Bishop Hill Nice sentiments
May 17, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Climate: Ward Simon Buckle of the Grantham Institute at Imperial has penned some nice thoughts about the Bengtsson affair:
Professor Lennart Bengtsson’s resignation from the GWPF Academic Advisory Council has received wide coverage and raises important issues.
Whatever anyone’s views are on the role, motivation and integrity of the GWPF in this matter, it is up to individual academics whether or not to associate themselves with it in an advisory role.
It is regrettable that perceived political stances on the climate issue are apparently so affecting academic activity. The Grantham Institute at Imperial has always opposed such behaviour, believing that scientific progress requires an open society. We try to engage with a wide range of figures, some with radically different views on climate change.
The outcome in this case is probably a reflection of the “us and them” that has permeated the climate science debate for decades and which is in part an outcome of – and reaction to – external pressure on the climate community. But we must be clear: this is not a justification. Concerted external pressure – if that is what it was – on Professor Bengtsson to resign from his GWPF role was wrong and misjudged.
This is all excellent stuff and I share his feelings entirely. I'm glad he feels that Bengtsson should be free to work with GWPF, just as Buckle works with the Green Alliance.
I'm also glad that he was clear that it was the Imperial end of the Grantham Institute he was defending. The LSE end, as readers here know, has been at the very forefront of efforts to smear any scientist showing signs of independent thought on global warming. It is a sewer.
Bishop Hill
The media people at the Grantham Institute (that's you Bob!) need to get their act sorted out. Here, at the website of the Science Media Centre, are Simon Buckle's words being spoken by Joanna Haigh.
Prof Joanna Haigh, Co-Director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said:
“Professor Lennart Bengtsson’s resignation from the GWPF Academic Advisory Council has received wide coverage and raises important issues.
“Whatever anyone’s views are on the role, motivation and integrity of the GWPF in this matter, it is up to individual academics whether or not to associate themselves with it.
“It is regrettable that perceived political stances on the climate issue are apparently so affecting academic activity. The Grantham Institute at Imperial has always opposed such behaviour, believing that scientific progress requires an open society. We try to engage with a wide range of figures, some with radically different views on climate change.”
“The outcome in this case is probably a reflection of the ‘us and them’ that has permeated the climate science debate for decades and which is in part an outcome of – and reaction to – external pressure on the climate community.
It occurs to me that Bob Ward is the PR guy for both bits of the Grantham Institute, so I may in fact be far too charitable in this post.
Bishop Hill
In the comments Tamsin says that Bob Ward is only the PR "director" for LSE and not Imperial.
Reader Comments (123)
"It is regrettable that perceived political stances on the climate issue are apparently so affecting academic activity. "
Wouldn't political stances always affect academic activity in that they are going to play a massive role in how a large part of it is funded. I assume the Grantham Institute is largely funded by Grantham which is the obvious way future science funding needs to go (ie funded privately). The internet has completely killed off a large part of what kept 'Academia' going, just look how well the open source IT world works, which in many ways is a very close model to how academic research is conducted.
Thanks for clearing that up Bish, I was just about to start screaming "what about the clown Ward!".
Regards
Mailman
Mailman.
See update to post. It occurs to me that Ward is the PR guy for both parts of the Grantham Institute, so I may have been too charitable in my piece on Buckle.
Hmm, at it again I see, speaking truth to power and yet, with weasel words, aye but be not bamboozled.
The wiles of Grantham and of climate necromancy.
So, "perceived political stances" a phrase couched in such a way to put the boot onto the other foot and in other words - swap "perceived" to "supposed" and subtext implying - "only in the minds of our critics".
Again with, "apparently" - meaning: "we" do not recognize the problem at all. "The Grantham Institute at Imperial has always"........allow me to infill - been at the forefront of climate mind games and with its climate sorcery.
Lastly, "We try to engage" - quite in this sense "engage" means to draw near to the enemy to pour fire on her ships - step to the fore one called Bob Ward.
Right, no conflict there then and this from your link Andrew and which says much, alas, though we are surprised - not very much, nor much amused either.
It's enough to make you always prepared and to keep that blade nicely whetted.
You have to think about this from the point of view of a well known climate scientist, perhaps an occasional commenter on this and other sceptical blogs.
His professional associates are all toeing the party line, which they don't even think of as that, they simply think its what the evidence shows. They know that if they start to step out of line, the result will be ostracism. Not simply professional but also social. Again, this becomes so internalised that its not even thought about, its just in the background.
