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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Christopher Hanley says:
January 27, 2012 at 1:20 pm
To follow R. Gates’s argument you must understand that to believers natural climate variability works in only one direction viz. to mitigate the harmful warming due to human CO2 pollution of the atmosphere.
——-
Not in the least. Natural variabilty can also mean that factors such as the sun, ENSO, and volcanic activity (or lack thereof) could be working to accentuate the warming as well. I think in fact we’ll get chance to see this in action between now and 2015 or so.
Lysenko did a lot of terrible thing, which can’t be excused. However his basic scientific premise was that environment of the parents can alter the characteristics of offspring. This is now well established in epigenetics. Environmental conditions can turn genes on or off even in the current generation. And Lysenko did discover vernalization, which is much more useful than anythng climate modellers have done. So some of Lysenko’s reason was intact for some of his life. Of course no current scientist is remotely willing to entertain that possibility as Lysenko has been expunged from the scientific pantheon, case closed. However, Lysenko’s case does not address why in so many cases, so many scientists have been willing to deny the truth (plate tectonics, mitochondria as endosymbionts, H1N1 non-pandemic, savanna theory of human evolution, AGW, etc.). Furthermore, Lysenko’s tragedy is a perfect example of what happens when a scientist receives so much attention and support from the government that he develops pathological megalomania. And that is the moral of the Lysenko story that is really relevant to the AGW issue.
To all of you who criticized my criticism. I receive your correction well. and do recognized some of the work done by these people so thank-you for correcting me. Mae Culpa.
The article is written as if these guys did an about face, in my opinion. There is a bit of “inside baseball” at work here. There then is nothing revelation about these 16 people doing this? To those in the know? Ok. So what is the big deal then…the fact that it was in the Wall Street Journal? Maybe it was a self-serving publicity stunt? Well OK then. Good enough for me.
“[REPLY: Don’t worry, Markus, I’ll try to keep “them” from calling you bad names, too. -REP]”
Yes (REP), it has been an age, where deniers were protected from name calling.
Has it not?
[REPLY: My reach is limited. I do what I can. -REP]
DesertYote says:
January 27, 2012 at 10:02 am
[SNIP: A little courtesy, please? -REP]
###
Sorry, this is just an expression of frustration with someone who continually spouts nonsense and seem to not have the rationality necessary to engage in discussion. I have periodical tried to ask serious questions, only to be ignored because the discussion had been high-jacked by brain-washed trolls. At least I wrote half and not whole.
R.Gates and A Physicist: Thank you for continuously providing the evidence that you come here soley to promote the anti-Science, anti-human beliefs of “The Hockey Team”. You clearly are fine with the contemptible ideology that the Scientific Method is an impediment to “climate science” and to the catastrophic political policies those you defend here want imposed on Americans.
Trofim Lysenko would be proud of you.
Some Guy: Thanks! You saved me a lot of trouble.
Keep the good news coming!
A physicist says:
January 27, 2012 at 12:16 pm
I’m sure that you appreciate, Anthony, that on forums where courtesy and respect are the norm, I invariably post under my own name. Otherwise, not.
I can’t help but wonder if you don’t post under your own name on forums where you know you will be discourteous and disrespectful.
Since I’ve only seen you post here, I’m making an observation based on what I’ve seen.
Fred Hillson says: January 27, 2012 at 6:42 am
“So does that mean that inversely a climatologist is qualified to design the Voyager Mars Probe? I think not.”
———————————————————-
This statement is as valid as saying that only a medical doctor is qualified to give a urine sample. The nature of science is that theories can be invalidated by facts, not credentials; and the history of science has many examples of this. A recent example is plate tectonics starting as a ridiculed theory. And Burt Rutan designed the Voyager airplane, not the Mars probe.
R. Gates says:
January 27, 2012 at 11:56 am
re: Robert Austin says:
January 27, 2012 at 8:55 am
It still appears that you are desperately trying to salvage the GCM’s that have as yet demonstrated no valid predictive capability. The goal posts have been moved back from the greenhouse gas concentration dominates natural variability mantra. Now we have the current retreat to the natural variability is dominating greenhouse gas concentration story. There is no plausible reason to credit GCM “projections” until they are validated by observation.
