Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – Climate Scientist Daniel Alongi has been indicted by Australian authorities, and accused of falsifying half a million dollars worth of expenses.
A CLIMATE scientist who did research on the Great Barrier Reef for the Federal Government is accused of ripping off taxpayers to the tune of $556,508 by claiming bogus expenses related to his research – for seven years.
Authorities have frozen the superannuation and long-service leave of former career public servant Daniel Alongi pending a trial.
Police allege Alongi, from Townsville, created an elaborate ruse to claim bogus expenses while working for the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
Alongi, who was well regarded in the science industry, allegedly pretended he was paying for “radioisotopes” imported from the US and to have samples analysed in US laboratories for his Great Barrier Reef research.
He told his boss he could “get a discount” on isotopes because he was a US citizen, and he claimed he was measuring carbon levels in “sediment core samples” taken from the Reef.
He has admitted to police that he made false invoices, credit card statements and created fake email trails to claim expenses over seven years, court documents state.
Read more (paywalled): http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/crime-and-justice/queensland-climate-scientist-accused-of-falsely-claiming-expenses/news-story/94a67f8d863a6a94c2578e04402622ed
More background (not paywalled) here.
There is no suggestion at this stage that Alongi produced fake results for research papers, but in my opinion this has to be considered a possibility, if the charges against Alongi are upheld. After all, if Alongi falsely claimed to have spent half a million dollars on radioisotope testing, it would look pretty strange if he didn’t produce any false test results, to justify the expenditure of all that money. According to Research Gate, Alongi has helped author 140 publications, and has been cited 5,861 times.
All in the last few months has been bad for the image of mainstream climate science. First we had the the Shukla 20 scandal, and now we have the Alongi fraud case.
I’m not saying climate scientists are just in it for the money. I think there is substantial evidence that many of them truly believe. But clearly there is an awful lot of money on the table, which predominantly seems to go to scientists who support the position favoured by politicians. More than enough money to tempt the unscrupulous.
What if these cases are just the extremes? What if for every climate scientist who flagrantly breaches the rules, there are a host of less openly dishonest climate scientists who are just bending the rules a little, say spending a little more than they should on the odd perk, toning down adverse results, not rocking the boat, making sure they keep their well paid jobs?
If unscrupulous scientists are producing distorted or fake results, to stay safe, or to cover inflated expenses claims and, in the worst cases, outright theft of government funds, how many honest climate scientists have been deceived, by this ongoing contamination of the world’s climate knowledge?
…ROTFLMAO…..
That is all I had to say by the end!
Actually his most cited paper looks quite reasonable.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Alongi2/publication/231955066_Present_state_and_future_of_the_world's_mangrove_forests/links/54811a2f0cf263ee1adfaeb5.pdf
Colour me unsurprised! No doubt his ‘research’ touted the AGW meme too?
Kev. Me too. It seems the major problem (other than big government raging and running amok) is that so much money has been made available to soft or pseudo sciences, i.e. sociology, “climate scientists”, etc., that there is little control or accountability of the money sloshing around. Robbing science to pay leftist activists has never done anything but harm.
Actually his research DIDN’T tout CAGW. Perhaps there is more to this investigation.
https://appliedecology.cals.ncsu.edu/absci/wp-content/uploads/Alongi-2008.pdf
That doesn’t matter; if he’s committed fraud, he taints every one & everything
I agree, but half a million dollars for isotope work on the Great Barrier Reef? That’s A LOT of isotope work to fake. My guess is that he did have isotope work done but must have had a huge volume in order to have sneaked $500,000 by.
What ever happened to Jagdish Shukla? Are there any developments?
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2016/01/11/irs-complaint-filed-against-rico-20-think-tank
Jan 11, 2016
“The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a research institute, and Cause of Action (CoA), a government watchdog organization, have filed a complaint with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that requests the agency investigate Jagadish Shukla, a climate researcher at George Mason University, and revoke the tax-exempt status of the Institute of Global Environment and Society, Inc. (IGES), an organization Shukla founded.”
Thank you and ristvan for that update.
Rep. Smith’s Congressional Oversight committee announced a two pronged investigation. One into the quality of oversight of NSF grants, because Shukla was violating the investigator salary rules. Second, into Shukla for double dipping (paying himself through his tax exempt foundation for administering the NSF grants), a separate violation of NSF policies.
And Virginia could (don’t know if it has) open a criminal investigation of violation of state disclosure laws comcerning the double dipping since Shukla is a state employee.
Virginia has a democrat governor and attorney-general. What do you think the odds of that happening are?
Phil R,
About the same odds of my winning the Powerball lottery.
But – But, but
db could win it – if he buys a ticket . . . . .
Auto
Was he also on paid leave from the EPA at the time?
I hope this is the tip of the iceberg as to the auditing of the so-called “climate science”. Science in general will not recover from the abuses in the so-called “climate science” until/unless truth and justice prevail in what appears to be the greatest academic and economic scam in history.
It is past time for all those associated to be either a ‘whistle blower’ or a defendant. Act now before the indictments come down.
Dishonest in small things, dishonest is large things. If a priest of Global Warming will defile truth and propagate a lie professionally, there is no limit to his or her willingness to lie and cheat and steal.
Immorality yields immoral behavior at all levels.
An indictment is not a conviction, but I am happy the global warming lying-class got a black eye.
In France, truth is an excuse against defamation, except in some cases.
Is evidence of fraud an excuse for “conspiracy ideation”?
Since the radioisotopes were faked is it fair to assume the data for his research were faked as well?
Very probably, we can’t just assume his data is good based on an assumption of sound scientific ethics any longer. He published 140 papers and has been cited over 5000 times, all of those are now tainted to varying degrees.
In Australia, The Great Barrier Reef is almost a sacred cow. The greens love to use it to scare people. The greens, WWF and Greenpeace, always claim the Reef is going to die in 5 years and global warming etc is the cause.
Galilee Coal mine is 600 kms away and on the other side of the Great Dividing Range to the Reef, yet they say the mine will damage it.
The GBR is a great source of funding for all studies. The sensible oones say the reef has never been in better shape. The warmist ones find some dead coral and immediately blame warming, farmers, coal mining, really anything they can think of.
Oeve Hohlberg is the chiefest calamity spruiker. He has extracted millions from governments, yet not 1 of his predictions has come true. No doubt he is one of the major citers of Alongi. Hohlberg is a prominent warmist.
SO when Alongi crumbles, you can bet your bottom dollar, others will go with him.
On a side note, when Alongi’s photo was published people compared him to Newman from the Seinfeld comedy show.
Correction, Professor OVE HOEGH-GULDBERG, Director, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland.
Yet another warmist at University of Queensland, home of John Cook and how to disprove sceptics, where the hockey stick is alive and thriving in the Sociology department..
He would make a great mining engineer or an asthma expert for EPA. Either one or both interchangeably
His real job was for the CIA! No wait… that was the highest paid civil servant at the EPA.
I wish I could remember how to spell schadenfraude, as I am defintely feeling it.
Eric Worrall
Hello,
“It’s worst then you thought”. (always wanted to use that line) Any paper any study any government policy or regulation or high school class assignment must now be held suspect (and most likely be redacted.)
Lovely way to start out the new year don’t you think?
Michael Duhancik
Pardon, I meant in which Daniel Alongi ‘s work is cited, or had his “radioisotopes” used. This may not be just him. With the type of sweetheart arrangement he pretended to have, other researchers’ may have seen the utility be processing their own needs through him.
(gleeful laughter)
michael
I was thinking the same thing. It would be nice if the authors of the 5,861 papers that referenced the subject “research” were impacted in some way, and secondary references to the 5,861 would also need to be annotated having flaws.
My guess is the corrections/annotatons don’t happen; “The reference was not of significant importance to my paper so it is O.K. that the reference is biased … I don’t need to waste my time correcting my paper” will be the norm, and “peers” that review papers with secondary references to the subject “research” won’t care.
worse
It’s worse than we thought. We can’t explain the decline in the funds and it’s a travesty that we can’t. Hey! Can any of you remember what Mike’s Nature trick was all about again?
Dunno but howsabout we say the missing teat is in the ocean?
The most distrusted people in the world are used car salespeople, real estate agents, insurance agents and lawyers. If you have not done so already you may want to add climate scientist to that list.
I think it’s a little unfair to tar all climate scientists with the same brush – there are good guys out there as we well know. Basically, I would contend that any paper written in such a language as to lean towards AGW/CO2, etc, without due diligence and actual science (for example, proper reporting of results, error bars, supplementary information, etc) would lend one to conclude that the authors are a) not real scientists and b) simply following the grant trough via the touted meme.
There are also good car salesmen, insurance agents, realtors, and lawyers out there too. But a trend is a trend (unless the climate scientists don’t like it; then it is an adjusted trend).
DonM. Don’t forget to add Congress members from the US. Their level of trust seems to bounce around in single digit figures.
Ranging from 0 to 9 ?
I believe Australian politicians are in the same range. I personally put them in negative trust, but that’s just me.
Of course climate “scientists” are in it for the money. Whether or not they “believe” in what they are doing is besides the point. Any doubts they might have are simply quashed. Doubts are inconvenient to an ideology. They are essentially climate whores.
+ 1
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years an uncompromised climate scientist will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what an honest scientist is,” he said.
/sarc
A visit to notrickszone is warranted. The last quote is germaine to this discussion.
There are other cases of academic misconduct ‘down under’. Lewandowski. O’Leary on sudden sea level rise. Fabricius on coral reefs. Exposed in essays By Land or By Sea, and Shell Games.
