Climate Depot Exclusive
[Climate Depot Editor’s Note: Longtime American Chemical Society (ACS) member and Environmental Chemist Steven J. Welcenbach, the President of the Wisconsin based Alchemical Ventures, Inc., has released a portion of his private email exchange with American Chemical Society’s editor in chief Rudy Baum. Baum, now under pressure to be removed from his post, created a scientific firestorm with his June 22, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News (C&E News) claiming that the global warming debate was settled. (See Climate Depot’s Exclusive Report: Climate Revolt: World’s Largest Science Group ‘Startled’ By Outpouring of Scientists Rejecting Man-Made Climate Fears! Clamor for Editor to Be Removed! – July 29, 2009 )]
Text of longtime ACS member and Environmental Chemist Steven J. Welcenbach’s note to Climate Depot and an Email exchange with ACS editor Rudy Baum. Welcenbach has been an ACS member since 1986.
Hello Marc [Morano], (Executive Editor of Climate Depot)
Thank you for getting the word out with what is going on in American Chemical Society (ACS). A vast number of members are very upset with the lack of complete and balanced coverage of the AGW issue and the continued censoring of articles and letters by Rudy Baum that do not support the theory of catastrophic global warming caused by CO2 emissions from man’s use of petroleum and coal. Many of the members I have spoken with have not only expressed their disgust but either have left ACS or are contemplating leaving the group. Lots of us, however, have decided that we should take action to return the group back to the scientific method and the initial purpose for which this group was formed and why we joined.
Therefore, I think it is imperative for you and all readers to understand the entire context of my exchange with [editor-in-chief] Rudy Baum. I treated him with respect and tried to interface with him in a reasonable way. As you will see, he resorted to personal insult and attack, thus my final e-mail which he decided was enough to publish. It was not. [Climate Depot Editor’s Note: Baum quoted Welcenbach’s email in a follow up article reacting to blowback from ACS member scientists. Welcenbach wrote to Baum: “When all is said and done, and you and your kind are proven wrong (again), you will have moved on to be an unthinking urn for another rat pleading catastrophe. You will be removed. I promise.” ]
As the largest scientific organization in the world we need to be on the front lines of this debate. True debate. Unfortunately Rudy Baum used his position as a political stump speech platform while cherry picking info supporting AGW and suppressing all info and articles to the contrary. For this reason he needs to go. An information censor is the LAST thing ACS needs.
I have been involved as a TRUE environmentalist since 1986. I have worked in the waste disposal and recycling industry this entire time. I will send you a copy of my resume in a separate e-mail for you to get a more complete picture of what I have done in this area.
Yours Truly,
Steven J. Welcenbach
President – Alchemical Ventures, Inc.
Menomonee Falls, WI
414-XXX-XXXX
[ Climate Depot Editor’s Note: Welcenbach has given Climate Depot permission to reprint his portion of the email exchange with editor Rudy Baum below. But since they were a private email exchange, Climate Depot is not publishing Baum’s responses to Welcenbach.]
Begin forwarded message:
From: Steven Welcenbach < >
Date: June 26, 2009 11:56:10 AM CDT
To: Rudy Baum <>
Subject: Re: AGW letters published which are contrary to your own viewpoint
Well Rudy,
I hoped that you may have had a new information input valve into your mind but I see it has been closed off or eliminated. I guess you’re happy in your little prison of thought so I certainly don’t want to disturb you. It becomes obvious when the “Flat Earth” comments come out one is not dealing with an individual interested in fact finding or relevant discussion. When all is said and done, and you and your kind are proven wrong (again), you will have moved on to be an unthinking urn for another rat pleading catastrophe.
You will be removed. I promise.
We have no need for further interaction.
Steven J. Welcenbach
ACS Member that has now been designated the job of removing Rudy Baum from Editor-in Chief of C&E News
Also card carrying “Flat Earther”
And Neanderthal (since I’m sure that one was next to come)
—–Original Message—–
From: Steven Welcenbach [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 4:34 PM
To: Rudy Baum
Subject: Re: AGW letters published which are contrary to your own
viewpoint
Hi Rudy,
Thank you for your quick response. But you have to admit this is a pretty pathetic record.
