When It Comes To Global Warming, It's All About Qualifications…. NOT!
It looks like climate researcher Prof. Patrick Michaels is no longer the “Official State Climatologist of Virginia“. Well, actually that position has not existed “officially” since 2000. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
Mr Michaels is well known to be an independent thinker when it comes to Anthropogenic Global Warming. In layman’s terms (those of the global warming alarmists) he is labeled a Global Warming Denier, even though he has clearly stated that the best explanation for the current 30 year global warming trend is probably due to the extra CO2 emitted by man. Go figure. So he doesn’t deny that warming is caused my man. So why was he fired? Because he doesn’t buy into the angst and “sky is falling” alarmism that is peddled by the likes of Al Gore. He postulates that the warming will not be as damning as the gloom and doomers project, and that there may be some good that comes of it, such as an increase in agriculturally viable land as the earth warms.
Michaels replacement is a guy by the name of Philip J. Stenger. Mr Stenger has been a co-worker of Michaels for the past 25 years. But what are his credentials? One of the main criticisms of Mr. Michaels is that he is not qualified to speak his thoughts about the issues concerning climate change because he has not published anything relevant in the Climate Science press. What’s good for the goose (Michaels) should be good for the gander (Stenger). Here are the google publishing references for Michaels, and here are the same for Stenger. As you can see, Prof. Michaels has been quite prolific and has hundreds of studies published in climate journals, so the above criticism is unjust and false. And you will also notice that Prof. Stenger’s publishing record consists of nine credited publications, most of which have Prof. Michaels as a co-author. If publishing is to be used as a metric in the climate science world, one has much better credentials than the other. This is kind of like the San Diego Chargers replacing one of the all time winningest coaches, Marty Schottenheimer, with a coach that has a losing record, like Norv Turner and we all have seen how well that has turned out so far. From the Daily Progress:
Stenger, a 25-year veteran of the office, said he is happy doing the work and continuing as a research scientist.
and, notes fellow U. of V. Professor James N Galloway:
“Jerry, in my impression, is the guy who made that office work,†Galloway said. “He is so service oriented. He made the climatology office more receptive to the needs of the commonwealth.â€
Nine papers in 25 years? Service oriented? Translation: Mr Stenger is a bureaucrat, and they now have a guy in place that will tow the party line of the alarmist global warming crowd. As I mentioned, of “The Official State Climatologist of Virginia”, which had existed since 1980, was kinda abolished in 2000; seperated no doubt due to Michaels contrarian thinking on AWG. Now that he is gone, I wonder how long it will take before the position is reinstated?
One more thing. Another knock on Michaels is that he has taken funding from “evil” big oil companies such as Exxon Mobile. Scientists should not take money from outside sources as this could lead to research bias and conflict of interests; Michaels is bought and payed for, or so the argument goes. Well, NASA’s top Doom and Gloomer AWG climatologist James Hansen was in the news this week because it was revealed that he took money from a George Soros front group Open Society Institute to the tune of $720,000. Here is a list of the money that Michaels is known to have received from outside sources:
- $49,000 from German Coal Mining Association
- $15,000 from Edison Electric Institute
- $40,000 from Cyprus Minerals Company,
- $63,000 for research on global climate change from Western Fuels Association
- $100,000 from Intermountain Rural Electric Association
If I’ve done the math right, that ads up to $267,000 from “Big Oil” over a span of several years. Hansen got $720,000 from “Big Soros” in one year, maybe even one day! God knows how much Al Gore is making off his carbon credits scam. Maybe Michaels really IS working for the wrong side of this debate!
PS. Looks like Michaels may have been right about the Ozone / CFC connection… as in, there may not be one. Think he will get any credit if this pans out???
Huge Hat Tip: The Big Brained Lubos Motl