Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Judith Curry – Climate scientist Michael Mann seems to think his personal distress at having his theories and scientific conduct criticised is comparable to the suffering of holocaust survivor Martin Niemöller, who endured eight years of internment in NAZI concentration camps because of his outspoken opposition to Adolf Hitler.
Michael Mann: If You Believe in Science You Must Now Make Your Voice Heard
…
That evidence now shows us that we face a stark choice, between a future with a little more climate change that we will still have to adapt to and cope with, and one with catastrophic climate change that will threaten the future of life as we know it.
And so here we are, at a crossroads.
Let me be blunt.
Never before have we witnessed science under the kind of assault it is being subject to right now in this country.
Nor have we witnessed an assault on the environment like the one we are witnessing in the current political atmosphere.
I will borrow and adapt—for our current time and place—the words of Martin Niemöller, a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps:
First they came for the immigrants and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an immigrant.
Then they came for the scientists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a scientist.
Then they came for the environmentalists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an environmentalist.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Friends, let this not be our legacy.
…
Read more (transcript of a speech to students and parents at Green Mountain College): https://www.ecowatch.com/michael-mann-green-mountain-college-2414347465.html
Why do people still listen to this clown?
Apparently Mann’s understanding of climate change is limited to the discovery that CO2 is a ghg. The fact that CO2 is a ghg just scratches the surface.
Delve deeper into the science and discover that thermalization and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecule energy explain why CO2 does not now, has never had and will never have a significant effect on climate. See why at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
And there will be people who can tell, that there are no GHGs at all. Like myself.
Trying to refute bad science with worse science doesn’t get us anywhere.
@MarkW
1+
@MarkW “Trying to refute bad science with worse science doesn’t get us anywhere.”
I am not sure of his definition of “GHG” since I have seen so many versions crop up. We really can’t do science without careful definitions. (for example, most of us are sloppy about the term “heat”)
Even so, I will say that there are the Warmers, the Luke-Warmers, and the Skeptics. The Skeptics include those who are not free to go into any detail here at this site since that would be too close to the “Sl@yer Nonsense”. One is not even supposed to link to one of those people. That is outlined in the site policy. All in all Mark, all that is too bad because both sides make some good arguments and I learn from people having reasoned debates. I missed the past “Sl@yer Wars” here but have read some reviews of battles.
All I can really say is that it appears by observation that the “climate sensitivity” of CO2 is either zero or so close to zero that you can not detect it. Notice that temperature rises before we see that CO2 goes up on all time scales. That one fact says a lot to me.
“Apparently Mann’s understanding of climate change is limited to the discovery that CO2 is a ghg.”
And that water vapour is not. 🙂
The claim is that the amount of H2O in the atmosphere is controlled by the amount of CO2.
More CO2 leads to more H2O, which results in even more warming.
MarkW – The claim that CO2 has a significant influence on climate is false. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has no influence on the amount of H2O in the atmosphere. The ‘notch’ in the TOA (top-of-atmosphere) at the CO2 absorption band wavelength demonstrates that thermalization and Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of energy have occurred and (below about 10 km) essentially transferred the energy absorbed by CO2 molecules over to the lower energy bands of water vapor molecules. See my analysis (link above) for more.
Water vapor is increasing about 3 times as fast as it should for just feedback (water temperature increase).
Cris – EPA got WV wrong so perhaps Mann did also.
Water vapor represents cooling of the surface via latent heat of vaporization. Condensation happens at altitude, bypassing some of the carbon dioxide enhanced insulation.
enhanced insulation???
CO2 is not and never has been an insulator.
It radiative properties mean it is a transmission conduit for radiant energy.
AndyG – True, CO2 is a “transmission conduit for radiant energy” but only when there is practically no WV around, like near the poles. Elsewhere, the short time between molecule contact (about 0.0002 micro seconds) compared to the ‘relaxation time’ of CO2 molecules (about 6 micro seconds) results in the energy absorbed by the CO2 being thermalized (i.e. shared with surrounding molecules). Part of the thermalized energy appears in the lower energy radiation bands of WV molecules. The rest of the thermalized radiation energy drives convection.
This appalling misappropriation of the words of someone who suffered the unspeakable horrors of the Shoah is a disgrace showing no regard for any sense of propriety or willingness to moderate language when Mann’s own, narrow, interests are challenged by fact and science. We can clearly see who the truth denier is here and how close he is in his wild use of words to the mentality of those who burn books and contrary evidence.
