From Andrew Bolt, my “mate” down under at the Herald Sun, comes this surprise. I’ll have to say, it is to George Monbiot’s credit to do this. I embrace his first statement, because it succinctly sums up the situation:
It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging(1). I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.
– George Monbiot on his personal blog
George seems to realize that, “it’s worse than we thought”.
From Andrew Bolt:
Even George Monbiot, one of the fiercest media propagandists of the warming faith, admits he should have been more sceptical and says the science now needs to be rechecked:
It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.
Sure, Monbiot claims the fudging of what he extremely optimistically puts as just “three or four” scientists doesn’t knock over the whole global warming edifice, yet…
If even Monbiot, an extremist, can say that much, why cannot the Liberals say far more? And will now the legion of warmist journalists in our own media dare say as Monbiot has so belatedly:
I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely.
Scepticism is the essential disposition of our craft, yet too many journalists have abandoned it. Remember: the opposite of sceptical is gullible.
UPDATE: Here’s the screencap from Monbiot’s blog on the Guardian:
Click to see the original.
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Herr Moonbat is to be trusted about as far as you can throw a full grown bull by the tail.
To PASKMP those are the two items that I tried to link to earlier but the article by Geoffrey Lean has disappeared from the online edition of the Telegraph,perhaps it was too dreary to leave there? Lean is not very good and his comment section gets a lot of abuse . Sorry to take up space in this column but it is strange to see how the Telegraph are handling this matter.I must try to get hold of a print version of that newspaper.
Apology? I can find no link to Monbiot actually writing the alleged apology….only to Andrew Bolt’s saying he apologized.
Can anyone give a valid reliable source link to Monbiot’s actually sayoing or writing this and not just another mirror quoting the Bolt piece?
REPLY: It is in the link to Monbiot’s blog here, as well as posted above. Broaden your reading.
Since you aren’t the first who can’t find it, I’m going to post a screencap in the body of my article – Anthony
Re: woodfortrees (Paul Clark) (08:53:13) :
Paul – Love your site.
Have you had a chance to look at the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file yet ? You were the first person I thought of when I started sifting through this information.
http://di2.nu/foia/HARRY_READ_ME-0.html
http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=118625&page=15
R
RE: Daryl M (20:36:03) :
Wow, wonders never cease.
I previously gave Monbiot some credit based on the portion in this post, but after reading his full apology, I take it back. The garbage he posted about “The Knights Carbonic” is a joke, and a particularly bad one at that.
not important (03:13:12) :
Well done!
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to get the gag 😉
DaveE.
It’s sincere. As was my apology to him.
“Moonbat doesn’t honestly believe that what he was doing was journalism, does he?” PaulH
Sadly, probably so. A poll of those studying for journalism indicated that many (most?) were entering the profession to “save the world”.
The banksters are driving the world insane.
Re: Hans, Moonbat and others who lack the ability of a useful open mind (i.e.Scientific Research).
ALL of the clown ‘scientists’ who participated in this fraud would not have gotten even an honorary degree in any decent university…
Everything they have said, printed, decimated, codified is NOT Trustworthy and we can choose to accept ALL This BS or we can put our Critical Thinking Caps on.
Moonbat is Very wrong… (maybe he should write novels)
1) There is a ‘consensus’ from thousands of respected scientists that AGW is not now, nor ever was an issue.
2) The Earth’s Climate has always been in a constant state of change. Man and his SUV’s have absolutely Nothing to do with this.
3) Any time a Scientist / Organization says the ‘Science is Settled’ you know you have a fraud at hand –
4) If the ‘Settled Science’ can not be replicated – For Any Reason – your case is an Unsubstantiated Theory.
5) The public education (propaganda machine) seems to have neutralized the critical thinking abilities of many in the world.
6) We owe an eternal debt of gratitude to Anthony Watts, Steve McIntire, and the many other Real Scientists in the world who have researched and verified that AGW is a fraud.
7) We need to support opposition media worldwide to support thoughtful discussion and the critical thinking that hopefully leads to the truth.
Thanks.
woodfortrees (Paul Clark) (08:53:13) : … I’ve not (yet) seen anything that suggests that (paraphrasing) “the programs and databases no longer show that there have been unprecedented rises in the latter half of the twentieth century” –
Paul Clark you have got it very wrong I will explain later in this post.
