The Global Warming Policy Foundation is an organization of mainly economists dedicated to mucking up the development and advancement of good science-based policy related to climate change. It is a denialist “think” tank.
A couple of weeks ago, Swedish meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson joined the GWPF. This was a little surprising, but not totally surprising. It was surprising because Bengtsson is scientist and the foundation is anti-science and, as I noted, mostly economists. (Well, they are sort of like scientists too, but a different kind of science.) It was not surprising because Bengtsson has positioned himself as a “skeptic,” claiming that his skepticism is the good kind (all scientists are skeptical) but really, he has expressed doubt about the validity of much of the standing mainstream climate science, especially the use of models. He is a #Faupause-er, claiming that a decrease in the rate of increase of surface temperatures (which is only part of the global warming picture) suggests that global warming is less of a thing than we all know it is.
Then, just now, Bengtsson resigned from the GWPF citing harassment by scientists. One of the specific actions he refers to is a colleague suggesting he might withdraw as a co-author given Bengtsson’s affiliation with a rather rabid anti-science organization.
The denialists have taken off with this, following Bengtsson’s lead. From Bengtsson’s resignation letter:
I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc. I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.
Under these situation I will be unable to contribute positively to the work of GWPF and consequently therefore I believe it is the best for me to reverse my decision to join its Board at the earliest possible time.”
What happened here is simple to understand. A member of the scientific community who was retaining discredited ideas about climate change took one step too far, literally joining with the anti-science community. Colleagues complained about his choice, which is something they not only can, but should do. If the reports are correct, one of those individuals considered distancing himself from the GWPF, which is probably the ethical choice. In response, the denialist community, including Bengtsson (who has now apparently proven himself to be a member of that community) is calling foul. But really, what is the mainstream scientific community supposed to do? Is a professional gasp at a clearly inappropriate decision by a scientist really McCartyism? No, clearly it is not.
The Daily Mail, which I usually don’t refer to, claims that Bengtsson’s climate science colleagues inferred or stated that the mainstream science community is respectable, and Bengtsson’s move to join the GWPF was silly, and apparently one blogger described him as a crybaby. Some told him that the GWPF was a questionable organization. That sounds like a lot of people trying to impress on him that his legitimacy as a member of the scientific community may be affected by sidling up to an explicitly anti-science organization.
Rabett Run notes, “The short take on this is that Prof. Bengtsson ran into a wall of disgust from his colleagues which took him by surprise.”
Roger Pielke, Jr, who himself has had his work in climate science (he is an economist) criticized (legitimately) underscores the McCarthyism claim, and doubled down:
Unfortunately, “climate mccarthyism” is not so far off. It has been practiced for a while…
The main problem here is … that the elite in this community – including scientists, journalists, politicians — have endorsed the climate mccarthyism campaign, and are often its most vigorous participants…
The climate issue is coming to represent a globalized version of the US abortion debates. I tell my grad students that there is no use for policy analysts in the abortion debates. I should follow my own advice!
Hot Whopper’s Sou gives some examples of why a scientist might not want to be affiliated, directly or indirectly, with the GWPF:
As to why climate scientists might not want to be associated with the GWPF, this is a sample of the sort of nonsense that Nigel Lawson and his organisation are known for. On the IPCC:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which published on Friday the first instalment of its latest report, is a deeply discredited organisation
Nigel just made that up. The IPCC won a Nobel Peace Prize for heaven’s sake! How about this GWPF article – about the man deniers love to hate. (Archived here):
IS MICHAEL MANN DELUSIONAL OR A DELIBERATE LIAR?
Date: 05/12/11
In my Weekly Standard Climategate 2.0 article I refer to Michael “hockey stick” Mann as the Fredo of the climate mafia, because of his endless bluster and the obvious embarrassment he brings to his fellow scientists.
Expect the Bengtsson story to become denialist yammering fodder. Well, it already is. Expect more.
UPDATE:
One of the complaints made be denialists is, apparently, that Bengtsson was given the shaft by the mainstream scientific community when a paper he submitted to IOP was rejected. Quotes from the peer reviewer comments were used to implicate IOP, the journal, and the reviewer in a McCarthy-istic campaign against Bengtsoon. It turns out that was a lie. The journal rejected Bengtsson’s paper because if fell short of standards, but encouraged him to bring it up to snuff with the implication they would look at it again.
There is a certain ethical question that has to be asked here; was the release of parts of a peer review OK? In any event, once it is released, the journal is obliged to address it, and in so doing, they have to check with the reviewer to see if the confidential review can be released. Well, all that happened, and IOP has put out a press release providing documentation of what really went on behind the scenes.
Here it is:
Statement from IOP Publishing on story in The Times
16 May 2014Bristol, UKDr. Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director at IOP Publishing, says, “The draft journal paper by Lennart Bengtsson that Environmental Research Letters declined to publish, which was the subject of this morning’s front page story of The Times, contained errors, in our view did not provide a significant advancement in the field, and therefore could not be published in the journal.”
