The tendency of climate-warriors to argue by conspiracy theory has always fascinated me. Today, Canadian Green party leader Elizabeth May explains her Climategate conspiracy theory.
As any accomplished conspiracy theorist, Elizabeth argues not by providing any facts, but by decreeing something perfectly normal ‘strange’:
Strange, isn’t it that media are not wondering about who hacked into the computers and who paid them?
No. It’s not particularly strange. As far as I’m aware there is no specific suspect. There is no evidence the unknown person or persons was or were paid. Absent any specific suspect, the media rarely publish news reports “wondering” whether or not the unknown suspects were paid by the utterly unidentified and possibly non-existent “shadowy anonymous network” that haunts RayPierre’s dreams.
To buttress her theory of some conspiracy, Elizabet alludes to an (likely entirely unconnected) incident:
Or why Dr. Andrew Weaver’s office in Victoria has been broken into twice.
Add me to the list of people who were unaware that the office of faculty member at a university in Canada was broken into not just once, but twice!
Other than the fact that Weaver is a climate scientist, is there any reason to connect this to the CRU zip files? Did the police dust Weaver’s office for fingerprints? Do they have a suspect? For all we know, the Weaver break in will turn out to be connected to the Tiger Woods affair. Maybe Tiger traveled to Victoria, picked up an undergraduate and they thought it would be fun to dally in Weaver’s office. Later on, Tiger may have realized he lost a wallet with identifying information and hired someone to break in and retrieve it. Maybe…. Enquiring people want to know!
Not content to realize that an office break-in Canada may have no connection what-so-ever to leaked email files from a University in England, Elizabeth makes a rather dramatic guess:
My guess is that all the computers of all the climate research centres of the world have been repeatedly attacked, but defences held everywhere but East Anglia.
If we are going to brainstorm guesses, my guess is the Weaver break-ins were perpetrated by a frantic undergraduate student trying to steal a copy of the midterm or change grades entered into Dr. Weaver’s grade book. This is less sexy than the Tiger Woods theory, but it seems more plausible somehow.
In contrast, the chance the break-in was the act of a well funded conspiracy seems as almost as remote as the Tiger Woods theory.
Given lax security at most university campuses, operatives of any well organized conspiracy would be smart enough to bribe the modestly paid night-janitor to leave the door unlocked. Once they gained access, they would have made copies of Dr. Weaver’s hard drive and slipped out. Why break in twice?
If it existed wished break into climate computers across the world, a sufficiently well funded conspiracy would have surely have succeeded in creating copies of hundreds of research computers at universities across the world. We wouldn’t simply have Phil Jone’s email, but those of many faculty members across the world.
Yes, it was a trap. An elaborate sting operation….
A sting? Interesting metaphor.
Wouldn’t the sting metaphor suggest a whistle-blower pretending to go along with the climate scientists plots to do wrong, and then catch the guilty climate scientists in their nefarious deeds? Somehow, I don’t think that’s the metaphor Elizabet May intends. Just guessing.
Meanwhile, the walking propaganda machines for the fossil fuel industry will continue their Disinformation Pyramid Scheme.
Disinformation Pyramid Scheme? Somehow, I don’t think that metaphor really works either.
Well, poor word choice doesn’t make Elizabeth any less a conspiracy theorist.
Mind you… just because conspiracy theorists are usually wrong doesn’t mean there is no conspiracy. But until the police have identified who leaked the Climategate files, or hacked into the computer and present some evidence that person was funded by some shadowy conspiracy, I’m going with “I have no idea who leaked the CRU emails, how they did it or why they did it. (But my favorite theory is disgruntled graduate student or IT professional. )
Keep this quite, we don’t want her to find out, but Exxon hired Santa to have his elves break into the Doc’s office and when they didn’t find the goods, they hacked UEA’s computers. They didn’t get around to the rest for two reasons.
1. They got enough damaging goods from UEA.
and
2. They had toy deadlines fast approaching back at the pole and didn’t have the time to hack anymore computers.
Conspiracy theory has been deeply embedded in the minds of the warmers for some time. Observe Eli’s recent comment at RPJr’s:
“The distaste for the term denialist would be easier to accept if many of the same crew had not cost millions of lives with the same sort of arguments against tobacco regulation and similar issues. While most of these battles have turned, tobacco mortality today accounts for ~20% of male deaths in the developed world and the toll is rising among women and in the underdeveloped world. China is going to be a disaster.
There are other similarities. Tobacco is a huge, profitable industry that aggressively protects its profits, the harm takes years to develop, and the pleasures are immediate.
The political and scientific links between tobacco and climate change denialists are well documented (see, for a start S. Fred Singer, Frederick Seitz, Steve Milloy, etc and the organizations they worked with). The chain of payments and relations are pretty clearly laid out in the Tobacco Archives, and we can even trace significant (although probably only a small fraction of the)money flowing from industry into the denialists pockets.
Let us be clear, the climate change denialists are in about the same position as the Council of Conservative Citizens (google it) on immigration. They got dirty roots.”
My my! Eli has got some far reaching conspiracy there! I wonder if it isn’t really new?
One of the big problems I have with Eli’s conspiracy theory is and his justifying his use of denialist in this way is… welll.. huh?
First: Are the three named people the only ones Eli calls denialists? Or is the list bigger? Are the other people paid? Or do Fred, Frederick and Steve have Svengali like powers to enthrall the world? ‘Cuz you know… I”m not really seeing those three guys as the leaders of any band of anything.
Second: Can’t Eli come up with three living living people? Isn’t Seitz d-e-a-d, dead? It’s really hard for a formerly old, dead guy to lead any sort of movement. And is Fred Singer really a major force these days? I know he does stuff, and I imagine it’s likely that he actually does make some money for things he does. But if those three guys are the head of some shadowy conspiracy, it must be a rather small in-effective one. The effective conspiracy must be the one lead by some other unknown, unnameable, untraceable people.
Third: Seriously, is there really any “chain of payments ” to whoever Eli describes as denialists as a whole? I’m pretty sure I’ve read the Tobacco Archives, and it’s pretty weak in terms of actually showing a chain of big money to whichever pockets are “denialist pockets”.
Fourth: Does the tobacco analogy even make any sense? After all, if a fungus blight wiped out all tobacco plants today, smokers would have withdrawal symptoms and then get on with their lives. Because tobacco is so inessential to people’s lives, tobacco companies were at serious risk of being wiped out by regulations. So you could see where they would have an incentive to rig science for a long time.
In contrast, if all petroleum, coal and gas vanished and went “poof” today, there would be very real economic hardship across the worlds and this would exist for the forsee-able future. Given the energy intensity of our agriculture, we’d likely have food shortages.
Because of the importance of energy, petroleum companies really don’t face a risk that petroleum will be banned outright. (Nor are coal companies etc.)
So, while I can understand that Petroleum companies might act to protect their profits, it’s not at all clear to me they have quite as much at stake as tobacco companies did. Also, there is no risk that petroleum will be outlawed tomorrow– this gives petroleum companies time to investigate other methods of making a buck. (And they are.)
Why would petroleum companies be as desperate to generously fund a sustained secret deep pocket denialist campaign? I don’t think they are doing so.
“Why break in twice?”
In order to give the appearance of it not being a well organized conspiracy!
The truth is, of course, that Jones, Weaver et al. are all operatives of the crypto-marxist conspiracy to take over the world by means of instilling fear in the population through the manipulated code of operative code name ‘Harry’ thus subjugating them to the imposition of punitive taxation leading to the collapse of democratic economies which will clear the way for them to grasp the power which they already wield. The Weaver office break-ins were simply a staged cover operation designed to divert attention from any potential security leak and Tiger Woods’ presence at the scene (or not) was entirely coincidental. The faked email leak is itself part of the same ‘dilute and decoy’ operation, as has been revealed here:
http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/2009/11/nasas-fakes-email-leak.html
Anyone thinking they can outwit these b*st*rds has about as much chance as Winston Smith. Lucia Liljegren is herself most probably an operative, given her repeated posting of faux ‘graphs’ concealing the truth of the severe cooling trend, along with stuff about knitting which is designed to instill a false sense of security.
There’s someone peering in at my window, so I have to go…..
The true denialists are those who minimize the significance of the millions of road deaths and even more millions of road injuries annually.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/road_safety_report_20090615/en/index.html
But try to get environmentalists to accept that this is a massive public health problem and can only be solved by limiting car use and downsizing the auto industry globally, abolishing some of those malls and suburbs, and you are greeted with howls of rage.
Like I say, denialism is rampant. Probably funded by the auto industry. And Exxon….
Colour me unconvinced, but I’m not sure it’d need a global conspiracy of masterminds to break into the computer networks of people who leave their data lying in open-access FTP directories, email usernames and passwords to each other, or hide data they don’t want people to look at in directories labelled CENSORED…
I think Lucia is colluding with anti-conspiracy theorists. Who is paying her? Has her tip jar been overflowing?
Phil A–
I have a coworker who took a cyber security course as part of his BS in computer science. They were assigned an extra-credit task of hacking into the professors computer. He succeeded. No one had succeeded for a few semesters.
To get credit, you had to prove you got in and then explain how you did it. (The faculty member would add the new way to list of ways students had succeeded in hacking in.)
So, what was this guys secret method? He figured that he did not have the cracker skills necessary to subvert the faculty members computer from the network. So, he during office hours, he waited down the hall and waited for a third person to knock at the faculty members door. Then, he came and knocked knowing he’d be asked to wait while the prof. explained the answer. He feigned interest in the other students question, looked around, found a sticky note with passwords… He later hacked into the faculty members account at leisure.
Universities tend not to be very secure. There are lots of people coming and going. There is generally little to no business sensitive work, and no classified work. Doors often have fairly poor locks, IT and janitorial staff have keys to faculty doors, and graduate student offices. In some cases, computers are housed in rooms shared by a group of 12 graduate students none of whom has any particular interest in keeping files especially safe. Passwords might even be written on post it notes and adhered to the screen. ( As valuable as a students thesis is to the student, it generally has little commercial value, so generally, there is no concern anyone would steal the contents of any hard drive or account. )
If, as May suggest, every climate research computer was attacked by anyone particularly mean spirited, we’d probably be seeing hoards of computers wiped clean.
Lucia: For all we know, the Weaver break in will turn out to be connected to the Tiger Woods affair.
Well.. maybe, you know Tiger Woods apparently did ask a certain young lady in question to help him hide electronic messages from disclosure… 😉
hm, actually the article is not as crazy as you made it sound.
people like to be called heroes, when they are just petty criminals. i think that the reception the stealing got among “sceptics” is at least not discouraging future thieves.
talking about conspiracy theories,can somebody please explain to me, why the entire “sceptical” (!!!) blogosphere is calling the thief a “whistle blower”, without the slightest evidence? (and with some pretty strong evidence, that he is a hacker?)
I’m hoping that computers at other locations HAVE been breached and the FOIA.zip file was just the first of many eye-opening list of emails and data.
Now now, Bill – that’s wishful thinking! I do understand, though, how disappointing the FOIA.zip file must have been for those hoping for some proof of fraud etc. etc. 😉
I’m still waiting for Kuhnkat to tell me what the agenda of Jones and Mann is.
Not to support the conspiracy mongering, but I have to agree that it’s a little strange that the MSM hasn’t been speculating about the hacker/whistleblower/whatever, but for a different reason: the MSM, particularly in the U.S., doesn’t want to talk about the story at all.
Here’s a thought experiment: rewind history to the Watergate era, but remove any incriminating evidence. There was a break in, but no tangible suspects. Do you think the MSM would have avoided speculation under those circumstances? Of course not.
Every time any kind of disaster occurs, talking heads are always on the spot with their theories. Remember Oklahoma City, and the flap over blaming it on Limbaugh? Or immediately after 9/11, all the chatter about how it might have been Saddam, or Iran, or [fill in the suspect]?
So it is entirely to be expected from the MSM to speculate baselessly when they have no hard evidence. I’m sure they would have no difficulty finding talking heads more than willing to go on the Sunday shows if they really wanted to.
Of course, the fact that the MSM is reticent to talk about this story at all isn’t indicative of a conspiracy; often tribal behavior results in what appears to be a conspiracy, but with no coordination. That’s no doubt what’s happening here. No point transmitting orders when everyone has a copy of the objective.
Never mistake a consensus for a conspiracy.
Sod– Is the entire “skeptical blogosphere” calling whoever hacked a whistleblower? I know some are. I assume they call him or her that because it’s their preferred theory. But we really don’t know, do we? What strong evidence do we have that they hacked into CRU? There is some word-of-blog evidence they hacked into Real Climate’s server or WP installation. But even there, we don’t know how it happened. For all we know, one of the team members is a mole! (My pet theory is one of the team members fell prey to a temptress named Svetlana who sexed him up. Then, while he was sleeping, she found his RC password on a post it note on his computer, and emailed it to her confederate who uploaded the files. But, that’s just my favorite theory.)
Well, Calvin, maybe the MSN doesn’t figure that there’s much of a story here to take an interest in? Phil Jones maybe obstructing an FOI request? Harry struggling with some crap code? You think that’s comparable to Watergate?! 9/11?!
If there were any shred of any evidence of ‘global warming’ having been a manufactured fraud then sure, that would be a big story. But however much you’d like to imagine that, there is no such evidence, however desperately hard some blogs try to spin it.
Anyway, our UK MSN has covered it actively – it’s been on major programmes such as Question Time and Newsnight. We had Melanie Phillips saying, on prime time TV, that global warming was a fraud. The audience laughed. Thereyago – MSM coverage, with no editorial control – just some ordinary folk laughing at a ludicrous statement.
I have been around Soviet exiles and chess players long enough to agree with them that ideas of paranoia and conspiracy are a virtue and have often wondered if I am not a “useful idiot”, but am not in a position to make a judgment. I would like to add to the list of conspiracy thinkers Mike Mann who states at RC:
“We often allude to the industry-funded attacks against climate change science, and the dubious cast of characters involved, here at RealClimate. In recent years, for example, we’ve commented on disinformation efforts by industry front groups such as the “Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and a personal favorite, The Heartland Institute, and by industry-friendly institutions such as the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and other media outlets that assist in the manufacture and distribution of climate change disinformation.
When it comes to the climate change disinformation campaign, we have chosen to focus on the intellectually bankrupt nature of the scientific arguments, rather than the political motivations and the sometimes intriguing money trail. We leave it to others, including organizations such as SourceWatch.org, the sleuths at DeSmogBlog, authors such as Ross Gelbspan (author of The Heat is On, and The Boiling Point), and edited works such as Rescuing Science from Politics to deal with such issues.”
It is always nice to frame a struggle as a battle of David against Goliath, but here IMO it simply does not wash, Goliath has no clout.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/climate-cover-up-a-brief-review
Simon,
When the media becomes an organ of whomever is in power, then the concept of The Big Story means one thing to us and another thing to them. FYI.
Andrew
Simon: your
.
The audience laughed. Thereyago – MSM coverage, with no editorial control – just some ordinary folk laughing at a ludicrous statement.
.
Or, they laughed, because they found it amusing that the MSM was finally catching on?
.
As I recall, a majority of people polled in the UK did not believe in AGW.
Andrew,
You are living in conspiracy land. Every newpaper that I’ve looked at in this country has dealt with this story, and as I’ve already pointed out, our prime time TV has dealt with it. We now have an inquiry in place to look into matters. I note that WUWT is already insinuating that the inquiry can be no good because, er, “the title “former civil servant” does not inspire much confidence from skeptics”. If you don’t see how badly such aspersion in advance of judgement stinks then you don’t see much at all.
Jones, and others, will be judged and criticised according to whether or not they have failed to maintain professional standards. I, you, Lucia, Watts, McIntyre and a host of others who comment on this will never be held to such account. It costs people nothing to promulgate defamations on the internet, but it’s possible that Jones, for example, may be reprimanded, or even more, for what he has said in private emails. You may have your blood, we shall see, but none of the accusers will ever pay any cost should it turn out that their accusations are groundless.
You think that the MSM is in the pocket of the AGW lobby? That is laughable. Have you looked at the WSJ, the Sunday Telegraph, The Australian, pretty much all the Canadian press? How on earth do you relate your bizarre conspiracy theories to reality?
Simon,
I’m sure you are aware that history has examples of the powerful controlling propaganda machines. It’s just a matter of when and where it happens.
Andrew
Re whistleblower, my money is on Briffa.
I find it funny that the warmists seek conspiracies when the warmist agenda is far better funded, and the ‘enemy’ of big oil/energy is well placed to benefit from whatever policies get enacted. And it’s not like we sceptics can afford the marketing campaign that Inconvenient Truth achieved.
But there are possibilities. Tin foil isn’t tin any more, but aluminium, which is energy intensive to produce, so increased energy costs by whatever means may increase the cost of tin foil hats.
As for hacking, the simplest and quickest way to hack is via social engineering. Hack the wetware, offer them funding (Fenton/EMS), or publicity and travel to exotic destinations and conferences. Once they’ve outlived their usefulness as idiots, discard them.
Les,
I may have misled in implying that our ‘Question Time’ audience is typical of a cross-section of the population. It’s not – they tend to be a bright bunch. All polls here have identified greater concern/conviction re. AGW amongst the more highly educated. I believe this is the case in the US also.
It’s not a whistleblower. If it was, then it was just a simple matter of stealing backup tape or copying files to a usb disk. The hackers also hacked into realclimate, a completely different computer system on the other side of the world, and directly loaded the files onto it. They probably also hacked the source computer that was used to send the files. Your basic whistleblower would not have any idea how to do all that.
I agree Bugs, the RC stuff is Turkeying valid information. Let’s wait and see. Inside job from where I stand.
Simon–
I subscribe to dead tree versions of the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune. Both have covered this. I know the New York Times has also covered it, as has the Washington Post. I’ve caught it on tv. I don’t have cable, so that would be network tv of some sort.
This has been covered.
Huh?
For one thing, if Steve, Anthony, my local grocery store cashier, you or I failed to uphold our professional obligations, we could, potentially, be criticized for failing to maintain professional standards in our professions. Presumably, you know this.
But if you are suggesting that criticism of Jones should be more moderate because Anthony, Steve or I will never criticized specifically for trying to manipulate the peer review system or trying to subvert FOI, or deleting data we collected together when funded by a government project…? Huh?
Jones has been principle investigator for funded research. So, he is held to the standard expected of a professional who is accepting money (in the form of salary) to perform a job and provide a product. These standards are imposed by contractual obligation he undertook.
Anthony, Steve, my local grocery store cashier, and I happen not to have entered into that specific contract, have not been handed Phil’s salary, have not had control over his research funds, or given the responsibility of overseeing CRU and so cannot be criticized for failing to fulfill Phil’s obligations for him! But the fact that we can’t be criticized not doing Phil’s job properly doesn’t mean Phil can’t be.
Simon
It’ll be hilarious when UEA are cleared of any wrongdoing. And we know they will becuase it’s all part of the wider conspiracy. The one the Mystery Van Team haven’t cottoned on to yet… It’s conspiracies all the way down!!!
🙂
Lucia
“deleting data we collected together when funded by a government project”
Ummm what data did they delete that they collected?
“specifically for trying to manipulate the peer review system”
Oh yeah! Yeah, they did good there, didn’t they? I don’t even know how you could do this.
“trying to subvert FOI”
Yep, their conspiracies leaks all over… they have fingers in every pie…
I was under the impression that the attempt to upload files to RC *wasn’t* necessarily indicative of hackery per se because one of the emails included a login/password combo. steve/tosser iirc… the choice of which I took to be ‘Team’ wit.
Lucia,
You should note that I included myself in the list of those who won’t be held to account for whatever we say on this. That is the way of it. There are people accusing Jones and others of fraud. I exclude myself, yourself and Steve McIntyre from those people. Willis Eschenbach, by contrast, and for example, has been explicit in making accusations of fraud, here on your blog. These defamations are being made in the public domain. Whatever criticisms I do have of Jones’ emails (and you know that I have made them) they are as nothing in comparison to the disgust I have for such defamation, coming from people who will never be held to account for the damage they seek to inflict upon others even should it be that their malign accusations are proven to be groundless.
bugs–
You don’t know anyone hacked into Real Climate. Gavin was pretty sparing with details. For all we know an employee of Fenton Communications with permission to use the server put the files on RC’s account. Would that be hacking? I admit it seems unlikely– but given bloggers general lackadaisical approach to security, for all we know one of the RC guys leaves password around where they can be found.
We definitely don’t know that CRU was hacked.
Lucia
If an insider or someone with permission trid to upload th data onto RC, why did they do it via Turkey?
Simon–
Yes. I know you included yourself. That’s why I included “you” in the string:
BTW: Given Phil Jones stature as a public figure, this is perfectly legal in the US. It’s a first amendment thing.
Our first amendement thing doesn’t limit the right to fling mud at public figures to powerful people who, as head of agencies, would be held to the same standards as Jones. Once again: First amendment thing.
If I take you at your word, the hackers have failed spectacularly. There has been nothing found that indicates a conspiracy to destroy western democracy or fraud, the case for AGW is still valid science.
The hackers have succeeded spectacularly because they have given that impression to all those who don’t want to accept the evidence for AGW and think this confirms it is all fraudulent and evidence of a massive conspiracy to destroy western capitalism.
Nathan
The data they told Roger Pielke they deleted in response to his request under FOI.
That the inexperienced might not know what is possible is unsurprising.
For what it’s worth: Simon is complaining Phil is being criticized for things we would not be criticized for. Whether he did these things or did not, they are the things he is being criticized for. The investigation will either clear him, not clear him, or leave things cloudy.
