I had dinner with Richard Lindzen (along with Lucia, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Id, and others) last night after a hectic day of airline roulette. He’s easy to talk to and easy to like, so it is no surprise to me that he and Kerry Emanuel could have been friends as discussed in this Boston Globe article.
It is no surprise they grew to be friends.
Richard Lindzen and Kerry Emanuel are both brilliant and convivial. Both study the atmosphere and climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where their offices overlooking the Charles River are one floor apart. In an academic world often dominated by liberals, both have strong conservative streaks and once agreed that the evidence for catastrophic man-made global warming just wasn’t there.
But then the climate changed between them. Friends became intellectual foes, dueling icons in one of the world’s most acrimonious political debates.
Friends had a hard time staying friends.
Lindzen, a leading specialist on atmospheric physics, has emerged as one of the most prominent climate change skeptics in the world. At age 70, he speaks at home and overseas, arguing that there is little to worry about from emissions of heat-trapping gases from power plants, factories, and cars. We should “go back to dealing with real science and real environmental problems such as assuring clean air and water,’’ he wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Earth Day.
Emanuel, an equally respected researcher, emerged as a preeminent voice on climate change’s potential dangers after he published a paper three weeks before Katrina that suggested global warming might be making hurricanes more powerful. Named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine, Emanuel, 55, says he has been persuaded by the evolving science that man-made climate change is a real threat.
“I don’t see how a climate scientist can look at the evidence and not see risk,’’ he said recently.
Emanuel thinks Lindzen’s key theories don’t hold up, and just two weeks ago went public with his criticism, penning a tart letter to the editor rebutting Lindzen’s Journal piece — “irresponsible and misleading,’’ he called it, “advancing spurious hypotheses.’’
Lindzen has implied that Emanuel is hyping the evidence and making a play for fame and funding in the age of Obama and Gore. In a letter savaging an opinion piece by Emanuel in the Globe, he branded the reasoning “more advocacy than assessment.’’
In the Ivory Tower, these are fighting words.
The story of the scientists’ relationship is much more than a curiosity. The fact that these serious-minded colleagues and longtime friends disagree so vehemently highlights the immense difficulty of finding common ground on human-caused global warming. That’s because their disagreements are not just about interpretations of scientific data, but about how they assess the risks, amid the uncertainty over global warming’s future impact.
Their divide mirrors a much larger political split, as the US Senate begins to debate a climate bill written in large part by Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry. All parties to the debate have the same evidence to draw on; their conclusions are another matter. Lindzen and Emanuel’s collision spotlights the ultimate sticking point: What steps should we take, and at what cost? That is: How much insurance against the possibility of catastrophe should a prudent planet buy?
“If these two guys can’t agree on the basic conclusions of the social significance of [climate change science], how can we expect 6.5 billion people to?’’ said Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado at Boulder professor who writes a climate blog.
read the rest of the story here at the Boston Globe
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My goodness. I was expecting some good strong stuff from Emanuel, but he’s just a parrot for the IPCC report! All the old cliches – glacier retreat, wars etc, nothing of substance at all.
Does this mean that Kerry Emanuel has proven the link from man’s CO2 to climate?
After all, that is the foundation of the whole controversy. If you cannot prove that man’s CO2 is guilty, then no amount of climate change matters, politically, since it cannot be shown to be caused by man.
And if it is not, in fact, caused by man, no amount of cutting CO2 will be effective against climate change (only against man’s well being!)
Thanks
JK
Skepticism is its own machine.
================
Sounds like Kerry Emanuel has found it is easier to do politics than good science and the pay is not only equal but has added perks.
Where is his paper on the missing hurricanes in the preceding few years after the sun went dormant, how long will it take for the symmetry in science to occur?
It’s interesting that Emanuel claims that changes in the science have convinced him, because nothing has really changed in climate science for several decades now-no earth shattering developments that have truly changed the “mainstream” view (the current official estimates of climate sensitivity are exactly where the Charney report put them thirty years ago, for instance). Only the rhetoric has gotten more intense. No, what convinced Emanuel, I am absolutely certain, was how convinced everyone else insisted they were. How much they insisted that their confidence had grown ever larger. How self assured, how confident their tone was. Who can argue with that?
“If these two guys can’t agree on the basic conclusions of the social significance of [climate change science], how can we expect 6.5 billion people to?’’ said Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado at Boulder professor who writes a climate blog.”
What a devious and clever line of reasoning. We can never agree on any
course of action if two colleagues, who Holy smoke!, sit in the same university
building cannot even agree betwen themselves.
Widget again shows zero, is it broken or is reality showing. Emanuel says not interesting, Soon says very interesting. I think we are starting to see very interesting.
mikael pihlström says:
May 16, 2010 at 5:58 am
“If these two guys can’t agree on the basic conclusions of the social significance of [climate change science], how can we expect 6.5 billion people to?’’ said Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado at Boulder professor who writes a climate blog.”
What a devious and clever line of reasoning. We can never agree on any
course of action if two colleagues, who Holy smoke!, sit in the same university
building cannot even agree betwen themselves.
===
I was struck by that one too. Surely Roger Pielke Jr. doesn’t believe the scientific community is evenly divided on the issue.
I make it a rule of thumb that anybody who honestly believes we are experiencing catastrophic warming because of CO2 must be a strong & vocal supporter of buidling massive numbers of new nucleasr reactors as the only practical way of cutting CO2 release. Anybody opposed to nuclear simply cannot honestly believe the spin about catastrophic warming even if they are strongly pushing it. I can’t find Kerry having said anything on either side of this.
