For those readers who were grousing the main stream media were too silent: The Wall Street Journal blog has picked up the story. See: Hacked: Sensitive Documents Lifted from Hadley Climate Center
They don’t report anything you don’t already know. Cru hacked. Link posted at TAV. (Fails to mention my posting. 🙁 ) Anthony posts. Some newspapers post.
Here’s their closing paragraph:
The big Copenhagen summit had lost a lot of its appeal in recent days, as world leaders kept dialing down expectations for the climate talks. Maybe this will spice things up.
I was curious what the main stream media spin would be but it is becoming clear now that the allegations will be dismissed by the media and governments as ‘unimportant’ since any dishonesty/collusion/obstruction can be forgiven if one is ‘saving the planet’.
It is dissappointing but not unexpected.
Raven:
In fairness to the MSM, is this really news? Headline: Emails reveal that the same guys who defended the hockey stick with a straight face talk about spinning data in email. Duh.
Did anybody really believe this group was NOT so acutely aware of the political implications of their work that it affected their choices and their professional output?
Did we need inside dope from stolen emails to figure out how much they resented scrutiny from Steve M and how far they would go to defend their “methods” or how often they conferred about tactical responses?
I think it is important that the alarmist project fail on the merits. Smashing reasonable expectations of privacy seems an unnecessary and ugly way to go about effecting that failure.
It’s also been picked up by Fox News and the Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner
Lucia
Thank you Steve McI, Anthony W and others for daring to present some facts in the face of the alarmists prediction over the past few years. The truth gets harder and hgarder to hide but it appears that the team have been trying exceptionally hard to suppress the truth.
When i describe temperature reconstructions, the hockey stick, Yamal, Finish lake sediments to my students I frequently stop and think I must be wrong about this, surely I’ve just been infected by a bunch of conspiracy theorists. But the more I research, the more convinced I become that someone is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The events of the last 24 hours seam to confirm my worst suspicions.
Unfortunately this leaves with two possibilitie sto wake up to tomorrow. Either
a) these leaked emails are a fraud and global warming is more real than I have hitherto expected or
b) Climate Science is corrupt and has been dealt a dreadful blow by the conspiring buffoons in the hockey team.
I don’t know which of these two scenarios will leave me more depressed. If this leak is genuine the public’s trust of scientific advice may never recover, which will be huge tragedy for the future of our blue planet.
The arrogance and vanity of the individuals involved is quite breathtaking.
Drudge is now linking to: Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?
That will add some interest.
This gives those politicians who supported AGW on popularity grounds an excuse to changes sides now that popular support is waning. They now have their scapegoat!
Andrew Bolt is actively pursuing this: The warmist conspiracy: the emails that most damn Jones
The global warmist conspiracy – and the Australian link
George,
The bits about destroying information subject to an FOI request and the attempts to pressure editors/journals that accept sceptical papers demonstrate a level of dishonesty and unprofessionalism that deserves exposure. Especially since governments are being told to spend trillions based on data and analyses presented in these journals.
Pick any topic other than climate (banking, politicians, medicine) where major players made similar claims and you would have a scandal covered 24/7. This is getting ignored because too many people in the media simply do not want to believe that scientists are as corrupt as people in any other walk of life.
George Tobin,
“Smashing reasonable expectations of privacy seems an unnecessary and ugly way to go about effecting that failure.”
Sorry, if you are breaking the law you have NO REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY!!! Not to mention the mean spirited and FALSE things said by these religious fanatics about those with differing views on AGW!!!
IF there were laws broken I hope the person(s) is caught and convicted. I will still hail him/her/them as heroes and would try to contribute to a defense fund!!!!
Hacked E-Mails Fuel Climate Change Skeptics By ANDREW C. REVKIN NYT.com November 20, 2009
David Hagen [23988]
Revkin does not appear to appreciate/understand [yet] that he was being manipulated by Mann and Co as a media instrument/outlet for the Team’s message. In Lenin’s words: he is a “useful idiot”.
Sorry if this is too off-topic, but I’m reminded of some comments Teddy Atlas made, talking about the appearance of impropriety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt3NerrEyQc
(starting at about 1:40)
George Tobin (Comment#23966),
“I think it is important that the alarmist project fail on the merits.”
I agree, but it is tactically advantageous for people to know what deceitful SOB’s most of these guys are. If the release of these messages and documents leads to enough questions to delay an alarmist response to global warming, then this will give time for the data to diverge further from the predictions. Only time has a chance of discrediting their exaggerated claims.
EdBhoy (Comment#23973)
Just read the docs and emails… they are not fakes.
They contain details about personal illnesses, travel schedules, plans on attending conferences around the world, and pre-publication reviewer documents that nobody could possibly fake. Add to these the professionally prepared “talking points’ presentations, previously hidden temperature data, complete applications for grants, working computer code (many thousands of lines), etc. It beggars belief to suggest these files are anything more than the real thing.
