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« Shut your eyes, Mr Davey | Main | The new review »
Thursday
Jun052014

Anthony Kelly

Tony Kelly, an stalwart member of GWPF's Academic Advisory Council, has passed away. This is the notice posted at GWPF.

Professor Anthony Kelly CBE FREng FRS died on 3 June 2014 aged 85. He is regarded by many as the father of composite materials in the UK.

In 2011 he was honoured for his distinguished career, spanning more than 60 years, with the President’s Medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering for contributing significantly to the Academy’s aims and work through excellence in engineering.

After an early career in Cambridge, where he was a founding Fellow of Churchill College, he was director of the National Physical Laboratory and subsequently Vice-Chancellor of Surrey University before returning to Cambridge and Churchill College on his retirement in 1996.

He was a scientist of the old school, who took ‘Nullius in verba’ as a matter of daily practice. He was properly sceptical until the real world data confirmed his or others’ ideas. He was not impressed by the modern tendency to use incomplete data to weave elaborate stories that could be undone by hard data, or worse, were not capable of falsification. He led the successful effort to get 43 Fellows to petition the Council of the Royal Society to modify its public stance on climate science in 2010, and was unhappy with the most recent announcements of that body. He played a key role in helping the Global Warming Policy Foundation get set up and was a founding and active member of its Academic Advisory Council. He spent his later years as a critic of some aspects of climate science where the consequential actions seemed to him to be doing more harm than good to humanity.

I met Professor Kelly on a number of occasions and interviewed him about the Rebellion of the 43 as part of my research for the Nullius in Verba report. He was someone who cared deeply about where climate science was going wrong and the effect this was having on ordinary people around the world.

A great loss.

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Reader Comments (11)

Knew him well. A great loss of propr scientist, not the current creeps being promoted for their acceptance of nonsensical non-science.

Jun 5, 2014 at 2:40 PM | Unregistered CommenterSpartacusisfree

A great loss indeed! A true scientist. My condolences to his family.

Jun 5, 2014 at 3:50 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlan the Brit

A good man gone. But hopefully he will have inspired many younger physicists and engineers to get engaged with climate issues and help bring more rigour and clear-thinking to them, just as he did.

Jun 5, 2014 at 4:23 PM | Registered CommenterJohn Shade

The World is a poorer place with Professor Kelly's passing.

Jun 5, 2014 at 7:21 PM | Unregistered CommenterDon Keiller

A good and decent man. I shall miss him.

Jun 5, 2014 at 8:22 PM | Unregistered CommenterBruce

Prof. Kelly lived long, lived well and accomplished much. May he rest in peace.

Jun 6, 2014 at 2:31 AM | Unregistered Commenterhunter

Can't help but feel that there will be more than a few catastrophiliacs who will be dancing in the streets at this need. After all, they do have prior form on this kind if thing.

Mailman

Jun 6, 2014 at 10:56 AM | Unregistered CommenterMailman

Mike, In an odd way this is cheering news !

Doncha love the exclamation mark ..... !

Oh the humanity

Jun 6, 2014 at 11:19 AM | Registered CommenterGrantB

As I live round the corner from Churchill College, I feel a connection. Sad loss to our 'cause'...

Jun 7, 2014 at 1:41 PM | Unregistered Commentersherlock1

I'm very sad to hear that Tony Kelly is no longer with us. The world would be a better place if there were more like him.

David and I were lucky to meet Tony Kelly even in far off Perth, Australia. Amazing really how fast the Internet connects people. That he was sharp as a tack was obvious.

In Jan 2010, weeks after Climategate, Tony Kelly arranged to meet David and myself privately over a kitchen bench. At the time, the missing hot spot and the water vapor amplification were virtually unknown and were news to him. He immediately understood the implications of the model amplification and all the uncertainty involved in that. He asked astute questions. He was doing his due diligence. A few months later the Royal Society was approached by 43 deeply concerned skeptical members...

He was a man who got things done.

Jun 8, 2014 at 4:38 PM | Unregistered CommenterJo Nova

Thank you Jo.

Jun 8, 2014 at 5:15 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

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