Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Judith Curry posted here on WUWT regarding rebuilding the lost trust we used to have in climate science and climate scientists. This is my response to her post, an expansion and revision of what I wrote in the comments on that thread.
First, be clear that I admire Judith Curry greatly. She is one of the very, very few mainstream climate scientists brave enough to enter into a public dialogue about these issues. I salute her for her willingness to put her views on public display, and for tackling this difficult issue.
As is often my wont in trying to understand a long and complex dissertation, I first made my own digest of what Judith said. To do so, I condensed each of her paragraphs into one or a few sentences. Here is that digest:
Digest of Judith Curry’s Post: On the Credibility of Climate Research, Part II: Towards Rebuilding Trust
1 I am trying an experiment by posting on various blogs
2 Losing the Public’s Trust
2.1 Climategate has broadened to become a crisis of trust in climate science in general.
2.2 Credibility is a combination of expertise and trust. Trust in the IPCC is faltering.
2.3 The scientists in the CRU emails blame their actions on “malicious interference”.
2.4 Institutions like the IPCC need to ask how they enabled this situation.
2.5 Core research values have been compromised by warring against the skeptics.
2.6 Climategate won’t go away until all this is resolved.
3 The Changing Nature of Skepticism about Global Warming
3.1 Skepticism has changed over time.
3.2 First it was a minor war between advocacy groups. Then, a “monolithic climate denial machine” was born. This was funded by the oil industry.
3.3 Because of the IPCC reports, funding for contrary views died up. It was replaced by climate auditors. The “climate change establishment” didn’t understand this and kept blaming the “denial machine”.
4 Climate Auditors and the Blogosphere.
4.1 Steve McIntyre’s auditing became popular and led to blogs like WUWT.
4.2 Auditors are independent, technically educated people mostly outside of academia. They mostly audit rather than write scientific papers.
4.3 The FOIA requests were motivated by people concerned about having the same people who created the dataset using the dataset in their models.
4.4 The mainstream climate researchers don’t like the auditors because Steve McIntyre is their arch-nemesis, so they tried to prevent auditors publishing in the journals. [gotta confess I couldn’t follow the logic in this paragraph]
4.5 The auditors succeeded in bringing the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted the auditors.
5 Towards Rebuilding Trust
5.1 Ralph Cicerone says that two aspects need attention, the general practice of science and the personal behaviours of scientists. Investigations are being conducted.
5.2 Climate science has not adapted to being high profile. How scientists engage with the public is inadequately discussed. The result is reflexive support for IPCC and its related policies.
5.3 The public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC. More efficient strategies can be devised by recognizing that we are dealing with two groups: educated people, and the general public. To rebuild trust scientists need to discuss uncertainty. [“truth as presented by the IPCC? say what?]
5.4 The blogosphere can be a powerful tool for increasing credibility of climate research. The climate researchers at realclimate were the pioneers in this. More scientists should participate in these debates.
5.5 No one believes that the science is settled. Scientists and others say that the science is settled. This is detrimental to public trust.
5.6 I hope this experiment will demonstrate how the blogosphere can rebuild trust.
Having made such a digest, my next step is to condense it into an “elevator speech”. This is a very short statement of the essential principles. My elevator speech of Judith’s post is this.
Climategate has destroyed the public trust in climate science. Initially skepticism was funded by big oil. Then a climate auditing movement sprang up. They were able to bring the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted them. Public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC. To rebuild trust, climate scientists need to better communicate their ideas to the public, particularly regarding uncertainty. The blogosphere can be valuable in this regard.
OK, now what’s wrong with Judith’s picture?
Can The Trust Be Rebuilt?
First, let me say that the problem is much bigger than Judith seems to think. Wiser men than I have weighed in on this question. In a speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854, Abraham Lincoln said:
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
So it will not be easy. The confidence is forfeit, that ship has sailed.
The biggest problem with Judith’s proposal is her claim that the issue is that climate scientists have not understood how to present their ideas to the public. Judith, I respect you greatly, but you have grabbed the wrong end of the stick. The problem is not how climate scientists have publicly presented their scientific results. It is not a communication problem.
