Climategate Coverage: Unfair & Unbalanced
Climategate:
Around November 19, 2009, stolen emails and computer code from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were uploaded to a publicly accessible Russian Web server. The controversy went viral and was dubbed Climategate. Climategate was an obvious attempt to subvert the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen a few weeks later and I blogged on the CRU Hack on November 24 to show why these stolen emails did not undermine the integrity of climate science.
The main targets of the anti-science crowd were Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the CRU, and Dr. Michael Mann of The Pennsylvania State University. These highly respected scientists were accused of hiding data, fudging data, avoiding requests for information, and purposefully blocking peer-reviewed journals from IPCC reviewers. Furthermore, the “big guns” of the climate change denialosphere such as Marc Morano of Climate Depot, Anthony Watts of WattsUpWithThat, and conservative “think tanks” such as Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and Competitive Enterprise Institute, among others, attempted to spin these emails as somehow proving that there was a massive international conspiracy to promote global warming.
There have been several investigations into the allegations of misconduct by Drs. Jones and Mann and every one has shown that the allegations were baseless. Dr. Michael Mann was exonerated on February 3, 2010 after an exhaustive investigation. Dr. Jones has been exonerated by the UK Parliament (March 31, 2010) and also exonerated by The University of East Anglia (April 14, 2010).
Did these exonerations receive the same coverage as the groundless accusations?
NO!
Not even close.
Web Coverage:
I used Google to search the Web for the following phrases:
“phil jones” climatic research unit
“michael mann” climatic research unit
For each search I used two filters. 1) Web hits in the first two weeks after the Climategate story broke (11/19/09 – 12/03/09) and 2) Web hits in the first two weeks after Dr. Jones’ exoneration (03/31/2010 to 04/14/2010) and the first two weeks after Dr. Mann’s exoneration (02/03/2010 to 02/17/2010). It should be noted that using the term climate research unit instead of climatic research unit (a common mistake) did not alter the results significantly. The results appear below:
Web Hits: Accused vs. Exonerated
Dr. Phil Jones accused of wrongdoing resulted in 64,700 hits in the first two weeks after the story broke.
Dr. Michael Mann accused of wrongdoing resulted in 39,000 hits in the first two weeks after the story broke.
When Dr. Jones was exonerated there were only 22,700 hits in the first two weeks after exoneration.
When Dr. Mann was exonerated there were only 17,700 hits in the first two weeks after exoneration.
Web coverage: Unfair & Unbalanced
News Organizations Coverage:
Well, the Web is fast and loose with the truth so let us take a look at how news organizations reported. I used Google News to do the search. Google News is a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide. Google News archives only allow a monthly filter. Climategate broke on November 19, 2009 so I filtered the search to include just November 2009 (11 days) and December 2009. Because Dr. Mann was exonerated in early February, February 2010 was used as the filter. Dr. Jones first and most important exoneration was released on March 31, 2010 so I included April 2010 in the filter and the seven news stories from March 31, 2010 that appeared in the March 2010 list. The results appear below:
News Headlines: Accused vs. Exonerated
Dr. Phil Jones accused of wrongdoing resulted in 263 headlines in the first 42 days after the story broke.
Dr. Michael Mann accused of wrongdoing resulted in 143 headlines in the first 42 days after the story broke.
When Dr. Jones was exonerated there were only 24 headlines in the first 19 days after exoneration.
When Dr. Mann was exonerated there were only 27 headlines in the first 25 days after exoneration.
News coverage: Very Unfair & Very Unbalanced
Climate Bad Guys vs. Climate Bad Guys:
Wow! The news organizations really dropped the ball on being fair! Perhaps because accusations are much sexier than exonerations they paid more attention to the story when scientists were the bad guys instead of the good guys. After all, who doesn’t slow down to see a traffic accident but do you ever slow down to see somebody fixing a flat tire on the side of the road? Me neither. What we need is a climate bad guy story vs. another climate bad guy story. Climategate is one bad guy story and Koch Industries is another bad guy story.
According to an exhaustive Greenpeace investigation:
Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in the US, has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. This private, out-of-sight corporation is now a partner to ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and other donors that support organizations and front-groups opposing progressive clean energy and climate policy. In fact, Koch has out-spent ExxonMobil in funding these groups in recent years. From 2005 to 2008, ExxonMobil spent $8.9 million while the Koch Industries-controlled foundations contributed $24.9 million in funding to organizations of the ‘climate denial machine’. This report focuses on activities by Koch Industries and its affiliates, as well as the family—and company—controlled foundations which fund organizations that spread inaccurate and misleading information about climate science and clean energy policies.
