A Tribute to Independent Science and the Power of Curiosity
Forrest M. Mims III is a name that should be familiar to anyone who values empirical science, skepticism of institutional gatekeeping, and the power of independent research. He’s also a regular commenter here on WUWT, having become a fan of what we do.
I first got introduced to him via some of his books that were carried at Radio Shack stores such as the Engineer’s Mini Notebook and Getting Started in Electronics. I still have both.
His latest book, The Maverick Scientist, (available on Amazon) is both an autobiographical account and a testament to the value of observational science—something increasingly overlooked in today’s world of model-driven speculation and institutional orthodoxy.
Mims is best known for his work in electronics and atmospheric science, despite lacking formal academic credentials. His contributions to Scientific American, particularly his Amateur Scientist columns (back when the magazine was actually about science), and his pioneering role in developing scientific instruments make him a fascinating figure in the history of independent research. But perhaps most notably, he was infamously denied a position at Scientific American due to his religious beliefs—a stark example of the biases that pervade supposedly “objective” scientific institutions. This book delves into that episode and many others, making a strong case for why science should be open to all, not just those with the right credentials or ideological conformity.
A Life of Scientific Inquiry
Mims recounts his lifelong passion for experimentation, from early childhood tinkering to groundbreaking research in atmospheric science. His journey includes designing altimeters for model rockets, inventing devices that have been used by NASA, and—perhaps most relevant to today’s discussions on climate—his work measuring atmospheric aerosols and ozone using simple yet effective optical instruments.
His research, particularly on atmospheric turbidity and the effects of volcanic eruptions on solar radiation, underscores an important lesson: much of climate science depends on direct, real-world observations, not just theoretical models. Mims demonstrates that critical atmospheric data can be gathered with relatively inexpensive tools, a point that undermines the mainstream insistence that only large-scale, government-funded research projects are legitimate.
In my opinion, the best part of the book is the section on atmospheric optics and his design of the LED Photometer
One of the most fascinating sections of The Maverick Scientist is Mims’ groundbreaking work with LED photometers, which he used to measure atmospheric aerosols, water vapor, and ozone. Unlike conventional scientific instruments costing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, Mims developed a highly effective and affordable alternative using simple light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
The core principle behind his LED photometer is remarkably simple yet ingenious. LEDs, when used in reverse, can act as narrow-band light detectors. Each LED is sensitive to a specific range of wavelengths, making it possible to measure atmospheric components like aerosols and ozone by analyzing how much sunlight is absorbed or scattered at different wavelengths. By calibrating these devices and comparing them to more expensive commercial instruments, Mims demonstrated that his low-cost method was highly accurate, but even more important, easy enough for almost anyone to build and use.
His experiments, conducted over decades, yielded valuable insights into atmospheric transparency, solar dimming, and aerosol concentrations. One of his most notable findings involved tracking the effects of volcanic eruptions—such as those of Mount Pinatubo in 1991—on atmospheric clarity. He documented how aerosols injected into the stratosphere caused significant reductions in solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, a well-known but often underappreciated natural factor affecting climate variability.
Mims’ photometer also allowed him to measure changes in atmospheric water vapor, an often-overlooked but critical factor in climate science. Unlike carbon dioxide, water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere, yet its variability and role in cloud formation remain poorly understood by climate models. Mims’ work provides a valuable empirical dataset that challenges some of the overconfident assumptions in climate modeling, particularly regarding feedback mechanisms.
He writes on his Facebook page:
35 YEARS OF MEASURING THE SKY
On 5 February 1990, I began using homemade instruments to make near daily measurements of the ozone layer, total water vapor, and the optical depth of the sky caused by dust, smoke, and air pollution. The latter two measurements were made with the first LED sun photometer, which works as well today as it did 35 years ago.
You can see all of its 35 years of data nearby. Note the two encircled regions showing the effects of the historic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 and the even more historic underwater eruption of Hunga Tonga in 2022.