But regardless, there is no way to discuss why if he did these specific things people would rightfully criticize him, while SteveM, Anthony, Simon or I could not. Our being shielded from criticism for these specific things is not a double standards. We have no professional obligations or responsibilities with respect to these things.
I realize you might prefer that no one mention the specific accusations against Jones. However, Simon raised the notion that Phil is being criticized for things which others cannot be criticized for discussing it in a vague sort of way. The only way to explain the mention the specific things Phil stands accused of. There is no rule that says we can’t mention these things simply because suppressing facts might make Simon’s argument seem remotely reasonable.
Lucia,
Ok – I don’t live in your darned country! 😉
Nathan: “If an insider or someone with permission trid to upload th data onto RC, why did they do it via Turkey?”
To obfuscate their true identity/location… either via a proxy or forged headers.
Lucia
“The data they told Roger Pielke they deleted in response to his request under FOI. ”
I haven’t seen any evidence for that.
Pielke says this.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-lost-original-data.html
“For what it’s worth: Simon is complaining Phil is being criticized for things we would not be criticized for. Whether he did these things or did not, they are the things he is being criticized for. The investigation will either clear him, not clear him, or leave things cloudy.”
Data was deleted before Jones was in charge of the CRU.
bugs: Not sure what you read, but Roger Jr says this:
.
So, wanting to test this theory I asked CRU for the data myself, being a “real” academic. I received a letter back from CRU stating that I couldn’t have the data because “we do not hold the requested information.”
.
I found that odd. How can they not hold the data when they are showing graphs of global temperatures on their webpage? However, it turns out that CRU has in response to requests for its data put up a new webpage with the following remarkable admission (emphasis added):
.
We are not in a position to supply data for a particular country not covered by the example agreements referred to earlier, as we have never had sufficient resources to keep track of the exact source of each individual monthly value. Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.
Say what?! CRU has lost track of the original data that it uses to create its global temperature record!?
Lucia,
Simon is complaining Phil is being criticized for things we would not be criticized for.
No, that’s not my complaint. I am not complaining that PJ is accused of fraud whilst you or I cannot be. I guess we could be, though no one would care at all, in my case at least.
I am complaining that the potential accuser is free to say whatever they like, and to do whatever damage they can to reputation and perception, without being held to account for it. That offends my sense of natural justice. I think Abigail should have been hanged, not Proctor!
I’ll have to accept your statement that your First Amendment thingy makes that ok.
re:
Hoi Polloi (Comment#25871) December 3rd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
“Re whistleblower, my money is on Briffa.”
ditto that. Can we start the betting?
Andrew_FL:
Actually, tobacco doesn’t account for 20% of male deaths in the developed world. Or anything remotely close to that.
That is an insanely stupid thing for Eli to have said, and he should shove his head in a toilet and flush until he gets that stuff out of his head. /endscathumor
I guess this makes me a tobacco denialist because I don’t by every insane piece of tripe that aging hippies like Eli subscribe too.
The numbers: 1.5 million men die each year in the US, all causes. About 300,000 of those are from all types of cancer. Of that, roughly 100000 die from lung cancer. About 80,000 of those are estimated to involve smoking (the fraction from smoking is likely exaggerated because of comortality factors like obesity, diet, chemical exposure and other factors, but let’s stipulate this for now).
Put these numbers together, play Looney Tunes, and we get right at “5% of male deaths in the developed world”. Not 20%.
Lucia,
Were you able to sell the Tiger Woods story??
Did the NYT call??
Inquiring individuals want to know!!!!
“bugs–
You don’t know anyone hacked into Real Climate. Gavin was pretty sparing with details. For all we know an employee of Fenton Communications with permission to use the server put the files on RC’s account. Would that be hacking? I admit it seems unlikely– but given bloggers general lackadaisical approach to security, for all we know one of the RC guys leaves password around where they can be found.”
Gavin said RC was hacked.
He also says CRU was hacked.
[Response: My information is that it was a hack into their backup mailserver. – gavin]
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/cru-hack-more-context/
Nathan
Simple: They nevertheless did not want anyone to know so they found a proxy server.
Lucia,
Yep. And you’ll probably find it difficult to guilt Americans into giving up our rights under the First Amendment even if sometimes they seem to sometimes cause some casualties. (One of the big Illinois First Amendment cases was “Nazis March in Skokie”. The Nazis had a Pyrrhic victory.
Other than the fact that Jake and Elwood didn’t really run the group over, this scene more or less captures the attitude of the crowd when the Nazi’s ended up demonstrating in Marquette Park –Chicago.
(The reason the incident is “Nazi’s march in Skokie” when they actually demonstrated in Chicago is a story in itself.)
Lucia:
Exactly right.
Moreover, they actually fund far more pro-global warming research than denialist, a point I’ve made before.
Click here to see what that nefarious ExxonMobil has been up too. $100 million or more invested in Stanford alone.
I’d like somebody who supports this cognitive vacuum approach to reasoning to point out one denialist center that is receiving anything approaching these numbers.
Lucia,
” (But my favorite theory is disgruntled graduate student or IT professional. ) ”
Thanks for the belief in the honesty of IT professionals.
Yes, we are all extremely honest and moral. REALLY!! Even the ones that work for Enron and Bernie Madoff and…
bugs
Oh? When was it deleted? Do you have a date?
Simon:
It doesn’t give you blanket immunity from damages associated with scurrilous charges, but it does allow you to freely express your opinion in such matters. The bar is pretty high there to sue somebody…you’d have to show that not only was the charge not true, but e.g. that no reasonable person could have reached that conclusion based on publicly available information (in other words, proof of malice is a requirement).
That’s going to be a bit tough here when even Jone’s supporters publicly admit “it looks pretty bad on the surface”. There’s some fun reading here.
Hmmm, Lucia lives near Chicago which is home to the ‘Chicago School’ of economics, which promotes ‘right wing’ economics. Lucia has shown that the temp data doesn’t match the IPCC projections. Aha! Lucia must be a shill for the the right wingers! Whose pay are you in? Fess up, your protestations to the contrary are futile!
Hey Kuhnkat
what was Jones agenda? You mentioned it once, but I haven’t seen you give any details of what it is yet.
bugs:
I think that is pretty obvious from the emails:
Maintain his position within the scientific community, dominate over his enemies, verily crush them before him and gloat at the lamentations of their women.
Total Victory for his cause célèbre.
Simon
First, who the heck says we can’t be accused of fraud? Anyone can be accused of fraud. Presumably, if you were accused of fraud, you would care as might your friends and family.
It’s true that more people are curious about public figures than about us.
But by the same token, if public figures commit fraud, it can have a wider impact. The reason people care whether or not Jones committed fraud is that if he did, it would affect them either as inhabitants of this planet, tax payers and voters. So, it may be unfair that more people care about deceptions he might have done to advance cause he wished to advance, but that’s what happens when you take on position of power like the head of CRU and over see a research program that receives large amounts of public funds.
Once again INAL, but my impression it is precisely because public figures can have greater than normal impact on the public that our first amendment lowers their protection against defamation.
In these instances, people right to debate situations is important.
Uhmm…. I think you are straying into really tenuous analogies. Slander and perjury are two different things. But even if the issue was purely slander (i.e. Proctor was concerned about was his reputation being harmed because his neighbors thought he was in league with the devil) he was not a public figure. So, he wouldn’t have to prove flagrant disregard for the truth to prevail in a defamation suit. And even if he had to prove that, he might have if he could get all the girls to admit it. Which he couldn’t in The Crucible. So, he was hanged.
None of this has anything to do with the difference between American and British defamation laws.
Lucia,
We, in the UK, have an EMP, Nick Griffin of the BNP actually ‘representing’ the EU at Copenhagen! –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Griffin
– so I see your “Nazis March in Skokie†and raise you one Nick Griffin.
Do you really want to compare preservation of the right to demonstrate in the US with the UK? Hmm, it would probably take us too far off topic….
Nazis in Skokie or Nick Griffin apart, I think it is wrong for people to defame without proof. Think what you like about the First Amendment, that’s my view.
Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem—-vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!
(written by an American).
[Carrick – yes, I understand the bar is high. But then I am also at liberty to express my views of the scurrilous intent of some others!]
Good night folks 🙂
Lucia
As has already been quoted here.
” Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. ”
It was done back in the ’80s. They didn’t have the storage space. They are not a repository for raw data, that is still held in the places they got it from. Jones was not the director back then. The data was not deleted in response to the FOI request.
“Hubert Lamb retired as Director in 1978. He was succeeded by Tom Wigley (to 1993), Trevor Davies (1993-1998),”
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
bugs
Ermmm… At the time he wrote that, his information could have been incorrect on both counts. He may still not know.
And failing that, there’s no story, right?
What was the big deal about Watergate, anyway? It was only the donkey files. No skin off my nose. I never did get why the MSM made such a big deal over that.
/And since you’re obviously not that bright, Simon, yes, that was sarcasm.
bugs:
LMAO.
You really believe that?
Wow.
Wanna buy some Kansas ocean beach front?
Bugs,
“I’m still waiting for Kuhnkat to tell me what the agenda of Jones and Mann is.”
Phil Jones on a conference call to the rest of his bandaleros:
Agenda?? We don’ need no stinkin’ AGENDA!!
Open yourselves to the TRUTH and the TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE!!!!
ALL
AMEN!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
PS: Bugs, with the emailing of UID/PWD in the email cache, it may be that Gavin and pals were their own worst enemies there also. Then where is the information of hacking RC outside of a generic statement by Gavin?? He hasn’t exactly told a story that nails this down. Did he call in the authorities to investigate?? Did he even call his ISP?? What account was used. What changes were made and what was done?? Was it just the Blog software or the Server that was assaulted?? I notice that Steve M. gave him the IP for his poster who may have been involved. Has this been passed to the authorities?? Lotsa unanswered questions Bugs!! We are inquiring types and we wanna KNOW. Hop on over to RC and ask, PRETTY PLEASE?!?!?!?!?!
Simon, are you defending the Liz May quotes, or trying to change the subject? Please clarify – thanks!
Simon:
Well, the differences between constitutional and statutory rights would be an interesting topic (see e.g. Parliamentary sovereignty)
>.>
Probably belongs on a legal blog, though. You’re right.
Simon: your
.
The audience laughed. Thereyago – MSM coverage, with no editorial control – just some ordinary folk laughing at a ludicrous statement.
I didn’t see the show. Was it a live audience or tape??
On the other foot, who has time to be in audiences, hardworking Conservatives or Democrats living off the Gubmint!! 8>)
Simon
If your concern is statements like this:
I don’t consider this defamation. At all. Period.
Willis is expressing his opinion, using fraud in a generic way (not specifically criminal) and describing precisely what actions he things fall under that definition. You may not like the word, but there is nothing defamatory about willis (a) specifically quoting what Phi said and (b) calling it fraud.
The definition of fraud can mean nothing more than resorting to a “trick” (which as we know only means “technique” used to “gain an advantage”. (The advantage is to not to permit others to find something wrong with his work.) Phil resorted to all sorts of techniques to not provide data: out right refusal, telling people it could only be given to academics, explaining it was deleted, explaining it was covered by confidentiality agreements. Whether truthful or not, he found himself able to give data to those with whom he wished to share (i.e. Webster at GaTech) and not to others.
You may sit on your high horse and revile defamation all you want. But in this case, the case you appear to be reviling something utterly hypothetical.
Calvin Ball (Comment#25909)
And since you’re obviously not that bright, Simon, yes, that was sarcasm.
Oh – thanks for the clarification, Calvin – I wouldn’t have known otherwise that you were capable of it!
Good night now – take good care of that great big brain of yours – two pillows!
Lucia,
there is nothing defamatory about willis (a) specifically quoting what Phi said and (b) calling it fraud.
It’s just total bullshit. Why don’t we just describe it as child abuse and hang (or electrocute, if you prefer) the bastard?
bugs–
1) Your quote from the carefully worded FOI response doesn’t say when the data were deleted.
2) Your quote about the directors does not reveal when Phil Jones joined CRU. It only tells us when he became director.
We know the FOI tells us the raw data files once existed and then ceased to exist. They did not vanish in a fire: The were deleted. We don’t know when, we don’t know who. However, since Phil Jones states in email that he would rather delete than release the data, and since the FOI tells us that data that once existed was deleted, there are some who believe Jones deleted them. We don’t know if these people are correct or incorrect. But he stands accused of that.
I don’t know why it bothers you that I observe that some accuse him of that. But you can’t simultaneously bitch about people accusing him of that and then bitch that I observe that some people, do, indeed, accuse him of that. Sheesh!
Simon
Because it fits the dictionary definition of fraud (using a trick to gain an advantage) but does not fit the dictonary definition of child abuse.
If you wish to be irate because, taken out of context the word fraud can also mean criminal fraud, feel free to turn beet red with anger. But a neutral party reading what willis wrote in context would know that he is not accusing Jones of defrauding investors in a Madoffian-Ponzi scheme. It’s difficult to believe you can’t see this.
I worked with computers back then. Storage was very expensive, and there was never enough of it, data was usually saved in binary and could only be read by a program that knew how to read it.. Try asking nasa for all their data from back then. They even managed to lose the high quality video of the moon landing. The tapes just disappeared.
Hey Bugs, I believe the moon tapes were recorded over, just like many old first run TV shows. Which was convenient, since they didn’t want anyone to find out they were really recorded in the Nevada desert at Area 51.
Lucia,
Withholding information is not by definition a deception designed to gain advantage. I refuse to give you information concerning my private affairs. This is not because I wish to gain advantage but because I do not wish you to use that information against me, to my disadvantage.
Now if I was required to release such information, by whatever means such as an FOI request, and I sought to avoid revealing the required information, then I would be guilty of not complying with that request. But that would not mean that I was seeking advantage through deception.
The crucial aspect in any consideration of a claim of ‘fraud’ (whether criminal or otherwise) is that of deliberate deception. Arrogance, obstructiveness, not giving Willis what he wanted, even the purported irreproducability of results really has nothing to do with it unless there is deception.
Simon Evans,
“You think that the MSM is in the pocket of the AGW lobby? That is laughable. Have you looked at the WSJ, the Sunday Telegraph, The Australian, pretty much all the Canadian press? How on earth do you relate your bizarre conspiracy theories to reality?”
Uhh, I hate to let you in on this as it must be a secret, but, you haven’t even listed 1% of the media. Let’s add in Fox News and Talk Radio in the US. We still haven’t gotten anywhere near 25% of the media!!
In Britain the BBC is most of the press and it has definitely been pro-AGW.
Who reads the Canadian Press?? Apparently not even Canadians if what you say is true!! I believe I see only one paper in Canada regularly quoted with anti-agw articles and editorials.
Do you watch, listen to, or read any of this huge right wing conspiracy media?? Would you mind telling us what sources you consume and generally what they say?? I would love to widen my horizons!!
She did write “Global Warming for Dummies”.
Indeed!
Simon
You are leaving out key facts. In the quote Willis provides, Phil tells us his motive for withholding the information.
His motive is specifically to prevent people from finding errors that in his work. So, if his work contains errors, he wishes to trick people into not discovering the errors and continuuing to have faith in his data product.
So, in some sense, Jones’ intention is precisely to deceive. While withholding information for some reason other than to prevent discovery of errors might not be deception, in this case, deception can be achieved by preventing inspection of the data. (Of course, the deception is provisional. In principle, if Phil’s work contains no errors, none would be found. But his motive is to prevent their detection if they exist. Hence, he has ever intention of deceiving. He just may not actually know if he needs to do so. )
In any case, look up the definition: Deception isn’t strictly required. Only trickery.
Wrong. Even for criminal fraud reflects the fact that deceit is not required: “Any illegal acts characterized by deceit, concealment or violation of trust”. So, concealment or even violation of trust alone can trigger fraud. http://internal-audit.web.cern.ch/internal-audit/method/glossary.html
Even if direct overt deception was absolutely required to call something “fraud”, the various ever changing reasons for refusing data emanating from CRU have the strong aura of deception. The stench rises to dead skunk like proportions in the Cru Zip files.
So, I don’t know how you can get angry that someone might think Phil Jones committed fraud.
Look, different people have different notions of the boundary between mere secrecy, shoddy science, and fraud. For example, outside the whole climate debate, you can find this: http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/92prom.html
Willis considers it fraud to not publish your data. Many would not.
But will said this is his definition of scientific fraud, and while strict, it’s not that horrifically strict relative to normal notions of what is required by the ethics of science. People are supposed to permit others to see the basis of their work, and in the case of CRU, that means show the data.
Lucia you have a stupid idea of what deleting data is… The data still exists, just not at CRU. They get copies of other people’s data – who cares if they delete it after they use it. If Roger Pielke was so keen he can go get it from NOAA.
Lucia
“Phil tells us his motive for withholding the information. ”
But he can’t… As the data is available elsewhere.
” You are leaving out key facts. In the quote Willis provides, Phil tells us his motive for withholding the information.
His motive is specifically to prevent people from finding errors that in his work. So, if his work contains errors, he wishes to trick people into not discovering the errors and continuuing to have faith in his data product. ”
It’s pretty obvious if you read the denialosphere what Jones is referring to. The public pillory of individuals that has been set up there, for errors, real, or, more often, imagined. You are doing it yourself here. I pointed out Jones was not director when the data was deleted, you pointed out he worked there at the time. For some reason, it’s all about Jones. There is a whole research centre there, but Jones is still the only person to be held accountable and blamed for the ills of science.
Nathan–
If someone burned down my local library and destroyed the all the books, I would consider the burned books destroyed. The fact that someone could contact used bookstores across the world and re-create the collection does not mean I can’t say the books were destroyed.
Yes. I say CRU deleted their data files.
Lucia
“We know the FOI tells us the raw data files once existed and then ceased to exist. They did not vanish in a fire: The were deleted.”
Seriously, who the Hell cares? The data still exists at the source. If you are actually interested go and get it. Stop whining that someone didn’t keep their copy of the data for you.
lucia,
What’s your take on the conspiracy theories from Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Senator Inhofe (to name a few)? They have all claimed that AGW is a global conspiracy and hoax.
Nathan (Comment#25927)
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Anyone that might want to reproduce what they did might care, since in order to reproduce it, one needs to know exactly which data they used.
It’s like someone throwing out all the data they compiled from public health records to do a critical desease study (which was government funded), and publishing only the “value added” data. When someone comes along and says “where’s the original data so I can see how you treated it”, would it be OK for the study’s author to just say, “go re-collect it yourself, it’s at the CDC someplace”? And which population was used? Oh, that’s probably at the census bureau someplace.
Lucia
“If someone burned down my local library and destroyed the all the books, I would consider the burned books destroyed. The fact that someone could contact used bookstores across the world and re-create the collection does not mean I can’t say the books were destroyed. ”
So, therefore it doesn’t matter that you can’t access those books from your local library. You can just go to a different library.
Saying that Phil Jones was trying to hide his mistakes using the process you outline is dumb. using your analogy he burnt down his library to hide the errors in his books. Not going to work very well is it? It is a stupid theory.
John M
Well, if I was doing the study I would rather go and get my own data.
“It’s like someone throwing out all the data they compiled from public health records to do a critical desease study (which was government funded), and publishing only the “value added†data.”
You can go and get the public health records still. It’s no problem.
Nathan (Comment#25931) December 3rd, 2009 at 8:46 pm
This is a very silly argument. Why should I provide my records of geological data — you can just go measure the same rocks again yourself! Which rocks? I don’t know — figure it out yourself, if you can’t, you must be unqualified to check my work!
Lucia
Here I’ll fix this for you:
“Yes. I say CRU deleted their data files”
That should read
“Yes. I say CRU deleted their copy of data files, but this data still exists elsewhere”
bugs–
Excuse me, but what point were you trying to convey when you explained he was not director when the data was deleted? No one ever said he was director then. We don’t know because neither of us knows because we don’t know when the data were deleted.
I don’t know where you are getting the notion that Jones is being held accountable for the ills of science. There are people accusing Jones of deleting data, or refusing to share data or any number of other things. There are people complaining he threatened to delete data. All these are very specific activities. Those accusing him could be wrong.
But whether they are right or wrong, accusing him of deleting data is not the same as holding him accountable for “the ills of science” nor for all possible misdeeds that may have occurred during the entire history of CRU.
Oliver
Actually that is what happens. And it is good that it happens. The geologists here regularly go back to places that have been mapped before, this leads to improvements.
If you take field measurements, in geology, and then someone else goes to map that area, they don’t take measurements at exactly the same points. They get new data and see if it agrees with the old data.
JohnV
Oddly enough… I don’t get cable and have never listend to Limbaugh, and haven’t specifically listened to Inhofe.
However, when people here have appeared in comments (and I’ve been awake or at the keyboard) and claimed these files show global warming is a hoax, my response is: No they don’t.
There is nothing in these files to suggest AGW is a hoax. Nothing. Even if GISS and Hadley are both wrong we have a) radiative physics and b) UAH and RSS over a fairly long period and c) less ice during periods when we have pretty good confidence about how much ice there is.
The files show some tribalisms, and, in my opinion some dirty dealing on the part of Jones and many who emailed Jones. They suggest a culture where confirmation bias could easily take root.
But they do not show AGW is a hoax.
Bugs,
“Try asking nasa for all their data from back then. They even managed to lose the high quality video of the moon landing. The tapes just disappeared.”
I started on Burroughs mainframes in 1973. Yup, storage was very expensive in the ’70’s and has been getting cheaper ever since. By the time I left Travis AFB in 1978 we were installing IBM style removeable disk pack spindles.