Dissent from the consensus is going to mean no more going out for lunch, and it means similar things for my wife and children, who also will have their personal contacts restricted and changed. And then there is careers. I will have trouble getting my new material published, people will withdraw from co-authoring. Promotions, moves will be harder or impossible.
So now I start to be confronted with evidence that the consensus may be mistaken. First there is no warming. Well, it must be going into the oceans. Then there is the evidence on the value of the climate sensitivity parameter. I will do lots of stats and studies and will conclude that the articles have various questionable points which allow me not to pick a too low value. Now comes a real problem: the models don't match the observations. I will have to deny this of course.
My first line of defence will be to only use an ensemble of models and to say that the average is fine. As time goes by this will no longer wash, so I will resort to saying that they never were predictions. They were scenarios or projections.
By now I will have retreated totally from drawing public policy prescriptions. I will now be expressing generalised alarm. I will not be advocating wind farms covering the UK as a way of lowering the UK emissions and thus the planetary temperature. I will be retreating steathily from claims about coming catastrophe. But I will be sure that its warm, warming and that human activity is the sole or main cause, and that it is deeply worrying.
Now along comes Bengtsson. What do I think? One choice is to say he is probably right, and that the pressure he reports is quite wrong. But that will require me to take a very different view of my friends and colleagues and the intellectual circles I move in. I am going to have to ask, if I go that route, whether this is an isolated instance and what it tells me about them. This is impossible.
As R D Laing said, if you cannot talk about it, you cannot talk about the fact that you cannot talk about it.
So what do I do? Well, one thing is to write about Kappa. That is a diversion and it helps. But in the end, I have to conclude that nothing wrong was done to Bengtsson. This is just an old guy whose friends disagree with him, and he can't take it. Tough. Time to move on.
This is how it works, and not just for one. This is how it works for all of us. I have personally fallen to the same sort of stuff, much to my later shame. Its no disgrace. Cowardice sometimes is simply self preservation. We do not have the right to demand heroism, though we should respect it when it occurs.
But what our well known climate scientist might want to think is, how is this going to feel to him in ten years time when he looks back. He is going to be shaving one morning. What does he see?
I know that when I think back to my own failures, I do not like what I see, and suspect he will not either.
The time-honoured self-justification of the narcissistic bully: look at what you made me do.
May 17, 2014 at 8:40 AM | Unregistered CommenterAthelstan.
Athelstan, Ward doesn't work at Imperial - though I assume the 2 institutes are linked in some way at least.
On a different note, do any other people just think that Lennart Bengtsson’s actions point to him knowing he's being working on some really poor science for many years and this is sort of a minor get out towards the end of his career. I think his track record show he is a pretty bright guy.
Cherchez le Stern.
Bish.
This is all excellent stuff and I share his feelings entirely
When I read the first part of your post and arrived at the above phrase I immediately thought you were being too generous. You are at time too easily fooled by these people in your laudable search to open a sensible, cogent dialogue [snip - manners].
Then I read your update and lo and behold we agree. From the beginning, when you were invited by Betts to exeter I said you had gone native but you are learning.
I admire your efforts in running this blog and engaging with 'the other side' and I too wish we could have real debate with these people but we can't.
They know what they are doing is wrong. They know that the planet is cooling once again. [snip- venting] The deaths that will arise through the coming very cold winters (if we are right) are going to be enormous because we are preparing for warmth on the advice of Slingo, Mann, Rahmsdorf etc. I don't believe there will be famine and pestilence as some doom sayers might because we still have real scientist quietly working away at ways to increase crop yields, etc. Let's hope that governments worlwide will come to their senses and start treating Greenpiss et al as the criminals they are.
Readers here will remember when Haigh was the guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme "The Life Scientific". She called people who did not accept the conclusions of the IPCC deniers and proceeded to make the point very strongly that it was not nearly enough to call them sceptics. She said all this with such venom that I was quite shocked. I complained to the BBC but of course that was a pointless exercise.
SC: The alarmists have speaking with a forked tongue down to a fine art - it all depends on the audience. Either that or they have very short memories of what they have previously said or suffer from cognitive dissonance (or the lot).
Phillip, yes different strategies are played at different stages of the game. They know they are in trouble over this, hence the conciliatory reasonableness.
Remember the incident at the recent committee hearings? Somebody (Hoskins?) was asked about a Grantham statement and quickly said he was from the Imperial branch, not LSE.
I am sure this could be much improved but it is all I have time for:
there was an old Professor of Meteorology from Sweden
who realised the CAGW thesis had been misleadin'
when he went public with his fears
he was attacked and censored by his peers
who preferred political activism and groupthink to academic freedom.