Moderately
In the case of the Hockey Stick paper, Mann definitely did not burn the contrary evidence, he archived it in the file CENSORED. and McIntyre thanked him for ‘providing it’ in his 2003 landmark paper deconstructing MBH98.
Dr Mann got a lot better at hiding the contrary evidence following that episode, and even sent an email to others reminding them to do the same. We all live and learn…
I detect that this makes you more than Moderately Cross…
Not that we can blame Moderately Cross of East Anglia.
Michael Mann, a privileged, middle class leftist, safe in the bosom of mother America is free to voice his opinions, using the plight of unfortunate communities (Jewish or otherwise) to promote his singular view. Disgusting, despotic little oik.
Of the 20th Century’s seven most despotic regimes, China, Russia, Germany, Italy, Cuba, N. Korea and Spain, all but one (Spain) were socialist derived.
Given the choice which, fortunately, I have, the last people I would vote into power would be a socialist organisation.
HorScot:
That was a good try at waving a ‘red herring’; but it fails.
This thread is about the behaviour of Michael Mann and not the deluded opinions of you or anybody else concerning any political ‘isms’.
Importantly, your attempted ‘red herring’ is especially offensive because this thread is specifically discussing Mann’s parody of the words of Martin Niemöller, and Martin Niemöller’s words were
emphasis added: RSC
Richard
Richard,
That’s the version from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is incorrect. Different variants and paraphrasings circulated, not written by Niemöller himself. In its original version, he referred to trade unions in general, but to specific political parties targeted by the N@zis, starting with Communists, then the Social Democrats, who were of course socialists.
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/niem.htm
In 1976, Niemöller replied to an interview question from New Left theorist Herbert Marcuse, asking about the origins of the statement. The Martin-Niemöller-Foundation (Stiftung) considers this the “classical” version:
“There were no minutes or copy of what I said, and it may be that I formulated it differently. But the idea was anyhow: The Communists, we still let that happen calmly; and the trade unions, we also let that happen; and we even let the Social Democrats happen. All of that was not our affair. The Church did not concern itself with politics at all at that time, and it shouldn’t have anything do with them either. In the Confessing Church we didn’t want to represent any political resistance per se, but we wanted to determine for the Church that that was not right, and that it should not become right in the Church, that’s why already in ’33, when we created the pastors’ emergency federation (Pfarrernotbund), we put as the 4th point in the founding charter: If an offensive is made against ministers and they are simply ousted as ministers, because they are of Jewish lineage (Judenstämmlinge) or something like that, then we can only say as a Church: No. And that was then the 4th point in the obligation, and that was probably the first contra-anti-Semitic pronouncement coming from the Protestant Church.”
German text:
http://martin-niemoeller-stiftung.de/martin-niemoeller/originaltexte
chimp:
Thanks for that.
As you say, the Social Democrats were socialists so you are clarifying but not disputing the point of my post.
The additional information you provide is both useful and helpful.
Again, thankyou.
Richard
You’re welcome.
The National Socialists came for their political opponents, ie Communists, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, conservative Catholic parties and Lutheran resisters like Niemoeller, as well as trade unions and innocents like the disabled, Jews, Gypsies and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The Holocaust Memorial Museum staff should shame Mann.
So… Mann is Pastor Niemöller. And Trump is Hitler.
I wonder who Himmler, Goebbels and Rohm are?
At last, some honesty from Mann!
+ as many as I can manage
I noticed that as well. It made me laugh, luckily I wasn’t drinking at the time
I was just about to post that as well.
I wonder if that quote will be used by Mark Steyn?
Oh…you guys! He is a scientist. His assertions are incorrect, that’s all. Being a scientist doesn’t mean one is a good or truthful scientist. Drunk drivers are still ‘drivers’.
Being a scientist does mean one is a good and truthful scientist.
Its a bit like saying that Doctor Harold Shipman was still a doctor.
Despite common believe – a scientist is not(!) defined to be someone wearing a white lab coat or owning a „Certificate of Attendance“ from some official indoctrination center.
