Russell Inquiry: the question that no one dare ask?

Posted by TonyN on 10/07/2010 at 5:02 pm CRU Email Hack 16 Responses »
Jul 102010

One of the most sensational emails brought to light by Climategate concerns Phil Jones’ intention to delete emails relating the IPCC’s Fourth Asessment Report and asking others to do likewise. It was addressed to Professor Michael Mann who, like Jones, has played a leading role in the IPCC process:29th May 2008: -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”.

Russell report page 92, paragraph 28

On the same day when the Russell Report declared that the ‘rigour and honesty as scientists’ of CRU staff was ‘beyond doubt’, it was also announced that Jones would continue to work at the university, although not as its director of CRU. Inserting the qualification ‘as scientists’ after ‘rigour and honesty’ looks like a very cautious nuance.

Given this prima facie evidence of an intention to suppress information about the way in which part of an IPCC report was drafted, surely it must be a priority of any independent inquiry into the conduct of the CRU scientists to find out whether the deletions mentioned took place. This matters because if the culture among scientists involved in assessing the evidence for AGW condones subterfuge, then it is right that this should be generally known.

This is what the Executive Summary of the Russell Report has to say about the deletion of emails:

On the allegation that CRU does not appear to have acted in a way consistent with the spirit and intent of the FoIA or EIR, we find that there was unhelpfulness in responding to requests and evidence that e-mails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them. University senior management should have accepted more responsibility for implementing the required processes for FoIA and EIR compliance. [my emphasis]

Russell report page 14, paragraph 27

The report is very detailed, running to 160 pages. It has taken months to produce, and is rumoured to have cost several hundred thousand pounds. Yet the inquiry has apparently failed to determine whether the then director of CRU deleted emails, and incited other to do likewise, because their content might prove embarrassing if they became public knowledge. I can find no evidence in the report that the inquiry panel even attempted to do so. How could this be? Continue reading »

Russell Report: Did Phil Jones delete emails?

Posted by TonyN on 09/07/2010 at 12:30 pm CRU Email Hack 7 Responses »
Jul 092010

Alex Cull has made this very useful transcription of Professor Edward Acton’s interview on Chanel 4 News soon after the Russell Report was published. The first part is fairly predictable, but see what happens when the presenter asks about deleted emails.

Channel 4 News: Wednesday 7th July, 2010

Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy (KGM) and Professor Edward Acton, UEA Vice Chancellor (EA)

KGM: Well, joining me now is Professor Edward Acton, Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. We saw you in that report saying that this was insufficient helpfulness. It doesn’t sound like you think what happened and what Phil Jones did was terribly serious.

EA: I think it is very serious. I think that the shift to an atmosphere in which scientists are proactively making their conclusions, their data available is extremely progressive and I’m very supportive of it. What I would stress, though, is the fact that the scientists’ honour and integrity has been fully vindicated, means that they had nothing to hide, and the message to take away is that – even when you have nothing to hide, that’s not enough, should you find enquiries… should you be impatient with them, or be…

KGM: Has that honour been completely vindicated if they’ve been guilty of a failure of openness? And Phil Jones himself says he was guilty of some awful e-mails.

EA: I think many people are probably guilty of awful e-mails. On the issues of integrity and honesty, yes, Sir Muir’s panel found they were fully vindicated. On the issue of openness he was critical, and I think rightly so, then I think there’s got to be a shift towards a much more active openness and I’m determined that UAE should lead on it.

KGM: What do you think was the purpose of trying to hide e-mails, or delete e-mails, by Mr [sic] Jones? Continue reading »

Russell Report: is the whitewash complete?

Posted by TonyN on 07/07/2010 at 2:28 pm CRU Email Hack 37 Responses »
Jul 072010

The report is now online and you can find it here

The first thing to say that it is big, running to 160 pages, so it will be a few days before anyone will be able to make a comprehensive assessment. The following comments are confined to reading the executive summary only.

Here are the bits that will undoubtedly catch the headlines ahead of detailed reading of the report: Continue reading »

Can the Russell Report draw a line under Climategate?

Posted by TonyN on 07/07/2010 at 10:18 am CRU Email Hack 6 Responses »
Jul 072010

The report of Sir Muir Russell’s Independent Climate Change Email Review will be published today.

Let’s get one thing straight right at the outset: an inquiry that is set up, funded, and has its terms of reference set by the institution that it is intended to inquire into cannot be described as independent. Not under any circumstances. Not even in the fairy-tale world of climate politics.

Such an inquiry might – just might – come up with a report that is fair-minded and thorough, but that still does not mean that it is independent, nor is it likely to be effective in restoring confidence. Just imagine public reaction if BP announced that they had set up an independent inquiry into the causes of, and responsibility for, the Gulf oil spill.

There have already been two reports on the Climategate scandal. An extremely hasty and superficial report from the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee failed to address the issues that really concern sceptics. It did, however, set out some sensible recommendations as to how the University of East Anglia’s other inquiries should be conducted, and these were made very clear to Sir Muir Russell both when he gave evidence to the committee and in the published report. I will probably be returning to this later today.

The inquiry into the science produced at the CRU, which the university entrusted to Lord Oxburgh, has already become a laughing stock with, apparently, no written terms of reference and no record of the evidence taken.

So far, the Climategate scandal has been seen as a problem affecting only the climate community. It provided a window on a tribal culture in which it is very difficult to see how objective and effective scientific research could be carried out. This is clear to anyone who has browsed the emails that were released on the internet last November.

