Press Release
London, 25 January: The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) remains deeply concerned about the failure by academic and parliamentary inquires to fully and independently investigate the ‘Climategate’ affair.
The latest follow-up report by the Science and Technology Committee on the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) confirms that the Climategate inquiries had serious flaws, lacked balance and transparency and failed to achieve their objective to restore trust and confidence in British climate science.
The report by the Science and Technology Committee shows that the inquiries into the conduct and integrity of scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were deficient and biased.
In particular, the report finds that:
- UEA Vice-Chancellor Professor Acton misled the House of Commons Committee over the nature of the Science Appraisal Panel (paragraph 23).
- As Graham Stringer MP, a member of the Committee, has pointed out: “The Oxburgh panel did not do as our predecessor committee had been promised, investigate the science, but only looked at the integrity of the researchers… This leaves a question mark against whether CRU science is reliable.”
- Lord Oxburgh’s Science Appraisal Panel may have not been wholly independent (paragraph 32).
- The review by Lord Oxburgh lacked rigour and diligence (paragraphs 33; 61).
- The Inquiries failed to investigate the serious allegation relating to the deletion of e-mails in response to an FOI request (89).
- None of the inquiries have determined if CRU staff actually contacted the journals they discussed threatening. The alleged threatening of the highly respected journal Geophysical Research Letters, arguably the most important incident in this area, has yet to be examined at all. The committee’s finding in this area is shameful.
Andrew Montford, the author of the GWPF’s report into “The Climategate Inquires” said:
“The committee suggest that we should all just move on. That may be what suits most politicians, but the public deserve to know the truth. The committee have turned a blind eye to the abundant evidence of wrongdoing at UEA and in the Climategate inquiries.”
We share the view by Graham Stringer that the UEA failed to set up independent panels that would have ensured an independent and objective scrutiny of the Climategate affair.
Mr Stringer’s conclusion encapsulates the utter failure of the Climategate inquires:
“We are now left after three investigations without a clear understanding of whether or not the CRU science is compromised.”
— end
Contact details:
Dr Benny Peiser
Director, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
1 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5DB
tel: 020 7930 6856
mob: 07553 361717
Note for Editors:
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (www.thegwpf.org) is an all-party and non-party think tank and a registered educational charity.
Our main purpose is to bring reason, integrity and balance to a debate that has become seriously unbalanced, irrationally alarmist, and all too often depressingly intolerant.
The GWPF’s primary purpose is to help restore balance and trust in the climate debate that is frequently distorted by prejudice and exaggeration.
Our main focus is to analyse global warming policies and its economic and other implications. Our aim is to provide the most robust and reliable economic analysis and advice.
We intend to develop alternative policy options and to foster a proper debate (which at present scarcely exists) on the likely cost and consequences of current policies.
We are funded entirely by voluntary donations from a number of private individuals and charitable trusts. In order to make clear its complete independence, it does not accept gifts from either energy companies or anyone with a significant interest in an energy company.
never fear//the U.S. EPA is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So we got what many here were expecting i.e. a carefully orchestrated whitewash.
What a surprise!
Personally my confidence in Phil Jones, his team, his Department, and his University is exactly nil. It was slightly above this level prior to the enquiries but not by much. Lord Oxburgh and his cronies really nailed this one for me.
Daryl Issa is waiting until Virginia to finish investigating. What’s this press release for?
Might want to edit out some of Benny’s contact details, particularly his mobile number!
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmsctech/444/444.pdf
Climategate scandal revealed to the public that there was something fishy. The cover ups have confirmed it.
An understanding of variations in climate is becoming more and more important for food security but we have real neanderthal attitudes towards increasing irrigation as the most efficient farming method by the UN and especially the greens.
“We are now left after three investigations without a clear understanding of whether or not the CRU science is compromised.”
Since we have the evidence of wrongdoing right in front of us, Only two possibilities exist:
The Oxburgh investigators were either incompetent to sit in judgment, or had their integrity compromised for position or wealth.
They have thrown themselves in the trough with the pigs, and have dirtied themselves to at least the same level of corruption.
Welcome to last year Captain Obvious.
The internet has changed everythhing. Today, people are better informed and can research into conflicts of interests etc. The effect of this is that whitewashes tend to be less effective. In the past, people might have bought the results of these enquiries, but today, a large proportion of the population see through them, for what they are.
I do not think that politicians have fully appreciated the changing world brought about by the internet. The political class may be able to control the media MSN and BBC, but cannot contol cyberspace. I think that people are generally becoming more sceptical and weary of being controlled by the political class, such that they no longer look to mainstrean journalism for news and opinions.
