If you have not heard yet, those who have a belief system revolving around Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) have been dealt a severe blow.
It's a belief system because there is no credible evidence that humans are the primary cause of climate fluctuations. And those in the AGW camp, consistently attempt to suppress and vilify those who present evidence to the contrary. They call this science and say it is a consensus, but real science never operates in belief systems or in secrecy, and does not use the word "consensus."
A primary source of the AGW belief system is the East Anglia Climate Research Unit in the UK. The Director of this unit is a man by the name of Phil Jones. To address him as a doctor is to elevate malpractice to that of rational science, so I will refer to him simply as Phil Jones.
Phil has many cronies under his direct supervision, and at other AGW strongholds located throughout the rest of the world. There's Michael Mann, author of the famous "Hockey Stick" graph which was discredited. There's Jim Hansen, the original fear salesman that held the infamous Congressional report on a hot day in the US Congress in 1988. There's Keith Briffa, author of the Yamal "Hockey Stick" graph which was also recently discredited. Other major players are Kevin Trenberth, Tom Wigley, Ben Santer, and a cadre of others.
This small group has been the primary driver behind the AGW belief system. They have worked hard to make sure all and only what they want makes it in to IPCC reports and scientific journals, and mass media reports. They have done their best to suppress and intimidate other scientists and opposing views. And now they have been dealt a severe blow. And this blow is a big win for the far more open and skeptical science that seeks to truly understand the workings of climate, without politics and big money. If you need proof of openness, simply compare the blogs of the two camps. In the AGW camp, blog comments are tightly controlled, and anything that does not fit their message is edited out. By contrast on blogs like WUWT, pretty much anything but ad hominem and profanity is allowed.
The blow was a huge cache of emails and data files that was harvested from the East Anglia CRU servers and revealed to the Internet. Some say this was a hacker and a theft, but there is no evidence yet for that, and may have simply come from someone on the inside who was through watching this scam that has been dumped on all of humanity. Either way, you can now go view some of the outrageous emails between Phil Jones and the rest of his tight inner circle, often affectionately called the "Hockey Team."
It's time for Phil Jones and Michael Mann to step down, and for legitimate peer reviewed science to return to climate research. We don't need people like Phil Jones pressuring legitimate scientists to keep his oligarchy alive, and to promote a belief system masquerading as science.
Here is a link to the searchable cache of emails
And here is a link to a layman's summary of some of the more revealing emails put together by Bishop Hill.
You can follow this and much more about climate and curious science each day at Watts Up With That, the excellent blog of Anthony Watts.
Do your part and forward links to these sources, this blog post, or other info to friends, family, media, senators, congressmen, assembly members, etc. And write in to major media comment pages, and call representatives to demand an investigation and reporting in to why so few seek to control something like science that should be open and transparent.
It's time to put down this scam once and for all, before it does any more economic damage than it has already done. Humans don't have an appreciable impact on climate, and even if we did, there is no evidence that we can change the course of the other much larger natural influences to climate which are the sun, water vapor and oceans.
It's all simply a huge waste of tax dollars that could go to far more pressing problems for humanity like disease, the current financial crisis, debt and deficit service, bankrupt local and state governments, oppressed peoples, etc.
Update:
I corrected Hadley to East Anglia CRU. They are closely related, but technically the emails came from East Anglia. h/t mike
Warning to commenters. If you can't say anything without profanity or ad hominem don't bother to comment, as I will just delete your comments.
Another note to commenters. Try reading the links before commenting. The links contain information which gives the context. It's clear that Phil Jones and team engaged in a systematic suppression of papers with which they disagreed. And they made sure to stack the peer reviewers with those who they knew would reject anything with which they disagreed. And they threatened journals when they considered publishing papers with which they disagreed.
Suppressing those with which you disagree is certainly not science. Why are those in favor of AGW so afraid of opposing science?
Posted by JeffB. at November 22, 2009 01:52 PM | Email Thisb. hadley and CRU are two different entities.
why are the deniers anti-science morons?
oh, i see. peer-reviewed papers on global warming aren't legitimate, but faux peer-reviewed papers from trade journals like 'energy and environment' are. hypocrites.
