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.
==============================
Read the entire article at the Washington Times
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
On one side there is the biologists, on the other side their is the thinkers (mathematicians and physicists).
Does anyone else think my broad overgeneralization has more than some truth to it?
Who needs to advertise when you have this type of press?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/climate-change/news/article.cfm?c_id=26&objectid=10630087
The New Zealand Herald piece by Steve Conner surely tells a sad story re the quality of the newspaper science reports down under!
jcspe (21:38:45) :
Ipsissima verba. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Good plan, place ad in the NYT. Back page. $50,000.
Friedman and Krugman both write glowing columms vouching for the climate scientists who bought the ad. The circle is complete. Let the back patting begin.
After all, Friedman admires the Communist Chinese system thats so sensitive toward the enviroment…..Oh wait…..dang
And Krugman won a Nobel prize in economics. We all know how hard it is to win a Nobel prize these days…Oh wait……dang
New Plan…Climate Scientists raise $3500.00 to place ad on back page of the National Enquirer….
The unfortunate part of this is that the Climate fraud may wreck real science.
When the ‘science’ fails to comply with observed reality, by all means, good scientists should resort to “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach”. Twenty-first century science at its finest.
Why do they need to raise the money individually. I am certain that Al Gore would pony up 50 K for the ad. Heck, he could make another 100 million by adding it to his snake oil show.
On another note: I wonder what Gavin thinks of this? Will he contribute to the “convince the public” campaign?
Uh oh!
* Runs off to cash Exxon-Mobile check before the plug is pulled *
They’re half right, you know. I have a deep relationship, almost a dependency, with oil companies, and money changes hands.
I buy gas.
“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.”
Wow, it’s news to me that I’m a “well-funded merciless enemy who plays by different rules”… well-funded, I wish… the reality is that times are tight and I’m looking for work… I’ve never taken any money from anyone for the topic of climate change. Heck I don’t even have ads on my http://www.PathsToKnowledge.net web site, not that there would be anything wrong with that.
The rules I play by are the rules of the scientific method that demands that scientists funded by the public purse show their work in full detail with all data, all fudging, all manipulations, all source code, all spreadsheets, all papers, basically everything about the work paid for by the public. That’s fair. No different rules. Show your work just like they taught us in high school science and math classes. If you don’t show your work you’re not a professional scientist. If you don’t show your work when asked you’re very possibly committing fraud and malpractice.
I simply want to see the evidence for the alleged AGW hypothesis. Those supporting a scientific hypothesis must provide the evidence that they claim support it. Sure it’s not likely to be in one paper, so show ALL the papers which have the conclusive hard undeniable evidence for the alleged AGW hypothesis.
Those making wild claims must provide extraordinary evidence per the Carl Sagan principle. The wild claims of the alleged AGW hypothesis surely demand extraordinary evidence. So far nothing but hockysticks with bad statistics hiding tree ring entails data that diverged from the thermometers and in the process falsifying the claims.
Oh, if you’re a source of funding I’m available for consulting work. I work in information and modeling systems. I could work building climate models that follow the scientific method rather than some political agenda presaging the outcome. Thanks.
pwl
http://PathsToKnowledge.net
It used to be a major honor for a scientist to be elected to the National Academy of Science. It seems that it’s not such a prestigious organization if they let these charlatans in.
This can and will blow up in there face, as seen as a joke. be ware we are not all fools on the far left.
Tim L
Ooops too late — should have thought of that when the AGW fanatics created an environment so hostile, people could not speak their mind about the weaknesses of the AGM position without fearing the would lose their jobs or get black balled by their zealot friends.
Sucks to be you now that you are tasting the fruits you sowed for 20+ years.
Larry
It’s a bit reckless to circle the wagons when that’s all that’s been done for a decade.
Public support dropping by the hour.
Instead of actually doing science and defending their results scientifically, brand new plan let’s do advertsing like we been doing for a decade.
Obviously students of Scipio the first and general Custer.
Where are all these science Divas coming from.
Bwaaha ha ha
dyslexia bites again –
Ooops too late — should have thought of that when the AGW fanatics created an environment so hostile, people could not speak their mind about the weaknesses of the AGW position without fearing the would lose their jobs or get black balled by their zealot friends.
I wonder what George Woodwell would say about the Woods Hole paper released last year that determined that the Indonesian warm pool SST’s had similar temperatures during the MWP to todays and suggested that northern hemisphere reconstructions (tree rings) should be reinvestigated.
The Australian has published another set-piece alarmist article from the Hadley mob here. See my rebuttal here.
