People send me stuff.
Just last week we heard that Dr. Robert Carter had been blackballed at his own university where he served as department chair, and now we have this from Dr. Murray Salby, sent via email.
Between John Cook, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, plus Mike Marriot and his idiotic ideas, I’m beginning to think Australia is ground zero for AGW crackpottery.
This email’s accusations (if true I have independent confirmation now, title changed to reflect this – Anthony) is quite something, it illustrates the disturbing lengths a university will go to suppress ideas they don’t agree with. So much for academic freedom at Macquarie University.
From: [redacted]
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2013 2:25 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: From Murry Salby
Thanks for your interest in the research presented during my recent lecture tour in Europe.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/another-nail-in-the-climate-change-coffin.php
Remarks from several make it clear that Macquarie University
is comfortable with openly disclosing the state of affairs,
if not distorting them to its convenience. So be it.
Macquarie’s liberal disclosure makes continued reticence unfeasible.
In response to queries is the following, a matter of record:
1. In 2008, I was recruited from the US by “Macquarie University”,
with appointment as Professor, under a national employment contract with
regulatory oversight, and with written agreement that Macquarie would provide
specified resources to enable me to rebuild my research program in Australia.
Included was technical support to convert several hundred thousand lines of computer code,
comprising numerical models and analyses (the tools of my research),
to enable those computer programs to operate in Australia.
2. With those contractual arrangements, I relocated to Australia.
Upon attempting to rebuild my research program, Macquarie advised that
the resources it had agreed to provide were unavailable. I was given an excuse for why.
Half a year later, I was given another excuse. Then another.
Requests to release the committed resources were ignored.
3. Three years passed before Macquarie produced even the first major component
of the resources it had agreed to provide. After five years of cat-and-mouse,
Macquarie has continued to withhold the resources that it had committed.
As a result, my computer models and analyses remain inoperative.
4. A bright student from Russia came to Macquarie to work with me.
Macquarie required her to abandon her PhD scholarship in Russia.
Her PhD research, approved by Macquarie, relied upon the same computer
models and analyses, which Macquarie agreed to have converted but did not.
5. To remedy the situation, I petitioned Macquarie through several avenues provided
in my contract. Like other contractual provisions, those requests were ignored.
The provisions then required the discrepancy to be forwarded to the Australian employment tribunal,
the government body with regulatory oversight.
The tribunal then informed me that Macquarie had not even registered my contract.
Regulatory oversight, a statutory protection that Macquarie advised would govern
my appointment, was thereby circumvented. Macquarie’s failure to register
rendered my contract under the national employment system null and void.
6. During the protracted delay of resources, I eventually undertook the production
of a new book – all I could do without the committed resources to rebuild my research program.
The endeavor compelled me to gain a better understanding of greenhouse gases
and how they evolve. Preliminary findings from this study are familiar to many.
http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/speaker/murry-salby/ Refer to the vodcast of July 24, 2012.
Insight from this research contradicts many of the reckless claims surrounding greenhouse gases.
More than a few originate from staff at Macquarie, which benefits from such claims.
7. The preliminary findings seeded a comprehensive study of greenhouse gases.
Despite adverse circumstances, the wider study was recently completed. It indicates:
(i) Modern changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane are (contrary to popular belief)
not unprecedented.
(ii) The same physical law that governs ancient changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane
also governs modern changes.
These new findings are entirely consistent with the preliminary findings,
which evaluated the increase of 20th century CO2 from changes in native emission.
8. Under the resources Macquarie had agreed to provide, arrangements were made
to present this new research at a scientific conference and in a lecture series at
research centers in Europe.
9. Forms for research travel that were lodged with Macquarie included a description
of the findings. Presentation of our research was then blocked by Macquarie.
The obstruction was imposed after arrangements had been made at several venues
(arranged then to conform to other restrictions imposed by Macquarie).
Macquarie’s intervention would have silenced the release of our research.
10. Following the obstruction of research communication, as well as my earlier efforts
to obtain compliance with my contract, Macquarie modified my professional duties.
My role was then reduced to that of a student teaching assistant: Marking student papers
for other staff – junior staff.
I objected, pursuant to my appointment and provisions of my contract.
11. In February 2013, Macquarie then accused me of “misconduct”,
cancelling my salary. It blocked access to my office, computer resources,
even to personal equipment I had transferred from the US.
My Russian student was prohibited from speaking with me.
She was isolated – left without competent supervision
and the resources necessary to complete her PhD investigation,
research that Macquarie approved when it lured her from Russia.
