Climate McCarthyism: “Are you now or have you ever been a climate skeptic?”.
Hans von Storch reports on an email that I also received today, but held waiting on a statement from The GWPF. Since von Storch has already published the email, breaking my self-imposed embargo, I’ll add the GWPF statement when it becomes available.
(GWPF statement Added below) Update: statement from Steve McIntyre added below.
von Storch writes:
In an e-mail to GWPF, Lennart Bengtsson has declared his resignation of the advisory board of GWPF. His letter reads :
“I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc. I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.
Under these situation I will be unable to contribute positively to the work of GWPF and consequently therefore I believe it is the best for me to reverse my decision to join its Board at the earliest possible time.”
I am reproducing this letter with permission of Lennart Bengtsson.
Source: http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.nl/2014/05/lennart-bengtsson-leaves-advisory-board.html
==============================================================
Statement from the GWPF:
Lennart Bengtsson Resigns: GWPF Voices Shock and Concern at the Extent of Intolerance within the Climate Science Community
It is with great regret, and profound shock, that we have received Professor Lennart Bengtsson’s letter of resignation from his membership of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council.
The Foundation, while of course respecting Professor Bengtsson’s decision, notes with deep concern the disgraceful intolerance within the climate science community which has prompted his resignation.
Professor Bengtsson’s letter of resignation from our Academic Advisory Council was sent to its chairman, Professor David Henderson. His letter and Professor Henderson’s response are attached below.
Dr Benny Peiser, Director, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
Resigning from the GWPF
Dear Professor Henderson,
I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc.
I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.
Under these situation I will be unable to contribute positively to the work of GWPF and consequently therefore I believe it is the best for me to reverse my decision to join its Board at the earliest possible time.
With my best regards
Lennart Bengtsson
Your letter of resignation
Dear Professor Bengtsson,
I have just seen your letter to me, resigning from the position which you had accepted just three weeks ago, as a member of the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Academic Advisory Council.
Your letter came as a surprise and a shock. I greatly regret your decision, and I know that my regret will be shared by all my colleagues on the Council.
Your resignation is not only a sad event for us in the Foundation: it is also a matter of profound and much wider concern. The reactions that you speak of, and which have forced you to reconsider the decision to join us, reveal a degree of intolerance, and a rejection of the principle of open scientific inquiry, which are truly shocking. They are evidence of a situation which the Global Warming Policy Foundation was created to remedy.
In your recent published interview with Marcel Crok, you said that ‘if I cannot stand my own opinions, life will become completely unbearable’. All of us on the Council will feel deep sympathy with you in an ordeal which you should never have had to endure.
With great regret, and all good wishes for the future.
David Henderson, Chairman, GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council
=============================================================
Statement from Steve McIntyre:
This is more shameful conduct by the climate “community”.
As a general point, it seems to me that, if climate change is as serious a problem as the climate “community” believes, then it will require large measures that need broadly based commitment from all walks of our society. Most “skeptics” are not acolytes of the Koch brothers, but people who have not thus far been convinced that the problem is as serious as represented or that the prescribed policies (wind, solar especially) provide any form of valid insurance against the risk. These are people that the climate “community” should be trying to persuade.
Begtsson’s planned participation in GWPF seemed to me to be the sort of outreach to rational skeptics that ought to be praiseworthy within the climate “community”.
Instead, the “community” has extended the fatwa. This is precisely the sort of action and attitude that can only engender and reinforce contempt for the “community” in the broader society.
======================================================
Wikipedia says:
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means “the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism.
This sort of witch hunt for the imagined sin of being affiliated with a climate skeptics group is about as anti-science (to use the language of our detractors) as you can get.
I keep waiting for somebody in science to have this Joseph N. Welch moment, standing up to climate bullies:
Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
Nothing will change in the rarefied air of climate debate unless people are allowed to speak their minds in science without such pressure. The next time somebody tells you that “science is pure”, show them this.
