Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Guardian has posted an article defending climate scientists against accusations they’re just grant money grubbing liars.
The idea that climate scientists are in it for the cash has deep ideological roots
Graham Readfearn
Author and academic Nancy MacLean says cynicism about the motives of public servants, including government-backed climate scientists, can be traced to a group of neoliberals and their ‘toxic’ ideas
You’ll have heard that line of argument about cancer scientists, right?
The one where they’re just in it for the government grant money and that they don’t really want to find a cure, because if they did they’d be out of a job?
No, of course you haven’t. That’s because it’s ridiculous and a bit, well, vomit-inducing.
To make such an argument, you would need to be deeply cynical about people’s motives for consistently putting their own pay packets above the welfare of millions of people.
You would have to think that scientists were not motivated to help their fellow human beings, but instead were driven only by self-interest.
…
Suggesting that climate scientists are pushing a line about global warming because their salaries depend on it is a popular talking point that deniers love to throw around.
But why do so many “sceptics”, particularly those who form part of the organised machinery of climate science denial, feel comfortable in accusing climate scientists of only being in it for the money?
Duke University history professor Nancy MacLean suggests some answers in her new book Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.
The book documents how wealthy conservatives, in particular petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch, teamed up with neoliberal academics with the objective, MacLean says, of undermining the functions of government in the United States.
…
There are some intriguing examples of rapid enrichment through climate grants, such as the Shukla’s gold story, in which Shukla and his wife made hundreds of thousands of dollars every year working part time for their climate foundation. But the overall impression I received from reading the Climategate emails is one of out of control groupthink – a frenzied effort to shut down opposing points of view, tone down adverse findings, to keep the narrative “tidy”.
For example, Climate Scientist Keith Briffa’s infamous 1999 letter to Micheal Mann and others;
Climategate Email 0938018124.txt;
… I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter.
For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. …
Source: Wikileaks
The medical analogy chosen by The Guardian author is interesting. Medical research is riddled with scandalous cases of scientific misconduct. D.G Altman’s famous study of medical research failures is still as applicable today as it was when Altman wrote his critique in 1994.
The following from the British Medical Journal;
Richard Smith: Medical research—still a scandal
January 31, 2014
Twenty years ago this week the statistician Doug Altman published an editorial in the BMJ arguing that much medical research was of poor quality and misleading. In his editorial entitled, “The Scandal of Poor Medical Research,” Altman wrote that much research was “seriously flawed through the use of inappropriate designs, unrepresentative samples, small samples, incorrect methods of analysis, and faulty interpretation.” Twenty years later I fear that things are not better but worse.
Most editorials like most of everything, including people, disappear into obscurity very fast, but Altman’s editorial is one that has lasted. I was the editor of the BMJ when we published the editorial, and I have cited Altman’s editorial many times, including recently. The editorial was published in the dawn of evidence based medicine as an increasing number of people realised how much of medical practice lacked evidence of effectiveness and how much research was poor. Altman’s editorial with its concise argument and blunt, provocative title crystallised the scandal.
Why, asked Altman, is so much research poor? Because “researchers feel compelled for career reasons to carry out research that they are ill equipped to perform, and nobody stops them.” In other words, too much medical research was conducted by amateurs who were required to do some research in order to progress in their medical careers.
Ethics committees, who had to approve research, were ill equipped to detect scientific flaws, and the flaws were eventually detected by statisticians, like Altman, working as firefighters. Quality assurance should be built in at the beginning of research not the end, particularly as many journals lacked statistical skills and simply went ahead and published misleading research.
“The poor quality of much medical research is widely acknowledged,” wrote Altman, “yet disturbingly the leaders of the medical profession seem only minimally concerned about the problem and make no apparent efforts to find a solution.”
…
Read more: http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2014/01/31/richard-smith-medical-research-still-a-scandal/
Despite the problems with medical research, there is a key difference between medicine and climate science; medical science is falsifiable. Medical research results can sometimes be reproduced. People notice if patients keep dying. The worst examples of medical treatments based on defective science are ultimately exposed.
Some courageous doctors have risked their own lives to overturn the consensus, to expose medical mistakes which kill patients. Medical researcher Barry Marshall famously drank a petri dish of H. pylori and gave himself an ulcer, to prove that bacteria cause peptic ulcers. Prior to Barry Marshall’s heroism, efforts to convince the medical community that they were wrong about ulcers were largely ignored. The overwhelming consensus was that ulcers were caused by a high stress lifestyle.
Climate science is not falsifiable in a conventional sense. There is no scientific methodology available to correct mistakes in a reasonable timeframe. The only test of climate models is to wait several decades, to compare model projections with observations.
As Australian climate scientist Sophie Lewis helpfully explained a few weeks ago, It is difficult to propose a test of climate models in advance that is falsifiable. Not that Sophie seems to mind – she thinks Science is complicated – and doesn’t always fit the simplified version we learn as children.
Of course, when those climate models are finally falsified – James Hansen’s 1980s models spectacularly failed to perform – the falsified models are the old models; the new model projections will work better, we promise. After all, they were produced by a more powerful computer.
Given the horrendous state of medical research, despite the availability of scientific checks and balances, there is no mystery why ungovernable climate science is prone to wild flights of fancy.
Update (EW): Pat Frank points there is a means to falsify climate models without waiting several decades. Climate models drastically fail error propagation tests, tests to determine the impact of model errors on the reliability of the climate projections. More information here, Pat Frank’s video presentation of the issue available here
A considerable number of science institutions were researching climate before the first IPCC report – the jobs and researchers would be there even if climate change wasn’t an area of research…
Scientists don’t get paid that much… and why would they all and only pick climate change as the easy way to get grants and make a meagre living…
and why, if its all a fraud, didn’t they stick to working on the coming ice age in the 1970s… it is just as valid as a fake area of research (or it might, according to some, even be real). No reason to invent a whole new thing to investigate.
This whole ‘only for the money’ thing doesn’t stack up.
The idea/suggestion that ALL skeptics think ALL climate scientists are “in it for the money” is an obviously pathetic logical fallacy on its face. Graham created a big old straw man out of low hanging straw, and then attacked it so boldly and convincingly. *snark*
Well, at least he did to Griff.
But the inverse is true. Climate scientists think skeptics are all in it for the money in the pay of big oil.
Aphan, yes and the straw man is more exact… ALL climate scientists are “in it ONLY for the money”
This is meant to eliminate a real discussion about human nature in every field, confirmation bias, nobel cause corruption, peer pressure, monetary career necessities, etc…
Of course the simplistic propaganda of statist never changes and typically they are guilty of exactly what they accuse others of… ” Ignore that “fossil fuel funded” research” and most often it is not even fossil fuel funded.
“the jobs and researchers would be there”. So, climate change science funding has remained static since prior the IPCC? And not a single researcher has jumped aboard the climate science funding bandwagon since there isn’t one?
Yes exactly, and you saw all the proof Griff linked to regarding that assertion. ZERO
To make such an argument, you would need to be deeply cynical about people’s motives for consistently putting their own pay packets above the welfare of millions of people. Basically calling them Human as very few humans aren’t self centric
You would have to think that scientists were not motivated to help their fellow human beings, but instead were driven only by self-interest. They certainly wouldn’t do it if there was no pay
…
Suggesting that climate scientists are pushing a line about global warming because their salaries depend on it is a popular talking point that deniers love to throw around. Very similar to AGWers insisting that Climate Realists are “Big Oil Schills”.
Being favored for the next “Big Green” grant has certainly become dependant on a direct correlation of reaching the favored conclusion regarding AGW and what function of climate you were previously researching.
If you don’t believe this, just look at the number of Big Green grants that are going to fund disproving AGW.
You can’t even bring up the possibility that AGW might be incorrect without being censured at school or forced into a different major
There is FAR LESS TOLLERANCE for opposing viewpoints among the Warmunists than any other faction of society except for Liberals where conservatism or conservativism is concerned, Just look at Berkeley
Carbon trading is all about the money, and nothing else. Carbon trading houses are set up in Switzerland to make nothing else from the scam, and they need to keep it going. Without alarm, there is no value in an un-emitted molecule of CO2.
Scientists don’t get paid that much, so they have to fight hard for what is available. Being able to tie one’s research to an existential threat to humanity is a good start. If it is not an existential threat, it is possible to pretend that it is for Grant’s sake alone. It is more about egos and careers than saving anything in particular.
When the CAGW phase has passed, they will indeed ‘invent a whole new thing’ to investigate because money and careers and status and fame rely on solving big problems, at least by claiming to be heroically working on a solution. The ‘cure for cancer’ was the magic bullet for researchers when I was young. Now that it turns out to be really complicated, it is hard to generate much enthusiasm for magic-bullet-seekers. When it is broadly realised that the weather is dominated by the sun, clouds and oceans in devilishly complex ways, the ‘climate scientist’ will fade into well-deserved obscurity.
The next big fad will be trying to figure out how to share the planet without annihilating each other – the search for essential unity in the face of extreme diversity. Five years from now, people will be much more concerned with accommodating each other than with accommodating a small change in the climate. We can easily adapt to five degrees of warming, but not to 5 degrees of separation.
Crispin (wherever he is) writes: “Five years from now, people will be much more concerned with accommodating each other than with accommodating a small change in the climate. We can easily adapt to five degrees of warming, but not to 5 degrees of separation.”
While I can’t validate your priorities, I can certainly validate the essence of your observation; there are more important things to be working on and we, as a society aren’t allocating resources efficiently. It should already be apparent the cAGW cause is dead, but nothing has emerged to take its place, and the MSM absolutely will keep flogging that dead horse until someone delivers a live replacement. Who knows what that will be? Your idea doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of “star power” even though it would almost certainly involved a new heavily enforced social order, which always delights dictators.
I certainly hope the government and society in general doesn’t take up the cause of forcing everyone to “get along”, whatever that might mean. I’ve personally had more than my fill of that in the past 20 years.
