Bishop Hill Betts off
Dec 10, 2014 Climate: MetOffice Richard Betts has kicked off a small Twitter kerfuffle today, taking umbrage at Matt Ridley's Times piece yesterday.
@ProfMarkMaslin Exactly. If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
— Richard Betts (@richardabetts) December 10, 2014Matt has responded on his own blog today and I'm taking the liberty of reproducing his comment here.
After this article was published an extraordinary series of tweets appeared under the name of Richard Betts, a scientist at the UK Met Office and somebody who is normally polite even when critical. He called me “paranoid and rude” and made a series of assertions about what I had written that were either inaccurate or stretched interpretations to say the least. He then advanced the doctrine that politicians should not criticize civil servants. The particular sentence he objected to was:
Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in their views on climate policy, which hardly reassures the rest of us that they leave those prejudices at the laboratory door.
He thought this was an unjustified attack on civil servants. However, if you read what I said in that sentence, it is that (1) people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in support of certain policies – which is not a criticism, just a statement; and (2) that we need reassurance that they do not let that consciously or unconsciously influence their work, which again is not a criticism, let alone an attack, merely a request for reassurance. Certainly there is no mention of civil servants, let alone by name, and nothing to compare with an attack on me by name calling me paranoid and rude.
Is the first assertion true? I had in mind Jim Hansen, who was in charge of GISS, a data set for which serious questions have been raised about adjustments made that warm the present or cool the past, and who is prepared to get himself arrested in protest against fossil fuels. I also had in mind Phil Jones, partly in charge of HADCRUT, who also is not shy with his views. I was not thinking of Julia Slingo of the Met Office, because I do not think of the Met Office as a collater of temperature data, but perhaps I should have been. And then there’s Australia’s BoM. And indeed the RSS data, whose collater, Dr Carl Mears, fumes at the way “denialists” talk about his data. Hardly objective language.
Is my request for reassurance reasonable? In view of the Australian episodes, the GISS adjustments, the USHCN story from earlier this year (see here) – all of which raised doubts about the legitimacy of adjustments being made to the temperature data – then yes, I think I am. Do I think the data are fatally flawed? No, I don’t. I happily accept that all the data sets show some warming in the 1980s and 1990s and not much since and that this fits with the satellite data. But do I think such data can be used to assert that this is the warmest year, by 0.01 degrees, a month before the year ends? No, I don’t. I think people like Dr Betts should say as much.
As of this writing, Dr Betts’s latest tweet is:
If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
Well, if by attacking he means physically or verbally abusing, then yes, I agree, but I don’t do it. I don’t call people by name “paranoid”, for example. But criticizing scientists should be allowed surely? And asking for reassurance? Come on, Richard.
The WMO “re-analysed” a data set to get its 0.01 degree warmest year. What was that reanalysis and has it been independently checked? I would genuinely like to know. I stopped taking these things on trust after the hockey stick scandal.
The thrust of my article was that the reputation of the whole of science is at risk if bad practices and biases are allowed to infect data collection and presentation, and that science like other institutions can no longer take public trust for granted. A reaction of bluster and invective hardly reassures me that science takes my point on board. For the moment, I remain of the view that
The overwhelming majority of scientists do excellent, objective work, following the evidence wherever it leads. Science remains (in my view) our most treasured cultural achievement, bar none. Most of its astonishing insights into life, the universe and everything are beyond reproach and beyond compare.
But Dr Betts’s reaction has weakened my confidence in this view.
I must say, this seems a bit out of character for Richard, particularly his retweeting of the "Ridley is wrong because Northern Rock" thing put forward by Mark Maslin (the latter declaring, "North Rock the ultimate failure of neoliberalism", thus rather making Matt's about politicised scientists for him). I always laugh when scientists try to poison the well in this manner. It does so damage their own credibility.
Reader Comments (338)
well scientist being civil servants IS a big problem because politicians are not able to asses their work ..so this assessment is done by themselves or peers...
Matt's rebuttal to Richard Betts tweet was excellent.
