Scientists Step Down After CRU Hack Fallout 874
Posted
by
timothy
from the pure-indignation dept.
from the pure-indignation dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of the recent release of thousands of private files and emails after a server of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was hacked, Prof. Phil Jones is stepping down as head of the CRU. Prof. Michael Mann, another prominent climate scientist, is also under inquiry by Penn State University."
Re:Politics (Score:2, Interesting)
to keep it simple for those who don't get global warming, most people don't understand that icecaps melting/receeding like they have been lately is not at all a normal part of our weather patterns.
I agree though, this should be scientific discussion of how to tackle it not political "lets deal with it later"
Re:Politics (Score:4, Interesting)
to keep it simple for those who don't get global warming, most people don't understand that icecaps melting/receeding like they have been lately is not at all a normal part of our weather patterns.
Really? One of the biggest fudgings of the data was the removal of an inconvenient half millennium period that was up to 10 degrees warmer than the mean average. What do you think the glaciers did then?
Re:Politics (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, this has never happened before. Oh, wait... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt62tnjg5bs [youtube.com]
Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
Glad to see the cat finally coming out of the bag.
The reason this is under "Politics" is because, like it or not, this has become a political debate.
The science was thrown out long ago, as the emails prove.
The Earth undergoes cycles of climate change. We(humans) have a minimal affect on it.
We were not around for any of the previous hot or cold times, and they will continue to happen long after we're gone. To deny this is to deny historical fact.
The debate is indeed over. The proof is written in the stone, or the ice, as it were. ;-)
What surprises me about all of this (Score:1, Interesting)
What surprises me about all of this isn't that that the Climategate scientists were caught apparently fudging facts and massaging data when said facts and data did not support what they wanted the conclusion to be, or that they were caught definitely trying to muzzle any scientists who questioned them. What surprises me most is that people are surprised by this. What surprises me second most is that scientists don't get caught doing this more often.
Why is that?
Well, we (well, not I, but many people) have this view of scientists as pure, balanced, objective, high-minded individuals in pursuit of pure scientific truth, Reality is that scientists, while highly trained and educated, are human just like everyone else. They can be vain, egotistical, self-serving, corrupt, and dishonest, just like everyone else. They want to be right, just like everyone else. They don't want to be publicly proven wrong, just like everyone else. And some of them will do anything to not be proven wrong, including lie and forge data and results. I'm not saying the scientists in question here did (or didn't) do that, just that some scientists have done things like that in the past and will do so again in the future. They're human, like anybody else.
For those of you old enough to remember when the prevailing theory of dinosaur extinction was failure to adapt to changing environmental conditions and competition from the rise of mammals, you may also recall that the first scientists to advance the mass-extinction/asteroid impact theory had scorn heaped upon them for years by the scientific establishment. However, they stuck to their guns and that theory is now accepted as fact and anyone advancing the previous theory would be the scorn magnet.
This is a case that certainly bears investigation, to find out whether or not real fraud has really occurred, and why (and how successful they were) they are trying so hard to prevent even the publication by other highly qualified researchers of any opposing viewpoint. After all, if the AGW theorists are correct and their methodology sound, it should stand up to public scrutiny and challenge, so why be afraid of challengers. If the AGW group is right, the challengers will be proven wrong.
That said, I think that reasonable efforts to reduce use of fossil fuels and produce less pollution are good in and of themselves, whether global warming is caused by humans (or even happening) or not. If you lived in southern California in the seventies, you'll recall how bad the smog was in those days. There were days when the smog was so bad that classes at my middle school in San Diego were canceled and students were sent home early. Today, there are far more cars on the SoCal freeways, but the air is much better, thanks to more fuel-efficient vehicles and good pollution control equipment. AFAIK school doesn't get canceled due to smog anymore, not even in LA. If we all had the kind of cars now that we had then, the smog would be so bad that SoCal (and the Bay area) would both be unlivable. Sustainable practices are good, independent of global warming.
Re:Science (Score:2, Interesting)
You act as if the alarmists have nothing to gain from manipulating the science. No matter what the science says, everyone that has a stake in securing research grants that "prove" a link between CO2 and warming will tend to fight tooth and nail against anyone claiming that CO2 does no harm. Simple selfish interest.