“The decision not to publish had absolutely nothing to do with any ‘activism’ on the part of the reviewers or the journal, as suggested in The Times’ article; the rejection was solely based on the content of the paper not meeting the journal’s high editorial standards, ” she continues.
“The referees selected to review this paper were of the highest calibre and are respected members of the international science community. The comments taken from the referee reports were taken out of context and therefore, in the interests of transparency, we have worked with the reviewers to make the full reports available.”
The full quote actually said “Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.”
“As the referees report state, ‘The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low.’ This means that the study does not meet ERL’s requirement for papers to significantly advance knowledge of the field.”
“Far from denying the validity of Bengtsson’s questions, the referees encouraged the authors to provide more innovative ways of undertaking the research to create a useful advance.”
“As the report reads, ‘A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.”
“Far from hounding ‘dissenting’ views from the field, Environmental Research Letters positively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.”
“The journal Environmental Research Letters is respected by the scientific community because it plays a valuable role in the advancement of environmental science – for unabashedly not publishing oversimplified claims about environmental science, and encouraging scientific debate.”
“With current debate around the dangers of providing a false sense of ‘balance’ on a topic as societally important as climate change, we’re quite astonished that The Times has taken the decision to put such a non-story on its front page.
Please find the reviewer report below quoted in The Times, exactly as sent to Lennart Bengttsson.
We are getting permission from the other referees for this paper to make their reports available as soon as possible.
REFEREE REPORT(S):
COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR(S)
The manuscript uses a simple energy budget equation (as employed e.g. by Gregory et al 2004, 2008, Otto et al 2013) to test the consistency between three recent “assessments” of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity (not really equilibrium climate sensitivity in the case of observational studies).The study finds significant differences between the three assessments and also finds that the independent assessments of forcing and climate sensitivity within AR5 are not consistent if one assumes the simple energy balance model to be a perfect description of reality.
The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low, as the calculations made to compare the three studies are already available within each of the sources, most directly in Otto et al.
The finding of differences between the three “assessments” and within the assessments (AR5), when assuming the energy balance model to be right, and compared to the CMIP5 models are reported as apparent inconsistencies.
The paper does not make any significant attempt at explaining or understanding the differences, it rather puts out a very simplistic negative message giving at least the implicit impression of “errors” being made within and between these assessments, e.g. by emphasising the overlap of authors on two of the three studies.
What a paper with this message should have done instead is recognising and explaining a series of “reasons” and “causes” for the differences.
– The comparison between observation based estimates of ECS and TCR (which would have been far more interesting and less impacted by the large uncertainty about the heat content change relative to the 19th century) and model based estimates is comparing apples and pears, as the models are calculating true global means, whereas the observations have limited coverage. This difference has been emphasised in a recent contribution by Kevin Cowtan, 2013.
– The differences in the forcing estimates used e.g. between Otto et al 2013 and AR5 are not some “unexplainable change of mind of the same group of authors” but are following different tow different logics, and also two different (if only slightly) methods of compiling aggregate uncertainties relative to the reference period, i.e. the Otto et al forcing is deliberately “adjusted” to represent more closely recent observations, whereas AR5 has not put so much weight on these satellite observations, due to still persisting potential problems with this new technology
– The IPCC process itself explains potential inconsistencies under the strict requirement of a simplistic energy balance: The different estimates for temperature, heat uptake, forcing, and ECS and TCR are made within different working groups, at slightly different points in time, and with potentially different emphasis on different data sources. The IPCC estimates of different quantities are not based on single data sources, nor on a fixed set of models, but by construction are expert based assessments based on a multitude of sources. Hence the expectation that all expert estimates are completely consistent within a simple energy balance model is unfunded from the beginning.
– Even more so, as the very application of the Kappa model (the simple energy balance model employed in this work, in Otto et al, and Gregory 2004) comes with a note of caution, as it is well known (and stated in all these studies) to underestimate ECS, compared to a model with more time-scales and potential non-linearities (hence again no wonder that CMIP5 doesn’t fit the same ranges)
Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.
One cannot and should not simply interpret the IPCCs ranges for AR4 or 5 as confidence intervals or pdfs and hence they are not directly comparable to observation based intervals (as e.g. in Otto et al).In the same way that one cannot expect a nice fit between observational studies and the CMIP5 models.
A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.
I have rated the potential impact in the field as high, but I have to emphasise that this would be a strongly negative impact, as it does not clarify anything but puts up the (false) claim of some big inconsistency, where no consistency was to be expected in the first place.
And I can’t see an honest attempt of constructive explanation in the manuscript.Thus I would strongly advise rejecting the manuscript in its current form.
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Apparently he discovered that people with whom he had worked, or was friendly with, were not appreciative when he joined an organization whose mission statement might as well have read “Climate Scientists Are All Lying Scumbags”.
I haven’t seen him put forth much evidence to support his claims – really only his word.
On this:
Substitute the word “statistician” for “scientist” and it would hold as well. But you know what they say about economists: “Their talk is cheap. Supply exceeds demand.”
