The Blackboard

Some of these people would seem to be remarkably childish, considering that they regard themselves as being on an urgent mission to save the planet.
They’re not too hot with Photoshop either.

[...] Caught In Action!” On The Blackboard Lucia Liljegren at the Blackboard has a post Enemies caught in action! with an image depicting several individuals including me [thanks to Lucia for her post!]. The [...]

Any time any organization forms an enemies list, that organization has become paranoid. Paranoia is the antithesis of objectivity. There is really nothing more that can be said about it.

Lucia is correct. This episode is the fodder of sociological studies. It doesn’t have a thing to do with science, other than to show that objectivity is not part of this particular groups method. That is why data and method transparency is vital to any reasoned debate. You take your best shot and let everyone else have at it. If it survives, good for you.

Personally, I’m very grateful that this group of folks chose dendrochronology as their forte and not say, aerospace engineering or something similar.

I think the bottomline on this whole story is this. The institutions that govern scientific behavior have gone awry. Those institutions have been corrupted by money and power and politics. The tonic for this is transparency. Free the data; free the code; free the debate.

But the AGW side is interested in controlling the message. They fight against data release because they fear what people will do with it. They fear that data will be misused:it will be. They fear people finding errors: errors will be found. They fear that people will be less certain: they will be. And they fear that it may take a long time to convince people to take action: it will. And so they act out of fear and try to control the message. Everyone who understands the nixon whitehouse understands how this fear drives people to do crazy things. The one thing they never feared: disclosure. Leaks. And so the thing they feared the most, delaying action on climate science, is the very thing they may have got. They should have trusted that open debate would yield the next right action in the shortest time possible. They didnt. They feared a “corporate enemy” that would delay action. And ironically in the end they ended up being the thing they feared.

By the say, I found more evidence of tropical vacations:

“But the AGW side is interested in controlling the message. ”

Indeed. I searched for their views on other people’s recons and found that The Team has even in September 2009 issues with Moberg 2005 – not that it somehow changed magically in the course of the last 4 years, but because:
“The Moberg paper (2005 Nature) is used by the skeptics as evidence that most of recent warming could still be natural. Has anyone published a critique/criticism of this?” (Tom Wigley)
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/.....631628.txt
Can’t have this, can we?

Is Tom P (from the climateaudit Yamal blog series) the Tom Petersen from this email ? Did anyone ever figure out who he was ?

Btw, the picture is kind of funny – specially the guy in the rubber duck with a rainbow coloured helicopter hat on

That picture is clearly a conspiracy and now anything any scientist says about anything I don’t like ever is in question.

None–That’s Fred Singer.
The illustrated people are:

Gilligan: Roger Pielke Sr.
The Skipper: Richard Lindzen (I think.)
The Professor: John Christy
Thurston Howell III: Pat Michaels
Guy in life vest: Senator Inhoffe
Guy in raft: Fred Singer.

Boris–
I’m sure the photographer was funded by Soros, and infiltrated the swanky resort as a waiter. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get a picture with any girls in bikini’s who surely were invited to spice the party up. That’s what deep pockets oil funded industry conspiracies do to get people to voluntarily admit things like the fact that, well, models may be imperfect, scientists there really may be unknown unknows and those may matter and that…well… temperature have not exactly been increasing rapidly this decade. So we know the pictures with girls in bikini’s must exist.

Plus, why would ginger and mary ann not show up?!

Someone mentioned this from Richard Feynman, his address to the grad class in 1974 at CalTech (at http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm.) it is all too appropriate in light of the conduct shown in the emails:

But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school–we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
…
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
…
We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It’s a little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It’s interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn’t they discover that the new number was higher right away? It’s a thing that scientists are ashamed of–this history–because it’s apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan’s, they thought something must be wrong–and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to Millikan’s value they didn’t look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We’ve learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don’t have that kind of a disease.
[BUT WE DO HAVE “TRICKS” HERE DR. FEYNMAN!!!]
…
For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. “Well,” I said, “there aren’t any.” He said, “Yes, but then we won’t get support for more research of this kind.” I think that’s kind of dishonest. If you’re representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you’re doing–and if they don’t want to support you under those circumstances, then that’s their decision.

One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results.

I say that’s also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don’t publish such a result, it seems to me you’re not giving scientific advice. You’re being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don’t publish it at all. That’s not giving scientific advice.

So I have just one wish for you–the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.

The AP just picked it up, causing a spike in news coverage.
Hackers leak e-mails, stoke climate debateby DAVID STRINGER (AP) Nov 21, 20090

None (Comment#24092) November 21st, 2009 at 1:23 pm

Tom P is not Tom Peterson. There is no need to speculate about who Tom P is. He is harmless. Just a foot soldier, a diversionary tactic. canon fodder. Don’t waste time on him.

