Guest essay by Russell Cook
Although I am no more than an ordinary citizen, my email address book reads like a “Who’s Who” list of skeptic scientists and speakers. Among them, I’ve had the privilege to exchange emails with Dr Willie Soon of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Do just a basic internet search for nothing more than his name and you see why he is disgusted by those saying his work is tainted by industry funding.
Here, rather than having a written-out guest post, Dr Soon suggested I could place two videos featuring him, followed by a specific comment question he wants to pose to his accusers, along with a statement from a fellow skeptic scientist, Dr Richard Lindzen. He felt this would collectively encapsulate the fatal weakness accusers show when they resort to charter assassination in order to avoid debate on the science of global warming.
The first video Dr Soon suggested was of his hour long 4/2/2013 University of Minnesota presentation, where he said at the outset that science should not be subjected to what he calls a strange and ugly political interference, pointing out that no amount of money can influence his opinion. Then he devoted the remainder of the presentation to his detailed scientific analysis of the global warming situation – very humorously, I should add.
View that video in its entirety, and you easily see why the woman in the following short confrontation is as foolish as she is. This confrontation occurred at the end of Dr Soon’s similar presentation at the University of Wisconsin on the following day – you see the identical slide of a comical-looking car behind him in each.
Despite all his material questioning the validity of man-caused global warming, the woman completely ignored it and instead launched into a much-repeated talking point about Dr Soon being ‘paid over a million dollars by Exxon’, followed by the question, “Why should we trust someone without credentials in climate science whose work is only funded by coal and oil industries?”
Dr Soon’s response is fabulous, transferring the burden of proof right back onto her about the assertions she made, chastising her for her rudeness in being unable to engage in debate.
The comment he wished for me to put here sums up his frustration with this woman and other like-minded critics:
Does this educational lecture really go out of the boundaries of reasonable discussion of the scientific and related socio-political issues on CO2 and climate?
Answer: no, it does not, and this illustrates the entire problem involving people on Al Gore’s side of the issue. The woman accusing Dr Soon of industry corruption could not bring herself to refute anything he said or engage in actual debate on his specific topic points. She instead inferred that money influence had tainted what he said so badly that none of it was worthy of consideration, which crumbles to dust when she and other accusers fail to prove that industry money was given to skeptic scientists in exchange for laughably and demonstratively false fabricated papers, reports or assessments.
Folks on the Al Gore side, in other words, have the situation preposterously backwards: they first should shoot down what skeptics say with superior scientific reasoning and analysis, and then nail the coffin shut by proving precisely how skeptics put out fabricated material bought by ‘big coal & oil’. The woman in the second video could not meet either challenge.
Dr Soon wanted to bring up one other point, a declaration made by a fellow scientist who questions the idea that greenhouse gases are the primary driver of global warming, Dr Richard Lindzen. It’s only four paragraphs, unequivocally stating “My research has never been supported by any industrial source.” This poses a massive problem for Ross Gelbspan, who has become rather famous over the narrative that Lindzen “charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services.”
My thanks to Dr Soon for providing Dr Lindzen’s financial declaration. It’s worthy of its own blog piece here, exploring Gelbspan’s narrative of what Dr Lindzen would charge, compared to what he actually received.
One final point: a June 2011 Reuters article is often cited by critics of Dr Soon as proof of his industry corruption. What they routinely fail to mention is the last sentence of the article where Dr Soon said:
“I would have accepted money from Greenpeace if they had offered it to do my research.”
After an especially egregious version of this oft-repeated accusation against Dr Soon appeared in the UK Guardian newspaper, he responded with this firm letter-to-the-editor, concluding with the same plea as what he basically had for the critic at his University of Wisconsin presentation.
More perspective and less prejudice, please.
Chad wrote: “Two hundred years ago this sort of behavior by the federal government would have brought on a new revolution. ”
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This is a sobering moment given what happened in Egypt after we helped enable what led to the Arab Spring. Obama was visibly startled that against his command, the Egyptians removed that form of tyrant. I know Egypt has a lot of hell brewing and I don’t know what to think of it… I fear the thought of a revolution in bloody form and I hope to God that we can have a peaceful change in the right direction.
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Janice what a nice missive to Dr. Soon. You wrote well. I enjoyed hearing his light heart speak some sense to a listening audience.
I, like John West, do not like the IPCC either.
I think we live in interesting times… John Galt is the employer mandate that forces a sub 30 hour week to escape Obama Care in one of its forms…
Thank you, Mario!
