Posted on 12/02/2009 6:56:37 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Two key Obama Administration scientists were grilled this morning about Climategate at a hearing of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming this morning. The hearing, originally meant to be a review of climate science before Copenhagen, got personal. The hearing suggests that the release of some 1000 e-mails among scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) could have long-lasting political implications, as political foes of greenhouse gas controls are citing them as evidence that the science behind the campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is rigged.
Ranking member James Sensenbrenner (RWI) led the assault, attacking John Holdren, the president's science adviser. Sensenbrenner, a former chair of the House Science committee, quoted an e-mail from 2003 in which Holdren called scientists Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas "amateurs" at interpreting climate data and said that their findings are "flawed."
"How can you be objective on this?" said Sensenbrenner, pointing to the exchange. Holdren said he had come to his views by careful analysis, and his only "bias" was that he had read the Soon and Baliunas paper and found its findings wanting.
Politicians at the hearing used Climategate to suggest that the state of climate science is fundamentally rotten.
I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board...
"How unfortunate," said Miller, that scientists would work together to undermine a journal whose findings they disagreed with. (Here is Mann's explanation.) Sensenbrenner called it one example of "scientific fascism" that the e-mails revealed.
The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenco, did not at first defend the CRU scientists in her appearance before the committee. Instead, she told members that she did not "believe these e-mails are typical" of the scientific community's behavior. But Holdren said that the facts were still out on what the e-mails meant, and he questioned whether the e-mails, as critics allege, are evidence of a larger, more sinister effort.
"If there was manipulation of data that was not scientifically legitimate, yes, I regard that as a problem and I would denounce it," Holdren said. Representative John Sullivan (ROK) asked Holdren if he thought that improper "manipulation" of science would warrant an investigation. Holdren said that a congressional investigation would be the wrong choice, since the scientific community "has a process" in place for finding truth when questions about the legitimacy of data arise.
Other lines of questioning allowed members to take decidedly cheap shots at the scientific establishment. Given that only 4% of carbon emissions are from man-made sources, said Sullivan, "Isn't it arrogant to think we can manipulate the whole [atmospheric] process?"
"We have manipulated the whole process," said Lubchenco, meaning that man-made emissions had led to warmer temperatures by putting the natural system out of balance.
But Sullivan's rejoinder was that she meant manipulation of the science. "I know you have, changing the numbers," he said, to chuckles in the room. "These are not numbers taken out of the air," protested Lubchenco.
At the end of the hearing chairman Representative Edward Markey (DMA) delivered an impassioned plea for the public to listen to the bulk of scientific results on climate change. "It would be better to accept the science," he said. "A few e-mails," he added, won't undermine a "century of science."
Holdren really needs to be sterilized - the old elastrator treatment comes to mind - heavy duty rubber bands - backed up with stainless steel hog rings. Give him time to savor his predicament. Holdren, Ezekiel Emanuel, Cass Scumslime, [the all your body parts are belong to me guy] - if these people weren’t such harmless psychos they would make Mengele look like Mary Poppens.
Which does not usually require keeping your source code and original data secret.
A Senator should have asked him to detail out that process...:^)
A century of science? WTF! The global warming alarmism just flowed out from under a rock this century.
I watched most of it. Pretty predictable. The "experiments" were just embarrassing. The Republicans stood tall. The Dems were surrounding the wagons. It was a good meeting that was supposed to be about Copenhagen but turned out to be all about Climategate. A big plus for our side IMHO.
That jumped out at me, too.
If by this century, you mean the 21st century, you’re absolutely right. Back in the 20th century, they were screaming about a new Ice Age, but somehow in the last 10 years, the course has mysteriously reversed itself.
Even putting the roots of it back into the 20th century, when one alarmist theory after another succeeded each other (the “population bomb,” the Silent Spring hysteria that led to the banning of DDT, etc.), it doesn’t go beyond the 1960s.
But heck, what’s another lie to “scientists” like that?
In reading Harry’s file, even I could figure out these guys were busy trying to prove the unprovable.
My thoughts on this are fairly basic. The religion of Gaia, the cult of GW/CC all have one tenet they follow.
MAN is God.
Therefore MAN has this all powerful control over nature.
I have been hearing info that the earths axis is minutly changing.
Some suggest that this was the cause of the original ice age.
So by the GW/CC thinking....would they suggest ever human on earth move to the opposite side to stop the process. Or just kill off the side with to many people to even it out.
I am not being ridiculous, I honestly think these GW/CC people REALLY think like this scenerio.
If you think this is stupid ....well there you have it.
The envirowackos are STUPID.
NOT a provable statement. Lubchenco would have to cite the location of the "control" Earth where the precise conditions that exist on this planet occurred on the control Earth, with the exception of mankind's industrial emission of CO2. I'm pretty sure she doesn't have that control Earth experiment data available. So her statement is a supposition, yet she asserts it as if it were an axiom
Thanks for spending the time and giving a report.
How the world was misled about global warming and now climate change
It was mentioned at post #40 on this thread...by 20 years too late :
Obama science advisers grilled over hacked e-mails (It's ON!)
“”These are not numbers taken out of the air,” protested Lubchenco.””
Time is chimeric in our experience, a fluid in which we glide, unaware and unconcerned, eliding here, eluding there as conciousness allows — until epihany strikes.
Here we are, caught up in a scheme of apparently no one’s making, poised finger above the red button, when the dumbest of all statements ever destined for posterity emanates from the shallowest of places:
“These are not numbers taken out of the air,”...
This, based on the “measured” temperature of the very air, the Linus Blanket of mankind, the atmosphere; are uttered with a gust of CO2 in defense of the purity of an undefiled earth, a thwarted transforming, by one whose authority is subject to the whims of those she portends to speak without bothering to listen.
MAXIMIZE MOMENTUM, MINIMIZE FRICTION, EMBRACE INERTIA.
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