ClimateGate and the Elitist Roots of Global Warming Alarmism
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
The hundreds of e-mails being made public after someone hacked into Phil Jones’ Climatic Research Unit (CRU) computer system offer a revealing peek inside the IPCC machine. It will take some time before we know whether any illegal activity has been uncovered (e.g. hiding or destruction of data to avoid Freedom of Information Act inquiries).
Some commentators even think this is the beginning of the end for the IPCC. I doubt it.
The scientists at the center of this row are defending themselves. Phil Jones has claimed that some of the more alarming statements in his e-mails have been taken out of context. The semi-official response from RealClimate.org, a website whose roots can be traced to George Soros (which I’m sure is irrelevant), claims the whole episode is much ado about nothing.
At a minimum, some of these e-mails reveal an undercurrent of elitism that many of us have always claimed existed in the IPCC. These scientists look upon us skeptics with scorn. It is well known that the IPCC machine is made up of bureaucrats and scientists who think they know how the world should be run. The language contained in a draft of the latest climate treaty (meant to replace the Kyoto treaty) involves global governance and the most authoritarian means by which people’s energy use will be restricted and monitored by the government.
Even if this language does not survive in the treaty’s final form, it illustrates the kind of people we are dealing with. The IPCC folks jet around the world to all kinds of exotic locations for their UN-organized meetings where they eat the finest food. Their gigantic carbon footprints stomp around the planet as they deride poor Brazilian farmers who convert jungle into farmland simply to survive.
Even mainstream journalists, who are usually on board with the latest environmental craze, have commented on this blatant display of hypocrisy. It seems like those participating – possibly the best example being Al Gore — are not even aware of how it looks to the rest of us.
The elitist attitudes exist elsewhere, too. While the skeptics’ blogs allow those who disagree to post opinions as long as they remain civil about it, RealClimate.org routinely ignores or deletes posts that might cast doubt on their tidy worldview. The same thing happens at Wikipedia, where a gatekeeper deletes newly posted content that departs from the IPCC party line.
A few of the CRU e-mails suggest that manipulation of climate data in order to reduce the signature of natural climate variations, and to exaggerate the supposed evidence for manmade climate change, is OK with these folks. Apparently, the ends justify the means.
The defense posted at RealClimate.org actually reinforces my point. Do the IPCC scientists assume that this is how all climate scientists behave? If it really was how the rest of us behave, why would our eyebrows be raised up to our hairlines as we read the e-mails?
If all of this sounds incompatible with the process of scientific investigation, it shouldn’t. One of the biggest misconceptions the public has about science is that research is a straightforward process of making measurements, and then seeing whether the data support hypothesis A or B. The truth is that the interpretation of data is seldom that simple.
There are all kinds of subjective decisions that must be made along the way, and the scientist must remain vigilant that he or she is not making those decisions based upon preconceived notions. Data are almost always dirty, with errors of various kinds. Which data will be ignored? Which data will be emphasized? How will the data be processed to tease out the signal we think we see?
Hopefully, the scientist is more interested in discovering how nature really works, rather than twisting the data to support some other agenda. It took me years to develop the discipline to question every research result I got. It is really easy to be wrong in this business, and very difficult to be right.
Skepticism really is at the core of scientific progress. I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong about all my views on manmade global warming. Can the IPCC scientists admit the same thing?
Year after year, the evidence keeps mounting that most climate research now being funded is for the purpose of supporting the IPCC’s politics, not to find out how nature works. The ‘data spin’ is increasingly difficult to ignore or to explain away as just sloppy science. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
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Nice exercise of realism from R. Spencer. For years to come, the IPCC machine will darken climate science because politics jumped to the badwagon. No matter how much compromising information will come out, people will always be driven by opinionmakers that, mostly, are in the wrong side of science. In my point of view, all we have to trust is that nature will teach all us a lesson…
Lysenkoism is alive and well.
And not just Lysenko.
The “Downwind People” were assured that above ground nuclear tests were perfectly safe. Sabin’s live virus oral polio vaccine required Soviet intervention to get it accepted since most American scientific opinion favored Salk. And now climate science.
Science has been and can be highly malleable.
And that is the inherent danger.
I think all climate scientists should be compelled to study ethics as part of their university studies.
Also papers shouldn’t be allowed to be published unless all data is made available.
RIP IPCC (22:02:51) :
As part of most professional accreditations an applicant must pass an ethics exam. In my field, geology, I have known several individuals who consider it a joke. Learning the ethics of professional behaviour does not guarantee ethical behaviour.
Dr. Spencer,
Earlier today, I was inclined to be cautious about the Climategate revelations. Now I share your assessment.
However elitism is the common denominator of political fanaticism in general; it’s not unique to Climate Alarmists. It’s best summed up in Jack Nicholson’s famous line from A Few Good Men:
“You can’t handle the truth!”
