Guest post by Steven Mosher
In Climategate: The Crutape letters we tried to avoid accusing Professor Jones of CRU and UEA of outright fraud. Instead, based on the record found in the emails, we argued a case of noble cause corruption. I enlarged upon that charge at Pajama’s Media . Commenters took me to task for being too soft on Jones. Based on the extant text at that time I would still hold to my case. No skeptic could change my mind. But Phil Jones makes it hard to defend him anymore. On March 1st he testified before Parliament and there he argued that it was standard scientific practice to not share data. Those who still insist on being generous with him could, I suppose, argue that he has no recollection, but in my mind he is playing with the truth and knows he is playing with the truth.
In 2002 Steve McIntyre had no publications in climate science. He wrote to Jones requesting temperature data. The history of their exchange is detailed in this Climate Audit Post. Jones sent data to McIntyre along with the following mail:
Dear Steve,
Attached are the two similar files [normup6190, cruwld.dat] to those I sent before which should be for the 1994 version. This is still the current version until the paper appears for the new one. As before the stations with normal values do not get used.
I’ll bear your comments in mind when possibly releasing the station data for the new version (comments wrt annual temperatures as well as the monthly). One problem with this is then deciding how many months are needed to constitute an annual average. With monthly data I can use even one value for a station in a year (for the month concerned), but for annual data I would have to decide on something like 8-11 months being needed for an annual average. With fewer than 12 I then have to decide what to insert for missing data. Problem also applies to the grid box dataset but is slightly less of an issue. I say possibly releasing above, as I don’t want to run into the issues that GHCN have come across with some European countries objecting to data being freely available. I would like to see more countries make their data freely available (and although these monthly averages should be according to GCOS rules for GAA-operational Met. Service.
Cheers
Phil Jones
We should note these things: Jones sent data. That was his practice. Jones is aware of the problems in releasing this data. Jones believes that these monthly averages should be released according to GCOS [WMO resolution 40] rules. In 2002 his practice is to release data to a total unknown with no history of publication. And Jones releases the data to him knowing that there are issues around releasing that data.
In 2004 Warwick Hughes exchanges a series of mails with Jones. In 2000 Jones appears to have a cooperative relationship with Hughes. In 2004 the record shows the following
Dear Jean Palutikof, Dr P.D. Jones,
I was just reading your web page at; http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ and wish to access the station by station temperature data, updated through 2001 referred to on your CRU web page; http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow as
“Over land regions of the world over 3000 monthly station temperature time series are used.” Where can I download the latest station by station data which is a foundation of Dr Jones et al published papers ? Note, I am not asking about the CRU gridded data which I can see on your web site. Looking forward to your help,
Best wishes,
Warwick Hughes
Warwick,
The station data are not on the CRU web site. If you look at the GHCN page at NCDC, you’ll see they have stopped access and cited WMO Res. 40 for this. To my mind this resolution is supposed to make access free. However, it was hinted at to me a year or two ago that I should also not make the station data available.
The gridded data are there as you know.
I would suggest you take this up with WMO and/or GCOS. I have raised it several times with them and got nowhere.
Cheers
Phil
As Jones points out he believes that WMO Resolution 40 should make access free. Jones also says that he himself has taken up this issue with them. One can presume he took it up because he wanted to give access to data. Further, he knows that there may be agreements that preclude release of the data.
The start of 2005 is a critical point in the story line. Jones had cordial exchanges with Hughes in 2000. Jones shared data with McIntyre in 2002 and in 2004 Jones believed that the data should be shared. In 2005 he has been transformed. In January of 2005, McIntyre published a paper (MM05) critical of Mann. As luck would have it at this time former CRU employee Wigley sent an email to Jones about a flyer he has received that discusses FOIA. At this stage no FOIA have been sent to CRU. But Wigley and Jones are concerned about skeptics. What ever willingness Jones had to share data is gone. Again, Jones shows a clear understanding of the existence of agreements:
Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to deal with them.
At the start of Feb 2005, Jones’ attitude toward data sharing becomes clearer and also contradictory. Some people can get this data in violation of agreements, while others who ask for it using legal means will be thwarted.
Mike,
I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc !
Just sent loads of station data to Scott [Rutherford]. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs [McIntyre and McKittrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send
to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !
Two weeks after the publication of MM05, prior to the issuance of any FOIA whatsoever, Jones contemplates destroying data rather than sharing it. But read closely. Jones sends this data to Scott Rutherford. So what’s the standard scientific practice? The data is covered by confidentiality agreements. Jones shared it with McIntyre in 2002, and now shares it with Rutherford in 2005. Jones knows it is covered by agreements and he’s questioned those agreements—except when he finds it convenient to hide behind those agreements. He violates them as he pleases. He shares data as he pleases. And if he is pushed to share it he contemplates destroying it.
On Feb 21, 2005 Keith Briffa sends Jones a mail with a list of editorials that are critical of Dr. Mann for not releasing data. Jones replies to Warwick Hughes’ request for data that same day:
Warwick,
Hans Teunisson will reply. He’ll tell you which other people should reply. Hans is “Hans Teunissen”
I should warn you that some data we have we are not supposed top pass on to others. We can pass on the gridded data – which we do. Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. There is IPR to consider.
You can get similar data from GHCN at NCDC. Australia isn’t restricted there.
Several European countries are. Basically because, for example, France doesn’t want the French picking up data on France from Asheville. Meteo France wants to supply data to the French on France. Same story in most of the others.
Cheers
Phil
Jones has changed his attitude about the WMO. Prior to the publication of MM05 Jones believed that the WMO guidelines would make the data available. Moreover he argued with WMO that it should be released. Now, Jones changes his tune. He argues that he will not release the data even if the WMO agrees. His concern? Hughes will find something wrong with it.
When it comes to deciding whether to share data or not, standards have nothing to do with the decisions Jones made and he knows that. He knows he shared confidential data with Rutherford while he denied it to McIntyre and Hughes. He knows he regarded the confidentiality of those agreements quixotically. Violating them or hiding behind them on a whim. This was scientific malpractice. Lying about that now is beyond excuse.
April 2005 comes and we turn to another request from McIntyre: There is a constant refrain amongst AGW defenders that people don’t need to share code and data. They argue that papers do a fine job of explaining the science: They argue that people should write their own code based on description in papers. Here is McIntyre’s request. Note that he has read the paper and tried to emulate the method:
Dear Phil,
In keeping with the spirit of your suggestions to look at some of the other multiproxy publications, I’ve been looking at Jones et al [1998]. The methodology here is obviously more straightforward than MBH98. However, while I have been able to substantially emulate your calculations, I have been unable to do so exactly. The differences are larger in the early periods. Since I have been unable to replicate the results exactly based on available materials, I would appreciate a copy of the actual data set used in Jones et al [1998] as well as the code used in these calculations.
There is an interesting article on replication by Anderson et al., some distinguished economists, here [1]http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2005/2005-014.pdf discussing the issue of replication in applied economics and referring favorably to our attempts in respect to MBH98.
Regards, Steve McIntyre
When you cannot replicate a paper based on a description of the data and a description of the method, standard practice is to request materials from the author. McIntyre does that. Jones’ “practice” is revealed in his mail to Mann:
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: DEBUNKING THE “DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE” SCARE
Date: Wed Apr 27 09:06:53 2005
Mike,
Presumably you’ve seen all this – the forwarded email from Tim. I got this email from McIntyre a few days ago. As far as I’m concerned he has the data sent ages ago. I’ll tell him this, but that’s all – no code. If I can find it, it is likely to be hundreds of lines of uncommented fortran ! I recall the program did a lot more that just average the series. I know why he can’t replicate the results early on – it is because there was a variance correction for fewer series.
See you in Bern.
Cheers
Phil
Jones does not argue that code should be withheld because of IPR[Intellectual Property Rights]. It’s withheld because he is not sure he can find it and he suspects that it is a mess. More importantly Jones says he knows why McIntyre cannot replicate the results. Jones does not argue “standard scientific practice” to withhold code; he withholds code because it’s either lost, or sloppy and because it will allow McIntyre to understand exactly how the calculations were done. This is malpractice. Today when questioned whether people could replicate his work from the papers he wrote Jones “forgot this mail” and said they could replicate his work. And we should note one last thing. Jones again acknowledges sending data to McIntyre. So, what exactly is Jones’ notion of standard practice? To share or not to share? What the record shows is that Jones shared data and didn’t share data, confidential or not, on a basis that cannot be described as scientific or standard. He did so selectively and prejudicially. Just as he refused data to Hughes to prevent his work being checked he refuses information that McIntyre needs to replicate his published results. At the same time he releases that data to others.