A scientist is somebody who sticks strictly to the Scientific Method to avoid known fallacies, no matter whether or not he “owns” a degree or holding a Prize or having a job in academia. Having the privilege of high quality education and training helps a lot, but is not necessary. On the other hand most so called scientist are nothing more than cargo cultists.
MM does not apply even basic scientific standards to his work. So he is NOT a scientist.
“Drunk drivers are still ‘drivers’.”
But they shouldn’t be allowed to be !!
TheDoctor
Surely a scientist is simply one who asks questions?
Training merely shortens the time between which we ask the questions, then learn how to answer them, thereafter, a qualification is awarded.
A qualification doesn’t make one a scientist, it merely acknowledges one has accelerated one’s learning process.
I would go as far as to speculate that the scientific process is contrary to science, in that it prescribes a method by which a conclusion is reached.
By that measure, there can be no intuitive inventions, indeed, there can be no hypothesis to examine in science as, I suspect, most experiments are driven by an initial intuitive question, and the desire is to prove, or disprove it.
@ur momisugly HotScot
“I would go as far as to speculate that the scientific process is contrary to science, in that it prescribes a method by which a conclusion is reached.”
This is actually what I wanted to get across and why I consider most people labeled as scientists cargo cultist. They simply follow procedures they never comprehended and never questioned. While this can be a quite successful strategy in “normal” life, it’s a fast lane track to disaster in the field of science.
“The Scientific Method” is not and must not be a strict protocol automatically generating academically correct results. If this were the case, it would result exactly to what you described:
“I would go as far as to speculate that the scientific process is contrary to science, in that it prescribes a method by which a conclusion is reached. By that measure, there can be no intuitive inventions, indeed, there can be no hypothesis to examine in science as, I suspect, most experiments are driven by an initial intuitive question, and the desire is to prove, or disprove it.”
From my point of view it is basically a set of strict rules that keep honest researchers from fooling themselves and others by avoiding common fallacies:
– Don’t rely on authority.
– All observational data have errors, which must be taken into account.
– Don’t adjust observational data. If you have reason to believe there is an above average error adjust the error bar!
– Scientific reasoning is based on falsification of wrong claims. It’s logically impossible to prove anything right.
– Your claims and results must be reproducible by other researchers.
– Volunteer all(!) your data and exact method of analysis, so other researcher can double (triple …) check your work for honest mistakes
…
Regards HB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer I think Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer can shed some light on much of the climate alarmism mentality.
It is apparent Mann thirsts for significance. He sees his life’s work in heroic, cosmic terms. In fact, it is quite unlikely that either the earth’s environment or human population has any particular need of Michael Mann.
he’s a nebbish.
Straight out of central casting for nebbishes.
Michael Mann has no scientific arguments to offer, otherwise he would simply present his facts and data. But he hasn’t any…. So he resorts to hyperbole. He is indeed a clown… A climate clown.
Does Mann ever have an original thought of his own?
A class act like Mann deserves a name: hirundinidae
“Why do people still listen to this clown?”
There is a serious answer to this question, which the community here, after generally rolling their eyes at Dr. Mann’s, is probably generally aware of.
“Climate Change” has, a serious side. We live, even with all of our modern conveniences and protections, in natural world that provides us with serious challenges from time to time. We progress by understanding these challenges and coordinating or compensating as necessary.
There is a large and valid science of climate change.
There is a tangentially related cult of CLIMATE CHANGE. The elements of cults are quite well understood; as is the psychology of those who become true believers. The willingness of cult followers to turn belief into action with unquestioning loyalty does much to explain the affinity between cults and politics. The politics of an almost evenly divided electorate where a small dedicated swing group can become difference in close races explains the outsized influence of secular, voting, cults in western style democracies. The messianic tendencies of cult leaders are part of the reinforcing feedback loop between the leaders and the followers.
Although cults often arise in a religious context, they are noit intrinsically religious, thus is is probably somewhat inaccurate to inveigh the oft-used comparison of Green Gaia worship to a region. It is lilely more illuminating to focus on the followers, who turn out to be quite fungible in moving from cult to cult, or adopting more than one if they are not exclusionary. Eric Hoffer’s “true believer” needs to be deprogrammed by the same tools used in inculcation, in an environment where immunity to reason & logic and a distrustful (and correct) view of opponents as potential deprogrammers reinforces group cohesion around even unattractive leaders.
