![FILE - This undated file photo provided by Subhankar Banerjee shows a polar bear in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Federal wildlife biologist Charles Monnett, whose observation that polar bears likely drowned in the Arctic helped galvanize the global warming movement, was placed on administrative leave as officials investigate him for scientific misconduct. Investigators’ questions have focused on a 2004 journal article that Monnett wrote about the bears, said thePublic Employees for Environmental Responsibility group that is representing him. Monnett was told July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending an investigation into "integrity issues." (AP Photo/Subhankar Banerjee, File) SUBHANKAR BANERJEE](http://jun-cdn.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/superphoto/248207.7793477.jpg "FILE - This undated file photo provided by Subhankar Banerjee shows a polar bear in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Federal wildlife biologist Charles Monnett, whose observation that polar bears likely drowned in the Arctic helped galvanize the global warming movement, was placed on administrative leave as officials investigate him for scientific misconduct. Investigators’ questions have focused on a 2004 journal article that Monnett wrote about the bears, said thePublic Employees for Environmental Responsibility group that is representing him. Monnett was told July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending an investigation into "integrity issues." (AP Photo/Subhankar Banerjee, File) SUBHANKAR BANERJEE")
JUNEAU — A federal wildlife biologist whose observation that polar bears likely drowned in the Arctic helped galvanize the global warming movement during the last decade was placed on administrative leave while officials investigate scientific misconduct allegations.
While it wasn’t clear what the exact allegations are, a government watchdog group representing Anchorage-based scientist Charles Monnett said investigators have focused on his 2006 journal article about the bears that garnered worldwide attention.
The group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, filed a complaint on Monnett’s behalf Thursday with the agency, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
BOEMRE told Monnett on July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending an investigation into “integrity issues.” The investigator has not yet told him of the specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, the watchdog group’s executive director.
A BOEMRE spokeswoman, Melissa Schwartz, acknowledged there was an “ongoing internal investigation” but declined to get into specifics about it.
Whatever the outcome or the nature of the allegations, the investigation could fuel the ongoing fight between climate change activists and those who are skeptical of scientists’ findings about global warming. The probe also focuses attention on an Obama administration policy intended to protect scientists from political interference.
Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, could not speak directly to Monnett’s case but said he believes the public has a right to be skeptical about scientific claims related to global warming.
Even if every scientist is objective, “what we’re being asked to do is turn our economy around and spend trillions and trillions of dollars on the basis of claims about what’s going to happen to the climate,” he said, adding later: “If global warming really takes hold here in the next few years and bad things start to happen, then we can act. But right now, I think we should just be sitting on our hands, observing.”
The complaint seeks Monnett’s reinstatement and a public apology from the agency and inspector general, whose office is conducting the probe. The group’s filing also seeks to have the investigation dropped or to have the charges specified and the matter carried out quickly and fairly, as the Obama policy states.
BOEMRE has barred Monnett from speaking to reporters, Ruch said.
Monnett could not immediately be reached Thursday.
His wife, a fellow scientist, Lisa Rotterman, who answered the phone at their home, said the case did not come out of the blue, that Monnett had come under fire in the past within the agency for speaking the truth about what the science showed, and she feared what happened to him would send a “chilling message” within the agency at a time when important oil and gas development decisions in the Arctic will soon be made.
BOEMRE was created last year in the reorganization of the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which oversaw offshore drilling. The MMS was abolished after the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The agency was accused of being too close to oil and gas industry interests.
Monnett, who has coordinated much of BOEMRE’s research on Arctic wildlife and ecology, has duties that include managing about $50 million worth of studies, according to the complaint. Schwartz, who’s based in Washington, D.C., said other agency scientists would manage the studies in Monnett’s absence.
According to documents provided by Ruch’s group, which sat in on investigators interviews with Monnett, the questioning focused on observations that Monnett and fellow researcher Jeffrey Gleason made in 2004.
At the time, they were conducting an aerial survey of bowhead whales, and saw four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. They detailed their observations in an article published two years later in the journal Polar Biology.
