Dr. Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech, pens a letter, originally publish at Climate Progress, and now at the NY Times. Let’s take a peek, shall we?
An open letter to graduate students and young scientists in fields related to climate research:
Based upon feedback that I’ve received from graduate students at Georgia Tech, I suspect that you are confused, troubled, or worried by what you have been reading about ClimateGate After spending considerable time reading the hacked emails and other posts in the blogosphere, I wrote an essay that calls for greater transparency in climate data and other methods used in climate research. The essay is posted over at climateaudit.org.
What has been noticeably absent so far in the ClimateGate discussion is a public reaffirmation by climate researchers of our basic research values: the rigors of the scientific method (including reproducibility), research integrity and ethics, open minds, and critical thinking. Under no circumstances should we ever sacrifice any of these values; the CRU emails, however, appear to violate them.
I think they more then violated them. What has also been noticeably absent is nailing down the link between the warming that did occur and Mankind. It has been manufactured based on tenuous threads.
At the heart of this issue is how climate researchers deal with skeptics. I have served my time in the “trenches of the climate war†in the context of the debate on hurricanes and global warming. There is no question that there is a political noise machine in existence that feeds on research and statements from climate change skeptics. In grappling with this issue, I would argue that there are three strategies for dealing with skeptics:
Judith – may I call you Judith? – said political noise machine certainly appears on both sides, because a. this is a political issue, not a scientific issue, and b. y’all on the climate alarmist side have the media and academia backing you up to get your talking points out there, not to mention the left side of the elected political spectrum. Moving on
1. Retreat into the ivory tower
2. Circle the wagons/point guns outward: ad hominem/appeal to motive attacks; appeal to authority; isolate the enemy through lack of access to data; peer review process
3. Take the “high ground:†engage the skeptics on our own terms (conferences, blogosphere); make data/methods available/transparent; clarify the uncertainties; openly declare our valuesMost scientists retreat into the ivory tower. The CRU emails reflect elements of the circling of wagons strategy. For the past 3 years, I have been trying to figure out how to engage skeptics effectively in the context of #3, which I think is a method that can be effective in countering the arguments of skeptics, while at the same time being consistent with our core research values.
As soon as one takes the “high ground”, they are saying “I’m better then you. The debate is over. There is consensus. The science is settle.” Which is what we tend to get in the public purvey from the climate alarmists. Instead, perhaps you should explain in clear language exactly how you arrive at the notion that it is mostly, or all, Mankind’s fault, despite 4 billion years of history.
I’d suggest reading the whole letter, very interesting, but, let’s move on to part two of the Grey Lady article, where Mike Hulme, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, writes in
This will blow its course soon in the conventional media without making too much difference to Copenhagen — after all, COP15 is about raw politics, not about the politics of science. But in the Internet worlds of deliberation and in the ‘mood’ of public debate about the trustworthiness of climate science, the reverberations of this episode will live on long beyond COP15. Climate scientists will have to work harder to earn the warranted trust of the public – and maybe that is no bad thing.
Yes, they will have to work harder to prove their hypotheses, and they are simply hypotheses, because AGW is all about politics, just like Copenhagen and all the other conferences, as well as the legislation. The politics of control.
It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose? The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production – just at a time when a globalizing and wired cosmopolitan culture is demanding of science something much more open and inclusive.
The IPCC was never about science, so, it won’t go away. The idea is to push far left ideas, “social justice”, redistribution of wealth, one world government, etc. If they were really interested in debate and science, they would include all scientific points of view, and what they are pushing would actually “fix” the climate, rather than doing virtually nothing but control people’s lives and taking their money.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU
The dominoes are falling, but it will take some time for the full effect to be felt / noticed. By then, we may all be Serfs.
reasick and johnny will be pleased.
That is explained for you. The problem is you have to actually search it out, actually read it, and then also understand it. You’ve failed on all counts.
This is something that you denier whiners continue to confuse. Yes, political processes are used to enact the change needed to fix the problem. However, that doesn’t mean that “AGW is all about politics”. You don’t ignore the decades of research that has been done on the subject, because you don’t understand it. It’s unfortunate, really.
reasick must be getting tired of this continuing cooling trend, now in its 11th year…
You don’t ignore the decades of research that has been done on the subject, because you don’t understand it. It’s unfortunate, really.
Really? Considering that this is precisely what the “scientists” on your side have done? Ignore data and just write in their own, so the AGW hippo continues being fed? Because that is what has been done. This is not science, Reassic. This is AGENDA POLITICS. Science is about honesty, integrity, and facts…none of which has been shown by the AGW crowd. Deception, manipulation, and fiction, which you eagerly assist and encourage.
[…] Climate Alarmists Point Out AGW Is About Politics And Junk Science … […]
TFMo,
Thank you once again for your talking points and no specifics. It certainly sounds ominous, when you talk of manipulation, etc., but you have yet to provide any specific examples.
Otter,
Whose data are you basing this on?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif
Does this look like an 11 year cooling trend to you? Do you even know what the word “trend”, in scientific terms, means?
Yes, I do.
And I know JUNK science when I see it.
