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
“davidmhoffer (20:01:58) :
[…]
extra energy = melting ice
less ice = more open water
extra energy has no ice to melt, so warms water instead
warmer water = higher radiance = negative feedback”
Sure. But what i mean is:
Cold iced-over pole -> no water vapour -> less green house effect over that area -> more radiation to space -> more cold
This feedback loop could cause an ice age (hypothesis), or, if we run it in the opposite direction, the retreat of an ice age. With two stable endpoints: Icehouse Earth and Greenhouse Earth.
UK Times: Using biofuel in cars ‘may accelerate loss of rainforest’
Using biofuel in vehicles may be accelerating the destruction of rainforest and resulting in higher greenhouse gas emissions than burning pure petrol and diesel, a watchdog said yesterday.
The Renewable Fuels Agency also warned that pump prices could rise in April because of the Government’s policy of requiring fuel companies to add biofuel to petrol and diesel…
Expansion of the industry has made Indonesia the third-largest CO2 emitter after China and the US. A litre of palm oil produced on land converted from Indonesian forest produces roughly three times as much CO2 as ordinary diesel. …
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7007238.ece
btw is everyone getting in touch with their congress men and women?
AFP: US sets 17pc carbon emissions reduction target
THE United States today officially stated a goal to cut carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 off 2005 levels, in a submission to the United Nations as part of last month’s Copenhagen meeting.
The United States said it expected to cut emissions blamed for global warming “in the range of 17 per cent” and “anticipated” that Congress would approve legislation to meet the target…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/us-sets-17pc-carbon-emissions-reduction-target/story-e6frg6xf-1225824553634
Just go add it to the climategate page
It wouldn’t last 30 seconds, as Connolley has bots that alert him to any change to any of “his” pages and he instantly reverts.
But FWIW, I’ve put it as an update to the relevant article on my blog:
http://poneke.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/stop-press/
Sure. But what i mean is:
Cold iced-over pole -> no water vapour -> less green house effect over that area -> more radiation to space -> more cold
YES! and if you were right, you should be able to take temperature data broken up by latitude, from NASA/GISS for example, and show that when the earth is warmer than normal the poles are MUCH warmer, and when the earth is cooler than normal the poles are MUCH cooler… like THIS http://knowledgedrift.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/global-versus-equatorial-versus-arctic1.png
and if you want the complete explanation with all the numbers http://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/poles-regulate-earth-temperature-data-suggests/
although I have a follow up to that coming because I confused some cause and effect issues, but yes, the poles regulate the planet’s temperature in my opinion.
So all this does is encourage lawsuits just short of six months? Or does the prosecutor have to bring charges within six months so they’d have to have a complaint at (say) three months?
What a ridiculous law.
My understanding of the emails seems to show that the FOI enforcement officers at CRU were complicit in the refusals, and in collusion with Jones et al at that end. So obviously the ICO are not going to prosecute if they can help it – they would have to prosecute their own officers in a sense (I’m not certain quite what the relationship is FOI/ICO).
Regarding the hacker/whistleblower question, everything I;ve read ont hat, esp from links to be found on this site under the ‘climategate’ tab, indicate it was a particularly IT-savvy whistleblower: ie an insider.
Posters above said:
“I think the tide is turning, but making governments change direction will require a lot more effort.”
“”It’s called an election.””
As others have pointed out, the incoming Conservatives (almost certain to win) are just as wedded to the AGW fiction as the current Govt. Cameron’s best chum and Envoronmental Advisor is Zac Goldsmith, an arch-environmentalist (he’s the millionare son of the late Jimmy Goldsmith).
The much bigger problem is that all our environmental laws are now in the form of directives from the EU in Brussels, even down to which lightbulbs we use and how to dispose of our rubbish, let alone the draconian directives on renewable energy. And the EU is totally sold on AGW (and the supra-national goverment agenda).
Richard North and Christopher Booker understand this very well, which is one reason they fight relentlessly for the UK to leave the EU even as they fight the AGW scam. Whilst we are in the EU we have no power under any Govt to escape financial ripoff by the global warming industry and its tax-hungry political supporters. Only UKIP has the policies to counter this scenario, sadly
“Brent Matich (16:42:45) :
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”
This law, like so many introduced since the time of Thatcher, is working as designed, designed to keep the public away from the ruling elite and politicos.
By the way, a freind of mine here in East Anglia owns the local news agency. He’s often asked me to explain the issues regarding AGW. I coudl probably get him to place a piece in eg the East Anglian explaining the basic issues, if anyone has (or could write) a summary. I can do it myself (I do a fair bit of journalism on unrelated topics) but I’d need someone more knowledgeable about the science and the sequence of events etc to check it over.