Griff said: “A considerable number of science institutions were researching climate before the first IPCC report – the jobs and researchers would be there even if climate change wasn’t an area of research…”
I was in one of these science institutions and the number of climate scientists researching climate back then was miniscule compare to the number today. Not to mention all the scientists from other fields that can’t get funding in their own area of expertise so they add the words climate change into their work and bingo…funding appears and then they claim climate scientist status.
+10000
Exactly. That’s the true financial incentive; it’s not about the individual getting more funding, it’s about getting any funding at all.
What doesn’t stack up is your imagination that there is no more dough in climate research now than in 1970 and no more “climate scientists”. In fact there were no GIGO computer gaming “climate scientists” at all, only a few real climatologists. Hence none of today’s corruption.
And of course no climate change communicators and few historians trying to pervert the scientific method. The whole government funded academic apparatus and green industrial complex didn’t exist.
…and again, there are now thousands of more ” climate scientist” from every field doing ” attribution studies” basically a; if the climate models are right, penguins will suffer here, frogs will get bigger here, frogs will get smaller here, bees will die out, crime will increase, volcanoes will increase along with earthquakes, etc…
These scientist no very little about atmospheric physics.
It’s a bit sad that you have obviously never read a history book. Do you think that what you describe as being really, really improbable has never happened in science? And that’s before we talk about the vast amount of money and reputation that governments have invested in one particular claim made by some climate scientists.
There are dozens of areas of science where what you describe has happened and is happening. Scientists are only human, and like the rest of us are incentivised by things like secure jobs, fame, power, professional standing etc etc. That’s why some scientists commit outright fraud by faking data – something that is not that rare and happens in every area of science.
Of course some scientists aren’t particularly rigorous in their work, because that means they can keep doing what they are doing where they are doing it. To doubt that is either naive or willfully blind.
Except of course for breast cancer surgeons, one of whom, Ian Paterson, was recently jailed for 15 years for conning innumerable women into having mastectomies when they didn’t need them, just for the money.
“The court heard that one of Paterson’s victims, Leanne Joseph, had to take out two loans from her family to pay for procedures that the surgeon falsely told her were necessary.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/31/breast-surgeon-ian-paterson-sentenced-for-carrying-out-needless-operations
Remember that one Griff? Or doesn’t that stack up either?
Time for your frontal lobotomy. Don’t worry, it’s consensus science, or at least it was, but you probably won’t notice as you seem to miss the point of everything.
Griff: Why would oil companies pay people to deny climate change? They make MILLIONS/BILLIONS off of the fake energy from weather scheme that exists only because naive people and evil people can make vast quantities of money. Oil companies benefit mightily from renewables—virtually every renewable installation benefits “Big Oil”. Duke, Nextra, Chevron, etc. Obviously, the warmists are making this claim up, right?
I would also note that scientists do not work for free. So they are in it for the money. Everyone who works is in it for the money. Name one person you know who would go to work tomorrow if they stopped getting paid. In many case, climate change included, people are in jobs for the adulation and continual praise from the groupthink. Scientists often have very big egos and love to be praised for their “great contributions” to society. Climate scientists have tried this angle for quite some time. They are “saving” us and we should be greatful. Please don’t tell me being the saviors of the planet is not HUGE incentive to do whatever it takes to retain that position.
Who would go to work tomorrow if they stopped getting paid? I worked with such a bunch for decades at a premier semiconductor company. Hundreds of guys were multi-millionaires, and could theoretically step out any time. They were close to working for free. But it’s more fun to go to work every day and do something clever and useful, and be recognized for it. There are other incentives at that level besides cash.
It takes some serious cash to get to that point, which may not apply here. But there really are workers like this.
“Name one person you know who would go to work tomorrow if they stopped getting paid.”
Trump.
Hey there Roberto, we never met at work I don’t think, but since we’re both writing under assumed names we might have.
I did walk away. I decided I could have more fun pursuing my own dreams than just piddling away my time with a bunch of other boring multi-millionaires that didn’t have their own ideas. Some people get rich because they’re creative, others just get lucky. I like being creative myself, it’s what I live for.
Perhaps I should have said “Name one person who would go to work if they didn’t get paid AND were not independently wealthy to the point they did not have to work”. or “Name one person who would go to work for free and live in a cardboard box under a bridge.”
Dear Griff. Your naivete continues to astonish.
They needed something man made, and scary, to justify government action on energy.
This doesn’t start with scientists. Its starts with political and commercial marketing using green groups that could be bought and infiltrated on the cheap, plus a team of a dozen or so core players in the ‘science’ game to get the ball rolling, and a constant drip feed of cash to the above to get the bandwagon rolling.
Its a power play by energy companies to destroy coal. And if they can, nuclear.
Based on the assumption that renewable energy doesn’t work, and the oil and gas majors knew that well before anyone else.
Poor countries went along for the cash handouts.
The motivation Mr Griff for criticisms of that branch of scientific investigation related to climate stems from the use of that interest to further a political agenda whose primary aim appears directed towards reducing the living standards of those fortunate to enjoy what is a decent way of life, while at the same time preventing those who rightly aspire to something better than near penury from achieving that legitimate aim. I am sure you are right in that not all of those involved in this field are in it for the money, but what unites so many of them is a willingness to be dishonest in what they have to say or conclude from their work. Insulting those who might speak openly to control the message remains reprehensible and inexcusable.
Well Griff… NO ONE is offering any substantial money to prove that climate change is mostly natural in origin. The governments of the world are offering BILLIONS in research money for evidence that climate change is almost all manmade. The governments are not funding climate research per se.. they are funding research for evidence of man-made climate change. Afterall, if climate change is almost all natural in origin then the solution to it is entirely different than the Progressive cure that is desired by governments around the world.
“This whole ‘only for the money’ thing doesn’t stack up.”
….you do realize, before they were called climate scientists….they were called weathermen
Pay scale and prestige appropriate
yes, before the IPCC real climate scientists where studying the climate … not physicists or train engineers … today any fool with a BS/MS/PHD in science degree can claim to be a “climate scientist” and many of your heroes do just that …
Activists who are in it for the cause, are much worse that those who are ‘in if for the money’.
There’s no chance of achieving rationality, reason, or common ground with a zealot.
I remember the lobotomy. A couple of guys were given a Nobel Prize of Medicine. What this was done for?
For the money? For prestige? Why nobody in the medical profession complained about this procedure?
Take the Continental Drift of Wegener that was rejected for some 40 years. Some people argued that
Wegener was unable to explain the mechanism of the drift. Well, Newton do not explained either
the way the force of gravity acted at a distance. Nobody can explain it even today. But it existed a mechanism
the radioactivity demonstrated in 1902 or 1904, could had explain the heat in the interior of the earth, but
Lord Kelvin demonstrated first by doing the proper calculations the interior of the earth was cold and rigid,
since long ago. The earth was only 100 millions years old. That was the reason it was cold.
“This whole ‘only for the money’ thing doesn’t stack up.”
No. The author is right when he says: ‘the overall impression I received from reading the Climategate emails is one of out of control groupthink – a frenzied effort to shut down opposing points of view, tone down adverse findings, to keep the narrative “tidy”.’
My view is that no-one believes the party line on global warming. The Chinese for instance obviously do not, or they would not be increasing their emissions but would be reducing them. The warmists do not, or they would be urging the Chinese to reduce, they would be advocating the abolition of the auto industry in the West. Maybe a total ban on Chinese consumer goods imports.
Warmism spends all its time and energy in denunciation of people who do not believe, but it does not advocate any action which will actually reduce emissions.
We may be reminded of the Middle Ages, in which everyone claimed to believe that sexual irregularity and personal violence would lead to eternal damnation, but went out and did both enthusiastically regardless.
Did they really believe it? Difficult to see that they did.
Similarly, Griff is not out there demonstrating in front of the Chinese embassy, demanding they reduce emissions, is he? No, he is about to explain why its perfectly morally proper for the Chinese to do what they are doing, increasing. He is going to explain that their per capita emissions are low (they are not), that they are historically low, or that they are doing it for export. Or that they are installing lots of wind and solar.
You see, he does not believe it either! If he did, he would be saying that the Chinese are dooming civilization and must stop. That is the logical consequence of what he claims to believe. But he won’t say it, and doesn’t think it.
The whole thing is a prodigious waste of time and energy. Here is another example for you. The UK Parliament passes the Climate Change Act, when, back in 2008? It was supposed to lower emissions in the end by something like 80% from now. And there were lots of people arguing this was too modest a target.
So are they doing anything at all to implement it? No, of course not. Instead the UK Green movement wants more subsidies for wind and solar, despite the fact that this will not lower UK emissions one bit, and if it did, would make no impact on global emissions.
Will they advocate banning cars in UK cities? Of course they won’t, don’t be silly! That would actually lower emissions.
Whether the academic climatologists are in it for the money? Who cares, that is the least of the problems with the thing. The real problem is that they, like everyone else, are just going through the motions, and don’t believe a word of it either. Seems incredible, but that is what the evidence is showing.
If Griff really does believe it, lets see him advocate the lowering of global emissions to something like 5 billion tons a year. And everything that is implied by that.
Instead, he will explain how Paris, which on the account of the warmists themselves makes no difference to the supposed problem, is very good and necessary and Trumps withdrawal is very bad. Another classic case. Advocate the ineffective, and make excuses for those doing things to make the problem worse.
But keep denouncing those unbelievers!
“This whole ‘only for the money’ thing doesn’t stack up.”
No it doesn’t. We have ample evidence on these very pages of dedicated climate scientists who aren’t “in it for the money”. Of course each of them wishes to succeed in their chosen life’s work, that’s simple human nature, but they very obviously aren’t just “in it for the money”, though I’m sure they’d find other meaningful work if there wasn’t adequate compensation involved. I’d argue it’s a puerile interpretation of motive for the folks regularly pilloried by sceptics, people like Mann, Trenberth, Briffa, Jones, you know, “the usual suspects”.
Eric has done a good job of deconstructing the arguments made by The Guardian once again. The intention of the original author seems to have been building an easily discredited straw man, then “destroying” the sceptical position by arguing with it. It’s just poor reasoning; what it really demonstrates is the author himself (Graeme Redfearn) is “in it for the money” if anyone is. Controversy and conflict sell newspapers and it should be clear Graeme isn’t above taking the opportunity.
