The Hook

Another Red Herring

A brilliant piece of strategy to make sure we don't address the problem.

Let's have a debate about tobacco. Does it cause cancer? Or maybe not. Lots and lots of 'research' (funded by big tobacco) says it doesn't. Let's debate it.

There are SO many things that can be debated. So nothing gets done.

Looking at the millions in funding from the oil companies behind climate change denial says it all.

Very unfortunate to see UVic fall for this PR stunt.

do not stare at the sun

it is interesting that mainstream media accepts as an article of faith that hominid co2 emissions are driving climate change. there is NO discussion that solar cycles might be responsible, nor possible thermal and co2 emmissions from our planet's molten core. the whole mid atlantic is a volcanic range subject to much tectonic activity.

and on a conspiracy note, elite neocon fascists (bilderbergers, trilateral commission, council on foreign relations, rockefeller, kissinger, etc) aim for a global dictatorship, through carbon taxation, wars on "terror", germ warfare (h1n1), and collapse of the capitalist economy, enabled by a digital security surveillance state, even without microchipping.

Warmist vs Deniers

I'd say the Deniers have won hands down.

They get way more stuff in the media than do the Warmists. Oil money sure talks.

A world wide build or 1000 mass produced nukes paid for by and ending fossil fuel use will make the entire argument and the air pollution it causes go away.

Even Deniers should be for that.

Seth's joking of course

There are nothing but climate catastrophe stories one right after the other all blamed on the 3% of the 388 ppm of CO2 that humans produce.
The chief scientific gatekeepers have been outed probably by a disgruntled, disgusted insider. We owe thanks to who ever made the emails available.

"It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging(1). I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them."

- George Monbiot on his personal blog
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/23/monbiot-issues-an-unprecedented-apology/#more-13129

This will certainly make the Conference interesting

The warmists deceptions had to come to the surface eventually.

So where do we go from here?

Scientific Research has been severely compromised by politics.

Shame on the journalistic community for not exposing this huge fraud.

Shame on us all.

look at this expose

Try this link for a list of many thousands of qualified scientists who are NOT paid shills of Big Oil and are skeptics of anthropogenic climate change:

http://www.petitionproject.org/frequently_asked_questions.php

Cure for cancer-trash the planet!

So lets keep on keeping on till Gaia rejects us!

The scientist emails

Hmmm, I'm with Monbiot (as always). This hurts their credibility.

Will need to read more on the subject however, it looks bad.

..and everyone trusted them!

These were meant to be decent scientists and researchers devoted to planet earth but now they admit their scam. Will Al Gore give back his prize?

"Nov 24, 2009
ClimateGate: An Opportunity to Stop and Think

By Joseph Bast

Last week, someone (probably a whistle-blower at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England) released emails and other documents written by Phil Jones, Michael Mann, and other leading scientists who edit and control the content of the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The emails appear to show a conspiracy to falsify data and suppress academic debate in order to exaggerate the possible threat of man-made global warming.

The misconduct exposed by the emails is so apparent that one scientist, Tim Ball, said it marked “the death blow to climate science.” Another, Patrick Michaels, told The New York Times, “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud.”

Climategate

Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate
By Iain Murray, Pajamas Media

They’re calling it “Climategate.” The scandal that the suffix-gate implies is the state of climate science over the past decade or so revealed by a thousand or so emails, documents, and computer code sets between various prominent scientists released following a leak from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK. UK residents please sign petition for an investigation here.

This may seem obscure, but the science involved is being used to justify the diversion of literally trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels. The CRU is the Pentagon of global warming science, and these documents are its Pentagon Papers.

Here are three things everyone should know about the Climategate Papers. Links are provided so that the full context of every quote can be seen by anyone interested.

First, the scientists discuss manipulating data to get their preferred results. The most prominently featured scientists are paleoclimatologists, who reconstruct historical temperatures and who were responsible for a series of reconstructions that seemed to show a sharp rise in temperatures well above historical variation in recent decades.

In 1999, Phil Jones, the head of CRU, wrote to activist scientist Michael “Mike” Mann that he has just “completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps...to hide the decline"(0942777075). This refers to a decline in temperatures in recent years revealed by the data he had been reconstructing that conflicted with the observed temperature record. The inconvenient data was therefore hidden under a completely different set of data. Some “trick.”