A whitewash now does more harm than good. It was imperative that there should have been some integrity to these enquiries and that there should have been a genuine attempt to get to the bottom of some of the serious issues involved. Taking oral evidence from only one side (especially since they were even able to select what evidence they wanted to submit) was never going to satisfy the public.
The upshot of this is that people are more firm in their view that the establishment has something to hide. The public have become more sceptical not less sceptical. Thus the whitewash is counter-productive and confidence in UK climate science will not be regained until there is a thorough and independent investigation/enquiry into the goings on at CRU and the state of the underlying science. The need for this will become ever more urgent as temperatures begin to drop and as people are forced to pay more and more for fuel/green subsidies.
The sceptics need to hammer home how much each person is paying in green taxes and subsidies. As more members of the public realise how much this is costing them in hard cash, they will become more concerned about having to pay such expense when they themselves cannot see that the climate is actually warming/changing. If temperatures begin to drop over the next few years and if there are repeated stories of falling temperatures, it is easy to see why growing numbers will question the expense involved and whether the science is flawed.
Presently, the establishment are seeking to plaster over this, witness tonights BBC programme, however, that approach will not work. Many factors are beginning to come together such that time is running out and may be soonner than the establishment presently anticipates.
Good work, Dr. Peiser and GWPF. Keep up the pressure on them. Don’t let them rest. Remind everyone daily of what scoundrels they are.
Good work, Science and Technology Committee.
Everyone please keep in mind that sometime this year Michael Mann will be testifying under oath before a Committee of the US Congress. He is expected to last about one hour before he breaks down in tears and starts describing offenses and naming names. It would be very wise for all in England who are involved in Climategate, now including the whitewashers, to convene an actual investigation and bring some actual charges so that you can limit the damage to parties in England from Mann’s testimony. Hey, a few years in a nice comfy English prison can’t be that bad. And you can claim that you brought the truth to the public!
The public knows whitewash when they see it….
Any idea what this is about?:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/correspondence_and_meeting_of_dr?unfold=1
This article being run in the Daily Mail is well worth a read.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350206/BBC-propaganda-machine-climate-change-says-Peter-Sissons.html
Peter Sissons is too right that the default setting of journalists should be sceptism and it is an indictment that few investigative journalists were prepared to delve into this story. Perhaps they could have made a great name for themselves.
It is articles like this which gradually come to the attention of more and more people and some of that increasing fold will become suspicious that the establishment is hiding something. This in turn will make them more sceptical of the whitewash outcome of these enquiries.
The dam is slowly breaking. It may be a trickle for the time being, but there is much pressure behind this trickle and it is very difficult to control the flow once the dam is breached.
It will be worth the suffering of a few cold years.
While climategate is a real issue and has not been addressed properly, I do think that GWPF is not exactly Koshe either. The issue of the correctness of GW has to be looked at in an alternative way. At the moment humans are the culprits, could there not be a natural culprit? escaping methane gas for instance, released by major undersea earthquakes, and the reasons thereof, decades ago in huge amounts, and in areas not even explored or monitored. AGW itself smacks of an easy plausible answer if there is no other easy answer.
The white-wash inquiries were what killed the AGW True Believers. It confirmed to the masses that it was all a political game with no merit. It’s been all down hill since.
AGW = Lysenkoism
One word says it all: Watergate. I guess we ARE doomed to repeat history!
As Colin Powell iterated… “people have too much access to information”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/sunlight-scrap-colin-powell-says-problem-with-todays-politics-is-pesky-press-people-know-whats-going-on/
More on BBC bias, quick reaction in response to calls for re-examination of climategate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12269493
and failed to achieve their objective to restore trust and confidence in British climate science.
“face palm”
London, 25 January: The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) remains deeply concerned about the failure by academic and parliamentary inquires to fully and independently investigate the ‘Climategate’ affair.
“Global Warming Policy Foundation” If they want credibility they can start with the name!
90% of the population is not informed and they looked to the 10% that are. 1% have control of the levers of information but the 9% are on the internet and talk to one another. It is no wonder the 1% are losing the argument, even the facts are againist them.
They know they are losing because we must have better organization and funding!
Just one thing! When are those well funded organizations going to share with me. I need to pay for my internet connection. pg
Not for long. With support from the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission, in an unprecedented grab of power and nose thumbing at Congress, voted on December 21, 2010 to extend their authority to include regulating the Internet. While the initial thrust of the first rules are touted to be limited to “net neutrality”, the government’s interventionist attempt to solve a problem that doesn’t exist sets dangerous precedence for the government to eventually regulate internet content.
An organisation calling itself “Global Warming Policy Foundation” has bias built into its name.
The thing that gives me hope of this scam eventually being overcome, although it may take years, is that it costs people money.
