UPDATE: 11:30AM 4/12/12 Predictably, Andrew Revkin from the New York Times joins in with the poo-pooing consensus saying it is “utterly unremarkable ” (yet he writes a article about it – go figure). From Revkin’s shuttered in world of living in the woods (he didn’t even know what the TV show Seinfeld was until I brought it to his attention in Climategate2), that’s probably true, but Andy, here is one of your favorite consensus buzzphrases that can be applied: it is an unprecedented letter. There’s no denying that. – Anthony
==========
From the Daily Caller, in my opinion, a load of “hooey” from NASA’s chief scientist, particularly since James Hansen doesn’t bother with peer review much anymore, he just publishes opinions and protopapers to his Columbia University website and a compliant MSM repeats them as if they were in fact peer reviewed. Further, Hansen has never accepted an offer to debate, and he probably won’t. Clearly NASA’s chief scientist is clueless about what is going on.
NASA swipes back at former astronauts over climate change
NASA is swiping back at a group of nearly 50 of its former scientists and astronauts who wrote to accuse the space agency of advocating the “extreme” position that global warming is the result of man-made carbon dioxide.
In a March 28 letter addressed to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, 49 former employees said the “unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.”
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“We support open scientific inquiry and discussion,” NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller.
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
He added: “NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate.”
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@kadaka
On the sea level thing – it is only falling until they go in to make “scientific adjustments” then it will miraculously go up by a few milimeters to centimeters and do it retroavtively into the past. Or maybe it will fall in the past so now will be that much higher. ( I feel like I am watching an old episode of Dr. Who and can’t keep my tenses straight from all the time travel.)
Leave NASA alone-Then jump all over them when the inevitable suppression of open scientific inquiry occurs. Also get all over them if they takes sides in CAGW debate.
Bloke down the pub says:
April 12, 2012 at 10:54 am
If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If anything was learnt from climategate it was that the likes of Hansen exert undue influence over the scientific literature.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHAT scientific literature?
As the last couple of WUWT threads showed as well as the climategate e-mails, there are no more scientific journals just propaganda rags. Even the Royal Society is covered with bull patties now.
I hope these heroes from when NASA meant something have a bigger plan than just writing a letter. They are not the type to shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, we tried,” and let it fade into nothing. I hope they push on and refuse to be silenced. Please. Don’t let the bad apples have the whole barrel.
If NASA had relied on the “faked” research results of people like “climate scientists” to get to the moon then it would have been a disaster. At that time research results were able to be relied on to be accurate by honest scientists and not fabricated by people trying to promote their personal reputations. I fear for future astronauts.
Any citizen can verify that the Heartland Institute presently hosts, on its own web site, one hundred and thirty four policy-related documents that refer to “open letters”.
——————
Show me a letter like this from 49 people who worked at NASA, including people like Chris Craft, who have never spoken out before, and you might have a point – Anthony
===============
Any citizen can verify that the Heartland Institute’s web site presently hosts 83 policy papers referring to “astronauts” — in these documents several of the signers of the NASA letter are prominently quoted, and praised for their skeptical views.
So it is not clear whether there is any substantively new content in the NASA letter; effectively the letter is a summary of the Heartland Institute’s on-line policy documents.
REPLY: what’s not clear is your reasoning skills, in fact it seems your skills are terribly flawed. In your zeal to poo-poo those heroes: astronauts engineers and scientists who served our country proudly, and who in good faith have sent a letter of concern, you forgot important details that don’t support your claims.
This is not a Heartland document, it wasn’t released by Heartland, and it has no Heartland logo or affiliation on the original. Just because a couple of sigantories DO have a Heartland affiliation, doesn’t mean it is in fact a Heartland document. Heartland didn’t even post the letter on their website in any official capacity.
And, it doesn’t exist in the database under Heartland that you tout: http://policybot.enginez.com/results.engz?sort=publication_date+desc&uq=%22open+letter%22
Giant mega-honking FAIL on your part there, “Bob” – Anthony
P.S. Which banned troll are you? I notice your shape shifting via anonymous proxy and changing email addresses. Typical troll, all mouth and no courage, who keeps sneaking back for more. So far you’ve used:
“Bob Gaddrod”
“Joe Priestleigh”
“Cameron Taylor”
“Lincoln Sparrow”
“R Kcin”
“Marcella Twixt”
“Evangeline Maergulis”
“Frederick Davies”
Heh – You are your own fakegate.
Bob Gaddrod,
So what’s your point? Are you complaining because there are no climate alarmist astronauts warning of impending doom? Astronauts are much more intelligent, and know more about science than the crazed head of GISS. Listen to them. You might learn something.
REPLY: Smokey, don’t bother, This is just one of our old banned trolls under yet another fake name, fake IP address, and fake email. Don’t feed the trolls – Anthony
So even if it was 1000 years old explain why the truth has an expiration date?
jbird says: “Do they even know what they are now? Does the government? Do the taxpayers? Hey! We’re payin’ for this stuff!”
Well, they’re rapidly turning into a bunch of parasites.
HankHenry says:
April 12, 2012 at 1:11 pm
“How many whopping engineering mistakes has NASA made? Space telescope mirror, a mars orbiter metric mistake, a couple space shuttles, come to mind. Doing a search on “NASA error” bring a lot more to light including a balloon launch mishap in Australia where the person in charge called 911 when his balloon hit a car.”
_____________________________
At least several of the errors which you mentioned, and certainly both of the fatal errors, came from what were essentially political decisions.
As an example, remember the Challenger’s O-rings? A management decision was made to override the concerns of engineers at the time that the o-rings were faulty… I could go on.