Raven:
You are right that MSM is unlikely to get enthusiastic about any form bad behavior by prominent alarmists. I hope that this whole mess does not get criminalized.
kuhnkat:
I share your distaste for the pompous religiosity of the warmistas and I admit that the prospect of comeuppance has a certain appeal. However, you are wrong about one thing: Even criminals (and I do NOT ascribe or imply that status to these scientists) have a rightful expectation of policy. I strongly object to the way this information became public. I don’t believe that just being right or somebody else being wrong creates an exemption from legal or ethical obligations.
tetris:
You are too kind to Revkin. I think he had to know that the AGW project was never as grounded as advertised. He is probably more “fellow traveler” than “useful idiot.”
SteveF:
Good points. But the advantages created still don’t justify the means. I think this kind of thing is worse than a slippery slope. I drew an angry response in another thread here for facetiously characterizing the notion of entitlement to exemption from the rule of law as “narcisso-enviro syndrome.” I really fear the notion that ideology trumps law and ethical obligations whenever the believer says it does.
Seems like A. Revkin of Dot Earth over at the New York Times will have to give this story some coverage. He’s part of it! (Being in these emails more than once.)
Michael Mann sent him a long email answering some points raised by skeptics and the sign off sentence was, “Fortunately the prestige press doesn’t fall for this sort of stuff, right [Andy]?” It’s kind of an invitation to please give him warning if Revkin’s not going to be writing the story the way he laying it out for him. It makes Revkin look like he was used by his sources more than he was using them.
On another occasion Revkin obsequiously writes to his Team sources, “Tom crowley has sent me a direct challenge to mcintyre to start contributing to the reviewed lit or shut up. i’m going to post that soon.”
The longer Revkin and the Times takes to get onto this story the more it looks like they are waiting for the Team to get themselves reorganized and tell them what to think about this story.
George Tobin (Comment#23997)
“I really fear the notion that ideology trumps law and ethical obligations whenever the believer says it does.”
Whistle blowers have been around for a while, and I expect this episode is not going to make them disappear. Do whistle blowers break the law? Yup, frequently they do. Will this ever stop them in the future? Not a chance. Whoever posted these files was clearly very unhappy with the Team’s unethical behavior, and so made a deliberate decision to break the law and make their lives difficult (and maybe send one or two of them to jail). If this person is caught, they will probably do jail time, and I agree that they should under the law. But that does not mean that this persons actions were not useful. I think they were.
It has always been suspected, but here his the direct proof of individuals using public money and government resources to push a political agenda. NOAA, NCAR, NASA, NSF, EPA and the like are all implicated. As far as I am concerned they should all be shut down. And as for the billions in climate earmarks in the stimulus bill, the ones who directed them should also be lit up.
Wow! Anyone been over to RC tonite? Looks like they might be letting in all comments??!!!?? Can anyone guess why? It couldn’t be an open discussion of how they would filter other comments and use RC for whatever purpose made sense.
Nah! I believe they are now transparent because they have entered the light, and are now enlightened.
I’m waiting for the Cliff’s Notes version.
“Whoever posted these files was clearly very unhappy with the Team’s unethical behavior, and so made a deliberate decision to break the law and make their lives difficult…”
SteveF,
Perhaps the whistleblower was responding to the demands of a higher law that is more persistent than the law that kept the silence.
Andrew
SteveF:
That depends a lot of on applicable law.
In many cases, whistle blowers are exempted for “outing” unethical or illegal government activity.
CoRev (Comment#24002),
Looks like Gavin was at RC all by himself for 8+hours. I tried to leave a comment, but so far it hasn’t shown up. Don’t know if that is because there is nobody there to moderate, or if my comment joined the multitude of the ‘disappeared’ at RC.
Apparently everyone has forgotten about Oliver North’s email evidence. After that, why anyone would think that email correspondence is truly privileged and private is beyond me. There’s a reason why you shouldn’t send critical information like credit card numbers by email.
DeWitt Payne (Comment#24007)
November 20th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Those of us who work for private industry have had it drilled into our heads in “Information Technology 101” training: Don’t write anything in an e-mail that you would be uncomfortable reading on the front page of the local paper.
It is interesting indeed to see the out-pouring of strong feelings for “privacy” from the liberal press and the AGW defenders. I’m sure the response would be just as strong from the same people if these were a bunch of e-mails from Exxon Mobil we were talking about.
But I suppose that climate scientists lead a more sheltered life than the rest of us, and are entitled to special treatment.
Remember too that these emails are from computers that are part of public organizations, not personal computers. As has been pointed out to me at work I can have no expectation of privacy because it’s not my equipment and network but the company’s.
Agreed – they are public servants paid with taxpayers money – the public have a right to this information particularly when the future of our economies is affected by their ‘so called research’.
