Climategate - Page 9

thatguyoverthere · 12-14-2009, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's Cat

The people making the FOI requests weren't academic researchers trying to recreate the findings; they were amateurs that were repeatedly harassing these scientists. The frustration and reluctance of Jones is understandable.

Quite right. Their frustration is even more understandable when you realize that Jones and company are now getting DEATH THREATS over "climategate." How much you wanna bet that those death threats (over a page and a half of decade old email) aren't coming from other climate scientists?

Schrödinger's Cat · 12-14-2009, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

In my personal opinion, we should do nothing about it. Debating climate change deniers has convinced me that a little mass extinction might do us some good.

Rep. Shimkus read from the Bible in the House Energy Subcommittee on Energy and Environment and said, "The earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth."

He also let Monckton spew complete falsehoods and then he (Shimkus) added the following:
"It's plant food ... So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying." [link]

I don't think you can persuade people like this. They will not believe any amount of evidence.

If I was to advocate some sort of action to mitigate the negative effects of climate change, I agree with the late Michael Crichton. The money and effort would be better spent directly helping those who will be most affected.

Are Carbon Cuts Just a Fantasy? - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

CuriousMoon · 12-18-2009, 03:50 AM

I watched Jesse Ventura's show Conspiracy theory. It did an episode on climate change. It showed there are scams that exist and that companies plan to and are getting very rich from it.

warming or cooling......is not my concern-pollution is.

thatguyoverthere · 02-03-2010, 04:36 PM

Panel Absolves Climate Scientist - NYTimes.com

Panel Absolves Climate Scientist

By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: February 3, 2010

WASHINGTON — An academic board of inquiry has largely cleared a noted Pennsylvania State University climatologist of scientific misconduct, but a second panel will convene to determine whether his behavior undermined public faith in the science of climate change, the university said Wednesday.

The scientist, Dr. Michael E. Mann, has been at the center of a roiling dispute arising from the unauthorized release of more than 1,000 e-mail messages from the servers of the University of East Anglia in England, home to one of the world’s premier climate research units.

While the Penn State inquiry, conducted by three senior faculty members and administrators, absolved Dr. Mann of the most serious charges against him, it is not likely to silence the continuing controversy over climate science. New questions about the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to which Dr. Mann was a significant contributor, have arisen since the hacked e-mail messages surfaced last November.

That faculty board did not look into the science of climate change itself, the university said in announcing its results. That, it said, is “a matter more appropriately left to the profession.”

Dr. Mann was named in 377 of the e-mail messages, including several that critics took to suggest that he manipulated or destroyed data to strengthen his case that human activity is changing the global climate.

In the best-known of the messages, he refers to a “trick” in a graph he produced a decade ago showing 1,000 years of essentially steady global surface temperatures followed by a sharp upward spike in the 20th century, seemingly corresponding to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The so-called hockey stick graph has become an icon for environmentalists. It was prominently displayed in a 2001 United Nations report concluding that greenhouse gases from human activities had probably caused most of the warming measured since 1950. A version of it appears in the Al Gore documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In some of the e-mail messages, Dr. Mann refers to his assembly of data from a number of different sources, including ancient tree rings and earth core samples, as a “trick.” Critics pounced on the term and said it was evidence that Dr. Mann and other scientists had manipulated temperature data to support their conclusions.

But the Penn State inquiry board said the term “trick” is used by scientists and mathematicians to refer to an insight that solves a problem. “The so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field,” the panel said.

The e-mail messages also contained suggestions that Dr. Mann had purposely hidden or destroyed e-mail messages and other information relating to a United Nations climate change report to prevent other scientists from reviewing them. Dr. Mann produced the material in question, and the Penn State board cleared him of the charge.

There were also questions of whether Dr. Mann misused confidential data and engaged in a conspiracy with like-minded scientists to withhold information from competing scholars. The Penn State board found nothing to support the charge.

Dr. Mann, in an e-mail response to a request for comment, said he was pleased that the panel had found “no evidence of any of the allegations against me.”

“Three of the four allegations have been dismissed completely,” he wrote. “Even though no evidence to substantiate the fourth allegation was found, the University administrators thought it best to convene a separate committee of distinguished scientists to resolve any remaining questions about academic procedures. This is very much the vindication I expected since I am confident I have done nothing wrong.”

Swift · 02-03-2010, 08:12 PM

Thanks for the find, Thatguy.

JaJae · 02-06-2010, 02:50 PM

Nobody expected anything legitimate to come of the investigation. It was purely for political reasons it was even conducted.

From ClimateAudit:
Point 1. Penn State President Spanier is quoted as saying:
“I know they’ve taken the time and spent hundreds of hours studying documents and interviewing people and looking at issues from all sides,” Spanier said.

