Dear Malcolm,

Thank you most sincerely for your response last month to my April 2009 Breaking News column in Ndaba. I wish more of our readers would express their views and exchange ideas. I fear though that objectivity may be on thin ice here (pun unintended) because we both, by our own admission, engage for ethical reasons in what is clearly an emotionally-charged conflict of ideals. We clearly have some common purpose at the outset: We are both greatly concerned about progressive harm to ecology and species; and we agree that global warming and dynamic climate change are real. Let’s take it from there. What I say is that there is nothing historically unusual about current global temperatures. Global warming and global cooling are periodic. They are perfectly natural peaks and valleys in cycles driven primarily by the Sun. There are no data to support the hypothesis that greenhouse gases, whether human-related or not, drive climate fluctuations. This is a story of how an unsubstantiated theory of climate, a model, became political ideology.

To clarify, AGW stands for Anthropogenic Global Warming (meaning, increase in the mean temperature of Earth as a result primarily of human activities), CO2 is carbon dioxide, and IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In view of the constraints of this forum, my initial response won’t attempt to address in detail the main points in your letter, although I must admit to being completely baffled by your statement that my argument “fails totally on one salient point: only a tiny minority – 1 in 1000 – of scientific publications on global warming dispute the influence of human activities in affecting climate change.” Even if Dr Schultze’s figures were correct, and notwithstanding that I dispute them, how would that invalidate my general argument? Science is not about consensus, and I mentioned the fact that those against the motion appeared for once to be in the majority only as a sociological curiosity. Certainly, history shows that opposition to ruling paradigms consists invariably of extremely small minorities with limited chance for expression, and the reasons for this I should think are fairly obvious. That we in this case find numerically more substantial opposition than previously is borne out by even the most cursory scan of the broader literature (journals are notoriously standard-model-biased). In my view, the best single reference on the quality of opposition to AGW is The Deniers—the world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud by Lawrence Solomon (2008).

Be that as it may, global temperature patterns; the demise of polar bears; the effect of greenhouse gases; the proportion of publications expressing doubt about carbon-driven AGW; that “the end justifies the means”; and the personal culpability of Al Gore in misleading the public and governments, could all be exhaustively debated with copious references to the literature on both sides. We simply don’t have the space to do that here. In your letter you invoke the authority of respected scientists, so I prefer in my response to let other prominent role-players in the AGW saga express it in their own words. What I suggest is that we let the facts fall where they will, irrespective of any model or ideology. That way we can avoid a preconceived outcome.

In my view, before we even start to make predictions for the planet, we need good data to base them on. A crucial misrepresentation on plots of climate data is the selective positioning of the trend line and base line for plots (your illustration falls into this trap). If the curve commences from the previous low point for temperature (the Little Ice Age), for example, then the trend is obviously upwards. If, by comparison, the plot commences from say the peak of the Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures were considerably warmer than they are now, then the trend is equally obviously downwards. A recent paper by two eminent climatologists details the inaccuracies and massaging of IPCC’s global temperature measurements, like those supporting the graph in your letter and conclusions drawn from it. I urge you to look at it:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf

There are many complex issues that might sidetrack us, so let’s tackle the fundamental principle of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) movement first. The rest can follow in due time. The question I seek to answer here is “What do these particular experts in the field of climatology feel about the hypothesis that human production of atmospheric carbon or greenhouse gases in general measurably leads to increases in global temperatures and influences weather patterns to the extent that we are experiencing or are about to experience catastrophic overheating?”I believe this question correctly addresses the philosophy behind the IPCC-driven mission, and the essence of the Kyoto protocol and Copenhagen road map.

Arno Arrak, author of the book What Warming? Satellite view of global climate change; he was a nuclear chemist on NASA’s Apollo programme: “In 2007 we got some serious cooling while climate models using carbon dioxide theory insisted on relentless warming at the same time. If a theory predicts warming and we get cooling that theory as a scientific theory has failed and must be abandoned.”

Professor John Christy, lead author, IPCC; awarded NASA’s medal for exceptional scientific achievement in 1991; received a special award from the American Meteorological Society for fundamentally advancing our ability to measure climate: “I’ve often heard it said that there is consensus of thousands of scientists on the global warming issue, and that humans are causing a catastrophic change to the climate system. Well, I am one scientist—and there are many—who thinks that this is simply not true.”

Lord Lawson of Blaby, former British Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary for Energy: “We had a very thorough enquiry and took evidence from a whole lot of people expert in this area. What surprised me was how weak and uncertain the science was. In fact there are more and more thoughtful people…some of them openly saying, ‘hang on, wait a minute, this simply doesn’t add up.’”

Canadian environmentalist Patrick Moore    , co-founder of Greenpeace: “I don’t even like to call it the environmental movement any more because it really is a political activist movement, and they have become hugely influential at a global level… These days if you are sceptical of the litany around climate change, you’re suddenly as if you’re like a holocaust denier.”

Nigel Calder, author and former editor of New Scientist: “They (the IPCC) came out with the first big report which predicted climatic disaster as a result of global warming. I remember…the total disregard of all climate science up till that time, including, incidentally, the role of the Sun, which had been discussed at a conference of the Royal Society just a few months previously.”

Professor Patrick Michaels, Department of Environmental Science, University of Virginia: “Anyone who says that CO2 is responsible for most of the warming of the 20^th century hasn’t looked at the basic numbers.”

Dr Tim Ball, professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg: “The analogy I use is that my car is not running very well, so I ignore the engine, which is the Sun, and I’m going to ignore the transmission, which is water vapour, and I’m going to be looking at one nut on the right rear wheel, which is the human-produced CO2. The science is that bad. When people say you don’t believe in global warming, I say no, I believe in global warming, but I don’t believe that human CO2 is causing that warming. In the post-war years, when industry and the economies of the world really got going and human production of CO2 just soared, the global temperature was going down. In other words, the facts don’t fit the theory.”

