Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Heretics and Priests

Yesterday, I posted about how Scientific American had (seemingly inadvertently) shot itself in the foot by referring to Georgia Tech's Dr. Judith Curry as a "Climate Heretic".  Dr. Curry has responded in a takedown as elegant as it is brutal:
Use of the word “heretic” by Lemonick implies general acceptance by the “insiders” of the IPCC as dogma.  If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic.  The story should not be about me, but about how and why the IPCC became dogma.

...

A big part of my visceral reaction to events unfolding after 11/19 was concern that I had been duped into supporting the IPCC, and substituting their judgment for my own in my public statements on the subject.

...

Let me ask [the warmists] this. So how are things going for you lately? A year ago, the climate establishment was on top of the world, masters of the universe. Now we have a situation where there have been major challenges to the reputations of a number of a number of scientists, the IPCC, professional societies, and other institutions of science. The spillover has been a loss of public trust in climate science and some have argued, even more broadly in science. The IPCC and the UNFCCC are regarded by many as impediments to sane and politically viable energy policies. The enviro advocacy groups are abandoning the climate change issue for more promising narratives.
This is as righteous a smackdown of the degraded state of the climate science establishment as I've seen anywhere.  Just to reinforce my statement from yesterday, Dr. Curry has been vocal in stating that she believes that our release of CO2 is changing the climate - she's not a "denier" like me.

But she is demanding that the scientific community stop hiding data, stop suppressing opposing viewpoints, and start doing science transparently, as it is supposed to be done.  And this demand comes from the "High Priestess of Global Warming".

Bravo.  With more scientists like Dr. Curry, I would not be so nasty and suspicious.

2 comments:

NotClauswitz said...

She might wat to read-up a little on the Super La Nina and get in her hot-air balloon and go up a bit higher, and maybe she'll come around.
Like the huge number of guns in American households that still results in less net-crime, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 369 parts per million to 387ppm from '99 to '07 (and this amount is above the level of 302 ppm in 1910, when 20th century global temperature started to rise), and despite the significant rise in carbon dioxide since 1999, there has been no “global warming” during this period.
It's freezing here today, and we have had a very cold summer - and so has the Hawaiian Islands.

Paul, Dammit! said...

Two thoughts:

1). Dr. Farnsworth from Futurama: "I'm sciencing as fast as I can!"

2) History repeating itself with global warming replacing Phrenology or Eugenics. We need another Louis Pasteur to hammer some nails in this bitch.