More on ClimateGate
| November 24, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Global Warming |
Here’s today’s Wall Street Journal on ClimateGate:
Global Warming With the Lid Off
The emails that reveal an effort to hide the truth about climate science.‘The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. . . . We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.”
So apparently wrote Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) and one of the world’s leading climate scientists, in a 2005 email to “Mike.” Judging by the email thread, this refers to Michael Mann, director of the Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center. We found this nugget among the more than 3,000 emails and documents released last week after CRU’s servers were hacked and messages among some of the world’s most influential climatologists were published on the Internet.
The “two MMs” are almost certainly Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two Canadians who have devoted years to seeking the raw data and codes used in climate graphs and models, then fact-checking the published conclusions—a painstaking task that strikes us as a public and scientific service. Mr. Jones did not return requests for comment and the university said it could not confirm that all the emails were authentic, though it acknowledged its servers were hacked.
Yet even a partial review of the emails is highly illuminating. In them, scientists appear to urge each other to present a “unified” view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the “common cause”; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to “hide the decline” of temperature in certain inconvenient data.
…
Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn’t have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them.
52 Responses to More on ClimateGate
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Joke’s over man. Are you from the RELEVANT boards? Because I posted that exact same link there.
tragic mishap, frost
I make the moderating decisions, and frost, you appear legitimate to me. Now you both need to quit bickering.
Really? How’s that?
Criticizing me for no reason- asking to have me removed from a site I have been posting at for over 2 years. I posted a great link- to the actual emails so everyone can read this amazing stuff. It is too much for anyone to read themselves probably- but it very revealing. I happened to find one of the really good ones from very recent October 2009:
So…
Here’s another classic quote from october 2009,
“The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the
> climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless
> as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a
> travesty!”
By their own admission – They “cannot account” for what is happening in the climate. And of course they dont want any new clean sources of energy cause they are so full of it that they choose to only claim they “wont be able to tell if it is successful” while yet they are all for global governance and control over people’s lives and the quality of life through carbon rationing. And they sure want more grant money according to these emails so that they can continue to be unaccountable for what the weather does.
Quick – someone tell me this is any different than what ID is facing.
Of course, its completely different. The two issues could not have less in common.
After all, all that talk of design in the biology textbooks is only “apparent design” not “real design”.
Therfore (please follow the logic here) there is no cover-up even necessary.
For what it may be worth; I believe it may be a little premature to write off AGW yet.
And that reflects upon bragging like
It seems a safe bet that we soon will know with a high degree of certainty whether AGW is true or not.
If it should turn out that AGW is indded a fact, are you prepared to concede “ID fails against ToE as it fails against AGW” instead of “ID trumps AGW as it trumps ToE”?
I know here in Maryland we had the coolest summer in years because I love hot weather and could not stand it in the low 80s so much- when in most years I can remember it is near 100 mid summer for many days. Not surprising though that no one is talking about the cooling summer here- except for average people I see around who agree with me when I bring it up.
Here is a site devoted to global cooling
http://isthereglobalcooling.com/
“If it should turn out that AGW is indded a fact”
Don’t hold your breath.
Btw true believers already believe it’s a fact. Obviously you show some degree of skepticism. That’s good because there is no real empirical data that shows categorically that man made CO2 is responsible for the low level non-catastrophic warming that has occured over the last 100+ years. Furthermore there has been no significant warming in the last 10 years in spite of man made CO2 increasing significantly.
Manipulated Climate Models are not empirical science but this is what principally drives the AGW alarmism.
Does it not strike you as interesting that money grabbing left leaning governments are the greatest supporters of this myth? Gives them another way of accessing your wallet. For “scientists” like those at CRU it’s an on-going source of research funds.
There’s more politics than truth in this scam.
Here’s one of my all time favorite global warming quotes…
“The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot. Reports all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Artic zone. Expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.”
—US Weather Bureau, 1922
Temperatures go up and down all throughout time. They are cooling now- they WILL warm again- when they warm again all the global warming advocates will be saying it is man induced again.
Cabal (#37)
While I’m skeptical of the danger posed by anthropogenic global warming, I agree with you that it would be premature to write it off. And if it does turn out to be true, we do at least have an affordable, no-nonsense, technically feasible solution at hand. See http://bravenewclimate.com and especially http://bravenewclimate.com/int.....ear-power/ and http://bravenewclimate.com/200.....r-q-and-a/ . That’s I have no time for the gloom-and-doom mongering of self-styled ecologists.
You asked:
That’s a good question. I think the case for ID and the case against dangerous AGW are quite different. The case against dangerous AGW is principally a negative one: proponents have not established their case; other possible causes of the warming observed to date have not been ruled out; and there may well be natural mechanisms which keep global warming in check. In a Scottish court, a fair-minded jury would return a verdict of “not proven,” if presented with the relevant evidence for and against dangerous AGW.
