Misbehaviour Page 6

“Begin all of your scientific pronouncements with – “At our present level of ignorance, we think we know…….”

PROLOGUE

At the bottom of “The Crux” page of this website there was a discussion and a Reading 2.5 explaining why climate scientists have failed us. Unfortunately there are even bigger problems than this in science because the quality assurance system for science is seriously failing with scientists describing this as a “Replication Crisis”.

Before discussing the poor behaviour of climate scientist investigating the “Global Warming” issue, this larger problem needs to be understood.

QUALITY ASSURANCE IN SCIENCE

 “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” — Dr. Carl Sagan,

The following are the three steps in the quality assurance system for work undertaken by scientists.

1. Peer Review,
2. Replication, and
3. Testing

A benefit weighting for each of these quality assurance steps could be 15% for Peer Review, 70% for Replication and 15% for Testing.  Why would replication be given so much weight?

REPLICATION

When professional scientists believe their work, and its results may be useful, they will precisely document that work so other independent scientists can replicate the work to confirm the findings.

For a variety of reasons, the findings may be false.  The only way to uncover false science or confirm solid science is to have an independent scientist replicate the original work.  Peer review cannot do this and, then later, the “Testing” step of the quality assurance work starts with the assumption that the original work is solid science.  Hence the importance of replication.

As stated in Reading 5.6.1, research findings that cannot be replicated are worse than fairy tales – with fairy tales, at least the reader is aware that the work is fictional.  As laymen, we might think “But that wouldn’t happen often”.

Unfortunately there is very little replication work being done today, and when it is undertaken the majority of so called “science” cannot be replicated.

However, in the past decade there has been a growing realisation amongst many scientists that Science has a “Replication Crisis”. Reading 5.6.1 discusses this, but the following quotes should allow you to judge what the word “Crisis” means, and the impact of the amount of science that cannot be replicated.

Ioannidis published a now classic paper that has been cited by thousands of other scientists with the striking title, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False“.  In this paper Ioannidis stated:

“There is increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims.  However, this should not be surprising.  It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.”

The Replication Crisis started to become widely known when Prinz et al. (2011), of Bayer, the German drug company, writing in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, claimed that 75 percent of the literature used for potential drug discovery targets is not reliable.

The Economist (19/10/2013) commented:

“A rule of thumb among biotechnology venture-capitalists is that half of published research cannot be replicated.  Even that may be optimistic.  Last year researchers at one biotech firm, Amgen, found they could reproduce just six of 53 “landmark” studies in cancer research.”

Marcia Angell, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, lamented:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines.  I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” 

A few years later, the editor of The Lancet, another prestigious medical journal, acknowledged that –

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.  Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” 

Another observation in the same year reported there is:

“A growing concern regarding the replicability of findings in psychology, including a mounting number of prominent findings that have failed to replicate via high-powered independent replication attempts.”

Remembering that work that cannot be replicated, is worse than a fairy tale.  Today there is a significant number of fairy tales masquerading as “Science”. 

So some would agree that the words “Crisis” or “Scandal” are not really exaggerations.   Reading 5.6.1 expands on the “Replication Crisis”.

PEER REVIEW

With so little replication being undertaken, scientists have in effect turned peer review into the main quality assurance mechanism.  So how good is peer review today?

If done well peer review is a valuable, although only a minor contribution to the quality assurance of science.  Unfortunately, today most peer review is not done at all well.

Reading 5.6.2 discusses the failures of peer review in more detail.

The following quotes indicate the seriousness of poor peer review.  As such it is a very poor replacement for replication and consequently leaves the quality assurance of science near “naked” or non existent.

Professor Peter Doherty , an Australian winner of a Nobel prize in Medicine, has written in the following terms about peer review:

“It’s not hard to get almost anything published at some level in what’s broadly styled as the peer-reviewed scientific literature, especially if it is well written and gives the appearance of having been done properly.”

Doherty is rightly very supportive of peer review as a first pass check of scientific evidence.  But policymakers and journalists should take careful note of Doherty’s observations:

“Peer review should also be seen for what it is, an agreement between the editors, reviewers and authors that the article is now fit for general consumption by a quality audience, not a validation of infallibility, a concept that doesn’t exist in science anyway!