Just as this scam has been promoted to gain money and power for certain people, groups, and companies, it also involves taking money from others. Eventually people will notice this and start asking awkward questions as they have to cut off their power to have money to feed their families.
Unlike most scams that are hidden, a large part of this is quite noticeable, being huge windfarms and large solar panels which people will eventually notice don’t work very well. They also have noticed the cold and snow.
And when enough top journalists start openly questioning, the rest of them will start to follow, thus the tables will be turned as the momentum will swing to the skeptics side.
The American Chemical Society continues to push the AGW agenda in its magazine C&E News. The January 27 issue contains an article “Sowing Seeds of Doubt”. it is a review by none other than Gavin Schmidt of a book called Merchants of Doubt-How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. And, of course, those who disagree are referred to as “Deniers”. The article particularly picks on Fred Singer, and is obviously intended as a smear to those who don’t go along with the Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption crowd.
“Hank Hancock says:
January 24, 2011 at 7:03 pm”
The same is desired here in Australia.
The problem with the
coverupno make thatwhitewashinvestigation was that they days when folks just look at a one line summary in the New York Times or London Times is long long gone.Newspapers are dying for the simple reason that folks get a VIDEO sent LIVE from a friend in the procedings with his iPhone… Then when a 1/2 shadow of that shows up with a boat load of editorial spin in the Times, the folks with a clear view start saying “Wait a minite!!!” and the details surface, not content to lay still under the rug…
So we can see (or read a summary from someone who has the minutes or…) a buddy giving a softball question to his chum and hear (or read or see) the sweetheart spun answer in reply. Then there all the inconvenient facts now at keyboard clicks away, like who when to school with whom and what clubs they both attend and who appointed both the whoms and…
So when some “investigator” finally starts asking some questions like “Why did you want to hide things? Why were you cherry picking trees in the wrong places? Didn’t you know that data splicing (or ought we to call it data grafting? Hmmm? You know what graft is, don’t you?) was wrong and was going to make a foolish high school error of your work?” THEN we will know it’s a real investigation. We’ve SEEN really hard questioning. It makes innocent people squirm and shy people run from the room in tears.
“Would you like cookies to soothe you while we dispose of these insideous attacks?” is not an investigation, it’s a baby sitter.
And we can watch it happen.
BTW, per internet censorship:
They can try, and they will fail. Too many ways to route information around the roadblocks. Substantially ALL internet security and access control is based on the notion that “insiders” want to keep “outsiders” out. If the “insiders” want the information to go out, it goes out. Look at Wikileaks… And that was classified info, not just what kind of thermometers are used in East Anglia…
At MOST it can force a ‘shadow internet’ to spring up and then have “information police” going undercover to try to bust folks for saying the wrong things. That’s a sure path to the history books in no time… as a negative footnote.
So say I sell an App: “Private Party Discussions” that does a ‘secure encrypted tunnel’ to a private network and private servers (via something like “stunnel”) and charge you one Paypal Pseudodollar to join. Once “inside” you have all the servers, pages, whatever, that are banned on the “outside”.
To make that “regulated” and to forbid certain types of speech there you must then criminalize private speech inside a closed private domain. That’s going to be a very hard thing to do.
Worse, the whole thing can be made self healing and requiring no central ‘authority’. You can make a distributed App that “joins” and hands over some of it’s disk space for the “virtual storage” and some of it’s compute cycles for the “virtual servers”. Now there is noone to shut down, no place to attack, no machines to confiscate, no people to sue. With redundant storage sites, it’s nearly impossible to kill. The software for this in large part already exists.
Think of it as a DDS bot that is not Denying service, but providing it…
So I’m not too worried about folks “shutting down the internet”. At most, it will be a nice chance to try out some interesting distributed collaborative computing sofware I’ve been wanting to try…
Besides, best way to sell a load of books (or web sites)? Say the government has banned them… 😉
Well, sic ’em boys!
We should all be impressed that this organization was willing to come out and say that “remains deeply concerned about the failure by academic and parliamentary inquires to fully and independently investigate the ‘Climategate’ affair.”
That such an organization goes out and says that there was no independent investigation of the issues says a lot. It is certainly possible that this is a calculated tactic to get an investigation that will be considered independent, but provide the same results, but they are speaking out against the whitewash.
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
Interned censorship HA! In the days before open access to the internet I built my son a computer with a BBS on the wire. Then we started to add servers when Al Gore “invented” the internet. There is no going back to the old ways. Now the net covers the world. The old ways of information control to control the populis is over. pg
E.M.Smith says: (January 24, 2011 at 8:28 pm)
BTW, per internet censorship:
They can try, and they will fail. Too many ways to route information around the roadblocks.
Heartening. Thanks.
