If you tried earlier and could not purchase this great book, it is online now at Amazon and ready for purchase.
UPDATE : Kindle version now available for purchase online at Amazon.com click here
Climategate: The CRUtape Letters (Volume 1) (Paperback)
~ Steven Mosher (Author), Thomas W. Fuller (Author)
Climategate: The Crutape Letters (Volume 1)
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,392 #1,041 in Books – let’s see if we can make that go up. Already, just out of the gate it’s beating Joe Romm’s “Hell and High Water” book which is at Amazon.com Sales Rank: #235,474 in Books (as of 1/18/09)
See my review and excerpts below.
Electronic publishing has revolutionized the art of writing, now less than two months since it happened, we have the very first book about Climategate. My first story on Climategate appeared on November 19th, 2009: Breaking News Story: CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released
I’ve read the book, and it appears to be an accurate and detailed portrayal of the history not only of the Climategate events and the players, but also of the events leading up to it. I’m flattered that this book mentions me and my surfacestations project several times. I was interviewed for the book, and this website is featured prominently–and they borrowed liberally from both the posts and the comments.
For those of you that want to follow a detective story, this one has as the twists and turns of Mickey Spillane with a Hardy Boys approach to a matter of fact story line. I highly recommend it.
This book is being published in electronic downloadable form, and is available for purchase online. You’ll recognize the authors as regulars here and at Climate Audit. Please consider purchasing this book, as it will provide funds to get Mosh out of the flat in San Francisco he shares with Charles The Moderator, who are becoming the climatic odd couple of our time.
Here are excerpts of the book:
In October of 2004 McIntyre and his criticism was on the radar of climate scientists. Tom Wigley writes Phil Jones about McIntyre’s and McKitrick’s work ( MM03) which is making its way around the internet. Wigley is not as dismissive of McIntyre’s and McKitrick’s work as is Michael Mann. In fact, Wigley calls Mann’s paper a very sloppy piece of work…
At 20:46 21/10/2004, [Tom Wigley]
Phil,
I have just read the M&M stuff critcizing MBH. A lot of it seems valid to me. At the very least MBH is a very sloppy piece of work — an opinion I have held for some time. Presumably what you have done with Keith is better? — or is it? I get asked about this a lot. Can you give me a brief heads up? Mike is too deep into this to be helpful.
Tom.
As Wigley notes M & M (McIntyre and McKitrick) have some valid points in their criticism of MBH ( Mann and his co authors 1998 paper). What Mann viewed as a stunt others found merit in. Wigley asks Jones about his reconstruction work with colleague Keith Briffa. Briffa, as the Climategate mails show and as his studies show was less certain about reconstructions of the MWP than Mann was. Jones, of course, is stuck between supporting Briffa or Mann, both co-authors. Most importantly Wigley recognizes that Mann is too deep in this to be helpful. Mann has too much at stake to be objective. Jones replies, by this time taking on some of Mann’s attitudes toward McIntyre and McKitrick:
From: Phil Jones p.jones@xxxxxx
To: Tom Wigley wigley@xxxxxx
Tom,
The attached is a complete distortion of the facts. M&M are completely wrong in virtually everything they say or do. I have sent them countless data series that were used in the Jones/Mann Reviews of Geophysics papers. I got scant thanks from them for doing this – only an email saying I had some of the data series wrong, associated with the wrong year/decade. I wasted a few hours checking what I’d done and got no thanks for pointing their mistake out to them. If you think M&M are correct and believable then go to this web site
Point I’m trying to make is you cannot trust anything that M&M write. ….
Bottom line – there is no way the MWP (whenever it was) was as warm globally as the last 20 years. There is also no way a whole decade in the LIA period was more than 1 deg C on a global basis cooler than the 1961-90 mean. This is all gut feeling, no science, but years of experience of dealing with global scales and varaibility.
