This is a guest post about the execrable Greg Laden, and his calls for firing Dr. Willie Soon without having one iota of proof of his assertions. I’ve had run ins with this fool before, where I point out he’s lied about me, and even considered taking him to court for libel. In this episode, once again, Greg Laden is wronger than wrong, as is the paid political shill Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts, who put together the smear campaign seen in the photo below. As Instapundit says, “hit back twice as hard”. Its the only thing a bully truly understands. – Anthony Watts
Guest essay, reposted with permission, by William H. Briggs, statistician, who blogs here
Government Funding Is A Conflict Of Interest: Cowardly Calls For Climate Scientist’s Firing
The Beast
What entity pours by far the most money into scientific research? I’ll give you a hint. It’s the same entity that has been growing without bound, mercilessly muscling aside all competitors who would encroach into its space. It’s an entity which has a keen and abiding interest in the research it funds. An entity with desires. This entity cares results from its funded research turns out this way and not that.
No, not an oil company. Nay, not Apple corporation. Not even a pharmaceutical. It’s Uncle Sam!
Did you not know the scientists who receive Uncle’s lusciously large lasting grants are the same scientists who sit on the committees which award the grants? Conflict? It’s true the various wealthy agencies have a permanent and ever-burgeoning staff (see Parkinson’s Law and this) which shuffles the booty to and fro, but they’re advised by transient academics who today are at their home institutions standing erect with their hands out, and tomorrow are on the Metro to the NIH to sit (erect) in judgment of their peers.
Yes, the same people who award the grants are those that receive them.
Didn’t you know this? It’s true a man can’t award himself a grant, but he can give one to his pal and neighbor, and when its his pal and neighbor’s turn to sit on the review committee, he can and does return the favor.
But aren’t grants anonymous? Sure, some of them are. In the same way you think your online presence is anonymous. It takes almost a full minute of scrutiny in most cases to discover the name of the pleader. And many times there is no pretense of anonymity. This makes it easy to punish your enemies and boost your buddies.
What about the nature of the grants?
If the EPA solicits applications for the grant “Find something wrong with this power plant” do you think their pleadings will go in vain? No, sir, they will not. Dozens upon dozens of imploring missives will arrive at headquarters, all promising to finger the culprit. And do you think the investigations of the winner (and now richer researcher) will disappoint? No, sir, these investigations will not. Besides the ordinary willingness to please found in cooperative well-fed persons, there is also the promise of future monies for a job well done.
Not only will the researcher gladly suck at the government teat, strengthening his own bank account, but the researcher’s boss will benefit, too. For in each government gift is attached the miracle of overhead. This amounts to an additional 50% (more or less) of the grant’s value, a sum which goes to the researcher’s boss to spend as he pleases.
As he pleases, I say.
Overhead can be, and has been, spent on all nature of things. New offices and furnishings. Wintertime junkets to sunny uplands. Hiring of nephews and nieces. This overhead is very pleasing to the researcher’s Dean and the Dean’s guard of deanlettes. The Dean encourages grants for this reason, making sure to hire just those folks who are likely to bring in more government overhead.
The system feeds on itself.
For these and for many more similar reasons, the biggest conflict of interest in scientific research is government grants. It is an open scandal of monstrous proportions that scientists who receive government money do not declare that they might have been influenced, that they never admit their interest (beyond saying, “This grant was funded by grant xxx-yyy”).
Climate chaos
And so we come to one of the most cowardly unethical asinine foolhardy pig-ignorant acts we have witnessed in the thing we used to call Science.
You can see the picture above. It’s being passed around by the juvenile simpleton—this is an provable accusation, not meaningless abuse—named Greg Laden. He would like to see Willie Soon fired from his job, because why? Because, and I quote the ass,
Apparently, his research is paid by the fossil fuel industry.
The research in question is the paper “Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model” written by Lord Monckton, Wille Soon, David Legates, and Yours Truly. See Climate Paper Causes Chaos, Angst, Anger, Apoplexy! (Hacking?) for more details.
