Wow. The Atlantic rips Penn State and Muir-Russell a new one.
Some excerpts follow:
He believes in the issue and likes the carbon tax:
I think climate science points to a risk that the world needs to take seriously. I think energy policy should be intelligently directed towards mitigating this risk. I am for a carbon tax.
But he hates corruption:
I also believe that the Climategate emails revealed, to an extent that surprised even me (and I am difficult to surprise), an ethos of suffocating groupthink and intellectual corruption.
He gets it, scientists behaving badly help nobody, least of all their cause. Penn State and the Muir-Russell fiascos only compound the damage:
In sum, the scientists concerned brought their own discipline into disrepute, and set back the prospects for a better energy policy. I had hoped, not very confidently, that the various Climategate inquiries would be severe. This would have been a first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific consensus. But no, the reports make things worse. At best they are mealy-mouthed apologies; at worst they are patently incompetent and even wilfully wrong. The climate-science establishment, of which these inquiries have chosen to make themselves a part, seems entirely incapable of understanding, let alone repairing, the harm it has done to its own cause.
At least somebody in MSM is starting to see that whitewash affects climate science, and we aren’t just talking paint.
@ur momisugly Phil says:
July 14, 2010 at 12:31 pm
“Let this be an opportunity to de-polarize the politics of this issue. I would submit that it is entirely possible and with great personal integrity to be more supportive of AGW than not and still harbor significant skepticism about the science. Likewise, I would also submit it is possible with great personal integrity to be intensely skeptic about the theory of AGW and still harbor great concern that some or most of the effects predicted might take place.
The precautionary principle ought to apply not only to the possibility of CAGW, but also to the possibility that the proposed changes in public policy may NOT do any good and may, instead, be extremely and irreversibly disastrous. Thus, a more cautious approach would be to look for things that can be done to mitigate CO2 emissions that don’t carry the enormous costs of carbon taxes, cap and trade, etc., such as converting our passenger vehicle fleet to clean diesel.”
The problem is that it has already been completely politicized. When a politician is presented with more than one choice, they invariably select a course of action which enhances their political agenda. Politicians are genetically averse to uncertainty, and will avoid it at all costs.
Scientists ( or any “expert” ) are not the “deciders” and can only offer an opinion based on their knowledge. Those opinions place no obligation on the person charged with deciding the issue.
If I ever bother to register at The Atlantic, I’ll ask Mr. Crook why the Big Green Lie exists if it is not essential to the agenda he supports.
I can only agree with the 2nd paragraph. The Climate Scientists at the helm have all gotten rather drunk on thier own doings.
To the climactically sober, it’s apalling.
To continue down such a corrupted path, sown with falsities, would equally generate a corrupted carbon tax, and impose a ball & chain on genuine efforts to be proper stewards of the environment. I would go so far as to say that the obsession with warming & carbon taxes has already crippled progress towards a better place to live.
For that reason, plus the burden of a carbon tax on productivity leading to insufficient means to realistically address environmental issues, I soundly reject any such tax.
When the cold wind blows, it will turn your head around.
I just read the complete article and, just as your excerpts suggest, it is rightly hard on the investigaors. The comments on the article are oddly interesting in that all of them take up the question of AGW and none of them address the topic of the article. Anyone want to take a guess why?
I am NOT for a carbon tax, nor indeed for more taxes of any kind; but a CO2-abatement tax is sheer nonsense. CO2 is necessary for plant life, and more of it means better crops, better growth of other plants, and a greener planet. That science has been known for a long time, and all of us who observe have seen the truth of it: bigger leaves on trees, better growth and bigger blooms on flowers, quite measurable change. Record crops have been reported. The idiocy of trying to sequester or stop production of CO2 would have been hard to imagine even a few years ago. That people are seriously pursuing it now, in spite of plenty of science to the contrary, is frustrating. Apparently they don’t bother to read the relevant literature, or even to think. “There is none so blind as he who will not see.”
In the second to last paragraph, the author utters this:
Congress and the administration can get to the right policy — an explicit or implicit carbon tax; subsidies for low-carbon energy — without the greens’ input, so long as public opinion is convinced that the problem is real and needs to be addressed.
There is a premise in law which effectively states that when something is to be taxed, then all those things which are associated with that ‘something’ are also equally subject to taxation. A sort of ‘guilt by association.’
In this this case, the author is seemingly blithely unaware that a ‘carbon tax’ could well extend to a breathing tax. Or, more succinctly, a tax on human life.