“Giant mega-honking FAIL on your part…”
__________
Dibs
I’m confused by these apparent conflicting statements:
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
Do they or don’t they draw conclusions?
This is not a Heartland document, it wasn’t released by Heartland, and it has no Heartland logo or affiliation on the original. Anthony.
============================
Any citizen can verify that the NASA letter’s first-named contact person, Harrison Schmitt, presently serves on the board of directors of the Heartland Institute, and is chair emeritus of the Exxon-funded Annapolis Center For Science-Based Public Policy.
REPLY: Oh please – next you’ll be telling us we are under the influence of big oil because we carry Exxon, Shell, and other gas station credit cards. No matter how much you try to spin it, you are still making up/spinning something that isn’t true. It is NOT a Heartland document. And even if it was, so what? Are you going to make up some conspiracy to explain why Chris Kraft, who has never before spoken out like this, joined with so many others? Truth is truth, no matter whether you belong to the Boy Scouts or your local chapter of some political party.
These men and women who signed speak to truth, because it is their nature to do so. If they made decisions at NASA based on feelings instead of facts, people died.
You base your views on snark, hiding behind Internet rocks, and feelings. I’ll trust any one of these NASA people who signed over your pathetic spin attempts any day of the week, twice on the Sabbath . – Anthony
John Trigge says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:44 pm
I’m confused by these apparent conflicting statements:
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
Do they or don’t they draw conclusions?
_____________________
Must have a serious talk with Winston Smith… no slipups!
/s
Bob Gaddrod says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:51 pm
This is not a Heartland document, it wasn’t released by Heartland, and it has no Heartland logo or affiliation on the original. Anthony.
============================
“Any citizen can verify that the NASA letter’s first-named contact person, Harrison Schmitt, presently serves on the board of directors of the Heartland Institute, and is chair emeritus of the Exxon-funded Annapolis Center For Science-Based Public Policy.”
___________________
So what?
what?
You can’t be serious.
Seriously, perhaps Waleed has a point. If the NASA heroes joined forces with Willis and Anthony, I am sure that a serious research article could be put forth. Say, listing the five biggest fails of the CAGW claims; backing that up with references, graphs and whatnot. Cherry pick the hell out of the most egregious fails, like a hockeystick, write em up and submit the letter to the journals listing the 49 NASA engineers and scientists as co-authors with Willis and Anthony.
Then when the pals get hold of the review and try to stifle it, publish every stinking trick they pull with signed notes about the shenanigans going back to NASA’s Charles Bolden.
This puts the dirty tricks gang into a catch 22 situation. On one hand allow the paper to go through with minimal harassment and cause peer review to sanction a CAGW fail. Or fight tooth and nail to prevent the paper and prove to the world (especially NASA and Congress) that the peer review process is rigged.
Perhaps the hockeystick, Shakun’s shenanigans as starters?
And as we all know (from their emails) the only people allowed to close down scientific debate are the AGW team and their acolytes or should that be hypocrites?
nob, speel chack as nobe workink
Spell check seen to be working fine = NOT – this is only happening on this site and what does
PEBKAC mean?? “Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair, are you sugesting that the messenger be shot for a tec glich report, that is not what I expected at your site Anthony, that would be a normal reaction fron any warmist site.
REPLY: no, spell check is fine, PEBKAC, and it is spreading. – Anthony
Anthony,
Interesting list of names for your troll. Some are passingly interesting, like the rearrangement of “Bob Goddard”, the homophone “Joseph Priestly”, the first/last combo of Evangeline Jolie and Julianna Margulies. Also I discovered there is a Lincoln’s Sparrow, maybe your “admirer” is a bird watcher.
Interesting thing though, I stuck all of them in Google, and got just one result. This page. Just minutes after you updated your Reply with that list.
Google is tracking WUWT very closely, checking very frequently. Truly that’s a sign of your success. And here we were thinking Google was deliberately ignoring WUWT too. Guess they really do care!
Smokey says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:21 pm
“Astronauts are much more intelligent, and know more about science than the crazed head of GISS. Listen to them. You might learn something.”
So by your logic and following your advice, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz would be something of an authority then, having the most spaceflights and a Ph.D?..There must be plenty of others too…49 signatures. How many current and former NASA employees are there?
de speel chek is nt functon = posble Word Press malfuntn
The spell check is not functioning = possible Word press malfunction?
Problem is not PEBKAC!
John Trigge says:
April 12, 2012 at 2:44 pm
I’m confused by these apparent conflicting statements:
But NASA responded on Wednesday by saying they don’t “draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.
Do they or don’t they draw conclusions?
_________________________________________
Given what this article FEATURED at the NASA website says, I would say that yes NASA does draw conclusions.
I do not know how you can say that article is NOT drawing conclusions since it has NASA’s name on it and it refers to work done by NASA scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York
“we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse”
Well ain’t that a fine how do you do! Asked not to make unsubstantiated alarmist proclamations and they equate that to censorship.
Hmmm….That’s kinda messed up like if a NASA scientist in one of their “News Briefs” stated that Anthony Watts bought his Meteorology degree which damaged his reputation and caused financial harm.
So, Anthony sends NASA a letter saying that he indeed earned his Meteorology degree and implores NASA to remove the libelous statement and issue an apology and retraction or face prosecution.
NASA holds a press conference and states that they encourage Anthony to prove his innocence and counter publish “rather than restrict any discourse”.
Nonsense! They’re not calling for censorship, they’re imploring NASA to be responsible scientists instead of alarmist charlatans.
DaveG,
WordPress now has a spellcheck function? I use my browser’s spellcheck function, if I turn it off then nothing warns me of a misspelling.
How did you used to get this wonderful WordPress spellcheck function to work? Is it compatible with your browser’s built-in spellcheck function?