James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic
Via WattsUp (link fixed)
NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! - See: Don't Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom - Get the Facts on James Hansen - UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men' - June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for 'high crimes against humanity' for spreading doubt about man-made global warming - June 23, 2008 ]
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
Related - "The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.”
Errr, he should have been "muzzled"? Isn't that a bit extreme. This guy has his opinion. That guy has his. They're both entitled to their opinions.Muzzling achieves nothing, except for declaring this fellows apparent authoritarian urges.
Wierd stuff, this.
When a maladjusted dog barks all day and night, week after week, interrupting the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it's time to muzzle it.
This is a very good development.
Theon says Hansen “embarrassed NASA”.
Exactly. And it's a danm shame too.
Thanks Kate, this one's for my mailing list.
Next step... admission that Kyoto is the Scam of the Century.
Algore & Dr. FruitFly must be pretty vexed by now, seeing how they staked all their credibility in a faux religion.
And there will surely be more. Albert's wife, perhaps.
Better to jump ship before it is sunk by lawsuits.
Why the surprise???
Anybody smarter than a 5th grader saw through Hansen and his buddy Mann's "hockey stick" on the first hop. My BS detector is still malfunctioning due to the overload from years back.
Freedom of speech does not extend to "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre".
Hansen et al are guilty of sedition if nothing else.
There never was anything rational about this whole sh*tshow.
Syncro
This is too funny and Gore is supposed to be testifying on this very subject in front of a Senate Committee any day now.
Now where's that hockey stick?
Didn't Gore's travelling road show get cancelled today because of cold weather?
What a farce!
I can't wait to here Hansen's response. I need a good laugh.
Where's John, deeznuts, et al ?
regards
G
For many of us more reasonable people capable of thinking critically we have been able to see this scam for what it is. Unfortunately, there are enough people out there who buy into this fabricated crap that Gore et al.'s created industry of fear-mongering is now too far-reaching to be stopped. Too many people have too much money at stake to back down now, even if the original arguments have, by now, been shot full of more holes than a Saskatchewan rural stop sign.
It is laughable for anybody, no matter what profession, to believe they can predict anything with any accuracy. Especially when considering these bozos talk about 50, 100, 1000 years down the road. How many people predicted the credit collapse? Something that was created by humans, run by humans, and mercilessly analyzed by humans. How can we possibly believe we can control something as complex and out-of-our-control as the climate. The ego og these people.
It doesn't matter what Hansen's boss says. It doesn't matter that thousands of scientists have signed documents questioning man made global warming. The media will just ignore it and the next time someone does some lame study on disappearing polar bears or melting ice it will get front page exposure. The war in Iraq is lost, Obama walks on water, the earth has a FEVER and your SUV is causing it. Anyone who says different is a denier and should be put in a padded room according to the good boys and girls working at the MSM. Even when Canada is covered by a ice a mile thick it will just be proof that the climate is changing and we will be burning up any minute now.
Can someone please answer a question for me.
I get why someone would lie or cheat or fudge information on a tax return. I can even understand why someone said they did something they didn't to get attention accolades.
But presumably a scientist or someone doing this type of work has dedicated themselves in the search for why things work the way they do, the pursuit of truth if you will.
Why then would they make claims about models that are either missing information or have tainted information.
It just doesn't make sense to me you may fool some people but you can't fool the most important person and that would be you the author you have to look at that person in mirror every morning and know you failed. You have made announcements and claims that are false and you know it.
How do you face yourself in mirror every morning I simply don't understand.
Jeff all you have to do is follow the money.In 1983 the U.S.A. budget for climate research was 3 million dollars.Today its in the billions.Case closed.
Calling all AGW supporters!!! (especially John Cross)
It is time to run home now, your "house" is on fire and you are desperately needed to save what little of your credibility you can!!
The question is: can you recant* in time to save the doghouse!!
*Recant: I know, I know, AGW zealots will never, ever recant!
Fritz is right, this will likely not get much media attention and will be downplayed somehow. Perhaps Dr. Theon is a Bush supporter and thus "biased" or who knows what they will dream up to discredit him. I can him the spin machine gearing up already!
Thoughtcrime! Thoughtcrime! Call MiniLuv!
"Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added."
Does this mean that the Conservative government will stop legislating based on this fraud? I want to choose my own light bulbs.
And how long will it be before Hansen has another press conference to announce that Theon was his principle persecutor, after the Evil Bush, and is just trying to cover up his Crimes Against Humanity?
