If you are fed up with dismal papers passing peer review and exploiting the good name of science, join us in protest. Christopher Monckton was not content to let John Cook and others get away with a paper where 0.3% becomes 97%, so Monckton is formally asking the journal to retract it — suggesting it would be wise to protect the journal from any allegation of scientific misrepresentation. Here is his entertaining background on events, and below that, a very serious letter 273 scientists and citizens have already signed to jointly send to the Editor Daniel Kammen. If deceptive wording and hidden data make you angry, join us by commenting below or emailing. — Jo
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Honey, I shrunk the consensus
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Michael Crichton said: “If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.” Thales of Miletus, Abu Ali Ibn al Haytham, Newton, Einstein, Popper and Feynman thought much the same and said so. Science by head-count is mere politics.
Doran and Zimmerman (2009) and Anderegg et al. (2010) each concluded that 97% of a few dozen carefully-filtered climate scientists held Man guilty of some of the 0.7 Cº global warming since 1950.
Cook et al. (2013), in a recent me-too article in Environment Research Letters, conducted the largest-ever sensational epic blockbuster cast-of-thousands drama survey of scientific papers on climate change. They concluded that 97.1% of abstracts expressing an opinion on climate change endorsed the “scientific consensus”.
Here’s how they did it.
They examined 11,944 abstracts. But they arbitrarily threw out almost 8000 of them on the ground that they had not toed the Party Line by expressing the politically-correct opinion (or any opinion) on climate change.
Next, they ingeniously interchanged three separate versions of the imagined “scientific consensus”: that Man had caused some warming; that Man had caused most of the warming since 1950; and that man-made warming would be catastrophic unless the West were shut down and climate sceptics were put on trial – as the appalling James Hansen has suggested – for high crimes against humanity.
It was this last definition – in fact untested in Cook et al. or, as far as I know, in any other paper – that Mr Obama’s Twitteratus plumped for when he tweeted that 97% of scientists consider climate change not only real but “dangerous”.
The introduction to the Cook paper said that the survey was intended to examine the standard or IPCC “scientific consensus” that most of the warmer weather since 1950 was our fault.
The authors, having consigned 7930 abstracts to the Memory Hole because they had not parroted the Party Line, were left with 4014 abstracts. They marked just 64 of them, or 1.6% of the 4014 abstracts, as endorsing the standard version of “scientific consensus”.
Further examination by Legates et al. (2013) showed that only 41 of the 64 abstracts, or 1.0% of the 4014 abstracts expressing an opinion on the Party Line, or just 0.3% of the original 11,944 abstracts, had said Yes to the standard version of consensus.
The incredible shrinking consensus
(A) Cook et al. claimed 97.1% consensus among 4014 abstracts; but (B) that was only 32.6% of all 11,944 abstracts in their sample; and (C) only 1% of the 4014 papers or (D) 0.3% of the entire 11,944 sample actually said Yes to the “scientific consensus” as Cook et al. had defined it.
However, since 32.6% of all 11,944 abstracts, or 97.1% of the 4010 abstracts expressing an opinion on the Party Line, had said or implied that Man causes some warming, Cook et al. concluded by saying that 97.1% of all abstracts expressing an opinion had said that Man had caused most of the warming since 1950.
The totalitarian news media (that is just about all of them), ever careless with their logical quantifiers, dutifully reported that 97.1% of all scientists had stated their support for the “scientific consensus” that all global warming since 1950 was manmade.
The website of the Institute of Physics reported one of Cook’s co-authors as saying that the paper had indeed concluded that there was 97.1% support for that notion.
However, in my submission it is time for sceptics not merely to express dismay at the flagrant distortion of the objective truth that has occurred. I reported that co-author to his university for misconduct in the dissemination of research results, and the university has told me it has decided to investigate.
The Institute of Physics, to whom I also complained, says it does not propose to alter its story because, it says, the co-author’s statement accurately reflects the paper’s conclusion. I have sent it the authors’ own data-file and have asked it to check that the authors themselves had marked only 64 out of 11,944 papers as endorsing the version of “scientific consensus” for which the paper claims 97.1% consensus.
I have asked that the Institute should at least report that the result of the paper has been credibly challenged in the peer-reviewed literature; and I await its reply.
A report of research misconduct has gone to the Vice-Chancellor of Queensland University and to the Professor who is the “designated person” to investigate the lead author under the University’s research policies. I await a reply from either of them.
This is where you come in, gentle readers. For I have written a letter to the editor of Environmental Research Letters asking him to withdraw the paper on the ground that it is not merely defective but deceptive. The letter is below.
I should be very grateful if every reader who agrees with me that the paper should be withdrawn would send a message to this thread giving their names and, if they wish, their academic qualifications. I shall then add the names to the letter and send it to the editor. Jo Nova herself is a signatory. Please join us.
The paper should have been withdrawn long ago, but it is perhaps not unreasonable to suspect that the board of the journal, whose members include Peter Gleick, will delay doing the inevitable for as long as possible in the hope of not undermining the IPCC’s arbitrary decision, in its imminent Fifth Assessment Report to assign a 95% confidence interval to the proposition that we caused most of the warming since 1950.
On the evidence that Cook et al. have themselves collected, there is no legitimate scientific basis whatsoever for any such confidence interval. Like much else in the IPCC’s disgraceful documents, it is simply made up.
There was a sting in the tail of my latest reminder note to the editor of Environment Research Letters. I said that I hoped I should not have to involve the public authorities.
For the most disturbing aspect of this affair is that the result that the paper claims is egregiously at variance with the authors’ own categorization of the 11,944 abstracts in their own data-file.
Yet the authors themselves, though they have read Legates et al., have not withdrawn their paper; aside from the editor of Environment Research Letters, not a single member of the board has written back to me; the Institute of Physics seems unbecomingly reluctant to correct its gravely misleading story even though I have sent it Cook’s data-file and a copy of Legates et al. and have asked it to verify the position for itself; and, after a longer period than is reasonable in the circumstances, not one but two senior officers of Cook’s university have failed even to acknowledge a reasonable request that they should investigate.
Something does not smell right. Should we be angry?
.oOo.
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Letter from Monckton of Brenchley, Joanne Nova and 272 others to Professor Daniel Kammen, Editor, Environment Research Letters:Dear Professor Kammen,
Request for withdrawal of a gravely misleading paper
Please withdraw the gravely misleading paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature (May 15, Environment Research Letters). The paper claimed a 97.1% “scientific consensus” among the abstracts of 11,944 climate change papers published from 1991-2012. The true “consensus” was not 97.1%. It was 0.3%.
The defective paper’s introduction said:
“We examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC [the abstracts of 11,944 papers on climate change], published over a 21 year period [1991-2012], in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)”. [my emphases]
The paper’s definition of “scientific consensus” is thus the standard, quantified definition adopted by the IPCC, which, in its Assessment Reports of 2001 and 2007, considered it very likely that most of the 0.7 Cº global warming since 1950 was manmade.
Computerized and manual examination by Legates et al. (2013) of the authors’ data-file, made available only some weeks after the paper had appeared, showed that on that file the authors had marked as few as 64 abstracts out of 11,944 (0.5% of the entire sample) as explicitly endorsing that “scientific consensus” as defined in the introduction to their paper.
Legates et al., on further examining the 64 abstracts, found that only 41 of them, or 0.3% of the entire sample, had in fact explicitly endorsed that “scientific consensus”. However, the defective paper you published concluded with these words:
“Among papers expressing a position on AGW, an overwhelming percentage (97.2% based on self-ratings, 97.1% based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on AGW.”
The authors had stated at the outset their intention to determine the level of
“scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)”. [my emphases]
They had listed this standard, quantified definition of “scientific consensus” in their paper as
“(1) Explicit endorsement with quantification (explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming)”, [my emphases]
the first of seven “levels of endorsement” to which they assigned the abstracts. Yet they did not disclose in their paper how few abstracts – just 64 – they had marked as having stated support for that standard, quantified “scientific consensus”.
To conceal how very small this number was, they added together all of the abstracts they had assigned to the first three of their seven categories, treating all three categories as one, and did not state the three values separately. An impartial peer reviewer would have spotted this.
The seven categories or “levels of endorsement” listed in the paper, with the abstracts marked on the data file or disclosed in the paper as falling within each category, were –
| Level of endorsement of “scientific consensus” in 11,944 abstracts |
Marked |
Disclosed |
|
| 1 | Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of global warming |
64 |
┐ |
| 2 | Explicit endorsement without quantification [We cause some warming] |
922 |
│ 3896 |
| 3 | Implicit endorsement |
2910 |
┘ |
| 4a | No opinion |
7930 |
7930 |
| 4b | Uncertain |
40 |
40 |
| 5 | Implicit rejection |
54 |
54 |
| 6 | Explicit rejection without quantification |
15 |
15 |
| 7 | Explicit rejection with quantification |
9 |
9 |
| Total |
11,944 |
11,944 |
One of the authors has sought to justify the discrepancy between the 0.5% of abstracts they marked as “1” (“explicit endorsement with quantification”) and the “97.1% based on abstract ratings” that their conclusion had misrepresented as endorsing the “consensus” as defined:
“The IPCC position (humans causing most global warming) was represented in our categories 1 and 7, which include papers that explicitly endorse or reject/minimize human-caused global warming, and also quantify the human contribution. Among the relatively few abstracts (75 in total) [actually 73] falling in these two categories, 65 (87%) [actually 64] endorsed the consensus view.” [my emphases]
The authors, then, are now claiming 87% (not 97.1%) “scientific consensus” – but are doing so on the basis of a sample size that has shrunk from 11,944 to just 73 papers, improperly eliminating 99.4% of the papers in the original sample. No scientific survey or opinion poll with a sample size less than 1000 would normally be recognized as having any meaning.
Even then, none of the abstracts the authors had marked as falling within categories 5-7 could possibly be said to have endorsed the “scientific consensus” as defined.
There were 41 abstracts explicitly endorsing the IPCC’s version of consensus. But, rejecting any anthropogenic influence, there were not only 9 in level 7 but also 54 in level 5 and 15 in level 6. Thus, 78 papers rejected any definition of “scientific consensus”.
Total sample size was thus only 119 out of 11,944 papers, or just 1% of an already smallish literature sample. Nowhere does the paper admit that the sample size on the basis of which the claim of 97.1% (now 87%) endorsement of “scientific consensus” is made was so small.
Even on that author’s newly-proclaimed and strange basis, endorsement for the “scientific consensus” as defined was not the 87% he now asserts but just 41 in 119, or 34.5% – a third of the 97.1% endorsement originally claimed for that “scientific consensus”.
In an article entitled Study reveals scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, posted at http://www.iop.org/news/13/may/page_60200.html, the Institute of Physics cites one of the paper’s authors:
“Co-author of the study [name and institution] said: ‘We want our scientists to answer questions for us, and there are lots of exciting questions in climate science. One of them is: are we causing global warming? We found over 4000 studies written by 10 000 scientists that stated a position on this, and 97 per cent said that recent warming is mostly man made.’” [my emphases]
I can discern no rational basis for that author’s claim that 97% of the 4014 abstracts that had stated a position on the “scientific consensus” had “said that recent warming is mostly man made”. The author’s claim, like the claim made in the conclusion of the paper itself, is false.
The authors had not adhered throughout to the definition of “scientific consensus” that their introduction had stated was the basis of their inquiry. They were implying, in effect, that since 97.1% of the 4014 abstracts had stated or implied that Man could cause some warming (categories 2-3), those same 97.1% were also stating or implying that Man caused most of the global warming since 1950 (category 1).
I am disappointed – and so should you be –
- that the paper had erroneously and gravely over-claimed 97.1% “scientific consensus;
- that the authors had tried to conceal that they had had categorized only 64 abstracts out of 11,944 as explicitly endorsing the “scientific consensus” as they had defined it;
- that, even then, the authors had miscategorised 23 of the 64 abstracts as endorsing that “scientific consensus” when the 23 had not in fact endorsed it;
- that the authors had failed to disclose that their effective sample size was not 11,944 nor even 4014 papers but just 119, rendering the entire exercise meaningless;
- that, on the basis that one of the authors now says was intended, that author says they had meant 87% consensus (not 97%) among just 73 abstracts (not 4014);
- that the true “scientific consensus”, after correcting an obvious error in the newly-asserted (and still strange) basis for calculation, would be 34% of just 119 abstracts;
- that the authors had failed to admit that only 1% of the 4014 abstracts they marked as expressing an opinion had endorsed the “scientific consensus” as they had defined it;
- that the authors had failed to disclose that only 0.3% of all 11,944 abstracts had endorsed that “scientific consensus”;
- that the authors had not adhered to a single definition of “scientific consensus”; and
- that one of the authors, in a public scientific forum, continues in defiance of the truth to assert that 97.1% had “said that recent warming is mostly man made”, when very nearly all of the abstracts had neither stated nor implied any such thing.
The paper you published is not merely defective: it is deceptive. It claims that 97.1% endorsed a “scientific consensus” that at most 1% had endorsed. You cannot let it stand.
I submitted a corrective commentary to you. Upon request, I subsequently shortened and resubmitted the commentary, but I received no further reply.
In the circumstances, to protect your journal’s reputation and those of its Board members from any allegation of scientific misrepresentation, you must withdraw the paper forthwith. Please make an early announcement to that effect, and let me know when you have done so.
Copies go to all members of your board. I await your reply.
Yours truly,
[signed] Monckton of Brenchley [and 273 others]
cc. Professor Myles Allen; Professor Maohong Fan; Dr. Peter Gleick; Dr. Jose Goldemberg; Professor Giles Harrison; Professor Tracey Holloway; Professor Klaus Keller; Professor Jakob Mann.
Please add my name to the request for withdrawal.
Michael P. SIngleton,B.Tech(Hons),P.Eng.(APPEGA,Life Member,Alberta,Canada)
271
If it will help then by all means add my name to the list.
Roy W. Hogue
BS Computer Science, 1985
MS Computer Science, 1988
Both from West Coast University — which by the way is the alma mater of astronaut Ellison Onazuka who died in the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
241
Please add my name to the request for Environment Research Letters to withdraw the grossly misleading paper, “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” (May 15, Environment Research Letters)
Carmen von Richthofen, MSc
Toronto, Canada
220
Any relation ?
100
…. a figure ghosts forward out of the shadows…
“She’s his mother…”
00
I am with you.
Lawrence A. Cooper
BS, Physics, US Air Force Academy 1986 (my field was space physics)
MBA Webster University 1989
MS, Space Operations (minor in system engineering), Air Force Institute of Technology 1991
MPhil, Public Policy, George Washington University 2004
I have a good deal of space physics education, plus way too much experience with statistical analysis.
As an US Air Force Officer, my first tour involved research into space weather phenomena while my second tour involved actual spacecraft operations.
I am also an Associate Fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics
270
Letter from Monckton of Brenchley, Joanne Nova,
I agree to the proposal to require the withdrawal of referenced junk paper. I am pleased to add my signature to Lord Monckton`s letter. I´m an aerospace engineer with a masters degree in mechanical engineering. Norbert Müller
251
Thank you to the good folk above, many of whom have not commented here before and come with such impressive credentials.
330
Please add my name to the request for Environment Research Letters to withdraw their political and grossly misleading paper, “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature”
180
Happy to support retraction. Apalled at the paper’s content and obvious intent to decieve.
B.Eng (Chem) 1989, Unversity of Melbourne
190
Please add mine
Peter Miller – BSc Geology, MBA, C.Sci
170
In honour and in the memory of the father of science, Galileo Galilei, please add my name to the request for Environment Research Letters to withdraw the misleading paper, “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” (May 15, Environment Research Letters).
191
Please do add my name.
Anyone with an open mind and a basic training in scientific method and statistical analysis who has read the IPCC Climate Reports and much of the alarmist material put out over the years, including most famously by Al Gore in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, would have spotted the gaping holes in the so-called ‘settled science’. But as an economist I can’t argue with the following:
“economists should be in a better position than others to make their own assessment of the science because much of it is about statistics and modelling” (Darwall, 2013, p. 239 ‘The Age of Global Warming: A History’).
Canadian economist Ross McKitrick also wrote “the typical economist has way more training in data analysis than a typical climatologist,” and “once they start reading climate papers they start spotting errors all over the place.”
That has certainly been my experience. But letters to authors, editors, universities and government ministers generally fall upon deaf ears with a reluctance to even enter into a discussion about the possibility of any errors or discrepancies. Instead they simply parrot wrote responses about scientific consensus and IPCC reports. If they don’t have those, they have nothing, because the empirical evidence sure as hell doesn’t support their position, and their climate models don’t fit anything other than their moving goal posts.
Good luck with this.
James W Doogue
MComm(Econ), BBus,(Fin & Econ), Dip FP, CFP (retd), Life Member FPA(Australia)
270
Please add my name. Geoff Daly, BE Hons (Mech) Queensland 1992, Chartered Mechanical and Biomedical Engineer, EMBA (AGSM Sydney)
Indeed, James.
There’s also a lot of engineers in this group. We study and use stats throughout our training and careers (think Six Sigma training, QC sampling, MTBF, and so on..) and these sort of studies just don’t sit well.
I graduated at a time when mainstream computational fluid dynamic modellings (outside a government nuclear programme) was in it’s infancy, and I had to program my own non-linear models. Even simple pipe flow is GIGO. To pretend that you can accurately model climate, when you don’t even know all the inputs, is basically fraud.
Cheers.
200
Those paying attention will notice that one of the names that copies was sent to is none other than Peter Gleick.
As the following statement was made:
The conclusion would be that he is one of the board members. Given his track record regarding ethics and honesty is the publication of this nonsense any surprise?
Still working on my degree so no list of credentials to make adding my name to the list as valuable as that of so many others.
170
Robert, high school maths is enough to know that correlation doesn’t prove causation. Even more so when the correlation is poor!
130
Add my name please.
Both a withdrawal and an apology for accepting the misbegotten paper on face value instead of checking it would seem in order. What a bunch of idiots. There is no way any group of scientists are ever going to reach 97% agreement about anything, not even the value of 1 plus 1.
150
I was in two minds about this. The paper is trashy, no doubt about that, and therefore serves as further evidence of the very low standards to be found amongst the promoters and apologists for CO2 alarmism. But on the other hand, this particular paper has generated so much by way of mindless support and reporting, that the formal withdrawal of it would be of some help in drawing attention to the intellectual sloppiness of the authors.
Please add my name to the list of signers.
John Shade, BSc Hons Physics with Theoretical Physics, MSc DIC Atmospheric Physics, MSc Applied Statistics.
210
Add my name
Steven Harris
140
Please add my name to the list
John Riddell. B.Agr.Sci, BA
150
You may add my name to the request for withdrawal of the paper. The paper was nothing more than a sloppy attempt at market research–an attempt to sell the idea of climate change. It is unacceptable that any professional journal would publish such poor quality research.
Sheri Kimbrough
170
Add my name to the list.
Steinar Jakobsen (MSc – Laser physichs )
130
Steinar.. is that how they spell “physichs” where you come from. Scandinavian ?
(not being rude in any way, just haven’t seen it spelt that way before)
11
Please add my name:
Christoffel Schoneveld, PhD geology, (1979) Leiden University, Netherlands
200
Please add my name.
Timothy Whittle, Bachelor of Business – Operations and Logistics Major, 1992, Elton Mayo School of Management, University of South Australia.
160
Please add my name to the list. This is not the science I studied and taught.
John Richmond BSc(Hons) Applied Zoology, MSc Ecology, HNC Information Technology. Now retired.
150
One would expect that basic “arithmetic” is a prerequisite for getting a science paper published.
And one would be wrong.
120
Do you want your name included, on that basis?