Professor Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Director, International Arctic Research Centre, Alaska: “CO2 began to rise exponentially in about 1940, but temperature began to decrease (in) 1940 and continued to about 1975. So this is the opposite relation, when CO2 is increasing rapidly, but yet temperature is decreasing— then we cannot say the CO2 and the temperature go together.”

Professor Tim Ball, University of Winnipeg: “If you take CO2 as a percentage of all the gases in the atmosphere…it’s about 0.054%. It’s an incredibly small portion. And then you take the percentage that humans are supposedly adding, which is the focus of all the concern, and it gets even smaller. The atmosphere is made up of a multitude of gases, a small percentage of them we call greenhouse gases, and of that very small percentage, 95% is water vapour, the most important greenhouse gas.”

Professor Richard Lindzen, M.I.T.: “Every textbook on meteorology is telling you the main source of weather disturbances is the temperature differences between tropics and the poles. And we’re told, in a warmer world, this difference gets less. Now that would tell you, you will have less storminess, less variability…”

Professor Frederick Singer, First Director, US National Weather Satellite Service. “All the models, every one of them, calculate that the warming should be faster as you go up from the surface into the atmosphere. In fact, the maximum warming over the equator should take place at an altitude of about 10km.”

Professor John Christy, lead author, IPCC: “What we found consistently was that in a great part of the planet, the bulk of the atmosphere was not warming as much as the surface…that’s a real head-scratcher for us…the theory says that if the surface warms, the upper atmosphere should warm rapidly. The rise in temperature of that part of the atmosphere is really not very dramatic and really does not match the theory that climate models are expressing.”

Professor Richard Lindzen, IPCC; Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “If it’s greenhouse warming, you get more warming in the middle of the troposphere, the first 10 to 12 km of the Earth’s atmosphere, than you do at the surface…having to do with how the greenhouse works. That data gives you a handle on the fact that what we’re seeing is warming that is probably not due to greenhouse gases.”

Professor Frederick Singer: “The observations do not show an increase with altitude. So in a sense you can say the hypothesis of man-made global warming is falsified by the evidence.”

Dr Ian Clark, Arctic paleoclimatologist, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: “If we look at climate in the geological timeframe, we would never suspect CO2 as a major climate driver. We can’t say CO2 will drive climate. It never did in the past. When we look at climate on long scales, we’re looking for geological material that actually records climate. If we take an ice sample for example, we use isotopes to reconstruct temperature, but the atmosphere that’s imprisoned in the ice we liberate and then we look at the CO2 content. … So, here we are looking at the ice core record from Vostok … we see temperature going up from early time to later time at a very key interval when we came out of a-glaciation … and then we see CO2 coming up. CO2 lags behind that increase, it’s got about an 800 year lag, so temperature is leading CO2 by about 800 years. CO2 cannot be causing temperature changes. It’s a product of temperature, it is following temperature changes.”

Professor Frederick Singer: “So obviously CO2 is not the cause of that warming, in fact we can say that the warming produced the CO2.”

Professor Tim Ball: “The ice core record goes to the very heart of the problem we have here. They said that if CO2 increases in the atmosphere…then the temperature will go up. But the ice core record shows exactly the opposite. So the fundamental assumption of the whole theory of climate change due to humans is shown to be wrong.”

Dr Ian Clark, University of Ottawa: “Solar activity over the last … several hundred years correlates very nicely on a decadal basis with sea ice and arctic temperatures.”

Professor Phillip Stott, University of London: “As every school child knows from their geography textbooks, the oceans and the atmosphere exchange carbon dioxide. When the oceans warm up, they release CO2 into the atmosphere, and when they cool down again, they take in the CO2 and they store it.”

Professor Nir Shaviv, Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “A few years ago, if you would ask me, I would tell you it’s CO2. Why? Because like everyone else in the public, I listened to what the media had to say. There were periods in the Earth’s history when we had … ten times as much CO2 as we have today, and if CO2 has an effect on climate, then you should see it in the temperature reconstruction. There’s no direct evidence that links 20^th century global warming to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.”

To conclude this first exchange of thoughts, I emphasise that the ice core records show that temperature leads CO2, effectively ruling out anthropogenic carbon emissions as a driver of global temperature. In addition, measurements of temperatures in the troposphere by both satellite and weather balloon contradict the notion of a runaway greenhouse effect. Despite the elegance of the climate models, they are rendered useless by cumulative and ongoing measurements of actual conditions in the terrestrial environment, and by the exposing of unethical manipulation of those data to contrive a fit. At the very least, the claim by Gore and others that “the science is settled” is blatantly misleading and totally unsubstantiated by the facts. Does the end justify the means? I hope this dialogue survives to provide an answer.

Sincerely,

Hilton

Email: hilton@hiltonratcliffe.com

The quotes in this letter were taken from the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, produced by Martin Durkin (2008), and the books What Warming? Satellite view of global climate change by Arno Arrak (2009); A primer on CO2 and Climate by Howard Hayden (2008); Global Warming False Alarm by Ralph Alexander (2009); The Deniers—the world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud by Lawrence Solomon (2008); Red Hot Lies by Christopher Horner; Climate Confusion by Roy Spencer (2008), and Air Con by Ian Wishart (2009).

Honestly, I had mixed feelings about this production. There is no question that it is technically excellent as a movie, and makes its point with both vigour and subtlety, but as a scientist seeking the truth, I don’t like the style of presentation at all - “Methinks they protesteth too much!” It definitely doesn’t let the facts stand in the way of a good cry.

Right at the beginning, we meet the alpine climber who, in his 80s, laments global warming. Pretty soon his eyes glisten with tears, and the scene of barren rock where the Chamonix ski slope should have been is overlaid with “Here at Chamonix, it’s December and there’s no snow at all. It’s a glimpse into the future.” I don’t know when that scene was shot, but in 2008 and 2009 there was record snowfall at Chamonix, so heavy in fact that for most of December both years skiing was considered dangerous. The bias is painful.