Mann later (2003) announced that “it would be nice to try to ‘contain’ the putative ‘MWP,’ even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back” (1054736277). The MWP is the Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures may have been higher than today. Mann’s desire to “contain” this phenomenon even in the absence of any data suggesting that this is possible is a clear indication of a desire to manipulate the science. There are other examples of putting political/presentational considerations before the science throughout the collection.

Secondly, scientists on several occasions discussed methods of subverting the scientific peer review process to ensure that skeptical papers had no access to publication. In 2003, Tom Wigley of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, complained that paleoclimatologist Hans von Storch was responsible for “the publication of crap science ‘in order to stimulate debate’” and that they “must get rid of von Storch” (1051190249) as an editor of the journal Climate Research (he indeed subsequently resigned).

http://www.icecap.us/

etc.

In 2005, Michael Mann said that there was a “fundamental problem w/r GRL now,” referring to the journal Geophysical Research Letters published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), because “they have published far too many deeply flawed contrarian papers in the past year or so� and “it is probably best to do an end run around GRL now where possible.” Tom Wigley responded that “we could go through official AGU channels to get him [the editor of GRL] ousted” (1106322460). A few months later, the editor of GRL having left his post, Mann comments, “The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/r new editorial leadership there” (1132094873).

Having seemingly succeeded with Climate Research and Geophysical Research Letters, the most recent target of the scientists’ ire has been Weather, a journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMS). Phil Jones commented in March 2009, “I’m having a dispute with the new editor of Weather. I’ve complained about him to the RMS Chief Exec. If I don’t get him to back down, I won’t be sending any more papers to any RMS journals and I’ll be resigning from the RMS” (1237496573).

This issue is all the more important because the scientists involved in these discussions have repeatedly accused their critics of being irrelevant because they fail to publish in the peer reviewed literature. For example, in October this year, Mr. Mann told Andy Revkin of the New York Times:

“Legitimate scientific skepticism is exercised through formal scientific circles, in particular the peer review process. Those such as [Stephen] McIntyre [the target of much of the criticism in the CRU Papers] who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted.”

If you are saying on the one hand that you will not take notice of someone until they have been published while on the other you are working behind the scenes to stop any such publication, I would venture to suggest that you are not operating with any degree of bona fides either towards the media or the legitimate scientific process.

I wonder if these guys will show up in Copenhagen

Finally, the scientists worked to circumvent the Freedom of Information process of the United Kingdom. Nowhere is this better evidenced than in the email reproduced in full below (minus Dr. Jones’ contact details):

From: Phil Jones To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment - minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise. I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil

The context in the subject header is clearly the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI), while AR4 refers to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What is most important to know here is that, according to the Taxpayers’ Alliance in the UK, “at least one FOI request on exactly this correspondence had apparently been submitted by a David Holland on May 5th 2008.”

The Freedom of Information Act, however, explicitly forbids deletion of any material subject to a FOI request. The penalty for such a criminal act is a fine of up to 5,000 pounds. Presumably being found guilty of such an act, or even suggesting it, would also bring about significant disciplinary procedures at any reputable university. A complaint has been made to the British information commissioner.

Monbiot's Mea Culpa

Monbiot

23 Nov 2009,

"I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely."

Better chop some more wood George, it's gonna be a cold one.

Did you hear the one about the asteroid that's going to wipe out all life on earth?

realisticman

Still standing by your support of the carbon tax?

I believe you said "We have to do something!!!"

Shakespeare said it best

With regards to the shenanigans at Hadley CRU and the collaborators involved:

A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways;
A scum of Bretons and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth.

Richard III, 5. 3

Democracy, Frank

- Because the people are always right and the party is the will of the people - Stalin

The people wanted it and the election result confirmed it. In a democracy political parties have to listen to the people, the Liberals listened, did something and won.

In the Ottawa Citizen today, David Warren writes, "... we have been given the materials with which to obtain an insight into how all modern science works when vast amounts of public funding is at stake and when the vested interests associated with various "progressive" causes require a particular scientific result."

We can expect that the so-called 'progressives' will spin, discredit and blast much hot air over the whistle blowers. There's not much more they can do with this smoking gun now exhibit 'A'. Shooting the messenger is always the recourse of the coward. This is too big a scandal though, with names and signatures.