=============================================================
ADDED: Before this event became known I had planned this post for later today, it seems better suited and relevant to include it here – Anthony
=============================================================
An early rational voice in climate skepticism, Bengtsson in 1990: ‘one cannot oversell the greenhouse effect’
Guest essay by Marcel Crok
Lennart Bengtsson recently joined the Academic Council of the GWPF. This generated quite some attention on blogs and in the media. I interviewed him, but also Hans von Storch on Klimazwiebel, Axel Bojanowski had a story in Der Spiegel (English version), and there was an article in the Basler Zeitung.
Bengtsson emphasized that he has always been a “sceptic”. In the interview with me he said:
I have always been sort of a climate sceptic. I do not consider this in any way as negative but in fact as a natural attitude for a scientist. I have never been overly worried to express my opinion and have not really changed my opinion or attitude to science.
We all know that in climate discussions climate scientists are quick to say “we are all sceptics” so such a remark says little about Bengtsson’s exact viewpoints. The renowned Dutch science writer Simon Rozendaal then sent me a copy of his interview with Bengtsson published on 27 October 1990 (!) in the Dutch weekly Elsevier (for which Rozendaal still works as a science writer).
We can now confirm that Bengtsson was pretty “sceptic” in 1990. Here is the full translated Elsevier article:
A cool blanket of clouds
Climate expert Bengtsson puts the threat of the greenhouse effect in perspective
Next week, a large conference on the global climate will be held in Geneva. The most important topic of discussion: the greenhouse effect. Many hold the opinion that our planet is warming by the increase in carbon dioxide and that a climate disaster is looming. Maybe so, says Lennart Bengtsson, Europe’s most important climate scientist. Or maybe not. Bengtsson doesn’t actually know for sure. It could go either way.
Lennart Bengtsson is so far not daunted by the looming climate disaster. He frowns when looking at the tierische Ernst with which the rest of the world embraces the prediction that the planet warms due to the increase in gases like carbon dioxide (CO2). ‘It would become serious if the atmospheric CO2 concentration would decrease. Thanks to the greenhouse effect Earth is a habitable place. Were its concentration to decrease, then mean temperatures would plummet far below freezing. That really would be a catastrophe.’
The Sweed, who appears and talks like Max von Sydow, is director of the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast in Reading (United Kingdom), which supports eighteen European national weather centers like Dutch KNMI with computer models and simulations. Soon he will become director of the Max Planck institute in Hamburg and thereby will be in charge of Europe’s most important greenhouse effect computer model. ‘Until now the greenhouse effect research has concentrated in the United States, but Europe is advancing.’
There is something strange about the greenhouse effect. Many scientists babble and publish about it, but few really understand its ins and outs. Most of them treat assumptions as were they facts. Suppose that it would become two degrees warmer, how much higher would the Dutch dikes have to become? Or: suppose that we want to reduce CO2 emissions and still maintain economic growth for not so strong economies of Poland, Greece, and China, how much would the emissions of the wealthy Netherlands have to decrease? For the question whether the underlying assumptions are actually correct, one has to ask climate experts like Bengtsson.
He emphasizes that the greenhouse excitement is founded in computer simulations. And that computer generated models are not complete nonsense. ‘If for example such a model starts with a globally uniform temperature, then within a few months of simulation one would start to see the tropics warming and polar regions cooling. Remove the Amazon and after some time it reappears due to the torrential tropical rains. Such general characteristics of the global climate are part of the models.’
However, the models provide insufficient insight. ‘They are too coarse. While weather predictions nowadays have grid sizes of 100 by 100 kilometer, climate models work on a 500 by 500 km grid. In addition, models have problems with clouds. They are not able to predict what effect clouds have and they cannot distinguish between high and low clouds, yet we know that this differentiation has important consequences.’ Many other important aspects are lacking. Some of those cannot be incorporated simply because they are not well understood. ‘For a large part of the emitted carbon dioxide we do not know where it stays.’
FLUFFY TUFTS
Would there be no clouds, everything would be simple. ‘With a clear sky, increasing carbon dioxide or methane would lead to a reduction of heat radiation from the earth to the atmosphere. In addition, water vapor would amplify the so-called greenhouse effect. If temperatures increase, more water evaporates and water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas.’
