Bullying and harassment of older scientists
Erik Bye
November 12, 2025
This is an article that appeared in a Norwegian Newspaper (Morgenbladet) in 2013 and was updated in 2023.
At that time (2013), there was an intense debate between climate realists and IPCC believers. This article is a believer's opinion in this discussion. I translated the article.
The Senior Issue
There is a climate abyss hidden in Norwegian academia. It is the old against the young, climate skeptics against believers. One of the groups will collapse and disappear. We know which one, write Bjørn H. Samset and Henrik H. Svensen.
On June 6, NRK's (The Norwegian Broadcasting) discussion program The Debate addressed ongoing climate change. There were no climate scientists in the panel. An academic was nevertheless invited, former professor of chemistry Ole Henrik Ellestad. He has also been present in the two previous times The Debate has discussed climate change. Ellestad is one of Norway's most prominent "climate skeptics" and chairman of the board of Klimarealistene – "an organization for those of you who do not agree with the UN's climate panel", to quote from their website.
The term "climate skeptic" can be used for a person who is critical of what experts have established about how the climate system works. What makes an academic from another field, like Ellestad, set aside the conclusions of an entire field of research? Shouldn't a researcher know better?
My comments:
«At that time, it was surprising that the authors were so tuned in on the false narrative from IPCC. With all the Scandals that IPCC have gone through and obviously failed now, the text is even more a «person killer» for the authors.
Ellestad has a master’s degree in spectroscopy and is one of the people who know CO2 absorption in Norway. This fact is obviously forgotten by the authors. »
The three per cent "Skeptical seniors are very effective at souring emerging collaboration between younger researchers."
Interestingly, Ellestad is not alone.
Asmall proportion, around three per cent, of scientists who write academic papers on climate change are skeptical of the “climate consensus.” The overwhelming majority, however, believe that society’s emissions of greenhouse gases are causing climate change. The study, led by John Cook and published in Environmental Research Letters in May, examined academic papers published between 1991 and 2011. The number of papers annually that did not acknowledge anthropogenic climate change remained stable throughout the period.
There is clearly a steadfast group of academics who are not convinced. Who are these academic skeptics? What is the rationale for their choice of side in one of the most important debates of our time?And how should we – politicians, the media, and private individuals – relate to knowledgeable people who speak in the opposite direction of the consensus?
Our perspective
We who write this essay work in fields that each contribute in our own way to climate research – geology and physics. One of us is currently a full-time climate scientist. We have spent a lot of time studying the climate issue and have gradually concluded that we agree with the 97 per cent.
My comments:
«Here, the authors are totally wrong and have lost the failure of the Cook paper. He manipulated the data, so he ended up with 97% consensus, instead of only 0.3%, which supported IPCC and that CO2 caused global warming. Here, the authors clearly verify that they are novices in statistics! Those two are not alone; more or
less, the whole world of IPCC-believers caused this failure. They were all manipulated by Cook, and this is one of the most serious and most fraudulent attempts of fraud in the climate narrative. This must be totally embarrassing for the authors to realise now.»
In the process of taking a well-founded climate stance, we have met and discussed with colleagues from many fields within the natural sciences. Surprisingly often, we encounter climate skepticism from people we generally have great respect for. The Climate Realists state on their website that “many of our members have great academic weight and we have several with professorial titles in chemistry, physical geography, geology, marine biology, oceanography and astrophysics.” We can confirm this from our own networks and experiences.
However, some groups are over-represented among the academic skeptics. The vast majority are men, and they are ageing – often retirees at one of our universities. Why are this group in particular climate skeptics today? We think we have an idea of the answer.
My comments:
«To my big surprise, the authors are suddenly experts in personality and the effect of ageing on scientific performance. This is just nonsense from a geologist and a physicist. »
What exactly is climate research?
Climate research is about understanding how the atmosphere, oceans, the Sun, clouds, wind, humidity, and a wide range of other factors, together determine the weather conditions at the Earth’s surface. How hot is it, how much rain does it get, and how do these factors vary throughout a typical year? If the average temperature or rainfall is different from one twenty-year period to another, we say that the climate has changed. The conditions for agriculture, animal husbandry, the location of settlements, access to fresh water, and so on, have then changed, which may require us to make major or minor changes in society.
To research something so complex, it is not enough to have input from just one discipline. Climate science itself is a combination of physics, geology, chemistry, biology, metrology, statistics and mathematics. The study of climate change also needs input from social sciences, history, economics and anthropology, to name a few. Only then can one assess how much a change in the climate will mean to us.
Climate research is highly interdisciplinary. Historian Spencer Weart refers to it as the first real interdisciplinary success story. Human influence on the climate would have completely escaped our spotlight if researchers with completely different backgrounds had not dared to come together and expand their individual horizons.