If the Russell inquiry now fails to address the real issues raised by Climategate, and there has been plenty of time for them to do so, then the scandal will no longer be confined to the climate science community. It will tell us that the scientific and political establishment, who are ultimately responsibility for ensuring that scientific research which has a massive impact on public policy is properly conducted, dare not lift the lid on climate science and have a very careful look at what is happening.

Alligators, fire insurance, ignorance, and risk

Posted by TonyN on 03/07/2010 at 9:41 pm The Climate 135 Responses »
Jul 032010

A while ago, I was sauntering along one of our local beaches with a physicist. There are three outstanding things about this guy, he is very clever, very tall, and an excellent walker with whom I’ve spent many days in the mountains, winter and summer, and in all kinds of conditions.

We were talking about climate change and he told me that he had recently read a book by Professor David McKay on the subject of alternative energy generation which, not surprisingly, had done nothing to convince him that there might be a few problems with the orthodox view of AGW. His attitude was that, as a physicist, reading a book by another physicist, he was inclined to accept what this told him rather than any of the reservations expressed by sceptics who were not physicists. To a certain extent I could see his point and was happy to treat it with respect. But what happened next did surprise me. Continue reading »

Appeal to former Llanbedr Arfield workers

Posted by TonyN on 28/06/2010 at 10:36 am Llanbedr Airfield, Uncategorized 1 Response »
Jun 282010

The Cambrian News has published an appeal form Kemble Air Services for information about the way in which Llanbedr Airfield has been used in the past.  This is in a connection with a revised application to the Snowdonia National Park authority for a certificate of lawful use.

Kermble would particularly like to hear from personnel who were involved in flying in and out of Llanbedr. If you have any information, please leave a comment here and I will provide contact details.

Of whitewash, reality, a crumbling consensus, and models

Posted by TonyN on 26/06/2010 at 10:06 pm The Climate 11 Responses »
Jun 262010

This post is just going to be a few jottings of things that I’ve noticed since I got back from holiday. At the moment there seems to be so many straws in the wind that it’s difficult to focus on any particular event or trend.

All you need is whitewash

I keep on thinking that nothing I see in the climate debate will surprise me now, and every time I’m wrong.

We’ve heard a lot about whitewash recently, mostly in connection with rather strange investigations into Climategate and the IPCC, but apparently this metaphorical material can also have real practical uses in climatology.  The BBC website has put up a perfectly serious report on an attempt to recreate a vanished glacier in the Peruvian Andes. Apparently all you need to do is paint the place where the glacier used to be with whitewash and, Hey Presto! the albedo effect will get your glacier back.

But wait a minute, the glacier had its own albedo effect before global warming supposedly wiped it out, and that didn’t stop it trickling away. So what possible reason could there be to suppose that creating an artificial albedo effect will produce anything at all except a lot of rather dirty grey rock? Continue reading »

Notes along the Cotswold Way

Posted by TonyN on 19/06/2010 at 10:52 pm The Countryside 56 Responses »
Jun 192010

img_4284.jpg

When we set off to walk the Cotswold Way recently, we were exploring new territory in a type of countryside that was unfamiliar to us. Here are a few jottings, but this post owes far more to the photographs taken by my wife than to my words. Continue reading »

Holiday!

Posted by TonyN on 11/06/2010 at 6:12 pm Uncategorized No Responses »
Jun 112010

I’ve just got back from a ten day trip walking the Cotswold Way during which I haven’t looked at a computer screen once. Harmless Sky and other sceptical blogs seem to have been very busy during that time,  so there’ll be a lot of catching up to do.

Apologies to those who have left comments that I should have replied to. I’ll do my best over the next few days.

Playing chicken with energy policy

Posted by TonyN on 08/06/2010 at 10:00 am Politics, The Climate 76 Responses »
Jun 082010

(This post was programmed to appear automatically while I was away, but for reasons that I have failed to discover, did not do so. In light of what I have come across in the reading that I have done since my return, there seems to have been few developments since I wrote it, including some press comments that are unlikely to keep Mr Huhne smiling.)

In the aftermath of the general election, Chris Huhne has succeeded Ed Miliband at the helm of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. There can be no doubt that he will be navigating in some extremely stormy waters.

Of all the cabinet posts other than those relating to the public finances, this is probably the one that will come with the highest risks attached. I am not going to rehearse the evidence that, unless the UK gets a viable energy policy together immediately, there is a very real likelihood that we will be suffering a third-world type energy crisis within as little as five years, the intended lifetime of the current parliament. Huhne’s post at the DECC needs to be filled by someone who can think straight, think big and think fast. It is by no means certain that the present incumbent possesses all these qualities.

There is no reason to think that Huhne is a fool. He was educated at Westminster School, like his party leader Nick Clegg, before going on to  the Sorbonne and then Oxford where he took a first in PPE. As a student he was active in Labour politics.

He went of to become an economist in the CIty of London, rising to be the managing director of Fitch ratings, an international credit ratings agency, so it would seem that someone thought that he had management abilities; no bad thing for a minister. He has also had a successful career as a journalist, rising to be financial editor of the Independent and the Independent on Sunday.

After unsuccessful attempts to enter parliament in 1983 and 1986 he turned his attention to Europe and became a Liberal Democrat MEP for South East England from 1995 to 2005, when he was elected to Westminster as member of parliament  for Eastleigh. Since then, his rise has been meteoric.

Continue reading »

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