10
Please add my name to this letter
Brian J BAKER B.Sc Wales Electrical and Electronic Engineering B.Sc London Pure Maths
150
Please add my name for what it is worth. I don’t have any fancy qualifications I can claim, but I did work in a University for most of my career and assisted many academics and students to solve lots of problems. I might be allowed to call myself an inventor – but who knows how one qualifies at that.
I have read quite a few scientific papers and the Cook et al paper is definitely not sound science IMHO.
James M Reid
170
I’m surprised another logical flaw has not been brought up. To make the math work and be rational, the category list has to be symmetrical and complementary. Categories 1 & 2 arguably match up with 6 & 7, but despite being worded alike, categories 3 & 5 in practice are not comparable.
If I started a study with a ASSUMPTION that AGW impacted my subject, the study would contain the words “global warming” and I’d be included in the 2910 total. If I were to write about the same subject (e.g. WW grain production or the sex lives of frogs) and didn’t consider AGW a significant factor, that magic phrase would not appear (nor would “pixy dust” or “leprechauns”) and I wouldn’t even make the 11944 cut. One does not have to, nor is it possible to name everything that is NOT an influence.
This is important because cat 3 makes up about 75% of the 3896 consensus “votes”.
BTW, please add my name, George Daddis, BSME/MBA (New Jersey Institute of Technology/University of Rochester)
150
For what it’s worth George Daddis, I pointed out the lack of symmetry almost immediately after the paper was published. I even demonstrated why the survey couldn’t have been symmetrical, and why Cook et al were wrong to try.
60
To all those putting their names and qualifications forward you have my respect and gratitude.
Thank you for giving me some hope in humanity.
190
Already added my name via the same request at WUWT. No doubt CMofB and associates will filter for duplicates, but this could end up being a long list. For anyone feeling reticence, maybe consider “the study of climate goes in a thousand directions” and “there are over 100 disciplines that are relevant to the study of climate”. I don’t have sources, and the quotes are paraphrased. (Sorry – I have customers waiting.) I once started compiling a list based on the second quote; stopped counting when I got to 84.
The point is, do you have scientific/technical/professional experience that is at variance to what is being claimed?
130
Hi Martin, my reluctance to show my real name is purely out of protection of others close to me, I personally have no fear of facing down activists, NGO’s, or government in general, so my username is at least based on Australian humor.
My qualifications are Certificate 3 in Engineering, Fabrication Trade (Metal) MEM30305, or a Boilermaker in general terms, I do deal with various gases, metal compositions and geometry on a daily basis but no scientific analysis so I’m not sure if I’d qualify?.
My skepticism of AGW comes from (I’m sure I’ll get flamed for this) a year 10 science project 1984 on the “greenhouse effect” where we had to use the scientific method to test the theory, we basically came up with what is supported here and a further self education on AGW has not swayed me to believe otherwise.
I apologize to other skeptics for not showing my name but I am genuine in what I convey on this site and do what I can to get the skeptical message out in public.
110
I understand your position.
My family depends upon my salary, and my Boss is a rampant Alarmist.
The job I have is an excellent job and I don’t wont to lose it.
Hence – I will (for now) remain ExWarmist.
30
Please add my name:
Andrew Graddon BSc(Maths)Dip Ed 1978 Uni NSW
BEng (Civil Hons-1) 2007 University of Newcastle, NSW
MEng (Civil) 2008 University of Newcastle, NSW
150
This letter was published on Anthony Watts’ website, and I put my name forward there.
Evgueni Kretchetov, ACA (ICAEW), MSc (Medicinal Chemistry), BSc (Chemical Technology)
150
Please add my name. Ian Lee M.Sc. (University of Leeds), Ph.D (University of Western Australia)
130
Jo
Love your website & your attitude (if I include your husband, it might be mis-interpreted).
but ‘shrink/shrank/shrunk’.
Wrong tense?
51
It’s a play by Monckton on the title from a Disney movie. “Honey, I shrunk the Kids”.
50
Doesn’t matter if it’s a film title, it’s still ungrammatical.
BTW, that must be the first time that Hollywood is cited as an authority on grammar! 😉
00
Maybe it’s all Monckton’s fault. Certainly ties in with the ABC!
30
Please add my name.
Greg Cavanagh Asc Dip Eng 1993 (University of Southern Queensland. USQ)
130
One of the joys of studying for a degree at any University is that you can be 49% wrong and still pass. Alas, in the real world such a percentage can be fatal and career ending. Cook and others should raise their standards to match the real world. Please add my name:
Gerard Barry DipTechEng, BE(NSWIT, MIEAust, CPEng
Consulting Structural Engineer
160
Please add my name. I am alarmed by the damage being done to communities and economies around the world by the application of climate change policies applied by governments rushing to do the bidding of the IPCC without any due diligence or hard questions. And to our body politic and the health of public scientific debate by the totalitarian tendencies of the believer dominated media. I hope the spotlight of public awareness is now turning towards the nakedness of the consensus paradigm.
Ian Collett. BA.
130
While there are some more names I might be able to interest in signing up , if this letter of complaint has now been sent, is there anything more than notional value in adding further names to it ?
10
Please add my name:
Colin Henderson MLT, B.Sc.
Real (not pseudo-climate) Scientist, Journal Author, Inventor, Peer Reviewer
100
The Blackadder Comment #6 was an Ad hom about Monckton [SNIPPED]. I trashed the comment, and these replies to it below are orphaned. – Sorry about that but preserved for their popularity – Jo
Your qualifications please “blackadderthe4th”…………
123
Black Adder 4th.
Cert III Video Editing(YouTube), 2012, Nairobi Internet University
291
Don’t forget Diploma in BASKET WEAVING…..
161
No, it was in climate porn.
I’d like to see this little toilet stink reveal his name and what he did in school
91
“Cert III Video Editing(YouTube)”
And that took him 10 years !!
130
Im sorry but I have seen some of the videos, therefore I would need to see proof that he actually passed.
90
In sympathy.. and they didn’t want him to come back again !!
40
Blackadder is a Wind weasel, and the global warming scare, was their only real sales gimmick. You have to be scared into paying for a product that is not needed, not wanted, not affordable, not dependable, and doesn’t even do the job it was intended to do in the first place. Fear is being replaced by anger, now that the truth is coming out, so they are trying to scream even louder, that the sky is falling….ya, yawn, right! Even if that were true, those damned useless machines would not do one single bit of good. SUPPORTERS OF WIND, ARE SUPPORTED BY WIND.
30
Please add my name to the list.
Engineer, Retired (forever)
70
Please add my name
John Rae BSc(Hons)[James Cook University], MBA {Griffith University], AIMM, MACS
80
Please add my name to the list of objectors to this fraud. Nicholas Tesdorf B.Arch (Mwlb.) F.R.A.I.A.
70
Please add my name
Simon Wood B.Eng
90
I hope that our resident trolls will read this list of volunteer signers with their very impressive diversity and strength of credentials. I feel a bit humble to be able to add my name to such a group as this.
130
Don’t be humble, be angry.
Scum will assault those least able to speak up for themselves whenever they can
90
Have no fear! I’ve never been afraid to speak up or fight for myself.
50
Not only that Roy, look at the list of names. People on our side of this debate are prepared to identify ourselves and stand by our comments in any forum, electronic or otherwise. The opposition seems to delight in flitting in to serious debates, making pointless comments which have been debunked 30 threads ago, then flitting out behind their pseudonyms.
I took some care while I was employed by one of the world’s largest manufacturers and installers of wind turbines, for 2 reasons. Firstly and fore mostly fear of reprisal, as I had been warned twice (once in a formal disciplinary hearing” and once in writing to not “air my views in public”. Secondly out of respect for the organisation putting food on my table, I played down my opinions (although they didn’t believe that lol). Now I work for an organisation with no links to renewables and a diverse range of views, though mostly sceptical so I can speak up and publish my name more freely.
You make a very valid point.
80
Safetyguy,
I understand your dilemma. I’m glad you’re out from under it. I’ve always believed I should use my real name and have done so since my very first letter to the editor of the local newspaper years ago. It keeps me honest. I’m always careful to not identify my employer or appear to be speaking for the company or repeating their position. I owe them that degree of respect since I’m not in a policy making position. Ironically the CEO has personal views very much like mine, which I know from several discussions with him but the 2 rules of doing business are forcing us to go green anyway.
Rule 1. the customer is always right
Rule 2. if the customer is wrong, see rule 1
Ain’t life wonnerful?
This list is up to 167 top level comments right now, not counting their individual replies and most are names to add to the letter. I’m impressed with the credentials and experience they represent. Jo has a lot more followers than you would think from watching the daily traffic.
20
Perhaps your customer is the Commonwealth of Australia?
00
Between the company I work for and our parent company we may have product in Australia. I don’t sell or do marketing so I can’t say one way or the other. But I seriously doubt that the Government of Australia is on the customer list.
You probably should be glad to hear that because they just might find a way to use some of our stuff against you. 😉
00
Please add my name
Bill Young B.Eng(Hons), M Tech
80
Add mine.
Malcolm McCormack
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery St Andrews University 1968
Fellow, Royal College of Pathologists of London 1977
Fellow, Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia 1978
45 year career in the Life Sciences.
130
Add mine with pleasure,
Stephen Kenny
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery Sydney University 1986
When do I get my tattoo, Mr Glover?
110
Please add my name.
Time to stop the waffle.
We should move into attack mode and begin a coordinated campaign to bring these people and their ilk to account.
The NIPCC could take the lead.
No forgiveness, no mercy, no exceptions.
100
Please add my name to the list.
Mike Lewis B.Sc. Chemistry(Hons) University of Liverpool
90
Jo, please add me, per:
Louis A G Hissink MSc MAIG MIEEE Geologist
130
Please add my name to the list of those requesting withdrawal of the paper.
John E Nethery, BSc (Geology)(UNSW 1968), Dip Education (UNSW 1969)
100
You can add my name to the list:
Jarryd P. Beck, BE (Software) (Hons), BSc (Physics)
100
If the university is relevant, that’s UNSW, Sydney, for me.
30
Brian Gregory Valentine, D Engr engineering physics
Technical consultant, US Dept of Energy
Adjunct Associate Professor, Office of Advanced Engineering Education, University of Maryland at College Park
Thank you to Lord Monckton and Ms Nova for doing this
130
Please add my name.
BA(hons)DipEd
80
Please add my name; Ian Pringle PhD(geology)
90
Please add my name …
Peter W Mansell BSc (Syd 1985) BE(Hons) (Syd 1987) MIEAust
90
Warwick Hughes MSc Hons(Geology) 1966 Auckland
110
Good work Jo. Add my name too,
John Barrett, BSc (Geology & Geophysics) 1967, University of Sydney.
90
UNICEF confirms OXFAM confirms IPCC:
23 Sept: Guardian: Fiona Harvey: Children will bear brunt of climate change impact, new study says
Most comprehensive climate change review to date warns of risks to children, with Unicef arguing that children have been largely left out of the debate so far
Children will bear the brunt of the impact of climate change because of their increased risk of health problems, malnutrition and migration, according to a new study published on Monday…
Separately, a report by Oxfam warned that global warming would cause rapid rises in food prices, causing severe consequences in poor countries…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/23/children-bear-brunt-climate-change-new-study
31
Same old argument, “we have no climate change now, but you don’t care about children, you are vile, etc etc”
This is not the depth to which the UN can sink by any means.
80
The biggest threat to the future is the response to the climate change agenda.
Bio-fuels, fuel instead of food, clearing forests to plant fuel crops.
Inefficient and irregular power supplies from solar and wind, massively pushing up prices, cause fuel poverty even in 1st world countries.
Refusal to provide solid reliable power through coal generation to poorer countries.
These are the major issues now facing the world, and its all been bought about by those who promote climate alarmism, and the demonising of CO2.
I hope they will all answer for their part in this lie !!
120
Yet they are quite happy to deny developing countries access to affordable electricity and dont see any connection between poverty, starvation and death from that decision.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-17/world-bank-to-stop-funding-coal-fired-power-stations-in-develop/4826928
60
Affordable electricity = Refrigeration = Increased food availability = Increased survival rates for children and adults.
I assume that the people who are making the decisions understand the simple relationship outlined above.
10
I am really tired of this. Each day as I go in and out of the building at work there is a United Way poster showing a child named “Geno” holding up a sign saying “I’m awesome.” And each time I see it I think “No, you’re exploited.”
The rallying cry of “For the children” generally means it is for anything but the children. Concern for the children may be in there somewhere but, once again, what it is really about is money and control.
And as for this:
Should we correct that to read “Wasting valuable acreage on growing crops for bio-fuels in an effort to mitigate the non-existent “global warming” will cause a rapid rise in food prices as food crops are replaced with fuel crops causing smaller harvests for human consumption.”
140
Peter T Carey
MB BS Adelaide 1972
For years and years ” The Science is Settled ” and now suddenly there is a giant heat sink to the ocean depths. Who are these people.
Add my name please.
110
please add my name . Robert Cargill MBBS [UQ]
90
Please add my name to the list.
Jim Cooling, BSc (Electronic and Electrical Eng., 1971)
PhD (real-time embedded systems)
CEng, MIET, MIEEE
90
Please add my name.
Dr John Happs (geosciences) M.Sc. (Hons.); D. Phil.
80
Reuters has the Police Arrest story, but i can’t find any MSM, except the following, carrying it:
23 Sept: UK Citywire: Brian Cantwell: Police arrest six in carbon credits boiler room raid
City of London Police have arrested six men after a raid on a suspected boiler room selling carbon credits…
Detective inspector Teresa Russell, who is leading the investigation, said: ‘In 2013 the City of London Police targeted a number of City offices housing what we believe are criminal operations intent on defrauding elderly and vulnerable people out of large sums of money, some of whom have parted with their life savings…
The police urged people not to accept cold calls and to seek independent advice before committing to any financial investment.
http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/police-arrest-six-in-carbon-credits-boiler-room-raid/a704659
Former CDM head joins the European Commission
LONDON, Sept. 23 (Reuters Point Carbon) – A former chairman of the body overseeing the U.N.’s main carbon offset mechanism has joined the European Commission’s climate department, a Commission spokesman said Monday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2591177?&ref=searchlist
Current U.S. coal plants excluded from new carbon capture rules – EPA Chief
WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Power plants already in operation in the United States will not be required to be retrofitted with equipment to capture carbon emissions, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.2591612?&ref=searchlist
40
Please add my name:
Jim Stevens. BSc University of Queensland 1972
90
Please add my name to the list.
Anton Lang.
I’m just a nobody and all I have is a puny (well, nothing really) Associate Diploma in Electrical Engineering.
250
Who says? No way, Tony. You’re one of the best here!
170
Come off it Tony.
You have in-depth knowledge of Australia’s electricity systems, knowledge I doubt anyone else here would have even a small amount of.
You need to have lots of letters to have knowledge.
110
You DON’T need to have….. etc !!!
darn ! I even read it back to myself, and still missed it ! 🙁
80
Tony, You are ex-Air force, yes?
I have seen the training you guys get, and it is equivalent to a degree. Plus you get to play with guns and stuff.
100
Rereke,
in order to actually make it out of basic training, (not trade training) you have to actually pass the live firing training and the drills at the rifle range, and in my day that was done with an SLR. I had to actually have three attempts before I finally did pass, just. Then each year, well, most of them, we had to keep current, and luckily the live firing results had a much lower qualification level, (6 out of 30 holes in the target at 100 and 200 metres) and even then I only got more than six once or twice. Once I actually got 12, but I was certain the guy next to me on the mound was firing at my target. As I was at 2 flying Squadrons (76 and 77) we were exempted from range drill thankfully.
On promotion to SNCO, we had the same yearly drill, only this time at the 25 yard range with the Defence Pistol, the Browning.
Man, how I hated shooting, any of it! Boring as bat [self snip].
As to training, we had three months Basic trade training to see which of the 6 trades you were best suited to. Then, once you got to trade, it was 9 Months intensive electrical trade training with one new subject every 10 to 14 days, with a three hour exam at the end of each subject. That was the first part, and then you spent 12 Months out with one of the Units at one of the RAAF Bases working in your trade.
Then back to the School for 9 more Months with a new subject every 10 to 21 days.
Years later when I went back to the school to teach the Trade, it was shortened to 14 Months straight through with a lot less subjects.
Then they changed it even further to just a few Months and the absolute basics of the electrical trade.
None of this relaxed schooling atmosphere either, it was 8AM to 5PM with just 40 mins for lunch and 2 twenty minute breaks morning and afternoon. 8 solid hours of trade training every day for two nine month periods.
Loved every minute.
I never thought (and let me stress that word never) any of that would be used later on in my life. I’m learning more now than I did then, every day something new.
That’s why I love this site. It gives me a chance to soak up all the stuff I don’t know.
Life is good.
Tony.
100
Might I add that the PASS mark for each subject was 70%
Tony.
60
While the list of credentials is impressive, part of what makes climate change science so persuasive is their list of credentials and their use of experts to demand everyone agree. In the end, it’s not the credentials, it’s the evidence and the methodology–something that should have been part of high school science. It does require some understanding of statistics and their proper application. The bottom line is science has rules and methods that are clearly being violated by the climate change scientists and this is easily explained to people with basic scientific understanding. Perhaps these individuals cannot check the calculus (which where the degrees come in handy–we have those who can) but the flaws in the methods and the unprofessional behaviour should be obvious. Readers here are definitely science savvy.
110
Tony, I’ve read with GREAT interest all your comments and sparkling elucidation of the REAL info and differences between “renewable” power supplies and constant-baseload, provision-of-living-standards ‘conventional’ power.
May I respectfully suggest to you that “just a nobody” does not apply in your case! ? Well done for your clear explanations! And thank you.
90
“Well done for your clear explanations! ”
Ahhh…. the benefit of a diploma rather than a PhD ! 🙂
70
That’s crap, Tony. You’re one of the best informed posters here. I never miss your posts. They are full of factual information that explains what is and what isn’t. There are far too many pontificating parasites with higher level degrees from very dubious “universities” causing all sorts of trouble in the world. All Doctorates are not equal. And as for being a professor … some are real and some aren’t.
60
Okay, have we built up poor Tony’s ego far enough now?
01
I know a little of what Tony is all about with his original comment. I’ve been a practicing software engineer since 1967, 46 years (it was called computer programming back then). I was well established in my profession for a long time but even though I had started college in 1957 or ’58 I never completed either of the degrees I attempted; first Forestry, then Electrical Engineering. That unfinished business bothered me for years and finally drove me to start back to school in 1982. I was lucky to find West Coast University, a school of computer science and engineering that catered to working adults with all evening or Saturday classes. By that time I could have taught quite a few of the courses I had to take. But going through it was worth it to clear up that unfinished business in my life.
It was a fight all the way. West Coast was over 50 miles from home but I drove that each way, two nights a week. Then I had to find time to study… .. how do you spell, “no sleep?” But I don’t regret a minute of it.
That’s not exactly Tony’s situation but I understand it quite well because the same basic thing haunted me for years.
Never sell yourself short. Experience and judgment can be worth more than any credential, even though the world always looks for the credentials.
40
So the answer to the question is “no”.
01
You guessed it! 😉
00
Sigh……(sound of head banging on keyboard)……..
01
Sheri,
I hope your keyboard and your head are both recovered from their ordeal by now. 😉
00
It has. Nothing a bit of ibuprofen couldn’t fix. Unfortunately, there are things that ibuprofen can’t help and this entire thread is one of them. 🙁
02
Correction (typo): change MIET. to. FIET
30
Please add my name. David Purcell. BSc (Geology). Engineering Geologist. Consultant.
110
Please add my name if it will help.
Graeme Inkster BSc(Hons) Adelaide (Organic Chem.)
90
Please add my name.
Paul Nebauer B.Sc (Hons)[Chemistry] Dip. Ed.
110
I will gladly add my name to the list-David Chant BSc(Hons)(Geology UNE) Dip Ed
90
Thank you for an opportunity to contribute in a small way.
