The nature journal is pretty interesting in the way it pretends the content of the emails is not damming. It's also interesting how it refers to sceptics as a "delialist fringe". Many uses of derogatory terms, such as "paranoid", "obstructionist", "harassment" etc. I certainly learned quite a bit about nature.com from its own particularly loaded wording. It's pretty apologist.

The email you quoted was created by George Monbiot, a "green" journalist whose world has been shaken quite a bit. He's pretty embarrassed about being blindly led to champion the AGW cause and he says he's ashamed to have failed in his duties as a journalist to examine the evidence behind the politics that he's promoted in the articles he's been writing for years. I'm not sure what Monbiot's going to do now. He's been shamefully exposed as a 2nd-rate journalist, but judging by his attempt at writing satire I don't think he should try to get into comedy writing. That's perhaps another career floating down the stream over this whole scandal.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

Agree, with that, although I do think that there has been some damage done by man. Whether this has caused warming or cooling I can't say.

Few would argue that we've been ecologically friendly as a species over the last couple of hundred years, for sure. Looking at photos from 100 years ago, though, we've been a heck of a lot more visibly filthy in times past.

As I've said before in this thread, I'm keen to see investments in alternative energy conversion technology research. We get the sun for free. All we really need are methods of bagging the radiation and storing it effectively for use later. The waves are another freebie, as are the tides. I'm keen on seeing more wind turbines - though it'd be better if they didn't kill sheep in the future and it'd be a lot better if we didn't need to ring the UK 4-deep in them in order to generate enough power to keep us going. Current issues are efficiencies in conversion and storage, but the clean energies are there for the taking.

Quote from 5haz :

Essentially all you seem to do is just sidestep around anyone who says something you don't like, leaving a personal insult for good measure.

You also ask others to tell you what scientific experience they have, but when they ask the same of you, you go all vague and try to get out of it.

You'd make a good politician.

The problem is that you're taking him seriously instead of noting that it's him again, that he obviously doesn't have a grasp of the subject matter (i.e. doesn't know who the UEA CRU are, doesn't understand the legal implications of their actions etc), and that he's just here to take a dump on the table and leave again.

Just skip to the next post and move on.

In other (mainstream [dead tree]) news, the story broke onto the front page of the Daily Express today. An interesting read: http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/ ... 573/Climate-change-fraud-

I just found out today that the concept of "carbon credits", with which governments trade internationally, were invented by a guy called Ken Lay. Heard of him? He was at the head of ENRON. Heard of them? LOL! Anyway, it turns out Denmark (host of the Copenhagen summit on climate change this week) is in trouble for questionable entries in their carbon credits register. Source here: http://www.cphpost.dk/news/nat ... -rife-with-co2-fraud.html (perhaps a Danish friend could give us a run down on credibility of the Copenhagen Post as a newspaper).

And at last the Independent, usually my newspaper of choice, has given a sideways acknowledgement of "climategate". Though it's not referred to the emails, documents or programming code, it has at least been forced to report on their effect on British politics. This piece is as much as I think we'll see from the Independent on the subject of climate change scepticism until its hand is forced again: http://www.independent.co.uk/n ... -environment-1832208.html

Meanwhile, over at the BBC, some more news. Phil Jones, director of the UEA CRU and author of some of the most damming emails, has stepped down. The article quotes Jones quite a bit but doesn't spend much time talking about the deeper reasons for the controversy: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/8389727.stm

Anyone got any more interesting reads?

Meh. I don't know what's going on there. .co.uk has never suggested "climategate". .com has now stopped again.

Google themselves say

Quote from Google :

Google has not ever removed the query [climategate] or variations of the query from Google Suggest.

Google Suggest uses a variety of algorithms in order to come up with relevant suggestions while the user is typing. We do remove certain clearly pornographic or hateful or malicious slur terms from Suggest.

And they do no evil, of course. More info here: http://searchengineland.com/of ... tories-get-too-long-30755

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

Let me wade in with my thoughts.

1) There is without doubt some kind of climate change going on. To argue against this would be stupid as history proves that the Earth warms and cools at specific key moments. Mind in the 1970’s it was all about “Global Cooling”?