There will come a time when scientists, real scientists, will look back at the AGW debacle with real shame. It will probably replace the various cloning scandals as examples in courses on ethics in science.
Link problematic- 404 error at the site. "Not here", it says.
This works:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/27/james-hansens-former-nasa-supervisor-declares-himself-a-skeptic-says-hansen-embarrassed-nasa-was-never-muzzled/
Hmmmmmm....must agree with Donna on this one. I have invested way too much money on pot lights and dimmers(saves money and no UV damage nor toxic waste)to re-rig my home's lighting systems.
If the dim-wits want to save electricity, they should have created a dimmer stimulus package.
Sounds stupid, but it makes more sense than anything coming out of any of our elected idiots lately!
VOTE REFORM !
GO ARMY !
ps: WTF is with this liberal budget???????????????
Jeff Cosford, to me this is the same as someone selling alternate medicine like homeopathy, chiroprators cracking your spine or magnetic healing. It is all based on anecdotal stories or feelings then attacking real medical procedures and drugs as the enemy stopping you from healing yourself with their products. When alternate medicine is asked to prove their products by the scientific method of course they object vehemently and scream that it is a conspiracy by the medical profession to stop them making big money...oh, sorry, healing the sick.
Snakeoil salesmen are everywhere and despite all the evidence, as adrian and fritz noted, there are legions of people that will continue to support global warming or alternate medicine. The true believers can always look at themselves in the mirror as they know they are right and everyone else is wrong..sob.
Oh, by the way, I have these sure-fire investment funds I would like you to look at, can't miss. All those other guys are crooks, trust me on this.
Yeah Kingstonlad, I was asking myself the same question. By all accounts, it was written by Iggy and his comrades.
And just yesterday BO said that AGW was a "fact". Over 60 of Americans think AGW is a crock.
Sooner or later this is going to catch up with BO and the dems and it hurt them badly - hopefully by the mid terms on '10.
60 percent that is...
So where are the slobbering Al Gore, David Suzuki quoting, Kyoto pimping Canadian MSM syncophants now?
Will there even be a hint of the retired NASA senior scientist Dr. John S. Theon's statement in main stream Canadian media?
Canadian Press? CBC? CTV? Global? Red Toronto Star? GlobeMedia?
The Al Gore and David Suzuki bullshit is basically all they run.
The internet has to carry that story to the folks.
So that's what a scientific "bitch slap" sounds like!
I hope the Globe and Mail visits this........
Too much to hope for.
Still, I would like to observe Church and Burke in their rebuttal, while Klappstein and Stewart give 'em the gears.
Too much fun, think I'll post a link on the latest scare in the Globe's comments and see what happens.
Frenchie 77: It is somewhat amusing that you mention credibility since after our last discussion you have a major credibility problem (and, yes, of course I can supply a link if you wish).
G: one thing that is brought up over and over is the issue of transparency in science. It is ironic that Dr. Theon mentions this since as far as I can see, he has not supplied anything substantial to back up why he disagrees with AGW. I gather that he does not like climate models, OK, but before I would treat this as anything more than an opinion I would like to see what his specific problems are and the consequence of these problems.
Let me put the shoe on the other foot for a minute. I say that someone from NASA supports AGW. Would that be enough to convince you?
Regards,
John
But think of the poor IR radiation folks. Think of the poor IR. (John Cross)
NASA, Al Gore and David Suzuki et al, are the Madoffs of AGW science!
Jeff,
For every skeptic who is a "shill for big oil" (to hear the true believers talk, ALL skeptics are shills for big oil) there is a believer who is funded by big government, big environment, or some other group with deep pockets. My husband who works in the oil patch says he has seen first hand that anyone who has a desire to do a research project (on virtually any topic) just has to insert the words "to study climate change", and the money flows.
Oops - I guess since I am a skeptic, my husband earning his living in oil and gas makes me a "shill for big oil". I like to think that my critical thinking skills would be intact, no matter what his job.
Anyway, it just absolutely is not true that if you are one of the believers, that your motivation is absolutely pure and unimpeachable - many, if not most, of the high priests, as well as the various acolytes, have huge grants, incomes dependent on staying on message, reputations built on the message being true, in fact their whole lives depend on it. If they are threatened, they will fight back.
Lanky,
Hansen repeatedly *claimed* he was being muzzled by the Bush administration, all while continuing to collect and publish data, testify, give press conferences etc. Obviously Hansen wasn't being muzzled.