In the peer-reviewed article, they said they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of polar bears floating dead offshore and presumed drowned while apparently swimming long distances in open water.
Polar bears are considered strong swimmers, they wrote, but long-distance swims may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.
They said their observations suggested the bears drowned in rough seas and high winds. They also added that the findings “suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues.”
The article and presentations drew national attention and helped make the polar bear a symbol for the global warming movement. Former vice president and climate change activist Al Gore mentioned the animal in his Oscar-winning global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
The complaint said agency officials harassed Gleason and Monnett, and that they received negative comments after the journal article. Gleason took another Interior Department job; he didn’t respond to an email and a BOEMRE spokeswoman said he wouldn’t be available for comment.
In May 2008, the polar bear was classified as a threatened species, the first with its survival at risk due to global warming.
Since then, the fight between climate change activists and skeptics has intensified. In 2009, skeptics seized on some 1,000 stolen emails that showed prominent scientists stonewalling critics and discussing ways to keep opponents research out of peer-reviewed journals.
They claimed the emails as proof that the global warming threat was hyped. Several reviews have since vindicated the researchers’ science, although some of their practices — in particular efforts to hide data from critics — were criticized.
Ruch said that criminal investigators with no scientific background are handling Monnett’s case, even though it is an administrative matter.
According to a transcript, provided by Ruch’s group, Ruch asked investigator Eric May, during questioning of Monnett in February, for specifics about the allegations. May replied: “well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations.”
Monnett said that alleging scientific misconduct “suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don’t see any indication of that in what you’re asking me about.”
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This is more evidence that the global warming - climate change hysteria is a scam and much like the spotted owl fraud, the faked existence of PNW lynx in that scam of a few years ago, and other so-called science. We cannot believe any scientist that uses grants, works for government, or has some other personal financial interest in creating a fiction unless the findings of that scientist are both derived from the scientific method (for instance, are repeatable by disinterested competent parties) and hold up to extensive peer review. Peer review is not corroboration by other so-called scientists on the dole. No scientific method, no science; it's as simple as that. A consensus of similarly intereted parties is not science (no matter how often Public Broadcasting tells us it is).
Well I think we need to
Well I think we need to consider the source.
Competitive Enterprise Institute
A non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.
CEI was founded in March 1984. In 1986, it began its "free market legal program," which seeks to overturn government regulations that the CEI regards as inappropriate, such as regulations pertaining to drug safety, rent control, and automobile fuel efficiency (see the case study, Fuel efficiency standards and the laws of physics).
CEI's Foundation Funders
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation (Koch Family Foundations)
Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation (Koch Family Foundations)
David H. Koch Charitable Foundation (Koch Family Foundations)
CEI is an outspoken anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change skeptic and an opponent of government action that would require limits on greenhouse gas emissions. It favors free-market environmentalism, claiming that market institutions are more effective in protecting the environment than is government In March 1992, CEI’s founder Fred Smith said of anthropogenic climate change: "Most of the indications right now are it looks pretty good. Warmer winters, warmer nights, no effects during the day because of clouding, sounds to me like we’re moving to a more benign planet, more rain, richer, easier productivity to agriculture." [19]
In May 2006, CEI's global warming policy activities attracted attention as it embarked upon an ad campaign with two television commercials. These ads promote carbon dioxide as a positive factor in the environment and argue that global warming is not a concern. One ad focuses on the message that CO2 is misrepresented as a pollutant, stating that "it’s essential to life. We breathe it out. Plants breathe it in... They call it pollution. We call it life."[17] The other states that the world's glaciers are "growing, not melting... getting thicker, not thinner."[17] The other states that the world's glaciers are "growing, not melting... getting thicker, not thinner." It cites Science articles to support its claims. However, the editor for Science stated that the ad "misrepresents the conclusions of the two cited Science papers... by selective referencing". The author of the articles, Curt Davis, director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said CEI was misrepresenting his previous research to inflate their claims. "These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate," Davis said.[20]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute
Well, that's stupidly idiotic, GD
In one swipe, you have said that no science can be done unless funded by industry and profit-oriented bodies. You also state that no honest work can be done by anyone with a "personal financial interest in creating a fiction", by which I am assuming you mean every single "scientist" funded by oil companies to write pseudo-scientific crap designed to cast doubt on the result of real work, simply to allow oil and energy and development companies to maintain profit margins. "Peer review is not corroboration by other so-called scientist on the dole" - sounds marginally coherent, but is bull[filtered word]. There are certainly holes in peer review, yes, absolutely, but in your case, what IS peer review? Some radio-broadcast weatherman in his basement without even a college degree to understand the math involved saying "Oh, this is all nonsense"? Not to mention - this tells me you've never even seen the peer review process at work. It generally tears papers apart and makes them much better and more scientifically sound.
