Chris Horner of the American Tradition Institute writes in with this:
So the American Association for the Advancement of Science, thoroughly rattled by the American Tradition Institute’s FOIA requests of UVa and NASA — and even more so by the litigation forced by the institutions’ respective stonewalling — issued a board statement comparing FOIA requests of climate scientists with death threats. Really.
Naturally this caught the eye of the New York Times, which had a young lady contact us for comment. Right off the bat it was clear she, too, had been rattled by the horrors of our outrageous efforts to …see certain records the taxpayer has paid for and which are expressly covered by transparency laws.
Her stance was sympathetic to AAS’s to the point of temper.
She first reaffirmed a fancy for the apparently absolute truth that a FOIA request for climate scientists’ records is indeed no different than death threats allegedly made in Australia against scientists — sadly, if that’s true, they are now treated to what ‘skeptics’ have experienced for years, as I have detailed.
Well, actually, her disinterest in Greenpeace having created this little cottage practice indicated that this is true only for certain climate scientists’ records. Not the ones whose records Greenpeace is asking her for…that’s just transparency, good-government type stuff.
She continued by wondering, as such, do we condone death threats (really?) and, if not, why would we then also issue a FOIA?
Why that is particularly amusing, as opposed to sad, is that she was shocked by my assertion that Big Science/Big Academia’s objection to having laws that obviously cover their own actually applied to their own was of a part with Hollywood objecting to laws being applied to Roman Polanski. Apparently, by saying this, I was accusing Michael Mann of some heinous crime. Or something.
So see the below as I sent to her and, given the above, I expect you will not see in the story. Surely because it will be too busy explaining the tyranny of Greenpeace broadly filing similar requests. ATI’s statement is here.
—–Original Message—–From: chornerlaw@aol.com
To: fostej@nytimes.com
Sent: Wed, Jun 29, 2011 1:14 pm
Subject: AAAS release citing ATI transparency efforts
Dear Joanna,I’m told you called ATI for comment. Below is my response per an earlier inquiry.Best,Christopher C. Horner Senior Fellow Competitive Enterprise Institute 1899 L St, NW 12th Floor Washington, DC, 20036 +1.202.331.2260 (O)…Several points:I noticed no relation between our initiative and the Board’s rhetoric until they mentioned us somewhat incongruously.The notion that application of laws expressly covering academics [is] an ‘attack’ on academics is substantively identical to Hollywood apologists calling application of other laws to Roman Polanski an attack on Polanski. They rather lost the plot somewhere along the way.The failure to mention the group that invented this series of requests, Greenpeace, informs a conclusion that this attempt at outrage is selective, and therefore either feigned or hypocritical. This is also new; their problem is quite plainly with the law(s), but it is a problem they have, over the decades of transparency and ethics laws applying to scientists subsisting on taxpayer revenue, heretofore forgotten to mention.Opposition to such laws applying to them is rather shocking. But then, maybe not so much when you also note their failure to comment on scientists being outed as advocating the flaunting of transparency laws.Finally, AAUP’s code of professional ethics indicates that efforts to manipulate the peer review process are impermissible. Given the overlap and for other reasons we assume this is something AAAS agrees with or at minimum accepts. But this, too, is insincere if such behavior is permissible — or at least, where just cause indicates further inquiry is warranted, it is to be ignored — if the party at issue is one who for various reasons the AAAS or AAUP et al. elevate or find sympathetic. In Mann’s case, if our review of his documents which belong to the taxpayer also happen to exonerate him from the suspicions that have arisen, we will be the first to do so.
==============================================================
Below is the ATI statement – Anthony
==============================================================
Statement from American Tradition Institute Environmental Law Center in Response to American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Misleading Accusations Against ATI Today
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Contacts:
Christopher Horner, director of litigation, chris.horner@atinstitute.org
Paul Chesser, executive director, paul.chesser@atinstitute.org
Today the board of directors for the American Association for the Advancement of Science issued a statement and press release that denounced “personal attacks,” “harassment,” “death threats,” and “legal challenges” toward climate scientists. AAAS’s press release specifically cited actions taken by American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center in its efforts to obtain records of Climategate scientist Dr. Michael Mann from the University of Virginia, and its efforts to obtain outside employment records of climate activist Dr. James Hansen from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration(NASA).