It could well extend to virtually all ‘owned’ life such as farm animals and pets.
You could refer to it as a ‘justify your reason for existence tax.’
If you think to laugh over that thought, then consider just this: The UN has managed in the past to muster the necessary support to make many treaties a reality, and a number of those treaties are onerous interventions and invasions of personal liberty.
And then there’s that part about “[…] so long as public opinion is convinced that the problem is real and needs to be addressed.”
“Public opinion?”
Since when has ‘public opinion’ ever been the sine qua non of the basis for law?
Who the hell is the public in ‘public opinion’ anyway? What ever happened to the theme that human rights take precedence over ALL public opinion?
And just how many other fiats is he willing to toss in with such an argument?
If you ask me, the proper title for that article should have read: “Tip-toeing through the tulips …”
Not a bad article, but it’s still just just a cry in the very large mainstream wilderness.
I agree with “Ed says: July 14, 2010 at 12:51 pm”
It is only now that any sceptical comment will be promulgated by the MSM; previously this was anathema and was not permitted. Now editors and media owners are not so sure of the ground beneath them, the “science” is not as cut-and-dried as they were once led to believe, That is why there is now a greater and growing tolerance of articles such as this one. Dissent from the so-called “main-stream” beliefs is growing, not only in volume but also main-stream acceptance.
Sites such as WUWT have to take a lot of the credit for this; their diligent, intelligent and, above all scientific approach has left the AGWers grasping at straws.
Whitewash is bad for good science… true, but of course isn’t it very good for ‘Global Cooling’ by reflecting the sun’s rays? So maybe that’s why they’re using it so much.
It is always a very, very sad sight when people get more invested in protecting individuals rather than protecting a cause that they believe is just and right. Usually it is because they manage to convince themselves that somehow the cause can’t survive without those given individuals, but that’s just wrong. There are supposedly how many thousands of scientists in this “consensus”, and they can’t regroup and move forward without disciplining a handful of their number?
That’s a bizarre article. While Crook recognizes the obvious in regard to the climategate shenanigans, he, like many of his non-science soft liberalist colleagues still can’t get his head around the science. Nevertheless, he blesses a program for the mitigation of the unknown (and unknowing), referencing, really, only his own opinions as the authority. Many of his commenters suffer from the same malady: I am sentient, therefore I know.
I’m beginning to believe public education is a bad thing. Too much information and too many ideas are given to too many who do not have the intellectual capacity to understand the limits of what they know 🙂
I teach my kids: How long did the dinosaurs last? 365 million years.
How did they grow so big? Because of the large amount of plant life.
Why was there so much plant life? Because it was much warmer then.
I’d hazard a guess that throughout the aeons a rise in atmospheric CO2 content has always preceded an explosion of variety and an increase in size of all life forms with never a tipping point in sight until natural processes began to offset the beneficial effects of more CO2 in the air.
So natural processes initiated warming and a subsequent increase in CO2 so that the main function of more CO2 in the air was to enhance the environment for all forms of life and as a wholly beneficial side effect delay the slide back to cold when the natural processes turned once more.
That’s how we got animals the size of dinosaurs and the huge volumes of vegetation that produced all those fossil fuels in the first place.
The vast amounts of limestone around the world are conclusive evidence of the planet’s ability to strip out carbon from the air when conditions suit more oceanic micro organisms.
Energy efficiency is a laudable aim and well worth expense on research and provision of intelligent incentives (not the bizarre waste of subsidising immature solar and wind energy technologies) but a carbon tax to control the masses and keep the poor subjugated – I think not.
The author of the piece has started to see the flaws in the science that lie behind the disreputable behaviour but he has a way to go to understand reality.
Phil writes (July 14, 2010 at 12:31 pm):
“The precautionary principle ought to apply not only to the possibility of CAGW, but also to the possibility that the proposed changes in public policy may NOT do any good and may, instead, be extremely and irreversibly disastrous.”
Sunstein, Cass R. “Throwing precaution to the wind: Why the ‘safe’ choice can be dangerous.” Opinion. boston.com – The Boston Globe, July 13, 2008. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/13/throwing_precaution_to_the_wind
Main point:
Hilarious take on Al Gore. Iowahawk.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/07/the-two-randy-vicars.html
Carbon tax = production tax. Sorry, but any
twitperson that believes a carbon tax could be a good thing either isn’t aware of the world’s economy and/or has little regard for his fellow citizens well being. When did it become popular to punish people for being productive? Do people not realize what gives money its value? Or how wealthier nations have higher standards of living?This is a great article.