This one’s a goody!
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/.....179301.txt

“> Dear Dr. Foster:
>
> 3 reviews of your above-referenced manuscript are attached below. Reviewer 3 is concerned
with the tone on the writing”

” 1. As noted above, I agree McLean et al is problematic. But as it is written, the current paper almost stoops to the level of “blog diatribe”. The current paper does not read like a
peer-reviewed journal article. The tone is sometimes dramatic and sometimes accusatory. It
is inconsistent with the language one normally encounters in the objectively-based,
peer-reviewed literature. For examples….
> – In the abstract: Do you really need all of these adjectives?…’greatly overstates’;
’severely overestimates’; ‘faulty analysis’; ‘extremely high’.
> – In the introduction… ‘Unfortunately, their conclusions are seriously in error…”
strikes me as overly subjective. Better to say: ‘We will demonstrate that their conclusions
are strongly dependent on ….’ or something like that…
> – Page X-6: ‘tell us absolutely nothing’. Surely it’s enough to state ‘tell us nothing’.
> – Page X-9: ‘it is misleading…’ That’s a strong word. It may be true. But I think we
should rise above such accusations.
>
> Anyway, I’m sure the lead author gets my point. I think the current paper will have a
much greater impact (and can claim the high road) if it is rewritten in a more objective
manner.
>
> 2. Similarly, instead of framing the paper as “Taking down McLean et al.”, why not focus
more on interesting aspects of the science……”

Guess who Dr Foster is?
I’ll give you a clue.
He writes a blog diatribe under a pseudonym and reknown for being rude, censors criticism and writes in “a tone is sometimes dramatic and sometimes accusatory”

Is that a magic flute I hear?

re: Adam Gallon (Comment#24107)

A curious person would try clicking on the link embedded in the email and seeing what has been uploaded.

BTW the venom appears to be the work of James Annan, as he is the lead author

Magic flute? I prefer Papageno, then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liDTdbqljo4

Is that a magic flute I hear?

Ach, ich fühl’s, es ist verschwunden,
Ewig hin der Liebe Glück!
Nimmer kommt ihr Wonnestunde
Meinem Herzen mehr zurück!

I am sure even the most desparate of please will not unseal Tamino’s lips on this. . .

Adam,

Type ‘tamino’ into google and take a look at the list of auto-complete terms that show up. It appears that tamino’s attempt to avoid linking his name to his blog has failed.

Lucia,

It would be nice to start a FOI party.

As we know from the mails jones et al met with the FOI department to talk to them about CA.

lets FOI the notes from that meeting and any other emails relating to discussions or emails about climateaudit.

Follow the FOI.

My throat is getting sore from screaming this. I’ve put Tom, Andrew Revkin, Anthony on this trail.

“That’s what deep pockets oil funded industry conspiracies do to get people to voluntarily admit things like the fact…”

…smoking is harmless. And that Hansen really meant scenario C. And that global warming is a hoax. Yes, I know.

I mean, do we really need to hack emails to know that actual scientists think Pat Michaels is a dishonest hack? It’
s pretty obvious to everyone given his erasure of scenarios A and B from Hansen’s paper and his embracing of the Chil;lingasr and Kihulak paper.

But on the bright side, Lord Monckton can rap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBzR0-j0O0o

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/.....045162.txt

Interesting to see FOI discussion here. Jones et al got caught out by steve “kiting” a paper into AR4.

their response? See if they can change the rules about FOI WRT IPCC.

Hmm we should FOI for correspondence relative to this.

Follow the FOI.

Hmmm…that pic…AGW Inc´s sense of humor is, shall we say..corny?

Still not sure the emails are hacked, at the same they could have been released by a disgruntled employee.

Hoi Polloi–
The could have been released by a disgruntled lower level CRU computer wonk, pissled off post doc or any number of people. We don’t know.

One of the interesting things on the anelegantchaos.org site are the keywords ppl are searching for:

# cooling
#
# jones
#
# yamal
#
# mwp
#
# hide the decline
#
# moron
#
# bulldog
#
# trick
#
# csiro
#
# warming
#
# watts
#
# ipcc
#
# destroy
#
# Al Gore
#
# flannery
#
# hockey stick
#
# obama
#
# mann
#
# delete
#
# gore

“Obama”??

I love Boris, handed the watergate tapes he would have pointed out there was nothing to see. Move along, no attempt at all to alter the peer review process, no attempt to get editors fired, no attempt to spike papers from IPCC review……no nothing to see at all!

And the flute keeps on playing………

a wiki would be cool.

the emails can be organized according to the subject matter:

Yamal. Bristlecones ( people need to look at those mails) Santer paper, issues with journals, FOI process.

there are a lot of issues. organize by subject matter.

“Climatati”?? Would that be something like the “Clima Nostra”?

or oops, grammar, “Clima Nostro?”

Hmm, don’t sound so nice when the gender was corrected.

Anyway, “climatati”, what’s that?

