The publication this week of a paper titled ‘Expert Credibility in Climate Change’ in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences will certainly do nothing to raise the credibility of the authors, those attempting to defend the paper in the media, or climate science itself.
The paper itself is junk science. It attempts to define climate scientists by their belief in global warming as a potential disaster and then attempts to see just how expert they are by looking at how many papers they’ve published and how many times other scientists cite those papers.
The project failed miserably, getting incorrect names, scientific specializations and numbers of citations. Scientists all over the internet are having an ‘I’m Spartacus’ moment, saying that if they are going to get lumped into the skeptic camp, at least the study could have accurately got their names and number of publications correct.
Spencer Weart, author of The History of Global Warming, rejected the paper decisively, saying a first reading showed so many defects that the paper should never have been published. He was not alone.
The second worst thing about this paper is the evil it has the potential to unleash. In the course of preparing this paper, the authors collected the names of signatories to various petitions regarding global warming. Some of them were of a skeptical nature. Some were pretty innocent–saying that the signatories agreed that there was no consensus on global warming’s ultimate effects and scope. But now, this list exists in one place and has a title on it–and no matter how they pretty the title up, it’s essentially ‘Damned Global Warming Denialists Who Should Never Get a Job or Get Published Ever Again.’ And that is how it will be used, despite the pious protestations of some who don’t want to be around to see the dirty work get done.
But by far the worst thing about this paper is what it will do to Professor Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, listed as co-author of the paper, and the man who eased this garbage into print by virtue of being a member of the NAS (which meant he could publish without peer review).
Stephen Schneider has authored or co-authored more than 450 papers (although the data used for the study says 683), mostly about climate change, and he is an expert on the subject.
Schneider started his career boldly. Back when scientists were actively trying to prevent the threat of nuclear war, a group of them (including my personal favorite communicator of science, Carl Sagan) advanced the concept of Nuclear Winter, saying that a nuclear war would result in a prolonged period of blocked sunlight, destroying agriculture and meaning that the survivors would envy the dead. Very dramatic picture and their campaign was effective politics.
But Schneider found the data (and my hero) was wrong, and showed that what had been called nuclear winter would in fact be more like nuclear autumn. Going against the mainstream and many respected scientists, Schneider made his bones.
He did it again. In 1971, he co-authored a paper that suggested that aerosols could cool the atmosphere enough to usher in the next ice age, although he was clear that it would take a lot of time. But by 1976 he had come to the conclusion that CO2 would not only counteract the aerosols, but that it was warming the atmosphere.
Sad, but how many scientists have sold their souls in the name of AGW?
He failed long before he lent his name to the blacklist. He failed when he sold out his ethics in favor of promoting CAGW.
So if you go out of your way to sign a public declaration of some sceptic viewpoint, trying to draw public attention to your viewpoint, that’s OK. If other sceptics compile lists of sceptics or sceptic publications to try to impress people by showing how numerous they are, that’s OK. But if somebody takes those same lists and does some analysis on them, then suddenly those exact same lists, the ones that sceptics had been previously publicizing to anybody who would listen, become dastardly? That’s so tenuous, it’s comical. And really? Everybody knows people like Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Svensmark are sceptics, nobody needs any sort of list to tell them that, and yet they are still getting published.
Mind you, I don’t think it’s a very good paper, but this particular response to it just doesn’t make any sense.
Stephen Schneider minced no words in blaming Katrina on global warming :
@carrot eater says:
June 24, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Quoting a comment from the original article:
marty says:
For anyone who stills doubts the maliciousness of this list, I would like to point out other lists that circulate in academia and have had adverse effects on the members careers.
There are several lists circulating on Creationists in science. They pretend to be collectons of people who believe in the bible literally and fix the science to conform to the timetable in Genesis. In reality, it contains anyone who has criticized Darwin, plate tectonics or the big bang. It contains people who have used creationism in the context of Dirac or Obukhov who were hardly religious.
There is another more famous list of antisemetics in academia. Of course all you have to do is criticize any aspect of Israels behavior to get on this list.
I know from first hand experience that both of these lists have been used to deny employment to qualified candidates.
I know 14 people on Prall’s blacklist. They are fine people. They don’t deserve this.
June 24, 4:53 PM
Bear in mind that the primary author of this damnable paper is not even a scientist (he is a computer programmer) and Schneider is a propogandist.
How on earth did this morass of disinformation ever get to be published in PNAS without Schneider’s influence.
Schneider has always been an ambulance-chaser.
His “scary scenarios” comment is typical of his career. First it was Sagan-inspired “nuclear winter” and then it was Hansen-inspired “catastrophic global warming”.
Not clear that he has actually published any real, hard, empirical science on anything. Just lots of scary opinion thing-ies.
As a geologist, I look back over tens of millions of years Earth history and see clear, consistent evidence of far greater climate extremes than today – both hot and cold – and note that nothing approaching a “tipping point” has ever materialized. Things change, but life goes on.
Most of Earth history has been hotter than today, and somehow species have evolved and survived and exploited diverse ecological niches to prosper – or have failed and gone extinct. That’s how it goes.
Schneider and his gang are now attempting to black-list scientists who dare to express skepticism of their Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming paradigm with this pathetic little paper based on opinion-list-searches. How sad. How desperate. How scary for the future of wide-open scientific research (if anyone attaches significance to this sophistry).
Let’s have a wide-open debate on observations, data, facts, and testable theories. No more appeals to authority, name-calling, or fallacious claims that computer model results are “results” or “data”.
C’mon Steve. Man-up! Show us your DATA.
Stephen Schneider is from the 60’s. That will help some people understand where he is coming from.
Carrot eater,
Your argument fails. If a scientist signed a petition circulated before the IPCC frame of reference used as the adjudicating criterion for inclusion as a UE (Unconvinced Expert) in the paper, he or she is being judged as not agreeing with something that hadn’t yet been written.
Further, if a scientist signs a relatively innocuous petition that says that a consensus on global warming has not been reached in 1988, that scientist is now lumped with all skeptics.
And don’t say this won’t happen and won’t be abused. There are science blacklists now against those who purportedly don’t believe in evolution (although many do, but disagree with some of the polemics used against Christians) and those who are considered anti-Semitic (although many of them are nothing of the sort, but have had the temerity to criticize Israeli policy at some point in their careers. Some of the scientists on this list are Jewish.)
This is cheap, scummy, politically motivated McCarthyist garbage, and what it speaks volumes of those who defend it.
