Guest post by David Middleton
AT 10 AM the Saturday before inauguration day, on the sixth floor of the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania, roughly 60 hackers, scientists, archivists, and librarians were hunched over laptops, drawing flow charts on whiteboards, and shouting opinions on computer scripts across the room. They had hundreds of government web pages and data sets to get through before the end of the day—all strategically chosen from the pages of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—any of which, they felt, might be deleted, altered, or removed from the public domain by the incoming Trump administration.
Their undertaking, at the time, was purely speculative, based on travails of Canadian government scientists under the Stephen Harper administration, which muzzled them from speaking about climate change. Researchers watched as Harper officials threw thousands of books of aquatic data into dumpsters as federal environmental research libraries closed.
But three days later, speculation became reality as news broke that the incoming Trump administration’s EPA transition team does indeed intend to remove some climate data from the agency’s website. That will include references to President Barack Obama’s June 2013 Climate Action Plan and the strategies for 2014 and 2015 to cut methane, according to an unnamed source who spoke with Inside EPA. “It’s entirely unsurprising,” said Bethany Wiggin, director of the environmental humanities program at Penn and one of the organizers of the data-rescuing event.
[…]
Firstly… If I was a member of the incoming Trump administration, I would be racing to preserve climate data, particularly un-adjusted climate data, from the outgoing management of NOAA, NASA, EPA, etc.
Secondly… I would undo the reorganization of NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center into the National Centers for Environmental Information. While “data” and “information” are related, they aren’t the same thing.
Thirdly… WTF???
[S]peculation became reality as news broke that the incoming Trump administration’s EPA transition team does indeed intend to remove some climate data from the agency’s website. That will include references to President Barack Obama’s June 2013 Climate Action Plan and the strategies for 2014 and 2015 to cut methane, according to an unnamed source…
References to “President Barack Obama’s June 2013 Climate Action Plan and the strategies for 2014 and 2015 to cut methane” aren’t data. It is information. Maybe the Rogue Scientists are unaware of the fact that President Obama’s plans and strategies expire in about 4 hours and 30 minutes.
This bit is rich…
But data, no matter how expertly it is harvested, isn’t useful divorced from its meaning. “It no longer has the beautiful context of being a website, it’s just a data set,” Allen says.
That’s where the librarians came in. In order to be used by future researchers—or possibly used to repopulate the data libraries of a future, more science-friendly administration—the data would have to be untainted by suspicions of meddling. So the data must be meticulously kept under a “secure chain of provenance.” In one corner of the room, volunteers were busy matching data to descriptors like which agency the data came from, when it was retrieved, and who was handling it. Later, they hope, scientists can properly input a finer explanation of what the data actually describes.
They’re looking for data at the EPA and NOAA that’s “untainted by suspicions of meddling”…
What a good idea. These rogues are doing the Transition Team’s work for them. The fake data will all be in one place & the TT know who the compilers are. The rogues should have kept a low profile or indeed no profile at all. Pick them up one by one & show them these.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=thumbscrews&rlz=1C1CHFX_en-GBGB547GB547&espv=2&biw=1220&bih=586&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-kcf-4dDRAhVICMAKHYAIDnwQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=thumbscrews+medieval
Gallows humour.
Gross and disgusting.
Google reminded me that they know what I am looking at. Nice guys! Now I am on a list somewhere.
This is just a distraction. Shredders and bleaching software are working overtime in DC right now.
If I was President Trump, my first Executive Order, announced from the ceremony itself, would be a cease and desist order on all document destruction pending further review across the entire government.
The corruption of the fanatic Allinskyites who have infested our government is at heart cowardice. They have gotten their power and money and intend to at least hold on to the money if they are being driven out of power. That means covering up the corruption.
When Nicaragua finally removed the Sandinistas from political power, they allowed the inner circle to stay around as a sign of god faith. Instead they corrupted the country, became super rich and have effectively taken the country anyway. We need to be very careful. The Clintons by way of their phony foundation nearly did it to us. Obama is far less restrained and a much better poker player than the Clintons.
Clinton Global Initiative has closed down. A sign of things to come let’s hope. Comrade Stalin understood these things and what had to be done.
It is important to remember the the Clinton Global initiative is NOT the same thing as the Clinton Foundation; it is only a subset.
Chelsea and and the Foundation are still chugging along (although the contributions have inexplicably dropped off /sarc).
George, of course but the complete closure of CGI is still hugely significant. They’re not even pretending anymore.