So what is your problem with a mere 16 scientists disagreeing with the consensus? Right or wrong, these people have the courage to put their names and reputations on the line for their beliefs. If your consensus climate science is so strong as to having the “vast majority” of scientists on side, can you not let the alleged overwhelming strength of evidence tell the story. Must you denigrate their opinions to advance the “cause”?
“R. Gates says:
January 27, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Not in the least. Natural variabilty can also mean that factors such as the sun, ENSO, and volcanic activity (or lack thereof) could be working to accentuate the warming as well. I think in fact we’ll get chance to see this in action between now and 2015 or so.”
You should leave your bias at the door, when entering science halls.
You cannot predict, nothing more than a biased wit.
Do you not know, volcanoes cool Earth?
Prominent scientists need not apply – in Ontario.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/01/26/green-energy-the-auditor-isnt-impessed/
Dan in California says:
January 27, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Fred Hillson says: January 27, 2012 at 6:42 am
“So does that mean that inversely a climatologist is qualified to design the Voyager Mars Probe? I think not.”
———————————————————-
This statement is as valid as saying that only a medical doctor is qualified to give a urine sample. The nature of science is that theories can be invalidated by facts, not credentials; and the history of science has many examples of this. A recent example is plate tectonics starting as a ridiculed theory. And Burt Rutan designed the Voyager airplane, not the Mars probe.
************
Thank you for the correction, Dan in California. It is much appreciated. You are incorrect about my statement being invalid, however. You over simplified my statement. A better comparison would be is a gynecologist qualified to do a heart transplant?
If you are going to refer to these scientists when all but Lindzen can not be considered experts in the science of climatology, then please also consider that Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan are both proponents of AGW and the serious effects it will have on the climate. And since Hawking and Sagan are smarter than the scientists mentioned in this op-ed piece, the serious effects that AGW will have on the climate are correct.
Of course, AGW didn’t make it, it’s DOA. It is deceased for this very reason:
They added a new invalid principal to greenhouse, Co2 forcing, but,
They could not, even with that, explain how physics, models greenhouses, when it’s hotter on the outside.
You cannot match the Science of Physics, to an incorrect philosophical perception of greenhouse.
We are to back where we started;
“Why wouldn’t a man, think and analogy, could correlate to the creation of life on Earth, it’s vessel, the atmosphere?”
The inconvenient truth of the certainty of man to err.
Markus Fitzhenry.
Why is it always hilarious and eye bleeding to read the feeble attempts at defense of an unproven CAGW hypothesis, oh sorry, unnatural climate disruption what ever.
They’re grasping for straws, digging the hole, splitting the hairs, and using cheap semantics for crazy-glue to build a hen, out of an imaginary feather, that may supposedly spawn a golden egg that could be the beginning of the utopia of civilization, if only…everybody would believe in their crazy *what ever* socialist religion.
What’s so hilarious though is that the builders of the hens never believe in their own creation but leave that to the fundamentalist followers who defend their self proclaimed leaders no matter what. And then they wonder why the leaders of their socialist gathering are the only ones getting rich, and here’s when you know you’re dealing with extremists because they just keep on defending their self proclaimed leaders: those nazis, communists, fascists, did some real bad stuff, but…
help propel rockets into space, and then they went green.
Fred Hillson says: January 27, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Thank you for the correction, Dan in California. It is much appreciated. You are incorrect about my statement being invalid, however. You over simplified my statement. A better comparison would be is a gynecologist qualified to do a heart transplant?
————————————————————
Yeah, OK, I was over the top, but I thought the sound bite was too good to leave unsaid. I do think your statement is invalid, though. My point is that it doesn’t take a climate specialist to recognize the problems with the AGW argument. One of my favorite examples is the temperature and CO2 concentration plots over geologic time. Here’s a link http://www.c3headlines.com/temperature-charts-historical-proxies.html showing global temperatures varying widely while CO2 concentration also varies widely (certainly higher than now) and the two plots show no correlation. I have yet to hear a convincing explanation how CO2 did not affect temperature in the past, but it does now. The fact that I am an engineer rather than a climate scientist does not alter the question: “Why does CO2 concentration affect the temperature now, when it clearly did not in the past?”
Dan in California says:
January 27, 2012 at 3:37 pm
I have yet to hear a convincing explanation how CO2 did not affect temperature in the past, but it does now. The fact that I am an engineer rather than a climate scientist does not alter the question: “Why does CO2 concentration affect the temperature now, when it clearly did not in the past?”
