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Pssst. Academic...

naptimewriting — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:09:34 +0000

You know it’s a bad sign when I take the time to print and annotate your journal article, covering it with “NO!” and “critical thinking?” and “WRONG” all over the margins; and then when a page falls out of the stack and I’m looking for scrap paper, that I’m willing to make a grocery list on the back of your alleged scholarship.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 20

sophiaalbertina — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:07:02 +0000

Climate gate: A Who’s Who

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om <a href=”http://bloggar.se/om/milj%F6” rel=”tag”>miljö</a>, <a href=”http://bloggar.se/om/yttrandefrihet” rel=”tag”>yttrandefrihet</a>, <a href=”http://bloggar.se/om/fri-+och+r%E4ttigheter” rel=”tag”>fri- och rättigheter</a>, Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om <a href=”http://bloggar.se/om/USA” rel=”tag”>USA</a>

Temptation to Betray the Scientific Process

fmonaldo — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:03:19 +0000

Any properly trained scientist is uncomfortably embarrassed with the assertion that the science is in on global climate change. Science is inherently provisional, open to new ideas and new data. Scientific revolutions have been the consequence of new data that needed to be explained. Sometimes these new interpretations undermine established theory. A Newtonian approach to understanding the universe was largely consistent with observed data, particularly, for example, the motion of the planets. In the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries, the photo-electric effect, X-rays and other radiation, and spectral lines emitted from heated materials, all created observations that could not be explained with conventional physics. Out of these measurements and new interpretations grew the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

The science underpinning global climate change is no different. In the 1970’s, scientists were concerned about global cooling. Additional measurements and careful theoretical modeling form a solid basis for concluding now that the Earth is warming in some important measure due to human introduction of additional green house gases into the atmosphere. Nonetheless, there are important questions to be addressed. In the last 10 years there has been a mild global cooling that is difficult to model. Additional work is necessary to understand potential feedback mechanisms that could either accelerate or modulate global warming. Long-term temperature measurements are constructed from proxies, such as tree ring diameters. Honest efforts at these reconstructions can either produce the famous “hockey stick” graph showing an unprecedentedly high global temperatures or roughly analogous temperatures in the Medieval Warm period. The latter graph might suggest a larger role for natural variability in the current period of temperatures.

If man is responsible for climate changes with negative consequences like sea level rise, it is incumbent on humans to address the problem. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions will increase the cost of energy and very likely reduce economic growth, increase unemployment, and reduce living standards. It is, therefore, rational to balance these consequences against the consequences and possible uncertainty in global climate change. It is in taking positions with regard to this tradeoff that can tempt scientists to circumvent the the scientific process.

Recently, the e-mail server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, a scientific institution at the forefront of climate research, was hacked. Some the correspondence was made available on line. Some of the e-mails are incriminating, writing of “tricks” to hide the recent decline in temperature. Perhaps most damning are discussions about pressuring journals in the peer review process, keeping articles from consideration by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and refusing to make data available to skeptics of global warming. Although is hard to conceive of contexts that would make these e-mails less damning, we need to acknowledge that this possibility still exists. We shall see what time reveals.

The revealed e-mails suggest less that a climate warming hoax is being perpetrated, and more that the correspondents wanted to make sure that modest scientific disputes are not used to undermine in the public mind a general consensus about global warming. Since climate analysis and modeling is a new science, there will be anomalies and discrepancies that are difficult to explain with theory. The fear among some is that this natural scientific uncertainty and debate will hide an overall generally-accepted conclusion that the Earth is warming.

It is the appropriate scientific (rather than political) disposition that the aggressive and even combative review of data and analysis, especially by skeptics, enhances rather than subverts scientific inquiry. We can be most sure of results if they have passed through such gauntlets. By appearing to eschew to the ethos of open inquiry, these analysts have undermined rather than enhanced the ability to persuade policy makers of the importance of global warming. Worst, they have made publicly suspect people involved in climate research with results similar to theirs.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 19

sophiaalbertina — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:39:54 +0000

The greatest scientific and political scandal in modern times continues to unravel. And media is starting to cover it more and more as the consequences is starting to sink in. It’s about time.

“Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “

“..is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.

They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.“

“The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to “adjust” recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming.”

“The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics’ work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.”

“Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age.”

Article here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker

By Christopher Booker

Published: 6:10PM GMT 28 Nov 2009

A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraph blog, coined the term “Climategate” to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

The reason why even the Guardian’s George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Professor Philip Jones, the CRU’s director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC’s key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.

Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.

Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.

Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the “hockey stick” were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann’s supporters, calling themselves “the Hockey Team”, and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.

The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC’s scientific elite, including not just the “Hockey Team”, such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC’s 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore’s ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.

There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre’s blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt’s blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.

They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.

This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones’s refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got “lost”. Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to “adjust” recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.

What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.

The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics’ work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.

Back in 2006, when the eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre’s demolition of the “hockey stick”, he excoriated the way in which this same “tightly knit group” of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to “peer review” each other’s papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang. In light of the latest revelations, it now seems even more evident that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific enquiry and debate. Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even our own George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.

The former Chancellor Lord (Nigel) Lawson, last week launching his new think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, rightly called for a proper independent inquiry into the maze of skulduggery revealed by the CRU leaks. But the inquiry mooted on Friday, possibly to be chaired by Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society – itself long a shameless propagandist for the warmist cause – is far from being what Lord Lawson had in mind. Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age.

Peerage

Aristotle The Geek — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:59:01 +0000

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful-

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” wondered Juvenal: Who watches the watchmen? But the beauty of the climate-change tree-ring circus is that you never need to ask “Who peer-reviews the peer-reviewers?” Mann peer-reviewed Jones, and Jones peer-reviewed Mann, and anyone who questioned their theories got exiled to the unwarmed wastes of Siberia. The “consensus” warm-mongers could have declared it only counts as “peer-reviewed” if it’s published in Peer-Reviewed Studies published by Mann & Jones Publishing Inc. (Peermate of the Month: Al Gore, reclining naked, draped in dead polar bear fur, on a melting ice floe), and Ed Begley Jr. and “Andy” Revkin would still have wandered out, glassy-eyed, into the streets droning “Peer-reviewed studies. Cannot question. Peer-reviewed studies. The science is settled … .”

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 18

sophiaalbertina — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:50:57 +0000

The greatest scientific and political scandal in modern times continues to unravel. And media is starting to cover it more and more as the consequences is starting to sink in. It’s about time.

“The climate-gate revelations have exposed an unprecedented coordinated attempt by academics to distort research for political ends. Anyone interested in accurate science should be appalled at the manipulation of data “to hide the decline [in temperature]” and deletion of e-mail exchanges and data so as not to reveal information that would support global-warming skeptics. These hacks are not just guilty of bad science. In the United Kingdom, deleting e-mail messages to prevent their disclosure from a Freedom of Information Act request is a crime.”

“We read and reread these CRU documents in stunned amazement. But rather than investigating all the evidence of so much academic fraud and intellectual wrongdoing, the University of East Anglia is denying there is a problem.”

“Unlike these global-warming propagandists, we expect research to be done in the open. Scientists who refuse to share their data, who plot to destroy information and fail to tell other scientists how their results were calculated should be severely punished. “

Exactly so!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/27/the-global-cooling-cover-up/

Friday, November 27, 2009

EDITORIAL: The global-cooling cover-up

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The climate-gate revelations have exposed an unprecedented coordinated attempt by academics to distort research for political ends. Anyone interested in accurate science should be appalled at the manipulation of data “to hide the decline [in temperature]” and deletion of e-mail exchanges and data so as not to reveal information that would support global-warming skeptics. These hacks are not just guilty of bad science. In the United Kingdom, deleting e-mail messages to prevent their disclosure from a Freedom of Information Act request is a crime.

The story has gotten worse since the global-cooling cover-up was exposed through a treasure trove of leaked e-mails a week ago. The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia has been incredibly influential in the global-warming debate. The CRU claims the world’s largest temperature data set, and its research and mathematical models form the basis of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 report.

Professor Phil Jones, head of the CRU and contributing author to the United Nation’s IPCC report chapter titled “Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes,” says he “accidentally” deleted some raw temperature data used to construct the aggregate temperature data CRU distributed. If you believe that, you’re probably watching too many Al Gore videos.

Mr. Jones is the same professor who warned that global-warming skeptics “have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”

Other revelations hit at the very core of the global-warming debate. The leaked e-mails indicate that the people at the CRU can’t even figure out how their aggregate data was put together. CRU activists claimed that they took individual temperature readings at individual stations and averaged the information out to produce temperature readings over larger areas. One of the leaked documents states that their aggregation procedure “renders the station counts totally meaningless.” The benefit: “So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!”

Academics around the world who have spent years working on papers using this data must be in full panic mode. By the admission of the global-warming theocracy’s own self-appointed experts, the data they have been using is simply “garbage.”

For global-warming advocates, there is an additional problem: The aggregated data appear to have been constructed to show an increase in temperatures. CBS’ Declan McCullagh finds that the computer code contains programmer-written notes addressed to themselves or future people who will be working with the program. The notes include these revealing instructions: “Apply a VERY ARTIFICIAL correction for decline!!” and “Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend – so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!”

The programmers apparently had to try at least a couple of adjustments before they could get their aggregated data to show an increase in temperatures.

Other global-warming advocates privately acknowledge what they won’t concede publicly, that temperature changes haven’t been consistent with their models. Kevin E. Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a prominent man-made-global-warming advocate, wrote in one of the discovered e-mails: “The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

Still other e-mails document how global-warming advocates tried to silence academic journals and professors who questioned whether there is significant man-made global warming.

