Schellnhuber Admits: “Climate Science” Would Not Stand A Chance In A Public Debate

That’s the amazing thing warmist and alarmist Prof Hans Joachim Schellnhuber has recently admitted, according to Der Spiegel here (read the last paragraph).

Now in English here!

And again they assert that the public is just too stupid to have a say in this important public issue.

Schellnhuber even compares himself, his fellow “climate scientists” and climate science to Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity (read below).

More on that in just a bit, but first during the night, Anthony Watts posted news that prominent scientist Hal Lewis is resigning from the American Physical Society. Anthony asked other bloggers to spread the news. Anthony feels so strongly about this that he even equated it to Martin Luther:

This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door.

Dr. Lewis has had enough of the charlatans and frauds infesting climate science all over the world. Read his complete resignation letter here.  In it he writes about Climategate’s aftermath and climate science:

It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.- Hal Lewis

Now, Schellnhuber and Der Spiegel

Two days ago Der Spiegel came out with one of the nastiest hit pieces I’ve seen in a long time called: Crusade Against Science – The Charlatans of Climate Science. (Note they’ve softened the title in English). The title I translated was the one used here, scroll down.

Fred Singer. Photo source: CFACT

Der Spiegel singled out Fred Singer and attacked every aspect about him, rehashing all the old tobacco and merchant-of-doubt stuff. Naomi Oreskes’s fingerprints were everywhere here. Face it, she’s hopelessly infatuated with Fred Singer.

Der Spiegel calls Singer “one of the most influential climate deniers worldwide” and a lead denier in the NIPCC, which it describes:

Sounds impressive, but is actually just a collection of like-minded scientists that have gathered around him. Also one German is in it: Gerd Weber. a meteorologist who for 25 years was at the service of the German coal industry.

Der Spiegel also goes after Pat Michaels and Myron Ebell, writing that spreading doubt in USA has been easier than in Europe, but that Singer and the “deniers” are working on that too, and have teamed up with the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). Der Spiegel:

Behind the impressively sounding name is hardly anything more than a post office box in Jena. President Holger Thuss is a local CDU politician [conservative party].

Indeed it is so. There is simply no funding for them and so this small but committed group is forced to operate on a shoestring. EIKE is not showered with tens of millions of euros like activist groups and warmists are. Yet, notice how fearful Der Spiegel and the Science Establishment in Germany are. Even Der Spiegel feels it has to mobilise and slap down the EIKE shoestring operation.

Schellnhuber and debate

Der Spiegel writes that Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research has nothing against having a discussion with serious scientists, but refuses to debate with whom he considers “amateurs”. Der Spiegel:

In the end, the science has gotten so complex that the large part of the population is not able to follow it. The climate sceptics, on the other hand, are satisfying “a need for simple truths”.

And that’s precisely where Schellnhuber sees the sceptic’s secret to success. Unfortunately a public debate would not help: “Imagine if Einstein had to defend his theory of relativity on talkshow Maybritt Illner. He wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

What Schellnhuber is saying here is amazing. He’s saying that his climate science would not stand a chance in a public debate. How right you are Herr Schellnhuber. But here it is so because your science is light-years away from Einstein’s when it comes to quality, and not because the people in the land of poets and thinkers are unable to understand it.

And so that’s why he accepts having a discussion only with people who agree with him.

UPDATE: A look back…more on The Great Transformator here:

1. http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot: reform democracy
2. scepticism-is-anti-science/
3. creation-of-a-CO2-budget-for-every-person

26 responses to “Schellnhuber Admits: “Climate Science” Would Not Stand A Chance In A Public Debate”

  1. Wolfhard Herzog

    I completely agree with your position. On Tuesday I wrote the following letter
    to “Der Spiegel”. Let’s, if they will publish it:

    Wenn Fred Singer behauptet, die „Alarmisten“ seien außen grün und innen rot, hat er natürlich unrecht. Einige sind innen braun, wie das „No-Pressure“-Terror-Video der britischen Umweltorganisation 10:10 gerade gezeigt hat. Allerdings sprechen die verschiedenen Vorschläge zur Einschränkung der Grundrechte (Lovelock, Schellnhuber) nicht gerade für demokratische Grundüberzeugungen.
Prof. Schellnhubers Weigerung, in eine öffentliche Diskussion mit Klimaskeptikern einzutreten, kann man gut nachvollziehen angesichts seiner Hilflosigkeit in der Diskussion mit Nobelpreisträger Ivar Giaever auf der Tagung in Lindau.
 Sein Einstein-Vergleich ist völlig deplatziert. Erstens waren die Vorhersagen der speziellen und allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie entweder in Übereinstimmung mit Experimenten (Michelson-Morley, Kaufmann) oder sie wurden kurze Zeit später bestätigt (Eddington). Für die Klimatheorie trifft dies nicht zu. Sie beruht noch immer weitestgehend auf Computermodellen, die nicht in der Lage sind, das Klima der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart richtig zu beschreiben. Zweitens war es für Einstein ein großes Anliegen, seine Forschungsergebnisse der interessierten Öffentlichkeit zu vermitteln. Und drittens übersieht der Physiker Schellnhuber, dass der Albert Einstein in einer völlig anderen Liga
spielte. Wie heißt es bei W. Busch: „Wenn einer, der gekrochen kaum…“.

