From the Science and Technology committee of the UK Paliament press release here.
The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia
Terms of Reference
The Science and Technology Committee today announces an inquiry into the unauthorised publication of data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The Committee has agreed to examine and invite written submissions on three questions:
—What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?
—Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate (see below)?
—How independent are the other two international data sets?
The Committee intends to hold an oral evidence session in March 2010.
Background
On 1 December 2009 Phil Willis, Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, wrote to Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor of UEA following the considerable press coverage of the data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The coverage alleged that data may have been manipulated or deleted in order to produce evidence on global warming. On 3 December the UEA announced an Independent Review into the allegations to be headed by Sir Muir Russell.
The Independent Review will:
1. Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.
2. Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.
3. Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the University’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’) for the release of data.
4. Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds .
Submissions
The Committee invites written submissions from interested parties on the three questions set out above by noon on Wednesday 10 February:
Each submission should:
a)be no more than 3,000 words in length
b)be in Word format (no later than 2003) with as little use of colour or logos as possible
c)have numbered paragraphs
d)include a declaration of interests.
A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to scitechcom@parliament.uk and marked “Climatic Research Unit”. An additional paper copy should be sent to:
The Clerk
Science and Technology Committee
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA
It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals submitting written evidence send their contact details separately in a covering letter. You should be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Please supply a postal address so a copy of the Committee’s report can be sent to you upon publication.
A guide for written submissions to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at: www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/witguide.htm
Please also note that:
—Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
—Memoranda submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
—Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
—Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.
Oral evidence
An evidence session will be announced in due course.
Press notices
22/01/10 Inquiry announced
h/t to Bishop Hill
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As I said above, I’ve started a wiki response to the committee on: http://www.climatemice.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Comment.ClimategateInquiry
and everyone who is willing to help is welcome to join in.
I should also remind everyone who is part of the UK electorate that they can still sign the online petition http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UEACRU/
d thompson (14:42:32) :
I want it televised. I want to see jones briffa and the rest sweat under the evidence and probing qs of the committee. However the three main parties are all pro agw and the right qs will not be asked. The bankers took a beating from the sc, blair/brown will take a beating, the election will distract the voters as I said all parties are pro agw. Nobody( well very few) will take any notice.
Committee meetings are regularly televised, there is a dedicated TV channel for the UK Parliament, however the Election is too close for comfort.
Perhaps respondents should have a look at this 2001 report of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee?
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY SYSTEM: SCIENTIFIC ADVICE ON CLIMATE CHANGE
It provides a little background info on the committee’s views about the UK’s climate scientists.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmselect/cmsctech/14/1404.htm
Cold Englishman is right – the Select Committee is the opportunity for scientists directly involved or with knowledge of what was going on at CRU i.e. the alleged use of ‘tricks’, dodgy data, fudge factors, failure to adhere to the scientific method, and usurping the peer review process. If others wish to make points (which is the right of UK citizens at least) I suggest they state that they have no direct involvement with the establishment, but are concerned taxpayers. That way if thousands of sceptics do submit evidence the input from the key players will less likely to be missed.
Just my tuppence worth – from a not so warm Scotsman (the snow from December is now almost all gone, but it is still only just above freezing).
I’m as sceptical of this, as I am of the Chilcot Inquiry.
There is a comment from Phil Willis reported in the Telegraph this morning:
“There are a significant number of climate change deniers who are basically using the UEA emails to support the case this is poor science that has been changed or at worst manipulated. We do not believe this is healthy and therefore we want to call in the UEA so the public can see what they are saying” (sic)
What chance of a fair hearing under Mr Willis’s chairmanship?
I know there are a lot of people who would like to see Lord Monckton involved. However, Monckton, as far as I’m aware, has not had any direct involvement with CRU in the past, and therefore cannot be a witness. His opinion is just hearsay. It would be like members of the public wanting to get involved with the Chilcot enquiry without having played any role in the activities in question.
Of course, I may be wrong about this. What does Richard Courtney think? Is this something passive observers can play a part in?
Can I urge anybody who has some scientific knowledge relating to climate to make a submission. You do not have to be a UK citizen.
One of the reasons that the warmists have got away with what has turned out to be a massive fraud is because too many good men kept quiet, for what ever reason. Now, is a unique chance to kill the political agenda of AGW for ever.
While this is great news for those of us of a sceptical mindset, having watched the progress of a number of enquiries in the UK during the 7+ years I have been living here, I am not confident that the truth will emerge in a recognisable form and neither am I confident that those who have appeared to act ‘unscientifically’, unethically and in defiance of the FOI laws will suffer much in the way of negative sanctions. I am not confident that justice will be well served in this matter. I could be quite wrong, and I hope I am, but the track record of such enquiries appears to be quite dismal. My hopes are twofold; 1, that the evidence is so cumulatively clear and damming that course of action for the enquiry will be to expose the entire affair for what it is and 2, that some way can be found for politicians to save face, allowing them to retreat from their extreme Warmist positions. The Prime Minister has discredited his own scientific objectivity by claiming anyone who doubted “the fixed and settled science behind CAGW is a flat-earther” and that “there were X days to save the world!” at the start of the recent Copenhagen conference, but his credibility, and that of most politicians in this matter, must be at a very lowe ebb. The bullet wounds in the PM’s feet are so obvious that in simpler times he would have been laughed out of office.