We read and reread these CRU documents in stunned amazement. But rather than investigating all the evidence of so much academic fraud and intellectual wrongdoing, the University of East Anglia is denying there is a problem. Professor Trevor Davies, the school’s pro vice chancellor for research, issued a defensive statement on Tuesday claiming: “The publication of a selection of the emails and data stolen from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has led to some questioning of the climate science research published by CRU and others. There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.”

Unlike these global-warming propagandists, we expect research to be done in the open. Scientists who refuse to share their data, who plot to destroy information and fail to tell other scientists how their results were calculated should be severely punished.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 17

sophiaalbertina — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:14:10 +0000

The greatest scientific and political scandal in modern times continues to unravel and starting to have political consequences. It’s about time.

http://online.wsj.com/article/

SB20001424052748703499404574558070997168360.html

‘Cap and Trade Is Dead’

NOVEMBER 26, 2009, 11:41 P.M. ET.

The recently disclosed emails and documents from University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit compromise the integrity of the United Nations’ global warming reports.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL..

So declares Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, taking a few minutes away from a Thanksgiving retreat with his family. “Ninety-five percent of the nails were in the coffin prior to this week. Now they are all in.”

If any politician might be qualified to offer last rites, it would be Mr. Inhofe. The top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee has spent the past decade in the thick of Washington’s climate fight. He’s seen the back of three cap-and-trade bills, rode herd on an overweening Environmental Protection Agency, and steadfastly insisted that global researchers were “cooking” the science behind man-made global warming.

This week he’s looking prescient. The more than 3,000 emails and documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have found their way to the Internet have blown the lid off the “science” of manmade global warming. CRU is a nerve center for many of those researchers who have authored the United Nations’ global warming reports and fueled the political movement to regulate carbon.

Their correspondence show a claque of scientists massaging data to make it fit their theories, squelching scientists who disagreed, punishing academic journals that didn’t toe the apocalyptic line, and hiding their work from public view. “It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow,” glumly wrote George Monbiot, a U.K. writer who has been among the fiercest warming alarmists. The documents “could scarcely be more damaging.” And that’s from a believer.

This scandal has real implications. Mr. Inhofe notes that international and U.S. efforts to regulate carbon were already on the ropes. The growing fear of Democrats and environmentalists is that the CRU uproar will prove a tipping point, and mark a permanent end to those ambitions.

Internationally, world leaders finally acknowledged that the recession has sapped them of their political power to impose devastating new carbon-restrictions. China and India are clear they won’t join the West in an economic suicide pact. Next month’s summit in Copenhagen is a bust. Instead of producing legally binding agreements, it will be dogged by queries about the legitimacy of the scientists who wrote the reports that form its basis.

The next opportunity to get international agreement is in Mexico City, 2010—a U.S. election year. Democrats were already publicly acknowledging there will be no domestic climate legislation in 2009 and privately acknowledging their great unease at passing a huge energy tax on Americans headed for a midterm vote.

Add to that the CRU scandal, which pivots the focus to potential fraud. Republicans are launching investigations, and the pressure is building on Democrats to hold hearings, since climate scientists were funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars. Mr. Inhofe’s office this week sent letters to federal agencies and outside scientists warning them not to delete their own CRU-related emails and documents, which may also be subject to Freedom of Information requests.

Polls show a public already losing belief in the theory of man-made global warming, and skeptics are now on the offense. The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell argues this scandal gives added cover to Blue Dogs and other Democrats who were already reluctant to buck the public’s will and vote for climate legislation. And with Republicans set to pick up seats, Mr. Ebell adds, “By 2011 there will hopefully be even fewer members who support this. We may be close to having it permanently stymied.” Continued U.S. failure to act makes an international agreement to replace Kyoto (which expires in 2012) a harder sell.

There’s still the EPA, which is preparing an “endangerment finding” that would allow it to regulate carbon on the grounds it is a danger to public health. It is here the emails might have the most direct effect. The agency has said repeatedly that it based its finding on the U.N. science—which is now at issue. The scandal puts new pressure on the EPA to accede to growing demands to make public the scientific basis of its actions.

Mr. Inhofe goes so far as to suggest that the agency might not now issue the finding. “The president knows how punitive this will be; he’s never wanted to do it through [the EPA] because that’s all on him.” The EPA was already out on a legal limb with its finding, and Mr. Inhofe argues that if it does go ahead, the CRU disclosure guarantees court limbo. “The way the far left used to stop us is to file lawsuits and stall and stall. We’ll do the same thing.”

Still, if this Democratic Washington has demonstrated anything, it’s that ideology often trumps common sense. Egged on by the left, dug in to their position, Democrats might plow ahead. They’d be better off acknowledging that the only “consensus” right now is that the world needs to start over on climate “science.”

The Scientific Review Process: One Perspective

Spirit of our Time — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:37:46 +0000

Since I was at a talk earlier today, in part, on Steve Fuller’s seemingly crazed proposals for

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 16

sophiaalbertina — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:58:21 +0000

The greatest scientific and political scandal in modern times continues to unravel. Here some good points by Goldstein. Points which I have been saying in my post on this blog for over 2 years now.

“The moment they convinced politicians the way to avert the End of Days was to put a price on emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the unholy alliance of Big Government, Big Business and Big Green was forged.

Big Government wants more of your taxes. Big Business wants more of your income. Big Green wants you and your children to bow down to its agenda of enforced austerity.

What about saving the planet, you ask? This was never about saving the planet. This is about money and power. Your money. Their power. “

True, very true.

Article here:

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/11/26/

11929676-sun.html

Why ‘climategate’ won’t stop greens

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

Last Updated: 26th November 2009, 8:22am

If you’re wondering how the robot-like march of the world’s politicians towards Copenhagen can possibly continue in the face of the scientific scandal dubbed “climategate,” it’s because Big Government, Big Business and Big Green don’t give a s*** about “the science.”

They never have.

What “climategate” suggests is many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t either. Apparently they stifled their own doubts about recent global cooling not explained by their computer models, manipulated data, plotted ways to avoid releasing it under freedom of information laws and attacked fellow scientists and scientific journals for publishing even peer-reviewed literature of which they did not approve.

Now they and their media shills — who sneered that all who questioned their phony “consensus” were despicable “deniers,” the moral equivalent of those who deny the Holocaust – are the ones in denial about the enormity of the scandal enveloping them.

So they desperately try to portray it as the routine “messy” business of science, lamely insisting, “nothing to see here folks, move along.”

Before the Internet — which has given ordinary people a way to fight back against the received wisdom of so-called “wise elites” — they might have gotten away with it.

But not now, as knowledgeable climate bloggers are advancing the story and forcing the co-opted mainstream media to cover a scandal most would rather ignore.

The problem, however, is those who hijacked science to predict a looming Armageddon unless we do exactly as they say, have already done their damage.

The moment they convinced politicians the way to avert the End of Days was to put a price on emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the unholy alliance of Big Government, Big Business and Big Green was forged.

Big Government wants more of your taxes. Big Business wants more of your income. Big Green wants you and your children to bow down to its agenda of enforced austerity.

What about saving the planet, you ask? This was never about saving the planet. This is about money and power. Your money. Their power.

If it was about saving the planet, “cap-and-trade” (a.k.a. cap-and-tax) — how Big Government, Big Business and Big Green ludicrously pretend we will “fight” global warming and “save the planet” — would have been consigned to the dust bin of history because it doesn’t work. We know it doesn’t work because Europe’s five-year-old cap-and-trade market — the Emissions Trading Scheme — has done nothing to make the world cooler.

All it’s done is make hedge fund managers, speculators and Big Energy giddy with windfall profits, while making everyone else poorer by driving up the cost of energy, and thus of most goods and services, which need energy to be lighted, heated, cooled, grown, constructed, manufactured, produced and transported.

Readers often ask how they can fight back. First, forget about asking when the warmists will see reason. They won’t.

Instead, send a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper by e-mail (pm@pm.gc.ca), fax (1-613-941-6900) or call toll-free (1-866-599-4999) and ask to be put through to the Office of the Prime Minister.

Do the same for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff by e-mail, (ignatm@parl.gc.ca). fax, (1-613-947-0310), or call-toll free (1-866-599-4999) and ask to be put through to the Liberal Leader’s Office.

Tell them you want no part of the madness in Copenhagen.

Blow their phones off the hook.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 15

sophiaalbertina — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:22:02 +0000

As I wrote in my post Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 9

“Slowly, VERY SLOWLY at least some of the Global Warming Hysterics are BEGINNING to understand the scope of Climate Gate. But of course they still vehemently denies that this changes anything. One example below from The Guardian, one of the High Priests of this hysteria.”

Well, my respect for George Monbiot is growing. I don’t agree one iota with him or his “science”. And his role as a high priest in this religion.

But he’s honest when it comes to the consequences of Climate Gate. Even calling for the resignation of Jones. And demandig and end to secrecy.

That has my respect, regardless of everything else.

But of course he has to revert to the old tune of “skeptics” being bought by the oil industry, calling all of us liars etc.

Which is double hypocritical and ironic. Se my post Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 14

“But the REAL story as shown by these emails is that these guys REALY ARE IN BED WITH ALL THE BIG BUSNIESSES. Receiving BIG MONEY and ACTIVLY PURSUING IT.”

And if there where manipulations, lies etc these emails show very clearly from which side it come.

