"climategate"

E-mail messages between high-ranking scientists appear to indicate a conspiracy by some of the world's leading global warming alarmists to falsify temperature data in order to exaggerate global averages.

Those involved allegedly include: James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Michael Mann, famous for Mann's "Hockey Stick"; Gavin Schmidt, NASA climate modeler, and; Stephen Schneider, Stanford professor and Al Gore confidant.

A statement released Friday by the alarmist website RealClimate has confirmed that e-mail servers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) in Norwich, England, were hacked recently with contents illegally made available over the Internet.

Although the authenticity of all these e-mail messages has yet to be proven, what's currently available points to a coordinated attempt to manipulate climate data by those directly involved in advancing the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

New Zealand's Investigate magazine reported Friday that it has verified these e-mail messages are indeed real:

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The director of Britain's leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine's TGIF Edition tonight that his organization has been hacked, and the data flying all over the internet appears to be genuine.

In an exclusive interview, Jones told TGIF, "It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails."

The BBC.com filed this report moments ago:

A university spokesman confirmed the email system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission.

An investigation was underway and the police had been informed, he added.

"We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites," the spokesman stated.

The journal Nature got a comment from one of the scientists whose name appears on some of these e-mail messages:

Some climate-sceptic bloggers are already poring over the posted material, which includes e-mails allegedly sent by the CRU's director Phil Jones to fellow climate researchers, including Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Mann is the author of a widely cited assessment of past climate records, known as the hockey-stick graph, which shows a pronounced global-warming trend during the latter part of the twentieth century.

"I'm not going to comment on the content of illegally obtained e-mails," says Mann. "However, their theft constitutes serious criminal activity. I'm hoping that the perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows." Jones declined to comment on the matter.

Andrew Bolt of Australia's Herald Sun has more:

So the 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory - a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. I’ve been adding some of the most astonishing in updates below - emails suggesting conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. If it is as it now seems, never again will “peer review” be used to shout down sceptics.

Bolt included a number of these e-mail messages (emphasis his):

From: Phil Jones

To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX

Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000

Cc: //';l[1]='a';l[2]='/';l[3]='<';l[4]=' 110';l[5]=' 114';l[6]=' 111';l[7]=' 98';l[8]=' 115';l[9]=' 111';l[10]=' 46';l[11]=' 88';l[12]=' 88';l[13]=' 88';l[14]=' 64';l[15]=' 97';l[16]=' 102';l[17]=' 102';l[18]=' 105';l[19]=' 114';l[20]=' 98';l[21]=' 46';l[22]=' 107';l[23]='>';l[24]='\"';l[25]=' 110';l[26]=' 114';l[27]=' 111';l[28]=' 98';l[29]=' 115';l[30]=' 111';l[31]=' 46';l[32]=' 88';l[33]=' 88';l[34]=' 88';l[35]=' 64';l[36]=' 97';l[37]=' 102';l[38]=' 102';l[39]=' 105';l[40]=' 114';l[41]=' 98';l[42]=' 46';l[43]=' 107';l[44]=':';l[45]='o';l[46]='t';l[47]='l';l[48]='i';l[49]='a';l[50]='m';l[51]='\"';l[52]='=';l[53]='f';l[54]='e';l[55]='r';l[56]='h';l[57]='a ';l[58]='<'; for (var i = l.length-1; i >= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i])); } //]]> k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones

Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX

School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX

University of East Anglia

Norwich

Here's a more recent one. See how many prominent climate alarmists are allegedly in receipt:

From: Kevin Trenberth

To: Michael Mann

Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600

Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

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. [1][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.***

Here's one wherein Jones allegedly told Mann to delete e-mail messages:

From: Phil Jones

To: “Michael E. Mann”

Subject: IPCC & FOI

Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones

Climatic Research Unit

Here's a REALLY juicy one from Mann wherein he allegedly instructed the group to use the website RealClimate, and addressed how comments would be screened to control the message:

From: “Michael E. Mann”

To: Tim Osborn, Keith Briffa

Subject: update

Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:51:53 -0500

Cc: Gavin Schmidt

guys, I see that Science has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we put up the RC post. By now, you’ve probably read that nasty McIntyre thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don’t go there personally, but so I’m informed).

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold

comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.

You’re also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We’ll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics dont’get to use the RC comments as a megaphone…

This e-mail lacking a header allegedly from Jones discussed exactly how to manipulate temperature data being sent to climate realist Steven McIntyre as part of one of his Freedom of Information Act requests:

Options appear to be:

Send them the data

Send them a subset removing station data from some of the countries who made us pay in the normals papers of Hulme et al. (1990s) and also any number that David can remember. This should also omit some other countries like (Australia, NZ, Canada, Antarctica). Also could extract some of the sources that Anders added in (31-38 source codes in J&M 2003). Also should remove many of the early stations that we coded up in the 1980s.

