This is a week of extremes in quotes about climate. On one end of the scale we have professor Steven Schneider with a set of quotes so beyond the absurd, that he now has his own “jumping the shark” TV sitcom moment.
On the other end, we have the New Scientist, shocking warmists and skeptics alike with some hardcore doubt about the outcome of the Muir-Russell and other Climategate inquiries. They write:
But what happened to intellectual candour – especially in conceding the shortcomings of these inquiries and discussing the way that science is done. Without candour, public trust in climate science cannot be restored, nor should it be.
and…
Russell’s team left other stones unturned. They decided against detailed analysis of all the emails in the public domain. They examined just three instances of possible abuse of peer review, and just two cases when CRU researchers may have abused their roles as authors of IPCC reports. There were others. They have not studied hundreds of thousands more unpublished emails from the CRU. Surely openness would require their release.
All this, plus the failure to investigate whether emails were deleted to prevent their release under freedom of information laws, makes it harder to accept Russell’s conclusion that the “rigour and honesty” of the scientists concerned “are not in doubt”.
Full article here at The New Scientist
Distancing themselves from the train wreck
There are some interesting observations on this article on Bishop Hill
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/7/18/new-scientist-on-russell.html
Quite a few avowedly Warmist publications (and journalists) have begun the process of negotiation with reality in the past few weeks and begun to recant their absolute faith in AGW. Probably because they have seen the appalling train wreck which awaits ‘global warming’ theory not very far down the line, and are trying to re-invent themselves as even-handed observers.
We should not allow these ‘journalists’ and ‘publications’ off the train……seal the doors!
I’ve read NS for many, many years but I’ve now stopped buying it for the obvious reason.
Several years ago I did send several letters. Not surprisingly, they didn’t print any, but I was fairly impressed by the fact that one of their editors did write a proper reply, and then entered into a small amount of discussion, e.g. about the hockey stick. At least they were willing to talk to someone who was clearly leaning toward the sceptical side.
And now this editorial. There’s hardly a thing in it I could disagree with. In fact, it’s quite extraordinary. But just one criticism. It’s a little late in the day for them to realise that the honesty and oppenness of science needs defending. To pursue such a one-sided and biased policy over some years is nothing short of disgraceful.
It’s probably never going to happen, but it would be great if, some time i the coming years, they print an apology to their readers. Then I’ll start to buy NS again….
Chris
For sure, a proper inquiry would look at more than just the released emails. If one doubts that more emails would unveil more scandal, then one must have great faith in the Miracle Worker to have found all that was there.
===============
This is wow, just wow. A New Sci unsigned editorial right? Ed not Op-Ed. Similar to Fred Peirce, but much punchier. If this is one of Schneider’s tipping points then its not one many of us are gonna miss – lets watch out for the trend.
Friends:
I posted a comment on another thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/18/quote-of-the-week-steven-schneider-jumps-the-skark/
It seems directly pertinent to this thread, so I copy it here to avoid the need for those who are interested to find it.
It is as follows.
Richard
——————-
Friends:
Comments like those of Schneider can be expected to become more frequent because they are a shroud intended to obscure sight of the corpse of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) scare.
The CAGW scare is dead. It continues to run around like a headless chicken, but – like the chicken – it is dead while still moving with an appearance of life. And the movement will be obvious in Mexico later this year.
The CAGW scare is a bandwagon carrying a variety of researchers, politicians, carbon traders, and etc. in a direction they all want to go. But the scare has been killed by Climategate, the failure of negotiations in Copenhagen, and the failure of global temperature to rise as CAGW said it would over the last decade.
So, the wheels are falling off the CAGW bandwagon.
Those with any wit can see they need to get off the bandwagon before it grinds to a complete halt.
In the meantime, those riding the bandwagon need a screen to cover its wobbly wheels. And the screen only has to be sufficient for it to last until the wheels have fallen off the CAGW bandwagon and its riders have found another bandwagon (ocean acidification?) and have climbed aboard it.