The emails provide a great how to – from how to deal with Steve McIntyre to how to deal with Japan. Also of interest is how much the WWF is intricately involved!
http://www.twawki.wordpress.com
I just read the New York Times article on this. As I understand things, whoever is behind this tried to upload a 200 meg file onto RealClimate.org, several days ago but was foiled. All I had ever heard about was a 61 meg file. Wouldn’t it be fun if there were additional chapters to this saga? Imagine anxiety for Team members if that were true? Perhaps that 61 meg file was the size after being zipped?
For those of you worried that this is going to get ignored and swept under the rug, there is no chance. A month a go there may have been a chance, but not now.
Phil Jones in 2005:
The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.
Phil Jones September 2009:
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.
Keep in mind that this is data that the US and UK governments have spent millions compiling. Jones is going to have to explain himself in public hearings. And it is going to be very hard to explain.
The emails are on wikileaks.org now:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails,_data,_models,_1996-2009
Is global warming a smokescreen for the real fascist NWO agenda of controlling the world’s flow of information? After all, Al Gore is a senior advisor to Google…
That wikileaks page needs a correction. The code is for their temperature analysis, not for HadCM3 or HadGEM 1.
It would please me to no end if we just referred to this collection as “The CRUTAPE letters”
with a hat tip to CS lewis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters
screwtape played by jones
wormwood played by mann
Tm moshpit
hmm
maybe uncle crutape and nephew ringworm
For us non-statisticians: Is there any 100% confirmed genuine code in the hacked files which shows the Al-Gore-rithm used by uu@W to make his hockey stick? Please say there is…
Guess this confirms the confirmation bias? No?
Can someone give me with the contents of an email(s) that provides unequivocal evidence of wrongdoing? (And wrongdoing in this instance does not equal ‘stuff I do not like’).
(I’ll be back tomorrow to read them)
David Gould,
.
The letter and spirit of FOI laws does not allow bureaucrats to pick an choose who they release information to. This email clearly indicates that Jones convince the FOI person at UEA to ignore the request from CA because of who they came from:
.
When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions – one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school – the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I’ve got to know the FOI person quite well and the Chief Librarian – who deals with appeals.
.
Source: http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=940&filename=1228330629.txt
Re: Raven (Comment#24037)
I expect that this is a long way from being an illegal activity. To be more precise there are more stages to the process before obstruction is considered serious.
AFAIAA the courts will only get involved after “notices” have been issued and not complied with. The notices have the force of the courts behind them and failure to comply is comtempt, which carries arbitary penalties intended to force compliance.
It could be a disaplinary matter to behave in an obstructivie way at an initial stage but I doubt it would be more.
However if they have deleted or destroyed information subject to an FOI, after the request was received, and that destruction was not a normal practice for that type of information then they might be in hot water but again I doubt that the individual responsible has commited a criminal offense, and it is not clear to me what the courts would do as there would be no way in which it could force disclosure.
But it sure as hell is not the sort of behaviour anyone should engage in.
Alex
There is a wonderful quote in Harribin’s “CLIMATE CHANGE: METHODOLOGY QUESTIONED” piece:
“… Despite continuing uncertainties in some areas of climate science, they say officially that their overall confidence that humans are warming the climate is now more than 90%.
One leading figure told me unofficially that confidence was now at 99%.”
Would they mind being a bit more watered down! “humans are warming the climate” 90% OFFICIAL. Leaked by a “CRU source”, give me strength! If they can not get upto 100% I will have to explain that burning stuff makes other stuff hotter.
Alex
David Gould (Comment#24033)
November 21st, 2009 at 4:50 am
I’d equally like to see someone present unequivocal evidence that catastrophic global warming is occuring. (And catastrophic in this instance does not equal ‘stuff that scares me ’cause it might happen’).
I’ll even give you a few years to come up with that one.
Raven (Comment#24037) November 21st, 2009 at 5:30 a
.
The letter and spirit of FOI laws does not allow bureaucrats to pick an choose who they release information to. This email clearly indicates that Jones convince the FOI person at UEA to ignore the request from CA because of who they came from…
The UK FOI Act can be referenced here –
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000036_en_1
It’s conceivable that the application was deemed to be “vexatious” (1.14). Otherwise see Part II for exemptions. Whatever the grounds for refusal, this was a decision by the Commissioner (or his/her agent).
I think it is more likely an insider than an outsider releasing the files. I also suspect what was released isn’t the whole ball of wax.
The FOIA post at the Air-vent said it was a random selection of files. That would be the best way to select a subset. They could be pulling a Breitbart/Acorn type release schedule by dribbling the files out for maximum effect. Or alternatively, insurance if caught. Threatening release of remaining files as bargaining chip.
Simon
Vexatious is an official designation and meets specific criteria. If the requests were deemed vexation, that specific reason should have been stated in the refusal. It was not. Other different reasons should have been provided.
