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
PeterS (10:35:42) :
I’ve been tracking UKMet predictions for a couple of years now.
This year, their prediction is actually looking good for once, and is indeed on track to be “one of the 5 warmest.” In fact through the first ten months of the year, the average anomaly works out to 0.44, which is precisely their prediction. This will be one of the few years where they haven’t over-predicted.
http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=119&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p13264
As Vincent points out, tough to match the catastrophic projections if you only set a new record every 5-10 years or so, and even then, only by a few hundrendths of a degree.
lookatthecode said
“.. Don’t post here…”
Post on the Wall Street Journal, The Times, The NEW York Times,The Telegraph, The NEW York Times.
The BBC website.
lookatthecode we come here for a sanity check and to get the bad taste out of our mouths. And yes I am sure most of us are leaving comments elsewhere.
Bye the bye I change the field of battle with the AGW believers. Everyone hates the bankers especially now, so I use that as the lever (Thanks DennisA for added ammo)
This is the latest comment I left please feel free to use any of my stuff. (This one is a bit sarcastic)
You are very correct the Copenhagen summit is very important to the world bankers intent on setting up their totalitarian world government. I am so glad you are supporting the bankers in their quest to reintroduce feudalism and grinding poverty for all but the special few.
Do not believe me? Then check out the document written by Lord Stern, World Bank Chief Economist last May. Lord Stern published a set of proposals for a global deal on climate change at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The document, was called Key Elements of a Global Deal.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/granthamInstitute/publications/KeyElementsOfAGlobalDeal_30Apr08.pdf
Then check out the morality of the World Bank/IMF
“Today I resigned from the staff of the International Monetary Fund after over 12 years, and after 1000 days of official fund work in the field, hawking your medicine and your bag of tricks to governments and to peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa. To me, resignation is a priceless liberation, for with it I have taken the first big step to that place where I may hope to wash my hands of what in my mind’s eye is the blood of millions of poor and starving peoples. Mr. Camdessus, the blood is so much, you know, it runs in rivers. It dries up too; it cakes all over me; sometimes I feel that there is not enough soap in the whole world to cleanse me from the things that I did do in your name and in the name of your predecessors, and under your official seal…..”
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/IMF_WB/Budhoo_IMF.html
Or look at Confessions of an Economic Hitman – describing how as a highly paid professional, John Perkins helped the World Bank. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.
“….He was an amazing man, Torrijos. And so, he died in a fiery airplane crash, which was connected to a tape recorder with explosives in it, which—I was there. I had been working with him. I knew that we economic hit men had failed. I knew the jackals were closing in on him, and the next thing, his plane exploded with a tape recorder with a bomb in it. There’s no question in my mind that it was C.I.A. sanctioned, and most—many Latin American investigators have come to the same conclusion. Of course, we never heard about that in our country….”
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man
These are the people who are plotting to be our new lords and masters with the help of U.N NGOs and the Political Activists they have duped for years.
Are you going to open your eyes now or wait until it is too late?
What about “Computer Ball Gazing” as an apt description of what these climatologists have been labeling as science? I have often wondered whether medieval astrologers or alchemists could not have made a better job of it!
Is this the sort of thing you are looking for?
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
You might want these, also from that same site.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/atmos_gases.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/global_warming.html
I’m including those in the event you might have missed them. I almost did, because I had trouble navigating that site. Probably me, but just in case.
Further to my piece martin brumby (01:49:33), I emailed (on Saturday):-
“Dear Mr Phil Willis,
I write to you as Chair of the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee.
I understand from a report on the BBC News website that the Committee has requested an explanation of the apparent wrongdoing at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, including extensive cherry picking and manipulation of raw data, use of inappropriate statistical methods and computer programming, refusal to comply with legitimate FOI requests and destruction of data that has been requested under FOI and systematic attempts to prevent publication of research papers which conflicted with their opinions.
I respectfully remind you that, whatever your own view of the “science”, that these “scientists” are in receipt of very considerable funds from the public purse and that the computer models they have constructed and the papers they have published have been hugely influential in the policy of all three major Political Parties in the UK and are effectively the only “evidence” (as opposed to bold assertions) that there is any “Dangerous Global Warming” and that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are responsible for this.