Paul Matthews:
That's how I read it when I first picked up the comment ascribed to Joanna Haigh yesterday. I mean, that's the part I felt certain about but I admire the Bish for taking a generous view (initially!) We have desperately needed people from broadly within the consensus to say this. I mean for the cause of truth, not merely for tribal reasons. It is good that he/she did. And, without being able to read the human heart for motives, they are in trouble and that's for sure.
I suspect that the alarmists are in a panic and are trying to make the story go away. Normally they would rubbish the intervention but this time the scientist involved has excellent credentials. I think they are in a panic because I believe this story is only just beginning.
It appears that the output from climate models should not be compared with observation. It is therefore a major error to compare them and point out the large discrepancy. Furthermore it is harmful to do that because it gives credibility to the sceptical argument.
In other words, the climate models are right and reality is wrong. It is a mistake to expect them to agree and irresponsible to write papers about the lack of agreement.
This amazing fantasy world has been discussed at many blogs. If the MSM grasp the importance of this it could bring about the biggest upset to the alarmist cause that we have seen to date.
Stephen Richards:
[Previous comment now snipped]
Thanks.
Tamsin: Yes, as 'dehumanising language' goes that's definitive. I'd missed Stephen Richards using that word. Such language is totally uncalled for on either side of the debate. It's not the first time this person has overstepped the mark. Repudiated.
It is not very pleasant being called a denier either. I agree that name calling does not help.
Tamsin, can you comment on the reasons for rejection of the Bengtsson paper? Perhaps I should not ask for all the obvious reasons.
How times have changed. When I was at Imperial its reputation was such that it attracted the top scientists, such as Blackett, Bondi and Salam. Since then it has left London University and has become commercially minded. Hence a second-rate climate scientist can reach the giddy heights because of the ability to attract funding from an American hedge fund manager. The science has gone to pot and with it its reputation as a top place for science.
Phillip Bratby - not forgetting Professor Tom Kibble of course (unlucky not to share the Nobel). I went to a wonderful semester of post-grad lectures he gave on QCD at Imperial in the 80's.
@ michel
Many thanks for your thoughtful and perceptive contribution.
On a different note, do any other people just think that Lennart Bengtsson’s actions point to him knowing he's being working on some really poor science for many years and this is sort of a minor get out towards the end of his career. I think his track record show he is a pretty bright guy.
May 17, 2014 at 8:59 AM | Rob Burton
==========================================================
Poor science? Did somebody say "Michael Mann"?
Good to see some support for Bengtsson from a politician:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2014/05/17/can-scientists-predict-the-weather-in-50-years-time/
But what our well known climate scientist might want to think is, how is this going to feel to him in ten years time when he looks back. He is going to be shaving one morning. What does he see?
This is my position exactly. Do you want to be remembered as Galileo or those who mocked and persecuted him?
It's getting very late in the day to chose.
The website Politico has a story about a push to be launched by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases on June 2. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/carbon-crackdown-barack-obama-106783.html Given this, perhaps it's no surprise that a US government scientist precipitated the Bengsston resignation from the GWPF.
"Whatever anyone’s views are on the role, motivation and integrity of the GWPF in this matter....."
Perhaps I'm over sensitive, but that seems to me quite offensive. Try it on Mr Buckle's organisation and see how he likes it.
Thanks Richard.
Schrodinger's Cat: agreed, which is why I don't. And the only climate scientist named ("hated") by Stephen was Richard who also doesn't.
I'd need to see the paper to comment in detail, of course. It sounds as if the paper was too lightweight (and, I suspect, had some inappropriate content - "unexplainable change of minds"). Given the full review I believe the editor's stated reasons for rejection. I also think it deplorable that "less than helpful" was quote mined and said to be about "The Cause" and/or inconvenient results, when it clearly was about the depth of analysis.
On the other hand, I think the comment on how a result would be perceived was also inappropriate. A good editor would disregard this as off-topic (and I believe has done).
We usually get no training in reviewing - even from our seniors - (only the journal guidelines), so I'd like to see more support and guidance on this to avoid it happening again.
I also support public peer-review: eg I had two papers in The Cryosphere this year and reviewed a paper by many leading palaeoclimate scientists in Climate of The Past last year, and am about to review one in Geoscientific Model Development. These are entirely open - archived and citable preprints and reviews forever. I usually sign my name to reviews too, though this is not necessarily easy or a good idea for all situations and scientists.