E.M.Smith says:
January 24, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“So I’m not too worried about folks “shutting down the internet”. At most, it will be a nice chance to try out some interesting distributed collaborative computing software I’ve been wanting to try…”
I agree. They could make a wicked mess out of many things that are dependent on the net, but they can’t stop the free flow of information. There’s too much knowledge out there and they’ve greatly standardized comm. Like you, I’ve got some toys I’ve been wanting to play with…….I would imagine if the web suddenly disappeared tomorrow, we’d have several thousand(millions?) mini-webs up and running within hours…..all growing towards each other.
E.M.Smith says: “…So I’m not too worried about folks “shutting down the internet”. At most, it will be a nice chance to try out some interesting distributed collaborative computing sofware I’ve been wanting to try…”
Nevertheless, we need to push back now, and push back hard. An ounce of Prevention is worth a pound of anything else. The notion of control of the Internet is unnecessary and in itself an obvious and intolerable attack on liberty. There are other wrinkles you haven’t thought of, EMS, and believe me, the other side has. Even now, they are planning the Internet equivalent of the Reichstag fire.
It is important that other issues not be conflated with this one. Let it stand alone, and it will draw support across all true liberal and libertarian groups, a majority from day one.
“In 1943, the White Rose was fighting a lost battle; that train had already left the station in 1934.” –German interviewee
This distraction has cost the world billions of dollars. For a minuscule fraction of that amount the cod fisheries of the great banks could have been restored. Tuna could be re-introduced in the Mediterranean. Forests could be replanted in upland Africa. Huge portions of India could be replanted and restocked.
We are like Constantinople before the fall. Worried about fashion while the world crumbles around us.
Browner stepping down the day before State of the Union Address
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70O0CN20110125?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Boiled down to their essence, the British “inquiries” are:
We went out to CRU and took the guided tour.
Then we asked, “Have any of you boys and girls done anything naughty lately?”
(headshakes)
So we said, “Okay, good enough for us.”
For Michael Mann we are given the similar:
We asked Mike and he said, “No.”
He’s still got grants so he must be all right.
The two main conclusions I’ve been able to form about “Climategate” are:
1. Those who claim there’s nothing worth bothering with have not studied it.
2. Those who claim to have looked at it and found nothing are lying.
It’s worth reading all of MP Graham Stringer’s proposed remarks at the end of the SciTech report on Bishop Hill:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/1/25/words-that-must-remain-unspoken.html
The one honourable member of the committee was ignored, but his proposed amendment will be the one that everyone remembers, as others have noted.
Anyone see the BBC Horizon programme last night? It attacked sceptics as being DENIERS.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y4yql
I found it absolutely disgusting that the BBc would stoop to using abuse against those who think the science of AGW is flawed.
It also contained the immortal line that sceptic, Prof Singer, was ‘only concentrating on one issue and missing the bigger picture’ (with his stalegmite records). Err, sorry, but is that not what thermists are doing with their complete concentration on CO2 and utter disregard for all other factors??
You can make a complaint to the BBC by email. Just Google BBC complaints.
.
richard verney –
yes the internet changed so much; however, has everyone noticed that google has shut down its “search within results” feature and caused outrage. a spokeswoman has come up with this explanation but no-one seems to be buying it, least of all me.
it was this feature which helped with research online, and it was the only advantage google had over other search engines. how i’ve longed to change to another search engine! now – and like many others – i will finally be doing so. i do not want to post links that may get chopped, but u can find the debate raging on various forums and websites.
here’s google kelly f”s story:
“As you may have noticed, the Search within results link no longer appears at the bottom of your search results page. Right now you might be thinking, ‘What? No way! How am I going to narrow down my results now that it’s gone?’ Well have no fear – I’ve got a little secret for you: when you used to click on the Search within results link and type in additional search terms, you weren’t actually searching within your previous list of results. In reality, your new search terms were simply added on to your original entry and then another search was performed. We’ve eliminated that extra step you used to take to modify your results.”
As an aside, horizon is supposed to be the BBCs flagship science program. Yet this episode contained no science whatsoever, explored none of the controversies in a scientific fashion, failed to explore all avenues and possibilities, and was simply a propaganda piece for Thermists.
Typical BBC. No wonder it is known as the Biased Broadcasting Corporation.
.
Theo Goodwin says:
January 24, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Good work, Dr. Peiser and GWPF. Keep up the pressure on them. Don’t let them rest. Remind everyone daily of what scoundrels they are.
__________________________________________
Not to be undiplomatic, but, where was the GWPF voice when this was all originally going on? They had to know how biased, in favor of EAU, the selection was for the investigation. There is an aspect of prudence that can save ones reputation without any honest intentions being present.
