Professor Werner Weber of the Technical University of Dortmund is the author of that infamous, consensus-shattering article “The CO2 Lies” appearing in Bild newspaper on Monday – also see here – which featured the new skeptic book that is causing an uproar in German climate science, written by Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Lüning.
Now he is throwing in a few more shots of dissent, as he answers a message he received from another (seemingly indignant) North German professor (see below).
Naturally he has since received lots of mail, and not all of it friendly. For example here’s the message from the “indignant” professor, who wrote:
Dear Prof Weber,
I’m completely shocked by your article in Bild. What do you expect to accomplish with this?”
Here we see that in climate science, some professors have completely forgotten how science really works, and so need to be reminded. Here’s Professor Weber’s reply, which he published at “Die kalte Sonne site“. I’ve translated it in English with permission (slightly edited for clarity, emphasis added):
Dear Prof. [Completely Shocked],
I assume you belong to the climate scientists who subscribe to the assessments that the IPCC well represents. But to me you are not known as one of the protagonists of the IPCC’s opinion, like the directors and employees of the PIK [Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research], whom I’ve collided with before.
I came from the outside, after about 40 years of experience in the highly competitive field of condensed matter physics that involves the intense interaction between experiment and theory, a field with a culture of discourse that takes all controverisal and divergent opinions seriously.
The field of climate science appeared to me as being very dogmatic right from the start, at least concerning the fundamentals. In no time flat, the motto became: “the science is settled”. Those who now challenge the fundamental statements on climate are, in the best cases labelled as dimwits, and in the worst case they get labelled as “deniers”, analogous to a “Holocaust denier”. Let’s take Al Gore for example, admittedly a politician, or Pachauri, the IPCC spokesman, admittedly an engineer. But the statements made by leading representatives from the PIK were hardly different.
In the meantime I’ve worked myself halfway into the field of climate science. Even the most fundamental principles hold no water when truly subjected to closer scrutiny, and much, which doesn’t fit the overall narrative, is flat out ignored – and much involving key, central issues. In my guest piece in the book by Vahrenholt/Lüning “Die Kalte Sonne”, I clearly illustrated an example of this.
I’d be happy to present my arguments in a seminar presentation at your location if you wish.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Werner Weber
Technical University of Dortmund
=======================================
Gee, does anyone seriously think Professor Shocked will accept Prof. Weber’s seminar offer?
Along with Nir Shaviv, Henrik Svensmark, and Nicola Scafetta, Prof. Werner Weber is also a guest author in the book “Die kalte Sonne” (p. 264-270).
I have heard many times that Germany had become the home of eco-fanaticism, but over the past month there has been more anti-AGW reaction in Germany than anywhere else.
What is happening?
Well, eco-fanaticism certainly has not gone away. It’s just that some skeptics are getting brave enough to speak out. You’ll notice that many of these skeptics are getting close to retirement.
Most Germans don’t trust any of the parties and whatever is said they just shut up, work and save money – to improve their lot against the odds of ever rising taxes and energy prices. The ones that make a noise are the fanatics, usually eco-obsessed teachers. The only CAGW fanatics I ever met in industry were in a solar panel company (so they just assumed an opinion that was convenient for their business).
As far as I know German Academia houses many competent, old-fashioned quality scientists. They usually are not running around with a political message. Perhaps some of them have become a bit tired of the CAGW story, sold to them year after year. Compare it with condensation: at a certain point you will get rain.
Here’s another European scientist/academic protesting the foolishness that is CAGW:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/ipcc-reviewer-resigns-from-agu-saying-i-will-not-renew-my-agu-membership/
“I’m completely shocked by your article in Bild. What do you expect to accomplish with this?”
Gee, I don’t know, maybe to further scientific understanding?
This will be part of our beautiful collection of one/two liner questions. My favourite still is:
“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
I think the timing of this book and the extremely cold weather in Europe are related not by design but by coincidence. If this very cold winter weather does not cause the Europeans to stop ,pause and ask some very fundamenatl questions about the unprecenetd winter warming that they were supposed to have according to all their weather officials and IPCC , then I am afraid nothing will awake the slumbering public as more and more poor and homeless freeze to death.This book , coming out at the same time as the cold weather provides some alternative options or explanations for what may be happening and hopefully will iniate real public or open debate about the AGW science that should have happened years ago. This concept of top down science without proper debate or science by edict is dead in my opinion and I hope the world will have learned from this mistake . The mistake is costing the world billions of unnecessay expenditures at a time when all economies are suffering or are on the verge of bankrupcies.
Hi Pierre, I just read that Germany restarts nuclear reactors because of winter freeze.. please and article about that! Thanks, J.
Pierre – in response to this story I just Googled it and here’s a link to RT’s report:
http://rt.com/news/germany-reactors-cold-weather-927/
However, before it was a completely different view – apparently “Renewable” energy is SAVING Germany from electrical blackout!!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/08/1062960/–Winter-Deep-Freeze-Will-Cause-Breakdown-in-German-Electric-Grid-
“Renewables are not an unreliable source of electricity, as both nuke proponents and Big Fossil boosters would have us believe. When renewables are intelligently integrated into a large-scale grid, the opposite is actually true.”
Stupid propaganda.
What has been reactivated are not nukes but about 1000 MW, four old inefficient fossil fuel plants that were mothballed but re-prepared for operation as a cold reserve for winter.
So these plants now churn out a GW, and that allows Southern Germany to survive without a blackouot, and even give some power to the French who all have electric heating, as a kWh only costs 7 Eurocents over there.
These four old battered plants keep the lights on, and the German Greens giggle like Rumplestiltskin, saying its wind turbines and solar panel who bring us through winter. Nothing could be further from the truth, at least as soon as the sun goes down, as there is only weak wind power at the moment.
I commented on that on another thread already:
https://notrickszone.com/2012/02/08/vahrenholts-spiegel-interview-i-feel-duped-on-climate-change/#comment-77777
with a link to Die Welt.
I see that the wind has gained strength, we’re at 8 GW again, but it was only 2 GW this morning, 2 out of a possible maximum of 18 GW.
Total German electricity needs are 80 to 100 GW, BTW.
http://www.transparency.eex.com/de/daten_uebertragungsnetzbetreiber/stromerzeugung/tatsaechliche-produktion-wind
I confess I didn’t think nuclear plants could just be re-started that easily. I see there is a newer comment on the RT post pointing out what you’ve just said. Whatever the case, that dailykos.com link shows how the Greens continue to spin the story to suit their own agenda…
This article contains a Google map of all “cold reserve” power plants. There is a total of 9 of them; some as small as 20MW.
http://www.ftd.de/unternehmen/industrie/:interaktive-karte-das-ist-deutschlands-kaltreserve/60166397.html
http://www.sme.sk/c/6252269/nemci-pre-mrazy-opat-spustaju-odstavene-reaktory.html
Oh the article has been cancelled.. saying that AFP news were totally wrong 😀
That he is shocked tells me everything.
If one scientist has one opinion about a “theory”, then why should another be shocked?
Only if there is a religious belief system rooted in his brain, can he be shocked.
If he is scientifically interested, he would want to discuss the matter…..
This gentleman is quite right. Theories claiming reradiated heat from CO2 molecules ignore the violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics that this represents.
So many research papers available demonstrate that the whole CAGW concept to be wrong both in fact and science.