Send them the raw data as is, by reconstructing it from GHCN. How could this be done? Replace all stations where the WMO ID agrees with what is in GHCN. This would be the raw data, but it would annoy them.

Finally, here's an e-mail message wherein Jones allegedly celebrated the death of a climate realist:

Mike,

In an odd way this is cheering news ! One other thing about the CC paper – just found another email – is that McKittrick says it is standard practice in Econometrics journals to give all the data and codes !! According to legal advice IPR overrides this.

Cheers

Phil

“It is with deep sadness that the Daly Family have to announce the sudden death of John Daly.Condolences may be sent to John’s email account (daly@XXXX)

“

Reported with great sadness

The Examiner.com found another interesting e-mail message allegedly from a Dr. Tom Wigley to Jones (author's emphasis):

Phil, Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this. It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”. Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH — just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols. The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note — from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not) — but not really enough. So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.) This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have. Tom.

Wow. Scary stuff.

Once again, it is unknown which e-mail messages are real, and which if any are fraudulent. As you might imagine, numerous entities are sifting through the files to connect some dots.

For its part, NewsBusters has sent e-mail messages requesting comment from all of the scientists mentioned in this article. None have responded yet.

However, maybe more importantly, with cap and trade legislation currently before Congress, and an international climate meeting happening in Copenhagen next month, the question is what will America's leading media outlets do with this news.

Should we expect investigative television programs like "60 Minutes" and "20/20" to be all over this story interrogating the scientists allegedly involved in these e-mail exchanges?

Will America's press be as eager to find out the truth of this matter as they were in fact-checking former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's new book?

Consider that at the time of this article's publishing, only FoxNews.com, NPR.com, and WSJ.com have logged printed stories on this subject from this side of the Atlantic.

Will others follow, and if so, how will they report what on the surface appears to be a huge, developing story?

Stay tuned.

*****Update: Readers are STRONGLY encouraged to watch the scrambling going on at RealClimate.

Paul Murdock

Campaign For LIberty

Saturday, Dec 12th, 2009

In the last several weeks we have learned several new facts about climate change research. First, climate scientists’ motives are biased. Second, scientists actively discussed how to achieve political ends through their research. Third, and more disturbingly, the public has learned of discarded data, attempts to keep opposing views silent, and total political adherence to an ideology. Yet, without thinking twice, the main stream media and President Obama have shrugged off the controversy and continued boldly with their partisan agenda. It is clear the science behind climate change is biased and disputed, leaving the propaganda machine as the only fact that remains.

Research by the conservative Media Research Group has stated that since the Climategate scandal broke out, ABC, CBS, and NBC have not mentioned the story in any of their news casts including their morning shows. Even when the outlets discussed Obama’s upcoming trip to Copenhagen, the controversy was never mentioned. There has been no mention of recently published research questioning climate change or that thousands of scholars disagree. Recently, the Wall Street Journal has raised questions of silencing dissenting opinions at the EPA, and there are now questions about NASA’s data. Even with a wide variety of dispute, the networks continue to use the language of propaganda including “undisputed, unequivocal, settled, and consensus.”

Despite the media’s refusal to discuss dissenting opinions, the media continues to universally promote climate change policies. Just as the climate conference begins, the EPA announced that greenhouse gases are toxic, the UN stated this decade may turn out to be the hottest on record, and 56 newspapers around the world ran a common front page editorial supporting drastic climate change action. Here is an excerpt from the editorial:

Social justice demands that the industrialized world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions…. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.

The authors also continue on to invoke the words of Lincoln to inspire us to change and then finish by calling those who do not, “stupid.” Again, it is clear only calculated propaganda remains!

Most people believe propaganda is just “lies” or “tall stories” that influence the weak and feeble minded. However, modern propaganda is a sophisticated and calculating machine that invades every aspect of our lives. The formidable author Jacques Ellul in his expansive work on the subject describes this process as designed to create proselytes and militants rather than wise or reasonable men. In support of Ellul, a judge in Britain recently ruled that Tim Nicholson’s climate views “a belief in man-made climate change. . . is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.” Now environmental extremists can join the ranks of “religious fundamentalists” they so often deride.

Despite the role of the media, our most pernicious enemy is found in the classroom. The first goal of modern propaganda is to develop conditioned reflexes through education and social dialogue. Jacques Ellul describes the role of education as “pre-propaganda.” Thus, it is no accident that climate change, social justice, and sex education are taught to young students, while there is no religious acceptance or comprehensive discussion of the principles of liberty and freedom.

Let’s review a few recent headlines. Yesterday in Columbia, Missouri notebooks were being given to students with Obama’s slogan and campaign picture on the front. Children have been videotaped literally signing President Obama’s praises and the University of Minnesota is discussing how to best reindoctrinate “biased” individuals. Today, there is news about Obama’s education czar’s educating children with “black books” which included discussions of grotesque sexual acts.

