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World's Farmers Feel The Effects Of A Hotter Planet

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SilverSurfer_OG

Living Organic Soil...
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Climate models go cold

Carbon warming too minor to be worth worrying about

By David Evans

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.

Let’s set a few things straight.

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.

Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.

The disagreement comes about what happens next.

The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.

This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.

Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.

This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s.

At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.

There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that the earth responds to the warming due to extra carbon dioxide by dampening the warming. Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance. Otherwise the system would be unstable. The climate system is no exception, and now we can prove it.

But the alarmists say the exact opposite, that the climate system amplifies any warming due to extra carbon dioxide, and is potentially unstable. It is no surprise that their predictions of planetary temperature made in 1988 to the U.S. Congress, and again in 1990, 1995, and 2001, have all proved much higher than reality.

They keep lowering the temperature increases they expect, from 0.30C per decade in 1990, to 0.20C per decade in 2001, and now 0.15C per decade — yet they have the gall to tell us “it’s worse than expected.” These people are not scientists. They overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide, selectively deny evidence, and now they conceal the truth.

One way they conceal is in the way they measure temperature.

The official thermometers are often located in the warm exhaust of air conditioning outlets, over hot tarmac at airports where they get blasts of hot air from jet engines, at waste-water plants where they get warmth from decomposing sewage, or in hot cities choked with cars and buildings. Global warming is measured in 10ths of a degree, so any extra heating nudge is important. In the United States, nearly 90% of official thermometers surveyed by volunteers violate official siting requirements that they not be too close to an artificial heating source.

Global temperature is also measured by satellites, which measure nearly the whole planet 24/7 without bias. The satellites say the hottest recent year was 1998, and that since 2001 the global temperature has levelled off. Why does official science track only the surface thermometer results and not mention the satellite results?

The Earth has been in a warming trend since the depth of the Little Ice Age around 1680. Human emissions of carbon dioxide were negligible before 1850 and have nearly all come after the Second World War, so human carbon dioxide cannot possibly have caused the trend. Within the trend, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation causes alternating global warming and cooling for 25 to 30 years at a go in each direction. We have just finished a warming phase, so expect mild global cooling for the next two decades.

We are now at an extraordinary juncture. Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that is based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood. Governments gleefully accept their advice, because the only ways to curb emissions are to impose taxes and extend government control over all energy use. And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government — how exciting for the political class!

Even if we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide tomorrow, completely shut up shop and went back to the Stone Age, according to the official government climate models it would be cooler in 2050 by about 0.015 degrees. But their models exaggerate 10-fold — in fact our sacrifices would make the planet in 2050 a mere 0.0015 degrees cooler!

Finally, to those who still believe the planet is in danger from our carbon dioxide emissions: Sorry, but you’ve been had. Yes, carbon dioxide is a cause of global warming, but it’s so minor it’s not worth doing much about.

Financial Post

David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modelling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees, including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The comments above were made to the Anti-Carbon-Tax Rally in Perth, Australia, on March 23.
 

SilverSurfer_OG

Living Organic Soil...
ICMag Donor
Veteran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbnVj7E4iZ8

Richard Lindzen MIT deconstructs the alarmist view.


Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability. His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause, and provided accepted explanations for atmospheric tides and the quasi-biennial oscillation of the tropical stratosphere. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other. He is currently studying what determines the pole to equator temperature difference, the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribution of such instabilities to global heat transport. He has also been developing a new approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere and in generating upper level cirrus clouds. He has developed models for the Earth's climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate. Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS's Meisinger, and Charney Awards, the AGU's Macelwane Medal, and the Leo Huss Walin Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. He is a corresponding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, and has been a member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Council of the AMS. He has also been a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., '64, S.M., '61, A.B., '60, Harvard University)
 

maryj315

Member
David Evans has no experience in climate or geosciences analysis at all. However, he once labored in Australia, where he toted up carbon emissions inventories.

