Climategate- a Pitiful Helpless Midget
Well, here it is- my discussion of the details of the great "climategate" scandal. For those of you not following this latest Republican attack on sanity, the right wing blogs I read have been posting every day about this, Republicans in Congress have been demanding investigations and hearings, Fox news has been having a field day with it, and all the usual suspects are railing in outrage over this alleged dishonesty that requires that the notion of human-caused global warming be abandoned forever. One site even advocated the death penalty for treason, for government officials that supported global warming.
So, here's what happened. Someone (people are blaming the Russians for some reason) hacked into the computers at the University of East Anglia (whatever the hell that is- I mean, I was at Cambridge and I never heard of the place) and stole 26,000 e-mails from their climate science department, from the last couple of decades. After poring over them, here is what they found: one e-mail!
"Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK"
That's it. That's the whole gigantic worldwide scandal. The entire thing.
Was the guy incautious with his wording when he spoke of a trick? Or was he really a monster of dishonesty? I'm not even going to bother you with explanations of what this is really about (of course, not what the conservatives claim.) Let me just note the following. On one side of this argument, we have peer-reviewed scientific papers numbering in the thousands, every one of which agrees with the existence of human induced global warming. On the other side, we have one e-mail, from ten years ago.
One e-mail.
That's what they managed to find, and that's all it took for conservatives to generate a firestorm of indignation and lies. That's all it took for them to claim that they have vanquished the entire scientific world. That's all it took for them to set their sick juggernaut in motion, crushing any shred of reason along the way.
One e-mail.
That's the magnitude of the dishonesty that we as a country are facing as we attempt to get back on the right path, after these same people nearly destroyed all of us. This is a perfect measure of the utter disregard for our welfare or even our continued existence that is to be found on the right. They have sold their souls to the hyper-rich, and they are not about to turn back now. There has never, in the history of our country, been such a mixture of greed, hate, lying and indifference to any shred of common human decency, within a shot of taking over once again and utterly ruining us all. And they aren't going to stop until we make them.
How are we going to do that? God only knows.
So, here's what happened. Someone (people are blaming the Russians for some reason) hacked into the computers at the University of East Anglia (whatever the hell that is- I mean, I was at Cambridge and I never heard of the place) and stole 26,000 e-mails from their climate science department, from the last couple of decades. After poring over them, here is what they found: one e-mail!
"Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK"
That's it. That's the whole gigantic worldwide scandal. The entire thing.
Was the guy incautious with his wording when he spoke of a trick? Or was he really a monster of dishonesty? I'm not even going to bother you with explanations of what this is really about (of course, not what the conservatives claim.) Let me just note the following. On one side of this argument, we have peer-reviewed scientific papers numbering in the thousands, every one of which agrees with the existence of human induced global warming. On the other side, we have one e-mail, from ten years ago.
One e-mail.
That's what they managed to find, and that's all it took for conservatives to generate a firestorm of indignation and lies. That's all it took for them to claim that they have vanquished the entire scientific world. That's all it took for them to set their sick juggernaut in motion, crushing any shred of reason along the way.
One e-mail.
That's the magnitude of the dishonesty that we as a country are facing as we attempt to get back on the right path, after these same people nearly destroyed all of us. This is a perfect measure of the utter disregard for our welfare or even our continued existence that is to be found on the right. They have sold their souls to the hyper-rich, and they are not about to turn back now. There has never, in the history of our country, been such a mixture of greed, hate, lying and indifference to any shred of common human decency, within a shot of taking over once again and utterly ruining us all. And they aren't going to stop until we make them.
How are we going to do that? God only knows.
Comments
If you'd told someone a hundred years ago that automobiles could pollute entire cities, or that we could poison the Great Lakes, they would have thought you were crazy.
Our sick country seems to be filled with people who are willing to do the bidding of the oil companies and other big business, no matter how much it damages them and their families. Unfortunately, people who are willing to believe that the world is 6000 years old, or that George W. Bush was anything but a corrupt criminal, will fall for anything.
It is faith-based science, and it pisses me off.
Talk about conspiracy. East Anglia was hacked. U. of Edmunton was hacked. Strangers entered a lab and stole laptops. There is a conspiracy but not by climate scientists. The conspiracy involves boiled frogs conducting criminal break-ins to create distractions.
My story here: CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS AND BOILED FROGS
Now, Derek, the e-mail I quoted, which is the one referred to by almost all of the dozens of right wing loons squawking away on this issue, actually referred to an illustration which was to appear on the cover of a report. I assume you know that it had nothing to do with the core issues, yet you come here and deliberately misrepresent it. That's the sort of thing that makes you such a good Republican.
I think it was wrong and unethical what the hackers did. However, I also think it was wrong and unethical what the scientists did. I'll be happy to point fingers at both of them, as you cannot just blame one group.
Note that the Freedom of Information Act in GB prohibited them from the deletion of certain emails and documents, so both committed unethical and criminal acts.
"This is part of Generations long process by the Right to undercut the value of education"
What else could it be? Surely we aren't saying "hey, these guys are cranking out false data in order to back up an erroneous claim." By calling out the scientists we are supporting education, not undercutting it. Science is all about observation, analysis, critical thinking, and truth. Note how the CRU scientists observed, analyzed, realized the data didn't fit what they wanted, so they thought critically how to change that data to come up with a non-truth. They aren't practicing science.
" I assume you know that it had nothing to do with the core issues, yet you come here and deliberately misrepresent it."
There is more than one email you know. The data has been looked at and we can see how they manipulated it to show an increase as opposed to a decline in temperatures. Are you denying this?