The rapidity of the global warming establishment’s collapse would have been unheard of just two years ago. Prominent physicist Hal Lewis resigned from American Physical Society, calling “Global warming the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life.” UK astrophysicist Piers Corbyn was blunt about what Climategate revealed: “The case for climate fears is blown to smithereens…the whole theory should be destroyed and discarded and UN conference should be closed.”
Even the usually reliable news media has started questioning the global warming claims. Newsweek Magazine wrote in May 2010 about the “uncertain science” and how “climate researchers have lost the public’s trust” from a “cascade of scandals” from the UN IPCC. Newsweek compared the leaders of the climate science community to “used-car salesmen. “Once celebrated climate researchers are feeling like the used-car salesmen” and the magazine noted that “some of IPCC’s most-quoted data and recommendations were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures, newspaper articles…Just as damaging, many climate scientists have responded to critiques by questioning the integrity of their critics, rather than by supplying data and reasoned arguments.” For full list of Climategate related scandals See: Climate Scandals: List Of 94 Climate-Gates — 94 climate-gates total — 28 new gates — 145 links to reports with details
As the global warming edifice crumbled in 2010, the movement lost one of its leading lights due to the Climategate revelations. Dr. Judith Curry, the chair of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at GA Institute of Tech, explained her defection from the global warming activist movement. “There is ‘a lack of willingness in the climate change community to steer away from groupthink…’ They are setting themselves up as second-rate scientists by not engaging,” Curry wrote in 2010. Curry critiqued the UN IPCC for promoting “dogma” and clinging to the “religious importance” of the IPCC’s claims. “They will tolerate no dissent and seek to trample anyone who challenges them,” Curry lamented. “The IPCC assessment process had a substantial element of schoolyard bullies, trying to insulate their shoddy science from outside scrutiny and attacks by skeptics…the IPCC and its conclusions were set on a track to become a self fulfilling prophecy,” Curry wrote. Curry called the Climategate fallout nothing short of a “rather spectacular unraveling of the climate change juggernaut…I immediately realized that [Climategate] could bring down the IPCC…I became concerned about the integrity of our entire field…While my colleagues seemed focused on protecting the reputations of the scientists involved and assuring people that the ‘science hadn’t changed.” [Note: Curry is not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.] Also see: ‘High Priestess of Global Warming’ No More! Former Warmist Judith Curry Admits To Being ‘Duped Into Supporting IPCC’ – ‘If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic’] [Note: There were many Cilmategate inquiries that sought to downplay Climategate, but they fell short of their goal and were labeled as nothing more than the “global warming establishment exonerating the global warming establishment.” See here, here, and here. The InterAcademy Council (IAC) was the most competent of the inquires.]
As new data and science continued to call into question man-made global warming claims, one of the movements leading fear promoters shocked the world by beginning to retreat from his dire predictions. Green guru James Lovelock warned in 2007 that, “Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic.” Lovelock illustrates how the climate of the climate change movement has been transformed in the last year. In May 2010, Lovelock shocked the world by announcing: “Everybody might be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out.” Lovelock went even father by noting how the science of global warming is in its infancy and “we haven’t got the physics worked out yet.” “The great climate science centers around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet,” Lovelock explained. Lovelock now openly praises skeptics and worries that climate fear promotion is akin to religion. In March of 2010, Lovelock said: “The skeptics have kept us sane…They have kept us from regarding climate science as a religion. It had gone too far that way.” [Note: Lovelock is not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.] [Note: Even the UN has grown more uncertain about the science. See: UN Fears (More) Global Cooling Commeth! IPCC Scientist Warns UN: We may be about to enter ‘one or even 2 decades during which temps cool’ — Admits ‘Jury is still out’ on ocean cycle’s temp impact!]
More woes for the movement were felt when left-leaning environmental activists began jumping ship. See: Left-wing Env. Scientist Denis Rancourt Bails Out Of Global Warming Movement: Declares it a ‘corrupt social phenomenon…strictly an imaginary problem of the 1st World middleclass’ & Meet the green who doubts ‘The Science’: Environmentalist Peter Taylor ‘explains why he’s skeptical about manmade global warming — and why greens are so intolerant’ & Activists at green festivals expressing doubts over man-made climate fears. “One college professor, confided to me in private conversation that, ‘I’m not sure climate change is real,'” according to a report from the New York Green Festival.
2010 saw the once vaulted UN IPCC now become the object of ridicule and scrutiny. In June 2010, Climate Scientist Mike Hulme took apart a key claim. Hulme noted that claims such as “2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate” are disingenuous. Hulme noted that the key scientific case for Co2 driving global warming was reached by a very small gaggle of people. “That particular consensus judgment, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.” [Note: Hulme is not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.]
