Claim: Climate scientists are being censored

[TheNZThrower]

An Epoch Times article (EDIT: link added) claimed that climate skeptic Patrick J. Michaels had his paper refused by multiple journals as they had to past a higher standard than other papers:

Academic research that casts doubt about the consensus dogma is rarely seen in academic journals, a phenomenon that began in the 1990s. Michaels said in UK Channel 4’s 1990 documentary The Greenhouse Conspiracy that if a person’s point of view is politically unacceptable, then there will be trouble. His paper was rejected by more than one academic journal. When he asked a journal editor why, the answer was that his paper must pass a higher evaluation standard than others.

There exists a transcript of the documentary, in which Michaels says the following:

People who have a point of view which may not be politically acceptable are going to have problems. That's not surprising. I have had experiences with editors of more than one journal who have said that my papers have been rejected because they are held to a higher standard of review than others. I believe this is because what they say is not popular. That's OK: I'm a big boy. I know I would have been more successful if I had said the world is coming to an end, but I can't bring myself to do that.

Here is the documentary itself where Michaels makes the aforementioned statement (timestamp 46:21):

Now why is it the case that his papers are subject to a higher degree of scrutiny, as I'm not that familiar with the peer review process. AFAIK, this could mean that certain journals rejected his papers before he found one that was willing to publish it, not that he has papers that were never published by any journal at all.

 

[Mendel]

An Epoch Times article claimed that climate skeptic Patrick J. Michaels had his paper refused by multiple journals as they had to past a higher standard than other papers:

Academic research that casts doubt about the consensus dogma is rarely seen in academic journals, a phenomenon that began in the 1990s. Michaels said in UK Channel 4’s 1990 documentary The Greenhouse Conspiracy that if a person’s point of view is politically unacceptable, then there will be trouble. His paper was rejected by more than one academic journal. When he asked a journal editor why, the answer was that his paper must pass a higher evaluation standard than others.

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For context, this is the source:

Article:

Chapter Sixteen, Part II: The Communism Behind Environmentalism (UPDATED)​

The specter of communism did not disappear with the disintegration of the Communist Party in Eastern Europe​

The Epoch Times is serializing an adaptation from the Chinese of a new book, How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World, by the editorial team of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.

Source: https://m.theepochtimes.com/chapter-sixteen-the-communism-behind-environmentalism-part-ii_2786362.html

It helps here to remember that the Epoch Times was founded by Chinese who had fled communist China.

The article starts its assault on climate change (branding it as "dogma") with this:

Climatology is a young subject with only a few decades of history. Yet the hypotheses surrounding global warming have been prematurely taken as fact.

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Climatology is in fact a field with a history as long as nuclear physics or computer science, and climate change had been well established within the field by 1990.

Article:

A few people worked to lift meteorology and climatology above the traditional statistical approach. Helmut Landsberg's 1941 textbook Physical Climatology and a 1944 Climatology textbook written by two other meteorologists demonstrated how familiar physical principles underlay the general features of global climate, and provided a rallying-point for those who wanted to make the field truly scientific.

Leading the movement was a group at the University of Chicago, where in 1942 Carl-Gustav Rossby had created a department of meteorology.

The new thinking was displayed in full at a 1965 symposium held in Boulder, Colorado on "Causes of Climate Change." While the meeting made little special impression at the time, in retrospect it was a landmark.

Source: https://history.aip.org/climate/climogy.htm

The greenhouse effect had been so well established by 1990 that the Sagan Standard, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", would have applied to papers denying it. Michaels's "evidence" would not have been good enough.

Further discussion of Michaels's claim would profit from examining a copy of the allegedly rejected paper. I suspect history will not have been kind to it.

 

[Ann K]

Now why is it the case that his papers are subject to a higher degree of scrutiny, as I'm not that familiar with the peer review process. AFAIK, this could mean that certain journals rejected his papers before he found one that was willing to publish it, not that he has papers that were never published by any journal at all.

If it is a scientific publication, he is going to have to have evidence for his conclusions. Although the occasional lemon gets through, in most cases peer reviewers (those with a high degree of familiarity with the subject) are not going to accept opinions or obviously cherry-picked data.

I suspect that his statement about a higher degree of scrutiny (if it is true at all and not just an excuse on his part for not getting it published) refers to the fact that overthrowing an overwhelming consensus is a serious matter, one which requires very solid evidence sufficient to invalidate the mountains of evidence which already exist to the contrary.

