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.
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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… 😉