I found this comment from a reader who calls him(her)self “wordsmith”, posted under my “Contact” sidebar. Because it’s Christmas Eve and things are a little hectic, I thought maybe some readers could give me a hand and help out this poor warmist. Here’s his(her) comment:
It’s amazing to me when I hear Climate Change skeptics talk about the misinformation from those who believe it is happening, that it’s primarily caused by man, and that the consequences will be significant. What would be the motivation for so many scientists, the vast majority of scientists, far more educated and intelligent than either of us, to spread misinformation? Do you believe they’re just stupid? More so than you? Is there some economic benefit for them? Do you discount what all scientists say? Also, give me a break–an engineering degree does not in any way qualify you to be a climate expert. I work with a lot of engineers and you don’t have to be that bright to get an engineering degree, especially from some no-name university. MIT, maybe, but not the ones you attended.
He seems annoyed that I’m expressing myself freely at this blog.
What would be the motivation for so many scientists, the vast majority of scientists, far more educated and intelligent than either of us, to spread misinformation?
attention whores
grants
saving the planet
ideology
trips to Bali
Spend some time studying the hockey stick controversy, paleoclimatology, instrumental record issues, Climategate and come try again.
“What would be the motivation for so many scientists, the vast majority of scientists, far more educated and intelligent than either of us, to spread misinformation? Do you believe they’re just stupid? More so than you? Is there some economic benefit for them?”
It’s always economic benefit. “Economic” in a broader sense, though – not only monetary; we should better use the term “satisfaction”. For instance, for Michael Mann, it might be important that he can have his rants and interviews printed in the NYT; for Stefan Rahmstorf, it might be an important part of the deal to have that nice cosy bureau at the PIK. Every one of them, whether consciously or subconsciously, wants to keep the AGW train going,keep that funding, keep that recognition as a world-shaping scientist.
See, these are to me all very mediocre scientists; in my opinion, not one of the warmist scientists has contributed greatly to human knowledge. Some of them even did their best to destroy knowledge. I am sure that Michael Mann sees this quite differently and thinks of himself as a “good” person; we are all incredibly capable of rationalising our actions, and i have never found an inch of self-criticism in the warmist scientists.
So, if Michael Mann’s “scientific contributions” were valid, we would have to believe that the history of the past 1000 years had no global temperature fluctuations. We all know that this is completely false, see for instance here.
http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2010/12/scrooge-err-senator-bob-menendez-says.html
What is the motive of Mann, if not economical in a broad sense; satisfaction-seeking? Maybe he just enjoys destroying scientific knowledge because he has an emotional need for it; maybe that is what makes him tick. But i think he managed to convince himself that he’s right and enjoys basking in the limelight; he’s a publicity seeker.
I have a few minutes.
1. Motivation? Money, power, feel of being important, ideology, politics, hatred of humanity…
2. Economic benefit? You bet! Huge grants, publication, all expenses-paid trips all over the globe…100 billion dollars have flowed into climate research.
3. Stupid? No. But they are dishonest, fraudulent and cowardly. They are also very naive when it comes to economics.
4. Discount? Not all, but I do discounta a lot of the science, like a warmer planet leads to more cold weather, or Mann’s bogus temperature reconstruction. Or CO2’s importance. Saying CO2 drives the climate is like saying Bulgaria drives the world’s economy.
5. Engineering? You don’t need to be bright to be climatologist either. In fact being completely ignorant of how science works seems to be the only prerequisite. Finally, I do find myself qualified to read what the experts say, and to give my opinion on such matters. Serving on a jury in a court of law does not require a PhD in Law, now does it?
And Merry christmas to all of you! Thanks, Pierre, for your tireless work! May the warmists get back in touch with reality (for starters, don’t use the GISS temperature record), and may all of you make it through the winter without accident or illness!
Thank you very much Dirk! Best wishes for a Merry Christmas to you! Thanks for being one of my most loyal readers and a big contributor here. Many of your comments have served as input for subsequent posts. You, Ron, Ed, Juraj, Bernd and so many others been a big help to me. You’ve made this blog the fun that it is, and without all of you, it would be nothing. THANKS!
I think we, the sceptical (deniers) community should write up a clarification for everybody on our side and for everybody of the warmistas to clearly state what this is all about.
It should be written by someone who is very good in English and everybody can comprehend it.
