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Channel 4 ruled 'unjust and unfair' in climate change documentary

All comments (12)

* Mark Sweney

* guardian.co.uk,

* Monday July 21, 2008

* Article history

The Great Global Warming Swindle

The Great Global Warming Swindle: Ofcom found scientists had been treated unfairly by the programme. Photograph: Channel 4

Ofcom has ruled that Channel 4 breached broadcasting codes on impartiality and was "unjust and unfair" in the way it represented individuals in its controversial documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Ofcom has ordered Channel 4 to broadcast a summary of its adjudication on the programme, which was aired on Channel 4 and E4 on March 8 last year.

The show challenged the theory that human activity is the major cause of climate change and global warming.

Ofcom's investigation found that the Nobel prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the government's former chief scientist Sir David King and professor Carl Wunsch "were treated unfairly in the programme".

"In particular, the programme made some significant allegations without offering an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond," Ofcom said. "In the case of Sir David King, the programme-makers also criticised him for comments he did not make."

Ofcom also found Channel 4 in breach of impartiality "on matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy".

The media regulator said that the final part of the programme, which focused on policies adopted by the United Nations and western governments to tackle global warming, was in breach of the "due impartiality" requirements of the broadcasting code.

"The programme was required to include an appropriate wide range of the significant views. The programme-makers failed to do this," said Ofcom.

However, Ofcom found that the first four parts of the programme, which focused on the scientific debate about the causes of global warming, did not breach the broadcast code.

"Ofcom concluded that these parts of the programme were not matters of political or industrial controversy or matters relating to public policy and therefore the rules on due impartiality did not apply," it said.

The media regulator also said that while it had concerns about "aspects of the presentation (and omission) of fact and views within the programme, it did not believe, given the nature of the programme, that this led to the audience being materially misled".

"We are pleased that Ofcom has ruled the film did not materially mislead the audience," said Hamish Mykura, the Channel 4 head of documentaries.

"The film acknowledged the majority scientific and journalistic consensus in support of man-made global warming, but legitimately sought to present the viewpoint of the small minority of scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide."

However, the media regulator admitted that it only regulates "misleading material where that material is likely to cause harm or offence".

Ofcom added: "As a consequence, the requirement that content must not materially mislead the audience is necessarily a high test."

Ofcom said that, therefore, its job in this case was not to ascertain whether the programme was "accurate".

"It is not within Ofcom's remit or ability in this case as the regulator of the 'communications industry' to establish or seek to adjudicate on 'facts' such as whether global warming is a man-made phenomenon."

Le point de vue de l'inénarrable George Monbiot (le type qui fait honte à ceux qui partagent ses idées)

Global warming is a brutal truth

Channel 4's dismissal of Ofcom's damning verdict about its flawed programme is the usual professional self-deception

* George Monbiot

*

There is just one party which doesn't seem to care about the controversy created by The Great Global Warming Swindle. That is the company which broadcast it: Channel 4. In fact it seems rather proud of the fuss, and I suspect that Ofcom's damning verdict won't cause its executives a moment's lost sleep. The channel boasts that the programme generated a huge response, and that favourable comments outweighed hostile remarks by six to one.

Though the programme was 90 minutes of nonsense, I find this quite easy to believe. Faced with the overwhelming realities of climate change, people clutch at any reassurance. We want someone to tell us that everything will be alright, that we can carry on enjoying this marvellous feast of fossil fuels without adverse effects.

On almost every other weighty issue, the professional classes appear to be better informed than the rest of the population. On global warming the reverse seems to be true. The only people I have met over the past few years who haven't the faintest idea what man-made climate change is or how it is caused are university graduates. Not long ago, for example, I had to explain to the press officer at the government's department for transport what carbon dioxide is. A few weeks ago the writer Mark Lynas found a counter-intuitive revelation buried in the small print of an ICM survey. The number of people in social classes D and E who thought the government should prioritise the environment over the economy was higher (56%) than the proportion in classes A and B (47%). It is counter-intuitive only because a vast and well-funded denial industry has spent years persuading us that environmentalism is a middle-class caprice. Classes A and B are Channel 4's core audience.

From this distribution I deduce that the problem is not that people aren't hearing about climate change, but that they don't want to know. The professional classes have the most freedom to lose and the least to gain from an attempt to restrain it. Those who are most responsible for carbon pollution are – being insulated by their money - the least likely to suffer its effects. We talk airily in the United Kingdom about the adaptation technologies which will shield us from catastrophe. But in the Sahel, as I have seen, an effective adaptation technology is already being deployed. It's called the AK47.

