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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Here in the UK “Climategate” is the top story on the TaxPayers Alliance website. Hopefully, they will get to the truth as to where and what our hard earned money has been squandered on.
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/
“This is the kind of conspiracy the deniers need to reveal to show that manmade climate change is a con. The hacked emails are a hard knock, but the science of global warming withstands much more than that.”
Whatever you think of his “email”, the moonbat is exactly right with his closing comment. What he probably doesn’t get, is its now time for to be a journalist and do the hard digging. We have been fortunate to tip over a rock and actually see the roaches scurrying away in broad daylight. It is now incumbent on every profesional journalist to begin to tip over rocks everywhere.
While we suspect, with good, but inconclusive evidence, that AGW is a con, there is also evidence for the sake of argument, that it is not. Skeptics need to be rigorous, thorough and relentlessly repetitive in their presentation of the counter-science to ensure that a) its valid, and b) everybody knows what the scientific truth really is.
Whatever “Moonbat’s” motives, the fact that this has now made it to the most left-wing of the mainstream British media is gratifying.
I watched most of “Newsnight’s” 15 minute slot, Fred Singer apeared to be very jet-lagged and the CRU’s Tom Watson did the standard defence, agreeing that enquiry was needed, but mostly to see how the “hack” occured.
The Strata-Sphere link is good, interesting as the e-mails are, both from the “Office Politics” and the pretty obvious response to the desire to shoe-horn the data to fit the theory and the desires of the politicians and the wish to bury some of it, it’s the data that’s been released that needs scrutinising. That data is showing quite clearly what has been suggested from the sceptical side of things, that there’s precious little evidence that there’s any major Anthropogenic component in any Global Warming.
Now, as to how far this is going to be taken is the moot point, as all of the mainstream political parties in the UK, are banking on getting a big chunk of money from “Green Taxes”, the EU’s banking on getting even more and I dare say that both the Republicans & Democrats are doing the same.
Throw out AGW and the voters will really start asking why they’re being taxed this way and it’s going to take very brave politicians to accept that it’s simply because they want the money!
Monbiot:
“which is to say that the evidence for man-made global warming is as strong as the evidence for Darwinian evolution, or for the link between smoking and lung cancer”
Huh? So Mr. Monbiot, show the evidence to me!
Monbiot:
“And could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the last two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence?”
Hmmm, maybe, just maybe, rapid growth of denial is due to lack of scientific evidence?
Anthony, did Monbiot actually apologise? The word “apologise” does not appear in his blog article. Nor does the word “trusting” etc.
If you have already responded to this above, I apologise, But I think you could be accused of misrepresenting him here..?
I wonder whether George has anything to say to Ian Plimer now…?
“J.Hansford (20:28:05:
Well, his lucidity only lasted half his article, before he slipped once more into moonbattery and was dragged into that dark place that consumes his reason;-)”
Indeed. This is what is known as a limited hang-out in PR terms. Admit and show contrition for a tiny, but ultimately meaningless, sub-set of whatever mistake has been made, and then continue as before as if nothing major has happened.
Only respond to a single and controllable sub-section of the information and, above all, do NOT get dragged into acknowledging the real significance of the mess!
As with all the “warmists,” they are only responding to a “few emails” even if they now are beginning to admit that some of them really do seem to mean what they say they mean.
What they have all refused to touch (with the proverbial barge pole) is the leaked code, the meta data and the comments in that data.
THAT is where the real damning evidence lays and that is what they are avoiding like the plague.
That data shows that the entire temperature reconstruction is extremely flaky at best, and completely unreliable and utterly worthless at worst.
The implication of that is that all the other “peer-reviewed” papers that use that temperature reconstruction are also now suspect and proof (alongside the admissions in the emails) that the peer-review process has utterly failed to stand up to the rigours of impartial science, and instead has been corrupted and this suggests, (or at least these people can not disprove that) it was used to validate papers based on conclusion, rather than the soundness of the actual scientific method or the soundness of the data used.
This is damning indeed, and for “eminent” scientists to attempt to cover this up, instead of actually deal with the issues, demonstrates that these people are wholly unfit to be the “guardians” of the AGW theory, or the scientific investigation thereof.
I wonder how many more times the hull of the good ship AGW can be holed below the water-line and yet still float?
The BBC Newsnight programme had Susan Watts saying “Some climate models have have suggested we may be in for a couple of decades of cooling. Others, like this one here at the Met Office, disagree. So if is no wonder that people can be confused abouts what’s going on and who to believe.”
Now I’ve heard the the “two decades of cooling” before but thought it was an opinion. Was she right, have some climate models be tourtured enough to give this result?
It’s a good idea not to take Monbiot at all seriously. He’s a character who lives in a black and white world flip-flopping between extremes (largely to feed his insatiable appetite for attention-seeking). Pretty much all of his journalese is infantile (including this piece).