But you ask your own questions:
That’s a myth. In fact scientists in leadership positions make very good salaries and there are many benefits. You should do a bit more homework on the subject. Tenured professors and government research lab managers are very well compensated.
The public becomes numb to sensationalism, most especially when it wanders beyond common experience. By 1981 it was obvious to anyone paying attention the climate had stopped cooling. It really was necessary to engage taxpayers in a new dialog.
“””””….. But why do so many “sceptics”, particularly those who form part of the organised machinery of climate science denial, feel comfortable in accusing climate scientists of only being in it for the money? …..”””””
Well I’m not a climate change skeptic, and no, I do not believe that some climate scientists are only in it for the money.
A quick perusal of any Sunday Newspaper ” Want Ad ” section will reveal that there aren’t any advertisements from free enterprise profit making corporations or businesses trying to hire candidates for the job of Chief Climate Change Prediction Officer.
So besides this class of climate scientists being in it only for the money, they also would like to have a job.
And climate change departments at Universities, and other taxpayer or grant funded institutions, are the dead letter office for the effluent from the statistics departments, who can’t get a job at CNN or CSPAN or one of the alphabet soup T&V networks.
Then there’s the surfeit of PhD Physicists that are printed about as fast as paper currency, who never ever get a full time paying job in industry, practicing their special skill that they did their thesis on (65% of them).
Only 30 % ever get a full time paying job in industry practicing their skill, and there are 5% who land a temporary gig, that dries up, so then they have to go back to school and learn a trade.
The 65 per centers were likely victims of a thesis mentor, who talked them into researching ” such and such ” in which fields there is almost no literature, so their thesis would become the source well for a river of papers citing their work. They may be the world’s leading authority in their field; which often means they are the only person on the planet interested in that subject; and nobody is going to pay them to study it further. They become Post Doc Fellows who lead other poor saps down the same path to nowhere.
I’m sure there may be some other reasons besides a job and the money. If I think of any, I’ll let you know.
The fortunate PhD Physics graduates, who got steered into some useful fields of study; and perhaps made some useful discoveries already, can write their own meal ticket, because Industry is always eager to find people who know what the hell they are talking about, and can tackle difficult problems that are desperately in need of solution.
Foreseeing what the climate will be in 30-40 years, and how it relates to the climate 30 0r 40 years in the past; is not something that is desperately needed by a world with actual real problems that need to be solved.
G
On physics graduates: a friend of my son’s has a PhD in Physics, and wanted to work at CERN. But he got married, and reality forced him to work at a (well paid) finance organisation in the City of London.
Russ,
My younger sister, now unfortunately gone, lived for over 40 years one quarter of a mile up a small hill from the CERN headquarters in Meyrin, a northern suburb of Geneva; and she never ever told me.
So when she was in the Geneva University H’opital, I stayed in her Meyrin Apartment which looked down on the CERN complex, ans to the south had a regular spectacular view of Mont Blanc.
Now CERN is the start end of the Meyrin to Geneva electric train, and there is just one stop between CERN and the stop right outside my Sister’s front door.
So when I got on the train in the morning to go into L’hopital, literally everyone on the train was a CERN employee, and they were happy to talk.
This was shortly after they had “confirmed” the existence of the Higgs Boson; purportedly the end of the line of particle Physics.
So I asked them all, women and men, all kinds of nations: “So what are you chaps(esses) gpoing to do for an encore ? ”
They just shrugged their shoulders. “Beats the hell out of us; I guess we’ll just build a bigger machine, any way. ” (and they are).
But just when it seems the lights go out in the Partical Physics Lab, suddenly we have a completely new Physics lab; the Lab of Einsteinian Waves. Imagine waking up, and learning there was a completely new TV network that nobody new existed (there is that too).
We have a fantastic new tool for looking at the Universe in an entirely different language; with new discoveries to make.
Eventually, we will get blasé, and start loosely calling them Gravitational Waves; but the cognoscenti will wink and say, ” Well some of us know those are really just Einsteinian waves; we just use that other term when talking with the talking heads on CNN ! ”
Clearly Physics is still on a roll, and the future is likely to be as exciting as the past; notwithstanding passing up the ” Higgs point “.
But don’t forget to work on practical stuff too; people will actually pay you to do USEFUL things in Physics.
G
PS NO ! I ain’t that 2009 Nobel Physics Prize chap, and I’m not a doctor of anything.
It isn’t necessarily about “only for money”. It would be more appropriately stated as job security related.
Forty years ago, the typical university climatology department was a single desk in the atmospheric physics department–maybe just an in-basket on a desk. Nowadays, whole departments have names with the term “climate” in them. I find it hard to believe that it’s not about the money or the funding.
Jim
griff, your lack of basic understanding of the human EGO is on display. Firstly these well “educated” fools hate to admit they are wrong. Secondly, most of these researchers couldn’t get another job in any field. Do you know how many PHD’s work at places like McD’s and Tims. Hell, I know a guy from Scotland , who came here considering moving here, who had a masters, and could not find a job. There are very few positions open for those with degree, and people don’t like hiring them for jobs that they were not educated for because they know that as soon as a position in their field comes to them, they are gone. You would know such things if you ever owned or managed a company. So, these so called scientists need to keep their position viable, so they keep their job. Simple as that. Now get out some more, as your liberal leaning is strangling your intellect!
Indeed, there are some, perhaps many neo-Marxists who simply want control of the economy for political power purposes.
There’s no better way to control an economy than by seizing control of energy production & use.
Griff. A notable climate faith misanthropist, President Emmanuel Macron of France, has proven you wrong.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/10/french-president-offers-us-climate-scientists-e1-5-million-each-to-move-to-france/
The problem with government research funding is that it is skewed by political fashion. This is especially true of climate research. Scientists have to be good at phrasing there grant proposals towards the fashion du jour. They may well be doing research that connects only tenuously to the fashionable topic, but if they want to increase their chances of getting the grant, they will emphasise and even exaggerate the connection.
But is does mean that politically unfashionable research may not get funded at all.
One does not have to believe the scientists are dishonest to see that the political funding system produces unhealthy distortions.
It is hard to see the system improving as long as the time horizons of the funding sources are so short.
“This whole ‘only for the money’ thing doesn’t stack up.”
So why do you do it, Skanky?
Of course anthropogenic global warming is falsifiable! (But naive falsificationism is really silly.) Here is just one of many lists of criteria: https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/is-climate-science-falsifiable/
I beileve part of the problem is climate science is based on probabilities and there really is no traditional falsification of probabilities. If climate change does not happen, that’s because it fell into the 10% chance that the the climate might not change in the direction the theory predicted. The prediction is not 100%, but rather 90% or 95% anticipated. It’s kind of like a weather forecast—if they are within 5 degrees of the high, it doesn’t rain with an 80% chance (because there was a 20% chance—if there’s a 100% chance and no rain, that is a fail), and there is no wind when high wind was predicted, in each prediction the chance that these would not happen is built in. Medical science works the same way with “causes of diseases” and with drugs. There’s always times when the drug don’t work and the “cause” is completely absent.
Sheri, all of science is based on probabilities. Science is judgment and decision making. All branches. Always has been. Always will be. There is no absolute proof nor disproof in any science.
Look up “naive falsificationism.” Here’s a concise version: https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/a-quick-n-dirty-guide-to-falsifying-agw/
Tom Dayton September 18, 2017 at 10:24 am
Look up “naive falsificationism.” Here’s a concise version: https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/a-quick-n-dirty-guide-to-falsifying-agw/
Quoted from your link:
Have you ever heard of Newton’s theory of gravity? Well, it’s all made-up nonsense. You’ve been fooled.
The reasoning goes as follows:
1. According to the theory of gravity, objects should fall to the Earth’ surface.
2.That bird in the sky remains there, without falling.
3. Theory of gravity is wrong.
———————
No,Issac Newton’s theory of gravity says that a gravitational force exists between two objects based on their mass and distance.
Whoever writes that blogs is clueless.
Newton said that two massive bodies attract each other. Einstein falsified Newton’s model of universal gravitation, but its inverse square relationship still fits well enough for some, but not all, government work.
Newton wrongly assumed that gravitational force was instantaneous and that space and time were absolutes.
What a dreadful ignorant piece of blog.
There are ways to falsify AGW, but they aren’t mentioned there.
AGW is already falsified anyway – the last 20 years of almost no warming do that.
Indeed, the blog Tom liked to was trivial and often simply wrong. Its biggest error though is that the theory to be falsified is not CC but CAGW.
THE C is entirely MIA.
There’s no way to falsify AGW because there’s no climate model able to resolve the impact of CO2 emissions on the terrestrial climate and so test the claim.
However, there is a way to show that no one knows what they’re talking about: propagation of error through model projections, posted right here on WUWT.
This analysis shows that climate models have no predictive value at all. They can’t project air temperature for one year, much less 100 years.
Australian climate scientist Sophie Lewis’ claim that, “It is difficult to propose a test of climate models in advance that is falsifiable.” is plain wrong. It’s also self-serving.
Isn’t it convenient for Sophie that she and her colleagues all agree there is no way to test their work.
Sorry Sophie, it is easy to propose a test: propagate known errors through the model. This is standard in science, except it’s apparently unknown to climate scientists of Sophie Lewis’ ilk.
Sophie thinks Science is complicated – and doesn’t always fit the simplified version we learn as children.
Science is as it always was: theory and result.
Sophie is not doing science. She is doing liberal arts decorated with mathematics.
Sophie is elaborating a fixed narrative. She assumes what she should prove, and her every study is confirmatory.
Elaborating a fixed agenda-ridden narrative is the province of sociologists, post-modernists, critical theorists, and all the rest of the ersatz-intellectual poobahs infecting the academy these days.
Including consensus climate scientists.
Hi Pat, thanks for the reminder.
Thank-you, Eric. 🙂
Of course ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is not falsifiable. It is not a well defined theory.