Now that that is out of the way, those high quality videos of the moon landings were dumped by the typical bureaucrat who was not given the money for storage. They took a LOT of tapes!!! Have you downloaded one of those recovered pictures?? The ONE TIFF I downloaded was 24MB. Do you have any idea of the amount of data that they got rid of or “lost”?? Apparently not.
On the other hand, all that ASCII, BCD, EBCDIC… required to store the whole temp data base would be, wait for it, wait a little longer, wait some more……………………………………
1 frickin 9 track magnetic tape!!!!!
It would have taken only a few reels of PAPER TAPE or a few cases of PUNCHED CARDS!!! Back then it probably wasn’t much bigger than that Moon Picture!! As you conveniently pointed out, BINARY doesn’t take up much room!!
As Lucia mentioned, there was a report that this data was given to a gentleman on FLOPPIES!!!! Remember when they started using floppies??
You do know what BS stands for don’t you???
They were probably being misleading with that statement. They undoubtedly DID get rid of the original paper and magnetic tapes AFTER the data was put on more modern cheaper media!!!
Would you like to buy a really neat suspension bridge in a great location in San Francisco??
Nathan (Comment#25935)
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Nathan, have you actually ever tried to reproduce someone else’s work? I have. When the original party was credible, they basically dropped their drawers and showed us everything. When they werent’, they played games like you are suggesting. It’s generally not like adding 2+2. Subjective decisions are often made as to “what to leave in and what to leave out”.
I’ve been there and lived it. It’s particularly irksome when someone was paid with public funds to collect and analyze the data. If the answer is to “go back and do it again”, what did the public funds pay for?
The surest way to not have your results questioned is to force someone to start from scratch. Then it’s easy to say they did it wrong (cf. Mann v McIntyre).
JohnM
“Nathan, have you actually ever tried to reproduce someone else’s work?”
In what context were you trying to reporduce someone elses results?
“It’s particularly irksome when someone was paid ”
Sure, it might be irksome… But hey the world is irksome now and again…
Nathan
Uhhmmm no. Analogies only go so far. But, assuming he did delete the data (which you seem to accept but bugs refutes) if you want the one that better matches what he did it’s this: He burnt down the library to make it very difficult for anyone to get a collection together to check and to make it impossible for anyone to discover which books were in the library and which had been checked out by customers.
But equally importantly, at some point, he forbade willis from entering the library to prevent willis from discovering which books were in the library. (Or, maybe, he told willis he would not let him enter the library, when in reality the library had already been burnt down. Given the trail of mutually exclusive reasons for refusing FOI’s, who knows?)
Although
And when government funds are involved, legislators tend to get “irked”.
Nathan
This statement is factually correct, and it’s clear. This is what I say. If you wish to say something else fine. But being a copy editor does not give you the right to forbid others from making factually correct, truthful statements.
If you wish to write
I should point out that we cannot be sure all the data exists elsewhere. Key portions like the list of stations actually used by CRU never existed elsewhere and was, apparently, destroyed along with CRU’s data files. So, you have edited my simple, clear, truthful statement and turned it into deceptive spin. In any case, you do not have permission to speak for me.
Nathan (Comment#25939) December 3rd, 2009 at 8:57 pm
That’s if they have the time and funding to do new field measurements of the same kind. Sometimes they just want to check new analysis methods against old or they may want to expand the data set or assimilate it into a larger one. Other times I’m doing something that needs the data but isn’t directly related to that exact collection process — e.g. I’m doing seismic stratigraphy and want to look at in situ with perhaps some other purpose in mind (and therefore the analyzed product is not useful). It’s all quite a reasonable use of data that was collected for scientific reasons on the public dime.
Lucia
Everything you wrote is speculation.
You don’t know who deleted the data, you don’t know why they did it. Neither do I. You don’t even know when it was deleted.
“He burnt down the library to make it very difficult for anyone to get a collection together to check and to make it impossible for anyone to discover which books were in the library and which had been checked out by customers.”
So all this speculation is exactly that, speculation.
But, there is nothing to stop you from getting all that data and doing your own study. Science would thank you for doing that, as that is FAR more important that simply recreating what someone else has done.
This is all a lload of whiney nonsense becuase something is difficult. Goodness gracious me, you have to do some work. Well, that must be very problematic.
All this moaning is so disingenuous, because no one has the intent of actually doing anything with that missing data. Your lot has had the GISS modelE stuff for ages…. Nothing happening there.
A potential commercial process. That is, unlike climate science, something that was of immediate consequence, and either worked or it didn’t. When it didn’t work, we had to backtrack and find out why. Since the “inventors” were looking for money, and since we were a little more careful than most governments (i.e. it really was our money), “go find it yourself” was not an option for them.
Funny how the real world is real for a reason.
The emails are still true.
The perpetrators have confirmed this.
Does it really matter if it was a hack or a whistleblower or Phil Jones just being sloppy trying to delete but still archive his emails/damaging files on an open server.
If it were a world-wide conspiracy of Exxon-funded hackers, they would have broke into Mann’s emails and GISS files etc. etc.
It is simply an FOI officer who got fed-up and released the info or Phil Jones being sloppy while he has trying to delete and still zip.archive his emails/Briffa/Mann files.
The emails still provide evidence of what was really going on (and they have to be just the tip of the iceberg since it was only selected Phil Jones email archives that were released).
Oliver
Well, ok you would use the raw data in that case. But that’s not the same as this CRU issue, as the raw data still exists. In your case it would just mean you’d have to go back to the geo’s who collected the data rather than the geo who made a summary analysis of it.
“It’s all quite a reasonable use of data that was collected for scientific reasons on the public dime.”
Well, actually the data is still all there, held by the agencies that collected it.
If ClimateGate is all being funded by deep-pocket oil companies, then where’s my check?
Nathan–
My basis for saying CRU deleted their data files is the FOI communication they sent Roger Pielke saying they deleted them.
Other than that, you continue to demonstrate your very poor reading comprehension skills, because, if you read up thread, you will see that I have said we don’t know when it was deleted, or who specifically deleted it. You are also demonstrating your as usual interesting quite mining skills, by omitting the preface to the bit you quoted which saysUhhmmm no. Analogies only go so far. But, assuming he did delete the data (which you seem to accept but bugs refutes) if you want the one that better matches what he did it’s this:
When you take your copy-editor refresher course, ask them to explain the notion of “counter factuals” and the importance of clauses containing “if”.
JohnM
“Since the “inventors†were looking for money, and since we were a little more careful than most governments (i.e. it really was our money), “go find it yourself†was not an option for them.”
So the inventor’s had come to you, with an analysis and wanted your companies money?
This again is not a good example as they were trying to be friendly. This was about staying in the good books with your company. Imagine if some external group had demanded their data so they could ‘audit’ it, when they weren’t a potential client. They would have got the ‘go and find it yourself’ line.
This is rich. What’s this got to do with “my lot”? I never asked for GISS modelE code. I’m not even in the “free the code” crowd. I think some codes should be made available, but others.. maybe informally. Go read the discussion with SteveMosher, and you will see that I am not a “free the code” person.
I suppose they could have tried, if their intent was to deceive. But you see, they had another problem, they had made a big to-do about it and had attracted a lot of attention (sound familiar?).
Yes, they wanted money (a research grant actually, with possible licensing), but they claimed to the world that they had something really important (sound familiar?). The preliminary work was published in a “high quality” journal (sound familiar?) and the original funding came from the government (sound familar?).
They could have tried to tell us to go pound sand, but some areas of science and technology are less forgiving than climate science.
Elizabeth May is well known to be somewhat of a nut bar, but her climate conspiracy theory really takes the cake. If anyone is wondering why the Green Party has not been able to elect any MPs, look no further.
Lucia
“But, assuming he did delete the data (which you seem to accept but bugs refutes)”
No I don’t. I don’t know who did it, why they did it, and I don’t think it makes any difference that they did.
“You are also demonstrating your as usual interesting quite mining skills”
Ha ha! You accuse me of quote mining? This whole email escapade is a giant quote mining exercise.
Lucia
“This is rich. What’s this got to do with “my lotâ€? I never asked for GISS modelE code. I’m not even in the “free the code†crowd. ”
As usual you prevaricate. You say you have no poistion, but quite clearly you promote one.
You are the one claiming that there is something desperately wrong the CRU deleting their copy of the data. Yet you don’t seem to be able to articulate what is wrong with that other than ‘it makes it hard’.
JohnM
“I suppose they could have tried, if their intent was to deceive. But you see, they had another problem, they had made a big to-do about it and had attracted a lot of attention (sound familiar?).
Yes, they wanted money (a research grant actually, with possible licensing), but they claimed to the world that they had something really important (sound familiar?). The preliminary work was published in a “high quality†journal (sound familiar?) and the original funding came from the government (sound familar?). ”
All I see here is a load of heresay.
What ‘product’ was CRU trying to sell here?
All I see here is a bunch of Neo-cons trying to rubbish Govt funded science.
So, while I can understand that Petroleum companies might act to protect their profits, it’s not at all clear to me they have quite as much at stake as tobacco companies did…Why would petroleum companies be as desperate to generously fund a sustained secret deep pocket denialist campaign? I don’t think they are doing so.
ETA: edited to acknowledge that you are not an extreme “free the code” crank.
With all due respect to you Lucia, I think this is a pretty naive position and weak argument which suggests that you may be rigorous in your calls for more openness with data and code but perhaps not rigorous in your research on the links between petroleum corps and their attempts to prevent or stall legislative action on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Such links have been documented by many people in the past. They are not “theories” but cold hard facts, such as donations, paying scientists to write articles, astroturf campaigns, etc.
Note that this is not from some “world commie conspiracy” rag, but from Business Week magazine.
Lucia,
You say, “Given lax security at most university campuses, operatives of any well organized conspiracy would be smart enough to bribe the modestly paid night-janitor to leave the door unlocked. Once they gained access, they would have made copies of Dr. Weaver’s hard drive and slipped out.”
You seem to have thought this through… And you seem to know how the operatives of a well organized conspiracy work…
Where you you when these break-ins happened? This is just the kind of post a member of the conspiracy might create to throw us all off the scent.
Personally, I think it’s obvious that this was a conspiracy supported hack. The hacker broke into the E-mail server, grabbed tons of data, then sifted through 13 years of emails and attachments and screened out all the personal and trivial stuff.
He did this because of the Hacker’s Code which calls for extreme respect for privacy. We can only assume he’s been “liquidated” by the conspiracy because of his adherence to hacker professional ethics.
He put the data into a directory called FOIA (probably meaning, For Outside Inspection and Analysis – what else could it mean?) and zipped it into a file call FOI2009.zip. Who knows what the 2009 stands for? He obviously did it from Russia since it first appeared on a Russian FTP site and there’s no technical way to put files on sites in different countries without a valid passport, proof of citizenship or blood test. So there’s your international angle.
Or maybe CRU assembled the data themselves for some unknown reason and our hacker was lucky enough that they put it in the single vulnerable UNIX directory (CRU seems to use UNIX – Could Microsoft be involved?) on their system. Or he had access to more data but, again, the Hacker’s Code of respecting privacy prevented him from publishing more.
But you guys saying someone from the inside released this data are just barking at the moon.
I am aware of a huge research grant ($500 mill) from big oil (Shell) to investigate bio -fuels. This the same Shell that in the Climategate emails are characterized by not caring about science but about current real world applications. So no, I don’t think there is a big oil conspiracy.
1) The destruction of data for the express purpose of defeating a lawful request for disclosure is not made lawful by the fact that the data may exist somewhere else, Nick.
2) Phil Jones alludes the the existence of data he says he would destroy rather than disclose to those he doesn’t want examining his handiwork. Why would he say that if the data had been destroyed 20 years earlier? How do we account for this major discepancy, bugs? If it were true that the data had been innocently tossed 20 years earlier why not make that fact known at the outset of the FOI issue rather than generate all the convoluted false defenses? And why send misleading emails to other team members implying the data’s existence if it were gone?
3) With respect to “fraud” in the criminal context, Simon, I do not see it *unless* Jones obtained funding on the promise of using, maintaining, interpreting data which he did not actually have or which he destroyed to defeat accountability for failure to perform. Defying a lawful FOI request is not a criminal offense in the UK as I understand the statute–at most it is contempt of court–unless one is dumb enough to communicate an intent to do so in advance, in writing. That can be conspiracy.
It is not a crime or fraud to do a lousy job working with or maintaining data but actions taken to misrepresent or conceal the uses made of the data might well be. If there was nothing untoward to hide why take such risks to do so?
Fred Nieuwenhuis (Comment#25964) They were probably behind this:
Searchinger, T.R. Heimlich, R.A. Houghton, F. Dong, A. Elobeid, J. Fabiosa, S. Tokgoz, D. Hayes, T.-H. Yu. 2008. Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change. Science, 319, 1238-1240.
Tsk tsk!
greenaway–
I’ve read tons of vague article quite similar to that one and more. There is no there there.
There are so many sentences that are masteries of nothingness. LIke this:
“for years, Exxon quietly gave millions of dollars to a web of climate-naysaying groups, such as the Cato Institute and the George C. Marshall Institute.”
How many years? When? How much money? Is any of the money actually big money relative to, say, the CRU budget of $17 million from 2000 to 2006? (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html)
And what of the George C. Marshall institute. Other than when reading conspiracy theories, I’ve never even heard of the George C. Marshall institute. (The Alexa rank of their web page suggests no one else has either.) If EXXON is funding them to lead the denialist campaign they must like flushing money down toilets. ‘Cuz that group doesn’t appear on tv, blogs, or pretty much anywhere.
As for CATO: CATO does lots of stuff other than climate change. How does giving to CATO prove that oodels of money goes to denialism? So, how am I to gauge how much went to fund the shadowy denialist movement?
Then you get your bald claims:
What tobacco tactics? Is this going to be the same Revelle/Singer story again? The connection is someone once worked for a tobacco company, right? Can’t these crack investigators delving into the story find a second or third story to justify the tobacco claim? And if they find a second story, cold the find one that’s recent? As in later than the 90s?
Yeah. So Business Week tells us Greenpeace is convinced a shadowy campaing exists. But can’t Greenpeace’s investigators find evidence of any sginficant contributions? Because relative to the rhetoric, I’m seeing peanuts. There is no way that money is enough to hire a the band of hackers Elizabeth May suspect are attacking climate computers across the world. It looks like enough money to hire maybe 4 mouth pieces a year and make a few diddly fliers that look like 8th graders put them together. Maybe 7th graders.
So, no, I don’t see any vast shadowy network of well funded denialists operatives.
George
1. It wasn’t their data to distribute.
2. Perhaps he didn’t know it was deleted until he went to look for it.
Yet again all there is is a bunch of speculation.
there’s an inquiry about to start – and all your questions will be answered.
“If there was nothing untoward to hide why take such risks to do so?”
Well, they’re having an inquiry… Would suggest that they’re not hiding anything.
“All I see here is a bunch of Neo-cons trying to rubbish Govt funded science.” -Nick Stokes
Nick, you are spinning heroically but getting silly.
The bottom line is that if (1) there were any representations of the work being done by CRU (2) which CRU expects funding authorities to rely upon (3) which are not true, then (4) there is a problem. The emails may be less of a problem that the code snippets.
The parties with standing to push this issue are probably almost all government agencies who have a vested interest in the promotion of CAGW so I would be amazed if this were pushed to the limit. For the same reasons it is also unlikely that major media will scrutinize every doc and follow every lead.
Nevertheless, the excuse that (a) only bad people wanted the data and/or (b) Jones did not really destroy it all — he just made it harder to reconstruct– fail utterly if that which Jones did not want to disclose was a failure to deliver what taxpayers thought they bought. Sloppy or biased work is not a crime but covering it up can be.
My bet is still whistle blower, but I don’t think it really matters.
The AGW die hards are not likely to be happy when the next leak, or the leak after that occurs.
These things seldom happen in ones.
And from the defense strategy- starting with deny it all, to pretending it was not important, to now, starting to shove each other under the bus, I think the true believers are in a tough situation:
The ice flow is shrinking.
Hang on to those warm conspiracy theories.
Cheers,
lucia (Comment#25944) December 3rd, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Nathan
Saying that Phil Jones was trying to hide his mistakes using the process you outline is dumb. using your analogy he burnt down his library to hide the errors in his books. Not going to work very well is it? It is a stupid theory.
Uhhmmm no. Analogies only go so far. But, assuming he did delete the data (which you seem to accept but bugs refutes) if you want the one that better matches what he did it’s this: He burnt down the library to make it very difficult for anyone to get a collection together to check and to make it impossible for anyone to discover which books were in the library and which had been checked out by customers.
To continue the analogy perhaps he burnt down the library because he was told to do so by his book supplier!
Try reading the rules governing the use of data supplied by for example the UK Met Office: http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/surface/met-nerc_agreement.html
Note in particular: “Data sets must not be passed on to third parties under any circumstances.”
“Once the project work using the data has been completed, copies of the datasets and software held by the end user should be deleted, unless permission has been obtained for them to be retained for some alternative use.”
” UKMO will protect its IPR by legal action if there is misuse of these rights such as the passing on of data to other third parties.”
Let’s see — there are claims Thatcher initially promoted AGW to oppose the coal unions and promote nuclear. Ken Lay is claimed to have invented carbon cap and trade because he saw it as a gold mine for Enron’s manipulations. I don’t know if either of these claims are true, nor do I really care, because it’s quite clear that “big nuclear” (GE, etc) has much to gain AGW alarm, and the big banks (all of them) are licking their chops at the massive mandated revenue opportunities from carbon trading. If you believe petroleum companies are monomaniacally funding denialism, then surely you must believe AGW alarmism is similarly promoted by the banks and nuclear industry. Really, stop casting stones, it’s foolish and dangerous. There’s a lot at stake financially either way.
Looks like Simon was trying to change the subject. Hurts to admit to (yet another) nutter on “your side” eh? Better hide your ice cubes, dude.
George
Why do you keep calling me Nick Stokes?
“The bottom line is that if (1) there were any representations of the work being done by CRU (2) which CRU expects funding authorities to rely upon (3) which are not true, then (4) there is a problem. ”
George that is stupid,
the work WAS done by CRU, then subsequently the raw data was deleted. If they were required to get the raw data back, for whatever reason, they could get it. This is just you trying to discredit CRU – it’s a political ploy.
“Nevertheless, the excuse that (a) only bad people wanted the data and/or (b) Jones did not really destroy it all — he just made it harder to reconstruct– fail utterly if that which Jones did not want to disclose was a failure to deliver what taxpayers thought they bought. Sloppy or biased work is not a crime but covering it up can be.”
This is more stupidity. CRU weren’t obliged to give data when they had agreements (from the data owners) not to. You are also assuming Jones destroyed it.
Again George, there’s no need to speculate as they are having an inquiry. All your questions will be answered.
However, as that’s not really what you’re interested in (let’s not pretend you actually want the data), you won’t care. This is simply a political opportunity.
Phil–
Your theory of why “he burnt the library down” might be fine… if a) that had been the one the FOI had provided or b) it had ever been mentioned. But, alas, to my knowledge, that particular theory for why raw data were deleted was not advanced in the FOIs.
At one point, one person (maybe David Holland? I can’t remember) requested the data set that had been given to Peter Webster of GA Tech. That one presumably existed at the time it was given to Peter. Early refusals said that data could not be given to someone (SteveM I think) because he was not an academic. The destruction story came when Roger asked for the same data. More recently it has been refused to others with an FOI officer decreeing it should not have been given to Peter. (This may, of course, be the correct interpretation. I suspect that no legal action will be taken against CRU for letting Peter have a copy. )
With some luck, the investigation will reveal what data are actually available, whether any were ever destroyed and, it appears, notwitstanding the laws you cite, it appears CRU will actually try to obtain the permissions required to share the data with others. (When this happens, all at CRU will doubtless breath a sigh of relief knowing they will no longer be prosecuted for sharing data with people like Peter Webster. Right 🙂 )
George Tobin (Comment#25969)
“All I see here is a bunch of Neo-cons trying to rubbish Govt funded science.†-Nick Stokes
Nick, you are spinning heroically but getting silly.
??? I haven’t said anything on this thread. What are you referring to here?
This is actually somewhat offensive, as we have this quote from Phil’s emails:
http://www.climate-gate.org/email.php?eid=490&keyword=hide%20behind
It’s the “hiding behind” that’s offensive, with it’s clear implication of dodging behind such a convenient obstacle. That is precisely what you’re doing in this post, “Phil”.
CRU’s behavior might be entirely appropriate for a private organization conducting proprietary research for private profit. It’s entirely inappropriate for a publicly funded institution conducting scientific research with enormous public policy implications.
Kasmir
“CRU’s behavior might be entirely appropriate for a private organization conducting proprietary research for private profit. It’s entirely inappropriate for a publicly funded institution conducting scientific research with enormous public policy implications.”
Only in your head Kasmir.
Lucia
I hope you chastise Kasmir for quote mining… Because we all know how rigorous you are on it….
Lucia
“But, alas, to my knowledge, that particular theory for why raw data were deleted was not advanced in the FOIs. ”
The raw data still exists.
