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Latest climate change scandal: Lead BEST study author accused of trying to mislead the public – by co-author

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Political science used to mean the study of politics, but it’s taking on a whole different meaning now, with so much money and power at stake, on a global scale. What else to make of this story by David Rose, from the Daily Mail: “Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague” (30th October 2011):

Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work [the BEST study] was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.

It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America.

The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.

In a world where even Einstein could be wrong? Well,

But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

His second-named co-author, no less, a scientist of thirty years’ experience …

We don’t know either. Here’s what we know: That Nobel-winning physicist (who abandoned a physics organization) had it right: All the trouble starts with one single word, “incontrovertible.” No good comes of that level of demand for certainty from a messy business like science.

Comments
NEWS: "but we do have other responsibilities." ==== Might be helpful to admit the incorrectness of the O.P. and the same David Rose's journalistic misleadings that are so often found in the Evolutionists Authors. These are identical to the same smear campaigns used by the BIO-TECH industries and their journalistic P.R. firms who character assasinate any scientist who is in disagreement with their precious irresponsible GMO wealth enrichment Ventures. Take for example the ordeal of Dr Erina Ermakova of the Russian Academy of Sciences for a start. On another note: "Huge Crack Discovered in Antarctic Glacier" http://news.yahoo.com/huge-crack-discovered-antarctic-glacier-212405650.html And the global ruin just pants on to the end despite who thinks who is winning in the Political Power Derby. No matter who wins, nature loses. -------Eocene
November 3, 2011
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It's true, we haven't spent a lot of time at right-wing Christian sites demonizing stuff, but we do have other responsibilities.News
November 3, 2011
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NEWS: "Gosh, this sounds off base:" ==== The only thing off base was the inaccurate article and comments in the O.P. ---- NEWS: "The question people who make serious decisions need to determine is, what is the best strategy for a healthier Earth?" ==== Why in the world would you put your faith in those you put in charge of serious questions ??? They do whatever is expedient for their careers to stay in office. It doesn't matter what political party they hail from. ---- NEWS: "Many people you might wish to denigrate are well aware of the environment issues but the answers are not usually as straightforward as you seem to think." ==== No the people I criticize are those found on almost any rightwing demonizing anything to do with the environment. Take a trip around the Net to all various anti-climate change blogs/websites and view the same EXACT idiocy that characterizes the personalities many of your opponants here against I.D. The difference is they are on your side of the issue with regard Climate Change and will do whatever it takes to fight against their imagined enemies. ---- NEWS: "There are many possible tradeoffs, and the needle must be set somewhere. Above all, accurate data are critical for making good decisions. Doubts should be aired in order to ensure confidence." ==== It doesn't take a PHDed genius and his intellectually acquired data to point out to the average world citizen that something is ratically wrong with most of the natural systems presently failing on this planet. This lack of data being necessary is also illustrated by the lack of modern day scientific data which was unavailable back when Paul penned Romans 1:20. Doesn't really take a genius to figure out something brilliant is behind the natural world, in fact people today are more accountable than they were back then. The average person is quite capable of recognizing when something just isn't right. This debate on data(what is and what's not) is nothing more than two inept political failures obsessed with power grab and personal wealth enrichment.Eocene
November 3, 2011
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Gosh, this sounds off base: "Because the ones championing healthier earth are perceived as atheistic leftwingers who supposedly are anti-business. Instead of the Christian exhibiting a responsible attitude for custodialship of the Earth, we have the other side. " The question people who make serious decisions need to determine is, what is the best strategy for a healthier Earth? Many people you might wish to denigrate are well aware of the environment issues but the answers are not usually as straightforward as you seem to think. There are many possible tradeoffs, and the needle must be set somewhere. Above all, accurate data are critical for making good decisions. Doubts should be aired in order to ensure confidence.News
November 2, 2011
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NEWS: "It sounds to us like a controversy that wouldn’t even be important except that global politics is obviously involved." ==== Yes, but let's be honest. It's simply political for BOTH sides vying and maneuvering for power grab. The science in truth takes a back seat for both parties. ---- NEWS: "We think people are entitled to know that this type of conflict is too often the atmosphere in which we are told to abide by expert opinion, in many issues other than ID." ==== But your post didn't exactly address that. It championed the misquoting out of context by a lying journalist fudging the truth for his own personal political agenda. That does help the truth any. ---- NEWS: "We are not sure what you mean by “hatred of all things environmental.” If the critical question is “What is a correct assessment of an environment situation?” ==== Of course you do. Go to any rightwing website or blog and read over the past decades of any environmental issue where buildings have to take up more landuse studie$$$ or cars may need tighter emission controls and read all the vicious degrading comments against any responsible management. And for what are there criticisms ??? Because the ones championing healthier earth are perceived as atheistic leftwingers who supposedly are anti-business. Instead of the Christian exhibiting a responsible attitude for custodialship of the Earth, we have the other side. Yet the Mosaic Law covenant was loaded with hygenic, environmental and land conservational Laws, things which the Israelites ignored out of greed and selfishness. What's the point of having the Bible if ultimately you make fun of principles and standards found therein. ---- NEWS: "The question is not who speaks for Jesus vs. who speaks for Satan but where should we make the tradeoff?" ==== No this is the issue for which the other side freely admits they could care less, but your side should but doesn't. ---- NEWS: "Accurate research findings are critical in all areas of science, including this one, to help determine difficult issues, and people should know when findings are disputed within a team." ==== Then you should have posted this article because you clearly didn't have all the hard facts as we can plainly see. Think next time!Eocene
