UPDATED: related FOIA documents are now posted at the end of this story.
Posted on the American Spectator:
“Climate Gate” Development: CEI Files Notice of Intent to Sue NASA
By Chris Horner on 11.24.09 @ 9:46AM
Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies’ refusal – for nearly three years – to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding “ClimateGate” scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries’ freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer codes and other data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK’s East Anglia University.
All of that material and that sought for years by CEI go to the heart of the scientific claims and campaign underpinning the Kyoto Protocol, its planned successor treaty, “cap-and-trade” legislation and the EPA’s threatened regulatory campaign to impose similar measures through the back door.
CEI sought the following documents, among others, NASA’s failure to provide which within thirty days will prompt CEI to file suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia:
– internal discussions about NASA’s quiet correction of its false historical U.S. temperature records after two Canadian researchers discovered a key statistical error, specifically discussion about whether and why to correct certain records, how to do so, the impact or wisdom or potential (or real) fallout therefrom or reaction to doing so (requested August 2007);
– internal discussions relating to the emails sent to James Hansen and/or Reto A. Ruedy from Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre calling their attention to the errors in NASA/GISS online temperature data (August 2007);
– those relating to the content, importance or propriety of workday-hour posts or entries by GISS/NASA employee Gavin A. Schmidt on the weblog or “blog” RealClimate, which is owned by the advocacy Environmental Media Services and was started as an effort to defend the debunked “Hockey Stick” that is so central to the CRU files. RealClimate.org is implicated in the leaked files, expressly offered as a tool to be used “in any way you think would be helpful” to a certain advocacy campaign, including an assertion of Schmidt’s active involvement in, e.g., delaying and/or screening out unhelpful input by “skeptics” attempting to comment on claims made on the website.
This and the related political activism engaged in are inappropriate behavior for a taxpayer-funded employee, particularly on taxpayer time. These documents were requested in January 2007 and NASA/GISS have refused to date to comply with their legal obligation to produce responsive documents.
RELATED DOCUMENTS (PDF)
Hansen GISS Correction FOI Request
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This is another one of those rare occasions when I feel like standing up and cheering; Hooray!! Yeah! Hooray!!
(My wife is in the next room wondering what the heck is wrong with me!) 🙂
BTW I second the motion by Reed Coray.
“If legal, I would be willing to contribute money to fund CEI’s lawsuit against NASA GISS. How do I going about doing so? An internet “donation bucket” would be nice.”
Adam Sullivan (10:06:17) wrote :
“FWIW, having Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh bloviate over all of this is no help.
It doesn’t add to the weight of the arguments for science.
Both these fools are young earth creationists. So when they argue a scientific matter it allows those under attack to fire back with some effective ad-hominems.”
Adam, FWIW–that comment was nonsense on stilts.
As noted just above, Rush’s conduit to climate information is Dr. Spencer, who he occassionally interviews on his show.
@richard Henry Lee
‘Moreover, the President instructed agencies that information should not be withheld merely because “public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”’
My opinion is that this is intended to facilitate embarrassing, or worse, the previous administration. As with many lofty progressive ideals, it only applies to the “right” kind of person.
@pjtork “This specific case that using FORTRAN for textprocessing may be stupid, well, maybe.”
True story. I once told the old joke “What’s an engineer? An engineer is someone who writes a word processor in FORTRAN” to an engineer. Without so much as a smile he thinks for a moment and says in a thoughtful monotone “You could do that.”
I’m an old country girl who still loves lima beans and mustard along with a nice big chunk of ham hocks. And we are talking mustard that can get up and walk across your plate and spit in your eye! We put mustard on every bean we raised, canned, or cooked, including the beans that landed in venison chili. So I’ll take your chili and up the ante by putting a heaping teaspoon of nuclear mustard on it.
regarding the dispute between
Bart Nielsen (19:06:27) : and Adam Sullivan (10:06:17) :
Adam Sullivan wrote “FWIW, having Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh bloviate over all of this is no help.
It doesn’t add to the weight of the arguments for science. Both these fools are young earth creationists. So when they argue a scientific matter it allows those under attack to fire back with some effective ad-hominems.”
