Excerpts from the Telegraph:
A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraph blog, coined the term “Climategate” (Note: Delingpole reports via email he got it from WUWT, commenter Bulldust coined the phrase at 3:52PM PST Nov 19th – Anthony) to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.
The reason why even the Guardian‘s George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Professor Philip Jones, the CRU’s director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC’s key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.
Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.
Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.
Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the “hockey stick” were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann’s supporters, calling themselves “the Hockey Team”, and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.
…
There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre’s blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt’s blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.
Read the complete essay at the Telegraph
Booker’s article is the best summary of the leaked materials and their implications. It will stand scrutiny from anyone reading the raw material. Send it to everyone you can think of: in government, in MSM, in academia, in your social circles. If the MSM won’t deal with this, then we have to. “Viral” commuincation can make a difference if everyone does their part. Investigations are being launched in the UK and US, but they will only have legs if it is clear that people are paying attention and give a hoot.
Expat in France:
You say “It’s truly unbelievable how apparently intelligent people can take all this on board without question, or batting an eyelid – are they aware of the possible consequences? Do they care?” They either suspend belief or are just born liars, so it’s not unbelievable. It’s the politics of lie, lie, lie.
Climate Change Research:
Institutions Ranked by Citations
http://sciencewatch.com/ana/fea/09novdecFea/
PhilW (01:29:14) :
“Maybe it’s time to give Nick Griffin our support, he’s off to Copenhagen…..”
For the information of those non-UK visitors to this blog, Griffin leads a racist party of the far right. As a sceptic I would strongly suggest shunning him and his views. I hope that PhilW was being ironic – but remember many Americans don’t do irony!
Regards
Expat in France stated that a prominent AGW pusher said, ““although temperatures over the last 10 years may have shown cooling, over the last 100 years, they have been rising”. She simply cannot get the fact that the data has been so manipulated – and we cannot check it now against the original data – that we DON’T KNOW if it has been rising or not or by how much if it has. That’s the problem.
Hat trick – more tricks
UEA and CRU have not, it seems, stopped their tricks. Here, at the bottom of their recent release, are two graphs. The first graph was prepared for the WMO and it shows three separate proxy temperature reconstructions (from Jones et al, Mann et al, and Briffa et al) smoothly spliced to the proper thermometer record. The second looks like it has been prepared in a hurry… separating the coloured proxy curves from the black temperature curves.
Superimpose the second graph on the first to glimpse the differences
Home in closer – the first is to “hide the decline” but – oops – it’s clearly there in all recons when the thermometer records are separated out.
Home in still closer to count six tricky tricking tricks.
(1-3) Each proxy record starts to show a decline from 1960 on, the red (Jones), the blue (Mann), the green (Briffa).
(4) The splices used in the original graphs SOAR up to year 2000 – to outdo both the proxies and the thermometer record. [snip]
(5) The original is said to be anomalies from 1961-1990 baseline. But when we see the 1961 and 1990 lines, the baseline looks way off. [snip]
(6) There are TWO black temperature lines. The notes say instrumental temperatures (annual & summer in black) shown separately but summer temperatures should be consistently higher than annual, not criss-crossing as here. [snip]
Reply: You know better Lucy. ~ ctm
The EU sending Nick Griffin, an obvious racist and as it happens also a skeptic, is clearly an attempt at ‘slander by association’. This may be OT as it is obviously the political side vs the science side, but if people finally decide to have a closer look and it ends up coming from that guy, it will be the last look most will ever take.
I think it is very important to call this one for what it is, and do so early.
Pingo: don’t watch, it’s bad for the blood pressure. There are far better things for you to do. Comment on the Telegraph site and show support for Christopher. Email your MP. Complain to the BBC.
The kingpins of AGW Science have been shown up to no good.
Now, the World+Dog is getting it: The wheels came off the hayride.
If the IPCC & UN try to run thier Carbon Emission scheme, the foundations of such are known publicly to be based on monkeybusiness.
All claims of legitimacy are shot.
A lot of people who have hitched their wagons to AGW are in for a very rough ride and ruination.