What publication following peer review actually says about a piece of work is that, so far as anyone who has been asked to critique it can detect, what looks to be an interesting study has been done using appropriate techniques, and the data looks to be both valid and does support the conclusions that are reached.

Beyond that, the reviewers should ensure that the methods used have been presented with sufficient clarity so that the study can be repeated, or at least understood, by others.”

In reality, peer review is often just a quick read of the work, maybe for only a few hours, by a couple of anonymous people selected by an editor of a science journal.  This peer review will make sure that the work is readable and will often pick up some problems.  It almost always falls well short of a decent error checking system.

It needs to be underlined that peer review will almost never include genuine replication of experiments, re analysis of data, reworking of calculations, or lengthy reappraisal of assumptions.  It is a useful first pass check but hardly the quality assurance system that is to be expected to guide big government decisions worth billions of dollars

To conclude, and to reiterate, the words of Horton (2000), editor of Medicine’s most prestigious journal, The Lancet, are powerful:

“We know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.”

TESTING

Once ‘science’ is established through replication , the hypothesis will be tested in different conditions other than those in the original work.  This falsification testing establishes the boundaries where the science can be used successfully and strengthens the hypothesis eventually resulting in the hypothesis being considered a useful “Theory”.   The more successful testing undertaken in different conditions, the stronger the theory becomes, and increases the confidence in the usefulness of the science.

If there are minor areas where the hypothesis fails, this can lead to more knowledge being gained trying to establish why the hypothesis has failed in these areas.

POOR QUALITY ASSURANCE  ENCOURAGES BAD BEHAVIOUR

Regrettably, much of the science used to inform government decisions,  is poorly checked, and neither tested nor replicated.  Most estimates of scientific evidence that has been subject only to peer review indicate that about half is reliable.  But a key question is: which half?

The problem is worse because, if there is no adverse consequences for poor scientific work, the temptation that scientists could behave carelessly or even negligently must exist .

C.P. Snow, the British scientist and novelist wrote that:

“The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.”

Unfortunately, if peer review remains the main quality assurance mechanism for science, it is inevitable that there will be occasions when scientists do not tell the truth; that leaves open all sorts of unfortunate possibilities for misuse.

One of these might be called “Just Cause” corruption. This corruption occurs when scientists believe they can legitimise exaggerated or false claims, or yield to over-confidence about their work, on the basis that it is for a “good cause”.

Any support for emotional issues such as the “Climate Crisis”, is especially vulnerable to this corruption.  Many in the field will have, on occasions, heard other researchers argue that questions about the validity of investigations should be restrained or covered up.

Progressively, there is an irrational reason to allow exaggeration, or even to downplay contrary evidence or facts. The rationale is simple: if this is what it takes to make the government act, then why not do it?

SUMMARY OF THIS PROLOGUE

As we are about to find, there is rampant bad behaviour in climate science as well as increasingly poor behaviour of scientists in other fields.  This page of the website discusses some examples of such misbehaviour by climate scientists.

MISBEHAVING GREEN SCIENTISTS

“Nullis in Verba -Take nobody’s word for it.”

Royal Society’s motto showing the determination of Fellows to verify all statements with facts determined by experiment.

INTRODUCTION

Every Green campaign since 1950 has been a “Henny Penny” tale where the sky is always “falling in”. To help people to believe in these tales, the Greens assert that the tales have both a scientific and logical foundation. Which is untrue.

Armageddon and Henny Penny tales will never be based on logic or science, because they never come true.

Any scientist claiming her science supports the tale has to hide the scientific shortcomings. In the Green campaigns, such scientists have largely achieved this in the following ways;

• They no longer follow the scientific methodology and do not act professionally. They are driven by the “Green Cause” – their words not the authors.
• The ‘scientific predictions’ are to occur 15 years in the future. In the global warming campaign these times have been extended to 35, 50 and 100 years – to avoid prediction failure embarrassment.
• They do all they can to prevent independent scientists checking and replicating their science.
• They will not hesitate to show certainty, when there is none, and exaggerate their findings. When their science supports a “grain of sand”, they tell the World that the “grain” is a rock the size of Mount Everest. Irrespective of the number of their failed predictions, they never admit to any failings of their science.

