This post will be a top “sticky” post for some time, new essays will appear below this one. UPDATES as emails are noted, will appear below. – Anthony
UPDATE8 3/19/13: Jeff Condon has received legal notice from UEA warning him not to release the password. So far, I have not seen any such notice. For those who demand it be released, take note. – Anthony
A number of climate skeptic bloggers (myself included) have received this message yesterday. While I had planned to defer announcing this until a reasonable scan could be completed, some other bloggers have let the cat out of the bag. I provide this introductory email sent by “FOIA” without editing or comment. I do have one email, which I found quite humorous, which I will add at the end so that our friends know that this is valid. Update – the first email I posted apparently was part of an earlier release (though I had not seen it, there are a number of duplicates in the all.zip file) so I have added a second one.
Update 2: Additional emails have been added – Anthony
Update 3: Delingpole weighs in.
Climategate: FOIA – The Man Who Saved The World – Telegraph Blogs
I hope one day that FOIA’s true identity can be revealed so that he can be properly applauded and rewarded for his signal service to mankind. He is a true hero, who deserves to go on the same roll of honour as Norman Borlaug, Julian Simon and Steve McIntyre: people who put truth, integrity and the human race first and ideology second. Unlike the misanthropic greenies who do exactly the opposite.
Update4: An email showing some insight on the beginning of the use of the word “denier” along with some demonstrated coziness with media activists.
Update5: Mike Mann rages and releases the attack dogs Monbiot, Romm, Media Matters and others in response to a perfectly valid and polite inquiry from the Wall Street Journal, suggesting a smear before the reporter even write the story.
Update6: From Junkscience.com, who spotted this exchange: Wigley accuses IPCC and lead authors of ‘dishonest presentations of model results’; Accuses Mann of deception; Mann admits
Update7: From Junkscience.com, Briffa worries that manmade environmental change distorts tree-ring analysis.
===========================================================
Subject: FOIA 2013: the password
It’s time to tie up loose ends and dispel some of the speculation surrounding the Climategate affair.
Indeed, it’s singular “I” this time. After certain career developments I can no longer use the papal plural 😉
If this email seems slightly disjointed it’s probably my linguistic background and the problem of trying to address both the wider audience (I expect this will be partially reproduced sooner or later) and the email recipients (whom I haven’t decided yet on).
The “all.7z” password is [redacted]
DO NOT PUBLISH THE PASSWORD. Quote other parts if you like.
Releasing the encrypted archive was a mere practicality. I didn’t want to keep the emails lying around.
I prepared CG1 & 2 alone. Even skimming through all 220.000 emails would have taken several more months of work in an increasingly unfavorable environment.
Dumping them all into the public domain would be the last resort. Majority of the emails are irrelevant, some of them probably sensitive and socially damaging.
To get the remaining scientifically (or otherwise) relevant emails out, I ask you to pass this on to any motivated and responsible individuals who could volunteer some time to sift through the material for eventual release.
Filtering\redacting personally sensitive emails doesn’t require special expertise.
I’m not entirely comfortable sending the password around unsolicited, but haven’t got better ideas at the moment. If you feel this makes you seemingly “complicit” in a way you don’t like, don’t take action.
I don’t expect these remaining emails to hold big surprises. Yet it’s possible that the most important pieces are among them. Nobody on the planet has held the archive in plaintext since CG2.
That’s right; no conspiracy, no paid hackers, no Big Oil. The Republicans didn’t plot this. USA politics is alien to me, neither am I from the UK. There is life outside the Anglo-American sphere.
If someone is still wondering why anyone would take these risks, or sees only a breach of privacy here, a few words…
The first glimpses I got behind the scenes did little to garner my trust in the state of climate science — on the contrary. I found myself in front of a choice that just might have a global impact.
Briefly put, when I had to balance the interests of my own safety, privacy\career of a few scientists, and the well-being of billions of people living in the coming several decades, the first two weren’t the decisive concern.
It was me or nobody, now or never. Combination of several rather improbable prerequisites just wouldn’t occur again for anyone else in the foreseeable future. The circus was about to arrive in Copenhagen. Later on it could be too late.
Most would agree that climate science has already directed where humanity puts its capability, innovation, mental and material “might”. The scale will grow ever grander in the coming decades if things go according to script. We’re dealing with $trillions and potentially drastic influence on practically everyone.
Wealth of the surrounding society tends to draw the major brushstrokes of a newborn’s future life. It makes a huge difference whether humanity uses its assets to achieve progress, or whether it strives to stop and reverse it, essentially sacrificing the less fortunate to the climate gods.
We can’t pour trillions in this massive hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor and pretend it’s not away from something and someone else.
If the economy of a region, a country, a city, etc. deteriorates, what happens among the poorest? Does that usually improve their prospects? No, they will take the hardest hit. No amount of magical climate thinking can turn this one upside-down.
It’s easy for many of us in the western world to accept a tiny green inconvenience and then wallow in that righteous feeling, surrounded by our “clean” technology and energy that is only slightly more expensive if adequately subsidized.
Those millions and billions already struggling with malnutrition, sickness, violence, illiteracy, etc. don’t have that luxury. The price of “climate protection” with its cumulative and collateral effects is bound to destroy and debilitate in great numbers, for decades and generations.
Conversely, a “game-changer” could have a beneficial effect encompassing a similar scope.
If I had a chance to accomplish even a fraction of that, I’d have to try. I couldn’t morally afford inaction. Even if I risked everything, would never get personal compensation, and could probably never talk about it with anyone.
I took what I deemed the most defensible course of action, and would do it again (although with slight alterations — trying to publish something truthful on RealClimate was clearly too grandiose of a plan ;-).
Even if I have it all wrong and these scientists had some good reason to mislead us (instead of making a strong case with real data) I think disseminating the truth is still the safest bet by far.
Big thanks to Steve and Anthony and many others. My contribution would never have happened without your work (whether or not you agree with the views stated).
Oh, one more thing. I was surprised to learn from a “progressive” blog, corroborated by a renowned “scientist”, that the releases were part of a coordinated campaign receiving vast amounts of secret funding from shady energy industry groups.
I wasn’t aware of the arrangement but warmly welcome their decision to support my project. For that end I opened a bitcoin address: 1HHQ36qbsgGZWLPmiUjYHxQUPJ6EQXVJFS.
More seriously speaking, I accept, with gratitude, modest donations to support The (other) Cause. The address can also serve as a digital signature to ward off those identity thefts which are part of climate scientists’ repertoire of tricks these days.
Keep on the good work. I won’t be able to use this email address for long so if you reply, I can’t guarantee reading or answering. I will several batches, to anyone I can think of.
Over and out.
Mr. FOIA
===============================================================
Here is one email that I found interesting and humorous, email addresses redacted as a courtesy. Note the bolding:
===============================================================
—–Original Message—–
From: Simon Tett
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001 1:36 PM
To: matcollins@xxx.xx.xxx
Cc: t.osborn@xxx.xx.xxx ; k.briffa@xxx.xx.xxx
Subject: Paleo-Paper
Mat,
The papers looks very good. Hope these comments aren’t too late…. I
don’t think I need to see it again.
Simon
Response to reviewers
I couldn’t read your letter — PS files as attachments seem to get
munged by our firewall/email scanner so I’ve just looked at the paper
to see if I think you’ve dealt with the reviewers comments.
Editors comments:
3) Don’t think you have dealt with the enhanced multi-decadal
variability in the paper.
Reviewer B.
1) Didn’t see a justification for use of tree-rings and not using ice
cores — the obvious one is that ice cores are no good — see Jones et
al, 1998.
2) No justification for regional reconstructions rather than what Mann
et al did (I don’t think we can say we didn’t do Mann et al because
we think it is crap!)
3) No justification in the paper for the 9 regions. I think there is
justification in the JGR Briffa paper.
4) That is a good point — I would strongly suspect that the control has
a lot less variance than the observations over the last century —
not the ALL run though!
5) No response to this in the paper. I suspect we are doing better
stats than all the rest though!
Specific Questions/comments
1) That is a good point: How about (though a bit germanic)
“Comparison of simulated northern hemisphere variability with
paleo-temperature …”
Didn’t see that you had dealt with points 5 and 6.
Ditto for point 11.
Figures.
2-4 seem to be much as submitted!
Figs 5-8 — do you want to use colour? It would cost!
Ref C.
Don’t seem to have dealt with point a) and it is quite an important
point as well!
Point b is a reasonable point which I think you go some way to dealing
with. I suggest you stress on page 20 the “exploratory” nature of our
analysis. I am just about to start such a run once I have sorted out
the orbital forcings and how to calculate their radiative forcings.
Point c — not sure what the referee is saying here!
Comments on the MS.
Page 9 “pith” means
Same sentence I think you need to add that they are grouped by
species as well (the rest of the para implies that is what is
done).
Last sentence of penultimate para: stress that decadal to century
scale variability is what we are interested mainly because of its
importance in deciding if recent climate change is anthropogenic or
natural.
First full para on page 13 — didn’t really follow this para.
2nd para, line 11 consider “in comparison” -> “when compared”
Page 14, first para — consider expanding the abbreviations i.e CAS ->
CAS (Central Asia).
Page 20, last para. insert ‘in the four simulations’ after ‘six
“negative spikes”‘.
Section 10 should be Appendix A.
—
Dr Simon Tett Managing Scientist, Data development and applications.
Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Prediction and Research
London Road Bracknell Berkshire RG12 2SY United Kingdom
Tel: +44 xxxxxxx Fax: +44 xxxxxx
E-mail: xxxxxxx
====================================================
Second email (added after original post)
====================================================
—–Original Message—–
From: Michael E. Mann
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 8:14 AM
To: Edward Cook
Cc: tom crowley ; Michael E. Mann ; esper@xxxxxx ; Jonathan
Overpeck ; Keith Briffa ; mhughes@xxxxxxx ; rbradley@xxxxxx
Subject: Re: hockey stick
<x-flowed>
Hi Ed,
Thanks for your message. I’m forwarding this to Ray and Malcolm to reply to
some of your statements below,
mike
At 10:59 AM 5/2/01 -0400, Edward Cook wrote:
> >Ed,
> >
> >heard some rumor that you are involved in a non-hockey stick
> >reconstruction
> >of northern hemisphere temperatures. I am very intrigued to learn about
> >this – are these results suggesting the so called Medieval Warm Period
> >may
> >be warmer than the early/mid 20th century?
> >
> >any enlightenment on this would be most appreciated, Tom
> >
> >
> >
> >Thomas J. Crowley
> >Dept. of Oceanography
> >Texas A&M University
> >College Station, TX 77843-3146
> >979-xxxxxxx
> >979-xxxxxxx
> >979-xxxxxxx
>
>Hi Tom,
>
>As rumors often are, the one you heard is not entirely accurate. So, I will
>take some time here to explain for you, Mike, and others exactly what was
>done and what the motivation was, in an effort to hopefully avoid any
>misunderstanding. I especially want to avoid any suggestion that this work
>was being done to specifically counter or refute the “hockey stick”.
>However, it does suggest (as do other results from your EBM, Peck’s work,
>the borehole data, and Briffa and Jones large-scale proxy estimates) that
>there are unresolved (I think) inconsistencies in the low-frequency aspects
>of the hockey stick series compared to other results. So, any comparisons
>with the hockey stick were made with that spirit in mind.
>
>What Jan Esper and I are working on (mostly Jan with me as second author)
>is a paper that was in response to Broecker’s Science Perspectives piece on
>the Medieval Warm Period. Specifically, we took strong exception to his
>claim that tree rings are incapable of preserving century time scale
>temperature variability. Of course, if Broecker had read the literature, he
>would have known that what he claimed was inaccurate. Be that as it may,
>Jan had been working on a project, as part of his post-doc here, to look at
>large-scale, low-frequency patterns of tree growth and climate in long
>tree-ring records provided to him by Fritz Schweingruber. With the addition
>of a couple of sites from foxtail pine in California, Jan amassed a
>collection of 14 tree-ring sites scattered somewhat uniformly over the
>30-70 degree NH latitude band, with most extending back 1000-1200 years.
>All of the sites are from temperature-sensitive locations (i.e. high
>elevation or high northern latitude. It is, as far as I know, the largest,
>longest, and most spatially representative set of such
>temperature-sensitive tree-ring data yet put together for the NH
>extra-tropics.
>
>In order to preserve maximum low-frequency variance, Jan used the Regional
>Curve Standardization (RCS) method, used previously by Briffa and myself
>with great success. Only here, Jan chose to do things in a somewhat radical
>fashion. Since the replication at each site was generally insufficient to
>produce a robust RCS chronology back to, say, AD 1000, Jan pooled all of
>the original measurement series into 2 classes of growth trends: non-linear
>(~700 ring-width series) and linear (~500 ring-width series). He than
>performed independent RCS on the each of the pooled sets and produced 2 RCS
>chronologies with remarkably similar multi-decadal and centennial
>low-frequency characteristics. These chronologies are not good at
>preserving high-frquency climate information because of the scattering of
>sites and the mix of different species, but the low-frequency patterns are
>probably reflecting the same long-term changes in temperature. Jan than
>averaged the 2 RCS chronologies together to produce a single chronology
>extending back to AD 800. It has a very well defined Medieval Warm Period –
>Little Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, punctuated by strong decadal
>fluctuations of inferred cold that correspond well with known histories of
>neo-glacial advance in some parts of the NH. The punctuations also appear,
>in some cases, to be related to known major volcanic eruptions.
>
>Jan originally only wanted to show this NH extra-tropical RCS chronology in
>a form scaled to millimeters of growth to show how forest productivity and
>carbon sequestration may be modified by climate variability and change over
>relatively long time scales. However, I encouraged him to compare his
>series with NH instrumental temperature data and the proxy estimates
>produced by Jones, Briffa, and Mann in order bolster the claim that his
>unorthodox method of pooling the tree-ring data was producing a record that
>was indeed related to temperatures in some sense. This he did by linearly
>rescaling his RCS chronology from mm of growth to temperature anomalies. In
>so doing, Jan demonstrated that his series, on inter-decadal time scales
>only, was well correlated to the annual NH instrumental record. This result
>agreed extremely well with those of Jones and Briffa. Of course, some of
>the same data were used by them, but probably not more than 40 percent
>(Briffa in particular), so the comparison is based on mostly, but not
>fully, independent data. The similarity indicated that Jan’s approach was
>valid for producing a useful reconstruction of multi-decadal temperature
>variability (probably weighted towards the warm-season months, but it is
>impossible to know by how much) over a larger region of the NH
>extra-tropics than that produced before by Jones and Briffa. It also
>revealed somewhat more intense cooling in the Little Ice Age that is more
>consistent with what the borehole temperatures indicate back to AD 1600.
>This result also bolsters the argument for a reasonably large-scale
>Medieval Warm Period that may not be as warm as the late 20th century, but
>is of much(?) greater significance than that produced previously.
>
>Of course, Jan also had to compare his record with the hockey stick since
>that is the most prominent and oft-cited record of NH temperatures covering
>the past 1000 years. The results were consistent with the differences shown
>by others, mainly in the century-scale of variability. Again, the Esper
>series shows a very strong, even canonical, Medieval Warm Period – Little
>Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, which is largely missing from the
>hockey stick. Yet the two series agree reasonably well on inter-decadal
>timescales, even though they may not be 1:1 expressions of the same
>temperature window (i.e. annual vs. warm-season weighted). However, the
>tree-ring series used in the hockey stick are warm-season weighted as well,
>so the difference between “annual” and “warm-season weighted” is probably
>not as large as it might seem, especially before the period of instrumental
>data (e.g. pre-1700) in the hockey stick. So, they both share a significant
>degree of common interdecal temperature information (and some, but not
>much, data), but do not co-vary well on century timescales. Again, this has
>all been shown before by others using different temperature
>reconstructions, but Jan’s result is probably the most comprehensive
>expression (I believe) of extra-tropical NH temperatures back to AD 800 on
>multi-decadal and century time scales.
>
>Now back to the Broecker perspectives piece. I felt compelled to refute
>Broecker’s erroneous claim that tree rings could not preserve long-term
>temperature information. So, I organized a “Special Wally Seminar” in which
>I introduced the topic to him and the packed audience using Samuel
>Johnson’s famous “I refute it thus” statement in the form of “Jan Esper and
>I refute Broecker thus”. Jan than presented, in a very detailed and well
>espressed fashion, his story and Broecker became an instant convert. In
>other words, Wally now believes that long tree-ring records, when properly
>selected and processed, can preserve low-frequency temperature variability
>on centennial time scales. Others in the audience came away with the same
>understanding, one that we dendrochronologists always knew to be the case.
>This was the entire purpose of Jan’s work and the presentation of it to
>Wally and others. Wally had expressed some doubts about the hockey stick
>previously to me and did so again in his perspectives article. So, Jan’s
>presentation strongly re-enforced Wally’s opinion about the hockey stick,
>which he has expressed to others including several who attended a
>subsequent NOAA meeting at Lamont. I have no control over what Wally says
>and only hope that we can work together to reconcile, in a professional,
>friendly manner, the differences between the hockey stick and other proxy
>temperature records covering the past 1000 years. This I would like to do.
>
>I do think that the Medieval Warm Period was a far more significant event
>than has been recognized previously, as much because the high-resolution
>data to evaluate it had not been available before. That is much less so the
>case now. It is even showing up strongly now in long SH tree-ring series.
>However, there is still the question of how strong this event was in the
>tropics. I maintain that we do not have the proxies to tell us that now.
>The tropical ice core data are very difficult to interpret as temperature
>proxies (far worse than tree rings for sure and maybe even unrelated to
>temperatures in any simple linear sense as is often assumed), so I do not
>believe that they can be used alone as records to test for the existence of
>a Medieval Warm Period in the tropics. That being the case, there are
>really no other high-resolution records from the tropics to use, and the
>teleconnections between long extra-tropical proxies and the tropics are, I
>believe, far too tenuous and probably unstable to use to sort out this
>issue.
>
>So, at this stage I would argue that the Medieval Warm Period was probably
>a global extra-tropical event, at the very least, with warmth that was
>persistent and probably comparable to much of what we have experienced in
>the 20th century. However, I would not claim (and nor would Jan) that it
>exceeded the warmth of the late 20th century. We simply do not have the
>precision or the proxy replication to say that yet. This being said, I do
>find the dismissal of the Medieval Warm Period as a meaningful global event
>to be grossly premature and probably wrong. Kind of like Mark Twain’s
>commment that accounts of his death were greatly exaggerated. If, as some
>people believe, a degree of symmetry in climate exists between the
>hemispheres, which would appear to arise from the tropics, then the
>existence of a Medieval Warm Period in the extra-tropics of the NH and SH
>argues for its existence in the tropics as well. Only time and an enlarged
>suite of proxies that extend into the tropics will tell if this is true.
>
>I hope that what I have written clarifies the rumor and expresses my views
>more completely and accurately.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Ed
>
>==================================
>Dr. Edward R. Cook
>Doherty Senior Scholar
>Tree-Ring Laboratory
>Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
>Palisades, New York 10964 USA
>Phone: 1-845-xxxxxx
>Fax: 1-845-xxxxxx
>Email: drdendro@xxxxxxx
>==================================
_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxxx Phone: (804) 924-7770 FAX: (804) 982-2137
http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
—–Original Message—–
From: Michael E. Mann
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 8:14 AM
To: Edward Cook
Cc: tom crowley ; Michael E. Mann ; esper@xxxxxxxx ; Jonathan
Overpeck ; Keith Briffa ; mhughes@xxxxxx ; rbradley@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: hockey stick
<x-flowed>
Hi Ed,
Thanks for your message. I’m forwarding this to Ray and Malcolm to reply to
some of your statements below,
mike
At 10:59 AM 5/2/01 -0400, Edward Cook wrote:
> >Ed,
> >
> >heard some rumor that you are involved in a non-hockey stick
> >reconstruction
> >of northern hemisphere temperatures. I am very intrigued to learn about
> >this – are these results suggesting the so called Medieval Warm Period
> >may
> >be warmer than the early/mid 20th century?
> >
> >any enlightenment on this would be most appreciated, Tom
> >
> >
> >
> >Thomas J. Crowley
> >Dept. of Oceanography
> >Texas A&M University
> >College Station, TX 77843-3146
> >979-xxxxx
> >979-xxxxx
> >979-xxxxx
>
>Hi Tom,
>
>As rumors often are, the one you heard is not entirely accurate. So, I will
>take some time here to explain for you, Mike, and others exactly what was
>done and what the motivation was, in an effort to hopefully avoid any
>misunderstanding. I especially want to avoid any suggestion that this work
>was being done to specifically counter or refute the “hockey stick”.
>However, it does suggest (as do other results from your EBM, Peck’s work,
>the borehole data, and Briffa and Jones large-scale proxy estimates) that
>there are unresolved (I think) inconsistencies in the low-frequency aspects
>of the hockey stick series compared to other results. So, any comparisons
>with the hockey stick were made with that spirit in mind.
>
>What Jan Esper and I are working on (mostly Jan with me as second author)
>is a paper that was in response to Broecker’s Science Perspectives piece on
>the Medieval Warm Period. Specifically, we took strong exception to his
>claim that tree rings are incapable of preserving century time scale
>temperature variability. Of course, if Broecker had read the literature, he
>would have known that what he claimed was inaccurate. Be that as it may,
>Jan had been working on a project, as part of his post-doc here, to look at
>large-scale, low-frequency patterns of tree growth and climate in long
>tree-ring records provided to him by Fritz Schweingruber. With the addition
>of a couple of sites from foxtail pine in California, Jan amassed a
>collection of 14 tree-ring sites scattered somewhat uniformly over the
>30-70 degree NH latitude band, with most extending back 1000-1200 years.
>All of the sites are from temperature-sensitive locations (i.e. high
>elevation or high northern latitude. It is, as far as I know, the largest,
>longest, and most spatially representative set of such
>temperature-sensitive tree-ring data yet put together for the NH
>extra-tropics.
>
>In order to preserve maximum low-frequency variance, Jan used the Regional
>Curve Standardization (RCS) method, used previously by Briffa and myself
>with great success. Only here, Jan chose to do things in a somewhat radical
>fashion. Since the replication at each site was generally insufficient to
>produce a robust RCS chronology back to, say, AD 1000, Jan pooled all of
>the original measurement series into 2 classes of growth trends: non-linear
>(~700 ring-width series) and linear (~500 ring-width series). He than
>performed independent RCS on the each of the pooled sets and produced 2 RCS
>chronologies with remarkably similar multi-decadal and centennial
>low-frequency characteristics. These chronologies are not good at
>preserving high-frquency climate information because of the scattering of
>sites and the mix of different species, but the low-frequency patterns are
>probably reflecting the same long-term changes in temperature. Jan than
>averaged the 2 RCS chronologies together to produce a single chronology
>extending back to AD 800. It has a very well defined Medieval Warm Period –
>Little Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, punctuated by strong decadal
>fluctuations of inferred cold that correspond well with known histories of
>neo-glacial advance in some parts of the NH. The punctuations also appear,
>in some cases, to be related to known major volcanic eruptions.
>
>Jan originally only wanted to show this NH extra-tropical RCS chronology in
>a form scaled to millimeters of growth to show how forest productivity and
>carbon sequestration may be modified by climate variability and change over
>relatively long time scales. However, I encouraged him to compare his
>series with NH instrumental temperature data and the proxy estimates
>produced by Jones, Briffa, and Mann in order bolster the claim that his
>unorthodox method of pooling the tree-ring data was producing a record that
>was indeed related to temperatures in some sense. This he did by linearly
>rescaling his RCS chronology from mm of growth to temperature anomalies. In
>so doing, Jan demonstrated that his series, on inter-decadal time scales
>only, was well correlated to the annual NH instrumental record. This result
>agreed extremely well with those of Jones and Briffa. Of course, some of
>the same data were used by them, but probably not more than 40 percent
>(Briffa in particular), so the comparison is based on mostly, but not
>fully, independent data. The similarity indicated that Jan’s approach was
>valid for producing a useful reconstruction of multi-decadal temperature
>variability (probably weighted towards the warm-season months, but it is
>impossible to know by how much) over a larger region of the NH
>extra-tropics than that produced before by Jones and Briffa. It also
>revealed somewhat more intense cooling in the Little Ice Age that is more
>consistent with what the borehole temperatures indicate back to AD 1600.
>This result also bolsters the argument for a reasonably large-scale
>Medieval Warm Period that may not be as warm as the late 20th century, but
>is of much(?) greater significance than that produced previously.
>
>Of course, Jan also had to compare his record with the hockey stick since
>that is the most prominent and oft-cited record of NH temperatures covering
>the past 1000 years. The results were consistent with the differences shown
>by others, mainly in the century-scale of variability. Again, the Esper
>series shows a very strong, even canonical, Medieval Warm Period – Little
>Ice Age – 20th Century Warming pattern, which is largely missing from the
>hockey stick. Yet the two series agree reasonably well on inter-decadal
>timescales, even though they may not be 1:1 expressions of the same
>temperature window (i.e. annual vs. warm-season weighted). However, the
>tree-ring series used in the hockey stick are warm-season weighted as well,
>so the difference between “annual” and “warm-season weighted” is probably
>not as large as it might seem, especially before the period of instrumental
>data (e.g. pre-1700) in the hockey stick. So, they both share a significant
>degree of common interdecal temperature information (and some, but not
>much, data), but do not co-vary well on century timescales. Again, this has
>all been shown before by others using different temperature
>reconstructions, but Jan’s result is probably the most comprehensive
>expression (I believe) of extra-tropical NH temperatures back to AD 800 on
>multi-decadal and century time scales.
>
>Now back to the Broecker perspectives piece. I felt compelled to refute
>Broecker’s erroneous claim that tree rings could not preserve long-term
>temperature information. So, I organized a “Special Wally Seminar” in which
>I introduced the topic to him and the packed audience using Samuel
>Johnson’s famous “I refute it thus” statement in the form of “Jan Esper and
>I refute Broecker thus”. Jan than presented, in a very detailed and well
>espressed fashion, his story and Broecker became an instant convert. In
>other words, Wally now believes that long tree-ring records, when properly
>selected and processed, can preserve low-frequency temperature variability
>on centennial time scales. Others in the audience came away with the same
>understanding, one that we dendrochronologists always knew to be the case.
>This was the entire purpose of Jan’s work and the presentation of it to
>Wally and others. Wally had expressed some doubts about the hockey stick
>previously to me and did so again in his perspectives article. So, Jan’s
>presentation strongly re-enforced Wally’s opinion about the hockey stick,
>which he has expressed to others including several who attended a
>subsequent NOAA meeting at Lamont. I have no control over what Wally says
>and only hope that we can work together to reconcile, in a professional,
>friendly manner, the differences between the hockey stick and other proxy
>temperature records covering the past 1000 years. This I would like to do.
>
>I do think that the Medieval Warm Period was a far more significant event
>than has been recognized previously, as much because the high-resolution
>data to evaluate it had not been available before. That is much less so the
>case now. It is even showing up strongly now in long SH tree-ring series.
>However, there is still the question of how strong this event was in the
>tropics. I maintain that we do not have the proxies to tell us that now.
>The tropical ice core data are very difficult to interpret as temperature
>proxies (far worse than tree rings for sure and maybe even unrelated to
>temperatures in any simple linear sense as is often assumed), so I do not
>believe that they can be used alone as records to test for the existence of
>a Medieval Warm Period in the tropics. That being the case, there are
>really no other high-resolution records from the tropics to use, and the
>teleconnections between long extra-tropical proxies and the tropics are, I
>believe, far too tenuous and probably unstable to use to sort out this
>issue.
>
>So, at this stage I would argue that the Medieval Warm Period was probably
>a global extra-tropical event, at the very least, with warmth that was
>persistent and probably comparable to much of what we have experienced in
>the 20th century. However, I would not claim (and nor would Jan) that it
>exceeded the warmth of the late 20th century. We simply do not have the
>precision or the proxy replication to say that yet. This being said, I do
>find the dismissal of the Medieval Warm Period as a meaningful global event
>to be grossly premature and probably wrong. Kind of like Mark Twain’s
>commment that accounts of his death were greatly exaggerated. If, as some
>people believe, a degree of symmetry in climate exists between the
>hemispheres, which would appear to arise from the tropics, then the
>existence of a Medieval Warm Period in the extra-tropics of the NH and SH
>argues for its existence in the tropics as well. Only time and an enlarged
>suite of proxies that extend into the tropics will tell if this is true.
>
>I hope that what I have written clarifies the rumor and expresses my views
>more completely and accurately.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Ed
>
>==================================
>Dr. Edward R. Cook
>Doherty Senior Scholar
>Tree-Ring Laboratory
>Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
>Palisades, New York 10964 USA
>Phone: 1-845-xxxxx
>Fax: 1-845-xxxxx
>Email: drdendro@xxxxx.xxxxx.xxx
>==================================
_______________________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@virginia.edu Phone: (804) 924-7770 FAX: (804) 982-2137
http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
=========================================================================
Here is an email from Tom Wigley on Naomi Oreskes. Bold mine. (h/t to Junkscience.com)
=========================================================================
date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:16:40 -0700
from: Tom Wigley
subject: Re: [Fwd: Your Submission]
to: Phil Jones
Phil,
This is weird. I used Web of Knowledge, “create citation report”, and
added 1999 thru 2009 numbers. Can’t do you becoz of the too many PDJs
problem.
Here are 3 results …
Kevin Trenberth, 9049
Me, 5523
Ben, 2407
The max on their list has only 3365 cites over this period.
Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless.
A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.
Tom.
==============================================================
UPDATE 4:
Barry Woods writes via email:
The social network is of interest..
In the earlier emails, when Mann wanted to contact Monbiot, he got Monbiot’s email address from George Marshall
(Marshall is a veteran greenpeace campaigner, founder of Rising Tide, COIN –) and creator of a – Deniers Hall of Shame.. and very active at grass roots
Perhaps scientists a bit too close to activists, picking up their thinking about ‘deniers’ and fossil fuel companies ? Marshall had been battling Chevron, in the 90’s about rainforest destruction (Rainforest Foundation)
And of course Monbiot – published a Deniers photo Hall of Shame in the Guardian (including Booker) and ‘fights’ Booker on climate change
———————–
cc: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@giss.xxxx>, k.briffa@xxxxxxx
date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:29:39 -0400
from: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxx>
subject: Re: More of the same from Booker
to: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxx>
Hi Phil,
Might want to see if George Monbiot wants to *review* the book.
That would be both amusing and satisfying,
mike
On Oct 26, 2009, at 5:21 AM, Phil Jones wrote:
Gavin, Mike,
[1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425269/The-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html
Apparently he has a book out
[2]http://www.amazon.com/Real-Global-Warming-Disaster-Scientific/dp/1441110526
———————–
Remember the earlier email –
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=1377
– that when Mann wanted to get hold of Monbiot, about Durkin and Great Global Warming Scandal..
Mann got Monbiots email address from none other than George Marshall (Rising Tide – COIN) Some scientists perhaps been influenced a bit too much by activist rhetoric,.. and picked up the rhetoric and language of activists/environmentalistsie
I.e. when did Mann start using the phrase ‘climate denier’?
George Marshall and Mark Lynas writing about it in 2003, – New Statesman – including a whose who of climate change deniers – (lindzen one of them)
Marshall had a Deniers Hall of Shame in 2001-2002 (Rising Tide) – Lindzen included
And if you look at Wayback machine – Lynas and Marshall were very early entries to Realclimate’s blog roll.
Barry
===============================================================
UPDATE 5:
From Junkscience.com
In response to a polite media inquiry from Wall Street journal editorial writer Anne Jolis, Mann rages, in part, “Misrepresenting the work of scientists is a serious offense” — and then cc’s his response to Media Matters, Joe Romm and other allies in the warmest-media industrial complex.
The e-mail exchange is below.
###
from: Michael Mann
subject: Re: From the Wall Street Journal:
to: Anne Jolis , Joe Romm , Media Matters Erikka Knuti , DarkSydOTheMoon@aol.com,
Dan Vergano , Bud Ward , george@monbiot.info, AJ Walzer , “Paul D. Thacker”, Chris Mooney
Ms. Jolis,
I’ve taken the liberty of copying this exchange to a few others who might be
interested in it, within the broader context of issues related to the history of biased
reporting on climate change at the Wall Street Journal Europe,
Yours,
Mike Mann
On Oct 23, 2009, at 12:42 PM, Michael Mann wrote:
Ms. Jolis,
I am traveling through this weekend and have only brief email access, so can
only respond w/ a very short email to your inquiry. I’m sad to report that the tone of your questions suggests a highly distorted, contrarian-driven view of the entirety of our science. The premise of essentially everyone of your questions is wrong, and is contradicted by assessments such as the IPCC report, reports by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, etc. The National Academy of Science report (more info below) reported in 2006 that “The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence…”. The conclusions in the most recent 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment report have been significantly strengthened relative to what was originally concluded in our work from the 1990s or in the IPCC 2001 Third Assessment Report, something that of course should have been expected given the numerous additional studies that have since been
done that all point in the same direction. The conclusion that large-scale
recent warmth likely exceeds the range seen in past centuries has been extended from the
past 1000 years in the TAR, to the past 1300 years in the current report, and the confidence in this conclusion has been upped from likely in the Third Assessment Report to very likely in the current report for the past half millennium.
Since then, the conclusions have been further strengthened by other work,
including work by us. Please see e.g. the reporting by the BBC:
[1]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8236797.stm
[2]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7592575.stm
You don’t seem to be aware of the fact that our original “Hockey Stick”
reconstruction didn’t even use the “Yamal” data. It seems you have uncritically accepted
nearly every specious contrarian claim and innuendo against me, my colleagues, and the
science of climate change itself. Furthermore, I doubt that the various authors you cite
as critics, such as Pollack and Smerdon, would in any way agree w/ your assessment of
this work.
Misrepresenting the work of scientists is a serious offense, and would work
to further besmirch the reputation of the Wall Street Journal, which is strongly been
called into question in the past with regard to the treatment of climate change.
I’ve copied my response to a number of others who might wish to comment
further, as I will be unavailable to speak with you until next week.
I’ve pasted below various summaries by mainstream news venues which reported
a couple years ago that the National Academy of Sciences, in the words of Nature “Affirmed The Hockey Stick” below this message.
In addition, here are a few links you might want to read to better
familiarize yourself with what the science actually states with regard to the issues raised in
your inquiry below:
[3]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/
[4]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/the-ipcc-fourthassessment-
summary
-for-policy-makers/
[5]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/06/national-academiessynthesis-
repor
t/
[6]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/hockey-sticks-round-
27/
[7]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/new-analysisreproduces-
graph-of-l
ate-20th-century-temperature-rise/
[8]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/02/dummies-guide-tothe-
latest-hockey
-stick-controversy/
[9]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/a-new-take-on-anold-
millennium/
Finally, let me suggest, under the assumption that your intent is indeed to
report the reality of our current scientific understanding, rather than contrarian
politically-motivated spin, that any legitimate journalistic inquiry into
the current state of the science, and the extent to which uncertainties and controversy
have been overstated and misrepresented in the public discourse, would probably choose
to focus on the issues raised here:
[10]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/climate-cover-up-abrief-
review/
Yours,
Mike Mann
___________________NEWS CLIPS ON ACADEMY REPORT_____________________
from BBC (6/23/06 “Backing for ‘Hockey Stick’ graph”)
The Earth was hotter in the late 20th Century than it had been in the last
400 or possibly 1,000 years, a report requested by the US Congress concludes. It backs some of the key findings of the original study that gave rise to the iconic “hockey stick”
graph.) from New York Times (Andy Revkin, 6/22/06 “Science Panel Packs Study on
Warming Climate”):
At a news conference at the headquarters of the National Academies, several
members of the panel reviewing the study said they saw no sign that its authors had
intentionally chosen data sets or methods to get a desired result.
“I saw nothing that spoke to me of any manipulation,” said one member, Peter
Bloomfield, a statistics professor at [11]North Carolina State University. He added that
his impression was the study was “an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure.
Boston Globe (Beth Daley, 6/22/06 “Report backs global warming claims”):
Our conclusion is that this recent period of warming is likely the warmest in
a (millennium), said John Wallace, one of the 12 members on the panel and
professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington.
Los Angeles Times (Thomas H. Maugh II and Karen Kaplan, “U.S. Panel Backs
Data on Global Warming”):
After a comprehensive review of climate change data, the nation’s preeminent
scientific body found that average temperatures on Earth had risen by about 1 degree
over the last century, a development that “is unprecedented for the last 400 years and
potentially the last several millennia.”
and
The panel affirmed that proxy measurements made over the last 150 years
correlated well with actual measurements during that period, lending credence to the proxy data for earlier times. It concluded that, “with a high level of confidence,” global temperatures during the last century were higher than at any time since 1600.
Although the report did not place numerical values on that confidence level,
committee member and statistician Peter Bloomfield of North Carolina State University
said the panel was about 95% sure of the conclusion.
The committee supported Mann’s other conclusions, but said they were not as
definitive. For example, the report said the panel was “less confident” that the 20th century was the warmest century since 1000, largely because of the scarcity of data from
before 1600. Bloomfield said the committee was about 67% confident of the validity of that
finding the same degree of confidence Mann and his colleagues had placed in their initial
report.
Associated Press (syndicate with 100s of newspapers accross the U.S. (John
Heilprin, 6/22/06 “The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, perhaps
even longer”):
The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes
research from the late 1990s was “likely” to be true, said John “Mike” Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the ’90s research “are very close to being right” and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.
and
Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the
20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a “Little Ice Age” from about 1500 to 1850.
Washington Post (Juliet Eilperin, 6/23/06 “Study Confirms Past Few Decades
Warmest on Record”):
Panel member Kurt M. Cuffey, a geography professor at the University of
California at Berkeley, said at a news briefing that the report “essentially validated” the
conclusions Mann reported in 1998 and 1999 using temperature records. The panel also
estimated there is a roughly 67 percent chance that Mann is right in saying the past 25 years were the warmest in a 1,000 years.
Nature (Geoff Brumfield, 6/28/06 “Academy affirms hockey-stick graph”)
“We roughly agree with the substance of their findings,” says Gerald North,
the committee’s chair and a climate scientist at Texas A&M University in College Station. In particular, he says, the committee has a “high level of confidence” that the second half of the twentieth century was warmer than any other period in the past four centuries. But, he adds, claims for the earlier period covered by the study, from AD 900 to 1600, are less
certain. This earlier period is particularly important because global-warming sceptics
claim that the current warming trend is a rebound from a ‘little ice age’ around 1600.
Overall, the committee thought the temperature reconstructions from that era had only a
two-to-one chance of being right.
and
says Peter Bloomfield, a statistician at North Carolina State University in
Raleigh, who was involved in the latest report. “This study was the first of its kind, and
they had to make choices at various stages about how the data were processed,” he says,
adding that he “would not be embarrassed” to have been involved in the work.
New Scientist (Roxanne Khamsi, 6/23/06, “US report backs study on global
warming”):
It was really the first analysis of its type, panel member Kurt Cuffey of the
University of California, Berkeley, US, said at a news conference on Thursday.
He added that it was the first time anyone has done such a large-scale and
continual analysis of temperature over time. So its not surprising that they could have
probably done some detailed aspects of it better.
But it was a remarkable contribution and gave birth to a debate thats
ongoing, thats teaching us a lot about how climate has changed.
Science (Richard Kerr, June 30, 2006, “Yes, Its been Getting Warmer in Here
Since the CO2 Begain to Rise”): In addition, none of the three committee members at the press briefing– North, Bloomfield, and paleoclimatologist Kurt Cuffey of the University of California, Berkeley- -had found any hint of scientific impropriety. “I certainly did not see anything inappropriate,” said North. “Maybe things could have been done better, but after all, it was the first analysis of its kind.”
–
On Oct 23, 2009, at 10:41 AM, Jolis, Anne wrote:
Dear Dr. Mann,
My name is Anne Jolis, and I’m with the Wall Street Journal Europe, based in
London. I’m working on a piece about climate change, and specifically the growing
questions that people outside the field have about the methods and processes used by climatologists and other climate-change scientists – and, necessarily, about the conclusions that result. The idea came from the recent controversy that has arisen once again over Steve McIntyre, the publication of the full Yamal data used in Keith Briffa’s work. This of course raises questions among climate scientistis, and observers, about whether the socalled “hockey stick” graph of global temperatures , as produced by Dr. Briffa and originally by yourself, was drawn from narrow data which, and then when broadened to include a wider range of available dendroclimatological data, seems to show no important spike in global temperatures in the last 100 year .
I realize this is not exactly the silverbullet to anthropogenic global warming that some would like to read into it, but it seems to me that it does underscore some of the issues in climate science. Specifically, the publication of the data, and the earlier controversy over your work, seems to illustrate that best practices and reliable methods of data collection remain far from established, and that much of what is presented as scientific fact is really more of a value judgment based on select data. Would you agree?
I’d love to get some insight from you for my article. I’ll be filing this
weekend, but I can call you any time it’s convenient for you on Friday – just let me know
the best time and number. Please note that if we do speak on the phone, I will email you
with any quotes or paraphrases that I would like to attribute to you, before publication, so
as to secure your approval and confirm the accuracy of what I’m attributing to you.
Additionally, if you’d like to correspond via email, that’s fine too. I’ve listed below some
of the questions and assumptions I’m working on – if, in lieu of a phone call, you’d
like to answer and/or respond to these, as well as share any other thoughts you have
on these issues, I’d be most grateful. Feel welcome to reply at length!
I thank you in advance for your time and attention, and look forward to any of your comments.
All the best,
Anne Jolis
Mobile: +44 xxxxxx
– Given that methods in climate science are still being refined, do you
agree with policy makers’ and advocates’ use of data such as your own? Do you feel it is
accurately represented to laymans, and that the inherent uncertainties present in the
data are appropriately underscored? As a citizen, do you feel there is enough
certainty in the conclusions of, for instance, the latest IPCC report, to introduce new
economic regulations? Why or why not?
-What methods do you feel are the most accurate for predicting future climate
change, for evaluatinag the causes of climate change and for predicting whether or what
man can do to try to control or mitigate climate change in the future in the future? Why
do you feel these methods are the most accurate? Do you feel they’re given enough weight
in the current debate?
-What is your opinion of the value of Steve McIntyre’s work? Clearly he is
not a professional scientist, but do you feel there is nonetheless a place for his
“auditing” in the climate science community? Why or why not?
-Do you think McIntyre’s work and findings are likely to change the way
leading climate scientists operate? Do you think his recent campaign to get Dr. Keith Briffa
to publish the Yamal data he used is likely to make climate scientists more forthcoming
with their data? Do you think his work will make scientists, policymakers and advocates
any more exacting about the uncertainties in their procedures, methods and conclusions
when they present scientific data?
-How would you respond to the critique that, as a key part of the review
processes of publications in the field of climate science, as something of a “gatekeeper,”
you have rejected and otherwise sought to suppress work that contradicted your work.
Is this fair?
Why or why not? How would you characterize your selection process for work
that is worthy
of publication?
-Do you stand by your original “hockey stick” graf, even after the
publication of borehole
data from Henry Pollack and Jason Smerdon that seems to contradict your
conclusions? Or
work published in 2005 by Hans von Storch that seems to indicate that the
predictive
capabilities of the method you used in your original “hockey stick” would not
be able to
predict current temperatures?
–
Michael E. Mann
Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) xxxxx
503 Walker Building FAX: (814) xxxxx
The Pennsylvania State University email: [12]mann@psu.edu
University Park, PA 16802-5013
website: [13]http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
“Dire Predictions” book site:
[14]http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/news/DirePredictions/index.html
–
Update6:
Wigley accuses IPCC and lead authors of ‘dishonest presentations of model results’; Accuses Mann of deception; Mann admits
Mann: “Its (sic) hard to imagine what sort of comparison wouldn’t be deceptive.”
The e-mails are below.
###
On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 18:06, Michael Mann wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> thanks for the comments. well, ok. but this is the full CMIP3
> ensemble, so at least the plot is sampling the range of choices
> regarding if and how indirect effects are represented, what the cloud
> radiative feedback & sensitivity is, etc. across the modeling
> community. I’m not saying that these things necessarily cancel out
> (after all, there is an interesting and perhaps somewhat disturbing
> compensation between indirect aerosol forcing and sensitivity across
> the CMIP3 models that defies the assumption of independence), but if
> showing the full spread from CMIP3 is deceptive, its hard to imagine
> what sort of comparison wouldn’t be deceptive (your point re MAGICC
> notwithstanding),
>
> perhaps Gavin has some further comments on this (it is his plot after
> all),
>
> mike
>
> On Oct 14, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Tom Wigley wrote:
> > Mike,
> >
> > The Figure you sent is very deceptive. As an example, historical
> > runs with PCM look as though they match observations — but the
> > match is a fluke. PCM has no indirect aerosol forcing and a low
> > climate sensitivity — compensating errors. In my (perhaps too
> > harsh)
> > view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model
> > results by individual authors and by IPCC. This is why I still use
> > results from MAGICC to compare with observed temperatures. At least
> > here I can assess how sensitive matches are to sensitivity and
> > forcing assumptions/uncertainties.
> >
> > Tom.
> > +++++++++++++++++++
> >
> > Michael Mann wrote:
> > > thanks Tom,
> > > I’ve taken the liberty of attaching a figure that Gavin put
> > > together the other day (its an update from a similar figure he
> > > prepared for an earlier RealClimate post. see:
> > > http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktonsdeliberate-
manipulation/). It is indeed worth a thousand words, and drives home
Tom’s point below. We’re planning on doing a post on this shortly, but would be
nice to see the Sep. HadCRU numbers first,
> > > mike
> > > On Oct 14, 2009, at 3:01 AM, Tom Wigley wrote:
> > > > Dear all,
> > > > At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the
> > > > recent
> > > > lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to
> > > > look at
> > > > the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic
> > > > trend relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second
> > > > is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the
> > > > observed data.
> > > > Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The
> > > > second
> > > > method leaves a significant warming over the past decade.
> > > > These sums complement Kevin’s energy work.
> > > > Kevin says … “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack
> > > > of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”. I
> > > > do not
> > > > agree with this.
> > > > Tom.
> > > > +++++++++++++++++++++++
> > > > Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> > > > > Hi all
> > > > > Well I have my own article on where the heck is global
> > > > > warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have
> > > > > broken records the past two days for the coldest days on
> > > > > record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days
> > > > > was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the
> > > > > previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F
> > > > > and also a record low, well below the previous record low.
> > > > > This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game
> > > > > was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below
> > > > > freezing weather).
> > > > > Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change
> > > > > planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. /Current Opinion in
> > > > > Environmental Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27,
> > > > > doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
> > > > >
(A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
> > > > > The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at
> > > > > the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data
> > > > > published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there
> > > > > should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.
> > > > > Our observing system is inadequate.
> > > > > That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People
> > > > > like CPC are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly
> > > > > correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the
> > > > > change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn’t decadal. The
> > > > > PDO is already reversing with the switch to El Nino. The PDO
> > > > > index became positive in September for first time since Sept
> > > > > 2007.
=====================================================
UPDATE7:
In October 1996, Keith Briffa frets that the calibration for tree-ring analysis may be off due to manmade changes in the environment.
“I spoke to you about the problem of anthropogenic influences ( i.e. increased CO2, nitrate fallout , increased UV radiation) possibly having an influence on recent tree growth and so complicating our efforts to use these recent data to define how we interpret past tree growth. Is it possible to put in some reference to me worrying about this?”
The full e-mail is below.
###
date: Tue Oct 15 17:01:05 1996
from: Keith Briffa
subject: New Scientist article
to: Fred Pearce
Dear Fred
I have done a redraft of the article. I know you said not to
rewrite it (preferably) but rather to correct, make notes suggestins etc.
I thought about this for some time and realized that it woulld be far more
difficult to indicate the precise places,the precise problems and the
suggested corrections at all of the places I considered were subtle
misinterpretations of what I said, or meant, or feel. It therefore seemed
easier FOR BOTH OF US if I went through one attempt at what amounts to a
simple rewording. This lets me change the inference , correct minor errors
and fill in all your questions without having to explain the myriad details
of where and why.
Do not , please, grimace and get pissed off at my apparent cheek!
Hopefully, you can see when you go through this draft that most of it is
entirely yours and my changes are meant to be efficient and constructive.
I hope you will be able to accept this version pretty much as it stands now.
Incidentally, a pedantic point, but where you refer to a tree with rings
about 30 microns wide being equivelent to a tree increasing its GIRTH by one
centimetre in 100 years, should this not be 2 cms? Assuming the tree has a
starting diameter of about 15 cm , after 100 years its diameter will be 15.6 cm
(the rings occur on both sides of the tree) so that the cicumference change over
this period will be 1.9 cm.
There remain a couple of points for your consideration. Is it possible,
somehow, to get the ADVANCE-10K name in and explained( i.e. the project
title)? This is important to us as publicity in the context of our funding.
Also, I spoke to you about the problem of anthropogenic influences ( i.e.
increased CO2, nitrate fallout , increased UV radiation) possibly having
an influence on recent tree growth and so complicating our efforts to use
these recent data to define how we interpret past tree growth. Is it possible
to put in some reference to me worrying about this?
Finally, can you suggest to the editor that we put a footnote in to
flag our home page which details all the objectives and participants ?
(perhaps with the reference to the ADVANCE-10K acronym,title and grant
number)
I look forward to hearing from you and can send the text as ASCII,
WORD or WORDPERFECT files – for now should I fax it and if so to where?
cheers
Keith
Congrats to Tim Ball for his article requesting this to be done, and if it created this outcome! Wonderful!
Wow!
(Maybe you should have redacted out the e-mail address of Dr. Tett in his signature as well?)
REPLY: Fixed thanks
Hallelujah! All hail FOIA. Truckloads of popcorn to all! 😀
Heh. Here we go again.
Wow. This should be fun…
I saw it on Bishophill, then Tom Nelson and I knew you had to be on it.
Get ready, 3,2,1 GO…………..
No password but a bitcoin address? Mr FOIA can go f*ck himself. What’s the point of those emails being out there if there is a campaign to have only selected people see them? Are you going to be the high and mighty ones to release the truth to us great unwashed?
So what was the password?
I kept trying different combinations of Superman’s “Mr Mxyzptlk”, but never got anywhere.
“Filtering\redacting personally sensitive emails doesn’t require special expertise.”
….but it does require integrity.
Can’t wait for the edited highlights special edition 🙂
God bless you, Mr. FOIA!!!!
That’s an old one Anthony! It was 0562.txt in CG2.
REPLY: Ah, well, hadn’t seen that one, but this one was in the “all.zip” file. There were some duplications. I do have another I’ll post then. – Anthony
Let the Games begin!
Much of the bad behavior began with “We must find a way to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”
No amount of spin, cherry-picking, or statistical sleight-of-hand will make it go away.
Ditto Roman Warm Period, Holocene Optimum – all warmer than today. CO2 game over.
Anthony: You’ve still got a few email addresses at the end of the post.
REPLY: Fixed earlier, refresh -A
Leo Hickman already suggesting FOIA’s motivation is money
https://twitter.com/LeoHickman/status/311849818710491137
Its going to take a lot of work to go through this pile , there mat not be any ‘world changing ‘ bits in it but even in the personal stuff there may be the odd nugget of gold .
But the example was good
‘I don’t think we can say we didn’t do Mann et al because we think it is crap!)
But in public we endless praised it and attacked any who suggested it was ‘crap ‘ .
I can hear the buzzing of an angry Mann from all this distance , so Simon better get ready to go down on their knees for a bit of public contrition., as Mann never forgives nor forgets those that fail to show due difference to his ‘mightiness’
As the ‘team’ says, “reality has a well known skeptical bias.”
Apologies to Stephen Colbertz
Well, if the password has been released, it will eventually get out in the open. It is a good idea, but might be difficult, to be a bit careful about ‘sensitive or socially damaging’ emails, although it isn’t clear what FOIA has in mind by that. If things that are truly personal, I would be in favor of keeping them private. If things that are “socially damaging” because they show the individuals in question don’t know what they are doing, I would be in favor of opening them up.
Kudos to FOIA for all the efforts. I’ve got my fingers cautiously crossed on how this last batch will shake out . . .
I am really disappointed about the “no cheques from Big Oil policy” I retired with no pension while waiting for those cheques… I may have to work again.
Nothing sandwich #3.
REPLY: You assume you know what’s in that sandwich. – Anthony
Sounds ethical. Hope there are no repercussions heading his way.
Simon Tett is now a professor at Edinburgh. Something tells me he’ll not be on Mikey;s Xmas card list this year…..
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/geosciences/people?cw_xml=person.html&indv=1592
One day Foia will get the official recognition he deserves.
April 1st seems to come round sooner every year.
Now if Penn State and the EPA would release their information….
FOIA deserves a solid-gold WUWT coffee mug!
Popcorn futures are limit up…
God bless FOIA. He/she is a lover of mankind.
Is the password for real?
Do we now wait while people of integrity sort the remnants? To avoid accidental damage to the innocent ?
Is FOIA looking for donations?
Or is the bitcoin a low piece of humour?
How does bitcoin work?
Dangerous to let *anyone* see it, @JiminyBob. After all, not everyone is as dispassionate and even tempered as you appear to be.
Personally I’ll donate, reasonable excuse to get all that Bitcoin stuff sorted out.
What new information will be discerned?
How much worse will the “CAGW by CO2” cause look?
Will something be revealed that will make the earth shake?
*makes a batch of popcorn*
Not going to take long to reach a million comments now. 🙂
Tellingly the first item to grep for ought be ‘crap’ 🙂
JiminyBob says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:55 am
No password but a bitcoin address? Mr FOIA can go f*ck himself. What’s the point of those emails being out there if there is a campaign to have only selected people see them? Are you going to be the high and mighty ones to release the truth to us great unwashed?
========================================================================
Grow up. Do.
Anthony,
You forgot to make it a ‘STICKY’. If not then you should. 🙂
MangoChutney says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:02 am
Leo Hickman already suggesting FOIA’s motivation is money
Many would suggest that the folks who support CAGW by CO2’s motivation is money.
Just sayin’…
JiminyBob says:
No password but a bitcoin address? Mr FOIA can go f*ck himself. What’s the point of those emails being out there if there is a campaign to have only selected people see them? Are you going to be the high and mighty ones to release the truth to us great unwashed?
And your plan would be?
IIRC Briffa was seriously ill around 2009 – should such private correspondence with Phil Jones (his boss) be splattered all over the net? What purpose would that serve?
Seems to me that you haven’t thought this out too well (or at all).
re MBH98/99: “we think it is crap!”
It is good to know the candid judgments of scientists when they are not intimidated and browbeaten by the Manniacs of the IPCC/climate science world.
It turns out that was already a CG2 email but I don’t think it received adequate attention previoiusly (at least I hadn’t seen it discussed).
One can dismiss one phrase but this is uttered in reference to why a certain study was not done in that way, yet the public and even the “climate science community” was not allowed to know the actual candid judgments of these scientists! Instead, when McIntyre & McKittrick arrived on the scene the wagons were circled against outsiders and it was pretended that only ignorant outsiders could question the august majesty of the Mann et al. recon.
You et al. beat the Vatican for the Story of the year.
As the English say, wunderbar. Congrats to all.
Dear Mr FOIA
I appreciate the risks you took and thanks for mentioning that you were not compensated, and that are you are not ‘working’ for anyone other than the billions members of humankind who are being taxed, even now, to feed the vain imaginings of the deceitful.
As you can imagine, it will take other pairs of eyes to see significances in what may seem to us individuals to be innocuous communications. There was so much coordination of the perfidy, the misrepresentation of science and in the bumbling efforts to pervert the meaning of ‘scientific conclusion’ it is inevitable that further conspiracies will emerge from a close reading of the full text.
What has been important in CG2 was the ‘context’ which you provided, showing that the abuses and conspiracies described in CG1 were real. Implications in CG3 will take quite some time to solidify, but will do so.
A question that always emerges from scandal is ‘What did he know and when did he know it?” The full index will provide many insights into that question. I suspect there is a lot of file-burning taking place right now in certain quarters.
I need never know who you are. Your commitment to staying the hands of the oppressors and revealing their criminal intent can serve eternally as a great lesson for all students of science and social morality.
Much appreciated
Crispin
So it is about stopping the developing world from developing, or in Orwellian, “sustainable development”.
Looks like somebody won’t be getting much sleep …
Jiminy, the previous e-mail releases have already been filtered by FOIA.
Any complaints about that?
So, I think the post by Tim Ball put the heat on FOIA, so they did a premature early release with a fake cover story to throw off the wolves. I wonder if I added to it by revealing that FOIA’s birthday can be gleaned from the releases.
Ed Cook’s portion of the second email is great. He deserves respect.
.
Spasiba Svetlana for releasing the key. Paka.
IMO, rather than Tim Ball’s plea, I think that the Mascott, Shakun stuff, just in time for rigging AR5 may have pushed him to finally go for it and squash what’s left of this pseudo science.
To anyone who is decrypting, I advise you to do so on a fresh computer, to avoid any possible hacking.
[redacted]
Hey! You stole my password!
This is obviously going to be top post for some time?
Which country does FOIA come from?
Clue 1
“Even skimming through all 220.000 emails….”
Why won’t you post the password? But you’re given permission to quote anything you like? What’s the point in that. It should be open to all to view and see.
May I elicit a personal ‘Thank You’. To Mr. FOIA and, perhaps most of all, to you Mr. Watts.
Again, Thank You!
“Leo Hickman @LeoHickman
Climategate hacker tries to paint themselves as a superhero saving the poor. But in reality is touting for money..”
Somebody tell Leo Hickman about TIDES. He can then go on an investigative journalism journey trying to find out which donation finances which organisation.
Good man. Respect.
Personally, I’d be happy to see the password restricted to those within the sceptic community who have done the most up to now to disseminate the CAGW narrative and provide honest, informed commentary and analysis. I just don’t think this should be a ‘free-for-all’ – we need educated, scientific eyes scanning these emails, identifying what is relevant, what is not, what is public domain and what should remain respectfully personal.
Don’t misunderstand me – I am no fan of censoring information, but I really do think this is a prime example of an occasion when we, the sceptic community, should be seen to be acting responsibly and with due diligence – let us ask the most qualified amongst us to undertake the long business of extracting only the most salient and appropriate information for public disclosure and discussion.
The big story it seems to me is that it sounds like MR FOIA is an insider…i.e. a whistleblower. Others agree? Just got here, so haven’t had a chance to digest all. Excited enough though that I wanted to chime in, even if prematurely.
Take away algore’s Nobel Prize and re-gift it to Mr FOIA!
I don’t know who FOIA is; but if he/she composed the “FOIA 2013: the password” document without help, he/she has excellent command of the English language. Based on his/her statement “USA politics is alien to me, neither am I from the UK“, I infer he/she is not from the UK and likely not from the USA. However, my gut feeling tells me he/she is from an English speaking environment.
@cRR Kampen
‘ So Peter Gleick is more than absolutely in the right, then’
Gleick’s offence was forgery.
Are you suggesting that FOIA has forged 220,000 e-mails? That’d be quite a feat and would make even the Hitler Diaries look trivial.
Just….wow!!!!
Jimbo says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:40 am
Which country does FOIA come from?
Clue 1
“Even skimming through all 220.000 emails….”
Clue 2: The text lacks the definite article before some nouns where there should have been one. I’m not a native English speaker myself, but I couldn’t help noticing that, especially since the English otherwise is very good (or looks good to me, at least). If the speaker is European (Clue 1) this, I think, restricts the possible native language to one of the slavic languages (except Bulgarian), the baltic languages or the Finno-Permic languages (Finnish, Saami, Estonian).
cRR Kampen says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:52 am
“Stealing private emails, that’s great. So Peter Gleick is more than absolutely in the right, then.”
Does the left not usually endorse whistleblowers when it serves their purposes? (Yes, I’m conflating warmism and leftism. Both movements want an absolute state; preferrably a world state. Example from warmism: Schellnhuber and his Grand Transformation; example from leftism: H: G. Welles.)
As for Gleick: He is not a whistleblower but a wire fraudster, impersonator and forger; which is something different.
cRR Kampen says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:52 am
Stealing private emails, that’s great. So Peter Gleick is more than absolutely in the right, then.
————-
private emails?
Publicly funded V privately funded.
FOIA request for emails V no FOIA request for emails.
Gleick was head of AGU taskforce on Ethics.
220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?
It’s like Christmas all over again.
At 8:04 am ON 13 March, climatereflections had posted:
I agree that the effort to keep the allegedly “personal” an potentially “sensitive or socially damaging” contents of the all.7z file closely held will prove futile, in spite of whatever good intentions prevail among the skeptical blogger community.
But good intentions notwithstanding, why should those “dirty laundry” communications be withheld from public scrutiny at all?
The confabulators of the climate catastrophe caterwaul were using their “business” e-mail accounts for these communications, all such accounts paid for – directly or indirectly – by public monies mulcted from the citizenry of their respective countries. That’s why these messages were all subject to the Freedom of Information laws prevailing in the United Kingdom (and similarly in these United States, for the scheming sons-of-dogs prevaricating on their grant funding applications to suck fraudulently at the taxpayer teat over here).
If the closed-shop “consensus” clowns were stupid enough to bounce around e-mail of potentially “sensitive or socially damaging” nature using their official business accounts, it’s as much subject to discovery in both civil and criminal actions-at-law as any other evidence, and all the more legitimately actionable for their having made improper use of resources specifically purpose’d to facilitate the work for which government funds had been allocated.
Open it all up, and fiat justitia ruat caelum.
I’m sure FOIA understands the password’s gonna get out sooner or later.
But…
Doing it this way maximizes the probability that serious material will get out first, before someone less fastidious decides to post someone’s bitchy post-conference remarks about flatulence or coming down with the clap, at which point the alarmist megaphone brigade will start their usual projection-driven prattling about ‘personal attacks’ and ‘character assassination’.
“Filtering\redacting personally sensitive emails doesn’t require special expertise.”.
Quite, but there are 220,000 of them. Volunteers to do the filtering/redacting in a properly exacting manner might be a little thin on the ground.
Is it possible that the original culprit was found after Climategate 1 and somebody else released the lacklustre Climategate 2 with the Climategate 3 zipped files just as a way of stopping people thinking there is a conspiracy?
@Jake
“Why won’t you post the password? But you’re given permission to quote anything you like? What’s the point in that. It should be open to all to view and see.”
My guess is the email addresses haven’t been redacted out, and they need to be before wide release.
1) I notice what an extensive justification is made in the email to defend why they are deviating from the hockey stick, as if to keep from being expelled from the church of hockey holiness. I have never heard of such a thing. How does Mann hold such power over these people? Aren’t scientists supposed to be independent-minded?
2) While it is great fun to speculate about FOIA identity, it seems best to me to confine this to conversation so as not to ruin this noble person’s career or endanger them.
3) The quiet was killing me, but we are back to excitement!