I don’t know how the leak will affect the FOI process, but if there is an investigation and Jones of the FOI officer advance your theory, they are going to have quite a bit of ‘splainin’ to do.
Bob–
No matter what the FOIA post at The Air Vent said, that set of email was not random.
You have work email, right? Think of things a that are not in there:
1) Anything remotely HR related. (i.e. really, truly “private”.)
2) Invitations to eat birthday cake in the common area at lunch.
3) Weekly /Monthly highlights for projects.
4) Emails telling you to take safety or cyber security refresher course. (Ok..CRU may not have cyber security refresher courses. 🙂 )
5) Honest to goodness private emails sent to spouses or children from work.
6) Jokes that happened to be circulated by that jerk who just hasn’t figured out that this should be circulated at work.
7) Etc.
Truly random selection would flood us with these. Maybe they are randomly selected after filtering these. But the emails are not a truly random sampling.
I’ll go for the post filtering randomization.
So, nothing in these emails that are ‘the smoking gun’ and the ‘end of AGW’ ? Didn’t think so.
The two rules sensible people who disagree with AGW always remember:
1. There is no AGW conspiracy.
2. See rule one.
David– There is nothing that is a smoking gun for the end of AGW.
However…. whether or not they are evidence of a conspiracy depends on your definition of conspiracy and whether or not it turns out that Phil Jones negotiations with various people about how to get around the intent of FOIs was both a) secret and b) an illegal act.
The bar for conspiracy even just be as low as being both a) secret and b) harmful. In that case, the group merely having private discussions of how to prevent dissemination of data, get someone kicked off an editorial board of a journal etc. could be called a “conspiracy”.
Here’s the definition:
# S: (n) conspiracy, confederacy (a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act)
# S: (n) conspiracy, cabal (a plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act (especially a political plot))
# S: (n) conspiracy, confederacy (a group of conspirators banded together to achieve some harmful or illegal purpose)
Of course, if you think they simply complied as required, then there is no harm.
On the other hand, if by “AGW conspiracy” you mean a conspiracy to create proof of the hypothesis or theory out of whole cloth, no there is no such conspiracy.
David Gould (Comment#24115)
November 21st, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I believe you asked for “unequivocal evidence of wrongdoing.”
I can see why you want to move the goalposts.
Lucia,
“Bob–
No matter what the FOIA post at The Air Vent said, that set of email was not random.”
Similar to Mann’s Censored file, this may have been a file being built as responsive to an FOIA request?? (FOI2009)
Or, for us conspiracy theorists, a file of what to remove from the systems!!!
More likely, whomever assembled this took a large data dump and sorted for effect!!
John M,
No goalposts moved. I asked for unequivocal evidence of wrongdoing *because* people have claimed that these emails represent some kind of smoking gun or end of AGW. As I said, no-one has provided any evidence for wrongdoing, let along evidence of the unequivocal kind.
Lucia,
Re conspiracy, trying to avoid releasing information by attempting to find a reason that will enable you to do so is not illegal (wrongdoing). If it were, every FOI request would be granted on every topic. But they are not, because governments have provided legal means of avoiding them. Indeed, when I studied journalism, my lecturer said that all FOI legislation is misnamed: they should be called Freedom From Information acts, because it was easier to get information prior to their introduction …
Basically, the big deal being made of this is a complete load of nonsense. But something to be expected from some persons who disbelieve AGW, which is why I deliberately used the phrase ‘sensible people’ up above.
David Gould,
Stop contructing strawmen. You should know from reading Lucia’s blog that A LOT of the so called evidence supporting AGW depends on the assumptions and the choice of analysis techniques. This has lead to a situation where different people can come up with opposite conclusions based on the same dataset (e.g. warming has stopped vs. warming is accelerating).
For this reason, the evidence of extreme bias on the part of leading climate scientists calls into question the validity of their assumptions and analysis techniques. It will take some time to determine how much of a effect these choices will have on the ultimate conclusions but it is wrong to claim that these emails have no bering on the science of AGW.
David–
If one is attempting to find legal reasons to not release information subject to FOI, then it’s not illegal. If one is trying to gin up fake reasons… well, it may be. In anycase, if you read what I wrote, absolute illegality may not be required for the dictionary definition of “conspiracy” to apply. So…. your declaritive statement that there is no conspiracy can only be true if you exclude some dictionary definitions of conspiracy from your usage.
Kuhnkat.
It is suspected that it was a file constructed in response to a pending FOI. SteveMC confirmed to me before I posted here that he had an FOI appeal that was closed on Nov 13th. The last email in the file was Nov12.
Mannian hypocrisy.
It’s OK if Mann doesn’t release his code to McIntyre, but unprofessional of others not to release their code to him.
