Share this...



It appears the tactics of Stefan Rahmstorf are truly beginning to catch up with him. What goes around, comes around.H/t: Lubos Motl

Der Spiegel today has a story on IPCC bigwig and ultra-alarmist Stefan Rahmstorf, who is also a lead scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and elite member of the Hockey Team. For those of you who may not recall, Rahmstorf is the outlier oceanographer that projects a sea level rise of about 1.4 meters, even when the rest the world, including real observations, all point to something that is about 1/7 of that.

It’s a bit late at night here and so the main points only. Der Spiegel starts:

Renown climate scientist and German government advisor Stefan Rahmstorf was found guilty of a blog attack against a journalist. According to the opinion of a state court, he made untruthful assertions. Also the ‘Frankfurter Rundschau’ has come under fire.”

A State Court says he’s guilty of making untruthful assertions. Interpret that how you wish. The Frankfurter Rundschau is a sort of daily that former East German comrades lean towards. On the Rahmstorf ruling by the court, we reported about it here.

To make a long story short, journalist Irene Meichsner wrote a critical report about the IPCC, which appeared in the Frankfurter Rundschau daily, to which Rahmstorf reacted quite nastily. He asserted at his blog that the journalist had been dishonest, sloppy, had never read the IPCC report, and that she even lifted text from another source (Richard North and Jonathan Leake). For a journalist, such accusations are of course career threatening and thus deadly serious.

Meichsner didn’t stand for it, took the case to court, and won.

The Original text of the Court Judgement is here.

That should have been the end of it but, according to Der Spiegel, the PIK (Rahmstorf ‘s employer) has gotten into the fray. The PIK you’ll recall is run by German masterplanner Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, who chairs the WBGU and directly advises Chancellor Angela Merkel. If you ever wondered where Merkel comes up with all these brilliant climate policy ideas, e.g. like the 2°C warming limit, then look no further.

Der Spiegel tried to contact Rahmstorf directly for comment on the Cologne State Court ruling, but received only a statement from the PIK which attempted to play down the incident. The statement was also posted at the PIK site. According to Der Spiegel the statement claimed:

‘Mistakes can happen.’ This involves ‘interpretation questions’ and ‘misunderstandings’.”

and that:

“The PIK asks his colleagues to understand that it is the duty of a scientist “to inform the public about errors”.

Der Spiegel, citing the Cologne Court Ruling”, calls the PIK published statement:

An amazing interpretation”.

The State Court ruling against Rahmstorf is a cease and desist order that requires Rahmstorf to refrain from making the false assertions about the journalist. Yet at the PIK website the statement (on behalf of Rahmstorf?) again was clearly implying there had been “errors” in Meichsner’s report when in fact there weren’t. Talk about defying a court order! According to Der Spiegel, the PIK has since revised the text at its site. Obviously it’s not the journalist Meichsner that’s sloppy and loose with the facts. The Court was very clear on that.

Der Spiegel reminds readers that this is not the first time that Rahmstorf has maliciously taken on people who do not share his opinion and speak out.

Time and again he has not only gone after journalists, but also after scientists who have openly expressed views that Rahmstorf didn’t like.”

Der Spiegel cites the Franfurter Rundschau daily as an example, who according to Der Spiegel:”played an unusual part in the affair. The editors at FR distanced themselves from Meichsers critical piece two months after they had published it” after Rahmstorf had intervened and then published a full two-page story on how “the IPCC had been the target of an awkward campaign.” In plain English, the FR went down on its knees before a group of elite scientists.

That is disturbing. Der Spiegel was unable to obtain any comment from the FR.

Hans von Storch of the Helmholtz Center in Geesthacht Germany was also once a target of Rahmstorf. According to Der Spiegel, today he keeps a copy of the original State Court Ruling up at his private website.

At his blog Rahmstorf in the meantime gripes that “in the classical media you no longer have any control over the end product.”

The ice under Rahmstorf feet is getting awfully thin, and it’s not because of global warming.