German Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt: German Scientists Tried To Expurgate Me – ‘Alarmism Being Put In Its Place…Doubt Getting Broader, More Public’!
German Professor Fritz Vahrenholt: “Alarmism Being Put In Its Place…Doubt Getting Broader, More Public”!
I sent an e-mail to Fritz Vahrenholt to ask his opinion on the Lennart Bengtsson mobbing scandal. Professor Vahrenholt is one of the fathers of the German environmental movement and co-author of the best-selling skeptic climate science book “Die kalte Sonne“.
Climate science critic Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt says doubt on climate science is gaining. Photo credit: Die kalte Sonne.
My questions to Professor Vahrenholt:
Also having expressed skepticism on climate science and having come under fire for doing so, do you think there is an atmosphere of intimidation that acts to keep people from expressing their doubts on climate science? Do you feel this is also the case in Germany? Do you think the strategy of marginalizing and silencing critics has been a successful one for the warmist side? Or do you think it is failing and is only hurting them?
Professor Vahrenholt’s responded:
It would be a wonder in a country where climate alarmism sets the tone of the energy-political debate like in no other country things would be otherwise.
I still can remember very well when the Academy of Technical Sciences prepared a report on the possibilities to adapt to climate change three years ago. At the time I was one of the three directors of the Working Group. I attempted to add to the report the uncertainties of the climate models, the natural influences on climate development, the decoupling between CO2 rise and temperature development over the last 15 years.
Three scientists threatened to quit unless I ceded the leadership of the WG. But I resisted the pressure to do so. The three scientists (which included the vice president of the German Weather Service) resigned.
Or just think back to the unspeakable report by the Federal Environment Minister in which scientists and journalists who held skeptical views were branded.
My impression, however, is that the marginalization of mainstream alternative positions is no longer succeeding so easily.
The real development is putting the apologists of climate alarmism in their place. And the off-the-rails energy policy, which believes will have an impact on the global climate, is doing the rest.
Doubt over the dogmatic position of the CO2-alone is causing climate change is increasingly getting broader and more public.”
***********************************
Prof. Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, is a professor of Chemistry at the University of Hamburg. …
‘Widespread worry over the suppression of scientific views’ – Leaked Memo On Climatology Exposes Growing Worry Within German Meteorological Society…’Unacceptable Unethical Developments’
Leaked Memo On Climatology Exposes Growing Worry Within German Meteorological Society…”Unacceptable Unethical Developments”
A reader/professor has sent me an internal memo he recently obtained from a meteorologist and member of the Deutsche Meteorologische Gesellschaft [German Meteorological Society], abbreviated as DMG. Clearly grave concern is emerging over a large swath of the broader German meteorological-climatological community in the wake of the Lennart Bengtsson witchhunt.
The memo was intended to be published in the DMG reports, but never saw the light of day.
It reveals a growing and widespread worry over the suppression of scientific views among German Meteorological Society members. One of the authors of the memorandum wrote an e-mail to the reader who provided the copy to me. He writes:
A circle of mostly older colleagues of the Free University of Berlin, who very much reject the tone one finds in today’s field of climatology, has asked me to draft a memorandum on the subject and to publish it in the Reports of the German Meteorological Society. Shortened by a half and totally watered down, the memorandum appeared in the last issue. I now take the liberty to bring the original version to your attention.
Greetings and cordial asscoication yours, ************”
I’ve deleted the name to protect the source. What follows is the original, un-watered down version of the memorandum – translated in English:
=====================================
Memorandum
On the situation in the field of meteorology-climatology
Based on observations made for quite some time, and due to the current occasion (IPCC 5), colleagues in the meteorological circles have been witnessing with worry how certain developments are becoming cemented into their scientific fields (foremost climatology) which from a scientific point of view simply cannot be accepted and do not comply to their professional ethics.
These developments involve first of all something in the lines of a democratization of science: Everyone is allowed and should have a say in it. In meteorology-climatology every one includes a highly very visible army of organized, little known persons; in Germany this is almost the entire public! The changes that have taken place in science as a result have in our opinion (and that of others) led to very negative impacts on the quality standards of science. For example expressed and disseminated meteorological flaws can hardly be contained and cannot be corrected publicly at all. Yet our meteorological scientists do not speak up.
And it is hardly …
Fritz Vahrenholt Labels IPCC “Doomsday, Panic-Spreaders…Alarmists”…”Will Have To Bear Ethical Responsibility”
Fritz Vahrenholt Labels IPCC “Doomsday, Panic-Spreaders…Alarmists”…”Will Have To Bear Ethical Responsibility”
Skeptic site Die kalte Sonne here features a video with leading German IPCC critic Fritz Vahrenholt taking part in a heated podium discussion last month. The event was held by the Steiermark Chamber of Commerce (WKO) in Graz, Austria. The topic: “Climate change under scrutiny”.
The video can be seen at the WKO-website and at Youtube:
In his presentation Vahrenholt starts by showing how the IPCC is needlessly spreading panic and how they under-estimate the impacts of natural factors. He reminds the audience of 200 that global temperatures have not risen since 1998.
As Europe and Germany hastily attempt to barrel ahead in switching to renewable energy, Vahrenholt warns that the switch “is not sensible” and is “threatening prosperity“. To underscore the absurdity of Europe’s trillion-euro green-energy project, Vahrenholt tells the audience:
Everything we do, at great cost, to reduce CO2 over the next 15 years, up to 2030, will be wiped out in China in just 6 weeks.”
