A Storm Brews over the Credibility of Climate Studies

[Michie]

Objectivity gives credibility to scientific study. When scientific research is swayed by political agendas, both science and politics are compromised. Nowhere is this conflict of interest more apparent than in the realm of climate science.

For decades, climate activists have alternated between alarming scenarios of global cooling and global warming. When the weather refused to cooperate, they adopted the term climate change to encompass all possibilities.

The ever-changing field of climate science has shaped global policies, public perceptions and financial investments. However, few discuss the undisclosed conflicts of interest (COIs) that seriously undermine climate science’s credibility.

Indeed, many published climate reports and studies reveal non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funding or links to advocacy groups. Those involved in the studies generally fail to disclose crucial financial and non-financial connections.

A groundbreaking study by Jessica Weinkle et al. illustrates just how serious this problem is. An analysis of a substantial number of peer-reviewed articles examining the relationship between climate change and hurricane behavior revealed significant flaws in disclosure practices. None of the 331 authors analyzedreported any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest. This failure to report stands in stark contrast to other fields, such as biosciences, where conflict of interest disclosures range from 17 to 33 percent.

Continued below.

A Storm Brews over the Credibility of Climate Studies

Objectivity gives credibility to scientific study. When scientific research is swayed by political agendas, both science and politics are compromised. Nowhere i

www.tfp.org

 

[RileyG]

I think it’s important to be concerned over the environment and take care of the earth, but it shouldn’t be worshipped.

 

[Wolseley]

Any time you want to see whether "science" has any merit or not, follow the money.

Major universities send teams to archaeological digs; they unearth skeletons from some extinct form of ape. If the university says the "peer-reviewed" evidence indicates that this is a skeleton from Homo bovinum stercus (or B.S. Man), the university will get all sorts of grants and freebies and bennies, which will provide them with plenty of cash for their new faculty lounge and help pay the protection money to Big Paulie's Textbook Sales Racket.

But if the archaeologists say the skeleton is nothing more than the remains of an extinct ape, which is not and never was a human ancestor, then the Great Hide-Bound Poo-Bahs of Anthropology will harrumph and begin a campaign of harassment and denigration concerning the find, because the archaeologists employed by the university are refusing to follow the Standard Darwinian Evolutionary Template®™. Result? The university doesn't get a dime. And we certainly can't have that, now, can we?

In short, any school or institution that wants any form of Federal grant money will not rock the boat when it comes to "science", and will strictly adhere to the prevailing academic and political paradigms, or they will lose all their funding. And this applies to "climate change" the same as it does to the latest evolutionary fairy tale dreamed up by the fable-spinning firm of Darwin, Huxley, and Leakey, Inc.

 

[The Barbarian]

For decades, climate activists have alternated between alarming scenarios of global cooling and global warming.

This is a common claim of climate deniers, but it's false..

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Vol. 89 Issue 9
THE MYTH OF THE 1970s GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS

Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests. ​

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In science, credibility comes from claims being confirmed by evidence. Here's predictions made by NASA scientist James Hanson decades ago...

Pin It Hansen vs Lindzen​ Comparison of the observed GISTEMP temperature record (black) with temperature predictions from Dr. James Hansen's 1988 modeling study (red), and with our reconstructed temperature prediction by "skeptic" climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen based on statements from his talk at MIT in 1989 (blue). Hansen's Scenario B has been adjusted to reflect the actual observed greenhouse gas concentrations since 1988. Lindzen's statements of low climate sensitivity were used to reconstruct what his temperature prediction might have looked like as described here. Dr. Hansen's global temperature changes predicted in 1988 have proven quite accurate.

Which of the predictions came closest to the actual trend? Yep. And that's why people like Hanson have credibility, and people like Lindzen do not.

​

 

[The Barbarian]

Any time you want to see whether "science" has any merit or not, follow the money.

Yep. Exxon, for example was offering large stipends for any climatologist who would back their denial of warming. And a very few took the money. But Exxon's own scientists were betting on warming. And got it rather accurately.

Exxon scientists predicted global warming with 'shocking skill and accuracy,' Harvard researchers say

In the study, scientists showed how the multinational energy giant worked to cloud the issue.

news.harvard.edu

"Follow the money?" You betcha.

Major universities send teams to archaeological digs; they unearth skeletons from some extinct form of ape.

Archaeologists don't study extinct hominids. Paleontologists do.

If the university says the "peer-reviewed" evidence indicates that this is a skeleton from Homo bovinum stercus (or B.S. Man), the university will get all sorts of grants and freebies and bennies, which will provide them with plenty of cash for their new faculty lounge and help pay the protection money to Big Paulie's Textbook Sales Racket.

Guess how I know you have never been in the faculty lounge of a university science department. PhD professors in biology make $70,000-$110000. Which is less than people with equivalent degrees make in industry. So no, not in it for the money.

