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.
On second reading I think Santer is paraphrasing an ancient folk tale, though why he hopes to improve on the original is beyond me..
“In the great city where he lived, life was always gay. Every day many strangers came to town, and among them one day came two swindlers. They let it be known they were weavers, and they said they could weave the most magnificent fabrics imaginable. Not only were their colors and patterns uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of ………….becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.”
I guess if your paycheck depends on it,you have to try.
But acting as if you are certain your new President is a gullible moron may not end well.
But after 3 decades of selling invisible evidence, I too might have a different opinion of public wisdom.
“…acting as if you are certain your new President is a gullible moron…”
Maybe Santer thinks this is another “W” coming along.
I hope Ben Santer (or some other public service minded individual) will send along to the Trump transition team this additional fine example of his scientific work, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7zMQII8qOo&app=desktop
“If you do not treat this problem seriously, it will grow.”
Regardless of what Trump does emissions will continue to grow. Nothing Trump can or will do will change that. Eventually we’ll figure out whether that’s truly a problem or not.
Right. The persons he should be badgering are in Asia.
Trump is probably (IMO) going to push nuclear power & natural gas, not “renewables,” as his no-regrets CO2-reduction strategy, so the US will continue to outpace the rest of the developed world in reducing emissions. Banter’s policy would have more effect initially, because it will take at least four years for a turn toward nuclear to begin to have an effect, but after ten years Santer’s course of action would be way behind, emissions-wise.
Ben Santer was also silly in using glacial loss on Kilimanjaro as a symbol and symptom of global warming. It was already known among specialists (who actually do their work on Kilimanjaro, unlike Ben Santer who only ventures out for his numerous conferences and speeches) that “global warming” and temperature increase was not the cause of glacial mass loss (which in any case had been proceeding since the 1880s at least), http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/page2/the-shrinking-glaciers-of-kilimanjaro-can-global-warming-be-blamed
“The observations described above point to a combination of factors other than warming air—chiefly a drying of the surrounding air that reduced accumulation and increased ablation—as responsible for the decline of the ice on Kilimanjaro since the first observations in the 1880s. The mass balance is dominated by sublimation, which requires much more energy per unit mass than melting; this energy is supplied by solar radiation. These processes are fairly insensitive to temperature and hence to global warming”.
And how does Mt. Kilimanjaro look today? See http://kiboice.blogspot.sg/2016/12/late-short-rains.html?m=1
Let me fix this letter for him:
________________________________________
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 just as it has been since earth acquired its atmosphere. It is indifferent to politics, to poll numbers, and to idiots. It does not care about national boundaries, or race or religion. It has always impacted the lives of men, and will have no greater impact than before or after your presidency. It will be the backdrop against which all key events of the 21st century play out, just as it has been the backdrop for all events in any century.
If you treat this as a problem, it will only be a problem for us, not for the climate. You can ignore it and the only thing of any consequence will be the lamentations from those who lose funding for research. You won’t be able to isolate yourself or the United States from climate change-indeed no one has ever been able to do that. There is no sanctuary from its effects.
But if you choose to tackle climate change alarmists, 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 government-funded scientists who have spent their careers figuring out how to adjust data to conform to an administration’s agenda. They have spent years trying to find creative solutions to the problems observations pose when they don’t conform to said agenda. These women and men did not choose this work to get rich quick (possibly just slowly), but to also alter world systems of government. They wanted to do something that mattered. They wanted to understand the climate system agenda of social justice, and learn how it ticks.
I am one member of those unarmed forces. Forty 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 and the people who make it so rich and varied. In these years, I learned two things. First, human actions are not really changing Earth’s climate. Second, if we do nothing to address this problem, likely outcomes are we will be better off without spending billions and leaving third world countries in abject poverty. I want our country and our planet to avoid bad outcomes and unintended consequences – which is why I’ve chosen to speak out publicly. I am not alone – thousands of my scientific colleagues are voicing their concerns. You will find them here on Anthony’s site at Joanne Nova’s, Steven Goddard’s, Dr Roy Spencer’s, and Dr. Susan Crockford, Richard Lindzen, Stephen McIntyre, John Cristy, and so many more.
Dear President-elect Trump—Don’t listen to the ‘ignorant voices’ on climate change, like that of Ben Santer.
+ ∞
Thanks to Ben, we will no longer hear the 97% figure being used as an argument for action.
I hope knowledgeable skeptics are counterbalanceing the fake news put out by these very worried climategate stars. I would like to see an FOI request for Santer’s email blurbs on the election campaign. Someone should at least send Trump the climategate emails to and from this performer.
If their “science” was anywhere close to being accurate, they wouldn’t have to petition PE Trump.
Rocky,
If the the denier sites had any “”science”” behind their’ claims that might pass peer review they wouldn’t have to bore me with their amateurism.
[Yet here you are, commenting away with an absolute absence of content just an opinion. You could of course use your obviously valuable time to add to what we know. Instead you use the “denier” epithet, put science in scare quotes and tell us that the amateurs bore you as though their job is to be entertaining and so hold your ennui at bay.
