What Ben Santer Has to Say « ClimateSight
“Climate change journalism has gotten worse,” says Dr. Ben Santer, researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and one of the world’s top scientists studying the attribution of climate change.Flashback: William M. Briggs, Statistician » Dear Ben Santer
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As if it wasn’t enough for the media to treat information vital to our future so lightly, they have also helped to spread unfounded accusations of fraud against climate researchers. Scientists are people just like anyone else, and should not be subject to such harassment. “These attacks on people like Phil Jones,” Dr. Santer agrees, “had tremendous personal cost. He was nearly driven to suicide by the hatred that he encountered.”
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Who goes into scientific research expecting death threats? “[Jones] has done more than almost anyone in the world to improve our knowledge of observed changes in the temperature of planet Earth,” says Santer. “He was not deserving of this kind of treatment.
“So much attention was devoted to some incautious phrases in these emails, rather than to ask, “What kind of pressure has this guy been labouring under and operating under for years now? What sort of systematic attack by Freedom of Information Act has he been trying to deal with?
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“These fringe voices now have megaphones,” he continues, “and have means of amplifying their voices and trumpeting shoddy, incorrect science. We’ve seen the rise of the blogs, we’ve seen the rise of these “independent public auditors” who believe that they have carte blanche to investigate anyone who produces results they don’t agree with, and if that individual doesn’t comply with their every request, they indulge in this persecution campaign on their blogs and make your life very uncomfortable. I’ve had direct personal experience with that.
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“The sad thing is that many folks don’t want to know about the science at all. They just want to have business as usual and really not consider even the possibility that we might be changing the climate of planet Earth, that they might be culpable in that, and that they might need to think about the future.
For example, I read that email in which you threatened to bounce your fists off Pat Michaels’s face. I know just how you feel about Pat. Last time I saw him he was wearing red tennis shoes—red!, I swear on my soul—with a suit. It took every drop of self control I had not to pounce on him and rip them off his feet.
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7 comments:
“[Jones] has done more than almost anyone in the world to improve our knowledge of observed changes in the temperature of planet Earth,” says Santer.
Santer may be correct, if it were not for the malfeasance of Jones et al and the related email, skeptics would not have had so much sucess in educating the public.
Since some of my comments have been deleted at ClimateSight, I re-post below:
"You say that I insulted Dr. Santer and questioned his integrity. I deny both charges. I simply noted there was much science to be done and noted Dr. Santer's taking time to comment on politics.
I don't have much interest in Dr. Santer's comments on the media. However I note that Dr. Santer attacks the media for knee-jerk and non-reflective comment on Climategate. I can assure you that thoughful persons and organizations, including the American Academy for the Advancement of Science are taking the Climategate revelations very seriously. You might be interested in the special session on the future of science after Climategate which was part of the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity held in July. The senior scientists and journalist who spoke raised many important issues to be resolved.
Dr. Santer may believe that nothing needs to be changed in the way science is supported in the wake of Climategate, but there is considerable evidence that his view is increasingly in the minority.
Coming back to the science, I look forward to Dr. Santer's paper in the peer-reviewed literature responding to the recent paper showing his climate model overstates mid and lower troposphere warming by 2-4 times observations over the period 1979-2009".
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I do feel sorry for Dr. Phil Jones. However I note that he broke the law in withholding data (see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7004936.ece ).
Some of your readers may not know of Dr. Jones reply to a scientist who asked for support data - "“Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?”
The American Physical Society on line statement reads (in part):
“The success and credibility of science are anchored in the willingness of scientists to:
1. Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others. This requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials".
But Ben, according to Bert Bolin you were one of the authors of the critical chapter of the IPCC's 1995 report, AND you were one of the authors of the paper hastily put together and submitted to a journal so that that chapter of the IPCC report could be revised after the final review.
Oh the miracle of time-travel! The IPCC report cited your new paper and your new paper cited the IPCC report.
How ironic that you question the ethics of others.
When it comes to ethics, mates, I'd give you a "Fail" without hesitation. Your defense of Jones's tricks makes me laugh.
I'm still not sure that Climategate didn't come about because Jones was trying to hide files on a machine that he thought had a domain name of toms.cru but he accidentally typed tomsc.ru, which is where the UK newspapers traced the Climategate files to.
Maybe Jones is both unethical and incompetent.
John McLean
Melbourne,
Australia
"He was nearly driven to suicide by the hatred that he encountered.”
What kind of nonsense statement is that???
It could easily be pared with, "how many did he drive to near suicide by his manipulation?"
Peers and colleagues was kicked out into the cold (ref. Prof. R.S.Lindzen, MIT) ridiculed and denied publications etc.
Phil Jones is an outright power person that after the revelation of his psychopathic manipulations over so many years, should be stripped naked and relieved of his 'duties'.
He is a despicable person, a Wesley Mouch in 3. degree... and the same goes for the crony Michael "hockey stick" Mann.
Brrrr.... "the science is in!"
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Reference for my comment above:
"Panel and multivariate methods for tests of trend equivalence in climate data series", Ross McKitrick, Stephen McIntyre, Chad Herman, 2010, in press, Atmospheric Science Letters
Abstract:
We explain panel and multivariate regressions for comparing trends in climate data sets. They impose minimal restrictions on the covariance matrix and can embed multiple linear comparisons, which is a convenience in applied work. We present applications comparing post-1979 modeled and observed temperature trends in the tropical lower- and mid-troposphere. Results are sensitive to the sample length. In data spanning 1979–1999, observed trends are not significantly different from zero or from model projections. In data spanning 1979–2009, the observed trends are significant in some cases but tend to differ significantly from modeled trends.
Link:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asl.290/abstract
They just want to have business as usual and really not consider even the possibility that we might be changing the climate of planet Earth.
Classic projection. If Santer and crew can really not consider even the possibility that they might be mistaken to some degree, and thus seek to stifle all debate, they will never find out what skeptics think.
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