WUWT readers may recall our coverage of Charles Monnett, whose antics with polar bear sitings and attribution led Al Gore to put this famous animated video clip into An Inconvenient Truth and make wild claims about polar bears drowning for lack of sea ice:
Monnett’s legal case is over, and he has been forced to resign:
Scientist settles legal case over study of polar bear drownings
Becky Bohrer, The Associated Press / 37 min agoJUNEAU, Alaska — An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears helped galvanize the global warming movement has retired as part of a settlement with a federal agency. Charles Monnett was briefly suspended in 2011 from his work with the U.S.
…
Under the settlement, signed in October but released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on Wednesday, Monnett will receive $100,000 but cannot seek Interior Department work for five years. His retirement was effective Nov. 15, at which point the agency agreed to withdraw the letter of reprimand and issue Monnett a certificate for his work on the tracking project.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/scientist-settles-legal-case-over-study-polar-bear-drownings-2D11691760
So the message is: be a dimwit, make stuff up, and get paid for it. No word yet on whether he’ll get to keep the cushy retirement package that Federal Employees get.
Looking further, it appears that he’ll be able to keep it.
According to the PEER Union, they claim “vindication”:
http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2013/12/04/vindicated-arctic-scientist-retires-with-cash-settlement/
Revisit three-year IG investigation
See the Monnett whistleblower complaint
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Nick you do understand that his method of counting drown polar bears was to count a single “drown polar bear” survey an area of S size of a total area T find no more than conclude that the the number of “drown polar bears” was T/S one one polar bear per unit area he survived.
Of course there is still the problem that he never actually confirmed that what he saw was a polar bear or that it drowned.
That would of course be step 1.
Michaelwiseguy, a big thankyou for posting that video.
Do you get the feeling that there is something “wrong” with the people at Greenpeace?
In the mentally ill a general feeling of paranoia is shaped by the associative environment into specific paranoid concerns. At Greenpeace it seems the whole group is reinforcing each others paranoia about global warming. Call it paranoid group think.
Studies have been done that investigate how such paranoid groups grow and overwhelm their individual members. The classic example is Jim Jones.
At Greenpeace they drink the kool-aid 24/7.
Eugene WR Gallun
What’s another 100,000 dollars when you owe tens of trillions?!!!
no wonder America is bankrupt!
The OiG investigation was much more scientific than the method Monnett used to reach his conclusion.
Is that the best you have? Pretend that you’re not interested enough to see how bad Monnett was?
You don’t need to be interested in the methods to see how terrible Monnett’s conclusion was. And Monnett wasn’t even tasked with counting polar bears. He decided to conclude that polar bears were dying from CAGW simply because he happened to notice a few dead polar bears after a storm – and his predecessor couldn’t remember ever seeing that before.
Great job, Nick.
(Monnett) He said he could not, in good conscience, “work for an agency that promotes dishonesty, punishes those who actually stand up for scientific integrity, and that cannot tolerate scientific work not pre-shaped to serve its agenda.”
He doesn’t seem to mind taking 100,000 dollars from them though. What planet do these people come from? Why taxpayers aren’t out in the streets burning things down on a dialy basis is absolutely beyond me!
What kind of society allows their wealth to be taken from them and squandered on such waste and nonsense while real problemare everywhere? Arrrrrg!!!
I’m uneasy at the tone of some of the comments here. The Monnett & Gleason paper described its methods with respectable precision, and made it very clear where it was reporting results, where it was extrapolating from those results, and where it was speculating. One might regard the extrapolations as being insufficiently justifiable in statistical terms, and the speculations as rather far-fetched (though they were actually quite cautiously expressed).
I can’t see anything that could possibly constitute serious enough scientific misconduct to justify three years’ hounding of Dr. Monnett by the Inspectorate-General. Two things stand out from the transcript: first, that Dr. Monnett had not been clearly told at the outset exactly what scientific misconduct he was being accused of, contrary to the audiatur et altera pars principle of natural justice; and that he was exhausted and terrified.
He has really been made to carry the can for the fact that Al Gore flagrantly misrepresented his paper in his sci-fi comedy horror movie. It is Gore that should have been put on trial for outright scientific fraud, not least in his misrepresentation of Monnett’s paper.
Above all, I don’t think it is right for us to subject Monnett to the same treatment that so many of us have had to endure at the hands of the climate extremists. Frankly, it ought not to have taken the investigators three years to sort this matter out, leaving Monnett wondering from day to day what his future might be. We may disagree with his environmentalist views and still more with those of his wife, but we should not condone the unreasonable way he has been treated.