Here in Sweden the so called “science editors” of the “news” papers DN and SVD (BOTH big promoters of the Global Warming Hysteria), aptly fit Monboits description “Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial.”

“When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.

I feel desperately sorry for him: he must be walking through hell. But there is no helping it; he has to go, and the longer he leaves it, the worse it will get. He has a few days left in which to make an honourable exit. Otherwise, like the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, he will linger on until his remaining credibility vanishes, inflicting continuing damage to climate science.”

“But the deniers’ campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify secrecy and suppression on the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must distinguish themselves from their opponents in every way. No one has been as badly let down by the revelations in these emails as those of us who have championed the science. We should be the first to demand that it is unimpeachable, not the last.”

Article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response

Pretending the climate email leak isn’t a crisis won’t make it go away.

Climate sceptics have lied, obscured and cheated for years. That’s why we climate rationalists must uphold the highest standards of science

Posted by George Monbiot Wednesday 25 November 2009 17.23 GMT

I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.

The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.

It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often – as I documented in my book Heat – use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause.

Even so, his message looks awful. It gives the impression of confirming a potent meme circulated by those who campaign against taking action on climate change: that the IPCC process is biased. However good the detailed explanations may be, most people aren’t going to follow or understand them. Jones’s statement, on the other hand, is stark and easy to grasp.

In this case you could argue that technically he has done nothing wrong. But a fat lot of good that will do. Think of the MPs’ expenses scandal: complaints about stolen data, denials and huffy responses achieved nothing at all. Most of the MPs could demonstrate that technically they were innocent: their expenses had been approved by the Commons office. It didn’t change public perceptions one jot. The only responses that have helped to restore public trust in Parliament are humility, openness and promises of reform.

When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.

Some people say that I am romanticising science, that it is never as open and honest as the Popperian ideal. Perhaps. But I know that opaqueness and secrecy are the enemies of science. There is a word for the apparent repeated attempts to prevent disclosure revealed in these emails: unscientific.

The crisis has been exacerbated by the university’s handling of it, which has been a total trainwreck: a textbook example of how not to respond. RealClimate reports that “We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.” In other words, the university knew what was coming three days before the story broke. As far as I can tell, it sat like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting for disaster to strike.

When the emails hit the news on Friday morning, the university appeared completely unprepared. There was no statement, no position, no one to interview. Reporters kept being fobbed off while CRU’s opponents landed blow upon blow on it. When a journalist I know finally managed to track down Phil Jones, he snapped “no comment” and put down the phone. This response is generally taken by the media to mean “guilty as charged”. When I got hold of him on Saturday, his answer was to send me a pdf called “WMO statement on the status of the global climate in 1999″. Had I a couple of hours to spare I might have been able to work out what the heck this had to do with the current crisis, but he offered no explanation.

By then he should have been touring the TV studios for the past 36 hours, confronting his critics, making his case and apologising for his mistakes. Instead, he had disappeared off the face of the Earth. Now, far too late, he has given an interview to the Press Association, which has done nothing to change the story.

The handling of this crisis suggests that nothing has been learnt by climate scientists in this country from 20 years of assaults on their discipline. They appear to have no idea what they’re up against or how to confront it. Their opponents might be scumbags, but their media strategy is exemplary.

The greatest tragedy here is that despite many years of outright fabrication, fraud and deceit on the part of the climate change denial industry, documented in James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore’s brilliant new book Climate Cover-up, it is now the climate scientists who look bad. By comparison to his opponents, Phil Jones is pure as the driven snow. Hoggan and Littlemore have shown how fossil fuel industries have employed “experts” to lie, cheat and manipulate on their behalf. The revelations in their book (as well as in Heat and in Ross Gelbspan’s book The Heat Is On) are 100 times graver than anything contained in these emails.

But the deniers’ campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify secrecy and suppression on the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must distinguish themselves from their opponents in every way. No one has been as badly let down by the revelations in these emails as those of us who have championed the science. We should be the first to demand that it is unimpeachable, not the last.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 14

sophiaalbertina — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:29:56 +0000

Interesting isn’t it. The Global warming Hysterics always accuse every one that question their “science” or “facts” that they are in bed with the oil industry (which in their world seems to be the incarnation of the devil).

Because someone somewhere in the distant past received a small funding from an oil company.

But the REAL story as shown by these emails is that these guys REALY ARE IN BED WITH ALL THE BIG BUSNIESSES. Receiving BIG MONEY and ACTIVLY PURSUING IT.

“I’m in the process of trying to persuade Siemens Corp. (a company with half a million employees in 190 countries!) to donate me a little cash to do some CO2 measur[e]ments here in the UK — looking promising,” wrote Andrew Manning, a climate-science research fellow at the University of East Anglia,”

And that somehow is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

“The note and others like it reveal the intriguing relationship between industry giants like Siemens and the scientists driving climate change fears. More importantly, though, Manning’s e-mail shows the incentives of climate scientists: Convince people there is a climate disaster coming, get more money.

Manning and the warming crowd benefit from a beautiful feedback loop: The more governments, businesses, and media outlets you can convince that man-made global warming is a serious threat, the more these institutions will invest in climate change studies, solutions, and policies. And the more they invest in combating global warming — whether it’s a newspaper hiring a climate reporter, a company buying emissions credits and alternative energy sources, or a government building a climate lab — the less willing they are to tolerate dissent on the issue.”

“But Manning’s e-mail cannot be ignored, because it is self-evidently true. If the catastrophic-man-made-climate-change hypothesis melted down, these scientists would lose their funding.”

“Governments have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into climate research. News organizations have staked their credibility on the claim that climate science is “settled.” With all this on the line for scientists, media, business, and government, are we really going to let some contrary data get in the way?

….but they do show that the industry built upon belief in man-made global warming has become too big to fail.”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Global-warming-industry-becomes-too-big-to-fail-8581165-72824992.html

Global warming industry becomes too big to fail

By: Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist

November 25, 2009

Manning’s e-mail, written in October to a colleague at East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit, was one of the thousands of private communiques exposed to public view by a whistleblower or a hacker. The note and others like it reveal the intriguing relationship between industry giants like Siemens and the scientists driving climate change fears. More importantly, though, Manning’s e-mail shows the incentives of climate scientists: Convince people there is a climate disaster coming, get more money.

So the warming crowd, these e-mails show us, suffers from the same conflicts of interest and profit motives that are frequently attributed to skeptics. When Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” came out, Gore charged that global warming deniers were trying to protect profits. Gore quoted fabled muckraker Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.”

Climate scientists derive both their sense of purpose and their paychecks from a perceived climate crisis. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to see them putting their pet cause ahead of scientific standards. For instance, climate scientist Giorgio Filippo in a 2000 e-mail wrote about the drafting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s assessment of climate research: “Essentially, I feel that at this point there are very little rules and almost anything goes. I think this will set a dangerous precedent, which might mine the IPCC credibility, and I am a bit uncomfortable that now nearly everybody seems to think that it is just ok to do this.”

These are the scientists who drive climate policy.

Some critics writing about the leaked e-mails say they expose a “fraud,” a “hoax,” and a conspiracy. The warming crowd claim that everything is being taken out of context.

But Manning’s e-mail cannot be ignored, because it is self-evidently true. If the catastrophic-man-made-climate-change hypothesis melted down, these scientists would lose their funding.

Atlantic blogger Megan McArdle probably put it best: “That doesn’t mean their paradigm is wrong; rather, it means we need to be less romantic about the practice of science. No scientific consensus is ever as powerful as its proponents claim, because no scientists are ever as perfect as we’d like to imagine.”

And scientists aren’t the only ones with skin in the game. Take manufacturing and transportation giant Siemens, for instance, whom Manning was wooing. In 2006, the company joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which has been a key lobbyist for the sort of greenhouse gas cap-and-trade scheme at the heart of the climate bill currently before Congress. Siemens and other members of USCAP have invested billions in buying up greenhouse gas credits, alternative energy sources like wind and solar power, and carbon capture and sequestration (the attempt to trap CO2 underground). E-mails show CRU scientists pushing corporate donors to fund their climate science as a way of advancing carbon capture.

Governments have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into climate research. News organizations have staked their credibility on the claim that climate science is “settled.” With all this on the line for scientists, media, business, and government, are we really going to let some contrary data get in the way?

The leaked e-mails don’t necessarily show a conspiracy, but they do show that the industry built upon belief in man-made global warming has become too big to fail.

Timothy P. Carney, The Examiner’s lobbying editor

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 13

sophiaalbertina — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:50:49 +0000

The greatest scientific and political scandal in modern times continues to unravel. It’s about time.

“It is the warm-mongers who are spinning in the wrong direction. We win. You lose. Get a life.”

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=513195

The Day Global Warming Stood Still

Posted 11/20/2009 07:46 PM ET

Climate Change: As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. Maybe Al Gore can Photoshop something before December.

It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria.

The collapse of the talks coupled with the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to put off the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill, the Senate’s version of Waxman-Markey, until the spring thaw has led Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the leading Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, to declare victory over Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the triumph of observable fact over junk science.

“I proudly declare 2009 as the ‘Year of the Skeptic,’ the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard,” Inhofe said to Boxer in a Senate speech. “Until this year, any scientist, reporter or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked.”

Inhofe added: “Today I have been vindicated.”

The Ada (Oklahoma) Evening News quotes Inhofe: “So when Barbara Boxer, John Kerry and all the left get up there and say, ‘Yes. We’re going to pass a global warming bill,’ I will be able to stand up and say, ‘No, it’s over. Get a life. You lost. I won,’” Inhofe said.