However, clouds do exist. It is these fluffy tufts that diminish much of the commotion surrounding the climate disaster. Clouds cool because they reflect sunlight. On the ground we notice this when we’re in a shadow. At the same time clouds warm because they prevent heat radiation from directly escaping to space: ground frost nearly always occurs under cloud free conditions. The simple question as to whether clouds cool or warm the Earth was until recently unanswered, and this says a lot about the current state of meteorology.
Among climate experts the opinion that clouds cool Earth is gaining ground, Bengtsson observes. ‘There are recent satellite observations, as reported in the scientific magazine Nature, showing that clouds reduce the greenhouse effect. In particular low level clouds are efficient cooling agents.’
Theoretically, the greenhouse effect could even cause a cooling rather than a warming of Earth. ‘The cooling effect of clouds is five times as strong as the temperature increase due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2.’ There is even an amplification of this feedback. Bengtsson: ‘If it gets warmer, clouds become whiter and thereby reflect more solar radiation.’
Such feedbacks are hardly part of the computer models that predict the warming, according to Bengtsson. ‘Almost no model is capable of dealing with the behavior of clouds. The models builders claim they do, but when we redo the calculations that turns out not to be true.’
There are other problematic issues. Were climate to really warm, snow and ice would have to melt. That would result in additional warming because white surfaces reflect more sunlight. ‘This additional warming is not present.’ Maybe the largest omission in knowledge about climate are the oceans.’ In most models it is assumed that the ocean is fifty meters deep, which is an average. But there are parts of the oceans that are several kilometers deep. Those would slow any potential warming. You could hide thousand years of warming in the ocean.’
The one small meteorological detail from the enormous amount of uncertainties, ambiguities and question marks that has become better understood is that an increase of CO2 and some other gases potentially has a warming effect. And that is what politics is focusing on right now. Bengtsson: ‘What happens in the Atlantic Ocean could have bigger consequences, but nevertheless all attention is focusing on the greenhouse effect.’
GREENHOUSE MAFIA
Bengtsson believes that climate experts should not pretend to be more knowledgeable than they really are. ‘In case of the greenhouse effect there is an interaction between media, politics and science. Every group pushes the other groups. Science is under pressure because everyone wants our advice. However, we cannot give the impression that a catastrophe is imminent. The greenhouse effect is a problem that is here to stay for hundreds of years. Climate experts should have the courage to state that we are not yet sure. What is wrong with making that statement clear and loudly?’
The excitement of the last weeks has moved everything into high gear. A United Nations committee (the IPCC) has released a report at the end of August which suggests that there is a broad scientific consensus about the existence of the greenhouse effect. This already has had political ramifications in many countries. For example, halfway October hundreds of Dutch politicians, experts, civil servants and industrialists have been discussing in Rotterdam themes from the 1960s like whether and how the Netherlands could lead the way (again). And early November there will be a global conference in Geneva about the global climate.
Bengtsson thinks that the IPCC has been particularly actuated for political reasons. ‘The IPCC prediction that with a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere the temperature on Earth would rise by two degrees should be taken with a grain of salt.’
Due to the lack of understanding a thermometer remains crucial. And it is not pointing in the direction of a doomsday. ‘The temperature over the Northern Hemisphere has decreased since about 1950. In some countries the eighties were very warm, but there are countries where this is not the case. On Greenland there is little to be seen of the greenhouse effect. It has been very cold during the last couple of years.’
‘If you talk to the greenhouse mafia about these observations, they provide some answers, but those are not real. There is no proper support for the claim that the greenhouse effect should already be visible. It is sometimes stated that the Southern Hemisphere is warming. But there are so few observational sites over there that it is very difficult to draw any definitive conclusions about the temperature in the Southern Hemisphere.’
