Opinion by Anthony Watts
There has never been a time at WUWT that I’ve used the word “slimy” in a headline. This is a special case. I thought of about a half dozen words I could have used and finally decided on this one. I chose it because of precedence in a similar situation where Steve McIntyre wrote his rebuttal to a similar piece of amateur journalism entitled Slimed by Bagpuss the Cat Reporter.
Last week, the Guardian invited me to participate in their new online story forum. They were seeking the input from climate sceptics on issues they were writing about. They especially wanted my input. I said I’d consider it, but was a bit hesitant given the Guardian’s reporting history. But, after some discussion with one of the reporters, it seemed like a genuine attempt at outreach. I suggested that if they really wanted to make a gesture that would make people take notice, they should consider banning the use of the word “denier” from climate discourse in their newspaper. Nobody I know of in the sceptic community denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the past century. I surely don’t. But we do question the measured magnitude, the cause, and the scientific methods.
Now, any progress that has been made in outreach by the Guardian has been dashed by the most despicably stupid newspaper article I’ve ever seen about climate skeptics. The Guardian for some reason thought it would be a good idea to print it while at the same time trying to reach across the aisle to climate skeptics for ideas. Needless to say, they’ve horribly botched that gesture with the printing of this article.
Here’s the headline and link to the Guardian article:
Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain
It’s full of the kind of angry, baseless, stereotypical innuendo I’d expect Joe Romm to write. Instead, the writer is Jeffrey D Sachs. who is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, home to NASA GISS.
And it’s not just the Guardian. Apparently this article has been shopped around. It made it into The National in Abu Dhabi which you can read here. Apparently the article from Columbia’s Sachs was distributed by an outfit called The Project Syndicate.
A check of their website show the author list, some of the stories they are pushing to media, and they seem to be rather vague about where their money comes from. In their contact and support page all they offer is a PO box for their HQ in Prague:
Project Syndicate PO Box 130 120 00 Prague 2 Czech Republic
So much for transparency.
Back to the article. After reading it, one can see that Sachs is simply repeating the same sort of drivel we get from trolls every day on climate science discussions. Baseless accusations of being involved with deep pockets, connections to tobacco, denial of links to cancer, and other assorted decades old slimy talking points that have nothing to do with the real issue at hand: scientific integrity in climate science.
It is clear that professor Sachs didn’t do any original research for this article, he simply repeated these same slimy talking points we see being pushed by internet trolls and NGO’s like Greenpeace. He provided no basis for the claims, only the innuendo. It’s a pathetic job of journalism. It’s doubly pathetic that the Guardian allowed this to be printed at a time when they were reaching out to skeptics.
It seems incomprehensible to Sachs and others like him that people like myself, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Id, Joe D’Aleo, John Coleman, and others who write about climate science issues might have original thoughts and do original research of our own. It seems impossible to him that an “army of Davids”, such as the readers and contributors to CA and WUWT, could shake the money bloated foundations of climate science today with daily blog posts, FOI requests, and commentary. No it had to be big money funding these skeptics somewhere.
Newsflash: It’s worse than you thought. It’s a growing revolution of like minded people worldwide that want to see the climate science done right and without the huge monied interests it has fallen prey to.. Tobacco, big oil, and other assorted contrived boogeymen haven’t anything to do with skeptics that question CRU, GISS, NOAA, etc.on these pages and the pages of other blogs.
Oh sure they’ll say “but you went to the Heartland convention, and they took money from Exxon once, they defended smokers rights, that makes you complicit.” Bull. I’ve made my objections loudly known to Heartland on these issues, but the fact is that no other organizations stepped up to help skeptics with a conference to exchange information. While people like Sachs were denouncing “deniers”, and Al Gore was leading multimillion dollar media campaigns saying we were “flat earthers” and “moon landing deniers”, no scientific organizations were stepping forward to ask the tough questions, or to even help regular people like you and me who were asking them. Had any such scientific organization had the courage, you can bet that skeptics would have flocked there. Instead these organizations all got on the consensus bandwagon.
The claims made that skeptics are connected to tobacco companies is ludicrous. It is especially ludicrous in my case.