Then we have the chap who was overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He too had tears in his eyes as he told of rescuing a baby from the rising waters. Then we have a TV presenter laying the blame: “Intensity of hurricanes is related to surface sea temperatures. So increased intensity of hurricanes is associated with global warming.” What utter nonsense! There is no connection whatsoever. Hurricane intensity as far as we know is most likely related to polarity, both of the electromagnetic sheath vortex, and of the differential in temperature between the basin beneath the axis of spin (warm) and surrounding water (cold). Another factor is wind shear above warm spots, which actually weakens hurricanes. It has nothing to do with global warming. Also, the catastrophe in New Orleans was not the result of an abnormally fierce hurricane, but because of that city’s below-sea-level vulnerability and dependence on poorly constructed and maintained levees. The incidence and strength of hurricanes in 2006, as well as their landfall percentage, were well below average. The figures are freely available. Was that caused by global warming?

So I didn’t get off to a good start with this movie, but heck, I stuck it out. Well, it didn’t get better. The images of poverty and disease, corruption and barbarism, of millions struggling for food are emotionally deeply compelling. It certainly makes me sad to see evidence of the human and environmental conditions that result from the greed and megalomania of individuals who exert physical dominance over their tribes. But how on Earth is human nature a consequence of man-made climate change? Where does global warming fit in? And how will carbon caps alleviate mass hunger and endemic disease; how could massive industrial rollbacks possibly increase production so the hungry can eat? The Niger Delta scenes are such a mixed message. Corrupt, power-mad people will opportunistically use whatever currency is to hand—witness Gore’s use of AGW—whether it is opium poppies in Afghanistan or oil in Nigeria, it’s just what the Earth offers up in a particular region. We have to deal with human population pressure. We can’t just say “It’s their fault for having children so let them suffer.” It’s energy consumption versus output productivity. The granaries of the world use more energy and produce more food. It seems to me the Age of Stupid belongs to a school of thought and an ideology that is really just anti-capitalist when you boil it down, and we’ve seen how well those schemes have worked in the past. What we really need to do is let pragmatism rein in this rampant idealism. We have a job to do.

The aim of this movie as I understand it, its central message, is that we are corrupting the environment by our misuse of resources. I am wholeheartedly in support of that ethic. What I cannot tolerate is that blatantly false evidence is raised to create the popular impression that human activities control global temperatures, and that all environmental (and even many sociological) evils stem from this. The entire moral effort of a generation has been cunningly steered in a particular direction, and it has been infused with a self-satisfying moralistic anger that defies logic. While this is going on, Gore, Pachauri, and their henchmen are pocketing personal profits amounting to many millions of dollars. Our environmental conscience has been hijacked by greed of another persuasion, but greed it certainly is. This has been achieved by superbly crafted propaganda, and The Age of Stupid is perhaps the best of the lot.

By the time I reached the credits at the end of The Age of Stupid, I was as despondent as I would imagine most people are who are exposed to this sort of message. In my case though, I was most saddened by the power and effect of carefully constructed propaganda in determining, or at least reinforcing what people want to believe. It has nothing to do with the data or the measurements. An Inconvenient Truth presents 35 main scientific arguments to support Anthropogenic Global Warming. Guess how many were falsified by comparison with the measurements? 35! But pathetically few people who carry Gore’s banner ever bother to check his facts, and indeed, when faced with them, simply write them off as “denialism”. If we create a human desert in years to come—and we might—it will be because we put all our ecological effort into uselessly fighting carbon when all the while the real environmental issues, the ones that can really make a difference, are ignored. With our conscience appeased, we will go to sleep thinking we have done the right thing, and we may never wake up.

So I guess we are both depressed by what is going on. I just don’t see the moral justification in lying about it. I look forward to hearing your reaction to The Great Global Warming Swindle. I have the DVD if you’d like to organise a viewing.

Best wishes
Hilton

In this world as it is, there are far more pressing issues I would say. Like the Great Global Warming Swindle, for instance. From a sociological point of view, it is rich ground for contemplation. I didn’t want to get involved, but I have to; my social conscience won’t let me ignore the greatest scam - by orders of magnitude - ever perpetrated. When one looks at the sheer scale of the deception, it blows the mind - it’s now a multi-trillion dollar burglary, feeding without mercy on those scraps of decency that let Homo sapiens feel guilty about environmental hygiene and the way that we prey on and decimate other species. Chairman of the IPCC Dr Rajendra Pachauri has already pocketed (personally) millions of dollars, and he’s only just started. The head of this bloated fish is indeed rotten.

What’s the good news? The light at the end of the tunnel for me is that when climategate is eventually exposed, and we sheepishly admit that we’ve been horrendously duped, and we’ve guillotined whoever we’ve caught, perhaps broader society will have insight enough to the corruptions of power and greed, and the horrifying social tumours growing out of propaganda, to see that essentially, it is science and education that are corrupted. The walls of mathematical sophistry are all but impenetrable, and the $13,000,000,000 underground redoubt called the Large Hadron Collider is safe haven for those toying with the personal consequences of owning the Theory of Everything. “Playing God” is the ultimate fascination for man, and I use the gender term advisedly. It is utterly shameful that the unrepentant patriarch in the male of our species reduces us to this. Al Gore could never, ever have been a woman.

Outside the birds have woken, and the day beckons promisingly. I think that my emerging book “Stephen Hawking Smoked My Socks” is going to be a deeply passionate expression of my environmental sadness. Perhaps we can forgive each other, eventually, but I fear that war is the usual panacea for a smoking soul. The Carbon Diaries are written in blood, and Gore’s surname is suddenly sickeningly prophetic.

Lord have mercy!