Last night I watched a preview screening of Franny Armstrong's fascinating film The Age of Stupid, which follows the lives of six people – from the boss of an Indian airline to a fisherwoman in the Niger delta - caught up in climate change. The message, never stated but constantly emerging, is that we all have our self-justifying myths. We tell ourselves a story of our lives in which we almost always appear as the heroes. These myths prevent us from engaging with climate change.

The most powerful story of all, endlessly narrated by the hired hands of the fossil fuel industry, just as it was once told by the sugar slavers, is that we are both all-important and utterly insignificant. We are too important to be denied any of the delights we crave, but too insignificant to exert any impact on planetary processes. We fill the whole frame of the story when it suits us and shrink to a dot when that scale is more convenient. We are capable of occupying both niches simultaneously.

It is not just because The Great Global Warming Swindle is at odds with the entire body of scientific knowledge on this subject that I have bothered to contest it. It is also because it is consonant with the entire body of human self-deception. We want to be misled, we crave it; and we will bend our minds into whatever shape they need to take in order not to face our brutal truths.

To read George Monbiot's special investigation for G2 of Channel 4's record on climate change coverage, please go here.

About this article

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This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Monday July 21 2008. It was last updated at 18:28 on July 21 2008.

Et le point de vue de Brendan O'Neill, de Spiked:

Monday 21 July 2008

The rise and rise of Climate Blasphemy

Today’s Ofcom ruling on The Great Global Warming Swindle strengthens the censorious forcefield around climate change experts.

Brendan O’Neill

The blasphemy laws are dead and buried in Britain. Courtesy of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which passed into law on 8 July 2008, it is no longer a common law offence to speak or publish any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous words relating to God, Jesus Christ or the Bible. Thank Christ (or whoever) for that.

Yet just as religious blasphemy collapses under the weight of satirical operas featuring Jesus Christ in a nappy and shelf-hogging books about why God is dead, or a bastard, or both, so a new form of scientific blasphemy is emerging to take its place.

You can say what you like about Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but say anything reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous about a climate change scientist and you will be punished. You won’t receive a literal lashing, but you will get a metaphorical one. Speak ill of a climate expert and you’re likely to be stuck in the stocks of the public media and branded as a fact-denying, truth-distorting threat to public morals.

Increasingly in the climate change debate, no dissent can be brooked. I mean none. That is why, from the thousands and thousands of hours of TV programming devoted to climate change issues last year – from news reports on the threat of global warming to the lifestyle makeover shows imploring us to Go Green – only one has been singled out for censure. The one that questioned whether climate change is occurring. The Great Global Warming Swindle by maverick filmmaker Martin Durkin.

Today, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) has published a lengthy document censuring Channel 4 for showing Durkin’s film on 8 March 2007. Yet what is striking about Ofcom’s ruling is that it slaps Channel 4’s wrists, not for any inaccuracies in Durkin’s film (of which, it is claimed, there are many), but for its ‘unfair treatment’ of climate change experts.

Ofcom rejected complaints that Durkin’s film was factually inaccurate on the basis that it did not ‘materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence’ (1). Yet it upheld or partly upheld complaints by Sir David King (Britain’s former chief scientific adviser), Professor Carl Wunsch (of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of whom say they were treated unfairly by the film.

Yet, as far as I can tell, King, Wunsch and the IPCC – an extremely powerful body which, come on, is surely robust enough to deal with one TV documentary having a pop at it – were simply submitted to the rough-and-tumble of testy journalistic debate.

Part of King’s complaint is that during a lively interview in The Great Global Warming Swindle one of its contributors, Professor Frederick Singer, said we had now reached the mad situation where: ‘[T]he chief scientist of the UK [is] telling people that by the end of the century the only habitable place on the earth will be the Antarctic. And humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic.’ (2)

King says he didn’t say that. Well, not in so many words. What he actually said during a testimony to a House of Commons Select Committee in 2004 was this: ‘Fifty-five million years ago was a time when there was no ice on the earth; the Antarctic was the most habitable place for mammals, because it was the coolest place, and the rest of the earth was rather inhabitable because it was so hot. It is estimated that it [the carbon dioxide level] was roughly 1,000 parts per million then, and the important thing is that if we carry on business as usual we will hit 1,000 parts per million around the end of the century.’ (3)

In short? If we keep on driving, flying, building and consuming then the earth in 90 years’ time will resemble the earth 55million years ago – when the Antarctic was ‘the most habitable place for mammals’. Okay, King didn’t say the Antarctic would become the ‘only habitable’ place for humans but he did very strongly imply it would become the ‘most habitable’ place.