M McGrath MSc, PhD (Otago) [anatomy], PGDip Biomechanics (Strathclyde)
120
Please add my name to the letter.
Rodney R. Stuart IntPE (NZ), MBA, BSc (Mech Eng), PMP
110
Please add my name to the request.
Darren Croese
B.Science (University of Newcastle, 1989)
90
If Universities are relevant, that is University of Manitoba (1969) and Massey University (2000) and the Project Management Institute (2005) Charter is with IPENZ.
70
Im in, not sure how I can help, but I did get a HD in Statistical Analyses..
Peter Martin – Grad. Dip. OHS MGT (Adelaide Uni)
Also somewhat OT, but not much
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-24/tim-flannery-to-relaunch-climate-commission/4976608
Tim and his team should spend the next 12 months researching the meaning of the word “independent”. Since he claimed that is what the Australian Climate Commission was when it was sucking off my tax teat. Now its no longer quite so dependent on my efforts as a tax payer (although Im sure some money will filter through somehow) perhaps he can focus on what being independent actually means. Id say with a team of talent like they have, should take no more than 12 months to get an answer, then maybe another 6 while the correct the original…. followed by 3 or so months to write the report. Then he can read it and discover why he should actually have a job playing in a live action version of Rockstar Games Red Dead Redemption as the character “Nigel West-Dickens” who he is perfect for, if not somewhat type cast.
http://youtu.be/JzHEwBdm3kY
91
See. Tony Abbott was right we didn’t need to pay little Timmie anything.
He is going to give us the greatest gift of all.. His steady and painful demise 🙂
20
Greg Hunt was right on the money with his comments on that one, I noticed.
Your spot on.
10
Please add my name to the list of those requesting withdrawal of the paper.
Brad Wake, BSc (Geology)(UNSW 1985)
100
“The greatest principle of all is that nobody,
whether male or female, should be without
a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody
be habituated to letting him do anything at
all of his own initiative; neither out of
zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in
the midst of peace – to his leader he shall
direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And
even in the smallest matter he should stand
under leadership. For example, he should
get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals
. . only if he has been told to do so, by long
habit, never to dream of acting independently,
and to become utterly incapable of it.”
Plato of Athens.
My apologies Plato. I’m adding my name to this list.
Mac Nichols
BSc. Engineering
90
Count me in.
Chris Larkin Cert. Sci Geology, James Cook University.
80
Trent Parks, B.Sc. (Chemistry), Ph.D. (Chemistry), P.Chem.
60
add me:
Gregory H. Woods
BSME, 1971, Cal Poly State University, Pomona
60
Please add my name to the list of people supporting Christopher Monckton’s letter and action to expose these charlatans and bring truth to the public.
Douglas Baines BE(Aero)Hons; former Senior Research Scientist, ADSS.
70
Please add my name to those requesting the withdrawal of this grossly misleading paper.
Henry Martin
BS (Physics)1971 Bucknell University
MS (Geology) 1973 Brown University
MS (Finance) University of Colorado Denver
70
Please add me to the list.
BSc., Aerospace Engineering; Georgia Tech
MSc., Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Tech
70
No scientific credentials but plenty of outrage here. Valerie Hodgson Dip Ed, B. Ed,(Deakin Aust)
100
Only too pleased to support Christopher Monckton’s letter and action that may help expose the lack of integrity of those that promote unsubstantiated claims about scientific investigations.
Bevan Dockery, B.Sc.(Hons) UWA, Graduate Diploma in Computing WAIT, retired geophysicist
80
Please add name in support of your letter – and keep up the good work.
J. Kevin Humphrey BE UNSW (Too long ago to remember)
70
Add mine please
BSc(Hons 1) PhD(Theoretical Physics) University of London 1984
80
Please add my name to the request for withdrawal of this dishonest and misleading paper.
My highest degree is PhD (Physics). Monash University.
80
Please add my name.
Richard Sherratt MA(Cantab) – 1970
It may seem a bit strange, but somewhere in there is a Cambridge University honours degree in Engineering (or Mechanical Sciences as it was called in those days).
90
Add my name.
Peon 3rd class but a lifetime degree in recognizing charlatans, con men (and women), hustlers, snake-oil traders, etc, etc.
120
Link sent along to some nice people.
20
Please add my name:
John Hill
MA (Cantab) in Mechanical Sciences – like Richard Sherratt above.
M.Eng.Sc. (UNSW) in Nuclear Engineering.
60
I have been following the Global Warming debate ever since I was asked if I believed in it. The alarm bells went off in my head. What has dogma got to do with an empirical science? Either the observed data supports the stated hypothesis or the hypothesis needs to be changed and further where was the Popperian requirement that the hypothesis needs to be stated in such a way as to be falsifiable. Any hypothesis that tests for a condition that will occur by the year 2100 cannot be tested as false until after that date when data will be available. Have Climate Scientists forgotten that in any empirical scientific enquiry, it is the inability to prove the null hypothesis that most supports the original hypothesis.
Pharmaceutical Chemist ( retired unregistered) B Econ (U of Queensland)
80
Please add my name, Jo, and thanks for the opportunity to do so.
No degrees, only a Dip Tchg from Massey University (NZ) plus a Trained Teacher Certificate, both earned many years ago, then half a lifetime of helping high school kids to tell the difference between fact and fiction (and getting them through examinations).
Sincerely,
Alexander Kendall
80
Michael Crichton writes science fiction.
019
That would be Doctor Michael Crichton. Yes, he was a scientist and MD as well.
Great contribution though WW. Do you feel better for saying it?
140
So did Arthur C Clarke, who amongst many other ideas first formulated the concept of geo-stationary communications satellites.
80
Also Fred Hoyle and Doc E.E Smith, Isaac Asimov
I’m sure that there are many more eminent scientists that turned their hand to a bit of Sci-Fi for fun. 🙂
100
The BIG DIFFERENCE between these scientists/writers and the current crop of climate geeks and their followers….
is that they knew the difference between imagination and reality.
80
Love Asimov’s books. Still have a bunch of them. Bunch? Apart from library [which my lot aint] there must be a collective name for a group of books.
00
Tome?
01
I remember someone picking me up on that once.
I said geo-stationary, and he replied (quite correctly) that the correct title is geo- synchronous.
Both terms are acceptable I found out later.
Just how good is the engineering behind this?
It’s an Equatorial orbit at around 22,000 miles directly above the Equator and the satellite has to be travelling at a constant speed just under 6900MPH.
It’s even referred to as the Clarke Belt. Must be getting full by now.
And do you know where it’s at its most visible.
The ABC’s Lateline.
Watch the interviews with people being interviewed from overseas and listen to the time delay between the end of the question from Tony Jones and the beginning of the response.
It’s about a quarter second trip from the studio to the satellite, then on to a second satellite, than down to where the person is being interviewed. You don’t hear it in reverse because at this end Tony Jones will start in with the next bit right as he hears it end. Depending on that time delay, you can sometimes guess as to how many satellites have been used just for the one link for a live cross.
Tony.
60
W.Wallace.. BA (macramé) !!
60
“Michael Crichton writes science fiction.”
So does Michael Mann.
130
ps.. but at least Michael Crichton knows its science fiction. !
120
Michael Crighton knew it was fiction
30
Google “green dragons and whiffle dust”
You will see where you went wrong in your assessment of AGW.
30
WW#92.
Michael Crichton, graduate of Havard Medical School had a magnificent career, and a full, rich life. Above all he made a difference and he made a visible contribution to humanity.
Worth reading is his speech ‘Aliens Caused Global Warming‘, the Caltech Michelin Lecture, delivered in January 17, 2003.
For the sheeple and trolls who have not read it, it is worthy of a few minutes of your attention.
90
Excellent reference Manfred.
This talk Michael gave was instrumental in solidifying the views I already held regarding the perversion of scientific process to fit the politics of AGW.
http://youtu.be/MDCCvOv3qZY
Do yourself a favour Wallace, watch this then try hard to realise you are the unfortunate victim of politics that seeks to degrade and control humanity through fear. AGW is just the latest name for an age old process. Its never too late to open your eyes.
30
No not only scifi he also wrote ER to name but one, still better than the sci fi Gore wrote or the smut noval by that rail road engineer or even the fantasy book or two by Tim Flannery.
51
Another successful fishing trip by WheresWallace. He/she/it almost deserves an award for Highest Trolling Return On Investment.
I say ‘almost’ because the main thing wrong with the bait was that it was objectively false. Crichton isn’t writing anything these days.
00
Please add my name. Good work.
Qualifications:
BSc Optometry, LOSc
70
Please add my name to the anti-Cook petition.
Geoff Derrick PhD Geology
90
Please add my name to the letter.
Michael Fry, PhD Science (University of Sydney)
80
Although already on the list at yesterdays WUWT, please add my name to your list. Thanks, Jo-you have been running a fabulous website and a source of accurate scientific knowledge for a long time. MB.,BS [UNSW 1979]. I am not at all surprised by the qualifications of your readers, as the more one knows of the science of CAGW the more ephemeral it becomes. People like David Suzuki, who rage about “wilful blindness”, and demand that politicians who “deny CAGW” should be incarcerated, are blind indeed to see it in themselves.
70
For what it’s worth add my name.
Nathan Ellery
citizen
120
“citizen”
-the noblest credentials of the lot, Nathan. Absolutely no shame in that, whatsoever. Nearly all the aforementioned science and engineering graduates share that common link- citizens who care enough about the perversion of science for Malthusian purposes to stand up and be counted. Good on you.
90
Please add my name
Charl Morkel
B.Com (UWA 1997)
MBA Adv. (UWA 2005)
Member of MENSA (for what it’s worth given I don’t have a technical degree – although I did pass two years of Mechanical Engineering before dropping out to pursue business 🙂
90
Please add my name to this retraction request.
Jeffrey A. Casey, Ph.D.
(Plasma Physics, 1985, University of Colorado, Boulder)
President, Rockfield Research Inc.
Nevada, USA
70
As certain recent medical publications in Australia have reminded us, the whole issue of probity in science needs constant vigilance. By all means, add my name if you wish –
David Cooke, B.Sc(Hons.) University of Melbourne 1973
90
No psychologists on the list? Time to stand up and be counted.
Max Roberts, BSc (1988), PhD (1991) psychology, University of Nottingham
110
Thank you Max, your willingness to stand and be counted elevates you to the ranks of those most UN-like our favourite comedian Lewandowsky!
30
Please add my name
Trygve Eklund (Norway)
PhD MSc BSc MBA
80
Please add my name. I am outraged by the perversion and misrepresentation of Scientific Method.
Robert G. White BSc (Physics and Maths)(University of Melbourne)
100
Plese add my name
Michael Seward B Eng, MRINA
Naval Architect, 30+ years experience
(A branch of engineering with expertise in fluid dynamics & CFD software, and all the usual stuff mechanical/structural engineers do including thermodynamics of the water cycle, statistics, vibration analysis, bucket loads of applied maths and personal liability if I get my sums wrong)
120
“if I get my sums wrong”
oopps.. that was meant to be a frigate… not a submarine 🙂
70
Please add my name to this request for withdrawal.
Selwyn Ellis, B Agr Sci Grad Dip App Sci (Computing).
90
The numbers can easily be fudged to tell you what you want to hear!!
Pam Hilliar BSc (Wits)
90
Please add my name.
John Karajas B. Sc (Hons)
Geologist and a keen student of palaeoclimatology since 1966.
90
Please add myself to the List
Tony Armstrong
BSC geology and Geography (1998)
University of Wollongong
NSW Australia
90
Thank you for picking up on this blatent attempt to mislead us. Please add my name to the list supporting the withdrawal of Cook’s paper.
Rod McLean
Layman (Retired)
Towamba NSW
100
Please add my name to the anti-Cook petition
Andrew W Grubb B.Eng. (Mining) (1978)
100
Bliar speaks:
23 Sept: UK Telegraph: Peter Foster: No ‘serious person’ should doubt man behind climate change, says Tony Blair
No serious-minded person could possibly doubt that climate change is manmade, Tony Blair has claimed, as several influential figures move to head off fresh doubts about the integrity of the science behind global warming.
However Mr Blair, opening the New York Climate Change week, said the report would show it was “ninety-five per cent” certain that global warming was man-made, and that the time for debate was now over.
“After this panel assessment this week, there will no longer be any serious doubt in the minds of serious people that this is a serious problem,” he said, “The question is can we find the means of galvanising the [political] leaderships to act in the way they should?”
“Ninety-five per cent certain, is a pretty large degree of certainty – I recall that the number of people who think Elvis is still alive is round about five per cent,” he added, to laughter.
Since leaving office Mr Blair has supported The Climate Group, a non-profit foundation that teams up with big business to tackle climate change issues…
Among the corporate sponsors of the event were the Weather Channel, the insurance major Swiss Re, the LED lighting specialists Phillips, the furniture maker IKEA and the computer giant Hewlett-Packard.
Mr Blair was followed to the lectern by Todd Stern, the US special envoy on climate change and Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank president who was even more vocal in rubbishing climate change sceptics than Mr Blair…
“Among the predictions is that by 2030 it’s quite possible that Bangkok could be under water,” he said, “Now these other explanation, and the people who doubt the existence of man-made climate change, I would simply say, the doubters don’t have a problem with climate change, they have a problem with science.”…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10329520/No-serious-person-should-doubt-man-behind-climate-change-says-Tony-Blair.html
40
What happened to the other 2% ?
20
Damn … Here we go again “the debate is over” and “the science is settled”.
Do these guys ever learn.
20
Please add my name to the list as well.
Steve Herczeg
BSc (1986) (Applied Mathematics and Computer Science) – Adelaide University
80
Add my name to the signatures list supporting this retraction.
Andrew McRae. B.InfTech (University of Queensland, 1999).
Yes, the same Uni that still provides a safe haven for John Cook. Ugh.
It’s also the uni alumni that includes the 1996 winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and 1997 Australian of the Year, Peter Doherty. That sounds much better, right?
Then Mr Doherty went on to sign the 2011 Stockholm Memorandum, which in point 2 declares:
*sigh* Can’t win `em all I guess. Even the best of us can be suckers for a “Good Cause”.
Great to see that lurkers Geoff Daly, Jim Stevens, Leon Azar, and Robert Cargill have chimed in so I’m not the only UQ alumni on the list!
It would be great to get Chris de Freitas to sign up too, since he’s a well-known climatologist.
Let’s get some more signatures on this list. The great part is that you don’t need expertise in physical sciences here, anyone who took a subject on statistics or survey design can see the problems with this study and sign up. We don’t seem to get many social science types passing through here, but the more the merrier. Actually anyone who can count can see the glaring falsehood of the study.
The names that would have the most impact are scientists who’ve had work published in Environment Research Letters previously.
Jo, those who normally comment under a pseudonym may want to directly email you their name for the list. If they only change their user name for this one comment the user avatar icon can still be linked to the usual email address used and therefore to the pseudonym.
Most of the current 273 co-signatories are probably WUWT readers who replied last week. Don Easterbrook’s name is in there.
40
Anyone who wants to keep their pseudonym separate can leave a comment here and I will email them, or they can email me joanneAT this domain.
This is a spectacular turn out. Gratifying! Thank you.
81
This site has taught me more about “climate” than anything else I have read. Made my head hurt at times deciphering stuff but good for an aging brain to get that sort of exercise. One thing I learnt in my working life as an Officer of Police and subsequently in private practice was to sort the truth from the crap and the warming myth is just that, crap.
Add my name. David R Axup. BA Grad Dip [Highway & Traffic Eng]
110
To whom it may concern, Myself and many scientific associates have been following this baseless and dangerous manipulation of environmental data for 10 or more years. The Al Gore global warming myth morphed when the data supported a slight cooling event. Hence the garbage basket called climate change complete with poor old carbon dioxide as the evil gas. Then enter the carbon taxers which was/ is the way to ill gotten gains by predating upon non-scientific peoples. What does it take to make these good peoples wake up and realise they have been rolled by scammers?
Chip Nichols, BSc., Msc. Geology
120
Not the first time that ‘consensus’ hs been used to attack scientific work and won’t be the last. add me to the list.
60
Please add my name to the letter
Kenneth D Rohrlach B.Sc. (Physics and Applied Maths), B. Ed. St., Dip. Ed.
71
Please add my name.
Ian Bock, BSc, PhD, DSc (Qld)
90
Yes Brian Valentine, I was told about not caring for future children/grandchildren etc.. by a bunch of facebook surfer friends and acquaintances. They got a bit nasty when I pointed out that the surfing industry relies a lot on the petrochemical industry….. no surfboards, no wetsuits, no rashies, no transport.
90
Signed yesterday at Anthony Watts’ site, but I’ll reiterate that here, and quote this part of my original comment:
80
What seems amazing to me Chris, is how the reviewers could have actually passed this nonsense. Is it not there job to try and debunk the paper when they do the review or is it just a “Quality Assurance” exercise. You know, cross the I’s and dot the T’s kinda thing.
30
You’d think.
00
“To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted” (Thomas Kuhn).
There are many factors that influence climate, as all historians of nature know (geologists like me amongst them). Lets hope those factors that cause global cooling hold off for a while yet!
How is it we can breed the wooly thinking that Blair and Obama blindly swallow, and how is it that anybody can consider concensus part of the Scientific Method?
Add me.
Rodney Fripp M.Phil., Ph.D. Geologist
60
People consider consensus part of the scientific method because scientists who had little data and a broken theory decided if they declared authority the way to go, their shortcomings would not be noticed. Unfortunately, there was that nasty little fallacy “Argument from Authority”. How to get around that? Insert “appropriate” and build a belief that some things in life were sooooo complex only authorities (read: degreed experts) could understand them. So the argument from “appropriate authority” very slickly got around the problem–you must listen to appropriate authorities (I really cannot find who inserted the term, though I continue to research). When you then say argument from appropriate authority counts, it’s short jump to “consensus”. After all, if the appropriate authorities all agree, then the idea is doubly correct. It also means you can summarily dismiss authorities who are appropriate but disagree because more agree than disagree. Since the general population is not very smart and cannot possibly understand the complexity of science, the only way to judge is consensus. Never mind this is actually an argument where people proudly proclaim ignorance and bow to being called incapable of understanding.
The use of the argument is often found in sciences that are the most politicized: climate change, nutrition, health, etc. Areas where modeling and statistics form the basis of the claim, not actual evidence.
00
Jason Bresnehan, Bachelor of Business, Certified Practising Marketer
60
Please add my name for what it’s worth. No fancy degrees but I possess the ability to understand the fallacy of this paper.
80
Actually, UEA’s Mike Hulme “shrank the consensus” over three years ago ;-)(Well, sort of!)
But, that being said, please add my unscientifically credentialled name to this list.
Hilary Ostrov BA (English and Psychology) University of Western Ontario (1971) [those were the pre-post-modernist days when both actually meant something!]
90
I’m happy to add my name to this letter requesting that the article “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” (May 15, Environment Research Letters, be withdrawn and subject to a proper scientific peer review.
Fergus O’Brien BSc, MenvM, Geologist
60
Please add my name to the list demanding the retraction of this gravely misleading paper. Had I submitted such a paper for my psychological research methods subject, I would certainly have failed it – these guys break all the rules.
Lindsay Ball, B.Sc., Psychology and Computing, University of Queensland, 1986.
60
I believe it was Carl Sagan who once said “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
I don’t see John Cook’s extraordinary claims,or indeed the claims of the alarmist army backed up by any strong evidence whatsoever.
Please add my name.
80
this might encourage a few more signatures!
23 Sept: Live Science: Becky Oskin: Climate Scientists: IPCC Report Must Communicate Consensus
Climate experts also told LiveScience they would like to see the new report stress the scientific consensus on climate change, and emphasize the link between human activities and global warming.
