Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Ben Santer, who infamously once threatened to beat up climate skeptic Pat Michaels (see Climategate email 1255100876.txt), has offered his services to President-elect Trump as a member of America’s “unarmed forces”.
Dear President-elect Trump—Don’t listen to the ‘ignorant voices’ on climate change
Ben Santer, member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Dear Mr. President-elect,
On Day 1 of your presidency, you will be faced with many significant challenges. Climate change is one of them. It will be there on every day of your presidency. It is indifferent to politics and to poll numbers. It does not care about national boundaries, or race or religion. It already impacts our lives and our livelihoods, and will have greater impact each year. It will be the backdrop against which all key events of the 21st century play out.
If you do not treat this problem seriously, it will grow. You won’t be able to ignore it. You won’t be able to isolate yourself or the United States from climate change. There is no sanctuary from its effects.
But if you choose to tackle climate change, you will have tremendous resources to draw on. You now preside not only over our armed forces, but also over powerful unarmed forces. You have access to the expertise of government-funded scientists who have spent their careers observing climate change, probing its causes, and trying to find creative solutions to the problems it poses. These women and men did not choose this work to get rich quick, or to alter world systems of government. The work chose them. They wanted to do something that mattered. They wanted to understand the climate system, and learn how it ticks.
I am one member of those unarmed forces. Thirty-five years ago, I signed up for a life in science. The attraction was the joy of discovering interesting stuff about this strange and beautiful world in which we live. In the last thirty-five years, I learned two things. First, human actions are changing Earth’s climate. Second, if we do nothing to address this problem, likely outcomes are bad. I want our country and our planet to avoid bad outcomes – which is why I’ve chosen to speak out publicly. I am not alone – thousands of my scientific colleagues are voicing their concerns.
…
Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/22/trump-climate-change-take-action.html
Ben Santer is an old WUWT favourite, one of the more colourful characters in the Climategate drama.
Aside from the bizarre physical threat against Pat Michaels, he wrote emails describing being audited by Steve McIntyre as the 21st century equivalent of public hanging (Climategate email 3356.txt), and complained about “scientific competitors” using FOIA requests to access datasets before he was finished with them (Climategate email 1231257056.txt). He expressed concern about intentional or unintentional “misuse” of datasets by scientists who disagreed with his position (Climategate email 1229468467.txt). He wrote an apology to colleagues when McIntyre forced him to publish some of his data (Climategate email 1229468467.txt).
Santer also put his foot in it when he said in 2011, that periods of 17 years or more are required to identify the human footprint in the climate record. When 17 years came and went without any rise in temperature. Santer in 2015 tried to explain the pause as being due to lots of small volcanoes suppressing the anthropogenic signal.
I kindof hope President-elect Trump accepts Santer’s offer, keeps him around as the voice of climate science. The entertainment value of Ben Santer’s clown act would in my opinion justify the public expense.
Dr. Santer confuses being “unarmed” with being “amoral”.
I hope that the institutional corruption that permeates big climate science can be thoroughly rooted out.
“Dr. Santer confuses being “unarmed””
Oh, I though he meant, “mentally unarmed”
Santer is armed with a compliant media.
Here’s the sentence that jumped out at me, “If you do not treat this problem seriously, it will grow.”
Editing Santer’s letter a bit puts the sentence in its proper context: “On Day 1 of your presidency, you will be faced with many significant challenges. Consensus climate science is one of them. … If you do not treat this problem seriously, it will grow.”
Consensus climate scientists cause the problem that will grow if left untreated. Arrogance, incompetence, and dishonesty is the fetid stew they have proudly concocted. Its stench has spread across all of science; its stain is everywhere. The head-post letter, this, and the IPCC SAR events of 1995, respectively, show that Dr. Santer is completely representative.
The big revelation for me in all of this, over the last 20 years, has been how thinly apportioned among scientists is moral courage. Given the last election, moral courage seems more prevalent within the population than among the learned. Yet one more conundrum.
‘Discernible fingerprint’ Santer, who said models would be falsified after 17 years. Oops, falsified. Except for a now rapidly cooling El Nino blip in 2015-16, no warming this century. No modeled tropical troposphere hotspot. Even his new model/sat temp paper (attempting to refute the Christy chart showing 3.5x between CMIP5 and balloon/sat measurement of tropical troposphere) after erroneously using a stratosphere correction that doesn’t apply to the tropics, found models were running 1.7x hot. What part of models wrong does he not get yet? I suspect he suspects that he will be on DOTUS new version of Celebrity Apprentice starting Jan 21, with a scene fimed at LLNL: “Your fired.”
Dear Mr. Santer:
We have received your resume and have looked it over with great interest. The ideal candidate for this job would posses the qualities of “not” and “you”. Unfortunately you do not have those qualities so we have decided to go in another direction. Thank you again for your interests.
