This is quite something. Sixteen scientists, including such names as Richard Lindzen, William Kininmonth, Wil Happer, and Nir Shaviv, plus engineer Burt Rutan, and Apollo 17 astronaut Dr. Harrison Schmidt, among others, write what amounts to a heretical treatise to the Wall Street Journal, expressing their view that the global warming is oversold, has stalled in the last decade, and that the search for meaningful warming has led to co-opting weather patterns in the blame game. Oh, and a history lesson on Lysenkoism as it relates to today’s warming-science-funding-complex. I can hear Joe Romm’s head exploding all the way out here in California.
Excerpts:
No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.
Editor’s Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:
…
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
…
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.
Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word “incontrovertible” from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question “cui bono?” Or the modern update, “Follow the money.”
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.
…
Signed by:
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.
Full letter is online here at the Wall Street Journal
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“So does that mean that inversely a climatologist is qualified to design the Voyager Mars Probe?”
Only if it doesn’t require the use of Excel.
Don Keiller says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:08 am
=====================
Don Keiller, sir, you have my utmost respect.
Perhaps I should expand on some of your efforts you have taken to ‘get to the facts’ but I’m not the most articulate in doing a proper summary. So hopefully someone else will as many readers here may not be aware of your efforts to look into the CAGW issue, and most recent accomplishment in singlehandedly (with one ‘friend’ being David Holland) taking on the ‘best’ that the AWG crowd had to offer.
For readers not familiar with the story, it was covered here @ur momisugly WUWT and at Bishop Hill “A major FOI victory”. It is worth the read.
Mr. Keiller, thank you again.
Denials and the Denying Deniers Who Tell Them.
/
Musical aside: I was wondering what the wording and cadence of the posting title reminded me of. It’s from “Riding on The City of New Orleans”:
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors, twenty-five sacks of mail.”
Was that deliberate, Anthony?
😉
Anthony, please let me commend to your attention (and to the attention of WUWT readers) the extended, verbatim email transcript that The Examiner provides, titled “Letters to a heretic: An email conversation with climate change sceptic Professor Freeman Dyson.”
These emails reflect Prof. Dyson’s present (as of 2011) views, which have evolved to be more nuanced than the earlier views that are sometimes still ascribed to him. So it’s no surprise that Dyson is not among the signers of the WSJ letter (which expresses more one-sided opinion than Dyson’s).
Notice too, that this skeptic-versus-nonskeptic email exchange is scrupulously respectful … admirable, isn’t it?
As for the science, it’s evident that if James Hansen’s sea-level rise numbers are right, then Freeman Dyson’s humanitarian concerns are wrong, and vice versa. In this regard, Hansen is on-record as predicting that global sea-level rise and global temperature rise both will accelerate markedly in coming decades. Broadly speaking, if a substantial global climate-change acceleration is observed in coming decades, then Dyson’s views are almost certainly wrong; otherwise, Dyson’s views very plausibly are correct.
So really, time and Nature will tell.
REPLY: Good job at ducking the question of why you don’t have the courage to put your own name to your convictions here. I think that before you criticize others for putting their names to their convictions, you should have the courage and integrity to do it yourself. Besides, you already accidentally (and hilariously) self-outed yourself on another blog, so there’s nothing to lose. I challenge you to man-up like these scientists have. I will accept no further
thread bombingcommentary from you until you address this issue.As for Dysons, evolved, nuanced response, this speaks volumes:
From: Freeman Dyson
To: Steve Connor
First of all, please cut out the mention of Einstein. To compare me to Einstein is silly and annoying.
Answers to your questions are: yes (1), yes (2), yes (3), maybe (4), no (5), no (6), no (7).
There are six good reasons for saying no to the last three assertions. First, the computer models are very good at solving the equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world. The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly. Second, we do not know whether the recent changes in climate are on balance doing more harm than good. The strongest warming is in cold places like Greenland. More people die from cold in winter than die from heat in summer. Third, there are many other causes of climate change besides human activities, as we know from studying the past. Fourth, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly coupled with other carbon reservoirs in the biosphere, vegetation and top-soil, which are as large or larger. It is misleading to consider only the atmosphere and ocean, as the climate models do, and ignore the other reservoirs. Fifth, the biological effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are beneficial, both to food crops and to natural vegetation. The biological effects are better known and probably more important than the climatic effects. Sixth, summing up the other five reasons, the climate of the earth is an immensely complicated system and nobody is close to understanding it.
That will do for the first set of questions. Now it is your turn.
Public policy is all about politics.
~More Soylent Green
Let me stick up for the trolls and add my $.02 to their insistence that the logical fallacy of “an appeal to authority” is a valid leg to stand on. (All apologies, W.C.)
$.02
[SNIP: A little courtesy, please? -REP]
January 27, 2012 at 4:47 am
###
Once again you demonstrate that you have no clue.
Fred Hillson says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:12 am
Geologists are one of the main groups of scientists with a lot of members skeptical about the effects of climate change. Some of the more activist warmists like Heidi Cullen try to dismiss them, but of all the scientists, geologists have the best concept of how wide a range “normal” conditions fit into and are a welcome voice of sanity when people talk about Earth passing a tipping point into runaway warming that end with Earth being another Venus.