His statement throwing politics into the mix is unfortunate, and probably more indicative of his own political bias. Politics has no legitimate place in scientific study, but that camel's nose is well and truly under the tent.

 

[TheNZThrower]

Anyways, The Epoch Times claim that in Michael's book, he claimed that the governor of Virginia has demanded he can no longer speak on the issue as a state climatologist:

Because he insisted that changes in the climate would not lead to disaster — and this optimistic stance was inconsistent with the consensus dogma — he was told one day by the governor of Virginia that he could not speak on global warming as a state climatologist. He ultimately chose to resign.

Looking to contemporary articles, DesmogBlog claims that this was a result of conflicts of interest between Michaels and an electricity co-operative (IREA) that gets most of its power from coal:

DeSmogBlog and ABC News uncovered a leaked memo written by the president of the Intermountain Rural Electrical Association that linked to Patrick Michaels’ consulting firm.

In the memo, Stan Lewandowski, General Manager of IREA discusses a coordinated campaign by Koch Industries, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Michaels, and other key groups to push back against “alarmism” on climate change: (emphasis added)...

They then quote the Washington Post, who mentioned that the governor of Virginia requested he not use the title of State Climatologist when conducting his consulting business:

This summer, news reports revealed that Michaels had asked for money for his research from coal-burning utilities. Such companies often are criticized for emitting pollutants that lead to global warming, and critics have said this fundraising proves that Michaels's views are calculated to please his financial backers. Michaels said it doesn't prove anything.

"I was working on climate change long before I worked as a consultant" to outside groups, he wrote in an e-mail to The Washington Post, "and my views have been quite consistent over that period."

After the fundraising reports came out, the Kaine administration investigated how Michaels had come by his title, and officials determined that he worked for the university, not the governor. So they sent Michaels a letter asking him to make it clear that he was not speaking for the state during his "outside activities" or consulting.

So whaddya guys make of it? Is there any information I may have missed?

 

[Mendel]

The Epoch Times claim that in Michael's book, he claimed that the governor of Virginia has demanded he can no longer speak on the issue as a state climatologist:

I'm not sure how much bearing this has on the original claim. The use of a title (or not) doesn't seem like much of a censorship issue to me.

 

[Ann K]

They then quote the Washington Post, who mentioned that the governor of Virginia requested he not use the title of State Climatologist when conducting his consulting business:

it sounds as if he tried to use an official state title in conducting his personal business, which is definitely a no-no. It smacks suspiciously of two different problems: touting his own importance, and a nudge-and-wink statement of "Hire me, I have influence".

 

[TheNZThrower]

it sounds as if he tried to use an official state title in conducting his personal business, which is definitely a no-no. It smacks suspiciously of two different problems: touting his own importance, and a nudge-and-wink statement of "Hire me, I have influence".

To play devils advocate, his letter he received from the University of Virginia didn't mention specifically that this applied to his consulting per a preview of his book:

I wasn’t asked to do the impossible, merely the impossibly awkward. The University of Virginia Provost wrote to me: You should refer to yourself as the “AASC-designated state climatologist” and your office as the “AASC-designated State Climatology Office,” or if you prefer, “AASC-designated State Climatology Office at the University of Virginia.” I recognize that the titles may be awkward but the
message from the Governor’s Office was very clear about what they expected.
https://www.scribd.com/read/3226834...l-Warming-Science-They-Don-t-Want-You-to-Know

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[Mendel]

To play devils advocate, his letter he received from the University of Virginia didn't mention specifically that this applied to his consulting per a preview of his book:

I wasn’t asked to do the impossible, merely the impossibly awkward. The University of Virginia Provost wrote to me: You should refer to yourself as the “AASC-designated state climatologist” and your office as the “AASC-designated State Climatology Office,” or if you prefer, “AASC-designated State Climatology Office at the University of Virginia.” I recognize that the titles may be awkward but the
message from the Governor’s Office was very clear about what they expected.
https://www.scribd.com/read/3226834...l-Warming-Science-They-Don-t-Want-You-to-Know

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Yes, that's very helpful.
The point here is that the state of Virginia (this includes the governor, the state government and the state legislature) was not involved in selecting the state climatologist, and didn't pay anyone to hold that office.