I suggest that a proper Inquiry into this affair is essential.
I also suggest that the rumoured use of Lord Rees of Ludlow to hold an UEA inquiry is completely unacceptable as he is a well known AGW alarmist.
The same objection applies to Professor Sir John Houghton, chair of the IPCC’s first science panel, who says “he would not support an inquiry as many of those demanding one were biased” And he isn’t perhaps?
I strongly suggest that if anyone is to have confidence that an Inquiry is not just another Greenie alarmist whitewash, this must be a job for a High Court Judge who has not allowed himself to be embedded into either the ‘alarmist’ or ‘skeptic’ camps.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Brumby”
He has now replied:-
“Dear Martin,
Thank you for your email. I am not in a position to make any comment about the UEA emails and to do so would be unacceptable. I have called for an explanation and certain assurances and that information will be placed before the Committee who will then decide IF and WHEN any further action should be taken.
Yours sincerely,
Phil Willis MP”
Don’t hold your breath…..
Is Booker censored by Google?
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/11/googlegate.html
I think it’s time to use Bing instead of Google.
We won’t accept censorship on the web, will we?
FWIW “Climategate” was the front page top story in the Santa Barbara News Press today, Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009. About the equivalent of a couple of columns in all.
Not exactly the New York Times and the coverage/story was just okay, but at least front page; maybe it will open a few local closed AGW minds who will contact their pols as I have.
A good Toronto Sun article: click
As Mr. Booker states… this may be the biggest scandal… unfortunately, we have had a fair number of other massive science frauds.
Let’s see if we can help sort this out.
Let this be the last.
MSM will only pick it up when it’s a scandal. It’s only a scandal when sufficient proof is established that they cooked the books. The proof of cooking the books is in the code.
Keep working the code. Keep the ball rolling.
Work the code that’s been released. Work the politicians to subpoena the rest of the code. Work FOI to release the rest of the code. Work the universities to investigate production of the code. Work the former employees and the janitor that used to empty the shredder in the code room. Whatever.
JUST KEEP WORKING THE CODE.
Congratulations on a great article Chris. I noticed on the Telegraph website that your article is the most popular today. Climategate is the top 2 for today and 3 of the top 5 for the week. This is great news.
Even though I am a foreigner, I am now a member in good standing of that new British Class: A John Of The Realm. I qualify because for my portion of the $70B spent studying AGW, I got royally scr*******.
Christopher Booker writes excellently on many subjects including Climategate.
His newspaper, UK Daily Telegraph is finally putting some Climategate stuff onto its news pages probably because its own Climategate bloggers ( Chris, James Delingpole and others ) have headed the most-viewed pages of their online edition ever since the scandal broke and have unprecedented numbers of informed comments.
Chris Bookers blog WAS featured on the top right of the online homepage ” comments & blogs” but they disappeared it. The DT clearly has not yet got the message.
Unfortunately I think the revelation of the e-mails is in danger of having little effect on “climate policy”. The damage control has already begun. The mantra from the warmists now is: “These were comments made by sloppy scientists. That’s why the CRU didn’t want them released,” and, “This is normal dialog among scientists when they’re hashing out findings.” Warmists are trying to divert everyone’s attention away from them, pretending they don’t mean anything. It might very well work, at least in the U.S. It’s my view, and I hope I’m wrong, that most Americans are scientifically illiterate, and are not that interested in science to begin with–though we’ll listen to what scientists say, at least at first. I know that polls are saying that most Americans aren’t believing the hype about AGW, and that’s encouraging, but I’m rather doubtful that we’re going this way because we’ve been reading about the science.
“Unfortunately I think the revelation of the e-mails is in danger of having little effect on “climate policy”.
I agree. However, I believe that Hadley will be forced to make all of their data and methods available on request (assuming there is still anything left). I believe Inhofe is requesting (demanding?) data from GISS. There may even be a relaxation of the teams death grip around the throat of the peer review process. If this happens, scientists outside of the “tribe” will be able to examine and criticize the dogma AND get their results published. This may in turn lead to a more balanced report in the IPCC AR5.