I think there is a lot of truth in the statement that climate models are not primarily intended to make predictions of the climate, but rather to investigate the effects of particular changes.
For example, to estimate the effect of a volcanic eruption I would keep everything else constant. The model may give an estimate of (say) a 1C cooling for 10 years. But, I would not be saying that the climate would be 1C cooler in 10 years time, because other things may also be changing.
Tamsin: Thank you for your comments.
Published output and peer review is a real mixed bag. It is both vitally important and easily abused or distorted. Public peer review is certainly more transparent. The lack of training may imply a lack of approved procedure, checks and balances. I certainly think that the whole thing needs improvement.
I have to admit lack of experience in this. Having worked in industry all my life I was forbidden to write papers.
Tamsin, I think the idea that the paper was turned down because it was "lightweight" is very unlikely. If it was one of yours, i.e. from an up and coming young scientist that might be plausible. However, this was a paper submitted from one of the giants in the field, no journal is likely to turn down such a paper on the grounds that it was "lightweight".
Indeed, the "great scientist" syndrome is one of the problems in publishing, a lot of crap gets published just because of the status of one or more of the authors. I suspect this paper was turned down because of the gate-keeping antics described in Climategate still being used by some of your colleagues
Ward is now back pedalling. Let's see how far it goes.
Stephen Richards
[Previous comment now snipped]
As for the rest of your rant about doomsayers, pestilence etc etc. Have you ever actually read anything at all of what I've published about impacts of rising CO2 & climate change on food & water? Like this paper here for example?
It should be quite clear to anyone that has paid attention that I don't subscribe to the "climate doom" meme, and actually I spend a fair amount of time arguing with those that do (often due to their own misunderstandings). I am convinced that humans are affecting the climate through various means, but this doesn't mean I think we're "doomed". We just need to address this complex issue calmly, [and] rationally and without going round "hating" people [see above]
It's seems to me that you've simply taken against any and all climate scientists, and you see me as the representative of the whole community simply because I'm one of the few that actually bothers to talk to you, instead of either ignoring you or dismissing you a "denier" (a word which I never use).
You might want to take a step back and reflect on how you come across, and what sort of impression this gives about yourself and indeed this blog as a whole. [see above]
The header to this thread is 'Nice Sentiments.'
In the long run, sentiments are immaterial.
Here, our host is using them to extend discussion, to provide a longer span for new material to come forth.
I guess this is the motivation and I guess it can do some good, such as by bringing parties closer.
However, it is observation and data that matters.
I'm not being overly critical here, just sorting some emphsasis, when I repeat an old saw -
The chattering class are about delivering the message.
Good science is about delivering the goods.
Arthur, I guess we shall have to hope Lennart releases the preprint or at least submits it elsewhere (as per the usual procedure) to show the paper is worth publishing...
I would think our two Grantham personages would be mortified for the world to learn that they don't write their own stuff. This ought to offer myriad opportunities for wits of their acquaintance to abuse them. How I wish i was one of them - wits, that is.
On the other hand, what we might be seeing here is the latest expression of the consensus - using exactly the same words. It strikes me that this bit will never become part of the catechism, too reasonable.
Now that we have the libretto, maybe Lloyd Weber can do the music and it can be sung as a duet midst the Ivy, or do they have Ivy in civilisation?
Andrew: Bob does speak for Grantham LSE only.
https://twitter.com/ret_ward/status/467632258850234368
Richard Betts,
Your style is oblique. It encourages distrust.
If you know or think that major parts of climate science are wrong, do not just hint that youhave concerns like those that cause you to counsel friends.
Just step up and give examples of what is wrong with particular parts of the science.
(If you write it on a blog you are unlikely to have it rejected by a reviewer.)
Cessation of equivocation might lead to cessation of name calling.
[snip -venting]
Tamsin: [previous comment snipped] at what point does avoidance of the truth become outright lying? That said, you are right in your sentiments, and the playground tactic of name-calling does nothing to help the argument.
As for your support for public review of papers – I have requested one of our pet trolls to do a review of a paper that recently came to my attention; naturally, this request was refused, as the paper had not been, erm, peer-reviewed. My understanding of peer-review is that it is verification of the data used, confirmation of the calculations, and agreement with the methods, logic and conclusions; I somehow doubt that readability is considered, as those papers I have read would leave Crichton and Pratchett smug in the security of their positions. One point that does puzzle me is the continuing cleaving to peer-review; surely, the example of Diederik Stapel, who managed to publish 30 peer-reviewed papers, all of them utterly fallacious, has to give some thought about the infallibility of peer-review.
