Green light for fracking

The joint report of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering has given the green light to fracking going ahead in the UK.

The Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society said in a report published on Friday that the UK's current regulatory systems were sufficient for shale gas fracking if they were adequately enforced, but also said that closer monitoring of shale gas exploration sites should be put in place, in order to ensure their safety.

Guardian report here.

Snowdon on fake charities

Chris Snowdon has written an excellent report on state-funded "charities", a subject that has been touched on here a number of times, not least with respect to the Royal Society. Here's what Snowdon has to say about the big 10 green organisations:

The Green 10 can hardly be described as a shadowy organisation. They have their own website where they proudly explain that their role is to lobby for legislation.

‘We work with the EU law-making institutions - the European Commission, the European
Parliament and the Council of Ministers - to ensure that the environment is placed at the heart of policymaking.

While campaigning at EU level, Green 10 NGOs:
• encourage the full implementation of EU environmental laws and policies in the Member
States;
• lobby for new environmental proposals, as appropriate’

Originally, EU funding for these groups was limited to no more than 50 per cent of their annual income, but when members of the Green 10 complained that they were unable to attract enough voluntary donations to match the EU’s grants, the limit was raised to 70 per cent (Boin and Marchesetti, 2010, p. 10). This is rent-seeking of the least ambiguous kind.

Science as a public enterprise

The Royal Society's report on Science as a Public Enterprise is to be released on 21 June. The inquiry was headed by Geoffrey Boulton and includes another Russell inquiry figure in the shape of David Eyton.

I wonder if they will make any comment on using irreproducible research as the basis for public policy.

Probably not.

The Australian Academy

Tony Thomas in Quadrant magazine has taken a look behind the scenes at the Australian Academy of Sciences - its involvement in climate change, its funding, and some of the (ahem) interesting characters it has elected as fellows.

Yours truly and Richard Betts are mentioned in passing.

The gravy train at the Royal Society

Paul Homewood takes a look at the annual report of the Royal Society and finds that wage inflation among its top earners has been quite startling.

Assuming salaries fall in the middle of each band, the total salary cost for 10 [senior] employees currently listed would be £920,000, an average of £92,000. This, of course, does not include social security or pension costs, which would typically add a further 25%. I have added the comparative numbers from 2005, and the difference is, quite frankly, astonishing. With inflation, it would be expected that a couple of staff might have crept over from the £50,000 band – though it should be added that since the 2008 recession most private sector employees have not any wage rises at all. But an increase in the numbers from 3 to 10 suggests that the gravy train has well and truly arrived at Carlton House Terrace.

Equally astonishing is the fact that 4 employees now earn over £90,000 pa, compared to just one in 2005.

Royal Society to investigate fracking

I'm rather late to this story, but it seems that the Royal Society is to prepare a report on shale gas:

The Royal Society is carrying out a short review jointly with the Royal Academy of Engineering of the major risks associated with hydraulic fracturing (also known as ’fracking’); including, geological risks, such as seismicity, and environmental risks, such as groundwater contamination.

Click to read more ...

The administrators' view

Fifteen national scientific academies, including the Royal Society, have issued the latest in a long line of doom-laden millenarianist pronouncements.

National science academies from 15 countries issued joint statements today calling on world leaders who are about to meet at the upcoming G8 Summit and other international gatherings this year to give greater consideration to the vital role science and technology could play in addressing some of the planet's most pressing challenges.  The "G-Science" statements recommend that governments engage the international research community in developing systematic, innovative solutions to three global dilemmas: how to simultaneously meet water and energy needs; how to build resilience to natural and technological disasters; and how to more accurately gauge countries' greenhouse gas emissions to verify progress toward national goals or international commitments.

As we know, the Royal Society does not consult its fellows before issuing these dramatic statements. No doubt the other academies are the same. We can safely say therefore that these words represent the view of the academies' adminstrators and not their scientists.

The academies traditionally issue one of these statements before major international summit meetings. They normally involve demands for money and/or political action in line with the philosophical views of the academy administrators. Clearly this one is no exception.

Strange fellows

 Via Leo Hickman I note a list of new fellows of the Royal Society. Familiar names are:

• Paul Ehrlich, best known for his hopelessly incorrect predictions of famine
• Steve Jones, familiar to readers here for writing an integrity-free report about science at the BBC
• Ralph Cicerone, also familiar from his role in trying to save the Hockey Stick for the IPCC.

It really confirms the case I made in my GWPF report on the Society's decline into a rather grubby advocacy outfit.

Update on Apr 20, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Brian Micklethwait thinks we should take away the "Royal" bit in the society's name. They would just be the "The Society".

It bears thinking about :-)

More Nullius

Suddenly the reactions to my Nullius in Verba report on the Royal Sociey are coming thick and fast. Bernie Lewin has written a long blog post, the first of two on the report.

