Jock Allison’s Reply to Attack on ‘No Climate Emergency’ Letter From Scientists

Australia’s The Conversation and subsequently the NZ Herald recently published a  comment in response to the There is No Climate Emergency (pdf) letter sent to the United Nations by 500 Scientists and professionals. The ‘comment’, penned by an Australian academic and a post-graduate researcher, is seen by many as both offensive and devoid of academic rigour.  One of the signatories to the letter is New Zealander Dr Jock Allison, retired Agricultural Scientist with the Ministry of Agriculture, who has written important papers about matters relating to the ‘climate’ debate, in particular about the role of methane.

In an email to the author Dr Allison answered the accusations of a) clandestine orchestrated lying, b) interpretive lying, and c) implicatory denial, against the signatories, most of whom are university graduates in geology, ‘a training of particular relevance when it comes to understanding and interpreting world climate over very long periods of time’.  Allison also raises important issues related to integrity of science, and climate science in particular, such as the question of  ‘groupthink’,  and the credibility of the IPCC.

From: Jock Allison
Sent: Sunday, 13 October 2019 10:32 PM
To: ‘z.leviston@ecu.edu.au’ <z.leviston@ecu.edu.au>; ‘Iain.Walker@canberra.edu.au’ <Iain.Walker@canberra.edu.au>
Subject: FW: Climate Change and Three Forms of Denial

Dear Iain & Zoe,

Your “comment” on the “group of self-proclaimed “prominent scientists” 500 of whom sent a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations urging Mr Guterres that there was no climate emergency was published in the Auckland Herald 11th October 2019.

I come from what might be seen as a naïve premise that “It is paramount that even in the world of social psychology” that one should where possible deal in facts. You have postulated that the principles espoused in the registered letter illustrate three forms of denial, …….

a) clandestine orchestrated lying,

b) interpretive lying, and

c) implicatory denial

These are significant claims to make against 500 personnel who are mostly university graduates, with many of them (particularly the Australian list) graduates in Geology a training of particular relevance when it comes to understanding and interpreting world climate over very long periods of time.

Further I note that the group of 75 persons who signed from Australia are not “business and industry figures” as you have defined them, as I have noted before, most are graduates, some are academics from universities as you are, albeit from rather more quantitative pursuits than social psychology.

You can find an assessment of your article prepared by a colleague here .  https://stovouno.org/2019/10/13/climate-change-junk-psychology-and-the-nz-herald/

I attach (below) for your consideration an article I wrote with an American colleague last year, and will be interested in your scientific assessment of the conclusions – i.e. methane and nitrous oxide are almost irrelevant as Greenhouse Gases, CO2 is relatively unimportant, and water vapour is the most important Greenhouse Gas. [Allison and Sheahen, Greenhouse Gases – a More Realistic View (pdf)]

For your information and comment, I provide the link to a comprehensive paper “Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming”  http://climatechangereconsidered.org/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/ which is an excellent review of the claims re various “Consensus” which are professed by many to exist. Clearly Consensus does not exist.

Consideration of the world climate data should be of the highest scientific quality, a situation that alas doesn’t exist. Further the growth and acceptance of the climate scare is outlined in an excellent review “Groupthink” see https://www.thegwpf.com/christopher-booker-groupthink-on-climate-change-ignores-inconvenient-facts/ Indeed Groupthink is a well known phenomenon first identified by an eminent professor of Psychology at Yale in the 1970s, Professor Irving Janis, I am sure you will have heard of him, if not then reading some of his publications might be very useful for your edification.

To add to your complete disregard for scientists who approach science through looking at the actual data and making their assessments accordingly, you might like to read of a group in the USA, “The Right Science Stuff” mostly ex NASA (National Aeronautical Space Administration in the USA) retired employees, have made it their mission to review all of the work of the IPCC re climate. This has taken a long period, but you can read about them here ……… https://www.therightclimatestuff.com/ To summarise, the group has unique skills and is of the view that “there is no climate emergency”. There is a lot of material on this site, and becoming au fait with the information will be pretty useful for you.

In fact the motto of the astronauts was “In God we trust, all others bring data”.  I wouldn’t go as far as the religious reference, but the “all others bring data” is certainly a good motto. Indeed it would be a good motto for you to reconsider your assessment of the 500 who signed the letter to the Secretary General of the UN, I can assure you that all the personnel I know in the group will assess the available information and on the basis of that information will come up with interpretations of the data from a scientific viewpoint.

I am interested in how you have come to such conclusions in your opinion article. Some comprehensive explanation would be appreciated. There is a considerable amount of hard science to back up against your belief, and subsequent interpretation of those beliefs. Respectfully I suggest that you might like to reconsider.

Please provide me with some definitive statements why we are incorrect in the attached paper above. One provision, “computer models don’t hack it in the debate”.

I look forward to your informed contribution to the debate.

Best wishes,

Jock Allison

Dr Jock Allison, ONZM, FNZIPIM