They are obviously getting desperate at this point. They don’t have much time. I can see November from my house.
Stephen H. Schneider is second on this list of Warmist advocates;
http://www.openletterfromscientists.com/list-of-signers.html
having co-written written this Warmist propaganda letter;
http://www.openletterfromscientists.com/index.html
which “was sent to federal agencies” on Friday, March 12, 2010.
Jim Cole says:
June 24, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Schneider has always been an ambulance-chaser.
In Search of the Ultimate Disaster.
I may have a lower view of him than Tom Fuller. Stephen Schneider appears to have left off the possibility of reasoning over global warming. His tone in this video is of finality, it seems:
carrot eater says: “yatta-yatta, yatta-yatta…Everybody knows people like Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Svensmark are sceptics, nobody needs any sort of list to tell them that, and yet they are still getting published. yatta-yatta, yatta-yatta.”
They may now gradually find it harder and harder to get published. Less famous, younger scientists on the list may become unemployable more rapidly. But the most evil effect lies in forcing other scientists to be silent, lest they be added to the list, or, worse, to alter their results so as to appear to be “good scientists.” There are stark historic parallels; I need not enumerate them.
The sanctimonious mask of green righteousness has come off, revealing a hideous face of despotic terrorism beneath it. Now is the time to remember: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Better one light that failed than the many that will get switched off if this AGW BS is allowed to run its course.
The list is shameful and unworthy of someone purporting to be any kind of scientist.
I think the real point is that since the Warmists blocked dozens, if not hundreds, of articles by ‘skeptics’ with their peer review censorship (‘peer’ meaning fellow believer and likely collaborationist) , that the ‘skeptics’ must be dullards. Because they could not get published.
Not that the Warmists can not tolerate debate.
Is anyone but me thinking that we have gone well outside of science and entered politics?
Hmmmm.
“the man who eased this garbage into print by virtue of being a member of the NAS (which meant he could publish without peer review).”
“publish without peer review”!
Well, that’s ironic. And it certainly does explain some other things in the PNAS.
This junk paper is recognized as junk even among the “convinced”…
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/notes-from-the-whaling-and-warming-wars/?sort=oldest&offset=2
It was designed from the very beginning as a blacklst, I dare to say. All manifestos, lists of “sceptic papers”, books on “deniers” could not be used toi deny employment and/or grants, for sure not directly, because it might result in discrimination suits. Now – like in case of eugenics – PNAS has confirmed with its authority that “deniers and sceptics” are less productive scientifically, that they can not obtain grants. So many employment commitees will have a “hard and scientific proof” that it is justifiable to deny employment to so poorly promising guys. You origin in “bad folks”you stay with them, it opens road to – lets call it – apartheid in climate science. Nice design 🙂
CE – “…and does some analysis on them”. The data collection methodology and “analysis” in that paper is appalling. If that’s your idea of analysis you need to go back to school. But perhaps you know better than those two sceptics, Weart and Steig.
It shows the very low standards now accepted in some parts of the scientific world that this “paper” would be published by NAS. It should have been in Hustler, Mad, or some other satirical publication.
Some more videos where Steven Schneider appears:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvUz0mtrOk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nprY2jSI0Ds&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Ecotretas
Whatever goes around comes around.
When people survey the wreckage of the economy as they shiver in the dark, it is reasonable to suppose that they may be just a tad hacked off at the AGW fabulists and eco-fascists that are the architects of this whole sorry scam.
When that happens and the peasants turn up with flaming torches and pitchforks, I trust that someone will be around to give them copies of this paper. That will help people identify who it was that was more interested in advancing their career and taking cushy well paid sinecures playing with computer models, completely careless of truth and the consequences of their junk science lies.
CE,
Having seen the methodology for the creation of lists and ranking of people published in PNAS, the questions is NOT about the scientists currently on the lists. The question is what does this say to the next generation of scientists.
personally if I were a grad student i’d sign every AGW petetion I could.
Anyway, what really interest me are the NON signers. The category that nobody
is looking at. Hulme is a Non signer
What does it mean to be a NON signer? that’s the fasinating category.
Not sure that such a long black list is so bad. It confirms that if we kick off a new peak peer review journal that it will b big, diverse and well resourced. A journal that makes accurate predictions will beat one that makes dud predictions. An expensive journal is only important if governments and libraries buy it. It is also important if its cheap, accurate, imaginative and sells well to the public. If governments accept it as evidence in government enquiries and court cases. If it is not accepted a journal can quickly disappear. Does anyone remember the soviet science and news magazine Sputnik? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_(magazine)
Or the dozen or so journals titled ‘Soviet Journal of…’ Some still exist but under new names and editors. The journals Science, Nature, etc are on shaky ground.
If a developed country backs a more open but more cautious journal then industry, sound science and scientists will gravitate to that country. It, and its journal, will advance.
“publish without peer review”
I believe Galileo, Newton and Einstein did that too
If producing a list of scientists unconvinced by the evidence for global warming is so dangerous, why did nobody warn Morano when he made his list of 650 “dissenting” scientists? A list compiled with on flimsy evidence and without consulting those included. I personally know one scientist who objects to being included as it completely miss-represents his work and views.
That Morano’s list should have been praised, and the current list (which is not published in PNAS) should engender so much rage suggests a certain lack of consistency in the logic of the so-called skeptics.
The BBC headlined this yesterday morning, just another”drip” in their continuous “drip,drip” feed of AGW drivel.
You guys have said it all. BTW, it’s not fair, I want to be on the list, I hate being left out!
On a more serious note, it’s amazing how these people who would have apparently virtuously spurned extemists such as the murderous Lenins/Stalins/Hitlers/Polpots et al, yet are perfectly at ease with using their political tactics to achieve their aims! The aforementioned were all Socialists I am lead to believe.
Craig Bohren had some interesting recollections of Mr Schneider:
“In particular, Steven Schneider, now at Stanford, previously at NCAR, about 30 years ago was sounding the alarm about an imminent ice age. The culprit then was particles belched into the atmosphere by human activities. No matter how the climate changes he can correctly say that he predicted it. No one in the atmospheric science community has been more successful at getting publicity. NCAR used to send my department clippings from newspaper and magazine articles in which NCAR researchers were named. We’d get thick wads of clippings, almost all of which were devoted to Schneider. Perhaps global warming is bad for the rest of us, but for Schneider and others it has been a godsend.”
