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Reader Comments (112)
James Delingpole,
Thank you for the link to your latest article -- a must read.
Might I also suggest that readers consult Michael Crichton's Michelin Caltech Lecture which charts an analagous path:
http://gamma.physchem.kth.se/~3b1740/greenhouse/CRICHTON.PDF
Rob,
My farming neighbours have been loving the mild autumn and start to winter.
Ah yes, it's good old Barrie Harrop, a regular at the WSJ. He's one of us from down here I'm afraid.
GrantB
Thanks for that Grant..
From his own site and mouth....
Fresh water from the sea /ground water 24/7.
Projects underway.
Australia's unique desalination solution,
Would that be the desalination plant in mothballs?
Mann writes:
"We should respect the role science and scientists play in society, especially when scientists identify new risks. Whether those risks stem from smoking, lead exposure or the increasing use of fossil fuels, scientists will always work to increase knowledge and reduce uncertainty. And we all benefit from that work."
What Mann describes is not traditional science. Kepler, Galileo, and Newton did not discover the planetary orbits or create a theory of gravitation to reduce uncertainty. Scientists at CERN are not conducting experiments to learn more about the postulated Pi-Boson because they want to reduce risk. Pure science is driven by curiosity about the universe and by nothing else. Galileo created scientific method and it guides all pure scientists in their pursuit of truth about the universe.
As Mann's references to smoking, lead exposure, and fossil fuels make evident, he has confused traditional science and its scientific method with the modern practice of medical science. As any physician researcher will tell you, medical science is first and foremost medicine and only secondarily science. The goal of medical science is to alleviate suffering. In pursuit of this goal, physician researchers and other scientists who serve the medical field are not pursuing truth about the universe, at least not first and foremost, but are pursuing means to alleviate suffering. Existing practices of genetic engineering are pursued because Mommy and Daddy will suffer if baby Johnny does not have blue eyes and not because humankind seeks the truth about blue eyes.
Medical science does not follow traditional scientific method. When a surgeon first cut a hole in the leg of a patient and threaded a tube into the patient's heart so that he could inflate a balloon in the end of the tube, he was practicing medicine but he was not practicing science. The action was justified because it offered the only promise of relief to suffering not because it gained truth about hearts or balloons.
Mann wishes to be judged by the standards of medical science. He asks that his critics accept his claims that fossil fuel use dooms some part of humanity and that they view him as working in parallel with the surgeon and his balloon. Mann calls "Deniers" anyone who fails to accede to his request.
Mann calls "Deniers" anyone who applies the standards of traditional scientific method to his work.
However, Mann's argument that he should not be judged by the standards of scientific method is circular. The claim that Earth is warming dangerously is not analogous to the claim that the patient will suffer and die if known treatments only are used. The claim about the patient is based on well known principles of medical practice and on observation of the patient's present suffering and history of suffering. Earth is not analogous to the patient. Earth's suffering, as described by Mann, cannot be observed directly or in the best history of Earth. There is no set of well known principles for treating this patient. Instead, Mann and his colleagues offer claims from traditional science to the effect that Earth is warming and that this warming is dangerous to humans. At this point in his argument, Mann appeals to the good name of scientific method. He has no choice. There is no other basis for believing that harmful warming is occurring. Yet when critics direct attention to the poor quality of his science and scientific method, he goes ballistic and calls them "Deniers."
Mann asserts that his work must be judged as the surgeon's work is judged. He writes: "We should respect the role science and scientists play in society, especially when scientists identify new risks." Yet our knowledge of the "new risk" he has identified, if it exists, is a product of traditional science and scientific method. Mann cannot have it both ways. He cannot ask both that we set aside scientific method for his work and that we not set it aside.
It is no coincidence that not one proponent of CAGW is willing to discuss their use of traditional scientific method. They know, instinctively no doubt, that their so-called science has not a leg to stand on if judged by scientific method. That is why they want to change the topic to risk. But when they explain the risk, they are forced to claim that their practice of traditional science reveals the risk. They are forced to do this because nothing else reveals or explains that risk. Yet Mann and his colleagues are what they might call "Deniers" of scientific method.