So, how did the Web and the news organizations cover these stories? Remember that Climategate was MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, and Koch Industries has been CAUGHT RED-HANDED doling out money to groups that are LYING ABOUT A COMING INTERNATIONAL CRISIS! Surely, there should be more coverage of a REAL CRIME (Koch) vs. a FAKE CRIME (Jones & Mann).
I ran a Google Web search using the same time filters as above (11/19/09 – 12/03/09) for the term koch industries greenpeace
The results appear below:
Web Hits: Climategate vs. Outing of Koch Industries
I then ran a Google News search using the same time filters described in the News Organizations Coverage section above. The results appear below:
News Headlines: Climategate vs. Outing of Koch Industries
News coverage: Very Unfair & Very Unbalanced
Sad.
Global Warming: Man or Myth? 
If you have a friend that still believes in AWG, intervene. You owe it to a friend to get him or her help. Don’t let them live in that cruel, delusional
world.
BB
April 18, 2010 at 4:35 pm
The Oxford dictionary definition of “trick” is “to deceive”. This is the colloquial meaning and it has no other usage in the UK. Phil Jones got a whitewash.
Do you really think that we are all so stupid and that we don’t realise what is going on?
You are so out of touch with reality (as well as our politicians) that you still spout the mantra. Have you taken your “happy pill” today? You poor thing.
Mrs Pickles
April 18, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Mrs Pickles,
This has been done to death. First of all, while what you say may be true, it isn’t relevant, as you should well know. Secondly the usage of ‘trick’ was a colloquialism and was used widely in the scientific community as a clever technique, that is, not just among those in the climate sciences. It was widely mentioned in the scientific literature.
Thirdly, you should consider the Dunning-Kruger Effect. [Google it]
Amoeba
June 4, 2010 at 7:06 am
Mrs Pickles
This search uses Google Scholar to find scientific papers [no patents] with the word trick in the title. It found 2,880 matches.
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?as_q=&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=trick&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_sdt=1.&as_sdtp=on&as_sdts=5&hl=en
YOU ARE WRONG!
Amoeba
June 6, 2010 at 2:26 am
> This is the colloquial meaning and it has no other usage in the UK.
Might want to tell that to all those skateboarders that perform tricks. Or those prostitutes that turn tricks.
You’re basically talking drivel – if you’ve never heard someone say “oh, that’s a clever trick” in response to some skillful act or insight, you really need to get out more.
Dave H
June 4, 2010 at 8:49 am
One wonders if Mrs Pickles scrolled down to the other definitions in the OED. For example, as a noun:
3. A clever or adroit expedient, device, or contrivance; a ‘dexterous artifice’ (J.); a ‘dodge’. bag of tricks: see BAG n. 18.
4. The art, knack, or faculty of doing something skilfully or successfully. ?arch
6. concr. {dag}a. Something devised or contrived; a clever contrivance or invention. Obs. rare
Or as an adjective:
1. Smart, adroit, clever, nimble, ‘neat’.
Or as an adverb:
1. Cleverly, ‘neatly’, ‘finely’.
2. Neatly, smartly, elegantly, ‘trigly’.
Definitions from (OED.com, searched for “trick”)
Be careful to examine the whole picture. Selective citation seems to be a common vice amongst deniers.
Dan
July 7, 2010 at 2:56 pm
“that’s a neat trick” A trick shot, tricky, turn a trick, perform a trick, trick or treat. Mrs Pickles Trick has a more common usage as a good or clever idea or action that one to deceive. Really I think if you are from the UK you know that and are just being obscurant.
sungypsy
July 15, 2010 at 9:18 pm
“The Oxford dictionary definition of “trick” is “to deceive”. This is the colloquial meaning and it has no other usage in the UK.”
What’s this then:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=c%23+trick&
Cthulhu
April 18, 2010 at 5:56 pm
If you have a friend who flunked science (or managed to pass without actually learning anything) like BB obviously did, intervene. Convince him/her to sign up for a few community college or college extension science courses.
If he/she simply can’t find the time to enroll in at least a course or two, convince him/her to take advantage of the tremendous on-line science education resources that most of the leading universities offer.