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2006-08-07-global-warming-truth_x.htm?csp=34
Personally I would be proud to be on the list of those who are sceptical, because the real scientists is always a sceptic unless or until the evidence proves otherwise.
The irony is that real scientists care about the science and will have nothing but contempt for the idiots who dream up these PR stunts to try to support bogus pr-science.
There was a time when I believed in AGW (the melting glaciers on Nat Geo, etc. were pretty convincing to a teenager), and I believed that we had to take cautious action. Once I began to inform myself about the facts, I became less convinced and now thanks to blogs like this, I have become a skeptic. But as an undergraduate physics/mathematics student at a relatively liberal university and with dreams of a PhD, I thought it would be best for my academic future if I kept my name away from such a controversial subject.
I’d only recently convinced myself that I don’t have to worry about posting my name to my views. It’s very commendable that some of you can wear this skeptic badge with courage and pride, but I have to pass.
The top signers of APS09, a moderate statement, ( http://www.climatephysics.com/GlobalWarming/APS.htm ) are preeminent physicists. Compare to the top signers of Bali07 which is alarmist, and there is one Nobel prize winner, then Trenberth, then various coauthors and random hockey stick generators. The latter are not even written up in the pro-alarmist Wikipedia. It says to me that real science is moderate and alarmism is not science.
“Non Signers” – those who were given a chance to repent but did not avail themselves of the grace of Al Gore. I’ve some red robes around here I can forward to Dr. Schneider – address?
Tom Fuller says that Schneider is mildly famous among skeptics for his scary scenarios. Does he mean ‘famous’ or ‘infamous’?
Maybe no one should be called an `expert on climate` unless they can explain natural variation.
In this book
Richardson, Hal. 1957. One-man War: The Jock McLaren Story. Griffin Press, Adelaide
whose main character and actions in WW2 guerrilla warfare is pretty well described if you search for the Wikapedia listing of above.
A quote wrt this thread is
“McLaren’s numerous land and sea guerrilla actions so disrupted Japanese operations that eventually the Japanese placed a reward of 70,000 pesos on McLaren’s head.”
The book records his response – to laugh and set about raising the price
and that seems an appropriate response to this listing
Mike Jowsey:
Nice try, but it doesn’t add up. The gentlemen on these lists quite happily and quite voluntarily put themselves on those lists by signing petitions and public declarations and the like. The lists already existed, and were publicised by the sceptics to show that they existed. They weren’t any sort of secret. Now suddenly the same lists are bad?
If I recall correctly, this very website recently had a blog piece listing 500 sceptic journal articles, or somesuch. I guess that was a blacklist too?
Sceptics sometimes point to the Oregon Petition to show how numerous they are in number. Go to that website, and you have a nice handy list, all in one place. That’s a blacklist too? [not that I think that particular list is meaningful]
I’m Skeptacus!
GrantB: I didn’t say it was a well-done analysis. In fact, in my very first comment I said I didn’t think it was a good paper. So don’t put words in my mouth.
All I’m saying is that this blacklist stuff is silly. All these people quite happily signed these public declarations. So the fact that they signed these things was never a secret, nor did they want it to be.
It strikes me as ironic that a paper called “Expert Credibility in Climate Change” is authored by CAGW (sorry, ACC) advocates with the following credentials:
A 2008 BA graduate in Biology who is now in a PhD programme.
A computer techie working as a Senior Systems Pprogrammer (academic background not known).
A BA in a self-designed major of “Ethics and Intellectual History” with an MBA in business.
AND Stephen Schneider who ushered the paper into publuication presumably without peer review.
What suggests the idea that this might not be intellectual work of the highest calibre?
Jim Cole says:
June 24, 2010 at 9:01 pm
“Most of Earth history has been hotter than today”
and, according to Prof Plimer’s Heaven+Earth, “Polar ice has been present for less than 20% of geological time” (page 10). Indeed, “The Earth is normally free of ice” (page 40). So naturally driven downward trends in ice should come as no surprise.
Tom Fuller: for what it’s worth, the FAR is from 1990, and the oldest sceptic declaration being considered is from 1992. But I also think the 1992 and 1995 lists are too old to use, because somebody’s assessment may have changed since then. But that’s a rather different argument than your headline one. It’s your argument that fails, because it just strains credulity to think that taking a small number of very well-publicized lists, each one celebrated by sceptics, and putting them all on one website turns it into a blacklist. Wikipedia has for years had a page listing sceptics. Sceptics would point to it, as a show of numbers. Was that a blacklist?
The denier deniers are quite busy lately, with re-runs of old and discredited scare stories (Arctic sea ice melt etc.), whitewashing work parties (Oxburgh and chums), Buff Huhne (in between extra curricular activities) rallying the faithful:-
SECRETARY of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne says the real challenge for a Britain recovering from recession is to build a “different kind of economy… “one that cuts our carbon emissions to tackle climate change and which makes our energy secure in a volatile world.” He went on: “I want Britain to be the best place in the world to do energy business. To lead the world in decarbonising the economy. To develop the unique products and processes that will power the second industrial revolution – the green revolution – just as steam, coal and iron drove the first.”
And now we have The Great Moonbat entering the lists, as ever, with a lively and completely dishonest defence of the corrupt, incompetent IPCC and their shroud waving claims as dreamed up by WWF:-
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/06/moonbat-too-far.html
Of course, Moonbat is a turgid little prat but I have to point out that we can now look forwards to all the usual suspects braying that, not only Richard North but WUWT and all deniers everywhere have been totally “discredited” and Pachauri and the IPCC entirely vindicated.
This may deserve a posting on its own. Note that as Richard North points out:-
“the (Press) complaint was directed at the weakest link, The Sunday Times, which had made some errors in attribution.
Although these errors did not affect the substance of the case, the paper has chosen to go far beyond that needed, and conceded that “the IPCC’s Amazon statement is supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence.” This simply is not true.
However, the central falsehood having been endorsed now by The Sunday Times, this has been sufficient for the WWF to declare a victory and cut and run, thus displaying the corporate cowardice and mendacity that one would expect of this odious organisation.”
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/06/corporate-cowardice.html
Naturally, all this has little to do with any kind of science and far more to do with money and power. That is to say, politics.
