AGU President’s message
We must remain committed to scientific integrity
27 February 2012
During the third week of February our global community of Earth and space scientists witnessed the shocking fall from grace of an accomplished AGU member who betrayed the principles of scientific integrity. In doing so he compromised AGU’s credibility as a scientific society, weakened the public’s trust in scientists, and produced fresh fuel for the unproductive and seemingly endless ideological firestorm surrounding the reality of the Earth’s changing climate.
Peter Gleick resigned as chair of AGU’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics on 16 February, prior to admitting in a blog post that he obtained documents from the Heartland Institute under false pretenses. His transgression cannot be condoned, regardless of his motives. It is a tragedy that requires us to stop and reflect on what we value as scientists and how we want to be perceived by the public. Here are a few things that come immediately to mind:
- The success of the scientific enterprise depends on intellectual rigor, truthfulness, and integrity on the part of everyone involved. The vast majority of scientists uphold these values every day in their work. That’s why opinion polls show that public trust in scientists is among the highest of all professions. Public trust is essential because it provides the foundation for society’s willingness to invest in scientific exploration and discovery. It is the responsibility of every scientist to safeguard that trust.
- As a community of scientists, we must hold each other to the highest ethical standards. This is why AGU established its Task Force on Scientific Ethics, in 2011, to review and update existing policies and procedures for dealing with scientific misconduct. Long before the Heartland incident, we recognized the need to have clear and broad principles and procedures that expressed the value of scientific integrity and ethics embodied in our new strategic plan. More than ever, AGU needs a clear set of guidelines that encompasses the full range of scientific activities our members engage in. The task force, now under the leadership of Linda Gundersen, director of the Office of Science Quality and Integrity at the U.S. Geological Survey, will complete its work with a renewed sense of urgency in view of recent events. Union leadership will ensure that these standards of ethical conduct are widely communicated to the membership and that they become an integral part of AGU’s culture.
- All of this must be done with an eye to the future and to nurturing the next generation of Earth and space scientists. Today’s students must learn, especially through the example of senior scientists, that adherence to high standards of scientific integrity applies in all that we do: from research practices, to peer-reviewed publications, to interactions with colleagues, and to engaging with the public and policy makers. The lofty goal we set for ourselves of providing benefit to society through our research can be achieved only if we pursue our mission with the utmost honesty, transparency, and rigor.
This has been one of the most trying times for me as president of AGU, as it has been for many AGU volunteer leaders, members, and staff. How different it is than celebrating the news of a new discovery or a unique scholarly achievement. These rare and sad occasions remind us that our actions reverberate through a global scientific community and that we must remain committed as individuals and as a society to the highest standards of scientific integrity in the pursuit of our goals.
Mike McPhaden
from a tip received via email h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
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UPDATE: 4:10PM 2/27 In related news, the author of The Ethics of Climate Change, James Garvey has written a defense article on Peter Gleick at the Guardian. saying:
Was Gleick right to lie to expose Heartland and maybe stop it from causing further delay to action on climate change? If his lie has good effects overall – if those who take Heartland’s money to push scepticism are dismissed as shills, if donors pull funding after being exposed in the press – then perhaps on balance he did the right thing.
Bishop Hill points out the Met Office Scientist that tell Garvey and the Guardian to basically go stuff it:
This comment from the Guardian thread:
Mr Garvey
I am a climate scientist at the Met Office Hadley Centre and also a lead author with the IPCC (NB. the opinions I express here are my own though – I am just telling you that for context).
I would ask you to refrain from bringing my profession into disrepute by advocating that we act unethically. We already have enough people accusing us, completely incorrectly, of being frauds, green / left-wing activists or government puppets. A rabble-rousing journalist such as yourself telling us that we should “fight dirty” does not help our reputation at all. “Fighting dirty” will never be justified no matter what tactics have been used to discredit us in the past.
Inflammatory remarks such as yours will only serve to further aggravate the so-called “climate wars”. People’s reputations are already being damaged, and we know that some climate scientists get highly distasteful and upsetting mail through no fault of their own. If people like you continue to stir things up further, it is only a matter of time before somebody actually gets hurt, or worse.
Please keep your advice to yourself, we can do without it thank you very much.
Richard Betts (Prof)
Indeed. Mr. Garvey, with AGU’s president saying “His transgression cannot be condoned, regardless of his motives.” please do shut up. – Anthony Watts
What is truly amazing is that the AGU employed the idiot in the first place.