Orange IS the “new black,” kiddies; the new sheriff arrives today wearing a shining star. Time to sweep the silly CAGW theory and scam to the dustbin of history. All of Mr. Watts’ distinguished contributors here have certainly done their part. Forward, MAGA!!!
I did some IT consulting work for the Executive Office of the President a few years back. Right at the time Obama was first elected and inaugurated. The offices were just a few blocks away from the White House.
When an old administration goes out, ALL of the hard drives and personal electronic devices are destroyed in the entire EOP organization. New ones are then installed and boilerplated for the new administration. I wonder if that happens in any other federal organization during these administration changes?
Clearly a case of mass psychological projection. The culprits know they’re guilty of data suppression and fabrication, so fear their ideological opponents, i.e. real scientists, might do the same against them.
Yes. Amazing, isn’t it, how they all think everyone is as crooked as themselves?
Bingo. That’s presumably also why they aren’t outraged by the dishonesty of people like Michael Mann and Peter Gleick. Many climate activists actually seem to admire dishonesty, in their “allies.” For instance, Gleick was rewarded for his crimes by National Geographic’s ScienceBlog subsidiary, where he’s now their resident “scientist, innovator, and communicator” on his areas of specialization: global water, environment, climate, identity theft, fraud, character assassination, and forgery.
“Clearly a case of mass psychological projection.”.., everything about the left fits that description. They cry fake news, when many of their messages can now be seen as fake news. They raise the cry of fascism when their side represents the closest brush with fascism that this nation has seen in some time. Now they talk about the manipulation of data, when they have been doing exactly that for some time.
But, that’s the plan. Accuse the opposing side of the sins your side is guilty of. it’s right out of their playbook, Rules For Radicals.
Have these people never heard of backups?
Has NASA/GISS ever heard of source control systems that preserve all previous editions of their data?
they specifically try to avoid that … putting their raw data outside their control would be a disaster for them …
I think they think the new regime will also have access to the backups.
Its in the Trump administrations interest to hide the evidence that proves them wrong on climate change, isn’t it?
‘Proves them wrong’. Ha ha, get you. I’ve been following this debate for 3 decades and haven’t seen a damn thing that ‘proves’ agw theory is correct.
…or in the old regimes interest to hide something else
UEA Climate Research Unit lost their data so President Trump will be doing them a favour if he finds it.
Skankhunt42, er, I mean Griff, I am hopeful for you, that you will realize one day that The Church of CAGW is a cult religion that is doomed to fail.
Stay tuned.
Or better yet, destined for the shredder.
: )
‘Its (sic) in the Trump administrations (sic) interest to hide the evidence that proves them wrong on climate change, isn’t it?’
Interesting that you view it as objects which can be hidden.
1) Such evidence doesn’t exist.
2) All evidence already exists in multiple locations.
3) You’re an idiot.
My gosh, Griff–get a GRIP! Do you have any idea how “climate scientists” have “homogenized” data? Were I to do that in any of my past employments I’d expect to be FIRED on the spot.
I believe these acts of desperation show they’re trying to get rid of incriminating evidence–Trump isn’t interested in lying to the public–we’ve had Democrats doing that to us for decades, getting particularly obvious during the past 8 years.
Remember Hillary?–the one that had to run her own email server so she could hide what she was doing as Secretary of State?
She’s so guilty of pay-for-play I still expect to see her behind bars:
But please–continue to spew your unbelievable LIES about someone who’s going to clean up Washington by figuratively draining the swamp; it just makes Trump’s objectives more critical than ever!
Well if you would just provide the “evidence” here, we will keep it safe.
So go ahead, we’ve all been waiting for a decade or more for the evidence, yet so far we’ve seen models, and observations and more models…
You know where the evidence is? Show us.
Griff,
Really? Who exactly has been hiding data?
“Why should I give you the data when your only aim is to find something wrong with it?” – Phil Jones
Grif,
You are a an interesting example of a fundamentalist true believer.
The *only* people that has consistently hidden, refused to share, modified, or otherwise tampered with data regarding climate are on your side of the issue. It is your side that fights FOIA requests. It is your side that coordinates avoiding debate, discussion, or independent audits.
So to answer your question: No,m it is not at all in the Trump Administration interest to hide the evidence that proves them wrong.
No, if there were evidence that there was human caused runaway global climate change, it would be in the administration’s interest to expose the suppressed evidence and actually do something to fix the problem rather than waste trillions on “studies and research” while the Chinese and the Indians destroy us all.
@ur momisugly Griff
January 20, 2017 at 5:12 am: Barclays sure have slipped from the days they were a reliable and honest bank, and Griff-girl is evidence. Good, we like evidence, unlike the crooks at Penn.
