How Scientific Consensus Is Fabricated
Guest post by Lynne Balzer
We have repeatedly been told that 97% of scientists agree that Earth’s climate is experiencing dangerous warming caused by human activities. John Kerry, Biden’s climate czar, stated, “97 percent of peer-reviewed climate studies confirm that climate change is happening and that human activity is largely responsible.” Although the 97% figure, based on discredited studies, is exaggerated, many climate scientists are on the human-caused climate change bandwagon.
This is no accident. In 2009 1,079 emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the United Kingdom and others working with them, were released by a whistleblower in an incident that came to be known as
Climategate. This small group of scientists had been the most influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming. The emails they exchanged revealed that they were doing everything they could to keep scientists whose findings disagreed with theirs out of the peer review system.
The ruthless methods these men used to silence any scientist who dared to question their conclusions were shocking. They had pressured editors of scientific journals to block the publication of peer-reviewed studies contradicting their results. A professional scientist’s career rests on his/her success in getting studies published in peer-reviewed journals.
Phil Jones of CRU, writing to Michael Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, about two papers that disagreed with their hypothesis, stated, “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Mann responded, “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal?” Jones assured him, “I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”
They demonstrated their hatred of scientists whose conclusions differed from theirs, rejoicing at the news that one of them had died. One scientist, Ben Santer, told CRU, “The next time I see Pat Michaels [a dissenting scientist] at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him.”
Two years later in 2011, about 5,000 more emails were leaked. These were even more startling and incriminating than the 1,079 released in 2009. Myron Ebell commented, “If there were any doubts remaining after reading the first Climategate emails, the new batch of emails that appeared on the web today make it clear that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] is an organized conspiracy dedicated to tricking the world into believing that global warming is a crisis that requires a drastic response.”
Unfortunately, this incident was covered up by the media so adeptly that most people have never heard of it. This unethical behavior that is so uncharacteristic of true science is still occurring today. Recently Covering Climate Now (CCN), a group of about 500 media outlets that disseminate propaganda to the world, demonized a paper by four Italian scientists which concluded that a climate emergency does not exist. Among several scientists who demanded that the paper be removed from Nature were Greg Holland, Steve Sherwood, Michael Mann, Fredericke Otto and Stefan Rahmstorf.
Three of this peer-reviewed study’s authors, Gianluca Alimonti, Franco Prodi and Renato Angelo Ricci, are physicists, and the other, Luigi Mariani, is a meteorologist. Yet, they were accused of being on the fringes of the climate science community.
Stefan Rahmstorf, director of Earth Systems at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, accused them of ignoring “studies that don’t fit their narrative and have come to the opposite conclusion…I do not know this journal, but if it is a self-respecting one, it should withdraw the article.”
“They are writing this article in bad faith,” declared Fredericke Otto. In the end, the publisher was forced to withdraw the paper from Nature. This disgraceful episode is pure censorship.
The Clintel Foundation, an international group of climate scientists and other experts, conducted an analysis of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). They concluded that the IPCC “went to great lengths to exclude diverse viewpoints to draw its often alarmist conclusions.”
For example, the analysis by the well-known statistician Roger Pielke, Jr. that the incidence of storms, floods, droughts and forest fires has not increased was downplayed in the several chapters of the AR6 report dealing with these phenomena. The IPCC, founded in 1988 by oilman Maurice Strong in conjunction with Agenda 21, immediately assumed dominance in the new climate science field. Strong’s statement, “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse?” indicates that climate change has always been a political issue. Backed by the UN and powerful financing, the IPCC chooses its committee members from those scientists who agree with their agenda, excluding those scientists who haven’t done so.
Many scientists have been afraid to disagree with those in power out of fear that their careers will be ruined. Dr. Judith Curry was a department chair at Georgia Tech University.
The media loved her when she published a study showing an increase in hurricane intensity. “I was adopted by the environmental advocacy groups and the alarmists and I was treated like a rock star,” Curry recounts. “Flown all over the place to meet with politicians.”
After changing her opinion about climate change the entire situation reversed itself. She was subjected to so much pressure that she was forced to leave and later told she couldn’t get another job.
Scientists choosing to investigate natural rather than man-made causes of warming are denied research grants. Government officials, lusting for carbon taxes, are interested only in those reports that can show in some way that humans are causing this “problem”. If a scientist can demonstrate that a species of butterfly has migrated north or is in danger of extinction, attributing this to human-caused climate change will guarantee him/her lucrative grants that are perpetually renewed. Scientists are human beings, and they don’t want to lose the government grants that help feed their families. They know these grants will be renewed as long as there is a “problem”. If it turns out that a problem doesn’t exist, they’ll be out of a job.
Because of this many meteorologists and climatologists have waited until they retired to speak up. Recently, 1609 climate scientists and other experts, including two Nobel prize winners, signed a declaration that there is no climate emergency.
Unless we are willing to endure climate lockdowns, loss of driving privileges and the prospect of eating bugs, we need to speak out in any way we can, including contacting our elected officials. Since these drastic measures are already on the horizon, there is no time to lose in doing this.
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Hundreds more fascinating facts about the climate change scam can be found in Lynne Balzer’s richly illustrated book, Exposing the Great Climate Change Lie, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format.