AAAS wrote, in part,
“we are concerned that establishing a practice of aggressive inquiry into the professional histories of scientists whose findings may bear on policy in ways that some find unpalatable could well have a chilling effect on the willingness of scientists to conduct research that intersects with policy-relevant scientific questions.”
Response to AAAS from ATI Environmental Law Center director of litigation Christopher Horner:
“I noticed no relation between our initiative and the AAAS Board’s rhetoric until they mentioned us somewhat incongruously.
“The notion that application of laws that expressly cover academics is an ‘attack’ on them is substantively identical to Hollywood apologists who call application of other laws to Roman Polanski an attack on Polanski. They lost the plot somewhere along the way.
“AAAS’s failure to mention the group that invented this series of requests, Greenpeace, informs our conclusion that this outrage is selective, and is therefore either feigned or hypocritical. Their problem is plainly with the laws, but it is a problem they have had over the decades: That transparency and ethics laws also apply to scientists who subsist on taxpayer revenue. This they also forgot to mention.
“Finally, the American Association of University Professors’ code of professional ethics indicates that efforts to manipulate the peer review process are impermissible. Given the overlap, and for other reasons, we assume AAAS agrees with these principles or at a minimum accepts them. But this, too, is insincere if such behavior is permitted or ignored where just cause indicates further inquiry is warranted, as long as the parties at issue are those whose views the AAAS or AAUP sympathize with. In Mann’s case, if our review of his documents which belong to the taxpayer also happen to exonerate him from the suspicions that have arisen, we will be the first to do so.”
For an interview with Christopher Horner, email chris.horner@atinstitute.org or paul.chesser@atinstitute.org or call (202)670-2680.
================================================================
Reaction is now coming in. Alana Goodman of Commentray Magazine writes in a piece titled
Contentions – Climate Change Skepticism Now Considered ‘Harassment’?
…
Of course, what the AAAS calls “personal information” actually appears to be public data. The group’s statement comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed against NASA by the conservative American Traditional Institute earlier this month, which is trying to force the agency to release information about scientist James Hansen.
And after years of watching climate change advocates demonizing global warming skeptics, it’s hard to have any sympathy for the AAAS on this issue. Not to mention, previously leaked emails have shown climate change scientists behaving in ways abusive to the public trust. Skeptics should absolutely work to expose any potential corruption in the global warming advocacy community — and the fact AAAS is so terrified of legal challenges is good reason to believe these skeptics might be onto something.
@ur momisugly John B
Only in the mind of the most ardent believer can one say he got close. The earth’s temp has only risen barely more than 1/2 degree C. He predicted, with scenario B (our CO2 is) that it would be a full degree. He missed it by 100%!! That’s not close, that’s not even in the same ball park, in fact, that’s not even in this world. It only exists in the alternate reality of fervent believers. You people are hilarious.
But, being the generous sort that I am, and knowing this is a subjective argument, (even though there are statistical standards that this doesn’t even come close to) I’ll see if I can’t find similar “close” prognostications. Let’s see……. well here we have one……http://biggovernment.com/files/2011/06/employmentchart.jpg
After looking at that, the only question I have is whether Hansen is double dipping for this administration. Did he write the prognostication for the unemployment, too? And, do the true believer describe this as “close” to being correct?
Dang, didn’t finish the thought between the parentheses. Feel free to ignore.
David Appell says:
June 30, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Steve from Rockwood wrote:
> Is this happening? If not, there are no death threats….