Now we have the German publication Der Spiegel, which is rapidly becoming the house organ for climate hysteria, weighing in again with the sad news that the earth does not have a fever so we really don’t have to throw out the baby with the rising bath water.

In an article titled, “Climatologists Baffled By Global Warming Time-Out,” author Gerald Traufetter leads off with the observation: “Climatologists are baffled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years.” They better figure it out, Der Spiegel warns, because “billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.”

We are told in sad tones that “not much is happening with global warming at the moment” and that “it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.” But how can it be that the earth isn’t following all those computer models? Is the earth goddess Gaia herself a climate change “denier”?

The article gloomily notes that a few weeks ago Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research pointed out that the earth had in fact only warmed 0.07 degree Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degree Celsius predicted by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

An even more inconvenient truth, according to the British experts, is that when their figures are adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Nino and La Nina, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degree Celsius. No, that’s not a typo.

As if that weren’t enough, it seems hackers broke into the computer network run by the Hadley Climate Research Unit, removing 61 megabytes of e-mails and data.

While we don’t condone theft, the hacked data and e-mails have spilled onto the Web and reveal something startling: The scientists at Hadley, one of the world’s leading climate change study centers, aren’t scientifically objective at all.

Indeed, in e-mails, they boast of twisting scientific data to suit their views and to “hide” the truth. At one point, a scientist actually gloats over the death of global warming skeptic John L. Daly, saying, “In an odd way, this is cheering news.”

If true, this is massive scientific fraud.

To add to the warm-mongers’ woes, patron saint Al Gore, the man who claimed to have invented the Internet, might also have claimed the discovery of Photoshop. Dr. Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, formerly with NASA, has taken a look at the pictures used to illustrate Gore’s new book, “Our Choice: A Plan To Solve the Climate Crisis.”

Gore Photoshopped NASA imagery of the earth for the fold-out cover photo, adding four hurricanes at once, including one spinning in the wrong direction next to Florida and, in a physical impossibility, one on the equator next to Peru. Somewhere in the process, the island of Cuba was deleted.

It is the warm-mongers who are spinning in the wrong direction. We win. You lose. Get a life.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 12

sophiaalbertina — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:21:01 +0000

Here are some very interesting words of professor Demetris Koutsoyiannis of the consequences for science of the climate gate.

“..that what I’ve been reading in the recently hacked and released confidential files from the CRU (aka “Climategate” documents) is not a surprise to me. Rather, and sadly, it verifies what I had suspected about some in the climate establishment.”

“One interesting lesson from this story is that secrecy is corruptible—and corruptive. The CRU people and their collaborators who wrote all these documents felt, no doubt, safe behind their secrecy. They must have felt that this secrecy was their best weapon: to censor differing opinions, to develop “trick” procedures, to “balance” the needs of IPCC, and even to “redefine” peer review.”

(He is professor of the National Technical University of Athens in Hydrology and Analysis of Hydrosystems; also professor of Hydraulics in the Hellenic Army’s Postgraduate School of Technical Education of Officers Engineers; Editor of Hydrological Sciences Journal; and member of the editorial boards of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences and Water Resources Research.

He has been awarded the Henry Darcy Medal 2009 by the European Geosciences Union for his outstanding contributions to the study of hydrometeorological variability and to water resources management.

http://www.itia.ntua.gr/dk/)

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/beware-saviors-by-demetris-koutsoyiannis/

November 24, 2009…7:00 am

Beware Saviors! By Demetris Koutsoyiannis

Guest weblog by Demetris Koutsoyiannis (http://www.itia.ntua.gr/dk/)

Hydrological engineering is my scientific field and it is closely related to climate. In the last decade, I have been concerned about the state of research in climate and its detrimental influence on hydrology. Also, I should note up front that I try to be a skeptic; for a Greek, this is a positive quality (skeptic is etymologized from skepsis = thought). In recent years, I have tried to publish a few papers related to climate. Some of them were initially rejected, but eventually published elsewhere—usually in journals without a specific focus on climate. From the experience I gained through the review process of the rejected papers, I became more confident about the analyses I’d performed and the significance of the results I’d presented. I have not been surprised, therefore, to see that these once-rejected papers have become the most cited among my papers.

Due to my skeptical inclination, I’ve had the feeling that my colleagues had serious doubts about my perspective. The common dogma is that “climate change is real” and its consequences are catastrophic, so why oppose those ideas and the people who arduously work to save the planet, and us, from catastrophes? I found it difficult to explain my convictions in a compelling manner. However, the explanation is actually simple and was formulated by my co-authors Alberto Montanari, Harry Lins, Tim Cohn, and myself in a recent paper criticizing the IPCC position on freshwater:

“A common argument in favour of the political orientation of the IPCC is that its aims are good for humanity and the natural environment and that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will be beneficial for the planet, regardless of the ultimate validity of the IPCC model predictions. However, we believe that science is a process for the pursuit of truth and that fidelity to this system should not be affected by other aims. History shows that such distractions can be detrimental to science.” (This paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1623/hysj.54.2.394 and a comment about it, as well as the IPCC authors’ reply, has been published on this weblog at http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/a-new-commentreply-on-the-subject-climate-hydrology-and-freshwater-towards-an-interactive-incorporation-of-hydrological-experience-into-climate-research/).

Having had several negative experiences in my (rather indirect) interaction with mainstream “scientists” involved in “climate change” and “climate change impacts” (I put all these quotation marks because I believe that the latter terms are not scientific), I must say that what I’ve been reading in the recently hacked and released confidential files from the CRU (aka “Climategate” documents) is not a surprise to me. Rather, and sadly, it verifies what I had suspected about some in the climate establishment. I wonder if they take pride in seeing their own words—now in a public forum:

“I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC , which were not always the same.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=794).

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=419).

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=154).

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1048).

“If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=544)

“The skeptics appear to have staged a ‘coup’ at ‘Climate Research’ … Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate
research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” (http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=295).

“It’s one thing to lose ‘Climate Research’. We can’t afford to lose GRL [Geophysical Research Letters]” http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=484).

I do not know how the majority of research scientists feel when reading these and similar quotations from those few people who—objectively—they’d viewed as the leaders in the “climate change” enterprise, and whose results and directions they were consistently following. Will they continue to recognize them as saviors? Saviors who wish “the climate change happen… regardless of the consequences”? Moreover, how do the journal editors feel when they learn that the editorial process that they oversaw had been so effectively influenced by these few dominant people? I had my own experience with GRL: a paper co-authored by Alberto Montanari was rejected by the then (2006) editor (although it was eventually published in another AGU journal, Water Resources Research). This interesting story is described at http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/781/, where I have posted the entire prehistory. By the way, I continue to follow the same practice of posting the prehistory for all my initially rejected papers (http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/documents/?tags=rejected). I very much like transparency.

This brings me to the last point I wish to make: secrecy versus transparency. One interesting lesson from this story is that secrecy is corruptible—and corruptive. The CRU people and their collaborators who wrote all these documents felt, no doubt, safe behind their secrecy. They must have felt that this secrecy was their best weapon: to censor differing opinions, to develop “trick” procedures, to “balance” the needs of IPCC, and even to “redefine” peer review.

Unfortunately, current scientific ethics are based largely on the assumption of secrecy—as in the anonymity of reviews. Apparently, as the CRU story highlights, secrecy is not safe. By analogy, how can one be sure that the archive containing the reviews of a journal (with reviewer names) will never be hacked and its contents released on the internet? Of course, there are also lots of other ways that secrecy gets (self-)destroyed. For example, it is often easy to find out who the anonymous reviewers of a paper are.

So, I hope that, as this story continues to unfold, it gives us pause to consider how secrecy and anonymity are non-productive and destructive practices in science. Indeed, through such consideration, we may come to realize that transparency forces us to be more productive and progressive in pursuing the truth—particularly in science.

Hitler makes a good point about peer review

mjr256 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:53:13 +0000

Orac also has some comments about this.

Redubbing Peer Review

Ben Hale — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:16:16 +0000

Roger has a new post up on any attempt to redefine peer review. It’s worth a read. I don’t really disagree with his main point about the spirit of peer review, and he’s certainly pretty well entrenched in the politics of this whole thing, so I think he’s right to say that the crowding-out strategy isn’t a very good one. Peer review will win in the end, even without FOIA requests and stolen e-mails. Which is all to say: I think we should still put a good deal of stock in articles that pass peer review, and we should also weigh strongly the credibility of journals.

Given the reactions to the CRU e-mails coming from more skeptical quarters, however, and given Godwin’s law, one suspects that maybe this video captures what some think was going on.

Reflections on Modernity, Climategate, Pandemic, Peer Review, and Science in the Service of Empire By Zahir Ebrahim

humanbeingsfirst — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:16:11 +0000

Letter to a ‘co-conspiracy theorist’: Reflections on Modernity, Climategate, Pandemic, P

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 11

sophiaalbertina — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:33:28 +0000

On this blog I have written extensively about press and mass media and their role in this the greatest scientific and political scandal of modern times.

The sad part about this Global Warming Hysteria is, besides the scientists how have betrayed everything that science should stand for, the press and mass medias role in this.

More and more people have had enough of the religious gospel that most of the mainstream media is spreading. And their willing participation in driving and promoting this hysteria.

AT THE SAME TIME AS THESE MEDIA HAVE TAKEN an ACTIVE PART in SUPPRESSING FACTS and IS CENSORING AND INTIMIDATING EVERYONE WHO HAS OPPOSED THIS HYSTERIA.