A final comment (only tangentially related if you really push it): Many years ago I heard that President Eisenhower had told an aide that he wished he could get a panel of economic advisers, none of whom had arms. “That way,”, he said, “I’ll never have to hear one say ‘On the other hand.'”
biological anthropologist-they are sort of like scientists too
Hmm… “A member of the … community who was retaining discredited ideas..” sounds like something straight from the comintern. There is a lot of data to support c02 related climate change but we can’t even question the completeness and validity of models? Does that also mean we can not look at data to see if it could support a different hypothesis?
Just to nuance things a bit: “he has expressed doubt about the validity of much of the standing mainstream climate science” is an exaggeration. He argues for a low climate sensitivity, but still consistent with the IPCC range.
But politically, I think he felt quite at home in GWPF. I suspect that was the main reason why he joined them. So this is what happens when a scientist puts politics in front of science.
a couple of corrections:
describing the GWPF as “an organization of mainly economists” is a bit off: it’s led by a sports sociologist and a retired politician. their stated goal is “to analyse global warming policies and their economic and other implications”, but they seem to be more interested in spreading misinformation about the science, than they ever were in policy matters.
you’ve also misspelled the Rabett’s name. you might wish to correct that before fur starts to fly 🙂
bobh, which specific things Bengtsson was saying are you going to argue are legitimate questioning? Which specific alternative hypotheses that have not already been look at and either incorporated into the current science or disproven and rejected are you referring to? Or are you just playing the “Galileo was right” card here?
linge, Bengtsson actually joined the GWPF because it was primarily economists, in his own words. I was actually relying on his characterization, I’ve never counted them!
Lars et al; Do read the post. Bengtsson was not considered to be a hard core climate denialst, but he was known to have views that were different from what the vast majority of other scientists in the field thought. Joining the GWPF, however, is a clear signal. Not quite as bad as an evolutionary biologist being on the board of directors of the Kentucky Creation Museum, but the same idea.
And he is of course totally free to join the board. But colleagues can not be faulted for taking a few steps backwards from him, and telling him they think it is a bone-headed move.
Also, it is telling that the denialist community has a) expressed strong support for him and b) is attacking the mainstream scientific community, calling it McCarthyism, etc. etc. That should be a signal of where he is comfortable, or who is comfortable with him. The scientific community wasn’t doing anything at all about or in relation to him until he threw his lot in with an active anti-science organization. And then, that is what they complained about.
A post on the Swedish blog Uppsalainitiativet describes Bengtsson as someone who could write sensibly one day and spout septic nonsense the next. It gave the impression that he was becoming more closely aligned with Swedish septics around a blog that used to be called The Climate Scam, but changed its name to the more Orwellian Klimatupplysningen (Climate information).
http://uppsalainitiativet.blogspot.se/2014/05/om-lennart-bengtssons-beklammande-fard.html
A couple of days after this post the author received an email in which Bengtsson announced his resignation from GWPF. In it, Bengtsson attempts to portray himself as a kind of mediator between two equally valid points of view. In light of his own apparent politicization of the climate discussion, his remark about protecting science “from any political infiltration” seems disingenuous at best:
“Dear colleagues
In view of the massive objections from colleagues around the world I have decided to resign from GWPF. I will make it clear that I have an open attitude to science and I can assure you that I will continue to do my utmost to protect science from any political infiltration. My original motivation to join GWPF was to foster a dialogue over the boundaries but this is not any longer possible because of the reactions from the climate community that strongly declines any such efforts…”
http://uppsalainitiativet.blogspot.se/2014/05/blott-ett-par-veckor-efter-kungorandet.html
The post has a pretty neat typo: “(all scientists are sketpical)”. Maybe we could refer to denialists of every stripe as “sketpics” (or “sketpix”). “Septic” hasn’t really caught on.
Greg Laden @ # 8: … calling it McCarthyism, etc…
I predict Bengtsson will soon enjoy an interview with S.E.Cupp about those awful Science Bullies.
Bill Nye will then mug him outside the studio.
“It’s a shame that the GDR disappeared otherwise we would have been able to offer one-way tickets there for these raving socialists. Now there’s unfortunately not many orthodox countries left soon and I surely do not imagine our romantic green Communists want a one-way ticket to North Korea. But if interested I will gladly contribute to the trip as long as it concerns a one way exit. Perhaps you could arrange a Gallup study, then it can not be ruled out that I underestimated utresebehovet. 5” Lennart Bengstromm
Hmmm; this reminds me more of the policy and the atmosphere of the 1940s rather than the 1930s. Only the transport to be funded by wealthy private donors, not the state,natch: and by air apparently, instead of by train.
Apparently, LB’s objection is not so much to the politicisation of climate science, as that some people do not agree with his own extreme political viewpoint; and considers the best solution that these people should be sent for a ‘one way exit’ out East.
You may all now wish to shout ‘Godwin’ at me.
Yes, Idunno, I’ll shout Godwin at you. Let’s leave that kind of talk to the denialists.
