Here’s a stunning juxtaposition of two emails (released under FOI request and supplied by Christopher Horner to me) from the University of Arizona’s climate scientist Dr. Jonathan Overpeck regarding ‘big oil’ and influence in the climate debate.
First let’s look at Overpeck’s ugly email about Inhofe and big oil, plus a death wish for Oklahoma residents, bold mine:
XXX-‐275
Thu Sep 22 00:12:22 2005
To: hegerl@duke.edu
From: Jonathan Overpeck <jto@u.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Inhofe activities
Cc: TomCrowley Bcc:
Re: Fwd: Inhofe activities
Hi guys – Being on sabbatical, I’m missing more of this kind of stuff than usual. Quite interesting, however, so thanks for sending. Looks like I got it too, but I read your email first.
I did buckle under and read Crichton’s book. It’s pretty amazing. The sad thing is that I’ve talked peers (e.g., Mo Raymo – another Brownie like me and Tom) who they are climate savvy scientists, who actually got fooled by his very selective use of science.
If someone had time, it would be useful to post (e.g., on real climate – must already be there, but I haven’t looked) a foot-note, by foot-note rebuttal of his book. Shocked to see it is getting this kind of traction.
Wish Oklahoma was on the Gulf Coast – then these guys might have a more realistic view. Until then, they’ll just do what the oil industry wants them to do, I guess.
best, peck
========================================================
Now, compare that ugly tone to this one about six months later, bold mine:
========================================================
XXX-‐247
Fri Feb 10 11:55:39 2006
To: pinar.o.yilmaz@exxonmobil.com
From: Jonathan Overpeck <jto@u.arizona.edu>
Subject: nice to hear from you!
Cc:
Bcc: X-Attachments:
Hi Pinar – it was great to hear that you were coming to UA, and that you were interested in meeting with this Overpeck guy. I was just in Alaska and ran into Stan Foo in the airport (first time I’ve seen him since Hamilton days), and ditto for Greg Maynard at GSA. Both are doing very well in the minerals side of things. And now you… wonderful.
Bad news is that I’m on sabbatical (actually, this is nice for me and my family that includes two young boys). Moreover, wife (and UA prof) Julie Cole is enroute to Germany for up to a month (! – yes, my fraternity experience should come in helpful as I single-parent two boys). This means, unfortunately, that I can’t fly down to be on campus for your visit. I’m really sorry about this.
However, maybe there is a way to move things forward anyhow?
In addition to seeing and catching up w/ you, I’m also quite intrigued by what Exxon- Mobil and the University of Arizona could do together on the climate change front. As you’ve probably figured out, we have one of the top universities in this area, and lots of capability, both in understanding climate change at the global scale down to the regional scale, but also in terms of understanding how climate variability and change impacts society, and also how interdisciplinary climate knowledge can be used to support improved decision-making in society. On these two latter fronts, UA is arguably the best in the nation.
Perhaps we should talk on the phone and figure out what would be best for your UA visit. I could then help line up a mtg for you w/ the relevant people (including Joaquin Ruiz, who is very interested in climate-related activities), and I could also try to be on a phone link w/ this meeting. After Julie gets back from Germany in mid-March, I would be happy to fly down to Texas to meet with you and your colleagues face-to-face. I’d certainly like that instead of just hearing your voice on a phone. So, would you like to chat on the phone next week? Monday is looking tough w/ visitors and a big deadline, Tues a bit better, and Wed-Friday pretty much wide open.
Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks for looking me up too!
Best, peck
—
Jonathan T. Overpeck
Director, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
Professor, Department of Geosciences
Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Mail and Fedex Address:
Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
715 N. Park Ave. 2nd Floor
University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721
================================================================
The hypocrisy is stunning.
Where potential money is involved (translation – grant), Dr. Overpeck doesn’t display any concerns about being associated with ‘big oil’, in correspondence with a person at Exxon-Mobil, and in fact welcomes some sort of collaboration and goes on to sell the university’s stature to the Exxon-Mobil representative.
The next time somebody calls you a “shill for big oil”, show them this email.
UPDATE2: Here is the entire original email thread: Overpeck Exxon and Mann (PDF)
UPDATE: To be fair, I sent Dr. Overpeck this email shortly after this story was published:
Dear Dr. Overpeck,
This is just a note to inform you that your FOI obtained correspondence with Exxon-Mobile is on display here:
FOI email: science is only influenced by 'big oil' if they do it
I provide you this notice should you wish to defend yourself against the apparent stunning hypocrisy on display. I will print any response you care to offer.
Best regards,
Anthony Watts
Editor
WUWT
I immediately got this autoreply back:
Professor Overpeck is on sabbatical out of the country until the beginning of Fall term, August 2013 and will not be in good constant email contact until then. If your message is urgent, please resend with “URGENT” at the beginning of the subject line, but note that there may still be a delay before he can get back to you. If you have an urgent need related to the UA Inst. of the Environment, please contact IE Project Coordinator Lesa Langan Du Berry at lesa@email.arizona.edu
Another sabbatical? Must be nice.
