Climategate (GW email leak)

[jryan]

You know, I'm half inclined to agree with JRyan on his critique of the ETS solution to global warming, but isn't that another topic?

 

I thought we were here to watch JRyan prove his conspiracy allegations of fraudulent science as epitomised by the climategate emails. All this ETS discussion is doing is giving JRyan another way of avoiding his responsibilities: specifically backing up his quite specific allegations against the climategate emails, which for over a week now, he has avoided.

 

I have a hard time taking seriously any request to cherry pick the CRU emails article when it has already been argued that the CRU emails have been cherry picked and therefor are worthless. I'm sure you see how silly such a request is.

 

But I will respond to YOUR cherry picked entries shortly if it will make you happy.

[jryan]

But before I get to those, let's finish off your list of 8...

 

 

4. I thought it was funny. It was for the humour of it... because he's the one turning himself into a public joke.

 

We've moved on.

 

5. What is the PURPOSE of the funding? Exxon's is to attack and cast doubt on the peer-reviewed science and publish anti-peer reviewed science and rumours and meme's. Greenpeace's work is informed by the peer-review process, not fighting it. We are talking about what GETS IN THE WAY OF GOOD SCIENCE HERE and so I'd like you to prove that climategate has actually done so, and not just ASSERT that it has done so. You're "MR ASSERTION" from here on in until you actually start discussing some DATA!

 

And as I pointed out, Greenpeace, which is on the attack on the other side has a $300+ million dedicated largely to the cause of climate change. Given the difference between $300 million on one side from Greenpeace and $8 million on the other from Exxon, it's clear that in the realm of climate advocacy Exxon is a light weight. And I'm not even counting the WWF and the thousands of lesser organizations lined up on the Greenpeace side with money to spend on climate change.

 

So yeah, I see no point in you pointing out $8million by Exxon when it is dwarfed by the other side.

 

 

6. I've got nothing against keeping the IPCC honest, especially as it is an extremely slow and conservative and politically hamstrung organisation that does not necessarily represent the current status of peer-reviewed climate science. Last I heard they were still recommending 450ppm, whereas the science has changed to 350ppm!

 

Links would be nice there.

 

 

But I have EVERYTHING against hysterical anti-science claims being funded and repeated endlessly around the internet, at Heartland institute conferences, etc. The PEER REVIEW Process is how the science is evaluated, and these guys can't get their anti-science papers published and so they go it alone, and have a good paranoid rant when they can't get published. "I'm persecuted, oh poor me, I'm being conspired against by evil-greenie climatologists!"

 

And as I already showed, the IPCC peer-review process was biased towards warming. Here is a list of 17 such non-scientific citations that don't even include the well known citation of Himalayan melt, and the bogus rain forest claim, or the absurd citation of Antarctic stress citing a boot cleaning brochure for Antarctic tourism and numerous unpublished college theses.

 

And that still isn't all of it.

 

 

If they wrote some good science now and then they might get published!

 

That doesn't matter to you, as published science that doesn't meet your expectations is readily dismissed.

 

7. I'm not quoting Hansen, but the House committee. If you feel that Hansen AND CO. were not persecuted, take it up with them!

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1212/p03s03-uspo.html

 

I see no need to since whether the House committee of Hansen himself made the claim his supervisor said it wasn't so and his 1,000 appearances throughout the media in that time is a testament to how unrestrained he actually is/was.

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Ok, now on to the CRU Email response...

 

Ha ha ha! Oh boy, thanks for that! I use forums all the time and should have known it would be a USER preference not a moderator setting! Thanks. The forum is now lightening fast. Let the debate continue!

 

(Sighs)

Out of the sheer need to be bored before bedtime, I've been reading through some of JRyan's favourite link.

 

John P Costella takes an email, and then writes the most biased interpretation of each email that he can, and then bases outrageous conclusions on his initial misreading of the email.

It runs:

EMAIL => WORST MISINTERPRETATION OF EMAIL POSSIBLE => OUTRAGEOUS AND UNFOUNDED CONCLUSIONS FROM BIAS IN MISINTERPRETATION.

