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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I have been thinking that regardless of the specific nature of the documents, I want to know from the “warmist” media, who are trying to play the ordeal down, WHAT is it about the data that makes them want to avoid the FOI in the first place?
Fox News net article up:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/24/john-lott-climate-change-emails-copenhagen/
ShrNfr (10:51:52) : “ I dislike getting political on a climate blog ”
Anthony is probably busy so I’ll mention this –
Under the title of the blog at the top of every page is this:
“Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”
… and if Obama isn’t one of the “puzzling things in life”, what is?
1257874826.txt
From: Phil Jones
To: Gil Compo
Subject: Re: Twentieth Century Reanalysis preliminary version 2 data – One other thing!
Date: Tue Nov 10 12:40:26 2009
The agreement between CRU and GISS is amazing good, as already know.
Whe know that. 🙂
Pam Gray,
“Hell, I got chips, dips, beer, and chilli on the cookstove”
GREAT LET’S ALL GO TO YOU PLACE!
Next up: Subpoena all documents whatsoever, dating back to 1988, from Michael Mann of “hockey stick” fame, no doubt cowering under his taxpayer-funded desk in Pennsylvania as we speak. Of course Hansen, Mann and their confreres –not to mention Briffia, Jones et al.– will have spent the weekend madly deleting files, shredding printouts, even stuffing dumpsters like ACORN has in California. But alas: Their phony papers are on record, citing if not revealing base data, statistical techniques, evaluative assumptions all in bulk. “Inadvertent loss” cannot be an excuse, and will therefore subject willful destroyers to penalties not limited to mere FOIA wrist-slaps. Can’t happen soon enough.
Adam Sullivan (11:14:10) : “Ahhhhhh. The “goto” statement.”
For those of us that started with FORTRAN II in the 1960s – 1978 was way too late. Bummer.
I don’t want to get in an argument about faith and science and the ill founded and unsupportable view that you can’t reject young earth creationism and be a man of faith. Take it up with the Pope and the Catholic church which represents a fair amount of self described faithful people yet supports the big bang theory and evolution. A good scientist can be a man/woman of faith. A good scientist can be an atheist. A good scientist can’t say the planet and universe are 5,000 years old without the sort of compelling evidence that we demand of CRU and GISS.
Point is that Limbaugh and Beck are speaking to people who are already predisposed to distrusting CRU and just about any other scientific orgnization commenting on AGW.
Look at the “Rules of the Game” pdf in the hacked files – you’re up against some tough minded ideologues who have no problem (and continually do) herding all critics into a single group and then pointing to assertions made by the likes of Beck as being irrational. That plays well to those who might otherwise ask critical questions of the alarmists.
@ur momisugly Cromagnum (09:41:45) : -SNIP- Is Obama’s Climate Czar Holdren involved? Is he in the emails CC?
——-
Hi Cromagnum,
Good question on your part! I’d say Obama Czar Holdren is certainly involved at least peripherally. No idea if he’s complicit, but he apparently is on quite friendly terms with the CRU ‘team’ and others associated with them here in the USA.
I searched the released emails for Holdren and got 6 returns. In the first, he’s emailing Michael Mann and Tom Wigley, passing them a copy, “for your entertainment” info where he’s apparently smeared a couple of his colleagues at Harvard and paper they published disputing Mann’s historical temperature reconstructions while championing Mann to the entire University (copied below).
I haven’t read all of the others thoroughly, but on first blush the CRU team appears to be cc’ing him on their efforts to rationalize the lack of warming in the past decade. In those emails it appears that they’re scrambling to fit the model assumptions used to their desired preconceived outcome, rather than trying to actually conduct any objective science.
You can search the released emails (and data? not sure) at:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/search.php
From these emails it seems fair to say that the CRU team and those associated here in the US trust Holdren to be ‘on their side’ and one of the boys so to speak.
——-
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:53:08 -0400
To: “Michael Mann” , “Tom Wigley”
From: “John P. Holdren”
Subject: Correspondence on Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas
views on climate
Michael and Tom —
I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in
the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my
“Harvard” colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows
concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium. The cover note to faculty
and postdocs in a regular Wednesday breakfast discussion group on environmental science
and public policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is more or
less self-explanatory.
Best regards,
John
Wow, this is getting right down to the nitty gritty now.
Fan-bloody-tastic !
*reaches for popcorn*
John K. Sutherland (10:37:38) :
It seems that there is a God, after all.
With a rather twisted sense of humor, it appears.
I am suspicious of Pamela’s chili. Some CO2 is too much CO2.
And the beer?
I posted on Real climate that beer is NOT carbon neutral. I am sure Schmidt deleted the post. Beer takes a lot of heat to roast the grain and heat to bring brewing temps. Schmidt had just posted that beer was C neutral.
Alcohol takes even more heat in the distilling process.
