by charles the moderator
Many of you know me by my sometimes flippant moderation comments here. Sometimes concern is expressed over my anonymity since Anthony occasionally berates some who comment here for hiding behind anonymous Internet handles. Anthony long ago accepted my personal reasons for maintaining my anonymity and I have personally contacted others who expressed concerns and have given them explanations to which no one to date has refused to accept.
I am the head moderator here, with administrative as well as moderation privileges. I supervise the other moderators and sometimes publish posts, or correct typos as needed. Despite the accusations from Drs. Mann, Hansen et al., I have yet to meet my corporate overlords, view my directives from above, or receive a single cent for my hundreds of hours of services.
Here’s the story of how I was one of the very first to see the CRU files and what transpired.
On Tuesday November 17th I was at my desk, browsing the web and moderating at the same time when the now infamous post came in from user FOIA at 6:25 PST.
We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.
We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.
Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.
This is a limited time offer, download now:
http://ftp.tomcity.ru/incoming/free/FOI2009.zip
Sample:
0926010576.txt * Mann: working towards a common goal
… and so on.
As I noted previously in The CRUtape Letters™, an Alternative Explanation, when I saw this comment I immediately embargoed the comment and placed warning brackets around it for the other moderators. I have been a ‘net user long enough to be very very concerned about downloading files off a Russian server, so the first thing I was concerned about was that this was an attack on us and our users. I downloaded the file and scanned it for viruses and Trojans and it came up clean. Then I stated viewing the contents and once I saw what we had, I started firing off emails to Anthony who was in Europe at the time – such as this one less than 2 hours later:
From me:
It looks real. It looks like it contains code from MBH 98 to CRU indexes. It has over a thousand emails.
And this a few minutes later.
From me:
No bad stuff detected. This from a real mole or one of the most elaborate hoaxes ever produced.
emails from Mann, Briffa, Jones.
Reviews of papers by Jones. Code and much much more.
Anthony Watts – wrote:
ok you’ve opened it I take it? No virus or trojan detected?
A
I talked to Anthony on the phone and we decided not to go public until Anthony returned, for all sorts of reasons including potential legal issues. In this first couple of hours I also burned a CD for Steven Mosher and gave it to him, and I also contacted Steven McIntyre. I swore both of them to secrecy until Anthony returned from Europe and he could be fully involved in the process. At this time none of us knew of the upload to realclimate.org or had noticed the “a miracle just happened” post on climateaudit.org. We believed we were exclusively sitting on The Pentagon Papers of our decade and had no knowledge that links were disseminated elsewhere.
For the next day the two Steve’s were constantly on the phone, with Mosher reading email after email to McIntyre. I had not given the link to Mosher as I was trying to control any traceable spread of the information. We had no idea where this was all headed and caution was in order. I made Steven Mosher promise to not electronically send a copy to Steve McIntyre, but I gave him a CD he could ship to McIntyre as long as it arrived after Anthony had returned from Europe. They were extremely anxious to go public and Mosher kept begging me for permission and my response was very low key. “If this is as important as it appears to be, then two or three days won’t make any difference, besides, we need to keep my word to Anthony”.
Then on the morning of the 19th we became aware that CRU was in lockdown mode and sending word that files were circulating on the Internet. I immediately found the comment on Jeff ID’s site by simply doing a Google search on the ftp site link. Jeff hadn’t noticed this post because he was out hunting during the above period. This was a game changer, CRU was trying to lock down the files and we were not exclusively in possession. Anthony was in the air about to land in Dulles but the cat was now out of the bag and Steve Mosher started posting on Lucia’s blog and about the same time I posted an email on Bishop Hill’s blog in the Caspar and the Jesus paper thread under the username devilinthedetails. I believe Steve Mosher may have contacted Tom Fuller around the same time.
Just as this was all breaking open, our anonymous leaker expressed concern that their revelations were being ignored or missed, a comment which I no longer have as I overwrote it with the following:
[A lot is happening behind the scenes. It is not being ignored. Much is being coordinated among major players and the media. Thank you very much. You will notice the beginnings of activity on other sites now. Here soon to follow. ~ ctm]
Now I get to go all Andy Rooney Paul Harvey [D’0h! ~ ctm] on y’all. Many wonder why I selected Steven Mosher to be the first recipient of the files. Well, I knew he was eminently qualified to examine them, much more qualified than myself. Proximity was also a factor. Steve Mosher is my roommate. So I saw him sweating on the phone with Steve McIntyre for a day and a half while I was calmly making coffee in the kitchen espousing patience. And since this story is too important to have any contributors remain anonymous, my name is Charles Rotter and I live in San Francisco. And that’s the rest of the story.
You deserve a Nobel Price for Truth, Justice and the People’s way.
I meant to say Nobel Prize. Anyway, good work Charles. We need more people like you.
can’t resist this one:
WSJ: The Climate is Changing
When I say the climate is changing, I do not mean, as many people do, that man-made global warming is destroying Planet Earth. I mean that the politics of climate change is changing rapidly all over the globe. Al Gore’s moment has come and gone..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703652104574651610217495546.html
Thanks for everything, ctm.
