Jo Nova has launched a new publication, inspired today by their latest article. Read on.
You might think journalists at a popular science magazine would be able to investigate and reason.
In DenierGate, watch New Scientist closely, as they do the unthinkable and try to defend gross scientific malpractice by saying it’s OK because other people did other things a little bit wrong, that were not related, and a long time ago. Move along ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing to see…
The big problem for this formerly good publication is that they have decided already what the answer is to any question on climate-change (and the answer could be warm or cold but it’s always ALARMING). That leaves them clutching for sand-bags to prop up their position as the king-tide sweeps away any journalistic credibility they might have had.
I’ve added my own helpful notes into the New Scientist article, just so you get the full picture.
Read the whole story at Jo Nova’s website, and tell her I sent you.
UPDATE: More bullying from scientists
In WUWT comments, Keith Minto points out the New Scientist is listed in the Climategate emails
See: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=796&filename=1179416790.txt
From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: More Rubbish
Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 11:46:30 -0400
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
yep, I’m watching the changing of the guard live on TV here!
New Scientist was good. Gavin and I both had some input into that. They
are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point,
including the HS!
I have been reading this publication on and off since Nigel Calder was the editor. It was quite an curious, edgy publication then, willing to push boundaries (it was the first to publish Sir Alister Hardy’s Aquatic Ape Hypothesis) even though it then arrived 3mts late by seamail from Britain.
Nigel Calder co-authored “The Chilling Stars” with Heinrick Svensmark and made it into a very readable cosmic ray/cloud formation story that has captivated so may of us.
Unfortunately, along the way it lost the ability to question and forgot what the ‘Scientist’ part of its title really meant.
It appears that Mann was discussing this New Scientist article from May 16th, 2007
The 7 biggest myths about climate change
Interestingly, after that fawning article on “a guide for the perplexed” see in the CRU email archive on March 8th there is an email that names one of the authors of the May16th New Scientist article, Fred Pearce, where complaints are lodged about the upcoming March 10th issue and plans are suggested to counter it.
Here are web links for the two people mentioned: Eystein Jansen and Richard Somerville it appears there were BCC’s to CRU, otherwise we’d not have this email in that collection.
Here’s the email: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=784&filename=1173359793.txt
From: Eystein Jansen <eystein.jansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Richard Somerville <rsomerville@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [Wg1-ar4-clas] Responding to an attack on IPCC and ourselves
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 08:16:33 +0100
Cc: wg1-ar4-clas@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Hi,
just a quick reply. I am in on this, and will respond to a draft letter, in the hope that
you will make the first, Richard? I agree that it can be short. It is strange to see this,
knowing that the delegations I spoke to in/after Paris clearly said that the CLAs got it
their way, and that I believe this is the strong common perception we also had as CLAs
about the outcome.
Best wishes,
Eystein
Den 8. mar. 2007 kl. 03.11 skrev Richard Somerville:
Dear Fellow CLAs,
The British magazine *New Scientist* is apparently about to publish several items critical
of the IPCC AR4 WGI SPM and the process by which it was written. There is an editorial, a
column by Pearce, and a longer piece by Wasdell which is on the internet and referenced by
Pearce.
I think that this attack on us deserves a response from the CLAs. Our competence and
integrity has been called into question. Susan Solomon is mentioned by name in
unflattering terms. We ought not to get caught up in responding in detail to the many
scientific errors in the Wasdell piece, in my opinion, but I would like to see us refute
the main allegations against us and against the IPCC.
We need to make the case that this is shoddy and prejudiced journalism. Wasdell is not a
climate scientist, was not involved in writing AR4, was not in Paris, and is grossly
ignorant of both the science and the IPCC process. His account of what went on is
factually incorrect in many important respects.
New Scientist inexplicably violates basic journalistic standards by publicizing and
editorially agreeing with a vicious attack by an uncredentialed source without checking
facts or hearing from the people attacked. The editorial and Pearce column, which I regard
as packed with distortions and innuendo and error, are pasted below, and the Wasdell piece
is attached.