Here’s a great example of such a resource, put together by one of the world’s leading research universities: http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/globalchange/index.html
caerbannog
April 18, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Great job on this. Ironic and quite sad how the media is doing even worse than random bloggers on this issue. It’s like they dropped the story at the halfway point, when the sound bites were saying exactly the opposite of what measured investigation would later show.
climatesight
April 18, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Mrs. Pickles,
My undergraduate and graduate engineering courses at UCLA and UCSD must have been nothing more than exercises in deception according to you.
I remember my professors teaching us a number of slick mathematical “tricks” to simplify many problems. One such “trick” was to transform to the frequency domain when computing convolutions and correlations.
caerbannog
April 18, 2010 at 6:50 pm
caerbannog
Phil Jones was educated in England not the USA. He would have used the Oxford dictionary (it was compulsory in our generation), i.e. his colloquial use of the term would have been the same as mine, not yours. The Oxford dictionary definition:
trick
• noun 1 a cunning or skilful act or scheme intended to deceive or outwit someone. 2 a skilful act performed for entertainment. 3 an illusion: a trick of the light. 4 before another noun intended to mystify or trick: a trick question. 5 a peculiar or characteristic habit or mannerism. 6 (in bridge, whist, etc.) a sequence of cards forming a single round of play.
• verb 1 deceive or outwit with cunning or skill. 2 (trick into/out of) deceive (someone) into doing or parting with.
The people doing the inquiry were also perfectly aware of if meaning but changed the defintion using a “trick”. Some of us were not deceived.
Mrs Pickles
April 18, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Mrs Pickles, don’t you think that the British nationals on the investigative boards would have known the meaning of the word “trick”?
The written record of how the tree-ring and surface station records were merged is out in the open. the researchers were open about the divergence problem, publishing in Nature back in the ’90s. If someone is trying to deceive, publishing about the problem in a high-impact and widely read journal is not the way to do it.
Deech56
April 18, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Mrs. Pickles, that is not what my copy of the OED says. Maybe you failed reading comprehension?
trick (noun)
[…]
GOOD METHOD 4 (usually sing.) a way of doing sth that works well; a good method: “The trick is to pick the animal up by the back of its neck.” ~ “He used the old trick of attacking in order to defend himself.”
It disturbs me that not only are you unaware of this very common usage, but you were unable to do the very basic research required to test it.
Next time, don’t rely on the concise edition. They have to cut a LOT out. Your short extract omits idioms and usage notes. It leaves out many meanings altogether. And even in England, there are more dictionaries than just the OED.
Didactylos
April 18, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Al Gore bragged about soending 200 million promoting global warming last year in the run-up to Copenhagen. 200 million by one man in one year.
What part of fraud do you not get? Do you truely believe that people are stupid enough to ‘believe’ in spite of the facts? can you say…religion?
Mojo
April 19, 2010 at 11:57 am
Didactylos,
Jones statement in his (in)famous email:
“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) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
should, according to you, be read as follows:
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature good method of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
Thank you, that really comforts me. The meaning remains the same.
Phil Jones and I were born in the same year and we both went to grammar schools (pre comprehensive) where the concise Oxford dictionary was a required part of the stuff our parents had to buy for us, and we had to use it. Phil states that he used the term colloquially which means “local” or “familiar” use. The meaning I supplied is the one he also had to learn, hence my remarks. Your splitting hairs doesn’t affect the meaning at all, it just shows that your comprehension of 1950s/1960s schooling in England is limited or missing completely.
Deech56,
your statement/question:
“don’t you think that the British nationals on the investigative boards would have known the meaning of the word “trick”?”
yes, of course they did! They also knew Phil’s comprehension of the word, which was my whole point.
Read it again carefully and write 100 times “comprehension requires reading what Mrs Pickles said correctly”. If you don’t, well a spell of detention after school will be in order.
Your statement:
“If someone is trying to deceive, publishing about the problem in a high-impact and widely read journal is not the way to do it.”
well, it depends on your audience. The graph Phil was doing was for the front page of a glossy aimed at policy makers and politicians not scientists. These good people don’t even look at the small print, they only see headlines and sound bites. The damage was, of course, done as intended. By the time some rather sceptical people realised what had happened it was too late. Move on, nothing to see here and we documented everything (small print) so what’s your complaint. The email and said inquiry leave a rather bad smell, that’s my complaint.
