THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Brute: it may be too early to say that the MSM shows no interest in Climategate. Here in the UK, the Daily Mail (not my favourite paper) has a strong editorial this morning and there’s an excellent and potentially important article by Nigel Lawson in The Times. And I understand it was mentioned on the BBC’s Today programme this morning: did anyone hear it?
Meanwhile, however, the Government starts a poster campaign today and the Guardian interviews a Government scientist (and former IPCC head) who says it’s really the wicked sceptics who “put the world at risk”.
Re my 8401, that Today item was an interview with Nigel Lawson in which he called for a public inquiry.
No, Climategate’s not gone away yet.
Here Mann uses his same “trick” in the code language…..
CRU Emails “may” be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/
David Holland’s latest FoIA letter packs a bit more punch since the CRU e-mails escaped:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~kate-and-david/UEA/ICO20091123H.pdf
Telegraph has now gone with a few quotes:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6636563/University-of-East-Anglia-emails-the-most-contentious-quotes.html
Luke Warmer
I have had some correspondance with David Holland in the past and would put him on a par with Steve Mcintyre for the diligence, persistence and high quality of work.
IMHO his version of events is therefore likely to entirely correct and documents have been removed so as not to fall within any FOIA investigation. As we know however Phil Jones seems to have the the FOI people eating out of his hands.
tonyb
Max: you asked me (8397) for a view of the possible legal consequences of actions of Dr Phil Jones re the FOIA: specifically: (i) Did he break the law? (ii) If so, might he be prosecuted? And (iii) if the data were obtained illegally, would they be admissible in court?
(i) Possibly – it depends very much on the precise circumstances. It looks fishy from what I’ve seen but, unless I’ve missed something or further relevant data comes to light, I think more information would be needed to mount a successful prosecution.
(ii) Difficult to say – who would initiate it? Pretty obviously not his colleagues or employer. And a third party would, I think, have serious difficulty in getting any of the further information I refer to at (i).
(iii) Interesting – probably yes (if obtained illegally) although “public interest” might help. But that would probably not apply to a leak (the sceptics’ favourite) and certainly not to “stupidity or incompetence” within the CRU (see Charles the Moderator today on WUWT).
But, you know Max, I’m not all that interested. What’s vastly more significant is that these emails seem to show that the small coterie of scientists employed by the public right at the heart of the AGW enterprise (controlling and interpreting the data most used by the IPCC, hugely influential within the IPCC, peer reviewing each other’s papers and controlling RealClimate (the source of ”truth” for much of the MSM) and Wikipedia (the source for much of the public)) is exposed as consisting of people driven by political activism, arrogance, intolerance of dissent and personal prejudice – all likely to impact on the way they do their professional work. This has the makings of a story of huge global economic, political, environmental, social and ethical importance.
That’s far more important to my mind than whether or not Dr Jones has to pay a small fine.
Robin
Thanks for your legal opinion.
I agree with you that the political, economic, environmental, social and ethical ramifications of this exposé are more important than the purely legal ones.
It is interesting to see how RC is tap dancing around this whole story. Recurrent themes seem to be “it simply proves that scientists are humans like everyone else” and “the only ones who have broken the law here are the hackers”.
Another comment was (I’m paraphrasing) “suggesting in writing the destruction of public records which have been requested under FOIA is ill-advised”. (I guess you could say that suggesting in writing that a particular bank be robbed is “ill-advised”.)
Max
Max:
Yes, I came across the “only human” argument on another thread. The comment was, “Scientists behave like human beings. Stop the presses!”
My reply (which ended the exchange) was, “Yes, political activism, arrogance, intolerance of dissent and personal interest are all too human. But when – as it seems in this case – they bias the way a scientific matter of massive importance to the world is handled, then the humans involved warrant detailed investigation. After all, our MPs were behaving like human beings when they claimed their expenses. And that did (quite rightly) stop the presses.”
