Bishop Hill Team letter writing
Feb 18, 2012 Climate: Mann Climate: fakegate The Hockey Team have also been writing to the Heartland Institute - their contribution can be seen here.
We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.
These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative sources agree on these points.
Reader Comments (92)
That's been true for four billion years.
A fact?!
Balderdash. Pitiful. A two-year-old could do better.
Interesting. Is scepticism working?
Fact 1 - I agree.
Fact 2 - Have they refined their argument somewhat? No longer simply 'warming is man made' but much more specific and sticking to IPCC claims that only recent warming is man made. If previous warming was natural why not this?
Fact 3 - Evidence please! The disruption I am seeing in my daily life from climate change comes *exclusively* from the policies enacted supposedly to deal with it. The climate itself is of little significance to life as people experience it. The weather is certainly, but I haven't noticed any major change in the variability of it.
At the foot of the Team's open letter Trenbreth signs as "Distinguished Senior Scientist". Mann and the others will soon catch up; they'll soon be adding adjectives such as 'eminent', 'respected' and 'brilliant' to their job titles.
"Climate change(1) is already disrupting(2) many(3) human(4) and natural systems(5)."
1. What constitutes 'Climate change'?
2. What constitutes 'distrupting'?
3. How many is 'many'?
4. Is there a list of these?
5. Is there a list of these?
Andrew
I think this comment summarizes the real issue:
The Hockey Team's high horse. Pompous asses.
And then there were six...
I seemed to recall there were several dozen scientists deep in the science sub-section of the vanguard promoting so much alarm about CO2. Quite a few seem to have gone awfully silent in recent years. I excuse the deceased of course, but for the others, what is the reason for only six signatures of the old guard on this letter?
The "Unmagnificient Seven" fighting their last ditch stand against the forces of reason.
The 'Team' is, seriously, going barmy.
We all know they have it their own way for years as guardians of the 'progressive' truth. Clearly, being forced onto the back foot, their right-on certainties highlighted as little more than vacuous tosh, must be disconcerting.
But if this feeble whining is the best they can muster in their defence they really need to go away and have a long, long lie-down.
At the moment, they look like little more than a group of pouting, self-righteous teenage girls outraged that their granny has taken their lipstick away.
It's not very edifying.
And it sure as hell isn't convincing as 'science'.
Trenberth is "Distinguished"? More like "Discredited" .
Thank you for the link. The signatories have placed themselves far out on a rotten limb.
By the way, I trust you will now be adding Junk Science to your list of 'A few sites I've stumbled across recently....'
I'm coming to the conclusion that the "evil climate scientists" aren't actualy evil. What we are dealing with is a rather naughty group of 8yr olds, sure they are allowed to drive cars, but they're still locked in the "Power rangers", "Transformers", let's save the planet phase.
They take themselves very seriously and get quite upset when the rest of us don't - the temper tantrums surface every now and then. Mann feels he's destined for greater things, his frequent picture in the school magazine tells him this.
They still enjoy the bedtime stories which pass for "peer-reviewed literature".
Looking at the letter above, they're not quite the full shilling are they. Do you think they will grow out of it?
Let's just hope it's a passing phase.
"However, we are greatly disappointed by their content"
I just bet you are.
So much so that one of our side decided to spice things up a bit.
Unfortunately, as usual, we mis-interpreted the information and cocked it up.
Must try harder.
Can it be any accident that they avoided presenting any signatories from within the UK??
I suspect they want to try to sidestep all of the fraud, hypocrisy, and illegalities on UK Freedom of Information Act intransigence. By leaving out UK scientists they can pretend to be innocent aggrieved parties unjustly harmed by CG1 and CG2 email releases.
In the several years I’ve been following climate issues, I’ve never once read of Trenberth, Mann, or Santer ever once engage in any kind of “honest, fact-based debate” or “civil debate about climate change” or any kind of debate whatsoever.