Mrs Pickles
April 19, 2010 at 3:50 pm
[snip]
Cthulhu
April 19, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Dear Mrs Pickles
It is not tenable to argue that Phil Jones only uses words that he learnt at school in a dictionary. ‘Trick’ is colloquial in maths, not in Norfolk – Prof Jones is a scientist, not a farmer resurrecting the old ways of talking. The fuss over this email is strictly quote-mining – nobody in the course of the entire scandal has ever come forward to say that they have seen or read the WMO report in question at the time it was released ie 11 years ago. No-one. It’s influence was precisely nothing. I have obsessively followed climate science and the associated debate for 5 years without ever coming across it. Politicians may get their climate info from the IPCC but to claim they were all convinced by a 1999 WMO annual report is ludicrous.
ed gardener
April 19, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Trick
bah
trick is nothing. There is famous mathematics procedure called the Mazer swindle.
You take a handle decomposition of a high dimensional manifold, you slide the handles around and
ONE OF THEM DISAPPEARS.
To call this con, worthy of the sting, a trick would be an insult.
EXCEPT IT ISN”T A TRICK OR A CON OR A SWINDLE.
It is a wonderful piece of mathematics, and Mrs Pickles is dumber than a post.
elspi
April 20, 2010 at 12:07 am
Ed,
“Politicians may get their climate info from the IPCC but to claim they were all convinced by a 1999 WMO annual report is ludicrous.”
I didn’t claim that. Go back and read again. You’ll get there in the end, just don’t give up. I mean, I haven’t used any big words which might cause difficulty.
Hello young Elspi,
How dumb is a post? Oh, and how did you measure it?
Did it take a long time?
You youngsters today are so clever. Just imagine getting handles to disappear. That’s much cleverer than just getting silly bits of a graph to disappear.
I am also so glad that you boys cleared up that problem with the “trick”. It’s now a mathematical term and, actually, I quite agree with you. It’s just a pity that neither Phil nor the inquiry said that. Still they are all such busy people, I suppose it just slipped their minds.
Bye the way, could you boys then clear up another little problem which has been bothering me.
If they disappeared part of the graph because the decline was eroneous after 1960, how do they know that the rest of the graph is correct? On the other hand, if the graph was correct after 1960 then, I suppose, the data must be eroneous. Does the tree ring measurement method only support part time correctness?
Mrs Pickles
April 20, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Dear Cat Lady
Is your google finger broken?
If not, then why are you asking me to do your homework.
As a math. prof., I make people do their own.
Google borehole proxies. The tree-ring proxies are one of many many proxies. Prior to 1960 the proxies line up very well with one another and with the Temp. record.
After 1960 some of the tree ring proxies diverge from the temperature record. Thus the name “divergence problem”
And don’t try an’ tell me that the boreholes have it wrong.
I will trust the heat equation over the crazy cat lady any day of the week.
Thank you for calling me a youngster. It has been a very long time since that happened.
elspi
April 20, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Mrs Pickles,
Please see Determining the Climate Record and follow the links and view the images there. You will learn a lot.
Scott Mandia
April 20, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Maybe the media think that it is not news, when a whitewash ends in a phony ‘exoneration’.
And perhaps the media are beginning to realize that the catastrophic AGW dogma is crumbling, and they are jumping off the bandwagon, before all the wheels come off.
Nice try though.
DLM
April 21, 2010 at 10:55 am
DLM,
What evidence do you have for “when a whitewash ends in a phony ‘exoneration’”?
You’ll have to do better than make unsubstantiated claims here, because it won’t WASH with us!
We like evidence and it had better come from a sound and reputable source. We don’t like vague claims of wrongdoing. Becuse that sounds like mud-slinging.
We don’t like sources of bogus information either, especially where there is a strong whiff of vested interest.
So put-up or shut-up!
Amoeba
June 4, 2010 at 7:14 am
Amoeba, perhaps you’d like to take a look at my article “CAN THERE BE AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF IPCC? – update 13/05/2010” and the previous ones about the UEA’s CRU – see http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
June 4, 2010 at 8:27 am
Peter Ridley, I feel that you are not to be trusted.
I understand that together with ‘poptech’, you undertook harrassment and the release of certain personal details of one Ian Forrester. Your association with Watts, who I am led to believe likewise has been known to cyber-stalk and harass certain individuals, means that your personal integrity and honesty as far as I’m concerned leaves much to be desired.
If you told me night followed day, I would have to go and check!
I repeat, that as far as I’m concerned, you are not to be trusted. Everthing you say is therefore to be treated as untrue until proven otherwise.