 

Lets look at a few of the first emails. (this really makes me puke).

 

And away we go...

 

 

 

EG:

Umm, no John, I'm reading about the viability of REPORTING this confusing data to an uninitiated public, not the viability of it as propaganda. But hey, if this is the worst you can do, then go for it!

Then John goes on to totally exaggerate something quite serious *sounding* that Gary Funkhouser wrote. Wait till you see the exaggerations from this one! John must be one **paranoid puppy**!

 

Yep John, but you don't tell us that Funkhouser ACTUALLY refrained from publishing this data do you? No?

 

He refrained from using the data for political reasons, not scientific reasons. As a scientist the data has value or it doesn't as truth is the ultimate goal. In this case he wasn't concerned about where the data was TRUE or not, just that it would confuse the public.

 

Your defense of such a decision by a scientist simply ignores the fact that withholding evidence to help promote a message IS propaganda.

 

You just let your clever writing INSINUATE that he didn't publish it. So John my dear boy, did he or didn't he publish it?

 

No he didn't.. hell, it was the very next email in the chronolgy.

 

Email #0843161829

"I really wish I could be more positive about the … material, but I swear I pulled every trick out of my sleeve trying to milk something out of that. … I don’t think it’d be productive to try and juggle the chronology statistics any more than I already have—they just are what they are … I think I’ll have to look for an option where I can let this little story go as it is."

 

In this case he couldn't find any signal in the data set so he wouldn't use it. Nut a null result is still valid... as a matter of fact, rejecting a null result corrupts the resulting analysis. This is also the "sin of Mann" too, by the way. Mann had his code search out and accept only ring data with a "signal"... though it is more complicated and worse than that as he picked positive and negative correlations then flipped the negative correlations upside down (making them possitive signal) thereby retaining the correlation while artificially augmenting the already hand picked signal).

 

Do you tell us? No. Because the history of these emails is one of discussing papers that get published and discussed in the public peer review arena, and John knows it. But that won't draw climate sceptics to his website, so he has to sound more hysterical than the material warrants.

 

How could the peer-review review data omitted before the paper was submitted? That would be quite a trick indeed.

 

 

Funkhouser sounds apologetic for one data set, and then for all I know publishes the paper anyway, and then because his tone of discussion is apologetic to his peers we have to abandon thousands of data sets and the basic physics of greenhouse gases, the math of the radiative forcing equation, and the observable climate change happening now, before our eyes?

 

No, you DO know that any resulting paper didn't contain that data because he couldn't torture a signal out of it. He says so himself if you read the article and the full email.

 

Because one email HONESTLY said "I'm sorry guys..."

 

Is that a statement that is supposed to mean something?

 

His apology to Briffa was because, for whatever value they have in climatology, they are a lot of work to create. He was apologizing for not being able to include Briffa's collection.

 

 

Ummm, gosh, I didn't know having a polite email culture was a crime against science?

 

And if someone said it was a crime to be impolite you may have a point. But as nobody said that your point is simply an outlier from rational rebuttal and will wither and die from it's own unimportance.

 

Really John? Please, where is the word "SALEABLE" in Briffa's email? So I looked at the whole original email and it isn't there.

 

It's actually Funkhouser, but you already knew that. And Funkhouser's original concern was the data wouldn't be understandable "by the ignorant masses"... sounds like a sales pitch to me!

 

Jryan, this John character you revere so highly simply forgot to take his tablets. I don't think I can be bothered to read any more. If you have anything substantial (like the 3 million dollars paid to anti-climate science organisations by Exxon), then please, do tell.

 

So wait, you ramble on about one email and call it quits? And you can't even get that one email right.

 

 

John Costella, if you're reading this, remember it's the nice little blue tablets you have to take each morning that will keep you calm. No, they don't go down there, they go in your mouth. That's it, with a glass of water. Big swallow, good boy!

 

Your critique of Costella's work was a review of one email that was incomplete for even that one small series of emails.. and you still did it poorly.

 

Not a great showing on your part, POM.