Kremlin-like diktats and pronouncments, sure. Continuous insults of “deniers,” of course. Bizarre Khmer Rouge-like paranoia (e.g., Mann’s new book), no doubt. But “civil debate”? Not that I recall.
Seven paragraphs and "The Heatland Institute" used nine times.
No pronouns for these guys, they just drill the message home with their characteristic aplomb.
dis·tin·guished/disˈtiNGgwiSHt/
Adjective:
Successful, authoritative, and commanding great respect.
Showing dignity or authority in one's appearance or manner.
Amazing tin ear these fellows have. I think this letter is only signed by a few because the rest are smart enough to understand the law.
Remember to warmers Fake but Accurate is alright to run with.
Cartoon please Josh
Showing the signatories on high with the destinguished Kevin Trenberth below with his toungue in his cheek.
All this has shown is that BIG-OIL is not funding the sceptics.
It's a bit like the raiders of the lost tomb ... take the ark of the covenant into the temple ... and
It really is just full of sand.
... or perhaps better, it's like when time team get everyone around a huge hole in the ground over an ancient site and they all stand there and say .... you can't see a lot ... because there isn't a lot in it.
... THEN THEY COME UP WITH THE CLINCHER ... but the really important thing is what we didn't find, because that now tells us what wasn't here.
BIG-OIL wasn't there. I know in their perverse world where a warmer climate is worse ... its quite possible to believe that BIG-OIL (who are probably the biggest industry in wind) are evil and somehow trying to stop governments handing and millions to BIG-OIL wind industrial estates.
From the Ministry of Truth:
'To help address the chaotic nature of the climate change discourse in the UK today, interested agencies now need to treat the argument as having been won, at least for popular communications. This means simply behaving as if climate change exists and is real, and that individual actions are effective. The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken.'
IPRR Report 2006.
To the tune of Widdicombe Fair:
Wi’ Ray Bradley, Ben Santer, David Kar'ly,
Michael Mann, Jonny O'erpeck, Gavin Schmidt,
Old uncle Kev Trenberth and all,
Old uncle Kev Trenberth and all.
Feb 18, 2012 at 5:25 PM | GSW
By coincidence, there's a mention in today's paper of a small company that produces non-merchandised superhero costumes for boys in this phase, iwishiwasa.com. I'm sure they could do a Climateman outfit on request.
DaveS
I think Scott Mandia already bought his (self styled Climate Caped Crusader).
http://profmandia.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/caped_climate_crusader.jpg
Maybe we could all club together and buy them all one. They're little faces would brighten up no end. If we can get them in a good mood, perhaps then we could have a chat about about the differences between "make believe" and the real world where the rest of us have to live.
;)
I was across at Falkirk today looking at the site of the last battle when the Jocobites beat the Government/England forces.
It's a strange site. You'd hardly know there was a battle there except for one monument. Otherwise few people know about it.
The battle came after a period of huge success for the Jacobites who had gone as far south as Derby but then had to march all the way back because they got no support. Then they got turfed out of Glasgow because they weren't wanted there, and then finally after a bit of too and froing they landed on Falkirk Muir.
It was a messy battle, fought in a haste, with mistakes made on both sides but the Jacobites were left holding the field and so claimed victory.
But in truth the seeds of defeat at Culloden were already apparent. Bonnie Prince Charlie was a bad leader. He was a drunkard, a womaniser and he relied on advice from poor advisers. In truth he was lucky to win the battle as there was no one assigned to control the left flank, and except for the chance of a steep and difficult gulley, the left flank would have been annihilated together with all Jacobite hopes.
Instead the right wing of the Jacobites drove back the government forces who then retreated leaving the disorganised and ramshackle clansmen either uselessly following already retreating soldiers or looting from the dead. Any decent leader would have reorganised their troops closed in on the remaining government forces and wiped them out, which would then have left the whole of Scotland open to them and have left Charlie & his ancestors ruling Scotland till this day.
But no! The Jacobites were poorly led, but worse, they were almost a century behind.
