More conspiracy theories: WUWT's Tim Ball plus Judith Curry

There is nothing much new at WUWT that I can see. The memes are being recycled.

Tim Ball is writing some of his usual nonsense, this time about a Nature paper from 1996, stolen emails and hockey sticks. He hasn't written anything that shows climate science is wrong, but he has repeated his paranoid conspiracy theories. (Every single one of the nine or so investigations, on two continents, relating to stolen emails was a "cover up", in Tim's paranoid mind.)

Judith Curry's "money, politics and consensus" conspiracy theory

Speaking of conspiracy theories, Judith Curry has come up with a beauty (archived here).

Today she's hinting that there are swathes of climate scientists out there who dispute either the cause or the fact of global warming but won't publish their findings. They have no spine. Not a one of the hundreds of thousands of climate/earth system scientists in the world today are interested in doing original research, if you go by Judith's view of the world. None aspire to fame and glory. No-one is angling to be the first climate scientist to win a Nobel Prize in their own right. Judith wrote:

When politics and ‘consensus’ enforcement come into play, it becomes very difficult for scientists to publicly change their mind.  To say that we are in trouble in the climate debate because of this is an understatement.

There is enormous pressure for climate scientists to conform to the so-called consensus. This pressure comes not only from politicians, but from federal funding agencies, universities and professional societies, and scientists themselves who are green activists and advocates. Reinforcing this consensus are are strong monetary, reputational, and authority interests.

Given that, according to Judith, no climate scientist will publish any credible research disputing global warming, Judith cannot name a single dissenting scientist. They are all keeping shtum.

And heaven forbid any scientist wanting a sustainable biosphere. Heck - they shouldn't be advocating a responsible attitude to the environment, they should be supporting our rapid demise. At least that's what Judith is implying.

Her theory is that the reason that no climate scientist will publish their dissenting research (that she fortuitously can't identify because they haven't published it), is because of politics and consensus and money.

Which politics?  Well, any and all politics it seems. Whether it's the politics of democrats or the politics of republicans in the USA, or the politics of Putin or the politics of Tony Abbott, the politics of Xi Jinping or the politics of Stephen Harper, the politics of King Abdullah or the politics of George W. Bush. All these different "politics" have caused scientists to not publish anything credible that disputes global warming or the cause of it. Not for decades. Nobody, anywhere in the world has done so because, Judith claims, politics and consensus...and money, of course!

The beauty of the "no evidence" conspiracy theory

The beauty of this type of conspiracy theory is that the proof is in the lack of evidence. The fact that there have not been any credible papers published that disprove global warming is proof that scientists are too pressured by consensus, money and politics to publish their dissenting research.

More conspiracy theories from Judith Curry's blog

Here is what some of Judith's fans have to say on the subject:

daveandrews723 reckons it's not just all the thousands of dissenting climate scientists who are too piss weak to publish their findings, journalists are also too cowardly to go for a Pulitzer.

March 31, 2015 at 1:29 pm
I am a former news reporter and it saddens me to see so many journalists conforming to the so-called “settled science” position of the warmists. Journalists are supposed to challenge the status quo and those in power by asking the tough questions. I do not see the mainstream news media reporting on the many flaws that are constantly being pointed out in the CAGW theories. There should be a Pullitzer Prize waiting for the gutsy journalist who blows the lid off of this terrible science that is being presented as fact.

wallensworth thinks that it's all a leftist plot to control the population and .. money!

March 31, 2015 at 3:30 pm
dave – my cut on this is that 95% of the media outlets are essentially propaganda arms of a powerful leftest regime which is attempting to use CAGW as a big stick to control the population and transfer wealth.

I would LOVE to hear that my cut on this is wrong, because I lose hope, otherwise. 

aneipris decides it's a huge gigantic "fraud", that's managed to survive for two centuries

March 31, 2015 at 6:04 pm
I’m 64 years old, a successful in business, reasonably intelligent, generally cynical when it comes to human behavior. But I too find myself amazed, although dispirited might be a better term. The sheer magnitude of the fraud…and I don’t use that word lightly…seems to me unprecedented in a free society.