IMHO Betts is a hypocrite and that was shown on his recent post and comments @ WUWT. He has been a lead author of the IPCC and spokesman for the CAGW crowd. Their so-called "science" is being discredited at nearly every turn. Betts feels the heat that his crew invented.
Could it be from his viewpoint from ivory towers that when Nic Lewis fed him and offered the company of "the little people" that he thought he had the cat in the bag? The cat is out of the bag and Betts knows it. His ivory tower credentials are crumbling by his own hand. It's all over but for the crying from those like him.
Philip Bratby: Thanks for posting Nurse's letter/. From it I take this line (my bold):
I would have had more faith in Nurse's scientific humility if he had qualified "the science": Those famous examples show us how good science will win out.Climate Scientists like Betts know the scam has been rumbled and their political and earning power is ebbing fast. Ridley knows the claim of 157.5 W/m^2 'Clear Sky Atmospheric Greenhouse Factor', net surface IR supposedly absorbed by GHGs to heat the atmosphere, is baseless. 63 W/m^2 goes through the atmosphere, the rest, 94.5 W/m^2 doesn't exist.
Ridley also knows the purported increase of humidity is a numerical trick in hind-casting designed to deceive. He is the focus of attack but behind him are many honest scientists and engineers, sick and tired of the fraudsters.
Richard, we have had many posts on this site about the Met Office and its output, as you well know. It is not the squeaky clean organisation that you suggest.
As someone who has to pay towards its upkeep I would be very pleased to see a very significant cost reduction or its privatisation.
esmiff on Dec 10, 2014 at 4:07 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock?
It is worth reading this article in full.
The article was submitted in March 2010, nearly five years ago, so we can see how attitudes have changed. For one, JL respects Nigel Lawson's scepticism about 'Global Warming'! He also deplores the BBC running to green lobbyists for 'expert opinion'. His description of why Mrs Thatcher supported Nuclear is also interesting: it was industrial politics and not the climate politics that is often drummed into us.
The article also has a feeling of freedom that the recent House of Lords Science and Technology Committee clip lacked throughout. :)
Well worth a read.
Climate Change Alarmism Catfood.
In tests, 9 out of 7 civil servants said their politicians preferred it
(No actual preferences were expressed, but they were not fed anything else)
" the clear implication is that at least some scientists *are* putting policy before proof"
Indeed Dr Osborn that is what he said and there is considerable evidence that it is true. As a scientist I despair at the gullibility of the news media in accepting at face value pronouncements of many NGOs whose scientists have a very selective approach to evidence. For example:
- Polar bear populations are in terminal decline.
- Himalayan glaciers will have disappeared by 2035
- Today's Hurricane/tropical storm/flash flood is a direct result of climate change
The machinations of scientivists in the IUCN colluding in secret to get neonicitinoid insecticides banned in Europe is another current example.
I don't believe this is what all scientists or even most scientists do but the evidence is clear that it is certainly what "some" scientists do.
Dec 10, 2014 at 4:56 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts
"By all means let's discuss the science in good faith"
So when is just one of you going to start then?
I only have one word for you
"CLIMATEGATE"
"Attempts to spin 2014 as a possible ‘warmest year’ is exactly that: spin designed to influence the Lima deliberations. While the WMO report was not unreasonable, their press release was a clear attempt to influence the Lima deliberations in the direction of being ‘alarmed.’"
- Judith Curry
RB, In the article you link to, Matt Ridley also clearly refers to the satellite temperature record, as well as the ground measurements. As you know full well, the satellites clearly do not show a "warmest" year, yet you choose to ignore the satellite measurements.
I think you can do better, Richard. Much better.
Richard Betts on twitter:-
Richard Betts obviously doesn't frequent the same internet as I do, people have been questioning adjustments since before Climategate.
Speaking of 'putting policy before proof', with Global Warming morphing into Climate Change and Extreme Weather, has the Hockey Stick graph been taken off the Alarmist's list of sanctified icons?
If so, has any justification been handed down to us?