The real conspiracists were identified by Wegman sometime ago:
“……..it is immediately clear that the Mann, Rutherford, Jones, Osborn, Briffa, Bradley and Hughes form a clique, each interacting with all of the others. A clique is a fully connected subgraph, meaning everyone in the clique interacts with every one else in the clique. …
The cliques are very clear in this layout. In addition to the Mann-Rutherford-Jones-Osborn-Briffa-Bradley-Hughes clique there are several others that are readily apparent. They are Rind-Shindell-Schmidt-Miller, Cook-D’Arrigo-Jacoby-Wilson, Folland-Vellinga-Allan-Knight, Stahle-Shugart-Therrell-Druckenbrod-Cleveland, Sangoyomi-Moon-Lall-Abarbanel, and Clement-Zebiak-Cane. . …
The social network analysis of authors’ relations suggests that the “independent reconstructions†are not as independent as one might guess. Indeed, the matrix outlined in Figure 5.8 illustrates the proxies that are used more than one time in twelve major temperature reconstruction papers. The black boxes indicate that the proxy was used in a given paper. It is clear that many of the proxies are re-used in most of the papers. It is not surprising that the papers would obtain similar results and so cannot really claim to be independent verifications. …
As statisticians, we were struck by the isolation of communities such as the paleoclimate community that rely heavily on statistical methods, yet do not seem to be interacting with the mainstream statistical community. The public policy implications of this debate are financially staggering and yet apparently no independent statistical expertise was sought or used.” “AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION”
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/11/flashback-wegman-report.html
Well, Nathan, that’s one manifestly false statement. There would appear to be quite a few others with similar concerns.
Kasmir-
Nathan is upset you quote mined. I think you should have put that the “hide behind” statement in context so we can see that Phil really, really, really meant to avoid sharing data and that, more over, it appears others in the inner circle also meant to obstruct data sharing. I’ll place the parts you missed out by quote mining in bold.
So, as you see, if you hadn’t quote mined, and left the quote in context, readers might have gotten the impression that,
a) Phil Jone’s initial reaction to learning of FOI was to brainstorm ways to avoid sharing data should an request arrive.
b) He began plotting ways to avoid sharing data even before a single FOI arrived.
c) He shared discussed possible methods to avoid sharing data with others.
d) Tom Wigley also was concerned he might have to share his code.
e) Phil Jones suggested he’d rather delete data than share it.
f) Phil was worried some at the University of East Anglia might not share his views about not sharing data, and he thought he might have to argue.
Nathan–
Thank you for pointing out Kashimir’s quote mining so I could remedy the situation.
Nathan–
I’m going to bed now. If you need someone to add the surrounding text to Kasmir’s quotes, you’ll need to do it yourself.
Nathan,
There is no way to reproduce HADCrut from the current raw data without knowing what steps went into creating the ‘value added’ data which they did keep so it does not make a difference if the station data is theoretically available elsewhere.
The only option at this point is to create a new series from scratch using the raw data and do it in an open environment.
Lucia CRU have consistently given the agreements with Met offices precluding transmission to third parties as a reason for not providing data. The Met Office Conditions of use I referenced specifically address that and also require the deletion of data, those who pontificate on here about ‘chain of custody’ are shown to be wrong. Lucia if you were to acquire data from the Met Office as a bona fide researcher you would be unable to do what your posters say they regard as normal, you would have to delete the data! Furthermore this data provision is to bona fide research programmes, certainly McIntyre couldn’t qualify, his failure to publish alone would disqualify him!
“It is to be expected that ‘bona fide academic research’ using the data will eventually result in scientific publications in the open literature.”
I think it was here on your site that I first heard the characterization of this flap and its connection to ‘tribalism,’ it seems that this a newly constructed shield being fabricated in the counter-attack; the science of social behavior is a poor resting spot for the spoils of war.
I’m going to miss all those fancy graphs and pretty drawings, the mumbo-jumbo of the exhalted world, as we watch this WWF, ‘Mother-of-all-Matches’ play out.
I’m going to lay down and watch this river run uphill.
bugs:
I did too, part of how I paid the bills in grad school. You are thinking of the wrong decade.
By the 80s it wasn’t particularly expensive.
And multiple programs could read the tape, you probably are talking about how you unarchived the data once it was read off tape. (backup/restore versus cpio for unix for example.)
Lucia:
We don’t even know that the data is missing.
We’ve just been told it was, which is not the same thing.
Not that bugs or Nathan have a problem with Jones lying as long as it’s to a denialist. Or anybody else that dares ask questions.
If it is indeed true that the provenance of the raw data used by CRU is unambiguous, then it is a fair point that files used to house copies of such data at CRU are unimportant and their deletion would be relatively harmless, if perhaps careless or mean spirited.
If, however, the data provenance is not unambiguously specified by CRU, then the deletion of the data files amounts to deletion of the provenance information, as a 3rd party could not otherwise know which “raw” data was actually used.
McIntyre (at least) has many times alleged the latter problem. it would appear to me a more effective refutation of McIntrye would be to run through a specific example of and demonstrate how he was being lazy or stupid in his requests. Should be easy, right? But no hand waving, please.
Kasmir (Comment#25977) December 3rd, 2009 at 11:42 pm
It’s the “hiding behind†that’s offensive, with it’s clear implication of dodging behind such a convenient obstacle. That is precisely what you’re doing in this post, “Philâ€.
As regards the Met Office Conditions of Use it’s not a ‘convenient obstacle’, it’s a requirement for any research programme that wishes to use the data. In an academic setting one frequently has to enter into agreements to use data generated elsewhere. I would never enter into agreements which prevented me from publishing my own findings but I often had to accept limitations regarding the IPR of others. What I did in that post was point out what the realities of the situation are.
Lucia
night night
Remember you are quote mining the email though. There is no context for that email, as we don’t know actual details, no? All we can do is speculate.
“The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years.”
So here we see he is a little tired with having to deal with the same people, despite having already told them they can’t have it (they were required not to give it out).
“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. ”
This sentence doesn’t even make sense. the FOI doesn’t apply to the raw station data, as we know there was a contractual obligation for them not to release it. An FOI would make no difference.
“Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does !”
More frustration it seems, looks like he is concerned about constantly having to reply to FOI’s, knowing he will be bombarded with them.
“The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.”
This sounds like there haven’t been any FOI’s yet and that if the first is rejected then they can reject repeat FOIs. So, clearly it is not unusual for FOIs to be rejected.
“We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.”
Now, they have a Data Protection Act for a reason, no? So he’s simply using a law as an easy excuse for him to not give away data that they are contractually obliged not release. This is not subversive or underhanded. It’s just looking for an easy way to avoid a trivial problem.
” Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.”
No idea what this means. Guess Tom Wrigley didn’t want to share his code. Yeah, I guess this means he has something to hide? Well, when in doubt we should just make stuff up.
“IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !”
well this is strange… Strange that someone would dread a confrontation…
“a) Phil Jone’s initial reaction to learning of FOI was to brainstorm ways to avoid sharing data should an request arrive.”
who knows? Is one email ‘brainstorming’. Looks like he just threw a few thoughts out there and expressed his annoyance.
“b) He began plotting ways to avoid sharing data even before a single FOI arrived.”
Well, not really. They were required to not share it. So he was just listing the reasons that they didn’t have to share it.
“c) He shared discussed possible methods to avoid sharing data with others.”
Which was part of their requirements. They were given the data under the condition they didn’t share it.
“d) Tom Wigley also was concerned he might have to share his code.”
who knows what this is about? Why is this significant?
“e) Phil Jones suggested he’d rather delete data than share it.”
Possibly he was just venting, who knows. And it’s irrelevant anyway as the data exists elsewhere.
“f) Phil was worried some at the University of East Anglia might not share his views about not sharing data, and he thought he might have to argue.”
It’s normal to dread confrontation.
This whole email fiasco is a big game of quote mining…
I began working in the computer industry in 1975. 5-20mb removable disk drives were omnipresent in commercial and academic installations by then, let alone mag tape drives. Those were the dominant days of the mini-computer. Mainframes were well established but beginning to decline. Micro-computers were just starting to be deployed. Perhaps I don’t understand the size of the files involved, but it’s hard to imagine in the 1980’s anyone but an impoverished hobbyist having archiving difficulties with ascii databases of a few megabytes.
Kasmir
“If it is indeed true that the provenance of the raw data used by CRU is unambiguous, then it is a fair point that files used to house copies of such data at CRU are unimportant and their deletion would be relatively harmless, if perhaps careless or mean spirited.
If, however, the data provenance is not unambiguously specified by CRU, then the deletion of the data files amounts to deletion of the provenance information, as a 3rd party could not otherwise know which “raw†data was actually used.”
If… if …. if… sounds like speculation.
That would was a plausible excuse before the email I quoted surfaced. Obstacles are what one “hides behind”. The hiding is revealed as the motive, the “conditions of use” an excuse, and apparently a convenient one.
Nathan and Nick (sorry Nick, you showed up…)
Perhaps we can tone down the analogies and turn up the understanding of the data. The geology one doesn’t work because it involves direct measurement. As a Geophysicist, I deal with indirect measurements where we look for a series of patterns that we interpret to appoximate a direct measurement. In order to do this we process the information using mathematical formulas. These formulas can, and often do, permanently alter the orignal information such that there is no ability to reverse the process however well documented. I will give you one specific example of single series mathematics where there is no undo and it’s use was rampant in the 80’s and 90’s: the fast fourier transform(FFT). You could use it in so many applications for data analysis and data “filtering” of time series data where computing power was costly and you knew that the price you paid was there was no direct inverse. The goal of course was to remove the noise to improve the ability to interpret a signal. The FFT and other filters cannot discriminate what is noise and what is signal and should have bee used with care… but how would we know if the data has transformed into a “value added” product? Moreover, how do we know that the inputs used by the CRU et al have not been filtered before processing if we can’t match the original data “sent” to them to the data “used” by them.
I can only speculate. McIntrye, on the other hand, has made an assertion or two that the provenance of the CRU data is unavailable. Refute him if you can, and show your work. He shows his.
Kasmir you appear not to understand the distinction between a ‘reason’ and an ‘excuse’! A binding legal agreement is not an excuse it’s a reason.
basically everything said here about Phil Jones, the Hack, “whistle blowers” or lost data is a conspiracy theory. just slightly better than what May does, because you are less explicit in your accusations.
the talk in the e-mails does not implicate actions.
the whistle blower idea is not supported by anything. but presentation in “sceptic” blogs, presents it as the stronger theory or at least as reasonable alternative explanation. with no evidence what so ever.
old data being lost being somehow tied to Jones (could he have been working at the CRU already back then?) is simply stupid.
Kasmir
So what is the problem? You seem to vacilate between it being that CRU’s version of the raw data is deleted or that the provenance of the data is unavailable.
Certainly it doesn’t matter if the raw data is deleted – as that is available elsewhere. And it puts paid to your assertion about needing to ‘hide’ the data. The data has never been hidden, it’s just difficult to source.
Kasmir (Comment#25996)
That would was a plausible excuse before the email I quoted surfaced. Obstacles are what one “hides behindâ€. The hiding is revealed as the motive, the “conditions of use†an excuse, and apparently a convenient one.
In this context of writing private emails to people he knows, Phil Jones has shown an odd quirk of somehow parodying his own motives. That doesn’t excuse us from looking past his way of expression to see what is actually implied. And there’s no “hiding” involved. He is suggesting perfectly legitimate arguments that he could advance. These requests seem to come under EIR rather than FOI, and this ref Ch 7 lists arguments for not releasing material.
PJ says he would “hide behind” a data exemption. Indeed there is 7.5.7.1 which covers the case where data has been volumteered to the authority – the permission of the supplier is needed for its release. PJ is quite entitled, indeed obliged, to raise that.
PJ said TW could “hide behind” being retired. Indeed, if TW holds no CRU position, he has no obligation to cooperate.
PJ says that IPR should be relevant. Indeed so. 7.5.5c says exactly that.
There’s nothing “hidden” here. There are many reasons why PJ can argue for non-release, and he is perfectly entitled to do so. In fact, as director, if these reasons for non-release apply, it is his duty to raise them.
Phil. (Comment#25999) Jones gave the data to other researchers, he only produced the “not allowed” excuse when he was in danger of having to supply it to Steve McIntyre. Secondly if Met Rules forbid data and demand its destruction, then no scientist will be able to use it for research because it goes against the established standards requiring reproducability from raw data and methods.
Nathan (Comment#26001) The data is not “dead”, it’s just “sleeping”.
To all: I think the sketch applicable to Jones et al is the one with “it’s only a flesh wound”.
Nick Stokes (Comment#26002)
In this context of writing private emails to people he knows
You do realize, Nick, that emails generated on the public dime are not “private,” correct? Had Phil Jones been sending these emails from his home, the term “private” would most certainly apply, but this is clearly not the case. I’m certain you are smart enough to understand this distinction. So why then, do you refer to them as private? Hmmm…
Mark
“I can only speculate. McIntrye, on the other hand, has made an assertion or two that the provenance of the CRU data is unavailable. Refute him if you can, and show your work. He shows his.”
McIntyre won’t even say out loud he believes the fundamental physics of AGW is even correct out loud. He isn’t interested in saying so. Would alienate too much of his audience.
bugs (Comment#26005)
December 4th, 2009 at 1:45 am
McIntyre won’t even say out loud he believes the fundamental physics of AGW is even correct out loud.
He has requested an actual outline of “the fundamental physics of AGW.” There should be one available. To date, none has been offered (single page attempts notwithstanding).
He isn’t interested in saying so. Would alienate too much of his audience.
Um, no, it is simply good science to withold opinion of a hypothesis one does not have sufficient evidence to judge. He couldn’t care less about alienating his audience.
Mark
lucia (Comment#25983)
While I’m at it, I’ll fisk your issues:
a) Phil Jone’s initial reaction to learning of FOI was to brainstorm ways to avoid sharing data should an request arrive.
As I said to Kasmir, the Act lists a number of reasons why non-release of material should be considered. PJ as Director is not only entitled to explore suggesting these – it’s his job to do so.
b) He began plotting ways to avoid sharing data even before a single FOI arrived.
He’s thinking ahead – what’s wrong with that?
c) He shared discussed possible methods to avoid sharing data with others.
You’re just repeating. But, so?
d) Tom Wigley also was concerned he might have to share his code.
He’s entitled to be, especially if retired.
e) Phil Jones suggested he’d rather delete data than share it.
It’s actually not a breach of FOI for him to delete data not subject to a request. And as Phil. pointed out, deletion of redundant data is a policy in some organisations
f) Phil was worried some at the University of East Anglia might not share his views about not sharing data, and he thought he might have to argue.
So? He’s an argumentative guy – nothing wrong with that. But in fact, under the Act, that’s how it’s meant to work. The FOI people are supposed to advance the public interest reasons – the custodians of the data are supposed to check the exceptions listed to see if they apply, and argue for them if they do.
I know little about UK law, but I certainly know enough of its US cousin to tell you that neither your nor the other Phil’s remarks rise to the level of legal opinions. I have no informed idea whether a solicitor familiar with the the law and the relevant facts would counsel Phil that there was a real IPR exposure. I would guess not.
But from the email, it’s quite certain that’s the IPR argument is an “excuse” in the sense of a plausible reason selectively advanced to avoid revealing Phil’s true motivations, which are manifestly to avoid releasing the requested information by apparently any means necessary.
I dislike repeating myself, and suggest you reread what I wrote which I think was specifically clear on this distinction.
658
That should keep you all busy.
I’m not sure if you’re addressing my challenge. I doubt you’re privy to McIntyre’s other beliefs or motivations, which you implausibly imply might refute his arguments that data was withheld and could not be reconstructed. Why not just show us an example of where McIntyre asked for data that was already available to him?
BTW, Lucia is quite explicit that she’s a “lukewarmer”, and it doesn’t seem to scare off all of us “deniers”, and indeed seems to encourage a semi-civil dialog with “alarmists” 😉
Shame Phil had to step down, then.
I think what has happened with the release of the emails is that a conspiracy hypothesis has been promoted to a full fledged conspiracy theory 🙂
Hmm. I think bugs is right. If jones says something we should believe him.
delete the mails. destroy the data. the agreements preclude the release to non academics
Anybody remember that fight? when CRU/jones claimed the “agreements” precluded release to non academics? member that bugs? huh bugs?. member that?
How that claim turn out bugs?
personally, I think that jones should handle this matter by simply EXCLUDING those bits of data he cant share. Its only 2%
Or how about this.. Run CRUTEMP with all the countries
and then run it with the handful of countries that want to protect their data?
Guess what? Cru cant do it.
“But from the email, it’s quite certain that’s the IPR argument is an “excuse†in the sense of a plausible reason selectively advanced to avoid revealing Phil’s true motivations, which are manifestly to avoid releasing the requested information by apparently any means necessary.”
Phil has been quite happy to share information. He is not happy to support denialists trash science.
For the record, I’m a “lukewarmer” as well. My skepticism has primarily been about the magnitude of the CO2 sensitivity, the likelihood of runaway feedback regimes, and the economic tradeoffs of mitigation versus reductions.
That said, because of these CRU revelations, I am now quite concerned about the reliability of all the surface temperature records, and at this point only retain trust in the satellite records. So I continue to be a lukewarmer.
I’m also not all sure that dendrochronology has yet demonstrated it is useful tool for reliably reconstructing paleoclimate. I can believe that I might be wrong about that, or that it might be a solvable problem, but I’m not yet convinced, so I remain skeptical of our proximity to “tipping points”.
Not that it matters what I think, other than as context for what I have posted here.
“I think what has happened with the release of the emails is that a conspiracy hypothesis has been promoted to a full fledged conspiracy theory”
And what is that conspiracy?
http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/2009/11/nasas-fakes-email-leak.html
ACtually bugs the FOI office deemed his release to webster as a violation of the lost agreements.
also..IPR relates to the code release.
98% of jones data is open.
2% ( more or less) is covered by lost agreements..
Jones get paid to run his code.
Free the data and free the code and you could do jones job for free.
Oh FOI law stipulates that if CRU contracts with third parties for data they MUST inform the third parties that the contract may be voided by FOI requests.. if the public interest is served.
personally, I think the public interest is best served by using open data and open code. Gisstemp. last I looked it had a higher warming trend than hadcru. Now, why would a lukewarmer like me recommend gisstemp?
Call me principled.
If the denialist “science” is trash, why worry about releasing the data? All this “hiding” just lends credence to denialist claims.
Kasmir et al
Why not go and argue your sensitivity with James Annan over at his blog.
“If the denialist “science†is trash, why worry about releasing the data? All this “hiding†just lends credence to denialist claims.”
Because they just use it for lies. The lies that are coming out of ‘climategate’ are all the evidence you need.
Annan seems to suspect that the emails were leaked rather than hacked btw…
Speaking of conspiracy theories. I find the google-gate idea highly ludicrous:
http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/google-gate/
Believe it or not, here’s an actual question sent to Eric Schmidt: “1. Was Google contacted by Al Gore or any one of his business associates regarding climategate searches on Google? If so, when did the approach take place?”
“Free the data and free the code and you could do jones job for free.
Oh FOI law stipulates that if CRU contracts with third parties for data they MUST inform the third parties that the contract may be voided by FOI requests.. if the public interest is served.
personally, I think the public interest is best served by using open data and open code. Gisstemp. last I looked it had a higher warming trend than hadcru. Now, why would a lukewarmer like me recommend gisstemp?
Call me principled.”
No, no way. I agree that open code and data is best. Gavin is doing his best with that. But I also see that being open means that people will abuse your generosity and abuse you. Why would you give something to someone, then turn around and say ‘now, please, stab me in the back’? That person stabbing you in the back has no principles.
Because the system you’re working in should demand such disclosures as being necessary to determining the objective truth for the benefit of the general public.
Kasmir
This was the post I was talking about:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-is-3c.html
He has done heaps of work on climate sensitivity. I often wonder where Lukewarmers get their climate sensitivity from. where do you get yours?
Why would petroleum companies be as desperate to generously fund a sustained secret deep pocket denialist campaign? I don’t think they are doing so.
.
You are very right Lucia .
And it shows that in your professional life you have been obviously exposed to the real world much more than your average academic who has not a clue how things really work .
I do not think , I know that you are right .
.
1 year ago I had the opportunity to talk privately with the Chairman of the Board of one of the Big Oil (it was not Exxon) .
He didn’t know my opinion about the matter and I asked him “What is your company’s approach to the global warming ?”
Not surprisingly for anybody who had contact with the real economical world , the approach was governed by pragmatism .
He told me , quoting broadly from memory :
.
– “Personnaly I don’t believe in catastrophic role of CO2 .” (Interestingly his “feeling” based on the conviction that “If the CO2 had a high probability to provoke catastrophical consequences , it would have already done so in the last 3 billions of years .”) You would probably call him a “luke warmer” .
.
– “The role of our Company is not to do science but to satisfy the shareholders . And for them what counts is not what the scientists say but what the governments say .”
.
“The governments signed Kyoto and they will sign other things . It is infinitely more dangerous for businesses going against governments and media then going with them . So our policy is to keep out of what the scientists do but anticipate and use what the governments will do and they may be 2 different things .”
.
“It is forbidden in the company for executives to take positions and take decisions that do not comply with the government’s position and the public opinion . The communication and finance policy follows the same principle . If the governments and the media think that there is a global warming then there is a global warming for all practical purposes .”
.
So now if one visits any web page of any of the Big Oil and reads their statements , it is clear that it is indeed like that that things work in the real world .
I am convinced that an executive who would state internally a skeptical position would be EDEKA (german acronym for “Ende der Karriere” and for a general stores chain :)) .
