After Climategate . . . never the same (?)

by Judith Curry

Has Climategate been a good thing? – Mike Hulme

Mike Hulme has posted an insightful essay entitled ‘After Climategate . . . Never the Same’, which is a chapter from his forthcoming book ‘Exploring climate change through science and society: an anthology of Mike Hulme’s essays, interviews and speeches.’  Excerpts:

One of the consequences of a public science controversy is to unsettle previously held convictions and certainties, beliefs which had been assumed but perhaps unexamined for some time.  Assumed truths and certainties were being questioned. The UK environmentalist columnist George Monbiot was an example of a high profile public commentator whose beliefs were clearly challenged by the emails and subsequent allegations. “No one has been as badly let down by the revelations in these emails as those of us who have championed the science”, Monbiot wrote the week following: “I have seldom felt so alone.”

To claim, “I am a scientist, trust me” is no longer sufficient, even if it ever once was. For scientific knowledge to earn credibility as public knowledge scientists have to work as hard outside the laboratory as they do inside, through repeated demonstrations of their integrity, accessibility and trustworthiness. Only then will they be judged as reliable witnesses and their knowledge deemed credible. This is not easy to do, as the events surrounding Climategate showed.

One of the interesting responses from the academic community since Climategate has been a new interest in studying and understanding the various manifestations of climate change scepticism. The populist notion that all climate sceptics are either in the pay of oil barons or are right-wing ideologues, as is suggested for example by studies such as Oreskes and Conway (2011), cannot be sustained.

There are many different reasons why citizens may be sceptical of aspects of climate science, certainly why they may be sceptical of knowledge claims which get exaggerated by media and lobbyists. This may be because of innate suspicion of ‘big science’ (which climate science has become, with powerful patrons in government and UN and international institutions) or because of a commitment to forms of data and knowledge libertarianism, as in the Wikileaks movement. Some of the individuals who pursued CRU scientists for access to data in the months leading up to Climategate may be seen in this light; they had no connections with the oil industry or conservative think-tanks. Other expressions of scepticism may result from issue fatigue, cynicism about a media who seek to sensationalise  or the experience of cognitive dissonance.

But beyond these reasons for climate change scepticism, in the years following Climategate it has become more important to distinguish between at least four different aspects of the conventional climate change narrative where scepticism may emerge. Trend scepticism would be disbelieving of evidence that suggested a change in climate was occurring, whereas attribution scepticism would be doubtful that such trends were predominantly caused by human agency. Impact scepticism would question whether the melodrama of the discourse of future climate catastrophe is credible and policy scepticism would query dominant climate change policy frameworks and instruments. When this more nuanced analysis of climate change scepticism is combined with a valorisation of the scientific norm of scepticism and the democratic virtue of scrutinising and interrogating vested interests, there becomes room for more respectful arguments about what climate change signifies and what responses may be appropriate. My contention is that the events surrounding Climategate in late 2009 have opened up new spaces for such agonistic democratic virtues to be exercised. 

Scientific controversies not only reveal intellectual arguments, struggles for power and human limitations within the practices and institutions of science, they also reflect the dynamics of these exact same phenomena in the wider culture within which science takes place. And they also nearly always lead to changes in the way in which science is done as it seeks to retain its cultural authority. And science controversies often become the necessary disturbances to provoke adjustment and innovation; the genetic mutations upon which processes of natural selection can operate.

 Climate scientists, their institutions and their sponsors – i.e., climate science as an enterprise – were forced to stop and reflect on how they organised their interactions with the outside world, from data policies to language, modes of communication and forms of public engagement. The unthinking assumption that having gained broad public trust (after all the IPCC had been awarded a Nobel Prize!) this would automatically be retained, was sharply challenged. And more widely, outside science, there have been adjustments in media reporting of climate change and in the entrainment of climate science in policy deliberations, and a greater boldness from critics to challenge scientific claims and practices.

 JC comments:  Mike Hulme describes the lessons that we should have learned from Climategate, and it seems that many in the UK  have learned these lessons.  I am not at all sure that the IPCC has learned many (or even any) of these lessons, and in the U.S. I don’t see much evidence of scientists having learned anything at all.

Hulme correctly describes a range of reasons for being skeptical about climate change, and identifies four different aspects around which skepticism can emerge.  In the U.S. anyway, the Oreskes’ merchant of doubt meme seems to remain predominant. Intolerance for skepticism and overconfidence remains the order of the as evidenced by the recent AGU Statement on Climate Change.  The U.S. media seems to be rather ignoring the climate change issue, with the most significant articles coming from the UK.

Finally, is it possible for a Tamsin Edwards to emerge in the U.S.?  I suspect not; even senior scientists are intimidated by the ‘consensus police’ and don’t want to be subjected to what I have had to put up with (a number of scientists have told me this).

Here’s hoping that progress can continue to be made, and eventually that things will never be the same.

759 responses to “After Climategate . . . never the same (?)

  1. It has been a serious adjustment.

    • David Springer

      • Personally, having Polar Bears drink Coca-Cola was a bad idea, all that sugar can’t be good for their carnivorous livers.

        http://web4.hobbylinc.com/gr/buf/buf1251.jpg

      • David Springer

        You might think that but the amount of sugar in one seal (medium size, raw, eaten alive) is way more than what’s in a few cokes.

        FYI don’t eat polar bear liver. It stores enough vitamin A to kill you dead in a single serving. Don’t let your sled dogs chow down on polar bear without first removing the liver either. Word.

  2. Here is an interesting article about the end of the age of global warming

    The Age of Global Warming is Over
    http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2013/7-8/the-age-of-global-warming-is-over

    • The article is a sap magnet.

      • David Springer

        I’d call Max_OK a magnet of some sort if I could only think of some attractive quality he has. Alas, as far as I can tell, he has none.

      • Looks like it drew you, Okie (like a lodestone to a steel beam).

    • The age of global warming is over. I refer, not to any warming of the planet that may or may not be occurring, but to the world’s apparently serious and broadly shared belief in dangerous, man-made global warming and of equally serious attempts to implement policies of enforced decarbonisation to deal with it.

      Of course, the denouement will take time. There are too many vested interests involved for it all to simply die overnight. The architecture built by the warmists is quite grand, literally in the case of the ghastly and divisive wind farms. The architecture is both global and local. Think of all those grant recipients whose careers have been built on global warming, all those folks who work in Centres of Sustainability and the like. They won’t give up without a fight. But, in my view, their party is over.

      IMO it is a good article, a good review of the current state of affairs with climate politics in the developed countries and a good review of Darwalls book: The Age of Global Warming: A History

      • The first two paras above are a quote from the article.

      • As I said, I think the article is a sap magnet. But let we word it differently. I think the article will find an appreciative audience among old fools.

      • Max,

        I can’t explain why, but I do want to take you seriously.

        Without reading Peter’s linked article, I was fine with your “sap” comment. That is, I was willing to give you the benefit of doubt and assume maybe you were right.

        Perhaps a bit foolish, since I consider Peter to be a more credible commentator here.

        But you go and blow it by circling back to that most idiotic age hypothesis you peddle.

      • Timg56,

        Could I persuade you to at least look at the article, make your own judgement and your own comment.

        The article is from a conservative perspective but does make many valid points, IMO, about what is happening with the politics of CAGW and the trend.

        I think it is a fair description of the reality and it would be an example of denial to ignore it.

        From my perspective it provides more support for my conviction that for any solution to be acceptable it must be economically rational. The world has progressed and is no longer prepared to write blank cheques for policies to mitigate GHG emissions.

      • Peter;
        Yes, my take has been that the Invisible Hand ensures the real price will always be paid. That reality has begun to squeeze, hard. It will not let up.

      • David Bailey

        I very much hope you are correct, but I would add a word of caution. The whole insanity began by drawing a tangent to the temperature curve, and assuming that it could be extrapolated indefinitely, and that the change was caused by CO2. If temperatures rose again by 0.05C, it could re-ignite this madness

    • Further to the article “The Age of Global Warming is Overhttp://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2013/7-8/the-age-of-global-warming-is-over
      I read this financial investment newsletter http://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/can-it-get-any-better-than-this and was interested in the bit about the Koreas black swan risk. I wonder how does this risk (as just one example of many known and unknown risks) compare with the CAGW risk. How much should we be prepared to spend on CAGW given that the policies proposed to date (like renewable energy and carbon pricing) have virtually not chance of having any effect on the climate?

      My answer is not much. I strongly believe we can and will cut GHG emissions, but it will be done in an economically rational way. The “progressives’ who have been blocking progress for the past 50 years will be sidelined. Thrivability will trump sustainability and progress will resume. The article “The Age of Global Warming is Over” tells me the resumption of progress is nearer than many ‘Progressives’ may realise.

      • Peter Lang

        Thank you for the link to the Quadrant article.

        The Age of Global Warming is Over

        Enjoyed reading it very much.

    • Peter,

      Though I don’t disagree with it, it is an opinion piece. It reinforces what people already believe, or gets ignored (or called some derogatory term) by people who disagree with it.

      If Max thinks it’s a sap magnet, it’s just as valid an opinion as believing it to be right on the money. I was speaking more to his idiotic theory concerning age. By bringing that up he simply invalidates anything else his comment said.

      • That got me also, as I’m not quite as young as I used to be
        but am a little more reasonable than when I was younger :)….

      • Kent Draper

        Yeah.

        And you’re probably a lot smarter, as well.

        Max

    • Peter Lang,

      I posted a different review of the Darwall book on another thread. It seems likely to cause some real wailing and gnashing of teeth among the warmists. It hasn’t been widely discussed enough to explain the frenzy they are in lately, particularly around here. But I think it will have an increasingly noticeable effect.

  3. I would argue that even Climategate was not what it looked like at the time given more context.
    – The hockey stick of AR3 had already been replaced by a less straight one with more uncertainty in AR4 in 2007.
    – Many emails emerged (in later releases) from other scientists criticizing the hockey stick and Mann’s work on it.
    – The Trenberth ‘travesty’ statement was about lack of satellite and other observations, not anything more.
    – CRU’s results were later reproduced independently by Mueller, showing nothing was being hidden there either.
    – Some emails reflected frustration with Cimate Audit’s followers bombarding them with FOIAs, which led to a stubbornness about the data.
    What else was there to it? Maybe I missed something. Were the few bad emails attributed to three or four people out of the scientific community, and was everyone else tarred with the same brush?

    • Indeed, climategate had nothing to do with science. It was all about climate denier politics.

    • Ya, you missed something, and messed with the rest, oh ye of much misplaced faith.
      ===========

    • A thousand selected emails over a period of 13 years, 95% of which are to or from four CRU scientists, came up with surprisingly little to even try to quote out of context. Yet, this is what we call Climategate.

      • The little dears imagine there are literally thousands of crimes and misdemeanors in those emails. Such has been the hype and exaggeration from the Daily Mail, Fox News and blogs like WUWT.

        A whole fantasy world has been slowly developed, a fantasy world in which they make up eg myths about Phil Jones and Pachauri admitting the world has stopped warming. Each additional myth is used to reinforce the last.

      • Such has been the hype and exaggeration from the Daily Mail, Fox News and blogs like WUWT.

        Don’t forget when “skeptics” claimed that Mojib (“if my name weren’t Mojib Latif it would be global warming”) Latif said that global warming has stopped and that we should expect global cooling.

        Which of Hulme’s categories of “skepticism” does that fall under? Maybe Judith would know?

      • Yeah, Prof. Dr, Hulme must be hallucinating. Climategate was nothing. Copenhagen was a huge success. CO2 is a thing of the past…and other Chicken Little warmist delusions.

      • Chief Hydrologist

        •There is strong evidence that the multidecadal SAT variability in the Atlantic (and globally) is driven (at least partly) by variations in the MOC
        • A stochastic scenario is most plausible, in which the ocean is driven by the low-frequency portion of the atmospheric variability (NAO).
        • However, the atmospheric response to SST anomalies is still not understood and the role of coupled feedbacks is unclear.
        • MOC variability appears to be predictable about a decade ahead.
        • The most recent decades contain a strong contribution from the AMO (MOC) even on a global scale. This raises questions about the average
        climate sensitivity of the IPCC models.

        http://www.usclivar.org/sites/default/files/amoc/Latif.pdf

        Latiff’s name should be multi-decadal variation.

      • Don Monfort | August 8, 2013 at 10:30 pm |

        Yeah, Prof. Dr, Hulme must be hallucinating. Climategate was nothing. Copenhagen was a huge success.

        LOL

        They were sure things are not going to get any better.

        And they were right.

      • Latiff’s name should be multi-decadal variation.

        Why don’t you write him a letter and tell him that he was mistaken, and that you know better than he what his middle name should be?

        Interesting that you seem to want to “deny” him his views on global warming.

        Why might that be, Chief?

      • Don,

        Though I am of the opinion you are a bit pit bullish, even when I basically agree with you, this time you have grabbed on to the private parts exactly as needed.

      • Jim D

        Read ’em again, Jim.

        You apparently missed most of the message in them.

        Sloppy science, elimination of undesired data, biased publishing, destroying FIA evidence, outright lying.

        All good healthy stuff, right?

        Gimme a break.

        Max

    • 1. No, those crook’t sticks were made with upside down lake sediments, split bark bristlecones, or you seen one tree you seen Yamal.

      2. True dat, and the authorities(tarians) still shove crook’t sticks down policy makers throats.

      3. Partly true dat. Kevin’s ‘travesty’ is seeking from his imagination.

      4. Meh, perhaps.

      5. The bombardment was in response to criminal behaviour dodging legitimate FOIA requests.

      What you missed is the blatant manipulation of the narrative, as revealed by the emails. Too bad the narrative ignores Nature to the extent it does.
      ========================

      • What you missed is that other even more respected scientists criticized Mann’s early work too. This was not in the first Climategate release (to manipulate your thoughts perhaps), but later releases showed a lot more criticism of each other’s work, as is done in science, and not surprisingly in emails, of all things.

      • And of course when you listen in on private communications you discover what people really think. But so much of that favorable to the scientists was ignored by the skeptics.

      • Indeed what would have made news is if any of them harbored ideas that AGW was wrong, or were secretly publishing against what they really believed. None of that existed even in private emails, but the lack of that might be considered part of a bigger conspiracy. You can’t win against irrational thinkers.

      • You still don’t get it. The scientists know that the Hockey Stick is a crock of spit, and still obscenities like Marcott are trumpeted around the world. It doesn’t need ClimateGate to expose the rot; look at the behaviour since then, chutzpah become egregious.

        And you bang the drum for this ‘science’. Well, too many like David Appell are wrecking their guitars in front of you.
        =================

      • kim said on August 8, 2013 at 10:28 pm
        You still don’t get it. The scientists know that the Hockey Stick is a crock of spit …
        _____

        I challenge you to quote a scientist who says “the Hockey Stick is wrong.”

        Oh, never mind. I know you can’t do it, and that’s why I challenged you in the first place.

        Make some other comment you think I might like to challenge you on.

      • I am looking through the climategate emails now. I can’t seem to find any email where they say “the Hockey Stick is a crock of spit” or words to that effect. Funny because these are unguarded communications in which they speak their minds. If they aren’t saying it in the emails….maybe it’s because they don’t believe it?

      • David Springer

        Richard Lindzen saying the hockey stick is misleading in that it shows a tiny warming in a way that makes it look large.

      • David Springer

        Don Easterbrook saying the hockey stick is wrong

      • David Springer

        Yes another scientist Dr. Michael Coffman saying the hockey stick is wrong. He also points out the infamous hockey stick was quietly disavowed by the IPCC when they took it out of the TAR.

      • Clue for U, Boo; Marcotted Sticks and Cooked 97% Shinola up on tele-promoter surface.
        ===============

      • Max_OK

        I challenge you to quote a scientist who says “the Hockey Stick is wrong.”

        Huh?

        Go back and check the record, Okie.

        – McI and McK showed that “the Hockey Stick is wrong” statistically.

        – Under oath before a US congressional committee, the Wegman panel confirmed the McI and McK finding that “the Hockey Stick is wrong”.

        – Also under oath, a panel from the NAS (Gerald North, the chairman of the NAS panel and panel member Peter Bloomfield) confirmed that the Wegman conclusion that “the Hockey Stick was wrong” was correct.

        The “Hockey Stick” has been proven to be “wrong”, Okie.

        It’s dead and buried.

        Don’t try to resuscitate it.

        Let it rest in peace.

        Max_CH

    • Jim D : Maybe I missed something. Were the few bad emails attributed to three or four people out of the scientific community, and was everyone else tarred with the same brush?

      Hoo boy, do you miss something? Everyone else was indeed tarred with the rampant dishonesty of Mann, Jones et al, since (almost) everyone else declined to distance themselves from it, thereby signalling their approval of dishonesty in the service of politics, and that such systemic dishonesty is part and parcel of what is now ‘normal’ science.

      • Distance themselves from what? Misinterpretations of “Mike’s nature trick?”. There was no there there. The CRU records were right, the skeptics proved themselves wrong. What else?

      • Yes, hey didn’t distance themselves from eg the blatant dishonestty of Mike’s Nature Trick. It has been and remains a question of politicizing first, science second.

      • Momma Nay-chu, she don’ do no tricks, Mann.

      • David Springer

        Mike’s “Nature trick” was to delete valid data from the end of one series and then replace it with data from a totally different source. It was done to “hide the decline” in temperature. The decline in temperature indicated by tree rings was replaced the thermometer data. This was all admitted and “hide the decline”, which was used in the climategate emails to describe the “Nature trick” became famous.

        Another egregious bit of foul play that emerges from the climategate emails is corruption of the peer review process through collusion to boycott journals and get editors fired.

        Yet another evil revealed was the requests to delete incriminating emails that might otherwise come to light through FOIA requests. Phil Jones was actually prosecuted for that but by the time of climategate the statute of limitations had expired and he skated free by virture of it.

        And then there’s other interesting bits like Ben Santer threatening physical violence on (IIRC) Pat Michaels. And Kevin Trenberth talking about the pause, which they knew about already as did everyone else with a pulse and eyes to examine the satellite temperature record, calling it a travesty they couldn’t explain the lack of warming.

        These are the top items that have stuck with this reader four years later.

    • Jim,

      I can agree so far as the point of some things being blown out of proportion. But that line of reasoning only goes so far.

      That the “consensus” was as rock solid as advertised does not appear to stand up to light being shined on it.

      That what are reasonable requests for data and code were rebuffed. I don’t know your field, but as I learned it, peer review meant one was able to replicate whatever research the author(s) were publishing on.
      I’d end by asking you
      this. If the field of climate science was truly “questioning” Dr Mann’s conclusions, why was
      the Marchot paper so hyped and well received? It made some of the same errors and even by the authors admissions, was “not robust”, yet the illuminati of climate science either came to its defense or kept silent.

      My advice is that those in the field with an entrenched interests need to refer to a line from the movie “The Outlaw Josie Wales”. It goes “Senator, don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.”

      However much I may have been willing to give credence to the global warming storyline, getting pissed on was the sure sign things were not as they seemed to be.

    • I liked the bit about changing the definition of peer reviewed science,

      What climategate reveals is a group of scientists pushing a theory so tenuous they wanted to suppress alternative views and not make their data available. As the eventual publication of more Yamal data reveals, their concern was justified. The theory of treenometers is increasingly shown to be a house of cards.

      • That said, the treenometers are really a sideshow in the pursuit of extracting great significance from tiny temperature changes.

    • Jim, start at 29.50. Muller excoriates Mann.

    • Steven Mosher

      Wrong

      “- Some emails reflected frustration with Cimate Audit’s followers bombarding them with FOIAs, which led to a stubbornness about the data.”

      The plan to deny and even destroy data was discussed BEFORE, well before ANY FOIA was issued

      Next, the few FOIA that were written for data were answered, but not completely in all cases

      The FIOA that concerned them the most were those by holland for emails, not data

      Finally, the barrage of FOIA was for CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENTS
      this too was granted by less than 18 hours of work

    • Steven Mosher

      “What else was there to it? Maybe I missed something. Were the few bad emails attributed to three or four people out of the scientific community, and was everyone else tarred with the same brush?”

      you missed the main story.

      Ar4 chapter 6

    • Jim D, you seem to be overlooking a few salient points that emerged from the Climategate emails… Such as Keith Briffa saying it might have been as warm as today 1,000 years ago… such as a coordinated campaign to oust recalcitrant journal editors… such as instructions to delete emails…

      The last one deserves more comment than it has received to date. Phil Jones broke the law, etc., etc. But the action should be looked at in light of what one scientists was willing to do to preserve the conventional narrative.

      There are a few other points in the emails that deserve to be remembered. Somebody should write a book.

  4. Judith, your presence alone answers one of your own questions, since you courageously emerged in the US. Bravo.

    As for Mike Hume, another of his refreshing but less noted reflections is in his short book Why We Disagee About Climate Change (2009):
    “… we need to see how we can use the idea of climate change–the matrix of ecological functions, power relationships, cultural discourses, and materials flows that climate change reveals–to rethink how we take forward our political, social, economic, and personal projects over the decades to come.”
    It was never really about climate science. It was about using that as a pseudoscientific veneer for personal agendas. Jim Hansen is people’s exhibit #1. Rajendra Pauchari’s defense of the indefensible concerning IPCC Himalayan glacier prognostications (your previous post with supporting factual commentary) is peoples exhibit #nn. Obama’s waffle on Keystone XL is people’s exhibit #nnn. The people rest their case. Guilty.
    Highest regards.

    • You delude yourself, or perhaps are deliberately trying to delude others (or kiss their asses..) if you think it isn’t all about climate science. That what it all comes back to. Humans are altering the climate. Stop denying it.

      • Yes, humans are altering climate, apparently only a little, and obviously for the better. Else Little Ice Age or biggah 1.
        ================

      • lolwot, Deeply appreciate how beautifully you exemplify alarmist inanity. Your posts are often so vapid I find myself gasping for fresh air. Keep up the good work.

      • Not that silliness Kim, I have no idea where you got the idea that without human greenhouse gases we’d enter a little ice age, but it certainly isn’t based on any science.

      • lolwot, there are certainly some in your camp who believe that all of the warming since the Little Ice Age has been from human GHGs. Prominent ‘skeptic’ Richard Muller is one of them.

        The higher the climate sensitivity to CO2 the colder it would now be without man’s intervention, which has clearly been all to the good. Now, pick a sensitivity that frightens you, and calculate how much colder we would now be without human GHGs.

        This is an argument you can dodge, but you can’t dodge around. moshe’s on it though, so we’ll see.
        ==================

      • Okay if you pick some outliers like Muller. Even then if climate sensitivity is high then it is time to stop emitting CO2. We have warmed enough already.

      • Lolwot, I long ago adopted a policy of not replying to specific comments on blogs. Your inanity invokes an exception proving the rule’s wisdom.
        Perhaps Dr. Curry’s generous posting rules will even allow this reply.

        I agree humans are altering climate–and everything else on this planet. Never did deny it. The Gaia hypothesis. Wrote a whole boring data filled ebook about that and what it might mean (Gaias Limits). Obviously, you have not read it.
        The questions are, how much and with what consequences compared to what consequences for what mitigation/ adaptation? Most of those details are quite ugly for those of progressive liberal beliefs (like yours?). Many are ugly for those of reactionary conservative beliefs. Gaia does not care. I do, else would not have spent several years on the book.

        Facts rule, insofar as we can dimly perceive them. It behooves us to abandon our prejudices, and wrestle what facts say we should decide about present actions impacting the future.
        CAGW is not much fact based. It was a veneer for social engineering agendas, per High priest Hulme quote above. Future peak fuels are geophysics fact based, yet ignored for now 60 years of increasingly validated warnings. Obscured by misrepresentations, half truths, and blatant falsehoods. What part of fossil in fossil fuel is not clear or analyzable using geophysics? Wrote a book about that general problem also, with many other political policy examples. Maybe you should read that one also, before dragging your psychological baggage back here.
        Bottom line, stop asserting I deny when I did not. Get real or get lost.

        Apologies to those accustomed to a more moderate, nuanced post.

      • Say, Rud –

        Your inanity invokes an exception proving the rule’s wisdom.

        At what point does claiming that what you’re doing is exceptional become an empty claim?

        Just curious – do you have any idea of what % of your comments are prefaced with how you are only making those comments as an exception to your normal habits?

        Do you think it is more or less, sir, than the % of times that you just happen to plug mention your book in one of your blog comments?

      • Joshua, do you have any idea how petty you’ve become, er, uh, remained?
        =======

      • do you have any idea how petty you’ve become, er, uh, remained?

        That’s why I keep you around, kim, because I know you’ll always be keeping track.

        Obsessively.

      • Kim, joshie has found that his smarmy pseudo-intellectual posturing gets him far less attention than his gratuitous pettiness.

      • “Your inanity invokes an exception”

        does it now! how posh!

        “CAGW is not much fact based”

        Well I agree. AGW is fact based. CAGW is the possible consequences of AGW.

        This is all about climate science. I don’t know why you think it isn’t.

        You used some impressive words I had to look up in a book of words:
        “behooves”
        “veneer”
        “insofar”
        perchance you knoweth the lord Monckton?

      • I’m obsessed, Joshua, but not with you. You are a hack.
        ===================

      • Lolwot,

        Should you come to Washington (the state) I will be happy to pay for you first purchase.

        This is assuming your current drug of choice is Mary Jane.

        btw – are you ever going to get around to providing evidence and of those bad things we should expect to see?

      • Rud,

        If lolwot had good sense, he would take up a new hobby, say fishing. But alas, he has shown conviction, perseverance, even fervor of the sort one sees in religious revivalists.

        But I fear he doesn’t.

      • Rud Istvan

        Good response to lolwot.

        Sometimes you just gotta tell it like it is.

        But I doubt that it will have any impact on lolwot. He’s (she’s?) beyond help.

        Max

    • David L. Hagen

      Judith
      Compliments on standing up to restore integrity to climate science.
      Thanks especially for seeking to begin to understand the full range of uncertainties, including all that we don’t know that we don’t know!
      Uphold the highest standard of science as expressed by Richard Feynman in Cargo Cult Science:

      It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty . . .
      Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be
      given, if you know them. You must do the best you can–if you know
      anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong–to explain it. If you
      make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then
      you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well
      as those that agree with it. . . .
      In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to
      help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the
      information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or
      another.

  5. Very discouraging in my little corner of the world, anyway. Of my liberal friends, most have no idea what climate-gate is, and those that do defiantly insist the scientists involved have been “cleared of all wrong doing” by several “investigations.”

    Not one has actually read the emails of course.

    • I’ve read the emails.
      I’ve also read the skeptic’s interpretations of the emails.

      The two don’t match. And that says it all.

      • Very few things in and of themselves, “say it all.” \
        Except of course for your own comments.

      • We have Trenberth’s email talking about a “travesty”

        And then we have the skeptics reporting of that email….

        One of those two was grossly dishonest agenda driven misinformation.

      • So that’s it? That’s your defense? You can have the “Trenberth was quoted out of context” explanation if you want it. I’ll concede that and 50 more besides. But they can’t *all* be explained away lw. Not by a long shot.

      • Is that your defense? That skeptics in their analysis of the emails may have made a grosser number of errors than contained in the emails, but that doesn’t matter?

      • “Mike’s nature trick” and “Hide the decline” didn’t stand up to scrutiny either. These were the headline quotes, however. Can’t think of much else that wouldn’t count as down in the weeds.

      • lolwot, “We have Trenberth’s email talking about a “travesty””

        Yes we do. Kiehl and Trenberth published their Earth Energy Budgets showing a TOA imbalance of 0.9 +/-0.15 Wm-2 with their graphic implying that at the surface as well, then they complain about the lack of accuracy in the instrumental data. Since then and Climategate, Graeme Stephens and Bjorn Stevens have both pointed out the errors in the K&T sometimes F Earth Energy Budgets.

      • There was a genuine sloppiness concerning the hide the decline debacle, but it’s significance has been so greatly exaggerated that it’s become popularly something it wasn’t.

      • I particularly love the irony that the mistaken populist meaning of ‘Hide the Decline’ has accentuated, double underlined so to speak, the current pause in temperature.

        Nonetheless, the ‘hiding’ is the meat of that meme, and it is well done.
        ==================

      • I’m proposing a hypothetical, lw. in order to make what should be an obvious point. In reality, I’m pretty sure the Trenberth email is what it seems to be.

        In any case, he sure does seem to be expending a lot of energy on trying to find the heat you won’t even concede is missing.

      • “Jim D | August 8, 2013 at 9:56 pm |
        “Mike’s nature trick” and “Hide the decline” didn’t stand up to scrutiny either”

        You mean splicing a thermometer record onto a proxy reconstruction, even though the two have quite different temporal bandwidths?

        Do you also mean that upon the discovery that tree rings width enjoy an width optimum at temperatures slightly colder than present means that tree ring widths are not proportional to temperature but appear to have a Gaussian distribution, thus when going from cold to warm to hot the rings would display widths of narrow, wide and narrow?

      • Think that particular email is quite out of date.

        The scandal of scientists trying to figure things out.

      • Prof. Dr. Mike Hulme is an insider. About as inside as one can get. He is telling you that Climategate is significant. That’s the context. What happened in Copenhagen and those other places the other grande climate policy junkets subsequently invaded? Any agreements on your delusional mitigation schemes?

      • “Prof. Dr. Mike Hulme is an insider”

        He doesn’t write like it. An interesting feature of the book extract he writes is he never explains what HE got out of climategate. He talks about other people, other organizations and other people in general. But never provides any personal insight, let alone any insider info.

      • DocM, as if the skeptics and scientists took the tree-ring data as gospel before being disappointed. Climate science never stood on tree rings. It was always shaky even when you look at the error bars and other comments in climategate about them. Easy target 10 years ago, perhaps. We should be past that by now with better proxies coming in all the time. Science has moved on, but the skeptics still want to play in the mud.

      • Your readings of Prof. Dr. Hulmes’ comments on Climategate have revealed none of his personal insight on the subject to you. Read them again. You missed a lot.

      • Jim D,

        How can you say that those two comments are free of criticism?

        Granted there is context and some of the criticism was overblown. But after accounting for that, there is still evidence that these folks saw obvious problems with their own work and were concerned how much made it to the light of day.

      • Jim D says science has moved on, with eg better proxies that tree rings, but the skeptics still want to play in the mud.

        Technically maybe. But in terms of behaving like scientists instead of vested interest advocates while pretending to be scientists ? I don’t think so. It’s still politicizing that guides the science findings.

