Next time some irrationalist complains about a skeptic sponsored list, that includes scientists that are not climatologists, saying such lists are irrelevant, show them this. Show them also the unspoken pressure that some signers have worried about.
From The Times (emphasis mine):
Top scientists rally to the defence of the Met Office
The Met Office has embarked on an urgent exercise to bolster the reputation of climate-change science after the furore over stolen e-mails.
More than 1,700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the “professional integrity” of global warming research. They were responding to a round-robin request from the Met Office, which has spent four days collecting signatures. The initiative is a sign of how worried it is that e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia are fuelling scepticism about man-made global warming at a critical moment in talks on carbon emissions.
One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work. The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change.
…
One scientist told The Times he felt under pressure to sign. “The Met Office is a major employer of scientists and has long had a policy of only appointing and working with those who subscribe to their views on man-made global warming,” he said.
…
Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which claims man-made climate change has been exaggerated, said the petition showed that the Met Office was rattled.
Complete story here at The Times: Top scientists rally to the defence of the Met Office
I especially like the quote from Professor Slingo that “The response has been absolutely spontaneous”. A truly Orwellian inversion of meaning.
When the authorities need to drum up petitions in support of a scientific theory it is truly on its last legs.
So since the Met Office is quite sure; even “unequivocally” so that the “e-mails” were STOLEN, can we please have along with this listof 1700 British Climate luminaries, the name of the individual, or a list of the several individuals who carried out this theft; since only by identifying who STOLE the materials and HOW THEY DID THAT can anyone be certain; even “unequivocal” that the materials were in fact stolen; rather than leaked by somebody internal, who had clear knowledge of which files were sensitive.
Otherwise, please shut up; or shut the hell up; whichever you understand in the UK.
I must admit that I too found it hard to resist the pressure of money!!
http://muttondressedaslamb.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/carbon-capture/
This has to be the ultimate vehicle for fraudsters; turning thin air into hard cash on the basis of the greatest scientific fraud in history.
From the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6778003/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Carbon-trading-fraudsters-in-Europe-pocket-5bn.html
Carbon trading fraudsters in Europe pocket €5bn
Carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90% of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals pocketing an estimated €5bn (£4.5bn) mainly in Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland, according to Europol, the European law enforcement agency.
10 Dec 2009
Carbon trading fraud accounts for 90% of all market activity in Europe.
The revelation caused embarrassment for European Union negotiators at the Copenhagen climate change summit yesterday, where they have been pushing for an expansion of their system across the globe to penalise heavy emitters of carbon dioxide. Rob Wainwright, the director of serious crime squad, said large-scale organised criminal activity had “endangered the credibility” of the current carbon trading system.
“We have been talking to Europol over the last weeks,” said one EU senior delegate, after she was asked whether the European Union-run scheme was still viable. “We are making some fixes.”
Yesterday, the UK delegation released a paper calling for the “expansion of carbon markets”, in order to use the profits for a fund to help developing nations tackle climate change.
Suspicions about an unprecedented level of carbon crime over the last 18 months have led investigators to believe criminals are using “missing trader” techniques to buy up carbon credits elsewhere in Europe where there is a cheaper rate of VAT. Then they sell on the credits in the UK, charging the domestic rate, and pocket the difference. This has been commonplace among trading of very mobile commodities across European borders, such as phones, computer chips and cigarettes. British investigators made seven arrests earlier this year over a suspected £38m VAT scam.
The London platform, the ICE European Climate Exchange, where the big banks and energy companies tend to trade, is not affected by the fraud because it does not offer spot contracts – the only form of emissions trading on which VAT is payable. But British traders can still defraud HM Revenue and Customs by buying and selling permits on other European exchanges.
Europol said it had reason to believe the sophisticated techniques developed in the carbon market could soon “migrate” to the gas and electricity sectors. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities,” a Europol spokesman said, after Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands brought in emergency VAT suspensions on carbon allowances to limit the fraud this year.
Figures from New Energy Finance show the value of the global market falling from $38bn (£23bn) in the second quarter to $30bn in the three months to the end of September after several countries cracked down, with volumes falling from 2.1bn tonnes to 1.7bn tonnes.
Europol has now set up a special unit to “identify and disrupt the organised criminal structures behind these fraud schemes”.
That Top Scientists link now gives a 404 error.
Science is a terrible discipline for those who fear being wrong.