You don’t have to commit fraud to carry out climate science research,
but it helps…pg
He has admitted to police that he made false invoices, credit card statements and created fake email trails to claim expenses over seven years, court documents state.
Read more (paywalled):
Oh yeah. Pay walling court documents is a great step forward in transparency.
Needed to help pay back the $556,508?
Rob Dawg January 13, 2016 at 10:28 am
No Rob, just a news organization not giving it away for free. See the link. Its just an example of good business sense
No foul, just smart for the Couriermail .Its how they make their living; honest living, unlike others
michael
..Ummm, most news organizations do not paywall their sites, that’s why they have advertising !!
And most news organizations lose money off their free content. Internet advertisements bring in terribly small quantities. A lot of papers, including the NY Times, Dallas Morning News, and my own Houston Chronicle have subscriber-only sections of their sites.
It’s how they get their bail money???? 🙂
Is this perhaps a way for the politicians to jump off the train before the wreck of CAGW, without losing face ??
Prosecute a few corrupt climate scientists then they can say ‘we trusted the scientists, gave them money & they duped us, so vote for us & we’ll pass draconian laws to make sure this never happens again….trust us.’ & a large % of the sheeple will instantly agree; just as they did after 9/11, the London bombings & the early Global warming scares.
Not that our glorious leaders would be so devious……
Or that intelligent.
Oh come on, a few priests may be corrupt, but that’s just the fallability of man. The Dogma is still sound!
Although I agree that this doesn’t say anything about other climate scientists, I wonder if there are any statistics on probability of giving in to temptation as the sum involved increases? I’ve often heard some remark on a petty theft that gets discovered: “What, they did that for twenty bucks!! I wouldn’t run that risk for under a million or so.” I guess Alongi was gunning for the million.
This is a flip side of the late climate icon Stephen Schneider’s advice about how dishonest one should choose to be in hyping their climate science results.
(stuff on noble cause followed by:) “So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/21/stephen-schneider-and-the-%E2%80%9Cdouble-ethical-bind%E2%80%9D-of-climate-change-communication/
I have no doubt that Schneider’s statement, made back in 1989, relieved most of the climate warming klatch from the disciplines of morality and honesty and set the stage not only to conceal caveates and uncertainty, but to do even fraudulent science as well. The free rein they had until the pause set in and until skeptics got more deeply into the fray, erased all scruples for many and the press and the establishment and the institutes, scientific journals, NGOs and all. Indeed, when the corruption is complete, morality is not even a question. This is Stephen Schneider’s legacy, not the one they wrote on Berkley’s web site on climate change for him. Peter G. Michael M, Kevin T., the UEA mafia, the NOAA/NASA/NCAR and family, IPCC, all are ‘beneficiaries’ of Schneider’s admonition for expressing uncertainty. Now, you don’t like the pause? Irradicate it!
The irony should be noted that Schneider had been a big deep freeze projector up until a few years before this and having switched horses after being so wrong, wouldn’t you expect him to be more tentative and uncertain – at least in 1989 when nothing had happened yet.
I think this taxonomy of climate science is telling us, yes, check out financial fraud and fraudulent research across the science. There can be little doubt this guy also cooked results using imaginary isotopes, otherwise what supposedly happened to these isotopes. Steve McIntyre has already outed a number of fraudulent cli sci papers that used invalid statistical techniques and made claims not even to be hinted at in the data. Shukla must be guilty of nepotism and taking money above and beyond what is allowed per year with not a lot of research written up in recent years despite $66million from one agency of government. The civil servants managing these contracts should also be investigated. I think there is a lot of worry among the minions about the coming election.
eradicate irradicatiom!
Remember also the CARB scientist who wrote the rules on diesel emissions who got his Ph.D. from a mail order degree mill? Or Peter Gleick in the Heartland case? There are no penalties when you fraudulently support the government’s position.
$556,508 was the fraudulent amount. How much was his legitimate take, twice that?
And since he wasn’t actually getting any results back from a US lab, did he just make up data or results to use in his work? That calls into question if any of his grant or university income was legitimate.
Is $556,508 just the tip of the ice berg, so to speak? Keep us posted, Eric Worrall.
Just the tip of the climate “science” iceberg
No, CAGW is the Titanic of science and reality is the iceberg !!
Hey! Lets be accurate with our silliness….Science is the Titanic, the iceberg is AGW theory but in this story, the ship is still about two miles from it, the view is clear, and it appears that someone on board might have better binoculars. Oh…and hundreds of us are floating around the iceberg in little rafts with our Mag Lights shining directly at it while screaming ICEBERG at the top of our lungs.
I wonder if Mann, Cook, and Lew played stringed instruments…..they might need to warm up to play later…
I guess when you are in the business of ripping off grant money by fudging data and publishing ‘pal reviewed’ papers, a padded expense account or two is no big thing.
“Another Climate Scientist Accused of Financial Fraud”
I know it is rather a fine distinction for these parts, but he isn’t actually a climate scientist. He worked for the Australian Institute for Marine Science. According to the Guardian:
“His most recent role was a level eight senior research scientist looking at the biogeochemical functioning of tropical coastal and marine ecosystems, particularly mangroves and coral reefs.”
I’ve been confused for a long time now. Since you bring it up, what is the appropriate definition of “climate scientist”. Anybody?
DonM,
“…. what is the appropriate definition of “climate scientist”. …”
My answer to that would be somewhat sarcastic so I will pass. 😉
However one appropriate definition to “climate science” could be anything that anyone could possibly dream up that purports to prove CAGW. Hell, you could even claim that it will cause webbed feet on humans?
Definition of a climate scientist is someone who mentions prominently in their research papers, or is quoted in the media, that “this will make climate change worse in the future”.
Funny how for a couple of decades many people were given the description of climate scientist by the mass media and institutions, even though they had no qualifications and guess what no one complained.
A railway engineer, a failed politician, etc. everybody in climate alarmism turned a blind eye.
Nick says, “but he isn’t actually a climate scientist.” Clicking the link at the beginning of this post produces the following result:
Daniel M. Alongi
Australian Institute of Marine…, Townsville
Geochemistry, Geology, Paleoclimatology
But I guess Paleoclimatology isn’t ‘actually’ climate science?
but he isn’t actually a climate scientist.
I guess we can just ignore his paper from less than a year ago then?
Article: The Impact of Climate Change on Mangrove Forests
Daniel M. Alongi
[Show abstract]
Full-text · Article · Mar 2015
” just ignore his paper”
He studies mangrove forests. Climate change affects many things. People write about how the things they study are affected. That doesn’t make them climate scientists.
He studies mangrove forests. Climate change affects many things. People write about how the things they study are affected. That doesn’t make them climate scientists.
How convenient. When physicists, statisticians, biologists, chemists, etc point out errors or discrepancies in the climate “science” they get dismissed with a wave of the hand because they aren’t “climate scientists”. But Cook et all would have gladly accepted this paper, would they not?
But it matters not. Turns out we don’t know if he actually studied mangrove forests or not….
+100
Then who is a climate scientist?
Someone with a “climate science” diploma?
Nick Stokes January 13, 2016 at 6:08 pm
“A Yankee just like me.”
So the heading should be
“Another Yankee accused of ……
No . Never heard of ah, Benedict Arnold? Hes yours just like Arnold was for the Brits, why they even made him a General in their army. Where are your standards? Why aren’t you advocating a promotion for him.
Live with it. Its your camp. Not ours. Cheeky remarks only show you have nothing solid to cling to.
I understand its just you against all of us here, and I respect you for it. Take a little more time, you can do better.
BTW have you ever had the privilege of attending a “Fife and Drum Corps” muster? Eastern U.S.A. and Canada have wonderful Bands. If you haven’t you may want to consider it . All of them do a good “Yankee Doodle
With a good heart
michael
Nick Stokes January 13, 2016 at 11:17 am
I know it is rather a fine distinction for these parts, but he isn’t actually a climate scientist.
Wrong again Nick, Daniel Alongi is an American. A Yankee just like me. Never hear the song the Brits sang a couple hundred years ago? Yankee Doodle Went to town… stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni !
Yup if one of us says we’re a General then we’re a general. So if Daniel says hes a Climate scientist then by the almighty and the Continental Congress he is. Your stuck with him! .enjoy
michael
“A Yankee just like me.”
So the heading should be
“Another Yankee accused of financial fraud!”
“A Yankee just like me.”
So the heading should be
“Another Yankee accused of financial fraud!”
Nope, that Yankee was working in Australia as a “climate scientist”, with apparently NO supervision or accountability.
I don’t know of any of us Americans who call ourselves Yankees except some proud New Englanders. In the American south, it’s a derisive.
Interestingly enough, the Australians do call us Yanks, and usually without derision.
YANKEE, n.
In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.) – Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
So….wait….are you saying that MARINE SCIENTISTS don’t qualify as climate scientists???? Because NOAA would like to discuss that with you I’m sure!
Nick Stokes January 13, 2016 at 2:56 pm
Aw Nick such disloyalty are you and the Brethren going to give the poor guy the ISIS cold shoulder?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3395220/ISIS-burns-alive-fighters-losing-Ramadi-Iraqi-troops-fled-terror-group-s-stronghold-Mosul.html
I mean you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with him come what may. Right? Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden and all that right? Hes part of the team after all.
michael
‘Well paid jobs’ I wish! I can tell you guys from personal experience that almost no-one is in science for the money. Fraud is a very serious issue of course but it happens everywhere in science occasionally (or any profession, really).