So here’s my challenge to Professor Sachs. Give me ten minutes in a room with you. That’s all I need. I’ll tell you about my story related to tobacco. I’ll tell you how secondhand smoke most likely contributed to my profound hearing loss through a series of badly treated ear infections as a child, I’ll tell you about my efforts to get my parents to stop smoking , and then, I’ll tell you how I watched both of my parents die of tobacco related disease. I’ll tell you what I think of tobacco products and companies. I’ll tell you to your face. I promise you it won’t be pretty, I promise you that you’ll feel my pain caused by tobacco.
Finally, I’ll tell you what I think of you for writing this crap you market as journalism without asking leading skeptics any questions, but instead relying on this slimy innuendo that’s been repeated for years.
Professor Sachs, contact me by leaving a comment if you have personal integrity enough to hear it.
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Dawn Watson (08:17:40) :
So have you personally invested your own money in “refurbishing your house to passiv house standard” then?
Do you drive a Car – using petrol or electricity?
Have you flown on a Plane recently?
Used a Train or boat?
Have you seen the studies on Overall Wind Turbine Efficiency and their contribution the UK’s Power supply?
Do you know that they are not self sufficient and require Subsidies to keep them going?
I agree with you that our Government is wasting Billions of Pounds in the wrong areas including the research and propaganda of CAGW.
Anthony,
Please consider the following… you are now in the company of people like Christy, Spencer, and Lindzen. Unfairly, and unjustly maligned for questioning the orthodoxy
You may be, in their eyes, a heretic… but your integrity, unlike Sachs’, is intact
I say wear this as a badge of honor, and don’t let this incite you to becoming like them
Best Regards,
Nick
Man thats looooow, what a d#@k!
If I recall, the acid rain scare was exactly that, a scare wasnt it ? wernt the sceptics on that one right? Rain is naturally acidic, trees like slightly acidic rain and no one could ever prove that rain was increasing in acidity due to factory smoke etc…
Bit like CFC’s – now they are saying CFC’s most likely play a very small role in the “hole” in the ozone layer and its mostly natural
Some times the sceptics are right, even though ignored!
Also, (contraversial I know) I dont see the issue with people being sceptical of the link of smoking and cancer if there is good reason (i dont know the facts on the subject), but somone always needs to be sceptical somewhere or any old drivel will get by! Its a scientific duty!!
Sorry for your loss, cancer is a horrible things to have to go through with loved ones – a perfect example of why people like this should shut their mouths if they dont know the facts
John Galt (07:19:40) :
It’s always nice to feel you have a majority support of popular opinion, but the American public is woefully ignorant of science and economics.
51.7% of the American public is woefully ignorant. Fixed.
May I suggest, Anthony, that you make this article a floater that stays at the top of the blog for a week or so? It seems that the most productive use of it would be as a greeting for the flocks of Guardian readers likely to visit WUWT for the first time out of curiosity after reading Sach’s loquacious libel. Give ’em the proper treatment (add a welcome for them in the first paragraph!)
Herman L (09:41:17) :
You actually have the nerve to ask Anthony that question on this Site, hasn’t anything that has been presented on here (and not just by Anthony) given you pause for thought?
Because if it hasn’t then what is the point in him answering (even though he has)?
Anthony,
No, it hasn’t been done. Take out the links to opinion pieces and politics.
E.g., “The owners of the trading floor where the carbon credits will be traded, including Goldman Sachs and Al Gore, stand to earn trillions if cap-and-trade is passed.” That has nothing to do with science.
You behave similarly when you write “why did CRU and IPCC need to hide data from public view …?” and ” … ignore clear warnings made by reviewers over the 2035 glacier date and other now uncovered debacles?” Both of those make the assumption that some sort of fraud is going on, not science or all too human errors in reporting science.
Like I said: The science can stand on its own. I’ve read the IPCC FAR Technical Summary and found zero references to politics and political debate. If you want to make a convincing scientific argument to me, do the same here.
I would like to believe that AGW is wrong at a purely scientific level. However, if you have to resort to politics to make your case, I doubt your sincerity.
REPLY: Well then we agree on something, because I’ve always doubted yours. Your first post here was attacking my choice of a word, not the science. I see you as politically affected, not scientific, and to be clear, your anonymous opinion means nothing. I was once very much a believer like you, though I doubt you have the ability to see beyond the dogma of the IPCC report (written by a political body) you cite. I’m simply not interested in investing the time in you, since you’ve rejected everything so far, it would be a futile excercise. Your mind is closed. – Anthony Watts
What’s also amusing is that Sachs’ Earth Institute has a Corporate Circle of donors who include some the nations’ worst polluters. People who are being supported by Monsanto, Pfizer and Procter and Gamble should make unfounded allegations that others are being supported by Big Oil.
