513 replies to this topic

[Devonian]

VillagePlank, on 21 November 2009 - 10:25 , said:

I think it is probably sensible and rational to wait a while and see what is contained in those emails.

A good move by the University of East Anglia (not the Hadley Centre, btw) is to verify that each and every character in the content of download is genuine/not-genuine and is untampered/tampered with. A good piece of software will do the trick in no time.

I think I read somewhere these are actually IPCC e mails being kept as part of a IPCC requirement.

Quote

In the meantime I would find it highly unsurprising that some of the leading proponents of AGW have not, at some point, expressed doubts about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and whether or not their conclusions are right. Since this lot is supposed to be going back some 15 years - which you will all recall, back then, the science was even more controversial back then - then I suspect there will be private correspondence dealing with that.

One has to remember that people talk in private in a different way that they talk in their professional caoacity. Do you talk about your colleagues at work when you are at home with your spouse? If such conversations got out what would you and everyone else think? Private is, well, private - and there's a reason why we are all entitled to a private life.

I suppose I'd better get my CV together .... Do you think that now would be a good time to attempt to get the LI hypothesis published?

it is rather amazing that for some the definition of 'private' is now 'in the public realm'.

Edited by Devonian, 21 November 2009 - 10:42 .

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

Personally, I think that the only way to get to the bottom of it is to order a judicial inquiry. It is very unlikely that we (the general public) will be able to get to the bottom of whatever is contained in those emails, and, for the most part, there will be a sentence or two that will be out of place, and will be seized upon.

This does the sceptic argument (of which, I suppose, I am part of) no favours at all. I wish the hacker hadn't done it, as I feel things like the LI can actually have some part to play in climatology - if not only to factor in latency (and to open up new branches of interest to investigate such hysteresis) Indeed, there is some crossover with Roger's work, too - because the LI relies on sunspots and not insolation so requires other effects, such as magnetism, to be considered - and there is evidence that planetary motion is correlated to sunspot activity.

Anyway, for me, a sad sad episode - and the only way to clear the air is for some form of official inquiry to be set up and implemented.

Devonian, on 21 November 2009 - 10:42 , said:

it is rather amazing that for some the definition of 'private' is now 'in the public realm'.

I think some people might be shocked if their behaviour for the last 15 years was listed out in a plain text file and was published for all to read and critique. I mean, who can stand up and say that in the last 15 years they have done nothing of which they might be ashamed or embarrassed?

[Solar Sausage]

I'm sure someone (having nothing better to do!) could take many of our 'tongue-in-cheek' posts sufficiently out of context, and paint an entirely unrepresentative impression of the posters?

[Captain_Bobski]

Having had a trawl around the internet, I am heartened that the discussion on these boards has been so tentative. As most of us are probably aware, there are dozens (possibly hundreds) of sites that have exploded into activity with accusations here are counter attacks there.

In response to Persian Paladin I would like to point out that, as yet, nobody has claimed that their emails have been altered - only that their remarks have been taken out of context. The contextual thing is going to be a rather difficult thing to prove either way, I would have thought, without the complete archives.

I have only read excerpts posted on various websites, having not found a link to the archive that works so far. Even if I could download the archive I'm not entirely sure, at this point, that I would want to read it - some of the pdfs might be interesting if they are drafts of papers, especially if they show a progression of the drafting process.

Finally I would like to add that if the archives are genuine and in context then there are some serious questions to be answered about the possibilities of corruption of the peer review process. It's all very well to say that, despite these messages, nobody has countered the actual science of global warming, but if the peer review process is shown to be biased against alternative hypotheses, regardless of how good their science is, then that argument doesn't hold any water.

But I can not stress the if enough.

Anyway, I don't have anything else to add at this point, I think. Until there is something more to go on it's all pretty speculative.



CB

[laserguy]

PersianPaladin, on 21 November 2009 - 01:06 , said:

The problem with people though, is that they get all skeptical and conspiratorial about anthropogenic global warming but yet totally accept government reports about health, terrorism, and warfare without question.

Um,I don't PP! Just that the AGW sham is closest to my heart for reasons I'm frankly not sure of,and therefore the most vocal about. Given that you see almost the entire world as one big conspiracy,I'm amazed that you haven't seen through the most obvious one. Anyway,I bet they didn't see this one coming down their mythical 'pipeline' .

[paul tall]

Oh dear, well what do we have here?

Surely not a load of warmalists bricking it about being found out?

