Climategate Bombshell: Did U.S. Gov't Help Hide Climate Data?

Climategate Bombshell: Did U.S. Gov't Help Hide Climate Data?
By Maxim Lott

Published December 16, 2011

| FoxNews.com

University of East Anglia

The Climatic Research Unit, a key climate science facility at the School of Environmental Sciences, a part of the University of East Anglia in the UK.

Are your tax dollars helping hide global warming data from the public? Internal emails leaked as part of “Climategate 2.0” indicate the answer may be "Yes."

The original Climategate emails -- correspondence stolen from servers at a research facility in the U.K. and released on the Internet in late 2009 -- shook up the field of climate research. Now a new batch posted in late November to a Russian server shows that scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit refused to share their U.S. government-funded data with anyone they thought would disagree with them.

Professor Phil Jones asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to a report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Making that case in 2009, the then-head of the Research Unit, Dr. Phil Jones, told colleagues repeatedly that the U.S. Department of Energy was funding his data collection -- and that officials there agreed that he should not have to release the data.

“Work on the land station data has been funded by the U.S. Dept of Energy, and I have their agreement that the data needn’t be passed on. I got this [agreement] in 2007,” Jones wrote in a May 13, 2009, email to British officials, before listing reasons he did not want them to release data.

Two months later, Jones reiterated that sentiment to colleagues, saying that the data "has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”

A third email from Jones written in 2007 echoes the idea: "They are happy with me not passing on the station data," he wrote.

The emails have outraged climate-change skeptics who say they can't trust climate studies unless they see the raw data -- and how it has been adjusted.

"In every endeavor of science, making your work replicable by others is a basic tenet of proof,” Anthony Watts, a meteorologist and climate change blogger, told FoxNews.com. “If other scientists cannot replicate your work, it brings your work into question.”

Is the Department of Energy to blame? The Climategate emails reveal correspondence only between Jones and his colleagues -- not between him and the DoE.

"What’s missing," Watts said, "is a ... directive from DoE that they should withhold station data gathered under their grant. The email may be there, but ... still under lock and key.”

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wants that key. He recently filed Freedom of Information acts with the DoE, requesting the emails they exchanged with Jones.

"So far no administration department has bothered to respond, indicating they … believe the time bought with stonewalling might just get them off the hook for disclosure," Horner told FoxNews.com.

"Not with us, it won't," he said.

The Department of Energy has until December 29 before it must legally respond to Horner's request.

When contacted by FoxNews.com, DoE spokesman Damien LaVera declined to comment.

However, climate change researcher and blogger Steve McIntyre forwarded FoxNews.com an email exchange from 2005 in which climate scientist Warwick Hughes asked an official at a DOE lab if he could get the data that the government paid Jones to collect.

"I am asking you to provide me with the following data … DoE has been funding [the data] since the 1980s," Hughes noted in his request.

But Tom Boden, of the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, told Hughes at the time that the DOE itself did not have the data, and that "you will need to contact Phil [Jones] directly. I spoke today with the DOE program manager who indicated Phil was not obligated under the conditions of past or present DOE proposal awards to provide these items."

McIntyre said he himself later had a similar exchange with the DOE, after which "I suggested that they amend this as a condition of further financing."

"I was surprised that the new emails show them actively taking the opposite approach," he added.

Asked about the connection with the Department of Energy, Simon Dunford, a spokesman for Jones’ Climatic Research Unit, told FoxNews.com that Jones has changed his tune since the emails were made public.

"Prof Jones has already accepted he should have been more open, and has since made all the station data referred to in these emails publicly available," Dunford told FoxNews.com.

Watts said that while much of the data itself is now available, the methods of adjusting it -- statistical modification meant to filter anomalies, "normalize" the data, and potentially highlight certain trends -- remain a secret.

"Much of climate science, in terms of the computer processing that goes on, remains a black box to the outside world. We see the data go in, and we see the data that come out as a finished product -- but we don’t know how they adjust it in between.”

Watts said he would like to be given the adjustment formulas to make his own determination.

"The fact that they are trying to keep people from replicating their studies -- that's the issue," Watts noted. "Replication is the most important tenet of science."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/16/complicit-in-climategate-doe-under-fire/


This is simple: when the investigation focused on the LEAKERS of the emails, that's when you know all the cards are marked.

ClimateGate is a scam,up and down - Three Card Monty would be proud, if they didn't keep chasing him off the block.

