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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“……So the message is: be a dimwit, make stuff up, and get paid for it……”
It’s a lesson you have appeared to have learned well Anthony.
Anthony,
It’s doubtful Obama knows the names of all his political “enemies” spied on or otherwise unconstitutionally targeted by the IRS, EPA et al. His henchmen do the dirty work for him. It’s called “Progress”.
Why won’t Obama ever be impeached? N….S….A
Plausible dependability isn’t just a slogan.
So why was Monnett “disciplined” and not Al Gore?
Where is his punishment for putting out false information etc.?
….”REPLY: I doubt Obama even knows my name – Anthony”
===========
Does he know his own name ??
At least he didn’t get the $100 MILLION der Fuehrer got for his vacation.
anthony,
here’s another CAGW exaggerator whose retirement i would welcome:
remember Christopher Field, the subject in August 2012 of –
WUWT: Pielke Jr. demolishes IPCC Lead Author Senate EPW testimony
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/01/pielke-jr-demolishes-ipcc-lead-author-senat-epw-testimony/
well, he’s talking rot on Australian ABC, & appearing at the Sydney Law School today:
5 Dec: ABC Breakfast: Invest early in climate change adaptation: expert
Fran Kelly with Professor Chris Field, founding Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science; co-chair, Working Group 2, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Superstorm Sandy, and more recently, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, have put the spotlight on extreme weather events.
The impacts of climate change and our ability to adapt that will be the focus of the next major report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due to be delivered in March next year.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/invest-early-in-climate-change-adaptation-expert/5135758
5 Dec: Sydney Uni Law School: Distinguished Speakers Program: Christopher Field
Climate Change: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters
http://sydney.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=164&eventid=10344
Neven, when the only evidence he can show for drowning polar bears is a couple of photoshopped pictures that are so poor you really don’t know what is in the water AND all the other photos he took that day are crystal clear AND the shopped photos originals are missing, the Agenda Driven types and Union might have saved their LIAR, BUT, he is STILL A LIAR!!!
“This agency attempted to silence me, discredit me and our work and send a chilling message to other scientists at a key time when permits for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic were being considered. They failed on the first two goals, but I believe that what they did to me did make others afraid to speak up, even internally.
Following over two years of hell for me and my family, my name has been cleared and the accusations against the scientific findings in our paper have been shown to be groundless” Monnett said. “However, I can no longer 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.”
A huge Congrats to Monnett for standing up for what is right.
A huge raspberry to Watt’s for his silly little article.
Amazing. “Firing” a government worker is nearly impossible. You have to be a poster boy of incompetence.
@Brian H – actually being a poster boy of incompetence will not get you fired either. However, committing a felony will. If the former were true, 60% of the employees would be gone.
Glad to see many here found the Bad Greenpeace Santa video amusing. You’re welcome. I can’t believe the global warmists are whoring out Santa Clause for their propaganda. How pathetic. Hope it makes it to front page of WUWT.
Check out the CNN Jeanne Moos piece mocking it.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2013/12/04/tsr-dnt-moos-santa-threatens-to-cancel-christmas.cnn.html
C of B :
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.
====
Thanks for bringing some objectivity.
Many (most?) commenters here are just as biased and partisan as those they rail against.
Oh look at the troll population. “He got money! That means he’s right!”
In other words, because Al Gore is stinking rich, the Earth is really millions of degrees hot.
Monckton makes some (likely) valid observations. I say likely, as I haven’t read the paper but would tend to trust Moncktons general interpretation. But I have seen the susbequent use of his work!
Look, if the guy has not undertaken obvious scientific misconduct or misrepresentation (think Lew and Cook here!) then the way in which his work was taken and (mis)used by Gore and his miscreants is hardly his fault? This happens many times in science and public media, with gross over reporting, exaggeration, etc.