From general reporting it seems social sciences has the biggest problem with fake results. Although I have a hard time imagining a social scientist getting away with faking half a million dollars for expenses related to radioisotopes 😉
benben
benbenben says:
… it seems
socialclimate sciences has the biggest problem with fake results.Fixed it for you.
I’m not sure, db . . is anti-social scientist a separate classification? ; )
Per your comment ” I can tell you guys from personal experience that almost no-one is in science for the money.”
First of all, none of us work for free. The pay might not always be the greatest for many, but there are plenty of IPCC “scientists” that have no problem going to Climate Change conferences in , say, um Paris, Kyoto, Buenos Aires, Netherlands, Germany, and the 22 conferences around the world where these folks drink and dine at places I only dream I could visit. Pay is pay regardless of how the compensation and perks are received.
Secondly, I have first hand knowledge in at least three places I have worked, where professors and scientists receive compensation above and beyond their normal salaries by doing side work, creating their own spin-off businesses using work from grad students, use of university facilities (for free), and then going forth and making a killing. I worked with one such man in Utah who was making robotic devices using the university students to machine parts on university equipment and such devices were sold in industry to the tune of millions. There are plenty of those types of around.
Thirdly, compared to the average worker, scientists, engineers, and professionals typically make twice to three times as much. I am one of those guys who does pretty darn well because my parents sent me to a technical university. My relatives, with their high school educations, are still driving 10-year old cars and live in small-to-average houses with credit card debt up to their eyeballs, with no retirement funds other than Social Security.
I’m a University lecturer. Mike, your relatives sound better off than I am. I’ve never owned a vehicle made in this century. A former head of department in another country commented that his high-school-only relatives were much better off than he was. Leaving the computing industry for academia meant a pay cut.
Considering the financial scrutiny that things like equipment and books get here, I am *flabbergasted* that someone in Australia could claim half a megabuck of isotopes without someone else having to tick the boxes on a form saying they had seen the goods. I can’t help wondering whether this fraud had someone helping out in the office.
My neighbors, with their advanced college educations, are brand new cars and live in average to large houses with credit card debt up to their eyeballs,along with enormous student loan debt, with no retirement funds other than Social Security!
According to the Federal Reserve, median household debt in America has risen to $75,600.
Which ones do you think the banks will come for when it all hits the fan? Your relative’s ten year old cars and small to average homes or my neighbors brand new cars and homes? I know which one I’d pick if I wanted my investment money back.
With all the PC and stuff about micro-agressions (and nano- and femto-), the “inclusiveness”, the “safe zones”, the trigger warnings… will these guys be able to deal with the real world?
I wonder if the market value of people who went to top universities isn’t going to be negative some day, because these guys can’t manage even-centi-agressions.
With a mountain of debts, and a super-fragile ego, what will they do?
They’ll move in with their high school diploma, below average income relatives and share that 10 year old car…that’s what they’ll do! LOL
Couldn’t agree more. This guy, apparently, rose to the top of the pay scale within a few years of employment at the place by publications as they are the measure of a ‘productive scientist’. So pump them out! Once at the highest level do nothing other than travel the world to IPCC meetings that couldn’t be at more exotic remote locations if one tried. Claim overseas travel, and penalties rates for all the discomforts of being away from home, plus take home $150k plus per annum (OK , that’s Australian dollars which aren’t worth much but still) and a private car. Oh it must have been so hard. Idle hands make for mischief. I suppose one could feel sorry if it is a case of mental illness but me thinks it a case of a crook. Over and above the taxpayer fraud the administration of the place allowing this to go on for many years should be seriously questioned with some heads rolling. Are the rest of the lot, perhaps not as stupid to be such blatant crooks, supping from the gravy train of climate change funding whilst doing nothing to actually fix the problem they claim will destroy the planet. What a rort. And I pay taxes because…….?
“Fraud is a very serious issue of course but it happens everywhere in science occasionally (or any profession, really).”
No, fraud in a collective setting very rarely happens.
Some guy cheating in some sport competition doesn’t impact the whole field.
You can only compare with other networked fields.
For example, computers: one badly designed basic components can be integrated in many different systems. (Computer is a domain with a huge network effect. Lame stuff is used everywhere because it is used everywhere.)
The dirty little secret of free software is that nobody reads most code, and even less people read and understand it.
Obviously I’m not a starving scientist, but fact is that my little brother in his first year on the job already earns more than I do after 5 years of having a paid position at a university. And more to the point: I’ve been offered plenty of jobs that would pay me at least 2x what I earn now. But science… it’s just too interesting and too much fun to leave behind 🙂
The point being: there exists this idea here on this blog that scientists are just in it for the money. For the vast majority that’s just not true. This of course says nothing about other things that are wrong with the way science works nowadays!
I don’t think most scientists make a whole lot, and I think the majority of posters here would agree with that. But just because “job income” in the science field isn’t high, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of money to make in that field in other ways. Scientists that publish papers that become “famous” can make MILLIONS. James Hansen, Mike Mann, Lewandowsky etc-not only do they get an income, and “grant funds” that often pay for personal living expenses, but they’ve also earned “awards” from foundations that are enormous. The freaking Nobel Prize comes with a check for $1.5 million for crying out loud.
The fact that YOU, or even the vast majority of scientists may not be “in it for the money” does not constitute proof that NONE of them are.
The only question is will Steyn’s “Disgrace to the Profession” become a trilogy or an encyclopedia?
An ongoing series
He’ll be able to open up his own library in a few years !!
You get what you pay for and, as a taxpayer, you really have no say in how your money is spent. Bureaucrats won’t control how it’s all frittered away; their first concern is cashing their own paychecks and then not making waves, so that in an ocean of “free money” it all flows to the least honest; the most honest get the least. And as for politicians … mere tentacles of a headless monster … sadly, there’s a certain kind of wisdom in that cynical observation that you can’t fight city hall.
I have no sympathy anymore. At the science level, there must be enough evidence of scamming everywhere now, plus way too many over-the-top claims for what warming/cooling/undecided climate can and does, for ANY honest scientist to still be caught up in it unknowingly.
The vast majority of innocent men and women in the labs learned and left a long time ago. Undoubtedly there are some still lingering in the grasp – certainly there are many keeping their mouths shut to hang onto their wage packets, but they cannot be called innocent. Like it or not, they are aiding and abetting. If there are any innocent ones left, they’d have to be trying very hard to pay no attention at all to what’s going on around them and I’m not sure that’s possible.
” All it takes for Evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing !! ”
..Don’t remember who said it !!
It seems the originator of that quote is under some debate. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/
I’m rather drawn to a statement by Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke when he said: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Also by Burke: “When bad men combine, good men must organize.”
Seems very appropriate in this day and age!
Marcus January 13, 2016 at 11:59 am
Edmund Burke
another … When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
michael
A.D. Everard January 13, 2016 at 2:58 pm
We think alike
michael
“At the science level, there must be enough evidence of scamming everywhere now, plus way too many over-the-top claims for what warming/cooling/undecided climate can and does, for ANY honest scientist to still be caught up in it unknowingly.”
The vast majority of my colleagues (and myself I would say) are not climate scientists but are not convinced that there is much fraud going on. It’s just that if you only read this and related blogs you’ll get a bit of a one-sided view of things 🙂
“The vast majority of my colleagues (and myself I would say) are not climate scientists but are not convinced that there is much fraud going on. It’s just that if you only read this and related blogs you’ll get a bit of a one-sided view of things :)”
I have to ask. Let’s not spotlight the “financial” fraud specifically, but the scientific fraud going on. Are you and the vast majority of your colleagues READING the “climate science” papers? Examining their “new” methods? Seeing the abuse of statistics and the rules of other means of analysis? Or are you “not convinced” because you really just have no idea what is going on? When you read “this and related blogs” and you see how often we can provide evidence that their data sucks or their methods suck or their conclusions are flawed-do you just ignore all that? Because if you do then of COURSE you are not convinced that there is much fraud going on. If there IS “much fraud” going on, and you just ignore or refuse to look at the evidence presented, it makes you complicit as well as unconvinced.
Aphan, thank you, that’s my point entirely which you clarified perfectly.
Benben, “the science is settled” announcement would have started alarm bells ringing in every scientific-literate individual, scientist and layman alike. “The science is settled” has been promoted and shouted out for years. I don’t believe you could have missed that. If you are reading this and other related blogs, you certainly won’t have missed that.
Then there is everything that Aphan stated and more: Shonky methods, the abandonment of the scientific method, overlooking or ignoring observations, manipulating results to fit the meme, shouting down dissenters, expelling dissenters, refusing debate, calling for imprisonment for those who disagree, calling for the execution of those who disagree and even the culling of humans. Professors came up with a lot of these and presented such ideas in their classrooms.
Have you really missed all of that? I’ve seen your name before here in these pages, you are not new here. I know you read, for you read my comment and responded. Do you read the articles in full too?
Hello Aphan and AD Everard,
You ask fair questions. But first let me say that this post is specifically on financial fraud, and I just want to reiterate that the number of people in science that are actually in it for the money is negligible. It’s just a terrible paying job compared to what at least I could earn in the commercial world with my skill set.
Stuff like ‘culling of humans’… yeah, I don’t know what to say about that. It’s just not something I have ever even remotely seen or heard being discussed. And scientists are just humans. There will always be some scientists with crazy dumb ideas, or stumbled into a depression or psychosis or whatever. Who knows? In any group that’s large enough you’ll find people saying unacceptable stuff if you try to find it. It’s sad, but it has nothing to do with science as a whole.
