The thing(s) with climate change

[Ender]

A reasonable person would admit that such dishonesty diminishes the credibility of the IPCC.

For me the question raised by such questionable acts is this: if the science behind the theory that man is responsible for global warming is so overwhelmingly true, why are such disreputable acts so commonly employed by those who support the theory?

It is not just the IPCC; the rot extends much deeper: the Mann hockey stick, Climategate, the claim of 97% consensus, the continual “adjustments” of temperature data, the Wikipedia “editor” who adjusted the content of every article in Wikipedia (over 5,000) that touched on the subject of global warming…

If AGW is real, why all the deceit?

Ender

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hi Ender,

Yes, the rot goes deeper (and wider).

It is undeniable that the IPCC, the undisputed leader of the climate science establishment, is a corrupt political organization whose malign influence extends far and wide.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Hi Ender,

Yes, the rot goes deeper (and wider).

It is undeniable that the IPCC, the undisputed leader of the climate science establishment, is a corrupt political organization whose malign influence extends far and wide.

Isn’t it interesting how when you find someone like-minded to echo the story you want to hear, the story becomes more and more extreme?

 

[Ender]

Isn’t it interesting how when you find someone like-minded to echo the story you want to hear, the story becomes more and more extreme?

The story is indeed more extreme than even we have made it out to be. There seems to be an extensive stream of such examples, which all goes back to my original point: why? Why are such tactics deemed necessary (ignoring the question of how anyone can believe they are justified)? The next obvious question is why are people such as yourself so dismissive of these obvious example of deceit and corruption? Does it not matter to you?

Ender

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The story is indeed more extreme than even we have made it out to be. There seems to be an extensive stream of such examples, which all goes back to my original point: why? Why are such tactics deemed necessary

“Why” is indeed the question, but a different “why”. Why would the whole community of climate researchers be so motivated to cooperate in such giant deception, especially since there seems to be so little for them to gain and so much to lose. People just don’t behave like this without a very good reason.

The next obvious question is why are people such as yourself so dismissive of these obvious example of deceit and corruption? Does it not matter to you?

If I am so dismissive of these examples, I am in good company. If your view is so obvious, why is it not immediately adopted by the rest of the world? Why has not Pope Francis, for instance, denounced the corruption in climate science? For that matter, any sizable number of bishops? As I said to ferdgoodfellow, I would be satisfied if only 10% of the bishops recognized this corruption. Given the great harm and human suffering that could come from reliance on the “corrupted” conclusions of these people, you would think it would merit the attention of many. Yet,…,it doesn’t. Doesn’t that fact matter to you?

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hi Leaf,

You remarked:

Isn’t it interesting how when you find someone like-minded to echo the story you want to hear, the story becomes more and more extreme?

Yer right. In my exuberance I did get ahead of myself, at least with respect to the extent of the malign influence of the IPCC. But I think my conclusion that the IPCC is a corrupt political organization has been amply supported.

As to how far the rot has spread, I will now endeavor to show.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Leaf,

You said to Ender:

“Why” is indeed the question, but a different “why”. Why would the whole community of climate researchers be so motivated to cooperate in such giant deception, especially since there seems to be so little for them to gain and so much to lose. People just don’t behave like this without a very good reason.

I don’t think that the majority of scientists who comprise the climate science establishment believe they are cooperating in a giant deception. That is, they are not consciously promoting a scientific theory they believe to be false. They definitely believe that they have the truth.

But you are being naive if you think they have so little to gain and so much to lose by being part of the establishment. Listen to the Pat Michaels talk. He addresses the pressures facing academics to conform. And look at the experience of government scientists like James Hansen. He suffered nothing by being outspoken and the least muzzled climate scientist at NASA. He was showered with grants and lucrative book deals, adulation and interviews on talks show. An additional perk in his retirement is his opportunity to hang with blond bimbos like Darryl Hannah.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hi Leaf,

You also sed:

If I am so dismissive of these examples, I am in good company. If your view is so obvious, why is it not immediately adopted by the rest of the world? Why has not Pope Francis, for instance, denounced the corruption in climate science? For that matter, any sizable number of bishops? As I said to ferdgoodfellow, I would be satisfied if only 10% of the bishops recognized this corruption. Given the great harm and human suffering that could come from reliance on the “corrupted” conclusions of these people, you would think it would merit the attention of many. Yet,…,it doesn’t. Doesn’t that fact matter to you?

I am very disappointed in Papa Francesco. That he doesn’t perceive the corruption in climate science is not surprising given his political bent and the climate periti who have his ear. Do you think he is getting objective advice from Hans Joachim Shellnhooober and Naomi Klein?