That’s not the end of the story as we all know. In 2007 the first two FOIA were issued to CRU for data. One request for a subset of the data was fulfilled after some delay. The larger request was denied. By 2009 it became clear to McIntyre that the CRU data had also been shared with Webster. When McIntyre requested the very same data that Webster got from Jones, CRU started again with a series of denials again citing confidentiality agreements, inventing the terms of those agreements ex nihilo. Webster could have the data. McIntyre could not.
What the record shows is that Jones had no standard scientific practice of sharing or not sharing data. He had no consistent practice of abiding by or violating confidentiality agreements. He had his chance to sit before Parliament and come clean about the record. He had an opportunity to explain exactly why he took these various contradictory actions over the course of years. Instead he played with the truth again. Enough.
Those advocating a course of action bear the burden of proof and persuasion. It seems the Pro-global warming faction wants us just to take their word for it.
Well put…Unfortunately, its really easy to “Save the Planet” or “Free Tibet”, gain a sense of moral superiority, and then basically to nothing.
Paul Coppin (07:48:02) : Dashing_leech and Peter Hearnden: Your writings indicate neither of you have any understanding of science, how it is done, how it is evaluated, even what it is.
You both would be well advised to return to school, preferably a good institute of higher learning, and work to a serious degree in a scientific discipline.
I argued frequent long emails for six months with a PhD of science, who could not understand the difference between “proved” and “peer-reviewed” and because I, without degree, looked for the former while he, degreed, looked for the latter, I was wrong, mistaken, misled, misleading others, in need of training, etc.
That taught me about closure of minds.
OTOH, I read somewhere that Parliament had been told to go gently with Jones because he was “near to a breakdown”.
Peter Hearnden (03:13:12) : Remember, if the sceptic case is wrong but we act upon it, then it will be scepticism that costs the world BILLIONS!
Peter Hearnden (07:03:13) : So, to re phrase my questions, suppose (just suppose, OK?) AGW science is right and we see 2-4C global warming for a effective CO2 doubling. 2-4C warming is a lot, it’s something that will cost humanity a lot – BILLIONS, TRILLIONS probably.
Peter Hearnden (14:11:46) : I can also see that if the science is right then we need to act to mitigate AGW, and soon.
…
all I want to do is to get people to accept that other possible reality viz if AGW sceptics are wrong and we do what they want they will cost the planet BILLIONS. That, in my view, is another reasonable view to have.
…
So, Steve, what will your response be? So far I’ve been on the receiving end of name calling, dismissal, patronisation and rudeness and the odd considered reply. Can you bring yourself to admit I might have a point, that if you AGW sceptics are wrong listening to you will cost us all BILLIONS?
Peter,
Let me try to clarify what I think one of the big disconnects is between what you are saying and what many others here are (I believe) trying to say. All of the above quotations from you indicate to me that you believe that, if a doubling of CO2 actually did cause an increase in global temperatures of 2C-4C, that it is a GIVEN that the net cost of this change in our planet would be to “cost us billions” or even trillions.
Even if the GCMs were correct (and we know, objectively, that they are not a correct simulation of what really happens), and the CO2 levels rose along with that increase in temperature, I believe that it has not been convincingly established that there would be ANY NET COST AT ALL.
I have yet to see any accounting which could be called both accurate and thorough with respect to what ALL of the changes would be in the event of such differential inputs. I think we have not yet reached the point where we can accurately say what the long-term cloud response on the planet would be over that time period for those sorts of temperature changes.
We know for certain that if we follow the alarmist prescriptions, there will be a significant impact to the economies and lifestyles of billions of people, and that many of these impacts will be significantly negative. There are studies out now which strongly suggest that the net mortality from a global temperature increase would be NEGATIVE. Many more people die each year from circumstances that are too cold, than die from circumstances that are too hot.
We don’t know to a strong degree what the NET change in habitats for animals will be… but we have seen that early attempts to quantify this were deeply flawed, in that they failed to take into account the possibility of habitats EXPANDING for many species under a marginally warmer world.