Judith Curry says "well done" to Danny Thomas, for pretending he once, briefly, almost accepted science so he could proclaim his status as a "born again" science denier

March 31, 2015 at 1:57 pm
Dr. Curry,
Thank you for this post. Don’t tell Willard, but I’ve wondered out loud here on this very format why “it has to be ‘Climateball'” and from experiences on alternative outlets there is a “if you not with us you’re against us” mentality. This is the only site (so far) on which my personal experience has been one of relative acceptance initially coupled with offerings of educational materials without some requirement to join a particular tribe.

Having come to this discussion with a leaning towards AGW having been more foisted upon me (media and friends) than from self study I actually went looking for the opposite few in hopes to gain an understanding of what that view percieved as well as why. Due to this interaction, self study, and hopefully an open mind I’ve moved from where I was initially to exactly where I was. I’m a still a leaner towards AGW (no “C” involved). But my perception has change w/r/t “skeptics/skepticism” as I find I are one…….towards both sides. I do take note that I question the AGW prognosticators more but believe that is due to content coming from that side and being defendend against from the other.

curryja | March 31, 2015 at 2:17 pm
well said and well done :)

Rud Istvan reckons Judith's purported conspiracy of silence goes back forty years or so. In fact, by his logic, it goes back 200 years or so.

March 31, 2015 at 3:57 pm (excerpt from a longer comment)
The consensus career pressures have built over time, but were there from the beginning. Just look at the IPCC charter, and the founding intent of UNFCCC. The answer was preordained by the political process, so the science flowed from rather than to conclusions.

Wagathon pronounces climate science a liberal fascist plot. (Does anyone know what a liberal fascist is?)

March 31, 2015 at 6:23 pm (excerpt)
Glad to help out. Liberal fascism is the reason the global warming debate goes on. It’s the only reason.

David Small, you may recall, quit research in a huff. He claims it was because a paper of his didn't pass muster. He was loudly praised by Judith Curry so embellishes his story with death threats, for effect. Probably looking for more adulation. He's ignored.

March 31, 2015 at 8:13 pm
I spent over 10 years working for little money studying aspects of climate change because I thought it was important. After careful consideration, I changed my mind about the science, realizing that it was far from settled. When I let my questions about the science be known, I had my career and my life threatened. I realized I would never be able to work in the atmospheric/environmental sciences given my thoughts about global warming. I took my taxpayer funded PhDs to the financial industry. I wish I could have stayed in science, but you can’t criticize catastrophic global warming if you don’t have tenure. So it goes.

Stephen Segrest draws an analogy with the Old Testament. He's waiting patiently for a David to appear.

March 31, 2015 at 8:20 pm
Dr. Curry — David is my favorite person in the OT. An important lesson drawn from the story of Goliath is how David’s older brother treated him before he slew Goliath. David was the youngest of his brothers — a pip-squeak kid. When David surprisingly showed up at the battle scene, his older brother criticized him — that he didn’t belong there, he wasn’t important, he didn’t know anything, he was crazy to think he could fight Goliath, and to just go home and tend the sheep. 

GaryM is still waiting for a credible progressive scientist to dissent in the peer-reviewed literature. He implies one has, but doesn't name anyone. There's none. It's a conspiracy of politics and consensus.

March 31, 2015 at 8:35 pm (excerpt)
“The closing of minds on the climate change issue is a tragedy for both science and society.”

The closing of minds isn’t a tragedy, it is a tactic. And it isn’t limited to the climate debate. The general political tenor of progressivism in the west is the stoking of hatred by low information voters as the primary source of widespread political power.

A progressive scientist begins to doubt the exaggerated claims of certainty by the IPCC, and is labelled a ‘denier’ in the grand tradition of holocaust denial.

Gary proceeds to draw some analogy between police shooting civilians and climate scientists. He lost me at that point.