It is also a great tragedy that the policies the Holy Father is urging us to adopt will hurt the poor, a constituency he champions. But I do not doubt that his motives are good. However,his knowledge is false and he is trusting the wrong experts.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

That the head is rotten should not be in doubt to 10% of all bishops or even a reasonable person. But how pervasive is the rot beyond the IPCC?

There are different ways to approach this. The first is to examine specific IPCC scandals and examine the conduct of outside institutions and individuals in relation to it.

Hockey Stick.

The whole paleo-climate community is insular and corrupt. When McIntyre & McKitrick (MM) exposed the flaws in Mann’s 98 and 99 articles, the reaction of the paleoclimate community was not to condemn Mann but defend him and embrace his tactics of stonewalling, obfuscation, using media surrogates, etc. in order to impede McIntyre’s work of auditing their studies. The tribe circled the wagons and defended their own. That this happened is not surprising because, as Wegman demonstrated, the paleo community is quite a tight little group.

Prestigious journals participated in the scandal. The IPCC, which had so prominently displayed the Hockey Stick in the 3rd Report, desperately needed to prop up the study and support its claim that the late 20th century warming was unprecedented in 1000 years. The principal means to that end was a replication study by Wahl and Amman which it finagled into the next report by ignoring its own rules and with the help of two journals which shamefully cooperated in the charade even though they knew WA was just as bogus as Mann original studies. The journals, Climatic Change and Geophysical Research Letters, coordinated with the IPCC and flouting their own rules in the process. The whole sordid affair is chronicled in Montford’s book Hiding the Decline and also in the Climategate emails.

In the early part of McIntyre’s work, the journal Nature refused to publish his critical comment because it was too long. They and other journals also refused to require Mann to give up his data and methods.

Scientific organizations participated in the scandal. In aid of Mann’s attempt to keep his statistical methods from scrutiny, the NSF agreed with Mann that his algorithm was his private intellectual property. The NAS panel, ostensibly convened to examine the whole Mann mess, in general affirmed Mann’s conclusions even though they had to agree that his methods and data were faulty! Gerald North, chairman of the panel, later admitted that they didn’t look very deeply into the matter and “just kind of winged it.” But they did NAS chairman Cicerone’s bidding and left Mann with a measure of respectability, against all the evidence. They conveniently ignored part of their remit, which was to examine whether Mann fully disclosed his data and methods and whether he was guilty of failing to disclose adverse results and misrepresenting his work.

IPCC journal tampering

A good example of the malign influence of the IPCC is how insiders worked to control, via various pressures and tactics, what gets published by scientific journals. Read the Climategate emails. They even got one editor fired for being too friendly to MM.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hockey Stick cont’d

Penn State participated in the scandal.

In the wake of the release of the Climategate emails Penn State, Mann’s employer, reluctantly commenced an investigation of Mann’s conduct. In the end they completely exonerated him. Montford quotes the reaction of Clive Crook of the Financial Times:

The Penn State inquiry exonerating Michale Mann…would be difficult to parody. Three of four allegations are dismissed out of hand at the outset: the inquiry announces that, for “lack of credible evidence’, it will not even investigate them…Moving on, the report thensays, in effect is a distinguished scholar, a successful raiser of research funding, a man admired by his peers—so any allegation of academic impropriety must be false.

Penn State did not interview MM or any other of Mann’s critics. They ignored strong evidence in the emails that Mann was guilty of cooperating with Jones’s efforts to thwart FOIA requests, violated peer review confidentiality, and other conduct unbecoming a scientist.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Phil Jones and the CRU

Phil Jones is a key figure in the paleo field and and also the IPCC. He is director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia which maintains a prominent temperature data set. When pressed for access to the CRU’s temperature data he said, “Why should I give you my data when all you want to do is find something wrong with it.” He hid the decline. He knowing violated FOIA laws and encouraged other to do the same. He is guilty, along with Mann, of journal tampering… And the CRU and the University aided and abetted him all the way. Yet he was found not guilty on all counts by multiple inquires.

Montford sums it up this way:

Yet as reports of each successive whitewash have hit the newsstands there has been little sense that anyone has been convinced. Members of the public are not fools. If a public institution launches an investigation of its own staff’s conduct the results will be heavily discounted, even at the best of times. If on the other hand the investigation is internal, operates under absurdly restrictive terms of reference, fails to interview critics and fails to examine the allegations in a meaningful way, the results will be tossed aside as worthless, even if many environmental journalists are willing to argue otherwise in the service of the greater green cause.