“Keith,
I also figured this might be what you say, and I understand where you’ve
coming from. This represents a bit of a dillemma too, as it seems
unprofessional at best that Zorita and Von Storch have not made their
code public, when we of course have made ours public.”
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=753&filename=1160755490.txt
Pressuring journals to change their editors.
Specially selecting reviewers for either “greasing the skids” or putting up barriers, depending on whether it’s the “right” kind of paper.
Discussing how to prevent peer-reviewed papers from being cited in the IPCC report.
Asking for funds to be sent to a private bank account to avoid taxes.
Specifically hiding information that was part of an FOIA.
Lobbying “information officers” to pick and choose who is “worthy” of being provided information under FOIA.
I suspect we’ll be hearing more wrt to if any of this constitutes “wrongdoing”.
> Thanks. The averages of the values in Fig 3.6 over 1961-1990 turned out
> not to be exactly 0.000 owing to missing data in the reference period (a
> perennial problem Phil is well aware of). But Susan (?) wanted the SPM
> curve to average exactly 0.000 in 1961-1990 so the values were shifted
> by somewhere between 0.02 and 0.03.
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=775&filename=1169653761.txt
I wonder how often they did things like that before they were done?
John M,
We will certainly be hearing more. I suspect that those who disbelieve in AGW and are not too sensible will be repeating baseless accusations similar to yours for years to come.
David Gould:
As I said, no-one has provided any evidence for wrongdoing, let along evidence of the unequivocal kind.
You are just not looking. Phil Jones explicit threat here to delete the CRU data rather than turn it over to McKitrick and McIntyre coupled with Jones announcement in August of 2009 that the data had been “lost”, is prosecution ready.
Murder cases have been built on less.
Kazinski,
What a load of rubbish. “Prosecution ready” … Is there a rolling eye smiley I can use here? Or one that shakes its head with amazement at how easily people fall victim to their own preconceptions? Seriously, people: think.
David Gould (Comment#24158)
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:22 am
They are only “baseless” if the e-mails are fabricated.
We’ll have to wait and see.
But do you seriously think that government agencies and publishers are going to ignore issues related to manipulating publications, taxes, and FOI requests?
Raven (Comment#24124)
You sum up the strategy very clearly, Raven. Use a few phrases from more than a decade’s worth of email to cast doubt upon any science whatsoever that you don’t like, not by challenging the science but by questioning, by ‘association’ (regardless of whether or not there is any – who needs evidence?) the motives of whomever produced it.
I expect John Tyndall was in on the conspiracy, don’t you?
It will take some time to determine how much of a effect these choices will have on the ultimate conclusions
Lol! Will you be letting us know when that’s been determined? Of course, the “ultimate conclusion” will be whatever happens to the climate, which I personally rather doubt will be affected by your interpretation of other people’s email.
I do hope all those shifting species have picked up this news, so they can turn right on round and get back to where they came from.
Woops, double post.
Simon,
It is no strategy – it is simply a fact. All of what we think we know about climate depends on the interpretations of data provided by various scientists over the years. It is impossible to trust those conclusions without first determining whether we can trust the scientists doing the interpretation and the process that is intended to weed out the mistakes. These e-mails make it clear that the process (i.e. peer review) was being manipulated by people pushing a particular POV and that we cannot trust that the process has succeeded in seperating the good science from the bad.
It is worth noting that virtually all of the arguments between CA and RC fall into disputes over the choice of analyses techniques and the interpretation of results. RC would like to all believe that their interpretations are the correct ones because they have been accepted by the ‘consensus’. That argument is not very compelling when we have evidence that this consensus was primarily motivated by politics rather than science.
Raven (Comment#24216)
I simply don’t agree with you that we are stuck with deciding whom to ‘trust’. If one scientist has produced unreliable conclusions then it is open to another to challenge or refute that. I look forward to Roy Spencer’s next paper. I don’t have to decide whether or not to trust him before reading it. I’m perfectly prepared to view Ernst Georg Beck as an entirely honest and trustworthy human being, but that doesn’t mean that I think he writes anything other than unmitigated nonsense.
As for the peer review process, I think we can agree that it doesn’t succeed fully in separating good from bad. I think it’s more important to consider what stands up as being significant, and relatively robust, at least, over time.
As for CA/RC arguments, it’s worth remembering that these are overwhelmingly focused on one particular branch of the science, palaeo recons for the past 2k years. It’s interesting, but it’s only one piece of the jigsaw.
I’m not pleased to see some scientists expressing in private their petty, paranoid and pugilistic attitudes. On the other hand, I’ve not been pleased to have seen Steve McIntyre expressing publicly, for many years now, his attitudes and personal judgments of those same scientists. None of this has done us any good, IMV.
You talk about peer review being ‘manipulated’. What do you feel about the media being manipulated? We had Plimer, on our UK Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme, declaring about ten days ago that “We cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoes”. Can you share with me your outrage about that? You suspect scientists of being biased, whilst prominent ‘contrarians’ state outright lies!