Mosher [24138]
A wiki? Wouldn’t get that past Connolly I’m afraid. He’s part of the Team’s Imperial Guard.

Boris (Comment#24094) November 21st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
That picture is clearly a conspiracy and now anything any scientist says about anything I don’t like ever is in question.

Keep up with the strawman arguments, Boris. It’s all you have left.

Re: Watergate: [andy (Comment#24132)]

I doubt that I will please many people but I would like to make a comparison between the Watergate break-in and the CRUgate email “break-out”.

Both uncovered an “unnecessary” can of worms. Nixon was at the height of public approval and power (his electoral college margin in the 1972 election as a percentage was only behind Washington, Monroe, and FDR). Yet needless campaign shenanigans brought him down.

I do not know how much damage will be done to the TEAM but whatever it is, it was totally avoidable and due to completely unnecessary actions. Why could they just not allow a little dissent, openess, personal humility, and doubt temper the debate?

Why did they feel the need to enforce unanimity, secrecy, arrogance, and certitude.

Why the nuclear option?

I for one, have no problem with AGW, but I simply do not believe these guys, their models, or their projections. They had to do a lot to alienate me, yet succeeded. I just hate zealotry (“We will force you to be Green”)

It is all so stupid!

Go for overkill => Risk getting megadead.

There is one big difference between these guys and NIxon, the latter was a consumate politician and I liked him (Tricky Dicky, the Guy not to buy a used car from), and I knew he was a “crook” and complicated personality (HUAC involvement).

These guys are simply not in his league. They may rank with Liddy and Co, but they shouldn’t have messed with big boys, who are not going to thank them for this.

I have three views on the seriousness of all this, personally I think it is a hoot, scientifically I think they can be replaced without great loss, politically I think they have sleepwalked off a ledge.

The CRUgate break-out raises more questions than it provides answers, it is just email from one institute. I expect that every character mentioned in them can anticipate receiving requests for all their correspondence in the near future.

They have been conducting revolution and there must be consequences. Science would not suffer, if they were rusticated tomorrow.

Finally, I felt sorrow for Nixon, a great but deeply flawed American. It is the “great” bit that these other guys don’t get.

Alex

Luica,

nice neologism

“pissled off” also pizzled off, to be struck repeatedly by a mann with a pizzle.

Alex

Alexander Harvey (Comment#24147)

One of the major revelations I’ve had in my working career is the arrogance of power the shown by even minor management. The rules don’t seem to apply to them, even if they created the rules in the first place (look at Charlie Rangel for example). Bizarrely enough, as with Watergate, it’s often in cases where they don’t even need to break the rules to get what they want, but they seem to have a compulsion to do it anyway.

BTW, Climanati (like Illuminati sounds better to me)

I read some of the USHCN/GISS/CRU brouhaha on web site you sent us. It is both interesting and sad. It reminds me of a talk that Fred Singer gave in which he impugned the climate record by saying he didn’t know how different parts were put together. During the question part, Bob Livzey said, if you don’t know how it is done you should read the papers that describe it in detail.

Since then, CRU has admitted that they don’t know how their own records were put together. Or at least that’s what CRU has said.

I have a question re: the AP article. It says:

“In one leaked e-mail, the research center’s director, Phil Jones, writes to colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium. He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to “hide the decline” in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.”

Doesn’t “hide the decline” pertain to the decline of the proxies (thus creating an uncomfortable divergence with the temp record) or have I misread?

Steve Mosher: Hope you get your voice back soon. Your good efforts are appreciated. Keep screaming!

Free the code, free the data! Oh yeah, and follow the FOI.

Ya know, if ‘the team’ had just followed your advice way back when you first posted the above at CA, this hack probably never would have happened or been necessary. Why was it so hard for them?

Boris (Comment#24121) November 21st, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Boris I have no problem with boys being boys and scientists cracking jokes about each other. Mann’s joke about the Idso brothers being a circus act made me laugh. Besides that a couple points. I think the whole “tobacco” company meme was a bad one for the AGWs to rely on. Primarily because it cast the opposition in a light that allowed for a “ends justifies the means” scenario. As Lakoff points out we LIVE by metaphors ( I actually read him long ago and wrote some nice papers on metaphor based on his work, but nevermind) We LIVE by metaphors. So when some on the AGW side choose the metaphor of “big oil = big tobacco”
and “sceptics = denialist” Then As I have REPEATEDLY pointed out that metaphor gives one the rationale to do certain things that one ordinarily would not do. Once you use the big tobbacco metaphor and the holocaust metaphor, you can suddenly “cheer” the death of john daly. You can thwart the FOI process. You can argue against transparency in science. WHY? because those metaphors ENTAIL that your opponent is evil. Your ends suddenly justify your means. Its not just a metaphor. We live in metaphors. We act them out.

