From the agenda of the 2011 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Minneapolis (9–12 October 2011)
CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IN THE PUBLIC ARENA: WHO’S GOT OUR BACKS?
MANN, Michael E., Dept. of Meteorology and Earth and Environ. Systems Institute, Penn State University, Walker Building, University Park, PA 16827
Climate scientists have an important role to play in informing the public discourse on human-caused climate change. Our scientific expertise provides us a unique, informed perspective, and despite recent high profile attacks against climate science, the public still affords climate scientists the greatest trust to deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of the potential threats posed by climate changes. Yet, as with all areas of science where powerful special interests perceive themselves as threatened by the findings of science, scientists enter the public fray at our peril.
Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.
…
Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change.
h/t Tom Nelson
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I’m sorry Dr. Mann, just one look at the cash cow your buddy James Hansen gets, and what you got via the recent stimulus funding tell me your claims of being “out-funded” are pure fantasy. Even the Wall Street Journal took note:
As for stimulus jobs—whether “saved” or “created”—we thought readers might be interested to know whose employment they are sustaining. More than $2.4 million is stimulating the career of none other than Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann.
And, what happened to it being about the science, and not the money?
A few points via Jo Nova
- The US government has provided over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, foreign aid, and tax breaks.
- Despite the billions: “audits” of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of the theory and compete with a well funded highly organized climate monopoly. They have exposed major errors.
- Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks are calling for more carbon-trading. And experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 – $10 trillion making carbon the largest single commodity traded.
- Meanwhile in a distracting sideshow, Exxon-Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying a grand total of $23 million to skeptics—less than a thousandth of what the US government has put in, and less than one five-thousandth of the value of carbon trading in just the single year of 2008.
- The large expenditure in search of a connection between carbon and climate creates enormous momentum and a powerful set of vested interests. By pouring so much money into one theory, have we inadvertently created a self-fulfilling prophesy instead of an unbiased investigation?
Full report here:
deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of the potential threats posed by climate changes.
Why is it that his ‘unbiased’ assessment only looks at the down side of climate change?
There [could/may/perhaps – have to CYA with all of the weasel words) be many positive outcomes but he does not consider these worth mentioning.
I also request that future articles on this man do not include his image – my breakfast is best eaten only once.
One important lesson that AGW fraudology has taught me.
About the biggest ploy of rogues is to pre-emptively accuse those who are able to expose them, as guilty of the rogues’ own crimes. Rogues can use their expertise in their own crimes to befuddle Joe Public. Of course, this is what happened to Jesus. Bit unfamiliar seeing it happening to Monckton, Soon & Baliunas, Ball, etc.
Translation of Mann’s outburst: his funding is now noticeably decreasing.
Mr. Watts, not sure what the 97% of climate scientists agreeing that the human influence on the recent global warming is significant has to do with misleading numbers about the amount of money the US government has provided for climate research. Perhaps you could clarify the connection you believe exists or at least clarify for your readers the amount of that $79 billion which went to research specifically earmarked for AGW.
REPLY: Really? No clue about that 97% number? You need to research it before commenting further, consider it a requirement. – Anthony
Its sad to think that a once eminent society like this could be duped by such misinformation. The desperate scramble to become relevant makes for ultimate irrelevance. The point is that the conference organisers will have got him in because they think that he will sell more registrations for them. Conferences are big business and they are happening with such frequency these days that folks will try anything to increase numbers.
Mann should put up or shut up about the massive funding from powerful groups. Names, $ amounts, timing etc. If he is correct then I as an interested follower of this debate want to know so I can form my own opinion. I don’t just want to accept his opinion because without facts that is all I am hearing, like the shrill idealism of uninformed undergraduates. Unsupported claims reinforce our conclusions that he doesn’t like putting ALL the facts on the table for us all to look at. Just put them out there, Mr Mann.
Please do not forget Mann’s case against Prof. Tim Ball. An update would be good. If more funds are needed, I’ll chip in. Once Mann is in the stocks, I’ll pay for all the rotten tomatoes.
The post is from an agenda for a meeting. Did Michael Mann write this or approve it? Whoever wrote/approved this introduction is so screwed up that it makes me physically ill. Unfortunately, a lot of people buy things like this without hesitation.
All funding for climate research should be redirected to data-gathering only.
No more climate model studies into how herbivores will decline due to global warming or mutli-million dollar awards to study the impact of global warming on gophers in Colorado (really?). All the funds should be directed towards gathering data so that we can reduce the large uncertainties in this science (rather than directed to simply adding to them and to supporting a cadre of pro-AGW scientists). Satellites, data consolidation programs etc. Skip the climate model funds for now until we have enough data so that they might be useful.
This is probably the most significant thing that can be done to fix this science.
“True scientists have an important role to play in informing the public discourse on the myth of human-caused climate change. Our scientific expertise provides us a unique, informed perspective, and despite recent high profile attacks against actual science, the public still affords true scientists the greatest trust to deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of our current understanding of climate and the potential threats to science, itself, by climate alarmists. Yet, as with all areas of science where powerful special interests perceive themselves as threatened by the findings of science, scientists enter the public fray at our peril.
Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.
…
Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change.”
FIFY, Mike.