His former boss Theon stated -- for the record -- in one of his emails to Marc Morano, an aide to US Senator Inhofe, that Hansen wasn't being muzzled. These emails and the resulting Inhofe blog entry were the basis for the Watts post that Kate linked to -- see here for the Inhofe post, scroll to bottom.
No John, it wouldn't. It's just another meaningless appeal to authority. There is of course no need to appeal to authority if an author's work can be replicated. Unpleasantly for you, Mann's cannot. Hansen's cannot. Jones's cannot.
For Jeff Cosford, Adrian and Dave, there has always been a problem of cheating or deliberate misrepresentation of science in scientific literature. Gallileo was in some respects one of the worst. He may have done great work in physics, but his work in astronomy was occasionally atrocious, with some of his texts serving only as polemics to misrepresent the works of others. His statements about comets, and his claims about Kepler were not simply wrong, they were demonstrably so at the time, but Gallileo traded on his eminence to diminish those he considered enemies. Make no mistake, he was a great physicist, but he was also one of the worst pamphleteers in history.
It is a misunderstanding of the phenomenon to attribute its motives to purely financial gain. The creation of the Piltdown Man fraud was not about financial gain at all. Scientific fraud comes in all sorts of forms, from plagiarism to outright faking of results. For the former, google Alsabti for a typical example. For the later, a good example was the RNA Cascade theory about cancer propagation. Was very big in the late 70s-early 80s, until the whole thing was revealed as an artifact of fabricated evidence.
A further possibility with scientific fakery is incompetence. This was the most likely case in the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion claim in the late 1980s. They claimed to have discovered table top fusion, but analysis of their results subsequently showed it an artifact of their inability to do calorimetry.
Not just money, it's about ego. No one remembers most of the world's tyrants and heads of state, but everyone remembers who the great scientists and discoverers were.
"Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results"
I am sure the MSM will investigate every lead and ferret out the players of this fraud. The honest and unbiased journalists will attack this information with a zeal equivalent to the outrage over the missing WMDs that started the War in Iraq . It is their duty to prevent a similarly unjust War on Climate Change. Surely, the MSM has now learned its lesson about accepting government's "expert" consensus without question.
Waiting..... heh
Posted the link to this at the Globe in the comments and guess watt Watts, never made it past the editor.
Some climate damage already irreversible,
Some beliefs already irreversible
Hansen was treated with kid gloves. He doesnt work and play well with others, that is pretty clear.
At some point he will retire from Nasa, if he hasnt already. Then slowly the organization will get back to doing what it does. Hansen is anomoly in an engineering culture like Nasa's. I am sure they really just didnt know how to deal with him.
Let's get back to basics....
The primary individual who knows the truth is the originator of the lie.
A good starting point is that except for theory CO2 has never been proven a climate driver or it's primary indicator detected---the famous equitorial "hot spot" 10 km up.
Hansen knows this, Gore knows this, the IPCC knows this, Suzuki knows this......
There has been no detectable warming since 98(the height of the EL NINO) at least and a gradual cooling since despite rising CO2 levels.
What drives Gore maybe money but the lefty "scientists" have an ideological agenda.
This is the "pons asinorum" most of us never cross.....being a scientist does not guarantee honesty, being apolitcal, even due diligence.
One of the things I have noticed about these "scientific elites" is that they are self appointed and self defined........
Lysenkoism is alive and well.
Lawsuits people, the SCAM artists Suzuki Gore, Hansen must be charged with a class action fraud lawsuit. This extreme bulls..t has thrown the worlds economy into a depression. The amount of money that has been wasted on the whack jobs dream is un-countable. Make them pay. Hear me Tony Merchant.
The thing is, the climate, like the economy, is a complex adaptive system. That means that it has multiple causes.
These causes are not always steady; they are not always the same, i.e., new forces can come into the complex system, other forces will be reduced in power; one force will link indirectly to another and to another. Such a system cannot, ever, be modeled. And therefore, it cannot be predictive.
The models of AGW are not of complex systems but of linear causality, where causality is reduced to one major system: human activity. But, you can't reduce a complex system to a linear model!
So, AGW fails as an explanation based not merely on the facts but on the methodology. You cannot reduce a complex system to a linear system.
Similarly, you cannot transform a linear system to a complex one. You cannot make a machine (linear) into a biological human (complex).
Democrats: Saving one planet at a time through large government and increased bureaucracy.