And I have been seeing it for 20 years. Hadley, NIWA, Hansen et al are living proof of it.
lol. Why is it that none of you people can provide any documentation for how you come up with your talking points? You yap and yap about cooling trends, but have no graphs or data to back it up. Even if you did, you wouldn’t understand it enough to know what you’re looking at. You obviously don’t know what a “trend” is, because you’re picking an anomalous year to start your “trend”, which was the result of an extremely strong El Nino. 1998 turned out to be well above the trend line, but that doesn’t stop non-scientific types, such as yourself, from using it to falsely claim that we’re in an 11-yr cooling trend. Good luck with that. Let me know when you actually have some data which shows an actual cooling TREND.
Golly gosh. I sure wish I had some documentation. Okay, Reasic, you win. We’ll take the words of the AGW crowd at face value and assume they are just telling the truth. Like this e-mail from Phil Jones:
Tim, Chris,
> > I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting
> > till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office
> > press release with Doug’s paper that said something like –
> > half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on
> > record, 1998!
> > Still a way to go before 2014.
> >
> > I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying
> > where’s the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal
> > scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.
Wait, what? What was that Phil? LACK of warming lasting until 2020? Gosharoonie, why that would mean…oh my!
A LACK of warming. Well, that could be one of two things. It could be that there will be no change at all in the temperatures over the next decade. Total stagnation. Hm. Not really something that tends to occur on this planet. Temperatures tend to fluctuate daily; I doubt we’ll see NO CHANGE in temps over the next ten years, even in the averages.
That only leaves…cooling? Well, if it is not warming, and it is not stagnate, then I guess it must be cooling! Unless there is some other form of temperature extreme I’ve missed? Let’s see…hot, cold…nope, I think that’s it.
Maybe there IS another form of temperature. I’m sure Phil and Gore and the others are desperately wishing it were so. Let’s call it Flarb. That’s right, folks. Global Flarbing is going to kill our planet unless we do something RIGHT NOW!! And it’s all MAN’S fault! THA HORROR!!!
What can we do? Well, first we gotta get the UN on board with this. Shouldn’t be too hard; they’re all about devouring economies to combat fictitious dangers while completely ignoring the real ones. And Hollywood, gotta have Hollywood. A cause isn’t a CAUSE unless you’ve got some celebs backing it up. I bet we could get Hayden Panettiere…Heroes is kind of sucking this season, so she’s probably going to need a little extra income. Lovely young lady, but otnay ootay rightbay, if ya know what I mean…which makes her PERFECT!
Saaaaay, maybe we can even get Al Gore! Since AGW is spiraling down the tubes, I bet he would be all-too willing to jump ship to Global Flarbing, huh? And the cause really, really needs someone with gobs of credibility. I mean come ON! The guy invented the INTERNET!
And we could totally do it RIGHT this time. It doesn’t have to be based on any of those pesky FACTS us “deniers” are always going on about. Just the simple existence of humans causes Flarbing, didn’t you know? Especially poor, non-famous humans, those are the WORST! Well, not quite the worst…poor non-famous AMERICANS, now THAT is the very bottom of the barrel there.
So all the rich, worthy people get to keep their lifestyles while admonishing the rest that THEY need to change their wicked ways. Awesome. But what does it do to actually stop the spread of Global Flarbing? Not much, really. It’s not enough to TELL people to stop Flarbing, they must be FORCED to stop. For the planet’s sake.
Well, since we’d all have to be living in caves for the next thirty-odd years to reduce our emissions enough to alter ONE degree of temperature, I think we should certainly consider putting all these icky poor people in caves. Oh, but wait. They might decide to start a fire or something, out of some misguided need for “warmth” on a “cold” night. Or to “cook” their “food.” No, we simply cannot leave these people to their own devices. We’ll have to put them somewhere they won’t be a danger to us. I mean them. I mean the planet. Somewhere we can watch them….hey! How about PRISON! Yes, perfect! That’ll teach those nasty skeptics! A life long prison term for all those who dare despoil Lady Hayden’s Sunday Brunch by making it too Flarby!
But that doesn’t REALLY solve the problem, does it. You know what I’m talking about. These people…do you really think they can ever be rehabilitated? You know how much it costs keeping these prisons going…money that would be put to much better use elsewhere, like Nancy Pelosi’s botox. Lord knows, she needs all the help she can get. No, I’m afraid we’ve no choice but to kill all the deniers. Too big a drain on the economy, too pointless to keep around, might as well get rid of them. It’s recycling, really, and that’s good for the planet, right? And who’s gonna miss them, huh? What awesome movies have THEY ever been in? Those people probably haven’t EVER looked at a script, let alone auditioned. Or run for office. Eh, who needs ’em.
And that’s true. Most of the people who aren’t buying Flarbing, or AGW, or any of the other nonsense being tossed around out there is famous or powerful. We’re just the average joes. The ones who work at the power company, the gas station, the stores, the cab drivers, the school teachers…or as the elite think of us, the audience/voters. What do we matter?
[…] Climate Alarmists Point Out AGW Is About Politics And Junk Science … […]
TFMo,
Why do you bloviate and blabber on about nothing, when all you have to do is provide a verifiable temperature graph or data set, which clearly shows a cooling trend over the last 11 years? I don’t want your scary fear-mongering talking points. I can get that from Glenn Beck. I want your scientific evidence to support your hypothesis that AGW is bunk. Either provide a graph or shut up.
Oh, and temps aren’t the only way to demonstrate that the planet is warming. There’s also an acceleration of the melting of ice sheets, glaciers, and ice caps; rapid arctic sea ice decline; and sea level rise. I guess none of that is happening either, is it?