Response:

The only interviews mentioned in the report (aside from Mann) are with Gerry North and Donald Kennedy, editor of Science. [Since they are required to provide a transcript or summary of all interviews, I presume that the Inquiry did not carry out any other interviews.] What does Donald Kennedy know about the matter? These two hardly constitute “looking at issues from all sides”. [A CA reader observed below that "North [at a Rice University event] admitted that he had not read any of the EAU e-mails and did not even know that software files were included in the release.”] They didn’t even talk to Wegman. Contrary to Spanier’s claim, they did not make the slightest effort to talk to any critic or even neutral observer.

Point 2. The Penn State Committee stated:
The so-called “trick” was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field.

Response:

This is untrue on a variety of levels. The “trick” is not a “legitimate” statistical method; its essence is the failure to show adverse data. See Climate Audit here or the DailyMail here. Did they do any investigation of the “trick”? They don’t even seem to have read the relevant Climate Audit post – only realclimate.

There's more to it than this.

The reality is Mann has a history of presenting data in unethical ways for political reasons rather than presenting the raw data. When the raw data showed trends climate scientists did not want to show they contact Mann to provide them with "tricks" to present the data in a way that coincides with their political agenda.

This investigation was a joke from the start, clearly his colleagues have no interest in outing him. He already got off clean with the hockey stick graph which is considered the laughing stock of climate science to date and now he got away with this. Nobody is surprised.

absent · 02-06-2010, 10:46 PM

The issue with climategate surpasses what has been addressed here in this thread. I have been tempted for days to write about the fallout as a result of the hacked emails, but it would be simpler to just post this article, as it says the exact same thing I would have said.

In 2007, the most comprehensive report to date on global warming, issued by the respected United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made a shocking claim: The Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035.
These glaciers provide the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers and lifelines for the more than one billion people who live downstream. Melting ice and snow would create mass flooding, followed by mass drought. The glacier story was reported around the world. Last December, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group, warned, “The deal reached at Copenhagen will have huge ramifications for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are already highly vulnerable due to widespread poverty.” To dramatize their country's plight, Nepal's top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest.

But the claim was rubbish, and the world's top glaciologists knew it. It was based not on rigorously peer-reviewed science but on an anecdotal report by the WWF itself. When its background came to light on the eve of Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, shrugged it off. But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change.

“The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,” the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.

The impetus for the Copenhagen conference was that the science makes it imperative for us to act. But even if that were true – and even if we knew what to do – a global deal was never in the cards. As Mr. Mead writes, “The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.” Copenhagen was never going to produce a breakthrough. It was a dead end.
And now, the science scandals just keep on coming. First there was the vast cache of e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia, home of a crucial research unit responsible for collecting temperature data. Although not fatal to the science, they revealed a snakepit of scheming to keep contradictory research from being published, make imperfect data look better, and withhold information from unfriendly third parties. If science is supposed to be open and transparent, these guys acted as if they had a lot to hide.

Despite widespread efforts to play down the Climategate e-mails, they were very damaging. An investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian – among the most aggressive advocates for action on climate change – has found that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed, and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

Meantime, the IPCC – the body widely regarded, until now, as the ultimate authority on climate science – is looking worse and worse. After it was forced to retract its claim about melting glaciers, Mr. Pachauri dismissed the error as a one-off. But other IPCC claims have turned out to be just as groundless.

For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming because they are extremely susceptible to even modest decreases in rainfall. The sole source for that claim, reports The Sunday Times of London, was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article “a mess.”

Worse still, the Times has discovered that Mr. Pachauri's own Energy and Resources Unit, based in New Delhi, has collected millions in grants to study the effects of glacial melting – all on the strength of that bogus glacier claim, which happens to have been endorsed by the same scientist who now runs the unit that got the money. Even so, the IPCC chief is hanging tough. He insists the attacks on him are being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits.

Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they're bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain's Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri's resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the IPCC.

None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.
By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As Mr. Mead succinctly puts it: “Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.” That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.

“I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper skepticism,” says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. “Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed.” In his view, it's time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.

Salty Dog · 02-10-2010, 05:09 PM

Fox News had a copy of "An Inconvienent Truth" buried in snow this afternoon, questioning global warming. Of course, being the good sports they are, they left it on the screen with a big question mark after "warming."

Anyone who can understand basic science knows climate change causes severe weather disruptions and extreme weather patterns. I doubt it's little coincidence that not only while the planet has warmed .2 C in the last 50 years, since 1881 7 of the 10 biggest snowstorms in Philadelphia have occurred within the last 25 years.

thatguyoverthere · 02-10-2010, 05:16 PM

Originally Posted by JaJae

Nobody expected anything legitimate to come of the investigation. It was purely for political reasons it was even conducted.

From ClimateAudit:
Point 1. Penn State President Spanier is quoted as saying:
“I know they’ve taken the time and spent hundreds of hours studying documents and interviewing people and looking at issues from all sides,” Spanier said.