Martin Brumby:
I’ve written to my MP (LibDem) suggesting he put my name forward to sit on the inquiry (based on two physics degrees, experience of Fortran since mid 60s and extensive knowledge of scientific methodology and quality management systems). Based on experience of the real world of politicians, expectation = zero.
Phillip Bratby (00:29:51) :
”But the BBC remains largely silent on the issue. ”
Yes, and, as Graham says above, there is now talk (in Daily Mail) of them suspected of suppressing the story.
Another Telegraph, author Damian Thompson today discusses it as a suspected suppression of the story:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100018211/climategate-the-bbc-is-still-pretending-not-to-notice/
But these reporters may have this wrong…
Remember the BBC’s Paul Hudson who wrote blogged ‘Whatever happened to global warming?’ 9 Oct?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/10/whatever-happened-to-global-wa.shtml
Well, last Tuesday Hudson made the claim that he had seen some of the emails that involved criticism of his story long before 17 Nov.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/
His language is not entirely clear about what he got, and then what happened at the BBC. Anyway, it appears to me that all he is saying is that he can authenticate some of the email – at least in the sense that he can find matches to the ones he was Cc-ed at the time.
It looks like these guys got it wrong…but not on lame coverage by the BBC and the real possibility that Hudson has been told to claim busy and leave coverage to his Alarmist colleagues.
Stoic (02:02:33) :
For the information of those non-UK visitors to this blog, Griffin leads a racist party of the far right. As a sceptic I would strongly suggest shunning him and his views.
I think that the incoming Conservative government has only one term to fix this labour mess and then people will start voting for extreme right wing parties in their droves.
Griffins policies also include leaving the EU and leaving NATO and he accepts that Global Warming is a hoax, all of which I would agree with at the moment. But yes they are still a racist party so do not have mainstream support, but in 5 years time, who knows.
@Stoic. And as Baldrick put it,steelery either 🙂 But back to business, the LA Times fails to mention Climategate in their edition Sat 28th but they do have a rant about nuclear power in which they continue to rattle on about climate change as if nothing has happened in the past weeks .This is an editorial no less.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-nuclear28-2009nov28,0,5919110.story
sorry ctm, I thought that one was ok, shall not do it again.
Neil Hamilton does a full page critique of the global warming scam in todays Sunday Express.
Pingo and other Brits
According to Lord Monckton in an interview on the Roy Green Show yesterday (Nov 28), he was supposed to be opposite the Green Party head. Apparently, after she heard he was going to be sitting across from her, she refused to appear. In their spineless way, they told him he would not be on, instead of her. He now says he refuses to pay a licensing fee to BBC and told them to have him arrested if they wish.
You can listen to it on the CKNW audio vault. (http://www.cknw.com/other/audiovault.html), He was on sometime after 1 p.m. I caught the last couple of minutes and haven’t listened to the full interview yet. Lawrence Solomon is on immediately afterwards.
I’ve read the terms which usually accompany federal grants and contracts back in the day when I worked in a university environment. I’m going to be watching to see if any of “The Hockey Team” start lawyering up. There could be some serious criminal wrongdoing revealed in what some of the hacked/leaked documents reveal, to the extent the work was conducted under the auspice of US federal grants and contracts.
Credibility Lost
Once lost it can never return. Which is bad news for CRU, GISS and Al Gore etc.
However it is very good news for those of us who seek the truth.
The climate models are the work of the people who have just lost their credibility.
Therefore, the climate models are finished in their current format.
Now a new debate can begin. The difference being CRU,GISS and Al Gore etc. will not be part of it.
So given the enormous and sudden interest in all things climate, I suggest each WUWT-regular commenting on blogs around the world add a reference or two to a reputable item or report for the new lookie-loos to follow up on.
For example, it continues to get cold over the Arctic Ocean each NH winter season and ice still forms. Send them to the two side-bars posted here on WUWT.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Peter Hitchens in the mail on Sunday, Uk.
The inconvenient truths Mr Gore and his fanatical friends DIDN’T tell you about climate change.