Not one penny, not one iota of consideration of any kind, was received from any source for the writing of this paper. It was a labor of love, done on personal time (of which, for my heresies, I have mountains). We wrote and re-wrote, and re-wrote some more, then decided which journal might enjoy seeing the paper. We knew (see Climategate) our names alone would cause its rejection from the usual “Consensus” sources. So we went where we were not known, figuring the work would be judged on its merits and not its politics. It was.
We submitted. Then we endured a grueling peer-review process (your proctologist was not as thorough). Our paper was accepted. And that’s it.
That makes Laden’s insinuation a lie. No fossil fuel industry funding was received. And even if it was, the details I gave you about the true source of tainting money in research also proves that there is nothing special about oil money. Indeed, oil money is less influential because (1) there’s much, much less of it, and (2) there is not the habit of the same people who receive the grants also awarding them.
The believers in science-is-politics who have organized the petition have attracted “21,263 signers so far“. This is a crowd that wouldn’t be able to define convection. This is a crowd that knows nothing about global warming, but they sure as heck believe in its solution.
Idiots.
UPDATE: (By Anthony)
I wonder if Greg Laden and Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts, will be putting together a smear campaign to get every member of the American Geophysical Union fired? After all, in 2013, they funded their annual meeting heavily with fossil fuel interest$, and again in 2014.
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/general-information/thank-you-to-our-sponsors/
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2014/general-information/thank-you-to-our-sponsors/
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Why hasn’t Mr Monckton, who appears to threaten a lawsuit against just about anyone whom he dislikes, weighing in on this one?
You forget to include MofB’s title. As did the House of Lords itself.
They don’t deny his title, just his right to SIT in the House of Lords.
Always amuses me how such a simple issue is confused by people wishing to cause mischief and harm to The Right Honourable the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta.
Lord Monckton is a hereditary peer of the realm and that can never and is never in dispute. He came into his peerage after the dea5th of his father however this was also after the reform leading to the House of Lords Act 1999 that essentially said no more could hereditary peers take a seat in the Upper house as had previously been the case.
Lord Monckton argued that this was unconstitutional but the law remains as it is written and Christopher can not sit in the House of Lords. Regardless of his own wishes to be part of the political process when many of his peers did little more than take their afternoon naps there only waking to block a (Labour) govt bill on behalf of the Tories, he has no right to sit in the upper house of Parliament. And that’s it, nothing more.
His title can never be in dispute and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous, although I understand that Americans have difficulty comprehending the British peerage and also are confused by the House of Lords. The simplest way to describe it is to say it’s the equivalent of the US senate as in it performs a similar job. The reforms meant that anyone sitting now has to be elected whereas previously to that the title gave right to sit. It was very antiquated and bloated in a country which has become a republic in all but name.
Lord Monkton could still find a place in the Lords and has attempted to previously, by contesting the seats of the hereditary peers whose seats were already safe before the reform. He just has to wait for them to die then join the political circus again. However I’d personally believe it to be impossible for him as despite him being academically brilliant his political and social views are out of step with modern Britain.
Craig (@zootcadillac) January 31, 2015 at 11:36 pm
“The reforms meant that anyone sitting now has to be elected”
Since when? There are no elections to the House of Lords, peerages are now given away as Party favours and unelected prats get to become Government Ministers.
@RogerKnights and Craig. Glad to have the information, but anything warrenlb says here is irrelevant and not worth a reply. He is just another troll, probably accepting money from big oil so he can support his efforts. Maybe he is even in the pay of the Koch Brothers, who are not the Holy Grail of conservative funding despite what leftist whackjobs have to say.
Dennisambler: Elections in the HoL: What Zoot was referring to was that there are 92 hereditary peers in the House (out of 700-odd(!!) Lords) and when one of the 92 leaves (dies, whatever) another hereditary is elected to take the place.
@dennisambler. My apologies I didn’t word that correctly at all and did notice as soon as i had posted it. lack of edit and the fact that my comments appear to be going straight to moderation ( or at least the two I made this morning did ) meant I just could not be bothered following up with a correction.
My thanks to Harry Passfield who has the right of it. I was referring to the seats of the current sitting hereditary peers and the process by which those members are replaced after death. The whole thing is a minefield that i barely comprehend myself but it always irks me when this comes up. I find many things about Lord Monkton’s politics and vies that I could never agree with and some even distasteful but many would like to paint him as some kind of charlatan pretending to be aristocracy and that is most definitely not the case.