12. Obligations to present our new research on greenhouse gases (previously arranged),
had to be fulfilled at personal expense.
13. In April, The Australian (the national newspaper), published an article which
grounded reckless claims by the so-called Australian Climate Commission:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/last-summer-was-not-actually-angrier-than-other-summers/story-e6frgd0x-1226611988057 (Open access via Google News)
To promote the Climate Commission’s newest report is the latest sobering claim:
“one in two chance that by 2100 there’ll be no human beings left on this planet”
Two of the six-member Australian Climate Commission are Macquarie staff.
Included is its Chief Commissioner.
14. While I was in Europe presenting our new research on greenhouse gases,
Macquarie undertook its misconduct proceedings – with me in absentia.
Macquarie was well informed of the circumstances. It was more than informed.
15. Upon arriving at Paris airport for my return to Australia, I was advised that
my return ticket (among the resources Macquarie agreed to provide) had been cancelled.
The latest chapter in a pattern, this action left me stranded in Europe,
with no arrangements for lodging or return travel.
The ticket that had been cancelled was non-refundable.
16. The action ensured my absence during Macquarie’s misconduct proceedings.
17. When I eventually returned to Australia, I lodged a complaint with the
Australian employment tribunal, under statutes that prohibit retaliatory conduct.
18. In May 2013, while the matter was pending before the employment tribunal,
Macquarie terminated my appointment.
19. Like the Australian Climate Commission, Macquarie is a publically-funded enterprise.
It holds a responsibility to act in the interests of the public.
20. The recent events come with curious timing, disrupting publication of our research
on greenhouse gases. With correspondence, files, and computer equipment confiscated,
that research will now have to be pursued by Macquarie University’s “Climate Experts”.
http://www.science.mq.edu.au/news_and_events/news/climate_change_commision
Murry Salby
@ur momisugly Jan P
“Following this logic, if someone accused someone else of a crime, and I didn’t have any knowledge about prior untruthfulness of the accuser, I should believe the accusations to be true at face value, and I would be the one at fault, if I said the burden of proof for the accusations was on the accuser, and I didn’t believe anything before the accusations to be proven true.”
—
That is just pathetic. Did you read the assertions made by Salby? Did you notice his painstakingly accurate language, sticking strictly to factual, provable assertions and abstaining from any hyperbole, insults and allegations of crime? Also notice that we are not here in a court of law, in which indeed the burden would rest with the accuser; we are not awarding damages or meting out punishment, but just trying to understand a situation. In doing so, we are free to rely on our common sense and experience; if we have any, of course, which obviously lets you out.
BTW I happen to know that Salby’s Macquarie email address had been disabled by the university a few weeks ago (I attempted to email him, wishing to thank and congratulate him for his presentation then posted here on WUWT). The mail was rejected by the university mail server, without any further explanation or updated contact information. To me, that seems of a piece with the Macquarie’s hostile stance implied by Salby’s letter.
dbstealey says:
July 9, 2013 at 2:56 am
Agree with the remedy of legal action. Such action should be taken under U.S. jurisdiction, where there is a better discovery process. Prof Salby was enticed from the U.S.; actions were taken within this country, by agents of Macquarie. Dr. Salby suffered subsequent financial loss and damage to his professional reputation, which the university must be forced to explain. There are ongoing damages being incurred.
As always, if financial support is required to right this wrong, I will contribute. Others here have indicated they will help, too. This is a battle worth fighting.
Good man yerself.
get in touch.
Rog Tallbloke
Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. It could have been written yesterday.
Who opened Jan P Perlwitz’s box?
While I don’t vouch for the link Volcanic CO2 caused ancient episodes of global warming, climatesentral.org I can confirm that that’s a true statement but that it doesn’t hold the complete truth. Volcanic CO2 which cause more than 90% of all CO2 ‘leakage’ (human less then 1%) the volcanoes of this earth, on land and in sea, also is involved when we study ancient episodes of global cooling especially on Northern Hemisphere.
I take it that most of you are aware not only that the temperature in Arctic and Greenland was at least 1 degree Celsius sometimes 3 degree Celsius higher between 980 AD and 1341. Or at least I do hope that Scientist are aware of this?
Even those who like Cook, Bradley, Stoner and Francus, P. 2009. Five thousand years of sediment transfer in a high arctic watershed recorded in annually laminated sediments from Lower Murray Lake, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. Journal of Paleolimnology 41: 77-94. give the figure to 0.6 degrees at the peak seems to understand that it was warmer then. That figure goes for Ellesmere Island.
The acutual figure for Greenland is what I refered to above.