Simon,
Do you have the time and ability to judge the worth of every published paper yourself? If not then you are forced to decide who to trust when it comes to forming opinions on the science.
The peer review process was supposed to provide impartial arbitration that would allow people to know what to to trust but the integrity of that process has been completely undermined by the revelations in the emails.
This means we cannot assume that “AGW” as defined by the IPCC has any merit until the peer review process is reformed and new papers are handled by that new process.
David Gould,
Eye rolling doesn’t refute the charge. I can’t even think of an innocent explanation for the threat to delete the CRU data. That should lose him his job right there. And it not an ambiguous threat:
“The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”
And then in 2009, after the inevitable FOIA, and stalling and sandbagging, he announces the data has been “lost”. An investigation is clearly needed. If its so simple, and innocent, I’d like to hear your explanation and see your hand waving.
The most charitable explanation I can think of is that he knew in 2005 that the data was lost, but he didn’t want to admit to anyone, even close contacts, that it was lost. But “CRU station data” is a clear reference in 2005 to the raw data that he announced was lost in August of 2009.
Go ahead, insert an eye rolling smiley, but I’d also like to see you explain it away.
Simon Evans (Comment#24234),
“I simply don’t agree with you that we are stuck with deciding whom to ‘trust’.”
I completely agree that we ought not be ‘stuck’ with deciding whom to trust. The problem seems to me that many well known climate scientists have in fact been implicitly asking us to trust them. The routine withholding of data and calculation methods make ‘trust’ pretty much required.
The willful (and concerted) efforts of these same scientists to block and/or discredit all research which disagrees with their own, by whatever means available (even if those means are clearly outside the normal scientific process and ‘peer review’), suggest that they are somewhat less that worthy of trust.
I think that the Team will in fact be hurt by these email messages, regardless of what is found in the data/code that nobody has had time to look at. After review of the email messages, only a fool would continue to believe at face value what these folks say. I believe that editors, reviewers, and other scientists are going to (and should!) demand a lot more from them in terms of raw data, details of methods, and program code. This will make it much easier for third parties to find flaws/errors in their work.
Mike Mann stands out as by far the worst. In addition to being the most arrogant, miserable SOB I can imagine, he seems perfectly OK with anything short of outright fabrication, no matter how misleading, unfair, or devious. This guy should be flipping burgers, not working in science. He had better hope the Republicans don’t gain control of the House or Senate next year, or he may suddenly find that government funding is not so easy to come by.
SteveF (Comment#24250)
Steve,
Out of interest, can you tell me what you think of Plimer saying “We cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoesâ€.
I’d like to know if we can establish any common ground here before responding further. That is a lie, is it not?
Simon Evans (Comment#24251)
“We cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoesâ€.
Standing on its own, it is a crazy statement, of course (at least over non-geological time scales).
Simon Evans (Comment#24251),
let me clarify. A ‘lie’ is a willful intent to mislead/misinform. False statements made based on stupidity, ignorance, or insanity (rathter than intended deception) are not lies. I do not know who Plimer is, so I can’t really say if it is a lie or just wrong.
SteveF (Comment#24253)
That’s not the liberal’s definition. Michael Moore said that Bush lied even if he though what he was saying was true. Sauce for the goose ect….
Kazinski,
It is very simple: obvious hyperbole in an email does not a criminal act constitute.
This stuff reminds me of the arguments I got into re discrepancies in the accounts of Cheney’s movements on the day of 911. For those who suspected dastardly acts on the part of the Bush adminstration, these discrepancies were ‘the smoking gun’ that proved … well, *something*.
Taking these emails and constructing criminal activity out of them is exactly the same kind of abuse of reason – antireason – that gets me so steamed about conspiracy theory thinking.
I highly recommend for anyone interested in the dangers of this kind of thinking the biography of Adolf Hitler, ‘The Fuhrer’, by Konrad Heiden. And Karl Popper’s ‘The Open Society and Its Enemies’ (both volumes, but the second volume, ‘Hegel and Marx’ has the material re conspiracy theory thinking.)
You are a victim of conspiracy theory thinking if you see dark motives behind everyday occurences, like hyperbole in emails or antipathy expressed against critics or (in the case of 911 Truthers) discrepancies in people’s memories of events.
Break free of it, people. Break free.
Kazinski,
Refute the charge? So you are asserting, based on obvious hyperbole in an email, that criminal activity occurred? Ridiculous.
This kind of thing is what I term ‘conspiracy theory thinking’. It reminds me of the ‘discussions’ that I had with 911 truthers who insisted that discrepancies in accounts of Cheney’s movements on the day was the smoking gun evidence of … well, *something* nefarious.