The screen is the Oxborough, Muir Russell and etc, enquiries together with extreme assertions such as those of Schneider and Hansen. The screen is a shroud to cover the corpse of the CAGW scare, and a shroud does not need to last for long. It will not take long for the screen to be seen through, but it only needs to last until after the IPCC Meeting in Mexico.
But, the important point is that the CAGW scare is dead: its continuing movement is merely an appearance of it still having life.
However, like the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s, the smell of the corpse of CAGW will continue to pollute energy and economic policies for decades to come.
The ‘acid rain’ scare’ is dead, too. Nobody announced its death (and nobody will announce the death of CAGW) but few remember the ‘acid rain’ scare unless reminded of it.
And the ‘acid rain’ scare should act as a warning because it is very similar to the CAGW scare.
It was based on dubious ‘science’ that anyone could see was flawed.
It was denied by empirical evidence.
It was promoted for political and economic reasons.
‘Greens’ adopted it and promoted it as a method to attack industrial civilisation.
It was the major environmental concern in its day.
It was quietly forgotten when its political use had been fulfilled.
But the stench of its corpse pollutes the political scene to this day.
The Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) of the European Union (EU) is one good example of the stench from the corpse of the ‘acid rain’ scare. The LCPD was established in response to the ‘acid rain’ scare, and it sets limits to emissions of oxides of sulphur and nitrogen (SOx and NOx) permitted from power stations. The civil servants who were put in place to operate the LCPD need to justify the continuing existence of their jobs, so they keep reducing the emission limits. There are no valid scientific reasons – and no valid reasons of any other kind – for these reductions. But the latest reductions will force closure of all except two of the UK’s coal fired power stations in 2014.
The power stations could continue to operate if they were fitted with flue gas desulphurisation (FGD). Some have sufficient land available for them to fit FGD but others do not. More importantly, FGD adds about 20% to the capital cost and about 10% to the running cost of a power station.
A power station has to recover its capital cost over the entire ~30 years of its scheduled life. This recovery of capital cost becomes difficult when the capital cost is increased by ~20% and the power station’s running cost is increased by ~10%. The recovery of capital cost becomes impossible when the FGD is retro-fitted to a power station that is 5-years old so only has about ~25 years of its scheduled life remaining. Hence, closing the power station (with large resulting losses) costs less than fitting FGD to keep it running.
So, as a result of the ‘acid rain’ scare, in 2014 the UK will be forced to choose between leaving the EU or having its lights go out.
The CAGW scare is dead but it has yet to lie down and be forgotten.
There will be a temptation to forget the CAGW scare as it fades away. But – as the effects of the ‘acid rain’ scare demonstrate – this temptation needs to be resisted.
Richard
We are witness to the decline and fall of a cultural paradigm that also posed as a scientific hypothesis. I doubt history will designate AGW as a proper scientific hypothesis however, at least not in its later incarnation. AGW has more in common with phrenology or the Enron scandal or a modern variety of tulip mania – a sociopolitically pathological phenomena, to be sure, but not a proper scientific hypothesis. I hope that we as a civilization have learned some lessons from this failed attempt to join messianic environmentalism, statism and “hard” science into one neat package.
So don’t quit your day job, Anthony…We will know the end of the AGW myth is truly well advanced when climate blog – including Anthony’s – traffic begins to decline.
One thing we should all remember is that should have the weather played into the hands of the warmist true believers, the circumstances today would have been much different, with or without Climategate… It is a sobering thought to realize that the fate of humankind hinges, quite literally, on stochastically fair weather for the next few years.
I cancelled my subscription about a year ago, and filled in their form about re-subscribing. I said they could send me a letter when they decided they would once again live up to the “Scientific” part of their name.
November can’t come soon enough. Still, you have instituitions, like NOAA, who are falling all over themselves to spread panic and alarm.
Off topic. It is, after all, weather and not climate.
Coldest winter in South America kills people from Patagonia to Bolivia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10679088.
Only three years after rare snowfall in Buenos Aires (first since 1918) and other parts of central and northern Argentina: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6286484.stm.