No, that is the criminal mindset, and they moved out of the WH today.
You should not project your own habits onto others.
Hey Griff! That’s not sea level rise you’re seeing! Your boat’s got a big ass hole in it! Ha!
Have you apologised to Dr. Crockford for slandering her yet, you unprincipled, mendacious little corporate propaganda mouthpiece?
Griff,
I admire your tenacity.
Backups aren’t the issue. The real problem with data preservation is organizational. That is, keeping good metadata on the contents and converting old formats to new as time passes. Everybody, and especially government agencies are bad at this because it’s costly in time, money, and productivity. And it takes the skills of trained specialist librarians to manage it. Recall that iconic NASA data has been lost. Tree-ring files hardly have that same level of meaning.
> Have these people never heard of backups?
In case GISS pulls a “Lois Lerner”, I have GISS monthly data back to mid-2007 and a few scattered months back to late 2005. Anyone interested?
LOL…. The idiots should be shredding everything….. Because it’s all going to be used against them…. But if they want to save the evidence of their malfeasance. Then by all means. Go for it. 🙂
http://www.renegadetribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Shit-we-Make-Up.jpg
Check out the history and recent restoration of the Holman Rule. The “climate change” bureaucratic quacks are about to see themselves chopped at the proverbial knees.
If its all fake or a scam, investigate , collect the evidence, then act…
Instead of just shutting it down with a bunch of unproved accusations…
Poor GRIFF – The only Unproved Accusations are that Mankind is causing Globull Warming!
Griff appears to be in shock today.
Perhaps he was hoping Obama would find some way to stay in office.
Griff
look out there is a Polar Bear behind you, you fraud.
Ha ha…..,
Griff, having a meltdown with his silly whine about something that has been pointed out THOUSANDS of times,that it is indeed a scam going on. The lies with a ship full of money behind it,the numerous personal attacks,big oil,tobacco funding innuendos and so on.
Where have YOU been,Griff???
“Unproved accusations” means ANYTHING that you disagree with. No one can provide evidence to a religious zealot. It’s not about evidence to you—it’s about belief, faith.
Griff,
I think we need to put a hold on the work, while we audit it.
Paging Dr. Jones. Dr. Phil Jones, please come to the nearest courtesy phone.
This isn’t their IP to choose what to do with, it’s government property. Permanently deleting or altering government-held data records should be an imprisonable offence. Simple as that.
I hope that the Trump administration will issue an executive order, ordering that government and government-supported web sites stop deleting old versions of “their” (our!) data sets, to hide the extent and nature of their alterations, and stop using robots.txt and server configuration tricks to block the archiving of old versions of their data and web pages by archive.org and other “archiving” services.
If you know what a robots.txt file is then look at the NOAA National Climate Data Center (NCDC) robots.txt file:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/robots.txt
Do you see it? The first thing in it is the NOAA’s blanket prohibition on the archiving of NCDC data files!
What possible excuse can NOAA have for such behavior?
http://www.sealevel.info/noaa_blocking_wayback_machine_loosely_cropped.png
Why do you suppose these “data rescuers” have never uttered a peep of protest about that?
Spot on. I was going to suggest just using ‘wayback’ instead, but your post shows how serious these people really are about data preservation. (And even without it — the attractive and flatteringly illuminated yet strangely detached ‘data scientist’ in the foreground would clue us in.)
Haven’t skeptics downloaded and preserved records of what was on line?
Tony Heller AKA Steve Goddard and Paul Homewood have been collecting climate data and highlighting the manipulation by Hansen and latterly Schmidt for some years now, and AFAIK Tony Heller has already been in contact with Trump’s transition team, as have a number of high-profile sceptics with information on the subject.
I think Obama’s teams of data destroyers are going to be thwarted once again by one the properties of the internet, like the proverbial elephant it never forgets.
I don’t think that they have been all that systematic and thorough about it.
So well hidden, even a FOI inquiry will never find it.
What a pity they weren’t around when Tony Blair put all his expense claims in the shredder.
That last gif says it all! It is going to be a fun 4 years watching the snow flakes melt down.
All your data are belong to us.
Five levels of information
For a clearer understanding on wisdom vs information etc., see Werner Gitt explaining the five level hierarchy in communication: In the Beginning was Information. ISBN 3-89397-255-2
“It’s all building up to something! Something that can only be redeemed with fire!”
(Pete Townshend – Face The Face)
Oops- The lyrics are from Give Blood.
Both are great songs… Townsend’s best.
Pop Pisa Or better “refined by fire”. Re “judge the judge”? Which judge?
