Lennart Bengtsson gives up...

Lennart Bengtsson gives up...  Dr. Bengtsson is a well-known climate scientist (and professor) who has long been part of the warmist scientific support.  A few weeks ago, though, Dr. Bengtsson very publicly joined a skeptic's group (the GWPF) – loudly proclaiming his doubts and his disgust at the unscientific approach of the IPCC.  Yesterday he resigned from the GWPF, citing enormous pressure from his scientific colleagues.  Steve McIntyre and James Delingpole have entirely characteristic responses.

I'd call it a sad day for science, except that I think in large part the “science” part of climatology has long since departed, replaced by a conformity and fanaticism that resembles that of certain religions more than it does science.  So I'll phrase it differently: it's a sad day for those few genuine scientists who remain part of the climatology community – scientists like Judith Curry or Lennart Bengtsson, who are willing to listen to things like evidence, alternative theories, etc.  Unfortunately they are greatly outnumbered by the likes of James Hansen, Michael Mann, et al.

Mark Steyn's lawsuit with Michael Mann, while primarily a free speech issue, does offer the hope of making a dent in the warmists' position.  That hope stems from the “discovery” part of the legal proceedings, wherein the private emails between Mann and the other contributors to the IPCC report will become public.  These emails almost certainly will contain hard evidence of the unscientific manner in which the support for the warmists position was constructed (I speak here not just of the infamous “hockey stick”, but of all the evidence in the IPCC reports).  It will be most interesting for the skeptical community to pore over these emails...