This might be a good time to remind everyone of how they measured temperature (in a parking lot) at an official USHCN climate station at Dr. Overpeck’s University of Arizona Atmospheric Sciences Dept.
How not to measure temperature part 24
The plaque on the fence reads:
You can bet that station wasn’t in a parking lot in 1867, and thus this speaks to the temporal inhomogenity of station siting. That station has been modified and removed from the United States Historical Climatological Network, since we brought it’s shoddy siting to the attention of the world.
Phil Clarke says:
“So we agree that Deming is making an extraordinary claim,; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – and Deming has none.”
We agree on nothing, and Phil is so deluded that he believes he has some kind of argument. He doesn’t.
The ‘extraordinary claim’ is Overpeck’s own assertion that ‘we must get rid of the MWP’. That preposterous claim is directly contrary to 100+ peer reviewed, cited studies showing that the MWP was global in extent, and warmer than current temperatures. The “astonishing” nature of Overpeck’s email was in the fact that he attempted to propagandize the science. Now he’s climbing down, citing a faulty memory.
Someone please give Phil an aspirin. He needs to lie down until the Algore fever passes.
Phil Clarke; So let me get this straight, Overpeck says he has no memory of that event and that he never would have said that anyway. Well, glad that’s settled then.
From AnonyMoose on August 26, 2012 at 3:41 pm:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/surfaceinventories.html
From the Master Stations Inventory (which was real fun to feed into a spreadsheet and parse out into individual elements):
COOP ID 028815, Station ID 10100064, in the last two of eleven listings, was moved “150 FT SSW” and operated “20010802” to “20021218”. With no movement noted and still at lat 32°13’45”, long -110°57’13”, and still at 2435ft elevation, it next ran “20021218” to “20080318”.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ushcn_map_interface.html
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=prog.climsite_monthly.sas&_SERVICE=default&id=028815
Examining the monthly data, the last month reported with real readings was April 2008. (Guess it got through the quality checks despite the station shutting down on March 18.)
For the station there are still monthly temperatures given to the end of 2011 (end of file) as estimates “from surrounding values”.
The truth of “peck” is worse than I thought.
The AGW accusation that skeptics are financed by big oil money is a classic example of psychological projection. For Freud, projection of one’s faults onto others was said to be a subconscious defence mechanism. But under Stalin and the Nazis projection became a calculated smear technique. The bolder the lie, the more powerful the effect! Classic Goebbels.
Phil Clarke says:
“a 1K reconstruction (MBH 98) would not have included or contained the MWP, whereas a 2K reconstruction did contain the period.”
Horse poop. The MWP was from ~950 AD through ~1250 AD. Any valid paleotemperature reconstruction from ~1000 AD to ~2000 AD (e.g. MBH 98) would show ~80% of the MWP. The ‘robustness’ of MBH 98 is demonstrated by the fact that it missed it completely:
http://johnosullivan.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/mann-hockey-stick-graph.jpg
The emails, which speak for themselves, lead most people believe that was the point to begin with. Only after MBH 98 was utterly destroyed did Mann ‘rediscover’ the global MWP (that the world had known about from historic, archaeologic, and geologic records for nearly a millennia):
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=552&tbm=isch&tbnid=RmAmO5PzjWJ_yM:&imgrefurl=http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/tag/ipcc/&imgurl=http://i.imgur.com/MdwKc.png&w=1155&h=840&ei=zc06UKSfHYT48gSVpYHYCA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=380&sig=103330367060918604064&page=1&tbnh=104&tbnw=152&start=0&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:82&tx=69&ty=56
The irony is that Mann’s “new & improved” hockey stick negates MBH 98. But that’s irrelevant. It’s just lipstick on a pig.
And despite the fact that Mann rediscovered the MWP, Stephen Schneider, infamous for his statement: “To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.” is still using Mann’s debunked hockey stick to try and do just that:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/EarthsSurfaceTemp.html
He make sabbatical sound like holiday. Not good advertisement for academic reputation.
Exxon cut ties with Global Warming Skeptics starting in 2006. Maybe Dr Overpeck was influential in that?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16593606/ns/us_news-environment/t/exxon-cuts-ties-global-warming-skeptics/
Phil Clarke says:
August 26, 2012 at 4:20 pm
“So we agree that Deming is making an extraordinary claim, [about the ‘need’ to eliminate the MWP]; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – and Deming has none.”
Speaking of the erased-without-debate MWP and “cliche’d thinking”, Phil….how’s about mainstream Climate Science’s “unprecedented!” current and still short warm period – especially concerning the alleged reign of CO2 from 1950 to current? er, “Where’s the beef?”
I’m under the impression that “sabbatical” means that one gets off an entire year EVERY seven years, and that, is one of the perks of being a tenured academian.
In view of the Physics Today revelation, the 65-70 %of graduate PhD Physicists, will never find a permanent job, and must remaint in post doc status; it must be nice to get a year off every now and then to go look for a real job.