    • lolwot | August 8, 2013 at 9:32 pm | Reply
      I’ve read the emails.
      I’ve also read the skeptic’s interpretations of the emails.
      The two don’t match. And that says it all.
      ——————————————————————–
      What it says, loud and clear, is that you are blinkered truebeliever.

    • He is telling you that Climategate is significant.

      This is true. He is arguing by assertion. It’s that whole evidence thing that’s lacking.

      No wonder “skeptics” are supporting his perspective.

      • He is arguing from personal knowledge and experience. He knows considerably more about it than some low level public school teacher’s union non-entity.

      • The believers tell you that you got to listen to the climate scientists, because they are the experts. Except when they stray from the reservation. Don’t listen to that kind of climate scientist. They know nothing.

      • He is arguing from personal knowledge and experience.

        Right. Just like I said. Argument from assertion. No validated evidence.

        Maybe he’s right. What isn’t explained is his level of confidence given that he doesn’t present data or evidence.

        And like I said, apparently that’s very impressive to “skeptics.”

        That’s why I call them “skeptics,” because skeptics base confidence on data and evidence and realize that arguments based on personal knowledge and experience need skeptical due diligence.

        I love you, man.

      • Joshua has a recipe. He always puts in the same ingredients. Usually, the cake falls.
        ==========

      • Josh,

        Hell, I am at a loss. Are you so tied to your view of climate change that you are thinking “The hell with it, I’m stuck here, but I’m taking ad many of them as I can.

        I’d consider calling you Stalingrad Josh, but it doesn’t ring.

      • ” Joshua | August 8, 2013 at 11:33 pm | Reply

        He is telling you that Climategate is significant.

        This is true. He is arguing by assertion. It’s that whole evidence thing that’s lacking.”

        Joshua might a point because before Climategate with both houses controlled by dems and with the Dem President, Obama, who promised he would stop the rising ocean, they didn’t pass laws to do anything about global climate. And Republican challengers MCCain had said he would be something to address Climate Change. So even with all the stars aligned, the politicians in DC did nothing.
        And when Obama approval rating drops and has no ability to pass anything, Obama talks about the global climate.
        It seems to prove Climategate had little impact upon public opinion.

        Climategate may or may not have affected George Monbiot, but
        as far Copenhagen, it seemed unlikely Climategate had any effect.
        If Obama was a leader, he could have made a difference perhaps, but otherwise, it seemed doomed and Climategate was being sold to them as some kind of conspiracy, so that been persuasive argument to do something rather than deterring them.
        It seems the real thing which affect everything is dawning realization that global weather was not cooperating with feverish beliefs. What they needed was some sign accelerated warming and global temperature remained flat for too long.
        And probably continue, and might cool a bit in coming decade- so that the real body blow, because the geniuses mostly had a graph to point to, and needed no other selling gimmick. It used to be that temperature graph was all they ever talked about. Now, all they do is insult people, and that’s not going to sell anything.

      • I think the main thing about Climategate was the humor- the buffoonery of it all.
        It was treasure trove of lefty antics. And Harry Read Me was pure comedy gold.
        I am looking forward to the Harry Read Me on Obamacare.
        “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told radio host Rusty Humphries on Thursday that he agreed with Sen. Max Baucus that the Affordable Care Act could be a “train wreck” if not implemented properly.”
        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/harry-reid-obamacare-train-wreck_n_3204745.html

        “CINCINNATI — Sen. Rand Paul’s humorous take on Obamacare and new diagnostic codes that he shared in his speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire last month have garnered a lot of attention online.

        The Kentucky Republican received big laughs in describing some of the new 140,000 diagnostic codes that include injuries from macaw birds, turtles and walking into a lamp post.

        “Included among these codes will be 312 new codes for injuries from animals, 72 new codes from injuries just for birds, nine new codes from injuries from the macaw,” Paul said in Iowa. “The macaw? I’ve asked physicians all over the country, have you ever seen an injury from a macaw?” ”
        http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/07/pauls-obamacare-riff-gets-laughs-but-isnt-whole-story/2402605/

    • […] those that do [have an idea of what Climategate is] defiantly insist the scientists involved have been “cleared of all wrong doing” by several “investigations.”

      Not one has actually read the emails of course.

      And I’m inclined to suspect that they haven’t actually read any of the “investigations” either!

    • “Not one has actually read the emails of course.” – pokerguy

      Not pokerguy either, of course.

      Yes, he’s read snippets of a few out of the 1000 or so.

  6. thisisnotgoodtogo

    Getting caught was one thing to observe. How they responded was another.
    I think it can be said that even when repairs begin to the system, the individuals so thoroughly corrupted and corrupting, must go.

    No, we don’t believe you, and never will, Hockey Team Guys.

  7. Heh, he calls the Oreskes meme a populist notion. Nope, distilled toxin of elite.
    =========

  8. > The populist notion that all climate sceptics are either in the pay of oil barons or are right-wing ideologues, as is suggested for example by studies such as Oreskes and Conway (2011), cannot be sustained.

    Pr. Hulme does seem to express himself in no uncertain terms.

    Could someone provide a quote from O&C 2011 where such thing is attributed of ALL the climate contrarians?

    That said, the “oil shill” line is quite suboptimal.

  9. Fascinating that he suggest a state change before and after climategate – as the result of climategate – with providing neither evidence of a change in state or evidence supporting his claim of attribution.

    Yup. Sounds like something that “skeptics” would find very impressive.

    • I’d propose that from now on we all put “Joshua” in quotation marks, but I don’t want to be accused of consensus building.

      • Been showering a lot lately, eh PG?

      • You’ve actually toned down the sneer and smear slightly Joshua, or so it seems to me. So no, just the occasional squirt of Purell is all that’s been necessary.

      • You’ve actually toned down the sneer and smear slightly Joshua, or so it seems to me.

        You mean when that you noticed when you “accidentally” read one of my comments?

        You boyz crack me up.

    • Dead horse.

      The flies are a giveaway for the rest of us. But who am I to question what may be your only form of exercise?

    • Steven Mosher

      Joshua

      his claim at the core is that it has changed the conversation.

      since he and I and others like us are the ones having the conversations
      I’d say his testimony cant be questioned. it is what it is.

      There are significant differences in before and after climategate in certain practical matters, but the biggest impact was the way it changed the conversation.

  10. Other expressions of scepticism may result …cynicism about a media who seek to sensationalise ….

    This is also an interest statement – given that it describes a phenomenon that is mostly based in fantasy.

    Where is the evidence that media coverage substantive affects views about climate change one way or the other?

    Take a gander (and whatever you do, don’t read the comments!).

    http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/8/8/partisan-media-are-not-destroying-america.html

    • That may have broken my previous blog comment world record for typos and grammar errors per letter count ratio.

      • Don’t worry about it, joshie. Typos and grammatical errors do not detract from your trash.

      • Don –

        Have I ever told you how much I love you, man?

        Where have you been? It just isn’t quite the same without you in these here parts. I can only hope you stick around.

      • You are a glutton for punishment, josh-ua.

    • Joshua | August 8, 2013 at 9:48 pm | Reply
      Where is the evidence that media coverage substantive affects views about climate change one way or the other?
      ——————————————————–
      So where are popular views on climate change coming from then, if not from the media ?

    • > Where is the evidence that media coverage substantive affects views about climate change one way or the other?

      On the previous thread.

    • A very interesting study. So if I had a lot of money, and wanted to polarize an audience of “entertainment-seekers”, I could send out bingo cards with prizes, and spot random calls through the program I wanted “entertainment-seekers” to watch. Or other similar systems. What a way to buy votes!

      • I don’t quite follow…. when you say “…and wanted to polarize an audience….” do you mean “and wanted to influence an audience in a specific direction..?”

        The study does turn conventional wisdom about the influence of the “MSM” on its head.

        I have felt all along that the pleas of -victimization (on both sides) of those poor, poor, climate change combatants at the hands of the “MSM” amount to nothing other than self-victimization so people can rationalize their tribalism. Same is true with myriad other issues.

      • I’m an engineer (software) Joshua. I’m more interested in what can be done with the information than whether the MSM has already polarized the climate debate. If people who’d rather be watching soap operas can be induced to watch socio-political propaganda instead, for instance by offering prizes, they can be influenced, polarized, or whatever other word you want to use for it. (Note, I’m well-studied in semantics, and recognize connotative, and some denotative, differences.)

        Once one side starts, any side with money will join in, at least until the government starts regulating it to prevent anti-government opinions from being pushed.

      • > I’m an engineer (software).

        And I’m a ninja (Chuck Norris).

        One does not simply use administrative circumlocutions to go a bridge too far.

      • Remember Neo Monty Garden?

  11. “The populist notion that all climate sceptics are either in the pay of oil barons or are right-wing ideologues, as is suggested for example by studies such as Oreskes and Conway (2011), cannot be sustained.”
    _______

    I doubt many climate skeptics are in the pay of oil barons. Why would big oil want to pay money for stupidity when it’s free?

    But I get the impression many climate skeptics who post here at Climate Etc are right-wing ideologues.

    • But I get the impression many climate skeptics who post here at Climate Etc are right-wing ideologues.

      Gee. Ya’ think? Must only be here, though. No way that most “skeptics” who post at places like WUWT are right-wing ideologues. No freakin’ way.

      • Your problem is with the very many who aren’t. You routinely, blithely, sneer from your own parochial perspective.
        ==================

      • Your problem is with the very many who aren’t.

        Heh. So you say, kim, so you say.

        When you’re not talking about how you can “connect dots” to draw pictures of “Obama’s Muslim sympathies.”

        You boyz are beautiful.

      • or is that girlz?

      • very many

        I just had to repeat that for kicks.

        Absolutely hilarious. Thanks for the laugh, kim.

      • Well, I rarely visit WUWT, but my guess is right-wing ideologues have a greater representation there than here at Climate Etc.

      • Hey, Joshua, search ‘hey Obama, father, mother, egyptian bellydancer’.

        The Egyptians, ancient bearers of civilization, have connected local dots and they see our President(?) Obama as sympathizing with the Muslim Brotherhood.

        No, not just sympathy for Muslims, which I have, but for the extremists among them.
        ===============

      • You act as if you think this is all about politics. Son, there is science involved, much as you may be shocked.
        ===============

      • Hey, I posted that vid on another thread. No idea where though.

      • Well, I rarely visit WUWT, but my guess is right-wing ideologues have a greater representation there than here at Climate Etc.


        No doubt. But probably only because it attracts a higher % of “skeptics” relative to the total readership.

        My guess is that among the “skeptics” themselves, the % of rightwing ideologues is pretty dang even.

      • They are the Alpha, he is the Omegod.
        ================

      • Joshua said in his post of August 8, 2013 at 11:37 pm

        My guess is that among the “skeptics” themselves, the % of rightwing ideologues is pretty dang even.
        _____

        Do you mean your guess is about one-half of the “skeptics” are rightwing ideologues?

      • Do you mean your guess is about one-half of the “skeptics” are rightwing ideologues?

        Ha. At least I’m hoping that was a joke.

      • OK, Joshua, if you are saying just about all “skeptics” are right-wing ideologues, I wouldn’t argue, if “just about all” means around 90%.

        Do you think the proportion of right-wing ideologues who are “skeptics” is greater than the proportion of “skeptics” who are right-wing ideologues?

      • Max –

        I’d guess that 90% is more or less right (limiting the question to blogospheric “skeptics”). What I meant was that my guess is that the prevalence at WUWT and Climate Etc. are probably pretty close to the same (even).

        Do you think the proportion of right-wing ideologues who are “skeptics” is greater than the proportion of “skeptics” who are right-wing ideologues

        Never thought about that. Interesting question.

        One important thing to keep in mind is that the “skeptics” in the blogosphere is far from a representative sample of “skeptics.” “Skeptics” in the blogosphere are, by definition, ideologues (outliers). There are many, many people who identify as “skeptics” who are far less ideologically fixed or extreme.

        But if we narrow the question down to “ideologues,” if I had to guess, I’d say that the % of right wing ideologues who are “skeptics” might be lower than the % of “skeptics” who are rightwing ideologues. As we said, if we pin the estimate at 90%, I’d guess that there may be more than 10% of rightwing ideologues who are not “skeptics” (if we are speaking of hardcore “skeptics” like those we find in the blogosphere).

    • Max_OK | August 8, 2013 at 9:55 pm | Reply
      But I get the impression many climate skeptics who post here at Climate Etc are right-wing ideologues.
      —————————————————–
      What that shows is that you are a left-wing ideologue.

      • oooh projection

      • Memphis, it shows I read what people write.

      • No Max_ok, it shows you (like lolwot) are a left-wing ideologue.
        And no, pointing out this obvious fact this out does not make me one

      • “Memphis | August 8, 2013 at 11:32 pm “

        Memphis said something.

        We know with some certainty that BatedBreath and Tomcat are sockpuppets of some troll. The two always post together on the same threads at the same sporadic times. It is easy to deduce this when your brain has a propensity for retaining trivia.

        Is Memphis another sockpuppet of BatedBreath/Tomcat?

        It is easy enough for the maintainers of this blog to determine this, all they have to do is look at the IP records in the blog’s log file, but since they do not care about “certainty” in science, they probably won’t lift a finger.

        You see, the uncertainty known as FUD helps the 3%, and that is a good thing. You can bet that the WUWT people would be all over this if it happened to be some “left-wing ideologue” that was practicing sockpuppetry on that site.

        The hypocrisy is stunning, considering the title of this thread.

    • Max,

      ironically enough, I have to give you credit for this one.

      Your ideologue theory at least can be supported by some evidence. I wouldn’t push it too far, as the folks who comment here represent a rather broad spectrum if you polled their political beliefs. But at least it has more merit than your age thing.

      You are on far more solid ground about the funding point.

    • Steven Mosher

      “But I get the impression many climate skeptics who post here at Climate Etc are right-wing ideologues.”

      interestingly one of the most important skeptics is liberal

      In dec of 2007 Anthony, Charles the moderator, and moshpit met steve
      in SF.

      At some stage of the discussion politics came up. Anthony is of course conservative, CTM, hmm kinda conservative, I’m a libertarian, and steve identified as liberal. Politics didnt bring us together that night and politics did not drive us apart.

      Trying to understand skepticism by looking at the politics is as stupid as trying to understand it by looking for Oil backing.

      Of course many skeptics are right wingers. They find out about global warming on Rush, they hit the web and find Anthony. and some end up here.

      In europe most of the skeptics I’ve met are old Left. They are skeptical for an entirely different set of reasons.

      • Steven Mosher | August 9, 2013 at 11:26 am |

        When you say ‘liberal’, you mean ‘Liberal’, in the Canadian context.

        The Canadian Liberal most Americans know would be Pierre Trudeau. Now you might think Pierre Trudeau was a leftie, and compared to the USA of his day, in many ways he was. He backed unions — but only the unions aligned with certain well-connected family organizations — and nationalization of industries, the Canadian healthcare model, and he opposed Free Trade. But in the Canadian context, he was center-right according to Canadian political commentators.

        Steve McIntyre, by all I’ve read about him, is far to the right of Trudeau, politically, in the Canadian context. So, sure, he’d be a ‘Liberal’, but hardly a ‘liberal’. Just ask his opinion of increased government regulation on the mining industry, or try to get rid of accelerated depletion around him.

      • Nah. There are a few progressive skeptics, but very few. And probably fewer genuinely conservative warmists.

        Why would it be otherwise? CAGW is a political position, not a scientific one. One side proposes massive government control over the energy economy, one side opposes that. Why is anyone surprised at how the politics breaks down.

        The reason progressives constantly obscure the meaning of terms like skeptic, “global warming,” “AGW” (when you mean CAGW), is so you can convert your political opinions into “science,” and then falsely label your political opponents as anti-science.

        Of course conservatives are skeptical of all claims coming from a tribe that has expressly stated its goal is to decarbonize the economy. Progressives, including progressive scientists, are progressives first and everything else second. As all the issues under discussion – hide the decline, climategate, the 2035 glacier “typo,” not to mention Gleick and Schneider – have amply demonstrated.

      • The Very Reverend Jebediah Hypotenuse


        Of course many skeptics are right wingers. They find out about global warming on Rush, they hit the web and find Anthony. and some end up here.

        Such people are not skeptics – if they use sources such as talk-radio and blogs for scientific information, they’re gullible idiots.

        Oh well. GaryM has the appropriate Venn diagrams all figured out.

      • Rev Jeb,

        You can get scientific information from any kind of media.

        You heard it here first.

        Andrew

      • I’m not a skeptic. But I’m a lukewarmer with severe objections to how the consensus has behaved and how it has portrayed those in opposition. I’m also a progressive liberal who, for example, think Obama has done an extremely good job in office.

        When I was writing for Examiner.com I got many comments from others who claimed to share my political orientation but also could not accept the consensus on climate change. Lots.

        The increasing bitterness coming from folks like Joshua and the growing cynicism of those like Willard show how the conversation has changed. The metamorphosis of blogs such as Climate Progress, Only In It For the Gold, the virtual abandonment of Deltoid and others show that yes, the conversation has changed since Climategate. Obviously Climategate was not the only factor.

        But the simple fact that emails were ‘released’ and that some in the consensus objected to their release gave the impression of secrets held and secrets revealed. Not fair, but that’s the way it works.

        The email that had the most effect was from Phil Jones about deleting emails relating to AR4. Not the most important email and it had nothing to do with climate change. But that was the killer email. Not fair, but that’s the way it works.

      • Steven Mosher

        bart

        ‘When you say ‘liberal’, you mean ‘Liberal’, in the Canadian context.”

        no, I mean liberal.

      • Steven Mosher | August 9, 2013 at 1:41 pm |

        You assert liberal.

        Defend the assertion.

      • Speaking of the old left:

        Two of my neighbours derive incomes from the public sector. My neighbour across the street works for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. He is returning in August from a year’s sabbatical in the south of France. He is contemplating early retirement at 55 on an indexed pension. My next-door neighbour is a professor at York University. He is about to begin a second sabbatical in seven years. His previous sabbatical was spent in England. My wife is absolutely bewildered about why I persist with our business. Fundamentally, it is that I do not want to be a bureaucrat.

        http://www.ontla.on.ca/committee-proceedings/transcripts/files_html/1991-07-31_r015.htm#P521_159836

        Our emphasis.

      • Steven Mosher

        Bart R | August 9, 2013 at 2:30 pm |
        Steven Mosher | August 9, 2013 at 1:41 pm |

        You assert liberal.

        Defend the assertion.

        ############################

        Simple. we discussed politics. I’d classify him as liberal.

        If you want to have conversations with him for 6 years and come to your own conclusion, have at it. If you present me with new evidence, I’ll gladly take a look at it. but to date, you’ve provided nothing.

        Hint: I’m not interested in convincing you. Its enough for people to see that someone who has known steve for 6 years thinks differently from somebody who has never met him, talked to him, or discussed politics with him.

        Folks will just apply Occams razor and conclude that you know less about mcintyre than you do about typos in AR4 which is hard to do but you managed to outdo yourself

      • Liberals are people who believe some good came out of French Revolution. They believe some things which can be regarded as wise or clever was said by Karl Marx.
        They can accept that Hitler was a genius in some respects.
        They believe that God can’t exist.
        They believe Stalin had the right idea in general, but he might have done some things wrong.
        They believe Cuba isn’t a hellhole. They believe the world is somewhat
        to blame for N Korea not being as successful as it should be.
        They believe that the industrial revolution is proof, that something went terribly wrong- that the industrial revolution is a great “evil” [though evil doesn’t actually exist in the mind of a liberal- evil is merely “misunderstood”].

      • Steven Mosher | August 9, 2013 at 3:28 pm |

        In rebuttal, I ask you to affirm what you mean of Mr. McIntyre that he conforms to the definition and list presented by gbaikie | August 9, 2013 at 3:51 pm | in this thread.

        Because you believe what you say neither makes it true, nor imbues it with the meaning others hear.

        So when I say you mean Liberal, not liberal, I say that out of a lifetime spent within a stone’s throw of the Canadian border, or occasionally working in Canada’s capital cities, understanding that Liberals can often seem quite liberal to a US audience, until you scratch the surface and see them in their own political context, not the context a US citizen would. I mean that Liberal vs. liberal better explains more observations, without exceptionalism or undue complexity. I’m crediting you, in other words, with not being a completely self-involved twit.

        Take it as the complement it’s intended to be.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        Bart, what you would consider center left, our left, NDP, installed the leader of the dissolved Communist Party in the local riding of the NDP leader when he went federal, and she was elected.

        Ex Communist Party leader elected. You understand better what center means here?

      • thisisnotgoodtogo | August 9, 2013 at 5:31 pm |

        I don’t pretend to be overly familiar with the details of your contacts with the Communist Party in Canada, but if you’re looking for center left on the Canuckistan landscape, that’d be any of the following at one time or another:

        The Mulcair NDP, the Joe Clark Progressive Conservatives (or ‘Red Tory’), the Green Party, the Turner Liberals, and pretty much anything that happened between 1935 and 1970 anywhere in the Great White North that wasn’t Trudeaumania.

        Overall, however, nothing in Canada left or right corresponds well with what US citizens think of as the political axes. I believe almost no US citizens are aware for example that today in Canada is celebrated the National Day of Mourning, the 25th anniversary of the trading of Wayne Gretzky (he’s a hockey player), to Los Angeles, much less how Canadians rate left and right. The most right wing party in the country backs universal state medicare; the most left wing party in Canada opposes free trade.

      • > the trading of Wayne Gretzky

        Still mourned today:

        http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=679887&navid=nhl:topheads

        Yes, exactly today.

      • McIntyre is generally quite Left, a moderate friend of big government. But he departs from the ” progressive” script by objecting to motivated dishonesty and sloppiness in furthering the “cause”. Which is why his critiques carry such weight.

      • Reverend
        Of course many truebelievers are leftwing. They hear about CAGW from government stooge “scientists”, and think no further, since this suits their totalitarian predisposition.

      • “Tomcat | August 10, 2013 at 4:11 am | “

        Tomcat said something.

        Why does BatedBreath comment whenever Tomcat comments? Could it be that BatedBreath is a sockpuppet, a fake troll of Tomcat’s?

        But of course!

        This is a thread about people using social media to not someone else’s liking, yet here we have an example of the worst possible behavior of internet scum — sockpuppetry, an act that usually gets one banned from forums.

        Not here though, because it’s all good to the 3%.

      • Heh.

        The increasing bitterness coming from folks like Joshua…

        Yet more bogusness from Fuller. “Increasing bitterness?” Really?

        Yet more evidence that evidence is not necessary for Tom to draw his conclusions.

        Go ahead, Tom – on what basis have you determined that my “bitterness” is “increasing?”

        Or, perhaps, where is your evidence of “increasing bitterness” from folks “like [me]?” And on what basis are they like me?

      • Now this is a beautiful piece of logic:

        “But I get the impression many climate skeptics who post here at Climate Etc are right-wing ideologues.”

        Says person A

        …interestingly one of the most important skeptics is liberal.

        Says person B

        Could be used in a textbook for providing an example of a non-sequitur.

    • Ans many climate catastrophists who post here at Climate Etc are left-wing ideologues?

  12. A fan of *MORE* discourse

    Mike Hulme shows zero grasp of Oreskes main message: Scientists are so overly cautious as to consistently underestimate the threat of climate change.

    Mike Hulme (and perhaps Judith Curry?) is himself a good example of a scientist who (as Naomi Oreskes documents)

    “When scientists encounter examples of outcomes that are, in fact, quite dramatic, or even potentially alarming, it actually makes them uncomfortable, and so they have a tendency — and I would argue, probably subconsciously — to emphasize the more cautious range of their data, erring on the side of least drama, erring on the side of the data that seems less dramatic and less alarming.

    The argument of the paper is that this is really a problem, that this actually a source of bias in scientific information; it’s an obstacle in communicating clearly about the full range of possible impacts of climate change.

    Summary  Naomi Oreskes’ analysis indicates that James Hansen and his colleagues are doing climate change science right (that is, objectively and bravely), while Mike Hulme (and perhaps Judith Curry?) — in being consistently too timidly cautious — are doing climate change science wrong.

    Conclusion  It is a pity that Mike Hulme (and Judith Curry? and perhaps even a majority of climate-change scientists?) are choosing not to grapple with the sobering reality that in the study of climate-change, good science requires moral confidence.

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • What Fan misses, is that Oreskes is just ideologically-motvated deception and drivel.

      • No, Fan knows that the writing of Oreskes are ideologically motivated drivel, but it is the ideological position Fan is aligned with, so he will spread it like a farmer spreading manure.
        The idea that any scientist who has ever written a grant would state

        ” they have a tendency — and I would argue, probably subconsciously — to emphasize the more cautious range of their data, erring on the side of least drama, erring on the side of the data that seems less dramatic and less alarming”

        shows that Oreskes has deliberately not stated what he knows to be true.

  13. JC Comments

    Finally, is it possible for a Tamsin Edwards to emerge in the U.S.? I suspect not; even senior scientists are intimidated by the ‘consensus police’ and don’t want to be subjected to what I have had to put up with (a number of scientists have told me this).

    JC,

    You are doing a fantastic job, as is Tamsin Edwards. It is attrocious that you are being villified. What does that say about science and the zealots who use it to push their ideological agendas?

    It seems impossible for a Tamsin Edwards to emerge in Australia too. If they do their career gets cut short and, if not Australian, they get booted out of the country.

    Professor Robert Carter has had his career cut short. He’s been active in the climate science policy interface for a decade or so. He was at James Cook University which happens to have man y highly influential people from the Climate Commission. they got rid of him.

    Similar story for Murry Salby. He’s been sacked:
    http://joannenova.com.au/2013/07/macquarie-uni-responds-to-murry-salby-what-they-dont-say-speaks-volumes/
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/academics-dismissal-could-face-scrutiny/story-e6frgcjx-1226683987876

    CSIRO forced Clive Spash, a research economist, to resign because he wrote a paper which made some criticisms of the government’s carbon pricing policies. He was forced to resign a few days before the start of the Copenhagen conference.
    http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/clive-spash-resigns-from-csiro-after-climate-report-censorship/story-e6frfku0-1225806539742

    • Oh come on. There’s no evidence they were kicked out. jo novas site is ground zero for conspiracy ideation so hardly counts as evidence.

      Bob Carter is interesting though. He would often pen articles in the media. Here’s a snippet from one..

      “Attempting to ‘stop climate change’ is an extravagant and costly exercise of utter futility. Rational climate policies must be based on adaptation to climate change as it occurs, irrespective of its causation.”

      Is that advocacy? Outside his area of expertise?

      • Lolwot,

        using the term conspiracy ideation is a sure sign you are

        a) as loony as a Lewandowski

        or

        b) believe the government has alien bodies on ice in Roswell.

      • lolwot has this bizarre notion that those who think that government works to further its own interests, are doing “conspiracy ideation”.

        Well obviously that’s what government does. Indeed, it’s those like lolwot who deny this, who the ones doing “conspiracy ideation”, imagining as they do that in amongst the “scientists” that hide declines etc etc in order to push CAGW, there is a body of real scientists conspiring to actually seek the truth, regardless of whether or not this will benefit government, their paymaster. Simply hilarious.

      • ” there is a body of real scientists conspiring to actually seek the truth”

        Check out the climategate emails. It’s clear from some of the emails that they are trying to seek the truth. You probably weren’t shown those particular emails though.

      • What’s clear is that they searched for truth that would support the narrative, the ’cause’. Hulme used the word last century. So did the Piltdown Mann, and too many others to keep track of.

        There is the problem.
        ================

  14. You know, kiddoes, that the investigative whitewashes that followed ClimateGate are likely to be re-visited. A word to the prudent who wish to be wise.
    ===========================

    • Re-visited? I’m not sure why climate deniers and false skeptics would feel a need to enhance their anti-science image.

      • The autopsies on those investigations have already been done. The political will is gathering to publicize them. They were damning manifestations of the pathology that developed from this social mania.
        ==================

    • The kiddoes are particularly scalded by this one. The hopping mad will be seeking out their local witchdoctors for properly cursed effigies of Prof. Dr. Hulme . And a trip to the sewing shop for more straight pins. Their little Judith dolls might get a brief respite.

      • Yep, the fear is palpable. You know, there is going to come a point that I feel sorry for them.
        ==========

      • They just hate it when a real climate scientist strays from the reservation and tells the truth.

      • another skeptic

        Yes they are definitely affected. And I am not just saying that where they can read it in some childishly transparent attempt to annoy them!

    • They would enjoy their day in court, at least in the US, fruit of the poison vine and all that, case dismissed for lack of evidence.

  15. We see less short term predictions;
    “Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.

    “So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm

    Modern predictions are made further into the future, 2035, 2050 and 2100 are now popular prediction points

    • “Modern predictions are made further into the future, 2035, 2050 and 2100 are now popular prediction points”

      no those were the old prediction points (the last two at least)

  16. For scientific knowledge to earn credibility as public knowledge, scientists have to work as hard outside the laboratory as they do inside, through repeated demonstrations of their integrity, accessibility and trustworthiness.

    Yes, government-funded academics have to work exceptionally hard to stop being dishonest. That’s because honesty goes so painfully and directly against the political correctness grain.

  17. The populist notion that all climate sceptics are either in the pay of oil barons or are right-wing ideologues, as is suggested for example by studies such as Oreskes and Conway (2011), cannot be sustained.

    What can though be sustained, is that most all alarrmists are in the pay of Big Brother or are left-wing ideologues. Or both, as in the case of Oreskes & Conway.

  18. Awesome number of comments here by commenters who entirely miss the point of Climategate. In its essence, it was simple. The believers in AGW had been claiming for a decade that their opposition was a joke, just pretend. Look, they can’t even get published in peer-reviewed journals! Us, suppress them? :O Why would we bother to suppress that kind of nonsense? We’re real scientists. They are oil-industry clowns. Us, do public relations? We’re just do science; we don’t bother with that kind of stuff. McIntyre? We don’t even pay attention to what he says.

    It just wasn’t true, and anyone who reads their emails can see that. They are revealed as political operatives, running a PR campaign, using their power to control the narrative as much as they can.

    Sorry. For many of us, that’s the end of trusting them as scientists. They lied to us.

    • Yep, and everybody’s going to know it eventually. Truth does out, though it may take its sweet GD time.
      ===============

    • Mike –

      I don’t know about you, specifically, but when you speak about “us,” you should remember that “skeptics” often remind us that “skeptics aren’t monolithic.” Don’t you think it is interesting how selectively “skeptics” seem to view that “non-monolithic” nature of “skeptics?”