….So I’m not saying this doesn’t look bad for those involved, but I don’t see how it can be extrapolated into “imminent doom of AGW theory”, which many seem to be doing. I think that was the point of Monbiot’s article, but I agree with someone earlier that he could take some lessons in satire from Swift, or even Python…
I dont think that the point (or the only point) of Monbiot’s article was that “The AGW theory” was not in imminent doom. He was appalled by the deception and manipulation carried out by Phil Jones and others and he called for Phil Jones to resign. There is no satire or sarcasm in that.
The “trick” in “hiding the decline” does not refer to hiding a decline in the temperature records as many here and even you have wrongly concluded. No no..
The proxy tree records (as manipulated by Briffa) show rock steady temperatures for the past 2,000 years but decline after 1960. They do not agree with the temperature records!
Problem! Now what should we do?
Throw out the lot? Hell NO! We will just keep the part (the last 2 thousand years that wipes out the medieval warm period and little ice age and shows dead steady temperatures like our previous discredited hockey stick) and overlay it with “actual” temperature data, from 1960, which we control anyway, to show a new “peer reviewed” study that confirms the hockey stick.
That’s a nice “trick” which “hides the decline”.
So coming back to your last point. “I don’t see how it can be extrapolated into “imminent doom of AGW theory”, which many seem to be doing”.
You first have to define “the AGW theory”.
If “the AGW theory” means humans are causing CO2 to rise which may cause some, as yet undetermined rise in temperatures, which are so far undetected amongst the natural rises of the past, then yes, you are right.
But then this didnt require any proof or falsification.
If “the AGW theory”, as meant by the alarmists, means a catastrophic and inexorable rise in temperatures due to this small increase in the CO2 extent of our atmosphere, then yes this requires a very rigorous “proof”, specially if the “cure” to this, as alleged and part of this theory, means committing trillions of dollars of tax payers money, debt and economic hara-kiri.
In this regard if it is found that a small coterie of scientists, who espouse this theory and who have extraordinary influence on the IPCC and thus policy matters and purse strings of the govt, are colluding with each other to keep contrary evidence from being published and apparently engaging in fixing data, then it is natural that doubts be raised and at the very minimum a full and fair enquiry be launched to find the truth of the matter.
Kevin Trenberth: “..The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t…”
Mr Kevin Trenberth who was the lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 Scientific Assessment of Climate Change reports for the IPCC is totally flummoxed by the lack of warming, yet the politicians claim that the science is settled and we must commit to a suicidal battle against this uncertain and possibly imaginary AGW foe.
Wow, part one and part two of that article don’t seem to go together at all.
1) A grand conspiracy doesn’t require all participants to know, or understand, or even be aware that there is a master plan. Those who seek to secure more power always offer protection in exchange for freedom. These useful idiots (as Stalin would’ve used the term) simply found what they were paid to find by those who always seek to attack liberty.
2) Please begin to chant the new mantra; academic dishonesty calls for dismissal, revocation of credentials, and a thorough public review of all published materials, peer reviewed or otherwise.
A mia culpa on the part of these people is not enough. They’ve lost all scientific credibility and need to be run off. Time to storm the castle of academia.
I apologise. I was too trusting … I would have been a better journalist if …
Journalists shouldn’t trust. Start with the first person you see in the morning – in your bathroom mirror. You might be able to trust that person with a healthy dose of skepticism; as for the rest, the only thing you can trust is that everyone you meet is out to use you due to the nature of your profession. You can then choose to either be a useful idiot or a thorn in the side.
PS
woodfortrees (Paul Clark) (08:53:13) : … I’ve not (yet) seen anything that suggests that (paraphrasing) “the programs and databases no longer show that there have been unprecedented rises in the latter half of the twentieth century”
The programs and databases could never show “unprecedented rises in the latter half of the twentieth century”. The rises in the latter half of the twentieth century would only be “unprecedented”, if they are COMPARED with something else previously. That is where the manipulation comes in
RichG (09:20:19): I’ve seen snippets of the “Harry” file but I’m still very uncomfortable with the idea of reading it in full; as (as you’ve realised) a fellow programmer I don’t think I’d like my internal coding diaries to be splashed all over the place. From the snippets I’ve seen it’s clear CRU have had / do have a problem with data standards, metadata and change control – but given the fact they are dealing with global historical data from many different disciplines, that doesn’t surprise me. Change control is an issue even for small companies working on their own products!
Richard (10:09:33): I agree Monbiot wasn’t been sarcastic in his horror and call for resignation; he is no doubt aware of the damage this is doing to the image, if not the fact, of climate science.