Bengtsson is not the only climate expert who thinks that much of the excitement about the greenhouse effect is undue. Many of his colleagues have been rather uneasy about what happened after they opened Pandora’s box. They have become afraid, now that politicians, camera crews, pressure groups and environmental departments worldwide have thrown themselves at the climate disaster, to openly state that what they have declared may have been a bit premature.
Bengtsson: ‘Many of us feel rather uncomfortable with much of what has been claimed about the greenhouse effect. No one had been talking about it because temperatures had been slightly on the decline during the last 30 years. Only after Jim Hansen of NASA had put the issue back on the agenda after the warm summer of 1988 has it become part of the political agenda. In itself there is no problem with that. Looking hundreds of years ahead the greenhouse effect could become a serious problem. Some policies are obviously a clever thing to do: save energy, become less dependent on oil, those are good ideas. But one cannot oversell the greenhouse effect. There are many environmental problems that are much more urgent like that of the sulphur dioxide in Eastern Europe.’
Marcel Crok operates two websites, De staat van het klimaat (The State of the Climate), and Climate Dialog, which recently had an excellent discussion on the Transient Response of Climate Sensitivity. I recommend adding it to your bookmarks – Anthony
UPDATE2: David Rose sums it up succinctly with a reference to Monty Python –
@RogerPielkeJr No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. But in climate science and policy, its successors are thriving.
— David Rose (@DavidRoseUK) May 14, 2014
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I feel very sorry for Prof. Bengtsson bullied by smaller men.
However, viewed politically, this is a huge win for the skeptic cause.
First, Bengtsson has not recanted, he has been bullied into resigning.
Second, the warmist fascist mask has slipped. We always knew they did this sort of thing but it was hard to prove. Now there is proof.
Third, next time some warmist moron – or POTUS – mentions the 97% the quick answer is “How many were coerced like Prof. Bengtsson?”
Fourth, this is a real scandal which can be dropped at the feet of the “consensus”. It was clack handed of them to apply the pressure simply because it reveals them for what they are. MSM can hang its hat on identifying the “Climate Bullies” and there is no particular reason why Bengtsson should not name names.
Finally, regardless of his resignation, Bengtsson is on record as a skeptic joining the honoured ranks of Curry, Lindzen, Tol, Singer and so on. Gradually a counter consensus is emerging.
” If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety.”
There have been many persecutions of individuals and particularly of scientists by religion, even secular ones such as Marxist Leninism, but can anybody not say that since the persecution of Galileo, and many others by the Catholic church, or the abomination of Eugenics, and Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union have we seen the like. We have even had attempts by so called academics to label those who dissent from the AGW/Man-made climate change line as having some sort of mental disorder. Those of us old enough to remember the persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union in the 1970’s look at this in horror.
For many who have kept quiet and hidden in the scientific community while this has been going on it is time to stand up and be counted.
“claims from one’s own “side”
Russ,
I don’t think he’s on “our side”. Looks like he’s as much Warmer, as a Skeptic.
“Begtsson’s planned participation in GWPF seemed to me to be the sort of outreach to rational skeptics that ought to be praiseworthy within the climate “community”.
Skeptics do no perform outreach to skeptics.
Andrew
It’s not just Bengttson’s skeptical views that his warmist colleagues are pressuring him about. It’s “politically” motivated too. They don’t want the GWPF to gain credibility by having relatively mainstream climatologists like him associated with it. (Bengtsson wasn’t a 3-percenter.) So they are “sending a warning message” to others who might contemplate such an association.
Hmm—I wonder if a few 3-percenters might be prompted by this affair to volunteer to sign up with the GWPF, just to “give the finger” to conformist climatologists.
Global ocean warming tied to anthropogenic forcing
Bernhard K. Reichert1,2,
Reiner Schnur and
Lennart Bengtsson
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2001GL013954/abstract
Andrew
I’m a bit confused…. are we talking about community of climate scientists or Jehova’s Witnesses here?
