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?
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.