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
(Snip. Anthony sets the rules here. You are not the first person he has told to answer questions, there have been several others. So enough with your complaining. Answer the questions, and you are free to comment. That’s the deal. ~mod.)
Before you come down too hard on one side, first look at the evidence from Jo Nova’s posting on Salby’s claims two years ago. When Macquarie University hired Salby it was on the basis of
– “Salby was once an IPCC reviewer”
– “He’s been a visiting professorships at Paris, Stockholm, Jerusalem, and Kyoto, and he’s spent time at the Bureau of Meterology in Australia.”
In appointing Murray Salby as Chair of Climate Science at Macquarie University, the authorities thought they would get a prestigious believer in the AGW theory, who would enlarge the department through attracting more funding and prestige to the climatology department. Instead they were lumbered with a maverick, who fundamentally undermined their funding by becoming an apostate. As Jo said
What were Macquarie University to do?
A couple of more examples of prestigious institutions being lumbered with mavericks might help them with their plight.
In the early 1980s, the Royal Perth Hospital (in Jo Nova’s home city) experienced a couple of maverick doctors who challenged the scientific consensus on bacteria in the gut, called Barry Marshall and Robin Warren. Embarrassingly for the hospital, they received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2005. To continue the embarrassment, Nobelprize.org have a photo of these mavericks backing their link to the “Announcements of the 2013 Nobel Prizes”. Naturally, The Royal Perth Hospital tries to hide this.
In my home city of Manchester UK, a couple of Russian mavericks were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. Their maverick credentials were confirmed in the citation:-
They used adhesive tape to challenge well-established beliefs! The audacity of the fellows! That graphene may replace silicone in computer chips is besides the point. Further, my children’s high school backs onto the main Manchester University Campus. For two years running at the annual school awards, my wife, my little babes and I, have had to listen to speeches trying to inspire the youth of today to follow the lead of these people. My favorite quote is from Professor Martin Rees, then president of the UK’s Royal Society
That would be the same Royal Society who will, no doubt, deeply sympathize with Macquarie University’s predicament with their maverick scientist.
Chad Wozniak,
It pains me to say that my degrees are from the same university where Lonnie Thompson is on the faculty. Each month I get an email newsletter that nearly always has a short item of Lonnie sitting at the Right Hand of God. You can immediately tell how politically correct and f… up a former geology department is if they’ve changed their name to something like “Earth Systems Science”. This is much like departments that add “Studies” after their name. Unfortunately that applies to both my college education and the university where I taught for so many years. The big difference in when I started teaching and when I left was that at the beginning all the faculty had practical experience in the oil, mining, materials science, the USGS or geological engineering game. In other words, they knew what they were talking about. I’m forever grateful to have worked and learned from those who were genuine mentors to me in the best sense of the word. By the time retired in 2001 all of those great teachers and geologists had retired to be replaced by those whose main goal was to produce publications that no one bothered to read but looked good on their CVs. Something like, “How many trilobites can dance on the head of a pin.”
@julianbre
We are discussing the importance of freedom of ideas on a scientific matter. Intelligent Design is not science it is religion. You are free to express your feelings on a religious blog. Jerry Coyne is right to be concerned about the teaching of crackpot philosophy as if it was hard science, we are having enough trouble getting science done and published as can be seen from this thread. Kia Kaha Dr Salby, as we say in NZ (which roughly means “fight on”)
Has anyone started a list of names of those that have been burned by the church of CAGW?
Murry Salby needs to be put on the list
Thank you
@TominFlorida
What an inane comment. What have guns got to do with rational thought and scientific endeavour. NOTHING. Large parts of the world live their lives quite successfully without owning guns.
At WND’s Right to Reply, Lord Christopher Monckton writes:
Academic Freedom? Not if you Question Climate Change Exclusive: Lord Monckton tells 7 stories about professors shut down for their views
Was Prof Salby worth his salt at Macquarie University. A single PhD student in 5 years seems paltry! What about undergraduate teaching.. was he pulling his weight there… what about external funding … did he manage to get any. Look at the other side of the coin. If he was that good he would have attracted funding. Don’t get caught up in the hysteria without considering every aspect of his university career.
get real,
Yes, and while we’re asking those questions, let’s ask them of everyone. Does that sound fair?