Yesterday the Guardian was throwing all it had the the CRU scandal to try to rescue its beloved AGW agenda (and was savagely culling damaging comments from CiF). The newspaper [sic] brought in Mark Lynas – which was like presenting a red-rag to a bull, and then George Marshall – who was a laughing stock. Finally it hoiked in Monbiot to try to defuse the situation with this gimmick. It’s like the stuff coming out of pre-fall East Germany all over again. The BBC is pretty-much doing the same.
Opponents of the AGW scam need to remain ruthlessly focussed at all times.
Couldn’t the journalists just pretend they got hold of some classified Bush terrorist interrogation plans and go with it? Isn’t that what the New York Times did?
As far as I am concerned, this proved what everybody implicitly knew … All the errors never go one way in nature, without the helping hand of man.
Folks, the main point of that article is some rather heavy-handed sarcasm to demonstrate that the revelation of some ill-chosen words and alleged dodging of FOI of a few individuals does not bring down the entire thesis of AGW. This is not Monbiot deciding he’s been wrong for 20 years, but putting some perspective on the scale of the “problem”. A big dose of perspective would be my prescription, too.
Actually, I’m not even sure what he’s apologising for not investigating; as far as I’m aware from the summaries I’ve seen in the public domain (I’ve not looked at the files, nor do I intend to, given their provenance) the worst charge is that CRU got themselves into a siege mentality and were sometimes more concerned with defending the message than the science, and that their internal data management and software process have been pretty poor – and, evidently, their data security as well.
I’m not seeing anything that indicates, for example, that HADCRUT3 is not to be relied on. In fact, there’s a dog that’s not barking in the night here: we’ve been given an illicit view into the dirty laundry of one of the prime data sources and there’s nothing much to see beyond a bit of soup on someone’s tie. So in a way this gives me *more* confidence in that data, not less.
Put another way: Egg on face for some people, a major boost for those who have always argued the whole process should be open and easily verifiable by the public (that’s partly what WFT is about, of course), but in a month’s time, nothing much else will have changed.
Has anyone managed to read this item at the Telegraph ? i keep geetina page unavailable message
http://preview.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/6642426/Climate-change-data-leak-No-sign-that-slanging-match-is-cooling-off.html
Ditto for this link
http://http//www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6636563/University-of-East-Anglia-emails-the-most-contentious-quotes.html
He’s not serious guys. Come on, “The Knights Carbonic?” He’s equating the fake, (joke) email with the “victory” implied by the CRU emails. He’s still an ass.
I have to agree with others here, in that I wouldn’t trust Monbiot AT ALL. He isn’t a good journalist (not even adequate) and I feel sure that he is taking the p*ss. He’s written that piece to say ‘Look, it would have to be this bad before I give up’. PLEASE see him for what he is, just one look at his face tells you everything! It seems to me that many here have fallen for the ‘joke’. It isn’t even good reading, it’s just a silly p*sstake.
Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704779704574553652849094482.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle
A good selection of the e-mails.
Even the beeb can now publish them I guess
I think this is also about throwing Phil Jones under the bus – he is going to be the fall-guy. (Mann will also have to be a fall-guy).
This will allow them to say “it was just an over-eager researcher, he has resigned now, the science is still sound and settled.”
Interesting that the emails almost suggest Keith Briffa was going to be sacrificed before this. They all knew that Briffa’s Yamal couldn’t be defended so he was already on his way out.
Please change the misleading title of this topic, Monbiot isn’t apologizing, though the does think Phil Jones should resign.
Please change the misleading title of this topic, Monbiot isn’t apologizing, though he does think Phil Jones should resign.
Thus says the LORD,” Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the LORD. Jeremiah 17:5
Believing in the Almighty leaves me safely skeptical of everyone else including, hopefully, myself.
This is more like “I’m mad at you because you got caught” rather than “I’m mad at what you did”
Bill Illis (04:47:18) :
Shouldn’t that be ‘throw him off the sledge’ (in the hope of slowing down the wolves)?
I agree with the rest of your post, a very likely damage limitation strategy.
Who is responsible for the warming alarmist Google Ads on WUWT? Rather a disgrace, in light of all that’s happening. Someone needs to cancel that ad agreement.
Luke Warmer (04:34:39) :
You mentioned the Beeb, who continue to religiously ignore the growing storm over CRUgate.
They prefer to run this unbelievably risible item, in their quest to get the word “climate” in every story, whilst avoiding the real story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8375949.stm
I don’t suppose African conflict has anything to do with, say, religion, or the availability of vastly increased numbers of weapons, or the amount of corrupt money flowing around? No – its all to do with climate!
We need a thread on BBC Stupidity/Complicity in CRUgate…
I think Monbiot should resign after that terrible attempt at sarcasm.
” Hans Erren (04:48:43) :
Please change the misleading title of this topic, Monbiot isn’t apologizing, though he does think Phil Jones should resign.”
In his response to a posting by Sabraguy in
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists
George Monbiot says “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.”