Most of the Viking expansion took place during what scientist refer to as the dimatic optimum of the Medieval Warm Period dated ca, A.D. 800 to 1200 (Jones 1986: McGovern 1991); a general term for warm periods that reached chere optimum at different times across the North Atlantic (Groves and Switsur 1991). During this time the niean annual temperature for southem Greenland was 1 to 3°C higher than today.” Julie Megan Ross, Paleoethnobotanical Investigation of Garden Under Sandet, a Waterlogged Norse Farm Site. Western Settlement. Greenland (Kaiaallit Nunaata), University of Alberta, Department of Anthropology Edmonton. Alberta Fall 1997, page 40
More to read: P. C. Buckland, Bioarchaeological and Climatological Evidence for the Fate of Norse Farmers in Medieval Greenland, Earth Science 1-1 1995 the University of Maine
What’s especial with ‘Garden under Sandet’? Well from mid 1300’s up to 1990’s that farm was under permafrost due to the many hugh vulcano eruptions from 1341 to 1400. Garden under Sandet had been a large farm even compered with same period in Scandinavia.
You can’t use any measured date from any area closer a vulcano than 1000 km as it was or could be used to indicate CO2 levels rising due to human activity. The same goes for the so-called heating in atmosphere – one need to take all involved variables into consideration. And they are more than 43….. Never seen anyone of the AWG-‘priests’ of this world using half of them….
Btw. on one of the channels here in Sweden earlier today there was a Science program from BBC giving the information that the cold winters in for example US, Canada, and places here in Europe is due to the temperature on the northern hemisphere cooling down the last 50 years caused by vulcano eruptions. Haven’t had time, as you might imagin, to go to the University Liberary here in Gothenburg checking the sources they refered to. But one thing is certain – the weather on Earth isn’t as easy to understand as some using mathematic formulas from Physic laws or Chemical reactions believes them to be…….
dbstealey says: July 9, 2013 at 2:56 am
“Agree with the remedy of legal action. Such action should be taken under U.S. jurisdiction, where there is a better discovery process.”
Still, it doesn’t always succeed.
I am sad to say that I am a Australian a BLOODY DISGRACE they all have there noses in the trough while shooing away the pigs and don’t forget we have a labour Gov’t who supports the actions by these gooses
(Snip. You will not label as “dishonest” everyone who disagrees with you. ~mod.)
I have done a couple of university subjects with Macquarie Uni, I planed on doing further ones, but I think I will forget it now, I really don’t want to be asscociated with a University of this callibre. Why stop at the Dean of Science? Of course if people really want to, rather than email the Dean of Science you can always go directly to the Chancellor’s Office:
http://universitycouncil.mq.edu.au/members.html
Contact for the Council is below:
Contact the Secretary
Emma Lawler
University Secretary
Office of the Vice-Chancellor
Macquarie University NSW 2109
Email: emma.lawler@mq.edu.au
Does this mean anything?
http://dockets.justia.com/search?query=Murry+L+Salby&state=colorado
JanP;
Why should I have the burden to answer your question “what in Briffa’s paper could not be understood by someone with good math skills and entry level stats?” I do not recall to have claimed that this was the case.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sir,
In the thread discussing Briffa’s regional tree ring chronology published some months ago, you made the claim that laymen without an education in climate science could not understand the paper. I put the question to you then, as I do now, other than the collection of the tree ring data itself, what about the paper could not be understood by someone with basic Excel skills and first year stats.
You refused to answer the question unless I answered one of your first.
I answered your question, and though you were active in the thread after that, you steadfastly refused to answer that question. I repeated it several times, and you continued to debate others in that thread, but refused to answer that question.
The link is there for all to see and read for themselves:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/28/manns-hockey-stick-disappears-and-crus-briffa-helps-make-the-mwp-live-again-by-pointing-out-bias-in-ther-data/
In fact I was incorrect. It was not one question JanP refused to answer, but two. In fact, for anyone who has any doubts about JanP’s ethical approach to this debate, I suggest the comments in the thread above to be very revealing.
@Allencic –
Your experience sounds very similar to mine, except that I was driven out very early in my university teaching career – I taught early American history, and had the misfortune to say good things about American institutions at a time when the going thing among my fellow profs was to obsess over Thomas Jefferson’s sex life (Fawn Brodie, for example), a pure ad hominem attack on Jefferson’s ideas. . I couldn’t get my doctoral dissertation published – my conclusions “were not consistent with prevailing opinion,” as one university press put it. It was obvio9us to me that I wojuld never get tenure unless I surrendered to the thought police, and as a matter of personal integrity I was not about to do that. So after only three years, in 1973 I left teaching and went and got an MBA in Finance and went into a business career. In the historical field, the crap was already in full swing when I was teaching, more than 40 years ago..