The blog post you cite is completely confused. It gives a list of things which would be interesting, or some would, if they were to be confirmed, and they would indeed falsify some hypotheses, which the author never states, but its not at all clear how they relate to this undefined thing ‘anthropogenic global warming’.
I was going to explain about falsifiability but it turned into a huge essay so I have stopped. Just to say, what you need to do this is a well defined theory, probably quantified, though not always. The theory needs to be shown to rigorously imply certain predictions. The predictions need to be of things we can test to see if they happen.
So never mind this vague thing called ‘anthropogenic global warming’, instead focus on something specific, like, that the rise in temperatures since 1900 has been caused by the rise in CO2 ppm. Figure out some definite predictions this theory makes, and test them.
People are saying that when you demand this, you don’t get anything from the warmists that meets the criteria. Mostly they are very vague about what the theory they are defending is, so its hard to tell what it predicts. Then, its not clear how rigorous the entailment of the predictions is, so there are always outs when things don’t work quite right. And then finally, the predictions are often so vague that its hard to tell whether they have happened.
Look, for instance, at the famous hot spot. Is it there, does it matter? That is the kind of problem that makes people skeptical about the discipline.
Is AGW falsifiable? No, because its not the kind of thing that can be falsified. But are there far too many theories in climate science that are either not falsifiable or not being properly tested to see? Yes, probably so. Far too many to base policy on.
We don’t want to end up where we are with diet, when for years we told people to eat more carbs because it was going to be healthy, only to discover we were conducting a vast global experiment which falsified the theory by producing an unexpected rise in diabetes and obsesity.
Tom, I agree the added CO2 theory of warming is falsifiable, but some of your examples are silly because they are concerned with well established pieces of the jigsaw puzzle (like the CO2 spectrum) while the issue is how the pieces are put together.
It is impractical to model the global system on a fine enough grid to do a proper first principles representation, so intra-cell phenomena have to be finessed via hypotheses, averaging and adjustable parameters, all of which present opportunities for error. Averaging is especially hazardous because sometimes one averages away something important by doing it too soon.
The best you can do is tune the model to observables on part of the history and see if you can reproduce the rest of the history. It also helps to look for as many observables as possible. One that I don’t think has been used yet is the seasonal lag and summer-winter temperature amplitude at temperate latitudes. The CO2 hypothesis would suggest that the lag would increase and the amplitude decrease. For central England they support the hypothesis up to about 1900. After 1900, while the lag continues to increase, the amplitude fails to do so. That implies that the resistance to cooling is no longer increasing (in spite of the continued rise in CO2), but heat storage is increasing. The latter could be explainable by arctic ocean summer warming
There are good reasons to suppose that the CO2 effect may be saturated.
David,
Any relation to Jeff from Oh, living in ME?
I’ve used seasonal forcing to measure VS to insolation here
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/measuring-surface-climate-sensitivity/
And I’ve identified a regulation mechanism at night that regulates temps to dew point. Here
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/observational-evidence-for-a-nonlinear-night-time-cooling-mechanism/
Should be CS, not VS.
“…ridiculous and a bit, well, vomit-inducing.”
That’s the EXACT reaction I have when I see Graham Readfearn’s name on anything!!
“But why do so many “sceptics”, particularly those who form part of the organised machinery of climate science denial, feel comfortable in accusing climate scientists of only being in it for the money?”
Why do so many “CAGW” promoters believe in conspiracy theories? Where is this machinery? What does it do (besides magically create doubt) ? Is it like the machine in Dr Suess’ s story of the star bellied Speeches? Where a believer runs in one end and comes out a skeptic on the other?
Why do so many CAGW promoters feel the need to produce tortured metaphors based on logical fallacies and the tragedy of others to make their points? Cancer victims/doctors, hurricane victims, children? Shouldn’t all that “science” they have be their greatest weapon?
Thanks for the chuckle Eric. Happy Monday!
If a scientist discovers that CO2 does not in fact drive the planet’s temperature, will he publish his findings? Not likely. Negative findings are rarely published. Being human, the natural impulse is to find a causal relationship.
Another reality there, is the never-ending so-called climate studies, that have no finding but are utilized as proof of scientific consensus of AGW/ACC. These studies are often just wild predictions of what they want to believe would be the result of AGW; things like, the coffee crop will fail, the end of coco, runaway ragweed, frogs becoming extinct, and how motor oil might perform in a warming world.
One might wonder, in this moment, just how many new studies have been undertaking during the past few weeks, trying to connect Harvey and Irma to man-made climate change.
Only some of the climate change zealots are motivated strictly by money. So are some of the debunkers. Belief systems are complex, and attributing a single motive for any action is nearly always in error.
The green blob is notorious for denouncing the opposition as vendidos, sellouts to monetary concerns, all the time deriving a rather nice income from their advocacy. The renewable energy lobby might really believe that they are saving the world from catastrophe, but rely on legislation greatly altering the system to favor their financial interests.
Tom,
I suspect its the institutions employing the climate scientists which are probably more to blame than anyone. With so much money sloshing around for climate research, they will be pressurising departments heads and research departments to produce reams of studies to generate income.
And as all that money is predicated on proving CAGW, then they don’t want to buck the system by not getting paid for research that disproves the party line.
There have been scientific models in the recent past that have led to support by political movements. One example was Richard Nixon and the “War on Cancer”, which was associated with people at the National Institutes of Health who had a supposition that cancer was caused by industrial chemicals.
There was just enough reality to this model to get traction and funding, until it was finally realized that the model was basically useless. By the way, the researchers behind this were also one of Rachel Carson’s major sources.
California still has Proposition 65 which clings to the theory. Well, it is California.
So Nixon figured he’d roll the dice and get lots of credit if his guess was right, and no blame if it was (and who cares about the waste of the public’s money?). That’s how many politicians think and act.
It is the lobbies of renewable energy technologies and electric cars that had convinced the US Congress to pay for the Global Warmist people figuring they are saving the world of a catastrophe.
I can add that the industry and beneficiaries that have spring up around the “PM2.5 causes quantifiable illness and death” is a conjoined twin. The intersection of climate and medicine and particulate matter is one built on a foundation of estimates and statistics. As Nikhil Desai has written, there is no ‘there’ there. It is another mountain without an underlying molehill. “Equitoxicity” contains it all.
The enthusiasm for addressing ‘pollution’ has morphed over the past 40 years into enthusiasm to ‘address’ anything and everything as a means to survival for those involved. Career opportunities can be generated out of thin air, literally, by inventing new assessments of ‘harm’ followed quickly by quantifiable offers to offset said ‘harm’.
Similarly, inventing a new ‘disease’ or ‘condition’ or ‘syndrome’ opens a path to riches selling pills that counter-manage it. Is this a surprise? No.
The only aspect worthy of note is that the CAGW industry has lasted so long without mainsteam publications turning against the perpetrators. Because it is rich with political opportunities to blame enemies and reward friends, the Global Warming industry has repeatedly found new feet and different sponsors.
Even when there is an inevitable global downturn in temperature, it will be blamed on us ‘breaking the climate’ as if it was a fragile wine glass. The way out of this is not strategic letters to the editors, it is education. A knowledgeable public is harder to deceive and cheat. Thanks, Anthony, for providing a platform for education to take place.
Crispin – “I can add that the industry and beneficiaries that have spring up around the “PM2.5 causes quantifiable illness and death” is a conjoined twin.”
Interesting point on the 2.5mm ppm – As the air quality has gotten incrementally cleaner, the smailler incremental soot particles cause an incremental increase in premature death. _ The law of diminishing returns has been repealed by the scientists.
The quality of science is in the premature death studies of increases in ground level ozone –
Both Ozone and super micro particulate matter is such a minute factor in cause of death compared to other factors, that it is near impossible to fetch out any correlation.
The studies suffer from numersous shortcomings, lack of a control group, reporting data, data collection bias, far too much noise, etc.
Tom
I think you are being hook-winked, and it is not your fault. There is no substance to claims that PM2.5 at any particular concentration, and therefore PM1.0 or PM0.01 or any other size, have quantifiable links to specific disease profiles, save perhaps asbestos. The data simple doesn’t exist to support such claims. Not even in one country.
The idea that nano-particles (10-20 nanometres, PM0.010 to PM 0.020) have ‘worse’ effects on health are repeated without any proof. No such data exists. It is not just that the effects are modeled, the input ‘numbers’ at leach of several levels are themselves generated from estimates.
For example, ‘deaths’ attributed to PM2.5 (or any other size of airborne particles) are estimated based on the estimated disease incidence, which is in turn based on an estimate of exposure, such exposure based in turn on an estimate of concentrations, that are based on an estimate of emissions, based on an estimate of the mass emitted from combustion or activities that create such particles, based on estimates of the total use of such products or prevalence of such activities in a nation, all based on the assumption that all PM2.5 sized particles are equally toxic (which is obviously untrue – think: asbestos).
As soon as you hear that the resulting estimate is based on the assumption of equitoxicity, you know you are being fed a meal with no calories.
This is so far removed from reality that one can truly say, there is no ‘there’ there.
The notion that “x-% of some deaths are ‘attributable’ to this or that cause” is literally a guess, or rather a concatenation of guesses.
The biggest cheat is the claim that removing a particular contributor to all air pollution will result in the ‘saving or avoiding’ of a particular number of lives, or avoided disability adjusted life years (aDALYs). The emission trading houses are now angling to see how they can appropriate aDALYs as a new form of tradable certificate. aDALYs are the new (carbon) Black.
Crispin – read my post – I am in agreement. –
“The law of diminishing returns has been repealed” – didnt think I needed the sarcasism on that line.
Climate “science” has already been falsified, over and over and over….
CACA was born falsified.
How do you falsify the study of climate??
IMO John refers to “consensus climate science”, ie the repeatedly falsified hypothesis that “climate change” is mainly man-made and dangerous.