  2. Eric Gisin

    ‘Science as the Enemy’ (Crusade) is available in english: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,721846,00.html

  3. M White

    “Michael Coren with Dr. Tim Ball”

    http://australianconservative.com/2010/10/michael-coren-with-dr-tim-ball/

    An hours interesting viewing of another outcast.

  4. DirkH

    The rule of holes comes to mind when reading that Schelnhuber position. When you’re in one, stop digging. It is arrogant people like Schelnhuber that give Science a bad reputation; even though he’s only a lackey at a political institute. Real scientists should disassociate themselves from the garbage the PIK spouts.

  5. Edward.

    It also nicely, sums up the EUs political position period: You do not understand and even if we deigned to explain to you, you still wouldn’t ‘get’ it.

    It is so redolent of the attitude of the French Aristocracy (circa 1797 – “let them eat cake!”): the Nomenklatura of the EU and AGW (along with German Uber Alarmists – Schellnhuber [looks likely an arrogant man though looks can be deceptive true] and is no doubt on the EU gravy train [somehow]) are intertwined…………though,

    Remember what happened to all those ‘superior’ Aristocrats in France.

    The battle against AGW and scientific truth, is a battle against the propaganda machine of the Brussels’ commission, the apparatchiks and Nomenklatura too.

    1. DirkH

      Schellnhuber is the director of the PIK – Potsdamer Institut für Klimafolgenabschätzung;
      Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
      From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
      The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is a research institute specialising in the fields of global change, climate impact and sustainable development.

      IOW, 100% political “science”; 100% BS.

  6. R. de Haan

    A prototype of a hack.

  7. R. de Haan

    In the mean time the UN is optimistic about a climate deal.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/09/climate-talks-china-america-clash

  8. DirkH

    Pierre, you’re on climate depot with this post!
    ——————————————-
    Reply: Thanks Dirk – great news. Marc has been a big help getting traffic to this blog. Someday I’ll have to buy him a beer ot two. -PG

  9. Jean Demesure

    Schellnhuber’s PIK also employs Bill Hare as communication director.
    And Bill Hare is ?
    According to Greenpeace, he has “worked as director of climate policy at Greenpeace International and he continues to do work for the organisation”
    http://www.advance.org/en/dir/483/
    With climatism, follow the NGOs and their money and it will always tell you something.

    BTW, it’s laughable to hear the litany that “climate sceptics are satisfying a need for simple truths” coming from someone who has earned his career, reputation and money to the hysteria against a trace gaz accused of nearly all of evils on Earth. Well, laughable, weren’t that so sad (dixit Fred Singer) !

  10. John Marshall

    Greenpeace gets money by scaring people. Global Warming, Climate change, Ocean acidification, they are all based on pseudoscience. The theory of GHG’s violates the laws of thermodynamics. Easy to prove!!! Without this stupid theory alarmists have nothing.

  11. Gator

    Well the arrogant XXX is right about at least two things, as stated above AGW cannot stand up in open debate. And the science is very complex and hard to understand, but it is we who should be doing the explaining and not Dr Sellendoomer.

  12. Nullius in Verba

    Interesting that he should mention Einstein as a parallel, because in fact there was such a situation back in the 1930s. Shortly after the publication of general relativity, an unknown Indian student called Chandrasekhar published a paper predicting that a massive star would collapse to form a black hole. The entire astrophysical community, led by Eddington and Einstein rejected the idea. This is just one of many examples of the scientific Establishment forming an immovable consensus, and rejecting good science because it disagreed with what “most scientists” thought. Their best arguments amounted to the idea that black holes were “absurd”, didn’t “smell right”, and generally violated their intuition and expectations in ways they were not prepared to accept. They had no mathematical disproof.

    In 1939, Einstein published a paper to prove that black holes could not possibly exist.

    So suppose Einstein was to debate Chandrasekhar on that chat show. Should Einstein win? Would it be right to rely on his authority as an expert on general relativity, compared to Chandrasekhar’s inexperience, low standing, or lack of publication record? Or should it be judged on the technical arguments?

    Other physicists such as Pauli privately agreed with Chandrasekhar, but would not speak publicly to avoid challenging Eddington’s authority. Chandrasekhar left physics, and the ideas were not revived for another thirty years, until the old guard had mostly retired. As Max Planck said: “Science advances one funeral at a time.”

    1. DirkH

      To be pedantic; strictly speaking the formation of Black Holes violates the Pauli exclusion principle, and from the outside you would not be able to tell the difference between a black hole (a singularity) and a dark star (a star with the exact same mass, not letting light escape anymore due to its high gravity, but not forming a singularity). So are there black holes? ATM the establishment says yes. Is there a way to prove it? No.

