Oh Don, the smear card is the only weapon that right wing think tanks have when it comes to climate change.

The basic premise is that the majority of the worlds working climate scientist, have not just got the climate change thing wrong. They actually know their wrong, but they want the millions in grant money.

Oh the irony of it all. Have a good look at yourself Don, you argue against 'smear' and then your last sentences are nothing but!

Also, the strategy of requesting more information about a particular subject that would cost a lot of time and money are well worn out by the 'skeptics' already. Annoying aren't they?

However, if a climate scientist responding to any FOI (especially if from a blogger with only a 'personal interest') was:"My initial response, if I had to answer it, would be to say that responding to his request would cost a lot of time and money, and that it was unclear how all this would aid him in his work."

You would be hung out to dry on all the 'skeptics' sites for months. People would be calling for our taxpayer funded head!

Buy a mirror Don.

We need a dictator.

Let's face it: the ruling political class has the guns and no matter how it's called, they will use them to take our money and give it to their relatives and friends - that's how it's been for 10,000's of years and it's not going to change.

So why waste more on their pretexts, science included? Instead of handing their relatives and friends "research" positions, what if they just gave them the cash directly? just dip into our pockets at their pleasure - they do it anyway, but at least it would then be honest!

Bugsy

If someone leading the word's largest scientific body on climate change describes climate change activism as their "religion" then it is hardly irrelevant, or a “smear”, to point it out.

I am not a climate sceptic, but I am increasingly disturbed by the tactics of those who attack people who are. Ad hominem attacks, closing down debate, silencing dissenters, misrepresenting people’s arguments and opinions – this is the opposite of proper scientific values.

The losers in this process are the real scientists doing research according to accepted scientific processes and focusing on evidence not ideology. They are increasingly tarred with the same brush as the ideologues and extremists. When these latter are seen to be exaggerated and wrong in their claims people may lose faith in climate research in general.

Bugsy,

A commenter on my website pointed out the possible hypocrisy in what I was writing at the end, and indeed it would have been better had I referred to 'alleged' sexual behaviour. However, I was actually pointing to Pachauri's use of 'religion' to describe his attitude to 'climate change'. And to the fact that there has not been a word of comment on the ABC or the Fairfax press to the whole event — which is surely odd, to say the very least.

Finally, if you read the Congressman's letter, he is asking for a huge amount of work. That is not the same as my asking a scientist for a copy of his code and data, which ought to be in a couple of places. Many scientific journals insist on such availability, as a condition of publication. In my own case, all the data I used were publicly available very quickly and available to anyone who wanted to use them, and many did.

“A demand for scientific proof is always a formula for
inaction and delay and usually the first reaction of the
guilty … in fact scientific proof has never been, is not and
should not be the basis for political and legal action”

An example of (private) candor from a scientist at the tobacco company BAT . (S J Green 1980) Tobacco Explained (W.H.O)

The core logic of science is simple: testing ideas with evidence. It is also worth noting that science is not static. It is constantly evolving.

Scientific conclusions are always revisable if warranted by the evidence. Scientific investigations are often ongoing, raising new questions even as old ones are answered.

As the above quite makes quite clear, the “shifting goalposts” argument misunderstands how science works.

The knowledge that is built by science is always open to question and revision. No scientific idea is ever once-and-for-all "proved." Why not? Well, science is constantly seeking new evidence, which could reveal problems with our current understandings. Ideas that we fully accept today may be rejected or modified in light of new evidence discovered tomorrow.

Actually Don, I have heard stories from multiple climate scientists who got sometimes hundreds of FOI requests from many people who appear to have just a casual interest. Indeed, That is not the same as you asking a scientist for a copy of his code and data.

It takes up a lot of time. What you are describing is a fantasy, a strawman if you will.

Even alluding to 'alleged' sexual misconduct is engaging in a smear, unless it directly relevant to climate science, which it isn't. Him also discussing his life's work is to help the planet as being so strong as to be like his religion, well that isn't as relevant as Rhian would like to believe either.

I know you guys really want to paint climate science as a 'religion' or a 'cult', ironically to smear those whose accept the current scientific consensus on climate change, but one mans view does not a religion make.

Rhian, well said.

One of the major dangers in the whole debate is that many of those most vocal about man made climate change are not scientists either, they are often those with strong political objections to the western capitalist model (and visa versa).

The science is muddied by the hopes people have hung off it to further their own mostly unrelated agenda's.

I certainly lack confidence in either side of the debate to deal with the issues honestly.

R0bert

Don. Excellent article which once again identifies the shifting of argument/focus from the actual conclusions of the Soon et al paper to matters completely irrelevant to the data. As you clearly state in your title "when nothing left with which to argue".........Go for the distraction and smear.
Asking these people to act with integrity is, crudely speaking, 'pissin in the wind', but worthy of trying nonetheless.
How delighted they must be that they have hobbled R Pielke jnr. in this matter. This is not science, it's rubbish.

Climate change sceptics need to read how the fossil fuel industry has distorted environment protection laws and administration of those laws in the USA. A book by law professor Mary Wood, Nature's Trust, would be a good place to start.
One extract states that at the Bali Conference;
Only one party could claim resounding success: the negotiator for the Bush administration who had blocked any agreement that would define clear carbon cuts.
The truth of what happened in the halls of EPA during the Bali Conference would come to light seven months later. On December 5, 2007, just two days after the Bali conference began, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had presented a proposed endangerment finding to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The twenty-eight-page document concluded that human carbon emissions, in fact, caused global warming. It detailed the enormous risk of harm from climate change, including exacerbated storms, Hooding, heat waves, wildfires, drought, eco- system damage, temperature extremes, rising sea levels, and a host of other damages. Most importantly, the document made a clear endangerment finding under the CAA. That one finding, had it been issued, would have triggered CAA regulations Jason Burnett, Associate Deputy Administrator of EPA, had helped develop the endangerment finding in response to the Massachusetts v. EPA litigation.