Expect this whole AGW scam to get a lot more nasty and dirty before long!
carrot eater, your comments are disingenuous; it is not the sceptical side of this debate which has ferociously promulgated the unscientific and unscrupulous idea of consensus science, an oxymoron; the sceptics have been forced into this bean-counting as a response to obtain traction in the court of public opinion via the media. The simple fact is this; the CAGW thesis [sic] is now mainstream; it has the imprimatur of the establishment, an irony since the green paradigm has always thrived on being against the establishment; accordingly, CAGW now has its bureaucratic support structures, its vested interests and its educational programs; to think those aspects will not resist a contrary position is ridiculous. This paper is a threat against non-conformity, nothing more.
This says more about PNAS than anything or anyone else.
and don’t forget the hateful, popularist regime in the background (Obama). This current administration ouzes hatred like nothing I have ever witnessed.
It says in the article this was a Cold Winter in the Northern Hemisphere? Are they kidding or something? Canada had its warmest winter on record by far with temperature anomalies being positive 10 degrees in many high latitude regions. Just because the US and England were cold doesn’t make the whole northern hemisphere cold… Canada covers more Land than both combined and the entire country as a whole had its warmest winter whereas only parts of the United States were cold.
Bad data, dubious hypotheses, over-drawn conclusions…
But hey, it’s (this paper) climate science.
Robert,
“It says in the article this was a Cold Winter in the Northern Hemisphere? Are they kidding or something? Canada had its warmest winter on record by far with temperature anomalies being positive 10 degrees in many high latitude regions. Just because the US and England were cold doesn’t make the whole northern hemisphere cold…”
Your protesting is pointless, because it is a matter of fact that the Northern Hemisphere was colder. Your problem originates from comparing Canada against the US and England, yet you have omitted Russia and China entirely. Russia alone is larger than Canada.
The NH was colder. Deal with it.
Who is William R.L. Anderegg?
Donna Laframboise wrote an article at nofrakkingconsensus.
The lead author of a research paper causing an uproar in the climate science world appears to be a student. Six months ago, a person with this same name (and an identical e-mail address) uploaded a blog post during the December 2009 Copenhagen climate summit.
Describing himself as “a student at Stanford University” William R. L. Anderegg was witness to an event that will long be remembered for the number of limousines imported into Denmark so that the earth-friendly delegates might spurn free public transit.
Certain that the occasion was historic, this naively young mind writes:
Could you run that by me, again? The lead author of a paper which purports to assess the achievements and credibility of hundreds of collective years of scientific expertise, that lead author is a climate change student at Standford University?
The same Stanford University at which paper co-author Stephen Schneider happens to teach?
He’s a real life Dr. Robert Stadler, for those who’ve read “Atlas Shrugged”.
Life without ethics, honor, integrity (whatever you wish to call it) is a real waste of time. To endorse something that you “feel” is right is frequently just as bad as endorsing something that you know is wrong. Unless you “know” what you’re talking about, you’re usually speaking jibberish and killing your reputation. A scientist who only applies the rules to his work, is no scientist.
cause de jour. whatever keeps the grant money flowing.
Skeptic Student writes:
“There was a time when I believed in AGW (the melting glaciers on Nat Geo, etc. were pretty convincing to a teenager), and I believed that we had to take cautious action. Once I began to inform myself about the facts, I became less convinced …”
“I’d only recently convinced myself that I don’t have to worry about posting my name to my views. It’s very commendable that some of you can wear this skeptic badge with courage and pride, but I have to pass.”
A young relative of mine works at a university in town and she has asked me not to send her anything climate science related to her university email but send them to her personal email as that if someone in her office saw (for want of a better term) an anti-CAGW reference or article in her email she could lose her job.
Is this the America we want?
I agree, this is the most sinister use of science I have ever seen. Will any discrimination on the basis of being a skeptic breach anti-discrimination laws? Where are ALL scientists stepping forward in solidarity saying “today we are all skeptics”.
The only antidote is solidarity and the light of day –
Someone needs to start a web page where scientists can list any discrimination they experience. Making this public may make people think twice before maliciously rejecting papers or cutting funding. Patterns of discrimination will quickly emerge.
To weed out unjustified complaints based on just bad research, the same website could offer volunteer independent peer review to document quality of rejected papers, projects or careers.
“cohenite says:
June 25, 2010 at 5:04 am
carrot eater, your comments are disingenuous;”
Worse, cohenite. He knows what he does is particularly vile and it excite him.
———————————————
bunny, eh?
As if Hefner would ever let you near the place. You’re just old and freaky.
>> Robert says:
June 25, 2010 at 5:31 am
It says in the article this was a Cold Winter in the Northern Hemisphere? Are they kidding or something? Canada had its warmest winter on record by far with temperature anomalies being positive 10 degrees in many high latitude regions. Just because the US and England were cold doesn’t make the whole northern hemisphere cold… Canada covers more Land than both combined and the entire country as a whole had its warmest winter whereas only parts of the United States were cold. <<
First, the point the author was making was that CAGW has taken a credibility hit in the past 9 months. The bulk of the world population experienced a very cold winter. Whether or not the northern hemisphere was warm or cold doesn't matter as much in that regard as whether or not the people who's opinions drive the politics were warm or cold. Schneider is, after all, mainly a political animal.
Secondly, the fact that you cherry picked an unimportant part of the article to criticize shows that you totally buy into the CAGW dogma, to the point where you feel an obligation to defend the publication of a blacklist. As others have pointed out, it's not the threat to those on the list that is most troubling (although that's a concern) but the implied threat to any young scientist who dares question the CAGW dogma.
“Robert says:
June 25, 2010 at 5:31 am
It says in the article this was a Cold Winter in the Northern Hemisphere? Are they kidding or something? Canada had its warmest winter on record by far with temperature anomalies being positive 10 degrees in many high latitude regions. Just because the US and England were cold doesn’t make the whole northern hemisphere cold…”
We had this a lot of times, i keep it short: Europe: cold, Mongolia: cold, Siberia: cold, China: cold. All NH. Go figure. There are places in the world that don’t speak english as their first language. Even in the NH.
A good place to learn about such places is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World
just a thought……
Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman met near the end of the Civil War. They came to a conclusion, especially Sherman, that the only way it would end is if the North decimated the resources of the South. So Sherman went on “Sherman’s march” through the South. He burned Atlanta (though his troops went beyond his orders and burned more than he said). His troops tore up the railroads, heated the rails to red hot and bent then into bows (they became called “Sherman bows”) so they couldn’t be usable again. They destroyed factories. They burned crops.