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Matthew 11:4-6)
He didn’t “cry” McCarthyism. He’s got the e-mails to prove it was so.
He got emails from the government investigating him?
Personally I think this whole thing is made up. It is a false flag operation to provide distraction. That don’t have much else left.
As expected ecofascists here are enthusiasticly supportive of this harassment of a 79 year old man purely for being sceptical – something which is the duty of every genuine scientist.
This witch hunt explains why so few, if any, government paid “scientists” openly oppose the fraud while not a single scientist, independent of such payment, anywhere in the world, supports the scam (Mr Egan did previously claim to be the sole such in the world but turned out to be government funded and not a scientist).
Ah, look Neil Craig shows up again. Of course, there’s no evidence whatsoever he was ‘harassed’ nor that it was related to him supposedly being skeptical (you’d be surprised, Neil, what he thinks of your views on the science – let me assure you it isn’t very flattering). Rather, he made the enormous blunder of joining an organization that actively distorts the science and attacks the integrity of many climate scientists.
But, Neil, don’t let my reality-based argumentation rattle your preferred delusions about ebil gubernment!
Let me assure you Marco that your grasp on reality is either non-existent or you are lying. Bearing in mind that this group of sites overwhelmingly consists of wholly corrupt fascists with no slightest trace of honesty (as greg has proven) my assumption is the latter.
Also if you were not a lying Fascist whore you would have been able to dispute me factually rather than sticking to gratuitous insults.
Marco, yes, the evidence now is that the only harassment that has been delved into for documentation was fabricated.
False flag operation. Looking more and more like that.
Funny, Neil Creig telling us he is a “lying Fascist whore”, but probably not even realizing it.
“Evidence” is clearly an infinitely malleable concept to you 2 Fascist whores.
Next you will be trying to tell us there is “evidence” that for CAGW and even for some alarmists having at least a trace of integrity. But obviously not having any evidence (as construed by honest people)
Neil, the only “evidence” LB provided was his own words. Who are these people who allegedly attacked him? He doesn’t say, and most likely can’t because they don’t exist. Do you have any evidence, besides LB’s vague claims? No, you have none. Until LB provides actual evidence, he is talking out of his behind.
We do know that his one falsifiable claim – that he had a paper denied for political reasons – has indeed been falsified. It was rejected because it was lousy. LB lied about why it was rejected. Why should we believe anything else he says about this at this point?
Witness testimony IS testimony. When it is backed by proof the witness acted on it it is pretty good.
When it comes from somebody with no record of dishonesty and his opponents have nothing but a record of dishonesty, as all CAGW supporting thieving fascist parasites have, then it takes some beating.
What is this “for sure” proof you have that his paper was rejected for entirely non-ideological reasons? If you are being honest you must have some other then testimony.
“Witness testimony IS testimony”
He’s made only vague claims of persecution, claims that are completely unfalsifiable. It’s not evidence until he provides something substantive. You know, like names and emails and threats. Otherwise, it’s nothing.
“When it comes from somebody with no record of dishonesty…”
That disqualifies LB, since he lied about why his paper was rejected.
“What is this “for sure” proof you have that his paper was rejected for entirely non-ideological reasons?”
The entire referee report was released (see above), and it quite clearly shows that LB made basic errors in trying to compare different models and outputs. It is also clear that the journal would have accepted a corrected paper.
Your claim that the paper was rejected on forensic grounds is, of course, a lie. It was rejected by a human and the only evidence that they did not do so on corrupt grounds is their word.
Once again I ask you to provide what you define as evidence or apologise for being a wholly corrupt hypocritical Fascist liar.
Since your attack on the integrity of the prof was entirely based on the previous lie I ask you to apologise for that you obscene animal.
Typical of the circular lying to which eco-Nazis are addicted. Obviously were Greg in some way honest he would express contempt for all eco-Nazis, but as pointed out previously, he is an obscene eco-Nazi liar too.
provide what you call evidence or apologise whore.
The statement from IOP Publishing is extremely damning for Bengtsson. At his point it clear that nothing that Bengtsson says can be taken at face value. Rather, he seems to be conducting a smear campaign against the climate scientific community (ie his colleagues).
Now why would a 79 year old academic want to set up such an improbable conspiracy?
We all know, of course, that the eco-Nazis have regularly and continuously lied like that, and being in some way, something other than a Nazi whore you must have denounced the entire movement, including our host, in terms far stronger than you have him.
Lets see a link to you having done so. Then lets see your actual evidence against the prof. Or grovelling apology.
“Your claim that the paper was rejected on forensic grounds is, of course, a lie. It was rejected by a human and the only evidence that they did not do so on corrupt grounds is their word.”
Of course it was rejected by humans; peer review isn’t down with computers. They gave specifics as to what was wrong with LB’s paper, specifics that can be verified or falsified by LB. Ball’s in his court now; if the paper he sent in didn’t do the stupid things the referees said it did, he can quite easily show they were wrong. I’m not holding my breath.