Read Chapter 12 of Montford’s book Hiding the Decline for his complete summary.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Wang and Jones

A big issue with regard to the surface temperature data sets is the extent to which they are contaminated by the urban heat island effect. Jones wrote an influential paper on the subject which used data from a another study by a guy named Wang. Turns out that Wang seriously and undeniably misrepresented his data and was called on it by an investigator of scientific misconduct named Keenan. Wang refused to retract his claims and Keenan followed through with a complaint to his university, the University of Albany. Result: not guilty. Albany didn’t even interview Keenan. Another whitewash. Post-script to this sub-scandal: Jones cited Wang’s study even after he knew it was highly problematic.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

I hope the jury has noted the progression of the rot. Just from examining specific scandals we now know it includes universities (Penn State, University of East Anglia, and the University of Albany). It includes prestigious scientific journals (Nature, Climate, GRU). It includes scientific organizations (NAS, NRC…). It includes whole sub-disciplines of climate science (i.e.g the pale-climate community).

A note to defenders of the climate science establishment: the trend is not looking good.

 

[Ender]

Why would the whole community of climate researchers be so motivated to cooperate in such giant deception, especially since there seems to be so little for them to gain and so much to lose. People just don’t behave like this without a very good reason.

I don’t spend any time pondering what motivates people to do what they do. I am concerned with what they do, which can be known, rather than why they do it, which cannot. What matters to me is whether the allegations I have made are true. Given the overwhelming public evidence supporting those claims, they seem evidently valid. Arguing that researchers would have no reason to behave that way is not a response to the evidence showing that that was exactly how they behaved. I don’t care why they did it. I am only concerned with what they did.

If your view is so obvious, why is it not immediately adopted by the rest of the world?

Well, clearly I don’t know since that was the question I asked. Perhaps you can explain why it doesn’t matter to you. Do you believe the charges leveled here are untrue, or do you simply not care whether they are true or not?

Ender

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I don’t spend any time pondering what motivates people to do what they do.

On the contrary, leveling charges of corruption goes to the heart of motives. It would be one thing if you were simply claiming scientific inaccuracy. But corruption and deceit** is** saying something about motives.

Given the overwhelming public evidence supporting those claims…

…they could hardly be overwhelming since so few people are overwhelmed by them.

Arguing that researchers would have no reason to behave that way is not a response to the evidence showing that that was exactly how they behaved…

But I don’t have real evidence. I have hearsay. I have other people’s biased reports. If I were a fly on the wall inside of IPCC and heard what was going on,** then **I might say I have evidence. Otherwise I will only admit as evidence, claims that everyone, even climate change supports, agree is true.

Well, clearly I don’t know since that was the question I asked. Perhaps you can explain why it doesn’t matter to you.

I’ll tell you what. I will answer your question just as soon as you get an answer from several bishops who have remained silent in the face of this “overwhelming evidence” of corruption and deceit, which could lead to lots of human misery, why it does not matter to them. Chances are, my answer will be the same as theirs.

 

[Ender]

On the contrary, leveling charges of corruption goes to the heart of motives. It would be one thing if you were simply claiming scientific inaccuracy. But corruption and deceit** is** saying something about motives.

No. If a man steals something I don’t need to know anything about why he stole it to charge him with theft. He action may in fact have been justified, his motivation may be white as snow, but the onus is on him to provide justification for his actions. Which position are you taking: that the actions alleged here did not happen, or that the perpetrators were justified in taking them?

But I don’t have real evidence. I have hearsay. I have other people’s biased reports.

We all have access to the Climategate emails. You can read them yourself. You are simply ignoring evidence that is readily available. This is the ostrich approach.

I’ll tell you what. I will answer your question just as soon as you get an answer from several bishops who have remained silent in the face of this “overwhelming evidence” of corruption and deceit, which could lead to lots of human misery, why it does not matter to them. Chances are, my answer will be the same as theirs.

If you’re not willing to defend your own position perhaps you should be less inclined to offer it.

Ender

 

[LeafByNiggle]

We all have access to the Climategate emails. You can read them yourself.

Have you read them? Out of the 1000 or so stolen emails, perhaps you can point to the 4 or 5 e-mails between these four scientists that most proves your point. I am not going to read all 1000. But I will point out that many people have analyzed all 1000 and find nothing damning in them, but rather describe them like this:

Former Republican House Science Committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert called the attacks a “manufactured distraction”, and the dispute was described as a “highly orchestrated” and manufactured controversy by Newsweek and The New York Times. Concerns about the media’s role in promoting early allegations while also minimising later coverage exonerating the scientists were raised by journalists and policy experts. Historian Spencer R. Weart of the American Institute of Physics said the incident was unprecedented in the history of science, having “never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.” The United States National Academy of Sciences expressed concern and condemned what they called “political assaults on scientists and climate scientists in particular”.