Or are you just trying to muddy the waters?
To whom do the BIS payments go?
To whom do the BIS paments go?
Amanda P,
If I had a gun, I would be happy to get rid of it…
…just as soon as I had proof that everyone else had done the same.
I should also point out that without exception, U.S. States that allow concealed carry have seen their murder rates decline substantially. The problem is like Bastiat’s ‘things seen and things not seen’. The people who are alive because guns are allowed don’t see that as the reason they are alive. But it is a very real effect, nonetheless.
Get Real,
I think without realizing it you’ve described what’s wrong with the modern university system. Salby didn’t crank out a bunch of PhDs who won’t be able to get jobs? Fire him. No external funding for trivial research? Fire him. He won’t grovel and beg for grants.? Fire him. The quality of his work? Screw that, how hard does he push the silly hoax that is AGW. If he can push that crap make him department head or dean. Or maybe he can be a grifter like Al Gore and Barack.
The Australian newspaper has an opinion piece today on Bob Carter and climate change,
(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/why-nobody-ever-calls-the-weather-normal/story-e6frgd0x-1226676712911) , though that might be behind a paywall for some.
I expect The Australian could be persuaded to do an article on Salby.
The article about Carter et al.’s new book, Taxing Air, is a review by Matt Ridley, and can be found posted in full here: http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/11406-why-nobody-calls-weather-normal.html
Ric Werme says:
July 9, 2013 at 11:15 am
Jan P Perlwitz says:
July 9, 2013 at 6:37 am
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ah Anthony, let him post. He continues to break the first rule of hole digging: “First thing do do when you are in a hole is to stop digging.” Surely by now, no one takes him seriously? It is like having comments from Hansen or Mann – just confirms all your suspicions. Ok, first post or two might get some folks attention but after repeatedly shooting himself in the foot, it just becomes Keystone Cops. Let him post, it just gets funnier the more he posts. (OK, maybe my humour sensors are broken – the seriousness of the Salby issue aside.) Maybe you could have moderators simply append the unanswered question to all his posts until you get a satisfactory answer. It would create a neat inside joke.😳
Jan P Perlwitz says:
July 9, 2013 at 2:18 pm
An accusation of crime is not an “assertion of simple fact”, to which Michael Palmer referred. A crime necessarily has two components: (a) the “actus reus” (the physical act, perhaps taking away another person’s property) and (b) the “mens rea” (dishonest intent, such as permanently to deprive the rightful owner of the property).
Well, too bad for you in this case. 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? I don’t know you and I don’t know anything about you.
*****
And sadly, this is what is expected of the general public. We are expected to take Climate Scientists (outrageous) claims at face value –despite no scientifically, verifiable, replicable proof to substantiate their theories. Not one, not some, not many, but all of their models/predictions/projections have been laughably inaccurate.
To make matters worse the key players in this corruption of science were exposed (in their own words) in the Climate emails, to be morally and ethically bankrupt.
You raise a great point though, why would any intelligent person believe this nonsense?
Why would I?
What an absurd situation. Anthony Watts and his moderators want to enforce that I answer some question they demand me to answer. And if I don’t they won’t allow any comment by me regarding any other issue anymore.
That means, if they are consequent, they can’t allow any other comment by me forever, since they are asking me to answer a question of the type, “What is your reasoning for your claim you should be allowed to beat your wife?”, which I refuse to answer, since the presumption in the question is already a falsehood.
Unless Watts and Co. retract their demand, it means, bye, bye once more. It was a short new visit here. It lasted about a couple of days, after Watts’ retraction of the previous announcement on his blog that I was a “persona non grata” here.
REPLY: Oh don’t be ridiculous.
I just wanted you to answer the questions – Anthony
“@julianbre
… You are free to express your feelings on a religious blog.” [Amanda P. 6:13PM, 7/9/13]
In citing the two examples of American professors Hedin and Gonzalez, who are suffering professional harassment merely for 1) mentioning (Hedin) and for 2) merely holding the view that what he sees through his telescope reveals intelligent design (Gonzalez), I believe Mr. Bre’s point was that intellectual freedom is under attack in the U.S.A. as well as in Australia.
