Im Mai 2013 schrieb der Professor für Klimastatistik, Caleb Rossiter, in seinem Blog, dass er sich in Zukunft nicht mehr zur Klimadebatte öffentlich äußern würde, da eine vernünftige Diskussion mit den Anhängern der Klimakatastrophe nicht möglich ist:
I am deserting from the Climate War. I will never write another climate article or give another climate talk, and I’ll bite my tongue and say oooooooooooom when I hear or see the sort of exaggerations and certainties about the dangers of heat-trapping gasses that tend to make my blood boil at their absurdity. For a decade I’ve been a busy soldier for the scientific method, and hence a “skeptic” to climate alarmism. I’ve said all I think and know about this repetitive, unresolveable topic. I’ll save hundreds of hours a year for other pursuits!
This is not like my pledge to my wife after a marathon that “I’ll never do another one.” This is real. There is simply too little room for true debate, because the policy space is dominated by people who approach this issue not like scholars weighing evidence, but like lawyers inflaming a jury with suspect data and illogical and emotional arguments.
Ein Jahr später, am 4. Mai 2014 brach Rossiter mit seinem Vorhaben und veröffentlichte im Wall Street Journal doch noch einen letzten Beitrag, in dem er die Über-Fokussierung auf das angebliche zukünftige CO2-Problem anprangert, während es in Afrika eine große Anzahl von wahrhaftigen aktuellen Problemen gibt, die viel leichter zu lösen wären:
Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change
Western policies seem more interested in carbon-dioxide levels than in life expectancy.
Leider befindet sich der Essay hinter einer Paywall. Climate Depot bringt jedoch eine Komplettversion (am Ende der verlinkten Seite). Im Folgenden einige Auszüge via Climate Depot:
Rossiter’s Wall Street Journal OpEd continued: “The left wants to stop industrialization—even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false. John Feffer, my colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, wrote in the Dec. 8, 2009, Huffington Post that ‘even if the mercury weren’t rising’ we should bring ‘the developing world into the postindustrial age in a sustainable manner.’ He sees the ‘climate crisis [as] precisely the giant lever with which we can, following Archimedes, move the world in a greener, more equitable direction.”
“Then, as now, the computer models simply built in the assumption that fossil fuels are the culprit when temperatures rise, even though a similar warming took place from 1900 to 1940, before fossil fuels could have caused it. The IPCC also claims that the warming, whatever its cause, has slightly increased the length of droughts, the frequency of floods, the intensity of storms, and the rising of sea levels, projecting that these impacts will accelerate disastrously. Yet even the IPCC acknowledges that the average global temperature today remains unchanged since 2000, and did not rise one degree as the models predicted.
…
“But it is as an Africanist, rather than a statistician, that I object most strongly to ‘climate justice.’ Where is the justice for Africans when universities divest from energy companies and thus weaken their ability to explore for resources in Africa? Where is the justice when the U.S. discourages World Bank funding for electricity-generation projects in Africa that involve fossil fuels, and when the European Union places a ‘global warming’ tax on cargo flights importing perishable African goods?”
Rossiter spricht ein wichtiges Problem an. Wir könnten heute den Menschen in Afrika leicht helfen: sauberes Trinkwasser, Ausbildung, gute Staatsführung… Aber das würde ja bedeuten, dass man jetzt sofort tatkräftig anpacken müssten. Sehr viel einfacher ist es, den abstrakten CO2-Geist zu jagen. Die simplistische Formel: Reduziert Euren CO2-Ausstoß, verzichtet, leidet, dann wird alles gut. Ein mittelalterlich anmutender, religiös-geprägter Gedanke.
Die Quittung für Caleb Rossiters vernünftigen Beitrag kam sofort. Nach 23 Jahren Zusammenarbeit beendete das Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) aufgrund des Wall Street Journal-Artikels kurzerhand die Zusammenarbeit mit Rossiter. Die Kündigungs-Email des IPS ist lesenswert (Fettsetzung ergänzt):
From: John Cavanagh
Sent: May 7, 2014 9:51 PM
To: Caleb Rossiter
Cc: Emira Woods, Joy Zarembka
Subject: Ending IPS Associate FellowshipDear Caleb,
We would like to inform you that we are terminating your position as an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. As you know, Associate Fellows at IPS are sponsored by an IPS project director or by the director. In your case, both of us sponsored your Fellowship. Unfortunately, we now feel that your views on key issues, including climate science, climate justice, and many aspects of U.S. policy to Africa, diverge so significantly from ours that a productive working relationship is untenable. The other project directors of IPS feel the same.
I (John) have worked with you on and off for two decades and I admire the project you did on Demilitarization and Democracy through IPS. I also admire the work you did on Capitol Hill with Rep. Delahunt. Both of us have worked with you in other capacities over the years with strong mutual respect. We thank you for that work and wish you the best in your future endeavors.
If you would like to meet with us in person, we are available. John will be in Berlin from Thursday afternoon through Monday evening, but could meet after that. Emira is here over the next week if you’d like to meet sooner.
Best regards,
John and Emira
Rossiter wollte dies nicht so einfach hinnehmen und mit der Leitung des IPS über die Gründe des Ausschlusses sprechen. Dort hieß es jedoch nur lapidar: „Caleb, dafür habe ich nun wirklich keine Zeit.“ Im Original sagt Rossiter im Interview mit Climate Depot:
“I have tried to get [IPS] to discuss and explain their rejection of my analysis,’ Rossiter told Climate Depot. “When I countered a claim of ‘rapidly accelerating’ temperature change with the [UN] IPCC’s own data’, showing the nearly 20-year temperature pause — the best response I ever got was ‘Caleb, I don’t have time for this.’”
In einem weiteren Interview mit The College Fix erläuterte Rossiter seine Frustration über die wissenschaftlichen Denkverbote in der Klimadebatte:
“I am simply someone who became convinced that the claims of certainty about the cause of the warming and the effect of the warming were tremendously and irresponsibly overblown,” he said in an exclusive interview Tuesday with The College Fix. “I am not someone who says there wasn’t warming and it doesn’t have an effect, I just cannot figure out why so many people believe that it is a catastrophic threat to our society and to Africa.”
Internationale Stimmen zum Vorfall gibt es auf Notrickszone.