Appreciate that some scientists are not in the game for money but for their egos. Others once in the game begin to realize that making the “big” breakthrough that will put their name in headlines or at least as author of a journal article are rare. When it comes to medical research there are two examples that indeed some are in it for the grant money. (1) Our scientists (not medical) were having a hard time properly using statistical models. So we brought in a biometrician, one of the top folks in the field for a week of training. Their daily life was spent working with medical researchers at several prominent medical research institutes and hospitals. The reason he was contracted with them was to ensure that they didn’t lose any more grant funding do to poor research reports. He told me a lunch one day that MDs are some of the worst scientists he had every helped. They would do research then demand that he come up with statistical models that proved their conclusions. (2) In the mid-1980s, the US Senate held committee meetings on the National Institute of Health and other federal medical research funding programs. It was not pretty. I remember the head of NIH being question about a doctor who had been funded for years doing cancer research. He had a 100% failure rate. Some of his patients would apparently have lived if given other treatments and he knew it. The NIH told the committee not to worry the doctor was no longer funded to do human research. He was now working on monkeys and apparently had a similar failure rate. These were not small grants. Finally as it relates to CAGW, remember after WWII, especially are nuclear submarines became a leg of our nuclear triad, the US and UK governments dumped ever more funding into meteorology, climatology, and oceanography because they was consider of vital strategic importance. Some of that funding came straight from DOD, some through various other federal funding agencies. With the end of the Cold War it appeared the handwriting was on the wall, the money was going to dry up. Some realized that presented a problem. The timing may be serendipitous but it was about that time that many got on the AGW bandwagon.
Edwin
Thank you for that perspective. I had missed the timing. Very interesting.
Actually it mostly took off when Bush Sr hugely increased climate science research. This resulted in scientists from loosely related fields coming in, to get funded.
I don’t think all of them are in it for the money. But I’m in my job for the money, so I assume some scientists are as well. Ever known a colleague to lie and cheat at work? You’re naive if you think that doesn’t happen in climate science. Ever known someone to commit fraud? Yes, naive again. Be incompetent? Yes…that word again.
Imagine not being held accountable or having your performance assessed for 30 years. Would you keep on the straight and narrow?
Imagine being able to reinterpret data regarding your ability. Would you keep it as was?
I’m probably not as paranoid as some here, but whenever I see people trying to hide the past, guess the future as fact and link weather events to co2, I’m going to be very suspicious.
Most of the money thrown at the War on Cancer in the 1970s was wasted because the basic science wasn’t yet sufficiently advanced. There have been some successes in treatment and understanding of underlying causes of cancer, thanks to progress since we lost the war back then.
Most scientist have to sell the “why” of their research ideas as part of the grant application process. I remember hearing how some microbiology research was couched in terms of bacterial warfare (which it wasn’t) in order to get a defense-related grant 40 years ago. It isn’t restricted to climate science.
I think this explains the wave of CO2-related experiments across a wide range of disciplines (e.g. the effect of CO2 on soybean production in Serbia). There are pools of funding waiting to be tapped if you can orient your research questions to include the AGW slant, even if it is incidental to what you are really studying.
Sure it is.
It’s all in this 3-4 day clear sky data from Australia. You just need to know how to read it.
And the rates:
The high rate is all the non-condensing GHG’s plus non-condensing water vapor, Which includes all co2 forcing.
The rate starts to slow when the condensing GHG (water vapor) starts condensing and re-evaporating at around 50 or 60% RH, and peaks in the +90-95% RH range where the cooling rate is the lowest.
You mean phenomenon. Plural is phenomena.
Thanks!
De nada. Good graph, Micro6500.
Unsurprisingly either the Guardian has not heard of or it ignores Public Choice Theory. Deniers!
Governments and government employees (direct and indirect) act in ways that further their own interests.That may be money, power, prestige or their own political views. That just means they are human. The idea that people dependent on the government for funding will not support and propagate whatever view the government wants them to hold, is simply naive.
And once government decides what something is and embarks on a course based on that, it does not want to hear that it is wrong.
“To make such an argument, you would need to be deeply cynical about people’s motives for consistently putting their own pay packets above the welfare of millions of people..”
Well, yes. A wise newspaper editor once advised his young reporters when investigating crimes, “Look for the dough, or the broad. It will be one or the other.”
Since Climate Science is not known to be a chick-magnet, look for the $$.
Medical science is falsifiable AND the drug industry is trying to replicate it as a first step to producing new drugs. In most of science, nobody is trying to replicate the results and there is no incentive to do so. The replication crisis affects all branches of science but the spotlight is being shone most brightly on medical science.
Rigor Mortis is a book that details the sad story of current medical research. It points out that the vast majority of attempts to reproduce (never mind replicate) medical research fail. Half the time the results can’t even be reproduced by the original authors.
The problem isn’t greedy scientists per se. The problem is an oversupply of young PhDs desperate to start a career. They can’t get published unless their work is interesting, and there’s no penalty for being wrong.
We are told that we urgently need our students to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects. On the other hand, there seems to be an oversupply of scientists. There’s also an apparent oversupply of engineers. WUWT? Anyway, when someone puts in the considerable blood sweat and toil to get a PhD, we can’t really call them greedy if they try to launch (or continue) their career by publishing crap. Given the choice between that and driving for Uber, I know which I would pick.
Sorry, I forgot to close a bold tag. Only the word AND was supposed to be bolded.
I think they believe they are “saving planet earth”. Some may think they are “saving humanity”. So did Maoists and Stalinists. It certainly isn’t mere “virtue signalling” that causes them to be so fanatical, unfriendly, narrow-minded and bossy.
PS: I wish you conservatives would stop calling them “eco-Fascists”. If anything they are eco-Maoists or eco-Stalinists. The accusation of eco-Fascism fails because they can’t recognize themselves as any kind of Fascist. So that accusation just bounces off them. If you want to hit home with a jibe against the left, please call them eco-Stalinists (or even eco-Maoists).
“please call them eco-Stalinists (or even eco-Maoists).”
But wouldn’t that sound like a compliment to them?
Egos are huge as well. Career success depends on being on the “right” side. Curing cancer has no such analogy. Curing cancer has no political analogy, either. And if and when researchers can cure cancer, there are plenty of other medical conditions to address. What are “climate scientists” going to do?
Michael, what are “climate scientists” going to do? Asked and answered, courtesy of the Dark History of the Climate Debate:
2017
• Donald Trump inaugurated as President. In one of nature’s most majestic sights, tens of thousands of climate scientists across the Anglosphere suddenly enrol in introductory Excel courses to increase their chances of getting real jobs.
The Only In It For The Gold myth can’t help but remind you of what was probably the most famous passage in the profile piece I was privileged to write on Harvard’s Naomi Oreskes.
(To get the following excerpt, you have to understand that Prof. Oreskes—like most climate academics—either refuses to take a salary, or agrees to be paid a symbolic $1 a year for union purposes. Such is their dedication to, and confidence in the veracity of, the science that they prefer to be compensated for standing up for it once it actually comes true, and the world’s people finally recognize what the scientists have been trying to save them from.)
***
[…] Oreskes, a Harvard Professor, lists her specialized focus as “the history and development of ideas, people, rocks and science, and their future.”
Oreskes has a habit of attempting “insane” problems most of her peers would relegate to the Computationally Intractable basket—and solving them, which only calls her naysayers’ sanity into question.
“We all knew that there was this huge scientific consensus on the dangers [sic] of global warming,” she recalls. (Consensus, a word that isn’t used by scientists, simply means majority opinion.)
“But the big riddle was whether or not most scientists actually shared it.
“Of course it turned out they do, which seems kind of obvious,” she laughs, “in retrospect. but until my work on Oreskes04, nobody had even done the preliminary measurements.”
“Sure, it’s a stupid question—today,” says LLNL’s Dr Ben Santer, a fan and close friend of Ms Oreskes’.
“But what we forget is that without [Naomi’s work], it would still be an intelligent one. She’s the one who made it so stupid. It’s no great exaggeration to say she single-handedly stultified the whole field.”
Cracking the question won Oreskes a $500,000 Genius Grant from the respected MacArthur Foundation.
It wasn’t much—Oreskes likes to calculate that the average skeptical blogger makes more in a single month by prostituting their services to Big Oil—but it wasn’t the amount that mattered; it was the statement of solidarity with scientists.
“I was going to donate it to charity or whatever,” she recollects. “But then I thought, no, I don’t have any right to do that. It’s important that I, as a scientist, make the effort to appear [at the ceremony] and accept the money, not as myself, Naomi Oreskes, but on behalf of all of us.
“It may seem like small change to me, but to McArthur it was probably a year’s savings. It would have been rude [of me] to turn it down.”
““I was going to donate it to charity or whatever,” she recollects. “But then I thought, no, I don’t have any right to do that. It’s important that I, as a scientist, make the effort to appear [at the ceremony] and accept the money, not as myself, Naomi Oreskes, but on behalf of all of us.”
Naomi says she is a scientist? What kind of scientist?
She is not at scientist at all. She is a historian, like my brother. He taught the history of Chinese technology and other ‘technical’ things, but he was also never a scientist.
Naomi forms and shares her opinions. She is an opinion maker. She is not a scientist. Neither is she a social scientist. She is a historian. History will show she was wrong to deliberately slander an entire social and scientific class (skeptics) for holding, as they rightfully do, that nothing is accepted without adequate proof.
CAGW is based on weak theory and over-blown claims. History will not smile on those who promoted it without sufficient evidence. We could have already had health, education and clean water for all if humanity has not been tricked into following this “doomsday” path. She should rather have written on the eschatology of doomsday cults and how they never change through the years.
“She should rather have written on the eschatology of doomsday cults and how they never change through the years.”
I guess you missed her essay, “How we know we’re not wrong.”
As for your unwarranted impugnation of her scienciness, I’ll have you know Naomi was for many years a renowned exploitative geologian with a fearsome reputation down in the BHP Moria Mines of South Australia.
You forgot the “sarc” tag, just in case.
Crispin;
Please don’t encourage Brad. Nothing he writes is to be taken at face value and his mind is a Gordian Knot of nonsense. For example, Oreskes is not a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant. Of any sort. He imagines himself to be this century’s Jonathan Swift.
