Professor Jim Harrison, a former mechanical engineer who found that a commitment to chaos and irrationality was an impediment to building functional bridges, is looking forward to starting his new job. “The Geology Department has long taken the position that nothing can ever really be known for sure, so why bother finding out? It’s a perfect fit for my personal pedagogical philosophy. This appointment is a wonderful opportunity to push the boundaries of what academics can teach to students.”

The new chair is a radical departure from the normally staid traditions of academia, but par for the course at Carleton. Dr. John Willis, of the Canadian Institute of Research and a Carleton alumni, commented: “The Geology Department has always made the effort to avoid the strictures of convention. You say scientific consensus, they say massive worldwide conspiracy. You say anthropogenic global warming, they say no, climate always changes. This new approach is a natural evolution for them. It’s nice to see it explicitly stated. Some students would get upset when they turn up for a class on a scientific topic and end up watching grainy YouTube videos of confused elderly men ranting about an imminent ice age. At least now they won’t be surprised.”

While some people may be concerned with the establishment of a university teaching position that is opposed to actually educating students, Carleton University is standing by their new Professor.

The Dean of Studies, who only agreed to be interviewed with a dark-suited union rep present in the room, carefully explained: “Under the collective agreement, lecturers have the freedom to express their opinions, and well, oddly enough there’s no requirement that course content be based on actual scientific knowledge, wait, really? Right. And, well, tenure is an important institution for ensuring the freedom to express, shall we say, controversial ideas, so Professor Harrison has our support. I mean our full support.”

The Chair of Dadaist Geology was funded by Sincore, an oil company with extensive operations in the Alberta oil sands. When reached for comment, a spokesman explained that Carleton was a natural choice: “we have plenty of qualified geologists up here. What we need are people to do the more menial, yet still essential, tasks. Like flipping burgers. So long as Carleton’s Geology Department can graduate people with basic motor skills, we’re happy. Besides, if we wanted field geologists we’d go to UBC.”

Whatever the critics say, students are excited about the new course outline. In an upcoming palaeontology lecture students will be expected to flop around on the floor in front of the chalkboard like lungfish, pretend to develop rudimentary appendages, and slowly ‘evolve’ their way to their desks. For another class, Harrison has built a climate model entirely out of bike parts, sprockets, springs, and the remains of a small wind-up clock. In a hands-on approach to climate modeling, it will be used to falsify the greenhouse effect by showing that when exposed to carbon dioxide it fails to warm up.

At time of writing, the course was fully subscribed.

 ooOoo

Entirely unrelated news:

CASS report and commentary on climate change teaching at Carleton University

Also relevant  

It’s a tired argument, this idea that because we can’t predict weather we certainly can’t predict climate. You’d expect to hear it from James Inhofe or a cranky uncle; you should never hear it from a university lecturer teaching a course on climate change. Unless you are a student at Carleton University, right here in Canada’s capital.

Heartland wants to fund the creation of K12 curricula that would teach students every long-debunked climate denial argument under, and including, the sun. They could save their anonymous funder’s money and just copy wholesale from Carleton University’s course “Climate Change: an Earth Sciences Perspective”, currently taught by Mr. Tom Harris, a former oil industry lobbyist.

The Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS, a science watchdog that more often takes an interest in pseudoscientific nonsense like homeopathy or dodgy nutrition claims in the media), part of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, has turned its attention to the teaching of science denial at Carleton University with the publication of a report fact-checking 142 separate claims made by Tom Harris in the course. It’s nothing short of a huge embarrassment for Carleton University, and for the Earth Sciences department that approved the course.

In the report, CASS provides fully quoted statements made in the course with detailed rebuttals for each one. Considering that this class is taught in one of the top 10 Canadian universities, it’s a shocking read.

I’ve gone through the document and tallied each time an argument appears, using skepticalscience.com’s list of the most common skeptic arguments as a template.

That’s not including another 41 separate arguments, including the ridiculous OISM petition project, claiming there’s no tropospheric hot spot, the oceans are cooling, Jupiter is warming, Climategate, and of course saying that scientists can’t even predict the weather.

Even a little fact-checking shows up erroneous, misleading and long-debunked claims. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could defend this course; academic freedom must at some point slam head-long into the obligation to teach things that are understood to be true. We do not accept creationism or intelligent design in our classrooms, regardless of the personal beliefs of the instructor, because we know its nonsense. We absolutely should not accept this.