As far as AGW theory goes, I’m sure you’ve heard of the works of the following PhD research scientists: Richard Lindzen, Willie Soon, Fred Singer, Craig Idso, Dennis Avery, Ferenc Miskolczi, Miklos Zagoni, William Gray, Roy Spencer, Timothy Ball, Henrik Svensmark, Patrick Michaels and hundreds of others referenced in their footnotes and publications. I have many articles from these gentlemen in my possession and could provide you with copies if you’re truly interested in understanding the supporting information of my claim. In addition, many others have written excellent works outlining the tremendous economic and social implications of implementing such a policy, such as current Czech Republic and EU president Vaclav Klaus and Roy Innis, to name just two of many that I have read.
Truly, as editor of our ACS publication, you owe it to all of us to provide all sides of all issues. You have done this to some degree with the Biofuels situation and Wind power. See, I am watching and
can be fair. But this publication is woefully short on providing accurate and new information on the real story of AGW. One example that comes to mind is that you published in July of 2007 that “the
arctic Ice is melting” in concentrates implicating AGW. But you never published the fact that the Ice has more than returned since to a 50 year high. You also have not published anything about the fact that global temperatures have been decreasing since 1998 and plummeting in the last two years. So there is an excellent example supporting my grief. You did publish something about the cooling sea temps but the article was highly skewed with excuses dismissing the data by AGW advocates. But that’s OK. You published it and we could draw our own conclusions.
I only ask you to allow publication of articles which refute AGW. They are the majority of articles published in the world on this subject.
Go online and get the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change report and you will have all the information you need, fully footnoted and supported with actual data. Also, go to CO2science.org for tons of articles and fully footnoted, data supported information.
I apologize for the tone of our initial conversation but I obviously feel very strongly that your position requires a better diversity of information on this subject. I hope we can gain clarity here. I am
confident that if you truly dig in to the material I am referencing here you will see very compelling information and data that could very well change your mind.
Thank you for your time.
Steve Welcenbach
414-XXX-XXXX
—–Original Message—–
From: Steven Welcenbach [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 3:43 PM
To: Rudy Baum
Subject: AGW letters published which are contrary to your own
viewpoint
Hi Rudy,
Please kindly send me some examples of this claim. Also, would you be so kind as to reference at least ONE article published in the C&E news magazine that does not support the now FULLY DISCREDITED theory of man-made CO2 induced global warming/climate change. I will be more than happy to supply you with say, several hundred articles which provides factual data and employs the real scientific method to be published in C&E News (Chemical and Engineering News).
Frankly, a lot of members like myself are very, very tired of your censorship and proclaiming your misguided and unsupported AGW agenda. If this is a publication for scientists, the least we can expect of our editors is respect for the scientific method.
Thank you for your attention to my claim.
Steve Welcenbach
ACS member since 1986
[ End email excerpts. ]
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Climate Depot’s Exclusive Report: Climate Revolt: World’s Largest Science Group ‘Startled’ By Outpouring of Scientists Rejecting Man-Made Climate Fears! Clamor for Editor to Be Removed! – July 29, 2009
Scientists seek to remove climate fear promoting editor and ‘trade him to New York Times or Washington Post’
An outpouring of skeptical scientists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are revolting against the group’s editor-in-chief — with some demanding he be removed — after an editorial appeared claiming “the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established.”
The editorial claimed the “consensus” view was growing “increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers.” The editor now admits he is “startled” by the negative reaction from the group’s scientific members. The American Chemical Society bills itself as the “world’s largest scientific society.”
The June 22, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News by editor in chief Rudy Baum, is facing widespread blowback and condemnation from American Chemical Society member scientists. Baum concluded his editorial by stating that “deniers” are attempting to “derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change.”
Dozens of letters from ACS members were published on July 27, 2009 castigating Baum, with some scientists calling for his replacement as editor-in-chief.
The editorial was met with a swift, passionate and scientific rebuke from Baum’s colleagues. Virtually all of the letters published on July 27 in castigated Baum’s climate science views. Scientists rebuked Baum’s use of the word “deniers” because of the terms “association with Holocaust deniers.” In addition, the scientists called Baum’s editorial: “disgusting”; “a disgrace”; “filled with misinformation”; “unworthy of a scientific periodical” and “pap.”
One outraged ACS member wrote to Baum: “When all is said and done, and you and your kind are proven wrong (again), you will have moved on to be an unthinking urn for another rat pleading catastrophe. You will be removed. I promise.”
Baum ‘startled’ by scientists reaction
Baum wrote on July 27, that he was “startled” and “surprised” by the “contempt” and “vehemence” of the ACS scientists to his view of the global warming “consensus.”
“Some of the letters I received are not fit to print. Many of the letters we have printed are, I think it is fair to say, outraged by my position on global warming,” Baum wrote.