Bart Nielsen replied “Adam, FWIW–that comment was nonsense on stilts. As noted just above, Rush’s conduit to climate information is Dr. Spencer, who he occassionally interviews on his show.”
As Dr Spencer himself notes at http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php
“As I investigated religions other than Christianity, I became aware that many of them assume evolution to be true. The Bible was the only ‘holy book’ in which I could find a record of God’s creating the material universe from nothing! Next, the work of many historians revealed to me that the Bible is by far the most accurate and best-substantiated ancient book known to man. It truthfully portrays actual historical events and has been faithfully copied by scribes over the centuries so that what we have today in the Bible is, to a very high degree (within a percentage point or two), known beyond a shadow of a doubt to be the same as was originally written down by the authors. Furthermore, nothing in that two percent affects any of the major Bible teachings or events.” No “peer review” needed here!
The reason Dr. Spencer is right, and the Godless warmists are wrong, is that Dr. Spencer has seen the light, gotten Right with God, and become Divinely inspired in his good works. The warmist, atheistic, secular humanist group has created a new Godless religion. As Blaise Pascal said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” It follows as night follows day and as rain follows the plow that any so called religion such as AGW that has a Godless center can be nothing but evil. This battle isn’t about taxes, or scientific consensus, or whether there are a few intemperate scientists at an institution in Britain, or Republican versus Democrat political ideologies, but truly a battle between Good and Evil.
You ought to be getting raw data from satellite sites like the tree ring laboratory at the University of Arizona, and see if they match what the CRU scoundrels have in their computers.
Pamela Gray,
…nuclear mustard.
Would you like fallout with that?
What is it’s half-life?
It could also turn those away who may have been fencesitters who already don’t like Limbaugh or Beck. It can work both ways.
@Mark Hugoson (12:05:10) :
-SNIP- But having worked in Nuclear Power for 20 years, and knowing the Cosmic ray density is about 0.5 Rotegen per year…
and that after 100,000 R you have NO ORGANIC MATTER LEFT, I’d just pose this little question to Mr. Sullivan – The T Rex bones with “Soft Tissue”, what could their MAXIMUM AGE BE?
(Hint: It’s a simple division problem, and it comes up with a FACTOR of 1000
different from the “geological age”…)
—————
Hi Mark,
I’m afraid you are a little off base here.
One of the most highly radioresistant bacteria that’s known, Deinococcus radiodurans can apparently withstand an instantaneous dose of up to about 500,000 R with no loss of viability, and up to 1,500,000 R with 37% viability remaining. So, with these sorts of doses we’re talking some live viable organisms even – a far cry from total destruction of all organic matter. Just search on the organism’s name and you’ll find references.
There are other microorganisms and protozoa who’s LD 50/30 (50% of the population exposed dies within 30 days) is well over 100,000R and some as high as 300,000R. That’s an acute dose no less. This probably not the best reference, but was one I found with just a quick search: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=11&ved=0CAkQFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unscear.org%2Fdocs%2Freports%2F1958%2C%252013th%2520session%2520(Suppl.%2520No.17)%2F1958final-3_unscear.pdf&ei=5fUMS-6aNofGMePNgOEC&usg=AFQjCNE5MppjlFiOHPQK60Ptbz7rTBBuMw
It is truly incredible the extremes to which life can and has adapted.
The warmist, atheistic, secular humanist group has created a new Godless religion
Give it a rest. Some of us are atheist, secular and humanist, and not at all interested in AGW.
If you want to go fight Atheism, secularism etc, then fight an anti-Atheist forum to do so.
If you want to fight nonsense Science, then invoking the Deity is exactly the wrong way to do it. No-one involved in a serious discussion of science is going to pay any attention to someone with such obvious ulterior motives. You worry about the AGW crowd playing politics, and you play the religion card back. That makes you as stupid as them.
Fight their science with real science, nothing else.
Anthony,
An interesting legal take at Instapundit……
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/88954/
An FOIA request for the grant request papers for Mann at Penn State might prove fruitful.
Chris – God Bless you and CEI. When viewed in the rear view mirror at some point in the future, this will be a watershed moment in the fight against the political science AGW hypothesis.
