Leading Scientists Publish an Open Letter in the Journal "Science" Defending the Research of Persecuted Climate Researchers

"There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend."--Open Letter in the Journal Science by 255 of the world's most prominent scientists

UPDATE: Dr. Roald Sagdeev, who in 1987 publically disavowed charges in the Soviet media that the AIDS virus was created at a secret American military base, has signed the open letter in support of the climate scientists titled "Climate Change and the Integrity of Science." In 1992, KGB chief Yevgeni Primakov admitted in Izvestia that the articles exposing US scientists' 'crafty' plots were fabricated in KGB offices.

The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) scientist Dr. Phil Jones (above) and Penn State's Dr. Michael Mann are being persecuted by global warming denialists like Oklahoma's despicable Senator James Inhofe and the thuggish political operative and junk-science blogger Marc Morano. Virginia's Attorney General Cuccinelli recently launched a witch hunt against Dr. Mann.

It is very strange that a U.S. Senator, his former aid, and Attorney General Cuccinelli are in the same camp as the sensationalist Russian "girlie" tabloid Pravda [See 'Climategate' Exposes the Global Warming Hoax (11-30-09)], the Kremlin-controlled Russia Today T.V. channel, known as RT, which churns out English-language "Climategate" propaganda by the notorious conspiracist Alex Jones and other prominent deniers [See RT's Youtube of Alex Jones on "Climategate: Hoax of all time a global Ponzi scheme"], and the conspiracist 9-11 Truther publication The Rock Creek Free Press, whose delusional editor Matt Sullivan promotes a variety of anti-government junk science conspiracies, such as the claim that "Climategate" is the "Science Scandal of the Century."

According to The Washington Post (1-28-09), Senator Inhofe is being deserted by other Republicans who read the scientific literature and don't subscribe to crackpot conspiracist canards about the "crafty plots" of greedy scientists who research global warming. Conspiracists who depict the science of global warming as a "communist plot" to seize control of the American economy sound like Soviet-era KGB conspiracy theorists.

The U.K. Guardian (5-6-10) reports that brave scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) are standing by their persecuted colleagues--climate scientists like Phil Jones and Michael Mann--by publishing an open letter in the famous American journal Science. The letter is titled "Climate Change and the Integrity of Science." The signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) but are speaking as private citizens and not on behalf of the NAS or their employers.

Their courage today reminds me of the year 1987 when the Soviet Academy of Sciences distanced themselves from the KGB-inspired propaganda that the U.S. Army invented AIDS to kill black people. In fact, one of the scientists who signed the open letter in Science is the brave Roald Sagdeev, who sent a letter to Izvestia in 1987 that distanced the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences from the fabricated claims of the KGB Propaganda.

According to the CIA, US-based KGB officers probably initiated the AIDS campaign, or at least collected the material that triggered the idea. [See "Operation INFEKTION: Soviet Bloc Intelligence and Its AIDS Disinformation Campaign."]

The Financial Times (4-15-10) reports:

There have been indications that the hackers could have been based in Russia, and some experts believe they may have been hired by sceptics based in the US.

Hopefully the Norfolk Constabulary, who are being assisted by experts from the NETCU, will get to the bottom of the mystery. The British consider global warming a threat to their national security; Great Britain's meteorological service, the MET Office, is actually part of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense and reportedly works closely with the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Global warming skeptics who might be considering hiring Russian hackers to do their dirty work should keep the CRU-MET relationship in mind.

I congratulate the scientists who wrote and signed the letter in the journal Science. They are standing up to dishonest, venal politicians and their criminal accomplices, such as the shadowy computer hackers who posted e-mails stolen from the CRU on the server of a "security business" in Tomsk, Russia.

The U.K. Guardian (5-6-10) reports:

A group of 255 of the world's top scientists today wrote an open letter aimed at restoring public faith in the integrity of climate science.

In a strongly worded reproof of the recent escalation of political assaults on climatologists, the letter, published in the US Journal Science and signed by 11 Nobel laureates, attacks critics driven by "special interests or dogma" and "McCarthy-like" threats against researchers. It also attempts to set the record straight on the process of rigorous scientific research.

The letter is a response to negative publicity following the release of thousands of hacked emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and two mistakes makes by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN climate body.

The letter sets out some basic features of the scientific method. "Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of 'well-established theories' and are often spoken of as 'facts'," it says.

The document, citing theories including the age and origin of the Earth, the Big Bang and Darwin's evolution by natural selection, says that anthropogenic climate change is now so well-supported by evidence that it has achieved the same status. It adds that owing to science's adversarial nature, "fame" awaits any scientists who can prove the theory wrong.

"There is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change," the letter says.

The authors – who are all members of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the country's premier scientific institution – include some of the academic community's most distinguished climate researchers. But the list also includes top anthropologists, biochemistists and physicists who have felt the need to defend climate science in the wake of what they regard as politically motivated attacks. Three senior scientists from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester have also added their endorsement. All of the scientists signed up in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the National Academy or on behalf of their institution.

"Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence," the letter says.

Its call for an end to "McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association" appears to be jibe at Republican senator, James Inhofe, who has called for a criminal investigation into US and British climatologists whose email exchanges were stolen from UEA. The letter also condemns the "harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them."

The letter's co-ordinator, Peter Gleick, of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, California, said: "[It] originated with a number of NAS members who were frustrated at the misinformation being spread by climate deniers and the assaults on scientists by some policy-makers who hope to delay or avoid making policy decisions and are hiding behind the recent controversy around emails and minor errors in the IPCC.