Cheers
Phil
Jones’ “gut feeling” is at stake and he is clearly agitated by his encounters with McIntyre, a marked difference from their exchange in 2002. In 2002, McIntyre was merely a researcher asking for data, but by 2003 McIntyre was a published author leveling criticisms at Jones’ co author Michael Mann. Jones also refers Wigley to a web site that discussed M&M. The fight over MM03 was largely taking place on the web as McIntyre had started to write about his findings on a blog called www.climate2003.com. For independent researchers like McIntyre, posting articles on the internet was far more expedient than publishing in page limited journals. And just as citizen-journalists had transformed print journalism with the advent of blogs, climate science looked ripe to be transformed by the internet. McIntyre and McKitrick also adopted a publication model used by econometricians: they posted their data and their code so that anyone could check their work, find errors and suggest improvements. This gave them the moral high ground of transparency as opposed to Mann’s and Bradley’s shadowy world of “independent scientists,” although Mann and Bradley would certainly argue with some legitimacy that they were only following a century-old practice.”
…
Steve McIntyre struggle for years to get accurate data out of the hands of an elite team of scientists in England and the U.S., only to be stymied by continued refusals and runarounds. At the beginning the data concerned work highlighted by your host, Anthony Watts, about the fidelity of the temperature records here in the United States. Later, it revolved around the data used in construction of proxy temperature records, such as the Hockey Stick Chart, now infamous for shoddy analysis and poor sample selection. Climategate, written by Steve Mosher and Tom Fuller, is an account of the events leading up to the leaking of over 1,000 emails and assorted files that exposes the unethical and perhaps illegal practices used by the Hockey Stick Team to protect their turf as well as their information. These rock star scientists dined with the elite and feasted on government grants, but it was all predicated on ‘hiding the decline:’ Making sure no-one saw how shaky their data, analysis and conclusions actually were. Hide the decline didn’t refer to temperatures–it was worse. It was a decline in the quality of their data they were trying to hide. This book puts it all into context–and in context it is worse. Mosher actually played a small part in bringing the details to light (although your zany moderator Charles the First was more instrumental), and Fuller covered the story for examiner.com from day one of the scandal. Here’s an excerpt: “In Chapter 6 we introduce the Army of Davids that will start the laborious process of documenting all the surface stations in the US. McIntyre starts dissecting the Jones 1990 paper and his intense focus on individual cases finds a sympathetic ear in Anthony Watts, who launches an even more detailed look at individual cases in the US. Discussions about UHI and data and code turn from a focus on Jones 1990 to a focus on NASA and their GISSTEMP code, which is eventually released.
At the start of May, McIntyre links to a blogger named Anthony Watts, a former TV meteorologist who was convinced that temperature monitoring stations in the United States were in dire shape and could not be trusted to create a temperature record, especially one that the world would use as a reference point for dealing with climate change. During the summer, Watts would launch a nationwide volunteer effort to document the weather collection stations used by NOAA, NASA, CRU and Jones. The effort that Trenberth thought too large for any one individual would be handled under Watts’ generalship by a true army of Davids across the nation, using the tools of the internet. The goal very simply was to document the status of the temperature collection stations. Many hands made light work of the job scientists thought too large to attempt.
Tom Karl of NOAA takes notice of Watts but is not sure how it will turn out.
From: “Thomas.R.Karl” <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxx>
Subject: Re: FW: retraction request
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:21:57 -0400
Thanks Phil, We R now responding to a former TV weather forecaster who has got press, He has a web site of 40 of the USHCN stations showing less than ideal exposure. He claims he can show urban biases and exposure biases. We are writing a response for our Public Affairs. Not sure how it will play out. Regards, Tom
That effort, ridiculed at first by bloggers in the warmist faction, would in the end garner Watts a visit to NCDC to discuss his work. Moreover, in the end NOAA would engage in an effort to bring the climate network up to better quality standards. As of July 2009 the volunteer effort, hosted at www.surfacestations.org. had surveyed 1,003 of the 1,221 stations used by NOAA and corrected mistakes in the official metadata.:
Readers from this site can finish that part of the story.
Buy the book here:
Climategate: The Crutape Letters (Volume 1)
Hans Moleman (20:07:01) :
As one commenter above has said you are assuming the context of the emails is wrong in the book. How do you know the context is wrong?
Hans Moleman (20:07:01) :
One more thing:
are you having issues of conscience with FOI requests of CRU that were not complied with as you are with your assumed issue of conscience over how the CRU file was made public? Those were a real case of immoral, unscientific, and illegal activity. Is that bothering you?