Back on Barrie again! He seems a bit of an Al Gore!
"its Australia's largest man made marina,with scope for 1,500 marina docks for deep keelers,some 500 waterfront and non waterfront dwellings.
Current developed value over $3bn+,enjoyed massive capital growth over last 15yrs,2006-7 many waterfront dwellings enjoyed annual capital growth up 40%.
Innovations included over water housing,freehold title to marina docks,complete master planning,good public access. "
GrantB ...Has he ever done the sea level rise bit?
Edward Getty writes:
'Just read the comments there. Unless the Team immediately rallies a herd of commenters, shaping up like a major PR disaster for Mann and his "cause."'
Yes, the best remedy for falsehood is publicity. John Stuart Mill said it better.
Dec 5, 2011 at 2:41 PM |Theo Goodwin
My regards Theo! The best post I have seen on AGW/Man in a long while! I bow to your lucidity.
Theo Goodwin and others bring eloquence and insight to the debate that will never be matched by The Team or even paid hacks such as Bob Ward. That is why the only tool they have is vitriolic rhetoric. They certainly can't fall back on their "science".
edward getty -
I also appreciate the comparison between Dr Mann and Richard Nixon. That near-paranoid "if you're not with me, you're against me" approach, which has apparently alienated many of his co-workers, and is eventually self-fulfilling.
.
I note that in his WSJ article, he has now removed all qualifiers from his conclusions, saying "average temperatures today are higher than they have been for at least the past 1,000 years". Whereas he used to put it this way:
.
With the recent release of Climategate 2.0 emails, I have come to believe Dr Mann when he says the "release of these materials [Mann's UVa emails] will cause damage to reputations." Source, towards the end of Exhibit 2. While I find neither party in that dispute (i.e, ATI and Dr Mann) attractive, my antipathy towards Dr Mann has risen some notches due to what has been revealed.
'Every snowflake is unique,...
Mike. I thought snow was supposed to have been a thing of the past by now? How are those alarmist predictions working out for you?
Funniest comment yet on WSJ:
Thanks, Pete and Buffy. I am just trying to get the truth out.
The ricochet is unavoidable: Dellers will bash Mann :)
I think Barrie's comment just show that his is in Climate Warming for the money with no regard for the rest of us. Very counter productive, to say the least. Several other commenters point out his business connections.
As for Mikey, boy is he getting roasted. Outright hostile.
Heh, he's supposedly had a sabbatical for 'climate science communications research'. It is not terribly paranoid to imagine his communications are now vetted. If this is the best he, and they, can do, well, it's all over but the whimpering.
============
Another gratifying, but tragic, thing is that the commenters appear to have caught onto the fact that the horrible waste of treasure represented by the exaggerated CAGW menace has already diminished the lives of our descendants. How much more corrupt can this ignoble cause become?
===============
Following his sabbatical researching into climate change communications, Mann is clearly of the opinion that he's a world leader in the field.
He's certainly forming opinion with this article.
Stop it you lot. I believe every word he says. My solar/windmill/biofuel farm is absolutely necessary and thriving. I am very green.
Wow, just had another look at the WSJ comments - I'm reminded of this -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU53qv5aA1M
At around 49 seconds the orchestrated applause dies away - the crowd is angry, Dr Mann.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crCp1nA-G6M
Richard Jordan describe politicians to Alek Baldwin
Might explain why they all jumped on the Climate Change bandwagon
Poor Malvolio Mann
MALVOLIO
I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
Act 5 Twelfth Night. Finale
I missed this even more appropriate one!
'Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of thine own cause.'
Picking up from Theo's comment (Dec 5, 2011 at 2:41 PM) - I'm continuously reminded in this saga of Robespierre's "Committee of Public Safety" (perhaps better translated as "Commitee of Public Salvation" or "Committee of Public Health"...one and the same, if looked with the "right" frame of mind). The Believers know what is good for the planet, and aren't going to stop at anything to save it. The danger in this case is that they can cloak their belief in "science", and many just fall for that not knowing what "science" is.
