I thought I’d share this update from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
We have much to be grateful for at CSLDF – this year, we became an independent 501(c)(3) organization, provided legal services to 30+ researchers, and took on some of the worst groups attacking climate scientists. Thank you for your support! We truly couldn’t have done it without you.
Unfortunately, assaults on climate scientists continue. Most notably, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has launched an investigation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), claiming that NOAA “alters data to get the politically correct results they want.” Rep. Smith has targeted a NOAA study, and the NOAA scientists behind the study, which found that recent temperature increases were greater than earlier studies indicated – contradicting Rep. Smith’s belief that global warming has “paused.” NOAA provided Rep. Smith with much of the information he sought, but it has rightfully refused to hand over scientists’ private emails because protecting internal deliberations is essential for fostering free scientific discourse. Rep. Smith has not responded well. For more on this, please read our post at the Columbia Climate Law blog.
Similarly, the fossil-fuel industry funded Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a lawsuit this month, claiming that open records laws give them the right to access the personal correspondence of George Mason University professor Dr. Ed Maibach, an expert in climate change communications. We fully expect that this lawsuit will be exposed as meritless – as have similar lawsuits before – but sadly, seeking scientists’ emails is an increasingly popular way to harass, intimidate, and attempt to discredit researchers.
Unfortunately, legal attacks on the climate science community happen on a regular basis. To help as many scientists as possible, we will again be offering free one-on-one consultations with an attorney at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, from December 14 to 18. Details available here.
Please consider donating to help us protect climate scientists from legal attacks. As always, your support is greatly appreciated.
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Yes! CSLDF is a crucial supporter of climate scientists, and actually the broader climate community. They certainly helped me when Wegman and Said sued me for $2M. earlier this year.
“Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has launched an investigation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), claiming that NOAA “alters data to get the politically correct results they want.” ”
Surely “politically correct” means “in line with what some politician wants”?
“NOAA provided Rep. Smith with much of the information he sought, but it has rightfully refused to hand over scientists’ private emails because protecting internal deliberations is essential for fostering free scientific discourse.”
I *think* the subpoena is for *NOAA emails*, not private emails on private email accounts.
If so, I *think* the NOAA emails, ALL of them, should be provided even as part of the FOIA.
But regardless, isn’t science meant to be *transparent* – in its discoveries as well as in any deliberations that may lead up to the discoveries?
“But regardless, isn’t science meant to be *transparent* – in its discoveries as well as in any deliberations that may lead up to the discoveries?”
No, actually, it is not and it never has been. The concept of transparency at every level of science is an invention of science deniers.
Just like many other things, there are two parts that are not *transparent*.
One has to do with the doing of the science itself. It is widely accepted that during early phases of a scientific process, including grant writing, initial discovery, initial examination or analysis of evidence, etc., that information about a project is proprietary. This allows scientists to carry out intensive and extensive work, often for a period of many months or even years, without fear of someone else jumping on their results and obviating their grant writing or career paths. There are even standards in some sciences as to how long one can keep one’s cards close to protect these investments.
Another version of this is privately funded proprietary research. A majority if scientists, I’m pretty sure, are working in part or wholly on projects that involve contractual obligations to keep information secret. The private funding of science (at private and public institutions) requires this.
The second area of non-transparency is in the form of private discussions. By private I do not mean not-publicly funded (should that be the case) but rather, person-to person or small group discussions. These discussions may overlap significantly with the above stated issue, but I’m really referring here to the normal social discourse. Do we bring Dr X in on a project? Let’s talk about it. Is Dr X trustworthy? A good mentor? Clumsy at the lab bench? We can only bring one post doc on board with this project, which one? Etc.
If private communication about everything everyone has ever done as a scientist that happens to be on email is considered public information, then many of the member of congress who for selfish, political, and short term reasons want to see that happen are going to have some interesting conversations with their funding sources in private industry. That will be interesting.
Same with ideas. Scientists have these things you are certainly not familiar with, which I like to call “honest conversations.” This is a private gathering, in many labs on a weekly schedule, or often impromptu when a guest is visiting. All scientific labs I’ve worked in have these, so if you are working with a couple of different projects, you may attend a dozen of these a month. These conversations require decorum and an expectation of privacy, because anyone should be able to say whatever they want and not be publicly judged on the quality of their ideas, or gaps in their knowledge. These are the conversations where a lot of the actual progress is made in science, where problems are defined and solutions worthy of development are generated, and procedures are smoothed out.
Over the last 15 years, these conversations have taken advantage of the internet, so they often occur in emails. The idea that these conversations should now be always public, if that comes to fruition, simply means that they have to stop happening. The progress that has been made in advancing the value of these conversations will be set back.
Ultimately, a scientific project is subject to peer review, publication, and examination and use by other scientists. When that happens, methodology, data, techniques, etc. do in fact need to be transparent. But they often are not. In many scientific areas, there are proprietary methods that are not shared. That is not illegal, and it is allowed and in some ways encouraged as part of the overall philosophy of using the free market and privatization to advance science. That is the case with, again, most science that actually happens. This is relatively rare in publicly funded science, but there is no particular reason for that other than the lack of research supervision by large corporations like pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Within science there is a move, at least in some areas, to make some things more transparent, such as the “Open notebook” or “Open Lab” system. That works under a narrow range of circumstances, and has in fact produced disappointingly little interesting science outside of a few areas. Scientists need to know that they can have a private conversation in order to have that conversation, and the conversation, the honest conversation, is essential. In many areas, scientists need to know that the multi-month effort of grant writing, the multi-year effort of data collection, etc., is going to produce (hopefully) results that they can publish, or they can’t do it, because that publication is how they are evaluated. To some extent, your distorted view of “transparency” could be thought of as open retail. You have a store, you buy stock, you keep the lights and heat/ac on, etc. But I can set up my own cash register and check out your customers and keep the money. You would not run such a store.
So, no, you are, as usual wrong.
To Greg #4:
Yeah. Maybe there’s just too much money to be made and too many academic careers reliant on climate change science for it to be transparent.