 

Geeze.. that was it? That is what you waited for me to respond to? Or was there something else you wanted me to look at?

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I'll just let you know that the FIRST thing I would do if you were to ever post the top 5 most 'incriminating' climategate emails is go to the source and find the complete email, and context of the email, and events that were happening outside of the email list at the time.

 

That way the emails you attack would no longer be cherrypicked.

 

But as I have already shown the Denialist you quote, John P Costella, is cherrypicking the emails, with a bit of paranoid schizophrenia thrown in for good measure. His attack on the first few email entries I bothered to read was so hyperventilating and hysterical I honestly wondered if the guy needs medication.

 

Which of course John Costella did hundreds of times over. Linking each review directly to the full email itself, alolowing the reader, should they expect as you do, that he was taking the statement out of context, that they could read the original email in it's entirety.

 

But you wouldn't know that because you didn't read enough of it to know even that he had provided the full emails... or even enough to realize that you big "GOTCHA" argument was answer a few lines later in the article. And you then go on to claim now that Costella is a paranoid schizophrenic...

 

Again, not a great outing on your part. How deep are you planning on digging that hole, anyway?

Edited February 3, 2010 by jryan
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[swansont]

It matters because Cap-and-Trade rewards such criminality rather than ward against it. For example: The Cap-and-Trade system in Europe reward at it's outset heavy CO2 emissions.. since there was no real way of quantifying emissions pre-Cap-and-trade the start of the program was a matter of declaration by the producer.

 

Six member countries have changed their tax codes to protect against a recurrence, the agency said.

 

That's from your link. So much for not warding against this kind of fraud.

 

 

Until then, here is one report of the rise in CO2 production in Europe.

 

And another from the following year.

 

Your first link is from before 2005, when the cap-and-trade system was put in place, so it's moot, and the second agrees with the other link, which I quoted.

 

 

But getting back to cap-and-trade in general, the trouble is that there is no good way of ridding the system of fraudulent offsets, so a measure of reduction by simply counting the offsets will fail to be practical until such time as actual CO2 output matches the inflated offset chits in the market at the program's inception.

 

Again, the link you gave made no mention of fraudulent offsets. It was about tax fraud, i.e. not paying tax on offsets.

 

 

It depends on the method used to evaluate the CO2 reductions. If they are doing so on the readily available offset market data it's problematic due to the reasons already discussed. This WSJ explains the trouble with EU-ETS estimates and the trouble inherent in the EU Cap-and-Trade moving forward.

 

An opinion piece by the founder of Scientific Alliance claims C&T doesn't work. Wow, I'm shocked.

 

Also, it is increasingly apparent that any redution in CO2 emissions following 2008 were due largely to the global recession and not Cap-and-Trade policy. I suppose you could argue that the EU-ETS contributed to the global recession... but I'm guessing you don't want to go there.

 

That's the overall emissions, not what's covered by C&T.

 

This year, some analysts said the market was finally showing signs of working, by pushing companies to switch to cleaner technologies, like using natural gas instead of coal, to produce electricity.

(your link)

 

Mr. Hasselknippe estimated that emissions fell by 6 percent among industries covered by the system. He had forecast a fall of 5.3 percent, and said the larger decline was caused by the slump in economic activity in the last quarter of 2008 rather than by the carbon trading system.

(included link in your link)

 

If you don't agree with the analysis in a story, why did you bother linking to it?

[npts2020]

It should be pointed out as well that ~$350 million is the total amount of Greenpeace expenditures worldwide and that spending on their climate change program is only a small fraction of that.

[jryan]

Six member countries have changed their tax codes to protect against a recurrence, the agency said.

 

That's from your link. So much for not warding against this kind of fraud.

 

 

 

Your first link is from before 2005, when the cap-and-trade system was put in place, so it's moot, and the second agrees with the other link, which I quoted.

 

Point taken on the first link.

 

 

 

 

Again, the link you gave made no mention of fraudulent offsets. It was about tax fraud, i.e. not paying tax on offsets.

