It seems to have arrived, but it’s unlikely to help break the drought.
Category Archives: Science And Society
Lindzen Versus Grijalva
More thoughts on the climate witch hunt:
How would the mainstream media react if a Republican congressman lobbed threatening inquiries hounding seven university presidents regarding the funding of professors’ research? Or if Republican congressmen sent threatening letters to the heads of left-wing think tanks? They would summon the ghost of Joe McCarthy. The Times would lead the pack and we’d still be hearing about it.
Yeah, but those Republicans are evil.
The Joy Of Coronary Arteries
The body is not that simple.
It sure would be nice if we’d do some actual science when it came to health care and nutrition.
Willie Soon
Strikes back against the inquisition.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s the full statement:
I have never been motivated by financial gain to write any scientific paper, nor have I ever hidden grants or any other alleged conflict of interest. I have been a solar and stellar physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for a quarter of a century, during which time I have published numerous peer-reviewed, scholarly articles. The fact that my research has been supported in part by donations to the Smithsonian Institution from many sources, including some energy producers, has long been a matter of public record. In submitting my academic writings I have always complied with what I understood to be disclosure practices in my field generally, consistent with the level of disclosure made by many of my Smithsonian colleagues.
“If the standards for disclosure are to change, then let them change evenly. If a journal that has peer-reviewed and published my work concludes that additional disclosures are appropriate, I am happy to comply. I would ask only that other authors-on all sides of the debate-are also required to make similar disclosures. And I call on the media outlets that have so quickly repeated my attackers’ accusations to similarly look into the motivations of and disclosures that may or may not have been made by their preferred, IPCC-linked scientists.
A double standard in the media. What a shock.
The Soon Et Al Paper
What is right, and wrong with it.
It’s always worth noting that the notion that CO2 is a greenhouse gas has never been in serious dispute, or even that the planet has been warming, in fits and starts, since the end of the LIA. The issue is feedbacks, and the limits of our ability to model them. We will probably get better at that in the future, but we currently suck at it, and it would be insane to base public policy on the models.
An Anti-Scientific Screed
…by a supposed climate “scientist.” Even ignoring the “denier” lunacy, this is wrong headed on multiple levels. No, science is not “an expert trust-based system.”
And then there’s this:
You cannot decide that you believe in penicillin or the principles of flight while at the same time disbelieve humans evolved from apes or that greenhouse gases can cause climate change.
I hope he understands climate better than he does evolution. I suspect he doesn’t.
Feynman wept.
Athletes
Should they be eating fat, or carbs?
Carb loading was always a crock.
The Grijalva Witch Hunt
Mark Steyn’s thoughts on the “warmish inquisition”:
Judith Curry has never testified before Commissar Grijalva’s committee. But, because she appeared before some or other committee of the Emirs of Incumbistan, Commissar Grijalva claims the constitutional responsibility to know what travel expenses she received in 2007.
I’ve testified to the Canadian Parliament and other legislative bodies over the years, and I can tell you now I would not accept an invitation to testify before the United States Congress under the terms this repulsive thug demands. Of course, they have the power to compel testimony through subpoenas, and maybe they can compel proof of speaking-fee compensation from 2007, too. But, for all Grijalva’s appeals to “constitutional duty”, the men who wrote the US Constitution did not intend that citizens who come before the people’s house should have to endure a career audit going back eight years (even the corrupt and diseased IRS only demands seven). It would be heartening to think all seven recipients of Grijalva’s letter would tell him to take a hike, but I am not confident of that.
…the naked intimidation of Bengtsson, Silver, Pielke, Soon and on and on is evil, and remorseless. And so, even as the gulf between Big Climate’s models and observable reality widens, the permitted parameters of debate narrow and shrivel.
Yes.
[Update a few minutes later]
Professor Curry has a lot of links from the past week. It’s been an interesting one.
A Defense Of Science
…from Senate Republicans.
The “Skeptical Seven” Witch Hunt
Roy Spencer says it’s just beginning. Yes, unless we inflict severe pain on the new Cotton Mathers.
[Update a while later]
More from John Hayward:
I must admit I find myself in strong disagreement with Dr. Pielke about the wisdom of these measures, being an out-and-proud unreconstructed climate skeptic myself, but it would never occur to me to hound him off the public stage or target him with intimidating government investigations. I’ve got some very old-fashioned ideas about how “science” and “debate” are supposed to work.
As Pielke goes on to observe, the “crime” that brought this “investigation” to bear was saying something true – “it is incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases” – and being a prominent scientist while doing it. It’s great that congressional Democrats have time for this sort of thing, isn’t it? They’re worse than useless when it comes to the IRS abusing its power against American citizens, the Department of Veterans Affairs turning into a horror show, the Administration lying about a deadly attack on a U.S. consulate, or the Justice Department running guns into Mexico, but they’ve got plenty of time and resources to crack down on uppity climate scientists.
The media’s all over this abuse of government power, right? Not so much, says Pielke: “So far, I have been contacted by only 2 reporters at relatively small media outlets. I’d say that the lack of interest in a politician coming after academics is surprising, but to be honest, pretty much nothing surprises me in the climate debate anymore. Even so, there is simply no excuse for any reporter to repeat incorrect claims made about me, given how easy I am to find and just ask.”
There might not be any excuse for it, Dr. Pielke, but there certainly are reasons. Come have a few sustainable, renewable drinks with the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy sometime, and we’ll compare notes on how modern “journalism” works.
Or doesn’t.
[Update a few minutes later]
If you’ve ever called someone a “denier,” read this. It’s about you.