A dark day for science... (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember Ike's Warning? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember Ike's warning about the Military-Industrial Complex? In that same speech, he also said:
(http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html)
Think about that the next time someone tries to discredit research because it was funded by an oil company.
Ike's warning has been borne out. Public policy has become the captive of a scientific-technological elite, who, unsurprisingly, are a bunch of dishonest frauds.
Chuck Norris says... (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/12/chuck-norris-takes-obamas-climate-one-world-order [motherjones.com]
"My big worry, is that we as a nation, if we start having to be obligated to other countries ... Like, in this conference they're going to try to take our money and send it to third world countries, because of since we spend so much oil, and these other countries have suffered, then we're going to give our money to these third world countries."
I don't know about you, but I found this comment to be hilarious in its absurdity!
1) Biggest objector to a Climate Change accord: USA.
2) The reason? Because the big polluters out there like China and India will not contribute.
3) The reason? Because the USA et al. have been doing it for decades and as a result are very developed (wealthy). China and India figure it is their turn, why should their development be held back, its not fair.
4) The impasse?: Every accord that has been done basically severally cuts emissions in developed countries, while barely touching those of 3rd world or developing countries.
5) The result?: Developed countries will have tighter restrictions likely leading in a decline of their economy, while developing countries will continue to grow and will have boom economies.
So in one sense Chuck Norris is correct, on some level there will be a redistribution of wealth from rich developed countries to poor developing countries. However in another sense he is an idiot, as the USA currently OWES China something in the tune of 800 Billion dollars and growing anyway.
Re:Science (Score:4, Interesting)
You act as if the deniers have nothing to gain from ignoring the science. No matter what the science says, everyone that has a stake in industries that produce large amounts of CO2 will tend to fight tooth and nail against anyone claiming that CO2 does any harm. Simple selfish interest.
It's the energy companies fighting for cap and trade. Demand goes up while they aren't allowed to supply more, which makes prices rise without them having to add any more supply.
Jones, who is stepping down had received over $22.6 million in grants since 1990.
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is the top shareholder of Dutch Shell Oil (how much so is a state secret) and is also the founder of the WWF. She is also an honorary member of the Club of Rome, which has pushed global warming as a way to scare people into world governance, funded by carbon taxes (see: First global revolution).
All of the top beaurocrats pushing global warming (al gore, maurice strong, etc...) are heavily invested in carbon trading exchanges.
I have yet to see the "deniers" be as heavily involved in money making schemes as the "alarmists."
Re:Politics (Score:2, Interesting)
Corporate masters? That implies all these internet trolls are being paid.
See this is the part I find most confusing about the amount of energy these denialists devote to the "cause" of keeping big oil fat and happy. Somehow, an army of deluded dupes has been created and they aren't being paid a nickel for their efforts. As we get closer and closer to the copenhagen conference, they get louder and louder and devote increasing amounts of unpaid time to internet boards, radio call in shows, letters columns, etc. It's mystifying.
Re:Hockey guy? (Score:3, Interesting)
We've dumped a metric assload of carbon into the atmosphere and we can measure it (we have actually boosted greenhouse gases about 40% from the level pre-industrial era). there is no way this could be anything but very very bad.
If the world isn't observably warming up, or not over the last decade, but that is purely by a stroke of luck, and buys us time to actually do something. What the denalists can't show is that the aforementioned empirical asston of greenhouse gases we've spewed out is completely harmless, because simple reliable science say it can't be, and indeed hasn't been in prehistory.
Re:Politics (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fraud (Score:5, Interesting)
In response to the readme file. Yes, the coding is bad. They aren't fudging the data though.
Re:Fraud (Score:2, Interesting)
Google Censoring Climategate (Score:2, Interesting)
Shortly after the story broke, "climategate" used to be one of the top autocomplete suggestions as you started typing it out.
Now it's no where to be found.
Even "climategat" won't give you the suggestion of "climategate".
"Climategate" has over 20,000,000 hits.
"Climate Guatamala City" has 840,000 hits.
"Climate Guadalajara" has less that 800,000 hits.
Obviously search suggestions are not driven by the number of hits, but the frequency of the search.
But:
- There is an order of magnitude difference in the hits for "Climategate" and other suggested search terms.
- You get suggestions for things that don't match what you're typing, yet you don't get suggestions for spelling "climategat" or "climategate".