Iulius Sixtus Maximus,
no such tag is mentioned in the W3 Consortium’s HTML 5.0 Reference. Where do denihilists even get the idea it’s valid markup—is there an advance copy of v6.0 I haven’t read??
In any case, its standard usage among the denihilosphere (“/sarc”) would be inappropriate because, as I’ve explained once before [see: the Internet], it would imply I was finished being sarcastic.
DJ Hawkins,
sick set on Saturday night, by the way! You legend!
Anyway it’s been a long time since I suffered delusions of satirical grandeur.
The Daily Kos
oncetwice wrote a lengthy critique of my comedy stylings, which disabused me of the habit of likening myself to Jonathan. Swiftly.Your Epistemologicalness,
I defer to your superior understanding and trenchant analysis of all things CACAlogical.
Iulie Sixte Maxime (to use the proper, vocative case),
You’re blessed and absolved. I have my views, which are strong ones, and while nobody has the right to think differently, I’ll die for your right to think deferentially.
HUSH! We don’t want to attract new entrants to our side—they’ll bring down our wages!
(Oreskes didn’t actually say that we’re making that much, did she? You must have been kidding, right?)
Roger,
that’s exactly what she likes to calculate, and I stand by the actual factuality of my Oreskes interview. Prefaced, of course, by the usual caveats about the possibility of human error (amplified by the #distractinglysexiness of my subject).
“The idea that climate scientists are in it for the cash has deep ideological roots”
It might also have a lot to do with tax coffers having deep roots nowadays with helicopter money as well as those working in climatology being the first to cast the Big Oil cash meme at the critics of their weak science. People who live in opaque glass houses should be careful about casting the first stone.
There is a real difference between Cancer Research and Climate Research.
Cancer patients are dying every day, it is a real problem.
The Earth is not dying as a result of Climate Change, unless you believe the research based models (which are mostly based on the assumption that there has been no significant change in natural climate forcing since 1750 – ref. Fig 8.15 from IPCC AR5 WG1).
At this point in the game…..
Given what is known about temperature data and climate models,
a scientist who continues to promote AGW in any way is either:
1. Ignorant to the point of incompetence.
and/or
2. Blindly, emotionally, committed to “the cause.”
or
3. In it for the money (some people are easily bought, bear in mind).
IOW
1. Intellectually impaired.
and/or
2. Emotionally/mentally impaired (i.e., “insane”).
or
3. Sane and corrupt.
Which are you, Griff? lol
nah.
activism is for ppl too ugly to work in the pr0n industry.
the vain and impotent crave love, too, you know.
Since we don’t in general think that most scientists or indeed most working people (even journalists) are “just in it for the money”, could there just possibly be a reason why we think that way about climate scientists?
I’m curious to know?!
Because the slimate (I just made that typo and left it! lolol) scientists are telling lies (or they are pitiably ignorant, thus, incompetent) about the data and models, etc. concerning human CO2.
These lies put money into their pockets (or imagined prestige onto their reputation).
You CLEARLY need to learn much more about this issue to speak intelligently about it. Try using the “Search” box in the upper right of this page with terms such as, “CO2” “climate models” “climate change” “climategate” and the like.
Best wishes in your search to satisfy your (I assume) genuine curiosity about this issue.
If, on the other hand, you are only feigning curiosity — go jump in a lake! HAHAHAHAHAH. 🙂
If they are not in it for the money, let’s just cut-off the money.
Why do we need 100,000 climate scientists and 40 climate models and a new disaster study every day.
We don’t need any of that. We need to save taxpayers money is what we need. This is the lowest-impact, most-logical budget cut that has ever been available.
Seconded.
Chairman, please call for a vote.
All in favor of de-funding immediately all anthropogenic CO2 climate science programs please say, “Aye.”
(from minutes of meeting read out on 9/25/17: “The room reverberated with a thunderously unanimous
)
All opposed? …….{a tiny voice pipes up: “Nay.”} ……… The “ayes” have it. The motion passes. Unanimously. No, sorry, Griff. You never paid your dues, thus, you are not a voting member of this body.
Well done, Bill Illis and Crispin (in Waterloo).
Of course they’re in it for the money. And the fame, recognition, awards, professional gravitas, ego massage, political influence and all the rest of it. Who wouldn’t be? The real question is ‘are they saving the planet’? To which the by now blindingly obvious answer is absolutely not, because the planet doesn’t need saving from CO2.
They are starving the planet.
Would all of those Climate Models be open source if “Climate Scientists” weren’t in it for the money?
Have any of those Climate Models showcased their value by plugging in the current Mars’ atmosphere parameters and reporting how their output doesn’t diverge from reality?
Thomas Horner: Here are links to just some models’ codes: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/. Here are some more: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/. And here is an Apache one: https://climate.apache.org/. And there’s Clear Climate Code, which rewrote GISTEMP: https://github.com/ClimateCodeFoundation/ccc-gistemp.
You can find links to raw and processed data in some of the above pages. Also here: https://tamino.wordpress.com/climate-data-links/
And more links in lots more places. You’ve just got to spend a few seconds looking instead of speculating.
Any Earth General Circulation Model is very inappropriate for Mars (no oceans on Mars,…). But there are indeed Mars climate models that use the very same principles, and perhaps even some of the same code. For example, models are created and run by the NASA Ames Mars Climate Modeling Group to provide climate and weather predictions for all Mars missions: https://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov/mars-climate-modeling-group/. You can see the validity of those fundamental principles even in very simple models applied to Mars, such as is shown in David Archer’s book “Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast”: http://forecast.uchicago.edu/
Looking at Mars does not validate the “fundamental principles”, as you said yourself, Mars doesn’t have oceans.
And if you know about GCM’s you know why they warm, and it’s done where the do the water air boundary by either allowing “supersaturation”, or doing “mass conservation”. Both allow them to parameterize the evaporation rate. And if my history of GCM’s is right, first generation models didn’t warm with rising co2, as observation showed. So they “fix” it, and then they run hot. So they just used user defined aerosols values, since they hadn’t been measured, and used them to tune the models to observations.
It’s just not correct. Water vapor has a negative feedback response to increased non-condensing GHG warming.
Tom Dayton – thank you for your responses, I appreciate your efforts. Mostly I saw eight year old links to datasets rather than formulae based on physical laws used in the modeling. Those physical laws remain consistent between Earth and Mars correct? That’s my point, these models just need to alter their input parameters to model Mars rather than Earth, correct? Set ocean size to zero for example.
You seem to allude to this concept, although somewhat contradictory, when you say:
“Any Earth General Circulation Model is very inappropriate for Mars (no oceans on Mars,…). But there are indeed Mars climate models that use the very same principles, and perhaps even some of the same code.”
Why would using the same principles within the same code be inappropriate?
Thomas Horner: No, I did not write that using the same principles in the same code would be inappropriate. I wrote that Earth GCMs are not appropriately applied to Mars. The principles indeed are applicable, and I speculated that some of the same code might be used. But Earth GCMs cannot be adapted simply by methods such as setting ocean size to zero; there is considerably more to it than that.
Regarding the links I gave you: I was merely giving you starting points for your convenience. Yes, most of those links were published several years ago, again for the convenience of readers of those blogs, not as official links by the modeling groups. You can go directly to the sites of the individual modeling groups if you are annoyed by those links being old. Only slightly indirect is the site of the CMIP project: https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip. I was responding to your query about climate models being open source.
If now instead you want explanations of the formulas that are being coded, you can look for documentation about those models, but I suspect much of the documentation is in the comments of the code, and of course the “formulas” are the program codes themselves. Perhaps you should get a climate modeling textbook, or take a course.
Thomas Horner: I do know that the Mars model I linked to has its “formulas” documented in its Full Description document. Go to that site I linked, click the Models link at the top of the page, and proceed from there.
My second link in my (in moderation so maybe not yet visible) reply to Thomas Horner was supposed to be: http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2009/06/getting-the-source-code-for-climate-models/
Of course Climate Pseudoscientists aren’t in it “just for the money”, although the easy money, particularly from governments is certainly a perk. In most cases, establishment climate “science” is the only game in town, so they really don’t have much choice.
Anyone familiar with how research is done knows that if there is money for certain research conclusions available, that research will be forthcoming.
The meme that there would have to be a massive conspiracy is a straw man. People who do research for a living are going to go where the money is. The human capacity for rationalization when money is involved should never be underestimated.
In order to get published in climate science all you have to do is put something in the introduction or conclusions about human emissions being a problem. Rarely are those statements supported by the underlying research and data in the papers themselves. This should leave no doubt about the integrity of those authors.
Among the worst CACA pushers are Christian clergy and laity, both evangelical, like Hayhoe and Houghton, and mainstream, like the pope and the Church of England.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/12/church-climate-change-investment-great-demon-flooding
http://www.greenfaith.org/programs/environmental-justice/african-american-clergy-open-letter-on-climate-change
And not just Christian denominations:
https://www.israel21c.org/all-faiths-must-unite-to-fight-climate-change-clergy-urge/
OTOH, atheist and agnostic scientists are among the most prominent skeptics, such as Nobel Laureate physicist Ivar Giaever.
But if you want to root out idolatry, you can start with bibliolatry and blasphemous creationism.
Which is not to say that CACA isn’t a cult. Like Marxism, it’s basically a Bible-based heresy, with doom being called down upon the cities of the plain and evil, greedy humanity, thanks to original sin.
Hansen made millions off his sc@m.
Al hath made his billions …
And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.
http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-people/memorials/4719-machine-gun-corps-memorial-hyde-park-corner-10-may-1925.html#sthash.phHMPNUm.dpbs
Question , how many climate ‘scientists’ would do it for free , after all they are ‘saving the planet ‘ and it is the ‘most important thing ever ‘ or so we are told so surely given this they be willing to make a little self sacrifice.
The answer is of course not one , indeed some like Dr Doom have done nicely out of it , while others like Mann have seen the type of career a third rate academic such as himself could only dream about in any other area.
And in one way who can blame them , its easy money , no real work required , no actual need for scientific integrate or hard academic work . Stick a few numbers in a model , don’t like the results keep doing the same until you get the ‘right answer ‘ and you can push out any old rubbish and as long as it tows the party line it is straight through ‘peer review ‘ . Bloody easy life , good money and lots of free travel, so you can see why its attracts so many third raters who otherwise could not get a job.