A truly “worthy” goal for the organizations and companies whose goals was supposed to protect and enhance freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Talking about the ultimate betrayal of all that good and independent journalism was supposed to be.

Below are two examples of this utter betrayal of journalism and the blatant hypocrisy from these “liberal” medias – TV news and New York Times. Who changes the “rules” as it suite their political needs.

And it’s no difference here in Sweden – the same “journalistic” shenanigan goes on. All in the name of spreading “the right” gospel.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/24/climategate-totally-ignored-tv-news-outlets-except-fox

ClimateGate Totally Ignored By TV News Outlets Except Fox

By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)

November 24, 2009 – 11:03 ET

The Obama administration has another reason to hate Fox: it appears to be the only national television news outlet in America interested in the growing ClimateGate scandal.

Despite last Friday morning’s bombshell that hacked e-mail messages from a British university suggested a conspiracy by some of the world’s leading global warming alarmists — many with direct ties to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — to manipulate temperature data, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC through Monday evening have completely ignored the subject.

LexisNexis searches indicate that NPR appears to also be part of this news boycott.

By contrast, here are some of the stories news organizations apparently favored by the Obama adminstration have covered since ClimateGate broke:

ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” Friday did a very lengthy piece about Oprah Winfrey ending her syndicated daytime talk show
ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” Monday did a lengthy piece on new revelations involving the marital affair of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.)
CBS “Evening News” Saturday reported a ten-year-old pianist playing at Carnegie Hall
CBS “Evening News” Sunday did lengthy pieces on the website FreeCreditReport.com not being free and the movie “New Moon”
CBS “Evening News” Monday did lengthy pieces about defective drywall and a man who makes money wearing t-shirts
NBC “Nightly News” Friday reported on Switzerland’s supercollider being turned back on
NBC “Nightly News” Saturday did a somewhat lengthy report on food carts
NBC “Nightly News” Sunday reported the release of British singer Susan Boyle’s CD, and then followed it up with another report Monday on her promoting it.

It’s not that these aren’t valid news stories, but should they ALL be of greater importance than a scandal involving scientists from around the world including some employed by NASA and American colleges?

Also consider that the news divisions of ABC, CBS, and NBC broadcast many hours during the day besides their evening programs, and LexisNexis identified no ClimateGate reports in those either (through Monday).

As for CNN, it has been broadcasting for almost 100 straight hours since this story broke, and it appears the so-called “Most Respected Name In News” has yet to devote one second to this scandal.

By contrast, Fox News did at least four reports on this subject on Monday alone. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has also done multiple stories on this matter, as has BBC.com.

Yet, despite the seriousness of this issue, as well as a prominent Senator calling for hearings to investigate it, America’s television news organizations appear to be actively boycotting this growing controversy.

Is this a replay of how they ignored September’s ACORN scandal for many days until they were basically forced to cover what had gone viral across the Internet, talk radio, and Fox News?

What is it going to take for these so-called news outlets to begin sharing this subject with their viewers?

On a humorous related note, ABC might not be interested in ClimateGate, but it still is devoted to spreading climate fear.

On Tuesday, ABCNews.com’s top story was, “Worse Than the Worst: Climate Report Says Even Most Dire Predictions Too Tame“

There’s even less time for humanity to try to curb global warming than recently thought, according to a new in-depth scientific assessment by 26 scientists from eight countries.

Sea level rise, ocean acidification and the rapid melting of massive ice sheets are among the significantly increased effects of human-induced global warming assessed in the survey, which also examines the emissions of heat-trapping gases that are causing the climate change.

“Many indicators are currently tracking near or above the worst-case projections” made three years ago by the world’s scientists, the new Copenhagen Diagnosis said.

Nor has manmade global warming slowed or paused, as some headlines have recently suggested, according to the report, which you can see here.

Well, at least ABC is consistent.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-bozell/2009/11/24/bozell-column-when-press-favors-secrecy

Bozell Column: When the Press Favors Secrecy

By Brent Bozell November 24, 2009 – 23:33 ET

Here’s a dirty little secret about The New York Times. It likes to leak things. Important things. Things that change the course of the public conversation. From the Pentagon Papers to the ruined terrorist-surveillance programs of the Bush era, the Times has routinely found that secrecy is a danger and sunlight is a disinfectant.

Until now. A troublesome hacker recently released e-mails going to and from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, e-mails that exposed how the “scientific experts” cited so often by the media on global warming display are guilty of crude political talk, attempts at censoring opponents, and twisting scientific data to support their policy agenda.

The e-mails prove just how dishonest this left-wing global warming agenda truly is. And now suddenly, the New York Times has found religion, and won’t publish these private e-mails. Environmental reporter Andrew Revkin, who’s more global warming lobbyist than reporter, quoted – sparsely – from the e-mails, but declared he would not post these texts on his “Dot Earth” blog on the Times website: “The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”

That rule didn’t apply to things like the disclosure of the SWIFT global bank monitoring program against terrorists.

Unlike our secret terror-fighting efforts, there is no grave matter of national security to protect here. There is only a danger of shredding the undeserved reputation of some global-warming alarmists as nonpartisan, nonideological, just-the-facts scientists with no preconceived environmentalist or statist agenda.

The networks also have ignored this emerging scandal with all the ignorance they could muster. But in the seven days after the New York Times revealed the existence of an NSA program to monitor communications to terrorist cells abroad, the three networks ran a combined 23 stories about the program, more than one story, per network, per night.

Revkin’s story in the Times did have some truncated quotes with ridiculous details. In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing apparent climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones of the CRU said he had used a “trick” employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to “hide the decline” in temperatures.

Dr. Mann confirmed the e-mail was real, but told the Times “the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word ‘trick’ to refer to a good way to solve a problem,” and not as something secret.

Doesn’t a network correspondent just smell the fraud when scientists start offering lame excuses for the words they somehow didn’t mean? Don’t just listen to conservatives. Try Nate Silver, a statistician and liberal-media favorite, recently named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People. He says the scientists in this exchange were unethical:

“Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive. This is not a good thing to do — I’d go so far as to call it unethical — and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer.” But then he adds the typical liberal disclaimer: “Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector — have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year? And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate.”

When conservatives are wrong, conservatives are wrong. When liberals are wrong, everyone does it, don’t you know?

It’s also important to note that these folks play a rough game of hardball. This isn’t about science. It’s politics – the brass-knuckles sort. In another e-mail from Jones to Mann, reported in The Washington Post, there’s talk of cutting skeptical scientists out of the official United Nations report: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” Jones writes. “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal to reject the work of climate skeptics, perhaps with a boycott: “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal,” Mann writes. “I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor,” Jones replies.

This kind of censor-your-opponents activity ought to disgust a journalist who values openness and rigorous debate above all. Every day the networks avoid this story, they’re saying they don’t really care about either of those values. In fact, they become willing accomplices in a coverup of global proportions.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2009/11/24/tale-two-leaks-nyt-bashed-palin-wont-touch-climategate

A Tale of Two Leaks: NYT Bashed Palin, But Won’t Touch ClimateGate

By Lachlan Markay

November 24, 2009 – 12:41 ET

The ClimateGate email leak has demonstrated in full force a glaring double standard in the mainstream media’s coverage of leaked information. Too often, liberal media outlets jump at the chance to damage conservative figures by publishing sensitive information, but refuse to publish such information if it discredits or hinders the left’s efforts.

As Clay Waters reported yesterday, Andew Revkin, who writes for the New York Times’s Dot Earth blog, refused to publish emails from Britain’s East Anglia Climate Research Unit showing efforts to manipulate climate data and marginalize global warming skeptics.

Said Revkin, “The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”

Revkin is correct that the emails were never intended for the public eye, contained private communications, and were released by hackers who violated the law in obtaining them. But apparently this standard for publication of such documents does not apply to information about Sarah Palin.

The Times’s Caucus Blog reported on September 17 of last year:

Computer hackers broke into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, and posted some of her messages and a long list of contacts on the Internet.

The Web site Wikileaks posted screen shots of Ms. Palin’s inbox displaying her username, gov.palin@yahoo.com, and messages that were reportedly obtained by a group of hackers on Tuesday night.

The e-mails include an exchange between Ms. Palin and Alaska’s lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, as well as an associate, Amy McCorkell, who Ms. Palin appointed to a state drug and alcohol advisory board last year. Wired Magazine reported on its Internet privacy blog, Threat Level, that it obtained confirmation from Ms. McCorkell that she did, in fact, send the message to Governor Palin.

On Wednesday, the McCain campaign acknowledged the breach in a statement from campaign manager, Rick Davis: “This is a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”

Governor Palin has faced criticism for reportedly using her private address to conduct government business.

When hackers posted screenshots of the then-Vice Presidential nominee on Wikileaks, the Times rushed to publish the information. It even included a link directly to a page displaying the screenshots, disclosing private communications and making available her personal email address and contact list. This is “private information” in every sense of the term.

Guy Benson at National Review extrapolates that at the Times, “it’s unacceptable to direct readers to hacked private emails that fundamentally disrupt a lefty meme-of-the-decade, but it’s totally cool to direct readers to hacked private emails of the lefty bete noire-of-the-year.”

Revkin’s statement displays a profound double standard in the Times’s reporting on leaked information. It managed, in the last sentence of the Caucus Blog post, to turn Palin’s email leak into an attack.

