I’m off on travel today, but I wanted to take this opportunity to give readers a chance to talk about a variety of topics and to discuss something that has been of interest to me over the years: professional and scientific societies.
We’ve seen the pronouncements on climate change and the internal strife generated from organizations like the American Physical Society. As you may recall APS pushed a climate change agenda to their membership via a position statement. When one of their prominent members, Dr. Hal Lewis, decided to resign in protest, the APS doubled down.
A number of people who don’t like this sort of thing have resigned from professional societies they used to belong to for similar reasons, so my question is this:
If you could create a scientific society today in the physical sciences, what would you do to make it the best you could and to give it a measure of immunity from the political downsides of the climate wars?
Also, an unrelated note: the “Top Headlines” will return Monday.
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how dead does this scam have to get before they bury it?
21 June: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: Rising German Coal Use Imperils European Emissions Deal
The European Union’s attempt to cap greenhouse-gas emissions over the next 16 years is threatened again as rising pollution from the bloc’s biggest economies shows even developed nations want to burn cheap coal.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, boosted consumption of the fuel by 13 percent in the past four years, while use in Britain, No. 3 in the region economically, rose 22 percent, statistics from oil company BP Plc show…
Countries including Poland, which relies on coal to generate more than 80 percent of its power, want to guarantee their right to use the fuel before signing off on targets they say penalize lower-income nations…
“Both the U.K. and Germany are on a collision course with Poland,” Maciej Bukowski, president of the Warsaw Institute of Economic Studies, which has advised Poland on greenhouse gas cuts, said by phone June 17. “To cut emissions, it needs to spend a lot of money up front,” he said, predicting a 50 percent chance the October deadline will slip…
The so-called Visegrad group of former Soviet-controlled countries — including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — said in May that the EU’s plans for 2030 put a “disproportionate burden on the lower-income member states.” …
German fossil-fuel emissions climbed 5.5 percent to 843 million tons in the four years through 2013, the BP data show. To meet its commitment, Germany would have to reduce its pollution by about 379 million tons, a further 45 percent. The BP statistics cover only fossil-fuel burning, which makes up about 88 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas output…
Failure of the EU to reach a deal this year risks diluting the global climate agreement due to be forged in Paris in December 2015, said Robert Stavins, director of Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program…
“If it requires unanimity, it’s going to be very, very difficult,” Stavins said. “Poland is right to be concerned for its economy.” …
The cost of emitting one ton of carbon dioxide in the EU’s emissions market has slumped 81 percent since 2008 as the financial crisis cut industrial demand, fueling a surplus of the pollution rights…
***European governments handed out $57 billion in 2012 for green energy projects, more than half of the global $101 billion, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-19/rising-german-coal-use-imperils-european-emissions-deal.html
How does crowd funding of science research figure in? Just a fad or not viable for major research projects? Or too soon to tell? It seems to me to have the benefit of taking your case directly potential donors without having to tailor it to an institution’s biases.
For example: http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/19/local/la-me-crowdfunding-20140220
Or http://petridish.org and http://experiment.com
Google has become obsessed with football (soccer). When is it going to be obsessed with the global warming scam?:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming.html
The South Sandwich Islands are about to become surrounded by Antarctica sea ice. Does this happen every year??
Unfortunately, I believe we are seeing an example of unintended consequences. Back in the 60s and 70s, at least as I recall it, physical scientists (in fact I can only speak about physics directly) became increasingly aware of social causes, perhaps due to the turmoil of the 60s in general. A conversation among and within the various groups of physical scientists began about the “social responsibility” of scientists to help inform policy making in society. (Or the “badness” of working for the military industrial complex.) The majority of physicists largely saw it as something one could do in one’s spare time but mostly an occupation of those who leaned toward picking up the management and administrative duties attendant to research facilities and institutions. I think the original intent of scientists expressing opinions on issues of social and political relevance was to “do good” somehow, based on the notion that scientists “knew more” about things in some way.