“I hope this report will stress the virtual certainty among the scientific community that humans are affecting the climate system in profound ways, mainly through burning ever-increasing amounts of fossil fuels,” said Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “I hope it will emphasize the high confidence in attribution of many aspects of climate change to increasing greenhouse gases, and de-emphasize the discussion of uncertainty. The public hears “uncertainty” and thinks there is no consensus.”…
Critics of the leaked drafts have focused on what climate scientist Kevin Trenberth said is the “mistaken idea that warming has slowed…
“A key will be whether there is a major succinct message out of this report,” said Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder, Colo.
“The previous three have had signature messages,” Trenberth said. “Maybe this one is that warming signs are everywhere in melting Arctic sea ice, melting Greenland, warming oceans, rising sea levels, and more intense storms as well as higher surface temperatures. This would also go some way toward addressing [this] mistaken idea.” [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]…
“It is not just a scientific document — it should have policy implications,” Trenberth said. “And, of course, this is why there are well-financed and organized denier campaigns out in force.”…
http://www.livescience.com/39869-rethinking-ipcc-climate-change-report.html
40
You can add my name Colin Mackenzie BA UOW
70
Add my name to the signatories.
Bernd Felsche B.E. (Mech.) (UWA 1982)
60
Please add my name in support of this worthwhile effort.
Todd Martin, M.Eng., P.Eng, P.Geo.
Geotechnical Engineer
80
Dear Jo,
Anyone who wants to add their name here should be encouraged to do so and they should not worry if they have no letters or fancy titles after their names – some of the brightest, smartest people never got an formal education but they sure can spot bullsh*t from a mile away! (Hmmmm …… maybe they could put B.S. = Bullsh*t Spotter!!)
Please add my name to the list,
Colin Andrews, B.E.(Mech) University of Wollongong.
90
Sure thing.
Alice Thermopolis: MSc(Lond) DIC BSc(Hons) BA MAusIMM AIIA(WA)
Thank you, Jo & Christopher.
60
Please add my name to the list.
Phillip Bratby BSc (physics), PhD, ARCS
80
Please add my name to the letter.
And good work! to Monckton et al involved in examining and exposing this scam.
60
Jo, this an event about which I sit here gobsmacked!
I felt – perhaps somewhat self-referentially – that I was one of probably a few who read your blog (along with WUWT, etc) as a highly-valuable resource, but tended to refrain from commenting over-much.
I now see above scores and scores of names we’ve pretty much never seen on the blog (well, I haven’t noticed them anyway!) who have added their names – all with a range of remarkable qualifications and specialties – who CLEARLY read and engage with the topic.
To all of you – and not the least to Jo for her hard work in providing this blog – a great big thank you!
I tips me ‘at to you all!
90
I’m in!
Ronald Van Wegen
Bachelor of Applied Science
Science Information Services
Deakin University
Class of ’95
70
“Lord Monckton turned red when he read, the bogus report he was fed.
He spanked the Cook, corrected the book, and put the whole matter to bed”
140
Add me to the list, Ian Plimer BSc (Hons), PhD, FTSE, Hon FGS
140
Please add my name to the list.
Jason Cherry
BSc (Geology), MSc (Geology)
Monash University, Victoria, Australia
50
Please add my name to the list of people requesting a retraction.
Val Spencer, teacher Librarian, BA, Dip Ed
60
Jo
Please add my name to the list
Stuart Huggett B.Arch
50
Michael J Woods
BSc, BCom
50
I was worried about adding my name to this list because, as I mentioned, I have nowhere near the qualifications of the so many others who have added their names here.
Having said that, this must be slightly worrying for those warmists who do visit here. This is an impressive list, who can in no way be referred to as a ‘bunch of nobodies’.
The silence from those warmists is telling, of itself.
Tony.
90
This is exactly what I was thinking Tony.
Jo, please add my name to the list.
Louise Diack MCom (University of Auckland)
70
Me too.
Peter Horne BA (hons) Law, Nottingham
No scientist but I learnt to spot a liar a long time ago. This is what I most despise about the warmistas, they think we are all as venal and stupid as they are.
91
Please add my name to the list.
Tony Ridgway, PhD (Applied Linguistics), M.A. (Cantab).
I know my qualififications are not in a very relevant field, but as you say, this is politics, not science.
31
Jo and me Lord. Thank you both for your tireless efforts. We really do appreciate it.
Please add my name to the list;
Robert J Massey, POATC Royal Australian Navy (retired) Electronics Engineering Cert (1983)
Not that any of the above qualifications hold up to anything near most of my fellow bloggers.
Thank you all for your input 🙂
70
When did you leave the FAA Bob?
10
Heywood, I left HS 817 sqdn in1986. Just after the last Labor rout of the ADF.
21
Put my name to that list.
Jason Hansford.
Master Fisherman (Successful, Hons. Retired)
Commercial Diver (Never Bent nor Eaten, Hons.)
University of Older Hard Knocks (Qld)
College of Younger Hard Knocks (WA)
High School Dropout (WA)
Primary School Report card. “Jason shows much improvement, his reading is exceptional for his age group.”….(Miss Scanlon was always a bluddy Bewdy.) 🙂
111
I have been listening to this BS for years. And becoming progressively more concerned at the hive mentality of the supporters. I would like to be included with the sceptics.
John R McDougall, BE (Mining) (1965), Fellow of the Australasian IMM, Chartered Professional (Mining) (retired)
I may be an old bastard but my brain has not (yet) quit.
112
Add me to the list.
Gregory K. Young
Bachelor of Teaching, Adult Education
Royal Australian Army-Retired
Golden Grove
South Australia
51
Add my name, too
Bernd Palmer
Master of Science ETH (Switzerland)
80
Add my name: BSc(Eng) ARSM PhD DIC
61
Many thanks. Pls add
Bernard Tranter, B,A. B;Ed(Mon) M;Ed,(Melb)
50
Please add my name to the list.
I’m not a scientist, but a retired chartered accountant who has time to read all the argument on this subject. I can also understand figures. The “97%” is a nonsense, a blatant lie that has to be repudiated. This “97%” was trotted out on last night’s Q & A by Suzuki and the IPCC representative but was not challenged. Needless to say, it was not questioned by Tony Jones.
71
Yep Ken. That paper by Cook is an utter travesty. To think that it passed review and was accepted as a serious scientific paper?!…. As for Suzuki. The man is a scientific illiterate. Basically all he can spout is Ecofascist doggerel. He was out of his depth on Q&A and showed it. Kinda embarrassing actually. I had to skip through it. Bluddy painful to watch it was.
81
Please add my name in support of this excellent effort.
70
Yes add me in
Peter Champness. MBBS, B Med Sci, M Med, FRACR
60
Please add my name.
Professor Timothy Florin, The University of Queensland School of Medicine
80
Hey Tim,
You wouldn’t happen to have an ethics or truth drug you could slip over and jab Cook in the arse with do you??
40
Wow, respect to you all.
I only hope the letter has an effect. I could close my blog down and retire to France.
🙂
80
Grumpy,
Sorry to derail your retirement plans, but I’m sure you will have a brand new scare/scam to devote your excellent blog to once AGW finally goes away!!
To you, Jo, Judith, Watts and all the others, I say thank-you and keep up the good work!!
🙂
30
Please add my name:
A.M. O’Neill, B.Bus.(OpMan & Logistics), B.Eng.(Hons Mech)
70
Happy to add my name
Alan Kennedy, BA, PhD, Fellow Royal Society of Edinburgh, Hon Member Experimental Psychology Society (Psychologist)
70
Jo, I have no degrees but did do a B S C (bloody short course) 2 years at uni and decided farming was the go. Farmers, are generally pretty level headed and over the last 10 years or so the depressing rubbish from the alarmists has been frustrating. I read your articles and blogs every day and feel better knowing there are like minded people out there. It’s time to stop the rot. If it helps please add my name – Julian Long, reasonably successful “clod buster”. I love CO2 because I purchase around 400 tonnes of liquid CO2, turn that into a gas and pump it into my greenhouse which increases the yield of the cherry tomatoes I grow by about 10%. Thank you for being in the front line for us.
130
Please add my name to the list. Qualifications – Breathing and Upright.
60
Please add my name to the letter endorsers
Tony Thomas MA (WA), B.Ec. (ANU)
60
I support this. Please add my name.
Duncan Veasey BSc MB BS LMSSA DPM FRCPsych
60
I’ve browsed the list to this point and I must say that I’m surprised that so many well-credentialed signatories avoided the hazard of studying themselves stupid. 😉
50
1. Michael P. Singleton, B.Tech(Hons), P.Eng.(APPEGA,Life Member,Alberta,Canada)
2. Roy W. Hogue, BS Computer Science, 1985,MS Computer Science, 1988
3. Carmen von Richthofen, MSc Toronto, Canada
4. Lawrence A. Cooper, BS, Physics, US Air Force Academy 1986), MBA Webster University 1989 Air Force Institute of Technology 1991
5. Norbert Müller
6. Chris Taylor, B.Eng (Chem) 1989, Unversity of Melbourne
7. Peter Miller, BSc Geology, MBA, C.Sci
8. James W Doogue, MComm(Econ), BBus,(Fin & Econ), Dip FP, CFP (retd), Life Member FPA(Australia)
9. Geoff Daly, BE Hons (Mech) Queensland 1992, Chartered Mechanical and Biomedical Engineer, EMBA.
10. John Shade, BSc Hons Physics with Theoretical Physics, MSc DIC Atmospheric Physics, MSc Applied Statistics.
11. John Riddell, B.Agr.Sci, BA
12. Steinar Jakobsen, (MSc – Laser physichs )
13. Christoffel Schoneveld, PhD geology, (1979) Leiden University, Netherlands
14. Timothy Whittle, Bachelor of Business – Operations and Logistics Major, 1992
15. Elton Mayo School of Management, University of South Australia.
16. John Richmond, BSc(Hons) Applied Zoology, MSc Ecology, HNC Information Technology. Now retired.
17. Brian J BAKER, B.Sc Wales Electrical and Electronic Engineering B.Sc London Pure Maths
18.
George Daddis, BSME/MBA (New Jersey Institute of Technology/University of Rochester)
19. Andrew Graddon, BSc(Maths)Dip Ed 1978 Uni NSW, BEng (Civil Hons-1) 2007 University of Newcastle, NSW
MEng (Civil) 2008 University of Newcastle, NSW
20. Evgueni Kretchetov, ACA (ICAEW), MSc (Medicinal Chemistry), BSc (Chemical Technology)
21. Ian Lee, M.Sc. (University of Leeds), Ph.D (University of Western Australia)
22. Greg Cavanagh, Asc Dip Eng 1993 (University of Southern Queensland. USQ)
23. Gerard Barry, DipTechEng, BE(NSWIT, MIEAust, CPEng, Consulting Structural Engineer
24. Ian Collett. BA.
25. Colin Henderson, MLT, B.Sc.
26. Allan Cox, Engineer, Retired John Rae BSc(Hons)[James Cook Uni], MBA {Griffith Uni], AIMM, MACS
27. Nicholas Tesdorf , B.Arch (Mwlb.) F.R.A.I.A.
28. Simon Wood, B.Eng
29. Bill Young, B.Eng(Hons), M Tech
30. Malcolm McCormack, Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery St Andrews University 1968, Fellow, Royal College of Pathologists of London 1977, Fellow, Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia 1978
31. Stephen Kenny, Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery Sydney University 1986
32. Mike Lewis, B.Sc. Chemistry(Hons) University of Liverpool
33. Louis A G Hissink, MSc MAIG MIEEE Geologist
34. John E Nethery, BSc (Geology)(UNSW 1968), Dip Education (UNSW 1969)
35. Jarryd P. Beck, BE (Software) (Hons), BSc (Physics)
36. Brian Gregory Valentine, D Engr engineering physics Technical consultant, US Dept of Energy, Adjunct Associate Professor, Office of Advanced Engineering Education, University of Maryland at College Park
37. Markus A Frank, BA(hons)DipEd
38. Ian Pringle, PhD(geology)
39. Peter W Mansell, BSc (Syd 1985) BE(Hons) (Syd 1987) MIEAust
40. Warwick Hughes, MSc Hons(Geology) 1966 Auckland
41. John Barrett, BSc (Geology & Geophysics) 1967, University of Sydney.
42. Peter T Carey, MB BS Adelaide 1972
43. Robert Cargill, MBBS [UQ]
44. Jim Cooling, BSc (Electronic and Electrical Eng., 1971), PhD (real-time embedded systems)
CEng, MIET, MIEEE
45. Dr John Happs, (geosciences) M.Sc. (Hons.); D. Phil.
46. Jim Stevens, BSc University of Queensland 1972
47. Anton Lang, Associate Diploma in Electrical Engineering.
48. David Purcell, BSc (Geology). Engineering Geologist. Consultant.
49. Graeme Inkster, BSc(Hons) Adelaide (Organic Chem.)
50. Paul Nebauer, B.Sc (Hons)[Chemistry] Dip. Ed.
51. David Chant, BSc(Hons)(Geology UNE) Dip Ed
52. M McGrath, MSc, PhD (Otago) [anatomy], PGDip Biomechanics (Strathclyde)
53. Rodney R. Stuart, IntPE (NZ), MBA, BSc (Mech Eng), PMP
54. Darren Croese, B.Science (University of Newcastle, 1989)
55. Peter Martin, Grad. Dip. OHS MGT (Adelaide Uni)
56. Brad Wake, BSc (Geology)(UNSW 1985)
57. Mac Nichols, BSc. Engineering
58. Chris Larkin Cert. Sci Geology, James Cook University.
59. Trent Parks, B.Sc. (Chemistry), Ph.D. (Chemistry), P.Chem.
60. Gregory H. Woods, BSME, 1971, Cal Poly State University, Pomona
61. Douglas Baines, BE(Aero)Hons; former Senior Research Scientist, ADSS.
62. Henry Martin, BS (Physics) 1971 Bucknell University, MS (Geology) 1973 Brown University
MS (Finance) University of Colorado Denver
63. Bruce Cunningham, BSc. Aerospace Engineering; Georgia Tech, MSc., Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Tech
64. Valerie Hodgson, Dip Ed, B. Ed,(Deakin Aust)
65. Bevan Dockery, B.Sc.(Hons) UWA, Graduate Diploma in Computing WAIT, retired geophysicist
66. J. Kevin Humphrey, BE UNSW, BSc(Hons 1) PhD(Theoretical Physics) University of London 1984
67. Geoffrey Houston, PhD (Physics). Monash University.
68. Richard Sherratt MA(Cantab) – 1970
69. John Hill, MA (Cantab) in Mechanical Sciences. M.Eng.Sc. (UNSW) in Nuclear Engineering.
70. Leon Azar, Pharmaceutical Chemist ( retired unregistered) B Econ (U of Queensland)
71. Alexander Kendall, Dip Tchg from Massey University (NZ) plus a Trained Teacher Certificate
72. John Jennings, BSc Optometry, LOSc
73. Geoff Derrick, PhD Geology
74. Michael Fry, PhD Science (University of Sydney)
75. Ian Hillier, MB.,BS [UNSW 1979].
76. Charl Morkel, B.Com (UWA 1997), MBA Adv. (UWA 2005)
77. Jeffrey A. Casey, Ph.D. (Plasma Physics, 1985, University of Colorado, Boulder)
President, Rockfield Research Inc., Nevada, USA
78. David Cooke, B.Sc(Hons.) University of Melbourne 1973
79. Max Roberts, BSc (1988), PhD (1991) psychology, University of Nottingham
80. Trygve Eklund, (Norway) PhD MSc BSc MBA
81. Robert G. White, BSc (Physics and Maths)(University of Melbourne)
82. Michael Seward B Eng, MRINA, Naval Architect
83. Selwyn Ellis, B Agr Sci Grad Dip App Sci (Computing).
84. Pam Hilliar BSc (Wits)
85. John Karajas B. Sc (Hons)
86. Tony Armstrong, BSC geology and Geography (1998), University of Wollongong
87. Andrew W Grubb B.Eng. (Mining) (1978)
88. Steve Herczeg, BSc (1986) (Applied Mathematics and Computer Science) – Adelaide University
89. Andrew McRae, B.InfTech (University of Queensland, 1999).
90. David R Axup, BA Grad Dip [Highway & Traffic Eng]
91. Chip Nichols, BSc., Msc. Geology
92. Kenneth D Rohrlach, B.Sc. (Physics and Applied Maths), B. Ed. St., Dip. Ed.
93. Ian Bock, BSc, PhD, DSc (Qld)
94. Rodney Fripp M.Phil, Ph.D. Geologist
95. Jason Bresnehan, Bachelor of Business, Certified Practising Marketer
96. Hilary Ostrov, BA (English and Psychology) University of Western Ontario (1971)
97. Fergus O’Brien, BSc, MenvM, Geologist
98. Lindsay Ball, B.Sc., Psychology and Computing, University of Queensland, 1986.
99. Bernd Felsche, B.E. (Mech.) (UWA 1982)
100. Todd Martin, M.Eng., P.Eng, P.Geo., Geotechnical Engineer
101. Colin Andrews, B.E.(Mech) University of Wollongong.
102. Alice Thermopolis, MSc(Lond) DIC BSc(Hons) BA MAusIMM AIIA(WA)
103. Phillip Bratby, BSc (physics), PhD, ARCS
104. Ronald Van Wegen, Bachelor of Applied Science, Science Information Services, Deakin University
105. Ian Plimer, BSc (Hons), PhD, FTSE, Hon FGS
106. Jason Cherry, BSc (Geology), MSc (Geology), Monash University, Victoria, Australia
107. Val Spencer, teacher Librarian, BA, Dip Ed
108. Stuart Huggett, B.Arch
109. Michael J Woods, BSc, BCom
110. Peter Horne, BA (hons) Law, Nottingham
111. Robert J Massey, POATC Royal Australian Navy (retired) Electronics Engineering Cert (1983)
112. Gregory K. Young, Bachelor of Teaching, Adult Education, Royal Australian Army-Retired
113. Bernd Palmer, Master of Science ETH (Switzerland)
60
Privileged to have the chance to protest against these kindergarten efforts.
Please add my name.
James M Stewart, BSc in Mech Eng from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh (19721).
80
Apologies on the stuttery date – make it 1971
50
This post by Christopher Monckton is terrible. As a blog post, perhaps that’s forgivable. However, the letter is bad as well, and that is not forgivable.
[Steady on Brandon. Christopher has replied below. I replied to your email as fast as I could, though I see you didn’t wait. – Jo]
There are two key problems I want to highlight. First, the letter states:
This is an argument any skeptic should be ashamed of. It makes a serious claim, that 23 of 64 ratings were wrong. It offers no support for this save a reference to a paper the ink hasn’t even dried on.
[Yes, the paper is fully peer reviewed and published before they do blog posts and letters, as is fit. Others issue the press releases months before the paper is even out. – Jo]
That’s the same behavior used to dismiss criticisms raised by skeptics time and time again. The similarity goes beyond that though as Monckton was an author of the paper he cites. He conveniently fails to mention the self-citation, giving the impression it is independent work.
[I posted on the Legates paper yesterday. I think most readers here are very aware. – Jo]
To make the similarities even more striking, Legates et al is paywalled, and it doesn’t show its work so people can check for themselves. It simply says:
[The problem with paywalls is not Monckton and Legates fault. You only had to ask for the data… -Jo]
And that’s it. They don’t give examples of incorrect classifications. They don’t provide a list of incorrect classifications. They don’t even give any indication how they decided which were misclassified. Monckton is citing his own work which does nothing but wave its hands.
[The Legates paper is nearly 20 pages long, presumably they had to draw a line at what should be included, and also presumably they would be happy to provide that data upon request. – Jo
There’s also a funny note. while Monckton criticizes Cook et al for conflating different definitions of the “consensus,” Legates et al conflates “abstracts” and “papers.” Cook et al rated abstracts. The first sentence in the quote above discusses abstracts. The next sentence suddenly and inexplicably discusses papers. There’s no reason for such a transition, but it happens more than once.