Yet in the case of the ClimateGate emails, which were obtained in a near-identical manner and contain similarly sensitive and personal communications, the Times suddenly finds ethical misgivings in publishing the information. The paper’s reservations appear to be a veiled attempt to shield the left’s global warming narrative from criticism.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 10

sophiaalbertina — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:53:05 +0000

“These emails are very clear in several things. The scientists were deliberately changing, manipulating and deleting data. They were delivering data to computer modelers that were designed to give specific results, and were determined ahead of time.”

“The UN, the IPCC and all those who have been pushing this farce are borderline criminals bent upon robbing the American people along with the people of the world, all while lining their own pockets richly. Yes, that means you Al Gore and George Soros, both of whom have made hundreds of millions and an Academy Award off the scheme.”

Nothing more to say really.

http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m11d24-Global-warming-corruption-and-unethical-scientists

Global warming, corruption, and unethical scientists

November 24, 11:11 AMPortland Civil Rights ExaminerDianna Cotter

In case you have not yet heard, the scientists behind the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have been exposed through their own email conversations. At this time, it is not known who or how the emails were obtained, though much speculation has been done. From the servers at the University of East Anglica in the UK being illegally broken into and hacked, to a whistle blower protected by UK laws as well as US laws, to an insider job, a person with legitimate access to the emails have all been discussed. More will be revealed certainly. What is known for certain is that the University of East Anglica and the CRU department there do not deny the authenticity of the emails.

These emails are very clear in several things. The scientists were deliberately changing, manipulating and deleting data. They were delivering data to computer modelers that were designed to give specific results, and were determined ahead of time. They were colluding to delete emails that were under Freedom Of Information Act laws in the UK, and were deliberately adding and removing data to make it appear that Global Warming was continuing, despite blatantly obvious data, temperature measurements, as well as worldwide growing ice sheets in order to continue the myth.

Why would they want to continue the myth?

1) To continue to receive funding from various government and environmental lobby sources. They even sent out emails telling everyone when funding was coming in and where from so that they could line up at the trough. It’s all about the money, and the money right now is for making Global Warming real, even though it most clearly isn’t.

2) To continue to back up the IPCC’s false claims of Global Warming in order to pass such Global Treaties as the Copenhagen treaty. Fortunately for the people of the world, it will absolutely fail this December. It was marked for failure before these emails were made public. Now it’s just that much more certain.

3) Numerous governments across Europe have enacted Cap and Trade schemes that have cost billions in lost GDP to nations like France and Great Britain. The scope of what has been quite literally robbed from the people of those nations is staggering – in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars. The economy of Great Britain is in shambles, and the people of those nations are suffering, their cost of living has gone up so fast that the poverty level has risen past the ability of their governments to write the welfare checks.

Their governments told them this was the best for climate, when in reality they were following pied pipers from the UN the IPCC and the East Anglica University and others who were all quite literally lying through their scientific degrees. All to justify a system of taxation that is nearly as bad as anything instituted during the middle ages – taking money from the people to fund the government class.

4) The entire point of the Copenhagen treaty was to use global cap and trade schemes to take money from 1st and 2nd world countries and give it to 3rd world nations as some sort of recompense for using Carbon, a naturally occurring element, as well as the single most common element on earth.

The single most amazing thing about this whole hoax is the numbers of people that actually bought into it. The amount of money that has been poured into this black hole of corruption is nothing short of astounding. Many people have known this and upon speaking out have been derided as nuts, deniers, ect. Well today is the day for all those who have been telling the truth to stand tall and bask in the glow of “I told you so.” The Global Warming Deniers were right all along. The IPCC data was not only wrong, but deliberately wrong.

The UN, the IPCC and all those who have been pushing this farce are borderline criminals bent upon robbing the American people along with the people of the world, all while lining their own pockets richly. Yes, that means you Al Gore and George Soros, both of whom have made hundreds of millions and an Academy Award off the scheme.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 9

sophiaalbertina — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:58:46 +0000

Slowly, VERY SLOWLY at least some of the Global Warming Hysterics are BEGINNING to understand the scope of Climate Gate. But of course they still vehemently denies that this changes anything. One example below from The Guardian, one of the High Priests of this hysteria.

See also my previous posts on medias role in this hysteria.

Climate scientist, Dr. Hans von StorchProfessor at the Meteorological Institute in the University of Hamburg, gets it.

http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/

24. November 2009 – The scandal around the stolen CRU-mails is rolling on; the interest, as documented by traffic on the internet is enormeous – and likely the damage done to the credibility of climate science by the unfortunate writing by Phil Jones and others as well. But inspite of this, one can interpret the whole affair also in positive way – namely that science was strong enough to overcome the various gatekeeping efforts, even it may take a few years. The self-correcting dynamics in science is robust and kicking. And the practice of allowing our adversaries to use our data (after a certain grace period) will become finally common.

We need to publically discuss the ethical norms, science is to operate under. Obviously, science can not define itself which these norms should be, but this is a task for society at large – who pays for the efforts and is looking for utility of science. The main guard to this respect is with the media - and it seems the media beginning to become serious, finally. An example is from Wall Street Journal – online. In Germany, journalists judge the affair more cavalier, e.g., in the Tagesspiegel.”

The Guardian article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists

“It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.

Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury man-made climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed. Luckily for the sceptics, and to my intense disappointment, I have now been passed the damning email that confirms that the entire science of global warming is indeed a scam. Had I known that it was this easy to rig the evidence, I wouldn’t have wasted years of my life promoting a bogus discipline. In the interests of open discourse, I feel obliged to reproduce it here.”

CRU hack, science, crime and ethics

greenfyre — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:44:17 +0000

The story so far: BPSDB

CRU research computer hacked, many emails copied, claims are made that they reveal broad scientific fraud;
Emails released, much sound and fury told by idiots, claims seem to be all innuendo and speculation;
More and more nothing as people search for something, anything of substance in the emails.

“I’m going to make sure he goes to jail!“

Does this statement reveal:

a corrupt prosecutor determined to subvert the legal system?
a prosecutor who has absolutely damning evidence against the accused?
a dedicated prosecutor talking about her commitment to successfully prosecute someone she sincerely believes to be guilty?

You decide for yourself, but I’d say there is no way to tell. In the first place there is nothing about the statement that gives any clues about which it might be. It matters very much which it is because the statement in and of itself could easily be any of the three. As is and out of context it’s not anything you could call a good or bad thing.

Further, it matters what is actually done, not what was said. If the statement was 1), but the next morning he sobered up and went on to prosecute the case fairly and properly, then the statement was just bluster. Intemperate and stupid perhaps, but not a crime.

If it was 2) or 3), but the case subsequently went badly and the prosecutor began to tamper with and withhold evidence etc to try and get the conviction, then that is a crime and should be treated as such.

To determine whether the statement is referring to committing a crime or not requires that a crime actually needs to be committed or at least seriously planned (which actually is a crime). Not only that, the statement could actually be referring to doing the right thing and doing it well (ie not simply neutral). The premise that it is necessarily referring to doing something illegal, wrong and/or unethical is just false.

Before we move on to the actual CRU emails, let’s consider a couple more hypothetical situation to examine the ethical questions. Let’s begin by noting that peer review is a process that helps ensure the quality of science, however it is not a perfect process

and here,

good discussion wrt climate science here and here,

recent climate example here)

and inaccurate/flawed/fraudulent studies do get published. No system is perfect and it happens.

How science generally reacts to flawed studies varies. If the topic is important then others may rush to publish refutations. If the research is well known to flawed or the subject is relatively trivial and/or marginal then everyone simply ignores it. However, it may be a different matter if the stakes are significantly higher.

Suppose a medical researcher or group of researchers have good cause to believe that a particular study:

is incorrect/false/flawed, and
it’s publication will lead to practices that endangers peoples health and/or lives, and
there is a real risk the peer review process will miss the problems, and hence it will be published,

should they:

shrug and ignore it?
take every reasonable, ethical step to prevent publication, such as drawing journal editors attention to errors and problems with the research?
alert the medical community immediately through emails, non-peer reviewed publications etc?
let it be published and publish refutations of the research later (typically 3 to 6 months gap IF the refutation is ready to be submitted, otherwise much longer)?
do anything they can to subvert the process and prevent publication.?

I think most would agree that the researcher(s) is morally and ethically bound to attempt to do something. Whether you think they should do one of 2), 3) or 4), or some combination of them, is another matter. Some might even argue that the ethical situation cf the Nuremburg Principles would even justify 5).

In our second situation, if a medical researcher or group of researchers have good cause to believe that a particular journal regularly publishes studies of the sort described above, should they:

shrug and ignore it?
take every reasonable, ethical step to alert the community to problems with that journal, such as drawing publishers and policy makers attention to errors and problems with the research?
alert the medical community immediately through emails, non-peer reviewed publications etc?
let it be them publish whatever they do and each time publish refutations of the research later (typically 3 to 6 months gap IF the refutation is ready to be submitted, otherwise much longer)?
do anything they can to subvert the process and prevent publication?

As with the first example, I think most would agree that they are morally obligated to do something, although there may be debate about exactly what.

With that in mind, let’s look at some more of the “daming emails” that has everyone in a tizzy, specifically those that purport show evidence of attempts to subvert peer reviewed research.

- Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers.(1047388489) Climate Cuttings 33
- Says they should tell publisher that the journal is being used for misinformation. (1051190249) Climate Cuttings 33
- Mann has challenged GRL editor-in-chief over the publication. (1106322460) Climate Cuttings 33

“…The other paper by MM is just garbage – as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well – frequently as I see it. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what t he peer-review literature is!” 1089318616.txt

and so on.