Your faith in the peer review process is touching but it does seem to be going through its own existential crisis thanks to professional abuse across all disciplines.
Please, if you can stir yourself out of your boredom, give the locals the benefit of your wisdom so that we all may learn or, who knows, teach you some things you dont know. . . . mod]
you go mod! what an excellent riposte.
Mod….instead of showing everyone your blatant bias, why don’t you use a real name to comment, instead of using the anonymous handle “mod” ???? (notice I did use the word “coward” with the word “anonymous”)
‘galloping camel’ (notice I did use the word “coward” with the word “anonymous”)’
I use MY name. I notice YOU don’t. Coward. AND a hypocrite.
I love courageous internet trolls like yourself. My guess is face-to-face you’re very polite and VERY quiet.
Punk.
Hey Joel, how do you know your name is “real” and not just made up? I can tell by your name calling that you can’t me more than 12 years old.
Again, your online courage is showing. Punk. Slither back under your rock.
Anonymous coward.
Sorry Joel, make that 11.
Since there isn’t any polite way to say this: Ben Santer is a fraud barking Quack-0-Dynamics specialist, who teaches it’s possible to suspend refractory material in a bath and make more light come out of objects, one made less light go into.
Mr. Trump is well aware of Climate Gate and the Santer E mail threat to beat up another climate scientist . Climate Gate showed how insular and afraid a little clique of climate modellers became when their modeling projections and methodology were being questioned . How unscientific .
The climate fear industry is about to get it’s due and withdrawal is going to be tough when tax payers interests come first again . $Trillions wasted on incomplete failed climate models and participants of the earth has a fever scam . Never has so much money been ripped off on such a transparent hoax .
The UN globalization agenda aligned with grant seeking scientists , green wash corporations , some politicians and most of the now discredited MSM . . The perfect scam had all the pieces lined up ,
The people really screwed were tax payers powerless to stop the racket … till now .
The UN agenda was transfer of power and money .
I believe that Trump should listen to the voices of both sided on climate change. At things stand the only voices listened to are those of climate scientists. Unfortunately this is like only listening to the prosecution case in a trial after the prosecution is first tested for complete belief in the client’s guilt.
The real experts in temperature measurements are not scientists as they are highly trained theorist with little or no practical skill or even interest. As a result the data acquisition when subjected to normal engineering QA procedures would miserably fail those for products sold to the Poundland chain in the UK.
Not that this standard is to be disparaged but it is nevertheless not the standard required for life critical applications which should be the norm for something as important as we are constantly told climate change is.
The other question where climate scientist’s are inadequately trained in in determining what is normal progression of climate so they have no appreciation of the cyclic elements of the pattern.
Don’t listen to such
ignorant voicesdeplorables.It is Xmas.
Santa(er) lives at the North Pole.
He is making a wish for Xmas.
Should cut him some slack.
He might even give Trump some coal as a present.
So there’s an admission of failure: if Santer thinks this number one problem for mankind (or, as he would no doubt put: womankind and mankind) will not be fixed.
Ah…there’s the pitch, right there: we don’t think we can solve it but it will help if you keep paying us to look at this non-problem.
The corrupt pot calling the kettle black.
Team Trump to Ben Santer- Ben who?
Trump should put the question to Santer:
Do you still stand by the claim: Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global‐mean tropospheric temperature.C
Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-010-476.pdf
He should also ask if Santer denies the near 19 year hiatus
1. Santer re-wrote the IPCC executive summary, falsely claiming a discernible human influence. Wrong.
2. Santer said after a 17 year long pause the theory would be falsified. Theory falsified.
So why the heck should Trump pay this guy any more attention than the man on the moon?
Dear Mr Santer, thank you for your letter. We have decided to take your advice and not listen to you.
Sincerely
Team T
I see the warmistas are in the “bargaining” stage of grief. I’m not sure they will ever achieve the “acceptance” stage though.
“Unarmed forces”? I assume that is for a “battle of wits”…
Dear Mr Santer,
We’d love to have you on the team. We only ask that you attend meetings with a red clown nose, extra large clown shoes and beep-beep a bycycle horn upon request. Regards, Team Trump
“Dear President-elect Trump—Don’t listen to the ‘ignorant voices’ on climate change”
If President-elect Trump is smart, that is advice he will follow, and Ben Santer’s is one of the ignorant voices on climate change that he won’t be listening to.
Could Trump ask Santer to provide the Minutes of the meeting when it was decided CO2 caused Global Warming, including all the other possible causes, and the evidence used to eliminate them?
By providing these Minutes, Santer could demonstrate how open and honest Climate Scientists can be, if their livelihoods depend on it. If he can’t produce the Minutes of the meeting, it could be that Trump will conclude he was correct about Climate Scientists all along.
“Dear President-elect Trump—Don’t listen to the ‘ignorant voices’ on climate change” – Yes, absolutely. So listen to NOT ONE WORD from Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, James Hanson, Phil Jones, Al Gore, Kieth Briffa, Jonathan Overpeck, Ben Santer (of course), Naomi Oreskes, Bill McKibben, etc. ad nauseam.
This guy looks like he oughta be real selective about who he attempts to ‘beat-up’.