And in a speech to the Climate Group in April 2004, he reportedly went a step farther. The Independent on Sunday of 2 May 2004 reported: ‘Antarctica is likely to be the world’s only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the government’s chief scientist Sir David King said last week.’ (4) [Emphasis added.] King never complained about that report.

As for the second sentence in Frederick Singer’s contested interview – where he said ‘And humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic’ – this actually refers to a statement by James Lovelock, who said in 2006: ‘Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.’ (5) Channel 4 says that, given that David King is on record as saying Antarctica could be the ‘only habitable place on earth’ and ‘the rest of the globe could not sustain human life’ (6), it was not unreasonable to deduce that he, like Lovelock, was of the view that humanity could only survive if it started breeding in the Antarctic.

Maybe. Maybe not. That point is up for debate. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in Durkin’s film, King was simply paraphrased – and, yes, ridiculed – as part of a provocative, polemical interview. That kind of thing happens all the time.

Professor Wunsch complained that he was not told beforehand that the film was a polemic against global warming theories. That is unfortunate, but again it is quite common in journalism. Reporters frequently do not divulge their entire motivation when setting up interviews, because they know that if they did some interviewees would tell them to get stuffed.

Part of the IPCC’s complaint is that one of the film’s interviewees – Professor Philip Stott – said: ‘The IPCC, like any UN body, is political. The final conclusions are politically driven.’ (7) I’m sorry, but that is simply legitimate political criticism, whether the IPCC likes it or not. Why is a UN body, which is staffed by hundreds of people and funded by millions of pounds and which has access to thousands of normally compliant journalists, complaining to Ofcom about a 90-minute documentary shown on Channel 4? What is it saying exactly? That no one may criticise it, ever?

Of course it is very serious when journalists wilfully or maliciously misrepresent people’s views, and when they do they should be reprimanded. Yet paraphrasing, mocking, criticising and not giving the entire reason for your investigations… if all of these journalistic tactics were censured every time they occurred, there would be no TV reporting left. Certainly there would be no documentaries worth watching.

The Ofcom report sends a clear message: climate experts are off limits. You can get your facts wrong; you can even use questionable graphs – but you must not be ‘unfair’ to The Experts. It is striking how similar the new Climate Blasphemy is to the old religious blasphemy. It, too, is based on protecting named individuals from ‘scurrilous’ or ‘hurtful’ words. Those who commit Climate Blasphemy are said to have been duped or had their palms greased by wicked oil companies – the contemporary equivalent of saying they are possessed by the devil. And their utterances are said to threaten the survival of mankind – by giving people a green light to continue acting in an eco-irresponsible fashion – just as the old blasphemers were accused of jeopardising the saving of mankind with their warped, wicked words.

You don’t have to endorse Durkin’s film, or the ‘alternative’ climate-change theories that he and others have put forward (I, for one, do not), to be concerned about the censuring of anyone who challenges any part of the politics or science of climate change today. Rather, this is about upholding openness, scepticism and the right to question everything, in the world of journalism and in the world of science.

Given today’s blasphemous atmosphere, it is not surprising that serious voices are now calling for a law of blasphemy on environmental matters. Earlier this year in Philosophy Now, Paul Keeling said it might be time to restrict the ‘mockery of nature’, by which he means ‘an insincere, disrespectful or trivialising portrayal of nature’ (8). Such mockery ‘implicitly excuse and perpetuate our abuse of the natural world’, he said, and by reining it in we could get rid of car adverts and holiday adverts and presumably pesky TV documentaries, too.

We’ve only just been liberated, far too late, from England’s archaic laws of religious blasphemy. Let us not submit so easily to the informal laws of Climate Blasphemy emerging all around us.

Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked.

