One of the first whines out of RealClimate ( a Fenton Communications/ Environmental Media Services production) was that they were “out of context” saying:
“Indeed, even the out-of-context quotes aren’t that exciting, and are even less so in-context.”
That’s typical Gavin putz-speak for “nothing to see here, move along”. His message, coming just a few hours after the release in the wee hours of the morning, and just before 8AM EST on 11/22 suggests that Gavin pulled a Peter Gleick and didn’t actually read the emails before writing a dismissive review of them. Yet it appears that with what has been discovered so far in the 5000 plus emails, the context is quite rich.
Out of context, comes understanding.
Jeff suggested I repost this collection of quotes in the words of climate scientists as discovered in Climategate 2.0 context. He’s done a great job at collecting the relevant context. – Anthony
============================================================
Their words – Guest post by Jeff Id of the Air Vent
They call us skeptics, deniers, fossil fuel funded, contrarians, anti-science, all because we criticize the IPCC, the hockey stick plots, temperature record quality, biased peer review, and the general politicizing that climate science has undergone. Don’t take it from me though, Climategate II explains the same things in the words of the scientists themselves.
In this post, I’ve posted a large number of quotes from the emails and other online sources which I have been gradually gathering for several days now. The consensus duma will say they are out-of-context so if you question that, check the numbers or links next to the comments. It is not possible that they could ALL be out-of-context but there are many statements from climate science which leave me wondering. This post is started out with a quote from noted scientist Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog and it continues on with quotes from the consensus. All of whom are actual climate scientists.
Be sure that there are many more quotes in these emails. I am only one person and the documentation takes time. If there are more to add to the list (there are) just quote the email number and a few sentences below. No need to copy the whole email. Those interested enough will look it up anyway. I didn’t cover the FOIA and peer review issues here but hope to add them to this list in the future.
The IPCC
From the organization statement: http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml
Because of its scientific and intergovernmental nature, the IPCC embodies a unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision makers. By endorsing the IPCC reports, governments acknowledge the authority of their scientific content. The work of the organization is therefore policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive.
Roy Spencer -on his blog regarding the IPCC
Unfortunately, there is no way to “fix” the IPCC, and there never was. The reason is that its formation over 20 years ago was to support political and energy policy goals, not to search for scientific truth. I know this not only because one of the first IPCC directors told me so, but also because it is the way the IPCC leadership behaves. If you disagree with their interpretation of climate change, you are left out of the IPCC process. They ignore or fight against any evidence which does not support their policy-driven mission, even to the point of pressuring scientific journals not to publish papers which might hurt the IPCC’s efforts.
Hans VonStorch – Wall St Journal Climategate 1.0
What we can now see is a concerted effort to emphasize scientific results that are useful to a political agenda by blocking papers in the purportedly independent review process and skewing the assessments of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
#0714 Phil Jones – on finding authors for the IPCC AR4 report
Getting people we know and trust is vital – hence my comment about the tornadoes group.
#4755 Johnathan Overpeck – Picking what goes into IPCC AR4
The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change.
#3066 Peter Thorne – IPCC Zero’th order draft
I note that my box on the lapse rates was completely and utterly ignored which may explain to some extent my reaction, but I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.
#2009 Keith Briffa – writing zero’th order draft of paleo IPCC AR4 chapter.
I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!
#0170 Jones – Looking for hurricane paper to be included in the IPCC AR4
Seems that this potential Nature paper may be worth citing, if it does say that GW is having an effect on TC activity.
#1922 Johnathan Overpeck – on the message for the IPCC paleo section
Need to convince readers that there really has been an increase in knowledge – more evidence. What is it?
#3066 Tim Carter – on what is going into the IPCC. Written to IPCC authors because of amazing THC claims.
Regarding the phrase ‘IPCC position’? Would it be wise to check that McCarthy /Watson have the same understanding as we do.
[and the reply]
[TC] You could try, but it has been tricky getting anyone to make statements about anything. It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.
