The transcript of a recent radio interview with physicist Prof. Richard Muller (leader of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project or BEST), forms the basis of an excellent article by Barry Woods on the website Watts Up With That. For fellow climate obsessives, there’s plenty to find of interest in his dialogue with radio host Betsy Rosenberg and conservative commentator D.R. Tucker.
You can also listen to the podcast of the interview on the Progressive Radio Network website.
Alex, kudos – again – for the yeoman’s work you do on these transcriptions!
I had listened to the interview last week when it was first publicized (and I’ve just read your transcript – so I am eternally grateful to you for sparing my ears the irritation of having to listen to Rosenberg & Tucker, again!) But to my mind, Muller’s “and it was scientific malpractice” is not much different than his previous “there are some scientists whose papers I will no longer read” [OWTTE] as noted in his much circulated video.
Perhaps I’d be inclined to grant more credibility to the sincerity of his claims (and depth of his own due diligence) if – for example – when challenged by Tucker re the results of the “eight different investigations” pursuant to Climategate, he had referred them to Montford’s and/or McKitrick’s critiques thereof. But he didn’t do this! He simply said, “no it wasn’t data manipulation it was data hiding”.
One of the points he made throughout the interview is that the alarmists were exaggerating. Can’t disagree with that. But he himself could be found to be just as “guilty”:
He seems to be very much a “do as I say, but not as I do” kind of guy – as I found when I was doing some research the last time he became a born-again non-skeptic (circa October 2011 – see Will the real Richard Muller please stand up)
This time around the Mull[er]berry bush, I have been particularly unimpressed by his willful misrepresentation of Judith Curry’s views regarding his latest paper – which he compounded with his subsequent exceedingly lame self-exculpating excuses. And by his (and his daughter’s) initial failure to even acknowledge that the paper peer reviewed by McKitrick last year was actually rejected by the journal.
I was further unimpressed when I recently found the following in BEST’s disclosure of Financial Support for the “second phase” of their project:
That’s a pretty hefty chunk of anonymous change when, according to the BEST site, they’ve raised $400,000 so far for this “second phase”, don’t you think?!
I’d like to give Muller the benefit of the doubt (particularly in light of the battle of the self-aggrandizing egos that seems to be shaping up between him and Mann!); but, so far, he has given me very little reason to do so!
It could well be that this is all a function of “confirmation bias” on my part; but all in all, I did not find the PRN interview to be as fascinating as Barry did
The view from here, so to speak, is that this interview was more an instance of … second chorus, second verse … a little bit louder, and a little bit worse!
Hi Hilary, and thanks! Yes, definitely agree with you about Prof. Muller’s position – he’s not an AGW sceptic and never was – let alone the “denier turned believer” as some now are trumpeting. What interests me about this interview (apart from its spontaneous and unscripted qualities, which is partly why I like transcribing these things – you never quite know what you’re going to hear!) is the clash of narratives it illustrates, from the hurricanes-as-GW-icons (Prof. Muller: they aren’t) to the role of Gore and McKibben as useful AGW proponents (Prof Muller: they aren’t) to drought conditions and wildfires in the U.S. as evidence of GW happening right now (Prof. Muller: they aren’t). But you’re right, re Climategate there’s little he’s saying now that he wasn’t saying during his CITRIS lecture in 2010. I was intrigued by the talk of a Muller vs Mann debate – that would be worth listening to!
Alex,
What I find most curious about Mann vs Muller is the difference in his approach: typically, Mann has responded by ignoring his critic (viz Montford), with a libel suit or jumping on his high horse with an OpEd defending himself. Yet this time, he seems to have taken to quoting his book and/or offering his “revisionized” version of Muller’s claims via Facebook!
Which reminds me … If you’re up for a transcription challenge, Alex, here’s another fairly recent Muller interview that Judith Curry highlighted in her post today http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DOfsSYsvQnI (she incorrectly gave Barry credit for your PRN interview transcription, but I have posted a correction which I hope she’ll see!) But one of the things that jumped out at me (yes, I listened to the whole thing) is the contrast between what he claimed in the PRN interview:
and what I heard him say on this YouTube interview, which was that he was one of the “peer reviewers” of the NAS report. This makes a lot more sense, IMHO, considering that h’es not listed as a “panelist” … but didn’t stop Mann from making non-contextualized hay of Muller’s lack of precision in describing his actual role!
(Unlike the IAC’s report on the IPCC, Ciccerone’s NAS report doesn’t indicate who did the peer-reviewing, so I hope it’s reasonable to take Muller’s word for this!)
@ Barry, re the current theme (extreme summer heat in the U.S. = climate change), it’s amusing to learn how global warming is now highly visible when we look out of the window.
@ Hilary, thanks for the mention on Climate Etc.! And I agree, the Climate One video looks interesting, and is now on my list to do..