The ways of global warming are mysterious.
The five stages of death are
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
We’re at bargaining.
They never really believed it. It was just a way to push their political ideals.
Wall Street Journal;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704075604575356611173414140.html
Setting up brick wall of 100 % correct when there is questions on the science is how the past always worked. Ignore the issue and it will go away showing we are still correct.
I hit the same brick wall in physics trying to show actual physical evidence to a theory that is defened as absolute.
Muir Russell was one whitewash too obvious. I think everyone knew that the Oxburgh and Mann were supposed to be bogus, but Russell held itself out as credible. Perhaps it was, instead, the worst.
Now will major media *finally* start a serious review?
The Times, UK, seems to be going the opposite direction, I wonder if there has been a managerial change.
Amazongate was retracted without due provocation and today they release a story of how Exon Mobile are still pouring money into sceptic causes.
I subscribed to Non Scientist for 20 years, but allowed my subscription to lapse because of their biassed coverage of climate change matters, and I told them the reason for my decision. Of course, I don’t know how many other subscribers they’ve lost for this reason, but the cynic in me suspects that this apparent change of heart may be a purely business decision.
Isn’t there some saying about rodent behaviour during marine disasters?
Well, a ray of sunshine at New Scientist!
I have left an encouraging comment – please all subscribers – give them some positive feedback to nurture this trend.
The ship of CAGW is rapidly sinking. Even the rats at New Scientist have enough sense to know the game is up and they are determinedly swimming towards the distant shore. I wonder if they will get sucked into the vortex as the huge CAGW superstructure plummets to the sea bed. Here’s hoping!
The end of the world is neigh when the New Scientist starts to jump ship. I had a subscription for a bit but let it lapse. The New Scientist is to Science as Newsweek is to news. A glossy cover promising a great revelation but an interior filled with duck feathers.
Perhaps what’s going on is that the warmist publications could dismiss the doubts raised by the skeptics, expecting that these expert independent review panels would provide the definitive net of evidence to make the skeptics looks like the fools they needed them to be.
However, the reviews did nothing of the sort. By focusing on very small aspects of the whole displayed by Climategate and Harry’s Readme file (okay, they ignored that one), the warmists didn’t get the support they needed. A few holes in the dike may have been plugged, but with chewing gum, not hydraulic cement; and all the other holes ignored by the reviews are still there and clearly need to be taken seriously.
The next La Nina might be interesting….
The Times are back on the CAGW bandwagon, I see….
Front Page of the Times:
“Oil Giant gave £1million to fund climate sceptics”
exxon mobil at it again… WHERE IS MY CHEQUE !!!!
Leading Article page 2 of THE Times:
Research Interests: Research into climate change needs to be independent and beyond approach…
basically the tiny amount funding ‘sceptics’ is questionable,
but the billions funding the bandwagon, is independant and beyond approach..
Page 5:
“‘Climategate Scientists’ still under fire over research’
“AFTER being CLEARED of scientific fraud by three seperate enquiries, the climate sceintists at UEA might have hoped that they would be able to quietly resume studying the growth of tree rings…
BUT they continue to be HOUNDED by climate sceptics – mostly based in Britain and the US – who REFUSE to accept the outcome”
it goes on…
Could someone tell the Times, that in one of the inquiries, the person consulted about whether the selection of papers criticised by the sceptics was a FAIR representative of the papers under question, as evidence… NONE of which were the critical ones in question of Phil Jones and teams work..
Was none other than Phil Jones himself !
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/7/18/more-on-oxburghs-eleven.html
bishop hill:
“Well, now we know who the redactions were. The contact through with the Royal Society was through Martin Rees – we knew that already. The other redaction, the other person consulted about whether the sample of papers was reasonable, was…Phil Jones.
Now, whichever way you look at it, this is a funny question to put to the accused if one’s objective is a fair trial. I mean, what could Jones say? “You’ve picked all my bad papers”? And of course Jones must have known that the sample was not representative.”
Look like the MEDIA big boys are out in force today, protecting the vested CAGW financial interests…