Not much of a consolation, I know, but better than nothing.
Does anyone remember this data fudging guy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Bellesiles
It’s deja vu all over again!
“Unfortunately I think the revelation of the e-mails is in danger of having little effect on “climate policy”.”
Give it time. The partying on the Titanic didn’t stop at once.
“Unfortunately I think the revelation of the e-mails is in danger of having little effect on “climate policy”.”
Certainly has little to do with bestowing honors:
“Nobel Prize winner and NC State alumnus Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, a worldwide leader in the study of climate change, will deliver NC State’s commencement address … The IPCC, along with former Vice President Al Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.”
(citation: http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/fall09commencement/ )
Google is innocent!
It now appears that the reason why this page disappeared so quickly from search results was that the Telegraph inserted a special piece of code into the page’s HTML to stop it being indexed by all the search engines, because they didn’t want it to go viral. In fact, the code got the page de-indexed, which explains why it vanished from the search results so quickly.
I haven’t been able to get it for the last 3 days. Happily, we take the paper Telegraph and I have cut out the article to keep. I also filed a chunk of the comments, not all though, but including some that were very apposite.
Just read Christopher Bookers brilliant book, The Real Global Warming Disaster. The leaked e-mails are the icing on the cake! The question though is why are so many so called experts climbing on the man made warming band wagon? Do the just want fame/recognition at any price? And why is the BBC so supportive. I listened to the Moral Maze last night which was supposed to address the question of whether the science was sound but they skirted round the issues mostly, also the didn’t have Melanie Philips on who was very outspoken as a climate change skeptic on Question Time a week ago. Is it all a deception to cope with the eventual global energy crisis when the fossil fuels run out?
I have just seen Orwell’s 1984, again. Saw it first time many years ago. It seems the leftist’s dont realise that Orwells 1984 is really describing a sosialistic system.
And Climategate reminds me of this.
Very strange. One one side, they too wants to choose what car to drive, what broadband connection, what house to buy…. If you confront them in these issues, privately, they want it all.
But on the other hand there is a big disconnect.
They want big control-institutions, like the UN / IPCC mixed with government supported Media …. very strange.
Thank you, al Gore for inventing the Internet! ( A joke)
Well Done Christopher
As an Electronics Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Engineering & Technology I am particularly insulted by Gordon Brown’s contention that non-believers in Global Warming are “Flat-Earthers”.
Who does HE think he is?
He and others are perverting the course of Science for their own socio-political gains – therefore in my book they are PERVERTS.
At least they cannot change the speed of light!
So many people describe themselves in these comments as “skeptics”, and yet they seem to have so little understanding of how science progresses. Instead they rely on their own comfortable assumptions that scientists are all venal, all out to deny the truth, all out to misrepresent the data. Instead of being skeptical about the absurd conspiracy theorists, the assumed dishonesty of scientists, about the political bias of the newspaper journalists, they jump on the denier bandwaggon without much pause for thought.
I’ve read the most appalling pseudescientific gibberish in the Telegraph full of the most basic confusions about scientific measures, techniques, processes. Garbled cut and paste stuff with conclusions unsupported by their premises. But since many Telegraph readers seem to think that science is just about opinion, they seem to ignore the need to subject conclusions to rigorous scrutiny. They’ve swallowed the postmodernist nonsense that science is just another narrative, another opinion, and therefore think that scientific knowledge needs some kind of validation by being acceptable, a sort of plebiscite on the scientific truth. The harsh fact is that scientific knowledge is validated against the real world, and not by opinion in the Telegraph.
Global warming is evidenced whether we like it or not. And shouting accusations at the scientists, and denying the science is futile. It’s like the man who having never heard Latin spoken, insists that there never was a Roman empire. He ignores the coins, the linguistic roots, the temples, the writings, the inscriptions, and insists he won’t believe until he comes across people speaking Latin in the street. In the meantime, all talk of the Roman Empire is false, a con, all made up, distorted data.
Science progresses by having hypotheses disproved, by having the data collected and challenged. That’s been done, the evidence is in. Global warming is a fact and people are largely responsible. Whether Telegraph writers like it or not.