Response:

The only interviews mentioned in the report (aside from Mann) are with Gerry North and Donald Kennedy, editor of Science. [Since they are required to provide a transcript or summary of all interviews, I presume that the Inquiry did not carry out any other interviews.] What does Donald Kennedy know about the matter? These two hardly constitute “looking at issues from all sides”. [A CA reader observed below that "North [at a Rice University event] admitted that he had not read any of the EAU e-mails and did not even know that software files were included in the release.”] They didn’t even talk to Wegman. Contrary to Spanier’s claim, they did not make the slightest effort to talk to any critic or even neutral observer.

Point 2. The Penn State Committee stated:
The so-called “trick” was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field.

Response:

This is untrue on a variety of levels. The “trick” is not a “legitimate” statistical method; its essence is the failure to show adverse data. See Climate Audit here or the DailyMail here. Did they do any investigation of the “trick”? They don’t even seem to have read the relevant Climate Audit post – only realclimate.

There's more to it than this.

The reality is Mann has a history of presenting data in unethical ways for political reasons rather than presenting the raw data. When the raw data showed trends climate scientists did not want to show they contact Mann to provide them with "tricks" to present the data in a way that coincides with their political agenda.

This investigation was a joke from the start, clearly his colleagues have no interest in outing him. He already got off clean with the hockey stick graph which is considered the laughing stock of climate science to date and now he got away with this. Nobody is surprised.

Methinks that if something did come from this investigation, folks like JaJae would be trumpeting it from the highest rooftop.

thatguyoverthere · 02-10-2010, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by Salty Dog

Anyone who can understand basic science knows climate change causes severe weather disruptions and extreme weather patterns.

Climate change deniers do not understand basic science, so they will never understand this. It is futile to try and explain it to them.

absent · 02-10-2010, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

Climate change deniers do not understand basic science, so they will never understand this. It is futile to try and explain it to them.

This is less about science and more about political policies based on quasi-science.

Just today both msnbc and Time tried to argue that so much snow is due to AGW.

YouTube - Brewer Ignores MSNBC's Meteorologist &...

Yet, it was just not too long ago that any number of Democrats were saying that a lack of snow was proof of AGW.

That's the problem that most "deniers" have with it...that the politicians will take whatever argument they can to pass their big government policies through the legislative process.

stolz25 · 02-10-2010, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

It is futile to try and explain it to them.

You try to explain it constantly. Did you just recently come to this conclusion or do you enjoy futile activities?

Salty Dog · 02-10-2010, 09:21 PM

I listen to Bill Nye, The Science Guy. He's never steered me wrong in 20 years.

absent · 02-11-2010, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by Salty Dog

I listen to Bill Nye, The Science Guy. He's never steered me wrong in 20 years.

I will assume you're joking, but those on msnbc find the mechanical engineer a sufficient source for scientific opinion on AGW.

YouTube - Rachel Maddow Interviews Scientist Bill...

The fact that Bill Nye says that those that question AGW are "almost unpatriotic" is quite shocking.

Salty Dog · 02-11-2010, 06:45 PM

Originally Posted by absent

I will assume you're joking, but those on msnbc find the mechanical engineer a sufficient source for scientific opinion on AGW.

Why would I say it if I was joking? He has provided the American educational system with incredible science lessons for almost 20 years. The guy knows what he's talking about.

Fox News won't have him on because 97% of them don't believe in climate change or global warming because that's Al Gore & The Democrats' "Big Hocus Pocus." Never mind the common sense element that I learned in a 2nd grade science text book.

Originally Posted by absent

The fact that Bill Nye says that those that question AGW are "almost unpatriotic" is quite shocking.

I was alittle shocked myself but I can understand his frustration. Trying to explain actual facts about the weather and the environment to people who refuse to understand the basic laws of proven science is a mindfuck and a half.

Republicans are only against "global warming" and "climate change" because the green sector threatens all the current industrial sectors that largely bankroll the entire Republican Party.

Swift · 02-11-2010, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by Salty Dog

Republicans are only against "global warming" and "climate change" because the green sector threatens all the current industrial sectors that largely bankroll the entire Republican Party.

Not to mention that there is no other energy source on the planet that can replace fossil fuels at this time. But we shouldn't let the facts get in the way of a political agenda.

absent · 02-11-2010, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by Salty Dog

Why would I say it if I was joking? He has provided the American educational system with incredible science lessons for almost 20 years. The guy knows what he's talking about.

Fox News won't have him on because 97% of them don't believe in climate change or global warming because that's Al Gore & The Democrats' "Big Hocus Pocus." Never mind the common sense element that I learned in a 2nd grade science text book.

I was alittle shocked myself but I can understand his frustration. Trying to explain actual facts about the weather and the environment to people who refuse to understand the basic laws of proven science is a mindfuck and a half.

Republicans are only against "global warming" and "climate change" because the green sector threatens all the current industrial sectors that largely bankroll the entire Republican Party.

It's not only Republicans that are against the idea of AGW. The majority of the country considers AGW the least important issue right now, and "deniers" are growing exponentially.