Mj
 

maryj315

Member
David Evans
Background

David Evans gained media attention after an article he wrote titled, "No smoking hot spot," which was published in The Australian in June, 2008. The article claims that climate change is not caused by C02 emissions because there is no evidence of "a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics." Evan's claim has been thoroughly debunked by Tim Lambert, a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
No peer-reviewed articles on climate change

According to his resume, Evans has not published any peer-reviewed research papers on the subject of climate change. Evans published one paper in 1987, but it was unrelated to climate change.
"I am not a climate modeller"

From 1999 to 2006, Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office designing a carbon accounting system that is used by the Australian Government to calculate its land-use carbon accounts for the Kyoto Protocol. While Evans says that "[he] know a heck of a lot about modeling and computers," he states clearly that he is "not a climate modeler."
Not Actually a Rocket Scientist

According to his bio, Evans claims to be a "Rocket Scientist," and one article describes him as a "Top Rocket Scientist." While Evans's background does show that he has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, there is no evidence that he was ever employed as a rocket scientist.

When DeSmogBlog contacted Evans regarding his claim of being a rocket scientist, Evans replied that "In US academic and industry parlance, 'rocket scientist' means anyone who has completed a PhD in one of the hard sciences at one of the top US institutions."

Evans also claims to be "building a word processor for Windows." DeSmogBlog contacted Microsoft and they have confirmed that he does not work for them.
Evans and the Levoisier Group

Some of Evans articles appear on the website for the for the Australian chapter of the Lavoisier Group.

The group was founded by Ray Evans when he was an executive of the Western Mining Corporation. John Quiggin, an Australian economist, has described the Lavoisier group as "devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics...cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry." He further describes the purpose of the group as being to "promote the views of those who question the scientific consensus on global warming."
Evans and the Ludwig von Mises Institute

Evans published an article for the Alabama-based Ludwig von Mises Instutute, a right-wing, free market think-tank.

The Institute describes itself as "the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics."
Evans and the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change

Evans made a presentation titled "Carbon Dioxide Not Responsible for 20th Century Warming" at the Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change. Heartland describes the conference as "a platform for scientists and policy analysts from around the world who question the theory that global warming is a crisis."

Sponsors for the conference have received over $40 million from oil companies and right-wing foundations such as Koch Foundations and Scaife Foundations.


http://http://www.desmogblog.com/david-evans


Mj
 

maryj315

Member
Richard Lindzen
Background

Richard S. Lindzen holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard University. Currently, Dr. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorolgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Professor Lindzen's academic interests lie within the topics of "climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability." According to his curriculum vitae and Google Scholar, Dr. Lindzen has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles in the field of climatology.
Richard Lindzen and the Heidelberg Appeal

Lindzen is a signatory to the Heidelberg Appeal. The Heidelberg Appeal was created by the International Centre for Scientific Ecology, a public relations front group, during the 1992 UN World Summit. Eventually the document was endorsed by 4,000 scientists who declared that "we are worried at the dawn of the twenty-first century, at the emergence of an irrational ideology [man-made global warming] which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development."

The document also says that "many essential human activities are carried out by manipulating hazardous substances, and that progress and development have always involved increasing control over hostile forces."

The prominent climate-change denier Dr. Fred Singer also sat on the board of the International Centre for Scientific Ecology. Dr. Singer and the International Centre for Scientific Ecology consented to the tobacco giant Philip Morris' use of the Heidelberg Appeal to draw support to its European branch of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC)—TASSC Europe.

TASSC was Philip Morris's front group inititated to question the science that showed the devastating effects of smoking on the human body.
Oregon Petition

Lindzen is a signatory to the infamous Oregon Petition. This controversial petition was first circulated in 1998 with an article that appeared to be a reprint of a National Academy of Science peer-reviewed article. The National Academy of Science has stated that it is not connected in any way with the Oregon Petititon.
Richard Lindzen and the Cato Institute

Lindzen has worked with the conservative think-tank, the Cato Institute. The Cato Institute has received $125,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. In his 1995 article, "The Heat Is On," Ross Gelbspan notes that Lindzen charged oil and coal organizations $2,500 per day for his consulting services.

Lindzen has described ExxonMobil as "the only principled oil and gas company I know in the US."
Richard Lindzen, the Cooler Heads Coalition, and the Heartland Institute

Lindzen has been a speaker at climate change events sponsored by both the Cooler Heads Coalition and the Heartland Institute.

The Cooler Heads Coalition has a membership that includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the George C. Marshall Institute, the Fraser Institute, the Heartland Institute, the Independent Institute (TII), the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and the Pacific Research Institute. Collectively, these organizations have received $5,659,400 in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Dr. Lindzen was a keynote speaker at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change in 2008 and 2009. The sponsors of the conference have collectively received $5,802,000 in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998. Sponsors for the 2009 conference have received a grand total of over $47 million from energy companies and right-wing foundations.