Sometimes this is because it is a difficult thing for people overseas to understand without some research and effort but often, as above it’s just willful mischief intended to mislead. my OCD can’t let that sort of thing stand 🙂
Craig (@zootcadillac)
Yup. Understand completely. That’s why we threw the bums out in 17716-9.
Tom in Florida
Why are you?
Richard
agreed. I followed the trolling of Lord Monckton the other night and was disgusted, though you and he were admirable.
BTW – thanks for the link there to your Wind Turbine work from 2006. I need to use it here in Vermont. Getting nasty. Imagine: wind towers backed-up by natural gas! Wonder where they stole that idea?
I am who I am.
Tom in Florida
I don’t care who you are because I know what you are; i.e. another anonymous troll attempting to disrupt a WUWT thread.
I asked why you are trolling this thread with an irrelevant question. And my request was clearly understandable because Bubba Cow understood it. However, your post I am replying claims you are too thick to understand my question so I will ‘spell it out’.
Why are you “weighing in on this one” with a query about somebody not mentioned in the above article?
Richard
Easy there Richard, a troll “Tom in Florida” is not.
Richard,
I asked the question of why Mr Monckton had not weighed in on a lawsuit against Greg Laden because he is listed as a co-author of the paper in question.
From the article:
“The research in question is the paper “Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model” written by Lord Monckton, Wille Soon, David Legates, and Yours Truly. See Climate Paper Causes Chaos, Angst, Anger, Apoplexy! (Hacking?) for more details.”
Comments were then taken in the direction of asking about why no one was suing Greg Laden for libel, per Mark Stoval:
markstoval January 31, 2015 at 8:41 am
(Don’t you think it is about time you consulted an attorney about a lawsuit?)
To which Don Perry replied:
Don Perry January 31, 2015 at 9:26 am
(Obviously, you’ve never experienced the expense of consulting an attorney. Unless there is a campaign to raise funds for the litigant, most of us in the real world can’t afford such.”)
To which Joey , among others replied;
Joey January 31, 2015 at 9:54 am
(That is why you seek punitive damages as well as the cost of your own lawsuit. There are also lots of lawyers who would take it on contingency.)
So it was not I that started the legal issue commentary. I was not trolling this thread but asking a legitimate question. I was wondering why Mr Monckton, as a co-author of a paper being erroneously questioned about funding, and as a person with obvious resources to do so, had not already started down this path. If this has already been addressed some other place than simply direct me there so I may read more.
So, when you asked me an irrelevant question, I replied with an irrelevant answer.
And thank you, u.k. (us)
No standing. (legal term). Yet. It is Dr Soon who is being attacked.
Tom in Florida: I often wonder why it is that people like you have so much difficulty with using the common courtesy of referring to someone by their deserved title but use the childish device of trying to belittle them. Do you take this further and refer to Dr Soon or Dr Mann as Mr Soon and Mr Mann?
And you wonder why others think you a Troll.
re:Harry Passfield
February 1, 2015 at 9:50 am
‘Tom in Florida: I often wonder why it is that people like you have so much difficulty with using the common courtesy of referring to someone by their deserved title but use the childish device of trying to belittle them. Do you take this further and refer to Dr Soon or Dr Mann as Mr Soon and Mr Mann?
And you wonder why others think you a Troll.’
————————————————————————————————————————–
CM once referred to Dr Leif Svalgaard as “Mr” completely and purposely ignoring his earned designation as PhD in an effort, as he insinuated later in his post, that Dr Svalgaard was no longer a valid scientist. Dr Svalgaard, in response to my objection, said he didn’t care and often referred to others with a title as “Mr”. Conclusion: people secure in their earned titles do not care what they are called by others. I am sure CM doesn’t care how I refer to him on a blog.
Besides, America has no Lords…. America needs no Lords.
richardscourtenay
I see you have the flair (especially in the French sense) for troll-hunting.
I cannot claim the same for myself, though I did see a very odd Norwegian movie about trolls a few years ago.