If anybody involved in “climate change” deserves a Nobel, it’s Mr. FOIA, Steve McIntyre, Ross, McKittrick, Anthony Watts, Richard Lindzen, Judy Curry, Will Happer, Freeman Dyson, Tim Ball, Hal Lewis, Ivar Giaever, Roy Spencer, John Christy, Joanna Nova, Burt Rutan, Andrew Montford (“Bishop Hill”) and the rest of the skeptics who, at considerable personal expense, reputational and professional risk, took on the ginormous climate racket.
They are living proof that “Truth Will Out.”
Nullius In Verba
I agree with the decision not to make the password public. The result would be a feeding frenzy, where innocent (and not so innocent) email participants may be needlessly harmed.
At 8:59 AM on 13 March, pokerguy had observed:
Emphatically. All the “Liberal” fascist warmista noise about a “hacker” had been preposterous from the beginning, but this supporting information – proved by the provision of the password – gives their sweating weaselishness an even more musteline reek.
I suspect that they don’t want to admit (even among themselves) that their ranks are even more rotten with disloyalty than they are stewed in criminal conspiracy.
Craig Loehle says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:14 am
“1) I notice what an extensive justification is made in the email to defend why they are deviating from the hockey stick, as if to keep from being expelled from the church of hockey holiness. I have never heard of such a thing. How does Mann hold such power over these people? Aren’t scientists supposed to be independent-minded?”
Warmism is a Degenerative Research Program. It creates protective hypotheses to shield the core theory, not to acquire new knowledge as a Non-degenerative Research Program would. So all acolytes of the theory will coordinate their actions like seen in this e-mail to not endanger the central theory. They all know where their bread is buttered.
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
“220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?”
It is used in the Germanic countries as well.
@Espen,
can you discount any by the 1000s delimiter? The point instead of a comma?
At 9:14 AM on 13 March, Craig Loehle had written:
What in the world gives you to assume that these CAGW charlatans were ever scientists?
Note to Dr. Michael Mann: “If not already done, remove Simon Tett from your Christmas card list.”
I spent yesterday outlining Oberlin prof David Orr’s book trying to change education globally to create what he calls biophilia and then a Pew Foundation financed book insisting that a global authoritarian government would be necessary to force humanity to make changes to avoid global warming catastrophe. Then I went back and cross-referenced what the UN is pushing under Agenda 21 on the West as Education for Sustainability so I could write it up.
And I thought this would be a good time for the rest of those emails. And then left to take one of my kids to the doctor. Unbelievably great timing if the extent to which CAGW and sustainability were being made the center of K-12 under Common Core and those Next Generation Science Standards and the C3 Social Studies Framework were better known.
This is being used as the excuse to change everything in the West. Including transforming the economy to a “needs economy” misnamed distributed capitalism. This will need lots of publicity. We have whole degree programs now being created to get discredited theories and models implemented as public policy anyway. K-12 was next in the US and this should make it harder.
Hooray!
220.000 emails
Commas in place of decimals apparently broadly used in Europe – but that has to be a typo.
DirkH says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:21 am
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
“220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?”
It is used in the Germanic countries as well.
=============================
Common usage in Britain is the comma. Mainland Europe, and points east, use the period as a delimiter.
I smell another video, need a new catch phrase though.
REPLY: I don’t think anything will ever top your original “Hide the Decline”. I get chuckles just thinking about it. – Anthony
Does anyone have info on who else ‘FOIA’ sent his “all.7z” password email to?
BH says he wasn’t a direct recipient.
John
This is the scene in the movie where the mad scientist finally snaps and yells “Of course it was all a hoax you idiot!”
Anthony, sorry, but your second example is also an old one!
go to the foia2011 site and search to check (eg search for “grossly premature”)
REPLY: Well, this illustrates perfectly the problem of sorting through all this. Many of these still haven been discussed/noted. I went with what was in the all.zip file, and while FOIA noted some duplicates, without doing cross reference, hard to tell. Had Tom Nelson not published the note, we would have had time to make a better announcement. As it stands it was the best I could do in my morning routine while getting ready for work. – Anthony
Craig Loehle says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:14 am
1) I notice what an extensive justification is made in the email to defend why they are deviating from the hockey stick, as if to keep from being expelled from the church of hockey holiness. I have never heard of such a thing. How does Mann hold such power over these people? Aren’t scientists supposed to be independent-minded?
Mann is like the Steve Jobs of climate science… Except he’s a bad apple!
Is Simon Tett now a denier?
The email detailing the work done by Jan Esper and Edward Cook is very interesting. It shows the MWP and LIA, therefore calling into question the methodology and data used by Mann in his hockey stick paper. Why haven’t we heard of this research in the hockey stick debates?
There are a number of emails dealing with the low frequency issue of proxies (like in Marcott et al). Me thinks they were well aware of the issues but went ahead anyway.
Money shot: “The tropical ice core data are very difficult to interpret as temperature proxies”
I don’t care if anyone ever learns FOIA’s “truename”, in fact I hope for his sake we never do. But having taken part in the secret identity sweepstakes in the past, it’s still fun to speculate on some of the tidbits he dropped in the letter. (assuming he was being truthful in all details, and we have no reason to suspect otherwise, but also no proof of that)
Insider of some sort – definitely. “The first glimpses I got behind the scenes…”
Only people who had some official capacity at some institution related to the work were allowed “glimpses behind the scenes”. Also “Combination of several rather improbable prerequisites just wouldn’t occur again for anyone else in the foreseeable future.” appears to favor the theory that these things were temporarily left unguarded on some server FOIA had open access too, no hacking required. He seems to regard his ability to do this as a fluke caused by a temporary mistake on someone’s part that no one else could ever exploit. No pure hacker would ever characterize his work that way, so that appears to rule out the hacking theory. (much beloved by “The Team”)
one last thing; the phrase “It’s easy for many of us in the western world” to me rules out Russia, since it’s a point of pride to almost all Russians to point out that they are NOT part of the “western world”. As previously stated, the English is excellent but scattered here and there are some sentence structures that suggest a non-native speaker. Interesting clues, all of them. But over all, we can say with confidence, this is a man whom Diogenes would have been proud to have found.
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
“220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?”
It is not a British convention, we use the comma but it is widespread on continental Europe.
This is an odd coincidence.
I just completed reverse-engineering the 6365 CG1-CG2 .txt files to their original email mbox format which makes them compatible with Mozilla Thunderbird, and tagging them with the all.7z duplicate file names.
Screencap:
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/2041/tbcg1cg2.png
Thunderbird is an extremely powerful tool, as it allows advanced sorting, keyword searching and reading in a native email environment with a more intuitive interface. Far superior to culling through individual text files.
the Thunderbird compatible file is 70 megs, and there are a few careful steps that need to be followed when importing it to your installed version.
Anthony, I’d like to add the all.7z files as they’re redacted/released and make the mbox archive public, if your are interested.
Brits use a comma when writing 200,000 (two hundred thousand) and a period when writing 200.001 (two hundred plus one hundredth)
Europe uses a period when writing 200.000 (two hundred thousand) and a comma when writing 200,001 (two hundred plus one hundredth)
Random thoughts:
1. That pesky Medieval Warm Period is damned inconvenient.
2. FOIA’s tone is definitely consistent with that of an insider/whistleblower.
3. Tough call on how to release the info and whether to publish the password to all. Personally, I think FOIA’s choice was a very reasonable one considering all of the circumstances.
4. The popcorn is ready and I’m just waiting for some juicy bits to emerge.
From Ed’s email: “It (MWP) is even showing up strongly now in long SH tree-ring series.
>However, there is still the question of how strong this event was in the
>tropics”
Ed, read Willis’s tropical refrigerator piece. The sea temps were around 29-30C tops during the MWP. Wouldn’t it be grand to get some tropical proxies that showed a fairly flat temperature record for a thousand years? Willis, there is a natural piece of research for you to couple with your adventures.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/11/air-conditioning-nairobi-refrigerating-the-planet/
.
Due to the complicity of the M.S.M. in the cAGW media meme they will NOT report on this. Censorship by guilt association and left wing anti-science bias.
“(I don’t think we can say we didn’t do Mann et al because we think it is crap!)”
Translation – We can’t say Mann et al is crap because Mike will file a suit against us!
oops thousandths not hundredths
Wow indeed.
Let the games begin, I agree, but not “The Hunger Games”
Thank you Mr FOIA.
Thank you Anthony Watts.
JD.
🙂
I posted the at Bishop HIll although I’ve edited it slightly:
Re FOIA: He gives a lot away here. Says his message may be “disjointed” because of his “linguistic background.”
Says he’s not from the UK, but only that “American politics is alien to him.” Does not deny being an American or a resident-American.
Speculation: he’s either a naturalized or the offspring of naturalized Americans, bi-lingual, who had fleeting contact with the powers that be in Climate Science that resulted in dis-respectful treatment. Perhaps in matters dealing with the IPCC. Speaks of his first “glimpses behind the scenes’ as the beginning of his loss of trust in Climate Science. Could have been an unpleasant dust-up with someone of influence in that sphere.
Another clue: “We are dealing with $trillions . . . ” Note dollar sign.
Could be a Canadian but I don’t think so. Uses phrases like “game-changer” and “over and out” that while not exclusively American are probably used here more often than elsewhere.
Further: uses the word “progressive” disdainfully, which is characteristic of American discourse, although again, not exclusively.
Also: “The price of ‘climate protection’ . . ., ” could refer to Al Gore’s “Alliance for Climate Protection.” When I googled the phrase, it mentioned Gore’s group, but most of the other citations were from California cities who have set up committees for “climate protection.” Again more evidence of an American connection.
I think he’s American, but possibly Canadian.
But again, it’s all speculation.
I apologize in advance if it appears I may be exposing him, but, if I may speculate further, it appears to me that he is being reckless and may not mind being identified, although it will change his life dramatically. He knows he’s a major player in history now and may someday want the attention and rewards that could bring him. After all, and I mean this sincerely, he’s doing this for the poor, the downtrodden, the starving masses world-wide and the children, and may appreciate being celebrated for that. And yet, I still believe there is an element of revenge for shoddy personal treatment involved.
theduke
At 9:09 AM on 13 March, DirkH had written:
It’s a safely valid conflation. Consider the colloquial description of the political Watermelon, “Green on the outside, but Red to the core.”
Biopsy the warmist (without anesthetic, please, and using a dull scalpel if you will) and you’ll find precisely the same malignant pathology as you’ll get in carving a slice off any other “Liberal” fascist.
Going to be an interesting month.
“Over and out.”
Clearly he/she was never in the military.
Here are the CG1-all.7z matches. Listed file names and dates occur in both CG1 and all.7z.
CG2-all.7z matches are a bit more problematic, since the .txt filenames are different. There are emails that are present in all 3 caches.
NAME DATE
837197800 Fri Jul 12 1996 18:56:40
841418825 Fri Aug 30 1996 15:27:05
842992948 Tue Sep 17 1996 20:42:28
842996314 Tue Sep 17 1996 21:38:34
846715553 Wed Oct 30 1996 22:45:53
846781264 Thu Oct 31 1996 17:01:04
847838200 Tue Nov 12 1996 22:36:40
850162662 Mon Dec 9 1996 20:17:42
860182002 Fri Apr 4 1997 19:26:42
878654527 Tue Nov 4 1997 14:42:07
881356379 Fri Dec 5 1997 21:12:59
884964368 Fri Jan 16 1998 15:26:08
888609364 Fri Feb 27 1998 19:56:04
897669409 Fri Jun 12 1998 16:36:49
906136579 Fri Sep 18 1998 16:36:19
906137836 Fri Sep 18 1998 16:57:16
907339897 Fri Oct 2 1998 14:51:37
907695513 Tue Oct 6 1998 17:38:33
911405082 Wed Nov 18 1998 16:04:42
912095517 Thu Nov 26 1998 15:51:57
919980501 Thu Feb 25 1999 22:08:21
923937760 Mon Apr 12 1999 17:22:40
927817076 Thu May 27 1999 14:57:56
929392417 Mon Jun 14 1999 20:33:37
929719270 Fri Jun 18 1999 15:21:10
932158667 Fri Jul 16 1999 20:57:47
933254004 Thu Jul 29 1999 13:13:24
936728245 Tue Sep 7 1999 18:17:25
938031546 Wed Sep 22 1999 20:19:06
938125745 Thu Sep 23 1999 22:29:05
939154709 Tue Oct 5 1999 20:18:29
942448792 Fri Nov 12 1999 23:19:52
947541692 Mon Jan 10 2000 22:01:32
947802707 Thu Jan 13 2000 22:31:47
951763817 Mon Feb 28 2000 18:50:17
951977522 Thu Mar 2 2000 06:12:02
955699514 Fri Apr 14 2000 08:05:14
957536665 Fri May 5 2000 14:24:25
962366892 Fri Jun 30 2000 12:08:12
965139790 Tue Aug 1 2000 14:23:10
965416206 Fri Aug 4 2000 19:10:06
965671134 Mon Aug 7 2000 17:58:54
966015630 Fri Aug 11 2000 17:40:30
966633586 Fri Aug 18 2000 21:19:46
967231160 Fri Aug 25 2000 19:19:20
969308584 Mon Sep 18 2000 20:23:04
969891412 Mon Sep 25 2000 14:16:52
970664328 Wed Oct 4 2000 12:58:48
970842624 Fri Oct 6 2000 14:30:24
971992541 Thu Oct 19 2000 21:55:41
972415204 Tue Oct 24 2000 19:20:04
972499087 Wed Oct 25 2000 18:38:07
972649870 Fri Oct 27 2000 12:31:10
973374325 Sat Nov 4 2000 21:45:25
974731263 Mon Nov 20 2000 14:41:03
984692311 Thu Mar 15 2001 21:38:31
986486371 Thu Apr 5 2001 15:59:31
992021888 Fri Jun 8 2001 17:38:08
993841811 Fri Jun 29 2001 19:10:11
994083845 Mon Jul 2 2001 14:24:05
998401270 Tue Aug 21 2001 13:41:10
999293834 Fri Aug 31 2001 21:37:14
1000168453 Tue Sep 11 2001 00:34:13
1001695888 Fri Sep 28 2001 16:51:28
1008167369 Wed Dec 12 2001 14:29:29
1008619994 Mon Dec 17 2001 20:13:14
1011732147 Tue Jan 22 2002 20:42:27
1014240346 Wed Feb 20 2002 21:25:46
1018045075 Fri Apr 5 2002 22:17:55
1018893474 Mon Apr 15 2002 17:57:54
1019513684 Mon Apr 22 2002 22:14:44
1021757151 Sat May 18 2002 21:25:51
1031762366 Wed Sep 11 2002 16:39:26
1034341705 Fri Oct 11 2002 13:08:25
1036591086 Wed Nov 6 2002 13:58:06
1042941949 Sun Jan 19 2003 02:05:49
1045082703 Wed Feb 12 2003 20:45:03
1047503776 Wed Mar 12 2003 21:16:16
1051638938 Tue Apr 29 2003 17:55:38
1052774789 Mon May 12 2003 21:26:29
1053457075 Tue May 20 2003 18:57:55
1053461261 Tue May 20 2003 20:07:41
1053610494 Thu May 22 2003 13:34:54
1053616711 Thu May 22 2003 15:18:31
1054576147 Mon Jun 2 2003 17:49:07
1054748574 Wed Jun 4 2003 17:42:54
1054756929 Wed Jun 4 2003 20:02:09
1055273033 Tue Jun 10 2003 19:23:53
1056654269 Thu Jun 26 2003 19:04:29
1057944829 Fri Jul 11 2003 17:33:49
1059674663 Thu Jul 31 2003 18:04:23
1059762275 Fri Aug 1 2003 18:24:35
1062189235 Fri Aug 29 2003 20:33:55
1062618881 Wed Sep 3 2003 19:54:41
1065189366 Fri Oct 3 2003 13:56:06
1065206624 Fri Oct 3 2003 18:43:44
1066073000 Mon Oct 13 2003 19:23:20
1066075033 Mon Oct 13 2003 19:57:13
1066077412 Mon Oct 13 2003 20:36:52
1067005233 Fri Oct 24 2003 14:20:33
1068239573 Fri Nov 7 2003 21:12:53
1074277559 Fri Jan 16 2004 18:25:59
1074609944 Tue Jan 20 2004 14:45:44
1075297872 Wed Jan 28 2004 13:51:12
1075403821 Thu Jan 29 2004 19:17:01
1075750656 Mon Feb 2 2004 19:37:36
1075836638 Tue Feb 3 2004 19:30:38
1076083097 Fri Feb 6 2004 15:58:17
1076336623 Mon Feb 9 2004 14:23:43
1076359809 Mon Feb 9 2004 20:50:09
1077200902 Thu Feb 19 2004 14:28:22
1077829152 Thu Feb 26 2004 20:59:12
1078236401 Tue Mar 2 2004 14:06:41
1079384474 Mon Mar 15 2004 21:01:14
1080257046 Thu Mar 25 2004 23:24:06
1080742144 Wed Mar 31 2004 14:09:04
1083962092 Fri May 7 2004 20:34:52
1083962601 Fri May 7 2004 20:43:21
1086722406 Tue Jun 8 2004 19:20:06
1087589697 Fri Jun 18 2004 20:14:57
1089318616 Thu Jul 8 2004 20:30:16
1090436791 Wed Jul 21 2004 19:06:31
1090610951 Fri Jul 23 2004 19:29:11
1091798809 Fri Aug 6 2004 13:26:49
1092167224 Tue Aug 10 2004 19:47:04
1092418712 Fri Aug 13 2004 17:38:32
1092433030 Fri Aug 13 2004 21:37:10
1092581797 Sun Aug 15 2004 14:56:37
1093294138 Mon Aug 23 2004 20:48:58
1094483447 Mon Sep 6 2004 15:10:47
1094495798 Mon Sep 6 2004 18:36:38
1094752345 Thu Sep 9 2004 17:52:25
1097159316 Thu Oct 7 2004 14:28:36
1097785771 Thu Oct 14 2004 20:29:31
1098294574 Wed Oct 20 2004 17:49:34
1098472400 Fri Oct 22 2004 19:13:20
1101133749 Mon Nov 22 2004 14:29:09
1101243716 Tue Nov 23 2004 21:01:56
1101850440 Tue Nov 30 2004 21:34:00
1101999700 Thu Dec 2 2004 15:01:40
1102524151 Wed Dec 8 2004 16:42:31
1102948164 Mon Dec 13 2004 14:29:24
1103583356 Mon Dec 20 2004 22:55:56
1103647149 Tue Dec 21 2004 16:39:09
1104855751 Tue Jan 4 2005 16:22:31
1105019698 Thu Jan 6 2005 13:54:58
1105024270 Thu Jan 6 2005 15:11:10
1105042411 Thu Jan 6 2005 20:13:31
1105556495 Wed Jan 12 2005 19:01:35
1105661016 Fri Jan 14 2005 00:03:36
1106338806 Fri Jan 21 2005 20:20:06
1106946949 Fri Jan 28 2005 21:15:49
1107454306 Thu Feb 3 2005 18:11:46
1107555812 Fri Feb 4 2005 22:23:32
1107899057 Tue Feb 8 2005 21:44:17
1109014030 Mon Feb 21 2005 19:27:10
1109018144 Mon Feb 21 2005 20:35:44
1109021312 Mon Feb 21 2005 21:28:32
1109684442 Tue Mar 1 2005 13:40:42
1111085657 Thu Mar 17 2005 18:54:17
1111417712 Mon Mar 21 2005 15:08:32
1112622624 Mon Apr 4 2005 13:50:24
1113941558 Tue Apr 19 2005 20:12:38
1114008578 Wed Apr 20 2005 14:49:38
1114088225 Thu Apr 21 2005 12:57:05
1114607213 Wed Apr 27 2005 13:06:53
1114785020 Fri Apr 29 2005 14:30:20
1115294935 Thu May 5 2005 12:08:55
1115297153 Thu May 5 2005 12:45:53
1116017259 Fri May 13 2005 20:47:39
1116363805 Tue May 17 2005 21:03:25
1116365074 Tue May 17 2005 21:24:34
1116426671 Wed May 18 2005 14:31:11
1116611126 Fri May 20 2005 17:45:26
1117120511 Thu May 26 2005 15:15:11
1117134760 Thu May 26 2005 19:12:40
1118866416 Wed Jun 15 2005 20:13:36
1118949061 Thu Jun 16 2005 19:11:01
1119534778 Thu Jun 23 2005 13:52:58
1120593115 Tue Jul 5 2005 19:51:55
1120676865 Wed Jul 6 2005 19:07:45
1121103374 Mon Jul 11 2005 17:36:14
1121439991 Fri Jul 15 2005 15:06:31
1121721126 Mon Jul 18 2005 21:12:06
1121869083 Wed Jul 20 2005 14:18:03
1121871795 Wed Jul 20 2005 15:03:15
1121876302 Wed Jul 20 2005 16:18:22
1121893120 Wed Jul 20 2005 20:58:40
1121950297 Thu Jul 21 2005 12:51:37
1121950401 Thu Jul 21 2005 12:53:21
1121974981 Thu Jul 21 2005 19:43:01
1122557838 Thu Jul 28 2005 13:37:18
1122669035 Fri Jul 29 2005 20:30:35
1123163394 Thu Aug 4 2005 13:49:54
1123529413 Mon Aug 8 2005 19:30:13
1123611283 Tue Aug 9 2005 18:14:43
1123612499 Tue Aug 9 2005 18:34:59
1123622471 Tue Aug 9 2005 21:21:11
1123685358 Wed Aug 10 2005 14:49:18
1123708417 Wed Aug 10 2005 21:13:37
1123881502 Fri Aug 12 2005 21:18:22
1124742148 Mon Aug 22 2005 20:22:28
1124994521 Thu Aug 25 2005 18:28:41
1127491287 Fri Sep 23 2005 16:01:27
1132094873 Tue Nov 15 2005 22:47:53
1134497252 Tue Dec 13 2005 18:07:32
1134572247 Wed Dec 14 2005 14:57:27
1135197791 Wed Dec 21 2005 20:43:11
1136298918 Tue Jan 3 2006 14:35:18
1137184681 Fri Jan 13 2006 20:38:01
1138995069 Fri Feb 3 2006 19:31:09
1139006752 Fri Feb 3 2006 22:45:52
1139331621 Tue Feb 7 2006 17:00:21
1140130198 Thu Feb 16 2006 22:49:58
1140209561 Fri Feb 17 2006 20:52:41
1140453339 Mon Feb 20 2006 16:35:39
1140616435 Wed Feb 22 2006 13:53:55
1140707670 Thu Feb 23 2006 15:14:30
1141164645 Tue Feb 28 2006 22:10:45
1141250377 Wed Mar 1 2006 21:59:37
1141267802 Thu Mar 2 2006 02:50:02
1143227779 Fri Mar 24 2006 19:16:19
1146252894 Fri Apr 28 2006 19:34:54
1148592899 Thu May 25 2006 21:34:59
1151094928 Fri Jun 23 2006 20:35:28
1153163328 Mon Jul 17 2006 19:08:48
1153167959 Mon Jul 17 2006 20:25:59
1153339440 Wed Jul 19 2006 20:04:00
1153424011 Thu Jul 20 2006 19:33:31
1153482869 Fri Jul 21 2006 11:54:29
1153520622 Fri Jul 21 2006 22:23:42
1153771098 Mon Jul 24 2006 19:58:18
1153772456 Mon Jul 24 2006 20:20:56
1153866449 Tue Jul 25 2006 22:27:29
1154370684 Mon Jul 31 2006 18:31:24
1154461714 Tue Aug 1 2006 19:48:34
1155150358 Wed Aug 9 2006 19:05:58
1155333435 Fri Aug 11 2006 21:57:15
1158336060 Fri Sep 15 2006 16:01:00
1160771811 Fri Oct 13 2006 20:36:51
1163715685 Thu Nov 16 2006 22:21:25
1164120712 Tue Nov 21 2006 14:51:52
1168353155 Tue Jan 9 2007 14:32:35
1169238969 Fri Jan 19 2007 20:36:09
1171550268 Thu Feb 15 2007 14:37:48
1177890796 Sun Apr 29 2007 23:53:16
1199466465 Fri Jan 4 2008 17:07:45
1199999668 Thu Jan 10 2008 21:14:28
1200003656 Thu Jan 10 2008 22:20:56
1200076878 Fri Jan 11 2008 18:41:18
1200090166 Fri Jan 11 2008 22:22:46
1200421039 Tue Jan 15 2008 18:17:19
1200425298 Tue Jan 15 2008 19:28:18
1200426564 Tue Jan 15 2008 19:49:24
1200493432 Wed Jan 16 2008 14:23:52
1203693276 Fri Feb 22 2008 15:14:36
1206628118 Thu Mar 27 2008 14:28:38
1208278112 Tue Apr 15 2008 16:48:32
1209474516 Tue Apr 29 2008 13:08:36
1210079946 Tue May 6 2008 13:19:06
1210178552 Wed May 7 2008 16:42:32
1210341221 Fri May 9 2008 13:53:41
1210367056 Fri May 9 2008 21:04:16
1211215007 Mon May 19 2008 16:36:47
1211225754 Mon May 19 2008 19:35:54
1211462932 Thu May 22 2008 13:28:52
1211491089 Thu May 22 2008 21:18:09
1212009215 Wed May 28 2008 21:13:35
1212009927 Wed May 28 2008 21:25:27
1212073451 Thu May 29 2008 15:04:11
1212088415 Thu May 29 2008 19:13:35
1212166714 Fri May 30 2008 16:58:34
1212686327 Thu Jun 5 2008 17:18:47
1214228874 Mon Jun 23 2008 13:47:54
1214229243 Mon Jun 23 2008 13:54:03
1216753979 Tue Jul 22 2008 19:12:59
1219078495 Mon Aug 18 2008 16:54:55
1219239172 Wed Aug 20 2008 13:32:52
1219861908 Wed Aug 27 2008 18:31:48
1221851501 Fri Sep 19 2008 19:11:41
1223915581 Mon Oct 13 2008 16:33:01
1225140121 Mon Oct 27 2008 20:42:01
1226500291 Wed Nov 12 2008 14:31:31
1226959467 Mon Nov 17 2008 22:04:27
1228330629 Wed Dec 3 2008 18:57:09
1228412429 Thu Dec 4 2008 17:40:29
1228922050 Wed Dec 10 2008 15:14:10
1229712795 Fri Dec 19 2008 18:53:15
1231190304 Mon Jan 5 2009 21:18:24
1231350711 Wed Jan 7 2009 17:51:51
1234302123 Tue Feb 10 2009 21:42:03
1234821995 Mon Feb 16 2009 22:06:35
1236958090 Fri Mar 13 2009 15:28:10
1237474374 Thu Mar 19 2009 14:52:54
1237480766 Thu Mar 19 2009 16:39:26
1237496573 Thu Mar 19 2009 21:02:53
1245773909 Tue Jun 23 2009 16:18:29
1246458696 Wed Jul 1 2009 14:31:36
1246479448 Wed Jul 1 2009 20:17:28
1246479579 Wed Jul 1 2009 20:19:39
1248790545 Tue Jul 28 2009 14:15:45
1248902393 Wed Jul 29 2009 21:19:53
1249045162 Fri Jul 31 2009 12:59:22
1249503274 Wed Aug 5 2009 20:14:34
1250169233 Thu Aug 13 2009 13:13:53
1250174764 Thu Aug 13 2009 14:46:04
1254147614 Mon Sep 28 2009 14:20:14
1254230232 Tue Sep 29 2009 13:17:12
1254232855 Tue Sep 29 2009 14:00:55
1254345174 Wed Sep 30 2009 21:12:54
1254345329 Wed Sep 30 2009 21:15:29
1254409004 Thu Oct 1 2009 14:56:44
1254517566 Fri Oct 2 2009 21:06:06
1254751382 Mon Oct 5 2009 14:03:02
1254754536 Mon Oct 5 2009 14:55:36
1254756944 Mon Oct 5 2009 15:35:44
1254760537 Mon Oct 5 2009 16:35:37
1254832684 Tue Oct 6 2009 12:38:04
1254850534 Tue Oct 6 2009 17:35:34
1255538481 Wed Oct 14 2009 16:41:21
1256735067 Wed Oct 28 2009 13:04:27
1256747199 Wed Oct 28 2009 16:26:39
1256760240 Wed Oct 28 2009 20:04:00
1257874826 Tue Nov 10 2009 17:40:26
1257888920 Tue Nov 10 2009 21:35:20
1258039134 Thu Nov 12 2009 15:18:54
My guess is that FOIA was an outside scientist that had an account at CRU. When I worked at an astronomical institute, there were many scientists from around the world that had accounts on our machines. To get this data, the user would need access to privileged areas. But this is not hard to believe as all that requires is poor management of the computer systems. But from what I have seen at academic research institutions, that is not hard to believe. Security is something that is normally added after a problem and for most admins think that if they have the latest patches, they are fine. Configuration and monitoring are the only way to really lower the risk of security issues. Sorry to ramble.
Much of the Siberian Larch tree ring data from the Yamal peninsula were provided to Keith Briffa by Russian dendrochronologists Stephan Shiyatov and Rashit Hantemirov. In a climategate email from October 1998 Hantemirov writes that there is no evidence of movement of polar timberline in the last century.
However, in 2005 the Canadian Journal of Forest Research published an article based on Shiyatov’s work which stated that a large number of well preserved tree remains can be found 60 to 80 meters above the current tree line, and that the earliest distinct maximum in stand density occurred in the 11th to 13th centuries coincident with the MWP.
See http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/x05-111
Foo-bar’d the prev post … _Jim
Wow … missed the irony huh?
Good job JiminyBob!
Maybe some one could do a keyword search to look for Senator, Congressman, Lord, BBC, or other keywords to see if there are any gvernment or media ties that weren’t found in climategate I&II?
Yes…yes…yes! Was it Dr. Ball’s article, or the release of yet another hockey stick paper that forced FOIA to break cover? Three cheers for Dr. Esper as well. His most recent paper is a compelling (albiet somewhat difficult) read. It would seem that Diogenes has finally located an honest man.
ANyone else ever get the fleeting feeling that this could end in some sort of organized violence? I know, I know, it sounds insane. It likely is insane. But the level of anger is such that under the right, repressive circumstances, it seems to me it could happen. I know I’d fight if necessary. And I’m 62 years old.
So interesting to see fighting amongst the ranks, well done on those 2 guys for investigating the tree rings
I must agree with Craig about the defensive attitude to their heresy. Typically even the nicest researchers have a ‘Na, na, de, na, na’ attitude when they get data which refutes an earlier understanding.
Here is how I would approach the thing:
First thing I would do is using perl or python or some other scripting language, attempt to filter the larger file against what has already been released and create a new output file with just the delta.
I would see if I could import a copy of the resulting file into a mail reader’s mailbox and see if it would break the messages properly into individual emails. If it can, I would delete the obvious social emails.
Failing that, do it manually but the process I would use would be on the first pass, cull out those that are obviously social emails. The “honey, will you pick up a head of lettuce and a dozen eggs on your way home” or the setting up of a tryst while on a far away conference can probably be culled. Those should be relatively easy to remove and would account for a large number of the emails. The file that results after this pass should be candidates for further scrutiny.
This is tough. Despite the inherent interest in the rest of the CRU emails, I would prefer to see the continued dissection of the Marcott et al paper.
I’m stocking up on popcorn, but have little hope anything will be found that can wake the sleeping. I mean, Climategate 1 and 2 should have woken the dead. It amazes me people are so willing to believe the lame excuses and drink the whitewash.
I can only suppose some people just want to be fooled. In the end, however, Truth will triumph because, after all, it is real, and the alternative isn’t.
If FOIA (to whom salutations and eternal gratitude!) has given up the search for ‘juicy bits’, it sounds like these are pretty much the scrag ends of the mails. So won’t get too excited.
Throughout the course of the climategates, I get the distinct impression that the writers involved believe in AGW, but simply cannot assemble data that in fact unequivocally supports it. They appear to be often dealing with data and methods that detract from their set belief. It reminds me very much of the way many Catholic church officials dealt with Copernicus.
Nothing was changed by CG1 or CG2, so who cares?
The spelling “endeavor” suggests a non-Brtish educational background
The climategate zip archive when uncompressed contains 21 worms and viruses. Please be careful if you open it. Here is a screenshot of ClamXav: http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2184/clamxavscreenshot.jpg
REPLY: This was scanned checked by many people, no such virii has been seen. Must be an issue local to you – Anthony
MangoChutney says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:02 am
Leo Hickman already suggesting FOIA’s motivation is money”
Mr FOIA violated the first rule: only the AGW crowd can whore themselves out for money. Just go ask Al Jazzera Gore
This is great!
As others have noted, if there are emails in which details of personal lives are revealed (possibly lurid or illegal things…it happens), they MUST be withheld. It is one thing to lay waste to a person’s professional credibility, but it would be immoral make personal lives public whether stored/issued on publicly funded server space or not.
So with that proviso, let the Hunger Games begin.
CAS, Alberta
My guess is that FOIA is media savvy and gave us this third release because of the scientifically dubious “NSF hockey stick” from Marcott and because the media acted as water carriers for Marcott. FOIA saw this attempt at resurrecting the hockey stick as the perfect occasion for completing the tale of the hockey stick.
Sounds like the files unlocked by the password are from UEA CRU. I await more independent confirmation to consider it fact.
The most interesting question to me is whether the author of the password revealing email is from the same person who released GC1 & CG2 or is the author someone who cracked the password?
I do not see hard evidence either way on authorship.
John
Best to release password. Was this not why FOIA released the password?
To allow inspection by a select group of skeptics, will only increase suspicions of manipulations. The greatest safety, for all those involved, is to make it all common knowledge. We need the entire climate community (skeptic and warmist alike) scrutinizing these E-mails. Warmist need to know what they bought into, more than we do. Hope you reconsider and let the chips fall as they may. GK
“…I don’t care if anyone ever learns FOIA’s “truename”, in fact I hope for his sake we never do. But having taken part in the secret identity sweepstakes in the past, it’s still fun to speculate on some of the tidbits he dropped in the letter. …
He needs to cut down on the chat a bit. Stylistic analysis is capable of pinning him down. The Unabomber was caught that way.
If he had an intelligence training he would recognise the need for a good code officer. But, I suppose, he is only up against the Norwich police….
I must thank Peter Gleick. Because if anyone says that getting this information by non legal means invalidates any arguments then we can throw Peter Gleick at them.
Thank you Mr Peter Gleick.
Pokerguy…..Im sure the economic collapse of Western Europe will lead to very nasty violence before very long and Eco issues will evaporate when this happens.
Also bear in mind that the eco obsession reflects only one narrow culture and that, along with its broader culural host is liable to be replaced in a few decades by burgeoning Islamic culture within Western polities. Its hard to estimate what time they will have for eco preoccupations as their main focus tends to be on social, ritual and metaphysical issues.
Mr FOIA you will be reincarnated as a much higher life form. You have passed the biggest test humanity could put in your way. Congratulations on your promotion. There is nothing left here for you to learn.
Thanks
> I must thank Peter Gleick. Because if anyone says that getting this information by non legal means invalidates any arguments then we can throw Peter Gleick at them.
What if Peter Gleick was FOIA? Now that would be a twist!
Has anybody checked the ZIP’s timezone, is it Pacific?
Just kidding, Peter Gleick is clearly not FOIA, because
(a) none of FOIA’s emails use the word “subset”,
and (b) there don’t appear to be any suspicious-looking documents mixed in the archive which clearly have a different provenance, but coincidentally identify Peter Gleick as a super-hero.
crosspatch says:
March 13, 2013 at 10:05 am
“I would see if I could import a copy of the resulting file into a mail reader’s mailbox and see if it would break the messages properly into individual emails.”
————————————————————————————–
crosspatch, see may post at March 13, 2013 at 9:40 am. I’ve already converted CG1-CG2 to Thunderbird format, will add others as they are released.
Awesome. The results can not come soon enough.
Though I always imagined Mr FOIA as one of those super secret super high level Chinese hackers, who had exposed to his government how it was all a bunch of crap, and that’s why they just go right on ahead building coal plants like mad, and undercutting wind & solar businesses in America and elsewhere.
Of course I have zero evidence for such a claim, it was just a fantasy that made me laugh…
Bruckner8 says:
March 13, 2013 at 10:15 am
“Nothing was changed by CG1 or CG2, so who cares?”
_____________
It should be evident by the many comments and general discourse pertaining to rampant climate fraud worldwide, that some do care and anyone paying attention should also note that CG1&2 did change matters, although not as much as should have changed. That, sadly, characterizes the morbid lack of integrity existing in some divisions of science, politicians and major media.
I have a sneaking suspicion that some people involved in this fraud are now feeling slightly more anxious, which means on the outside, they’ll behave more arrogantly than ever.
“He needs to cut down on the chat a bit. Stylistic analysis is capable of pinning him down. The Unabomber was caught that way.”
I agree. But I also see all kinds of misdirects in his rambling posting. European punctuation and a few non-native-speaker English phrases, plus a few (political, conservative) Americanisms. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge and might’ve even been passed through some kind of filter. On the other hand, my feeling is that he’s U.S. and tried to throw in a few odd things to make it appear that he’s European. Or perhaps he followed the whole Gleick affair and covered his stylistic trail. Heck, the message may be rambling because it’s literally cut-n-pasted from articles on the web.
“The circus was about to arrive in Copenhagen.”
Dansk??
Finally!
I hope there’s enough information in this last batch to permanently damage this political movement.
crosspatch says:
March 13, 2013 at 10:05 am
“First thing I would do is using perl or python or some other scripting language, attempt to filter the larger file against what has already been released and create a new output file with just the delta.”
Perl or Python? Good grief what a stoneage approach.
Install Microsoft Develepor Studio Express Edition, it is free. Write a CSharp program.
You will go through a hockeystick-like personal development with a day or two.
wws says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:39 am
Agree with your analysis. Any thoughts on “papal plural”?
” At 9:09 AM on 13 March, DirkH had written: Does the left not usually endorse whistleblowers when it serves their purposes? (Yes, I’m conflating warmism and leftism. Both movements want an absolute state; preferrably a world state. ”
Not when it costs them billions. Neither democrat or republican is going to help this guy out because he offended very wealthy people (ie. their owners).
http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=934&Itemid=108
FOIA knows what they are up against and has taken precautions. A smarter move than going public and hoping you will be protected. There is no protection like nobody knowing who you are.
I strongly endorse his observation that:
This foundational care for the poor is emphasized by The Cornwall Alliance
For further detail see: A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming
i started to post in the weekend’s open thread that it was about time for the third release… I thank my lucky stars that I didn’t post that guess… ‘they’ would have been on me like they were Roger (Tall Bloke).
Anthony,
FOIA writes:
I’m guessing you already have a goodly list of ‘motivated and responsible individuals’ and aren’t looking for further volunteers? If this is not the case and you’re short handed, I’d be glad to volunteer to help. Not that you have any basis to know I’m a responsible individual though. ~shrug~
Climate Change Dispatch
The climategate zip archive when uncompressed contains 21 worms and viruses. Please be careful if you open it. Here is a screenshot of ClamXav: http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2184/clamxavscreenshot.jpg
You are one desperate MoFo. So, we will all get ‘worms’ if we open ‘the box’?
Sad. Sad. Sad. What sad Gore (never invested in Thorium) propaganda site do you “cut and paste from”?
Very interesting!
You Sir, have given great service and you’ve done it uncommonly well. Look after yourself, time to rest now.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/climategate-a-crisis-of-conscience/
Pointman
RE:
Theo Goodwin says:
March 13, 2013 at 10:21 am
It may be a response to the Marcott paper, but also a number of other things. Obama’z Inaugural, in which he promised renewed efforts, seemed tailored for the young. There have been new appointments to Energy and EPA. And (strictly based on observation), I foresee a second-generation – a catastrophist “echo” – of young folks exploiting the administration’s numerous educational grants, taking positions in newly-created fields of environmental (AGW) science, writing curriculum for or teaching the new global economy, or mouthing the latest platitudes favoring anti-western, new-world order based on the concept of a liberal leviathan. The drumbeat for renewables will continue, but they will continue to hamper the oil and gas industry at their own peril. A lot of senate seats are in the air in 2014.
Well now the CRU knows they still have a mole and to be uber careful to avoid putting incriminating evidence in thier emails.
Good work Mr. FOIA, thank you.
Facts count up.
Yet, these ones you see the need to protect from their own shallow lives re: private e-mails with bad habits shown. They are holding themselves out a smart people of great knowledge. They all should know e-mails are never secure.
In fact the whole sorry world they live in should be seen by all.
They come to the court of public opinion with dirty hands, thus should be treated as such.
Do tell your family just in case the/some goverment gets on you and you do not come home from work one day.
elmer 9:30:
“I smell another video, need a new catchphrase though.”
Elmer, if you are familiar with the song “Days” by the Kinks (and Kirsty McColl) you could start it off:
“Thank you F O I A,
You’ve really made all of our days, believe me.”
Sun Spot says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:46 am
Due to the complicity of the M.S.M. in the cAGW media meme they will NOT report on this. Censorship by guilt association and left wing anti-science bias.
Actually, the “Ministry of Truth” is all inclusive. Fauxnews is not covering this, as an example. It looks like the net is our only salvation as all media sources sing the from the same hymn book, and in MoT hymn book you won’t even get “Move along, nothing to see here….” for this seismic story.
Now which pill was it? Red or blue?
– – – – – – – –
Anthony,
If the message you got from FOIA was an email then why did you entirely edit out the email header info? By ’email header info’ I mean info like: To; From; CC; time/date stamp; etc.
What is your reasoning for editing it out?
I noticed Steve McIntyre, BH and Tom Nelson also did not include the email header info in their posts.
John
M. Mann prolonged paradox, of having to: publicly promote and BELIEVE in his own hockey stick, when the scientist part, of himself, knows it to be nonsense… has caused his mind to form a psychological schism. When he goes to sleep at night, his alter-ego rises and commences his internet activities. M. Mann IS FOIA… He just doesn’t know it. /snark GK
Bravo Mr. FOIA, Bravo!
Theo Goodwin says:
March 13, 2013 at 10:21 am
My guess is that FOIA is media savvy and gave us this third release because of the scientifically dubious “NSF hockey stick” from Marcott and because the media acted as water carriers for Marcott.
Good guess Theo, but maybe he saw “Greedy Lying Bastards” and knew he wasn’t one and had to prove it. ; )
Dr. FOIA, thank you! I can only express my deepest respect for your motivations. I hope this release has the effects you intend – time for the climate zombie to be burned into the final state of annihilation.
I am entirely convinced that Climategate 1.0 had an instant chilling effect on the warmist pseudoscientific rhetoric. Its effects reverberated around Copenhagen and finally put the alarmists on the defensive. Unfortunately, modern intellectual and political elites have scant regard for the truth. They continue to swaddle themselves in carbon dioxide fear-mongering, convinced this will keep them warm, whilst those of us on the outside can see they are naked. But the media look the other way, and too many who see the truth are still afraid to speak up.
“He needs to cut down on the chat a bit. Stylistic analysis is capable of pinning him down. The Unabomber was caught that way.”
I thought the Unabomber was caught after the manifesto was printed in several papers and the Unabombers brother recognized the writting style.
Greta news! Thank you Mr. FOIA, thank you Anthony, and everyone esle involved in this release.
Regarding the identity of Mr FOIA, I conclude that “… although he may have studied with an expert dialectitian and grammarian, I can tell that he was born – Hungarian! Not only Hungarian, but of royal blood.” -with apologies to G.B. Shaw and Lerner
FOIA is a true, modern hero, a trait which becomes rarer each passing year. Thank you, Sir!
To those speculating on his identity based on periods, commas, and English/American idioms – if I were he, I would have adopted some other region’s forms for the express purpose of leading the hounds up a blind alley.
The usual suspects will most likely howl about how anything posted from the stash is cherry picked or even fabricated unless the password is released and the material becomes “open source”. So protecting the guilty from the consequences of their own ill deeds will not cut it in the long run.
I fully support the redaction of the password, but I am curious. Was it a long random string? Or something less intriguing?
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?
The positional swap of the point and comma was a continental Europe practice back in the day of typewritten documents. It was considered easier to read, and in long columns of figures, not necessarily accurately aligned, it actually was.. From memory about the beginning of the ‘sixties British Banks and others started to adopt the practice for convenience rather than by diktat but only for typewritten documents. Somewhere around the mid ‘sixties South Africa decimalised its currency and their decision makers assumed that banking practice was the accepted way of doing things. They advised people to write their cheques with a comma separating rands from cents. At the same time their schoolchildren were instructed to pronounce the word ‘comma’ where one would otherwise say ‘point’. In Rhodesia at the time we thought it was hilarious to hear a South African say that he lived ‘four comma six kilometers from the post office”.
We laughed too soon. When Rhodesia decimalised its currency in February 1970 they followed the excruciating example of their southern neighbours. I had to explain to my kids at the time that in our house we spoke English and that within its confines the pronunciation of ‘comma’ was banned. To this day I mentally cringe when I hear someone announce a measurement as ‘nine comma eight’ or some such. .. .
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHA no.
For everyone speculating about clues to FOIA’s identity, bear in mind that he’s had plenty of time to write that covering email and is clearly a pretty smart cookie. Assuming he’d rather remain anonymous, any clues are quite likely to have been planted, like the dinosaur bones, to fool the archeaologists 😉
As for not putting the password in the wild, that’s absolutely right. The previous releases gave unintentional access to some scientists’ accounts with journals (thanks to the journals’ lax security). Fortunately those who noticed first alerted the scientists involved rather than making it public knowledge. If we’d like to maintain the moral high ground, vetting any released emails to avoid similar mistakes is absolutely essential!
Thank you, FOIA.
C.W. Schoneveld says, March 13, 2013 at 10:15 am
No, Morse is very much British! (UK TV Detective, for those who need a prompt!)
believes that long tree-ring records, when properly
selected and processed, can ……
Still at it I see
philjourdan says:
March 13, 2013 at 11:46 am
I fully support the redaction of the password, but I am curious. Was it a long random string? Or something less intriguing?
————-
Over at The Reference Frame ( http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/03/climategate-2013-is-here-foia.html#more ) Lubos Motl says
@Mark Bofill – thank you. It just goes to bolster what little we know about FOIA. He is no one’s fool.
Thank you, FOIA.
It is up to the recipients of the password to take this forward. I hope FOIA has chosen wisely, because with the password goes the responsibility to redact and delete all of the stuff that is personal and irrelevant to the climate issue. There must be some way to coordinate a systematic assessment and filtering of all the emails but that is a massive task.
Indiscriminate publication of emails containing information about personal/family matters would be devastating to the people concerned and would be siezed upon by critics to damage the heroic actions of FOIA.
Having said that, I hope that the emails do expose the wrongdoings of people in governments, NGOs, alarmist organisations and cheerleaders such as the BBC.
Well, Mr. FOIA isn’t Keith Briffa. F writes English with a completely American idiom. His syntax also has none of the subtle errors that betray a foreign first language. All-in-all, he’s a native American speaker.
FTC: Advertisers can’t post deceptive tweets mobile ads
Shouldn’t that apply to climate change announcements as well?
An interesting set of search terms would be the key journalists that were in their pockets at the time to show how “objective” their reporting was (not). ie, they were acting as pr agents for alarm. also for emails to/from people in greenpeace etc re IPCC.
================================================================
Perhaps this should go to “tips”, but maybe it would be a good idea to set up a sticky post or even another blog site where those who have the password can put up their discoveries/insights and comments from those who don’t have the password (such as myself) are blocked but those (such as myself) can see still what’s going on? Sort of a “central hub” for the sorting and sifting.
PS Thank you, FOIA whoever you are.
I would suggest that FOIA’s native language might be revealed in his expression, “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor.” This awkwardness of this expression in English indicates it is a literal translation from a different language. (I live in a Spanish speaking country and am frequently guilty of literal translations!) Does anyone recognize FOIA’s expression, but used in a different language?
I figure if I don’t comment soon, I’ll have no shot at the mug. So I’ll take this opportunity to say I have never seen this kind of uncommon valor for the good of so many ever in my forty plus years on this planet. Good show, FOIA. May you stay safe and reap the rewards you so deserve for your actions.
Untwittered tweet from Dr. Mann:
“Curses, FOIA’d again!”
Thank you, FOIA. Be safe.
But I thought “Hide the Decline” and all the other comments were taken out of context, does this include the other 220,000 emails?
[let’s not go there – no worries – Anthony]
Pointman
You Sir, have given great service and you’ve done it uncommonly well. Look after yourself, time to rest now.
Indeed (FOIA). Get yourself out of ‘Dodge’ and enjoy your ‘retirement’. Wipe the drives, those that might possibly hold an unencrypted copy of ‘all’, and dump them in the ln the local river/canal. Chill out and talk to nobody about it.
Others can now take the weight.
Thank you and Godspeed, Mr. FOIA.
You too, Anthony (et al). In some way, even if it’s just by providing “inspiration,” you are a big part of this.
Uh… that’s a compliment!
To join in the “Identity Speculation”:-
Maybe FOIA is an Honours Graduate from that other University of East Anglia academic facility.
Besides CRU, UEA also runs the award-winning “School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing”
http://www.uea.ac.uk/literature/creative-writing
So he/she could actually be a local Norfolk Carrot-Cruncher.
Tak! FOIA
I see you amongst those who risked all to keep the forces of tyranny in check: Von Kleist, Von Fresckow.
Hopefuly your present problems will be resolved to your benefit.
Good to hear, Anthony. You be safe too!
Re the name – FOIA, didn’t the climategate leak occur after climate scientists at UEA subverted the Freedom Of Information Act – in the UK?
Someone is going to have to do the dirty work of encorporating all three files, eliminating the duplication, and going through the resulting mess line for line to find the necessary parts to end this charade posing as “science”. That’s going to be a long, drawn-out, time-consuming process. I hope someone is up to it.
Ha! I just knew it must be the new pope that released the password. He does not have time to finish the review now 😉
Whoever it is, the free world thanks you!
Canadians and Australians often use US spelling. The tone seems culturally British.
IF this missive was not written as camouflage–which it would be if the hacker were Chinese, for instance–then it suggests FOIA was someone conversant in climatology, at least to the extent of having taken courses in it. That would have been necessary to sort out the first release. Perhaps a worker in the IT department.
Exciting times ahead.
Mr FOIA, we are all indebted to you. Many in the position you found yourself in would not have acted with moral fortitude you displayed. You are a rare individual and a truly great. I also think you have achieved much more than you realize. Climategate 1 ripped open a hole that could not be mended and really turned things around. The scam would have come apart anyway, but much slower and with greater suffering everywhere. You are a hero. The whole world owes you so much.
Thank you.
Mann’s libel suits in tatters. Hairshirts on order.
Otsar, Do you think FOIA is Ukrainian?
Mark Bofill says: “..the password is an extremely long sequence of gibberish characters…”
So the password was “…….MannGoreHansen…….”?
For some reason, he sounds Canadian.
Now if only someone would follow FOIA’s lead and get Hansen and company’s emails from NASA GISS (or wherever they hide them). Unredacted emails from the EPA (or wherever they hide them)would be nice too.
I can dream, can’t I?
Dub says:
March 13, 2013 at 12:09 pm
“I would suggest that FOIA’s native language might be revealed in his expression, “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor.””
Looks like Norwenglish to me. ( A Norwegian speaking english. ) We use 220.000.
Dub,
I believe Napoleon espoused and used the tactic of digging holes and filling them in to give people employment, but whether or not it has a more ancient origin, I don’t know.
Vaclav Klaus is my vote
Sorry I didn’t have time to read through all of the responses, so if this is redundant, my apologies:
I was going to write: “Nothing to see here! Move along! Move along!” with a /sarc tag. Then I saw elmer’s 0930 AM (13 March 2013 post) trolling for another video, and it hit me:
Use “Nothing to see here! Move along!” to the main theme of “Oklahoma” (you know — — the very beginning where Gordan McRae is singing, “Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day … ”
Mark H.
Thank you FOIA for all your efforts. Your duty is now complete. (Unless you have other emails from other universities).
Re wikeroy says:
Norwegian? I agree, but may still be a planted red herring.
I think it’s important that someone release the password so that people can focus energy on the emails rather that the identity of FOIA
Umm….. Release all the data?
Hardly any American would use “on” there.
The omission of “taken” before “away” is not idiomatic American. Maybe it was written in haste.
Americans rarely use “debilitate.”
“… in great numbers” has a non-American sound.
The double-barreled alliteration seems somewhat non-American.
“scientifically (or otherwise)” sounds British. Maybe he picked up such locutions from studying in the UK.
Use of the backslash in place of the slash might indicate a computer background.
No quotation was followed by a period or comma, possibly to avoid the giveaway of using or not using the UK’s logical comma style.
US-style double quotation marks were used, along with several Americanisms.
The open society owes you a debt of gratitude, FOIA
I do not think we should speculate on your background.
Keep safe.
From the language used in the original message, I believe I do recognize he author, and it is not a surprise to me
Might FOIA be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin? He/she certainly would have had the technical expertise needed to hack into the CRU server from the Internet.
elmer 9:30:
“I smell another video, need a new catchphrase though.”
How about something along the lines of
Don’t stop adjusting the temps tomorrow
…
Hockeystick’s gone, hockeystick’s gone…
(tune = don’t stop…..)
some watermelon irony there…
Sounds like FOIA might be an insider. If he was a hacker he would be unconcerned about “sensitive personal” emails. As an outsider, I don’t think Mann et. al. deserve any such protection, as shame is likely all the punishment that they will receive for their horrendous misconduct and scientific fraud..
Just before another IPCC pack o lies. I guess they are not the only ones who can press release
My 2 cents worth…it’s a man in his late 50s or early 60s who has a scientific background and was fed up with the current state of climate science. The carefully worded and final release is to be done with it on one hand and cover his tracks on the other. Could easily be American, British or Canadian. Note the correct use of whom.
Sounds like FOIA might be an insider. If he was just some hacker he would not be at all concerned about emails that were ‘personally sensitive’.
Personally, as an outsider, I am unconcerned with protecting Mann et al, as I fell confident that any fallout from these emails is likely the only punishment that they will receive for their horrendous behavior and scientific misconduct.
A very funny attribution by a commenter at Bishop Hill:
“Indeed, it’s singular “I” this time. After certain career developments I can no longer use the papal plural”
So! It was Josef Ratzinger; well – noone expected that.
Dub says:
March 13, 2013 at 12:09 pm
“I would suggest that FOIA’s native language might be revealed in his expression, “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor.””
FOIA is John Maynard Keynes.
This basically confirms the UK police view that it was a single overseas hacker operating through a Russian server. The covering note has clearly been machine translated from some other language. Let’s see if anything more damning can be found than the semantics of the word “trick”.
——
I’ve got it! The answer was staring us in the face! FOIA was Pope Benedict XVI!
…
or, hmm…
…
maybe not. :>
to be a bit careful about ‘sensitive or socially damaging’ emails, although it isn’t clear what FOIA has in mind by that. If things that are truly personal, I would be in favor of keeping them private
I’ve said it elsewhere and I’ll say it here. These theiving, cheating a$$oles have no right to privacy, mercy or any other human sympathetic emotion. You are foregetting the number of people that have DIED as a result of enrgy policy predicated on their crap science. 30000 in the UK alone this winter an many more to come as coal stations switch to wood and windmills suck in ever more funding subsidies. EXSPOSE EVERYTHING they are criminals.
Springtime! For freedom and democracy!
Winter! For liars and cheats….
Aww, somebody beat me to the joke at BH. Nevermind. 🙁
I like all the suggestions, keep them coming.
I found this email that seems pretty damning is this an old one?
Phil to Mike
“Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”
http://di2.nu/foia/1107454306.txt
“If this email seems slightly disjointed it’s probably my linguistic background”
That looks like a planted red herring to me. Where there is any awkwardness such as ‘decided yet on’ it looks to be a deliberate contrivance rather than a mental translation slip.
The only thing that I can take for certain is from ‘Over and out’. Pure television nonsense that certifies that he has never been a member of a NATO linked force. ‘Out’ is the soldier’s sign off.
Whatever his nationality there are millions of us who will forever be in his debt. Thank you FOIA. .
Could the “papal plural” be either a reference to the “royal we” or
perhaps the fact that once the new pope is elected, there will be two for a while?
As regards the “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor”, maybe it’s a reference to
that book titlled “Holes” where kids were given the busywork task of digging
and filling holes (as punishment, if I recall correctly).
In any case, many thanks to FOIA for bringing the truth out, and to those
who will be likely working long hours and days sifting through that output.
Good to see that integrity is still around in this day and age! (and yes,
whistleblowers show not only integrity, but bravery as well).
FOIA,
Respect.
Looking forward to sifting.
cn
I would use “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor” myself, I’ve used the concept in my book Fundanomics regarding make-work projects (it’s not about jobs, per se). I don’t think it’s a clue to who Mr. FOIA is.
Oh, and it’s not me.
Really.
Well at least we know global warming is Mann-made! I for one, am relieved!:]
JiminyBob says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:55 am
No password but a bitcoin address? Mr FOIA can go f*ck himself. What’s the point of those emails being out there if there is a campaign to have only selected people see them? Are you going to be the high and mighty ones to release the truth to us great unwashed?
You really, really, really need to learn to read. The passage is a tongue-in-cheek joke about where Big Oil can send Mr. FOIA’s share of the conspiracy money.
The close-held nature of the password is simply because there is considerable potential for accidental damage that is inappropriate. Anthony and others are actually more careful than Mr. FOIA. They actually redact the email addresses, even though those addresses may be potential evidence of missuse of public (computers) facilities. FOIA’s concerns are directed at considerably more personal issues. Possibly Briffa’s illness is discussed in detail that would never should be public for instance. Social problems to be avoided suggest that he might not want to trigger divorces, inadvertently out married gays, etc. There’s no reason at all that sort of information should come out.
It seems more clear that FOIA is effectively a whistle blower. He (actually “they”) clearly had access to the emails. It is notable that the crew has apparently broken up since he says that he’s now just one person and can no longer employ the papal “I”. Also the use of a comma as a decimal separator excludes all Anglophone countries but South Africa, so unless he’s dissembling, he really isn’t British or American. There was evidence in some of the earlier communications with CG1 and CG2 that a mixed group – both Anglophone and non-Anglophone were involved. Apparently this no longer the case.
The comma used as a deliminator in a number is strictly Anglo-Saxon. The dot is used for the decimal poit.
Roy Spencer says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:37 pm
I would use “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor” myself, I’ve used the concept in my book Fundanomics regarding make-work projects (it’s not about jobs, per se). I don’t think it’s a clue to who Mr. FOIA is.
Oh, and it’s not me.
Really.
—————
~suspicious stare~
…
well, you said me and not us, so. I guess you’re off the hook.
Don’t leave town though Dr. Spencer, we might have more questions for you.
/sarc :p
Sounds to me as all of the emails were leaked,perhaps we won’t have to hear warmists saying the were hacked now?
‘Over and out.’
10-4, good buddy. Duck out.
MikeP
Not Ukrainian.
My guess is originally East coast USA, with later overseas education, most probably a Scandinavian country (some of the word order.) Embassy brat? Military brat?
He/She has mastered the mysteries of the possessive contraction that Americans use that are avoided by non native speakers.
Having said that, the language is probably very obfuscated for good reason.
Combination of several rather improbable prerequisites just wouldn’t occur again for anyone else in the foreseeable future
apart from the dropping of articles, this is sophisticated English … Rather improbable. …smacks of English understatement. How many Russians know the word “prerquisite”?
Many thanks Mr. FOIA
Joseph E Postma says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:46 am
Congrats to Tim Ball for his article requesting this to be done, and if it created this outcome! Wonderful!
____________________________________________________
I’m guessing it was the ludicrous graph in Marcott et al. that was the tipping point.
I don’t think Tim Ball’s article was the trigger, it was more likely an annoyance due to its innacuracy in tagging Briffa. Note the very first sentence of FOIA’s message, emphasis mine:
I think Ball might have primed the pump with speculation issues, but Marcott’s attempt to revive the hockey stick surely threw the switch.
Maybe FOIA is also an expert linguist and threw in a bunch of red herrings to disguise him/herself.
Stephen Richards says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:24 pm
I’ve said it elsewhere and I’ll say it here. These theiving, cheating a$$oles have no right to privacy, mercy or any other human sympathetic emotion. You are foregetting the number of people that have DIED as a result of enrgy policy predicated on their crap science. 30000 in the UK alone this winter an many more to come as coal stations switch to wood and windmills suck in ever more funding subsidies. EXSPOSE EVERYTHING they are criminals.
——————————————————————————————————————–
What of possible harm to people NOT involved who happen to be mentioned? In 220k emails there’s a good chance there will be some; Does your need for blood extend to colateral damage that might be avoided by releasing it this way?
Rogerknights, it was written in great haste. He refers toa new Pope, nly just announced a couple of hours ago … But he at least didn’t mention the score of Arsenal against Munich
Dub says:
March 13, 2013 at 12:09 pm
I would suggest that FOIA’s native language might be revealed in his expression, “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor.”
Not necessarily, but we now know that he was in someone’s ARMY 😉
Bart says:
March 13, 2013 at 11:46 am
FOIA is a true, modern hero, a trait which becomes rarer each passing year. Thank you, Sir!
==================================================================
Thank you Sir or Ma’am
I’ve nothing to do with FOIA, but if anybody wants to send me some bitcoin, here’s my address
1FEbR2HNh469mYtZjrV4tAQBed8jdpA8TT
TIDES money accepted too.
Ta!
REPLY: Why would anyone want to send money to you? -A
“USA politics is alien to me, neither am I from the UK. There is life outside the Anglo-American sphere.”
Written by someone who was at length or totally educated in an English speaking country. It FLOWS far too well for it to be otherwise. Knowing the email would be analysed to death he / she has had plenty of time to throw in red herrings and probably had fun doing so.
Use US spell-check in part and for numbers use points rather then commas – i can hear the chuckles. I for one appreciate the humour or should that be humor and wish him / her a long, happy and anonymous life.
And here’s to you Mr. FOIA man 😉
I am going to have a climategate 3.0 party tonight. I can help with awk/sed/perl/grep/egrep redacting of such things as emails addresses but many can do that. I believe something like this i
egrep -ho “[[:graph:]]+@[[:graph:]]+”
works well finding lines but not redacting.
Stephen Richards says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:24 pm
I’ve said it elsewhere and I’ll say it here. These theiving, cheating a$$oles have no right to privacy, mercy or any other human sympathetic emotion. You are foregetting the number of people that have DIED as a result of enrgy policy predicated on their crap science. 30000 in the UK alone this winter an many more to come as coal stations switch to wood and windmills suck in ever more funding subsidies. EXSPOSE EVERYTHING they are criminals.
“They” might be criminals, but are their families, their friends, passing acquaintances, doctors, dentists, proctologists …?? Besides, being opinionated to the point of stupidity is not criminal anywhere, just stupid, and potentially a Darwinian handicap. The criminals are those who set policies without considering consequences, or without really asking for genuine alternatives or contrary opinion.