An apology from George Monbiot-yes really
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists
Tonyb
I’ve been away, but spent most of today exchanging emails with a certain BBC journalist in an attempt to get him to report Curry’s open letter at CA. I sent him a nice message with some quotes from the letter saying that, of course, these needed to be read in context.
Got a reply saying that there was an editorial decision not to quote any of the stolen emails, but that they would be reporting a lot more on the story. He would look at Curry’s letter.
Then a message saying that he couldn’t find it.
Then one saying that he had found it, by which time I had told him that I wasn’t asking the BBC to quote the emails, just to quote Curry. Up to that point all BBC reports had indicated that only sceptics were interested in the emails. The story had now changed, dramatically.
So he said that he was ‘trying to verify Curry’s statements’
I asked him what there was to verify? Curry was expressing opinions.
Got a reply saying that ‘predictably’ he couldn’t get on to Climate Audit and he couldn’t quote Curry ‘based on a second-hand email’.
So I told him that although CA was slow, it had been reachable all day and sent him a link to the mirror site. Did he really think that the Curry letter might be a forgery? I asked.
Then he told me that he didn’t doubt it’s authenticity but he had to check anyway.
Then a breakthrough. He told me that Curry would be ‘on the menu R4 18:00.’
So I thanked him, graciously.
The Six o’Clock news had much the same material as they had been running all day; stolen emails, restrained grumbling from Lord Lawson, excuses from various UEA types, and just this about Curry:
“One leading American climate scientist, Professor Judith Curry is quoted as saying that the stolen emails would damage public credibility of climate research as they suggest a certain tribalism among scientists.”
So now we know: the only thing that a leading mainstream climate scientist (who is more courageous than the rest) is worried about is a spot of tribalism among her colleagues.
Now isn’t that reassuring?
I wonder if that nice Jo Abbess does training courses?
There was an interview on Channel 4 News this evening; missed it but read about it later on Mark Wadsworth’s blog and watched it on the C4 website.
Here’s a transcript (KGM is Krishnan Guru-Murthy, AW is Professor Andrew Watson.)
KGM: “When you see a phrase like “hide the decline, it obviously raises alarm bells [sic]. What did it mean, in simple terms?”
AW: “I’m not precisely sure exactly what Phil Jones meant by that, but I am absolutely certain that he would not have manipulated this data to suggest that the world was warming, when it was in fact cooling. When he uses the word trick, it’s simply to, as you might say, a clever idea, and if he’s…”
KGM: “It’s more “hide the decline”, that’s sort of… is a tricky one…”
AW: “Well yes, but, you know, we’re talking about the end of the climate record, in fact. You know, coming up to the year 2000, and there’s plenty of actual data, not proxy records but real data, it’s being measured, and the world was warming up until that time. So what he said was, he plotted the real data on top of a smooth line that was fitting earlier data. The idea that a scientist such as Phil Jones, who… Really, his credibility relies entirely on the transparency of the methods that he … credibility of the whole scientific method, the idea that he should actually be trying to manipulate this data, is just incredible.”
KGM: “Well okay, the question, as well, is how important is this piece of data? It’s one sentence in thousands of documents, but it’s been seized on, and it’s been damaging for you, hasnt it?”
AW: “Well, I agree that it has been damaging, but I think that actually what this proves is the exact opposite. They trawled through ten years of e-mails, you know, tens of megabytes of emails, if this is the worst they can come up with…”
KGM: “Given how controversial this is, if you find a bit of data that is difficult for your case, to leave it out, is there ever a temptation?”
AW: “I think not, because you know this field of reseach is pored over like I think no other field has ever been pored over, by literally thousands of people, and so if you do something like that, you would get found out. And as I say, scientists have only their reputations to go on, so it would be suicidal to try to seriously manipulate the data.”
Robin/Max,
I don’t know first hand what the rest of the E-mail world does, but I don’t write E-mails like those written by the CRU et al. Nor do my colleagues.