The first 30 years of data along with multiple graphs were described in “A 30-Year Climatology (1990–2020) of Aerosol Optical Depth and Total Column Water Vapor and Ozone over Texas” published by Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Notice the slight downward trend in the graph. He writes in the abstract of his paper (bold mine):
Reduced air pollution caused mean AOD (Atmospheric Optical Depth) to decline from 0.175 to 0.14. The AOD trend measured for 30 years by a light-emitting diode (LED) sun photometer, the first of its kind, parallels the trend from 20 years of measurements by a modified Microtops II. While TPW (Total Preciptable Water) responded to El Niño–Southern Oscillation conditions, TPW exhibited no trend over the 30 years.
UPDATED: Here is Figure 4 from the paper.
That lack of a trend in TPW blows a hole in the idea that climate change is causing a positive water vapor feedback effect. So much for climate models.
What makes this research so significant is not just the scientific insights, but the broader implication: high-quality atmospheric data can be gathered without the need for multimillion-dollar government grants or institutional approval. This democratization of scientific tools is something the establishment rarely acknowledges because it undermines the monopoly they have over climate data and interpretation.
One of the book’s most compelling themes is the tension between independent scientists and the scientific establishment. Mims doesn’t shy away from discussing how institutional science often dismisses contributions from “outsiders,” even when their data and methods are sound. His own exclusion from Scientific American is a prime example, but the broader implication is clear: scientific consensus is often shaped by social and political pressures rather than pure empirical evidence.
This is a theme I’ve observed time and again in climate science. Researchers who challenge the prevailing narrative—whether on temperature reconstructions, climate sensitivity, or the role of natural variability—are frequently belittled and sidelined, not because their data is flawed, but because their conclusions don’t align with the orthodoxy. Mims’ story reinforces the need for a truly open scientific discourse, where ideas are tested on merit rather than suppressed for ideological reasons.
Mims’ work in atmospheric optics is particularly relevant in an era where climate science is increasingly dominated by models rather than real-world measurements. His efforts in developing sun photometers and tracking atmospheric aerosol content highlight a crucial point: empirical observations remain the foundation of good science.
For instance, Mims’ studies of post-volcanic atmospheric effects provided key insights into how natural events influence climate. This is a vital counterpoint to alarmist claims that all observed climate changes are anthropogenic in origin. If a single volcanic eruption can significantly alter atmospheric conditions for years, what does that say about the climate models that often fail to account for such variability?
The Maverick Scientist is an inspiring read for anyone who believes in the power of independent inquiry. It’s particularly relevant for those of us who question the prevailing narratives in climate science and other politically charged scientific fields. Mims embodies the spirit of open, empirical research—something that has been increasingly sidelined in favor of institutional control and politically convenient conclusions.
His book is also a reminder that science is not the exclusive domain of PhDs working at government-funded institutions. Some of the most important discoveries have come from those outside the establishment—Galileo, Tesla, and now, in the modern era, independent researchers like Mims. His story is a call to action for amateur scientists, skeptics, and anyone willing to challenge dogma with data.
Final Thoughts
Mims’ The Maverick Scientist is a refreshing and necessary book at a time when scientific debate is too often stifled by institutional gatekeepers. It highlights the value of observational science, the dangers of ideological conformity, and the enduring power of curiosity-driven research.
The story of his LED photometer alone is worth the read—it’s a prime example of how simple, cost-effective scientific tools can provide critical data that challenges prevailing assumptions in climate science. That kind of empirical work, not speculative modeling, is what science should be built upon.
For those who believe that science should be a field of open inquiry rather than a rigid orthodoxy, this book is a must-read. It’s a tribute to independent thought, a critique of scientific elitism, and a guidebook for anyone who wants to pursue real science—regardless of credentials.
Anthony’s Rating: 5 out of 5
Bonus review: his other book on his work at the Mauna Loa Observatory
For readers interested in atmospheric science, The Maverick Scientist pairs well with another of Mims’ books, Mauna Loa Observatory: Hawaii’s Global Laboratory. This work documents his time researching at the famed atmospheric monitoring station on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, where key climate and atmospheric measurements—including the famous Keeling Curve tracking CO₂ concentrations—are recorded.