      Actually, from what I’ have seen, there is very little evidence of any substantive change pre/post Climategate. Do you actually have some. And if you don’t, as a “skeptic,” on what do you base your confidence?

      Do you think that maybe a vast majority of those who claim that the scales fell from their eyes during Climategate just happen to have been “skeptics” prior to Climategate? Do you think that a vast majority of those who claim that the lost trust because of Climategate just happen to be hardcore rightwingers who had theories about the AGW/leftwing/One World Government/Eco-Nazi/Neo-Luddite cabal prior to Climategate?

      And if you think, as apparently does Hulme, that there was some change of state pre- post-Climategate, can you point to some numbers that show that once the great suppression of articles critical of AGW passing peer review, there has been some substantive increase in the % of articles critical of peer review getting published?

      Has the cabal maintained its control over the publishing process despite the massive state change?

      • I make no claim about “all of you”, don’t know anything about “all of you” except that most of you seem to be oblivious to the sins of your fellow warriors. My statements were about the Climategate Gang. Unfortunately, the Climategate Gang was an important part of the public face of climate science.

        I have no opinion on whether things have changed. There have been a few important papers on the skeptical side, such as Nic Lewis’ stuff, but I wouldn’t claim that a zillion skeptical scientists have bloomed. My claim is what I said: most believers in AGW don’t understand how the trust of (much of) the public was lost. Science and partisan politics don’t mix.

      • I well know that _most_ climate skeptics are conservative, just as most AGW believers trend liberal. Nevertheless for most of us conservatives, if you convince us that the science is solid, we’ll go along even if we don’t like the implications. Eventually. Just as most liberals will admit that GM crops are saving millions of lives. Eventually.
        But if you give us a Climategate, that sets the process back a decade. If the scientists aren’t really scientists, but politicians, we’ll stick with our economic preferences. And of course if in that decade, surface temperatures stay constant…

      • Mike –

        I make no claim about “all of you”, don’t know anything about “all of you” except that most of you seem to be oblivious to the sins of your fellow warriors.

        ?????

        Not sure what the comments about “all of you” are about…. I never said anything about “all of you” either.

        My claim is what I said: most believers in AGW don’t understand how the trust of (much of) the public was lost.

        Where is your evidence that “the trust of (much of) the public was lost?”

        This is the problem with what I wrote about earlier. I see a lot of “skeptics” projecting their own views onto a wider public – without a basis in evidence. You are certain that Climategate undermined “trust of (much of) the public?” Where is your evidence? Maybe you’re right – but unless you have some evidence, what explains your confidence?

        How am I supposed to “understand” something for which I haven’t seen evidence?

      • Well, I’ll try to answer without any survey data. I guess the basis of my confidence is an impression of the way the conservative world talks. The description I gave of it is something I see very commonly; I have the impression that it is the simple assumption of fact across a broad spectrum of conservative commentary. It’s a “consensus”, if you will: what lots of articles and talkers seem to take for granted. I don’t get any impression that they’re trying to “push a narrative” about Climategate. Rather, the full impression I get is that that phase is over: most conservatives feel that the Climategate people showed themselves not worthy of the trust that scientists usually deserve. Something like, say, a women’s studies sociology professor; pretty much any conservative is going to assume that that professor’s devastating new study is so colored and twisted by his politics as to be entirely unreliable.
        When I hear someone say, What was the big deal about Climategate, anyhow, I instantly assume that it’s a believer in AGW speaking, someone who has taken a strong partisan side, and that he’s saying that because he doesn’t have a clue how the rest of us look at things.

      • Mike –

        I’m not asking what conservatives say about climategate – I know what they say about Climategate. I’m asking for some serious attempt to provide evidence of what substantive impact it had. Hulme says that the world is different pre- and post-. Where is the evidence?

        Of the evidence I’ve seen – we can easily predict what people have to say about Climategate based on their political orientation. You, yourself, point to that phenomenon. People look to Climategate as evidence to confirm their pre-existing biases. Very few people, IMO, changed any of their views in any substantive way as the result of Climategate. It is just more same ol’ same ol’

        You seem to believe that some substantial amount of people had their trust in climate scientists eroded by climategate. Here is what I saw: I saw rightwingers on blogs who expressed zero trust in climate scientists prior to climate gate (over and over, calling AGW a “hoax” perpetrated by Eco-Nazis and corrupt academics selling their scientific integrity) saying that Climategate caused them to lose trust in climate scientists.

        How does on have less trust than zero trust? Is less trust than zero some kind of substantive change?

        Is it a chage of state as Hulme seems to think?

      • Well, Joshua, imagine no ClimateGate. Would you be here valiantly but vainly sneering at skeptics?
        ===================

      • I answered this already. There are a fair number of conservatives who were beginning to go along with the science, though they are unhappy with the implications. There are still some like that, but I feel the process has been set back considerably; the doubts have firmed up a whole lot. I think that most skeptics who are following things are currently sitting with their popcorn, waiting for the climate sensitivity estimates to keep dropping. Most who don’t follow the details figure that it’s all no big deal, just green activists at their tricks again. The last decade has been bad for AGW PR, because of Climategate, and because of the Pause. Arctic ice helps a little the other way, but not everyone cares how much ice there is in the Arctic.

      • Mike –

        Let me try the “let me fix that for ya'” technique to make my point. Usually it is done sardonically – but that is not how I mean this:

        When I hear someone say, What was the big deal about I lost trust in climate science because of Climategate, anyhow, I instantly assume that it’s a believer in AGW

        rightwinger who didn’t trust climate scientists prior to Climategate speaking, someone who has taken a strong partisan side, and that [she/] he’s saying that because ;she/] he doesn’t have a clue how the rest of us look at things he/she is “motivated” to use Climategate to confirm his/her preconception..

      • Mike –

        There are a fair number of conservatives who were beginning to go along with the science, though they are unhappy with the implications.

        Evidence? You may be right, but what explains your confidence. I hung out on blogs where conservatives, to a person, said that AGW was a “hoax” prior to Climategate. Well prior.

        The last decade has been bad for AGW PR, because of Climategate, and because of the Pause. Arctic ice helps a little the other way, but not everyone cares how much ice there is in the Arctic.

        The evidence I have seen is that people (on both sides) do not formulate their views on that type of analysis of the evidence. Sorry – but from what I’ve seen, when people make that kind of generalization, it is based on “skeptical” analysis.

        You may be right. If you have the data, show it to me.

        But even still – I would put far more weight in the impact of short-term weather phenomena (and economic circumstances) than any of these events that get blown waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion in the climate blogosphere. We are ouliers, MIke, you and me both. So is everyone else here.

      • Would you be here valiantly but vainly sneering at skeptics?



        Pardon me while I go grab a hankie. kim’s “concern” about people sneering just has me all broken up.

        I mean s/he such a sensitive guy/gal. So innocent. So pure. It must just crush him/her to see other people being so “sneering.” He/she has such a gracious attitude towards “realists.” He/she just can’t understand!!!

      • “I hung out on blogs where conservatives, to a person, said that AGW was a “hoax” prior to Climategate. Well prior.”

        That is known as ‘prescience’.

      • Have a good night, Mike. Thanks for the chat.

      • He tried to dodge it, but, in fact, Joshua would not be here sans ClimateGate.
        =====================

      • He tried to dodge it, but, in fact, Joshua would not be here sans ClimateGate

        Not ducking it, kim. Once again, you show your credentials as a “skeptic,” drawing unsupported conclusions that actually are in contradiction to the evidence.

        I have said a number of times that I first came to Climate Etc. because I heard a post-Climategate radio interview with Judith and I found her discussion of tribalism among climate scientists to be very interesting.

        I was interested in the climate wars prior to that – but hearing what she had to say piqued my interest because for quite a while I have been interested in what sorts of things bias how people reason I have been particularly interested in how people use pattern-finding to make sense of the world, and how people’s cultural/social/ideological/experiential/psychological identifications affect their cognition and reasoning. My interest in those areas was related to my experiences in education.

        So no, I would not be here “sans” (I love it when you speak French – it’s so sophisticated) Climategate.

        And in the real work, kim, why I am here is of absolutely no significant meaning. Nor is why you are here. Or anyone else (with the exception of Judith, and maybe mosher because they actually do work that has some influence). And we are alike in that we are outliers. Where we are different is that I don’t delude myself to think that we can generalize from this group of outliers to extrapolate anything that is particularly instructive about the wider public.

      • Oops, the unsupported conclusion I drew actually are not in contradiction to the evidence. Wha hoppen dere?
        ===========

      • Wrong again, kim.

        I didn’t duck it, and the evidence shows that I wouldn’t duck it because I’ve addressed the issue in the past.

        You drew a conclusion w/o basing it on evidence and in contradiction to the evidence that was available if you had bothered to look.

        Just stuck in a whirlpool of wrong, aren’t you?

      • Seriously, Joshua. You are really making a fool of yourself. Read the multitude of comments you have made this evening and note how much evidence you have provided for your countless assertions. Stop that stupid habit of asking anybody that says anything you disagree with to provide you with freaking evidence. It’s dumb. Mostly they are giving you opinions. What freaking evidence do you want for an opinion? That’s all I have for you. You are just too damn tedious.

      • Stop that stupid habit of asking anybody that says anything you disagree with to provide you with freaking evidence. It’s dumb.

        Right. It is a “stupid habit” to ask people to provide the evidence for claims that they make with absolute confidence.

        And in that particular case with kim, claims that are absolutely wrong.

        Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a “skeptic.”

        Absolutely love ya’, Don. Thanks for sticking around. Always a blast.

      • Meh, you responded after my question without answering until reminded.

        But I knew the answer because Judy wouldn’t be here without ClimateGate.

        Now can you start to generalize about the effect of ClimateGate? The general effect starts to accumulate when individual effects are so dramatic. There is, however, much more evidence than you two living anecdotes; peruse the list of denizens, peruse the polls, peruse the evolving narrative, and peruse the re-awakening of curiosity about climate skepticism in the press.
        ===================

      • Hoohaw, Joshua, so the evidence is not in evidence but is in your past statements. Now, despite your high opinion of yourself, I only occasionally read your comments, generally because you are conversing with someone interesting. Oh, how I am reminded of why you are so easy to ignore.
        ===============

      • You are just mailing it in, Joshua, and it’s becoming more and more obvious. Three cups of flour, a cup of sugar, a cup of butter, oops was that salt instead of sugar?
        ===============

      • Steven Mosher

        Joshua

        “Actually, from what I’ have seen, there is very little evidence of any substantive change pre/post Climategate. Do you actually have some. And if you don’t, as a “skeptic,” on what do you base your confidence?”

        There have been changes on the science side and changes in the conversation.

        On the science side the changes amount to
        A: a new temperature series. the development of this is directly
        traceable to climategate.
        B two new papers on a particular problem in Ar4 chapter 6.
        C better access to data, not only at CRU but at other places. I havent
        had to do an FOIA since 2009 and one FOIA that had been “forgotten” science 2008 was finally answered.

        On the conversation side the changes are obvious, even folks like gavin
        have told people to stop using certain tactics. Its also clear that our community is reaching out to communication experts after the climategate debacle.

        Have there been effects on the public. The best evidence shows some slackening in trust. not a switch from trust to distrust, but fewer people who place great trust in scientists. At the individual level I have more colleagues who are willing to be critical of certain scientists.

        We now stand in a position where we could actually do a controlled test of sorts.

        All the mails have been released to a few of us. If you care to put up a hypothesis that releasing these mails will have no effect and put some dollars down, I’d be willing to test that hypothesis. Of course I have a great advantage in taking this bet.

      • 2 tsp. baking p.
        1 tsp. vanilla ext.
        1 egg.
        Bake @ 350 for however long.
        ===============

      • Bet on deg. F.
        ==========

      • Joshua, if you haven’t seen any change post Climategate it can only be an instance of willful blindness. How could we take anything you write seriously after a sentence like that? Oh yeah–we already didn’t take you seriously. Never mind…

    • “Awesome number of comments here by commenters who entirely miss the point of Climategate”

      Well no, it’s just that climategate relies on people like miker613 to wade in and make one up.

      • Your inability to understand any point of view but your own is not my fault. I would have thought that it would be helpful for believers in AGW to understand why people are skeptical, but many of them apparently don’t want to understand; they are happier with their own straw men.

      • I am skeptical too. But it has nothing to do with the largely irrelevant climategate. I’ve always been skeptical.

        However despite skepticism AGW is a fact.

        Difference between me and the AGW deniers for example, I knew Muller would discover the world had warmed. The “skeptics” didn’t. They are perhaps too skeptical bordering on dismissive.

      • You knew, but Muller didn’t. He says often that Watts and co. were right to be doubtful, until his careful analysis was done. According to him, you were the one who was wrong. (Of course the earth had warmed; the question Watts and other were discussing was, Had it warmed as much as claimed, or did UHI explain a hefty chunk of the warming?)

        Did you also know, as so many climate modelers did, that the surface temperature would rise sharply these last fifteen years? And if it had, would you have known then, or would you still just have gotten lucky? Thinking you know isn’t the same as knowing.

      • The sole “point of Climategate”, is the revelation of the underlying politics and bias underpinning government climate “science”. One is either for or against it.

    • The thing in Climategate that really shocked me was the “Harry_read_me” file.

      This was the agonosed musings of the poor sod who had to make sense of the CRU’s databases and programmes.

      When you read this you get the feeling that these climate “scientists” who were pontificating on what the world should do, and everybody should treat their pronouncements as gospel. were a bunch of slipshop, scientifically low-level, bungling amateurs.

      That is the real scandal of climategate. If you don’t believe me, read the “Harry_read_me” file. It is simply appalling.

    • Miker613
      You made a good point. I follow temps with close attention and read literature about possible causes. El niño or amo or pdo can all be influences. I was very disappointed in clear political manipulations. Fingerprints of causes are not proved yet. They need to open data and codes even when it distracts from their beliefs. A doctor who manipulTes data for a cavorts drug is disgraced. Scott

      • See my post above.

        They daren’t release their data because they know they would be crucified.

  19. Scott Scarborough

    Everyone misses the point about the Trenberth “Travesty” statement. He is saying that mankind’s measurement capabilities are not sufficient to detect Global Warming. Yet the reason he expects to see Global Warming emanates from Climate Models which have literally thousands of parameters entered into them from these incredibly insufficient measurements. Does anyone see any problem here?

    • “Everyone misses the point about the Trenberth “Travesty” statement. He is saying that mankind’s measurement capabilities are not sufficient to detect Global Warming.”
      No, you miss the point about the Trenberth “Travesty” statement, it means that the claims in the field that they had detected the relationship between atmospheric [CO2] and temperature, and from this could predict that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would cause catastrophic warming were unsupported by the evidence.
      Unsupported b the evidence doesn’t mean wrong, but it means that an advocate of a scientific background who suggest that they have evidence for cAGW are at least unethical and at most lying.
      If you were in the dock and a forensic scientist knew from DNA evidence that you had a 1 in 100 chance of being at the crime scene, but stated unambiguously that you were at the crime scene, you would be slightly more than peeved.

  20. Sorry, I’m as big a skeptic as you can be, but the hacking was wrong. Just plain wrong. The little I read of the emails gave me an unsurprising picture of life in a typically political, catty, conformist office where people toe a company line. I could not feign suprise or indignation, and I actually felt for those whose jotted internal correspondence was exposed for use out of context by external opponents.

    The main upshot is less likelihood of frank speaking in plain English, and an increase of sneakiness, PC, cautious bureacratese…and more of that verbal molasses called, very quaintly, “communication”.

    Climategate taught me not to read other people’s mail, even in the workplace, and that some skeptics, having learned from alarmists, are themselves grown too fond of a gotcha.

    I also learned that, with George Monbiot, anything can be an occasion for self-pitying narcissism.

    • mosomoso |said in his post of August 8, 2013 at 11:02 pm

      “Sorry, I’m as big a skeptic as you can be, but the hacking was wrong. Just plain wrong.”
      ______

      Yes, hacking is wrong, and those who approve of hacking are wrong.

      • Hacking of private data is wrong.
        Hacking of government data is a service to society.

    • As much as I respect your opinions in general, your post reveals incredible naïveté about human organizations, whether political or commercial.
      They all scheme, they can all be exposed (easier with more recent tools), and the disappointments/corrections remain part of the human condition.

      • As much as I respect your opinions in general, your post reveals incredible naïveté about human organizations, whether political or commercial.

        Shorter Rud = “If your opinion is the same as mine I respect it. If your opinion is different than mine, you’re native, sir.”

        (Well, maybe not shorter, but more transparent).

      • Rud Istvan, it applies to families and to cake competitions. I hope you understand that I also don’t want YOU to be subjected to hacking, especially of your unguarded comments, interpreted without sufficient context. (Know anybody who might try that on a well esteemed skeptic like you? A keen listmaker?)

        As to improvements and lessons learned by leaders in the interesting but hopelessly raw field of speculation called, for some reason, climate science: When consensus-legislators grow too cautious or “politick”, instead of contradicting they end up smothering our objections under thick, kindly, comfy word-doonas. I, for one, don’t wish to be compassionately conducted to my very own nicely appointed cubicle of skepticism (choice of four).

        I’d rather some pottiness and dodgy science mixed in with some interesting findings – which I guess the CRU has always been about since Lamb’s day – than this shifting, unbreathable miasma of “science communication”.

      • I was going to comment on mosomoso’s comment as well, but I can’t improve on yours Rud.

        Hacking a system has a very specific meaning. It is not the same meaning as releasing information you have access to.

        Without any evidence, one cannot claim which occurred with the Clumategate emails. At most, one might possibly infer no illegal (ie hacking) action took up place, since official police investigation has been closed. But even that is nothing more than inference.

      • And where’s your evidence for hacking mo?

      • We don’t know that it was “hacking”. We don’t, to this day, know exactly what the source was, and probably won’t for a long time.

      • > They all scheme, they can all be exposed (easier with more recent tools), and the disappointments/corrections remain part of the human condition.

        Thank you, Sir.

      • Speaking of schemes, vintage 2002-10-23:

        Dear All,

        We (UEA, ENV, Tyndall and John Schellnhuber) have been successful in our application to the Royal Society for a Special Merit Award for John Schellnhuber from the scheme operated by the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation to attract outstanding scientists (back) to the UK. This is a prestiguous award and is indicative of John’s standing internationally and in the UK. Very few, if any, such awards have been made in the area of environmental science.

        The Award is worth

        V. 0086

    • No the hacking / leaking of Climategate was right. These are public employees, paid by the public, and should be answerable to them. The public has a right to know it is being duped, and that is what the leak did.

      • We needed to know what sort of people they were.
        ==================

      • And they were breaking the law by stiffing legitimate FOIA requests. That is very likely why some insider whistleblower spilled their beans.

      • I wouldn’t like to speculate without evidence but I am convinced it was a satan worshipping russian hacker paid by big oil who stole the emails.

      • Memphis, if you hack into a government or university computer and get caught, you might serve some time behind bars, which is what you would deserve.

      • Free Bradley Manning and Snowdon

      • Maybe the Russians would swap Snowdon for Manning. It would be a great deal for Russia.

      • Don’t push that reset button, Obama. It’s from the briefcase marked ‘Football’ but it won’t put ESPN highlights on your tele-prompter.
        ===============

      • My view still is that PJ, could have simply decided to stop the BS. He was out of the game within weeks or months. He then had a public change of heart. If this were to be proved true, what then?

      • Max_OK | August 8, 2013 at 11:56 pm |
        Memphis, if you hack into a government or university computer and get caught, you might serve some time behind bars, which is what you would deserve.

        Yes Max, people who reveal the truth about how dishonestly and immorally governments work, ‘deserve’ to be behind bars. Especially ithose who reveal the crookery underpinning government-funded climate alarmism.

    • But, mosomoso … there has been no evidencediscovered or presented to Norfolk’s finest (to whom UEA did not complain until three days after the “security breach”) that it was a “hack” – as the Norfolk constabulary acknowledged, albeit not in their Press Release (quelle surprise, eh?!) but in other documents available on their site.

    • The release whether it was hacked or by a concerned insider/whistleblower.

      I am glad to see someone else who believes reading others mail is wrong.

      It has reminded me that I should consider that a regulatory agency could and does have the right to read my emails, but my right to privacy means that agency does not have the right to publish my emails anonymously on the web.

      We should strive for polite discourse, even though it is so lacking here and on the web.

      Polite discourse on the science would be appreciated and it is so lacking here. But this site does have a good balance of posters which most other climate sites lack.

      • Some think the public has right to know what the government is doing and some think the government has right to know what public are doing.

        Personally I think every public person conservations regarding public matters should be a matter of public record.
        And I don’t think government should have right to wire tap the public unless they a need that serves the public’s interest- need to get court order. And of course the process involved with getting such a court order should also be transparent [available to the public].

        Some things should state secrets, therefore the government can delay this information from being public. I think 40 years should the longest this information should be delayed.
        Can’t imagine there being a need to classify any matters in regard to climate science. As reason a government should be able to keep secrets is because they are combating enemies of the people and criminals- therefore keeping such things secret is in the public interest.

      • Those who like the the idea of having their skepticism subjected to a “more nuanced analysis” and granted “valorisation of the scientific norm of scepticism” (do we get a percentage of “uncertainty”?) will perhaps be overjoyed at the prospect of “new spaces for such agonistic democratic virtues to be exercised”.

        I’d rather skip the florid niceties and 1) protect mail and email privacy and 2) not see trillions frittered on more nuanced and agonistic ways to “decarbonise”. It’s worth remembering that many born again democratic agonists and syrup-mouthed communicators are pushing the same old tub of green slops, and pushing it more effectively than pre-Climategate dogmatists.

  21. There must be some awfully bad news percolating around the warmosphere. The consensus drones are scurrying around the hive (both active threads here) fighting every climate war fought (and lost) over the last 5 years tonight.

    As Tommy Lee Jones said in Men In Black – time to check the hot sheets.

    • you’re not conspiracy theorizing are you?

    • lolwot seems to think it requires a “conspiracy” for government scientists or other employees to preferantially act so as to further the interests of government, their employer that selected them and pays them.

      Not so, that is to be expected. Indeed it would require a conspiracy (of integrity) for this to NOT happen.

  22. By the way, kudos to Hulme. I appreciate honesty wherever I find it; it can be hard to find among partisans on either side.

    • I will also applaud Hulme’s openness, and I used to like what he wrote quite a bit; like Judith’s initial discussion of “tribalism,” I found his approach to the problems of tribalism in science to be quite interesting.

      Not so much lately, however. It isn’t that I question his “honestly” – but this piece in particular just seems not up to the standards he set earlier. It’s like he’s gotten caught up in his schtick. Kind of like Homocide: Life on the Street and other great shows after the first couple of seasons.

      • Prof. Dr. Hulme will no doubt be flattered and grateful that you applaud his openess, but he will be devastated that you do not approve of him telling the truth. Or he won’t care what you think.

      • Don –

        You mistakenly seem to think that: (1) I ever thought that Hulme cares what I think, or (2) I care whether Hulme cares what I think.

        You see, Don, this is precisely why I love you, man. You’re a one of a kind.

      • It’s fortuitous that the one page he pre-released from his book happened to be this one about climategate isn’t it?

      • OK, just so that you know nobody cares what you think. In fact, nobody likes you. Except lolwot and willie. I am not sure about willie. Carry on, josh-ua! (as if anybody cared)

      • I wonder if don stops people in the street to tell them noone cares what they think

      • That’s David Appell’s job.
        =====

      • Only after I have heard what they have to say, lolly. You do like, josh-ua. I am still not sure about willie.

      • Please, Don Don. Or, if you prefer, puh-leeze.

      • So “not so much lately” has nothing to do with the content or the fact he is no longer staying on message.

  23. “I am a scientist, trust me”
    No, not even the first part.

    • I put my trust in science and scientists all the time.

      • Scott Basinger

        I wouldn’t. They’re constantly fiddling to see what works, even if it seems unlikely. I’d put my trust in engineers instead, who evaluate what scientists feel is most likely true, beat it to death with testing, then build your quality of life.

        Anyways, getting back to the original conversation, most engineers I know are cautiously skeptical of the ‘C’ in CAGW. Climategate showed the stewards of this field of science were capable of serious ethical and professional lapses. Steve McIntyre showed that many results don’t stand up to technical audit.

        Wake me up when the science is sound, not ‘settled’.

      • Scott Basinger | August 9, 2013 at 4:29 am |

        Steve McIntyre showed whatnow?

        Well, that’d be news, if it were so.

        When did he do this thing? Where? How?

        Did it stand up to scrutiny any better than his ludicrous blog or his lamentably contrived and completely discredited ‘scientific papers’?

      • McIntyre proved that you can fool an awful lot of people if you fiddle with the y-axis.

      • Max_OK

        Would you buy a used (broken) hockey shtick from this scientist?
        http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/index.php

        [If so, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.]

        Max_CH

      • Bart R

        Go back to the record.

        – McI and McK showed statistical errors in the “shtick”

        – The Wegman panel confirmed this under oath before a US congressional committee

        – A panel from NAS (North, Bloomfield) confirmed the Wegman conclusions, also under oath before a congressional committee

        It’s all in the record, Bart.

        Max

      • manacker | August 9, 2013 at 6:11 pm |

        And it’s all discredited in the peer-reviewed literature, including proof of Wegman plagiarism.

        You have a plagiarist testifying to Congress. How desperate has Congress become?

        What is more, it’s all superseded by the addition of new data that shows MMx clearly out of step with the data.

      • I just loved it when Ian Jolliffe came in and quietly blew up Tamino.
        =======================

      • It seems important to know exactly what are these “conclusions”.

        For instance, Joe Barton, recently stated in an op-ed that:

        The reality is that the two-day hearing made it clear that Mr. Mann’s global warming projections were rooted in fundamental errors of methodology that had been cemented in place as “consensus” by a closed network of friends. The hearing strengthened science because it was informed by various expert work, including that of the National Research Council, which corroborated our central concerns.

        It appears that these central concerns did not include the social-network analysis of Wegman’s students. As Dr. Gerald North stated:

        Dr. Wegman’s criticisms of the statistical methodology in the papers by Mann et al were consistent with our findings. Our committee did not consider any social network analyses and we did not have access to Dr. Wegman’s report during our deliberations so we did not have an opportunity to discuss his conclusions. Personally, I was not impressed by the social network analysis in the Wegman report, nor did I agree with most of the report’s conclusions on this subject.

        Source: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_house_hearings&docid=f:31362.wais

        North’s testimony seems to suggest that Joe Barton is misrepresenting the “central concerns” of his commission.

        http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/1398629308

        Concerning the statistical methodology, cf. Nick’s conclusions:

        http://moyhu.blogspot.ca/2011/06/effect-of-selection-in-wegman-report.html

        Since the Auditor came up with the nickname Jerry “Winging it” North, we might wonder how we should interpret the report and the swearing under oath.

        ***

        Incidentally, Pat Michaels and Bjorn Lomborg and others made interesting statements under oath.

      • And it’s all discredited in the peer-reviewed literature, including proof of Wegman plagiarism.

        Huh?

        Whazzat got to do with the discredited hockey shtick?

        Get serious, Bart. You’re beginning to sound a bit loony.

        Let me repeat, so you understand:

        – McI and McK showed statistical errors in the “shtick”

        – The Wegman panel confirmed this under oath before a US congressional committee

        – A panel from NAS (North, Bloomfield) confirmed the Wegman conclusions, also under oath before a congressional committee

        It’s all in the record, Bart.

        For a detailed “blow by blow” of the shtick’s demise, read Montford’s book.

        Max

      • As Bart doubtless knows, Wegman never plagiarized anything. He merely didn’t spot a very minor lack of a credit in a student’s work.

        This is just Bart his favorite lying-for-effect mode.

      • Memphis | August 10, 2013 at 5:01 am |

        Uh, yeah.. that’d be what ‘plagiarism’ is. Failure to credit a source in a published work in academia. It’s odious to serious scholars. So I wouldn’t expect it to have any impact on you, and I’d find it a good quick test of the seriousness of a person’s scholarship to hear how offended by it they are.

        Another similar test would be how offended one would be by the line, “Why should I share my data with you; you’ll only try to find something wrong with it?”

      • A horse galloped through the echo chamber and the casualties picked a nit off its belly.
        ===================

      • manacker | August 10, 2013 at 3:10 am |

        You appear to be repeating the same thing over and over.

        Isn’t this one of those things propagandists do? Why, I believe it is.

        Look, I dislike the phrase ‘hockey stick’; it’s clearly used by people who have little appreciation for the games of hockey or cognition that ice hockey and field hockey sticks are radically different in shape.. and it isn’t even a very good description for the shape of the curve.

        But I don’t falsely claim the idea to be discredited just because of my personal opinions. The way to discredit an idea in Science is to show it doesn’t explain observed data more simply (and any decent mathematical linguist can explain that simplicity is indeed a measurable quality of an utterance, if you’re in a mood to be bored) and universally with fewer exceptions than another idea.

        MMx’s multiple discredited runs at the hockey stick fail. New data, more study, since, validate and go on to expand the idea.

        I’d have preferred terms like spike or tachythermia or infarct, words more aesthetically suited to the curve on the timescales in question, and more precise; I don’t always get what I want. I don’t go off and form a religious cult just because I’m unhappy about not getting my own way.

      • Brandon Shollenberger

        Bart R acts haughty while telling Memphis what he described is plagiarism, ignoring the fact Memphis’s argument was that Wegman didn’t do it. It was his student. You can blame him for failing to oversee his student adequately, but there’s no evidence he plagiarized anything.

        Simultaneously, he claimed McIntyre’s criticisms of the hockey stick have been refuted, and later work confirms the original hockey stick. Both of these are false, to the point where simply graphing the later work with the original graph proves it (Carrick has posted this graph here many times).

        His entire posting style is to wave his hands and act like everything he says has been proven. It’s nothing but empty air. And if he were challenged on any specific point by a knowledgeable point, he’d fail miserably.

        For exanple, he claims a result is best if it explains data best, completely ignoring the fact the hockey stick does not explain the data. It’s dependent almost entirely upon a tiny fraction of the data. By his own standard, the hockey stick has no value.

      • Brandon Shollenberger | August 10, 2013 at 1:24 pm |

        Look up the term “Lead author, responsibility of,” sometime in an academic ethics manual.