Maurizio,
You foresee exactly where Mann would go if permitted. Climate science, as practiced by Mann, and the EPA would combine to become the Ministry of Gaia's Health. Who can imagine what Mann would require us to give up. First would be logic - for the good of all.
Surely anyone with a bit of common sense notices that there is someone very wrong with "climate science" when reading stuff like that from Michael Mann? For someone as concerned with PR as Mann is, he is astonishingly lacking in self-awareness.
@Maurizio Morabito
The point at which Robespierre and Saint-Just reached their expiration date was very sudden, and it came when the other (still living) revolutionaries recognized that Robespierre and Saint-Just were a grave threat to all of them.
It's only a very loose analogy but perhaps what is most needed is to press upon any thoughtful climate scientists that Mann & Phil Jones are becoming an embarrassment (if not a mortal threat) to all of them in the eyes of informed observers.
i.e., is there any hope of getting the field itself to begin some self-correction or is that a "pipe dream"??
Does anyone remember which email had Michael Mann aggressively chastising (verbally abusing) a fellow climate scientist (in California I think??) who had uttered something to the press which was a bit outside of the "groupthink"?
I've thought that if many *real* scientists could see that message they might begin to understand the MM is not a collegial guy but a nasty "enforcer" of an orthodoxy. I'll go look for the email I'm trying to think of.....
oh yes it was Michael Mann "yelling" (or one might say "screaming" given the words) via email at Dr. Curtis Covey of the Lawrence Livermore Lab, and Mann's email is just nuts. I can't believe a lot of serious scientists would not be disturbed at this "enforcer" behavior, especially since Covey was right and Mann was wrong on the merits:
[I hope it's ok to reproduce a post from another BH thread here, there doesn't seem to be a ready way to link readers to the exact post I'm talking about, and it seems to me to be a very important post for understanding the modus operandus of Michael Mann & co.]:
=======================================================================
ScientistforTruth posted (on the "Crushing of Dissent" thread):
Look at the crushing response Michael Mann gives to Dr Curtis Covey (atmospheric physicist with the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and IPCC Lead Author on the TAR) who is giving honest answers to genuine questions. When (#0112) Covey dared to suggest that Michael Mann's results were outliers (which is certainly true!), Mann goes ballistic. Not only that, but he copies his foul response around leading lights in the Team: Stefan Rahmstorf, Gavin Schmidt, Caspar Ammann, Ben Santer, Raymond Bradley, Malcolm Hughes, Phil Jones, and James Hansen. The message is clear: Anyone who speaks out of turn and doesn't do obeisance to Mann is going to have his name blackened around the climate community. He's toast! He's done irreversible damage to the cause, so Mann is going to do irreversible damage to him.
This is what Mann didn't like by Covey:
"Re high-resolution paleodata, I never liked it that the 2001 IPCC report pictured Mann's
without showing alternates...It now seems clear from looking at all the different analyses (e.g. as summarized in last year's NRC review by North et al.) that Mann is an outlier..."
Mann simply goes ballistic, and cannot control himself in a professional way: someone does not agree with him, so he has to be destroyed. Mann's lack of control and his anger are palpable. He calls Fred Singer a 'charlatan' more than once. By sending this email all around the Team (who were not copied in before) Mann continues to prove his credentials as their greatest bully for 'The Cause', and clearly tries to damage Covey for good.
2007 20:13:54 -0500
from: "Michael E. Mann" <REDACTED>
subject: [Fwd: IPCC and sea level rise, hi-res paleodata, etc.]