“””””…..Smokey says:
August 26, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Phil Clarke says:
“So we agree that Deming is making an extraordinary claim,; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – and Deming has none.”
We agree on nothing, and Phil is so deluded that he believes he has some kind of argument. He doesn’t……”””””
Actually, “extra-ordinary” claims require only the same standards of evidence, as even the most boring of scientific claims.
Claims become “extra-ordinary” only in the new knowledge they lead to. Not all science is front page news.
Scott says above “In a few weeks I’ll be starting work on a project funded by big oil. However, I’m also sort of the head of the group’s environmental research “subgroup”, so I’m the go-to person when talking to new graduate students (before they join the lab) on anything environmental. ”
Scott, why are you operting in this mode? Did you consider, for example, that your examples could be drawn not from environmentalism, but from nutrition, using examples such as ways to help feed the underprivileged? Or in disease control, with exciting futures like molecular biology?
So how where you sucked into this greenie approach that saturates our institutions of learning? Did you have a choice, or was it prescribed? Did you feel that there was more money it it. or no job at all if you dared to differ?
Were you under intellectual or financial pressure to take this course, knowing it would propagate through succesive intakes?
Anthony
Could you draw more attention to the following climategate email?
I would not give them *anything*. I would not respond or even acknowledge receipt of their emails. There is no reason to give them any data, in my opinion, and I think we do so at our own peril!
http://bit.ly/SDBmS0
I thought it is a damning one.
” Louis Hooffstetter says: August 26, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Phil Clarke says:
“a 1K reconstruction (MBH 98) would not have included or contained the MWP, whereas a 2K reconstruction did contain the period.”
Horse poop. The MWP was from ~950 AD through ~1250 AD. Any valid paleotemperature reconstruction from ~1000 AD to ~2000 AD (e.g. MBH 98) would show ~80% of the MWP. “
You haven’t even bothered top respond to what Phil said. Maybe 1000-2000 would show 80% (dates vary), but it would not contain the MWP. Whereas 0-2000 certainly would.
If I were still a grant proposal writer it would be a relatively task to compile a list of grants from oil companies to university climate researchers. I wish someone with access to the pertinent electronic databases would do that.
The ‘autoreply’ is total BS and just an excuse.
These days, with wifi, laptops etc, academics are constantly in touch with their email, whether they are travelling, visiting colleagues, at conferences or whatever.
Thw sad thing is Jonathan has led a group of interdisciplinary scientists who actually have worked with real people to find ways to use El Nino and other teleconnection information to make better water management decisions. Some of their forest fire planning work has been really valuable.
Since Climate “Scientists” are not [in general] interdisciplinary, they were probably excited about having a “official USHCN climate station” outside of their window. Watching it must re-leave the boredom of Climate Science.
/sarc I think?
Who’s paying for Overpeck’s “sabbaticals”? Arizona? US government? Big Oil? George Soros? All of the above?
I see that Nick Stokes is back at water-carrying for hypocrites liar Phil Clarke. How about addressing the breathtaking hypocrisy of Overpeck that is the title of this post? Do you need to water-carry for every fraud?
Money rules the world………….including the climate! Great post.
Aleister
DirkH, waaaaayyyy off base regarding Lady in Red. Way off base. Assume at your peril. You may soon share the attributes of a donkey.
Overpeck’s desire for Oklahomans to experience Katrina (presumably), which he incorrectly attributed to AGW, was undoubtedly born of his frustration – unjustified but real, apparently – at Inhofe’s courageous, lonely stance in the Senate. But to characterize it as a death wish for Oklahomans (or even ugly) is a bridge too far.
OTOH, the difference in tone between the two emails – arrogance in the first and courtier-like bowing & scraping in the 2nd – is both hilarious and pathetic (and a great addition to my “Funding Hypocrisy folder). Great find!
You should have left it at that, Anthony; these thin-stretched moralizing judgments do nothing but provide ammunition for the warmers, and besides, they do moral preening better than anyone, so why try to compete in that arena?
David Deming testifies before Congress that he received an “extraordinary” email from a prominent climate scientist – “We have to get of the MWP.”, but has yet to name the author, and if one of the above comments is correct, claims to have lost it. That’s a little troubling, but since I seriously doubt he would have used a fabricated story in testifying before the US Senate, I believe, as a working assumption, that the email is real.
But: Since Deming has never named the author, and Overpeck claimed in (what he thought was) a private email to not remember ever writing it, the only reasonable conclusion at this time is that someone wrote it, but not necessarily “Peck.” If Deming finds the email and decides to go public with it, it will then be an entirely different story.
Therefore, commenters here bashing Overpeck (and Phil Clark) on this issue only are off-base, and as I stated above, are providing ammunition to the AGW camp and damaging the credibility of skeptics. And why even bother? It’s off-topic from the post, and as I also stated above, the “Two Overpecks” story is more damning, and a lot funnier.
Heh. Beware Muphry’s Law!