#4133 Johnathan Overpeck – IPCC review. Doing what is necessary for the IPCC
Synthesis and Implications for Climate change combine ideas from the different time periods – it gives paleoclimate studies more of an unified feel, as if it were a real discipline rather than a bunch of people doing their own time-period thing. That’s necessary for IPCC, and necessary for the outside community to see as well. So I would vote for keeping the general order, but eliminating the overlap and inconsistencies in ways that seem most reasonable.
#0419 Mike Hulme –
I am increasingly unconvinced by the majority of climate impact studies – including some of those I am involved in – and feel we are not really giving the right message to our audiences.
Douglas Maraun Die Klimazweibel blog –
Second, I agree with von Storch, that some climate scientists are alarmist, and even more, some climate scientists are politicised and give scientific results a certain spin to push their political agenda. Yet, as I experienced CRU, the institute was far from being alarmist or streamlined in any way.
NAS panel review of hockeysticks prompted by McIntyre and McKitrick.
#1104 -Heinz Wanner – on reporting his NAS panel critique of Mann to the media.
I just refused to give an exclusive interview to SPIEGEL because I will not cause damage for climate science.
#1656 Douglas Maraun – on how to react to skeptics.
How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think, that “our” reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann’s work were not especially honest.
#3234 Richard Alley
Taking the recent instrumental record and the tree-ring record and joining them yields a dramatic picture, with rather high confidence that recent times are anomalously warm. Taking strictly the tree-ring record and omitting the instrumental record yields a less-dramatic picture and a lower confidence that the recent temperatures are anomalous.
Paleoclimate and hide the decline
#0300
Bo Christiansen – On Hockey stick reconstructions
All methods strongly underestimates the amplitude of low-frequency variability and trends. This means that it is almost impossible to conclude from reconstruction studies that the present period is warmer than any period in the reconstructed period.
Ed Cook #3253
the results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit about <100 year extra-tropical NH temperature variability (at least as far as we believe the proxy estimates), but honestly know fuck-all about what the >100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know fuck-all).
#4133 Johnathan Overpeck – IPCC review.
what Mike Mann continually fails to understand, and no amount of references will solve, is that there is practically no reliable tropical data for most of the time period, and without knowing the tropical sensitivity, we have no way of knowing how cold (or warm)the globe actually got.
[and later]
Unsatisfying, perhaps, since people will want to know whether 1200 AD was warmer than today, but if the data doesn’t exist, the question can’t yet be answered. A good topic for needed future work.
Rob Wilson – 1583
The palaeo-world has become a much more complex place in the last 10 years and with all the different calibration methods, data processing methods, proxy interpretations – any method that incorporates all forms of uncertainty and error will undoubtedly result in reconstructions with wider error bars than we currently have. These many be more honest, but may not be too helpful for model comparison attribution studies. We need to be careful with the wording I think.
#3234 Richard Alley – on NAS panel and divergence
records, or some other records such as Rosanne’s new ones, show “divergence”, then I believe it casts doubt on the use of joined tree-ring/instrumental records, and I don’t believe that I have yet heard why this interpretation is wrong.
#4758 Tim Osborne – Criticizing other people for doing the same thing
Because how can we be critical of Crowley for throwing out 40-years in the middle of his calibration, when we’re throwing out all post-1960 data ‘cos the MXD has a non-temperature signal in it, and also all pre-1881 or pre-1871 data ‘cos the temperature data may have a non-temperature signal in it! If we write the Holocene forum article then we’ll have to be critical or our paper as well as Crowley’s!
#0497 – Phil Jones UEA – Scientists don’t know the magnitude of past warming.
Even though the tree-ring chronologies used have robust rbar statistics for the whole 1000 years ( ie they lose nothing because core numbers stay high throughout), they have lost low frequency because of standardization. We’ve all tried with RCS/very stiff splines/hardly any detrending to keep this to a minimum, but until we know it is minimal it is still worth mentioning.
#0886 Jan Esper on his own reconstruction – also hidden decline
And the curve will also show that the IPCC curve needs to be improved according to missing long-term declining trends/signals, which were removed (by dendrochronologists!) before Mann merged the local records together.