The South had no resources to carry on. The war could have lasted decades if not for it.
So I’m thinking that the climate models have to be destroyed on tv with so everyone can see models are flawed. Some global warming scientists may have to be exposed on tv for their bad science and embarrassed. And the IPCC reports may have to be completely dismantled publicly to end all this.
But maybe the cooling weather with longer, colder, snowier winters will do the work for us. Looking at the poll numbers maybe that is happening already.
just a thought
Hard to believe that a scientist has stooped so low – seems he’s been corrupted by $cience.
Slate has a very solid rebuttal to the PNAS paper.
http://www.slate.com/id/2258088/
As I pointed out on Tom’s site, Schneider is the kind of person who will argue that nuclear power isn’t green by assuming nuclear power causes a global thermonuclear war every 30 years and adding in the CO2 from all those burning cities.
These guys warm their feet with bottles filled with hot air, that´s why they have their feet cold and their heads hot, too hot for thinking properly.(*)
(*)Air volumetric heat capacity=0.001297 joules per cubic centimeter
Water volumetric heat capacity=4.186 joules (3227 times that of the air)
It does not matter how many “chemicals” you put into the atmosphere, as long as it is a gas, its volumetric heat capacity will be far less thant that of water.
Chances are you would get an atmosphere like Saturn, very, very cold.
And….CO2 is transparent, it is not black as you thought. Look yourself at a mirror while exhaling, do you see any black gas going out from your nostrils/mouth?
Carrot I think the issue is the combination of the list WITH the assesment of what constitutes “expert”.
using grey literature to establish expertise in peer reviewed literature.
using non experts to establish experthood.
hey, it climate science
Tom Fuller,
When this list was made, did you start talking about blacklists?
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport
Summarizing, once again, what it made me upset from the start, was that stupid theory of the atmosphere “saving heat”through any “greenhouse effect”. In Svante Arrhenius time the trouble was the high contamination of cities with SOOT (carbon dust), which eventually was cleaned up. In every case, COMMON SENSE says, that if we contaminate any atmosphere with, say, SO2,CO2, carbon particles, CH4, H2S or whatever, we will end isolating the surface from sun rays and having a very,very cold temperatures. I don’t care if a bunch of post normal physicists believe it and show it with elegant equations. It is not possible.Period.
Think the following: How did you do your breakfast TODAY?, What did you use for heating up your coffee?…Come On!, did you do it with a hairdryer?
The EPW issued a whitelist, showing scientists who think for themselves.
This….”toilet paper” is intended to provoke revenge, hate, violence from the innocent and naive people who have been convinced till their bone marrow itself of the mantras they have propagated as a the CREED of the New Religion of Gaia/ecology/Environmental Conscience/Green ethics, etc.,etc. against human targets .
That’s hilarious. So if Morano makes and trumpets a list of sceptics, it’s a whitelist, and nobody’s talking about yellow badges or the nefarious purposes for which such a list could hypothetically be used. I see.
No. You don’t see.
I find it unfortunate that so many have focused on the list as a “blacklist”. It’s not that it can’t be used as such. It can. So can many other lists. But it distracts from what, IMHO should be the main focus.
The method of compiling the list and producing the paper is incredibly shoddy and that’s where the focus should be. Discredit the methodology and the significance of the list goes away.
Should also note that the paper was peer reviewed, but that the author apparently gets to pick the reviewers. The final result is pretty much the same as no peer review.
Smokey,
So what exactly is it, that I don’t see?
The point is that if somebody out there was motivated to somehow persecute sceptics, and wanted a list to go off of, then that person could have been doing so for quite some time. Because sceptics have been busily making lists of themselves. The person could use the Morano list, for example.
So it just doesn’t make any sense, when somebody else comes along, and combines a few pre-existing lists of names, to suddenly start talking about how this will enable all sorts of horrible things. The Morano list could be used the exact same way, if somebody were so motivated. Yet that’s an issue that Tom Fuller has chosen to highlight, and stand by.
‘Damned Global Warming Denialists Who Should Never Get a Job or Get Published Ever Again.’
Sue for loss of earnings.
In my field of research, scientists compete to get studies to publication and openly debate findings in proper forum. That’s how scientific inquiry is advanced.
Building and publishing lists of who is on what side of the debate with the intent to blackball, smear, or defame is so grade-schoolish and a professional embarrassment to anyone who engages in such brattish behavior. It is indicative of someone who has too much play time built into their grants to engage in serious work.
“”” richard telford says:
June 25, 2010 at 12:44 am
If producing a list of scientists unconvinced by the evidence for global warming is so dangerous, why did nobody warn Morano when he made his list of 650 “dissenting” scientists? A list compiled with on flimsy evidence and without consulting those included. I personally know one scientist who objects to being included as it completely miss-represents his work and views. “””
Well Richard; so you know one person whose name appeared on Marc Morano’s
“list of 650” who objects to it being there; and misrepresents his views. I’m sure that could happen; but don’t use that to mischaracterize the list or those on it.
As you know (I presume) that list was initially put together as a list of 400 “scientists” or at least persons concerned with the global warming issue; whose names came to Morano’s attention while he was working as an aide to Senator Inhofe; who is the ranking Rebulican on the Senate Cimmitte on Energy and Public Works; which now has California Senator Barbara Boxer as its chairman.
Senator Inhofe was interested in knowing what other scientists thought about the global warming issue which was being promoted by the AGW crowd; mainly Dr James Hansen. Anyone on that list would presumably be contactable by Senator Inhofe’s office, if he wanted to get some specific input.
So my name for example; is on that original 400 list, largely as a result of comments I had made in various places; one of which was a letter to “Physics Today” published Jan 2005 commenting on a review by somebody (now deceased) named Morrison; of a Book by Spencer Weart, on the “Discovery of Gobal Warming”. My comment was on Morrison’s book review (in Physics Today); not on Weart’s book; but PT sought and got a retort from Weart himself; not from Morrison. I was not given an opportunity to respond to Weart; and Weart himslef declined to discuss it.