Not a word on the MSM in the UK yet. Nothing but some old bloke in a frock…
I wouldn’t put too much effort into analyzing the text of that letter. If I wanted to obscure my origins, I might do something like this:
Taking Anthony’s first paragraph:
A number of climate skeptic bloggers (myself included) have received this message yesterday. While I had planned to defer announcing this until a reasonable scan could be completed, some other bloggers have let the cat out of the bag. I provide this introductory email sent by “FOIA” without editing or comment. I do have one email, which I found quite humorous, which I will add at the end so that our friends know that this is valid.
Using Google Translate to translate it into French, then back into English gives:
A number of bloggers climate skeptics (including me) have received this message yesterday. While I had planned to postpone the announcement until a reasonable analysis to be completed, some other bloggers have let the cat out of the bag. I give this introductory message sent by “FOIA” without editing or commentary. I have an email that I found very funny, I’ll add it to the end, so that our friends know that this is true.
Gary D. says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Maybe FOIA is also an expert linguist and threw in a bunch of red herrings to disguise him/herself.
====
Mosher?
Robert of Ottawa says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Rogerknights, it was written in great haste. He refers toa new Pope, nly just announced a couple of hours ago … But he at least didn’t mention the score of Arsenal against Munich
=======================================================================
Yes – but Arsenal haven’t had a real chance since they scored! And they have 18 minutes left in which to score two goals to win.
Sorry – utterly off topic…
Linguistic Similarities?
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1146713460.txt
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2009/11/eduardo-zorita-on-climategate.html
My guess is that the main purpose of the bitcoin address is to give FOIA a way of unambiguously identifying himself should he wish to do so in the perhaps not too distant future. Otherwise with the password released and all emails out there any fool could claim to be FOIA.
Duster says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Stephen Richards says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Think about this carefully. Politicians are, in the main, idiots. They have a very limited education usually in the arts (history, politics, art etc) and rely totally on their ‘advisors’ for guidance. Their advisors are the government organisations such as NWS, NASA, NOAA, UK Met off, CRU and their chief scientists. Soooooo, who is to blame ?? It’s a great big circle of money. The government feeds our money to thier advisors and their friends in order to keep the circle going. That’s why oblarny has spent so much money on failed greenery. It came back to him in the election campagne. You see? Hang the lot of them.
REPLY: Why would anyone want to send money to you? -A
No reason at all, it was an attempt at a joke, just to demonstrate it’s easy to set up a bitcoin address to receive money more or less anonymously. If you have any spare, give it to FOIA.
“the password is an extremely long sequence of gibberish characters”
How long? It could be a simple word or phrase passed to an hashing algorith (md5 for example). That way he could still produce it from memory if needed. It’s what I would have done.
As a global warming skeptic I find it quite funny how some of the people here defend the censorship and it being restricted to only a select few. Would this be okay if it was the warmists who hid and censored info?? Seems like the skeptic community is full of hypocrites as well.. 🙁
REPLY: Oh, please. At some point I have no doubt that the file will be released, but given the size, we simply want to make sure there’s no information in it that is a of a personal, non-FOIA nature, that could damage somebody related or non related to the issue. CG1 and CG2 were manageable size wise, this one is a whole different animal. If you can scan all 220,000 emails and pronounce it clean in less than 24 hours, please present your plan. Otherwise, I suggest you shove your concerns up the bodily orifice of your choice until such time the work can be completed and it can be ensured that unintended consequences don’t happen – Anthony Watts
Jimbo says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:40 am
Which country does FOIA come from?
Clue 1
“Even skimming through all 220.000 emails….”
I think that a mentioned that several weeks ago!
If I were FOIA I would use a translation program to put my words into another language or two, then translate them back. The best kept secrets are held by only one person.
What the %*^! are you people doing?
Stop with the forensics! He/she/they don’t want to be outed so why are you trying to mess up lives?
“Look at me! I’m so so clever.”
D”#*heads!
Does your need for blood extend to collateral damage that might be avoided by releasing it this way?
YES! You don’t think the blood of all those people that have died wondering whether to heat or eat is important or are you like Dr Shipman and think of them as old and useless. Of course, you probably also forgot that there are young babes and children among the bodies at the morgue but hey, they are less important than protecting the families and friends of people who have become millionaires from the scam that killed them.
Pathetic !!! It’s why FOIA released the info. Because the poor and helpless were being killed by these [activists].
Seeing as FOIA has a sense of humor, maybe the disjointed letter was written to drive Steven Mosher crazy?
Interesting. The damage control pseudo-humans dispatched by troll central are arriving. The sad thing is, most of them are paid a wage nowadays. The true believers have moved on to reality TV or something even more insubstantial.
Pointman
Ed Moran. says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:33 pm
What the %*^! are you people doing?
———
I understand the sentiment, but soberly considered I wouldn’t sweat it. We aren’t going to figure out who FOIA is this way. Even if somebody stumbled onto it by chance there’s no verification method, it’d be just another leaf on a yard full of speculation.
Sean says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Sounds like FOIA might be an insider. If he was a hacker he would be unconcerned about “sensitive personal” emails.
Several weeks ago someone made the case that it could not have been a hacker. An insider was the only possibility. I found the argument hard to defeat.
Anthony Watts said “A number of climate skeptic bloggers (myself included) have received this message yesterday.”
Rules Lewandowsky out … 🙂
Ian H says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:20 pm
My guess is that the main purpose of the bitcoin address is to give FOIA a way of unambiguously identifying himself should he wish to do so in the perhaps not too distant future. Otherwise with the password released and all emails out there any fool could claim to be FOIA.
Ian, read passage again, this time with your sense of humour engaged. The author is joking about where money from Big Oil can be sent.
Mr FOIA begins by announcing he wishes to clear up some speculations,
and immediately launches a thousand new speculations 🙂
*Mr* FOIA (enough with the He/She already) says he is not from the UK, that rules out
England, Wales, Scotland.
He claims a linguistic background AND demonstrates a wry, understated sense of humour, that
rules out the Americans.
He presents his decision making within the context of personal moral conduct, that
rules out the French.
He writing and reasoning is cool and detached, that rules out the PIGS, (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain)
He appears to genuinely care, that rules out the Swiss.
He continues to take risks, that rules out the Scandinavians.
He counts himself a Western man, that rules out much of the rest.
An Irishman? (“forsees his death” — he did say career developments…) I think not.
An Antipodean/Canadian? There’s that linguistic thing again, so no.
By eliminating the impossible, what remains, however improbable, is that our boy is:
South African — Vat Hom, Fluffy! Skrik vir niks boet!
FOIA ! Someone once said that true courage is that virtue which champions the cause of right. Regardless of how this story develops further, your effort is much appreciated by all who read this blog regularly, me included.
Maybe you can discern truthfulness by who can be funny and who can’t? If that is the case, Anthony wins hands down. Saving the world and making me laugh, thanks a ton.
As “FOIA” talks a bit about the costs of energy-
“It’s easy for many of us in the western world to accept a tiny green inconvenience and then wallow in that righteous feeling, surrounded by our “clean” technology and energy that is only slightly more expensive if adequately subsidized.”
It might be helpful to see what the cost for electrical energy in CA will be as we strive to meet our RES and AB 32 goals:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2013_energypolicy/documents/2013-02-19_workshop/presentations/04_Weng-Gutierrez_Malachi_Electricity_Rate_Assumptions.pdf
Slide 13 indicates that LADWP will be seeing the largest increases in prices for a kwh of electricity
“Major Utilities Rate Increase (E3 Calculator)
2012 to 2024
Largest growth from LADWP”
I’ll bet the mayor of LA hopes like all get out that the low demand scenario isn’t the one to come to fruition. The competitive advantage LADWP currently has for utility costs compared to PG&E or Nevada will be diminishing
Ed Moran. says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:33 pm
“What the %*^! are you people doing?”
My thoughts entirely, although I am more of the “what good will it do” than the “what harm could it do” persuasion.
I doubt any of the linguistic analysis will help much as I am sure it was deliberately obfuscated and I see that the headers from the email have been stripped from everyone who has published this, which is probably the best way to follow someone. All of our discussion is really feeding the conspiracy trolls. I guess the only real advantage to knowing is to clear up the leak vs hack question and I don’t see much mileage in that anymore
At the same time, until we get to see the contents, there is not a lot of most of us to do but speculate on the identify of FOIA. I see that we are well over 200 comments on this thread, plus some hundreds on Climate Audit and Bishop Hill – proof that this little corner of the blogosphere is excited, but we don’t yet know what about! I guess it is too much to ask people to calm down a bit and wait for the details, but – really – the devil is in the details and it will take time to get those details.
This is going to be a long haul so don’t waste your energy up front.
Stephen Richards says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:33 pm
I understand the sentiment, but such action would have the counterproductive effect of chilling scientific inquiry even by legitimate scientists with legitimate concerns.
There were numerous instances of eliminationist rhetoric coming from the other side not so long ago. To defeat an enemy, it is crucial that you do not come to emulate him. If you wish to institute the same outrages, just under different masters, then what, precisely, are you fighting for?
“Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.”
William Shakespeare
—
“Slow but steady wins the race.”
Aesop
==============
Who knows what “we’ve” got, but it is time to slow it down.
I suggest the recipients of the pword divide the file up into some what, 40,000 emails or so and each check one part for unintended private references. May be quicker.
Finally!
Let’s hope CG3 will harm The Cause so badly that it will turn the MSM into skeptics.
It’s looking a bit like CSI forensics on this site to try and identify FOIA. Just to annoy everyone I think I have worked it out, if I am correct I think others will too!
If anyone thinks they know please leave it to FOIA to ‘out’ himself.
Stephen Richards says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:27 pm
…
Think about this carefully. Politicians are, in the main, idiots. They have a very limited education usually in the arts (history, politics, art etc) and rely totally on their ‘advisors’ for guidance. Their advisors are the government organisations such as NWS, NASA, NOAA, UK Met off, CRU and their chief scientists. Soooooo, who is to blame ?? It’s a great big circle of money. The government feeds our money to thier advisors and their friends in order to keep the circle going. That’s why oblarny has spent so much money on failed greenery. It came back to him in the election campagne. You see? Hang the lot of them.
This reasoning, I use the word with some trepidation, is akin to that used in the Albigensian Crusade, “Kill them all, For the Lord knows them that are His.” In short, I have thought about it quite carefully. I suggest letting the hormonal reaction subside and then carefully decide whether you are on the side of liberty, or of scorched earth. Personally, I go for liberty.
BTW, money would be far less of an issue if there weren’t a concerted effort to convince the population that value is somehow a limited commodity. Even a ditch-digger by the simple act of wielding a shovel creates new wealth if he digs a useful ditch. That happens to be why the US had no central bank in the original constitution and why the government was given sole right to coin money. You want to really get your hormones excited research “fractional reserve.” The damage done by this climate silliness is miniscule in comparison.
FOIA has made 1.25 bitcoins so far. That’s about $60.
http://blockchain.info/address/1HHQ36qbsgGZWLPmiUjYHxQUPJ6EQXVJFS
@Espen –
The omission of articles might also reflect practice in the Scandinavian languages and Romanian and Bulgarian, all of which suffix the definite article to the noun – where it would more easily be lost in translation. If I had to hazard a guess as to FOIA’s nationality, it would be one of these (won’t be more specific in the interest of not clueing in the alarmies to his/her location)
If I was Mr. FOI I would make sure my message was loaded with “red herrings,” using certain phrases and words that led people in the wrong direction.
If there aren’t too many people who hold the password (it seems like only a handful), and if there is any risk of the data being “put back in the bottle” by people who can “get to” those few holders of the password, I suggest releasing the password NOW as another encrypted text. It would be an insurance policy that if any strong arm tactics are used against any of the other holders, immediate release of all.7z is guaranteed.
Don’t kid around with this. There really are $Trillions at stake here, and there are some incredibly huge investors in the Climate Industrial Complex that don’t want to see their stock crash. They are willing to commit millions of people to poverty and an early death, and do so without batting an eye. They have spent decades engineering the “supporting documentation” for the legalized theft that is a CO2 tax, and are on the cusp of realizing their dreams of limitless wealth while making the rest of us “sustainable”. Do you really think they give a rat’s ass about any of you? They want to make an example of someone. Insure yourself.
DirkH says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:21 am
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
“220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?”
India fits the bill, wouldn’t it be ironic if FOIA was from Pachauri-land.
Mr FOIA
I’m hoping Delingpole does an excellent job explaining our gratitude to you. Personally I can’t do the thank you sufficient justice….
Tommy says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:29 pm
As a global warming skeptic…
REPLY: Oh, please. At some point I have no doubt that the file will be released,…
until such time the work can be completed and it can be ensured that unintended consequences don’t happen – Anthony Watts
Anthony –
I don’t believe one can ensure that unintended consequences don’t happen but one can do as much as possible to limit the possibility.
I applaud the effort to try and sincerely hope those of you working on this effort are successful because otherwise the focus of this release will shift, uh, unintentionally.
At 11:56 AM on 13 March, we had Mark Bofill quoting Lubos Motl as saying:
…which confirms my long-held suspicion that the key to all.7z is the conclusion (in toto) of Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1998 [Nature 392 (6678): 779–787].
Couldn’t be a more appropriate “extremely long sequence of gibberish characters” than that, right?
My, my, my…
I really do hope he is right. We need others out their doing some leaking from these fetid, corrupt centres of disinformation, manipulations and distortions. Do your bit for history.
For the benefit of us mobile phone users, and since this thread is liable to get VERY long with comments, can we please get a “Go to last comment” link on the mobile site?
Our continuously scrolling fingers would greatly appreciate it. 🙂
I think he is a Prodestant who wanted to step on the new Pope’s big day 🙂
No, no, no. Re the expression “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor” – I create long conglomerations like that frequently. 🙂
FOIA is obviously quite literate. And quite familiar with American figures of speech. Either that, or FOIA has a handy editor on whom he/she calls before final posting of these important messages.
I sincerely doubt that the 200.000 expression has a typo. Considering the high level of literacy expressed in the message, it’s not likely that FOIA would have slipped up like that.
I have formulated some specific ideas about who FOIA might be, based on the comments about timing, etc. I am trying to restrain myself from sharing them. I will make this general observation, though: FOIA appears to be that rare thing – a technically-savvy IT insider who at the same time has very good communication skills. (/rim shot)
I would be willing to wager that FOIA is having great fun reading all the comments regarding CG3. I wouldn’t be surprised that he comments on the popular climate blogs and after a time came to the conclusion that the people he gave the password to could be trusted to edit out the personal stuff saving him countless hours.
It’s entertaining to guess his identity since we are all excited about the info that is coming..there are already hundreds of comments without even one new email. Imagine if s/he was found out, how could s/he ever down all the drinks that would come his way! Sit back, relax and enjoy the show!
In the CG1 release there was a blog post from the source, the source self-identified as ‘we’.
In the CG2 release there was a message from the source, the source self-identified as ‘we’.
The CG3 release has an email from the source, the source self-identified as ‘I” and had these associated words,
Which of those three CG release communications can be given the most credibility? Does the most credibility belong the two ‘we’ communications or to the one “I” communication . . . or are all three equally credible even given the ‘we’ / ‘I’ contradiction?
There is an element of indirection or even misdirection amongst the climategate releases.
John
Mr FOIA, we salute you sir!
Thank you!! Thank You FOIA!! You are a blessing to any culture.
Anthony:
Should Chris Horn of CEI get a glimpse into the raw file? I could be wrong, but I think he’d respect privacy and personal concerns.
I’d suggest prosecutors too, but that’s over the top; still it is tempting to let Representative Issa start chewing big chunks of CAGW pseudo science. Maybe later when categories of unsavory CAGW actions are established!
I installed bitcoin, it’s taking forever to synchronize.
>I do
>find the dismissal of the Medieval Warm Period as a meaningful global event
>to be grossly premature and probably wrong. Kind of like Mark Twain’s
>commment that accounts of his death were greatly exaggerated.
-Ed Cook-
Lol. Suck it up Mikey
Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless.
A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.
-Tom Wigley
Multilolz. Great find Anthony. 🙂
The text reads like a very well educated non-native English speaker. I suspect from what he said that he worked inside CRU for some time, and for whatever reason had the appropriate access. Perhaps he had a temporary job working with IT or something similar. Maybe contract work.
First priority should be a search for financial relationships with the green industry; stock options, advisory board seats, etc.
I hope there aren’t any legal ramifications to the forthcoming trickle of “skeptic approved” e-mails. Manually filtering and deciding what should and shouldn’t be kept private is taking a much more active role in something that is still being treated as a serious crime. Call me paranoid, but I sense a trap.
It is fun and interesting to speculate about the identity of FOIA but what counts, after all is said and done, are the effects of the disclosures.
For all we know it is a group in some national shadow agency looking out for their national long term interests.
Since FOIA touched on the issue of energy and the poor etc. Here is Africa and electricity in a little more focus. This is what greens would rather you did not see but there it is.
Imagine in your home town if 3 out of 4 people got back home from work to no electricity. None. This is what the greens want for you. Can you live like this? FOIA knows the low down.
I am not Spartacus.
But I could learn to be like him.
John
Re Michael Smith………..I second that, after years of protesting the weight of these issues everyone suddenly seems to be exhibiting a avery casual attitude. Lets be frank, if only a few people have access to this information, your lives are now at risk.
For whatever reasons the following countries have low access to electricity, my point is that comfortable, watermelon greens want to make access to electricity even more difficult for the following countries.
ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY:
Afghanistan = 15.6%
Cambodia = 24%
Democratic Republic of the Congo = 11.1%
Ethiopia = 17%
Kenya = 16.1%
Lesotho = 16%
Malawi = 9%
Mozambique = 11.7 %
Tanzania = 13.9%
Timor-Leste = 22.0%
Source:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS
o.2 and if they’d just put the ball in the box…! Anyway, FOIA has to be quite educated in Climate and has to see the significance of what he was reading. He has to have understood that the proceedings he was reading about was a deviation from the norm. Not easy if you are not highly versed in the subject. He has to know that the ‘Science’ he was about to release was a deviation from the normal method of Science (ie unpublished) , and that the content was not reflected in the mainstream accounting of the Climate Science as published in the public domain He knew it was a bombshell hence the timing before Copenhagen. He’s mature as he didn’t just release it when he first came into the possession of them but waited for the proper, most effective time to do it. . He knows his way around the computer world hence using a Russian server to dump on (without leaving tracks). Surely such a manoever would be logged by GCHQ if it came from within the UK, He’s still alive and he’s still at large. I personally think the huddle convened at Copenhagen between the leaders of the western world lead by O’Bama likely covered the fact that the game was up and no signing would take place. If true; he’s running from MI-5 and US security…..derailing the de-industrialization of the western world and then re-industrialization using “green’ technology was a key idea of O’Bama in tackling the unemployment issue. They don’t take triffling lying down. (So…my guess is it’s the Dos Equis guy: Stay thirsty my friends!!!)
FOIA should reveal himself to Steve and Anthony incase things turn nasty.
Sorry, but I agree that the password being ‘held’ by a select few seems rather pointless – a crowdsourcing dissection of the emails will be a lot quicker. On the personal info/redaction front – I think most people would realise if something was clearly ‘personal’ – but otherwise, if it contains climate science, and certainly climate science paid for with public funds – as far as I’m concerned it is fair game! (Ok, if there were personal type adenda, such as ‘happy birthday’, or ‘how did the jaunt with the bird you met at the conference go’ – one might want to redact that, but is that really likely?)
Apart from anything else, I’m pissed off that I now have to wait some time before knowing (some of) what is in there, and even longer if only a few people are sifting them. Again, it seems unlikely that any one (or few people) could go through such emails in anytime under a few solid weeks or months of hard reading – and I would defy anyone to individually read and digest the importance of each of 200000 emails and then categorize them, etc, without pulling their hair out, getting confused, getting bored – and ultimately taking a heck of a long time about it!
I also agree that the password should be encrypted and placed in safe storage against the ‘dark forces’ of guv’ment intervention!
I see TB has obtained a copy – quite rightly in my opinion – but I hope it is only a matter of time before someone decides to realease the password publicly.
One other thing – the story will be dead in the water, or at least much less effective in the media eyes, if it is released in small dribs and drabs over the many weeks to follow. Joe Ordinary gets bored with such things rather quickly!
just sayin………
FOIA is clearly a very bright guy/gal. Very well articulated position and motivation. My view re the climate ‘trillions’ is pretty much identical to his.
After a series of empirical experiments last year I found that AGW was a physical impossibility. The reason is that radiative gases are critical to continued convective circulation below the tropopause. There is some evidence from the 2010 attack on the Makarieva Et.al. discussion paper that some such as N. Stokes, J. Shore, J. Halpern and others knew of the problem with the “basic physics” of the “settled science”. I would ask those who have the pass code to look for evidence in Climategate3 of others with prior knowledge of the problem. In the period 1999-2005 a series of papers were produced on the theme of “high altitude ice clouds cause warming”. Below is a typical abstract –
“Abstract. – We have investigated the sensitivity of the intensity of convective activity and atmospheric radiative cooling to radiatively thick upper-tropospheric clouds using a new version of the Colorado State University General Circulation Model. The model includes a bulk cloud microphysics scheme to predict the formation of cloud water, cloud ice, rain, and snow. The cloud optical properties are interactive and dependent upon
the cloud water and cloud ice paths. We find that the formation of a persistent upper tropospheric cloud ice shield leads to decreased atmospheric radiative cooling and increased static stability. Convective activity is then strongly suppressed. In this way, upper-tropospheric clouds act as regulator so f the global hydrologic cycle, and provide a negative feedback between atmospheric radiative cooling and convective activity.”
Basically the mechanism that was being proposed is the suppression of cooling by radiation at altitude causing reduced convective circulation. I have a suspicion, as yet without firm foundation, that the disappearance of such papers from mainstream AGW science was due to the fact they dealt with the critical role of radiative gases in convective circulation. I would ask any with the pass code to search for references and “Team” responses to such papers. I would like to establish a date at which IPCC contributors first knew of the issue.
John Whitman,
what’s your point ?
Cracking the password is extremlely unlikely. Even more unlikely that someone else would crack it and then pretend to be “FOIA”.
Unhappy that it was not a hacker / big oil / the Russians but instead perhaps an insider ?
My brief ‘Ode to FOIA’
Yesterday, upon this blog fair,
I met Mr. FOIA who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d please stay…
John
I hope FOIA manages to focus people’s minds more on the real problems facing vast swathes of humanity instead of wetting pants over the phantom ‘problem’ of slight temp rise since LIA.
Dub says: March 13, 2013 at 12:09 pm . . . . .I would suggest that FOIA’s native language might be revealed in his expression, “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor.” This awkwardness
Rather, the command of the hyphen indicates both high-order English comprehension and composition.
RokShox says:
March 13, 2013 at 3:09 pm
FOIA has made 1.25 bitcoins so far. That’s about $60.
http://blockchain.info/address/1HHQ36qbsgGZWLPmiUjYHxQUPJ6EQXVJFS
How do we donate?
I’ve been stewing on this for a few hours now. I’m troubled by the idea that Anthony and others are trying to clean up the files prior to posting them. I think you should consult a lawyer prior to doing this. It’s unlikely that you will be able to do a complete job, and it strikes me that a poor attempt at redaction could put you in more legal jeopardy than no attempt at all. I suspect your safest path at this point is to publish the password and to not publish the emails.
The current justice department won’t prosecute Gleick but I suspect they won’t hesitate to go after climate dissidents for thought crimes. Best to be safe here and consult a lawyer.
Stephen Richards says:
March 13, 2013 at 2:33 pm
Does your need for blood extend to collateral damage that might be avoided by releasing it this way?
YES! You don’t think the blood of all those people that have died wondering whether to heat or eat is important or are you like Dr Shipman and think of them as old and useless. Of course, you probably also forgot that there are young babes and children among the bodies at the morgue but hey, they are less important than protecting the families and friends of people who have become millionaires from the scam that killed them.
Pathetic !!! It’s why FOIA released the info. Because the poor and helpless were being killed by these [activists].
———————————————————————————————————————-
Thank you for nailing your idealogical / moral colours to the mast.
I’m well aware of the effects of climate policy but fail to see how causing harm to possible innocents caught up in these emails would do anything to redress that other than satisfy some immature desire to wreak havok in revenge. Kinda like if some gang was terrorising your neighbourhood and the local vigilantes beat the living cr*p out of you (who happened to be waking home innocently) one dark night because they wanted to send a message. You may be happy for that to happen, I certainly wouldn’t be (not even to you).
Next time, in the interest of all the sincere and decent people working hard to let the truth win, please choose someone else’s mast because they WILL be tarred by association with your views.
Oscar Bajner at 2:58 pm:
That’s all quite funny! Possibly true as well, seeing how one of my other heroes, Elon Musk, was born there.
Thanks for the laugh!
Anthony got this yesterday. However, FOIA did say:
Some kind of pressure building up?
Kevin-uk says
I see TB has obtained a copy – quite rightly in my opinion
An email fwded to me by Jo Nova shows FOIA was simply concerned it might cause me trouble, but said it could be forwarded if safe to do so.
Bill Parsons. A period or full-stop has never been used in Britain to write big numbers. Where did you get that idea from ? We use a gap officially as in’ 120 000.’ Though most people stick to the traditional comma as in ‘120,000’
Eastern European countries and Germany have always used the ‘.’.
I reckon FOIA is Polish. I have my (sensible) reasons.
How many lawsuits could YOU handle if any of the information in the files that was released on your website led to personal injury, damage, or harassment lawsuits of some kind?
theduke
As exciting and promising as this is, we need to continue to fight the good fight in the public eye. And on that topic, I am drafting a complaint to the Broadcast Standards Authority about a particularly egregious piece of programming and I would appreciate some help with the data, if you can easily put me in the right direction. Look on Bishop Hill under Discussion for my topic. Thanks
– – – – – – – –
Anthony,
I think Mpaul’s comment is important. It looks like he is right; right in all of his thinking.
If you haven’t previously done so, then I think you should get some legal advice. If you need contributions donated to do that, let us know.
Go slowly and cautiously.
John
Ken Harvey says:
March 13, 2013 at 11:48 am
————————————-
Ken – If you look at the Wikipedia page concerning the “decimal mark” the countries listed that currently use the “point” are generally British Commonwealth or past British colonies. Zimbabwe is listed as using the point while South Africa (and most of Europe) seem to use the comma.
As one that started life with South African pounds, shillings and pence and converted to the SA decimal system in elementary school, experienced university with a solid SI system, then spent several years in the UK where adopting the metric system was a hard fought battle, I now live in the US and I’m BACK to the language of my childhood – good old pounds and ounces.
Password was banqueted to this person of the ultimate trust, to be released at a suitable moment.
Concerned about poor, newborn’s future life. millions and billions already struggling with malnutrition, sickness, violence, illiteracy, etc. don’t have that luxury.
Not British or American, not native English speaker, dislikes dominance of Anglo-Saxon (French or German, I’ll go for German)
Can’t be touched by law.
And final clue
After certain career developments I can no longer use the papal plural
Ratzinger ?
Couldn’t do it while in the office, had to resign first.
I don’t know what impelled FOIA’s release, but it is opportune. I have been appalled by the reversion to insane “climate change” talk at the highest levels of the US government: the President, the new Secretary of State, and some admiral out at Pacific Command who claims “climate change” is the biggest threat we face (bigger than China?!). Clearly there is a push on to return global alarmism to center stage. Why? Maybe to justify a hefty carbon tax? Maybe to turn over the whole blinking economy to the UN? I don’t know, but it makes no sense.
I sure hope there’s a Piltdown Man bone in there that will convince even the brain-dead left-wing media that the whole damned thing is a hoax. If not, it’s going to be a scary time.
/Mr Lynn
All these emails being sent around the internet with the password are probably not encrypted so the password is available in plain text to a whole pile of sysadmins. Email is like a postcard. Anyone at the post office can read it.
So anyone working as a sysadmin at any of the sites that the email went through to get to you can get the password. It is only a matter of time before it leaks. By then any of the really politically damaging stuff will have been published.
Hopefully those in those positions will exercise some restraint.
Realize this scrub may take a very long time–potentially weeks….I find myself having trouble handling the suspense–hitting refresh here and at ClimateAudit and BishopHill…..
Anthony could you feed my addiction a bit and give us just a taste and characterize what you’ve seen thus far?
Thanks much you are a true patriot!
Three things:
1. forget popcorn, I’m all for a 6-pack and BBQ next to the weather station!
2. lots a fine minced-word language boiled down to “Mikey’s stuff is S T U P I D!”
3. NO! I’M SPARTICUS!
ahhhhhhhhhhh
Thanks for correcting me on the timeline, Jimbo. Obviously the Papal reference was a joke. I do wonder what changed for FOIA
I’m going to think of Mr. FOIA like Mr. X from the Simpsons.
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100918112836/simpsons/images/b/b1/Mr._X.jpg
Thank you again, Mr. FOIA.
@MPaul: “It’s unlikely that you will be able to do a complete job, and it strikes me that a poor attempt at redaction could put you in more legal jeopardy than no attempt at all. I suspect your safest path at this point is to publish the password and to not publish the emails.”
I have to agree – although honestly they’d have to find a way to anonymously publish the password if they wanted to truly avoid jeopardy. I’m not sure how safe it would be to openly publish the password, compared to publishing selected docs from the archive.
Tucci78 says:
March 13, 2013 at 3:23 pm
…which confirms my long-held suspicion that the key to all.7z is the conclusion (in toto) of Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1998 [Nature 392 (6678): 779–787].
Couldn’t be a more appropriate “extremely long sequence of gibberish characters” than that, right?
————————————–
“extremely long sequence of gibberish characters” and some numbers.
cn
Jimbo says:
March 13, 2013 at 4:14 pm
“I hope FOIA manages to focus people’s minds more on the real problems facing vast swathes of humanity instead of wetting pants over the phantom ‘problem’ of slight temp rise since LIA.
Globally, diarrhoea is the leading cause of illness and death, and 88 per cent of diarrhoeal deaths are due to a lack of access to sanitation facilities, together with inadequate availability of water for hygiene and unsafe drinking water.
Source: JMP”
Most Christian organizations in the US have programs that address these problems. My church installed running water in a village in Honduras. Yes, that step is small but it will soon be followed by other steps.
Not sure if this has been suggested, but I think it would be best to divide and distribute the files to trusted and knowledgeable individuals so they can look through them for anything interesting. Those people would then email Anthony with any findings and he could then decide whether or not to publish them.
This would allow a limited sort of crowd-sourcing while reducing the risks of privacy breaches as requested by FOIA – a request I strongly think should be heeded.
Any privacy breaches would be limited to the specific files they were given and since they won’t have the password they can’t simply leak it.
I think Mr. FOIA just wanted to push Anthony over 1,000,000 comments.
Dennis A says:
March 13, 2013 at 3:17 pm
DirkH says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:21 am
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
“220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?”
India fits the bill, wouldn’t it be ironic if FOIA was from Pachauri-land.
Would it not be ironic if Mr. FOIA was Dr Rajendra K Pachauri ?
C.W. Schoneveld says: “The spelling “endeavor” suggests a non-Brtish educational background”.
I was wondering what one could tell from the writing about the person. I assumed some IT guy, whose phraseology and word usage would trigger so many references to hacking that …
Instead, I found very strong suggestions from the phrases used that the person authoring FOIA is a republican involved in some way in healthcare who reads a lot of Christian material. They may also have interests speaking about economics, population and perversely on green issue. Several time the word “Heritage” appeared, which I think is a word with a strong Republican link.
I found very little linkage to IT or computers in the phraseology except some brought up conversations dealing with the technical aspects of hard disks – a not very convincing connection.
So, on the face of it, I would suggest that the author is not “a hacker” or involved in IT. However this text and the modus operandi suggests they have some serious IT resources behind them. That would suggest that they either paid someone else to hack (in sharp contrast to what is said in the text) … or that there was no hack and that the information fell into their laps perhaps from an insider (but that does not explain the fact there was the actual hack of (un)realclimate).
Another possibility is that as suggested in the text, the author’s native language is e.g. a latin-derived language. This would require that all their technical talk about hacking is done outwith English and that they confine their English usage solely for political purposes and have learnt it not from IT publications but from spending an awful lot of time reading republican material on-line. I may not be very familiar with foreign IT people, but this doesn’t fit what I know.
But a serious note of caution. Whilst in theory this analysis should help focus on the likely “type” of author, it’s not a technique I have used or have seen anyone else use. Indeed, if one is trying to hide one’s origin, one may meticulously remove the technical phraseology which would be the linguistic signature which would help identify the author BY ADDING WORDS AND PHRASES e.g. from a right-wing republican website. (Much in the way ransom notes used to cut and paste letters from newspapers, this author may have cut and pasted phrases from their favourite (republican) websites.
But whatever way it comes, the republican link is strong …. at which point I wondered whether I should post this. But as I’m not republican ,,,,
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 11:13 am
Very well said. You are surely right. My emphasis was on this moment.
Brietbart is here. Socrates. Tim Leary. Bucky Fuller. Kraftwerk. Salvador Dali.
JiminyBob says: March 13, 2013 at 7:55 am
No password but a bitcoin address? Mr FOIA can go f*ck himself. What’s the point of those emails being out there if there is a campaign to have only selected people see them? Are you going to be the high and mighty ones to release the truth to us great unwashed?
No doubt Jiminy has always been spoon-fed anything he wanted and always had his bottom wiped for him … talk about a sense of entitlement and no grasp on reality.
Steve from Rockwood says:
“Note the correct use of whom.”
From my experience it is usually only foreigners who have bothered to learn English grammar.
Hot under the collar:
I think you are definitely on the right track there. If the password is the full list of sucu characters it will indeed be rather long.
Regarding the language analysis I think this guy has done his homework and this message contains more red herrings that Murmansk’s Lenin Fish Factory Number 1.
Anthony Watts to Tommy:
“I suggest you shove your concerns up the bodily orifice of your choice ”
So refreshing to see some straight talk after all the PC guff I have to put up with these days! 🙂
I misspoke. It’s the other way around. I’ve seen the comma used for a decimal point for some European numeric convention, as I said a few posts later.
@Craig Loehle March 13, 2013 at 9:14 am:
Craig –
I’ve always understood that Mann has a terrific gift for attracting funding. Few scientists have that. Remember how climatology was a scientific backwater in the pre-CAGW days? Notice how it isn’t anymore? MONEY. Follow the money. The money, as far as I’ve seen by the way people act, goes through Micheal Mann. Suck up or die on the vine. And I am sure early on some people spoke out – and others learned not to.
And Mann knows it and has known it a very long time. Take away the money, and see how fast everybody is calling his crap “crap.”
Steve Garcia
Mpaul says:
March 13, 2013 at 4:22 pm……………………
I suspect your safest path at this point is to publish the password and to not publish the emails.
The current justice department won’t prosecute Gleick but I suspect they won’t hesitate to go after climate dissidents for thought crimes. Best to be safe here and consult a lawyer.
——————–
None of my business Anthony but they might want to stop the number one (that’s #1) science blog.
I hope you consider Mpaul’s comment.
cn
Phil Ford says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:54 am
Seconded. Do we really want to be rummaging around their pecadillos?
Anybody notice the date? 031313 or in Europe 130313
And this one:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVzt2HSvUis?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Hi John, MPaul,
I doubt anyone’s going to come after the bloggers. To what point? It’d just force FOIA to release the password publicly. Plenty of copies of ‘all.7z’ out there, I think I’ve got one on an old hard drive myself in fact. If they leave the bloggers be, at least some of the irrelevant but potentially embarrassing stuff (how’d they put it at the Blackboard? ‘Prof-on-grad action’; ick) has a chance to avoid public scrutiny for awhile longer.
But what do I know. ~shrug~ Not a heck of a lot about such things.
Oops, let’s try this instead.
Put me on the record –
WE CAN HELP.
I can’t see how giving the password to a handful of skeptical leaders is functional. I respect those guys immensely, but they had trouble before with 2,000 files. It took quite some time to go through THOSE, even with “We The People” helping. (I didn’t do anything worthwhile myself…)
But if 2,000 and all of us take a while, how in the WORLD will a handful of people go through 200,000?
Other thoughts:
Given all that, I am sure with search engines, Anthony and Steve and BH will find incriminating emails. Perhaps if we are ALL sifting, WUWT and CA and BH get overloaded.
Personally, I think Anthony knows who his regulars are, and I think Anthony should flex FOIA’s request a bit and include some of us who will be a HELP. If that doesn’t include me, I would accept it – with a frown, but I think Anthony and Steve will need help. Steve, for one, has posted so infrequently for such a long time – will he be up to it?
So, I disagree with FOIA up to a point.
WE CAN HELP.
Steve Garcia
Hard to do when everybody from The Puppet President on down is beating the Mannian drum for “climate change.” If only we could clone Sen. Inhofe and populate the Senate with him. . .
/Mr Lynn
Anthony –
Any reason you can’t divvy up the emails and have certain people focus on batches of them?
Steve Garcia
I’d just release the password – consequences be damned!
The reason is contained in FOIA’s message, too much at stake to worry about mundane personal issues.
Assange was releasing information that put national security at risk and has a lot of support, often from increasingly liberal minded academic quarters.
The question still lingers whether Climategate 1, 2 and 3 emails were hacked or released by someone inside CRU (aka whistleblower). Not being familiar with innareds of computer networks I browsed the Internet and discovered these two links. Can anyone tell me whether Pointman is telling the truth or BSing me?
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/why-climategate-was-not-a-computer-hack/
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/so-was-climategate-a-hack-after-all/
– – – – – – – – – –
Manfred,
Thanks for your comment.
I assume you are referring to my comment on March 13, 2013 at 10:27 am. I respond on that basis.
There are many things no one knows about Mr. FOIA’s situation.
Probability is low that someone could crack FOIA’s password to the encrypted CG3 files if we only go on what Luboš Motl [he got the password from FOIA] said,
There are many things unknown, even to the extent that Mr FOIA maybe was hacked and the password obtained? That would be interesting as a variation to the possible scenarios wrt this CG3 release situation. Detection isn’t an exact science. Heck even science isn’t exact.
John
Thank you very much Mr. FOIA. Stay safe.
Contrary to some, I think it’s fun to speculate who FOIA might be. Particularly now.
Imagine a powerful person, who has long opposed CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming).
Imagine if that person had enough resources to buy help – and silence – from both climate scientist “insiders” and IT people. The resources of a small country, for example.
Imagine if that person could not be “outed” by police or media because of the diplomatic consequences.
Imagine if that person is from continental Europe, but speaks and writes excellent English.
Imagine if that person has recently left a position in which he might have described himself as “we.”
That leaves two candidates I can think of. And I doubt that FOIA is the former pope. Though I suppose he might have listened to George Pell, but not felt the time was right to follow up in public, until now. The other candidate has already been suggested on this thread by “mrmethane”.
Against this view, the e-mail says “I prepared CG1 & 2 alone.” I think this may turn on what the writer meant by “prepared.” Maybe he really meant “planned?”
Oh well, we can always speculate…
I now return you to your normal programming.
Now that the password is on the Internet, who works faster:
Those who would rather not see the release, or those that would.
At this point does it even matter ? Keeping things in context.
With that much material it is literally impossible to eliminate everything that could be quoted out of context to cause the harm you fear. Troublemakers will be able to take what you think safeto release and re-hash it in such a way that it will still be harmful. In fact they could make up complete lies about anyone related to the parties involved and claim these lies were released by you from confidential material. noone will check back.
They could also claim that what you withold includes sensitive confidential material and that this itself breaches privacy laws.
Its even possible that associates of the principals will even now be afraid of what transactions in their private affairs may or may not be revealed, specifically BECAUSE you are witholding the mails andpreventing them seeking reassurance by checking.
Remember the Australian telephone hoaxers whose prank recently caused a nurse to kill herself. How could they foresee that? How can you foresee the implications of every last e-mail How would you know if one parties reference to his location at a given time at aconference bar suddenly contradicts his story to his wife as to where he really was at the time?
The course of action you are placed upon is dangerous. We live in desperate times (at any rate, I do) and you have no option but take the least dangerous route, which is to release the entire package untampered.
Just think how phrases like that will otherwise be applied: you “tampered” with the files?
Do it. Do it now. Do it fearlessly for “he who dares wins”.
Now just watch. The millionth comment is going to be FOIA. Thus proving the mad scripting skillz.
Speaking of “Discovery”, is someone going to Bates Number these?
ROFLMAO … yeah, stoneage is about right. I already have a Java/ODBMS (Object Database Management System) capable of Exabyte size data, extremely fast (30,000+ queries per second) and is already designed to do exactly this, and even through a web interface if desired. Sheeesh, piece of cake. Some people still live in caves.
I was taught it as part of the O Level but I understand it was later dropped from the syllabus — sometime around the mid 1960s I think. Clearly a sufficient number of hardleftards had infiltrated the educational establishment by then to begin their programme of destruction. For those of us who did Latin—compulsory in all public schools and grammar schools in those days, but not taught in ‘secondary-moderns’ which formed the bulk for secondary education—English grammar was a doddle. I enjoyed neither subject. Indeed, I despised them. However, exercises and tests on English grammar had the single redeeming feature of supplying some very welcome light relief from the unutterable tedium of that ugly daily grind.
Stay loose! 🙂
220,000 thanks yous to MR FOIA !!
You sink I know f##k nussing about English idiomatics?
Haha, silly peeples. Well, I tell you I know f##k ALL.
Signed,
FOIA
James Delingpole has an Interesting post on this.
Go there after reading this.
[Reply: A link would be helpful. — mod.]
At first I agreed with the rational of editing the personal and irrelevant information before allowing wholesale access to the encrypted emails.
But the very fact that FOIA was driven to leak this information, due to the lack of ethics and personal integrity of these people, negates that first attitude.
I have no sympathy for their personal lives any more.
This festering, pernicious fraud has been going on for years.
The damage done is real, not some phantom of the future.
Why should we waste any time protecting any of the parties involved here?
Politely, they betrayed the human race.
They had the choice and chose deceit.
Could the scam have advanced, without their complicity?
Everything on these records was funded by us taxpayers,any personal information is just proof they were ripping of their employers.
And the password will leak out.
I think if it was a hack, they would have hacked other important academic institutions for similar content, like Penn State, and UVA.
Ridiculous urban legend, Mosher has no such “hacking” related skills,
Steven Mosher, B.A. Philosophy and English, Northwestern University (1981); Director of Operations Research/Foreign Military Sales & Marketing, Northrop Aircraft Northrop Aircraft (1985-1990); Vice President of “Engineering” [Marketing], Eidetics International (1990-1993); Director of Marketing, Kubota Graphics Company (1993-1994); Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Criterion Software (1994-1995); Vice President of Emerging Technology [Marketing], Creative Labs (1995-2006); Vice President [Marketing], Openmoko (2007-2009); Marketing Consultant, Qi Hardware Inc. (2009); Marketing Consultant (2010-Present); [Marketing] Advisor, RedZu Online Dating Service (2012-Present).
Guys, guys, guys… It was Phil Jones. We all know that. He was so upset at Man”s bullying, he’d finally had enough. Watching him browbeat Keith Briffa was the last straw.
But then he thought about what Mann was going to DO to him, so he got the “blue flu” when CG1 came out.
Phil Jones, the little man who, just when he got to replace Tom Wigley and be king of the roost, along came that damned American, Mike Mann, and screwed up the whole setup. He;d waited an entire decade to replace Tom Wigley, and be #1 Climate Scientist in the World, and then that freaking usurper. . . Well, Jones would show HIM!
But, coward that he was, Jones couldn’t stomach what he had done – turning on his allies. He couldn’t face them. He couldn’t face anybody.
He still can’t. He’s composed that manifesto from skeptical comments and articles, so as to throw everybody off the scent.
No, no hacker. Just whistle blowin’ little Phil.
Steve Garcia
220k emails. After 219.9k of rubbish there ought to be 100 gold plate ones…
I don’t think this deserves days at the top, let’s see who said what, then report. Happy to help, my email is known to the site, understand of you don’t take up my offer!
date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:16:40 -0700
from: Tom Wigley
subject: Re: [Fwd: Your Submission]
to: Phil Jones
…
“Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless.
A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.”
Oh. how sweet it is! For those who are worried about collateral damage, Ms. Oreskes is no less an innocent bystander than is the next starving Bengal Tiger.
I surely hope Mr. FOIA is joking about using Bitcoin, as I would hope he would not be duped into using an electronic “currency” that can be hacked, hijacked and manipulated, and has no real monetary value.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/all/1
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/89471.html
http://www.dailytech.com/Inside+the+MegaHack+of+Bitcoin+the+Full+Story/article21942.htm
Who was the programmer referenced in the early Climategate 1 files?
Why have you published Michael Mann’s phone number?
REPLY: It’s irrelevant, he hasn’t been at University of Virginia for years. He’s on permanent sabbatical at Penn State now. – Anthony
Lovely reading folks … the best comment stream ever
Poptech says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:09 pm
====================
Show me your cv.
Mosher never said a word on this thread, that I saw.
You want to trash someone, here I am.
Just say go.
Jimbo says:
March 13, 2013 at 4:14 pm
/////////////////////////////////////////
You are right to point out some of the serious problems facing mankind. But, If we are to solve those problems, we need cheap and plentiful energy.
We need a developed world which is not going to waste trillions of dollars on a non problem,ie., manmade CO2 induced global warming, and can instead, use some of its wealth to assist those less fortunate in develoing countries.
FOIA is very intelligent. I don’t believe for a second that the semantic mishmash is anything but a cover for the CRU insider who provided the key to the goodies. Good for him, he’s probably a good friend. Probably covering for a scientist weary with the world, looking forward to enjoying his few remaining years in peace.
Ah, well. I hope we never find out the parties involved. It’s a much better story with their disguises.
andyd says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:58 pm
It was the only number Mann got at the UVa that was correct.
In other news: Popcorn futures are up 123.4%
PT-boat on the way to Havana
I used to make a living, man
Pickin’ the banana.
Now I’m a guide for the CIA
Hooray for the USA!
Baby, baby, make me a loco
Baby, baby, make me a mambo
Sent to spy on a Cuban talent show
First stop- Havana au go-go
I used to make a living, man
Pickin’ the banana
Hooray for Havana!
Elmer,
A suggestion
Ramones Havana Affair – good luck
UN-boat on the way to Kyoto
I used to make a living, Mann
Pickin’ the banana.
Now I’m fighting the FOIA
Hooray for the UEA!
Scary, Scary, fake analysis
Scary, Scary, fake a global crisis
Sold my scam to Al Jazeera talent show
First stop – Gore’s bank full of dough-dough
I used to make a living, Mann
Pickin’ the banana
Hooray for the UEA!
Not necessarily. I often mis-type a comma for a period when I’m in a rush.
Since Climategate 1, anyway.
Q/”But if 2,000 and all of us take a while, how in the WORLD will a handful of people go through 200,000?”:
A/ David Eaton?
Slightly off topic but ….
John Archer says: …
Yes I think you summed it up precisely. The only reason I know English grammar, or even that such a concept exists, is because in later life I took to learning German and Russian.
I wish I had learnt Russian first because the other two are a breeze after that.
Regarding the question of the password – I think it should be kept secret. Bundle up some wads of emails and send them out to trusted individuals for reading but I see no reason to open the password up to general public.
Kev-in-Uk says:
March 13, 2013 at 4:04 pm
“Sorry, but I agree that the password being ‘held’ by a select few seems rather pointless – a crowdsourcing dissection of the emails will be a lot quicker. On the personal info/redaction front – I think most people would realise if something was clearly ‘personal’ – but otherwise, if it contains climate science, and certainly climate science paid for with public funds – as far as I’m concerned it is fair game! ….”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I agree with Kev, this is the perfect example of when crowd sourcing would be useful. Give say 220 people 1,000 emails and, within a couple of days, these could be sorted and the scientific emails released.
I am far from convinced that there are any personal emails on what is infact a public server. I suspect that if one uses a public server/one’s office server to send (or even possibly to receive) an email, the author has waived privilege over that email, such that it is no longer personal and private. That said, I for one am not at all interested in wasting time reading irrelevant personal messages and see no point in posting that class of email on the web. I am only interested in viewing emails that touch upon the science (and in this category I include PR and peer review and control over journals and publication etc).
A copy of these emails should be made available to the attorneys who are dealing with the litigation against UVA, Penn State and Mann, should they wish to see them.
Finally, I see no point in the speculation regarding the identity of FOIA, and if anything, I consider it to be counter-productive. Let’s not waste time, but instead spend time on scrutinizing the science.
Thank you whoever you are.
Thank you whoever you are.
Thank you Mr.FOIA
Kudos to FOIA who is clearly as brave and as morally admirable as he or she is savvy
Please let’s respect FOIA’ wish and need for anonymity. Many of us may have suspicions, but this is serious stuff and even hints and speculation may put this whistle-blower in danger – there are billions of ££sss and $sss at stake here. People are ruined, hunted down, and even killed for far less.
Anthony, I agree that you should take legal advice – all the blog holders in receipt of the password should. Perhaps you could pay for it collectively; but it may not be applicable across international boundaries since laws do differ. It’s important not to put yourself or WUWT in jeopardy
At 8:17 PM on 13 March, MattS had served notice:
Unfortunately, the “sustainable” greenie grafters in the federal government are still subsidizing the crop’s conversion to fuel ethanol.
Heck, no wonder my car’s been backfiring lately….
Scarface says:
March 13, 2013 at 3:05 pm
Finally!
Let’s hope CG3 will harm The Cause so badly that it will turn the MSM into skeptics.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
For this to happen, there really needs to be a clear and obvious smoking gun. CG3 will need something far stronger than that found in CG1.
If there is nothing of substance in CG3, the release of CG3 will have taken the pressure off the Team.
It is likely that CG3 will be a damp squid if FOIA reviewed the emails prior to relelasing CG1 and when releasing CG1 he intended releasing teh most damning emails. If he did not so review the emails, then by virtue of the sheer numbers involved, it is likely that there are some gems in CG3. Whwther they will be sufficient to deliver the killer blow is another matter.
Who takes the high ground.
TallBloke: Near as I can figure go to bitcoin.org and download bitcoin. It may be my computer, but it is taking forever to synchronize with the host.
Maybe you failed to miss the comment I was responding to. My point was very clear, Mr. Mosher has no such background that would make him remotely some sort of “hacker”. I find it ironic that posting someone’s actual credentials is now considered “trashing” them. Sorry if I get tired of urban legends based on people not being fully informed.
Every Skeptical site I have looked at so far has this story front and center. Real Climate, not a peep.
I also hope that FOIA is known to at least a few people like Anthony, so that if he magically gets disappeared, Anthony can let the world know
Robert Wykoff says: “Every Skeptical site I have looked at so far has this story front and center. Real Climate, not a peep.”
Which says a lot about Global Warming Alarmist sites, in that if Science, Fact, and Truth were on their side, they would not FEAR posting this story.
I grew up in Washington State U.S.A. in the 1940s and 50s. By the 1960s, my dad (an MD) had built a Heathkit CB (Citizen’s Band) radio so that my mother could communicate with him whenever he was in the car doing house calls, and was needed for some emergency at the hospital. The CB lingo he used at the end of a series of exchanges between home base and himself in the car was:
1) “Standing By” if he would still be in the car and reachable within a reasonable amount of future time, and
2) “Over and Out” if he would be leaving the car shortly, and thus be unreachable.
It seems to me that FOIA would have to be greater than 50 years old to have naturally used the sign-off phrase “Over and Out.” Certainly someone younger than 40 would not customarily use that phrase. But the age range for someone with the computer technology to carry off this heist would most likely be the less than 40 crowd. Conclusion?: FOIA has purposefully thrown all kinds of chaff at the radar, and is enjoying himself immensely reading our posts!
Congratulations FOIA. Now, someone needs to write a book that makes Deep Throat a children’s story.
john robertson says:
March 13, 2013 at 6:53 pm
“Why should we waste any time protecting any of the parties involved here?”
Honor and principle are worth a little time.
OK, I give up. I am FOIA.
Signed,
Spartacus
___
That’s a lie. I am Spartacus. No, wait! That’s wrong. I am FOIA.
Signed,
FOIA
P.S. But I’m also Spartacus.
Let the speculation games recommence! My WAG is that Mr. FOIA is an IT person, not any climate name, big or small. An FOIA request was made, e-mails were collected for the purpose of making a response to it, on a non-CRU computer, and the access to that somehow became known to Mr. FOIA, perhaps because he was tasked with fabricating the FOIA response, especially if he was told how to respond. Combination of several rather improbable prerequisites just wouldn’t occur again for anyone else in the foreseeable future.
It’s one thing to be a patriotic human being to whatever, it’s entirely another to be a patron to us all. And they appear to not be many, but maybe, just maybe, enough…………
My hat will always be off to you FOIA. All I can really say is that I am so glad you are here.
All the best………………
Thanks FOIA, now waiting patiently for the rider on the white horse to finish this lot…
There are unlikely to be any bombshells in this bunch. So there’s no rush to get it posted. The risk would be in inadvertently posting material that causes divorces, suicides, etc., because that would make our side look like the black hats. We have to avoid giving the warmists an opportunity to counter-punch and smear. So lots of time should be taken, and each segment of the bunch should be reviewed by several people. They should err in the direction of redaction.
The real value of this trove will be to sociologists of the future, who will have lots of background context with which to analyze beliefs. In the short term, some quickie sociologic al and psychological insights will be obvious. Also, there may be seemingly innocent references and giveaways that make the earlier data dumps more meaningful.
And there may be some comic relief, like an e-mail advising a colleague to bring an umbrella, “because my lumbago is acting up.”
Maybe you should send a copy of the full set to CRU and ask them to identify the ones they consider personal with their reasons. Publish the rest, and then go through the withheld ones redacting any personal information.
Send another set to the university of Virgina and ask them for their opinion of Mann.
Apart from anything else it would give the devil something useful to do with their idle hands, and make them sweat.
It makes me really happy to read that this was done by someone who happened upon the evidence and wanted to do the correct thing for humanity. I like this person very much, if only their were more like him/her in the world! Thank you for your gift to humanity
Anthony Watts: “… we simply want to make sure there’s no information in it that is a of a personal, non-FOIA nature, that could damage somebody related or non related to the issue.”
In full agreement with your reasoning Anthony. Especially if there is any information that in someway could lead to identity of Mr. FOIA.
Sam the First says: “Please let’s respect FOIA’ wish and need for anonymity.” “– there are billions of ££sss and $sss at stake here. People are ruined, hunted down, and even killed for far less.”
As ‘Sam the First’ points out Mr. FOIA has cost some very powerful people and governments a lot of money and power, and we know governments (ours included) have no issues with terminating people they deem a threat. Domestic drones anyone?
Perhaps with the inevitable witch hunt about to be launched – hopefully Tallbloke has his pyjamas and toothbrush packed – we can all say “I am FOIA”. Whoever you are mate – the poor, the dissenters and scientists of integrity are forever in your debt.
I wonder if those who want to provide all the emails to everyone who wants to read them would feel the same if details of every email exchange they were ever involved in (including as a passive recipient of a copy) was circulated around the globe?
Pretty much all workplaces have a ‘reasonable use’ policy for using office communications (phone, email etc) for personal matters. Accepting that people can only do certain things in business hours, they allow you to make an appointment with your psychiatrist, proctologist or oncologist this way; they don’t mind if you contact your spouse to say you’ll be late home or arrange to pick up the kids; etc etc.
If you put in a legitimate FOI request, these communications are always excluded from releases. Suggesting that the email addresses and other personal information relating to friends, lovers and family is public property just because you don’t like some of the principals involved is pretty sleazy, IMO. The same goes for colleagues whose only involvement may be to circulate invitations to the office Christmas party.
As we say to the population reduction purist fanatics – you first!
At 9:37 PM on 13 March, johanna had opined:
This gives me to wonder if johanna has ever made use of an e-mail account for professional purposes, or even such an account set up by an employer for her job-related activities.
No “reasonable use” policy established in the workplace for the employee’s use of company e-mail accounts ever formally condones personal communications of the kinds johanna is talking about – to make“an appointment with your psychiatrist,” to “contact your spouse” with any kind of potentially embarrassing information, “etc etc.”
Telephone use in this regard is almost universally either admitted or “deliberately overlooked,” but because e-mail communications are not only retained “permanently” on servers but also discoverable evidence in both criminal investigations and civil lawsuits, employers have long since become Enronically focused upon all use of the e-mail accounts they establish for business purposes.
Except under limited circumstances (“Your call may be recorded for quality purposes” articulated every time such a recording is to be made, even if it’s not to be permanently retained in the archives), the practice of recording an employee’s phone conversations is almost nil. But e-mails are another matter, and anyone contending otherwise is arguing either from ignorance or duplicitous intent.
The professional person – by which is generally meant a self-employed medical doctor or attorney or accountant in private practice – is intensely aware of both the canons of his profession covering patient/client confidentiality and issues of professional liability, and has incentive to be as cautious in the use of his “business” e-mail account as he is in the composition of any communication that leaves a paper trail.
Every stinkin’ little bit of the all.7z archive is as much discoverable evidence as if it were the e-mail records subpoenaed from MF Global, for example, in the criminal prosecution of Jon Corzine and his associates, or in a lawsuit undertaken to recover the millions of client funds “disappeared” by these miscreants and malefactors. Their lawful ability to redact or withhold discoverable evidence in the form of e-mail records is nil.
How could it be otherwise for the C.R.U. correspondents whose connivances at unethical conduct were – stupidly, arrogantly, flagrantly – conducted in e-mail communications among their cabal?
FOIA’s sense of humor and use of English leaves no doubt – – – Lord Monckton obviously.
No?
Well, “FOIA” gives it all away; obviously a play on the actual name – – – a descendant of Eddie Foy through one of “The Seven Little Foys”.
No?
Surely then a friendly space alien a la Klaatu’s, “I am fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason”, which is what the CAGW crowd want.
No?
I do hope no one discovers who FOIA is, and if anyone does please do not reveal it.
Mr. Watts, I am not an attorney but John Whitman says: March 13, 2013 at 4:43 pm; krischel says:
March 13, 2013 at 5:15 pm; and Chuck Nolan says: March 13, 2013 at 5:58 pm may have a point. I do not know what immunity from liability you may claim as freedom of the press or otherwise. There is a hornbook rule taught to every first year law student that “barring duty there is no liability.” U. S. law answers the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” with a resounding NO. Supposing you see someone drowning. You do nothing. They drown. You are not liable unless you had a duty to do something, say as a lifeguard. Supposing you attempt to save them and fail. You are now liable. It may be if anyone claims damages from what you redact or fail to redact you have made yourself liable. Do check with an attorney.
I hope, but doubt, there will be bombshells.
I hope, but doubt, the MSM will pick this up.
THANK YOU FOIA ! ! ! Keep safe.
noaaprogrammer says: “But the age range for someone with the computer technology to carry off this heist would most likely be the less than 40 crowd.”
Hee Haw. Try more like 65.
Not everyone who started working on early computer systems were teenagers. For example: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/09/iwd_grace_hopper/
TRM
March 13, 2013 at 5:01 pm
###
Send passphrase encrypted. It easy.
Poptech says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:51 pm
========
I’ve been trashed.
rogerknights says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:25 pm
===========================
I agree on the need for caution, but I don’t think we have to worry that people like Anthony and Steve Mc will suddenly “throw caution to the winds.”
Also, although Mr. FOIA himself suggests that the dramatic info on climate research has already been released, I find it hard to imagine that there will not be some important nuggets still to come. Some 97.5% of the 220,000+ emails have NOT yet been publicized, and although FOIA did keyword searches he also seems to indicate that he did not take on the many months of reading that would have been required to go through the others (800+ books worth of text according to estimates). In all of that written by or pertaining to the work of a number of leading climate researchers, it would be remarkable if 97.5% of the emails contained little of interest (granting that the 2.5% selected were responsive to the juiciest keywords).
rogerknights says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:28 pm
Yes, Roger, I stand corrected, CG1 did result is some superb comment streams indeedy
Mr. FOIA: “Those millions and billions already struggling with malnutrition, sickness, violence, illiteracy, etc. don’t have that luxury. The price of “climate protection” with its cumulative and collateral effects is bound to destroy and debilitate in great numbers, for decades and generations.”
Big !Thumbs-Up! to FOIA for recognizing dangers of unchecked knee jerk reactions to the claims of Global Warming. We have already seen Alarmists CO2/GW mitigation schemes failing (bird choppers, burning electric cars), along with some downright wacko schemes (convert power stations to burn biomass – trees) that would have wreaked havoc on countries and their inhabitants.
Mr. FOIA has done entire world a great service by exposing the frauds of GW Alarmism.
Josh? ☺☺
@Lew Skannen, re earlier OT on FOIA’s command of English grammar. I missed this one on the first pass, but then I wasn’t looking.
Ending a sentence a preposition with. Tsk tsk! Two-hour detention for you, boy! 🙂
how exciting. meanwhile, no MSM coverage so far, but some questioning going on in the MSM nonetheless:
13 March: Financial Post Canada: Peter Foster: Deranged science, perverse policy
Book describes attempt to impose climate servitude
In his brilliant new book, The Age of Global Warming, British writer Rupert Darwall notes a phenomenon known as “climate change derangement syndrome.” The phenomenon was on prominent display this week when NDP leader Tom Mulcair went to Washington…
Mr. Mulcair criticized Mr. Harper for pulling out of Kyoto, but is he even aware that the Americans never signed on to Kyoto in the first place?…
Canadians play a significant, if not always noble, part in Mr. Darwall’s story, although there is no doubting the heroic stature of Stephen McIntyre, the semi-retired mathematical wiz whose dogged investigations, along with those of academic Ross McKitrick, led to the exposure of the iconic “hockey stick” temperature graph, which was embraced for its political usefulness rather than its scientific accuracy. Mr. Darwall does a thorough job of explaining the massive, but still largely unrecognized, scandal of the related Climategate emails…
How little scientific substance is behind the policy that almost ate the world is just one of the fascinating insights of this excellent book, which takes the lid off one of the most bizarre chapters in modern history, although it’s one that still isn’t finished…
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/03/13/peter-foster-deranged-science-peverse-policy/
11 March: Crossville Chronicle, Tennessee: Phil Billington: Stumptalk: The hoax that won’t go away
It is simply preposterous to think that by reducing man-made greenhouse gasses, which is less than 1 percent of the total, could change the climate of the earth.
http://crossville-chronicle.com/opinion/x2101726760/Stumptalk-The-hoax-that-won-t-go-away
Hey, Julian, if it had been me I would have done it out sheer rabid hatred. 🙂
When does Obama announce his capitulation on the XL pipeline ? This could be useful to him.
But then apparently so is everything else. So clearly normal rules don’t apply. So you can’t invoke them. Indeed, their application has been defied by the FIOA [snip] so anything goes. QED
Mike Haseler says:
March 13, 2013 at 5:43 pm
“…But whatever way it comes, the republican link is strong …. at which point I wondered whether I should post this. But as I’m not republican ,,,,”
______________________
Bush’s fault- I knew it.
