Exactly

БогородицаArticle here. Its interesting that they make very similar points to what I’ve suggested in the past. Even more to the point, they bring up the very real specter of Lysenkoism rearing its ugly head … but now we can call it AGW-ism or CO2-ism. If you dare disagree with those in power, you will be fired and shunned. Lack of evidentiary support be damned, full speed ahead. Lysenko set back Soviet era biology by decades. Then there was the catholic church and Galileo. Dare to disturb the orthodoxy, and you are gonna be excommunicated, or worse. Hold a view contrary and risk it all. Even when the evidence firmly supports your “unorthodox” viewpoint, and does not support the “orthodox” viewpoint. This is in part why activism has no part whatsoever in science. Advocacy for particular policy directions, which could dramatically impact economic (and other) conditions should be made with input and advice from scientists, but not advocated by scientists themselves, unless they can firewall any scientific work they do from the position they support. And most humans can’t really do that. There are significant, credible problems with the various theories running about, not the least of which is that the theory and observations do not align. And that lack of alignment does not enable the theory to survive. Unless its supported by the orthodoxy, and there’s lots of money to be made. Beaucoup money. And political power (usually following or leading money). And influence. Follow the money. [update] This is an interesting piece this morning where they do a pretty good job of noting what the issues with the current orthodoxy’s theory are. And they note, curiously enough, that the science is not, by any stretch of the imagination, settled. And they note that some people and groups have … how shall I say this … an enhanced preference … yeah, thats good … for one particular model and interpretation, even going so far as to explicitly deny evidence that contradicts them, or worse, doesn’t support them. [update 2] Pretty damning (and obvious) conclusions drawn by a number of people.

Follow. The. Money. Who stands to lose when this bubble bursts? Should be bloody obvious. James Gleick, whom has written quite a number of books is on the other side of this debate, and is using all the rhetoric I would not expect out of a prominent scientist and expounder of science for the public. He writes

The climategate emails, and climategate2 emails, demonstrate, clearly, that those whom are skeptical are not lying. The issue of harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action is a poor attempt to deflect real criticism. Look, I don’t expect a politician to be well schooled in thermodynamics and complex physics and chemistry of atmospheres, climate, etc. I do expect them to rely upon scientists without bias for clear answers to simple questions, or even for “I don’t know” or “we are not sure” answers to simple questions. I do not expect that a scientist will don an activists hat, and argue vehemently for (or against) a position that, in some way, may increase their own compensation or stature. Our job is to provide answers, or realistic and viable guestimates. Not to be playing demonization cards. Politicians are mostly lawyers, and I don’t expect them to think as anything but lawyers. This isn’t a demonization of politicians, but a practical reality. Our job is to not be biased, to present objective fact where possible, and reasonable estimates and arguments both pro and con when objective fact is not accessible. Because otherwise, there is far more than an appearance of conflict of interest. There is a huge appearance of feathering ones nest … Years ago, someone accused me of feathering my nest by leveraging open source code to help them with their tasks and lower their cost for their cluster. Took me a while to get over the initial shock of this, and how abjectly ridiculous it was. I had to walk this person through a deeper understanding of what open source is (and was), and how it gave them freedom from lockin. I explained all the pros that I knew, AND all of the cons that I could think of. Their thought had been that I had locked them into working with us (we didn’t), and explained that it enabled them freedom to hire others to handle the same tasks without requiring us to sign off on it, agree to it, etc. It gave the decision maker more power of their decisions. This is what good information does. When you give good information, you lay out the case. You may have an opinion, but as a scientist, you have a responsibility to be objective. Without that objectivity … you aren’t a scientist, you are an activist. Most of the politicians, if confronted with a “we don’t know, but its very important that we do find out because of these potential coupled issues” will be far more likely to continue to fund, hell, to increase funding research, if you explain it to them truthfully, with full disclosure. But that time appears to be in the receding past for this field. The well, as it were, has been poisoned by well meaning, but fundamentally flawed discourse. The bubble has been bursting on the AGW bits for a while. We know climates change over time. We can see this. We know that there have been cold and warm spells (actually much greater than IPCC predicts). We also know that models proclaiming AGW temperature rises aren’t matching experimental observations. Which, in science means that AGW models that predicted wrong things are done, kaput, finished, dead, bereft of life they rest in peace, pushing up the daisies, shrugging off the mortal coil. I hope my meaning is clear. If you make a prediction, and objective observation does not jive with your prediction, and observation, after observation, after observation fails to jive with your prediction, as a hint, it ain’t the observations that are broke. Its the model. So basing any advice off a broken model needs to come with a caveat emptor warning “This model is known not to predict reality accurately.” This said, there are some very important questions that need to be answered. And more accurate models need to be developed. Very likely, we are going to see the sun as being the major influencer on our climate, as well as orbital perturbations, etc. This is a guess on my part. Oceanic currents, airflows, etc. will likely be a response to the external stimulus, rather than the only thing that matters (according to IPCC, etc.). But we are at the point where those on the AGW side of the debate are in circled wagons mode. Lots of grant money is involved, and huge industries with carbon offset economics are about. Follow the money. Its unpleasant what you find.