On my view people who don’t accept AGW are just ignorant. Not evil. Open debate and education can cure that. Oh sure you will have some flat earthers. deal with it. don’t demonize.

Boris (Comment#24121) November 21st, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Boris I have no problem with boys being boys and scientists cracking jokes about each other. Mann’s joke about the Idso brothers being a circus act made me laugh. Besides that a couple points. I think the whole “tobacco” company meme was a bad one for the AGWs to rely on. Primarily because it cast the opposition in a light that allowed for a “ends justifies the means” scenario. As Lakoff points out we LIVE by metaphors ( I actually read him long ago and wrote some nice papers on metaphor based on his work, but nevermind) We LIVE by metaphors. So when some on the AGW side choose the metaphor of “big oil = big tobacco”
and “sceptics = denialist” Then As I have REPEATEDLY pointed out that metaphor gives one the rationale to do certain things that one ordinarily would not do. Once you use the big tobbacco metaphor and the holocaust metaphor, you can suddenly “cheer” the death of john daly. You can thwart the FOI process. You can argue against transparency in science. WHY? because those metaphors ENTAIL that your opponent is evil. Your ends suddenly justify your means. Its not just a metaphor. We live in metaphors. We act them out.

On my view people who don’t accept AGW are just ignorant. Not evil. Open debate and education can cure that. Oh sure you will have some flat earthers. deal with it. don’t demonize.

Mosher, very poignant stuff….I think your on to something. Of course, one can never get too far away from Lord Acton and his observations on ‘power’.

“Jejune” – Lord Monckton of Brenchley

Steven Mosher, I think your comments have been very insightful. This whole mess just seems to have walked head on into the points you have been hammering on for some time. Would you consider a guest post blog article here or somewhere where you could expand on your perspectives?

Ya Lurker,
I probably should. I’m headed out of town for a couple of days. Some time to reflect and put things together.

Email of Thorne to Santer, Wigley, Karl, Jones… with attached, and of course kept secret, image of tropical tropospheric… cooling (trend_profiles_dogs_dinner.png of zip file) :

“Grey shading is a little cheat from Santer et al using a trusty ruler.” (the “cheat” is to display a tropical warming whereas data show cooling)
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/.....994210.txt

‘And ironically in the end they ended up being the thing they feared.’

Mosher must really love this because he’s posting it everywhere.

re: jef (Comment#24153) November 21st, 2009 at 8:48 pm
..Doesn’t “hide the decline” pertain to the decline of the proxies (thus creating an uncomfortable divergence with the temp record) or have I misread?
–

I don’t think so. As you say, it seems to be about the failure of wooden thermometers to read accurately since 1960. Which raises the question as to whether they read accurately prior to that. Jeff Id draws it out nicely here-

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/3452/

Fred,
Mosher is posting it only because it is obviously true.

Jean Demesure (Comment#24169) Could someone explain to me what the result was of the cheat? I realise that the cheat shading was done manually, but how could this be supported in a published document?

Also, does this mean that models dealing with tropospheric temperature are using doctored data? As Schmidt and Susan Solomon were copied on the email, that makes them prima faci parties to the fraud, thereby including IPCC and NASA GISS?

Well, my comment has been in “moderation” for over twelve hours at RC; although he is overloaded. (http://www.realclimate.org/ind...../#comments). It was this:

[Begin original Comment]

[Response: Sure it can. TSI + volcanoes. - gavin]

On #280, what I meant is that something that “would” (but did not) happen cannot be measured. Is it your assertion that any warming not explained by natural drivers is automatically anthropogenic and there is no unexplained drivers? In other words is everything left over filed under “man caused” until further explained? I ask this because when unexpected cooling is observed, albeit not prolonged yet, It seems like it is never even considered that anthropogenic warming is overestimated, just that the cooling is unexplained.

It seems like an all out effort to preserve the estimated AGW. Bias is the concern.

Excerpt from [1255558867.txt]

At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the
recent
lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to
look at
the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic
trend relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second
is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the
observed data.
Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The
second
method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.
These sums complement Kevin’s energy work.
Kevin says … “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”. I
do not
agree with this.

I know you are very busy. Thank you for all the time you have taken.
[End of Comment]

I didn’t even add this exchange from file #1255553034.txt:

Here is Mann commenting on the unexpected cooling (after wondering why this “new” BBC reporter was even reporting the cooling. See file 1255558867.txt) :

[excerpt]
Michael Mann wrote:
thanks Tom,
I’ve taken the liberty of attaching a figure that Gavin put
together the other day (its an update from a similar figure he
prepared for an earlier RealClimate post. see:
http://www.realclimate.org/ind.....pulation/). It is indeed worth a thousand words, and drives home Tom’s point below. We’re planning on doing a post on this shortly, but would be nice to see the Sep. HadCRU numbers first,
I did
[End excerpt]

Then Tom takes a look:

