The news of distinguished Swedish meteorology professor and former director of the renowned Max Planck Institute of Meteorology, Lennart Bengtsson, resigning from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) advisory board just days after having joined it has spread through the blogosphere like wildfire.
Psychological torment seems to be at play.
His resignation in the face of intolerance will surely prompt harsh reactions from some elements of the mainstream media globally in the days ahead. Bengtsson cites “enormous world-wide pressure” and “enormous group pressure” that threaten his “health and safety“. His resignation further underscores a growing, closed-minded zealotry that is embedding itself within the climate science community which is resembling more and more a cult.
Warning signs of psychological aggression appeared early on. For example climate physicist and alarmist Georg Hoffmann paralleled the GWPF to the Ku Klux Klan, simply because they hold a skeptical view on global warming science rather than embracing it as a religion.
At Climate Audit Steve McIntyre writes of “more shameful conduct by the climate ‘community’“. McIntyre adds that scientists like Bengtsson are precisely the “people that the climate ‘community’ should be trying to persuade“, and not run out of town with hounds. He compares the action by the climate science community to a “fatwa“.
A number of readers at Klimazwiebel have reacted harshly as well.
Welcome to reality.
But that grown men would so marginalize and stigmatize a respected colleague Lennart Bengtsson to that extent that he has to fear for his health, that I would have never expected and simply makes me speechless.”
6 This is the final verdict about the morality of the experts: moral dictatorship.”
The question is if part of the scientific community will support Lennart in his right to speak out (without necessarily supporting his judgment).”
I am sorry to see he is withdrawing, but such is the climate science religion. No questioning is tolerated. Not even working with people who are questioning. It really is disgusting.”
The main problem here is not that people have strong views or call people names. It is that the elite in this community – including scientists, journalists, politicians — have endorsed the climate mccarthyism campaign, and are often its most vigorous participants.”
Whether or not someone wishes to work on a study should be only dependent on the study itself., and not on the political views of the co-authors.”
Benny Peiser, on behalf of the GWPF:
The Foundation, while of course respecting Professor Bengtsson’s decision, notes with deep concern the disgraceful intolerance within the climate science community which has prompted his resignation.”
Bring our scientists back!
There were always majorities of scientists who were wrong. There were the atomists against the non-atomists; Lysenkoism against geneticists, The fossil fuel proponents against the abiogenic oil proponents (petroleum only got designated as organic and therefore of fossil origin in 1892; the Fischer-Troppsch process, invented in the Weimar republic, proved possibility of nonbiologic origin, later confirmed by findings of hydrocarbons on Titan); continental drift. And our beloved nutritional science.
So; CO2AGW is not atypical. Most scientists were always wrong.
If we didn’t know before that the”science” is thoroughly political, we know it now. This is proof that the “consensus” is at the point of a weapon. Climatists, are you proud? Or are you shameless?
Those morons are likely giving each other high-fives over this.
Oh the poor dahling. LB is such a delicate wilting flower. Don’t you think someone who fades so easily ought to have kept out of the limelight? Or, in more vigorous terms, that he ought to stop being such a crybaby and Man Up?
You should immediately post your impressive comment at Lubos Motl, who is even more explicit than Pierre:
http://motls.blogspot.nl/2014/05/lennart-bengtsson-will-probably-remain.html#more
William, are you condoning this type of activity?
Man up?? LOL Has anyone seen the names of those that did this to Lennart.
Come on you lot MAN UP and show who you are stop hiding behind you mummies aprons.
Oh the poor dahling. LB is such a delicate wilting flower.
Why do AGW believers always seem to come across as such likeable people?
Indeed, it must be something special to rejoin his colleagues after this?
> William Connolley 14. Mai 2014 at 22:29 “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
> Bjorn Ramstad 14. Mai 2014 at 23:03
You’re managing your comment queue I see. How many favourable to your side will you need to have before you let through one that disagrees with you?
Oh you poor dahling. such a delicate wilting flower when kept out of the limelight? Stop being such a crybaby, be a good little Man and wait your turn.
I have no objection to waiting my turn. Its being deliberately held in moderation whilst other comments aren’t that grates. Are you happy with our host managing the flow of discussion in this way?