“Named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine, Emanuel, 55, says […]”
That says more about Time magazine than about Emanuel. Never heard of him before this article.
mikael pihlström says:
“[…]
What a devious and clever line of reasoning.”
Yeah those devious Pielkes. Watch out for them, they’re clever!
The point is, that science is NOT about risk!
In other words ‘risk’ is NOT a subject for scientists!
According to the inventor of the scientific method, the goal of the sciences is …. “that human life be endowed with new discoveries and powers”. As ‘climate risk’ does not fall into this category, it is by definition NOT science.
Someone ought to tell Kerry Emanuel that he is NOT doing science, but something else.
That is for others. The scientific method is aimed at finding out new stuff, so that mankind can gain understanding
The sharply worded vs. the sharply reasoned.
Pretty good Boston.com article, considering the source. It shows how money has corrupted climate scientists like Kerry Emanuel:
So Kerry Emanuel is in it in large part for the money, and Lindzen is in it for the basic science. Can there be any other conclusion from Emanuel’s quote?
mikael pihlström,
Roger Pielke Jr. is a well respected voice on climatology. His quote refers to “social significance.” The only thing ‘devious’ about it is your labeling it as devious. Pielke is simply commenting on the different views between Lindzen and Emanuel on the proper course of action regarding the CAGW scam.
Show me two scientists who agree on everything, and I’ll show you two scientists cashing in on the same grant. Emanuel is by his own admission putting a high priority on his new found loot, while Lindzen is doing his climate research without the lure of the easy money gravy train clouding his results.
Watched the video. Emanuel is a salesman. Like the Weizsäckers in Germany (bunch of brothers with a lot of political and Club Of Rome connections; thinking of themselves as very intelligent).
I don’t want scientists stating normative arguments about policy as scientifically based. I want scientists explaining a hypothesis, providing me with ALL of the data that supports or refutes that hypothesis, and the uncertainties involved in that data. Their opinion on the normative arguments about what, if anything, to do about their hypothesis is no more important than mine.
Not only is Emanuel’s opinion directly contradicted by the later work of Ryan Maue, that opinion appears to be contradicted by Emanuel, in a FAQ that he published in January of 2006, which said in the first anwer:
The global, annual frequency of tropical cyclones (the generic, meteorological term for the storm that is called a tropical storm or hurricane in the Atlantic region) is about 90, plus or minus 10. There is no indication whatsoever of a long-term trend in this number.
What did he really say? Rather than take the Boston Globe’s word for it, it is probably worth understanding.
““Named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine, Emanuel, 55, say
what is this “Time magazine” of which you speak?
The funding method for these folks MUST change. Lies are being bought!
There’s a report out – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7127706.ece – suggesting that Iceland may become a more significant player in global climate over the next few years. If Thor’s prognosis comes to pass it would put a significant crimp in AGW plans.
“They have reconstructed a timeline of 205 eruptions in Iceland, spanning the past 1,100 years, and found that they occur in regular cycles — with the relatively quiet phase that dominated the past five decades now coming to an end.
At least three other big Icelandic volcanoes are building towards an eruption, according to Thor Thordarson, a volcanologist at Edinburgh University.
“The frequency of Icelandic eruptions seems to rise and fall in a cycle lasting around 140 years,” he said. “In the latter part of the 20th century we were in a low period, but now there is evidence that we could be approaching a peak.”
Since so much of this AGW alarm is an ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Crowd’, I wonder what his reaction would be to the revelation of his role in instigating this mad crowd behaviour?
==================
“Curiousgeorge says:
[…]
If Thor’s prognosis comes to pass […]”
Well, with that name…
Everyone on the planet agrees that people are filthy beasts. Most also agree, that there are far too many of them on the planet and that they use and abuse the natural resources like crazy idiot teenagers. The problem is that each of us has a very different sense of how filthy and dangerous the beasts are, and how much damage they’re doing to Mother Earth based on our own proximity (and prejudice) to the infestations.
The “science” is not settled; after all people are really very stupid. Ergo: the only course of action when in doubt, we must use every means we have to protect ourself and our family and friends. How do we do this? With our position in society and our big fat mouth. I hear some even put money where their mouth is.
My fellow peasents, remember that the only things we have to fear are fear itself, and each other.
PS: We are NOT arguing with each other about “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, “CO2”, “Melting Ice Caps”, or anything else. We are positioning ourselves for our own safety against “them”*.
(* – “them” is not you or me, “them” is those who would harm us, and there are a lot more of “them” than you and me)
I his recent interview with Examiner.com, Dr. Willie Soon of Harvard absolutely ripped Stephen Schneider, professor of environmental studies at Stanford University. I wonder what he would say about Kerry Emanuel?
Perhaps I should inteview Dr. Soon a second time. Here is Dr. Soon’s Q&A, in which he advises Al Gore to “shut-up.”
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m5d11-Harvard-astrophysicist-dismisses-AGW-theory-challenges-peers-to-take-back-climate-science
In the mid-1980’s (yes, 80’s) a Boston University grad student acquaintance laughed when I asked him about global warming, explaining that one had to include it in BU science grants in order to get funding.
I guess they’ve been doing the same thing on the other side of the Charles.
Dr. Kerry Emanuel is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In public appearances like the video above, he puts up a nice image as a reasonable scientist.
However, it is clear from less ‘shaped’ venues that this is all a front.
Case in point: the MIT debate mentioned in the Boston.com article
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/730
Here he talks about the ‘big coal’ funding for skeptics, etc etc.