Celebrating the death of a rival?
Plotting to manipulate data?
Scheming to subvert the rule of law?
Conspiring and intimidating the media to support your cause?
I’m no altar boy……but these E-mails are extremely unprofessional at best and criminal at worst.
On Monbiot’s Damascene conversion (TonyB #8409): There’s a demand for Jones’ resignation, a silly ironical piece to show that he’s still a believer (despite the sinking of the IPCC with all hands) and a response to a commenter admitting he would have been a better journalist if he’d been less trusting.
Given that it’s journalism and politics which governs our imperfect world, and not Scientific Truth, this is big news.
Trivial, but maybe significant; my comments are being allowed on Monbiot’s thread, but not on the Mark Lynas article. Methinks a civil war at the Guardian will attract more mainstream media attention than all the science on the blogosphere.
I saw the Channel 4 (Krishnan Guru-Murthy) interview with the seriously unimpressive Professor Andrew Watson yesterday. Thanks Alex for providing the transcript. I was amused by Watson’s waffle (re Phil Jones) that,”Really, his credibility relies entirely on the transparency of the methods that he … credibility of the whole scientific method …“. So, given Jones’s dreadful record on transparency, there goes his credibility and the credibility of the CRU’s employment of the scientific method. Thanks, Professor.
If there’s any lingering doubt about the CRU record on transparency here’s an extract from Dr Judith Curry’s open letter to CA:
(My emphasis.)
I’m still struggling to come to terms with Monbiot’s Guardian piece with its apology, call for Jones’s resignation, etc. An amazing development. And all credit to him I suppose – although his follow-up attempt at humour (to show he’s still really a believer) is limp and embarrassing. Some great comments – I especially enjoyed McFinney’s discomfiture. BTW, Geoff, a lot of strong criticism was allowed though on the (pathetic) Lynas article – so whatever did you say?
Robin – it’s fairly simple – think renegade scientist rather than systemic or endemic culture of fraud. The old bad apple defence.
Monbiot’s piece shows he gets the significance though, which few other reporters have done. It’s just a shame he had to add the crass bit. He is actually replying to comments as well with some humility.
Newsnight on the other hand was pi$$ poor and I’ve just e-mailed them to say so.
It seems, from WUWT and elsewhere, that techies are now able (following the leaks) to examine the CRU’s data files in some detail – re temperature data, models etc. They’re (somehow) able to examine code, applications and algorithms. And it begins to look as though what they are finding is (shall we say?) suspect. Perhaps it’s possible to understand now why CRU has been so frightened of transparency. It’s probably premature to draw any conclusions. But the possibility that we inhabit a world where our leaders are determined to spend vast sums undoing much of civilisation’s achievement over the past 300 years on the basis of suspect data is utterly depressing.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the original file placed on the Russian server by the CRU hacker/whistleblower it is worth bearing in mind what this consists of.
So far interest has focused on only one of the two folders it contains: ‘mail’. This amounts to about 10mb un-zipped.
The other file, named ‘documents’ is just under 160mb and so far as I know, people are only just beginning to explore this.
It would seem unlikely that any one person could have the expertise and diligence to fully analyse all this data. It would seem likely that there are relationships between the emails and the documents which need to be established before the full significance of either can be established.
If bloggers play lucky dip with all this and just try to ferret out a few sensational tit-bits it is likely that a great deal will be missed or misinterpreted.
As I said when this story first broke, the job requires an expert team working together for weeks or even months even to get a general overview.
At least Monbiot is showing some humility and I dare say he regrets his frankly silly piece of journalism at the end of his article. What a delight to see some of the unpleasant attack trolls so upset.
What Climategate has illustrated is what many sceptics have been saying for years:
*Global temperatures are a nonsensensical concept
*Global temperaturees to 1850 are complete nonsense let alone to an accuracy to 0.7C
*The focus on a single global temperature is to deflect attention from the local picture
*The local picture-the recording of local temperature- is ALL that thermometers were ever designed to do.