US Representative Lamar Smith…serves as Chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, which has jurisdiction over programs at NASA, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. As far as I can tell, he has no significant experience in science , technology, engineering, or math, and yet the Republicans awarded him chairmanship on this committee. He has a BA from Yale. He is a Christian Scientist. His appointment to the Chair of this committee is a crime against the citizens of the US and a crime against humanity.
Sometimes it looks like we are beginning to turn the corner on the war against climate ignorance, but we still have major tasks ahead of us, like rooting festering pockets of stupidity like the odious Representative Smith.
Why is my second post still awaiting moderation?
Greg #4:
A government scientists emails are not private from their employer.
Just like a corporate employee’s emails are not private from their employer.
So if NASA wants to read their own employee scientists emails, they can.
If the house or senate wants to read the NASA scientists emails, they can.
Ultimately NASA will have to turn over the emails to the legislature, if they want them.
They do not even need a subpoena, like they would if they were trying to get emails from a non-government source, like a private individuals gmail account or a corporations emails.
SteveP #5:
It doesn’t matter if Lamar Smith is illiterate, let alone if he is a scientist.
I am pretty sure being a chairman of a committee is merely a matter of seniority, and has nothing to do with a persons educational background or even whether they have graduated from high school or can read or write.
“If the house or senate wants to read the NASA scientists emails, they can.”
Why? Neither the house nor senate are the employers of NASA scientists.
What Lamar Smith is doing is a disruptive fishing expedition, or a witch hunt, for the benefit, one supposes, of his major campaign donors. Over the years, Lamar Smith’s biggest campaign donors have included oil and gas interests and the automotive industry. It is a travesty that he is even on the Science, Space and Technology committee, let alone that he is the chairman.
Lamar Smith is a great representative of the oil and gas industry. However, his primitive, idiotic, lunatic, conspiracy based accusations make him a threat to humanity, as he is helping to throw gasoline on the fire of climate ignorance. This is especially heinous because he is doing it at a time when it is critical that people who do not understand the basic scientific principles of climate change either get educated or get out of the way of those who are.
Sure, because it is obvious that the best people to make decisions about science policy are the people who are low on integrity and completely lacking in scientific knowledge. That’s the perfect tea bagger philosophy.
“To Greg #4:
Yeah. Maybe there’s just too much money to be made and too many academic careers reliant on climate change science for it to be transparent.”
Once again you’ve demonstrated either a total lack of understanding, or a nefarious desire to distort the truth.
In my comment, I’m talking in part about money, but not “too much money.” Rather, money, and time, and other investments, made by students or post docs or young underpaid academics who need to invest many months or years into a research project with some guarantee that it won’t be pulled out form under them before they get to the point where it is past initial peer review.
This is not about people making money and getting rich, it is about people who decided to dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge, and in so doing, are taking a great personal risk.
To Greg #13:
That lack of transparency is OK for private research. But with NOAA we’re talking about PUBLIC research, that is, research by a government agency paid for by MY tax dollars. NOAA works for ME. And if MY government representatives want to look into what MY tax dollars are paying for they should be allowed to do so, no questions asked (with possible exceptions for top secret/national security stuff).
NOAA’s lack of transparency here is BS.
I second RickA #8.
You really are dense.
When most people (who are like you, not very knowledgable about the actual scientific process) think of transparency, they think of data, methods, results. That stuff is transparent in most research, and where it isn’t, it should be.
When out of control members of congress are sucking up to their right wing gun-toting bible thumping libertarian selfish asshole constants (like you) go after things like emails, they are going into entirely different territory, where they (and you) do not belong for reasons I’ve described above and that you have ignored.
Not really. Since you declare by (it isn’t clear what authority) that modern science is all crap, and since NOAA does science, what they do has no bearing on you.
Anyone who thinks that NOAA should waste its time doing this should first demand that Spencer and Christy pur their blackbox satellite code online, along with all their emails.
NOAA ar least does a good job.
@ John #17
Hear! Hear!
Data and code, I say, data and code!
… and the relevant link to Eli’s too!
To Greg #15:
“When most people (who are like you, not very knowledgable about the actual scientific process) think of transparency, they think of data, methods, results. That stuff is transparent in most research, and where it isn’t, it should be.”
I seem to recall that emails had a significant bearing on the data, methods, results in the Northumbria climate-gate scandal.
Gee, the emails might have a bearing on NOAA’s data, methods, results, too.
Inquiring “right wing gun-toting bible thumping libertarian selfish asshole constants”, and other minds, want to know.
Your recollection is incorrect.
The only correct thing you’ve had in any of your posts anywhere is that description of yourself.
#22 is directed at sn, of course
#20: That’s not really what you want. You’re being dishonest. Again.
Marco #10 said:
“Why? Neither the house nor senate are the employers of NASA scientists.”
NASA scientists are Federal government employees and the house and senate (Congress) have oversight responsibility of the Federal government.
The legislature actually has oversight over the other two branches of government and all the executive agencies, and can investigate the white house and/or corrupt judges.
Why they can even impeach certain Federal government employees.
I am not saying it is a good idea to read all of NASA’s emails – but congress sure has that right (if they choose to exercise it).
Congress pays all Federal government employees (via the budget) – so I think NASA scientists actually are working for Congress.
And following that thought – all spending bills have to originate in the house – so really all government (Federal) employees work for the house.
To Greg #21:
“Your recollection is incorrect.”
I think you’re right. It wasn’t Northumbria. It was East Anglia. The East Anglia emails had a significant bearing on the data, methods, results in the climate-gate scandal.
“If the house or senate wants to read the NASA scientists emails, they can.”
The US government is entitled to make laws regarding forcing anyone in the US to hand over any information it wants. Therefore the US government simply has to make whatever laws it wants to acquire whatever emails it wants. Due process is for the US government to make the laws required for this action. Does anyone have a problem with due process?
Chris #26:
No – Congress cannot pass a law requiring you to turn over your personal emails (say from a gmail account). A court could – but only with a search warrant – which requires probable cause – and not just a whim.