Somehow between then and now, the activity of scientists taking positions on issues of social or political relevance seems to have migrated to two unintended outcomes. In one, scientists are viewed analogous to celebrities, namely because they can do something well (tennis, act, string theory, economics, whatever) then their opinion on issues of social relevance but outside their specialty must also be somehow informed by as much focused effort as they put into their specialty. In the other outcome, professional societies, while not actually selling out in the most crass sense, seem to be ever aware of the necessity of their members to obtain largely governmental funding for research and have been taking positions, if any, that largely agree with the position of the government that funds them. They do this for the same reason that many businesses prefer to take no controversial position or relatively bland pro forma supportive positions of issues of interest to the government in power – namely to avoid offending unnecessarily a potential funder of work for the members.
Thus the rat’s nest we now have of scientific societies acting in decidedly unscientific ways is simply the unintended consequence of the desire of scientists to exercise social responsibility and “do good.”
On balance, I agree with Mark Stoval at the beginning of this thread. If a society takes positions at all the outcome is doomed to become bad in unintended ways. This would however, relegate most scientific societies to the back seat of public interest, definitely not saviors of the world. We would have to learn to live without the occasional gushing news interest in our work. It might also make our societies less influential in assisting members toward getting access to governmental funding.
The scientfic structure I would like to see developed at WUWT is the one used by a relatively new (controversial) organization, see here: http://www.deepcarbon.net
They also have a closed membership site, where you log in and can discuss items and share information without general publication.
Regarding Nick Stokes at June 21, 2014 at 5:17 pm
I had been looking for the update every day this past week and hadn’t noticed it Thursday morning, and couldn’t check Friday. Today I was off on travel. No need to think it is being avoided. I’m just not always able to do things to everyone’s satisfaction.
I think the situation has become endemic. Associations become impelled to have a position, but often the position papers are couched in platitudes that are hard to argue with; and full of political correctness:
1. http://www.acec.ca/source/2014/SourceExpress/sustainability/PDF/SustainabilityEng.pdf
2, https://www.apeg.bc.ca/News/Articles/ACEC-Report-Tackles-Sustainability-in-Engineering
3. https://www.apeg.bc.ca/getmedia/a39ff60e-80a1-4750-b6a5-9ddc1d75248a/APEGBC-Climate-Change-Position-Paper.pdf.aspx
4. https://www.apeg.bc.ca/APEGBC/media/APEGBC/Sustainability%20and%20Climate%20Change/APEGBC-Sustainability-Guidelines.pdf
With the exception of item 3, these statements are hard to argue with when there is a duty to use “best practices” in accordance with “current” technologies. But this can quickly degenerate into a discussion of whose “opinion” or whose “conclusions” or which “consensus” is to be used.
Glad I am retired.
don’t worry, Laurent Fabius will be the president of the conference on climate change in Paris end of 2015 !!!
http://www.causeur.fr/fabius-photos-meteo-28164.html
ahahahaha
I meant to add a number 5 to my post of June 21, 10:05
https://www.apeg.bc.ca/APEGBC/media/APEGBC/Sustainability%20and%20Climate%20Change/APEGBC-Climate-Change-Task-Force-Report.pdf
Oops. 10:01 and in moderation. Double entendre not intended ;-(
We have a big problem in American science, foreseen by Pres. Eisenhower….our university research infrastructure develops a “vampiric” relationship with government funding sources, and the process becomes self-perpetuating. Climate science isn’t the first, but it is certainly one of the most egregious.
I’ve seen this happen in public health, when the attacks of 9/11 spawned an academic/industrial complex to study, develop and deploy new technologies to protect us from water supplies poisoned by terrorists, chemical weapon attacks (anyone remember DHS’s admonitions for Americans to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect ourselves?? It seems ridiculous upon reflection, but that was policy: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-terror-ducttape-ct,0,512761.story)
The worst domestic bioterrorism incident was spawned by a US Army anthrax investigator, Dr. Bruce Ivins, who was obsessed with a college fraternity….technologies developed to protect us, and meanwhile, universities and public health departments continue to fight for funds to counteract this stuff. Consider the hideously expensive, and ineffective, “Biowatch” monitoring system: http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=node/12998
Personally, I think academic research should be funded by a lottery system. It would be more honest, avoid the temptation of rent-seeking academics to stampede after every new topic, and probably generate some very interesting basic and applied research. Have a nice weekend, Anthony.