The battle was in 1746. 21 years later the Forth Clyde canal was being built, James watt was working on his steam engine, Glasgow merchants were trading with the world and making a killing from the Americas. Highland population was exploding (not declining as many history books would suggest) In other words, Scotland was a great success after the jacobites were defeated and 20 years after the battle of Falkirk it was a completely meaningless battle because the world had completely moved on.
And that is precisely what the "team" is they are a group of has-beens. They are poorly led, poorly organised, ramshackle group who belong to the 20th century and not the 21st.
They have had their time. They may not yet have had their Culloden, but just as Culloden was very much a replay of Falkirk, so the Heartland Institute is a totally hollow "victory" only highlighting how they have failed to achieve anything meaningful, in a political climate that has moved on.
Dude:
Isn't this more accurate: to warmers Fake but Helping The Cause is alright to run with. I don't believe that all the time all these guys think what they're saying or promoting is accurate. All they care about is that it helps The Cause or it doesn't. It's that deformed an area of study, at least as practised by this sad and dwindling bunch.
Sorry but this joke letter is childish and utterly beneath any thing but mocking pointing and laughing at !
I hate that the debate has fallen to this level and I am finding it very difficult to staying above their level but am taking heart from the one thing I know keeps them below me and that's I don't believe I'm right I just hope I am !
Trenberth is "Distinguished"?
Does that mean we have to bow down and kiss his ring?
The Team have an extreme view of CAGW, whereas the Heartland-sponsored conferences allow different voices to be heard. Here is Dr Roy Spencer opinion on the conference
Having looked at Heartland site in the past couple of days, compared with the Climategate emails, Bob Ward, Roger Black, John Cook etc. the claims of poisoning the debate should be in the viewed in the context of Matthew 7:3
These people are fighting for their reputations because they realise that with global cooling on the way, politicians, bankers and reinsurance people will want to attach blame for the failure of their junk science.
It's a morality tale for a new, judgemental world kicking out those who play fast and loose with the truth. Politicians in particular will turn on the likes of those who pushed the peer review scam which kept the junk going after 1997 when the link between CO2 and the end of ice ages was broken.
The hockey stick was the key part of the fraud but the 'back radiation' perpetual motion machine, instantly obvious to any process engineer like me, is just as bad. The other errors are more subtle but to rely on the reputation of showman and political activist Sagan, who made his career on the incorrect physics he derived from van der Hulst's genuine mistake, was always a hostage to fortune.
Hansen's dogmatic claim that aerosol cooling = net GHG-AGW so there is no null hypothesis is in scientific terms, bold defiance of the mob. I respect that but he should never had made this mistake in the first place. In science you attest the correctness of every logical step in your argument and it's obvious by looking at any rain cloud that Sagan's aerosol optical physics breaks down for about half low level clouds.
These contribute most of Earth's albedo and, ultimately control GHG-AGW to a fixed level. [See my argument about this on Tallbloke's blog where I have shown on the basis of the real IR thermalisation physics how this control system, identified by Miskolczi, probably works.]
Richard,
I like your point but I went with Fake but accurate because warmers love to torture data for their results...so yes the data may seem accurate but the warmers torture it until it fits their theory to the point where it does not resemble the truth so now it is fake.
Like I have said the fake memo is a symbol for all their smoothing, forcing, models.....and when skeptics say nothing they say or do resembles reality we get a fake but accurate response from them.
Hah! "A civil debate" - as if the Hockey Team can tell the difference between civility and cholera...
Garry, you mention that Mann and his cronies have something of the child about them. To defeat the global warming religion we must understand that these nutters are sincere. They genuinely believe in their apocalypse story; their confirmation bias will allow them to call black white till the cows come home.