In another blow to the UN IPCC’s carefully crafted image, was Scientist Dr. William Schlesinger admission in that only 20% of UN IPCC scientists deal with climate. Schlesinger said, “Something on the order of 20 percent [of UN scientists] have had some dealing with climate.” By Schlesinger’s own admission, 80% of the UN IPCC membership has no dealing with the climate as part of their academic studies. Also note, that climate requires a wide range of disciplines: See: ‘There are more than 100 expert sub disciplines involved in climate change studies’ & Science magazine confused about who is a ‘prominent climate scientist’ — ‘there is no specific climate discipline’ & Claims of ‘overwhelming majority’ of scientists exposed as laughable! ‘There are just 94 authors responsible for compiling the report in which…the [UN IPCC’s] modeling case for alarm rests’
The notion of climate “tipping points”, popularized by former Vice President Al Gore and NASA Scientist James Hansen, became the object of derision as well in 2010. See: 190-year climate ‘tipping point’ issued — Despite fact that UN began 10-Year ‘Climate Tipping Point’ in 1989! Climate Depot Factsheet on Inconvenient History of Global Warming ‘Tipping Points’ — Hours, Days, Months, Years, Millennium — Earth ‘Serially Doomed’
Once respected global warming stalwarts like NASA’s James Hansen descended into political and ideological activism by being arrested multiple times protesting coal use. Hansen also endorsed a book which calls for ‘”ridding the world of Industrial Civilization”. Hansen declared the author “has it right…the system is the problem.” Hansen did this despite the fact that the book proposes ‘”razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine.” The Grist eco-magazine writer David Roberts noted in August 2010: “‘I know I’m not supposed to say this, but James Hansen managed his transition from scientist to activist terribly. All influence lost.”
Energy Sec. Chu came under fire for claiming science told him what the world was going to be like 100 years from now. See: Obama’s ‘Climate Astrologer’: Energy Sec. Chu claims he knows ‘what the future will be 100 years from now’
Obama Science Advisor John Holdren found his knowledge of the science of climate change come under scrutiny after he issued a bizarre warning about the possible loss of WINTER sea ice in the arctic. See: Obama science advisor: John Holdren ridiculed for claiming Arctic could be ICE FREE IN WINTER!
The U.S. Congressional cap-and-trade bill collapse and the UN climate treaty failure has left disillusioned within the global warming movement. Gore has admitted to feeling “a little depressed.” And it has left a spectacle of world leaders promising verbal non-binding agreements to limit the earth’s temp have left modern society attempting to ape primitive cultures efforts to control the climate. See: Blaming all recent weather events on man-made global warming is akin to astrology & Climate Astrology — ‘It Has Been Foretold’ of Extreme Weather: ‘UN IPCC science has a status similar to interpretations of Nostradamus and the Mayan calendars’
In addition, the scientific underpinnings and the public support around the globe has dropped so significantly that there is now open talk of moving on to the “next eco-scare” Demoted: UN officially throws global warming under the bus: UN now says case for saving species ‘more powerful than climate change’ ‚Äì May 21, 2010 & Time for next eco-scare already?! As Global Warming Movement Collapses, Activists Already ‘Test-Marketing’ the Next Eco-Fear! ‘Laughing Gas’ Crisis? Oxygen Crisis? Plastics?
The carefully crafted “consensus” of man-made global warming has unraveled. See:
Prominent Geologist Dr. Easterbrook Slams Geological Society of America’s climate statement ‘as easily refuted by data that clearly shows no correlation between CO2 and global climate change’ & American Meteorological Society Members Reject Man-made Climate Claims: 75% Do Not Agree With UN IPCC Claims — 29% Agree ‘Global Warming is a Scam’ & Meteorologists Reject U.N.’s Global Warming Claims: Only 1 in 4 American Meteorological Society broadcast meteorologists agree with UN
In 2009, the world’s largest science group, the American Chemical Society (ACS) was “startled” by an outpouring of scientists rejecting man-made climate fears, with many calling for the removal of the ACS’s climate activist editor.
A 2010 Open Letter signed by more than 130 German scientists urging German Chancellor to “reconsider” her climate views. See: ‘Consensus’ Takes Another Hit! More than 130 German Scientists Dissent Over Global Warming Claims! Call Climate Fears ‘Pseudo ‘Religion’; Urge Chancellor to ‘reconsider’ views ‚Äì August 4, 2009 More than 100 international scientists challenged President Obama’s climate claims, calling them “simply incorrect.” In December 8 2009, 166 scientists from around the world wrote an Open Letter to the UN Secretary-General rebuking the UN and declaring that “the science is NOT settled.” On May 1, 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of over 80 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position and more than 250 scientists urged a change in the group’s climate statement in 2010. The physicists wrote to APS governing board: “Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th – 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.” An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.
Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices,” and a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.”
Scientific meetings are being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ & see full reports here & here – Also see: UN IPCC’s William Schlesinger admits in 2009 that only 20% of IPCC scientists deal with climate ]
Despite these developments, global warming promoters have sought to cite a survey alleging 97% of climatologists agree with the “consensus” view. But the survey does not hold up to scrutiny. See: ‘Consensus’ claims challenged: Only 77 scientists were interviewed to get 97.4% agreement — ‘It would be interesting to learn who these individuals are’ & Climate Con: 97% ‘Consensus’ Claim is only 76 Anonymous Self-Selected Climatologists