Posted by: mike on November 22, 2009 05:01 PMthis will backfire bigtime for the anti-science deniers and hacks like malkin and beck.
but then again, facts and ethics don't concern people hell bent on keeping us locked in an 18th century model.
Posted by: mike on November 22, 2009 05:49 PMIt's funny to watch the libs with their pants down, once again------saying how horrible it was that someone hacked the emails, but completely ignoring the even worse thing that happened: revelations that the AGW true believers have been, shall we say, less than honest. (not that that was news to the rest of us....)
Funny how when Sarah Palin's email account was hacked by a democrat, these trolls just laughed it off and ignored it. Suddenly when their bubble gets burst, they develop "concern" about hacking.
It's simple: punish the hacker AND the lying, deceiving "scientists".
HadCRU and East Anglia CRU are closely related and corroborate closely with respect to the HadCRUT temp anomalies which are released frequently.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 22, 2009 08:13 PMObviously you have not read the emails.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 22, 2009 08:16 PMI mean they are mystified why math functions that square real numbers are returning NEGATIVE values. That cannot happen (at least with any mathematics system known to man). Yet their code uses such results. And then data is culled to make the results fit anyway.
This is either fraud at its highest level, or incompetence that would get a freshman CS student tossed on his rear. Either way, ANYONE associated with Mann, Jones, Briffa, Ammann, Hansen, or their tight little group should be stripped of any academic credentials and permanently barred from science.
And anyone at the IPCC or WTO or WHO or other Governmental agencies that accepted their stories lock, stock, and barrel should be immediately fired, locked up, or both.
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on November 22, 2009 10:25 PMHardly. I told you that this was illegal, and you decided to delete that. Laughable. Remove what you disagree with, eh?
Posted by: demo kid on November 23, 2009 08:20 AMThe legality is not the topic. The topic is the content. There was a case of a criminal who stole a VCR with tapes and found child porn on the tapes. The owner of the tapes was successfully prosecuted for child porn.
As Michele notes, the solution if there was any illegality (which by the way we don't know, it may have been a mole or whistleblower) is to punish both the hacker, and those at the CRU and elsewhere who are engaging in fraud and systematic suppression of scientific ideas.
There is a difference between suppression of content and suppression of profanity and irrelevant personal attacks. You are often guilty of both in the SP comments. I don't have control over comments at other SP bloggers' posts, but here I do, so I will force you to a higher standard of discourse. I deleted your comment because you were unable to say what you meant without name calling, which is an ad hominem logical fallacy. This time, you did not do so, so I will let your comment stand.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 23, 2009 08:35 AMAnd "profanity"? Please. I've been the target of more profanity from self-espoused conservatives on this board than I have EVER typed on here. Stop whining.
With respect to the crap about "fraud and systematic suppression of scientific ideas"... hogwash. This represents the actual scientific process. Were there any emails from George Soros to his minions? Didn't see any in any of the summaries. Was data AcTUALLY suppressed? Nope. The only thing that these folks are guilty of is a consistent poor choice in words in communications that were never meant to be public. I saw nothing different in those emails than in the emails I'd expect in ANY other field.
But then again, large numbers of global warming deniers are the most dishonest of "scientists". Many have no background in what they're trying to deny, for one. With others, they can't even keep their stories straight: some believe the planet is cooling, others believe that there are no changes, others think that the earth is warming without human intervention, and still others believe that humans are a factor but we cannot control the system now. And regardless of big hints that global warming does exist, many are simply willing to ignore evidence COMPLETELY to push their own agenda.
So for all of your bleating that this is a "travesty", I say that the bigger travesty is that people can naively follow the global warming denier crowd, and completely surrender their critical thinking skills to further a political agenda.
Posted by: demo kid on November 23, 2009 10:05 AMIf you believe that "politics and big money" DOESN'T motivate global warming deniers, the depths of your naiveté are just... astounding.
