Sunday, May 18, 2014

JUST MAYBE RUSH IS RIGHT IN BELITTLING CLIMATE CHANGE PREDICTIONS OF RISING SEA WATERS

Limbaugh has long pooh-poohed claims of a man-made global warming apocalypse

Ole Roach Limburger may not be far off when he pooh-poohs claims that man-made global warming will put Florida and parts of the Gulf Coast and California under water.

I myself have been skeptical about the role man-made carbon oxide emissions play in in global warming. I believe that global warming and global cooling are cyclical for this planet, and that we are now in the warming cycle. Thus, there is nothing man can do to reverse the warming cycle.

I WAS VICTIMIZED FOR CHALLENGING ZEALOTS, SAYS PROFESSOR: POISON, PLOTS AND A BATTLE TO NEUTER CLIMATE CHANGE CRITICS
Professor Bengtsson has been subjected to 'unbearable' pressure from other researchers because his research suggested carbon dioxide may be less damaging to the planet than feared

By Fiona MacRae

Mail Online
May 17, 2014

A leading academic says activists are trying to block scientific reports that question the dangers of climate change.

Professor Lennart Bengtsson said he had been subjected to ‘unbearable’ pressure from other researchers and warned of the increasing politicisation of the once ‘peaceful’ science.

Others described a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ in which researchers plot behind the scenes to block the publication of work that queries the danger posed by climate change.

Prof Bengtsson, a top meteorologist attached to Reading University, spoke out after some of his research was rejected by a leading scientific journal.

His study suggested carbon dioxide may be less damaging to the planet than feared – effectively challenging the political consensus and the urgency of the taxpayer-funded drive towards green energy.

An unnamed academic who was asked to help decide if the paper should be published, denounced it as ‘harmful’. The reviewer also warned it would generate bad publicity and have a ‘high’ but ‘strongly negative’ impact on the field of climate change science.

Prof Bengtsson said having research rejected was ‘part and parcel of academic life’, but added that it would be ‘utterly unacceptable’ for an academic to advise against publishing a paper on the grounds that it might bolster the views of climate sceptics.

He told the Times: ‘It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of climate activist.

‘The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the [computer] models. Therefore, if people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system, we must have much more solid information.’

However, the publisher of the Environmental Research Letters journal said the study contained errors and did not meet its criteria of contributing significant new knowledge.

Prof Bengtsson’s remarks came just days after he resigned from the advisory board of a think-tank that questions the amount of money being poured into combating climate change, after being subject to a ‘witch-hunt’ by fellow academics.

The 79-year-old said the pressure had become ‘virtually unbearable’ and made him fear for his health and safety.

In his letter of resignation to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he said: ‘I would never have expected anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.’

Benny Peiser, of the GWPF, said the professor’s case was just one example of a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ pervading climate change research.

He said many scientists with dissenting views were having their research rejected by the editors of scientific journals, and young scientists were censoring their work out of fear for their careers.

Dr Peiser said: ‘Over the last few years, the editors of many of the world’s leading science journals have publicly advocated drastic policies to curb carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, many have publicly attacked scientists sceptical of the climate alarm.

‘Instead of serving as open-minded broker of the contested fields of climate science and climate science, most science editors have opted to take a dogmatic stance that no longer allows for open research.’

David Gee, an emeritus professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, said the pressure on Prof Bengtsson ‘simply confirms the worst aspects of politicised science’.

The Institute of Physics, which publishes Environmental Research Letters, said the decision to not publish Prof Bengtsson was based solely on the paper not meeting the journal’s high standards.

Editorial director Nicola Gulley said: ‘Far from hounding “dissenting” views from the field, Environmental Research Letters positively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.’

1 comment:

bob walsh said...

Consensus of opinion is not scientific fact. I am also very dubious of cash register science and "scientists" who are more interested in politics than science. If the science was that solid they should be able to plus known climate history into the computer models and come up with where we are now. When they try that, it doesn't work. When you add the FACT that there has been no significant global temperature change in 17 years and the FACT that 20 years ago AlGore said we would be underwater by now if we didn't do something drastic and draconian back then, I am inclined to think the "science" is political posturing and horseshit.