On the other hand – if your employer wanted to ready your work email they only need call the IT person. They don’t need a search warrant because they own them in the first place.
Similarly, Congress “owns” the emails of all Federal government employees – like NASA scientists.
Due process is not really a law making concept – it relates to how the courts treat people.
Oh yes they can. They might lose at the next election but that’s not the same thing. The only thing thats limits their power to pass laws is the Constitution and AFAIA there’s nothing in the Constitution about communications being sacrosanct.
Appropriate use of irony quotes there.
“Congress pays all Federal government employees (via the budget)”
The fun thing is that congress also pays itself. That’s right, congress members, and their staff, are Federal government employees. So, if congress would argue it has the right to demand e-mails from Federal government employees, it argues that it can demand the e-mails of its own members (and their staff), too. Whoops!
“if your employer wanted to ready your work email they only need call the IT person.”
It’s a bit more tricky than that. If the company has a policy that says it will not monitor your e-mails, they cannot suddenly do that anyway. NOAA officials have now in essence made it clear that it considers e-mails from their scientists ‘privileged’, so any court may find itself in significant legal limbo: is congress the employer and has it made it clear to its employees that all their e-mails can be monitored, or is NOAA the employer, in which case their public announcements mean the scientists’ e-mails are off-limits.
Possibly time to remind contrarians that the very idea that NOAA is part of a global conspiracy by climate scientists to falsify results is laughable. Yet that is what you are pushing here.
Smith’s abuse of public office is a serious matter and needs to be taken seriously, but the underlying implications are so self-evidently unhinged that they should not be taken seriously. They should be mocked for the swivel-eyed lunacy that they are.
It’s important to separate the two issues, especially when dealing with vocal contrarians online.
#26: No, they didn’t.
# 26 SN
Conspiracy theorists are derided for a reason.
@26. See Noevo :
The “climategate” manufactroversy? Seriously? You’ve sunk *that* low?
To something debunked so many times so long ago? Like say, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg&index=6&list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP
Among so very many other places.
Whoo, you must be desperate. Pathetic too.
What’s your next vomit here See Noevo – climate change ain’t real coz Al Gore is fat or summin’?
Chris #29:
Yes – you are correct. Congress can pass any law they want. Sometimes they pass unconstitutional laws and this would be one of them.
What I should have said was that a person subject to that law could apply to the court and the court would strike the law down as a violation of the 4th amendment.
No matter who wants your personal emails – whether it is a the legislative branch or the executive branch – they need probable cause to issue a search warrant.
But Congress doesn’t need a search warrant to require a government agency to turn over its emails – because the government already owns them.
Of course, the executive branch could assert a privilege – but I cannot think of one which applies here.
Congress has a pretty big stick – because they can just not fund NASA next fiscal year if they don’t get the cooperation they want.
Hypothetically speaking of course. Congress is not the one doing the witch hunt, only a few members at most. That’s why majorities of votes are required – so deranged minorities cannot exert undue power.
So, RickA
Tell us how the Grand Global Climate Conspiracy Theory actually works.
How does a huge, multidisciplinary field collude and conspire to falsify results?
Why is imagining this *not* insane?
…because [Congress] can just not fund NASA next fiscal year if they don’t get the cooperation they want.
Which is parked right next to the fantasy “[Congress] can just not fund Social Security and Medicare next fiscal year if they don’t get the cooperation they want.”
… the [Supreme C]ourt would strike the law down as a violation of the 4th amendment.
Which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”.
You cannot assert that the SCOTUS would not find partisan political witch hunts to be “unreasonable searches” — even if the target du jour is an FFRDC.
Your argument falls apart. Again.
I’m surprised no one in a lead position has thought of keeping personal communications separate from work. It would leave the denial community apoplectic if they had to bitch complain, sue, spend effort.. only to find nothing but delivery dates, schedules and work successfully completed.
BBD: Don’t forget that much of the NOAA data is military. Provided by the military, and used by the military. Its shared between all allied navies.
So.. now the conspiracy theory goes that all allied navies are intentionally committing treason to render their navies worthless, for Al Gore in some grand green scheme….
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65fdeeb48b4706e5a0638f0f585477944f7b3e5f07de4a0755790513c96363d9.jpg
So.. now the conspiracy theory goes that all allied navies are intentionally committing treason to render their navies worthless, for Al Gore in some grand green scheme….
Don’t forget to add, “and they’re doing this while publicly saying that they actually do need to react to mitigate AGW in order to save their navies”.
Which nicely illustrates the perversion of thought that the brain of a denier must warp their neurons into in order to sustain their self-serving, self-destructive fantasy.
Come on, sn is the only person who KNOWS all of modern science is wrong and is simply done as a conspiracy to brainwash people into thinking the bible is neither a history nor scientific tome. Heck, he’s said nothing should be studied just for the sake of learning, unless there is an immediate application. That’s how realistic he is. /snark
My God Oily! It’s worse than we thought!
I do wonder if these folks would get the anti-science traction they have if they hadn’t spent the past 8 years lying about President Obama, making him the personification of evil the tea-baggers believe him to be. The fact that they’ve made their lies stick means that when they tie science (or any) policy to him they can count on a huge groundswell of support from the great uneducated folk (like the resident troll sn).
Submitted 12/3/15 ~3:00 p.m.
in two parts.
1)
Some thoughts on conspiracy and conspiracy theories:
Do I think the AGW agenda is a *global* conspiracy? No.
Do I think that within the AGW agenda some *smaller scale*, less-than-global, *possible conspiracies* exist, such as with NOAA? Yes.
However, a flawed agenda can be promoted globally without need of a global conspiracy.
Examples: Liberalism; Socialism.
……………..
2)
“Information provided to the Committee by whistleblowers appears to show that the [NOAA] study was rushed to publication despite the concerns and objections of a number of NOAA scientists, ignoring established and standard NOAA scientific processes and potentially violating NOAA’s scientific integrity policies.”