Gerry (16:23:19) :
It’s all on the backs of Californians now.
“For those in the United States, it seems time to work, as Governor Schwarzenegger urges, at the sub national level as he has done so effectively in California. ”
In other words, […]now on the backs of the citizens of the bankrupt state of California. Our governator has already committed us to this insane cause.
In other news, this just in: The local school boards around the state are conducting meetings with teachers to discuss their preferences. Being offered is a choice of:
Quitting.
Dramatic pay cuts.
Complete loss of medical coverage payments.
Reversal of the move to smaller class sizes. Standard size of classes to increase by about 30% – 50%. (to 30+)
Pick more than one of the above…
Please note: These are NOT hypothetical choices. These are what was “offered” this past week to teachers in a school district near me. By law, 1/2 the State budget must go to education, but there is no limit on what percentage of that can go to junkets to Copenhagen for professors and to administrators counting bananas and “little raincoats” vs. k-12 teachers…
Bonus Round: In other news, reports are that the latest “balance the deficit” meetings in California center around a proposal to raid the pension funds of the state. Nobody here will be able to retire anyway, so who needs one?
Way to go Gov. Ahnold, glad you can be so effective as to not only cripple the economy but gut a struggling school system in the process! If you can be this effective for just a few more months, the State can declare bankruptcy and just start over. Just like our cities have started doing:
http://www.vallejobankruptcyupdate.com/
http://calpensions.com/2009/05/21/vallejo-bankruptcy-trend-or-lost-cause/
So to everyone else in the rest of The Real World: California is leading the charge on Cap and Trade and AGW “effectiveness”. We are well down the road at this point.
Want to know what the future holds for you? Just look at “us”…
Oh, and just in case it was not clear from the above: Do NOT buy any muni bonds from California. Even if the particular city or property is “sound”, as the bankruptcy filings add up, the interest rates on the whole category will rise, and that will drive the price of existing bonds down. The time to buy will be when the crisis is passing and rates are set to fall. Give it a couple of years…
If for some reason you MUST have California Munis, keep the maturity under 2 years, preferably under 1 year, and have a broadly diversified fund with a smart fund manager…
I’d like to suggest a small thought experiment. As a PURE HYPOTHETICAL let us imagine that after a clearly illegal hack a collection of emails and files, from the private computers of Monckton, Lindzen,Singer, Spencer, Watts, and other prominent climate skeptics which contained the barest hints of the kind of nefarious collusion so blatantly revealed in the CRU emails, was made available on the internet. Does anyone, even for a minute, believe that we would be hearing the same supposedly principled conscientious objections to privacy violation from the same voices raising them now, in defense of the skeptic’s privacy rights?
He has to step down this year, so not worth the effort. What an opportunity the guy missed. A leader with the personality and ego to blow up the fraud, and it flew right over his head. He should feel mightily duped.
BTW, Sacramento is not a suburb of LA.
Hans Moleman (18:22:51) : And though this delay may be frustrating, waiting for the complete information is better than running off to sell half-assed analysis based on incomplete data to the gullible public.
I agree completely with this statement, as long as you apply it to HadCRUT, GIStemp anonomaly maps and other “data products”, and NCDC “adjusted” data and their data sets that have had roughly 90% of thermometers none-reporting since 1990 (i.e. “cooking the books” by thermometer deletions).
Please, oh please, get them to stop selling “half-assed analysis based on incomplete data to the gullible public”. Especially the CRU crew who, thanks to the LEAKED emails, we know have no real vetted data to work from.
Hans Moleman (18:29:39) : How is leaking private email messages not theft?
Simple example: If I, as a web site administrator, set the permissions wrong on a file and you, as a public person, pick it up on a public server, you have not committed theft as there is a failure on my part to exercise due diligence to protect my stuff. Just as if I lay a $10 bill on the sidewalk and it is gone an hour later, it is not theft. It is failure of “due diligence” on my part.
Further, if I leave a sever open to entry, it is not tresspass. Just as if I have a non-posted property with no fences up, a person walking across the lawn is not committing tresspass.