“Once again I ask you to provide what you define as evidence or apologise for being a wholly corrupt hypocritical Fascist liar.”
The referee report is good evidence that LB’s claim to have been rejected because he gave too low of an estimate for climate sensitivity was a lie. It was rejected because he didn’t know how to compare different IPCC reports and different model outputs. I think you need to ponder the irony of calling someone a hypocrite, since you have provided absolutely zero evidence to support LB’s claims.
“Since your attack on the integrity of the prof was entirely based on the previous lie I ask you to apologise for that you obscene animal….provide what you call evidence or apologise whore.”
This you say after berating an earlier poster for allegedly getting personal!:
“Also if you were not a lying Fascist whore you would have been able to dispute me factually rather than sticking to gratuitous insults.”
OK, I’m calling POE. Your posts are beyond hysterical. They are delusional. You’re in need of psychiatric help.
OK you have accepted that “of course” you were relying on personal testimony as I said. And you have already said you don’t accept the validity of such evidence.
So, by definition, if you were not an obscene corrupt fascist whore you could never have used the claims you did. QED
Now I would like you to provide evidence of your psychiatric qualifications. If you have none you would be proven, once again to be a wholly corrupt lying Fascist animal with whom no remotely decent human could ever wish to associate (though clearly greg does).
I await your evidence or apology you disgusting Nazi whore & your apology for saying I have said anything untrue about you, or any of the other thieving murderous parasites in the eco-Nazi movement.
“We all know, of course, that the eco-Nazis have regularly and continuously lied like that, and being in some way, something other than a Nazi whore you must have denounced the entire movement, including our host, in terms far stronger than you have him.
Lets see a link to you having done so. Then lets see your actual evidence against the prof. Or grovelling apology”
Here ya go: http://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help/
Hope you get the help you need.
http://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/resources/mental-health-hotline-numbers-and-referral-resources/
Please seek help.
So no attempt to provide evidence. As I suspected you have no qualifications and are simply a digusting obscene, lying, murderting, subhuman, thieving parasitic Nazi whore whom no human being with any trace of decency has ever associated with.
And an average supporter of the warming fraud.
Greg I ask you to acknowledge that I have, at all times, shown this filth all the courtesy he is entitled to whereas he has been gratuitously insulting to me and the prof. You should formally ask the animal to apologise (or produce his medical qualifications)
Neil, you don’t need a psychiatric degree to see you’re nuts. You’re entire argument, such as it is, consists of calling people “digusting obscene, lying, murderting, subhuman, thieving parasitic Nazi whore”, “wholly corrupt lying Fascist animal”, “you disgusting Nazi whore”; “wholly corrupt hypocritical Fascist liar” and”eco-Nazi”all while ironically claiming to be courteous. If what you wrote above is not a joke, but a serious expression of your mind, you belong in an institution. Or on meds. Or both. What would your family think if they read your posts?
Get help.
So no qualifications; no apology; no circumstances under which you can ever be treated as in any way honest; no dissociation from any other eco-Nazi; thus no cricumstances under which any eco-Nazi can ever be assumed to have any honesty or decency.
Now what Is it I have said you claim to take objection to digusting obscene, lying, murderting, subhuman, thieving parasitic Nazi whore”, “wholly corrupt lying Fascist animal”, “you disgusting Nazi whore”; “wholly corrupt hypocritical Fascist liar”
Robert, you’re poking a rabid dog*.
When a person has reached the point where they freely use phrases like “Nazi whore”, you have to realize that there’s no hope. They perceive any disagreement as an attack, including the (admittedly true) suggestion that they might need help.
A person like that just has too much rage, and you can’t reach them. Not with reason, or sympathy, or anything, really.
[*] “Rabid dog” is a metaphor, and shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that I’m actually calling Neil a rabid dog.
Nafeez Ahman at The Guardian nails this issue:
“Murdoch-owned media hypes lone metereologist’s climate junk science
Absurd anti-science faux journalism flares up again – as usual, it’s Big Oil that’s set to benefit, not the public”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/may/16/murdoch-media-hypes-lone-climate-denial-big-oil
Bengtsson has now come out and denounced the denialist propaganda being spewed by The Times on behalf of the rest of the denialists. I’m thinking he feels like he has been betrayed by those he thought he wanted to have more of a dialog with. I wonder what approach the denialists will now use to harass and damage him now that he has demonstrated that he won’t play their obnoxious game?
<Bengtsson has now come out and denounced the denialist propaganda being spewed by The Times on behalf of the rest of the denialists.
When one burns bridges both ahead and behind, do you become an island? Guess we wait for the water to rise in order to find out.
I don’t think he has burned bridges with the scientists. It is a reasonable community. He’ll be fine as long as he stays away from the people who were obviously using him.
Greg, you write “Bengtsson has now come out and denounced the denialist propaganda being spewed by The Times on behalf of the rest of the denialists.”
