By Garth Paltridge
Global temperatures have not risen for 17 years. The pause now threatens to expose how much scientists sold their souls for cash and fame, warns emeritus professor Garth Paltridge, former chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research.
Climate Change’s Inherent Uncertainties
…there has been no significant warming over the most recent fifteen or so years…
In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem … in its effort to promote the cause. It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society’s respect for scientific endeavour…
The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realised that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources—external anyway to their own particular organisation.
The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion. For that sort of activity, an arm’s-length association with the environmental movement would be a union made in heaven…
The trap was partially sprung in climate research when a number of the relevant scientists began to enjoy the advocacy business. The enjoyment was based on a considerable increase in funding and employment opportunity. The increase was not so much on the hard-science side of things but rather in the emerging fringe institutes and organisations devoted, at least in part, to selling the message of climatic doom. A new and rewarding research lifestyle emerged which involved the giving of advice to all types and levels of government, the broadcasting of unchallengeable opinion to the general public, and easy justification for attendance at international conferences—this last in some luxury by normal scientific experience, and at a frequency previously unheard of…
The trap was fully sprung when many of the world’s major national academies of science (such as the … Australian Academy of Science) persuaded themselves to issue reports giving support to the conclusions of the IPCC. The reports were touted as national assessments that were supposedly independent of the IPCC and of each other, but of necessity were compiled with the assistance of, and in some cases at the behest of, many of the scientists involved in the IPCC international machinations. In effect, the academies, which are the most prestigious of the institutions of science, formally nailed their colours to the mast of the politically correct.
Since that time three or four years ago, there has been no comfortable way for the scientific community to raise the spectre of serious uncertainty about the forecasts of climatic disaster… It can no longer escape prime responsibility if it should turn out in the end that doing something in the name of mitigation of global warming is the costliest scientific mistake ever visited on humanity.
Full story here at: Quadrant Online
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I would draw comparisons between climatism and economics.
For example, both are quite closely linked to politics. A good deal of politics has been a battle of economic ideas. For its much shorter life, climatism has been intimately linked to politics.
Both grapple with “wicked problems” (as discussed by Judith Curry) and chaotic behaviour patterns. Both are data intensive and attract scientific disciplines for analysis, although for both of them predictive skill sits tantalisingly just out of reach.
A significant difference is that economists have learned hard lessons and come to understand their limitations. Climatism is only starting to get to get there.
We don’t talk about “economic science”, and I would expect the expression “climate science” to be dropped in the future, and “science” will be all the better for it!
Gary Pearse;
You are not wrong, of course, but don’t chastise industry for what it does best.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I wasn’t chastising them, I was pointing out their role. It has become customary on this blog to blame the “left” and “watermelons” for the current state of affairs. I’m pointing out that there is plenty of blame to go around and that the “right” and “capitalists” have equally bent the CAGW meme to their will.
Destroying this abject failure of science to overcome mythology begins with understanding who benefits from maintaining the myth, and that cuts across a wider swath of the populace than most skeptics seem to think.
The Global Warming/ Climate change fiasco is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated on mankind. It has cost billions so far and will cost many more if it isn’t brought to an end soon. Further it threatens to destroy energy production in the world. Possibly prosecutions are in order. They should start with the people who started the hoax, Al Gore and Jim Hansen.
I like “Me” as the name for a winter storm. “Me just dropped 20 inches of snow in the Denver area.” Also “Myself” and “I”.
“Francisco says:
January 26, 2014 at 8:42 am
All this will not only harm science, but also the environment.
Took many years to build the environmental consciousness some, or most, of the people in the Western world and some other developed countries now have. Recycling, garbage segregation, curb emissions, etc… As soon as the myth is debunked, I am afraid what will happen.”
Fear not Francisco. I think most of us, rational beings, can determine the difference between mad subsidised industrial schemes to generate small amounts of high cost intermittent electricity, from genuine environmental issues, like recycling, energy saving, technical development of efficient industrial and transport systems.
Climate science isn’t really science – the evidence? Science can be tested but climate science cannot be tested. Any outcome is consistent with climate science. It cannot be falsified because climate science lives on faith.
And as long as the faith is useful it will not be exposed… yet those who don’t share the faith have far less respect for priests than true believers.
So there won’t be a crisis for the reputation of science. Just a gradual erosion of the respect for scientists.
And that could be good. Because most people have no idea what scientists do and only respect scientists for their technological wonders.
My prediction: The popular respect for scientists will be replaced by respect for engineers.