*Data from local stations are very highly massaged by both global data providers
* The local picture tells us that warming is
a) very largely confined to urban areas
b) change of land use has a major impact
c) There is very clear evidence of climatic cycles if you look back before the 1850/1880 start dates (the raw data ‘lost’ by Dr Jones.
d) The idea of significant natural climatic cycles which would put the moderen era into context is vehemently denied by all concerned.
e) That many local areas have been cooling for a statistically meaningful period-at least 30 years some since the 1930.
This again is in complete contradiction to what the IPcc and others are telling us.
Now If I (and many others) have been able to identify all this despite the lack of transparency and deliberate obstruction, we can assume that leading climate scientists also know this. The fact they have kept quiet about it suggests a nunmber of scenarios;
1) They deliberately wanted to present a false view to fit in with other objectives such as an environmentalist/political views.
2) They believed what they were saying initially, but some years ago realised the world was not behaving as they believed it should be. In order not to lose face-and probably with the expectation it was a blip-manipulated the data and hid it so as not to lose face, prestige, and all that goes with it.
All the data needed is here
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
I would like to believe mny web site is cleverer than the respective expensive computer models of the great and the good but its not. (Simpler and more practical perhaps)
The only conclusion I can therefore reach is Scenario 2) That those involved knew the truth and knew what they were doing when they systematically manipulated the figures-but initially believed their own hubris and didn’t set out to deceive.
Tonyb
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2009/11/hacked_climate_emails_and_foi.html
has some interesting stuff:
Robin (#8415) asks what I said so terrible to get banned from the Lynas thread. I think my crime was to ask an awkward question of KIngsnorth, who is a Guardian contributor. I said:
“Kingsnorth wonders why are many thousands upon thousands of career scientists, environmental campaigners, writers, politicians, business people, engaging in a global programme of knowing lies and deceit?
“Blowed if I know. Why not ask them? We sceptics just observe the scientists exchanging e-mails on how to hide the truth, delete data, hound people who hold different opinions, etc., and ask ourselves the same question”.
and in a 2nd post
“..You are the journalists. Why don’t you ask them? Most of the scientists involved in the e-mail leak are linked to organisations (Hadley, UEA, RealClimate) involved in the Guardian Environment Network. You must have their phone numbers. Why not ask them directly: what did you mean by saying to x to delete his emails? etc. etc.”
It’s not what you say, it’s who you say it to.
Hi everyone, I’m struggling to keep up with everything that’s happening at the moment and do my job. These are exciting times and whilst all the good work goes on its perhaps best for me to watch from the sidelines.
As of this morning MY MP had not replied to my latest letter. We he does reply its going to be a barometer on how well he has researched this ever changing story. The Monbiot story is going to put some pressure on one or two other journalists for sure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA_Szcmtxvs&feature=player_embedded
Climategate is beginning to build momentum in the media over here in the US.
Just thought I’d let you guys know.
After the shock of Monbiot’s semi-apology, Guardian Environment has reverted to type with an “interview” with Jones which is simply a rehash of his defensive article on the University of East Anglia website. While bloggers (American, I would guess) are confidently predicting that his employers will discipline, or even sack him, instead they give him an official platform to explain away the “hide the decline” e-mail!
Nothing has changed. The Guardian continues to show signs of journalistic integrity elsewhere (e.g. in its coverage of Iraqi torture) while Guardian Environment lurches blindly on to Copenhagen. The wonder is that they allow comments, which are becoming more sceptical by the hour. Monbiot has always been a natural contrarian, and will probably flourish as the lone “moral” voice within the catastrophist camp.
The most positive sign in the blogosphere is surely that the alarm has passed from us few hundred socio-political sceptics and few thousand scientist statisticians to the computer geeks who are tearing the code apart line by line. There’s millions of them, and their whoops of joy are the sound of the world’s first electronic popular uprising.