We can no longer automatically trust such scientists anymore – as they are not scientists, they are activists. Especially climate scientists who will be attempting to mislead and deceive us as much as they can. They cannot do anything else as their science will never support a “Sky Falling In” tale.

Their work is no longer science – it is sophistry

LOSING TRUST

In the ideal world, trust should never be given automatically.  It should be based on the past behaviour, words and actions of those we are about to trust.  Trust also needs to be earned on a continuing basis, and a failure to perform, at any time, should see us revoking the trust we had initially given to some person or group of people.

In the complexity of today’s world, we automatically trust many groups of people we consider experts. However, this trust is given in the expectation that the group’s performance will continue to be trustworthy, and that the group has some system in place to ensure high standards are maintained, and have a self-regulating system that sanctions unacceptable behaviour.

For instance, we trust doctors. If a large proportion of doctors started to misdiagnose, they would lose our trust. However, before this occurred we would expect the medical fraternity to quickly detect and correct these falling standards.  Any doctor, who continued to fail to perform well, would be sanctioned.

We also trust scientists, and most fields of science deserve this trust. However, we should not automatically trust the newly created scientific field of climate science.  The behaviour and performance of many climate scientists do not deserve our trust that we would automatically give to scientists in other fields of science.  As a group, climate scientists do not appear to uphold and regulate the standards of science in their field.  They certainly do not sanction poor scientific behaviour and, on many occasions, attempt to hide such bad behaviour rather than sanction it.

Glaring failures of climate science are rarely detected by other climate scientists.  Astonishingly, these failures are regularly detected by a diverse grouping of other experts.  Finally, what really ‘sets off all the alarm bells’, is the habit of climate scientists demanding that we should automatically trust them and, worst still, ignore all other advice given by other scientists or other experts.

Obviously, there must be some good climate scientists, but we are not hearing from them, and any attempts by them to improve the standard of science in their field either have been stifled, or have failed.

The Readings in this section look at examples of climate scientists’ behaviour so you can make your own judgement on whether these scientists are trustworthy.  The incidents of misbehaviour are grouped in the following headings:

1. Behaving Unprofessionally,
2. Allowing an Ideological Bias to Affect Their Work,
3. Ignoring Other Science, and
4. Rigorously Attempting to Silence Their Critics.

These examples are but a few taken from hundreds of examples of poor behaviour.

BEHAVING UNPROFESSIONALLY

One of the most obvious and important falsifications of the Greens’ interpretation of the “Greenhouse Theory” occurred when global warming stopped in 1998 and a natural multi decade cooling period began.  According to all the “internationally renowned” Green scientists (their description not the authors) global warming would never stop if CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere continued to rise.

Yet here we had decades of a hiatus in global warming temperatures acknowledged by both Green and sceptical scientists, while CO₂ concentrations continued to rise significantly.  The Green theory was falsified.

Trying to avoid any mention of a natural cooling period, the Green movement and all their ‘renowned’ scientists went out of their way to hide or diminish what they were to call the “hiatus in warming”, knowing full well that the hiatus falsified all their science that was the foundation of the Global Warming campaign.

Without the science the campaign would collapse.

This led to appalling displays of lack of professionalism from dozens and dozens of Green scientists blatantly showing their bias as they continued to fabricated and distort their science to deceive and mislead the Western World that had already spent trillions of dollars all based on their false science.

Reading 5.6.3.  details the bias and unprofessional behaviour of  the following organisations and individuals;

• The UK’s Climate Research Unit’s scientists and American counterparts.
• The Greens Public Relations organisations,
• The IPCC’s 2007 Report,
• The Head of the IPCC, and finally
• Australia’s Climate Commission scientists.

Stolen emails from UK’s Climate Research Unit showed their scientists, working with American scientists, falsifying their research to hide the hiatus from the World. 

These scientists were major contributors to the IPCC’s reports that were used by all the World’s governments to justify their massive amounts of taxpayers’ money used to counter the global warming threat when there was no threat.

The Greens’ Public Relations organisations using language deceit to hide the hiatus.  For example, by replacing the words “global warming” with “climate change” and using cumbersome terminology like “interrupted warming period” to describe the natural cooling period.

The IPCC’s 2007 Report using graphical deceit to hide the hiatus.