Yes, the evidence for global cooling, reported in the 70s, is still apparently valid. You may have heard the phrase "hide the decline". This is about the last several decades, where the raw data actually indicates global cooling. Scientists (at UEA CRU) are secretly (now made public) predicting the current cooling will continue for another 20 years at least. The evidence of a thing called the Medieval Warm Period (dubbed "Medieval Anomaly" by pro-AGWs like Mann, Briffa etc) - a worldwide average temperature increase of 6 degrees - is also available in the raw historical data. This was an extended period when global warming occurred and receded, despite mankind not doing anything to affect it. Scientists that questioned the adjustments made by the UEA CRU, and made by Michael Mann in Pennsylvania (hockey stick graph - now discredited), to conceal the MWP, found their papers being rejected by science journals and from the IPCC's AR4, despite their equal standing in the scientific community and their entitlement to be heard by their peers.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

2) Where there is doubt is too how much ‘Man’ has caused. We can not say 100% that there is no cause by ‘man’, yet we can not fully say how much effect ‘man’ has made. I personally think that we have caused some damage, but not as much as the doomsayers want us to think.

I think, at this point, the consensus is that we don't even know what the world is actually doing at the moment - warming or cooling - so to draw conclusions that man is heating up the planet is a hypothesis upon a hypothesis. That, needless to say, is far too tentative a premise to place a $5 bet on, let alone commit hundreds of $billions of our money on.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

3) What this “climate-gate” has proven is that when ever there is facts and figures, these will be twisted to prove whatever the people who are funding the study wants to prove. Whether it be state funded studies into climate, or privately funded studies into the affects of smoking…the facts and figures will always me massaged and manipulated to prove what ever they want to prove. As the man from Guinness says…74.5% of facts are made up on the spot.

I'd agree, broadly. I think the implications for the wider scientific community are quite significant. Over the last 300 years we've come to see science as the antithesis of religion (faith vs proof) or modern man's alternative to religion. What we're now realising is that the integrity of science (research, hypothesis, experimentation, conclusion, presentation) is not necessarily the thing we'd come to believe in. Several times over the last week, a number of friends involved in university research have acknowledged that the peer review process can be quite incestuous. Though it's fundamentally important, in order to ensure the integrity of research theses, this aspect of the process is often tainted.

The resistance I've met this week to the very idea that climatology may be flawed has led me to conclude one thing: No matter how much it THINKS it's rejected religion in favour of science, mankind just can't quite let go of the notion of being blindly told what to believe by its authority figures.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

4) Al Gore is still a prick….regardless.

Imagine if 2012 saw a presidential campaign of Al Gore vs Sarah Palin. Stop the world, 6Bn people wanna get off.

Quote from amp88 :

So it's OK for someone to hit out at a group of people for being "angry conspiracy theorists" then leave the thread? My retort to that wasn't a personal attack (but his appeared to be), I wanted to try and explain my position because it appeared wien didn't understand it.

The emotional trauma of the deeply religious, having their belief system and everything they've come to believe in obliterated (or at least seriously called into question - what once was sure now is not) is just too much for some to bear. It's normal, and I figure it's best just to let them have their hissy fits and go.

Quote from Intrepid :

You do, I trust, know the source of that insult.. right?!

I only berated you for derailment. I'm very annoyed at ALL the UK's mainstream media for their failures in this matter, but it's not the place to reiterate the stuff we've only just gone through specifically about BBC funding. It's just not relevant to this topic. Not that it's not a valid topic, but it's better suited (and well addressed) in different thread from this.

Guys, wien's left the thread. No need for personal attacks at the best of times, but most especially after they've announced they've gone and won't be back.

Quote from Intrepid :

Sam 90% of people clearly don't care how the BBC spend their TV licence fee. Why would they care about this?

I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries.

Quote from wien :

How I feel about them has nothing to do with what I think of the quality of discussion over here. I'd be more that happy to discuss those points in a forums that isn't filled with angry, angry consipracy theorists that have just (in their minds) gotten their conspiracies confirmed. There's no point. It's a waste of energy, and only seems to lead to even more anger and even wilder conspiracy theories.