At 2.10PM on December 5, he had sent the formal proposed endangerment finding a an e-mail attachment to the White House. According to an investigative report by the Philadelphia Inquirer, White House aides knew what the EPA finding would be. They also realized that if they opened the attachment, it would become public, record. So, they never opened it. Instead, the White House called Administrator Johnson and instructed him to not issue the finding. Johnson complied with the request.

I suppose one touchstone about climate change is whether or not there has been a 'pause' in world temperature increase. Has there ? Hasn't there ? I'm fairly open to evidence one way the other.

Has there been a 'pause' now for, what, eighteen years ? Will global warming come back with a vengeance ? or will the 'pause' keep pausing ?

Just curious. Have harvests of spring and summer crops moved back a week or two, or a month, consistently, around the world ? Do farmers plant their crops earlier than a century ago, and not just because of improvements in strains ? Has tree growth moved up mountains ? Are mountain species retreating ? Have glaciers retreated at a hundred vertical feet for every degree rise in temperature, or more, or less ?

One day a couple of weeks ago, the BoM predicted a daily temperature for Adelaide that was about five degrees out. But I'm glad they can predict spot-on a hundred years from now :)

Joe

Bugsy, what is the consensus to which you refer? There is no science to demonstrate any measurable effect of human emissions on climate.

There are ludicrous assertions by the IPCC, I think the current one is that it is “94% certain” that human emissions cause global warming. The increased CO2 content of the atmosphere is alleged without foundation to be due to human emissions.
In any event the “high” CO2 content has not caused the warming predicted by the IPCC from computer modelling, and global warming has stopped, despite the assertion by the fraud-backers that it has” paused”. Support of the AGW assertion can only be based on dishonesty or ignorance. I am sure you will not plead ignorance, and are well aware that there is no science to support the assertion of human caused global warming. If you wish to assert that there is any science to support AGW, please refer us to any science which demonstrates a measurable effect of human emissions on climate.
Foyle, why should we be interested in dishonest books by fraud-backers?

One constant in OLO threads, is when a fraud-backer is asked for science, they acknowledge their dishonesty by disappearing, so Bugsy joins a long line.

Nigel Calder’s words about “The Hall of Shame” are appropriate again:

“What if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had done a responsible job, acknowledging the role of the Sun and curtailing the prophecies of catastrophic warming?
For a start there would have no surprise about the “travesty” that global warming has stopped since the mid-1990s, with the Sun becoming sulky. Vast sums might have been saved on misdirected research and technology, and on climate change fests and wheezes of every kind. The world’s poor and their fragile living environment could have had far more useful help than precautions against warming.
And there would have been less time for so many eminent folk from science, politics, industry, finance, the media and the arts to be taken in by man-made climate catastrophe. (In London, for example, from the Royal Society to the National Theatre.) Sadly for them, in the past ten years they’ve crowded with their warmist badges into a Hall of Shame, like bankers before the crash. "
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-ray-action/

Leo, on many threads, there is often a point in which it is pointless to continue. This is one of those times.
You will never accept what I have to say, no matter what I say.

Your triumphalism is unwarranted however, as many in the 'skeptics' camp have done the same. Ignore those you don't care to answer (or label them 'trolls' and then ignore them).

I haven't completely disappeared, I just don't come to visit much anymore. Much like many others on this site.

I've done the numbers, this opinion site is on the decline, it peaked around 2009. Last year it had as many comments and articles as in 2006, with a less diversified field of authors. With multiple diehard last-worders like you lurking around spouting the same crap over and over, it's not hard to see why.

I wonder how many people have actually read the paper by Monckton et al which is the subject of Don's article? It actually accepts that elevated CO2 in the atmosphere causes global warming/climate change. But it also says that the amount of heat being trapped by CO2 is much less than the computer models and IPCC reports claim. So the paper is not per se a sketical one, denying climate change or denying anthropogenic causes, but it questions the absolute amount of heat trapped by CO2.
So good on you Don for writing this interesting and potentially very important article. I would welcome people putting posts up about where the science contained in the Monckton et al paper is wrong.

Thanks, Bugsy, for confirming that you have no science to support your backing of the AGW fraud. Any support you continue to give it can clearly now only be based on dishonesty.
The point of your whining about OLO is not clear. It will continue after you are forgotten. You appear to be complaining about being nailed with the truth (which you refer to as “the same crap”)

Gee, you're doing well with avoiding that whole smear thing Leo...

Being 'nailed' with 'the truth' is just a matter of opinion in this case Leo.

Hey I'm not 'whining' about OLO, it's just the truth. One that that you can actually go and take a look at yourself this time. A lot of readers, commenters and authors have abandoned this site and the diversity of opinions and commenters is shrinking.

I wonder why.

I think MySpace is still around too.

Maybe I will start a thread on it, but I'm pretty sure Graham wouldn't like it.

Yeah, go ahead and crow your heart out, I might be back to have a look at what you have written in a week or so.

Then again, maybe not.