The Head of the IPCC traveling the World for years lying to audiences by saying that “global warming was taking place at a much faster rate” when he knew that global warming had stopped.

The Climate Commission scientists claiming to use the misleading IPCC graphs but modifying them to hide the hiatus for an additional decade in their Report to the Australian Government.

BIAS AFFECTING SCIENCE

Mount Kilimanjaro’s Snow Cap

The progressive loss of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snow cap was held up as proof of Man made catastrophic global warming by the Green movement. This irrational assertion gained bi-partisan support when both Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton decided to display their ignorance by stating that this was “not only a fact, but a fact that cannot be refuted by any scientist.”

Senator Clinton dug the hole deeper by stating “We have evidence in the most dramatic way possible of the effects of 29 years of global warming.” Unfortunately for the two political luminaries, the detailed measurements and analyses that are described in the research papers cited by many scientists provide no support whatsoever for McCain’s and Clinton’s assertions.

The natural warming since 1900 was 0.7 degrees Celsius, according to the Green scientists, or 0.5 degrees Celsius according to the sceptical scientists. This might have raised the freezing level around the mountain by 120 metres and caused the loss of of ice in this small area – not the thousands of metres of ice claimed by the the Senators and Green scientists in two papers.

Reading 5.6.4 discusses the bias affecting both these papers and the rapid refutation of such poor science made by several other scientists who had devoted the better part of their scientific careers studying this subject and to hypothesise, the obvious, that the loss of ice “is controlled by the absence of sustained regional wet periods rather than changes in local air temperature on the peak of Kilimanjaro.”

Falsifying Sea Level Rises

Up to the year 2000, the average ocean levels were calculated from land based tide gauges spread all over the World. Green scientists claimed that ocean levels were rising, on average, by 1.7mm per year. Sceptical scientists believed it was a little under 1.5mm per year. Scientists were looking forward to measuring sea level rises from satellites which would overcome some problems with land based tidal gauges (e.g. different types and quality of equipment and a lack of comprehensive coverage).

When the first satellite results became available, a leading Green scientist held a press conference in which he showed the teams’ lack of professionalism. First he announced he wouldn’t be releasing the work for review or replication but would only explain it during the press conference – to media personnel, not scientists.

While disparaging sceptical scientists who wanted to see their work, he announced that the first and only time they would discuss their work was at the press conference. This decision meant that there would be no independent review or replication. This poor behaviour is discussed later.

Ironically, as he continued, he not only showed his team’s lack of professionalism, but showed why it is important to have all science replicated. Their satellite measurements of rising sea levels was on average 2mm per year. Alarmingly, the scientist said that “This was disappointing, and it was the highest we could get it”. This was close to the 1.7mm figure obtained by Green scientists using land based tidal gauges and would probably be accepted by most. But then he undermined all their work.

Complaining that their work was a disappointment because the Green theory predicted much higher sea level rises, they had decided to partly fix that problem by arbitrarily increasing all future measurements by 50%. Since that date, sea level rises have been reported at 3mm per year where in reality, at best, they were 2mm per year or lower.

Now stop and think about what these scientists have just done. Rather than observing and measuring the real world and then trying to explain it with a theory, they have decided to start with a theory, and then change the measurements of the real world (by 50-100%) to get results closer to their theory.

Since 1996, those that are unaware of this unprofessional and biased behaviour, happily spread the lie that there has been a “step” increase in sea level rises from 1.5mm to 3mm per year.

To declare something is “abnormal”, you must first understand what is “normal”. For the past 6,000 years average sea level rises have been 2-3mm per year. So, even with this fabricated measure of 3mm per year, it cannot be described as “abnormal” – let alone caused by Man’s CO₂.

Without replication this “Lie will go around the World twice before the Truth can get its boots on”.

Turning Finnish Work Upside Down

Recently two research teams connected with the IPCC were attempting to resurrect this Michael Mann’s discredit Hockey Stick paper with more millennium temperature reconstructions.

They asked Finnish researchers if they could use some of their results as part of their own paleoclimatic model reconstructions.  The Finnish researchers agreed but were stunned to see how their work was misused when the study was published in the journal Science in September 2009 (after “rigorous peer review”).

