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This
is VERY serious.
Science
is being shut down everywhere we look.
These bastards who run things are determined that people do not know the true situation and are actively suppressing living science. They are determined to take us all down with their "civilisation"
Our own Royal Society is among the worst. Kevin Hester had his own experience
"They organised " Science Week" where I had my............ 'Run-in' with Sir (sic) Peter Gluckmann, The mere mention of methane Hydrates" elicited the Death Stare from the governments chief on Science. Draw your own conclusions".
---Kevin Hester
Russian
Scientists Excluded From Presenting Important Research As NASA
Goddard Director Tries To Discredit Observational Scientific Research
5
October, 2014
Following
on from my recent post regarding the attempt by Dr Gavin Schmidt to
rubbish the research of Russian scientists, led by Dr Natalia
Shakhova and Dr Igor Semiletov, it now emerges that the latter were
not even invited to the high profile meeting at the Royal Society.
The
event, held a fortnight ago, is still causing controversy beyond the
negative tweeting by NASA Goddard Director, Dr Gavin Schmidt. Schmidt
aimed his presentation at discrediting the Russian’s work, using
theoretical models, without expertise in methane, or credible data.
The end result is that the Russian team have composed a letter to
Royal Society President, Sir Paul Nurse, asking for an opportunity to
present their findings, including contributions from over 30
scientists working in the region for over 20 years.
One
of the longstanding major triumphs of the scientific community has
been a commitment to apolitical analysis of important research. We
all know there are geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West,
but are these now making an unwelcome entree into an area that could
pose enormous risk for humanity at large?
The
risk of large-scale releases of the deadly greenhouse gas, methane,
from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) may be a subject of debate
in the scientific community, but to purposefully exclude one side of
the debate and openly denounce their findings is not just immoral, it
is reckless.
The
letter, signed by Semiletov and Shakhova on behalf of more than 30
scientists, does state to the Royal Society President that the
evidence shown by Dr Schmidt (based on work by Dr David Archer) is
purely theoretical and that, despite both being very skilled climate
modellers, neither has expertise in methane or the area in question,
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
Whilst
the meeting was in process, an expedition in the ESAS was in
progress, with over 80 Russian and Swedish scientists. So why would
such high profile Western scientists try to discredit a large and
growing body of research? It is a hard question to answer, but the
intent is certainly evident.
It
is a matter for all of our concern if there is a posed risk of
environmental devastation emanating from any region of the world. The
Earth system does not acknowledge sovereignty or nationalist
interests. International collaboration and respect are vital if we
are to understand the changes that are going on as a result of man
made climate change. The Earth is heating up and many feedbacks from
the heating, such as methane releases, are not fully understood but
are known to have caused enormous changes in the global climate.
The
division between the climate modelling camp and the scientists
carrying out observational research is completely nonsensical. It
seems perfectly logical that the data collected by one group should
be used by the other in order to make the models more accurate. If
climate models have no basis in reality, then how can we trust their
reliability?
The
disdain shown by Dr Schmidt for his international colleagues should
now be put aside and the doors of the Royal Society opened to allow
the Russian team to present their findings. It is in all of our
interests that this takes place, so, Sir Paul, over to you…
Author:
Nick Breeze
Letter
From Dr Shakhova & Dr Semiletov to Sir Paul Nurse:
October
4th, 2014
By mail and email
By mail and email
Dear
Sir Paul Nurse,
We
are pleased that the Royal Society recognizes the value of Arctic
science and hosted an important scientific meeting last week,
organised by Dr D. Feltham, Dr S. Bacon, Dr M. Brandon, and Professor
Emeritus J. Hunt
(https://royalsociety.org/events/2014/arctic-sea-ice/).
Our
colleagues and we have been studying the East Siberian Arctic Shelf
(ESAS) for >20 years and have detailed observational knowledge of
changes occurring in this region, as documented by publications in
leading journals such as Science, Nature, and Nature Geosciences.
During these years, we performed >20 all-seasonal expeditions that
allowed us to accumulate a large and comprehensive data set
consisting of hydrological, biogeochemical, and geophysical data and
providing a quality of coverage that is hard to achieve, even in more
accessible areas of the World Ocean.
To
date, we are the only scientists to have long-term observational data
on methane in the ESAS. Despite peculiarities in regulation
that limit access of foreign scientists to the Russian Exclusive
Economic Zone, where the ESAS is located, over the years we have
welcomed scientists from Sweden, the USA, The Netherlands, the UK,
and other countries to work alongside us. A large international
expedition performed in 2008 (ISSS-2008) was recognized as the best
biogeochemical study of the IPY (2007-2008). The knowledge and
experience we accumulated throughout these years of work laid the
basis for an extensive Russian-Swedish expedition onboard I/B ODEN
(SWERUS-3) that allowed > 80 scientists from all over the world to
collect more data from this unique area. The expedition was
successfully concluded just a few days ago.
To
our dismay, we were not invited to present our data at the Royal
Society meeting. Furthermore, this week we discovered, via a
twitter Storify summary (circulated by Dr. Brandon), that Dr. G.
Schmidt was instead invited to discuss the methane issue and
explicitly attacked our work using the model of another scholar,
whose modelling effort is based on theoretical, untested assumptions
having nothing to do with observations in the ESAS. While Dr. Schmidt
has expertise in climate modelling, he is an expert neither on
methane, nor on this region of the Arctic. Both scientists therefore
have no observational knowledge on methane and associated processes
in this area. Let us recall that your motto “Nullus in verba” was
chosen by the founders of the Royal Society to express their
resistance to the domination of authority; the principle so expressed
requires all claims to be supported by facts that have been
established by experiment. In our opinion, not only the words but
also the actions of the organizers deliberately betrayed the
principles of the Royal Society as expressed by the words “Nullus
in verba”.
In
addition, we would like to highlight the Anglo-American bias in the
speaker list. It is worrisome that Russian scientific knowledge
was missing, and therefore marginalized, despite a long history of
outstanding Russian contributions to Arctic science. Being Russian
scientists, we believe
that prejudice against Russian science is currently growing due to
political disagreements with the actions of the Russian government.
This restricts our access to international scientific journals, which
have become exceptionally demanding when it comes to publication of
our work compared to the work of others on similar topics. We realize
that the results of our work may interfere with the crucial interests
of some powerful agencies and institutions; however, we believe that
it was not the intent of the Royal Society to allow political
considerations to override scientific integrity.
We
understand that there can be scientific debate on this crucial topic
as it relates to climate. However, it is biased to present only one
side of the debate, the side based on theoretical assumptions and
modelling. In our opinion, it was unfair to prevent us from
presenting our more-than-decadal data, given that >200 scientists
were invited to participate in debates. Furthermore, we are concerned
that the Royal Society proceedings from this scientific meeting will
be unbalanced to an unacceptable degree (which is what has happened
on social media).
Consequently,
we formally request the equal opportunity to present our data before
you and other participants of this Royal Society meeting on the
Arctic and that you as organizers refrain from producing any official
proceedings before we are allowed to speak.
Sincerely,
On behalf of >30 scientists,
Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov
Here is the latest from Dr. Shakhova
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