Chad Wozniak, Ph.D.,, American History, University of California Santa Barbara, 1970
(Snip. You will not label as “dishonest” everyone who disagrees with you. ~mod.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
With all due respect, I disagree. Let him loose. His inability to participate in an honest discussion of the science and the facts of this matter should be put on full display for all to see.
(Reply: perhaps so, but that particular comment was so scurrilous that it tripped the decency filter. ~mod.)
Perlwitz says:
“I do not believe anything that comes without the evidence that the assertions were true.”
Then of course, Perlwitz cannot possibly believe in catastrophic AGW — for which there is zero empirical scientific evidence. In fact, as CO2 continues to rise, global temperatures have stopped rising. And not for just a couple of years, but for a long time now.
There is no testable evidence, per the Scientific Method, proving that human activity has any effect at all on global temperatures. None. The planet has warmed naturally since the LIA, and at the same rate of warming — whether CO2 remained low, or ramped up high. CO2 makes no measurable difference to global temperatures, either warm or cold, and CO2 has nothing measurable to do with causing global warming. That is an indisputable scientific fact.
But global warming does have plenty to do with current atmospheric CO2 levels: as the oceans warm, CO2 is outgassed. Thus, the rise in CO2 follows global warming, it does not precede, or cause, any measurable global warming. There is no comparable chart to the one above, showing that CO2 is the cause of global warming. So Perlwitz is flat wrong.
The entire CO2=CAGW conjecture is climate alarmist nonsense, promoted by self-serving government drones. Honest scientists demand solid evidence of cause and effect, but as usual Perlwitz comes up empty-handed. He cannot show that the rise in CO2 is any more than a coincidental correlation: CO2 only appeared to lead temperatures from around 1980 to 1997. The rest of the time, CO2 followed temperature. But the climate alarmists trot out those few years as proof that CO2 causes global warming. That is not evidence, that is only the unscientific assertion of a short term coincidence. Most of the time, CO2 has followed temperature. CO2 is not the cause; it is the effect of rising temperature.
Perlwitz is a mere government bureaucrat, who is terrified that the general public will lose interest in the runaway global warming nonsense he promotes. But that is exactly what is happening. The public is getting wise to Perlwitz’ pseudo-science. They are learning what WUWT readers already know.
I don’t want to hijack this thread with the discussion between me and JanP, so I’ll take this moment to make a point.
If the accusations leveled at Mcquarie are false, then we should expect a swift and blunt counter response. After all, who is going to take a job at the kind of institution that fires you and cancels your return flight when you are on another continent? That accusation alone is sufficient to make first rate researchers think twice about working there, and failing to refute it and other simple to check facts (such as offering a contract and then not registering it) speak as loudly as the accusations themselves.
I’m waiting for the other side of the story, and will listen when it is told, change my mind if the facts warrant it. But so far all we have is the sound of silence which speaks volumes.
Anthony Watts says:
July 9, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Per davidmhoffer above, I’m going to hold Mr. Perlwitz to answering those questions before he gets to comment further on other topics
===============================
Please don’t ban him. People that disagree with the skeptical view is what makes WUWT so great to read. Maybe just a little reminder to him about those pesky questions he won’t answer, when ever he posts and you get that itch.
What were the questions BTW?
Keep up the good work.!
Prof. Salby can’t expect justice under the Australian legal system nor will he get it by seeking to use extraterritorial courts which would have to have their judgement enforced in Australia! The processes favour those who can afford all the costs and can absorb the stress to which they will be exposed while all the appellate actions take place over the future years. It is a game played by lawyers and there is always another untested or uncertain legal issue which can be teased out of any judgement. It’s point against point: the last respondent standing on the court gets its name on the judgement leader board. Macquarie must win and Salby if he takes them on will find he has all the costs as their outlays are not personal. Even a win will not recoup costs, then there’s another appeal… Been there…
The good news is that so much political action has now been mandated that people are beginning to question why they can’t afford heating or do they really need a fart tax on cows or a hundred other things driven by grreenist AGW lunacy. The best way to fight back is to preserve a livelihood somehow and turn the heat of publicity on the issues. I’m only a layman in this arena but but even I can see the AR5 chart shows a mismatch between observations and aspirational models: 17-23 years without warming is not a compelling justification to increase my power bill. Feynman is much missed at a time like this.