However, I have a notion that you missed your quarry by one paragraph;
There are no trolls in Florida but, hard on Tom’s heels, came a comment redolent of creeping irony and my instinct tells me that warrenlb’s allusion to The House of Lords is less reverential than it appears.
warrenlb, if I malign you, then a thousand apologies!
For now, I believe it was warrenlb in the library with blunt sarcasm.
I must be very naive, but I thought science was about discovering the truth, not about feathering your own nest or lying to reach a conclusion that suits your own personal agenda. It should not matter a jot who funds a research project, the results should be independent of the wishes of the sponsor.
This whole corrupt mess needs to be cleaned up.
“Laden” — it must be something to do with the name!!
Right. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest in science. A published paper is either correct or not. If not, other scientists can refute it. If correct, it makes no difference who funded it.
It has been a big error to accept the premise that the energy industry may not properly fund climate science. The industry should righteously stand up for its prerogative to do so. But the industry, like most industries, doesn’t publicly stand up for itself — morally, I mean — at all. Everyone who works in it, from top to bottom, ought to read Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, memorize it, and publicly spread the truth about their work and products at every opportunity and in every forum open to them. All of us whose life depends on energy would benefit incalculably.
Some excerpts.
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/index.html?q=alex%20epstein&s=r
Absolutely. Heaven help us if government becomes the only source of information, because no one else will come to our rescue from tyranny.
Worth repeating.
Thank you. Book purchased.
“Right. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest in science.”
Real science is the individual repeating the work for themselves. Completely impractical so faith and belief is necessary in modern science. I agree, though, that were the argument can be followed easily and refuted by a keyboard warrior at home that the funding of the work has little relevance.
Yes you are naive if that is your belief. The history of science is rife with fraud, major scandals, and battles both physical and ideological. People have been killed and jailed in the name of science. Reputations have been totally destroyed in the name of science with no regard to the innocence of the victim. Scientists have been known to defend to their deathbeds their positions long after they proven totally wrong. Kind of sounds like the situation right now, doesn’t it.
Sorry about the “they were proven” which in the heat of typing came out “they proven.”
andrewmharding
Well, science may be about discovering the truth, but flawed humans certainly are about “…feathering [their] own nest or lying to reach a conclusion that suits [their] own personal agenda…”.
Be kinda nice if people who continually or strongly exhibited these traits were drummed out of the business…or at least starved of taxpayer support.
From Briggs blog:
“Absolutely nowhere in this fictional “controversy” are any questions of science asked, addressed, or even hinted at.”
Don’t pretend critics like Laden understand that no one cares about their ad homs? Pathetic rants from childish minds. Sad. Unfortunate that people like Soon have to endure this.
Sigh! – Yet another example of arrogance and ignorance being synonymous with advocacy not Science. When are people like Laden going to realise that when the ordinary person sees their actions – the result is disquiet, leading to questioning of the dogma and then disgust at the antics of Laden et al.
[Note: Please say a few words of explanation when posting a link. In this case, it’s G. Laden’s picture. ~mod.]
Laden is very careful to attempt smear and say:
He does not say that the recent paper “Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model” is fossil fuel funded. Yet he said he signed the petition “reluctantly” in the above link.
Even if the paper was funded by big oil, so what? Find fault with the work and not the man.
It is always worth bringing to mind the forgotten part of Eisenhower’s farewell address. Everybody remembers ‘military-industrial complex’. Forgotten in the shuffle is Ike’s warning about the bad effects of government funded science.
It is always worthwhile to provide links. It takes you a couple minutes, it saves a hundred readers a minute or two each.
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=90&page=transcript
[Thanks, Ric.]
Old Crusader,
You are correct. Ike said:
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
But it’s even worse than he imagined! Not only has public policy become a captive of the climate alarmist clique; the clique itself is thoroughly corrupt. So instead of being merely self-serving like Eisenhower feared, it has become self-serving and corrupt: the worst of all possible worlds.
If they made just one simple change — abiding by the Scientific Method — the climate scare would have passed into history long ago. But now it’s all about the Narrative: frightening the public. Then, the government rides in on it’s white horse to save the day… and all it will cost is an immense rise in ‘carbon’ taxes and curtailing personal freedom. But the planet will go on doing what she does. Nothing will change.