[snip - venting]
Either Buckle or Haigh copied the other's comments or the piece was written by a third party, eg Ward. The only other possibility is that there is an error in the reporting of who said what.
Maybe someone will ask the Grantham Institute to clarify.
@ May 17, 2014 at 10:17 AM | lapogus
I hope you don’t mind me having a go at your Limerick .
Here is my version.
Regards,
Tom O’Connor
A meterology professor from Sweden
Realised CAGW theory’s misleading
When he published his fears
He was attacked by his peers
Who preferred groupthink and academic deceiving
Rather than see this thread degenerate into bad tempered insults, I would like to get some comments on this:
We have all seen the growing divergence between models that are running way too hot and the observations that have been showing a near static temperature for at least 15 years. In every other branch of science these models would have been considered invalid. They would have been scrapped or modified. In climate science they are used to justify government policy and it appears that most climate scientists continue to take their output as gospel.
Have I got anything wrong here? That is how it appears to many sceptics.
It would be more informative if the paper was published somewhere, anywhere. Was Professor Bengtsson the lead author? If not, who was. Who are the other authors? They haven't chirped up as yet. Have they been sent to Coventry as well?
All interesting stuff. Will the series portraying the politics and interpersonal relationships in climate science rate higher than the Bold and the Beautiful? Coronation Street?
Always great fun telling people how principled they should be, particularly when you have no skin in the game.
Professionally I've had a number of high volume discussions where, of course, I was absolutely right. Satisfying though it was, it also resulted in me being placed firmly on the outside and exercising no influence whatsoever. Keeping my gob shut and grinding away at it would have been very difficult (impossible as it turned out), but ultimately more effective.
I don't subscribe to the view that a response laced with an insult or a Nazi reference makes any difference to the quality of someones argument. But unfailing politeness gives your nemeses fewer loopholes to back away if you want to elicit a response. Wish I could stick to that myself.
' I don't subscribe to the "climate doom" meme'
Perhaps even a majority of Met Office scientific staff do not either.
However, the Met Office's pamphlets, replete with photographs of arid lakebeds, flooded suburbs, hillsides with only dead trees to be seen, are clearly intended to propagate that meme.
[Previous comment ton which this refers is now snipped] I am also of the opinion that the word "nice" contains no real information and I
try and discourage my friends (and anyone who will listen) from using it: usually by
asking them to elaborate after they have described a meal of a place or a person as nice.
Drives my friends crazy but I can't help myself.
Mr Betts: one flaw in your paper that you linked us to is the insistence on climate change. It reminds me of an Australian spoof á la Bird and Fortune that I saw some years ago, following an oil tanker incident; one of the talking heads announced that the stricken tanker had been towed “…out of the environment…” His interviewer then added, “Into another environment…” to be corrected; “No, no, no. Out of the environment…” D’oh!
There is no “Climate Change”; climates might change, but a planetary climate change is not something that will happen because of the relatively trivial activities of one of the inhabitants. The climate of Blackpool is different to that of the Lake District; there is a clue in the name of the latter, and in the use of the former. They, and the climates of many other places, be they “so bracing” Skegness or the Cornish Riviera, sum up to create the climate of the British Isles; the weather experienced around Britain is so variable and fickle that I moot that it would be extremely difficult to identify any evidence of the British climate changing. A change in climate can only be identified in locales on or near the edges of climate zones; thus, the climate around the snout of a retreating glacier might reasonably be stated as changing, as could that along a rising snow-line. Is the climate of the Maldives identifiably different from that of a century ago? How about that of Mongolia, Argentina, South Africa or Singapore?
Geoff Sherrington
I don't think major parts of climate science are wrong - it's the messaging by some in political movements and the media, in which the science gets used to try to justify a particular political view. And yes, I do call these things out if I think my area of science is being misrepresented.
But as Schrodinger's Cat says, let's not let this divert this thread - I've made my point to Stephen and we can leave it at that.
To respond to SC's paragraph, observations have been used to try to narrow down the wide range of projected warming rates in the climate models, and indeed the warmest projections seem less likely now, at least for the next few decades - see the paper "The upper end of climate model temperature projections is inconsistent with past warming" by Peter Stott, Ed Hawkins and others.
On Bengtsson, my view is that if he wanted to join the GWPF advisory board then that's his business, and hassling him to resign was clearly political - but I wonder if those that did so have now shot themselves in the foot by helping turn this into a bigger story.