Today’s students must learn, especially through the example of senior scientists, that adherence to high standards of scientific integrity applies in all that we do: from research practices, to peer-reviewed publications, to interactions with colleagues, and to engaging with the public and policy makers.
I think we are missing the big picture here. Its not that AGU and others are really wrong, I mean the measurements and the facts bear that as witness. And yes, we could probably argue that point all day long and the ethical problems of the scientists here as well, but the fact remains that even if we assume that humans are causing the climate change we have witnessed since 1950, the AGU and others have failed TERRIBLY to solve this problem.
These organizations and activists have had over 20 years to solve the issue of AGW and have failed miserably when all along policy makers have had a solution to carbon emissions within reach. Nuclear power adopted in a similar fashion as seen in France could have cut emissions by 50% or more with the amount we spend on subsidies (200 Billion a year globally and climbing) and that is just a start. That money could also have gone into other messes such as high-speed rail, rail infrastructure, and of course electrical vehicles, so in essence the wasting of money on wind turbines, solar turbines and similar has basically shown that organizations such as AGU are not only failures, but ineffective at solving problems.
This is larger then just whether they are wrong or right. This is whether they can be trusted with any decisions at all. If they can not even solve such a simple solution that I can spell out here in 5 minutes, then they are not good scientists but political hacks who do not deserve the title of scientists but rather deserve the title activists and who deserve the title failures.
Why in the world should we trust them to advice our policy makers or teach our children their facts when they can not even solve such a simple problem as carbon emissions when the problem has been easilly solveable since AGW was invented/known about?
That is the cardinal question then and it still is today. These organizations that adopt positions that we must do something to stop AGW miss the entire picture that we could have done something yesterday and we could do something today without money and without central control. None of those are required to solve this issue and it never was required all along. The fact that the problem still exists is central to this issue today.
A Master is responsible for his Servant. GK
Mike says:
February 27, 2012 at 7:06 pm
“As I mentioned before, if this website wants to maintain a semblence of scientific integrity it needs to avoid ranting on unscientific issues.”
The debate is over?
Genghis says:
February 27, 2012 at 4:14 pm
As the Chair of AGU’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics, Peter Gleick personified the AGU’s ethics or more accurately the lack thereof.
I have no idea how AGU can regain any semblance of being an ethical organization after this incident. Mike McPhaden’s resignation would be a good first step in the systematic house cleaning that has to occur.
================================
My sentiments exactly … some severe scrubbing is required. Gleick clearly represents what the management of the AGU consider to be the ‘right stuff’. I fail to understand why its membership tolerates such a poor level of conduct and administration.
As an aside, my professional institute (with a Royal Charter) publishes a summary of every disciplinary hearing that it conducts complete with the offenders name and the disciplinary committee decision … and they are not shy to boot members out.
“…and produced fresh fuel for the unproductive and seemingly endless ideological firestorm surrounding the reality of the Earth’s changing climate.”
What an empty statement.
As others have pointed out, of course regional climates are changing. They always have and always will.
We all know what he meant to say, but with zero evidence that today’s climate is somehow worse than the past, he’s simply making a political statement about a scientific subject, without supporting facts.
Hey Mr AGU Dude, howzabout you guys stick to science, and not take political stances on scientific issues.
“shocking fall from grace”
“He compromised AGU’s credibility as a scientific society, weakened the public’s trust in scientists”
That seems about the right tone to me, so good for the AGU president. I hope to hear no more from this Gleick buffoon. I believe that 90+% of all climate scientists are honest and relatively sane and I hope they will not hesitate to distance themselves from this criminal.
I found this whole episode funny at first but when I put myself in the shoes of someone like Prof Betts above it seems more tragic.
Does it strike anyone as funny that Gleick was exposed in matter of days, but FOIA’s identity remains unknown? There are some clues in the text he wrote as well, and it seems like only a few people would have sufficient access to do what FOIA did.
jfk says:
February 27, 2012 at 8:02 pm
“That seems about the right tone to me, so good for the AGU president. I hope to hear no more from this Gleick buffoon. I believe that 90+% of all climate scientists are honest and relatively sane and I hope they will not hesitate to distance themselves from this criminal.”
Gleick acted in the consensus spirit: For years, they have concentrated on stamping out dissent. Gleick tried the exact same thing – only that his choice of means was unfortunate.
Gleick is not an outsider for this movement even though they now deem it necessary to ostracize him. This is not honest; and they will continue to extinguish critiques with any means they deem appropriate.