How strong are cult beliefs? When the Millerites, gathered on the mountain to await the second coming, only to awake the next morning to find themselves in the same old world, they did not wholesale abandon their beliefs. Their “great disappointment” did not eliminate the sect.
One successful strategy is to engage with the fellow travelers, offering rewards for participation in society larger than those for being drawn into the black hole of the cult. If Dr. Mann must appear, report about him, but eliminate the first person. Shun the cult, engage the still persuadable.
He isn’t a clown to the true believer.
The Klimate Kult would not have gotten so far were it not for their unquestioning enablers and relentless cheerleaders: (most of) the mainstream media in search of importance, sensationalism and compelling stories.
I cannot quite reconcile Tony Macleod’s view that M Mann is a great scientist with the fact that he has not written a textbook to educate such as myself in his pioneering statistical methods. Yes he has written books, but they seem to be mainly polemical or biographical essays .
At university I remember most of our chemistry lecturers taught with their own textbooks as the course notes – a captive audience of course, but also a sign to the outer scientific world of their status as scholars and researchers
On my bookshelf are books by Goody , Houghton , Salby , Henderson -Sellars which not only take you through the basics but also have problems where you pit your intelligence and hopefully increased knowledge against that of the author. Several of the most respected commenters here have also written eboks or hard copy texts that address the basic issues.
Why has Mann not done the same ?
Are his course notes for the students that he teaches available on the internet?. It is not uncommon amongst US academics I have noticed.
I don’t believe he actually teaches. He’s a grant grubber. Keener senses than any truffle-hunting pig.
Climate scientists are rarely keen to reveal data and methods…
“Scientists are rarely keen to reveal data and methods…”
Simply not true. All there, just look.
Climategate Email 1231257056.txt
All there, you just have to look.
Eric
You said “Climate scientists are rarely…”
So you found a scientist. In your world Eric, that means all doesn’t it. How sad…
Back to my point. All of the main data sets are freely available as are the adjustments and the reasons for them. Yawn…. move on.
Something else that no-one seems to have picked up on. Mann (I assume it is Mann’s quote) says:,blockquote>That evidence now shows us that we face a stark choice, between a future with a little more climate change that we will still have to adapt to and cope with, and one with catastrophic climate change that will threaten the future of life as we know it.
And so here we are, at a crossroads.Now, I can’t remember having heard such procrastination from the old egotist before. Is he now accepting that AGW (to him – Climate Change to anyone else) may not be such a bad thing after all? Is he now trying to ‘sell’ the option? And is this a crack in the dam?
No, he’s saying “enact the Paris Accords and get mild Climate Change or follow Trump and we’ll all die”.
Cocked up the blockquote.
Something else that no-one seems to have picked up on. Mann (I assume it is Mann’s quote) says:
Now, I can’t remember having heard such procrastination from the old egotist before. Is he now accepting that AGW (to him – Climate Change to anyone else) may not be such a bad thing after all? Is he now trying to ‘sell’ the option? And is this a crack in the dam?
Science is under assault by climate science.
Professor Mann has no worries. They never came for Lysenko, not even for his retirement entitlements.
Sound familiar?
With an American colleague, later to be a famous child psychiatrist, I once attended a Marxist colloquium in the history of science at Oxford. I mentioned Lysenko, and was promptly banned forever and cast into outer darkness. But the facts remain.
Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Lysenko retained his position, with the support of the new leader Nikita Khrushchev. However, mainstream scientists re-emerged, and found new willingness within Soviet government leadership to tolerate criticism of Lysenko, the first opportunity since the late 1920s.
In 1962, three of the most prominent Soviet physicists, Yakov Borisovich Zel’dovich, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Pyotr Kapitsa, presented a case against Lysenko, proclaiming his work as pseudoscience. They also denounced Lysenko’s application of political power to silence opposition and eliminate his opponents within the scientific community. These denunciations occurred during a period of structural upheaval in Soviet government, during which the major institutions were purged of the strictly ideological and political machinations which had controlled the work of the Soviet Union’s scientific community for several decades under Stalin.
In 1964, physicist Andrei Sakharov spoke out against Lysenko in the General Assembly of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
“He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists.”