The predictions for todays climate made in the documentary An Inconveient Truth in 2006 are glaringly objectively inconsistent with the weather conditions we are experiencing.
Despite Western governments, including Canada, having falsely labeled CO2 a toxin and failing to significantly curb anthropogenic emissions of CO2 the climate is not warming as predicted.
Oil is cheaper than it has been in a decade and the willingness to super-fund climate research projects is abating along with the need to seek alternate energy sources.
The AGW radicals have failed to make their case and the status quo will prevail over this spate of media fueled radicalism.
Goreacle's footprint:
"Catastrophic ice storm over AR, MO, KY
reports coming in of major damage from 1-2 inches of ice over the area..its still raining with temps below freezing in many areas.
information is sketchy but major damage to infrastructure are trickling in. Damage to houses from falling trees, multiple power poles down, and widespread power outages
Travel is impossible in many area because of 100's of downed trees blocking the roads.
Fires are reported in some area
widespread state of emergencies issued
Northern AR, SE MO and western KY seems to the the hardest hit so far..but things are icing up fast now in the Louisville/Lexington areas too"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2173136/posts
John Cross@9:34 "…since after our last discussion you have a major credibility problem… " . Really, you think that I lost credibility last time, Let’s review shall we!
John Cross: "...You say that I keep posting the same things that are false. The thing I post more often on this site than any other is what I consider the 3 main starting points for AGW..."
The reason I call your “3 main starting points” fallacies is because they are just that: fallacies.
You assume that these indeed are the three main points surrounding AGW and most skeptics routinely tell you that you are omitting more serious and more important points wrt the science and the politics. Now, you’ll probably say that you just want to focus on the science; however, as far as most skeptics are concerned this is no longer really possible as the science has become so politicized that all AGW science (pro and con) is considered suspect (a really, really bad state of affairs to be in). This Hansen post is just yet another indicator of that!!
But we can provide some differentiation at a higher level: As this AGW thing is presented as a problem identified, categorized and solved by science but requiring political implementation, it should behoove anyone arguing the case for “action” that:
1) they have indeed proven the science, and
2) the cure is proven to work and is proven to not be worse than the disease!
In this regard, I have your response to 2 previous questions in BOLD
a) If the world is warming, is that really bad, and if so, for whom
JC: One example: Long-Term Aridity Changes in the Western United States by Edward R. Cook (Science 306-1015).
b) if we try to stop this warming, what will it take and is this worse than simply adapting.
JC -Don’t know.
So, here it is – you John Cross, who routinely tells us the science is settled (or with no error worth mentioning), that the earth is warming and its all our fault can neither prove* to us how this might be bad (other than one paper* for one region) nor if the solution would be worse. Most sane people would call this type of argument for what it is: BS!!
* one paper on regional effects doesn’t cut it! As you routinely say, please provide multiple sources/links and not just for point a, but also b!
In terms of the science, let’s just discuss one point for now, maybe your 1st, is that Man is responsible for all the increase in CO2. Your justify this with the erroneous correlation = causation argument. I know you don't think it is correlation = causation argument but really, have you read many of the related papers?? Every paper that I have seen always makes this type of leap with the data. An easy way to tell, are they plotting two lines that look similar as their main thrust, then they are making that leap!
We don't fully understand this thing we call thing Earth. All claims for this "human fingerprint" follow convoluted arguments, do not provide complete explanations for mechanisms (as usually there are assumptions galore), let alone provide complete and long term OPEN datasets, with good (and truly verifiable) accuracy and solid theory.
In short, they always fall back on the correlation = causation point. This has been addressed many times, by many "deniers" and all the AGW zealots do is keep parroting it saying case closed.
If you want to prove this point, then please explain all the natural sources and sinks in the CO2 cycle, tell me how much is contributed/absorbed/etc when and where and why. SHOW ME DATA FIRST (lots of it and for long times periods), then models/theory (PS, don’t forget the error bars). Please don’t pull a Gavin on this, I want data not just BS words.
As for Man’s CO2 contributions, again same thing. Show me data (c12/13, factory records, air sample par locale, whatever, just lots of it, long time periods, large areas, error bars, etc) that can accurately help to work out any Man-made CO2.
Now, if 1+1 (man + natural CO2) doesn’t equal 2 (and it doesn’t here), then show me why exactly!! And if datasets happen to correlate, to what degree, why and is this within error bars??
Errors are extremely important here as so much of the “data” used to place man’s fingerprint on CO2 are accompanied by not only the measurement errors, but also the assumptions used to place them into the model/theories.