People don’t realise how much control the Guardian Group has over the MSM local press, Not only do they own a large number of lcoal newspapers outright (all of them in large areas, though not in East Anglia), but they own the Press Association, from whose newsfeed the local papers take almost all their editorial content. Go figure!
http://www.guardianlies.com/Section%204/indexa.html
One wonders how much influence they had in the appointment of the current editor of The Daily Telegraph, a paper which a few years ago would have had all this story all over its main pages, instead of all but confined to a couple of online blogs.
Y’know, when you’re a world-famous expert in a particular niche, it’s one thing to be blogged about to those folks who are intensely interested in your area. It’s something else entirely when Joe-the-Plumber-Nextdoor is suddenly giving you sideways glances when you’re both checking the mail.
The reputation of the University of East Anglia’s world renowned climatic research unit (CRU)was shaken to the core last year
Yes, such prestigious men involved. Where have all the heroes gone?
A Erickson (17:29:19) :
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.
Skinner reflects the dour, twisted view of the defeated alarmist. In his rant for scientists to “Get Your Labs in Order,” he stubbornly clings to the hope that:
“I honestly thought, when I first heard about the climate change threat, that it would be like when alien ships hovered over the planet in the Independence Day movie. I thought the common enemy — the universal danger — would unite us.”
Yes Frank… Except for that to work we have to have evidence of alien ships being more than the Batman signal projected against night clouds. The conjurers of global warming thought they could bamboozle discerning scientists with scenarios of gloom and doom all based on the improbable claim that “carbon is evil.” The goals included an agitprop socialist agenda and a clumsy “take away” of other peoples’ money.
Alarmists infused with socialist anger – declared those who made money in the West to be thieves. And their unholy plot was to shame people into believing that their greed and emission of CO2 had brought about the apocalypse. To execute their plot they marshaled their PR machine, media cronies, “science and publishing experts” and gullible student minds to create a movement. Their failure was to heed their own folly.
For a dozen years, at least since Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” – this lumbering behemoth Global Warming shut its ears to voices of calm, measured pragmatism. So filled with the fervor of climate religion, they lied, cheated, derailed opposition and colluded to destroy evidence. But with each refusal to publish a skeptical view they tightened the noose around their own necks – blindly unable to fathom that censorship, evasion and corruption of truth is the clarion call of the weak; the spiritually impoverished.
In the last two weeks the bipole has been authorized to switch. What we see now is little more than the well-rehearsed unwinding of a program that died long ago. The only reason it has taken so long and cost so much money – is the exercise of pride. Testimony that the harshest climate exists not in temperature or weather – but in the bleak souls of withered men, unable and unwilling to admit error.
That alone is the reason for gloom. People who should know better – cling to their decrepit hold on power and pride, and sink an entire enterprise in so doing.
Sam (22:09:12) : ;
“People don’t realise how much control the Guardian Group has over the MSM local press”
Actually if you dig using the names of the principals (the owners of the companies, and the parent companies) involved I think that you can tie The Guardian to New Scientist and thus to the bogus glacier melting thing.
Google: “Reed Elsevier” “Scott Trust”
Dig a bit, then get the principals names and dig some more.
Some of us do realize all that is going on here.
A Erickson (17:29:19) :
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.
Skinner reflects the dour, twisted view of the defeated alarmist. In his rant for scientists to “Get Your Labs in Order,” he stubbornly clings to the hope that:
“I honestly thought, when I first heard about the climate change threat, that it would be like when alien ships hovered over the planet in the Independence Day movie. I thought the common enemy — the universal danger — would unite us.”
Yeah Frank… Except for that to work we have to have evidence of alien ships being more than the Batman signal projected against night clouds. The naive conjurers of global warming thought they could bamboozle discerning scientists with scenarios of gloom and doom all based on the improbable claim that “carbon is evil.” The play included their agitprop socialist agenda and a clumsy “take away” of other peoples’ money.
Alarmists infused with socialist anger – declared those who had money in the West to be thieves. And the unholy plot was to shame people into believing that their greed and emission of CO2 had brought about the apocalypse. To execute their plot they marshaled their PR machine, media cronies, “science experts” and gullible student minds to create a movement. Their failure was to heed their own folly.