Free the data and free the code and you could do jones job for free.
a really strange perception of things.
with the majority of data and code available, we should expect to find hundreds and thousands of articles based on that data. we don t.
we don t find those, because those interested in real research, could always get the data. they would just need to ask. (and ask the right person/entity)
we don t find those articles, because writing articles is work. it is more than taking a look at comments in code, or rerunning a model.
those who want the data now, are not interested in doing research and they are not interested in doing work. a good example of what they do when given data, can be found here:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/
on the lost data, a simple mind experiment should do the trick:
how many of those who downloaded the e-mails will still have the file in 30 years?
and storing data has become much easyier, since we re no longer punching holes in cards…
Phil
While the reason you state may be a valid one, it is simply untrue that CRU has consistently given this agreement as precluding transmission to third parties. CRU has provided a variety of reasons and cycled through them.
In any event McIntyre and McKitrick have both published something. So it is ridiculous to suggest that they must be barred from receiving data because they have not published.
Nick Stokes & Nathan:
I apologize profusely for misaddressing my posts in this thread.
Nick
First: b&c aren’t repeating. Plotting before is not the same as discussing with other people. Plots don’t have to involve other people, they can be solo. Plots also don’t have to happen before FOI’s arrive.
In response to your question, so? The email definitely characterizes Phil as being unwilling to release data. Whether or not this is illegal it demonstrates him to be embracing the principle of opacity rather than openness. As my concern has been the demonstration of tribalism, cliqueshness and desire to obscure the basis of their work, Phil’s obvious desire to shield the data appear blameworthy to me– and evidently quite a few people since Phil is being criticized for this behavior.
sod,
The raw data for a scientific organization responsible for developing products based on said data is like the crown jewels. There is simply no excuse for throwing it away.
“He’s thinking ahead – what’s wrong with that?”
You know the difference between murder and manslaughter?
When a person thinks rationally before hand about commiting a crime, that intent means that they are generally more culpable. In some cases (with Homicide this is always the case) they may be subject to more severe charges and or penalties.
Re. Andrew_FL (Comment#25966)
Nope, it was research into Bio-fuel crops that could be classified as carbon-neutral.
Nathan:
Your reasoning in the face of Jones’ unambiguous stated intention to conceal and withhold is simply silly, especially this bit:
1) Funny that Jones would ever think he had to dump the data with all these ironclad agreements in place…
2) I am still waiting to see these agreements you refer to. The various responses to the related FOI requests have said (a) they exist but we can’t find them (b) we think we have agreements with certain countries but we can’t find those docs (c) we have unwritten agreements (d) they may only apply to disclosure to non-academic third parties or (e) they may only apply to further distribution by those to whom CRU gives the data.
Your statement that CRU “does not own the data” and thus can’t release it is not only unfounded but raises the question as to why CRU have in fact made large chunks of raw data from the requested data available online at times.
Apparently the only condition under which they cannot disclose raw data is if (a) the disclosure was of a nature and scope to permit direct examination of exactly how they have built their product over the years and (b) the recipient is someone who is likely to do exactly that kind of examination. The reasons cited for denial were transparently pretextual.
To pretend that Jones’ intentions were other than what he baldly stated them to be is pointless. Not even Prof Mann is defending the emails. (BTW what a weasel!! It’s not as if there were a raft of email comments from Mann about taking the high road, urging full disclosure and avoiding unprofessional partisanship or pettiness. ..with friends like these etc.)
“if you want to get to know some wonderful scientists, their life is on display on a Russian server”
Not to belabor a point possibly made earlier, but if conspriacy is an issue, why wasn’t it an issue after the Wegman investigation and the disclosure of the incestuous ‘publishing web’ the was uncovered?
BTW: Anyone have a fast link to that graphic?
CJW
Nathan:
I’d make an informed guess, based on looking the comparison of models and data.
I don’t think that is any worse than using an objective but flawed statistical method, as used in Annan’s paper. Objective and wrong isn’t much use. Nor does objective shield you from operator bias, because he can unintentionally select criteria that favor his hypothesis.
I’m not picking on climate scientists here. If you look at precise, careful measurements of physical constants, new, more accurate values often fall outside of the 3-sigma uncertainty of previous measurements. Confirmation bias is part of the explanation for that.
I’d put the 3-sigma range at 1.5-4.5, and put the centroid at around 2.6C/doubling.
TerryMN (Comment#25912) December 3rd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Simon, are you defending the Liz May quotes, or trying to change the subject? Please clarify – thanks!
You asked me this last night when I was turning in – so yes, I was trying to change the subject to it being time for bed.
I agree with much of what she says and sympathise with her response to the whole saga. I would not agree that there was any organised connection between the CRU emails and Dr Weaver’s office break-ins, but then she doesn’t say there was, nor does she say that her guess about other research centres being attacked is a guess about organised activity – it’s just as possible that it’s a guess about multiple individuals acting independently. Or one individual attempting to crack all (one can’t conspire with oneself). I can’t see any sense in making such guesses – we know about CRU, and that’s enough to be going on with.
I don’t agree with her implication that there is no cause for concern that wrong things may have been done, although I fully agree that “nothing in these emails suggests any problem with fundamental science.”
I think this statement is silly: “the walking propaganda machines for the fossil fuel industry will continue their Disinformation Pyramid Scheme.” There’s no doubt that the industry has had an interest in challenging the IPCC consensus in the past, but leading individuals in the debate clearly have a much broader base than suggested and are clearly not (I think) all motivated by any such allegiance.
Her phrase about feeling she had “new friends” rather made me want to gag.
I trust that clarifies my views for you.
I’ve observed exactly the opposite, i.e. only the “denialists” have been properly raising the point that it’s not known whether it was a hacker or a leaker. Mainstream media reports in particular have almost universally reporting this as a hacker matter-of-factly.
Perhaps Fenton Communications has advised its client that “hacker” focus groups much more favorably for alarmists than “whistleblower” 😉
You *do* have a point about the use if the word “whistleblower” by denialist blogs, as that purports to understand the motivations of the hypothetical “leaker”. Of course, the note left by the poster of the files certainly sounded like a toot 😉
Andrew_FL (Comment#26062)
“He’s thinking ahead – what’s wrong with that?â€
You know the difference between murder and manslaughter?
Andrew, that’s absurd. We knew before any of this that Phil Jones did not favor releasing his data. That may be undesirable, but as an attitude it is not illegal, immoral or unethical. It is perfectly appropriate for him to propose reasons to the FOI people why it should not be released. And to think about those reasons in advance. And for the FOI people to balance those arguments against the public interest for release. The guidelines say that is what they should do.
I’ve read tons of vague article quite similar to that one and more. There is no there there.
Lucia, perhaps you might consider reading a bit deeper into this subject. Here is a good place to start:
Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air: How ExxonMobile Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science.
It details the connections between key players in Big Tobacco’s attempts to cast doubt on the science linking cigarettes and cancer with Big Oil’s attempts to cast doubt on the science linking CO2 increases resulting from fossil fuel burning (among others) with global warming.
The appendices are really stunning, especially the documents that lay out the strategy to raise doubt over the science. For example, both campaigns included funding scientists like Seitz who happily accepted industry money from Big Tobacco and Big Oil, as well as some of the PR shills with links and financial interests who worked both campaigns.
The paper also points out the numerous front organizations that received money from Exxon / ExxonMobile so they could sod the press in astroturf, citing the same shoddy papers over and over, even after they were discredited, in order to make it appear as if there was more evidence than really existed. Read the paper — really read it and examine the references and documents and then tell me you just don’t think there is any “there” there.
But for a teaser, here is just an excerpt: (I’ve even included a few endnotes for those who need evidence)
In 1998, ExxonMobil helped create a small task force calling itself the “Global Climate Science Team†(GCST). Members included Randy Randol, ExxonMobil’s senior environmental lobbyist at the time, and Joe Walker, the public relations representative of the American Petroleum Institute.31 One member of the GCST task force, Steven Milloy, headed a nonprofit organization called the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which had been covertly created by the tobacco company Philip Morris in 1993 to manufacture uncertainty about the health hazards posed by secondhand smoke.32
A 1998 GCST task force memo outlined an explicit strategy to invest millions of dollars to manufacture uncertainty on the issue of global warming33—a strategy that directly emulated Big Tobacco’s disinformation campaign. Despite mounting scientific evidence of the changing climate, the goal the team outlined was simple and familiar. As the memo put it, “Victory will be
achieved when average citizens understand (recognize) uncertainties in climate science†and when public “recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.’â€34
Endnotes:
31 Walker, J., 1998, Draft global climate science communications plan, American Petroleum Institute, April, memo to Global Climate Science Team. In Appendix C of this report or online at Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air, accessed November 3, 2006. Among the GCST members cited in the plan as having contributed to it are Randy Randol, exxon Corp., Steve Milloy, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, and Joseph Walker, American Petroleum Institute.
32. APCO Associates, 1993, Revised plan for the public launching of TASSC (through 1993), Washington, DC, October 15, Tobacco Documents: document codes 2045930493-2045930504.
33 and 34, Walker.
Nathan (Comment#25961)
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Wow, a guy goes to bed at a decent hour for once and an entire thread passes him by.
Nathan, you’ve hurt me deeply. I see that after patiently answering your many questions one-by-one with my personal recollection of an important event in my life, you dismissed it all by simply whining “heresay”. (I guess you meant “hearsay”, but given where you AGWers seem to be coming from, maybe you really meant “heresy”.)
Do you want to just call me a liar to my face? Do you want to meet in a dark alley and resolve this. (If you bring Ben Santer, I’ll withdraw the offer.)
Just kidding :), since I’m actually feeling sorry for all you dedicated grunts right now.
You see, while you loyal foot soldiers have been slogging it out on this and other blogs with your “nothing to see here”, “much ado about nothing”, “just scientists blowing off steam” bullcrap, it seems your generals have quietly been brooding over cigars and brandy back in headquarters and have plotted out a strategic retreat.
Don’t you hate when that happens? And it always seems to be the infantry that gets hung out to dry.
http://www.examiner.com/x-25061-Climate-Change-Examiner~y2009m12d4-Climategate-fallout-continues-as-United-Nations-announces-probe
But wait, there’s always a blood ‘n guts guy that won’t retreat until every dogface recruit is ripped to shreds:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece
Greenaway [26161]
So you want us to accept that everyone in the AGW/ACC camp currently running for cover [including the IPCC] or throwing each other in front of the bus [as Mann has done with Jones] because of the expanding Climategate scandal and voters and MPs in e.g. Canada and Australia trashing carbon tax legislation, is all because of a 1998 Exxon memo and “Big Oil’s” nefarious schemes to discredit “climate science?.
Aren’t you somehow forgeting the US$80 billion plus of public funds spent over 20 years specifically on proving AGW/ACC? And crucially, that because of the CRU debacle we now actually have evidence [including the code] that will be very difficult to refute and which shows any doubt that a core group within the IPCC system did in fact cook the numbers?
It’s not “Big Oil” that did the damage: that’s the easy enviro-NGO cop out. It is the scientists-turned-zealous-advocates who, blinded by their arrogance, dealt themselves and their all-encompasing cause a mortal body blow.
Damaged beyond even political repair.
…is all because of a 1998 Exxon memo and “Big Oil’s†nefarious schemes to discredit “climate science?.
Lucia didn’t seem to be able to imagine why a big oil company would go to the trouble of funding small organizations with petty little grants. The document I posted a link to shows exactly why.
Most of the noise in the signal to noise ratio regarding the questioning of global warming is due to a handful of “skeptics” like Seitz, Idso, McKittrick, Baliunas, Soon, and others and their work being astroturfed around the internet by front organizations like the Global Climate Coalition, the Task Group on Climate Change, the Global Climate Science Team, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition and the Advancement of Sound Science Center. If you do the research, you see the financial and personnel links between big petroleum and all these groups.
I would suggest that what we have seen recently unfold re the CRU hack and accompanying media and blog storm is the direct result of the work of the petroleum industry, its PR firms and paid shills and its attempts to cast doubt over the science of global warming. I’m sure they’re all rubbing their hands with glee.
After all, there’s still a lot of liquid oil in them thar hills, as well as a few centuries worth of coal and oil shale to burn. Who wants to be forced to use scrubbers and CO2 capture tech and pay carbon taxes and such if it reduces profits?
greenaway (Comment#26168)
December 4th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Won’t get passed on to the customers. No, not at all. Will all come from the shareholders and executives…yep, every penny.
JohnM
Your analogy was about some people who were trying to convince the company you worked for to buy their product. CRU aren’t selling a product, they write papers and publish them. Their ‘client’ is the Journals.
Carrick
“I’d put the 3-sigma range at 1.5-4.5, and put the centroid at around 2.6C/doubling.”
Really? As a Luke Warmer you have it around 2.6/doubling…
That’s awfully close to Annan’s 3/doubling…
That’s sort of warmish for luke warmer, no?
Nathan (Comment#26173)
December 4th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
No, as I explained before your rude “heresay” dismissal, they had published in the “Journals” and were seeking funding. As I said before your rude “heresay” dismissal, they could have dismissed our requests for raw data, if their intent was to deceive. As I said before your rude “heresay” dismissal, they had made a big splash with their result, and were in for it whether we gave them money or not.
Now put your head down in the foxhole like a good soldier while your generals plan their next step with another brandy in front of the warm fire.
JohnM
Quit your whining. I have never met a bigger bunch of whiners, than on this blog.
Your analogy fails because CRU are not trying to sell anything. The reason these guys were happy to give you their data was because they were trying to sell something to YOU. CRU were required to NOT release their data under their contract. I can’t believe how dense you are being.
Nathan,
Speaking of dense, what part of this don’t you understand?
They were on the hook not just because they were seeking funding (CRU doesn’t seek funding?) but because they had made grand claims that were now in question.
I can’t paint a better picture for you, but then even if I could, you’d probably stick your hand on it and start complaining about “fingerprints” again.
JohnM
“A potential commercial process. That is, unlike climate science, something that was of immediate consequence, and either worked or it didn’t. When it didn’t work, we had to backtrack and find out why. Since the “inventors†were looking for money, and since we were a little more careful than most governments (i.e. it really was our money), “go find it yourself†was not an option for them.”
That’s what you said initially. So you can clearly see there is a relationship between you and them that they want to maintain. If I had walked up and asked for their raw data – they surely would hve said no.
You are being very dense. CRU were contractually obligated NOT to release their data. It doesn’t matter how much you try and spin this that they have done something unreasonable, in the end they had no right to disseminate the data (most of which was already available). Just becuase you want someone’s data and they have it (regardless of whether they were publically funded), it doesn’t mean you have any right to it.
Nathan (Comment#26185)
December 4th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Nathan, I’ve been very patient with you. You’ve accused me of using “heresay”, called me dense, called me a whiner (OK, you did a copycat on that one), and now you want to control my line of argument. The quote you give is the “background” you asked for. Now, you want to tell me that the whole world is limited only to the information I put in my first response to provide you with background? Next time, when you ask a question, make it clear that “this is your only shot, your first answer will be the only information you will ever be able to use.”
It should be clear to you by now that your little game of “nobody cares about this” exists only in your own mind. Face it man, your generals are leaving you to rot in the mud.
And btw, let’s get back to my initial question to you, which rather than answer, you started with your 20 questions routine.
Have you ever tried to reproduce someone else’s literature results?
nathan:
I think what makes me a luke warmer is I don’t embrace the 6°C/doubling hysteria, or the exaggerated scenarios used to sell essentially meaningless steps (from climate impact perspective) like cap and trade.
greenaway:
Yeah, like their 100 million dollar grant to Stanford. Maybe they need to check their playbook.
You people don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
JohnM
No I haven’t – you’re not going to appeal to authority here are you? Oh boy… that’s getting pretty cheap.
You haven’t answed why CRU should have broken their contract to disseminate the data.
“It should be clear to you by now that your little game of “nobody cares about this†exists only in your own mind. Face it man, your generals are leaving you to rot in the mud.”
ha ha ha! You can’t even express why it’s important that they disseminate data that was already available elsewhere! If you need the data so desperately just go and get it. All you are showing with these sorts of comments is that this is a political game for you.
Carrick
The 6/doubling was always an upper limit, and one that’s not that fashionable. As you can see, James Annan has it betwee 1.5 and 4.5… That’s not Luke Warmer… Or rather no one knows what Luke Warmer is as it’s not been formally defined. So I suppose it ould be anything.
BUT having a 2.6/doubling it certainly in the range that seems ‘normal’, and significant.
Mark T (Comment#26004)
You do realize, Nick, that emails generated on the public dime are not “private,†correct?
I was writing in the context of interpreting communications. People writing to their colleagues write in a suitable style for that purpose, not for the entire blogosphere. If the blogosphere wishes to listen in, it should interpret accordingly.
However, your statement is simply untrue. Public servants do expect and need a degree of privacy, simply to do their job. This is actually recognised by, for example, the DEFRA guidelines on EIR. It allows an exception for internal communications between public authorities, saying (7.4.5.1):
Yeah, like their 100 million dollar grant to Stanford. Maybe they need to check their playbook.
That does nothing to dispute the fact that they created front companies and hired PR agencies and funded junk science in order to create doubt in the public’s mind about global warming science, even using the same PR company — APCO — that tobacco corps used to fight the EPA and scientists working on the link between cancer and cigarette smoke.
I think they had a very good playbook. They succeeded in getting people suckered right in — defending the poor little big oil companies against those evil climate scientists.
You people don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
*shrug*
Why don’t you address the issue instead of ad homs and diversion?
Won’t get passed on to the customers. No, not at all. Will all come from the shareholders and executives…yep, every penny.
You’re right. Actually, Exxon isn’t all that concerned about taxes, although given a choice between carbon tax and cap and traide, it prefers the former. It really doesn’t want a cap and trade system because that would involve mandatory industry wide reductions in emissions and would require all those dollars spent on technology to reduce CO2, whereas a tax system would not. Exxon could keep on pumping out emissions as it had before, passing on the cost to consumers who don’t, as yet, have viable alternatives and so can’t simply “substitute”.
Now, in a world where there were substitute products giving consumers a real choice, a carbon tax system would eventually make people switch away from gas when the price became prohibitive, but there isn’t a ready substitute so most of us are stuck paying the increased cost. We can drive a bit less or take public transit, but Exxon still makes the nice profit.
So, it’s busy astroturfing — organizing events around the country to protest any cap and trade system.
My point remains. Funding junk science, astroturfing, greenwashing.
So you believe that oil corporations will try to subvert science but not (say) nuclear interests (GE etc), the major banks, and NGO’s with policy agenda? There’s a lot at stake for many, many players given the economic and political implications of CO2 reduction, mitigation, and trading.
For instance, as I’m sure you know, RealClimate is registered to Fenton communcations, a well known “progressive” media relations firm:
http://www.fenton.com/about-us/
So who engaged Fenton, and who’s paying them?
More importantly, who cares? As far as I’m concerned, that “The Team” engaged a progressive PR firm and took money and/or services to do so is perfectly understandable given the inevitable politicization of the AGW debate.
But it’s disingenuous to act as if only petroleum companies have a vested interest in the outcomes of all this. Everyone is playing and paying. I’d wager that there’s a lot more money behind the alarmists than the denialists.
Nathan (Comment#26190) December 4th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
You haven’t answed why CRU should have broken their contract to disseminate the data.
The FOI law Allows the public interest to trump the interest of the third party.
Just so we can have a clear understanding of the arguments lets look at the relevant portion of the rejection letter:
“In regards the substance of the exception claimed under Reg. 12(5)(f), I would maintain the position taken to date. There are restrictions on the release of at least some of the data cited, and our opinion is that any release would be contrary to the agreements, and release would have an adverse effect on those organisations.”
There are restrictions on the release of at least SOME of the data.
1. How can the FOI say this when they claim to have lost copies of the agreements?
2. In their first response Jones “remembered†that the agreements allowed release to academics. UNTIL CA had acdamics request the file. Now they admit this was an error.
3. This has the effect of holding ALL the data hostage because of bad record keeping and thus encourages public officials to lose documents.
4. What were the terms of the lost agreements?
a. Were they time limited
b. Were there academic exceptions
c. We there co author exceptions?
d. Were the agreements legally binding ( one of the “agreements cru posted was not even signed, another they posted from Spain had no restrictions
But lets assume that CRU and Jones have a trustrworthy memory. Lets assume we are to trust a man who says he would rather delete data than release it.
“DEFRA guidance notes that the Aarhus Convention, which contains the origins of the Directive on which the EIRs are based, protects information volunteered by a third party and requires their consent to disclose it. The purpose of the exception is to encourage the free flow of information from private persons or institutions in order to protect the environment where making it available to the public could inhibit that process. To provide information that has a restriction on further transmission on it would not only damage CRU’s ability to secure such information in future, but would also harm the interests of the organisations providing the information, who clearly have an interest in restricting transmission of the information due to the very existence of the restrictions.”
This is the damage argument and here we see the FOI office making the following argument: The damage to The organizations supplying the data ( NMS at other countries) and the damage to CRU ( they may not get this data in the future ) outweighs the Publics right to access.
1. How can the damage assessment to other organizations be made when CRU doesn’t even have records of who is impacted. For example, one country that may be on the list is Taiwan. How much does Taiwan make from selling their weather data? I pick Taiwan because its not in the WMO. Everybody in the WMO has to supply data. Anyways, How can you determine that taiwans interest in selling the data is greater than the publics interest in getting access to it? Other countries potentially on the list, The carribean islands. You choose: a global index the public has faith in ( 40% of us don’t trust climate science) OR the cattribean isalnds right to protect data they gave to CRU and MAY sell to others.
