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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Veteran BBC science presenter Jonny Ball is ‘booed’ off stage for not wanting to “see young people scared to death that climate change is going to bring about the end of the world by 2050”.
We live in depressing times…
Excerpts…
Ball, 71, claimed that spiders’ flatulence was more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels, and criticised the “bad science” of global warming during a performance at a Christmas show in celebration of atheism and science.
He said: I knew there would be people vehemently opposed to what I was saying, but I think where I went wrong was accusing the University of East Anglia of cooking the books, and in going on too long and labouring the point.
“I shouldn’t have turned it into a political rant and I won’t be doing climate change again because I didn’t go to be controversial or upset the show.”
“The reason I do this is because I cannot stand by and see young people scared to death that climate change is going to bring about the end of the world by 2050,” he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6825502/Johnny-Ball-booed-by-atheists-over-climate-change-denial.html
Thank you, Joanne Nova, for having the courage to speak the truth and expose the fraud of CO2-induced global warming.
The President of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a climatologist.
NAS reviews the budgets of all federal research funding agencies.
NAS has used research grants to train scientists the way Pavlov used dog biscuits to train dogs.
What a sad, sad state of affairs for science.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor
Nuclear & Space Science
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Where to start. The photo accompanying the snow in the LED traffic lights story showed the usual horizontal covers, which nicely served to trap the blowing snow. Check the link for the photo. And Thanks! to another commenter for confirming my observation that they generates copious amounts of Radio Frequency Interference.
Publications. I did not see my favorite example of left-shift mentioned. Science News Letter used to provide weekly updates of science headlines with a short story attached. I dropped them a couple of years ago when stories on the cooling side of the climate debate disappeared, and the articles became very PC.
My grandfather gave me a subscription to Pop Science back in the 40s, but I dropped them several years ago when they, along with Sci Am became purveyors of “Hysterical Science” as I have taken to calling it. My collection of Sci Am got caught under a roof leak, and frankly, I was relieved that they went to the shredder.
And, finally, thanks for the link to the Margaret Mead start of this nonsense. I remember when that happened, although it wasn’t apparent at the time what was going to come out of it. By the time I realized the import, the reference was lost in the stacks of journals, and I never had time to search out the information, and you have provided it, for which I am grateful.
It is chillingly orwellian how they try to control the scientific discussion. Completely polite and valid “contrarian” views asking the difficult questions are being deleted and replaced with “This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.”
comment submitted to the New Scientist:
philincalifornia (21:40:09) : and PC (21:02:23) :
Many thanks for the link. It restores my faith in scientists. No overblown claims, no sniping, no tortured statistics, just a hypothesis and a means of investigating it.
And I note that many on-line references don’t include his academic qualifications (in contrast to the puffed-up Somerville).
But of course any findings will be dismissed as he is not a climate scientist.
It’s a pity, as I seem to remember the effects of GCRs on climate being dismissed because an experiment was conducted to measure the effect of cosmic rays on trees by irradiating them. Since no effect was discerned, it was concluded that GCRs could not affect tree rings.
Talk about closed minds!
Skeptic Tank (03:44:58) :
What is a “climate denier”?
I’m glad you asked. It’s a mythical beast like Bigfoot, which loves pollution, and hates polar bears, kittens, puppies, and trees, and which believes there is no such thing as climate, which it believes is nothing but a giant conspiracy by Communists and Socialists to take over the world and impoverish and enslave everyone. Its close cousin is the “climate change denier”, which has all of the same characteristics as the “climate denier” but does acknowledge that there is indeed a climate, but that climate has never changed before, isn’t now, and never will change.
According to Warmlogic, these creatures, like Bigfoot do in fact exist, unless you can prove they don’t.
Thanks Anthony, and thanks to all 2,000 or so WUWT visitors who dropped by in the last 18 hours with their passionate stories. There are a lot of very very unimpressed ex-New-scientist subscribers. It must be hurting their bottom line.
Commentors have been asking for larger files for printing and I’m happy to help. Let me know if you need something bigger. It will be arranged. 🙂
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/photos/new-scientist/Non-Scientist-cover-4-lrg.jpg 1.7 Mb
Bigger Tif file uploading now:
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/photos/new-scientist/Non-Scientist-cover-4.tif 3.4 Mb
I only got as far as the first lie in the NS article.