Tiim Osborne 4007
Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were
Tim Osborne #2347
Also, we set all post-1960 values to missing in the MXD data set (due to decline), and the method will infill these, estimating them from the real temperatures – another way of “correcting” for the decline, though may be not defensible!
#3234 Richard Alley
Unless the “divergence problem” can be confidently ascribed to some cause that was not active a millennium ago, then the comparison between tree rings from a millennium ago and instrumental records from the last decades does not seem to be justified, and the confidence level in the anomalous nature of the recent warmth is lowered.
I think the best way to sum up all of this is a quote from a guest post at tAV and DieKlimazweibel by Bo Christiansen:
Where does all this lead us? It is very likely that the NH mean temperature has shown much larger past variability than caught by previous reconstructions. We cannot from these reconstructions conclude that the previous 50-year period has been unique in the context of the last 500-1000 years.
Of course we all know that the IPCC reports differently.
Joe
“@Brandon Caswell
The use of Context is correct. Your just a moron.
Oh please.”Your” is not the same as “You’re” …”
I agree that my usage of of your was incorrect in that situation. Notice how I didn’t try to claim some lame excuse of why I was still right even though I was exposed to have made an error. But my Dictionary definition of Context was still correct and Powerof X was still wrong. My point still stands that he was a moron.
Steve Garcia;
Tell me there are actually SOME standards in climatology. A researcher like Osborne can just decide on his own, “I will go this way, not that way.” Huh????!!!>>>
OK, I’m telling you there are some standards in climatology. For example:
1. Hide the Decline: If your data shows a decline in temperature instead of an increase, you may discard the “decline” part and replace it with something else. Standard developed by Phil Jones and Michael Mann.
2. Mike’s Nature Trick: If you don’t want people to know that you replaced some of the data with other data, you can do it via a “trick” first used in the journal Nature where you hide where one data set ends and another begins by truncating them in the middle of a spaghetti graph where all the lines cross. Standard proposed and implemented by Michael Mann.
3. The “One Tree” standard. That’s a very complex procedure where you take tree ring data from hundreds of trees and then construct a 1000 year global temperature reconstruction with 50% of the data coming from one tree. In Siberia. Credit for this standard goes to Keith Briffa.
4. Predict that warming will cause catastrophe, and then with much wailing, wringing of hands, and gnashing of teeth, advise that you cannot find where the heat that you believe to be causing the warming actually is in the measurements, and declare it as a “fact” that the heat is missing, and it is a “travesty” that it is missing. Evidence that a catstrophe is not actually going to happen is a travesty, as claimed by Kevin Trenberth.
5. When articles appear showing that the heat that is missing is not in fact missing at all, just escaping to space, the editor of the publishing journal should be forced to resign (despute not being able to cite one specific flaw in the offending paper’s science) and should apologise personally to Kevin Trenberth. Kevin Trenberth is particularly proud of this standard, and has openly bragged about it.
6 When the temperature record shows that it was warmer in the 1930’s than it is now, you may adjust the temperature record until the 1930’s is cooler than it is now. You may do the same with the Medieval Warming Period, in fact, this is not just a standard, but a requirement. Cintributors to this standard include James Hansen, Michael Mann, Phil Jones and many others.
There are many more standards, but I think those are perhaps my favourites. Perhaps others would like to add more?
David Davidovics says:
December 4, 2011 at 9:43 am
It will be quite entertaining to see how warmists contort themselves to either ignore, or defend the indefensible in the weeks ahead…..
_____________________________________
The path has already been set. A quick blurb within the first day saying “nothing to see here move along” (Stolen e-mails and out of context quotes) Followed by the tame media hyping Durban. And to top it off idiotic pieces like that from Black at the BBC with no comments allowed containing very “CONVINCING” solid peer reviewed work based on ACTUAL OBSERVATIONS and not models….
Looks like the team is really going for broke here to get this “Binding Agreement” shoved down the collective throats of the world. It remains to be seen if world leaders decide to commit political suicide or not.