GWPF….We will sit on this til it’s obvious that the investigation fails to exonerate EAU, then we will cry foul, ergo, to wit, hence, self-preservation.
I know it sounds a bit cynical, but, the whole infrastructure has to go. The smoke of it’s corruption is nauseating.
Long live free speech, the antidote to fascist/communist control of information! We can thank our lucky stars for the open society of the internet 🙂 🙂 🙂
People, people. There’s NOTHING to see here. There was a thorough investigation which completely vindicated the gatemailers. They were just discussing in private the most efficient way to protect us all. How to more efficiently save the world, really. Nothing was done that could in any way be called ‘bad’. The word ‘trick’ was referring to a scientific consept which is beyond our simplistic understanding. And phrases such as ‘tell that mofo McIntyre to STFU and GTFO – and don’t give him any data’, is just normal jargon in the peer review process.
I, for one, am happy to see that they are so open about it all. It must be because of their confidence in understanding CO2 and the climate system. They are so welcoming of alternative takes on different issues. So open minded and ready to face criticism. They are true scientists indeed.
/sarc off
I really must say that the standards Schmitdt et al. have made for climate science is a true disgrace. There is an active downplaying of opposing data, a censoring of conflicting views, and a way of treating statistics which would make (the likes of) Fischer turn in his grave. Every time Schmidt at RC says something smug along the lines of : “Well, you see in real science we(…)”, I throw up a little in my mouth.
Are you serious? What a surprise an organisation set up by skeptics, housed in a Materials and Mining institute is critical of several enquiries clearing the CRU. I would have never guessed, hardly an independent organisation. Hardly newsworthy, nothing would ever be enough, totally manufactured newsflash.
But typically you guys eat it up.
Far from concluding the science is unclear, if we’ve had 2 staged inquiries design to produce a whitewash, then the sensible and rationale conclusion is that someone doesn’t want the truth to come out – i.e. that the science is a mess.
The MP Graham Stringer’s proposed ammendment to this report, though voted down by three MPs for various obscure reaesons, will grow very muscular legs indeed as it has the virtue of being the plain and unvarnished truth, and truth has a wonderful habit of emerging into view of the public despite whatever the powerful and un-good throw in it’s path.
The old habit of whitewashing facts out of sight does not work in the internet era.
They forget that we don’t need inquiries to know that we can’t trust the CRU and their science is rubbish. The emails are all available on line and we can read how devious Dr. Jones et al were at hiding the truth from the public. Science isn’t about trust, it’s about facts.
You can also complain re Beeb on Points of View http://www.mybbccomplaints.co.uk/forum/index.html
25/01/11
MPs Slam Secretive Climategate Inquiries
Two inquiries into claims that scientists manipulated data about global warming were yesterday condemned by MPs as ineffective and too secretive. The row, which became known as Climategate, erupted in 2009 over allegations that researchers had deliberately strengthened evidence suggesting human activity was to blame for rising temperatures. MPs on the Science and Technology Committee have now concluded that both probes into the scandal had failed to fully investigate claims that scientists had deleted embarrassing emails.
The investigations were set up after around 4,000 leaked emails and documents appeared to show that scientists at East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit had manipulated data to strengthen the case for man-made global warming. UEA’s Independent Climate Change Emails Review was led by Sir Muir Russell, while the Scientific Appraisal Panel was led by Lord Oxburgh.
But the MPs said they had reservations about both inquiries. They criticised the brevity of the appraisal panel report, at “a mere five pages”, and said both investigations should have been more open to the public. The committee also said the emails review “did not fully investigate the serious allegation” relating to the deletion of emails and instead relied on a verbal reassurance that the messages still exist.
Though the committee was split over the credibility of the inquiries, an amendment put forward by Labour MP Graham Stringer which said that they had not been independent was voted down by members. He said Lord Oxburgh appeared to have a conflict of interest because of his links to “green” businesses while the Emails Review panel included a former Climate Research Unit scientist. He maintained: “We are now left without a clear understanding of whether or not the CRU science is compromised.”
Last night Dr Benny Peiser, of Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: “Mr Stringer is saying what many critical observers think. The inquiries were inept, biased and have not closed this affair. The MPs’ report says we should move on but you cannot if you have unfinished business.”
Yesterday, the university said that it welcomed the report and stressed that the independent inquiries “had exonerated our scientists of any wrongdoing”. It said many of the inquiries’ “clear and sensible” recommendations had already been implemented.
An East Anglia University spokesman said: “The fact remains that the findings of the Climatic Research Unit are entirely consistent with those of other independent research groups across the globe.”