My suggestion is that a strongly worded letter to New Scientist, signed by as many CLAs as
possible, would be an appropriate response. I think we ought to say that the science was
absolutely not compromised or watered down by the review process or by political presure of
any kind or by the Paris plenary. I think it would be a mistake to attempt a detailed
point-by-point discussion, which would provoke further criticism; that process would never
converge.
Please send us all your opinions and suggestions for what we should do, using the email
list [1]wg1-ar4-clas@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
I am traveling and checking email occasionally, so if enough of us agree that we should
respond, I hope one or more of you (not me) will volunteer to coordinate the effort and
submit the result to New Scientist.
Best regards to all,
Richard
Richard C. J. Somerville
Distinguished Professor
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0224
La Jolla, CA 92093-0224, USA
—
Here’s the editorial that will appear in New Scientist on March 10.
Editorial: Carbon omissions
IT IS a case of the dog that didn’t bark. The dog in this instance was the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For several years, climate scientists have grown increasingly anxious about “positive
feedbacks” that could accelerate climate change, such as methane bubbling up as
permafrost melts. That concern found focus at an international conference organised by
the British government two years ago, and many people expected it to emerge strongly in
the latest IPCC report, whose summary for policy-makers was published in Paris last
month.
It didn’t happen. The IPCC summary was notably guarded. We put that down to scientific
caution and the desire to convey as much certainty as possible (New Scientist, 9
February, p 3), but this week we hear that an earlier version of the summary contained a
number of explicit references to positive feedbacks and the dangers of accelerating
climate change. A critique of the report now argues that the references were removed in
a systematic fashion (see “Climate report ‘was watered down'”).
This is worrying. The version containing the warnings was the last for which scientists
alone were responsible. After that it went out to review by governments. The IPCC is a
governmental body as well as a scientific one. Both sides have to sign off on the
report.
The scientists involved adamantly deny that there was undue pressure, or that the
scientific integrity of their report was compromised. We do know there were political
agendas, and that the scientists had to fight them. As one of the report’s 33 authors
put it: “A lot of us devoted a lot of time to ensuring that the changes requested by
national delegates did not affect the scientific content.” Yet small changes in language
which individually may not amount to much can, cumulatively, change the tone and message
of a report. Deliberately or not, this is what seems to have happened.
Senior IPCC scientists are not willing to discuss the changes, beyond denying that there
was political interference. They regard the drafting process as private. This is an
understandable reservation, but the case raises serious doubts about the IPCC process. A
little more transparency would go a long way to removing those qualms.
—
Here’s the Pearce column:
Climate report ‘was watered down’
* 10 March 2007
* From New Scientist Print Edition. [2]Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* Fred Pearce
BRITISH researchers who have seen drafts of last month’s report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became
involved in writing it.
David Wasdell, an independent analyst of climate change who acted as an accredited
reviewer of the report, says the preliminary version produced by scientists in April
2006 contained many references to the potential for climate to change faster than
expected because of “positive feedbacks” in the climate system. Most of these references
were absent from the final version.
His assertion is based on a line-by-line analysis of the scientists’ report and the
final version, which was agreed last month at a week-long meeting of representatives of
more than 100 governments. Wasdell told New Scientist: “I was astounded at the
alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review. The
evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific
material is overwhelming.”
He has prepared a critique, “Political Corruption of the IPCC Report?”, which claims:
“Political and economic interests have influenced the presented scientific material.” He
plans to publish the document online this week at [3]www.meridian.org.uk/whats.htm.
Wasdell is not a climatologist, but his analysis was supported this week by two leading
UK climate scientists and policy analysts. Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the
University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per
cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told New
Scientist: “The public needs to know that the policy-makers’ summary, presented as the
united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by
governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it.”
“The public needs to know that the summary has been watered down in subtle but vital
ways by governmental agents”
Crispin Tickell, a long-standing UK government adviser on climate and a former
ambassador to the UN, says: “I think David Wasdell’s analysis is very useful, and unique
of its kind. Others have made comparable points but not in such analytic detail.”