Breathe in, breathe out, look left and right, and step onto the highway…

Take it easy.
Hilton

Take an hour or so out of your life to watch this. It’s worth the trouble.
http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=9SiB868VEFc

I’m an interested observer of this discussion, and look at it through the lens of physics (oh how I envy chemists that freedom to practice their art without strictures of meta-geometrical topology that afflict extra-terrestrial physics. Imagine if we tried to discuss chemical reactions in varying space curvatures).

For some years now, Oliver and I have collaborated on a Solar System model that aligns with conventional chemistry and physics rather than opposes them. Thus, we have an explosive progenitor in the form of an iron-rich supernova. Isotope sequences put that event at ~4.5GYA. That much is empirically verifiable, and is no longer controversial in the mainstream. What happens next is where physics and consensus depart each other.

How could the SN debris settle and accrete gravitationally so that the lightest element known, H, forms the nucleus of the nascent Solar System? How does iron float on hydrogen? It is clear, short of resorting to metaphysics, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the basics of the Standard Solar Model, and that our spectral analysis of the photosphere cannot be representative of what lies beneath.

And that, in my view, is why we’re looking at other processes besides predominantly H fusion to satisfy the Sun’s energy requirements. The proposal of n-repulsion should be seen against the background of a physically sound, fundamentally secure solar model. That is the mistake that Eddington and Bethe fell prey to: They let their theory of energy production in stars dictate the chemical composition of stars, instead of the other way around.

All the best for Christmas and the New Year, however you choose to celebrate them.

With kind regards
Hilton

There’s a problem though. You see, SNe happen far less frequently than the old blue moon—about two observed per galaxy per century. That’s not nearly enough—by orders of magnitude—to account for stellar phenomena with anything approaching statistical significance. One per 50 years in a collection of a hundred billion stars isn’t going to do much in the bigger picture. But protagonists in the saga of expansion found a use for supernovae that quite exceeds the design parameters for exploding stars. They extracted from observational data a timescale warp in the fading glow of supernovae. Specifically, they targeted those supernovae known as Type 1A.

Convinced that they are standard candles, these devout women and men measured variability in time taken by 1A SNe to fade from their peak brilliance, and concluded with unseemly haste that the differences in apparent duration were not natural properties of varying explosive parameters, but indeed, the effect of expanding space. The idea behind it is that the “light curve”—the graphical plot of brightness varying with time—would be the same for all 1A supernovae if they were measured locally. Measured remotely from Earth, however, the light curves are not the same, and that is unacceptable for standard candles. Explanation: Because they lie at different cosmological distances, the variations in fade duration must be because of expanding spacetime, something known as “time dilation”. The immediate conclusion drawn from this interpretation is that all this proves universal expansion. What’s more, closer examination, subject to the necessary primary assumptions and fudge factors, indicated to an astonished scientific audience that the rate of expansion was increasing. The Universe, ladies and gentlemen, is accelerating away again. So they say…

The real issue here, as I understand it, is whether or not the universe is undergoing systematic expansion, and whether or not SNe rise times (the patterns caused by ebb and flow of luminosity) support that contention. Here’s the rub: Do the different light curves not tell us that 1A SNe are in fact not standard candles, and that they explode differently over time in each example? That is pretty much how we would normally interpret the observational data in the absence of an overriding theoretical model that tells us otherwise. Unless the progenitor stars of supernovae are geochemically and geophysically identical, we would expect each explosion to plot a unique course on a non-standard timeframe. No one can deny that observable debris fields left after supernovae are so different from one another in so many ways that to suggest the progenitors were all precisely alike is ludicrous. Here again, we are asked by cosmologists to abandon straightforward physics and analyse what we see and measure through their spectacles.

Do you get an inkling now how annoying that is for us?

In terms of standard physics, Hubble expansion related to cosmic redshift has failed, even after several restarts. We should not even bother trying to explain to ourselves and interested spectators the functions of expanding space, or how the rate of expansion varies at the convenience of our Standard Model. We need go no further than simply examining the pictures we get of the sky. Our observations show, with as much certainty as can be expected over cosmological distances, that the expected direct association of higher redshift with a more immature Universe has not materialised. Modelling the universe in onion-skin layers of redshift values fails dismally to show with greater redshift the least sign of higher density; smaller object size; higher temperature; lower metallicity (or higher metallicity); smaller voids; less apparent and intrinsic brightness; infant galaxies; or any other sign that redshift truly indicates remoteness and youth in an evolving Universe. To make matters truly embarrassing for the Standard Model of Cosmology, the redshift patterns that supposedly indicate and verify an expanding cosmos have been found in local space, well within the confines of Virgo. We all know that by consensus, theory excludes local space from expansion, so the signs in the sky are Judas goats, leading us to the nemesis of redshift-based cosmology.

In addition, given that the redshift of Hubble expansion goes hand-in-hand with the Cosmological Principle and cannot exist without it, it is of crucial importance that we note no smoothing out of the cosmos, no matter how high the redshift value. There is structure, great big lumps of it, for as far as we can see. The redshift distance ladder is obviously flawed, and with it our 3-D conception of cosmic geography. To top it all, some well presented observations show that there are objects that deny their redshift-given remoteness by the fact that their transverse expansion would then exceed the speed of light, many times over. That alone crushes the concept without hope of redemption. The redshift-expansion idea, despite the concerted efforts of the finest scientists on Earth to promote it, has failed.

What of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation? Is it really a picture of a very dense, nascent Universe? I doubt it, and by now, I should hope that you doubt it too. The controversial “predictions” of BBT concerning an enveloping primeval radiation signature are hopelessly lacking in true predictive power, and in addition, quantitatively way off beam. Alignments with local astrophysical structure (and voids) are routinely confirmed by WMAP analysts. The CMBR was from the word go a hopelessly optimistic long shot. Analysts are kept busy, night and day, trying to cope with anomalies—that is, disagreements between the image and what is expected by the model. They have, despite great effort and inventiveness, thus far failed abysmally to get that obstinate, hee-hawing picture to fit the theory.