Around the world, educational systems, beginning in elementary school, are organized to promote social change. In some instances, children can now attend public schools such as The Little Village Lawndale High School in Chicago and focus exclusively on social justice classes. To highlight the calculated attempt to indoctrinate our youth, in March 2009 the United States Congress passed the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act (GIVE). Under section 6104 of the bill, entitled “Duties,” the legislation states “Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”

In addition to education, modern propaganda must build on societies need for safety, security, and community. It must exploit human weaknesses in a comprehensive, total, and unyielding manner through all available channels. This is accomplished by inundating individuals with constant propaganda such as the news, youtube, magazines, and teachers.ons. As previously mentioned, the large media outlets refuse to provide dissenting opinion. The UN now has its own youtube channel called “Raise your voice and change climate change.” The cover of the Economist on newsstands today reads “Stopping Climate Change,” and every news article I read uses the word “consensus.”

The end effect of this organized media blitz is to focus the public on one event, climate change, to the exclusion of all the rest. The ability to set the public agenda and determine social perceptions is a powerful tool in social psychology. For it is clear that when individuals are faced with large social opposition or view themselves as out of the norm, individuals typically move towards the mean. The mean in this case is fascism and socialism.

The National Post exposes Wikipedia over climate information

December 21, 2009

UPDATED: see stats below the “read more” line.

Lawrence Solomon at the National Post writes about a topic that WUWT readers have known about for a long time: How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.

We’ve known for some time that Wikipedia can’t be trusted to provide unbiased climate information. Solomon starts off by talking about Climategate emails.

The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.

The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.

He then focuses on RealClimate.org co-founder William Connolley, who has “touched” 5,428 Wikipedia articles with his unique brand of RC centric editing:

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

The Medieval Warm Period disappeared, as did criticism of the global warming orthodoxy. With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed. The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books, perhaps with an asterisk to describe how a band of zealots once tried to make it disappear.

Wikipedia suffers from the same problem that climate science in general suffers from now. A few determined zealots have influenced the vast majority of the published information.

IMHO it is time for Connolley to step aside from Wikipedia, one person should not have so much influence over so many articles. At the same time, the number two person, almost as influential, is Kim Dabelstein Peterson. Here’s a National Review article on the kind of things Petersen has been doing in similar to the work of Connolley.

Additionally, there are many Wikipedia editors and contributors that do so anonymously, and I think that is terribly wrong. There’s no accountability, no quality control, and no recourse to people who falsify information, or mold it to fit a personal agenda. Wikipedia relies upon an honor system, and as we’ve seen from the Climategate emails, there’s no honor in some circles of climate science.

Here is another example:

The Opinionator

Posted: May 03, 2008, 2:53 AM by Lawrence Solomon

Connolley is not only a big shot on Wikipedia, he’s a big shot at Wikipedia — an Administrator with unusual editorial clout. Using that clout, this 40-something scientist of minor relevance gets to tear down scientists of great accomplishment. Because Wikipedia has become the single biggest reference source in the world, and global warming is one of the most sought after subjects, the ability to control information on Wikipedia by taking down authoritative scientists is no trifling matter.

One such scientist is Fred Singer, the First Director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service, the recipient of a White House commendation for his early design of space satellites; the recipient of a NASA commendation for research on particle clouds — in short, a scientist with dazzling achievements who is everything Connolley is not. Under Connolley’s supervision, Singer is relentlessly smeared, and has been for years, as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. When a smear is inadequate, or when a fair-minded Wikipedian tries to correct a smear, Connolley and his cohorts are there to widen the smear or remove the correction, often rebuking the Wikipedian in the process.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales recently put out an appeal for donations here. He writes:

I believe in us. I believe that Wikipedia keeps getting better. That’s the whole idea. One person writes something, somebody improves it a little, and it keeps getting better, over time. If you find it useful today, imagine how much we can achieve together in 5, 10, 20 years.

In a perfect world, maybe. In a perfect world unicorns frolic in the park, free money falls from the sky, and people are honest and without bias 100% of the time. But when you have Wikibullies, such as Connolley and Peterson, your honor system goes up in smoke. Fact is Jimmy, your honor system is as corrupted as the peer review process is for climate science these days. In my view, don’t give Wikipedia another dime until they make some changes to provide for a more responsible information environment.

Making free reference information available to the public shouldn’t be a battle of wills between Wikibullies with an agenda and the rest of society.

Here’s where to write to complain to Wikipedia:

Wikimedia Foundation

Postal address

Wikimedia Foundation Inc.