Lindzen is also listed as a "global warming expert" on the Heartland Institute's website.
Stance on Climate Change and Global Warming

Richard Lindzen's scientific stance on climate change and anthropogenic global warming is that the earth goes through natural periods of global warming and cooling.

According to Dr. Lindzen, the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are problematic and limited because they are based on computer models which Lindzen says are "generally recognized as experimental tools whose relation to the real world is questionable."

Furthermore, Lindzen feels that the issue of global warming is completely political, and that policy makers and the media not only manipulate science but also force scientists to produce work that supports a particular agenda.
Richard Lindzen Signs Open Letters Denying Climate Change

2007 open letter to UN Secretary-General

Lindzen was a signatory to a 2007 open letter to Un Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that declared "It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages."

The letter further explains how carbon dioxide is a "non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis" and why the IPCC's reports are "inadequate as justification" for implementing climate change policy.

Leipzig Declaration

Lindzen was also a signatory to the 2005 Leipzig Declaration which describes the Kyoto Protocol as "dangerously simplistic, quite ineffective, and economically destructive to jobs and standards-of-living."

The Declaration further states that "there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide."

The Declaration, available in two versions, was penned by prominent climate-change denier Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). SEPP has received at least $20,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

2004 Open Letter to Senator John McCain

Lindzen signed a 2004 open letter to John McCain that refuted findings by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA).

The letter concludes that that past past warming in the arctic cannot be attributed to greenhouse gas concentrations:

"Arctic climate has and will continue to exhibit intricate patterns not reliably reproduced by global climate simulations, thus underscoring their scientific incompleteness and need for advances in Arctic climate science, in measurements, theory and models."

It was signed by numerous prominent climate change skeptics including R. Timothy Patterson, Tim Ball, David Legates, Pat Michaels, Gary D. Sharp, Roy W. Spencer, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas.
Richard Lindzen and the Science, Health, and Economic Advisory Council

Lindzen is a member of the Science, Health, and Economic Advisory Council at the Annapolis Center.

According to their website, The Annapolis Center is a "national, non-profit, educational organization that supports and promotes responsible energy, environmental, health, and safety decision-making."

The center is committed to "ensuring public policy decisions are based on scientific facts and reasoning." To this end, they contend that global warming is not the result of burning fossil fuels. The oil giant ExxonMobil has given $1,048,500 to the Annapolis Center since 1998.

In 2004, the Center honoured Senator James Inhofe at its annual dinner for his work in "promoting science-based public policy." Apart from being a zealeous climate change skeptic, Senator Inhofe is also one of the leading public figures fighting to prevent the federal government from accepting the claims of a scientific consensus.

The Center has further ties to the oil industry: In 1998 the Annapolis Center Strategic Planning Committee was co-chaired by William O'Keefe from the American Petroleum Institute. And individuals employed by Philip Morris, Pfizer Inc., Exxon Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute were present at the Committee's October 1998 meeting.
Richard Lindzen the Scientific Integrity in the Public Policy Process conference

Lindzen took part in a conference titled "Scientific Integrity in the Public Policy Process," that was organized by SEPP and George Mason University's International Institute.

The conference invited numerous journalists to a "special media session," where the organizers went through the conference's overall themes which were described as follows:

"The conference discussion underscored two themes: (1) the need for stringent, open, external peer-review of the scientific basis of federal environmental actions, and (2) distortions in the teaching of environmental issues, i.e. 'Who peer-reviews what is being taught under the guise of environmental education?'"

Lindzen spoke on a panel that accused any scientists supporting the conclusion of AGW (Anthropogenic [man-made] Global Warming) of "distorting the issues," "distorting logic," "using science to advance a political agenda," and even "intimidating other scientists through coercion."
Richard Lindzen and Western Fuels

According to Ross Gelbspan's 1995 article The Heat Is On, Lindzen was one of three expert witnesses that were hired to testify on behalf of Western Fuels Association, a "$400 million consortium: of coal suppliers and coal-powered utilities."

The hearings were to determine the environmental cost of burning coal by state power plants.
Richard Lindzen and the Climate Bet

Lindzen said in November 2004, that that he would be the climate would be colder in 20 years. When James Annan, a British climate researcher, approached Lindzen about solidifying the bet, Lindzen would only agree if Annan would accept a 50-to-1 payout (Annan did not agree to those terms).