Lysenkoism, eugenics, the Copernican dustup over the Church’s gaia-centric teachings…..all went down in flames. This will be no different.
Western prosperity – steadily improving living standards, per capita income, life expectancy, etc. – is directly tied to affordable, reliable energy. The left’s attack on fossil fuels is an attack on prosperity, perceived overconsumption, etc. Let us not forget that the hardest green left want to reduce the globe’s population in the worst possible way. Dramatically reducing energy use (via substituting high cost, unreliable “alternative” energy”) is nothing more than an attempt to reduce the planet’s population under the seemingly bulletproof shield of “saving humanity and the planet”. But the shield isn’t looking so bulletproof now, is it?
For readers not familiar with the concept of the environmental kuznets curve, please research it, so that more of the world is informed about the link between prosperity and improving environmental conditions. This is important, because after AGW has been sequestered in the dustbin of failed science, the hard green left is unquestionably going to cook up a new environmental catastrophe and start this racket all over again.
Quantum (19:22:47) :
True story. I once told the old joke “What’s an engineer? An engineer is someone who writes a word processor in FORTRAN” to an engineer. Without so much as a smile he thinks for a moment and says in a thoughtful monotone “You could do that.”
LOL! The response of the engineer is funnier than the original punch line!
Mooloo (02:24:46) :
Fight their science with real science, nothing else.
Exactly, but in order to win such a fight, one has to understand the enemy, and in this case the enemy is behaving as if they’ve created a new religion. By recognizing this, it might be easier to get more people involved, maybe even non-scientists.
“You worry about the AGW crowd playing politics, and you play the religion card back. That makes you as stupid as them.
Fight their science with real science, nothing else.”
Do people think that Dr. Spencer should take off his Intelligent Design hat, dumb himself down by putting on their “real science” hat, and fight the battle on their terms?
Do people think Dr. Spencer is that schizophrenic, or should pretend to be for tactical reasons?
Anthony! Thanks for this post. I had never visited CEI, but I had heard of them before. Today I visited tham and made a “helpful” suggestion about funding for their upcoming legal battles, if I get a reply, I’m in.
These are interesting times. Many kudos to you and yours as well. I posted on RC as well, asking them why no mention of this issue is on their site? I challenged them to post it and accurately depict CEI’s position, not their version of it and give their response in a balanced way. I’ll go back this afternoon and see if it made the cut and got posted, any takers on that bet?
Mark Hugoson (12:05:10) :
“Adam Sullivan (10:06:17) :
FWIW, having Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh bloviate over all of this is no help.
It doesn’t add to the weight of the arguments for science.
Both these fools are young earth creationists.”
What does it matter if they are “young earth creationists?” A young earth is no contradiction, since G-d created a functioning world, and even if something didn’t happen, it doesn’t mean that if the world were older it wouldn’t have. The science was built into the world, and so it works the same regardless of the age at which was created.
Example. the Lubavitcher Rebbe is a “young earther,” yet a book about his ideas on the subject, written by Arnie Gotfryd, has this written on the jacket by one “young earther” you may have heard of.
“What is science, what are its strengths, its limitations, and its lessons for humanity? This thought-provoking volume will help readers engage such questions through the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a great and thoughtful teacher. His penetrating insights illumine modern issues with timeless wisdom. – Arno Penzias, Nobel laureate in Physics “
Ad Hominem attacks are a tool of the Left.
Expose the code and bust the Anti-Trust Climate Team
Busted not Robust!
Shiny
Edward
Sorry, I forgot to post the link to ‘The Age’ (Melbourne) yesterday, @ur momisugly 14:15:41:
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/planet-approaching-point-of-no-return-experts-warn-20091124-jhes.html
Nice to see justice since it seems so rare.
M Prep
Hey while you’re at it Chris, sue NASA about those volumes of UFO-related documents they’ve been hiding for years. We all know there’s a MASSIVE CONSPIRACY among scientists to cover up the TRUTH! But of course, the secret council of behind-the-scenes liberal world leaders has an agenda: decimate our industrial capability throuh the “global warming hoax,” and then we will be a soft target for the invading alien colonists.
Why stop with NASA / GISS?