Truth from those in power is necessary for democratic institutions to function properly. The irony: True Believers can talk a good game of democracy, but they’re not capable of living it.
We take emailing for granted now, but as I did much of my research in the pre-email days, I can see that instant interconnectedness is working against solitary research.
On one hand the email communication system provides an ability to share and enhance ideas, on the other the pattern displayed in the released emails indicate a considerable degree of coercion as those higher in the pecking order make sure that the script is being followed. Telephone and mail correspondence would be just too slow to achieve to same the same outcome as email.
.
So, this communication technology has helped to create this beehive mentality with its queens,workers and drones.
The word sceptic comes from the latin root which means: 1) to analyze 2) to think through thoughtfully.
“Skepticism really is at the core of scientific progress.”
You bet it is.
The entire culture around “global warming” is warped. I only today discovered that there was such a thing as:
The “Environmental Psychology Research Group” at the University of Surrey which I discovered in this document while digging into those responsible for creating this document, a copy of which was found in Jones’ files in the documents directory.
It is all apparently about how to convince the population to “buy in” to more government control of their lives using “global warming” as the hook.
If you look at it in the abstract, it isn’t about whether or not there really is any “global warming”. The science doesn’t really matter. As long as they can get people to “believe in it”, that is enough. It is hearts that matters, not minds as is evident from the quote found in document at the first link:
So once you have someone “believing in” the notion that the climate is headed for disaster, that it is our collective fault, and only “the government” or the UN can save us from disaster, then they will shut out the message of “skeptics” and actually react against “skeptics”.
The second document is about propgandizing “global warming”. That is the document that was found in Jones’ files. It is produced by Futerra which seems to be an environmental version of Fenton Communications (Current Fenton staffers have worked with Futerra and vice versa).
This is bigger than just science. Imagine if global policy were to be founded based on my research and imagine that I had the power to influence the direction of research results by influencing what gets published and what doesn’t get published. Imagine I have access to a group of people who work in concert to manage the message presented to people and we have a website and we coordinate what is posted and whose comments and what content we will allow. That would make me a very powerful person, indeed. Now imagine what would happen if it were all exposed.
This is the problem with SteveM’s approach. Nobody is interested in the science, really. He can disprove every single paper they produce and it will never see the light of day in academia because they would never allow him to be published. They will never admit he is right, they will dismiss his work because it isn’t published while working to make sure it never gets published.
Global warming IS political. It is being used as a lever to emotionally influence people in order to close their minds to any debate on the subject and allow them to willingly allow the government to control them. And it is one side of the aisle that stands to advance their agenda though this avenue. It goes like this:
1. There is a disaster looming.
2. It is our fault.
3. It can be corrected.
4. Only government can correct it. It is the fault of the private sector.
5. The steps needed to correct it are in line with our party agenda.
6. Elect our party and allow us to correct it.
Our kids are being taught that this is FACT in our schools. What McIntyre says isn’t going to matter soon. We will have a whole new generation of voters who have been taught since kindergarten that the “science is settled” and that “skeptics” are lunatics.
Look in that “documents” directory. It is to me more interesting than the emails as it shows the larger picture.
The IPCC and Agenda elitism stems from a belief that they are unassailable, untouchable and they act like it. The emails speak loudly.
Context —“ blatant display of hypocrisy. It seems like those participating – possibly the best example being Al Gore — are not even aware of how it looks to the rest of us.”
I can understand how Gore’s ideas developed out of touch with the rest of us because he was born into the privileged life of a US senator’s family and colleagues. I don’t understand how the others ended up this way. Many of the people in this generation (thinking of my friends, family, and college classmates) were first-to-graduate of the family, and then only with some stress on the family for going that route.
It doesn’t take much show of an elitist attitude to raise my ire.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anthony,
I had to look twice at the pavement roller before my weary eyes (too much reading about the big data dump) and brain made the connection. Then I followed the link backwards to see what you started with. You should get an award for this. Nice.
OT:
Nature has a brief article on the ‘hacking’ episode, and their focus is more on the theft than the content.
Still a complete stone wall of silence here in Australia- no mention of the hacking at all from the ABC, whose elitism knows no limits. Perhaps the news gatekeepers are thinking, “Maybe if we ignore this it will just go away…”
Time will tell, and maybe at last the unsceptics’ time has come… or gone.
Anthony,
Thanks for posting Steve McIntyre’s new site. With all the monies spent less than a year ago doesn’t mean that it would take the hits that CA did the last couple of days took. I saw your graph on a earlier post here…I had to laugh! See, it’s “all” in the statistics! 🙂 The amount of hits had to be through the “Roof”!
I was bumping heads with a gov’t official once. An attorney told me that to a man, the people who end up working in gov’t positions are guys who went to college – not to get an education but because they wanted to get something to lord over others. In the environmental realm you have the added factor that they do it all with a gleam in their eye.