On the topic of scientific fraud in general I have to be more careful in what I say, because to be able to REALLY critique these models you’d need a phd in atmospheric chemistry and full access to the source code, and I have neither. But in general, what you refer to is how climate science deals with uncertainty and communicates that uncertainty to the outside world, which is a very large topic in my field of research as well. Uncertainty is a complicated subject. Every computer model will have uncertainty and no-one will ever be able to predict a complex chaotic system such as the climate with a high degree of accuracy. The central question is this: how accurate do your models need to be in order to make policy decisions? Because acceptable uncertainty in science is very different from acceptable uncertainty in policy. The evidence shown on this blog points towards that the models have high uncertainty, but this doesn’t (in my opinion) show that there is massive fraud going on. We (in the scientific community) all know about the uncertainty and everyone making models deals with uncertainty.
The interesting discussion would be on how to use flawed models for real world policy making, and what uncertainties are acceptable in policy.
For example: economic models are incredibly bad. They were incapable of predicting past economic crises. They are incapable of saying anything useful about basic stuff like inflation or the price of oil. Yet we use them every day to base our fiscal policy on. So are climate models really that much worse than economic general equilibrium models? I don’t think so. But it would sure be an interesting topic for a post on this blog 🙂
Cheers,
benben
Benben-
“But first let me say that this post is specifically on financial fraud, and I just want to reiterate that the number of people in science that are actually in it for the money is negligible.”
No one here said that the number is significant.
“There will always be some scientists with crazy dumb ideas, or stumbled into a depression or psychosis or whatever. Who knows? In any group that’s large enough you’ll find people saying unacceptable stuff if you try to find it. It’s sad, but it has nothing to do with science as a whole.”
It is sad. But something ELSE is sadder-allowing those crazy scientists to PUBLISH their crazy ideas in the first place. And even sadder than that? When other scientists attempt to BACK UP those publications and scientists and promote those crazy ideas as scientifically valid! THAT DOES have something to do with science as a whole. You want people to think the field is “clean” and “respectable” then you need to make sure that it IS in the first place.
“On the topic of scientific fraud in general I have to be more careful in what I say, because to be able to REALLY critique these models you’d need a phd in atmospheric chemistry and full access to the source code, and I have neither.”
WHY? The freaking scientists who are running the models don’t have phd’s in atmospheric chemistry, nor do they have full access to the source codes! The give the modelers the parameters of their own choosing, and if the result is something they don’t like or agree with, they give the modeler new parameters to use. No one needs a phd in ANYTHING to know how stupid and irrational that is!
“Uncertainty is a complicated subject.”
No, it’s not. It’s a calculation that can and should be noted clearly in EVERY scientific paper, in every scientific study result, on every single chart or graph. It’s not complicated at all.
“The evidence shown on this blog points towards that the models have high uncertainty, but this doesn’t (in my opinion) show that there is massive fraud going on. We (in the scientific community) all know about the uncertainty and everyone making models deals with uncertainty. ”
The FRAUD is not in the uncertainty existing. Of course it exists. The FRAUD occurs when scientists either tell other people themselves, OR allow other people to assume-without correction, that their results are more accurate than they are. One example-Cook et al 2013- Enormously idiotic and irrationally done study, in which the authors whittled down the entire sample to just the abstracts that THEY FELT stated an opinion on the climate change/global warming of the past 50 years being attributable to HUMAN emissions. And of that group (which ended up being only 33% of the original sample examined) they determined that 97% of THAT little tiny subgroup agreed that human Co2 was causing global warming/climate change.
The “white house” immediately tweeted that 97% of scientists agree that humans are causing global warming! THAT message went viral in days, but it did NOT reflect the results of the actual study accurately. When I asked one of the authors of the paper WHY he had not immediately held a press conference to CORRECT the inaccurate and dishonest use of his paper by the press, the President, and the warmist army, he said “Well, it was too late at that point, there wasn’t anything we could really do”. And then he and his co-authors have CONTINUED to speak of their own test results in the exact same INCORRECT and INACCURATE manner that others have!
Those scientists IGNORED their own uncertainty. IGNORED the misuse and propagation of their results to promote false claims. And you know what? With the exception of a handful of scientists who stepped forward and rebutted the crap out of that paper (which was easy to do because the data was so flimsy and their conclusions were entirely irrational and unscientific) that paper has become one of the most cited papers in climate change history!
So your whole argument that “it’s only a few scientists” and “it doesn’t really matter” and “it shouldn’t reflect on any other scientist outside of the one that did the bad thing” is a lazy, cavalier, insulting, and completely useless argument to offer here at WUWT. We DO examine the data here.We DO expose the uncertainties. We DO examine the science. And when the scientists it comes from pretend that what we find is NOT damning to their results, we call that FRAUD.
“WHY? The freaking scientists who are running the models don’t have phd’s in atmospheric chemistry, nor do they have full access to the source codes! The give the modelers the parameters of their own choosing, and if the result is something they don’t like or agree with, they give the modeler new parameters to use. No one needs a phd in ANYTHING to know how stupid and irrational that is!”
Look, there is this saying about how everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. What you describe above is just not the way it is done. Of course what you write down would be wrong. But it’s just not true. PhDs write their own code and their own models and calculate their own parameters. Man, I wish we had someone to do that stuff for us. You write down how the method they used to deduce those parameters. And that’s scientifically valid. ‘Scientific’ doesn’t mean ‘true’, it just means that you document what you did so that others (including you) can complain about it. The translation from ‘science’ to ‘policy’ is quite bumpy. But that doesn’t mean scientific fraud automatically.
On uncertainty:
‘No, it’s not. It’s a calculation that can and should be noted clearly in EVERY scientific paper, in every scientific study result, on every single chart or graph. It’s not complicated at all.’
Well.. uncertainty is most certainly a complicated subject. Or you might be a mathematical genius that can do monte carlo simulations in your sleep, in which case I’d like you as a co-author for my next paper 😉 Uncertainty is a hugely important aspect of almost every scientific publication. It might be put in the supporting information, and it definitely doesn’t feature in the press release, but there always is something on uncertainty. What this blog often does is (wilfully?) neglect the data in the SI, and then point at the (admittedly, often wrongly written) press releases and yell ‘fraud fraud!’ And you know what? That’s ok. This blog caters to a certain type of reader that wants to read that. But if your question is why I, as a scientist, don’t get so upset about the stuff written about on this blog, it’s because I’ll just download the SI and take a look and see that there is a very thorough discussion on uncertainty, despite the fact that the commenters here assume there is none. So no fraud.
This Cook et al 2013 study you refer to is definitely a social sciences study right? That goes right back to my earlier comment that these types of problems (misunderstanding statistics) seem to be most prevalent in social sciences. You see, we are in agreement much more than you think 😉
Cheers,
benben
benben-“PhDs write their own code and their own models and calculate their own parameters.”
I was talking specifically about climate scientists. No PhD in climate science also has a degree in the kind of computer coding required to run computer climate models. Again, step outside of your own head/field/experience/office and try to take in the bigger picture here.
“For example Professor Les Hatton, an international expert in software testing resident in the Universities of Kent and Kingston, carried out an extensive analysis of several million lines of scientific code. He showed that the software had an unacceptably high level of detectable inconsistencies. ”
“By contrast scientific software developed in our universities and research institutes is often produced by scientists with no training in software engineering and with no quality mechanisms in place and so, no doubt, the occurrence of errors will be even higher.”
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/feb/05/science-climate-emails-code-release
BB-“But that doesn’t mean scientific fraud automatically.”
Never. Said. It. Did. In fact, I said this on another comment here- “Anyone who thinks or believes that ALL climate scientists or ALL scientists in general are corrupt isn’t thinking rationally. But by the same token, neither is anyone who thinks that everyone here feels that way.” STOP insinuating that I mean something that I am not saying. You suck at it.
BB-“Or you might be a mathematical genius that can do monte carlo simulations in your sleep, in which case I’d like you as a co-author for my next paper 😉 ”
Monte Carlo methods have ZERO business being used in any model in which the system you are modeling is not well understood. It’s essentially meaningless. Too many uncertainties in the model itself, and all applying uncertainty analysis to that model will tell you is that anything is possible. But you knew that right? You’re a scientist. Right?
BB-“What this blog often does is (wilfully?) neglect the data in the SI, and then point at the (admittedly, often wrongly written) press releases and yell ‘fraud fraud!’ And you know what? That’s ok. This blog caters to a certain type of reader that wants to read that.”
Wrong again. Are you as bad at examining real, empirical evidence at work as you are here? And making inferences…are you this bad at work as well? This blog takes apart the data in the SI and exposes whether or not the researchers actually did REAL science in the first place.
But you bring up another one of my points. If scientific press releases are “admittedly, often wrongly written” then why don’t scientists prevent that practice from happening? If you KNOW your work is getting misrepresented, and you allow it to happen, that, by definition, makes you COMPLICIT in FRAUD.
“Fraud is a broad term that refers to a variety of offenses involving dishonesty or “fraudulent acts”. In essence, fraud is the intentional deception of a person or entity by another made for monetary or personal gain.”
BB-“But if your question is why I, as a scientist, don’t get so upset about the stuff written about on this blog, it’s because I’ll just download the SI and take a look and see that there is a very thorough discussion on uncertainty, despite the fact that the commenters here assume there is none.”
Again, uncertainties, like I said, can and should be communicated to the public, especially if a scientific paper is being released to the public by the press! If the “press releases” aren’t clear about that, people the ones who read/comment here at WUWT assume that the paper is more certain than it is. Doing this MISLEADS the public. And if you and other scientists are ok with that, then you are complicit in defrauding the citizenry.
