CRU Email Hacks: Is there going to be a whitewash?

Posted by TonyN on 04/12/2009 at 1:08 am CRU Email Hack, The Climate 16 Responses »
Dec 042009

 

Sir Muir Russell chairman of the the UEA review, centre

 

It has just been announced that Sir Muir Russell will chair the UEA’s  much trailed ‘independent inquiry’ into the CRU scandal, except that the word inquiry is not being used any more. Apparently we are to have an ‘independent review’ instead.

This is surprising because as recently as last night, Professor Acton who is the Vice-Chancellor of the university was indeed talking about an inquiry. Is the change of name because ‘inquiry’ is a rather emotive term suggesting wrongdoing while ‘review’ implies that there is nothing much to worry about? If the latter is the case then the outlook for climate science in general and CRU in particular is very bleak indeed.

Here is the beginning of the press release:

Sir Muir Russell to head the Independent Review into the allegations against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU)

Today the University of East Anglia (UEA) announced that Sir Muir Russell KCB FRSE will head the Independent Review into allegations made against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

The Independent Review will investigate the key allegations that arose from a series of hacked e-mails from CRU.

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/dec/homepagenews/CRUreview

It would seem that someone is rather preoccupied with ‘allegations’.

Surely an inquiry review should not be primarily concerned with allegations, but with what has actually happened at CRU. The allegations are only a symptom.

This wording suggests that someone thinks that, if there had been no allegations, then there would be no problems. Given the content of the emails, wouldn’t you expect UEA to recognise that they must find out just what has been going on at the CRU over the last decade?  This possibly Freudian slip would seem to indicate a mind-set at UEA that has yet to appreciate the full implications of this scandal. Continue reading »

Tory Environmentalism - is everybody listening?

Posted by TonyN on 02/12/2009 at 2:01 am The Climate 43 Responses »
Dec 022009

This is the first paragraph of a message from David Cameron posted on the Conservative Party website. Apparently it was also emailed to members:

In nine days time, representatives from 192 countries will meet in Copenhagen for the UN Conference on climate change. This summit is of historic importance. It is an opportunity for the world to take bold action to deal with the real danger of climate change.

http://blog.conservatives.com/index.php/2009/11/27/the-copenhagen-summit-is-of-historic-importance/

The rest is fairly predictable, but it is worth reading in full.

When I first looked at this page on Sunday evening there were just over two hundred comments, most presumably from the Conservative faithful – otherwise known as their core vote. As I ran my eye over them, I searched in vain for any that might support the leaders take on climate change. I did eventually find a few. Continue reading »

Problems! problems! problems!

Posted by TonyN on 30/11/2009 at 12:22 pm Uncategorized No Responses »
Nov 302009

I have had a major internet connectivity problem since yesterday which is affecting both email and blog access.

If you have emailed me or left a comment that I should have responded to I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

CRU Email Hack - will Climategate be the new Watergate?

Posted by TonyN on 28/11/2009 at 1:36 pm CRU Email Hack, The Climate 100 Responses »
Nov 282009

I suppose that it is inevitable that the sensational revelations in the hacked CRU emails have  been labelled Climategate, but is it reasonable to compare what is happening now with the Watergate scandal of nearly forty years ago?

Pat Michaels, climatologist and long-time global warming sceptic, certainly thinks so. When he was interviewed on Fox News by Stuart Varney he suggested:

The other side’s going to say that this story will go away. No! It’s not. There is so much in here its like Watergate. Things are going to come up, and up , and up, and up for the next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHATItyOsdY&feature=related

He may well be right that there are many more revelations to come from the CRU computer files that are now in the public domain. As I pointed out in a previous post, the amount of data is vast and assessing it will be a complex task. Although initial frenzied searches by sceptics have yielded many quotations that apparently reveal sensational wrongdoing, this is just the first stage. In the coming months far more detailed analysis will take place so that the complex relationship between various strands of the email exchanges and the extensive data files can be untangled. This process will takes time, scientific expertise, and a very great deal of patience. Such research is likely – at the very least – to prompt more questions about just what has been going on at  one of the world’s leading climate change labs.

So is this process likely to be analogous with the dogged investigation carried out by Washington Post reporters Woodward and Burnstein, which revealed the cover-up that was the most devastating aspect of Watergate scandal? Continue reading »

CRU Email Hack - what do we know?

Posted by TonyN on 26/11/2009 at 10:05 am CRU Email Hack, The Climate 6 Responses »
Nov 262009

I happened to be online when The CRU email hack story broke and immediately downloaded a copy of the zip-file from a Russian server, all 63mb of it. Part of Friday was spent poking through the Mail folder, finding tantalising snippets, and being frustrated by the lack of context that made it difficult to interpret some of them.Then I had to go away and it was difficult to keep in touch with the developing story, so on Monday I started a long catch-up process that is hardly completed now.