Theres also a quite a long article on the coments page of the Sunday Express, UK. But I cant find it online. Perhaps some one who is more web savvey than me can.
Iv’e left both links to Hitchens, one I grabed myself, the other came free with the Headline
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1231694/The-inconvenient-truths-Mr-Gore-fanatical-friends-DIDNT-tell-climate-change.html#ixzz0YFR8uNIi
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1231694/The-inconvenient-truths-Mr-Gore-fanatical-friends-DIDNT-tell-climate-change.html
Too much excitement, forgot the authers name in the Sunday Express. It’s Niel Hamilton
“According to Lord Monckton in an interview on the Roy Green Show yesterday (Nov 28), he was supposed to be opposite the Green Party head. Apparently, after she heard he was going to be sitting across from her, she refused to appear. In their spineless way, they told him he would not be on, instead of her. He now says he refuses to pay a licensing fee to BBC and told them to have him arrested if they wish.”
Shameful of Caroline Lucas, shameful of the BBC.
Same old story then.
Evasion of honest debate seems to be one of the hallmarks of these scammers.
PS Philip – I have emailed Hillary Benn, my local MP. I suggest all Britons do the same via the Find Your MP website. Make your voice count.
The battle is huge amidst media blackouts, complete silence by large sections of the press, even Google cencoring their search engine and Wikipedia giving the Realclimate version of “hiding the decline” and locking further editing – so much for it being The “Free” Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
They do say “This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.
This protection is not an endorsement of the current version. See the protection policy and protection log for more details. Please discuss any changes on the talk page; you may use the {{editprotected}} template to ask an administrator to make the edit if it is supported by consensus. You may also request that this page be unprotected. “
“The EU sending Nick Griffin, an obvious racist and as it happens also a skeptic, is clearly an attempt at ’slander by association.”
Well debrieul, skeptics have already been associated with the far right in some eyes. I remember a recent newspaper article which contained the assertion that Conservative MEP’s were busy making alliances with the “Far Right” and “Climate change deniers.” Although it might be obvious that the Far Right and Skeptics are two different groups, they are seen as the same in many peoples eyes. Having beaten back the charges of “Moon landing deniers” skeptics now have to beat off the charges of being Far Right – whatever that means.
Booker is an excellent journalist and good communicator who exposes new and interesting stories every week. He has close associations with the EUReferendum blog which started as a forum for people wanting a referendum on the EU and where a researcher called Dr Richard North and his colleague Helen S. provides detailed news on the EU, the military and climate. Dr North also is a researcher for various members of Parliament.
I visit only two blogs; WUWT and EUReferendum and find this keeps me better informed than reading newspapers.
The bad news is that Booker and North are often shunned by the rest of the MSM. I do not fully understand why this happens, perhaps it is that they are too truthful and that others are jealous, I do not know. It sometimes feels that there is a conspiracy amongst the media not to take up the stories he and Richard find, that said Booker and EU Referendum have many influential friends. They never give up and always research their material meticulously. They have had substantial input on the debate inside government circles about military hardware in Afghanistan and Iraq and changed the landscape in the debate on the UK membership in the UK. You could not have better friends.
The reference to Nick Griffin of the BNP is a bit alarming to me.. This man does speak some sense sometimes but is widely seen as the closet racist leader of an extreme nationalist right wing party. The BNP are blackballed by the British media and for many people any association with this party carries a stigma. Somehow it has been engineered that the BNP will be carrying the banner of Climategate in the EU institutions, with all the other main parties being on the warmist side. Personally I think this is a disaster because the technique that the warmists like to use is to find labels to attack their opponents with, so for instance a conversation will go like this;
“global warming is a myth”,
“no it isn’t, the scientists all agree that it really is happening”
“no they don’t, haven’t you seen the business of throwing away and manipulating data at CRU”
“Oh you dont believe that stuff from that right wing racist Nick Griffin, he will say anything for publicity, are you a BNP supporter”
END OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION.
I cannot understand why not believing in AGW and wanting open and rational scientific debate is “rightwing”. I do dislike this label.