Tim Ball has a new book out. ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’ is a hard hitting critique of the development of the co2 scare covering the whole sorry saga from the inception of the IPCC up to present. I’m reproducing the preface here with his permission in order to promote this great read to as wide an audience as possible. Tim is still in the throes of dealing with the moribund lawsuit Mickey Mann launched against him after he quipped that Mann should be in the state pen rather than at Penn State. Please consider buying his book in order to support his effort to defend himself against the combined resourses of Mann and his financial backers.
The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science
by Dr Tim Ball – Stairway Press January 21, 2014
PREFACE
Then up and spent the evening walking with my wife, talking; and it thundering and lightening mightily all the evening—and this year have had the most thunder and lightening, they say, of any in man’s memory.
—Diary of Samuel Pepys, entry for July 3, 1664
I’ve studied climate both scientifically and academically for over forty years after spending eight years studying meteorology and observing the weather as an aircrew and operations officer in the Canadian Air Force. When I began the academic portion of my career, global cooling was the concern, but it was not a major social theme. During the 1980s the concern switched to global warming which became a major political, social and economic issue.
I watched my chosen discipline—climatology—get hijacked and exploited in service of a political agenda, watched people who knew little or nothing enter the fray and watched scientists become involved for political or funding reasons—willing to corrupt the science, or, at least, ignore what was really going on. The tale is more than a sad story because it set climatology back thirty years and damaged the credibility of science in general.
It also undermined the environmental movement by incorrectly claiming massive environmental damage and setting up a classic ‘cry wolf’ scenario. It is the greatest deception in history and the extent of the damage has yet to be exposed and measured.
There have been, of course, other sad deceptions throughout history, but all of them were regional, or, at most, continental. The deceptive idea that human-generated CO2 causes global warming or climate change impacted every person in the entire world, thus it reflects Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the global village. This book shows how the deception was designed to be global by involving every nation through the agencies of the United Nations. Historians with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight will wonder how such a small group was able to achieve such a massive deception. There are several reasons why the public was deceived:
1. The objective and therefore the science were premeditated.
2. The scientific focus was deliberately narrowed to CO2.
3. From the start, unaccountable government agencies were involved and in control.
4. Science and political structures and procedures were put in place to enhance the deception.
5. Actions were taken to block or divert challenges.
6. The people’s natural fears about change and catastrophe were exploited.
7. The public’s lack of scientific understanding, especially with regard to climate science, was exploited.
8. People find it hard to believe a deception on such a grand scale could occur.
9. Opponents were ruthlessly attacked, causing others to remain silent.
Some call the human-caused global warming theme a hoax, but that’s incorrect: a hoax is defined as a humorous or malicious deception. The Piltdown Man was a hoax perpetrated by one academic to expose the arrogance and pomposity of another and its impact was in academia, but had little relevance in the real world. There is nothing humorous about the corruption of climate science. Further, a political objective need not be malevolent; however, the methods used to achieve the goals of progressive activists are assuredly ugly, malicious and wrong.
Some have called the corruption of climate science a conspiracy partly because conspiratorial themes are fueled by speculation on the Internet. A conspiracy is defined as a secret plan to do something unlawful or harmful. There is no doubt what the activists have done is harmful, but pursuing a political goal is lawful. What is unlawful is knowingly using deliberate deceptions, misinformation, manipulation of records and misapplying scientific method and research. Indeed, it is amazing how they deceived the entire world through using existing laws and societal structures; it fits the classic description of daylight robbery.
It is more appropriate to identify the group as a cabal, a secret political clique or faction. This book explains their motive and objectives, which were political, not scientific. It explains how in order to do this they bypassed and perverted the scientific method—the normal and proper method by which science progresses. They effectively silenced scientists who tried to perform the normal roles of critics and skeptics.
Consider this brave but late (May 12, 2012) admission by German Physicist and meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls:
Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data—first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.
…scientifically it is sheer absurdity to think we can get a nice climate by turning a CO2 adjustment knob.