        It’s not like the plagiarism — which I acknowledge to be overworked compared to the other more grievous issues in Wegman, even though amounting to THIRTY FIVE OF NINETY ONE PAGES — is the worst example of its sort. It’s pedestrian, of its variety. Barely more than a third of the overall paper. Poor fact checking by the lead author, leading to a lamentable result.

        Much like the case of 2035 in the Himalaya passages of IPCC AR4, or the whole BRazilian fiasco so recent in all our minds. Sloppy academic habits are looked down on for a reason.

        The more responsible the person, the more influence their position exerts, the more magnified the effect, and the more odious therefore. So a pedestrian failure to check for plagiarism in one’s student’s work (if you buy that scapegoating dodge), when purporting to testify to Congress?

        That’s pretty serious stuff. Imagine if Bjorn Lomborg had, knowing his written testimony were full of errors, appeared before Congress witho.. Oh.

        He did?

        He did what?!

        That’s contemptible!

        Erm. Nevermind Lomborg. It’s not like anyone thinks he’s competent enough in science to commit scientific fraud.

        Is Wegman taking that defense?

        Let’s look at what your good friends say about Wegman over at desmog:

        http://www.desmogblog.com/foia-facts-1-more-misdeeds

        Weighty accusations indeed. One imagines requiring an inquiry by the state’s Attorney General into misuse of funds.

        This isn’t hauteur. This is simple amazement at the bold lies people are telling here in their campaign of propaganda to bolster the discredited MMx and Wegman papers.

      • Andrew Gelman does not mind striking through plagiarism and speak of cutting-and-pasting instead:

        As far as I can see, Wegman’s cut-and-paste jobs have no redeeming social value. Actually, they have a negative value: they steal from others’ writing and introduce errors.

        [………………………………………………….]

        Wegman’s is a fascinating case, in that he’s breaking the rules, destroying his own reputation, and not getting anything out of it personally. He already was well respected with a comfortable job, and the cut-and-paste jobs were bringing him neither fame nor fortune. The sad thing is that I think Wegman may have done it out of a sense of obligation to his country, his profession, and his students. He promised more than he had the ability or inclination to do, and then he didn’t see any reasonable way of backing out. I hope that at some point he has the decency to apologize to the people whose work he ripped off and distorted.

        http://andrewgelman.com/2011/09/19/another-wegman-plagiarism-copying-without-attribution-and-further-discussion-of-why-scientists-cheat/

        Not our emphasis, but Gelman’s.

  24. Not sure if Hulme’s four basic reasons for skepticism capture perhaps the most important one : that government climate scientists are not to be trusted.
    Government has an obvious and huge vested intrest in alarmist conclusions, and its climate scientists don’t seem to even know what integrity IS, let alone be committed to it.

  25. I dunno.

    It all seems the same to me.

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/aug/08/global-warming-denial-fox-news

    Someone manipulates events, people willingly collaborate in their own duping, they jump on the bandwagon dazzled by glittering generalities and other techniques of propaganda, and the young people coming up after them, not tricked by the Pied Piper, call them crazy and move on.

  26. Well I can understand that some people take issue re the ‘stolen’
    emails but I did not have trouble with reading these hacked or
    whistle blown emails by paid employees in working hours in
    publically funded institutions, scientists who considered their
    research details not fopen to public. What the ‘team’ do and
    communicate in their private domaines is different. I read most
    of the emails and was disillusioned by the evidence of gate-
    keeping and manipulating data and peer review.Harry-read-me. (

    ‘There is a crack, a crack in everything,
    that’s how the light gets in.’

    • Busted flat in Climategate


      Just me and Harry Readme.

      Go Beth gal, fill in the dots fer uz.

    • Beth, people who try to profit from illegally obtained e-mails are, IMO, no better than thieves. I hate to say it, but I don’t think I would trust having you as a house guest.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        You hold Friends of Gleick up in the same light, don’t you, Max-OK?
        Sure you do.

      • Chief Hydrologist

        I wouldn’t have you for dinner because you are a boring little twit.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        What profit could be scoured from stolen, taken out of context, heavily redacted emails, after all? That’s not evidence, even if the subjects were doing the things they said they were doing, in the stolen, taken out of context, heavily redacted emails.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        Max-OK, how would you feel about a tickertape parade? It’s more fitting than dinner in a dank pit.

      • I believe what Gliek did is wrong. I don’t know if what he did is illegal, but it is morally wrong.

        Hacking is both illegal and morally wrong.

      • Would you trust scientists who refuse to show their work and violate FOIA laws?

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        You say it’s wrong, but what about all the people who tried to profit from it?

        Dinner at 8?

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        Max-OK

        You’ve made an error.
        We have Gleick’s partial admission.
        We have no such admission of hacking of climategate emails.

        Dinner is served, eh Max-OK?

      • I would say it was definitely illegal.

        But like many illegal things, the remedy is civil action, and that usually is an expensive bus ticket to that party town where nothing happening never ends.

        There are just a whole bunch of crimes that are seldom, if ever, prosecuted. Victims are expected to file a civil suit.

      • Don Monfort | August 9, 2013 at 12:35 am |
        Would you trust scientists who refuse to show their work and violate FOIA laws?
        ——
        1. Refuse to show their work. Whether I would trust a scientists who refuses to show his work would depend on the circumstances.

        2. I would not trust a scientist who willfully attempted to violate FOIA laws or any other laws.

        3. I would not trust anyone who condones hacking e-mails, so if that’s you, I wouldn’t trust you.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo said on August 9, 2013 at 12:45 am

        “Max-OK

        You’ve made an error.
        We have Gleick’s partial admission.
        We have no such admission of hacking of climategate emails.”
        ______

        So the East Anglia police were trying to find the hacker to see if he had committed the crime of hacking?

        HA HA !

      • I am not asking you to trust me. I will not call you a denier or some other dumb epithet, if you don’t want to trust me. I am not insisting that you change your lifestyle or pay some dumb freaking carbon tax, because if you don’t our grandchildren are going to roast and you will be to blame. And I am not on the government payroll. There’s more, but that ought to do it.

      • Don, it’s a good thing you aren’t asking me to trust you, because I sure as hell wouldn’t if you condone hacking.

      • It was a leak from a whistleblower. And I doubt whether a dozen people in the world care if you trust them. I ain’t one of them.

      • Whistleblower? HA HA !

        Some retailers have trouble with teenagers whistleblowing merchandise into their pockets.

      • Are there no lawyers here?

        To date, there is no evidence of the climate gate emails being obtained illegally. Unlike the Glieck affair, an official police investigation took place. It was closed, with no results found. While that is not proof positive no illegal action occurred, it makes it very difficult to argue such action did in fact take place.

        Bottom line, claiming climategate emails were hacked is to date unsupportable. It’s pretty much at the level of talking out ones ass.

      • Brandon Shollenberger

        timg56, I think you’re way off base here. All available evidence indiactes it was a case of hacking. The police even determined how the attack happened.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        Max-OK, we have Gleick’s admission. We have no admission on hacking climategate, no conviction, no charges.

        In other words, you have no basis. It could have been an inside whistleblower who found files readied for destruction.

      • thisisnotgoodtogo

        Max_OK, do you hold the same standards for all people who tried to profit from Gleick’s production?

        Please make that part clear. All of them are not to be trusted.

      • Even if it was Mike Hulme, he could not claim any whistleblowing status anymore.

        Besides, has anybody wondered why we don’t read CG III – The Return of the Bitcoins?

      • Steven Mosher

        “willard (@nevaudit) | August 9, 2013 at 10:46 am |
        Even if it was Mike Hulme, he could not claim any whistleblowing status anymore.

        Besides, has anybody wondered why we don’t read CG III – The Return of the Bitcoins?”

        ##########

        many theories. none of them correct.

      • The usual line her is rather:

        > Lots of theories.

        Since some of them are unverifiable, it might be tough to claim they’re all false.

        That the Miracle Worker can’t be a whistleblower anymore would be easy to verify.

        Something to do with Bitcoins and leaking personal information.

      • Max_ok > people who try to profit from illegally obtained e-mails are, IMO, no better than thieves.

        Not if they are non-national-security government emails that the government was hiding from the public. The people hiding it are the ones that belong behind bars.

  27. > the years following Climategate it has become more important to distinguish between at least four different aspects of the conventional climate change narrative where scepticism may emerge

    Indeed, CG I – The Miracle Worker taught Pr. Hulme an important lesson, which we may generalize in the spirit of Brentano:

    [Hulme’s Lesson] To doubt is to doubt something.

    An alternative reading would be to replace “to doubt” with “to raise concerns about”.

    We applaud Pr. Hulme for his openness and CG I – The Miracle Worker for having made Hulme’s Lesson available to us.

  28. thisisnotgoodtogo

    Yahoo tells:

    “If Stalin ‘repented’ before he died, is he in heaven?”
    “He puts Hitler to shame, but for all we know, he was truly sorry and repented.”

    Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
    “Yes sitting on the Right hand side of God, next to the repented Hitler”

    Asker’s Comment:
    “Thank you.”

    Thank you.

  29. Here we have the revisiting of climategate, the 2035 disappearing glacier “typo,” and hide the decline. While over at the Bishop’s they’re talking about another photo of a dead polar bear.

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/8/7/polar-bears.html

    Any second now, Michael Mann is going to pull up in a DeLorean.

    • +1

      ***

      May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?

      In a ditch.

      (admiringly). A ditch! Where?

      (without gesture). Over there.

      And they didn’t beat you?

      Beat me? Certainly they beat me.

      The same lot as usual?

      The same? I don’t know.

    • Personally, the polar bear story in the Guardian is a hoot. I’m betting the Onion, whose coverage of climate change has surpassed that of the Guardian and several other outlets, is jealous they didn’t think of that storyline.

    • Great news! The flux capacitor is the missing energy storage technology that we need to make renewable energy work. I’m glad that Mike did something positive.

      Now all we need is a retroencabulator.

  30. I gather from the bulk of the comments that those who doubt “man-caused-global-climate-catastrophe” are right-wing ideologues, which is apparently some form of sub-human. On the other hand, believers in “man-caused-global-climate-catastrophe” are god-like and must always be believed. I don’t suppose we could dump emotions and just stick to logic and science?

    • Sadly I don’t think so. I can only comment on people I know but many view the world mostly through emotion and very little through logic. Perhaps that’s why headlines are usually sensational, it tugs at our emotions?

  31. Chief Hydrologist

    Conservative skepticism owes more to green overreach. Pissant progressives pontificating on economic degrowth, new economic systems eschewing economic growth, global government, using disasters to engineer transformative moments for social revolution, suspension of democracy and the rule of law to deal with the catastrophic risk of climate change or whatever the whine de jour is.

    There are so many holes in ‘the science’ that it is easy to pick one and run with it.

    The obverse is that there are so many holes in the science and pissant progressives defend it to the max. Science is less relevant here than a space cadet revival in the climate change tent. Most of them don’t understand much about Earth sciences at all. None of them seem to have a clue about complexity theory and how it applies to climate. What is important is the tent and that strongly suggests dominant elements of groupthink.

    • It’s very amusing that they strain to portray conservatives as dimwits. But one can’t help but notice that the places run by the progressives are the ones going bankrupt. The enlightened places with the strictest progressive gun control are the places with the most violent crime. Oh but that’s not because of strict gun control, it’s because of the poverty. Education, not so good in progressive unionized no dress code no reading writing arithmetic no grades school systems. Oh, but that’s also because of the poverty. Yeah, conservatives are really dumb. It’s amazing that they can take care of themselves.

      • As in David Appell denigrating everyone’s educational attainment as, at most, only entitling one a seat at the table.

      • They’r all for “science uber alles” until you get one talking about GMO crops or fluoridation of water or vaccination. Then science becomes a big conspiracy.

      • The rule-of-thumb is that someone who doesn’t look after their body is unlikely to be able to look after a whole planet.

      • “someone who doesn’t look after their body is unlikely to be able to look after a whole planet”

        Hey… Big Al has trimmed down… working yourself into a preachy lather burns calories.

        Andrew

    • blueice2hotsea

      Chief,

      You put so many arrows into the bulls-eye I can’t count them all. Compliments from a former green – and so recent that I still get occasional renewal offers from the Sierra Club.

      BTW, my epiphany occurred – as it did for many others – before Climategate.

    • Chief Hydrologist

      Seriously – I am an environmental scientist – I am still green. Would be happier if we got it right and made some progress on biodiversity.

      • I don’t know enough to know if there are any serious biodiversity concerns that need to be addressed immediately – other than those created by the abysmal policies derived from the manufactured fear of C02,

        But I’m inclined to think that the proliferation extinction fictions – and other advocacy carts rolling way ahead of any evidentiary horses – may well be impeding the progress you seek.

      • I love biology and the biosphere and hate the modern day ‘Green Movement’. Much of the European Green movement is water-melon; Green on the inside and red on the inside.

      • Chief Hydrologist

        CO2 is quite irrelevant to immediate biodiversity losses. A major distraction.

  32. So, can you Climategatites remind me, what was the deal with Climategate v3.0? Kinda disappointing, what with the overtones of extortion, wasn’t it?

    Or was that Climategate v2.0?

    And what about the EIGHT inquiries since the original?

    Are they still whitewashes? Conspiracies? What?

    Has time really so quickly varnished for you the turd that is Climategate, and clouded your eyes with nostalgia.

    Climategate is just another game denial lost.

    That’s what the world remembers, outside your little compound.

    Don’t drink the purple koolaid.

    • How did Copenhagen work out for you, barty? What were those other places where they took that road show? When are they going to have another lavish Save the World Junket? Next one will work. Right, barty?

      • Don Monfort | August 9, 2013 at 1:55 am |

        You seem to be one of the True Believers in the Red Menace — oh, wait, that doesn’t work in your Moncktonish watermelon metaphor (the one that isn’t racially offensive), sorry, Pink Menace with a Green Skin (which proves Mr. Spock is a Commie operative and Gene Roddenberry was a 5th columnist, in your spook-filled world, I guess) – who thinks I really care about conspiracies to replace Our Pure Essence with fluoride.

        I’m not. I don’t think the whole We Are The World kumbayaism has much chance of doing anything of use. It asks too many governments to give up too much sovereignty, papers over too much corruption and tyranny, lacks the flexibility of local solutions for global issues, and is just plain more government than minimally necessary to achieve the same or better ends.

        Which has nothing to do with the seeming pathological need to deny Scientific conclusions of your petty. increasingly outdated cult. Sadly, it seems the whole climate denial movement has turned from a bunch of pathetic hooligans and willingly complicit dupes of media manipulators to a Jehovah’s Witnesses/Taliban/Church of Scientology state of mutual hallucination, so I’ll have to be listening to robed zealots knocking on my front door asking me if I’ve heard the Truth about climate well after sea levels are another two feet higher.

        The problem isn’t wicked. The problem is subsidies. The solution doesn’t need massive new command and control regulations run out of some UN office. Look closely at Morgan Bazilian, and you’ll see how subsidies plus command and control from the UN lead nowhere but increasing disconnect between goal and achievement, inconsistency, failure on ever larger scale and ultimate collapse that hurts those it preys up.. I mean, pretends to help.

        The solution is to follow the elementary principles of Market Capitalism. S.R.E.A.: the carbon cycle’s waste recycling service is demonstrably Scarce, Rivalrous, Excludable and Administrable, therefore it ought be privatized and traded on the Market with the price set by the Law of Supply and Demand, and the revenues returned to the owners — everyone who draws breath — per capita. Rogue nations that dump waste into the air, that poach carbon cycle resources from us to get trade advantages? Well, there’s already international treaties covering pollution and unfair trade practices.

        Which your little collectivist, linear, groupthunk clique will have no part of despite claiming to be conservatives because ultimately you aren’t really principled people who believe in the foundations of America. You’re just in it for what you can get for yourselves, and screw the rest of the world. Explain to me again, how when it’s so apparent to the rest of the world what you’re up to, what bad faith you’re practicing, why we should have anything at all to do with you?

      • The solution is to follow the elementary principles of Market Capitalism. S.R.E.A.: the carbon cycle’s waste recycling service is demonstrably Scarce, Rivalrous, Excludable and Administrable, therefore it ought be privatized and traded on the Market with the price set by the Law of Supply and Demand, and the revenues returned to the owners — everyone who draws breath — per capita.

        There speaks an ignorant pseudo-libertarian who doesn’t understand the first thing about economics.

      • I guess that was quite a diatribe, barty. You lost me at that watermelon thing. Prozac.

      • Bart doesn’t need to take prozac. He needs to stop the LSD/mesacline/psilocybin cocktails.

      • Don Monfort | August 9, 2013 at 11:13 am |

        That’s okay. I never credited you much with reading all the way to the end of the first sentence before forming your opinion of.. well, of anything.

        So it’s hard to fault you for not having the wherewithal to read with understanding, or the fortitude to read all the way through a passage longer than a tweet. Or is that a twit?

      • Gary,

        But he doesn’t seem the type to be able to get along without some help from pharmacology. We wouldn’t want him running around loose and facing the reality of his pathetic existence completely sober.

      • It’s tweet, barty. You are the twit. Let me know if you need any more help.

      • Don Monfort | August 9, 2013 at 11:50 am |

        Thanks for showing that you can, indeed, make it all the way through to the end of a passage, when it’s made up of small enough words, gives you an opening (intentionally) to descend to juvenile muckthrowing, and understanding what it says doesn’t violate your deep religious convictions about climate.

      • Well, examination of the vomitus reveals he ate too much kim.
        =========================

      • Sometimes kim can be kimchee… kim kim cheree!

      • Look bart, you started talking about Monktonish watermelons and I looked at the length of your diatribe and decided to stop reading. Don’t engage in interminable insane gibberish and I will read through your crap, no matter how crappy it is. Just present a semblance of rationality and brevity. Deal?

      • AK | August 9, 2013 at 11:54 am |

        Then explain the first thing about economics to us.

        Use small words, and keep it brief, or you’ll lose Don Monfort | August 9, 2013 at 12:24 pm |

        And btw, most _min_archists take exception to being associated with libertarians, for obvious reasons.

      • Then explain the first thing about economics to us.

        The “law” of supply and demand tries to predict how prices will be set in a free market where buyers pay sellers for their product. When everything being paid is taken and “returned to the owners — everyone who draws breath — per capita” you no longer have the kind of market the “law of supply and demand” is talking about. You’re treating it as a religious icon, not as part of a working system.

        And btw, most _min_archists take exception to being associated with libertarians, for obvious reasons.

        When I was associated with the Libertarian Party (’70’s), most libertarians were divided into minarchists and anarchists. Names may have changed today. As a libertarian, I take exception to being associated with someone like you pretending to be a libertarian. If you’re not, then good. I take less exception.

      • Steven Mosher

        ‘The problem isn’t wicked. The problem is subsidies. ”

        Getting rid of subsidies and privatizing the air is a wicked problem.

        However it is simple to state a solution, wickedly hard to implement.

        heck you cant even get agreement on what consititutes a subsidy for the fossil fuel industry or how to end them.

        lets illustrate

        Types of subsidies

        1. Access: preferential government leasing’
        Simple: end that by actually selling the government asset rather than leasing. thats way easier than privatizing air

        2. Direct spending: easy, no government spending on any energy related matters

        3. Government ownership: Sell it all.

        4. Import export restrictions; End them. Build Keystone

        5: Information: open access on all government information. either open it or charge for it all.

        6. price controls: end them, oil reserves, get rid of it.

        7. r&D funding: end research on replacements for fossil fuels. end research on C02 extraction from the air.

        8. Regulation: end differential treatment in regulations by deregulating everything.

        9. Risk Insurance: make industries pay the full ride

        10. Tax treatment: eliminate corporate tax.

        There you go, Simple. we can eliminate subsidies by selling government assets, ending regulation, and eliminating corporate taxes.

        When thats all done we can privatize air.

      • You forgot one of the biggies: military adventures to secure foreign resources.

      • Mosher, you do understand don’t you, that “subsidy” in that context refers to one thing, which is depreciation allowance? The Barts of the world want oil and gas fields to be different from all other depreciable assets.

        Fine. Scrap the whole tax code. Done.

      • Harold | August 9, 2013 at 1:31 pm |

        No. Depreciation allowance applied to inventory of machines and equipment used to manufacture, ie accelerated depreciation, that’s not a subsidy. That prevents government from grabbing tax from hardworking business people.

        Accelerated depletion, which SCOTUS found in 1911 to be a scam, the practice of writing down your inventories in the ground even while they become more valuable over time, that’s just begging poor while getting rich to avoid shouldering a fair share of the cost of upholding the nation.

        And it’s far from the only subsidy. I know you have trouble remembering more than one thing. But if you could remember only one thing, the explanation I provide immediately below to AK’s piteously invalid arguments should be it.

        AK | August 9, 2013 at 12:55 pm |

        When everything being paid is taken and “returned to the owners — everyone who draws breath — per capita” you no longer have the kind of market the “law of supply and demand” is talking about.

        Every Market runs by the payment of buyers going to sellers. The Law of Supply and Demand works just as well for CO2E as for cell phone bandwidth or rutabagas. The mechanism of the Law of Supply and Demand under Fair Market assumptions (the foundation of Capitalism) is that the sellers raise their price per unit until the next increment in price reduces the total units sold by enough that total revenues fall. (In the simplified version; counting the cost of production, the equation becomes a little more complicated, but it appears you’re not quite ready for that many terms in a mathematical identity.)

        Balancing the monopolistic qualities of all owners of CO2E acting as a single seller and sharing all revenues equally — much like many other natural monopolies — is that there are many alternative ways to get the same energy without CO2E, as well as many inefficiencies in the wider world that can be reduced without diminishing the quality of life of buyers.

        As these alternative ways are competing against a set of products — in essence, two: petrochemical fuels and coal — that are subsidized by being allowed to use up the scarce resource of the carbon cycle’s ability to cope with waste CO2E, the Market is not fair, and does not run according to Capitalist precepts, without such a carbon price.

        Steven Mosher | August 9, 2013 at 12:46 pm |

        You assert wicked implementation. But you can’t prove it, because it’s false.

        British Columbia implemented with no fuss, muss or bother. If a tiny backwater pimple on the far end of a third-rate G20 member can do it, then the fact the US Congress can’t tells us either the Founders built something that can’t work and it is time for the Tree of Liberty to once again be fertilized by patriots, or that Congress is a bunch of bums who need throwing out and replacing with hardworking people who will do their freaking jobs.

        You insist on tugging at the Gordian knot fruitlessly until it’s been untied (which would take forever) with your ten absurdly invalid straw men, before drawing the sword and slicing through all the crap.

        The solution isn’t wicked. Just cut the crap.

      • The Law of Supply and Demand works just as well for CO2E as for cell phone bandwidth or rutabagas. The mechanism of the Law of Supply and Demand under Fair Market assumptions (the foundation of Capitalism) is that the sellers raise their price per unit until the next increment in price reduces the total units sold by enough that total revenues fall.

        The Wiki Article on Supply and Demand doesn’t even include the word “monopoly”, for the obvious reason that the “law” doesn’t apply to monopoly situations. (A search goes directly to the bottom of the page: “Major topics”.)

        Examining the Wiki article on Monopoly, we find:

        Supply Curve: in a perfectly competitive market there is a well defined supply function with a one to one relationship between price and quantity supplied.[24] In a monopolistic market no such supply relationship exists. A monopolist cannot trace a short term supply curve because for a given price there is not a unique quantity supplied. As Pindyck and Rubenfeld note a change in demand “can lead to changes in prices with no change in output, changes in output with no change in price or both”.[25] Monopolies produce where marginal revenue equals marginal costs. For a specific demand curve the supply “curve” would be the price/quantity combination at the point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. If the demand curve shifted the marginal revenue curve would shift as well and a new equilibrium and supply “point” would be established. The locus of these points would not be a supply curve in any conventional sense.[26][27]

        I’ll grant you it’s somewhat of a semantic issue, but as generally used, the process of monopolistic price setting does not come under the “law of supply and demand”. As I said, you’re using it as a religious icon, presumably in an effort to delude readers into thinking your ridiculous proposals have something do to with “fair” markets or capitalism.

        The process of monopolistic price setting involves sheer guesswork on the part of the monopoly, regarding the behavior of the customers. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you place the same sort of faith in “models” to determine the price that will maximize revenue as you do in climate models. But it has nothing to do with free-market capitalism.

        As for “fair” markets, since the definition of “fair” is entirely a matter of opinion, your interpretation is nothing but an expression of your own delusion. (If you want me to believe otherwise, you can provide links to whatever documentation you’re basing your nonsense on. A quick search couldn’t find it for me, and I’m not going to waste the time for more.)

      • Steven Mosher

        +100

        I might have one or two to add, but that’s a good list of “things to do” to “get rid of subsidies”.

        As far as “privatizing air”, it already is everyone’s “private property” – and we sure as hell don’t need the government thinking about taxing the air we breathe (that would be the direct opposite of “privatizing” it)..

        Max

      • Bart R | August 9, 2013 at 2:50 pm |

        Fairly nice interpretation of economic theory, barty. Well done. You have potential. But you are wrong on a few significant practical details, especially that B.C. thing.

      • Bart R | August 9, 2013 at 12:41 pm |
        most _min_archists take exception to being associated with libertarians, for obvious reasons.
        ——————————–
        Eh?? The terms minarchist and libertarian are essentially interchangeable, for obvious reasons.

      • Eh?? The terms minarchist and libertarian are essentially interchangeable, for obvious reasons.

        They most certainly are not! In the ’70’s I called myself an anarchist libertarian, and pretty much still would. Many such may call themselves “anarcho-capitalists” today, I’m not up on the current semantics. However, it’s certainly possible to be both a libertarian and an anarchist. And, I suppose, depending on your anthropological assumptions, it’s possible to be a minarchist without being a libertarian.

      • Memphis | August 10, 2013 at 4:31 am |

        I have to agree with AK, and expand somewhat.

        Most _min_archists (almost by definition self-described) these days say about the Libertarian party that one finds a higher ratio of actual libertarians among the general population than within the party.

        Both the Libertarian party and the libertarian movement have taken on heavy baggage anathema to political minimalism, be it the whole racial subtext or the drug thing, or mainly the immense logical inconsistency and pseudointellectualism of the whole bunch.

        There’s a joke one hears at Comicon, “Q: Why do superheroes form teams? A: So when they walk down the street and everyone points and laughs, they can pretend to themselves it’s at everyone else on the team.”

        M_i_narchism is simply political simplification. You can be a Republican or Democrat who wants to see the minimum government necessary to meet the core objectives of your political philosophy, and trust that core is enough to serve the best interests of the nation, and in that sense you are expressing the heart of min_archy_. In the end, by induction, a stable civil society that adopts the philosophy over time will evolve to the point where no government at all is required. But in the meantime, we’re not there yet.

        And the libertarian, much less the Libertarian, paths can’t get us there ever.

      • Don Monfort | August 10, 2013 at 3:23 am |

        Explain?

        Have you ever seen a better case of economic theory in practice, more clearly and cleanly furnishing evidence supporting the theory, than the BC revenue neutral carbon tax act?

        (Btw, I’m told the preferred form is BC, though B.C. isn’t technically wrong. I believe it’s to avoid confusion with Billy Carter.)

      • AK | August 10, 2013 at 7:32 am |

        While you’ve found an objection, you’ve found an invalid objection.

        The same objection is more relevant in the example of trade unions or employer collectives forming to bid up or down the price of labor; if all employers collude to fix the price of labor and lock out all workers, then there is no economic reason to call negotiation of wages fair or just, and the courts long ago found such anticompetitive practices sufficient cause to uphold the right of workers to unionize.

        But if a union strongarms its way into a community of many employers, each independently and without collusion bargaining in good faith with its workers, then the reverse situation develops and other measures indicated to protect Capitalism in the face of Collectivist excess.

        Not so with CO2E; the price of CO2E is demonstrated by the BC case to be up to some five times more sensitive than the price of the fossil fuels it is attached to.

        This demonstrates that there is significant waste in the treatment of fossil fuels that will disappear when a price signal for wasting the resource is sent to consumers; further, we know there are significant and readily available alternatives for energy to energy derived from burning carbon, and when the price is made clear and fair, the preference for these alternatives is amply illustrated in the Market; from these two effects we see that the Law of Supply and Demand is relevant to the pricing of CO2E, and not monopolistic pricing.

        Moreover, no one is proposing dropping the full price shock of CO2E on the Market like a fiscal bomb. BC paid the revenues expected forward, so the recipients of the dividend would have the budget to make democratic decisions in the Market that would be net neutral, and the price increases are spaced every four quarters, with a twenty quarter ‘breather’ for the rest of the world to catch up and the Market to mature, in the case of BC.

        Do you have any valid points?

      • Not so with CO2E; the price of CO2E is demonstrated by the BC case to be up to some five times more sensitive than the price of the fossil fuels it is attached to.

        Sensitive to what? Care to provide links?

        This demonstrates that there is significant waste in the treatment of fossil fuels that will disappear when a price signal for wasting the resource is sent to consumers;

        You mean people are using more energy than you think they should? What do you claim is being wasted?

        from these two effects we see that the Law of Supply and Demand is relevant to the pricing of CO2E, and not monopolistic pricing.

        I don’t see it. The “law” of supply and demand depends on many market participants to set the price.

        Moreover, no one is proposing dropping the full price shock of CO2E on the Market like a fiscal bomb. […] Do you have any valid points?

        IOW, what you’re talking about isn’t any sort of “natural” price setting, even by the rules of monopolistic price setting. It’s just one more effort to manipulate the market for political purposes. And your reference to the “Law of Supply and Demand” is just a bait&switch, intended to make people think it has something to do with free markets.

      • Bart R said:

        “Have you ever seen a better case of economic theory in practice, more clearly and cleanly furnishing evidence supporting the theory, than the BC revenue neutral carbon tax act?”

        I think it works in many realms. I have seen a tire disposal fee or tax, sometimes called a stewardship fee, that is applied up-front to convince people from dumping the tire in the woods after they wear out. This is merely an incentive, because they can still dump it, but it does seem to work. The fee goes to the junkyard and recyclers, and then one polices them to do the right thing with the tax money they are given as opposed to policing every citizen.

        In Switzerland, there are the same upfront fees on the disposal of appliances. If you have never been to a Swiss junkyard, I suppose you can just imagine how organized it is and how well it runs.

        The overall principle seems pretty sound, FWIW.

      • AK | August 10, 2013 at 7:32 am |

        As for Fair Market, since we’re being pragmatic, consider starting with US GAAP (FAS 157: http://www.fasb.org/pdf/fas157.pdf) if you’re looking for references.