Academic skeptics tend to belong to one of the fields that are involved in laying the foundation for climate knowledge. They understand parts of the matter very well and see the limitations of that part of our knowledge.At the same time, they have rarely invested the considerable amount of work required to also understand the input from all the other disciplines. Today, "climate research" is a separate field, precisely because becoming familiar with all the relevant material requires a dedicated research career.
My comments:
«Again, the authors act as psychologists and believe they can know and understand to what extent the skeptics have studied this complex matter. To study the climate, you must combine physics, chemistry, meteorology, oceanography, geology, astrophysics, glaciology and hydrology. This indicates the need for cooperation, which is identical for the skeptics as well as for the believers. The authors overestimate their capacity entirely. »
Anew paradigm shift
Many of the climate skeptic academics were educated at a time when everyone knew that the Earth's climate was beyond the sphere of human influence. The basic attitude was that the climate was self-regulating. Beyond the 1970s and 1980s, this changed, and both attitudes and research results pointed to a clear anthropogenic
influence on climate. It is difficult to imagine a more fundamental realization than this. The air is invisible to the naked eye, but measurements have shown that humans have changed its composition – and thus the Earth's surface temperature via the greenhouse effect.
If we go back a couple of generations, academia went through an equally fundamental change in its view of the Earth's geological development. From the mid-1960s, over the course of a decade, several hundred years of speculation about the Earth's development were swept aside. New observations and data from the seabed showed that the Earth's surface consists of moving plates that move horizontally. This could explain why the Earth looks the way it does, with oceans and mountain ranges, earthquakes and volcanoes.
The historian of science Thomas Kuhn used this new realization as an example to illustrate how an established culture of knowledge, a paradigm, is replaced by a new and incompatible one. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, first published in 1962, he described paradigm shifts as dramatic upheavals, as revolutions. The scientists who were believers in the old paradigm did not become part of the new scientific community either. They did their thing on the periphery, met at small conferences, and published outside the regular journals. No one was interested in what they had to say anymore.Attempts to exchange opinions always turned into trench warfare.
The last champions of the alternative to plate tectonics are now retired.And here we come back to the ageing academic climate skeptics. Considering the history of science, the generation gap, and incompatible theories, are we now witnessing a new paradigm shift? We think so. In fact, we think the shift will soon be complete.
The typical academic skeptic
Most Norwegian skeptical academics today are ageing experts in a related field. They have knowledge and background, but perhaps lack the energy and openness needed to accept a conclusion with as many consequences as climate change has after all. This picture is, of course, not adequate for everyone, but for a good portion of those we have met and discussed with.
My comments:
«Again, the authors act as experts on human work and brain capacity. They are questioning the energy and openness of the sceptics, far beyond their educational properties. They would have earned a lot by staying with the geology and physics. »
Today, skepticism is also an underground phenomenon. Ten or twenty years ago, it was widespread that experts did not believe much in "this climate stuff". Climate skepticism was more reserved. Nowadays, after the topic has become both inflammatory and part of the public discourse, academics are typically a little more careful about what they say and to whom. Nevertheless, Scientists we know as very capable and nuanced, even world leaders in their fields, surprisingly often expose a fundamental climate skepticism when the opportunity arises. The skeptic often appears in informal situations, and after drinking alcohol.Abeer or two lowers inhibitions, and at the same time awakens the need to discuss. Parties with colleagues from other research fields rarely go without at least one existential climate discussion.
However, the image of many closet skeptics does not fit well with the study we mentioned at the beginning, which claims that only three per cent of academics today are outspoken climate skeptics. The difference lies in what one puts into one's own skepticism, and what one does with it.
Scientists are trained to be skeptical of absolutely everything they have not experienced and established themselves. The claim of man-made climate change shakes a paradigm, and it is then the job and nature of scientists to question it. The climate issue is in a special position here precisely because it is so interdisciplinary. There are then many more questions to ask, many more ways in which knowledge can be viewed, and many more sources of doubt.
Academic skepticism may be rooted in the fact that some scientists do not yet feel scientifically convinced. Then they have probably not bothered to find answers to all their immediate objections. Nevertheless, this type of skepticism is both natural and desirable. Criticism from knowledgeable people forces a field to constantly check its arguments and factual basis. So far, climate research has, in our opinion, answered all serious objections. That is why we agree with the 97 per cent in the Cook study.
However, some researchers have an idea or a conviction that the observed changes are due to something else than human influence and seek to justify this academically. They work actively to promote their view in the media – and in some cases in academic journals. Here we find the three per cent mentioned in the Cook study. These are often the ones that are visible in the public discourse on climate change. The skeptical geographer Professor of physical geography at the University of Oslo, Ole Humlum, is one of the climate skeptics who also publishes academic articles on climate. He seems convinced that natural changes drive the climate, rather than our emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Together with two other researchers, he published an article in a major academic journal in 2011 in which they claim that periodic changes in the influence of the moon and sun on the Earth coincide with historical and current climate changes.