– Rep. Lamar Smith in letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.
If Lamar Smith was lying, if there were no such whistleblowers, Smith might be subject to legal prosecution.
I guess we won’t get closer to the truth until the existence and testimony of the whistleblowers is confirmed.
And of course, until we get to see the NOAA emails.
spent the past 8 years lying about President Obama, making him the personification of evil
It all depends on which religion/god/political ideology (all the same) a person follows. One deity says he’s evil, while the Other Deity says he’s a good guy.
“The fact that they’ve made their lies stick means that” they’re appealing to folks who follow the first type of god. Of course there will be a huge groundswell of support from the faithful followers of that religious figure.
Some religions say, “Put this ring in your nose”, while other Religions say, “Put this ring over your head — and THINK! rather than REACT…”
The folks who have been demonizing President Obama – and denying the science – aren’t aiming their messages at folks want to gather information and facts on their own, or who value the things scientists say. Again – sn the troll.
aren’t aiming their messages at folks want to gather information and facts on their own
Of course not! They’re proselytizing! (Is what religious zealots do, of course.)
# 46 SN:
Then how do you explain the absence of pushback from large areas of the Earth System Science community?
And every other institution curating a gridded surface temperature reconstruction? Yet nobody has ever shown there to be a systemic, serious bias in *any* of them (except the UAH TLT satellite product overseen by prominent sceptics Christy and Spencer, which had to be withdrawn and corrected when its apparent lack of warming was shown to be the result of methodological errors).
You have read the response to Smith from Johnson? There appear to be serious problems with what LS claims:
LS needs to address these matters promptly and directly if he is to retain the confidence of any but his most partisan supporters.
# 46 SN:
Then how do you explain the absence of pushback from large areas of the Earth System Science community?
And every other institution curating a gridded surface temperature reconstruction? Yet nobody has ever shown there to be a systemic, serious bias in *any* of them (except the UAH TLT satellite product overseen by noted sceptics Christy and Spencer, which had to be withdrawn and corrected when its apparent lack of warming was shown to be the result of methodological errors).
You have read the response to Smith from Johnson? There appear to be serious problems with what LS claims:
LS needs to address these matters promptly and directly if he is to retain the confidence of any but his most partisan supporters.
Sorry about the odd double-copy posting above. Just ignore the second iteration 😉
No worries, BBD! You obviously were too close to SN’s echo chamber when you were replying…
To BBD #50:
Me: “Do I think the AGW agenda is a *global* conspiracy? No.”
You: “Then how do you explain the absence of pushback from large areas of the Earth System Science community?”
One likely explanation is that the overwhelming majority of the supporters (i.e. not pushing back) from the Earth System Science community are liberals.
Then why is a political party that amounts to an unpopular minority running this country?
(Or, they are now down to one presidential election left to complete “the collection”.)
$
LS and staff are spending $, and forcing NOAA to spend time and money, ie our tax money.
Some people seem to think that’s a good idea, but i would sure rather spend $ on useful things.
If tobacco companies had time machines, they’d probably go back to 1950s buy a Senator to apply the LS treatment to the Surgeon General and tobacco researchers to slow them down.
Note:Christy is Federally funded…
#54 SN:
So you *do* believe in a global conspiracy within Earth System Sciences to endorse scientific misconduct for political ends. Thank you for clarifying that.
To BBD #57:
Me: “One likely explanation is that the overwhelming majority of the supporters (i.e. not pushing back) from the Earth System Science community are liberals.”
You: “So you *do* believe in a global conspiracy within Earth System Sciences to endorse scientific misconduct for political ends.”
No, I do *NOT*.
I consider a “conspiracy” the formal communication and coordination among multiple power players of a nefarious plan of attack to defeat or confound the opposition.
As I said before, I do not think this is the case. It’s not necessary, for liberalism is a mind set.
Nope. Won’t do. If ‘they’ all know the results are dodgy but everybody turns a blind eye, then it’s a conspiracy. A conspiracy of silence.
A liberal conspiracy.
That’s what you believe in, and it’s utterly nuts. You have succumbed to paranoid imaginings.
Science is self-policing and apolitical. Bad ideas go under. Good ideas survive. The survivors of the endless dogfight of ideas emerge as the scientific consensus. That’s how it works in real life.
All this tinfoil-wrapped muttering about ‘liberalism’ corrupting science is laughable. Just listen to yourself go on.
Get a grip.
He can’t get a grip. He’s beholden to the slippery ideology of conservatism. You know, the multiple power players of a nefarious plan of attack to defeat or confound their opposition. Conservatism is a mind set.
Its ideology is designed to target anything that is objective, valid, real. Truth, as revealed by Science, is an anathema to the propagation and whore-ship of ideology, which is disconnected from reality (hence the tin-foil hats).
It’s desperately difficult to enthrall and manipulate masses with fear and confusion if they’re exposed to something like Science that clears the confusion and points the way to a solid, grounded reality.
Hence the Conservative war on Science. He won’t be getting a grip any time soon, I’m afraid.
Brainstorms
Well, I can see the problem. A political ideology that is predicated on the primacy of the market faces an existential threat from climate change because, as Lord Stern observed, global warming is the greatest market failure of all time.
No wonder the less intellectually gifted on the right feel threatened by radiative physics.
I’m wondering whether the smarter ones will eventually accept that it is deeply against conservative / libertarian values to inflict your shit on other people. This would, of course, require that they put themselves in other people’s shoes for the sake of the thought experiment. But how would a proud individualist feel about someone else damaging their prosperity and their childrens’ chance of a decent future? Aggrieved, I would say. So it’s a bit of a mystery why all these proud individualist conservative types are so blase about CO2-forced warming, because there are no ‘other people’ when it comes right down to it, are there? We’re all pissing in our own bathwater.
Round 1: Lamar Smith
Round 2: Ted Cruz
Hearings
December 8, 2015
Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, will convene a hearing titled “Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate” on Tuesday, December 8 at 3 p.m. The hearing will focus on the ongoing debate over climate science, the impact of federal funding on the objectivity of climate research, and the ways in which political pressure can suppress opposing viewpoints in the field of climate science.