The following are just a few notes. For a anyone who is still unaware of what is in these emails which have become so controversial, there is no better place to look than on Bishop Hill’s excellent blog here .

When unzipped, the file which mysteriously turned up in Russia amounts to nearly 170mb. Inside FOI2009.zip is a folder named FOIA containing two subdirectories: Mail and Documents.  Freedom of information seemed to have been very much on someones mind, either the person who named the main download file or Phil Jones of CRU who named the main folder within it or perhaps both. If Jones did give the main folder its name then I wonder why he call it FOIA (Freedom of Informaton Act) when a great deal of the contents does not refer to this piece of legislation? Certainly there is much material here that it would have been most embarrassing to have to release under the Act. Is it possible that Jones kept sensitive – perhaps even incriminating  – emails carefully in one place so that deleting a single folder would purge his computer of potentially dangerous material if danger loomed? This seems unlikely, as he would be aware that backups are likely to exist elsewhere beyond his reach.

The sizes of the two sub-folders within the FOIA folder are 9.7mb and 158mb.  The one called  ‘Mail’ contains 1073 files, but this does not represent the number of emails. Many contain strings of emails received and sent as well as copies of emails that are being referred to. So there are many more than 1073 emails in total.

I do not know how many words are involved, but assuming an average of a hundred words per email – and most are longer than that – that makes over a hundred thousand words. This is a vast amount of verbiage and most of it is ‘insider-speak’; exchanges between fellow professionals who know each other and the subject matter that is being discussed very well. Much of it is likely to be opaque to even a well-informed outsider. The task of making a detailed analysis of just the material in the Mail  folder is enormous and, even if this is split up between various people with the necessary expertise, it is likely to take weeks or months. In the meantime, what is emerging at the moment are a few obviously sensational quotes. Only a systematic analysis will fully reveal what is there.

The Documents folder has eleven sub-folders, most of them hierarchical, and the largest one, named Code, is over 30mb. That is an enormous amount of code. Already there are estimates on the net that suggest that it could run to millions of lines. Continue reading »

Llanbedr Airfield: whose interests are the Snowdonia Society representing?

Posted by TonyN on 20/11/2009 at 9:23 pm Llanbedr Airfield 31 Responses »
Nov 202009

An update on the progress of Kemble Air Services attempts to bring Llanbedr Airfield back to life makes depressing reading.

Airfield application decision due

On 3rd November, the BBC website had a story that  the Snowdonia National Park Authority was seeking further specialist legal advice on applications to grant certificates of lawful use of the airfield by Kemble. Apparently the only objections received were from the Snowdonia Society on the grounds that this would ‘go against the key aims of the National Park’. According to this report legal advice received by the planners pointed to refusal of the certificates, but the National Park Authority said that this should be regarded as ‘neither an expression for or against’ the proposals.

Airport bid ‘will go on’ in Gwynedd

The Liverpool Post reported the story in similar terms on 9th November, but with an added quote from Kemble reiterating their commitment to the project and asking local people, who have shown overwhelming support for the project, to bring pressure on the National Park Authority to make a speedy and favourable decision.

[Although this report suggests that Kemble are saying that they can create hundreds of jobs at Llanbedr, it seems unlikely that they have ever made such a claim.]

Park airfield request turned down

A BBC News website report on 12th November confirmed that the certificates would not now be granted. Kemble apologised to local contractors and local businesses who been engaged to undertake work or rent space at the site. The Snowdonia Society objections have resulted in Kemble’s newly appointed local manager being laid off.

It ends with this statement of the Snowdonia Society’s position from its director, Alun Pugh

“As a society we have always pressed for a full and public debate on this and the best way to do that is to have a full and formal application for planning permission.”

Which sounds very measured and reasonable if you ignore the fact that there has already been considerable public debate. A local petition in favour of Kemble’s plans received over 1200 signatures in a few days, while a petition organised by the Society found just 156 people who were prepared to endorse their campaign. Of these only 25 signatories claimed to be from Gwynedd (the vast county in which the airfield is situated). Nearly half were from England, and more than a third were from other parts of Wales. Stranger still, only one member of staff at the Society’s headquarters seems to have signed this petition, the director, Alun Pugh. Continue reading »

Plimer's London lecture: what happened

Posted by Peter Geany on 13/11/2009 at 3:06 pm The Climate 23 Responses »
Nov 132009

[Peter has very kindly sent me his impressions of the lecture. Many thanks, TonyN]

I went to the Plimer Lecture organised by The Spectator and thought I would share some of my first impressions.I arrived early with my son Leo and we were ushered into the reception area for drinks; not free I may add. Whilst standing there I spotted Lord Monckton, and as he was not at that moment chatting to anyone we boldly walked up and introduced ourselves. We were joined by Roger Helmer MEP and a number of others. My overriding impression from this chat is that politicians are so far out of touch with their electorate that I fear for Democracy itself. More to come from this chat.