The problem is that 71.3% of what passes as peer reviewed climate science is simply junk science, as false as the percentage cited in this sentence. The lack of trust is not a problem of perception or communication. It is a problem of lack of substance. Results are routinely exaggerated. “Scientific papers” are larded with “may” and “might” and “could possibly”. Advocacy is a common thread in climate science papers. Codes are routinely concealed, data is not archived. A concerted effort is made to marginalize and censor opposing views.
And most disturbing, for years you and the other climate scientists have not said a word about this disgraceful situation. When Michael Mann had to be hauled in front of a congressional committee to force him to follow the simplest of scientific requirements, transparency, you guys were all wailing about how this was a huge insult to him.
An insult to Mann? Get real. Mann is an insult and an embarrassment to climate science, and you, Judith, didn’t say one word in public about that. Not that I’m singling you out. No one else stood up for climate science either. It turned my stomach to see the craven cowering of mainstream climate scientists at that time, bloviating about how it was such a terrible thing to do to poor Mikey. Now Mann has been “exonerated” by one of the most bogus whitewashes in academic history, and where is your outrage, Judith? Where are the climate scientists trying to clean up your messes?
The solution to that is not, as you suggest, to give scientists a wider voice, or educate them in how to present their garbage to a wider audience.
The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science. The solution is for you establishment climate scientists to police your own back yard. When Climategate broke, there was widespread outrage … well, widespread everywhere except in the climate science establishment. Other than a few lone voices, the silence there was deafening. Now there is another whitewash investigation, and the silence only deepens.
And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.
And you still don’t seem to get it. You approvingly quote Ralph Cicerone about the importance of transparency … Cicerone?? That’s a sick joke.
You think people made the FOI (Freedom of Information) requests because they were concerned that the people who made the datasets were the same people using them in the models. As the person who made the first FOI request to CRU, I assure you that is not true. I made the request to CRU because I was disgusted with the response of mainstream climate scientists to Phil Jone’s reply to Warwick Hughes. When Warwick made a simple scientific request for data, Jones famously said:
Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?
When I heard that, I was astounded. But in addition to being astounded, I was naive. Looking back, I was incredibly naive. I was so naive that I actually thought, “Well, Phil’s gonna get his hand slapped hard by real scientists for that kind of anti-scientific statements”. Foolish me, I thought you guys were honest scientists who would be outraged by that.
So I waited for some mainstream climate scientist to speak out against that kind of scientific malfeasance … and waited … and waited. In fact, I’m still waiting. I registered my protest against this bastardisation of science by filing an FOI. When is one of you mainstream climate scientist going to speak out against this kind of malfeasance? It’s not too late to condemn what Jones said, he’s still in the news and pretending to be a scientist, when is one of you good folks going to take a principled stand?
But nobody wants to do that. Instead, you want to complain and explain how trust has been broken, and you want to figure out more effective communication strategies to repair the trust.
You want a more effective strategy? Here’s one. Ask every climate scientist to grow a pair and speak out in public about the abysmal practices of far, far too many mainstream climate scientists. Because the public is assuredly outraged, and you are all assuredly silent, sitting quietly in your taxpayer funded offices and saying nothing, not a word, schtumm … and you wonder why we don’t trust you?
A perfect example is you saying in your post:
Such debate is alive and well in the blogosphere, but few mainstream climate researchers participate in the blogospheric debate. The climate researchers at realclimate.org were the pioneers in this …
For you to say this without also expressing outrage at realclimate’s ruthless censorship of every opposing scientific view is more of the same conspiracy of silence. Debate is not “alive and well” at realclimate as you say, that’s a crock. Realclimate continues to have an undeserved reputation that it is a scientific blog because you and other mainstream climate scientists are unwilling to bust them for their contemptuous flouting of scientific norms. When you stay silent about blatant censorship like that, Judith, people will not trust you, nor should they. You have shown by your actions that you are perfectly OK with realclimate censoring opposing scientific views. What kind of message does that send?