“This Cook et al 2013 study you refer to is definitely a social sciences study right? That goes right back to my earlier comment that these types of problems (misunderstanding statistics) seem to be most prevalent in social sciences.”
What is your point? That you think that the everyday citizen knows the difference between a “social scientist” and a “hard scientist”. They don’t. And that paper went viral as speaking for ALL OF YOU-97% of ALL SCIENTISTS agree…But, not only do you not care if the public is misled, you don’t even care if the public is misled about what YOU personally believe.
That to me, is empirical evidence of a flawed moral center. A lack of concern for how the world of “science” is being slowly infected by the idiotic practices of the social scientists. Monte Carlo methods are statistical methods…that determine probability. And those methods have NO place in sciences that are about empirical measurements and historical behaviors. Misunderstanding and misusing statistics are now common problems in hard sciences. But hey….you just go about being a scientist and assuming that people think scientists are credible and accurate, while we continue to prove that you shouldn’t be trusted.
Oh, and public polls show that the public is losing all respect and trust for scientists in general. That’s not a theory, it’s a FACT.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/30/even-in-2015-the-public-doesnt-trust-scientists/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/21/faith-in-scientists_n_4481487.html
https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/02/20/many-americans-are-scientific-skeptics/
benben, benben,
You’re getting spanked hard in this exchange. Keep digging your hole deeper if you want, but if I was getting thrashed like you are, I’d hide out and lick my wounds.
He can’t lick his wounds until he runs a Monte Carlo method on the probability of actually being wounded first. 🙂
dbstealey, I should point out that if you’re interested in spanking, you’re probably on the wrong website.
Aphan, you write a lot of text, and in your own world of circular logic your story probably makes sense. But really, it’s just not true. Have you ever considered that? It’s just not true that ‘climate’ scientists are somehow dumber or less competent than other scientists. You can say a lot about climate models, but you can’t say that climate scientists not able to write the code for their own models, if only a scripting language like matlab. You can believe whatever you want of course. But… it would be nice if you could keep an open mind to the fact that just because other people have other opinions that you, it doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are talking about or capable of doing their own work (you can know what you are talking about and still be wrong in the end!).
Case in point: monte carlo is a basic thing you do for any complex systems model. I made that comment in response to you writing that ‘uncertainty is a calculation that can and should be noted clearly in EVERY scientific paper’ which is a very strange and wrong thing to write about the massive mathematical field of statistics. You may write in a very self-assured way that it monte carlo should not be used, but that doesn’t really change the basic textbook use case for monte carlo simulations (including climate models because they are complex systems models).
Finally, it’s really bizarre to berate climate science for using black box models while this is apparently accepted for basically every other scientific discipline using computational modelling. The question is not whether the results are uncertain (they are) or if there are unknown parameters that might change the results (there will be), the question is only: are the results good enough in order to use for policy? And for that question you’d need an honest comparison with other topics where science informs policy on risk assessments (e.g. healthcare). Which is something very different than what is happening on this blog, namely complain loudly about every source of uncertainty without discussing the context.
It is my personal observation that science is done in the same way in climate science as in any other field. Its just that with climate sciences the results don’t align with your personal political beliefs, and therefore you’d rather complain about statistics (which it seems you don’t have a lot of experience with?), than confront the fact that perhaps you’d have to change your mind.
That being said, there is a lot of interesting stuff on this blog that is actually relevant to scientific discussions. This discussion unfortunately is not part of that.
Oh well.
Cheers
Ben
Government gets the science it pays for. Look up “Heath monkey asphyxiation study”.
Go to the 26th minute it cannot be explained any better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRe9z32NZHY
Oh yes, let’s ask a vegetarian if meat is bad for you !!! LMAO !!!
Any area where you put in too much money to quickly, you will see exactly this. It’s not a Climate science thing, it’s a human nature thing.
Didn’t the catastophists set up a legal fighting fund ? maybe they got one prediction right after all
The debate over the Great barrier reef has always been a proxy debate about climate change,tourism and banning coal mines.
The most recent incarnation was the ‘debate’ over the Abbott Point port facility to ship out coal to the poor of India.
The Greens fought all along to make this project as costly as possible to prevent the coal going to the poor of India. They always argued that the dredging would destroy the reef.
The problem was resolved by putting the spoil on land and stabilizing it.
I don’t know what part this scientist played in this debate, however the debate has always been about climate change damaging the reef.
Since coral atolls and wetlands are part of the rich tapestry of measuring climate change, it is reasonable to pay attention to those who date corals and study them.
If work is not actually done to do such dating, according to the paper trail, this would cause one to question any observational data produced and have it replicated.
Australian science is having frequent body blows that make us cringe.
The BOM homogenization without replication of data and the Chinese data hack,the ‘ship of fools’, the ‘dams not filling’, the ideation and denial of moon landings.
We need to know that our climate records are in safe hands.
As a matter of urgency all data produced by this scientist’s team should be presented, in court if need be, with the opportunity of having it discussed under oath by peers as expert witnesses.
Yes. And during the ALP/Green pantomime ALL of the environmental studies and approvals were obtained. It was Hunt who signed off on the final approval for the project when Abbott came to power. And yet, the LNP and Abbott still get the blame.
You are the lawbreakers in the court of science by Kyoji Kimoto – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.EnrZE7IV.7NgjoJoF.dpuf
the above author of the below report has published an open letter to the IPCC et al accusing them of fraud or incompetence
http://multi-science.atypon.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.26.6-7.1055
7. CONCLUSIONS
The central dogma of the IPCC is theoretically failed that the zero feedback climate
sensitivity (Planck response) is 1.2K for 2xCO2, resulting in the collapse of the AGW
theory claiming the canonical climate sensitivity of 3K for CO2 doubling. This comes
from the lack of the parameter sensitivity analysis of the lapse rate for 2xCO2 in the
1DRCM studies to check the validity of the obtained results in the literature [8, 9, 10].
Another theoretical defect of the IPCC dogma is the mathematical error in the Planck
response calculations by the Cess method [3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20, 21].
The surface climate sensitivity is 0.14-0.17K obtained by the two calculations in
this study utilizing the surface radiative forcing of 1.1W/m2 including IR absorption
overlap with water vapor plentifully existing at the surface [24], which is coincident
with the observed surface climate sensitivity of 0.11-0.24K in the literature [7, 27, 30,
31, 32].
Coal will be the energy for the future of many nations in terms of the amount of
resource and production cost since the CO2 issue is removed by this study. Japan can
furnish the advanced coal-fired power plant technology to the world reducing the air
pollution from coal usage, which is demonstrated by Isogo Plant with the high heat
efficiency of 43% and the very low SOx and NOx emission level.
The data which show CO2 has no effect on average global temperature already exist.
The relation between mathematics and the physical world mandates that, for a forcing to have an effect, it must exist for a period of time. It’s like heating a tea kettle. It takes a while, after you turn the heat on, for the water to get hot. The temperature changes with time in response to the net forcing. If the forcing varies, (or not) the effect is determined by the time-integral of the net forcing (or the time-integral of a function thereof).
The atmospheric CO2 level has been above about 150 ppmv (necessary for evolution of life on land as we know it) for at least the entire Phanerozoic eon (the last 542 million or so years). If CO2 was a forcing, its effect on average global temperature (AGT) would be calculated according to its time-integral (or the time-integral of a function thereof) for at least 542 million years. Because there is no way for that calculation to consistently result in the current AGT, CO2 cannot be a forcing. This is the subject of a peer reviewed paper at http://eae.sagepub.com/content/26/5/841.full.pdf+html
Variations of this demonstration and identification of what does cause climate change (R^2 > 0.97) are at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
Dan, you seem confused. Forcings go on time intervals, yes, but any first-order forcing is an Arrhenius function (1-e^-at) function as it goes to equilibirium. Given how mobile our atmospheric temperature is (varying hugely on hourly time scales), it can easily be argued that atmospheric warming would be near-instant even on an annual scale, much less on geologic time. In fact, I think that this must be the null hypothesis, that forcing induced temperature changes occur on the scale of days and certainly less than a year.
Sorry, but section 3 paragraph 1 of your paper is a magic handwave. It just dismisses without analysis or any real explanation. Not only does it fail to consider the very real fact that CO2 is not THE forcing in the atmosphere, but one of many, but the handwave shows that you ignored the possibility of a fast equilibrium.
Your proper conclusion is that there is not a detectible time delay, so any warming that occurs is either too small or too fast to determine from this analysis. Also, you fail to acknowledge that the uncertainty of the data is too great for this kind of analysis to begin with. Trying to do rate calculations on a geologic scale temperature reconstruction? That’s madness.
I suggest you withdraw the paper.
Hell would have to be experiencing extreme climate “weirding” for that to happen. When a researcher is married to his/her idea of what the data should be made to say, there is no room for those who question the results.
What worries me is the PE after his name. A researcher saying crazy things is just saying things. An engineer is responsible for lives. That’s why we have to get licenses.
ben – The paper is about global (not atmosphere) temperature. Although it’s not important to the paper, effective time constant for the planet is about 5 years. [Schwartz] http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
Did you miss this? “If CO2 was a forcing, its effect on average global temperature (AGT) would be calculated according to its time-integral (or the time-integral of a function thereof) for at least 542 million years.” The discovery is that CO2 has NO effect on climate in spite of being a ghg.
Your third paragraph indicates that you are so blinded by preconceptions that you have not grasped the paper at all.
Perhaps the finding described in the paper will become more evident to you as the temperature decline predicted in http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com takes place.
Pan – So what should be done about NOAA et al changing the data to corroborate an agenda?
I certainly would not post another biased piece of research in response to biased re-worked reconstructions.