In Mauna Loa Observatory, Mims details how he used his LED photometers to monitor aerosol optical thickness, a crucial measure of atmospheric clarity that affects solar radiation reaching the surface. His findings at Mauna Loa reinforced his earlier discoveries about volcanic aerosols, confirming their significant influence on global temperature fluctuations. Importantly, his work also raised questions about inconsistencies in mainstream climate data collection, particularly regarding long-term atmospheric trends. By showing that affordable, independently built instruments could match or even outperform expensive government-funded systems, Mims once again highlighted the value of empirical science over institutionalized gatekeeping.
His experiences at Mauna Loa further illustrate one of the key themes in The Maverick Scientist: independent researchers can and do make important contributions to science, often in ways that challenge the prevailing consensus. His atmospheric observations serve as a reminder that natural variability, such as volcanic activity and solar radiation fluctuations, plays a major role in climate—something that many model-based climate projections tend to underestimate.
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Probably a critical but generally overlooked part of the process elucidated by Mims – “I learned this lesson the hard way while testing my first twilight photometers . . . “.
Like John Tyndall, who spent months calibrating his hand built galvanometer (and learning the hard way that some insulation dyes were magnetic).
The present crop of “climate scientists” would not have a clue about the difficulties involved in carrying out worthwhile experiments. They just draw data from other sources, assuming it is accurate or relevant, and play with it, pretending it’s “scientific”. They appear to learn nothing – not even the easy way, by observing that the hottest surface temperatures occur where the GHGs are least! Or that removing CO2 from air does not result in a change of temperature.
All credit to Forrest Mims.
I was recently reading Chamberlin’s “multiple working hypotheses” which has been commented on here but he had much depth beyond just that. I don’t think he said it directly, but I got the impression that the point is that it doesn’t work without care and clarification of all of them. He indicated that one can still can pick one like I saw in one paper with “Ruling Theory” as he explained was in operation then (circa 1900). It seems very similar to the current situation in a number of fields. I guess science got spoiled more than once with different materials like the model fad now. His mwh may be a little faddish now as there are numbers of citations and a few papers on it available online. He has lot’s of interesting writings, even criticized Kelvin. Too many temptations now away from the necessary field work and observations and stubborn authorities reign tall with a system that supports it. My source was Mather and Mason’s “Source Book in the History of Geology,” 1939, that covers several dozen scientists, even Darwin. I inherited it from my geologist uncle.
T C Chamberlain’s MWH should be a basic text in any scientific discipline. The problems is that it necessarily significantly increases the effort, time and cost of any research. So it is not applied. My suggestion, which could be applied in today’s world, is that all research papers should include a brief discussion on other competing hypothesises.
I’m not sure that it requires significant conscious effort because I find myself automatically coming up with good reasons to reject some alternative hypotheses, thereby reducing the total to a manageable size.
“multiple working hypotheses” sounds strikingly similar to analysis of alternatives, which is critical to engineering.
T.C. Chamberlin’s “Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses” was required reading in my Geology courses at Boston College. It strongly shaped my use of the scientific method as a geologist over the years, especially when inductive reasoning was required, by putting me into the habit of asking, “How many ways could what I see in these rocks have happened? Of all those possibilities, what evidence supports each one?” (But it also deprived me of the comfort of discarding any evidence that didn’t fit my favorite hypothesis.)
I strongly recommend it https://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/chamberlin65sci_72744.pdf.
Thank you for the link. I had not previously seen the addendum about the history of the paper.
I have, on more than a couple of occasions, recommended reading Chamberlain. I’m glad to see that at least one person has taken the time to do it.
Like for Nevada_Geo, it was required undergraduate reading for me in my geology curriculum. All of my professors, except probably my geophysics professor, were UC Berkeley graduates. So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that, at least prior to the 1960s, Chamberlain was also required at UC Berkeley. I’m unaware of the same undergraduate reading requirements for any other discipline besides geology.