Witnesses:
Dr. John Christy
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Dr. Judith Curry
Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics, Princeton University
Mr. Mark Steyn
International Bestselling Author
Dr. David Titley (Rear Admiral, USN (ret.))
Professor of Practice, Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University
Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk
*Additional witnesses may be announced
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ID=CA2ABC55-B1E8-4B7A-AF38-34821F6468F7
Judith Curry is looking forward to appearing with her scientific peers:
“It will be a treat to be in the same room with Ted Cruz and Mark Steyn.”
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/12/what-treat-for-judith-curry-supping.html#more
Cruz, by the way, is no science slouch. He recently scored a perfect 0 out of 100, along with the following praise:
“This candidate shows a profound ignorance of the observational records, the climate science — and indeed of the scientific method.”
http://climatefeedback.org/how-much-do-the-us-presidential-candidates-know-about-climate-change/
In Smith and Cruz the Republicans have found two men who are eminently qualified to assess climate science and the veracity of climate scientists.
Cosmi, please tell us this is a joke. Please.
BBD,
The less intellectually gifted on the right feel threatened by anything their handlers manipulate them into being insecure about.
The smarter ones accept that it is deeply in line with conservative values to inflict their shit on other people (and especially in inflicting one’s tax burdens on other people — “the little people” to quote Leona).
This would, of course, require that they put themselves in other people’s shoes for the sake of the thought experiment.
They would either recoil with repugnance at the the thought, or the thought would never occur to them. Mainly, it never occurs to them.
But how would a proud individualist feel about someone else damaging their prosperity and their childrens’ chance of a decent future? Aggrieved, I would say.
Yes, but THEY are part of what’s damaging their prosperity and their childrens’ chance of a decent future. Hence, the “way out” is denial that there’s any problem. And the need to squash those pesky scientists and their organizations who keep pointing out that the Emperor Has No Clothes.
We’re all pissing in our own bathwater.
More like “We’re taking a dump in our water supply.”
In sn’s world an understanding of science is bad, and even worse is using education in an attempt to avoid problems or otherwise improve the world. he’s not alone – that’s the same for a good share of the current republican base:education is bad, something to be mocked, as is the notion of service to society.
Hence their psychopathic behavior.
Dean, I think the sociopathy precedes the evidence thereof: the desire to block education, the mockery of service to society, etc.
Education is a very dangerous thing to a Conservative leader. Education frees the mind from baseless worries, steers the mind away from superstition and myth, and informs the mind that treacherous ideologies are false.
The upshot being that the Conservative leaders have their grip on their sources of money and votes weakened. A great threat indeed.
Service to society is also a thing to be avoided: it empowers the very proletariat that the Conservative class use as a tool to enrich themselves. It also potentially takes their power and their security (money) out of their pockets — something to be avoided at all costs (esp. the cost to society).
Little wonder the Conservatives espouse an economic ideology that tends to create recessions and depressions. With a pliant government that will take tax dollars out of the pockets of the middle class and re-imburse them for their egregious losses, they only come out ahead. “The Little People” are the ones who suffer.
And they are ‘no-count’.
To BBD #59:
“Nope. Won’t do. If ‘they’ all know the results are dodgy but everybody turns a blind eye, then it’s a conspiracy. A conspiracy of silence. A liberal conspiracy… it’s utterly nuts…paranoid imaginings.”
Nope. Won’t do.
No conspiracy needed [i.e. no formal communication and coordination among multiple power players of a nefarious plan of attack to defeat or confound the opposition.].
And I didn’t say ‘they’ *all* know the results are dodgy but *everybody* turns a blind eye.
I would say *some* definitely do.
The rest are too lazy or disinterested to poke properly at the data, likely because they’re too comforted by the liberal/anti-capitalism narrative “told” by the false/inconclusive data.
An imperfect analogy might be another icon of the Left: abortion.
*Some*, even many, in the pro-abortion movement *definitely* know abortion is murder. The rest of those in the pro-abortion movement (a.k.a. “pro-choice”) are too lazy or disinterested to poke properly and think logically about the data, likely because they’re too comforted by the liberal/do-what-I-want narrative provided by the false/illogical arguments.
SN
Fair warning, as you don’t know me, but please stop attempting to impose your own definitions on the discussion. Read what I wrote, and if needs be, google. For example, at #59, conspiracy of silence.
Next, tidy up your reasoning. Look at this nonsense:
And their peers don’t notice? Why not? GISTEMP, HADCRUT, NOAA et al. all faked up and nobody questions it? Oh, but they did, didn’t they? Remember BEST? What was the outcome of that intensely sceptical and hugely detailed reanalysis of the data? What happened, SN?
You are peddling conspiracist ideation and unless you admit that this is what you are doing you will be exposed as either confused or dishonest.
The defining characteristic of scientists in general is curiosity. Poking at the data is what they do. It is why they became scientists in the first place. Scientists are also sceptical in the correct sense, which is that they take very little on trust. You might recall that the original motto of the Royal Society was nullius in verba. Google it. And keep your counterfactual assertions in check, please. And be sure to google up the BEST results.
* * *
You have demonstrated exactly nothing so far *except* that you are sunk deep in conspiracist ideation but are very unwilling to admit it. Presumably because you sense, dimly, that such behaviour is ridiculous and rightly invites mockery.
html bork fixed:
And their peers don’t notice? Why not? GISTEMP, HADCRUT, NOAA et al. all faked up and nobody questions it? Oh, but they did, didn’t they? Remember BEST? What was the outcome of that intensely sceptical and hugely detailed reanalysis of the data? What happened, SN?
You are peddling conspiracist ideation and unless you admit that this is what you are doing you will be exposed as either confused or dishonest.
The defining characteristic of scientists in general is curiosity. Poking at the data is what they do. It is why they became scientists in the first place. Scientists are also sceptical in the correct sense, which is that they take very little on trust. You might recall that the original motto of the Royal Society was nullius in verba. Google it. And keep your counterfactual assertions in check, please. And be sure to google up the BEST results.
