Thank God that some soul out there couldn’t bear the lies any longer and had the fortitude to make these files publicly available before the climate change lobby around the world was successful in using them to force a multi-trillion dollar reallocation of the world’s resources.

This has never been about science. This has always been about money, power and ideology. But now the jig is up and the emperor has no clothes! Hallelujah!!!

Another ice-age would render great areas of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable,

Not to mention, any significant cooling would shorten growing seasons and possibly lead to high food prices or even shortages in some areas of the world. I personally think that is a concern that is not thought enough about. I hope we are not staring at global warming, while global cooling sneaks up behind us and whaps us in the back of the head with a two-by-four, b/c we’ve made no plans for it at all.

Richard Aubrey: I don’t think this will [will be allowed to] affect the political debate over the issue.
The amount of potential graft in Cap and Trade is beyond comprehension. Nobody’s going to let that go just because it’s based on lies.

Speaking as a criminal who understands my fellow criminals, both elected and appointed, I’m afraid you’re right.

1 – Gov’t interventions to maintain the climate in some artificial state will fail to do so. Which is probably good because:
2 – A warmer climate would be a better climate for most of the world, and what’s bad (maybe, maybe not) for polar bears is probably good for all the other bears. Why do many people seem to assume that the current climate is the ideal?
3 – Another ice-age would render great areas of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable, so any claimed move away from that is comforting, so keep those lies coming, you “scientists!”

To the extent that the anti-AGW side makes positive claims, it’s absolutely works both ways. To the extent anti-AGW side is poking holes in the positive claims of the pro-AGW side, there’s nothing they need to disclose – that only requires access to the pro-AGW side’s data.

That said, it would be certainly nice to know if they failed at invalidating some pro-AGW claim or other but strictly speaking, that’s not necessary.

Great point. No climate science star chambers! Time to play that hippie classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S7ZiC80Ilg

davod: “I don’t believe it destroys the case for AGW, not at all.”Only if you disregard the e-mails stating manipulation of the data.

There’s a certain “fake but accurate” vibe going on. Only a tiny fraction of the evidence has been discredited — because only a tiny fraction has been checked, of course.

What I don’t understand is all this “proprietary evidence”. Secret evidence is no evidence at all.

Only if you disregard the e-mails stating manipulation of the data.

rpt:
Can someone tell me whether this works both ways, or is only the pro-AGW side that is required to disclose?

Who is making the affirmative charge humans are the cause of warming and will cause a catastrophe?

It seems to me the burden of proof is on that side.

Todd: geokstr,Well said.All members of the AGW ‘tribe’ must fully open their books and let the sun shine in!Let us see the code, the raw data and the methods/tools used to gather it.

Can someone tell me whether this works both ways, or is only the pro-AGW side that is required to disclose?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk

Laura(southernxyl): And as previously pointed out, tree ring data that do not currently correlate to temperature, magically did correlate a thousand years ago.

It was pointed out by a guy that Phil Jones was trying to get fired. (Hans van Storch, founder of the Donald Duck Club, publisher of Der Hamburger Donaldist, and apparently, a principled climatologist — why is that only the last of those credentials sounds implausible nowadays?)

You want to prove physics works? Tour Hiroshima. You want prove EE works? Stick your finger in a light socket. You want to prove climatology works? Take two parallel universes, lower the Earth’s CO2 levels by 50% in one of them, wait 100 years, and observe the 1.3% difference in annual worldwide average temperature. Yeah, that’s the same.

What can it tell me? Uh, in 100 years, the average temperature will go up 1.3 degrees.

Are you KIDDING ME?

Right. And as previously pointed out, tree ring data that do not currently correlate to temperature, magically did correlate a thousand years ago.

Ben P: That’s a pretty impressive stack of logical disconnects you have there.

At most, it’s one logical disconnect.

Sandwhiches are more akin to a sandwhich made in a different building by a different person, but who works for the same company. Would you toss it?