Maybe ATTPhysics, criticism should be and can be taken in the spirit in which it is given.
Typically, what is observed is that a prominent scientist or journalist, or a blogger sticks his/her neck out and offers a general criticism of scientific practice. The person is subsequently subjected to a barrage of requests to acknowledge, accept or offer an apology for some bizarre minutiae, and this is used to disregard the broader criticism.
The bizarre minutiae are typically described as "errors".
For example, with Rutherglen, the BOM dug up a document with some sketches after a good interval and offered explanations. These explanations do not fully account for the changes made. The explanations did not 'exist' - they were offered after the questions were raised. This is important to note. In other words, their existence made no material difference to the questions raised.
Perhaps the WMO has a problem with their language. If all years with a global temperature anomaly calculated for them were ranked, about 150 of them, the bottom-most one would qualify for being a "hottest" year too - the least hottest. This is apparently how they think and weasel-word their releases. People living in the real world know there is just one "hottest" year and there can only be one of them at a given time. Maybe the WMO should have curtailed its activist enthusiasm.
Re: Paul Nurse, I have a set of people in mind whom I believe serially 'misuse and misrepresent science to support their particular politics or ideologies'. Maybe they should be 'crushed and burned' ?
Corruption in modern science is emergent. You may look around you and see honest individuals. But incentives, disincentives, career advancement, funding, social ostracism, skewed priorities and assumptions, blind-spots and non-response to genuine criticism may conspire to produce bad output. These are circumstances that may well be beyond a single person's control. Scientists can be good and science can still be bad.
Then, why take such unseemly and exaggerated umbrage on the part of your colleagues? In fact clearly, it is your scatter gun histrionics which show you up to be what you and your mates are, the MO are promulgators, fellow conspirators and chief apologists - of the western hemisphere's climate warming advocacy cabal [GISS, Hadcrut, et al].
I think that, Ridley hit the mark with unerring accuracy and highlighted through your irritable response, an uncertainty and growing panic about being exposed for what you really all are - [inevitably I surmise] as climate gate-III will unveil - as arch dissimulators - not to mention being eventually and rightfully 'defrocked'.
Once again, I say well said Matt Ridley, another bulls eye, an arrow flying straight into the chest of the great scam merchants, indeed - a wounded beast is a on occasion the most dangerous adversary.
Special pleading by scientists is an affront. Professionals are accountable in all other professions, either by a regulator or by clients. Scientists appear to be different, know they are different, and defend the status quo robustly. I have no problem with scientific freedom and the autonomy of practitioners but this does not mean "no criticism".
Revelatory comments by the special guests.
For Osborn to have a point no scientist should have ever put ideology before science. That's not the way it works. Scientists are not angels and neither they should be expected to be.
ATTP is still unable to understand nobody should be crushed and buried, whatever the merits of their arguments within a proper legal framework. Nurse's spoken the words of an unreformed leninist. This goes back against Osborn's point. Sir Paul talks ideology and it shows.
As a scientist and a retired Civil Servant, I would suggest that Richard Betts re-acquaints himself with the Civil Service Code:
http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/civil-service-code-2010.pdf
Richard Betts may have some justification in saying "If a member of the House of Lords has a concern over the integrity of civil service staff, he should raise it with the minister responsible for the department instead of shooting his mouth off in the press." if this was a concern over a specific named Civil Servant, but then again, a Civil Servant using social media to call a member of the HoL "paranoid and rude" is unprofessional and unacceptable.
A couple of final points.
It is very easy for scientists like Richard Betts to clear up the doubts as to whether there might be biases in the surface temperature record. Submit the whole process to an independent audit by qualified statisticians.
And it is politicians' job to make sure taxpayer's money is being well spent. The Betts doctrine that this must never involve asking tough questions of civil servants is unknown to me.
For those interested in the episode Tim Osborn mentions, here is much more detail:
http://rationaloptimist.com/blog/cherry-picking-and-the-tale-of-the-siberian-larch-data.aspx
Richard Betts called me paranoid and rude. He has neither justified these slurs nor apologised.