The Finnish millennial temperature reconstruction from Lake Korttajärvi sediments was turned upside down so what were cooling temperature trends, were now warming trends.  Surprised?  Not really – another example of bias or deliberate deceit. 

The new upside-down work had now built a wonderful “hockey stick” to support the Green assertion that abnormal temperature rises were occurring.  With the help of the Finnish science, cold had been turned into warm in the IPCC’s science. To give this “professional” Green research greater status, this corrupt science passed the Greens’ “rigorous”scientific peer review process.

Dr. Atte Korhola, professor of environmental change at the University of Helsinki, is an expert in lake sediment studies and she said:

“Some curves and data have been used upside down, and this is not a compliment to climate science.  And, in this context, it is relevant to note that the same people who are behind this are running what may be the world’s most influential climate website, RealClimate.

With this they are contributing to the credibility of science – or reducing it.  And in my opinion this is alarming because it bears on the credibility of the field, and if these kinds of things emerge often – that data have been used insufficiently or even falsely, or if data series have been truncated or they have not been appropriately published (for replication), it obviously erodes the credibility of science, and this is a serious problem.”

Once this error had been relayed to the authors, they would have identified it within minutes and then withdrawn their paper to minimise the damage to their scientific credibility.  However, this was not to happen.

The author of the September study, Darrell Kaufman, admitted his mistake nine months after publication and sent a correction to the journal Science. 

But the main author of a previous study, Michael Mann a leading climate scientist and the father of the original hockey stick, still sticks to his claim that his hockey stick was found at the bottom of lake Korttajärvi.

This Lie went around the World twice before the Truth could get its boots on.

We have to ask the question: “Were these scientists, and those who read the work and peer reviewed it, incompetent or deliberately misleading us, in not detecting these errors?” 

Either way, they should be discredited and not self labelled as “Renowned international climate scientists”.

Southern Hemisphere Hockey Stick

Melbourne University researcher Joelle Gergis and co-authors recently released research that claimed to establish the existence of a southern hemisphere temperature “hockey stick” – abnormal warming.  What is becoming the norm, this research was poorly peer reviewed and then published.

This science was so poor that shortly after it was published fundamental criticisms of it appeared on science web blogs and elsewhere.  Several months later the authors withdrew their paper.

This Lie went around the World twice before the Truth could get its boots on.

What does this say about the effects of bias and the lack of professionalism of climate scientists who read this research before and after the release and did not detect the errors? 

What does this say about the peer review process applied to the work of Green scientists supporting a “Henny Penny” tale?  One would have thought the peer reviewers would be even more rigorous in their review knowing that no “Henny Penny” story had ever come true.

Are we to believe that the application of scientific discipline and quality control can no longer be relied upon from those within the field and must now be exercised by web blog sites and other non-experts!

Should be bestow upon these discredited Melbourne University scientists the label “Renowned international climate scientists”? 

IGNORING OTHER SCIENCE

Green science has to support their Armageddon story, so it rarely has any support from other scientific studies. Not surprisingly, most other science disagrees with the Green science. Fortunately, the Green scientists have a nine billion dollar a year public relations machine available to bring their science to the public’s attention. In addition, the compliant Media will always publish their science supporting alarming stories without critically examining the science.

Consequently, the public rarely hears about all the science that disagrees with the Green science. Even the Green IPCC, which has a mandate to cover all science about global warming, goes out of its way to ignore any science that doesn’t support the Green “cause”. This encourages all Green scientists to never refer to science that contradicts their views. Normally professional scientists would indicate why the previous science disagreed with their own science.

As we saw in Reading 3.1.1.1 the World hears about James Hansen’s science of alarming temperature rises occurring in Greenland, but never hears about the 25 other scientific studies that contradict his findings.

Ignoring other science is another way of deceiving and misleading us.

Carbon Dioxide Residency Time

To give some stability to climate models used by the Greens’ IPCC, the residency time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was arbitrarily given a value of 50-200 years. This was an assertion – not even an educated guess – and not even close to the actual residency time of seven years.

Similarly, when Professor Flannery wanted to scare his audience about carbon dioxide, he would assert that once carbon dioxide was put in the atmosphere, we couldn’t get rid of it for a thousand years. He increased the fear by comparing this residency time to the half life of nuclear material. This encouraged the audience to accept the Green dogma about the nastiness of carbon dioxide. This was also an assertion that did not reflect reality.