 

An opinion piece by the founder of Scientific Alliance claims C&T doesn't work. Wow, I'm shocked.

 

His claims are backed by the Wikipedia article on the EST Scheme. Hmmm... for all of his supposed bias, he still stated the correct information.

 

 

That's the overall emissions, not what's covered by C&T.

 

Are you saying the the recession hit all emmisions but CO2?

 

Also, the second link wasn't everything it could have been, but maybe I've rectified that a bit. And your attempt to dismiss the third link was misplaced and his numbers were easily verified.

 

This year, some analysts said the market was finally showing signs of working, by pushing companies to switch to cleaner technologies, like using natural gas instead of coal, to produce electricity.

(your link)

 

Mr. Hasselknippe estimated that emissions fell by 6 percent among industries covered by the system. He had forecast a fall of 5.3 percent, and said the larger decline was caused by the slump in economic activity in the last quarter of 2008 rather than by the carbon trading system.

(included link in your link)

 

If you don't agree with the analysis in a story, why did you bother linking to it?

 

And my second point was it's dubious to claim quatification of effective CO2 emmisions in 2008 and 2009 and industrial output was heavily dimisnished in that time frame by the deep economic recession.

 

And if you want to play the "oh well he's.." game, I have to tell you that the director of the EST program is not the best source for verifying the efficacy of the EST program. Especially when said director is "estimating".

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Sure, if any of these scientists even slightly bent the rules, I'd like to see them disciplined / sacked.

 

But how do we get justice on Exxon? On all the people of the Heartland Institute, and all the other anti-science conspirators mentioned in the White House scandals on "The Denial Machine" and the Congressional hearings?

 

Ugh....

 

Oh, JRyan, while I mention it... the fact that Hansen kept speaking while his job was at stake just shows him to be brave, it does not disprove the pressure brought to bear on him or all the other documented cases of the White House pressuring scientists, heavily editing scientific documents and meddling with the process and public perception of the science. An Exxon funded coalition actually forced George Bush to back down on backing Kyoto, which he was intending to do!

 

That is one nutty twist on reality, POM.

 

 

Now I'd love to just say "This disproves everything any Denialist has ever said, ever... so read the entire thing!" but that would be too much like Jryan's "Vibe of the thing" so I'll be more specific, and link to the paragraphs that demonstrate Denialist's actually changing Presidential policy, against the best science of the day.

 

When did I say "vibe of the thing"? And what does the Newsweek article prove? How about you show where Kyoto has been effective in the countries that ratified it. Lindzen's advice to Bush looks prophetic. Kyoto has been very expensive where implimented with little or no effect.

 

Environment economists aren't settled on the benefit of Kyoto either (see here, here for example) .

 

So good job CEI, Bush and Lindzen.

 

 

Got anything in climategate that equates to blackmailing Presidents? That would be great, just link to that next time please.

 

You don't either, actually.

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It should be pointed out as well that ~$350 million is the total amount of Greenpeace expenditures worldwide and that spending on their climate change program is only a small fraction of that.

 

According to their own report shows €19,364,000 on "climate and energy" in 2007 and €17,469,000 on "media and communications".

 

I'd guess that $51 million dedicated to propaganda and "climate and energy" there is enough to dwarf Exxon by themselves.

Edited February 4, 2010 by jryan
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[jryan]

Can you disprove that it happened? Just calling something names without replying to the substance of the Newsweek article I quoted is the mark of an internet troll.

 

I don't have to disprove anything. The onus of proof is on you and all you have right now is tabloid inuendo.

 

The Newsweek article proves that internet trolls such as yourself will stoop to nothing to prove your point. You'll jump up and down about a scientist's email proving he was sorry a particular data run wasn't that useful, and turn a blind eye to blackmailing a President... and if you don't like the comparison, just call it names and run from the data. Run I say! Just post "you don't actually" which is correct, I don't, the flipping American Committee on Oversight and Government Reform does!

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1212/p03s03-uspo.html

 

You aren't providing "data" dude, you're providing a Newsweek article and selling the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy given in the article as gospel. I'm not buying it.