149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor

San Francisco, CA 94105

USA

Phone: +1-415-839-6885

Email: info@wikimedia.org

Fax: +1-415-882-0495 (note: we get a large number of calls; email or fax is always a better first option)

UPDATE: I’ve located Solomon’s source of information, an independent Wikipedia author tracker. Here is Connolley’s base statistics:

The billion-dollar hoax

* Andrew Bolt

* From: Herald Sun

* January 27, 2010 12:00AM

ONCE global warming was the "great moral challenge of our generation". Or so claimed the Prime Minister.

But suddenly it's the great con that's falling to bits around Kevin Rudd's ears.

In fact, so fast is global warming theory collapsing that in his flurry of recent speeches to outline his policies for the new decade, Rudd has barely mentioned his "moral challenge" at all.

Take his long Australia Day reception speech on Sunday. Rudd talked of our ageing population and of building stuff, of taxes, hospitals and schools - but dared not say one word about the booga booga he used to claim could destroy our economy, Kakadu, the Great Barrier Reef and 750,000 coastal homes.

What's happened?

Answer: in just the past few months has come a cascade of evidence that the global warming scare is based on often dodgy science and even outright fraud.

Here are just the top 10 new signs that catastrophic man-made warming may be just another beat-up, like swine flu, SARS, and the Y2K bug.

THE rot for Rudd started last November with the leaking of emails from the Climatic Research Unit of Britain's University of East Anglia.

Those emails from many of the world's top climate scientists showed them conspiring to sack sceptical scientists from magazines, hide data from sceptics, and cover up errors.

One of the scientists, CRU boss Phil Jones, even boasted of having found a "trick" to "hide the decline" in recent temperature records.

Jones was also on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so influential in convincing us our gasses are heating the planet that it won the Nobel Prize.

But he showed how political the IPCC actually is by promising in yet another email that he and another colleague would do almost anything to keep sceptical studies out of IPCC reports.

Just as damning was the admission by IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth that the world isn't warming as the IPCC said it must: "We cannot account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

2. The Copenhagen farce

MORE than 40,000 politicians, scientists and activists flew to Copenhagen last month - in clouds of greenhouse gasses - to get all nations to agree to make the rest of us cut our own emissions to "stop" global warming.

This circus ended in total failure. China, the world's biggest emitter, refused to choke its growth. So did India. Now the United States is unlikely to make cuts, either, with Barack Obama's presidency badly wounded and the economy so sick.

Not only did this show that Rudd's planned tax on our emissions will now be even more suicidally useless. It also suggested world leaders can't really think global warming is so bad.

3. The Himalayan scare

RUDD has quoted the IPCC as his authority on global warming, claiming it's a group of "guys in white coats" who "just measure things". But the IPCC also just makes things up.

Take this claim from its 2007 report: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

In fact, we now know this bizarre claim was first made by a little-known Indian scientist in an interview for an online magazine, and then copied into a report by the green group WWF.

From there, the IPCC lifted it almost word for word for its own 2007 report, without checking if it was true.

It wasn't, of course, as the IPCC last week conceded. The glaciers will be around for at least centuries more.

But why did the IPCC run this mad claim in the first place?

The IPCC's Dr Murari Lal, the co-ordinating lead author responsible, says he knew all along there was no peer-reviewed research to back it up.

"(But) we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians ... "

Note: you are told not the truth, but what will scare you best.

4. Pachauri's response

BUT what smells just as much is how IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, a former railway engineer, first tried to defend this "mistake" by accusing sceptical scientists of practising "voodoo science".

Deny and abuse. That's the IPCC way.

Even more suspiciously, Syed Hasnain, the scientist who first made the false claim, then turned out to be now employed by The Energy Research Institute, headed by ... er, Pachauri.

More astonishing still, only two weeks ago TERI won up to $500,000 from the Carnegie Corporation to study exactly Hasnain's bogus claim. See how cash follows a good scare?

5. Pachauri's conflicts

IN fact, Pachauri and TERI do amazingly well from his IPCC job.

Britain's Sunday Telegraph this month revealed TERI had created a global business network since Pachauri became IPCC chairman in 2002.

Its recent donors include Deutsche Bank, Toyota, Yale University - and, sadly, Rudd, who last year handed over $1 million, hoping to win influence with such a big UN honcho.

Pachauri himself is now a director or adviser to a score of banks, investment institutions and carbon traders, many involved in areas directly affected by IPCC policies.

He denies any wrongdoing, and is not paid by the IPCC. But see again how cash follows a scare, and ask if the IPCC chief has a conflict of interest.

6. The green hand revealed

WE'VE seen how the IPCC just copied its false claims about the Himalayas from a report by WWF, a green activist group which earn donations by preaching such doom.

In fact, the IPCC's 2007 report cites WWF documents as "evidence" at least another 15 times.