Reading 5.6.5 discusses the science that has determine the residency time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to be approximately seven years (with a range of values from 2-15 years, with most studies around the 7 year time frame)

Decay of CO2’s Ability to Warm

Unlike other greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide’s heating ability decays rapidly as more of the gas is added to the atmosphere. Both Green and sceptical scientists accept the theoretical logarithmic decay in the heating power of carbon dioxide, but the Green scientists rarely if ever quantify this loss in heating power.

To do so, undermines their “cause”, so they deflect attention by focusing on feedback loops that triple the heating of carbon dioxide. However, as one sceptical scientist explained, once the100ppm concentration level has been exceeded, for all practical purposes, carbon dioxide heating power is gone. He went on to say if you start off with “diddly squat”, even if it is tripled you still have “diddly squat”.

So what is “diddly squat”? Presently, we have just passed 400ppm concentration in the atmosphere. As we moved from 380 to 400ppm, theoretically carbon dioxide caused global temperatures to rise by 2.7 billionth of one degree.

This ineffective heating explains why carbon dioxide concentrations of 2,000ppm, 4,000ppm and even 6,000ppm concentrations in our past saw no global temperature changes that could be attributed to carbon dioxide. If the Green scientists’ assertion that a 40ppm rise would see a 4^oC rise then, in the past, the average global temperatures would have been 175^oC (at 2,000ppm), 375^oC (at 4,000ppm) or 575^oC (at 6,000ppm).

All rivers, lakes, and oceans would have boiled dry. Instead average global temperatures moved between approximately 10^oC and 30^oC for billions of years. There is no correlation between carbon dioxide concentrations and global temperatures (see “The Crux” page).

Doubling carbon dioxide from 400-800ppm will increase global temperatures by approximately 8.5 trillionths of one degree. You wonder what science was behind the Green scientists’ claims in the 1980s that a 40ppm increase would cause a 3-5 degree rise in global temperatures. In reality, nothing but the expected natural rise of 0.3^oC was seen after the 40ppm rise occurred.

Reading 5.6.6 is a chart quantifying the theoretical heating effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the first 20ppm to 800ppm.

SILENCING ANY CRITICS

For most of us who have so much faith in science, it is very hard to accept that the science about our climate is in its infancy, and we know very little about our climate. Reading 5.6.7 explains how our climate scientists are failing us.

If you didn’t read this on the first page of this website, you need to read it now. Unfortunately, many Green scientists mislead us by telling us the science is settled and show far too much certainty in their science full of uncertainties. Even the Green IPCC states we only understand about 20% of our climate – most argue that is also an exaggeration.

Reading 5.6.8 discusses how Green scientists, the Green movement, and their followers forcefully try to silence dissent or any opposing views. Although this reaction is understandable, it is unforgivable.

If the science was solid, these scientists would not hesitate to stand up, present their science and challenge anyone to fault it. A dispassionate discussion might follow. As we have read on the single page of “The Crux” section of this site there is no logic or science to support the campaign of man-made catastrophic global warming.

Consequently, the scientists and the Greens react in two ways. They will not engage in a conversation in any depth about this issue. If challenged on any point they remain silent and will not respond. If pressed, they react by attacking the messenger (e.g. a person or organisation) that dares to disagree with them. There is no discussion of the issue at all – which they would find hard to defend. Their response is vitriolic.

Finishing such attacks they demand that deniers be;

• Shot,
• Institutionalised,
• Drugged so they could no longer converse with anyone,
• Have their houses burnt down,
• Treated as criminals and brought before “Climate Courts”,
• Stop their promotion,
• Remove their research funding,
• Stop publishing houses and prestigious scientific magazines from publishing their work,
• Threaten their tenure,
• Ostracize them, vilify them, and take some very childish actions to punish any misdemeanour,
• Any indication of not supporting the cause is to be punished, and finally
• Sack them from their jobs.

This unacceptable behaviour is hard to believe. Reading 5.6.8 discusses approximately 40 examples of such behaviour, because a few examples might not convince readers that such a reaction by the Greens and their scientists is endemic in the discourse on this issue.