Anan eventually made the $10,000 wager with two Russian Solar physicists, Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev.

http://http://www.desmogblog.com/richard-lindzen

Mj
 

mad librettist

Active member
Veteran
Of course, if you make money denying climate change, that doesn't count.

We all know how to make real money - tell people they have to make hard choices and sacrifices now so they can avoid disaster later. That's always a very popular and very lucrative thing to do. People just love giving things up. They love bad news!

The real brave ones are the ones who are starving because they are telling us not to worry, everything is fine, just drill more. Where's the money in that?


Discobiscuit - you are talking diamonds with a cubic zirconium expert. I'd wager a dollar or two that grapeman is not a wine grape grower, but a table or juice grape grower - not even the same species. (well ok there are some wines being made from concord grapes now, but not at my table)
 

grapeman

Active member
Veteran
Of course, if you make money denying climate change, that doesn't count.

We all know how to make real money - tell people they have to make hard choices and sacrifices now so they can avoid disaster later. That's always a very popular and very lucrative thing to do. People just love giving things up. They love bad news!

The real brave ones are the ones who are starving because they are telling us not to worry, everything is fine, just drill more. Where's the money in that?


Discobiscuit - you are talking diamonds with a cubic zirconium expert. I'd wager a dollar or two that grapeman is not a wine grape grower, but a table or juice grape grower - not even the same species. (well ok there are some wines being made from concord grapes now, but not at my table)

ML - you're a buffoon. I've stated over and over again I grow table grapes. A lot of them too.

Comparing wine grape growers to table grape growers is like comparing kids with an 8th grade education to those with doctorate degrees. In other words (to make it understandable to you) it is easy to grow wine grapes, very hard to grow table grapes.

But in any event, at least Weird put some effort into his posts. I did look at all of them. Meh. Growing grapes for the wine industry is something even you could do. The French wine growers are not that sophisticated.
 

mad librettist

Active member
Veteran
and you can also keep avoiding all those reposts from the NASA website on this thread, which you still have not addressed.

I'd love to know, specifically, what you disagree with about the science I posted. But so far you just avoid discussing specifics of climate science. You assure us you know the science, but can't seem to enter into a meaningful discussion of the substance. Instead you want to talk about emails and question motives.

where's the beef?


let's talk about the model of earth's energy budget, and where you think the science is wrong.
 

mad librettist

Active member
Veteran
In other words (to make it understandable to you) it is easy to grow wine grapes, very hard to grow table grapes.

lmfao wine grapes can't even survive on their own y outside of very few places on the planet not affected by phylloxera. All those wine grape vines have to be grafted onto rootstock related to what grapeman grows. He couldn't make it as a negotiant making beaujolais nouveau, never mind as a single vineyard producer of great wines.

I'll let the readers make up their own minds about whether fine wine is a more sophisticated endeavor than growing fucking table grapes. We are talking the pinnacle of degustation vs a snack food. Fine wine is art, science, agriculture, all wrapped into one. Learning to appreciate wine is an extremely challenging and rewarding endeavor. When you run into your first supertaster, and a whole host of others who can put what you are experiencing into words, who are aware of the interplay between hundreds of aromas, flavors, and sensations - then you are humbled and amazed at how dull we allow our sense of taste to become as we grow up.

A good wine producer comes up with a great product even in bad years, through intelligent selection of the best fruit. Some wines, like sauternes, require a watchful grower to allow botrytis to take hold and choose just the right moment to harvest. Try some lobster with a good Sauternes, and then give me our opinion on whether sex or eating is more pleasurable.

Grapeman has three types: not ready, ready, and spoiled.

There are cellars under 1000 square feet representing more value than you could ever hope to produce in your lifetime.






and you still continue to avoid the science.
 
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DiscoBiscuit

weed fiend
Veteran
The common sense deniers worst nightmare.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/25/ruling-alters-climate-papers-fight/

Penn State, a public university disregarding a Freedom of Information request for years.

Now we can get more of the emails and documents that further display the fraud of GW science used to receive more grant money and the adoration of the small minded kids here.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.


I'm afraid you're prepared... by half.

Basically the article says the University of Va takes too long to release information and charges too much for the information they release.

