Newspapers reject open letter from 255 NAS member, routinely publish deniers nonsense
Joe Romm brings word that the Wall Street Journals, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, who all have no trouble printing denier non-sense, rejected printing the open letter signed by over 250 members of the National Academy of Sciences.
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science [Part 3] thousands of scientists push back against denier claims
The recent open letter signed by over 250 members of the National Academies of science, was just the latest in a string of letters that have been written since the CRU email leak.
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science [Part 2]
Along with the open letter from over 250 members of the National Academy of Science, the journal Science has published an editorial by Brooks Hanson the deputy editor for physical sciences.
It takes a different tone than the original:
The scientific community must recognize that the recent attacks stem in part from its culture and scientists’ behavior.
but ultimately arrives at a similar conclusion:
In turn, it is time to focus on the main problem:The IPCC reports have underestimated the pace of climate change while overestimating societies’ abilities to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
In short we need to act, and fast. Nothing since the release of the CRU emails changes that fact. The question is how?
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
An open letter published in Science and signed by over 250 members of the National Academies of Science calls on climate-change deniers to cease with the personal and political attacks and focus on the facts. And those facts are that there is “compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.”
The Scientists are calling for an end to “McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them” likely referring to the threats of prosecution by Senator Inhofe and Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli against climate scientists, based on nothing more than the insignificant molehills turned into mountains found in the CRU emails.
And they conclude “Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.”
The full text is bellow:
Climatologist sues National Post, asks for troubling precedent
Andrew Weaver has been the recipient of some rather nasty commentary from some less respectable members of the Canadian press writing in the National Post. This sector of the press has over the years, but especially since the CRU email leak, shown a consistent disregard for reality.
Weaver feels that his reputation is being unfairly tarnished “by a a series of unjustified libels based on grossly irresponsible falsehoods that have gone viral on the Internet”, and he is fighting back. He has launched a libel suit against the National Post newspaper and its publisher, editors and three writers: Terence Corcoran, Peter Foster and Kevin Libin.
Holding media organizations, and story writers responsible for the content the produce is absolutely essential, especially as any allegiance to the truth has been thrown under a bus by many reporting on this issue. Blatant falsehoods are spreading like wildfires; corrections and retractions are almost nonexistent.
Amazonian contradictions
Looks like the Amazon(non)gate wont die. And in keeping it alive the deniers are again showing their self-contradictions.
So what happened? It started in 2007, when a study (Saleska et al. 2007, Science) showed that the Amazon actually greened during the drought of 2005. This was an odd responses; no one expected a rainforest to green during a drought, though because the study conclusions were based on satellite imagery, rather than direct observations, there was less certainty in them.
Now, a new study (Samanta et al. 2010, GRL), also using satellite imagery, indicates that the 2005 drought did not cause a greening of the Amazon. So how is this new study being spun by deniers? The same way the 2007 study was spun.
Or as Tim Lambert said “It’s always bad news for the IPCC”. Both studies can’t be bad news for the IPCC, but such contradictions are par for the course in denialist land.
Open Letter from US Scientists on the IPCC
Over 250 scientist have signed an open letter (and signatures are till being collected) re–affirming the conclusions of the IPCC fourth assessment report. They re-affirm that our greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the warming trend. They reaffirm that the CRU emails do not disprove global warming, and that the few minor error’s in the IPCC do not undermine it or its conclusions any any meaningful way.
It is time for scientists to take a stand and not sit idle while science is trashed by pundits and politicians. This is a good first step.
We’re not going to take it anymore!
We’re not going to take it. NO! We ain’ gonna take it! We’re not going to take it anymore!
With apologies to Twisted Sister. But this is the impression one gets from the latest leak of emails. Scientists are mad. They are mad that the reporting of climate change has gone from bad to abysmal, that deniers get away with saying obvious untruths, yet every single error made by scientists no matter how minute is made out as the death-knell of global warming, when in reality the science has never been clearer, that US senators are calling for criminal charges against leading climatologists, and they are mad that their fellow scientists are receiving death threats for simply doing their job. And they are not going to take it anymore:
An open letter to the climate science community
As spoken at the AGU 2009 Fall Meeting
These remarks reflect the personal opinions of B.D. Santer. They do not represent the official views of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the U.S. Department of Energy.
We live in extraordinary scientific and political times.
Over the course of less than a dozen generations, humanity has transitioned from a passive bystander to an active agent of change in the climate system. We are now aware of this fundamental change in our role in the world. We can no longer plead ignorance.
Science advisor John Holdren on the hacked emails and the state of climate science
(via Climate Progress)