I have always learned from the work of Forrest Mimms.
This article seems to conflate the impact of volcanic eruptions, which is measured in years, to influence on climate change, which is measured in three decades or more. A volcano eruption effects weather, but not so much climate.
My memoir discusses Pinatubo, Raikoke, and Hunga Tonga. Pinatubo reduced global temperature by a degree or so for a year. Its sulfate aerosols lasted more than 7 years. Hunga Tonga may prove to be far more important than realized, for it injected more water vapor directly into the stratosphere than any prior volcano. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas, and one recent paper predicts it will remain in the stratosphere for more than a decade.
All true, but consider the IPCC definition of climate change: “A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.” The impact of a single volcano eruption is transitory, measured in years, and thus not a climate change forcer.
“Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas . . .”, unless, of course, it is thought that adding water vapor to air makes it hotter.
The opposite is true – less water vapor between the Sun and the surface, more radiation reaches the ground, higher temperature results. Death Valley and arid deserts like the Lut have the highest surface temperatures – and the lowest water vapor concentrations.
Adding CO2 to air (or even replacing air with 100% CO2) does not result in a changed temperature.
Would you agree?
I think the conflation comes from the way humans perceive temperatures. In high humidity the skin is not able to evaporate /sweat and cool the skin. The air feels ‘sticky’. As opposed to higher temperatures and ‘dry’ air that poses less of an issue and have the opposite effect. Of course that is all relative..
It’s pretty simple. Use a thermometer. Even using a Stevenson screen is designed to act like a perpetual dense cloud, shielding the thermometer from the Sun. Place the thermometer in direct sunlight, and watch the temperature rise.
You mentioned “air temperature” before, and John Tyndall’s experiments supported his hypothesis that dry air, purged of CO2, absorbed infrared radiation, which heated the air.
Given that at certain temperatures and pressures, H2O might absorb 1750 times as much infrared radiation of a specific wavelength compared to dry air, but there were 2500 times as many dry air molecules, one fairly easily works out that dry air would absorb more infrared radiation than the CO2 it contained.
I guess he is supported by ChatGPT, which after spewing out a copious amount of misinformation, finally admitted –
“In absolute terms:
and promptly refused any further interaction. In a fit of pique, perhaps? Just like a “climate scientist”!
A plus, but replacing air with 100% CO2 might have other consequences.
CO2 is so much heavier, that atmosphere convective properties would change.
Not to mention an atmosphere of 100% CO2 can not exist unless the oceans are drained and the land is dried of H2O.
Result? No life.
Which is why the theoretical idea of changing CO2 while keeping everything else constant in experiments or models is not practical.
What matters is that total water vapor has a trend of zero over my site for 35 years. Other sites I have checked have similar trends for 20 years. Water vapor is essentially ignored by the IPCC and the modelers.
Alarmists commonly point to the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship as a red flag for the future climate, without recognizing that it is not a prediction for total water vapor, but an upper-bound. As I have pointed out elsewhere, to achieve the potential, there has to be a large source of water vapor from evapo-transpiration. There is a reason that West Texas has the kind of vegetation that it does. Plants are water limited in much of Texas;
Yup. Really hot locations are characterised by a severe lack of water vapour. Death Valley, Lut desert etc.
No increased rain due to higher surface temperatures that I can see.
It is obvious that reducing water vapour results in higher temperatures, not lower ones, as John Tyndall observed over 150 years ago. “Climate scientists” really need to advance past the 17th century.
But water vapour is not exactly a gas now is it? Moreover, it does other things besides what happens under straight gas laws, wouldnt you agree?
Honest questions..
From Wiki:”Water vapor, water vapour or aqueous vapor is the gaseous phase of water.”
How is WV not “exactly a gas”?
Water vapor is a gas.
What exactly are the “other things”?
Clouds are droplets.
“But water vapour is not exactly a gas now is it?”
Of course it is. “Water vapour” is just an archaic term for gaseous H2O. Just like “fixed gas” instead of gaseous CO2 (to distinguish it from cold, solid, CO2.