Yeah, yeah, I would. (Are you actually saying the opposite: if your first Acme-brand sandwich was rancid, you would buy and consume another Acme-brand sandwich without even checking? I assume you mean something more subtle, but I don’t know what.)

It’s a reasonable question to ask how broad a brush we (the non-climatologist community, as it were) should using in tarring those responsible. Should we

1. assume those scientists were only unethical specifically in those issues covered by the emails we have

2. assume those scientists were unreliable in all dealings

3. assume all scientists at that facility are unreliable

4. assume all scientists at that field of study are unreliable

5. assume all scientists are unreliable

(1) and (5) I think we can dismiss out of hand. (2) is tempting to many people, but I think it goes against the general collaborative nature of science: any single person can make a mistake, but institutional structures are supposed to correct those mistakes over time. If CRU doesn’t monitor and discipline these bad apples, what purpose does it serve? Is it just a free money-buffet for anyone who manages to elbow his way in?

But why am I going for (4) rather than (3)? Partly because I have my doubts about climatology in particular, outlined below, but mostly because of, again, the collaborative nature of science.

How many times have you heard the phrase “peer review”? How many times have skeptics been derided for ignoring the “consensus”? How many times have words like “settled” and “indisputable” been bandied about?

It has to work both ways. If the collection of Climatologydom can be brought to bear against AGW skeptics, then victories by the skeptics have to redound against the entire collective. Otherwise, science just becomes a refuge for bullies like Phil Jones.

Ben P: As for weather and climate. Althought imperfect I like the actuary analogy. You have no clue when you are going to die. I have no clue when I am going to die. But I can say with a high degree of certainty that the average male in the United States will live to 75, and life insurance companies make it their business to make predictions of smaller subsets of the population with a relatively high degree of accuracy.

I think that’s an excellent analogy in many ways. Yes, an actuary cannot say when I personally am going to die, but he can tell me that 0.1% of currently healthy 44-year-old American males will die in the next 12 months (I made that number up). If he does tell me that, I can wait a year and count the number of originally healthy 44-year-old American males did in fact go Tango Upsilon. If he’s off by much, he’s a Bad Actuary.

Indeed, any other subject that presumes to call itself a science offers tests of exactly that nature: it makes a prediction and then someone else can test that prediction. It’s called falsifiability, and it’s central to distinguishing science from crap.

But how to I falsify climatology? It can’t tell me the weather tomorrow. OK, that’s fine, I get it, climatology is aggregate, it’s statistical. It doesn’t do “tomorrow”.

Can it tell me the weather next year? The average temperature over the next five years? Anything I can actually check? No, no, and a big fat no.

What can it tell me? Uh, in 100 years, the average temperature will go up 1.3 degrees.

Are you KIDDING ME? They are making a prediction that will checkable, maybe, by my great-grandchildren and they expect me to take them seriously. How is this something adults are spending their time on?

And now I find out this: even at their very sketchy, virtually rigged game, they aren’t playing by their own rules. Nope. No way.

Unless something very meaningful happens, very soon, I’m downgrading climatologist down to the level of phrenologists and letting them work their way up from there.

But there’s also a double indicator here. The same result would be reached if the maneuvering was simply because their arguments were not of the proper quality.

This would be a reasonable argument – if it weren’t for the problem of the emails found in the CRU archive which disagree with you. They weren’t keeping out “bad” papers – they were keeping out papers that disagreed with their conclusions, or that weren’t strong enough support for their theories. They even conspired to get an editor fired (and succeeded) because he was a skeptic (not because he wasn’t good, but because he was doing his job).

His view is that the science of global warming is sound, and his argument is that the misconduct of three or four scientists in no way impeaches the vast majority of the science of climate change.

How can he know that? Presumably, he would have been just as confident about the work of these three or four scientists prior to this release.

This is the argument of the people who denied that the type of misconduct revealed in these emails was possible. Now they’re arguing that it can’t possibly be widespread — and their rationale is no different from what it was before.

