If you were planning to do a spot of DIY over the weekend you may encounter a problem – an acute shortage of whitewash in your local store, as it may have been appropriated for more urgent purposes. The estimable Bishop Hill is reporting he has heard on the grapevine that the publication of the review into the Climategate emails conducted by Sir Muir Russell is “imminent”. The prospect seems to have provoked an acute absence of hysterical excitement.
This is the third investigation into Climategate and the universal expectation is that it will be as much a snow job as the previous two, though those precedents will be hard to beat: not since Tom Sawyer manipulated his friends into whitewashing his aunt’s fence has a team worked harder than the successive establishment figures who have exonerated the Decline Hiders from any culpability.
The Russell review got off to a bad start. Within hours of its launch last February, Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature (the magazine referred to in “Mike’s Nature trick” which also published the Hockey Stick graph), had to resign from the inquiry because of remarks he had made in an interview on Chinese State Radio, in which he said: “The scientists have not hidden the data. If you look at the emails there is one or two bits of language that are jargon used between professionals that suggest something to outsiders that is wrong. In fact the only problem there has been is on some official restrictions on their ability to disseminate data otherwise they have behaved as researchers should.”
Some people took the narrow-minded view that this suggested Campbell had prejudged the issue, so he had to go. Why did Sir Muir Russell think that Campbell was a suitable person to have on the inquiry panel in the first place? A press release claimed of the panel members: “They were selected on the basis that they have no prejudicial interest in climate change and climate science and for the contribution they can make to the issues of the review.”
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All the whitewash in the world cannot change reality, sooner or later reality will catch up with them all. Why on earth do they believe that by using cover ups and snow jobs and whitewashes it will somehow absolve them of responsibility when the true nature of natural climate variation can no longer be denied?
At some point those who now try to cover up the awful truth will be hung out to dry by the political classes looking for scapegoats and we all know just how expert the political classes have become in finding patsies to take the heat.
In fact the political classes have almost certainly started to shift their scapegoat patsies into position and it is they who will face ridicule and shame with both the public and the political classes pointing the finger of blame.
An independent review of the relevant emails is given by Dr John Costella on his web site: http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/ The insiders clearly, repeatedly, and in multiple different ways manipulated the system for their own advancement.
OT
[yes it is. use tip and note ~ ctm]
Will they disclosed all that data allegedly deleted by Dr.Jones? If it does not appear then all keeps dark, like a cold black body, no matter if this time they used concentrated chlorine instead of whitewash.
“Why did Sir Muir Russell think that Campbell was a suitable person to have on the inquiry panel in the first place?”
When I’m at a poker table, we call it “stacking the deck”.
Let’s hope that this report produces more than the 15 pages produced by the whitewash specialist and the carbon conflict of interest Lord Oxburgh [chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association]. His report was criticised because of his “close links to businesses that stand to make billions of pounds from low-carbon technology.”
I expect another whitewash with a special enamel finishing for extra slipperiness. :o)
Here’s a taste of the nonsense that went on with the previous investigation.
—
Has there been any ascertainment of the person or persons responsible for releasing the “FOIA.zip” archive to the ‘Net?
The endless fraudster noise about Climategate has included griping about how this “hacking incident” was a criminal action, and yet I have not seen much (or anything) about how an outside hacker could have gotten into the C.R.U. computer systems to aggregate the contents of that archive.
It’d be the equivalent of performing an appendectomy through a keyhole with nothing more than extra-long forceps. The “hack” of all time.
If the police were able to track down the people who had accomplished this “hacking,” wouldn’t the story be prominent even in the lamestream press?
And are the chittering root weevils of the Fourth Estate not following up on the “catch-the-hacker” story?
—
Their finding? The dog ate the homework.
The shocker of the month was the involvement of the head of the Royal Society in the Oxburgh whitewash, avoiding the investigation of ALL papers, that are in dispute.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/10/british-due-diligence-royal-society-style/
So are we being warned that the review is done by a loyal friend? It has no look at the data, the maths or the science?
Isn’t the normal sign of imminence a bbc report based on what a climate journalist has been told will be in the report, but has not yet had the chance to read? And shouldn’t the release be timed for a Friday – in the best tradition of political whitewashery?
