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Paper; Global Warming "The Biggest Science Scandal Ever"

NationalTitles15 said:
Ever wonder why so many articles in support of and so few that are skeptical?
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Those links are from a pretty hard fringe. I don't think she is any better than the next person at figuring out what is going on, but Judith Curry at Georgia Tec has a really good grasp of the real pressures being put on scientists and is willing to share it. Her blog is one of the sides I try to read every once in a while to get some balance to what is reported everywhere else:

http://judithcurry.com/
 
NationalTitles15 said:
Ever wonder why so many articles in support of and so few that are skeptical?
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Fewer and fewer scientists disagreeing with the status quo could be consistent with some kind of widespread and insidious suppression of ideas, but you know, it's also consistent with having the right answer.

"Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies."
- Scott Westerfeld



​
 
NationalTitles15 said:
So there are several scientists who support the "consensus" of a small survey sample of scientists actively trying to squeeze out dissent or not? Nothing else matters in regard to this one question.
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Sorry, but I'm having trouble parsing this question. If you could rephrase it for my benefit, it would be much appreciated. I'll answer to the limits of my understanding though.

Science is not supposed to be a debate where people lend their perspectives. Take the Cook et al 2013 study for instance. The consensus represents the agreement of over a thousand independent climate scientist's research. The consensus is not a coercive agent.

Further, let's discuss Curry's statement here:

When politics and ‘consensus’ enforcement come into play, it becomes very difficult for scientists to publicly change their mind.
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This is a clumsy argument by assertion. If scientists come up with counter-consensus or revolutionary findings they can easily put them into the literature by simply presenting the evidence. They don't have to rock any boats to change the paradigm.

Example. Consider Watson's and Crick's 1 page paper where they said in the last sentence:

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.
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Could be considered controversial, and certainly revolutionary, if understated, as it essentially changed the way we understood life.

If a research group comes up with a result that refutes the consensus they can publish regardless of any pressure on them to not do so if they are skilled at writing papers, and they would rush to do so because they would immediately attract the approval and funding from some very rich industries.

Or are we suggesting that all the journals of the world are conspiring to suppress this covert dissent, along with pretty much all of the governments?
 
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Have scientists attempted to use the power or suggested using the power of government and/or professional bodies to destroy the credibility, ability to make a living, or to jail skeptics or as you would say "deniers"?

In others, has there or is there an effort underway to silence skeptics or "deniers"?
 
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NationalTitles15 said:
Have scientists attempted to use the power or suggested using the power of government and/or professional bodies to destroy the credibility, ability to make a living, or to jail skeptics or as you would say "deniers"?

In others, has there or is there an effort underway to silence skeptics or "deniers"?
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Thank you for rephrasing.

I do not believe there's been been much effort to silence legitimate scientific inquiry that holds a skeptical position. Willie Soon and Richard Lindzen still have no trouble getting published, after all. Even that kook Monckton managed to get a paper through peer review. Skepticism is the very basis of science and still does go on in the climate science field, despite all the denialists like Curry that claim any dissent is ignored or punished.

Regarding the meteorologist in France, I would not personally be bothered if he wants to release a book filled with long since debunked stupidity regarding climate science. What would bother me, were I his boss, is writing an open letter picking a fight with the president of the country and public criticism of me, his employer. If I had an employee that had done that, he's not going to get good vibes from me and I'd tell him to knock it off. If he continued, I'd have to let him go.

To take it a step further, he worked in a position of authority and trust, a TV host in his case. No one should be allowed to abuse that trust. Example. If I had a biomed tech go into patients' rooms and start railing against the evils of modern medicine, how we're lying to them and how likely it is they'll come to harm in our care, he would be gone. His opinion may be protected, but his platform is not. Bye.

But let's parse the suggested RICO investigation, shall we? It was suggested in an effort to reign in the disinformation campaign funded by several corporate entities. No individual denialists were named or were to be prosecuted. This sort of nonsense.

I had to chop the link. There's a profane word. It's called "Silencing the Scientists." Should be able to Google it easily.

Another Fox regular is Marc Morano, the former aide to Republican Senator James Inhofe, founder of the most malicious anti-science blog, and the man who said climate scientists deserve to be publicly flogged. Last April on Fox News, Morano launched a virulent attack on Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University, calling him a “charlatan” and responsible for “the best science that politics can manufacture”. When Morano singles out a climate scientist for attack on his website he includes their e-mail addresses and invites his followers to “get in touch”. Many of them do.
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Morano and his blog are funded by The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which is an Exxon funded think tank.