If someone so knowledgeable about the subjects of meteorology and atmospheric physics can be so readily deceived, it is not surprising that the general public was deceived. This underscores the effectiveness of the deliberate and carefully orchestrated climate science deception.
However, it also underscores the problems of writing a book that identifies what they did and how it was done. If the science is too complicated people won’t read the book. If it is too simplistic the critics will say it trivializes and makes errors that they will use to condemn. As I hope you will learn, the architects of this greatest deception actually set up a web site to carry out such attacks on those who dared to question. They recruited the mainstream media to run stories marginalizing the scientific claims and the credibility of the messenger. Seth Borenstein, a national science writer for the Associate Press sent an email on July 23, 2009 to the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gang whose corruptive practices were exposed by leaked emails. He wrote, “Kevin, Gavin, Mike, It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Watchya think?” A journalist talking to scientists is legitimate, but like the leaked emails, tone and subjective comments are telling. “Again” means there is previous communication. Others commented on Borenstein being too damn cozy with the people he covers. Another example was the unhealthy connection between Richard Black of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the CRU. As Michael Mann wrote:
…extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard Black’s beat at BBC (and he does a great job).
We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what’s up here?
These are just a fraction of the machinations that went on to achieve their goal of bringing down industrialized economies and societies using science.
I broke with recommended procedures and used many quotes because it is necessary to show they knew what they were doing—that is it was premeditated. I reduce science to a minimum and only show major misuse, not to mislead, although I will likely be charged with “cherry-picking”, but to illustrate and support the overall story. This is not intended as a textbook, nor is it meant to be an academic treatise, although it has almost as many footnotes. It is an attempt to explain what happens when science is misused for a political agenda and this is only achieved by creating a hybrid book form. This appoach is required because the world has never before suffered from deception on such a scale.
Even today the name ‘Piltdown’ sends a shiver through the scientific community, for this quiet Sussex village was the site of a dramatic and daring fraud, the fallout from which continues to affect us.
Between 1908 and 1912, the discovery of human skull fragments, an ape-like jaw and crudely worked flints close to Piltdown was hailed by the world’s press as the most sensational archaeological find ever: the ‘missing link’ that conclusively proved Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed, Miles Russell, The History Press
http://toryaardvark.com/2009/12/27/climategate-the-bbcs-unhealthy-connection-with-michael-mann/
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Just ordered my copy. Looks like it is going to be an interesting read. Thanks for posting Roger, and all the best Dr Ball.
Thanks for alerting us to this Roger.
It’s very hard not to fall between two schools, so to speak 🙂 But I tend to agree that it’s the scale of deception that’s the unprecedented thing about climate today. I hope Tim Ball’s pulled it off. I’ll almost certainly take a read and see.
Thanks Tim and Tb. It will be interesting to see what – if any reparations will be exacted against the instigators. Whatever those are will set the precedent for the future.
Thanks for the head-up, Rog! Just bought mine …
One word about the quote from that German Physicist: I know that feeling of having been had very well. I remember the reports in the MSM about the IPCC ‘findings’ in the 1990s, and how these reports really induced fear. It was only when I started looking into this a bit more carefully that I noticed the inadequacies. I can best describe it, for me, as “what, no clouds?”, which meant to me that this was wrong. How wrong only became apparent in the 2000s when the NGOs and AGWists got governments to ‘take measures’ – with the results we all know and still have to live with.
I hope Dr Tim Ball’s book will find lots of readers!
Hi Tim,
Nice to hear from you.
I vividly remeber reading the conference papers from “A year without a summer” (1815).which you were heading. These papers made a great impression on me. I even made a deep analysis to which geographical extent the bad summer prevailed and the result was quite inteeresting. Eastern US, the Norther Atlantic and northern Europe to the Ural mountains were included. That summer was really bad but an interesting fact is that it developed continously during a 5 year period around the year 1815.