2. How can the damage to CRU be assessed? Cru Claim that 98% of their data is already free. And they argue that if they release it ALL that some of the countries may not provide them data in the future. What is the probability of this happening and what is the damage?
a. CRU already released the data to Webster without any of these countries complaining or shutting off CRU
b. CRU already posted the data on the web ( 2003 version) without any countries complaining or shutting them off
c. CRUTEMP would still be robust without the protected data
So I would say that the actual facts argue against any of these countries refusing to give CRU data in the future and further that CRU won’t be damaged even if it does loses 2% of its data, EXCEPT for this: CRU will not be able to charge people for calculating this simple number.
Basically the facts show that the FOI office miscalculated the cost to CRU of not releasing the data. Anybody care to put a price on the lost reputation of CRU? Was protecting data from Syria and Iraq all that important? And if you believe that Losing a few stations will cripple your ability to estimate the global temperature, then why do you think that the global temp can be reconstructed to +- .5C 1000 years ago from tree rings at a dozen sites around the world?
Again, I’ll take GISSTEMP. At least they use open data and open code and their process can be improved.
In the end the global temperature index need to be created and maintained by a fully staffed well paid team of scientists and statiticians, independently audited. If need be they can do licences to buy out the rights to commercial data or construct their index so that it can be calculated both with and without confidential data. This data and index is too important to be left to a bunch of hack fortran programmers at NASA or at CRU.
BELOW ARE SOMR SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR CRU EMPLOYEES. A snatched this back in july before they took it down.
V Freedom of Information and confidentiality obligations
31.
Public authorities should bear clearly in mind their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act when preparing to enter into contracts which may contain terms relating to the disclosure of information by them.
32.
When entering into contracts with non-public authority contractors, public authorities may be asked to accept confidentiality clauses, for example to the effect that information relating to the terms of the contract, its value and performance will not be disclosed. Public authorities should carefully consider the compatibility of such terms with their obligations under the Act. It is important that both the public authority and the contractor are aware of the limits placed by the Act on the enforceability of such confidentiality clauses.
33.
The Act does, however, recognise that there will be circumstances and respects in which the preservation of confidentiality between public authority and contractor is appropriate, and must be maintained, in the public interest.
34.
Where there is good reason, as recognised by the terms of the exemption provisions of the Act, to include non-disclosure provisions in a contract, public authorities should consider the desirability where possible of making express provision in the contract identifying the information which should not be disclosed and the reasons for confidentiality. Consideration may also be given to including provision in contracts as to when consultation with third parties will be necessary or appropriate before the information is disclosed.
35.
Similar considerations will apply to the offering or acceptance of confidentiality obligations by public authorities in non-contractual circumstances. There will be circumstances in which such obligations will be an appropriate part of the acquisition of information from third parties and will be protected by the terms of the exemption provisions of the Act. But again, it will be important that both the public authority and the third party are aware of the limits placed by the Act on the enforceability of expectations of confidentiality, and for authorities to ensure that such expectations are created only where to do so is consistent with their obligations under the Act.
A core service of Fenton Communications on behalf of their clients is what is called “Online Outreach”, i.e. astroturfing. Perhaps some of the posters on this board are paid operatives of Fenton’s 😉 Yet another is “Crisis Communcations”, and whatever client of theirs is funding RealClimate sure has a crisis to manage, don’t they? Sure looks like someone is doing a good job of media crisis management, at least here in the USA.
So stop casting stones.
steven mosher (Comment#26209)
tl;dr
Shorter bugs: “bugs can’t read”.
greenaway:
LMAO! Brahahahaha!
This whole Exxon-Mobil screed is about nothing but ad hominems and diversions.
You place yourself in there with the truthers and other tinfoil hat types when you start pushing this aging hippie anti-industrialist bullshit. Nutters.
Coming from Bugs, being long and pointless surely is a compliment. Bugs, just say when you got pwned, OK ?
Greenaway The Ad Homs and diversion are from you. The Conspiracy is by Mann, Rutherford, Jones, Osborn, Briffa, Bradley and Hughes etc, to force multiple false papers based on garbage data and science, into Journals where they themselves exercised control of the publishing and peer review proces, and into the IPCC where they exercised the same control. According to the Great Climate Swindle, Margaret Thatcher started the CRU off with grant money to prove the negative effects of CO2, when expanding Nuclear Power became a UK Government objective. Equally, the UK Met Office was the driving force behind the IPCC. Overall the whole thing has been carried on by the usual suspects; Greenpeace, the Sierra Club etc.
well,
When I suggested that the temperature index should be redone in an open fashion, who knew CRU was listening…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece
hehe.
Oh, and there are some more FOI guidelines that CRU may have violated. We will see. Seems like CRU was obligated to contact the Third parties and request their assistence in determining if the confidential information should be released.
Oh, and you know of course that the personal guidelines for UEA employees is that all of their emails should be professional.
hehe.
Steven Mosher,
They said no… You can moan about it all like. Doesn’t change the fact.
What would be more useful to science, is if you simply took the data that IS available and do whatever you need to do with that. More than 90% is available, yes?
What did you want to do with it anyway?
Steven #26209,
I think the last part of your post comes closest to describing these circumstances:
So it seems your objection is to a possible failure of CRU to tell data suppliers about the implications of FOI. But there’s no evidence of whether they did or didn’t. In fact, most of these arrangements were begun well before the existence of FOI. And whether they did or didn’t, makes no difference to whether data can be released.
Oh, and you know of course that the personal guidelines for UEA employees is that all of their emails should be professional.
hehe.
weird, but i haven t seen the e-mail record of Steven Mosher, over the last 10 years. the one of Lucia doesn t seem to be available online either. Pielke? Spencer?
why do you folks miss this opportunity? your mail could serve as a shining beacon of professionalism, to all those easily misguided climate scientists…
Nathan (Comment#26190)
December 4th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Nope. Just wanted to confirm the obvious, since that seems to be a common need with you.
Glad we can agree that appeals to authority are cheap.
Speaking of cheap arguments, where are those contracts?
Don’t have to. Both CRU and UKMet now say it needs to be done…by them.
Look in the mirror, my friend.
sod (Comment#26226)
December 5th, 2009 at 6:26 am
They all are UEA employees? But anyway, your comment doesn’t have much bearing on the discussion here. If by some quirk of fate, those emails ended up on the internet, I have a feeling the outrage about privacy would probably not be on Sod’s agenda. And my guess is those emails would not have anything about “beating the crap” out of anyone, “redefining what the peer review literature is”, or trying to get editors canned.
Just a hunch though.
MarkR,
Expanding nuclear power wasn’t Thatcher’s objective. Breaking the coal miner’s union was. Nuclear or natural gas fired power plants were simply tools in the process. In the end it was mostly conversion of coal fired plants to natural gas from the North Sea fields that did it.
This whole Exxon-Mobil screed is about nothing but ad hominems and diversions.
A little bit of education — an ad hominem argument is one used to discredit the content of the person’s argument by way of discrediting them personally. For example, if I were to say that the CEO of Exxon/Mobil was on anti-psychotic meds and therefore, what he said about climate change isn’t to be believed, I would be resorting to an ad hominem.
On the other hand, for me to provide evidence that he and his board of directors planned to greenwash their corp and create doubt in the public mind about climate science and hired a PR firm to create false climate “public interest groups” and paid for sham papers published in non-peer reviewed journals, is to be historically accurate. You see that I am not discrediting his (or others) position on climate. I am merely outlining his political and economic interests in the issue.
What he and others in Big Oil did is relevant to the issue at hand. What they did is factual no matter what Exxon/Mobil et al claim about climate science.
To accurately describe the political and economic interests and actions that flow from them of those involved in a policy battle — on both sides — is only good analysis. To claim that politics and economics have no role to play in understanding this whole affair is to be deliberately naive.
As an academic and researcher, my purpose is to understand the climate wars in a broader historical, political and social context.
Of course I’m not fully objective or unbiased – I do accept the science, not because I am qualified to judge it, but because of the preponderance of evidence. I do think based on the science that action is warranted, although what action is best is unclear to me. To claim one has no bias or interest in this is to be naive or misleading.
You place yourself in there with the truthers and other tinfoil hat types when you start pushing this aging hippie anti-industrialist bullshit. Nutters.
Now you see, that is a proper ad hominem!
Congratulations! Very well done. Let’s see — truther, tinfoil hat type, aging, hippie, anit-industrial, nutter… what else could you squeeze in there?
Oh. You missed commie, anti-globalization, one-government crank. Tsk tsk.
The objective numbers Greenaway are that ExxonMobil and other oil companies spend far more on pro-global warming researchers than on denialists. That’s a fact. The ratio is at least 10-1, maybe 20-1.
And all of your BS, is just BS.
I’m not accusing you of being a commie, but you are approach Pravda in your adherence to long-practiced propagandistic tricks that the alarmists use to try and polarize the debate and to vilify your opponents.
You’ve succeeded to the point that even people like myself who are much closer to you than denialists, look on your tactics with contempt and want nothing to do with a movement that claims to be scientific, but really is nothing but another political movement engaged in cheap theatrical tricks.
I might have added “bone-headed know-nothing elite who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life and wouldn’t know which end of a shovel goes in the ground if someone taped his hands to the handle”
But I’m generally more polite than that, and I don’t know that for a fact, but I might base that conclusion on a proponderance of the evidence.
@bugs (Comment#26213)
more bugs – “I don’t understand facts”
@greenaway (Comment#26161)
“The appendices are really stunning, especially the documents that lay out the strategy to raise doubt over the science.”
Maybe so, but there is such a thing as “knowledge”. This is different to “spin”. And so a good approach is to seek the opinion of knowledgeable people and use critical thinking to evaluate their advice:
Have you read the Wegman Report? Have you checked his CV/resume? Have you read the recommendations the report made? As an “academic and researcher” do they seem reasonable to you? Subsequent to the report do you think these have been acted on? Do you have any view on what may or may not have influenced their adoption?
greenaway–
I’ve read that before. As a document to support the claim that big oil is funding any disinformation campaign to confuse people on AGW, it utterly fails.
Like all these documents it is surrounds a few tiny examples with pumped up verbose prose. Actual evidence to support their major thesis is either thin, extremely ambiguous, obviously irrelevant or all three of the previous.
What I can gather from reading that long thing is: There is one oil company, EXXON, who would prefer to avoid energy taxes and Cap and Trade. Like many companies, they donate to groups. A number of these groups study Cap and Trade. Sure. Yawn.
Way, way back in the 80s before the temperature rose and before and around the time Hansen made his appearance to congress, and when climate science really was not clear, they funded some skeptical climate science. Sure. Yawn.
More recently, they created a task force that included a guy Milloy, who was affiliated with a group that studies a number of things, and that group got some funding from Tobacco. That task force made some recommendations to show climate science was uncertain.
It seems Greenpeace found no evidence that the task force’s recommendations were taken up. The reason I say ‘no evidence’ is that if you examine the evidence Greenpeace gives tho show EXXON followed the advice of the task force, you will discover that the evidence shows EXXON funded think tanks that study economics, and publish articles on cap and trade.
I am sorry to inform you that economics is not climate science. And suggesting cap and trade might slow the economy is not shedding doubt on the validity of AGW.
The fact that Greenpeace provided such poor evidence, but worded their document to suggest funding groups that study cap and trade amounts to funding a disinformation campaign in climate science suggests to me that Greenpeace found no real evidence to support their claims. After all, if Greenpeace had found real evidence, they would have supplied that evidence. (This of course, assumes the skulls of those writing the piece contain a more than a dozen brain cells.).
To me, the structure, and tenor of the Greenpeace article, along with trumped up “evidence’ (which I found investigating bits at random) makes it look like something written by a spin-factory. I suspect anyone who delves into randomly chosen examples of “evidence” will find the document you linked is carefully worded to mis-represent the situation as a whole.
What do I think the document proves? One company, EXXON, brainstormed ideas, and at least once, set up a task forces. At least one task forces suggested a range of options including things that managment rejects and does not do.
In the end, it appears that EXXON did not follow the recommendations of that task force and did not do what tobacco companies did. That is, they did not and don’t appear to spend any significant amount of money on dis-information campaigns about science. What they do do is fund economists to study the impact of cap and trade, carbon task and other possible responses.
You may not like the fact the fund this… But so? That’s not a conspiracyto confuse or mis-represent climate science.
Moreover, none of this funding is secret. EXXON funds these groups quite openly.
So what I see in the end is this:
* EXXON would prefer to avoid cap and trade. (Jim Hansen doesn’t like it either.)
* It’s in EXXON’s interest to avoid it. (Yawn.)
* EXXON does little or nothing to mis-represent climate science
* Exxone does fund economists to study cap and trade. (Which, you may not like. But so?)
* A well funded group (Greenpeace) does their best to torture the information available to suggest that funding economist to study cap and trade is evidence of a well funded conspiracy to shed doubt on the reality of AGW.
* You take a cursory read and don’t look at the footnotes or evidence and decide Greenpeace is right.
* People who read the footnotes or examine the evidence find Greenpeaces spin unconvincing.
That’s what I see.
But here’s your chance to convince me. You could found some group called “Greenpease Cliff notes” to edit out these irrelevant drek and leave in the portions that “big oil” in general or Exxon in particular funded efforts to confuse on the science, as opposed to funding economists to study the impact of cap and trade proposals, or simply explain that EXXON has high carbon emissions, that might help make them more convincing. Highlighting what documents were produced based on which bits of money might help.
Frankly, I suspect you aren’t going to dothis– are you? You probably think it’s my job to find the evidence hidden in that verbose puffed up piece of drek. But if you don’t do it, people who bother to pick “evidence” at random out of that verbose document are going to find it wanting and suspect that the majority of the “evidence” they don’t check amounts to… “yawn.”
curious
curious– I would also note that greenaway substitutes and adjective for any substantive discussion of the contents of the appendices. I’ve looked at those appendices. Which ones show what greenaway (he? she?) claims they show?
Steven Mosher:
Your analysis is more detailed and substantive than your bad-faith respondents deserve. The bogus argument that Nathan keeps returning to that CRU does not “own” the data or that disclosure was otherwise barred doesn’t work legally or logically.
As you point out, (1) the unambiguous legal presumption is that the requested information is discloseable unless there is a statutorily recognized reason of sufficient weight not to release it. (2) The correct response was to release everything except for particular data they expressly knew to be covered by a binding agreement they knew to exist by virtue of actually having such an agreement on file. (3) A broad refusal based on a reference to agreements that may or may not exist and may or may not preclude disclosure if they do exist is patently unacceptable. Period. Their behavior proves their intention and belies the purported basis for the refusal.
Secondly, this puerile argument that well, the data is out there somewhere else or 90-98% of it is so it all doesn’t matter is as tiresome as it is legally irrelevant. The purpose of the requests was to obtain the exact data and methods used to construct the reported temperature record in order to examine that methodology. The refusals were made solely to defeat that undertaking.
To argue that any other reason existed is either disingenuous or simply gullible. The manner in which the refusals were made, the failure to produce the non-disclosure agreements which supposedly exist, the discrepant comments as to when the data was lost, the shifting reasons offered all serve to make it pointless to pretend the intention was anything other than what it was: an unlawful attempt to prevent anyone from checking up on the quality of their work.
But here’s your chance to convince me. You could found some group called “Greenpease Cliff notes” to edit out these irrelevant drek and leave in the portions that “big oil” in general or Exxon in particular funded efforts to confuse on the science, as opposed to funding economists to study the impact of cap and trade proposals, or simply explain that EXXON has high carbon emissions, that might help make them more convincing. Highlighting what documents were produced based on which bits of money might help.
First, it would be nice for you to limit this to one oil company but it isn’t and wasn’t. It was the strategy of the American Petroleum Institute. The API represents the industry, not just Exxon/Mobil. So, your effort to make this appear as if it is just one oil company is mere diversion.
Of course, even so, the world’s biggest corporation is a pretty big deal, all things considered, but still, there were many others involved in the development of the “plan” and sham “climate coalitions”, as the records show if you cared to investigate. But I can see you don’t.
You also seek to minimize the links between tobacco lobby and the oil lobby and both groups’ attempts to challenge the science threatening their industry with regulation and potential financial losses. You make the mistake of thinking that if the money wasn’t huge, it’s no big deal.
What tobacco’s campaign showed, and what big oil learned from them, was that you don’t have to spend a great deal of money to maximize your return on investment. You can discredit the science on quite a cheap budget by doling out a few dozen grand here, a hundred grand there, and still achieve maximum effect. It is really quite brilliant and cost effective.
I see the API is busy in a new campaign to fight the EPA on the toxicity of benzene. They are challenging the science once more, because there was a move afoot to protect workers in the oil industry because of the science linking benzene exposure to cancer and other illness.
What we see is a pattern of behavior that all scientists and those who support science should be aware of and oppose — the attempt by industry to discredit science, to create doubt about it in the minds of the public, and to sway politicians through generous funding, in order to prevent any legislation that might have a financial impact on their bottom line. Sure it might make complete business sense, but it is very damaging to the particular science and science as a whole.
The key to a successful disinformation campaign, you see, is to find a few “contrarians” who are quite willing to shill for $$$ and fund them, use their shoddy bits of dreck to raise doubt, have all these front organizations post the same dreck to their various websites and “conferences” — to use the term loosely — and make it appear as if there really is more dissent amongst the scientists than there really is.
The poor unsuspecting public doesn’t really understand any of the science or the details, so to them, seeing a few crank scientists debate in public makes it appear as if there really is significant doubt about the basic science. Which there isn’t and wasn’t.
Of course there are always uncertainties in science — lots of them which any scientist takes tremendous efforts to highlight in their work, mindful that other scientists will be examining every conclusion with a critical eye. But in the case of the tobacco-cancer link, as well as the anthropogenic CO2/ global warming link, the basic premises of the science were accepted by a majority of those in the field.
That has weight with policy makers and politicians and the public.
So you see the oil industry’s dilemma. The only way to combat that weight is by introducing doubt in the minds of the public, and thus, in the mind of the politician.
Doubt really was their product.
Frankly, I suspect you aren’t going to dothis– are you?
Frankly, Lucia, I suspect that you don’t really care to know, so probably anything I might provide would be just another thing for you to *yawn* over.
Actually, I couldn’t care less what you think. If you really want to believe the oil companies have acted in this affair with no malice and have done nothing untoward, by all means. Be my guest. That fact that is your starting point suggests that even if I did provide independent confirmation of what the article claimed you would shrug and yawn it off.
So much for rigorous analysis!
Greenway–
The American Petroleum institute proposed something no company acted on. Not proof that companies do anything.
It might be if you showed they did what you claim. Simply saying they are a large corporation is…well… yawn.
You’ve shown no attempts to challenge the science and the only link in that document is that Steve Milloy who was once affiliated with a groups funded by tobacco was on a task force whose recommendations were tossed in the trash bin. Is this minimizing? Can you contradict this with any evidence other than “application of adjective”?
The rest of your verbose post is riddle with similarly no substantive paragraphs. If you’d like to actually provide links or evidence fine. But describing what you imagine is required to run a successful disinformation campaign does not constitute evidence that one exists.
So, if you want to convince people, provide some evidence and use some honest to goodness logic.
Oh?
Are you agreeing you have provided none? Because all I’ve told you is that a) you have provided none and b) the reason I don’t believe your theory is you provide none.
That you consider my insistence on evidence to believe in a conspiracy theory a justification for providing none is rather interesting. If you think a short while, you may come to understand why you fail to convince people to see things your way.
But, of course, if you really don’t care what I or others think or believe, you should continue just as you do: Writing long non-substantive comments making claims for which you have no actual evidence.
I might have added “bone-headed know-nothing elite who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life and wouldn’t know which end of a shovel goes in the ground if someone taped his hands to the handleâ€
I probably need to get a shovel out, considering how thick it’s getting around here. Elite? Compared to most, I guess I’m guilty as charged and won’t apologize for it. Honest days work? Depends on your definition of honest and day and work. I have been employed full-time for the past two decades, have a mortgage, car loans,(paid off) student loan debt, spouse, children and pets. And no, for your information, I have never had a job where I had to use a shovel, whether it be to shovel gravel or dirt or manure although I do garden and know how to use one. The only thing having to shovel manure teaches you is that it stinks. I’ve only ever been employed using my brain.
Thank God for technological progress.
Cap and trade ought to take care of that.
Lucia,
It might be if you showed they did what you claim.
This is pertinent to the accusations being levelled from a reading of the emails. It is asserted, for example, the Jones et al. subverted the peer review process or that they deleted emails subject to FOI. The inquiry will establish whether they did or not, but until then we may as well ‘yawn’ over such accusations just as you ‘yawn’ over purported proposals from the API. Goose and gander.
Are you agreeing you have provided none? Because all I’ve told you is that a) you have provided none and b) the reason I don’t believe your theory is you provide none.
Do you really want me to provide it or is that just a way to dismiss my points?
If you think a short while, you may come to understand why you fail to convince people to see things your way.
People here appear to already be convinced on the issue. I am merely posting another point of view. The fact that people resort to personal comments when my focus is on the larger players in this matter, and the fact they discount the sources suggests that there is no real open engagement. It’s an echo chamber of people feeding on each other’s agreement and good opinion of each other.
But, of course, if you really don’t care what I or others think or believe, you should continue just as you do: Writing long non-substantive comments making claims for which you have no actual evidence.
I’m not here to convince you. After being here for a while, I can see there is no value in trying. I am posting an alternative because it needs to be presented. I believe I’ve provided substance. It may not be substance anyone here wants to address. As to whether I should provide you with the details independent of organizations like Greenpeace, the evidence is compiled in many places as a quick review of the endnotes shows.
That you don’t bother to investigate further speaks for itself.
Cap and trade ought to take care of that.
I can hear API clapping.