Oh, c’mon, Mod. What’s the good of a sting without the poison? Besides, the word ‘denier’ already appears on this page.
FOIA – give thanx if u can play a part in stopping the following:
(CORRECTED) Portugal CO2 consultants look to Brazil as EU scheme stutters
PAMPLONA, March 12 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Portugal’s economic crisis combined with the collapse in carbon prices has led to the closure of two of the nation’s carbon companies, leaving those that survive to look to emerging markets such as Brazil…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2217725?&ref=searchlist
12 March: Globe & Mail, Canada: Margaret Wente: Carbon offsets: B.C.’s looniest green scheme yet?
Every public institution is now required to pay $25 a tonne for the carbon dioxide it emits. That’s money that’s no longer available for textbooks, teachers and nursing care…
Most of this money winds up in the pockets of large private companies, which are paid for not emitting greenhouse gasses they almost certainly wouldn’t have emitted anyway, according to investigations by The Vancouver Sun. Corporate recipients have included Encana, Interfor, Kruger and other companies that already had carbon-reduction projects under way or completed. Millions more have gone to the Nature Conservancy of Canada and aboriginal groups connected to the Great Bear Rainforest; they were paid for not cutting down trees they wouldn’t have been allowed to cut down anyway. The prices are all negotiated by Pacific Carbon Trust, a Crown agency that specializes in voodoo carbon accounting…
Carbon-offset schemes have created a lucrative niche for consultants, bureaucrats, accountants and entrepreneurs who, for tidy fees, will help you market credits, set the price, determine how much carbon dioxide you’re subtracting from the planet, and write reports certifying that your program is a brilliant success, even if it’s built on the backs of schoolchildren and sick people.
B.C.’s carbon-neutral green dream is a multimillion-dollar boondoggle. But that doesn’t mean it will be shut down any time soon…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/carbon-offsets-bcs-looniest-green-scheme-yet/article9623584/
See comments at Lucia’s for what Mosher has been working on:
Mosher creates concordance table for massive file of 220,000+ FOIA emails
Steven Mosher (Comment #111337)
March 13th, 2013 at 11:46 pm
DOne!@
1.4 Gbs, complete concordance.
[and a prior comment]:
March 13th, 2013 at 9:12 pm
Ok,
The concordance is written and running.
Its not perfect but it will give you a normalized table
of “token” and filename. The filenames are numbers
and so represent a natural index.
220K mails, I fear the concordance will be massive.
but I built it as a normalized table fwiw. converted everything to lower case and some other stuff.
the header code should be easy if the whole stack looks like the first few hundred. As a first pass I think I’ll just grab the “top”
header. any embedded mail ( threaded crap) will be a parsing nightmare.
for database tables i’d assume a table of from, to, cc,
maybe words in subject line.
Hopefully the concordnace will finish running soon, and I write the header stripper
I actually resent the elitist release of the password as it means we unworthy, though we outnumber the worthy by much, will get dribs and drabs from the Illuminati based on their prejudices. If we circulate among the blogs of sufficiently diverse Illuminati we will get a fuller picture through the eyes of same but still incomplete. Else as here we get titillating dribs and drabs based on the local giggle factor. This is embarrassing and surely by now Mr./Ms FOIA realizes this.
I am far better at deciding what is important to me than any of the chosen few and I’m certain beyond doubt the serious followers of climate information abuse feel the same. Mr/MS FOIA is good at heart but naive of the world, I fear. Rather than providing the world with information he/she has enabled the few to manage the lens through which we see this new information. Call me a skeptic for that is what I am. In all things.
Sooner the better, let it all out, friends. We’re all adults here. Thus far this is a non-event. But this we can be certain of – those selected in the initial circulation list have the password, and so too does Google and through them the world governments. It is a matter of time that those of us who are free to cast ballots will have it too. If the truth hurts, so it should. The evidence of flagrant exploitation of any imagined privacy issues from prior releases pales in comparison to the value of this information, unfettered, in the minds of free people.
@JiminyBob the idea is to crowd source a few trusted people to remove the personal details from the emails before releasing them to the public at large. Look, there is a difference between personal info and the science/politics related stuff. E.g. What if some of them casually talk about their children in the emails? Do you really think that it would be responsible to just post the raw emails without checking exactly what is being posted first? Do you think it is fair on “innocent by-standers” to get their emails or other info plastered all over the web? No. Of course you don’t. Well okay then, smarty pants, how are you going to go through hundreds of thousands of emails and redact all of that stuff. Well, gee, I guess you select a few people you consider to be responsible adults to help you to go through and redact the info before it gets released.
You don’t need to write special scripts to read the emails, you just need the right file viewer and file search utility which is all you ever need with the originals. You do not need them in a special database either, just in a folder on your HD. Yawn.
Crosspatch generally wisely suggests: First thing I would do is using perl or python or some other scripting language, attempt to filter the larger file against what has already been released and create a new output file with just the delta.
To which I would add, in an attempt to be constructive and help Anthony out:
Perl is nice, but for something like this one would want to use e.g. procmail, a tool designed to do what needs to be done directly. I use procmail, for example, to separate out mail messages (previously tagged by spamassassin) into various mailboxes (otherwise I’d be literally inundated in SPAM, as my filters pull out tens of megabytes of spam a day!)
The nice thing about procmail is that it is ALREADY aware of things like mail message boundaries and the like, and it is perfectly happy building mail folders that a mail program can then read. Like perl, it can manage regular expressions. Unlike perl, it is already aware of constructs like subject line, address lines, message body, and so on, and can perform specific searches for regex or keyword (including wild cards and so on) in “just” a subject line, or message body, or in an address.
Indeed, I’d strongly consider using spamassassin on the spool first (as it is highly probable that some of the content IS spam, and because spamassassin can be configured to look for other kinds of “spam” with very powerful matching algorithms.
But with procmail, one could make fairly short work of the chore. Procmail would cheerfully extract ONLY the messages containing the word Mann, for example, and put them into a single mail folder entitled Mann. It would happily build a folder containing all the messages that contain “tree” “ring” “dendro” “Yamal” (plus anything else one can imagine that pertains to using tree rings to infer temperature). Many of the folders would contain messages redundantly, but getting them sorted out into (overlapping) folders by general topic — and even more importantly, rejecting all of the messages that do NOT contain some sort of key word indicating the message’s relevance to e.g. climate science in some way — should take a skilled procmail/regular expression coder no more than a day or two of moderately pleasant work.
Only a crazy person would tackle 220,000 messages by hand, or be daunted by them as if one HAD to tackle them by hand. God invented computers for a reason.
Anthony, if you’ve never used procmail or are unaware of the tool, I’d be happy to send you a sample filter or walk you through writing a few rules that you can apply to the entire spool (from any linux box) until you can write your own. They’re often pretty simple. In a nutshell, you just run procmail my-procmail-recipes < spoolfile-to-process, where you fill the recipes files with specific recipes that will apply rules to each message in turn and then dispose of it (or not) in a named mail folder (or take other actions as requested).
The only bad thing is that procmail is expert friendly and the recipes are only human readable if the human reads regexp and globs.
rgb
To me the FOIA email ‘screams’ of a highly educated person concisely laying out a case he believes in; and then that same person ‘dumbing’ down what he has written to disguise the syntax, vocabulary and diction that could be used to trace him. Take this sentence.
“Filtering\redacting personally sensitive emails doesn’t require special expertise”
The person with the wits, intelligence and courage to pull off what FOIA has done is not the same person who would inappropriately use a backslash. A backslash is basically only ever used in programming and the one here was deliberately placed to help muddle up the flow of the letter. And the “over and out” sign off? I’ll bet this is the first and last time in his life that FOIA has ever used that phrase.
I mean if nothing else it’s not possible that this guy has never heard of Peter Gleick!
Good on ya!
dp said:
“The evidence of flagrant exploitation of any imagined privacy issues from prior releases pales in comparison to the value of this information, unfettered, in the minds of free people.”
———————————————————
Fine. How about posting up the names of your children and where they go to school, plus your and your family’s medical history, your spouse’s email and employment details, and any personal or financial problems you or your family may have, for worldwide circulation?
It will all be fine, unfettered, in the minds of free people.
Dear FOAI,
Thank You.
Sincerely.
Good god people they aren’t reading the entire set and cutting out everything they personally deem unimportant. They’re just removing things of an overtly personal nature due to concerns of privacy ethics.
Its not an issue of removing things that they think are mundane science discussions, just things that clearly have nothing to do with science. More over you have multiple individuals doing it so the only way any particular e-mail is getting filtered from the public is if 100% of the people who were sent the password decide it is of a personal nature.
Considering the amount you already trust these people as you read their blogs and articles and trust that what they’re telling you is true I really fail to see how this is strains the existing levels of trust.
Is this a comment stream, or a MOOC chat for a journalism ethics class? 😉
Any ideas on when mere mortals will be allowed sight of the first juicy tidbits?
So far – Much Ado…but maybe it will all be About Nothing.
It’s like Christmas all over again 😀
ClimateGate … the gift that just keeps on giving.
Let the ‘strawman’ bashing begin…
again and again and again…
ad nauseum 🙁
OK,so may be we don’t get to find out right away that John Cook is Michael Mann’ s offspring from a game of Twister,
FOIA. Legend.
Where would we be without you?
Oscar Bajner says | March 13, 2013 at 2:58 pm:
[ … ] By eliminating the impossible, what remains, however improbable, is that our boy is:
South African — Vat Hom, Fluffy! Skrik vir niks boet!
——————————
From memory:
“Ek se, gaan kak in die mealies, Mikey Mann” … LOL!
Connolly says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Perhaps with the inevitable witch hunt about to be launched – hopefully Tallbloke has his pyjamas and toothbrush packed – we can all say “I am FOIA”. Whoever you are mate – the poor, the dissenters and scientists of integrity are forever in your debt.
Bring it on! If the authorities harass me again, my lawyer will make me a moderately rich man. I am acting within the law, as I was last time.
The password is no longer on my computer
The email account it came through was at an independent ISP and has since been deleted
The decrypted archive has been stored on an external and protected drive.
While FOIA implies he is not from an Anglophone country, I find it difficult to believe the above wasn’t written by a native English speaker. I’ve read it carefully, and there are none of those small things that result from translating from a foreign language that don’t sound quite right to a native English speaker.
Nor, are there any indicators of an English variant like American or Indian English.
The only thing that didn’t fit for me was ‘the major brushstrokes’. Its not a common expression in the context he uses it, and felt it could be a translation.
He also uses ‘could’ where ‘would’ is more appropriate, but that’s a common mistake.
It seems to me —
The persona of FOIA is that of an Indian who has learned English as a second language. To be clear his persona is not that of an Indian who was exposed to Indian English from birth (such people speak better English than I do) but of an Indian who learned his English as a teenager. It is unclear to me whether the author intends us to believe his persona learned his English in India (later coming to England) or as a teenage immigrant to England. I suspect the later.
I say “the persona of FOIA” because i do not believe this person is “culturally” Indian. I believe he is English. (alright, 75% chance English, 25% chance American) He once had literary ambitions (and possibly still has on the top shelf of his closet a boxed unpublished novel with an Indian character or characters in it.) There is a small chance (about 5%) that FOIA is racially Indian but i believe he is Anglo. (If he is racially Indian then he was born in the West not India and thus English or American.) I conclude this because the “mistakes” he makes in his letter are the types that comic Indian characters make in novels. Their abundance is the giveaway. He still has the writing bug in him. (Come on guy, “papal plural”???)
“Papal plural” is interesting for other reasons in that in newspapers editorial columnists often use “we” and university rectors can use “we” as a right. There is a possibility that this guy was involved in editing (or reviewing for) an academic journal. He is making a joke saying that since he is no longer involved in editorial processing he is passing along the e-mails to others.
“I found myself in front of a choice”. If he had said — I found myself before a choice — we would think his language literary. People commonly say — I found myself facing a choice or confronting a choice.
“Briefly put, when I had to balance the interests of my own safety, privacy/career of a few scientists, and the well being of billions of people living in the coming several decades, the first two weren’t the decisive concern. (Briefly put, when I had to balance the interests of my own safety (and the) privacy/career of a few scientists (with) the well being of billions of people living in the coming several decades, the first two weren’t the decisive concern.) He usage elsewhere indicates he understand English grammar. That sentence is a put up job — but surprisingly it is not incorrect. He is talking about three things all balancing out against each other. In English we model our language after the two sided balance scale therefore we would group “my own safety” and “privacy/career” together and balance them against “billions of people”..
No more examples but one. There is a lot of stuff in that note.
“I will several batches, to anyone i can think of.” This usage of “several” fascinates me. A final joke? Well, yes but I think a more subtle joke lies underneath the obvious “wrong usage” joke. Unfortunately I don’t own a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. This is probably a perfectly correct usage of the word “several” — if you were writing 600 hundred years ago. The word “several’ has lost many of its older meanings. The meaning here seems to be “sever” (make copies and send them). The word “several” once had a usage (Shakespeare makes a couple uses of it) meaning “singular” (severable from all others therefore unique), It was often used to refer to unmarried women (single). So this guy is making jokes that he thinks climate scientists are to dumb to get. Writer’s ego tsk tsk. Of course I am not a climate scientist.
Anyway, the highest probability is that this guy is English, an academic, once wanted to be a novelist, still is fascinated by language and has or had connections with climate journals. He didn’t sort through 200,000 e-mails when he first got them but knew where the juicy parts were. He is an insider, a whistle blower.
It might not be wise to actually put this on line. That he is “literary” might serve to identify him to the wrong people. But i thought I would share it with the people at WUWT. Just snip it. Fine with me. I had fun writing it.
Eugene WR Gallun
Huzzuh.
And hurrah for Dr. Tim Ball. I wasn’t a huge fan of strongly encouraging FOIA to put his neck on the line yet further (since he had already done so much), but by coincidence or not, FOIA has chosen to do just that.
Well he’s a brave man and deserves the world’s gratitude — especially the poor and disadvantaged and anyone concerned with truth.
Ah yes, makes sense. Although in a roundabout way, Tim Ball still may have triggered that due to the inaccuracy.
see http://www.theeuroprobe.org 2012 – 015 for comment
Well i for one am not actually that interested in what the password is, no what always intrigued me was whether or not it was a short, simple password, in other words guessable? or a long or complex one perhaps?
Can anyone in the know put my curiosity on that point to bed?
squid2112 says:
March 13, 2013 at 6:47 pm
“ROFLMAO … yeah, stoneage is about right.”
It is! People who like perl and the like is probably working in some university. They, for some reason, like “open source”.
They do not understand that “open source” means that noone get paid. And when noone get paid, everyone gets poor. Think about that for a while…..
In CSharp you can replace pages after pages of file handling software with one sentence.
hehe.
I do not see how this whole email thing can prevent warmists, their loyal press and politicians to proceed as usual, claiming that CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” causing warming and that the emissions must be cut. At best they would admit some unethical things done by some people.
Even if an email from a well known “warmism scientist” could be found where he, let us say, ridicules the notion of “greenhouse effect”, it would not affect the “scientific” foundation of warmism.
Searching CG2 emails here http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=5571 for “crap”, reveals some interesting dissension in the high ranks of those who write the CAGW meme. If I were looking to turn a disaffected pair of scientists in to whistleblowers, I think I might know where to start. This will increasingly become the only way out for those involved. There will be a significant 1st mover advantage.
From email #102433444, http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=5571 between an Ed Cook and a Keith Briffa, openly criticizing a chap called Mike Mann, and his work (my bold, spelling errors not mine):
“Hi Keith,
Of course, I agree with you. We both know the probable flaws in
Mike’s recon, particularly as it relates to the tropical stuff. Your
response is also why I chose not to read the published version of his
letter. It would be too aggravating. The only way to deal with this
whole issue is to show in a detailed study that his estimates are
clearly deficient in multi-centennial power, something that you
actually did in your Perspectives piece, even if it was not clearly
stated because of editorial cuts. It is puzzling to me that a guy as
bright as Mike would be so unwilling to evaluate his own work a bit
more objectively.
Ed”
Briffa’s reply …
“Ed
I have just read this lettter – and I think it is crap. I am sick to death of Mann stating his reconstruction represents the tropical area just because it contains a few (poorly temperature representative ) tropical series. He is just as capable of regressing these data again any other “target” series , such as the increasing trend of self-opinionated verbage he has produced over the last few years , and … (better say no more)
Keith”
Well I hope I get to see the key one day, just to satisfy my own curiosity.
I went on the remote chance that the key was “hidden in plain sight” in the readme. I wrote a program to combine selected phrases in the readme in various ways to form candidate keys (forward, reversed, mirrored, repeated, de-punctuated, hex, ascii, all permutations etc), and wrote those to command files that invoked pkzip to extract the first file with each candidate key. I had a pc running this for over a year, it got through almost a million key candidates, then I gave up.
Short of publishing the key, maybe one of the new keyholders could let me know – WAS the key “hidden in plain sight” or was it just random noise?
OldWeirdHarold says: “Now just watch. The millionth comment is going to be FOIA.” am I allowed to comment on possibility that this will be the millionth post in the vane hope that it will be the millionth post commenting on the millionth post being on Climategate III email.
If it were, all I want to say is: After 16 years with no warming, it is clearer than ever that these self-proclaimed climate “scientists” can’t predict the climate and with their record if anyone now came along with the idea of spending $1trillion on littering the countryside with bird mincers to “save the planet” …. they would be treated like the UFO-hunting style idiots they are.
Employees paid for by the taxpayer that use facilities for private use are committing theft, any of these emails that are private business no matter how much dirty laundry they show are the property of the tax payers. Theft is theft it can be a paper clip a ream of paper or an email but it is theft of public property. Protect them not, for they think they are a protected species rather than scam artists and thieves.
Thank you FOIA.
A light amongst darkness.
I posted this comment over at Bishop Hill on Mar 14, 2013 at 9:21 AM:
– – – – – – – – –
steveta,
At his site Luboš Motl posted on CG3 saying,
So, there are ~12 recipients of Mr FOIA’s original email. Apparently none of the ~12 recipients have provided public info about who those 12 were.
We (those who aren’t the ~12) cannot say that RC (or any other similar ‘consensus’ site) wasn’t a recipient. Maybe they were but the skeptical blog owners aren’t revealing the names of the all the recipients.
Sigh, lack of info sucks especially when sustained by skeptics.
John
I totally agree. I touched on electricity access and costs for Africa earlier. Without a cheap and regular supply of energy activity slows down. Energy is needed to move water pumps from one country to another, energy is needed to power cooling for medical supplies etc. Energy is needed for just about everything we do today. Instead, these genocidal maniacs are quite content to create alarmism, spread lies and line their pockets with carbonic scams.
I posted the article on Daily Paul.
http://www.dailypaul.com/278182/climategate-foia-the-man-who-saved-the-world
Best Pi Day gift EVER!
220,000 emails – that’s the equivalent of 50 a day for 12 years. It is going to take weeks, or even months, to go through them all. Even if only one in a thousand is gold, that is still a lot of gold.
Hopefully, we are now going to witness an epic wriggling by Team members as they run around in circles trying to provide spurious and misleading explanations for new ‘scientific’ concepts, just like they did for ‘hide the decline’. Mann’s tweets, or whatever communication medium he uses, should be a great source of fun over the next few weeks.
I cannot imagine Mr/Ms FOIA has been through even a small percentage of all these emails, so he/she is probably unaware of much of the gold that is lurking in them.
Let me help you out.
220 000 emails could take months to sift through.
Hopefully we will see something before that time.
Maybe others have raised this, but I think the MWP is already well documented by the CO2 Science website. Amazing that in the emails the wagonloads of papers that have been written to support MWP are not referred to!
M.H.Nederlof
I’m a Brit and I travel extensively in Europe and the Far East. The English seems far too good to be English from someone speaking as a second language. It is grammatically error free, even though the English is quite complicated in some places (a single sentence with multiple references to the same subject separated by commas is peculiar to English and you rarely see non-native speakers using such a construct). Also it is very English-idiomatic for a non-native speaker, but free of the kind of alien idiomatic usage of English that would give the game away if the writer was Scandinavian or German, for intance.
This makes the use of the phrase “There is life outside the Anglo-American sphere” a conundrum. After all, would a Canadian, Australian, Kiwi or even English speaking South-African consider themselves outside the “Anglo” sphere even if it is obvious they are outside the American sphere – especially to the point where they would want to state this so clearly? Use of the spelling “endeavor” suggests not a British person (but then again could be an artifact of a spell-checker set to American spelling – as mine is!). But the writer does say he is a part of the Western world (so not Indian – English is widely used as a first language amongst Indian academics and the middle-class, but India is most definitely not occidental).
Seems to me that FOIA is trying to pull the wool over our eyes as to his or her true nationality, but who can blame them for that?
““I will several batches, to anyone i can think of.”
Hmmm, I think the word “several” should be “release” and started as a typo that the spell-checker went mad with and changed to a totally different word. My WindowsPhone does exactly this kind of thing with some of my text messages often with embarrasing results.
@wayne Job
“Theft is theft it can be a paper clip a ream of paper or an email but it is theft of public property.”
Theft is removal with intent to permanently deprive. Disclosure permanently removes only concealment, and public concealment is acceptable only in agreed special cases.
How can you decide FOIA was right or wrong if you don’t understand the act?
I just googled the gibberish bitcoin address – now at 67 results – and it struck me, surely a few of the chosen twelve did had to google that equally gibberish actual password too, to check whether it’s been outed before or is out there with nobody knowing. So, just conceivably I guess, some google-search wizard could find it that way somehow?
Why would anyone want to use Csharp!
Perl, Python and all of the other supported languages that run on all an any platform have available to them gigabytes of libraries to do just about any task you like.
As others have already commented, Linux machines have a wide selection of software tools ready and available to process all.7z. For additional tasks, the Linux toolset takes some beating!
I am surprised that all.7z has not been stripped of its email addresses, phone numbers, human names etc and reposted in the clear.
Interesting emails can then be flagged; to have partial email addresses reinserted so we know who they are from and too. That would save a lot of time maybe?
If there were only 1000 interesting emails out of 220,000; then it should be quicker than processing each email individually.
noaaprogrammer says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:13 pm
I grew up in Washington State U.S.A.
It seems to me that FOIA would have to be greater than 50 years old to have naturally used the sign-off phrase “Over and Out.” Certainly someone younger than 40 would not customarily use that phrase. But the age range for someone with the computer technology to carry off this heist would most likely be the less than 40 crowd. Conclusion?: FOIA has purposefully thrown all kinds of chaff at the radar, and is enjoying himself immensely reading our posts!
_____________________________________________________________________________
or maybe FOIA just likes watching WWII or old police shows/movies
Having skimmed the comments, I have to say there’s one glaring omission in all the guesses as to FOIA’s nationality. As a translator from Dutch to English, I can’t help sensing a Dutch mind at work. His English is clearly of an exceptionally high standard, so he’s highly educated. He has probably spent most of his working life in the Anglo-Saxon world, though – probably the UK. This narrows it down considerably. Add to that the fact that there are not many folk using Bitcoin yet here in the Netherlands, and his likely connections with UEA, and I’d say the net is closing in on him as we speak. I’m not sure why, but I can’t help thinking he’s of my generation and is therefore possibly in his forties.
In summation:
He’s Dutch.
He’s in his late thirties / early forties.
He’s worked much of his life in the UK.
He’s highly (technically) educated.
He uses Bitcoin in a country with as yet few Bitcoin users (assuming he lives in NL).
He may well have some professional proximity to UEA, and obviously is somehow intimately connected to the world of climate science.
How about that for a potential profile?
Eugene WR Gallun, the OED does indeed include several as a verb:
Meaning 1 is a techincal legal term to do with land enclosure.
I’m not sure if this has been pointed out, but the 3rd email that Anthony posted (as an update to the original post) seems to refer to this list ‘Top 20 Climate Authors’ published in Nov 2009.
http://archive.sciencewatch.com/ana/st/climate/authors/
(I see that the UK Met Office’s Richard Betts appears at #11!)
Tom Wigley seems to be querying the ranking as Web of Science shows that he, Trenberth and Ben (Santer?) all have more citations over the period.
Perhaps they did not put the words ‘climate change’ or ‘global warm’ into enough of their titles and abstracts! (see methods http://archive.sciencewatch.com/ana/st/climate/)
In a situation like this, “integrity” means only one thing: Let it all out. Redact nothing. Let everyone have a go at sorting and finding.
Protecting the reputation of genocidal tyrants is NOT “integrity”.
Maybe someone with access could do an email search for “Ababneh’ , as in Linah N. Ababneh, whose PhD dissertation on bristle cone tree rings knocked the blade off Mann’s hockey stick. Be interesting to hear what the team thought of that coffin nail.
Phil Ford @ 8:54 am on the 13th March:
I agree with you.
Thank you to FOIA, Anthony et al for everything you have done. Annie.
I know everyone else is an edge waiting for the release of whatever new juicy bits there may be… but I just want to know how the story ends for the second email chain shown above. After being called out on the rumors that Ed did not genuflect to the Hocky Stick and had even been rumored to suggest that there might have been ANOTHER Hockey Stick (MWP), he was summoned forth to prove that he had not violated the first commandment (Thou shalt have no Hockey Sticks before me). So, after his apology (which seemed to still show that he wasn’t quite ready to renounce this new and intriguing idol), I have to know… is it all OK… was he allowed to kiss St. Michael’s ring?
otsar says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:47 pm
“MikeP
Not Ukrainian.
My guess is originally East coast USA, with later overseas education, most probably a Scandinavian country (some of the word order.) Embassy brat? Military brat?
He/She has mastered the mysteries of the possessive contraction that Americans use that are avoided by non native speakers.
Having said that, the language is probably very obfuscated for good reason.”
__________________________________________________________________
Thanks for replying. Tak is used in only one language I know of and I thought maybe you were using it as a hint. My guess is Continental European. British English is usually the version taught when English is the foreign language taught in school. Americanisms could be picked up from all the TV shows and movies that infiltrate every country. This would include the pervasive “over and out” that used to be used extensively in TV shows with truckers. A European would be familiar with European style public works projects and all the jokes that are based off that.
After reading SM comments on The Marcott paper, I believe that the mistakes are so grandiose, obvious and blatant that the paper will HAVE TO BE eventually withdrawn The only reply from the author is that none of the uptick data is robust. How in hell can Science publish such work?. I would say it will be the end of the team. It appears European governments are also giving up on AGW slowly but surely see Bishop HIll.
(With apologies to 300)
Climategate 300
Now, here on this rugged patch of earth called the blogosphere….Gore’s hordes face obliteration!
Just there the barbarians huddle sheer terror gripping tight their hearts with icy fingers knowing full well what merciless horrors they suffered at the swords and spears of 1000 emails.
Yet they stare now across the plain at 220,000 emails commanding the attention of 30,000 freethinkers!
The enemy outnumber us a paltry three to one. Good odds for any sceptic.
This day, we rescue a world from mysticism and tyranny and usher in a future
brighter than anything we can imagine.
Give thanks, men to Mr.FOIA and the first brave sceptics.
To victory!
1. Climategate: Global Warming due to Man. (AGW – Anthropogenic Global Warming)
Here’s a practical way to understand the CO2 problem – (from Australia).
How much CO2 is created by human activity? Imagine 1000 metres (1 km or well over 1/2 mile) of atmosphere laid out in a line on the ground. with all the gases separated out.
Let’s go for a walk along it.
The first 770 metres is Nitrogen.
The next 210 metres is Oxygen. That’s 980 metres of the 1000 metres. 20 metres (66 feet) to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour. 10 metres (33 feet) left. 9 metres is argon. Just 1 more metre (3 feet). A few other gases, ozone, neon etc, make up 620mm of that last metre.
The last 380mm is carbon dioxide. 96% of that is produced by Mother Nature. (fermentation, bush fires and volcanoes, much of it underwater,). The recent Icelandic Volcano negated all the UK efforts made by us to reduce CO2.
Of our journey of 1000 metres just 15 millimetres are left – about half an inch. That’s the amount of carbon dioxide human activity puts into the air. Of those 15 millimetres the UK contributes about 4% or 0.6mm of the kilometre. The thickness of a credit card.
What is the effect of higher CO2 levels in the air?
At the start of the Carboniferous Era – some 350 million years ago – the CO2 in the air was about 5 or 6 times more than now (2200mm of the 1km). Despite this ‘dangerously’ high level of CO2 the world did not boil over. Instead there was an almost explosive growth of vast forests. For 50 million years the trees steadily grew and fell down to be covered up, crushed and eventually transformed into the extensive coal seams around the world. The fungi that rots dead wood had not evolved then so the trees lay as wood. By the end of this era – some 300million years ago – the CO2 level was about the same as now.
So where did all the CO2 go?
The trees in the almost limitless forests that flourished then had absorbed it to become stored underground in coal. How come? Well let’s look at Wheat. To grow wheat five conditions are required.
A grain of wheat,
Fertile soil,
Rain water,
Sunshine
and Carbon Dioxide – the dreaded CO2
The DNA in the grain of wheat contains the instructions for the energy from the sunshine to combine the rainwater and CO2 by photosynthesise into carbohydrate as new ears of corn.
i.e. more wheat. A similar process occurs in trees to make more wood
Any increase of the CO2 level in the atmosphere will increase the yield of wheat per acre.
As a rough example the CO2 from one ton of jet engine exhaust could become an extra 1,500 loaves of bread.
Reducing the CO2 level will give a lower yield of food per acre. Halve the CO2 level that we have now and it is estimated to just about extinguish most of the life on earth
The Hockey Stick Curve
We now come to Dr Michael Mann’s infamous Hockey Stick Curve. This claims that CO2 levels have increased to dangerous levels since 1750 causing Global Warming. Mann’s paper was based on tree ring growth and a set of data and codes that he has refused to make public. His paper was published in Nature – one of the most respected scientific journals. Such journals always require all that data related to a paper must be put into the public domain to enable other scientists to repeat the claims to confirm them. Nature published it anyway – a very strange and unique decision by the editor that has seriously damaged its reputation. The Hockey Stick Curve requires the removal from the historical record of the Medieval Warm period, when the Vikings colonised Greenland and grapes were grown in Durham, and the ‘mini ice age’ of the 1750s’ when the Thames regularly froze over. It should also be noted that the mathematics Mann used would give a hockey stick curve if numbers were randomly taken from a telephone directory.
Although now thoroughly discredited the Hockey Stick Curve is still used, and regularly quoted, by the Environmentalists as if were valid.
The Greenhouse Theory is based on reflected infra-red radiation from the earth vibrating the CO2 molecules and heating them up. There is far too little CO2 in the atmosphere to have any significant effect.
So why is there so much political excitement (bordering on hysteria at times among the ecotards?) to reduce the CO2 level in our atmosphere despite the overwhelming objective evidence that it is not a significant problem?
It was started, and has been continued, by somewhat panicky and very arrogant ‘Environmentalists and Intellectuals’ with rather narrow agendas. They are driven by their passionate contempt for the industrialised society and intense pique with the increasing consumerism of the lumpen public .
They have achieved considerable influence with their fellow ‘Intellectuals’ and politicians, whose understanding of science seems limited to say the least.
It is also a very good ‘scare’ story to keep the public in a continual state of anxiety and easy remove more Individual Freedoms – to save the world.
The Environmentalists have invested so much personal reputation in the Greenhouse Gas scare now that it is nigh on impossible to admit they have grossly overstated the problem.
Many Industrialists certainly continue to fuel this alarm. However their ‘crime’ is essentially pollution and despoiling the environment – not CO2 emissions.
Always follow the money. Who is earning the megabucks from this scam?
It is a wonderful excuse for politicians to slap on extra charges on the public ‘to save the planet’. They are essentially Stealth Taxes. The taxes on airlines do absolutely nothing to reduce the CO” output from jet engines or ‘Global Warming’.
The Carbon Trading Market is potentially worth trillions of dollars – as long as the governments can regulate and enforce Carbon Trading into general existence. Even at this early stage Carbon Trading is plagued with fraud.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations is packed with personnel who have significant financial interests that rely on the ‘CO2 problem’.
The IPCC have a floating coterie of some 2000 experts who promote AGW and vilify anyone who disagrees with them. Actually it seems that most, by far, of their experts are Environmental Activists. Many of the true scientists are very angry that their input into the IPCC Report on Global Warming was ‘manipulated’ without their knowledge.
The IPCC and politicians are energetically lobbied by commercial companies who are now heavily committed to producing equipment to reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere – windmills, stripping CO2 from exhaust gas etc.
Many Universities are reliant on generous grants for research to ‘prove’ that AGW is valid. Investigators who wish to demonstrate that AGW is of very minor consequence do not get grants and are ostracised by the controlling AGW scientific community.
The BBC Pension Fund has some £8 billion invested in CO2 Trading. When AGW is debunked that will take a devastating hit.
The BBC has a coterie of some 20-30 ecotards who hold secret meetings to decide the BBC policy on Climate Change.
Is there Global Warming/Cooling? Yes – of course there is.
Short term heating and cooling is caused by the varying energy being emitted by the sun and the effect of cosmic rays on cloud generation.
Long term is overwhelmingly due to how the earth orbits around the sun and the varying gravitational pull of the planets.
As the earth moves to its furthest from the sun an Ice Age is caused every 100,000 years or so, with a Warm Period in between. We came out of worst of the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago and we are now in a warm period. Within about 1000 years we are due to start descending into the next Ice Age. (Vostok ice cores)
Will any of the ‘green’ taxes imposed on us by our governments do anything to change this?
NO! NO! NO! Just as King Cnut could not turn back the tide so the AGW Environmentalists, Intellectuals and politicians cannot alter the orbit of the earth. They are pushing our country further into terrible debt trying to do so. The Global Warming Crisis is an invention of the Club of Rome to generate a crisis that can be used to persuade the public to accept the loss of personal freedoms and more government control ‘to save the planet’.
The big worries we really have are overpopulation, pollution and waste. The Earth can probably cope with about 2-3 billion people so we can all have a decent lifestyle. Even now at 6 billion, and rapidly heading for 10 billion, we do not have enough raw materials and clean water nor safe land to live on, grow food on and keep undeveloped for wildlife.
The solution proposed seems to be for our energetic Western society, with its contracting population, to drastically reduce our lifestyle. Much of it can then be transferred to the third world with their unbridled expanding population. Unfortunately much of the Western energy is being drained out of us by over regulation by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.
Any reduction in lifestyle will not, of course, be suffered by the Elite Politique – just us lumpen public.
This ‘solution’ will not last long. The exponential increase in population will soon overtake it and even more unsafe land will have to be used.
see also The Hockey Stick Illusion A.W.Montford ISBN 978 1 906768 35 5
Very interesting combination of beautifully written English and glaringly poor usage. Someone saying they’re not FROM the UK doesn’t preclude them being here now?.
Like using a decimal as the thousands seperator, the use of the backslash (\) was interesting – it would be much more normal to use the slash (/). On some international keyboard variants, the backslash is one of the standard characters whilst the slash needs a “Shift + something”, making the backslash the more convenient (if gramatically unusual) option. From a quick google, Russian, Italian, some Scandinavian and Canadian French may fall into this category…
Recent events made it clear that the promoters of CGW were executing another GRAND push: the dark message of devastating and real gobal warming is upon us due to mankinds CO2 polution through the many forms of petroleum and coal use.
Thank you FOIA for Climategate 3.0. May God bless.
This is a very slippery slope.
Google scholar indexes about 22,000 scholarly publications on “global climate change” last year alone.
Does “scientific” scepticism really have nothing better to do than sift through personal emails trying to find sound bites that can be passed off as impropriety if taken without context?
Eugene WR Gallun draws attention to the phrase used by FOIA – “Papal Plural” ie “we” meaning himself.
It would be strange for a Brit to use this phrase and it sounds strange and unfamiliar to my British ears and eyes. We would use the phrase “the royal we” in this context.
The Queen uses the word “we” when refering to herself in speeches.
I dont believe FOIA is a Brit. He/she my live in Britain, but if one were to converse with them it would be apparent that they are not a native to this country or indeed the Anglosphere.
Is there a warmists’ circular firing squad in the offing? Oh, the delicious anticipation.
It is not about these e-mails or any e-mails.
It is about a comingled cult of these re-distribution nut jobs like Michael Mann etal, the enablers of the Goebbles News Networks, the re-distribution Democrat party.
Facts do not matter to them, the cause is all.
Go to a Earth First meeting in say Washington State and see for yourselves.
Greed does matter, evil is real, and it is a fight to the death of freedom.
Reading 200,000 e-mails done by and for a crime cult will cause a spike in blood pressure and the members here will cheer.
Yet the Democrats in the House and Senate who have Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid cojoined by B. Obama to order the vote count and they will march on orders off any cliff near and drag all of U.S. with them.
Fight fire with fire go after them with the knowing that your freedom, way of life and souls are at stake.
^^^^ THIS ^^^^
Also, pull it off the internet until you’ve adequately moved the decrypted e-mails onto portable storage.
wayne Job says:
March 14, 2013 at 1:58 am
Employees paid for by the taxpayer that use facilities for private use are committing theft, any of these emails that are private business no matter how much dirty laundry they show are the property of the tax payers. Theft is theft it can be a paper clip a ream of paper or an email but it is theft of public property. Protect them not, for they think they are a protected species rather than scam artists and thieves.
So publishing public Emails is theft. wayne your head is a very peculiar place. When a government hides public information now that is really a crime. But apparently there are many that believe that hidden agendas within the government are OK. richard windsor and that style of government is not OK with me,
A continental native-English speaker. The answer is obvious: FOIA is from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick!
“Many terrible things have resulted from the great climate scam – the debasement of the scientific method, the corruption, the rent-seeking, the greed, the lies, the blighted careers, the malfeasance, the dissemination of ignorance, the waste, the environmental damage – but the worst thing by far is the human misery it has engendered.”
– James Delingpole
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100206888/climategate-foia-the-man-who-saved-the-world
Who cares about socially damaging content? Publish it. All of it. It’s called bringing a gun to a gun fight. Have the radical Leftists ever shied away from the politics of personal destruction? If anything it’s their favorite tactic.
But please, do publish every little bit. Show people what scum you really are.
REPLY: Dear Mr. Brookes. Thanks for illustrating so clearly how academics have become mentally corrupted that politics matters more than truth. For the record, Mr. Brooks is on faculty at the University of Western Australia, the same place that houses conspiracy theory publisher Lewandowsky. Since you think we are all “scum” (even though we are taking the prudent path), after 208 mostly abusive comments here, you are no longer welcome in my home on the Internet, I’m showing you the door. Get out.
Regards, Anthony Watts.
Whos to say Mr FOIA didnt have someone else compose/correct his password release email?
Lots are assuming he did it himself, maybe he didnt.
MissAnthropy said:
March 14, 2013 at 8:08 am
Who cares about socially damaging content? Publish it. All of it. It’s called bringing a gun to a gun fight. Have the radical Leftists ever shied away from the politics of personal destruction? If anything it’s their favorite tactic.
————————————-
The difference is we dont need to act like that, we have truth, morality and good hearts on our side, no need to lower ourselves like they do. 😉
Todays insightful? comment is: Inside every warmist is a sceptic trying to get out.
Anthony….. I hope that Andy Revkin is invited to see the unexpurgated Climategate 3.0 archive.
I believe his examination would be an honest one and, even were he to see, but never reveal
some of the more vitriolic and personal communications, they would further his understanding of
the corruption within the science. ….Lady in Red
I can’t quote Sun Tzu . . .
1. Deadly, (or not-politically correct) force is justifiable in the saving of life, limb, or IMO, societal devolution due to “Climate Policy”. 2. The Truth is always a valid defense. 3. Society doesn’t contemplate collateral damage upon third parties due to investigation and prosecution of Perps. 4. The possibility of Ethical and Character revelations possibly being in the offing may well get someone to ‘Flip and Sing’.
Two cents.
“”In a situation like this, “integrity” means only one thing: Let it all out. Redact nothing. Let everyone have a go at sorting and finding.
Protecting the reputation of genocidal tyrants is NOT “integrity”.”
Firstly that would be making the huge assumption that the contact details of everyone mentioned can only be part of Team AGW, and furthermore any association with that group makes them a genocidal maniac. A rather black and white analysis of human nature.
Seth says: March 14, 2013 at 6:31 am
So you have no interest in the TRUTH or the SCIENCE behind AGW then?
About the letter. There is something about it that make me think it’s a fellow Norwegian that is FOIA, but there is not much about my gut feeling I explain yet. If not Norwegian then maybe Swedish or Danish.
First, we use a point when writing 200.000. But what struck me the most was the word ‘several’ since the norwegian meaning of the word (fler or flere) is widely used. I know I have used the word many times. Another thing is that politicians over here was very quick at suggesting strict enviromental laws and expensive projects without much debate, and that would have been enough motive. Any Norwegian professional that write and read english on a daily basis will have few problems witing a gramatically correct letter. I would be a poor example ofcourse, but then again I’m not professional 🙂
on Barry Woods’ Update 4:
I wrote a post on the Mann – Monbiot – Marshall axis, and how Monbiot had one of his articles written by the Rapid Reaction Team when the science got too hard.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=534
I hate to interrupt good clean fun, but honestly, speculating about just who FOIA really is has to be one of the most pointless exercises on the planet. He — or she (all you sexists out there, shame on you) — is obviously intelligent enough to obfuscate their identity, through a few red herrings under the bus, slip in a few “clews” — or not. FOIA could be lurking on this very list, laughing at the speculation or even participating in it, or he/she could be more or less totally divorced from blog participation, perhaps reading them from time to time but never posting or even registered as a participant. The only conclusion I think is justified is that FOIA doesn’t have mad computer skills, because anyone who did would have split the entire file up into messages with formail (or, if necessary because of its format, with a short custom perl script) and run each of them through procmail to accumulate them systematically into topically organized mail folders, rejecting the vast bulk of them in the process. Instead one gets the dreadful feeling that the early work was done inside a large text editor, searching for keywords, and cutting and pasting the messages together by hand.
I repeat — anyone with good systems skills would have the entire file split into individual messages and would have those individual messages split into folders within 48 hours (and still would). The idea that the preliminary work of sorting things out has to be done by hand is just wrong. Only certain humans are of interest. Only certain topics are of interest. Only certain keywords are at all likely to be associated with topics and humans of interest. Once presorted, a reasonably apt human can skim through the POSSIBLY interesting parts of the spool at a rate of hundreds of messages per hour or better just to see if there is anything that should not be seen in them — NOT to assess whether or not there is anything of interest. Expurgated of the mundane, the interesting folders can be published.
I’m still of two minds about the entire Climategate process from the beginning myself. I’m a professional sysadmin (among other things) and going through people’s mail without their explicit permission is a serious ethical violation no matter what the content, although the law makes exception — even mandated exception — when there is suspicion of certain crimes e.g. distributing kiddie porn or snuff flicks. OTOH, the potential damage associated with corruption of science revealed by the communications vastly outweighs that caused by mere child pornography a thousandfold regardless of which way the issue of CAGW is resolved!
Let me be very clear about that. CAGW is an unproven hypothesis because the science is far from settled and the evidence of catatrophe is so weak that not even climate scientists, when properly surveyed (e..g. the George Mason survey) can muster a simple majority in favor of real catastrophe and a significant minority disagree with the hypothesis altogether. That makes no difference whatsoever to the actual objective truth state of the hypothesis itself. Neither has it been conclusively disproven whatever the imaginings of the people on this blog. It remains a possibility, just as the hypothesis of non-catastrophic but somewhat damaging AGW remains a possibility, just as the hypothesis of non-damaging AGW (such as we’ve quite possibly experienced so far) remains a possibility, just as the hypothesis that CO_2 variation in a nearly saturated atmosphere has little to no effect due to nonlinear feedbacks from e.g. water vapor or other aerosols remains a possibility, just as it remains possible that the Bern model for CO_2 itself is erroneous and humans aren’t even primarily responsible for the increases in CO_2 levels in the atmosphere in the first place so that the “A” disappears from all of the hyptheses above (leaving, note well, the continuing possibility of “C”, “not quite C”, or “little to no damage” GW even without the A. Properly conducted science doesn’t jump to a desired conclusion on the basis of personal belief or a desire to save the planet, save the whales, or save the poor people (much as I sympathize with FOAI’s opinion up above on the issue). Frankly, Scarlett, properly conducted science just doesn’t give a damn.
The one really good reason I can see for violating the privacy of the individuals whose mail is in this spool is that it reveals a spectacularly callous and cynical abuse of the entire scientific process, its supreme corruption to political and personal ends. It reveals climate science as a shabby, shabby enterprise, where even those who disagree with the party line of CAGW, ameliorate at all costs however catastrophic are unwilling or unable to publicly speak up for their own beliefs and hence become passively complicit in the public amplification of science that they privately acknowledge is terrible as the basis of public policy decisions that cost all of us dearly.
This is the thing that makes me very, very angry. Possibly angry enough to consider the violation of privacy to be justified. If there isn’t a law, there should be, as just because a con game is built on big lies and played for billions instead of nigerian scam chump changes doesn’t make it any better, it rather makes it worse. How dare people like Ed Cook or Briffa openly mock MBH as terrible science in private instead of “breaking ranks” and openly denouncing it in print, in commentary in journals, in public discussions.
The only reason I can think of is that they are operating on the ethical principle that the ends — convincing the public of CAGW — justify the means — open academic dishonesty. This makes me a lot less interested in defending their right to conceal their implicit participation in a supposedly “scientific” con job. The ends, after all, justify the means both ways if that’s the way you want to play things.
To be fair, I think that a lot of these folks — Briffa in particular — has had it with the games. The most interesting part of the letter Anthony posted above is not the bit he highlighted — is is the content of the Ed Cook letter just beneath it, where Cook makes it very clear that the MWP occurred, that it was as warm as today, and not all the Mann’s horses or all the Mann’s men could make it otherwise, because even tree rings done right clearly tell the tale. Briffa — whose work that clearly showed a MWP was eclipsed by MBH almost instantly (because it was not what the IPCC wanted to see or hear) seems to have finally had enough as well.
The big question is — will they remain silent now that a new, equally sketchy, hockey stick has been created? The statistical problem is very clear — low frequency, low resolution data with terrible statistics creates a picture of the past before the thermometric record. Hi resolution thermometry is stuck on at the very end, and what was noise completely erased from the past becomes the signal of the present, even though if an event like the present had occurred in the past there is now way it would have showed up, not in the data Willis reposted yesterday.
Once again it will be refuted, and once again the refutaion will get scant space in any sort of news media. All that matters is the headline of the moment.
Sigh.
rgb
Seth says:
March 14, 2013 at 6:31 am
—-
Seth, I’ve been waiting for a long time now for somebody to explain the propriety of this particular personal email in context, maybe you could help out:
The writer could know that entertainment media is the source of “over and out” and write it jokingly to mean “it’s over and I’m outta here.” For many, this story is ‘entertainment media’.
Re Naomi Oreskes: it’s slightly frightening to discover I agree with Tom Wigley on something.
“Does “scientific” scepticism really have nothing better to do than sift through personal emails trying to find sound bites that can be passed off as impropriety if taken without context?”
I should think 200 000 emails can provide a fair amount of context.
Anthony etal herein,
Texas Senator Ted Cruz is to be the last speraker at CPAC in Washington D.C. at 5:15 Eastern time Sat. March 16, 2013.
His D.C. Senate phome number 202-224-5922.
His Dallas phone number where some smart high level long term staff are located who have contact with him often 214-361-3500.
Ted Cruz is not your normal elected type, he is way smart, he is also a normal person, he will listen, he will not back down if he has the truth and facts on his side. Sure it is that this CO2 fraud is one way of undoing the crimes in D.C. regarding this re-distribution cults work iva the climate change hockey stick etal fraud work.
If he can be helped to include some of the CO2 fraud truth in his talk Sat. the media will have trouble in making in disappear.
Like my grand dad often said when we were horse back and some 20 wild yearlings were down in the bottom land of the West fork of the Brazos River , “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained” and off the high bank and down in the brush we would go.
Tucci78 says:
March 13, 2013 at 8:44 pm
At 8:17 PM on 13 March, MattS had served notice:
In other news: Popcorn futures are up 123.4%
Unfortunately, the “sustainable” greenie grafters in the federal government are still subsidizing the crop’s conversion to fuel ethanol.
Heck, no wonder my car’s been backfiring lately….
—————————
It’s not backfiring, it’s the corn popping.
cn
Color me unconcerned with the “social damage” inflicted upon those who attempted– and continue to attempt to engineer the greatest fraud ever perpetrated against the western world.
Release it all.
I have an uneasy perception of CG3.
The release circumstances of CG3 are surely being quietly and thoroughly investigated by highly motivated professional journalists of the traditional MSM. Their confidential and high motivation is surely to be the first to out Mr FOIA. It would make their careers.
Add to the MSM below-the-radar activity the very likely quiet discussions between UEA CRU and authorities. Discussions surely on how to leverage the circumstances of the CG3 release in order to identify Mr FOIA.
What the critical difference is with the CG3 release compared to the previous two is email exchanges.
Several of the ~12 original recipients (of the original CG3 email from Mr FOIA) appear to have had multiple email exchanges with Mr FOIA using initially the email address provided by Mr FOIA for that purpose.
They have become much more vulnerable by doing so.
Surely several if not all of the ~12 recipients are coordinating their activities which again increases vulnerability to investigation.
I think to the MSM and UEA CRU / authorities the situation should appear as a likely breaking point to solve the CG case.
When Mr FOIA shifted his burden to bloggers I think an unbalancing has occurred which gives advantage to the establishment.
John
seth wrote:
If the emails indicate that many of those papers, and in particular the canonical ones, are based on flawed data, corrupt research and tainted with confirmation bias, then the answer is “no.”
Ryan says:
I’m a Brit and I travel extensively in Europe and the Far East. The English seems far too good to be English from someone speaking as a second language. … This makes the use of the phrase “There is life outside the Anglo-American sphere” a conundrum. Seems to me that FOIA is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Totally agree! And, I’m also struck by the length of the text. In Climategate II there were 137 words (from the author). In climategate III there are nearly 1000. More importantly, they style is no longer that of some software engineer but (despite the assertions to suggesting a lack of skill in the English) the text is much more fluid and lively and far more of interest to a wider audience. Much more thought!
This suggests to me [snip]…. (no point speculating). If I’m right we are in for a treat, if not
RGB at 9:12: thanks you. Always enlightening to read your posts. Your views are truly scientific in the best sense of the word. We simply do not know the over-arching truth yet and people need to stop pretending that they do.
I do despair at the “ends justifies the means” attitude of so many here in relation to releasing the lot and sod any colateral damage.
It’s exactly the same mindset that’s been seen in so many of the AGW activists, where their own political / economic / social beliefs are seen to justify any amount of harm – including the very harm that’s being used here to “justify” releasing the emails en-mass.
Seems to me that the object should be about finding the truth, not giving the other side and any innocent bystanders a bloody nose or indulging voyeuristic desires to read Dr Mann’s love emails to Kermit the Frog. Finding the truth does NOT require the release of everything to everyone.
Responding to Tommy at 2:29 yesterday, Anthony Watts said: “If you can scan all 220,000 emails and pronounce it clean in less than 24 hours, please present your plan.”
Different email clients format mail differently; nevertheless I can imagine a computer program to (pre)process the file, resulting in a more orderly and coherent file easier for humans to redact personal details not relevant to the science. I imagine the pre-processing would do such things as:
(1) Assign unique (and chronological) identifiers to each email.
(2) Replace emails quoted in entirety within another email with the email-identifier of the quoted email. (For example, Anthony’s “Second email (added after original post)” contains TWO COPIES of a long email from Edward R. Cook (each beginning with “As rumors often are”.). Such duplications are tedious and disrupt the flow for readers and redactors alike.
(I do not here consider methods of handling emails quoted only in part.)
(3) Replace phone numbers and email addresses with identifiers referencing a master list of phone numbers and email addresses. The master list need not be released to the public; but maintain the relationships of the source data and allow referencing.
Such a pre-processed file would be easier for redactors to work with; and the completed human-redacted file would have a form more useful for the public than many previously released versions of ClimateGale letters.
The best language for this might be Pearl. I would be willing to assist is such an endeavor in C, C++ or Mathematica. Volunteers for such an effort need not have access to the original decrypted file if (a) some typical portions are available or (b) its format is the same as ing CG1 or CG2.
Some of the email I read contain dialog that is consistent with talk among conspirators covering up their misleading and/or fraudulent manipulation of data, research and advocacy science. Someday we will return to governance that includes an ethical and honest Department of Justice. When that occurs, The shadow of the Federal False Claims Act will loom large over them.
nuttso fast
“The writer could know that entertainment media is the source of “over and out” and write it jokingly to mean “it’s over and I’m outta here.” For many, this story is ‘entertainment media’.”
Actually, that phrase was early military radio speak meaning “I am now done with this conversation and no more communication is pending.” After each utterance in radio communication, the speaker says “Over” meaning “It’s your turn to respond because I have finished that sentence.”
“Over and out” meant “I am finished. Signing off now.”
This little explanatory note from FOIA is her/his personal introduction and swan song all in one. It means please don’t ask for more direct contact as I am signing off and will not be communicating again – at least not from this address.
“Coziness with political activists”? That kind of find will and has gotten you no traction. Activism is fully allowed on one side, you just have to be on the proper team.
Instead, let’s get our own activism going to counter it.
In the same way, all this talk about not being funded by big oil and Republicans, even from the leaker dude, is counterproductive. Every time a skeptic says “I’m not…..” they score for the enemy. One side of the argument has gotten massive funding for decades; the skeptic side must be now funded buy whomever will fund it; it matters not who. Stop being proud of not being backed by funding. Instead, get funding.
Release the password. Let the chips fall where they may.
What concern for innocents have these thugs shown?
Release the password. Let the chips fall where they may.
All you people who don’t have any potential legal exposure in this thing and are demanding that the password be released, stick a sock in it, willya?
The emails as released in episodes 1 and 2 were cleansed for personal information. Those released recently have not been. The legal situation is different. The recipients of the password have been entrusted with a certain responsibility. It’s not your ass that’s on the line.
rogerknights says:
March 13, 2013 at 12:35 pm
C.W. Schoneveld says:
March 13, 2013 at 10:15 am
The spelling “endeavor” suggests a non-Brtish educational background.
Canadians and Australians often use US spelling. The tone seems culturally British.
IF this missive was not written as camouflage–which it would be if the hacker were Chinese, for instance–then it suggests FOIA was someone conversant in climatology, at least to the extent of having taken courses in it. That would have been necessary to sort out the first release. Perhaps a worker in the IT department.
If you use say MS Word and set the language to US English – then the wordprocessor will ensure that you use US English and flag all the ‘UK English’ as epelling errors. Anyone who has worked in intenational companies, intitutions and environments will pick up the idioms of other nations and be able to use them (even unwittingly) to hide their country of origin.
Although it is tempting, I think we should restrain the natural tendency to try to identify FOIA there will be people without his best interests at heart who are hard at work doing just that; the last thing we should do is assist.
Crispin Tickell is on the Board of Thomson Reuters Foundation. EOM.
To Jonathan Jones —
Thanks for the confirmation.
In my earlier comments I should have discussed Shakespeare a bit more. One of the comic themes running through Shakespeare is his use of linguistic misunderstandings. Different “classes” in his time spoke separate forms of English. Much comedy results from a “high born” and a “low born” having a conversation and both leaving with completely different ideas about what had just been discussed. Englishmen of Shakespeare’s time continually found themselves in front of that problem, facing it continually in their daily lives.
FOIA mimics Shakespeare. His Indian persona speaks what I will call “colonial English of the nineteenth century”. His readership, using a different type of English thinks his persona a poor English speaker. (Also his persona throws in a few example of Indian cultural “thinking” expressed in English — sounding rather funny. (As I said in my other post in English we balance two things whereas this Indian persona thinks of balance as involving multiple things.)
Anyway FOIA has read Shakespeare with more than the usual understanding.
Eugene WR Gallun
I might add.. that Mark Lynas has recently said – Halls of Shame are shameful, stepped down from a group that had a Hall of Shame.. and has said (ref greenpeace involvement in IPCC renewables report I’m a denier like Mcintyre too..
and some greens call him a chernobyl death denier, for being pro-nuclear..
elmer says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:29 pm
I like all the suggestions, keep them coming.
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down, and still somehow. It’s cloud illusions i recall. I really don’t know clouds at all.”
“I’m gonna sit right down. And write myself a letter, And make believe it came from you. I’m gonna write words …..”
or
“I told you before, stay away from my door
Don’t give me that brother, brother, brother, brother
The freaks on the phone, won’t leave me alone
So don’t give me that brother, brother, brother, brother No!
I, I found out!
I, I found out! “
Falks
It is global warming that is causing the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere as the following perfect correlation between the two demonstrates.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/from:1958/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/to:1983/normalise
It is a fool’s errand to try to control the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Most importantly, global warming is caused by the increased solar activity as the following result shows:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:732/to:1965/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1052/normalise
We can’t pour trillions in this massive hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor and pretend it’s not away from something and someone else.
CO2 is a plant food. More CO2 in the air the greater the yield of wheat per acre.
see http://www.theeuroprobe.org 2012 – 015
To Thomam 5:54 am
i noticed the “backslash” but didn’t mention it because I damn well didn’t know what such was called until you informed me. And I certainly don’t know how to create one using my computer.
The “backlash” is a “red herring” used to make you think he is not English. FOIA throws in too many such “red herrings”. He should have been more conservative in their use.
Eugene WR Gallun
To Armagh Observatory 6:41 am
Papal plural — Might be a richer joke than I first thought. He is telling us he is no longer one of the “high priests” of the global warming religion.
Eugene WR Gallun
A handful of people set themselves up as purveyors of truth and justice. Even with all the good work they have done I doubt they are worthy of that tile. Justify it any way you like but it all boils down to “we know better than you”. Sound familiar? Be careful or you may become the monsters that you hate.
@elmer:
Maybe you could use ‘Always the sun’ by the Stranglers
“How many times has the weatherman told you stories that made you laugh?
You know its not upto the Politicians and leaders, when they do things by halves.
Who gets the job?
Of pushing the knob.
Thats what responsibility you draw straws for if your mad enough.”
Notwithstanding all of the above on to release or not to release.
Very possible the very good ones of China or the Russians of hacking from the void beyond will hack attack and on wiki leaks the whole 200,000 will be on view nude to all.
What then & who the law dog who could void that?
Here are some early references to climate ‘deniers’.
Tom G(ologist): “that phrase [over and out] was early military radio speak”
You are mistaken. I was trained as a radio operator in the U.S. Army in the ’60s and worked in that capacity for a year. “Over” means “over to you,” “out” means “out of the conversation.” “Over and out” makes no sense. The last operator to speak says “this is [callsign], out,” or just “[callsign], out.”
Michael D Smith says:
March 13, 2013 at 3:14 pm
If there aren’t too many people who hold the password (it seems like only a handful), and if there is any risk of the data being “put back in the bottle” by people who can “get to” those few holders of the password, I suggest releasing the password NOW as another encrypted text. It would be an insurance policy that if any strong arm tactics are used against any of the other holders, immediate release of all.7z is guaranteed.
Don’t kid around with this. There really are $Trillions at stake here, and there are some incredibly huge investors in the Climate Industrial Complex that don’t want to see their stock crash. They are willing to commit millions of people to poverty and an early death, and do so without batting an eye. They have spent decades engineering the “supporting documentation” for the legalized theft that is a CO2 tax, and are on the cusp of realizing their dreams of limitless wealth while making the rest of us “sustainable”. Do you really think they give a rat’s ass about any of you? They want to make an example of someone. Insure yourself.
Anthony,
This is extremely good advice and everyone with the password should do as Michael proposes allowing anyone to ‘pull the pin’.
Quoting Michael D Smith (3:14 PM on 13 March):
…we have Ian W at 12:00 pM On 14 March advising Mr. Watts:
No. Precisely no. With the password encrypted specifically for the purpose of releasing it in retaliation against those thugs (warmist partisans or government officers) who initiate actions against Mr. Watts or the other people to whom FOIA has confided the all.7z password, even the least threat of the password’s exposure could be – would be – treated as extortion.
The only way for the dozen or so recipients of FOIA’s communications containing this password to avoid being treated as “terrorists” by the carbon-taxing corruptocrats is to put that password (and therefore the total content of the all.7z file) into the public domain.
As long as there are identifiable people who hold knowledge of this encryption key, they will be held specifically responsible by government goons capable of (and demonstrably disposed to) making those knowledge holders “disappear” into night and fog.
This password is too hot for any mere private citizen to hold. The only protection for men like Anthony Watts and the other recipients of the still-anonymous FOIA’s message on this matter is to get that password – and therefore every last element in the all.7z archive, the potential personal embarrassment of allegedly innocent communicants be damned – open to full and unfiltered scrutiny by anyone who cares to look.
Ffat justitia ruat caelum.
There really is no other choice.
Important update: see David Holland comment at Climate Audit which indicates one reason why it is of vital importance to sort out what is in the complete CG3 release. Even though the CRU scientists skated past the Climategate inquiries free of any real investigation of violations of FOI and environmental disclosure laws, it remains relevant (in moral, political, and professional terms) to document and evaluate whether there was illegality (I think it’s quite obvious there was, as the UK’s Information Commissioner confirmed).
It is still important to establish exactly what was done and not done, by whom, in terms of scientific practice and also legal and ethical behaviors. Click link for the full comment with more links:
Why CG3 still matters
oh, I was trying to link to this comment by David Holland:
corrected link, Why CG3 still matters
Does anyone know what perils remain for FOIA; i.e. legal perils, not just the risk to life and limb from enraged watermelons?
How about to the tune of the The Blazing Saddles theme song
The Scathing Emails
He released some scathing emails
He sent out an encrypted file
His goal it was to derail
The warmists for a while
He quelled Copenhagen and Cap and Trade
He turned dark night into day
He made those scathing emails a torch to light the way
When warmists control the media fear fills the land
A cry went up for a man with guts to expose their crooked hand
They needed a man who was brave and true with justice for all as his aim
Then on the blogs a man released a password
And no one knows his name, yes no one knows his name
I’ve always hoped it was Harry of read me fame.
He seemed to be the only one who cared.
cn
Dear Mr. FOIA,
I would like to thank you for your contribution to humanity. I have hoped for a long time that you would release the final batch of emails so the public would have even more visibility of what was done behind the scenes. I always thought that I’d like to thank you and buy you a beer for your effort and for the personal risk you took (not that a beer even begins to compensate you). However, since that’s all I can do and since you provided a bitcoin account, I will deposit the equivalent of beer into your account.
All the best.