Important to remember in your discussions with others - the emails were LEAKED, not "hacked".

Albert "Global Warming's Gonna Make Me Rich, Beyotch!" Gore Tries Throwing Us Under The Bus Once Again

The title lends itself to a little back-story before we get to the good stuff:

Vice President Albert Gore decides to run for the office of the President of the United States back in 2000. The conventional wisdom went that, not only would Gore wipe the floor with failed businessman/former Texas Governor George Walker Bush, he would use him as toilet paper after his victory smorgasboard. Unfortunately, after gaining more votes than his challenger, Gore throws the election, and our country, into the proverbial toilet.

It has been said that, in return for throwing said election, that Gore was offered the chance to become filthy rich by becoming the guru for the utterly failed paradigm known to us all as "Anthropogenic Global Warming". Much like the "pollution credits" that were offered to the large corporations, "carbon credits" would be shared as a commodity, and somehow, "global warming" could be controlled, and he could rake in the bucks.

What could be better, right? Perform "good works" for your country, and profit.

Alas, it was not to be.

Climategate has revealed the truth behind the "settled science"; that truth being that the "scientists" involved with researching the non-existent phenomenon turned "peer review" on its head, hyping any research which bolstered their claims; hiding and actively blocking any research which didn't; withholding data from other scientists attempting to replicate their experiments and actively working to keep their results from the public domain.

Gore, however, will not take the hint that his jig is up.

Along with Bill Nye, The "Science Guy", he has released a video that purports to explain "global warming" in such a way that any high school student can replicate said experiment.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/al-gore-kicks-off-climate-reality-project

Anthony Watts, of Watts Up With That, has debunked his latest effort:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment/

In related news - Michael Mann is required by law to reveal the data he previously kept hidden by means of chicanery:

http://co2insanity.com/2011/10/04/michael-‘climategate’-mann-suffers-three-legal-blows-in-court-escapade/

Phil Jones was said to nearly suffer from a nervous breakdown while testifying - will Michael Mann manage to eat his own head?

Let me get my popcorn and soda ready.

Exclusive: Climatologist Says He Deleted E-mails, But Not at Mann's Behest - Science Insider

by Eli Kintisch on 9 March 2011, 1:44 PM

Investigative files released yesterday to a climate science blog by an unnamed U.S. lawmaker suggest a new twist in the ongoing University of East Anglia climate e-mails saga. Other online writers argue that the files contain evidence that a government climate scientist in May 2008 deliberately deleted e-mails related to a major climate report.

ScienceInsider can reveal that the scientist, Eugene Wahl of the National Climatic Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, admits to deleting the e-mails, which was done during his tenure at Alfred University in New York. That was before he became an employee at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But online reports on the investigative files have misconstrued a central point, he says, assuming that embattled climatologist Michael Mann of Penn State Univeristy told him to do so. On the contrary, Wahl says, he was responding to a request by East Anglia's Phil Jones that Mann forwarded to him "without any additional comment ... there was no request from [Mann] to delete emails." (The full statement follows.)

The e-mails that Wahl deleted included 2006 correspondence between Wahl and Keith Briffa of East Anglia, and Wahl says they were made public in 2009 as part of the East Anglia e-mails trove. 

The scientists' correspondence was about a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that they were working on, and for which Briffa was a lead author. In May 2008, University of East Anglia climate scientist Phil Jones, who had been a lead IPCC author the year before, was faced with a U.K. Information Act request for correspondence related to the IPCC report. He asked Mann to delete e-mails "you may have had with Keith," and asked him to forward the same request to Wahl. Mann responded the same day, saying that he would "contact Gene about this ASAP," and he forwarded Jones's note to Wahl. (Mann deleted none of the emails in question, a Penn State investigation found.)

This chain of events has been known since late 2009, with the release of the East Anglia e-mails trove. But yesterday, first on the Climate Audit blog run by Steve McIntyre, parts of a transcript of an interview of Wahl by the Department of Commerce's Inspector General revealed for the first time that Wahl told the IG that he had received Jones's message via Mann.
The interview was part of an investigation the IG tells ScienceInsider is ongoing; on 18 February the IG released a report to Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) on certain aspects of NOAA's role in the East Anglia e-mails imbroglio and subsequent e-mails. That report largely clears NOAA scientists of misconduct, though it does criticize the agency's handling of some Freedom of Information Act requests. It does not mention Wahl by name but does mention Jones's request to delete e-mails. A spokesperson for the IG would not comment on the investigation or the substance of what Wahl told investigators.