This whole field has gotten so completely out of hand I've given up on it completely. Congratulations. You won. Hooray!

Fine. Then stop trolling this thread. If you're not interested in the topic and are only interested in complaining about the people in it, then butt out. I mean it.

Quote from wien :

You're all ****ing mad.

Are we? Really?

How do you feel about the information in the leaked emails?

How do you feel about the fact that the climatology community is, and has been for decades, divided on AGW?

How do you feel about the upcoming Copenhagen summit, which is pushing for billions of dollars of governmental expenditure, being based on scientific conclusions that have not been supported by evidential data or ratified by independent scientists, despite this being contrary to normal scientific processes?

Conspiracy theories aside, the email/document leak occurred, the climatology community is divided and the UEA CRU's conclusions are the principle basis for carbon taxes. How do you feel about these things?

I don't get the fascination with Shotglass's involvement in the thread. His interest seems to revolve principally around the "gate" in "climategate" and the consequent conspiracy theory-related presumptions he spawned in his mind as a result. Beyond that, he seems pretty disinterested in AGW theories or the ramifications of the UEA email and document leak.

I'd rather delve into the thread's subject matter than waste any more time focusing on individuals in the thread. Let's move on.

hehe! A journalist friend of mine, yesterday, asked me:

"Why don't you watermark your photos?"

"I use another form of built-in theft protection." I said

"Oh cool! What method?" he asked.

"They're SHIT!" I explained.

-----

I'm headed to Whitby tomorrow with a couple of friends to take photos. Can anyone between Bradford and Whitby/Scarborough tell me what the rivers in the area are like at the moment? Are there any good places to go for some abstract swollen river shots? I'm assuming the Ouze at York will be swollen.. is it flooded? And if so, where would people recommend parking? Clifford's Tower car park?

Quote from Shotglass :

unless im mistaken the hacking was done by someone outside their group

"Security experts" suggest that you probably are mistaken. They believe that the way the information was released suggests it was a whistleblower. They say "outside" hackers tend to spread information about their hacks far and wide, claiming bragging rights etc. (not in evidence). This was more typical of an insider with an understanding of the context of the content, because the information was passed to an FTP server in Russia only after an attempt to upload to an academic journal's FTP server failed (was rejected by the server administrator). The file was linked in one, single climate change discussion forum post, and it has spread virally since then.

Quote from Vain :

You are extrapolating from one group of scientists to all scientists in the same field.

Actually, no. If I'm doing anything, I'm celebrating the fact that the field is likely to be widened to encompass the wider community of scientists in the climatological field, including those who have previously been marginalised as "denialists", despite their presentation of solid analysis of recorded data.

I'm not thinking this is the end of climatology at all. I'm thinking this is the beginning of some proper and rational research in climatology, with much more emphasis on actual data and much less emphasis on casting runes.

Quote from xaotik :

Woah there, Tex: dangerous generalisation spotted. You've just bagged a whole lot of branches of science and scientific research into a biodegradable disposal container because of a scandal in one institute in one country. The ecological strategy of countries doesn't revolve solely around climatology and surely climatology doesn't revolve around the CRU of the UAE of the DEFRA of the UK.

Conceded in part. You're right about ecology and climatology being separated. My error. But I do think it's important not to understate the significant contribution to the current broad trend of political acceptance of AGW that the UEA CRU has made. Because it has boasted the largest and most comprehensive climate data mesh, and (it seems) overstated its accuracy and integrity, its conclusions - even though they haven't supported them with data - have been broadly accepted as current thinking, and are the basis for the assertions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Quote from xaotik :

That's not a political goal - that's an economic goal at best.

Many of the ecotaxes are not just emission-based. However, being the way corporate logic works they are just dealt with as an extra cost and not an incentive to actually take a shot at devising a more sustainable (to use the trendy word for "not such a ****ed up mess") method of production.

At the level of government that we're talking, I don't think you can distill economic and political goals so easily. All governments enjoy revenue generation, but it's the politics that drive the methods of achieving it. Politically, climate change policies are divisive, most especially in the US right now.

Quote from xaotik :

What is this political goal?