The second key problem is Monckton’s letter fabricates a claim. It says:
This is untrue. None of the categories “rejected [every] definition of ‘scientific consensus.'” This was discussed quite a bit when Cook et al was first published, and it’s immediately obvious if one looks at the rating guidelines. For example, category seven, “Explicit rejection with quantification,” has this in its guideline:
A paper which explicitly states humans are causing less than half of global warming does not need to reject the “consensus” that “Man ha[s] caused some warming.” As lucia said over at The Blackboard:
Three paragraphs in Monckton’s letter are predicated upon an idea so obviously wrong one would notice simply by reading the guidelines used in the Cook et al rating system. It’s ridiculous that error was made.
And it’s disgraceful hundreds of people have signed this letter without anyone pointing it out.
[Calm down Brandon. Next time why not wait for a reply to emails, before your toss out terms like “fabrication” and “disgusting”? Legates, Soon, and Briggs as well as Monckton have indeed, gone through those abstracts. I have seen some of the examples myself, and heard from skeptics whose papers were mischaracterized by Cook et al. – Jo]
312
Hey Brandon,
Thanks for the considered response. It could have done without the emotive close, always better to finish with a “did anyone else notice or have any comments” gets a debate going which is always a good thing.
Anyway could you please let me know do you believe that 97% of scientists believe that man is mainly responsible for global warming? Which is where this paper was going to be used in the MSM as it seems that the 97% number just keeps popping up.
30
PaulW, I’m not sure I agree about the emotive close. Hundreds of people have signed this letter, and it has been promoted by two prominent skeptic bloggers. If I hadn’t said anything, it’s likely nobody would have. That disturbs me, and I think it merits harsh criticism.
As for your question about what I believe other people believe, I don’t see the relevance. My personal views have no bearing on whether or not Monckton’s letter contains a glaring error that shows a lack of understanding of the basics of the Cook et al rating system. They also have no bearing on the fact it appears hundreds of people signed onto this letter without doing the simplest of fact checking. As far as I can tell, they have no bearing on anything.
That said, a key component of the Legates et al paper and Monckton’s letter was first discussed by me, months before either was written. I’ve also written more about the Cook et al paper than almost anyone else, and nothing I’ve written about it has been positive. That should tell you all you need to know.
23
Right, sooo…. sour grapes about not being consulted or acknowledged, basically.
You’ve analysed the paper, you know the “97% consensus” is trash.
Richard Tol analysed the paper, he also found that it’s trash.
Legates et al analysed the paper, they found the “97% consensus” is trash.
Three people apparently operating independently using the only data available from Cook have all found the paper is trash. They aren’t all wrong. Even Monckton a la Legates says correctly that…
…which is enough for the paper to qualify as trash.
Yeah, we didn’t all individually analyse the paper or the cover letter, we signed a petition to have ERL take out the trash. That’s based on the numbers that don’t add up to 97% no matter how you slice it. If we’re generous and don’t count the “Uncertains” nor “No Opinions” at all while also assuming Legates et al is wrong about the misclassifications, based on the summary table the Cook & Co’s CAGW consensus is
64÷(922+2910+54+15+9)= 1.6%support. That’s not even close to 87% let alone 97%. The final judgement is unchanged.If there is any chance the cover letter is going to be dismissed on a technicality I suggest you get in touch with Monckton and help clean up the analysis in the letter, perhaps in exchange for some public acknowledgement of your prior efforts. Surely you would be keen for the same goal to be achieved : to remove the fake consensus paper from ERL?
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Andrew McRae, getting things wrong weakens the case being made. Criticizing false claims made to support an argument is a way to strengthen that argument. I don’t know why you’d think my call for people to get basic facts right indicates sour grapes. If this letter had been written accurately and fairly, I wouldn’t have said a word save to add my support.
On the issue of acknowledgment, I don’t care much about that. It’s interesting to consider what may have happened if I hadn’t “got the ball rolling,” but nothing I found was hard to spot. It took no special work or skill. The fact I found what anyone could have found, just sooner, means little to me.
13
I would say that’s fairly obvious from the very public and unprofessional way you have raised your “concerns”.
10
Why do people keep saying “public” like it’s a bad thing? How is it bad to publicly point out mistakes that were made in public?
I’ve posted about mistakes in blog posts on Climate Audit. I done the same at The Blackboard. I’ve even done it at Skeptical Science. Not a one has ever suggested I should have raised my concerns privately. Skeptical Science has banned me for it, but all of them have agreed it is fine to point out mistakes in blog posts in the comments section of those blog posts.
10
Public would be fine if you didn’t have the demeanor of an attack dog and an attitude of “I’m right and you are wrong”.
00
If public would be fine, why did you raise the issue of my comment being made in public? Is it just the combination of my demeanor and it being in public? If so, would that mean my demeanor would have been fine in private?
10
Brandon Shollenberger, one of the very few trolls on this thread, quibbles about the letter to the editor and board of Environmental Research Litter asking them to withdraw the gravely misleading “97.1% consensus” paper when the true percentage of the authors, sample of 11,944 abstracts was 0.5% (if one counts all 64 of the abstracts marked by the authors of the paper as endorsing the notion that most of the global warming since 1950 was anthropogenic), or 0.3% (if one excludes the 23 that were miscategorised). If Mr. Shollenberger is genuinely interested, let him email me and ask for the annex that explains why we considered the 23 to have been miscategorized, rather than simply assuming aprioristically that there is something wrong with our finding. Professor Richard Tol, in his own independent examination of the “97.1% consensus” paper, has emailed to say he, too, has found that about a third of the papers were miscategorised.
Mr. Shollenberger quibbles that Legates et al., of which I was a co-author, used the terms “abstracts” and “papers” interchangeably. Certainly it would have been preferable if we had adhered to “abstracts” throughout, but nothing turns on this infelicity of nomenclature. Our result was based on abstracts throughout.
He raises a further quibble by saying that we ought not to have assumed that the 69 papers that implicitly or explicitly rejected (without quantification) the notion that we caused any global warming rejected “any definition of ‘scientific consensus’”. Given that the two relevant definitions of “scientific consensus” in the “97.1% consensus” paper and ours were that most of the warming since 1850 was our fault and that some warming was our fault, it necessarily follows that those who implicitly or explicitly rejected the notion that we caused any global warming also rejected the notion that we caused most of the warming.
He raises yet another quibble by saying we ought not to have counted the 7 abstracts that explicitly rejected the notion that we caused most of the warming since 1950 as also implicitly rejecting the notion that we caused any warming. Yet again, his point is manifestly – indeed, absurdly – irrelevant to our result, which focused upon the question how many abstracts out of 11,944 reviewed by the authors of the “97.1% consensus” paper explicitly endorsed the notion that we caused most of the warming since 1950. It should perhaps be transparent even to Mr. Shollenberger that the 7 abstracts explicitly rejecting the notion that we caused most of the warming since 1950 could not by any stretch even of the most Communistic imagination be assumed to have endorsed that notion, whether explicitly or implicitly.
Yet Mr. Shollenberger is entirely silent about the elephant in the room: the false and misleading claim in the “97.1% consensus” paper that 97.1% of all abstracts expressing an opinion endorsed the notion that we caused most of the warming since 1950 when – at most – 64 out of 4014, or 1.6%, did so. Is he, perhaps, parti pris?
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Please take a look at my comment at 182. Sorry, I should have done this as a reply, not a new comment.
10
Mr Shollenberger’s pedantry is of similar significance to that of the observations of wiggles in the “global temperature” curve.
What he identified has no consequence on the crux of the matter; that an obviously bogus piece of literature has snuck its way into publication of what is supposed to be a journal of repute. And it’s not the 1st of April!
Anyway, Monckton of Brenchley, it’s getting late but I draw your attention to some light entertainment for your enjoyment; A War Story. Maybe you can find yourself immersed in the story. 😉
40
I said Monckton offered an evidenceless claim and got a basic wrong in an obvious way. Monckton’s response is to label me a troll:
[Your comment was made with
malice, and notout good will. That Monckton mistook you for a troll was hardly surprising – Jo]I said Monckton made a claim that had no evidence for it. His response was what I’d expect to hear from a member of the hockey stick team:
First, he says if someone wants evidence, they should e-mail the authors of the paper. Skeptics have long called for the archiving of data, but the moment I point out Legates et al didn’t do so, I get labeled a troll. On top of this, Monckton falsely portrays me as assuming there is something wrong with Legates et al’s finding. That is the straw man tactic used to dismiss skeptics who point out aspects of climate science are unverifiable.
[You call his claims “false” and “fabricated” and you pretend that you are not declaring Legates et al findings wrong before you’ve seen their workings? There is no straw man here. – Jo]
Then Monckton does the unbelievable, doubling down on the false claim in his letter:
This is simply begging the question. He says categories five and six must reject any definition of the scientific consensus because they “implicitly rejected the notion we caused any global warming.” In other words, “I’m right because I’m right.” Only, he’s not right. I quoted a guideline for category seven showing it does not do what he claim he does. Monckton’s tacitly accepts I was right about that. However, his response acts like the example I gave was exclusive. It wasn’t. I simply didn’t quote every category. The guidelines for categories five and six are in line with what I quoted. I’ll quote them now:
Neither of these rejects the idea humans have caused warming. That means none of the categories do, and anyone who read the rating guidelines would know it. Despite being challenged on the issue, Monckton is still supporting a blatantly untrue claim.
There’s more wrong with Monckton’s response, but that alone is enough. The “sides” of this discussion are simple. You can support Monckton’s blatant misrepresentations and call me a troll, or you can accept Monckton is being a terrible advocate for your cause. While you think about that, consider whether you’re content with comments like this:
I directly challenged Monckton on the fact he relied upon unverifiable work and got a basic fact wrong. He suggests I’m prejudiced because I didn’t say I agree with the overall conclusion. That is exactly the behavior I expect from global warming activists. From skeptics, I expect simple criticisms to be addressed on their merits without concern for whether or not a party line was toed.
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Mr. Shollenberger now says he offered evidence that I had gotten a basic fact wrong, but, as he now knows, I had gotten no fact wrong. He now says I made an unevidenced claim, but, as he now knows, the evidence is available, and is independently supported. He compares me with the fabricators of the “hockey stick”, who did not make their evidence available, but, as he now knows, we do make our evidence available. He has only to ask for it, but – significantly – has not asked. He should not have made any issue of it unless he had asked and had been refused, as he would have been if he had asked Mann & Co. for their data. He says I am wrong to assert that those who explicitly or implicitly deny we caused any global warming must also deny we caused most of the global warming since 1950, but, as he now knows, I am self-evidently correct in this. His futile, troll-like quibbling does not in any material respect alter the correctness of our analysis or the incorrectness of the “97.1% consensus” paper. And that, whether he likes it or not, is the main point.
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Monckton’s latest response to me is disturbing as it says things like:
I know nothing of the sort. I offered direct quotes and explanations explaining my claim. They have not been disputed, much less refuted. I suppose Monckton’s mind-reading skills may let him know what I know better than I do, but unless he has ESP, he’s full of it.
I never said what Monckton claims I said. The reason I never said it is it’d be an insane thing to say. Monckton is painting me as nuts based on things that were only said in his imagination.
What I actually said is none of the categories deny we caused any global warming. I’ve quoted the guidelines for all three categories labeled “Reject AGW,” and in each case, the guidelines allowed for some amount of anthropogenic induced global warming. Monckton’s depiction of what I’ve said is a total fabrication.
Monckton is raising criticisms that have no basis in reality, much less anything I’ve ever said. People who endorse this letter, blatant misrepresentation of the Cook et al rating system and all, endorse this sort of behavior. And person after person who looks at this letter will see them as endorsing it.
If you’re okay with people simply making things up in order to criticize those they disagree with, by all means, endorse this letter. If you think accuracy and truth matter, don’t endorse it. Or at least be conditional with your endorsement.
But be careful. Say anything other than total agreement with the party line, and it might be labeled “futile, troll-like quibbling.”
45
Mr. Shollenberger tries to maintain that I had fundamentally misunderstood the “97.1% consensus” paper’s “levels of endorsement” of the “scientific consensus”. No.
One of the authors had said the true comparison was between their categories 1 (64 papers marked by them or 41 marked by us as explicitly endorsing the “scientific consensus” that most of the warming since 1950 was manmade) and 7 (9 abstracts marked by them as explicitly repudiating the “scientific consensus” thus defined). No.
Their categories 5 and 6 (69 abstracts marked by them as explicitly or implicitly rejecting the “scientific consensus” without saying how much warming we had caused) also amount – self-evidently and a fortiori – to rejection of the “scientific consensus” that most of the warming since 1950 was our fault. It’s as simple as that.
Mr. Shollenberger now says he had done some of the research I had done before I had done it. Perhaps this circumstance accounts for his petulant intemperance. However, I was and remain unfamiliar with his research and should be interested to see a reference to the reviewed paper in which it was published.
Perhaps Mr. Shollenberger should quit while he is behind. His quibbles impress none but himself.
52
Berd Felsche offers a dumbfounding response:
In other words, the error doesn’t “matter.” How many times have climate scientists responded to criticisms like this? What is the argument here? Are people seriously suggesting it doesn’t matter if a letter hundreds of people sign gets basic facts wrong?
Skepticism is supposed to be about accuracy and critical analysis. Why then do people resist it? How many untrue things could Monckton say before you care? How many untrue things can a letter say before you decide you won’t support it?
Me? I could never sign a letter that gets a simple fact so obviously wrong. In addition to errors like that being bad, I’d have to worry I’d look like a fool when people read the letter. And if people who sign the letter look like fools, how successful do you think that letter will be? All anyone here is doing is giving ammunition to the people would defend Cook et al.
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Don’t want to sign the letter, Brandon?
Well guess what, sweetheart. Nobody cares.
(Maybe your mom does. Go tell your mom you’re not going to sign the letter. She’ll be very proud of you.
Your mom will be even more proud of you when you get a job and move out of her basement)
—————————————–
Unfortunately I fear Brandon personally dislikes Monckton and has let that cloud his judgement. It is a shame he seems unable to write dispassionately on this topic. – Jo
UPDATE: To be fair. Brandon disagrees on both counts, and insists he just wants to improve the letter and has no personal grievance.
32
I wonder if Brandon is aware of whom Lord Monckton does this for – namely the rights of the poor, to be a part of civilisation in an affordable manner.
Brandon is mouthing off to please himself, and God knows who else he might be trying to impress
Whoever that might be, Brandon isn’t doing a good job of it
32
Shollenberger:
No; those are your words. I wrote that they are of no consequence on the crux of the matter.
You’ve posited possibly how you misinterpreted a fairly simple statement as a strawman.
One cannot be perfect in the real world. It’s important to accept that actions that are simply less wrong are often appropriate at the time. It may not be the best that one could ever do, but procrastination and pursuit of perfection consume irreplaceable time.
Not all errors are disasters. You ask “How many untrue things could Monckton say before you care?”
I confess that I do not know any absolute truths. But if you mean errors; then the minimum number of errors is one; if that error is significant in compromising the primary objective, but n→∞ for other errrors.
Shollenberger:
We’ll see what happens when they read your perfect letter, arguing without fault or possible misinterpretation, the reasons why the journal should withdraw the bogus paper by Cook. You have written one, haven’t you? I don’t see you mention that you have … I may have overlooked it. Will you stand by and by your silence, allow the atrocity to persist?
50
What “error”?
31
They should IMHO, say “abstracts” and not “papers”. Even though Cook, et al. appear to have used the terms interchangeably in their paper.
I’m not fussed either way. I agree with what the letter says. The substance of the letter remains unchanged.
20
Mr Monckton,
I’m sure we all have the ability to get over the fact there’s a mistake in the cover letter which doesn’t significantly influence the final answer. However the goal we’re aiming for, and the purpose of these 130+ people signing the petition, is to get the false consensus paper retracted. Considering the type of people behind the consensus that this is aimed towards they will use any excuse, no matter how trifling, to justify ignoring the petition – and perhaps making imputations about all the co-signatories. The letter has to be unassailable. When it falls to one of “our side” on Day -3 it is not going to last long in the hands of The Team on Day +1.
Can you please fix up the relevant paragraphs? It is easy.
First I’ll establish the error, then I will make a suggestion on how repairs can be made.
[Technical note: the math symbols should display with a complete version of the Arial, Verdana, DejaVu Serif, or FreeSerif fonts.]
The category guidelines by Cook et al are:
In a mixture of predicate logic and Z-specification notation, the universe of discourse is:
Cause = {NATURAL, INDUSTRIAL}
Attribution ∈ ( (Paper × TemperatureTrend × Cause) ⇸ {r∈ℝ|0<=r<=1 } ): “r is the fraction of TemperatureTrend attributed to a Cause by the Paper.”
∃TT ∈ TemperatureTrend : “TT is the linear trend since 1950.”
Eliding the existentials and relation brackets for brevity, I parse Cook’s definitions to mean:
Attribution(p,TT,NATURAL) > ½ ⇒ Level(p)=5
Attribution(p,TT,INDUSTRIAL) < ½ ⇒ Level(p)=6
(∃w ∈ {r∈ℝ|0<=r<½} : Attribution(p,TT,INDUSTRIAL) = w ) ⇒ Level(p)=7
The disputed paragraph in the letter is:
The disputed sentence parses as:
Level(p)=5 ⇒ Attribution(p,TT,INDUSTRIAL)=0 ^ |{p∈Paper : Level(p)=5}|=54
^ Level(p)=6 ⇒ Attribution(p,TT,INDUSTRIAL)=0 ^ |{p∈Paper : Level(p)=6}|=15
^ Level(p)=7 ⇒ Attribution(p,TT,INDUSTRIAL)=0 ^ |{p∈Paper : Level(p)=7}|=9
A disproof of any conjoined operand is sufficient, and noting the switch from left-closed interval to open interval, therefore:
(∃w ∈ {r∈ℝ|0<r<½} : Attribution(p,TT,INDUSTRIAL)=w ) ⇒ Level(p)=7 ⇏ Attribution(p,TT,INDUSTRIAL)=0
In words, attributing a warming of greater than zero but less than half of the trend to anthropogenic influence implies Level 7, which contradicts the disputed sentence.
Consider the above logic submitted for both peer and Peer review.
I’m not completely happy having my name on the list while the above minor error remains uncorrected, not because it affects the judgement of the consensus paper significantly but because it risks the objective of the exercise.
I’m sure either you or Mr Shollenberger will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe a repaired statement would be:
The summary bullet point:
…remains correct as long as the misclassifications alleged by the Legates paper are fair interpretations. At this point I’m prepared to take that on trust because a consensus of 1.6% smells as bad as 1%.
In less formal terms, as we say in the Commonwealth… Is it a goer?
40
While one is always delighted to see mathematical logic exercised, it must of course be applied in a wide enough realm. Mr McRae’s analysis unfortunately concentrates only on three of the “levels of endorsement” in Cook et al. (2013), excluding others that are relevant, and concentrates only on the long form of all three rather than on the long and short forms.
True, the long forms of categories 5 and 6 are intended to include papers that imply (5) or state (6) that humans have either a minimal impact or no impact. However, the short forms, “Implicit rejection” and “Explicit rejection without quantification”, plainly indicate that the authors intended these categories to be regarded as rejecting any form of consensus to the effect that humans exercise any effect sufficient to cause the climate to change.
Antithetical to categories 5 and 6 are categories 2 and 3, which are intended to include papers which state (2) or imply (3) that humans are causing an unquantified global warming that is sufficient to cause climate change. The short forms are “Explicit endorsement without quantification” (2) and “implicit endorsement” (3).