I’m of the Patrick Moore school and since he states that 150ppm of CO2is death to our current world, our freeing carbon from the ancient sinks has extended the life of the planet as we know it.
Completely and absolutely.
A sort of “kick-start” to the world’s biosphere. and isn’t it enjoying that extra CO2..
Darn it…….. the lawn needs mowing again !!!
I hope Donald Trump will listen to Ted Cruz who led a good hearing on the subject
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/08/senate-hearing-today-john-christy-judy-curry-will-happer-and-mark-steyn/
Classic attempt.
Ignore the evidence ,trust my wisdom.
Or “Do not listen to those ignorant seekers of evidence,bow before my arrogance.”
Given the quality of people , President Trump has nominated so far, I doubt Mr Santer will get more than a form letter..”Thank you for your services, much joy with your future career…
“much joy with your future career…”
….. which will NOT be in “climate séance™”
There’s gunna be a lot of dodgy car salesmen floating about !
“Dear Mr. President-Elect”:
[Quote from above]…. Ben Santer, who infamously once threatened to beat up climate skeptic Pat Michaels (see Climategate email 1255100876.txt), has offered his services to you. Might I suggest that he is a threat to your personal safety and security, and you should go nowhere near such a loose-cannon.
Santer’s pathetic pleading Is an embarrassment to the cause. They need Jagadish Shukla to write a strong ultimatum to Trump.
I was thinking more along the lines of T.D. Jakes. Maybe Joel Olsteen. Even Benny Hinn. Anyone with strong convictions could do it.
They look white to me. The progressive cause needs a more credible advocate. If old man Shukla chickens out I expect Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez to speak for the planet. He has future on his side.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/4/youth-sue-governmentforclimateinaction.html
Don’t listen to the ‘ignorant voices’ on climate change…
Is everyone else sick and tired of being called ignorant, racist, deplorable, bigot, backward, white trash, and on and on…
..and now it’s by a group of people that have yet to prove anything… almost all of their predictions have been wrong
…but somehow they are still at it….instead of being the laughing stock
Ben, you’re a high priest in the church of CAGW. You’re the modern equivalent of William Miller, predicting a new kind of Armageddon. As such, you are a man of status in your chosen field. I voted for Trump because I specifically want the involuntary tithing by US taxpayers to your church to become a thing of the past. I want no more funding for IPCC or anything UNFCCC related. I want no more NSF grants to study climate alarm. I want no more DoE grants for alarmist exploiters like Solyndra. I know you’re working at UEA in the UK. But if you personally lost some or all of your funding because of the changes I want, that’s a big bonus to me. I want you to be unemployed. If the changes I want meant there were no more funds for any future COP meetings, that’s a HUUUUUUGE bonus. If we lead by example, I hope those crazy bastages in the EU will learn from US leadership. Hopefully, we will have far fewer government funded parasites like you in the future.
Sorry, Ben Santer does not work at UEA, but at Lawrence Livermore Nat’l Labs in Berkeley, CA. So he is paid directly with US taxpayer money. I would like that lab to return to it’s primary mission of nuclear safety and have it’s role as a “climate alarm credibility engine” eliminated.
I hope there are a lot of good scientists/technicians/engineers working at LLNL, NOAA, etc. that have just been waiting to have someone who will listen to them. When new leaders are put in place at these organizations, I fully expect these folks to come forward with lots of evidence of the forced acceptance of AGW and the lack of true scientific rigor by people such as Santer. It should get interesting.
These folks who thought they were untouchable may soon find out they have been simple pawns and will now be discarded like yesterday’s trash.
As it happens every Christmas I’m watching science lectures from the Royal Institution ( Faraday and all that). This years subject is: energy
Hundreds of children present were just shown the UK’s largest power station (Drax). They were told that it is being converted from burning coal to burning compressed wood pellets (btw imported from the USA). Reason for this is that burning fossil fuels, kids were told, causes global warming.
Who is going to tell these children that it makes no sense on either account?
I suspect the same thing goes in the USA, the Trump’s education secretary appointee Ben Carson has a huge task in front of him..
The BBC and RS wouldn’t have it any other way.
When I was a schoolkid i remember there being a small frisson of unpredictability to these lectures – there was a real sense of finding out something …
The ones I’ve seen in the last 10 years seem dull+scripted and aligned to BBC production standards.
As to burning wood pellets – I think some North American readers might be surprised by the UK’s accidentally over generous (what the heck it’s other folks money) “Renewable Heating Incentive” scheme which is going to cost £1 billion unless they can fit the golden subsidy goose with a gastric band.
$1,60 in subsidy to burn $1 of wood – what could possibly go wrong?
Ben Carson is not the education secretary.