So the Scientific Method and all it’s corollaries [Occam’s Razor, the Null Hypothesis, etc.] are defenestrated, and the crooks have control. This POS Laden is just a symptom of that, not the cause. But he’s a nasty symptom.
My brain always puts Osama before GL’s name…
I do not expect it to get through “moderation” But I have posted this on Laden’s site
Darcydog
UK
January 31, 2015
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
@ur momisugly Greg laden
I am staggered at you hubris
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2014/general-information/thank-you-to-our-sponsors/
Unbelievable.
About Laden
The pot calling the kettle ……. ( fill in whatever you want I have a few choice ones). @ur momisugly douguk and others btw, some of your links are being 404’d
As has been pointed out, none of the authors of the paper were paid to write it. This wasn’t true about any of them?
So why did the signers of this petition pick out the only one who isn’t white?
Because they see Dr. Soon as the most dangerous by way of his present associations? I have a lot of regard for the other authors of the paper, but Dr. Soon has the most prestigious association, and as we can all see, prestigious association means all to the Greg Ladens of the world– not how one argues, or the correctness of one’s thinking, but only one’s associations.
You are charitable.
Me, I fear they may be aware of people’s prejudices.
Spoken and unspoken.
And worse, I fear they may also be willing to use that knowledge..
Because he is the most dangerous among those names. Having had the privilege of listening to his presentation of a paper I can tell you that he is not the most audacious presenter out there. But his quiet manner let me hear the logic and truth of the paper he presented. His personality absolutely does not get in the way. Fraudulent men fear this kind of person.
Lord Moncton is a force of nature and is an easy target to shoot at. It is harder to get at the personality of one who is not known to the public and has the respect of his colleagues because of his devotion to his science.. So now, they can only go after his job.
Laden got kicked out of PZ Myers/Ed Brayton’s FreeThoughtBlogs site on account of his ruthless harassment of combat vet Justin Griffiths. After Laden’s actions came to light I thought he’d slink off somewhere and be too embarassed to put his head above the parapet again. Boy was I wrong. To get kicked off FTB for nastiness – now that takes some doing!
I’d certainly contribute a little to support suing this creature.
I have no idea what motivates the Greg Ladens of the world, but they illustrate a constant and ugly part of the human condition. Often the best response to their provocations is to ignore them. I had to endure a lot of this sort of behavior when I served as an elected official and in that case ignoring it was always the best strategy.
However, if the victims of this idiocy feel a need for some response, then the first step might be to locate his sources of funding, and those of his sidekick, and send to them a reasoned and factual letter making this folly clear. Most sources of money are only dimly aware of what their money accomplishes. Only a few of the most rabid foundations would feel fine about sponsoring scurrilous attacks on honorable people.
The climatocracy are in a position similar to that of newly elected inquiistion enforcers: fearless, ruthless and fanatically confident.
So were Stalin and Hitler. Look how it worked out for them.
Ernest Bush
Yup…only took the collateral damage of 60,000,000-80,000,000 dead human beings over 8 years.
Gotta be a more responsible way.
Here is my comment to Greg.
===========
Greg, I have read the Boston Globe piece and I can’t see the conflict of interest regarding the paper.
IF you can show fossil fuel funding for the paper then yes I agree. But if you can’t then why bring up his PAST oil / coal funding as a conflict of interest? Where is his interest in writing the paper? PS the work was NOT funded at all by the way. Maybe it is a conflict of no interest.
I hope you realise that CRU has in the past received oil money from BP and Shell. Do authors declare a conflict of interest since they have HELPED BP via contracts for oil exploration.
Could it be people simply don’t like the conclusions of the paper?
Here is the CRU link for BP contracts in the 1970s.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history
Jumbo, good comment to G. L. Much better to be polite and respectful.
Greg just cannot locate funding for Soon’s recent paper. I asked him to provide evidence and he points me to newspaper articles. None of the articles asserts that the paper received ANY FUNDING AT ALL let alone fossil fuel funding. The articles talk about past funding only. They are very careful not to step over the line and assert what is false.
My last comment made to Greg Laden has been deleted. Here it is.
==============
“I have read the references you pointed me to and none of them assert that the paper under question was funded by any fossil fuel company.