Corporate emissions taxes, "Cap and Trade", carbon footprint-based taxes (air travel, car travel, fuel [home and car]), carbon credits.. there are lots of possibilities once you have instilled the belief that carbon emissions are a tangible commodity. I'm sure there are more, but these are some of the main ones in planning stages at the moment.

Quote from xaotik :

Surely you have to acknowledge the fact that there are many organizations out there that are setup either by a government or a government's department. That doesn't necessarily mean at all times that they are pursuing a political goal.

Absolutely. Which is why the recent revelations are so important, because of the implications of politicised (advocacy) research being performed under the banner of genuine science. It's an issue of scientific integrity where the cart (the policy) is placed before the horse (the science) - where the conclusion is drawn, and the science is bent until it fits the conclusion.

Quote from xaotik :

How does the UK climatology industry work and to what does it aim at? What is it that they are manufacturing (either tangible or intangible) that is worth all this?

That's the fundamental question that now needs answering. Because it's now evident that the science that has been performed is not the robust thing we've been led to believe it is, according to these scientists' own documentation and emails, the question is, now, how far OUT is the science upon which we're building our ecological futures on a worldwide scale and at budgeted costs well into the hundreds of billions.

Unfortunately it is the UEA CRU's conclusions, which it now transpires haven't been subject to the usual peer review process, and where the data used for the conclusions has been withheld (also, as you know, contrary to scientific practices) which are the basis of the IPCC, which in turn is the basis for the up-coming Copenhagen summit.

So, in the simplest of terms, the whole of the world's eco-strategy is based on what is apparently bad, possibly falsely alarmist, science.

Quote from xaotik :

Hold on. The CRU calls itself a part of the UEA. So, this nefarious political organisation in question is? The government?

DEFRA is a politicised arm of the current British government. The UEA houses the CRU, but the funding for it comes from DEFRA. Universities in the UK are these days otherwise largely self-funding through student tuition fees. Just FYI, since the higher education landscape in the UK has changed significantly over the last 15-20 years.

Quote from Shotglass :

in case noone has told you before but

Do you want me to start responding condescendingly at you, too?

Quote from Shotglass :

scientific journals i mean the real ones the ones that actually matter contain nothing but scientific papers which as i sincerely hope you realise contain nothing but peer reviewed research results and contain none such attacks

You're just demonstrating complete ignorance of the content of the emails that have been released to the public domain. There are threads of discussion in those, about how to gate-keep peer reviews, how to kill off journals that publish peers that have evidence to counter the CRU's conclusions and how to "get rid" of journal editors who fail to demonstrate supplication to the CRU's pro-AGW papers.

Quote from Shotglass :

then explain to me the strong correlation between you being in every conspiracy thread ans always supporting the latest conspiracy theory?
yes its just a correlation based on a smallish number of threads but is certainly become statistically significant at this point

My involvement in the WTC conspiracy theory threads and the Zeitgeist threads was, if you'd been paying attention, wholly disputing those silly conspiracy theories. You should examine your evidential data far more closely if you're going to draw and publish conclusions. No, really.

As far as the FIA/Ferrari "conspiracy" goes, I think the material facts of the last Concorde Agreement, as revealed by the FIA since, speak for themselves.

Quote from Shotglass :

which goes well with my own previous "dont talk about science unless you have at least a vague idea what it is" theme

How about.. don't talk about the values of scientific integrity unless you hold them dear. Is that more condescending than you, or just equally?

Quote from BlueFlame :

Why do you refer to CO2 as a pollutant? It's plant food, and plants convert CO2 into O2 thus canceling any 'pollution' out. Of course Volcanoe's aren't the CAUSE of "global warming" but notice how it USED to be called "global warming" but NOW it's "climate change" they are saying the planet is cooling now, rather than heating up as they used to say. If this alone does not show to you that it's bullshit you really aren't asking enough questions.

I don't think the alternative to bad science is simplistic thinking. I think it's important to KNOW IF we CAN know what our effect on the climate is. You can't say that you've known all along that it's all nonsense because the fact is that you COULDN'T know. Sure, you might have suspected or you might have been unconvinced because you couldn't see (have not been allowed to see) the data that goes to make the conclusions that have been drawn, but you didn't ACTUALLY know. Don't bother pretending you did.