ThePowerofX says:
December 4, 2011 at 11:09 am
Anthony Watts wrote: “The piece is by Jeff Id, please learn to read attributions before accusing others of interpretive problems”
But your annotation reads “He’s done a great job at collecting the relevant context.”
==================================================================
‘ThePowerofX’ … the power of the unknown, or in your case, the power of the unknowing 🙂
Peter,
Thanks for the explanation. I see your point that you could take it that way but you have missed mentioning two things. They weren’t editing a long paper, they were preparing the IPCC draft and trying to figure out what science should be left in or out. The second point is that in order to make the decision they discussed this method:
“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. ”
Does that sound political or scientific? Yes a weak argument can be made for context, but if you read the other emails, the context of this quote is clear. There are literally hundreds of ‘weak’ quotes as well as stronger ones which all require discussion for context. So when you see a short quote which has somewhat less damning implications as a stand alone than ‘hide the decline’, perhaps it is reasonable to consider the environment it exists in.
I’m unconvinced that this is out of context at all but am willing to admit that people looking for a weak spot in this post might pick this email.
Jeff Id:
Your compilation is good and useful work. Having checked your exrtracted quotations against their individual source emails, I intend to make use of them. Thankyou.
Richard
Dave Wendt,
The only person I know is Anthony Watts. I would love to see this story (CG2 not just this post) get more play and am willing to help anyone who can get that done. I tried to compile short quotes here which deliver the message of Climategate while attempting to avoid the pitfall of out of context quotes. I also avoided giving my opinions in the middle and let the big dog’s do the talking.
Richard S Courtney
Thanks.
Remember how Phil Jones initially thought the original Climategate was about Yamal. Well blogger Ripper at Climate Audit has highlighted a very interesting mail from Hantemirov, one of the scientists responsible for collecting the Yamal data.
Mail no. 1553 From Keith Briffa to Ian Harris
“copy to a safe place!!and leave original there”
“According to reconsructions most favorable conditions for tree growth have been marked during 5000-1700 BC. At that time position of tree line was far northward of recent one… . Significant shift of the polar tree line to the south have been fixed between 1700 and 1600 BC. …During last 3600 years most of reconstructed indices have been varying not so very significant. Tree line has been shifting within 3-5 km near recent one. Low abundance of trees has been fixed during 1410-1250 BC and 500-350 BC. Relatively high number of trees has been noted during 750-1450 AD. There are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the north during last century…”
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=1503
This is of course before the CRU team got hold of and ‘tortured’ the data to produce the preferred IPCC results.
And it’s the Yamal data that CRU are determined not to cede to in Steve McIntyre’s FOI requests.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/19/appeal-of-ueas-yamal-foi-refusal/
ThePowerofX says:
December 4, 2011 at 9:28 am
=================
Care to explain your comment, I await with bated breath, your elucidation.
re: Hantemirov and Yamal
I’m new to most of this, so maybe it’s a dumb question, but have approaches been made to Hantemirov directly for the data? Is there some reason he’s also not willing to share his data further, such as being under influence of The Team??
Peter says:
December 4, 2011 at 3:15 pm
“Who said anything about the scientific method?
I’m merely pointing out that we shouldn’t be giving people ammunition to accuse us of quoting things out of context.”
The larger context is scientific method. Scientists eat, drink, and breathe scientific method. Scientific method permits no “main message” or any message at all. Scientific method is boring as hell and it is designed that way. If you are talking “main message,” you are not talking science.
I observe that another group that repeatedly needs to claim that incriminating statements are out of context is politicians.
Jeff Id’s essay “Paleoclimate – Rotten to the Core” is about a series of emails among “The Team” who are discussing various familiar issues in paleoclimatology. The context is extensive and clear as a bell. I recommend this essay, found at his website, to everyone interested in this post by Jeff.
Science is about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. These emails indicate a cynical attitude towards truth, and these emails do not include Mann’s, which I feel are the worst.