5 Years. I could buy that reasoning (at least we’re agreeing on orders of magnitude). However, that’s still effectively instant on the time scales you are talking about.
Let me ask you a question. What are you looking to find? Your rationale is performed in a single paragraph and is not very clear.
Let me tell you my interpretation. Please correct me if I’m wrong. You are saying it should be visible as a time-integral. From any definition of time-integral I know this means you are looking at T as a function of an integrated forcing over multiple eons. You are expecting to see a long term, continuous rise during high CO2 and a long term continuous decline during low CO2 between any two points. This argument only works if Earth’s infrared output was constant. That reasoning just doesn’t apply in an equilibrium system, much less one where the temperature output rises to balance on scales orders of magnitude smaller than what you are looking for.
Let’s say your assumptions are accurate and CO2 was the only factor in temperature. On these scales, they would rise and fall in effective lockstep, not over long time scales like you are discussing, because by your own quoted number, that’s 10 years until it gets within 95% of equilibrium value. You don’t have resolution below the eon, so that’s effectively instant.
Finally, you still do not address confounding factors such as non-CO2 changes or the sheer inaccuracy of all of these measurements. Even if there was a strong signal that matched exactly what you were looking for, it could easily get lost in the noise of multiple ice ages and the huge uncertainties involved.
I’m not blinded by my preconceptions. You paper simply has critical flaws that undermine it’s effectiveness. The basic concept might be possible on a decade level where the “all else equal” assumption required for this could be reasonable and we had some roughly accurate means of determining your two variable. However, on geologic scales, with very rough numbers, it simply cannot be done.
Pam – Can you be specific about where you believe bias has been introduced?
Ben – You asked “What are you looking to find?” I have found the cause of climate change for at least the last 300 years (97% match since before 1900. See Figure 1.1 in the agwunveiled paper) and discovered that CO2, in spite of being a ghg, has no effect on climate. I am no longer looking to find anything but will continue to monitor reported AGT to verify my findings.
The rationale is in the first two paragraphs of section 3. The first paragraph is for the condition of no ‘break even’ CO2 level. The second paragraph is for the condition if a ‘break even’ CO2 level were to exist (I know of no evidence that a ‘break even’ CO2 level actually exists).
Some of your comments indicate that this approach is quite different from what you are familiar with. I will try to elucidate, with your words in quotes:
“multiple eons” there is only one, the Phanerozoic eon, the last 542 million years.
“this argument” ‘break even’? If CO2 has an effect on AGT? (it does not)
“what you are looking for” if you mean the ‘break even’ CO2 level, it can be solved for.
(I haven’t been able to make sense out of the last two sentences in your third paragraph)
“Let’s say your assumptions” I consider two conditions as described in the first two paragraphs in section 3. I make no assumptions.
“in effective lockstep” If CO2 had an effect on AGT and was declining but above ‘break even’ AGT would still be rising. Being in lockstep actually demonstrates CO2 has no effect on AGT. Picking different end points would result in different ‘break even’ which is ludicrous (See paragraph 2 in Section 3 and/or the section titled ‘Carbon dioxide has no effect on climate; a pragmatic assessment’ in http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com)
“do not address confounding factors such as non-CO2 changes” that is what the last sentence in paragraph 2 of section 3 is about: ‘something else is causing temperature change’.
“sheer inaccuracy…huge uncertainties” it is only necessary that CO2 level be at least high enough for life to evolve and that AGT not be constant (demonstrated by the three ice ages). This provides compelling evidence CO2 has no effect on AGT.
“multiple ice ages” there have been 4 ice ages (depending on who you believe, the one about 144 million years ago might have made it only about half way down) in the Phanerozoic eon at about 150 million year intervals. The current one includes the 9000 year long interglacial we are enjoying. The glacial/interglacial combos last about 100,000 years.
The finding that CO2 has no significant effect on AGT was also discovered in the agwunveiled analysis as shown in Table 1 there. R^2 was not significantly changed with or without considering CO2. CO2 is included the same as shown in equation (1) in http://climatechange90.blogspot.com/2013/05/natural-climate-change-has-been.html
The method (like equation (ii) in the agwunveiled analysis but with coefficients for the ‘1990’ case as shown in Table 1) allows prediction of temperature trends using data up to any date. The predicted temperature anomaly trend in 2020 calculated using data to 1990, actual sunspot numbers through 2012, and predicted sunspot numbers 2013-2020 is within 0.011 K of the trend calculated using data through 2012. The predictions after 2020 depend on sunspot predictions which are not available past 2020.
Fascinating stuff Dan. Looking forward to reading it all.
There are so many examples of bias in your work. But let’s take one of the earlier ones in your paper, which appears to be your null hypothesis statement: “The measurements demonstrate, at least up to levels in the atmosphere of about 300 ppmv, CO2 has no significant effect on AGT.”
You have not provided sufficient evidence to back up your no significant effect conclusion. Since greenhouse gases, in their entirety, do indeed cause Earth’s AGT to be warmer than if they did not exist, there must be some effect. Here is one possibility. Notice how the reconstructions seem to point to a sudden triggered (orbital mechanics? oceanic processes we have yet to discover?) steep rise in AGT, followed by a less steep triggered (orbital mechanics? oceanic processes we have yet to discover? slow decay of greenhouse gases?) fall to the previous cold floor. It is possible that our greenhouse blanket, which appears to be triggered to suddenly increase by the sudden rise in AGT (which itself is triggered by?), takes a while to be depleted, keeping the fall to the previous cold level at a slower pace. This may or may not be the cause-effect case for the difference in slope between the rate of rise and rate of fall in AGT, but I put it forth as an example of your statement sans discussed evidence that CO2 has no significant affect during these epic events. Your bias, I believe, is behind these blanket statements of yours that appear in your introduction and that are absent a thorough discussion of why the CO2 null hypothesis cannot be significantly involved in all the various patterns and behavior of AGT. In standard research, being “dismissive” of the null hypothesis is the mark of a low grade scientist. A highly professional and well trained scientist engaged in non-biased research takes it as seriously as he/she does of his/her proposed experimental hypothesis. You, in my opinion and based on your writings, are a poorly trained biased researcher.
Let me explain.
Let’s go back to blackbody physics. For any level of input, there is a temperature that will balance the inlet and outlet radiation. From whatever starting point you have, the temperature will approach this point. The “time constant” value is the time it takes to approach 1/e (~65%) closer to the equilibrium. Once it get there, it stays there.
The atmosphere is more complicated, but it follows this same principle. There is no “break-even” CO2 point. No matter what the forcing is, there is no long term buildup over time. It gets to equilibrium and stays there. This is why the panic is wrong, because the equilibrium balances and things don’t change much or steadily go out of proportion.
As for the rest, you have demonstrated successfully that CO2 is not THE determining factor for temperature. However, that was never the question. Your paper provides NO information that can prove that it has no impact on temperature. You can’t separate the variables. What I refer to as your assumption is the idea that you can ignore everything else in determining that CO2 has no effect. It’s implicit but required for you conclusion, but that is an assumption that cannot be made.
Therefore your conclusion is overreaching.
pS: And sorry, I was using “eon” for 1 million years. Holdover bad habit from an old professor.
Pam –The methods used here which have identified what does and does not cause climate change are quite simple (for an experienced Mechanical Engineer like me) but apparently not what you are familiar with.
“The measurements demonstrate, at least up to levels in the atmosphere of about 300 ppmv, CO2 has no significant effect on AGT.” results from the computational mandate, which is “temperature change is in response to the time-integral of the net forcing”. This is discussed in the paragraph just before Figure 1.
If CO2 was a forcing, the temperature would respond to the time-integral of the CO2 level (or the time-integral of a function thereof). Figure 1 in the paper shows clearly that this is not the case (the temperature and CO2 level go up and down very nearly together) which justifies the quoted statement. This is an observation, not a bias.
The results summarized in Table 1 of the agwunveiled paper show that CO2 has no significant effect on AGT. The Coefficient of Determination, R^2 , with no CO2 is 0.9049 and, if the influence of CO2 is included, 0.9061 (this comparison was made with unsmoothed temperature measurements only). This assessment in the agwunveiled paper is also shown in a peer reviewed paper published in Energy and Environment, vol. 25, No. 8, 1455-1471
CO2 has no effect on climate and, by similarity, other non-condensing ghg have no effect on climate either. The only ghg that makes the planet warmer than it would be without ghg is water vapor.
It appears that you are referring to the ‘sharp’ up trends and longer down trends in Figure 1 of the paper (note the time scale, ‘sharp’ might be thousands of years). Some have attributed this action to be related to Milankovitch cycles but IMO there is more to it than that. My only interest here is that temperature and CO2 level go up and down approximately together which demonstrates that CO2 is not a forcing on AGT.
In an analysis made public nearly 8 years ago at http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/pangburn.html I determined there “The conclusion from all this is that carbon dioxide change does NOT cause significant climate change”
The assessment in the current paper applies a computational mandate. Statistics, at least in the usual sense of discreet data in an experiment to challenge a hypothesis, is not involved.
The stated hypothesis in the agwunveiled paper is AGT is proportional to the sunspot number anomaly time-integral plus an approximation of ocean cycles. The 97% match since before 1900 between calculated and measured AGT demonstrates the hypothesis is valid. Calculated AGT appear credible at least back to the depths of the LIA.
You might find the dialog with Ben informative.
Ben – Thank you for your comments. They caused me to revisit the assessment that had led to no effect of CO2 on climate. In doing so, I discovered a boneheaded oversight (and potential ineffectiveness of peer review). As a result, that paper will be withdrawn, as you suggested.