And let’s not move the goalposts. This isn’t about climate change, it’s about AGW.

David Schwartz: Because the evidence now conclusively shows that the arguments defending his view were false (that the type of misconduct shown in these emails couldn’t possibly exist at this level). Of course the folks on the AGW side are going to argue that this was an exception and probably most of their evidence is untainted — at least by this misconduct by these folks.

Unless I’m just totally misunderstanding what you’re saying, there’s absolutely no sense there.

His view is that the science of global warming is sound, and his argument is that the misconduct of three or four scientists in no way impeaches the vast majority of the science of climate change.

I’d certainly agree with Monbiot (whatever that counts for) that data needs to be reviewed, but these emails are a far cry from “conclusively demonstrating that the arguments for climate change are false.”

When you define a reputable scientist or scientific journal as one which agrees with catastrophic global warming, its pretty inevitable that you won’t find a reputable scientist or journal that challenges catastrophic global warming.

That should have been a big red flag. In every other great scientific breakthrough or insight, there has always been a rear guard of skeptics (usually the older generations) that don’t go away until they essentially die off. When those inevitable voices never appeared or were stifled, we should have known something was culturally wrong with these research fields.

PatHMV: Also, Ben, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the CRU people boast of having influenced the editors of the peer review journals to keep out “skeptical” work. They even boast of having influenced the removal of one such editor. That makes the entire climate change peer review process suspect.

I would say that it makes a certain subset of accusations suspect. Namely it weakens the argument that a skeptic’s lack of publication is dispositive on the quality of their arguments. But there’s also a double indicator here. The same result would be reached if the maneuvering was simply because their arguments were not of the proper quality. That’s why I say “weakens” rather than destroys.

I fail to see how the playing of politics in peer reviewed work directly impugns anything other than the ability of “peer review” to stand as a proxy for reliability. Individual articles (whether peer reviewed or not) stand on their individual merits.

Also, as I said before, I’m personally aware of similar “journal politicking” in several other academic departments. I think the emails are indicative of the peer review process as a whole as they are of it in any particular field. But one has to admit that there are in fact some articles that fail peer review because they are of poor quality, and not because of departmental politics.

If the two claims are equal, Why should I trust your claim over his?

Because the evidence now conclusively shows that the arguments defending his view were false (that the type of misconduct shown in these emails couldn’t possibly exist at this level). Of course the folks on the AGW side are going to argue that this was an exception and probably most of their evidence is untainted — at least by this misconduct by these folks.

But until we know, AGW is dead. It will have to be resurrected if it’s to live again.

Don’t confuse the overwhelming evidence from hundreds of sources that the global climate is changing for the underwhelming evidence from a dozen or so sources that humans are responsible for a significant fraction of a long-term, significant warming trend.

Malvolio:
You don’t?

That’s a pretty impressive stack of logical disconnects you have there.

Sandwhiches are more akin to a sandwhich made in a different building by a different person, but who works for the same company. Would you toss it?

A casino would be apt if it were one scientist involved in this controversy and jumping to another scientist directly involved in this controversy. The reality of what you’re trying to argue is finding you’re playing poker with a marked deck and declaring that all casinos everywhere are cheaters because they’re in the gambling business.

A ford pinto and a first generation Honda civic are similar cars. Would you sell your Honda because the Pinto burned?

The psychic is exactly the same person. I think you’d be perfectly justified in Scrutinizing Phil Jones work in the future. What you’re tryin to argue is more akin to saying that because one pyschic was revealed to be a hoax, that all individuals who ever claimed any sort of ability in that regard are bad faith con-artists. (which would require it’s own evidence)

Look, maybe Phil Jones and his minions are sui generis, and every other climatologist on this supposedly overheating planet is simon-pure, swayed only by fact, immune to both politics and passion. Maybe.

But maybe not, and for the time being — and until I see some evidence to the contrary — I’m going for “no”. I’ll believe climatologists when they can predict the weather.