[Begin excerpt]
Mike,

The Figure you sent is very deceptive. As an example, historical
runs with PCM look as though they match observations — but the
match is a fluke. PCM has no indirect aerosol forcing and a low
climate sensitivity — compensating errors. In my (perhaps too
harsh)
view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model
results by individual authors and by IPCC. This is why I still use
results from MAGICC to compare with observed temperatures. At least
here I can assess how sensitive matches are to sensitivity and
forcing assumptions/uncertainties.
Tom.
[End excerpt]

Of course Mann, the ringleader, comes back:

[Begin excerpt]
Hi Tom,

thanks for the comments. well, ok. but this is the full CMIP3
ensemble, so at least the plot is sampling the range of choices
regarding if and how indirect effects are represented, what the cloud
radiative feedback & sensitivity is, etc. across the modeling
community. I’m not saying that these things necessarily cancel out
(after all, there is an interesting and perhaps somewhat disturbing
compensation between indirect aerosol forcing and sensitivity across
the CMIP3 models that defies the assumption of independence), but if
showing the full spread from CMIP3 is deceptive, its hard to imagine
what sort of comparison wouldn’t be deceptive (your point re MAGICC
notwithstanding),

perhaps Gavin has some further comments on this (it is his plot after
all),

mike
[End excerpt]

Finally Gavin chimes in:

[Begin excerpt]
Tom, with respect to the difference between the models and the data, the
fundamental issue on short time scales is the magnitude of the internal
variability. Using the full CMIP3 ensemble at least has multiple
individual realisations of that internal variability and so is much more
suited to a comparison with a short period of observations. MAGICC is
great at the longer time scale, but its neglect of unforced variability
does not make it useful for these kinds of comparison.

The kind of things we are hearing “no model showed a cooling”, the “data
is outside the range of the models” need to be addressed directly.

Gavin
[End excerpt]

They fail to see that you can’t just remove observed data, and draw on different comparisons to mask the models lack of ability to account for various natural drivers.

I agree with Tom on the final reply:

[Begin excerpt]
Gavin,

I just think that you need to be up front with uncertainties
and the possibility of compensating errors.

Tom.
[End excerpt]

If anyone seriously wants a wiki to categorise the emails then I can easily stick on my website to go along with the search engine I created – http://www.di2.nu/foia/foia.pl – it won’t take more than a few minutes to create but I’m not sure what purpose it would serve and it might easily get hacked by vandal if it became well known

Francis

mosh,

I agree with a lot of what you say. However, the tobacco meme comes from reality–the fact that SInger did work for big tobacco and carries on now with big oil. Plus, it is a very understandable analogy–an industry tries to influence science for their own profit.

In your glee over the emails (and shouldn’t you guys be more happy about the code?) you are looking like the tabloids here.

Boris,

Stop staring at our tabloids.

(Apologies to the old Thin Man movie.)

“an industry tries to influence science for their own profit.”

As opposed to the scientists influencing the ’science’ for their own profit or are these green champs working for free?

I’m happy to look like the tabloids if truth is to be found there, its hardly to be found in the massaged peer reviewed literature as we can all now see. You should ask yourself why you seem unable to accept and comment on the awful behaviour revealed by these emails?

Mosh: take away those metaphors and you completely cripple the leftist idealogues!

(Comment#24185)
Boris,
With regards to the Tobacco meme you are missing two points. The first point is you have repeated the often heard accusation that not only denialists but also skeptics are in the pocket of industry because that industry “tries to influence science for their own profit.” The second point is that you equate the uncertainty associated with both the tobacco and global warming issues as the same.

However, in the Tobacco controversy there really was only one industry – the tobacco companies. It was not like there were other companies that stood to profit because they had the replacement product for tobacco use. The global warming issue is different because there are legions of industrial companies lining up to profit from the “solution”. Seriously, do you think that a single company that has an advertisement out condemning global warming is doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? I have yet to see one that does not come from a company that stands to win big with GHG controls.

With regards to the second point there is a huge difference in the level of uncertainty with the two issues. With regards to tobacco smoke you could measure high concentrations of multiple pollutants that all directly influence the respiratory system and cause measurable acute and chronic health effects. On the other hand the truth of global warming lies somewhere between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions cause no impacts to the earth’s climate when we know there is greenhouse gas effect and those emissions cause not only all the differences in temperature but all the other observed weather phenomena that have been ascribed to global warming when we know there are other anthropogenic and natural components.

Ultimately it may turn out that the CAGW industry and scientists are as guilty of the behavior that you condemn as the skeptics and denialists you condemn.

Roger,

There’s a huge difference in the level of uncertainty in the effect of smoking upon one patient and another, though we can express levels of risk. With AGW the planet is the only patient. There is uncertainty, but again we can assess risks. We can’t know the exact ‘truth’ of what will come about, no more than I can know if I’ll die of lung cancer, though I know it would be a good idea to stop smoking.