Bloggers and online commentators made much of the Wahl quotes yesterday, attacking Mann. The widely read Watts Up With That? blog ran a lengthy item that said, "Sources confirm that a federal inspector has questioned Eugene Wahl and Wahl has confirmed that Mann asked him to delete emails," citing no evidence beyond the forwarded e-mail. A story on The Daily Caller said that the quotes from the Wahl interview showed that the Pennsylvania State investigation, which exonerated Mann of any misconduct, was a "whitewash."

Mann, reached on vacation in Hawaii, said the stories yesterday were "libelous" and false. "They're spreading a lie about me," he said of the Web sites. "This has been known for a year and a half that all I did was forward Phil's e-mail to Eugene." Asked why he sent the e-mail to his colleague, Mann said, "I felt Eugene Wahl had to be aware of this e-mail … it could be used against him. I didn't delete any e-mails and nor did I tell Wahl to delete any e-mails." Why didn't Mann call Wahl to discuss the odd request? "I was so busy. It's much easier to e-mail somebody. No where did I approve of the instruction to destroy e-mails."
Full statement provided to Science Insider from Eugene Wahl below:

The Daily Caller blog yesterday contained an inaccurate story regarding a correspondence that was part of the emails hacked from East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) in November 2009.

For the record, while I received the email from CRU as forwarded by Dr. Mann, the forwarded message came without any additional comment from Dr. Mann; there was no request from him to delete emails. At the time of the email in May 2008, I was employed by Alfred University, New York. I became a NOAA employee in August 2008.

The emails I deleted while a university employee are the correspondence I had with Dr. Briffa of CRU regarding the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of which have been in the public domain since the CRU hack in November 2009. This correspondence has been extensively examined and no misconduct found. As a NOAA employee, I follow agency record retention policies and associated guidance from information technology staff.

Dr. Eugene R. Wahl
March 9, 2011

*This item has been corrected. The original item stated that Wahl's deletion of e-mails was revealed on blogs yesterday; what was revealed was Wahl's explicit admission of receiving Jones's message via Mann. The item also omitted the fact that Jones told Mann to ask Wahl to delete them

Original URL: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/03/exclusive-climatologist-says-he-.html

Okay...first the rebuttal by Chris Horner:

Michael Mann has responded to my piece in The Daily Caller accusing Penn State of whitewashing ClimateGate. Mann’s response is typically off point from the question:
The claim by fossil fuel industry lobbyist Chris Horner in his “Daily Caller” piece that I told Eugene Wahl to delete emails is a fabrication — a lie, and a libelous allegation. My only involvement in the episode in question is that I forwarded Wahl an email that Phil Jones had sent me, which I felt Wahl needed to see. There was no accompanying commentary by me or additional correspondence from me regarding the matter, nor did I speak to Wahl about the matter. This is, in short, a despicable smear that, more than anything else, speaks to the depths of dishonesty of professional climate change deniers like Chris Horner, Marc Morano, Stephen McIntyre, and Anthony Watts.

Please state where I “claim . . . that [Mann] told Eugene Wahl to delete emails,” and also what is libelous, Mr. Mann. If you do the latter, I am happy to retract it.

But, “Wahl says Mann did indeed ask Wahl to destroy records, and Wahl did” doesn’t do it, unless you want to crop off one end of the sentence (“Wahl says”) and replace it with something more appealing to your thesis (an inside joke for those familiar with the whole Hockey Stick saga). Chuckle.

Your allegation is false until you somehow demonstrate otherwise, and your problem lies with the NOAA inspector general whose transcript indicates these events transpired.
A guy who has clearly lawyered up probably ought to call his lawyer to see what libel means before accusing someone of it. It actually doesn’t mean accurately using someone’s name in a way that makes them uncomfortable.

Similarly, Eugene Wahl, the NOAA employee who worked for Alfred University (a place that I understand gave Ward Churchill an honorary PhD — while we’re busy making associations — though I’m not sure it was in climate) at the time he deleted the emails, writes in his public reply to the piece:

The Daily Caller blog yesterday contained an inaccurate story regarding a correspondence that was part of the emails hacked from East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) in November 2009.