Wasdell’s central charge is that “reference to possible acceleration of climate change
[was] consistently removed” from the final report. This happened both in its treatment
of potential positive feedbacks from global warming in the future and in its discussion
of recent observations of collapsing ice sheets and an accelerating rise in sea levels.
For instance, the scientists’ draft report warned that natural systems such as
rainforests, soils and the oceans would in future be less able to absorb greenhouse gas
emissions. It said: “This positive feedback could lead to as much as 1.2
================
Here’s the editorial Carbon Omissions and another March 10th article at The New Scientist discussing the WG1 being “watered down”. Looks like they got their way, since the May 17th article was highly pro AGW or as Dr. Mann said:
They are nicely dismissive of the contrarians on just about every point, including the HS!
Your tax dollars at work.
UPDATE2:
Interestingly, due to Climategate, WUWT is now within striking distance in terms of reach and traffic of the New Scientist, and Scientific American. Prior to Nov 19th, WUWT was around the world rank 40K mark on a regular basis, now we’ve moved up. In the USA WUWT is now ranked 4823 according to this analysis.
Click for details at Alexa.
WUWT readers can help close the gap by referencing WUWT articles in letters to the editor, other blog posts, and blog comments where relevant. Thanks for your consideration. – Anthony
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N.S. is full of “researchers may have found” “scientists possiblly have found” Cut the crap please, we want facts not models or hypotheses.
There was never any climate change here in Zimbabwe but I was told by the big science papers that I was just not sensitive enough to detect it and yet the concern was supposedly about humans !
I was wondering where the warming went myself, until Briffa proved it was only hitting one tree on the Yamal Penninsula. So most of us are probably well out of range.
“MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.”
They should put curved horizontal shields /shrouds over the top half of them, to keep off the snow. These used to be common, even on old-fashioned traffic lights. Why were they dropped? Cost? Added bulk in shipping? Increased swinging in the wind?
This is OT, and partially mentioned before in another thread, but is full lyrics to a song on radio right now which I think contains some interesting phrases;
http://www.polyvore.com/endless_red_tape_to_keep/set?id=11468658
Very appropriate IMO.
“This sounds like the denunciation of Charles Darwin by the Church following “The Origin of Species”. What they want is science to be rejected in favor of faith. Never mind the evidence, if someone believes in a falsehood strongly enough it “becomes” the truth.”
Which Church? Anglicans, yes. Roman Catholics, however, have never been overly fretful of evolution. Where would biology be without the ninteenth-century research of Gregor Mendel, who was, of course, a monk?
Of course ‘faith’, the the most robust sense of the word, has no authoritative remit in the rigorous empiricism of the natural sciences. Faith, as St Paul saith, is ‘the testimony of things unseen.’
‘Faith’ cannot be understood as a primitive, inferior version of ‘science’, or ‘rationality’. It falls within a different horizon of human experience.
‘Of course ‘faith’, the the most robust sense of the word,…’
Stuttering fingers. Try ‘in the’.
New Scientist has the same relationship to science as the old BBC programme “Tomorrow’s World” had to the world of tomorrow. Looks like they simply cannot be wrong often enough.
Anthony –
For posts like this one I would like to see you to open a “Humor” department, or “Panorama” or “off Topic” or “Climate Society News” or “Climate Gossip” department.
Although the “alarmist” camp is fighting not any more with scientific data (hidden data just don’t exist) but with press campaigns, your website should stay with the roots: Watt’s up with That? Please don’t get lost in a mix of everything and nothing.
What is a “climate denier”?
Danish minister Connie Hedegaard has resigned as president of the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, describing the move as “procedural”.
Seen this?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html
I feel really sad about New Scientist. I’ve been reading it since I was at school in the 1960’s. It always used to be good.
I started rreading their latest offering, but quickly gave up – it was just a long and eloborate ad hominem argument. If they truly believe in AGW then they should tell us why. This article shows that they have really lost the plot. The people in charge of NS really do not understand what science is any more.