So Marc Morano contacted me; and noted he had read several of the things I had posted in different places; I think Tech Central station was one such place. He asked me for clarifications or elaborations on some points (of mine) he had read; and he also asked me “who the hell are you anyway”; Well no he didn’t use those words; so he specifically asked me about my educational credentials and pertinent background; something he could use to “identify me” in some scheme of relativity to the issue; preferably already published public information; not any self promotional input from me. The only thing I had of that nature I could point him to; other than US patents for example, was a single article put out by the University of Auckland Society; essentially the University Alumni Association, in which they reported my receipt in November 2000 of the Society’s Distinguished Alumni Award in Science; they jokingly call them their “University Knighhoods”; from Dr John Hood; who was then Vice Chancellor of the University; and now Chancellor (I believe; but maybe vice) of the University of Oxford, in England. I think I was perhaps the 21st recipient, and maybe the fifth in “Science”.
So I gave that reference to Marc Morano; and also warned him that the actual article had some erroneous statements; in the nature of exaggeration, that were the work of the then Director of the Society; who had translated my non-existent Resume, into her own words.
So Morano, quite specifically asked me, If he could include my name in such a list, and explained why Senator Inhofe was interested in having such a listing. Mortano agreed, that some people he had on the list; were not actuals scientists in the usual sense of the word; but had been vocal in various ways relating to the climate issue. I made it clear to him; that I was in no way a skeptic; that I had no interest other than to see that they “Get the science” correct; had no ties to energy or resource industries; nor being a recipient of any kind of grant funding from anybody on either side of the issues; well I’m not on either side of the issues; Just on the side of getting the science correct; and not actually working in any way in the field; but possessing the basic Scientific skills to evaluate the available reported science.
So Morano had my permission, that he directly asked me for, to include my name on the list; and I also told him, that I would and could give him any assistance he might want in informing Inhofe; of specific SCIENCE issues, should he want that. And I made sure that the posted itmes he had in my “dossier” were really my actual writings; and that I was still supportive of whatever positions I had represented. And that he had adequate menas to retrace my academic history to verify anything; he might need or want to.
And my understanding was that he followed that procedure pretty much in most cases.
Inhofe’s first report was issued, when Morano, had 400 names; and yes it is possible that some on the list had misunderstood what the list was for; and I am sure there were some who realized that “coming out” might jeopardize their academic institutional positions; so wanted their names removed.
Your friend, I am sure can easily get his name off that list by simply contacting either Senator Inhofe’s office; or Marc Morano himself.
Once the list was included in the Committees procedings; there was a sudden inrush of requests form people who wanted to “get on the list”; and that is how it eventually became a second listing with arond 640 names; about the time that Marc Morano left Inhofe’s office.
So there was in fact nothing at all sinsister or underhanded in any way; about that compilation; but their certainly could have been instances; where Morano may have misinterpreted the true positions of some of the people. The list was based on people who womehow had come to attention by publishing somewhere some comment related to the global warming issue; adn I am sure there were some who felt a bit vulnerable to unwanted attack from peers; but Morano attempted as best he could to see that nobody was on their unwillingly or misrepresented. But yes I agree that some could have slipped through the cracks. But they can always have their files removed or corrected if they wish; I didn’t attemppt to have Morano correct some of the exaggerations that were in my “bio” since the UofA Society publication already had that in print. I think there was some nonsense thing that I “invented” LEDs; which originally was that I had invented some specific examples of LEDs (1996 Ford Thunderbird Tail Light); that got editorially garbled.
I’m sure that anyone can look up the original listing filed in the Congressional Committee reports; and see my whole file as Morano put it together; and yet it is quite provable;w ith the caveat, that those were NOT my own words in the Society publication; but they are essentially true; for what it is worth.
To present an image of Morano misusing the published works of some unwitting, or unwilling scientists, and misrepresenting their real views; is simply not a true statement.
George E. Smith,
Thanks for that explanation. Although some just can’t see it, there is a big difference between the EPW list and a hit list put out by someone who arbitrarily presumes who should be on it without asking them.
Hank Hancock is right, it is simply brattish behavior, indicative of the alarmist mindset.
Carrot – what you don’t (or won’t) see is this: this list associated with the PNAS article doesn’t just put people into lists, along with the article it seeks to discredit those on the “denier” side of the list. So they are using the status of NAS to further marginalize a group that has already been, to some extent, shut out of the grant money/publishing process by the CAGW’s who are the gate keepers. So unlike the other lists, this one actually has the potential to further silence those with dissenting views. If you don’t see this then you don’t want to.
Without looking it all up, this cretin’s absurdly and o.b.v.i.o.u.s. willingness to deny any, and A.L.L. scientific law, is the stuff of legend; and, if there are indictments handed down for funding/money/government influence improprieties, he will almost surely be on the list.
Schneider is the loon who published the now hilariously ridiculed “The answer’s blowin in the wind, my friend” paper,
in which he asserted, that
(1) all the thermometers used to detect accurate temperature up just a few miles, don’t work
(2) he himself wrote a PROGRAM, that
(3) IS MORE ACCURATE than ALL the SATELLITE,
ALL the RADIOSONDE,
ALL the AIRCRAFT THERMAL SENSORS
of the WORLD
and that YEP: IT’S HOTTER’N HELLFIRE UP THAR
and that NOW,
FINALLY, we HAVE the EVIDENCE that will FINALLY, SHUT UP those stupid deniers.
CAN you BELIEVE that? Well, it’s true.
Now: the OTHER bit of UTTER INFAMY and actually probably, legally actionable thing that he did
was remember, the KEVIN TRENBERTH Email where the idiot trenberth was nearly apoplectic, moaning and mourning the fact that what HE had been for YEARS preaching was APOCOLYPTIC HELLFIRE in the SKY
– the C.E.R.E.S. graphs showing the amount of radiation coming and going from the earth’s atmosphere –
was actually more and more obviously just the standard typical weather for the times –
ok well the THING ABOUT that EMAIL
is that it was ABOUT, a BBC REPORTER who had SAID that, “it hadn’t warmed since 1998, and that it was time(about now, this was said just a month before the release of the emails by someone in disgust at the criminality going on)
for the oscillation to swing to the cooler side –
in that email where TRENBERTH was CRYING and MOANING – because he RECOGNIZES that THEY’RE CAUGHT –
MICHAEL MANN was seen ORGANIZING a COMBINED GOVERNMENT MET OFFICE,
PRIVATE unreal climate WEBSITE ATTACK,
and
STEVEN SCHNEIDER
was seen saying to them all, “You might want to do what my student suggests, below. Such fun, CHEERS.
What the ‘STUDENT SUGGESTED was aTELEVISION CAMPAIGN to DENY what that reporter said.
Now ALL this went on, on WORK SERVERS as they COMBINED to try to SUPPRESS the FACT,
THAT – what ?
