These guys again?
Excerpts from: Climate scientists plot to hit back at skeptics
Donations to buy ad on climate change
by Stephen Dinan
Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.
In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.
“Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules,” Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.
Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.
“This was an outpouring of angry frustration on the part of normally very staid scientists who said, ‘God, can’t we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,'” said Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford professor and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment who was part of the e-mail discussion but wants the scientists to take a slightly different approach.
The scientists have been under siege since late last year when e-mails leaked from a British climate research institute seemed to show top researchers talking about skewing data to push predetermined outcomes. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative body on the matter, has suffered defections of members after it had to retract claims that Himalayan glaciers will melt over the next 25 years.
…
In a phone interview, Mr. Schneider, who is one of the key players Mr. Inhofe cites, said he disagrees with trying to engage in an ad battle. He said the scientists will never be able to compete with energy companies.
“They’re not going to win short-term battles playing the game against big-monied interests because they can’t beat them,” he said.
…
“What I am trying to do is head off something that will be truly ugly,” he said. “I don’t want to see a repeat of McCarthyesque behavior and I’m already personally very dismayed by the horrible state of this topic, in which the political debate has almost no resemblance to the scientific debate.”
Not all climate scientists agree with forcing a political fight.
“Sounds like this group wants to step up the warfare, continue to circle the wagons, continue to appeal to their own authority, etc.,” said Judith A. Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Surprising, since these strategies haven’t worked well for them at all so far.”
She said scientists should downplay their catastrophic predictions, which she said are premature, and instead shore up and defend their research. She said scientists and institutions that have been pushing for policy changes “need to push the disconnect button for now,” because it will be difficult to take action until public confidence in the science is restored.
“Hinging all of these policies on global climate change with its substantial element of uncertainty is unnecessary and is bad politics, not to mention having created a toxic environment for climate research,” she said.
…
Paul G. Falkowski, a professor at Rutgers University who started the effort, said in the e-mails that he is seeking a $1,000 donation from as many as 50 scientists to pay for an ad to run in the New York Times. He said in one e-mail that commitments were already arriving.
…
George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center, said in one e-mail that researchers have been ceding too much ground. He blasted Pennsylvania State University for pursuing an academic investigation against professor Michael E. Mann, who wrote many of the e-mails leaked from the British climate research facility.
…
In his e-mail, Mr. Woodwell acknowledged that he is advocating taking “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” but said scientists have had their “classical reasonableness” turned against them.
“We are dealing with an opposition that is not going to yield to facts or appeals from people who hold themselves in high regard and think their assertions and data are obvious truths,” he wrote.
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Rick Bradford (04:49:25) :
(…)
Oh, yes, and bring on the old “Big Oil” canard, as well, for good measure. Anyone know where I can get some of that river of cash?
________
Reply:
Well, ya, you’d have to go work for Stanford University and rub shoulders with the likes of Erhlich and Schneider. Personally, I don’t think the money would be worth it. 😉
@DirkH (00:06:06) :
“Was Anger before Acceptance or After?”
The theory on the stages of grief/loss etc. isn’t a linear progression, though acceptance is usually (understandably) in last place. The rest can appear all over the shop, though it’s hard to avoid the assumption that mainstream CAGW’s now in the denial-anger phase – though maybe the Guardian’s having a few days when bargaining’s raising its head before, still unable to cope, denial and rage set in again. As a rational person (or so I think), the performances of these people and their cohorts seems quite astoundingly crazy. But anyone who’s ever read the Malleus Maleficarum on witch-hunting will recognise the pathology, driven by twisted religion and hatred of life.
Here is an idea: beat them to the punch.
Find some willing “skeptics” and place thier faces and arguments as to why they dont buy the AGW agument on the back page of the NYTs. Keep it civil and scientifically sound.
Thank you Judith for filling us in about Schneider’s “nuanced” version of alarmism in his dissection of “post-normal” science; actually I’d prefer to refer to it as “post-normal” alarmism.
In this version of alarmism, a physically impossible proposition is put on the table for contemplation, such as
“including a possible shutoff of the Gulf Stream in the high North Atlantic” (Schneider)
the Gulf Stream arising from the Coriolis force of the rotating Earth (diverted where it is by the sea depth off the African continent).
That is, a physically impossible event unless the Earth stops rotating, and this is real “post-normal” science all right, and it is this type of thinking that gives “science in policy making” a dimension that it never had before.
So, why indeed, have alarmists lost credibility among the general public.
richard (04:45:51) :
Apologies if already posted;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8551416.stm
Met Office admits that they can’t even predict the weather three months ahead.
——-
Reply:
Good point. Please realize that today’s weather forecast is about 80% accurate, tomorrow’s is about 60% accurate, and the day after that is about 40%. It gets worse for the remaining 7 days of a 10-day forecast.
Reminds me of an estimate I once read that indicated weather prediction in Boston was 80% accurate. However, had they just predicted “sunny” every day, they’d be 75% accurate.
But don’t worry… Climate is NOT weather. Or was it weather is NOT climate.
Yah, Judy, I luv ya’ too, but Stephen Schneider destroys his nuances with his Oreskes worship.
========================
The biggest thing the entire lot of scientists could do to try and convince us of their truth is to post the raw data, code if used, the resultant data, and the articles surrounding the research, without paywalls and stalling tactics. That should apply to any research that was supported by tax dollars of any amount. Even if a $10 dollar grant, or publicly funded lab was used. On the other hand, if for example, an energy company owned the lab and funded the research with profit money (not government-granted laundered money), then fine, keep it to yourself. Please.
