Circling the Square - an experiment

Last week the conference 'Circling the Square' took place at the University of Nottingham. I was one of the main organisers. The conference wanted to bring together speakers from the worlds of research, politics, the media, and civil society. Have a look at the list of speakers here (there is also a list of panels with abstracts, and the programme brochure can be seen here). The aim of the conference was twofold:

Another effort for bridging between camps: Climatedialogue

Marcel Severijnen aus den Niederlanden schreibt mir dies:

Der Vorgang mit Bengtsson bestätigt noch immer die Existenz einer breiten Spalte zwischen den beiden Seiten der Klimadebatte. Ein kleiner Funken Hoffnung zum Abdichten des Spalts ist die Wiederbelebung nach neun Monate Funkstille des Climate Dialogue.

Die neue aktuelle Debatte: Klimaempfindlichkeit mit Autoren wie James Annan, John Fasullo and Nic Lewis mit sehr unterschiedlichen Ansichten darüber, wie groß die Klimasensitivität ist, verspricht eine sehr interessante Diskussion zu werden. Climate Dialogue wird in Zusammenarbeit betreut von Bart Strengers, PBL-Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, und Marcel Crok, Wissenschaftsjournalist.

HvS Antworten auf den Vorgang "Bengtsson"

Axel Bojanowksi hat sich unter Klimaforschern umgetan, wie man dort den Vorgang "Bengtsson" sieht. Auch mich hat er gefragt - und von meinen Antworten einige Teile verwendet. Aber vielleicht ist meine vollständige Antwort interessant - ich veröffentliche sie hier, nicht weil ich meine, daß Bojanowksi mich unzulässig verkürzt hätte (Platz ist eine knappe Ressource), sondern weil eine ausführlichere Darstellung meine Position weniger anfällig für Mißverständnisse werden läßt.

Lennart Bengtsson leaves advisory board of GWPF

In an e-mail to GWPF, Lennart Bengtsson has declared his resignation of the advisory board of GWPF. His letter reads :

"I have  been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days  from all over the world that  has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore  than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life.  Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc.  I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy.  I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.

Under these situation I will be unable to contribute positively to the work of GWPF and consequently therefore I believe it is the best for me to reverse my decision to join  its Board at the earliest possible time."

I am reproducing this letter with permission of Lennart Bengtsson.

See also an earlier interview with, and an article by Lennart Bengtsson here on Klimazwiebel.

Interview with Lennart Bengtsson

Interview with Lennart Bengtsson
by Hans von Storch

On the occasion of the press release by GWPF: "Professor Lennart Bengtsson Joins GWPF Academic Advisory Council" I wanted to hear Lennart's own position on this mattter and prepared some question. Here are his answers:

Lennart Bengtsson in 2006