Amoeba
June 6, 2010 at 9:19 am
Amoeba, don’t believe everything that you read in the media. Do your own research then come to your own conclusion from a position of knowledge rather than simply regurgitating what others feed you with. This applies to what you are told about global climate processes and drivers and other scientific or political issues as well as allegations against individuals.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
June 6, 2010 at 9:56 am
DLM
Of the ten warmest years on record, nine of them START WITH A 2, and the other one (in second place) is 1998 (missed it by 2 whole years).
Reality is trump.
elspi
April 21, 2010 at 12:42 pm
elspi,
It’s a short record, and it’s suspect.
The reality is, the public ain’t buying it anymore. The reality is, Copenhagen. The reality is, when the proponents of the catastrophic AGW agenda start whining about a formerly in-the-bag media’s coverage being unfair to the dogma, then all is lost.
Sorry. Just keeping it real.
DLM
April 21, 2010 at 1:31 pm
“It’s a short record, and it’s suspect.”
You should transport fertilizer, because there is a whole shit-load in that one little sentence.
1st 150 years is not very short (not even to me).
2nd we have the borehole reconstructions before that back 2 thousand years. It is warmer now that it has been in 2 thousand years. (And once again, I am going with the heat equation over some random moron on a blog).
We can tell that the temp is going up due to insolation (GHG) rather than an increase in energy from the sun because most of the warming is happening when the sun isn’t shining (at night and in the arctic winter) and because the statosphere is cooling (as predicted by the models before it was discovered).
We can tell it is human caused by the isotopes of carbon.
Now, I know that the tabacco institute “think tanks” claim that Global warming is a fraud (in exactly the same way that they claimed that the link between smoking and heart disease was a fraud) but, anyone with a double digit IQ is going to assume that they are lying.
Why don’t you?
elspi
April 21, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Hello Scott,
Thank you for the link. I read it as you suggested. They even had a graph where the MWP was back in again.
It gets so confusing. First the IPCC create a graph in 1990 where it’s there and even warmer than now. But the second graph sort of chopped it off and then the third one disappeared it altogether. I understand, it was just another one of those clever tricks again. You know, the one’s I never could understand so well. Much the same as Phil using mathematical terms which I didn’t understand properly either.
Oh, I checked out all that interesting stuff about the MWP only being in the northern hemisphere which meant that it wasn’t global at all, but why are they finding evidence of it in places like Peru and South Africa and now, would you beleive it, even Indonesia. These must be really clever people to find these things when your friends wrote that it is not even there. I suppose these findings will just have to be disappeared as well and then everything will be fine again. I just wish that I was so clever to make things just disappear when I don’t like them but please don’t tell Mr Pickles that I said that.
Mrs Pickles
April 21, 2010 at 4:08 pm
espli, or whatever
That tobacco institute crap was a low blow. I am a very well paid evil stooge, in the employ of BIG OIL.
Why you get so hysterical, mon? You are one very fearful and angry dude.
OK, if 150 years is considered a long time from your perspective on the earth’s 4 billion year history, then let’s just go with ‘it’s suspect’. That includes the BS manipulated instrument record, and the BS manipulated proxy record.
The warming is not unprecedented, and it ain’t scaring very many people. That’s why the gaggle of feckless Climatescare apparatchiks, who descended on Copenhagen in their flock of private jets, accomplished exactly SQUAT! If they are not that worried, why should anybody else be concerned?
Sorry elpsi, them’s the facts.
DLM
April 22, 2010 at 12:10 am
“That includes the BS manipulated instrument record, and the BS manipulated proxy record.”
All the boreholes are in on it are they.
Boreholes are nice because you can go back and measure again anytime you want to. You invert the heat equation and
shazzam, you have the temp. for the last 2000 years.
If any of you clowns actually thought you were right, you would do this, but you know you are lying so you won’t.
Heat equation 3 Morons 0.
elspi
April 22, 2010 at 1:52 am
FYI
Your think tanks were created by the tobacco industry
in order to discredit the medical researchers working on the link between smoking and cancer/heart disease.
This is no longer paying the bills so they have switched to a more profitable lie(no global warming). The question remains:
Why are you listening to these professional liars?
elspi
April 22, 2010 at 1:57 am
DLM,
Would you care to show the evidence for your claims?
e.g:
BS manipulated instrument record, and the BS manipulated proxy record.
ISI WoS Journal evidence only. No think-tank drivel.
Amoeba
June 4, 2010 at 7:25 am
espli,
You don’t know what SQUAT! means. That is what has been done by your crowd to save the world from burning up. If the threat were real, wouldn’t something have been done about it by now? Are the tobaccoonistas that strong? You are amusing.