November 2, 2011
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rhampton7: "When you remove these two highly suspect outliers, the BEST record shows a 0.14°C warming trend since 2001. And when you look at longer time periods, the upward trend is even more pronounced. There’s little here to suggest that global warming has somehow stopped." ==== Clearly there is far more going on than just Temp changes and CO2 increases. One of the things I've followed even more closely and is hardly ever mentioned on the climate change front, is that the historical upwards trend in CO2s and Temps both seem to follow the same historical chart increase levels regarding deforestation which actully comes well before any of the other symptoms increase. And there is no halting deforestation anytime soon, though it's slowed somewhat. The other thing that has picked up are the intensity of the natural disasters taking place and of course all that rebuilding is going to require more natural resources. There truly isn't a clear cut human answer to correct things. The imperfect character of the average human being won't allow for proper management, even though there are many viable solutions. The biggest solution is getting every man, woman and child on the planet on the same moral page and that is just too repugnent to the untrusting majority.Eocene
November 2, 2011
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A bit more information...
A few responses on that Berkeley climate study Brad Plumer, Washington Post, 11/01/2011 ...One of the BEST researchers, climatologist Judith Curry, has been criticizing Muller for telling reporters that “We see no evidence of [global warming] having slowed down.” And the Daily Mail drew up a much-cited graph showing that, according to the BEST data, global warming appears to have stalled between 2001 and 2010. There are a couple of problems with this line of argument. For one, as the BEST team noted in its FAQ, it’s just too hard to draw conclusions about long-term trends by looking at periods of less than 15 years. In the very short term, temperatures can fluctuate a fair bit due to natural variability, as, say, heat gets temporarily transferred to deeper ocean layers. But perhaps more to the point, the “flat trendline” in the BEST data seems to be a statistical artifact due to two faulty data points in April and May of 2010 that were highly uncertain and based on readings from just 47 temperature stations (by contrast, the March 2010 temperature was based on 14,488 stations). When you remove these two highly suspect outliers, the BEST record shows a 0.14°C warming trend since 2001. And when you look at longer time periods, the upward trend is even more pronounced. There’s little here to suggest that global warming has somehow stopped.
rhampton7
November 2, 2011
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It sounds to us like a controversy that wouldn't even be important except that global politics is obviously involved. We think people are entitled to know that this type of conflict is too often the atmosphere in which we are told to abide by expert opinion, in many issues other than ID. We are not sure what you mean by "hatred of all things environmental." If the critical question is "What is a correct assessment of an environment situation?", a person who is merely grandstanding "for the environment" is not much use. Give him a round of applause and get him out of here. Policy based on conflicted findings will not usually produce good results. For one thing, most environment issues involve tradeoffs already. Infill housing, for example, reduces the loss of land to urban sprawl but increases the intensity of energy demands of cities on their hinterlands. The question is not who speaks for Jesus vs. who speaks for Satan but where should we make the tradeoff? Accurate research findings are critical in all areas of science, including this one, to help determine difficult issues, and people should know when findings are disputed within a team.News
November 2, 2011
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NEWS: "But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped." His second-named co-author, no less, a scientist of thirty years’ experience … ===== You didn't actually do your homework on what Judith Curry actually said and the conversation she had with Richard Muller, did you ??? Have you consulted Judith Curry's own website or blog about how she was taken out of context and what she was actually in dispute over was in actual fact the title of the article in question ??? No of course not! Instead you took the 'this feels more like it to me' word of lying journalist David Rose who misquoted Judith Curry and for no other reason than Fundies hate environmental issues which attack their own closet materialistic leanings. http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/mail-on-best/#more-5526 quoting Judith Curry: "To set the record straight, some of the other sentiments attributed to me are not quite right, I will discuss these here. “Hiding the truth” in the title is definitely misleading, I made it pretty clear that there was uncertainty in the data itself, but the bigger issues are to analyze the data and interpret it. I made it clear that this was not a straightforward and simple thing to do. I told Rose that I was puzzled my Muller’s statements, particularly about “end of skepticism” and also “We see no evidence of global warming slowing down.” "I did not say that “the affair had to be compared to the notorious Climategate scandal two years ago,” this is indirectly attributed to me. When asked specifically about the graph that apparently uses a 10 year running mean and ends in 2006, we discussed “hide the decline,” but I honestly can’t recall if Rose or I said it first. I agreed that the way the data is presented in the graph “hides the decline.” There is NO comparison of this situation to Climategate. Muller et al. have been very transparent in their methods and in making their data publicly available, which is highly commendable." ************ Then she had a previous discussion with Richard Muller over her concern about the title of the story. Muller explained this: http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/discussion-with-rich-muller/#more-5540 quoting Judith Curry: "The discussion clarified several things for me. First, Muller’s title for the WSJ op-ed was “Cooling the Warming Debate,” he intended it to be a conciliatory article regarding how this data set could be used to settle some of the debates surrounding the land temperature record. The “End of Skepticism” title was provided by the WSJ editors. Muller was not happy about this change of title." ********* Perhaps you should have reviewed Judith Curry's own website and blog to find out the truth of the matter before you published this post defending your side's hatred of all things environmental and perceived left-winger. The fact is, Nature(God's creation) doesn't give a Rat's rear-end about leftwing verses rightwing and who grabs the most power. It's equally screwed up by both sides.Eocene
November 2, 2011
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