"The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between," he wrote. "One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean level due to the temperature rise." - Hubert Heffner, deputy director of the administration's Office of Science and Technology under Nixon, 1970.
JA also thinks that Fred Pearce is rubbish.
And while I'm on rubbish journo's (are there any other sort? Yes of course: JF!): as I said before, Monbiot is rubbish. Here he presents his snivelling excuses for hainvg called for Jones to resign. And they really are snivelling: So was I wrong to call, soon after this story broke, for Jones's resignation? I think, on balance, that I was. He said some very stupid things. At times he squelched the scientific principles of transparency and openness. He might have broken the law. But he was also provoked beyond endurance. I think, in the light of everything I've now seen and read, that if I were to write that article again I'd conclude that Phil Jones should hang on - but only just. So, having fallen for the septic junk and done his own little bit towards poisoning the debate, Monbiot can't even bring himself to apologise. What a skunk.
[Update: JA has done this soooo much better than me :-).]
The Krypton Cataclysm: Why So Few Survivors? asks mt.
Thought: just as nothing Buddy Holly did was as good as American Pie, so none of the old 40's movies are as good as The Friends of Mr Cairo.
- Log in to post comments
More fodder for the denial engine, eh? You know how they'll spin that one:
"Phil Jones should hang" -- Monbiot
Surely, what he meant to write was:
In case anyone is interested, the Guardian is apparently sponsoring a debate about "climategate" in London on 14 July.
George Monbiot is chairing and Bob Watson, Fred Pearce and Doug Keenan are on the panel. There are still tickets available if anyone wants to go and tell Monbiot and Pearce off in the flesh. I can't make it.
I have heard that the Guardian was considering flying McIntyre over for it, but decided that it was too expensive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/guardian-debate-clima…
McIntyre will be participating in the Guardian debate now. He paid (supported by CA readers) for a flight over.
"Thought: just as nothing Buddy Holly did was as good as American Pie..."
One of your recurrent bouts of madness, obviously. Not as bad as when you praise Pielke Jr., but still.
So the Guardian's response to the official inquiry clearing everyone of everything imaginable is to give *more* legitimacy to these people, by sponsoring a debate?
[Yeeees, looks rather like it. Well, Pearce has books to flog and I suppose the Grauniad has newspapers to sell; and its all a bit late to admit that it was a ghastly mistake. So pretending there is anything left to debate is probably the only solution -W]
Between the two of you, James and William, you pretty much have this nailed. James wrote
which is nearly verbatim what I mailed Monbiot back then.
"Honest, Rigorous, and Bad Attitude" pretty much sums up the real practice of science. Perhaps that has to change, but wake me up when it does.