So go ahead and take out that ad with the information above in it. I for one will buy that edition and read the ad.
The “Big Oil” argument is the “Boogie man under the bed”.
“Big Oil” (plural?) aren’t oil companies but energy companies: BP are investing in solar, and I’m sure other conglomerates are backing alternative sources to oil. Even if it’s hedging their bets.
Simply, these big companies are the ones with resources to provide the solutions that the AGW crowd are crying out for. They don’t *need* to support an anti-AGW agenda/conspiracy.
These men are not “scientists” they are used in my classrooms as examples of “how not to do it” when teaching scientific method. They should be drummed out of the NAS for the damge they have done to its credability.
Projection is exactly what these AGW proponents have been doing for 20 years. They know their case is very weak and always have known some maybe have convinced themselves the danger is real as happens in many cult situations, but many entered with political motivations.
Jan Pompe I have my $50 ready.
I told my fellow phrenologists we should have attacked our detractors in newspaper advertisements. I always knew my pointy head indicated people should hold me in high regard, and my forehead showed how forward-thinking I was.
What is it with these nutters and energy companies? I doubt they all walk to work and go to bed when the sun sets.
Judy, your link is actually kind of pitiful. It’s ‘the train is leaving the station’ climate science. Face it, the Precautionary Principle is a Paean to Ignorance.
You should know that we cannot make wise policy without knowing the climate’s sensitivity to CO2. It seems apparent that that sensitivity is lower than the IPCC and the models have estimated. Calculations of that sensitivity from observations rather than models have been showing a much lower sensitivity.
Get with it; you’ve been betrayed by some of those you trust the most.
=================
Perhaps both Eherlich and Joe McCarthy were partly right.
Pauli has outlived his usefulness, and his ilk are everywhere.
If they want credibility, all they have to do is publicly display all of their data and software creations, and allow full public scrutiny, open debate and analysis. This nonsense of “Trust us, we’re experts!” has to go:
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2644185
Paul
“In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind.”
I don’t know if fighting back in kind is a good idea.
If you wrestle with a pig, both you and the pig get dirty, but the pig likes it. Legitimate criticism of climate science should be acknowledged and answered in a civil manner, but little is to be gained by stooping to the level of the mud slingers.
Good science is the best weapon against ignorance and lies.
“Big Oil” is despised for being a sustainable industry – the revenues derived from extracting and processing oil are used to go locate and extract some more. That’s how the industry “sustains” itself.
Wind and solar energy are as “sustainable” as a patient on artificial life support; once Government money delivered intravenously to solar energy projects goes away, they stop delivering energy.
So Big Oil has a lot of money to spend on countering alarmism, but the truth of the matter is they don’t – because they supply a commodity that people will buy no matter how loudly activists yell.
Activists don’t supply a product that people “need to” buy, by the way. Activism is not a “sustainable” industry.
John Whitman (03:40:36) :
Vice Admiral He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is already taken by Anthony Watts
Since this all is sponsored by BIg Oil i would say:
“Greetings from The Humungus! The Lord Humungus! The Warrior of the Wasteland! The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla!”
[mind you, i am not going to catch that boomerang]
It seems a little disengenuous to claim that the truth can’t be told and then have that story covered by a major newspaper. They’ve had free advertisements for years in the Science section of NYT. I guess now with the scandals they actually have to pay for good coverage. This was always a house of cards, and now it’s come tumbling down.
Climate Zombies gone wild. I say bring it on. It will be the only day I buy a copy of the NYT.
Perhaps Anthony can post that Donald Sutherland picture you used a while back when the ad comes out. That was my favourite. I’m still laughing about it.
Well, I can see “an outlandish, aggressively partisan approach”, or “an outlandishly aggressive partisan approach”, but “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” ??
Do they do their science the same way they use English?
OT, but:
U.S. DEMOCRATS MOVE TO BLOCK EPA ON CLIMATE CHANGE
LAWMAKERS MOVE TO RESTRAIN EPA ON CLIMATE CHANGE
COLD FEET: JAPAN RETREATS ON CLIMATE PLEDGES
and more from Benny Peiser’s CCNET list.
I think that MidWest101 is a genius.
That being said, no matter how “noble” people have painted the sciences out to be, science has ALWAYS been a war between true science and the hoards of snake-oil salesmen.
Any time any issue comes up where the snake-oil salesman think there is a potential profit, their war against science begins. They attempt to co-opt the science and corrupt it to line their own pockets.
The fact that lately they have attempted to co-opt science and corrupt it in the name of “saving mankind” when it is clear that their main motive is to obtain power and to profit should tell you what sort of people the snake-oil salesmen really are. They claim that we need to suffer so that the earth can heal, all the while enriching themselves and living the lifestyles which they tell us are unsustainable.
Hypocrites.
Willis and John Whitman.
I would like to be a henchette, but only if I get a cute outfit!
Alexis
Pamela Gray (05:48:28) :
The biggest thing the entire lot of scientists could do to try and convince us of their truth is to post the raw data, code if used, the resultant data, and the articles surrounding the research, without paywalls and stalling tactics….
=======
I agree, providing the additional expense is worth it.
“In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns””
Well then here’s a Klew™:
Stop politicizing science!”
Wren (06:10:03) :
Good science is the best weapon against ignorance and lies.
It certainly appears to be working against the CAGW brand of ignorance and lies — of course, it took the leaked e-grams to get The Usual Suspects to clam up long enough for good science to be heard…