“If a baptized Witness teaches contrary to Witness doctrines, it is considered apostasy and grounds for disfellowshipping. A 1981 letter to overseers—reproduced in a book by former Governing Body member Raymond Franz—directed that a member who “persists in believing other doctrine”, even without promoting such beliefs, may also be subject to disfellowshipping.[64] Elders usually try to reason with the individual before such action is taken.[65] If a person believes that a teaching should be adjusted or changed, he is encouraged “to be patient and wait on Jehovah for change”.[66]
All members are encouraged to have a detailed understanding of what is expected and the consequences of wrongdoing.[67] The stated purpose of congregation discipline is to help erring ones be restored to spiritual health, to help uphold the organization’s reputation, and to keep the congregation clean from wrong conduct.[68]
The Watchtower states that “apostates are “mentally diseased,” and they seek to infect others with their disloyal teachings. (1 Timothy 6:3, 4 [NWT]).”;[78][79] some have stated that this applies to all individuals who leave the organization.[80][81]
Failure to adhere to the directions on shunning is itself considered a serious offense. Members who continue to speak to or associate with a disfellowshipped or disassociated person are said to be sharing in their “wicked works”[82] and may themselves be punished by disfellowshipping.[83] Exceptions are made in some cases such as business relations and immediate family household situations.[69] If a disfellowshipped person is living in the same home with other baptized family members, religious matters are not discussed, with the exception of minors, for whose training parents are still responsible.[84][85] Disfellowshipped family members outside the home are shunned.[86]”
Name names and reproduce emails – otherwise the resignation is pointless.
Robin says:
May 14, 2014 at 10:19 am
Gentle Tramp-
The problem is the deliberate mind arson via K-12 education ‘reforms’ coupled to higher ed shifts mandated by the UN’s Social Dimensions language in the Bologna Process.
=======
Robin,
The common core is intended to simplify textbook publishing. The problem relates to State standards which are essentially the same but managed differently by each State. This drives up the cost of textbook design — makes textbooks State specific.
States will still have the K-12 adoption process and can choose to reject a Common Core product if they choose to. The Fed can’t impose educational standards on States due to the adoption process.
So, if some loon decides to turn Common Core standards into propaganda delivery, States can and likely will reject the product. Also, Authors and Editors are responsible for the content not politicians.
Regarding Higher Ed. product (13-28). A majority of this product is unique to course study not generic. Professors frequently design textbooks for their classes are not driven by UN diatribe unless they choose to be.
I hope, that even after resigning from GWPF, Dr. Bengtsson continues the fight.
Could we please stop demonizing the late Sen. Andrew McCarthy? If you are not familiar with the Venona decrypts that were unclassified in 1995, or you have not read M. Stanton Evans’ book “Blacklisted by History,” then I doubt you really have any idea what the controversy surrounding the McCarthy hearings was all about.
The Venona wires were communications going back and forth between Moscow and their operatives in the United States. The Venona decrypts revealed that the level of infiltration by communists extended to the highest levels of our government–mainly, the State Department.
Who has been the primary entity pushing the global warming scam? The United Nations! Who wrote the UN Charter? Alger Hiss, a Soviet spy. Although Hiss was never convicted of espionage, he was sent to prison on perjury charges for lying about it. The United Nations was created by communists, not Americans. Hiss also was president of the Carnegie Institute, which has a long history of pushing a global, collectivist agenda, particularly in education (see Common Core State Standards Initiative).
Almost all the charges against McCarthy were dropped. McCarthy received a lot of heat for his grilling of Gen. Zwicker. But remember, Zwicker had written on his loyalty oath, “FIFTH.” That’s right! A general in the U.S. military plead the fifth on his loyalty oath! Does that bother you? It sure does me. Obviously, it angered Sen. Andrew McCarthya and he grilled Zwicker on the matter, which angered and enraged the left.
Do you see the gross irony here? The people who are pushing the whole Agenda 21/sustainability/climate change agenda are mostly communists, socialists, globalists, communitarians and their fellow travelers–the very people McCarthy was trying to root out of our government. And yet, we accuse those who ran off Lennart Bengtsson of engaging in “McCarthyism.” It’s just wrong, and the record needs to be set straight. The late Dr. Bella Dodd (a staunch communist who later became a vocal anti-communist) referred to the McCarthy debacle as the “worst smear job in history.” Hell, we’ve even stuck “ism” on the man’s name.