 

Wanna have a go at them?

 

"What began in 2006 as a bipartisan investigation turned into a largely Democratic report." .... next.

 

It was a political hatchet job.

 

Also the revelation that Administrations control the legal and informational documents distributed by their Administartion is not news, it's standard opperating procedure.

 

 

Ooops! Can you find a Congressional hearing into climategate and quote that at us, or are you just going to rely on some nasty little random blogger? ;-)

What do the more prestigious reporters say about Climategate, you know, RESPECTABLE journals say?

 

Again, I don't need to provide anything. You have a tabloid journal piece and a CSM article about a Democrat controlled report on Bush. Do YOU even have the report in hand?

 

Like the Economist? http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15051965

 

From the article: "The IPCC bases its work on papers that have been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature" ... no they don't, apparently. So obviously The Economist has some rethinking to do about defense of Jones using IPCCs infalibility.

 

I also am not making the "House of Cards" argument that The Economist is trying to disprove. I am arguing that they are more important than folks like you given them credit for.

 

New Scientist, just yesterday!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18474-us-climategate-scientist-all-but-cleared-of-misconduct.html

 

PSU internal investigations don't cut it, and even they are continuing with a professional investigation into professional misconduct. You wouldn't know that reading the New Scientist, however.

 

From the report:

 

"In sum, the overriding sentiment of this committee, which is composed of University administrators, is that allegation #4 revolves around the question of accepted faculty conduct surrounding scientific discourse and thus merits a review by a committee of faculty scientists. Only with such a review will the academic community and other interested parties likely feel that Penn State has discharged it responsibility on this matter.“

 

 

You then go on to finish with more tripe and ad hominem so I choose to ignore it.

[jryan]

Well, I may just have to ignore ANY of your climategate allegations as you haven't posted any data. Oh, the journalists / journalism you dispatch with such ease (in your own mind anyway)?

 

I provide data where it is necessary (see debate on GISTemp records), your Newsweek article and the CSM article don't count as "data".

 

Dismiss 27,000 documents then... because why? Oh, that's right, you don't like them. Great rationale.

 

Abstract quantity claims do not equate to value. "This book is 10 pounds.. it must be 10 times better than this 1 pound book".

 

The proof is in the actual evidence and the actual documents. You like to point out that you need to read the original emails in the CRU (and then fail to read them when provided), but you seem to have no interest in providing the documentation and interpretations of the panel of Democrats... nor did the CSM seem to care to look deeper into the allegations either.

 

 

EDIT TO ADD

 

8 days and you still haven't posted your top 5 most serious climategate emails to compare with the documented anti-science conspiracy by the White House and big oil / King Coal.

 

Feel free to show me how it's done by posting the 5 most damning documents used by the panel to determine wrong doing in the Bush administration.

 

As I said, I'm not interested in cherry picking the article I provided.

 

Whenever someone mentions the documented White House conspiracy, you just seem to interpret the 'noise' as "Clip clop clip clop".

 

Um... what?

 

Your reaction is just as predictable.

 

As is yours.

 

 

Meanwhile,

 

Pennsylvania State University announced it would review the work of Michael Mann, in particular looking at anything that had not already been addressed in an earlier National Academy of Sciences review which had found some faults with his methodology but agreed with the results.[73][74][75] In response, Mann said he would welcome the review.[75] As a result of the inquiry, the investigatory committee determined there was no credible evidence Mann suppressed or falsified data, destroyed email, information and/or data related to AR4, or misused privileged or confidential information. However, the committee was unsure if Mann operated within the accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities, and a such, referred that charge to an investigatory committee of faculty members.

http://www.research.psu.edu/orp/Findings_Mann_Inquiry.pdf

 

Let me guess JRyan, Pennsylvania State University don't count as they're all friends with the CRU or something?

 

Would you accept the findings of an internal review by the Bush Administration?

[Pangloss]

If you're going to devolve to infantile face-palms (which I've removed all-but-one from your post, Peak Oil Man) then I think this thread has become pointless. Closed pending moderator review.