Should be:
Ben Carson is not the nominee for education secretary.
Or whoever might be.
About a month ago Mr. Carson’s name was all over UK media as a first black (am I allowed to say that ?) member of the Trump’s Cabinet as the education secretary. I assume media was wrong again, so I duly offer my unreserved apology.
Well, Phil DOT. So eager to criticize. So reluctant to inform. It would have been kind of you to say just who IS the nominee for Secretary of Education.
*************************
Here, dear Vukcevic, is a link to a fairly up-to-date list of the current Trump nominees:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=trump+cabinet+picks+so+far&qs=RQ&pq=trump+cabinet&sk=LS5&sc=8-13&cvid=003CE8711D014CAFB2B342A33345DC24&FORM=QBLH&sp=6&ghc=1
You will see there that Ben Carson was nominated to be Secretary of HUD (Housing and Urban Development). And, just FYI, in the U.S., we would say, “secretary of ‘huhd,'” not “secretary of ‘H’ ‘U’ ‘D’.” And I think you can guess why The Department of Housing and Urban Development has a truncated acronym (heh). Betsy De Vos is the Dept. of Education nominee.
And, yes, lol, of course you can mention that, so far, Dr. Carson is the only black American nominee. To help put that into perspective, in the U.S.A., the three races are roughly: Caucasian, 80%, Black, 13%, and Asian, 7%. And I will not complain that there are only 7 women nominees out of 29. NO MORE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION. Equal opportunity and merit should be the only considerations. After the blatantly racist Obama administration, soooooo done with racism.
ALL LIVES MATTER.
Deal with it.
Hi Ms. Moore
Thanks for the update, I belatedly did check and found that Ben Carson Turned Down Secretary Of Education
May I take this opportunity to wish you a very happy holiday season.
Hi, Vukcevic,
You’re welcome. And, a belated Merry Christmas, a Happy 3rd Night of Chanukah and a hearty “HAPPY NEW YEAR” to you!
Janice
“vukcevic on December 26, 2016 at 12:54 pm
As it happens every Christmas I’m watching science lectures from the Royal Institution ( Faraday and all that). This years subject is: energy..”
I watched this too – as I do every year – and felt that the Royal Institution has been shamed by this lecturer. He even spoke of ‘carbon’ emissions, and these used to be science lectures.
“…… putting things on other things.”
Speak up! O Member from Staffordshire! Before it is too late….
When anyone, particularly someone who is supposed to be a scientist, says “carbon emissions”, then I know it’s propaganda, not science. The RI has been as corrupted as the RS and the BBC by the climate change sc@m.
The tragedy is that leaving those trees standing and burning coal would result in a smaller net CO2 addition to the atmosphere, as the mature trees no longer exist, and any replacement (hence ‘renewable’) saplings will fix CO2 at a much lower rate until they are grown big enough. I tried to explain this to some ‘intelligent’ friends, and you could see them blinking in their confusion. Peddling guff like this at the RI Christmas lecture is a disgrace.
“You have access to the expertise of government-funded scientists who have spent their careers observing climate change, probing its causes, and trying to find creative solutions to the problems it poses”
Time to drain the swamp and give these people something useful to do in life besides dreaming up ways to keep the government gravy train rolling on fake issues.
The Progressive climate scientists must call Trump’s bluff and threaten to resign en masse if he doesn’t yield to their demands.
Oh yes, and move to Canada… they’ve got to move to Canada.
Ah, another Air Traffic Controller type moment…
Santer was the author of an open letter dated September 20, 2016, signed by 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences (why are there so many of them), which tried to influence the election obviously.
” …. Thus it is of great concern that the Republican nominee for President has advocated U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord…”
http://responsiblescientists.org/
Now he wants back in again. We have to cut-off the money and the awards and the nominations to the grant funding councils which these guys fully control now.
Look at all the awards and invited lectures he gives (every month he gets a paid vacation somewhere – 16 pages of invited lectures in font 5).
http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/about/staff/Santer/webres_19sep16.pdf
I hope President-elect Trump does not accept Santer’s offer, keeping him around as the voice of ‘climate science’ would be rather like keeping a skunk as a pet…..entertaining but risky. Ben Santer has less real value than even that.
skunk as a pet ?
great analogy!
I know that skunks are often kept as pets, but only after they have been “de-skunked”. I’m not sure how you would do that to Santer, but it would be fun to try.
In his case I think the process would be referred to as a Full Frontal Lobotomy
Actually (in response to the response to your post, since the “reply” option often is non-existent), a “Full Frontal Lobotomy” is I believe the process one must go through to BECOME one of the “climate faithful” to begin with. ;-D
“You have access to the expertise of government-funded scientists who have spent their careers observing climate change, probing its causes, and trying to find creative solutions to the problems it poses.”
