Dutch MP René Leegte’s ignorance-based attack on science

René Leegte

Today the Dutch Member of Parliament for the VVD René Leegte expressed his opinion that the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute should completely loose all of it’s government funding. (sources: one, two – both in Dutch)
His arguments are –ehm- not necessarily as sign of any factual knowledge of climate science :

*20% of KNMI-scientists aren’t independent

Of course this rises a couple of questions : how does Leegte come to the number of 20 % ? Does he have records of all KNMI-employees cataloguing them into ‘independent’ and ‘non-independent’ ? And how come the other 80 % are getting bullied by that 20 % minority ? Are real scientists sissies ? But seriously. If Leegte thinks he has enough evidence to make such an attack, he should be able to support it by proof. Otherwise he should offer his apologies. If not, he should resign. As simple as that.

Some snippets from the articles :

*The KNMI is too closely focusing on the research of the “climate-alarmist” IPCC
*(non-IPCC) research shows temperatures aren’t increasing all that much any more (wrong)
*The atmosphere is too complex to attribute climate change are reduced to one component (CO2). Temperatures do fluctuate and it’n not clear what the role of CO2 is. (source)

Of course climate scientists have never ever reduced the climate change problem to one single component: there’s aerosols, volcanic activity, the sun, etc. As Leegte could’ve known if he would only have made to effort to … actually read the IPCC report.
René Leegte doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Which is good enough to be … the VVD-MP specialised in environmental & energy related issues… O dear…

In the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad Leegte 'explains' the KNMI is “biased, because it states man-made CO2 contributes to climate change, thereby influencing the scientific and political process” He adds the legendary words : “KNMI sharing data with IPCC, raises the impression of of partiality, p.ex. in the minds of the PVV or climate skeptics”.

What a twisted logic. As Paul Luttikhuis remarks : if a scientists' conclusion after researching the issue, is that CO2 causes global warming, according to René Leegte that means that scientist is biased and his integrity is gone !

Of course it’s unacceptable politicians try to block scientific research just because they don’t like the outcome. Expecially when they don’t have a clue what they’re actually saying.

More on this sad story (in Dutch) by Bart Verheggen, Paul Luttikhuis and Sargasso