You are a victim of conspiracy theory thinking – and I use the word ‘victim’ deliberately – if you see dark motives in everyday events like hyperbole in emails, discrepancies in people’s memories of events and hostility towards opponents.
For those interested in conspiracy theory thinking, its dangers and the traps that it can lead one into, I highly recommend The Fuhrer, Konrad Heiden’s biography of Adolf Hitler, and The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper (both volumes, but the second volume, Hegel and Marx, discusses conspiracy theory thinking explicitly.).
SteveF (Comment#24252)
Steve, ok, thanks. You’ll gather that my concern is that there are very many statements being made which are influencing public opinion which are not subject at all to the standards that I suspect we all might agree should apply, in an ideal world. I don’t think McIntyre’s public statements on his blog over the years meet such standards either. I think that some of the email comments that have been revealed are stupid and weak human responses to a campaign of public defamation. I don’t think any of this is good for science.
However, I would not think that a default position is that we should presume there’s nothing to be concerned about, and that therefore anyone arguing otherwise should meet the highest standards whilst those arguing for the presumed default can say and do as they please.
Plimer is as follow, btw:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Plimer
Yes, he should know better. But who needs to know better if there are books to be sold?
Simon Evans (Comment#24262),
“However, I would not think that a default position is that we should presume there’s nothing to be concerned about, and that therefore anyone arguing otherwise should meet the highest standards whilst those arguing for the presumed default can say and do as they please.”
I’m not saying any such thing. What I say is that these “leading climate scientists” have been behaving rather horribly, and included in “horribly” are efforts to directly control the flow of climate information to exclude what they do not agree with, pressure journal editors, and willfully mislead the public. IMO, this is the antithesis of science.
Whatever one thinks of the merits of Steve McIntyre’s technical work, I have never seen anything that approaches willful deception. In my (rather limited) exchanges with him, he seems pretty well grounded.
Out of interest, can you tell me what you think of the Team’s efforts to pressure a journal into delaying publication of an already reviewed and approved paper (with that paper already scheduled for publication) so that they (the Team) could publish a refutation in the same issue of that journal?
I’d like to know if we can establish any more common ground here before going further. That is unethical behavior that might lead to professional censure, is it not?
SteveF (Comment#24263)
Out of interest, can you tell me what you think of the Team’s efforts to pressure a journal into delaying publication of an already reviewed and approved paper (with that paper already scheduled for publication) so that they (the Team) could publish a refutation in the same issue of that journal?
You’ll have to give me a link to the relevant email. I’m not up to speed on your reference.
Simon Gould:
So you are asserting, based on obvious hyperbole in an email, that criminal activity occurred?
I’d be inclined to believe it was “obvious hyperbole” until the data turned up missing. Look at his exact words, “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.â€
Then 4 years later, after stalling and sandbagging the FOIA requests for the data for years, the data turns up missing.
When I heard of the missing CRU data in August, I was skeptical of the explanation. I’ve worked in IT since the 80’s, and while data storage was a much bigger issue back then, no place I ever worked at purposely deleted irreplaceable data in order to save space. Especially when they had a contract from NASA to collect and archive the data.
I myself am skeptical of most conspiracy theories, but 1) I’m not alleging a conspiracy here, Jones seems to be the single actor, 2) when someone threatens to do a thing if a condition happens, and then the condition happens and the thing is done, and the person who made the threat is in the best possible position to carry it out, then you are entitled to take them at their word.
Simon Evans (Comment#24264) ,
.
See 1199999668.txt and 1200076878.txt
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where Santer, Jones, and Osborn find a way (through personal contacts/influence) to avoid the normal comment procedure and instead arrange to get side-by-side printing of a refutation of a paper that they disagree with. That is, the printed paper is to be immediately followed in the journal by a refutation, as if the refutation were an original paper.
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They go out of their way to say that the offending paper is “so bad” that special steps need to be taken, bla-bla-bla. They do everything they can to make sure the other authors are not allowed to have their paper independently accessed by the “climate community” in the normal fashion, and to make sure they (Santer et al) always get the “last word” in every possible exchange with the other authors.
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In their messages, they offer each other lots of rationals, but what they do is still way beyond normal scientific discourse. They know it is improper as well, since they make sure the information about influencing the journal editor is “kept confidencial”; it is not even sent to the distributions list of insiders.
.
First:
“He also said (and please treat this in confidence, which is why I
emailed to you and Phil only) that he may be able to hold back the hardcopy (i.e. the print/paper version) appearance of Douglass et al., possibly so that any accepted Santer et al. comment could appear alongside it”
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And later:
“the only thing I didn’t want to make more generally known was the suggestion that print publication of Douglass et al. might be delayed… all other aspects of this discussion are unrestricted”
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I’m quite sure disagreeing authors don’t get to refute Santer et al in side-by-side printings in the same journal, and Santer always gets the last word in any exchange. I’m also sure Santer et al are OK with this. I am not.
