... after we consider our involvement in an ill fated relationship or business venture, we may ask ourselves "how could it happen ?" I imagine that many scientists surveying the wreckage of "climate science" are asking this question and reviewing their involvement and the extent of the stain on their careers. This article by
Jerome Ravetz of Oxford University "...environmental consultant and professor of philosophy of science best known for his books challenging the assumptions of scientific objectivity..." looks at the process of entanglement from a science perspective, and includes these observations...
... As all these anomalies and unsolved puzzles emerged, the neat, compelling picture became troubled and even confused... But the political cause had been taken up by powerful advocates, like Al Gore...
...and was typified by former Colorado senator
Tim Wirth when he remarked in the early days of the climate campaign that
“we’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” Not surprisingly, after Wirth left the Senate and the Clinton administration he ended up at the United Nations...however...
...We found ourselves in another crusading ‘War’, like those on 'Drugs' and 'Terror'. This new War, on Carbon, was equally simplistic, and equally prone to corruption and failure. Global warming science became the core element of this major worldwide campaign to save the planet. Any weakening of the scientific case would have amounted to a betrayal of the good cause, as well as a disruption of the growing research effort. All critics, even those who were full members of the scientific peer community, had to be derided and dismissed. As we learned from the CRU e-mails, they were not considered to be entitled to the normal courtesies of scientific sharing and debate. Requests for information were stalled, and as one witty blogger has put it, ‘peer review’ was replaced by ‘pal review’. Even now, the catalogue of unscientific practices revealed in the mainstream media is very small in comparison to what is available on the blogosphere. Details of shoddy science and dirty tricks abound. By the end, the committed inner core were confessing to each other that global temperatures were falling, but it was far too late to change course...In needing to treat Planet Earth like a textbook exercise, the climate scientists were forced to break the rules of scientific etiquette and ethics, and to play scientific power-politics in a way that inevitably became corrupt...
...Ravetz then introduces, with a degree of undeserved compassion, the grassroots 'extended peers' and cheerleaders for alarmism and corrupt science; the loathsome greens...
...To have a political effect, the ‘extended peers’ of science have traditionally needed to operate largely by means of activist pressure-groups using the media to create public alarm. In this case, since the global warmers had captured the moral high ground, criticism has remained scattered and ineffective, except on the blogosphere. The position of Green activists is especially difficult, even tragic (!) ; they have been ‘extended peers’ who were co-opted into the ruling paradigm, which in retrospect can be seen as a decoy or diversion from the real, complex issues of sustainability, as shown by Mike Hulme. Now they must do some very serious re-thinking about their position and their role...
...and what of the future for climate science ? What has been learned ?
...
Scientists who have been forced to work on the blogosphere have had the invaluable experience of exclusion and oppression; that could make it easier for them to accept that something is seriously wrong and then to engage in the challenging moral adventures of dealing with uncertainty and ignorance. The new technologies of communications are revolutionising knowledge and power in many areas. The extended peer community of science on the blogosphere will be playing its part in that process. Let dialogue commence!...more here...
...and with a bow towards my northern hemisphere roots, and striking a blow for multi-culturalism, all you ever needed to know about Cockney rhyming slang, including the Cockney alphabet, here... ...and in closing for the day, an
INVITATION...would you like to monitor the temperature (and morale) of the warmists ? See
this exchange...here... although right now (5.26pm.) their site is down. Hope it's not hari-kari all round...
One of this country's favourite adopted sons, Denis died aged 66, shortly after Christmas.