It can be helpful to review the first email subjects posted by Mr. FOIA, as reminders of what stood out to him from early exposure to Climategate files. This includes references to some nice chunks of climate science history:
FOIA said
November 17, 2009 at 9:57 pm
pottereaton says: “All you people who don’t have any potential legal exposure in this thing and are demanding that the password be released, stick a sock in it, willya? “
The simple fact is that if the password just happens to fall into the public domain, no one is “responsible”…. except in a general sense that the UEA brought it upon themselves by failing to comply with the FOI law forcing amateurs blow the whistle in a less than ideal manner.
If however some people (as you suggest) spend time removing personal information and then release the emails … they are responsible. And the real irony is that the harder people try to do “right” thing, the more they are putting themselves at risk.
Yes in a perfect world we should protect the privacy of people in the email. But in a perfect world, the UEA would never have broken the law.
So personally, if I had received this poison chalice I would wish to hastily and anonymously release the password.
Or let me put it another way. In all the time that sceptics have been viciously attacked. Had their jobs, careers put on hold. When certain people were threatening concentration camps for “deniers”. Did even one person in these emails stand up for our rights even though we have been proved right and them wrong?
@moderators
Suggestion – this thread is getting very unwieldy. Commnetary abouut FOIA as a person and about the e-mails (s)he has released are interspersed and the lack of nesting makes it even more difficult than normal to follow a chain of discussion.
Perhaps a split into different components is now called for? Otherwise we are in for a very ‘garbled’ time.
tallbloke says:
March 13, 2013 at 4:18 pm
RokShox says:
March 13, 2013 at 3:09 pm
FOIA has made 1.25 bitcoins so far. That’s about $60.
http://blockchain.info/address/1HHQ36qbsgGZWLPmiUjYHxQUPJ6EQXVJFS
How do we donate?
First you need a bitcoin wallet. You can get one at https://blockchain.info/wallet or many others. Then you need to chose a bitcoin exchange that suits how you wish to convert the currency of your choice into bitcoins. I selected one that allows me to transfer money directly from my bank account. You provide the currency and your wallet and they put the bitcoins into your wallet. After that, you simply transfer the bitcoins from your wallet into FOIA’s wallet. The first time takes a while, but once it’s set up, it’s very easy. Use google to locate potential wallets (the one I referenced works fine) and potential exchanges.
For everyone who is badgering Anthony to release the password, unless or until someone else does so, Anthony is within his right to withhold it. It’s his choice to decide to release an email or not and whatever choice he makes, he will have to live with it, so give him a break. We’ve waited a long time for these emails to be released. It won’t hurt anyone to wait a little longer.
This exemplifies what I’ve been saying about all this being Bernysian mass manipulation. These are the tactics used 60 years ago when fluoridation of water was imposed on the US water supply.The chemicals used were and are now, poisons, Influential people were paid to shut up, a huge fraud was perpetrated and anyone who argued got called a John Bircher, anyone remember that? First it was to get women to smoke bu conflating a male sex symbol and the right to vote,, then it was fluoridation and now it is global warming. Brought to you by the late, but still powerful, Edward L. Bernays, Freud’s nephew! See the century of Self on Youtube, 8 parts and a terrific documentary..
nutso fasst says:
March 14, 2013 at 11:53 am
Tom G(ologist): “that phrase [over and out] was early military radio speak”
You are mistaken. I was trained as a radio operator in the U.S. Army in the ’60s and worked in that capacity for a year. “Over” means “over to you,” “out” means “out of the conversation.” “Over and out” makes no sense. The last operator to speak says “this is [callsign], out,” or just “[callsign], out.”
——————————————–
I’m glad someone else has this experience. I wasn’t sure if it was unique to certain countries. I was a radio operator in the South African defense force and our transmission ending was, as you said, “callsign-out”. I remember in the early days of training a staff sergeant climbing all over some kid for using the “over-and-out” ending (along with his best imitation of an American accent)…never again…for any of us.
Poptech says:
March 13, 2013 at 7:42 pm
“I surely hope Mr. FOIA is joking about using Bitcoin, as I would hope he would not be duped into using an electronic “currency” that can be hacked, hijacked and manipulated, and has no real monetary value.”
Poptech, just because bitcoins have no value to you, doesn’t mean they have no value to someone else. Bitcoins are very handy and this is a perfect example.
JanSmit says:
March 14, 2013 at 4:42 am
Having skimmed the comments, I have to say there’s one glaring omission in all the guesses as to FOIA’s nationality. As a translator from Dutch to English, I can’t help sensing a Dutch mind at work.
—————–
This was my first thought as well. I lived in Holland for a year and the correspondence I had with my Dutch colleagues was very similar to this. The command of English was strong, but there would be bits here and there that would seem odd and out of place.
The Dutch use of points and commas for numbers is opposite of the US, which is consistent with FOIA’s usage in this and previous emails.
Two other things I noticed about the character of the Dutch (compared to my fellow Americans):
1) They have a strong moral sense of right and wrong, and are quick to point out perceived injustices.
2) They are incredible direct. If you ask them a question they will give you an honest answer whether you like the answer or not.
There is one person who regularly uses the third person, has been heavily involved in the CGW debate and probably has insider access.
Say it ain’t so, Eli!
Reg Nelson says:
March 14, 2013 at 1:13 pm
As a beer-swilling redneck of dubious ancestry, I have to say that FOIA seems to me to be more of beer-swilling redneck than anything else. The evidence is obvious: I am drinking beer right now.
Re the password and whether it should be given out or not.
Mr FOIA has given us – again – a fantastic amount of information. He (he signed off as Mr, so he or she, I’m going with that) – He asked for one thing only. Not to publish the password. That should be respected. As eager as we all are, let’s not put the boot in.
He could have sold the password and his silence to the alarmists for $millions. Respect this man, people. Please.
==================================================================
The end does not justify the means. That FOIA released the info in such a way as to avoid personal harm to those in the emails by info that has nothing to do with the perversion of honest science shows FOIA’s integrity. Just because “they” used any means to reach the predetermined end of CAGW does not justify personally harming them beyond punishment for actual criminal activity and/or professional embarrassment and/or being discredited for being so unethical.
We shouldn’t be out for “An eye for an eye” but rather “The truth for a lie”.
I don’t know who else got the password but it’s in good and honest hands with Anthony.
I do wish folks would stop trying to zone in upon or ‘out’ Mr. FOIA….. it’s hard to resist the speculations about his nationality and profession etc. but as the Hero of Climategate it should be left to him/her whether to come forward or not.
Either the letter from FOIA is indeed fairly natural and spontaneous (in which case people are trying to narrow down the pools of candidates), or else it may be full of misdirection and Mr. FOIA is clever enough to make a lot of people waste their time and energy.
btw, every attribute discussed such as punctuation and style, etc. could easily be put out there as misdirection. A native English speaker of some sophistication would know how to do these things to appear non-native, and any denizen of the WorldWideWeb can now do much better than Peter Gleick (with his sorry record before them).
This kind of speculation seems pointless unless it should actually lead toward real candidates in which case we are bringing potential harms to Mr. FOIA. I have \\\\ easily available on my own keyboard (it’s a commonly sold laptop by one of the largest PC OEMs). While I do not ever use it myself, I am well aware (before this week) that it is used by certain kinds of programmers, so if I wanted to write a document that might misdirect people toward thinking I was of a programming background I might use that key, yet it would not actually indicate anything much about me except that I knew enough at least to be able to misdirect in that way).
mick of orpington says:
March 14, 2013 at 9:15 am
Halve the CO2 level that we have now and it is estimated
to just about extinguish most of the life on earth
Hmmm…..maybe THAT’S what they (Malthusian watermelons) want….
could explain why CO² going up is such a problem for them….
=======================================================================
Good start!
How about working in “He quelled the blazing prattle” (or “warmist prattle”)?
Skiphil
See comments at Lucia’s for what Mosher has been working on:
Now, given that the ‘hit and run’ marketing Mosher we have all come to love and trust at WUWT is now in charge of the DB. Can I get this straight – we shall now allow him to decide just what we are allowed to see of CG3. Yea – That’ll work. I really trust Steve not to remove anything that contradicts his, often bizarre, view of the world.
Back up the thread I defended the general idea that ‘the dozen’ should work their way through the material and release what is important and dump the personal stuff. Now Mosher is ‘the king pin’ of what we should see and what we should not. Well I think the plan has just crashed. Mosher will never tell me what I should read and what I should not. Release the password – I now vote ‘no’ to the ‘we know what’s best for you’ ballot. Mosher does not represent me. I do not trust him. Unless I see the raw material then a Mosher ‘view’ of the material will never satisfy.
I really can’t believe that you are allowing this guy to manage the process. Right up until now I had trust that, of the 200k e-mails, people I trust would weed out what was relevant and what was not. Now Mosher is in charge of the DB. Sorry – don’t trust him. How will we ‘peasants’ ever trust that what we are seeing is real?
CG3 is now a POS managed by one of the most bizarre individuals to crop up in recent years. A man who will defend the faith to the point of what?
Fine – give us a few crumbs authorised by Steve. I trust that his DB management skills won’t delete the wrong communications.
I have to say that Michael Mann’s browbeating bullsh*t against the WSJ is fantastic. He’s doing a great job…. at that. In order to call him on it, you would have had to have been completely on top of every bit of information that was secret at the time. Does anyone know if the browbeating worked?
The latest mannian outburst is against a journalist who dared to ask questions as if her questions were misrepresenting “the science of climate change”… LOL
What a freudian lapsus… No Mickey, the science is about climate, period; when it changes, when it is stable for a certain duration, but not about “climate change”. It is called climatology. Learn it when you have time between conferences and activist conferences…
Girma says:
March 14, 2013 at 11:04 am
Glad to see someone else recognizing the patterns. The charts I have been showing include CO2 derivative versus temperature, which shows that CO2 is related to temperature by the differential equation
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
with no room for significant anthropogenic forcing in that relationship. Integrating that relationship gives a very close match to observations, as it must because of the uniqueness of solutions of differential equations.
And, the detrended global temperature average, which shows that temperatures have been following the same basic pattern for over a century of trend plus ~60 year cycle, and that pattern shows no divergence due to markedly increasing CO2.
People get tied up all in knots with convoluted thinking, piling the BS higher and deeper in order to rationalize their biases. But, at the end of the day, one has got to be able to pass elementary sanity checks such as these plots provide before one can proclaim one’s complex models valid.
John Brookes says:
March 14, 2013 at 8:16 am
But please, do publish every little bit. Show people what scum you really are.
REPLY: Dear Mr. Brookes. Thanks for illustrating so clearly how academics have become mentally corrupted that politics matters more than truth. For the record, Mr. Brooks is on faculty at the University of Western Australia, the same place that houses conspiracy theory publisher Lewandowsky. Since you think we are all “scum” (even though we are taking the prudent path), after 208 mostly abusive comments here, you are no longer welcome in my home on the Internet, I’m showing you the door. Get out.
Regards, Anthony Watts.
————————————————————————————-
Geez, I wish Jo Nova would smack him down like this. Nice work AW.
I don’t wanted FOIA’s identity outed against his will as much as the next one. But then we are sceptics that don’t know when to stop scratching. 😀
Skiphil
See comments at Lucia’s for what Mosher has been working on:
Now, given that the ‘hit and run’ marketing Mosher we have all come to love and trust at WUWT is now in charge of the DB. Can I get this straight – we shall now allow him to decide just what we are allowed to see of CG3. Yea – That’ll work. I really trust Steve not to remove anything that contradicts his, often bizarre, view of the world.
—————
I think you ought to read more carefully.
Here’s what Steven Mosher said on the Blackboard:
and:
If I’m understanding this correctly, he’s working on some code to hand off, presumably to Anthony or Lucia or whoever has the zip and password and cares to mess with it, and then walking away.
” elmer says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:30 am
I smell another video, need a new catch phrase though.”
The best I can do is
“I feel like I’m fixin’ to fry”
with apologies to Country Joe and the Fish.
Give us an F
Give us an O
Give us an I
Give us an A
What’s that spell “FOIA”
nutso fasst says:
Tom G(ologist): “that phrase [over and out] was early military radio speak”
You are mistaken. I was trained as a radio operator in the U.S. Army in the ’60s and worked in that capacity for a year. “Over” means “over to you,” “out” means “out of the conversation.” “Over and out” makes no sense. The last operator to speak says “this is [callsign], out,” or just “[callsign], out.”
I side with Tom for the following reason: My dad was trained in the U.S. Army Signal Corp in 1943, and would constantly use “Over and Out” to mean that his last transmission is “Over” and his ability to receive messages in the immediate future would be impossible because his ability to receive would be “Out.” “Standing By” meant that his ability to receive further messages in the near future would be possible because the operator would be standing by or near the receiver. As a family we understood and used this protocol during the decade of the 1960s with our CB radios and walkie-talkies when we were prospecting for uranium. But around 1995 when I next had occasion to use a CB radio to talk with truckers, I was roundly laughed at for using such out-dated lingo!
Re: update 5
Methinks the Mann doth protest too much.
Anyone who reacts like that has a 99% probability of having something too hide. I for one sincerely hope there is a piece of gold somewhere in those 220,000 emails which will bury this pompous litigious fraudster once and for all.
Nothing should shock at this point, but reading the response of a taxpayer funded scientist to a journalist representing America’s largest circ newspaper comes close. Mr. Mann’s initial response is an attempt at power shaming of the first order. He thus brings shame to his office and institution. Where are his supervisors? I do hope the reporter ‘copied them in’ on the exchange.
Did Gleick care about the social damage caused to his victims ?
I also am in the camp of releasing the password.
We (as in skeptics) did not publish private information in govt emails.
We then, will not and cannot be responsible for the blow back wherever it may fall.
That and all fault lies with the original perpetrators, period.
Any “editing” then becomes the editors problem.
There is no obligation by anyone down the trail of information.
There was, however, an obligation from the folks at the top to be honest. To produce information that would allow reasonable people to make reasonable decisions.
To have ones personal life free from professional fallout is not a reasonable expectation, not one anyone one of us can or should guarantee.
You got dealt a hand and you played your cards and if you were not honest, it is on you.
if even a fraction of the 0.01% of the remaining emails have any interest outside of the climate bubble I will be very surprised… no conspiracies about Mosher sitting on them please.. most is what you would expect day, to day stuff.
To be honest I’m more concerned about UK energy policy, than emails released 4 years ago. We in the climate bubble will no doubt be interested, the public are interested in expensive energy, and damaging climate policies. (or soon will be)
Random observations:
noaaprogrammer (March 14, 2013 at 2:46 pm) on “over and out”: suggests to me that the phrase used in old movies might well have come from ’30s and ’40s 2-way radio conventions, later abandoned, so now obsolete and “wrong.”
I suspect Tucci78 (March 14, 2013 at 2:10 pm) is right that the password is a hot potato, and a source of potential liability for the twelve who now hold it; probably best to release the whole mess to the world and let the chips fall where they may.
“I will several batches” sounds to me like the result of a dropped word or phrase, not an archaic use of ‘several’ as a verb.
/Mr Lynn
@Chad:
The omission of articles might also reflect practice in the Scandinavian languages and Romanian and Bulgarian, all of which suffix the definite article to the noun – where it would more easily be lost in translation. If I had to hazard a guess as to FOIA’s nationality, it would be one of these (won’t be more specific in the interest of not clueing in the alarmies to his/her location)
It might, but I really doubt it, as a native Scandinavian speaker I’m pretty sure that this is an uncommon error to make. Anyway, I agree that it isn’t really a good idea to continue the forensic work – I respect “FOIA”s wish to be anonymous.
Remember the picture of Scot Mandia as the Climate Crusader?
Ahem…..
Nana nana nana nana
nana nana nana nana
nana nana nana nana
nana nana nana na it’s
“Crap” Mann!
phrased that badly, if only a fraction of 0.1% of the 220,000 remaining emails, have any interest, I’ll be surprised..
Mr. Watts,
Being a bit of a sceptic…….Does anyone really think that the FBI and Homeland security, never mind the CIA, is already combing through the emails send by Mr. FOIA to the “key holders” and checking their traffic? If we can read Taliban traffic, local stuff should be a cinch.
Just a thought.
No one will read this because it’s so far down the list, but I just want to record my admiration for you, Anthony. You are truly a hero. Well, that’s about all I want to say. Much love.
john in cheshire says:
March 14, 2013 at 3:32 pm
No one will read this because it’s so far down the list, but I just want to record my admiration for you, Anthony. You are truly a hero. Well, that’s about all I want to say. Much love.
_________________
bears repeating…
JM VanWinkle says:
March 13, 2013 at 11:19 am
Sun Spot says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:46 am
Due to the complicity of the M.S.M. in the cAGW media meme they will NOT report on this. Censorship by guilt association and left wing anti-science bias.
Actually, the “Ministry of Truth” is all inclusive. Fauxnews is not covering this, as an example. It looks like the net is our only salvation as all media sources sing the from the same hymn book, and in MoT hymn book you won’t even get “Move along, nothing to see here….” for this seismic story.
Now which pill was it? Red or blue?
————————————————-
KITEFREAK says:
I was going to say that sunspot was spot on. You both are.
I agree with other commenters that we shouldn’t act as an army of armchair sleuths, by trying to guess his identity and jeopardising the cover of FOIA – essentially doing the work of people who would wish him harm, for them.
But the people who would wish him harm have plenty of resources to throw at these things and will linguistically analyse that statement of his ’til the computers have smoke coming out of the back of them. What will infuriate these ‘boffins’,is that the bitcoin reference (which I agree was meant ironically by FOIA) shows that this person is a very tech-savvy and has a good moral compass by giving publicity to bitcoin, since it is a decentralised, open-source,distributed-computing, non-corruptable currency with limited issuance potential where transactions do not go through the banks. WordPress and Reddit accept bitcoin payments. Bitpay (one of the new bitcoin payment providers) just celebrated it’s 10,000 (then thousandth) live bitcoin payment with zero fraud amongst them. Point is, bitcoin is the middle finger to the establishment, so well done FOIA, some of us got the joke. In fact it’s more than that – it’s a nightmare for them; people being able to transact amongst themselves, securely, without going through the banks? They can’t have that can they?
So I’ll credit FOIA’s bitcoin address once I’ve bought mine, which I’ll be doing once the price stabilises, or at least gets off the ramp it’s on. It’s easy to setup a bitcoin wallet online once you’ve looked into it a bit. Took me a few hours of research I’ll admit. I set up a wallet on blockchain.info the other day, before I saw this news.
Anyone who likes my comment please send funds to my bitcoin address:
kdsjbg3ke5r04398503. That’s a joke, by the way! I just typed randomly on the keyboard!
That joke was done in the same style as the FOIA reference, though I’m sure his address is genuine (humour’s a complicated thing sometimes, and often loses a lot in the translation. Bitcoin, on the other hand, loses nothing in the decryption).
I hope Elmer and the crew do another song. This is folk history in the making.
And of course, I never discount the possibility that FOIA is actually ‘working’ for TPTB and we are all being led a merry dance.
Joe Prins says:
March 14, 2013 at 3:28 pm
Mr. Watts,
Being a bit of a sceptic…….Does anyone really think that the FBI and Homeland security, never mind the CIA,rnet
Yes, because they can not decrypt the information. The fear is that someone of the FOIA’s supposed 12 are compromised. The intelligence officers loves going after people, and they might have already. The key issue is to not trust anyone and encrypt that key, release it on the internet, and have a backup plan. FOIA had a backup plan for the emails. I hope the people with the key is not stupid enough to think that they are safe, and make similar arrangements. I do hope FOIA left instructiones. It might all be over for all we know.
FOIA thinking about this sure has encrypted copies though 🙂
Chuck Nolan says:
March 14, 2013 at 12:28 pm
I’ve always hoped it was Harry of read me fame.
He seemed to be the only one who cared.
cn
______________
What about Brifa?
rgbatduke says, (March 14, 2013 at 9:12 am): “…going through people’s mail without their explicit permission is a serious ethical violation … the potential damage associated with corruption of science revealed by the communications vastly outweighs that caused by mere child pornography … violating the privacy of the individuals … the violation of privacy …”
=============================================================
There is no violation of privacy, because their work mail accounts are not private and those “scientists” are not supposed to use them for any private purpose. Their work mail accounts are a part of their work and do not belong to them. Their mails on those accounts do not belong to them either and can be legally examined any time by the employers without any permission of those “scientists”. Your “privacy” argumentation is completely irrelevant to the case.
Well, in this case not only employers will read them, but this is another story and has nothing to do with privacy.
“My name is Anne Jolis, and I’m with the Wall Street Journal Europe, based in
London. I’m working on a piece about climate change, and specifically the growing
questions that people outside the field have about the methods and processes used by climatologists and other climate-change scientists – and, necessarily, about the conclusions that result. The idea came from the recent controversy that has arisen once again over Steve McIntyre, the publication of the full Yamal data used in Keith Briffa’s work. This of course raises questions among climate scientists, and observers, about whether the so called “hockey stick” graph of global temperatures , as produced by Dr. Briffa and originally by yourself, was drawn from narrow data which, and then when broadened to include a wider range of available dendroclimatological data, seems to show no important spike in global temperatures in the last 100 year .
——
Mann says: “You don’t seem to be aware of the fact that our original “Hockey Stick”
reconstruction didn’t even use the “Yamal” data.
=====
Seems Mann has a reading comprehension issue.
Kitefreak says:
“Fauxnews is not covering this, as an example.”
That is because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
How many times??? With 220 000 emails involved there’s a good chance that there will be material which is embarassing (or worse) for people completely unrelated to the Team.
Have they discussed potential dirt on their adversaries? Have they shared gossip about other people in the office (non-team members)? Is there information that might harm their families (who have NOTHING to do with any harm they may have caused)? We don’t know, and we don’t need to find out just to make the Team members squirm. #
There’s a very old saying that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. It seems there are a lot of people here who’ve forgotten that.
Michael Mann seems to have thrown the kitchen sink, the neighbor’s dog and some kid toys at Anne Jolis in (dried up, time worn) defense of his hockey stick.
Poor fellow forgot to mention his Nobel Peace Prize for his hockey stick work. ….smile.
….Lady in Red
Gavin must know, Because he writes beautifully, quite elequantly infact, and can’t possible be willingly be sunken down to Hansens ans Manns extreme weather babble. But he bought the crap and now he has no choise but to stick with it, like so many others.
If there is anything we should take away from these emails, except from guilt, anger, fear and flying fingers is those that tried. Those that was lost in a corner but saw no way out. They should be vetted, like they are not by this crowd, and let loose.
We have a situation where good people are held hostage to very bad ideas, and I for one think we should honor the goodness in man and let actions be questions for the law. Where everyone else is let free. Manipulation can happen to us all.
If we wan’t to end this then a way out is way more effective then a blaming finger.
Mark Bofill says:
March 14, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Skiphil
See comments at Lucia’s for what Mosher has been working on:
……
I think you ought to read more carefully.
Here’s what Steven Mosher said on the Blackboard:
===================================================
Mark Bofill, I agree with your take on this, but want to point out for others arriving on the thread that I was not the one taking shots at Mr. Mosher. While I recognize that he finds himself in some controversies on the blogs, I typically don’t know enough to challenge his data work and in any case I have no reason to think he is not approaching these issues with integrity and determination by his own light. I regret that he and others sometimes don’t seem to get along, but I think he deserves much gratitude for his contributions to understanding Climategate and many other discussions around the web. I was only pointing out that he had developed script to aid in the process of sorting out the 220,000 emails, however that task may proceed now.
I don’t have any impression that Mosher is solely in charge of or control of the process now. His own comments note that he is stepping away after preparing the script and condordance to enable others to work. The various bloggers who have the password presumably have or can get access to the zip file, and they can decide what to do from there. Mr. FOIA requested that the password NOT be posted openly so I think that the Hero of Climategate deserves great respect for that request. How the 220,000+ emails will be sorted at this point, few of us have any knowledge. There may be several projects and/or divisions of labor.
Anthony
In regard to Brookes, There is a large servant class of the global warming industry in this country that has waxed arrogant and grown fat on the proceeds of a corrupt and morally bankrupt political class. We have an election in September. And the CAGW gravy train hits the end of the line. The ALP (possible the most corrupt political machine in the western parliamentary systems) will be trounced in the polls by a constituency that can no longer stomach its lies and corruption. Brookes is typical of the class – going out with all the dignity of a trapped rat.
Where is Ms Eliza Doolittle from?
JanSmit: As a translator from Dutch to English, I can’t help sensing a Dutch mind at work.
normalnew: About the letter. There is something about it that make me think it’s a fellow Norwegian
Espen: I’m not a native English speaker myself, … possible native language to one of the slavic languages (except Bulgarian), the baltic languages or the Finno-Permic languages (Finnish, Saami, Estonian).
Enjoying the speculation (Climate Audit) “Climate protection” also translates nicely to Finnish (ilmastonsuojelu, ilmasto = climate, suojelu = protection). I believe there are no equally fitting ways of saying this in swedish, norwegian, danish or german. So that narrows it down a bit. Finnish and Hungarian have some similarities in grammar but I still feel this must be a Finn.
Coldish (Climate Audit) ‘Climate protection’ is a literal translation of the common German term ‘Klimaschutz’
hro001 (Climate Audit) “The quirks of grammar/sentence structure that some have noticed remind me of the those that one might encounter when talking/writing to a Quebecois and/or other francophone who has become fluently bilingual (but whose mother tongue is French, rather than English). “
Oscar Bajner. (I think jokingly) Rules how out England, Wales, Scotland, Americans, French, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Swiss, Scandinavians, & “the rest” (Irish, Antipodean/Canadian) and … by eliminating the impossible, what remains, however improbable, is that our boy is:
South African — Vat Hom, Fluffy! Skrik vir niks boet!
wws the phrase “It’s easy for many of us in the western world” to me rules out Russia,
Ryan says:But the writer does say he is a part of the Western world (so not Indian..
pottereatonCould be a Canadian but I don’t think so. Uses phrases like “game-changer” and “over and out” that while not exclusively American are probably used here more often than elsewhere.
Armagh Observatory: Eugene WR Gallun draws attention to the phrase used by FOIA – “Papal Plural” ie “we” meaning himself. It would be strange for a Brit to use this phrase …. We would use the phrase “the royal we” in this context.
Reed Coray: he/she has excellent command of the English language. … my gut feeling tells me he/she is from an English speaking environment.
Pat Frank: F writes English with a completely American idiom. His syntax also has none of the subtle errors that betray a foreign first language. All-in-all, he’s a native American speaker.
DubFOIA’s native language might be revealed in his expression, “hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor.” This awkwardness of this expression in English indicates it is a literal translation from a different language.
SimonThe covering note has clearly been machine translated from some other language.
Chad WozniakThe omission of articles might also reflect practice in the Scandinavian languages and Romanian and Bulgarian,
Philip BradleyI find it difficult to believe the above wasn’t written by a native English speaker. I’ve read it carefully, and there are none of those small things that result from translating from a foreign language that don’t sound quite right to a native English speaker.
Eugene WR GallunIt seems to me –
The persona of FOIA is that of an Indian who has learned English as a second language.
[snip] … this got too long so, to see my analysis and comments see my Scottish Sceptic blog
I have to agree with the many comments that call for an end to speculation on the identity of FOIA. I can’t see what the benefit is in that activity.
While there has been much mirth around the efforts of the law enforcement bodies in this, it appears that they have given the search for the ‘culprit’ a real crack and have come up empty-handed. That makes sense. Whoever FOIA is, they clearly have some smarts that would make it very difficult to locate them (or at least prove that they are responsible).
So, if the cops have not been able to track FOIA down, it has to be asked what hope a bunch of commentators have?
Surely it is more productive to look at what FOIA has said about their motives and how we, all in our own little way, can amplify the message.
For me, this chap has been one of the better advocates of my own interest in the whole global warming thing – the effects on the poorest of the world. I am a simple man and I say one thing – electricity for all. The undertones of the alarmist message smells, to me, like it will lead to people who need and deserve an accessible energy source not getting it.
This FOIA chap seems to really get that and is completely motivated by that.
I would suggest that we collectively swing away from the minutia of the ‘science’ of AGW and create a movement around the very simple principle – everyone deserves to have abundant energy and, right now, this can be delivered through carbon based sources – and therefore, that is how it should be delivered.
We should rally against the notion that ANY argument or concern is more important than the welfare of the “millions and billions” who struggle with the lack of a reliable and abundant energy source.
With that as our ultimate message, who really cares about who FOIA is. It’s just not that important. Finding out will not advance the cause one bit.
This is a very, very hot potato. Make no mistake, although quiet, Mann(iacs) and their puppet-masters are currently all up in arms over this, .. behind the curtain. I just hope “The 12” have taken extreme precautions. Perhaps, announcing some sort of automatic public domain release of the password, if things go awry. I would assume software geeks could write such a script in no time flat. This would be a good deterrent for any hard-ball (if not worse) tactics.
Just a thought …
Nobody will listen, unless the funding is cut off.
Although I don’t believe that in any of these 200k+ e-mail will be found any solid scientific evidence of wrong doing (hope I’m mistaken), I truly believe it will show a solid pattern of the intent to deceit and suppress opposing views. Perhaps, incriminating correspondence should be compiled in such a fashion to unmistakably reveal this.
Good luck!
Yeah, Hansen, Mann, teddy, Jones , Briffa, Tiff,gavin, , they are all in there. And I will see them hang.
But sometimes briffa didn’t believe it all. And what is an investigation. Bow it up
Noone
I think I might know who FOIA is. Although, not how s/he came by the emails, But as s/he says ‘Combination of several rather improbable prerequisites just wouldn’t occur again for anyone else in the foreseeable future.’
“nutso fasst says:
Tom G(ologist): “that phrase [over and out] was early military radio speak”
You are mistaken. I was trained as a radio operator in the U.S. Army in the ’60s and worked in that capacity for a year. “Over” means “over to you,” “out” means “out of the conversation.” “Over and out” makes no sense. The last operator to speak says “this is [callsign], out,” or just “[callsign], out.”
I side with Tom for the following reason: My dad was trained in the U.S. Army Signal Corp in 1943, and would constantly use “Over and Out” to mean that his last transmission is “Over” and his ability to receive messages in the immediate future would be impossible because his ability to receive would be “Out.” “Standing By” meant that his ability to receive further messages in the near future would be possible because the operator would be standing by or near the receiver. As a family we understood and used this protocol during the decade of the 1960s with our CB radios and walkie-talkies when we were prospecting for uranium. But around 1995 when I next had occasion to use a CB radio to talk with truckers, I was roundly laughed at for using such out-dated lingo!”
Esoteric to be sure, but I hold federal radio licences in a variety of services. “Over and out” is valid radio-speak. Its meaning is simple and understood by any competent op (regardless of whether it is SOP in their particular service). It simply means “I have completed my xtmsn and am turning it over to you for response. I will not follow up and am signing off as of this transmission.”
Lady in Red says:
March 14, 2013 at 4:17 pm
Yes, Mann’s goal in the email is annihilation. At the same time, he pulls all his blankets over him. Where have you seen this kind of behavior? Among three year old persons.
Tallbloke: Unresistant!
First of all, anyone who calls it “Fauxnews” exposes themselves as a closed-minded political bigot who can not accept ever seeing their political slant criticized and who attempts to devalue the source of the criticism in an attempt to invalidate it. Such a person will tolerate information only from one particular view and closes their mind like someone with their hands over their ears going “la la la la” whenever something counter to their desired view is reported.
Secondly, I would be willing to guess that the various media outlets are waiting for something to come of this to be reported. So far the only information we really have is that the password has been released and the emails are being sifted through but we are a bit short of content so far. Until there really is anything substantial above and beyond what has already been released in CG1 and CG2, there really isn’t anything more to say.
Ive often thought it odd how Michael Crichton died after that anti-Eco novel of his.
Andrew Breitbarts odd abrupt demise.
I think Chris Hitchins would be pushing it a bit though….he was well flabby and unfit looking for years.
crosspatch says:
March 14, 2013 at 6:11 pm
Kitefreak says:
“Fauxnews is not covering this, as an example.”
Sorry, I was quoting sunspot, should have made it clearer. I am neither a Fauxnews viewer nor a political bigot, thank you.
[snip this is off topic -mod]
I see no purpose or any good in accumulating here a list of ideas, clues and evidence which may lead to the uncovering of the identity of FOIA.
You are doing their dirty work for them.
IMHO the moderators should delete all such posts asap.
Michael is a very bad Mann. And I hope he is judged in the harshest possible manner by life, the courts, and karma.
I look on him in the same way I would a serial rapist. This guy is a power mad thug and deserves everything that comes his way.
As written by the esteemed (no doubt a “legend in his own mind”) Dr. Mann;
“Misrepresenting the work of scientists is a serious offense”
Against WHO ?
Who do I call when someone misrepresents my work, the police, the FBI ? What do I say; “Hello I’d like to report an offense, somebody questioned my conclusions, they should be jailed at once before someone else overhears them…….” Is that a misdemeanor or a felony ?
I thought science (as it used to be) was all about somebody else questioning your conclusions, if they are solid you have nothing to fear. If not, we all may just learn something.
I think the only offense here is against the precious “World Saving” Doctor’s ego……….
Over and Out, KevinK
Sorry, I was actually quoting JM VanWinkle on March 13, 2013 at 11:19 am. Apologies all round.
Sure is a minefield, going on the record.
“And yet it turns.”
It seems to me that there are three dimensions to the conundrum that RC/FOIA has created for Anthony. People’s comments tend to align along one of these dimensions.
The first is a political dimensions. This is far and away the easiest of the three. The emails offer an opportunity to expose the team and turn public opinion more towards the skeptics. If politics were the only consideration, then Anthony should release all of the emails. Score one for our team.
The second dimension is a legal one. In CG1 and 2 RC/FOIA published the emails himself and blogs like WUWT simply re-published material that was already in the public domain. Here, the issue is much more involved. The emails have not been published in clear text. After decrypting the volume, Anthony or one of the other recipients of the password would face the specter of being the first to publish the emails. This is a very thorny issue. I think Anthony needs to get competent legal advice on this. I suspect his legal risks would be substantially diminishes if he simply published the password rather than the emails. I think the worst thing he could do is attempt to “clean up” the emails prior to publishing them. I suspect that would put him in more jeopardy than simple publishing the emails as is.
The third dimension is an ethical one. In a democracy, an individual has a duty to expose corruption in our society. To the extent that the emails show how climate scientists are misleading the public and policy makers, the emails must be published. However, its likely that many of the emails are unrelated to malfeasance. Is it, therefore, ethical to subject the author’s of the emails or the subjects of the content of the emails to potential embarrassment, loss of privacy and public ridicule? Left leaning people always believe that the good of the collective trumps the needs of the individual. Right-leaning people believe that individual rights are paramount. My own preference would be to attempt to prevent/minimize collateral damage.
So, there’s no easy answer.
Yale Alumni Mag. has just come out with a COVER STORY on the victimization of Mann — not one mention of McIntyre. Poor, poor Mann.
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3648
@ Latimer alder.yeah, I is especially nirked by all this “he says she says”. Most of the time I cant unravel what is a comment and what is a quote. It gets doubly ridiculous when some here quote others quoting others. Then there are ——– and sub-sessions inside a posting and the whole thing looks like yards of verbal diharrea. Diahorreaaerrrr being, as noted, the worlds biggest cause of death.
And what of the general obsession displayed here with trying to out messrs Foyer. This aint some flaming parlour game, this is some person or persons LIFE you are playing with. Get real for flip sake. Suppose one of you buffoons actually does suggest a cast iron identificatioWhither your hero then?
And the sleuthing on show is ridiculous. Like that person who said FOIA shgows grammartoo good not to be a native Enlgish speaker. ROLFMLOPG! How many native Englanders have you spoken to? Themajority of better-educated non-Anglophonesse better grammar than the majority of native English speakers. Andunless you are familiar with anglo-indian euro patoise you hvent a clue how English is spoken in the world beyond the USA. Innit.
Ive a suggestion for you, go read “The Story of O” and try to occupy your Holmesian urges by seeking to unravel the true identity of Pauline Reage, its pseudonymous author. Literary types have been on that case half a century now.
….better still, switch your attention to identifying Jack The Ripper.
Jimi Bostock at 5:15 pm “I am a simple man and I say one thing – electricity for all.”
It cannot be said any clearer. THIS is what all the impressionable college students should be protesting for (can you protest for something?). That they are instead wasting all their energy on “greenhouse gasses” is a crime against humanity.
The CAGW crowd is responsible for much suffering and death.
Bill Parsons says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:10 am
220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?
The period is NOT a “solely British numeric convention.” In my 73 years I have NEVER seen this in a British document. What it suggests is either a (wider) European source or somewhere such as South African/Boer source.
pokerguy says:
March 13, 2013 at 10:03 am
“ANyone else ever get the fleeting feeling that this could end in some sort of organized violence? I know, I know, it sounds insane. It likely is insane. But the level of anger is such that under the right, repressive circumstances, it seems to me it could happen. I know I’d fight if necessary. And I’m 62 years old.”
I did not agree with Dr Ball’s recent post for exactly this reason. I do think that all the speculation about FOIA’s real identy is likely to be dangerous to him and should cease! Possibly also dangerous to other potential candidates!
I might get shot for this but the argument made by Dr Mann in Update 6 is correct.
While we might not like the methodology, the simple fact is that if you accept the reality of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period then the statements:
1/ It is warmer now than at any time in the last 600 years. and
2/ It is likely that it is warmer in the Northern Hemisphere now than at any time in the last 1,000 years.
Are both true. I don’t agree with how he got there and the conclusions have zero predictive power, but his claims are indeed true.
noaaprogrammer (?):
If you had used “over and out” in the military in 1966 you could’ve received more than ridicule.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/24-19/Ch5.htm
http://jcs.dtic.mil/j6/cceb/acps/acp125/ACP125F.pdf
AFAIK, the procedures were standard at least as far back as 1942.
The Signal Corps is more about communications systems than communication. Your dad may have picked up “over and out” from TV or movies.
As for those truckers who laughed at “over and out,”, their lingo is a lot looser than military:
http://www.walkietalkietwowayradios.com/223/cbers-dictionary-of-slang/
Anyway, ‘FOIA’ is either ignorant of standard radio procedures or was joking.
nutso out
– – – – – – – – –
markx,
Of course this is Anthony’s place and he will decide if trying to identify Mr FOIA is off topic wrt the CG3 release.
To say to me, mano e mano, to stop doing free pursuit of due diligence on Mr FOIA’s identity is one thing. You and I can argue that willingly. But for you to advocate stopping any discussion has little worth in open intellectual discourse. I disagree profoundly with your suggestion to censor discussion.
In my personal view => What if a well thought of skeptic located Mr FOIA and exposed him publicly? My reaction would not be critical. The same way I would not be critical of one CAGW believer locating and exposing another CAGW believer who makes an unauthorized release of skeptic info.
The integrity candle burns the same from both ends. N’est ce pas?
By the way, I suggest a scenario where Mr FOIA is actually a member of a team. In that scenario I speculate he is stepping up in his CG3 email for the sake of protecting the team. I think he knows a team of leakers/hackers be easier to identify than a lone perpetrator . . . so perhaps he is providing a distraction away from the team?
John
Of no consequence in the greater scheme of things, but thank you for using the time-tested neutral-sex pronoun in English: ‘he’ (subject), ‘him’ (object), NOT ‘they’ or ‘them’, unless plural.
We don’t know if FOIA is male or female, but until (and if) we do, it’s ‘he’.
As for speculation, I assume FOIA expects it; mankind loves a good puzzle. But if you think you know the answer, don’t give it away!
/Mr Lynn
Things are not nearly so dire. What point is there be in threatening the small number of identified recipients of the password while FOIA himself has the password and remains anonymous and at large (in his Vatican hideout). I am sure that were the heavens to fall on Anthony and the others then FOIA would step in to ensure that justice was done.
Indeed.
nutso fasst says:
“…The Signal Corps is more about communications systems than communication. Your dad may have picked up “over and out” from TV or movies….”
My dad grew up in a very strict religious household where his father never allowed the children to attend movies, and in turn my dad never allowed TV in our home until 1969 when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. (By then, he thought that there was enough worthwhile history occurring to buy a TV.)
If he didn’t pick it up during WWII, my guess is that he picked it up from a magazine like Popular Electronics to which he subscribed for decades.
I considered the Cop15 Global Carbon Tax to be the third leg of the stool of the New World Order Global Government tax financing structure back in 2009. Remove that third leg and watch what happens, was my goal. Now you see the European Union global regional currency collapsing and the rest of the global regional currencies they had planned going up in smoke. The collapse of the NWO could not have happened without FOIA and the power of the Sun. I like to think I had a little something to do with that situation.
Elmer,
How about “A Mann named sue”?
Tucci78 says:
March 14, 2013 at 5:07 am
At 9:37 PM on 13 March, johanna had opined:
I wonder if those who want to provide all the emails to everyone who wants to read them would feel the same if details of every email exchange they were ever involved in (including as a passive recipient of a copy) was circulated around the globe?
Pretty much all workplaces have a ‘reasonable use’ policy for using office communications (phone, email etc) for personal matters. Accepting that people can only do certain things in business hours, they allow you to make an appointment with your psychiatrist, proctologist or oncologist this way; they don’t mind if you contact your spouse to say you’ll be late home or arrange to pick up the kids; etc etc.
This gives me to wonder if johanna has ever made use of an e-mail account for professional purposes, or even such an account set up by an employer for her job-related activities.
No “reasonable use” policy established in the workplace for the employee’s use of company e-mail accounts ever formally condones personal communications of the kinds johanna is talking about – to make“an appointment with your psychiatrist,” to “contact your spouse” with any kind of potentially embarrassing information, “etc etc.”
Telephone use in this regard is almost universally either admitted or “deliberately overlooked,” but because e-mail communications are not only retained “permanently” on servers but also discoverable evidence in both criminal investigations and civil lawsuits, employers have long since become Enronically focused upon all use of the e-mail accounts they establish for business purposes.
Except under limited circumstances (“Your call may be recorded for quality purposes” articulated every time such a recording is to be made, even if it’s not to be permanently retained in the archives), the practice of recording an employee’s phone conversations is almost nil. But e-mails are another matter, and anyone contending otherwise is arguing either from ignorance or duplicitous intent.
The professional person – by which is generally meant a self-employed medical doctor or attorney or accountant in private practice – is intensely aware of both the canons of his profession covering patient/client confidentiality and issues of professional liability, and has incentive to be as cautious in the use of his “business” e-mail account as he is in the composition of any communication that leaves a paper trail.
Every stinkin’ little bit of the all.7z archive is as much discoverable evidence as if it were the e-mail records subpoenaed from MF Global, for example, in the criminal prosecution of Jon Corzine and his associates, or in a lawsuit undertaken to recover the millions of client funds “disappeared” by these miscreants and malefactors. Their lawful ability to redact or withhold discoverable evidence in the form of e-mail records is nil.
How could it be otherwise for the C.R.U. correspondents whose connivances at unethical conduct were – stupidly, arrogantly, flagrantly – conducted in e-mail communications among their cabal?
————————————————————
Let me deal with this fact-free attack. Tucci does not know me, but is unabashed in his imputations and extrapolations, totally unsupported by a single fact.
Firstly,not only have I had email accounts in both the government and private sectors for decades, I have helped to write policies about their use. He is completely wrong if he claims that personal use of work communication channels is officially prohibited everywhere, but winked at. How he can claim to know something like that about every workplace on the planet is, in any event, the first hint of his grandiose approach.
Then, he assumes that the USA is the world, conveniently forgetting that not only has the password been given to people in several countries, but that US law does not apply in the UK.
We then get a few paragraphs of bloviating “I am a lawyer from the US and I have huge testicles – I can get anything I want, anywhere”. Hilarious. People in other countries, including the relevant jurisdiction, the UK, just giggle at this Elmer Fudd figure.
Elmer Fudd, your fantasies about ‘discovery’ in other jurisdictions (where no doubt you play the crusading attorney) are absolutely irrelevant. What’s more, unless they are considered relevant to the case, emails about picking up the kids from school etc are routinely excluded from discovery.
If you are a lawyer, I would avoid briefing you. Lots of “mine is bigger than yours”, but not much in the way of research or judgement.
At 5:07 AM on 14 March, in response to johanna‘s post of 9:37 PM of 13 March I had uttered a response, which johanna had recapitulated at 10:31 PM on 14 March and then proceeded to creeb:
“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
In other words, johanna can claim any fribbling thing she likes as to her personal experience in having “helped to write policies,” but an assertion of this nature without support (or even reasoned argument) is contemptible in its nullity. In corporate and government practices generally prevailing in these United States – and I’ve said nothing whatsoever about anyplace else, but there’s no indication that such policies differ to any significant extent in the U.K. or other anglophone countries – “personal use of work communication channels” will tend to be sharply discouraged if not explicitly forbidden for the reasons I’d stipulated, and which reasons johanna evades.
An employee making use of company or agency time and especially the employer’s material assets, including employer-identified e-mail accounts which set the employer at risk of action under criminal or tort law is not only perpetrating theft of value (as at least one other commenter posting on this thread has observed) but violating the terms of trust in the employee/employer relationship, a breach of ethics.
The plain fact of the matter is that all written materials – even these Web log comments posted under hopefully anonymous but nonetheless individuated “handles” – are potentially actionable utterances. That’s the reason why so many operators of such sites as this one engage moderation of one sort or another, and take it upon themselves to edit or censor their readers’ comments. Even a blog operator can be held responsible for this limited use of such an asset; how much more so the employer whose employee is taken to speak “officially” by way of a company or agency e-mail address?
To continue from johanna:
Even were I a lawyer (contrary to johanna‘s burbles, I’m not; I’m simply a representative of one of the Plaintiff’s Bar’s prime prey species), I wouldn’t bet money on the extent to which U.S. law presently runs in the U.K. or might run a week from tomorrow – and run ex post facto in the bargain. “No man is safe in his life, his liberty, and his property while the legislature is in session,” and that goes doubled and squared with our Assassin-in-Chief squatting behind the Resolute desk.
But that notwithstanding, those who had conducted correspondences with the C.R.U. cabal complicit in the massive international anthropogenic global climate catastrophe fraud are no more entitled to special privileges of privacy in those exchanges than is the pharmacist in his records of whatever prescriptions he may have filled for Adam Lanza in the months and years leading up to 14 December 2012.
If an e-mail got onto the C.R.U. server in any way – even if it had been simply forwarded from a recipient without the originator’s knowledge – no presumption of privacy could prevent it from being swept up in discovery incidental to a criminal investigation, a civil suit, or a citizen’s demand under the controlling statutes we refer to as Freedom of Information Acts. When it comes to actions at law seeking disclosure, there’s no more real presumption of privacy in occupation-related e-mails than there is in a doctor’s or a lawyer’s or an accountant’s client records.
That’s the reason why such professionals are taught to exercise circumspection in such recordkeeping, and why we’re subject to continuing professional education in the forensic aspects of our practices (including “risk mitigation”).
The climate charlatans of the C.R.U. weren’t so cautioned? Or didn’t have enough common sense to think it out for themselves? Well, neither did Enron’s “smartest guys in the room,” did they?
And Enron’s people didn’t get to redact or withhold their e-mails from review, struggle and squirm though they certainly did.
Then we get johanna descending into rank stupidity, fantasy, and personal insult:
As I’d said, I’m not a lawyer. What I’ve written regarding these all.7z e-mails is predicated upon what is effectively universal in corporate and government policy regarding official e-mail accounts for reasons I’ve stipulated (and which, as mentioned above,johanna has failed to address, despite her claim of having “helped to write” such policies, and the Great Spider only knows what a bollix she’d made of whatever she’d touched).
As for the matter of discovery in a suit at law, it may with some reliability be concluded that johanna has never been subjected to that process as a defendant in any such action, therefore having not the least goddam idea what a plaintiff’s attorney can and will demand, subpoena duces tecum.
And the worst I wish the snarking, pointless johanna is that her eye may be opened by experience.
Glorious news here.
Leftist tyrants meet the Ides of March meet FOIA. JOY!
I shall be spending the day tomorrow going through this wondrous new information.
Veritas vos liberabit!
I know why FOIA released the password! He found out that WUWT was coming up on 1.000.000 posts and wanted to distract everyone so no one kept count until it was past! /sarc
Really, people, no need to try and determine who FOIA is, because let’s be honest, people have been trying to determine that for years with no luck. The message has been scrubbed sufficiently that I doubt any writing analyst could determine who was the originator, even if we had sufficient copies of written material from a potential candidate to do such an analysis.
As for the general release of the emails, I can wait. While I have a copy of each FOIA release so far, I haven’t been able to go through everything contained in the first release, let alone really look at the second. I have no problem letting people I trust do most of the slog work.
Yes, everyone loves a puzzle and all the more if we have an audience to see how clever we are 😉 However, I believe we owe it to FOIA to avoid using this mystery to boost our own egos and allow him every chance to remain anonymous. Let’s choose not to speculate further.
I’m FOIA.
Clearly, FOIA is someone who had access to the files and server shortly before Copenhagen. He said so himself:
That narrows down who FOIA is, doesn’t it? WE may not know that small group is, but someone does.
I am not giving anything away here, because he said this himself.
I said it before (in my only post here): CG1 was in and of itself a tipping point. Copenhagen’s failure was a combination of two things – CG1 and the fact that the rich countries (including China and India) were never, ever going to sign on to give away the farm the way the have-nots were asking and Kyoto demanded. When it was found out that the haves were convening their own special conference, the others had a conniption fit. CG1 set the stage, certainly. People have never accepted the warmists tripe the same way since. Governments almost immediately cooled to the whole thing, and the warmists have never sine had the stage to themselves the way they did pre-Copenhagen.
Yeah, FOIA is a hero to us all – and should also be a hero to all the poor of the world. But they will never know what he did for them.
This time, on this subject the Good Guys turned out to be wearing the black hats. And the “deniers” turned out to be wearing the white hats. But for all Steve and Anthony were doing (with a whole lotta lovin’ here and at CA from all of us), NONE of it made a dent. Not until FOIA came along. WE knew they were doing fraudulent science, but dammit if anyone else did.
It all came down to “hide the decline.” It really did. Mann shot his own foot clean off. Since then his bullying has had 75-90% less effect. It couldn’t happen to a nicer cabron.
I had been praying for some insider to wake up and blow that whistle. I had no idea it would actually happen. But I was hoping SOME insider had the stones and the principles. His science, after all, had been hijacked by Mann et al. He SHOULD have been pissed. All of them who weren’t Hockey Team members should have been.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, FOIA we owe ya, Dude.
Steve Garcia
Clearly, FOIA is someone who had access to the files and server shortly before Copenhagen. He said so himself:
That narrows down who FOIA is, doesn’t it? WE may not know that small group is, but someone does.
I am not giving anything away here, because he said this himself.
I said it before (in my only post here): CG1 was in and of itself a tipping point. Copenhagen’s failure was a combination of two things – CG1 and the fact that the rich countries (including China and India) were never, ever going to sign on to give away the farm the way the have-nots were asking and Kyoto demanded. When it was found out that the haves were convening their own special conference, the others had a conniption fit. CG1 set the stage, certainly. People have never accepted the warmists tripe the same way since. Governments almost immediately cooled to the whole thing, and the warmists have never sine had the stage to themselves the way they did pre-Copenhagen.
Yeah, FOIA is a hero to us all – and should also be a hero to all the poor of the world. But they will never know what he did for them.
This time, on this subject the Good Guys turned out to be wearing the black hats. And the “deniers” turned out to be wearing the white hats. But for all Steve and Anthony were doing (with a whole lotta lovin’ here and at CA from all of us), NONE of it made a dent. Not until FOIA came along. WE knew they were doing fraudulent science, but dammit if anyone else did.
It all came down to “hide the decline.” It really did. Mann shot his own foot clean off. Scine then his bullying has had 75-90% less effect. It couldn’t happen to a nicer cabron.
I had been praying for some insider to wake up and blow that whistle. I had no idea it would actually happen. But I was hoping SOME insider had the stones and the principles. His science, after all, had been hijacked by Mann et al. He SHOULD have been pissed. All of them who weren’t Hockey Team members should have been.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, FOIA we owe ya, Dude.
Steve Garcia
Wait a minute, you just quoted Mann as “Its (sic) hard to imagine what sort of comparison wouldn’t be deceptive.” but you have just lifted that from a paragraph as though it were a separate statement. Clearly, Mann is not actually saying that what he did was deceptive. He is saying that *if* showing the full spread is deceptive, *then*…
It’s a bit like me explaining something to you by starting out: “Imagine that I killed somebody, then the police would have…” and you going right ahead and claiming that I said “I killed somebody”. Tut, tut. Not good.
Update 6:
“I’m not saying that these things necessarily cancel out
> (after all, there is an interesting and perhaps somewhat disturbing
> compensation between indirect aerosol forcing and sensitivity across
> the CMIP3 models that defies the assumption of independence), but if
> showing the full spread from CMIP3 is deceptive, its hard to imagine
> what sort of comparison wouldn’t be deceptive (your point re MAGICC
> notwithstanding),”
Jimi Bostock I have to agree with the many comments that call for an end to speculation on the identity of FOIA. I can’t see what the benefit is in that activity.
All FOIA need do, to bring about a storm of press scrutiny on the corruption of climate science … is to reveal their identity.
We only need look at the press interest in Julian La-strange, to realise the MSM love a story like this. There would be a storm of media interest. All the events leading up to Climategate and after would be re-examined. We would finally get press scrutiny of the “inquiries” which I can only describe as criminally corrupt and an insult to real science.
It would bring press interest back to an issue which those in authority hoped could be quietly forgotten; it would bring scrutiny to the ridiculous climate policies which have undermined the western economy and cost us all so much, and it would force the scientific elite to face up to the fact that they were entirely wrong to back the climategate fraudsters and that we sceptics have always been entirely right to be sceptical of their non-science..
The only thing keeping this blood-sucking vampire of the carbon industry afloat is the lack of sunlight to expose their corruption. FOIA has the power in their hands to bring in that light!
Re. the updates 4, 5, 6. These are the things that matter, not speculation on FOIA’s identity.
Could I suggest a short specific post on each of these? Packaging like that is what will get out into the wider blogosphere. Also repeat a standard keyword, like “Climategate 3” for Google, etc. and thus into the MSM.
mpaul says:
March 14, 2013 at 6:51 pm
Left leaning people always believe that the good of the collective trumps the needs of the individual. Right-leaning people believe that individual rights are paramount.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
Unfortunately, you’ll find that what many “right-leaning” people believe is that THEIR individual rights are paramount. It has to be so because you’ll find that the rights of two individuals will often conflict with each other or, more often, the rights of one may conflict with the needs of another. Which leads inevitably to an attitude of “I’m alright, Jack” if rights are paramount.
One further word on the release / not release issue. Let’s imagine for a minute that somewhere in those emails Mann digs up some dirt he’s found on Anthony (or Jo Nova, or Tallbloke, or…) that’s SO embarassing that even the Team decide it would be unethical to use – I’m not suggesting for a second that there IS such dirt, but you never know!
Should that also be released into the wild in the name of scepticism?
johanna says: I wonder if those who want to provide all the emails to everyone who wants to read them would feel the same if details of every email exchange they were ever involved in (including as a passive recipient of a copy) was circulated around the globe?
That is a none argument. The UK law required the UEA to release its emails, It flagrantly breached that law. It had a duty of care to those in the emails and it broke that duty of care by forcing the release of those email through the whistleblower root.
The FOI law is there to protect the innocent and it is the duty of the UEA to comply with that law and safely release these emails not some private individuals.
However, the UEA, the Royal Society, Parliament, Muir Russel and Oxburgh have all colluded & conspired to justice and prevented that law working in the way it was intended They conspired to prevent the FOI protecting the innocent.
FOIA was given no choice. We all expected Climategate to force a root and branch review of climate science, to out the rogues and bring back faith that the system works. FOIA gave these scoundrels many years to sort out their mess. But has a single person involved lost their job? Have they been reprimanded demoted or anything? No! Has the UEA which was the one which clearly broke the law been allowed to continue to say it was “vindicated”?
In other words, they have continued to say black is white that snow=warming, no warming=warming, etc. all because it suited certain politicians to allow eco-zealots to continue to poison the evidential base we rely on to assess climate variation.
In short, if I were a public employee, if I broke the law or saw colleagues doing so, if I then kept quiet and said nothing as the law breaking was covered up by fraud and deceit. If I knew what we know they knew …. I would have no right whatsoever to expect any privacy because I WOULD BE COMPLICIT IN THE CRIME.
johanna says:
March 14, 2013 at 10:31 pm
Tucci78 says:
March 14, 2013 at 5:07 am
I don’t know if every company has an internet policy but if they don’t then they certainly should. There have been several cases in recent years where companies w/o policies have been punished by the courts for the libel of their employees committed using the co’s network. Cetainly, when I was at work there was a written and unwritten policy for both email and internet use. Email were always said to be the property of the company and internet policy was usually ‘no porn’.
And to those who think we owe warmist any duty to protect their private information. Can I remind you just how they all cried out for more when Gleick fraudulently and illegally and intentionally released personal details from the Heartland institute … not with the intention of doing revealing any wrongdoing just as the UEA lawbreaking …. but through pure spite and intending to damage them.
And let no one here imagine that if any of our emails got into the hands of the “warmists” that they would have absolutely no scruples at all revealing them to the public. The only thing that would stop them is that they would have to remove everything which shows us to be honest individuals who are right about the science …. which probably leaves nothing but personal “scandal” … like the odd over-due library books.
I actually believe that it doesn’t really matter who FOIA is. I like to think that he/she is all of us in a way. I like to think there are many people in the world whose integrity would demand we folllow a similar path when the enormity of the transgression of reason becomes apparent. Most of us chose to lie low but not this character. You have to ask yourself why. You have to be impressed.
So, are you going to release the password so we can all decide? I don’t care who FOIA is but I’d like to see what he says. This is starting to seem like a non-event.
And by the way joanna, I KNOW the average workplace email of any personal description would hasn’t cost us all BILLIONS of dollars in wasted and fraudulent science, money that was hard earned by all of us. I don’t give a stuff what comes out if the whiff of a crime is evident. Ask your average copper if they discount evidence if breach of privacy is possible.
They (alarmists) are in general manipulative, secretive, protective and unresponsive. Same as any other power organisation. The problem is that no matter how many emails or letters get into the public domain it will not make any difference until we have goverment officials that are capable of questioning the science rather than being gullible cash cows. In order for this to happen we will probably have to wait until 2050 or so when we will see that temperatures, sea levels etc… are nowhere near what is being proclaimed. The statues of Mann et al will be pulled down and dragged through the streets and we can then actually start focusing and directing funds to proper projects, such as studying natural weather cyclitic behaviour.
In response to mpaul‘s correct assertion at 6:51 PM on 14 March to the effect that:
…we have at 2:18 AM on 15 March Joe writing:
This is entirely wrong. Joe fails to understand the nature of rights, this being demonstrated by his assumption that it is possible for “the rights of two individuals […] to conflict with each other.”
It is the nature of rights – both negative and positive – that they define what is moral in human affairs, and cannot conflict. At most, there can be confusion as to who has the right of the matter in a particular situation, but there’s never even a pretense at reasonable debate when it comes to individual rights, which not only are paramount but must be paramount if human beings are to live in each others’ company.
As for the alleged “needs of another” conflicting with the rights of the individual, there’s the deadly premise of the leftist, the socialist, the collectivist, the statist, who proposes (and undertakes) aggressive violation of the unalienable rights of certain people on the grounds that by doing so the leftist has satisfied the “needs” of someone else.
This way lies the dissolution of social comity – for no one can henceforth tolerate the existence of other people who might claim some kind of “need” for one’s services or property – and the end of good civil order as government action becomes aimed at what economist Frédéric Bastiat characterized as “legal plunder.”
Without rights held paramount, there is no society.
The “‘right-leaning’ people” condemned by Joe know – not “believe” but know – that “THEIR individual rights” cannot be preserved except by defending everybody else’s rights against violation also.
Rights are indivisible. Negative rights are unalienable, and all positive rights derive therefrom.
What Joe condemns as “an attitude of ‘I’m alright, Jack'” is nothing more than human beings going peaceably about their affairs – without harming anybody else – “every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid….”
“Ceetee says:
March 15, 2013 at 3:16 am
And by the way joanna, I KNOW the average workplace email of any personal description…”
In my experience using company assets for personal reasons, such as telephones and e-mail etc, is usually a breach of contract (Although rarely enforced).
Point of order – Anthony, can you update http://wattsupwiththat.com/climategate/ – it’s missing all the 3.0 stuff….
That statement as part of Update6 is just beautiful:
” The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”
That’s the definition of climate “science”: the data is wrong because it doesn’t match the models.
Update 6 email was in CG2
2884 in this list at Tom Nelson:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/11/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived.html
Still, a good one to remind people of…. how deceptive Schmidt and Mann can be, and how Wigley was one of the rare team members who occasionally objected (only behind the scenes). Ed Cook also has scathing remarks at times, but neither Wigley nor Cook seems to have found it necessary to air their scientific objections in public….
Further to my comment above that I think I know who FOIA is, the use of that moniker always puzzled me. Why use the acronym of a piece of UK/US legislation?
Now I get it.
JDN says: March 14, 2013 at 1:56 pm
I don’t think it had quite the desired effect.
The E-mail in Update 5 was actually included in CG2 [ http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/4666.txt ], The full thread includes Joli’s reply, interwoven with Mann’s further “responses” (for want of a better word):
Haven’t tracked down the actual article, that resulted from the above. But I was quite amused, a year ago, when Jolis reviewed his latest opus, which – from everything I’ve read and heard about it – would have been more appropriately entitled: Portrait of the Artist as an Aggrieved Mann: A Novel 😉
I had cited some highlights in The continued descent of Mann and his graph; here’s my favourite excerpt:
Hilary Ostrov
Thank you Mick of Orpington (March 14 @ 9.15 am) for sharing with us the amount of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere using a 1000 metre ‘pipeline’ analogy. Not wishing to trump you, but perhaps this was better explained on Anthony’s WUWT by one of his regular commenters a few years back (I don’t know who). Although the excellent analogy excludes water vapour (technically comprising of two gasses), it went something like this . . . .
“If the Earth’s atmosphere were represented by a large swimming pool filled with 3,200 gallons of water:
2,498 gallons would be Nitrogen (78.084% of atmosphere by volume),
670 gallons would be Oxygen (20.9476% of atmosphere by volume),
30 gallons would be Argon (0.934% of atmosphere by volume),
1 gallon would be a mixture of Methane (0.002%), Neon (0.001818%), Helium (0.000524%), Krypton (0.000114%), Hydrogen (0.00005%) and Xenon (0.0000087%) – all the noble gasses.
and the
1 GALLON left in the pool would be Carbon Dioxide (0.0314% of atmosphere by volume).
Of the SINGLE GALLON of Carbon Dioxide, SEVEN and THREE QUARTER PINTS are naturally occuring. This leaves a QUARTER OF A PINT (5 fluid ounces) which is man-made. If this amount was a small 5 fl.oz. bottle of Red Food Colouring and we poured it in to the other 3,200 gallons of water in the pool, how much will it affect the colour of the water? We’ll even provide a big whisk so that gullible people can mix it up as much as they like.
