Roger Pielke, Jr., describes how a peer-reviewed paper about climate change is being retracted by a scientific journal —for no legitimate reason.
“A Critical Assessment of Extreme Events Trends in Times of Global Warming” was written by Galluca Almonti and colleagues and published in January 2022 in the journal European Physical Journal Plus (EPJP).
The retraction process started because several scientists were quoted by the media (the leftwing Guardian, and one or two others) as saying it was faulty.
John Clauser, one of three recipients of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, does not mince words. He has just joined the CO2 Coalition, a group critical of global warming extremism. In its announcement he was quoted as saying:
“The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people. Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. . .
It’s futile to hope for zero carbon dioxide emissions, the former Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge told the Global Warming Policy Foundation on November 10. Michael Kelly, a specialist in new semiconductor physics and technology and the manufacturability of semiconductor structures at the nanoscale, spoke on “Energy Utopias and Engineering Reality.” Some excerpts:
The main message is that our present energy infrastructure is vast and has evolved over 200 years. So the chances of revolutionizing it in short order on the scale envisaged by the net-zero target of Parliament is pretty close to zero; zero being exactly the chance of the meeting Extinction Rebellion’s demands.
Authors of an article in Nature, a premier scientific publication, have been required to retract an article published in October 2018 arguing that the ocean was absorbing sixty percent more heat than previously thought. That finding suggested that global warming is much more severe than predicted by prominent scientists.
The article was widely publicized by such media as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, and others.
“Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming,” was the Post’s headline. “The findings mean the world might have less time to curb carbon emissions.”
Within days, however, the Post and the Times modified their stories; the Times even changed the headline to a more tepid “Scientists Find a New Way to Take the Oceans’ Temperature.” The Post published a new story that explained why.
You are terrified about climate change! So you have joined millions around the world for Greta’s school strike for the climate. This is not anything to do with skipping lessons of course, you feel passionately. But have you got your facts straight? Time to find out…
See all twelve questions here.