Further, even if a person gained access to that server via deception, thanks to recent UK case law, the commission of such a vandalism in the service of a greater good is now an innocent act. Please call James Hansen to the stand…
So the leaker (or otherwise) may simply claim that it was clear that the astounding level of harm about to be done to the planet in the name of AGW was a great harm (it being founded on a web of subornation of the peer review process, intimidation of editors, insider self dealing, suppression of evidence of it being entirely wrong, etc. in the emails) and that the “lesser harm” was to set the FOIA file free. And they would be entirely correct and protected under UK law as it now stands (as I understand this backward law). So, not “theft” just as a “break in” to the computer under those terms would be “not trespass”.
REPLY: Consider whistleblower laws designed to protect such actions. Right now we don’t know which it is, hack/theft or a leak by a whistleblower. When the investigation is completed by police, we’ll have a label, right now we don’t -A
But as you will remember from a comment I made when this news first came out: The pattern of data in the files and the date stamps indicate that this was NOT a “hack and grab”. It is just impossible. The FOIA file was clearly being complied for an FOIA request, and the release just as the FOIA was denied (based on misrepresentations, as seen in the emails) the file was released.
There are only 2 things that fit this pattern:
Bad admin on the server, file left exposed. (lack of due diligence, not theft).
Release by an inside party with access. (Authorized person, not trespass, not theft. Best you can get is ‘lack of performance of fiduciary duty’ or something similar. You could try for “vandalism”, but, see above…)
The only caveat to this is that the UK might have some bizarre “computer law” with specific definitions that would over ride the general ones.
FWIW, I’m not a lawyer, so this is just my opinion. But I have been involved in a few cases of policing computer hacks, breakins, and “walking folks off the site” when I caught them. And I’ve done a fair amount of computer security and forensics work as a professional at it. So I’m “in the field”. And the assesment that it was NOT a “hack and grab” is exactly what I would offer as my professional opinion (though an inspection of logs and records would be useful. There is a remote possiblity the FOIA file was being compiled and that a VERY VERY lucky hack found it and grabbed Just The Right Thing… But I’d sooner bet on a lottery ticket than that. And I never buy lottery tickets, it is just a tax on stupidity.)
My best guess is simple: They had it on a server with bad security and “Joe Public” could just take a copy. There is a history of bad security on their public server. It fits ALL the known facts. And a “Joe Public” downloading a file from a public FTP / Web server is NOT committing theft.
“Hans Moleman (15:07:56) :
If the CRU emails are truly public property then it would make sense to request the rest before conducting any analysis so the messages can be put in their proper context.”
Hans, there are very specific and ridgid laws surrounding information held by public authorities in the UK.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000036_en_1
The Hadley CRU is a UK based, publically funded organisation. There are no excuses, Dr Phill Jones tried to deny access to the information for many years.
If the CRU emails are truly public property then it would make sense to request the rest before conducting any analysis so the messages can be put in their proper context.
That is not necessary. They can release them without any one asking.
philincalifornia (20:47:32) :
DonS (20:14:11) :
@Gerry
So, why not commit the governator to a recall election. Seems to me the last one on LaLa Land went rather well.
He has to step down this year, so not worth the effort. What an opportunity the guy missed. A leader with the personality and ego to blow up the fraud, and it flew right over his head. He should feel mightily duped.
BTW, Sacramento is not a suburb of LA.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don’t understand why some of Schwarzenegger’s knowledgeable conservative friends didn’t clue him in on the AGW scam years ago. He could have vetoed the CO2 bill with a stroke of his pen. Instead he enthusiastically supported it. I guess his liberal relatives succeeded in making him feel guilty for driving a Hummer.
Sacramento is not a suburb of LA, but Schwarzenegger has a home in Southern California.
“Climategate: The CRUtape Letters” still not available on amazon UK :-<
A W Montford "The Hockey Stick Illusion; Global warming and the corruption of science (Independent Minds)"
Estimated arrival date: February 15 2010 – February 23 2010
Ordered before Xmas! :-<<
Christopher Booker "The Real Global Warming Disaster" received, read and recommended as a good account of the history of the AGW scam. Well written and amusing (as you would expect).
#957!
I have already marked it as unhelpful, but others may wish to add their reviews after they have read the book.
Why wait? I already marked it so.