Yes, it is certainly happening. By and large police in the US say that our broad standard of free speech means such veiled threats can’t be prosecuted. See “Climate scientists the target in culture war,” http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-scientists-the-target-in-culture-war-1692
===================================================================
The link includes the following paragraph:
“Monckton believes that climate science is a communist plot, promoted by the Hitler Youth. He also fantasies about his own history, claiming to be a member of the House of Lords and a Nobel Laureate, to have single-handedly won the Falklands War (he persuaded the British Army to use germ warfare on the “Argies”), and to have invented a cure for Graves’ disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, food poisoning, and HIV.”
David Appell, if you believe in this stuff then I feel very sad for you. As a science writer, show a little skepticism. If a politician, movie star, race car driver, CEO or mother with two children received death threats, the police would investigate. If police refuse to investigate death threats against climate scientists, as a climate scientist I would sue to organization I work for.
Don’t forget, climate scientists are people too.
Chris Martin says:
July 1, 2011 at 8:28 am
http://news.yahoo.com/greenland-ice-melts-most-half-century-us-204848118.html
Yeah, everything is fine boys! No man made global warming going on here….
============================================================
Chris, you really are new at this, aren’t you? First, while I’m more than happy to answer you point by point, it is common courtesy to stay relevant to the topic at hand, which in this case, is equating FOI requests with death threats.
Secondly, most, on either side of the discussion, don’t refer to yahoo news as authoritative. You may not believe this, but news people tend to exaggerate from time to time. (I’m telling you this for your own good, people will laugh.)
Lastly, I’d invite you to stick around. Its a bit slow around here lately, Anthony and many others are at a climate conference. But, there’s plenty of information to read and the commentators are of commendable intellect.
(BTW, skeptics come in many shapes and sizes. I’m one that cheers for a melted ice cap, I believe it would be most beneficial to mankind if it does.)
Cheers,
James
@James Baldwin Sexton
To repeat my “blather”, How could anyone look at that picture and NOT see that Hansen’s prediction for scenario B, the closest scenario to what actually happened, has been pretty darn close? Look at the whole chart, not just 2010.
http://i51.tinypic.com/rk0wpi.jpg
Only an inveterate cherry picker could come to the conclusion you did. But the next five years will tell. See you in 2016.
John B,
You posted a bogus chart. Why bogus? Because of the “estimated” parameters. They deliberatly make Hansen’s totally wrong predictions seem almost correct; but they aren’t.
Here is a chart using actual data: click. As you yourself admitted, Scenario C is meaningless. Look at how wrong Hansen was in Scenarios A & B. A blindfolded monkey with a dart could have made a more accurate prediction.
if it weren’t for cherry-picked, fabricated propaganda, you wouldn’t have any argument at all. Hansen has been completely wrong. Deal with it.
Smokey says:
July 1, 2011 at 12:47 pm
if it weren’t for cherry-picked, fabricated propaganda, you wouldn’t have any argument at all. Hansen has been completely wrong. Deal with it.
================================================================
Well, only if you count being off by almost 100% as wrong………
@Smokey
1. I didn’t post the chart, John M (no relation), a skeptic I think, did. I merely commented on it. (OK, I reposted it later)
2. John M’s point was that the prediction was rubbish because observed temperatures are closer to C than B. At least you and I agree that C is irrelevant and the scenario B is one to look at.
3. Even on your chart, the scenario B prediction is looking pretty good until about 2002 (or maybe even 2005). You must admit that, surely?
4. The “hindcast” portion of John M’s chart shows validation of the model. “Predicting the past” may sound like an oxymoron, but it is widely used to validate models, not only in climate science. The main reason I liked his chart, it that the hindcast also puts the predictions in context.
5.We both know the last 5 years or so are an issue for AGW. We say it’s a short term aberration and the warming will resume because the radiative imbalance says it has to. You say “nonsense”. We’ll see. I said 5 more years of little or no warming and I will eat my AGW hat. What do you say?