Dr Kevin Trenberth, head of analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, turned over to university security 19 pages of “extremely foul, nasty, [and] abusive” e-mails collected in the four months after the Climategate storm broke. Another prominent climate scientist had a dead animal dumped on his doorstep and now travels with body-guards.
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Scary.

Stephen Schneider, an eminent climatologist at Stanford University who died a few months ago, said last year that he had received hundreds of threatening e-mails. Exasperated he asked: “What do I do? Learn to shoot a magnum? Wear a bullet-proof jacket?” He believed that a scientist would be killed, adding: “They shoot abortion doctors here”. They shoot Congresswomen too. When his name appeared on a neo-Nazi “death list”, alongside other climate scientists with apparent Jewish ancestry, the police were called in. Schneider said he had observed an “immediate, noticeable rise” in e-mails whenever climate scientists were attacked by prominent right-wing US commentators.

Paul Ehrlich was quoted in Nature saying: “Everyone is scared ....less, but they don’t know what to do”. The story noted that the bullying and threats intensify after anti-climate science rants from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Marc Morano and Steve Milloy. Except Limbaugh, they are all either employed by Fox News or appear often on the network.

Michael Mann of “hockey stick” fame said the same about the hate mail he had received: “I’m not comfortable talking about the details, especially as some of these matters remain under police investigation,” he said. “What I can say is that the e-mails come in bursts, and do seem to be timed with high-profile attack pieces on talk radio and other fringe media outlets.”

The most influential “fringe media outlet” vilifying scientists is Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. Cyber-bullies and Fox demagogues are not the only ones out to punish Mann for his work. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has attempted to use state fraud laws to force the University of Virginia to release huge volumes of documents and correspondence in an attempt to show malfeasance by Mann when he was employed by that university (he is now at Penn State). Cuccinelli claims that Mann had defrauded taxpayers in seeking grants for his research, but had no evidence to convince the court to grant subpoenas. A lawyer for the American Association of University Professors has said that Cuccinelli’s suit has “echoes of McCarthyism” and will deter others from undertaking climate research.

The campaign of harassment against scientists took a sinister turn last year when Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe called for some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists to be investigated for criminal violations. A document prepared by his staff on the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works claims scientists mentioned in e-mails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia are guilty of manipulating data and obstructing its release. It lists federal laws they may have violated and names 17 climate scientists whom Inhofe claims should be investigated for possible criminal prosecution.

One of those listed, Raymond Bradley, the director of climate science research at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, responded: “I am worried about it, I have to say. You can understand that this powerful person is using the power of his office to intimidate people and to harass people and you wonder whether you should have legal counsel. It is a very intimidating thing and that is the point.”
The accusation of criminality against leading climate scientists takes the denialist campaign of harassment and intimidation to new depths, and immediately conjures up images of McCarthyism. In November 2009, Inhofe’s fellow Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin wrote to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) demanding that scientists whose names appear in the stolen CRU e-mails be blacklisted from all further work with the IPCC.

According to Scientific American, deniers in Congress have used their offices to send “intimidating letters” threatening dire consequences to scientists working on climate change. One of the recipients, NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt, said: “That is chilling the work of science in the agencies. It’s certainly very off-putting for scientists who want to talk about their stuff in public but fear the political consequences. Nobody wants to create an enemy on the hill.”

In an editorial last March on cyber-bullying, Nature reported on Senator Inhofe’s attempts to criminalise climate scientists before commenting: “As a member of the minority party, Inhofe is powerless for now, but that may one day change.” That day came last November with the mid-term elections in which the Republicans, powered by a surge of support for the Tea Party, won a majority in the House of Representatives. Before the election Climate Progress noted that “every single GOP [Republican] Senate candidate now either denies climate science or opposes even the most moderate, business friendly, Republican-designed approach to reducing emissions”.

With the elections, both houses saw a flood of new representatives who are climate deniers. “Of the freshmen Republicans … 36 of 85 in the House and 11 of 13 in the Senate have publicly questioned the science.” McCarthyite congressman James Sensenbrenner is now the deputy chair of the House Science Committee, which plans to investigate the veracity of climate science.

“I personally believe that the solar flares are more responsible for climatic cycles than anything that human beings do,” Sensenbrenner said, as if the role of solar flares were a matter of personal belief and had not been thoroughly investigated by climate scientists. Suddenly Senator Inhofe appears less isolated and fanatical.

A series of inquiries has exonerated the scientists whose e-mails were stolen, and affirmed that there is nothing in them to undermine the science. If you read them, what the hacked UEA e-mails reveal is the enormous external pressure climate scientists work under. They show they have constantly been accused of being frauds and cheats; their work has been twisted and misrepresented; and they have been bombarded with vexatious freedom-of-information requests orchestrated by denialists.