- "Climategate" used to be a search suggestion. It appears as if the algorithms at Google picked up on it as they should, and it was MANUALLY REMOVED.
You DO however still get the suggestion of "climate gate scandal" if you start typing in "climate g", though there are only 6,500,000 hits for "climate gate scandal" and the top few pages are filled mostly with the same Joseph Bast article talking mostly about economics.
Bing has NO suggestions for "climategate" or "climate gate", though I do not know if it ever did.
Re:Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
And what, precisely, was wrong with the Nature editorial linked to above?
Someone's pushing an agenda here, and it's not chillax137.
Sure, maybe realclimate.org is "not to be trusted", but when Nature (investigates separately and) agrees with their conclusions, I'm inclined to agree with them even if climate-gate.org does not. Moreover, is it possible that (even if only going by the name and ignoring the type of content that they post) climate-gate.org might just have an agenda of their own to push?
Was it just [re]discovered, that simulations... (Score:3, Interesting)
One renown scientist told me that simulations are just models that you tweak to get results you want.
This [now political situation] appears to have followed that same principle.
Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies! (Score:3, Interesting)
That was for one researcher at one facility. The US government alone spends billion annually on climate research
I'd like to see your number on how much the oil industry is spending on anti-AGW studies and such. The only number I can find is for Exxon @ about 23 million over the last decade, with approximately 7 million of that for last year. Even if that had all been spent last year that would still fall short of just US federal spending by more than a factor of 100.
Only in the AGW realm can a group of people collectively spending a few million (even a few 10's of millions to be generous) be considered the Goliath to a worldwide political force spending in the 10's and hundreds of Billions.
Re:Politics (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I have never been to WI but I hear from reliable sources it is also experiencing drought conditions [unl.edu]. Tell me, do they teach history [about.com] in WI?
Re:Politics (Score:3, Interesting)
What is clear is that the whole hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming through the addition of man-made greenhouse gases needs to be revisited from scratch, because we know less than we thought three weeks ago.
Nobody knows whether man-made release of carbon dioxide is on balance, a good thing or not.
Re:Politics (Score:2, Interesting)
First, it isn't clear how Al Gore would instantly become a billionaire if cap and trade becomes law. Second, you really think one man is more influential than several, already, multi-billion dollar industries?
While this may be true, they already are the completely dominant force in commerce and so they'll make even more money if they don't have to retool anything.
What? Are you counting yourself and all the other posters on slashdot?
What cooling? The temperatures may be slightly cooler than the absolute peak, but to say there is a cooling trend is simply not true. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ [nasa.gov]
Maybe because those periods weren't as warm globally as you think they were. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warming [wikipedia.org]
The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather between about AD 800-1300, during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented. It was initially believed that the temperature changes were global.[2] However, this view has been questioned; the 2001 IPCC report summarises this research, saying "...current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of 'Little Ice Age' and 'Medieval Warm Period' appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries".[3] Global temperature records taken from ice cores, tree rings, and lake deposits, have shown that, taken globally, the Earth may have been slightly cooler (by 0.03 degrees Celsius) during the 'Medieval Warm Period' than in the early- and mid-20th century.[4] Crowley and Lowery (2000) [5] note that "there is insufficient documentation as to its existence in the Southern hemisphere."
I'm surprised a bunch of claims like yours can get modded up at all. Oh, wait... nevermind.
Re:Google Censoring Climategate (Score:4, Interesting)
Bing did have 'climategate' as the top suggestion until today. In fact, just typing 'cli' would have netted you climategate as the top suggestion on Bing until today. Yes, it's disappeared completely today. See here [wattsupwiththat.com] and here [wattsupwiththat.com] for more details.
Do no evil, huh? At least MS isn't making any pretences...
Re:Science (Score:3, Interesting)
The peer review process itself was subverted. They got published and anyone who wrote articles criticizing them got blocked, even to the extent of having independent editors removed if they dared question the "science" that they were producing.
Re:What is the motivation to fabricate AGW? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're missing the simple human motivation of power.
Why did Rachel Carson blame DDT when ALL the subsequent testing showed that it wasn't DDT that caused eggshell thinning, etc.?