The assertion withdraws to the statement that there is no SIGNIFICANT effect of CO2 on climate which is based on entirely different considerations and has not been found to be wrong. This slightly less limiting finding is in the paper at Energy and Environment, vol. 25, No. 8, 1455-1471 and also at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com That finding is based on there being no significant difference in R^2 whether CO2 is considered or not (0.9049 vs 0.9061) and the 97% match (without any effect from CO2) between calculated and smoothed measured AGT since before 1900.
The oversight was failure to realize that any temperature increase from CO2 would also be integrated for 542 million years. Another way of looking at it is, any positive forcing from CO2 could be immediately matched by increased negative forcing from higher AGT resulting in the ‘observed’ AGT (as estimated using proxies) during the Phanerozoic. With this argument, AGT with no CO2 effect would be, on Figure 3, a line below the e.g. black line, with the difference being the contribution of CO2. This could account for any effect from CO2 rendering the assertion that CO2 has no effect invalid. The same argument applies to Figure 1.
Every time a paper is written promoting the CO2 induced GLO BULL warming, A fraud is being financed with a grant specifying a predetermined climate change result (Hottest ever) by the warming industry, they are knowingly committing fraud and deception!
Cheered on by the useful tools/fools!!!!!!
This is perhaps a bit of a stretch. One of the great surprises last year in the world of podcast was the success of “Serial” – a multi episodic story of a young man accused and convicted of murder back in 1999. Whether one believed in his innocence is one matter but the big reveal that I took away from the podcast was the metric used to judge performance of detectives (in this case, Baltimore detectives) was not whether or not the “truth” was determined but the number of cases closed. This charge was backed up by a former detective and the close scrutiny made by a reporter and lawyers resulting in solid questions about omissions, arm twisting, skewing data, and peer pressure. I wonder why so many are so quick to distrust big oil, the tobacco industry, big pharma, big government, etc. (and rightly so!) but not the arena of science. Yes, peer review is supposed to check against fraudulent claims but at times it is more akin to the NCAA or Congress investigating their own in house. Legacy is a powerful draw for coaches, detectives, legislators, educators, any number of professionals working within an institution…so why not scientists?
As in most things in life, this is not to say the outlier should define the norm, but I’ve always remembered the old George Carlin line where he told parents that the best advice they could give their children was to “question everything!”
‘I’ve always remembered the old George Carlin line where he told parents that the best advice they could give their children was to “question everything!”‘
And one of the kids asked
Why?
“And one of the kids asked
Why?”
Sometimes going with the flow is cheaper than modeling the flow to find the best path.
“And one of the kids asked
Why?”
Because there are climatologists about kid.
All parents tell their child to NOT follow the other children, and then they decide almost everything in their life by following the “consensus”.
Jeff Fujita,
I suspect the answer has to do with technology. NASA’s scientists figured out how to send men to the moon, and they did lots of other amazing things. Americans regarded NASA scientists as heroes, second only to astronauts.
And there were discoveries by medical scientists. Before WWII people routinely died from things like sore throats. Then scientists discovered antibiotics. Those scientists were also heroes to ordinary folks. Really, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, scientists and doctors were almost looked upon as gods. They had their secret KNOWLEDGE that the average man on the street wasn’t privy to. Calling someone an ‘Einstein’ was a compliment on their intelligence.
But the snake was always in the garden. We saw the heroes, but back then we didn’t see the charlatans, the frauds and the hucksters who had always been among them. We believed that scientists were a special breed. We didn’t want to beleve that scientists can be found everywhere along a Bell curve, just like any other group: a few are exceptionally honest, and some are crooked. But most are just average folks, not immune to the same temptations we all have.
In the ’50’s someone like Michael Mann would have been a nerd, a dweeb. The girls preferred the first string varsity. Maybe if Dr. Mann was lucky, he’d be a college professor, married to the librarian or kindergarten teacher.
But Mann became a climate rock star — and other scientists were quick to notice it when universities offered him fame and tenure if he would just be their rainmaker, and shower them with government grants. Mann and his cohort constantly went on jaunts to holiday venues, all expenses paid. The stage was set…
…then with the Climategate email dump, the rock was turned over and people saw what was underneath it. They began to see that scientists could be just as devious and conniving as Elmer Gantry, but without Elmer’s good side. The public’s perception began to change. It is still changing. And like similar cycles, it will probably overshoot.
Rank-and-file believers who have been riding the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ or ‘dangerous AGW’ (DAGW) bandwagon are now finding themselves on the wrong side of history. Worse, science is all about data, but they can’t produce corroborating facts that are convincing. They can measure quantum effects to a dozen decimal places, but they can’t quantify AGW.
They’re hitched to the wrong horse, and they can’t let go. They can’t show any harm from “carbon pollution”. They can’t produce data showing why the public should be alarmed, because there’s nothing unusual happening. They’ve been teaching people about the approaching climate catastrophe for so long that their egos won’t allow them to admit that the hated “skeptics” were right all along.
The public likes a good scare, but if it drags on for too long they lose interest. That’s what’s happening, and if it weren’t for the money and politics, the DAGW false alarm would have been long forgotten by now. Your comment about “solid questions about omissions, arm twisting, skewing data, and peer pressure” is now coming from skeptics who have been cut off from the climate grant hose, and those tactics are leading straight to the handful of self-serving scientists who are personally benefiting from the DAGW scare — and who make the honest scientists look bad.
Most scientists are honest. Most don’t want the politics that have infested their profession. But until the honest ones start speaking out, what’s happening now will just get worse. It’s about time for some straight talking professionals to speak up. Then the problems will start to get fixed.
Before sending men to the Moon, NASA managed to forget that pure oxygen was a fire hazard.
After sending men to the Moon, NASA managed to spent more on a reusable launcher than a throwaway launcher, and that launcher had known reliability issues that couldn’t be fixed.
So the reputation of NASA rests essentially on a one-time success, a unique program managed decades ago by people who are retired or dead now. (Yes, they were others very impressive successful programs, but the justification for “though shalt trust whatever NASA spouts” is “men on the Moon”, not solar system exploration).
And yet, NASA is regarded as the golden standard of science.
Why science and not engineering?
.. NASA went down hill when the director said his goal was to ” make Muslims feel better about themselves ” ( Obama’s directive.. )
simple-touriste January 13, 2016 at 3:14 pm
Wrong we all knew it was a dangerous game. That is why all of them are heroes. Ground crew engineers and flight crews.
As a kid White was one of my heroes. But even heroes….
I can’t write anymore on this.
michael
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0127.html
sbstealey-I’m afraid I have to disagree with you here slightly…
“But Mann became a climate rock star”
You cannot put the word “climate” and “rock star” in the same sentence. It’s an oxymoron.
I’ll let you have “King of the Chessclub Alumni” or something along those lines, but rock star?
🙂
This is local news for me. Alongi isn’t much of a “climate scientist”, so I’m surprised that the faithful haven’t yet pointed this out. He’s certainly a mangrove enthusiast. Maybe the gaseous brew of mangrove swamps had a bad effect on him.
“Alongi, who was well regarded in the science INDUSTRY”…….Nuff said.
“Stealing”? C’mon! These are leftists……they consider it “their due.” Here they are saving the planet and being paid like the average worthless bureaucrat…..the extra dough?……it’s like a tip.
Guardian conveniently fail to use the word “climate” anywhere in this lengthy article, but it does include quite a bit more detail:
10 Jan: Guardian: Joshua Robertson: Scientist on Great Barrier Reef research body alleged to have fabricated expenses
Daniel Alongi accused of scamming more than half a million dollars by claiming non-existent purchases and analysis over seven years…
It also alleged that an extract of Alongi’s work computer showed he had created a fake invoice, receipt and credit card account reflecting a non-existent transaction with US chemical giant DuPont….
Both DuPont and Pace, another US company that Alongi claimed to have placed orders with, denied any knowledge of “the transactions described in the purchase receipts attributed to them”, the AFP alleged.
The submission by the AFP contains no allegations about Alongi’s motive but notes he has told Aims that he is “undertaking mental health assessments”….READ ALL
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/11/scientist-on-great-barrier-reef-research-body-alleged-to-have-fabricated-expenses
btw Australia’s most CAGW-infested MSM – ABC and Fairfax – have apparently failed to report this story at all. nothing from them can be found online since the story first broke in September 2015.
for those who say he isn’t a “climate scientist” (some other familiar CAGW names in the list):
PDF: 4 pages: Great Barrier Reef Foundation: Research projects
p3 of 4: Solutions & Adaptation,
Carbon Budget, Ocean Acidification – Daniel M. Alongi – Funding allocated 2013/2014 & 2014/2015
Carbon chemistry – Daniel M. Alongi – Funding allocated 2013/2014, 2014/2015
http://www.barrierreef.org/sites/default/files/List%20of%20GBRF%20Funded%20Projects_March2015_1.pdf
This incident could have been reported without the veiled attempt to smear the entire field. No scientist likes it when someone in his field is exposed publicly for gross misconduct, especially financial or scientific fraud because it is human nature for the rest of us to suspect other innocent members of the same discipline.
WUWT authors should hold themselves to a higher standard and leave the innuendos to others.
“This incident could have been reported without the veiled attempt to smear the entire field”
Are you for real?
The entire field rests on the assumption that publishers will check papers for errors, that peers will spot holes and that peer pressure makes deviations impossible.
See how it worked out: “He published 140 papers and has been cited over 5000 times”
And the whole field isn’t corrupt?
Do you understand that “science” is a SOCIAL construct? Science is a process. Done by people. In a society.