Boris–
One of the main problem with all the proofs of the conspiracy theoris is… how important is Singer? I know he gets invited and has an email list. I met him and I’m on it. It contributes nearly zero to what I think of AGW– I suspect that’s true of at least 80% of the distribution list.

The same goes for nearly all the people that get mentioned as having connections to the vast well funded conspiracy. For the most part, these are people who are very rarely mentioned on the skeptic and even stone-cold cooler “denialist” blogs, forums etc. Singer can get mentioned if he manages to be a co-author on a paper written by some other lead author. But otherwise?

All these various explanations of the oil lobby conspiracy either show that it a) does not really exist or b) is utterly incompetent and doesn’t have a clue who to fund or how to get any message across.

The only reason the stone-cold skeptic memes has any legs is that people don’t trust the activists The lukewarmer group exists because, to a large extent, there is a group of activists who are stretching the science to emphasize catastrophes and outcomes that the science suggests are improbable. This will automatically create a “not a bad as ‘they’ say” contingent who a) know science b) know match c) know statistics and d) know how to read.

The fact that the activist group does not seem to distinguish between the stone-cold-coolers and the lukewarmer contributes to their inability to communicate with the public many of whom are likely in the ‘lukewarm’ camp, or who find the arguments and discussions of the ‘lukewarm’ group at least plausible.

My main takeaway to this point is how similar this is to the Nixon tapes. The siege mentality is evident. This surprises me because I did not think that skeptical scientific activities had made much of a dent on the IPCCers. It is now clear that they have indeed been very influential, to the point of stimulating this bizarre behavior. I have the impression that the sense of a pressing skeptical opposition created the conditions for behavior that perhaps would not otherwise have occurred. These are true believers under seige, not scientists probing for the truth. Trenberth appears to be the exception, raising honest and obvious questions about what the data are saying (and being rebuffed).

I also want to point out that the Wegman Report of 2006 warned that this community was small and insular; that they continually referred to each other and refereed each others’ papers. Perhaps what we know today should have been anticipated.

I doubt that this affair will have much effect on the public at large. The community will circle the wagons as it always does; the illusion of infallibility must be maintained. The media will collaborate in that its usual compliant fashion. The real damage may be felt in the scientific community where many are apt to see this affair as damaging to science in general. This could lead to increased skepticism and scrutiny by the scientific community. We will see.

Boris:

If this data from UEA is to be believed, Phil Jones, all by himself, has made more money from global warming, than all the money given by Exxon.

In a spreadsheet on the FOIA file, Jones appears to have made over 22 million USD studying climate change.

Also note that for future procurement, the targeted institutions by Jones et al, beside governments, were alternate energy companies and carbon trading firms.

I have no problem with “conflict of interest” accusations being given, as long as the same criteria is applied to all parties.

“However, the tobacco meme comes from reality–the fact that SInger did work for big tobacco and carries on now with big oil.”

I’ll try to remember how meaningless it is to have been a director-the first- of the National Weather Service’s Satellite Service Center, Director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami, Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Special Advisor to President Eisenhower on space developments (1960), Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water Quality and Research, U.S. Department of the Interior, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Policy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chief Scientist, United States Department of Transportation, and a consultant to the House Select Committee on Space, NASA, GAO, NSF, AEC, NRC, DOD (Strategic Defense Initiative), US DOE Nuclear Waste Panel, the US Treasury, and the state governments of Virginia, Alaska, and Pennsylvania if you have now or ever been connected with oil or tobacco.

[...] Liljegren at the Blackboard has a post Enemies caught in action! with an image depicting several individuals including me [thanks to Lucia for her post!]. The [...]

[...] The comments by Lucia in this post link to the Gilligan’s Island photo from which the bodies were cropped, and gives the names [...]

TRICK or CHEAT

” the crime of conspiracy was committed with the making of the agreement, but present-day statutes require an overt step by a conspirator to further the conspiracy. It is not necessary for guilt that the act be fully consummated.” From here:-
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedi.....Conspiracy

Our Gav has lost the plot almost all of his answers can be turned back on the Not Real Climate Scientists.

I told the lovely boy to stop digging but would he listen

At the Not RC Site They seem to be debating the meaning of Trick but not the word Hide?

Andrew_FL (Comment#24212),

You KNOW that Singer’s impressive C.V. becomes completely worthless….. the second he disagrees with the ‘Team’. The same applies to anyone else who that crosses the line.

Astonishing that Boris actually believes such crap.

“Astonishing that Boris actually believes such crap.”
Actually, i’s not so astonishing. Like the Climatatii, Boris’ attitude in the past now prohibits him to backpedal and has to resort in damage control at all cost. Every inch towards McSteve et al means loss of face which the AGW alumni cannot afford. And not to mention the pecuniary consequences. Dr.Jones apparently received a staggering 22 MILLION Sterling the last 19 year.