Posted by: demo kid on November 23, 2009 10:09 AMThere is no proof of illegality, and there is a new theory that the file was actually released by accident. The reason for this is that there are many gaps in the emails, and the title of the original file was FOI2009.zip. If you were following up on the actual discussion, you would know this and not simply assume that there was illegality. The significance here is that there was a FOI request filed with CRU, and so it is entirely possible that someone internal to CRU was gathering emails and preparing the FOI request. The request was subsequently denied, but if the file was left on an FTP server by accident, it would have been easy to harvest. Furthering this theory, a CRU FTP server is now offline. You seem technical enough to be aware of the fact that often, organizations will have very insecure FTP servers available both internally and externally to make things "easier."
So, until you have proof that there was illegality, you can simply stop bothering with that as a defense to everything else that is known.
And again, strawmen arguments don't change the contents of the discussion regarding CRU's behavior. The fact that others at SP use profanity does not excuse yours. I will happily delete Shanghai Dan's comments here if he uses profanity. You will be held to that standard. Don't like it? Comment elsewhere, no one is forcing you to come here. But don't use that as a defense for your behavior.
And again, read the content at the links. There is plenty evidence of fraud and suppression. Here are some examples:
Kevin Trenberth wondering why CRU can't account for the lack of recent warming.
Obviously, you are not reading the emails. Because there is plenty of evidence of discussions of suppression of data and opposing viewpoints. And discussions for how to make data support AGW conclusions. Can you explain how this is science? Usually, science is where one analyzes data and discovers trends. The opposite is massaging data to create trends. Are you aware of the Yamal series, the number and selection of data points, and why that is significant, or are you simply spouting dismissive talking points?
And please provide links to "large numbers of deniers with no background." Many scientists you can read at WUWT, and ICECAP are highly credentialed in specific areas of climate science. These papers are quite dry and rational and show specific differences to what you call consensus. Have you read those papers, or are you simply making dismissive talking points?
You can say that people are blindly following deniers, but the evidence and polls show that people are actually making an effort to cross check what they read in sources like the NYT, with what they read at the WSJ and elsewhere. There is certainly plenty of real discussion about the merits of the AGW arguments and Global Climate Models. You can be a part of that discussion to, if you go to sites where discussion is open and encouraged. I recommend WUWT, where you will learn a lot. Or, you can simply keep a closed mind, and contain yourself to stories which keep you believing that there is a consensus and that the science is settled.
It's convenient to attack me, and to issue dismissive responses. But at some point, the real data and arguments against the ideas you support gets out, and others examine them and come to different conclusions than you. I provide links, you provide your own dismissals. Name calling, and dismissal does not make reality go away, and it won't stop people from thinking for themselves.
I know this flies in the face of your automatic assumption that big oil funds everything, but look in to the numbers on government funding and you will see that at $79 Billion and counting, AGW takes the top prize. References to the various government reports are at the bottom of the linked page.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 23, 2009 11:14 AMGrow up and stop playing the victim.
Posted by: demo kid on November 23, 2009 02:01 PMNo, The comments with your personal attacks were deleted. Your other comments are fine.
but aside from that, you are acting unethically by using information obtained illegally. Likewise, the purported "scandal" is nothing of the kind. This is just the climate change denier noise machine trying to whip people into a frenzy over nothing.
Your evidence of "fraud and suppression" is also quite laughable, and the fact that you pillory the climate change movement while blithely ignoring the money involved with climate change deniers shows that you cannot think rationally about this subject.
Posted by: demo kid on November 23, 2009 03:40 PMyou are (yet again) lying.
mann never mused about 'contacting the BBC to question why it published a "skeptical" article, and to discourage similar future articles.'
here is what he actually wrote:
extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd,
since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from
what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.
We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for
the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?
mike
maybe next time you should read the email instead of prompting whatever anti-science blog writes for you.
Posted by: mike on November 23, 2009 04:44 PMDidn't think so...