Montford’s sparse and unembellished chronicling of the relaxation of this discipline is what makes it such a powerful work. Montford does not pretend to chronicle the perversion of science itself, as Richard Lindzen suggests in the Foreword – he does that elsewhere, and daily, on his blog. Nonetheless, his story of the perversion of the Royal Society is an emblem, a sign or an indicator of this general perversion, wherein, as Lindzen puts it, the legitimate role of science as a powerful mode of inquiry is replaced by the pretence of science to a position of political authority. Montford’s is a story no less of how a leading institution of the scientific revolution—the sober, reasonable, disinterested, oh-so-Anglican model for the European Enlightenment—after preserving its integrity for so long, has only recently, and grossly, perverted itself with the promotion of one opinion in particular, namely: the ‘consensus’ opinion on the ‘settled science’ behind the need for urgent action to mitigate a global climate catastrophe.

DPA magazine on Nullius in Verba

I had missed this editorial in DPA magazine, much of which concerns my GWPF report on the Royal Society.

Whether or not the scientific community can truly be insulated from political influence, particularly when its research is financed, in part, through public funding, is a moot point. However, institutions like the Royal Society must presumably speak with the majority voice of their members. If the consensus among scientists is that anthropogenic climate change is a reality, then calls for “drastic action on energy and climate policies from policy makers and governments” are to be expected from a responsible scientific body. More worrying is the possibility that the views of dissenters are not being given proper hearing for fear of opprobrium; this, rather than the broader accusation of political grandstanding, is probably behind Andrew Montford’s call for more “open-mindedness and balanced assessment”.

Read the whole thing.

Free to be sceptic

In his Dimbleby lecture the other day, Paul Nurse briefly covered the subject of academic freedom:

The scientific endeavour is at its most successful when there is freedom of thought. Scientists need to be able to freely express doubts, to be sceptical about established orthodoxy, and must not be too strongly directed from the top, which stifles creativity.

This are nice words, but whether there is to be any follow-through remains in doubt.

Nurse's Dimbleby lecture

Paul Nurse gave the BBC's prestigious Dimbleby lecture last night, addressing science and its place in society.

I sensed that Nurse was desperately trying to keep his political side under wraps, as is only appropriate for such an occasion, but I think it's fair to say that hints of his activism crept to the surface occasionally. The presumption that the most likely solutions to global warming would come through some kind of world action and regulation of the nation state was one such, although it is fair to say that he also noted the problems of scaremongering by those with a predisposition towards world government.

I was struck also by this quote.

It is the ability to prove that something is not true which is at the centre of science. This distinguishes it from beliefs based on religion and ideology, which place much more emphasis on faith, tradition and opinion. As a scientist I have to come up with ideas that can be tested. Then I think of experiments to test the idea further. If the experiment does not support the idea then I reject it or modify it and test it again.

The contrast with the CAGW hypothesis is striking. Being able to test a hypothesis in principle seem to me to be very different to actually having tested it in fact. Global warming to me looks more like a "higher speculation" than a working hypothesis.

The full lecture is here.

Update on Feb 29, 2012 by Bishop Hill

The text of the lecture is here.

May on Bob Ward

When the embargoed copies of the Nullius report went out, there was a bit of a kerfuffle on Twitter, with Bob Ward claiming I was trying to smear him by mentioning his departure from the Royal Society and the rumours that he had been sacked. I thought this was a bit unfair, as I had gone on to point out that Rees had praised Ward's work after he had left, and observed that this suggested official approval of his campaign against Exxon.

I'm grateful to Alex Cull for this excerpt of an interview with Lord May which confirms this impression.

Click to read more ...

A letter to Paul Nurse

I am reproducing this letter with the permission of Professor Brice Bosnich, a retired chemist and a fellow of the Royal Society. He sent it to Paul Nurse on his election as president of the society in 2010. Nurse did not reply.

Dear Professor Nurse

I am a retired professor of chemistry in The University of Chicago. I also am a Fellow of the Royal Society. First, allow me to congratulate you on becoming president of the Society. You are about to live in interesting times, I am sure.

Click to read more ...

Two more reactions to Nullius

Two more reactions to the Nullius in Verba report have come from Donna Laframboise

To be a climate skeptic is to find oneself in an awkward spot. Eminent science organizations have publicly declared that human beings are causing dangerous climate change. Among these are the US National Academy of Sciences, the Science Council of Japan, the Académie des Sciences in France, and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

How can rational, intelligent people not take their word for it? How can someone such as myself – who lacks any scientific training whatsoever – imagine that my own misgivings deserve to be taken seriously when such esteemed bodies have spoken?

and Hilary Ostrov

If you are new to the “climate wars” (as I still consider myself to be, even after more than two years on the battlefield), Montford’s chronology provides considerable context and background which, although specific to the RS, is echoed in the pre- (and post-) Climategate activities of other high profile and supposedly “independent” organizations.