Therein lies the problem: “government-funded scientists”. My hope is that president elect Trump identifies this correctly as the lightest of chaff that can be blown away. These parasites are contributing to the national debt.
From what I’ve seen in the UK – directly employed public servant scientists inside public institutions are usually and rather depressingly – the worst of the lot. There are a few exceptions….
It doesn’t matter what the observed problem is – the first cause is climate change. I would be a joke if it didn’t betray the claimants as poseurs, chancers and worse who feel secure in spouting twaddle because of the self regard status hootch they’ve been swilling.
You’d think some of them had done nothing more than regularly recite the numberwatch lists
Doubtless Count Dracula can give compelling reasons to be appointed superintendent of blood transfusion services.
Tomo, “creative solutions” just about sums it up .
One of the definitions of ‘creative’ is :- characterized by sophisticated bending of the rules or conventions aka creative accounting or in Benny’s case climate “science”.
Nay, nay!
“. . . government-funded scientists who have spent their careers observing climate change, probing its causes, and trying to find creative solutions to problems . . . that . . . don’t . . . exist . . .”
There now, corrected the typo. Please continue . . .
No, no I think you’ve still some correcting to do, it’s
“You have access to the fear-mongering expertise of government-funded scientists who have spent their careers observing climate change, probing ways to deny any natural causes unrelated to human fossil fuel use, and trying to find creative solutions to the non-existent problems it poses.”
Now I think we’ve got all the errors rectified…
NONE of the predictions made have come to pass. So this is religion no science. Verily I say unto you it’s ALL crap.
I kinda feel sorry for this guy.
In 35 years he has only learned 2 things.
And both of them completely, tragically even, wrong. What a loser.
Benny the bully threatens;
“Millions of your fellow Americans are deeply concerned about climate change, and are looking to you for leadership. Your choice on Day 1 is clear. Leadership or denial. If it’s the former, you’ll have plenty of Americans willing to help you. If it’s the latter, you’ll have millions of powerful voices allied against you. Please choose wisely.”
In other words; Hack Lives Matter !
Choosing “wisely” from the left’s narratives and the opinions of political consultants, media pundits and their polls just isn’t part of Trump’s winning strategy. It is an act of desperation and fear when the alligators petition to have their part of the swamp left undrained. The climateers very existence is the perfect example of what the swamp is all about. By the roster of Secretaries chosen to head up the relevant departments, the letter is figuratively a dying man’s last request.
Found this short video
(looks as Ben Santer is heading strait for the Exit. Rrecorded from a talk given in Chico, Cal. as reported on WUWT)
Geez, I knew Steve Schneider and the guy in the video sure doesn’t look like him, unless Steve aged about 150 years in 10.
In the early days of the multimedia industry we had a saying – in a strong wind even turkeys can fly. If you listen carefully – splot, plop, splortch…
Geez, I knew Steve Schneider, and the guy in the video sure doesn’t look like him unless he aged about 150 years in 10.
In the early days of the multimedia industry when foolishness abounded, we used to say, “In a strong wind even turkeys can fly.” Listen closely – splot, plop, splortch…
Mr. Coleman (et al.): You can send your advice to Trump via this webpage:
https://apply.ptt.gov/yourstory/
That Ben-“17-years”-Santer claims to have actually learned two things in thirty five years, makes me doubly surprised.
..and people who Google “Santer” and “dark alley” will learn what kind of person he is.
I quote Ben Santer: :
“. First, human actions are changing Earth’s climate. Second, if we do nothing to address this problem, likely outcomes are bad. ”
The first sentence is dead wrong. The second sentence proves his ignorance of what causes warming . You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that warming has nothing to do with carbon dioxide. Just put up the global temperature curve, and parallel to it put up the Keeling curve. Even a child can see that global warming curve goes up and down while the Keeling curve is completely smooth and has no such peaks. This applies to the entire length of these curves, starting in 1850 (the start of the industrial age). What the global temperature curve does tell us is that temperature did not follow the increase of carbon dioxide in air but took vacations from it. One such vacation was a period of cooling that lasted 35 years, from 1875 to 1910. I get this from HadCRUT3, before it was transmogrified into HadCRUT4 by undocumented changes. There was another period of cooling also from 1940 to 1950 or ten years. Such cooling takes up more than one quarter of the time that has lapsed since 1850. This makes a mockery of the claim that global temperature increases in step with increase of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the air. Consider also that there is absolutely no counterpart in carbon dioxide of the Keeling curve to any of the warm peaks in the global temperature curve. The only conclusion you can draw from all these facts is that global warming has nothing whatsoever to do with atmospheric carbon dioxide and should be regarded as an aspect of the natural world. Take my advice and withdraw your foolish statements I quoted in the beginning. That is the only way you can begin to understand real climate science.