As far as the CRU team goes, I've had a chance to look at some of the code and the comments about it, and it's frightening. That supposedly educated people could turn out something so poor, so inept in execution is scary. These people actually earned degrees? Not just PhDs, but BS degrees?
Their efforts were worse than pitiful, they are a complete and utter joke. Now we know why they would never share their data or their code - it is completely worthless, unreliable, and unusable.
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on November 23, 2009 06:40 PMhilarious, danielle. please back up your asinine claims with some facts.
Posted by: mike on November 23, 2009 10:36 PMAnyone that hacked that account deserved to go to jail. However, that account was a clear end-run around transparency and freedom of information laws. I have little sympathy for a politician that runs official state business through her Yahoo email account, really.
@28: AGW has been a FRAUD from the day one. They claimed the Sea was going to rise a number of years ago and terrible Hurricanes were going to ravage the land yet, as we know, none of this has come to pass.
There's a difference between the overly alarmist elements of the scientific community, and scientists that are expressing real and honest concerns about global climate change. Will climate change cause super-hurricanes that will devastate the Gulf Coast on a more regular basis? Probably not. Will it, however, alter the climate patterns in some areas and affect water supplies, wildlife populations, and human infrastructure? Absolutely. Look at the thawing of the permafrost in Alaska for a great example of that.
I'm just amazed at the consistent idiocy of the global warming deniers. They can't even make up their minds! Climate change doesn't exist... but then it exists and it's natural... then it's caused in part by humans... then it's totally caused by humans but too impractical to control. Climate change deniers are just whining to support a political goal, not a scientific one.
Posted by: demo kid on November 24, 2009 08:07 AMwow. you've really got the lock down on Truth-iness, don't you danielle.
Posted by: mike on November 24, 2009 09:45 AMAnyone that hacked that account deserved to go to jail. However, that account was a clear end-run around transparency and freedom of information laws. I have little sympathy for a politician that runs official state business through her Yahoo email account, really.
And so what about conspiring to avoid FOI requests? You have little sympathy there, too? Conspiracy to commit fraud is a crime, SPFA, so I'm waiting for your strong condemnation of Government workers doing what you apparently are upset about.
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on November 24, 2009 10:20 AMRemember, I'm a Conservative and NOT a Blind supporter of the Republican Party. However, you are a Blind supporter of the Democrat Party. Now Guess...Who is the Free Thinker and Who is the Blind follower? Who is the one who supports Truth and Liberty and Who is the one who supports the Lies and the Socialism of the Collective. Being that you're a Liberal, even these questions will be too much for you.
there is no conspiracy to commit fraud based on the emails which are taken out of context - you should really stop lying.
the content may be ill-advised, but is not proof of a crime.
you’re a conservative and a blind follower of asinine, selfish ideology.
i’ve never been a blind supporter of the dems. i happen to think more often than not, they trend on the correct side of issues – but we don’t have a true socialist democrat or green party in america.
based on your delusional rantings, you can call yourself a free thinker, but you won’t find many people here who would agree with that position.
i support truth. i definitely support liberty. one of the many reasons i joined the military after college.
the lies of socialism? please tell me how i support these supposed lies?
ah, i see. being a liberal makes me to dumb to understand your unintelligible rantings.
Hey, if there is legally obtained evidence of this, then that's fine. However, don't pretend like this is comparable. Palin intentionally used an unofficial email account to keep official correspondence off the record. Conservatives are pretty quick to brush off that fact.
Posted by: demo kid on November 24, 2009 11:52 AMas far as specific platforms where i disagree w/ dems:
single payer
higher energy efficiency regulations and incentivizing ZED
defense-only military – no wasteful programs, absolutely zero ‘no bid’ contracts or outsourcing kp duty
ending war on drugs and an effective drug policy
Your second statement is too confusing to be of any value in trying to interpret any meaning or intent.
Your third statement represents a dodge from Reality from the basis that the vast majority of the cogent commentators think that you're an IDIOT!