The hundreds of millions of USD that the Hewlett foundation gives to climate action networks are used to propagandize the goals of the CO2AGW movement, yet they complain bitterly about the 4 mill budget of Heartland. Their goal is clear: ALL funding for them and NO funding for their critiques.
They don’t want a debate, they don’t want to be criticized, they don’t want ANY criticism, not one word of it, and the AGU boss complains not about Gleick’s motives but about the fact that Gleick’s lone wolf action backfired.
He’s kicked out because he failed.
Mike says: February 27, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Peter Gleick has not been punished yet! He has not had a criminal trial yet. In fact, he has not even been arrested. He has not even been served with a civil law suit (as far as we know).
The only thing that has happened to Gleick is that he has suffered the figurative equivalent of shooting himself in the foot (or head) and had to go to the trama center. Yes, the visit has cost him time, effort and loss of prestige, but this is not punishment! He did it to himself and now he has to live with the consequences! When Glieck is imprisoned and/or forced to pay restitution to Heartland and others, then and only then will I consider that he has been punished!!!
PS. I was originally going to use the word “respect” instead of “prestige” above, but then I remembered that I did not have respect for him before Fakegate.
Once an organization supposedly devoted to objective science has been politicized by agenda-driven ideologues, short of a major coup overthrowing the leadership, there is little hope of reform.
The best strategy is for dissidents to start a new, competing organization, dedicated anew to the principles which the old one has forsaken. If I were a member of the AGU, that’s what I would do. Find a group of like-minded colleagues, renounce our membership, and start an NAGU.
Try it, and I bet you’ll find increasing numbers of scientists joining you.
/Mr Lynn
I believe that the AGU and its Transactions journal EOS have much to answer for.
I published the following article in E&E in early 2005. Full article at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/28/the-team-trying-to-get-direct-action-on-soon-and-baliunas-at-harvard/
I am unaware that the AGU has ever “come clean” on its past transgressions, some of which are outlined below. Please correct me if I missed suitable corrective action by the AGU or EOS.
My comment to the AGU President is:
The AGU should publicly acknowledge and apologize for its ethical transgressions, such as those described in my aforementioned 2005 E&E article.
Once the AGU has cleaned up its own house, then it may be qualified to comment further on the contentious issue of alleged catastrophic humanmade global warming.
Until it makes suitable amends, I regard the AGU as ethically contaminated, and unfit for human consumption.
Regards, Allan
Drive-by shootings in Kyotoville
The global warming debate heats up
Allan M.R. MacRae
[Excerpt]
But such bullying is not unique, as other researchers who challenged the scientific basis of Kyoto have learned.
Of particular sensitivity to the pro-Kyoto gang is the “hockey stick” temperature curve of 1000 to 2000 AD, as proposed by Michael Mann of University of Virginia and co-authors in Nature.
Mann’s hockey stick indicates that temperatures fell only slightly from 1000 to 1900 AD, after which temperatures increased sharply as a result of humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2.
Mann concluded: “Our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence.”
Mann’s conclusion is the cornerstone of the scientific case supporting Kyoto. However, Mann is incorrect.
Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.
In the April 2003 issue of Energy and Environment, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-authors wrote a review of over 250 research papers that concluded that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were true climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints – contradicting Mann’s hockey stick and undermining the basis of Kyoto. Soon et al were then attacked in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
In the July 2003 issue of GSA Today, University of Ottawa geology professor Jan Veizer and Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv concluded that temperatures over the past 500 million years correlate with changes in cosmic ray intensity as Earth moves in and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The geologic record showed no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures, even though prehistoric CO2 levels were often many times today’s levels. Veizer and Shaviv also received “special attention” from EOS.
In both cases, the attacks were unprofessional – first, these critiques should have been launched in the journals that published the original papers, not in EOS. Also, the victims of these attacks were not given advanced notice, nor were they were given the opportunity to respond in the same issue. In both cases the victims had to wait months for their rebuttals to be published, while the specious attacks were circulated by the pro-Kyoto camp.
………………………….
“His transgression cannot be condoned, regardless of his motives.”
It would have been honest to explicitly state that Gleick’s motives – to stamp out the opposition – were wrong. By disregarding them, the AGU boss can avoid examining his own motives (for hiring Keith Mooney, for instance).
jfk says:
February 27, 2012 at 8:02 pm
“Does it strike anyone as funny that Gleick was exposed in matter of days, but FOIA’s identity remains unknown? There are some clues in the text he wrote as well, and it seems like only a few people would have sufficient access to do what FOIA did.”
Different level of abilities and preparation. FOIA carefully assembled his manifesto from sentences found on the internet, thwarting any attempt at idiosyncratic analysis.
