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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Richard North is up to half a Billion pounds Government spending on alarmist propaganda pushers in the UK alone and still counting.
Globally, more than five times the cost of the Manhattan Project. So far.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/03/five-times-cost-of-manhattan-project.html
As has been pointed out, the Government, Big Oil and especially Big Bankers are actually pouring money into the alarmists’ trough so fast that they are having to learn how to breath through their arses as well as talk through them.
But we are well funded?
Yeah. Right!
John Whitman:
“He who digs a pit for others falls in himself” is an ancient Russian proverb, translated verbatim.
Actually, I think Luboš Motl is correct, and some of environmentalists (certainly Schneider and Ehrlich) are mentally unstable. Which doesn’t release them from responsibility for their financial abuse of science, of course.
Man, the gall of those folks is unbelievable. Schneider says
Stephen, I think your colleagues know that, viz:
So yes, it’s not a gentlepersons debate … and Professor Schneider, everyone knows who is responsible for that.
Once again, I must commend Judith Curry for seeing the real path and speaking the truth.
‘God, can’t we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,’
This is exactly what we skeptics have been saying for years!!
This is hilarious coming from Stephen Schneider, one of the promoters of the 1970s ice age scare.
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/
Schneider still has a hockey stick up. Full contact sport? Someone’s getting a bodycheck. 😉
But the good news is, before I was merely a (temporarily) retired citizen scientist, but now I’ve been promoted to a “well-funded merciless enemy”, like Flash Gordon’s arch-enemy, Ming the Merciless. That’s just awesome.
But where are my henchmen? Ming and every other self-respecting well funded merciless miscreant grasping for world domination has henchmen, where are my henchmen? I demand henchmen!
It’s worth reading the comments at the end of the Washington Post article.
Not one is favorable to these crooks and some border on the scandalous.
If they were looking for some sympathy from Joe public, they grossly underestimated the audience.
As far as the population is concerned, I think the planet can handle 25 billion people comfortably. You know, there are 250 million tones of water on the planet per capita currently. That works out to 90,711 Olympic size swimming pool volumes each. Check my math.
Didn’t I read somewhere that Exxon has donated somw $20M to climate change studies over the last 25 years! Wow that’s big oil money really talking man! Really makes the US government’s contribution of $79Billion look like pocket money!
Andrew P. (22:36:17) :
The Washington Times editorial is also worth a read:
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/03/global-warmings-biggest-winners/
Meanwhile, here in the UK, “A review from the UK Met Office says it is becoming clearer that human activities are causing climate change. It says the evidence is stronger now than when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change carried out its last assessment in 2007.” – Pallab Ghosh, Science correspondent, BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8550090.stm
Just heard on BBC News (TV) that conditions in the Baltic are so bad that the icebreakers gone to the rescue of a passenger ferry are now stuck…
Form what I heard the Met Office rep say, was that the evidence is overwhelming of a warming world. Correct me if I am wrong, but does anybody out there who is sceptical believe that the earth has not warmed by around 7/10ths of a degree C over the last 150 years? Classic tactic, turn it against sceptics when it is atribution of warming that most of us are questioning, not warming itself. I had cause to write to a friend the other day to remind him that we’re in an inter-glacial, & the previous three over the last 400,000 years were warmer than to today according to ice-core data! Prof Jones has confessed that the rates of warming between 1860-1880, 1910-1940, & 1979-1999 were pretty much the same as posted on this site not so long ago. This alone seems to put paid to the “science” that the rate of warming in the late 20th century was unprecedented surely?
””’Willis Eschenbach (01:11:47) : every other self-respecting well funded merciless miscreant grasping for world domination has henchmen, where are my henchmen? I demand henchmen!””’
Willis,
And henchwomen. Don’t forget them.
Or would that be wenchhenchmen?
Some of the feminine persuasion help me out here please.
John
“God, can’t we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,” said Stephen H. Schneider…
Waitaminnit — what happened to “The science is settled — there is no longer any room for debate”…?
Aren’t Erlich, Schneider, and crew the ones who demanded — in 1979 or thereabouts — that we cover the Arctic ice cap with lampblack to warm things up and eliminate the imminent threat of Teh New Ice Age?
I simply can’t believe Ehrlich is still clinging to the idea that there is money in skepticism. Has that man ever said anything of any veracity ever?
Doesn’t Ehrlich get that the whole well-funded opponent theory is not only wrong, not only the opposite of what is true – but is totally irrelevant? Since when did a defensible argument depend on money?
Ehrlich and co make me sick to my stomach. The sheer damage and fear that man has inflicted on the world is staggering.
To correct some people here, these people don’t think energy companies are funding opposition; this is the big lie they want to propagate.