As discussed, the researchers have a moral obligation to take any reasonable and legal action to prevent publication or use of research that they sincerely believe to be flawed/false. Not only is it not wrong to attempt to address the situation, it is morally wrong not to.

What is important is what they actually do. If they alert editors to specific problems with the research (editors are not idiots, they will make their own judgment about the validity of such claims), or use other media to openly alert the community to the problems, that is all well and good.

If, on the other hand, they subvert the process by using means that are not based on the scientific facts, whether by using influence (“Hey Ed, you owe me, kill this paper and don’t ask why”), bribes (these ‘Spice Girls’ tickets could be yours if …), lying etc, then it is wrong. I will leave it to others to debate whether the latter instance would be morally wrong in an ultimate sense cf Nuremburg; for my purposes here I am willing to call it wrong at least in the immediate sense.

So the CRU crew discussed preventing publication of certain research and trying to bring about changes in certain journals that they sincerely believed to be publishing false/incorrect information. So far, good for them, but what did they actually do?

For the most part the emails do not actually tell us. One exception is documented by Rabett and Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub where they show that in at least one instance the researchers simply published refutations (ie acted correctly in all respects under any possible interpretation).

So let’s state that very clearly:

Whether they are right or wrong about the science, a researcher has a moral obligation to use ethical and legal means to try and prevent the publication or use of work that they sincerely believe to be false and endangers human well being.

That is not a crime, it is actually a moral duty. Further, there is no evidence that the CRU Crew did anything unethical or illegal in seeking to do this.

Remember that to this point we are simply discussing whether there is any evidence of wrong doing, not whether the they were right or wrong. What about that? Well, at least with respect to the examples given in the emails, they were right (odd how that doesn’t get discussed).

With respect to the journal Climate Research see “Climate Research” controversy, also here and

Climate Research and peer-review: You should read about the issues Claire Goodess, Hans von Storch) who resigned because of a breakdown of the peer review process at that journal, that came to light with the particularly egregious (and well-publicised) paper by Soon and Baliunas (2003). The publisher’s assessment is here.

The CRU hack: Context

Equally, the journal Energy & Environment is peer reviewed only in the most facile and meaningless sense, and it looks like even EBSCO is going to stop pretending that they are a peer reviewed journal.

As for the research discussed in the emails, we now know they were right about them too (ie they have all since been refuted by peer reviewed science which has since stood up to scrutiny).

Despite Denier and Earthsucker claims to the contrary, the issue is NOT suppressing contrary views and debate, but rather keeping corrupt and bad science out of the debate. Or does someone want to step forward and argue that false claims and bogus studies should be part of the debate? Certainly they act as if they do, but are they willing to come right out and say it in so many words?

Unless anyone can show that Spice Girls tickets were offered as bribes, or that any other form of unethical behaviour was engaged in with respect to this aspect of the controversy, then all these emails show is that the authors did the right thing.

One email and the commentary deserves particular mention though:

Phil Jones writes to University of Hull to try to stop sceptic Sonia Boehmer Christiansen using her Hull affiliation. Graham F Haughton of Hull University says its easier to push greenery there now SB-C has retired. (1256765544) Climate Cuttings 33

What’s interesting about this one is that it is actually Sonia Boehmer Christiansen (editor of Energy and Environment, one of the journals in contention above). who is attempting to prevent peer reviewed literature from influencing policy, something which the Denialosphere alleges is a heinous and actionable crime. By contrast Jones is merely responding to Christiansen’s allegations about his work.

According to the Denialosphere, which of the two is at fault here? Just in case you were curious whether the Deniers were championing openness and integrity in science, or are on a witch hunt after specific individuals regardless of the facts.

And for the record, “ even if we have to redefine what t he peer-review literature is!” ranks right up there with “even if I have to warp space and time to do it.” It’s a ludicrous suggestion meant to indicate serious intent, but read literally it is just silly. Anyone treating it as a serious statement is only parading their ignorance.

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"Diagnostic pour Copenhague" : piqure de rappel scientifique

ToM — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:26:11 +0000

Un document de synthèse sur les avancées en termes de connaissance vient d’être publié : il es

Climate Gate - All the manipulations and lies revealed 8

sophiaalbertina — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:20:20 +0000

More from the media and some important questions as yet unanswered by the Global Warming Hysteric crowd.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 7

sophiaalbertina — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:39:35 +0000

More from the media and some important questions as yet unanswered by the Global Warming Hysteric crowd.

“The content of these e-mails raises extremely serious questions that could end the academic careers of many prominent professors. Academics who have purposely hidden data, destroyed information and doctored their results have committed scientific fraud.”

“Most important, however, these revelations of fudged science should have a cooling effect on global-warming hysteria and the panicked policies that are being pushed forward to address the unproven theory.”

Article here:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/24/hiding-evidence-of-global-cooling/comments/

EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Junk science exposed among climate-change believers

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change.

It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the “trick of adding in the real temps to each series … to hide the decline [in temperature].”

Mr. Mann admitted that he was party to this conversation and lamely explained to the New York Times that “scientists often used the word ‘trick’ to refer to a good way to solve a problem ‘and not something secret.’ ” Though the liberal New York newspaper apparently buys this explanation, we have seen no benign explanation that justifies efforts by researchers to skew data on so-called global-warming “to hide the decline.” Given the controversies over the accuracy of Mr. Mann’s past research, it is surprising his current explanations are accepted so readily.

There is a lot of damning evidence about these researchers concealing information that counters their bias. In another exchange, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann: “If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone” and, “We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.” Mr. Jones further urged Mr. Mann to join him in deleting e-mail exchanges about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) controversial assessment report (ARA): “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re [the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report]?”

In another e-mail, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann, professor Malcolm K. Hughes of the University of Arizona and professor Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst: “I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!”

At one point, Mr. Jones complained to another academic, “I did get an email from the [Freedom of Information] person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails.” He also offered up more dubious tricks of his trade, specifically that “IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on.” Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discussed in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that otherwise would be seen in the results. Mr. Mann sent Mr. Osborn an e-mail saying that the results he was sending shouldn’t be shown to others because the data support critics of global warming.

Repeatedly throughout the e-mails that have been made public, proponents of global-warming theories refer to data that has been hidden or destroyed. Only e-mails from Mr. Jones’ institution have been made public, and with his obvious approach to deleting sensitive files, it’s difficult to determine exactly how much more information has been lost that could be damaging to the global-warming theocracy and its doomsday forecasts.

We don’t condone e-mail theft by hackers, though these e-mails were covered by Britain’s Freedom of Information Act and should have been released. The content of these e-mails raises extremely serious questions that could end the academic careers of many prominent professors. Academics who have purposely hidden data, destroyed information and doctored their results have committed scientific fraud. We can only hope respected academic institutions such as Pennsylvania State University, the University of Arizona and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst conduct proper investigative inquiries.

Most important, however, these revelations of fudged science should have a cooling effect on global-warming hysteria and the panicked policies that are being pushed forward to address the unproven theory.

Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 6

sophiaalbertina — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:46:35 +0000

The greatest scientific and political scandal in modern times continues to unravel. And some of the media is catching on. It’s about time.

But most still continues to play the role of his master’s voice! (see my post Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed 3) Betraying all that journalism is supposed to stand for!

”In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies.”

Couldn’t agree more!

http://online.wsj.com/article/

SB10001424052748704888404574547730924988354.html

NOVEMBER 24, 2009.

Global Warming With the Lid Off

The emails that reveal an effort to hide the truth about climate science.

‘The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. . . . We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.”

So apparently wrote Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) and one of the world’s leading climate scientists, in a 2005 email to “Mike.” Judging by the email thread, this refers to Michael Mann, director of the Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center. We found this nugget among the more than 3,000 emails and documents released last week after CRU’s servers were hacked and messages among some of the world’s most influential climatologists were published on the Internet.

The “two MMs” are almost certainly Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two Canadians who have devoted years to seeking the raw data and codes used in climate graphs and models, then fact-checking the published conclusions—a painstaking task that strikes us as a public and scientific service. Mr. Jones did not return requests for comment and the university said it could not confirm that all the emails were authentic, though it acknowledged its servers were hacked.

Yet even a partial review of the emails is highly illuminating. In them, scientists appear to urge each other to present a “unified” view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the “common cause”; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to “hide the decline” of temperature in certain inconvenient data.

Some of those mentioned in the emails have responded to our requests for comment by saying they must first chat with their lawyers. Others have offered legal threats and personal invective. Still others have said nothing at all. Those who have responded have insisted that the emails reveal nothing more than trivial data discrepancies and procedural debates.

Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn’t have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them.

Consider the following note that appears to have been sent by Mr. Jones to Mr. Mann in May 2008: “Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. . . . Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?” AR4 is shorthand for the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, presented in 2007 as the consensus view on how bad man-made climate change has supposedly become.

In another email that seems to have been sent in September 2007 to Eugene Wahl of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Paleoclimatology Program and to Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Climate and Global Dynamics Division, Mr. Jones writes: “[T]ry and change the Received date! Don’t give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with.”

When deleting, doctoring or withholding information didn’t work, Mr. Jones suggested an alternative in an August 2008 email to Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, copied to Mr. Mann. “The FOI [Freedom of Information] line we’re all using is this,” he wrote. “IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI—the skeptics have been told this. Even though we . . . possibly hold relevant info the IPCC is not part of our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don’t have an obligation to pass it on.”