Compare:

Article:

For the AASC to officially recognize a state agency as an ARSCO, three basic documents must be submitted to the AASC President:

1. A document that details current and planned activities that demonstrate a willingness and commitment to meet the ARSCO Terms of Reference. (See Section III.)
2. A letter of support from the state's Regional Climate Center Director (See Appendix B for a sample letter.)
3. A letter of support from at least one National Weather Service Forecast Office serving the state. (See Appendix C for a sample letter.)

Once the documents have been received and approved, the AASC President will notify the state agency and the NCEI.

Source: https://stateclimate.org/arsco/

ARSCO stands for "AASC recognized state climatologist office", so that's similar to the title Michaels was required to use back then.

So then this means it doesn't have anything to do with the consulting business? It's simply about not creating the impression that he's a state official, which he wasn't. And again, that's not a censorship issue.

 

[Mendel]

More quotes from the book's preface:

My faculty position was “Research Professor and State Climatologist, Department of Environmental Sciences.” My salary was paid in its large majority by a separate line in the university’s budget, labeled “State Climatology Office,” itself a part of the overall budget for the Commonwealth of Virginia. I was appointed Virginia State Climatologist on July 7, 1980. Like most other State Climatologists, I was faculty at a major public institution, and the appointment was without term, although the faculty position itself was without academic tenure.

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About the long form of his title:

Needless to say, this quickly became unworkable. Newspaper editors wouldn’t suffer such encumbering verbiage, it didn’t fit on a TV Chiron, and making a disclaimer every time I spoke about climate that my views didn’t reflect those of the Commonwealth of Virginia or the University of Virginia (despite their being correct!) would never fit in a sound bite. So I had the choice of speaking on global warming and having my salary line terminated, or leaving.

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So the state had the problem that their "state climatologist" was a guy at a university whom they couldn't fire, and still denied climate change in 2009. So what the state is doing is trying to distance themselves from him, and he perceives that as de facto censorship.

But it's not. It's just that he's gotten used to being presented as "state climatologist" and not as "crackpot professor whom they can't fire", and he enjoyed that, and threw a tantrum over not being allowed to be presented like that any more. He was 59 years old when he left that university position. I don't know if he held on to his position at the Cato institute.

 

[TheNZThrower]

The point here is that the state of Virginia (this includes the governor, the state government and the state legislature) was not involved in selecting the state climatologist, and didn't pay anyone to hold that office.

According to the WaPo article mentioned prior in this thread, it appears that the then Governor was involved in appointing Michaels as a state climatologist.

Michaels was appointed to his position by Gov. John N. Dalton (R) in 1980, a year after Michaels received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. And it's hard to find anyone who faults his work in keeping the state's weather data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...critics/1bd66873-9fcc-40af-b9af-6e5808649af3/

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[TheNZThrower]

The greenhouse effect had been so well established by 1990 that the Sagan Standard, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", would have applied to papers denying it. Michaels's "evidence" would not have been good enough.

Further discussion of Michaels's claim would profit from examining a copy of the allegedly rejected paper. I suspect history will not have been kind to it.

Expanding upon my original post, The Epoch Times claimed that because the IPCC said that the warming as of 1990 was within the range of natural variability, Michaels' paper was probably not rejected on the grounds that his paper was making any extraordinary claims outside of consensus:

According to the 1990 IPCC report, the understanding at the time was that the extent of global warming was equivalent to natural changes in climate. Therefore, although Michaels’s point of view was different from that of many others, it could not be regarded as particularly heretical.

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Their source is from the First Assessment Report's executive summary:

Global mean surface air temperature has increased by 0 3°C to 0 6°C over the last 100 years, with the five global-average warmest years being in the 1980s Over the same period global sea level has increased by 10-20cm These increases have not been smooth with time, nor uniform over the globe

The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability Thus the observed increase could be largely due to this natural variability, alternatively this variability and other human factors could have offset a still larger human-induced greenhouse warming The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely for a decade or more

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf

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What do you make of this?

 

[Ann K]

@TheNZThrower
We have been overlooking the elephant in the room, namely that this whole thing comes from The Epoch Times. From Media Bias, we have this assessment of its credibility as a source, below. While the state's position may be stated accurately, Michaels' complaint sounds more like a poor-pitiable-me excuse, one which a right wing paper with its own axe to grind might promote. That's the essence of a conspiracy theory, and the source has a reputation for that. Scientific papers, properly peer reviewed, are often rejected because the science itself is unfounded or inaccurately portrayed. That does not mean that the author is being "censored", but that his work is inadequate to prove whatever point he wished to make.