Willis Eschenbach (01:08:33): great comment.
Willis Eschenbach (01:11:47) :
But where are my henchmen? Ming and every other self-respecting well funded merciless miscreant grasping for world domination has henchmen, where are my henchmen? I demand henchmen!
Will we be issued death rays? Will they have lots of dials and sparkly tubes and make really cool theremin noises when they’re fired?
Ummmmm — ix-nay on the inal-spay ump-hay, though…
“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.”
I’m sure they will have no problem finding 50 scientists to pay “stupid tax”.
Paying for an alarmists’ ad in the New York Times? Don’t they know the Times do it for free?
Hell, the Guardian will pay Schneider.
Willis Eschenbach: “But where are my henchmen?”
I am here your evilness, what is your desire?
A nice cup of coffee perhaps? or … or .. a biscuit as well? Or shall we be really evil and open up the chocolate hob knobs!
Harry Eagar (00:44:12) :
“Is this the same Schneider who wrote ‘Science as a Contact Sport’ and impugned the bona fides of anybody who doesn’t accept the output of his (as he himself admits) impenetrable models?
Why, yes, it is. He can talk out of both sides of his mouth.”
More like he’s talking out of his [self snip].
Where is the “man-made global warming” lying propaganda leading us?
Here’s a clue…
British Businesses are facing a nasty “emissions” law shock
The British government has underestimated by six times the number of businesses to be covered by “greenhouse gas” emissions legislation that will take effect in just over three weeks. Ministers have told the business community for more than a year that about 5,000 to 6,000 companies in the commercial sector will be covered by the regulations, but in fact as many as 30,000 could be involved. This enormous revision to the government’s estimates is likely to cause consternation among small to medium-sized businesses, thousands of which may be unaware of the restrictions to be faced.
The regulations, originally called the “Carbon Reduction Commitment” and now known as the “CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme”, cover companies whose electricity is metered by the half hour and whose total electricity consumption exceeded 6,000 megawatt-hours in 2008, requiring them to monitor and report their electricity use.
Officials have been preparing the rules for about four years, after the scheme was proposed by the government-funded Carbon Trust, a body that advises businesses on their emissions. But Environment Agency officials recently discovered the scope of the regulations to be far broader than had been thought. Companies covered by the regulations will be required to register from April 1 and will have until September to show that they comply. Between now and September, the Environment Agency, which is in charge of implementing the CRC, will work on establishing exactly how many businesses must be included.
The problem of implementing the regulations is compounded by the fact that the government is relying on companies to come forward on their own initiative to register. Some companies, particularly smaller businesses, may be unaware of how much electricity they use, if bills are paid at the branch level rather than centrally.
Companies covered by the scheme will include retailers, banks, owners of large offices, and hotels. Public sector bodies that operate large estates of buildings, and hospitals, universities and some large schools are also expected to qualify. When companies have calculated and submitted details of their energy use, the government will publish a league table ranking them on their efficiency. Companies at the bottom will be penalised, with the money raised redistributed to those at the top.
The CRC is already controversial. Several companies, including British Telecom, have complained that the energy they take from renewable sources, such as wind turbines, is not reflected in their ranking. Another source of contention is that those companies that are highly efficient in their energy use will lose out to rivals that have never taken efficiency measures, because the latter will be able rapidly to improve their position in the league table at minimal cost.
The government also expects investors to use the rankings as a way of judging environmental performance and as evidence of how well a company controls its costs. Procurement managers may also use the tables as a tool to ensure their suppliers meet “green” requirements.
Just confirms what the Royal Socities of Chemistry and Statistics and the Institute of Physics were saying. These guys are not following scientific procedures. When they are questioned they resort to abuse. Ironic that they accuse people who disagree with them of being in the pay of someone, when they would have no research funds without heavy Government support. Talk about vested interests. Government in EU has used their research for greatly increased taxation, with not much visible sign of it going towards real solutions to the perceived problem.
I hear Katrina victims are suing oil companies for causing the hurricanes due to global warming. LOL. If it’s true oil companies are funding much of the AGW fraud then it’s sweet justice. Perhaps that’s what we need. Let’s all sue the oil companies for trillions. Watch them turn around and not only rubbish AGW but prove this it is a hoax, scientifically and in the courts. With all their resources it wouldn’t be that hard.
My apologies to Humpty, the King’s Men and the Horses but I couldn’t resist…
Climate Science Sat On a Wall,
Climate Science had a Great Fall,
All of the Adverts and attacks Hominem,
Can’t put Climate Science Together Again.
Maybe they should put an add on the home page of “The Journal of Irreproducible Results”; http://www.jir.com
As usual Willis Eschenbach comes up with a scientific rebuttal of the claims. Thank you Willis.