Lennart Bengtsson and His Nine Lives
While fairly distrustful and always on the lookout for inside knife work, Eli has come to recognize that sometime you have to wait to the end to understand what has happened. This was the case, with the Monnett issue. There, even after it was explained to him, Michael Tobis was simply too full of good will to accept Eli's explanation. Further, sometimes bunnies can't accept reality because it would hurt their positioning.
Over at Klimazwiebel, HvS tries to make sense for his readers of what happened with Lennart Bengtsson, the GWPF and ERL. Given his druthers, von Storch is not able to follow the music and so, at the end Eli tries to enlighten him
L’Affaire Bengtsson was all over the Climate Blog world and even penetrated into the real media. What Eli and the bunnies need is perspective. While this flood appears to have come from nowhere, it came from Sweden, and had been percolating there for a few years, but, of course, in Swedish.
There, IEHO, is the crux of the matter. Bengtsson functions in different linguistic and national worlds. It was first in Sweden that his political and science policy worlds came together, but even in Sweden, his writings in the national media, while in part skeptical of the IPCC consensus were not outside of the 97%, or at least not much. At conferences, he went further, and as a commenter on the blogs (esp of the Stockholm Initiative) he joined a far right wing view of the world and his colleagues that was despicable. (See, for
example here, here and here.) This explains the strident reaction of Rabett Run's Swedish friends for whom Bengtssons actions were not a surprise but simply the last straw
The explosion about Bengtsson's joining the GWPF, should not have surprised any speaker of Swedish or reader of Swedish climate blogs, but, of course, it was a shock to those stuck in the English (and evidently German) worlds.
In this regard HvS's perception that Bengtsson
"2)
Complains that the discussion, even for climate science suffers all to much from politization, and he was trying to open new channels for communication".
is a bit naive. Maybe more than a bit but it well fits the space that HvS and EZ are trying to dig out for themselves.
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I'm starting to think that there is an correlation between how much someone complains about politization/bias and how political/biased that person is themselves. This may, however, be obvious to others who've spent more time engaging in this topic. Call me naive :-)
On the Wikipedia there's a near constant stream of complaints about politization/bias and woeful cries of "it's not neutral" when an article gives weight to mainstream views, as required by policy, and doesn't give equal weight to their favourite fringe pseudoscience.
People trying to show mainstream views don't seem to complain so much, but then at its best Wikipedia has a well known bias towards reality.
Även med google translate Jag kan inte läsa dessa svenska akademiska argument. Några bra förolämpningar visas, men jag är i mörkret i allmänhet.
For those of use who find Annalen der Physik hard going , and Der Spiegel too dark a glass to see through, the favor of some Rabbety translation requested is.
It's "Lennart", not "Lennert".
HvS about Bengtsson: "2) Complains that the discussion, even for climate science suffers all to much from politization, and he was trying to open new channels for communication".
Here is a reminder of how that turned out:
Fox New: "Climategate II? Scientific community accused of muzzling dissent on global warming".
Lennert Bengtsson and his nine lives
and Eli Rabett and his nine posts about him
If the Swedish academy decides to give a Nobelog Prize for blogging (and reblogging) that "Some Lennert is wrong", Eli will surely be at the top of the list.
I don't think it's correct to call Lennart Bengtsson "far right". He is to the right of center in the Swedish political spectrum, but mainly he has a bad habit of accusing opponents of being communist. Any perceived slight is met with vehemence.
Recently it was noted on (Stockholm Initiative's blog that a politician from our nationalist party "Sverigedemokraterna" had quoted an opinion article by Bengtsson. Many people there thought it was great that those opinions were mentioned in parliament, but others pointed out that having a member from a generally despised party do it might do more harm than good and hurt Bengtsson's credibility through no fault of his own.
As a result Lennart Bengtsson complained that this attitude was "worse than what happened in the Soviet union during the worst persecutions of Stalin" and that he was going to stop writing on the blogg (#116 and #122) here:
http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/2014/06/05/gron-logik/#comments
(He is not surprisingly back again). This overreaction makes me wonder what the colleagues who wrote to him about GWPF really said.
How should we describe LB's recent comments on climatology?
Now I see.
Only undespised Norwegian politicians enjoy the prerogative of awarding climate policy Nobels
I'm usually opposed to the mainstream. But that's because I've learned conventional wisdom can be awfully wrong. And somebody has to make sure we don't head off a cliff.
For example, I decided to give you an overview of Spain's football team because an English speaking audience may focus too much on England and the USA.
When it comes to climate issues, my analysis tends to have more humour. For example, I could write a comedy in three acts about the AR5 RCP8.5....
For your amusement: here is a recent attempt by Lennart Bengtsson to write some satire. My translation from Swedish.
”Pippi Longstocking and political correctness
The conformity in Sweden outdoes itself when the politically correct society has given Pippi Longstocking a new father. He is no longer a Negro king but only a king. Now it is not very likely that Pippi Longstocking’s father is a Bantu Negro, Hottentot or Bushman but rather if I recall the story correctly he was appointed king in spite of his Swedish origin for an unspecified African country. Also Pippi doesn’t have any Negroid features but resembles more a kind of energetic Gudrun Schyman [Swedish politician] as a child.
However, I have no recollections of Pippi’s mother, so there is space for a more thorough revision in order to satisfy all believing genus-women. Why not replace the whole Negro king with a left-wing and politically correct Pippi-mother who has transferred her maternity leave to a kind and meek husband who stays at home and does the cleaning.“
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