Matt Ridley
I think Matt Ridley is right to criticize the warmest years hype by the WMO (and others) based on a 0.01C difference.
Especially when the error is plus or minus 0.1C !) and as he says, this doesn't mean you don't believe the data shows a warming trend over the last 150 yrs (not the cause though) - which makes Richards tweet about Ridley accepting the dataset previously, oddly disingenuous
so Richard's tweet is odd.
"Funny how some folk used climate obs to claim global warming 'gone away', then with a new warmest year suddenly the obs become 'corrupted'!"
especially as somebody from the Met Office seems to give caution to this:
(in a press release)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2014/2014-global-temperature
Colin Morice, a climate monitoring scientist at the Met Office, said:
“Record or near-record years are interesting, but the ranking of individual years should be treated with some caution because the uncertainties in the data are larger than the differences between the top ranked years. We can say this year will add to the set of near-record temperatures we have seen over the last decade.” - Met Office
and even Richard Black agrees this is problematic!
Richard Black:
“……So while NOAA currently has 2014 as the warmest on record, NASA’s equally valid global dataset has it in second place. The third major record, maintained by the UK Met Office and the University of East Anglia, puts 2014 in third position.
In addition, all of them come with margins of error. NOAA’s record for the year so far to October, for example, gives a margin of plus or minus 0.11C.
By comparison, from the same record, the annual average temperatures for all the years between 2001 to 2013 fit within a range of 0.10C.
Often, then, claims of record-breaking need to be caveated with words such as ‘probably’, ‘appear to be’ and ‘within limitations of the data’ – which automatically make them seem less than earth-shattering.” - Richard Black
http://eciu.net/blog/2014/one-hot-year
R Betts "If a member of the House of Lords has a concern over the integrity of civil service staff, he should raise it with the minister responsible for the department instead of shooting his mouth off in the press.
In a large company, you don't see senior staff making unfounded accusations against junior colleagues in the newspapers"
What, ask Ed Davey to investigate? Perhaps he could link up with the BBC and the Guardian and do the job properly. I'm sure Dr Lew would offer to chair it. /sarc.
Don't suggest any civil service branch does self criticism well. They deny everything until things explode in the media.There isn't a department going that doesn't get kicked by a politician at some point. Sometime it's undeserved but very rarely. You do your cause no favours by demanding Ridley stick to protocol.
RB:
In a large company, Richard Betts, I assure you that line management will jump on professionals in their charge if they get out of line or bring their company into disrepute. It never gets to the newspapers - and the fact that your 'company' has allowed it's staff to be discussed in the newspapers is a measure of the poor management within it. You really are out of control of your business if you can't 'manage'.Richard Betts
And we will believe that you & your colleagues seriously want a sensible, level headed conversation when you & your colleagues personally and publically distance yourselves from risible testimony given to House of Commons committees like that of Kevin Anderson today.
UK temperature will rise 3ºC by 2050, my arse!
Richard Betts on twitter:-
" Funny how some folk used climate obs to claim global warming 'gone away', then with a new warmest year suddenly the obs become 'corrupted'! "
RB must know that "warmest year" by 0.01º ± 0.1º is nonsense. His blather does not impress.
Perhaps Richard Betts can use the withering criticism by the "self-correcting" climate science community of GISS Director Jim Hansen's 1988 prediction that by 2028 a 10' rise in sea level would inundate Manhattan highways, lapping at the doors of his former NASA office? (Only 9' 9" to rise in the next 13 years...there is still hope for disaster.)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
Guardian of one of the key temperature data sets, simultaneously climate scientist, highly paid public speaker, activist and arrestee, Dr. Hansen was one of the people Matt Ridley states he had in mind, so demonstrating how the scientific community robustly challenged his claims and behaviour would build confidence. No?
Let me re-quote Lovelock
"If we had some really good scientists it wouldn't be a problem, but we've got so many dumbos who just can't say anything, or who are afraid to say anything. They're not free agents."