As academics, we applaud this form of skepticism. Humlum and his colleagues present an alternative view and document it according to the rules of the field. The ideas they present are initially seductive because they absolve us of responsibility for the warming of the Earth.
Before we buy the arguments, however, we must display the same skepticism that Humlum and his colleagues have towards the field. Researchers have scrutinized their arguments, and several have shown that they do not measure up. One of the objections is that statistics are used incorrectly. Humlum's work will not find many supporters outside of skeptics. Humlum disputes the counterarguments, and the debates are currently heated.
Skeptical heroes
While the debate about Humlum's article continues, and the counterarguments believe they have crushed his alternative arguments, this is what is happening: Among skeptics with less academic weight, both in and outside academia, Humlum is quickly becoming a hero. His arguments are spread uncritically and are used and recycled in climate discussions far beyond professional circles. People
who do not have their own arguments, but only a fundamental desire that climate change should not be a real problem, get two things in their lap. They are targeted against researchers who follow the "climate consensus", and they are given a guiding star.Arebel who has dared to speak out against the majority.
Humlum is not alone. Nobel Prize winner in physics, Ivar Giæver, is another of the rebels. He has repeatedly stated publicly that he does not believe in man-made climate change, often because “measuring the Earth’s temperature is not possible.” The fact that we are not trying to measure “the Earth’s temperature,” only its gradual change, that the method has been documented in hundreds of articles, and that even hardened skeptics accept that part of the discussion, has proven difficult to explain to him.
Giæver has a highly respected academic history, but his knowledge of the interdisciplinary field of climate change is outdated. Nevertheless, he is often given speaking time, largely because of the Nobel Prize he received in 1973. Norwegian skeptics constantly use him as a witness to the truth. How can we, young climate scientists, argue against a genuine Nobel Prize winner?
Such witnesses to the truth represent the real problem with academic skeptics. While their skepticism may be natural and healthy in each case, they lend an artificial legitimacy if one fails to respond to their objections.
Trench warfare and school orientations
Ole Henrik Ellestad's presence in the Debate triggered an avalanche of comments on social media. On Twitter, demands were made for NRK to explain itself. On the Debate's Facebook page, the editorial staff responded that "we chose, however, to include one scientist who claims that climate change is not man-made. This is because one in five Norwegians actually supports this view." Pål Prestrud at CICERO commented on NRK's choice of Ellestad: "Is it a coincidence that NRK has let this material scientist speak three times in a row without any climate scientists present to object?" Ellestad hit back at Prestrud in an article in Aftenposten (a Norwegian Newspaper) on June 22, where he wrote that "my communication is firmly rooted in the international school of thought on natural
variations (also in theArctic). Prestrud's agenda is to prevent informative communication."
Paradoxically, Ellestad put his finger on the core of the problem, what he calls “the international school of thought on natural variations”. The skeptics are not part of the established academic community that constitutes climate research today, but place all emphasis on the fact that fluctuations in the climate are natural. The weight of the climate science, on the other hand, looks at the interaction between man-made and natural variations, and finds that the former has completely dominated over the past fifty years. This difference in principle currently makes a real debate and exchange of ideas between climate scientists and skeptics impossible. Neither party wants to give an inch. No one wants to switch sides or accept the arguments of the other party. The trench warfare has been going on for years, also between Ellestad and Prestrud, just as it did between other scientists when plate tectonics was established as a model for the Earth’s geological development.
When the discussion has become so entrenched, it may be appropriate to remind them that the climate issue is not a political debate. It is an attempt to understand nature and to predict what will happen if we do not make changes in emissions and society. If we do nothing, nature itself will declare a winner of the debate, and that in the not-too-distant future. Differences in scientific culture between the two sides in a years-long war of words must not be allowed to obscure this fact.
Are the skeptics causing problems?
Are skeptical academics at Norwegian universities and college campuses a problem? Both yes and no. In the first place, they constitute a natural, even desirable, reaction to a field that makes extraordinary and consequential claims. If the field fails to respond to the objections, then we have a problem.As of today, however, we can answer most of them, but some of the questions raised are also of such a nature that they are difficult to give precise answers to. The core question “how hot will it get” is of the latter type, since it requires us to both know how sensitive the Earth is to all conceivable emissions and to guess correctly how much we will emit in the years to come.
