Probably not anymore. Now he is a climate blasphemer.
Posted on 03/05/2015 11:08:13 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
In the wake of accusations that skeptical climate scientists are peddling misleading research, a top scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has this to say: the government has spent billions funding climate science promoting an alarmist political agenda.
“Billions of dollars have been poured into studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of dollars have been involved in overthrowing the energy economy,” Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “So it is unsurprising that great efforts have been made to ramp up hysteria, even as the case for climate alarm is disintegrating.”
“Individuals and organizations highly vested in disaster scenarios have relentlessly attacked scientists and others who do not share their beliefs. The attacks have taken a threatening turn,” wrote Lindzen, who is a distinguished senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Lindzen writes this after Democratic lawmakers launched an investigation into energy industry funding of climate science, looking to discredit scientists whose research challenges the underlying reasons for C02-reducing policies championed by the Obama administration.
Lindzen himself was targeted for investigation by Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, who wrote to MIT asking them to hand over funding documents and communications between Lindzen and potential funders. Grijalva’s investigation has some in the scientific community up in arms.
“Mr. Grijalva’s letters convey an unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate should cease lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive inconvenience and expense — and scientists holding such views should not offer testimony to Congress,” Lindzen writes.
How did this whole controversy start? In February, the New York Times reported that Willie Soon, a climate scientist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, did not disclose funding he got from Southern Company, an energy company that uses coal.
For years, environmentalists have been attacking Soon for taking money from energy companies with fossil fuel interests, the only update the Times story added was that Soon allegedly did not disclose this to academic journals he was being published in.
It’s not quite clear that Soon did anything wrong though, since there is no clear idea of what constitutes a conflict of interest in climate science — a field where almost all the data is publicly available and where researchers receive funding from all sorts of interest groups.
“The Times reintroduced this old material as news, arguing that Mr. Soon had failed to list this support in a recent paper in Science Bulletin of which he was one of four authors,” Lindzen wrote. “Two days later Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva … used the Times article as the basis for a hunting expedition into anything said, written and communicated by seven individuals … about testimony we gave to Congress or other governmental bodies. We were selected solely on the basis of our objections to alarmist claims about the climate.”
Other climate scientists have also derided the investigations by Grijalva and a separate one by Senate Democrats as a “witch hunt” designed to intimidate scientists whose views differ from the Obama administration.
“When ‘witch hunts’ are deemed legitimate in the context of popular causes, we will have fully turned science into just another arena for the exercise of power politics,” said University of Colorado climate scientist Roger Pielke Jr. “The result is a big loss for both science and politics.”
“I don’t think anything good will come of this,” said Judith Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “I anticipate that Grijalva will not find any kind of an undisclosed fossil fuel smoking gun from any of the 7 individuals under investigation.”
Bot Curry and Pielke have been targeted by Grijalva as “skeptical” climate scientists that should be investigated. Pielke, however, is no skeptic of global warming. In fact, Pielke has supported carbon taxes and the EPA’s carbon dioxide emissions limits on power plants.
Pielke has only challenged claims that global warming is making weather more extreme. His research has earned him the scorn of White House science czar John Holdren, who personally attacked Pielke’s research last year.
“Mr. Grijalva acknowledged the absence of any evidence but purportedly wanted to know if accusations made against Mr. Soon about alleged conflicts of interest or failure to disclose his funding sources in science journals might not also apply to us,” Lindzen noted.
“Where all this will lead is still hard to tell,” he added. “At least Mr. Grijalva’s letters should help clarify for many the essentially political nature of the alarms over the climate, and the damage it is doing to science, the environment and the well-being of the world’s poorest.”
This MIT guy is a world renowned scientist.
The University of California teaches classes on Global Warming and no doubt it is encouraged and subsidized by the Fed. Gee, a world renowned university that pushes government propaganda, imagine that.
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged predicted *exactly* this. Literally political science.
Amazingly prescient.
“Both Curry and Pielke have been targeted by Grijalva “
Grijalva is a communist, and “reconquista” advocate whose district is 88% hispanic, half of whom are likely illegal immigrants.
Of course, that’s the only way to get a piece of the pie.
It’s interesting to note that those “threats” are coming from congress critters who can barely spell “science” and would fail even the most elementary calculus or physics class.
Hmmmm, come to think of it, this perhaps applies to the vast majority of the “climate researchers” since we have ample examples of their 1) cheating on data, 2) inability to correctly analyze data and data triends, 3) inability to correctly assemble a model that actually has any chance of forecasting future climate/temperature, etc, and 4) inability to do anything with their research save bend over and play “mama” to Dorkbama’s gubmit grants. Really, what else could these clowns do?
Oh, forgot, there’s always the last chance employment bureau...otherwise known as “congress”.
The science is settled, remember. I am so glad to see a little rumbling in this area - a little push back, a little finger in the eyeball of our fearful leader who thinks he’s above reproach. Would that D.C. gets cover with snow up to the top of the Washington monument - sometime in May would be nice.
And the gov. scientists are a bunch of lying, liberal greenies. They most likely get their paychecks from George Soros, the scourge of everything.
I would come close to betting my life that Soros is financing a big part of this.
Exactly - science stands or falls on published facts and analysis, so "conflict of interest" is an irrelevant concept dragged in by the scientifically illiterate.
Yeah but he isnt Bill Nye, so he doesn’t count.
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a ball of fire that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
It isn't just the image of climate science being tarnished by "global warming" alarmism. Other fields of science are being damaged, as well.
I have attended sessions at American Society of Microbiology conferences, and seen speaker after speaker talk about a real problem (for instance, food poisoning), and finish the talk by opining that the problem exists "because of global warming." No, it doesn't. But by being able to blame everything on global warming, they don't have to try to determine what is causing the problem. Every time a paper is published that contains the phrase, "because of global warming", it weakens science. Such papers might contain actual hypotheses but throw that phrase in because of a belief that including it might increase the chance to get grant moneys. Unfortunately, many global warming alarmists love to point at a large volume of papers about "global warming" and say that thousands of papers prove that it is real. However, no number of papers blaming whatever observation they describe on "global warming" actually establishes anything about global climate.
I’m coming close to betting my life he is at the core of most of the socialist/communist government decisions going on with the dems. I think obama’s head would have blown up if he had to run all this anti American stuff by himself. He’s a good marxist but not that good.
A strongly worded letter followed by a non-binding resolution
.
Probably not anymore. Now he is a climate blasphemer.
I believe Obama is under the Soros thumb. I also believe that Soros will make Obama a very rich man, soon after he leaves office.
If it weren’t for the MSM, this global scam would have died out years ago.
Maybe even dictator of a small country.
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