I cannot understand the ethics, logic or morality of Hans Moelman and those posters aligned with him, who attempt to defend the indefensable. Each day, as more evidence is made public that CAGW is, without doubt, a fraud so blatant and so large that it almost defies the imagination, individuals still defend the actions of those ‘scientists’ who literally stole public funds from us, their taxpaying employers. If the scam had succeeded, it would not only destroy the economies of developed nations but would have denied developing nations any chance of a decent life for their citizens.
Come payday, I will order a copy of ‘The Crutape Letters’. I enjoyed ‘The Screwtape Letters’ and am sure the moral contained will be similar.
E.M.Smith (21:20:11) :
I completely agree, further, if it were a real breakin I think CRU and authorities would be quite forthcoming with that information, like press conferences and pity parties.
My suspicion (pure speculation) is that if it was compiled for the FOIA request, the whistleblower could be anyone. If he compiled it himself, it would likely be someone with superuser access and friends with the Russian students at CRU (or were they just at UEA? I forget.) In the latter case it would be a lot easier to identify the whistleblower and that could have made the news.
I used to say that, but a friend with a math degree called it a tax on people who didn’t learn math. I have a fantasy of being a substitute math teacher in a high school class (they still teach probability in high school, right?) and bring in a few lottery tickets and work through the “expected value” of each. And then not be invited back. Here in New Hampshire lottery income goes to schools.
Also, our Megabucks ticket has an expected value close to break-in so I’ve been buying one when convenient before the next drawing. The chance of winning is infinitesimal, of course, but at least it’s way better than Power Ball!
Besides, I think of it as a non-deductible donation to a state without a sales tax (except for that 9% rooms & meals tax aimed at visitors) and no income tax (except for that payroll tax paid by employers of for-profit businesses which might otherwise go to me (gov’t employees aren’t subject to that tax). And the LLC tax, and stump tax, and communications tax, and all the vice taxes (set lower than surrounding states)….
photon without a Higgs (20:23:47) :
“Hans Moleman (18:29:39) :
“How is leaking private email messages not theft?”
I was responding to that. They are not private emails. Also the ClimateGate computer code is not private.”
There are legal channels for requesting and receiving that information. Assuming investigations don’t find evidence a whistle blower was involved, then these emails were stolen.
“Emails are not data.”
Use whatever word you want. The fact remains you have no way of knowing whether any of these emails have been altered or what percentage of the total emails produced was actually released. Thus, you have no way of knowing whether the emails you are reading have been placed in proper context.
“Hans Moleman (20:07:01) :
“Seems the consensus on this blog is that the messages were public anyway so the ends justify the means.”
I don’t know what the consensus in this blog is. But I do know you mis-characterize my view.”
Apologies. Please clarify your view for me then. If you don’t believe the ends justify the means then what will your position be if the emails turn out to have been stolen?
“As one commenter above has said you are assuming the context of the emails is wrong in the book. How do you know the context is wrong?”
Because no one knows how many other emails produced during that time period have not been released and what the may have added to the discussion. Context is important, especially when discussing personal communications.
“are you having issues of conscience with FOI requests of CRU that were not complied with as you are with your assumed issue of conscience over how the CRU file was made public? Those were a real case of immoral, unscientific, and illegal activity. Is that bothering you?”
Yes. I think all data should be made freely available to the public.
E.M.Smith (21:20:11) :
“I agree completely with this statement, as long as you apply it to HadCRUT, GIStemp anonomaly maps and other “data products”, and NCDC “adjusted” data and their data sets that have had roughly 90% of thermometers none-reporting since 1990 (i.e. “cooking the books” by thermometer deletions).
Please, oh please, get them to stop selling “half-assed analysis based on incomplete data to the gullible public”. Especially the CRU crew who, thanks to the LEAKED emails, we know have no real vetted data to work from.”
I’m not clear what you’re saying here with regards to the CRU leak. You do think it’s valid to make an analysis without having all the data or you don’t?
“But as you will remember from a comment I made when this news first came out: The pattern of data in the files and the date stamps indicate that this was NOT a “hack and grab”. It is just impossible. The FOIA file was clearly being complied for an FOIA request, and the release just as the FOIA was denied (based on misrepresentations, as seen in the emails) the file was released.”