What the article doesn't explain (doesn't even mention) is the fact that FIA requests flood UVA and other climate document depositories in proportions they have to manage before performing the requests.

Washington Examiner is a perfect example of bringing you part of a story and leaving the rest out. It makes the you decide part much easier for for readers that seek political red herrings as opposed to fundamental facts aka non-politicized, factual information.

They report, you decide. If you're deciding on this fluff alone, your conclusions are fluff.

WA doesn't have to spend unreasonable effort and expense to establish the other side of the story.

grapeman, here's what your examiner link did post:

(Washington Examiner) - University spokeswoman Carol Wood said the university has been in “frequent and regular contact” with ATI lawyers, working to clarify their request and work out a “reasonably manageable process” to satisfy the public information law.
The quote reveals that UVa is cooperating, something neither the litigators nor the article discloses.

The quote also suggests that the litigants filing the FIAs neither manage nor make reasonable their demands.

When a reader is given one side of an issue with practically no mention of the other, you get a circulation base as small as the Washington Examiner's.



So let's see if we can find something the Examiner could have referenced, in the interest of fair and balanced.

Even better, lets link an article that demonstrates what fair and balanced should entail. How about we rehash a bit of the East Anglia affair? How about links to the information that was reported?

Freedom of information laws are used to harass scientists, says Nobel laureate.

Sir Paul Nurse says climate scientists are being targeted by campaigns of requests designed to slow down their research

Alok Jha, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 May 2011 20.52 BST

Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society.

Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists.

Nurse's comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study into how scientists' work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how "digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions".

Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had "opened a Pandora's box. It's released something that we hadn't imagined ... there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change debate to intimidate scientists.

"I have been told of some researchers who are getting lots of requests for, among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions. If it is true, it will consume a huge amount of time. And it's intimidating."

It was possible some requests were designed simply to stop scientists working rather than as a legitimate attempt to get research data, said Nurse. "It is essential that scientists are as open and transparent as possible and, where they are not, they should be held to account. But at times this appears to be being used as a tool to stop scientists doing their work. That's going to turn us into glue. We are just not going to be able to operate efficiently."

Nurse said the government should examine the issue, and think about tweaking freedom of information legislation to recognise potential misuse. Otherwise, he predicted, FoI aggression could be in future used by campaigners to cripple scientific research in many other controversial areas of science, such as genetically modified crops. "I don't actually know the answer but I think we have a problem here. We need better guidelines about when the use of freedom of information is useful."

Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics said the intention of many of those making freedom of information requests was to trawl through scientists' work with the intention of trying to find problems and errors. "It's also quite true that these people do not care about the fact that it is causing a serious inconvenience," he said. "It is being used in an aggressive and organised way. When freedom of information legislation was first contemplated, it was not being considered that universities would be landed with this additional burden."

Evidence of the aggression first began to emerge when personal emails and documents were stolen from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) servers in November 2009 and leaked on to the internet. Climate sceptics seized on the contents as evidence that apparently showed scientists were colluding to keep errors in their research hidden and prevent rivals' research from being published at all.

In an independent inquiry a year later, the scientists at the UEA's climatic research unit (CRU) were cleared of any misconduct, but Muir Russell, the former civil servant who led the investigation, found a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness", although he stressed he had no reason to doubt the CRU team's honesty or integrity.

"The current fog of ambiguity concerning, for example, drafts of research papers produced in other countries is deeply damaging to our scientific standing," said Tom Ward, pro vice-chancellor at UEA. "Part of the discussion should be informed by what we can learn from Scottish and US law, which explicitly recognise the need to extend some protection to research in progress."

Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, said he has been involved in many long-running exchanges with people making freedom of information requests for his data. "In the case that went on the longest, I answered all the guy's questions. I spent half a day writing a long email explaining the answers to all his questions, but it wasn't really that which he was after: he was after some procedural questions about IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. He wanted some evidence that an IPCC statement had been changed – it wasn't about science at all; it was about procedure."

He added: "I can see what someone with a very specific political comment might gain from an unguarded comment, but it's very hard to see how science or public understanding of science gains from every exchange between scientists being made public. No other discipline operates in that way. The net effect of this, incidentally, is that senior people in government and senior scientists close to government are basically just using the telephone again. Which is very bad for science because email exchanges are an extremely useful record."