to: Stefan Rahmstorf <REDACTED>, Gavin Schmidt <REDACTED>, Caspar Ammann <REDACTED>, Ben Santer <REDACTED>, "Raymond S. Bradley" <REDACTED>, Malcolm Hughes <REDACTED>, Phil Jones <REDACTED>, James Hansen <REDACTED>
Curt, I can't believe the nonsense you are spouting, and I furthermore cannot imagine why
you would be so presumptuous as to entrain me into an exchange with these charlatans. What
ib earth are you thinking? You're not even remotely correct in your reading of the report,
first of all. The AR4 came to stronger conclusions that IPCC(2001) on the paleoclimate
conclusions, finding that the recent warmth is likely anomalous in the last 1300 years, not
just the last 1000 years. The AR4 SPM very much backed up the key findings of the TAR The
Jones et al reconstruction which you refer to actually looks very much like ours, and the
statement about more variability referred to the 3 reconstructions (Jones et al, Mann et
al, Briffa et a) shown in the TAR, not just Mann et al. The statement also does not commit
to whether or not those that show more variability are correct or not. Some of those that
do (for example, Moberg et al and Esper et al) show no similarity to each other. I find it
terribly irresponsible for you to be sending messages like this to Singer and Monckton. You
are speaking from ignorance here, and you must further know how your statements are going
to be used. You could have sought some feedback from others who would have told you that
you are speaking out of your depth on this. By instead simply blurting all of this nonsense
out in an email to these sorts charlatans you've done some irreversible damage. shame on
you for such irresponsible behavior! Mike Mann
--
Michael E. Mann Associate Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology
Phone:REDACTED075 503
Walker Building
FAX:REDACTED663
The Pennsylvania State University
email:REDACTED University Park, PAREDACTED
http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm
Here is a short bio on Curt Covey so that we can see he is no lightweight:
Dr. Curtis C. Covey received a Ph.D. in Geophysics and Space Physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1982. He joined LLNL in 1987, after a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and an assistant professorship at the University of Miami. He has spent most of his time at LLNL working for the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, where he maintains the database for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). He has written or co-authored about 80 papers on climate modeling, climate change, and extraterrestrial atmospheres. He has served as an editor for the journal Global and Planetary Change, as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report, and as a member of the World Climate Research Programme Working Group on Coupled Modeling Climate Simulation Panel, which provided data for the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report.
Spot on at WSJ by John Rogitz:
Here is a comment on the WSJ article as copied from the WSJ site:
"The tone of querulous victimhood, the self-aggrandizing and unjustified comparison to his scientific betters, the nastiness underlying a gratuitous attack on a conscientious public servant - all bespeak the classic charlatan."
Well said, I have met my share of the kind and this is how they respond when caught.
If Mann can see a hockey stick in AR4, I blame the bullies who bent little Mickey's ice sport playing tool into such a crooked shape
From skiphil's post - by Mann :
That's what I don't understand: if I ever received this kind of e-mail from any colleague - copied to lots of people, no less - the only answer I'd give would be something like, "Mike, you need to see a therapist. Who do you think you are? F*ck off and never speak to me that way again."
Maybe that one is in the password protected archive :)
If it is warmer now than it has been for a thousand years, is there any plausable explanation as why is was once mild enough in Greenland to farm? I was thinking maybe a warm sea current or something that warmed up Greenland without the rest of the world having to be proportionally warmer along with it. Without such an explanation I can't really see how the warmest for a thousand years claim can stand up.
Well, Mann has (and stupidly, IMO) had the balls to stick his head over the parapet - and is deservedly getting a good kicking for doing so. But what of Phil Jones? is he living it up in Durban and hoping CG 2.0 will blow over before he returns, or have his minders at UEA got him in lock-down in a straitjacket and duck-tape over his mouth?
Mann has published so many self-immolating papers and opinion columns that it seems apparent to me that he is very likely (>95% confidence :-) ) a covert big-fossil-fuel plant, with the sole purpose of permanently discrediting paleoclimatology, climate science and the IPCC. What better way to hide his true intentions than by claiming all of his critics are versions of his cloaked true identity?
We live in interesting times.
"Michael Mann: the Richard Nixon of climate science."--Justice4Rinka
Does that make Phil Jones the Rose Mary Woods?
I'm inclined to think that climate science is coming to a fork in the road:
a) Give Mann and maybe one or more other obvious problem children (I'd argue Trenberth deserves it more, but Jones has been the more visible) a Thermidor haircut, retreat at least half a step from politics and continue on without the dramatic pronouncements, or
b) Crash to Earth in a blizzard of public derision and spend a dozen years in the wilderness.
Outbursts like Mann's little "I'm a scientist and science is what I say it is" just bring that day closer.