I predict heavy cold showers in Copenhagen.

What should we expect next from the Shock Doctrine crowd; Global Cooling perhaps?

Scientific Research

When I was going to university in the 1970's, one of my professors used the term mega-bucking-it to describe the flow of research funds into an area of hot scientific interest.

Another scientist may have an equally interesting field of study, but in a non mega-bucking-it field had he to fight to get a single dime of research funds.

This certainly skews scientific research.

If the scientists field of study is on the mating of flies, he may have to ask for research funds to study how the mating of flies is affected by global warming to get any funds to do his studies.

Even if 80% of the funds that he gets is wasted on the global warming part of his research, that still leaves him with 20% funding to study the mating of flies.

Study results would always point out what we still do not know about a subject and point out that additional funds would be required to further our knowledge.

The business practices of the warming scientists seem to be somewhat closer to how the mafia operates. Lets get rid of the competition and eliminate the disenting research.

r'man

So in spite of the fact the Liberals are way behind in the polls now you still think we need the carbon tax. In spite of the fact you don't agree with the so-called reasons that form its raison d'etre.

That's pretty cool logic.

Shock doctrine indeed.

Illahie

Now if we could only get the private emails of those of you that support fish farms and say there's no scientific reason as to why they could be hurting wild fish.

Frank

As a passionate democrat Frank, I strongly support the government listening to the people. I certainly do not profess to be familiar with climate and much other science.

The people of BC are interested in the environment and its well being. Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals have brought forward many initiatives that address this concern. The NDP decided to reject this as an issue. It was their choice.

Colleen Kimmett's' take on this

Is clearly not on the side of the climate change deniers.

"skeptics will only muddy the waters of public discourse"

"Nowhere is our discourse is it really explicit that there is no way to solve [climate change] without significant wealth transfer from rich to poor."

"fodder for deniers who claim that scientists are overstating the impacts of climate change and humanity's responsibility for it."

In the days ahead it will become abundantly clear that the great CO2 climate change panic was a huge fraud. I look forward to Colleen's report on one of the greatest deceptions that the world has ever seen.

The environmental movement should be thrilled to learn that CO2 emissions are not destroying our planet. Somehow I do not think that they be thrilled, I suspect that they will be horrified.

I am looking forward to an episode of “The Nature of Things”, where it is explained that the worlds CO2 levels have been chronically low for the last 50 million years, and that thanks to industrialization, the productivity of our planet is finally starting to increase (although mankind's contribution to CO2 is very small).

What I do not understand is big oil. The large oil companies must have had scientists that studied carbon. They had to have known that this was one big hoax.

Why did they remain silent?

rman

"As a passionate democrat Frank, I strongly support the government listening to the people."

Which they're not doing. If they were, they'd have resigned yesterday. But you'll support them no matter how low in the polls they go which puts the lie to claims of being a democrat.

"I certainly do not profess to be familiar with climate and much other science."

Yet you support whatever the Liberals do and whatever the NDP opposes.

Between Elections

Governing parties usually poll low between elections Frank. This is time when strong medicine is often required to steer the ship of state and sometimes that is bitter medicine. Certainly not a reason to resign. The Stephen Harper Conservatives seem to be anomaly here and are quite well liked.

Do you expect the NDP to campaign in 2013 on a carbon tax cutting platform again, now that this hoax has been exposed?

clean up our act

so let's abandon the carbon tax altogether. yes more green renewable energy, conservation etc. we can do much to restore habitat, consume less, wean ourselves off of petroleum without enriching the neocon fascist cabal bankrolling the carbon tax movement.

Well, thanks to Hadley CRU, we have a new field of science:

Scimatology

Derived from:

Scientology (described as a cult by the German Legal System)

and

Climatology (an investigation into climactic affairs using the scientific method)

r'man

"Governing parties usually poll low between elections Frank."

The Right doesn't. As Palmer said i nthe Sun, this is the best the NDP has been doing for 20 years.

"This is time when strong medicine is often required to steer the ship of state and sometimes that is bitter medicine."

I note that Liberal supporters and other friends of the government don't have to take the medicine.

"Do you expect the NDP to campaign in 2013 on a carbon tax cutting platform again, now that this hoax has been exposed?"

I would hope James does just that, yes.