DLM
April 22, 2010 at 9:29 am
“If the threat were real, wouldn’t something have been done about it by now?”
The threat from tabacco was proven by 1950. The “tabaccoonistas” prevented us from doing anything effective about it for 40+ years. 10s of millions of people died in the US as a result of this. How much more “real” can a threat get?
Any effective action will have to be collective. Otherwise your conservation is just lowering the cost of your neighbor’s next Hummer fill up. You use less carbon but he uses more and it is a wash. The Randian approach would be to kill him (what can you expect from psychopaths).
I personally prefer the “carbon tax” idea.
elspi
April 22, 2010 at 11:43 am
Your repeated attempts to equate smoking with CO2 is just plain silly. Real medical scientists conclusively proved that tobacco is bad stuff, and it did not cost taxpayers tens of billion$ to do it. The lavishly funded climate scientists can’t even find their missing heat. They claim to be able to calculate the earth’s ‘energy budget’, down to a tenth of a degree, but fully half of the heat they say is floating around somewhere, cannot be located. WUWT? I will help you: What’s really missing, is half the science.
That’s why the denialistas have been kicking your alarmist behinds, up between your ears. Good luck with that “carbon tax” scheme of yours. You might want to call it something other than a ‘tax’.
Now that is all the time I have for you, lipse. You will have to learn this stuff on your own.
DLM
April 22, 2010 at 5:59 pm
DLM, oh contrare …
1. Name ONE “lavishly funded climate scientist” with proof of his/her “lavish funding”! The denial think tank lies you’ve bought into is where you’ll find the highly-salaried manipulators who DO receive that “lavish funding” to which you refer in order to confuse and lie to the general public on behalf of big oil. I recommend you read Prof. Mandia’s blog posts on “Taking the Money for Grant(ed)” which references actual numbers and funding received by climate scientists.
2. Refer to the following 2007 study “Smoke, Mirrors, and Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science”:
Click to access exxon_report.pdf
maui pineapple
April 23, 2010 at 6:35 am
The two biased hearings into the UEA CRU E-mail scandal (Climategate) so far in the UK were themselves unfair and have been given very unfair coverage in the UK media like The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, etc. but much fairer coverage in the Telegraph which restored a little balance. Both hearings were totally biased in the UEA’s favour and I cover this on my “Global Political Shenanigans” blog in the “CAN THERE BE AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF IPCC? – update 14/04/2010” thread (Note 1).
The blogs that support The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis are doing their best to shore up the crumbling foundation of The Hypothesis, including intensified censorship of the sceptical side of the debate. A good example of this is this sites hero, Grant Foster. I have been trying repeatedly to get Foster (AKA Tamino) to leave this comment on his blog. It looks as though he’s frightened of open debate.
——————-
Come on Grant, have the courage to leave this set of comments on your thread so that others can make their own judgement on whether or not they deserve consideration. You could get a name for only allowing debate that supports your opinions.
To others, this is a set of comments that Tamino (Grant Foster) has “moderated” out of this thread. I leave you guys to judge why. ..
This is a comment by Anthony Watts relating to the opening article here and to Grant’s claims. You can read the whole thing at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/17/which-nasa-data-to-believe/#comment-373583 ..
QUOTE:
“Tamino” wants all the benefits of a public criticsm, but none of the risks himself. Until he puts his name on what he publishes, I have no intention of addressing him anymore than I would address somebody who calls himself “Bugs Bunny”
On that note, there have been other valid criticisms of that publication done by people who have the integrity to sign their names to their work. The recently updated version 2 of the paper (April 13) now available at http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/policy_driven_deception.html addresses some of those criticisms. I ask that you read the update and tell me if you think what has been published, in good faith, again with out names attached front and center, is something that we should apologize to an anonymous coward for. Thank you for your consideration. – Anthony Watts
UNQUOTE.
Grant, as you have been cowardly enough to remove my previous critical comments here’s another for you to “moderate”. From here (but you can’t moderate them from Anthony Watts’ blog, can you ! What a coward you give the impression of being.
Anyone interested in seeing the latest updated version (16th April) of the Daleo/Watts paper Surface Temperature Records: .. ” can do so at:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/policy_driven_deception.html UNQUOTE
————————-
I asked myself “Is this the blog of Scott Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences. T-202 Smithtown Sciences Bldg. Suffolk County Community College 533 College Rd. Selden, NY (Note 2)?” so did a “google”. Oh, yes, I see it all (Note 3) QUOTE: He then asked us to imagine that we were in an elevator with one other person. “Tell the person who you are, what you do, and why it is important and do it in 30 seconds or less.” Here is what I came up with:
My name is Scott Mandia. I am a meteorologist who has been teaching weather and climate courses at Suffolk County Community College for nineteen years. My current passion is educating the general public about the dangers of climate change. Humans are causing global warming, UNQUOTE.
