Friday, July 01, 2011

Don't tell me they figured this out

So, the weekend puzzler is who wrote this
As climate scientists, we are, regrettably, all too familiar with these tactics. The unfortunate reality is that, to research climate issues today – at least if one’s research findings tend to support human-caused climate change – means to live and work in an environment of constant accusations of fraud, calls for investigations (or for criminal prosecutions), demands for access to every draft, every intermediate calculation, and every email exchanged with colleagues, daily hate mail and threats, and attempts to pressure the institutions that employ us and fund our research. Through experience, we have learned that there is no review of climate scientists’ work that isn’t deemed a “whitewash” by climate change contrarians; there is no casual remark that can’t be seized upon, blown out of proportion and distorted; and there is no person whose character can’t be assassinated, no matter how careful and honest their research.
No fair using the Google

18 comments:

  1. Boston Bruins! Stanley Cup Champs!

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  2. Not completely off topic, speaking of disinformers' tactics: Climate Progress is reporting that climate change made Sen. Inhofe sick. Inhofe meant the part about being "under the weather" when he explained why he can't present the keynote speech at the current Heartland deniers' convention.

    http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/01/259859/algae-bloom-sick-inhofe/

    Inhofe himself said "the environment strikes back". Climate Progress thinks he's joking. Maybe Inhofe will decide God is trying to send him a message?

    Eli's bunnies may not need a strongly perverse sense of humor to find this news tasty.

    Snow Bunny

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  3. Uhhhh, Judy Curry before the aliens abducted her?

    Bugs Bunny

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  4. Willie Soon. Greenpeace finally decided to fund him.

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  5. I'm with Bugs Bunny above; alas.

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  6. You will tell us, I hope; I'm trying to cheat now that I've guessed, and teh Google is not being sufficiently helpful to me.

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  7. Wegman, he's got ALL the networking data.

    John Puma

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  8. I cheated and found it on Google. I knew it sounded familiar and indeed, I'd read those words before. Beautifully crafted.

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  9. Anna you may need to take a refresher course at the Hank Roberts School of Googling. Third item of my search results, just behind the Rabbet main page and this post.

    The signatory from Princeton was my only surprise.

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  10. Little Mouse cheated and had a lucky Google.

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  11. I refuse to cheat.

    Cuccinelli and Inhofe in a joint statement sent to every media outlet by Morano?

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  12. Anonymous @4:16,
    Why was the Princeton name a surprise? Are you perhaps thinking of William Happer instead?

    Signed,
    Defensive Alum

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  13. Anonymous: weird, because the signatory from Princeton is the person I actually guessed (correctly).

    OK, actually I initially guessed it was some churnalist, but then I noticed the words "As climate scientists" and

    * * *

    Snow Bunny:

    Re Inhofe being under the weather, and algae: let me be the first to say this:

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

    Inhofe, defeated not by a supposed conspiracy of Marxist greenies, but by a humble photosynthetic lifeform.

    -- frank

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  14. Some more history. While rummaging in old magazines I came across a article by Philip Gething in Physics World (paywalled) from 1993, when the UK FOIA was in the making. While acknowledging the possible benefits of that act, he did warn:

    So how do you feel about disclosing details of your work in (say) medical physics, before you are ready and against your better judgemnet? Do you want your draft report, circulating internally in your laboratory for comment, to be available to the world at large? Will it be correctly interpreted by the tabloids and the general public?

    He closed the article by noting:

    Although the principle of openness is a noble one, a future FoI Act with real teeth could contain hidden dangers for all of us. We need to ask the legislators exactly what they have in mind. And they will no doubt be keen to tell us, freely and openly.

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  15. Defensive Alum & Frank.

    My surprise was only caused by his by the contrast between his reported role in the previous post and this one.

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  16. A Chronicle of Higher Ed essay objects scientists being defended against attacks. Do Chronicle readers need some higher Ed? I suppose many of them know little of the tangled tale of how we arrived at the current state of denial.

    Pete Dunkelberg

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  17. Anonymous 3:25am,

    Nope. The Princeton signatory happens to be one of the people who Get It™.

    * * *

    Pete Dunkelberg:

    And we see that Peter Wood is another well-educated bloke who does not Get It™.

    -- frank

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  18. "A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians--dead!--slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth."

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