Would you please provide a link to that? I can’t seem to spot it – the net has filled with an awful lot of noise around the particular search term, “Bengtsson” in the last 48 hours! I’m writing up a thesis about the norms of science and contemporary forms of pseudoscience, and I think there may just be some room for the Bengtsson affair to be included.
Mark you should look at this:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-claims-climate-research-was-suppressed/
And this:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05/16/drudge-promotes-global-scientific-conspiracy/199355
Actually, I assume it is this one, yes?
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-claims-climate-research-was-suppressed/
Sorry -our posts “crossed in the mail”. 🙂
It will be very interesting to see whether the mouth-foaming hysteria pushes Bengtsson back towards his peers. Having other scientists tell him they think he’s a goose for hanging around with the GWPF is one thing, but seeing the anything-but-global-warming crowd simply start making things up is another all together.
A horrible thread. Nazism, fascism, isn’t it possible to conduct a civil debate on the subject of Bengtsson’s meanderings and the relevant profession’s response? BTW, I am uncertain, what is Bengtsson’s field of expertise, meteorology or climatology?
As far as I can tell, the signs of a trend of global warming are clear, the present long time trend is that the globe is warming.
That meteorology register fluctuations, years where (local) temperatures are higher than the year(s) before is not evidence against global warming. What’s more, if, and I hope that even Bengtsson doesn’t say that it is 100% certain that global warming is a hoax, a lie, nonsense or whatever so that we safely may ignore all science that says otherwise.
And, even without 100% certainty that yes, the globe is in a cycle of warming it would seem that the rational thing to do would be to try and counter that with what means we have at our hands. Because a wait until everybody would be in agreement might mean a wait until we are well into a runaway situation beyond our means to do anything about it.
Anyway, the debate could only benefit from the absence of people pulling the nazi/fascism card.
So as expected not a single alarmist willing to say the same standards of “evidence” should apply to booth sides, or even that any sort of evidence is desirable before lying about 79 year 79 year old men.
Nor has anybody even attempted to produce any reason why he should have “lied”.
Proving, once again that there is nobody in the eco-Nazi movement with the4 remotest trace of integrity or human decency. Not one of you who is not perfectly well aware that CAGW is a deliberate Fascist supported only by wholly corrupt, thieving, parasitic Nazi whores.
[] Windchaser “whore” is literally true bearing mind that the meaning is of somebody doing something immoral for money, not just you being paid to take it up the arse, which you may or may not also be doing – your business.
It appears that the ranks of climate change denialists ranks have begun to swell a little bit from 3% dissent since “The University of Queensland in Australia is taking legal action to block the release of data used by one of its scientists to come up with the oft-quoted statistic that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that mankind is causing global warming.”
The fellows name; “Cook’s 97 percent consensus claim was rebutted in subsequent analyses of his study. A paper by five leading climatologists published in the journal Science and Education last year found that Cook’s study misrepresented the views of most consensus scientists.
The definition Cook used to get his consensus was weak, the climatologists said. Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate studies examined by Cook explicitly stated that mankind caused most of the warming since 1950 — meaning the actual consensus is 0.3 percent.”
So the the ranks of the denialists have swelled from 3% to a mere 99.7%. Hardly worth worrying about.
I’ll take the bait, Neil. Yes, the same standards of evidence should apply to both sides. Unfortunately, the one piece of evidence given by Bengtsson turned out to have been used highly selectively and the rest he has given is assertion that can be read in a very different manner to the spin desired by, for example, Matt Ridley, GWPF member.
The GWPF is not Disney: it does not tell fairy stories for entertainment. It tells them to twist the agenda. A friendly scientist was a very desirable thing since Richard Tol got a sulk on over the IPCC and raising the alarm. I trust that the fire alarm is switched off when the GWPF meets so they don’t have to worry about the I pending disaster.
For Bengtsson to moan about the politicisation of the debate suggests he is naive in the extreme or flattered that a gone today politician like Lawson chatted him up. The whole episode is tawdry but the scientific side comes out of it smelling less of manure than the deniers.
Yes Rolf it is possible, but experience shows, not with the alarmist community. Perhaps your use of the term “meanderings” was not entirely civil towards a professor you, I assume, have never met and know nothing of.
Perhaps you might also care to provide the evidence on which you base your claim “trend of global warming are clear” when there has been none since at least 1998. Debate requires respect for facts on both sides.
Frag if you are saying that you must be contemptuous of those who say that his statement he has been harassed is not evidence must be false because it is his statement and the claim of those who decided not to publish his paper, that it is poor, must be true because they say so. If so say so clearly.
The fact that the reviewer made a serious mistake which, allegedly, does not count against them, also shows the very least, double standards and dishonesty. I seem to remember that Stephen McIntyre also got told his paper on Mann’s fraud was also refused publication on similar grounds – in that case certainly dishonestly.
For a serious and honest “debate” to take place would require the alarmist community to denounce those who lie (also those who harass, & threaten violence, and those like Gore who are both wholly ignorant and wholly dishonest) among them. If you can give an instance of some alarmist who has done so, without being attacked in turn by the verbal Fascists, I am sure you will provide one.