Now some people claim that gaseous H2O emits and absorbs infrared, while oxygen and nitrogen do not, which is purely self-serving misinformation.
After a couple initial incorrect statements, even ChatGPT got it right –
“In absolute terms:
And then promptly refused any further interaction without payment. Pay for more misinformation? Unlikely.
Gaseous H2O is exactly a gas, with a density of 0.804, lighter than air, with interesting results. Winds, cumulus clouds, atmospheric instability and so on, may occur due to the physical properties of the gas.
No, I do not agree.
The definition of climate is a long term running average of weather. If an event affects the weather, it changes the average and by definition changes the climate for the duration of the averaging interval.
Any change to the average is climate change. So even when a volcanic eruption disturbs the weather for 1 or 2 years, it affects climate change calculations for 30 years (or whatever the time metric applied is).
And there may be subtle changes that are not as obvious as temperature, yet because of all the feedback loops, still has an influence.
“That lack of a trend in TPW blows a hole in the idea that climate change is causing a positive water vapor feedback effect. So much for climate models.”
Well, firstly that is a measurement at Seguin, Texas only. It may be that location has been getting drier.
But he is measuring AOD, not TPW, and confusingly says:
Reduced air pollution caused mean AOD (Atmospheric Optical Depth) to decline from 0.175 to 0.14“”
I have measured both AOD and TPW since 4 Feb 1990. My 30-year paper in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has the charts and all details. Air pollution strongly impacts AOD, as you can see in the BAMS paper cited in previous sentence.
The graph presented is AOD.
Fig. 19 in “Maverick Scientist” shows a 30-year time series chart of total column water vapor over my Texas site.
Nick, I suppose you are still trying to imply that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is responsible for hotter thermometers.
It’s not, and anybody who claims otherwise is unable to demonstrate experimentally that adding CO2 to air raises its temperature, is dreaming.
Are you a dreamer?
MF pulls his foot out of bucket and says it’s gravy…with an emphatic “prove it’s not”…
“It’s not, and anybody who claims otherwise is unable to demonstrate experimentally that adding CO2 to air raises its temperature, is dreaming.”
Are you a dreamer too?
Here you go Nick, since you were too lazy (or maybe unwilling?) to look at the paper that was cited, I’ve provided the Figure 4 graph for you. Of course, I’m sure you’ll find something to complain about with this too.
Humans had been using opium for all of recorded history with very few complaints. Opium and opium derivatives were banned from the US in 1914 by the Harrison Act. There were no recorded deaths from opium or its derivatives until 1921, 7 years AFTER the law was passed.
Opium and its products were cutting into alcohol sales in the US, people didn’t get drunk from it or have hangovers and its effects was similar to alcohol and it could be smoked and was more pleasant than tobacco.
The US got the UN to ban opium and its derivatives worldwide resulting in around 500 million to a billion of deaths worldwide from tobacco and alcohol products worldwide.
to the author
“Maverick Scientist” does not discuss opium or its derivatives. Nor is alcohol discussed.
Is this a mis-post? Opium is not the subject of this article.
Apparently, alphabet soup is taking opiates.
Very nice.
I remember reading Forrest’s column on his telling someone at Bell Labs about LED’s being good photodetectors, then finding out that the folks he talked tried to patent the idea. I also remember the SciAm fiasco.
Astronomy is one branch of science where amateurs are often given credit for new discoveries.
This is hardly worthy of bolding given that it was for a single location over land.
The RSS TPW data set I have does not even bother with land. It focuses entirely on ice free oceans because that is where most of the atmospheric water is turning over. That data shows most of the SH has static or declining trend while most of the NH has increasing trend; as high as 1.6mm per decade in the northern tropics..
The oceans is where the energy gets stored so TPW over the oceans reflects the rising surface temperature.. Land is where the ice accumulates or reduces. Only Greenland has increasing ice extent and is gaining elevation.