But if the archaeologists say the skeleton is nothing more than the remains of an extinct ape, which is not and never was a human ancestor, then the Great Hide-Bound Poo-Bahs of Anthropology will harrumph and begin a campaign of harassment and denigration concerning the find, because the archaeologists employed by the university are refusing to follow the Standard Darwinian Evolutionary Template®™.

You're assuming that it works just as it does with creationists. It's actually quite different. For example, the discovery that Neanderthals were not the ancestor of anatomically modern humans but evolved from a common ancestor of anatomically modern humans was greeted with considerable excitement, as it cleared up some other questions. And the people responsible were rewarded.

The biggest rewards in science go to those who overthrow ideas that are in error.

In short, any school or institution that wants any form of Federal grant money will not rock the boat when it comes to "science", and will strictly adhere to the prevailing academic and political paradigms, or they will lose all their funding.

I did graduate work in immunology (at a state university) under a very kind professor who was a creationist. He had tenure and funding for his research. You've been had by people who abused your trust in them.

We need to be most skeptical when people tell us things that we really, really want to be true. Because that's when we are easiest to fool.

 

[prodromos]

 

[The Barbarian]

View attachment 364594

Weather and climate are different things. Weather changes with seasons. Climate changes by other factors.

 

[Laodicean60]

THE MYTH OF THE 1970s GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS

Whether it was a myth or not, it still scared the kids during that time, and I was included. The alarmists haven't stopped to this day. No one can say when this existential threat will occur.

 

[Wolseley]

Whether it was a myth or not, it still scared the kids during that time, and I was included. The alarmists haven't stopped to this day. No one can say when this existential threat will occur.

Trust me, I've been hearing this nonsense for better than 50 years. When I was in the 2nd grade back in the 1960s, all we heard was that we were all going to die from pesticides and environmental pollution. By the time I had reached the 4th grade in the early 1970s, it was all about "the new ice age" that was coming in, and we would all freeze to death. Then by junior high in the mid-1970s, it was desertification, water shortages, and famine that would kill us all. By the early 1980s, it was the disappearance of the ozone layer, and we would all die from the sun's heat. By 1995, that had transmogrified into global warming, with the same outcome. Then by 2000, it was the melting of the ice caps, which would raise sea levels and drown us all. And by 2010, it became anthropogenic climate change, which is the drum they've been hammering on ever since.

Guess what? None of that stuff ever happened, and we're still here. Thomas Malthus was wrong, so was Rachel Carson, so was Paul Erlich, and so was Al Gore, Stanford University, MIT, Newsweek, NASA, and UCLA. The world will end when God decides to end it, and not before, and there isn't a cotton-pickin' thing mankind can do to stop it, or to bring it about, either way.

Cases in point: Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions - Competitive Enterprise Institute

 

[The Barbarian]

Whether it was a myth or not, it still scared the kids during that time, and I was included.

Climate alarmists, just happened to be the deniers, not the scientists. As you see, they completely misrepresented what scientist were saying.

The alarmists haven't stopped to this day.

As we have seen. The old "climate scientists used to be predicting an ice age" story is still trotted out now and then, long after it's been debunked by the fact.s

No one can say when this existential threat will occur.

Happening now. Not that it will hurt everyone. The lands just south of the Sahara desert are greening up from the same climate changes that are damaging Florida freshwater wells, drying up the American West, and making it harder and more expensive to get property insurance on the Gulf Coast.

There will be winners and losers.

 

[The Barbarian]

When I was in the 2nd grade back in the 1960s, all we heard was that we were all going to die from pesticides and environmental pollution.

I've read the journals from that time. Someone lied to you about what scientists were saying. Yeah, pollution has killed some people, made a lot more of them ill, but generally "we're all gonna die" is just a denier fairy tale.

By the time I had reached the 4th grade in the early 1970s, it was all about "the new ice age" that was coming in, and we would all freeze to death.

See above. Climate alarmists were misrepresenting what scientists had actually found. Event then, most of them were predicting warming. Turns out, they had it right.

By the early 1980s, it was the disappearance of the ozone layer, and we would all die from the sun's heat.

No. It was rather an increase in UV radiation that would increase cancers and damage eyes. Which was happening until the world restricted halocarbons and the ozone layer started to heal. Today, it's pretty close to completely healed.

Back from the brink: how the world rapidly sealed a deal to save the ozone layer

As a chorus of questions rises about whether the world can act quickly enough to prevent climate breakdown, one lesson from recent history suggests rapid action is possible. The ozone layer, a...

rapidtransition.org

And by 2010, it became anthropogenic climate change, which is the drum they've been hammering on ever since.

Guess what? None of that stuff ever happened

See above. It happened just as predicted. Notice that Dr. Hanson, using only anthropogenic carbon, accurately predicted the warming. Pretty good for decades out. The problem is, you're listening to Chicken Littles like the Competiive Enterprise Institute, when you would be better off listening to actual scientists who understand the issue. They lied to you about what was predicted.