…Two inquiries condemned by MPs as “ineffective” and “secretive” but it’s all OK because the CRU’s findings are the same as those of other groups – a statement which fails to mention that the CRU was the source of those other groups’ corrupted data in the first place. The UEA statement also moved the pea in the shell from the subject of the behaviour of Jones and his gang of CRU lying fraudsters to the other shell which is all about the findings of other climate research groups.
What the CRU inquires never appreciated, was that people could read for themselves what was going on and came to an opinion on the emails based on their own personal experience of what is and is not acceptable behaviour in their own workplace.
So, when they all said: “the behaviour of the CRU is perfectly acceptable in science” … it didn’t change anyone’s mind regarding the legitimacy of the climategate team’s behaviour, instead it told the public what was acceptable behaviour in UK “science”.
Paradoxically, the best way to have kept the global warming bandwagon rolling along would have been to swiftlky come down like a tonne of bricks: to have stated that such behaviour was unacceptable, to emphasise the importance of independent peer review, to have sacked/demoted/redeployed anyone tainted by the scandal and then once having established that UK science did not accept second standard, to have thoroughly reviewed the science.
Just like Watergate, the original misdeeds were pretty minor – a rogue element in the republican party, a rogue element in science. The real scandal was not the rogue element, but the way the body politic/science tried to cover up the deeds of the rogue element.
I said so at the time. Three investigations and three sets of whitewash.
The (once flagship) BBC science programm Horizon had (Sir) Paul Nurse (the new president of the Royal Society) in an hour of unremitting propaganda last night. Himself evidently a most charming and intelligent man, he effortlessly set up a series of straw men to argue the sceptic case – he resulting interviews were of course edited by him and the BBC. So the Svenson/Kirby work at CERN was represented by an elderly gent whose only evidence was ‘a cave in Saudi Arabia’. The CRUgate email farrago was haltingly described by a minor D Telegraph reporter. NASA were allowed to getaway with ludicrously overblown claims. Where was Monckton, McIntyre, Lindzen, Watts, Lawson etc. We sceptics (‘deniers’ at one point) were of course always cherry picking, so unlike the paragons of state sponsored research.
Absolutely shocking, if not unexpected.
There needs to be a judicial inquiry into the police handling of this matter. As I understand things they used an agency that only looked into the release of the files but not it’s contents.
Although withholding or destroying information is a criminal offence under the terms of the Act (FOI), apparently no prosecution could be brought against Phil Jones for offences committed more than six months prior to the investigation by the Information Commissioner’s office.
1212073451.txt
However:-
http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/site/criminal_justice/statact.htm
Dr A Burns says:
January 24, 2011 at 7:16 pm
‘An organisation calling itself “Global Warming Policy Foundation” has bias built into its name.’
I’m not clear what you mean by this. Are you aware that the GWPF is a sceptical organisation?
Caroline Lucas, our ONE Green Party MP, was given virtually free reign on BBC’s Breakast programme the other day – basically expounding the theory that we need to go back to wartime-type rationing, or else – not a peep from the news anchors.
Might have been nice to get one of our 649 OTHER MPs in to give their view on the matter…
Keep reducing CO2, and we WILL have to go back to food rationing, because crops yields will start to fall…!
Sir Brandon Gough, Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, is accused of being complicit in academic fraud and corrupt abuse of public funds in relation to Climategate. More here:
http://www.stopcp.com/cpclimategate.php
Have you seen this article on fox news?
skeptics are not insulted and treated in denial, it seems that the tide is turning …
Five Reasons the Planet May Not Be Its Hottest Ever
Le réchauffement climatique est en plein essor, disent les uns des climatologues du monde. Ou est-ce?
Le jeudi l’agence météorologique de l’ONU a annoncé que 2010 était une étape importante, l’année la plus chaude, Dans une triple égalité avec 2005 et 1998. “Les données de 2010 confirment significative de la Terre tendance au réchauffement à long terme”, a déclaré Michel Jarraud, haut responsable de l’Organisation météorologique mondiale. Il a ajouté que les dix années les plus chaudes après le début des relevés en 1854 ont toutes été depuis 1998.
Mais quelle est la fiabilité des données? Voici cinq bonnes raisons de certains scientifiques sont sceptiques quant à ces allégations.
1. D’où vient l’proviennent les données? Les températures moyennes au niveau mondial l’année dernière de 0,95 degrés Fahrenheit (0,53 Celsius) plus élevé que la moyenne 1961-1990 qui est utilisé à des fins de comparaison, selon l’OMM – une déclaration fondée sur trois ensembles de données climatiques du Royaume-Uni et les organismes météorologiques des États-Unis. Ils rassemblent des lectures de stations météorologiques terrestres et le climat, les navires et les bouées et des satellites – et ils sont venus en vertu de contrôle dramatique ces dernières années.