Elsewhere it cites a non-scientific, non-peer-reviewed paper from another activist body, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, as its sole proof that global warming could devastate African agriculture.

Whose agenda is the IPCC pushing?

7. More fake IPCC claims

THIS week came more evidence that the IPCC sexed up its 2007 report, this time when it claimed the world had "suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s", thanks to global warming.

In fact, the claim was picked out of an unpublished report by a London risk consultant, who later changed his mind and said "the idea that catastrophes are rising in cost because of climate change is completely misleading".

8. New research on our gasses

AT least four new papers by top scientists cast doubt on the IPCC claim that our carbon dioxide emissions are strongly linked to global warming.

One, published in Nature, shows the world had ice age activity even when atmospheric CO2 was four times the level of our pre-industrial times.

Another, by NASA medallist John Christy and David Douglass, shows global temperatures did not go up as much as expected from man-made emissions over the past three decades.

9. New Australian research

JAMES Cook University researcher Peter Ridd says Australian scientists have cried wolf over the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from global warming, and the reef was actually in "bloody brilliant shape". The alarmist CSIRO this month also backed away from blaming global warming for a drought in Tasmania and in the Murray-Darling basin, saying "the jury is still out". A new paper by another Australian academic, Assoc Prof Stewart Franks, says the Murray-Darling drought is natural, and has nothing to do with man-made warming.

10. The world still won't warm

AND still the world hasn't warmed since 2001, even though we pump out more emissions than ever.

Even professional alarmist Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, admits "we haven't seen a continuation of that (warming) trend" and "the computer modelling and the real world data disagree".

And with Europe, the United States and China hit with record cold and snow this winter, no wonder Kevin Rudd has suddenly gone cold on global warming, the mad faith that has cost us so many futile billions already.

If there’s one thing that stinks even more than Climategate, it’s the attempts we’re seeing everywhere from the IPCC and Penn State University to the BBC to pretend that nothing seriously bad has happened, that “the science” is still “settled”, and that it’s perfectly OK for the authorities go on throwing loads more of our money at a problem that doesn’t exist.

The latest example of this noisome phenomenon is Sir Muir Russell’s official whitewash – sorry “independent inquiry” into the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) scandal.

The inquiry has not even begun and already it has told its first blatant lie – seen here on its official website.

Do any of the Review team members have a predetermined view on climate change and climate science?

No. Members of the research team come from a variety of scientific backgrounds. They were selected on the basis they have no prejudicial interest in climate change and climate science and for the contribution they can make to the issues the Review is looking at.

By what bizarre logic, then, did Sir Muir think it a good idea to appoint to his panel the editor of Nature, Dr Philip Campbell? Dr Campbell is hardly neutral: his magazine has for years been arguing aggressively in favour of the AGW, and which published this editorial in the wake of Climategate:

The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists’ scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial ’smoking gun’: proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.

This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country’s much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.

Dr Campbell has since resigned his post – and rightly so, as the Global Warming Policy Foundation makes clear. But are we to feel any more confident about the alleged neutrality of another of Sir Muir’s appointments, Professor Geoffrey Boulton?

Bishop Hill certainly doesn’t think so. He notes that Professor Boulton….

* spent 18 years at the school of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia

* works in an office almost next door to a member of the Hockey Team

* says the argument over climate change is over

* tours the country lecturing on the dangers of climate change

* believes the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2050

* signed up to a statement supporting the consensus in the wake of Climategate, which spoke of scientists adhering to the highest standards of integrity

* could fairly be described as a global warming doommonger

* is quite happy to discuss “denial” in the context of the climate debate.

You wonder, if Sir Muir really is that determined to keep his inquiry totally unbiased, independent, above-board and scrupulously neutral why he just doesn’t go the whole hog and appoint Al Gore, James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri. I doubt the conclusions they’d reach would be any different.

Climategate Meets the Law: Senator Inhofe to Ask for DOJ Investigation (Pajamas Media/PJTV Exclusive)

Posted By Charlie Martin On February 23, 2010 @ 2:00 am In Column 2, Science, Science & Technology | 391 Comments

BREAKING: See Charlie Martin’s “Senator Barbara Boxer and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Throw IPCC Under the Bus [1]“.

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Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Senator Inhofe also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back to the Senate to testify.

“In [Gore's] science fiction movie, every assertion has been rebutted,” Inhofe said. He believes Vice President Gore should defend himself and his movie before Congress.

Just prior to a hearing at 10:00 a.m. EST, Senator Inhofe released a minority staff report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee [2], of which he is ranking member. Senator Inhofe is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether there has been research misconduct or criminal actions by the scientists involved, including Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

This report, obtained exclusively by Pajamas Media before today’s hearing, alleges:

[The] Minority Staff of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works believe the scientists involved may have violated fundamental ethical principles governing taxpayer-funded research and, in some cases, federal laws. In addition to these findings, we believe the emails and accompanying documents seriously compromise the IPCC -backed “consensus” and its central conclusion that anthropogenic emissions are inexorably leading to environmental catastrophes.