How we react to anomalous results is going to be crucial to the future of cosmology, the empirical foundation of astrophysics, and indeed, possibly the importance of scientists to the progress of society generally. The sincerity with which we incorporate discordant results into our knowledge base and theoretical structures will in my view define the relationship between astronomy and cosmology, and may well determine whether such a link can exist at all. The anomalies result always, and exclusively, from our comparison of the data with theoretical models. The data and images are not in and of themselves anomalous, and cannot be intrinsically peculiar. Professor Neta Bahcall puts it well: “The advantages of ‘What you see is what you get’ …may be more important than the elegance of the solution.” [1] Whether we continue to pursue the mysteries of the larger-scale cosmos with our eyes wide shut, or instead with due circumspection take notice of the measurable reality surrounding us, time will tell.

Let’s be honest. We are unable to measure the global physical divergence of galaxies. There is no unambiguous, empirically tested correlation of redshift velocity with distance. We cannot observationally verify a proposed universal geometry that would permit expansion. No deep sky survey has revealed evolution with time in astrophysical objects. An image of the primordial fireball (or any other deity) can only be seen in background radiation by express construction, and even then, through the rosiest of rose tinted spectacles. These things are best described as superstition, but we make no judgement on people who are superstitious; we merely try our damndest to separate them from rational science.

Our uncertainty is admittedly less with nearby things, but the incredible vastness of our field of study is such that even within the Solar System itself, we are unsure of most things. We don’t know with any clarity how big the Solar System is; what it consists of; or what keeps it going. Where did it come from, how did it form, and whither next? The same is true for the Local Group of galaxies. The caveat remains that they certainly show no measurable sign of the creation of spacetime within their boundaries. We must accept expansion with only the reputation of our forefathers to go on. “Thus it must be remembered that the whole argument is based on the idea that helium was made by such a fireball, and much as most people want to believe it there is no independent evidence that this ever did take place. Most of the helium was made in a big bang, and the parameters required are those chosen in the conventional model. This is the most popular view but in its present form it requires that we choose an initial photon/baryon ratio, invoke a ‘magical’ inflation era, and assume the presence of a large amount of dark nonbaryonic matter, and dark energy (creation energy). These are four assumptions for which we have no basic theory, nor direct observational evidence. Just authoritarian belief.”[2]

So, when all is said and done, it comes down to this: Is what we see relevant to the formulation of cosmology? To sustain a well-worn cliché—do we believe what we see, or see what we believe? It’s a choice really; one which will determine whether the status quo remains and dictates reality, or whether we do indeed live at the cusp of revolution. I am under no illusion; the odds against my preferred outcome are almost impossibly huge, but a light at the end of my tunnel is kept flickering by the knowledge that it has happened before, time and again. This regime must fall, that is certain, but when? Perhaps you, the few, will determine by what you do next what the outcome shall be.

I shall leave you with a quote from the essay Modern Cosmology, Science or Folk Tale by Professor Mike Disney: “It may be healthier, as well as more exciting, to admit we are surrounded by great mysteries which will provide challenges for generations to come. More fundamentally, as Daniel Boorstin the historian of science remarked: ‘The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the Earth, the continents and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments and contradictory witnesses.’ If we are not appropriately sceptical about cosmology today then the current myth, if myth it is, could likewise hold up progress across all of extragalactic research for generations to come. ”

Ultimately, perhaps, we have attempted to address in our book a single question, one that is supremely difficult to answer with conviction: Is the Universe expanding? We are baffled for one simple reason—by definition, the expansion described in the Standard Model of Cosmology occurs exclusively beyond the reach of measurement. If for no other reason than that, such a supposition should be excluded from the realm of reasonable science. 

Thank you for sharing this journey with me, and good luck to you.

In acknowledging my sources in The Static Universe, I paid tribute to the publicly-funded online science repository arXiv. The following paragraph was written before I was (quite rudely, I thought) blacklisted by arXiv. After a deal of sombre thought, I decided to leave it there, unchanged:

“It is about time that someone gave credit to the most-used reference set in the history of science: The well-worn Cornell University online library arXiv. Pronounced archive from the Greek letter Chi, arXiv currently stores about 500,000 scientific publications, with about 4,000 being added every month. Access is free and open, and it is the preferred point of reference for scientists seeking to refer to the work of others. What an outstanding service! Thank you so much, Cornell for administering it, and Paul Ginsparg for inventing it.”

That was said in all sincerity. I’m sure you will understand that I am somewhat more cynical about arXiv these days. It presents an imbalance—the absence of even a few of those who argue against the motion means that arXiv becomes the expression of a particular opinion, rather than a place where scientific results can be compared without let or hindrance.

Much of the brouhaha currently surrounding the online archive could be avoided if the moderators demonstrated courage in their convictions by declaring their agenda, and by giving reasons for rejecting submissions. They admit that only a few papers or authors are blocked, so it would not be an onerous task. All it would require is openness and honesty. Is that too much to ask of those who hold the power? To whom are they answerable? The moderators are protected from public scrutiny and accountability, and thereby make of themselves a secret society. No one denies the publishers of public media the right and the duty to maintain standards, but in this case (as in the classic case of Halton Arp) it has nothing to do with science and everything to do with personalities, politics, and childish vendettas. They can hide behind the mask of anonymity and blatantly practice ideological censorship with impunity. Here is what Nobel Laureate Louis de Broglie had to say: 

“The history of science teaches that the greatest advances in the scientific domain have been achieved by bold thinkers who perceived new and fruitful approaches that others failed to notice.  If one had taken the ideas of these scientific geniuses who have been the promoters of modern science and submitted them to committees of specialists, there is no doubt that the latter would have viewed them as extravagant and would have discarded them for the very reason of their originality and profundity.  As a matter of fact, the battles waged, for example by Fresnel and by Pasteur suffice to prove that some of these pioneers ran into a lack of understanding from the side of eminent scholars which they had to fight with vigour before emerging as the winners.  More recently, in the domain of theoretical physics, of which I can speak with knowledge, the magnificent novel conceptions of Lorentz and Planck, and particularly Einstein also clashed with the incomprehension of eminent scientists.  The new ideas here triumphed; but, in proportion as the organization of research becomes more rigid, the danger increases that new and fruitful ideas will be unable to develop freely.