      • From the document you linked:

        5. Fair value is the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a
        liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date.

        Although it will take more time than I have right now to verify it, AFAIK the whole assumed basis of “an orderly transaction between market participants” is a market with many buyers and sellers. Absent such a market, it’s just some sort of straw man.

        I’ll also point out that these sorts of accounting principles are what brought us the crash of ’08, when people figured out how to game the system. What justifies your assumption that the same thing won’t happen in your proposed monopoly?

      • The B.C. tax imposers are very happy to report that the carbon tax is peachy, but that is to be expected. The citizens drive past B.C. gas stations in droves on the way to the U.S. to tank up on gas, which they burn mostly back in B.C., which doesn’t show up in B.C. CO2 emission stats. Gas stations and other retailers in B.C. pay the tax and suck wind. American gas stations and other retailers appreciate the business and hire more employees. These are the “green jobs” created by the B.C. carbon tax. On the bright side, the carbon tax averse B.C. folk have taken to renewable energy to heat their homes; wood, which also does not show up in the CO2 emission stats. This makes the carbon tax imposers happy.

        Carbon tax is regressive, no matter how peachily neutral the imposers say it is. Unintended consequences. Theory meets reality. Will the Aussies ditch the carbon tax, soon? Are the Eurocrats giving up on their job and people killing carbon abatement schemes? Will B.C. be far behind? The progressive green folk running California will never give up on the dream to rid the once Golden State of CO2 pollution. Bankruptcy will help.

      • AK | August 10, 2013 at 10:54 am |

        Wow.

        I had no idea how really ill-informed you were of the fundamentals of reading and economics.

        1. A link I’m sure you’ll find edifying: http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-positive-economic-impact-of-a-carbon-tax-in-uh-hang-on-10-charts/ and it’s in pretty colors, too.

        2. As I’ve explained, there are in effect many buyers and many sellers in CO2E pricing, even if there is a government-enforced standard of delivering equal share equitably to all sellers per capita as there are different carbon intensities of essentially the same energy: electricity need not be produced from fossil fuels, and where it is, the fossil fuels may be less carbon intensive natural gas, or enriched through geothermal or solar hydrotreating to become less carbon intensive, or the CO2 emissions can be directly sequestered or used in coproduction to reduce net influx of CO2. As such, the Market presents so practically an unlimited number of sellers competing for share of a practically unlimited number of buyers.

        Failing to price a good because you think it might result in a monopoly, so you expropriate it from the owners?

        That is the height of government interference in a Fair Market, especially given that your fear-mongering is so patently false.

        3. You seriously propose GAAP caused the crash of 2008? Okay.. I’m backing away from the crazy person now, speaking in a low and even voice, ensuring there are no sharp or pointy objects within reach.

      • Failing to price a good because you think it might result in a monopoly, so you expropriate it from the owners?

        No, just pointing out that it’s not being priced by the “law of Supply and Demand”.

        As such, the Market presents so practically an unlimited number of sellers competing for share of a practically unlimited number of buyers.

        The standard argument for Keynesian use of taxes to manipulate the economy. My problems with raising the price of energy don’t have to do with such tilting of the playing field directly, but the central role of energy.

        […] especially given that your fear-mongering is so patently false.

        No “fear-mongering“, just pointing out that the pricing is just a political football, not based on the “Law of Supply and Demand”.

        Take a look at your own link:

        The conservative party says they’ll scrap it. The center-right party that passed the tax is now promising to freeze it at its current level for five years. The left party also says they’ll freeze it, but they’ll expand the based of coverage to include fugitive natural gas emissions (a crucial omission in the original tax proposal). Only the greens say they would steadily increase it.

        Which goes to show: The empirical success of the tax is largely unrelated to its political effects. Also, politics is stupid.

        While I don’t approve of taxes intended to raise the price of energy, that’s not my point here. My point is that your reference to the “Law of Supply and Demand” is invalid.

        Oh, and for your point:

        3. You seriously propose GAAP caused the crash of 2008?

        Looking at the date of your link, I suspect this update was intended to close the barn door the derivative scammers got through; It was about the time people in the know were (AFAIK) starting to catch on to the problem. But any effort to set “fair value” of any item outside the actual free market is subject to being gamed. And gaming of the system by derivative traders was definitely the cause of the crash.

      • AK | August 10, 2013 at 12:10 pm |

        Ahhhh. You’re a dupe in the thrall of the ‘cheap energy’ argument.

        You believe that because ‘energy’ — by which you mean coal and petroleum fuel only — is so ‘core’ or ‘central’ in its role in an economy that it somehow is an exception to the general principles of Capitalism, and thus any measure taken to make ‘energy’ — by which you always only mean coal and petroleum fuel — is justified.

        It’s a loony, overblown, incorrect religion you worship at the altar of, AK.

        Inevitably, the outcomes are spiralling inflation of ‘energy’ — meaning fossil fuel — excess profits (look up the phrase in any introductory economics textbook), excessive economic waste (look up the phrase in any introductory economics textbook), and suppression of innovation in competing products.

        No wonder you argue so vehemently. You actually believe you’re doing good.

        Take comfort. A lot of people are fooled by this same fraudulent philosophy. Bill Gates halfway believes it, too, for example. But at least he recognizes that not all ‘energy’ is coal or oil.

      • Ahhhh. You’re a dupe in the thrall of the ‘cheap energy’ argument.

        No, I formed those conclusions on my own, based on my own study of the Industrial Revolution, as well as the recent economic changes of the last few decades. Only after I came to the conclusion on my own, contra the natural libertarian response, and started making arguments in favor of solutions that keep the price of energy low, did I notice similar arguments elsewhere.

        You believe that because ‘energy’ — by which you mean coal and petroleum fuel only — is so ‘core’ or ‘central’ in its role in an economy that it somehow is an exception to the general principles of Capitalism, and thus any measure taken to make ‘energy’ [less expensive] — by which you always only mean coal and petroleum fuel — is justified.

        No, I don’tmean coal and petroleum fuel only“. In fact, I’m fully in favor of a switch to methane, along with a vigorous R&D program to replace fossil methane with “bio-methane” derived from nuclear/hydrolytic hydrogen. But I also think it can, and should, be done in ways that don’t involve raising the price of energy even temporarily.

        It’s a loony, overblown, incorrect religion you worship at the altar of, AK.

        No, I’m open to persuasion otherwise. But you’re not going to get anywhere by claiming that prices set by political football are somehow the result of “the Law of Supply and Demand”.

        No wonder you argue so vehemently. You actually believe you’re doing good.

        That’s true of most people here, and in most arguments. Claims that opponents are “in the pay of big carbon”, or other efforts to demonize the opposition, are the sign of intellectual laziness and lack of sympathy.

      • Don Monfort | August 10, 2013 at 10:15 am |

        The citizens drive past B.C. gas stations in droves on the way to the U.S. to tank up on gas, which they burn mostly back in B.C., which doesn’t show up in B.C. CO2 emission stats.

        Bzzt. Wrong. This question has been studied, and the evidence shows no increase in BC cross-border fuel purchases since the carbon tax.

        And BC also shows no increase in wood burning for home heating. Do you have evidence otherwise? Not that BC’s government seems to object to the notion; they regard biomass as CO2E neutral. I don’t agree with them on that, but there’s a lot about BC I don’t particularly agree with.

        Carbon tax is regressive..

        Again, not even close. BC specifically built its scheme to monitor for signs of regressive effects and kick in countermeasures. They assumed they’d need them. They haven’t yet. It’s not the way privatization works.

        Privatization is almost by definition not regressive.

      • Oh barty, you make some dumb assertions and then you demand I provide evidence to prove you wrong. OK, long lines of cars with Canadian license plates at gas stations in Washington. The locals complaining about it. I admit that I can’t prove that BC citizens are using more firewood, because nobody goes around to check that, unless you do.

        You are a clown. I have to put you on the back burner with joshie. How are you doing in the carbon trading markets, barty? I hope they are dumb enough to try that in B.C., so you can cash in your chips.

      • Don Monfort | August 10, 2013 at 3:04 pm |

        Your one piece of evidence is something that’s actually been consistent since 2008?

        Really?

        Also noteworthy is that BC had much greater reductions than the rest of Canada for all fuel types subject to the carbon tax (Figure 2). The consistency of this pattern across multiple fuels reinforces the inference that the tax contributed to this change. (It was not simply due to increased cross-border gas buying, as some speculate). By contrast aviation fuel, which is mainly exempt from the carbon tax,4 did not follow this pattern; its sales changed about equally in BC and the rest of Canada during this period – further suggesting that the carbon tax contributed to the differences in the use of the other (taxed) fuels.

        http://www.sustainableprosperity.ca/dl1026&display – page 3

        How do you walk in shoes like that without falling over and landing on that big rubber nose?

      • Obvious points:
        An anarchist is one who believes in zero government.
        A minarchist is one who believes in minimal government.
        Libertarians believe in liberty, which means limiting government. Most by means of minarchism, some by anarchism.
        As such, it is fair to say a minarchist and a libertarian are broadly the same thing.s

        Not so obvious, is how well the Libertarian Party upholds libertarian principles.

      • AK | August 11, 2013 at 7:47 am |

        Once more, with feeling.

        Yes, energy is important to people.

        Energy lets people make things and get places and enjoy services they often could not without it. This is true to a life-saving level, from powering incubators for newborns to powerful diagnostic tools throughout health care to fueling ambulances and rescue helicopters. It’s patent, and undeniable, that these good outcomes are real.

        But energy has problems. It comes in inconvenient packages that sometimes need for users to waste a little or a lot, to lose energy due to storage limits or to work at different efficiencies when used different ways.

        America introduced the double-nickel speed limit because vehicles at the time were grossly inefficient at higher speeds (that hasn’t changed as much as many claim); thermostats set to 60 in summer and 85 in winter?

        Single occupants speeding everywhere they go or idling in traffic jams in vehicles four times larger than needed to do 99.9% of their transportation?

        Drawing fuel from the ground that when burned emit mercury and SOx and NOx to levels we know have direct impacts on animal life, including human?

        Treating these fuels with additives even more toxic?

        Making 10,000 gallons of water too toxic to sustain life to produce one gallon of fuel?

        That’s just plain unhealthy all the way around, and extremely wasteful.

        We know that small measures to husband energy can vastly reduce the energy it takes to obtain the same outcomes; this husbandry can reduce the price of energy for consumers, and it can stretch out what would otherwise have been too scarce a resource to plenty. We know that choices of how to obtain fuels — self-reliant, secure, independent of geopolitics choices — can and do dramatically reduce the extraneous and unpriced portions of energy delivery.

        What we find is that the considerations of the first three paragraphs often compel people of goodwill to take measures contrary to the good sense of the rest that logically flows from the evidence so plentiful to every American.

        The general solution to problems of efficient resource allocation — which these in the main are, problems of allocation of waste disposal services — within Capitalism, the bedrock of American economy and the stability of American society, is privatization where it is practical.

        Privatization requires five conditions to be practical, CSREA: commodifiable, scarce, rivalrous, excludable, administrable. (Sometimes recalled with the acronym CAESaR.) Mobile phone bandwidth was shown to meet the CAESaR conditions, and the result of its privatization is one of the most lucrative and vital markets in the world, one whose clients are adamantly committed to.

        Privatization does not make a Market good more expensive, even temporarily. It makes it fair, meeting which is necessary to avoid discouraging Market participation. It inspires and drives and rewards innovation and hard work. It drives down prices.

        The price gap of fossil fuels in BC compared to its neighbors is now smaller than it had been prior to 2008. 77% of individuals and 85% of industry are net significantly ahead under the BC carbon tax with revenue recycling than before 2008, and in ways that are demonstrably outcomes of the carbon tax privatization mechanism. Indeed, because when they implemented the carbon tax, the BC government paid forward the first year — delivering checks to everyone in the province to cover the full year’s revenues — there was no rise in energy cost, even temporary. The net cost of energy to individuals fell.

        And still BC has had about a 9% drop in carbon emission, and almost 19% drop in use of the fraction of CO2E emitting fuels, in just the time since it began easing itself along the path toward privatization. It’s hardly much of the way to actually accomplishing privatization, and it’s still the best single program in the world, by far, intentional or accidental. It took seven combined effects, according to BEST, to get about double the half-hearted BC privatization effort’s effect.

        So what I’m arguing for is what you say you’re arguing for: cheaper energy (including even methane, if it works, which privatization can help us determine). We merely differ in approaches.

        I offer Capitalism and prices set by the level that maximizes returns to owners (the hardworking people of the country), which is proven to work. You offer subsidy and government interference, which is proven not to work.

      • Bart R | August 9, 2013 at 12:41 pm | quoting

        AK | August 9, 2013 at 11:54 am |
        “Then explain the first thing about economics to us.”

        This will be the last thing that we need to know if the Administration can jam a Carbon Tax / Soviet Turnover Tax down the economy’s throat. (I hope the link works.):
        http://mysite.verizon.net/cache.22/Fig35-1_TurnoverTaxFlat.jpg

        But if not, it is the 7th post on this link from 2008: http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/thread/192/politics-agw

        The first thing is over here, also from 2008:
        Supply & Demand in Economics 101 http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/thread/195?page=1

    • The basic undeniable facts emerging from Climategate, are that prominent climate “scientists” routinely lie and cheat to advance the alarmist narrative.
      And if you think it’s just the odd rotten apple, think again – the silent majority condones it with its slience. Probably because they’re doing it too.

      • Erica | August 10, 2013 at 3:17 am |

        Except for the EIGHT inquiries that found otherwise.

      • As I’ve mentioned, thoroughgoing autopsies have been done on those investigations. The political will is gathering to re-visit them.

        That will be a process that answers many questions, and may immunize us against further such corruptions. Heh, hope springs eternal.
        =============

      • Lindzen @ Penn State was wonderful: ‘What is going on here’?

        Good question.
        ========

      • kim | August 10, 2013 at 8:53 am |

        Thoroughgoing autopsy by a wingnut isn’t called an autopsy. It’s a psychological condition.

        The words the rest of the world has for these ‘autopsies’ is ‘unfounded complaints’.

      • What to do with the bodies; the stench rises?
        =====================

      • kim | August 10, 2013 at 9:40 am |

        I generally find lye + heat effective, though some think pyrolysis more economically efficient than saponification, as it sequesters the carbon and produces both fertilizer and low CO2E-intensity fuels, whereas the former only leads to soap and ashes.

      • Go with pyrolysis; it’s all going up in smoke and mirrors.
        ===========

      • kim | August 10, 2013 at 11:19 am |

        Oh, like you’ve gotten rid of so many bodies?

        Do tell.

      • Workin’ on those investigative bodies, but it’s hard to get close enough; even gas masks don’t help much.
        ======================

      • Brandon Shollenberger

        Bart R, none of the “investigations” even investigated what Erica claims. They can’t disprove something they didn’t even cover.

      • Brandon Shollenberger | August 10, 2013 at 1:57 pm |

        You’re simply wrong.

        Name any one of the inquiries that didn’t explore the questions of lies affecting the science, the ‘rotten apple’ of the spread affecting the science, or the conclusions being affected in such a way as to alter the narrative or policy devolving from it.

        These were explicit in the terms of reference and conclusion of each of the inquiries, and in almost so many words.

      • The whitewashes of Climategate of part of the problem – most run and financed by the very organizations under suspicion. The accused acting as his own judge.

      • Erica | August 11, 2013 at 2:48 am |

        Say what?

        EIGHT inquiries.

        THREE countries.

        NINETEEN institutions, including various legal offices under GOP control.

        Sir Muir Russell — who even though he led the independent investigation on behalf of the UEA, came out with the harshest judgment overall, and still found no errors of Science.

        The George W. Bush appointed NOAA.

        The Inhofe US Department of Commerce.

        The George W. Bush appointed EPA.

        The George W. Bush appointed National Science Foundation.

        Of something touched off by a demi-competent hack. What, you think if there were something amiss, the hacker couldn’t have grabbed the evidence of it from even one of the inquiries?

        You think counter-intrusion was so stellar for all eight inquiring bodies and the dozen-and-a-half participating organizations?

        And we’re not even counting the criminal investigation: http://www.norfolk.police.uk/newsevents/newsstories/2012/july/ueadatabreachinvestigation.aspx

        Get over it. It’s done. It’s long overdone. It’s an embarrassment to look at the fiascos of Climategate 2.0 & 3.0’s shoddy shake-down attempts, and on the whole the obvious manufacture of a mountain out of less than a molehill, started because some Australian gadfly pestered an inarticulate British academic and elicited a rude put-down for his troubles.

        Like Australians don’t wallow in rude put-downs as a matter of shaking hands.

      • Independent investigations??
        Muir-Russel was a pal of UEA, specifically bribed to clear the university’s name regardless. Pal-review all over gain.

        And Climategate was not about climate science per se, but about the corruption of it in the service of a politics agenda.

        Get over it Bart, the profession stinks. Instead of aiding and abetting and trying to cover up their rot, why don’t committed alarmists like yourself urge a cleanup ? (A bit like Muller’s approach). If the Bernie Madovs of the profession like Mann and Jones were seen to be sacked or disciplined, the impact on the public could be huge.

      • Yes, Erica … that’s what it’s all about tra-la.

        The team stand condemned by their own words
        in context That constitutes evidence though some
        there are may wish ter chuck it down the
        memory-
        hole,
        ker-
        spash!

        Beth the serf..

      • Erica | August 11, 2013 at 3:43 am |

        A sane person could believe, and should believe, with sufficient evidence a conspiracy of dozens of bad actors; http://www.infowars.com/33-conspiracy-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-true-what-every-person-should-know/ shows some candidates you may or may not believe, drawn from the files of people said initially were Leftists of questionable sanity and unquestionably ulterior motive.

        I suspect nine out of ten of these ‘proven true’ conspiracies are false, exaggerated to the point of sensationalism, incomplete and one-sided tellings, somewhat modified versions of the actual, or lacking imbedded context sufficient to actually reflect the truth.

        That still leaves some real conspiracies, and a heck of a lot of evidence.

        The evidence for any one of these 33 ‘bona fides’ is ten times the reliable evidence for your ‘basic undeniable facts’.

        Your accusations are frankly no more than defamation, less credible than the average tinfoil hat story.

        Also, it’s Bernie Madoff, not Madov. Unless you’re trying to imply Bernie Madoff was a KGB mole a la Boris Badenov, you’re repeating stories without the good grace to even get the principles’ names spelled right.

        How can we believe you, given this exaggeration and inaccuracy, the distinguished reputation of the people you’re defaming, and the fact that the world has had plenty of opportunity to investigate them, right up to the same style of hacking I’m sure Steve Mosher could confirm to you would have little difficulty in rifling through the private files of most of the inquiry participants, and given that inconsistent with your report several of the inquiries were undoubtedly run by people with every reason to skew their findings the direction you believe true, yet even they couldn’t substantiate such findings?

        You call Inhofe’s a “pal review”?

        Really?

        You’re a very bad liar, or a very, very irrational correspondent. That you hold on to these fantasies so long after they’ve been buried like the trash they are by the rest of the world?

        Doesn’t really help us tell which it is.

  33. Don Monfort said on August 9, 2013 at 1:40 am
    “It’s very amusing that they strain to portray conservatives as dimwits.”
    ______

    I portray them as old fogies. Most are aging white males, a relative shrinking demographic, one that eventually will be irrelevant. You probably are a member.

    • Conservatives are well-armed, actually have jobs, business and incomes, and we pay taxes. Certainly a dying breed in progressive ruled lands. We move out of territory controlled by the enlightened authoritarian progressives. You can buy our old houses in Detroit, where I come from, for a dollar each.

      My guess is we will make a comeback after the bankrupt progressive policies that inevitably lead to bankruptcy have played out. Looks like a white businessman has a good chance to be the next Mayor of the motor city. There is only so much progressivism they can take.

      • Don, perhaps you don’t realize it, but you come off as a gun-nutty racist creep whose mind is poisoned with fear and hatred. If that’s your intention, you are seriously screwed up. Either way, I feel sorry for you.

        I wouldn’t count on Detroit making much of a comeback. If you still live there, it seems to me the rational thing would be to move away.

      • You are just a dumb little punk, maxie. That is all the time I have for you.

      • Max_OK | August 9, 2013 at 2:37 am |
        Don, perhaps you don’t realize it, but you come off as a gun-nutty racist creep whose mind is poisoned with fear and hatred. If that’s your intention, you are seriously screwed up. Either way, I feel sorry for you.
        ———————————
        Max_OK, perhaps you don’t realize it, but that is only how it looks through the distorted eyes of a militant totalitarian ignoramus like yourself.

    • Chief Hydrologist

      Progressives seem pretty dumb. Max seems pretty typical of the breed. One comment about old guys and a host a trivial snarks. No education to speak of in science, economics, history or the arts and seemingly proud if his ignorance. Unable to put together a rational argument on anything at all let alone climate science. He has never made a substantive argument. One can only hope he is dumb enough to hit the Darwin barrier and fail to breed.

    • Max,

      So if I admitted to being a 36 year old transgender of biracial origin, who has voted Democratic more than once, would your theory still hold?

  34. ”climategate” is just exposing that: tree-rings are not reliable to be used as data === for people that such a thing needed exposing; are ignorant that ALL proxy data is phony made-up crap by people as Tony Brown, LAMB and similar oportunist

    • Stefan

      Me Mentioned in the same sentence as Lamb? I will take that entirely undeserved accolade. Thanks.

      Tonyb

    • Even worse, one tree ring in a Yamal mountain side to overturn all the temperatures by Tonyb from CET. Hockey stick based on manipulated statistics and then hide the data and code. In physics, chemistry and medicine this would never be accepted. It actually hurts the hardworking scientists to have to defend the major institutions. The leaders betrayed the integrity of the process.
      Scott

      • Why on Earth did they think it would work? Why did Hulme think it would work? He’s wondering now.
        ==================

    • Maybe surprisingly, I recommend this by McIntyre as a review of the ‘hide the decline’ divergence issue as it went from AR3 to AR4. It reveals the battles within the tree-ring community and then with the independent NAS panel with Alley that was, rightly, skeptical of tree-rings due to the ‘divergence problem’ using Climategate emails to document this.
      http://www.climateaudit.info/pdf/mcintyre-heartland_2010.pdf
      This gives some idea of where the ‘delete the emails’ came from too, and it was again related to the divergence/decline issue going into AR4. The main problem was that the divergence (tree-rings showing cooling after 1960) was not scientifically understood, which led to a lot of mistrust of the long-term tree-ring record within the scientific community. It is worth a read, but quite long.

      • Yeah, so hoi polloi got the Hockey Stick, and scientific certainty. You are beginning to catch on.
        =============

      • It shows the debate was and is within the scientific community too. There is still no consensus on how much trust can be put in tree rings. They are displayed as an independent line of evidence only.

  35. Mike Hulme is one of the good guys. By that I mean he understands what science is about, including when it intersects with other arenas.

    His willingness to speak his mind should be commended. Regardless of how much or how little you agree with his positions on climate, acknowledging his place as a credible voice should be a given.

    • Last century, when this perverted social mania had its origin, Hulme speaking of the ’cause’ was given more credibility than he should have been. Now that he’s confessing, what of his credibility?
      ===================

  36. Is this the same Mike Hulme, the perversion for the the cause started a long time ago? The only editing I’ve done is to remove the email addresses.
    So I will take what Hulme says with a pinch of salt?

    From: Joseph Alcamo <alcam
    To: m.hulme Rob.Swart
    Subject: Timing, Distribution of the Statement
    Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:52:33 0100
    Reply-to: alcamo

    Mike, Rob,

    Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.

    I would like to weigh in on two important questions —

    Distribution for Endorsements —
    I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as
    possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is
    numbers. The media is going to say "1000 scientists signed" or "1500
    signed". No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000
    without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a
    different story.

    Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking
    them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those
    names!

    Timing — I feel strongly that the week of 24 November is too late.
    1. We wanted to announce the Statement in the period when there was
    a sag in related news, but in the week before Kyoto we should expect
    that we will have to crowd out many other articles about climate.
    2. If the Statement comes out just a few days before Kyoto I am
    afraid that the delegates who we want to influence will not have any
    time to pay attention to it. We should give them a few weeks to hear
    about it.
    3. If Greenpeace is having an event the week before, we should have
    it a week before them so that they and other NGOs can further spread
    the word about the Statement. On the other hand, it wouldn't be so
    bad to release the Statement in the same week, but on a
    diffeent day. The media might enjoy hearing the message from two
    very different directions.

    Conclusion — I suggest the week of 10 November, or the week of 17
    November at the latest.

    Mike — I have no organized email list that could begin to compete
    with the list you can get from the Dutch. But I am still
    willing to send you what I have, if you wish.

    Best wishes,

    Joe Alcamo

    —————————————————-
    Prof. Dr. Joseph Alcamo, Director
    Center for Environmental Systems Research
    University of Kassel
    Kurt Wolters Strasse 3
    D-34109 Kassel
    Germany

    • Thanks, S; this in conjunction with his current thought amounts to a confession(we thank the intercession of the internet) and I’m inclined to forgive instead of rage. The rowing back is pitiful, but the effort is not.
      ==================

    • Another good one featuring Mike Hulme:

      After serving for 4-5 years in this Group I am happy that my time has
      come to hand over.

      Source: 0007.txt

  37. Alasdair S Roberts (Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy at at Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA) writes an interesting article here on the US federal responses to the 1930s drought entitled “Climate Change: How FDR Responded”. http://largeforces.net/2013/08/08/climate-change-how-fdr-responded/

    Extract:

    When the drought arrived in 1930, many people thought that it would be over in a year. No one imagined that it would last a decade. Sometimes during the decade the rain returned for a short while, and people thought that the crisis was over. In 1935, for example, the Dallas Morning News reported that a bumper wheat crop was helping southwestern farmers to “forget the drought.”[4] But the reprieve was temporary. Dust storms were so bad in parts of Texas in 1937 that there were calls for the imposition of martial law to maintain order.[5]

    While most thought the drought was transient, a few worried that it was a permanent shift in the weather, and that human activity had caused it. At the time, it was known as the problem of “climatic change.” One theory blamed the advent of radio. “Radio broadcasting releases an immense energy of vibratory character,” Professor William Hobbs of the University of Michigan reported in 1934, “and may prevent the condensation of moisture.”[6] Another theory was that the practice of draining ponds and marshes to make farmland had deprived the atmosphere of moisture. Others suspected that human activity had at least aggravated the effects of drought — that over-grazing and plowing had destroyed vegetative cover, so that soil could be whipped away by the wind.

    Worth reading the whole (brief) article. http://largeforces.net/2013/08/08/climate-change-how-fdr-responded/

    • Thanks Ruth, well worth reading.

      It does highlight the way that climate issues quickly seep into vast, unrelated areas of public policy, and can be used as a vehicle for completely separate agendas. The constant, however, is providing a rationale for expanding government intervention in the private activities of citizens. Not only that, but it is rare indeed for those interventions to be withdrawn once the crisis is past.

  38. yes, Climategate was impoetant because it made scientists rethink ther positions and brought home to the general public that there were legitiate doubts to the IPCC poaition. My own position was initially one of doubt. That a rare gas, with a specific heat not very different from N2 and )2 and less than 1% of the atmosphere could have such a large efect on climate.. This was tempered by my knowledfe of guidance systems that use IR to track a target and the difficuties therin,

    However when I looked at ehe data on earth’s clinate and the dramatic globai temperature rise betwrrn 1910 and 1940 of 0,5C, I could see no other cause than CO2. But this rise was ignored by the IPCC which tells us more about bthe IPCC than climate.. But that still leaves the question, how can the CO2 molecule absorb so much heat?. Only in one or more of its vibration modes. Certainly those modes are fully excited when it leaves a car tailpipe or chimney. But when it reaches the earth’s average temperature of 13C, it is probably at ground state and no longer a threat. If you agree with this analysis you will also agree agree that it is on;y new CO2, not total CO2, that is important to climate..

    • Chief Hydrologist

      Alexander – you need to update to IE10 or Mozilla. Both will give you a spell check.

      And if it is in a gaseous state – as it is in the atmosphere – CO2 retains the ability to absorb and emit photons. The emission state is relevant to initial conditions – but the conditions are maintained by energy from the Sun via the surface.

      • Chief: Sorry about rhe spelling. New keyboard and glasses.When CO2 is in its base state sun energy will only provide kinetic energy as it does for N2 and O2. It takes the high temperatures of a boiler or internal combustion engine to excite the vibrational modes of CO2.

      • Chief Hydrologist

        Physics distinguishes between kinetic and potential energy. The sum is the internal energy of the atom or molecule.

        e.g. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/inteng.html

        Kinetic energy is the translational and vibrational modes identified with heat. One form of potential energy is associated with the quantum orbits of electrons.

        This is quite fun.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KL74fLjTs0

        Below is a video that describes the basic process of primary energy states of electrons. CO2 in the atmosphere can absorb photons in the IR with an electron quantum jump into a higher energy state. Some 7% – I am told – of photon collisions with CO2 molecules result in absorption and subsequent emission. The bulk of collisions change the kinetic energy of the molecules.

  39. “For scientific knowledge to earn credibility as public knowledge scientists have to work as hard outside the laboratory as they do inside”

    The problem is that their work “INSIDE the laboratory” is flawed and biased. Forget about “outside the laboratory”. The problem is, many climate scientists are so biased, that what they produce is actually advocacy masquerading as science. They produce lousy science “inside the laboratory”.
    I have not noticed Mike Hulme admitting that.

  40. For scientific knowledge to earn credibility as public knowledge scientists have to work as hard outside the laboratory as they do inside

    I would say they need to work harder, but only inside laboratory. When they bring in difficult predictions made true, there won’t be much of credibility problem. Does “ballistic science” have any credibility problem?

  41. “Climate scientists, their institutions and their sponsors – i.e., climate science as an enterprise – were forced to stop and reflect on how they organised their interactions with the outside world”

    Were they also forced to stop and reflect why they produced such lousy scientific (unscientific) work as the hockey-stick, and why the whole climate-science community applauded and promoted this piece of rubbish?

    Seems Mike Hulme still doesn’t get it. The problem isn’t “the interaction with the outside world”. It is the biased science itself. Hulme seems unaware of it, or in denial – refusing to admit it.

  42. For scientific knowledge to earn credibility as public knowledge scientists have to work as hard outside the laboratory as they do inside, through repeated demonstrations of their integrity, accessibility and trustworthiness. Only then will they be judged as reliable witnesses and their knowledge deemed credible. This is not easy to do, as the events surrounding Climategate showed.