This is NOT evidence of climate fraud - it is evidence of the oil industry putting pressure on the Obama administration to silence work on climate change. My brother once had a similar occurrence - a paper he was writing was discovered by a large industry company, who pressured the university for whom he was working to provide the name of the journal in which he was publishing - they then tried to discredit the work without ever having seen it, and pressured the journal not to publish it. They couldn't find any errors in his math, because there weren't any, so they tried to suppress it before publication.
In your view, apparently, that is valid "science".
Now, the desire for sound and transparent science is great! Absolutely! Dependable and accurate peer review - 100%. No lying or twisting of data - agreed! But beyond those very healthy and sound assertions, the rest of your post is nonsense.
The raw data from last year's so-called "climategate"
was released just the other day. But thousands of pieces of evidence stretching back 150 years from 5,113 stations around the world demonstrating global warming doesn't matter to groups in denial. They just want a factoid to distort. That's how denial operates.
This article doesn't know what its talking about. I am poorer for giving it the time I did when I should have just skipped to the 5th paragraph up from the bottom:
Calling denialists "climate skeptics" and the scientific consensus "climate activists" is the height of dishonest irony. Hand shown, game over.
So called "climate skeptics" betray the very tools of critical thinking that defines skepticism. But as usual, typically every pseudoscientific agency from medical quackery to these global warming denialists wants the image of science behind their objections rather than actually understanding what being scientific and skeptical really means.
And why is that? Because as Carl Sagan once said, "science delivers the goods." These denialists couldn't deliver a pizza.
Mike
"Ruch said that criminal
"Ruch said that criminal investigators with no scientific background are handling Monnett’s case, even though it is an administrative matter."
That's like asking an English major to doublecheck your topology thesis. If you're going to investigate scientific conduct, you'd better be able to produce better than this:
"well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations.” "
Pitiful.
glacierdogs
You are Cuckoo For Cocoa-Puffs! Go read some more Koch Brothers propaganda.
2 additional comments
The poor grammar, spelling and punctuation in some of the comments that address my comment may be an indication of something. The second comment is that global warming advocates, including those who commented here, avoid mention of the scientific method. As I said, no scientific method, no science.
A final concept to ponder is that there are statistical tests or methods that are understood to differentiate between noise and useful data. When those tests are applied to any known historical climate data the results show that there has not been a detectable and statistically significant deviation from the general warming trend that began in many parts of the world 20,000 years ago and was underway throughout the world by 12,000 years ago. The ice has been melting in fits and starts, and that will be so until the next ice age.
Cite your sources
"When those tests are applied to any known historical climate data the results show that there has not been a detectable and statistically significant deviation from the general warming trend that began in many parts of the world 20,000 years ago and was underway throughout the world by 12,000 years ago"
Provide data sets and statistical analyses applied to them.
The subtext of your claim is that the current warming trend begin without any input from human beings (perfectly reasonable and true); the stated content is that human beings have not amplified the magnitude or accelerated/exponentiated the warming curve.
Cite your sources and data and statistical tests.
All scientists are skeptics!
One of the best points I've heard about the current state of the media on climate change is this: The media is completely failing at journalism by continuing to present man made global warming in a Pro-Con format. All scientist are by nature skeptical. They spend the bulk of their careers searching their own and other scientists work for faults. So what is amazing is that there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists that the earth is warming rapidly and the cause of the warming is man made. It's time the media stop presenting one article for man made global warming and another against, then calling it balanced journalism.
