New twist in UEA climate change row
Last updated: 28/01/2010 10:03:00
Norwich’s flagship university was at the centre of a new row today after it emerged it broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny in the climate change row over stolen emails.
The reputation of the University of East Anglia’s world renowned climatic research unit (CRU)was shaken to the core last year after emails posted on the internet from researchers including its director Prof Phil Jones appeared to suggest ways of avoiding freedom of information requests together with a “trick” to explain away an apparent fall in global temperatures.
Police including a team from Scotland yard were called in to investigate amid speculation that the leaks were part of a smear campaign by climate change sceptics to discredit the UEA in the run up the Copenhagen summit last year.
Other theories were that the leaks were the work of a disgruntled insider angry at the way the university was handling FOI requests.
The row has reverberated around the world and it emerged today the Norwich university breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided the UEA failed in its duties under the act but said it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late.
Read the complete story at Norwich Evening News
See the press release and background from ICO previously covered on WUWT here:
CRU inquiry prompts sought after changes in UK law, citing failure of CRU’s FOIA officer
Loophole in UK FOIA law will apparently allow CRU to avoid prosecution
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CRU’s Climategate finally makes the news on the BBC. Both the the main news at 10pm and Question Time tonight (Thursday). Nigel Lawson leading the Skeptics (2 + 1 neutral). If the tide hasn’t turned, we have reached the slack water stage.
” steven mosher (14:46:31) : Hey we are on Lulu with an ebook version ”
Steve
Yes I saw in your book that you contacted Revkin.
Hey, I was waiting for some ebook version, but gave up yesterday morning and downloaded Kindle for PC version. I finished your book at midnight the same day. I could read it pretty fast because i’ve been following all the events since early 2009.
I enjoyed your book very much.
John
It got some good coverage on BBC Question Time. The only alarmist voice left on the panel could only muster commenting, “well even George Bush eventually accepted climate change”, and to which he was challenged, “meaning what?”
Ok, once again I don’t think at present anything is going to happen to these warmest fellows. The ICC has made it a fact that UEA failed to live up to the law relating to the FOI issue plus other indiscretions but won’t prosecute. So, expect nothing but noise. These “team” scientists have huge egos and live in their own little world.They probably wouldn’t last 5 minutes outside it. Their world is to be protected at all costs, so they will hide or falsify anything to protect themselves. The “team” has lots of people trying to help them get through this mess because they too live on handouts from the big names and governments. If bad things happen to these guys, then UEA,NASA,PENN STATE,and the IPCC looks bad. Nothing is going to hurt these big names if they can help it. All we can do is keep hammering away at them and exposing their misdeeds and then maybe (a big maybe) the heat will force the big names to have to act even if they look bad. I expect if this happens the “Team” will get thrown under the bus. I await with bated or baited breath.
capn Jack,
Ya Shameless. Hopefully I have a nice piece on this coming out at big blog. Lots of people over seas have been asking for the Ebook version and I cant see doing a post just to thump on that, so I’ll drop a little plug now and again.
Anyways, I’m probably going to keep doing some pieces. there is so much
to do and it’s a struggle to decide what to do first. target rich enviroment.
The issue with the Data Protection Act in the UK is that if you request data and they don’t comply you then have to allow the offending institution to investigate the matter themselves before you can put in an official complaint to the ICO.
As complaints have to be made within six months of the request then the offending party can just string it out (if they so require). Also the ICO does not usually take the offending party to court for damages etc. The ICO will rule for or against and if there is an offence then you use this to start court action.
I have used this a few times in relation to information (taking on banks for unlawful bank charges) and although the ICO is a decent organisation it is undermanned and the legislation was just pushed through by this present administration and it is, like most things they have done, half cocked.
I found the best way to go if they don’t comply is straight to court and get an injunction – it’s not that expensive in small claims and it doesn’t half get them in a flap!
OT, but the last few little cartoons at <a href="http://saxontimes.blogspot.com/"http://saxontimes.blogspot.com/ are worth a thousand words. I particularly like the most recent.
I love how reserved Holland is.
Crazy skeptic conspirators, every last one of them. especially those folks at Watts. Interestingly enough david Holland fits the profile of the CA readers and the WUWT readers.
“JonesII (15:26:17) :
[…]
just to begin with, Germany was the first one to fell under the Green Spell with their Green Party…”
From Germany: You’re right, and all our parties more or less are cases of morbus AGW. It must be said, though, that much more devastating was the impact of the reunification; having to rebuild a run down communist state was far more expensive than the subsidies for renewables we pay in the form of inflated energy prices.
For driving out production labor into places like, say Hungary for example: This is not primarily caused by high energy costs but by the difference in labor costs. Nevertheless, high energy costs drive up all other costs as well so they have an accelerating effect on this labor migration.