Mr. Wahl, please state what the inaccurate statement was. You forgot to.
Wahl goes on:

For the record, while I received the email from CRU as forwarded by Dr. Mann, the forwarded message came without any additional comment from Dr. Mann; there was no request from him to delete emails. At the time of the email in May 2008, I was employed by Alfred University, New York.  I became a NOAA employee in August 2008.
The emails I deleted while a university employee are the correspondence I had with Dr. Briffa of CRU regarding the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of which have been in the public domain since the CRU hack in November 2009.  This correspondence has been extensively examined and no misconduct found.  As a NOAA employee, I follow agency record retention policies and associated guidance from information technology staff.

But he did delete emails after receiving Jones’ request. He says he deleted the emails cited in the request that Mann forwarded to him from Jones. In response to Jones’ request that Mann ask Wahl to delete emails. But — and here’s where us non-scientists are missing the boat, it seems — Jones’ request was to Mann. You see? To, well, to ask Wahl to do what Wahl did. In response to which Mann forwarded the request. From Jones.

So, really, Mann never asked him to delete the emails, just like you can never be “alone” with someone in the White House. See?

Let’s review the points:

Penn State asked Mann, in pertinent part:
Allegation 2: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

Mann gave a non-answer, according to the way Penn State’s panel tells things, which nonetheless lapped it up and repackaged it as new and improved.

Finding 2. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data related to AR4, as suggested by Dr. Phil Jones. Dr. Mann has stated that he did not delete emails in response to Dr. Jones’ request. Further, Dr. Mann produced upon request a full archive of his emails in and around the time of the preparation of AR4. The archive contained e-mails related to AR4.

Did you do A or B? I did not do A. OK, he didn’t do A or B.
PSU’s panel accepted the non-response, then dressed it up as claiming something there is no indication it actually claimed.

So Mann yells “libel!” and will figure out where and how later. Wahl says I wrote an inaccurate piece without saying how or where it was inaccurate, but is adamant that no one really asked him to delete the emails he deleted on his own volition or after hearing voices or reading it on a tortilla in Mexico or in an oil stain in the parking lot, but regardless, upon receiving this email, which didn’t ask him to delete any emails but only names the emails that need to be disappeared and expresses a desire that someone ask him to delete them.
I think we understand quite well.

Chris Horner is a senior fellow at The Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Original URL: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/09/a-reply-to-michael-mann-and-eugene-wahl/

 

And now...my commentary:

Anthony Watts, in his article, points out a nice technique that Michael Mann employs; it's called "Careful Speaking":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie

Careful speaking is distinct from the above in that the speaker wishes to avoid imparting certain information or admitting certain facts and, additionally, does not want to ‘lie’ when doing so. Careful speaking involves using carefully-phrased statements to give a ‘half-answer’: one that does not actually ‘answer’ the question, but still provides an appropriate (and accurate) answer based on that question. As with ‘misleading’, below, ‘careful speaking’ is not outright lying.

I call BULLSHIT on that. Why is he even on vacation? Isn't that GRANT MONIES that he's using? During the ClimateGate inquiries/whitewash, it was stated that he was close to having a "nervous breakdown".

I would call that poetic justice. He was engaging in MASSIVE cognitive dissonance; he KNEW that his researches did NOT prove that "Global Warming/Climate Change/whatever bushwah he could make up" was a real and troubling phenomenon that required action; yet he went ahead anyway and tried to game the system and force the ENTIRE WORLD to go along with a FANTASY.

That "hockey stick" should be turned into his own personal suppository.

Climate...CHANGES!

I took the train into work early today so that I could listen to a broadcast. Imagine my mild shock upon seeing someone enter the conveyance at the Wall Street stop in a pair of jogging shorts.

I just happened to be reading The ClimateGate Inquiries by Andrew Montford, with an introduction by Lord Turnbull (you'll be reading that shortly), and the temptation to inquire as to what the bloody hell he was thinking when he left his home was near to overwhelming.

Instead, he has indirectly inspired me to begin this blog.

You are going to encounter a recurring theme here...that theme is:

LACK OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.

Adam Austin once opined that money should be a lubricant for trade, and not to be accrued to gain an advantage over your fellow man. This is a statement that has merit.

I plan to revisit this theme in every post that comes across this blog. Today, I will attempt to illustrate what the monied interests have done with what I believe were the honest efforts of some to perform good works in the advent of saving our planet from our excesses.

Now, I do not profess to have performed the level of research of, say, Professor Ross McKitrick or Stephen McIntyre; nor do I have direct access to climactic data on the level of Anthony Watts; but, due to their meticulous and forthright researches, and my own desire to discern truth from scumbaggery, I have been able to make an informed decision about the phenomenon formerly known as "global warming", and more currently known as "climate change".

Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen?

Climate...changes.

I'm pretty certain that you can determine that I am a resident of New York City. It wasn't quite so cold at 6:00 this morning; there was plenty of slush around. I feel as if I am ready to deal with harsher weather, though I do hope it actually doesn't materialize; but regardless, the weather will do as the weather will.

That's what gets me the most. We have been on Gaia for but a short period of the planet's existence. I do NOT believe that we have made a significant impact upon our planet; at least not to the point of extinction. Not you or I. Not our cattle. Not the termites in your walls. Not our planes, trains and automobiles. However, there are those whom I believe are culpable:

• Those entities who have irradiated the Middle East with Depleted Uranium;
• Those entities who have polluted the Gulf with oil (and yet worse, Corexit);
• Those entities who are deforesting our necessary wildlands for their short-term gain.

All of these things are ABSOLUTELY BAD for our Earth. I would think that most, if not all, would agree with me that at least, the first two are clear-cut examples of genocidal actions. The third, while not immediately destructive, if continued, will prove to have been just stupid in the extreme. The trees are converting the CO2 in our atmosphere into breathable O2 for us and the fauna of our planet. Get rid of all the trees, and now we will requires machines to perform that conversion. Do you really want to live in a dome city, just because LogCo. was to make toothpicks?

Short-term gain is never justified if in the long-term, others will suffer.

Anyway, I want for you to read the foreword by Lord Andrew Turnbull, written for the ClimateGate Inquiries. The document itself is only 54 pages, including said foreword. If you haven't done so, please read it. I'll be back in a sec...then we'll discuss this topic further,

The Climategate Inquiries 

Foreword 

When in November 2009 a large archive of emails and files from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia appeared on the internet a number of serious allegations were made
including:

• that scientists at the CRU had failed to give a full and fair view to policy makers and the IPCC of all the evidence available to them;
• that they deliberately obstructed access to data and methods to those taking different viewpoints from themselves;
• that they failed to comply with Freedom of Information requirements;
• that they sought to influence the review panels of journals in order to prevent rival scientific evidence from being published.

Even if only some of these accusations were substantiated the consequences for the credibility of climate change science would be immense. This was at a time when the international negotiations on climate change were foundering (though not to the extent that they have done subsequently), and when, in the recession, the public and businesses were beginning to question the costs they were being asked to bear in order to achieve fundamental changes in our society. 

One would therefore have expected the relevant “authorities”, Government/Parliament, the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Royal Society, to have moved fast and decisively to get to the bottom of the matter. There was indeed a flurry of activity and three inquiries were set in train, including a hearing by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee; the Climate Change E-mails Review (CCE) set up by UEA and chaired by Sir Muir Russell; and the Scientific Assessment Panel (SAP) set up by UEA in consultation with the Royal Society and chaired by Lord Oxburgh.

Sadly, as the report by Andrew Montford clearly demonstrates, all three reports have serious flaws.

His report shows that:

• these inquiries were hurried
• the terms of reference were unclear
• insufficient care was taken with the choice of panel members to ensure balance and independence
• insufficient care was taken to ensure the process was independent of those being investigated, eg the Royal Society allowed CRU to suggest the papers it should read
• Sir Muir Russell failed to attend the session with the CRU’s Director Professor Jones and only four of fourteen members of the Science and Technology Select Committee attended the crucial final meeting to sign off their report.
• record keeping was poor.

But above all, Andrew Montford’s report brings out the disparity between the treatment of the “incumbents” and the “critics”. The former appear to have been treated with kid gloves and their explanations readily accepted without serious challenge. The latter have been disparaged and denied adequate opportunity to put their case. The CCE report stated that holding public hearings “would be unlikely to add significant value”, thereby assuming that critics would not be able to provide any additional information that would help assess the validity of CRU submissions.

This failure to accord critics rights of audience was despite the fact that Lord Lawson wrote to Sir Muir Russell when the review was first announced specifically urging that his panel should take evidence from those outside CRU who may have been wronged. 

The result has been that the three investigations have failed to achieve their objective, ie early and conclusive closure and restoration of confidence. The reports have been more Widgery than Saville. Writing in an article The Atlantic, Clive Crook of the Financial Times referred to “an ethos of suffocating groupthink”. That is exactly what Andrew Montford has uncovered, with the reviewers as much part of the group as the scientists. 