I greatly appreciate the comments of people who are less hot-tempered than I am. However the danger lies in becoming as cynical as these so-called scientists. Truth is not a thing to be cynical about, especially when you consider the alternative is to be led by ignorance, which leads to folly, which can lead to death and destruction, if not checked.
These people don’t respect the truth. They needed to be drummed out of the hallowed halls of science. I said that five years ago, two years ago, and again today.
The person who leaked these emails did so at great personal risk, and faces daily danger. He has earned the rage of people who care more for carbon credits than truth, who care more for greed than truth, who care more for power than truth, and who, I fear, would not deem the person who leaked these emails worth a scrap of kindness, compassion and mercy, and instead would do everything possible to destroy him.
In fact, the person who leaked these emails is a modern day Paul Revere. He is risking all he has to alert you, to wake you from your sleep. He is telling you, “Danger is coming! Danger is coming!”
Don’t go back to bed. It’s time to make a stand.
Just been over to RC. Their attempts at damage control remind of one “Frank Drebin” from the Naked Gun movies
Jeff Id
“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. ”
I’m unconvinced that this is out of context at all but am willing to admit that people looking for a weak spot in this post might pick this email.>>>
Jeff, it might be the easiest to attack, but this email represents the context perfectly. The CG emails are chalk full of plots to suppress contrary evidence and promote cherry picked data in support of “the cause”. It is evident to all who spend anytime on the subject that the IPCC conclusions were made in advance, and the studies that supported that conclusion promoted above all others even when it was commonly known by “the team” that the studies were deeply flawed or outright wrong.
The “trick” was to “hide the decline”. How is that different from the “trick” to “decide” what the main message is and use that to guide what is “included and what is left out”? This is the common thread throughout the climategate emails. They decided first on the results, and then chose to publish the papers that supported the pre-chosen results while suppressing all papers that contradicted the pre-chosen results.
This email isn’t out of context. It IS the context!
Yep Jeff people looking for a weak spot in this post have picked this email
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=globalwarming&thread=1863&page=1
How come you didn’t see the proper context of the quote yourself when you presumably read the email?
And more importantly on what basis did you decide to quote the two sentences you did and none of the surrounding ones?
Do you agree that if you had posted this:
“I think the hardest, yet most important part, is to boil the section down to 0.5 pages. In looking over your good outline, sent back on Oct. 17 (my delay is due to fatherdom just after this time), you cover ALOT. The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change. Moreover, we have to have solid data – not inconclusive information.”
it would have sounded far less scandalous to readers than just posting this:
“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change.”
which is a darn sight better than the hacker who just posted this:
“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out.”
nomnom;
The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out. For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change. Moreover, we have to have solid data – not inconclusive information.”>>>
How, exactly, does one decide on the main message… and then AFTER that, choose “solid data”? How about discarding inconclusive information, analyzing the solid data, and THEN deciding what message that provides?
Is that was this expanded version of the email says? NO! It says draw your conclusion, then back it up with solid data. Having chosen the “main message” (read “conclusion”) in advance, it becomes a simply matter to decide what data (solid OR inconclusive) may simply be left out in support of the pre-determined “message”.
That’s not science. But, sadly, in this case, it IS context.
I am going for striking off another Overpeck one:
“#1922 Johnathan Overpeck – Need to convince readers that there really has been an increase in knowledge – more evidence. What is it?”
This was in response to Jansen Eystein sending Overpeck some preliminary text that began “The TAR pointed to the “exceptional warmth of the late 20th century, relative to the past 1000 years”. Subsequent evidence reinforces this conclusion.”” (#3456). But Eystein does not back up the “Subsequent evidence” assertion.
So Overpeck replies “what about being more specific (at least a little) about what the “subsequent evidence” is. Is there really anything new that gives us more confidence?” (#3456)
At this point Keith Briffa jumps in with email #1922 talking about various things, but doesn’t provide the “subsequent evidence” Overpeck asked for.
That’s when Overpeck asks again with the quoted text “Would you pls send a new bullet that has your suggested changes below, and that includes something like: Subsequent evidence, including x, y and z, reinforces this conclusion.” Need to convince readers that there really has been an increase in knowledge – more evidence. What is it? The bullet can be longer if needed.”
