Climate scientists to fight back at skeptics

[Cees Binkhorst]

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Outspending oil-dollars?
Fat chance.

Groet / Cees

Originally published 05:00 a.m., March 5, 2010, updated 12:08 p.m.,
March 5, 2010
Climate scientists to fight back at skeptics
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/05/scientists-plot-to-hit-back-at-critics/
Stephen Dinan

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate
change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one
scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively
partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists
at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated
like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy
includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their
donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York
Times.

"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a
gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded,
merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R.
Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on
perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the
effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.

"This was an outpouring of angry frustration on the part of normally
very staid scientists who said, 'God, can't we have a civil dialogue
here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,'" said Stephen
H. Schneider, a Stanford professor and senior fellow at the Woods
Institute for the Environment who was part of the e-mail discussion but
wants the scientists to take a slightly different approach.

The scientists have been under siege since late last year when e-mails
leaked from a British climate research institute seemed to show top
researchers talking about skewing data to push predetermined outcomes.
Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
authoritative body on the matter, has suffered defections of members
after it had to retract claims that Himalayan glaciers will melt over
the next 25 years.

Last month, President Obama announced that he would create a U.S. agency
to arbitrate research on climate change.

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and a chief skeptic of
global-warming claims, is considering asking the Justice Department to
investigate whether climate scientists who receive taxpayer-funded
grants falsified data. He lists 17 people he said have been key players
in the controversy.

That news has enraged scientists. Mr. Schneider said Mr. Inhofe is
showing "McCarthyesque" behavior in the mold of the Cold War-era senator
who was accused of stifling political debate through accusations of
communism.

In a phone interview, Mr. Schneider, who is one of the key players Mr.
Inhofe cites, said he disagrees with trying to engage in an ad battle.
He said the scientists will never be able to compete with energy companies.

"They're not going to win short-term battles playing the game against
big-monied interests because they can't beat them," he said.

He said the "social contract" between scientists and policymakers is
broken and must be reforged, and he urged colleagues to try to recruit
members of Congress to take up their case. He also said the press and
nongovernmental organizations must be prodded.

"What I am trying to do is head off something that will be truly ugly,"
he said. "I don't want to see a repeat of McCarthyesque behavior and I'm
already personally very dismayed by the horrible state of this topic, in
which the political debate has almost no resemblance to the scientific
debate."

Not all climate scientists agree with forcing a political fight.

"Sounds like this group wants to step up the warfare, continue to circle
the wagons, continue to appeal to their own authority, etc.," said
Judith A. Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of
Technology. "Surprising, since these strategies haven't worked well for
them at all so far."

She said scientists should downplay their catastrophic predictions,
which she said are premature, and instead shore up and defend their
research. She said scientists and institutions that have been pushing
for policy changes "need to push the disconnect button for now," because
it will be difficult to take action until public confidence in the
science is restored.

"Hinging all of these policies on global climate change with its
substantial element of uncertainty is unnecessary and is bad politics,
not to mention having created a toxic environment for climate research,"
she said.

Ms. Curry also said that more engagement between scientists and the
public would help - something that the NAS researchers also proposed.

Paul G. Falkowski, a professor at Rutgers University who started the
effort, said in the e-mails that he is seeking a $1,000 donation from as
many as 50 scientists to pay for an ad to run in the New York Times. He
said in one e-mail that commitments were already arriving.

The e-mail discussion began late last week and continued into this week.

Mr. Falkowski didn't respond to an e-mail seeking comment, and an effort
to reach Mr. Ehrlich was unsuccessful.

But one of those scientists forwarded The Times' request to the National
Academy of Sciences, whose e-mail system the scientists used as their
forum to plan their effort.

An NAS spokesman sought to make clear that the organization itself is
not involved in the effort.

"These scientists are elected members of the National Academy of
Sciences, but the discussants themselves realized their efforts would
require private support since the National Academy of Sciences never
considered placing such an ad or creating a nonprofit group concerning
these issues," said William Kearney, chief spokesman for NAS.

The e-mails emerged months after another set of e-mails from a leading
British climate research group seemed to show scientists shading data to
try to bolster their claims, and are likely to feed the impression among
skeptics that researchers are pursuing political goals as much as they
are disseminating science.

George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center, said in one
e-mail that researchers have been ceding too much ground. He blasted
Pennsylvania State University for pursuing an academic investigation
against professor Michael E. Mann, who wrote many of the e-mails leaked
from the British climate research facility.

An initial investigation cleared Mr. Mann of falsifying data but
referred one charge, that he "deviated from accepted practices within
the academic community," to a committee for a more complete review.

In his e-mail, Mr. Woodwell acknowledged that he is advocating taking
"an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" but said scientists
have had their "classical reasonableness" turned against them.

"We are dealing with an opposition that is not going to yield to facts
or appeals from people who hold themselves in high regard and think
their assertions and data are obvious truths," he wrote.

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