Students deserve better than this cynical, distorted and mean-spirited view of the scientific enterprise. It’s tragic to see students presented with unbalanced and incomplete material. How can you tell students that tree rings do not track with temperature in the 20th century and not explain the divergence problem in full? It’s a fascinating issue, but presenting only one side short-changes inquiring minds.

It’s a review course, so students aren’t expected to have a deep understanding of the primary literature. Even so, it’s incumbent on the instructor to present the prevailing scientific opinion. It’s clear that isn’t what happens.

Harris sums up the course in the last lecture with take-away messages for the students:

* The only constant about climate is change.
* Carbon dioxide is plant food.
* There is no scientific consensus about climate change causes.
* Prepare for global cooling.
* Climate science is changing quickly.

There’s a place for discussion of controversies in climate science, and there’s an appropriate way of doing that. It isn’t in a review course for non-scientists and non-specialists who lack the domain expertise to know they are being played.

And it certainly isn’t in a course taught by an individual who doesn’t appear to even grasp the difference between weather and climate.

Read the full report here.

Following the Canada Free Press in what is becoming a tradition of having to clear up the mess left after Tim Ball speaks, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy has scrubbed the offending interview from their website. 

Desmogblog has more on the story.

The suit claims Tim Ball libeled Weaver in his article “Corruption of Climate Science Has Created 30 Lost Years”, published on the Canada Free Press website between January 10th – 19th, 2011. The suit can be read in its entirety at DeSmogBlog, which also reports that Canada Free Press has “stripped from its publicly available pages pretty much everything that Ball has ever written.”

Perhaps they shouldn’t have printed his nonsense in the first place.

Read more here.

On January 10, 2011, Canada Free Press began publishing on this website an article by Dr. Tim Ball entitled “Corruption of Climate Change Has Created 30 Lost Years” which contained untrue and disparaging statements about Dr. Andrew Weaver, who is a professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.

Contrary to what was stated in Dr. Ball’s article, Dr. Weaver: (1) never announced he will not participate in the next IPCC; (2) never said that the IPCC chairman should resign; (3) never called for the IPCC’s approach to science to be overhauled; and (4) did not begin withdrawing from the IPCC in January 2010.

As a result of a nomination process that began in January, 2010, Dr. Weaver became a Lead Author for Chapter 12: “Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility” of the Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC.”  That work began in May, 2010.  Dr. Ball’s article failed to mention these facts although they are publicly-available.

Dr. Tim Ball also wrongly suggested that Dr. Weaver tried to interfere with his presentation at the University of Victoria by having his students deter people from attending and heckling him during the talk.  CFP accepts without reservation there is no basis for such allegations.

CFP also wishes to dissociate itself from any suggestion that Dr. Weaver “knows very little about climate science.”  We entirely accept that he has a well-deserved international reputation as a climate scientist and that Dr. Ball’s attack on his credentials is unjustified.

CFP sincerely apologizes to Dr. Weaver and expresses regret for the embarrassment and distress caused by the unfounded allegations in the article by Dr. Ball.

That’s a welcome piece of news, although I don’t know how or to what extent this apology was prompted by Dr. Weaver’s libel case against the National Post. No news on that as yet.

CBC reports that crews have already started pulling up some tulip beds a week before the festival is even due to start.

It isn’t all bad. The late blooming beds are still going strong, although they might not last the full two weeks of the Festival. And there are some beds that have yet to flower.

Yes, this winter it snowed in Europe and the U.S. But it was damn hot up here.

Weaver Seeks Unprecedented Order to Remove Stories That “Poison” the Internet

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwire – April 21, 2010) – University of Victoria Professor Andrew Weaver, the Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis, launched a lawsuit today in BC Supreme Court against three writers at The National Post (and the newspaper as a whole), over a series of unjustified libels based on grossly irresponsible falsehoods that have gone viral on the Internet.

In a statement released at the same time the suit was filed, Dr. Weaver said, “I asked The National Post to do the right thing – to retract a number of recent articles that attributed to me statements I never made, accused me of things I never did, and attacked me for views I never held. To my absolute astonishment, the newspaper refused.”

Dr. Weaver’s statement of claim not only asks for a Court injunction requiring The National Post to remove all of the false allegations from its Internet websites, but also seeks an unprecedented Court order requiring the newspaper to assist Dr. Weaver in removing the defamatory National Post articles from the many other Internet sites where they have been re-posted.

“If I sit back and do nothing to clear my name, these libels will stay on the Internet forever. They’ll poison the factual record, misleading people who are looking for reliable scientific information about global warming,” said Weaver.