Ehrlich is notorious for predicting in 1969 that all major life in the sea would be extinct by 1980 and for advising us to ignore aid to India because it was already doomed – Mother Teresa in reverse. Schneider is notorious for saying that it was necessary to offer up scary scenarios on climate to get attention. The continual paranoia about sceptic funding by oil companies (the b******s have not given me a CENT!! I’ll change sides!!) recalls Col. Jack Ripper preserving our vital bodily fluids in Dr Strangelove. What staggers is the whining about McCarthyism from the sort of people who described ‘sceptics’ as denialists (connotations of mental disorder and nazi revivalists), flat-earthers, vexatious disturbers of Phil Jones as he strives to find ‘tricks’, throwbacks to Galileo’s inquisitors, prats who f****d up, ‘idiots’ like Bob Carter here in Australia for precociously noting that global warming was pausing, stooges for Big, Big Oil, and operatives for the tobacco lobby (I have rubbished them for years). They also gave McIntyre and McKitrick hell for criticisms which Wegman with his impeccable statistician’s credentials validated. In short they did everything in their power to do McCarthy-style witch-hunting of their own. The science will never be settled if it is done in such a manner.
It’ll be just another name-calling rant that will only further alienate serious scientists and end up backfiring. Let them behave like kids.
Ask these population control freaks this question:
“Do you feel your support of anti-war ideals has led to an increase in population which would have otherwise been naturally controlled by the innate instinct in humanity for violent conflict?”
Answer: “Uhhhh… (head exploding)”
Mind you, I am not in accordance with any of the above ideals, but since these ‘gentlemen’ (if I can ruin the term) are, it is only fair to ask them if desiring health care to keep all alive, decrease in war to keep all alive, draconian ‘population management’ measures to keep all alive, ad nauseum, only further contributes to this ‘population problem’ and thus exacerbates it. Shouldn’t these folks advocate for the burning of more CO2, given their ideologies and political leanings? Then we can have the final solution for that pesky population problem, right chaps?
– Signed, David X(
Robert Carr: “It seems those making these wild assertions cannot comprehend that individuals would freely devote their time to fighting back against the alarmism being promoted. As an individual it has cost me precious time following and attempting to refute their wild predictions. I do it because I cannot tolerate the supercilious presumption of authority to socially engineer my world; I do it because I believe these alarmists have debased both science and truth; I do it … to guard the world … from a social dictatorship and to show them I did not come under the spell of a Hollywood-style blockbuster of belief.”
I concur with Robert Carr!
In addition I do it since I’ve seen no conclusive hard evidence that humans have destroyed our climate as the alarmists claim with their alleged AGW hypothesis. Prove it I say, or shut the frig up about it till you can prove it. In the meantime show ALL your work in every detail. Programs. Data. Notes. Emails. Drafts of papers. Files. Show us everything. Or stop being funded by the public purse and go into privately funded science and don’t publish.
Paul Ehrlich? Let’s get real…. this is a biologist who thinks demography is simply human herd and range management. The net result of his efforts and his “Club of Doom” co-conspirators has been to discourage reproduction among people who could afford to have and educate children while the illiterate and ignorant continue to reproduce. Oddly enough, demography is something I can claim some small experise in and I would welcome a discussion from anyone on the topic.
Paul Vaughan (21:55:22) :
People just laugh at hyperpartisan nut-jobs.
That is absolutely true. And it is part of the problem in getting the word out about AGW not being correct. The ‘Oil Industry’ maneuver was successful enough to put all anti-AGW folks in the lamp of Big Oil. What, then, is the proper solution for that?
Schneider has continuously said things that suggests that just think mankind is evil or stupid or both. He’s been trying to scare the public for his whole career.
This is an old strategy he suggested in 1989 “we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”
In 1971, Schneider co-authored a paper warning of the possibility of a man-made “ice age.” See: Rasool S., & Schneider S.”Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols – Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141 – Excerpt: ‘The rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
In 2009 his response to Pielke’s debate offer, “ I certainly will not schedule some political show debate in front of a non-scientific audience–all that does is generate confusions since lay audiences can rarely discern the quality of a scientific argument.”
It appears he thinks that only “he and the Team” can discern the truth! A dangerous megalomaniac lurking beneath the guise of science!
IanP’s link to the NZ story is worth checking out.
Our old freind from the Met Office at Hadley Center, Peter Stott, it seems has been busy. He’s rewritten AR4 so that we can all have newer “peer” reviewed version of the same story to replace the now tainted IPCC version.
Next we’ll have other favorites provide us with their back page political diatribes to the choir – and they cite a “new” peer reviewed IPCC replacment for their appeal to authority.
I didn’t think they’d give up but I’m glad to see them using the same tired tactics,slogans, and ad homs. Like the lady from Georgia says – it hasn’t worked very so far.
I think they should do this. It will prove that a Wal-Mart flyer has more integrity
then “climate scientists”