Read his paper. It’s honest about what was done and how it was done. Sloppy methodology, too much extrapolation and some unjustifiable speculation, yes. Scientific misconduct, no. Give him a break. Because Al Gore misrepresented his conclusions, he’s had his career shattered by what looks to me like a kangaroo court. Give him a break.
John M, The Cowardly Lion got a medal for courage. The Tin Man got a heart on a chain like a pocket watch, and the Scarecrow a diploma.
I guess that settlement and pension money/entitlements gives him the means to be sued by anyone who considers the harm created by that misrepresentation………… If I was him, I’d be divesting myself of those assets ASAP!
Derocher helped him write the paper to make it appear like a unprecedented climate catastrophe and Derocher has clearly aligned himself with Mann, Gavin and their ilk. Derocher should share the blame.
With ice sheet coverage increasing and thickening Polar bears would be hard pressed to survive this winter. Come next melt we might see a new height in body count and then talented scientists could claim evidence of unprecedented drowning …from empty bellies……
My question is that polar bears are mortal too so when one sees a dead bear in the water in summer how could we tell which is fresh and which is freshly defrosted? And which was drowned through hunger and exhaustion?
If global warming can cause spring to come a bit early and cause shoddy climate scientists to retire a bit early, I’m not sure those are bad things.
brian356
“and the Scarecrow a diploma.”
Yes, it was to make up for not having a brain. 🙂
Anthony,
You and your group need to be on high alert. Pres. Obama and his crew now seem to be betting their farm on the EPA/Climate Change re-distribution of wealth.
As you can see he is not handleing this fail of the Obama Care re-dristribution operation.
All of you have been in the real world enough to see how poorly some handle not being able to do the job and or being caught in real bad lies on the job. Take attorneys who get disbarred, or real estate title officers who go south with the loan funds in escrow. When confronted they throw things, cuss, rant, even worse. You stand in his way, you block his access to power. He will not take it lightly that your correct, he will not go easy into the night. You will be a target.
Be Prepared.
REPLY: I doubt Obama even knows my name – Anthony
Has anyone else read the settlement agreement?
Enlightening to say the least.
I think there may be some misunderstanding as to why this whole thing extended beyond a brief suspension in 2011.
Federal Court, Federal employee. that’s the fox watching the henhouse.
The feds are a bloc. They watch out for each other.
For the Fed’s it’s “Us” (the Feds) and “them” (the rest of us).
.Think about the recent government shutdown and the arrogance of the TSA
There’s no question why he was paid for mis-behavior.
He’s one of them.
He must be a democrat. They reward failure.
His ass should hang in the balance. 12″ above finish floor.
michaelwiseguy
December 4, 2013 at 3:18
‘Santa Delivers a Chilling Christmas Message From Greenpeace
An urgent message from Santa’
Well now we know. CAGW is just as real as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Way to go Greenpeace!
Oh, and it’s nice to know that those thoroughly enlightened souls at Greenpeace consider it valuable to terrorize young children as a way to effect political change. Way to go Greenpeace!
While Monnett’s poster and follow up paper were of rather dubious quality it was not he that was promoting this polar bear study. It was former Mr. Vice President Al Gore and his minions that turned bad science into the face of global warming. It is Gore that should have paid the price and is deserving of scorn for this and many even more egregious examples of using dubious science to support his agenda.
“So the message is: be a dimwit, make stuff up, and get paid for it.”
I can do that. When do I get my $100,000?
At this hour it’s -14F at Cut Bank Montana. I hope ManBearPig has a low carbon solution for this event.
At this hour it’s -14F at Cut Bank Montana. I hope ManBearPig has a low carbon solution for this event.
Al Dork did not produce Inconvenient Truth as a government employee. So, while he is the guilty party, this government jurisdiction process does not apply.
His government job was to reduce paperwork (paperwork reduction act – hence, now every government form tells you how long it will take to complete).
Inconvenient Truth was a marketing device for his main business: Generation Investment Management, Ltd.: managing “green” investments for very large investors (such as government pension funds). His salary cannot be suspended and his retirement cannot be threatened because he is the boss.
Re: Monckton of Brenchley on December 4, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Thank you for your post Lord Monckton
I’m a very strong supporter of this site, but this post is off base.
After reading the post and the ruling, my conclusion is the same as yours. I question the intent of the post; it seems Dr. Monnett has in fact been vindicated relative to some very questionable and shoddy work by the IG. Despite his deficiencies, he has clearly “won.” The means to the end clearly count and we need to remember that these people aren’t evil, just wrong, and wronging them is not acceptable.
That tact didn’t work out to well for Dr.Fruitfly last year ether . It just made my kids mad that dave would use Santa to try to money out of them “ME”.