If not the term “wholly corrupt obscene Fascist parasites” is simply factual and moderate.
Note that that would include denouncing obscene animals whose only answer to debate is to make accusations against people’s sanity that no honest unqualified person with any shred of decency ever would make.
I am still awaiting Robert or his pals apology or proof of qualifications.
Neil, we have discussed the reality of global warming, and the bankruptcy of the #FauxPause, many times on this blog. No need to rehash it every time an anti science yahoo such as yourself childishly demands it. There is a search function and a list of categories on the right sidebar.
I guess “yahoo” is your alternative to polite debate.
You could, perhaps, make a case that the pause does not mean what it obviously appears to but it is simply dishonest to claim that the pause is “false”.
Colour me unsurprised. And I note you are attacking me but have no word to say against those, equally falsely, accusing me of insanity. Is there any point in doing a Search whose results were conducted on that level of dishonesty and vitriol?
Neil, you are taking liberties to assume I have any responsibility to be polite to you. I have no respect for people who make such an effort to harm my children as you and the other denialists have done. It is absolutely outrageous that you expect to be treated by me as anything other than scum. Where did you ever get that idea?
This is how bullies work. They do harm and then they create rules that require their victims to be meek.
Also, Neil, the idea that I am supposed to defend you against other with disdain for you is unreal. Wow.
So now you have accused me of abusing your children! You demonstrate precisely why it is impossible to have a debate with warmists. You have no traces of honesty or even decency. Clearly the eco-Nazis harassing the professor are drawn form the same obscene source.
Clearly there is absolutely no limit whatsoever to what the obscene, subhuman, murdering, thieving Nazi whores who make up the ecofascist movement will descend to.
Go back to hiring out your children to rapists you disgusting thief and be aware you have made it clear that it is not possible for anybody in your movement to have any shred of humanity if they are not willing to publicly condemn you as the filth you are.
Since I have never stooped to say anything false about you or any eco-Nazi I await your apology.
Neil, you said
“Frag if you are saying that you must be contemptuous of those who say that his statement he has been harassed is not evidence must be false because it is his statement and the claim of those who decided not to publish his paper, that it is poor, must be true because they say so. If so say so clearly.”
Struggle to read what you said but I shall say clearly what I meant. He asserts harassment and gives no evidence beyond the entirely reasonable and non-harassing behaviours of not wanting to be associated with him. The Times tried to make much of a referee’s comment that must have been sourced somewhere and the expectation it was Bengtsson. When the IoP statement came out, we could read that a private communication including the words quoted but also said plenty of other things that said the paper wasn’t good enough.
Both you and I know that statements and resignation letters are intended to create an impression. Bengtsson has had a few days to be more open about harassment without naming names but hasn’t done so. I don’t think he has the courage of his convictions. If he really did want to do as he said, he could have stuck it out. His resignation letter does not suggest any “bullying” was of the kind meted out to Lawrence Torcello earlier this year.
“So now you have accused me of abusing your children!”
Abuse is your word, not mine. What exactly are you thinking? I was referring to the fact that effective action to address climate change has been slowed significantly by science denialists, and I therefore hold all climate science denialists responsible for the bad things that are happening or will happen, especially to our children. I’m sorry if I brought up other images or ideas in your mind.
“…why it is impossible to have a debate with warmists. ”
YOU ARE FUCKING CORRECT FOR ONCE!. It is impossible to debate those you call “warmists” or “alarmists” because there is no debate. It is only YOU who want to pretend there is a debate. There isn’t. So it is impossible. You can debate yourself, and you can get very good at debating yourself. In fact, you can master debate if that is your objective. But you wont’ get a debate over the science from the scientists because there is not a debate.
“Clearly there is absolutely no limit whatsoever to what the obscene, subhuman, murdering, thieving Nazi whores who make up the ecofascist movement will descend to.”
That was over the top and there will be consequences. Consequences, I say.
“Go back to hiring out your children to rapists you disgusting thief and be aware you have made it clear that it is not possible for anybody in your movement to have any shred of humanity if they are not willing to publicly condemn you as the filth you are.”
I love this. The only reason I let you comment here for so long was to get examples of how over the top you folks are for something I’m writing. Thank you very much for speaking your mind!
“Since I have never stooped to say anything false about you or any eco-Nazi I await your apology.”
OK, no problem. I’ll have an apology arranged for you to pick up at our apology office. The manager over there is named Ms. Waite. First name, Helen. If you want to get your apology go to her.
My thanks to Lars for shouting ‘Godwin’ at me, above.
LB’s comment, in that context, might perhaps have been read as a joke, in Swedish, which has not translated very well, but even so…
Neil, you would probably do best to show this comments thread to your family doctor, and discuss your feelings with him/her.
“They do harm and then they create rules that require their victims to be meek.”
Amen to that. No point trying to reason with some people. Neil’s bug-eyed, barfing rants demonstrate that. However there certainly is a point to pushing back against unhinged wing-nuts trying to define bullying deviancy down.
Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/internet_troll_personality_study_machiavellianism_narcissism_psychopathy.html
I would like to thank Anton Sina for my all-important hearty laugh of the day.
5 leading climatologists, eh?
Interesting, considering there were only 4 authors on that article.
“climatologists”, eh?
How many papers on climate does Christopher Monckton of Brenchley have? Let me rephrase this: how many scientific papers, period, does Christopher Monckton of Brenchley have?
Also, last time I checked William Briggs hardly has a single climate-related paper either.
“Leading”, eh?
Legates and Soon do have climate-related papers, but if they are leading, you wonder why their papers, especially the more recent ones, are largely ignored by the general community. I wonder what label we would then have to use for the likes of Mike Mann, Phil Jones, Kevin Trenberth, Ben Santer, etc. etc etc., whose work has almost infinitely more impact in the scientific community.
That’s beyond the disingenious analyis in the paper, which no one should be surprised about that, considering the lead author signed the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation’s “An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming”. The latter directly says that global warming will not be bad, ever, because some imaginary being will not allow that.
Frag you are, of course, lying. He has pointed to the refusal to publish is paper and the associate, state funded, refusing to work with him.
Greg we seem to be in agreement that there is no more possibility of honest debate with alarmists than there is of honest debate with Nazis over Jews. I note that you no longer claim there is even a single scientist anywhere in the world supporting your Nazi fraud, who is not state funded – ie that you are no longer lying about you yourself being the only since you have been proven an obscene thieving, child abusing, fascist liar.
Neil, any academic is free to chose with whom they work. It isn’t the case that the science denialist community is in charge of that.
I wish more scientists were state funded, but that simply isn’t the case. Not that it would matter given the checks and balances in place. Clearly, the government as a whole is not a friend to well done independent science.
I think calling me an “… obscene thieving, child abusing, fascist liar” may be a bit beyond the pale. You should probably apologize for that.
Neil, I’m just doing what you could have done – reading for understanding. The various bits of information don’t add up from Bengtsson. I don’t see where I have told a lie. The paper appears to have been poor and does it matter who employs someone, they surely have the right to associate with whoever they wish. I don’t see any conspiracy but it looks as if you are searching for them. Applying some basic human nature to your reading might be useful.
Every alarmist knows that the scare stories have been falsified. Thus, by definition, no scientist can support them. Every alarmist knows this and thus by definition, every single alarmist knows that nine of those pseudo-scientists claiming to believe it are in any slightest way honest.
Every alarmist knows there is no warming and hasn’t been since around 1995.
Every alarmist knows CO2 rise is beneficial.
Every alarmist knows there is not a single independent scientist in the world supporting their fraud. Only a small number of government whores posing as scientists.
Every alarmist knows global temperature (insofar as there is such a thing) is currently extremely average, and there is no threat whatsoever.
Which means that, by definition, every person pushing the fraud is a wholly corrupt obscene thieving, child abusing, fascist liar; a disgusting subhuman creature knowingly participating in an obscene movement that has murdered more people than Hitler and Stalin combined; creatures with less human decency than rabid dogs.
Greg knows this (as well as knowing he has lied about being the world’s only independent scientist to support CAGW).
I have therefore never said anything in the smallest degree insulting about him or any other eco-Nazi.
He and the other Nazis, on the other hand, unquestionably owe me an apology.
“Greg knows this (as well as knowing he has lied about being the world’s only independent scientist to support CAGW).”
Wut?
“Wut?”
My quess is that ol’ Neil had a few extra teaspoons of sugar in his morning bowl of lead paint flakes and moonshine today. I think the wrap comes when he testifies in tongues to “prove” that his viciousness is justified.
I’m officially bored now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/climate-contrarians_b_5347614.html
So not one of the obscene lying, thieving,mass murdering, Nazi whores even feel up to disputing being obscene, lying, mass murdering Nazi whores or to representing the level of integrity of the entire eco-
Go take your meds Neil, you silly drama queen.
You are an obscene, thieving, murdering Nazi shit (as I see you already acknowledge) and I claim my apology from every single alarmist who isn’t, in the unlikely event of there being any.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I could write a chatbot that could write Neil’s posts. You just need a lot of slurs.
Now I understand why bloggers moderate threads.
“moderating” ie censoring sceptical arguments and facts that prove them, but passing the most disgusting, corrupt, and irrelevant insults.
Yep, that is the very best the ecofascist movement aspires to.
You got it, Windchaser. And the really amazing thing (but not surprising, because I see it so often) is that the man who comes in calling everyone “lying, fascist whores” and gets worse from there complains about the lack of civility on our part.
For those in the US, it may be of relevance to note that Neil Craig is a member of a political party in the UK, the UKIP (in the Scottish branch).
In case anyone doubts this, there’s this:
http://www.veooz.com/photos/EHBjnBS.html
I think few will have a problem recognizing the language used.
Wow, that Neil person has some really serious psychological problems.