    But beyond these reasons for climate change scepticism, in the years following Climategate it has become more important to distinguish between at least four different aspects of the conventional climate change narrative where scepticism may emerge.

    I see a distinct lack of integrity still as the basic premises of AGW’s Greenhouse Effect are never allowed to be examined, mostly this is avoided by direct censorship and accompanied often by the deceit that they do not censor. This happens across the board, MSM such as the Grauniad and CAGW blogs like Skeptical Science have been roundly attacked for this by AGWs calling themselves skeptics, but when it comes to discussion of the basic physics on which both these build their theories the AGWs also do all they can to avoid examination of it.

    Singer began, or perhaps was just one of the leaders, of this separation to changing ‘skepticism’ to mean only arguments about nuances of doctrine among those sharing the same basic dogma. He had no compunction when loudly proclaiming this novel meaning of skepticism to distance himself and his camp from those he called deniers of the Greenhouse Effect dogma.

    All the while this was happening there were countless posts on blogs such as WUWT claiming they were being victimised as deniers when they were not denying the basic dogma, many posts full of angst at this choice of word to describe those arguing about the science of AGW by CAGWs, and many puzzled CAGWs wondering what the heck was going on as they had used that word only to describe those denying the Greenhouse Effect Dogma.

    This new version of skepticism was accompanied by exactly the same disgraceful behaviour they condemned when coming from CAGWs – and seemingly unable to see the hypocricy in refusing to produce evidence for their Dogma while claiming it existed by ‘consensus’. Here, ‘it was very well known’ and ‘proved by countless experiments’ and the general ‘handwave to the past authority of Arrhenius/Tyndall/Fourier’, enough to ‘prove they were right’, while refusing to fetch any of these claimed empirical studies – those denying the Dogma were being successfully marginalised further by this wave of supercilious blocking of arguments from AGWs all the while they were hypocrically proclaiming their repulsion to the blocking of discussion on the science and objecting to the malpractices such as hiding open access of data.

    So will this post make the light of day into this discussion?

    If I leave it at that as a general comment, there is a chance it will appear…

    If I go into more detail to give example that their common Dogma of the Greenhouse Effect has no validity in real world physics, then it will not.

    You have all, CAGWs and AGWs alike, censored traditional physics by refusing to discuss it. It is your utter contemptuous hypocricy which rankles, you are not scientists, you are political pawns.

  43. I’m fairly confident that in a random sample of the ‘public’ only single digit percentages of people would even have heard of ‘climategate’.

    It’s impact it’s primarily in small corners of the inter-webs.

  44. “I suspect not; even senior scientists are intimidated by the ‘consensus police’ and don’t want to be subjected to what I have had to put up with (a number of scientists have told me this).” – JC

    Priceless!

    More evidence fee assertions from Judith.

    Quite a martyr-complex Judith has.

    • Censoring debate is what creates the climate of fear.

    • All she has to do is name them. It would be doing them a favor. If what she is saying is true, they’re obviously cowards and they deserve to be outed. Then we can get about selling cheap electricity to those poor people making $2 a day.

      • Out them! Says the intolerant, JCH?:o)
        Your kind of science is funny stuff doc…

      • As the book we all like says, we should feel a need to repent so we can confess our own selves. There is lots to do too let’s grow.

    • Steven Mosher

      Its not evidence free

      She offers evidence

      Your choice:

      1. Judith I dont trust you when you claim that others told you they fear the consensus police
      2. Judith, please share those mails or name those people.

      She’s given evidence. It might not be evidence you trust, but its evidence.

      I will add that I too have been told this, mostly by younger scientists working on their Phds. I won’t be sharing their names.

      You are free to doubt this testimony. It is what it is.

      Now of course I could release some mails showing you the names of people who have expressed their fear, but since their fear is well grounded, I’ll pass on giving you evidence that you would doubtless find a way to deny or marginalize.

      • I don’t always agree with you, Steven, but I (pretty much) trust you. I’d certainly like to know the results of any investigation you did/do of the Salby affair.

      • ‘Someone’ told me Mosher is a jerk, hence I have evidence Mosher is a jerk.

        Really?

      • Thanks to Steven Mosher and Judith Curry. There is a climate of intimidation and they are shinning beacons of integrity.
        Scott

    • I don’t doubt Judith’s veracity.

      What is interesting, however, is that she doesn’t provide context. Of the many, many scientists she has had interactions with, she says “a number” have expressed being “intimidated” or not wanting to be “subjected” to what she has had to put up with. OK. I don’t think she’d make that up.

      Some important context that is missing:

      1) What would the approximate % of scientists she’s run up against who have expressed such opinions be, as compared to the % of scientists who have told her that they think she is wrong about the science, and that she is contributing to an atmosphere where they, in fact, are being intimidated by the “skeptical police?” For example, one would think that Judith might be interested in discussing “intimidation” with Marcott?

      2) What would the approximate % of scientists she’s run up against who have expressed such opinions be, as compared to the % of scientists that she’s interacted with who have simply not expressed any particular feelings about being “intimidated” one way or the other?

      3) How many scientists present science that is not consistent with the science of the “consensus police,” but who don’t report attempts at intimidation?

      4) Is there something characteristic about the specific scientists who have expressed a concern about “intimidation” that, apparently, leads them to sacrifice the integrity of their science due to the politics related to the climate wars?

      5) To what extent is climate science different than any other research field, or even any other profession, w/r/t the level of “intimidation” people feel about expressing their opinions when they run against more prevalent viewpoints within their profession? Is the degree of “intimidation” greater than other fields of research? If so, much greater? Much, much greater?

  45. The only thing climategate convinced me of was that the scientists concerned were not as obtusely stupid as they appeared; they knew full well that there was a MWP, that Mann’s paper was rubbish, that they were “over-egging the pudding” and that they really couldn’t explain why nature hadn’t followed their models of doom but they nevertheless felt compelled to pretend they knew things that they palpably didn’t for the sake of policy. It gave a clear picture that what they say in private and what they say in public are entirely opposite to each other. In short they changed my opinion of them from a bunch of idiots to a bunch of liars IMO.

  46. The Very Reverend Jebediah Hypotenuse

    Judith Curry:

    …even senior scientists are intimidated by the ‘consensus police’ and don’t want to be subjected to what I have had to put up with (a number of scientists have told me this).

    One wonders – –
    How did Dr. Judith Curry ever end up securing tenure and with a position as the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the wake of such Evil Oppression and Bullying from the Konsensus Kops?

    Move over Murry Salby.

    Judith Curry – You are the proud winner of the Victim-of-the-Week-Award!

    BTW – FWIW, this sentence is missing “day” and it parses terribly.

    Intolerance for skepticism and overconfidence remains the order of the as evidenced by the recent AGU Statement on Climate Change.

    Probably somebody else is to blame.

    • Joshua’s cousin. If a bit smarter.

      • He is a lot smarter than joshie. He is even clever. Joshie isn’t. But joshie has it all over the Very Reverend in smarminess.

    • David Springer

      I presume Curry arrived at her current position before she decided to air the dirty laundry she perceived in her corner of the academy. Ostensibly tenure’s purpose is to allow people awarded with it to no longer need to stifle politically incorrect thoughts and other academic heresies like disagreeing with the majority opinion of peers and higher ups.

      • The Very Reverend Jebediah Hypotenuse

        Presume away.

        But – Nobody cares about “dirty laundry” concern-trolling, “politically incorrect thoughts”, or (gasp!) “disagreeing with the majority opinion of peers” except drama-queens and people who think that blog posts are science.

        It’s all rhetoric – and if that’s all you’ve got, you’re in no position to lecture others in the scientific academy.

        Aside from tenure’s ostensible purpose, it also provides dry shelter for dead wood.

      • John Carpenter

        The interesting question for the Rev is… for someone speaking as though they are an active member of the scientific academy (and I certainly don’t claim to be one myself), why you feel it necessary to use a pseudonym when making such pithy comments? If you are a peer of Judy Curry, wouldn’t it mean more to her if she knew who you are? Aren’t members of the scientific academy supposed to embrace openness and transparency in communicating to one another? Anonymous has no position lecturing the scientific academy either, unless there is a fear of losing something in the process. So what are you afraid of? If I am mistaken and your not a member of the scientific academy, my apologies for querying you about the matter. And in that case, congratulations on being just another anonymous nobody shooting off at the mouth trying to be a somebody.

      • John Carpenter,

        You’re appealing to pride to get information out of an anonymous commenter while using one of David Appel’s most favourite lines of argument.

        I find it uncool.

        ***

        Suppose I say this:

        > Nobody cares about “dirty laundry” concern-trolling, “politically incorrect thoughts”, or (gasp!) “disagreeing with the majority opinion of peers” except drama-queens and people who think that blog posts are science.

        Let’s also suppose that I say this:

        > It’s all rhetoric – and if that’s all you’ve got, you’re in no position to lecture others in the scientific academy.

        Would you try to dismiss these claims by attacking my anonymity?

        ***

        Now, I’m not saying I endorse all of this. I just want to make a point.

        If you have to remember one thing, it is that one does not simply dismiss a point about identity politics with ad hominems.

        We can talk about identity politics if you wish.

      • John Carpenter

        Willard, perhaps I should have replied directly to the first comment by the Rev. where it says:

        “One wonders – –
        How did Dr. Judith Curry ever end up securing tenure and with a position as the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the wake of such Evil Oppression and Bullying from the Konsensus Kops?

        Move over Murry Salby.

        Judith Curry – You are the proud winner of the Victim-of-the-Week-Award!”

        Don’t you find it a bit interesting he sarcastically refers to ‘Evil Oppression and bullying from the Konsensus Kops’ toward Judy where presumably it means there is no such thing, that she is using that as a false example of what she has experienced because of her ability to reach tenure? By posing the question, isn’t it saying there really is no reason to fear ‘the consensus community’? There is no retribution, look Judy Curry got tenure as an academic equivalent to Murry Salby?

        All by an anonymous commenter?

        He he, it’s a richly hypocritical comment. So why not ask the Rev who really is? What’s he got to fear? There is no retribution for speaking out or speaking one’s mind? Is there?

        And who says David Appel doesn’t have a few good lines of argument as well? ;)

      • John Carpenter

        And Willard, Please don’t take the whole ‘anonymous nobody shooting off at the mouth trying to be a somebody’ part as an ad hom directed to anyone else other than just the Rev. You can sleep peacefully.

      • Puh-leeze, John.

        While I can agree that one should not get too personal anonymously and can also concede that Reverend may have been too confrontational, I think this ought not distract us from his point about identity politics.

        It has lots of merits.

        ***

        Besides, I’m not sure talking about hypocrisy in a 2013 op-ed about ClimateGate would be optimal. Let’s recap the episodes:

        CG I – The Miracle Worker
        CG II – Remember Yamal
        CG III – Return of the Bitcoins

        What was your favourite episode?

      • +1

      • John Carpenter

        Heh, yeah, the Rev was intending to bring up Identity Politics in that comment. So clearly stated in that not intended to be complimentary to Judy Curry comment. But if you want to credit him for it, I will not get in your way, you are only too generous with that vision.

        To properly speak of this example as one of identity politics, I would love to know under what name we should refer it as? Consensus Contrarian Nationalism? Anti-Science Denierism? Natural Variation Rights? Go ahead, give it a try. We need to identify what identity politic we are speaking about to get to the merits of such a discussion.

        And nothing beats CG I.

      • Yes, John, I think the Reverend was simply reminding Judy that one does not simply play victim in another lukewarm episode of Identity Politics — We Should Talk. The choice of “consensus police” was suboptimal. Pot, meet kettle.

        ClimateBall is fueld by self-fulfilling prophecies.

        ***

        Since you do have sensibilities for strong words, please spare a thought for Jerry Sandusky, who got compared to Mike:

        Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.

        http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/28121027514

        Have also a thought for Graham Spanier, who got associated with Mike:

        On the same day that Nature published yet another editorial repudiating public examination of the conduct of academic institutions, Penn State President Graham Spanier was fired from his $813,000/year job for failing to ensure that a proper investigation was carried out in respect to pedophilia allegations in Penn State’s hugely profitable football program.

        http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/15511915533

        ***

        Shirt ripping should be left to Groundskeeper Willie.

      • David Springer

        You boys are missing the point. Da Reverend, whoever the coward really is, is an idiot for making the comment. Instead of me merely presuming about Curry’s tenure I checked and I was right.

        http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/files/currycv.pdf

        “2002- Chair and Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
        Georgia Institute of Technology”

        She came out of the climate science closet subsequent to being appointed to her current position.

    • Steven Mosher

      you havent followed Judiths history. and you dont follow logic very well.

      look at when judith got her position.
      look at the date of her first run in with the consensus police.

      hint: the consensus police can only operate on you if you already live on their beat.

      If you live outside their beat ( like me) they cant wield their bully clubs.
      Then they use other tools, like data denial

      • The Very Reverend Jebediah Hypotenuse

        Coach Mosher:

        look at when judith got her position.
        look at the date of her first run in with the consensus police.

        Thanks for the hint – I could care less about the epic narrative of Judith’s history as a climate rebel – or your rhetorical untouchableness – but not by much.

        Identity politics is for kids.

        And – Consensus police? Give it a break.
        Heat. Kitchen.

      • Steven Mosher

        And – Consensus police? Give it a break.
        Heat. Kitchen.

        ##############

        Funny, when folks complain about the pain of sharing data or answering FOIA, and I suggested heat. kitchen to them, you were nowhere to be found.
        The consensus police dont bother me any more. I have their mails.

      • “consensus police” is just a cheap rhetorical trick.

        The truth is Judith is enamoured of the idea of beingsome kind of maverick.

        Real scientific mavericks reach that status by the power of their original thinking.

        Judith thinks she can get there by the power of her complaining – ‘oh look!, I’m being repressed!!!’

    • David Springer

      She arrived at her current position in 2002 before she came out of the climate science closet, dummy.

    • The Very Reverend Jebediah Fullabee-ess.

  47. “How did Dr. Judith Curry ever end up securing tenure and with a position as the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences?”

    By being a compliant statist drone, I would guess.

    Andrew

  48. Judith, you write “Here’s hoping that progress can continue to be made,”

    Progress is being made, and will continue to be made as we add more and more CO2 to the atmosphere, and get the measured. empirical data of what this actually does. And this year’s data is giving a very strong indication that adding CO2 to the atmopshere has zero effect on Arctric sea ice extent.

    • Why, because the current sea ice extent is already lower than the average minimum for the decade of the 90s?

      Sea ice extent is lower than in the 90s and CO2 is higher, might there be a link?

      The melt is not done yet

      • Bob, you write “Why, because the current sea ice extent is already lower than the average minimum for the decade of the 90s?”

        No. Mark Serreze proposed Arctic sea ice was in a “death spiral”, because each year there was less and less older ice, so it melts faster; until we get to no summer ice. One year cannot make a trend, but it can break a trend.

        Using Mark’s logic in reverse, it looks like this year there will be a lot more first year ice when the freeze starts, so there will be more second year ice when the melt starts next year. This will set in a progression of more and more Arctic sea ice, until we return to 1980 levels. Then whatever causes the cycling of Arctic sea ice will reverse, and we will have years of decreasing sea ice.

        Nothing to do with CO2.

      • “what is the bottom line on the attribution of the recent sea ice melt? My assessment is that it is likely (>66% likelihood) that there is 50-50 split between natural variability and anthropogenic forcing, with +/-20% range.” – Dr Judith Curry

        BTW the death spiral refers to the longterm trend in ice accelerating downwards. A single year of more ice does not contradict it.

        Afterall there was more ice in 2008 than in 2007. And more so again in 2009.

      • lolwot

        You quote our hostess:

        “what is the bottom line on the attribution of the recent sea ice melt? My assessment is that it is likely (>66% likelihood) that there is 50-50 split between natural variability and anthropogenic forcing, with +/-20% range.” – Dr Judith Curry

        Ignoring the “>66% likelihood”, this means that half of the “recent sea ice melt” can be attributed to natural causes.

        IOW if these “natural causes” reverse themselves (i.e. act in the opposite direction), we would have no sea ice melt.

        Right?

        Max

      • yes correct

      • lolwot

        Thanks for your reply. We agree (assuming Judith’s estimate is correct).

        In both the Arctic and the Antarctic “natural causes” (the seasons) are responsible for the seasonal decrease/increase in sea ice extent, which are, of course, much larger than the average annual change.

        Over the past five years the seasonal (natural) change has been around 10 msk in the Arctic and almost 14 msk in the Antarctic.

        This compares with an average linear decline of around 0.4 msk in the Arctic and an increase of around 0.2 msk in the Antarctic.

        Ain’t nature grand?

        Max

    • Jim, there is a negative correlation between sea ice extent and CO2 which you have done nothing to dispel.

      Your comments about first and second year ice notwithstanding, Serreze’s comments were about much older ice, and your comments depend on how much first year ice survives the melt season this fall, could be significant, could be not much.

      I eagerly await the return of 1980’s levels of sea ice, unfortunately we have have to reduce levels of CO2 to get there. We will see won’t we?

      • Bob, you write “Jim, there is a negative correlation between sea ice extent and CO2 which you have done nothing to dispel.”

        Absolutely correct. There is a positive correlation between CO2 and Antarctic sea ice. So what? I know there are pal reviewed papers, in prestigeous scientific journals, which explain why CO2 cause Arctic sea ice to melt and Antarctic sea ice to freeze. I dont believe any of them. So, to me, the indications are that CO2 is uncorrelated with total sea ice; which has been approximately constant since 1979, and is currently very close to zero anomaly.

      • Both theory and models predict the SIE in the Antarctic to decrease.That both CMIP5 and PMIP3 (paleo) fail to capture both observations ( The spreads are in the Mkm^2 ) and theoretical expectations suggest that systemic bias in the models.

      • Jim, you might consider whether or not total sea ice is a good indicator of the relationship between CO2 and global temperature. I would say its not, especially since the effects that are causing antarctic sea ice to increase have little to do with CO2 at the present time. Maybe in 40 years or so, antarctic sea ice may well still show positive anomalies and even positive trends. If we are both still alive and this blog still exists, I remember to tell you I told you so.

        Anyway, anyone have any cites that predicted Antarctic sea ice levels to decrease anytime soon?

        I probably missed them

  49. Without having read the other 294 comments which may have picked this point up, but no, the UK hasn’t “learned these lessons”! If it had, we would have a government and academic institutions that had abandoned all CO2 = warming pretense, cancelled CO2 based taxes and regulation, killed stone dead any renewables subsidies, and granted fracking licenses at least 18 months ago. We are seemingly still a long way off “learning these lessons”, with only UKIP being a party that sees through the whole Globull warming fraud.

  50. patrioticduo

    The entire CAGW group is a cult. And I recommend Steve Hassan’s “Combating Cult Mind Control”. http://www.amazon.com/Combatting-Cult-Mind-Control-Best-selling/dp/0892813113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376058260&sr=8-1&keywords=combating+cult+mind+control too many people remain convinced that they are too intelligent to become victim of thought reform. But that belief in and of itself makes them vulnerable just as much as anyone of supposed lesser intellectual capacity. Stockholm syndrome also applies because lolwot, Joshua et al are not members of the cults inner circle but defend it just as though they are. While at the same time, us “deniers” have our own beliefs, groups and strictures. They make us systematically vulnerable to the same mob mentality. So, I personally am very glad that the Sun is going to be the final arbiter of this whole ridiculous mess. It is quite ironic that all of the striving on both sides of this argument are going to end up relying on the empirical evidence in front of us. The proof will not come from models, argument and debate. It’s going to be “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?” – Mr Sol

    • Right on…

      And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
      And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

      He, a rose too.
      Hope

    • Don’t buy you’re carefully crafted, above the fray objectivity. In fact, you’ve articulated the denier approach precisely, although a little public debate would be nice

      “….all of the striving on both sides of this argument are going to end up relying on the empirical evidence in front of us. The proof will not come from models, argument and debate. It’s going to be “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?”

  51. “One of the interesting responses from the academic community since Climategate has been a new interest in studying and understanding the various manifestations of climate change scepticism.”

    Another response has been to establish whitewashing committees, to sweep the dirt under the rug and deny it ever happened.

    The response we would like to see but haven’t: denouncing bad science and bad scientific practices, naming culprits, assigning responsibility, retracting bad papers, resignations of the worst offenders.
    What we have NOT seen is an improvement in the science itself, in it’s openness, in sharing data and code, in admitting uncertainty, in including dissenting views in synthesis reports.

  52. Steven Mosher

    Like Moshpit said: More Hulme.

    “My contention is that the events surrounding Climategate in late 2009 have opened up new spaces for such agonistic democratic virtues to be exercised. “

  53. One funny aside is that despite your personal view about the emails and the whitewashes/investigations the one thing everyone agreed on was that refusing to release data was a very bad thing. Then they acted even worse than before! They can do whatever they like with no comeback whatsoever. Pathetic!

  54. Peter Foster: Crazy over climate
    The Royal Society, the U.K.’s once-venerable academy of science, has arguably lost its collective mind over the theory of projected catastrophic man-made global warming.

    http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/08/08/peter-foster-crazy-over-climate/

    • The Very Reverend Jebediah Hypotenuse

      Heh.

      Another devastating take down of thermodynamics from the Financial Post opinion pages.

      You know it’s devastating ’cause they lead with a picture of Al Gore.

      Poor Royal Society – If only those small minds that include over 80 Nobel laureates had had the foresight to consult Mr Foster before trying to “do science” without his advice.

      • Rev

        How many of those “80 Nobel laureates” are in climate science?

        Max

      • How many climate scientists have climate science degrees? Not many. I think some of them are suffering from the Dunning–Kruger effect. When it comes to statistics, McIntyre has proved more than once some of these guys DO suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect.

  55. Let’s play odd and queer but not peculiar:

    Climategate.
    Al Gore is fat.
    Lew.
    predictions of no snow.
    Muller’s not a “skeptic.”

  56. > Scientific controversies not only reveal intellectual arguments, struggles for power and human limitations within the practices and institutions of science, they also reflect the dynamics of these exact same phenomena in the wider culture within which science takes place.

    Indeed. See for yourself:

    Mr McIntyre’s entire appeal was built upon an assertion that the disputed information was withheld without intention to publish and should be disclosed under the EIR because it would ‘show a long-standing academic fraud by the Climatic Research Unit’.

    http://www.informationtribunal.gov.uk/DBFiles/Decision/i1014/20130517%20Decision%20EA20120156.pdf

    Seems that even tribunals can hear dogwhistled F words.

  57. Judith Curry

    Thanks for posting this interesting article by Mike Hulme.

    Hulme writes:

    The populist notion that all climate sceptics are either in the pay of oil barons or are right-wing ideologues, as is suggested for example by studies such as Oreskes and Conway (2011), cannot be sustained.

    Of course not. It was a totally fabricated notion, to start off with.

    As you remark:

    Hulme correctly describes a range of reasons for being skeptical about climate change, and identifies four different aspects around which skepticism can emerge.

    Hulme cites “big science” (the highly political, multi-billion dollar AGW business), sensationalism by the press (plus some scientists turned advocates) or simply “issue fatigue”, but there is no doubt that Climategate was a principle factor exacerbating skepticism, as were the discredited Mann “hockey stick” and Al Gore’s “IAT” movie, with all its false claims and scientific errors.

    In the U.S. anyway, the Oreskes’ merchant of doubt meme seems to remain predominant. Intolerance for skepticism and overconfidence remains the order of the [day] as evidenced by the recent AGU Statement on Climate Change.

    It is noteworthy that the consensus hardliners are strongest in the USA, particularly since public opinion there seems to be the most skeptical (an August 2011 Rasmussen poll showed that close to 70% of respondents believed that climate scientists were fudging the data).

    Looks like there is a major disconnect between AGU, Oreskes and the other consensus hardliners in the USA and the general public.

    Guess Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all the time.

    Max

  58. Latimer Alder

    I’ve read the Climategate e-mails.

    I would not buy a used car from any of the perps or their many acolytes.

    And I trust their pal-reviewed ‘science’ just about as much.

  59. Mike Hulme at least has linguistic eloquence. I’ve learnt a new word – agonistic- and it doesn’t mean struggling in agony as I first assumed, but struggling in argument.

  60. Here’s the counter-punch to the highly science-qualified Oreskes …
    “Major Danish Daily Warns: “Globe May Be On Path To Little Ice Age…Much Colder Winters…Dramatic Consequences”!

    By P Gosselin on 9. August 2013

    JP_1Another major European media outlet is asking: Where’s the global warming?

    Image right: The August 7 edition of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten, featured a major 2-page article on the globe’s 15-years of missing warming and the potential solar causes and implications.

    Moreover, they are featuring prominent skeptic scientists who are warning of a potential little ice age and dismissing CO2 as a major climate driver. And all of this just before the release of the IPCC’s 5AR, no less!”

    http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/08/09/major-danish-daily-newspaper-warns-globe-may-be-on-path-to-little-ice-agemuch-colder-wintersdramatic-consequences/

    • This is major news…not the possible cooling which is something most of us have been aware of for some years now, but that a major paper in a very “green” country, is reporting it. Of course alarmists will as always either snarkily dismiss this as meaning nothing, or will miss it entirely.

      Slumber at your peril Climate etc. alarmists. You can’t say you haven’t been warned. Repeatedly.

      • A center right wing newspaper publishes something vaguely skeptical about climate.

        Not new. And not news.

    • But the cooling isn’t happening … the models tell us so. The models are science, don’t you know.

  61. The Arctic sea ice is faring pretty well, if you think more ice is better for whatever reason.

    http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png

    The melt season hasn’t been much to speak of ..

    http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

    Wonder if this is a shot across the bow?

  62. Nate Silver may have a thought for our Miracle Worker:

    “Insiderism” is the enemy of scientific objectivity. It is expensive to obtain inside information because it takes journalists a considerable amount of time and effort to cultivate the required relationships. In the end, the information may not, in fact, be useful. In most cases, the benefits of a little scientific objectivity outweigh what could be learned from a little inside info.

    http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2013/08/nate-silver-jsm.html

    Unless, of course, people are more interested in parlor conversations than science.

  63. Climate’s warmin’ (a ditty to the tune of “Jesus loves me, this I know”)

    {Apologies to Anna Bartlett Warner and William Batchelder Bradbury]

    Climate’s warmin’, this I know
    ‘Cause the models tell me so
    Greenhouse warmin’s might strong
    All those experts can’t be wrong

    (Refrain)
    Yes, climate’s warmin’
    Bugs will be swarmin’
    Too dry for farmin’
    The models tell me so.

    Climate’s warmin’, an’ what’s more
    If you’re livin’ near the shore
    Waves of twenty feet or more
    Gonna drown you, sez Al Gore

    (Refrain)

    Climate’s warmin’ this is true
    Po-li-ti-shuns say it, too
    An’ it’s caused by me an’ you
    So let’s tax that C-O-2

    (Refrain)

    Climates’s warmin’, day by day
    This is what the models say
    But despite Pachauri’s fears
    It hasn’t warmed in fifteen years.

    (Refrain)

    Max

  64. An interesting project, vintage 2004-05-21:

    CONFIDENTIAL TO ENV – State of Play

    The research councils want a 5000 word outline bid by mid-October. The councils are putting up 2 million pounds per year for 5 years are NERC, EPSRC and ESRC. […]

    We are aware of 3-4 competitors, which are mainly consortia of some form. […]

    Business/industry links are important, as are links with relevant institutes abroad. We anticipate writing in some industrial/business partners. […]

    The research councils have emphasised the importance of attracting a top-rate international scientist as Research Director. They also wish us to name the Executive Director at this point. We believe it should be someone with a reputation in climate research in their own right, good links etc with the “impacts” people and with funders, as well as being a good manager/organiser. We anticipate naming Mike Hulme. From what we have heard, that will give us an additional advantage over other bids.

    V. 0014

    Was Mike Hulme finally nominated?

    • Strange backdating:

      Following the positive international review of the Tyndall Centre in April 2004, the three sponsoring Research Councils – NERC, EPSRC & ESRC – have offered the Tyndall Centre a further three year contract to March 2009 for Phase 2. At this event we will launch our new exciting research programmes.

      http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/content/04052006-tyndall-centre-phase-ii-launch-event

    • Compare the strategical outline of 0014 with this prospectus about Tynsdall Phase 2:

      We have designed a framework – based on Neo-Gramscian and governmentality approaches – in order to conceptualize the increasing involvement of non-state actors in international climate politics. Moreover, a meso-level study designed to profile commitments and activities on a spreadsheet and on-line database has been initiated. The findings shall enhance our understanding of the collective impact of these initiatives, by allocating responsibilities and designing more effective policies for the post 2012 regime.

      http://www.l20.org/publications/30_ux_10-Tyndall.doc‎

      Properties say this has been written by Fariborz Zelli.

      • We have written a paragraph – based on neo-verbosian approaches – in order to conceptualize the increasing involvement of non-state actors in reading it. We’ve also created a spreadsheet which we are filling in with stuff. Should be useful.

  65. My Dad was a very wise man (he was my dad after all)
    One of his sayings was that, whenever I felt angry, I should count to 10.
    That’s a bit of advice that a lot of people here should take.
    When someone taunts or baits you, take a deep breath, compose your answer and ignore the temptation to get drawn in.
    Some here have clearly mastered baiting.
    Don’t let your anger pull you down to their level.
    I come here for edification not frustration.
    And so should you.

  66. You’ve hit on one of my heroes manacker.
    Still love reading Mark Twain.

  67. Our Miracle Worker did capture some spiritual moments:

    Vintage 2002-06-12, #0080:

    Connecting with Culture?

    I guess for an increasing number of people in Holy Trinity, email is a dominant mode of communication and medium for the receipt of information. It certainly is for me. Amongst this non-stop flow of messages in my inbox – some important, some trivial, some junk – I am very grateful to receive twice a week a short Biblically-based commentary on topical issues in todays culture. It takes only 2 minutes to read, but it injects into my working day nuggets of Christian thought and perspective which compete effectively, and sometimes by surprise, with the constant flow of electronic information I receive. So whether it is a comment on Myra Hindley and the reality of repentance, the latest Harry Potter film as seen through Christian eyes, or a sharp analysis of the contrasts of abundance and poverty we see at Christmas, these 2-minute thought pieces are studded through my working week and bring Christ into the workplace. And on occasions, the comment is so apt and timely I find it appropriate to forward to a secular colleague.