********************************************
Dan, when you take into consideration the amount of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in the past AND the output of the sun in the past, you get an excellent correlation. Instead of getting your information from the likes of Bob Carter, who is a retired paleontologist, you should be referencing the peer-reviewed scientific papers written by the expert climatologists. You proved my point with your question.
“Say it isn’t so”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/019115.html
You should leave your bias at the door, when entering science halls.
You cannot predict, nothing more than a biased wit
Oops:
Do you not know, volcanoes warm Earth?
Fred Hillson says:
January 27, 2012 at 3:24 pm
If you are going to refer to these scientists when all but Lindzen can not be considered experts in the science of climatology, then please also consider that Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan are both proponents of AGW and the serious effects it will have on the climate. And since Hawking and Sagan are smarter than the scientists mentioned in this op-ed piece, the serious effects that AGW will have on the climate are correct.
To continue the analogy begun above ….
Even a gynecologist can tell when an aging heart surgeon, punch drunk on public funds and peer-reviewed adulation, is going to deliberately castrate his patient’s economy then cut its throat.
All the actual evidence (more than 900 papers so far) shows that adding CO2 to the atmosphere does nothing but good for the earth, its plant life, and its inhabitants.
“Rob, if you think that climate models are dealing with the same simple non-chaotic system as the dropping of a object under a simple gravitational field you really ought to do a bit more reading about complexity, nonlinear systems, and chaos theory. No model will ever be able to fully incorporate natural variability, and thus all models are wrong in the sense of being incomplete. But they can still be quite useful. So you probably ought to throw in study of what models can and can’t do as well.”
You either missed, or purposefully ignored, my point: you say that the skeptics “must know” climate sensitivity to CO2, yet there is no such requirement. I do not need a better model to know when a model has failed to be predictive. I do not need to know the “proper” values for assumptions made in the model to recognize that it has failed.
I simply have to recognize that the predictions made by the model have failed to happen.
Climate models haven’t been “slightly wrong”. They haven’t been “incomplete”. They’ve been massively, horribly, off the mark by orders of magnitude. That they are complex models is inarguable — but that doesn’t matter at all. Given present conditions, their output did not match reality. Given historical conditions, their output did not match subsequent historical conditions. They don’t get partial credit for their complexity; they failed.
I spent eight years building a system that makes predictions that literally hundreds of thousands of people depend on for their jobs. Every week this system makes around 2500 independent predictions — and 51 weeks of the year, it’s within 5% of what actually happens. The underlying models aren’t as complicated as climate models, but they’re still models and still subject to the problems you cite.
“Complexity, nonlinear systems, and chaos theory” — are reasons to NOT trust a model, particularly when that model has been run out farther and farther in the future. The farther out you predict, the more the errors for all that build up; the less and less reliable the model becomes. You’re pointing to models that were wrong 5 years out from their initial conditions and saying we should trust what they predict 20 years, 100 years out.
They should not call themselves a scientist, if they are so biased, that it completely blinds them to truth of fact. There is nothing to proselytise in science, nothing at all. They really are a disgrace to their profession. And right now I really don’t care if they end up being lampooned.
They kept pushing crap into the face of my fellows, It is they who will be held up to ridicule, in front of their peers.
There has been enough destruction in our society, over the rubbish the greens have been trying to push down out throats, and it is going to stop. They are delusional, they have harmed my countrymen greatly.
You tell me what peace has been over the scientificmethod over the last 3 – 4 years. One lesson that will be learned from all of this, is the disgusting manner in which climate scientists appealed to authority as their reasoning. Academics my bum. Idiots that cause disquiet amongst men.
I do not want children being taught incorrect paths of reasoning. Liberal academia, have infiltrated learning, and they are the greatest pollution facing us. I want my brothers children, free of rhetoric.
I want them taught to think for themselves, so they can solve the great mysteries of the universe, and have freedom of thought, to love mankind.
Damn them, and their entitlement.
Markus Fitzhenry.
A ‘physicist’ says:
“the signatories include zero first-rank mathematicians and/or mathematical physicists.”
Professor Lindzen has a Masters degree in mathematics from Harvard
and
a Ph.D. in mathematics from M.I.T.