Dear little Billyboy, it so happens even to a lot of my comments here. You’re calling Bengtsson a crybaby and now you can’t even stand the ordinary quirks of wordpress? Is it climate change that turned you into a nervous wreck? I heard of its terrible effects; this might be one of them.
And you’re calling Bengtsson a crybaby?
Lots of reader comments get held up, even readers who comment here regularly sometimes get held up – for reasons I have yet to determine. At night I have to get some sleep, and so comments may to have to wait till morning. I’ll have you know you’ve been approved for comments weeks ago. But like I said, the filter holds up comments for reasons undetermined. Even comments from DirkH get held up. I don’t know why this happens occasionally.
If you’re not happy about it, go to WUWT, or RC where the red carpet is rolled out for you. For a man who is notorious for gatekeeping and CENSORSHIP OF SCIENCE at Wikipedia, you should be the last to make such complaints. Concerning the “crybaby” comment that is in question, I’d be the last to hold it up because it vividly illustrates the type of spirit you harbour. In fact I just might upgrade it to a post.
A few months ago I explained this issue to William but he does not learn.
> go to WUWT
WUWT censors my comments – and those of lots of other people; I’m hardly unique.
> For a man who is notorious for gatekeeping and CENSORSHIP OF SCIENCE at Wikipedia
Putting it in big shouty capitals doesn’t make it true you know. How about some facts, rather than random accusations?
> William, are you condoning this type of activity? Man up?? LOL Has anyone seen the names of those that did this to Lennart.
Um well that’s rather the point, isn’t it? Exactly what activity are you asking me to condemn? We don’t know who wrote to LB. We don’t know what any of them said. How about LB publishes some of these oh-so-terrible emails so we can judge.
If you’re asking me to condemn “Thought-Tyranny, Vicious Hounding Shame” then sure, I’ll do that. But you haven’t demonstrated that this applies, in this case.
> Another Galileo moment. And I thought the inquisition had been dismantled.
That’s a pretty good comment, though for reasons you don’t understand. Try, e.g., http://thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/shock-horror-outrage-religion-hinders-progress-of-science/ But be careful, it has lots of long words in it.
Billyboy probably has an auto revert script running on all climate related articles in the wikipedia so he has time to kill here.
” But be careful, it has lots of long words in it.”
Catch you out did it ?
“WUWT censors my comments – and those of lots of other people; I’m hardly unique.”
Oh you poor dahling. such a delicate wilting flower when kept out of the limelight? Stop being such a crybaby, try posting something relevant there and you will probably find that your posts will be accepted.
Another Galileo moment. And I thought the inquisition had been dismantled.
When you shine a little sunlight in a dark corner, you see all sorts of things scurrying for cover.
Stoats are being sighted all over the web at the moment.
Everyone needs to understand that this is not limited to climate science; it is symptomatic of a long-failing paradigm (and a consequent general incompetence among academics, the “science experts”), about which I wrote just a few days ago:
The Growing Religious Self-Righteousnass of Science
…Self-Righteousness.
I see that we can count William as among the shameless.
Connolley has lost his credibility already a long time ago.
For the moment we can only guess if this gets any exposure in mainstream media, where it ought to be headlined together with a few “mea culpas”.
I’m pleased that you allowed William Connolley’s comment through, even though it doesn’t relate to the central issue but is merely an “ad hominem”. It confirms what we already know about this man; that he hasn’t changed his extreme perspective and that he’s willing to add to his record of distortion and deception.
Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Klimatwissenschaft.
Another example of “Gleick-schaltung”?
Here you mean “Gleichschaltung”
The AGW proponents admit they have a communication problem.
The AGW’ers suggest that if only the public was smarter, they could communicate better.
The public reads of debacles like the Bengsston “fatwa”, shakes their collective head, and goes on worrying about actual problems.
Perhaps “HaHa” Connolley is a “Secret Climate Scientist”?
“I went to ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts)
for their meteorology course for a month or two in ?1991?”
No, wait…that would be weather, not climate.
Mr. Connolley; give your conncience a chance to talk to you.