Because skeptics are primarily motivated by greed and selfish concerns and impugn their own motivations on others.
Please explain how climate skeptics are motivated by greed. The vast majority who comment here have no economic investment in fossil fuels.
I impugn no one, but all the evidence shows that “climate scientists” are shameless liars, whatever their motives might be.
Gee you got me Bruce. I’m motivated by a greedy desire to hold grandstanding scientists to account for their expensive nonsense, to have reliable electricity, for my child to enjoy the same opportunities and liberties that I enjoy.
“Follow the money — perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.”
—Paul Vaughan (07:53:54)
That’s true, but it’s also true that there is a conspiracy. It was known before the Climategate emails, but they showed it beyond any shadow of a doubt.
You can argue about the motivations of the conspirators, but that there is a conspiracy is not in doubt.
David Rothschild was quoted publicly stating that climate change was not about the environment. It is about global governance. I doubt there are many climate scientists publishing in support of that or even aware that is what this is really about.
Alarmists like to argue that in order for AGW to be false everyone would have to be in on the conspiracy. That is not how conspiracies work. Useful idiots are bought with money, favors and a compelling reason why what they are doing is important. Saving the planet and sticking it to big oil have enabled rationalizations by many activist scientists.
Follow the sex — left-wing women who have affairs with politicians / scientists are highly influential. Once you’ve got a taste of the honey it’s mighty hard to stop — you’ll shift your convictions if necessary.
The tide has turned.
Help, I Can’t Stop Hooking Up With Trump Supporters
https://www.glamour.com/story/hooking-up-with-trump-voters-essay
I love some radical leftist claiming it’s all some radical right fault. It’s the same as her other two books trying to scapegoat the right to fluff her leftist ego. So we have a biased lying historian/sociologist entering the climate debate, she fits right in.
Mr. Readfearn writes;
“You would have to think that scientists were not motivated to help their fellow human beings, but instead were driven only by self-interest.”
Nope, you’d just have to think that scientists are human, and that all humans tend to be self interested, which is to say “corruptible” under the right circumstances . . (with some humans being downright narcissistic, and hence corruptible under just about any circumstances ; )
Mr. Readfearn does not seem to have any problem at all with that basic concept, as evidenced by his accusatory treatment of “climate deniers”;
“But why do so many “sceptics”, particularly those who form part of the organised machinery of climate science denial, feel comfortable in accusing climate scientists of only being in it for the money?”
And this (loaded) question leads to the “suggestion” that people are corruptible after all . . though apparently just some people . . fortuitously not including these writers, public servants, or climate scientists . . And it comes down to some “toxic” ideas, apparently involving the potential inclusion of folks like these writers, public servants, and climate scientists, in the corruptible class of humans . . and a secret plot kinda dealeo, to sneak that toxic idea into young impressionable minds . . who wander out of their designated safe spaces I guess ; )
Self interest is why capitalism works and socialism/communism does not. History proves this quite well. It is also why private enterprise in a capitalistic system works and government not so much while governments all tend towards fascism/crony capitalism. See “communist” China and/or the USA. Look where they started and where each is now.
“You’ll have heard that line of argument about cancer scientists, right? The one where they’re just in it for the government grant money and that they don’t really want to find a cure, because if they did they’d be out of a job? …”.
===================================
Obviously a false analogy, climate hysterics of Readfearn’s intellectual caliber constantly employ the full panoply of logical fallacies.
The fundamentals of IPCC science haven’t progressed in 26 years despite billions wasted directly plus opportunity costs.
Settled Science™ doesn’t need any further investigation or funding.
I’m not suggesting that Readfearn and his ilk use logically fallacious arguments cynically or knowingly, I’m sure they are completely unaware of it.
I cannot understand the obsession with Griff. He appears to have a thought disorder but every time he appears on WUWT, he has a massive fanbase (!) trying to convince him of the error of his ways rather than discussing anything remotely sensible.
Why bother with Griff?
Sixto (and readers in general),
If someone tells you Jesus Christ is not their Lord, you can pretty much be certain they are telling you the truth, since Jesus said he would deny those who deny him, so actual “believers” are not going to tend very strongly not to deny he is Lord . . as evidenced by very many Christians who went to their (often gruesome) deaths rather than deny Christ.
On the other hand, if someone tells you Jesus Christ is their Lord, you can’t be at all certain they are telling you the truth . . could just be trying to impress or fit in, or even be “wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing” . . Additionally, the Book warns very clearly of false preachers and false doctrines (definitely) arising, so there’s no easy way to even know if a person (or denomination) is Legit, so to speak.
On the face of it, the CAGW is a silly idea to a person who believes God Created the world “to be inhabited” by us, and left vast amounts of extremely handy fuels all over the place. Trying to pass this crap off as something Christians are prone to believe, is weak in the extreme, to my mind. Trying to pass it off as something atheists/non-believers are going to have much inherent resistance to accepting is just plain goofy, to me. There’s nothing in the way . .
PS ~ I can’t think of a dumber strategic move that someone who actually desires for the CAGW train to be slowed/stopped could make, than to alienate/insult the majority of Americans . . so, I naturally suspect Sixto is a fifth columnist here to make “climate skeptics” seem like anti-christian bigots (basic divide and conquer stuff) . . Don’t be dumb now, folks ; )
Actually, John, your beliefs on creationism have been treated rather well on this site. Most rather religious people, including myself, are not your particular flavor of biblical literalism .
You are fairly reasonable on other issues, so just lighten up.
John,
You are wrong on every score.
The majority of Americans do not adhere to your blasphemous cult. More likely that you are a plant to discredit skeptics, tarring us all with the brush of your antiscientific, satanic drivel.
At most, one third of Americans are Young Earth Creationists (much lower among the better educated and influential), and the percentage of those who are persuadable on CACA is much lower. Hence, the only smart play for skeptics is support reality and the und#niable fact of evolution. Along with the educated, YEC belief is also practically nonexistent among the young, so the future belongs to those who accept both science and true religion, rejecting the false religions of CACA and Young Earth Creationism.
Your cult has blinded you to reality. So many here have tried to help you see the truth, but the truth is not in you because the professional, paid liars of the Discovery Institute and other imps of Satan have gotten their hooks into your soul, and will gleefully drag you down to Hell.
I was raised Catholic, not that it matters, but converted to Lutheranism before marrying my wife, who comes from a long line of Lutheran pastors. I can confidently state that I’m a lot more familiar with the Bible and with real Christian theology than you, who have swallowed satanic lies, hook, line and sinker.
Tom,
“Actually, John, your beliefs on creationism have been treated rather well on this site.”
How would you know?
“Most rather religious people, including myself, are not your particular flavor of biblical literalism .”
How do you know what my “particular flavor of biblical literalism” is?
“You are fairly reasonable on other issues, so just lighten up.”
Well, thanks, I guess . . but I have no idea, since you didn’t say, what you are thinking I was too . . dark, about.
Sixto,
“You are wrong on every score.”
Color me skeptical ; )
“The majority of Americans do not adhere to your blasphemous cult.”
The majority self identify as Christians, and I really don’t care in the slightest what you (or any human(s) consider blasphemy . . it kinda creeps me out that someone actually thinks I might ; )
“At most, one third of Americans are Young Earth Creationists …”
Makes no difference to me, but if they believe in a Creator God, they are all creationists, by definition.
“Your cult has blinded you to reality.”
Apparently you think I’m a “Young Earth Creationist”, but I’m not, I just don’t rule out the possibility. God is able to make whatever He wishes to, as I see the matter, and that includes making a whole other planet just like ours, tomorrow if He feels like it . . which would be a week old next Tuesday if He did ; )
PS ~ I consider those who claim to be scientific thinkers, yet consider something no one observed (even in the fossil record sense) to be an undeniable fact, lightweights ; )
“Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.”
Imagine the tin foil hats flying around if the above book’s title had said:
“Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Left’s Stealth Plan for America.”
I’ll have to check the book out to see what evil plan the radical right has for America…
Falsify the AGW conjecture and the majoriety of funding will go away because one is left with the conclusion that the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. The AGW conjecture depends on the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect but such an effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. But most “climate scientists” reject the truth because to accept the truth will put them out of a job.
As others have observed, the AGW conjecture cannot be falsified in the short-to-medium term. The fact that it is thereby disqualified as ‘real’ science is of no importance to the faithful. Any twig, no matter how frail, will do for the display of one’s cherished beliefs.
It must be realised that the truth is essentially unimportant. What counts is the ability to effectively communicate one’s message — black, white or brindled. AGW is practically an ideal source of funding. By the time it has been irrefutably falsified the beneficiaries of this con-job will be dead, retired or sucking on another public teat — perhaps AGC.
Science, generally, is in a truly parlous state. Only those branches strictly regulated by empirical considerations may be regarded as (mostly) inoculated from the epidemic of bullshit that has so thoroughly infected everything else.
Sure it can. I did it.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/observational-evidence-for-a-nonlinear-night-time-cooling-mechanism/
Too many people have zero circuit analytics skills.
You heard the one about the moral super socialists?
The one where theoretical arguments were made about how social reforms needed to be carried out for the good of society. The one where they didn’t really care about the people in the here and now and had to change it for the future of all mankind.
Ahh you think I am talking about climate warmists but I am talking about Karl Marx and his minions that slaughtered millions.
Or how socialist farms were to feed more than the millions they needed to but instead starved millions of people at hand.
So HOW do you ask that we would believe these warmists would claim they were saving the planet but lining there pockets? Because we have seen it many times before!
This fails also because they are being adjusted often to take into account previous wrongs. Trying to correct previous wrongs doesn’t confirm they were right, until all the wrongs are right. Only until without changing anything and they agree several decades later would there be possibility of being right. Even this could be just coincidence and not confirm for sure. Anything else is thinking they are correcting wrongs while actually not even knowing if they are.
The climate models had already failed for decades so the theory was FALSE.