Categories 1 and 7 are also intended to be antithetical to one another. These categories are intended to include papers that state that humans are (1) or are not (7) the primary cause of recent global warming. In fact, however, category 7 allows the possibility that humans might have caused as much as half the recent global warming (but not more than half), while it is categories 5 and 6 that do not allow any such possibility. Indeed, if they did allow that possibility, the survey would be meaningless: for it was plainly intended that the categories should be both mutually exclusive and comprehensive, so that each paper was assigned only to a single category and no paper went uncategorized.
Examination of the abstracts in categories 5-7 confirms the interpretation that is given in the letter and is explicit in the short forms of the category specifications: that papers in these categories implicitly or explicitly reject any consensus that warming caused by humans is of sufficient magnitude to cause any climate change. The letter correctly states, therefore, that the 78 papers in categories 5-7 “rejected any definition of ‘scientific consensus’”.
I shall, of course, be happy to remove Mr. McRae’s name from the list of subscribers if he is not content with this clarification.
21
Mr Monckton, I’ve considered your reply for some time now and, while there is much I could say about your attempted clarification, let’s just cut to the chase. I’m prepared to be pragmatic on this issue.
I’ve had a change of heart.
You may leave my name on the signatures list because I support the action you are trying to bring about.
I’m satisfied that the grounds for retraction are strong by the survey data summary table and the numerous statements you make in the letter which remain correct, and I wish you the best of luck with the success of this petition.
10
Andrew McRae, thanks for getting Monckton to finally acknowledge the basic fact that the guidelines contradict his description. I note he claims the guidelines simply don’t fit what was actually done, saying an “[e]xamination of the abstracts in categories 5-7 confirms the interpretation that is given in the letter.” In case you didn’t already know this, I should point out this is false. I’ll quote from the first of the nine abstracts (Zhao, Xb 2011) in category seven I saw when I looked them up:
This paper says nothing to dispute the idea humans are causing some amount of warming. Their focus was upon whether or not humans are causing most of the warming.* This is the strongest category of “Reject AGW,” and it doesn’t dispute AGW in the slightest.
As for your proposed changes, they look right. The issue of this error was never that it’d change conclusions. The issue was simply that it was such a glaring error and nobody caught it. No matter how one feels about my choice of language, hundreds of people signing onto a letter with an error that knowledgeable people will catch instantaneously is definitely a problem.
*Technically, it wasn’t. This paper is arguably misclassified. It’s focus was on whether or not anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the primary cause of global warming. Because that leaves out things like methane emissions and land use changes, it does not speak directly to the issue at hand.
32
[Brandon feels strongly that these moderated comments should be published. I think it adds little to our understanding of flaws in Cooks paper, but if anyone is looking for evidence of why emotional language in comments wastes time, here’s another case study… – Jo]
Jo, I find inline comments difficult to respond to, but I’ll try. First, a couple of your responses are nonsensical. You say:
I wrote this comment before e-mailing you. I decided to e-mail you as an afterthought. To me, the public discussion of the issues I have is what mattered.
More importantly, you’re responding to things I didn’t say. You say I used terms like “fabrication” and “disgusting,” but I didn’t use either term (I did say “fabricates”). You then say Legates et al. “have indeed, gone through those abstracts,” implying I’ve claimed otherwise. I haven’t. I haven’t said anything of the sort. It’s cheeky to tell someone to calm down while misrepresenting what they say as more overwrought than it actually was.
This is a largely meaningless point. Even if every person who signed onto this letter knew Monckton was an author of Legates at al, it doesn’t change the fact his participation in it is hidden from the people being sent the letter. As the recipients, they’re the ones who matter most.
I know if I received a letter which cited only one source for an argument, I’d be unhappy to not be told that source was a self-citation.
The problem I raised is not that Legates et al is wrong. It’s that Legates et al didn’t make their work verifiable. This is the exact same issue skeptics have raised time and time again – data should be archived and methodology should be described well enough to replicate results.
It is strange to write a letter relying on work that fails to meet the standards of the people signing that letter. And quite frankly, if it’s right for skeptics to criticize climate scientists on this issue, it is right for me to criticize Legates et al on this issue.
There are alternatives that let authors avoid paywalls, but I can accept not using them. What I cannot accept is people who make claims without showing their work.
I’ve heard this exact argument before. Rather than dwell on it, I’ll just point out there’s the option of putting these things in a Supplementary Information document. Or you could archive it in any number of other ways.
Regardless, they shouldn’t get to say 23 of 64 papers were misclassified and just have people accept them at their word. Convincing people of claims should require presenting them the evidence for those claims.
——————————————————-
Brandon, I’m not sure you want me to publish this. Perhaps you’d prefer to rewrite it. I will publish if you like, but my reply will be like this: “the problem here is your assumption of gross incompetence before you even give people a chance to respond. You assume Monckton and the other authors have done a bad job, before you see his data. You say he “fabricates a claim”, then pretend you are not accusing him of “fabricating” something. (Is there any other word than inane?) That Monckton mistook you for a troll is hardly surprising. You declare commenters behaviour (and mine) is “disgraceful”, which I accidentally wrote as “disgusting” (sorry) — but is there a difference? Not really. You say my responses are “nonsensical” because you wrote
with malice (intent to denigrate)[without any goodwill, (I accept Brandon did not intend harm)] on my blog, then wrote in a politer tone later in a private email to me. I mistakenly thought your politer comment was sent first and with the right sentiment of getting the facts before reaching a conclusion. Was I stupid to assume you had manners? I certainly haven’t misrepresented anything you wrote. A more useful comment would have been: “It would have been better if Monckton and Legates could have put more of their workings and data into a supplementary file”. “I wish they’d published in an open publication”. You would have generated discussion about the pros and cons. I have added your details to the moderation filter as I would with any commenter likely to make defamatory statements of “fabricating” and “hiding” — it’s over-the-top language. Obviously we’ll approve constructive, polite comments. – Jo10
Jo, I do want you to publish it my response to you. However, I’d advise you reconsider your intended response to it. You say:
I have done nothing of the sort. I haven’t said a word to suggest I think Legates et al did a bad job. I haven’t done anything to indicate I believe there was gross incompetence.
[You quote Monckton on legates and said” This is an argument any skeptic should be ashamed of.” You go on to criticize the paper for omitting evidence you want included. You said Moncktons letter (which makes the same claims as the paper) was “evidenceless”. You’ve said plenty of words. I don’t think we ought keep spending time anaylzing word definitions. It doesn’t look like we’re going to get anywhere. – Jo ]
I did not “pretend [I am] not accusing him of ‘fabricating’ something.” All I did was say you quoted me as saying “fabrication” when I hadn’t. You’re massively overstating what was simply a correction of your inaccurate quotations.
I did not write with malice. Malice is not merely the intent to denigrate. Malice is acting with ill will or being evil. Nothing I said was made with either. One can be highly critical of people and things without holding ill will for them.
[I’ll take you at your word, no malice intended. I’ve struck it out from the published comment. Apologies. – Jo]
Regardless of what you think about my tone, you are focusing on a minor issue I raised while ignoring the issue I explicitly said was more important. Namely, I said (a couple, not all of) your responses were nonsensical because “you’re responding to things I didn’t say.” Specifically, you implied I had said Legates et al hadn’t “gone through those abstracts.” I hadn’t said anything of the sort. So when you now say:
You’re wrong. You misrepresented what I said about Legates et al in your first response, you’re misrepresenting it again in this response, and you misrepresented it in your e-mail to me.
[I implied something, and you haven’t convinced me it was wrong. – Jo]
If that’s all I had said, I wouldn’t have discussed one of the two key points I raised. That would be the key point you haven’t discussed a single time: that Monckton fabricated a claim about the Cook et al rating system. I have demonstrated this beyond any doubt, and you have simply ignored it.
[I didn’t ignore it. I pointed out Monckton has his own classification system. My point was not that you “only had two points”, but that if you want people to discuss anything scientific I recommend you stop insulting the paper authors and every commenter here. AS for the claim about the categories, Monckton has answered it once, McRae developed, Monckton has answered that. The problem is the definition of “consensus” and the tests, the Cook paper is a mess of contradictions — with Table 2 having contradictions between category labels, category descriptions and examples. No wonder people find it hard to discuss. I’m clarifying things behind the scenes. The fact the Cook categories imply the paper is about “Mostly man-made warming” when the abstract and PR is about a weak consensus (which virtually every category description could at some level possibly still agree with) shows what a pathetic paper Cooks is. – Jo ]
I haven’t said a word about anyone hiding anything so I’m not sure why you listed that word, but go ahead.
[You said: ” it doesn’t change the fact his participation in it is hidden from the people being sent the letter.” -Jo]
However, if defamatory statements are cause for moderation, I advise you to apply it to the people who make them about me as well.
In any event, publish or delete my comments as you want. Just stop repeating this nonsense that I’ve said anything about Legates et al being bad or assuming they exhibited gross incompetence.
[It’s not nonsense, but I’ll stop repeating it because this conversation is stopping me from doing something useful. – Jo]
[BRandon, I had hoped you’d recognise the inflammatory nature, even if that was not your intent, be conciliatory about your lack of diplomacy, and we might actually discuss your ideas without all the negative emotional language. It appears that is unlikely, and this has devolved into a tit for tat over he said she said on a blog comment here or there, and even my readers won’t be interested — let alone the rest of the world. I thought you might want to step above, acknowledge that your language is accusatory, and no goodwill is evident. This comment and the one before between you and I don’t add much to a scientific discussion. – Jo]
10
[Brandon didn’t expect this to go up, it is in response to a long discussion, so out of context, that he and I are having within the moderation filter. Apologies to Brandon, I partly entered the mod details incorrectly, thus catching some but not all. – Jo]
Jo, I only made three comments remotely critical of Legates et al. 1) It’s paywalled. I find that annoying, but it obviously has no relevance to the quality of their work. 2) They conflated “abstracts” and “papers.” It’s possible that reflects a conflation in their analysis, but it’s more likely the paper just needed better editing. 3) They didn’t provide any evidence for their claims. I find it disturbing they didn’t make it possible for people to check their work. That doesn’t say their work is bad. It says it is unverifiable.
You told me to calm down. You claimed I acted out of malice. You claimed I hold some deep grudge against Monckton. All the while, you consistently painted me a as a fool by claiming I say Legates et al are wrong when all I’ve said is their work is unverified (and simply accepting unverified work as true is something skeptics should be ashamed of). You suggest “we’re [not] going to get anywhere.” I agree as long as you keep creating straw men which make me look bad.
No you did not. You never said this. And it isn’t even true. Monckton’s letter said abstracts were misclassified. That necessarily requires his claim be referring to the Cook et al rating system. One cannot sensibly argue an abstract was misclassified because a different classification system gives different results.
And Monckton’s answer was wrong, as his other answers have been. McRae’s comment was accurate, reasonable, and if Monckton accepted it, everyone would be better off. McRae shows how minor a correction the error would require. It wouldn’t weaken any argument. All it would do is not give ammunition to people who want to stop people from paying attention to this issue:
Because that’s what matters.
I did. To me there is a distinction between something being hidden and a person hiding something. The latter implies intent while the former can be inadvertent. It’s unimportant though so I don’t object to your characterization.
I do acknowledge my comments were made with an inflammatory tone. I acknowledged it in my first follow-up comment when I told PaulW I believe harsh criticism was merited. I don’t see it as a bad thing. I wouldn’t make inflammatory comments if this blog didn’t freely allow them. A quick look at the responses to me shows I’m not out of line. Nobody is else being criticized for inflammatory tones.
Here’s the thing. You made inline responses to me that break up the flow of my comment and make it more difficult for readers to tell what I actually said. Some of these in-line responses insult me. I’ve tried to argue these insults are wrong. Your response has been to use moderation to stop me. That means you’re using your moderation capabilities to publicly insult me while limiting people’s ability to see my side of the dispute.
You could delete this entire exchange, delete your inline responses, and things would be fine. You could add a moderation note saying you think my tone was inappropriate and ask others to not use the same. That’d be fine too.
But you can’t insult me, allow others to insult me, use moderation to prevent me from responding to criticism those insults are based on then complain about my behavior.
35
Huh. I was told my comments were flagged for moderation so this one shouldn’t have appeared. It must seem really weird given it’s in response to an exchange that’s in moderation.
15
Mr. Trollenberger has been treated with great forbearance, though he has wasted a remarkable amount of everyone’s time with futile inconsequentialities. If he had wanted to see our analysis of the 64 abstracts showing that 23 of them had been misclassified he could have asked for it. But no: he bangs on and on and on about its alleged non-availability when it is in fact available, as he has been repeatedly told it is.
If he had wanted to make a genuine point about our use of the term “papers” on one or two occasions when he would have preferred “abstracts”, he would have accepted my early acknowledgement that “abstracts” might have been preferable, though his point self-0evidently makes not the slightest difference to our result: but no, he bangs on and on and on about it as though it mattered.
And he persists in trying to maintain that there was an error in my letter, when it ought to be abundantly clear to him by now that there is no such error. Certainly he has not been able (or, if able, willing) to answer my detailed explanation in response to Mr. McRae’s far more politely-expressed point on the same subject. Instead, like a bad-tempered child, he yells, “you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re WRONG!”, over and over and over again, but without addressing any of the cogent arguments that have been put before him in patient answer to his erroneous but oft-repeated suggestion.
Also, in wasting everyone’s time he has not been courteous, and he has blubbed when he has been called to account for his childish bad manners.
Finally, he has provided a series of fine demonstrations of precisely the calculatedly misleading equivocation that – with him or without him – we are now going to root out from the defective “97.1% consensus” paper.
His culpable silence about the manifest and serious defects in that paper stands in painful and disfiguring contrast with his persistent, purposeless whining about the imagined (indeed, imaginary) defects in my letter, as though he were a gaggle of teenagers upon being told that Justin Dribbler would not after all be appearing at their pop concert. His strange and disproportionate behaviour raises legitimate doubts about whether he genuinely seeks the objective truth.
54
Monckton’s comments about me have been extremely inappropriate (certainly as bad as anything I’ve had moderated), and I’ve taken to mostly ignoring them. However, he’s managed to offend me by suggesting I am somehow responsible (culpable) for Cook et al’s continued existence:
If this sort of offensive comment can be leveled against me without anyone minding, I’m clearly not welcome in this crowd. Before I let you force me out though, I’ll share a bit of “objective truth” with you.
Approximately a day after Cook et al’s paper came out, I made a blog post criticizing it for making an untrue claim and showing an author of the paper had contradicted it in private writing. Approximately two days later, I published a follow-up post in which I observed the authors of Cook et al had used abstracts classified as showing a weak consensus to claim there was a strong consensus. This was within three days of the Cook et al paper coming out, and it was the first time anyone highlighted the issue.
I continued to discuss this and other problems with Cook et al in three more blog posts and hundreds of comments over the next month. This includes a discussion at Skeptical Science that got me banned from Skeptical Science. I also contacted several news organizations, and in one case, got a correction to an article made. My efforts even got me insultingly misrepresented in a newspaper’s “fact checker” column.
On a different issue, I was a constant critic of both Stephan Lewandowsky papers from the moment they were published, and I was one of the first people to file an academic misconduct complaint in response to the Recursive Fury paper. I was also one of the most vocal people during the complaint handling process.
I am also the author of the only substantial response to Michael Mann’s self-promoting book and the person who found and disseminated the Skeptical Science images in which they photoshopped themselves into Nazis – that would be the incident which got accused of criminally hacking into the Skeptical Science server.
If you want to believe I am somehow responsible for Cook et al, or that I in any way support them simply because I have the audacity to call for accuracy and truthfulness, so be it. Christopher Monckton is a fool who writes spittle-flecked posts with little regard for truth or accuracy, and if that’s okay by you, I don’t fit in with you anymore than I do with the Skeptical Science crowd.
Seriously though. I’ve raised the general criticism Monckton raises for the last four months. In what world is that culpable silence?
32
Perhaps I have missed something, but I can find no criticism of the “97.1% consensus” paper by Mr. Shollenberger in this thread – or, if there is any, then it has certainly not been so venomously and baselessly expressed as in his ill-tempered accusations against me on one largely unmeritorious and two entirely unmeritorious grounds. I note that he has still not requested the research data from us that he said was not available but is available; and he has still not responded substantively to my detailed answer to his statement that my letter to ERL contained an error. I shall take it, then, that he now accepts the allegedly unavailable data are available and the alleged error was no error.
It was he who began by alleging, baselessly, that I had “fabricated a claim”. That is a libel. Rather than suing for it, I put Mr. Shollenberger back in his box. In future, he should mind his language, and should not burst into tears if, having made a baseless and malevolent allegation of dishonesty, the victim of his allegation answers back.
Don’t whine, man: apologize.
53
Lord Monckton
Do you recall your last visit to Hobart? In the Q&A session afterward, a man indicated that in order to secure a contract with the State government, one must acknowledge “climate change”. ( I am paraphrasing that). You responded that such a thing is contrary to the Law.
Which Law?
I ask since I am now in a similar situation. I have been an employee of the State government (Tasmania) for some five years, and now must acknowledge a “sustainability code” document which is extremely ICLEI and Agenda 21, discussing “climate change” and “carbon pollution” etc. I have put off signing this document, as it is unclear whether or not it is an acknowledgement that I have perused it, or that I agree with it.
30
You’d need to let me see the document and the request or order for you to assent to it. In general, though, you cannot be required to hold opinions; nor can your conditions of employment be unilaterally altered; nor may a public authority adopt or require assent to matters of opinion as though they were matters of fact; and, if the “sustainability code” is in effect taking sides on a political question, it is ultra vires the issuing authority.
51
The “sustainability code” can be found at this URL. Double click the green sustainability code to download the pdf file.
Fundamentally, I had to attend a mandatory “training session” the other day and sign to demonstrate that I had attended. In addition, I have to press the “acknowledge” button on a document management database to acknowledge that I have read it.
Probably a tempest in a teapot. I always get skeptical when there is a great deal of fanfare, the “sustainability manager” flying around to introduce himself, and the sheer panic that someone might not have admitted that they have read the document. Of course this is bundled into the “Code of Ethics” which is essentially stock standard.
10
At this URL one can find several pdf files that comprise the Code of Ethics.
Of particular note is the section on bribery. I think it very questionable as to whether or not this part of the code has been properly applied in dealings with the landowners on King Island!
10
That code is little more than a statement of intent with some nice rhetoric to please various peak bodies and lobby groups. You should note that the statement about climate change is irrefutable (ie climate change does affect their business), but they don’t say what form of climate change nor that it is caused by humans.
02
[SNIP unnecessary. – Jo]
22
I find it awkward I’m being insulted in response to a comment I was told wouldn’t appear, at least not at the time. I find it even more awkward as that comment was a continuation of a (at the time) private exchange. People are insulting me based in part on an exchange they can’t even see.
As it stands, I have comments held in moderation (it seems random which are), censoring responses I’ve made to criticisms people have leveled against me. Part of the justification for this is the notion I’ve used inflammatory language and insulted people. That means people are insulting me (partially) in response to comments censored for… insulting people.
As I said, awkward.
20
Brandon, everyone, this is exactly why I wish I could have stopped and slightly [snipped] Brandons initial comment before it went up. I wouldn’t have needed to snip a lot, and we’d be discussing his ideas rather than dissecting the commenters moods and the moderation. When people post in a less-than-diplomatic style, commenters respond in kind, and before we know it, the thread becomes about The Thread, and not about the Topic. It brings out the worst in everyone. It’s a lot more work to moderate for no benefit at all. Brandon, the long comments in moderation are largely a discussion of he-said, she-said justifying our comments to each other — it dilutes the thread. That said, having just got back to my computer, — trying somehow to be fair to you, and to not waste more of my time is just another task I have on my list.
This is why I try to avoid flame wars.
Yes, it’s awkward, and was completely unnecessary.