James Hansen started out as a astrophysicist and worked with James van Allen, so feel free to criticize him too.
One of the beauties of climate change is that its such a hugely multidisciplinary system that no one scientist can understand it all. The system needs people from all these disciplines, and it needs people with a shallower but broader understanding too.
Given how politicized climate research has become, Dr. Schmitt’s tenure as a senator may be as important as his geological knowledge. I listened to him speak at the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change and much of his talk was about looking at the US Constitution and how or whether organizations like the EPA fit in.
I’m pleased to see he’s involved with the WSJ letter.
R. Gates: “This is not science, but politics.”
Correct! CLIMATE SCIENCE is NOT science, but politics. And climate scientists are acting accordingly.
(Please let your UCAR friends know…)
And…all will change in November…
Henry@A phycisist
ET,
please go home
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
and tell me why you do not like it there?
Comic relief. On par with the “AL GORE WAS WRONG!!!”, for the 47 thousandth time, threads.
Jimmy Haigh. says: January 27, 2012 at 7:24 am
R. Gates says: January 27, 2012 at 6:54 am
“It will be a good lesson as to the extent that the politics of our era had mixed with quasi-scientific thinking. I think these scientists, and or their descendants might be a bit embarassed.’
—
You can’t see that you are talking about ‘The Team’ here?
=====
Would it best to be remembered as Nero watching the world burn or a person who put in more fire hydrants than was necessary to put out the fires?
Which is the better outcome – burnt city or safe city?
Many believe in the cyclical nature of climate in particular the presence of a 60 year cycle. This analysis shows such a cycle. it is on a downswing until 2016 but then the heating starts in earnest.. If this is true then talking no action now will leave us open to “big problems” in 6 years – is insurance not valid?
http://climateandstuff.blogspot.com/2011/06/reconstructions-with-limited-signals.html
Louise says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:31 am
[“There’ll be a short delay while the BBC decides how to spin this news to its viewers/listeners as either a ringing endorsement of CAGW or the ravings of a minuscule minority of scientists who are “climate change deniers”. More likely, the BBC will ignore it altogether.”]
Of course they’ll ignore it – it’s not news. What exactly do you think they should say – “a group recognised for their skeptism [sic] today made another skeptical statement…”
I don’t know, almost daily I see “a group recognised for their alarmism today made another alarmist statement…” and it gets covered worldwide. Why is that, Louise?
Commenting about a non existent problem it is a propaganda of such non existent problem….
You must be joking. The WSJ editorial board leads the way with this sort of opinion piece. It’s all political.
I see the SkS crew has shown up to attack the messengers. Say guys, how about you define what a “climate scientist” does. I’d like to check against the education these guys have received. I mean hey, if you’re really skeptical you should have already done this, right?
I wonder who produced this letter? Does this mean the skeptical community is finally getting better organized?
Re: R. Gates says:
January 27, 2012 at 6:54 am
“The flattening of temps (at high levels) over the past decade is not at all an indication that the models have exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause….”
You might wish to check out the UAH site showing current global average temperatures as measured by satellite. Pick any altitude you wish. Current temperatures are the lowest since such measurements began over three decades ago and, by implication, the lowest for over a century. The entire claimed CO2 forced warming over the past century based on the land record was some 0.7 deg. C. Current readings at 14,000 feet are a full degree C. below peak satellite readings for comparable dates.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Henry@richard M
Well, if you are good in organizing stuff,
why don’t you add my name to the list?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
“Leading Scientists” eh. Let’s just look at the first name on the list – Claude Allegre. Here’s a blast from his past: French Researchers Ask Science Minister to Disavow Climate Skeptic
2 April 2010, 5:08 PM
PARIS—More than 400 French climate scientists want science minister Valérie Pécresse to take a clear stand against the country’s most vocal climate skeptic, geochemist Claude Allègre of the Institute of Geophysics of Paris (IPGP). On Wednesday, the group sent Pécresse a letter denouncing Allègre’s latest book, L’imposture climatique (The Climate Fraud), and asking her to express confidence in the climate research community. Allègre was science minister from 1997 until 2000.
Do we need to go any further?
CLAUDE HARVEY SAYS
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/27/sixteen-prominent-scientists-publish-a-letter-in-wsj-saying-theres-no-need-to-panic-about-global-warming/#comment-877236
good for you
I actually looked at all the measured resuts..
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
jjthoms says:
January 27, 2012 at 10:36 am
“…no action now will leave us open to “big problems” in 6 years – is insurance not valid?”
_________________________
Spending $Trillions now on “insurance” which produces no measurable effect is valid?
Kristian Berg says
Do we need to go any further?
Henry says
Well,
why not look at my results,
and say something about that?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Also in today’s Wall Street Journal: Another Green energy company (backed by U.S. government) is going bust:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577185591620344190.html
The article notes that this is the third “green energy” company to declare bankruptcy under Obama, who