Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Willie Soon – Michael Mann has complained about Climate “Deniers” being given a platform, when speaking at an event held to honour academics targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954.
Academic freedom lecturer takes on claims of climate change deniers
By Safiya Merchant
The University Record
Renowned climate scientist Michael E. Mann took on those who deny climate change and highlighted the importance of acting to combat this environmental threat during Tuesday’s University Senate Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom.
Speaking to a full crowd at the Law School’s Honigman Auditorium, the Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University and director of its Earth System Science Center, said those on the front lines of the climate change debate “were dealing with fake news and alternative facts before they were in fashion.”
Throughout his lecture, Mann dissected the ways in which climate change is often portrayed as a debatable phenomenon.
For instance, when climate change is a news show topic, producers will host a scientist alongside a “climate change contrarian,” even though a vast majority of scientists agree climate change “is real, it’s human-caused, it’s already a problem,” he said.
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He was speaking at the 27th annual lecture that honors three former U-M faculty members — Chandler Davis, Clement Markert and Mark Nickerson — who invoked their constitutional rights when called to testify before a panel of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954. All three were suspended from U-M. Markert subsequently was reinstated, and Davis and Nickerson were dismissed.
In introducing Mann, President Mark Schlissel said he hopes U-M will always be “an unalienable forum for discovery, debate and discussion — a place where respect and disagreement are complementary, where each makes the other stronger and where we all advocate for and learn from their confluence.”
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Read more: http://record.umich.edu/articles/academic-freedom-lecturer-takes-claims-climate-change-deniers
A few questions Dr. Mann.
If the evidence for the threat of anthropogenic climate change is so overwhelming, why are you so adamant that “contrarians” should not be allowed a public platform for rebuttal? Surely greater publicity for the positions of contrarians and their “fake news and alternative facts” as you put it is the best way to expose any falsehoods?
Even if you believe climate skepticism is the fossil fuel conspiracy which Mann claims, think about previous high profile public debates, such as the debate about the link between smoking and lung cancer. Ask yourself; did the anti-tobacco campaigners win by preventing well funded tobacco advocates from speaking? Or did anti-tobacco campaigners challenge tobacco advocates, provide evidence to back their claims that tobacco is a health risk, and force tobacco advocates to reveal the weakness of their position in public?
Perhaps Dr. Mann is worried that allowing his opponents to refute climate advocate arguments in public debate reveals the weakness of his position.
We’ll all be wiser when Mark Steyn’s $20million countersuit is adjudicated. The countersuit locks in discovery. If Mann decides to drop his suit because he doesn’t want to meet discovery disclosure, the 20million is the price to pay to keep his secrets. Either way, the cat is out of the bag!
Maybe the Team or the whole consensus will take up a collection and pony-up the 20 big big ones.
I don’t understand. I thought this thing was for Scientists.What’s Mann doing there?
Renowned climate clown Micky Mann suffers from the Dunning Krueger effect, among other things. He is also a pathological liar, appearing to believe all of his lies. His grasp of reality is so pathetic, it’s a wonder he manages to dress himself in the morning.
Dressing is probably easier when you have two faces.
I pity him. I pity all who think they are “successful” for the wrong reasons. A day of judgement before Truth does come.
Mann seems to be hoping he can buy time, and die first. I’m not sure this is wise. Probably it is better to be scolded by fellow scientists here on earth, than to escape judgement here on earth and face the consequences in the hereafter. Of course, Mann is likely hoping like heck there is no such thing as a “hereafter”. I just am very glad I’m not in his shoes. What he calls “success” is something I am repelled by.
Certainly dressing without style, Bruce.
“…those on the front lines of the climate change debate “were dealing with fake news and alternative facts before they were in fashion.”
Here Mann shamelessly displays his faux martyr complex, portraying himself and his cohorts as brave warriors instead of the vile lying hucksters they truly are.
Don’t hold back, Bruce! I’m with you 100%!
When it comes to Mann , I wonder what color the bus will be that his ‘friends’ throw him under to save themselves. Such is the ‘quality’ of the Mann . Lets hope it is going to arrive soon.
I don’t know what colour the bus is that they ride around in but I’m pretty sure its a short one.
None of his climate fear ‘friends’ filed supporting information in his lawsuit. I wonder who is footing his legal bills.
And by extension, Mann’s research quality is not debatable.
It’s not debatable for him, since the cowardly charlatan refuses to debate. He only sues.