Perhaps they have been reduced to going for the cover of England being defeated by the USA tomorrow. (Those computer models never lie.)
The fact that this is round #3 of investigation means that all is not well in the reputation dept.
Significant tarnish to the varnish of respectability.
Not going to get lost credibility back without some sanding.
We could help in the fourth one…after Cancun fiasco.
Then it appears that three inquiries in a row found no evidence of wrongdoing. Perhaps they are right, and there was none.
Cassandra King says:
June 11, 2010 at 12:41 pm
All the whitewash in the world cannot change reality, sooner or later reality will catch up with them all. Why on earth do they believe that by using cover ups and snow jobs and whitewashes it will somehow absolve them of responsibility when the true nature of natural climate variation can no longer be denied?
At some point those who now try to cover up the awful truth will be hung out to dry by the political classes looking for scapegoats and we all know just how expert the political classes have become in finding patsies to take the heat.
Not in the UK. All that will happen is that time will slip and successive inquiries will get nearer and nearer the actual truth, through a series of “palatable” truths. Those that did the earlier whitewashes will have retired/died (why do you think they are always old men?) Eventually the old inquiries will become “Trotsky’d” and will not be mentioned in polite company.
See the difference between the UK and US enquiries into the White Star line’s “Titanic” for one view on it. Then look at the “Bloody Sunday” enquiries, the “McKee fingerprinting scandal” enquiries, the Iraq War enquires and then Climategate equiries for a chronological/age-based look at the development of a enquiry’s conclusion given an humiliating mistake, and the passage of time/departing of this mortal coil of those involved in said mistake.
No one will pay a personal price for it. There is an awkward period where the conclusion is known, and the jonny-come-lately’s who believed in the rubbish are still in power and are belittled for their gullibility, then comes the “That was then, this is now and we’re so much smarter” phase, and life – and the spouting of complete rubbish will continue on as usual.
It’s like Al Capone investigating John Gotti.
The investigators and those under the exotropic scrutiny, are becoming more and more irrelevant daily. The truth is obvious to anyone without a horse in the race.
“This is the third investigation into Climategate and the universal expectation is that it will be as much a snow job as the previous two…”
Haw haw haw!! Snow job, indeed! Great choice of words, that.
http://blog.antarctica.ac.uk/eo/2010/01/08/uk-looks-polar-temporarily/
Great Britain, covered with snow from the Hebrides to my old home in Colaton Raleigh, Devon….what rot!
Who are we holding at fault here?
The Scientists ?
Or the system they were injected into?
It seems both failed.
Cassandra King says: “…the political classes have almost certainly started to shift their scapegoat patsies into position and it is they who will face ridicule and shame with both the public and the political classes pointing the finger of blame.”
I suspect you are correct, but there will also be some politicians thrown under the bus, much to their surprise.
Jimbo says:
June 11, 2010 at 1:16 pm
It was only 5 (five) pages long. A4 pages, longer and narrower than US pages. I suggested it be used as the introduction to the second edition of Climategate.
Dan in California says: “An independent review of the relevant emails is given by Dr John Costella on his web site: http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/ The insiders clearly, repeatedly, and in multiple different ways manipulated the system for their own advancement.”
A lot of Costella’s citations were new to me, and make the perps look even sleazier. They’re “worse than we thought.” Whitewashing these guys is a bad, bad idea; the creosote will soak right back up the brush and tar whoever is wielding it.
I am a very weird sort of animal. I am an optimist by nature. I am also someone who tries to see the other fellows pov, and if not exactly “walk a mile in his shoes”, at least imagine what doing so would be like. But I have various historical research experiences (I’m actually a recognized scholar on the American Civil War, and have been cited by no less than the CIA on the subject. I’m a recognized authority on some other stuff too, but again no appplicability to climate science), and have a political nature that wars internally between my inherent inclination to see the best in humankind while recognizing the fallability of the human condition.
Thanks for the heads-up. I have alerted my cynic side that “incoming” is imminent, while, apologetically, informing my sunny optimist side to gird its loins for the ordeal.
In a similar related matter, any background hum about the investigation of Mann?
John