Most of the warmistas, like wordsmith start with calling us something we are not:
Climate change deniers! I have never heard of anyone on the sceptic side to deny climate change, climate change is the norm.
On the other hand, the warmistas claim that the world is getting hotter because of the added CO2 in the atmosphere and that this warming is going to be catastrophic for the earth and all the being of our planet.
( This is what we deny: A proven link between CO2 levels and catastrophic warming )
As soon as someone claims something to be true it is on him to proof it. If the claim is extraordinary, then his proof has to be extraordinary.
And of course the proof has to apply to the connection between the rising CO2 levels and the rising temperatures.
Absolutely no proof whatsoever for the connection CO2 / Temp are: Melting glaciers, melting pole caps, rising sea levels, hurricanes, flooding, heat weaves, cold snaps, droughts, etc. etc.
Best regards from the snowy Swiss mountains, Freddie
Merci pour vos contributions, que nous suivons avec grand intérêt,(cf. les mentions de vos articles sur skyfall, où vous ê tes le bienvenu)
concernant ce message d’un “croyant”,je citerai cette maxime;
la bave du crapaud n’atteint pas la blanche colombe
Meilleurs voeux
Jo
Oh, where do you start?
I think PG, that you should email this to Jeff at TAV, I know he would find it very amusing!
I would say to this person, the science of IR absorption and emission by CO2 in a chaotic system is understood very ‘darkly’, OK, we can say CO2 is a ‘blanket’ gas, we cannot say with absolute honesty though, just how it works but we do know, water vapour holds the key – the transference of IR photon to gaseous H2O, it was thought at one time that, we did not lose ‘heat’ to space, we do, we have an atmosphere and it is in a constant state of flux, even with space.
Closed experimentation with CO2 shows it to be a gas which is capable of absorbing IR radiation at certain wavelengths and as soon as it absorbs so it emits – wonderful but in a chaotic system…..what happens then? (we do not know.)
We can say, that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere does not correlate to increased atmospheric Temperature, the link is not made and the values/relationship is logarithmic, thus >CO2 does not equal a linear > in T.
Since 1995, even Phil Jones (CRU) has admitted the world Ts have remained fairly flat, ergo, man pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere has had no effect.
Measuring atmospheric CO2 on a volcano top is not good physics, we only have ‘accurate’ records back to about 1958.
The T record has been doctored and since Circa 1980, I am not sure even Hansen in his heart of hearts trusts it, I am damn sure that I do not (see McKitrick on GCHN adjustments).
The investigations (ha ha) into CO2 and man’s addition to the sum total of the atmospheric CO2 is about between 5 an 7% of approx 0.0380% by volume. Not much is it?
By trying to make the correlation, ie, MMCO2 = global warming, much money is and has been spent, a few scientists (and I use the term loosely) have made reputations and names for themselves, that there is no consensus is a fact, the science is only settled in the minds of these advocates of AGW and they are few in number, despite your ideas to the contrary. You think of the IPCC – synonymous (as in all things the UN involves itself in) for corrupt practice and naked cronyism, run by a man who is an ENGINEER.
NO, we still await the proof of MM global warming, the science, what little of it there is, is in no way conclusive and the whole AGW cabal, consciously have ignored the main drivers of climate, ie, that of the oceans and the SUN. Solar influence is the main force behind climate, you may have noticed as the earth tips away from it in the winter, we become rather cold, usually in the maritime provinces of Europe, we have the oceans’ influence (working with and Jet stream) to ameliorate our weather but other factors are at play, the Sun is quiet, we are cold.
To say, that man is responsible for changing the earth’s climate is a supreme arrogance, only mankind is capable of, we are of no significance to the great forces which shape this planet, still less in the vast Universe, there is no consensus, there is nothing ever ‘settled’ in science, that’s the beauty of science.
We are all entitled to our opinions, the writer of this blog like many realists is a scientist, we are open to discussion and scientific progress, we do not close down debate nor close our minds, that is the alarmist side, they have closed their minds and this is so redolent of religious fanaticism.
BTW, Merry Christmas Pierre! And a merry Christmas to all contributors!!
Thanks a lot Edward. Best wishes to you to. I wish I could write more, but my wife has got a list for me. Merry Christmas!