Hopefully, the pols as a class will realise that most of the intelligent world knows that ‘green taxes to save the planet’ are just another tax with no particular relevance to the environment but are a part of the shell-game that some world figures hope to enrich themselves by, and that they will quietly walk away from them, muttering face-saving phrases such as “The Warmists certainly fooled us!”.
As a footnote, I suspect an enquiry into the public utterances of some of the more aggressive ‘Green’ organisations including WWF and Greenpeace would be an illuminating sequel to the upcoming event.
To paraphrase the old Chinese proverb, we live in interesting times.
“Is this something passive observers can play a part in?”
Yes see: http://www.climatemice.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Inquiry.ClimategateInquiry
From a public relations point of view, this is a response to the public petition: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UEACRU/ as such the public are clearly interested parties as defined in the remit of the parties.
So, it is only fitting that the public concern expressed by the number signing the petition is similarly expressed in a public submission to the committee. And as the creator of the petition …
There is little or no chance that this committee will review the climategate evidence objectively. In parliament there only a handful of MP’s who are likely to be objective: most are pro climate change as evidenced by the ease with which the climate change bill passed through parliament with little or no opposition. The committee members will be drawn from MP’s who thus will have a vested interest in not being embarrassed and proving that they were right all along. Already the Chairman of the committee is referring to climate change deniers
@ur momisugly David
QUOTE
I think you are being too cynical.
1) If we read “the disclosures” as covering the material disclosed, rather than the fact of the disclosure, then the first question gives the committee scope to analyse all the misbehaviour exposed by the emails and to consider to what extent this misbehaviour has invalidated the scientific claims made by the CRU and their associates.
END QUOTE
We shouldn’t have to, or be able to, read or interpret the question in any other than a clearly unambiguous manner.
You are right about the objectiveness of the next question but our whole problem is with badly worded terms of reference.
“To investigate climate variation over geological time frames” would have been a much better term of reference than “To investigate anthropogenic global warming.”
The far more likely outcome is that this wording implies a degree of open investigation as you suggest but doesn’t explicitly state that and in fact the wording is such that they can exclude any such investigation as beyond their remit and competence.
The wording doesn’t put it beyond doubt either way but it could have done and since it doesn’t you have to ask why.
They could have said “We are only interested in the security aspects and how we protect data and correspondence at other institutions” or they could have said “We are interested in the implications of the material found in the disclosures” but they didn’t.
I can’t help thinking that there is a world of difference between “implications of the disclosures” and “implications of the material revealed by the disclosures” and it is way to much of a stretch to reach the second from the first. So I can’t accept that we can read “disclosures” (the act of), as “Disclosures” meaning the actual material revealed.
Off Topic I know but Re
AdderW (12:27:56) :
Pachauri now admits that there might be other mistakes in the report, but he refuses to resign
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999051.ece
I have never seen so many Anti AGW comments and so few Pro AGW comments on any press article to date. It really does look as if the tide may be changing for the good of mankind.
This morning I received a reply from my MP to a message I sent several days ago. I basically threatened to vote UKIP if the Conservatives, after climategate etc., persisted in promoting Cameron’s blinkered green policies.
His reply was quite encouraging. I will not quote the whole thing, but one paragraph is as follows:
“I can understand how disappointed you feel about the scandal. This has been damaging to not only the global warming movement but also to the general credibility of scientific evidence. I have also looked at the arguments presented by those who are more sceptical about anthropogenic global warming. You may be interested to know that I have read through geologist Ian Plimer’s book ‘Heaven and Earth’ on he subject of global warming, the evidence that he has presented and on the subject.”
This is from a man who has previously parroted Cameron’s party line on this subject. He does go on to say that he believes in reducing emissions and has put forward energy policies which will reduce energy use and save cosumers money. Well, I suppose he can’t be expected to cave in all at once! He is in the shadow cabinet, so reasonably influential. I think many Conservative MPs may have had similar ‘threats’ and may try to change policy before the election.
Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but, I repeat, I find this encouraging.
I wrote to my (Lib Dem) MP about the apparent breaches of the FoI Act to see if the MP had asked any questions in Parliament about this. Considering that the Lib Dems are (after the Green Party) the most nutty about global warming I was surprised to receive the following reply:
“I share your concerns about this. The whole event causes serious concerns, as we have come to depend on science to guide us when making decisions on such matters in society, and often for solutions. It is worrying to think that respected scientists would consider tampering with results because they did not get the result they had hoped for. As you have also noted, there are also concerns about their respect for the Freedom of Information Act. It is a clear breach if people are deliberately deleting information they know has been requested.
I have written to the Minister in charge, Michael Wills MP, to ask what his views of this incident are, and if the Government will do if this is found to be widespread in the scientific community. I will let you know as soon as I receive a response.”
I am still waiting to find out the Minister’s reply.