On to the lecture, which  was very well presented in the form of a plotted history of the earth from 5.4 billions years last Thursday until today.  It was delivered with humour, and it was obvious that Ian Plimer knew his stuff.  For me I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know, but I didn’t expect to, having read his book.

We then had questions from the audience.  In the main these were in the form of a thank you and questions on how or what can be done to ge the message across to politicians and the “masses” for want of a better word. There were a few requests for qualification and I thought that Ian was less at ease when answering questions not directly related to his work.  There was nothing revealing coming out from these early questions. Continue reading »

Plimer's London lecture sells out

Posted by TonyN on 12/11/2009 at 5:57 pm The Climate No Responses »
Nov 122009

At a time when we are all meant to be good disciples of the new climate change orthodoxy you would think that a lecture by a leading sceptic filling a large lecture hall in London might be newsworthy. Well it certainly isn’t at the BBC.

I was doing he usual start-of-day things this morning, while listening with half an ear to the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme, when I heard something astonishing. Justin Webb, one of the presenters, introduced an interview with an eminent scientist who is also a leading climate change sceptic. Here’s what he said: Continue reading »

The 'corporatisation' of environmental activism

Posted by Peter Taylor on 06/11/2009 at 11:30 am The Climate 26 Responses »
Nov 062009

In the first part of his new book, Peter Taylor scrutinises the scientific research that underpins concern about global warming and finds that it is unconvincing. This extract, taken from the second part of the book, looks at the political dynamics that have promoted global warming to the top of the international agenda. As a life-long environmental campaigner Peter is well placed to consider the role that activist organisations have played in this process.
Many thanks to Peter for allowing Harmless Sky to use this material. Click on the image to find out more about Chill.

_____________________________________________________

In addition to the world of science institutions, governmental influence and media bias, there has also been a growing and powerful environmental lobby pressing for an unequivocal commitment from the scientists. NGOs well appreciated that governments will not move when there is major uncertainty and a lobby has evolved out of a coalition of interests on the part of environmental campaigners and those industries standing to gain from a shift in policy. Naturally, there is also an opposing lobby from oil, gas and coal interests. The nuclear lobby has remained somewhat hidden, but has benefited enormously from the climate issue. Some campaign groups have allied directly to renewable energy interests, especially wind turbine manufacturers and solar collectors, whereas others have remained independent of commercial interests but used the projections of technology and capability to underpin their campaigns.

In addition to these straightforward political alliances, there has been a growing corporatisation of the environmental sector. NGOS have grown from a few small back-street offices into a multi-million dollar international organisation – in the case of Greenpeace, with a fleet of ships, modern office suites, staff and pension funds. Such organisation requires a steady income stream and does not have the option, as for example at the end of a successful ocean pollution campaign to simply pack up and go home. When an organisation’s ethos is essentially combative, it seeks out problems and threats.

Which is fine, as long as there really are serious threats that cannot be dealt with by trusted government.  But in my view, as a seasoned campaigner, the game changed significantly after Rio in 1992. The ‘enemy’ metamorphosed from being the dumpers and polluters ably supported by a science- industry alliance (including the modellers), to a more subtle menace. As a result of the shift to the Precautionary Principle, industry and the regulators began to move in another direction – Clean Development Mechanisms were set in motion and large amounts of money shifted toward preventative strategies. This shift required a different type of environmental organisation, and although the campaign groups made significant efforts to provide ‘solutions’, they were still ruled by the old ethos of campaign and combat. Continue reading »

Ofcom to investigate government's ‘dodgy' climate adverts

Posted by TonyN on 30/10/2009 at 7:48 pm The Climate, TV Adverts 70 Responses »
Oct 302009

Last week it became clear that the Advertising Standards Authority had launched an inquiry into the Government’s £6m TV advertising campaign aimed at climate change sceptics. Now it appears that the UK broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, will also investigate complaints that the advert is politically motivated and therefore breeches the ban on broadcasting political adverts. They would seem to have good reason for deciding to do so.

This is what the advert tells viewers about climate change:

(If the video viewer does not appear on your computer then use this link)

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So far, the ASA has received over 650 complaints and rising. That score ranks with the most complained about advert of 2008, which attracted 840 complaints. According to a letter that I received from the ASA this morning the following points will be investigated: Continue reading »

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