Selected Excerpts of Skeptical Scientists:
“I think it’s time to find a new editor,” ACS member Thomas E. D’Ambra wrote.
Geochemist R. Everett Langford wrote: “I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved.”
ACS scientist Dennis Malpass wrote: “Your editorial was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!”
ACS member scientist Dr. Howard Hayden, a Physics Professor Emeritus from the University of Connecticut: “Baum’s remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist’s soul. Let’s cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? […] Do you refer to ‘climate change’ instead of ‘global warming’ because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?”
Edward H. Gleason wrote: “Baum’s attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me…his use of ‘climate-change deniers’ to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific.”
Atmospheric Chemist Roger L. Tanner: “I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other ‘free-market fanatics,’ and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose.”
William Tolley: “I take great offense that Baum would use Chemical and Engineering News, for which I pay dearly each year in membership dues, to purvey his personal views and so glibly ignore contrary information and scold those of us who honestly find these views to be a hoax.”
William E. Keller wrote: “However bitter you (Baum) personally may feel about CCDs (climate change deniers), it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. […] The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you.”
ACS member Wallace Embry: “I would like to see the American Chemical Society Board ‘cap’ Baum’s political pen and ‘trade’ him to either the New York Times or Washington Post.” [To read the more reactions from scientists to Baum’s editorial go here and see below.]
Physicists Dr. Lubos Motl, who publishes the Reference Frame website, weighed in on the controversy as well, calling Baum’s editorial an “alarmist screed.”
“Now, the chemists are thinking about replacing this editor who has hijacked the ACS bulletin to promote his idiosyncratic political views,” Motl wrote on July 27, 2009.
Baum cites discredited Obama Administration Climate Report
To “prove” his assertion that the science was “becoming increasingly well established,” Baum cited the Obama Administration’s U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) study as evidence that the science was settled. [Climate Depot Editor’s Note: Baum’s grasp of the latest “science” is embarrassing. For Baum to cite the June 2009 Obama Administration report as “evidence” that science is growing stronger exposes him as having very poor research skills. See this comprehensive report on scientists rebuking that report. See: ‘Scaremongering’: Scientists Pan Obama Climate Report: ‘This is not a work of science but an embarrassing episode for the authors and NOAA’…’Misrepresents the science’ – July 8, 2009 )
Baum also touted the Congressional climate bill as “legislation with real teeth to control the emission of greenhouse gases.” [Climate Depot Editor’s Note: This is truly laughable that an editor-in-chief at the American Chemical Society could say the climate bill has “real teeth.” This statement should be retracted in full for lack of evidence. The Congressional climate bill has outraged environmental groups for failing to impact global temperatures and failing to even reduce emissions! See: Climate Depot Editorial: Climate bill offers (costly) non-solutions to problems that don’t even exist – No detectable climate impact: ‘If we actually faced a man-made ‘climate crisis’, we would all be doomed’ June 20, 2009 ]
The American Chemical Society’s scientific revolt is the latest in a series of recent eruptions against the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming.
On May 1 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of 54 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position. The 54 physicists wrote to APS governing board: “Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th – 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.”
The petition signed by the prominent physicists, led by Princeton University’s Dr. Will Happer, who has conducted 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The peer-reviewed journal Nature published a July 22, 2009 letter by the physicists persuading the APS to review its statement. In 2008, an American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.
In addition, in April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science reportedly “published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.” An abundance of new peer-reviewed scientific studies continue to be published challenging the UN IPCC climate views. (See: Climate Fears RIP…for 30 years!? – Global Warming could stop ‘for up to 30 years! Warming ‘On Hold?…’Could go into hiding for decades,’ peer-reviewed study finds – Discovery.com – March 2, 2009 & Peer-Reviewed Study Rocks Climate Debate! ‘Nature not man responsible for recent global warming…little or none of late 20th century warming and cooling can be attributed to humans’ – July 23, 2009 )
A March 2009 a 255-page U. S. Senate Report detailed “More Than 700 International Scientists Dissenting Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.” 2009’s continued lack of warming, further frustrated the promoters of man-made climate fears. See: Earth’s ‘Fever’ Breaks! Global temperatures ‘have plunged .74°F since Gore released An Inconvenient Truth’ – July 5, 2009
In addition, the following developments further in 2008 challenged the “consensus” of global warming. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears; a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled”; A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 reportedly “showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report.” Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ & see full reports here & here – Also see: UN IPCC’s William Schlesinger admits in 2009 that only 20% of IPCC scientists deal with climate ]
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