All I ask is people do come research on the matter, in light of the new information available. Don’t take my word for it. Research it yourself. Maybe if we had listened to McCarthy at the time, we would not be in the global, collectivist hell we now find ourselves embroiled in.
Roger Sowell says:
May 14, 2014 at 9:25 am
In the United States, it is a federal crime to oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person that impacts his Constitutional rights, such as Freedom of Association.
See Title 18, US Code Section 241, which states in pertinent part:
“If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same. . .”
Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment for up to 10 years, or both.”
Yes, but enforcing the law has come under scrutiny lately, hasn’t it:
From Drudge totday:
Feds released hundreds of immigrant murderers, drunk drivers, sex-crimes convicts…
REP: Obama supports ‘worst prison break in American history’…
Impeachable?
36,000 criminals freed while awaiting deportation…
Obama: Amnesty Push Coming in Next ‘Two to Three Months’…
Hopefully Operation Spring help:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/14/operation-american-spring-hitting-dc-to-oust-obama/
Climatic Change and Witch-Hunting during the Little Ice Age
richardscourtney says:
May 14, 2014 at 10:25 am
The difference between the example of Newton & Hooke on one hand & current enforcement of CACA orthodoxy is that Newton’s was a personal vendetta (which Sir Isaac also perpetrated against others), while the CACA Inquisition is institutional, with billions to trillions in treasure & thousands to billions of lives & livelihoods at stake, along with the expansion of already dangerously overweening state power.
Besides which, Hooke was himself also something of a jerk.
There are not words strong enough to describe how despicable this is. However, is it surprising? These tactics pervade our uncivil society. Look at the recent actions resulting in commencement speakers withdrawing due to petitions & demonstrations. I understand why students do this. But where are the adults. Are the faculty at colleges and the warmists in the climate science establishment so unsure of their position that they have resort to tactics reminiscent of decades ago. I won’t use the names of leaders of yesteryear who engaged in this kind of overt intimidation,but we all know who they are. Shame, shame.
Walt The Physicist says:
May 14, 2014 at 7:15 am
This is the very first historical account I have seen. I have always been aware that after World War II, science changed. My Dad, as the top Electrical Engineer in his undergraduate class of 1943, was offered a scholarship by industry to attend Cal Tech for his Masters degree, which he did after three years in the Army Signal Corps. He would have fit nicely into mathematics, physics or chemistry, but decided on engineering.
Walt (since you are physicist), Dad was very excited after signing up for a Carl Anderson (positron, Nobel Prize) physics course. The 42 year old Anderson walked in, introduced a junior faculty member to the class, and walked out. It was Dad’s biggest disappointment.
I would never have been invited to join a chemistry department in 1940, but 30 years later was welcomed with open arms while knowing very little chemistry or math. I would have been the perfect candidate for the PhD in chemistry or the other great “sciences” like environmental, nutrition or climate.
In the unlikely event that I was accepted into a university in 1940, I, along with most of today’s “scientists”, would have been majoring in theology, political science, sociology, psychology, philosophy or business. I fully expect very loud disagreement from the current chemistry, nutrition, environment and climate communities, but sadly, it is true.
[SNIP – off topic for this story, and mostly smear, as is your M.O. – bug off -mod]
milodonharlani:
re your post at May 14, 2014 at 11:33 am.
Yes, Newton’s vendetta against Hooke was “personal”, but when as RS President Newton had Hooke’s papers destroyed then that was an act of the RS (i.e. an institution). And, yes, Hooke was a “jerk”, but so what?
The point I tried to make – and am still trying to make – is that there is nothing new in improper behaviour of scientists against colleagues. Scientists tend to form alliances to ideas and have often seen adherents to different ideas as ‘enemies’ to be destroyed.