The Pros and Cons of global warming in Strasbourg
So then, since Thomas Paine was a (I think, sort of) deist, and was a main proponent of the American Revolution, we should just cancel the American Revolution and accept British rule again. It is either a fool who would refuse helpful allies such as Beck and Limbaugh, or more likely, a “warm monger” who, caught red handed, is attempting to undermine the effort to expose this great fraud on the American people.
My guess is the it is a “warm monger” fool.
P Walker: “CEI needs to get on it in a hurry , and loudly – as do we all . Despite climate change coming up in the PM ‘ s opening statement , no one asked any questions regarding the CRU brouha”
I wrote my two US Senators yesterday that in the light of these latest revelations a Congressional resolution be sent to the White House before the Copenhagen summit to prohibit any committment by the U.S. delegation. Both of my Senators are democrats (well Arlen Speter is only half a democrat) but I urge all others to get on the e-mails to your Senators – the house is a hopeless bunch of wafflers.
This is the best way to stop these criminals. Well done Chris.
The potential damages claims must be in the $10s of billions by now.
How about filing a TRO to stop GISS employees presenting anything at Copenhagen before it is independently audited and its connection to the CRU cluster**** of data fully analyzed ?? You might not get it, but it would be heard pretty soon, I think.
The Guardian is reporting that the University of East Anglia plans to investigate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/24/climate-professor-leaked-emails-uea
I don’t know about British law, but here in the US, that’s a conflict of interest. The University has incentive to show their CRU to be innocent. An independent entity needs to hold that investigation.
I had exactly this happen to me several years ago. I awarded a small research contract to a university. The professor’s reports showed clear evidence of plagiarism. When I called them on it, the school closed ranks to protect their own and demanded: “What part of your Statement of Work was not performed?” I dropped the issue and never gave them another contract.
@ur momisugly Jason (09:42:25)
Jason, its not political and its crucial that this is followed thru. Exposing political advocacy and bogus science masquerading as actual science is crucial, particularly when its this massive, pervasive, and has such worldwide consequences. These guys have perverted science. Literally trillions of dollars, human lives, standards of living, and wellbeing are affected by much of their ‘work’ and how it has been propagated throughout the entire body of scientific work on climate change and IPCC reports and results.
With the release of this information, literally every scientific paper these people released, every paper they were peer reviewers of, every chapter or part of IPCC documents and reports they were significantly involved in preparing (a number of them are lead authors no less) are ALL worse than worthless and meaningless in scientific terms. The only way any of that body of work has any scientific meaning is if other totally independent scientists eventually are able to verify and validate the data and methods of each and every piece.
Scientifically speaking, and for the whole AGW camp, Its a house of cards and much of the foundation was just yanked completely out. Unfortunately (a gross understatement) the billions of dollars governments and companies have invested in this house of cards will likely manage to prop it up and continue the fraud on the people of the world. THAT,S the political aspect of this, not the released emails and resulting legal action that will ensue.
The only way to get to the bottom of this is through legal avenues. Even with legal action its going to be difficult to fully expose what occurred as these people make it quite clear in their emails to each other that they are willing to destroy data and any incriminating emails or correspondence.
Many kudo’s to CEI and I hope they (and others!) drastically expand the scope and/or number of suits they file against the various individuals and organizations based on the information released last week.
Good luck. I suspect shredders have been running overtime at these agencies.
Schmidt and Hansen have been relatively unscathed by ClimateGate up to now. CEI’s suit should put them into the dung heap along with the rest of the scoundrals.
Reporter David Robinson is very worried about CRU’s lack of comment on Steve McIntyre’s Yamal findings just prior to the Copenhagen meetings:
Oct 19th, 2009 email:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1059&filename=1256214796.txt
Upset at the Spectator’s coverage of the Yamal-Briffa affair they are suggesting that the Specator’s reporting suggests CRU fraud and ask that the Spectator be “vigorously” pursued. They emphasized – again and again – that only peerreviewerliterature should be considered in evaluating the Yamal affair.
[At the moment, I doubt that case would go very far.]
chainpin,
Thanks for the link! :-]
Adam Sullivan (10:06:17)
D Caldwell (11:03:27)
Archonix (11:18:35)
__________________________
I feel fortunate to live in a society where most try respect the beliefs of others. From the perspective of all that is, has been and will be, there is not much difference between an earth described in Genesis or one described in a modern text of geology.
I have difficulty, however, with those who try to impose beliefs on others, such as Warmistas.
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. So when they argue a scientific matter it allows those under attack to fire back with some effective ad-hominems.
————————
I don’t know about Beck. But I’m rather sure Limbaugh has NEVER addressed “Young Earth Creationism”.
I’m not an advocate of that myself. 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”…)
On the Channel 4 news tonight there was an item on the CRU emails. To my amazement, all the main players denied any wrongdoing whatsoever, declared that global warming is “an undeniable fact”, and that quotations from the emails were taken out of context, and accused the “deniers” of confusing the public, and said the public “wouldn’t understand” the science supporting global warming which is why they released information in the way they did in the first place.
Prof. Jones at the CRU also issued a statement that he has no intention of resigning, and the UEA declared in a separate statement that they still support him.