And what you’re essentially doing is a classical conspiracy theorist move. You’re presuming the conclusion and demanding evidence that all climate scientists “aren’t biased.”

As for weather and climate. Althought imperfect I like the actuary analogy. You have no clue when you are going to die. I have no clue when I am going to die. But I can say with a high degree of certainty that the average male in the United States will live to 75, and life insurance companies make it their business to make predictions of smaller subsets of the population with a relatively high degree of accuracy.

Your statement is akin to demanding that your life insurance company tell you when you are going to die. OR possibly arguing that no life insurance company could ever make a profit because they cannot predict when you will die.

Climatology is no different. In individual weather patterns random factors overwhelm our ability to make precise predictions. However, somewhat more accurate predictions can be made on a large scale.

flyovertard: Maybe this scandal will bring some sanity not only into climate change debate, but to the peer-review process. The scientific method will always win in the long-run — however tortuous the path may be.

I doubt it. The two most famous and far-reaching instances of similar junk science informing politics in modern times were Lysenko’s biological theories in the Soviet Union and the racial science popularized in the 1920s and 1930s. Neither theory was debunked due to pressure from the scientific method, but rather from external forces: Lysenko’s theories could not keep pace with the accomplishments in the West, and the racial science theories were discredited after the Allies won the war.

Here, by contrast, the global warming contingent controls, or soon will control, virtually the entire global scientific debate on the subject. And at some point in the next decade or so, it’s fairly clear that virtually every country will politically ratify the movement’s claim, for example by ratifying treaties and enacting large bureaucracies dependent on global warming theories.

Thus, unlike in the previous cases, I do not think there will ever be a way to self-correct or externally correct the fallacies of the climate change movement, because it will control the external and internal agenda. I highly doubt the scientific method will “win” here, as you predict – there’s no mechanism for it to do so.

The problem has been that the AGW researchers have been unable to get their material reviewed or even published.

I tend to agree with the poster who wrote that the graft and corruption within the new Global Warming system is so great that it will be hard to stop.

For example, there’s a significant conceptual distinction between the AGW side’s claim that analysis of antarctic core samples proves that current temperatures are higher than ever before in man’s history, and a potential skeptic’s assertion that the core samples are simply not sufficient to make any claims about past temperature histories. One is asserting a positive fact. The other is merely doubting that assertion and asking for the proof to be fully documented.

Moreover, there is not a concentrated “think tank” or university center of AGW skepticism. It’s a scientist here, a scientist there. Big Tobacco had a research institute, funded jointly by the major companies, to try to debunk scientific evidence of the damage caused by smoking. That’s not the case here. There’s no “Big Oil” research center.

Finally, generally speaking, scientists should not have to suffer having all their e-mails made public simply because they are researching a controversial topic. Science, in the long run, works regardless of the motives of the scientists. I’m not aware of any AGW skeptic scientist who has refused to release their raw data. Certainly if they have done so, I would agree that their conclusions have no credibility until they agree to do so… because if you won’t release your raw data so others can test and attempt to replicate it, you aren’t really functioning as a scientist.

Ben P: I think they make the point that three or four prominent client scientists have a real problem with Stephen McIntyre and a few other prominent skeptics, and don’t think their opinions ought to garner attention. I don’t think one can go from that to invalidating thousands of articles produced over the past ten years.

You don’t? Why not?

If you buy a dozen sandwiches from a deli and you open one of the sandwiches to find it’s putrid and crawling with vermin, do you just throw that one away and eat all the other ones?

If you got to a casino and find you are playing with marked cards, do you just switch tables?

If one Ford Pinto bursts into flames, do you just assume that that one was a unique aberration and pile the family into your own not-currently-burning Pinto?

James Randi made an observation to the effect that whenever a “psychic” was caught blatantly cheating, the charlatan’s friends and supporters would invariable make excuses that their hero was “under pressure” and “just doing it that one time”, but that all the times he wasn’t caught, well, that was real paranormal ability.