Now in general, one can say that correlation may be an indicator of causation, but without a solid understanding of the system involved you can never make the connection firm. This is where the AGW zealots lose the case as:
1) the system is NOT well characterized
2) the errors (in data intake, analysis, models, etc) are simply too large!
Normally, most science could progress with theories and experiments with varying levels of certainty. If AGW were simply a matter for scientists and experiments and nobel prizes, then I wouldn't care who was spouting what as the science would eventually point a way out. But it's not, it has triggered a huge political process that threatens to impact every person on this planet. Thus, normal scientific accounting and practices are simply not enough when the possible risks are so damn high.
If ever there was a case for establishing a gold bar for scientific truth, accuracy, and accountability AGW should be defining it. But when scientists refuse to release data sets or models, reviewer comments are ignored or changed, papers are dumped or erroneously summarised, scientists cut off final reports-npjc, correlation = causation is all that’s required for proof, conclusions supported by inbred yet somehow “independent” studies, or Al Gore screaming (funny as it is) then science has suffered a terrible blow!
Any scientist/zealot out there who is working to “support” AGW ought to be truly ashamed at the damage they are doing to the scientific community as a whole.
For science’s sake, Hang your head in shame and wake-up!!!!!!!
is the golden boy in the White House taking note? I doubt it, given "addiction to oil" crap he's been spouting lately.
Frenchie, AGW is not an isolated case. The use of correlation = causation has been coming into modern science for decades. There is perhaps no discipline which shows this more clearly than that of epidemiology. There has been a series of scares running back about 30 years over things like EMF, low level radiation, GM plants, and more recently childhood vaccines and Downs, all of which have been contaminated by correlation conclusions.
In the 1950s when epidemiology got its real start, the initial presumption was that the correlation had to be very high and there had to be an understanding of the physical process taking place. Both of these conditions have been weakened over the subsequent decades, and we now have studies quoted authoritatively which contain relative risks little over 1 (second hand cigarette smoke is a good example), and with no reference to the clinical or physical effects taking place.
What epidemiology does is apply statistical proxies to infer a cause and effect.
So, let's look at climate change, and its authoritative document, the IPCC's AR4. When the IPCC outlines the state of knowledge, it's rather frank. With respect to solar cycles and their effect on the earth's climate, the IPCC says little is known. With respect to the principal greenhouse gas, water vapour, the IPCC says little is known about the mechanics of cloud formation. Stop just there for a minute. The only source of heat in the weather system, and the principal greenhouse gas, the IPCC itself says it has no significant knowledge by its own admission. Moreover, the mechanism by which carbon dioxide is supposed to induce more water vapour is also unknown, according to the IPCC.
Hence, there is no theory that has any scientific meaning whatsoever. There are only statistical associations, some of which only exist, thanks to the work of McIntyre and McKitrick, because they were manipulated (hockey stick) or fabricated (Mann's recent work on Antarctica temperature reconstruction).
AGW if you will is nothing more than the abuse of epidemiology which has been going on for at least 30 years.
Out of their own mouths are they condemned.
Yeah good luck getting any politicians to admit the errors of their ways.
But much of the public is so brainwashed already. I had to "educate" a pizza maker the other day while picking up my pizza. He was going on about how gas prices were going up and he wants to get a hydrogen cell car that runs on water so he can eliminate his "carbon footprint".
Well, he said the magic words. He was speechless after my lesson to him, as I walked out the door with my pizza. Good thing I said that stuff to him AFTER I got my pizza, rather than before, hey?
Frenchie77: The reason I say that you lost creditability is that you accuse me of not answering questions (without any evidence what so ever) while refusing to answer them yourself. Anyone interested can read the exchange here!
However you have a chance to redeem yourself. You like to claim I say a lot of things – for example you say “you John Cross, who routinely tells us the science is settled (or with no error worth mentioning),”. OK, since I say it routinely it should be fairly easy to produce an example - so please provide a reference for where I have said this!
Regards,
John
The difficulty here is that certain individuals, such as Hansen, in positions of influence have been above scrutiny and have made unsupported (scientifically)declarations of faith represented as "science". These individuals are committing breaches of trust.....these are supposed to be above this sort of thing.
Hansen is more political than scientific...much like the IPCC.....
Peer revue has been reduced to "pal revue".....a declaration of faith is supported by associates declarations of faith.
The alarmists always dodge the basic test of proof of causation and resort to spin.