* * *
You have demonstrated exactly nothing so far *except* that you are sunk deep in conspiracist ideation but are very unwilling to admit it. Presumably because you sense, dimly, that such behaviour is ridiculous and rightly invites mockery.
And another thing:
So far it has been you and only you who has repeatedly injected politics into the exchange, insisting that climate change is a socialist plot. This is, to be blunt, horse shit. The science of physical climatology is not politics. It is, essentially, physics. Right-wing ideologues who try to frame CC as a lefty conspiracy are missing the point that it is they themselves who have politicised the issue and made it not one of the left, but of the right. The reasons being self-evident, as pointed out at # 61.
This absolute lack of self-awarness is tedious in the extreme. As I said some time ago, please get a grip. Think before you type.
#63
It is a joke, but it’s not the kind of joke that can provide any relief.
To BBD #69:
Per your strong suggestion, I googled the BEST results.
I haven’t yet gone through them all, and not being a climate scientist, I’m not sure I’d understand all of it if I did.
I also googled ‘berkeley earth system results+criticism of’ and found this piece, apparently written by two of the participants in the BEST project.
I haven’t gone through all of this either, but I noted this towards the end (prior to the long comment section):
“… the scientific analyses that the BEST team has done with the new data set are controversial, including the impact of station quality on interpreting temperature trends and the urban heat island effect.
Their latest paper on the 250 year record concludes that the best explanation for the observed warming is greenhouse gas emissions. In my opinion, their analysis is way over simplistic and not at all convincing . There is broad agreement that greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to the warming in the latter half of the 20th century; the big question is how much of this warming can be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions. I dont think this question can be answered by the simple curve fitting used in this paper, and I don’t see that their paper adds anything to our understanding of the causes of the recent warming.”
http://judithcurry.com/2012/07/29/a-new-release-from-berkeley-earth-surface-temperature/
P.S.
I see Judith Curry, along with some others, will be testifying to Congress on 12/8/15 (ref comment #62 above).
What does this have to do with BEST having a Liberal bias?
You won’t go through them at all, because you know you won’t understand them. Even so, you’ll distort the results based on their titles (because that’s what you’ve done with every article referenced to you here and in other posts) and pick random points out, give them without context, do misrepresent what is said.
Because you’re a congenital liar and habitual science denier.
“the scientific analyses that the BEST team has done with the new data set are controversial, including the impact of station quality on interpreting temperature trends and the urban heat island effect.”
Yup, that would be the expected criticism of Judith Curry when the BEST results didn’t go her way. Quite the same reaction as Anthony Watts who trusted the BEST results…until they came in and didn’t fit what he believed they would show. Data and analysis is fine and all that, but in the world of Watts and Curry they better give the results they want, otherwise they can’t be right.
The fun part of the BEST effort is that it was *not* financed by any supposedly ‘liberal’ sources, but by an outright conservative group: the Koch foundation.
See, SN, even ‘your own’ side gets the same results. But as we also know, on ‘your side’ ideology trumps factual data. If the data does not fit the ideology, it can’t be right.
There is a bit of confusion here:
1/ Curry’s claim that the methodology used by BEST for its temperature reconstruction is ‘controversial’ is simply an assertion. Curry provides nothing at all to back this up or demonstrate that the results were biased as a consequence. In science, saying stuff is not enough. You have to demonstrate error.
2/ Curry is probably correct to say that the methodology BEST used to make the attribution statement is simplistic and should not be the basis of a strong claim. This is not actually relevant to whether the cause of modern warming is mainly CO2. It is a critique of the BEST attribution methodology itself.
3/ Debate about the attribution methodology used by BEST is irrelevant to the actual temperature reconstruction itself, which is considered to be robust (as far as I know, there has been no published criticism in the scientific literature).
4/ This discussion was about whether or not a sceptical audit of global temperature data would reveal biases in the existing reconstructions (NOAA, HADCRUT, GISS). BEST confirmed those results.
The properly sceptical scientist who set up the BEST project to check the trustworthiness of the major temperature datasets, Richard Muller, describes how his scientific curiosity led him to poke the data and how that changed his mind:
Muller concludes:
Note the separation of science and public policy in that statement.
* * *
As a side note, you will be reassured to learn that the infamous Koch Brothers were the main funders of the BEST project.
Sorry Marco, we crossed.
To BBD #75:
Nobody disagrees that climate changes, that it gets warmer and colder and warmer, etc. over long periods.
The main areas of contention are
1) How much, if any, of the climate change is driven by human activity?
2) IF climate change is driven by human activity, how catastrophic could it be?
3) IF climate change IS driven by human activity and would be catastrophic, to what degree could humans prevent the catastrophe?
4) IF humans could prevent the catastrophe, how “catastrophic” would the economic costs be of the preventive measures?
The BEST results apparently do not address these points of contention, as I think you acknowledge.
And I think Muller may me misguided in your quote:
“Muller concludes: …I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help *settle* the scientific debate regarding global warming and *its human causes*.”
Of course, there hasn’t been any statistically significant global cooling for the past 60 years, unlike with statistically significant global warming.
So there’s no shortage of people who will disagree that there’s been significant global cooling in the past 60 years.
BTW, I wonder if I’ll ever get an explanation for what the above comments have to do with BEST having a Liberal bias, which I thought was the point at issue.
[78] These questions have been largely addressed. You are presenting them as though they were entirely open questions. Of course we don’t know how catastrophic global warming will be but we are almost certainly locked into some major problems and we are heading for being locked in to even bigger problems.
The BEST results certainly do address some of these issues, and imply outcomes for others, because BEST is smily yet another analysis showing the same thing NOAA, NASA, and other research units and agencies have shown.
@ ^ Chris O’Neill : Apparently, reality has a liberal bias -although I think it may be the other way around with the “conservatives” being biased against reality instead.