Les données sur les terres est largement contestée par Anthony Watt sur son SurfaceStations.org site web. Watts, récemment classée 61% des stations utilisées pour mesurer la température avec un D – d’être situé à moins de 10 mètres d’une source de chauffage artificiel. Beaucoup de sceptiques du climat aussi au sujet de la NASA et la NOAA, les organismes américains qui recueillent des données climatiques des États-Unis, mais aussi de manipuler et de «normaliser» il.
Satellite data is arguably the most accurate way to measure temperature. Roy Spencer, a climatologist and former NASA scientist, takes issue with the way that data is normalized and adjusted, instead presenting raw, unadjusted data on his website. The WMO does not use this data.
Watts pointed FoxNews.com to a new, peer-reviewed paper that looks at the reliability of the land-based sensor network, concluding that “it is presently impossible to quantify the warming trend in global climate.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/24/planet-hottest-ever-global-warming/#ixzz1C2uZrQ00
I was alerted to the Horizon programme (part way through) by a phone call , and was shouting at the the TV within seconds. What absolutely disgusting propaganda! I found Paul Nurse to be rather smug, and as we’ve come to expect from the Biased Broadcasting Corporation it was carefully edited to present only one side as being the truth.
The only hope is that being on BBC2 it won’t have been seen by as many people as it would on BBC1…
Dave Ward and Ralph et al: yes the Horizon programme was outright propaganda. If they had wanted to illustrate the publics’ increasing skeptism of Science, they could have picked on say Dark Matter and Dark Energy. But no, it was all about Climate Change as per usual.
I was also agast at the head of the Royal Society with his insistance on consensus science. It is not the scientific process that I recognise I can tell you that. It may be that you have heaps of evidence in support of a hypothesis, but if just ONE little experiment falsifies it, that’s it, end of hypothesis. THAT is science !
dave ward says: “I was alerted to the Horizon programme (part way through) by a phone call , and was shouting at the the TV within seconds.”
When was that? I missed it, … but there was this real funny comedy program where some misfit goon (why do people always stereotype scientists) tried to tell the world that they should believe what scientists say … whilst constantly referring to the motto of this fictitious scientific institute whose motto was “don’t trust anyone’s word”.
I was in stitches, it was too funny for words, the comedian managed to spend the entire program saying how important it was to provide evidence … whilst not providing one bit themselves.
Who was it? I seem to remember them from Monty Python?
I have to second (third?) the comments from Ralph and TFN Johnson above about last night’s ‘Horizon’ on BBC TV. It was a transparent piece of propaganda, in which the strongest claim seemed to be that ‘the enquiries found them not guilty, so that’s all right, folks, you can go back to believing AGW’. As TFN noted, this programme used to be the BBC’s flagship science program; these days it is one sorry piece of polemic after another, the actual science content being generally minimal.
If anyone in the States or elsewhere wants an hour’s pretty vile viewing, the episode title to look for is ‘Science Under Attack’. It’ll confirm all our unfavourable comments.
I just love it; they left in Stringer’s report. Heh, they probably thought it meant nothing since they’d voted it down.
Madness, I say, madness.
=============
Michael says –
“Are you serious? What a surprise an organisation set up by skeptics, housed in a Materials and Mining institute is critical of several enquiries clearing the CRU. I would have never guessed, hardly an independent organisation. Hardly newsworthy, nothing would ever be enough, totally manufactured newsflash.
But typically you guys eat it up.”
They are simply reporting what the MP’s said.
Just been reading the climategate inquiry (http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf) and quite literally my mouth dropped when I read this text revealed by an FOI:-
“Ron [Oxburgh] is keen that we can say that [the list] was constructed in consultation with the Royal Society. [The papers] represent the core body of CRU work around which most of the assertions have been flying. They are also the publications which featured heavily in our submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry, and in our answers to the Muir Russell Review’s questions. I would be very grateful if you would be prepared to allow us to use a form of words along the lines: ‘the publications were chosen in consultation with The Royal Society’.”
Up to that point Oxburgh’s inquiry could have been portrayed as an honest, but misguided attempt to quickly and slapdash-edly examine the “science”.
Oxburgh’s inquiry had a clear remit to advise parliament on the science. it was not that it happened to be looking at the same subject … it was set up in order to provide parliament the information. This FOI clearly shows a conspiracy by those involved to deceive parliament regarding the credibility of key information of that inquiry. I would be surprised if this is not a criminal offence
The Daily Mail are today running a poll as to whether people consider that the BBC is biased in its reporting of climate change. Presently as I type, 85% of respondents have answered Yes and only 15% have answered No. There is therefore a widespread view (at least amongst Daily Mail readers which readers are probably better informed than most since the Daily Mail is one of the more balanced/sceptical papers) that the BBC is biased in its reporting of this matter.