They're not free because they are being paid to lie to promote the multi trillion dollar carbon trading industry on behalf of our masters, the banks. You can lie or you can discover that McDonalds aren't impressed by PhD's in climate science for burger flipping jobs.
Carbon Trading May Dwarf That of Crude Oil
“I’m estimating carbon markets could be worth $2 trillion in transaction value – money changing hands – within five years of trading (starting),” says Bart Chilton, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner, who's also chairman of its energy and environmental markets advisory committee. “That would make it the largest physically traded commodity in the US, surpassing even oil.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/32540966
Ref - Richard Betts comment
Martin A
If a member of the House of Lords has a concern over the integrity of civil service staff, he should raise it with the minister responsible for the department instead of shooting his mouth off in the press.
In a large company, you don't see senior staff making unfounded accusations against junior colleagues in the newspapers - if they have an issue, they check things out first in order to see whether their concerns have any real grounds or not.
Dec 10, 2014 at 5:12 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts
Richard - Matt Ridley may an observation and raised concerns, needing reassurance (in an atmosphere, where scientist tweet about deniers, neoliberalism, and ad hom attacks on him personally- ie Northern Rock, directly aimed at Ridley
You yourself publicly called a named person paranoid and rude... how does that square with how a civil servant should behave? You also repeated this at other blogs.
It is a valid criticism to raise concerns whether some scientists are as subjective as we would expect of scientists (given some very high profile scientist conduct, and silly hyping of temps - WMO)
I think you would find, in any organisation, that I ever worked in, that you would be dragged into the office to explain yourself (paranoid and rude comments), by publicly, by name attacking a politician, or anybody for that matter..
you explained to me previoulsy that you can't comment on a number of things, because you are a civil servant, and I accepted you not answering some questions, or not wanting to state a position on that.
But how can I believe that anymore? ;(
What of these tweets of yours to M Mann, (Mann was citing sourcewatch earlier about Matt Ridley for goodness sake - activist smearsite) - it seems like you are sucking up here?
Richard Betts @richardabetts
@MichaelEMann Yes, @mattwridley shows he's as paranoid & rude as Tim Ball when it comes to conspiracy theories & accusations of malpractice
Matt Ridley @mattwridley
.@richardabetts @MichaelEMann paranoid and rude? Yet more empty insults from you instead of argument.
7:18 PM - 9 Dec 2014
------------------
I strongly criticized (condemned) the WUWT Tim Ball post, and strongly made my feelings to Anthony Watts very clear about that..
for you to compare Tim Ball and Matt Ridleys comments as equivalent is ridiculous.
I suppose the owner of an ice cream van would be very pleased, to be told in march that the coming season would be hot, hot, hot, and a bit miffed by october to realise he would have been better off selling umbrellas
75% of sceptics work in the private sector
Public sector more likely to be eco-activists
It's largely a public (alarmist) versus private (sceptic)
It's largely snouts-in-the trough of public funding versue "why the heck should we pay them for such shoddy work when all they want to do is destroy the economy that gives them a job"
public servants are more likely to become eco-activists
There are sets of observations. And then there are sets of data that have been folded, spindled and mutilated. Betts seems to have confused the two.
Data that has been tortured until it confesses isn't reliable. [Even in today's world where the definition of torture has become so elastic.]
Richard there is an old saying about "running with the hare and hunt with the hounds".
There are a lot on this blog who believe that you want it both ways- you can't.
Your reaction to straightforward and uncontroversial statements Matt Ridley shows that you are not on the side of open discussion.
If I could just shove in my tuppence-worth:
I think we're well beyond playing nicey-nicey with climate scientists who come here to weep every now and then at how awful people are to them. We moved past you a long time ago. Because you stayed silent. You stayed silent during Climategate. You stay silent today at the ridiculousness of the BBC churning out climate scare stories each and every day because there's a climate conference going on. We've accepted that we have to counter this BS without your help.
So naff off and stop whining.
We don't need you.
Dec 10, 2014 at 5:12 PM Richard Betts
Richard - thank you for that. I must think about it.