Recent revelations in the field of climatology seem to show problems that, according to academics in other fields, are endemic in scientific study more broadly, particularly regarding advocacy research and peer review. So perhaps a new set of rules/guidelines for scientific research and review is needed. Not all science is bad science, surely? But the suggestion seems to be that the problems are not wholly limited to climatology.

Scientists labelling scientists, who don't see/can't find correlations between human behaviour and global warming, as "deniers" is unacceptable behaviour. Much if not all of the poor and loaded language in the climate sciences has come from pro-AGW scientists, and is not helpful at all to the pro-AGW cause.

I'm neither pro-AGW nor pro-"denier". I've been suspicious of the nature of what I gleaned over time to be advocacy research in climate sciences, and I've recently discovered that there are some REAL questions about the science being done and about the scientists that have done it. I want those questions resolved.

Quote from Shotglass :

i knwo thats why i pointed outs its completely irrelevant and everyone but you seems to agree with me on this

Ohhh.. didn't you know? DEFRA set up and fund the UEA CRU. Irrelevant? Really?!

Quote from Shotglass :

is this one of your worldwide conspiracies again?

Ahh.. satire. I get it. You're drawing a subtle parallel with those at the UEA CRU, who documented their own efforts to undermine sceptics, using their own influence to ensure they were treated in scientific journals as deniers and crackpots.

No, I'm not the conspiracy theorist you'd love me to be.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

There's other material on there which looks like nothing more than political spam, probably being sent to CRU because the spammers reckon they'll get a sympathetic response. Since it's not being written by the CRU people themselves, it's the least noteworthy material in the folder. You can infer anything from it, but I would probably just ignore it.

You're right, I'm sure. The cynic in me questions the presence and purpose of the document, but the clearly coercive tone of the document itself is really the offensive aspect to my mind. But I never did like the underhandedness of spin, no matter its source.

Quote from Shotglass :

again read what i write before you post unrelated drivel
i was talking about stopping to post stupidity when you dont know anything about how writing a thesis really works

You're obviously confused about the difference between practice and acceptability. It's a fact that students plagiarise, but it's not acceptable. Moreover, it's certainly not acceptable for eminent scientists to be conducting themselves in this way at such high levels and with such influence.

Quote from Shotglass :

defra is obviously a highly regarded research group...

It's a government ministry, Department for Environment and Rural Affairs.

Quote from Shotglass :

industry? what industry?
is this one of your worldwide conspiracies again?

How is climatology not an industry? Money comes in, money goes out, salaries are paid.

Quote from Shotglass :

just because you have some silly world view with people who cant do wrong doesnt mean its anywhere realistic

Your blasé attitude towards scientific integrity is saddening, but if that's where you're at then that's where you're at. I don't share your attitude and I'm grateful that it's not the norm in the scientific community either.

Quote from Shotglass :

my point about this haveing been blown out of proportion stands and every one of sams posts makes clear that his throughts are based on a very skewed and unrealistic world view

Can you explain how? I'm pretty passionate about stopping dirty science being propagated as if it were entered into law (and actually being entered into law). Is that wrong? Twisted? Unacceptable? What? I just don't get how someone who's shooting for an academic grade can possibly be accepting of such shoddy scientific work.

Quote from xaotik :

It's not aimed at scientists, it's a handbook outline for employees of the UK Department for Environment's marketing department (they'll call it "Communication Group" or something stupid like that).

Then I'd suggest that the fact that it was lifted from the computers at UEA CRU is actually far more significant. What purpose does this kind of literature serve research scientists?

Quote from Vain :

That's simple. No, nobody on this planet is or can be sure wether AGW is actually happening or not.

Then I think there's some concern, because according to the UEA CRU and their affiliates' public statements over the last 15 years, they ARE certain that it's happening and we must act immediately if, according to Phil Jones (head of the UEA CRU on 24th Nov) "we are to continue to live on this planet".

Religious conviction has no place in scientific research. Religious conviction can be described as faith or belief, despite the absence of proof or fact.