Bengtsson defects

  Lennart Bengtsson, former director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, recently announced that he was joining the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a well-known skeptic organization. The reaction in the climate science community, which he compared to "McCarthyism," was so strong that he quickly withdrew. The event has occasioned a widespread debate in the community about the extent to which the science has been politicized, well summarized in an article in Der Spiegel by Axel Bojanowski. 

  Bojanowski quotes various members of the community with opinions on all sides of the issue. Comments by Roger Pielke Jr., an environmental scientist at the University of Colorado, were on the money: "In a democracy people will organize around all sorts of shared interests, as they should, and many will share values that I don't. So what? Bengtsson's justifications for associating with GWPF are perfectly legitimate. That he was pressured by his peers with social and other sanctions reflects the deeply politicized nature of this issue."Also Roger Pielke Sr.: "Unfortunately, climate science has become very politicized and views that differ at all from those in control of the climate assessment process are either ignored or ridiculed. From my experience, I agree 100 percent with the allegations made by the very distinguished Lennart Bengtsson."

  There is an orthodoxy in climate science from which no dissent can be tolerated. The truth is that the whole structure is based on a shaky foundation, and everyone knows it. To admit it, though, would threaten the fiction of "settled science" and the gushers of money that goes into grants and other sources of money from governments. Climate science is a hot topic, and scientists who play their cards right can win fame and fortune: being called to testify before Congress, appearing on television, writing books. The whole game is threatened by a few spoil sports who insist on telling the truth, and they must be stopped.