We know from studies conducted (ironically) in greenhouses that many plant species produce better yields and have better growing seasons under higher CO2 levels than we have today, which suggests that (from the plant’s perspective) the levels of CO2 are currently sub-optimal for these plants. This seems to tie in with why satellite surveys have confirmed that total biomass on the planet’s surface has been INCREASING as CO2 levels have risen. There is every reason to believe that, were CO2 levels to double from today’s level, that this trend would continue, and possibly expand greatly. The science of airborne fertilization via increased CO2 availability is also “established science”. We should take that into account.
All of this leads to the notion that the comparison should not rightly be between hypotheticals that someone might pose as to what sorts of local impacts particular areas and species might encounter, but instead should be based on a comparison on a NET LEVEL between several different scenarios. There are multiple different things that might “be wrong” with the current understanding of impacts, and these need to be weighed in order to make effective decisions.
We can assume that CO2 levels will continue to rise, eventually leading to a doubling from our current levels.
The question then becomes: what are ALL of the changes this will lead to in our world, and what are the NET differences in outcomes. If this change in CO2 levels leads to substantially increased cereal yields, for example, that might be a positive influence on our world. If marginally more people die from too much heat in certain areas, we need to understand how many OTHER people will be spared from death in areas that are no longer too cold.
For each habitat which has a northern boundary which expands due to warming, we need to compare what happens to its southern border. Did the net habitable area increase, or decrease? Are there more species which experience more favorable conditions than ones which experience net worse conditions?
These things simply have not been convincingly established yet, and many of the preliminary attempts to do so have been shown to have severe flaws.
Accordingly, we shouldn’t just accept that, even if the “skeptics” are wrong about the net change in temperature, that it means there will be an overall NET cost in the billions or trillions. That camp could be wrong about that, and there still may well be a net BENEFIT from that outcome.
Your assumption that it WILL cost us billions or trillions is BEGGING THE QUESTION. That hasn’t yet been established well, as far as I can see.
We do, however, know that the societal impacts from embarking down this road would be huge, and we don’t know whether, even if it were successful, that the net change would be at all beneficial when compared to having done nothing to engage in “mitigation”.
You seem to like to structure this as a “what if” scenario. What if we follow all of these prescriptions, sacrifice all of the things called for because of it, and the net outcome is that millions more people die BECAUSE we stopped the CO2 level from increasing? We pay a double cost, and then some. What if millions of people who otherwise could have been fed and survive under better crop yields instead die of starvation? What if there are billions of animals which could have lived in larger habitats under a warmer world, who end up dying from the lack of an expanded habitat? What of the trillions of plants which might fail to exist because we suppression of the expanding biosphere that we arrogantly chose to impose on the world through this scheme?
It has not yet been established that “choosing to act” is at all a known good. It could turn out to be downright evil. If you want to apply the precautionary principle, you need a full understanding of all possible outcomes, and their relative probabilities. We lack anything close to that yet.
Until we do, I think it’s extremely short-sighted to impose a known cost and possibly make things far worse in the process.
I think understanding that concept is key to understanding some of the pushback you see to these notions that we “have to act”.
Argh, a failed editing attempt! The last sentence in my fourth-to-last paragraph should be “What of the trillions of plants which might fail to exist because of the suppression of the expanding biosphere that we arrogantly chose to impose on the world through this scheme?”
Peter Hearndon:
G.L. Alston provided the salient answer.
However, if you fail to perceive that, then you’ll forever remain unenlightened.
Sorry for the typo: Hearnden vice Hearndon.
This is just a note of appreciation. It’s great that technology allows me to keep track of replies to my comment, even long after the comment was been mysteriously deleted.
……we tried to avoid accusing Professor Jones of CRU and UEA of outright fraud
I can also say that not only have you and others been soft on Jones, but to a greater extent people have been soft on Gavin Schmidt.
I would hope that this also stops soon.
p.s. I am not necessarily talking about you Mr. Mosher when i say this. But it’s odd to me that people can’t see he’s purely a mindless advocate for global warming grant money. I would have thought that what was revealed in regards to Schmidt and RealClimate from the ClimateGate emails people would have seen this. But many don’t.
Still there, Gaz at 3:29:38. Would you care to respond to my response at 4:59:04?
================
Peter Hearnden (14:11:46) : “…all I want to do is to get people to accept that other possible reality viz if AGW sceptics are wrong and we do what they want they will cost the planet BILLIONS.”