Quite clearly Overpeck does not know what this evidence is. He’s been told it exists by Eystein and he’s basically asking them to provide it. They need to justify it and convince the reader of it.
nomnom;
OK, now I’m getting upset. I get acerbic when I’m upset. Don’t have a clue if that’s how you spell acerbic, but I think you will get my drift regardless.
Keith Briffa – the message was that tree ring data shows the earth to be warming up. He took hundreds of tree cores, discarded most of them, then used the remaining 12 (yes 12!) to build a reconstruction showing the earth to be warming up. Upon closer inspection, 50% of the data came from ONE tree. That’s what it means to “decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out”
Michael Mann – built a computer program that combs through data and statistically weights hockey shaped series heavier than any other data so that a hockey stick graph is always produced. That’s what it means to “decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out”
Phil Jones and Michael Mann – snipped decades of tree ring data off their reconstructions because it declined right when they were trying to demonstrate an increase. Without saying so, they completed the “trick” to “hide the decline” by truncated the tree ring data that said the opposite of what they wanted and replaced it instead with data that did show what they wanted. This is what it means to “decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out”
Even expanded to its full text, that email IS the context.
nomnom;
I just read my last post, and, sadly, I promised ascerbic and all I delivered was facts and logic that tie back to the original assertion. I must be getting tired, not my best work. How about you try another nonsense argument that completely obscures the context of the climategate emails by trying to pretent that this specific instance of choosing a foregone conclusion, discarding contrary data, and including “solid data” but from one side of the argument only? How many are there in the CG emails that follow that exact approach? dozens? hundreds? How about you go through every one of them and prepare a defense explaining how each of them was really innocent and sincere on a case by case basis? Give it a shot. I’ll sit idly by waiting for you to defend each and every one of them, giggling myself stupid as you do all the work of assembling the evidence to the contrary for me. Then, with my ascerbic wit, I shall demolish each and every one, exposing the awfull truth as I do so, that the “science” was nothing but a charade where the “message” was chosen first, and the data to “prove” it carefully selected afterward.
In the event that you come up with any emails that I cannot debunk in this fashion, I shall declare them out of scope for this discussion as they do not fit my foregone conclusion that I can debunk all of them, and so obviously should not have been cited by you in the first place.
Jeff Skilling would be proud to see his ‘theoretical-value’ accounting has made its way into climate science. Smartest Guys in the Room is a great documentary about Enron produced by members of the media who clearly did their homework. My question is, where the hell are these people now? Too bad there isn’t a corporation involved and an executive to hang at the end of this or there would have been tons more media coverage.
davidmhoffer: “How, exactly, does one decide on the main message… and then AFTER that, choose “solid data”?”
The email doesn’t say the main message is decided before choosing solid data. Ricardo Villalba is the one writing it and in his first draft he’s written too much. Overpeck is effectively telling him to focus on what’s important to get it down to 0.5 pages.
Overpeck is giving Ricardo Villalba advice that to fit a lot of information into a small space (half a page in this case) you need to start by deciding what you are writing (the main message) and then stick to that (ie don’t wade off into unrelated territory).
further down in the email Overpeck elaborates:
“So, the trick is for you to lead us (Dick, Keith, me – maybe Julie – ENSO expert) to produce 0.5 pages of HIGHLY focused and relevant stuff. Can you take another crack at your outline and then tell us what you need? Thanks!”
David Falkner;
My question is, where the hell are these people now? Too bad there isn’t a corporation involved and an executive to hang at the end of this or there would have been tons more media coverage.>>>
EXACTLY!
Corporations are inherantly and obviously evil, and hence the members of the media line up in droves to expose them.
But government funded climate scientists are working for the most noble of causes, the greater good for mankind. Hence, they are wrapped in their Cloak of Morality which is impervious to investigation by anyone except paid oil industry lobbyists.
(Unless you actually open your eyes and take a look, in which case the silly bu**ers turn out to be emperors that are stark naked.)