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?
HOW PUTRID, having visited a place named Dachau, I will say it again, How Putrid.
Very sad as that is not the true quote.
I hope there is no one left for Michael Mann.
The signs are his colleagues are deserting him in droves.
A scientist welcomes questioning of their theories. That is how the state of knowledge is advanced. The best scientific experiments are those which are designed in an attempt to break a hypothesis. Every time we break something we learn something. Unfortunately, Mann is not a scientist.
Planned Environmentalist? Really?
The annals of history will surely record Mike Mann as having done more damage to the reputation of science than any other human being, organization or political movement. Ever.
Surely he must know that science does not support his claim of “catastrophic climate change”.
For the Anthropocene so loved the world it gave its one and only begotten Mann that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal carbon life.
Dear Dr. Michael Mann,
You are no different than a busted criminal whining after being busted.
In fact you are an unindicted criminal who has perpetrated numerous, well documented, offenses which you have shown to be indefensible.
So excuse me for finding pleasure in your squealing like the guilty pig you are.
You are not a victim and history will accurately convict you for the perpetrator you are.
You should be pondering the noble benefits in confession,and contrition but alas you are are scoundrel of epic proportion.
criminal huh?
that’s a big charge.
let’s see you back it up equally bigly
convince me,
like you are a prosecutor.
I am not a climate scientist, or any kind of scientist as far as that goes…. but don’t your respective organizations have some type of review panel such that when people do poor work, or have ethics problems, their degrees and/or credentials are pulled? Lawyers can be disbarred, medical doctors can have their licenses pulled… isn’t there something for people like Mann?
None. And, in today’s political environment, those who do NOT toe the line establishment’s line, and those who DO expose incompetence and errors and prejudices that affect their political masters’ agendas get FIRED. Their programs are defunded, their labs are shut down, and their papers are rejected in endless “reviews” by prejudiced anonymous “peer” reviews.
But, in today’s political environment, those who DO toe the line establishment’s line, and those who DO use incompetence and errors and prejudices that promote their political masters’ agendas get FUNDED in ever higher levels. Their programs are promoted, their labs are funded, their testimony is requested in Washington and New York and Sacramento, and their papers are published immediately after days of “pal reviews” .
Yes, it is cleary an intolerant phase in our society at present and reminiscent of radical extremes in the 1930s Germany eliminating all the moderate voices.
if you think made committed fraud
(it’s not illegal to make a scientific mistake,
not that he and his coauthors made one),
then _state_what_that_was
instead of endlessly ranting with
no substance at all to your
comments.
dump or get off the pot,
as they say.
Stu: what “poor work?”
Mann et al’s work has been verified time
and time again.
study the literature.
there’s a reason Mann gets
awards
No. Mann’s work is ONLY “verified” by a small closed group of the same people who co-signed the papers that they mutually and originally co-signed. That group of some 20 use the same “data” to verify each others’ papers that peer-reviewed the first paper. No one has been able to verify it.
But the statistics that prove it wrong ARE independently verified.
Things I have learned on my journey to “science denial” :
The scientific process
% of various gases in the atmosphere
Geography of Arctic and Antarctic
Null hypothesis
What a statistical anomaly is
difference between average and mean
basic geologic history
How atmospheric data is gathered
Fun things like ENSO AMOC HADCRU TOBS UHI IPCC GISS BEST USHCN CET ARGO LIA MWP SLR
I never new that data could be smoothed, infilled, and kriged
Falsification in science
more than I want to know about the 2nd law of thermodynamics
(still not clear on positive and negative forcing)
I could go on.
I’ve learned more about science than I previously knew on my way to becoming a “denier”.
They invite me to learn about the subject and then call me names when I disagree.
Nice.
Ha! Michael Man. What a poser.
The guy has lost all sense of proportion. I advise professional help.
Lewendowsky may be available. ! 😉
A more appropiate quote would have been Oliver Perry’s ‘we have met the enemy and he is us’.
That was Pogo 🙂
Really? Are you sure he said that?
Is this the product of freelance advice or does he have professional help with PR and debate strategies?