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Le rapport du NIPCC traduit en français : "C'est la nature, et non l'activité humaine, qui détermine le climat"

Un panel de scientifiques, tous indépendants du GIEC, vient de publier un rapport mettant en lumière les nombreuses insuffisances, pour ne pas dire les malhonnêtetés intellectuelles, commises par le GIEC dans ses rapports successifs sur le changement climatique prétendument anthropogénique. Le document, traduit par Jean Martin (avec deux co-traducteurs) et mis en téléchargement sur son site (PDF), résume les principales objections formulées par de nombreux scientifiques du monde entier (plus de 110 travaux "sceptiques" cités) vis à vis du soi-disant "consensus" dont notre gouvernement et l'essentiel de notre presse nous abreuve de façon pluri-quotidienne.

Ces 50 pages (70 avec les annexes) se lisent facilement, même si votre culture scientifique est moyenne. Ce rapport souligne à quel point utiliser la pseudo-science du GIEC pour fonder des décisions politiques lourdes de conséquences économiques est dangereux.

Leur principale conclusion:

"Ce rapport démontre donc que la contribution des émissions de GES (NdVB: gaz à effet de serre) au réchauffement actuel est insignifiante. En utilisant les données du GIEC publiées dans le rapport CCSP nous avons pu montrer que les températures observées sont en contradiction flagrante avec les modélisations numériques basées sur les évolutions des GES. Il est curieux de constater que l'IPCC n'ait jamais fait de telles comparaisons, sinon il aurait dû aboutir aux mêmes conclusions, à savoir : le réchauffement actuel est principalement d'origine naturelle plutôt qu'anthropogénique. Au contraire, l'IPCC campe sur ses positions à propos du réchauffement global, alors que les « preuves évidentes » ne résistent pas à un examen minutieux.

(…)

Si le réchauffement actuel n'est pas lié aux GES, quelles sont les causes naturelles qui peuvent produire les changements de températures observés pendant les périodes historiques préindustrielles ? Des observations empiriques montrent que les principales causes des variations de température à l'échelle décennale sont liées à l'activité solaire qui module le rayonnement cosmique lui même responsable en grande partie des variations de la nébulosité atmosphérique. Des publications rapportent également que les rayons cosmiques sont responsables de changements climatiques majeurs pendant les derniers 500 millions d'années de l'histoire paléo-climatique de la Terre."

http://www.objectifliberte.fr/2008/07/le-rapport-du-n.html

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ON LINE opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

No smoking hot spot

By David Evans

Posted Tuesday, 22 July 2008

I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.

The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.

Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming.

So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.

In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.

If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.

What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.

The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.

First published in The Australian on July 18, 2008.

Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?a…7669&page=0

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:doigt: De plou en plou fort : l'ad hominem ne concerne déjà plus l'auteur mais seulement l'éditeur. Le step suivant : on dénigre une étude parce qu'elle a été imprimée chez le mauvais imprimeur. :icon_up:

Ce n'est pas un ad hominem, juste une réserve, qui vaudrait tout autant pour une étude intitulée "OGM: on va tous mourir" publiée par Greenpeace.

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Sauf que ce rapport ne prétend pas que "tout va bien" mais explique en quoi la méthodologie, les travaux et les conclusions de l'IPCC ne sont pas scientifiquement étayés. La thèse du réchauffement global d'origine anthropique étant avancée par l'IPCC, il en a la charge de la preuve.

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Sauf que ce rapport ne prétend pas que "tout va bien" mais explique en quoi la méthodologie, les travaux et les conclusions de l'IPCC ne sont pas scientifiquement étayes. La thèse du réchauffement global d'origine anthropique étant avancée par l'IPCC, il en la charge de la preuve.

Peut-être, mais n'étant pas spécialiste du sujet, on ne m'en voudra pas de prendre en compte les intérêts particuliers des uns et des autres avant que de choisir mon camp.

Je ne comprends pas du reste pourquoi le réchauffement est un sujet aussi brûlant (sans jeu de mots) sur ce forum, ni pourquoi son caractère scientifique est sans cesse remis en question, alors même que l'on y admet des disciplines beaucoup moins établies comme la psychologie évolutionniste.

Enfin…

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…alors même que l'on y admet des disciplines beaucoup moins établies comme la psychologie évolutionniste.

Le jour où un gouvernement arguera de l'evopsy pour lever une nouvelle taxe, il sera toujours temps de se friter la gueule. Mais aujourd'hui, le réchauffement climatique anthropique est un hoax qui ruine déjà la vie de centaines de millions de gens dans le monde.

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Je ne comprends pas du reste pourquoi le réchauffement est un sujet aussi brûlant (sans jeu de mots) sur ce forum, ni pourquoi son caractère scientifique est sans cesse remis en question, alors même que l'on y admet des disciplines beaucoup moins établies comme la psychologie évolutionniste.