[NB: Brandon didn’t expect his comment #232 to be published as is, neither did I. That’s my error in entering half the details incorrectly. I’ve apologized to him at the top of that comment – so people have more context too. Reading what has followed surely everyone can see why accusatory comments are unhelpful. – Jo]
21
Cook’s paper should be condemned by everyone of sound mind. Please add my name in support.
Edward C.Forster, B.Sc.(Elec Eng) UMIST, CEng, MIET
60
“The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing”
Count me in.
I don’t have the formal skills of many of the esteemed contributors above, but with over 30 years building IT solutions around the world, and running several companies, I have certainly learnt a lot about human nature.
The fact we are being told to effectively go and sit in the corner while our “betters” get on with running our lives does not sit well with me.
Whenever folk obfuscate, appeal to authority, do not answer questions or cannot explain their position it indicates they don’t not know what they are talking about. Let alone the personal nature of the attacks and lack of debate.
Peter Mills
60
Thanks,
Please add:
Morten Piil, BSc(Eng)
60
Please add my name to letter.
Bachelor Applied Science, Food Science & Technology RMIT University 1990
70
No Skills but age and experience.
Please include me if appropriate.
Paul Whyte
Tax Payer and Voter
60
Count me in.
M.J. Miller B.App.Sci.(Metallurgy), M.AusIMM, MBA (Technology Management)
Cheers,
Speedy
70
Please add my name to the list condemning the Paper by Cook & Nuccitelli (2013)
JPR – BSc Hons [Geology]; PhD [Geology] with many decades as a practicing geologist.
50
I’d be honored to be included.
Donald W Bennett, BS Chem Engr, U of Wyoming, 1976
40
Science has brought many benefits to humanity and I am sick of seeing it debased by alarmist fanatics. This cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged.
Please add my name to the list.
Mark Foster B.Sc (Hons) Computer Science 1999 Brunel University, UK
40
You need to stop calling yourself a skeptic. You are not skeptical of “real” science. Let’s use a better term like acuratist or factualists, that is, someone who makes factual, accurate inferences from the data. Skeptic is negative the other terms (one can come up with something better)sound more scientific. Let’s beat the crazies at their own game. They “sound” scientific which is why some might believe them.
20
Steve, if this aimed at me, I beg to differ. We own the word skeptic. I’m not giving it up. 😉 A skeptic is “A person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions.”
They tried to turn it into a poisonous term of dismissive scorn. But I won’t lose yet another word to the wordsmiths. Far better is to turn it back against them. I made badges and stickers for them to wear. They who are not skeptics, be Unskeptical scientists.
Strangely, they didn’t want to wear the t-shirt.
90
It was address more at the original essay but can be to anyone in general. Skeptic has become pejorative, where right or wrong, it has become a poisonous term. While I am certainly not a scientist and I agree that not just scientist but everyone should be healthy skeptical (it leads us to the truth), I would like to find verbiage that turns the tables. Wording that highlights that the “believers” are unscientific and the “skeptics” as true to science. Maybe I am wrong hear but when I speak to people about this I don’t call myself a skeptic of human caused warming but someone who looks at the facts and draws valid inferences that we are arrogant to think we can control some a dynamic environment as the entire earth. But, again, that is just me and I could be wrong.
10
“Steve” says his excoriation of the use of the word “sceptic” was directed at the original essay in the head posting: but the word “sceptic” or its derivatives was not used there. The letter to the editor of Environmental Research Litter confined itself purely to the facts. Besides, those who use the term “sceptic” of us in the hope that they are being pejorative are in fact paying us the compliment of acknowledging that we think for ourselves rather than merely parroting the Party Line or humming along with the hive mind. The Borg have not Assimilated us yet.
110
While I understand Jo’s viewpoint, on my blog, I changed to “questioners” and “advocates”. It is somewhat confusing to new readers and I sometimes put skeptic/warmist in parentheses. The reason I changed was the terms I use are basically neutral. If I used skeptic or denier, I was accused of pandering to the advocates. If I used warmest or true believers, I was accused of using what the advocates considered derogatory. Since the term “deniers” was forbidden, I suppose the advocates decided to stir things up by protesting names ascribed to them. Changing the terms meant one less thing the commenters could drone on about.
00
Steve and Sheri, don’t take my comment the wrong way, you both know your circles and audiences. I think it’s smart to adapt our language. I toggle terms myself as all ritual labels crimp our thinking, and there are no two exact camps but shades of grey.
But when I’ve encountered a perjorative use of “skeptic” I’ve enjoyed turning it back on the tosser.
60
Your comment was fine. I just ran into so much opposition with the use of certain terms that it was not worth wasting time answering them, so I changed the terms. Personally, I have no problem with the term and often use it on this blog and others. I don’t find derogatory myself.
00
Much the same as our fathers at Tobruk turned the derogatory label “Rats” into a badge of honour. I’m happy to wear the tag “skeptic”. As a light aside an American friend of mine paraphrases our use of rhyming slang to label himself a “skeptic tank”.
00
Count me in!
BEng(Hons); BA
Disappointed with my old Uni (UofQ) for its role in this nonsense. The actual percentage of papers supporting AGW would be even lower if the incentive for researchers to find a link to AGW were removed!
The AGW debate is a little like the Millennium Bug debate – except that in the latter case there was a specific date, 1/1/2000, when we all came to realize the issue had been over-cooked by the media. The only way to settle this debate is a judicial commission (which we in the colonies call a Royal Commission) where AGW scientists are interrogated under oath.
40
Please add my name to the list.
Joseph McAlinden, BSc (Hons) Physics & Economics, Queen Mary College, University of London, 1986
40
Please add my name to those calling for retraction of this misleading, dishonest paper.
BA (Phys Chem), Rice University (1975)
40
Regarding the comments made by Brandon Shollenberger, and Lord Monckton’s reply, I think that by going into too much detail and by taking the extreme viewpoint (which might or might not be justifiable) we risk fighting a battle but losing the war.
For every one of us who takes the time to become informed on this subject (and I have enjoyed hearing Lord Monckton present) there are thousands more who get all their information from broad media news and current affairs presentations. The media at present is only too happy to present a summary of Cook’s findings as “97% of all scientists agree” without question, in particular media like the Australian ABC. We will not change the uninformed public’s perceptions by narrowing definitions to such an extent that we open ourselves up to attack. In this case, far better to keep it simple, and say that of “around 12,000 papers which were studied, less than 4,000, or less than 33%, expressed a view that humans play any part in the cause of global warming. Not 97%”. Easy to convey, easy to defend, very hard to attack.
I am happy to support Lord Monckton’s letter to Professor Kammen, as I already have done, irrespective of Brandon Shollenberger’s comments, but I don’t believe it will assist much in dispelling the media’s perpetuation of the “97%” myth. That can only be done in the simplest of terms. Let’s start by reducing it to 33%.
40
The matter is very simple. The authors of the “97.1% consensus” paper marked just 64 abstracts as endorsing the “consensus” as they had themselves defined it in the introduction to their paper, and then claimed that 97.1% of all 4014 abstracts expressing an opinion had endorsed that definition of “consensus”, when at most – on their own marking scheme – only 1.6% had done so. Bluntly, this is a grievous scientific fraud. The journal in question must now restore its credibility by withdrawing the paper.
140
Getting a withdrawal is problematic.
The underlying problem is that if they do not withdraw the article, there is no real consequence to them in the wider world. From their world view they are only going to upset a few (though incredibly well educated) fringe dwellers. However in this new McCarthyism withdrawing the document would bring the ire of the Global Warming establishment a much more threatening beast.
I am heartened by the support and the growing number of folk who question rather than follow. But there needs to be mass protests, or financial consequences. At the moment global warming pays too well, that is what needs to be addressed.
(eg; If the science is settled, why are we still spending so much money on the science? Do we really need it accurate to 6 decimal positions? (yes I know it is not accurate at the moment, but they are telling us it is) I am sure if they started winding back grants it would all of a sudden not be so settled.)
30
Paul, if the paper is withdrawn good scientists can issue press releases celebrating a small win in the world of peer review. Sure, you won’t read about it in the Fairfax press, or the ABC but more and more of the mainstream press is waking up. The Australian editorial questioned “The consensus” for the first time (as far as I can recall) last weekend.
There is a layer of smart intellectual people that this message is reaching. The rest will follow. The smart money has already left carbon trading.
If the paper is not withdrawn then it becomes another excellent case study in the downfall of peer review. This paper is so bad, we can’t lose.
80
PaulW is right that it will not be easy to persuade the editors of the journal that published the “97.1% consensus” paper to withdraw it. That is precisely why I have sought support here and at WUWT, and have attracted some 400 signatures. The withdrawal of the paper would in fact destroy the notion of overwhelming consensus that is reflected, for instance, in the IPCC’s nonsensical “95% confidence” that most of the warming since 1950 was manmade, and eventually even the mainstream media would have to acknowledge that the “consensus” does not in fact exist.
Of course it is not particularly likely that, even with 400+ signatures, the editors will do the right thing. After all, they have had the chance to publish a Comment by me setting the record straight and have not published it. Instead they have temporized, inferentially in the hope of letting the IPCC get away with its “95% confidence” figure, which would be meaningless if everyone knew the explicit support for the “scientific consensus” in the literature is 1% or less. However, there is also the law of the land. Scientists are not a high priesthood immune from fraud charges. If the editors were to attempt to leave the paper in place notwithstanding not only its astonishingly inaccurate headline result but also the costly damage being caused to ordinary taxpayers on the basis of false notions such as that which the defective and deceptive paper peddles, they would lay themselves open to prosecution for a fraud that can be very simply explained to a jury.
I think it is plain from the level of distinguished support that has been forthcoming from readers of Jo’s excellent blog that, were I to invite support for referring the papers to the Queensland Police, that support might be forthcoming. However, one prefers not to go down that route if one can simply invite those who have done wrong to put right what was wrong and thus undo the damage. That must be the first, friendly approach. Only if that approach failed would it be appropriate to seek support for a formal complaint of scientific fraud.
My own view on this question is hardening because some people close to me can no longer afford to keep their heating on because of the crippling supplements that make fat-cat enviro groups, landowners and windmill-makers wealthy at the expense of the very poorest. The consequences of the global warming scam are real and deeply damaging. Frankly, the Cook paper, as published in the journal, is simply not straight, and it only became possible to find that out a couple of weeks after the paper was published, when the data-file was finally made available. The result as published is so flagrantly at variance with the authors’ own categorizations that even if the police were reluctant to prosecute I think it likely that a private prosecution would succeed. But let us hope that wiser counsels prevail at the journal and at the university where the lead author lurks. At present, neither is answering its correspondence. Each must be given a fair chance to do so, before the axe falls.
160
What is truly galling is that I cannot think of one presenter on Australia’s ABC, TV or radio, who would, even if presented with the simplest explanation of this 97% fraud, give it more than cursory consideration, and it would never see the light of day. It would certainly be taken on by some of the commercial radio stations, who would then be “exposed” on ABC’s “Media Report”. Such is the bias, or almost total and unquestioned AGW religiosity, of the ABC. They are now presenting the dismissal of the Climate Change Commission, one of the Abbott government’s first and most admirable acts, as sacrilegious at every opportunity.
30
Please add my name, as well.
B.Mech.Engr. (summa cum laude)
University of Detroit Mercy
Ford Motor Co. – Product Development
30
Please add my name to the list.
Bradford J. Rodriguez. Ontario, Canada
B.S. Electrical Engineering (1977)
M.S. Electrical Engineering (1980)
M.S. Computer Science (1989)
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering (1998)
70
Add me in.
Keith Martin, B.Sc. (Hons) Geology, Aberdeen. Phd. Geology and Geophysics, Capetown.
50
Please add my name
Drs Stefan van Hulst
Veldhoven, Netherlands
40
Add me to the list. Bill Lindqvist, PhD, Geology – and from Marin County to boot!
20
Please add my name.
B.Sc. Environmental Biology
For the sake of science, the scientific method and the end of this boondoggle.
20
Good Morning Jo,
I’m not a scientist, in fact not even an undergraduate of any discipline, so at first blush was felt absolutely no need or merit in contributing to this truly excellent piece. However, it didn’t take me long to reconsider the following two gems!!
1. Simply, please don’t fail to include mention of the petition project.org … over 31 000 scientists, inc. over 9000 withphd’s. who virtually concur with Lord Monckton’s position; &
2. In late 2011 over 100 scientists wrote to U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, pleading with him to re-consider his whole-hearted support of AGW. (source international climate science coalition)!! To the best of my knowledge, this letter to this day remains un-answered!!
Kind regards, reformed warmist, Lindsay
70
Me too. I didn’t go on to a degree (illness didn’t help at the time) but I did A level Physics, Pure Maths and Applied Maths in the days when GCE A levels meant something. I had been offered a place to read Physics at Imperial College but mucked up the pure maths exam thanks to appendicitis. I was too shy at the time to challenge my then head teacher to tell the examining board what had happened. I later worked at a university on statistical analysis so looking at weather data really interests me. I have retained an interest in weather and geology all my life.
70
Ah, yes. I remember it well. Double maths and physics made sure that the maths part of the engineering degree was relatively easy.
20
Yes, add my name if you think it will do any good. Being a lawyer, albeit happily retired, may be detrimental to the cause. I am not a sceptic; I am AGW cynic, which has perhaps something to do with the legal training and the long practice.
The fraudulent paper is unlikely to be withdrawn. Being on the Left side of the politics (and the Cook’s essay has nothing to do with the science) means that you never have to say sorry.
90
B.Bus (USQ)2004.
You do not have to be mightily credentialed to recognise that the Emperor has no clothes…
50
Thanks Jo for your amazing efforts
Please add my name
Michael Blythe B.Sc.Agr Sydney
50
It’s an embarrassment that this paper passed peer review and was published. Science has to be better than this.
Michael Moore GdBus, BEd.
40
Nice graphic.
I added my name via WUWT.
20
Please add me to the letter, I am
Dr Melissa Buttini M.B.,B.S (QLD) FRANZCOG
Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist,
Auchenflower, Brisbane, Qld.
40
Please add my name to the list:
Peter Senior, Management Consultant. BSc. Eng., CMC
40
Add me too please. M.B.,Ch.B, Clinical Senior Lecturer Medicine
30
Please add me also
10
Please add my name to your plea.
Whyn Carnie,
BSc(Melb Uni), BE(Met)(Melb Uni), BI(Hons)(Melb Uni/SCIAAES)DipM (Deakin/APESA), Former FIE(Aust)
20
Add me to the list.
Michael r Harris
Member Society Economic Geology
Member Australasian institute of Geoscientists.
M.Sc James Cook University, Australia.
B.Sc (hon) Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.
40
I suppose one good thing about all this is that the paper is out there for all to analyse over future years, once human passion, politics and bias subsides. In future people will just shake their head at it, that the authors could be so muddle-headed.
It reminds me a little of that rather funny ‘wrong number of chromosomes’ paper I read somewhere, where a paper published a number of chromosomes of something-with an attached picture- in which the picture clearly shows a different number to what the paper actually stated. Nobody bothered to actually check and count them! (including the journal reviewers). It only came out years later.
10
Talking about ‘in future people will just shake their head at it’, thingadonta, I expect many of the pushers of current propaganda and fraud will eventually be recognised as fools, liars and worse. Many professionals and professions will lose their credibility. The media who have published the lies and propaganda will lose much readership. Academics that have produced papers that distort and cheery pick facts just to access government funds will be treated harshly. But who is worse? The ‘useful idiots’ that believed this rubbish without any analytical appraisal, or those that propagated it for selfish gains? Hard to tell. Remember the ‘Truth Commissions’ in South Africa? – how about a modern version! I expect sufficient media will recall the art of investigative reporting to expose the worst excesses.
10
“Academics that have produced papers that distort and cheery pick facts just to access government funds will be treated harshly”.
I studied science at university and came across what I considered to be serious fraud, misuse and abuse of resources, and deception. It was difficult to prove(but other colleagues who studied in the same course that I have talked to since, concur with my view). But the thing that surprised me most about it though, was not that such things occasionally occurred, (it was only 1 individual amongst many who were straight, there are always ‘bad apples’ in a bunch etc), but that nobody seemed to be watching what staff were doing, nor doing anything about it even if they were watching it.. There was a prevailing culture that staff within academia could get away with quite a bit before anyone would actually start stepping in and doing something about it.
It seemed very obvious to me that there was a major problem in regulating the excesses, standards of conduct, and methods and procedures of academic staff-that is, in my experience at least there wasn’t any regulation or supervision of such at all. I was very surprised by this experience, and felt it occurred partly because of the culture of ‘freedom of intellectual enquiry’, which allows academic staff to occasionally do things they really shouldn’t, but partly also because of lack of funding-there wasn’t really enough supervising staff/resources to pick up and supervise what was going on. But the funding issue doesn’t relate to climate change research-there is plenty of funding around, but I’m not surprised that the prevailing culture still seems to allow people to do, publish and say things they really shouldn’t, why that is I still don’t fully understand. It’s probably centuries old, but it has to change.
00
Academic researchers should be able to “roam freely” and graze in intellectual pastures without any compulsion to produce anything beyond a reduction in our ignorance; even if that’s only the discovery of more areas of ignorance.
There should be a clear distinction between academic education and academic research as the education of people serves a definable social purpose. An untethering of research from education in tertiary education will allow both to benefit. Researchers who are effective educators aren’t necessarily excluded from the other “universe”; nor are students who can experience professional research as it exists, detached from an education system that predominately must have “the right answers”.
During The Enlightenment, many innovative scientists and philosophers weren’t funded by institutional funding as we see it today. It was either out of their own pockets or they sought out those with a sizeable purse and a curiosity. We still see some of that in the scrabble for funding by private enterprise in e.g. engineering schools where, if the research isn’t directly valuable to the sponsors, identifying researchers for potential recruitment certainly is.
Which brings me to the difficult part of academia and research in terms of those seeking higher qualifications where the conduct of research is a substantial component of that qualification.
It’s not like the higher qualifications reflect an ability to effectively communicate ideas to those at a lower level of qualification or undergraduates. Researchers’ professional communications are primarily with their peers and superiors. They inform, to some degree, but are not “equipped” by research activities to educate. (A situation that can be substantially rectified by a 2-week short-course, but in practice, isn’t even entertained.)
Now that I’ve defined what a higher qualification doesn’t mean, I struggle somewhat to define what it does; especially to the community outside of academia. In that harsh world, experience often counts much more than qualifications. Sure, you won’t get some jobs without providing 37 certificates in everything from watching paint dry to culturally-sensitive origami to the “Human Resources” officer, but relevant experience gets people their jobs almost as well as having a friend on board already.
Jobs advertised with higher degree requirements in the private sector are in the minority and are usually aimed at one specific candidate. Unscrupulous corporations may recruit wide-eyed academics to take the blame for an imminent failure. Others, especially overseas, may seek to employ thsoe working towards higher qualifications as “interns” to do all the dirty work, paying poor “wages” and expecting top-level performance, around the clock, every day of the year.
I don’t mean to discourage people from pursuing higher degrees if their objective is to explore and push the limit of their own capabilities; to push the limits of human knowledge, giving others green fields upon which to build. That’s a reward. It’s not worthless to society. Just very difficult to value, a priori.
So how much money do we spend on something we cannot yet know? There can be not definitive answer. It’ll just be a guess. So researchers are asked to define objectives by those holding the purses. Remember that Columbus didn’t find a way to India, failing to meet his pre-stated objective but his research was still successful.
Pure research into mathematics or the physical sciences should largely be guided by the researchers’ noses as they do their research, not by the fences they built before they started. I suspect that the most one would get out of a grant application saying «We’re planning to shine a light down a hole and follow a few things that may pop out to see what they does for a while.» is a boson of a smile.
Industrial research OTOH has clear objectives and industry is therefore quite “happy” to fund it because the cost of failure is largely known.
10
Please add my name to Lord Monckton’s letter.