The guy wasn’t even doing the measurements he should have done. There was no control by his colleagues? No checking for consistency between his statements? No replication?
Do you realize that a single such example can invalidate the whole modern “science” construct? (whose pillar is peer review, not replication anymore)
Sorry to disappoint you Kip but we want blood on this one.
It’s not one isolated case of fraud but appears to be part of a well orchestrated collection of multiple frauds.
It seems that the more the climate data is scrutinized, the more doctoring, manipulation, Cherry Picking and data massaging is exposed….
… The hockey stick graph, Climategate, False data recording, The ‘97% consensus’ Al Gore, ‘Adjustments’ of historical data, the list seems endless.
So much damage has been done to science it will take a few generations to rebuild the trust.
It’s been so bad for so long that we are almost to the point of assuming every thing from climatology should be considered fraudulent until proved otherwise.
People need some jail time for this.
It is a very dangerous world, when politics tries to trump science.
“This incident could have been reported without the veiled attempt to smear the entire field. No scientist likes it when someone in his field is exposed publicly for gross misconduct, especially financial or scientific fraud because it is human nature for the rest of us to suspect other innocent members of the same discipline. WUWT authors should hold themselves to a higher standard and leave the innuendos to others.”
You’re RIGHT Kip. It IS human nature! And the entire AGW theory gang has been attacking every single scientist that has disagreed with them for decades. Where were YOU Kip when scientists were being slurred by other scientists? Getting fired? Getting mocked? Getting their CAREERS ruined by “climate scientists” who declared them unfit? Isn’t that “gross misconduct”? Where were you when the “innocent members of the same discipline” got eaten by their own?
You know who WAS there? And will continue to be there Kip? WUWT readers. Defending and supporting the innocent. There’s big difference between an offhanded innuendo about something that might not be true, but quite possibly IS, and outright, slanderous lies and accusations that skeptical scientists are being paid by big oil, and are frauds, and campaigns against the respectable, life long contributions made by some of science’s finest men.
So, if their fellow “climate scientists” remained quiet, intimidated, ignorant, complicit, or silent during the past ten years, THEY NEED to be smeared. Maybe in the future they’ll pull their heads out of their labcoats and stand UP to these people. “Hold themselves to a higher standard” and police their own the way they should have been doing all along.
Kip Hansen-
Are you the same “Kip Hansen” that wrote this online 5 years ago? If you are, then good for you, then. But can you drop the holier-than-thou-wuwt author attitude now?
“Dear Mr. Noble,
Either you have not actually seriously read the released emails or you have no concern whatever for the integrity of the scientific process.
Or, possibly, you come from an alternate universe in which interfering with the processes of inter-governmental scientific bodies, suborning editors of scientific journals, conspiring to destroy the reputations of other scientists simply because they dare to publish their peer-reviewed findings which happen to be at odds with your desired findings, blackmailing journalists to ensure they publish only the version of the science preferred by you and your pals, destroy data and evidence in flagrant violations of Freedom of Information laws, ….the list goes on so long that it hurts even to write about it.
Your apology is collusion, sir, with actions that have possibly permanently damaged the credibility of an entire scientific field.
Kip Hansen”
Nice find Aphan.
Question: do you have a link for it?
It was a comment here. http://fresh-energy.org/2011/11/my-apology-to-climate-scientists/
http://fresh-energy.org/2011/11/my-apology-to-climate-scientists/
Comment section
Well let me fix one of his papers for him. “In some cases allocthonous organic carbon present in the soil pool can be quantified using stable isotopes, but this may not be practical in all areas or needed for all projects [especially if you use pretend radioisotopes imported from the U.S.].”
http://thebluecarboninitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/Chapter-2.pdf
I agree with Aphan, simple-touriste and 1saveenergys. I posted this earlier:
Most scientists are honest. Most don’t want the politics that have infested their profession. But until the honest ones start speaking out, what’s happening now will just get worse. It’s about time for some straight talking professionals to speak up. Then the problems will start to get fixed.
I’ve been excusing the ones who know that DAGW is bunkum, but keep quiet because they don’t want to make waves. It’s about time to start making some waves.
Here’s a link to a story about sexual harassment by a university professor (astronomy). The point is not that the guy was, or was not, a perv. The story is that the university covered up his malfeasance.
In my experience, university administrators are pretty craven and cowardly. Scum of the earth.
Universities also get their cut/share of grant money. Helps to pay administrators salaries. So keep quite everyone!
Anyone a farmer here?
Farmer ‘shot dead wife and 3 kids’ after making dinner and watching Home and Away
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/farmer-shot-dead-wife-3-6596946
Jesus. They all must be murderers.
“Anyone a farmer here?
Farmer ‘shot dead wife and 3 kids’ after making dinner and watching Home and Away
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/farmer-shot-dead-wife-3-6596946
Jesus. They all must be murderers.”
Who? Farmers? Or the producers of Home and Away?
If you are trying to insinuate that your comment somehow proves anything about anyone making comments here, you’d have to engage several logical fallacies to do that. It’s easy to use flawed logic, but it’s also easy to see. For example, I will just respond that farmer killed his family because he was a CAGW groupie and wanted to save them from everything being predicted by idiots. See how easy it is to be irrational?
Where was our Chief Scientist Prof. Ian Chubb in all of this? And who signed off on the peer reviews?
It is entirely possible that stealing money that has been allocated to climate science research is a socially beneficial act. A dollar stolen from climate research may incrementally decrease the quantity of idiotic and socially costly policies that climate “research” calls forth. If this is the case we should want more rather than less of this sort of fraud.
LOL Chris. If we continue on with that logic, since “all of us” are supposedly in the pocket of big oil, we should ask for raises so that oil companies will have LESS money to offer to climate scientists, who then produce destructive and useless research?
I was tempted last year while doing my taxes to create an “official looking form” to staple in with the others in which I itemized, and then “deducted” amounts for government programs that I do not support. Wondered if it would even get flagged. I seriously think we should campaign as citizens for exactly that…the ability to not fund at all the programs that WE personally think are useless or haven’t produced anything beneficial to us.
Here is another possibility,
how about writing a public report that says what the client wants to hear.
In this case it is my city’s Elected Council and Mayor.
Take a read.
Because of its length its easier to search for things like ‘sea level rise’ or ‘sea level’ etc. then check some of their sources. In fact they are actually moving people off their own properties claiming that they will be inundated soon with a one meter rise in the next 100 years. In the references you will find that no such sea level rise acceleration exists so far – in fact nothing unusual.
https://thedemiseofchristchurch.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/effectsofsealevelriseforchristchurchcity.pdf
Yup Christchurch is a ‘resilient’ city in the pay of the Rockefellers. Already at least 1million has been ‘donated’ from this source and who knows what the key city officials are getting.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Question is, what do the powers that be want that property for?
I wonder what his relationship with Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is ? That would be an interesting investigation.
I think that much of climate – but not all – has become fraudulent, the hockey stick being the most obvious provable example. The surface temperature “adjustments” made by NOAA may turn out to be fraudulent. It’s almost inconceivable that the adjustments, which should be fairly random for any given weather station, should magically produce a perfect and consistent warming trend.
But I don’t think climate scientists, including Mann or NOAA, sat down one day and decided to embark on a campaign of scientific fraud. No, it’s far more subtle than that. In fact the lack of organised fraud makes it more difficult to prove.
Clearly climate scientists have a huge financial vested interest in climate alarmism. The more frightening it is, the more money governments will throw at them. But humans are very good at rationalising base personal gain into something noble: what could be more noble than saving the planet?
In the UK, the scandal involving MP’s allowances is a perfect example of how ordinary decent people (yes, I think most MP’s are decent) can slowly be drawn in into something that is, to an outsider free of the group think, pure fraud.
Volkswagen is another good example. I doubt if there was a specific management decision to add fraudulent software to the system, it almost certainly slowly evolved over many years. Again, group think probably had a lot to do with it.
I think climate science has lost its way due to these factors:
Financial self interest linked to alarmism.
Noble cause corruption.
Group think.
The slow evolution from integrity to increasing fraudulent behavour, without the need for large, conscious decisions.
Green extremism.
Government policy which feeds more alarmism into the science. “Climate change” provides a perfect excuse for politicians when the real problem is their incompetence. The recent UK floods were caused, not just by extreme rainfall, but primarily the almost criminal lack of dredging, which is a direct result of EU policy (yet another reason to get out of the EU and regain our independence).
Chris
+100
+10
Add one more thing to your list? Abandoned THE Scientific Method
You put blood in the water you get sharks , your put buckets full of cash , especially such easy money , into research you get chancers.
Lets us be honesty , the ‘quality ‘ of the work in this area is of such a poor standard virtual ‘anything ‘ will get funded providing it stays on message, its only the really lazy or stupid that will defraud. You can decided what Alongi is.
I’m not defending any of these researchers, but just because he defrauded the government doesn’t mean his research was equally fraudulent. If we had real, objective peer review, we might know for sure. I believe in innocent until proven guilty, unless he’s one of those “conservatives” (shudder), of course.
BTW: That last clause was tongue-in-cheek.
Of course it doesn’t mean all of his work was fraudulent. But it SHOULD be examined with a fine tooth comb. Anyone who thinks or believes that ALL climate scientists or ALL scientists in general are corrupt isn’t thinking rationally. But by the same token, neither is anyone who thinks that everyone here feels that way.
Clearly you misunderstand how things work. He didn’t falsify anything, he merely adjusted the invoices to match his spending model. I’m
Shit happens. Anything goes.
Postmodern science.