Enfin…

Parce que le RC sert de prétexte à toutes sortes de spoliations et à une régression générale des libertés, et ce, dans la majeure partie du monde occidental.

Quand on en est là, il est largement temps de se poser des questions sur la véracité des assertions de ces esclavagistes.

Or, il se trouve que pour la plupart, lesdites assertions sont mensongères, et les mobiles sont assez clairs.

Je ne crois pas que la psychologie évolutionniste serve de prétexte à quoi que ce soi de ce genre, en revanche.

PS : C'est quoi, la psychologie évolutionniste ?

Edit : Grillé par Lucilio

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Or, il se trouve que pour la plupart, lesdites assertions sont mensongères, et les mobiles sont assez clairs.
Personnellement, je ne vois pas quel peut être le mobile de l'American Physical Society, association qui n'a pas, à ma connaissance, l'habitude de mentir.

Allez vous m'éclairer sur ce point ?

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…je ne vois pas quel peut être le mobile de l'American Physical Society, association qui n'a pas, à ma connaissance, l'habitude de mentir.

Au sujet des pratiques crapuleuses de l'American Physical Society :

July 19, 2008

The American Physical Society Owes Lord Monckton an Immediate Apology

Marc Sheppard

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley has penned a letter to the President of the American Physical Society demanding that an offensive disclaimer to one of his papers be removed from the pas website or justified to his satisfaction. And he's also expecting a well deserved apology for the horrendous mistreatment the Society has recently subjected him to.

First, the editors of pas newsletter Physics and Society invited Lord Monckton to present them a paper explaining his disagreement with the AGW findings of the IPCC. And the former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher happily accepted the offer, submitting a brilliant, must read article excoriating the UN lapdogs, both for their deliberately obscured methods and their gross exaggerations of green house gas impact on global temperatures.

Then, despite the Society's official position that evidence of mankind's influence on Earth's climate is "incontrovertible," the newsletter's July 2008 edition contained Jeffrey Marque's editor's comments which welcomed the reasoned debate Lord Monckton's paper would "kick off," allowing that:

"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

And, indeed, when Monckton's piece was published together with a countering IPCC lovefest by David Hafemeister & Peter Schwartz, it made for quite the balanced presentation. In fact, there was even some buzz about the blogosphere that the 50,000 member pas might be "reversing its stance" on climate change.

But a few days later, Monckton's paper was suddenly and inexplicably branded with these scurrilous prefacing words, emphasized in red:

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions."

An outlandish disclaimer, particularly considering that the paper had been reviewed by one of pas's own scientists, and all requested clarifications were duly incorporated by the author.

And lest there remain any doubt as to the pas position, its homepage prominently included this reassurance to the green masses with similar dispatch:

"The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the pas Council, on November 18, 2007:

‘Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate.'

An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the pas Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of pas. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that ‘Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the pas or of the Forum.' This newsletter is not a journal of the pas and it is not peer reviewed."

So much for reasoned debate, but just what the hell happened? Are we expected to believe that the "Council" was somehow unaware of P&S's invitation to Lord Monckton, a well-known "denier" of AGW dogma? Perhaps, but my Bravo Sierra alarm suggests that they were just as likely "convinced" post-publication -- by the same pathetic political forces that taint the science of the IPCC -- that there can be but one "truth" about climate change.

While the Viscount tactfully chose the word "discourteous" in describing the treatment he'd received, far harsher adjectives certainly come to mind. The crimes against progress feckless scientists the likes of the pas "Council" are guilty of know no ample punishment. There should be a special place in hell for each and every one of them as penance for the offense of falsely empowering the laughably inane yet widely accepted fantasies of Al Gore alone.

But inviting a man of Monckton's measure to participate in an evenhanded analysis of both sides only to summarily demean the very position they requested of him is beneath the dignity of any true society of science. And to continue beating the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community" drums when 32,000 scientists officially dissent and no warming measured since 1998 further betrays their corruption.

These are desperate times for the alarmists, and they are resorting to desperate measures. But I suspect they'll soon regret the attempt to turn Lord to Pawn.

Here's the full text of Monckton's letter, courtesy of Benny Peiser. And if you haven't already done so, I implore you to read the brilliant article at the heart of this little drama.

Arthur Bienenstock, Esq., Ph.D.,

President, American Physical Society,

Wallenberg Hall, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg 160,

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305.