On the other hand, the only real political opposition to AGW in the UK has just recruitd a big gun –
http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1363-monckton-joins-ukip
It’s who I’m voting for
Nice grant you got there.
Be a shame if anything happened to it.
The loudest voice protesting his innocence is the guilty man. The calmest voices, with little or no disgust or surprise at the blight of the victim, are the guilty man’s friends and professional associates. Go figure! Science is dying a slow death by cancer.
Just a heads up to Anthony. This story has stopped appearing on the front page.
It’s back now.
I rather think they’ve (the warmers) have lost the battle for hearts and minds, judging by the comment thread on this Times story and every other newspaper and magazine column that I’ve seen recently.
“I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!”
– The Mikado: W S Gilbert
At least we know who to look out for.
Look at the oh-so clever picture. The implication is that climate research has been carried out on big supercomputers such as these. We know what we are doing…
I dont blame the Meteorological Office for this – it is the message-mongers.
This is the same thing as a government demanding loyalty oaths.
Has anyone seen anything, like any graph or data, that bears any correlation to the quite sudden rise in temperatures in 1980? Clearly (I think) it cannot be CO2 or any other greenhouse gas because surely there would be a fairly gradual effect from them. But if you look at the graph of world temperatures you see a very gradual rise in the late 1970s (which could simply be natural and normal variance) and then this sudden growth. This is shown graphically here in the CET – which closely follows global temps. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcet.html
What could have happened in 1980 (or immediately around 1980) to cause this?
So this list is less valid than the Oregon petition then. Exactly the same arguments can be listed against both, except the Oregon petition has far far far more names on it!
So whenever anyone mentions this meaningless letter, I shall point them to the Oregon petition. 😉
Check out just how deeply the Chairman of the Met Office, the eco-imperialist Robert Napier, has his fingers in all the ecofascist pies, here:
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/eco-imperialism-every-environmentalists-dream/
And see just how quickly Julia Slingo fell into line to support the garbage from the Met Office once she got the job of Chief Scientist there:
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/met-office-fraudcast/
Remember, the Met Office is an agency of the British Ministry of Defence. It is anything but an honest broker. People like Napier have an iron fist backed by government to get his own way.
Actually, this is like science by popularity, isn’t it?
How can scientists who aren’t climatepsychics vouch for the hokum pokum , er I mean science?
Basically, the Met Office just issued a threat to a load of well known brains demanding that they speak up. This used to be called Fascism, and we are the poor bastards who are paying for it.
Yes it is a massive gravy-train now. My fellow Brit (Alan) has it entirely right. An entire generation of climate scientists has been brought up to believe in AGW. They are even to teaching it to primary school kids as fact. Certainly many who have worked for the Met Office in climate science showed no sign of a mind of there own. These people from John Houghton on were believers and I am sure that no one ever worked on anything other than “warming”. If it all became obvious tomorrow that AGW was miniscule, think how many around the world would be out of work. Could the world economy survive the unemployment???!!!
Nice Sierra! My old stats professor used to love marking up our work with the old garbage in, garbage out line. Oddly enough, same guy also taught me a lot about Causation vs. Correlation… Maybe Al should have sat in on that class.
“This is like ACORN polling its employees about how trustworthy they think their organization is. Ridiculous.”
Most people outside the US do not know what ACORN is.
So for a more meaningful analogy, it would be like the Vatican polling it’s cardinals about the reliability in the claims that Jesus is the son of God.
[sarc] you know I was having doubts about AGW, until the employees of the MET Office were polled to see if they supported the agenda that pays their mortgages. Gee! Now I’m convinced! [/sarc]
It says the evidence for man-made global warming is “deep and extensive” and comes from “decades of painstaking and meticulous research by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity”.
Well, they would say that wouldn’t they?
<blockquote.The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change.
“Ken Hall (08:43:35) :
So this list is less valid than the Oregon petition then. Exactly the same arguments can be listed against both, except the Oregon petition has far far far more names on it!
So whenever anyone mentions this meaningless letter, I shall point them to the Oregon petition. ;-)”
Exactly.
Why would anyone doubt them ,,,
Why don’t they just bogey on over to the microphone and say they want to make sure all researchers in the world have access to the raw data. Start with asking NASA to open up their datasets, and then after we see the raw data, we won’t need the AGW fraudulent science as gatekeepers anymore.
OK, I am waiting … But not holding my breath, I believe in exhaling my used up CO2.