What I did read in the Boston Globe was a strong denial by one of the authors that the paper received ANY FUNDING AT ALL. They claim ZERO FUNDING. Briggs also denies any funding at all.
ANSWER THIS PLEASE.
Greg, did the paper “Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model” receive funding from any fossil fuel company? Did Soon receive any fossil fuel funding to write the aforementioned paper? If yes then please provide evidence. None of the references you gave says they did.
Failure to provide answers to my simple 2 questions means this conversation has reached a dead end.”
http://gregladen.com/blog/2015/01/willie-soon-fire-him-soon/
==============
Full disclosure, I do work for the oil sands in Alberta, Canada. Yes, I am the enemy of these people. Apparently everyone writing articles on WUWT are also facing the scorn, rage, and personal attacks more appropriate to folks in my industry. Those of us in my industry are used to these types of attacks – it goes with the territory. To the writer of this article – you can and will defeat these cowards as long as you stand up for yourself and your work. Remember, the vast majority of us here in the real world are on your side. We merely want the truth. And you and your mates have mighty weapons at your disposal – your minds. They can NEVER take that away. That is where you and your fellow researchers hit them like a bolt of lightening – you hurt them where it counts, with the truth.
And isn’t it weird how all these scornful people benefit from oil in a thousand different ways and are completely oblivious of it?
It’s astounding how stupid they are.
Greg Laden said on his blog:
But at the top of the page on his blog I see this!
http://gregladen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Screen-Shot-2015-01-29-at-8.12.15-AM.png
Greg Laden also says on his blog post:
So he does not think Soon should be fired, but signs a petition for Soon to be fired. He needs to see a shrink.
He probably doesn’t really want to ban dihydrogen monoxide either, but…
It is a bit like saying “I ran you over with my car in the cross-walk, but only reluctantly, so there is no tort.”
It is ok. The final signature to the death warrant is made with a shaky hand.
Jimbo:
Maybe Lew is available – but he may need to be checked in case he has previous fossil-fuel funding.
Is Laden saying the Fossil Fuel industry doesn’t employ scientists? Is it impossible to be a scientist and be associated with that industry?
Or is he saying the Fossil Fuel industry will only employ scientists who believe and perpetrate global warming bunkum?
Laden is a propagandist–and a poor one at that.
Where are the Trolls ?
The trolls are too busy signing the petition…
Can I ask a question – and no this is not trolling.
Does the funding requirements relate to the funding for the paper itself (which is what Matt seems to be saying) or funding of those involved generally ?
Again I have no axe to grid here, and no opinion either for or against Dr Soo, this cuts both ways – how much “climate science” is funded by Tyndall for example, or Greenpeace or WWF.
My take is that the funding is for the research from which the paper is derived. As long as the funding, from any source, is disclosed, all is well. The reason is that with full disclosure, the reader can consider the source of the funding, and make their own determination as to whether the funding source tainted the results. Previous funding for prior efforts is considered irrelevant, and so off the table, strictly speaking.
It is only hidden money which could influence the paper which would be the issue in a conflict case.
And of course, there is no such issue here with Dr. Soon.
If a researcher is true to the science and his/her research reflects the truth (or lack of) their work has discovered empirically… it shouldn’t make any difference at all as to where the money came from. Sadly the folks on the CAGW side only seem to fund semi or pseudo science with a known outcome. Can you imagine Greenpeace, WWF, the IPCC or Obama’s DoE actually allowing research they funded to be published if it didn’t advance their cause? Considering the “research” presented at the last AGU meeting, Exxon, BP and Chevron certainly didn’t play the censor. I’m not saying they’re saints, but they’re far, far more realistic and ethical than any one of the eco loon and Climateer groups I’ve seen. Remember, the vast majority of “skeptical” science has to be done for free by volunteers because, in this case, the truth about human’s non influence on climate doesn’t pay. Big government types, Progressives and the oligarchical need the CAGW meme to assert more control and take more of our money, their interests are not based in truth.
Here is Scibull’s Disclosure statement:
“i. Disclosure of potential Conflict of interests
Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but not limited to the following:
• Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
• Honoraria for speaking at symposia
• Financial support for attending symposia
• Financial support for educational programs
• Employment or consultation
• Support from a project sponsor
• Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships
• Multiple affiliations
• Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest
• Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
• Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work
In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.