By email to artieb@slac.stanford.edu

Dear Dr. Bienenstock,

Physics and Society

The editors of Physics and Society, a newsletter of the American Physical Society, invited me to submit a paper for their July 2008 edition explaining why I considered that the warming that might be expected from anthropogenic enrichment of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide might be significantly less than the IPCC imagines.

I very much appreciated this courteous offer, and submitted a paper. The commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a thorough and competent scientific review. I was delighted to accede to all of the reviewer's requests for revision (see the attached reconciliation sheet). Most revisions were intended to clarify for physicists who were not climatologists the method by which the IPCC evaluates climate sensitivity - a method which the IPCC does not itself clearly or fully explain. The paper was duly published, immediately after a paper by other authors setting out the IPCC's viewpoint. Some days later, however, without my knowledge or consent, the following appeared, in red, above the text of my paper as published on the website of Physics and Society:

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions."

This seems discourteous. I had been invited to submit the paper; I had submitted it; an eminent Professor of Physics had then scientifically reviewed it in meticulous detail; I had revised it at all points requested, and in the manner requested; the editors had accepted and published the reviewed and revised draft (some 3000 words longer than the original) and I had expended considerable labor, without having been offered or having requested any honorarium.

Please either remove the offending red-flag text at once or let me have the name and qualifications of the member of the Council or advisor to it who considered my paper before the Council ordered the offending text to be posted above my paper; a copy of this rapporteur's findings and ratio decidendi; the date of the Council meeting at which the findings were presented; a copy of the minutes of the discussion; and a copy of the text of the Council's decision, together with the names of those present at the meeting. If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community"; and, tertio, that "The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions"? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?

Having regard to the circumstances, surely the Council owes me an apology?

Yours truly,

THE VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/0…_society_1.html

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Au sujet des pratiques crapuleuses de l'American Physical Society :

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/0…_society_1.html

Ca a l'air pourtant assez clair :

"The Forum on Physics and Society is a place for discussion and disagreement on scientific and policy matters. Our newsletter publishes a combination of non- peer- reviewed technical articles, policy analyses, and opinion. All articles and editorials published in the newsletter solely represent the views of their authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Forum Executive Committee."

Source http://www.pas.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm

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Parce que le RC sert de prétexte à toutes sortes de spoliations et à une régression générale des libertés, et ce, dans la majeure partie du monde occidental.

Quand on en est là, il est largement temps de se poser des questions sur la véracité des assertions de ces esclavagistes.

Or, il se trouve que pour la plupart, lesdites assertions sont mensongères, et les mobiles sont assez clairs.

Je ne crois pas que la psychologie évolutionniste serve de prétexte à quoi que ce soi de ce genre, en revanche.

Régression des libertés ? Parce que le marché de l'énergie et des transports est un modèle d'économie libérale ? laissez-moi rire: que ce soit le pétrole ou la voiture, on est dans le domaine qui subit le plus l'interventionisme des états.

Si vous voulez vivre plus indépendant de l'état, c'est pas en réclamant toujours plus de pétrole étatique que vous y arriverez, c'est bien avec des panneaux solaires sur le toît une éolienne dans le jardin, et des vélos dans le garage.

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Perso ce qui me fait rire c'est les gars qui proposent comme modele economique une eolienne dans le jardin et des panneaux solaires sur le toits de sa maison! Sans deconner tu reflechis deux minutes aux idioties que tu racontes?

Edit: Et bien sur le velo comme moyen de transport, c'est d'un boboisme des plus meprisant.

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Si vous voulez vivre plus indépendant de l'état, c'est pas en réclamant toujours plus de pétrole étatique que vous y arriverez, c'est bien avec des panneaux solaires sur le toît une éolienne dans le jardin, et des vélos dans le garage.

Ah, voilà une facette du PtiSuisse qu'on ne connaissait pas : l'humour second degré.

Très fin, très drôle :icon_up:.

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Personnellement, je ne vois pas quel peut être le mobile de l'American Physical Society, association qui n'a pas, à ma connaissance, l'habitude de mentir.

Allez vous m'éclairer sur ce point ?

Comme beaucoup d'oragnismes scientifiques : les financements !

Essaye d'obtenir des fonds pour étudier la reproduction du scarabé rhinocéros on va te répondre que les caisses sont vides. Maintenant dis que tu veux étudier l'impact du réchauffement climatique sur la reproduction du scarabé, ça facilite les choses !

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