The Laut paper was thoroughly rebutted by Friis-Christensen, see
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/05_afdelinger/sun-climate/full_text_publications/comment to eos_28_sept_04.pdf
or google
comments on the forum article christensen
The alarmist rag EOS (not a real science journal) refused to publish his response.
The most amusing thing is that what the appropriately named ‘Laut’ refers to as an error is in fact an error in one of his (Laut’s) papers, not a paper by Friis-Christensen!
Fortunately, when I went to the NS site a questionnaire came up so I was able to tell them exactly what I thought of their publication!
Glenn (20:22:18)
Oh, my French teacher wore brown suede shoes, whilst another class french teacher at the same school wore shiny leather shoes. They were both as proficient as each other, yet our class did better than the other with exam results. Therefore, all other factors being equal, brown suede shoes are better thna shiny leather for good French results.
Are you serious?
.
.
Paul Coppin: RE your request for a tiff or jpg.
I simply clicked on the picture of the Goracle, drug it to my Desktop, and right-clicked on it. From the menu that appeared, I selected the Print command. It launched the Photo Printing Wizard, which offered a sequence of Next and Finish buttons. Within this sequence, I selected a color printer for this masterpiece, which turned out as a full-page print. Of course, the quality is minimal and perhaps only suitable as a dart target.
Maybe the master jpg is running around out there somewhere, so good luck.
David Corcoran (01:15:20) :
” … greenie culture puts greenies in a position of having to disown parts of themselves. They disown their own aggression, competition, and drives. … They project negative aggression, greed, selfishness, and competitiveness onto other groups, like oil companies, and their paid shills, the “sceptics”.”
A great insight – and very well put!
Oops, my last post should have been in response to Stefan (02:21:02), and not to David Corcoran (01:15:20)
No offense was intended to either party.
Note to self: Finish what you are doing before going home …
“_Jim (09:17:36) : wrote
Michael (00:25:08) :
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists”
Did you all hear Dr. Jasper Kirby at around 44:00 into this video explaining CHEMTRAILS to you in this video that we see all the time happening when we look up at the sky from time to time? Did you take notes?
Are you serious?”
Yes.
And I quote Dr Jasper Kirkby, “These are not smoke trails, these are clouds which are seeded by jets dumping aerosols into the upper atmosphere. ” There is nothing natural about this”
I call them chemtrails. Perhaps you can give them a name that is less offensive to you.
The 2nd paragraph of the New Scientist article, “Deniergate: Turning the tables on climate skeptics,” reads:
“If we are going to judge the truth of claims on the behaviour of those making them, it seems only fair to look at the behaviour of a few of those questioning the scientific consensus. There are many similar examples we did not include. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions about who to trust.”
But why should we grant that “If”? This is not a “Who Do You Trust More” situation. This is a situation where, regardless of the arguably overstated claims of some “deniers,” the CAWG consensus must reach a very high level of absolute trustworthiness because of its costliness and negative social impacts it entails. If:
A. The “prosecutors” of CO2 have connived at winning a “guilty” verdict by attempting—with some success—to keep counter-arguments and exculpatory evidence out of court, fiddling (however slightly) with the evidence to make it look more damning, and attempting to withhold or destroy evidence;
B. The judges (editorial gatekeepers and the IPCC) have been, to some degree, in cahoots with the prosecution;
C. The accused’s “public defender” has been starved for funding (by the NSF, etc.) in comparison with the prosecution;
D. The prosecution’s allies (sites like RealClimate and environmental groups) have conducted, with assistance from the prosecution, an expensive, successful, and not always scrupulous PR campaign to inflame public opinion and the press, which has had (in conjunction with the factors above) the effect of intimidating some witnesses for the defendant from coming forward; or, for those who do, from being as expansive and forthright as they would otherwise be;
Then a new trial should be held. I.e., a thorough (two-year long) and independent re-examination of all the arguments and evidence by panels of experts, with full input from contrarians, would be proper.
Even though the prosecutors and their allies would like to brush this appeal aside by proclaiming, “Case Closed,” it will eventually dawn on them that, without a retrial, their Guilty verdict will remain only a scrap of paper. I.e., in the current circumstances the US Senate will now never accept any Copenhagen Treaty, nor will the US public. And without US participation, any Copenhagen agreement will be as ineffective as the Kyoto Treaty.
The above is true even if some of the defendant’s friends have stretched a point or two (or three). That doesn’t condemn the defendant.
The tales of the low-energy traffic lights and their problems in the snow, and the possible solutions – solar panels, windmills, furry scarves, monk’s cowls, …etc conjures up the description “Heath Robinson Contraption” in my mind.
Let’s not stop there though. They could become multi-functional devices and double as news-stands for New Scientist.
And they could triple as places to hang the villains of Climategate out to dry.
I call them chemtrails. Perhaps you can give them a name that is less offensive to you.”
Kirby’s photo was labeled “Contrails,” and Kirby called them contrails. Just replay the clip.
However, the criss-cross pattern resembles what are claimed to be chemtrails.
PS: If the EPA insists on implementing its Endangerment Finding, the Republicans will run and win in 2012 on a pledge to revoke it.
(Feel lucky?)
Jesper Berg (04:33:09) :
“No wonder … corporate media mogul Rupert Murdoch expresses a great deal of animosity toward the Internet”
Rupert Murdoch (and Kerry Packer) are actually the architects of their own demise.
Between them they raided a fair proportion of the news media in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States (in alphabetical order). They employed a manufacturing model to centralize the ‘production’ of the news in ‘hubs’, thus getting rid of a large number of specialized journalists, and practically all journalists working at the grassroots level for small-town newspapers.
There is no time for investigative journalism any more – journalists now rely on Press Releases, delivered by “spokespersons” to give them “leads” for their “news” items.
The print media is now is all about advertising revenue – hence the increase in sensationalism and the decrease in impartial analysis. This trend has since been extended to New Scientist, Scientific American, National Geographic, et al.
The blogosphere (and private sector intelligence organizations) are now following the laws of biology, by moving into an environmental niche that has been vacated by its previous occupants.
If you want an in-depth analysis, see “Flat Earth News”, by Nick Davis, published by Vintage Books, and curiously endorsed by the Financial Times; a NewsCorp newspaper.
Roger Knights (11:09:49) : wrote
“I call them chemtrails. Perhaps you can give them a name that is less offensive to you.”
Kirby’s photo was labeled “Contrails,” and Kirby called them contrails. Just replay the clip.
However, the criss-cross pattern resembles what are claimed to be chemtrails.”
Perhaps we should just call them “Unnatural Contrails”, to make it more palatable.
I scrolled through the comments on Deniergate at New Scientist. I noted a large number of the comments are deleted. I know they don’t allow ad hominems, but there couldn’t be that many. Looks like censorship of opinions to me, nothing like allowing all dissenting voices to be heard. I nominate New Scientist to receive the 1st place prize for heavy-handed censorship on the internet.
MikeE (11:02:44) : et al
“The tales of the low-energy traffic lights and their problems in the snow, and the possible solutions – solar panels, windmills, furry scarves, monk’s cowls, …etc conjures up the description “Heath Robinson Contraption” in my mind.”
I think they should mount boom-boxes under the lights. The high energy sound waves would dislodge the snow, and everybody waiting at the lights could join in by pressing their accelerators in time to the beat.
Yeah, that would be mega cool, dude.
philincalifornia (21:05:09) :
“English wine production is once again thriving and the extent of the country’s vineyards probably surpasses that in the so-called Medieval Warm Period. So if you think vineyards are an accurate indicator of temperature, this suggests it is warmer now than it was then.”
Vineyards in England during the MWP were operating as far as North Yorkshire – Hadrians Wall – much further north than is possible today – and grape records certainly exist. The population wasn’t so *urbane* of interested then as now, but neither were they interested in gourmet cooking as much as now, in addition to the fact that the UK population was significantly lower, and less equipped than today. The only vineyards were connected to monastries then. The proliferation in winegrowing today could be said to be democratic and mercantile than confined to monastries.
as the New Scientist propose, such anecdotal factors have to be taken into account.
P Wilson (13:58:20)
the fact that that England was much warmer during the course of the MWP also correlates very well with Greenland ice cores showing that the temperature was higher than today, and the decline with the LIA in England also correlates with Greenland Ice cores. In fact, they both correlate with Vostok ice cores, thus it was certainly warmer globally then than now, and for a much longer period than 20 years.
The article on this matter in the NS leads to gavin Schmidt at realclimate links. He needs correcting of his lack of knowledge on this subject, and he doesn’t seem able to account for any sort of climate change from any source. It looks like he’s studied mathematics or statistics (in oder to master the art of expert data manipulation) than climatology.