icebergs as uncommon, but said they could become more frequent if sea temperatures rise through global warming.” So, in the mid to late nineteenth century, when it was much colder than now, there were giant icebergs floating about, and now that it is warmer we’re starting to see them again, and will be seeing even more as it gets warmer. Now that’s what I call Warmlogic.
anna v (08:32:50) :
Walt The Physicist (07:52:08) :
That’s right. There is no conspiracy, there is well fed “consensus”…
This from Tom Fuller, through Bishop Hill”
Tom Fuller writes an interesting piece in which he considers whether there is evidence of an international conspiracy to create a “global warming scam” in the CRU emails. He concludes, correctly in my opinion, that there isn’t. There is, however, enough bad stuff in there that we should still be worried:
I think that they had an informal conspiracy going to pump each others’ careers up, peer review each others’ papers, and slam any skeptics or lukewarmers who wandered within punching range – and later, after they realised how badly they had acted, they conspired to evade the Freedom of Information Act.
Anyone who has had an honest review of the emails will find this very hard to argue with.
Ed Scott (12:24:46) :
A very good set of videos. I liked that they repeatedly focused on the key argument, that I’ve tried to make many times, that no matter what you choose to embrace regarding the science of this, the solutions being proposed and pursued don’t make any sense.
At first I was annoyed that the Tiger Woods revelations were usurping attention for a much more important Climategate. But then again, they are both stories about the same thing. People carefully crafting public perceptions that differed from reality, while close associates remain quiet. It is certain that many people knew of Tiger’s “other life” but remained quiet. Tiger gets much more attention than Mann or Jones, so why should it be hard to believe that there were scientists who knew what Mann and Jones were doing? From the emails it seems Briffa is a struggling soul fighting between good science and public perception.