With the 2014 Bloggies Awards coming up next weekend, I thought it would be good to offer our own award. Given what we’ve recently learned about the behind the scenes behavior of The University of Western Australia and Dr. Stephen Lewandowsky self inflicted car crash in handling valid ethics complaints, now dubbed “Lewgate”, I thought that he deserved to be nominated for some sort of award.
Therefore, I’m nominating him for this first annual ‘Climate Duplicitist of the Year’ award. However, to be fair, there are others that might be more worthy of such an award, so I am giving readers a chance to place nominations in comments. See below.
Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duplicity
In 48 hours, the nominations will be tabulated, and the top 5 nominees will be presented for a vote in a subsequent post. If you feel Lewandowsky deserves the award as I have nominated him above, you can also list him with any other nominees you present.
Rules:
- Nominations are open for 48 hours and close at 6PM PDT Wednesday March 26th.
- Voting for the top four nominees (determined by number of nominations) will open Thursday March 27th at 9AM PDT
- Voting will close on Saturday March 29th at 9AM PDT
- The winner will be announced at 6PM PDT (9PM EST) on Sunday March 30th.
- Nominees must be living, real, persons that have had some statement, forecast, prediction, claim, or other utterance related to climate that is inherently duplicitous or misleading.
- Organizations, such as IPCC, NOAA, CRU etc. are also eligible to be nominated.
- Nominations must include a citation, URL, or excerpt that represents the reason for the nomination.
- You cannot nominate yourself or your organization.
- The winner will receive a gift (TBD) sent by US mail, illustrating their award with an inscription along with a permanent status in the awards page which will remain resident on WUWT and updated yearly. A press release will also be made.
- No wagering allowed.
I nominate, Nick Cohen
“The climate change deniers have won”
“Yes, Mr Cohen, those whom you deliberately and with malice call “deniers” are winning. Incredibly, even though they have only 0.03% of the funds, none of the machinery or the institutions, the enmity of western governments, existential opposition from the $350 billion renewables industry, no support from the large global carbon trading market, and only scorn and derision from the entire UN, and yet they are winning with nothing but wits and facts.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/03/nick-cohen-deniers-have-won-gets-startlingly-close-to-the-truth/
Since I am banned from commenting lately and you don’t have the guts to allow dissent, you can’t even argue with me, can you? Ha!
[Reply: Oh, grow up. Your “dissenting” comments are posted. Maybe we just don’t want to bother with arguing with you. ~ mod.]
Gotta tighten up the definitions a bit I think. “Of the year” means 2013? Or just whoever we want to highlight this year regardless of what they did and when? If the former, Mann would be out because we didn’t actually hear that much from him last year. Gore would be in though for privately investing heavily in the oil and gas sector while insisting publicly that it be shut down. Gleick would be out because (IIRC) his scandal was before that. And I can’t vote for Chris Turney, that wasn’t duplicity, that was a whole different category. Incompetence or buffoonery. We need multiple categories.
But if it doesn’t have to be in a given time period, then I have to co-nominate Al Gore and Bill Nye the pretend-science guy, for faking a science experiment and putting it on air.
If my nomination wins, I respectfully request an honourable mention for R. Gates for wagering with me on the outcome of the experiment if properly conducted, and then welching when A_thony actually did the experiment and I was right and R. Gates wrong.
In my book, it has to be Dr. Michael Mann!
Come on you guys–some great nominations but you aren’t following the rules (in some cases) and I don’t want to see your nominations disqualified:
All the nominees so far are worthy candidates. I have to rank the prez at the bottom of this cesspit. His blatant disregard for law in his attempt to crush the economy in favor of his political and financial supporters is worthy of this honor.
There is a potential problem with his duplicitous actions and speech; he may actually believe the crap he’s spouting. If that’s the case, he’s simply ignorant or stupid. That argues he’s incompetent instead of dishonest. Or both.