Obviously it would be out of order (as they say) for a member of the senior staff of a commercial company to criticise publicly junior colleagues. Likewise, it would be out of order for a member of the Government to criticise publicly a civil servant who reports, indirectly, to a minister in the same Government.
But there are several dimensions involved:
[1] Is the criticism a criticism of integrity or just criticism of, for example, bias, or of quality of work?
[2] Is the member of the House of Lords a member of the Government, or speaking merely as an unaffiliated individual member? (And the same question for a member of the House of Commons who may not only not be a member of the government but may not be a member of the political party of the Government.)
[3] Is the member of the House of Lords representing themself as such? Or are they representing themself as a journalist or science writer? I think it makes a difference. (I think it makes a difference.)
[4] Is the individual criticised, in effect, a public figure themself given to making public statements?
[5] Does the civil servant involved have permission to fire back public comments at the member of the HOL?
As I say, I must think about it, but I'm not sure that the analogy with employees of a commercial company holds in all cases.
Tim Osborn,
I haven't asked you about this in public before, but since you have decided to comment on a thread about conspiracies and misbehaviour, I think you've made yourself "fair game".
1) For the avoidance of doubt, were you aware of the conspiracy by Phil Jones and others at CRU to resist my FOI request, a request which was subsequently ruled by the ICO to be entirely legitimate and proper?
2) For the avoidance of doubt, were you aware of the conspiracy by Phil Jones and others at CRU to complain to my university employer about my perfectly legitimate FOI request (apparently in an attempt either to get me to back down or to get me fired)? Were you aware of the serious breaches of the Data Protection Act arising from Phil Jones's actions, for which UEA has subsequently admitted liability and apologised?
3) If you were aware of either or both of these conspiracies, what actions did you take, if any, to stop them or to bring them to the attention of appropriate authorities?
4) If you were not aware of either of these conspiracies, how did learning about them affect your subsequent interactions with Phil Jones and his co-conspirators?
And so the divergences continue, and expand.
Surface records are projecting 2014 as the hottest year ever (possibly). Yet the miniscule amount of (possible) warming is far below what the models projected.
Satellite results from RSS show 2014 as an average post-1998 year, at this point the seventh warmest in their record since 1979. This is well below what the surface records show.
No surprise people wonder if the surface records suffer from the same problems as the models.
Ron C - warning, links may contain large can of worms.
Phil Jones and the China Network:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/11/03/phil-jones-and-the-china-network-part-1/
http://climateaudit.org/2010/11/04/phil-jones-and-the-china-network-part-2/
Richard Betts
I suppose if you are a shrinking violet you can take offence at the word "true" but there are many who would agree with him.You seem to have ignored what Ridley actually said about the WMO press release. His words were:
Science had nothing at all to do with this press release; the intention was purely hype to coincide with the COP at Lima. Please don't insult our intelligence by suggesting otherwise. Enough press releases have crossed my desk over the years and my first reaction to this one would have been "warmest by how much?" and when your spokeswoman eventually was forced to blurt out "0.01C" she would have been told exactly where that release was going to end up — and it wouldn't have been page 1! That is the criticism that Ridley is making. Is the WMO a scientific organisation or just another advocacy group? Less already with the hype, Richard!
And on the same subject, WTF is a "weather bomb" and who thought that one up? And why, except to make us think that a (pretty severe, admittedly) winter storm is unusual in north-west Scotland, would this get the sort of traction it did?
And again please don't try the "not dahn to me, guv; blame the Beeb" stunt. Every media outlet has it. It's from a press release. From an organisation that cannot make up its collective mind whether it is a scientific weather forecasting organisation or a collection of activists with an agenda.
"In any case," Ridley says, "the year is not over, so why the announcement now?" Politics, that's why. So please stop claiming to be hard done by when scientists playing politics get taken to task. Just do the science and let it speak for itself.