What Phil Jones had said on the SAME WORK SERVERS some years before:
“The SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY would COME DOWN ON ME in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS IF I SAID THE WORLD HAD COOLED SINCE 1998.
Ok it HAS, but it’s ONLY BEEN SEVEN YEARS OF DATA (every year since) and it isn’t statistically significant.
Now; Phil Jones’ name is on the LIST of people receiving the string of emails.
What all this leads to gentlemen is that there is NO QUESTION that the entire group of people on a small list of email addresses
who are almost SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for the ENTIRE SCAM
KNOW
that it hasn’t warmed at ALL: not one IOTA for almost 12 years –
and people there are more crimes going on than someone can shake a stick at: they are actually ON WORK SERVERS SAYING they KNOW IT HASN’T WARMED any.
Now
THESE PEOPLE
are making assertions of NINETY PERCENT ASSURANCE
THESE PEOPLE
are making assertions of TRUTHS and STATISTICAL LIKELIHOODS.
These are the SAME people who were too STUPID to KNOW that the “Mannian ‘Climate Math” they were furiously spamming papers, using –
ISN’T EVEN REAL MATHEMATICS.
These people: SCHNEIDER being one of the MAIN AGITATORS in this EXTORTION SCAM that was a small-time funding scam till Al Gore shined a light on it and they all had to keep actually defending the FRAUD they had SPAMMED to get some funding
are a SMALL band of GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE
CRIMINALS.
They have committed more breaches of ETHICS and DISCLOSURE and just plain CONTRACT of EMPLOYMENT regulations
not to MENTION
the FEDERAL FUNDING FRAUD CRIMES
than anyone so far has even been able to sort out, where to even start counting.
SCHNEIDER is one of the MAIN elements responsible for the sheer SOCIOPATHY – indeed as is VERY easy to see what he does is effectively, CRIME:
using these government employees’ claims that they’re so smart no one is qualified to check on their work,
and LITERALLY destroying people’s lives and using GOVERNMENT GRANTS to FUND the EXTORTION and OTHER CRIMES they – like i said this ISN’T a large number of people, just about 14 to MAYBE 20
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES
ARE STILL committing.
Schneider and Mann, Schmidt and Trenberth, Jones, Hansen,
These people are all criminals.
That’s what they are, there isn’t any question about it because there isn’t any question where Jones got his
“has just cooled a tiny bit, not even statistically significantly” REAL TEMPERATURE:
The raw data posted online each month SPECIFICALLY to CATCH PEOPLE MASSAGING DATA to SPIN POLITICALLY CONVENIENT or FINANCIALLY CONVENIENT messages;
and there was NO ONE who TOLD PHIL JONES – “but WAIT PHIL – it HAS warmed and STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANTLY…”
They KNOW they have been doing CRIMES
and they – SCHNEIDER AMONG the most HARDCORE of the CRIMINALLY MINDED AMONG THEM
are trying to spread what?
more
TERROR
so no one has the guts to call them, what they all know, they’ve been REVEALED as:
criminals.
This was a TERRORISM SCAM to EXTORT FUNDS that GOT out of CONTROL when Al Gore lost his MIND
and shined the bright light of the world on the SCAM.
and NOW they have all TRIED to KEEP UP the EVIL
and make it COW
orderly governance
and the rule
of
LAW.
And it’s up to the PEOPLE of the WORLD
to PUT them where they BELONG:
The PILLORY POST
and then JAIL.
CARL SAGAN was your hero?!? Tell us if he still is. Espouser of aliens, all rubbish.
Vincent and others,
See
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=5&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=1203&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
You do have to from time to time support your claims with evidence. The display there shows that the Northern Hemisphere was warm this winter… even consider looking at the temperature scale and how regions (like where I am from) were 6.4 degrees warmer yet the coldest were only 5.4 degrees colder and covering less area. Insulting GISS’s method is not evidence either, it is counterproductive. If you do not agree with their methods, then make your own method. Clearclimatecode has already gone through GISS’s source code and has validated it so you have to do better than just to insult their coding. The data stations are available and certainly if anyone here is willing to do a northern hemisphere temperature analysis and reconstruction it would most definetely help to understand the real changes taking place, but unless you’re willing to make a constructive effort to improve things, you can’t sit back and snipe at those who try (whether effective or not)…
Secondly, there’s no need of ignorance like whoever sent me a wikipedia link to the globe. As a GIS analyst I think I know a little about maps so lets try and avoid being uncharacteristically rude because I do not agree with your opinions.
Thirdly, see http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps
or
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
for the near surface layer and you will see that globally up to now temperatures measured by satellites are still the warmest over this measurement period (even including 1998) and that it wasn’t even close…
Funny that
In Pralls list on http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/skeptic_authors_table.html
He cites my title as doctorandus (rank number 397) which is strictly correct but the international equivalent is MSc Geoph. Apparently somebody in the past did not read my online CV.
He also cites my areas of research as “Arrhenius was wrong” yup that is the title of one of my online pages, so why didn’t he choose:
Homogenisation of Uccle and De Bilt based on census data
A processing aliasing artefact in the early Quelccaya ice core record
Langley infrared observations (1890) revisited
The debatable European summer temperature since 1500 of Luterbacher et al.
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/index.html
His google scholar failed to find:
Dietze, Peter and Hans Erren, 2003. The Greenhouse effect should not be redefined, Energy and Environment Vol.14, No 6, pp. 921-922, December 2003
So the conclusion is that I spend at least equal time in bashing cranks as criticising alarmist fairy tales.
Furtermore I do think that scientific authors should publish their data, that’s science isn’t it? I thought everybody was convinced about that, apparently not. Schneiders scary scenarios are the tenet of ACC. But I stopped believing false prophets a long time ago. It’s a well known fact that the IPCC is severely biased.
We lukewarmers don’t share the IPCC alarmistic views, there are many shades of grey between black and white.
“”” Smokey says:
June 25, 2010 at 12:21 pm
George E. Smith,
Thanks for that explanation. Although some just can’t see it, there is a big difference between the EPW list and a hit list put out by someone who arbitrarily presumes who should be on it without asking them. “””
Smokey; Marc Morano did not just pick people’s names from some source, and out of the blue call them to see if they wanted to be on a list. The people he contacted (including me) had already indicated, in some published or public statement fashion, that they had an opinion; apparently contrarian to the AGW mantra TO SOME DEGREE. These people ; many of whom I have personally exchanged notes with, ranged from being just not convinced beyond all doubt that humans were the cause; or maybe even that there was any warming; to every range of skepticism that CO2 from man’s activities was the cause. But they were all people who had themselves, unsponsored; made some public statement on the subject. And he then started to follow up on such writings as he found them; to determine the individual’s level of interest; and agreement or disagreement.