I've said it for years, "Climate Change" is an INDUSTRY first and foremost. Too many people have their fingers in the pie to expect completely unbiased research into the climate change.

Lets face it, we stopped warming a decade ago, and this has resulted in the change of tack from "Global warming" to "Climate change" which is of course much more malleable a term and keeps those research grants rolling in - you can call almost any weather events "Climate change".

We are all being taken for a ride.

Edited by paul tall, 21 November 2009 - 12:35 .

[The PIT]

Emails taken out of context. LOL basically we've been caught with our trousers down. How can we pull our dishomest pants up and get away with it.

Anyway if I was a minister I'd be looking at some saving some money by reducing some grants. I know what would move up my list right now.

Pete Tattum, on 21 November 2009 - 10:59 , said:

I'm sure someone (having nothing better to do!) could take many of our 'tongue-in-cheek' posts sufficiently out of context, and paint an entirely unrepresentative impression of the posters?

Out of interest have you got a copy of these emails???

[Solar Sausage]

The PIT, on 21 November 2009 - 12:39 , said:

Emails taken out of context. LOL basically we've been caught with our trousers down. How can we pull our dishomest pants up and get away with it.

Anyway if I was a minister I'd be looking at some saving some money by reducing some grants. I know what would move up my list right now.




Out of interest have you got a copy of these emails???

No. But I have seen some of them on the Web...

[paul tall]

PersianPaladin, on 21 November 2009 - 06:33 , said:

And...






http://rawstory.com/...l-warming-hoax/


I wish the deniers would actually make a decent case. Their argument is as weak as ever.

[The PIT]

Pete Tattum, on 21 November 2009 - 12:47 , said:

No. But I have seen some of them on the Web...

Check your pm.

[masheeuk]

I think some people might be shocked if their behaviour for the last 15 years was listed out in a plain text file and was published for all to read and critique. I mean, who can stand up and say that in the last 15 years they have done nothing of which they might be ashamed or embarrassed?
[/quote]

I think 15 months is enough for most people let alone years

[Mr Maunder]

Pete Tattum, on 21 November 2009 - 10:59 , said:

I'm sure someone (having nothing better to do!) could take many of our 'tongue-in-cheek' posts sufficiently out of context, and paint an entirely unrepresentative impression of the posters?

The difference here being that no-one on this forum (as far as I am aware) is being paid a salary from a government sponsored agency to provide us with scientific input which affect energy, taxation and no doubt many other strategies.

No one likes theft, but are we glad or not that someone stole the details of MPs expenses? That was one theft that I was not offended by! If you are playing with the truth expect to be found out - by people whose motives (political or personal) do not match your own.

We'll find out in due course whether these e/mails are "doctored" or "taken out of context". However the the sound of denials are hardly deafening. If this does turn out to have some basis then this will, inevitably, do their "cause" no good at all.

Finally, I learned long ago that there is no such thing as an *unofficial e-mail". I'm surprised that the senders were not of the same view. Once written and sent an e-mail almost certainly exists somewhere and it is quite likely to hang around for a long time. In that sense there is a similarity to postings on this forum!

MM

Edited by Mr Maunder, 21 November 2009 - 13:57 .

[The PIT]

Mr Maunder, on 21 November 2009 - 13:17 , said:

The difference here being that no-one on this forum (as far as I am aware) is being paid a salary from a government sponsored agency to provide us with scientific input upon which affect energy, taxation and no doubt many other strategies.

No one likes theft, but are we glad or not that someone stole the details of MPs expenses? That was one theft that I was not offended by! If you are playing with the truth expect to be found out - by people whose motives (political or personal) do not match your own.

We'll find out in due course whether these e/mails are "doctored" or "taken out of context". However the the sound of denials are hardly deafening. If this does turn out to have some basis then this will, inevitably, do their "cause" no good at all.

Finally, I learned long ago that there is no such thing as an *unofficial e-mail". I'm surprised that the senders were not of the same view. Once written and sent an e-mail almost certainly exists somewhere and it is quite likely to hang around for a long time. In that sense there is a similarity to postings on this forum!

MM

One of the reasons why you've got to be careful what you say in an email and also on forums as they can come back to haunt you as some have found out.
At the moment they're lucky as there's more important news items such as the flooding in the news. If it was a quiet news day it maybe different.

[cyclonic happiness]

This all smacks to me of propaganda, I'm just going to ignor this and the majority of what all scientists think and just get on with what I believe to be true...i.e nothing

Seems to to me like science has turned into the new religion that we all have to believe in or we won't be taken seriously.
We don't even know if this material was stolen or not, may be a "reverse psychology" thing lol!