“The oceans is where the energy gets stored . . . ” Sorry, but that’s misinformation. The oceans are heated from below, and any energy received from the Sun during the day is radiated away at night.
Unless you can show facts to the contrary, of course.
The oceans are heated by absorbed sunlight, down to about the thermocline. Plank radiation at IR wavelengths trying to radiate upwards will get absorbed immediately, except at the surface boundary with air, where it is free to radiate upwards until it encounters an absorbing molecule. If the sun were to stop emitting, the mixed layer would continue to lose heat upwards, but it would take more than just one night, unlike the queen of Troy. [If the allusion is not immediately recognized, read The Trojan Women by Euripides.]
I personally suspect that submarine volcanoes and spreading centers play an unrecognized, important role in warming the oceans. However, I haven’t seen good evidence to support the idea. If you can point me to some, I’d appreciate it.
Any water warmed by sunlight will expand as a result, and become less dense. It will float to the surface, or warm other water as it rises, cooling in the process.
The least dense water is always at the surface, the densest at the bottom. Now, even during 6 months of polar night, the sea does not freeze through. No deep body of water does. The basins containing the water is always warmer than the densest water, due to the small but continuous flow of geothermal heat from the interior.
Any heat from the Sun is completely dissipated as the heated surface water radiates to space eventually, loses energy, cools, contracts becomes denser, and sinks, allowing the less dense water beneath to rise to the surface and repeat the process.
The mid-ocean ridges provide some spectacular (to me, anyway) photographs of glowing magma in direct contact with ocean water. You are right, nobody knows how much heat is given to the oceans, nor has anyone any idea of how much heat hydrothermal vents contribute, nor undersea volcanism.
Suffice it to say that this “cold water sinks at the poles, and trundles around the bumpy surface of a sphere to the Equator” meme is just daydreaming by people who should know better. About as silly as claiming that deep ocean currents are caused by surface winds – particularly when currents above each other may be flowing in opposite directions!
Just fluid dynamics – chaos at work. No GHE, either.
That, along with the wind, accounts for the Mixed Layer above the thermocline. I doubt that the Mixed Layer can be completely overturned or mixed in 12 hours or less. That would require vertical currents of 33 to 167 meters per hour for a round trip, top to bottom and back to the top directly. Any turbulence or less than vertical motion would require even higher speeds. I find your claim improbable.
Oceanographers have established the presence and speed of the ‘bumbling’ bottom currents.
Or, increased windiness, or both.
So true.
Science is the opposite of Sausages.
It doesn’t matter how pleasing the end product is. All that matters is how well it’s made.
Good review, Anthony.
I remember reading Mr. Mims articles in Scientific American.
Then Scientific American started promoting Human-caused Global Warming (after failure in their promotion of Human-caused Global Cooling in prior years) and presenting speculation, assumption, and assertions as established facts, and I could only take the pushing of this “New Speak” for so long, and then they lost all credibility for me, and I had to cancel my subscription in the early 1980’s.
I didn’t know that Mr. Mims had been blackballed from Scientific American for religious reasons.
Yes, if you don’t follow the scientific orthodoxy, you become a target for those who do.
The only scientific magazine I still subscribe to is Astronomy Magazine.
I just took a look at the April 2025 issue. It appears to be a special issue focused on Human-caused Climate Change.
Katherine Hayhoe is the author of the lead article in the magazine, titled “Solving the Climate Equation” It looks like Astronomy is importing Scientific American’s chief Human-caused Climate Change Propagandist to write an article for them.
Astronomy’s editor, David Eicher, says this in his note from the Editor: “Science tells us that climate change is real and is changing the planet–and more to the point, its potential habitability–at breakneck speed”
Of course, there is not one shred of evidence showing that CO2 is changing the planet or its habitability (which is what he means by climate change). Where do you get this notion, Mr. Editor?
Keep this pseudo-science up in Astronomy and you are going to have one less customer. Not that this would matter to a True Believer like this editor, but I’m not going to pay for pseudo-science, not to mention getting angry every time I see someone like this editor, who should know better, yet still believes in fairy tales..