Let us state in a few words the conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing. While, by the very force of circumstances, research and teaching are weighted down by administrative structures and financial concerns and by the heavy armature of strict regulations and planning, it becomes more indispensable than ever to preserve the freedom of scientific research and the freedom of initiative for the original investigators, because these freedoms have always been and will always remain the most fertile sources for the grand progress of science.”
The following quotation is taken from the website www.archivefreedom.org, co-founded by another Nobel Laureate, Brian Josephson (himself blacklisted by arXiv):

“The electronic preprint archive (arXiv.org), founded in 1991 at Los Alamos National Laboratories and funded by the National Science Foundation, was formed as a way for scientists to rapidly disseminate new discoveries and theoretical developments to the worldwide scientific community.  Its original intent was to be an open forum for papers authored by credentialed physicists, i.e., those who consistently had papers approved for publication in peer refereed journals. Over time the criteria for approval of submitted papers to the archive became more complicated and restrictive.

“Presently hosted at Cornell University under the direction of physicist Paul Ginsparg, it blocks certain physicists from posting their papers to this archive.  The arXiv administrators maintain a list of physicists whom they have blacklisted or ostracized so that any paper those individuals attempt to submit is systematically rejected regardless of its scientific content.  Usually these blocked papers have already been accepted for publication in reputable peer refereed science journals or in other cases are undergoing review for journal publication which indicates that these papers are serious and well thought out. The list of suppressed scientists even includes Nobel Laureates!  One characteristic that these ostracized physicists share in common is that they have written or published papers in the past which propose new ideas that challenge traditional physics dogma.  In other cases their published works just happen to run counter to the particular theory preferences of the small political clique administering the archive.

“Our world is experiencing serious problems such as exponential population growth, environmental pollution, impending energy shortages, nuclear proliferation, and climatic change. We cannot afford to suppress the works of those seminal minds whose new ideas could revolutionize the way we interact with the world.  What if a paper described the discovery of a new source of energy that could help to alleviate the coming energy crisis?  Or, what if a paper brought to light a serious environmental hazard which, if unheeded, would result in a substantial loss of life.  And, what if arXiv.org moderators censored one such important paper because of a possible personal dislike of its author or because it conflicted with a theory they personally favoured?   Society cannot afford this kind of behaviour.  

“In today’s fast changing world it is not enough just to publish one’s ideas in scientific journals, a process that can drag on from months to years until approved for publication.  Rapid communication of all plausible new ideas to the academic community through an easily accessible internet archive is essential to the progress of science.

“The purpose of this site is to alert the public about the blocking activities being conducted by the Cornell sponsored arXiv.org administrators and to relate the case histories of those scientists who have been censored and/or blacklisted.  Archive Freedom advocates that this practice be immediately stopped and that all scientists be given open uncensored access to this archive to post their technical papers.  We respectfully urge the administrators at Cornell University, as guardian of the world’s knowledge of physics, to honour the contributions of all serious scientists.”

An alternative to arXiv has recently been launched by physicist Phil Gibbs: It is called viXra and can be found at www.vixra.org. I hope it will be well supported so that it can become a viable resource for science.

Over the years, I have enjoyed a cordial relationship with the Burbidges, and hasten to assure you that Geoff has never been unkind to me. We are, after all, on the same side (I think, I hope!). It’s just that he’s direct. Very direct. Dr Burbidge’s brand of civility is unadorned by frills or meaningless platitudes. If you’re a spade, he will certainly not call you a shovel. My point is this: Whether or not Geoffrey Burbidge’s social skills make you feel all warm and cuddly, you will ignore him at your peril. He is arguably the most accomplished theoretical astrophysicist alive today, and although I disagree with him on the fundamental issues of universal expansion and what energises the Sun, I use every opportunity that comes my way to learn from him. He is without doubt one of the giants of the modern era.

So it was that a significant paper by Geoff Burbidge came my way towards the end of last year. I had been corresponding with him about my presentation to the ASSA symposium, and he referred me to it. It’s called B²FH, the CMB, and Cosmology (arXiv:astro-ph/0806.1065). I’d like to share some of it with you today.

Let me first explain what B²FH means. It refers to a paper published in 1957 that would become a standard reference in cosmology and related fields. The decade of the 1950s was an era when there was still open debate about aspects of Big bang Theory. Just as well for the burgeoning Standard Model, because its architect, George Gamow, had given up trying to explain the origin of the elements. He simply could not get the theory to work, despite the plethora of adjustable parameters at his disposal. But help was at hand, ironically in the form of his arch-adversary, Sir Fred Hoyle. It was the scheme devised for a Steady State Universe model, first by Hoyle, and later perfected together with some of his close colleagues, that helped plug a few serious leaks in the good ship Big Bang. Gamow’s team adopted the nucleosynthesis model from Steady State, and the rest is history. The fact that it still doesn’t work—by a country mile!—in standard cosmology bothers very few people in the game, it seems.

The paper that defines stellar nucleosynthesis to this day, and came to represent an entire field of science, was published in 1957. It was called “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars ” and the authors were Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge, Willie Fowler, and Fred Hoyle—hence, B²FH. Although the first draft was compiled by the Burbidges, and was based upon the groundbreaking earlier published work of Hoyle, it was Fowler who was singled out from this team to receive the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics, in recognition of his contribution to the paper. We can only speculate why three authors overtly critical of Big Bang Theory were overlooked in favour of the one who kept his criticism private.