As has been reported here at Pajamas Media over the last several months, the exposure of the Climategate files has led to a reexamination of the IPCC Assessment Reports, especially the fourth report (AR4), published in 2007. The IPCC AR4 report was named by Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson as one of the major sources of scientific support for the agency’s Endangerment Finding, the first step towards allowing the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

Since the Climategate files were released, the IPCC has been forced to retract a number of specific conclusions — such as a prediction that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 [3] — and has been forced to confirm that the report was based in large part on reports from environmental activist groups instead of peer-reviewed scientific literature. Dr. Murari Lal, an editor of the IPCC AR4 report, admitted to the London Daily Mail [4] that he had known the 2035 date was false, but was included in the report anyway “purely to put political pressure on world leaders.”

Based on this minority staff report, Senator Inhofe will be calling for an investigation into potential research misconduct and possible criminal acts by the researchers involved. At the same time, Inhofe will ask the Environmental Protection Agency to reopen its consideration of an Endangerment Finding for carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Federal Clean Air Act, and will ask Congress to withdraw funding for further consideration of carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

In requesting that the EPA reopen the Endangerment Finding, Inhofe joins with firms such as the Peabody Energy Company [5] and several state attorneys general (such as Texas [6] and Virginia [7]) in objecting to the Obama administration’s attempt to extend regulatory control over carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. Senator Inhofe believes this staff report “strengthens the case” for the Texas and Virginia attorneys general.

Senator Inhofe’s announcement today appears to be the first time a member of Congress has formally called for an investigation into research misconduct and potential criminal acts by the scientists involved.

The staff report describes four major issues revealed by the Climategate files and the subsequent revelations:

1. The emails suggest some climate scientists were cooperating to obstruct the release of damaging information and counter-evidence.

2. They suggest scientists were manipulating the data to reach predetermined conclusions.

3. They show some climate scientists colluding to pressure journal editors not to publish work questioning the “consensus.”

4. They show that scientists involved in the report were assuming the role of climate activists attempting to influence public opinion while claiming scientific objectivity.

The report notes a number of potential legal issues raised by their Climategate investigation:

1. It suggests scientific misconduct that may violate the Shelby Amendment — requiring open access to the results of government-funded research — and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) policies on scientific misconduct (which were announced December 12, 2000).

2. It notes the potential for violations of the Federal False Statements and False Claims Acts, which may have both civil and criminal penalties.

3. The report also notes the possibility of there having been an obstruction of Congress in congressional proceeds, which may constitute an obstruction of justice.

If proven, these charges could subject the scientists involved to debarment from federally funded research, and even to criminal penalties.

By naming potential criminal offenses, Senator Inhofe raises the stakes for climate scientists and others involved. Dr. Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit has already been forced to step aside because of the Climategate FOIA issues, and Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State is currently under investigation by the university for potential misconduct. Adding possible criminal charges to the mix increases the possibility that some of the people involved may choose to blow the whistle in order to protect themselves.

Senator Inhofe believes that Dr. Hansen and Dr. Mann should be “let go” from their posts “for the good of the institutions involved.”

The question, of course, is whether the Senate Democratic majority will allow this investigation to proceed, in the face of the Obama administration’s stated intention to regulate CO2 following the apparent death of cap and trade legislation. The Democratic majority has blocked previous attempts by Inhofe to investigate issues with climate science.

Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate

For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the

media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing

alternate views

By JOHN M. BRODER

Published: March 2, 2010

WASHINGTON — For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the

media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing

alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the

vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings.

Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

Ralph J. Cicerone of the National Academy of Sciences says scientists must try to be heard.

But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to fight back. Tentatively and grudgingly, they are beginning to engage their critics, admit mistakes, open up their data and reshape the way they conduct their work.

The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from a major climate research center in England, and more recent revelations of a handful of errors in a supposedly authoritative United Nations report on climate change, have created what a number of top scientists say is a major breach of faith in their research. They say the uproar threatens to undermine decades of work and has badly damaged public trust in the scientific enterprise.

The e-mail episode, dubbed “climategate” by critics, revealed arrogance and what one top climate researcher called “tribalism” among some scientists. The correspondence appears to show efforts to limit publication of contrary opinion and to evade Freedom of Information Act requests. The content of the messages opened some well-known scientists to charges of concealing temperature data from rival researchers and manipulating results to conform to precooked conclusions.

“I have obviously written some very awful e-mails,” Phil Jones, the British climate scientist at the center of the controversy, confessed to a special committee of Parliament on Monday. But he sharply disputed charges that he had hidden data or faked results.