Some on the list are clearly NOT deniers; and barely even skeptics; they maybe were just not convinced that global warming was a serious issue, and man was clearly the cause.
There are certainly some on the lits who would fully merit the “kook” label; and I won’t name any, because their spirit is in the right place; they are just somewhat misguided by erroneous understanding of some of the Physics. And you can believe that Marc Morano, knows that; because in some of the more blatant cases, I personally cautioned him, that he (and the Senator) could easily get a lot of egg on the face by promoting some of these more extreme view points.
Marc after all is not a scientist; he’s a reporter , and an inquisitive rock turner. And he still kept some of these people on the list because he did not want to be judge and jury; he was interested in all levels of dissent with the propagandist view. And I have also exchanged conversations with some of those “weirdos” which I don’t mean in any derogatory sense at all; to try and point out to them, where it didn’t help their own cause to take an extreme position which clearly couldn’t be supported by any facts or theory.
I have always believed that ignorance is NOT a disease; we are ALL born with it. But stupidity has to be taught; and there are plenty willing to teach it for their own ends. I’ve felt it to be worthwhile to try to explain to the “far out” types why their positions were untenable and try to point out in ways they could easily understand with whatever level of knowledge they do have. Some times it works and sometimes it doesn’t; but there are some very enthusiastic non-conformists; who don’t seem to want to learn some new viewpoint; they are quite happy where they are; and sometimes quite defensive too. The only stupid questions are those that people never ask.
Mis application of the Second Law of Thermo-dynamics is a common way of getting out on a collapsing limb.
Even here at WUWT; the spectrum runs the range; and I just assume that people come here to learn or to explain; or just comment; and even to support the AGW position. The saddest part of the latter; is that those folks mostly just cite links to the well known practitioners of that view; that we already know about.
How often do you see any AGW strong supporters come here and actually present any of their own Scientific arguments for their point of view. We are all certainly better off, because Anthony and the referees post the whole range of sentiment that isn’t libellous; I’m sure I learn a lot from the positions of some of those posters although they don’t present much Science.
I don’t fully understand what position Phil takes; and I suspect he might have some institutional links that could curtail his inputs; but I have always found him informative; and in fact quite gracious; including throwing me a rope when I was personally digging in a deep hole that was leading me over a precipice. I’m here to learn as much as I can too.
George
Schneider is a disgrace. I recall his attitude at Copenhagen when a journalist asked him about “climategate”.
carrot eater says:
June 24, 2010 at 8:37 pm
“So if you go out of your way to sign a public declaration of some sceptic viewpoint…thats okay”
The list is in published by the ‘National Academy of Science’.
Obviously, we live in a country where anyone is free to have an opinion, and to even compile lists of those they like and don’t like. I’m sure James Hansen has a list of people he doesn’t like and Marc Morano has another list and Joe Romm has yet another list. Individuals are entitled to their opinion.
The National Academy of Science was created by Act of Congress in 1863. It is the nations ‘official adviser’ on Science Policy.
Jimmy Prall is a good pal of Canada’s Deepclimate -btw Who is deepclimate? McKittrick seems to know…-.
All the Winnipegers who are posting on deepclimate, Joe Romm are best friends with Prall. They criticize the Edmonton Journal except when it publishes their own rubbish twice last winter… Funny how some guy who left blogging his tail between his legs is now so arrogant under the “Maple Leaf” pseudo…
Mike Haseler says:
June 25, 2010 at 1:54 am
“The irony is that real scientists care about the science and will have nothing but contempt for the idiots who dream up these PR stunts to try to support bogus pr-science”
====
Hmmm … suggest there might be a typo in the above: should this not read “… to support bogus prescience”?! … or alternatively “… to support post-[modern/normal]science 😉
Forgive me, mods, for I have punned.
well first of all Energy and Environment is not a real journal… loehle 2007 even got it through there and was absolutely demolished later by real climate removing any credibility E & E has that they did even any moderate fact-checking and reviewing from that article.
Robert,
You are a fool.
I thought Loehle 2007 was fine; this condescension towards E&E is wearisome, given the terrible papers published in ‘reputable’ magazines in favour of AGW:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/09/ten-of-the-worst-climate-research-papers-a-note-from-cohenite/
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/04/more-worst-agw-papers/
Robert fails to see that this “publication” is an obvious smear attempt to put both the Pielkes in the “denier” camp.
Hans,
Curious, you would think you would favor having such people on your side?
which people are you referring to Josh?
You know I like bashing physics ignoramuses as well a doomsday prophets.
I admire your work on G&T.
Unfortunately there can be major repercussions.
Dr Calzada has just been sent a bomb.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-green-energy-company-threatens-economics-professor-with-package-of-dismantled-bomb-parts/
“…Says Calzada:
Before opening it, I called [Thermotechnic] to know what was inside … they answered, it was their answer to my energy pieces.
Dr. Calzada contacted a terrorism expert to handle the package. The expert first performed a scan of the package, then opened it in front of a journalist, Dr. Calzada, and a private security expert.
The terrorism consultant said he had seen this before:
This time you receive unconnected pieces. Next time it can explode in your hands.
Dr. Calzada added:
[The terrorism expert] told me that this was a warning.
The bomb threat is just the latest intimidation Dr. Calzada has faced since releasing his report and following up with articles in Expansion (a Spanish paper similar to the Financial Times). A minister from Spain’s Socialist government called the rector of King Juan Carlos University — Dr. Calzada’s employer — seeking Calzada’s ouster. Calzada was not fired, but he was stripped of half of his classes at the university. The school then dropped its accreditation of a summer university program with which Calzada’s think tank — Instituto Juan de Mariana — was associated”
One idea, paper, or patent by some unknown could change the world tomorrow! If academia insists on suppressing thought then it will fail all together. Everyday Americans are getting fed up with sending there kids to universities to be taught by arrogant hacks who don’t care about anything, but their fame and funding. People just aren’t going to send their kids to overpriced (California!) institutions.
Global warming is not caused by human excesses. It is big business conceived by its proponents.