What information are you using to make the assumption that other theories are impossible? I hope it’s not just that the name of the file had ‘FOIA’ in it…
I wish the authors every success.
It was claimed by many that the CRU temperature data was still reliable because US providers had matching results. Now we know why. They were massaging the station results in the same way as the Russian data had been corrupted.
What amazes me is that the MSM doesn’t want to touch these revelations, yet I sense that the public is quite clear about AGW. I’m sure MSM journalists read WUWT; how about explaining to us why all this is not screaming from every headline?
Hans Moleman
2010/01/19 at 5:48am:
“There are legal channels for requesting and receiving that information. Assuming investigations don’t find evidence a whistle blower was involved, then these emails were stolen.”
Mr.Moleman, you evidently have not been paying attention. The data was leaked because CRU corruptly refused to comply with British FOIA laws on fraudulent grounds, for many years. Thus, this leaking is legitimate and legal whistle blowing, protected by law.
Dave, you would be referring to our conversations here (why go to the trouble of emailing when you can quickly post at WUWT)? If you struggle to figure out how to hack into our posts here and then conjure up our collective distressed harrumph over your success, no wonder your belief in a trace gas being more powerful than a pressure front.
In fact, if you want, I will give you any and all emails about weather and climate I have sent. That would number maybe three. The rest are posted in various blogs around the internet. I will try to contain my harrumphery.
I ordered this as soon it became available from “Createspace” and just received my copy from the USPS. Didn’t expect it until February 4. Good job guys.
Hans Moleman (05:48:40) :
“Emails are not data.”
Use whatever word you want.
It was you that used the word data.
Our exchange isn’t making progress—nothing to see here. So I’ll move along now.
Ref – Hans Moleman (18:29:39) :
“How is leaking private email messages not theft?”
_________________
Well…. as some would say, “It all depends on what you mean by ‘leaking’.” Isn’t English the best language in the world? So inprecise, so flexable, so everything. Then again, we could also hire a few Philadelphia lawyers to ask the same of, “private”, “email”, “messages”, “not”, and “theft”, AND “How”, AND that absolutely beautiful lawyer word “IS”.
Give it time, life is not black or white, but a million shades of gray.
Alexander (03:29:04) :
I cannot understand the ethics, logic or morality of Hans Moelman and those posters aligned with him, who attempt to defend the indefensable.
After three years of dealing with trolls I have come to an understanding of them. I have found the more they talk the more they reveal what they really are all about. That’s why I exchanged comments with him here—so he would talk more and others could learn what they are all about.
I think Hans didn’t know that was what I was doing. 🙂
FYI. Amazon have co mingled, in their database, “our” Steven Mosher with Steven W. Mosher who I believe is an older person than “our” Steven and who writes quite different subject matter than this. Could be an issue vis a vis intellectual property, royalties, etc.
mikelorrey (06:11:52) :
“Mr.Moleman, you evidently have not been paying attention. The data was leaked because CRU corruptly refused to comply with British FOIA laws on fraudulent grounds, for many years. Thus, this leaking is legitimate and legal whistle blowing, protected by law.”
I’m sure investigators would love to know how you contacted the people involved with releasing these emails and discovered their reasons for doing so. I’d also like to know, in fact. Please fill us all in.
Also, as I’ve mentioned repeatedly above, even if this email release turns out to be perfectly legal it doesn’t solve the problem of not knowing whether all email messages from that time span have been released and whether or not messages are being interpreted in the proper context. In fact, how do you know that some of the messages haven’t been altered in any way?
photon without a Higgs (07:36:27) :
“After three years of dealing with trolls I have come to an understanding of them. I have found the more they talk the more they reveal what they really are all about. That’s why I exchanged comments with him here—so he would talk more and others could learn what they are all about.
I think Hans didn’t know that was what I was doing. :-)”
Anyone reading our exchange will see that you repeatedly ignore my main point, namely that there is currently no way to verify the accuracy of all the released emails and no way to determine whether they are being interpreted in the proper context.
Anyone reading our exchange will also see how you repeatedly misunderstand (either willfully or due to your own ignorance. in either case you look bad) the use of the term ‘data’ to refer to these emails.