Some of the most serious allegations against Dr. Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, and other researchers have been debunked, while several investigations are still under way to determine whether others hold up.

But serious damage has already been done. A survey conducted in late December by Yale University and George Mason University found that the number of Americans who believed that climate change was a hoax or scientific conspiracy had more than doubled since 2008, to 16 percent of the population from 7 percent. An additional 13 percent of Americans said they thought that even if the planet was warming, it was a result solely of natural factors and was not a significant concern.

Climate scientists have been shaken by the criticism and are beginning to look for ways to recover their reputation. They are learning a little humility and trying to make sure they avoid crossing a line into policy advocacy.

“It’s clear that the climate science community was just not prepared for the scale and ferocity of the attacks and they simply have not responded swiftly and appropriately,” said Peter C. Frumhoff, an ecologist and chief scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We need to acknowledge the errors and help turn attention from what’s happening in the blogosphere to what’s happening in the atmosphere.”

A number of institutions are beginning efforts to improve the quality of their science and to make their work more transparent. The official British climate agency is undertaking a complete review of its temperature data and will make its records and analysis fully public for the first time, allowing outside scrutiny of methods and conclusions. The United Nations panel on climate change will accept external oversight of its research practices, also for the first time.

Two universities are investigating the work of top climate scientists to determine whether they have violated academic standards and undermined faith in science. The National Academy of Sciences is preparing to publish a nontechnical paper outlining what is known — and not known — about changes to the global climate. And a vigorous debate is under way among climate scientists on how to make their work more transparent and regain public confidence.

Some critics think these are merely cosmetic efforts that do not address the real problem, however.

“I’ll let you in on a very dark, ugly secret — I don’t want trust in climate science to be restored,” Willis Eschenbach, an engineer and climate contrarian who posts frequently on climate skeptic blogs, wrote in response to one climate scientist’s proposal to share more research. “I don’t want you learning better ways to propagandize for shoddy science. I don’t want you to figure out how to inspire trust by camouflaging your unethical practices in new and innovative ways.”

“The solution,” he concluded, “is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science.”

Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious scientific body in the United States, said that there was a danger that the distrust of climate science could mushroom into doubts about scientific inquiry more broadly. He said that scientists must do a better job of policing themselves and trying to be heard over the loudest voices on cable news, talk radio and the Internet.

“This is a pursuit that scientists have not had much experience in,” said Dr. Cicerone, a specialist in atmospheric chemistry.

The battle is asymmetric, in the sense that scientists feel compelled to support their findings with careful observation and replicable analysis, while their critics are free to make sweeping statements condemning their work as fraudulent.

“We have to do a better job of explaining that there is always more to learn, always uncertainties to be addressed,” said John P. Holdren, an environmental scientist and the White House science adviser. “But we also need to remind people that the occasions where a large consensus is overturned by a scientific heretic are very, very rare.”

No scientific body is under more hostile scrutiny than the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which compiles the climate research of hundreds of scientists around the globe into periodic reports intended to be the definitive statement of the science and a guide for policy makers. Critics, citing several relatively minor errors in its most recent report and charges of conflict of interest against its leader, Rajendra K. Pachauri, are calling for the I.P.C.C. to be disbanded or radically reformed.

On Saturday, after weeks of refusing to engage critics, the I.P.C.C. announced that it was asking for the creation of an independent panel to review its research procedures to try to eliminate bias and errors from future reports. But even while allowing for some external oversight, Dr. Pachauri insisted that panel stood behind its previous work.

“Scientists must continually earn the public’s trust or we risk descending into a new Dark Age where ideology trumps reason,” Dr. Pachauri said in an e-mail message.

But some scientists said that responding to climate change skeptics was a fool’s errand.

“Climate scientists are paid to do climate science,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, a senior climatologist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. “Their job is not persuading the public.”

He said that the recent flurry of hostility to climate science had been driven as much by the cold winter as by any real or perceived scientific sins.

“There have always been people accusing us of being fraudulent criminals, of the I.P.C.C. being corrupt,” Dr. Schmidt said. “What is new is this paranoia combined with a spell of cold weather in the United States and the ‘climategate’ release. It’s a perfect storm that has allowed the nutters to control the agenda.”

The answer is simple, he said.

“Good science,” he said, “is the best revenge.”

Climategate: Once Respected Nature Now Staffed By Moaning Ninnies

Climategate: Once Respected Nature Now Staffed By Moaning Ninnies

"Let us condemn them to reading out their own editorials to each other until they realize how silly they are, or for all eternity, whichever be the sooner."

March 12, 2010 - by Christopher Monckton

The once-respected science journal Nature recently published a whining editorial to the effect that climate scientists are not criminals, really; that attacks on them by increasingly-skeptical news media are soooo unfair; and that the fundamental science showing that the planet is doomed unless the economies of the West are shut down at once is unchallengeable.