If you make some pseudo science claim like the hockey stick you get fame and fortune and mix with the great and famous crooks like Al Gore. If you don’t you get to do science in the background with the clever guys who have integrity. But such is human nature that the fame and fortune draws and flaws everything.
I think wordsmith is simply restating the argument from authority using too many words – as I suppose we might expect from a wordsmith.
Scientific evidence and well-founded competitor theories strongly suggest that climate alarmism is not well-founded science. From this conclusion, it follows that alarmist climate scientists are probably mistaken. Why they are mistaken is another question which has no bearing on the likelihood that they are indeed mistaken. Otherwise, we are back to the argument from authority – a pre-Galileo state of affairs.
I think this is absolutely correct. Wordsmiths entire post is full of arguments from Authority in support of the AGW position, while undermining the real issue yet again. This is purely an attempt to move the focus off a scientific topic and open the door to endless argument of opinion, motivation and the unprovable. Then, once the Skeptics take the bait, and give an opinion about somebody’s motivation, the AGW crew has the go ahead to attack the possible motivations of the Skeptics. Mission accomplished. Scientific debate successfully derailed.
The answer to Wordsmith, and any other post such as this, is simple.
Since the entire AGW scam is driven by Government institutions, The Club of Rome and the UN, and payed for by tax money the first question “What drives them” has been answered.
Unlimited funding and career opportunities.
The harder they lie, the higher their star rises. (At least that was the idea until the started loosing the argument)
One could argue the stakes are high and the funding rich for the scientific world, but it’s nothing in comparison with the stakes of the banks who benefit from carbon trading, the stakes of the AGW Industrial Complex (developers and producers of solar panels, wind mills, fuel cells and all the stake holders in the bio fuel conglomerate.
Last but not least the interests of the environmental movement and organizations like Green Peace, WWF etc. etc.
For further information about the backgrounds and motivations of the scam:
http://green-agenda.com
and Agenda 21 of the UN and other documents to be found on: http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/
To Pierre and all here Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And Wordsmith the IPCC is chaired by an Engineer so you just blew your self out of the water with that comment next take a look at the so called climate sciencetist degrees are for such as Manns degree is geology but he is reading tree rings! Geology is rocks if i remember correctly?
The CO2 fallacy
http://spinonthat.com/CO2.html
Scientists have mortgages.
But since I’ve paid mine off, and I am retired, I can now be sceptical and point out that the climate data does not support the hypothesis that warming is mainly due to humans. In doing so I do not risk losing my job or my house or my government grant.
Scientists working for government risk losing all of these things if they speak the truth. Even scientists in industry risk losing their jobs or not being promoted.
Furthermore if you are a young scientist the only way to get tenure at a university is to publish many papers. This requires two things: that you have a publishable result AND you successfully pass peer review. If you do a climate study and find no human caused warming then it will be very difficult to get a paper published. You will have few scientific papers and you will NOT be promoted or given tenure. Consequently in the present situation very few climate scientists who are sceptical of human caused warming will hold academic positions and be peer reviewers. This becomes a closed loop, since the only newly promoted academics are warmists (since you have to be a warmist to be promoted) and as peer reviewers they then reject all sceptical climate papers.
Think of it as evolution in action. This situation continues until a large asteroid hits climate science and shakes up and changes all the evolutionary niches – and the name of the asteroid was “Climategate”.
Dear Wordsmith,
I just light a candle in order to celebrate Hal Lewis, who is my hero for this year. Originally, Christmas was an element of a pagan religion and after blending it with a Christian story around the year 300, it was made what it is today. Similarly, Earth Day may be combined with December 25, making it the day of enlightment by a new pagan religion about Mother Earth.
However, in developed countries we have to sets of law. One set protects the individual the other the state. Everybody is allowed to have its own religion without state interference. The state is protected against religion in the sense that the latter should not interfere with the first. Science is neither a state affair nor an individual belief and there are no specific laws protecting science against religious interference.
It is undesirable and useless to combat religion. This also applies at AGW as part of the Gaia cult. But scientists have the duty to protect their enterprise against irrational doctrines. Of course, the state should not spread the Gaia religion, subsidize its activities or make it part of public education. Whereas the state should prosecute people, stealing money, it should not harm Gaia infidels as it is a private matter whether you want to celebrate the earth and to suffer for your carbon sins.
Merry Christmas.