    The service is free to anyone with an email address and is offered by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity – of which John Stott is a founder and patron – and is called “Connecting with culture”. For those interested simply send an email request to [me].

    Hope that Tom will appreciate Mike’s apt and timely oecumenism.

  68. Another outcome of Climategate was that people didn’t trust Jones or his CRUTEM data (because he was being reluctant to release it in the face of dozens of FOIA requests by random CA people). Anyway as a result Muller, accompanied eagerly by fellow skeptics, Watts and Curry, and funded by the Koch brothers set out to do their own CRUTEM properly. When it started to look like the results would just confirm CRUTEM, Watts and Curry jumped ship, and left Muller to publish BEST himself and turn non-skeptic. This all would not have happened without Climategate, but now it is part of the history.

    • Steven Mosher

      Ya, most people dont realize that climategate was a major inspiration.

    • Yes, and it was a good thing that Muller jumped in because he was independent of the crew tainted by Climategate. You know Muller is doing good things when neither side likes him very much.

    • Climategate initially threw mud at the CRU temperature record by inference from the FOIA refusals, and that mud stayed through Copenhagen, and in fact until BEST came along to exonerate the data. It was just a temporary respite, thanks to the “skeptics”, from the truth, but they served their political purpose for that period, and some still think they are in that period.

      • They also threw mud at the Mann hockey stick from AR3, but AR4 had already replaced that in 2007, and they mostly didn’t care about the little detail that those emails were 10 years old, from 1999, because it spoiled their narrative of implying ongoing issues.

      • Jim D – The hockey stick was still dead, last time I checked.

      • And, the BEST temperature reconstruction still contains UHI bias. The dendro paleo handle of the hockey stick isn’t generated by thermometers, therefore the physics needed to construct a temperature is very complicated and, in fact, is unknown. At any rate, the hockey stick isn’t convincing.

      • It’s dead Jim

      • The point was the Mann hockey stick was dead even before Climategate for anyone who had actually looked at the 2007 AR4 which came out two years earlier than the 2009 Climategate. Climategate resurrected the Mann hockey stick to bury it again.

      • So, are you going to tell all of the schoolchildren exposed to ‘A Convenient Untruth’ that the hockey stick was actually dead, just animated through a cartoon?
        ====================

      • The CO2 hockey stick, illustrated so well by Al Gore, is alive and well.

      • Jim D could ask Thompson how much of AIT’s stick was the Piltdown Mann’s.

        You are seeing a ghost, Jim D. Marcott was the consensus’s best shot at reviving it, it staggered to its feet and ran all the way to the White House, but it is a zombie.
        ====================

      • Brandon Shollenberger

        It’s weird Jim D says the hockey stick was dead before the AR4. Mann’s hockey stick was included in the AR4, twice. It was also included in Al Gore’s speaking tour, movie and book. And the year after the AR4 came out, Michael Mann published a paper claiming to validate his original hockey stick, repeating this claim for years after, including in a book he still promotes on his publicity tours.

        That’s strange for a dead thing.

      • Brandon S, the AR4 version had about 12 paleo reconstructions overlaid, so Mann could be put in the context of other more recent work. It even had an MWP if you look more closely, but perhaps you missed it. I always see tree-ring data as too noisy to trust. It would not be my first choice for evidence.

      • The problem Jim D, is that all those efforts to make straight the shaft are damning, not persuasive.
        ====================

    • Only in Jim D’s politically-corrected history was Muller ever a skeptic.
      He was a devout alarmist all along, who realized the damage Jones’s secrecy and chicanery had done the alarmist cause, and wanted to offset this.

  69. “annual temperatures up to AD 2000 over extra-tropical NH land areas have probably exceeded by about 0.3 °C the warmest previous interval over the past 1162 years”

    Cook, Edward R.; Esper, Jan; D’Arrigo, Rosanne D. (November 2004), “Extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere land temperature variability over the past 1000 years”, Quaternary Science Reviews 23 (20—22): 2063–2074, Bibcode:2004QSRv…23.2063C, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2004.08.013.

    “The ECS series was never created to examine annual, or even decadal, time-scale temperature variability. Rather, as was clearly indicated in the paper, it was created to show how one can preserve multi-centennial climate variability in certain long tree-ring records, as a refutation of Broecker’s truly “flawed” essay. As ECS showed in their paper (Table 1), the high-frequency correlations with NH mean annual temperatures after 20-year high-pass filtering is only 0.15. That result was expected and it makes no meaningful difference if one uses only extra-tropical NH temperature data. So, while the amplitude of the temperature-scaled 40-year low- pass ECS series might be on the high end (but still plausible given the gridded borehole temperature record shown in Briffa/Osborn), scaling on the annually resolved data first would probably have the opposite effect of excessively reducing the amplitude. ”

    “With regards to the issue of the late 20th century warming, the fact that I did not include some reference to or plot of the up-to-date instrumental temperature data (cf. Briffa/Osborn) is what I regard as a “sin of omission”. What I said was that the estimated temperatures during the MWP in ECS “approached” those in the 20th century portion of that record up to 1990. I don’t consider the use of “approached” as an egregious overstatement. But I do agree with you that I should have been a bit more careful in my wording there. As you know, I have publicly stated that I never intended to imply that the MWP was as warm as the late 20th century (e.g., my New York Times interview). ”

    Ed Cook
    11 Apr 2002

    http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=159

  70. Upon request, Mike prepares the breakfast for champions, vintage 2000-03-12, #0079:

    The reason I suggested the need for an ‘additional’ person, over and above your three ‘support’ people (finance, Link Manager organiser, communications; the designation of which I agree with) is that I see a lack of opportunity for ‘initiative’. These three people only report to MG and not to PCC and therefore will not feel that they have any delegated responsibility to initiative new activities in the Mission area.

    […]

    Of course, the natural response is to say that such initiation (such ‘championing’) should come from the PCC’s Mission Group – indeed, such a role is more in keeping I think with your idea for PCC groups, keeping the specific tasks outside the PCC domain.

    This is fine but:

    a. MG membership changes regularly because it is a PCC group.

    b. And even if there were such a person, there is a danger that this MG person would be operating in a different sphere from the three support people. Yet the initiater needs to be in close contact with his/her support people because only then will things be able to happen, i.e., this ‘champion’ needs to know they have delegated responsibility and the freedom to initiate (i.e., the ‘power’; this implies a close relationship to PCC/Leadership), but also the connections into the support people and the Link Managers, etc., knowing enough of the detail to be able to make visions/ideas turn into reality (a PCC MG person who gets elected for 1,2 or 3 years will not necessarily have this ‘earthing’ in what can be done and how).

    This is my analysis, but what best to do? Options:

    […]

    Whichever solution is found this ‘vision’ person should:

    a. be appointed and not elected.

    b. take a lead in awareness raising, promoting Mission in all its forms and initiating activities in the Church that help do this.

    c. be responsible for making sure the three support people know what their jobs are, are fulfilling those jobs; this would require meeting regularly with them.

    d. act as the known and visible contact person in the Church to whom the wider congregation can make representation, make suggestions, etc. regarding Mission activities. This role and person must be widely publicised.

    […]

    But the who? I have no great suggestions here.

    […]

    What are PCC and MG?

    • Scratching my own itch, MG stands for Mission Group and PCC for Parochial Church Councils:

      Charities have a range of Governing Documents. Charitable Trusts are governed by Trust Deeds; Charitable Companies will have a Memorandum and Articles; whilst Charitable Associations usually have a Constitution. Whilst Parochial Church Councils (PCCs) are charities, they are governed by two pieces of Church of England legislation, called Measures. These are:

      The Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956 as amended. This defines the principal function, or purpose, of the PCC as “promoting in the parish the whole mission of the Church”. You can find the full text of the PCC Powers Measure in its currently amended form on the Statute Law Database by clicking here.

      and

      The Church Representation Rules (contained in Schedule 3 to the Synodical Government Measure 1969 as amended). The Rules were revised in 2011 and can be purchased for £7.99 from Church House Publishing using this link. A Kindle edition can be purchased from Amazon. An online edition of the Rules is available on this link.

      http://www.churchofengland.org/clergy-office-holders/pcc-information.aspx

      “Clicking here” leads to this:

      http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukcm/Eliz2/4-5/3/contents

  71. > Mike Hulme describes the lessons that we should have learned from Climategate, and it seems that many in the UK have learned these lessons. I am not at all sure that the IPCC has learned many (or even any) of these lessons, and in the U.S. I don’t see much evidence of scientists having learned anything at all.

    Where’s Judy’s?

  72. Climategate was important, for me. It was overwhelming: they lie? they deny data to others?

    Whoever is this poor Harry_ReadMe character?

    Phil Jones’ arrogant comment to Warwick Hughes pre-dated Climategate, but defined scientific arrogance — and incompetence: ““Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

    That, after Climategate, the facade could be maintained so valiantly for so long is another sad matter. There are no apologies, reforms. The coverup goes on, sustained by mainstream media. But, now, we see that Climategate is only one….

    We have, in the US, an IRS scandal:

    Well, the IRS “discriminated” against left-leaning orgs, too. No?

    Well, the problem was confined to IRS employees in Ohio. No?

    Well, nobody important in DC was, much, involved. No?

    The FEC was asking for information from the IRS? Yes? No? (Frankly, I don’t know the present status of that one, but ole Lois Lerner came from the FEC to the IRS…)

    Damn, but we’re not going to talk about meetings *at* the WH, with political appointees at the IRS and Obama and….

    Finally, this IRS thingie is a “phony scandal.”

    Americans, mostly, just accept those series of lies. Benghazi is the same….. Lie about everything — until you are caught.

    Now, Mr. Obama tells us, unlike what we’ve heard from Edward Snowden, that the US govt never spies on ordinary citizens…. No way!

    Sadly, Climategate is only one expose.

    …Lady in Red

    • Rope and chains.
      =============

    • It’s tyranny, I tell you.

      We are so oppressed.

      No freedoms even left.

      Money stolen from us under the guise of “taxes.” Yeah, taxes. Sure. Theft is what it is.

      Freakin’ Muslim-sympathizing Obama.

      BHENGAZI!!!!!!!!!

      Oh, yeah, and climate change too.

      • Serfs. We’re all freakin’ surfs!!!

        Oh, yeah, and climate change too.

      • and serfs too.

      • Search ‘Hey Obama, father, mother, egyptian bellydancer’ and see how the Egyptians connect local dots. They find him in sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood, radical and violent Muslims.
        ======================

      • Plus, climate change.

      • Muslim-sympathising.

        Bhengazi.

        Taxes!!!!!!!

        Freakin’ IRS.

        Government Spying.

        Serfs.

        Tyranny. Tyranny. Tyranny.

        Statist authoritarians.

        No freedoms.

        Taxes.

        Taxes I say!!!!!!!

        And Bhengazi.

        The IRS.

        Muslims.

        BHENGAZI!!!!!!!

        Freakin’ skewed polls, I say.

        Muslims.

        Serfs.

        Oh. And climate change, too.

      • We’ll all be in chains tomorrow.

        Grab the women and children and head for the bunkers.

        Don’t forget the keys.

        Freain’ authoritarian statist Muslim sympathizers.

        The world will end tomorrow.

        Oh, yeah, and those freakin’; alarmists are just killin’ me.

        Freakin’ alarmists.

        BHENGAZI

        Muslims freakin’ everywhere.

        We will all be in chains by tomorrow.

        Oh. Right. Climate change. Almost freakin’ forgot!

      • Freakin’ alarmists, No?

        Benghazi. No?

        Muzlimz. No?

        Taxes. No?

        IRS. No?

        Statists. No?

        Serfdom. No?

        BENGHAZI. Freakin’ BENGHAZI, I say.

        Can you hear me? I’m saying BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI!!!!!111!111!1111

        Should I say it louder? No?

        Freakin’ alarmists. And Muslimz. Can’t even spell Benghazi.

        Did I mention climate change?

        How about Benghazi?

      • Read the Constitution, Joshua.

  73. JC

    Here’s hoping that progress can continue to be made, and eventually that things will never be the same.

    I think progress is being made. For example, the Met Office has acknowledged the pause:

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/0/Paper2_recent_pause_in_global_warming.PDF

    There are many who have not acknowledged that fact yet.

    • I deny the pause. Using latest months, the average temperature of 1993-2003 subtracted from 2003-2013 is 0.14 C, a fairly robust decadal trend. The pause hasn’t even started yet.

      • I’ve heard of cherry picking. But slicing the cheery into pieces to get your desired result?

      • The most objective way to get a decadal trend is to take the two most recent decades and their difference. Cherry-picking is anything else.

      • Jim D,

        No one is talking about “decadal trends” when it comes to the pause. They are referring to the last 13 years. Want a paper towel to clean the cherry juice off your hands?

      • 13 years is as cherry-picked as they come, or 15 or whatever. You at least have to average over something like a solar cycle, not 1.5 of them.

      • I love the total absence of logic when warmists fear they are losing even the smallest part of any debate.

        The “pause” is not a pause because it has not lasted long enough. But the pause can be disproved by picking the right ten year period to show a “warming trend.”

        First we hear we should only look at periods of time sufficient to be statistically significant. But as the “pause” approaches that length, we should shift to comparing decadal trends.

        Maybe this is what is causing the collective panic attack among the warmists of late.

      • For a long time, everyone agreed climate is 30 years, I am being generous by defining a climate change over 20 years. Anything shorter just is not relevant to climate.

      • Jim D

        I deny the pause.

        Met Office:

        Global mean surface temperatures rose rapidly from the 1970s, but there has been little further warming over the most recent 10 to 15 years to 2013.

      • Jimmy D,

        When the warmist-alarmists started trying to sell the CAGW story some time ago, did they say (in whatever year that was) that the world would have to wait for 30 years to see if the story was going to pan out, and to not worry about it in the meantime?

      • In 1981, Hansen predicted climate change would show up above the noise in the 1990’s, and it did, but that was an easy call in retrospect.

      • So Jimmy D, Hansen said in 1981 that CAGW would be proved in the 1990’s, and you imagine it was. In the last 15 years, not looking so good. That has got to be less than 30 years of alleged CAGW, Jimmy D. You are busted.

      • Chief Hydrologist

        Busted flat in climategate
        lookin’ for a ride
        Jimmy thumbed a diesel down
        Just afore it rained
        Rode us all the way to Copenhagen.

  74. I will simply point at this header:

    date: Fri May 17 15:16:36 2002
    from: Mike Hulme
    subject: CONFIDENTIAL – EPSRC and Tyndall

    And I will quote an excerpt of the email:

    I thought it worth a confidential circular to you to summarise a telephone conversation I had with Peter Hedges, Programme Manager at EPSRC for Environment and Infrastructure and out of whose budget Tyndall support presently comes:

    […]

    3. he has invited me to join a small strategy team to help advise him on where EPSRC’s environment and infrastructure programme should go in the next 5 years. He recognises Tyndall’s inter-disciplinary brief and would like some input from us to help steer his Programme

    4. he made an off-the-record comment in this context that he very much saw EPSRC as committing itself to funding a second 5-year term for Tyndall […]

    The implication of this conversation is that I believe we *have* made progress with EPSRC, yet we need to follow this up by involving Peter Hedges more in some things/events we do and in return feeding back ideas that will help in the EPSRC review. This is same message I have had from Peter Bates.

    Needless to say, please regard this as a confidential circular – point 4. is clearly not *public* policy and the formal evaluation of Tyndall during 2004 may yet change things. Still, it means that we now have private statements from NERC, ESRC and EPSRC that they all see their commitment to Tyndall as being at least 10 years.

    That is all.

    • OMG! Willie, you took that stolen private email and quoted it out of context for your own nefarious purposes. What am your poirposes, willie? Seriously. Please explain.

  75. “… EU members states have spent about €600 billion ($882bn) on renewable energy projects since 2005, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Germany’s green energy transition alone may cost consumers up to €1 trillion by 2030, the German government recently warned.

    These hundreds of billions are being paid by ordinary families and small and medium-sized businesses in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest wealth transfers from poor to rich in modern European history. Rising energy bills are dampening consumers’ spending, a poisonous development for a Continent struggling with a severe economic and financial crisis.

    The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay the country’s rising electricity bills; among them, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported last October, are 200,000 long-term unemployed.

    As The Washington Post writer Charles Lane observed at the time: “It’s one thing to lose your job because a competing firm built a superior mouse trap; it’s quite another, justice-wise, to lose it because a competitor talked the government into taking its side.”

    Two weeks ago, the Czech government decided to end all subsidies for new renewable energy projects at the end of this year. “The reason for this law amendment is the rising financial burden for electricity consumers,” Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok said. “It threatens the competitiveness of our industry and raises consumers’ uncertainty about power prices.” In recent years, almost all EU member states also have begun the process of rolling back and cutting green subsidies.

    Spain is a particularly cautionary tale. By failing to control the cost of guaranteed subsidies, the country has been saddled with €126bn of obligations to renewable-energy investors.

    Now that the Spanish government has dramatically curtailed these subsidies, even retrospectively, more than 50,000 solar entrepreneurs face financial disaster and bankruptcy.
    …”

    http://www.thegwpf.org/benny-peiser-europe-pulls-plug-green-future/

  76. Progressives get all flustered when their quaint faith in their own superiority by resume’ is turned against them.

    “Part of what vexes Democrats so much about Texas senator Ted Cruz is that he’s conservative despite having graduated from Ivy Leagues schools, according to MSNBC host Karen Finney.

    …we’re all sitting here saying, ‘Well, he went to Harvard, and he went to Princeton — he’s got all these credentials, how could he be crazy?’”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/355399/msnbcs-finney-cruz-using-our-own-liberal-doctrine-against-us-ivy-league-credentials

    How indeed?

    • You also have the elitist fratboys Bush (W) and Romney, don’t forget.

      • Jim D,

        They weren’t reviled as Cruz is (until they dared run for president), because they were never conservative.

      • Your party has a major fracture because they probably still think they are Republicans. Little do they know, I guess. They won’t even see it coming.

      • Jim D,

        I think you are being sarcastic, but you are actually right. I for one think a new party is necessary. Progressive Republicans control too much of the party structure for conservatives to take control and actually give voters a choice.

        The GOP was formed when elitist/statist Whigs refused to combat slavery. Today’s GOP solons refuse to growth of government and ever increasing centralization of control in the state.

      • Should be:

        “…refuse to fight the growth of government….”

      • No, the right-leaners are leaning too far right. They will fall over by themselves.

      • Jim D,

        That’s what the Democrat slave owners told themselves.

    • Experts who went to Harvard …

      Would anyone seriously believe a drug company’s scientists on how safe their drugs are? They are there to promote the company’s fortunes for heaven’s sake. Even if they went to Harvard.

      Now governments are much bigger and more self-centered than any corporation. So how can anyone seriously believe government scientists on how government needs to enrich itself expand to “deal with” the climate ? They are there to promote the fortunes of government for heaven’s sake. Even if they went to Harvard. (Plus we have evidence like Climategate that actually shows their crookedness and bias).

      • “BatedBreath | August 10, 2013 at 4:26 am”

        BatedBreath said something.

        Why does Tomcat comment whenever BatedBreath comments? Could it be that Tomcat is a sockpuppet, a fake troll of BatedBreath’s?

        But of course!

  77. I wonder why the folk here “feed the trolls” so. It doesn’t seem to advance much.

    Would not simply ignoring them save Judith some time? …if nothing else?
    …..Lady in Red

    • Feed the trolls? It’s become a freakin’ troll smorgasbord around here.

    • BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI serfs BENGHAZI BENGHAZI serfs BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BHENGHAZI taxes BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI serfs BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI taxes BHENGAZ IBENGHAZI climate change BENGHAZI BENGHAZI don’t feed the trols BENGHAZI BHENGAZ BENGHAZI BENGHAZI

      • Seven hours it went on. Obama went home and took a nap, and in the morning flew to Vegas.
        ============

      • kim,

        It’s not just the belly dancer who is pissed off.

        http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/09/escalating-anti-american-sentiment-in-egypt-tanking-efforts-to-restore/

        Some of the protesters in Egypt are even loonier than our foaming at the keyboard warmists here. But they sure don’t seem to have gotten the memo on how great Obama has been for them.

      • Oh, and to show that progressive idiots run both parties, we have this from the article:

        “On Tuesday, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham,R-SC, traveled to Egypt. The men urged the government to release Islamist leaders as a gesture of good will to the Brotherhood.”

        The “Brotherhood” is not the Brotherhood of the Elks, but the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.

        Obama can do for Egypt what he has done for Syria and Lebanon.

        Yeah!. Let’s have a full blown civil war!

        Almost makes me miss Jimmie Carter. Almost.

      • I remember, Kim.

        Was that not incredible? Rest up and…off to a fundraiser… in Vegas??

        ….and Hillary did not return phone calls from Libya that night, after receiving word, a phone message, Chris Stevens was dead? ….whew.

        ….Lady in Red

      • It must be such a burden, Gary, being so far superior to everyone else except those who share your extremist ideology.

        Imagine McCain and Graham having the gall to call themselves conservatives without asking your approval first. What stupidity – to think they have the right to determine their own political orientation. I can only feel for you – how horrible it must be for you to have that obligation of straightening us out on the radio. how difficult it must be to be surrounde by so many inferiors.

        Now here’s a true conservative for you, not one of those pantywaist fancy pants:

        From Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-GA) remarks at the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet on September 27, 2012, in Hartwell, Georgia:

        BROUN: God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.

        And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.

        You won’t find that guy “skewing polls” to try to make Obama’s chances look better then they really were. No sirree.

      • Little josh-ua is Christian bashing, again. You are a very unhappy little camper.

  78. Do you suppose Joshua has been drinking? ….Lady in Red

    PS: I think I’m heading for the sherry, mysel.

    • ” Lady in Red | August 9, 2013 at 11:12 pm

      Do you suppose Joshua has been drinking? ….Lady in Red”

      Do you think we care what a few run-at-the-mouth Aussies believe?

      • Chief Hydrologist

        Now webby – just because I show you up be the idiot you are on an ongoing basis is no reason to abuse a lady. You mother – Wilma – will be most disappointed. I am going to ask her to cut down on your Red Bull and poptarts supplies and to make sure you are taking your meds.

      • Aw, c’mon, Chief.

        If Webby takes his meds it’ll make him so good-tempered and pleasant that he’ll stop amusing us all with his fits of anger here.

      • Anger?

        This is stand-up comedy. Comics take advantage of hecklers from the audience for easy laffs.

        You got your drunken Robbo the Yobbo and the yodeling “Swiss Miss” Manacker — who likes to break out into song routinely — as targets of amusement right here.

      • Have a Marcott Smoothie, Web. It’s a great pick-me-up.
        ============

      • Kim is the equivalent of the smarmy heckler. The one that yells “Play Free Bird” at concerts.

      • Play ‘Free the Narrative’.
        ==================

  79. Vintage 2012-05-20, :

    My work is as Director of the national centre for climate change research, a job which requires me to translate my Christian belief about stewardship of God’s planet into research and action.

    http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=949

    Our Miracle Worker’s work may not have been led by Grace alone.

    • Tried to insert “0999” between brackets, like the Miracle Worker did.

      WP ate it.

      • One “Christian belief about stewardship of God’s planet” is Dominionism. I don’t have a lot of interest in pursuing random religious theories but this one has its biblical origins in somehow being able to “subdue” the earth, so man has full control over it, for better or worse.

        The “better” or “worse” is hard to disambiguate based on the words “subdue” and “dominion”.

        [Middle English dominioun, from Old French dominion, from Medieval Latin domini, dominin-, from Latin dominium, property, from dominus, lord; see dem- in Indo-European roots.]

        So the earth is either man’s property or that mankind can lord over the earth. The latter is meaningless, as defining dominion as lord makes it a circular definition.

        Unfortunately, can’t read Hulme’s mind on this matter.

        I wonder if Hulme is for or against BartR’s ideas of stewardship (i.e. Dominion) fees, i.e. a revenue neutral carbon tax?

  80. I wonder if the mania of the warmists here, and elsewhere, is a response to fear that the public is experiencing climate fatigue?

    You can only claim the sky is falling for so long, particularly when your own reported temperature trends conflict with your dire prognostications, before people start thinking you are like the hippie on the corner who has been holding the same “The End Is Nigh” sign for 15 years.

    I googled the term “climate fatigue” out of curiosity, and found this article from two years ago:

    http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2011/10/is-climate-fatigue-setting-in/

    referencing a NY Times article on the same topic:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/sunday-review/whatever-happened-to-global-warming.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all?src=tp&amp;

    Something has got the natives all worked up, and I am still wondering what it is.

    • It’s fear of humiliation gary. I find it quite funny while being entirely predictable, that despite ever increasing evidence that at the very least, we might soon have to retire the “c” from CAGW, there’s not an alarmist on this site who’s backed down in the slightest. I’m sure most of them would have been delighted to take a wager on a possible pause 15 years ago. “What? Are you crazy? No way?” would have been the general response. Now those who admit to it…their remain some delusional holdouts… the very same people who were denying it a year ago, claim it’s means nothing despite massive increases in co2 during that time..

      The collective fake yawns are deafening.

      • Whistling past the graveyard, a marching band of the faithful.
        ================

      • If the “pause” was not accompanied by deep ocean warming, you would have a hand. But it was, so you’ve got nothing. Just a matter of time, and the pause goes paws up.

        Ali is doing the rope-a-dope and you think you’re winning. You’re not. He’s just recharging.

      • Heh, the heat that couldn’t get down there, can’t get back up again. Down for the count.
        ============

      • The same thing happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
        Many on the left went into a deep depression and didn’t find joy until they embraced Green politics.
        It was most noticeable in the supporters of CND, who believe that the only way to avoid global nuclear warfare was for NATO forces to unilaterally disarm. When it came out that the collapse had been caused by the economic weight of keeping up with Reagan’s spending, they were just like Josh is now.
        Even now, people on the left claim that the social policies of the USSR were better than those in the West and that the Soviets had no plans for invasion of Western Europe of first use of WMD.
        When they dream of Thermogeddon collapses they will move on to some other utopianist philosophy; Caliphatic Islam is trending at the moment offering a solution to all Earthly and spiritual problems.

      • Many on the left went into a deep depression and didn’t find joy until they embraced Green politics.

        What is interesting is that for someone who prides himself in his abilities in scientific analysis, you abandon those skills, apparently, as soon as you cross through your lab door.

        What does “many on the left” mean? Do you have anything other than argument by assertion? Have you even bothered to study the issue upon which you are asserting with certainty?

        The funniest part of this whole line of discussion is that you are using an imagined trend to compare to an imagined trend.

        Where is this trend that you have discerned in the comments at Climate Etc.? Do you have any actual evidence? And even if you did, do you have any evidence that it reflects anything beyond the doors of Climate Etc.?

        Or is this yet another in the long line of “final” nails in the coffin of and “stake through the heart” of AGW?

      • …they were just like Josh is now.

        Heh. How am I now, Doc? Do tell.

        It is interesting how, for someone who “no one likes,” I am the subject for so much fantasizing.

      • Sorry, related to my off topic rant, should be “adult population” and “moral weight” by itself should suffice. Hard to weigh the societal effects in a meaningful way, though the fear these people must live in has to be terrible.

      • Heh. “These people.”

        Now watch as PG reads that comment “by accident.”

      • Sorry, These fine Mexican folk, which in fact is exactly what I meant. I’m forever bemused by the things the media decides not to cover. To me, this is a huge story, tragic in its dimension, and profoundly instructive.

        50,000 dead for no good reason at all. Meh…

      • joshie, joshie

        You keep demanding that everybody you disagree with has got to show you evidence. If I tell you I enjoyed my breakfast, you will demand evidence. You are silly. That’s why nobody likes you. And the other things like being a bigot, and a smarmy little left-wing zealot. There must be some kind of rehab place for people like you. You go in for two weeks and then you can pretend that you are cured. Get a fresh start. We will give you another chance.

      • You keep demanding that everybody you disagree with has got to show you evidence.

        If anyone needs more proof of the “daddy complex” so popular among so many “conservatives.”

        I’ve demanding nothing. I have pointed out how Doc formulated a conclusion without evidence. He probably hasn’t even studied the subject that he wrote his conclusions about. He identified one fantasized trend and compared it to another fantasized trend (ironically, in response to PG who just fantasized about a completely contrasting recent trend in my comments).

        The question is why someone who is practiced in coherent analysis would do that – particularly someone who identifies as a “skeptic” who is particularly interested in discussing claims of trends for which there aren’t sufficient validation?

        I point this out because it is so characteristic of much of what we see in these threads, where people who call themselves skeptics show the reasoning of a “skeptic.”

        I’ve demanding absolutely nothing. Further, it would be absolutely impossible for me to “demand” something through blog comments.

        I’m not your daddy, Don, and you really won’t get anywhere trying to work out your authority issues through me.

      • We would get together and do that intervention thing for you joshie, but we don’t like you.

      • Don Monfort | August 10, 2013 at 11:52 am |

        Interventions are generally acknowledged now to do far more harm than good.

        So you need a new hypothesis to explain why you won’t do one for someone you don’t like.

      • I didn’t know that, barty. OK, we will do the intervention for joshie. Can we use your house? BYOB?

      • Don Monfort | August 10, 2013 at 11:59 am |

        Amazing what you can find out when you trouble yourself to find out what you’re talking about before you post it to a blog.

        And, no.

        See, I don’t really care one way or the other about the private lives of total strangers to me.

      • You are a lot of fun, barty.

      • > If the “pause” was not accompanied by deep ocean warming, you would have a hand

        We have no real idea of deep ocean temperatures. So it could go either way.

  81. > But beyond these reasons for climate change scepticism, in the years following Climategate it has become more important to distinguish between at least four different aspects of the conventional climate change narrative where scepticism may emerge.

    Indeed, compare and contrast:

    It is clear, however, that the work developed a skeptical argument, which has been extracted from the sources and translated as below:

    – Nothing exists;

    – Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and

    – Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can’t be communicated to others.

    – Even if it can be communicated, it cannot be understood.

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

    Thank you, Miracle Worker!

    • Willard

      Don’t think you have to look that far for “different aspects of the conventional climate change narrative where scepticism may emerge”.

      Just check all those thermometers out there (even the ones next to heated buildings in the winter or AC exhausts in the summer): they tell us that it has stopped warming for now.

      And this at the same time that human GHG emissions are continuing unabated and concentrations have reached all-time record levels.

      Yet the climate models cited by IPCC had projected warming of 0.2C per decade.