The key to restoring trust has nothing to do with communication. Steve McIntyre doesn’t inspire trust because he is a good communicator. He inspires trust because he follows the age-old practices of science — transparency and openness and freewheeling scientific discussion and honest reporting of results.
And until mainstream climate science follows his lead, I’ll let you in on a very dark, ugly secret — I don’t want trust in climate science to be restored. I don’t want you learning better ways to propagandize for shoddy science. I don’t want you to figure out how to inspire trust by camouflaging your unethical practices in new and innovative ways. I don’t want scientists learning to use clever words and communication tricks to get people to think that the wound is healed until it actually is healed. I don’t want you to learn to use the blogosphere to spread your pernicious unsupported unscientific alarmism.
You think this is a problem of image, that climate science has a bad image. It is nothing of the sort. It is a problem of scientific malfeasance, and of complicity by silence with that malfeasance. The public, it turns out, has a much better bullsh*t detector than the mainstream climate scientists do … or at least we’re willing to say so in public, while y’all cower in your cubbyholes with your heads down and never, never, never say a bad word about some other climate scientist’s bogus claims and wrong actions.
You want trust? Do good science, and publicly insist that other climate scientists do good science as well. It’s that simple. Do good science, and publicly call out the Manns and the Joneses and the Thompsons and the rest of the charlatans that you are currently protecting. Call out the journals that don’t follow their own policies on data archiving. Speak up for honest science. Archive your data. Insist on transparency. Publish your codes.
Once that is done, the rest will fall in line. And until then, I’m overjoyed that people don’t trust you. I see the lack of trust in mainstream climate science as a huge triumph for real science. Fix it by doing good science and by cleaning up your own backyard. Anything else is a coverup.
Judith, again, my congratulations on being willing to post your ideas in public. You are a rara avis, and I respect you greatly for it.
w.
PS – In your post you talk about a “monolithic climate denial machine”?? Puhleease, Judith, you’re talking to us individual folks who were there on the ground individually fighting the battle. Save that conspiracy theory for people who weren’t there, those who don’t know how it went down.
This is another huge problem for mainstream climate scientists and mainstream media alike. You still think the problem is that we opposed your ideas and exposed your errors. You still see the climate scientists as the victims, even now in 2010 when the CRU emails have shown that’s nonsense. Every time one of your self-appointed spokes-fools says something like “Oh, boo hoo, the poor CRU folks were forced to circle their wagons by the eeevil climate auditors”, you just get laughed at harder and harder. The CRU emails showed they were circling the FOI wagons two years before the first FOI request, so why haven’t you noticed?
The first step out of this is to stop trying to blame Steve and Anthony and me and all the rest of us for your stupidity and your dishonesty and your scientific malfeasance. [Edited by public demand to clarify that the “your stupidity” etc. refers to mainstream climate scientists as a group and not to Judith individually.] You will never recover a scrap of trust until you admit that you are the source of your problems, all we did was point them out. You individually, and you as a group, created this mess. The first step to redemption is to take responsibility. You’ve been suckered by people like Stephen Schneider, who said:
To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
That worked fine for a while, but as Lincoln pointed out, it caught up with you. You want trust? Disavow Schneider, and STOP WITH THE SCARY SCENARIOS. At this point, you have blamed everything from acne to world bankruptcy on eeevil global warming. And you have blamed everything from auditors to the claimed stupidity of the common man for your own failures. STOP IT! We don’t care about your pathetic justifications, all you are doing is becoming the butt of jokes around the planet. You seem to have forgotten the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Read it. Think about it. Nobody cares about your hysteria any more. You are in a pit of your own making, and you are refusing to stop digging … take responsibility.
Because we don’t want scientists who are advocates. We’re not interested in scientists who don’t mention their doubts. We’re sick of your inane “simplified dramatic statements”. We laugh when you cry wolf with your scary scenarios. Call us crazy, but we want scientists who are honest, not scientists who balance honesty and effectiveness. You want trust? Get honest, kick out the scoundrels, and for goodness sakes, get a clue about humility.