Hi Scott, long time no speak (on Chris Colose’s blogs). Recognising your passion for supporting the UN’s human-made global climate change propaganda which has nothing to do with controlling global climates but everything to do with:
– redistribution of wealth from developed to underdeveloped economies,
– establishment of a framework for global government,
– enhancement of the finances of a privileged few,
I expect that you too will censor my comment, just like Grant Foster does. Well, I’ll keep on trying here then post it elsewhere if that fails. You can’t properly censor on the Internet – politicians hate that.
NOTES: NB: Due to difficulty posting, I have removed the leading http// from Notes 1) & 3) and http://www2 from 2)
1) see globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2010/04/can-there-be-independent-investigation.html
2) see .sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/
3) see profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/alan-alda-brings-passion-for-communicating-science-to-brookhaven-lab/
Best regards, Pete Ridley.
Pete Ridley
April 23, 2010 at 11:01 am
Scott, thanks fo rleaving my comment alone.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
April 23, 2010 at 12:48 pm
[…] against all of climate science and its scientists. Furthermore, I blogged about the fact that Climategate Coverage was Unfair & Unbalanced. One would think that the VSC would be very sensitive to preserving the good name of climate […]
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May 14, 2010 at 10:18 am
Scott, you give the impression of being very blinkered. Don’t you think it time that you acknowledged that there is no “consensus” about our use of fossil fuels causing catastrophic global climate change.
May I suggest that you encourage your students to recognise that our understanding of global climate processes and drivers is inadequate and that much more research is needed in order to remove the enormous uncertainties that remain.
They need to be enxcouraged to give serious consideration to the arguments of the many respected scientists who reject the IPCC’s hypothesis.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
May 15, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Here is a relevant comment from my “Global political Shenanigans” blog
“CAN THERE BE AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF IPCC? – update 13/05/2010”
In my articles of 14th April and 31st March I commented on the politically inspired whitewashing of the UEA CRU following the leaking of E-mails in November. First there was the whitewash by the UK’s Commons Science and Technology Committee then another by the UEA’s “independent” review chaired by Lord Oxburgh. It looks as though we’ll soon have the media reporting a third, this one by the UEA’s own review team chaired by Sir Muir Russell.
Early in December, shortly after the Climategate scandal broke it was announced that the UEA would fund an independent enquiry (Note 1) into the leaking of CRU E-mails which would report in “the Spring”. The most recent entry at its Web-site (Note 2) was on 17th April and simply said QUOTE: “The Review team has read and noted all submissions, and is currently working towards its conclusions UNQUOTE. The enquiry team comprises:
– Sir Muir Russell l KCB FRSE,
– Professor Geoffrey Boulton OBE, FRS, FRS,
– Professor Peter Clarke F.InstP, C.Phys, F.IET, C.Eng,
– David Eyton M.A. M.IoM3 C.Eng,
– Professor Jim Norton FIET FBCS FIoD FRSA – Vice President BCS – Chartered Institute for IT
It was reported (Note 3) that Russel’s web-site says QUOTE: Do any of the Review team members have a predetermined view on climate change and climate science? No. Members of the research team come from a variety of scientific backgrounds. They were selected on the basis they have no prejudicial interest in climate change and climate science and for the contribution they can make to the issues the Review is looking at UNQUOTE. Let’s find out for ourselves if this is the case. Following the previous “whitewash” enquiries it is important to look closely at the credentials of the members of the Russel team.
Muir Russell was appointed as a member of the Scottish Power Advisory Board in 2007 (Note 4). This company is owned by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola which is making significant (9Billion Euro during 2010-2012) investment in the wind energy sector, including Scottish offshore wind farms (Note 5). Muir Russell also has a background in Scottish political activities.