In 2007, a conference entitled “Nuclear Astrophysics 1957 – 2007” was held in Pasadena to mark the 50^th anniversary of B²FH, and Geoff was invited to contribute. That’s where B²FH, the CMB, and Cosmology came in. Here follow some selected quotes:

 “In the late 1940’s Gamow and other leading physicists tried to build the elements in an early big bang phase. Of course they all failed. But Gamow et al were fascinated by the idea of a beginning involving a hot fireball and predicted that it would continue to expand in a black body form. They believed in it. Thus the idea that the lightest isotopes were made in a big bang was accepted, and today is one of the pillars of the standard cosmology. What is not pointed out is that there is no basic theory behind it.   

“I gave a talk about this in Cambridge in the winter of 1953-54, and afterwards. Willy Fowler, who was a Fulbright professor there, came up to me and told me how interested he was although at that time he only worked on light elements! Thus I started to work in this field while I was also trying to understand radio sources, and also contend with Martin Ryle, (who could be very nice, but also extremely difficult). Willy Fowler re-introduced us to Fred Hoyle whom we had originally met in Paris in 1950. Willy of course knew Fred from his earlier visits to Caltech. We soon developed a pattern: Tea in the Cavendish, followed eventually by all of us often going over to Willy’s rented house where I first found out about martinis. Frequently, we went to dinner together. In the midst of all of this quite a lot of work got started. This led me to realize that stellar nucleosynthesis as pioneered by Fred had completely vanquished the earlier ideas of Gamow, Alpher, and Herman, except for the x-process.

“Who would publish it and where? I tried Chandra who was editor of The Astrophysical Journal at the time. He answered and asked questions like how much of it was original, and how much a review? He dithered though it was at least 95% original. Willy was impatient. He called up his friend, Ed Condon, who was editor of Reviews of Modern Physics, who simply accepted it and published it in the late summer of 1957. (If it were fifty years later, it would have been in the hands of referees for months, if not years!) As you know I believe that the refereeing system is completely broken.

“It is often claimed, that the abundances calculated originally by Gamow and his collaborators, and later by many others agree so well with the observed abundances, that this is proof that the big bang occurred. But this is simply not correct. The statement that the big bang theory explains the observed microwave background and also explains the light element abundances is to distort the meaning of words. Explanations in science are normally to be considered like theorems in mathematics, to flow deductively from axioms and not to be restatements of axioms themselves. Thus the radiation-dominated early universe is an axiom of big bang cosmology, and the supposed explanation of the CMB, and the light element abundances, is a restatement of that axiom.

“The largest amount of energy released in nuclear reactions in stars comes through the burning of hydrogen into helium. Thus it is natural to suppose that, since the steadiest and most visible energy sources in the universe appears to be stars, that they are ultimately the source of the largest of the diffuse energy fields. In 1926 Eddington made an estimate of the energy density of starlight and found (it) corresponded to a temperature of about 3ºK. The first measurement of the CMB was made in 1941 by McKellar. He showed that the rotational levels indicated that the temperature must lie in the range 1.8ºK < T < 3.4ºK. This fundamental result predates the Penzias and Wilson by 24 years. It is natural to suppose that the energy carried by the CMB is most likely to have been generated by hydrogen burning in stars, since this is the most effective process of conversion of mass to energy involving a set of nuclear reactions.

“To reiterate, the baryon density and temperature relation has to be fixed suitably in order to explain the light element abundances. Thus it must be remembered that the whole argument is based on the idea that helium was made by such a fireball, and much as most people want to believe it there is no independent evidence that this ever did take place. Most of the helium was made in a big bang, and the parameters required are those chosen in the conventional model. This is the most popular view but in its present form it requires that we choose an initial photon/baryon ratio, invoke a ‘magical’ inflation era, and assume the presence of a large amount of dark nonbaryonic matter, and dark energy (creation energy). These are four assumptions for which we have no basic theory, nor direct observational evidence. Just authoritarian belief.

“B²FH and Cameron in 1957 were able to explain how all of the isotopes in the periodic table with the exception of (four) could have been synthesized in stars. In the cyclic (quasi-steady state) cosmological model, the long time scale means that the other light isotopes, and particularly the high abundance of helium, could have been synthesized as a result of creation in the centres of active galaxies. Thus Oppenheimer’s cynical view of the steady state cosmology can be stood on its head. From our standpoint, the observational data, and in particular the energy which must been released in the burning of hydrogen to produce helium, suggests that it has given rise to the observed microwave background. This release has taken place over a long period, too long for a big bang universe. Thus the observational data favour a cyclic universe model.”

HEADLINE: AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT REINSTATES FUNDING FOR LHC.

 From: Stephen J Crothers, Associate Editor, Progress in Physics.

 Dear Concerned Scientists and Thinkers,

 The Austrian Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor), Werner Faymann, has reversed the decision of Austria’s Minister for Science, Johannes Hahn, and committed Austria to further funding of the LHC at CERN. Austria was threatened by CERN that if it withdrew funding it would have to pay 100 million Euros, allegedly because Austria signed a contract to fund for 54 years and so far has funded for 50 years; the said 100 million is a penalty charge. Thus, notwithstanding the demonstrable falsehood of the alleged ‘scientific’ objectives of the LHC, and based upon a set of claims that completely ignores all the facts that invalidate those claims, the ‘scientists’ at the LHC will continue to fleece the public purse to the tune of many more millions of Euros, lining their pockets with gold, producing nothing of scientific worth for the expense, plunging science ever deeper into the abyss of intellectual decrepitude in which in now languishes.