It also seems Mr. Mann and his friends weren’t averse to blacklisting scientists who disputed some of their contentions, or journals that published their work. “I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal,” goes one email, apparently written by Mr. Mann to several recipients in March 2003. “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.”

Mr. Mann’s main beef was that the journal had published several articles challenging aspects of the anthropogenic theory of global warming.

For the record, when we’ve asked Mr. Mann in the past about the charge that he and his colleagues suppress opposing views, he has said he “won’t dignify that question with a response.” Regarding our most recent queries about the hacked emails, he says he “did not manipulate any data in any conceivable way,” but he otherwise refuses to answer specific questions. For the record, too, our purpose isn’t to gainsay the probity of Mr. Mann’s work, much less his right to remain silent.

However, we do now have hundreds of emails that give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics. In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies.

Those "climategate" emails

Ken — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:09:16 +0000

The current “scandal” erupting around the hacking of servers at the University of East Anglias’ Climate Research Centre is rather predictable. The public release of stolen emails has been seized on by climate change deniers as evidence for their claims of manipulated data and faulty peer-review. Even more dishonestly they have been used to attack the integrity of science, and scientists, in general – quite apart form any climate change issue (see for example WarmingGate, The scientific community and self-criticism, Climate scientists caught lying and How the Global Warming Scientists Really Work at four local religious apologetics blogs). On the other hand, researchers and many newspaper commentators say the emails show nothing more than frank discussion between scientists around the world and details of their collaboration on research projects and journal articles.

Domestic debris and media comments

Anyone interested in the boredom of trawling through such domestic debris can access the stolen emails at Alleged CRU Emails. For some more balanced news media coverage have a look at:
This climate email -hacking episode is generating more heat than light
Global warming rigged? Here’s the email I’d need to see
Climate change email hacking to be looked into by University of East Anglia
Leaked emails mark dangerous shift in climate denial strategy
Climate change champion and sceptic both call for inquiry into leaked emails
Leaked email climate smear was a PR disaster for UEA

And a rather humorous take on “climategate” is available here: Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment ‘thinking’

Predictably only the most apparently damning emails have been quoted in the media. While I think some of the language in the emails is disappointing I don’t think it is surprising for informal private communications. The scientific institutes involved may well be adivsed to investigate specific comments, if only to reinforce their scientific integrity in the public mind. But I will be surprised if these comments indicate any real scientific fraud.

The NZ Science Media Centre has released a summary of reactions from UK-based scientists. It originates from their sister organisation, the Science Media Centre in London.

Dr Chris Huntingford, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), said:

“Using the very comprehensive set of temperature measurements available to us, we do know that there has been significant warming over the last hundred years. These datasets have been compiled by independent research laboratories in both the UK and the USA.”Computer model descriptions of the climate system are increasing in their predictive skill, and there are now very good reasons to believe that their output is accurate and can be trusted. These simulations provide compelling evidence of the link between global warming and increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels.

“Such state-of-the-art computer models of how the climate functions do also account for natural cycles in the Earth system. However, when the additional influence of humans is not considered, they are unable to explain the rapid rate of warming that has been observed over the last Century. The implication is that to a very high level of certainty, the warming observed in the last Century is not part of a natural cycle.

“Almost all current scientific understanding of how the climate system operates suggests that humankind is having an influence on our climate system.”

Professor John Burrows, Director of the Biogeochemistry Programme, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), said:

“The peer review scientific process was created to try to avoid conspiracies from any side on an issue. Despite the adverse reaction in some quarters the current discussion is a perfect example that whilst it doesn’t always look perfect, an open debate, backed up by peer review, is what science is all about.

“Whilst not ignoring “emailgate” we should not inadvertently move the public attention from the established scientific consensus to the attempt at character assassination being made by these climate change sceptics.

“The basic physics of global climate change has been known since Arrhenius at the end of the 19th century if not before. The four Assessment Reports from the IPCC are consistent, however, the data since 1990 seems to follow worst case scenarios. To me this is evidence that the scientific community is behaving responsibly and rather cautiously with respect to the science of climate change.”

Professor Piers Forster, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, said:

“Scientists at the Climate Research Unit are leading experts in the world’s temperature record. They do an amazingly hard job of collecting data from lots of counties, looking at errors and putting the different datasets together. They have been under increasing pressure from a few individuals to respond to multiple FOI calls. Like all us scientists they are short of man-power and stretch their resources to the maximum to do as much new science as possible. The need to respond to FOI requests are often too large to make them feasibly achievable and whilst some of the emails show scientists to be all too human, nothing I have read makes me doubt the veracity of the peer review process or the general warming trend in the global temperature record. I know that when errors in their global temperature product have previously been found (e.g. Thomson et al., 2008, Nature), they responded as all scientists should, researching the source of the error with true scientific enthusiasm.”

Dr Stephan Harrison, Associate Professor in Quaternary Science, School of Geography, University of Exeter, said:

“The emails from the Climatic Research Unit which have been published on the internet have been seized upon by climate change sceptics as evidence that scientists are involved in a global warming conspiracy, suppression of dissenting voices and making data up to support a global warming agenda. We shouldn’t get too carried away, however. Irrespective of what may or may not have been said in some private emails, this doesn’t change the physical properties of carbon dioxide, and doesn’t change the fact that human activity is warming the planet. There’s a lot of politics in all of this debate, but it is the science that has to drive policy.”

Kathy Maskell, Spokesperson, & Professor Rowan Sutton, Walker Institute, University of Reading, said:

“Throughout the Earth’s history there have been natural changes in climate caused by many factors, including variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, volcanic eruptions, and changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. The scientific evidence now shows that people are changing the global climate.

“Climate scientists look at both natural factors that cause climate to change and they look at the effect that people are having on climate. There is no doubt that human activity, such as burning fossil fuels and agriculture, is increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This increase in greenhouse gases is causing the globe to warm.

“The current warmth is unusual in the context of the last 1000 years (at least) and is not just part of a natural cycle. Past changes are also thought to have occurred much more slowly than the warming over the 20th century.

“The majority of scientists agree that much of the warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to increasing greenhouse gases being produced by human activity. Scientists have looked at different possible causes for the warming. Natural changes (like changes in the Sun’s output) cannot explain 20th century warming. The only way to reproduce the warming over the 20th century is to include the effects that people are having on the climate.

“Over the 20th century as a whole there has been a warming trend of 0.7 degrees centigrade and the warming has accelerated since the mid-20th century. The warming has not been steady and there have been periods of cooling. This is exactly what climate scientists would expect. As well as increasing greenhouse gases, natural factors (such as volcanic eruptions and changes in sea surface temeprature in the Pacific called El Nino) are also affecting global temperature. So scientists would expect there to be short periods where there is less warming and even cooling, but overall the trend is towards higher global temperatures.”

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, said:

“Once appropriate action has been taken over the hacking, there has to be some process to assess the substance of the e-mail messages as well. The selective disclosure and dissemination of the messages has created the impression of impropriety, and the only way of clearing the air now would be through a rigorous investigation. I have sympathy for the climate researchers at the University of East Anglia and other institutions who have been the target of an aggressive campaign by so-called ’sceptics’ over a number of years. But I fear that only a thorough investigation could now clear their names.

“There needs to be an assurance that these e-mail messages have not revealed inappropriate conduct in the preparation of journal articles and in dealing with requests from other researchers for access to data. This will probably require investigations both by the host institutions and by the relevant journals. There may also be a role for the UK Office of Research Integrity to advise on any investigation.

“The e-mail messages I have seen posted on ’sceptics” websites do not cast doubt on the basic physical fact that the Earth is warming in response to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. ‘Sceptics’ may seek to wrongly portray these e-mail messages as a smoking gun from a worldwide conspiracy to create a global warming hoax, but that is simply a ridiculous fantasy.”

Dr Andy Challinor, lecturer in Climate Change Modelling, University of Leeds, said:

“Scientists are frequently faced with choices about methods of presenting data. The aim is to represent the underlying facts clearly, and there is rarely a single correct way of doing this. The mechanisms for anthropogenic climate change are established science that is well-understood. The idea that the many scientists across the globe working on climate change could collude in misrepresenting the fundamentals of the science is ludicrous, since it would be both counter-cultural to science and logistically impossible.”

Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, Industrial Fellow, University of Cambridge BP Institute, said:

“The evidence base for climate change continues to be debated. However, what is disappointing is that there is less debate about what we should be doing morally regardless of the strength of the case for or against climate change being driven by mankind. Even if some people want to dismiss the evidence base, what do they think we should do as responsible citizens? Clearly we should be seeking ways of reducing our impact on the planet – this is irrefutable.

“Improving energy efficiency and switching to non/low-carbon energy sources are vital. In the case of improved energy efficiency, there are strong economic arguments today as to why this should be done now. In the case of switching to non/low carbon energy sources, the economic arguments are longer-term and may involve consideration of the cost of climate change as per the Stern report. In summary, I fail to understand why people want to debate the evidence base for climate change rather than debate what we should be doing anyway to reduce our impact on the planet. The technological advances in energy efficiency need to be adopted by more people, and more quickly, before we invest more time debating climate change! “

(Further Information: To talk to any of the experts quoted above contact the Science Media Centre on tel: 04 499 5476 or email: smc@sciencemediacentre.co.nz.)

I realise these comments will have no influence on the more adamant climate change deniers or those who wish to sneeringly smear and attack science and scientists for their own ideological or religious reasons. But hopefully more reasonable people will be able to see through such attacks and recognise that these stolen emails don’t indicate any widespread conspiracy to deceive.
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