John B
John B,
You may notice that I don’t make predictions, about sea ice, temperature, or any similar WAG’s. What I am saying, and what I have always said, is that current temperatures and trends are indistinguishable from natural variability, and are well within past parameters. Therefore, Occam’s Razor says that we should accept the simplest and most obvious explanation: the current minor fluctuations are the result of natural variability. There is no contrary evidence, thus the null hypothesis stands, and there is no evidence showing that the rise in CO2 is harmful in any way.
But you look at normal variability and see climate doom. From my perspective, you look no different than one of Harold Camping’s followers, or Mrs Keech’s Seekers.
I think it was in Blazing Saddles where the Governor turns and says, “OH NO! Then how are we going to keep our phony baloney jobs!!??”
–
There’s going to be a lot of that going on in universities over the next couple years….
Smokey wrote:
What I am saying, and what I have always said, is that current temperatures and trends are indistinguishable from natural variability, and well within past parameters.
Can you point to the calculation that shows this?
James Sexton wrote:
Well, only if you count being off by almost 100% as wrong………
It’s easy to play number games — you could also say that Hansen predicted a 2011 temperature of 287.9 K, but it was observed to be 287.6 K, an error of 0.1% — but they’re not very useful. It was only a modeled scenario, after all, not reality. Isn’t a better question what would his 1988 model show if it was fed the exact {GHG, solar, volcanic, land use} history of the last 23 years? And what was learned from his model? Lots and lots of calculations in science were slightly wrong but necessary to lead to better calculations.
Again, how accurate does a model need to be?
From David Appell on July 1, 2011 at 7:58 pm:
Sure, if you’re stupid enough to mix up relative and absolute numbers. And Hansen works with “anomalies,” not absolute temperatures.
You also got the math wrong. James Sexton referred to a 0.5°C difference. 1°C is equivalent to 1K yet you used only a 0.3K difference, only 67% of the specified value.
Also the offset between °C and K is 273.15. Thus your value of 287.6K is 14.4°C (round to even), 57.9°F. NOAA says the combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the 20th century was 14.8°C (58.6°F). Are you indicating that 2011 is running colder than the 20th century average? (Note: If complaining about the mixing of datasets, please supply the appropriate GISS absolute combined global land and ocean average surface temperatures.)
If you’re going to argue the fate of all humanity is at stake, demand fundamental changes to human civilization, at a cost of hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars, I’d say the model better be pretty damn accurate, which would be far more accurate than the models Hansen has churned out.
Smokey said: But you look at normal variability and see climate doom. From my perspective, you look no different than one of Harold Camping’s followers, or Mrs Keech’s Seekers.
No, not at all. I look at the science, all of it taken together, and see a convincing argument that AGW is happening. The “cognitive dissonance” is all on your side. You are like creationists in the way that you cite one piece of science as evidence against another, while ignoring all the rest. As an example, when arctic sea ice was “recovering” in 2008, 2009, you cited it (maybe not you personally, Smokey) but now it seems to be on the way down again it is “not a good proxy”. And you will happily quote temperatures so far this year as being significant while saying that a satellite record from 1979 to present is “way too short”. I don’t know how you keep it up!
If you don’t agree with them, you are automatically a BAD PERSON and bad people make death threats and kill puppies and drink crude oil…
It’s amusing to see creative writer/agw religionist David get solid slam-backs for his ploys here. Having dealt with him on several occasions, it’s nice to see others deal so eloquently with the seagull. It’s been great fun! Thanks to all!
So what they’re saying is if you want more than the agreed scientific or political spoon fed “truth” you’re a terrorist………………..Cough up those FOIA’s and stop being crybabies, if you represent the truth you have nothing to fear………..
kadaka wrote:
> I’d say the model better be pretty damn accurate,
How accurate? In numbers… In which parameters? Over what period of time?
Also, please explain the rationale behind the numbers you choose.
Also, keep in mind that, as we cannot predict our exact socioeconomic future, no model can be exact. Models do not make “predictions,” they make “projections.”
In what way did Hansen’s 1988 model project and not predict?
Models have advanced considerably since then — see, for example, a pictorial illustration of (part of) this progress here: http://is.gd/EQ1CO8 .