Unfortunately, some people* visualise that all the water in our swimming pool has now turned an intense shade of bright red – so a reason for taxing people (including CO2 emmisions based vehicle excise duty in the UK and ‘carbon taxes’ being introduced throughout the world).
Meanwhile, the rest of us who just want to hear the truth (and a huge apology from the IPCC) all huddle patiently around the edge of our swimming pool looking puzzled as we stare through the transparent depths of beautifully clear water to the bottom – and wondering why the world’s political figures continue to spend billions trying to prevent the screw cap coming off the top of a small 5 fl.oz bottle of red food colouring.”
Thanks to the original person that came up with this excellent analogy and I hope this has been of help to some of the people who visit Anthony’s site simply looking for inspiration.
* ‘some people’ (see above) refers to and includes Michael Mann, UEA, a lot of hoodwinked school pupils (curriculum requirement), left wing greenies, politicians, solar panel salesman, BBC employees, the Guardian’s editorial team, renewable energy company directors, the Telegraph’s Geoffrey Lean, anyone with a vested interest in wind turbines and my sister’s ex-partner Steve.
Footnote: If CO2 has increased by 8% since 1997, then it’s gone up to from 0.0314% of atmosphere by volume to 0.033912%, a difference of 0.002512%. Think of this in monetery terms instead of the swimming pool analogy. There’s £3,200 in the bank, only £1 of it is CO2 and it’s gone up by 8 pence in the last 16 years.
Patrick, these are people using taxpayers money, not some private company. They work for us. I don’t begrudge anyone their privacy but malfeasance in our names must be discovered. If not our democracy is not worth shite.
MitaBr says:
March 14, 2013 at 5:37 pm
Although I don’t believe that in any of these 200k+ e-mail will be found any solid scientific evidence of wrong doing (hope I’m mistaken), I truly believe it will show a solid pattern of the intent to deceit and suppress opposing views. Perhaps, incriminating correspondence should be compiled in such a fashion to unmistakably reveal this.
Good luck!
—————————–
The previous CG emails showed boys behaving badly and the world knew about it and let it slide.
Showing deceit is easy, stopping those covering up is going to be hard.
cn
The Mann quote is taken out of context on the front page. Mann’s a thug and no doubt has admitted things like that somewhere, but that particular quote is out of context and will be used to minimize the damage to Mann.
Just like people’s obsession with the word “trick” in CG1. They obsessed that, “see he was trying to trick folks because he said ‘trick’!” and when someone pointed out that the word is used to mean something different in a technical context, the issue died in most people’s minds. The issue wasn’t the word “trick”, it was what the trick was used to accomplish!
Similarly, the point of the quoted email was not that Mann admitted to deceit, but rather that someone who knows what they’re talking about said that his methods sucked and they would not use similar methods. But by taking the quote out of context, you’re allowing Mann to correct the context and then put the issue to bed without addressing the real issue. Foolishness.
Damn, should have read more of the comments here, there’s gold everywhere. Responding to Joe at 2:18 a.m – Collectivism is often a manifestation of fear and insecurity, not unlike any gang. Individualism is uplifting and empowering. All the greatest and groundbreaking ideas and creations came from individual minds in in search of their own personal truths. Every seed of an idea starts in the mind of an individual. Voluntary collectives are fine and good. Forced ones are evil. The real reason you and your ilk despise individualism is because you don’t get the voluntary part which is when you often resort to force or (as in this case) fraud. You will lose primarily because of the efforts of some outstanding individuals. How can you possibly hope to beat something you don’t understand. Sheesh!
Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
Kudos to the Magnificent 12 (Holders of the Password) as they try to protect the innocence of any bystanders mentioned in the emails of the Deceivers.
PS. FOIA is clearly from Kazahkstan.
One further word on the release / not release issue. Let’s imagine for a minute that somewhere in those emails Mann digs up some dirt he’s found on Anthony (or Jo Nova, or Tallbloke, or…) that’s SO embarassing that even the Team decide it would be unethical to use – I’m not suggesting for a second that there IS such dirt, but you never know!
———-
I gotta go but this should keep me laughing all day.
cn
Tucci78 says:
March 15, 2013 at 3:44 am
Stuff
—————————————————————————————————————-
Well argued, Tucci, but naive in its simplicity – a little to black & whuite for the real world.
I won’t get drawn into a long debate on it because that would be heading way off topic. But I will give you one very simple example to show just how ephemeral the inalienable rights of others can become depending on your viewpoint.
I hope you’d agree that the most fundamental right anyone has is the right to life. It has to be because, without that,, no other rights make logical sense. If someone has some other right that’s inconvenient to you then simply kill them – problem solved.
BUT, from the tone of your argument, I have very little doubt that you fully support the death penalty for certain crimes. So the criminal’s most fundamentally inalienable right, without which all others are nonsense, can be over-ridden by society’s needs for (a) revenge (which is no-one’s inalienable right) and (b) to save the cost of keeping him in a hole for the rest of his life (which is just as effective at protecting society)
Incidentally, I may be naturally socialist, but in case you’ve let that blind you, I’m also a 100% confirmed sceptic. So much for stereotypes, huh?
Precisely as expected. A sense of momentum shift … time to release a fusillade of repetitious, context-starved nothing-burger emails.
Seems to be attaining the traction/reaction level it deserves … none, to speak of.
Anthony, etal who have the keys to the kingdom,
So, once the reviews are finished. Each of you and the others your allowing to see the core data find some law breaking, a few clear signs of where a court would via judge or jury find some or all guilty of one or more frauds and or some unrelated crime/crimes.
What then, would you then yourselves be assessory after the fact, persons who “hid the crime” and thus co-conspitors.
One way out is to convey to the legal repersenatives of the guilty ones/universities/goverments and suggest the best course of action would be to cop-a-plea by a public admission and or to throw themselves at the mercy of the proper court with juriousdiction.
The pressure must be growing on many of them now. The disscussions have to be one on one now as they must fear the hackers reading any e-mails now for sure. The wife and kids at meal time are asking, “did you send any e-mail that will go public and cost you your job?” how can you be sure that “so/and/so at UEA” who does not like you will not trun you in to the courts.
Stir that pot to a boil.
” Wayne2 says: March 15, 2013 at 6:01 am ”
+1
Good call. We must be more context sensitive. Focus on the real issue. His methods.
John@EF says:
March 15, 2013 at 7:18 am
Precisely as expected. A sense of momentum shift … time to release a fusillade of repetitious, context-starved nothing-burger emails.
Seems to be attaining the traction/reaction level it deserves … none, to speak of.
________________________
HOOHAA Thanks John, for the comic relief!!!
If only you were smart enough to realize how much of yourself you just revealed…
Hilary:
Nice comment @ 4:42. I particularly liked Anne Jolie’s final barb in her review of Mann’s Climate Wars when she describes Michael Mann: His “…greatest weakness has always been a low estimation of the public intellect.”
Update7: ach and fooee to Mr Briffa. If “anthropogenic influences” were affecting tree rings back in 1996 then it should be lots more now. Where’s the evidence?
Anthony,
I know you have a lot going on here, but I’d be interested in knowing the names of “so-called” reporters who were on the take, so to speak, from these so-called scientists for information in coordinating news releases and hype related to advancing the global warming agenda.
I want to know the names of the reporters, the names of their aliases, the names of the scientists colluding with the reporters, the names of the news agencies. Also I want to know the names of reporters who pushed info to blogs to leak info they couldn’t through their own papers.
We know that Thompson-Reuters editor colluded with Anonymous in hacking the tribune.
I want to know about the level of corruption that the news agencies were involved in in faking the news. Borenstein et al are already tainted and have lost their objectivity. I want a complete list.
Love the bit about ice cores being no good. Anyone who has ever had their ice cubes pick up smells and flavors from other things in their freezer should know that. Bubbles in ice are not perfectly sealed miniature atmosphere time capsules.
Let’s all bombard our local newspapers with this news of Climategate 3.0. I can’t send it to mine as a letter to the editor, they have a limit of one per month per person. I sent one this month about the 40,000 slaughtered African elephants.
– – – – – – – –
John@EF,
One of my expectations was that commenters would show up here and say things like you did.
I think that CG3 can only increase the contextual intensity and breadth of our knowledge base. The knowledge base related to the activities and motivations of some of the integrity corrupted scientists at the core of the fanatic ideology of alarming / dangerous AGW by CO2.
John
Re: Update 5
Mann’s sputtering appeals to authority are pathetic.
Luther Wu says:
March 15, 2013 at 8:05 am
…
HOOHAA Thanks John, for the comic relief!!!
If only you were smart enough to realize how much of yourself you just revealed…
==============
No problem, Luther. I’ll be appearing at Blue Dog on March 24th … don’t forget to tip your waitress ….
I’ll leave you to ponder the origins of use for the term “denier” {lolls eyes} …
“Joe says:
March 15, 2013 at 7:16 am
BUT, from the tone of your argument, I have very little doubt that you fully support the death penalty for certain crimes. So the criminal’s most fundamentally inalienable right, without which all others are nonsense, can be over-ridden by society’s needs for (a) revenge (which is no-one’s inalienable right) and (b) to save the cost of keeping him in a hole for the rest of his life (which is just as effective at protecting society)
Incidentally, I may be naturally socialist, but in case you’ve let that blind you, I’m also a 100% confirmed sceptic. So much for stereotypes, huh?”
The problem with that argument are several. One, some judge with your mentality and dysfunctional attitude will release those criminals after a few years and thereby making the law a complete and total joke, just like Obama and his bunch of useless plods have already done. When that happens, no justice is done and the law looks like an ass.
That too, has already been done by those same judges who have your mentality, hypocrisy as it is.
The magnitude of this deceit, which has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of human being already cannot be ignored and the culprits just let off because they meant well. That is not only a miscarriage of justice but even Stalin and his cronies did not suffer such blatant stupidity and were prepared to send people to those Gulags for life or to dii. If you are going to be a socialist, the ultimate hypocrite, then at least be a complete version instead of just using selective, preferred parts.
John@EF; more like a momentum boost.
You’ve not been paying attention. Kyoto is dead. IPCC AR5 is a bust, except for the summary for policy makers, which will again fail to reflect the detailed information contained in the main report. Climate studies funding is drying up, as more and more academics fear for their career future, should their published work be tied to the climate industry.
Its only a few cranks left. People like Gliek and Lewendowsky that are standing by the core group. Mann is a pariah, as are Phil and Keith.
But go ahead, laugh and enjoy your delusions. Its what true believers do to the very end.
Is anyone plotting Ativan sales at Penn State and UEA staff pharmacies?
(Flippant comment….)
Whatmenaresayingaboutwomen Jay says:
March 15, 2013 at 9:12 am
How to wind friends and influence people.
————————————————————————————————————————
Luckily, I’m quite thick skinned, and can recognise disjointed thinking in others when i see it,
But you might want to bear in mind that part of the point I was making was that “truth” is NOT a matter of “left” or “right” because the world isn’t black & white like that. Nor are my views hypocritical – I suggest you learn what it means before trying to insult someone with it in future..
If you wish to make flawed ad-hominem attacks people based on their political leanings then feel free – that’s your right, after all 😉 Just don’t be surprised when you fail to convince anyone who’s not “your kind of peoples” that AGW isn’t the problem they claim. Hell, if I was in any way sensitive to what people thought of me i’d take one look at some of the redneck attitudes expressed here and be running straight for realclimate!
John@EF says:
Precisely as expected. A sense of momentum shift … time to release a fusillade of repetitious, context-starved nothing-burger emails.
Seems to be attaining the traction/reaction level it deserves … none, to speak of.
Let’s translate that using the the sceptic decrapifier.
Precise … as in precise climate predictions .= “we haven’t a clue”
As expected = “totally unforeseen.”
A sense of momentum shift. Any scientist knows momentum doesn’t shift without a collision they are obviously referring to some kind of impact … aka A crash, calamity.
Time … a quantity alarmists see as infinitely flexible. If it suits their needs, 10 minutes of rainfall is proof of global warming. If it doesn’t then an infinite period without warming is still proof of warming. “to release” …. in alarmist talk this only refers to the minuscule amount of data which they can mould to fit their non-science. It doesn’t e.g. refers to the legal requirement to release data under FOIs.
Repetitious context-starved nothing-bruger = (un)realclimate.
Email …. well that actually translates
Seems = consensus
Seems to be attaining = absolute undeniable proof.
Traction/reaction … the skid marks they get in their underwear from all that time sitting in front on their PCs warming the climate (not) warming.
So I think what John is saying:
“he hasn’t a clue about this totally unforeseen calamity, …. an email proves their elastic has snapped and the consensus is that there are skid marks in (un)realclimate’s underwear.
Obviously, I’m not fluent in alarmist crap … but I think that is the drift of the message.
I have been thinking on the decision to keep the password as private as it is. That being said, the longer you hold onto the emails, the longer the people involved have time to think of excuses and to think through how to spin it.
Something like this has got to be published quickly before the “glamor” wears off. I can see the idea of keeping the password private, but the truth is that you need more people to comb these emails. And something of this size requires help from anyone and everyone.
Of course, one of the downsides is that if you release the list to everyone (it also goes to the climate scientists who likewise have time to figure out what emails of theirs are incriminating and likewise have time to spin.)
So this entire thing is caught in a catch 22….perhaps a compromise in that those involved share with only those they trust so that the knowledge takes a little longer to go out. I don’t know the ideal timing and how this will play out as the scientists attempt to spin and lie their way out of this. Perhaps it is best if we just wait and let this hit the backsimmer until Anthony (or the others) finds the gold. In a perfect world, every scientist who broke the law in relation to the FOIA should be in jail and this conversation unnessary.
But in the meantime, the scientists are going to be stepping rather lightly in case they wake up to front page headlines of investigations and lawsuits coming their way. Perhaps that is for the best after all, make them sweat and make them burn dollars on lawyers to keep climategate 3.0 out of the news. All we as sceptics have to do is throw every reporter we can news at every chance. At some point, one of those reporters WILL become a hounddog and as sceptics all we have to do is keep feeding them fuel to burn.
Ryan says:
March 14, 2013 at 3:45 am
““I will several batches, to anyone i can think of.”
Hmmm, I think the word “several” should be “release” and started as a typo that the spell-checker went mad with and changed to a totally different word. My WindowsPhone does exactly this kind of thing with some of my text messages often with embarrasing results.
=============================================
Those who use AutoCorrect deserve all that they get. It is the work of the devil.
A sub navigation would prolly be in order. Scroll down to #id maybe.
Anthony,
This is priceless. Phil Jones, Mr. UHI effect? what UHI effect?, on the record in 2009 that the sea temps are what matter. About mid way down in this message posted from the emails on junkscience.com
http://junkscience.com/2013/03/14/climategate-3-0-phil-jones-complains-to-bob-watson-about-nasty-e-mails-re-failure-to-replicate-work-by-mike-mann-ben-santer/#more-37238
Phil Jones:
“What is important to global average temperatures is the marine data. I
think skeptics realize this, but it is much harder for them to do any work in this area.”
Thought there may be some interest in this snippet of an email exchange between Mann and Jones, as highlighted by commenter cbltoo at Junkscience.com ;
“I remain committed to doing this with
you guys, and to explore applications to synthetic datasets with
manufactured biases/etc remains high priority.”
http://junkscience.com/2013/03/15/climategate-3-0-mann-to-jones-circa-1998-happy-to-make-my-codes-data-etc-available-mann-to-mcintyre-circa-2005-get-lost/#more-37301
Still waiting for some actual damning info or at least something that will be a game changer … will this ever happen?
At 7:16 AM on 15 March, we’ve got Joe jumping to wholly unfounded conclusions about yours truly, writing:
…and in that as in so much else, Joe is precisely wrong.
It appears reliable to presume that Joe is a left-“Liberal” collectivist who is vapor-locked into a clichéd and erroneous impression that all those of us who are not socialists have got to be authoritarians of another kind, apparently the vengeful “law-and-order” boogie man much beloved of “Liberal” song and legend.
I don’t know if Joe is an American, but I am. That means I’m a citizen of a republic, the government of which maintains whatever shreds of legitimacy persist after decades of worsening criminality in public office only by way of adherence to the prescriptions and prohibitions of the U.S. Constitution, a mechanism known as “the rule of law.”
The sole source of sovereign authority in such a republic is the individual human being. All government thugs in these United States (including those on the payrolls of municipalities, counties, and states) derive their legitimate authority from the specifically limited delegation of the exercise of the citizen’s rights.
There is no such concrete entity as “society” in this context. When we speak of government other than as an abstract concept describing the process of governing, we speak of the officers of that institution. When we speak of society (if we’re reasoning with lucidity and sanity and honesty), we’re similarly characterizing a process of interaction among individuals.
So “society” can’t be said to have volition, intentions, needs, voice, or any other characteristic of a living entity. For the process of society to go on, there are certainly conditions that must be met, for society is the process of peaceable interaction among individual human beings – and for these naked killer apes of species H. sapiens to play nice and work well with each other, everybody needs to have the idea of individual human rights firmly in mind.
Otherwise we’re in what the Enlightenment philosophers called “the state of nature,” and not in society at all.
Whether Joe is an American or not, it’s safe to assume that he’s not really familiar with even the first few paragraphs of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776). Let’s help him out:
[Emphases in the original.]
Back to the death penalty and the concept of government under the rule of law. If the citizen hasn’t got a right to do something, the “public servants” acting in his name haven’t got a lawful right to do that something either. Pretty straightforward.
Okay. Does the private citizen have a right to walk up to a known criminal malefactor – securely restrained and not posing an imminent threat to anyone, helpless in his incarceration – and blow him away?
Rhetorical question. Of course he doesn’t. The right to exert deadly force in retaliation against violence exists only in media res, as a means of preventing the aggressor from working imminent harm.
If in the process of abating violent aggression, it becomes necessary to injure or kill such an aggressor, we speak of the protection of the victim’s right to life, not the infringement of the aggressor’s equal right to his own life. But execution? To quote Doug Casey a few years ago:
So Joe has set up a straw man, and a pretty pitiful one at that. But back to his primary error, in which (absent any reasoned argument) he dismisses my discussion of human rights with contemptible yammer:
…meaning, of course, that it would be precisely on topic, that I’m entirely correct, and Joe can’t contend against my statements. He’s got to evade if he wishes to sustain the illusion of his left-collectivist violation of individual human rights.
Any reasoning honest disputant acknowledges that in all aspects of human affairs, “real world” decisions are very much “black & white.” Always. That’s the way reality works. The determination may not be a comfortable one – certainly not always the one you would like to have gotten (“Yeah, we have to amputate”), but the resolution is always “black & white.”
Shades of grey simply mean that you haven’t gotten the resolution down enough yet. Joe knows this; hell, he has to know it, else he wouldn’t be allowed out in public without a leash. He’s simply aware of the fact that such honesty is incompatible with left-collectivist political predation, and he wants to impose such aggression upon his innocent and harmless fellow human beings.
That’s the nature of the statist political left. Who would be so naïve as to assume otherwise?
To continue with Joe:
Hard to speak of someone “naturally” being adherent to such a psychotically perverse and sociopathic political mindset, but insofar as skepticism regarding the preposterous bogosity of the great Man-Made Global Warming fraud goes, even a stopped clock can be right twice a day, can’t it?
Great truths are spoken in jest.
http://youtu.be/RrodOi72Huo
Not making objections that actually count toward anything is a universal problem in these climate wars. When Pollack and Shen were publishing paper after paper regarding borehole reconstruction of climate, I thought the work was very poor and not meaningful toward settling anything in the AGW debate. There were influential members of the geophysical community who told me they also thought the effort was misguided. Yet, these influential folks never said so in any meaningful forum that would have as much as slowed publication or funding, or shown any of the work in a bad light in public. I think it is a form of cowardice to let lousy work slide by in public.
At 9:37 AM on 15 March, Clive comments flippantly:
Lorazepam is available in the much less expensive generic formulation, and the dispensing patterns should be tracked in that category rather than in the proprietary (“brand name”) form.
Frankly, if I had responsibility for prescribing among the inferred population in Centre County, Pennsylvania, I’d be writing for clorazepate (Tranxene), which tends to have a more sustained duration of action than lorazepam and a reliably high LD50, making it perhaps a better choice for employment in managing patients at risk of attempted suicide by overdose.
SanityP says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Still waiting for some actual damning info or at least something that will be a game changer … will this ever happen?
_______________
Exceedingly few people have access to the files at this point.
We could ask you to catch up, but that wouldn’t mesh well with your troll intent, would it?
CG1 and CG2 were spun like tornadoes by those most likely to lose their reputations or have their funding cut. As a consequence, they were exonerated and their misdeeds whitewashed. It won’t be any different this time around, so let those who have been entrusted with the password do their work; truth will out and the haughty will fall–Their demise is inevitable.
FOIA asked for the password not to be released.
To do so would be an act of betrayal and an insult to him/her.
C’mon guys, we need some action. Release some of the good stuff or the story will lose momentum.
p.s. The reaction of the team on hearing that the password’s been released:
SanityP
I think the game already changed in about 2009. I see this as probably more about understanding social relationships and standings which would be very interesting for those seeking to understand how certain studies became sacred cows and who the bullies are.
Instapundit, massive web traffic generator, today linked to this post.
“CLIMATEGATE 3.0: More Michael Mann Emails Hit The Internet.”
SanityP says: “….will this ever happen?”
There’s not much science in the emails, a bit like the alarmist arguments – it is all about spin.
There is lots evidence of a culture to suppress dissent or any evidence not in agreement with their own views. In fact it is like a collossal – very expensive – media PR (or propaganda) campaign. It is gang culture mentality, you are either a member of the gang or club or you are the enemy. The gang was unable to prove ‘their’ science so they recruited scientific organisations and argued from authority and wound up the media and green lobby into a frenzy of support. Any scientist arguing against was either silenced, derided, or reported as being in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
Who are the public going to believe or support, the tree hugger “saving the planet,” supported by a ‘consensus’ of ‘authoritative’ scientists or the “dirty fossil fuel industry destroying the planet”.
The result of this fraud? Possible power cuts (the year zero scenario) and the poor and vulnerable placed further into fuel poverty, paying to subsidise renewable energy or for a carbon tax.
“Hide the Decline” it’s not about the science, it never was.
New post on Climate Audit! Marcott et al. (2013) is going down…..
Also, for (different issues) past discussion of dendro “divergence” issues, I found the CG2 email posted here to be fascinating:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/10/07/yamal-and-the-divergence-problem/#comment-404909
Does FOIA own the material in question? Is it somehow his, so that he may choose when and how it is used? Let’s not kid ourselves here, however the information got into his hands it was through dishonest methods at the very least with someone betraying the trust that was placed in them and at worst, outright theft which could be subject to criminal prosecution. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad it was done and I approve of the actions to do it, even if they were illegal. The Climate Community was attempting to subvert the law and public policy and exposure was the right thing to do, legal or not.
But FOIA doesn’t own this material. It is not his. He had no right to possess it in the first place and certainly has no right now to claim ownership of it. The purpose of its release was to expose professional misconduct and presumably to disgrace the individuals involved. I imagine that FOIA has made his request to protect the reputations of people he considers friends, it’s not too much to assume that he is connected to the Climate Community in a professional way. But keep in mind, these people kept their mouths shut to protect the ring leaders I don’t recall a wave of scientists exposing this corruption prior to CG1 or standing up to support the claims of misconduct afterwards. However honorable or decent he believes some of these scientists are, however valuable their work, they still formed part of a conspiracy of silence when they knew the facts were not in their favor.
This information does not belong to FOIA, it belongs to the public. The people who he is protecting have no right to protection. They were ALL part of the conspiracy. He betrayed a confidence to release something because he thought it was the moral thing to do, and he was right. It is also the moral thing to do to betray his trust, because releasing this information is still the right thing to do.
It’s on the key above the Return key (on a US keyboard).
Yes, it’s obvious that he’s “made smoke.”
Use of the “Blockquote” and “/
I find myself all over the map on this one,retribution says release the password.
Decency and ethics say, honour FOIA’s request and spare the innocent.
On the Cult of Anthropogenic Genocidal Alarmists, I consider the “cause” to be a zombie,
the corpse is being used as the shield it always was.Climate Gate 1 slew it, yet it marches on.
What if we put together a list of government employees, who were seconded to the IPCC by out governments and FOIA’ed their official correspondence for the relevant time spans?
As I am quite sure the Liberal appointees over at Environment Canada, were up to their necks in this mess.
What will break the media embargo on the collapse of the big lie,the silence on 15+ years of no measurable warming, would be a government announcing an investigation into the IPCC.
Unless it was the British, that would just be funny pages stuff after their last one.
Even though govt inquiries are hopelessly restricted by their terms of reference, if Canada announced such an intent, it could be credible enough to panic the UN and the team members.
As with all frauds, first to turn “rat”, wins.
Joe Prins says:
March 14, 2013 at 3:28 pm
, is already combing through the emails send by Mr. FOIA to the “key holders”
+++++++++
mail servers routinely hold local copies of emails for a period of time. if FOIA sent the password in plain text, which it appears was done, then it is quite likely the password is sitting on a number of mail servers in plain text at this time, available to a system admin or persuasive outsider.
This is a firestorm. I can’t even keep ahead of the comments to comment. The world is awash with info.
Mr Black says:
March 15, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Does FOIA own the material in question?
=========
FOIA sent the material unsolicited. The receiver is under no obligation to follow any unsolicied instructions they might receive. However, there are wider issues due to the provenance of the material, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press issues.
This is far from a cut and dried issue. That said, it would be truly remarkeable if the password did not find itself evnetually in the public domain. That event in itself would tend to show that control of information is not as difficult as many assume, and that conspiracies may be much more common than we assume.
The belief that most conspiracy theories have no basis in fact relies largely on the unproven assumption that over time the truth will come out. However, if we do not see the password eventually released this would suggest it is much easier than most believe to keep tight control over information that is reasonable well known within a small group.
Which would suggest that conspiracies are in fact more common than generally believed.
Between endlessly emailing back and forth trying to shut down opposition to their inadequate theories, did these ninnies ever do any real work? Like, WHEN?
I think the use of more of the quote renders this excerpt innocuous:
“… but if showing the full spread from CMIP3 is deceptive, its hard to imagine what sort of comparison wouldn’t be deceptive” – M.Mann
He’s just saying that if the full spread is considered deceptive, then a part of the spread would be considered deceptive too. I don’t think that deserves harping.
Tucci78 says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:15 pm
[…]
I won’t get drawn into a long debate on it because that would be heading way off topic.
…meaning, of course, that it would be precisely on topic, that I’m entirely correct, and Joe can’t contend against my statements.
——————————————————————————————————————
No, meaning that philosophical debate on this matter, while I’d enjoy nohing more than wiping the floor with you, is entirely OFF topic in a thread about the release of the password for the remaining UEA emails. The fact you think it might be on topic in this thread speaks volumes about your true intellect.
And, on that basis ONLY, in the words of FOIA….
over and out 😉
At 5:53 PM on 15 March, we have Joe perpetrating the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem (“attacking the man” rather than addressing the points in dispute) to evade the provision of substantive response, exacerbating his earlier crap:
…by weaseling in response to my calling him on this gormless run-around:
So let us translate on behalf of this socialist enemy of individual human rights and government under the rule of law:
Which is my best effort at articulating in this venue the sound a capon makes just before the axe strikes the chopping block beneath his neck.
At 5:24 PM on 15 March, heysuess had asked:
Well, they certainly had to sweat bullets over their applications for billions and billions of bucks’ worth of government “research” grant funding, didn’t they?
Telling the truth is straightforward and fairly easy. Objective reality provides an error-checking mechanism. Suppressio veri, suggestio falsi and outright lying, on the other hand, oblige the fraudsters to cobble up their con game with the simulation of a “reality” that doesn’t actually exist.
One of the great problems with the “draw the curve, then plot your points” approach of these sniveling bastiches is that it’s been really hard to keep consistency in the ginormous tower of deceit they were conniving to foist upon the population of the whole frickin’ world, co-ordinate however criminally and “pal review” each others’ garbage however obsessively they might.
Most of the grant funding applications I’ve completed over the years have pertained to seeking financial support in the private sector for various activities, but I was cautioned that when you signed off on any such an application as one of the parties responsible for its contents, you were “drop dead” liable for any deliberate misstatement of fact in the contents of that application.
Not only in a civil sense but under criminal law (as in “theft of value by fraud”).
Can it be any different when one is seeking funding under false pretenses from the public purse?
“Further to my comment above that I think I know who FOIA is, the use of that moniker always puzzled me. Why use the acronym of a piece of UK/US legislation?” [Philip Bradley, March 15, 2013 2:46am ]
Does it stand for Fcuked Off In Anglia?
“Further to my comment above that I think I know who FOIA is, the use of that moniker always puzzled me. Why use the acronym of a piece of UK/US legislation?” [Philip Bradley, March 15, 2013 2:46am ]
Does it stand for F##ked Off In Anglia?
It’s time to release the password, and end this mess. Let crowd sourcing the work while it is meaningful. If there is personal information in the emails, they should have known better.
REPLY: “FOIA” in his email to the few bloggers entrusted witht he password specifically asked that the password not be released into the wild. In light of the risks he/she took, I’m not going to betray that trust because a few whiners want it released. – Anthony
Tucci78,
I have to say I find your dialogue here with Joe far more interesting and entertaining than CG3, so far anyway.
I see rights simply as deals people strike with each other. Consent here is everything. In particular, there’s no need for any of this (essentially religio-leftard) tapping into some fquit Platonic Moral Idealspace that they all appear implicitly to claim they have direct access to and from which they pluck their ‘great moral truths’. There’s no such place and there are no such truths.
Oddly enough, the majority of them—in my experience anyway—are Godless atheists. Yet they believe in this Platonic magic! Wonderfully consistent, aren’t they?
Bottom line: No consent — no right. In which case the thing is naturally then decided at the animal level where Darwin rules. Ultimately, that’s the choice.
Stick it to ’em. You have my consent. 🙂
Even if you were to find a magic bullet the media would not headline the information, beating the green money-making and energy machine is going to be a war of attrition that they will eventually lose. Don’t rush at the work of sorting out which e-mails are of public interest and which are not; perhaps put a team of sensible scientists onto picking out selections and publish them in batches when you are ready.
Slow methodical work will bring faster results, good luck, i do not envy you your work
WOW !
Klingon Curse, ‘May You Live In Interesting Times.’
And so it is that Mann et al. Jones et al. Gavin et al. Hansen et al. are frauds and ‘Climate Science’ is indeed a modern version of Astrology.
Such interesting times. 🙂
REPLY: “FOIA” in his email to the few bloggers entrusted witht he password specifically asked that the password not be released into the wild. In light of the risks he/she took, I’m not going to betray that trust because a few whiners want it released. – Anthony
Well done Anthony.
You are a man of honor and not all people possibly mentioned in these emails deserve
to be embarrassed, exposed, humiliated etc.
I’m sure the trustees will disclose relevant material.
My congratulations for FOIA final release of the info!
I hope someday like Deepthroat you will be known and thanked by those you rescued from crushing and useless measures to deal with a mythical beast.
This is an e-mail that I have seen via another source (Facebook). It is interesting but so far I cannot verify if it is real or not.
cc: t.osborn@xxx
date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:03:13 -0400 (EDT)
from: mann@xxx
subject: Re: Something far more interesting
to: p.jones@xxx
Dear Phil,
Of course I’ll be happy to be on board. I think the opportunity for some
direct collaboration between us (me, and you/tim/keith) is ripe, and
the plan to compare and contrast different approaches and data and
synthesize the different results is a good one. Though sidetracked
by other projects recently, I remain committed to doing this with
you guys, and to explore applications to synthetic datasets with
manufactured biases/etc remains high priority. It sounds like it
would all fit into the proposal you mention. There may be some
overlap w/proposals we will eventually submit to NSF (renewal
of our present funding), etc. by I don’t see a problem with that
in the least.
Once the collaboration is officially in place, I think that sharing
of codes, data, etc. should not be a problem. I would be happy to
make mine available, though can’t promise its the most user friendly
thing in the world.
In short, I like the idea. INclude me in, and let me know what you
need from me (cv, etc.).
cheers,
mike
____________________________________________________________________
Michael E. Mann
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Geosciences
Morrill Science Center
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
If this is real, I am speechless.
The best thing that could be done is to get the emails into cronological order. That should hopefully remove the “context” arguments that the ecomentalist(best word that Jeremy Clarkson ever came up with) can come up with. Then, with a little public relations push, the block should all fall into place.
Anthony, no need to release the password into the public domain. Just place ALL the emails into a MYSQL database and link it to an online search, the way the earlier climategate emails were–the search code automatically redacts the email headers/footers, email addresses and phone numbers, leaving just the body of the email messages, which is where the pertinent info will be. A few bloggers won’t be able to read 200,000+ emails–if it takes 5 minutes to read an email, 5 x 200,000 = approx. 16,666 hours = 694 days to read all the emails. This is something that needs to be crowd-sourced.
12 recipients of the pw. Not a coincident I think.
And before the usual ignorant and parochial Leftists chime in. The number 12 is important in a number of religions; Hinduism’s 12 pillars of light, the 12 imans of shiia islam.
Readers must remember the context. In 1997, a paper was published which proved that CO2 followed T at the end if ice ages. Mann’s hockey stick was needed to ‘prove’ that the MWP did not exist so the IPCC could calibrate ‘positive feedback’ by post industrial warming relative to the fake 33 K GHE claim, the false transposition of gravitational potential energy to GHE.
This has led to 15 years of scientific fraud as governments, whose leaders represent the unholy alliance between international Marxism/Fabianism and the carbon traders, has pushed CO2-AGW as an official religion to grab taxes, power and control.
The reality is that any competent physicist or engineer with post-grad physics and substantial real heat transfer experience can work out the mistakes in the modelling. These come from Sagan and Houghton via Lacis and Hansen, also Trenberth via Meteorology teaching the false ‘back radiation’ hypothesis.
In reality, anyone who has done real GHG heat transfer measurement and can go beyond where Planck left off, plus understand Kirchhoff’s thinking, can show in a few short paragraphs the falseness of the whole modelling scam.
So 100s of 1000s of e-mails are there to justify the fiddling of data and to shout down the few honest scientists who stood in the way of this new Fascism. Now that independent people, 100s around the World, are pointing out the physics’ mistakes, 13 at present, in the models, we are in an old-fashioned power battle between the delegates of the carbon traders and renewables’ Mafia and the corrective forces.
The people are waking up to this re-run of 1930s’ fascism.
First off, THANK YOU FOIA!! I wish more people would listen. It has been too easy to dispel or ignore concerns, and of course the MSM is complicit. I am so tired of people putting their hands over their ears and coming up with outlandish justifications that allow them to continue to worship at the altar of AGW.
Second, I have no idea about the nation of origin of FOIA, but I think it’s a woman. A career change could be motherhood, that would necessitate the use of “I” rather than “we” (used during pregnancy). Since this is so sensitive, I doubt FOIA would share this risk with someone. If you held onto a secret that could turn the Global Warming money machine on its head, the list of people you could trust with it would be short (if not zero).
Likewise FOIA is very net savvy; I know many ostensibly ‘clued in’ net users who know nothing of BitCoins. Thank God they are so nethip; it means they’ve been able to cover their tracks and cull this data for those of us who are interested in the unvarnished TRUTH, and not that which is prettied up and put on display in an effort to elicit a certain response (acceding to the desire of govts and organisations to accept green measures and do with less).
The single most transformative ‘power’ in the world is energy (electricity). It enables sanitation, facilitates communication and the development of emergency services, and allows refrigeration. You’re looking at severely reducing the exposure of the world’s population to the majority of diseases and organisms that result in premature death. This is why ‘big government’ wants to control it; in it is the power to shape and mold the world into the desired image.
To the person who said a ditch can be a source of wealth generation if it is a useful ditch – spot on. There is the concept of the English versus the Spanish model of wealth. The Spanish model states that wealth is finite, ergo it must be seized and hoarded. The English model stipulates that wealth is created, generated, which is what I believe to be the case and herein you have the great difference between classical and modern liberalism. The former believes in the English model – that personal industry and resources are the wellspring by which wealth is generated while the latter wants us to believe that wealth is contained and concentrated in the ‘rich’ and therefore the rest of us are deprived. It is necessary to foster this belief because again herein lies the control of others (this is despite the fact that they know the Spanish model is a false god, but it serves a useful purpose).
Now we come to where the human animal appears little different than the other creatures it shares this planet with; why do we think that because we are tool users the need to dominate and control has been eradicated? There is hierarchy in ‘nature’; we merely use gussied up forms (politics, education, social stature), to express these same traits. This is why (as an American), the founding principles seem so key to the furtherance of liberty and self-determination. Politicians (and their supporters), however, use whatever means (in this case pseudo-science), as a cudgel with which to beat down the masses.
Really enjoy WUWT; thanks Anthony.
I would like to add a few comments for what they are worth:
1) Releasing the password: If the request not to release the password was made, then I think the password should not be released. If we want a “Climategate 4” then we should most definitely respect the wishes of FOIA. We have absolutely no idea of any repercussions that may occur if the password is released. Leave it to the warmists to be untrustworthy, they have made careers out of it!
2) GeeJam.The swimming pool is a fantastic analogy !
3) Mr. Mann writes. “Scientific tuth alone ,is not enough to carry the day in the court of public opinion. It would be irresponsible, for us to silently stand by while industry-funded climate change deniers succeed in confusing and distracting the public and dissuading our policy makers from taking appropriate actions.”
Why shouldn’t scientific “truth” carry the day? Any conclusions made scientifically must be, by definition, the truth! The “truth” we were told was that due to man made CO2 (5 fl ozs/3200 gallons (US or UK it doesn’t matter much, its still a tiny proportion), we should now be experiencing changes in the weather/climate that we were told would happen as a result of AGW.
We haven’t!. No snow in UK in the winter, vineyards in the UK, Southern Spain turning into desert, with climate refugees heading North, glaciers melting in the Himalayas, no ice in the Arctic, drowning ploar bears! The list could go on of all the moronic predictions made by the climate “scientists”. that have failed to materialise.
The truth is Mr Mann, the problem is not “industry-funded climate change deniers” that are the problem. It is climate “scientist’s” snouts in the trough, ie the public purse, who would do anything to keep their grants and funding.The truth is, that your theory is a load of tosh. The Average Global Temperature has flatlined, the only “hockey stick” graph that is emerging from the sorry mess of your creation,depicts the increase in law suits, wails of derision and ever increasing doom-mongering, from you and your ilk!
Re my earlier comment:
“Hide the Decline,” it’s not about the science, it never was.
To clarify, I am referring to the climategate emails and the corruption of science, not about scientific discourse. There is merit on both sides of the scientific discourse.
Patrick says: March 15, 2013 at 10:40 pm
It’s real … and was actually contained in CG1
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0898099393.txt&search=17+Jun+1998
CG2 contains the E-mail to which Mann appears to be responding:
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1183.txt&search=17+Jun+1998
And while I’m here, earlier I had started a response to …
SanityP says: March 15, 2013 at 1:04 pm
But it became far too long (and had many links) … So I decided to post on my own blog. For those who might be interested in my views on “game-changer” – and the To Release or Not to Release and other related matters (particularly those who are posting that which appears new to them, but in fact were included in CG1 or CG2) pls. see:
Climategate 3.0 … Of saints, sanity and premature pronouncements
Hilary Ostrov
GeeJam, thanks for an outstanding inspiration. This summer I will keep an appropriately sized jar of food coloring beside the pool when we have AGW believer types over for barbecue and a swim. At some point someone will surely point at it and ask “Why do you have that out here?” “Well,” I will say with a looked of undisguised glee, “That’s a very good question. I’m glad you asked….”
hro001 says:
March 16, 2013 at 4:18 am
For those who might be interested in my views on “game-changer” – and the To Release or Not to Release and other related matters (particularly those who are posting that which appears new to them, but in fact were included in CG1 or CG2) pls. see:
Climategate 3.0 … Of saints, sanity and premature pronouncements
Hilary Ostrov
————————————————————————————————————-
Well argued and presented common sense, Hilary, thank you.
“hro001 says:
March 16, 2013 at 4:18 am
Patrick says: March 15, 2013 at 10:40 pm
This is an e-mail that I have seen via another source (Facebook). It is interesting but so far I cannot verify if it is real or not.
cc: t.osborn@xxx
date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:03:13 -0400 (EDT)
from: mann@xxx
subject: Re: Something far more interesting
to: p.jones@xxx
Dear Phil,
Of course I’ll be happy to be on board. […]
It’s real … and was actually contained in CG1”
Thankyou Hilary. So, as far back as 1998, “AGW” was clearly “MANNufactured”.
Anthony: There is minimum liability in the release of the password. There is great liability in the release of improperly edited/moderated decrypted emails. If WUWT is “assuming” the responsibility of protecting the innocent, then they become liable when the innocent are harmed. To call the people who are trying to point out the risk, as whinners, detracts from the very people who have supported you all these years.
The situation is not legally similar to the other email releases.
No matter, we are all behind you, in this endeavor, but moralizing about protecting the innocent, is more warm fuzzy logic. It is only my opinion and does not affect my support. I wonder what we will do when WUWT and others are hit with a cease and desist order. If WUWT is hit with a multimillion dollar lawsuit, will you be looking to us, to somehow, “bail you out” GK
====================================================================
How about The Village People’s” YMCA?
Hansen dressed as a fireman or maybe a railroad engineer. (Anyone in a Homer Simpson mask would work.) Mann dressed as a lumberjack. Gore dressed as an Arab sheik. The forth one …. hmmm … maybe someone dressed as “Super Manny”?
F_O_I_A
We thank you Mr
F_O_I_A
They tried to hide the decline
But their files you did find …. etc.
I’d like to play Devil’s Advocate from a position of total ignorance.
“I remain committed to doing this with you guys, and to explore applications to synthetic datasets with manufactured biases/etc remains high priority. It sounds like it would all fit into the proposal you mention. There may be some overlap w/proposals we will eventually submit to NSF (renewal of our present funding), etc. by I don’t see a problem with that….” [Mann to Jones; Re: Something far more interesting; Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:03:13 -0400 (EDT)]
I don’t know what that’s about and it certainly might appear to be bad but it isn’t necessarily damning. Indeed, I’d be very surprised if it were bad because if it were it is surely far too blatant. So my money’s on it being innocent. I stand to be corrected however.
For example, I once wrote a quick and dirty algorithm to pull a certain kind of signal (‘bias’?) out of noisy data. I tested it with data I manufactured for the purpose.
It worked, but that’s not important right now. 🙂
Actually, this does present a dilemma. FOIA remained anonymous so nobody can be the target of a lawsuit. If a release of content can be traced to any of the 12 password recipients (or anyone else with a real persona), they become vulnerable. Perhaps a non-electronic transmission of the password to one or more “trusted” people could be arranged, with these secondary recipients working off the net to effect privacy redactions, and then releasing globs from memory sticks to foreign proxies from Internet cafes in “away” cities etc.
FOIA placed a great burden on the 12…
Our host says, “I’m not going to betray that trust because a few whiners want it released. “. It is certainly laudatory to exhibit loyalty to someone you have never met, even though his reputation is not put at risk by releasing the password.
You can consider it a type of Freedom Of Information request.
I wonder if Mann is referring to the manufactured CO2-related amplification factor written into codes used for climate model runs? These models are blatantly biased by that factor to produce biased modeled climate data at different levels of bias. How much more manufactured and biased can you get?????
Anthony
If you find something good you could selectively use foi to request UEA (or PS or UVA or where ever) provide a copy of specific emails.
I’d be like an attorney in court not asking a question he doesn’t know the answer to.
You know the answer and you want them to provide, through legal means the email you already know exists. (while their bosses get to read and learn about their science)
They don’t get to ask why you want to know or even how you found out.
If they refuse you could always publish a somewhat redacted version including evidence.
cn
To those who for some reason got their shorts in a twist because of my recent comment, I might have been a bit unclear. No, I am not trolling.
I am well aware of the first climate gate and have followed it with great interest and I am a “climate denier” to the core.
I was referring to the recent “release” of the password to the batch of emails known as CGIII.
It was to this I was directing my inquiry when I asked about “damning info” and a “game-changer”.
When will there be a release of some new “damning”/ “game-changer” info, any timeline?
Not from 3.0 but might explain the (road not taken) bunker mentality at CRU
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=2893.txt
Chuck Nolan says:
March 15, 2013 at 7:02 am
One further word on the release / not release issue. Let’s imagine for a minute that somewhere in those emails Mann digs up some dirt he’s found on Anthony (or Jo Nova, or Tallbloke, or…) that’s SO embarassing that even the Team decide it would be unethical to use – I’m not suggesting for a second that there IS such dirt, but you never know!
———-
I gotta go but this should keep me laughing all day.
cn
——————————-
I meant the “unethical to use” and the “Team” in the same sentence.
Never happen with Gleick in charge.
I still chuckle.
cn
Dear All
For information, De Freitas has finally put all his arguments
together in a paper published in the Canadian Bulletin of Petroleum
Geology, 2002 (on holiday at the moment, and the reference is at
work!)
I have had thoughts also on a further course of action.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=3052.txt
http://bcpg.geoscienceworld.org/content/50/2/297.abstract
G. Karst says:
March 16, 2013 at 9:16 am
If WUWT is hit with a multimillion dollar lawsuit, will you be looking to us, to somehow, “bail you out” GK
———————————————–
Seriously? I’m quite sure that any “bail out” will be completely voluntary.
OTOH, I would love to contribute to the fund that pays WUWT’s attorneys to defend continued exposure of the multi-billion dollar sham of cAGW.
This limited password release is just rediculous. How long will it take a dozen people to go through more than 200,000 emails? Not only do they have to read them but they may have to look into the material that is mentioned, adding a substantial research burden to uncover any wrong-doing. It will be years before each email is placed in its proper context and that’s IF all 12 recipients devote their lives to the task. It’s been more than THREE DAYS now and this site, the most viewed in the worldwe are told, has 7 pathetic crumbs to show for it on the front page. If this is the pace and quality of information release the password may as well have remained a secret.
Let me ask you this ladies and gentlemen. If this email package had been sent to a media organisation and they announced they were keeping the contents secret, except for those parts they wished to publish, how many of you would just nod your heads in agreement? The double standard here is outrageous. Are we going to say that secrets are OK when they are held by our people? Because… we say so? This information belongs to the public. It is not owned by FOIA, who either stole it himself or was given it by someone else who stole it. This email leak has turned from an exposure of corruption into a political tool now, with the gatekeepers deciding what is and is not in the public interest to know. I would not accept the media withholding evidence of corruption on their promise that they’ll do their best, it is not good enough from Anthony and friends either.
If this password is not released into the public arena soon, it will be a betrayal of the legions of supporters that WWUT and the other blogs have gathered. We are not serfs, to be given scraps from the table as our masters please. We are your equals in every respect and you have no right what so ever to this privilaged position, other than the favor of a well intentioned thief. We expect you to be conduits for information, not keepers of it. The social reputations that may be harmed are a trivial and incidental cost to the value of exposing a trillion dollar system of corruption. The public is OWED this information as it is the public who has been deceived, Mr FOIA is owed nothing. He did what he did because it was the moral and right thing to do. He is using that credit to now make demands, demands that the great unwashed should be kept in the dark from now on. That ladies and gentlemen, is NOT the right thing to do.
Use this hall pass:
Oh no,,, OH NO…..!!!!!
Some dog Russian hacker broke into the computer here at ( one of the twelve web sites) got the password and is releasing the whole 200,000 e-mails on the world wide web,,, what can we do,
oh, no, tears,, gashing of teeth,,,, ect.
Read me on the net …..
Until now I have abstained from discussing the question of whether or not it would be moral to publish the password to the “all.7z” file containing UEA CRU emails / info.
Here I go but remember this does not consider the separate legal questions, only some aspects of the moral. I differ to appropriate specialist legal consultants on the legal questions.
First my conclusion then following it I discuss four points related to and supporting the conclusion.
Conclusion – This is my answer the question of whether it is moral to release the pw and/or the unredacted CG3 emails. If a person thinks their possession of the non-scientific very personal private info of many climate scientists (which was obtained without those scientist’s moral consent) is moral (independent of how they received it) and if also that same person thinks that it is moral to let a restricted set of others have possession of the info, then how reasonably can that person think it isn’t moral for anyone (including the general public) to possess that info. I think there would be no moral dilemma by that person in some wider publishing of that info. BUT AGAIN this does not say anything about legal questions.
Now here are the aforementioned four points related to and supporting the conclusion:
NOTE: A lot of redundancy between each point and maybe wordy and some uncaught grammar whoopies . . . I admit it. : )
First, it appears that the pw was not solicited by at least some of the (~12?) recipients of the email from Mr FOIA containing the pw. Some said Mr FOIA’s pw was unsolicited, others said they got the pw but didn’t mention it being unsolicited and apparently some of the recipients are still unknown to the public. : ( For those recipients not soliciting the pw they did not agree in advance to Mr FOIA’s conditions about publicizing the password. FOIA’s dictate ‘DO NOT PUBLISH THE PASSWORD’ is not a mutual agreed to moral commitment. His apparent presumption seems to be that there is a moral commitment imposed on recipients. To me that implies he is comfortable with the concept of a small restricted climate science focused group / team / clique / club / tribe / core having a different morality than those not included. Sigh . . . . we’ve seen this kind of attitude / belief / concept before; exposed in the very emails contained in the first two CG releases.
Second, Mr FOIA thought it moral to take unauthorized / illegal possession (in 2009) of the UEA CRU emails / info. He has had in his possession for over 3 years all the non-scientific and very personal private parts of the emails; of many climate scientists on an international level. He accepted it was moral for him to possess that non-scientific and very personal private info. {see point four below and also note that we should not naively presume to know how he has, to date after more than 3 years, used that very personal private info} He implies that it is moral for the pw recipients to hold that info, but beyond that small group he implies that it is not moral to possess the info. I think this implies that Mr FOIA’s is at some level a moral hypocrite, to say the least. He appears to hold different morality for different people.
Thirdly, some of the pw recipients apparently have shared the pw and/or unredacted emails with others; either with Mr FOIA’s prior concurrence thought extended email exchanges with him or without discussing it with him. I do not know if any of the original pw recipients made prior verbal/written agreements (on no publication of pw) with those they shared the pw. But probably in some cases there were prior agreements of some kind. Those involved imply that it is moral for themselves to possess the non-scientific and very personal private parts of the emails of many climate scientists without those scientists moral permission. But they imply it is moral for others to possess that info. I think this implies that they at some level morally hypocritical, to say the least. We have seen before in the emails contained in the first two CG releases the idea that certain concepts of morality applies to only some but not others.
Fourth, since we do not know the identity of Mr FOIA then we do not possess, via normal skeptical due diligence, any full evaluation of potential moral conflicts of interests. Like evaluating whether he has moral conflicts of interest in CG or in related science research or in the IPCC or in NGO’s or in a political situation. Therefore, his moral integrity in CG3 release is not established with a reasonable due diligent investigation by skeptics. Taking FOIA at face value at this point lacks serious skeptical robustness.
John
Via Junkscience, a clear conspiracy since at least 1998.
http://junkscience.com/2013/03/15/climategate-3-0-mann-jones-plot-to-eliminate-little-ice-age-medieval-warming-era-from-ipcc-report/#more-37309
Anthony, if the twelve disciples can find between you 200 trusted correspondents, then distribute a thousdand emails to each, along with the IDs of the previous CGI and CGII, we could probably reduce this haystack to its fundamentals in a week.
I don’t think the legal aspect is the concern. FOIA’s welfare is.
If you want future sources, they have to trust you.
That’s the main point of the password issue.
Don’t want to kill the golden goose…
,I like this quote by Mann, from a 1998 email: “I remain committed to doing this with you guys, and to explore applications to synthetic datasets with manufactured biases/etc remains high priority.”
Syntheric dattasets??? Manufactured biases??? Whooo Boy!
http://junkscience.com/2013/03/15/climategate-3-0-mann-to-jones-circa-1998-happy-to-make-my-codes-data-etc-available-mann-to-mcintyre-circa-2005-get-lost/
.
Whitman: Philosophical arguments and logic. I’d rather look at it from a list of objectives, which in my case comprises safety and anonymity of FOIA, non-disclosure of purely personal information of any email participant in the text of CG3, as preconditions to the release of anything therewithin which reveals what I shall term “academic misdemeanors” in the generation, handling or modification of facts related to climate change research, policy or advocacy. If I had the password I’d do my best to “do no harm” while illuminating bad activities. Yeah, I’m capable of biased thinking. But I think we all kinda know what’s right and what’s wrong, regardless of any textbook defiinition of morality.
Why FOIA has failed.
Visit JunkScience.com and you see post after post of letters from the CG3 complete with an opinion issued as a post title. This staining of the posts follows a process of choosing which email to publish, further taintingn the process. We have Mosher sanitizing things at the Blackboard, Tatersall doing the same, and Anthony is dribbling out red meat as well. Everywhere we are seeing CG3 through the lens of others who are clearly trying to shape the story. I’m disgusted with the entire process – it is no wonder the MSM is ignoring this. Apparently no libertarians were on FOIA’s release list or we’d all have access to the raw data by now.
The calmness, it is absent…
Put a sock in it, Mr. Black. What have you contributed to this whole effort? Send Anthony a cheque for $100,000 THEN come back and complain about being “given scraps” and “we are your equals in every respect”. Catch my drift?
Or take your complaints to your elected officials, who are the rightful bearers of malfeasance by not protecting you. Anthony has done nothing wrong and owes you nothing.
Oh, and I assume FOIA didn’t send you the password, which should also tell you something.
For those whose still talking about “FOIA’s welfare”, let’s just get this whole thing in proportion.
In the UK alone. In a first world country with advanced medicine giving us some of the best health and welfare available in the world, 1,000,000 more people have died during the winter since this global warming non-science was invented.
The vast majority of those suffer because they cannot afford to heat their homes. Even more are now suffering and 1000s will die just in the UK, because of the higher fuel bills which mean people cannot afford to heat their homes.
Worldwide the total death rate from winter cold is literally a holocaust.
But that is not the only way the climategate scamsters have killed people.
There is the opportunity cost. In the third world, there are millions of preventable deaths which could be saved if the idiots who ran climate science had spent their time improving our ability to predict the known natural disaster like floods and droughts. It only takes one PREDICTABLE flood in Bangladesh to kill thousandss if not 10s of thousands … if we had put the research into saving them rather than preventing BENEFICIAL warming of 1C, those communities could now have the warming, to take action when floods or other extreme weather threaten and e.g. save crops by moving to higher ground or plant more drought resistant crops.
It isn’t rocket science to save lives … but unless you have good short-range forecasts and the mechanisms to act, … nothing can be done. And the reason so little has been done can be firmly and squarely pinned on the climate zealots in these emails.
And given the scale of present winter deaths who knows how many more millions of people will die if a new Maunder minumum brings about cooling as many suggest. IF THESE NASTY EVIL PEOPLE WHO DENY ANY LINK TO SUNSPOTS HAD SPENT EVEN A FRACTION OF THE MONEY THEY WASTED TRYING TO PROVE THE UNPROVABLE LINK TO CATASTROPHIC WARMING then we might have some idea what we are facing if a new Maunder minimum appears and what we could do by e.g. improved insulation, etc. BUT WE DON’t and that is down to people like Mann and Hansen and these other evil people.
So, for me however noble or otherwise the actions of FOIA’s, his plight is almost inconsequential compared to the millions of deaths these climategate guys are responsible for. Anyone who understands what these zealots have done should be able to understand, that the moral imperative is bring this whole issue to an end so that we can purge climate “science” of the zealots, bring in real science and real scientific standards and start dealing with the real problems like high fuel prices and winter cold that are the main cause of weather related deaths, and stop dealing with non-problems like rising CO2 WITH INCREASE CROP YIELD AND SAVES LIVES..
Sad-But-True-Its-You says:
March 15, 2013 at 9:44 pm
WOW !
Klingon Curse, ‘May You Live In Interesting Times.’
And so it is that Mann et al. Jones et al. Gavin et al. Hansen et al. are frauds and ‘Climate Science’ is indeed a modern version of Astrology.
Such interesting times. 🙂
I think you mean Chinese curse.
The Klingon one is “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Re: Michael D Smith: March 13, 2013 at 3:14 pm
While I have my doubts about the basic premise of Mr. Smith’s warning (i.e., the content of all.z7 represents a grave threat to the AGW racket), it certainly COULD be true. In any event, the rest of his argument is incontrovertible, and his advice is sound. Follow it. NOW.
No worries then. Proceed at all haste. Damn the torpedoes! GK
Rocky Road said, “Put a sock in it, Mr. Black. What have you contributed to this whole effort? ”
The point is not what anybody has contributed. You aren’t a major player, either, Rocky. What is relevant is that Mr FOIA thought he was releasing the files to sources that would publish them, not hoard them like a bunch of gold bugs. Anthony, with his best intentions, has expressed a reluctance to release the password to the world, and that is his prerogative. I don’t take offense with Anthony for calling us a bunch of whiners for bringing up the subject.
As Mr Black suggests, it is contradictory to keep the Mr FOIA password secret when the whole issue proceeded from ignored FOIA requests. The whole thing is meaningless in the long run, and will have little impact in the short term.
We are probably blowing it all out of proportion. If something in the files is really important, it is better that it come out a quickly as possible. The current password holders can only proceed at a modest pace to handle the editing duties.
Some hold, such as the late Aaron Schwartz, that research which gets government support should be made available to the public for free. I heartily agree with that view.
So naturally I applaud the leaker of these emails. It is interesting to observe that those who advocate a ‘free internet’ haven’t really come out in support of this leaker of emails.
Dave I appreciate the sentiment but the release of the PW to the general public WAS listed as one of his approved actions. He only qualified it with
If it is the best option then it IS what it IS. I realize my opinion is not this thread’s consensus. GK
Now that the shoe is on the other foot and our side has a bunch of secrets that the public would like to see, it’s interesting how many “open science” agitators on the various forums are perfectly happy to accept this closed door, so long as their own masters hold the key. I guess that a lot of people aren’t really for open science and free exchange after all, they just want to shift the power to be A Decider to their own tribe.
There is a small grace period here where the people searching for a game changing exclusive can try to find what they are looking for, but if these emails don’t become publicly available quite soon, I think the password holders will sacrifice A LOT of their credibility to demand information be made public in the future. Freedom of Information is not limited to leakers and theives who find themselves in a fortunate position, it is supposed to be for the benefit of the public. The password holders, and Mr FOIA, would do well to remember that.
Is this CG-3 the ultimate scam. After reading FOIA’s email and the lack of anything new, I have to wonder if it is real.
“… To call the people who are trying to point out the risk, as whinners, detracts from the very people who have supported you all these years. ”
I’ve supported the Coloraod Rockies for years. They owe me zilch.
“For everyone who is badgering Anthony to release the password, unless or until someone else does so, Anthony is within his right to withhold it. It’s his choice to decide to release an email or not and whatever choice he makes, he will have to live with it, so give him a break. We’ve waited a long time for these emails to be released. It won’t hurt anyone to wait a little longer.” Daryl M.
I agree!
The Truth Is Out.
[snip . . no no no . . mod]
“Caleb says:
March 16, 2013 at 4:26 pm”
That was my reaction too. I don’t recall that particular e-mail from the CG1 release, as Hilary points out. However IMO, without verifying the context (That would be probably impossible and meaningless now anyway) as the context looks fairly obvious to me, that’s enough to underscore the fact CO2 driven AGW/CC has been “made up”.
This new development certainly seems to have divided WUWT users, and more importantly distracted them from other things…. keep an eye on the warmists and keep in mind that there may be more to the timing and conditions of the password release than is apparent. Why the sudden change in the way the emails are disclosed? Why the personal message from FOIA this time? Is this FOIA the same as the first? Why has (s)he burdened the twelve with controlling the release and put them at potential legal risk? Questions to keep in mind.
Tucci78 says | March 15, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Joe says | March 15, 2013 at 5:53 pm:
No, meaning that philosophical debate on this matter, while I’d enjoy nohing more than wiping the floor with you [ …]
—————————————
LOL, that’s exactly what I’ve found socialists to be good for, “wiping the floor.” So Joe, get busy with the mop !
Laurie says:
“I’ve supported the Coloraod Rockies for years. They owe me zilch.”
It’s not about debt – it’s about sawing off the branch one is perched upon.
“We’ve waited a long time for these emails to be released. It won’t hurt anyone to wait a little longer.”
This has nothing to do with reader patience (or at least it shouldn’t). This is a discussion of risk assessment. Of course Anthony has to plot his own course, but the duty of all crew is to shout “rock”, when rock is ahead and one is sailing shoal water. It certainly isn’t “badgering” This event is still unfolding. Stay sharp – Stay frosty GK
Phew! This thread is HEAVY. I pop in several times a day hoping to see the smoking gun, the revelation that triggered FOIA to take the action they did. I hope it turns up soon.
Are the 12 recipients coordinating a structured approach to analysing the 200K emails or are they each in their own silo? Are they starting by high-grading the material so relevant emails can be separated from irrelevant and personal emails? Are they splitting the relevant emails between the 12 to avoid duplication of effort? Are their others, like blog moderators, involved in the analysis process? If there is a coordinated plan then approximately when will key evidence be compiled? When the key evidence has been compiled will the relevant emails will be publically released?
No answer tho these questions would indicate there are 12 silos.
“Dave I appreciate the sentiment but the release of the PW to the general public WAS listed as one of his approved actions. He only qualified it with”
“Dumping them all into the public domain would be the last resort.”
Yeah, but only if the SHTF.
I don’t [think] it’s doomsday yet…
Whoops.
I don’t think it’s doomsday yet.
TWE says:
March 16, 2013 at 11:11 pm
“This new development certainly seems to have divided WUWT users, and more importantly distracted them from other things…. keep an eye on the warmists and keep in mind that there may be more to the timing and conditions of the password release than is apparent. Why the sudden change in the way the emails are disclosed? Why the personal message from FOIA this time? Is this FOIA the same as the first? Why has (s)he burdened the twelve with controlling the release and put them at potential legal risk? Questions to keep in mind.”
My concerns exactly. If the cleverest of us here were tasked with tricking an underfunded and under resourced opposition, had plenty of time, unlimited resources, a knowledge of moral justification and immunity from prosecution, imagine how inventive and devastating our plans would be.
Let’s see if I can post this in spite of the system.
“220.000 emails
Is the period – rather than comma – a solely British numeric convention? Or is it used elsewhere?”
IIRC, the SI prescribes the use of the half-space, or the period if unavaailable, for separator in ALL LANGUAGES BUT ENGLISH, in which the comma is used. The english language convention is also used in international banking.
Anthony,
Interesting news! I wonder how many of the emails date after the release of ClimateGate 2?