The Soviet press was soon filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles and appeals for the restoration of scientific methods to all fields of biology and agricultural science. In 1965, Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow’s Lenin Hills (the Institute itself was soon dissolved). After Khrushchev’s dismissal in 1964, the president of the Academy of Sciences declared that Lysenko’s immunity to criticism had officially ended. An expert commission was sent to investigate records kept at Lysenko’s experimental farm. His secretive methods and ideas were revealed. A few months later, a devastating critique of Lysenko was made public. Consequently, Lysenko was immediately disgraced in the Soviet Union.
After Lysenko’s monopoly on biology and agronomy had ended, it took many years for these sciences to recover in Russia. Lysenko died in Moscow in 1976, and was ultimately interred in the Kuntsevo Cemetery, although the Soviet government refused to announce Lysenko’s death for two days after the event and gave his passing only a small note in Izvestia.
Michael Mann: “If You Believe in Science You Must Now Make Your Voice Heard”
Dr Mann and I agree completely on this. But he doesn’t want my voice to be heard.
When laymen talk to me about this issue, I tell them that legislative progress has been slow, not because of “Big Oil and their paid liars”, but because of thousands of educated skeptics like me who are steadily undermining the catastrophic hype.
Our voices are being heard.
Indeed, sanity will one day prevail. Keep going fellow sceptics.
Except when our “voices” are removed. A couple days ago I commented on an op-ed, correcting misstatements about Plate Tectonics, presumably attributed to Oreskes. When I checked back yesterday to see if there were any responses, the article was still there but there were NO comments. It was the only one in a string of articles on the page that was lacking comments or even the opportunity to make them. Actually, it may be good news if publishers are so afraid of ‘fact checking.’
Michael Mann started the skeptic movement.
There wasn’t really a skeptical movement until people saw what was done in the Hockey Stick. That is when people said to themselves “wait a minute, what is really going on here?”.
He also taught climate science that propaganda was the way to get ahead in the field with what happened through the Hockey Stick.
Then he became the leader of the movement to suppress contrary research.
I mean, if he didn’t exist, lots of the problems we see now might never have existed either.
I believed the CAGW propaganda until Mann came along.
And me !!
Others have had a big hand in creating skeptics.
The guys involved in climategate woke people up to the FACT that data, has been adjusted.
Cook et. al showed people that data could be massively WARPED to support an agenda.
Every one of the clowns making outlandish “predictions” about things that just haven’t happened, have also had their bit to play. Wadhams, Shepherd, etc etc
And then the PAID climate trolls. they also deserve a vote of thanks, Mosh, etc etc.
And let’s not forget Gavin and the boys at NOAA. !!
I’m sure others could name names who have unintentionally helped the skeptic cause with their outward projection of idiocy.
Every sceptical comment is a small nail in the alarmist coffin. Keep going fellow sceptics.
Martin Niemöller’s words apply to all of us, not just the victims of the holocaust. They are a warning that we must nip evil in the bud. We must not stand idly by while others are victimized. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” link
Mann’s use of those words just sounds sanctimonious. Pathetic.
I read his speech up until this: “Now, let me regale you with a story about my own college experience.”
Oh. My. God. What a bloviating, egotistical blowhard. How does he even stand himself?
A tiny Michael Mann floats above you with ethereal wings of silk. He sprinkles fairy dust on you while you think happy thoughts and say, “I believe in science. I believe in science. I believe in science.”
Then you can fly.
“Then you can fly”… right off the economic cliff with all the other Climate Change True Believer lemmings.
Of course. It’s science. They will fly right past the second star to the right and straight on to morning.
“All the world is made of faith and trust and pixie dust.” Michael Mann quoting JM Barrie
Well, he nailed that one:
Then they came for the scientists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a scientist.
“Never before have we witnessed science under the kind of assault it is being subject to right now in this country.”
The guy is absolutely right! It’s just that he hasn’t quite yet worked out where the assault is coming from or that he is a major part of it.
As for the paraphrasing of Pastor Niemöller … millions of people died to get rid of those who persecuted him. Millions may still die before we get rid of Mann and his anti-humanity, anti-science cult.
…”Drain the Swamp” !!
Mikey’s role as Chief Climate Clown and Climate Crybully suit him well.
Really? Michael Mann being *criticized* is equivalent to physical torture and starvation? He and his supporters like Tony McClod should be ashamed of themselves. The fact that they aren’t tells you a great deal about them, and their supposed science.