Promoting speculation, assumptions and unsubstantiated assertions as established facts is why I quit Scientific American, and that may be why I quit Astronomy, if they keep this pseudo-science up.
Trump gets elected and True Believers double down on stupid.
I always wonder at what point do people believe a form of ‘settled science’? And when do i myself believe it? One thing for sure is that the higher the complexity and number of variables the higher the uncertainty. I believe gravity exists and i think there might be a simple explanation for it. But, as always, it might actually not be that simple.
So, when people state or say they have ‘solved’ the climate ‘equation’, read atmospheric system you KNOW they are lying or pretending to know. Science doesnt stop. We have some basic laws of physics. These are not enough to simply ‘solve a puzzle’.
I just went and read that article by Katharine Hayhoe.
“Promoting speculation, assumptions and unsubstantiated assertions as established facts…”
Agreed. What a load of it.
I haven’t read it. I can probably tell you what it says, though. The same old BS (Bad Science) she always puts out, since there is nothing new under the Sun when it comes to Climate Alarmism.
Last month, Astronomy magazine had an “expert” replying to reader’s questions, telling us how CO2 was the reason Venus was as hot as it is.
If one gets irritated every time one opens the publication, why would one continue? Astronomy magazine has made me feel irritation two months in a row over false claims about CO2! Stop it! Give us Astronomy! Leave the climate change crap to Scientific American.
FWIW, Astronomy magazine was bought by Firecrown almost a year ago along with all the other Kalmbach (Camelback?) magazines except for Discover. The guy in charge of Firecrown, Craig Fuller, is very engaged they’ve acquired and so far has been keeping most of staff from Kalmbach. Craig is also paying attention to the subscribers.
My impression is that the heirs of A.C. Kalmbach lost interest in managing their publishing empire, which started with Model Railroader in 1934.
Thanks for that information.
I used to love the railroad magazines. I worked for a railroad. The busiest single-track, train order railroad, west of the Mississippi river. We were second busiest in the nation behind a small railroad up in the Northeast, but that railroad operated on Centralized Traffic Control, not Train Orders, Dispatchers and Operators. It was the Missouri-Kansas and Texas Railroad, commonly referred to as the Katy Railroad.
There was an article in Trains magazine in the early 1980’s, about how efficient our 1,500-person railroad was. I worked as a Station Operator and a Dispatcher, and I enjoyed the hard work thoroughly. 🙂
What I didn’t enjoy was when the Katy Railroad was bought out by the Union Pacific Railroad. I learned just how big a difference there was between a 1,500 person workforce, and a 15,000-person Union Pacific workforce.
It was a rude awakening. The Union Pacific Railroad was so inefficient that I don’t know how they make a profit. They couldn’t keep track of their engines or their crews.
I went to work the night the Union Pacific took over control of the Katy Railroad. I went in at midnight for my shift and a train was pulling down the main track and stopped there, and that same train was still sitting there eight hours later when I went home. Normally, the train would not even stop, it would just slow down enough for the inbound crew to get off, and the outbound crew to get on, and then away they go!
The reason that train and every other trains up and down the line were sitting still is because the Union Pacific would not allow me to call the train crews to work, which was one of my normal jobs, but the UP wanted the crews called from their headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, instead, and they couldn’t get the job done all night long! It was a fiasco! They cut my job off not too long after that and I must say, I was happy about it (I had another job lined up:).
One of my jobs was scanning trains as they went by the Station, making sure the cars were lined up the way the train list showed and noting the engine numbers as they came by.
One day I was watching a train come by and it had an engine on it that was not on the train list. So I called the Katy Chief Dispatcher and told him what I had, and he said, “Are you sure about that?” I said yes. then he said let’s get the UP Chief Dispatcher on the phone, and he asked me the same question, Was I sure about that?
I realized later that they were entering the engine number into their computers and the engine showed to be sitting in the State of New Mexico, when it was actually going by my window in Oklahoma.