Presenting global warming in a Pro-Con format isn't balance, it just exaggerates our uncertainty about what needs to happen. This enables us to sit on our hands and do nothing, just as Myron Ebell suggests.
By the way, why was the Competitive Enterprise Institute mentioned in this story? Everyone hears a quote about climate skeptics and suddenly everyone misses the point - A scientist is being investigated by the criminal investigation branch of his former employers HR mucky mucks because of the conclusion he presented in a peer reviewed paper. And, that the former employer is BOEMRE, which was formerly the Minerals Management Service (MMS,) rebranded BOEMRE for being to cozy with the industry after the Deepwater Horizon debacle.
More evidence of what these
More evidence of what these nuts will do to further they're agenda!Remember sportsmen-these nuts help form hunting and fishing regs also!PETA people planted to regulate hunting and fishing out of existence.Don't believe it?How much are your licences and how much of a cut in catches and bag limits?
Global warming is a politically induced scare scam.
I've never believed the global warming hogwash. It's just the Earth changing as it has been since the beginning of time. Leave it up to the government however, to make money off of it.
The global warming gig is
The global warming gig is crashing and burning. Pull up a chair - it's going to be fun to watch!!
Idiotic jerks that do not understand science
I detest idiots that automatically believe headline hype. Just like the accusations from the stolen emails. Nobody upset over stealing the emails, but the headlines were that global warming (which is a well researched and accepted theory) was a scam. Then, when the emails were carefully read the worst that they could come up with was a reluctance to share data with critics (not other scientist, critics). Wow, I bet most people would be reluctant to hand over information to someone who was going to distort it. You actually believe that there is not a reason behind questioning this scientist work and commercial interests? I will be so happy when he is vindicated. But of course, the papers will bury that information but the "critics" get their field day undermining the work of real scientists.
Information is Beautiful
While lay-persons may hold differing opinions about climate change, the climate doesn't care what anyone thinks.
Gratefully, scientists are more interested in evidence than opinions.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/climate-change-a-consensus-am...
scorecard
Jasoner...........36
Glacierdogs.....0
As quoted from the below New
As quoted from the below New York Times article on the "stolen" e-mails - "Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem, “and not something secret.”
You don't condone that, do you dust?!
Note to eo - when you start out by calling your opposition idiots, you're not going to win anyone over to your side. Also, your "facts" are just a little off. Read the below article for a more true representation, however, it is the NYTimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html
I'll just throw this out for
I'll just throw this out for discussion. Maybe it should be under the "What is a Chrisitan" thread but this is on the front page so I'll put it here.
How will the divide between atheism in science and religious beliefs ever reconcile?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/evangelical-nih-director-speaks-out-agai...
I will tell you what I support, Calypso -
I support people knowing what they are talking about before sounding off.
1. If you're so concerned about the 'trick' you reference, why don't you tell me what it is and why you think it is an error? You don't know what it is, you've never bothered to find out, you simply read something that supports your world view and you ran with it. So if you want to discuss it, first go read about what the statistical procedure actually is and then tell me why it's inadmissable.
2. If you were building a house and were having problems getting the foundation level because of a significant slope, and your contractor said "Oh, let me show this neat trick I know for getting the foundation level", would you scream at him that obviously he wanted to destroy your house?
3. You need to decide your process. When you post something from some weird blog or whatever, and people object to the source on the grounds that it's rather whacko and unsupported, you immediately say that their response is typical of leftists who can't deal with the facts and arguments presented, so they attack the source. But when someone posts journal articles and such with which you disagree, you immediately jump up and down and yell that Soros funded it, or it's a skewed bastion of lib'ral hype, and you wouldn't trust it at all, meaning, of course, that you can't deal with facts and so attack the source. Make up your mind.