After having to answer to the “Supreme Judge of the world”, His servants will “see his face”. http://biblehub.com/revelation/22-4.htm
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20%3A11-15&version=NIV
http://biblehub.com/1_peter/1-7.htm
http://bit.ly/2iNkVZs
So people who are addicted to smoke and mirrors are defenders of ‘truth ‘ how does that work ?
Of course the fact that its AGW skeptics that have lead the way on going data and making more available while its climate ‘scientists’ who have short to hide it and ‘adjust it’ getting rid of raw data , is something that has passed these people right by
1984
That’s known as an “Eminence Front”
“People forget…”
Climategate 2.0 has begun?
Wasn’t it in the Climate Gate email somewhere that Jones (?) mentioned that instead of releasing data under FOI request he rather would want to destroy them?
Three and a half months before Climategate….
Looking familiar.
(Source: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/25/bob-carter-with-a-down-under-view-of-climate-science/ )
(for a summary of the above WUWT November 19, 2009 article and its 1,616-comment thread, see the 10th Anniversary anthology at 513)
If the data is “lost”, we kick the theory to curb until new data becomes available. You can’t prove the theory if you lost the data. Try again.
What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight,
and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms
will be proclaimed from the roofs.
Luke 12:3.
Data, and the data, are laughing at them.
Save? They have to get rid of incriminating evidences before the auditors arrive.
I Believe that is exactly the case! There is work in this for a team of computer forensics experts and a passel of prosecutors. We demand to know the truth!
Rogue data saved by political scientists while erasing the raw data is a more apt headline. But the satellites are watching.
Here is another Star Trek tie-in to the modern era: Klingons! Yes, Klingons. The Democrats keep trying to cling onto power.
lol + 10 ;^)
Griff and company failed to klingon to reality along time ago.
Hey Griff! Are you a Klingon? Circling Uranus? Lol!
“as news broke that the incoming Trump administration’s EPA transition team does indeed intend to remove some climate data from the agency’s website”
Say what? Are they claiming that if the data isn’t on the EPA website, that the data no longer exists?
I know first hand that the outgoing administration removed research studies from the EPA and Dept. of Energy sites that applied to better methods of generating power from coal. And I find is ironic, as many of you do, that they are worried about “data” when many of the climate scientists will not release their actual data because someone might “find something wrong with it.”
I find it neither ironic nor surprising. These snowflakes are merely projecting what they have done to the opposition. They destroyed data, so they assume that their opponents will.
Having worked my career for the Federal government, and understanding workers who spend months through years working on research, including myself.
New people in charge who want past research ‘gone’ are mollified when all publicly visible examples of said research are removed from view.
Involved researchers, project managers and contractors all keep copies of both the full research and especially critical findings and lessons.
When management has been involving themselves, aka interfering, with potentially inconvenient research, involved workers keep lists of opportunities and findings with promising results.
It is amusing that outgoing officials are illegally destroying government funded research regarding fossil fuels.
Especially concerning, is that a number of those financial lines deep in the alleged ‘fossil fuel subsidies’ account are the costs and salaries for DOE’s research stations. Stations that are allegedly researching improved coal and oil technologies.
Wonderful plan of the Obama mafiosa, charge research against fossil fuel companies, then destroy the research.
It is going to be a very busy Department of Justice for the next two years. We may need to build new prisons.
We could take the sheriff Joe approach to housing them.
ATheoK
Perhaps only one new prison is needed.
It could be between Coldfoot and Bettles, in mid Alaska; perhaps a hundred miles NW of Fairbanks.
it would allow inmates a fair overview of climate – especially if sentenced to ten-to-fifty years (right, depends on the charges . . . . I know.).
Although why the good folk of Alaska need these cultists in their midst, I cannot say.
Auto
They are inserting the original real data back in that they changed and are going to try and say that the Trump team changed it. I have seen this MANY times in audits before. And it works much of the time since the new principals are glad to get the real data back. Mark my words, the original data may show back up.
Three things:
1) The quote often attributed to Lenin, advising his followers to “Always accuse your adversary of that which you are preparing to do.”
2) The overriding fear that when these vandals are finished, there will be nothing left of the untampered, original data and we will be left with nothing but the “adjusted” records.
3) The need to preserve the information on the Obama climate plans because in the fullness of time, it will be useful confirmation of the scientific and political manipulation at the heart of the attempt to exploit a relatively benign natural process for nefarious purposes.
Wow, what a magnificent sham. It’s a combination of virtue signaling and victim signaling. Do they really think people won’t see through them?
Yes. That is exactly what they do thing.