The suit names Financial Post Editor Terence Corcoran, columnist Peter Foster, reporter Kevin Libin and National Post publisher Gordon Fisher, as well as several still-unidentified editors and copy editors. It seeks general, aggravated damages, special and exemplary damages and legal costs in relation to articles by Foster on December 9, 2009 (“Weaver’s Web”), Corcoran on December 10, 2009 (“Weaver’s Web II”) and January 27, 2010 (“Climate Agency going up in flames”), and Libin on February 2, 2010 (“So much for pure science”).

The Statement of Claim was filed April 20, 2010 at the BC Supreme Court Registry at the Vancouver Courthouse: Weaver v Corcoran and others, SCBC No.102698, Vancouver Registry. Court record information and documents are publicly accessible online at Court Services Online: https://eservice.ag.gov.bc.ca/cso/index.do.

Good luck to Professor Weaver with the suit. Even if the Post is forced to remove the false allegations, they will be up against the Streisand Effect when it comes to taking down reposts on other websites. Which may be the point of the court injunction; the Sisyphean task may be onerous enough to make them think twice about defaming him.

“As in any day where we symbolize a matter of significance, Earth Day highlights the cause, it highlights the importance of all of us making individual efforts, and so yes, it’s important,” he said.

“I would like Canadians to think about our responsibility as stewards as one of the most remarkable landmasses on the earth and the obligation we have to leave Canada, cleaner and better than we found it,” he said.

To make that a reality, he said, Canadians should think about whether they should reduce the size of their car, recycle more, leave their phone chargers plugged in or if they need to keep that flat-screen TV on all the time.

“It’s a question of the individual choices we make,” he added. “How many televisions are you going to have in your house? Are you going to shop and try to get the most efficient appliances in your home? It’s about choices.”

If Canadians should think about changing anything it is their laws and politicians, not their behaviour. We have tried Prentice’s approach before, after all. The One Tonne Challenge was an abject failure of a policy for reducing carbon emissions, and would not have made much of a dent considering the sources of most of this country’s emissions (see chart).

Note: The grey portion of the chart represents GHG emissions from the energy sector. The activity sectors reflect the UNFCCC methodology. Source: Environment Canada, 2007a. National Inventory Report: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada, 1990–2005. Greenhouse Gas Division, Ottawa, Ontario.

And besides, if Prentice really wants to change Canadians’ behaviour, he should do more than exhort them to just think about doing so for one day a year. A price on carbon, as economists will agree, would do more to change behaviour than would simply thinking a little on Earth Day.

The opt-in climate policy he suggests offers a realistic way of dealing with the Alberta problem. There’s no way of getting around the fact that Alberta is increasingly dependent on the tar sands, and it is not willing to come close to making, or meeting, an effective emissions reduction target. However, other provinces, like Ontario and Quebec, are committed to making reductions and the Federal government could have a role to play in helping them meet the reductions targets.

A key change in Canada has been the shifting of population, political power and wealth to the west. The West got in, and don’t expect them to put in place federal policy that it would perceive as being against its own interests. Indeed, if politics is shaping up to mean a shift in power away from the federal government to the provincial, the sort of role the federal government can play in climate change will need to reflect and respect that shift. An opt-in program is a good compromise.

Unfortunately, should all the provinces except Alberta choose to opt in and meet targets, there could be little benefit for Canada on the international stage if Canada as a country fails to make overall emissions reductions. Nonetheless, as Prof. Donner points out, “it would be a vast improvement on the status quo” and “break the stalemate that has stalled progress on emissions reductions”. I’ll take it as a good start.

More: http://www.themarknews.com/articles/1183-working-around-alberta-on-climate-change

Winter 2009/2010:

• 4.0°C above normal
• Warmest winter since records began in 1948
• Driest out of the past 63 years, 22% below normal
• Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan had 60% less precipitation than normal

It really has been extraordinary. Says David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada:

"I think it’s a combination of a strong El Nino and the shrinking and disappearance of the ice at the top of the world," says Phillips, adding that changing "pressure spots" in the Arctic and Atlantic also played a role. "They’ve all been working in cahoots to create this unbelievable winter."

Oh yes, and it looks like the tulips are coming up already. That could mean poor timing for the Tulip Festival here in Ottawa, May 7th to the 24th. We usually have snow coverage on the ground until early April, which would delay growth, but not this year. As far as the tulips are concerned, it feels like spring.