 In the overt list of recipients of this email, Prauss and Schott are LHC ‘scientists’ who have, amongst other fallacious claims, waxed lyrical about nonsensical black holes at the LHC; Schliesselberger a Salzburg newspaper reporter; R. Naeye the editor of Sky & Telescope; R. Highfield the editor of New Scientist.

 Stephen J. Crothers

Assoc. Editor Progress in Physics

 ===========================================================

 To: Stephen J. Crothers, Associate Editor, Progress in Physics.

 Dear Stephen,

 Congratulations on once again carrying the torch for sensible science. May I reproduce your letter in full in my monthly astrophysical column “Breaking News”?

 Kind regards, Hilton

 =========================================================

 Dear Hilton,

By all means, please feel free to use my letter to Minister Hahn as you see fit.

Kind regards, Steve.

=========================================================

To: Minister Johannes Hahn.

Dear Sir,

I have learnt that you have, on behalf of the Austrian Government, recently advised your counterparts in other countries participating in the funding of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, that Austria will spend no further money on the project. I wish to convey my wholehearted support for the Austrian decision. The LHC has been from its outset a vast and vulgar waste of public money.

The LHC scientists have, in my view, led astray politicians and the general public alike, by making demonstrably false claims for this project and deceiving all and sundry with beguiling appeals to the fantastic. Many LHC scientists have claimed, for instance, that they will create with their contraption, mini or micro black holes, and ‘recreate’ the initial conditions of their alleged Big Bang cosmology. These claims are unscientific and demonstrably false.

It is also claimed by the same scientists that they hope to find the Higgs boson. But it is well known to scientists that the previous particle collider at CERN far exceeded the theoretical energies at which the Higgs mechanism is supposed to manifest. As with black holes and big bangs, the search for the Higgs boson is a search for phantasmagoria. The only firm result that the LHC will produce is long-term employment by sinecure for its personnel, all at the expense of the public purse.

I have been informed that the Austrian LHC scientist, Dr. Felicitas Pauss, recently received an Austrian medal for scientific achievement. No doubt she will urge Austrian reconsideration of its decision to withdraw from further funding of the LHC. I have little doubt that such pleadings will be rather one-sided in that the scientific evidence that demonstrates the invalidity of the claims made for the LHC will not be presented, as usual. Indeed, I sent Dr. Pauss some time ago a copy of a paper I presented at a conference in Munich in March 2009, convened by the German Physical Society, wherein I demonstrated that black holes, big bangs and Einstein gravitational waves are all fallacious, being the products of erroneous mathematics and misapplication of physical principles. Dr. Pauss ignored this paper, despite invitation to comment.

Of course, these irrefutable facts are not welcomed by those who make their livings by searching for and theorising about such phantasms; and ignorance has evidently now become a useful scientific method. But the facts are what they are, despite all attempts to suppress them; and suppression is indeed routinely practiced in the circles of ’science’.

My Munich paper is attached for your information, although I understand that your office has previously acquired this paper from other sources. A variation of this paper I will personally present at a conference later this month at a university in the USA and at a conference later this year in Europe, following which I will give lectures, again by invitation, at a major European university. I have also received invitations to present related papers later this year in Kiev (Ukraine) and Calcutta (India) on these matters. It is noteworthy too that despite almost daily claims now for their discovery, the truth is that nobody has ever found a black hole, which astrophysical scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics recently admitted, as reported in my aforementioned paper. Einstein gravitational waves too have never been found.

The search for black holes, Einstein gravitational waves, and remnants of the alleged Big Bang, are all destined to detect nothing because they are all demonstrably false concepts. Contemporary physics has exceeded the bounds of stupidity itself, and it has done so with concomitant extravagant spending from the public purse. It is high time that this indecency be brought to an end. Austria’s decision to cease further funding of the LHC circus is most definitely the right one.

Yours faithfully, Stephen J. Crothers.

Associate Editor, Progress in Physics.

=========================================================

Dear Stephen,

You may bring this message to the attention of the Austrian ministers, if you wish. They have proceeded correctly and responsibly.

Best Regards, Marian Apostol

Professor of Theoretical Physics

Institute of Atomic Physics, Magurele-Bucharest

========================================================

To: Science Minister Johannes Hahn.

Dear Sir,

Appended below is an email from Professor Marian Apostol, in support of the Austrian decision, which he suggested I forward to you.

Yours faithfully, Stephen J. Crothers.

========================================================

Dear Sirs,

People at LHC declare that one of their biggest goals is the understanding of the quark-gluon plasma, which would reproduce the original Big Bang. They claim that this is a big issue, and have consumed a great deal of money in the past ten years for studying it. Of course, they have not solved the problem and are asking for more funding. Judging by the quality of the people around me who are participating in LHC I can say truthfully that LHC is a lie, as are many other big international “research” projects. Among others, the LHC is the originator of the GRID concept, another great roguery.

Such projects may be useful for developing technical skills or products, like electronics, engineering, materials, etc., of practical and social utility, for ensuring jobs, perhaps socially useful, but they should not do that in the name and disguise of scientific research. Genuine scientific research is thereby eliminated and destroyed by such practices.

I have presented my paper on the quark-gluon plasma at a public seminar on my campus here at Magurele-Bucharest. Though it attracted a lot of local interest, do you think that the “LHC experts” have shown the slightest sign of interest? Not in the least. They are not interested in science; they are interested in their own purse, to fill it from public money. This is indeed a shame!

Best regards, Marian Apostol

Professor of Theoretical Physics

=========================================================

Professor Apostol is indeed a distinguished scientist. He has published 25 science textbooks and over 300 papers, and received awards and medals from the four corners of the globe. His achievements are vast, simply too much to even summarise here. Visit his website http://www.theory.nipne.ro/ and see for yourself.

Stephen Crothers is an Australian mathematician who has provided proof, without rebuttal, that Black Holes are in both theory and practice impossible.