Nurse said that scientists were not blameless. At the University of East Anglia, they were too defensive in their responses to freedom of information requests over climate change, but their experience was one among many that highlighted a need for better training for scientists in the most appropriate way to respond to information requests.

Ward agreed that most universities do not have a very good grasp of the requirements of freedom of information law. But he added that researchers should be able to have confidential conversations with colleagues and researchers in other universities, and that it was increasingly difficult for researchers to do that by email.

"There's no other walk of life where every conversation you have ought to be made public," he said. "There's a massive double standards because a lot of the people submitting these requests are themselves not transparent at all. They don't reveal their sources of funding or the details of what they're doing behind the scenes."

He added that the best way for scientists to respond was with more openness. "Scientists are going to have to get used to the idea that transparency means being transparent to your critics as well as your allies. You cannot pick and choose to whom you are transparent," he said. "Increasingly it is going to be an issue for anyone working in contentious areas. Part of retaining the public's confidence and trust is transparency and openness, and scientists should accept that that is part of the price of having the people's trust."

More on this story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/25/freedom-information-laws-harass-scientists
grapeman, check out the "vexatious" link. It discusses the possibility that FIA requests were used to hack the EA e-mails.

I don't know you personally but I gather that you're a proud professional who doesn't shirk the opportunity to disclose your expertise.

But in the areas you're not so much an expert, areas where you're improving your craft based on experiments, models, historical statistics and whatever, you'll have aspects that aren't perfected.

Let's pretend that grape production headquarters is subject to FIA requests. Wouldn't you feel a bit uncomfortable that antagonists wish to scrutinize your failures for ethically questionable reasons and further demand why your altered data wasn't correct THE FIRST TIME?

If, like you, FIA requests sought to improve your special interest, there wouldn't be as much hassle. (You'd be working together.)

Otherwise you might find you're spinning wheels with detractors as opposed to perfecting the table grape.
 
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Cojito

Active member
and you can also keep avoiding all those reposts from the NASA website on this thread, which you still have not addressed.

I'd love to know, specifically, what you disagree with about the science I posted. But so far you just avoid discussing specifics of climate science. You assure us you know the science, but can't seem to enter into a meaningful discussion of the substance. Instead you want to talk about emails and question motives.

where's the beef?


let's talk about the model of earth's energy budget, and where you think the science is wrong.

thanks for this Mad. maybe the OP could call the clock on him, or post a countdown to grapeman's epic critique of these reports. i know i don't want to miss it.

and grapeman, i salute you sir. i don't imagine its easy to be condescending AND willfully ignorant but you manage to pull it off. good for you.
 

grapeman

Active member
Veteran
and you can also keep avoiding all those reposts from the NASA website on this thread, which you still have not addressed.

I'd love to know, specifically, what you disagree with about the science I posted. But so far you just avoid discussing specifics of climate science. You assure us you know the science, but can't seem to enter into a meaningful discussion of the substance. Instead you want to talk about emails and question motives.

where's the beef?


let's talk about the model of earth's energy budget, and where you think the science is wrong.
I and others have addressed your so called science. We have stated repeatedly that it is NOT science. It is a money grab from top (carbon trading schemes) to bottom (the researchers that are trolling for funds).

When someone with the credentials of Hal Lewis lays out for all to see this bullshit that you lap up as science and no one here has 1 thing to say about it, that pretty much sums it up for me. That coupled with the damning emails wherein the researchers whose hands you put your life into admit to skewing and making up data to obtain the desired result, only those with religious fervor would believe this crap. You admit to warming on Mars but fall short of even wondering why it would happen. We have yet to drive cars on mars. Or eat beef on mars.

this thread started out as the world's farmers are feeling the negative effect of GW.

You want to believe so badly that mankind is bad that it is laughable.

So for the 4th time, where are the farmers being hurt due to man made global warming?

So far, with your profound belief, you, Disco or the OP, have shown NOTHING to substantiate that claim.
 
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DiscoBiscuit

weed fiend
Veteran
I and others have addressed your so called science. We have stated repeatedly that it is NOT science. It is a money grab from top (carbon trading schemes) to bottom (the researchers that are trolling for funds).

When someone with the credentials of Hal Lewis lays out for all to see this bullshit that you lap up as science and no one here has 1 thing to say about it, that pretty much sums it up for me. That coupled with the damning emails wherein the researchers whose hands you put your life into admit to skewing and making up data to obtain the desired result, only those with religious fervor would believe this crap. You admit to warming on Mars but fall short of even wondering why it would happen. We have yet to drive cars on mars. Or eat beef on mars.

this thread started out as the world's farmers are feeling the negative effect of GW.