Geoffrey Boulton is reported (Note 6) as saying QUOTE: “The argument regarding climate change is over.” — .. December 2005
“We have the evidence, we have a consensus on scientific interpretation, we have the investment, we know (Stern) that mitigation now rather than later is cheaper. But, we have not sorted out the politics and started to adapt behaviour to minimize risks. We cannot do this without public support. If we fail, we will be risking the consequences of catastrophic climate changes.” — .. 29 October 2009 UNQUOTE. It is also reported (Note 7) on 7th October 2009 that QUOTE: Professor Boulton, who chairs the Energy Committee of the Royal Society (the world’s oldest national science academy) and is very active in European Union preparations for the landmark climate summit in Copenhagen, continued, “Coca-Cola Hellenic is taking responsibility and leadership by collaborating with a technology company ContourGlobal in reducing emissions. It represents an early step in responding to what is probably the most difficult challenge that the human race has ever collectively had to face, that of global climate and planetary sustainability” UNQUOTE.
David Eyton, Group Head of Research & Technology – BP, is reported to have originated a presentation given in April to “Stanford University Conference on Technology, Governance and Global Development” (Note 8) saying QUOTE: .. BP remains the largest oil and gas producer in the United States .. BP has one of the largest wind portfolios in America .. are the largest blender and marketer of biofuels in the United States. .. involved in three major Carbon Capture and Storage projects – in Algeria ..
That said, fossil fuels will still dominate the energy landscape for many decades to come. Even under the International Energy Agency’s most ambitious scenario – which stabilizes atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions at 450ppm – the scale of the oil and gas business will be similar in 2050 to the one we have today.
UNQUOTE. On this basis BP is in a win-win position.
Peter Clarke, Professor of e-Science at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Institute for e-Science at Edinburgh appears not to have expressed strong views about global climate change either way, however, in 2008 (Note 9) Edinburgh University was angling for greater involvement in the modelling of global climates. It became custodian of HECToR (High End Computing Terascale Resources), a £115M Cray supercomputer to be used for research, including – climate modelling.
Jim Norton, Vice President BCS – Chartered Institute for IT appears not to have expressed strong views either way about global climate change however, he has significant involvement within political circles (Note 10) hence could be subjected to political influence.
It is clear from the above that all of the members of the review team could be considered to have vested interest in the continuation of acceptance of the UN’s climate change propaganda, whether arising from scientific bias, funding pressures or political influence. It looks as though there could well be another UK whitewash, although they do say “third time lucky”.
It should be noted that Sir Muir Russell said of the enquiry QUOTE: “However, it is not our role to re-appraise the CRU’s scientific conclusions. Those will be examined by the Royal Society review announced today” UNQUOTE. I find it hard to accept that Lord Oxburgh’s team could have done justice to a review of the science in a review that was rushed to a conclusion in just a few weeks.
NOTES:
For the links, see my blog at http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
May 15, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Can you suggest _anyone_ who would be sufficiently uninvolved in the political process, not involved in business, and lacking any opinion on a topic of public interest?
And wouldn’t you then complain that anyone so utterly out of it was doing the review?
> a review that was rushed to a conclusion
And if it’d taken longer, you’d’ve complained they were stalling, right?
Hank Roberts
May 17, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Unfortunately, the method of determining balance of reporting is far too simplistic. Search for ‘Mann cleared’ or ‘Mann not guilty’, etc. and you will see very different results. Also, the word ‘accused’ will quite likely appear in articles that report Mann and Jones were exonerated.
However, I’m sure there is little doubt that the reporting of the stolen email smear campaign was far more prominent for the accusations than the subsequent ‘not guilty’ conclusions.
Jack Mildam
June 4, 2010 at 8:37 am
Re Peter Ridley:’Amoeba, don’t believe everything that you read in the media. Do your own research then come to your own conclusion from a position of knowledge rather than simply regurgitating what others feed you with….’
Such irony! Such deceit.
Amoeba
June 8, 2010 at 5:44 am
The actual East Anglia report is worth a read
Click to access FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
It is an impressive example of how real scientists go about resolving a scientific dispute. For example, to determine whether CRU was withholding data and code that was crucial to evaluating their work, as McIntyre claimed, or whether McIntyre and his followers were abusing the FoI process to impede the work of CRU, as Jones clearly believed, the inquiry committee actually went so far as to carry out their own independent analysis, requesting the climate data from the publicly available archirves and the national meteorological services that acquired it, and writing their own code based on the published methods. They successfully replicated CRU’s results, proving that the information that McIntyre et al had been demanding from CRU was unnecessary to evaluate CRU’s work, and in the process clearing Jones’s group of the insinuations that Jones had somehow manipulated or adjusted the data to produce a misleading outcome. Some key findings:
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July 1, 2019 at 3:18 pm
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