Al Gore rhythms make Man(n) a pile of cash from hot air …
I myself believe that Mankind’s burning up the Earth’s very finite supply of fossil fuels is not such a good idea and I was hoping to use human caused global warming as another reason to conserve. The AGW conjecture at first seems to be credible but upon closer examination it is full of holes and I cannot defend it. The most glaring problem with the AGW conjecture is that the radiant greenhouse effect upon which it is based has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. Since the radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction, the AGW conjecture must also be science fiction. I keep reading explanations of global warming and the so called greenhouse effect on the Internet and I keep retorting that No!, the climate system does not work that way. The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science. The idea that H2O provides a positive feedback ignore’s the fact that H2O is a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere as evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate. If CO2 really affected climate then the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years should have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened. The computer models they have been using have the idea that more CO2 causes warming hard coded in and hence beg the question. All this computer work has been of no value and should be thrown out. It is nothing more than a sophisticated form of make believe.
Well, about fossil fuels. You also have to recognize the massive benefit they give. Cheap, abundant, and reliable source of energy is one of the basic needs of modern life which we unfortunately all take for granted. And currently only fossil fuels can give that. Without it society regresses back to the middle ages. And trust me. Life was NOT good back then. This is something that the media, politicians and the public has been ignoring for decades. We take all modern conveniences (medicine, infastructure, electricity, cars, etc.) for granted but without cheap, abudant and reliable energy we either can’t have them or they will be much more expensive. The so called “green” energy still isn’t as good enough. I believe that if everyone would just instantly switch over to “green” “renewable” energy it would be very bad, just like Germany’s example showed.
And there is no evidence that the fossil fuels are running out. People have been saying that for decades and yet we keep finding more. In any case, I believe that free markets and human ingenuity are the best ways to deal with any resource scarcity, just like history has showed, not forcible conservation by the governments.
People have been saying that the “world is getting worse” for decades, yet the evidence is on the contrary, which makes me hard to trust people who say such things. Everyone who has read history will know that life has improved dramatically in the last 200 years. If anything, fossil fuels are overall a very good thing, and if we want to give them up, we need a VERY good reason to do that. All the predictions about Global wa.. I mean climate change (or is it, climate “disruption”? They keep changing the label, it’s hard to keep track) have turned out to be false. UN and the politicians keep pushing the “point-of-no-return” deadline back and never apologize when they turn out to be wrong. And of course every single storm and every single refugee are these days schitzophrenically blamed on humans as if hurricanes, wars and refugees never happened in the past. And even if they are getting worse that doesn’t mean we should get rid of fossil fuels, because the wealth they give allow us to deal with them in the first place. But unfortunately so many people have been tricked into this simplistic black and white thinking where fossils fuels are evil and everything else is good. And if you try say anything people like Mann call you a heretic and try to shut you up, which should be disgusting behaviour no matter which side you are on.
There have been a considerable number of comments here talking about the specific physical processes in the atmosphere (Good). Many of them have been talking about IR photons (Bad).
A better understanding of the actual physical phenomena taking place will be gained if we consider only electromagnetic waves. Photons are not real. They are an invention of the human mind in an attempt to explain certain experimental results which did not fit with electromagnetic understanding at the time. Constructing a ficticious massless particle in our minds was supposed to help understand some stuff but the wave-particle duality idea is a just that, a fiction, it is not real.
Try explaining everything about the atmosphere in terms of e.m. I am sure you will get nearer the underlying truth if you do so.
Well, wave are not real, either. They too are “an invention of the human mind in an attempt to explain certain experimental results”. Actually all physical concept are just that. Even mass (so a massless thing is no more imaginary that a thing with a mass). Never forget the implicit sentence beginning ALL scientific discourse:
“to the best of our knowledge, everything happen as if…”
Totally agree and that the acronym CLIME explains that our scientific theories are the:
‘Current Least Incorrect Modeled Explanations’ of the universe that we are part of.
Another well known saying is that ‘The Map is not the Territory’ comes to mind; any modelling of our home planet is just a gross explanation to high orders and cannot possibly model every nth order of influence.
What sometimes surprises me is how well known mainstream fellow scientists will currently beat the CAGW drum because the majority of others do, and to mention an different explanation will probably put them out of work; mind you climate systems (Milankovitch cycles etc) are probably beyond mankind’s timescales on this cooling 3rd rock.