Oh, well. Flip a coin.
g
Surely England (et al) 2014 would get a look in for denying the pause then recently writing his highly publicised and dubious ‘the ocean did it’ paper to explain the very same pause he had denied. He basically authored a paper refuting his own proposition; a classic case of duplicitous double speak. (also a massive own-goal IMO). Second him, anyone?
The quote by Mickey Mann needed for the nomination of duplicity is this:
No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/29/keiths-science-trick-mikes-nature-trick-and-phils-combo/
Woops – Sorry for not backing myself…bleating’s cheating; here’s one of many articles re England’s position on ‘the pause’ that never was…
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_did_matthew_england_deny_the_warming_pause_he_now_concedes/
And the winner, by a nose, is Peter Gleick.
oh no…
24 March: Reuters: Robert Evans: Global warming not stopped, will go on for centuries: WMO
There has been no reverse in the trend of global warming and there is still consistent evidence for man-made climate change, the head of the U.N. World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Monday…
“Levels of these greenhouse gases are at a record, meaning that our atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. The laws of physics are non-negotiable,” (U.N. weather agency chief Michel) Jarraud told a news conference…
http://news.yahoo.com/global-warming-not-stopped-centuries-wmo-204257559.html
Hallelujah:
24 March: Reuters: Michael Szabo: Trading Emissions plc posts 19.2 mln pound H2 liquidation loss
Clean energy fund Trading Emissions plc (TEP) said asset disposals and writedowns related to the winding up of its business had helped push it into a 19.2 million pound ($31.7 million) loss for the second half of 2013.
Shares in London-listed TEP fell 8 percent to 14.62 pence on Monday after the firm said its net asset value had fallen by 26 percent to 22.38 pence per share in the six months ended Dec. 31, 2013…
“It will be no surprise to shareholders that the private equity and carbon investments are becoming progressively more difficult to sell,” the company said in its results on Monday.
TEP, a fund that invests in renewable energy projects and United Nations-backed carbon credits, has been badly hurt by tumbling carbon prices and ongoing issues at several of its facilities…
The company also said Brazilian biodiesel plant Bionasa, in which it has a 25 percent stake, “remains troubled”.
“Operations have ceased, obligations to creditors including banks and employees are in default, legal actions have commenced against the company to recover overdue costs, (and) the commercial and finance directors have resigned,” TEP said.
***It added, citing local media, that 27 of Brazil’s 67 biodiesel plants had shut production due to a national supply glut…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/24/trading-emission-idUSL5N0ML2KG20140324
Al Gore since his residence uses more power than a small town and his non stop crabon spewing jet travel.
I definitely nominate Lew for Lewgate, unless there is a “Lifetime Achievement Award” in which case Mann, Gore, Gleick, and a variety of other worthy candidates will ‘float’ to the surface of the bowl……
re: Lew’s research ethics and lack thereof….
For those most conversant with all of the details of Lewgate (which I am not): it could be interesting to analyze how Lewandowsky’s behaviors do or do not conform to the letter and spirit of his new employer’s research ethics policies, the University of Bristol…. also in comparison to prevailing research ethics standards at UK universities in general, and any national rules and guidelines about research in the UK.
The argument would not be that he could be ‘formally’ judged by the requirements of an institution which he had not yet joined, but rather that it should be disturbing both internally and externally if Bristol turns out to have hired a researcher whose prior work does not meet it’s minimum standards.
For instance, there is this document online:
University of Bristol doc. on Ethics of Research Policy and Procedure
There seem to be a variety of ways in which Lewandowsky’s past behaviors would have been dubious under the stated standards at Bristol. Again, not that Lewandowsky is in peril with Bristol in some ‘formal’ sense, but rather that Bristol officials and faculty should be embarrassed and dismayed if they have hired someone who in the past failed to meet their professed standards.
[this comment cross-posted at Climate Audit]
More categories:
Most Entertaining – Chris Turney, hands down, going away, no contest.
Most Pants on Fire – Gore and Nye for faking a science experiment on air.