Now, with all that, please provide the details behind your claim of “pretty damn accurate.”
kadaka wrote:
> I’d say the model better be pretty damn accurate,
How accurate? In numbers… In which parameters? Over what period of time?
Also, please explain the rationale behind the numbers you choose.
Also, keep in mind that, as we cannot predict our exact socioeconomic future, no model can be exact. Models do not make “predictions,” they make “projections.”
In what way did Hansen’s 1988 model project and not predict?
Models have advanced considerably since then — see, for example, a pictorial illustration of (part of) this progress here: http://is.gd/EQ1CO8 .
Now, with all that, please provide the details behind your claim of “pretty damn accurate.”
James Sexton wrote:
Computer power? What sort of imbecilic response is that? You can get a machine built in the 90s, and a machine built today of the finest technology. Guess what? Any model fed in to either machine will render the same results.
It is not imbecilic at all. One can only do as much modeling as one’s computer will allow, if you want to get results back in a reasonable amount of time. Faster computers allow lower resolutions and the incorporation of more physical processes. There is a nice visual of this progress here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-1-4.html
and here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-1-2.html
JPeden wrote:
> You, after all, are the one with the “Creative Writing” degree,
I do not have a degree in creative writing. I do, though, have a PhD in theoretical physics.
kim wrote:
> But show me the evidence that anthropogenic climate change has killed anyone.
A paper in Nature attributes 166,000 deaths worldwide in 2000 to climate
change:
Patz, J. A., Campbell-Lendrum, D., Holloway, T., Foley, J.A. (2005). “Impact of regional
climate change on human health,” Nature 438: 310-317
Bruce Houston wrote:
The federal government wastes more than $7 billion every year on “climate change” studies. Almost all of that money goes to climate alarmists.
Actually the vast majority of the money goes to technology, such as satellite systems. The rest goes to grant money to scientists (not “alarmists”) awarded via the peer-review process. About $99B in federal funds has been directed to climate technology and research in the last 10 years — not an unreasonable amount for what is arguably the most serious problem ever to face the long-term viability of the nation and the world.
See: “Federal Climate Change Programs: Funding History and Policy Issues,” CBO, March 2010.
Derek Sorensen wrote:
Haven’t you noticed, by the way, that those who are so attached to Global Warming theory have stopped using the phrase “Global Warming”? They now say “Climate Change”, or talk abyout “Extreme waeather events”. Know why that is? It’s because Earth isn’t, actually, warming.
Actually not. Scientists have long used the term “climate change.” For example, the UNFCCC — the last two letters are for “climate change” — was founded in 1992. The IPCC — the last two letters are for “climate change” — issued its first report in 1990.
Everyone admits the globe is warming. Even notable skeptics like John Christy and Roy Spencer at UAH — you remember them, they made a major mistake in their analysis of satellite date that took years to resolve (to their credit, they eventually admitted their error) — write, at the end of their data table, that warming since 1979 is 0.14 deg C/decade (http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt).
David Appell is a crank who feels the need to nitpick the comments of posters more knowledgeable than he will ever be. Climate models cannot predict their way out of a wet paper bag. Not one single GCM predicted the flat to declining temperatures over the past decade. Climate models are trinkets intended to deceive gullible dupes like Appell, who has cast his lot with the liars, scoundrels and charlatans pushing the debunked catastrophic AGW canard, and he has no more credibility than they do.
There is zero proof, per the scientific method, of any global damage or harm due to the rise in [beneficial, harmless] CO2. None at all. Appell, like the rest of the purveyors of the climate alarmist scare, pretends that a tiny trace gas controls the climate. They are demonstrably wrong. The fact that Appell and his clown climate cronies are repeatedly debunked shows that their claims are cognitive dissonance-based pseudo-science.
Wake me when there are measurable, quantifiable, testable measurements showing verifiable global harm resulting specifically from the rise in CO2. Until then, Appell and his mendacious ilk are peddling pure hogwash.