I wonder if the dictionary will want a new headshot of Mann for the revised entry for “hubris”.
Merely “catastrophic?” I guess he didn’t get the memo, that climate change is now The Apocalypse.
…….with un-original, brain-dead magical thinkers like this around….
……when they have the ears of Government….
……when all they can suggest is the collecting and spending of *ever* more tax money…
THEN, Climate Change and all its dangers is a Teddy Bear’s Picnic and we’re all in real danger.
Is this why there aren’t too many Romans around these days?
Everyone wanted to be a Patrician, a Father of the City, a tax collector/ spender or recipient of said tax spending (crony)
The pyramid of power became too big, top-heavy and it simply fell over under its own bloated weight.
And thus began 1,000+ years of Dark Age.
And of course, unless our lawyer ‘friends’ can find a scapegoat – it will be blamed on Climate Change, as the demise of dozens if not hundreds of civilisations over the millennia has always been.
Humans will *never* be to blame for their own demise because they are so clever, so perfect and so well meaning, exactly as M Mann is claiming to be here.
Mostly I think if people make claims like this, thought should indeed be subjected to EXACTLY what they compare their suffering to. If Michael Mann thinks he has it as tough as a Holocaust survival, let him spend 8 years in hard labor, little food in a hole for a cell. Have him get back to us after that.
Holocaust survivors should be horrified this man so trivialized their suffering. He is flat out EVIL.
This famous exchange from ‘A Man For All Seasons” is more appropriate; Mann having cut down every law to get after the devil as he sees it.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
Nigel: Thanks for that. One of my favourite quotes. Along with: “But for Wales, Richard?” Classic movie, classic script.
Yes, dangerously celtophobic that one!
The lines should be delivered by Paul Scofield for their full weight of course but even just on the page they are a powerful expression of a real dilemma.
More was no saint, although now both the Roman Catholic and some Anglican communion churches so regard him. During More’s chancellorship, six suspected Protestants were burned at the stake for heresy. So much for the great Humanist, who also burned and banned books. He also began the long pursuit on the Continent of refugee English Bible translator Tyndale, who wasn’t finally betrayed and captured until a year after More’s own death. Imperial authorities strangled him before burning his body.
More is famous for educating his daughters. Less well known is the story, the veracity of which I don’t know, that he offered his future son-in-law Roper the choice of either of his two oldest daughters, by pulling back the bed covers so that he could see them naked or at least with just a nightgown, before deciding. He wed Margaret, the eldest and best classical scholar of the four kids.
Mann claims “… 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.”
He has backed away from “warming”, we see. Now it is “Change” generally.
He has backed away from avoiding, entirely, whatever the problems may be. Now, we will have to adapt and cope — regardless.
He has backed away from the moral imperative that all the souls under his dominion must submit to his will. Now, we face, and are entitled to make, a choice.
In short, Mann is backing down.
I consider this progress.
Moderator —
A harmless post i made containing some of my struggling poetic work seems to be in limbo. I clicked on submit and the post did not appear but remained encased in the “leave a reply” square but with the option to submit gone. Is that normal when entering moderation?
I said my post did have a tenuous connection to the topic because John Cook The Books likes to photoshop himself into Nazi uniforms. So I did use the word Na–zi. Should i have said “SS uniforms” instead? John Cook The Books runs the blog “Skeptical Science” — which has the initials SS. (I am sure you have heard that one before.)
I am more curious here about my poem appearing in the “leave a reply” square with the submit option gone than I really care about the non-appearance of my post itself. Is that the new normal — with no message about “moderation”?
Thankyou for your hard payless work
Eugene WR Gallun
“Never before have we witnessed science under the kind of assault it is being subject to right now in this country.”
Assault wouldn’t be my choice of words but Okay let us go with it. If science doesn’t subject itself to assault then it is not science. Period. End of sentence as BOb use to love to say. .
this is a posting test.
Eugene WR Gallun
Martin Niemöller was a protestant clergy man. He was not a jew but openly opposed to racist laws. He survived Nazi repression but not the holocoust.
First they came came for the alligators ….