Not unlike Simon, you’re backing a brutal horse here, Boris, and I think your standard equivocations must now take on undreamed of proportions to get you through this one. PerhapsDr. Trenberth can help.

Then again, perhaps not.

Good list of Climate Team misconduct here:

http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/.....dades.html

There is more, but it’s a start.

Tom (Comment#24244)

I’m not backing any horse, Tom, other than the climate horse, which will do whatever it will do. I find myself debating with people who appear to me, often, to have completely double standards. Sure, I could be critical of Jones’ (say) snark and attitude and agenda. But then I’d be critical of McIntyre’s qualities along the same lines. Other ‘contrarians’ are spouting outright lies, and not one peep out of those who so sanctimoniously call judgement on the private (and often crass, I’d agree, and possibly incriminatory in terms of their comments on FOI requests)) emails of those who are ‘on the other side’. If it’s a propaganda war then let’s all be honest about it, and stop pretending that ’standards are being upheld’ when they signally aren’t applied to anything that suits the agenda of those who are pouring over these emails looking for some propaganda angle that suits them.

Lucia: “Plus, why would ginger and mary ann not show up?!”

Jennifer Marohasy and Sallie Baliunas? (wink)

Lucia: “Plus, why would ginger and mary ann not show up?!”

Jennifer Marohasy and Sallie Baliunas? (wink)

Hmmm. Are either of those a red head?

“Dr.Jones apparently received a staggering 22 MILLION Sterling the last 19 year.”

Correction: this should read 22 Million DOLLARS.

Looks like Sallie might be a redhead.

AirFiero–Then we’ve found Ginger!

ddWikipedia articles that do or should record this event in a neutral and balanced manner, with journalist-written sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....atologist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.....ontroversy

Tetris, there are more WIKI sites on the web than Wikipedia!!!

http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

For the record, I am a luke warmer. I think the climate has warmed up some. I think that human forcings have contributed to this rise.
I utterly reject catastrophism and apocalyptic claptrap such as what the IPCC and the people exposed in this archive dump, and other leaders of the AGW community have claimed.
From the start I have questioned their credibility. I have noted their secretiveness, their aggressiveness against those who question them, and their cliams to not only have important data, but to also have the only interpretation of that data, and the only solutoins to what they claim the data means.
I have said for years that the AGW movement is a social movement with a veneer of science.
These e-mails demonstrate that rather well.
Now it is time for disclosure of the American side of this debacle. Then it is time to wind this particular apocalyptic movement up. Then we can wait a few years until the next apocalyptic meme gets started.

Mosher said

“Those institutions have been corrupted by money and power and politics. ”

Money? Are you serious? Scientists are doing climate research for the money.

Hahahahahahaha
hahahahaha
hahahahaha

ha

bugs–

Why do you find it so laughable that scientists might be corrupted by money even if it’s only at the salary levels of researchers at government institutions.

Do you think they aren’t paid? Do you think they aren’t paid more than ditch diggers? Do you think getting funded and published doesn’t affect promotions? Do you think preventing “the other guys” from getting funding doesn’t affect their ultimate salaries etc? Do you think they make much less than Mark Morano?

In anycase, Steve didn’t say merely money. Scientists are a subclass of the groups called “human”. They are just as easily swayed by money, power and politics as other groups of humans. ( I notice Steve didn’t suggest sex– the other thing that sometimes sways people. Steve, why did you leave that off?)

Mosher said

“But the AGW side is interested in controlling the message. They fight against data release because they fear what people will do with it. They fear that data will be misused:it will be. They fear people finding errors: errors will be found. They fear that people will be less certain: they will be. And they fear that it may take a long time to convince people to take action: it will. And so they act out of fear and try to control the message. ”

Maybe they fear threats made in emails to them?

bugs–
What kind of threats? Who was threatened? By whom, and what type of threat?

Lucia,

“I notice Steve didn’t suggest sex– the other thing that sometimes sways people.”

Money and power usually increase access to sex (a la Henry Kissinger’s evaluation of aphodisiacs).

Lucia

“bugs–
What kind of threats? Who was threatened? By whom, and what type of threat?”

Haven’t you been reading the emails? Mann refers to threats made against him. Team denial seemed to miss that one.

Hijack threads much, bugs? This isn’t about Michael Mann’s fictional enemies here. I’ll save my QQ’ing for his shot nerves for another thread.

Carrick

“Hijack threads much, bugs? This isn’t about Michael Mann’s fictional enemies here. I’ll save my QQ’ing for his shot nerves for another thread.”

Whoa. All the statements you want to believe in the emails are true, except for the ones you don’t want to believe. Gotcha.

bugs–
I repeat:

What kind of threats? Who was threatened? By whom, and what type of threat?”