Besides that I have enjoyed information from you during many years in CS and in other ways.
It is sad that there should exist a struggle at all to get good scientific results published in and by media and to prevent faked science results to be published and shown in media.
In my opinion your book might serve a basic purpose, to restore the confidence in climate science, if possible. I guess that we both, in the first place, prefer to perform scientifc work but have found out that the high jacking of the concept SCIENCE for propaganda purposes (world wide power games) has been close to a night mare. That situation has forced us to be involved in semi political work to fight superstition to dominate some of the university disciplines today and to influence politics.
There is a need for a strict definition of what science include and what it requires to be a scientist and to get scientists, universities and media to accept such a definition IMHO:
Otherwise, it should be an honor to be sued by M. Mann who is the prototype of a man decieving the ideals and rules that have to govern the work of a true scientists. Hope you are getting out of that mess stronger and more wise than before it hit you.
Unfortunatly “data checking” wouldn´t allow me to bye your book just now but I will find alternative ways to get it.
Good luck
Hans Jelbring
Ph.D. Climatology
PS: Bert Bolin was my tutor when getting a BSc in Meteorology. I have seen the corruption from inside in Sweden among meteorologists at the University of Stockholm. It was very hard or almost impossible to get funding in Sweden if opposing CAGW during his life time because of his influence.
as a “scientific” adviser to the Swedish government (regardless of political colour).
‘These are just a fraction of the machinations that went on to achieve their goal of bringing down industrialized economies and societies using science.’
But what’s this – the UK Guardian raising the white flag? Using the usual fatuous terms of course.
‘The climate change deniers have won’
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/22/climate-change-deniers-have-won-global-warming
Typo alert:
admission by German Physicist and meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Plus:
admission by German Physicist and meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls:
[Reply] Fixed, ta.
@oldbrew this one Nick Cohen really wrote 2 true sentences, the first and the last:
1: political pseudoscientists continue to warn us about global warming.
2: Nick Cohen needs a miracle to save us from such floods.
Cohen’s Guardian piece proclaims:
‘The evidence for man-made global warming is as final as the evidence of Auschwitz. No other word will do.’
We’re always hearing this sort of over-the-top nonsense – ‘overwhelming evidence’ etc. from politicians and others as another example. The trouble is they can’t tell us what the evidence is.
If pressed they waffle about ‘extreme weather’ and (non-existent this century) ‘global warming’. If pressed again they start wailing about ‘deniers’. And that’s about it. Hopeless.
We like to think that people seek a world in which peace, love and friendship rule. We like to think that people seek truth, justice and the doing of things “right”. Look around: that is not what we see.
Tribalism and the negation of others on the outside define history and, to a large extent, the present. We seek a world in which what matters to us exists and that those who disagree go away. Silence isn’t really an option: open committment is what counts. As long as we can define one group as “us” and another as “them” it appears we will.
The eco-green behind CAGW is an “us” and the skeptics, a “them”. We lack the legitimacy to question precisely because we are a “them”.
The fight for the right of dissent is more than a fight for free speech. It is a fight against tribalism. It is a fight not for truth or against non-truth, but against one group claiming the perogative of determining truth, justice and the “right” way of being. You can insist it is Muslim vs Christian, or Sunni vs Shiite, Seleeka vs Anti-balaka or Russian Crimean vs Ukrainian Free Market, or Global Warming Alarmists vs Deniers but in each case you are merely focusing on internal divisions: a tribal perception of Us vs Them, wherein the Us known corrrectly and have rights, and the Them are wrong on all things and have no rights.
McKibben and Mann and Suzuki wish for the village society of ancient times, where they – as Elders – would determine what should be done, while the rest of the village nods and obeys. The CAGW narrative is a reflection of intellectual regression, not just a yearning for earlier, pre-industrial relations between men and women but a demand for the respect and authority they, as the elite, believe they deserve.
We live in a technological age of great complexity and convenience but inside our skulls some of us are still squatting over a hole outside a cave.