Mike says:
February 27, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Partial quote from your comment:
“It doesn’t matter who you are dealing with. He could be the most unethical jerk around, but if he is a competent scientist with sound evidence then he should be listened to.”
“Define punishment. The guys career will probably never be taken seriously again…”
====================
Gleick is most assuredly without ethics or credibility. He is not the only ‘scientist’ around so no need to listen to and try to interpret anything he has to say as to whether there may be some truth to it.
As far as your judgement of punishment, your and others defense of Gleick would seem to suggest he is a hero / martyr and can do no wrong. Perhaps you and your peers have issues with reality.
Caught in a sea of lies.
Hmm. What did anyone expect McPhaden to do? Roll over and admit that CAGW is a bunch of hysterical nonsense? Like it or not, he believes it isn’t. Just as strongly as I believe it is. Had the shoe been on the other foot, and a climate sceptic been caught with his pants down, someone on my side would have been condemning him whilst still maintaining that it was all nonsense.
IOW, bearing in mind his beliefs, McPhaden has gone as far as I would have expected. What I will say, however, is that this is the last in a long line of incidents in which alarmists have been caught with their pants down, but one of the few where that has been admitted, and I celebrate that because it will erode the alarmist position. As McPhaden himself said:
“During the third week of February our global community of Earth and space scientists witnessed the shocking fall from grace of an accomplished AGU member who betrayed the principles of scientific integrity. In doing so he compromised AGU’s credibility as a scientific society, weakened the public’s trust in scientists…”
Ponder the gravity of what is being said. It is being acknowledged that credibility has been compromised, and that the public’s trust in scientists has been weakened. This is a remarkable admission. Celebrate it with me, because it’s one small step towards the recovery of scientific integrity. Still a long way to go, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
“That’s why opinion polls show that public trust in scientists is among the highest of all professions.”
According to whom? I can’t find “Scientists” listed among the top trusted professions. Google searching shows them only in the Australian data, and they’re still only 15th. And I’m sure Public Policy Scientists would be less trustworthy.
Mooloo et all:
I really hope you are right, but I’m DirkH on this. I can’t help thinking that the only reason you bring motive into it is when are looking for (or sympahetic to) mitigating factors.
His lamenting of the “ideological firestorm” doesn’t make me think that he really gets it..(stifling debate is bad, whether by trying to deprive others of funding by exposing their donors, or by keeping them out of journals by rigging the peer review process). I hope he does, but I’m not certain we can establish that fact soley based on this press release.
Stop it! with all due respect
I have to wonder why the AGU needs a high highfalutin committee on ethics. Most scientists, if they have to practice outside their sphere, have to provide critics with their data and methods for reproducibility. If it isn’t reproducible, the hypothesis fails. The data is what it is. What ethical questions are raised here? Science ethics are easy.
It isn’t until the Union (you scientists) get into politics and the feeding of the public trough that ethics need to be studied. Does it matter if I am a whore, a priest, a drunk, a-political, a specialist, unethical, an expert or Ranger Rick if my hypothesis is verified by reproducible observations by others? No, it doesn’t matter. All I have to do is provide my data and methods. End of story. This is the scientific method. It’s been around for hundreds of years. It’s worked really well.
Stop it!
The AGU should never become an advocacy society. The Union (you scientists) seem to be morphing into a political party, abandoning the noble pursuit of science. The AGU (you scientists) should quit wasting money on this nonsense. Aren’t there better, more scientific pursuits that the Union (you scientists) could support?
Do you really need to spend tens of thousands of dollars studying and arguing about ethics? Are scientists suddenly that unethical that we need more laws to force ethical behavior?
Really?
I don’t think so.
DirkH says:
February 27, 2012 at 9:14 pm
“(for hiring Keith Mooney, for instance).
Oh. It’s Chris Mooney, not Keith Mooney. Apologies. Author of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republican_War_on_Science
and its sequel
http://www.unscientificamerica.com/
He seems to have found his market niche. Ironic that someone who thinks one theory is scientific and a countertheory is unscientific considers himself a defendant of science. His own lack of understanding enables him to shift units to people who share this deficit.
An INTERESTING marketing scheme.
The guy is a bureaucrat, and this is how bureaucrats talk. Muddle the mind, gloss over the truth, etc. Use more words than fewer words.
He’s pretty much a lifer in the AGW movement…he was even on some project looking at the rapid changes in the oceans (you know like the conveyer belt)…so he’s spent his life writing, and getting grants and generally getting paid for AGW,…and he’s been very successful at it. He is a very prestigious man….and, must, be the voice of the community.