For a dozen years, at least since Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” – this lumbering behemoth Global Warming shut its ears to voices of calm, measured pragmatism. So filled with the fervor of climate religion, they lied, cheated, blocked opposition and colluded to destroy evidence. But with each refusal to publish a skeptical view they tightened the noose around their own necks – blindly unable to fathom that censorship and evasion and corruption of truth is the clarion call of the weak; the spiritually impoverished.
In the last two weeks the bipole has been authorized to switch. What we see now is little more than the well-rehearsed unwinding of a program that died long ago. The only reason it has taken so long and cost so much money – is the exercise of pride. Testimony that the harshest climate exists not in temperature or weather – but in the bleak souls of withered men, unable and unwilling to admit error.
That alone is the reason for gloom. People who should know better – cling to their decrepit grasp on power and pride, and sink an entire enterprise in so doing.
One of the issues that keeps coming back and being quoted is that CRU/UEA (and other) institutions were being bombarded by dozens of FOI requests. The requests were frivolous or malicious and were distracting the CRU scientists from the important research they wanted to do. Is this true?
Does anyone know how many FOI requests CRU/UEA received? How many FOI requests to CRU on climate issues and how many to UEA on all issues?
I’m not a regular contributor, so please excue this if the information is already out there.
Jack Hughes (14:43:41) :
Jones is having a divergence problem with his fingers. He doesn’t look happy.
He’s playing ‘scissors,paper, stone’ with the other person in the photo.
“It’s man made”
“It’s natural”
RichardJ
Highly trained scientists and the experienced admin team of a major University know the difference between ‘frivolous’ requests and one submitted by respected researchers such as David Holland, Warwick Hughes or SteveM whose work is well known and can be easily googled.
Ask yourself why they didn’t WANT to release the information and ultimately the uncomfortable truth is they recognised that there were things within it that they didn’t want made known to those who challenged their views.
Tonyb
He looks to have aged 100 years, his shirt looks as if he has slept in it and he has to wear a name badge in case he forgets who he is.
Tonyb
Sorry, this is my fault for not being clear.
I don’t believe that the FIO requests were frivolous, malicious, time wasting or whatever else. I certainly don’t believe that of those made by David Holland, Warwick Hughes or SteveM.
I simply wanted to know if the numbers of FIO requests they received could be considered being bombarded. How many have there been? are they all from respected researchers such as the ones we know about? There is an implication that the FOI requests they (CRU/UEA) received were a major hinderance to their work. Unless we know the figures and the nature of all the requests we can’t come to a judgemment about wether this is true or not.
Just wondered if anyone had any info on this…
Last evening, I watched a BBC newscast about the IOC decision to ask for a change in the FOI law to remove the time barrier to prosecutions, which was geniuinely good news, then was made unreasonably angry by the smooth ‘expert’ chatting with the newsreader who raised the old canard that all of those who made requests under FOI were ‘Global Warming Sceptics’ and heavily implying the requests came from the lunatic fringe and the University of East Anglia could justifiably claim those requests were frivolous. I would have expected a ‘respected and balanced news organisation’ would have at least raised Steve M’s requests for data. It would be helpful to know the volume of requests that the university was allegedly bombarded with. Is this information anywhere in the public domain? The Beeb is very obviously not changing its pro AGW views without a fight
Gee, I wonder if they’d apply the 6-month staute of limitations to the leaker, if they ever found him.
P Solar (18:52:44) :
They got the photo caption wrong. It should read : ex-director.
Perhaps he could become the ex-Rector of Stiffkey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rector_of_Stiffkey
(nonpoliticalwiki)
To Steve Mosher…
Hi Steve,
Just went to Lulu to purchase a copy of your book and it seems that the books format (epub digital editions) excludes most of the book readers on the market including mine (cybook gen 3) and also the digital editions software wont run on my computer (a nifty little linux box. Any chance of having at in a basic epub, pdf or mobi pocket books format.
Best Regards
Phil
Caption: Prof Phil Jones, 39, yesterday discussing the relationship between AGW and premature ageing.
Oh, and apparently his birth certificate has been lost.
Thanks for the great work by all here – I wanted to share with you the fruits of my labours on the Phil Jones criminal issue – forget the FOIA farce – Jones is facing 10 years in jail under the UK’s Fraud Act (2006)
http://www.climategate.com/climategate-professor-phil-jones-could-face-ten-years-on-fraud-charges#comments
“Steer clear of that iceberg, and set a course for warmer water.”
“Aye, Aye, sir.”
With Pachauri at the helm, and Jones his first mate, it was only a matter of time.
Must have made a wrong turn at Albuquerque?