So the UP didn’t even know where this engine was. About a year after I left the UP I heard they were spending millions of dollars on 100 new engines, and thought to myself, they could have probably saved themselves a lot of money if they used the engines they had more efficiently.
Yeah, I don’t know how the UP stays in business with that slow-to-respond bureaucracy. Obviously they do stay in business so it must have a large margin of error.
The Katy Railroad could run circles around the UP railroad. If they had been smart, they would have left the Katy intact after the buyout, and we would have run every train they could throw at us faster than anyone else. But, they were not very smart and no doubt failed to make profits that were there.
And btw, note that none of the UP stations between New Mexico and Oklahoma spotted that missing engine. It was only when that train got on the Katy Railroad, that it got spotted.
I think that there is a corollary to The Peter Principle, for individual workers, that speaks to corporate bureaucracy. Despite becoming less efficient and effective as the company grows, it seems that most big companies have passed the threshold for being too big to fail. Look at Boeing!
Yes, and Boeing just won the contract for the U.S. military’s new, next generation fighter jet, the F-47. 🙂
That is disappointing news. I hope a lot of subscribers express their displeasure to the editor for substituting things unrelated to astronomy — unless maybe Hayhoe was talking about Milankovitch Cycles. 🙂
Astronomy magazine has not touched on the subject of Human-caused Climate Change in the past except for something like an expert answering a reader’s question by saying CO2 caused Venus to be so hot.
No specific articles on the subject until this Hayhoe article.
I think President Trump’s election is what spurred this Hayhoe article. The Astronomy Editor is obviously a True Believer, and I think inviting Hayhoe to write an article on CO2 is in response to Trump’s election and Trump’s position against CO2 reduction.
The True Believers are trying to fight back against Trump.
I hope this Hayhoe article is the last one we will see in Astronomy magazine on the subject..
It seems to me that there has been an upsurge in recent weeks in ‘news’ articles about anthropogenic warming. Yesterday, I managed to have six of my comments on the same article deleted after apparently being published by MSN, preventing me from understanding what the censors were objecting to and changing it. Although, I suspect the reason for the deletions was that the factual criticisms were too persuasive.
I quit subscribing to SA in the 1980s also.
Me, too.
I also quit subscribing to Science News and the National Geographic at that same time.
All of them were presenting speculation, assumptions and unsubstantiated assertions about Human-caused Climate Change as established facts. Which irritated me to no end. And still does. 🙂
“This democratization of scientific tools is something the establishment rarely acknowledges because it undermines the monopoly they have over climate data and interpretation.” (my bold – DD)
I greatly appreciate the ability through the internet to locate and acquire a trove of observed data and of modeled values. This near-miraculous transformation from restricted storage to wide-open access is a very powerful change over the last few decades.
And so far, I can document my interpretations and put it out there freely for anyone to critique. So kudos to WUWT and even to Youtube (so far, in my case) and to X, and to all platforms that support free inquiry.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI8vhRIT-3uaLhuaIZq2FuQ
Congratulations to Forrest Mims on the book.
Mr. Mims were you the subject of a CBS, I believe, 60 minutes segment?
A big Thank You to Forrest Mims! When I was a teenager I became obsessed with integrated circuits. Forest Mims book “the practical guide to integrated circuits” got me started and I became a Radio Shack junkie. The 555 chip, 7490, 7447 on and on it was a never ending quest to make circuit boards and create timers and displays. Forrest Mims was my hero, thanks Anthony for highlighting all his tremendous books.
I’ve been a Forest Mims fan for a long time, article after article, always something new.
I’ve always wondered if Forrest Mims had any interaction with Don Lancaster.
“I first got introduced to him via some of his books that were carried at Radio Shack stores such as the Engineer’s Mini Notebook and Getting Started in Electronics.”
Ditto, and several more of his booklets. Worked for an electronic scale outfit in the first part of the 1970’s. Sort of ‘borrowed’ several circuits from the books. For someone who was introduced to electronics in the days of vacuum tubes, I learned solid state from his books. Thank you Forrest.