Science funded by politicians, what could go wrong?
jorgekafkazar says:
January 26, 2014 at 8:42 am
Far too late. What reputation? Science is dead, having accepted money to spew continuous propaganda since the ’80s, or, at the very best, failed to rise up and point out the fallacies published in Nature and Science and similar jourinals. Academia’s reputation is bit lower. Journalism is lowest of all, having maintained an inexplicable silence for the same period. People of integrity are few, these days, it would seem. ¿Why is that, I wonder. What happened?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once the wagers started flowing in, the rigging of the game was inevitable. Wealth, fame, power, social acceptance and moral absolution for all at the Church of Global Warming! Progressivism is and always has been in the business of selling indulgences. Their kiosks are everywhere.
BTW, Jorge, was that a deliberate misspelling of journals (“jourinals”)? Very apt!
Here’s a major UK university spending money on something called ‘sustainable chemistry’ and building a new laboratory which is apparently going to be ‘carbon neutral’ by 2025. Who exactly benefits, I wonder?
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/estates/developments/csc.aspx
Science started leaving the path when it allied with government.
WWII had a lot to do with that alliance.
Stephen Wilde:
re your post at January 26, 2014 at 9:41 am.
Please accept my sincere thanks for your words of consolation.
I hope you are right, but I fear you are not.
Richard
Much of this could have been prevented if in 1988, congressional security would have as alert as post 9-11 levels. Hansen and Wirth would have been tasered, subdued and thrown in jail for messing with the building’s a/c.
They thought they had a period of natural warming coming that would allow them to get their agenda through. They made a mistake in over-hyping the warming and put their thumbs on the scales with their “adjustments” which, when caught, resulted in people being more skeptical of their claims. Now we are going into a period of natural cooling which has come before they were able to get their agenda fully implemented and that will be their undoing. I don’t think this will ruin the reputation of science as a whole, but it will make people more skeptical of claims from scientists who have a direct personal benefit from their own claims.
Judith Curry yesterday.
But what if we do get to 20 years, then what? What if surface temps cool? What about 23 years? Just what will it take for these people to reconsider their ideas?
——————-
It is my opinion that “science” is a method and a good one. That is, the “scientific method” when followed is one of our best paths to knowledge. That said, it is also my opinion that scientists have all the failings and shortcomings of the rest of humanity and often are less honest than the average used car salesman. I gave up any trust of a ‘scientist’ back in the 70s. I trust observed data, correct methods, and logic — not men.
As an aside, I think lousy science by the medical establishment is often far worse than even a M. Mann in publishing and promoting pure trash.
The complete article by Garth Paltridge is worth spending the time to read and absorb.
Well my Bingle responds to Dr Roy’s Gareth ? With the suggestion this might be retired Australian Climate scientist Dr. Garth Paltridge (handsome looking dude; just like our Dr Roy.)
So his essay is quite thought provoking, but maybe not so surprising.
A recent (2013) report in “Physics Today” on the ultimate career paths of USA Physics PhD graduates, was quite alarming.
The gist of it was, that 30% of US physics PhDs get a permanent job in physics; presumably in the general field of their specialty. 5% get temporary positions, then presumably change to doing something else (other than physics).
65% of such graduates, never get a permanent job working in physics, presumably, in the area of their thesis specialty; they are doomed to spend the rest of their careers, as post-doc “fellows”, at some institution or other. I assume that includes, universities, and both private, and government establishments.
I don’t recall the report going into reasons for this ; they just reported the results of their survey.
I can imagine reasons. Their thesis subject might have involved nothing that anyone is willing to pay money to know more about. Industry employs plenty of physicists, including PhDs, and if you specialize in the right area, you can plow a wide furrow for yourself.
A few years ago, I attended an enrollment orientation class for parents of new students, enrolling at San Francisco State University. Naturally, the parents quizzed each other, about what their little darlings were going to do at SF State. Two (different) parents, I spoke with, said their student was doing “ethnic studies”. SF has its School of Racism.
While wondering what my student would do with a degree in film and video, maybe in the movie industry; I tried to recall seeing any newspaper ads for a person skilled in ethnic studies. Well, or political science for that matter.
So I guess if you want to do your PhD on “string theory”, or “parallel universes”, good luck on finding a job.
On another physics related web site, that I stopped wasting time and effort on, about 10% of the questions are about string theory, or parallel universes. The questions and subsequent comments from the questioners, suggest that the person is not even competent in Euclidian plane geometry. Perhaps a quarter of the questions come from people who clearly haven’t done the pre-requisites to even get into a class, where their question might be discussed. So they clearly won’t understand an answer, if you gave them one. Answerers are “rated” in a popularity concensus voting system.
But back at Dr Garth’s essay; we have the unfortunate circumstance, that climate is unavoidably linked to the weather.
And who isn’t interested in the weather ? It is vital to know about it, and in particular to know what might be coming down the pike; well recently, what might be coming down ON the pike !
But how much should we pay for people to study questions, that they may never answer before they retire, on a fat taxpayer endowed pension.