I think I’m also quite clear about what the “trick” applied to. It was way of linking the proxy data (which had known problems after 1960, documented by the authors, presumably for some technical reason – I don’t know why) with the harder data from direct measurement. My understanding (admittedly from RC) is that this was for a specific *illustration* – not a paper, not a dataset. Although this has got all the attention it seems the weakest charge of all, actually. We programmers talk about tricks and magic and even ‘hiding’ all the time; it doesn’t mean it’s fakery.
My key point here is not to argue that everything at CRU is/was as clean as driven snow – it probably wasn’t – but that I don’t see any direct effect on the core datasets that I’m most concerned with, and it doesn’t really change anything fundamental.
What it does, do, though, is hugely strengthen the argument for all the data and algorithms to be public domain so that this phony ‘war’ evaporates – no more need for either FOI requests or mis-conceived attempts to avoid them. So I can see some good coming of this eventually…
Er, the George Mooonbat that I read (at http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/23/the-knights-carbonic/ and again on the Guardian website) is nothing of the sort, he has sucked everyone in and played with them, tongue in cheek, as usual.
He says
QUOTE:
“They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence.”
END QUOTE:
which is to significantly underplay the extent of the revelations.
He then says he has received an email which confirms it all as one great hoax.
The email is one he has constructed along the lines of the Da Vinci Code.
This was not an appology, it was business as usual.
Let me ofer a quote:
“He who is convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”
It will take and actual ice age to get Moonbat to apologise for anything and even then it will still be just a “blip” in man made global warming.
woodfortrees (Paul Clark) (04:18:55) :
so in your estimation, these “scientists” are guilty of nothing more than having soup on their collective tie?
Money laundering and tax evasion . . . at least don’t begin to call their scientific methodology and pronouncements into question.
As to the rest;
The mere act of attempting to squelch dissenting opinion certainly begins to do so. A published rebuttal is the only form of dissertation in this forum. Academic threats have always been the scourge of the honest scientist.
The act of colluding to avoid what amounts to legal subpoenas certainly rises to the level of a crime, and in effect is a tacit admission of academic dishonesty. Why on earth would you hide data if your results could be verified?
Now, if you want to imply that these emails are nothing more than academic banter, go ahead, but disabuse yourself of the notion that normal people are going to see it that way. And be aware; your defense of this type of activity would tend to incriminate your ethical perspective, if not you directly.
At the point they began to openly discuss data manipulation (by the way, the meta data doesn’t seem to back up their ‘taken out of context’ alibi), any credibility they had disappears. And as to Monbiot’s notion that there are ‘several hundred lines of evidence’ whose veracity is not hereby called into question, I am proceeding from here to his web-site to throw down a challenge; find me ten INDEPENDENT contemporary lines of evidence for continued AGW. I am not sure there has been any independent research on the topic since about 1992.
P. Jones, M. Mann, et al: Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect your grant money–oh and BTW, apologize to your respective parent institutions for damaging their credibility.,
“It was the first shot in what has now been dubbed “The Aga Wars”. Earlier this year, the environmentalist George Monbiot launched his Campaign Against Agas, claiming that these much-loved cast iron behemoths annually pump nine tons of carbon dioxide into the air. ”
Just a touch of levity in this debate,but Moonbat must be looking for a new job …in the kitchen appliance field 🙂
NB To our American pals, Agas are very large cast-iron cookers which are an institution over here and you ahve not lived until you have experienced the joy of owning one.
OK back to the fray
I take that back and apologize for my oversight; there’s been no independent research supporting AGW since about 1998.
The fiddler’s three (or four, I lose count) who together discredited Mann et al, run Climate Audit, and this web-site have been doing what real scientists have always done; following the data where it leads them. Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Pat Micheals, (who am I missing here) There are others as well; Lindzen, Pielke, Schwartz, Spencer, Jack Eddy (still looking for that infinitely complex interface chord, only now from On High), and many others who deserve much gratitude from us laymen for their adherence to a higher purpose, and the ability to shun the disapproval of established academia.
I apologize for the slight in my former post.
Further; I highly recommend that if you support the work these people do, and are in a position to afford to do so; contribute to their sites; WUWT and Climate Audit. (and no, I am not affiliated in any way shape or form).
Man in a Shed (01:49:33) :
Monbiot WAS a radical who was passionately pro enviironment and anti globalisation. So were the Nazis. He has said he is neither socialist or anarchist. In other words he isn’t left wing. His family are descended from French aristocracy and are very senior, establishment right wing politicians.