SN
The point of contention is that you are a conspiracy theorist who believes that NOAA is faking its results (and so, presumably, are GISS and Hadley/CRU or they would be very different).
I have shown you that an independent, sceptical and to an extent hostile review of the temperature data validated the existing temperature reconstructions.
You have yet to acknowledge this point and accept that your conspiracy theory is unfounded.
Please do so, explicitly, before we continue.
#78
Here’s more from the op-ed cited by BBD #75:
“How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
What’s your not-already-debunked alternative?
The problem is not an absence of data proving anthropogenic climate change, but that you and others like you are fundamentally dishonest and will reject any proofs, no matter how solid, no matter how well they concur. Your position isn’t rational, but pathological. If you wish to convince others of anything else, then describe the reasonable proofs you require, not just what you want proven.
To cosmicomics #83:
Some more quotes from your linked NYT article “The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic” by B.E.S.T. participant Richard A. Muller, along with some comments of mine:
“And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.”
And how about even farther back, between the multiple ice ages scientists say the earth experienced, and which they say are now on glaciation cycles of 40,000 to 100,000 years?
Is it possible that we are currently no warmer than we were between those ice ages?
What caused the onset of those ice ages and what got us out of them?
“What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace…”
Has Berkeley performed a similar study confirming or denying the so-called global warming pause of the last 18 or so years?
Anyone who has the slightest interest in data and not remaining ignorant can easily find out that there is no 18 year “pause” in Berkeley data by using the statistical significance calculator: http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
This shows statistically significant global warming in Berkeley’s data since 1999.
But as we’ve come to expect, “See Noevo” wants to remain ignorant of any data that might challenge his belief system so it’s no surprise he is unaware of this.
Here’s a recent news item that relates to one of my questions in #84:
“Dr Steve Brusatte, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: “The new tracksite from Skye is one of the most remarkable dinosaur discoveries ever made in Scotland. There are so many tracks crossing each other that it looks like a dinosaur disco preserved in stone. By following the tracks you can walk with these dinosaurs as they waded through a lagoon 170 million years ago, when Scotland was SO MUCH WARMER THAN TODAY.”
http://phys.org/news/2015-12-fossil-dinosaur-tracks-insight-prehistoric.html
…………..
P.S.
Another fascinating thing, although off topic:
Isn’t it amazing that something as “perishable” as footprints in mud could survive for thousands of years, let alone 170 million years of glacier scouring, fabulous freezes, major thaws, floods, erosion, and even human trampling?
Apparently, this was not fascinating to these scientists. They didn’t seem to wonder about it.
#84
You haven’t answered BBD’s question yet, and you have haven’t addressed my questions. Instead, you play games of evasion. Typical.
SN
Why haven’t you acknowledged that your conspiracy theory is baseless?
Can you not admit your errors in good faith?
Yeah, sn’s m.o.:
When in over your head, circle back to long debunked arguments as if you’ve never heard them before.
No wonder respect for him has dropped to the floor and just rolls around there. You’d think he’d realize that his attempts at conversion were an abysmal failure and that he’d try something else. But apparently he’s perfectly happy to waste his time just being an obnoxious jackass.
In another blog sn was asked what he needed for proof of evolution. He replied that he would believe in evolution after “an animal of one species gives birth to an animal of another species, the evolution predicts will happen” (and, as he noted, he had studied research in evolution extensively) – so the answer to your question is a resounding no, he will never admit errors or do anything in good faith.
Just another politicised, evidence-denying unsinkable rubber duck then. Oh well.
* * *
Yes, the Pleistocene ice age began about 2.6Ma.
And how does denying the scientific evidence for evolution square with dinosaurs in what-is-now-but-was-not-then Scotland? Actually, never mind. Please keep the mess to yourself.
To BBD #88:
“Why haven’t you acknowledged that your conspiracy theory is baseless?”
Because I never said a conspiracy existed.
I said I did *not* think the AGW agenda is a *global* conspiracy,
but said smaller-scale conspiracies, such as at NOAA, were quite *possible*. (See again my #46, #54, #58.)
I acknowledged my belief that the earth’s climate has changed dramatically in the distant past and could significantly change in the future.
If scientists want to spend their time trying to prove beyond any reasonable scientific doubt that earth’s temperatures have steadily increased over the last 250 years, fine. *Perhaps BEST, NOAA, et al, have even done so.*
[I’m looking forward to the Congressional testimonies of Judith Curry, et al, tomorrow.]
My question is: To what end, other than scientific inquisitiveness, are they doing this?
To begin with, it seems to me they are doing this to tie the temperature increase to certain human activities, specifically activities generating the natural gas CO2.
Yet even THEY admit that they have not proven causality, but have only a correlation, a correlation that they say is strongest with only one variable that they *currently* know of – CO2.
Ultimately though, it seems to me they are doing this to try to justify greater and greater control over people and economies. And spending dollars certain for rationales uncertain. Liberal nirvana.
P.S.
Assuming that scientist was right, any proven explanations for why Scotland 170 million years ago was SO MUCH WARMER THAN TODAY?
Ultimately though, it seems to me they are doing this to try to justify greater and greater control over people and economies.
These are either words of a confessed conspiracy theorist, or SN is finally acknowledging that greater and greater control over people emitting CO2 is justified in order to mitigate the enormous economic destruction that will follow, and which underlies the motivations of scientists doing these studies.
SN indicates that, in contrast, “conservative nirvana” is to fiddle while Rome burns, all the while denying the smoke that’s obscuring the view.
“That smell? It’s not smoke!” “That smoke? No, it’s cooking fires, not the city burning!” “Burning buildings? No, there’s been a hiatus of burning buildings in the last 14 hours!” “Elevated temperatures from fires? No, the temperature in Rome has always fluctuated; this is just part of a natural cycle!” “Firestorms consuming whole sections of Rome? No! Only 20,000 years ago there wasn’t anything there, so it must have been worse back then!”