It is true that the poster child aspect of Polar Bears (and hence Monnett’s work) has been rammed down our throats via the MSM and warmista (though in truth, I have noted how the Polar bear usage has dropped off considerably over the last few years?) but again, that is not Monnett’s fault.
It would be nice to think that perhaps Monnett could use his ‘windfall’ (in both time and money?) to revisit his work and republish with corrections/ammendments/revisions as appropriate. Certainly were I at the centre of such a level of misrepresentation, as a scientist, I would prefer to put the record straight rather than leave a false impression (I am given him the benefit of the doubt) on the record, for eternity!
I think Groanpiece shot the Futile Christmas video far below stairs at Downton Abbey?
So he drowned together with his bears… how ironic.
Nick Stokes says:
December 4, 2013 at 3:46 pm
“I’ve never been much interested in methods of counting polar bears. But the OiG investigation was very shonky. I see he gets a certificate for his work – I never got one of those.”
Does that count as going green?
Monckton’s defense of Monnett is intriguing and would require more careful study to form an opinion. How his work was used is deeply wrong and fraudulent. So another way to consider Monnett’s responsibility is how did he respond to the CAGW proponents abuse of his work. In my view, Monnett had a strong moral obligation to publicly and repeatedly condemn the CAGW alarmist miss-representation of his work. Did he????.
What is worse than Jones getting his pension package is that there are government employees who have proof he has cheated who would lose theirs and go to prison for up to thirty years under the official secrets act if they revealed this proof.
I am now a little uneasy as a result of some of the comments here. Especially, Monckton’s one on Dr Monnett’s paper: “Sloppy methodology, too much extrapolation and some unjustifiable speculation, yes. Scientific misconduct, No.”
If, at the end of the day, Monnett was chosen to be the scapegoat for Gore’s deliberately fraudulent depiction of polar bears, then I guess he does deserve some sympathy. Not a lot, but some.
As for Gore, he is far too sleek and slippery to let anything stick to him.
If, however, this ‘retirement’ helps in the Herculean task of keeping climate scientists honest, it cannot be such a bad thing.
Monnett had a strong moral obligation to publicly and repeatedly condemn the CAGW alarmist miss-representation of his work. So far I can find no evidence of him doing so. The below linked 2011 interview was bizarre humorous, but nothing condemning how his work was used so far. I am looking to support Monnett, but so far he has zip, zero, nada.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/29/inspector-generals-transcript-of-drowned-polar-bear-researcher-being-grilled/
Thank you Lord Monckton for adding some much needed rational thinking. I am in complete agreement with your statement on this. Name calling and unjustifiable slurs have no place in a debate, scientific or otherwise, and there is no doubt that Monnett has suffered unfairly and unreasonably over this.
David A says:
December 5, 2013 at 12:55 am
thanks for that link – I must have missed that story, but it sure makes Monnett look at the very least somewhat clumsy and unprofessional! Nevertheless, if there is no obvious deliberate misconduct on display he should not be pilloried so much. I still think his best option, if he is a true scientist, would be to revisit his work and review its usage…..
Sorry Anthony but this is one of a very few posts I have read at WUWT (since you started your blog) that is completely off colour. Monnett’s paper may have been sloppy but he did no other wrong. Unless you count releasing 5 emails. As Monckton said he was hounded. And the hounding was done indirectly by powerful organisations who wanted to drill for oil in the Arctic region – no?
michaelwiseguy
December 4, 2013 at 3:18
‘Santa Delivers a Chilling Christmas Message From Greenpeace
An urgent message from Santa’
It is blindingly obvious that Santa Claus is blaming the melting ice as an excuse to cancel Christmas. It’s a cover up. The real reason: As anyone knows, piloting a gift laden sleigh pulled by a herd of reindeer at low altitudes past the prolification of rotating wind turbines, then attempting to land on anyone’s solar panel clad roof is nigh on impossible these days. And as for squeezing down all those narrow wood burning flues, it’s a nightmare for the poor sod.
I agree with Lord Monckton on this one.