Look, maybe Phil Jones and his minions are sui generis, and every other climatologist on this supposedly overheating planet is simon-pure, swayed only by fact, immune to both politics and passion. Maybe.

But maybe not, and for the time being — and until I see some evidence to the contrary — I’m going for “no”. I’ll believe climatologists when they can predict the weather.

I Am Not A Scientist. I do not have a researched and nuanced opinion on this topic. But I do have a question.

The CRU critics here invoke various standards for data disclosure, independent verification of results, bad faith, and so on. I can understand why, as these emails are great impeachment material. However, does anyone know whether the anti-AGW (for lack of a better term) authorities, industrial and academic, are subject to the same standards; nothing withheld for trade secret or proprietary information or other reasons? If not, are they willing to open up their private correspondence for the same kind of review? This seems to be the new standard applied here to the AGW side. If the other side withhold their own private materials, doesn’t that adversely affect their credibility? Or does the debate now move on with one side (AGW) presumed to be d discredited, dishonest and in bad faith on all their arguments, and the other side (anti-AGW) presumed honest and credible, but without the same internal disclosures? Can someone explain this without snark?

2.

Could companies who invested in carbon neutral technologies reasonably seek damages on the grounds that they were deceived by Phil Jones et al?

INAL… I also think Phil Jones has been behaving very badly. But I should hope the law would not permit suits that stretch liability this far. That would be horrible from a policy point of view.

I think there is enough in those emails to motive investigations by political authorities. But the contents do not shed any doubt on the radiative physics, the enhanced green house effect, the evidence to support the notion that man has increased the level of green house gases, and the observation that temperature have increased over the century. So, the fundamental basis for AGW has not been shaken.

However, the credibility of some sources is tainted, and this does cast doubt on some of the more catastrophic claims and also suggest that the balance of publications and interpretations from official bodies may be skewed in the direction that over states warming. (How much we can’t say. )

JHA– Could you correct “Judith Miller” to “Judith Curry”?

Look at the Wegman Report. It conducts a social networking analysis on a vast majority of peer-reviewed literature regarding historical and predictive climate change. Forty-two (42) distinct authors, including all of the climate gurus in the CRU scandal (Mann, Jones, Hansen, etc.), are the foundation of what can be called “modern climate science”. These folks have collaborated on papers, sit together on editorical and review boards, essentially controlling what can be called peer-reviewed literature. Being the experts they sit on advisor boards at Universities. Having a small foundation of experts is not suprising since Climate Science has not historically been a huge field (as opposed even to seismology for instance). Dissenting science can’t get past the gatekeepers.

The largest body of recent peer-reviewed climate science deals with issues such as “The impact of global warming on anti-social behavior of red-tailed adolescent foxes in northeast Saskatchewan”, or “Red-Lichen Spore Volumes in a Warming World”. Although probably worthy in their own right (????) – these studies shouldn’t make their authors experts in climate change. But alas, if their studies are tied to climate change – they are now considered experts in climate change.

So yes there is a large quantity of climate change science that has been published in recent years – but very little of it is real climate science.

But, But, But what about acidification of the ocean – reputable micropaleontologists would disagree with this scare. In fact changing acidity and microorganisms response to the change forms the basis of most micropaleontology (facies change mapping, etc.).

Maybe this scandal will bring some sanity not only into climate change debate, but to the peer-review process. The scientific method will always win in the long-run – however tortuous the path may be.

Given the fact that Eric Holder and his DoJ are never going to pursue this matter, are the participants in the frauds documented in the various emails subject to civil suits either in the US or the UK? They took taxpayer money to do research and then conspired to defraud the taxpayers. Do individual taxpayers have any standing? Do the individuals who’s research papers were kept out of peer review journals controlled by the cabal have a reasonable claim that they were damaged? Could companies who invested in carbon neutral technologies reasonably seek damages on the grounds that they were deceived by Phil Jones et al?