Neither of the two above-mentioned professors were teaching Intelligent Design theory:
[Julian Bre 11:36AM 7/9/13]
Julian Bre did not promote Intelligent Design theory in his post. For all we know, he does not even agree with it.
Why did Mr. Bre’s merely mentioning I.D. offend you to the point that you felt compelled to write such a sharp rebuke? You overlooked a lot of other nonsense in other posts above your comment, your addressing of which would have been worthwhile.
@ur momisugly M. Courtney
— Please tell your dad (Richard Courtney is your father, I understand?), that this WUWT blogger misses him. Yes, he at times flew off the handle, but his enthusiastic defense of truth in science was usually far more a help than a hindrance to understanding. Tell him that I have been concerned for his well-being and, thus, prayed for him. If A-th-y did not permanently ban him (and I completely respect our host’s right to do that), please tell him to not be a stranger.
Janice
@Allencic –
Yes, it was bad enough at UCSB even when I was there. The atmosphere seemed to change abruptly with the onset of the Vetnam War, right about the time I first matriculated in 1963, and the resultant taking of sides by the faculty (mostly they went to the enemy side, and even encouraged some of the violence committed by “anti-war,” i.e., pro a tyrannical, brutal, amoral enemy, student radicals). But I’m sure it’s a whole lot worse now. I guess I should consider myself lucky that the university library hasn’t destroyed or thrown away their copy of my dissertation, which was full of heresies about how goos American institutions (in this case the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established the process for admitting new states to the union) are.
I has a colleague at one of the institutions where I taught who was forever pontificating abou how the Soviet system was so much more efficient, so much more humane than ours in the US. When I confronted this nematode (also a history Ph.D.!) with the 80 millions murdered by Lenin and Stalin, his reply was, “Well, that was a necessary step in reforming society.” Unbelievable ignorance, but worse than that, utter heartlessness – and unfortunately that seems to characterize academia in too many settings today. And it certainly is reflected in today’s global warming alarmists.
I fear that the only solution may come to be that we must physically expel these people from their positions.
Allencic had a wet dream in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/professor-critical-of-agw-theory-being-disenfranchised-exiled-from-academia-in-australia/#comment-1359319
If you are dreaming about pitchforks and torches, tar and feathers against climate scientists, bring it on. I shoot you dead.
REPLY: to Jan P Perlwitz @ur momisugly 9:31PM And with that comment, threatening to shoot another commenter dead, you have in fact earned a permanent ban here at WUWT.
Congratulations Mr. Perlwitz, you are the first and only commenter here to earn the distinction of a permanent ban by a threat of shooting someone.
And Allencic, you’ve also earned a ban, two weeks, for bringing up the imagery in the first place. While I perceived it as a generalization in jest, something we might see in a Frankenstein movie, it was misinterpreted and brought out the worst in Mr. Perlwitz, so you are not without blame either.
We don’t need anybody making threats of violence on either side, even in jest. Just look at what happened over the “climate scientist death threats” in Australia that got blown out of proportions.
– Anthony Watts
Hi, Chad Wozniak,
What a resilient, persevering, seeker of truth you are. That was REALLY TOUGH, having your fine scholarship, designed to honor the truth of what Thomas Jefferson believed instead of his human frailties, completely disrespected by your colleagues. GOOD FOR YOU to go on, taking that unjust treatment as a door closed and an OPPORTUNITY to do something else.
Hope all is well and that you and your wife are enjoying lots of good music, laughter, and that fact that, when you sit down to dinner, your dearest is sitting across the table, smiling (well, most evenings, hm? (smile)) back at you.
Take care of yourself.
Janice
correction: “… instead of exposing his human frailties…”
Bart says: July 9, 2013 at 11:14 am
&
Hockey Schtick says: July 9, 2013 at 3:02 pm
“… Also, as Bart pointed out above, your claim above that there are no significant anthropogenic CO2 sinks is a non sequitur. …”
I believe Prof Salby made that claim, not Perlwitz. Agriculture might be termed an anthro sink and thus not negligible, but that’s stretching it.