No doubt most climate scientists are not criminals. However, some are. Many of the two dozen Climategate emailers, who have for years driven the IPCC process, tampered with peer review in the learned journals, and fabricated, altered, concealed, or destroyed scientific data are criminals. Whether they or Nature like it or not, they will eventually stand trial, and deservedly so.

After all, the biofuel scam that is one of many disfiguring spin-offs from the “global warming” scare — driven by the poisonous clique of mad scientists whom Nature so uncritically defends — has taken millions of acres of farmland away from growing food for people who need it and towards growing biofuels for clunkers that don’t. Result: a doubling of world food prices, mass starvation, and death, leading to food riots in a dozen major regions of the globe.

You won’t have seen much about these riots in the Western news media: they are too busy reporting on every putative icicle putatively dribbling in putatively melting Greenland.

Where was Nature when James Hansen — a publicly funded “scientist” and political agitator “working” for NASA — publicly demanded that anyone who disagreed with his climate-extremist views be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity”?

Did Nature write a pompous, pietistic editorial drawing attention to the fact that the penalty for crimes against humanity is death, and asking whether demands that one’s scientific opponents should face potential execution constitute an appropriate contribution to scientific discourse? Did it heck! Nature was sullenly, culpably silent.

Hansen wrote a characteristically overblown op-ed in the British Marxist newspaper the Guardian last year, saying that sea level was about to rise by 246 feet.

Should I face trial and execution for pointing out, mildly, that Hansen knows no more about sea-level rise than a hedgehog, and that even the excitable UN climate panel puts 21st-century sea-level rise at a maximum of 2 feet?

Where was Nature when Al Gore’s mawkish, sci-fi, comedy-horror movie came out? Did it ever disclose even one of the three dozen serious errors or exaggerations in that dismal piece of pseudo-scientific propaganda? Did it heck! Gore’s climate-extremist views chimed with Nature’s own, so its editors were sullenly, culpably silent.

Where was Nature when the UN’s climate panel published, three times and in full color, a graph in its 2007 report purporting to show that the rate of warming over the past 160 years has itself increased, allegedly because of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, when the graph deployed a statistical technique so bogus that any pimply freshman doing Stats 101 would recognize the graph as tendentious, politicized nonsense?

Nowhere, that’s where.

The mindless mantra that moaning ninnies like Nature mumble over and over again is that, notwithstanding one, or several, or hundreds, or thousands of bloopers in the now-discredited climate “assessments” of the UN’s climate panel, the science is settled and the debate is over. Yet the debate rages on and — tell it not in Gath or Ashkelon — the skeptics are winning.

Nature’s editors, not having reached intellectual puberty, lack the self-critical skill of examining their own consciences. When they grow up, they will realize that there is a reason why the skeptics are winning. It is because the skeptics are right. The science never was settled, nor was the debate over. CO2 is a bit-part player in the climate. Get over it and move along. Get a life.

And how come the skeptics are winning, when billions of state-funded propaganda dollars have been squandered for decades in an ever more futile attempt to buy the acquiescence of John Q. Public? Your average voter does not necessarily understand the growing number of scientific papers establishing, by a variety of measurements, that the UN’s XBox 360s have gotten the models wrong, and that the warming effect of CO2 is around one-seventh of the UN’s vastly-exaggerated central estimate.

But what the man on the crosstown bus can smell a mile off is propaganda bulls***. Tell him the debate on anything is over and his antennae will start to twitch. Tell him that because the debate is over he will have to lose his job and pay higher taxes and gasoline prices and electricity costs and he will ask what you’re on and whether he can have some.

The sheer shrillness of the true-believers, such as Nature’s zit-bespattered editors, has woken up the sleeping giant of public opinion, and the giant will not go back to sleep however often Nature maunders on about the fundamental science being agreed among all parties. After 15 years with no statistically significant “global warming” (Nature didn’t tell you that), nine years of a rapid global cooling trend (Nature forgot to mention it), sea level growing at just 1 foot per century (Nature didn’t get around to reporting that), and sea ice showing no global trend in 30 years (Nature somehow missed that one), no one is believing the true-believers any more.

I know: let’s put Nature’s editors on trial for high crimes against journalistic integrity and scientific truth. Death is far too good for them: let us condemn them to reading out their own editorials to each other until they realize how silly they are, or for all eternity, whichever be the sooner.

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British politician, business consultant, and policy advisor.Christopher Monckton

You won’t have seen much about these riots in the Western news media: they are too busy reporting on every putative icicle putatively dribbling in putatively melting Greenland.

Hansen wrote a characteristically overblown op-ed in the British Marxist newspaper the Guardian last year, saying that sea level was about to rise by 246 feet.

Nowhere, that’s where.

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British politician, business consultant, and policy advisor.