It becomes problematic, however, when dismissive, rather than curious, skepticism from seniors permeates precisely the adjacent disciplines that are supposed to exercise such control. Young researchers quickly pick up on the attitudes of their seniors. This leads to promising and potentially climate-interested research talents looking for other paths for challenges, or carrying their skepticism forward without having understood the basics.At times, it also means that the interdisciplinary climate field, which is dependent upon collaboration with other Norwegian institutions to succeed with applications for EU funds, loses potentially strong and constructive collaboration partners. Skeptical seniors are very effective at sourcing emerging collaboration between younger researchers.
Academic skeptics can also become a social problem. This happens when they are allowed to use their academic weight and authority to make counterarguments that the field itself is not allowed to answer. We have discussed with students who have encountered one-sided, climate-skeptical teaching programs in chemistry and geology at the University of Oslo. The climate realists, in the form of academics Jan Erik Solheim, Kjell Stordahl, and the already mentioned Humlum and Ellestad, use their scientific weight to gain entry for propaganda-laden pamphlets sent to all Norwegian high schools. It is good that Ellestad has appeared in the Debate on several occasions. However, we have a problem with the fact that he and others continue to accept to present unchallenged. They know full well that they represent a minority.All of this is happening in Norway today, and skews both teaching and public debate.
Afinal challenge is that skeptics, both academics and others, often bring politics into the discussion. There is no doubt that the climate issue has political consequences, but they do not lie in the fundamental understanding of what is happening, which is what the skeptics primarily attack. Ellestad is again a good example. In 2009, he wrote a long article in Samtiden (ANorwegian journal in Social society) in which he accuses the IPCC, the UN climate panel, of being politically driven both in its composition and working methods and in its conclusions. These are serious accusations that should not be dismissed as propaganda. In the wake of “Climategate” in 2009, where emails between climate scientists were stolen and made public, several international investigations and evaluations were conducted of climate research in general and of the roles of the
IPCC and other bodies. The conclusion was, to use a term from police reports: Nothing to report.
Climate scientists are human and can be rude to each other, like everyone else, and the IPCC model can definitely be improved, but they cannot be accused of cheating, dishonesty or political games. However, scientists who use their scientific weight to fuel such doubts represent one of the greatest challenges to conducting an objective climate debate.Accusations of cheating and politicization are a derailing technique of the rule.
Changes from the inside
Skeptical academics can be found in Norway in most fields bordering on climate science.As we have pointed out, these constitute an understandable counterreaction and have a useful control function. Interestingly, we can now trace another emerging counter-reaction. Many are tired of their subjects being associated with climate skeptics and a doomed paradigm. One example is the geosciences, where climate skepticism is widespread. In the online magazine geoforskning.no, where Humlum has ongoing debates with climate scientists, such frustration was aired earlier this year. GeologistsAstri Kvassnes andArvid Nøttvedt spoke out:
"It is important that geologists in Norway follow and use their knowledge in a holistic perspective. That we reject theory and warnings about human climate impact, without having familiarized ourselves with a minimum of supporting evidence and documentation, is at best ignorant, and at worst unaccountable. It legitimizes views from lobby groups that have completely different interests than scientific ones.”
It is not known whether academic skeptics in Norway are politically motivated. Most are probably honest champions of the scientific culture in which they were raised. But anyone who reads Norwegian newspapers can see that lobbyists with climate skeptic undertones also exist here, in politics and where research is to be translated into action.Academic skeptics are useful tools for those who want to
sow doubt. The doubt then spreads throughout the population.And if there is first a doubt about how we affect the climate, the road to political solutions is infinitely longer. It is time for the skeptics to think about what game they have become a part of, and what still motivates their inveterate trench warfare. The world needs action, and it may soon be too late to jump off the declining paradigm. Henrik H. Svensen is a senior researcher at the Center for Earth Evolution and Dynamics at the University of Oslo. Bjørn H. Samset is a senior researcher at Cicero.
My comments:
«Repeatedly in this article, the authors are questioning whether the skeptics have a political agenda. Such a hypothetical assumption will not become truer or probable by repetition. The authors are not even able to reflect: Can we be wrong? Instead, they reside steadily in the fraudulent atmosphere, by their Conclusion: The world needs action, and it may soon be too late to jump off the declining paradigm.
They believe in the UN, the IPCC, the hockey-stick of Michael Mann, the fraud around the work of Cook et al., the theory of the falsified Arrhenius, that the climate can be modelled, that the CO2 hypothesis has scientific documentation, that the Climate measures (e.g. 2 degrees) have scientific documentation and last but not least, that the climate models are fraud-free. The last point here is related to the work of Roy Clark: «The Nobel Fraud. »
The last documentation of fraud, i.e. «The Nobel Fraud», is a recent disclosure (2024) and could not be included at the time this Essay was written. But the authors have revised the text in 2023. Now, they could revise again and include the work of Clark. But, in this way, they continue the tradition of IPCC: do not bother with reading skeptical science reports. »