The political class would be well advised to take note of this perception. The BBC managers should definitely take note of this since it undermines their position and credability as a noteworthy media organisation.
You’ve got to hand it to us Brits. When it comes to whitewash, the ‘great and good’ of our establishment have elevated the process to nothing short of an art form (or so they seem to think)!!
It is a criminal offence to ‘mislead Parliament’ in the UK – sitting just below ‘Treason.’ I wonder if the UEA Chancellor can expect to ‘have his collar felt’ by an arresting Constable in the near future following this revelation? I do hope so, it may send a message to this shower at last…
Finished reading the climategate inquiry (http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf) and what a fantastic job all those involved have done. The professionalism of the report puts the other inquiries to shame!
Whatever the politicians & “scientists” try to do, however they try to rewrite the story, the facts are now so clearly laid out for future generations, that the history of the climategate inquiries has already been written.
Unless the climate suddenly diminishes in all importance, the only remaining chapter for history to write is which politicians and scientists stood out against the conspiracy and which got tarred with the brush.
TWO inquiries into claims that scientists manipulated data about global warming were yesterday condemned by MPs as ineffective and too secretive.
Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/225108/MPs-slam-secretive-Climategate-probesMPs-slam-secretive-Climategate-probes#ixzz1C3qtLIVM
Steve C says January 25, 2011 at 4:32 am
Just found these on YouTube. Seems to be complete:
BBC Horizon – Science under Attack
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2wMGU8-2bE
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklwzRihv6Y
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHr36wELGrY
Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orlqa039jlQ
Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvZS2USXPms
Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehlZNEv3mec
Well spotted Richard Verney at 5.15pm on the 24th! And well done Peter Sissons in blowing the gaffe on the BBC in such spectacular style.
People will know that I have commented many times in these pages on how unbearably embarrassing it must be these days for anyone to admit to being a BBC journalist. And the complaints from UK TV licence payers about the lack of balance, journalistic enquiry and integrity in the BBC’s news and current affairs output has become a national uproar.
Now, all our indignation, suspicions and dismay about the plummeting standards of BBC journalism have been confirmed by Peter Sissons’ revelations. This is a dagger-to-the-heart of BBC journalism. Already privately discredited by former journalists, like myself, who have seen this sickness developing over the last few years, BBC journalism is now dying publicly, a once proud tradition of a great British institution, rolling squealing and degraded on the floor while it licks the shoes of the Establishment that it so obviously serves.
Dear God, that it should come to this…
John V. Wright says January 25, 2011 at 7:58 am
Link
Please remember that the US EPA relies on these whitewashes to vaildate the basic science of AGW, and these whitewashes rely on the EPA to do the same.
AGW remains unvalidated
Roger R
Interesting as the science regarding the government climate policy is, and thanks very largely to Anthony for this; the general public will only demand action if they know how much it is costing them. When fuel petrol/diesel costs rise voices are very quickly raised because everyone knows how much it is costing them. This is not so with the cost of electricity where the cost of subsidies to support the construction of wind turbines and the installation of solar panels and the feed in tariff that benefits the provider is kept hidden.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is an AGW skeptic organization. They paid Montford 3000Lb to write his report. It is nonsense to pretend that this is some kind of impartial report on the UK Govt. investigation of “Climategate”.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation
On the other hand, the UK government commission that investigated the allegations did include at least one skeptic, Graham Stringer, on the panel.
REPLY: Mr. Adler. Please. So your view is that all skeptics should put up all their time and work for free, or is it that we should donate that “big oil” check that we all supposedly get? Critics of skeptics really should make up their minds about the skeptic “funding issues”, which are mostly non-existent.
You really should have a look at the funding of places like DeSmog Blog and the Center for American Progress (Climate Progress parent NGO), which gets over 30 million dollars a year according to IRS filings.
In the meantime may I suggest you insert your viewpoint on this topic into the nearest trash orifice where it belongs? Thanks for your consideration. – Anthony
E.M.Smith:
BTW, per internet censorship:
They can try, and they will fail. Too many ways to route information around the roadblocks.
I’m reminded of a late-80’s TV show, “Max Headroom”.
Thanks Anthony for bringing attention to Andrew Montford’s GWPF report on the Climategate inquiries. This document stands on its own; thoroughly documented, and painstakingly accurate. A.W. Montford is the author of “The Hockey Stick Illusion”; same high quality reporting!
I’ve been saying this ever since the Climategate scientists were supposedly cleared of wrongdoing, but the alarmists I’ve talked to said it was just crazy talk. Now it’s confirmed what I’ve been saying all along, but of course the alarmists will say it’s just “bias against science”, because as we all know, to them, the only real science supports their “end of days” theories.