Michael said:
“We all have that big orange ball in the sky to thank for screwing it up for them.”
Amen.
And I think it shows God has a sense of humor. It may be a wry sense of humor, but it’s there nonetheless.
I agree with b.poli (03:35:52) :
Anthony –
For posts like this one I would like to see you to open a “Humor” department, or “Panorama” or “off Topic” or “Climate Society News” or “Climate Gossip” department.
[To make sure that Anthony sees suggestions like this, post on “Tips & Notes.” ~dbs, mod.]
Thanks to the proliferation of independent, highly intelligent bloggers seeking the truth the scientific and journalistic pillars of the New World Order are now falling like dominos. People are fed up with politicized and corrupt science, arrogant spin and propaganda spreading like cancer. No wonder globalist elite power-holders like senator Jay Rockefeller and corporate media mogul Rupert Murdoch express a great deal of animosity toward the Internet:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/07/rupert-murdoch-charging-websites
New Scientist, where conclusion goes in search of hypothesis.
Lucy Skywalker (01:12:03) :
Sure, the magazine called itself the “New Scientist”. Non Scientist alludes to my conclusion of an unbalanced assessment of MMGW issues. Now it appears to be happy to ad hominem retaliation rather than science. As though: 2* wrong = right.
I’m happy stick with my reference to Non Scientist.
Anthony, thanks for Update 2. It is time to complete the earthquake-like shift from internationally controlled (rotten-at-the core — and corrupt) old media to citizen-scientist new media like WUWT. I think you (and others) should redo the contribution possibilities from only “shameless plug” and “contribute” or “tip jar” to “subscribe” as well, with a number of possibilities — annual, quarterly, monthly — with the amount up to the individual. I realize that probably there are legal reasons why this has not happened before, but perhaps now is the time for change. If so, you would only be following readership patterns.
I make my subscriptions quarterly and have begun the shift from my MANY now-failed-old-world print subscriptions — most of which I have faithfully subscribed to for many years. It wasn’t easy at first, but I am pretty much over the mourning period.
I choose a quarterly subscription to WUWT. Now I am adding other reliable blogs. If most contributing readers did the same, I think there would be a tremendous “greening” of real science and real news and honest commentary — and quality and entrepreneurship would reign once again.
I’ve been a regular NS reader for many years but I stopped buying it this year for the obvious reason: that they have abandoned science in favour of political science. They like to say the proof is ‘overwhelming’ but, after several years of looking, I’m still unable to find this ‘overwhelming’ proof. In fact there doesn’t appear to be a single credible scientific proof that the climate is being driven by CO2. Quite the reverse.
.
Here’s an idea for anyone in the UK. Make a full-size printout of the Non Scientist image. The next time you’re in Smiths, place the printout in front of the stack of NS. Of course, the people at Smiths might not be too happy, but it would be quite amusing – as well as telling an important truth. Final step: take a photo and publish it here at WUWT!
.
I probably won’t buy another copy of NS until they return to science, they have a new chief editor and they print an apology to their readers.
Chris
@pyromancer76
I agree. I would gladly contribute to speed up the demise of the old guard.
“MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.”
They should put windmills on top of all the traffic lights. I know it wouldn’t work but it would be politically correct.
And it would make all the citizens at least feel like they were doing something good for the earth.
Who is “Michael Le Page” who commented the article at the NS magazine? Does he have any reputation?
I went to a presentation by the New Scientist at the Royal Institution about ten years ago. They were looking at the year 2050 and did so in terms that make “Age of Stupid” look like plagiarism.
I gave them up as a serious source of scientific news at that stage and have been a non-contributer since.
It’s sad, really–but many have built their careers or their self-identified enlightenment on various forms of climate-closedmindedness. You mentioned bullying–look at what happened to the ‘science entertainer’ Johnny Ball last night. He introduced generations of British youngsters to science, but has now been booed off the platform of some ‘liberal atheist christmas meeting’ for questioning the carbon religion at christmas;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6825502/Johnny-Ball-booed-by-atheists-over-climate-change-denial.html