But spend no money on prevention that one might otherwise pocket, especially when it’s (hopefully) the middle class and poor sections of Rome that are burning. “And with enough luck, we the ‘elite’ will all die from old age before any flames would reach us anyway. Who cares about those fleeing people down there. And the, ugh, corpses of the dead…” Conservative nirvana.
“But if there is one scientist who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world it is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner, who for 35 years has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe, is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.”
[Link to a 6 year unscientific denier rant deleted as per blog policy -gtl]
We all know about Nils-Axel “tilt-the-graph” Mörner. Just the next item in your Gish Gallop.
#92
First this:
“ ‘Why haven’t you acknowledged that your conspiracy theory is baseless?’
Because I never said a conspiracy existed.
I said I did *not* think the AGW agenda is a *global* conspiracy,
but said smaller-scale conspiracies, such as at NOAA, were quite *possible*. (See again my #46, #54, #58.)”
Then this:
“My question is: To what end, other than scientific inquisitiveness, are they doing this?
To begin with, it seems to me they are doing this to tie the temperature increase to certain human activities, specifically activities generating the natural gas CO2.”
In other words, the research has ulterior motives with a conspiratorial agenda. The insidious purpose of this agenda is revealed in the following:
“Ultimately though, it seems to me they are doing this to try to justify greater and greater control over people and economies.”
The they here can only refer to scientists, as that’s the only explicit referent. The archetype of the mad scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Mabuse, is now transferred to all scientists, who in their lust after power engage in research designed to control us.
But, of course, SN “never said a conspiracy existed.”
Dear commenters, are you having fun debunking See Noevo’s crap? Is this a good thing to be doing here, so that her denialist BS can be demonstrated for what it is for anyone passing by? Or should Se Noevo simply not be allowed to comment here any more.
Or is there a third option. What do you think?
Greg, there is a third option: only allow him to post a comment when he answers the questions he is asked and/or comes with a comment directly related to the rebuttal he receives (including clear acknowledgment that his question is answered), rather than go into another Gish Gallop, and/or provides direct and clear evidence of the claims he makes.
Take this one:
“Assuming that scientist was right, any proven explanations for why Scotland 170 million years ago was SO MUCH WARMER THAN TODAY?”
We have here a question that can be answered, but has nothing to do with the comment he responds to. I could provide an answer to the question anyway, but then SN will just go on to the next topic, not acknowledging the answer. He can’t do so, because he’d admit he knows so little and has no basis to place so much doubt on the knowledge of others. In short, he’d admit his questions are those of sheer and utter ignorance, rather than just a form of ‘valid’ skepticism about climate science. After all, everyone knows Scotland was not in its present Northern position during the Jurrasic and that CO2 concentrations during this period were much higher than today. In other words, you’d *expect* Scotland to be much warmer than today (although land mass distribution does have a major influence on climate, so it is not a situation that can be compared 1-to-1 to today).
SN # 88
Yes you did. You claimed that NOAA was faking its results. That is a conspiracy. By clear implication if NOAA is faking its results then so are GISS and Hadley/CRU or their temperature reconstructions would differ sufficiently from NOAA’s to reveal the fakery at NOAA.
Then you claimed that there was a conspiracy of silence amongst supposedly liberal scientists to overlook the fakery in order to further a political agenda.
Then, as cosmicomics points out at # 96, you explicitly link the accusations of scientific misconduct to a political agenda of social control:
This is conspiracist ideation from start to finish. Yet you would have your cake and eat it: denying your conspiracist nonsense in the same breath that you repeat it.
* * *
@ Greg Laden
SN is now lying and simultaneously repeating his / her conspiracy theories. Bad faith commentary should be moderated. I agree in principle with what Marco says just above, but this takes *time* and I suspect you have better things to do. Ultimately, of course, the choice is yours.
#97
Honesty, sincerity, curiosity. If a commenter doesn’t show these qualities, s/he should be stopped. This would include those who ignore relevant questions. It would include cases of – not ignorance – but insistent, intractable stupidity, e.g. those who claim “we don’t know” when it’s been clearly shown that we do, those who are wrong and reflexively reject or ignore any evidence that shows this. It would often* include those who attempt to divert the discussion so it comes to focus on their agenda, rather than the topic at hand.
A “ban” of this sort should not be universal. Persons who are destructive and irrational in regard to one subject can have something meaningful to say in regard to another. Meaningful can be something I disagree with, but that makes me consider the validity of my own position. The examples above result in disgust, not reflection.
*I think it’s possible to distinguish between diversions that in some way enrich a discussion, and those that in effect destroy it.
Given the volume of delusion that s/he’s relentlessly poured into ScienceBlogs over the years, maybe it’s time to dial back on the enabling.
It has been obvious for some time that sn is not only not interested in honest discussions on anything but is unable to carry on such a conversation due to his choice to remain uninformed on every topic he mentions. He simply “knows” that climate science (evolution, cosmology, genetics, physics in general, etc.) is wrong.
I have a feeling his entire reason for posting in various blogs is to get himself banned, thereby being able to “demonstrate” the “closed-mindedness” of the people here. He’s already succeeded in getting banned at EvolutionBlog, for precisely the same reasons mentioned here: being dishonest, evasive, and not-acknowledging comments.
So, is it worth it to give him what he wants (being banned) so he can stick another feather in his cap?
dean
What good would it do him / her?
If the plumage is invisible to the majority of the audience, it doesn’t really matter if it’s there or not.
The flipside of the coin is that permitting misinformers to proliferate unchecked online is dangerous. Bad information when brayed insistently enough, drives out good information.
Since contrarians very rarely observe the conventions of good faith discussion, I have increasingly moved towards the view that they should be excluded from it.
To all my “fans”, which do you think is the *most* objectionable point in my numerous posts above?
(Just one point per “fan”.)
I’m sure nobody is going to fall for SN’s rather crude attempt to engage the rest of us in a recitation of his / her contrarian talking points.
By allowing him to return to his traditional, friendlier, haunts and tout the fact that “yet another liberal fake science site couldn’t counter his arguments so they banned me. They can’t handle the truth”.
A minor issue I realize.