The year of 2009 was the year when the man-made global warming issue met its Waterloo, collapsing for lack of evidence. The core of the movement was shown to be dominated by a small cadre of international “scientists” with major deficiencies in ethics, honesty, and plenty of arrogance. Their dubious unscientific practices became known (https://tinyurl.com/ykvysgp).
Science has never been conducted in this way and never should be. The major problem which the warmers and their supporters have is their lack of scientific discipline. As a group they are bullies, who have consumed an estimated $79 billion dollars in global warming research funds. They have yet to produce any measurable, observable, scientific evidence that man-made CO2 has a major influence on our climate.
These bullies control who gets the research money and who doesn’t, who get published and who doesn’t, and who gets the acclaim and who doesn’t. They even have gained control of a number of editors of climate science journals to such an extent that they control and suppress skeptical climate articles from being published. In other words the peer review process in a number of climate science journals was destroyed by the bullies.
Then the bullies had the luxury of limiting the publishing of critical papers while complaining that too few of the skeptics had published in the peer reviewed literature. How quaint.
There have been plenty of failures of science in the past, but in most cases the basics of science were ignored with cruel and damaging results. So what does honest science look like and how historically has it conducted itself?
The famous Nobel physicist Richard Feynman had several observations about science.
*1. “The first obligation of the scientist is to prove himself wrong”.
*2. “In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation to see if it works.
*3. “If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. It’s that simple statement that is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it (the hypothesis) disagrees with experiment it is wrong!”
A great deal of humility is required to be a good scientist, something we have yet to see from the climate bullies nor from the International community of leaders, nor of the media, nor of the Hollywood set for the last 20 years. Such humility extended to welcoming criticism of the proposed hypothesis, the motivation being to produce the best hypothesis possible, or to dismiss it.
Albert Einstein is an excellent example of a true scientist. He was brilliant, but also humble. He also recognized that consensus is not evidence as no one should. He also knew that his new Theory of Relativity was such a departure from Newtonian physics that it would come under intense scrutiny. He developed his theory with all of the intellectual intensity he could muster, to develop the best new hypothesis possible. Then he took it a step further. He actually proposed several new tests of his hypothesis of physics never done before. These tests later were performed and proved his theory to be correct. We see nothing humble in the behavior of the AGW bullies. They are unqualified as scientists.
Thus science progresses with evidence, measurable, observable evidence. Consensus is not evidence. Appeals to authority do not produce evidence. Computer models do not produce evidence. Photos of polar bears on ice floes are not evidence. Photo shopped 20 foot waves crashing through Lower Manhattan Island are not evidence. Claims of Pacific Islands sinking into the sea are not evidence, especially when the sea level measurements show otherwise (https://tinyurl.com/y8gwsne). We are still waiting for the evidence that man-made CO2 causes global warming.
The recent release of emails, documents, and computer codes from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, are revealing an appalling display of dishonest activities having nothing to do with sound science. Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, one of the most prolific reviewers of all of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports, wrote that the documents reveal a network of conspiracy to defraud, manipulate, distort, and intimidate which is difficult to believe.
James Dellingpole of England described how the “warmists” have in a number of ways manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their political cause (https://tinyurl.com/yhx9juw).
In addition, there were attempts to disguise/remove evidence of the Medieval Warming Period as well as the Little Ice Age, there were attempts to intimidate editors of climate science journals to exclude all papers which challenged the prevailing political dogma.
There is evidence to omit data, manipulate data, use data for inappropriate purposes, ignoring actual field data in preference for massaged/modified data. There appears to be the massive loss of original raw field data for temperatures.
This likely will prevent or limit future attempts to replicate these studies. Replication of such studies is always an essential part of good science and is usually welcomed.
In 2009 the global warming scare remained international in scope, supported by leaders of many nations, the US Environmental Protection Agency, supported by many in the media, supported and taught in public schools systems, and supported by the Hollywood set. They all trusted the IPCC and the CRU and many in the higher roles of American Science.
With the revelations found in the released CRU documents, the IPCC and the CRU are both dishonest international enterprises which have betrayed their supporters and world climate leaders remorselessly.
When people do not know the basics of how science works, do not ask the tough but obvious questions, they can be easily misled, and they were. This has been a very bad year for science and science leadership everywhere. Too few seemed to use it.
‘Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a nuclear scientist and a science and energy resource for Hawaii Reporter and a science analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, is retired and now lives in Eastern Washington. He has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level. His interest in the communications of science has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. He can be reached via email at mailto:mike@foxreport.org’