“And no, for your information, I have never had a job where I had to use a shovel, whether it be to shovel gravel or dirt or manure…”
Andrew Trivia: My very first job was cleaning out stalls (with a shovel) on an Arabian farm near where I grew up. The sh*t stunk, but I loved the horses.
Andrew
Well, at least Concoco and Shell are rubbing their hands in glee lobbying for Cap and Trade. Guess that just means they hired more ex-Enron people than ExxonMobile did.
Greenaway
Do you really think you’ve made any points?
By the way, one of the things I will moderate for is attempting to argue by rhetorical question. I moderated Andrew_KY for a week for that, and only took him out of moderation when he stopped. (He did quite quickly and has not resumed.)
I will put you on special case moderation if you do this.
Show evidence if you have it. Or don’t, in which case, I will assume you don’t have any.
Whether the evidence comes from Greenpeace or another source is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it must be evidence. That Greenpeace document appears to contain none.
Andrew_KY
My two brothers-in-law worked at the Dupage county sewage treatment plant shoveling.. erhmmm .. erhmm… The sometimes got to drive a truck full of erhmmm erhmmm around town. Then never hit the brakes hard, but sometimes accelerated more rapidly than recommended. (If you ever see an open top truck bed full of … erhmmm erhmmm leave a generous car length between yourself and the trunk when you stop at stop lights. “Erhmmm” on your cars hood will not leave it smelling sweet.
FWIW: I thought all Post Hole Diggers and or “PHigher and Deepers” (Ph. D’s) were required to use shovels during the Bull S. and More S. periods of their education. My husband and I both have PhD. and consequently own shovels and post hole diggers.
Simon–
I agree that the email-gate needs to be investigated. That said, a few accusations clearly stand because they simply confirm things outsiders have been saying all along. That is, the “hide the decline” issue confirms what UC and SteveM were saying about data treatment in some proxy studies.
Of course, some can try to explain they think it is perfectly reasonable to do the non-standard mathemagic to hide said decline. But, the emails made people curious. The issue is fairly easy to understand (if one wishes to understand.) Once the issue was “out in the wild”, you can see typical reactions like the one on the Daily show.
Of course, there are other accusations that are ambiguous.
In anycase, the difference between the some arguments made by those criticized by CRU and greenaways arguments is that at least some of the argument relate to specific points and provide the specific evidence the person advancing the argument believes to be convincing. In contrast, greenaway retreats from anything specific or connecting it to anything specific. Even after citing a report, she does not dive in, pick any particular claim or point and connect it to any piece of evidence. Yet, in principle, Greenpeace has already done that for her, and she should be able to find the claim and the evidence.
The problem is: If you find any particular claim, and then google the evidence, or flip to the appendix, the evidence turns out to be illusory. For example, the groups Greenpiece indicates arse funded to create confusion in climate science study economics and and publish papers on the economic impact of things like cap and trade, ethanol subsidies and what not. So, this evidence is irrelevant to Greenpeace (and greenaways) claim.
Now, I will admit that many accusations against Phil Jones “out there” in the wilderness of the blogs are as poorly supported as greenaways. Some claims seem unlikely to be sustained in the investigations. But other claims are clearly true, and we can perfectly well advance the arguments here, and elsewhere.
The fact that greenaway provides poor arguments for her claims and those claims themselves seem overblown, or that some (e.g. Monckton?) also provide poor arguments to support seemingly overblown claims, does not mean that those of us who support our claims on other topics are not permitted to do so.
Taking Lucia up on her generous offer to let me provide a case for my position, I would like to draw to your attention pages 51-55 of the report:
You can see that this is a memo from Exxon’s chief environmental lobbyist Randy Randol (who helped create the Global Climate Science Team) to John Howard of the Council on Environmental Quality.
The memo outlines ExxonMobil’s issues and recommendations on climate change, including asking for the removal of Robert Watson, the American who headed the IPCC and was the chief science advisor at the World Bank.
It also outlines several recommendations to to ensure that “none of the Clinton/Gore proponents are involved in any decisional activities” in the IPCC. That’s all fine and dandy. I’ve worked for government through changes in administration and this is nothing out of the ordinary. Nor is it out of the ordinary for a stakeholder like Exxon to call for such an act.
I just want to point it out as part of the equation and as part of the context for understanding “Climategate”.
Other recommendations include appointing John Christy as the science lead for the IPCC process. Christy is an opponent of action on climate change who believes CO2 is plant food and that pumping it into the atmosphere is no problemo and could be good for us. He is linked to many of the organizations tied to the API’s plan to create doubt about climate science, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.
ExxonMobil’s memo also recommends that RIchard Lindzen be appointed co-lead. Lindzen once said that ExxonMobil was the only “principled oil and gas company I know in the US”. Lindzen is known for his work for the Marshall Institute, which was mentioned in the report as being part of the API’s plans to create some astroturf.
As well, he publishes at the Heartland Institute, which is another right-wing think tank that rejects Kyoto and downplays climate change and publishes Energy and Climate News, in which many denialist scientists like Lindzen post sub-standard “papers” denying global warming.
The memo also calls for the delay of the IPCC meeting and delay of the release of the draft synthesis report (TAR) prepared while Watson was the lead.
Another document in the Report is an email from Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (yes, the CEI again) asking for the ouster of the head of the EPA, to Phil Cooney of the Council on Environmental Quality.
A tiny excerpt:
It seems to me that the folks at EPA are the obvious fall guys, and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible. I have done several interviews and have stressed that the president needs to get everyone rowing in the same direction. Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired. I know that that doesn’ t sound like much help, but it seems to me that our only leverage to push you in the right direction is to drive a wedge between the President and those in
the Administration who think that they are serving the president’s best interests by pushing this rubbish.
Keep in mind, this is coming from Ebell to Cooney – the CEI offering to help the Bush admin by calling for the firing of people in the administration because of a report on climate it didn’t like.
To me, this is all context for understanding “Climategate”.
The fact that greenaway provides poor arguments for her claims
“her claims”?
Pray, do tell how you know my gender or why it matters?
Nathan.
If they said NO to the release of data then I say NO to this.
1. Do you accept CRU’s contention that is is warming?
NO, they didnt release code and data.
Your suggestion is perhaps that I should do it myself. Guess what?
NO.
Like others you get the burden of proof wrong. in these matters.
If CRU want to claim that hatcrut is the best representation of global temperature during the instrumented period then THEY HAVE TO SHOW THAT. The first step in my evaluation of the claim is going to be simple.
Did they get the right data from GHCN? well did they? did they?
You know, Nasa said they were getting the right data from GHCN but as the Y2K error showed they were getting the WRONG data.
Do you understand the basic fundamentals of IV&V? Thought not.
Guess what, Until they release the data AS USED I can’t even do the most fundament QA check.
A. CRU claim that 98% of their data comes from GHCN.
Is that true?
Proceedure:
1. get a copy of the data that CRU claims they used. ( if they make a local copy of GHCN)
2. get a copy of the data GHCN provide.
3. get the code that CRU use to download and process the
GHCN data.
4. Execute the CRU code
Then instrument the code to make sure that the data as used is the same as the data that GHCN provide. A simple checksum might be suffienct. If CRU convert GHCN data ( like F to C) check the process of conversion for biases ( See EM smiths work on biases introduced by GISS in their conversion routines )
The temerpature index is mission critical software. It needs professional attention
Oh.
I guess CRU is listening to me.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/05/uk-met-office-to-release-data-and-code/#more-13756
So you guys who defended them, please go attack their stupid decision.
My bet? You won’t find anything much wrong with the code.
BUT, people will be able to examine the decisions made. First and foremost I think folks will be able to do some intersting UHI studies.
Here’s the bottom line.
Yes it is true the ExxonMobil gives money to skeptics and even deniers. But as I mentioned they give far more to climate change advocates/alarmists, so that in itself is hardly a good basis for condemnation of them.
And it’s not simply true that petroleum money is the reason why the climate change advocates are having problems with their public image. Their problems are entirely of their own making, and created by a combination of arrogance, ignorance and wildly exaggerated claims. This CRU fiasco (and it is) is just the latest in a long series of similar self-made publicity disasters.
The money that ExxonMobil gives and has given simply gives a small amount of fuel to a debate that is already ongoing. It has nothing to do with why conservatives view cap and trade and other draconian measures proposed for amelioration as some kind of take-over bid by the ecosocialists, or why libertarians are equally concerned about overreach of a central government.
Greenaway and other climate advocates main problem with ExxonMobil isn’t that they exclusively fund denialists, because that itself is far from true.
Their real problem with ExxonMobil is that this company dares to fund any opposing viewpoints. When they say the debate is over, what they really mean is they don’t want debate to continue, and they will do everything in their powers to summarily terminate it.
And that preventing dissenting voices from being heard publicly, cutting off all funding to skeptics and denialists, rigging the journals to prevent them access to key peer reviewed journals, to rigging the rules for the IPCC working groups to include self-referential papers included in the final published document and so forth.
Beyond that the whole story stinks of aging hippie conspiracy theories, and tin foil hat BS.
I guess greenaway will demand to know next how I know greenaway is an aging hippie. XD
Sure. They wanted him removed. He leaked information prior to the official release. This sort of thing is often breach because it give people in priviledged positions the opportunity to present their own views as those of the WG1 of the IPCC_- who are, fwiw, about to speak for themselves. This action can be considered a serious breach in duties on the part of the priviledged american official, and EXXON thought this breach might motivate a removal. They wrote a memo.
You don’t like the idea that he might be removed and don’t like the notion that EXXON wrote a memo.
So, now to get to the main claim this is suppose to supprot: How does this prove any sort of conspiracy to promote dis-information? Maybe could finish your thoughts on this instead of thinking this somehow proves or even supports your claim of a conspiracy to distort climate science. It presents no such thing.
Part of the equation is a suitably vague choice of word. What does it even mean?
As for EXXON wishing to keep Clinton/Gore people off the IPCC: Once again, while you may disapprove of this, it not evidence of a conspiracy to distort climate science. It is only evidence that a) they have preferences and b) they lobby. No one is unaware of these two things.
John Cristy is also a climate scientist with a Ph.D. who runs an active research program in climate science. He also acknowledges that Global warming is real and humans impact on climate is real. As for the plant food quote: Do you have a context in which that was said? Here in the US, after all, had an EPA suit over CO2, where part of the argument was whether or not the EPA has a right to ban this as a pollutant with the definition of pollutant debated. Irrespective of ones notions about climate change, the traditional application of EPA laws did not include effects like climate warming. So, it’s quite likely the context was that of the law suit.
This is evidence they prefer some scientists over others. It may well be they consider Christy more objective. While you may not prefer Christy, this is not that EXXON was trying to disseminate disinformation about climate science.
As “evidence” you show quotes that indicate that people at EXXON mobil trust Lindzen. LIndzen is a climate scientist from MIT is, once again.
I realize that you, and likely some of those you listen too, may consider Lindzens work flawed, but that doesn’t mean that those who trust him are plotting to spread dis-information nor that Lindzen is plotting to spread disinformation. So, once again: This is not evidence of your main claim.
That EXXON funds someone who publishing in Heartland published materials nneither proves that EXXON is trying to spread dis-information nor that Lindzen is trying spread dis-information. In the first place, people often publish where they can publish. What’s Lindzen supposed to do to stay pure, blog? SWhat you need to do to prove Lindzen is trying to spread dis-information is to show that the published material is disinformation. (And dis-information can’t just be mistaken research that Lindzen believes. He has to knowingly publish stuff that was misleading. To prove EXXON is trying to spread dis-information by funding or trusting Lindzen, you have to show they fund him even though they believe his stuff is scientifically invalid. That you show the trust him is evidence they do not intend to spread disinformation. This is true even if you think the information is inaccurate.)
The CEI memo you provide shows the closest thing to anyone trying to prevent dissemination of accurate information on climate change. The only two difficulty in using this as evidence that EXXON or oil companies are conspiring to disseminate mis-information is that a) the CEI is not EXXON or an oil company and b) the specific reason he wants Christine Todd Whitman fired is not provided. CEI would like her fired for some reason– possibly due to the findings on climate science, but also possibly due to her taking a firm stand on other pollution regulations that businesses CEI advocates for don’t like.
Politics being what they are, it would hardly be surprising that the head of CEI would hunt for any possible reason he could find to get Bush to view Whitman with disfavor and fire her.
So… once again. You have very little to make the case for what you claim: which is that big oil is conspiring to disseminate disinformation.
If you want to moderate things to “Big oil doesn’t like cap and trade”. “Big Oile prefers lax regulations that cost them money” etc. fine. Everyone knows this. It’s not a secret. But this isn’t the same jumping to “and they spend vast sums of money paying people disseminate disinformation about climate science to achieve this end.”
steven mosher (Comment#26298)
Cool. So they are releasing a lot of it. And look, it only took a week to get permission. (Not too surprising since we already had been told in response to FOIs that almost none of it was covered by any confidentiality agreements!)
greenaway
Sorry, I remembered that you’e emailed me privately and thought you had a female first name and so wrote “her”. I just checked my response to you and see it’s a male first name. Of course it doesn’t matter to your argument which are equally poor whether written by a male of female.
Sorry if my referring to you as “her” offended you. I’ll try to remember you are a “he”. Or would you prefer your real first name? It will make it easier for people to recognize your gender and avoid accidentally referring to you as “she”.
Lucia, I have a confession to make. I have not been honest. I am not a dedicated warmer, alarmist or even communist. I am in fact uncertain about the science and the policy. When it comes down to it, I do not know for certain anything with respect to the science, its uncertainty or how likely any projection or forecast is. Nor do I know which policy approach is best — cap and trade, carbon tax, or what kind of targets are reasonable, if any.
I have been doing nothing more or less than others here and elsewhere have done since the CRU emails were published — reading documents that are only a small part of the whole picture and drawing conclusions about motive and intention based on nothing more than what is in front of me.
I did it in part to make a point, and to see what kind of reception I got.
People on “skeptical” blogs like this and others have pointed to the hacked emails as proof that climate scientists have been involved in a hoax, defrauding the public by posting “opinion” instead of science, part of a conspiracy to defraud the public about climate science and global warming. That their liberal politics motivate them to “fudge” the data so that it supports pre-conceived notions of what they want to find — warming and the political solutions to it they favor, world government and the end to oil consumption.
Some have suggested that the climate scientists are only in it for money, grants, fame, in other words, they have financial interests in promoting the theory of global warming. They suggest that these scientists have some kind of hidden agenda to beggar the US, topple it from the top of the world heap, create a world government, etc. They claim these scientists were subverting peer review, were preventing those who disagreed with them from being published in reputable journals, etc.
Each one of those charges can be made against those labeling themselves skeptics, whether they be scientists, politicians, business executives or the ordinary Jo on the blogosphere.
That is all I am trying to point out.
This is no longer about the science even though there are many people picking away at this or that bit of research. It went beyond the science of climate change long ago. It is a political battle, and it is in the political realm that it will be won or lost. The science itself is far too complex to be understood by most who will be making the actual decisions about policy – the politicians and even their advisors.
I have worked drafting policy for decision makers in my job. It comes down to what policy a particular administration wants to implement based on their values and goals and agenda. All the science in the world will not convince because the science is never settled completely. There will always be outliers and dissenters and if a government does not want to implement a policy, it can draw on the work of dissenters to claim the science is unsettled and no action is justified — or they can do nothing at all if they can avoid it. This is about competing interests and agendas and how they play out on the political stage.
Even the CRU hack is a political act and will be used thusly in trying to influence the outcome of a political decision.
Me? I’m just interested in this as an academic examining a policy battle and trying to figure out the players, their agendas and how governments respond and manage conflicting interests.
Steven Mosher
Sure you can think whatever you like. If you don’t think HADCRUT is the best measure, then fine. Who cares?
“Guess what, Until they release the data AS USED I can’t even do the most fundament QA check.”
Who cares if you can’t do a QA check? Their data mostly matches four other systems of calculating GMT.
What you COULD do, which would be far more useful, is to get the data yourself and make up your own system of calculating GMT. That would be some good science right there.
Nathan,
Don’t be a dope. The biggest reason people give for not believing in AGW is TRUST. 40% of people dont TRUST what scientists say. I beleive AGW is real. I believe we should take action. But sustained action depends upon the PUBLIC TRUST. and CRU have eroded the public trust. So when people like me say “show me the data” and CRU say no, then the trust is eroded. Don’t believe ME? CRU have just said they will release the code and some data to restore faith.
So CRU agree with me and the other Lukewarmers who have called for this since 2007!
BTW I’ve put in a couple more FOIA into CRU.
So question for the crowd. CRU now agree with Me and will publish their code and data for 1000 stations. Thanks also to Judith Curry who called for this in 2007 and thanks to those folks who believe in AGW and who agreed with US. Shame on those people who believe in AGW, who believed that there was nothing wrong with the code, but who defended secret data and closed code. You knew better. Just like the people who watched trains chugging off to work camps. ( hehe)
CRUs 1000 station result will show what we all know: the world is warming.
I applaud this.
1. Gavin schmidt, referencing a paper by shen, has argued that we only need 60 good stations to capture the global temp.
2. Climate reconstructions ( mann etc) are often done with 10s of sites with a stated accuracy of +-.5C.
3. When a temperature index with 1000 stations shows that the world has warmed…….
A. is it NECESSARY for CRU to use confidential data?
B. How would CRU determine if it was NECESSARY?
C. Do you think CRU should use confidential data ONLY IF
it is necessary?
Those are good questions to ask right now. Answer them.
greenaway (Comment#26324)
December 5th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
…who just happens to have a bug up their a$$ about Exxon and oil companies.
I find it amusing that people are aghast at the conclusions I’ve drawn about big oil based on the few pieces of evidence I’ve posted, but don’t see that they are doing the very same things they reject in my posts when discussing the CRU hack.
Conspiracy theory? Check.
Motives augury? Check.
Convicting without trial? Check.
Basing conclusions on emails and documents taken out of context? Check.
Overstatement of meaning based on limited evidence? Check.
And to add insult to injury, calling me an aging hippie! I wear a business suit every day. 😀
lucia (Comment#26306) December 5th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
(Comment#26298)
Cool. So they are releasing a lot of it. And look, it only took a week to get permission. (Not too surprising since we already had been told in response to FOIs that almost none of it was covered by any confidentiality agreements!)
Well, there are some problems.
1. Like the GISSTEMP code I suspect the CRU code will be targeted toward a specific enviroment. GISSTEMP was on AIX ..PITA
2. CRU argued that they Could not segregate the data between confidential and non confidential because it would take too long.
( see their response to McIntyre’s request) Now they appear to be able to.
3. They will release 1000 stations and argue that they are trying to get the other 5000 released.
They are going to have to be VERY CAREFUL with how they execute their obligations WRT these 5000. Their specific obligations in getting and using confidential data is clearly laid out.
We just need to watch how things roll out. remember this is a institution and person who said.
Id rather delete the data. hide the decline. delete your mails.
John daly’s death is cheerful news. the argeements I lost prevented disclosure to non academics. all the data is available, wait some is covered by agreements, wait I lost the agreements.
Oh damn, it too hard to segregate the confidential and non confidential data.
I’m glad I’m a Lukewarmer. That way I dont have to defend jones. and I dont have to defend pat micheals.
the lukewarmer camp is so small because we dont tolerate nonsense in our camp
Greenaway.
Me? I’m just interested in this as an academic examining a policy battle and trying to figure out the players, their agendas and how governments respond and manage conflicting interests.
Sounds interesting. As Lucia and I argued early on this affair will be a great case study for the sociology of science. Of course sceptics want to say the science is bunk and warmists want to ignore the problems in this culture of science.
There is plenty here to learn from. less on the science side of things and more on the institutional side. Hulme has called for an abolition of sorts of the IPCC. I know some lukewarmers who argue that we need a bigger bolder more open IPCC process.
Lucia and others. A good number of us have done science under various institutional structures: university science, DOD science; Corporate science; DOE science; and the IPCC is more than just a report writing entity ( see the SRES emails)
So, how does an institution shape the science it does? how do we correct for this.
You all know what I’m gunna say.
greenaway
Fair enough. What are blog for if you can’t play devil’s advocate under a pseudonym? 🙂
I agree some a have said that. They go too far.
To some extent, I’ve contradicted some of on both the warmer and cooler end– but the the number of comments has been huge for me. During busy times, who I respond to can be strongly related to when they post. (I suspect if someone did an analysis over the past few days, they would notice that a rarely responded to people who posted at 6pm central on weekdays, and often responded to those who posted at 7 am on weekdays. In between times… well it depends.)
With respect to all the examples of what “some” have said, you will also find plenty of more moderate examples in comments here and in the blogosphere.
For example, while “some” have suggested that “the climate scientists are only in it for money, grants, fame, in other words, they have financial interests in promoting the theory of global warming”, others have suggested that the desire for money, grants or fame can creates a bias or conflict of interest. This is a rather more modest statement. A third group has suggested that there is so little money or fame in climate science that the possibility that someone would be swayed by either is laughable. (Only the middle statement makes any sense. People who make $80,000 a year can be swayed by the thought of looking good to their boss and getting a promotion and 10% raise rather than no promotion and no raise at all. But this is rarely enough to incite an entire field to create a hoax.)
Oddly enough, some arguments by some people are about the science and/or its presentation.
Still, I suspect by “this” you probably mean the public interest surrounding climate gate, the huge increase in traffic we climate bloggers have gotten, many arguments about the scientists actions, the hacker (or leakers) actions, the Mann/Schmidt/Romm/Openheimer press conference this morning etc. There is a heck of a lot of politics in all “this”. Some is purely political (how can a press conference not be?)