In the last century the idea of eugenics was the scientific and political (n.b. across the entire political spectrum) consensus which was enforced almost world-wide.
Now the idea of AGW is the scientific and political (n.b. across the entire political spectrum) consensus which is enforced almost world-wide.
We need to learn the warnings from the past and not deny them.
Richard
Continuing from my earlier post-
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
Let there be no confusion as to what this is really about.
{all bold emphasis mine – JW}
and
and
– – – – – – – – –
To: Anyone associated with the GWPF reading this thread
Your organization has my intellectual respect and has my endorsement of almost all of your efforts.
With that in mind, I express my lack of understanding of several points regarding the situation surrounding Professor Lennart Bengtsson becoming a member of the GWPF then resigning.
First, the element of surprise expressed by GWPF leadership at Bengtsson’s resignation concerns me. I presume that other academics who have long since joined the GWPF must have faced the same kind of intolerant response from: the academic science community; the science institution community and the community of science societies / associations. Yet, they have not resigned so suddenly. My question to GWPF is, was there an ongoing dialog by the other academics who are members of GWPF with Bengtsson about how they dealt with the same situation that Bengtsson experienced?
Second, Bengtsson expressed strongly his concern over his safety from the intolerant who are in the sphere of the worldwide climate science activities. My question to GWPF is, how have you dealt with the safety of the other scientific members of the GWPF who must be exposed to such intolerance as Bengtsson apparently faced and what do you think can be done to reduce concern for the health and safety in the future of members of the GWPF?
Finally, has the GWPF considered asking its member scientists of long standing to volunteer in expressing to us their personal experiences of intolerance from within the sphere of climate science (after or before becoming a GWPF member)? I think that would help us put into perspective what Bengtsson has just gone through and what he will likely continue to face even with his resignation.
Thank you GWPF for your considerable long standing efforts in the sphere of climate science dialog. And I particularly thank Richard Lindzen for his irrepressibly calm and incomparably rational contribution to the GWPF.
John
Walter says:
May 14, 2014 at 11:44 am
Yes, the Great War changed science dramatically and created funding distribution machine.
“””””……L. E. Joiner says:
May 14, 2014 at 6:38 am
Have we come to the end of the Age of Reason? In this brief talk (linked in the thread about videos for school kids) Sally Baliunas describes what happened to a physician who challenged the prevailing dogma that blamed witches and sorcerers for ‘extreme’ weather events during the Little Ice Age :…….”””””””
Well Dr. Sally Baliunas herself, along with Dr. (Willie) Wei Hok Soon, has endured her own experience of “shunning” for her work on climate issues, which tend to support a “skeptical” position.
She and Dr. Willie Soon did an intensive review of dozens of peer reviewed climate papers relating to the mediaeval warm period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA), that made a rather convincing argument, that both the MWP, and the LIA, were indeed GLOBAL world wide phenomena, and not LOCAL phenomena, as claimed and depicted by Dr. Michael E. Mann in his original “Hockey Stick” graph for the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE as publicized in the first IPCC report.
Subsequent editing and refreshing of Mann’s graph resulted in the “Northern Hemisphere” restriction, being “disappeared” from the hockey stick effect, along with the LIA and MWP.
Drs. Sallie, and Willie have been carrying the more realistic message, with their work, for many years, and have also been dragged over the coals for it.
As for Dr. Bengtsson and his views; I’m not familiar with his work; but deplore the apparent vendetta.
I do wish he and others would stop saying that clouds get whiter and reflect more solar radiation..
For starters; the Elsevier article, evidently from Bengtsson, contains a whole host of rubbish, amid what may be true.
“””””…..Were its concentration to decrease, then mean temperatures would plummet far below freezing. …..”””””
Poppycock! According to the logarithmecists, if it dropped in half from its present 400 ppm to 200 ppm, (not bloody likely), the mean global temperature would drop by from 1.5 to 4.5 deg C. That gets down from 288 K to 286.5 K or a disastrous 283.5 K. And I don’t even believe those numbers. And if GHG water vapor AMPLIFIES the CO2 effect, as he claims (among others), then a decrease in CO2 would be accompanied by an AMPLIFIED decrease in GHG water vapor.