You want to believe so badly that mankind is bad that it is laughable.

So for the 4th time, where the farmers being hurt due to man made global warming?

So far, with your profound belief, you, Disco or the OP, have shown NOTHING to substantiate that claim.

Lol, you make it sound like climate scientists solicit donations. Money comes from the taxpayer (lol, you're paying for it) and our federal agencies and departments distribute funding according to law. These entities lobby Congress for distribution of funds but that's as above board as a Koch-funded rebuttal, much more if the Kochs obfuscate their activity. Koch is but one example.

The UN receives funds and donations from governments and private individuals. Private individuals donate unsolicited funds. But the UN has much more on their funding plate than scientific studies.

Even professional deniers are free of the need to solicit funding. Many are basement bloggers but a select few get sucked into the industry of denial.

Conservative dollars > Think tanks > Marketers > Recruitment > Funding (wire-to-wire.) In other words, until your radio station floods or climate legislation is enacted. Either way, another "Monckton" will seek another "cause" to deny all over again.

Funny thing, when it comes to AGW, think tanks back off and funding has to meander through operations directly from business and individuals. These operations unfortunately don't benefit from the technical expertise that professional think tanks usually solicit. That's why we've got all walks of life challenging the science (excepting the vast majority of climatologists themselves.)

One might be a pro bass fisherman that moonlights as an internet freedom blogger. If their gift of gab is good enough to dupe those who might discount proven facts and sound analysis, they wouldn't have to lobby the feds nor solicit private donations for rebuttals.

They're recruited and assigned to any number of special interest causes to thwart:

worker safety

health issues

union busting

pollution

Let's pretend you get involved with the AGW debate and subsequently the Corporation for Real Anthropological Purpose, (CRAP) offers you a JOB:D.

You'd be like one of these non-scientific yoyos that gets hired, given a microphone and funded wire-to-wire. All you'd have to do is recycle the stuff that's already been rehashed and trashed, ad infinitum.

And who cares if you're... less than scientific. Every good ol' boy knows they'd rather have a beer with a fishin' man than a climatologist.

You'll wind up like Lord Monckton and a handful of others who make their special interest rounds. All the same, deny de jour.

Evidence be damned, internal corporate documents be damned. Just the hope there's enough general public cranks to drown-out the debate.

Suggesting scientists get their money from nefarious sources is nuts. We're a democracy and once again you don't agree with the outcome. So you make up the solicitations stuff to discredit the process. You're discrediting your understanding of how things work.

Here's another tip. You don't have that many arguments but it might behoove you to pair the set-ups before they're schmacked. I'm not sure which (if any) of your arguments doesn't rely on misrepresentation.
 
G

greenmatter

I and others have addressed your so called science. We have stated repeatedly that it is NOT science. It is a money grab from top (carbon trading schemes) to bottom (the researchers that are trolling for funds).

When someone with the credentials of Hal Lewis lays out for all to see this bullshit that you lap up as science and no one here has 1 thing to say about it, that pretty much sums it up for me. That coupled with the damning emails wherein the researchers whose hands you put your life into admit to skewing and making up data to obtain the desired result, only those with religious fervor would believe this crap. You admit to warming on Mars but fall short of even wondering why it would happen. We have yet to drive cars on mars. Or eat beef on mars.

this thread started out as the world's farmers are feeling the negative effect of GW.

You want to believe so badly that mankind is bad that it is laughable.

So for the 4th time, where the farmers being hurt due to man made global warming?

So far, with your profound belief, you, Disco or the OP, have shown NOTHING to substantiate that claim.

this global warming thing has been studied since the 60's and the only people on the planet who choose to believe that we have nothing to do with one or two climate change issues live in a country that said fuck you to the entire world when everyone else signed papers promising to TRY to make it better.

we all know that we hurt the planet doing the shit we do.

some of us are just cool with that to a point that it makes me wanna puke. any asshole with a basic understanding of chemistry can prove to you that we are fucking things up. it takes someone special to disprove 50+ years of worldwide science with nothing but what one corporate sponsored clown has to say.

belief is nothing in the face of facts.

and the fact is being fair to the planet would fuck up the economy.
 
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