Your specific platforms where you disagree with the dems: You disagree with the single payer yet, you do agree with Obama Care. Well, Big Deal! The reality is, if Obama Care passes, in time, you'll end up with single payer. Yes, if you agree to Government taking over our Nations health care, you are definitely a brain-dead Liberal. There is an Old Saying: If there is a way of doing it Wrong...Government will find a way. As far as the other three items, I can't make out if you're are for or against. But then, no surprise...You're a Liberal!
Seems you don't want to talk about the fraud (scientific and legal) committed by the CRU. Seems you're quick to change the subject; why is that?
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on November 24, 2009 05:41 PMAbove I paraphrased a few of the emails from CRU. That was too much for many commenters to handle, so I will just quote the emails directly so you can focus on the content instead of me.
Kevin Trenberth - The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it's a travesty that we can't.
Phil Jones - I have just completed Mike's nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years to hide the decline.
Phil Jones - I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer review literature is
Ken Briffa - comments from his Fortran code used to create a Hockey Stick graph. Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!! and APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION. Another, quantify_tsdcal.pro, says: Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!
Phil Jones to Michael Mann - 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 get Caspar to do likewise.
All these, their words and from the CRU emails and files. And these are but a few samples.
Further, today, a prominent AGW supporter, Liberal and UK journalist, George Monbiot, has issued an apology, says that the CRU emails are worse than he had thought and is calling for Phil Jones to resign. I'm wondering dk, do all of your comments here apply to Monbiot as well? He's unethical for reading the CRU emails and a hypocrite right?
Also today, CBS News put together a story on the CRU emails. This the same CBS News where big Obama supporter and fan, Katie Couric works. But this is all just right wing crazies blabbering on a few blogs right?
Again, dk, I assume you are contacting CBS News to let them know how unethical it is for them to report on something that is clearly in the public domain.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 24, 2009 10:10 PMWhy don't we pore over all of your emails over the past several years? I'm sure that we could take plenty of things out of context, and we might even be able to get you indicted for a few things...
Posted by: demo kid on November 24, 2009 10:17 PMI'll say it again. Political comments of any kind are welcome. If you have something to say, have at it. If you want to get a little snarky, fine. But if you can't do it without direct insults, names, etc., then don't bother, because it's just going to get deleted.
Have some respect for other human beings, even those who you don't see eye to eye with. It's not that hard.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 24, 2009 10:21 PMThat's ridiculous. Out of context? In many of these emails you can see the entire thread of the email. It's quite clear to those who are not in denial that the intent of Phil Jones was to assure that certain AGW Skeptical papers did not make it in to any of the scientific journals where he had influence. This has been widely acknowledged by the left and many AGW supporters. This is the primary basis many on both sides are calling for Jones' resignation.
Science is not conducted by shutting out the opposing papers.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 24, 2009 10:27 PMAgain, ridiculous. All of those are gone as well. If I missed one, let me know. And no, I'm not going to delete this one. Are you still having trouble with the concept? Only the insults and over the top profanity, ad hominem, etc. get deleted.
You see how I say, ridiculous when I disagree with you, rather than calling you an idiot, or implying that you are something that might end up on someone's shoe?
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 24, 2009 10:33 PMIf the evidence is real and not fraudulently produced- Like Dan Rather's 60 minutes fraud piece on Bush- then it is hardly unethical to reveal it and its contents. The "scientists" were using gimmicks to gin up 'evidence' to support their pre-determined hypothesis of man-made global warming. That is sleazy and unethical as well, but acceptable to the church of global warming congregation like yourself, mike, and John Jensen, who've been programmed by the high priest Al Gore that the science is settled. It's about time this cult got infiltrated and exposed. While I don't approve of the manner it was done, it is no less objectionable than defrauding the American people through lies, misrepresentations and outright deception as the cultists have done.
In other news, Obama is going to, in one trip, eclipse my entire lifetimes carbon footprint in order to accept another fraud- the nobel peace prize- simply for being a black man in the white house. Talk about unethical and sleazy, that takes the cake.
Posted by: Rick D. on November 25, 2009 05:57 AM