The IPCC is a co-m-m-u-nist front organization. A den of li-a-rs. I detest the IPCC as an organization. (As for individual members, shrug — need more information.)
the really dumb part about the woman that was challenging Dr. Soon about his funding sources is her lack of realization about her underlying assumption — that is, she is clearly operating on the premise that “people are willing to lie about their findings and research depending on where their funding comes from.”
OK, if one accepts that as a base assumption, doesn’t it also mean that one cannot trust any research or findings of any kind?
Secondly, it should be obvious to her that the old adage ‘it takes one to know one’ would apply. People who are quick to accuse others of falsifying their research to match their funding source are exposing exactly what they themselves would do.
In short, this woman is a fool for not recognizing that the people who established this line of attack were only projecting their own ethical failings onto the rest of the world.
Sue her for the alleged amount.
I suppose one of the important ways of defeating bullying behaviour is to publicly stand next to the person who is being bullied. It is not even necessary to say you agree with their views, what is necessary is to say “in science we expect to have debates that are confined to understanding the objectives truths, and those who bring other baggage into the room are not welcome in this forum”. As mentioned above a good chairman should be doing this anyway, but perhaps now is a time for a more general message to be expressed from the wider science community.
We have seen the constant use of the word denier in debates as a bullying put down. This word should be disallowed, and both sides should object to anyone who tries to use it in a discussion about objective truth, and people should intervene to stop the debate to point out it is an unacceptable tactic every time it crops up.
Janice, I was taught to use ‘Why?’ – to the 7th.
‘Is it true you’re funded by big oil?’ ‘Why does that matter?’
And on, and on…
This is what caused the CAGW crowd to go ballistic. Note the date. Dr Soon has been in their sights ever since. The first paragraph shows why.
So, money from Exxon is tainted with “big oil interests” but money from the government isn’t tainted with “big government interests” nor is money from NGO’s like greenpeace tainted with “big political lobby interests”?
Is there a Dr. Soon speaking engagement schedule somewhere?
Barabara Boxer, to me, sounded even more idiotic, if that’s possible, than that useful/useless idiot, at the Senate hearing last week.
Their scientific theory of climate change appears now to have fully morphed to “The science is in, and here’s the data. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide causes global warming/climate change because anyone who disagrees is funded by the Koch Brothers or Exxon/Mobil”.
Ha ha, remember those heady days for them of “the debate is over”. It soon will be.
…. no pun intended.
Dr. Soon gave a great speech it was great to be there.
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 26, 2013 at 10:38 pm
Terri Jackson says:
July 26, 2013 at 10:37 am
no warming for at least 16 years. the change has more do do with the declining solar irradiance with the current solar cycle 24 having around 60 sunspots ,half the number expected.(see Dr Abdussamatov Polkovo astronomical…
Leif Svalgaard says “Actually solar irradiance has not declined as Abdussamatov will have it. In fact, TSI is at present the highest it has been since accurate measurements started in 2003.
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Hi Leif: I think your accurate comment could be a bit misleading. In the past 16 years, solar irradiance has been lower compared to the any 16 year period in the past 100 years, even though we are at the peak of the current relatively weak solar cycle 24. That is the point of Terri Jackson’s comment. So yes, we are at the peak of this solar cycle, which is stronger than the tail end of cycle 23. Cycle 24 is the weakest solar cycle in many decades. If solar cycle 24 were like 23, 22 or 21, we would have seen more energy than we have seen over the past 10 years. I believe the point was that the weaker levels of solar output over the past 16 years correlates with the lack of warming. Of course, this is not proof of anything, but the correlation does exist.
Mario Lento says:
July 27, 2013 at 11:25 am
In the past 16 years, solar irradiance has been lower compared to the any 16 year period in the past 100 years
This is not what the esteemed Dr. Soon [who is the hero of this post] thinks:
http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png
Mario Lento says:
July 27, 2013 at 11:25 am
So yes, we are at the peak of this solar cycle, which is stronger than the tail end of cycle 23.
Both the sunspot number and the microwave flux are now lower than in 2003 [near the maximum of cycle 23 – three years after maximum, but 6 years from the end of the cycle], yet TSI is significantly higher now: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-not-following-SSN-F107.png
Mario Lento, nice clarification of Leif Svalgaard’s ambiguously written remarks.