The warmists’ Big-Oil-funding charges aren’t so much wrong as misleading and exaggerated. Certain skeptics do work for free market think tanks; certain climate-skeptical foundations no doubt get some of their money from someone who has some interest in global warming being wrong; certain skeptical get-togethers and book-publications are provided by think tanks with links, however tenuous, to Big Oil; some skeptical scientists have received a portion of their grants, at least indirectly, from interested parties; and numerous skeptical scientists are members of, or have spoken that dinner-events sponsored by, free market think tanks, etc.
The main thing wrong with this line of thinking, as pointed out by Judy Curry, is that the scientists with the closest links to such think tanks aren’t the ones having the major impact on the debate. It’s mostly been scientists in academia like Lindzen and Spencer who have made an impact, followed by independent, grass-roots bloggers–who have had more impact than funded institutions with a web presence.
Second, the amounts have been exaggerated. For instance, a think tank like Cato may devote maybe 5% of its income to the GW topic, But its opponents will add up ALL the income that is received by such think tanks and claim, in the newsletters they send to members, that “GW-skeptical organizations have received $100 million this quarter,” falsely implying that ALL that money was devoted to anti-AGW activity.
Third, there’s a false implication about what being “affiliated with” a think tank implies. It may only mean speaking at a luncheon, subscribing to their journal, having an article published in their journal, or serving on a board of advisors about the topic. These are usually fairly peripheral associations, with little cash involved; i.e., looser links that the accusers’ language would lead readers to suspect. It’s not as though Lindzen and Spencer are hunkered down in a bunker with the Koch brothers, although that is the impression the accusers have successfully (in many cases) communicated to their readers.
Fourth, the money received by a grant doesn’t go into the recipient’s pocket. It goes through the university office, which takes a hefty cut for general overhead, then it goes mostly for expenses, like salaries of grad-student researchers and lab workers.
Fifth, most academic researchers have far more to lose than gain in terms of funding, career advancement, and social status by taking the skeptical side. So few opportunists would leap at an offer from Big Oil.
Mike, I don’t know who has your (climate scientists) back; but I know who doesn’t: Science
Just when you think this guy can’t sink any lower….
CodeTech says:
October 5, 2011 at 8:50 am
“Mann apparently isn’t even aware that he’s been outed and discredited, and is known to millions as a charlatan and a fraud. And it seems unlikely that he could possibly still believe the junk “science” he’s peddling.”
My take on what CodeTech and others have said is that Mann has become the Al Gore of scientific societies. It is a sad day when our scientific societies have an Al Gore all their own.
Mann has forgetten a basic tenant of society–that the average tongue’s reaction to sour milk is equivalent to the soul’s rejection of lies and hypocricy.
Perhaps Mann has never experienced sour milk, but everybody else knows what to do with it.
Even in the little backwater that is Australia our climate scientists get millions lavished on them, to wit Prof Andy Pitman at the UNSW:
http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/apitman-funding
He is also keen on throwing baseless insults around at skeptics as exposed at Jo Nova’s web site:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/pitman-paid-190000-a-year-to-throw-baseless-insults/
Seems to me that Mann has been singing this tune for quite some time (well, at least since Climategate). Strikes me that he’s engaging in “next chorus, next verse … a little bit louder and a little bit worse”.
He’s quite good at making extraordinary claims, isn’t he? Yet he still hasn’t learned that he needs to show his data. Mann claims:
“Informed perspective”?! Isn’t it enough that Mann et al have redefined “trick”, “decline” and “peer review”? Clearly he’s now redefining “informed”. As for “perspective”, from where I’m sitting, it’s way past time that he gained some.
“Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.”
Nothing has “confused the public about the nature of our scientific understanding” more than the Climate-gate emails.
I don’t know a better example of groupthink in which just about all Irvin Janis’ symptoms can be found back
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink#Symptoms
About being outmanned, maybe check the numbers here too
http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/05/green-groups-have-plenty-of-green/
Up until now, we (skeptics) have been winning most of the battles, but have been steadily losing the war. This has been largely due to the MSM being heavily biased toward the leftist advantage of global carbon regulation (effectively all of life’s activities). For John Q Public, the nightly news is perceived as the best glimpse of world reality.
However, I suspect, Mann has informed Penn State and everyone else involved, that if he goes down… He will not go down alone, but will take everyone else down with him (expose what has really been going on). This will be the “tipping” point for the merciless MSM and we will begin to win the war. We may even be shocked by front page photos of MM behind bars (fraud, misappropriation of funds, obstruction of justice, tax evasion/money laundering). Everyone knows how ruthless they can be with such investigations.
My compassion for MM’s plight is mitigated, by the fact that he continues to obfuscate and defecate the bed he must eventually lie in. As spectators we can only “make popcorn, soda, and candyfloss” for the greatest show on earth. GK
I doubt if MM is afforded the same political protection as Hansen. We will see, with the impending release of all the data I see one of three things possible.
1. Rally of all the troops to defend the weakest link in the chain similar to what happened after Climate Gate. /The weak PR stunt in Colorado leads me to believe that the defense will be no where as strong as was concocted after the Climate Gate exposure./
2. A very fast distancing of his peers and a revelation of shock as how this could have happened.
3. The data gets accidentally erased from all the servers while trying to recover it and we enter a stalemate.
I’ve seen two, (2,) interviews with Mann, (both heavily biassed to his POV,) and he came over as a whinging, whining kid, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, (to use an Americanism).
If he actually believes what he says, the best thing he can do is to STFU!