Scientist accused of hiding truth by colleague

By David Rose, Mail Online   6:11 PM on 30th October 2011

It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.

Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.

Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.

Hot topic: The plight of polar bears captures the hearts of many, but are the ice caps still shrinking?

It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America.

The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.

But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of  trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.

Like the scientists exposed then by leaked emails from East Anglia University’s Climatic Research Unit, her colleagues from the BEST project seem to be trying to ‘hide the decline’ in rates of global warming.

In fact, Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties – a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained.

A graph issued by the BEST project also suggests a continuing steep increase.

But a report to be published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation includes a graph of world average temperatures over the past ten years, drawn from the BEST project’s data and revealed on its website.

This graph shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly.

Media storm: Prof Muller’s claims received uncritical coverage in the media this week

This, too, went around the world, with The Economist, among many others, stating there was now ‘little room for doubt’.

The oceans, they argue, warm more slowly and this is why earlier global measurements which also cover the sea – such as those from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University – have found no evidence of warming since the Nineties.

Read more:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html#ixzz1cJU13OUg

The IPCC according to Kevin Rudd on Q&A in Feb 2010, in response to a challenge from a sceptical student:

“The first thing I’d say is the IPCC – International Panel on Climate Change – scientists has 4000 essentially humourless scientists in white coats who go around and measure things and have been doing so for about 20 years. They reached a conclusion about, first of all, climate change happening and, second, the high likelihood, defined as 90 per cent plus, of it being caused by human activity sometime ago.”

On Bolt Report:  Er, not so, says even the warmist Guardian:

Perhaps unknown to many people, the process is started and finished not by scientists but by political officials, who steer the way the information is presented in so-called summary for policymakers [SPM] chapters.

Donna Laframboise, an investigative journalist blogging on noconsensus.org, has been researching and publishing for 2 years on the failings of the IPCC, its  scientists and their processes. Her recent book: The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert finally exposes the IPCC for the unscientific advocacy group that it is:

Given that this UN Body will control the future freedom and prosperity of your children, it is well worth finding out who are the IPCC and they want:

Terry McCrann’s argument makes sense – The Liberal Party adopting the same catastrophic AGW narrative and same CO2 reduction targets as Labor, but only differing in ways of achieving them may be nearing the end of its useful life:

…No, what Abbott must do is lead the opposition to walk away from all this; to build a sustained narrative against the entire climate change orthodoxy, to go back to his core belief that “climate change is crap”, but this time based on substance…..The functional case is easy, logical and unanswerable. An Abbott government would make any move to a mandatory cut of our emissions conditional on a global agreement. But that forces him to abandon the absurdity of the 5 per cent emissions cut target, and the 20 per cent mandatory renewable one.,,,,Lawyer Fergus Green has argued on the Inside Story blog that the repeal of the carbon tax would not trigger a compensation obligation to the holder of carbon units. Provided, simply, the government itself did not take them back.

Continue reading Its wall to wall Abbott in the press

Alan Caruba in the conservative Public Forum asks a pertinent question: Will Warmists Face Justice for their Deceptions?

Firstly, although I agree with the thrust of his article, Mr Caruba exaggerates and it is important that sceptics ‘police their own’ and don’t look the other way about exaggerations for the cause, the way warmists do.

Mr Caruba says:

“C02 plays no role in climate change” – is not what most sceptical scientists say and is baseless. CO2 does warm the planet but probably by minor amount.

“Surely the people behind the scheme knew this. The IPCC charged a small clique of climate scientists to come up with “proof” that global warming was happening.” – I don’t know what people knew, and I don’t know that the IPCC actively conspired for the result, but they certainly chose or allowed to self-select and group of politicians and scientists whose own bias would guarantee the desired outcome.

“It turns out that in 2010 alone he [Dr Hansen] received “between 236,000 and $1,232.500 in outside income”!” – Receiving inside or outside income does not in itself discredit his research, it is a distracting argument in the debate. However, the fact that “The agency had resisted disclosing this information for years” is relevant information, suggesting corruption of academic process.

“Joanne Nova of the Science and Public Policy Institute…” – Joanne is an Australian freelance science writer and not ‘of’ PPI to my knowledge.

“For deception on that scale, one might think they will be punished at some point, but it will likely be years more before those responsible for the global warming fraud will stand before the bar of justice, if ever” - Good question!

Regarding this, yet premature question, I believe NO. No one will ever be prosecuted for this fraud.

Why? Because:

The research scientists who constructed the models and published papers always disclosed that they were only models, which are imperfect and results are merely scenarios, not projections. Their conclusions about dangers are always qualified by ‘may’ or ‘might’ or ‘could’.

The activist scientists and scientific bodies who recommend policies to government always have disclaimers that they are based on uncertain models and take no responsibility. Here is a handy disclaimer example from Australian CSIRO:

This report relates to climate simulations based on computer modelling. Models involve simplifications of real physical processes that are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by CSIRO or the clients (the Northern Territory Department of Lands, Planning and Environment; Queensland Department of Primary Industries; Department of Natural Resources; and the Western Australian Department of Environmental Protection) for the accuracy of forecasts or predictions inferred from this report or for any person’s interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance of this report. http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/environment/greenhouse/ccfinal.html#Important%20Disclaimer

The government policymakers will say that they acted in good faith on the recommendation of a consensus of scientific bodies and advisors and on the well established precautionary principle, now enshrined in environmental law. They will back themselves by claims that clean energy was desirable in any case.

The profiteering industry will say they acted entirely properly in response to government policies and incentives, and they will be right.

The media will say that they merely reported with emphasis what respected scientists told them and devalued non-establishment scientists; anyway reports always include those qualifier weasel words ‘may’ or ‘might’ or ‘could’, and thus headlines are not untrue.

The community promoters of Action on Climate will rightly point to all the above agencies for the justification for their alarm.

The Greens will simply never concede that man is not destroying the environment with industrialisation in some way or another, so will never concede this movement was wrong.

So, who is to be found at fault?

NOBODY.

It is a perfect scam.

In reality, the error in the above chain lies at the step where the Government policymakers accepted, without verification, the scientist’s preferred public response policy. The governments allowed climate scientists to essentially dictate the public response policy – to drastically cut CO2 emissions, which should not the decision of scientists but of democratically elected politicians in consultation with the public, who will be the ones impacted.

Where public safety is at risk, the Government must not allow elite narrow minded scientists and ideological action groups to formulate policy, especially a self serving one,  and must instead audit and independently verify the integrity of the scientific data and resulting advice being given, just as it does with the medical, aviation and other critical industries. The government must also take into consideration the wider social and economic effects from independent bodies.  But because climate industry is so young and the danger appeared so urgent, such appropriate quality and safety processes were not established for this industry.

Unfortunately, the only punishment for government error is for the public to vote them out of office  – hardly a fitting recourse for a global scam of this size, especially as they will, of course, again get back into office in a few years.

The only areas where fault and punishment can be attributed is where required processes were corrupted or bypassed. One example is the US EPA failing to evaluate the science according to their own processes, as found by their own review body. In the case of Solyndra, if improper business / government events took place, but these will all be prosecuted, but will all be relatively minor transgressions, notwithstanding that they cost billions of dollars.