I’ve been visiting my agreggator and set up a search at google just to marvel at the political fall out. (I’m actually pleased with some of the fall out. I’m glad CRU will be making data and code available. That’s good for science, but more importantly it’s necessary politically.)
Almost certainly true. And even the choice of word “hack” instead of “leak” or “unauthorized disclosure” (favored by Revkin) has political overtones. 🙂 (I’ve been writing “hack or leak” when I can remember. I think I also alternate … but i’m not quite sure.)
Heck. My decision to post a blog as soon as I learned the link to a zip file appeared in comments at Jeff Id’s blog was a political act. (I think I beat Anthony by an hour and may have the distinction of “first above the fold”. My time stamps are central time and his are California>) Gavin’s almost immediately sending me an email that I interpret as intended to be vaguely intimidating was a political act. And my mentioning in comment that the link to the zip file was still in Google cache when Jeff took the link down and they couldn’t find it was a political act.
Yep. Lots of politics going on. I could list endless things and will happily agree the are all political acts. But you need to be careful to recognize that you can’t always diagnose the precise motive from the act.
Good luck reverse engineering the agendas! (I was at the opera last night, and ran into a climate scientist friend. He said, “Oh. I haven’t read your blog lately. I assume you’ve been covering the email hack?” We had a discussion that involved a lot of laughing. A lot. The laughs were especially hilarious because he knows many of the people at least slightly and knows the culture. )
Anyway, welcome to the blog. Your free to argue away (provided you don’t do the whole “argue by rhetorical question” thing. I absolutely hate that.)
Good luck reverse engineering the agendas! (I was at the opera last night, and ran into a climate scientist friend. He said, “Oh. I haven’t read your blog lately. I assume you’ve been covering the email hack?†We had a discussion that involved a lot of laughing. A lot. The laughs were especially hilarious because he knows many of the people at least slightly and knows the culture. )
Hack. Leak. I don’t know what this affair is, but you are spot on — the choice of language itself is a political act. When doing policy analysis, one does the research, comes up with alternatives, does the risk analysis, eventually has to provide recommendations. I have found that on the rare occasion, a recommendation is rejected, but not most of the time, because very often, perhaps more often than not, the final outcome is pre-ordained. In other words, the politicos say “Here is the decision I want to make — justify it.” And the policy analyst carries it out. It’s not pretty, but there you have it.
This is perhaps a very exciting time for a student of environmental policy — right in front of my eyes is so much rich rich fodder for a dissertation. 😀 I feel guilty enjoying this because this is not trivial. There are huge implications either way you cut it. Non-action/Action both have potential seriously negative outcomes.
I honestly do not know. I’ve tried to read as many of the papers as I can in even one small corner of the larger discipline and am still uncertain what I think. And that’s only one small corner. I chose dendroclimatology only because I have a degree in biology, including botany, but even so, I have to admit it’s hard slogging even with a science education.
Anyway, welcome to the blog. Your free to argue away (provided you don’t do the whole “argue by rhetorical question†thing. I absolutely hate that.)
Do you really think that outlawing rhetorical questions will do anything?
KIDDING!
greenaway–
Welll…. I don’t impose it unless someone starts to make a habit of it. It’s also allowed as a device if you answer your own question.
But, I did write a plugin that lets me easily moderate individuals. If I stick you in, I tell you. (So, if you just get moderated, it’s probably just the over aggressive spam filter. Heck, I got the captcha today!)
But you need to be careful to recognize that you can’t always diagnose the precise motive from the act.
Lucia, I agree that it is very difficult to determine motive with any certainty, even when people tell you outright. They could be lying or self-deceived. While much of economics assumes that people act in their own interest (a huge failing IMHO), psychology says that is too simplistic and that people often act against their interest, e.g altruism and even others claim that altruism is ultimately selfish.
Motive is hard to impute, but we can examine interests, and even if people sometimes act against their own interest, we can detect potential conflicts of interest, which are very important to understand in any evaluative process or political decision.
That has much relevance to this whole matter – on both sides.
It’s far easier to examine actions, deeds, and look at how they are related rather than mine the psyche. That has proven to be a potential chamber of mirrors where what you think you see can be deceiving. Best to look at actions and outcomes.
Anyway, I have always been a devil’s advocate sort of person, and am immediately and seemingly genetically impelled to state the opposite of any position that is put out there, almost as if I feel pity for the position not expressed. When people start flinging s*** at me, I know I’ve touched a sore point and are getting to the core of things.
greenaway:
I’m just aghast at what passes for common sense in your own arguments.
As I said above (#26300), climate activists have run afoul the consequences of their own nefarious tactics. ExxonMobil is hardly any more of a blip than Soros funding of RealClimate.
The real problem for you critics is that not that all funding goes to denialists, but any funding goes to the denialists at all.
Greenway–
My Dad is loves devils advocate, and today, he became one again. You haven’t been long enough at this blog to undertsand the significance of this, but I will be blogging this….
Maybe especially if they tell you outright? 🙂
I know some things are not my motive. But… sometimes… even I can identify anywhere from 4 to 11 things that contribute to why I do something.
Greenway– I should add, that I can often explain why I did not do something better than why I did something.
For example, if you asked me why the post I wrote after learning of the link to the zip files at JeffId’s post was entitled “real or fake” as opposed to writing the sort of post Anthony wrote, I could explain why I specifically chose not to write a post like Anthony’s. But if you asked me why I wrote a post rather than not writing a post…. That’s more complicated, and I’m not sure.
But I can tell you this: SteveMosher alerted me to the zip files and I am sure he knew that if I was at home and could write a post, I would write a post.
I think some people mis understand the role of money in this process. As I noted before there are 3 modes of interaction between scientists
Cooperative; Competitive; Isolated.
basically working together; working against each other; working in isolation.
Money and promotion of results plays a role in all modes. Climate science works in a cooperative mode. Its Not the AMOUNT of money that makes a difference but rather how money influences the trajectory of science. Take the simple request McIntyre made to UPDATE the proxies. Some climate scientists responded that such a task was monumental. So, Mc showed one could get a latte in the morning and return with updated tree cores. yet people mis understood the point of his simple demonstration
Another interesting question has to do with what is called “the democracy” of models in the IPCC. I’ll say more about that later.
All in all Lucia the big winners in this are the Lukewarmers.
Like Lucia I don’t know my own motives with certainty. Hmm. And sometimes people point out motives I have that I didnt even see, especially dr. Freud. How can it be? Dont I have more immediate access to my mental states than you do?
Steven Mosher, I would think that reputation has more importance as a motive for scientists, and money (as in how big your grants are and how many) are only a means to gaining that reputation. If we’re talking about motives or even interests in this matter.
As a scientist / academic trying to break into a discipline, you have to make an impression of some kind. I’ve got friends who have finished and defended their dissertations and who went looking for jobs, lamenting that they didn’t have sexier dissertations or more highly respected advisors or more publications. There is pressure in the university to publish or perish — it is more than just a cliche. So I can entirely understand how an academic might be motivated to pursue sexy research, the kind that garners lager grants and whose papers are more likely to be accepted for publication, and if all else fails, for the few whose own ethical framework is weak, fudge data in order to come up with a good publishable paper that makes a splash. There are enough real hoaxes and frauds out there to justify caution when reviewing a new paper with some new finding.
Of course, that is why peer review is so important and why there is or should be a requirement that data and methods are available so that replication is possible — that is the whole premise of the scientific method as I was taught it.
Still, that being said, I am not certain if I agree with you that a person’s code must be released in whole all the time in every case. There should be enough information on how the data was analysed as well as the data itself so that replication is possible. If it is not possible to replicate the work given that, then the original work should be seen as being less valid or its conclusions contingent, etc.
So we have scientists trying to manage conflicts between doing science and being an academic in an institution, trying to balance doing good science and doing sexy science and getting recognition for their work and getting grant money so they can do the work and moving up in the department and etc.
Egads, it’s enough to put one off the whole endeavor.
How can it be? Dont I have more immediate access to my mental states than you do?
Nonsense. How could you possible know your own motives? Your unconscious rules and usually, it ain’t telling.
Nick
“So it seems your objection is to a possible failure of CRU to tell data suppliers about the implications of FOI. But there’s no evidence of whether they did or didn’t. In fact, most of these arrangements were begun well before the existence of FOI. And whether they did or didn’t, makes no difference to whether data can be released.”
Well Nick you are wrong. CRU guidelines and the Information commissioners directives require that CRU contact the third parties and get the third parties assistance in determining whether information that may be covered could be released.
We will see if CRU contacted them in Not. hehe.
You can be sure the climategate files would have included such a mail if jones was involved or if the word FOIA was in the clear text.
Also, If CRU contacted them and they didnt respond ( see the clause in Mcintyre’s rejection notice where cru are awaiting certain particulars—-) then CRU have an obligation to release the information anyway. basically the law is constructed to release everything with exceptions. If cru thought that the lost documents were extant before FOI then they have to show that they WERE. Given that CRU is only now contacting these people ( see the news release) its clear that they didnt contact them back in July 2009 when they should have. So they didnt have a basis to conclude that the “contracts” were enetered into before FOI, didnt have a basis to conclude that the EXACT TERMS precluded a release.
CRU have an obligation when entering into contracts to determine the NECESSITY of the confidential data. Not whether it is nice to have but that it is NECESSARY. Once they discovered that some of the data may have been under agreement, once they discovered that they had released this data ( first to webster, then to DOE, then to the WWW) they were under an obligation to inform those third parties about this data breach. Then they are under an obligation to work with the third parties to see if there is some way to release the data.
The problem is that jones appears to have been making stuff up.
The lates was his claim that he couldnt release the non confidential data because it was too hard to segregate the confidential data from the non confidential data.
Finally, You represent that the agreements were entered into BEFORE the FOI regulations. There is no basis for this other than
phil jones word. That would be the same phil jones who said the agreements precluded release to non academics. That would be the same phil jones who said he would rather delete data than send it to mcintyre. That would be the same phil jones who told others to delete emails.
Mosher
I agree. And it’s true even if we gain no respect or recognition. In terms of concrete things, many of us are getting what we’d wanted.
Greenaway
That’s what I’ve told Mosher. I do think it’s good that the CRU code gets released and it should have. There are other codes that I think should be released– primarily because in some instances the code is a better way to supply the specific algorithm clearly. But in other cases, the narrative describing what was done is both sufficient and better that the code. It would be a shame if code in language ‘X’ supplanted narratives, and it would also be a shame to require essentially duplicate forms of documentation. In many cases, an appropriately detailed narrative along with willingness to provide code if it becomes necessary should be enough.
Steven Mosher, I feel compelled to state that it is entirely possible that Phil Jones is being honest about the many reasons for not giving the data. It may be that he came up with the most relevant reason at the time he was asked and only thought of the other reasons later, when facing a different circumstance. Or he even forgot one good reason. Or he just made stuff up on the fly.
I have found myself doing this at times, quite honestly. Like, I didn’t really want to go to my sister in law’s place for the playoff game because 1) I dislike her husband intensely 2) I prefer my own flatscreen tv to hers 3) I had a bit of a cold and didn’t feel up to a social event and 4) her place smells like wet dog.
When my sister in law asked me why I wasn’t coming over, I told her that I had a bit of a cold. When my spouse asked why, I said the place smelled like dog, and when I was watching the game with my son, I said I was glad we stayed at home because my flatscreen is so much better than my sisters. You are the first to know reason #1.
Ultimately, only an investigation will provide further enlightenment as to the actions and consequences of any attempts to delete emails and refuse FOI requests and influence journal editors and “hide the decline” (although I think that’s already been explained), and of course, how much enlightenment depends on the quality of that investigation.
greenaway–
Yes. But if it turns out that the place obviously does not smell like wet dog because your sister owns cats and not dogs, your flat screen tv is clearly inferior to hers, and you have absolutely no symptoms of a cold, the people who hear these excuses are going to suspect they are less than truthful. (Not that this necessarily tells us anything about Phil Jones. . . )
If you turn down invitations to my house, remember to use the cat pee excuse and not slip up with the clearly fabricated “dog smell” excuse.
I have always suspected that the reason the code wasn’t readily released had more to do with its shoddy state than any real fudging of data. Not ruling that out — will hold off conclusions until I see more evidence.
I suspect that given the various data sources involved and the age of the database, and the number of iterations of software and different generations of hardware and all the adjustments and corrections, that the code must be a behemoth. Harry seems to suggest that.
Steven #26369
The prima facie evidence for agreements predating FOI is that the supply of information commenced well before FOI. But your attachment to EXACT TERMS etc is misplaced. The section that you quoted, that I echoed in #26225, clearly gives consideration to “non-contractual agreements”.
I’d like to see some reference for your claim that CRU has to get a refusal from the originators of the data or else release it. I don’t believe that is so. Obviously such a statement helps determine the fact of whether an agreement or understanding would be violated. But it is the fact that counts, and there are more ways of determining it.
I think you’re over-personalising this on Phil Jones. I suspect most of the data predated his time as director, and there will other sources of information.
Nick.
Unrelated, but I’m also looking at this:
2. Before relying on an exemption, the UEA Information Policy Officer will usually
be obliged to consider two further points. First, some of the exemptions can only
be claimed if the release of the information would prejudice the purpose to which
the exemption relates. Thus information held in connection with law enforcement
can only be withheld if its release would, for example, prejudice the prevention or
the detection of a crime. Secondly, some of the exemptions also require the UEA
Information Policy Officer to apply the “public interest†test before making a final
decision as to whether or not to release the information. The public interest test
requires the UEA to consider whether the public interest in withholding the
exempt information outweighs the public interest in releasing it.
WRT your questioning UEA obligations: Annex F of the code of practice.
9. The fact that the third party has not responded to consultation does not relieve
the UEA of its duty to disclose information under the Act, or its duty to reply
within the time specified in the Act.
10. In all cases, it is for the UEA, not the third party (or representative of the
third party) to determine whether or not information should be disclosed under
the Act. A refusal to consent to disclosure by a third party does not, in itself,
mean information should be withheld.
I don’t think the fact that CRU may have signed an agreement PRIOR to the institution of the ACT releases them from their obligations to conduct they’re ongoing activities in accordance with the act. They continue to get data from these countries and they dont even know the terms under which they receive that data. Further they dont know if they could get that same data or some subset with different more liberal terms. They could perhaps even sign re distribution licenses and sell the data with A CRU seal of approval. Section 9 prevents CRU from denying a release based on a non response of the third party.
I suppose you could argue that CRU didnt hear from the third parties and under #10 can still decide that their fear of being cut off TRUMPS the public interest.
In short, we asked a handful of countries if we could release their data. They didnt respond. So we are going to assume that they will deny us the data in the future. Further we judge that this small amount of data is NECESSARY for us to construct a global index and therefore the public interest in access to this data outweighs our fear.
I’m not quite a lukewarmer but I think that this isn’t an issue where some group has the opportuntiy to”win”. Everyone should win. With over 190 countres represented at Copenhagen, who amongst the readers of this blog would not support
A – a commitment from those counties present to release comprehensive historical climate data.
B – a commitment to those countries that use of their historical climate data in published journals include a comprehensive SI.
Just askin…
greenaway:
I agree with this.
But that just emphasizes why code that is being used to make trillion dollar decisions needs to be publicly released and audited professionally by a disinterested third party (not climate audit).
I suspect makes will be found, though the biggest errors are probably not simple coding errors, but errors in physics assumptions. E.g., if you want to compare the climate data to models, you need to use daily average, not average of max+min temperature…there will in general be a bias between the two. That is a fact regardless what you think about Klotzbach, et al. 2009.
hengav (Comment#26384) December 5th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
My thoughts exactly. When we are talking about spending trillions to comabt climate change metthinks that syria and taiwan can do their part and cough up their data.
steven mosher (Comment#26394)
From the poorly constructed summit agenda it looks like Wednesday is the day questions could be introduced. I wish I could figure out how or who could introduce motions.
http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_15/application/pdf/overview_schedule_cop15.pdf
Hmm
Well if I were a poor country that sold my weather data I’d make a motion that the IPCC allocate funds to purchase a worldwide fully paid up licence to it. gravy train. There is also the dirty little secret that some nations dont release data because they believe it has military significance. heck we held on to polar ice data under this kinda nonsense.
steven mosher (Comment#26377)
In short, we asked a handful of countries if we could release their data.
It isn’t that simple. You can’t ask a country. You have to find someone within a country (with authority) that will stick his neck out and say yes. Probably the original people involved in the agreement have moved on.
I know my own organisation would take months to make a positive response to such a request. There just isn’t a process for it.
Nick Stokes (Comment#26417)
So does that suggest you think it is a worthwhile process, one that you would be willing to endorse? It just takes one organization or delegation to make a proposal. Others will follow. Data ownership and licensing is a legal matter, but politics changes ploicy. Create a boilerplate document for the EU and let the rest follow.
Steven
“A. is it NECESSARY for CRU to use confidential data?
B. How would CRU determine if it was NECESSARY?
C. Do you think CRU should use confidential data ONLY IF
it is necessary?
Those are good questions to ask right now. Answer them.”
I don’t know tht it is CRU who determine if it is confidential. I know some of the data they use is determined to be confidential by the provider.
All the non-confidential data is available.
Nick–
Oh? Now that CRU has decided they want to release data (because it’s become in their interest to do so), they seem to expect they will overcome all the hurdles rather quickly. This suggest the process may well be much simpler than you suggest, n’est pas?
A few countries may make things complicated for CRU. But at least now the rest of the information will not be held hostage because 1 or 2 countries may want to make data release difficult. Also, since the issue is now in the open, should an individual country do make it difficult to release data, it will be in CRUs interest to specifically post the fact that permission has been denied for that specific data. Then any public ire (or amusement) will fall to those countries that won’t give permission to release temperature data from 1910 on the grounds of military security, profit and what not. Some countries may still want to keep their data private. As they have that right, people will just have to make do. But CRU will no longer be keeping country “A-Y” data private simply because country “Z” won’t permit theirs to be published.
They also won’t be giving people the run around with constantly changing reasons for refusing data.
All of this is a good outcome and to the great benefit of climate science, indivdual scientists, and the public in all countries of the world.
hengav (Comment#26420)
I think we’re a bit at cross-purposes here. Mosh was talking about events following a FOI request – I think you’re talking about the general process of freeing data.
Yes, I think a general push by a body like WMO would be a good thing. They could offer incentives – a structured sharing process would benefit everyone.
I think it is unfair that this expectation has been put on CRU. They were just another supplicant here – they have been successful in getting the data for their analysis, under whatever terms they were able to negotiate. They don’t have any particular powers to exert. And I don’t think the current CRU-bashing is a positive step toward encouraging other Met organisations to open up.
Nathan (Comment#26422) December 6th, 2009 at 5:36 am
“A. is it NECESSARY for CRU to use confidential data?
B. How would CRU determine if it was NECESSARY?
C. Do you think CRU should use confidential data ONLY IF
it is necessary?
Those are good questions to ask right now. Answer them.â€
You wrote:
I don’t know tht it is CRU who determine if it is confidential.
I DIDNT ASK THAT. If taiwan says its data is confidental is it NECESSARY for CRU to use it, or should CRU say no to using this
How should CRU decide if its NECESSARY to use data from a country that says it’s confidential
The WMO already REQUIRE member nations to give up the data.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/about/Resolution40_en.html
http://www.wmo.int/pages/about/AnnexItoRes40_en.html
Nick Stokes (Comment#26462) December 6th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
“I think we’re a bit at cross-purposes here. Mosh was talking about events following a FOI request – I think you’re talking about the general process of freeing data.
Yes, I think a general push by a body like WMO would be a good thing. They could offer incentives – a structured sharing process would benefit everyone.”
First the WMO already require member nations to supply information. Second the WMO is the founding body of the IPCC and they have had since 1988 to get this job done. Third the planet is at risk.
“I think it is unfair that this expectation has been put on CRU. They were just another supplicant here – they have been successful in getting the data for their analysis, under whatever terms they were able to negotiate. ”
CRU guidelines require them to avoid using confidential data unless it is NECESSARY for them to use it.
This has put them in the following spot.
They will produce a study using 1000 stations. Since it has warmed since 1850 I fully expect this index to be roughly in line with the previous index. 1000 stations is a fairly sizable sampling given that Gavin and shen said that only 60 are required. If they want to improve the coverage ( either to extend it back in time) or narrow the confidence intervals by adding CONFIDENTIAL data to this dataset, then they have to show that this confidential data is NECESSARY to CRU performing their function. I would argue that their function is to produce a valid global temperature index
that can be used by other scientists. So that adding confidential data is really not Neccesary in fact its counter productive as history has shown. It may be nice to have. It may tighten up the CIs, but its not necessary. In fact, when the history is written and it is finally shown that the climate scientists had nothing of consequence to hide, Your arguments and gavins arguments back in 2007 will be seen as a tactical error in the battle. Much as jones “remembering” that the agreements precluded release to “non academics” was a tactical error that cost him.
@lucia (Comment#26247)
Lucia – sorry my choice of words was ambiguous. It was a quick response. “Maybe so” was not intended as an agreement to be outweighed but as an “Even if that were the case” conditional on the point re: knowledge vs. spin. I found it ironic that, despite the fact that the recent CRU mails show clear evidence of control of process and arguments (even after the IMO substantial recommendations of the Wegman report against exactly that) the topic was being highjacked onto some largely imaginary oil industry/sceptic conspiracy.
I wonder if the oil industry could have pulled this off?:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial