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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I gave up buying New Scientist ten years ago. Even then I realised that they had become the para-military wing of Greenpeace.
They refused, point blank, to write anything that said that wind power was intermittent. I badgered them for months about this, and got various replies indicating that the wind always blew in the UK.
They are all left-wing cranks.
More from new scientist on the subject
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427393.600-battle-for-climate-data-approaches-tipping-point.html
>>However, the criss-cross pattern resembles what
>>are claimed to be chemtrails.
The criss-cross pattern is caused by the upper winds blowing successive contrails downwind. I should know, I make these trails every day.
“IGNORE the unwarranted claims that hacked emails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK expose human-made climate change as a conspiracy. Away from those headlines, an equally intense battle is taking place over access to the data showing global warming is real.”
Thats is the first paragraph from the article.
Two major objections: The emails contain a lot of exchanges between these data processors (Mann, Jones et al) of how to manipulate data, destroy data or ignore FOI requests, how to delete past highs, and up-scale present temperatures.
Its not a conspircacy as an ambitious gravy train
http://tinyurl.com/ya65hot
“….consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents leaked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he had been awarded in the 1990s.
Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?
Thus, the European Commission’s most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that’s not counting funds from the EU’s member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA’s climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA’s, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. American states also have a piece of the action, with California. apparently not feeling bankrupt enough, devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal”
These AGW money figures are paltry alongside the prospect of carbon trading sums and increases in taxes and utility bills
PC (21:02:23) :
Does anyone have a link to a video of a lecture on cosmic rays and clouds by a physicist at CERN (possibly Jason Kirby)?
Thanks
I haven’t read the rest of the comments yet but thought I’d give this just in case no one else did. I’m an amateur so was hanging on by my fingernails – luckily, somewhat prepared through WUWT, CA, Svensmark’s Cloud Mystery.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073
Someone should merge Climatology and Scientology myths to spoof both.
L Ron Gore peddles C-meters to measure your carbon footprint. Xenu dumps billions of tons of coal into volcanoes to kill the souls of ancient dinosaurs. Free personality tests reveal if you are a Denier.
P Wilson (14:25:08):
I think you need to mention that your figures exclude additional funding from those charitable foundations that are “concerned with environmental matters”, because they are difficult to quantify.
Me again, there are a number of comments that I’d like to mention but for now, I’ll point out this:
quote:
Rereke Whakaaro (01:36:51) :
David Corcoran (01:15:20) :
I am not qualified to answer your question in detail, but in a more general sense, I imagine that the only science to come through all this unscathed will be Political Science.
Research is done, papers are prepared, papers are submitted for publication, and are rejected for some reason.
What to do? Rework the papers or publish elsewhere with different reviewers. I suspect the latter is what happens.
To recover what was lost, you must look where it may be found (buddhist wisdom).
endquote
When I started looking into what this whole thing was about – already suspecting that much “was lost,” as phrases such as “the debate is over” and “the science is settled” clearly indicated – it seems somehow I did start looking where “it may be found.” I consider it one of the best experiences of my life, to have found WUWT, CA, Air Vent, JoNova and, well, so many others that I can’t even keep up anymore. It’s 1:30 a.m. and I still don’t want to stop.
While I’m a bit depressed that I seem to be rather an exception – so many I know either don’t want to know or couldn’t care less – the biggest threat I see is the increasing attack on Internet freedom of speech, which would render the censorship that exists on various sites minor in comparison. I really wish I’d had this resource long ago (only had DSL access since about 05 and it took awhile to even find out the amount of info available), but I’m enjoying the hell out of it as long as it lasts and, above all, am learning so much from all of you, bloggers and commenters alike. My life has been enriched enormously (even if my hours of sleep have declined).
Nigel Calder (00:59:40)
The quote you gave was my comment that Anthony used (at 19:28:39).I separated my comment from the emails quote by a space. It certainly was not part of the email.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=796&filename=1179416790.txt
Keith Minto (17:04:24) :
“I separated my comment from the emails quote by a space [actually a blank line–RK]. It certainly was not part of the email.”
Unfortunately, you (or Anthony?) didn’t turn off the italics. That gave the strong impression that the italicized material was all from one source. Maybe some other indicator should be inserted by a moderator, like a line of dashes or a preliminary “Minto:”
Perhaps someone might check the climategate files for e-mails to the BBC, Economist, etc… might need some detective work
Re Lecture on Cosmic rays and climate by Physicist Jasper Kirkby of CERN
I’ve typed up most of the lecture, and inserted some of the diagrams, and included the download links and slide show.
Here:
http://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/node/2525
Might be useful if you want to quote Jasper 🙂