I’ve just had another thought. Is that lawsuit against Tim Ball still going on? I had forgotten how many of these scientists wrote emails about the crappy work Michael Mann has done. If I was the attorney representing Tim Ball, I would subpoena everyone of these guys, put them under oath and make them read their emails aloud in court. I would love for them to talk about the pressure put on them to toe the party line on issues of science that should be decided by data and not intimidation.
Anthony, is there an easy way to identify the emails written after Climategate 2? I would love to know how many there are. At least they would be original.
Philip Tomas (@BadScience) says:
March 17, 2013 at 2:59 am
Your comment would seem to suggest a similar situation to this:
One Sunday morning, a priest wakes up and decides to go golfing.
He calls his boss and says that he feels very sick, and won’t be able
to go to work.
Way up in heaven, Saint Peter sees all this and asks God, “Are you really
going to let him get away with this?”
“No, I guess not,” says God.
The priest drives about five to six hours away, so he doesn’t bump
into anyone he knows. The golf course is empty when he gets there.
So he takes his first swing, drives the ball 495 yards away and gets
a hole in one.
Saint Peter watches in disbelief and asks, ” Why did you let him do that?”
To this God says, “Who’s he going to tell?”
In this case no one called in sick (or was deceptive), but there is a suggestion
of folks having information they can’t easily reveal….
Another couple of points.
1) The friends/family/boyfriends/girlfriends/mistresses/misters(???)/pets/
acquaintances/etc. (or any combination thereof) don’t deserve to be
dragged into this quagmire which was not of their doing.
IFF they were involved, then yes, they should be mentioned;
OTHERWISE not.
The internet never forgets, and some hastily output email might hurt
some innocent person possibly years from now, who has no clue or
interest in what this is all about. Remember that poor young woman
who was badgered by that radio show (in Australia?). The folks doing
the badgering probably had no idea of the potential consequences,
and no amount of regret or remorse on their part now can bring her back.
So, it’s well worth waiting for the “family-friendly filtered output” even
if it’s a PITA.
I also suspect going through the file might be like trying to view a
Word format file with a program expecting .txt …. putting threads back
together and eliminating dups may well be beyond all but the most intelligent
scripts/programs….eventually human brainpower will be needed, and
that takes time….
2) Does it matter at all who FOIA is? The fact that he/she put him/herself
at risk in the first place and did us all a great service with releasing
this information should be enough to warrant respecting his/her wishes.
Time and effort would be better spent preparing to push our elected
(and/or non-elected) government officials into dealing with the REAL
problems, not those foisted upon us by the watermelons and their
synthetic science.
Even though there have been folks who have strayed far afield from
the scientific method and/or been less than civil, or perhaps downright
monstrous in their actions/behavior, there is no reason to return the favor.
As someone said far earlier in this thread (or perhaps another, it’s getting
hard to keep track), two wrongs don’t make a right.
INTEGRITY still counts!
At 7:03 AM on 17 March, Ron Cram had asked:
Just to clarify: all of the contents of both the initial release (FOIA2009.zip) and the “Climategate 2” release (FOIA2011.zip – and that includes the “nested” encrypted all.7z file to which the twelve apostles were recently given the password) had been copied from the digital records of the University of East Anglia (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) before 17 November 2009, which was the date on which FOIA2009.zip hit the ‘Net.
There could be no e-mails or other materials in all.7z later than mid-November 2009.
On Oct 14, 2009, at 3:01 AM, Tom Wigley wrote:
“Dear all, At the risk of overload, here are some notes of mine on the recent lack of warming. I look at this in two ways. The first is to look at the difference between the observed and expected anthropogenic trend relative to the pdf for unforced variability. The second is to remove ENSO, volcanoes and TSI variations from the observed data. Both methods show that what we are seeing is not unusual. The second method leaves a significant warming over the past decade”
You can imagine how long this method would have lasted if it didn’t leave significant warming over the past decade. Also, note this is 2009! It gives a sense of the panic that these charlatans must be feeling after almost 5 more years of no warming. I think we should be going with something stronger than “travesty” by now. Kevin Trenberth is getting near retirement age – he doesn’t have long to make the shift…
I note the link to RealClimate’s graph done by Gavin S. to debunk Monckton’s view of it has disappeared: Monckton’s “deliberate manipulation” must have borne itself out.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktonsdeliberate-
manipulation/).
Oh we have a big mess to clean up after these guys.
At 8:46 AM on 17 March, Gary Pearse had quoted from the all.7z archive the following:
This now leaves me wondering whether the all.7z archive had not only contained the e-mails going back-and-forth among the C.R.U. correspondents but also the attachments thereunto.
In the body of his e-mail of 14 October 2009, Tom Wigley had mentioned what were obviously attachments (“some notes of mine” and “the pdf for unforced variability”) to that specific message.
Those had to have been on the e-mail server from which the all.7z contents were abstracted. Are they in the all.7z archive?
If so, can those attachments be made publicly available as well? Examination thereof would help immensely to facilitate more effective assessment of the C.R.U. correspondents’ connivances to foist the AGW fraud upon the world.
– – – – – – – – – – –
mark fraser,
Hey, thanks for commenting. Nice to know someone has actually read a long comment like mine (maybe too long).
First, before I respond to your comment on my post at John Whitman on March 16, 2013 at 3:27 pm. , I need to point out two errors in it. I apologize for the errors.
.
Error Correction #1 – In my second paragraph the corrected sentence should read,
Error Correction #2 – In my ninth paragraph the corrected paragraph should read,
Regarding your comment, I only ask you whether you would consider it moral for you to possess (regardless of how you got possession) the non-scientific very personal private info of those many scientists who did not give you their moral consent to possess? If you do think it is moral for you – as Mr FOIA does and as some of the recipients of pw emails do and as do some of those who were later given the password or unredactet CG3 emails by the original recipients of Mr FOIA’s email – then how can you consider it not moral for others to possess that info?
If you choose to answer my question, then it is your individual decision as to whether you arrive at your answer to my question by: 1) intuition or, 2) emotion or, 3) logic or, 4) faith or, 5) citing authority or, 6) philosophical analysis or, 7) a combination of 1 thru 6.
Take care.
John
There is phrase about not “looking a gift horse in the mouth” and CG-3 is clearly a valuable gift horse that places the 12 recipients of the pass word in an invidious position — given that the nuggets in the 220,000 or so emails are embedded in a larger set of emails of a personal nature that ought not to be bandied about.
My heart goes out to the twelve recipients of the pass word since they have a gigantic task in front of them. It would surely make sense for them to confer with each other (as I am sure they have already done to some extent) and attempt to arrive at a common mind as to how best to proceed — and perhaps even to formally let the world know what they have decided.
We are all interested in and anxious to see the nuggets but need to avoid putting pressure on the 12 to reveal what they have access to in a piece meal manner since this might simply be a case of more haste less speed.
Whitman: I make no judgement on anyone’s possession of the material. I would pass judgement on anyone who might violate the guidelines I suggested for myself. I’m not a student of philosophy so the questions you pose are of academic interest only. Occam’s Razor – if an email discloses someone’s intimate relations with a sheep, any reference thereto would deserve to be redacted. Is it immoral for me to know the details? Who cares. The issue is disclosure.
REPLY: “FOIA” in his email to the few bloggers entrusted witht he password specifically asked that the password not be released into the wild. In light of the risks he/she took, I’m not going to betray that trust because a few whiners want it released. – Anthony
—-
Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t see examples of this elusive quality all that much anymore today. In case anyone is having trouble remembering what the word for this is, let me remind you. Anthony is demonstrating honor here. Maybe you ought to consider quitting giving him grief about it. Do you really want Anthony Watts to ignore the course of action he thinks is right, ignore the dictates of his conscience and his integrity, just to provide us with a circus? I certainly don’t. WUWT is worth a heck of a lot more than.
Thanks Anthony.
Dear Mr. FOIA,
I made a modest contribution to your BTC wallet to express my thanks for your gift to humanity. I hope you will enjoy a beer on me.
Happy Saint Paddy’s Day.
All the best.
Tucci78 says | March 17, 2013 at 8:36 am
“”There could be no e-mails or other materials in all.7z later than mid-November 2009.””
Yes. Very good point. Thank you.
Nice job! You have my vote for doing this.
Assuming that some of the apostles are regular commenters on WUWT topics, and assuming that they are now busy editing the 200K emails; to determine who some of those apostles might be, just run a histogram of frequency count vs. name on WUWT topics before and after posting the news of CG3 and note any obvious differences. (You might finish before they do!)
Thank You Mr. FOIA, see you in Valhalla
So when do we reach 1000 000 comments?
I have been wondering if these emails and the pile of Marcott are smoke screens for something else, but see zero evidence so far.
The theft of 7-10% of bank deposits in Cyprus will be brutal for trust in banks & government.
And its nice to see a British rag, run an almost honest article on CAGW, the daily mail speaks out other side of face? I thought rigour mortis had set in as far as investigative journalism from the MSM rags.
– – – – – – – – – –
Mrmethane,
Appreciate you comment. Thanks.
I was pointing out the simple kind of logic that shows significant internal moral inconsistencies of these two positions being held by a single individual: 1) thinking it is moral to possess non-scientific very personal private info (regardless of how they received it) of many scientists; scientists who did not give moral consent to those possessing the info; 2) the same individual also thinking / acting like it is immoral for others to see that same info. Please see my supporting four points in my comment on March 16, 2013 at 3:27 pm and also some error corrections to it in my subsequent comment on March 17, 2013 at 9:05 am.
Where one has a moral inconsistency on an issue like the CG3 release situation, I think the person has: 1) a false and hidden premise(s) and/or, 2) the person logical error(s) in analyzing their morals against the CG3 release circumstances.
Regarding your comment’s conclusion “The issue is disclosure”. I think a decision to disclose or not is a derivative issue which results from analyzing one’s moral values / position on the whole of the CG3 release issue. It is not a primary in the situation.
Disclaimer – Again my several morality comments over the past 2 days do not include legal aspects which are quite separate. I defer to specialist legal consultants on any legal issues on: 1) possession the original info; 2) how the original info was obtained; 2) original info discloser (even to just another person) without editing (redacting); 3) and discloser of info after editing (redacting).
Hasta la vista.
John
John your moral net is too small. Once you include starving people living in energy-deprived nations who are the worst-affected by global warming regulation, money spent chasing compliance with UN dictates rather than seeking the cure for disease and malnutrition, cost of entry to the first world thanks to regulations favorable to the first world written by the first world and enforced by the first world, the conflicting moral offense of revealing information found in email, a well-known non-secure communications method falls far behind as a priority for protection. After the humiliation of the Bill Clinton affair I’m hardened to what a bore it is to learn personal information about people anyway. I’m far more interested in what potential damage the advocates of carbon management are capable than what color panties they wear.
to Rogerknights 4:00 pm
Damn! — I do have a backlash key on my keyboard! Took effort to find it. All the keys i use are bright and shiny. The keys I don’t use are sort of covered with “dust”.and other sorts of “stuff”. I wiped off my keyboard and — damn! — there it was!
Eugene WR Gallun
dp, I second the notion that the morality of “civilized” people seems worse than if it were to merely ignore the needy. It seems morally reprehensible to me; that so much effort is wasted to stop efforts to create any infrastructure that might help them.
It will be nice to see the emails in context like the team wants us to see them.
cn
Steve from Rockwood says:
March 13, 2013 at 1:14 pm
My 2 cents worth…it’s a man in his late 50s or early 60s who has a scientific background and was fed up with the current state of climate science. The carefully worded and final release is to be done with it on one hand and cover his tracks on the other. Could easily be American, British or Canadian. Note the correct use of whom.
————————————————–
I’d say the correct use of “whom” pretty much rules out anyone whose native language is English, especially a scientist. The only people who bother to distinguish between “who” and “whom”, outside of those making their living with words, are those who’ve had to learn English as a second language.
A cursory reading of the emails points up an almost total absence of correct use of the possessive — generally it’s completely discarded. And then there’s this (from Barry Woods, who’s on our side) “including a whose who of climate change deniers”.
So, no pointer there.
– – – – – – – – – –
dp,
Hey, great to get a comment from you. : )
I did not try to discuss morality and moral systems in any broad sense, just a very limiting focus on the evaluation of consistency of morals of those possessing and forwarding to a few associates the non-scientific very personal private info of many scientists (without those scientist’s moral consent) contained in the unredacted CG3 emails as compared to those same individuals at the same time thinking it not moral to publicize that kind of info any further. On purpose I limited to comment to that so as not to rob the thread of its main focus on all the aspects of CG3 release situation.
On another appropriate thread we could discuss moral /ethical things like: 1) whether one is morally obliged to be their brother’s keeper or, 2) lifeboat ethics or, 3) the ultimate grounding of ethics or, 4) is duty amoral or, 5) etc, etc, . . . . . . but not on this thread today. OK?
Cheers.
John
[snip – off topic, pointless, and crass. I’m putting you in to the extra moderation queue since your comments have gotten worse lately. Feel free to be as upset as you wish – Anthony]
Our biased msm censors the work of whattupwiththat etal the 12.
FIOA requires censorship of the e-mails obtained outside the dure course of bussiness and the rule of law.
Now this side cenaors itself.
Looks like we have met ourselves and they on the same circle of choices.
The complaint orighal was that the team did not go open with their research data and methods.
Now comes people once more with an orginal complaint that orginal data needed to make choices be made public for review and study.
What if the other side the warm ones review these e-mails and prove up that there was not fraud.
Seems to me “mr hard case” that FIOA has passed on second hand honor seeing his hands are not clean due the the orginal sin of the taking of the e-mails.
It will be mute for sure when say one of the others inside dumps them out via a Russian web site.
See things not how you hope things should be but how they are in the real deal of history.
After all every one on planet earth now knows no e-mail is ever private any longer.
More than likely some security agency in England has every one of the e-mail stored on a tax payer paid for hard drive already.
That is crass and belongs elsewhere.
Which team are you talking about? On the skeptical side we are the team. As a team member I’m not at all happy with the way this is playing out.
John – you posted 4 paragraphs in sequence, each one containing the word moral in one or another of its forms and I’m suppose to take away from that you are not in a mood to discuss morality?
I love all the people complaining about the new batch of emails not being immediately released when they are not the ones that have to deal with any legal ramifications of doing so. Sounds more like trolling tactics from the other side.
Actually there is an unspoken skeptic heir-achy in this debate which has do to with level of risk exposure.
1. There are the scientists who publish, testify and put their careers on the line (Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, Spencer, Singer, McIntyre ect…)
2. There are the bloggers who have to deal with real life harassment and legal threats (Anthony Watts, Marc Morano, Andrew Montford, Jo Nova ect…)
Then there is everyone else who “comments” and doesn’t take the same risks. No offense to those who “comment” but I am confused as to why you think contribution level should not mean anything? Some of the comments I have been reading here are ridiculous.
Poptech says:
March 17, 2013 at 10:54 pm
[deletia]
Some of the comments I have been reading here are ridiculous.
You mean like some of your comments? You are obviously clueless about bitcoins. Why bother commenting about something you know nothing about?
This is a month before CG1. Again I will point out that this puts FOIA in CRU in the last month before CG1. Literally this should mean someone could narrow the identity of FOIA down to perhaps a couple of dozen.
My point with this though, is that at least two things are going on here. One of them – the one Briffa is addressing – is the post-CG1 warmist meme of, “we must be communicating badly, and we need to get our message out better.” But it is not – it never will be – Hockey Team’s responsibility too get the TRUE story out, only the “on message” message.
The second point is the last list Briffa mentions – “of what I said, or meant, or feel.” Did anyone else catch this? What Briffa feels needs to be communicated. All I can think of in reading that is the proverbial Hollywood movie star cop (think Dirty Harry), whose “gut feeling” is more important – and solves more crimes – than solid police work. Who the cop FEELS is guilty is who he goes after. To hell with the Separation of Powers in the government. Maybe that doesn’t exist in the UK, but I am pretty sure it does. With the fictitious cop you have a member of the executive branch of government playing judge, jury, and executioner. Brifffa’s gut feeling that tree-rings shouldn’t be doing the divergence dance since 1940 are more important than actual data.
In exactly the same vein, in the previous email quoted, with Kevin Trenberth’s infamous
See? Scientists as Dirty Harry: The GUT FEELING is what is important. Data? Piffle! Observations? Oh, spare me, please! What counts is what their gut feeling says – what they WANT to be true.
I hate to go back to Richard Feynman again, on the Scientific Method, but I will:
Unless you are high priests in some rogue element of some scientific field, that has decided that data don’t matter (heat, tree rings, etc.). Data is only accepted as VALID data when it gives you the computed results you want.
“Observing system” BTW = experiment.
Data = output of your experiment.
Guess = gut feeling, in their case. CO2 is guilty in Dirty Harry’s mind, and by damned he is going to badger and harass the perp until he confesses. (Go ahead, CO2, make my day.”)
To Trenberth and Briffa, if the experiment doesn’t give you the “good” “gut feeling” answer, then the experiment must itself be wrong. It can’t possibly be the ‘guess’.
They are turning science on its head. (“Oh, and can we have a few hundred million more dollars, please, to run experiments until we get one we like?”)
Steve Garcia
??? not one month before CG1, that Briffa email to Fred Pearce is from 1996 !
Daryl, I suggest studying up on economics and learning more about what money really is,
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/89471.html
I understand what bitcoins is very well, including all of the “technical” details. You cannot create money via a computer program. Computer programs can only be used to assist in monetary transactions.
What material use/value did bitcoins have before being used? Nothing
What is bitcoins backed by? Nothing
What makes bitcoins scarce? A computer program that can be hacked, rewritten and manipulated.
Bitcoins are promoted and used by people who don’t fully understand economics and instead have some naive, juvenile view of what money is. I find it embarrassing but what can I say, suckers are born every minute.
Bitcoins is a hybrid pyramid/ponzi scheme by design,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/08/bitcoin_under_attack/
“New users acquire the currency by running the software on their computers, and occasionally “striking it lucky” when they discover the number of the next Bitcoin to be issued.
Over time, the Bitcoin algorithm is designed to slow down the rate at which new Bitcoins are issued – which means early adopters were able to amass more coins more quickly than today’s user; and, if the network continues to grow, today’s user will amass more of the currency than someone who joins the network two years from now.
This gives all current users a vested interest in promoting the system to the next round of participants.
The architecture therefore encourages boosterism such as this article from Rick Falkvinge, who can tell users to get on board even though this would lift the value of his own Bitcoin buy-in (Falkvinge quite cheerfully tells his readers “as more people exchange national currencies for Bitcoin, the value of one Bitcoin rises).”
The goal is to keep suckering in more new users.
Oops! Thanks, Skiphil. I panned up and somehow grabbed the date of the previous email. My bad. No, it was not in Oct ’09.
Steve Garcia
I have to say this:
If this was the way the CG1 emails were allowed to be read, it never would have had any impact at all.
RELEASE THE DARNED PASSWORD!
At this rate, we will all die of old age before half the CG3 emails are out and have any chance of doing any good.
Steve Garcia
I suspect that FOIA put the bitcoin ref in as a way of stating he/she isn’t “in it for the money”
(certainly not for the dollar and change that was in there early on…). More of a
“sewing machine oil” as opposed to “big oil” funding….
Folks, again, who gives a rip who FOIA is????? Knowing does not add one whit to
the value of the information/disclosure/etc., wastes a lot of time and resources, and
puts FOIA potentially at risk. (Sorry FOIA, I don’t mean this as an insult!).
With all this infighting and arguments, the warmist watermelons are probably
having a field day….let’s get back to the science and stay away from whodunits….
BTC – Bitcoin explained:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-15/guest-post-what-world-bitcoin
Maybe this will help some…
Mk
feet2thefire says: March 18, 2013 at 1:36 am
Well, considering that – like most of what Steve Milloy has been posting – this string was part of CG2 (and/or CG1) – I’m not entirely sure that releasing the entire CG3 will result in any “greater” impact.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=3973.txt
The Saint, as I still prefer to call FOIA, did an awful lot of work for us prior to releasing CG1 – and particularly CG2. And how do we show our appreciation? By ignoring this work and complaining – instead of revisiting that which is available to us and using it to see what we might have missed.
There’s something really wrong with this picture, folks! Particularly since The Saint (who is in a better position to know than anyone on the planet!) has already told us:
We’re impatient to find the merely “possible” when we haven’t fully explored (and exploited the impact of) that which is already at our virtual fingertips?!
Btw, I’ve found Buffy Minton’s .”spreadsheet of Climategate 1 and 2 emails in chronological order” is an excellent starting point:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/29/new-tool-all-climategate-emails-in-order-in-excel/
How be we consider setting aside the scatterguns, paying heed to what The Saint has told us about the likely contents of CG3 (which I’m inclined to suspect was called all.7z for a very good reason!) – and start mining the work s/he has already completed (and others have compiled into searchable databases) while those entrusted with the password get on with the business of making CG3 equally useful for all of us.
Hilary Ostrov
Still no password released? How utterly stupid. So it’s not climategate at all it is the passing from one to the few, the new hierachy of climate scepticism.
This is the move away from collective demonstration towards the endgame where the main players hold all the cards and line their retirement nests with books and other crap based on the info we cannot all see.
REPLY: Put your butt on the line and put your name to it (instead of tossing out anonymous rants like this one) and see how fast you release it. – Anthony
@ feet2thefire says: March 18, 2013 at 12:10 am
“What Briffa feels…”
This is now normal if not usually stated explicitly. Even more to the point the distinction between what “feeling”, “having a sense of”, “knowing”, as a personal response which gives legitimacy to a position or action in itself and a “truth” which exists independently of that person has been blurred and in effect therefore lost.
This is general, not in any one area of human endeavor. That it is almost never explicit in formal science does not mean that it is not an element throughout.
In a world where there is no sense that there exists anything that cannot be personalized, or is by right personal, and where the relationship between personal “knowing” and observable and unavoidable implications for the “knower” is tenuous or non-existent, this must be the inevitable result.
keep up the good work Anthony
I’m in. You have my email.
REPLY: Ah, but no name. I see what you did there, sorry, I and many others made a promise to “FOIA” You’ll just have to wait like everyone else. – Anthony
hro001 says:
March 18, 2013 at 3:34 am
Btw, I’ve found Buffy Minton’s .”spreadsheet of Climategate 1 and 2 emails in chronological order” is an excellent starting point:
Hilary, I converted Buffy Minton’s spreadsheet to an html index with a link in the subject line that opens the selected email in your web browser window, all offline. 35 Meg zip file here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4EzgaD0DOfYaFBmdUZoaUJvTmM/edit?usp=sharing
Next step is to imbed a more comprehensive search engine, something better than Ctrl-f.
Posted this on Tips and Notes awhile back, but it went unnoticed, apparently.
This constant nagging at Anthony to release the password is becoming tiresome.
We’ve waited this long whats a little extra waiting time?
To quote my favourite Oddball; “Have a little faith baby, have a little faith”.
REPLY: The idea that I’m the only one that can release it is silly, FOIA sent it to several people. – Anthony
So far this bombshell a.k.a. Climategate 3 has been a serious dud.
I for one hope that the wait will be worth wile. Any info on the current progress?
– – – – – – – –
dp,
Keeping the dialog alive is appreciated.
Clever comment dp, but again I was specifically focused on only the narrow issue of moral consistency.
NOTE: I see Mr FOIA as a contributor (CG1, 2, 3) to the overall dialog critical of alarming / dangerous AGW by CO2. I cannot in skeptical conscience give him even close to the same order of magnitude of respect / credit as those who have consistently put their names to their skeptically critical contribution and taken very harsh treatment from the ‘consensus’ establishment. Those engaging in the great critical discourse in their own names are the heroes / heroines. However, an anonymous leaker / hacker, although helping the discourse, should not be considered even close to their hero / heroine status. I need to know who Mr FOIA is before I evaluate whether he deserves respect at all much less respect comparable the non-anonymous skeptics.
John
Charles.U.Farley says:
March 18, 2013 at 9:39 am
…To quote my favourite Oddball; “Have a little faith baby, have a little faith”.
And now this is stuck in my head…
Mr? FOIA did not preclude you giving out the password. You were asked to not publish it. It can be given out with a clear conscience to any and all who meet his/her brief list of qualifications. There are thousands of us who meet that and who will agree to not publish it which is more than original 12 were asked to commit to. It was given to Tallbloke, for example. My name is attached to the whois record of my domain. I work for a company that disagrees with my views and yours so for now I prefer to remain just me. I’m not invisible and not hiding, and am equally dependant upon integrity of others. My retirement resumes in about 30 days and I don’t care what happens after that.
Heck, at this point I wouldn’t want the darn password. Too many people pestering for it. What a pain in the butt. I’m pretty sure Anthony or one of the other bloggers will make it known if there’s anything really interesting in there, I sort of suspect that there isn’t. Good enough for me.
dp says:
March 18, 2013 at 12:16 pm
totally agree! IMHO, there is no need for such a clandestine approach. As others have said this is turning into a bit of a dud – but I do appreciate the integrity requirement and caution MAY well be valid. I can’t be certain, as I can’t see emails and thus far, no-one seems to be saying/reporting much at all!
Mark Urbo, that does not explain anything because the author does not understand what money is. There is some sort of mental disconnect with the millennial generation understanding what money is. They confuse using computers to make the transactions of money easier with money itself. Therefore they falsely assume you can make money digitally. To make it worse they attempt to give it validity by cherry picking some of the factors that makes a commodity money by ignoring the fact that bitcoins was not and cannot be a commodity because it has no value outside of it’s digital pyramid / ponzi scheme. It works perfectly on naive millennials since bitcoins is “high-tech” (not really) and uses “peer-peer” networking and is named “bit”coins just like “bit”torent which they use to steal copywritten content.
John Whitman,
Please, please, please keep wasting your time worrying about FOIA’s and the 12’s morals, conflicts-of-interest, integrity, credibility, legal exposure, etc.
It’s very funny to read.
Thanks,
wobble
Poptech says:
March 18, 2013 at 12:41 am
Daryl, I suggest studying up on economics and learning more about what money really is,
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/89471.html
I understand what bitcoins is very well, including all of the “technical” details. You cannot create money via a computer program. Computer programs can only be used to assist in monetary transactions.
What material use/value did bitcoins have before being used? Nothing
What is bitcoins backed by? Nothing
What makes bitcoins scarce? A computer program that can be hacked, rewritten and manipulated.
Bitcoins are promoted and used by people who don’t fully understand economics and instead have some naive, juvenile view of what money is. I find it embarrassing but what can I say, suckers are born every minute.
Spare me the lecture on economics. Most currencies went off the gold standard years ago. The value of bitcoins is no different then the value of anything else that’s based on supply, demand and liquidity. (By the way, if you’re claiming to be the person who wrote the opinion piece, sign your name, otherwise, attribute the quotation accordingly. If not, you’re just plagiarizing the author.)
Many places in Argentina are now accepting Bitcoin because access to other currencies has been blocked and their own currency is being devalued.
But you misunderstand something about money. Money is whatever someone will accept for something else. I could use shiny white pebbles as money if someone will accept them for payment. All money is basically fiat money. If a country goes on the gold standard, for example, they set a value of their currency to some amount of gold. They can revalue their currency by simply changing that valuation. Also, gold standards only work when the “right” people have access to most of the gold. China right now has enough cash in its foreign exchange reserves to buy all of the gold reserves in the entire world … three times.
Fiat money IS a good idea IF it is used responsibly. What we have now is a federal reserve that is operating too closely with politicians. The fed is bailing out the politicians by printing money and using it to purchase government debt in order to keep interest rates down. If all that treasury debt had to be purchased at auction on the open market, interest rates would soar and we would be unable to service the interest payments on the debt.
The major mistake was made by shoveling money into bank reserves rather than having government purchase “troubled” assets as TARP was originally designed to do and them wasting TARP money on bailouts. If you look at the M0 monetary base, it has shot through the roof. The federal reserve may not be able to get that money pulled back out in time if inflation appears. If that money ever seeps into M1, we’re doomed.
If I were a Greek citizen right now, I would prefer bitcoins to bank deposits.
==================================================================
One of the things that contributed to this CAGW mess is the lack of integrity by those promoting (and profiting?) from the thing.
I doubt if FOIA had the opportunity to pick and choose the files only relevant to CAGW. My impression is that he gave the password to those he trusted to be able to “draw the line” between the info that would do harm to the people and the info that would do harm to and expose the hoax.
To those who are calling CG3 a “dud”, it’s going to take time to sift and sort through the files. CG1&2 were already sifted some by FOIA. Be patient.
Anthony and the others (whoever they are) are showing integrity that CAGW’s promoters have not by not releasing the password as promised.
Why does anyone have a problem with that?
Poptech says:
“Actually there is an unspoken skeptic heir-achy in this debate which has do to with level of risk exposure.
1. There are the scientists who publish, testify and put their careers on the line (Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, Spencer, Singer, McIntyre ect…)
2. There are the bloggers who have to deal with real life harassment and legal threats (Anthony Watts, Marc Morano, Andrew Montford, Jo Nova ect…)”
Just because Anthony Watts does not call himself a scientist does not mean that he isn’t one. Remember it was a meteorologist, Edward Lorenz, who fathered the complex dynamic system now known as Chaos Theory.
Daryl M, again you cherry pick facts. Fiat currencies, while all can be subjected to inflation, they are also government backed meaning, they can operate for a long time due to coercion. Their “backing” is government force.
– – – – – – – –
Wobble,
Comic relief is useful in heavy threads. Thanks for your comment to that effect. : )
New thought not directly mentioned in your comment => What of the comparative integrity of leakers / hackers? As opposed to unknown integrity of Mr. FOIA and his indirection / misdirection in his three (CG1, 2, 3) communiques, here is a comment about a self-identified ‘leaker’ that can be admired for his verifiable integrity.
Alec Rawls’ clearly accepting responsibility is a kind of integrity that should be emulated by those ‘outing’ the problematic ‘consensus’ climate scientists gaming the scientific process. And less so emulating Mr FOIA.
Take care.
John
crosspatch, no I understand fully what money is you don’t. You just repeated the same nonsensical statement that money can be anything, no it can’t. Money, cannot be a pebble because they are not scarce and thus their very low value would not make them worth using. All market based forms of money arose because the commodity used had intrinsic value before it was used as money, it could be easily divisible and was relatively scarce. Then people further confuse this with digital transactions. Just because you use a commodity standard like gold does not mean you would carry around gold coins, it can still be transacted digitally.
Gold does not have to be used, any other commodity that has similar traits can be a substitute such as silver. If you “revalue” your fiat currency backed by gold you are either inflating it or deflating it, there are no magic tricks.
Prisons are a perfect experiment of how this process happens in markets. For years cigarette packs became currency due to their intrinsic value, ability to be divisible and relative scarcity. When prisons banned cigarettes, cans/packs of mackerel were used,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290720439096481.html
Bitcoins are a fiat pyramid / ponzi scheme that truly is only what people believe it to be. If you believe gold has no value send it to me, no need to burden yourself with such beliefs.
Then you are certainly doing your part.
You remind me of the stupid reporters that criticize Spiderman and Batman because their approaches might have been a bit heavy-handed on criminals.
But again, please, please, please keep wasting your time on this. It’s very entertaining.
Fiat currencies don’t need coercion to work at all.
I can accept Euros and Pounds without anyone coercing me to do so. It’s my choice based on my confidence that others will accept it from me when I wish to purchase goods or services with them. My confidence that others will accept it from me is based on the fact that the EU and UK will continue to support their fiat currencies.
Also, you are free to create your own currency in the United States as long as you don’t allow anyone to confuse it with the dollar. You can write Poptech IOU’s and give them to people instead of dollars. If people think that your IOU’s are worth something, then they might accept them and might be able to transfer them to a third party. That is a form of currency. Just don’t try to use the word dollar in the name of your currency.
Wobble, name the fiat currency that is widely accepted without it being backed by government force. You cannot make your own euros and pounds without threat of government force. You cannot pay your taxes in your made up currency (you are of course free to try). You cannot force others to accept your currency, governments can. Fiat currencies are only considered to have value because of them being backed by governments who have a monopoly on coercion.
Are you still whining on about this? I’ve seen people desperate to belong to the “in” crowd, but you take the cake. Bearing in mind that on the Internet, “no one knows you’re a dog”, what exactly have you done to earn the trust FOIA has put in Anthony, Tallbloke, and others?
“By the way, if you’re claiming to be the person who wrote the opinion piece, sign your name, otherwise, attribute the quotation accordingly. If not, you’re just plagiarizing the author.”
BTW Daryl, get a life. I always put in quotes what I actually quoted and include the source as I did so here.
It seems like you’re confusing “force” and “promise.”
This has nothing to do with making your own euros and pounds. You can make your own currency via a promise to back it. You can also make your own computers, but you can’t call them Apple. That would allow you to fool people into thinking that your computers had the “promise” of Apple quality. Likewise, you can’t name your currency something that will confuse people into thinking that it is someone else’s currency (e.g. the EU’s or UK’s). That would allow you to fool people into thinking that your currency had the promise of the EU or the UK. You can’t do that.
You are free to create whatever currency you want, but nobody is required to accept your currency. “Nobody” includes the federal government. “Nobody” includes the local shop keeper.
The government can’t force anyone to accept their currency. The government can refuse to pay you for your goods and services unless you accept their currency. In the cases of eminent domain, the government could seize your property without offering you anything other than payment in their currency. But the government can’t force you to accept it.
You are more than welcome to open a business and tell all your customers that you don’t accept dollars. There is nothing illegal about that.
By the way, I’ve seen plenty of business deals that require payment to be made in gold or some other commodity. There’s nothing illegal about that.
Again you confuse promise with coercion. People accept dollars because they trust the federal government more than other forms of payment. In other countries, people often have little other choice than to accept their government currency. Sometimes people in other countries will attempt to require payment in dollars, but that’s difficult to require.
I don’t believe even Anthony calls himself a “scientist” though I fully respect his scientific opinion. I’ve always considered Anthony a meteorologist who kills himself maintaining this site. Anyway, those were just general categories and McIntyre can be considered a blogger too but he has published in scientific journals more extensively than Anthony and has testified to congress. It was simply a matter of degree of risk exposure that has nothing to do with mutual professional respect. It also has nothing to do with what is being implied by some here, “they are royalty” and you are the “serfs” or some other ludicrous insinuation.
Some people are happy in a spoon fed world. So which of the 12 (13? 14??) versions of CG3 will you be most happy with? The Mosher version? Tom Nelson’s? Tallblokes? Anthony’s? Which one do you think will become the “gold standard” of CG3 and what will set each apart? Theone that will influence the course of the future? Worst outcome – what if all those who have the password agree on a common version – CG3 by committee. If you are at all skeptical you should not be content to accept anything except what issues from your personal copy of the original all.7z file. Anything else is tamering with evidence. Why does anyone have a problem with that?
I have nothing against the gatekeepers of CG3 – they are marching a dozen abreast to orders from a mysterious stranger. As posted elsewhere on this blog it is the process that I find to be a failure. All the blather here and there about transparency and full disclosure has gone out the window as if just so much rhetoric. Regardless I remain a huge fan of many of the newly annointed gatekeepers and this controversy too shall pass.
WooHoo, Ace of Spades has the word out now: Final ClimateGate Email Download; All 220,000 Emails Released to Selected Reviewers
—Ace
At this point one whether Briffa, Wigley et al are that upset at the email release. It occurs that they may be enjoying Mann’s discomfiture.
But perhaps we will be treated to something new. We will see.
Wobble, name the fiat currency that is widely accepted that is not backed by a government.
I am not confusing anything. “Promise” of what?
People in the U.S. are “free” to make up their own currencies and then spend five years in jail,
http://blogs.findlaw.com/legally_weird/2012/01/make-your-own-currency-spend-5-years-in-jail.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21836699/ns/politics-decision_08/#.UUezwBeG0xA
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/us/liberty-dollar-creator-awaits-his-fate-behind-bars.html?pagewanted=all
Duke C. says: March 18, 2013 at 7:37 am
Duke, this is fabulous! Thank you!. It works like a charm … and you’ve made it so very easy to practice what I preach …
Climategate 3.0: Practicing what I preach … Of hockey sticks, Mann, Marcott, Revkin … & Briffa
Hilary Ostrov
Drat …Sorry, mods… my kingdom for a preview in WP comment … I must’ve messed up link to “Climategate 3.0 Practicing what I preach” above 🙁 But the following should work:
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/climategate-3-0-practicing-what-i-preach/
Poptech says:
March 18, 2013 at 5:49 pm
———————————-
Wobble made a point of stating (more than once) that you need to stay away from using the term “dollar” if you intended issuing your own currency in the US. You respond with articles about someone charged with issuing “Liberty Dollars” – proving his point while attempting to tell him he’s wrong. Seriously?
dp, why exactly are you entitled to a password to an archive of illegally obtained emails? There is a reason people like Tom Nelson got the password and random commentators like you did not,
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/p/climategate_05.html
Even Mosher wrote a book on the subject,
http://www.amazon.com/Climategate-Crutape-Letters-Steven-Mosher/dp/1450512437
What exactly did you do for someone to risk legal repercussions?
= = = = = = =
Wobble,
The dialog continues . . . thanks. This is fun. : )
Telling your comic punch line once probably got some good chuckles here at WUWT, I chuckled. But telling it a second time . . . . . crickets.
You have suggested that Mr FOIA can be considered somewhat like some comic book heroes. Your idea that Mr FOIA might be considered as a climate science Batman is not a way to inspire any confident in Mr. FOIA.
It is enjoyable to expand further on your novel idea linking Mr FOIA and Batman. And is Judith Curry a climate science Batwoman; is it Christopher Monckton’s role to play Robin; is the Joker like Michael Mann?
Do you have any suggestions for who might be the climate science equivalent of ‘Two Face’?
A Thought Not Directly Related to Your Comment => Is Mr FOIA spreading risk to innocent bystanders in his release method for Climataegate 3.0? Has he introduced collateral damage? Originally in CG1 & CG2 only he was at risk. If he has exposed others to collateral damage, that does not seem the act of a gentleman of honor. What do you think? It would not be something that Batman would do.
Hasta la vista.
John
There are plenty of fiat currencies that are not backed by a government. Just because it’s difficult for such currencies to gain “wide” acceptance doesn’t mean that it’s not perfectly legal. Governments have an advantage over other currencies because they already have widely accepted credibility.
Yes, you are, but it’s not your fault. You’ve been confused by those that rant against the evil money changers, etc.
The promise that it will continue to be supported as legal tender for all debts, public and private.
Again, you can’t use the word dollar. Thanks for proving my point.
I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was sincerely requesting that you continue to obsess about the nuances of FOIA’s morals. It’s like asking a comedian not to retire.
No, I didn’t. YOU just did. I merely compared you to the stupid reporters that hand-wring about someone who’s tactics are a bit harsh while completely missing the bigger picture.
Ha ha ha ha ha! I don’t know! Maybe. But it’s hilarious that you are so worried about it.
Ha ha ha ha ha! OK, so if that’s the case, then you don’t think that it “seem[s]” like the act of a gentlemen of honor. So, you think that FOIA might not be a gentlemen of honor. Got it.
Is there anything else that you want to add to that?
Ha ha ha ha ha! Thank you so much for complying with my request. This is so fun much.
So, if that was the case, then you would contend that FOIA is doing something that Batman wouldn’t do. Do I have that right? Wow, this is really condemning stuff you would have here.
Btw, maybe you don’t know Batman like you think you do. But it’s been really fun that you’ve started comparing FOIA to Batman.
Peter in Ohio, I saw nothing of him mentioning the not using the term “dollar” but rather cannot be mistaken for a dollar (counterfeit). If you could make you own currencies so easily there would be no need for bills like this trying to change the laws,
http://www.ibtimes.com/road-map-sound-money-restoring-dollar-ron-pauls-proposal-313832#
“wobble, There are plenty of fiat currencies that are not backed by a government.”
Name one that is widely used.
“The promise that it will continue to be supported as legal tender for all debts, public and private.”
How is it “supported”?
Wobble, you cannot legally make your own money out of any metal,
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/486
“Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title [1] or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.“
In a discussion of Mr FOIA and his critics (me), Wobble says:
Wobble and Mr FOIA and Batman. That is comic. [pun intended]
John
Reading failure.
I’m not sure how I could have been any more clear. Regardless, using the word dollar in your currency is surely going to confuse people into thinking that it’s a dollar – which is what I said needed to be avoided.
Reread my last comment about this.
It’s obvious that you’ve been brainwashed about this issue so I’m not going to waste my time explaining monetary supply policies to you.
So, use paper.
What about these three entities?
Also, your comment lacks any evidence of hand-wringing about FOIA’s gentlemanliness.
I’ve never said I was entitled. I don’t think anyone is entitled. I’ve said I don’t like the process and I put the blame on FOIA for that. He/she missed the mark by limiting the audience. We now have a cluster of elites not by their doing who are at great risk of intervention by legal agencies, and a fragmented decomposition of the data and a crippled effort to create the widest and fastest possible distribution of it *free* of the current injected biases. This is not a job for bloggers competing for Bloggies, drive-by experts with stacks of bias such as Mosher the Author who notoriously finds great difficulty completing a thought in public. There is a lot at stake here, there are great risks, and also the opportunity to squander the opportunity by cleansing the very data that can possibly bring an end to global climate scamming. That that means literally that lives and livliehoods are at stake globally, Obama is ramping up a takeover of the US economy, what is left of it, and nations around the world are going broke from hurtful regulations and artificial and ultimately useless carbon management laws.
The password is needed to validate the protected data. Anything else is second hand, tampered with, and not very useful. The password is needed in the wild to protect those who were selected to receive it and those to whom it was given subsequently. It is the “I am Spartacus” defense. Anthony isn’t the target at least of my interest, but this kind of loyal dissent has to be written somewhere and why not the best climate blog in the world to have the conversation?
Nobody on the alarmist side is going to accept any cherry-picked posts, the press is not going to run with unvalidated stories – they already hate the skeptic movement. There is certainly nothing the law is going to do with hear-say. As it stands it is a dead end. Somebody with the password should print up business size cards with FOIA 2011 all.7z password on it and leave them at Stabucks restaurants all over the world. Nobody is going to trace that, the information will instantly inform the world, nobody can doubt the source, and maybe, just maybe, it will blunt the expanding extra constitutional activity being planned in Washington DC and perhaps convince other world leaders they have been Gleickswoggled.
Having said all that – Luboš Motl mentioned briefly that he has complied to the best of his knowledge with the laws of his nation regarding his receipt of the password and I would never suggest anyone in a position to do so violate the laws applicable to them. This, btw, is something FOIA did not subscribe to at any part of this project and while the outcome has been valuable it does not justify the means. Personally I don’t care much about that and am glad there are some willing to risk it all.
Wobble, name a fiat currency not backed by a government that is widely used (I read your comment and it is a dodge).
Wait, you are making strawman arguments, I also never argued you could not make your own paper (fiat) currency. How the hell did that get started? My point is you are NOT free to make your own “currency” in United States how you choose.
BTW, these comments are some form of mental derangement on your part, “…rant against the evil money changers”, “It’s obvious that you’ve been brainwashed about this issue”.
“Wobble, so I’m not going to waste my time explaining monetary supply policies to you.”
This is because you can’t, the only “support” government backed fiat currencies have is government force. Keep arguing your strawman though you are quite good at it.
db, If Mr. FOIA, had posted it as a comment on various sites like last time, it would be a different story. But since he emailed high profile bloggers who are known in real life, they have to legally protect themselves. And if Mosher was the only one to get it, I would be concerned but he is not. The group is widely diverse, covering all skeptic sides of the issue.
I am sure the press would ask to see copies of the emails to validate the claims.
As for your print out idea, it is not necessarily secure (depending on the printer your use), governments can track laser printers,
http://www.pcworld.com/article/118664/article.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2008-07-13-printer_N.htm
The main concern is the emails contain personal information (email addresses, phone numbers, addresses ect…) and that could make the person liable under privacy laws for whom ever releases the password.
Anthony. You have MY email, and my name is Steve Garcia. and I live in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. (Formerly from the Chicago area.)
I know that I would have NO business releasing personal emails. There is NO risk in me violating someone’s privacy. I think there are dozens if not scores or hundreds here who are at least that responsible.
Maybe that is the dues for being the #1 climate site in the world – THIS is where people come, and this is where they/we voice such things. But as for me, I think all these encouragements are aimed to ALL those who received the password. Hopefully one of thnose will see that 200,000 emails are not going to be read by a few people in any short time period, which brings me to this comment:
@Charles.U.Farley March 18, 2013 at 9:39 am
200,000 emails is 100 times what each of the other releases was. And for those we had not a half dozen or so reading them, but thousands of people. A “little extra waiting time”? Try several months, if not a year or two.
@Kev-in-Uk March 18, 2013 at 12:16 pm:
“but I do appreciate the integrity requirement and caution MAY well be valid.”
I couldn’t agree more. Caution is warranted. However, if there is anything to be found in 200 THOUSAND emails, 12 people reading them is asking too much. Those 12 need other eyes to help.
Steve Garcia
@Gunga Din March 14, 2013 at 1:37 pm:
An equally valid argument can be made that FOIA was doing due diligence to covering his ass. Having said what he said, if someone else releases the password, FOIA can point to his manifesto and do like soccer/football defenders do all the time, shrug the shoulders, raise the arms, palms up, and act as if, “Hey, it wasn’t me!”
So, he has passed the hot potato over to Anthony, Tom Nelson and ten others, and each of them can do the same thing – write up a manifesto, include all the disclaimers, and pass the hot potato onto a different group of people.
Remember, FOIA could have sat on these forEVER. He didn’t have to release the password at all. So why did he do it?
Duh.
Steve Garcia
p.s. One email a day – if this is how we are going to bury the warmists, it is like one grain of dirt at a time. Oy vey!
Poptech – please pay attention. Last time for playing nice. FOIA said, and I paraphrase, don’t publish it, meaning the password. He/she went on to say give it to anyone who can… Read the rest.
There is, btw, no contract here. When stuff falls in your lap from heaven you can do what you like with it. Except by writ of law everyone who has the password can make it available to everyone else who doesn’t but is interested. That would include me. Hell, that would include a lot of people. I’m just a guy, but I’m the only guy I trust to wade through this stuff and come up with some sense I will accept. It doesn’t hurt anything that I have access to hundreds of CPUs, terabytes of RAM (spelling is correct), and petabytes of storage to throw at the problem. And that doesn’t make me unique but it does put me in a small social group. Shame is I’m losing interest because this process is broken. One more inane post from you and I’m done. I do still applaud your winning the 1 millionth post T-shirt, though. We can be civil here.
One more thing – and I mentioned it before. If anyone on the distribution list that included the password is using a gmail or similar free mail address then you can rest assured Google et al has the password and if they have it then it is as good as gold the government of the former free republic of the United States of America has it too. That might explain why the cherry-picked titillations have stopped issuing from every source with access to the password. This suddenness of silence will be known as the great CG3 quiet. Speculation to be sure. Implausible? Who would know.
A guy with a rubber stamp with the password on it would be ever known as a good person doing the right thing should he stamp everything in site for a day. An uncommon activity in the modern litigious world.
Anthony –
Anthony, do you have a problem with telling us specifically what that promise to FOIA is/was?
Would you have a problem if others here gave the same promise? And would that qualify those others to HELP?
I have no desire to be a voyeur into others’ private lives. I believe that whatever the promise is, though, that I – and at least some others here – can promise and keep such a promise.
My angle here is to volunteer, and to help speed up the process. If oversight is needed, to review what the third level folks want to put out there, I have no problem with that. I can even see that if such a step is taken, it might take someone to run a clearing house, once promiser/readers begin finding emails with incriminating stuff. We would also promise that WE do not give the password out – that that should be left to Anthony or Steve or Tom or Bishop Hill or the others.
Steve Garcia
Dear Anthony please consider:
Mr. Spock says the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
Even Davy Jones says “Release the Kraken” which is, as we all know, Dutch for Password.
I do so love forwarding these climategate emails to the sheep that have rubbed our collective noses in that 97% consensus crap all these years.
Did I mention to do it for the children, baby harp seals, polar bears or other sob story cause d’jour the liberals trot out every time they want to ram an issue like CAGW down our throats?
If after this compelling apologia, you still do not release the Kraken, I will be a very sad Panda but will understand.
Thank you.
Poptech says: dp, why exactly are you entitled to a password to an archive of illegally obtained emails?
Because those emails are likely to cost each family in Scotland some £3000 over the next few decades? Because millions will die due to cold because they cannot afford the higher heating bills caused by these emails? Because politicians and the media have lied about global warming and lied about us sceptics and hopefully the way to ensure it never happens again is in those emails?
Those emails do not belong to any individual — they belong to the whole of humanity because this is a global scam.
Why I don’t read Lucia’s blog,
“If FOIA doesn’t want the truly personal stuff to get out, he’d better change the password or take the files down” – Lucia
ROFLMAO! How does someone like this not know what is going on?
Hmmmm…was hoping for a few updates, some news…
Instead there’s a running argument between Wobble and Poptech that runs on for pages?
Don’t mind digging through emails and insightful posts, but not taking the time on this one. You two should swap emails and spare us.
Jim
dp, computing power (I have access to plenty too) has little to do with it. I can search through them rather easily on a desktop PC. They are filled with A LOT of junk and Mr. FOIA did a good job of pulling the main emails out the first time. There is going to be a big problem right now of people finding stuff that was already found the first time or was in the first two batches (I have seen this already). So far the best new quote IMO is about Oreskes,
“Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless. A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.” – Tom Wigley, Former Director, Climatic Research Unit (CRU)
Jeff, has a good summary,
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/parsing-emails/
Analysis by the people in the field are equally useless. See Climate audit, magically truncated data, mythical hockey sticks and data adjustments with no real methodology.
Anthony,
What is the status on this story now? Got a team together to sift through the mails? How long do you think it will take to get it online? Will you be releasing in batches? Any impressions regarding content?
It is time for a complete dump of the e-mails. It is going to happen in any event. The sooner the better.
Secrecy and insider dealings have been corrupting agents in regards to climate science (and apparently much of science in general) for far too long. The lords of climate (self-appointed) were using our money and resources to impose their apocalyptic claptrap on us. We deserve to see what they were saying, in every respect in full context warts and all.
I didn’t dodge anything. You are claiming that fiat currencies can only work if there is the power of coercion. I’m telling you that it’s the promise of support and not the coercion that makes fiat currencies work.
The dollar is a fiat currency without any power of coercion outside of the united states, yet it is still widely used outside of the united states.
Great. I’m happy that you finally agree with me.
On MY part??? Ha! Not at all. I’ve debated this issue many times in the past and understand the flawed origins of your beliefs.
Of course I can. I understand quite a bit about monetary policy.
This isn’t true all, but it’s becoming obvious that you’re too brainwashed to be persuaded.
If you issued transferable IOU’s to people, then your form of fiat currency could gain acceptance if people knew you and believed that you would back it. There wouldn’t need to be any requirement of force on your part in order to have acceptance.
One thing I’d like to see come out of of these emails is some discussion about the control of the general populations perception of global warming. Don’t underestimate the power of “familiarity bias” when it comes to the subject of global warming or fiat money or pretty much any subject where people in power want to control you. Familiarity bias is the king of control methods, the dark side of the Force. The more familiar you are with something, the more likely you are to accept it, and if it is the only choice you have, for most people it matters little whether the subject you are accepting is completely bogus or not. People just accept it and live with it because there isn’t much of a choice and opposing that choice is painful and not worth the effort. That’s why we are pummeled with pro global warming stories on a near daily basis … to get you familiar with and accepting of the pro global warming point of view. The guys in power know all about these control methods, it is what they do in life, facts and data are secondary to contol.
“Real Dangers of Dissent”
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/345-7/
Jeff Condon of The Air Vent Blog has received a legal notice wrt the CG3 password and files.
Regardless of whether one thinks a UK law firm may have any real recourse against bloggers in other countries (I have no idea), people need to understand there are very serious issues for the bloggers involved. I don’t presume to offer any of them advice, except “be careful.” duhhh
Anthony, could you at least show through the end of the updates on the main page? That way I don’t need to load this page to find out if there are new updates.
And this page is getting really BIG.
Jeff Condon’s advise from UEA indicates this is playing out exactly as I expected. The 12 original recipients are like fish in a legal barrel. Because the password is only the key to the vault, the UEA statement carries an implied “And don’t release any posts from the archive”. The sooner FOIA releases the password to the world at large the better else sites like this may be vulnerable to a federal take down.
Time for everyone to stand up and shout ‘I am FOIA!’
Mike Haseler says:
March 19, 2013 at 1:27 am
Poptech says: dp, why exactly are you entitled to a password to an archive of illegally obtained emails?
Because those emails are likely to cost each family in Scotland some £3000 over the next few decades? Because millions will die due to cold because they cannot afford the higher heating bills caused by these emails? Because politicians and the media have lied about global warming and lied about us sceptics and hopefully the way to ensure it never happens again is in those emails?
Those emails do not belong to any individual — they belong to the whole of humanity because this is a global scam.
______________
I agree with you Mike.
It is long past time for those parties who have propagated Catastrophic Humanmade Global Warming Hysteria to come clean, apologize and stand down before more lives are lost and more scarce global resources are squandered on the false CAGW crisis.
My co-authors and I predicted the current energy shortage and absence of a global warming crisis more than a decade ago, in 2002.
We are cautious scientists, yet we made these predictions in writing and signed our names to them, a strong indication of our confidence at that time.
I recently sent this note to some friends:
Gentlemen,
Here is a relevant note I wrote in 2009, which refers to successful predictions we made in 2002.
Excerpt from 2009:
“It is particularly distressing for me to see this cold winter misery unfolding, as Europeans’ inadequate alternative energy systems fail to keep them warm.“
Excerpt from 2002:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Regards, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/10/polar-sea-ice-changes-are-having-a-net-cooling-effect-on-the-climate/#comment-74024
Leif Svalgaard (19:57:40) to Allan M R MacRae (19:49:11) “Climate change is natural and cyclical”:
I would not disagree with that, except for downplaying the ‘cyclic’ bit. I don’t think there is strict cyclicity, just that it ‘goes up and down’.
___________________
Allan to Leif:
Agree the up-and-down cycles are less than perfect – although there is something of interest in the PDO and/or Gleissberg – and possibly also in longer cycles but I haven’t looked at them.
I published Tim Patterson’s (informal) global cooling prediction for 2020-2030 in 2002 – but perhaps we were a bit late…
Here is a note received this morning from a friend in Spain:
“The whole of Europe went through a big chill. Last week it’s been 20º below zero in Cantabría, Spain, and traffic collapsed in snowed-in Madrid. Same chaos in Marseille, with 30 cm of snow in the streets…
… Will we heat our frigid homes with wind powered electricity costing as much as the rent ? Or solar-powered juice going for twice that amount ?”
It is particularly distressing for me to see this cold winter misery unfolding, as Europeans’ inadequate alternative energy systems fail to keep them warm.
This disastrous scenario was not only predictable, it was predicted – by Sallie Baliunas (Harvard U Astrophysicist), Tim Patterson (Carleton U Paleoclimatologist) and me in September 2002, at:
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
This egregious error in energy policy is costing lives, and was entirely avoidable. The enviro-scare movement and foolish politicians are primarily responsible.
Another point we made in the same 2002 article, that Europeans may wish to consider as they huddle and freeze:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist. ”
Best regards, Allan
This is exactly the kind of tabloid nonsense I have zero interest in. It belongs on HuffPo, not a serious science blog. It doesn’t matter now – the password is locked up again and nobody is going to risk crossing the line the UEA has drawn. CG3 is over. At least until the password goes public and the archive goes viral.
” wobble says: March 19, 2013 at 5:05 am I’m telling you that it’s the promise of support and not the coercion that makes fiat currencies work.
The dollar is a fiat currency without any power of coercion outside of the united states, yet it is still widely used outside of the united states. ”
I really think you might want to look up what has happened to every country that has attempted to trade oil for something other than US dollars.
When Nixon went off the gold standard there was nothing backing the currency except a promise from the US government. Pretty good backing IMHO except for that inflation thing. Every time the US gets in a financial jam they just inflate their way out of it.
The US is the only country that doesn’t have to use someone else’s currency for international trade. The petro-dollar has been the defacto world currency for decades. As other countries tire of having their investments inflated away we are seeing more regional trade using regional currencies (Russia & China for example but there are many).
Not to be a broken record, but Anthony, you really need a good lawyer here. Ask your lawyer whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to provide the password to a US Congressman under the protection of whistle blower statutes. Post haste.
UEA is not the owner of the password. They are not the owner of the leaked files, either.
They have no legal standing on any of this.
Screw them. Release the password and get it over with. Do not give the AGW hypesters control of their destiny. They sought to steal our futures by lying and by subtrefuge. Plaster the internet with the file and the password now before they put the toothpaste back in the tube.
That this was not done already is potentially allowing a tiny group of priveleged cynics to hijack the public square.
posted this on Jeff’s blog and repeating it here as the way I see it – it is a perfect get out of jail free card that has been dealt.
Kev-in-Uk said
March 19, 2013 at 10:27 am
I think this is a perfect get out for those in the UK who ‘have the password’ – because disseminating the password to others, with, as per their lawyers notice, the condition that they stipulate will be sufficient to absolve the ‘password’ giver of any blame! By the time this has been disseminated around a few hundred thousand people – I cannot imagine anyone could be ‘fingered’ if personal information were to be released!!!
Mind you, I’d suggest this action is undertaken promptly BEFORE further pre-emptive strikes are forthcoming………….
as for the american question – if it doesn’t affect them – then this is also a classic time for them to release the password too. Or Foia him/herself ?
Excellent example of my point! Thanks, TRM.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/18/andrew-auernheimer-aka-the-att-hacker-sentenced-to-41-months-in-prison-3-years-probation-and-restitution-of-73k/
Guilty of failure to do the right thing. Not knowing what the right thing to do is is no excuse.
Reed Coray says:
March 13, 2013 at 9:01 am
I don’t know who FOIA is; but if he/she composed the “FOIA 2013: the password” document without help, he/she has excellent command of the English language. Based on his/her statement “USA politics is alien to me, neither am I from the UK“, I infer he/she is not from the UK and likely not from the USA. However, my gut feeling tells me he/she is from an English speaking environment.
_________________________
Barbados!
=8-)
Ensure if youre using Truecrypt or some other encryption method that your computer is not left on when they come to take it away for forensics as its a simple matter for them to get your password to encrypted folders when still present in RAM, hence, turn it off when its not used and the passwords to your encryption die in RAM at that point.
Quick pull of the plug does it as well as anything.
UEA definitely appear to have something to hide, theyre terrified of the contents of those mails coming out, why else squeal like this?
Certainly not because theyre bothered about data protection issues as they claim, they didnt give a hoot about it when foia requests were being denied out of spite.
I’m not a lawyer, but Jeff Condon should ask the UEA lawyers how the FOIA file has anything to do with UEA. Since UEA didn’t turn over any files when they received the original FOIA request, the implication is they had none to release.
Looks like FOIA will release this password fast and furious, without any second thoughts and that UEA is really worried…
I posted this comment at Jeff Condon’s blog in his post where he reveals receipt of UEA legal notice.
I am concerned for Anthony because it appears he has shared the password from Mr FOIA with at least one other (?Mosher?). It isn’t just risk from UEA but from legal action by any litigation happy individual scientist (like Mann) who has personal info in the CG3 file.
This road takes me to place where the ‘team’ of climategate infamy is surely toasting champagne at the mess Mr FOIA has put Anthony in.
Anthony, I hope you have the best specialist legal council money can buy. Let me know if you need donations for that specific purpose.
John
Well, so much for Freedom of Information. Now, Anthony and the other apostles have what is equivalent to a gag order, and there are liabilities attached. It seems Anthony’s loyalty to Mr FOIA was misplaced. Mr FOIA simply chose someone else to carry the burden and take the heat.
Suppose the password found its way to Mark Steyn’s desk, James Delingpole’s desk, or to Fox News or CNN? Would they be cowed into submission by British law, too? The only way any information in this tranch of emails will do the public any good is for the password to be released into the wild.
I understand that Anthony is not the guy to release the password, or any of the other stalwarts similarly chosen. In my opinion Mr FOIA now owes it to the rest of the world to release the password into the wild, so to speak. Let it go Open Source.
UEA is pissing into the wind. Those emails are out of the bottle and will never be put back in. If all those emails are not printed out somewhere, I’d be very surprised. No doubt they are also saved in several secret places also. They will come out in time, regardless of what UEA or anyone else does.
I’m guessing this is harassment, plain and simple. Or it may be that Jones or Mann or someone else knows there is a REAL smoking gun in there and will do anything to stop it from seeing the light of day.
Pathetic.
Note to UEA: you don’t OWN those emails anymore.
I don’t see how any litigation would stand up in court. What would be the charge? The potential litigants didn’t create the password, it’s not their intellectual property.
Holy smokes Anthony. One link from you and the Air Vent is rolling along like the old days.
I want a t-shirt with the password printed on it, like the old DeCSS t-shirts:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/tshirt_back.jpg
In fact, probably the best way to release the password into the public domain is to have some news outlet inadvertently photograph it.
Well done with that lawsuit threat, UEA!
1) The horse has already long departed the stable with Climategate 1.0 and 2.0. Climate science’s reputation is shredded and putrefied.
2) You’ve now turned Climategate 3.0, which seemed to be unfolding into a disappointing non-event, into a case that will now assuredly garner media attention, especially in England! Everybody will want to know what remains covered-up!
Best point of contact for legal help on this Mr. Mark Levin of http://www.marklevinshow.com contact via that or just call in and get his call screen people to have him or someone from Landmark Legal Foundation call. Marks talk show,, 1-877-380-3811
Then to Judicial Watch. http://www.judicialwatch.org
“Naomi Oreskes useless work”
Google yeild about 36,500 results (0.44 seconds)
Some traction?
cn
oops
http://www.judicialwatch.org
Bob – it is a bit harsh at this point to presume duplicity on FOIA’s part. I think it was only a bad idea fueled with good intentions on all parts. It took me a day of thinking about it to realize it wasn’t going to go as desired because all the participants in CG3 were known whereas CG1 and 2 were the equivalent of a swarm. There was no leadership then. There is no effective response to a swarm activity (example being when a mob a 200 people swarm a mall and steals everything not bolted down – witnesses see everything and nothing). The process failed here, so far, though the fat lady is yet to sing.
I don’t think anyone should presume to know how this is playing out yet. Who can know exactly how many (or which) bloggers Mr. FOIA may have shared the password with, or what any of those people may have done since? Aside from people have confirmed they have the PW, we the public do not know who else may have the PW, or who else may get the PW in the future.
I can confirm that I have received their unsolicited mail which appears to be in violation of UK anti Spam laws. Since the mail address they used includes my name, the office of the ICO suggests that I call their hotline
We also don’t know what else Mr. FOIA might do yet. There are myriad ways the PW and the emails may spread. I understand and share the impatience to know more, but the named bloggers have to consider their own situations very carefully. That does not mean there are not myriad ways this whole thing may go forward….