…When it comes down to it, there really is very little difference between the four whitewash panels’ studies and the scientific thoroughness behind AGW itself:
They started with a conclusion they wanted to support and then cherry picked evidence to support it while utterly ignoring evidence to the contrary. And they did it all by keeping it all in the family, talking only to people who were on board. It happened that way all the way back in 1986 at the first conference in Switzerland, the one that first declared there to be a consensus.
Nothing at all has changed.
Except that Climategate has intervened, pointing out to anyone with half a wit to see what is going on.
The tide has turned. The tipping point has already occurred. As long as they continue with AGW business as usual, they will continue to lose control of the situation that nine months ago – before Climategate and Copehagen – was their own private puppet show.
Good for them. The more they continue with the same mindset, the more CO2-induced AGW will get discredited, and the sooner the world can get past this sorry episode. We do have more pressing environmental issues that need attending to. The only regrettable part of the whole thing is that science itself is getting a black eye.
I myself do separate science from Co2-AGW alarmism, as many here do. But many in the general public might not see the difference. Science will get a bad rap for something these bozos have done in its name.
Here’s what I posted within a month of The Leak:
I’m delighted that someone else — i.e., this editor — agrees with me about the importance of the intangible factor of public trust. (And I’m also pleased, from a Machiavellian perspective, with the whitewashes, which are going to irretrievably compromise the warmist-sympathizer establishment.)
“I believe that the Climategate emails revealed, to an extent that surprised even me (and I am difficult to surprise), an ethos of suffocating groupthink and intellectual corruption.”
Ironic, isn’t it. I mean: ironic, because this journalist who is capable of recognising “groupthink” in others, fails to recognise it in himself.
Hence he begins with the apology: “I think climate science points to a risk that the world needs to take seriously. I think energy policy should be intelligently directed towards mitigating this risk. I am for a carbon tax.”
So the same guy who recognises that so much of climate “science” is weak and based on “groupthink” nevertheless takes pains to stress that he places himself squarely in that very same group!
Groupthink is clearly a powerful force.
Anthony… Thanks for this article. I enjoyed it too much.
Regarding Mann’s amnesty, it seems something is irreversibly off upstairs, uh?
Phil says:
July 14, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Phil, you seem almost too frightened to live!
Steinar Midtskogen says:
July 14, 2010 at 1:04 pm
CO2 emissions should be reduced, but as a way to stop climate change?
——————Reply
Beg your parddon, but even as a way to stop climate change, CO2 emissions should never be reduced. That is, unless you want to curtail world population through reduction of food stuffs. And guess what the word for that is? Genocide.
OK here, a new scare: Is it possible that the amount of Carbon being sequestered naturally might, over eons of time, drop the amount of carbon available for CO2 below the level necessary to support plant life?
google has a 6 -day -old aussie newspaper quote “We find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt” at the very top of the chronological (algore-ithmic) news articles page for a “muir russell” search, but u can at least find this very current piece in the “prestigious” THE so long as u scroll way down past the days-old articles on russell’s report:
15 July: Times Higher Education: Hannah Fearn : Hidden Danger: Willetts warns scientists to be more transparent
The “regrettable wariness” about sharing data shown by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia has added to the dangers that science faces from “complacency and arrogance”, according to the universities and science minister.
Speaking at the Royal Institution last week, David Willetts warned that scientists could “morph from admired public luminaries into public enemies” if they did not behave transparently and allow others “to test and challenge both methods and results”.
His comments were made after the publication of a report by Sir Muir Russell into the “Climategate” affair…..
Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, said that he would meet with the Information Commissioner to seek advice on how the FoI laws should be applied to research.
“Researchers must have freedom within the law to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without the fear of intimidation and threats,” Professor Smith said.
“We cannot have a situation where researchers dealing with controversial areas of study are faced with a barrage of requests for information on early drafts of research and discussions, with the sole aim of disrupting that work.”
Trevor Davies, pro vice-chancellor for research and knowledge transfer at UEA, said universities needed clarity on both the timescale for releasing active research data and the kinds of research data that should be covered by the act.
The problems researchers faced were compounded by the fact that the FoI Act did not allow for fair requests for information to be distinguished from those intended to disrupt work, he said.
“There is a real danger of important research being ground to a halt because of this difficulty,” Professor Davies said.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=412546&c=1