@ur momisugly Jan Perlwitz: you said “Whatever you expect from me, I nevertheless wouldn’t just accept your claim to be true at face value. Why would I? Just because you make such a claim?”
Answer – simple humanity: that it is wise to be inclined to accept a statement of fact (which the maker knows can and probably will be independently verified) even from a stranger, until the contrary is clear.
And in this actual case the truth will inevitably come out and Prof Salby has considerably more to lose than gain (financially and reputationally) if he has mis-represented the facts of this bizarre affair.
[Snip.]
I can’t find the comment by me under the link you provided, where I allegedly said what you are asserting.
[Snip.]
(The comment was easy to find in the link provided:
davidmhoffer says:
October 30, 2012 at 5:28 pm (Edit)
For the record, as this thread shows, I have asked climate scientist Jan Perlw1tz two questions. One in regard to what aspects of the Briffa paper above cannot be understood by someone outside of the climate research field, and the other in regard to the cause of late springs in years with little or no snowfall.
Having been repeatedly asked these questions, and having had ample time to respond, he has not. We are left to draw our own conclusions as to why.
My expectation is that he will not answer the first question because there is nothing in that paper that would require any knowledge specific to climate research to understand, and the second because he doesn’t know.
Note that Mr Hoffer referred to his own questions that Mr Perlwitz avoided, not to what Perlwitz wrote.
~mod.)
Professor Murry Salby is an honest man and a good scientist that has contributed to the understanding of Earth’s climate. This is a great, self-inflicted loss for Macquarie University.
Over the last two years he has been looking at C12 and C13 ratios and CO2 levels around the world, and has come to the conclusion that man-made emissions have only a small effect on global CO2 levels. It’s not just that man-made emissions don’t control the climate, they don’t even control global CO2 levels. See Blockbuster: Planetary temperature controls CO2 levels — not humans (Jo Nova, August 2011), at http://joannenova.com.au/2011/08/blockbuster-planetary-temperature-controls-co2-levels-not-humans/
Also see The Emily Litella moment for climate science and CO2? (Anthony Watts, August 5 2011), at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/05/the-emily-litella-moment-for-climate-science-and-co2/
(Snip.
Anthony wrote:
Per davidmhoffer above, I’m going to hold Mr. Perlwitz to answering those questions before he gets to comment further on other topics.
No further comments until you answer the questions.
~mod.)
This academic bullying is simply disgusting, showing how pathetically desperate the CAGW camp became. I anyway hope bright minds as professor Salby will prevail over this accelerating desperation.
“But so far all we have is the sound of silence which speaks volumes.”
This post appeared about 3.30pm Tuesday Sydney time. It is now 10.24am Wed. I doubt if someone at MacQ is constantly monitoring WUWT.
But MacQ will not be able to say much. Employers here are quite constrained in talking about personnel matters. There are appropriate venues (like misconduct hearings).
As a retired scientist who is living in Australia, I agree with the perception that Australian scientists are prostituting themselves to support the political climate change agenda. I have an ex-friend who now refuses to speak to me because I have suggested that climate change might not be completely human induced. He is a private consultant making his money from environmental freshwater flow programs that assume Australia will be gripped in permanent drought because of human induced climate change. I have another academic friend that remains friendly as long as I don’t question human induced climate change because his major research funding is now focused on how fish recruitment is impacted by changes in the East Australian current due to climate change.
The Australian Government has made some very strange choices of people they put in influential consultative positions. Nobody seems to think that Dr Tim Flannery, who has no qualifications in the field of Climate Science, is a strange choice as head of the Australian Commission on Climate Change. He is a Paleontologist who did his PhD thesis work on prehistoric kangaroos and why the largest Australian mega fauna disappeared about the same time that Aboriginal people first arrived in Australia. To everyone’s amazement he proposed that Aboriginals killed and ate the mega fauna. The government appointed another academic, this time an economist named Professor Ross Garnaut, to .design a carbon tax for his fellow Australians. Professor Garnaut was held up as our great environmental saviour. Nobody has ever mentioned that he was previously CEO of the largest, most polluting gold mine in Papua New Guinea.
We are bombarded daily with information from CSIRO and the government media (ABC radio and TV) indicating that 99% of scientists agree that carbon is pollution (suggesting our carbon based life form is pollution) and human induced Climate Change is going to cause us to perish on a burned out cinder of a planet if we don’t fork over our life savings immediately. From my Australian perspective, I have no problem believing everything Prof Salby is saying.
Nick Stokes,
Personnel matters aside, nothing precludes Macquarie from stating that it has done nothing wrong or improper.
But they don’t say that, do they?