Very doubtful that UEA has any idea what’s in this batch of emails…how could they?
But they know that whether or not there’s anything off color or damning, they’re best bet is to try and squash it now, without having any more headlines regarding their activities.
Frankly, I’m surprised it took them this long to circle the wagons.
I’d imagine there are plenty of anonymous ways to let a password “slip” on the internet…
Just sayin’…
Jim
Go to any public Internet Café, set up an “anonymous” email account and publish the password before it’s too late. Send it already !
Sorry, but this is getting ridiculous.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall (nah just a hidden camera) during that meeting.
UEA lawyers talking to who??????????
about who???????????
about what????????
about CG3?
The right thing is for FOIA to end this now.
Release the pw.
cn
Steven Mosher says:
March 19, 2013 at 11:24 am
I can confirm that I have received their unsolicited mail which appears to be in violation of UK anti Spam laws. Since the mail address they used includes my name, the office of the ICO suggests that I call their hotline
———
~grin~
That sounds like the right thing to do to me. We must honor the anti Spam code. Violators should be reported.
After reading the UEA letter, the conditions sound reasonable. I thought it was generally agreed not to publish the password anyway, and, protecting personal data is what the known sites have also agreed to. So, no problem, except for item “(g)the commission or alleged commission by him of any offence”. If someone admitted to committing fraud on the public in these e-mails, that would seem to be the sort of thing covered under FOIA, but, the protection of personal data requirements listed would, if enforeceable, make it impossible to be convicted by an e-mailed confession. That seems odd. Any barristers out there want to comment?
Given how widely distributed the insurance file already is, it will only take one anonymous tweet to open pandora’s box now….
(in case I’m misunderstanding Mosher or my original phraseology was unclear)
Steven Mosher says:
March 19, 2013 at 11:24 am
I can confirm that I have received their unsolicited mail which appears to be in violation of UK anti Spam laws. Since the mail address they used includes my name, the office of the ICO suggests that I call their hotline
———
Oh, did you get hatemail from UEA too?
~grin~
If so, that sounds like the right thing to do to me. We must honor the anti Spam code. Violators should be reported, UEA included.
If what you say above is true then the best thing that could happen is the password be anonymously leaked. If only a handful have the password they could be arrested as co-conspirators. Don’t believe that they won’t try this. If the password is public then this would not work.
“Steven Mosher says:
March 19, 2013 at 11:24 am
I can confirm that I have received their unsolicited mail which appears to be in violation of UK anti Spam laws. ”
Clearly your spam filter isn’t working but you can soon update that and they will go away.
Now I see the wisdom of NOT releasing the password.
The Teams knowledge& fear of what may be on them is forcing their hand.
These clowns have demonstrated they live in a paranoid environment, if they had the key to any opponents secrets they would use it without hesitation.( even willing to fake secrets)
Now they are making threats of legal action, to avoid disclosure of documents they denied the existence of.
Or denied the erasure of.
I bow to a well played hand, give them enough rope.
guccifer
Contact guccifer
Guccifer
Contact Anthony
This was posted at The Air Vent. I think it is worth re-posting here:
I have had the ‘pleasure’ of being sued in Federal Court, State Court, Romanian Court and Chinese Court.
Unless you are in the jurisdiction of the UEA, they cannot do squat to you.
UK laws on disseminating found files do not apply here. They are simply tyring to blow smoke and intimidate you and the other non-UK bloggers. Here is a real world example: The UK press is regularly censored/suppressed over national security (official secrets act) and certain news on the Royals. None of those laws are enforceable outside the UK.
However, the next step of the UEA, if this goes on much longer, will be to make a civil case here asserting that since you complied, you are in a contract with them that is enforceable in the US. They may find a court here to impose compliance with their claim that you have made a contract with them by complying with them in the first place. These are treacherous times for skeptics and dissidents, and those opposed to freedom, such as the UEA, are working hard to impose their will. Be careful.
My bet is that firm flagrant and open defiance is the best choice. Wobbling and half measures only gives their preposerous demands credibility. If I was holding the files and passworkd I would publish them as broadly as possible. Their demand is bs.Complying would be worse.
Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they are doing. I’m sure this release of their emails is making them all very happy.
Release the password to the public before the UEA succeed in abusing due legal process and obtaining an injunction preventing it’s release. Having achieved that they are just one short step from obtaining a further injunction preventing the release of the bulk of the emails.
Make the whole thing public. The UEA’s move to prevent release suggests that there remain gems of malfeasance amongst those emails.
Whoa. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit just fired a shot across Mann’s bow given the lawsuit against National Review. Asked if he was the “Jerry Sandusky of Climate Science.” http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/165187/
Old sayings are good sayings.
“It not what you know, Its who you know.”
come to know guccifer
someone of knowing this guccifer
– – – – – – – –
wobble,
Thanks for your comment. Hey, suddenly it looks like you have decided to become my brand new blog comment exchange buddy ever since your first comment to me on this thread on March 18, 2013 at 1:02 pm. That’s nice.
Indeed, we finally agree on something. The infamous CG ‘team’ of scientists are rejoicing at the prospect of nailing some prominent skeptical bloggers exposed by Mr FOIA’s CG3 release method that ‘transfers-risk-to-pw-recipients’. Further, I suggest that even
Mr FOIAMr Collateral Damageman is now buying lots of popcorn after the UEA legal email was sent out to several skeptics. N’est ce pas?John
OT: may I say that to me this is almost as exciting a fluke as if I’d posted the one millionth WUWT comment, a Mosher comment gets sandwiched between my two nearly simultaneous comments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/13/climategate-3-0-has-occurred-the-password-has-been-released/#comment-1251950
“The University has no desire to stifle debate around climate change”
Just in case there are any “The debate is over” dipsticks left, you should ask the [UEA] lawyers to retract that line.
Hee hee
PS The lack of capitalization of UEA was unintentional
This posting has become too large. It is difficult to navigate to the new updates without having to scroll through the old ones. There are too many comments. I do not know how you can improve it given the constraints of the platform (I am not against the platform and have no suggestions for a different one), but am just writing to say that I am giving up with trying to read this post because it takes too long to load and navigate past the bits I have already read.
I guess you could post each update as a separate item now rather than using this sticky post? I would love to read the update 8, but even ctrl-f “update 8” fails to find it on my browser so I am forced to scroll through all of the other updates to search for the one I want to read.
I do not agree with those who say that the password should be made public. But I do think it is important that, to ensure that the genie can’t be stuffed back into the bottle, nobody know the full list of people who have the password, nor even how many people have it.
Even Mr. FOIA should not know that, lest, if he be caught, he could be forced to reveal it, or be made to suffer for refusing to do so. By this reasoning, I think it is important that at least some of the recipients of the password anonymously forward it on to a few other responsible people, and never reveal that they’ve done so.
If I had the password, I would be discrete with it, and also discrete with the emails, themselves, following FOIA’s original example of responsible behavior, by releasing only emails of public significance, and otherwise respecting the privacy of the correspondents. Theoretically speaking, of course.
Of course, if anyone were to send me the password, I would promptly delete the email, fax, letter, voice recording, or whatever, and make no attempt to find out who sent it. Still, it would be prudent for the sender to take steps to preserve his or her anonymity, perhaps by using an anonymous snail mail letter, or a disposable email account, relayed through a proxy server or three, while connected to the Internet via some open WiFi connection. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
BTW, in case someone wants to contact me, for any reason, my contact info can be found here:
http://www.sealevel.info/contact.html
“Wise as serpents, harmless as doves.”
I admit I didn’t consider the legal aspects in my previous comments.
Perhaps Mr. FOIA can send the password to two or three others he trust then send out another email to all involved saying he sent the password to unnamed others also? Then, assuming a “releaser” emerges the rest have a defense?
Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want innocent hurt by what might be in CG3. But IF someone does release the password and covers their tracks then, to non-lawyer me, it seems that would give them a level of legal protection.
It strikes me that the UEA has a bigger problem that the lawyering letter is trying to cover for.Because of the British/EU data privacy laws, the UEA could face suits from those private individuals whose data may be compromised in the email dump. Private individuals who could prove that they are (were) inadvertently innocent parties to the scientific climate debate. The UEA has a legal responsibility to supply and maintain sufficient digital security according to those British/EU data privacy laws, just as it must protect student and faculty school and medical records from breach. Blah-blah-blah.
I don’t know the extent of what’s included in the British/EU data privacy laws, but they are far more defined and draconian than what we’ve got here in the US.
If, say, one of the private individuals is a German citizen whose personal data was compromised in an email discussion–imagine for a moment that the UEA climate scientists delighted, after a conference, in trashing a German academic colleague because they found him cheeks up on a bellboy in a closet–that German person under the rules of the EU has jurisdiction to sue under Germany’s far stricter privacy laws for redress and compensation (Germany went after Facebook and won). Or maybe the fools salivated over a department chair’s secret student girlfriend and smashed her reputation to bits.
The UEA has no other option at this point than to pursue legal efforts to prevent any damage, or at least appear to be. And I doubt they would be doing it if someone hadn’t come forward admitting that there might be something to worry about. After all, the academic trasher, laugher, or fool would be on the hook for the privacy leak as well. Not to mention the broader social opprobrium, especially in light of the recent Murdoch email/phone scandal and the public’s revulsion at it.
I have posted this on the air vent and to Roger’s site.
There is actually no problem and UAE is now in a really weak position
Ian W said
March 19, 2013 at 2:24 pm
It would seem that the time has come for an FOIA request to UAE asking them for the information in the very first FOIA request that they Dr Jones was found guilty of refusing albeit after the statute of limitations.
Another FOIA request would be for all exchanges with Dr Mann that provided advice on how to present data for publication and for provision to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
etc.
These would seem to be appropriate requests for real information. What was it that in the CG files that the ‘Team’ were trying to hide? Ask for it in a formal FOIA request.
We KNOW that it is there and they know that we know it is there – the Norfolk Police know that the information is there. If the request is made as a formal FOIA to Dr Jones, he would really be playing with fire to mess about after only escaping due to the lethargy of the system.
Hoist them on their own legal petard. Do not publish the information. When a nugget is found issue a FOIA request for them to publish it suitably indirectly but unambiguously worded. Then _they_ are the publishers and they are in a bind trying to refuse as they know that the data is outside their control and that everyone knows that they ‘have their server back’.
Find a nugget in the emails – then FOIA them for it. They know you know its there. The Norfolk plod know its there _and_ that the UAE/ CRU has their mail server back. So now you light a timed fuse and ensure a non-compliance is issued in time so that Phil’s statute of limitations defence does not work. So now he has to produce what you ask for – and he cannot push out an incomplete response as you know what he knows. It will be UAE responding to an FOIA so no illegality when the information is released..
It would be good to do that this week and ensure that people in the press from Revkin to Delingpole know that the FOIA request has been delivered for some identified but as yet not released ‘nugget’ and that the clock is ticking. UAE/CRU obviously want the publicity for CG3 [/sarc] after all not many people in the MSM were saying anything and it could have faded into obscurity, now they have handed an option to everyone to shine a spotlight back on them.
John Whitman says:
March 19, 2013 at 2:07 pm
————-
John, you’ve got a pet troll! How’d you do it? Every time I try to keep one Stealey chases it away.
Looks like tallbloke got a legal email from UEA.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/university-of-east-anglia-attempts-to-put-frighteners-on-tallbloke/
John
Interesting point with that legal threat. At least here, in the UK, the Data Protection Act provides an exemption to most of its provisions for journalism which would likely be applicable for the holders of the password in this case.
On the other hand, no such exemption applies to UEA, who failed to identify, or effectively protect, this sensitive data that they’re suddenly so worried about in the first place – if they had it wouldn’t be sitting in an encrypted zip file on (probably) millions of PCs worldwide at the moment!
That said, I still maintain that common decency dictates that FOIA’s request, and the privacy of any innocent 3rd parties possibly mentioned in the emails, MUST take priority over any benefits of releasing the password or the un-filtered emails.
– – – – – – – –
Mark Bofill,
That’s pretty good satire. Thanks.
Actually, I respect wobble’s tenacity and her/his creativity in commenting. Trolls / Troll-Babes are, per my own definition, purposely malicious toward a blog site’s reputation. So, to me s/he is not a troll.
I welcome her/his comments in whatever quantity even though most of his/her comments so far are just of the mocking type. Mock on wobble.
But, I think if s/he has an attachment to someone on this thread then I think it is with Poptech. Many times more comments with Poptech than with me. : )
John
Again, I’m not a lawyer. But wonder if the UEA emails are a bluff? Are Mannian tactics being used for damage control? Maybe a real lawyer will weigh in?
tallbloke reveals the legal UEA email he received came from the British law firm of Mills & Reeve LLP.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/university-of-east-anglia-attempts-to-put-frighteners-on-tallbloke/
John
Considering the posturing and threatening by UEA, who have no legal jurisdiction whatsoever outside the UK, if I was one of the recipients, I’d unzip the file, anonymously (i.e., using a using a VPN) upload it to mega.co.nz, and post the location all over the place. Whatever sympathy I might have had for personal privacy is gone.
It’s always great to see divisions within the ranks of one’s opponents.
Several Warmists have appeared here recently saying that Climategate 3 is irrelevant, contains nothing of interest etc…one described it as a ‘nothing sandwich’.
Interesting then that UEA should be panicked into threatening legal action…if there’s nothing to see…what’s the fuss about?
re discussion around the latest UEA shenanigans … I suggest that Mr FOIA would still have the password and may rethink his wish for the password to be protected if The Team push too hard.
FOIA has all of the earmarks for being a whistleblower.
Trying to stuff this genie back in the bottle is nigh impossible. When it comes time for UEA to ‘prove’ illegal hacking in a court case, they can’t; no evidence officially found or stated. If whistleblower FOIA still fears for his life/career, that is his privilege; there are plenty of rather vindictive statements by alarmists that would give anyone pause to go public; especially since all those previous ‘protected’ whistleblowers have prospered so. Someone would have to offer a pretty penny of compensation along with immunity to force FOIA to come to court.
If UEA continues to seek harrassments against the skeptic world, perhaps it is time for an ‘Oops!’ moment; oops as in physical letters to those in more powerful positions; NRO, Steyn, Chris Horn, CEI, GWPF, and so on.
Charles Garrard, my sentiments exactly. There’s dirt there. they know what is in the unreleased e-mails and want them kept unreleased.
John Whitman says:
March 19, 2013 at 3:16 pm
Looks like tallbloke got a legal email from UEA.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/university-of-east-anglia-attempts-to-put-frighteners-on-tallbloke/
John
==============================================
I would dare say that someone is panicking about the data and information contained in FOIA’s download. The wording is that of a Lawyer but the “veg” reality is this is nothing more than a threat from that lawyer. They Know Tallbloke is considered “media” and thus they will have a hard time doing much to him. (other than make his life a living hell for a while).
I am curious if others in the receipt of the password have received the same? If so, this would mean that someone has handed over the names of those that received it. And that leads me to other things that are not so savory to think about.
Some questions come to mind:
1. Are these lawyers real? ( from TB’s response and request I am assuming they are)
2. Have any of the others received this letter or one similar?
3. What is in the dump that has them so frightened? (They are on the offensive with threats etc. They didn’t do this on the previous 2 data dumps)
I think that if they push to hard someone may just dump the password and then things will get very interesting.. I understand Anthony’s caution with disclosure and being professional, I just dont see that same professionalism coming from the other side… Something isn’t smelling right with this threat to Tallbloke, its a scare tactic or they think he is the source..
DarylM, I agree. The UEA has lost any high ground in this war. They are attempting to enforce their desires upon the globe, where they do not have jurisdiction.
What are they so effing afraid of? After all, they know what’s in those unreleased e-mails.
Joe, the “data” werepaid for with public money. I do not see how they can be kept “private” i.e. not available to the public.
Public money, public data.
I really believe the Oreskes quote is a very big deal. Oreskes (2004) “The scientific consensus on climate change” was used as the defacto paper to argue there was a “consensus” and still is. It was also featured prominently in an inconvenient truth and has been cited 700 times. The fact that someone like Tom Wigley called it literally useless is epic. It means that likely more proponents also thought it was junk but did not say anything because they thought it would be bad for the “cause”. Benny Peiser should feel vindicated.
Here’s an interesting question:
If someone were to anominously send me the password and it were to mysteriously appear somewhere in public and someone else pointed it out, what would the point of prosecution be, even if they knew who to prosecute?
The cat would be out of the bag and any further prosecution would be regarded simply as pursecution of a democrat.
Polycritic,
This UEA pseudo injunction (no power of law behind it, it is purely a threat letter) is proof there are things in the unreleased CG3 that they know of and do not want released.
UNDERSTAND THIS, THERE IS NO LAW BEHIND THIS THREAT LETTER. This is a standard legal threat, which people make when theyt actuallyt don’t have a leg to stand upon
Chuck, that is just a search of that phrase which is not specific to the CG3 quote, many people have been stating her work is useless for years. When you search for the last week, you get 103 results that are not duplicates.
A specific search for the phrase,
“Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless. A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.”
….gets only 154 results.
daveburton,
I say release the password; open the secracy of the warmistas; bring the light of day to the conspiracy. Because, surely, the warmista’s behavior have some dark secrets they want to hide.
FOIA can go to an internet cafe, set up an anonymous account and send the the password to all and sundry. I don’t think it was wise to have the bloggers act as middlemen. They are too vulnerable politically and too poor to fend off a legal attack.
Anyone try the bitcoin address for the password? Just a thought.. 🙂
well if there is anything I can do to help (server/storage/gruntwork, etc) just let me know.
dmacleoATgmail.com and I will provide my full name if needed.
whatever you need I will try to help with. even if its not me having password access, just let me know.
tallbloke received the letter also. He’s looking for legal counsel, although he is not cowed by the letter. An amusing comment was supplied by Lord Monckton in the comments section of tallbloke’s blog
Here’s what he wrote:
En Guard!!
One of the people who has the password, and thus the unlocked file, needs to put that entire unlocked file up on a server for public download.
One reason I’m not trying to advise any of the bloggers who may have the PW what to do next is because I don’t have “skin in the game” as far as legal or financial exposure. I think it’s probably correct that a UK law firm and university will have no recourse outside of the UK, but IANAL and ofc a big problem in the US and other countries is that well-funded harassers can force you to spend a lot of time and money on legal matters even if the case if frivolous.
BUT, for a fun fantasy of what I would like to do if I received such such a notice (and had the PW), I’d send a defiant email something like Monckton’s but with the PW at/near the top with the question, “could this be the password you are concerned about?” (thus forcing legal/UEA types to actually seek out the zip file and confirm it is the correct PW etc.). Meanwhile, to heighten the satisfaction of such an in-your-face email to these clowns, include “Bcc” email addresses for a wide variety of bloggers and journalists, public figures, even *real climate* scientists etc.
In other words, defiantly distribute the PW while laughing at the bozos. However, the “Bcc” would be needed to protect the good guys….. maybe an open “Cc” for the *bad* actors in the climate debates….. some of them would be tempted to look up the zip file no matter how much they might protest publicly that it was “beneath” them etc.
That’s my one minute fantasy response on the subject of the UEA legal notice…..
You continue to dodge this request,
Name a fiat currency not backed by a government that is widely used.
You are confusing “coercion” to mean forcing you to accept dollars. I am defining it as laws restricting competition and preventing counterfeiting. Without such “coercion” government backed fiat currencies could not survive because their actual monetary value (a piece of paper) would devalue until they would be essentially worthless.
This is because it has been agreed on by other nations that the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency.
I never disagreed with you, you were arguing a strawman.
The only thing you understand is your stereo-types and so far have fabricated strawman arguments for my actual positions.
More gibberish, so tell me what kind of “support” can they provide for the currency that does not involve any form of coercion or printing more paper?
Back it with what?
Their email concedes that subject to filtering and/or redaction of personal data the rest is fair game.
Given that it is only the rest that any of us is interested in that presents an open goal provided careful aim is taken.
I think the email is just UEA attempting to mitigate damage to itself by being seen to try and do something to protect employees, students and third parties from the potentially adverse effects of disclosure of personal data.
The UEA is itself wide open to claims from any parties adversely affected whether the release was a consequence of hacking or whistleblowing.
This post is not legal advice.
I’ve been reading the comments here and I really don’t think people understand these are the same group of emails that end in 2009 with ALOT more junk. Mr. FOIA already did the obvious searches with the first two batches. Anything else right now is going to be much more nuanced and obscured which is why I have to agree with Jeff’s assessment,
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/parsing-emails/
“If you want the meaning of the emails, you have to be able to read and CG1 and 2 have most everything we need to know in them so far. Beyond a three word “hide the decline”, the average public has no interest. So far, I have found no new pithy quote with the kind of clarity that CG1 revealed. I did find a large number of emails which we have covered in topic before. Some have new replies but I’ve noticed nothing which was tremendously interesting.”
I have to agree. This is why the obvious stuff is dying off relatively quickly,
http://junkscience.com/category/climategate-3-0/
To give you an example, you find humorous and naive stuff like scientists asking to be removed off porn email spamming lists,
These are funny to read but not very interesting otherwise.
Comnsider the implications of the alarmies’ efforts to intimidate skeptics – with the full participation and collaboration of law enforcement in the UK and the US Justice Department. Goes right along with Obully’s threats (if a surrogate made them, he made them) against Bob Woodward, his assault on the Second Amendment and his plans to sidestep the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by seizing coal-fureed poer plants by executive order. They’re all bona fide fascists, all of them. Welcome to the New Corporate State – Mussolini would have been proud.
Poptech says: “If you want the meaning of the emails, you have to be able to read and CG1 and 2 have most everything we need to know in them so far. Beyond a three word “hide the decline”, the average public has no interest.
The evidence is very clear. By and large sceptics and the MSM media are interested in diffeent stories. Sceptics want a crime thriller — the MSM want straight sex — a story handed to them on a plate without any need to investigate.
The MSM also want something exciting … they want something about people … like who FOIA is, their motivation, what it felt like. Sceptics want to read about dry facts.
In other words, there is probably plenty of material, but if you don’t understand what the MSM want nor how to package it for them … and you don’t give them the excitement they need but instead release it is dribs and drabs.
The MSM will justly not be interested.
Which is why, if you want to end this scam. FOIA needs to reveal their identity at the same time as a well packaged media friendly release of the emails which THEY and not Anthony,& other llike-minded sceptics want to publish.
Mail an envelope to Gleick?
I’m not going to read through all the comments, but what I’ve skimmed so far does not seem to note what is likely the biggest legal issue. If private personal information is released because of a lack of redaction and FOIA’s indentity is ever discovered, FOIA would be subject to enormous civil exposure and potential lawsuits from the aggrieved parties. This is the primary reason for slow and cautious release. It was too much work for FOIA to do himself. FYI, I do not have the password, but could get it.
I’m going to say what many others have tip toed around, and I dare Anthony to respond.
Anyone including Mr. Watts who has the password and has not released it is a hypocrite of the highest order!
Mike Haseler, I am pretty sure everyone who has the emails is aware of the type of stuff the media will be interested in and I have my doubts these will be found in CG3. As for Mr. FOIA releasing his identity, well unless he is an idiot (of which I highly doubt) that is unlikely to ever happen.
People are confusing the lack of scandalous emails coming out with them just not being found. Is everyone complaining that is posting here relatively new? I am asking because the only person I know who took the time to go through CG2 was Tom Nelson,
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/p/climategate_05.html
I mean what does everyone think they are going to search for that is not obvious to those who have them? Things like “Hide the Decline” because only Phil Jones says that once. I am having to do a lot of fairly complex searches to screen out volumes of junk mail and just come up with stuff from CG1 and CG2. People like McIntyre I am sure will likely find some better clarification and nuance for some things he has dealt with but only people like him are going to identify these things.
I am going to say what Anthony will not, “Tough shit on the password, I am not putting my ass on the line to be sued to placate a bunch of ungrateful commentators who feel entitled to something they have no legal right to with no regard for my legal liability.”
Go hack the CRU if you want the emails.
Poptech I think your problem with finding things is you are using a PC and you are looking for stupid things instead of offenses against the science. Based on everything you have said about content you are looking for sound bites and potential tweets.
I went through CG1 and 2 with massively indexed arrays, built complex relations with the lists, and found associations not possible with simple search tools. CG1 and CG2 are all found in all.7z and what remains that is not found in 1 and 2 comprises 3. Were I to do this I would certainly ignore CG1 and CG2 and treat all.7z as CG3 to build on those previous relationships.
I’ve worked with email systems for nearly 30 years and read headers in my sleep. Sadly many of those headers are truncated or missing entirely meaning they have been sucked into a mail reader and hence are probably backups of personal hard drives rather than backups of server mail boxes or even live mail boxes. There are simple ways to normalize the mail messages to remove useless things like html tags, line feeds, and to convert any embedded attachments to external files for additional review. Then you dig into to exif information in photographs and other digital data to see what gems lay hidden there. Same with PDF files. Scour the meta data.
I’ve also created massively indexed lists of peer reviewed papers to see what kinds of Venn associations may exist outside of the mail. If you are not working at that level you are not going to find squat except potential tweets and titillating gotcher nose sound bites suitable for a high school paper.
And when I was done I tossed it all out. If anyone steals my equipment all they will find are my chilli and curry recipes, and some photos of my Harley. The drives that were in the system at the time are in a landfill now, or have been passed through a crusher.
@Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001)
Thanks for the reply.
Poptech: “Mike Haseler, I am pretty sure everyone who has the emails is aware of the type of stuff the media will be interested in ”
How many time have press releases from those individuals created news headlines – even in their own home rag let alone national or international media? How may times has Anthony had information and refused to speak to the press … thereby squashing any press interest? How many times have people here gone nuts about a story only for the MSM to show no interest at all?
What was the reaction here when the Heartland Institute finally managed to get MSM in the global warming issue through the Manson advert …. to condemn the kind of titalation that gets MSM interest.
In other words I put the chances of getting a headline story … as high as waking up to find the Mann was always right about the Hockey stick (i.e. 0%)
At the very least sent the password to a few journalists …. who know what how to create a story out of sceptic material!
Poptech. Who do you think created the media storm manufactured the global warming scam? It was by and large not the “scientists” … it was the professional PR staff that every University has to “sex up” the dry boring academic material and create something that the press will print.
So for around a decade we have had … perhaps a thousand PR staff worldwide sifting through 10,000 of academic work adding in the details about “it’s more proof of global warming”.
And on our side we have had perhaps a handful of professional media people being ostracised any time they dumb down the material which is only of interesting to the climate nerds who read this.
We failed to get our story into the MSM, not because we didn’t have good stories, but because we lacked the people willing and capable enough of translating them into stories the MSM wanted to publish
Perhaps worse, most people here were hostile to anything that smacked of “making it media friendly”. Like …. dumping the whole FOIA file into the public arena … issuing loads of press releases about how this proves the other side wrong and presenting FOIA in a media storm as the saviour of humanity from the evil global warming scammers.
THEY DID IT … THEY COST THE WORLD $1TRILLION … THE EVIDENCE IS CLEARLY ON OUR SIDE … BUT NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY STOOP TO THE LEVEL OF THE MSM TO RID US OF THIS SCAM.
FOIA has done his part and must now be left alone. As dp says above we are looking for offenses against science and by extension, the integrity of all of us. All else is chaff and meaningless. This isn’t twitter or some salacious newspaper. In any case, I feel the truth came out in CG1 & 2 and I suspect that somewhere in the minds of the most ardent warmists the doubt is now starting to torment them. The silence of most politicians is deafening and the stupid MSM doesn’t know who to turn to. Only the most politically hidebound are faithfully singing from the hymn sheet. Let’s just see what comes up in measured and calm way.
…if FOIA is a “her” I do apologize.
Robert of Ottawa says: March 19, 2013 at 5:17 pm
What are they so effing afraid of? After all, they know what’s in those unreleased e-mails.
Whitehall for starters, the government energy policy and taxation is underpinned by the advice from the UEA and Met office, which is fine if they provided advice based on what they believed to be best of their knowledge, and the emails do not contradict it.
I agree with Ceetee.
Getting this sort of threatening letter from a lawyer is always a bad feeling, easy to lose sleep even when you know it is most probably bluff. A letter like this costs the UEA almost nothing and it does make the stomach sink.
I hope Anthony will not be bullied (and some comments amount to bullying) into rushing anything, or doing anything in haste.
There are so many options about how to deal with this material, I am sure the recipients will act on legal advice and do everything in a clean and thoughtful manner, to ask any of them to do otherwise is unfair and cowardly pressure.
Let the countdown begin… The password has a shelf life of < 24 hours now. Nice work UEA, you're as smart as we imagined all along.
What would Peter Gleick do?
Heck. The Pacific Institute and Peter Gleick would not just release the emails, they would fabricate more damning and salacious communications. How do we know? Because he already did it.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander? Shall FOIA act in accordance with the “principles” or lack thereof of the green extremists?
I say since the public paid for this horror show, and the likes of Michael Mann abused public funds to conspire to advance the income redistribution scam in the name of science, then the public ought to know how their money was spent. Using institutional email accounts for private communications is no excuse for the public not to see institutional dialogue.
Also, as in the case for the most recent ex-EPA chief, using private email and aliases for institutional or government business should offer no protection from disclosure since their motives were to perpetrate a lie on the public.
I will use the leftest argument for privacy invasion by government against the leftists themselves.
“If you do nothing wrong, then why not have your emails made public? Privacy is only needed by people who have something to hide. ”
I don’t believe that, but in dealing with leftists, we should employ leftist principles and make them live with the consequences of their own flawed reasoning.
Release the emails. Come what may.
WE TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN.
If you had released the password and…never mentioned having had it in the first place…then nobody would be in a position to threaten you now. At least not with legal pressure.
As I said previously, for all your talk, the “sceptic” camp seems to be very innocent and without the right aggressive attitude.
If shit like this continues people who never were sceptics and would never engage in “civilised debate” will be expressing plenty of that “aggressive attitude”.
We dont want that do we?
Shift the gear change, beat the tort, with less talk and more torque,
Yeah, I’m sorry that you’re not allowed to counterfeiting the dollar and that you’d have to make your fiat money out of paper, plastic, etc. But tell me the problem with making fiat money out of paper?
This is a stupid question. I’m telling you that government backed fiat currencies have an economic reason for being widely accepted for reasons other than coercion.
The dollar is used throughout the world for oil transactions despite the fact that the US government is unable to coerce its use outside of the US.
All products have certain competitive and counterfeiting protections. Even designer clothes and handbags.
This is dead wrong. Paper shares of AAPL would not devalue simply because they started being used as a currency. The paper itself is worthless. The promise by AAPL of continued value creation/retention would maintain the value of the currency.
Yes, parties can agree to use a currency without being coerced into doing so.
Thanks for proving my point.
Monetary policy options include more than just expansion of supply. I’m not going to school you on it.
Do I really need to explain how a person should “back” their IOUs?
Wobble,
[snip . . OT . . mod]
I forgot I had this timeline. I don’t remember when I got it or what link I followed to find it to begin with. Very helpful to put some of the CGs into perspective.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/23/the-climategate-timeline-30-years-visualized/
Ian W says:
March 19, 2013 at 3:11 pm
I have posted this on the air vent and to Roger’s site.
…
It would be good to do that this week and ensure that people in the press from Revkin to Delingpole know that the FOIA request has been delivered for some identified but as yet not released ‘nugget’ and that the clock is ticking.
———————————–
What an interesting thought ..
FOIA requests can be put online here:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/
So everyone can keep track of what is going on.
You can actually make online FOIA requests directly to the UAE online here:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/university_of_east_anglia
ROCK DEAD AHEAD! GK
I think the legal pressure makes a good case for anonymous publication of the password. The attempt by the password keepers to try to sift out personal information has been spat upon, and its time to let it go.
A classified ad (paid with cash, using a mail-in form) taken out in a major newspaper would do nicely. No need to even label the password for what it is. Just have the ad contain the password with no explanation.
Anthony,
I suggest that id the database is to be released the database etc be decrypted and put in one or more “dead drop” sites.
She’s running for the leadership of Canada’s federal Liberal Party.
https://twitter.com/joycemurray/status/6380895757
w a e a t y o s i u e a p s w r e e s
h t x c l c n t t t s a s o d r l a e
?
I don’t see any practical problem in having others discover the password for themselves without a current holder actually releasing it.
It’s somewhere in every keyboard anyway. 🙂
Andyj says:
March 20, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Wobble,
[snip . . OT . . mod]
True.
But one problem. It answered Wobbles error who was covering the meaningless rant about currency from another.
I’ll take the fall for publishing it – justsend it to me and I’ll take full responsibility. Can’t get blood from a stone and If they extradite me to England and put me in Prison I’ll just write a book about the experience
Send the files and keys to all of those involved in the Emails, through multiple cutouts of course. They can decide at will what to release. Let the fur fly.
1000 comments. A quarter of a million words. To what effect? JP
heysuess says:
March 20, 2013 at 4:51 pm
She’s running for the leadership of Canada’s federal Liberal Party.
———–
Wow! Denial dogs?!?
I kinda like it. Never heard that one before. Let’s make T-shirts! We can have ‘Denial Dingo’s’ for our brethren down in Oz. Dastardly Denial Dogs o’ Doom.
I want you guys to remember this – after it catches on (after lower troposphere temps start showing a persistent cooling trend) and goes mad viral uberkewl – you heard it here first.
What sort of baseless rumours do we need to start near the team?
Who knows these people, their associates and activities well enough, to convincingly rattle their cages?
If two know, it is no longer a secret.
I read all of the 1st CRU emails, I will be very grateful if these 200 000 encore emails are vetted by other willing volunteers, I appreciate the time being diverted from busy lives.
I sense panic from members of the team, if they accidentally on purpose damaged the back up server, they will now be uncertain as to what they said.
If any member has a meticulous file of all their “team” correspondence, they will be suspect within the team.
These are paranoid people,CG1 proves that,it is my belief that the rats are turning on each other.
There is no honour amongst bureaucrats, rogues or thieves.
Entertaining days ahead.
dp, My apologies, when you write the computer program that can look for “offenses against science” let me know.
I must have missed you contribution to CG1 and 2 with these ground breaking “associations” based on something other then joe emailed bob 10 times in 1999 that anyone was either not already aware of or cared about.
I have extensive access to server “arrays” (which can mean anything since Google uses cheap PCs in mass) and the only thing you need servers for is if you want to make an online searchable database that would be accessible to thousands of users at once. Otherwise a high-end desktop PC makes short work of text based queries.
No special background in email systems is needed to search the files, you just need a good file search utility. I can manipulate, sort and remove anything I want out of the files on my desktop PC, all rather boring stuff and only impressive to the technically inept.
Header, footer and metadata is not really an issue with these emails because you are not trying to determine something you believe is fake like with the Gleick memo. You get ground breaking “offenses against science” in the headers like what AV program scanned the email or what email program they used.
If I want to permanently remove all traces of the files you can do this to DOD level standards or higher with free wipe utilities, again all rather boring stuff and not technically impressive to anyone that knows what they are talking about. You can also buy a cheap demagnitizer at Radio Shack and a blow torch at Home Depot for the truly paranoid.
I love how people try to make things sound more complicated then they are to sound impressive.
I am Mr. FOIA with consideration of the weasel words could, possibility, may, correlates, suggests, implies, etc., etc. We should all confess to being Mr. FOIA. A thousand confessions!
Come get me! I sent secret correspondence via multiple couriers. I’m the one you want. Guilty for wanting the truth!
Let’s all confess!
There a real hero among us!
Try to get me. Ya ya ya you weenie babies. You can’t touch me. Skirmish soon. Truth is already here.
Radio Shack used to sell little butane torches. Just sayin
Just for fun, I checked and I could “magically” search the CG3 file contents on an extra $200 desktop PC I built last year (2.4Ghz dual core Intel Celeron with 4GB of RAM), yes it was slower but took less than a couple of minutes to go through all of them (shakes head in disbelief – such magic cannot be possible!). So much for the “better fire up the Cray supercomputers” CG3 search hype.
Mike Haseler says: March 13, 2013 at 5:43 pm
Good catch on the Republican connection. I missed that due to fish/water issues.
As to recent career developments negating the papal “we”, I believe that is related to his colleague’s career suffering due to causes similar to the Bohemian off-year elections of 1419, 1618, and 1948 [see defenestration]. 1.25 bitcoins seems a small reward for such an outcome. That would certainly explain the increasingly unfavorable situation.
Guesses to identity: I am sure the intelligence forces of various nations already have the password. So that information is already being used by someone. Linguist: it is clear the author is multilingual, with broad understanding of American English in childhood, British English at the university level, at least one Romance language – probably either Spanish or Italian and learned from a parent. Possible connection with University of Santos, and a university in southeastern Great Britain. IT level is competent, but not a specialist. His colleague was likely the IT specialist, while he served as the semanticist. But I don’t know anything that isn’t glaringly obvious from the contents of CG1 and CG2.
A few people are reading too much into the Mills and Reeve letter – remember this was written by a Solicitor, and so is very precise in its use of language and explicit in what is and (more importantly) is not covered.
The letter is a reminder of the legal status of personal information within the e-mails, and is intended only to prevent the release of the full, unredacted and unfiltered archive (and as a secondary effect, limiting release or distribution of the password so as to minimise the risk of the full archive). As the password was not created by UEA and the archive of the e-mails is in the public domain (although until now as an encrypted zip file), the legal recourse of UEA is limited only to protection of personal information.
As an aside, I doubt there is anything as meaty as ‘Mike’s Nature trick’ and ‘hide the decline’ to find in the fresh e-mails, but there will definitely be further addition to the context of some of the e-mail conversations and very possibly more evidence of wilful avoidance of FOI requests (in particular David Holland is sure there are contradictory e-mails regarding the reasons for disapproving his FOI requests, which are the ones that the Information Commission described as there being ‘de facto evidence’ of illegality in the avoidance thereof).
Mark Bofill says:
March 20, 2013 at 7:35 pm
Wow! Denial dogs?!?
___
She’s got the endorsement of …. ready? … David (Who let the dogs out) Suzuki.
Why not anonymously provide the password to a sympathetic politician who can publicly mention it in Parliament during Question Period?
Would that politician be protected by Parliamentary Privilege?
From wiki:
Parliamentary privilege (also absolute privilege) is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties. It is common in countries whose constitutions are based on the Westminster system. A similar mechanism is known as parliamentary immunity.
In the United Kingdom, it allows members of the House of Lords and House of Commons to speak freely during ordinary parliamentary proceedings without fear of legal action on the grounds of slander, contempt of court or breaching the Official Secrets Act.[1][2] It also means that members of Parliament cannot be arrested on civil matters for statements made or acts undertaken as an MP within the grounds of the Palace of Westminster, on the condition that such statements or acts occur as part of a proceeding in Parliament—for example, as a question to the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. This allows Members to raise questions or debate issues which could slander an individual, interfere with an ongoing court case or threaten to reveal state secrets, such as in the Zircon affair or several cases involving the Labour MP Tam Dalyell.
There is no immunity from arrest on criminal grounds, nor does the civil privilege entirely extend to the devolved administrations in Scotland or Wales.[3] A consequence of the privilege of free speech is that legislators in Westminster systems are forbidden by conventions of their House from uttering certain words, or implying that another member is lying.[4] (See unparliamentary language.)
The rights and privileges of members are overseen by the powerful Committee on Standards and Privileges. If a member of the House is in breach of the rules then he/she can be suspended or even expelled from the House. Such past breaches have included giving false evidence before a committee of the House and the taking of bribes by members.
Poptech said:
I need know no more from you. This is all over your head and you don’t know it.
A week later and nothing to show? Come on, give us something.
For all of you folks talking about levels of massive computing power and/or how much it might cost, I have one word: CUDA.
Allan MacRae says:
March 21, 2013 at 5:52 am
Why not anonymously provide the password to a sympathetic politician who can publicly mention it in Parliament during Question Period?
Would that politician be protected by Parliamentary Privilege?
Yes the MP involved would be covered by parliamentary privilege. However, reading out more than 128 ‘gobbledegook’ characters would be a new acme in unintelligible questions.
– – – – – – –
mpaul,
Please keep on with your messages to Anthony about caution and getting legal advice.
In my view, I do not give a rat’s butt about
Mr FOIA’sMr Collateral Damage Spreader’s burden transfer from his anonymous self to openly non-anonymous skeptical bloggers.I do care about Anthony’s risk when legally exposed due to Mr Collateral Damage Spreader’s stealth games.
John
I think it’s time to stop waiting with bated…
Mr FOIA instructed all the recipients not to release the password.
He didnt instruct any of them to not unlock the file, copy it all to a new zip file and then put it on megaupload or wherever in an unlocked condition.
Likewise UEA instructed and demanded by furiously stamping their little tootsies the very same thing.
No one has to release the password, just copy all the unlocked files to a zip, put on net, UEA melts down in a frenzy of denialist shock.
Oh I-ron-ee.
If it turns out jones et al have been having certain bumps felt at madame swishes exclusive bump feeling parlour on the taxpayers tab, too bad. The truth will out.
As soon as James Delingpole in the UK [ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/jamesdelingpole/ ] mentioned CG3 the moderation began removing comments in a frenzy of censorship. Comments with links to WUWT , Jo Nova, Donna Laframboise and others were slashed in a frenzy of watermelon activity. This at a time when press freedom is under threat in a fashion unheard of in the free world. Blogs are a threat to those misusing power, we need more CG3’s and more whistle blowers and most of all we need blogs free from the type of censorship being practiced at the Daily Telegraph. Posted on behalf of the many friends of James Delingpole and freedom of expression.
https://thetrollguttingshed.wordpress.com/
Time for one holder of the password to re-zip the decoded file and drop it off on a bittorrent site to put it all in the public domain. Not to cause trouble but to prevent it for those who already have access and quote from the archive and could hence be harassed by lawsuits because the information is NOT in the public domain. Once in the wild it becomes published and it should be mighty difficult to figure out who let the dogs out. The fact that this would cause exactly the opposite effect the UEA lawyers intended would just have to be considered a collateral bonus.
~ half way through. phew! Regarding Skiphil’s mention of searching using ”juiciest keywords”: there’s power in search technique. If we want the science issues emails, then spiritual colleagues doing real science, or those familiar with the most of climate-related science literature, projects, etc., are most qualified – and requested (if such a search is a good way to go) to come up with the keywords: issues, projects, budgetary data, project management, scientific principles, etc. I have not yet sussed if the recipient group is identified, but I have to trust in Foia’s judgment, with fingers crossed. glad to be jus’ sayin’
Sustained Cudos to Ms. FOIA.
PS Someone some time ago did a pdf chart, huge, printable, in multiple 8.5×11 pages. It traces the history, in great detail along various fronts, based on CG1.
Releasing the PW anonymously is easy.
The problem is FOIA’s wishes.
He/She expressly asked for it not to be made public.
Legal threats are nonsense.
One lost/stolen memory stick gets the PW out, and there are other ways.
So sue me.
If you can find me….
Allan MacRae says: “Why not anonymously provide the password to a sympathetic politician who can publicly mention it in Parliament during Question Period?”
As in what allowed Sen. Harry Reid to make faults and malicious accusations about Romney not having payed his Taxes, and Sen. Harry Reid to walk away scot-free, and not be held liable or accountable. Talk about killing two birds with one stone All.7z password out in the open and Reid getting a taste of his own dirty tricks.
Re searches, rgbatduke made a significant contribution regarding procmail
==================================================================
This might be what you’re referring to.
(You might run into a few links that no longer work.)
Please edit: before the reporter even write the story
Here is the solution – right underfoot all this time. Let TSA handle this!
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/us-plan-calls-more-scanning-private-web-traffic-email-1C9001922
/sarc
I felt it appropriate to explain my views on the openness of the password. Several posters have accused the people asking that the password be disseminated of acting childish. I think the reverse is actually closer to the truth.
Before I begin I want to say that I have no dog in this fight. I have never downloaded or have attempted to find the encrypted file. Even if the password were to be released I would not attempt to do so. While I can think of many things that I like to do, pawing through 200,000 emails is not one of them. That said I don’t think that any group has the right to withhold it either. It is public information and as such should be public (and don’t mumble that the “password” isn’t public information, you know what I mean).
Like most people here I am not interested in the scientist’s dirty laundry. Seeing a skid mark or two might bring a chuckle but I hardly think that would be career ending for them.
As far as “sensitive personal information”, with about $50 bucks and internet access I can find most people’s name, address, phone number, active email, age, marital status and children’s names and ages. This would take about 5 minutes. With a little more time and effort I could find out a whole other host of information. Most of which is probably not in the emails.
So what are you protecting?
If you are about to mumble something about liability then let me stop you. These people already accepted that when they received and used the password from FOIA, something that at least Anthony has admitted publicly. You have already made yourself an accessory after the fact to any crime that FOIA may or may not have committed. Like many have already said the best way to reduce or eliminate your liability is to get the password out in the open.
So what else you got?
Integrity? Please! Let’s pretend that for one instant these so called scientist deserved to be treated with any. While I appreciate all of the hard work that Anthony and others have done for what I feel is the right side of the argument, they are no saints. I have been on the receiving end of some of Anthony’s integrity and it has been found wanting.
So what’s left?
Selfishness? It’s my ball and you can’t play with it. Maybe a little.
I think it has more to do with self-interest. Like the Catholics who only printed the bible in Latin lest the grubby people got their hands on it and misinterpreted it, you need a priest to do that for you. WE are the keepers of the truth. WE are better than you the great unwashed who simply can’t be trusted with the truth. WE will tell you all that you need to know for your own good. TRUST US.
Sounds a lot like a group of people that didn’t want to show their work. I don’t trust either one.
At the end of the day though I think the biggest reason that they won’t release the password is ego. Something tells me that this group of people is pretty well endowed in that department. They want to be the one that finds the “smoking gun”. They want to find the email that really sticks it to the team. Maybe they’ve earned it, who knows.
Everything considered I’m uncomfortable with any group that sets themselves up as the arbiters of the truth. In my opinion it makes you no better than the men who bastardize science in the name of the “cause”.
Like I said before, hypocrites.
JC says: “As far as “sensitive personal information”, with about $50 bucks and internet…”
Lame example.
JC says: ” These people already accepted that when they received and used the password from FOIA,”
Buzzzz, try again.
JC says: “At the end of the day though I think the biggest reason that they won’t release the password is ego.”
Childish Taunt.
JC says: “I felt it appropriate to explain my views on the openness of the password.”
Failed.
Yes of course reading email headers requires a PhD in “Email Imagined Authority Posing” and I am incapable of doing such things. I have no idea what any of the routing information (university email server sent what?) in their means and cannot resolve IP addresses. It is all very complicated stuff. What does this mean received on date: XXX? Must be new age trickery that only server “arrays” can deal with. What is this “MIME-Version”? Since when do street performers have versions?
All sorts of “offenses to science” are clearly buried in such information, if only I was smart enough to extract it.
I don’t doubt you are smart enough but you’re just not looking. Yes – offenses to science abound in CG1, CG2 and certainly what CG3 will reveal. Building contexts to reveal hidden connections, associations, if you prefer, requires some sophistication that you seem to reject, and that rejection is your undoing. Yes, there are tasty morsels of this and that to be found with linear searches and a mind to the needs of tabloid journalism – you may discover the color of Michael Mann’s panties, for example, but that won’t advance the science. Hence, you are left with sound bites and the things tweets are made of while others carve the meat.
Your questions in your most recent post further isolate you from the discoverers. Best you accept your level of analysis for what it is and leave the heavy lifting to others. Actually, that is snarky and that is not what I wish to convey and I apologize. You can but don’t work at a higher level. I don’t doubt you and I are on the same side and I don’t wish to discourage you. Just think deeper, work smarter, think the hell out of the box, generate the associations I have seen and all will be revealed. This stuff is exhaustive and if you don’t believe me, ask Anthony who surely understands.
Years ago I had a wonderful young engineer under me who said in a pique of frustration “This is hard – let’s do it wrong”. Not likely an original thought but new to me at the time. It was a poignant moment. I love what that means. It is the essence of modern climate science.
@Luther Wu
I was hoping someone would build a cracking cluster from a couple of hundred super fast PCI Express video cards, capable of trying a trillion+ passwords per second. Who knows, the NSA probably already has that capability. (But nobody did all the time Kevin Mitnik was in prison, couldn’t decrypt his hard drives and he wouldn’t tell the passwords.) Just a pair of the latest cards can be used to brute force passwords for Windows and various other common personal computer operating systems and programs. Ones built with 8 cards on special, expensive motherboards having that many PCIe x16 slots can crack any 12 character password in a few minutes at several billion attempts per second. Bump that up to 13 characters and the time goes up but still wouldn’t take too long. Feed it a file protected with a shorter password and you have “Hollywood fast” password breaking.
The weakest password, of any length, is one consisting only of numbers. If a hacker knows the password is only numbers he just has to write a program that starts at 0, counts up and tries the password as fast as possible. Even on end of the 20th century PCs there were programs available capable of opening numeric password protected ZIP and RAR archives in a few seconds. (Remember Spaceballs? “So the combination is, one two three four five? That’s the stupidest combination I ever heard in my life! That’s the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!”)
No matter what system a password protection uses, using a longer password makes it harder to crack, unless there’s a back door built in deliberately or by error. For example, ZIP archives made with WinZIP 8.1 (or was it 8.0?) can have their passwords instantly bypassed due to an accidental exploit that wasn’t found until some time after that version was released. Aside from ‘opportunities’ like that, any 20 character password, even if it’s just all same case text without numbers or punctuation, would take far longer to brute force than a 10 character password with both upper and lower case letters, numbers and punctuation.
As for remembering your complex, hack resistant passwords, someone said “One solution would be to simply name your cat pms1f6-oW2$BOb”.
My scrolling finger hurts.
Send me the password, Anthony.
Anthony,
I respectfully second John Silver’s comment and request.
It is time for a new thread, more updates and the release and free dissemination of the data in CG3.
As for moral/ethical issues, the AGW believers and promoters left that far behind when they failed to do anything about Peter Gleick.
It is long past time to stop, even for what appears to be good reasons, suppressing information. That is how the AGW believers got us into this situation in the first place.
Information needs to be free.
And this topic needs a new thread.
Most sincerely and respectfully,
Christopher monckton writes:
Yet the ‘whistleblower’ says:
From the article above:
That quote is cherry-picked out of the sentence, changing the meaning.
Mann is not admitting to deception. He’s refuting by pointing out that nothing is hidden.
This is a very common, familiar rhetorical construct (“If this doesn’t satsify you, nothing can.”) I cannot fathom how it could have been so distorted.
Galane says:
March 22, 2013 at 2:22 am
“@Luther Wu
I was hoping someone would build a cracking cluster from a couple of hundred super fast PCI Express video cards, capable of trying a trillion+ passwords per second. Who knows, the NSA probably already has that capability. (But nobody did all the time Kevin Mitnik was in prison, couldn’t decrypt his hard drives and he wouldn’t tell the passwords.) Just a pair of the latest cards can be used to brute force passwords for Windows and various other common personal computer operating systems and programs. Ones built with 8 cards on special, expensive motherboards having that many PCIe x16 slots can crack any 12 character password in a few minutes at several billion attempts per second. Bump that up to 13 characters and the time goes up but still wouldn’t take too long. Feed it a file protected with a shorter password and you have “Hollywood fast” password breaking.”
uhm Galane, you should probably check your math. I’m going to assume you are correct, and a trillion passwords can be tried a second. A password with upper case, lower case, numbers and special characters (I use 10 for easy reference) means that a 10 character password would have a possible 10^72 (In excel..10 characters, 72 possible characters in each location). I divided that by 1 trillion, 60 seconds, 60 minutes, etc to fine that it would take 4 +51 zeros years to brute force all possible combinations. the time it takes would go up exponentially for each additional length you added.
– – – – – – – –
barry,
Someone at UEA as either a student or faculty or for some project /assignment does not mean the person is either born or bred or raised or educated in the UK.
John
Is it just me or don’t you find it rather odd that none of the alleged recipients of the password has actually published any information at all of the alleged CG3?
It’s looking more and more like a dead red herring.
I can’t say , for sure, but wouldn’t it be perfectly rsk free to release the password by omitting the last digit or two. As in rgj9e4iejhton**. I am sure we could do the rest. That would probably make all this agonizing… mute, and increase everyones security. After all, even credit companies reveal part of your account number and asterisk portions. Just another suggestion of possible options, in an attempt to be helpful. Cheers. GK
Ian W says:
March 21, 2013 at 7:32 am
Allan MacRae says:
March 21, 2013 at 5:52 am
Why not anonymously provide the password to a sympathetic politician who can publicly mention it in Parliament during Question Period?
Would that politician be protected by Parliamentary Privilege?
Yes the MP involved would be covered by parliamentary privilege. However, reading out more than 128 ‘gobbledegook’ characters would be a new acme in unintelligible questions.
——————-
It would not be noticed, and would probably get voted for.
I would imagine that all kinds of legal wrangling is going on, from “receipt of stolen property” to IP searches of anyone who received the password code. What is interesting is that only a password code has been issued. Which I presume is not stolen property. It is quite the tangled mess. No wonder we haven’t gotten much from the last of the emails. There has probably been all kinds of official attempts made to retrieve the password code from recipients. But bottom line, receiving the password code is likely not an offence of any kind. We may be at a stalemate.
– – – – – – – –
barry,
The CG emails you are referring to highlight profound disagreements between Wigley and Mann in substantive climate science subjects.
If you have a presumption that Mann’s view, prima fascia, should be given more credibility than Wigley, then it is scientifically merit-less.
What is shown in the dialog was that the science was not settled in any ‘consensus’ formation. They show a context contrary to the PR by the self-proclaimed ‘consensus’ scientists who attempted a self-serving gatekeeping core in the preparation of IPCC AR3 and AR4.
The CG emails reveal a sceptic reality in the climate science process, as opposed to the contrived PR from the ‘settled’ / ‘consensus’ supporters of alarming / dangerous AGW from CO2.
The science then was weak supporting alarming / dangerous AGW from CO2 . . . . and it is much weaker now. AR5 is already stillborn wrt scientific merit.
It is a good time to be normal ( scientifically skeptical).
John
@SanityP March 22, 2013 at 8:32 am:
“Is it just me or don’t you find it rather odd that none of the alleged recipients of the password has actually published any information at all of the alleged CG3?
It’s looking more and more like a dead red herring.”
Yeah, it looks like it went south on FOIA, for once. His intent failed.
Perhaps he will just have to release the password to the world in general.
It is obvious that Anthony and the others (tallbloke perhaps excepted) that they do not appreciate being put in the middle like this.
I maintain that the email is a fake. It doesn’t sound like ANY legal communications I’ve ever seen or heard of. There was one Gleick in the warmist crowd. Don’t be shocked if it proves out that there was a second.
One way or another, it will get out.
Steve Garcia
It is a very good time to be sceptical! As I work through Climate Alchemy’s junk science, courtesy of Sagan, Hansen, Lacis, Houghton, Ramanathan and Trenberth, I see the most obvious basic mistakes, 13 in total.
One of the most interesting is the attempt to pass off Aarhenius’ ideas of a black body earth’s surface passing IR through the atmosphere and the difference between this and OLR is supposed to heat up the atmosphere.
This dates from the first NIMBUS satellite data in 1972 which showed the OLR. These dorks forgot the most basic test of science: What do the data mean? Well, the OLR is in two parts. it’s an emission spectrum for H20 and CO2, and a combination of atmospheric window, 90% black body, plus emission for trace gases.
The dip for the CO2 15 micron band is not ‘absorption’. it’s because it’s ‘self absorbed’. The claim it shows absorption of surface IR is balderdash. This assumption has misled these people for 40 years. People like Pierrehumbert compare the base of the CO2 signal with a black body spectrum and claim it comes from 220 °K. It does not – it actually comes from 275 °K, 6 km in temperate climates and is the CO2 IR that is set loose when convection changes to radiation.
Because there is no direct thermalisation of IR energy>LTE, this spills over into space.The upshot is that the models falsely assume Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation operates at ToA to counter the false ‘back radiation’ argument. Then they cheat by offsetting imaginary energy by twice real low level cloud optical depth.
The heat generation and transfer is totally wrong then they cheat to prove the GHE = 33 K. It is really ,9 K with the rest lapse rate warming. They also get Venus wrong!
So what is the status of these emails?
After a week I suspect those with the ‘word’, now have an idea of the work ahead.
Is there any thing we causal viewers/visitors can do to help?
I have not seen this posted yet, from the README file dated: January 1, 2011;
“Original mail files were homogenized from various mailbox and encoding formats. Binary parts were mostly dropped in the process. Some messages are garbled. Some files may contain several messages concatenated.”
Whatever these people are doing it`s not science, whether you go by Aristotle, Newton or Popper. These e-mails remind me why I quit university in disgust a decade ago; after having spent two years preparing for it by learning logic and the scientific method university was nothing more than political, agenda driven speculative crap from one end to the other and if you dared point out to anyone that what they were doing was pathological science at best, there went your degree.
Mind you, there`s nothing wrong with speculation when it`s openly labeled as such and not funded by billions of wasted taxpayer money. This is what revised HDM is supposed to be about after all. But in the interest of eliminating lies and fabrication, not shore them up and write endless pages of drivel to make it seem official and plausible like the CG swine have done.
It all makes me wanna throw up.
This looks bad.
The post is no longer a top sticky and nothing about FOIA has replaced it.
This looks bad.
Looks like it’s been swept aside.
Not under the carpet, I hope?
cn
John says,
Of course. But there is no basis to assume this is the case, as Monckton has. There is no basis at all to assume the hacker was a whistleblower. It is simply the view that some people prefer to take. We should be more skeptical.
John,
Mann did not ‘admit’ to deception, as the top post puts it. He refutes it. That is clear from the language. I’m not sure what point you are trying to make, but it has nothing to do with this.
Read the sentence yourself. It’s meaning has been inverted in the top article, don’t you think?
When simple and obvious errors of fact like this are ignored, I’m not interested in investing time in grander notions. I cannot trust that this sort of sloppiness doesn’t underpin the rest. If you respond to my point, small as it is, then I’ll be more inclined to move on to what it is you want to talk about.
Let’s see.
@Potter says
He accuses me of using a “childish taunt”
“Lame example” with no explanation of why it was “lame”
“Buzzzz, try again” ??????
“Failed”
Just who is using “childish taunts”?
Maybe there is actually some extremely damaging stuff in the emails and the guys with the file access are simply putting together a particularly large” thermonuclear device” to drop on the opposition and get them all in one go and dont want to tip their hand at this stage?
Thatd be nice. 🙂
Time will tell.
John,
I realized that you were agreeing with me, albeit tacitly.
Indded, Mann is disagreeing, not agreeing with Wigley that the comparison is deceptive. As to your point, I did not suggest or imply that Mann was right, only that his comment had been completely misrepresented in the top post.
As to whether Mann or Wigley is right, it would take someone much smarter than me to figure that out, and they’d be doing it with all-important context missing. That’s one of the main problems with understanding the emails. Anyone can selectively quote, but the only people that have the complete background of the conversation instead of just headlines are the people who wrote them. The forensics on them by the peanut gallery is usually far more assumptive than illuminating.
To paraphrase lightly: “And so it ends, not with a bang but a whimper”
Allan MacRae says:
March 21, 2013 at 5:52 am
Why not anonymously provide the password to a sympathetic politician who can publicly mention it in Parliament…?
Would that politician be protected by Parliamentary Privilege?
Ian W says:
March 21, 2013 at 7:32 am
Yes the MP involved would be covered by parliamentary privilege. However, reading out more than 128 ‘gobbledegook’ characters would be a new acme in unintelligible questions.
___________
Man Bearpig says:
March 22, 2013 at 9:09 am: It would not be noticed, and would probably get voted for.
___________
Allan says:
Too true in the Canadian Parliament, Bear.
In a protest vote against their previous imbecilic choice, the voters of Quebec recently elected a Medusa-raft of neophyte NDP (Socialist) Members of Parliament, many of whom were about 20 years old and had never been to the Parliamentary ridings they now represent. In a few years these lucky individuals will be eligible for fat pensions for the rest of their lives. Unless they get too heavily into the drugs, these fortunate children will be living off the largess of the Canadian taxpayers for the next 60 years.
Back to the subject at hand:
Hypothetically, an anonymous letter containing the password could be sent to a number of Parliamentarians, any one of whom could then release it under Parliamentary Privilege. It would appear that Parliamentary Privilege applies in those countries of the British Commonwealth, and also in our recently departed first-cousin, the USA.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, faites vos jeux!”
I just hope we’ll see something soon. It would be rather pathetic if this would be dropped for some lame reason.
Maybe we need Anonymous to get hold of the password?
Just in case you’re still reading here, John, I did a quick bit of research on the matter of contention raised by Wigley. Paraphrasing his email, he is saying that he prefers MAGICC to other models used by the IPCC.
MAGICC is part of the model ensembles used by IPCC.
Wigley: “MAGICC has been one of the primary models used by IPCC since 1990 to produce projections of future global mean temperature and sea level rise.”
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/wigley/magicc/UserMan5.3.v2.pdf
Wigley has more faith (naturally) in his own model that in that of others, and says that representations of model/obs comparisons re other models have been dubious.
Mann’s reply is simply that all the model runs have been shown (which includes MAGICC contribution), so how can it be dubious when all the cards are on the table.
The conversation between Mann and Wigley appears to be about the last decade or so of warming. Wigley disagrees with Trenberth’s statement that they can’t account for the lack of warming, and mention attempts to reconcile by removing ENSO and volcanic influences. This might suggest Wigley’s position is that MAGICC accounts for the lack of surface temperature warming.
But I don’t know – we lack the full context of the conversation. All I’m saying is that it is easy to misinterpret these email discussions, and my point about the interpretation of Mann’s comment, which is not an admission of deceptiveness as stated in the article here (Mann’s comment was actually the opposite of this misinterpretation), is a clear example. Almost all the quotes above, which use informal language, can be read quite differently to what has been implied depending on potential contexts/use of rhetoric. It takes a skeptical mind to hold more than one interpretation as potentially valid, rather than settling on a preferred reading.
Why is this story so hard to find now? has it become a non event since the legal emails went out from CRU? Almost seems like it is being buried all over the place .
Cheers
This story is somewhat like pure gold. Sitting in the ground it has no value. Moved to a different hole in the ground like say Fort Knox it has tremendous value. In either case we don’t have access to it, so how that value is manifested is in the hands of the privileged. So it is that “all.7z” went from one hole in the ground to others and all we have learned is who owns the holes. If the password is released then surely those who are known to hold it will be called in for investigation and I suspect none of them wants to be caught in the lie: “It wasn’t me”.
Only FOIA can release the genie again and is already at maximum risk with little to lose and everything to gain the first release failed to produce. But the tone of the letter that came with the password suggests who ever that is is worried about their immediate future. Not releasing the password won’t reverse that – the “Get out of jail free” card is not in the current deck.
Your move, FOIA.
Lawyers 1 Enquiring Minds 0. This is a bitter defeat to take.