And even if it is true, it will serve them right for being so flippant across the information super highway.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Well, I'll be the first to admit that CRU could have handled some aspects of this fiasco better. Doesn't justify the hacking into the servers though.

[laserguy]

Thundery wintry showers, on 21 November 2009 - 14:19 , said:

Doesn't justify the hacking into the servers though.

I think agreement on that is unanimous on here,wherever one 'stands' on AGW. Can we put it to rest now,please? The deed has been done so no going back,just see where things go from here on in.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Smacks of a bit of a double standard to say that, as I don't see any mistakes that CRU has made being "put to rest" anytime soon, in fact I see them being used as evidence against AGW at every opportunity (there may, of course, be some files and arguments that do undermine the case, but there's also a lot of people looking for what they want to see).

Put it this way, would it be reasonable to see "put it to rest" comments, and even "serves them right", if some pro-AGW group had hacked into the servers of some sceptic group in order to find files and emails of theirs that might undermine their case against AGW?

My suspicion regarding the files is that they are probably genuine, but we will hopefully find out more on that in the future.

[laserguy]

Thundery wintry showers, on 21 November 2009 - 15:17 , said:

Put it this way, would it be reasonable to see "put it to rest" comments, and even "serves them right", if some pro-AGW group had hacked into the servers of some sceptic group in order to find files and emails of theirs that might undermine their case against AGW?

No it most certainly wouldn't. Haven't I made that perfectly clear? Such a scenario would have to run it's course,as will the current one. But the circumstances by which it has come to the fore cannot be condoned. Are we going to try squeezing toothpaste back into the tube,next? My "put it to rest" comment referred to the fact that the deed had been done and there's no going back on that,not a comment on AGW science,in case there's any confusion.

[pottyprof]

laserguy, on 21 November 2009 - 15:28 , said:

But the circumstances by which it has come to the fore cannot be condoned.

Yeps. Let's leave it at that peeps. We don't need to go round and round saying that it was wrong to hack the server.

How useful this information is, remains to be seen. Some interesting comments have been made on various sites and as yet, we have not seen any real attempt to clarify the details.

The spluttering of "things being taken out of context" isn't convincing.

I really think there should be an enquiry to get to the bottom of what has been said. This could be a very important turning point if the truth is what has seemingly been written..

[PersianPaladin]

The PIT, on 21 November 2009 - 09:33 , said:

Had a look at some of the content at randomn. First of all this seems to be a come and grab raid as there's a lot of day to day normal stuff. Whoever took it doesn't seem very interested in the content otherwsie they'd have dumped the day to day stuff.

What I have seen though is.

Well, thats a presumption.

Quote

1) Admission that solar cycle effects the climate.

A constant effect and known about for long enough.

Quote

2) Removal of the medievil warm period as it doesn't fit in properly.

Do you know the context?

Quote

3) Admission that the climate is within normal bounds and theres little evidence of man made warming.

Proof?

Quote

4) With holding and altering data and I never said or told you to that mentatlity and delete those emails asap.

Again, did you read what I posted above? Are you aware of taking things out of context?

Quote

5) A man in the BBC to deal with awkward stuff. one email said how did he let that get through for instance.

Hardly sinister. Its about public relations and presenting things in a manner which cannot be exploited, misconstrued, etc.

Quote

6) Website who's sole aim is to pedal propaganda where any questions they can't answer is filtered out.

Propaganda is everywhere. Governments and corporations want to exploit a good crisis, thats why they offer either very bad and exploitative "solutions" to the climate crisis or they covertly fund front-groups that deny the science. Either way, it leads the general public into the hands of the government and financial industries "carbon credit/tax" solution or the energy corporations' denial "business as usual" attitude.

Quote

The way forward now is that all data is published and not kept behind close doors. Certainly the science is discredited and being open is the only forward.

There is surprisingly more consensus on anthropogenic global warming from independent scientists that you may realise. Many of these scientists are not looking to sell a product or a carbon credit-default-swap as an excuse for pushing their claims.


Oh, and PIT what I found very insulting is people who call me "conspiracy theorist" as if to broad-brush me into some general mind set. I look at each issue on its own merit, and I try and do as much thorough research as I can to see if there is any strong case of foul-play, deception, mendaciousness, cover-ups, conflicts of interest, etc.

Edited by PersianPaladin, 21 November 2009 - 16:27 .