If you have a link the email number with the threats contained, that would be helpful. I received what I would consider a veiled threat from someone who features in the hacked cru emails after I posted that the link had appeared at JeffId’s. It was, however, a lame threat that did not scare me. (I was ‘threatened’ that investigators would come to question me during the course of an investigation. Pretty lame because while they might…. so?)

But I still think it was a threat. As you recall “The Lorax” claimed to be threatened. Here the “threat” was that someone would tell people who he was. Not much of a threat.

So, please tell us who was threatened, and about what?

Mann says:

lets not get into the topic of hate mail. I promise you I could fill your inbox w/ a very long list of vitriolic attacks, diatribes, and threats I’ve received.

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/.....323180.txt

Which is not surprising. Every public figure who takes a polarizing position gets them.

[...] Liljegren at the Blackboard has a post Enemies caught in action! with an image depicting several individuals including me [thanks to Lucia for her post!]. The [...]

How funny. Roy Spencer categorically dispenses with any “temperature reconstructions” that splice statistically massaged proxies end to end to try to claim an accurate climactic history for thousands of years because SUCH CREATIONS ARE UNSCIENTIFIC GARBAGE, not because he “didn’t read the papers”. Yet these childish twits are more interested in seeing “good” scientists (their own words) be embarrassed by snippy one liners than understanding why their questions are credible and necessary. I mean how old were you when you stopped drawing moustaches on the pictures of your teachers. I’m guessing it was around puberty. Yet these guys are well into their 50’s but still demonstrating pre-adolescent maturity…even as the purport to be the greatest scientific minds on earth.

It is all such an unbelieveable joke. Expect to see a slight delay in this issue picking up momentum, while media outlets and politicians find a comfortable way to backpedal on the Climate Change issue. But once that’s done, the scapegoating will begin, and these guys will be wishing that funny photoshops are the worst they’ll have to endure. The best is yet to come.

How funny. Roy Spencer categorically dispenses with any “temperature reconstructions” that splice statistically massaged proxies end to end to try to claim an accurate climactic history for thousands of years because SUCH CREATIONS ARE UNSCIENTIFIC GARBAGE, not because he “didn’t read the papers”. Yet these childish twits are more interested in seeing “good” scientists (their own words) be embarrassed by snippy one liners than understanding why their questions are credible and necessary. I mean how old were you when you stopped drawing moustaches on the pictures of your teachers. I’m guessing it was around puberty. Yet these guys are well into their 50’s but still demonstrating pre-adolescent maturity…even as the purport to be the greatest scientific minds on earth.

It is all such an unbelieveable joke. Expect to see a slight delay in this issue picking up momentum, while media outlets and politicians find a comfortable way to backpedal on the Climate Change issue. But once that’s done, the scapegoating will begin, and these guys will be wishing that funny photoshops are the worst they’ll have to endure. As this issue has proven, the state will find much political capital in invalidating science, far more than they have invested in AGW. With these e-mails being made public, look for governments to alienate these loyal servants, in the interest of chasing bigger game. That being the total destruction of scientific credibility. I’ve always believed this was the ultimate objective anyway. The best is yet to come.

It should be pointed out that the approximately $22 million in grant money was awarded to CRU under the administration of Dr. Phil Jones. It was not awarded to Dr. Phil Jones directly.

Boris,

Let me give you a short lesson in metaphor which will show why the point about Singer you raise is trivially true. Almost EVERY metaphor works because it is based in truth. Like so. Lucia is a Tiger. When you cash that out it would mean something like this:
Tigers are fierce: Lucia is fierce. On the surface the sentence establishes IDENTITY. And for a metaphor to work, usually the two objects have to share a predicate. But metaphors are also always false. Tigers have four legs: Lucia has two legs. So metaphors are true in one sense and false in another ( no man is an island is a funny exception ) Anyways, the danger in metaphors is taking them too far ( as Robert Frost noted) that is,
in extending a metaphor. The big tobacco metaphor had a core of truth. That core is common backers ( Singer) and common interests ( corporate profits) But the metaphor was extended.
Many people died because of the delay in legislation on tobacco. THEREFORE ( using metaphorcial logic) many will die is we delay action on climate.

It’s that metaphorical logic that motivates the kind of ends justifies the means behavior you see.

So, you made my point for me. Thank you.

Boris (Comment#24185)

Plus, it is a very understandable analogy–an industry tries to influence science for their own profit.

Yes they do and governments will have an interest in certain outcomes as well. The big oil meme can cut both ways as evidenced by the memo:

uea-tyndall-shell-memo.doc

2.Shell’s interest is not in basic science. Any work they support must have a clear and immediate relevance to ‘real-world’ activities. They are particularly interested in emissions trading and CDM.

Which is why you ultimately have to evaluate the science on the merits of their arguments rather then on the source of their funding.

Lucia:
The original Dorothy Parker quote is:
“You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think”

[...] First up, in What happened when scientists photoshopped climate sceptics, they’ve rehashed an old story from last November about this [...]