I think it stinks. What do you think Simon?
SteveF (Comment#24278)
Thanks for the email references.
I gather that the IJC editor, Glennn McGregor, was reported as being keen to see a correction published speedily in his journal, which was carrying the Douglass paper (and incidentally, I think it was already available on line, or ceratinly would be available before any Santer response was published):
He genuinely seems keen to correct the scientific record as quickly as possible.
He is reported as making the following suggestion:
He also said (and please treat this in confidence, which is why I emailed to you and Phil only) that he may be able to hold back the hardcopy (i.e. the print/paper version) appearance of Douglass et al., possibly so that any accepted Santer et al. comment could appear alongside it.
If McGregor has proposed that, as editor of the journal, then the matter of whether that is proper or not should be addressed to him. In the case of an editor feeling concerned that his journal was publishing a paper with “egregious statistical errors” (if that was also McGregor’s judgement) then I see no reason to presume that it would be improper for him to expedite corrections appearing at the same time in print (regardless of whether this is usual practice).
You speak of Douglass et al having their paper “independently assessed”, but this returns to the very point of Santer’s case to McGregor, that is, that the Douglass et al paper is not independent of Santer et al. 2005 –
Douglass et al. was essentially a commentary on work by myself and colleagues – work that had been previously published in Science in 2005 and in Chapter 5 of the first U.S. CCSP Report in 2006. To my knowledge, none of the authors or co-authors of the Santer et al. Science paper or of CCSP 1.1 Chapter 5 were used as reviewers of Douglass et al. I am assuming that, when he submitted his paper to IJC, Douglass specifically requested that certain scientists should be excluded from the review process. Such an approach is not defensible for a paper which is largely a comment on previously-published work.
So, we have Santer suggesting that Douglass’s approach was indefensible and you suggesting that Santer’s approach was indefensible. Personally I would want to know more before making a judgement on either charge. I’d want to see the rest of the emails about this subject, from which these have been selected, and I’d want to be able to ask McGregor for his view.
Simon Evans (Comment#24357),
Whoa Simon!
Jones himself (not just me) understands that what they are doing with delay in printing of an approved paper is improper. Why else would they “keep confidential” this fact?
Elsewhere in the email thread, Jones tells Santer that he learned one of the reviewers was in fact in Osbourn’s group, but that he did “not want to pressure Tim”… to do what, fire the person?
Where exactly did Jones learn that an anonymous reviewer of Douglass was in Osbourn’s group? Perhaps from McGregor? Do you think it normal and proper for the identity of anonymous reviewers to be disclosed to third parties by editors? Do you think Jones was pressuring McGregor just a bit about not having selected unbiased reviewers for Douglass? Do you think that is also proper? Do you think it proper that Jones finds out from McGregor what the reviewers’ evaluations of Douglass were?
And do you honestly think McGregor would ever give a candid reply about what happened?
For goodness sakes Simon! You can’t honestly believe this is all OK. If you do, then we clearly do not (as you say) have any common ground for further discussion.
SteveF (Comment#24375)
Steve,
Please see my comment 24495 on the ‘CRU Hack: What’s next?” thread, where I’ve made clear that I think various matters, including this one, should be investigated properly. What I’m not prepared to do myself is to make a simple judgement based on these selected emails (I can’t judge, for example, whether Santer’s argument that the Douglass paper should have been a response, and not an independent submission, is a good one). I don’t think it sounds ok on the face of it, no, but I don’t value my own opinion much here and would like to see it investigated, with all parties able to respond to any allegations made.
Simon
The problems are subtle actually. I don’t necessarily mind that a response ends up in a paper rather than a comment. This can happen– with the paper appearing in another journal or much later. The difficulties with the whole conversation is that:
1) The parties had inside information into an as yet unpublished papers such that they could even write a response before the paper was published. This may indicate a breech in the privacy of the peer review process and in the fiduciary duty of reviewers or editors. (It might not if Douglas began circulating drafts and telling people it was accepted.)
2) There were efforts to have both papers be published simultaneously.
3) There were efforts to hold up publication of a paper that had been published.
Lucia,
The Douglass et al. paper was published online 5th December 2007. See here –
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117857349/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
The CRU emails are dated 10th Jan 2008. Thus, unless I am missing something, there is no apparent issue of the parties having prior access to the Douglass paper.
The Douglass paper, along with Santer et al. response, was published in print 15th November 2008:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121459121/issue
Simon–
My mistake on the publication date of Douglas. So, yes, everyone could read it on line.
The other points hold (for print publication.) That’s not normal.
lucia (Comment#24514)
“The other points hold (for print publication.) That’s not normal.”
Nor is the disclosure of the identity of anonymous reviewers, or the disclosure of reviewers evaluations of a paper normal.
Taken together, I really think it amounts to professional misconduct.