Because the truth is, climate science is one of the newest sciences. The truth is, we know little about the climate, we’ve only been studying it intensely for a couple decades. The truth is, we can’t project the climate of the next decade, much less that of the next century. The truth is, we have no general theory of climate. The truth is, we don’t know if an average temperature rise of a couple degrees will be a net benefit or a net loss. The truth is, all of us are human, and our knowledge of the climate is in its infancy. And I don’t appreciate being lectured by infants. I don’t appreciate being told that I should be put in the dock in a Nuremberg style trial for disagreeing with infants. You want to restore trust? Come down off your pedestals, forsake your ivory towers, and admit your limitations.
And through all of this, be aware that you have a long, long, long climb back up to where we will trust you. As Lincoln warned, you have forfeited the confidence of your fellow citizens, and you will be damn lucky if you ever get it back.
[Update: please see Dr. Curry’s gracious response below, at Judith Curry (04:34:45)]
[Update 2: Dr. Curry’s second response is here, and my reply is here]
[Update 3: Dr. Curry steps up and delivers the goods. My reply.]
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“Because the truth is, climate science is one of the newest sciences. … we’ve only been studying it intensely for a couple decades. … we can’t project the climate of the next decade, much less that of the next century. … forsake your ivory towers, and admit your limitations.”
And please will they stop telling us utter crap like it is currently warming when even the discredit CRU stats tell us it is cooling this century
That cooling doesn’t undermine the scientific case for manmade warming, but it totally absolutely, completely, unquestionably destroys the integrity of those who deny it!
And wil they stop all this utter crap media PR that they can predict the climate, followed by a deafening silence about whether any prediction was accurate.
This is utter Bull, spades loads of it when you put out the predictions, and then spades loads of it to hide the actual global temperature when it doesn’t EVER fit the predictions.
And sooner or later, by pure statistical fluke, they’ll finally get a forecast that is something near to what happens, and then we all know their bull PR machine will go into overdrive filling the media with the brown stuff about how good their forecast has been.
Judith Curry obviously is on the other side of the scientific debate. She made a great number of conciliatory not condescending points in my opinion. My recommendation is that you retract what appears to be a post written from a frustrated emotional perspective and replace it with a more objective one. Just my opinion.
That was a great response. Great experiment. Thanks
About humility,
I don’t expect any scientist or politician for that matter to show humility.
But I hate it when when they get in a “We know what’s good for for the planet” mode.
As stated before, I would love to hear a response from Dr. Judith Curry!
However, I am not very optimistic that this “experiment” will make any difference.
We have too many “Gore, Mann and Schneider ideologues” who have infiltrated the system and who’s presence is not only limited to our scientific institutions but also our Government, Government Institutions, Financial Institutions our media, and environmental organizations like Green Peace and WWF and all share the same bed.
Besides that, there is too much money going around than is good for preserving the ethics.
I agree the scientists have a responsibility to control their colleagues but I would like to see this responsibility extended to the organizations they are working for.
The scandalous propaganda campaign of the World Meteorological Organization currently aired by CNN for example would not have been possible if the scientists working for this organization and the member organizations (National meteorological Institutes) would be more critical.
Willis, absolutely excellent post, demonstrating an almost-unique command of the English language. Every paragraph resonated with me, as I saw Dr Curry as nothing much more than an apologist for the entire coterie of AGW mythmakers.
You are entitled to your anger and I feel you did not overstate anything.
When I first began work, I was taught by those older and wiser than me that the first rule in any cooperative enterprise is “don’t foul the nest”, which the IPCC and it’s sycophantic adherents have done very comprehensively.
On the political front, imagine if a comprehensive treaty had been signed at Copenhagen and then the CRU files had been dumped.
There is a good chance that Mann and Hansen would now be before a Congressional committee looking like Toyota, leaving “climate science” forever tainted in the eyes of the “political class”. NOT.
Of course that would never happen because the “political class” is even more asute at covering up embarrassments. They would press ahead know that they are “j.rking off” the public because it’s really about being in on the “ground floor” of a new venture that will channel trilions of dollars, euros, yen of which even a tiny percentage is enough to live the good life (i.e. the gravy train).
When “climate scientist laid down with these dogs, they got up with the fleas that infest the “body politic.”
POUNCER: “There is no subluminiferous ether standing as the medium in which light waves propigate.” Actually, the first two you mention are causal, links which are good examples, whilst the ether was a conceptual model rather than something that could be “disproven”. There were political reasons at the turn of the century, similar to this climate nonsense, which required a few scapegoats, and personally I think the concept of ether was one of them.
If you were simply to replace the word “ether” by “space” or even “space-time” I think, if I understand the use of the word at the time (with was rather nebulous), it would be possible to say that we still have a concept of the ether, in the same way as we still have the same concept of gravitation, as they did then, although it has been signifantly modified.
Willis, brilliant! Absolutely, stunningly brilliant. Not a word in your post can be denied. (But expect it anyway – “Such hostility to an overture for reconciliation” – that sort of bulldust. But evildoers who insist on keeping on doing their evil simply cannot expect reconciliation; they should expect to be fought until they start behaving decently.)
Cheers Willis – magnificent!
Well said we just want substance. For the last 6-7 years I have taken and interest in AGW and the constant media baraging using words such as disasterous,crisis and catastophic. Etc Act now. !!! When you look under the covers you find exaggerations, half truths and red herrings. Let’s not exaggerate but point truths and facts out. And the right direction for goverments and mankind will become clear.
A marvellous polemic. Of course it’s OTT, it’s a polemic. Of course Judith won’t be upset about it, it’s not personal. I love polemics – from either side, really. it’s the weaselling that is far more annoying, the Gavin Schmidt technique of finding one thing he can pick on in Judy’s article for example, and using that to undermine the rest, as he’s done on RC – I posted up the Judy link, and it’s driven them nuts over there. It’s like he never reads anything for what it’s trying to say.
An ‘on point’ and an excellent summming up worthy of Winston Churchill. The perversion of the basic principles of science by “The ends justify the means” climate scientists is neatly summarised.
Yes, realclimate smugly censors all opposing views – that is not science, that is Faith. Well done Willis.
Let’s break this down – first the premise as presented by Judith and condensed by Willis, then an ad hoc elevator rebuttal.
=======
“Climategate has destroyed the public trust in climate science.”
No the field of climate science has beclowned itself by failing to practice science and instead attempted to take on the task of making public policy.
“Initially skepticism was funded by big oil. Then a climate auditing movement sprang up.”
No, skepticism is a fundamental element of science – the presumption that expression of doubt as to the extraordinary conclusions advanced by AGW theorist is somehow a regrettable response is the core fallacy of Judith’s position.
“They [“deniers”] were able to bring the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted them.”
No, The term for those who seek truth through experiment aimed at falsification is “scientist”, not “deniers”. Scientist have peeled an onion to illustrate how paltry and unreliable the data sets behind AGW theory are, and that there are enormous flaws in the process of manipulating same used to reach the conclusions AGW theorist advance. Scientist have also raised valid questions about the assumptions used in AGW theory which ignore vast and know influences other than CO2 [the Sun for example] and scientist have taken note of the utter failure of AGW theory to accurately predict actual ongoing behavior of the climate. This is not bad form – it is good science.
“Public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC.”
No one understands the “truth of the IPCC” for the simple reason that, the UN’s IPCC reports are not true – grasp that fact and the knots unwind. The UN reports have been revealed to be composed of little actual scientific work which has proved its mettle by surviving trial of falsification [the core of the scientific method]. Instead the conclusions of the UN’s work is based primarily on strained manipulations of mined data, anecdotal accounts, opinion pieces, pure supposition and outright misstatements. In short the UN’s IPCC reports, taken on the whole, are by no means valid in the context of science. This fact is evidenced by the almost daily growing list of retractions and corrections of these reports undergo [glacier regression rates, hurricane frequency, sea level rise – and on and on and on].
More importantly, actual and real scientific consideration of the matters considered by the UN’s work has been actively suppressed by the AGW clique whilst at the same time the data and methods used to reach AGW theory conclusions has been sequestered from review. This is the scandal behind Climategate that gives rise the great stench. Judith’s blithe failure to address this element of the crisis in credibility faced by the climate science community shows that she is not yet ready to honestly grapple with this problem.
“To rebuild trust, climate scientists need to better communicate their ideas to the public, particularly regarding uncertainty. The blogosphere can be valuable in this regard.”
The blogosphere aint the solution. Willis said it best…. the climate science community needs to do science. Your profession is collectively supping on bitch-slap-soup right now because as a community you have failed in that chore.
========
Judith seems a reasonable person, but in my view her position is inherently unprofessional and irresponsible. Break the context and the flaws of her position become stark – remove her comments from the context of climate science and consider them instead in the context electronic engineering, or acoustics or medicine. If you consider the abovelisted side by side “elevator” reductions and modify each in your mind as you read so the passages are couched as if they addressed optimized amplifier design, or a noise control problem, or the risks and benefits of prenatal vitamin supplements for pregnant women, Judith’s position is risible.
Prof Philip Stott comes with this publications that perfectly fits the current “experiment”, a must read if you ask me:
Quote, Unquote:
http://web.me.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2010/2/16_Quote_Unquote.html
Extraordinarily good post. I thought of replying to the Judith Curry post, but there is no way I can say it better than this.
My response to Dr. Curry
Dr. Curry,
Thank you for your thoughtful exploration of the effects of trust as it pertains to the present conflicts within the climate change debate.
The scientific community lives within the bounds of the quest for knowledge and understanding. The political/economic world lives in the environment of competitive advantage. Their quest is quest simply the search for opportunity. The bridge is of course funding. The social contract between these two worlds can result in beneficial or non-beneficial cooperation or co-option. These transaction out-comes are subject to any and all of the human vanities and as such, trust is best subordinated to verification and documentation. When public policy is to be effected the records must appear in the public domain. If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen, zero trust.
The climate is changing. It is always changing. The climate research community has now experienced the process of co-option by the political community with regard to alleged warming.
If the climate is indeed cooling as some predict, my unsolicited advice to the climate research community is, prepare for the attempt of co-option by the political/economic world. Your defense is quite strait forward; produce credible, documented, openly published data.
Trust is a byproduct born of verifiably successful labor.
Jay: “If you want to remain on the fringe and exist only to fog the debate and hinder science and understanding then carry on throwing stones from the sidelines.”
Jay: Thankyou for posting, because we need more people with contrary views because it is easy to become convinced that we are right just because we all agree with each other. But you fundamentally misunderstand us. We are not would be actors, we are critics. We don’t want to “strut and fret our hour upon the stage”, we just want to watch a good play (i.e. good science).
The reason the “scientists” getting booed off, isn’t because we want to get on the stage, but because we paid good money to get decent science and it is not being delivered.
Willis, thanks for your very thoughtful post. I would also like to thank all the people that sent very thoughtful essays to me by email. I am listening. I would first try to clarify a few misinterpretations of the words i used.
First, i did not use or intend to use the “d” word in a pejorative way; my main motive in using the word at all was to differentiate what was going on in the technical blogs from what is very commonly referred to as the “d” machine. I would have thought the community here would have appreciated that point; i guess not
A second point, re the communication paragraph, it should have said the “truth” as IPCC sees it.
A third point, in my reference to realclimate, i was referring to scientists putting themselves out there in the blogosphere. And I then stated that they should participate in open debate. I haven’t tried to post anything at realclimate in several years, but my name has not been mentioned over there since climategate broke, they are reading what i write in the blogosphere but wish i would stop. I am not going out of my way to say anything nice about realclimate.
With regards to “trust”, I am not talking about smooth talking snake oil “trust”, but the real thing based on the scientific method, transparency etc etc I have written other essays on this. But no one person can sort through everything, so we have to trust the process and institutions of science to support the scientific progress. When these are no longer working, we are all in trouble. I am angry as a scientist, since I may have been using unnecessarily inaccurate surface temperature data in my research. Ecologists, chemical engineers, etc. who have made career decisions in directing their research toward climate change impacts or mitigation have been trusting the system to work. Etc.
So by staking this middle position, i pretty much am getting tomatoes thrown at me from both sides, but I am hoping to provoke both sides to think about productive ways of moving forward in getting climate science back on track.
Thoughtful responses such as Willis’ are much more helpful in this regard than focusing on the “d” word
Dave Williams,
you say :
Seriously, couldn’t it be that there is some credibility to the AGW theory as well as the “it is all natural” camp? Humans are modifying the face of the earth, pumping enormous amounts of various chemicals (some more harmful than others) and many seem not willing to accept any responsibility whatsoever for the impact that humans are probably having on the earth.
Worried about where all that naturally occuring CO2 is going? Here is someone who was obviously responsible enough to do some serious scientific work on it;
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef0.htm
I can see the South Downs from here. Guess how they were made?
(PS; Willis, an excellent example of how to do a précis. Brilliant! Essential reading for any English Teachers reading this thread)
Bravo!
I hope Dr. Curry takes your comments in the constructive manner in which they are meant. She is more open minded than most of her compatriots, but is still trapped in their paradigm. Maybe we should start calling it Climate Lysenkoism.
Thanks, great article.
I am a PSU graduate, and am ashamed Dean Spanier is more interested in the continuing funding of Climate Science than a real investigation.
Thank you Willis. In summary, the pro AGW climate scientists’ mistake was not that they could not get their message across. Their mistake is that most of their messaging consisted of simplification, exaggeration, unsupported assumptions, unwarranted extrapolation and downright obfuscation of the data.
Let the science speak for itself. If it is uncertain or equivocal, then don’t patronise the public by calling it settled. If the data doesn’t support the political actions, then the political actions including the proposed cap and trade, should stop.
A bunch of obscure geography academics were in the limelight for a while and got off on that. Fickle celebrity! Their famous 15 minutes is now over.
Willis
I wish I had your text in front of me this morning when I had a consultant company in front of me telling me they could sell me services to “help me with my climate change issues”. I exploded and demanded some justification using science. All I got back was some blustering about third world living conditions, changing social order and the Science is agreed.
Don’t these people realise that the answers proposed for this non issue are a threat to our very economic well being?
Willis I am learning the words – It could become our very own Gettysburg Address.
regards.
Great post, but I agree with PaulM that you a bit too harsh in places (not all climate scientists are as bad as Mann and Jones). Judith has taken a step in the right direction – let’s not make her regret it.
Willis:- “Dear Judith; please find, enclosed, your butt. Kindest regards..”
I have to say that Willis has encapsulated my feelings absolutely.
If the folks over at realclimate are laughing, it’ll be one of those classic Hammer House of Horrors, mad scientist laughs.. “huhua ha ha.. MUHUHUAHAHAHA…”
Dang, I wish I had been reading these blogs two+ years ago.
I now know exactly how to enforce FOIA compliance through the UK courts.
You can do it through the Small Claims court in front of your local District Judge, for a fee of £35, which is then claimed back as damages.
PaulM (01:04:37) :
Although I agree with a lot of Willis’s sentiments I think he has overstepped the mark in a few places here. Although he is right that mainstream climate scientists should have spoken out against the distortion of science, remarks such as “the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence” and “your stupidity and your dishonesty and your scientific malfeasance” are over the top and not fair.
While true, this is a harsh accusation (as many, many others have done), the interesting thing is that none of those accused will or would step forwards to defend such an accusation.
Combined with Judith Curry’s essay, it demonstrates (to me, anyway) that the majority of these scientists feel they are the only ones who can see above the ignorant masses; that our accusations are baseless and not worth the effort. This may not be directly true, but that is the appearance.
Summarily, we are seen as the populace with pitchforks and burning brands swooping on these scientists to burn them at the stake as witches.