Vahrenholt’s presentation was then rebutted by climate scientist Gottfried Kirchengast of the Wegener Institute, who claimed IPCC science is well-founded and that the planet is facing “weather extremes, ocean-acidification and mass human migration”, which he supported using colorful models and charts.
Vahrenholt foresees cooler world in 10 years
Near the end of the discussion, Vahrenholt reminds that those who destroy society and jobs in their rush to implement green energies will have to bear the ethical responsibility and answer in the future.
Vahrenholt also foresees a cooler world in 10 years, claiming it’s going to happen because of the natural forcings.
Kirchengast countered, accusing Vahrenholt of spreading false information and indirectly compared skeptics to flat-earthers. “There are some people who still think the earth is flat.”
The narrator then summed up by saying that “audience’s opinion at the end of the evening was divided“.
Unsurprisingly the format overall was stacked against Vahrenholt as the other podium participants were all warmists…the usual attempted ambush.
Sent by gReader Pro…
Der Spiegel On Antaractic Sea Ice: ‘Never Before Has There Been So Much Ice At This Time Of Year Since Measurements Began’!
Hell Freezes Over! Germany’s Ultra-Green ‘Die Zeit’ Concedes Climate Movement Has Been Too Alarmist
Hell Freezes Over! Germany’s Ultra-Green ‘Die Zeit’ Concedes Climate Movement Has Been Too Alarmist
Germany’s eco-evangelical, leftie weekly Die Zeit has a surprisingly sober online piece that almost got by me.
It actually harshly criticizes global warming science – unusual for Die Zeit, which is an influential “intellectual” weekly that has been preaching the science is settled for years. Not long ago it one-sidedly attacked skeptics and portrayed them as gangster-types led by Godfather and mastermind Marc Morano, aided and abetted by the evil Fred Singer and German Fritz Vahrenholt.
In the latest commentary, Andreas Frey of Die Zeit writes:
We need less alarmism, more fundamental research and courage to take risks!”
Climate alarmism headed for a dead-end
Frey compares the climate change scare to another scare that swept across Germany in the 1980s: forest die-off because of acid rain. That catastrophe never materialized, of course. Frey writes that the climate change movement is caught in the very same trap and finds itself well on its way to a dead-end.
The pattern observed is similar to the issue of forest die-off. Though the catastrophe never came about, forest still isn’t doing well. But who wants to hear about it?”
Damaged science
In point number 2 of his commentary, Frey writes that many climate scientists engaged “in spreading fear, warning of dire scenarios for our future“. But that has backfired, as Frey writes:
The flood of alarm threatens the credibility of the entire field – and thus damages science. But the alarmist is proud about having made the climate issue popular; he mingles gladly with politicians (and he even fancies himself as one) and thus knows precisely what is needed to curb the collapse of the planet: eat no meat, don’t drive cars, don’t consume electricity made with coal, don’t fly. Thus he has stepped over the line between science and activism.”
Media have been too uncritical
In point no. 3, Frey surprisingly even writes that the media have been too uncritical of the science they’ve been fed by alarmist scientists…something that Die Zeit is guilty of well beyond the shadow of any doubt. In fact, skeptics get labeled as gangster-like evil climate mobsters (see above). Astonishingly, Frey describes the mindset of the media as follows:
Whatever you do, don’t say anything bad about climate scientists, don’t express any doubts about their results or forecasts – that could be fodder …
CO2 emissions have increased since 2011 despite Germany’s $140 billion green energy plan
…German City Of Bremen Proposes ‘Environment Police’ – Would Enter Private Homes To ‘Enforce Proposed Ban Of Electric Heaters’
Most of us already suspect that environmentalists are dictatorial wolves dressed in the democracy sheepskin. Despite all the lip service they pay to justice and liberty, they are really all about state power and regulation.
So it is with Germany’s authoritarian statists and greens, who not long ago called for the enactment of a nationwide “Veggie Day” once a week in order to start weaning people off climate-killing diets containing meat. Fortunately the citizens roundly rejected the nonsense, sending the wackos off – to return another day.
German city of Bremen attempts to form a green police to enforce proposed ban of electric heaters.
Well, that “another day” has already arrived. The latest suggested intrusion into and control over our private lives is reported by the Liberal website of Friedrich Naumann Foundation For Liberty.
In the northern port city of Bremen, just a single hour away from the home of NoTricksZone, officials are now busily playing let’s-save-the-planet and zealously committing the city to cutting its carbon footprint by 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
Hat-tip DirkH
How is this to be done? The Liberal writes (my emphasis):
One of the planned measures: The ‘ban of electric heaters’. What sounds like one of the usual injection of fuel into the green bonfire of bans in fact takes on a whole new quality. The proposed law by Environment Senator Joachim Lohse foresees a system of monitoring that allows for detection of violations and punishment. According to the Weser-Kurier daily, officials would ‘in carrying out the duties of their office, tread upon private property and enter private buildings‘. The provision of the German Constitution for the inviolability of the home would in this respect be curtailed.”
The Liberal adds:
“Here Lohse is creating nothing less than an environment police.”
As mentioned, the proposed law for the city of Bremen of course would clash with Article 13 of the German Constitution which guarantees private individuals the “inviolability of the home”. But in the City of Bremen, which is run by a coalition of climate protection-obsessed socialists and greens, little things like Constitutional Rights are not about to stop their hunt for electric radiators as part of their mission to rescue the planet. After all it’s far more vital to improve the city’s carbon footprint and to promote sustainability then it is to uphold the Federal Constitution.
In their distorted minds, …