If he had even an ounce of integrity, he wouldn’t have spent the last year being paid by the Guardian to call readers ‘deniers’ or ‘astroturfers’. Apart from being infantile, his credibility is now zero.
***********
@Eric Smith – quite honestly I find the idea that Monbiot is a closet corporate lackey very unlikely indeed.
He a genuine pain in the rear leftie as far as I can tell, who clearly, and as some considerable shock to many of us, has some integrity.
First point:
From: Tom Wigley
To: Keith Briffa
Subject: Re: Nature: Review of manuscript 2005-12-14395
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:45:26 -0700
Keith,
Thanx for this. Interesting. However, I do not think your
response is very good. Further, there are grammatical and
text errors, and (shocking!!) you have spelled McKitrick
wrong. This is a sure way to piss them off.
They claim that three cores do not cross-date for TRW.
They also say (without results) that the same applies to MXD
(these results may be in their Supp. Mat. — I presume you
checked this).
So, all you need say is …
(1) TRW was not the only data used for cross-dating.
(2) When MXD is used there are clear t-value peaks,
contrary to their claim. You can show your Fig. 4 to prove
this.
(3) The 3-core-composite cross-dates with other (well-dated)
chronologies (Yamal and Polurula), confirming the MXD-based
dating. You can show your Fig. 5 to prove this.
You could say all this in very few words — not many more than
I have used above. As it is, your verbosity will leave any reader
lost.
There are some problems still. I note that 1032 is not cold in Yamal.
Seems odd. Is it cold in *all* of the three chronologies at issue?
Or did a reindeer crap next to one of the trees?
Also, there seems to be a one-year offset in the 1020s in your
Fig. 6.
I hope this is useful. I really think you have to do (and can do) a
better job in combatting the two Ms. If this stuff gets into Nature,
you still have a chance to improve it. Personally, I think it would
be good for it to appear since, with an improved response, you can
make MM look like ignorant idiots.
Tom.
It may be time to take Tom Wigley off your Christmas list.
Someone needs to ask Monbiot, after all of the papers that these scientists have been involved with have been trashed, what is left to support AGW?
Hi all,
I think Anthony, you are being far too generous to the Moonbat here. Speaking as a brit (& please please please my american friends don’t take this the wrong way) I think Monibot does not actually mean a word of it and this is a typically british smug satire that he thinks the ‘elites’ will ‘get’ but the ‘brain dead sceptics’ will not.
He thinks he has written a Ricky Gervais style piece (Gervais can get away with saying some quite extraordinary thing by virtue of inflection and verbal skill) but actually he has written a clumsy attempt at parody that would have Alan Coren spinning in his grave. Hence the confusion. He is just not a good enough writer to pull it off. Therefore the ‘apology’ looks too genuine and the sarcasm at the end too heavy handed..he muffed it up basically.
Moonbat writes for the Guardian and that paper is staffed by many of the same ilk…ie self loathing upper middle class champagne socialists that complain alot whilst enjoying the opportunity to live a less than productful life. Whilst complaining constantly about the need to ‘look after the poor’ one finds they actually never get to meet ‘the poor’ as they would never live on a council estate in a major city as that would mean actually mixing with the great unwashed. Thier restaurents are trendy bistro’s with prices to keep the factory workers away, and they send their children to the best schools by virtue of having the finances to move to better areas.
We have lots of these in the UK. Its the same mentality that says its ok to go treking in Vietnam but a bunch of lads going to Prague for a weekend should not be allowed. He is a pseudo intellectual snob and is a classic example of the type of person that makes one think the Khymer Rouge and the Bolsheviks may actually have been onto something…
” I’ll have to say, it is to George Monbiot’s credit to do this.”
No it isn’t.
He’s just a rat preparing to abandon a sinking ship.
I am skipping to the end of the comment thread so as to offer my two cents of acknowledgment to George Monbiot. He has demonstrated the most difficult of human emotions – the dispensing of pride. If you consider the vehement rants that Monbiot has directed against skeptics and “deniers” – this about face takes enormous courage.
To call for Dr. Jones to resign is exactly correct. But Jones does not get to skip town on a pardon. His subterfuge has caused irreparable harm to human civilization in its attempt to extort funds from governments to manufacture a global government. For this he and others who colluded must be held responsible.
Thank you Mr. Monbiot for doing the most difficult, but right thing.