Let’s look at this. Assume the “skeptics” are wrong about climate sensitivity/feedback and that the Earth’s “average temperature” will rise 2 – 4 degrees Celsius over the 21st Century. There’s no evidence for this, mind you (models are not evidence), but let’s humor Peter and assume it.
Oops, now we have to assume the IPCC is right about the terrible cost of this scenario, except that we now know the IPCC has no scientific basis for many of it direst predictions (Himalaya-gate, Amazon-gate, hurricane-gate…) and has ignored the beneficial side of “assumed” global warming. Nevertheless, gritting our teeth, we assume disaster and move on.
Now we spend billions/trillions in cash and foregone economic development and make a few people rich curtailing CO2 emissions, but at least we prevent all those “assumed” disast–OMG, those freaking Chinese and Indians aren’t buying it and their increased emissions have negated our sacrifices and the world is suffering disaster, except those cursed Chinese and Indians with their growing economies are better able to adapt to changes than we are!
Wait, let’s really grit our teeth and assume those practical @ur momisugly#$% will actually forego certain wealth in fear of very dubious disast–BWAHAHA! Sorry…can’t go on…laughing…too hard!
Bottom line: If we do nothing about CAGW–and I mean nothing (no biofuel/windfarm mandates, no offshore/ANWR drilling bans, no coal plant bans, no nuclear plant bans)–then we lose nothing even if the AGW scenarios are correct. In fact, we stand to gain quite a bit compared to any Chicken Little scenarios we can imagine.
James F. Evans (13:09:48) : “And at least partly why “modern” astronomy is in crisis, too.”
Dr. Svalgaard (13:59:51) responded : “Yeah! let’s return to 19th century Astronomy. Get over it, Evans, there is no crisis, Astronomy is in a Golden Age, right now. Do a bit of self-education.”
Dr. Svalgaard, you are putting words into my mouth.
That’s just a straw man argument.
I never said I wanted to return to 19th century astronomy — on the contrary — astronomy needs to leave the 20th century, primarily the early 20th century, which was dominated by theoretical constructs, prior to the space age (as in “a priori” assumptions) unsupported by empirical observation & measurement.
(In essence, computer programs without the computers. Climate science, at least for AGW supporters, is in the same position as early 20th century astronomy, making assumptions then plugging in dodgy and partial observations & measurements, then claiming those observations & measurements demonstrate the assumptions — they don’t.)
Astronomy, like climate science, needs to take advantage of 21st century technological capability (the 21st Century truly is a Golden Age of observation & measurement cabability) and be open-minded & reasonably sceptical about how those the new observations & measurements are analyzed & interpreted, and not be straight-jacketed by old ideas that are increasingly coming under stress by contradictory observations & measurements.
GL Alston “Most of the skeptical community would like little more than to remove the secret witch doctor mask from the process.”
See, here’s where I disagree. That’s not all you want. You want to keep on digging and digging and digging until you find the evidence that it’s all the big hoax you are convinced it is. That’s seems fairly obvious to me. This isn’t all about better standards in science, it’s about finding the evidence that the scientists are trying to hoodwink us all on this particular matter.
All this talk about wanting to “replicate” their results by using not just the same raw data but also their computer code is really unconvincing.
(Note. re my previous comment, my earlier comment reappeared – either that or I have improved my search technique. Apologies either way.)
Cosmology is not Astronomy.
Gaz (19:04:20):
“You want to keep on digging and digging and digging until you find the evidence that it’s all the big hoax you are convinced it is.”
Yep.
But if the CAGW hypothesis can withstand the attack, it is on its way to being accepted climate theory.
If not, it was never scientific truth to begin with.
James F. Evans (18:48:00) :
and not be straight-jacketed by old ideas that are increasingly coming under stress by contradictory observations & measurements.
You don’t know what you are talking about. Astronomy is very much a 21st century endeavor. With instruments, both on the ground and in space, as never before. With increasing confirmation of our theories and nailing down with unprecedented precision the properties of our universe. e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/CosmicSoundWaves.pdf and [a bit more technical] http://www.leif.org/EOS/1002-2488v1.pdf . The latter starting with: “Rapid advances in observational cosmology have led to the establishment of a precision cosmological model, with many of the key cosmological parameters determined to one or two significant figure accuracy”
Do us all a favor and study these before you demonstrate your ignorance again. [Ignorance is no shame, but ignorance after having been shown the science is].