^Sorry, Dr. Ivins was obsessed with a college sorority…. that sick SOB was allowed to work with live anthrax, one of the most dangerous pathogens available, and he spread it around because of some old heartbreak! http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/01/us/anthrax-killer-case/
Hey, fling funds.
You can’t have a society to deliver a utopian vision of the scientific method.
Societies have rules. Many rules are directed at maintaining standards. Standards protect the society from “the cranks”.
The rot sets-in at the outset. From rules and standards, you get policing, entry qualifications and membership selection (e.g. disqualification), speaking from authority, peer review, position statements (e.g. “we don’t think ‘x’ accords with the scientific method and we distance ourselves from its promoters”), and all the rest.
A formal organising produces vested interests. It is incompatible with the free spirit of scientific ideals.
As WUWT regulars know, scientific ‘announcements’ are all to often over-sensationalised to draw attention. Therefore, a society should ensure that, when communications and scientific statistics are released by their members (or fellows), that they are careful to ‘play down’ the risk of someone distorting the facts to grab attention.
So . . . . no more “CO2 has increased from 383ppm to 400ppm” which results in “it’s worse than we thought – we’re all doomed”.
If they had only said “CO2 has increased very slightly from 1 x 2,611th of the atmosphere to 1 x 2,500th of the atmosphere” – then nobody would take any notice.
Incidentally, worldwide bread manufacture (via yeast fermentation) produces 85.571 Million tonnes of CO2 per annum – which is the same amount of CO2 emitted by 61 Million cars in the same period (there are 32 million cars registered in the UK).
Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing” (http://www.isegoria.net/2008/07/robert-conquests-three-laws-of-politics/)
“If you could create a scientific society today in the physical sciences, what would you do to make it the best you could and to give it a measure of immunity from the political downsides of the climate wars?”
No 501c3 – too many laws and lawyers. You need a structure that allows you to run your own enterprise as you like without having to get legal advice all the time. No Board of Directors – they always allow some highly trained, dazzling hires to come in, who then kick out the builder/creator and take over. (That has happened to 3 churches, 1 company, and 1 science alliance I have been in.)
I cannot tell if this society is solely for the purpose of publishing papers.
Science ceases to be objective when the finance comes from an organisation or branch of government which has a commercial or political agenda.
The only way out is for the best researchers to have tenure and guaranteed research funds for a defined term, during which they are not subject to such pressures.
The argument then switches to ‘the end effect’; will researchers tailor their work to getting money at the end of their term of fiscal freedom? The answer to that is quite simple: let them bid again based on their track record of honesty and scientific ability. One example of cheating and you’re out.
“Ever since the beginning of modern science, the best minds have recognized that ‘the range of acknowledged ignorance will grow with the advance of science.’ Unfortunately, the popular effect of this scientific advance has been a belief, seemingly shared by many scientists, that the range of our ignorance is steadily diminishing and that we can therefore aim at more comprehensive and deliberate control of all human activities. It is for this reason that those intoxicated by the advance of knowledge so often become the enemies of freedom.”
Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) Austrian Economist
Circulation over North America does not change. This may cause flooding in the central states.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/06/25/0600Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/orthographic=-87.91,28.98,481
Occurs a strong cooling of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf Stream slowing down.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/06/17/0000Z/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-87.91,28.98,481
“Plans to build a new road in Iceland ran into trouble recently when campaigners warned that it would disturb elves living in its path.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27907358
“Construction work had to be stopped while a solution was found”
As we speak an entirely new model for the climate is being released online to be vetted and probed on Jo Nova’s site. This is the modern way to do peer review, politics are removed, trolls are controlled by the other participants. It is attracting some seriously clever people, remember it is an Australian web site, we tend to be patient and polite.
>Bill says:
>June 21, 2014 at 6:45 pm
>I do not think there is any way to write society charters to eliminate politics and selfish self-interest in >these societies;
It is impossible to write rules that compel unreasonable people to behave in reasonable ways. Period.
++PLS
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