      Kinda makes one skeptical of those models, doesn’t it?

      Max

      • When will willard wonder well.
        ======================

      • Max, I need credit. For years I’ve told such wordy intransigents to watch the thermometer. Watch their eyes belie their words.
        ============

      • > Don’t think you have to look that far for “different aspects of the conventional climate change narrative where scepticism may emerge”.

        Indeed, there are other pre-CG resources:

        simple denial: deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether

        minimisation: admit the fact but deny its seriousness (a combination of denial and rationalization)

        projection: admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility by blaming somebody or something else.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial

        There’s no warming. If there’s warming, it doesn’t matter. It it masters, there’s little we can do about it.

      • The globe is not warming. To deny that simple fact is unpleasant for some.

        The climate is constantly changing. To deny that simple fact is unpleasant for some.

        Ten deg. C. of cooling is a lot more likely in the future, than any more than 2 deg C of warming from man’s effect. Adding to the imbalance of the odds, the consequences of cooling are far worse than of warming, degree for degree. To deny that simple fact is unpleasant for some.
        ====================

      • kim asserted:

        ” To deny that simple fact is unpleasant for some.”

        It is an unpleasant fact that Saudi Arabia currently uses a significant fraction of their extracted crude oil to generate electricity to run their air-conditioning units. That crude will dwindle down well before Saudi Arabia starts to cool down.

        The 3% have no sense of time scale.

        There are a lot of unpleasant realities that face us. Hop to it.

  82. > [I]n the U.S. I don’t see much evidence of scientists having learned anything at all.

    Here are 141 words from John Nielsen-Gammon on CG I, II, and perhaps III:

    First, they tried to get a journal editor fired for the sin of daring to publish papers that were full of intentional and unintentional errors. Second, everybody agrees that the “decline” caption was inadequate. Third, it did become way too personal for them…though I don’t know if I wouldn’t react the same way if I had discovered that our entire civilization was in danger and others were using dirty tricks to convince people that it wasn’t. My biggest complaint was their unwillingness to share data. Meanwhile, though, we have the PCMDI archive, where every model run from the IPCC is publicly available to download and analyze. So don’t tar and feather the entire discipline.

    http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/39845081323

  83. Because most climate scientists are left-wing, employed by the state and hence tending seeking to advance a more totalitarian agenda, it does follow that those who favor a freer society would be the first to notice this, and thus feature strongly as their critics.

    • “…it does follow that those who favor a freer society would be first to notice this and thus feature strongly as their critics.”
      I resent this. It is possible, as Joshua suggests that 90% of the skeptics here are politically rightwing. But none of us know this. My take is that their are more on this blog who care primarily about the science, and that many of us skeptics are either apolitical or flat out liberal.
      I would think that Dr Curry has been hoping for grownup discussion, which could not entirely happen with these charged issues. Sure, the political aspects of climate change are legitimately important in all this and may override that actual science. But what’s really important is the degree of legitimacy and accuracy of the scientific theory, which you don’t get at by calling people names. I would guess that most of the proponents of cagw are merely wrong, but not genuine totalitarians.

      • “many of us skeptics are either apolitical or flat out liberal.”

        We can hear the dog whistles. Try that line on some other ignorant stooge.

      • Rick –

        Obviously, our assessments are subjective. I can tell you that I have seen a lot of the regulars make political comments. Relatively few of the regulars fail to comment on politically-themed threads at least sometimes (and a high % comment in those discussions regularly).

        From those comments, I have seen about two, that I can think, of the “skeptics” that have consistently identified as being liberals or progressives. Of those, at least one seems to express ideas that are inconsistent with that self-identification. A number self-identify as moderates – but again, those kinds of calls are subjective, and some of those self-identifying as moderates seem to me to express ideology that in my view, is not particularly moderate.

        I have yet to see a “skeptic” step up and respond critically to the rightwing rants of those like Chief, Peter Lang, gbalkie, GaryM, Wags (what ever happened to that dude, anyway), Don, kim, and a whole slew of others whose names escape me at the moment. That is, with the possible exception of your comment above – which does so indirectly, and for which I commend you.

        Of course, there is a similar balance running in the other way w/r/t the “realists” and their political orientation. That seems equally obvious to me.

      • Rick

        The continual political references are very tiresome and detract from a proper discussion of the science, both sides do it. . As regards sceptics being right wing I would say that is a generalisation.

        The Europeans commenting here are highly likely to be well to the left of US conservatives. I was denounced as a communist during my only trip to San Francisco in the 1980’s.

        Tonyb

    • ” I would guess that most of the proponents of cagw are merely wrong, but not genuine totalitarians.”

      No, the cagw thing has been 90% politics from the start – politically financed and thus politically driven , a strategy to even further politicize modern society. It’s genuine totalitarianism alright, hence the popularity with the left.

  84. Chief Hydrologist

    And in case anyone has missed the references to Janis. Talk about half crazed girls in rags and feathers. She was totally adorable.

    • Just imagine if 10% of money spent on climate science were spent on drug rehab; we would lose far less people to addiction.

      • Can’t resist Doc, I get your point, but the reality is we lose most of them to the drug laws. Like most metaphorical wars, the one on drugs has caused infinitely more problems than it has solved. The drug laws are of course substantively identical in their counter-productive effects, to prohibition laws in the 30’s. When oh when will we learn this?

        Look at Mexico…somewhere around 50,000 dead since President “what’s his name” decided to “get serious” about drugs. You could addict the entire population of that country to heroin, and the damage would not even be close in its moral and practical weight to 50,000 deaths, many of them ghastly.

        In fact now that I’m on the subject, heroin addicts generally would do just fine were they able to continue to get their drug cheaply, and in unadulterated form. Again, it’s the laws against heroin, not heroin itself that’s the real problem.

      • There is a tiny little difference between alcohol prohibition and prohibition of methamphetamine, crack cocaine and heroine.

        Can anyone guess what that night be?

      • Probably not what you’re after, and my numbers are fuzzy, but alcohol use leads ten percent to destructive addiction, and the others you mention are more like thirty percent. Fuzziness from little data, and ambiguity in ‘destructive’ and ‘addiction’.
        ===============

  85. Chief Hydrologist

    Hacking climate scientist emails for fun and profit? All is fair in love and climate wars. Hacking serious emails and putting peoples lives at risk not so much. Do you think pissant progressives have their moral posturing scrambled much?

  86. Jim D : Some emails reflected frustration with Cimate Audit’s followers bombarding them with FOIAs, which led to a stubbornness about the data.

    Back-to-front. Stubborness about data led to FOIAs.

  87. What has been the effect of Climategate ?

    Virtually everyone with any interest in climate, now knows that official climate science and its claims of doom are now highly suspect, owing to a deeply ingrained integrity deficit and bias in the profession.

    • dennis adams

      Outstanding piece of journalism. Lets see if the faithful such as lolwot, Jim D, Webby, Max_ok, Michael and Joshua, can see themselves in the article. To See or Not To See, that is the question. No stronger evidence to validate this article is needed than to witness what happened when this thread came out yesterday. The Faithful rose en masse to defend the realm. A call to arms could not have been any more forceful during the Crusades.

      • Same old tricks. Here’s the AmericanStinker attacking the theory of evolution using the insult of “religion”:
        “What I would like to discuss, however, is the idolatry of evolution, or the transformation of a scientific theory into a quasi-religious cult.”
        http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/julian_huxley_and_the_idolatry.html

        The AmericanStinker article attacks this very reasonable statement:

        1. It is virtually certain that the climate is warming, and that it has warmed by about 0.7 deg. C over the last 100 years.
        2. It is very likely that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming.
        3. If we do nothing to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, future warming will likely be at least two degrees Celsius over the next century.
        4. Such a climate change brings with it a risk of serious adverse impacts on our environment and society.

        That statement is scientifically supportable and reasonable. That the AT would attack it as being “full of ambiguity and error.” typifies how out of touch climate skeptics are with the science.

        The most ridiculous attack by the AT on the statement is this: “Two degrees Celsius will have serious, adverse impacts? A difference of 2 degrees C in the average temperature is what you get if you move from Boston to New York.”

        Seriously? It’s no use calling AGW a religion when the AT author doesn’t even grasp the significance of climate change.

        I could go into length as to why this Boston-New York argument is ridiculous, but I shouldn’t have to. This same argument has been debunked time and time again. I’ll just point out the statement in reverse implies that a return to the little ice age would have less impact than moving from New York to Boston.

      • LowWatt, does
        “1. It is virtually certain that the climate is warming, and that it has warmed by about 0.7 deg. C over the last 100 years.
        2. ……..future warming will likely be at least two degrees Celsius over the next century.”
        Does that mean 1.3 deg. C by 2113 or 2.0 deg. C by 2113?

      • dennis adams, I am not a AGW skeptic simply because I cannot disprove anything in the mainstream science, at least so far. I try but I really can’t. On the other hand, the deniers here seem to believe in stuff that they can’t prove.

        Ask me about oil depletion, and you will get a different perspective. I can easily disprove anyone’s theory that oil is an infinitely renewable resource. That makes me a skeptic of the current mainstream thinking of the oil cornucopians.

        So I believe that crude oil is a finite resource, with a growing number of countries lacking access to liquid fuel, and am concerned that climate change may be a future problem. That is why we should look for alternative fuels.

        So what is exactly your “faith”?

  88. Mauna Loa CO2
    July 2012: 394.30 ppm
    July 2013: 397.23 ppm

    Increase of almost 3ppm

  89. The trouble for Joshua and willard are that neither have demonstrated the slightest scintilla of curiosity about Climate, and its science. I’ll credit most of the rest of the alarmists here with at least that.
    ==========================

    • kim | August 10, 2013 at 7:56 am |

      And yet, I’ve found if one addresses a direct question to either about Climate, one can fairly reliably obtain a response that is relevant to the question and demonstrates knowledge of the subject that is both erudite and specific, while at the same time characteristic of their own independent thought.

      If one addresses such questions to kim, all one gets back is obscuritanism and doggerel; one fairs little better with the WUWTites and Sky Dragon Slayers, and other proponents of their own pet theories about thermodynamics or snow or the Sun’s iron heart or the zodiac whatever it is Myrrh or stephanthedenier think about, generally no more lucid or pertinent than Sideshow Bob.

      • Wonderful parody, that first paragraph. Even better, it wasn’t meant to be.
        =============

      • By the way, Bart, I do have it all figured out, but as I tell moshe, you have to read the blogs. I’ve forgotten it.
        ========================

      • An audacious act of projection on the part of Kim.

        I don’t think anyone has ever written a book subtitled “Science understood by one-liners, quips, and haiku”.

      • Read the blogs, Web.
        ==============

      • Beware your wishes, Koldie.

      • My wishes have nothing to do with it, but thanks for putting your finger on the problem with climate science.
        ==================

      • Heh, as if you had any idea of my wishes. I wish it warmer, for warmer sustains more total life and more diversity of life. However, the only antidote for this culture’s hallucination is cold water in the face. So, I’m torn.
        ==============

      • OK, so it’s not a wish.
        What is it, then?
        An advice?
        Some kind of advocacy?

      • Get willard on it, to cram into his Procrustean categories.
        ============

      • kim | August 10, 2013 at 10:38 am |

        I’ve been to a lot of very warm places, and a lot of very cold places, on Earth.

        In my experience, the warmest of the warm places support much, much less life, if at all.

        This fantasy you have that more warm equals more life, it does nothing.

      • Peruse paleontology rather than your own anecdotes.
        ===============

      • kim | August 10, 2013 at 11:26 am |

        With the exception of the Carboniferous — and that a well-explained exception — the observation holds in the data so far as I can find.

        At its hottest, the planet is at its deadest.

        Cite a source that sustains your claim.

      • Kim wants the Sahara, Kalahari, Gobi, Victoria, Mojave, and etc deserts to all expand in coverage. Good to know! More room for out-of-the-way solar panels and wind turbines.

    • kim | August 10, 2013 at 9:09 am |
      kim | August 10, 2013 at 9:11 am |
      kim | August 10, 2013 at 9:25 am |

      Cases in rapid-fire, meaningless, short, pointless point.

      Just more useless kim.

      • If it needs explaining, it isn’t very funny.
        ===============

      • The majority weren’t intended to be funny, they were meant to be enigmatic, with truths buried somewhere in there. Alas, a random meme generator could produce the same effect.

        As Andrew Adams advised, if you want enigmatic, the go-to guy is Willard. At least Willard buries some interesting bits in his comments. If you “Read the blogs” as Kim suggested, you will find that Hank Roberts at RealClimate and elsewhere, is also quite good.

        Kim, not so much, but what can one expect — the hidden truthiness of the 3% is as scarce as our remaining crude oil.

      • Heh, he said ‘3 percent’, heh, heh. There are too many Cooks in your Cocina.
        =======

      • > Just more useless kim.

        Yes, but Joshua.

      • Yes, but Joshua.

        Particularly amusing considering how often s/he feels compelled to deny the obsession. Kind of like how PG claims he mostly reads my comments “by accident.”

      • I think pokerguy got the memo, Joshua. Please don’t wait for him to make a gesture in your direction to bury that one. You can keep it for another time if you need. My guess is that you won’t need it.

        Leave the hyena laughs to Koldie.

  90. Climategate cracked the nut, the cooling is finishing the job.

    Some excerpts from the readme.txt.

    Thorne:

    I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.

    Carter:

    It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.

    Wigley:

    Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive […] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC […]

    Overpeck:

    The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out.

    Briffa:

    I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!

    Jones:

    Kevin, Seems that this potential Nature paper may be worth citing, if it does say that GW is having an effect on TC activity.

    Humphrey/DEFRA:

    I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.

    Wils:

    [2007] What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably […]

    • This will be the first time some of these alarmists read those emails. If they read.
      =====

    • You forgot the bit about Hulme, Edim.

      And the section where it appears.

    • Canadian systems and network engineer Lance Levsen after
      detailed analysis, Dec 2009, concluded that the source of the
      Climategate email releases was unlikely to be a hacker. For
      someone to have collected all of this information s/he would
      have required extraordinary capabilities, cracking the Admin
      file server to get the emails, cracking numerous work stations,
      desk tops and servers to get the documents. Once inside s/he
      would have to decide which files to select. To know this would
      require considerable knowledge of climate science,as well as
      political machinations of the people and involve massive work
      parsing through decades of emails and files.

      In Jan 2005 Phil Jones said he would be sheltering the data from
      FOI .Simplest explanation is that someone at UEA found the files,
      not some hacker.

      At the time they were released I read a long analysis on this by another compute engineer with a similar conclusion to Levens. Bts

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/27/its-time-for-the-person-who-leaked-the-cru-emails-to-step-forward/

    • Here, Edim:

      // Science and Religion ///

      #2132 Wigley:
      I heard that Zichichi has links with the Vatican. A number of other greenhouse
      skeptics have extreme religious views.

      #4394 Houghton [MetO, IPCC co-chair]
      […] we dont take seriously enough our God-given responsibility to care for the Earth […] 500 million people are expected to watch The Day After Tomorrow. We must pray that they pick up that message.

      #0999 Hulme:
      My work is as Director of the national centre for climate change research, a
      job which requires me to translate my Christian belief about stewardship of
      God’s planet into research and action.

      #3653 Hulme:
      He [another Met scientist] is a Christian and would talk authoritatively about
      the state of climate science from the sort of standpoint you are wanting.

      http://foia2011.org

      Our emphasis.

    • Edim….. Wow! This is stunning!

      …as good as Phil Jones to Warwick Hughes.

      It would make an interesting little book of quotes (out of context, I suppose….? ….smile) for folk to refer to, as needed.
      ….Lady in Red

      • Well see below,

        Although presumably none of you care that they are out of context.

      • Oh look! Docs’. Quacks…

      • Out of context was an easy meme for the low information types. However, context is, in fact, killer. It is likely to become useful to understand the origins and accelerators of this social mania.

        Another tactical error; throwing that meme out precipitously and foolishly is just likely to raise up curiosity about context, which is, if you haven’t heard, killer.
        ===============

      • So here is the rationale for what should be left in or taken out:

        For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change. Moreover, we have to have solid data – not inconclusive information.”

        1). What is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change.
        2) Solid data
        3) Not inconclusive information.

        So I’d say it is a judgement call whether or not “not inconclusive” information should be taken out. The meaning could be somewhat ambiguous. It could essentially mean extraneous information, or information that might suggest a stronger AGW effect than is warranted by the “conclusive” information. Or, it could mean that they are saying that known uncertainties should not be included – an interpretation that certainly wouldn’t be from left field, and one that I think is “suboptimal.”

        But even if that last interpretation were correct, to clip as Edim did w/o presenting the surrounding context is either ignorance (if done unwittingly) or deliberately deceptive, and fraudulent (if done with an awareness of the relevant context).

        So – in the end, same ol’ same ol’ in the climate wars – no matter which way you look at it.

    • There was and is a debate about tree rings, and this reflects that. What you don’t see is anyone questioning the temperature record or AGW itself.

    • Edim writes:

      Overpeck:

      The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out.

      Wow that sounds really bad. But of course this is climategate and so we have to take these little snippets with a grain of salt. Which will become clear when we look a little deeper at the context of what Overpeck said – the context which climate skeptics choose to remove.

      “Hi Ricardo – good to hear from you. Thanks too for the interesting figure. I have some comments on this section (6.5.4) and also for the others’ you’re helping to lead. Regarding 6.5.4 – I hope Dick and Keith will have jump in to help you lead, and I can too.

      I think the hardest, yet most important part, is to boil the section down to 0.5 pages. In looking over your good outline, sent back on Oct. 17 (my delay is due to fatherdom just after this time), you cover ALOT. The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid what’s included and what is left out. For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change. Moreover, we have to have solid data – not inconclusive information.”

      Oh dear instead of a scandal this is just Overpeck giving some good advise on how to condense information down to fit a tight available space.

      Thaaaat’s climategate.

      • lolwot, the context doesn’t make it any better. What’s the main message? The certainty (dogma) that CO2 must warm. What kind of science is that? Seems like Cargo Cult to me.

      • He’ll never get it, Edim; he champions such ethics.
        ================

      • Solid data repels Koldie.

      • Didn’t I give you the weekend off, willie? There is life outside of climate blogs. Abandon your zealotry for a few hours and cop a feel of life. Get a tan. Interact with humans at least as close as shouting distance, or even at arms length. They won’t hurt you, as long as you behave yourself. Try to find yourself a girlfriend. Even josh-ua claims to have a “girlfriend”.

      • Thanks lolwot –

        Stunning.

        Really.

        Even I didn’t think that “skeptical” arguments were that bad.

        My impression is that they are mostly just fallacious – the result of poor analysis. But if someone knowingly perpetuates that kind of misdirection, sorry to say it is outright fraud.

      • Leader Ship: 101…

        “I would be worried too, if I weren’t inside the government.”

        they need the whole world in a cloud. So they will feel safe.

      • lolwot, the context doesn’t make it any better.

        Wow! So it seems it isn’t ignorance that explains why the quite was lifted from context – but a desire to be deliberately misleading.

        This kind of crap just gives skepticism a bad name. I can think of few better examples of the difference between “skepticism” and skepticism than that which Edim just provided.

      • > Didn’t I give you the weekend off [?]

        Still waiting for the Bitcoins, Don Don.

      • Ediim –

        Consider the logic that you employ:

        lolwot, the context doesn’t make it any better.

        Then why was the quote lifted from the context?

        Are you a skeptic or a “skeptic?”

      • On second thought, perhaps the reason for lifting the quote from the context is that it “boils down” the argument, and focuses on the ‘main message” that guides “what’s included and what is left out.”

        Eh, Edim?

        The climate wars are a work of art and a thing of beauty.

  91. ******************************
    Jim D | August 10, 2013 at 11:25 am |
    The CO2 hockey stick, illustrated so well by Al Gore, is alive and well.
    ********************************
    Papers exist that state CO2 can migrate through the ice. Ice is a natural integrator – smoothing the CO2 signal. One is quoted below. JimD, it is notable how you swallow anything you are told by the Hockey Team. Are you a natural scientist, social scientist, or none of the above?

    ““Cores obtained to a depth of 2164 meters in the Antarctic ice sheet at Byrd station have undergone considerable relaxation since they were drilled. This relaxation, manifested as a density decrease of the ice with time, could still be detected more than 16 months after the cores had been pulled to the surface. The greatest measurable relaxation, of the order 0.6% expansion, occurred in cores from around 800 meters’ depth. Ice from 400–900 meters proved to be much more brittle than deeper ice and was characterized by an abundance of highly compressed air bubbles. These bubbles had disappeared completely by 1100 meters, most probably as a result of the diffusion of gas molecules into the ice lattice, and this, together with the formation below 1200 meters of an oriented crystal fabric (characterized by a strong vertical orientation of crystallographic c axes) is believed to be responsible for the greatly increased ductility of the deeper cores. Relaxation of ice from the brittle zone occurs primarily as a result of expansion of pressurized air bubbles. In deeper, bubble-free ice, however, relaxation can be attributed to the creation of new space resulting from the formation of cleavage cracks, plate-like voids and cavities, especially the latter, which become filled with gas derived from the air originally dissolved under pressure in the ice sheet.”

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JB076i011p02533/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

    • I don’t think anyone claimed the ice cores were like tree rings, with annual resolution, so this is just confirmation of the consensus. All the graphs shown are very smooth, but resolve the Ice Ages well.

      • So the peaks of the past are smoothed over by various ice dynamics. Anyone who says the current level of CO2 is the highest is full of BS.

      • I am with Jimmy D on this one. Everything is a confirmation of the consensus. Just ask Jimmy.

      • If global CO2 values go up, due to volcanoes or something, they can’t easily go down again, as we see now. The ice record would have shown these events because they are never short.

  92. Vintage 2004-02-05, #3570, Mike Hulme uses a witty approach in his email to Andrew Boswell & Rupert Read:

    Sexing-up evidence is so easy to do, isn’t it?

    Reading your letter in the EDP today makes me wonder who your source inside the Tyndall Centre was supplying you with such exaggerated evidence?

    Surely it wasn’t me, was it? Treating Dick Lindzen with the esteem of flat-earthers; could this claim have been inserted by politicians seeking to make a dramatic point to their audience? Or was it really what the experts in the Tyndall Centre think? Perhaps we need an enquiry.

    Don’t worry – I’m not thinking of committing suicide should I be exposed as the source of this story; but then again, it couldn’t have been me, could it?

    I didn’t say that after all; all I said was that we are well aware of Dick Lindzen and his arguments (in fact, Dick Lindzen is a pretty smart meteorologist who just takes a more cautious view of the scientific evidence for human causes of global warming; similar in caution in some ways to David Kelly even).

    Yes, sexing-up is so easy to do. Be warned.

    http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=3520

    So here’s the memo: saying that Lindzen is a flat-earther would be too sexy.

    Saying that he’s a cautious meteorologist may be sexy enough.

    I like the word cautious.

    I find it sexy.

    • The response provides a very nice How To Apologize:

      Dear Mike,

      On behalf of Rupert and myself, first, we would like to apologise. We
      appreciate the witty approach of your email, but also acknowledge the
      seriousness of its message. We clearly want anything which bears our names to be fully in line with the scientific evidence, and not to offend or
      embarrass you and other colleagues at UEA.

      We did contact you to try and make sure that we were in line with credible
      science and Tyndall views. We weren’t trying to quote you, or Tyndall, but rather make the point that the vast majority of climatologists do support climate change as real … then draw in the local context by mentioning Tyndall. In retrospect, the flat-earthers sentence, was slightly amusing, but not very helpful. We are sorry if it seems we were making a more direct connection to Tyndall (ie quoting you in some way).

      Another part of the letter did make good points about the costs of Kyoto
      implementation, using in part the reference which you gave us.

      We feel passionately about this issue, as we are sure you do too. It’s
      very important locally, particularly with CRed just started, that climate
      change is taken seriously, and in time that this is reflected in local and
      national policy. In this, we are all working to the same end, so we hope
      that we can support each other in the future. We regret any rifts over this
      letter, and to help mend and avoid this for the future, can we suggest that we may ask you, or Asher, to check any similar letter in the future?

      By the way, we copied you on the draft sent to EDP on Sunday morning. If you had alerted us earlier to your concerns, then we would considered
      recalling the letter for amendment (which we think EDP would have accepted up to about yesterday afternoon).

      With best wishes

      Andrew (and Rupert)

      Our emphasis.

      Now, what is EDP? Who’s Andrew & Rupert? What article is mentioned in that email?

      Climategate II. Schemes. Intrigues.

    • Here’s Mike’s response to Andrew and Rupert, vintage 2004-02-06, #3895, with our emphases:

      Thanks Andrew (and Rupert) for your apology. I feel passionate about many things, including scientists who trash good sound evidence about global warming and also about non-scientists who reduce complex messages to simple one-liners. I know I don’t always get
      it right and that some communication media are particularly difficult to use for educating, dialoguing and listening, which in the end is what it is all about to help people critically reflect on their own attitudes and behaviour.
      Anyway let’s draw a line under this one. I just hope Dick Lindzen doesn’t read the EDP at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts! Then I really would have some explaining to do.

      We sure hope Dick did not read EDP at the time. But even then, I’m sure Mike could tell how cautious he thinks Dick is, and that Dick never trashes good sound evidence about global warming.

      On the other hand, it would another opportunity to reflect on the reality of repentance, even if it may not Mike’s fault this time around.

  93. WebHub Telescope- “Hear the dog whistles. Try that line out on some other ignorant stooge.”
    Hmm. Interesting response.
    You are saying flat out that I’m a liar, which is fair enough to do on a blog. But more importantly,you are saying that it is not possible to be a liberal and to be skeptical of cagw. In other words, climate change is the overriding issue that defines whether or not one is a liberal. Is that any different from some conservatives saying that abortion is the overriding issue, and some Republican leaders are not true conservatives?
    I believe that for the majority of people– who are not all familiar with history and methods of science–belief or disbelief in global warming does divide strongly along political lines. And politicians, dependent on their livelihood on the support of constituents and donors, fall into the same camps.
    But– to say that this one issue defines one’s political belief system is to submit that it is not scientific validity that is driving the debate.

    • But– to say that this one issue defines one’s political belief system is to submit that it is not scientific validity that is driving the debate.

      There is a lot of carefully evaluated evidence that predominantly, political belief absolutely affects how people assess the scientific validity of the evidence.

      Certainly, the correlation is very strong. How would you explain that correlation? Why do you think that the way that people assess the scientific validity of the evidence breaks down along political lines?

      And this is not the only debate where we see a similar phenomenon.

      That is an entirely different direction of causality than saying that this one issue defines political belief.

      • Not sure if this is a disagreement. Political beliefs,as well as religious beliefs and economic self-interest have tremendous power over how evidence is interpreted. As well as many less obvious biases.
        However:
        1.Over time, many of these biases fade, whereas scientific evidence continues to accumulate, tending towards validation or invalidation.
        2.Although scientists are human beings with their own personal sets of prejudices, I think that the majority of them take seriously the concept of scientific integrity. As well as the possibility of discovering some objective truths worth devoting careers to..
        3.So while I suspect that climate science is an immature and evolving field that is making some mistakes in its approach to enormously complex issues, I would find it hard to believe that these scientists are primarily motivated by liberal political beliefs. I.e. I think they genuinely see themselves as scientists first.
        4.If such generalities can be tentatively accepted about the scientists, then I suggest that it is possible that intellectually honest folk who have some knowledge and experience in other challenging disciplines can have legitimate opinions that need not define them as belonging to specific political categories.

  94. Watt about John Schellnhuber?

    Vintage 2002-05-28, #0432, Tom Wigley raises some concerns:

    Mike,

    Every time I see things like this I cringe ….

    ************************************************************************
    2002 BERLIN CONFERENCE ON THE HUMAN DIMENSIONS OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL
    CHANGE
    Berlin, 6-7 December 2002
    Plenary speakers include Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the
    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Oran Young, chair of the IHDP
    Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change project; and
    John Schellnhuber, director of PIK and research director of the Tyndall
    Centre for Climate Change Research.
    ************************************************************************

    You know I have no respect for this guy. My position is fully justifiable; one just has to look at his background and training, and his publication and citation records. Quite clearly, he has contributed nothing of value to the science. But even a very competent person could not possibly hold down two responsible, full-time jobs like this. Is he being paid only 50% by both institutions? Is he spending 50% of his time at UEA? Has he contributed anything significant to the research or research initiatives/planning of the Tyndall Centre?

    […]

    http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=382

    According to his Wikipedia page, Schellnhuber was at Tyndall Center from 2001 to 2005.

    Were these concerns raised in an eventual meeting?

    Life is full of mysteries.

  95. Jim D commented on After Climategate . . . never the same (?). said: ”that was, rightly, skeptical of tree-rings due to the ‘divergence problem’’

    not just the tree-rings, but ALL the proxy data is phony. Localized temperatures and events have being interpreted as GLOBAL climate
    old kind of ”cherry-picking”

    • No, NAS included Richard Alley who uses proxy data on CO2 in deep paleoclimate, so they wouldn’t be skeptical of all proxy data.

  96. Scott commented on After Climategate . . . said: ”Even worse, one tree ring in a Yamal mountain side to overturn all the temperatures by Tonyb from CET”

    Nice way to put it Scott; trees in Yamal mountains don’t communicate with trees in Australia , China – and no trees in pacific waters – pacific is larger area than all the dry land on the planet no trees but influences the weather. Overlooking those things – in the honest professions would have being clear ”malpractice”

  97. So 19 politically-funded Climategate ‘inquiries’ happily whitewashed the hiding of data, Mike’s nature trick etc etc.

    Says it all really. Politics uber alles.

  98. I’d suggest that in the UK, Climategate had little effect on the general public.
    The serial failings of the Met Office’s predictions has done far, far more.
    “Barbecue Summers” and “Hotter, drier summers, milder, wetter winters” are what have killed public belief in this turkey.
    It is persisted with at Government levels, because there’s so much money & political capital involved in it, with massive subsidies for wind (subsidy) farms, feed-in tarrifs, fuel duty accelerators and the like.
    We are hugely sceptical of any “Government Enquiry”, with a very funny TV series called “Yes Prime Minister” having one sketch along the lines of Government never setting up an enquiry without its outcome being known.

  99. Pingback: Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup | Watts Up With That?

  100. Pingback: Judith Curry on ‘climategate’. | Gerda Peachey's Views

  101. Pingback: Political Scientists: Gerald North and Andrew Dressler Double Down on Climate Alarmism | Watts Up With That?