That’s the beauty of “climate research” ; you can spend your entire career, having never gathered a long enough data base of information to establish significance of whatever it was that you studied.
Is it sensible that the late Dr Carl Sagan moved over to a parallel universe, having never gathered as much as one single binary digit of scientific observational evidence, of life (intelligent or not) ; outside of a thin shell perhaps +/- 25km about mean sea level, on planet earth. Perhaps there’s not much intelligent life, within that shell.
There are other things than climatism, that are putting the squeeze on the credibility and reputation of science.
I made this point to a friend of mine back in 2004 or 2005. He conceded to me that I was probably right about CAGW but that the message was important to protect the environment. I told him then that using a demonstrably false argument to sell the environmental point would turn and bight them on the backside badly. What will happen is people are going to turn on the entire message and turn antigreen when they realize just how much of a false message was used to sell them on this. Using a cyclic natural process to trump up a message is great for a short term goal but what do you do when the cycle turns? At that point your message is glaringly false and all you did in support of it becomes not just questionable but bad.
The Leftist Scientific Establishment & AGW
The problem is that the scientific establishment leans to the left, and when the leftist senator Tim Wirth said in 1993: “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing,” the scientists agreed.
And what is that “right thing.” Well, you could say that the “conscience” of the scientific establishment is represented by Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren, who in 1973 said this: “A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States… [we] must design a stable, low-consumption economy.” He said this way before the global warming scare, in fact at the time Holdren was preaching de-development as a solution to global… cooling: http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/01/08/flashback-john-holdren-in-1971-new-ice-age-likely/
They have been pushing for draconian cuts in industrialization since the ’60s. It had nothing to do with global warming. Marice Strong, the ex UNEP Director, said: “Isn’t the only hope for this planet the total collapse of industrial civilisation? Is it not our responsibility to ensure that this collapse happens?” And Maurice Strong is considered by many to be the “father” of the global warming scare.
And a huge point about all the national academies of science getting on board with the warmists. With at least a strong super majority of the academy members leaning left, and accepting Senator Wirth’s declaration that AGW policy “is the right to do anyway,” there’s no reason why all of the academies then wouldn’t line up, en masse, in support of the leftist driven theory. So that’s just what all the academies and scientific organization did.
In addition, we can be reasonably assured that most scientists + politicos + journalists, in agreement with the notion that AGW policy was the right thing to do regardless of the science, accepted the 1989 dictim of Stephen Schneider: “We have to offer up scary scenarios… each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest.” It’s scary really, to think that it’s all fabricated bs and lies, up and down the line. There’s a lot of layers of this onion that needs to be peeled back, but it’s a peeling that needs to be done.
They gambled and they lost. To get to the root of this you have to go all the way back to Kyoto. The US was going to adopt Kyoto, Enron was going to implement a national carbon exchange, and Al Gore was going to make a huge pile of money. Their undoing actually came when the US didn’t adopt Kyoto, we didn’t set up a national carbon exchange, Enron went under, and Al Gore had to get into the movie business.
Meanwhile we just had the highest year ever that was not associated with a positive ENSO event, a fact that no one at this website has really noticed, even Tisdale.
[highest? Mod]
Not to be repetitive, Obama and his AGW EPA are still firm believers. They are in charge.
CO2 is not the problem lack of jobs is. Try to pay your heating bills without a job.
richardscourtney says: January 26, 2014 at 9:21 am
In the famous words from Dad’s Army, “We’re doomed, all doomed”, and I still object but to no avail.
_________________________________________
Come on, richard, this is an international blog. Please don’t confuse readers with parochial humour, without explaining yourself.
Doomed and entombed. – Dad’s Army:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RIgs3eygo&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dw7RIgs3eygo
ralph
Bah, no one uses RSS or even UAH temperature data due to its inherent bias. You people act as though satellite measurement is somehow “pure”. but the fact is that,
Satellites do not measure temperature. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, which must then be mathematically inverted to obtain indirect inferences of temperature.[1][2] The resulting temperature profiles depend on details of the methods that are used to obtain temperatures from radiances. As a result, different groups that have analyzed the satellite data have obtained different temperature trends. Among these groups are Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Furthermore the satellite series is not fully homogeneous – it is constructed from a series of satellites with similar but not identical instrumentation.
and, as far as your total reliance on RSS values,
Here we show that trends in MSU (where RSS gets its data from) channel 2 temperatures are weak because the instrument partly records stratospheric temperatures whose large cooling trend offsets the contributions of tropospheric warming.
–It is clear that your reliance on this system for temperature data is so biased that it makes your argument worthless.
Once you’ve sold your soul to the cause. it’s harder n hell to get it back … and once it’s known your soul is up for bids, you become just a commodity … is it any wonder that those who’ve sold out on science so fear skeptics.