What should happen next? First the new Select Committee on Science and Technology needs to engage quickly. To some extent the shortcomings of their predecessors’ report can be excused given the lack of time they had before the election was called and their confidence (misplaced in the event) that the issues it had not been able to tackle fully would be investigated by others. The Committee has already started the process by taking evidence from the chairs of the reports. It also needs to study Andrew Montford’s report and then reach a conclusion on whether the criticisms made are valid and whether the exoneration claimed is justified.

The Government then needs to look at the serious criticisms of the IPCC made in the recent InterAcademy Council Report. While the IPCC presents itself as a synthesis of the work of over 2,000 scientists it appears that in practice it is a process in which a much smaller number of scientists, whose work and careers are intertwined, dominate the assessment and seek to repel those who are situated elsewhere in the spectrum of scientific opinion. There is no transparent process for selection of participants in the assessments. Its handling of uncertainty is flawed and outcomes that are highly speculative are presented with unwarranted certainty. Use is made of non-peer-reviewed material without identifying it as such. The Government should then demand that the changes recommended by the IAC in practice, governance and leadership should be implemented immediately for the Fifth Assessment.

Parliament then needs to start moving forward. Parliament, whether Commons, Lords or a joint venture between the two, should undertake or sponsor two pieces of work. The first would be a study into the ethos and governance of scientific work in the field of climate change. From this I hope would emerge an acceptance that, contrary to the words of eminent scientists who should know better, science is never “settled” or “unchallengeable”. That is what the Church said to Galileo. Scientific progress always proceeds by proposition and challenge. Dissent must be accepted and not suppressed, and evidence and methods must be transparent and readily shared. There should be full and willing compliance with FOI. Scientists should remain scientists and not become politicians or NGO activists.

The second piece of work should be a fundamental review of the science itself, which was the task which the Select Committee thought had been assigned to the Scientific Assessment Panel but which the latter defined more narrowly.

Climate science is immensely complex. There is a wide spectrum of methodologies and data and substantial differences in the conclusions which scientists reach. But instead of the full gamut of scientific thought being displayed with all its uncertainties, the public has been fed a particular variant of the climate change story with many of the caveats stripped out. There is, however, a much richer but more complex story to be told which recognizes the complexities and uncertainties and also recognizes that there are strong natural variations upon which manmade emissions are superimposed.

Only if the integrity of the science is reestablished and the strengths and weaknesses of the main propositions are acknowledged will there be the basis of trust with the public that policymakers need.

There is a final lesson to be drawn from the inquiries and Andrew Montford’s report. Gone are the times when the “authorities” could largely assert their message without challenge using their superior resources, and thereby ensure that difficult issues remain hidden. We increasingly live in the world of Erin Brockovich versus Pacific Gas and Electric or David versus Goliath, where committed individuals with few resources can dig away at an issue. Armed with strengthened rights to information and the forensic power of the internet they will eventually get to the truth and quick but superficial inquiries will not stand in their way. Andrew Montford’s report is such an example and the authorities would do well to accord it the respect it deserves.

Lord Turnbull
September 2010

LORD TURNBULL - Andrew Turnbull was Permanent Secretary, Environment Department,1994-98; Permanent Secretary to the Treasury 1998-2002, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service 2002-05. He is now a Crossbench member of the House of Lords.

 There was also an excellent analysis done of the leaked (NOT "hacked") emails performed by John P. Costella, and this is my first real experience with the actual email data, without spin. John links to the email data, and performs what I see to be an honest analysis of the verbiage presented.

I want you to tell me how the phrase "hide the decline" has NOTHING TO DO with hiding a decline.

So, please understand my motivation for writing this blog on this particular subject.
I am not some anti-business nut; nor am I some silly-ass communist/socialist/whatever-ist.

I am a man with a family and friends who wants for our time on this planet to be fruitful. That cannot happen if the monied interests get their hooks into our personal funds, where they can extract untold sums at will.

Think about this: how does a carbon tax help the atmosphere? How would carbon credits reduce the supposed "emissions"? Is there a credit machine in certain caves where, if you present your carbon credits, a huge hole in the ozone layer pops open while your carbon credits are rung up, and the offending gases get shot through the stratosphere in space?

You may want to cut down on that "hillbilly Heroin", pally...the brain cell loss is getting catastrophic.

At any rate, I hope you find this informative...hope to see you all soon with more discussion about morons with money and the dumb things they do that affect us all.