ATTP
Not for the first time. Stop being so disingenuous. WMO were hyping because of Lima and they knew full well that the compliant media would push the "hottest". BOM may have flannelled some excuse for varying a perfectly good record by over 2 degrees C with barely an excuse and for Nurse see my post above. Google is your friend (and in this case not his) and see what the reports say at the time rather than today's wriggling.
Of course the reason these academics are starting to act so scared could be that they've realised they are personally liable for the advice they've given and insisted the government and public do precisely what the academics tell us to do.
And when in a few years, even a judge can see they were criminally reckless and told porkies about their unequivocal skill in predicting the climate, I will be happy to join the joint action which will certainly follow to recover the fees our family has paid out on this scam and I will be happy to take it directly from the pensions and household assets of those people like Betts.
@Jonathan Jones. Thank you for reminding me just who Tim Osborn is.
For the record Tim your esteemed colleagues also conspired to complain to my university employer about my perfectly legitimate FOI request (apparently in an attempt either to get me to back down or to get me fired).
In the end I had to go to Court to get the information I had requested. All documented here;
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/1/23/a-major-foi-victory.html
Needless to say your colleague, Phil Jones, avoided attending, knowing that he would face questions that the various whitewashes have avoided.
Are these the sort of people you want to defend?
Richard Betts
you are fast losing whatever credibility you may enjoyed in sceptic circles
you certainly owe Matt Ridley an apology for the 'paranoid and rude' comment. That is out of line.
My personal view is that you are simply incapable of seeing the appalling balls-up that is climate science and energy policy, which are inextricably intertwined, from any point of view except your own. There are many comments on this thread from people who have different points of view, many of them exceedingly well articulated, and yet you seem incapable or unwilling to adjust your world view even the slightest to try to accommodate the possibility that the views of others might just be as valid as your own, or, heaven forfend, of more value than yours.
The UK is a basket case. There are a number of reasons for this which I need not go into but a fundamental problem is our energy policy which, it seems to me, has been based on the 'expert' testimony of the likes of Kevin 3-4C Anderson. We in the sceptic community are still holding our breath waiting for the voice of 'real' scientists to censure Anderson for bringing the game into disrepute. How long will we have to wait?
And why oh why oh why (this is topical apparently) does any committee concerned with the resilience of the electricity grid invite testimony from an outlier like Anderson - not a question for you necessarily Richard but as I say he gives your side a bad name so your side should be very interested in who you put into the fight.
For those of us who are not a part of the establishment, Matt Ridley is a voice of reason and someone we are happy to support notwithstanding the broad nature of the sceptic fraternity. His language is always measured and respectful. And he always seeks to put his remarks in context. These are qualities that some of the more outspoken members of your team could seek to acquire.
It may well be that there are many hard working climate scientist following the scientific method and just getting on with the job of doing science and that we never hear from these scientists. The problem is that the scientists we do hear from are, by the nature of wanting to be heard, activists. And I have a very real problem in believing an activist is capable of doing science. That is the climate science that we, your tax paying employers, are presented with.
Surely this once great nation of ours deserves better.
Matt Ridley must be viewed with great consternation by "The Team":
- He has come to see the scam for what it is
- He's a scientist
- He's eloquent
- He's a respected author of books about science
- He writes widely read columns
- He's a member of the House of Lords
What he says can't simply be dismissed on the basis "he's not a trained climate scientist".
Whenever Richard Betts or Tim Osborn appear on here, or there is talk of Phil Jones, the words of Richard Lindzen at the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee meeting in January come to mind:
None of them come over as the sharpest knives in the drawer; more like plastic butter knives
Richard Betts
Iwould like to know if you agree (or not) with this maxim
“I disapprove of what you say,
but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
from
S. G. Tallentyre’s The Friends of
Voltaire (1907).
A few months ago I said that at some stage climate scientists would be held to account.
I believe that all professional scientists are accountable for their output. I am.
Richard Betts described my comment as "Sinister".
It seems to tie in with his current rejection of accountability and criticism.
H2O: the miracle molecule, the problem with the UK is that the arrogant public sector academics thought they could run industrial policy better than private sector engineers. And then they poured their vile hatred of industry into the ears of our politicians and for many decades they've created an extremely anti-industry environment in the UK which saw the vast bulk of out manufacturing export industry move abroad.