But you are welcome to show me otherwise. But I still wonder why this huge problem is so ignored by so many people. Doesn’t that make you wonder if maybe it is because it is not such a problem?

 

[Ender]

Have you read them?

No, but I have read extracts from several dozen. This document examines many of those documents written between 1996 and the end of 2009. It pulls (what the author considers) the relevant passages, comments on them, and provides a link directly to the referenced email so you can check it yourself to see if something has been taken out of context. As I said, the information is available if you care to look at it.

Out of the 1000 or so stolen emails, perhaps you can point to the 4 or 5 e-mails between these four scientists that most proves your point. I am not going to read all 1000.

You should read some of the emails circulated when Steve McIntyre was criticizing Mann’s hockey stick, and see what he had to endure in order to get the actual data Mann used in order to try to replicate his results. McIntyre asked Phil Jones for his data set (used by Mann). Jones contacted Mann expressing his concern about what McIntyre might be up to. This was Mann’s response:
*Personally, I wouldn’t send him anything. I have no idea what he’s up to,but you can be sure it falls into the “no good” category. *(Feb 9, 2004)
Then he goes on to say:
I would not give them anything. I would not respond or even acknowledge receipt of their emails. There is no reason to give them any data, in my opinion, and I think we do so at our own peril!
Given that what was imperiled was Mann’s reputation, his concern was surely valid, but this is not the way science is supposed to work.

But I will point out that many people have analyzed all 1000 and find nothing damning in them…

Right. Who are you going to believe, “many people” or your lying eyes?

Ender

 

[LeafByNiggle]

No, but I have read extracts from several dozen.

Well, there you go! Why don’t you read a random sampling of them from primary sources, not extracts from someone who has carefully arranged his presentation to sell his view. Wait, no, you can’t read a random sampling. That is because the e-mails were pre-sorted by the hackers to select out of context the ones that would most tell the story they wanted to tell. As anyone knows, an e-mail selected out of the context of the entire exchange in which that e-mail is found can be interpreted in many ways. If there were e-mails that explained the context more fully, you can be sure those e-mails were suppressed by the hackers. In short, this “evidence” has me completely underwhelmed.

You should read some of the emails circulated when Steve McIntyre was criticizing Mann’s hockey stick, and see what he had to endure in order to get the actual data Mann used in order to try to replicate his results. McIntyre asked Phil Jones for his data set (used by Mann). Jones contacted Mann expressing his concern about what McIntyre might be up to. This was Mann’s response:
*Personally, I wouldn’t send him anything. I have no idea what he’s up to,but you can be sure it falls into the “no good” category. *(Feb 9, 2004)
Then he goes on to say:
I would not give them anything. I would not respond or even acknowledge receipt of their emails. There is no reason to give them any data, in my opinion, and I think we do so at our own peril!

That is exactly how I would have responded if I thought someone was unfairly attacking my work. Why should I cooperate with the unfair attacker if I don’t have to? That evidence shows nothing!

Right. Who are you going to believe, “many people” or your lying eyes?

My eyes are indeed lying if I allow what I see to be spoon fed to me by people who are admittedly out to wreck the work of these scientists.

But you still haven’t said how it is you reconcile your views of massive corruption and deceit with the fact that those views are so unbelieved.

 

[Ender]

Well, there you go! Why don’t you read a random sampling of them from primary sources, not extracts from someone who has carefully arranged his presentation to sell his view. Wait, no, you can’t read a random sampling. That is because the e-mails were pre-sorted by the hackers to select out of context the ones that would most tell the story they wanted to tell. As anyone knows, an e-mail selected out of the context of the entire exchange in which that e-mail is found can be interpreted in many ways. If there were e-mails that explained the context more fully, you can be sure those e-mails were suppressed by the hackers. In short, this “evidence” has me completely underwhelmed.

That is exactly how I would have responded if I thought someone was unfairly attacking my work. Why should I cooperate with the unfair attacker if I don’t have to? That evidence shows nothing!

My eyes are indeed lying if I allow what I see to be spoon fed to me by people who are admittedly out to wreck the work of these scientists.

But you still haven’t said how it is you reconcile your views of massive corruption and deceit with the fact that those views are so unbelieved.