D. B. Stealey (a.k.a. Smokey) thanks for that great link. TEN YEARS of being sneered at by colleagues like Dr. Svalgaard or harassed by fools like the woman in the video! His endurance of all that and with such a cheerful attitude makes him a hero, indeed.
re: Steve McIntyre says: “The real scandal is the failure of NSF and similar agencies to fund Soon.” Then Duster says: July 26, 2013 at 3:02 pm “The pathetic truth is that funding in science, the NSF is a good example, is driven by scientific fads.”
My experience: Graduate School, Ivy League mid 1960s, Post Doc, Ivy League, early 1970s:
1) My Research Professor, a full professor, admitted to me that he another big wigs journeyed to Washington, DC on a regular basis to in committee format to decide on grants and that the members took care of their friends: it was institutional back scratching. The same was true with the major journals and peer review.
2) An acquaintance, lived nearby in an apartment complex, who was a Resident in an Ivy University Hospital told me about his “service” in lieu of going to the Army, Navy or Air force after his internship–remember the Dr. Draft? He had gone to Harvard undergrad and his father was a professor at one of the Washington, D.C. medical schools where he got his M.D., either George Town or George Washington. Well with “pull” the man got a gig at the National Institutes of Health as a reviewer of proposals for grants. Yes, this “green” MD became a gate keeper for picking Grants. He thought that the system was insane but was quite happy that he avoided Viet Nam.
Dan Kurt
Janice Moore says:
July 27, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Mario Lento, nice clarification of Leif Svalgaard’s ambiguously written remarks.
Nice, but wrong: http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png
Hi Leif: Personally, I enjoy reading your comments, whether or not they seem negative. Information does not need to be candy coated for me to receive it – and I learn more being wrong than being right. I tried to chose my words so as not to get caught up in the fray.
If we consider NASA’s sunspot proxy since 2003, I think it’s fair to say that the average# of sunspots is about 45+/- or so. Whatever the number is, it’s been lower over the past 16 years than it’s been during most of the 20th century over any other 16 year period. I’m not trying to oversimply solar science. I’m also not saying that if the sunspot is lower, that’s proof of anything.
If we can’t even try to hear what someone’s saying, we’ll just go around in circles and accomplish nothing. It gets confusing for many when your interjections seem aimed at telling everyone here how stupid they are because they are not solar physicists.
A baseball player, for instance, does not need to understand the principles of trigonometry, gravity, force and the affect of wind friction to throw a really nice curve ball, slider, or fast ball. Yet, I could imagine someone like you making that pitcher look really stupid while he’s explaining how to correctly pitch a ball. His knowledge of science may be completely incorrect, but that does not mean he can’t show someone how to do something most scientists can’t do.
Leif Svalgaard says
Nice, but wrong: http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png
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Are you sure you are not comparing TSI in space with TSI on the surface? Such a simple thing like albedo from cloud cover or aerosol concentration may play important role in converting one into another.
Mario Lento says:
July 27, 2013 at 1:23 pm
If we consider NASA’s sunspot proxy since 2003, I think it’s fair to say that the average# of sunspots is about 45+/- or so. Whatever the number is, it’s been lower over the past 16 years than
You were specifically talking about solar irradiance, not sunspots
your interjections seem aimed at telling everyone here how stupid they are because they are not solar physicists.</i.
Being wrong is not the same as being stupid. I just correct statements that are wrong, regardless of why they are wrong.
Kasuha says:
July 27, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Are you sure you are not comparing TSI in space with TSI on the surface?
I am comparing with Dr. Soon was comparing.
Got it. That’s what I get from not reading the entire list of posts before commenting. Still, you tend to force us to be precise, which is a good thing, though not so easy for us non solar educated. Thank you.
Kasuha says:
July 27, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Leif Svalgaard says
Nice, but wrong: http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png
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Personally I think this graph shows that temperature DOES track solar cycles. It requires considering the cumulative effects to see the tracking, and this graph does not show other forces involved in climate such as ENSO and other natural processes that effect temperature.
Mario Lento says:
July 27, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Personally I think this graph shows that temperature DOES track solar cycles.
The black and the grey curves do track. But the black curve is not what is considered to be the correct run of solar irradiance [based on a 20-yr obsolete model]. The red curves at the top is shows modern versions of the irradiance.
Leif Svalgaard says:
I am comparing with Dr. Soon was comparing.
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You’re evading the answer.
Dr. Soon is not very specific about where does his graph come from. He’s calling it “the best estimate how the sun’s light output has been changing”. That description allows a whole lot of interpretations. But the graph you use in your comparison comes from a different presentation and as far as I remember, that graph was not about above-the-atmosphere TSI.