 

[Mendel]

Therefore, although Michaels’s point of view was different from that of many others, it could not be regarded as particularly heretical.

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That's wishful thinking: first, it's not a "point of view", it's a scientific claim; secondly, it's not merely "different", it's contradictory; thirdly, it's not "many others", it's the majority of experts in the field; fourth, "heretical" typically refers to belief systems and not scientific knowledge; and finally, if your scientific claim contradicts the majority of people who make up the field, of course it's going to be regarded as nonsense, unless it has strong evidence.

What this sentence really means is, "if science was a belief system and not evidence, we could bend it so that Michaels is seen to adhere to that belief system because his position looks similar to an established position if you take it out of context".

If you're calling the establishment "The Greenhouse Conspiracy (1990)" (see your OP), you're deliberately adopting a heretic stance. No nitpicking gets you out of that.

 

[Mendel]

Their source is from the First Assessment Report's executive summary:

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf

And they've been correct!

 

[TheNZThrower]

That's wishful thinking: first, it's not a "point of view", it's a scientific claim; secondly, it's not merely "different", it's contradictory; thirdly, it's not "many others", it's the majority of experts in the field; fourth, "heretical" typically refers to belief systems and not scientific knowledge; and finally, if your scientific claim contradicts the majority of people who make up the field, of course it's going to be regarded as nonsense, unless it has strong evidence.

What this sentence really means is, "if science was a belief system and not evidence, we could bend it so that Michaels is seen to adhere to that belief system because his position looks similar to an established position if you take it out of context".

If you're calling the establishment "The Greenhouse Conspiracy (1990)" (see your OP), you're deliberately adopting a heretic stance. No nitpicking gets you out of that.

That aside, the IPCC also mentioned that the model predictions as of then accurately measured the amount of warming observed. It also mentioned that natural variability and anthropogenic causes could have masked or slowed down the warming. The general conclusion from that section is that the IPCC can't automatically infer anthropogenic causes based on the then evidence.

Of course, The Epoch Times also is engaging in mere speculation about the stances and content of Michaels' paper.

 

[Mendel]

The general conclusion from that section is that the IPCC can't automatically infer anthropogenic causes based on the then evidence.

No, that's out of context. They couldn't infer anthropogenic causes based on the historical data alone, but the "smart" indirect evidence was very convincing, see the "we are certain" section I quoted above.

The problem is that demanding direct evidence of some calamity is the antithesis to prevention: if you predict something, and then prevent it, someone's always going to doubt your prediction; and but you let it happen, you've lost the opportunity to prevent a predictable calamity. So at some point, you've got to ask yourself, how reasonable is that doubt really? How much is that doubt going to cost us in the long run?

 

[TheNZThrower]

[snip]

Michaels also claimed to have done consulting for the EPA as well, this implication being that this indicates he did not have significant conflicts of interest in the aforementioned book of his:

I fully used my privileges as a University of Virginia faculty member, which included the right to consult for whomever I wanted without jeopardizing my position or the academic freedom that went with it. Which meant, of course, consulting for entities ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to power producers with a dog in the global warming hunt.

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However, whistleblower.org has noted that Michaels has ran a bulletin funded by the Western Fuels Association:

The Western Fuels Association had been funding Michaels’ newsletter, World Climate Review (a dead-tree precursor of the now blogified World Climate Report) since at least 1991—and failing for some time to disclose Western Fuels’ sponsorship.
The fossil-fuel and electric industries’ funding of Michaels is a long story, and part of their tangled web of PR and lobbying offensives to raise doubt about legitimate science on climate change. Much of this story is spelled out and documented by Pulitzer-winner Ross Gelbspan in his books Boiling Point (2004) and The Heat Is On (1997).
https://whistleblower.org/politiciz...ologist-a-critical-perspective-on-the-issues/

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[TheNZThrower]

Western Fuels is a coal supplier per their website:

Western Fuels is a not-for profit cooperative that supplies coal and transportation services to consumer-owned electric utilities throughout the Great Plains, Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions.
https://www.westernfuels.org/about

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