Most Misleading – Michael Mann’s “trick” to “hide the decline”
Most Disingenuous – Gleick, for chairing the ethics committee of a major organization while engaged in unethical acts of frowd and suspected forgery.
Most Blind – All the investigation committees that investigated Mann’s activities by narrowing the definition of what was being investigated until they investigated more and more about less and less and found out everything about nothing. They then concluded that they found nothing about everything.
Most Ignorant – David Suzuki for yapping about climate and then not knowing what Hadcrut, GISS, RSS and UAH were.
Most Sad – that senator who was worried that Guam was going to tip over if we put too many troops there.
Most Cowardly – Phil Jones for admitting that there’s been no warming but refusing to speak out for fear of retribution by other climate scientists
Most Outrageous – Kevin Trenberth for insisting that the null hypothesis should be suspended for climate science.
Most Ridiculous – Kevin Trenberth for claiming that the heat is in the oceans where we can’t measure it and which got there by skipping past hundreds of meters of water without affecting its temperature.
Most Bullying – Kevin Trenberth for forcing Wolfgang Wagner to resign from a journal for letting Roy Spencer publish a paper even though there wasn’t anything wrong with it.
Most Timid – Wolfgang Wagner for resigning due to pressure from Trenberth for publishing Roy Spencer’s paper even though Wagner admitted it was properly reviewed and there was nothing wrong with it.
Tired, gotta call it a night, there’s got to be at least another 2 or 3 hundred categories.
The IPCC.
Jeez, this is hellishly difficult category to judge. The ‘nominees’ above are mostly of pretty high calibre in the duplicity field.
In hindsight I think my England Et Al nomination is a bit of small-fry (so to speak). I think we will need multiple categories of duplicitousness and maybe even a ‘by field’ split (politicians, activists, scientists etc).
You probably need to set a cut off date too. I guess 2013 since this is a yearly award (which rules out my England 2014 paper). For example Donna at nofrakkingconsensus.com is already ripping apart IPPC ‘pal review’ reports before they are even published: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/03/21/conflict-of-interest-in-the-ipccs-new-chapter-7/
Can we pin this award down to 2013 nominees only?
Just watched Jimmy Cartier and David Letterman and their ignorance on climate. Has to be some award they qualify for.
How can we reduce this brimming field of worthy candidates to a paltry 4, and then 1? Anthony, could we not take a page from the Nobel Peace Prize committee and award the prize to the whole kit and caboodle? Say, provide a list of all nominees before your deadline, (perhaps requiring at least one seconding vote), let people vote on the ballot listing all qualifiers, and then provide the final vote count for all? I hate to think of all the deserving candidates shunted to the cutting room floor and losing their chance of world fame. Let them all have their little certificate.
My nomination is James West. Sure he is not as famous as Albert Gore or as litigious as Michael Mann, but for plain duplicitous creativity nobody comes close to James West’s recent article in Mother Jones. The article argues the reason that the debris of the tragic flight 370 in the Indian ocean is difficult to find is due to – wait for it – Global Warming.
Apparently Global Warming has messed up the currents in the southern Indian ocean. The article is replete with bogus technical explanations, of course unsubstantiated, of the changes occurring in the winds and currents in this distant part of the world
Here’s the article:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/climate-change-malaysia-airlines-370-search
James surely needs at least an honorable mention simply on the strength of this one article . I mean where else will you find a writer, almost in real time, warp a genuine human tragedy into a ludicrous global warming story. The man has duplicity in bucket loads. A dark horse perhaps, but surely is a serious contender nevertheless.
I think Anthony really has to create several well deserving categories.
And for his work to be forever enshrined by this beautifully apt eponymous neologism: Lewdoscience.
There are too many. Nominations should be for a Dirty Dozen of the Decade.
Yeah, I agree with rogerknights; I didn’t realise there were so many ‘two faces’ in Gotham batman! Too soon for lifetime achievement awards so I suggest you skim off the wannabes and just give us the four most successful scammers to choose from based on the current state of play…. this profusion of talent is kind of a sad indictment on the whole climate field really…