      1. DirkH

        Here are, for instance, some physisicsts trying to build a theory that allows for violation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle. And it’s work from 2010.

        http://www.physorg.com/news200060488.html

      2. Nullius in Verba

        DirkH,

        The formation of black holes doesn’t violate the Pauli exclusion principle, because there are never multiple fermions in the same quantum state. The infalling matter gets destroyed at the singularity; or if you choose to consider the black hole as a particle, then it is a single elementary particle and again doesn’t involve multiple fermions in the same state.

        Whether black holes actually exist is still at least partially open, although the evidence is strong now. But whether black holes are implied by the theory of general relativity is not. And yet, Einstein and the scientific Establishment tried to claim otherwise.

      3. Bob Armstrong

        There is also the Yilmaz emendation to General Relativity ( see , eg , http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw100.html ) adding a gravitationally produced “stress-energy tensor” which , among other attributes , eliminates singularities .

        That said , the field of planetary temperature physics desperately needs a meticulous Chandrasekhar to do for a single radiantly heated sphere what he did for a gas .

  13. Neal A. Brown

    John Marshall,
    Right on! The AGW computer models require a feedback mechanism, enlisting water vapor at the call of CO2, with the result of decreased heat loss with rising temperature. This violates the 2nd Law of thermodynamics. It was also disproved by satellite measurements.

  14. Bob Armstrong

    Hans Joachim likely loves his “complex science” because the simple stuff shows his fraud . Adding up the energy impinging on the planet gives the temperature of any uniform gray ball in our orbit , no matter how dark or light . This simple computation gives a temperature of 279 kelvin , 3 times closer to our actual temperature than the impossibly cold 255k alarmists have foisted as the null hypothesis 33c deficit without “greenhouse gases” .

    Thus there is no way any explanation they produce can be correct since 2/3ds of their presumed effect is just getting back up to the temperature of a neutral gray ball from their maximally biased hypothesis .

    There , that should be simple enough for an undergraduate , if not a highschool student . I’d like to see Dr Schellnhuber’s explanation for why the promulgate such a biased hypothesis , and if he agrees that there is only about 9 or 10c “warming” to be explained .

  15. Charles Higley

    “Climate science” really is not that complicated, but they want people to think it so as they rely on immature, fatally flawed, lacking computer models and “you cannot understand it” hand-waving for their always wrong predictions.

    Skeptics simply point out the quite obvious simple and easily understood science that clearly shows that the global warmists are wrong. The AGW position requires that this basic science, including Beers Law, how a greenhouse really works, and first year thermodynamics, be ignored totally. And they also have to rewrite the historical data, alter a thermodynamic constant, and fabricate a falsely huge half-life for CO2 to make them fit their needs.

    Skeptics are simply showing that the emperor has no clothes. Don’t criticize the messenger, but do fire the emperor.

    How can anybody believe that the urban heat island effect on temperature data is corrected by consistently ADDING more heat to the data? How can anyone with half a brain think that missing data or regions of the globe without temperature monitoring sites can be filled in with temperatures from places as far as 1200 km away? We skeptics just point out the complete lack of logic behind the data which is then shown to the public.

    How can they get excited about the Northeast or Northwest Passages being open “for the first time in a 1000 years” when one or both have been open for 72 of the last 122 years?

    Given a few minutes, it is quite easy to show people how global warming is not a problem, climate change is normal, CO2 is valuable plant food, and man is not changing the Earth’s climate.

  16. Hans

    DER SPIEGEL is one of the worst propanda outlets of them all in Germany. Not worth a read, but we have to deal with it because it has such a high circulation.

    DER SPIEGEL regularly fools the public, not just on the climate issue. They support the surveillance state, the illegal wars, GMO food, the EU dictatorship – just about everything that is bad. It really is that bad.

  17. www.TheTruthHurts.co.uk » Blog Archive » Schellnhuber Admits: “Climate Science” Would Not Stand A Chance In A Public Debate

    […] Schellnhuber admits: “climate science” would not stand a chance in a public debate […]

  18. Eggbert Wrongstein

    This guy Schellnhuber is priceless. Bad enough that he supports AGW/Climate Alarmism. But then he doubles down on stupid trying to make a martyr of himself and comparing himself to Einstein with this moronic snippet:

    “Imagine if Einstein had to defend his theory of relativity on talkshow Maybritt Illner. He wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

    Well at least we can agree on something. Einstein presented his “great, infallible” theory of relativity just a few short years after an appearance of Haley’s comet. And despite the fact that the EVERY PERSON who saw the Comet saw indisputable evidence that Einstein was wrong he stubbornly presented the Theory of Relativity anyway and won the Nobel Prize (sound familiar?). The fact is the phenomenon of comet tails STILL cannot be rectified with Relativity, nor the gravitational model of the universe that all of Einstein’s work was based in. A fact further complicated by the fact that Hubble and other space telescopes have also provided us many real life examples of particles exceeding Einstein’s Universal Speed Limit, C.

    So he is right. Just as even a “commoner” could have painted Einstein into a corner by simply asking “why do comets have tails”, one could likely paint him into a corner by bringing up the many holes in his tired and shamed-out warming theories. What is amazing is that this is science’s greatest virtue and his greatest fear and lament.

    What more do you need to know?

  19. R. de Haan

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