Whilst not wishing to downplay Anthony’s obvious distress on the subject, it does show that emotion can interfere with objectivity. Whilst the tobacco companies did hide knowledge of harm from direct smoking of tobacco in excess, there is absolutely no evidence that second hand smoke, whilst unpleasant, is harmful. We criticise falsified temperatures, but the data trawls on tobacco produced false claims and mortality statistics that could not in practice have happened, from an examination of general death statistics.
Cigarettes per se do not cause cancer, if they did everyone who smoked would get cancer. This is patently not the case. They increase the risk, as they do of emphysema and other problems, if used to excess. Many people enjoy cigarettes and are aware of the dangers, but they make a personal choice.
I have never smoked in my life, I hate cigarettes (and second hand smoke), but we should not abandon scientific rigour on something with which we have a personal problem.
Whenever these ad hominems arise we should respond with facts, as Richard North has today at eureferendum, and ask them to explain themselves.
AJStrata (10:12:44),
Exactly right. As you point out, the AGW cult is not science based. It violates the scientific method, making it akin to Scientology rather than honest science.
You add, “…it is the responsibility of the theory supporters to prove their case, not denigrate and silence those challenges.”
As the CRU emails show, denigrating and silencing skeptics is a tactic repeatedly used by the AGW crowd, as is their deliberate fabrication of temperature data.
Hermal L says above:
The skeptical science blog is anything but skeptical science. It is faith based anti-science, which disregards the scientific method: skeptics have nothing to prove.
And since the promoters of CAGW hide [or “lose”] their data, and provide upwardly adjusted data with no chain of custody traceable back to the original raw data, there is no way to verify their results. We are expected to take their word for it. But they have forfeited the right to say, “Trust us” with the climategate emails. They can not be trusted. Phil Jones is not out of a job because he is trustworthy.
Scientific skepticism is required of every honest scientist. But in order to employ skepticism per the scientific method, all data, methods, code, and anything else bearing on the AGW hypothesis must be made freely available to scientific skeptics for the specific purpose of attempting to falsify that hypothesis.
If the catastrophic AGW hypothesis can withstand falsification, then it will be accepted by mainstream scientists. But the purveyors of the hypothesis refuse to provide the necessary information. That is a pretty clear indication that they know CAGW will be quickly falsified as soon as they open their data and methods to the public.
So they stonewall. It is their only option if they hope to keep the grant money flowing. But it makes a mockery of the scientific method. It is pseudo-science; propaganda masquerading as science, just as the skeptical science blog masquerades as skeptics.
The catastrophic AGW hypothesis appears on its face to be preposterous. If it is not, then show us by simply opening the books. To verify it or falsify it, there must be complete transparency. Instead, secrecy of data and methods is the tactic used by people who can no longer be trusted.
@ur momisugly stumpy (10:49:37) : If I recall, the acid rain scare was exactly that, a scare wasnt it ? wernt the sceptics on that one right? Rain is naturally acidic, trees like slightly acidic rain and no one could ever prove that rain was increasing in acidity due to factory smoke etc…
That’s correct–rain naturally contains carbonic acid and has a pH of around 5.5. Carbonic acid in conjunction with bicarbonate is important in the oceans, too. CO2 and H2O form carbonic acid, When it dissociates, it gives up a hydrogen ion, forming bicarbonate. If the acid becomes too strong, the bicarbonate absorbs hydrogen ions, making the acid weaker. It’s the reason the oceans aren’t going to turn into boiling seas of acid anytime soon…and yet, with all that acid raining down for millions of years, the Earth is still here.
When I was in middle school, acid rain was taught as fact. So was the ozone layer when I was in high school.
[snip – you put words in my mouth in your response which aren’t true. Better reword because I’m not going to allow your post as is. – A]
Dawn Watson
Do calm down.
History tells us that there have been far worse weather incidents in the past than the ones you cite, and that todays climate is nothing out of the ordinary.
Why don’t you read a book like ‘Climate, History and the Modern World’ by Hubert Lamb, the first Director of the infamous CRU? It will put today’s climate into its proper perspective.
The ISBN is 0-415-12735-1
Tonyb
A very interesting response, Anthony. You doubt my sincerity, and I doubt yours. But when I ask that you put all politics aside and address your concerns in purely scientific terms, you retort: “Your mind is closed.”
REPLY: I gave you a list of 75 things, and two questions, and you rejected them all, what does that say about your ability to look beyond your comfort zone.? Put simply, I’m done wasting my time with you. I care not if you are convinced or not. -A
As far as science is concerned AGW is dead and buried. Economically it is still very much alive. The media voice which never fails to blame AGW for everything but Swine Flu is the BBC. Now Peter Dunscombe who is Head of the BBC Pensions Investment is also Chairman of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change. The BBC Pension Fund has £8 billion invested in IIGCC, a group which has at least 50 other investors and, in total, controls in the order of 4 trillion Euros. This money is in turn invested in UNEP F1 which controls upwards of $15 Trillion, money which is used to fund Carbon Credits and similar dubious ventures.
With so much investment at stake can anybody believe that CRU or IPCC or other instigators of AGW will be allowed to come clean?
I suppose that one could view at least some of Sachs’s “facts” as being correct…
It is true. Many of us AGW skeptics were also right about ozone holes and acid rain.
The annual thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica is an artifact of the polar winter. Although it is claimed that the ozone hole didn’t exist prior to the 1980’s… It has occurred during every Antarctic spring in which anyone was trying to measure it.
Ozone in the upper atmosphere is created when UV radiation from the Sun strikes oxygen molecules. This leads to the creation of ozone. The ozone layer doesn’t so much act as sunscreen as it acts like reactive armor. During the Antarctic winter very little sunlight hits the upper atmosphere over Antarctica and the Antarctic polar vortex prevents much in the way of atmospheric mixing between the polar and higher latitude air masses. This leads to an annual depletion of Antarctic ozone from mid-August through mid-October (late winter to mid spring). As the Antarctic spring transitions to summer, there is more exposure to sunlight and the ozone layer is replenished.
This process has occurred since the dawn of continuous ozone measurements in 1986. NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory / Global Monitoring Division features a very disingenuous chart on their ozone page.
South Pole Total Ozone
The NOAA ESRL/GMD chart implies that the annual ozone hole did not exist during an earlier period of measurements from 1967-1971. This is wrong. The actual data from 1967-1971 clearly show that the annual ozone hole did exist. It may have been less pronounced at higher altitudes and it may have bottomed out in September rather than October; but it did exist. At low altitude (200 MB and 400 MB) it was nearly identical to the present-day…
Comparison of 1967-1971 and 1986-1991 Antarctic ozone (Oltmans et al., 1994)”]
There are a lot of reasons why earlier measurements differ from the modern data:
1. The older data were sparsely sampled (1/4 the number of profiles) and the earlier ozonesonde balloons rarely, if ever, reached higher altitudes (40 MB and 25 MB).
2. The error bars of the two data sets almost overlap.
3. Natural climate oscillations. 1967-1971 was during a period of global cooling. 1986-1991 was during a period of global warming. Without having a continuous series of profiles across a full wavelength of the ~60-yr PDO/ENSO cycle, it’s impossible to know if the annual ozone depletion has a cyclical nature.
4. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s). It is possible that CFC’s did exaggerate the Antarctic ozone hole. However, the data clearly show that CFC’s did not create it.
The ozone hole scare cost many people a lot of money. Refrigerating fluids, particularly in automobile air conditioners, had to be replaced. If you were the owner of a 1980’s motor vehicle in need of air conditioner repairs in the 1990’s, you may as well have traded your vehicle in; because the cost of repairs became almost prohibitive due to new environmental regulations related to CFC’s.
The economic cost of this particular chapter of environmental junk science was minuscule in comparison to that of the current environmental swindle (anthropogenic global warming)… But this should serve as one more reminder that no one ever bothered to check the work of these Enviromarxist con men prior to Steve McIntyre’s debunking of Mann’s Hockey Stick.
References:
Data Visualization >> South Pole Ozone Hole >> South Pole Total Column Ozone
Oltmans, S. J.; Hofmann, D. J.; Komhyr, W. D.; Lathrop, J. A. Ozone vertical profile changes over South Pole. NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center, Ozone in the Troposphere and Stratosphere, Part 2, p 578-581
As far as acid rain goes… Rain is supposed to be acidic. Most of the lakes which were showcased as acid rain victims were naturally acidic and had been acidic since well before mankind ever burned his first lump of coal.
Rather than being a global problem, anthropogenic acid rain was a localized problem in parts of Northern Europe which was relatively easily fixed.
Acid rain became an “issue” in 1980 when Congress passed the Acid Deposition Act. After a ten year study, National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program reported that there wasn’t much of a problem with acid rain. The first report was rejected and Congress went ahead and amended the Clean Air Act to mandate SO2 and NOx emissions. These emissions have been substantially reduced at a cost of several billion dollars per year. Chump change relative to the potential costs of Kyoto/Copenhagen schemes.
But… The reduction of SO2 and NOx emissions has had no clear affect on the pH of rainwater. In some parts of the country, the pH is stable, in some parts it’s gently falling, in other parts it’s gently rising. Most stations exhibit little or no change in slope over the measurement period, which in many cases goes back to the late 1970’s.
National Atmospheric Deposition Program Interactive Map
Click on a station, select “Trend Plots”, then select “Field pH”… Look at the actual data.
The costs of reducing CFC, SO2 and NOx emissions haven’t been that awful… And the reductions did lead to some beneficial environemtal effects… But… No crisis ever existed regarding ozone holes and acid rain.
Andrew W (01:03:26) :While I agree that the ‘money from big oil’ meme is nonsense, so is the ’scientists exaggerate AGW to get grants’ meme, and that’s a claim often made in the comments here.
Andrew, IMHO it’s a lot more subtle but is still basically correct. Twenty years ago, Maggie Thatcher revoked funding on all research – except for any, from any discipline, that supported AGW. It was IMO like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice: started tiny and gradually grew. Probably without anyone being aware. Researchers would apply for grants, and those who believed in, and touted, scare stories would get the grants. Nothing done deliberately.
” Robert (11:21:15) :
[snip – you put words in my mouth in your response which aren’t true. Better reword because I’m not going to allow your post as is. – A]”
I’m going to argue with someone who’s going to gag me on a whim?
Not likely.
I stand by my original statement. You need to take a hard look for the flaws you identified in the article in your work here, because you are a much worse offender than they are.
REPLY: Oh please….moral lecturing from someone too cowardly to put their full name to their words. -Anthony Watts
I see that Robert eventually made it to this thread. Pity, because it comes ahead of my previous posting that for some reason disappeared into the ether, which was, if I remember correctly something like: [snip]
If this gets snipped or ends in the spam bin then please give me a clue as to why.
REPLY: Even though I strongly disagree with “robert” such ad homs are not something I want here – Anthony
REPLY: Its already done for me, have a look at this list: 75 reasons to be sceptical about “global warming”
Anthony, there’s almost nothing on that list that’s correct, I’m surprised you link to it as I’m certain you’re smart enough to know it’s mostly nonsense.
Sachs is a necon mega criminal who, with his AGW pal Soros, handed the best part of the Russian economy over to seven oligarchs. The Guardian is an oil company sponsored, corporate rag.
I read the article and left a comment decrying its “dishonest sleight-of-hand.” The AGW true believers more and more behave like religious zealots, not scientists.
From an African perspective, Jeffrey Sachs lives in a timewarp out of which he still seems to believe that the problems of this continent can be solved by throwing ever-increasing amounts of money at its governments, who will then of course use it wisely to reduce poverty, etc. He also dismisses without regard anyone who differs with his argument.
To anyone who has actually taken the time to understand how Africa works, it would be clear that this approach fails, and in fact contributes to the problem.
It now seems that his only solution to any problem is to spend lots of money without questioning the rationale too closely.
In many cultures the stature of a man was measured by the strength of his enemies. You do not sound or act like a fool. You have powerful enemies. Therefore, you are a very great man.
(Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, is the pawn of a powerful man.)
“Oh please….moral lecturing from someone too cowardly to put their full name to their words.”
That’s quite a rationalized escape hatch you’ve built for yourself there: since the vast majority of people on forums and comment threads use a handle, if you have absolutely no answer to the point raised, you can always condemn them for “cowardice.”
I’m glad you recognize that this is a moral issue. I suggest you reflect on a basic moral principle: “Do as you would be done by.”
REPLY: Hmmm… but when I suggest you do a “do-over” on a comment that says something untrue about me, you say you’re done. Point is, you simply have no courage to stand up for what you say. If you want to accuse me of a wrongdoing, put your name to it, and I’ll print it, otherwise bug off. – Anthony Watts