4. Atheism is science is not a problem. Science in faith is not a problem. The problem comes into play when those of faith (usually a shallow and rigid one) ignore and dismiss science when they are unable to be flexible enough to incorporate scientific fact into their faith framework. Note that Collins accepts evolution as a scientific fact - he does not say that the Bible is the literal word of God and therefore evolution can't be true. But there are plenty of people who do say that, and it is people like that who cause the response from scientists rejecting their presence in the science field, which I would support. It is wrong to say "Well, the Bible says x,y,z, so clearly evolution is a lie, and that is my scientific opinion so I am a scientist" - utter crap. There is nothing in the world that says a human being has to acknowledge scientific fact if they are unable to reconcile it with their religious beliefs, but they then abrogate their right to be a scientist.
Calypso: the moon is made of green cheese.
Neil Armstrong: um...no, it's not. I've been there and walked on the surface. It's rock and dust.
Calypso: No, you're wrong. It's green cheese. I suppose you believe everything you see? Did you ever wonder why the visors of spacesuit helmets are tinted green? It's a liberal conspiracy to make you never realize the moon is green.
Neil Armstrong: Helmet visors aren't tinted green; the shading is a neutral color, otherwise we couldn't distinguish colors on the outside of spacecraft when doing repairs or doing work on the Moon buggy - lots of colored lights and wires.
Calypso: So you say. But here's an article from a blog that says the moon is indeed made of green cheese.
Neil Armstrong: Sure, whatever. I've been there, it's not made of cheese, and we have moon rocks on labs here on earth - they are not cheese either.
Calypso: Well, I guess we have your "opinion" and the bloggers facts. Two ideas of equal weight. You support the free exchange of ideas, don't you?
Neil Armstrong: Of course, but this is insane.
Calypso: Why do you hate America and dairy farmers so much?
@ john11 & fromdustreturned
"The media is completely failing at journalism by continuing to present man made global warming in a Pro-Con format." (John11)
Bingo. The "balance" needed by talking heads on TV/Radio regarding global warming (I like that term better than climate change) would be akin to requiring a flat earther to give opinions at a geography conference. For all I know, that occurs somewhere. Look at the psychics that are brought in for "balance" on forensic investigations after all.
"Atheism in science is not a problem. Science in faith is not a problem." (fromdustreturned)
Great wording. I agree. What's more, as I'm sure you agree, atheism isn't about morality, or politics, or global warming. Atheism is one thing only: lack of a belief in gods (the supernatural) despite what people in the pulpit claim.
Mike
Absolutely, Mike.
I also agree that John11 hit the nail on the head with his criticism of journalistic behavior. Perhaps the worst damage that FOX news has done has been to successfully evangelize the idea that news coverage is all about presenting equal ideas and pro/con coverage as opposed to reporting what is actually happening all over the world. That, and lying.
Yes, atheism is NOT about morality or anything else - it is about a view of the universe which does not include a functional sense of divine agencies in one form or another. An atheist can easily be a very bad scientist, and a person of faith can easily be a very good one. (Some of the Jesuits might be a good example, or Mendel.)
As usual.
No data. No statistical analyses. No nothing.
July 27, 2011 Forbes
The edition of Forbes cited above has a great article about peer reviewed science that debunks the global warming mythology. Apparently the data show that the earth is releasing much more of the hysteria-causing gases that what has been assumed by models of grant-seeking so-called scientists.
Science is not consensus building; no scientific method, no science. Global warming - climate change has all the hallmarks of a religion and it has no science.
Debunked? I must have missed that.
The article was more about the economic damage of climate change than any scientific analysis of human caused warming activity, but then that is to be expected by a magazine like Forbes.
Essentially, individuals on either side of this agree that global climate change occurred naturally in the past. But, independently reviewed scientific evidence points to one factor that is the dominant player in climate change today: humans.
Ironically, when global warming denialists cite so-called natural climate change data in the past, they are providing the very evidence that shows humans can (and do) affect climate now.
Mike
"Science is not consensus
"Science is not consensus building; no scientific method, no science."
Do... do you even know the scientific method? Reproducibility. Scientific consensus is not a bunch of scientists saying, "Yeah, that sounds good," but rather a bunch of scientists saying that "When we recreated the experiment, we received similar results." Science IS consensus building. However, like 'theory,' the word is far more rigorous in a scientific context and means so much more than the idle supposition people seem to associate it with.