Why have enviromental alarmists previously cried that we're all going to die from:
- too much cold
- too much heat
- running out of food
- running out of oil
- running out of clean water
- all the wild animals going extinct
- running out of landfill space
- PCBs
- mercury
- lead
- acid rain
- nuclear power
- coal power
- overpopulation
?
CONTROL.
Of course, Gore himself WAS likely just in it for the money, he's well on the way to being the world's top magnate with his fingers in every carbon-trading scheme.
Re:Politics (Score:4, Interesting)
Well put.
After you reach 100% grant funding for the principal investigator salary, new grants go to fund more students and more research assistants and post-docs. The more students and post-docs a PI has, the more prestige and the bigger his realm. The more overhead he provides to the Uni the more respect and more prestige he's given by the Uni. The more he can demand in offices and lab space.
It's easier than that. Were I to reveal my position, I could also reveal to you a certain "researcher" I know of who has ONE actual research project but over a dozen "project names" (one for each multi-million dollar grant), skims off ~$50-100,000 per year from each associated grant (depending on the grant's PI funding limit), funnels the rest into paying a couple grad students to "oversee" day-to-day operations and a staff of ~10-20 (depending on season) undergrads working for minimum wage handing out surveys and typing in results, and publishes back a paper every so often using the same data, just massaging the conclusion towards what they think the particular grant committee wanted to hear.
The "researcher" is rarely if ever around on campus, they rather spend a lot of time on lush vacations or in bars. With the advent of technology, half of their lectures are prerecorded and just played back on video, the other half are done via videoconference. It's really quite disturbing to hear about.
About fudging numbers. I've seen what today's grad students are being taught about data processing. If their dataset is supposed to look like a smooth line they will make it look linear, even if that means they throw 90% of it away as "outliers". There is no consideration given to why those points exist, if they don't fit the assumption about what valid data should look like, out they go. There are tools to take a plot that looks ugly and simply point at the data you want to go away, and it does. Magically, their dataset matches the prediction.
SPSS, SAS, and Excel are indeed the Devil's Work... heh.
Re:Ha! That'll show them hippies! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://mediamatters.org/research/200912010030 [mediamatters.org]
Re:Politics (Score:4, Interesting)
Spend a little time reading up on the company he and partners founded for exactly this purpose. GIM ("Generation Investment Management") sells carbon offset credits. So, when people complain that Al's burning up a whole lot of carbon when he flies to global warming religious events, he says it's OK, because he purchases carbon offset credits that make his carbon footprint completely neutral. What a relief! It's also extra convenient that he buys those credit from his own company, and that he gets millions in grants to carry on this way. His firm also invests in companies that are lined up to get enormous new grants as our supposed run-away man-made global warming is combatted through the spending of colossal amounts of federal borrowed-from-China dollars on anything labeled "green" or "alernative."
It helps that some of the people who have helped him set up arrangements in this area had investigations of their dealings called off by Janet Reno at the time. Yes, we wouldn't want a lot of extra scrutiny while setting up investment vehicles and finaancial instruments so that you can be the first mover to offer services in a market that you then publicly create by whipping up fear over bad PR and cropped photographs of polar bears.
His company handles over a billion in investment cash that chases any green-smelling contract or startup. It's no surprise that his associations with the very people who generate the hype, and his connections with the party in power that is now screaming about the need to spend trillions in new taxes on the use of carbon, happen to result in firms that use his capital being ready to get incredibly rich. And of course he's busy establishing carbon exchanges that will allow guilty carbon users to swap cash for guilt, and he, of course, will reap huge commissions in facilitating those trades. Hey, somebody has to do it, right? Why not the guy who had movie posters with hurricanes coming out of factory cooling towers? He must know a lot about that market right? Of course, because he's created it.
Re:"Pol Pot?" Come the frak on. That's ridiculous. (Score:4, Interesting)
Climate scientists suggest that aerosols are hurting the ozone layer, and point to an actual growing hole in the ozone layer. We reduce aerosols, the hole in the ozone layer shrinks. .
IIRC a few Australian scientists reanalyzed the "ozone hole" data awhile back, and it correlated ~100% to the output of the VOLCANO near the south pole, and did not correlate to man-made "ozone depleting" gas output well at all, indicating that industry wasted billions of dollars converting to fix a problem that didn't really exist, and converted to replacement gasses that are actually excellent greenhouse gasses in the process.
Or was this made up too?