Steven Leitl MB BS FRACS (ORTH)
20
“However, since 32.6% of all 11,944 abstracts, or 97.1% of the 4010 abstracts expressing an opinion on the Party Line, had said or implied that Man causes some warming, Cook et al. concluded by saying that 97.1% of all abstracts expressing an opinion had said that Man had caused most of the warming since 1950.”
I have a few questions about this statement, which is the heart of the matter here.
Where Cook et al. (2013) states in Category 2: ‘Explicit endorsement without quantification’, does Cook et al. mean:
-explicit endorsement that most of the warming since 1950 (i.e. >50%) is caused by humans but without quantification of just how much greater than 50% it is, or
-explicit endorsement of humans causing some warming (ie. without any quantification, including whether it is ‘most’ or not).
The difference between these two is the key to the matter here, but I can’t tell from the above discussion whether Cook et al. ever states which one of the two his category 2 actually means. The same goes for his category 3.
I am giving him the benefit of the doubt in asking this, but if the above discussion from Monckton is right, that he actually does switch the definition to actually retract the >50% criteria from category 2, then indeed the paper is both defective and deceptive. I’m just not clear what Cook et al. actually mean in their categories 2 and 3.
00
As a follow up to the above, I checked the original paper itself, and it clearly states the Monckton assertion that Cook et al.’s categories 2 and 3 have changed and dropped the main criteria being investigated (humans being the primary cause of warming), making the paper seriously defective. Here are the categories from the paper itself reproduced below:
1) Explicit endorsement with quantification Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming ‘The global warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration especially since the late 1980s’
(2) Explicit endorsement without quantification Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact ‘Emissions of a broad range of greenhouse gases of varying lifetimes contribute to global climate change’
(3) Implicit endorsement Implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause ‘…carbon sequestration in soil is important for mitigating global climate
I’m getting very close to thinking that Monckton is correct, the paper is both defective and deceptive, and should be withdrawn. It is clear from the paper’s own definition that the >50% criteria in category 1 (‘primary cause’) has been dropped for categories 2 and 3, meaning categories 2 and 3 can’t be used to make the conclusion of humans causing most of the warming since 1950. This is the key to the whole issue. It is a major error.
30
Reading Jo’s ‘The Skeptic’s Handbook’, ‘Global Bullies’ and ‘Climate Money’ and witnessing the first Climategate, woke me up big-time.
Dr David Evans’ videos also helped me understand how the climate computer models pump up the warming which is proven by empirical evidence. The whole expensive subterfuge has made me very angry.
Without any qualifications (except I invented a product which sold overseas but petered out), if passion gets my name on the list that would be something.
20
Sorry – my full name is Faye Busch.
20
Please add my name to this great exposure. I don’t think Fairfax or the ABC will report this blatant fraud. Great work Jo . Peter Styles Degree in Common Sense Major in Crap Spotting
10
Please add my name.
Tudno Gareth Watkins MB,BCh. FRCA.
Retired anaesthetist.
40
By the way the Venona Project was declassified in 1995 and proved that McCarthy had been correct, in that there were 200+ Soviet Agents working in the FDR and Truman Administrations, one of whom was given the job of drafting the UN Constitution. The UN is Stalin’s Booby Trap to the capitalist west. Sorry, but my past painful experience drives me to be a pest like this when McCarthyism is mentioned in comments. Ann Coulter covers much more in here very informative book – Treason.
40
Better late than never…
Michael Wilson
BSc (Hons) Minerals Engineering, Leeds Univ.
MS Mineral Economics, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
From free wi-fi in Argostoli, Greece. I know, lucky bastard. Should see the yacht at the dock (not ours), called Mayan Queen IV. Wonder if we can sneak aboard >.>
50
Please add my name:
Paul Callander BSc (Melbourne) 1971, MBA (Western Ontario) 1981, M Inst Energy
That this type of study can be published makes a farce of scientific publication. That it is defended will eventually make the defenders into laughing stock … I hope we don’t have to wait too long for that!
40
I am truly humbled by the scholarship and qualifications of the readership. I was once an Army Lieutenant Colonel and for all my life an observer of nature. I actually succeeded in farming which requires a sound knowledge of hydraulics, hydrology, nutrition, animal husbandry, pasture management, machinery repair and construction as well as an ability to forecast the weather, profits and expenses and prepare submissions to extract funds from bankers. No initials after the name then but still a searcher for facts and a warrior against deception. Please add my name and dubious qualifications to your list.
40
Also forgetful. Name Lawrie Ayres
40
Laurie for a post-nominal what is wrong with Lt.Col [Ret]? Years of uniform service tend to make one sort the truth from the crap – especially at the “sharp end”.
40
John Cook is not the only one at Queensland University’s playing with the truth. Professor Jeremy Williams from Griffith University claimed in a AAP release on January 09,2013 that “THERE HAVE BEEN 333 CONSECUTIVE MONTHS OF RISING AVERAGE TEMPERATURES GLOBALLY”. With the minimum increase being .01c x 333 =3.33C increase. The end is nigh, God help us?
10
The Cook et al. 2013 paper is an example of the broader phenomenon of confirmation bias, where amongst other things, researchers tend to interpret and draw conclusions from data in a way that supports their pre-determined biases and conclusions, even when the data itself often doesn’t support such conclusions.
One of the more interesting comments made in a review about the history of research in the field of human evolutionary origins, went something like this, (I don’t have the exact quote, but you will get the drift):
‘it is surprising, in so widespread and varied a field of research, and in how many different geographical locations, just how often individual researchers found evidence that supported or uphold their particular theory or model of human origins. However it was often later found that most researchers drew somewhat different conclusions than what the original authors concluded…”.
In other words of course, they often just interpreted their finds in a way that supported their previous biases or theories. Confirmation bias. Stepping back and looking at things over time and with perspective often gives one better insight. I’m sure climate science will eventually learn to do this (but it’s a long haul, given the politicised nature of it).
10
Please add my name to you signature list.
Reed Coray, BS Physics 1966 University of Utah, PhD Physics 1972 University of Utah.
20
Please add my name to your letter.
Dennis Falgout, Ph.D., Professional engineer
10
Maybe I missed it, but the list of signees is missing an important credential: railway engineer. Come on now, one of the signees must have operated a train at some time in his/her life.
20
Reed I have several at 1:48 scale. Will that do?
30
Yes, that will do. My father was a lawyer for the Union Pacific Railroad. When I was a kid (before AMTRAK) the UP used to run luxurious passenger trains. We would make the overnight trip from Salt Lake to Los Angeles about once a year. There were five of us, and my father would get adjoining Pullman compartments which we could open up into one room with four beds. I fell in love with riding trains. To this day, I’ll spend an hour watching documentaries showing nothing but old trains. My brother and I had a model train–I don’t know if it was 1:48 scale, but it was one of my favorite toys. I sometimes dreamed of being an engineer. Alas, those fond memories have been tarnished by a dirty-book-writing Indian railway engineer.
30
G’day Reed,
My wife and I were in the US and Canada in February and March and rode AMTRAK from NY to Wilmington, DA, and back and then NY to Montreal. Great way to see the country. To top it off we did Montreal to Toronto and then Toronto to Vancouver on Via Rail. That was like a never ending Christmas Card with deep global cooling all the way until we got to the west side of the Rockies.
And I’m with you on the old documentaries – a good way to fill in some time.
30
Please add my name to your signature list.
Ken Gregory, P.Eng.
10
Rohan Baker, BE (Chemical Engineering)
10
Hi Jo and Chris,
Sorry late to the party please add me.
Scott Lowther
BSc (Double major Chemistry, Minor in Applied Mathematics)
Grad Cert Computing
MBA
Dip Financial Services (Financial Markets)
20
Please add me too if appropriate. This travesty must be acknowledged.
Duncan Pollard
BSc Applied Physics
20
To Reed Coray # 219, I was Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer of Victorian Railways in the early 80s and proud of it until an Indian railway engineer started to promote global warming in the early 90s and get quite rich in the doing. Since then I’ve had to hide my light lest I am lumped in with Indian railway engineers. If you ever get an opportunity to ride an Indian train you will see why one at least got out of it and joined the UN gravy train.
20
I endorse Lord Monckton’s “request for withdrawal” letter.
Bruce Redford BE (Civil)
10
A new responder but add me to the list requesting withdrawal of the Cook et al paper.
BS, U of Alabama – 65. Marine biology, limnology and fishery science.
20
Please add my name to the list demanding withdrawal of the paper. It is an assault on scientific integrity. The peer review process has been corrupted and those who did it need to be held accountable. And we will make sure that happens in Australia..
Judy Ryan
PhD Epidemiology
10
Please add my signature to the list of supporters of Lord Monckton’s letter.
10
Please add my name to the petition.
Peter Bobroff BSc(Eng), AM
10
Please do add my own endorsement of the complaint.
No scientific credentials to speak of in my case (being a professional violinist), but as one interested in architectural acoustics and related topics, have spent some time in the scientific literature, along with observing international symposia, and am somewhat familiar with the tone and approach of genuine research papers.
My sense of smell is also adequately acute, I believe.
20
You can add my name to the list.
Roger McEvilly (B.Sc Hons)
The paper uses non quantified information (by the paper’s own definition and categorisation) to make conclusions which require quantified information (by the paper’s own definition and categorisation).
It’s complete crap, and is likely partly due to using a well-known academic technique of grouping categories or responses for further analysis, but which in this case is entirely invalid since the different categories which have been grouped together do not all contain the required quantified information that the conclusion which has been drawn about them requires by definition, and which was the main purpose of the study. The vast number of papers used to support the conclusion of a 97.1% resulting consensus in the paper do not fit the definition required to be included in the said consensus, by the paper’s own definitions and categorisation. The error is major, is central to the main conclusions and purpose of the paper, and so the paper has to be withdrawn.
10
Please add my name to the list. I am fed up with the fraudulent nonsense from the ‘orthodoxy’ of ‘climate science’ whose practitioners have destroyed the reputation of science in general. It is well past time that they were brought to account for the unmitigated propaganda they have disseminated with the connivance of the mainstream media in Australia.
20
Monckton is a source of never-ending comedy, isn’t he? What a clown! 🙂
——–
It took you all day to think of that? Brave anonymous rebuttal – Jo
09
One does one’s best to add to the merriment of nations.
70
Only the fools fail to see beyond Monckton’s eclectic persona. They are distracted by the novelty of style and fail to notice the substance. They are typically unable to think for themselves and rely on others to interpret information for them. They are no loss to serious debate.
21
What “substance”?
What research has Monckton contributed to this field?
All I can see is stuff like his claim to being a “mathematician” as a result of some Arts degree he did that involved having to know the difference between Doric and Corinthian. Then there’s his quasi-instantaneous leap into ersatz lawyer-speak the moment anybody criticises his unfounded opinions and dodgy graphs, followed by ludicrous claims to having won legal actions that either never existed or that he in fact lost.
Reading the Daily Mail is a more rewarding exercise than reading the kind of claptrap we see at the top of this page. And that’s saying something.
04
Lurking in month old threads huh?
What a life you lead.
20
Ooh look! You’re here! Welcome!
02
Like a zombie rising from the nether regions.
20
Sorry Jo, but I can’t continue posting here. I’ve had comments held in moderation for days for behavior far less severe than that of other posters. I’ve been repeatedly insulted by people who are allowed to post freely while I’ve had attempts to correct gross misrepresentations of what I’ve said censored.
[I didn’t moderate your first comment and since you called everyone disgraceful, claimed Monckton fabricated and hid things, I could hardly censor their replies (though I have snipped a couple of others). – Jo]
You’ve even made several corrections to things you’ve said because you jumped to conclusions and said things about me that were untrue. Still, my comments pointing out they were untrue remain censored.
[Fine. Since you really want them published, against my advice, done. – Jo]
People criticize me with extreme rudeness, and you don’t even ask them to tone down their language. Instead, you jump in and criticize me as well. I use language far tamer than theirs, and you criticize me and censor me. The only difference I can see at this point is who is the target of the criticisms. That’s unacceptable.
If you think my tone was inappropriate, you should speak up when the people attacking me use a far worse tone. Otherwise, all anyone will see is hypocrisy.
[Brandon, I need write a post about scientific issues instead of analyze blog comments-about-comments in a thread that was calm til one person set off a flame war that was entirely unnecessary and which he still will not acknowledge a role in. I’m sorry if you feel you can’t comment here, but I can’t allow you to post without the moderators snipping out the condescending poison arrows first. You’ve given me no indication you would not do the same again. I find your interpretation of plain English words baffling. It’s like we speak a different language. But if you want to stick purely to your scientific insights, you’ll be most welcome, and we’ll be delighted to publish them. – Jo]
20
Pink portcullis: Follow me in my mission!
Nobody without a title: Actually I can’t follow you until you get your mission statement right
PP: bluster bluster bluster bluster.
NWT: That’s just bluster
PP: bluster bluster pomposity bluster
NWT: Are you going to correct your mission statement or not?
PP: Name calling, bluster bluster bluster, I am never wrong.
NWT: Surely someone else can point out the error.
Respected Elder: PP I think that NWT is not entirely incorrect and maybe some minor adjustments might improve the statement a little bit. Sir.
PP: BLUSTER! I have made a small inconsequential concession, be grateful I did not sue. Forbearance!
RE: I will follow you regardless.
Everyone else: sign me up regardless. Baa.
BSc(hons), MSc, Ph.D, LLB
14
I concur, add my voice to this protest.
20
Please include my name.
Gary Kerkin
BE(hons)(Canty, NZ) MEngSc (Melbourne)
30
The whole story of climate alarmism is deeply shocking: such rancid and vicious misanthropy.
To make that worse, the alarmists have consistently dressed up pure political activism as “science”, with all the dishonesty and contempt for the truth that requires. You have my full support in pursuing the authors of this squalid and fraudulent paper.
My own degree (MA Cantab) is in an arts subject: but that was back in the day, when (as Harald Macmillan’s tutor told him when he went up to Oxford), “nothing you learn here will be of any use to you in future life except that you will be able to tell if someone is talking rot.”
Which no longer seems to apply.
Hamish McCallum
20
Please add my name to the list.
Qualifications:
Basic mathematical skills
Can follow a logical process/argument
Can tell black from white
Excellent sense of smell
Anything else needed/required?
Steve T
20
Ian Weule – BMin(Theology). Dip Acctg.
Together with so many others of incredibly diverse expertise and background, I oppose such gross deception masquerading as truth. Although my qualifications are in other fields, please include my name seeking retraction of this paper.
10
The Climate Industry is driven by fearmongering for profits and job security, it is not driven by ethics and responsibility.
I support the responsible effective environmental efficient safe economical energy that best suits the situation and the need.
Climate changes, for the good or the bad always, it’s called weather, because it will do what it wants whether you want it too, or not!!! And the man/woman that thinks he/she can control it is the one that is wasting my hard earned tax money!
Keep up the strong written and vocal championing of the sane Lord Monckton!
10
I also support the letter by Christopher Monckton to Professor Daniel Kammen, Editor, Environment Research Letters.
My qualifications, all from the University of Melbourne, are:
BSc(Hons) – Chemistry
PhD – Electro-chemistry
BDSc
MDSc.
21
Count me in.
B Sc (chemistry/biochemistry JCU 1974), Grad Dip Diet (Curtin 1976), Master of Public Health (UQ 2005)
I peer review for some public health journals and I am appalled by the corruption of science in the climate field.
21
[…] “Honey, I shrunk the consensus” – Monckton takes action on Cooks paper (joannenova.com.au) […]
01
Sorry for this late response.
97% is being bandied about all over the place.
But it is an untruth.
We need to act.
Please add my name to the list,
Colin Davidson, BSc(Eng), Royal Naval Engineering College, 1972.
10
I support the letter to have the Cook et al. paper withdrawn from Environment Research Letters.
The evidence suggests that the science is far from settled on this topic and the manner in which “consensus” has been suggested by this paper is, at best, really poor science and, at worst, deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.
BSc (Chem/Geology), BSc Hons (Chem), MSc(Geohydrology), PhD
00
And please include my name on the letter:
Paul R. Kenyon, BSME, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 1971
00
Please add my name to the request to withdraw this fraudulent paper from the peer reviewed literature.
BSC 1973 Concordia University Honors Mathematics graduated with distinction
MBA 1979 McGill University
00
Please add my name to the request for Environment Research Letters to withdraw the grossly misleading paper, “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” (May 15, Environment Research Letters)
Nigel Deacon MA (Cantab) 1978, Natural Sciences specialising in Chemistry.
Leicester, England
10
Please add my name to the petition to have this misleading paper withdrawn. I am a Geologist with a strong interest in climate science for many years. I must say that as a scientist, there is no such thing as ‘scientific consensus’, and any so called ‘scientists’ who backs his or her misleading arguments with the good ‘ol ‘scientific consensus’ argument should be publicly named and shamed. Their only interest is in securing their next taxpayer funded grant.
These guys and the whole AGW scare campaign are an embarrassment to the genuine science professionals out there.
My qualifications are:-
Bachelor of Applied Science (Geology), Queensland University of Technology, 1991.
Bachelor of Applied Science (Honours in Geology), The University of Queensland, 1992
Oracle DBA – (Australian College of Information Technology), 2001
Best of luck Jo and Lord Monckton
Thomas Charlton
10
Yes, add my name to the petition to get scientifically false and misleading papers withdrawn !! With this I am very glad that “something” at least seems to be on the way to stop these obviously demented “scientist”, who are no scientists, arguing in favour of human made climate change !!!
I have a PhD in geology and mineralogy and am a Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology at the University of Leoben, Austria.
30
We really need a postscript to this story – seeing as it announces Monckton “takes action”.
What is the upshot of his letter?
Can we safely assume they received his letter, had a giggle, showed it around to everybody – more giggling – then filed it under “entertainment”?
04
I am appalled by the bastardisation of science in order to justify UN Agenda 21, Smart (death) Meters, a carbon tax and any other scam being perpetrated against We, the People around the world. Lord Monckton thank you for your persistence and never give up. We will win. I am outraged that I used to believe the lie of global warming, putting my entire faith in the integrity of the scientific community. I apologise to you Lord Monckton on behalf of those aware of the facts, that your efforts have resulted in ridicule and abuse by the presstitutes and prosstilicians with their hidden agendas. I demand Environmental Research Letters immediately withdraw and apologise for, the climate porn article by Cook et al discussed here. Their Junk Journal title will stick if they do not act asap. The University of Qld must act immediately to rectify this fraudulent claim. The integrity of a university must never be usurped by the consideration of funding by external forces.
20
The dishonesty and outright fraud of the rotten few apples in the scientific barrel must be rooted out and discarded. I applaud His Lordship’s stand.
10
Please add my name to the request for Environment Research Letters to withdraw their political and grossly misleading paper, “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature”
00
Happy to be included.
Ian Bock, BSc, PhD, DSc (evolutionary biology)
00
Please add my name to the list.
Geoffrey Williams.
Qualifications: just an ordinary person who would like to see the truth outed in this IPCC sham.
10
Jo,
Happy to add my name.
Dr. Matthew J. Fagan, B.Sc(Hons), Ph.D (Nuclear physics)
10
Please add my name to the list.
Sean Bennetts
Melbourne / Australia
Qualifications: just an ordinary person who would like to see the truth outed in this IPCC sham.
00
Pleased to be a part of this august group.
BS, Physics, US Air Force Academy (1979)
MS, Nuclear Science, Air Force Institute of Technology (1988)
MA, National Security & Strategic Studies, Naval War College (1998)
10
Please add my name to the list. I wonder if Cook could name and shame his collaborators .
00
[…] nothing more than propagandists for their religious “cause”, a stacked deck so to speak. http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/monckton-honey-i-shrunk-the-consensus/ In a nutshell, in my opinion, they are a bunch of charlatans posing as self righteous […]
00