By contrast, the case for ID is built on solid mathematics. The emergence of the kind of order we see inside a living cell through undirected natural processes is astronomically improbable, as Dr. Stephen Meyer’s latest book, Signature in the Cell , convincingly demonstrates. Intelligent agency is the only thing we know that can generate order like that. ID should be the default hypothesis for the origin of life, and it would take a lot of evidence to overturn it.
I believe it may be a little premature to write off AGW yet.
If you want to convince me, the believers in AGW ought to start acting like they do.
They ought to be picketing in front of coal plants with signs saying “Replace this with a nuke” and in front of dams scheduled for demolition with signs saying “Save this green source of energy.”
They ought to be demanding turnpikes become freeways and government encourage telecommuting.
But they aren’t and it looks like the reason they aren’t is because the leaders knew it was just a fraud all along.
For the following quote, I’m not syaing…. I’m just saying. This is perfectly consistent with the allegdly “Most Successful Literary Hoax” ever written – published in 1967. That a government report was generated from a small think tank to determine how to transition from war time to a time of peace, and whether that was desirable. The report focuses on substitutes for war.
An excerpt on possible substitutes – see how many you can specifically identify today – from a small section of the report:
There are those that say it is a hoax, and others that say it isn’t. Consider for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....n_Mountain
It could be a haox…but it’s successfulness at predicting future actions is still continuing
I’d argue it is either genuine or the author was very insightful about the world and a genius strategist or very very lucky (chance:P).
Additional excerpt (emphasis mine including in the prior comment):
I apologize if anyone think it unwise to entertain that literature, but it seems oddly accurate or consistent to [since-then] history. So, consider it at the least for academic purposes.
As for myself, I’ll consider most ideas that are outside of the cylinder (i.e. the container of “the box”)
Cabal @27:
Cabal, your “soon” has already happened, since 1998. Eleven years of cooling have put the lie to what has now been discovered to be a fraud anyway.
AGW has already been proven wrong, empirically. CO2 has gone up (slightly) but temperature has decreased (significantly in the last few years). End of argument. So are you prepared to concede the ID parallel?
I have to agree with Cabal (#37) and vjortley (#41) that it would be unwise to so enthusiastically hitch the ID wagon to that of the anti-AGW movement. While I’m skeptical of both Darwinism and AGW, the cases against each are very different, and I believe the case against Darwinism is stronger.
If AGW turns out to be conclusively false, it would at most be a victory for the scientific minority, and may instill a healthy dose of skepticism towards scientific “consensus” in the government (although I wouldn’t count on it).
If AGW turns out to be conclusively true (however unlikely you may feel), those who’ve linked ID and skepticism of AGW will become disillusioned, despite the arguments being completely different.
Each argument must be weighed on its own merits, with the only link being the (possible) abuse of power within the scientific establishment.
I apologize Frost I was mistaken. I do think however maybe we should tone down the conspiracy rhetoric just a bit. Lack of integrity is a human failing we are all susceptible to. There is no requirement for a James Bond style evil villain for people to make mistakes and get carried away in a particular belief.
“Climategate” is a good description of this. It’s interesting that there doesn’t seem to be any condemnation of the act of (in effect) breaking into someone’s office, bugging it, and using their private communications against them. Who couldn’t be made to look bad if a huge volume of their personal emails was seized and selectively published out of context? Disgraceful. I can’t believe anyone who cares about their own integrity would hitch themselves to this tactic.
tragic.
For what it’s worth. I’d think my postings are more inclined to point at conspiracy than what I have read of Frost’s. I often try to distance myself from any dogmatic views about it. However, I do like to point out how the figurative fingerprints seem to match one…and I am not afraid to consider the possibility, especially when so much money and power are at stake. Keep in mind, the money at stake is not simply a few grants… we are talking about arguably the largest increase of taxes on humanity ever. Why – for example – does Al Gore insist so fervently on his position? Why the rush to save earth? The kind of speak like we have 2 years (or so) to act or we all die rhetoric. He has always been portrayed an intelligent guy in political circles. If he really is, he should not be so blatantly willfully ignorant of the issues with the very bad science he is hell bent to use. This is just a clue in my book, not a smoking gun..and when you look at the larger picture, you see a pattern. So, I think it fair to ask…whence comes so suddenly and momentum of this hysteria that has such huge implications on our countries and lives? Governments are not that noble, especially when the science is clearly jacked up…and when our leading scientists should be listened to, and not systematically avoided in serious debate.
Another question. What I find mysterious is the hacker.
How did he know what to get?
Who is he/she really?
I suppose this could be a very elaborate hoax…but indeed it would have to be very elaborate and very well thought out.
If it were a hoax, what would be the reason for such elaborate measures?
If they can use FOI to get the emails at each university, I think this could be all verified. Guess we’ll see how that turns out.
This is currently top of the “MOST VIEWED” list at The Daily Telegraph here in the UK: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/n.....l-warming/
Enjoy