JimAsh (19:04:47) :
Cosmology is not Astronomy.
It is very much today. It is in cosmology that our astronomical research comes into focus and full bloom.
“It is very much today. It is in cosmology that our astronomical research comes into focus and full bloom.”
I completely agree. I knew my comment wasn’t that clever .
Kim: “Still there, Gaz at 3:29:38. Would you care to respond to my response at 4:59:04?”
You said: “You have put your finger on the real crime of the alarmists. Truly, we no longer know what we know or don’t know. Had they not blindly insisted on the settledness of the science, we might have made real progress toward the truth rather than chasing the chimera of carbon demonization.”
My response: I’m sorry, Kim, but I can’t remember anyone actually insisting the science was settled, let alone doing it blindly. The failure of Jones and his colleagues to get up and dance every time someone obviously bent on painting them in the worst possible light snaps their fingers doesn’t tell me “we no longer know what we know or don’t know”.
Myself, I think Jones’ response to the harrassment was understandable – not necessarily good PR, but neither was it an indication he is untrustworthy.
The tone of many of the comments here suggests Phil Jones is the spawn of Satan, as opposed to a scientist who got fed up with being bullied.
Steve Mosher: “You can whine that people should trust Jones, but they don’t.”
My advice to anyone not trusting Jones and the HadCRU data: use the NASA data set. And their raw data. And their code.
I think if anyone believing the science as summarized by the IPCC is wrong, then there’s really nothing stopping them from getting involved in doing some real scientific work of their own instead of hounding people who are.
Other than that, I can only repeat my earlier question:
Does anyone here really think that once all the raw temperature data comes to be freely available (instead of just almost all of it, which is the case now), that there is even the slightest chance that someone will come up with an analysis of it that shows something significantly different from what the various satellite and surface instrumental series already show?
Really?
On the other hand let me squander some bandwidth.
Leif’s comment about Cosmology and Astronomy merging closer into one discipline due to their interdependence and modern instrumentation
is exactly right.
Cosmology depends on astronomical observations to continue to develop,
or to confirm or falsify theory.
I guess I was trying to say that in some sense one would assume that Climatology would have a similar relationship with Meteorology and yet it does not seem so.
Gaz 19:40:13
Amazing that you would claim that alarmists have not called the science ‘settled’. This is what has most of the skeptics up in arms. We claim it isn’t.
So are you merely ignorant or are you being disingenuous?
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Do we call this one the Carbon Bubble? C02 Bubble? Carbon Dioxide Bubble? Or just Seltzer?
wakeupmaggy (09:01:37) :
Loved your paradoxymoronic (what a lovely word) rant – just wish it wasn’t such a good reflection of reality. So sad to see western civilization in a naval-gazing, green-hazed, self-hating suicidal spin. How did we become like this?
A sober man uses a streetlamp for illumination, while a drunkard uses it for support. A scientist uses data for illumination, while a policy advocate uses data for support.
Phil Jones may have been a sober scientist at one time, but now he appears intoxicated by policy advocacy. His descent is documented above. Few drinks intoxicate the intellectual’s mind more potently than the elixir of “noble cause.”
“Peter Hearnden: I can also see that if the science is right then we need to act to mitigate AGW, and soon”
So you want a solution now? No problem. Seriously. Shale gas! Enough natural gas to power us for 5 to 6 decades. That is a very low number but I assume we will take all coal and over aged nukes offline and replace them with natural gas. I also assume no thorium or Bussard nuke breakthroughs, no efficiency increase.
100% reduction in mercury, 99% reduction in nitrous, 40% reduction in sulfur and 33% reduction in CO2 (if that is still a concern of yours).
Given that we are polluting the very DNA of our planet with genetically modified foods, spewing depleted uranium around (billion year 1/2 life) and spreading mercury by the ton daily I can’t for the life of me accept that CO2 is a problem. But my plan will reduce it by 33%. What plan do you propose?
Leif Svalgaard (09:28:30) :
Apart from the queen being Mathematics, Astronomy is not in a crisis. On the contrary, e.g.
http://www.physorg.com/news186667261.html
I had believed that the many and various xgates had not jaundiced my view of science generally. I saw the link though and a vision of the headline “Astronomy not in crisis claims top Astronomer” flashed before me. I really need a break.