The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list. An examples of disclosures is shown below:
Conflict of interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.
If no conflict exists, the authors should state:
Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.”
Surprisingly there were no entries from the authors in this case.
All AGU papers presented last fall should have declared a conflict of interest. The meetings were partly funded by oil companies. CRU should also present their BP and Shell conflict of interest.
What I see Warmists doing is to muddy the waters. They are hinting at fossil fuel funding for the paper, but there was no funding whatsoever according to Monkton and Briggs. There is no evidence that Soon received fossil fuel funding to write the paper. Whether there was a conflict of interest is for the journal to decide, and not a petition.
Warmists now need to find fault with the published paper, and we can move forward from there.
Morph
I leave it to others to answer your specific questions but write to give assurance that your post does not imply trolling.
Trolls attempt to deflect from the subject under discussion often by use of ad hom.. Your post is directed at clarification of the issues under discussion.
The sadness is that trolls have had success in giving you and perhaps others some trepidation in asking a relevant question.
Richard
I wonder why Greg Laden fears Willie Soon so much. That’s my take on all this. I read WUWT daily, and if you had mentioned Greg Laden just in passing, I would have to say: “I never heard of him”.
Willie Soon has a career as a productive scientist.
Greg Laden has an obscure blog.
You wonder about this:
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2003/23/c023p089.pdf
This is the Soon and Baliunas paper that caused such a kerfuffle. The abstract ends:
“Across the world, many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.”
Laden has “previous”
If anyone needs firing it is this proven liar.
Maybe Laden should be beheaded for his obnoxious views?
Greenp**s seem to think this is appropriate;
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/01/25/greenpeace-activist-calls-for-climate-change-deniers-to-be-beheaded/
This Greg guy sounds like he is still stuck in the backseat of his childhood having an “I want candy!” temper-tantrum cuz Mom is beginning to say “no candy” at the checkout stand! Tell the man to get his big boy panties on and send a rebuttal letter to the journal.
We will get more of this as these science toddlers get a dose of reality as their funds dry up and they don’t get to have desert before dinner any more.
…they don’t get to have desert before dinner…Wouldn’t that make them thirsty? Or perhaps, you have a dry sense of humor?
lolol! Dessert.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller
I had not heard of this man before so I Googled him . Notwithstanding Google’s statements that some references to him had been removed , there was sufficient there to indicate that this is one seriously disturbed individual .
He even boasts about how dangerous he is .
And yet this person (who , Warren please note, has no degree in physics so by your criterion has no place in the climate debate ) is apparently a champion and cheerleader of the AGW movement .
I consider this man to be such a public menace that it would be sensible to petition the UK Home Office to prevent his entering the UK , as has been done recently with other US citizens of somewhat extreme opinions . It may be helpful that my MP is the chair of the influential 1922 committee in the House of Commons.
We have seen in recent years in the UK how easy it is for extremists to incite mainly young people to acts of considerable violence over issues such as hunting , the badger cull, fracking, the St Pauls occupation and sabotage of power stations and GM crops . There is a obvious need to exclude this man , and if the ban can be extended to the EU it would prevent him from causing trouble in Paris this Autumn. I am sure that the French police would approve , if not the French Govt.
Yeah, Mike, quashing freedom of speech is the ticket and it is all the rage these days! I’m appalled that such a law exists in the country that that took out the first patents on freedom and justice. Sacrificing freedom of speech is well advanced in Europe. There are even Europeans who have fled to the US to escape prosecution for saying things about immigration and the death of European culture. Soon, they won’t be safe in the US, the last bastion, as law makers scramble to “catch up” with Europe. Look Mike, it isn’t yet against the law to be an A$$ol or a crumb or a miserable bastard, but the trend isn’t promising. Ridding ourselves of nuisances using the law unfortunately comes down eventually with a ministry of truth deciding who the nuisances are. I’m reading a novel called “Children of the Arbat”, a Stalin era work by Rubakov that was banned for half a century that illustrates the the theme and the evil lower bureaucrat snots that categorize such people. I’m sure the book isn’t far from becoming a different genre than intended as we move into that shadow.