A Lovell,
“This morning I received a reply from my MP to a message I sent several days ago. I basically threatened to vote UKIP if the Conservatives, after climategate etc., persisted in promoting Cameron’s blinkered green policies.
His reply was quite encouraging.”
A Conservative election leaflet recently arrived on my doorstep from the candidate challenging for this seat. It listed 10 Conservative commitments, and I was delighted to see that climate change or CO2 did not feature in it at all.
Vincent, is it too much to hope that the tide is, at last, turning?
Several commenters previously have mentioned the perfect ‘out’ these people (politicians, msm) have. Blame the scientists and move on!
It seems to be a drip, drip process rather than a crashing dam break, but I’m a very patient person.
Sorry,I meant to include Alba in my reply too. The Libdems no less!! Maybe it is the dam after all………….
I’ll be a whitehall in Whitewash.
Vincent (03:06:46) :
You ask me:
“What does Richard Courtney think? Is this something passive observers can play a part in?”
I do not know because I suspect the answer to your question depends on what you mean by “play a part in”.
Clearly, the Committee cannot afford the time to hear and/or consider input from each and every person and organisation that may want to state an opinion. So, of necessity, the Committee must concentrate its efforts on considering actual evidence from persons who were involved and/or affected by issues raised in the leaked files. The Committee can then evaluate that evidence to determine if it shows nothing of concern, or shows some degree of incompetence, and/or shows some degree of malpractice.
However, that judgement is to be made by politicians, not lawyers. Hence, the Committee will consider public opinion to be an important factor in its judgement. For example, the Committee exists to provide accountability that good scientific advice is being used by government and, therefore, if the public do not trust that advice then it cannot be good.
A recent example of this need for ‘good’ science to be acceptable to the public was when a Chairman of a Scientific Advisory Committee was sacked because he persisted in saying the use of canabis is less harmful than the public thinks it is. But government has to value the public perception as being more important than a scientific opinion, so he was sacked. The House of Commons debated his dismissal and approved it. As one MP said in that debate, to applause from other MPs,
“Scientists should be ‘on tap’ and not on top”.
So, many organisations and people will want to have an input to the Committee. Indeed, does anybody expect WWF and Greenpeace to not make submissions? And the Committee will want to be seen to be taking note of such inputs.
Hence, the real question to address is,
‘How can passive observers play an effective part in helping the Committee to reach correct judgements?’
It requires a professional lobbiest and PR consultant to address that question. And I cannot provide a useful answer to it because I am completely incompetent in lobbying and PR.
One suggestion for what to do is provided by IsoTherm at (03:48:15) who suggests signing his petition and providing that to the Committee. Perhaps he is right, but – as I said – I am not competent to assess the worth of his suggestion.
Sorry to be so unhelpful, but we each have abilities and inabilities that we need to recognise for ourselves.
Richard
Herman L says:
Sean O’Hare (11:08:14) :
One whitewash coming up.
Declared guilty before the trial even starts. And you guys accuse us of bias!
It seems to me, Herman, that you are not a UK resident. If you were, you would appreciate we have had 4 inquiries into the Iraq war, each of which has resulted in a whitewash.
You will appreciate, therefore, that Sean is speaking from experience,……and he is perfectly correct!
The people of this Sceptred Isle are heartily sick of politicians and Chancers treating them as mugs. So, if the Climategate investigation proves to be conclusive in fingering those responsible for the CRU scam, so much the better.
I agree with Mark, Allen Ford, Cold Englishman, Lindsay H and all the others who have advised against making submissions which are poorly argued, ungrammatical and misspelt or exhibit any other features contained in a rant.
Incidentally, I have just signed up to the 10 Downing Street petition and noted that there have only been just over 2,600 signatures so far and, in the light of my comment above, was disturbed to find that the text of the petition refers to CRU as the “Climate” Research Unit (instead of “Climatic” which I believe is the correct name).
Richard Courtney,
Thanks for your considered opinion. Your point about this having a political dimension rather than a legal one, has helped me decide. I will send a letter as a concerned ciitizen.
“One suggestion for what to do is provided by IsoTherm at (03:48:15) who suggests signing his petition and providing that to the Committee. Perhaps he is right, but – as I said – I am not competent to assess the worth of his suggestion.”
Richard, my suggestion is much more than just signing the petition. It is to create an online cooperative submission to the committee representing those “interested parties” who signed the petition and in effect brought about this inquiry.
So it really does need a group of people to help out on the wiki: http://www.climatemice.comwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Inquiry.ClimategateInquiry
As for those saying it will be a whitewash – of course it will be a whitewash – would you prefer a greenwash?
But seriously, the more effort put into this inquiry, the more publicity that can be generated by writing to local papers, MPs, councillors, etc. the more likely it is that the greenwash will be removed.
I hate to pour cold water on this, but the chairman of the committee, one Phil Willis, has issued the following statement:
“There are a significant number of climate change deniers, who are basically using the UEA emails to support the case this is poor science that has been changed or at worst manipulated.
We do not believe this is healthy and therefore we want to call in the UEA so the public can see what they are saying”
This is hardly a word form that engenders confidence that a balanced investigation will be fothcoming.