That would make it HOTTER, NOT COLDER. Water vapor absorbs a lot of incoming solar energy.
If the earth had NO CLOUDS, the global surface insolation would be something of the order of 20-25% higher than it is now, and we would have global warming you wouldn’t believe.
Well NO ! we wouldn’t. WE WOULD HAVE CLOUDS !
Well I don’t have time or patience to address all of the mis-information in that statement above.
Clouds regulate the earth’s Temperature to keep us in THE GOLDILOCKS CLIMATE ZONE.
The don’t warm anything; they might slow down some night time cooling, but the can’t stop it.
Besides that is WEATHER and not CLIMATE.
ANY increase in clouds ANYWHERE, for climate like (30 year) periods of time, ALWAYS results in COOLING, not warming.
And clouds do not REFLECT solar energy, they REFRACTIVELY SCATTER it. Well for the pedants out there, the water droplet reflectance is about 2-3%.
I think I will set up a ZEMAX model of a water droplet, and have it calculate the total Fresnel hemispherical reflectance for at least the peak solar wavelength. Maybe I can take a cut at the polychromatic reflection.
Charles Chaplin – er I mean Gentle Tramp, above says:
“Well, in about 20 years, when climate reality will have proved the present “climate fascism” to be wrong, all these intolerant witch-hunters and storm troopers of today will just say “sorry, but we had only good intentions”…”
They won’t say “sorry” – ever . People who are waiting for that will wait forever. They will either 1) continue to claim they are correct, using that year’s trendy scientific (sarc) excuse for why CAGW warming hasn’t shown up yet – but it’s COMING! (see what people like Ehrlich are claiming after 40+ years of absurdly false predictions), or
2) claim that while CAGW hasn’t shown up yet, the social changes they are implementing are what is best for humanity (the good intentions referred toby Tramp above) or
3) Claim that the societal changes they have forced into being in the last 20 years are actually RESPONSIBLE for averting a CAGW disaster, and they are all heroes!
Yes, worldwide CO2 emissions will continue to rise no matter what the western powers do, but if temps are stable over the next 20 years, they will revise all their models and insist that the measures taken by the west are responsible for averting GW, even if that assertion is completely laughable. So what, their current assertions are completely laughable. It does not matter. See the entry above about Kerry/France – 500 days to avert disaster! They know they have to get some more real laws implemented – fast – so they are subsequently covered no matter what the climate looks like in 20 years. The only thing that really matters is that the societal changes they want get implemented – CAGW is just one of many possible excuses, and it really does not matter if it is real or not.
richardscourtney says:
May 14, 2014 at 11:53 am
IMO Hooke’s personality is relevant because it highlights the personal nature of his feud with Newton. BTW, Newton didn’t destroy Hooke’s RS papers (although he wanted to). They have recently been discovered & are now available on line. Newton did however apparently get rid of the only portrait of Hooke (if it existed; IIRC only one viewer reported seeing it), but this was a private act on his part as President of the RS against the memory of his predecessor, not an action by the whole body.
I can’t say that the enforcement of CACA orthodoxy is “unprecedented” in the West (while indeed comparable to Lysenkoism). IMO, outside Nazi Germany, eugenics orthodoxy was not as rigorously defended by powerful scientists, associations, media & governments as CACA has been. Prominent opponents of the movement (including anthropologist Boaz, the novelist daughter of whose student Kroeber was my neighbor in Portland, OR) were not subjected to the same sort of inquisition & exclusion, & they included powerful forces as well, such as the Catholic Church. Maybe the only reason they weren’t is because government played a smaller role then in funding “scientific” research in the West.
conscious1 says:
May 14, 2014 at 11:56 am
I’m no fan of Kissinger’s but in the interest of accuracy, that purported quotation is probably bogus. It was allegedly recorded by a Swiss diplomat, but no such recording has ever surfaced, unless you know otherwise.