@JEM
'I'm inclined to think that climate science is coming to a fork in the road'
The quicker the climatologists go and fork themselves, the happier I will be.
@Justice4Rinka
"Michael Mann: the Richard Nixon of climate science."
hmm.... maybe now he's the "Baghdad Bob" of the CAGW scam, proclaiming imminent glorious victory even as the enemy's tanks roll all around him....
Does that make Phil Jones the Rose Mary Woods?
Dec 5, 2011 at 6:35 PM | Unregistered Commenter jorgekafkazar ...
Trouble here Jorge is that while RMW "might" have deleted several rather crucial minutes from a tape recording, I don't think that Jones would know how to even delete an email or two. I loved this period in USA history, followed the downfall of a deceitful president and the cabal which surrounded him I still have the books, John Dean's "Blind Ambition", Haldeman's "The Ends of Power etc and others.
In the meantime, Mann is hopefully digging his own grave and Jones et al will "get theirs" and the sooner the better.
Dr. Mann has not changed much. I read his response to questions asked by Marcel Crok in 2005. Attack is the best defence, at least it is in chess...
answers here:
http://www.nwtonline.nl/00/nt/nl/0/nieuws/2299/Het_antwoord_van_Mann.html
questions here:
http://www.nwtonline.nl/00/nt/nl/0/nieuws/2298/Onze_vragen_aan_Mann.html
Can't let Mann Thread die without 'The Cause'
http://climateaudit.org/2011/12/02/climategate-2-0-the-cause/
re: climate scientists critical of Michael Mann
I just found this from Nov. 2009, does anyone know if there was any follow-up from this or was it just a cry in the wilderness?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/zorita-calls-for-barring-phil-jones-michael-mann-and-stefan-rahmstorf-from-further-ipcc-participation/
@Pharos - there's certain figures of speech that I'm inclined to let go. Saying "that doesn't help the cause" can be used as lightly as, say, one parent promising a reluctant kid some extra dessert to go to bed earlier.
Still, if one looks at the record, it's pretty clear that the climate-science industry has more or less self-selected environmental zealots into key roles, and that on a broader evidentiary basis is the real problem.
[snip]
JEM
Maybe so. But the Minnesotans for Global Warming have uncommonly impressive skills for weaving a video script out of gifted email texts.
He should go back to producing Miami Vice, it was crap too but relatively harmless.
Is it just me, or did anyone else have a mental image of the sheer incandescent rage which must surely have been generated by the repeated references to "Mr Mann" in the Dellers piece?
my oh my oh my!! email 0497
I'm still new to looking at blogs and emails re Climategate 1 &2 (so I hope I'm not repeating here), but have people seen the email below?? It seems that in May 1999 the relationship between Michael Mann and CRU was on the rocks, and Phil Jones alludes to doubts that they can still work together at all?? It seems that Mann was in a fury about what he regarded as critical (or insufficiently fawning) comments about his work??
===============================================================
click here for email 0497 in May 1999, Phil Jones trying to talk Michael Mann down from some hysteria
Phil Jones to Michael Mann, in response to evident fury from Michael Mann about his issues with other members of The Team:
Mike,
Just back from two weeks away and from discussions with Keith
and Tim and some emails you seem quite pissed off with us
all in CRU. I am somewhat at a loss to understand why. It is
clear from the emails that this relates to the emphasis placed
on a few words/phrases in Keith/Tim's Science piece. These may not
be fully resolved but the piece comes out tomorrow. I don't want
to open more wounds but I might by the end of the email.
I've not seen the censored email that Ray has mentioned but this
doesn't, to my way of working, seem to be the way you should be
responding - ie slanging us all off to Science. We are all
trying to work together for the good of the 'Science'. We have
disagreements - Ray, Malcolm, Keith and me have in the past,
but they get aired and eventually forgotten. We have never
resorted to slanging one another off to a journal ( as in this
case) or in reviewing papers or proposals. You may think Keith
or I have reviewed some of your papers but we haven't. I've
reviewed Ray's and Malcolm's - constructively I hope where I
thought something could have been done better. I also know
you've reviewed my paper with Gabi very constructively.
So why all the beef now ?"
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