On the positive side, our current government keeps the nuclear plants running, and for each Watt capacity of renewables we have a Watt of gas-powered running reserve so … maybe it ended up the way Maggie Thatcher planned: AGW as propaganda to convince the public that alternatives to foreign countries fossil fuels have to be financed.
They way it was and is financed borders on the insane, though. Finance development, yes – but why rollout the structure large scale as long as it is not cost-efficient?
Germany is awash with electricity, it’s only that it’s 4 times as expensive as it should be. A distorted market.
Completely off topic but…..
I have a holiday every year not far from UEA in what must be one of the most beautiful areas of the UK. It is the Norfolk Broads. It is an area of outstanding beauty and one of the most relaxing holidays I have ever had. Hire a boat from one of he many boatyards in the area and spend a week traveling up and down the Broads, I promise you, you will come back completely relaxed and stress free. I’ve been doing his for the last 10 years and have absolutely no reservations in recommending this to anyone.
DISCLAIMER: I have no association with any person or organisation in the Norfolk Broads but I wish I did have so I could earn commission from the number of people I have recommended.
Graham UK (14:46:06) :
I think the tide is turning, but making governments change direction will require a lot more effort.
It’s called an election.
Mike Ramsey
What’s this I see? USA to set a 17% cabon emissions cut target by 2020:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/us-sets-17pc-carbon-emissions-reduction-target/story-e6frg6xf-1225824553634
In British History Norwich has a pivotal role in the world that we now know. Some say that it started with Alan Partridge aka Steve Coogan, a minority bleated that John Three Chevrons made wicked allusions to the digitally-webbed good people of the Fens, they’re all wrong!
Twas’ the wicked Cru! It was!
For those outside the geographical environs of the UK, and many inside as well, none of this makes any sense but let me leave you with the punchline.
They’re guilty as charged but, thanks to temporal homogenisation , unpunished!
It looks like Jones will have to resign pretty soon
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/154794/How-Climategate-boss-broke-rules-by-hiding-key-data
The not-quite-so-discredited lion of UK science has spoken. Although he still acquiesces to the “consensus” he’s critical of the CRU scientists for their resistance to information sharing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8486440.stm
Maybe the eminent professor might like to review his comments in the light of this new “peer reviewed” paper?
The story seems to be all over the media, I just found fairly ‘skeptic friendly’ coverage in the Register, a technology news site – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/28/cru_foia_guilty/ .
I don’t excuse the MSM their climate alarmist bias but I do wonder if the much complained about UK libel laws have added to the media silence over the past months? This story, as it comes from an official legal source, is pretty much libel damage claim proof and it seems to be getting unusually wide coverage.
Good law, all you have to do is string out the person that requests info under the FOIA for what , six months, and they can’t prosecute you. This law is a great definition for impotence or tits on a bull.
Brent in Calgary
It is appalling that the vast body of media INCLUDING local East Anglia newspapers, have effectively airbrushed a subject which is right on their doorstep, until the national media wakes up, and only when it is forced to. This tells you all you need to know about the printed media: A lazy, complacent, complicit, vested interest mouthpiece that just about gets moving on an issue only when it represents a brick hurled through the shatterered glass of the supine journalist’s greenhouse.
This developing story is a seminal example of why any intelligent person with critical faculties in place needs to move from reading print to surfing the ‘neet. Of course the internet is also full of nutters, extremists and politically un-announced agendas….but SO is the conventional media.
Any discerning person can filter out the dross and get up-to-date, intelligent discourse on issues of the day which are far more current, cogent and equally (or better) researched than anything you will find in the Guardian, Mail or Independent.
Wake up you lazy good-for-nothings in the conventional press!
Typo second paragraph: “Net”. Sorry.
A little better than some MSM stories that still report on the matter as a case of stolen or hacked emails. Guess they don’t know how to actually report; probably getting poor guidance from http://www.sej.org/ . Still, the cracks widen. Now, if the integrity of the data were to start being questioned more openly in the media …
I just noticed that this article never once refers to the leaks as a hack, nor is there ever any mention of hacks or hackers. This is amazing. In addition, they later put scare quotes around the word “stolen” when referring to “stolen” emails, thus casting doubt on the veracity of the assertion. Yet they neglected to use scare quotes for the first occurrence of “stolen” which is in the first paragraph of the article. Very odd, but interesting nonetheless!
Today’s amusing story in the press concerns the amazing discovery that water vapour is a ‘major cause of global warming and cooling’. When I read this I was literally gobsmacked. I think perhaps a Nobel prize will be on offer to these fine fellows.
“The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided the UEA failed in its duties under the act but said it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late.”
Utter tripe. UK law should allow suspension of statutes if there has been a crime committed. And the general public has been deceived or harmed. The Parliamentary investigation has the power to close such a loophole and mete out justice if warranted.
The phrase that comes to mind is “unindicted co-conspirator.”
I ran across another article from the times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/frank_skinner/article7007054.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2270657 It looks like the walls are crumbling.