“BOULDER – The sun may finally be awakening from its longest quiet period in about a century and powering up to solar maximum, when it could fling disruptive electromagnetic storms toward Earth.
But once the sun does ramp up, it could be a relatively quiet solar maximum, with a below-average number of eruptions, scientists say.
Some researchers argue the sun has begun to enter solar maximum; others say it’s not there yet. They do agree the current quiet period, or solar minimum, is the longest since the early 1900s, but they don’t know why.”
Sun may soon send storms toward Earth
http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2010/01/13/Sun_may_soon_send_storms_toward_Earth/
lol at your website, charles.
Are you the author too of those books at Barnes and Noble?
Commisserations on living with Moshpit!
Reply: Those books were written in another life as contract work and I receive no royalties for them, so don’t rush out and buy them on my account. However, the ones for first graders aren’t bad if you have money to throw around. ~ ctm
This puzzles me a bit. In many instances it is said that the document file had showed up first on a small server in Tomsk, Russia, in the night of 19 Novemver (local time). So this is now wrong, and the document actually had gone into the Russian server ON or BEFORE 17 November from CRU ??
Once again, we see that bloggers are showing more journalistic integrety than the ‘real’ ones. Your caution is to be commended, and the site appreciated. I post by a nickname on the rare occasion I do, but never have anything appreciable to add to the conversations, and don’t like the attacking that can happen on the intrawebs. Should I ever get an epiphany, or go full on attack, I’ll be happy to put my real name. 🙂
This has been a fascinating saga, and you, (Charles), Steve Mosher, Steven McIntyre, and Anthony have all been professional, cautious, and reasonable about it. You did the right thing, and there must have been some hours where you were quivering with excitement to get the information out.
Once again, Best Science Blog worthy, and thank you for the trip. It’s something that we will tell our grandchildren about.
Thank you Charles. There is not much more to be said.
You guys are the best. Thanks for all of the herculean efforts to disseminate the TRUTH.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
You are my hero, in a world devoid of heroes, and may have saved civilization from the tax-and-spend crazies in the UN and elsewhere in the world.
Huzzahs….
It’s so nice to know others want and expect scientists to behave in a scientific manner. So many of them fail to do so and unfortunately, they’re usually the ones with agendas and ties to politicians. Keep up the good work.
Charles (TM), glad to formally meet you. Good going.
John
“I have yet to meet my corporate overlords, view my directives from above, or receive a single cent for my hundreds of hours of services.”
Gore, Mann, Hansen, and Jones could neither believe nor comprehend such a statement. Which is what we’re up against.
In all of this extended story of Climategate, we see the worst of corruption and deception.
But we found it all out by the efforts of some responsible people who did what they did because it was the right thing – without regard to personal gain.
Charles was one out in front. As my Aussie associates would say: Good on ya’ mate!
Well, Charles, your work (especially in comparison with many other moderators that we all know of) is one of the reasons why this site is so popular.
Nevertheless, I would like to ask you to respect people more than titles.
I grew up among scientists who worked with Einstein and Fermi, who laid down foundations of modern nuclear physics, informatics, topology, genetics, microbiology — you name it. They had their weaknesses and egos, of course. But if somebody would call himself, in their presence, a “world’s leading authority” on something, even as a joke, they would be very amused.
For them science was about curiosity and ideas, they always “theorized” and discussed possibilities, for hours and hours, every day. I’ve heard them emphasize that experimental data are starting points for research, and necessary to prove or disprove theories — but that making measurements and plotting graphs is not science. Real scientist, they said, thinks (sometimes with a sheet of paper and pencil); gadgets and methodology of measurements are for lab technicians.
What a story. Charles, you played a part in the story of the Century as far as I’m concerned. Not only is this a game changer for the skeptical minority on climate; it is a game changer for the scientific process. The bully tactics in modern science have got to go. It has given boldness to those who were cowering from the ‘peer’ pressure, and many have been more willing to show their face. It is great to see yours Mr. Rotter.
CTM,
you wrote in your above post “. . . our anonymous leaker expressed concern that their revelations were being ignored . . .”
Question: did the anonymous leaker specifically use the words “their revelations”? Again, it goes towards more than a “lone” releaser of the CRU files. Are you sure “their revelations” were the words?
John
Reply: I don’t remember and I overwrote the comment. In this case I specifically used the word “their” to avoid a gender specific pronoun. ~ ctm
Bravo – CTM! History, IMO, will portray you well.
Thanks Charles. I can just imagine the excitement as the story was breaking – let us hope that in the end that science and humankind are the winners.
And I do enjoy your witty moderation comments.
Charles we love you
🙂
Will the real “Charles the moderator” stand up, please?
What?
He just did.
He did?
Yes.
Well, okay then — big applause!
Charles: You are, indeed, Da Man. Thanks for the explanation, for the excellent (careful, ethical, skilled) work on the Climategate issue, and for the similarly excellent work every day on the site. Pure gold; we are very fortunate.
Thanks for the background. Much appreciated. Climategate may appear hugely important for the public awareness aspect, but let’s never forget that empirical science is the only way to win the day. I’m still waiting for it from realclimate and their mates…