Consider polar bear scientists, rather than climate specialists, which I wrote about four years ago:
http://polarbearscience.com/2013/11/25/polar-bear-researchers-are-they-protecting-the-bears-or-their-own-jobs/
Arctic research is expensive (and always has been) and long-standing funding issues are at least partly to blame for the fact that after 40 years of research, only two subpopulations (Southern Beaufort and Western Hudson Bay) have good long-term polar bear population data. But even they have gaps in long-term data that appear to come from lack of funding some years.
I concluded that: “Having a designation of “threatened” or “endangered” automatically makes more government funds available for any species: more permanent jobs, more dedicated grant funds and much improved chances of being awarded large research grants.”
This suggests a good reason for the majority of polar bear specialists to be on board with pressing for the notion that polar bears are threatened with extinction due to future effects of global warming, even when it became clear that the response of bears to declining sea ice was NOT as clear-cut as they supposed.
As of 205, the more they insisted that the bears were in peril, the sillier they looked. But they don’t really have a choice now: if they let the global warming meme go there will likely be even less money for research than there was in the 1980s.
It’s not money for extras, for feathering their nests: it’s money for their professional survival.
And I’m absolutely sure they are not the only specialists who absolutely depend on the funding generated by adherence to the global warming blame game.
I commented on the article yesterday and I also put forward groupthink as the explanation. I also chided the author on the junk science in the last paragraph.
That is indeed a straw man. Many of them are not scientists at all, and are only in it because it is a source of easy money for them to pursue their first love, politics.
You don’t see many leading biomedical scientists continuously carping on about how their work proves we must dismantle the entire economic and energetic basis of the industrial revolution.
Then we come to the false-equivalence: You also don’t see cancer researchers trying to burnish their subject by comparing it to climate science. It stands on it’s own merits. People know and believe cancer is a problem that needs real solutions/treatments to be developed. By contrast, Climate “scientists” all too frequently appear to be people with a ready-made political solution, forever try to prove that there is a problem. Big difference.
Lastly, incompetent or crooked medical researchers don’t get to continue selling false cures to the public for very long. The company eventually goes bankrupt or they get put in prison, and the worst offenders still only affect a limited number of people for a limited amount of time. By contrast, climate science nakedly and unashamedly targets every person on the planet with their schemes. Yet not one of them has ever been held accountable for the failures of their monolithic “science”. A supposed science that brooks no deviation from the core tenets handed to the populace like Moses coming down the mountain.
“its” not “it’s”
Graham Readfearn….. say no more!!!
Yes, climate signintists are only in it for the money, otherwise tracking weather would be their hobby not a cash cow.
Fame, Fortune and Funding- 3 big words for scientists of all persuasions. Once they are seduced by the easy money for sprouting climate rubbish, they can not go back until after they retire in many years, by which time society will have collapsed from the weight of the deception.
They know that once they are enmeshed in the web of lies, there is no going back without the risk of being beaten to death by the long suffering People.
We see the classic liars’ tactic-lies to support lies to support lies. Then, eventually the penny drops when it is all getting too ridiculous and you realize it was a load of baloney based on a half truth from day one.
Alas, some people have their pennies welded to them or are just too stupid to see the Emperor is wearing no clothes.
It could make a good research project-what made you see that the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming/ “climate change” thing was a load of baloney and propaganda and how long did it take from first reading about it and presumably initially believing to see it as a load of rubbish. Another part of the study could involve surveying who has looked beyond it being mere garbage to unveil the web of deceit-UN treachery etc.
Take note, climate science is not the only science for hire out there. Dental and medical industries are rife with tainted research.
The appreciation of academia and also of the public civil service in general has been compromised in my opinion too.
And yes, it can be ear-marked to the government-backed climate scientists due to their anti-mankind missions during the past three decades.
And Nancy your have now declared your hate against people in public and also revealed who you target the most – people defending liberty somehow.
For this reason in my opinion you have a devastating war between your ears. Spare the people around you. Please stop disseminating your inner feelings against groups of people. It’s against the UN declaration of human rights. Seek professional help Nancy.
Another scam with hurricane Maria is on the way. Touted as cat 5 storm by NHC, it is in reality a cat 1-2 hurricane. Buoy 42060 is directly in the path of the storm, until now just 46.6 kts http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42060, with max projected winds 83mph https://www.windy.com/16.428/-63.173?16.298,-63.322,9,m:d6xaepR,a:ICqGU
Been watching Maria since she formed. All the hype on TV does not match what she is actually doing, the fearspewingheads keep proclaiming she is precisely following Irma’s course when actually she is tracking well to the south. Have had nullschool earth running for 3 hours watching her track, and MIMIC-TPW2 72 hour map, Maria is not doing what TVtwitts keep claiming.
Sadly, that’s not surprising. I truly fear the hype on these storms will end up killing people when they stay put because after the last 3 storms, the AUTHORITIES (those trustworthy folks—not) told them danger was on its way then little danger actually occurred. The truly sad thing is these news people and others will never take the blame for what they did, even though they will definately have blood on their hands. These people have no souls or have sold them to the dark side.
“Buoy 42060 is directly in the path of the storm”
No it’s not … now.
It’s drifting….
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/nws_special/42060.txt
“Station 42060 went adrift on 9/19/2017 and the last report from its moored position was at 1400Z. It is still transmitting valid observation data, which continued to be reported here, but not from the location above.”
YYYY MM DD hh LAT LON WD WSPD GST WVHT DPD BARO ATMP WTMP DEWP VIS TIDE
deg kts kts ft sec mb degC degC degC mi ft
2017 09 19 19 16.2661 -63.2023 171 45.5 59.4 99.0 99.0 9999.0 999.0 999.0 999.0 99.0
2017 09 19 18 16.2367 -63.1979 184 49.7 65.3 99.0 99.0 9999.0 999.0 999.0 999.0 99.0
2017 09 19 17 16.2334 -63.2087 197 55.2 74.8 99.0 99.0 9999.0 999.0 999.0 999.0 99.0
2017 09 19 16 16.2648 -63.2456 230 54.8 74.0 99.0 99.0 9999.0 27.0 999.0 27.0 99.0
2017 09 19 15 16.3322 -63.2410 311 69.0 93.0 99.0 99.0 9999.0 26.7 999.0 26.7 99.0
2017 09 19 14 16.3788 -63.2093 4 55.9 75.8 99.0 99.0 9999.0 26.6 999.0 26.6 99.0
2017 09 19 13 16.3926 -63.1997 15 52.3 73.2 99.0 99.0 9999.0 26.2 999.0 26.2 99.0
2017 09 19 12 16.3936 -63.2004 10 47.0 64.7 99.0 99.0 9999.0 26.4 999.0 26.2 99.0
2017 09 19 11 16.3946 -63.2007 17 43.5 61.2 99.0 99.0 9999.0 26.6 999.0 26.2 99.0
But still managed a gust to 93kts @ 15Z
LOCATION of Maria at 18Z …16.6N 63.6W
” ” Buoy at 18Z 16.2367 63.1979
Makes it 32nm away to SE of the centre at that time.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT5+shtml/191757.shtml
“Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from
the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to
140 miles (220 km). During the past few hours, the eye passed just
north of NOAA buoy 42060, which reported 1-min average winds of
85 mph (137 km/h) and a wind gust of 94 mph (151 km/h).
The estimated minimum central pressure is 927 mb (27.37 inches).
NOAA buoy 42060 reported a minimum pressure of 955.7 mb
(28.22 inches) as the eye passed.”
they don’t really want to find a cure, because if they did they’d be out of a job
I once had the CEO of my company ask me for the “final software” because we have to ship this product.
I have to be very careful, here. I work for a US Government regulatory agency. Occasionally, we employ the services of one of the Federally Funded Research and Development Corporations (FFRDCs). A few years ago, we contracted with an FFRDC to assess the environmental impacts of a combustion process associated with an activity we were licensing. On the same day that the company applying for the license announced its plans, a “scientist” from the FFRDC published (with great fanfare) a paper he had written on our contract. It “showed” that there would be a significant effect on global warming from the activity, though that conclusion was provisional: the actual conclusion of the paper was a recommendation for $6 million more funding to study the “problem.” I had never seen a technical publication which ended by begging for more money, and was incensed that this person as strayed so far outside his charter.
After reading the paper, and marking its numerous, significant errors (such as assuming 60 times the foreseeable process activity), I held a teleconference with him and his boss. He walked through his “process,” which was to take several computer models (none of whose workings were known to him) and concatenate them as a front loader to a General Circulation Model. The one and only piece of “data” from the real world that he used was an eyeball estimate of the optical density of the combustion products, which he got from a picture on the internet. One of the computer models he used I knew to be worthless because: 1) despite tens of millions of dollars effort, no one had ever been able to produce an accurate model of the combustion phenomenon in question; 2) The results were false on their face, since the combustion process would not have been able to do what it did with the results he used (elementary thermodynamics). His immediate response was “Do you have a peer-reviewed source?” I had no answer. Do I need a peer reviewed source for F=ma? It’s pretty much that basic.
He got really snippy, and said “WELL! If you don’t like the way I do science, point out where I’ve gone wrong.” I responded “The first time I see you ‘doing science’ I’ll gladly oblige. Until then, your contract is canceled, and we want our money back.”
We got our money back, but this little p****’s boss still stands behind him. Which is why I’ll never use them for anything again.
Don’t try to tell me that they aren’t in it for the money. That’s all it is.
“Climate Scientists are Not Just In it for the Money”
Of course not. There’s the fame, the girls, the leather, the machismo.
IN ANY FIELD THERE ARE THOSE WHO DO REAL WORK TO LEARN MORE, AND ALSO THOSE WHO JUST BLOW SMOKE TO GET MORE MONEY. Grant money is very significant for the biggest lies. For the honest ones who don’t blow smoke, they don’t set off the alarm bells and don’t get the big bucks by using false data to rip off the government. It is like anything else. The con men can get some big bucks by faking the data. Those who don’t, may not get much. The government rewards and brings out of the woodwork the worms who can spin the biggest lies. — CGL, Ph.D.