And their claim was, like the borrow to bust economy of Brown, that somehow, these academics would create an industry/engineering free economy where they would work miracles and create money out of thin air.
They could "invent" their way to economic success - well we've seen what that does: invented here made in China!
They took over all the levers of power and e.g. changed the "Science and engineering" committees of the Lords and Commons to "science and (academic) technology". They installed Communist style advisers into all government departments. They took over the state funded broadcasting to stream an endless anti-industry pro-academia content to the UK populace.
And then to finish off what was left of the industrial economy they tried to destroy what remained by this global warming non-sense which they saw as eliminating all carbon using manufacturing or energy supply and replacing it "academic" replacement .
And now, the manufacturing economy has disappeared and gone to China, now that we are massively in debt because we no longer have manufactured goods to sell, now that China is taking over and now their lies about CO2 warming are being revealed. they finally come to talk to us: not to apologise or admit we were right all along, but to ask us to condemn those who had the guts to stand up to them.
They really are quite contemptible.
Shrub @ 5.44: The "crushed and Burned" comment by Paul Nurse always instantly brings me to recall Arthur Millers "The Crucible" and the fate of Giles Corey, put to the press because he would not even plead, let alone confess.
Such process would Nurse, and for that matter ATTP, would meter out to dissenters. "Misuse or misrepresent science to support their particular politics or ideologies" , a beautifully succinct summary of "climate Science", if unwitting.
Giles Corey's last words to his tormentors - "more weight!". That fortitude to thwart corrupt power will always succeed in the end.
Stephen Schneider's:
"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but....On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well...to get loads of media coverage we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements...Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." seems relevant here.
Now justified in retrospect as an attack by Schneider on "soundbites" it seems clear he is aware of the ethical conflicts within individuals to which he "hopes" for an acceptable balance.
I feel sorry for Betts. He is patently a decent bloke. Yet in posing as the reasonable, disinterested man of science, he must, deep down, know, he is also part of a vast, lumbering government machine that has committed itself to an an unquestioned belief in CAGW. This is not a comfortable place for anyone claiming science as his only motive. Which begs the questions as to whether personal advancement within this stifling machine has fatally corrupted his sense of scientific pursuit. At the moment, it does not look favourable for him.
Richard Betts
I don't remember Matt Ridley singling out individual junior staffers for criticism. As I saw it, he was making a general statement (and not just about Climate Science) and it is one that is widely supported by not only sceptics on here but quite a few folk in the wider scientific community.
I read his piece as raising very substantial points on the veracity of certain databases. Most of us know that temperature data sometimes has to be adjusted or harmonised. BUT on many occasions no justification is made and often probably couldn't be (sorry just an observation). After data is "adjusted" it is surely extracting the Michael to then make pronouncements based on 100th of deg C.
The past is always cooled and the present always warmed. I have never seen it the other way around, but I am sure you will be able to correct me. Sharp eyed, clever data watchers have spotted 1930's data being cooled all over the place from the USA to Iceland to Australia etc. etc. and warming of recent data is legion. They call it Man Made Global Warming. It was just too inconvenient that the 30's were so warm in many places and cooling the past and warming the present increases the rate of warming of course.
Take the latest warmest year story which appears to have partly triggered Matt Ridley's Op ed. From HadCrut 3 to HadCrut 4 the last few years have been warmed by almost 10 times the suggested new record margin (2014 over 2010) and the error bars are of a similar magnitude. At the same time 1998 has been cooled a little. So an honest statement would simply say that there is no statistical trend - after all it could just as likely be cooling. Imagine a man on a lathe saying this bolt is 0.01mm less diameter than this other one, but my micrometer only measures to an accuracy of 0.1mm.
Especially given the lack of trend in satellite data (you could even fantasise a cooling trend in the last decade), the surface data record is bound to be questioned especially where as in Australia a cooling trend became a warming trend after adjustment.