In this radio interview Mann leaves no doubt that he believes himself to be on the side of the angels, warning of a great peril, is pretty miffed that spoilers try to contradict him: http://hw.libsyn.com/p/8/7/e/87e0736aa2decb69/POI_2010_02_26_Michael_Mann.mp3?sid=a30e2958448973ab2ec8f1620da61d6a&l_sid=18988&l_eid=&l_mid=1770538&expiration=1329594226&hwt=62187f517eddc69591ea5522ab0ba1ab
Mann's book - at least the free bit I've read on Kindle - has much the same tone of the aggrieved prophet. These people are true believers. The words, "Oops, we got it badly wrong," will never pass their lips.
Very Urgent and Confidential Memo, February 2012:
Our Serengeti Strategy has been exposed by Micheal Mann in the first page of his book. We can no longer pick out individual zebras from a larger herd with the same ease. We must change our tactics.
I propose that our hunting now be carried out on zebras loitering in smaller numbers. A group of six zebras identified a short time ago far from the much larger herd further away offers an opportunity to test our new strategy.
This points to a situation that quite a few knew of these documents and possibly the fake before they necame public. It cannot be a reaction to the release. I do think we are witnessing a coordinated effott made eatlier to discredit HI. It is s pity it has all backfired. They all look complicit and stupid.
Scratch that! There are seven zebras. Seven!
Been done already Dave - by themselves!
Here is fully accredited team enforcer Professor of Climate Science Scott Mandia.........as...........
Supermandia!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/23/supermandia-and-the-most-supersilly-climategate-rebuttal-ever/
"These are the facts."
The Emporer does have clothes!!!!!
'Gavin Schmidt, PhD, Climate Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies"
So does this letter have the blessing of NASA? If not should Dr Schmidt be using NASA's name?
The Team propaganda keeps asserting that their emails are taken out of context but I have yet to see one instance of that. If anything, providing context often seems to make the more egregious emails look worse. What have I been missing?
@Richard Drake - Your first post: Before I read any comments I read the 'letter'. I came away with EXACTLY the words you used in your comment. Specifically the point that the words used seemed to have been from a two year-old child - or a junior school pupil inculcated with AGW propaganda.
Feb 18, 2012 at 4:55 PM | Brent Hargreaves:
"Mann and the others will soon catch up; they'll soon be adding adjectives such as 'eminent', 'respected' and 'brilliant' to their job titles."</I>
Nah, he'll be known as 'Dear Leader', surely.
This is not good for my blood pressure:
"...recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy."
Will their feeble and pathologically dishonest minds ever gain the insight to understand the phenomenon of psychological projection? Or even begin to realise that rule by infallible diktat is as far removed from the scientific method as is possible? Deeeeep breath...
And poor little Kev. If you're a nobody, at least you can pretend, eh?
La-la land.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/misrepresenting-climate-s_b_819367.html
Interesting that Gleik seems to really dislike the Hearland Institute
Read the post and you will see he has an axe to grind.
My last post seems to be held up in moderation. Is this a change of policy? nothing controversial in it, anybody else having similar difficulties?
I think we should go for the "Monty Python Strategy" - we just stand around, point at them and laugh - while they make idiots of themselves (again).
Seems to be random - I've got one "pending".
If you get "captcha'd" it seems to automatically refer you for moderation AKAIK.
{It's a change in the system. I've called it in as a fault. LEt's say that the response has been disappointing so far.]
Thanks Foxgoose.
;)
I think they should complain to teacher; the nasty Heartland Institute has been so unfair.
The Team has overlooked the simple precept that, if you’re going to resort to argument from authority, it’s wise to be sure the authority actually agrees with you. At least one of their “authoritative sources”, the Royal Society, doesn’t:
The Team: “Climate change is occurring.”
The RS:
Comment: OK, but no surprise there.
The Team: “Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change.”
The RS:
Comment: “strong evidence” is not certainty – compare with “very strong evidence” in first extract – nor is “broadly consistent”.
The Team: “Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems.”
Comment: the RS says nothing at all about such disruption.
The Team: “The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become.”
As the RS says nothing about such disruptions, it’s impossible to quote a relevant extract. But these are nearly relevant – and again emphasise the RS’s uncertainty:
Overall comment: yet another own goal. These people are seriously hopeless.