So this is not the place to get simple truths (What he did was wrong.)…that’s too simple.
Wow – two statements in recent days saying the Alberta oilsands just aren’t that bad – this one released by AGU and the other by UVic climate modeler Andrew Weaver.
Are the global warming alarmists running for the exits? Is the lucrative global warming scam getting just too hot to handle?
Please note there has been no global warming for about a decade – some say for as much as 15 years.
People might begin to notice… … “Thay honey, the car won’t thtart again thith morning, and my tongue is thtuck to the darned aluminum door again too – I don’t think it’s getting warmer anymore!”
Keep it up, you warming dervishes, these road-to-Damascus conversions might purge your troubled souls. God may forgive your transgressions, although some of us mere mortals may doubt your sincerity.
But maybe, if you are truly honest, one day we’ll have a real debate about the science of alleged catastrophic humanmade global warming.
____________
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2012/2012-12.shtml
Oil sands pollution comparable to a large power plant
February 22, 2012
AGU Release No. 12-12
For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON — It takes a lot of energy to extract heavy, viscous and valuable bitumen from Canada’s oil sands and refine it into gasoline and oil. Companies mine some of the sands with multi-story excavators, separate out the bitumen, and process it further to ease the flow of the crude oil down pipelines. About 1.8 million barrels of oil per day in 2010 were produced from the bitumen of the Canadian oil sands – and the production of those fossil fuels requires the burning of fossil fuels.
In the first look at the overall effect of air pollution from the excavation of oil sands, also called tar sands, in Alberta, Canada, scientists used satellites to measure nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide emitted from the industry. In an area 30 kilometers (19 miles) by 50 kilometers (31 miles) around the mines, they found elevated levels of these pollutants.
“For both gasses, the levels are comparable to what satellites see over a large power plant – or for nitrogen dioxide, comparable to what they see over some medium-sized cities,” said Chris McLinden, a research scientist with Environment Canada, the country’s environmental agency. “It stands out above what’s around it, out in the wilderness, but one thing we wanted to try to do was put it in context.”
The independent report on the levels of these airborne pollutants, which can lead to acid rain if they are in high enough concentrations, is a part of Environment Canada’s efforts to monitor the environmental impact of the oil sands’ surface mines, McLinden said. While some land-based measurements have been taken at particular points by other researchers, and a NASA airplane made another set of localized measurements, no one had calculated the overall extent of the oil sands’ air quality impacts including the giant dump trucks, huge refining facilities where the bitumen is processed, and more.
To do that, McLinden and his colleagues turned to satellite data. Several satellites orbiting Earth detect sunlight that passes through the atmosphere and is reflected back up to the space. Based on the patterns of reflected wavelengths, scientists can calculate the concentration of certain gasses – in particular nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. It’s a relatively new way to study pollution over small areas, he said.
The study is published today in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
The scientists found that sulfur dioxide amounts peaked over two of the largest mining operations in the Alberta oil sands, with a peak of 1.2×1016 molecules per square centimeter. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations reached about 2.5×1015 molecules per square centimeter. When researchers looked at the concentrations over the years using older satellite information, they found that the amount of nitrogen dioxide increased about 10 percent each year between 2005 and 2010, keeping pace with the growth of the oil sands industry.
“You’d certainly want to keep monitoring that source if it’s increasing at that rate,” McLinden said. “There are new mines being put in, they’re pulling out more oil.”
It’s important to examine the overall impact of the excavation and processing from the oil sands, said Isobel Simpson, an atmospheric chemist with the University of California at Irvine. She was not involved in this study, but previously participated in the airplane-based research of air quality over the oil sands.
“There are so few independent studies of oil sands,” Simpson said. The new study is something scientists haven’t been able to do before—to “see the big picture and the birds-eye view of the impact of emissions from the oil sands industry,” she said. She called for broader, future studies that would measure additional pollutants and map their extents. With the oil sands industry expanding, she said, the area needs more monitoring.
Until AGU and APS withdraw their statements on the AGW they will never gain credibility, period.
Only in Australia – Lewandowsky tries to justify Gleick’s actions. (sigh)
http://theconversation.edu.au/the-morality-of-unmasking-heartland-5494
Bah. “regardless of his motives” essentially and inevitably condones said motives. Which were to advance the Cause, and discredit a source of credible critiques. These loons just can’t resist slipping a covert claim to moral superiority into their pronouncements.