"It’s certainly very off-putting for scientists who want to talk about their stuff in public but fear the political consequences" Gavin Schimdt

In short, they were caught up in a hot political debate that they did not really understand or want to be part of, yet they were the target of savvy, secretive and ruthless organisations ready to pounce on anything they said or wrote. This is the real story of Climategate. Instead, the scientists in question have seen their professional reputations trashed in the world’s media for no cause. After the media storm and a series of death threats, the head of the Climatic Research Unit Dr Phil Jones was driven to the point of suicide.

Moves are underway to suppress the dissemination of climate science. Last year the South Dakota legislature passed a resolution calling for “balanced teaching of global warming in the public schools of South Dakota”, the type of resolution that now sees creationism taught alongside evolution in some states. The draft resolution noted that the climate is affected by “a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological and ecological dynamics”. The inclusion of “astrological” and “thermological” effects suggests a woeful understanding of science.
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Climate scientists routinely have there work undermined, their credibility attacked, are threatened with criminal investigation by government officials and even their very lives threatened by crazy people all due to a sophisticated disinformation campaign funded in part by entrenched business interests, all in the interest of undermining the science and swaying public opinion. I think a RICO investigation into these matters isn't too much to ask.
 
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NationalTitles15 said:
literally tldr, but i think you turned it back around without really answering the question directly...
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tl;dr :rolleyes:

Did you speed right by the second paragraph?

I then expounded on two examples.

NationalTitles15 said:
...and tried to justify the use of government power for punishing personal politics and opinion.
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Wrong. What I want investigated is the threat of government power already being used to threaten folks like Michael Mann, and the baseless accusations of fraud and other alleged misdeeds by agents typically funded by industry which lead to threats against life and limb, including things like dead animals on doorsteps and direct threats of violence in correspondence.

I can post it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
 
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AUDub said:
tl;dr :rolleyes:

Did you speed right by the second paragraph?

I then expounded on two examples.



Wrong. What I want investigated is the threat of government power already being used to threaten folks like Michael Mann, and the baseless attacks by agents typically funded by industry which lead to threats against life and limb, including things like dead animals on doorsteps and direct threats of violence in correspondence.

I can post it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
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You are completely hopeless. I give up on you. To ignore you go,
 
NationalTitles15 said:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-clean-about-climate-study-info/?intcmp=hpbt3

Repub in Congress wants emails regarding new NOAA study that claims no slowing of global warming, contradicting other studies. Democrats cry foul. NOAA refuses to release documents regarding study.
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From the article:

The NOAA says it has provided all necessary documents and data as well as multiple in-person briefings -- but made clear it does not plan to provide the private communications of scientists due to a long-standing practice in the scientific community of keeping such information private in order to encourage open discussion.
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Smith's office has been provided with the raw and corrected data, the methods and a personal accounting of the rationale behind them. What he's after is their private correspondence. If he wants proof that they "fudged the numbers," he need look no further than the data already in his possession.

This witch hunt will serve its purpose whether or not he finds any witches to burn. The purpose is to put a chilling effect on communication between scientists.
 
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Global warming warriors warn that inaction will produce political instability and civil war in Africa and elsewhere. But it is also conceivable that a really determined West could use the aegis of some UN-like global agency to create a standing military strike force to bomb or drone countries into compliance. Humanity’s very existence would be at stake, after all. (President Al Gore, anyone?)
The tragedy of current efforts to combat global warming is that in order to avert a tragedy they'll cause one.
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http://theweek.com/articles/584216/why-climate-justice-india-west-each-others-throats
 
Not taking one side or the other, but this article is interesting.

From the article said:
A new study of ice formation in Antarctica could challenge conventional wisdom that the continent is losing land ice. Writing in the Journal of Glaciology, NASA said satellite data showed that the Antarctic ice sheet gained 112 billion tons of ice per year from 1992 to 2001. That slowed to 82 billion tons annually from 2003 to 2008....“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said.
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Tidewater said:
Not taking one side or the other, but this article is interesting.
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We have a thread going on about this matter on another forum I frequent. One would think this rules out the global conspiracy thing, since it clashes with previously accepted conclusions (thought the possibility of gains in these are was discussed in the IPCCs latest assessment report.)

Of course, Zwally saw the inevitable coming a mile away:

“I know some of the climate deniers will jump on this, and say this means we don’t have to worry as much as some people have been making out,” he says. “It should not take away from the concern about climate warming.”
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And it's not at all a rosy picture.

Around the edges of the continent, Zwally’s team saw the same rapid retreat of glaciers that many other groups have documented.
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But it is good news in the sense that Antarctica is acting as sink, helping mitigate sea level rise for the time being.
 
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