Gavin: “I hope that we’ve over-estimated climate sensitivity, that we’ve underestimated ocean uptake of CO2, that we’ve overestimated GHG growth rates, and that money grows on trees. Yet the science indicates that none of those things are likely to be true. That’s the difference between science and wishful thinking.”
I’m assuming that Gavin would not consider the possibility that climate sensitivity has been over-estimated anymore than he would consider the possibility that money grows on trees. That’s the difference between science and belief.
I just went over to Real Climate to see the comments about the E-mail leaks and how Gavin was responding to them… Here is an emotional one:
#703. I’m the daughter of scientist you all sharply criticized, discredited, and claimed his theories were washed up a few years back on this site, and I just want you to know your pain at the moment is my pleasure.
[Response: Sorry if we caused you any problem, but whether a scientific idea is valid or not is not a reflection on the quality of the person who proposed it. I would advise you to take scientific criticism less personally. – gavin]
I agree with everything that Dr Spencer has so succinctly stated.
The problem is that the duck season has ceased UFN. Don’t expect any of the MSM to come onside.
Unless the world weather noticeably disproves AGW in the next decade I am afraid the battle is going to be a long and drawn out one conducted in the forum battlefields of cyberspace such as this one.
All I can say is keep plugging away, keep it professional, keep it objective and have faith. If truth is on your side history will ultimately show you to be the real leaders in scientific understanding of our universe.
Wise words, Roy.
Pretty lame post.
Oh no they are eletists!!
Oh no they fly in jets!!
And eat good food!!
Oh My!!!
Anyway I could care less about their attitude. What I do care about is their ethics. You see these people are members of science organizations. Organizations that have ethics rules guiding how they behave. They are also faculty of Universities. Universities also have ethics rules. They are employed by government agencies. Again which have ethics rules.
Rather then pulling the “They are Elitists!” ploy why don’t you go after the fact that they conspired to run a dirty tricks campaign to block publication of critical science in the peer review literature?
I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a
legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate
research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also
need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently
sit on the editorial board…
What do others think?
mike
At 08:49 AM 3/11/2003 +0000, Phil Jones wrote:
You are a scientist Dr. Spencer, why don’t you file an ethics complaint rather then whine to us about elites?
I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong about all my views on manmade global warming.
LOL.
Year after year, the evidence keeps mounting that most climate research now being funded is for the purpose of supporting the IPCC’s politics, not to find out how nature works.
Name names! Of course you never do, on the advice of your lawyer, no doubt.
Don’t expect too much to come from this, at least in the short term. Sceptics already assumed something like this was going on as indeed it is. But politicians who have been banging on about having 50 days to save the world are not going to back off, it would make them look foolish. Outside the politicians we have what is little more than a religion with followers who won’t want to hear this, and will interprate the e-mails and documents in a benign manner because they want to believe humans are bringing about the destruction of the planet. My belief is that these documents will only be put into context when the politicians have finally grasped that, unbelievable as it may seem, there are a bunch of scientists who are prepared to manipulate data to give the impression that humans are destroying the planet. Their motive? I haven’t got a clue, and doubt if anyone else has. It could be the acquisition of money to fund their research, it could be blind fanatical environmentalism or it could be they’re enjoying their day in the sun. But to any reasonable person the extent of punishment, not just they, but all their colleagues in the climate science community will receive from the politicians once the penny has finally dropped, would discourage us from taking part in such outrageous behaviour. And it is this that will make the acceptance of these data difficult to swallow, the apparent lack of motive, and the fact that it is unbelievable that they haven’t taken the consequences of their actions into account.
It seems to me the e-mails also reveal:
(1) Members of The Team really do see themselves as a team. For example, there is an e-mail from one guy (Phil Jones?) where he talks about a friendly e-mail he received from Steve McIntyre. He suggests that Steve is being nice to him in an effort to undermine group solidarity.
(2) Members of The Team regularly engage in results-oriented reasoning. i.e. they start with the conclusion they want to reach and then work backwards. For example, there is an e-mail from one Team member (Gavin?) where he asks for help rebutting the latest “nonsense” from McIntyre while at the same time admitting that he does not understand McIntyre’s argument. Well, if he does not understand the argument then he should not automatically reject it.
A few of the CRU e-mails suggest that manipulation of climate data in order to reduce the signature of natural climate variations, and to exaggerate the supposed evidence for manmade climate change, is OK with these folks. Apparently, the ends justify the means.
It’s just ‘robust’ discussion between scientists that’s been taken out of context.
Shurley U. Jest!
.
.
Hopefully, we won’t be hearting about consensus in the scientific community any more after this played out. I mean not even in the MSM.
And Gavins efforts of damage control and playing this down at RC are pityful, and as you say essentially confirming their attitude and the gravity of the implied malfeasance.