Thursday
Apr082010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill George signs off
Apr 8, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Jones Media There is a curious article by George Monbiot in the Guardian, in which he looks at the question of whether requests for Phil Jones' data were vexatious and concludes that the data should have been out in the open anyway.
What is interesting is that George suggests this will be his last article on the Climategate affair.
This is probably the last piece I'll write on the hacked emails saga. Unless the two remaining inquiries throw up something unexpected, there is not a lot more to say.
One would have thought that the questions of whether someone at CRU may have done something wrong or not would be worth a word or two. Perhaps George is just becoming slightly disillusioned with the whole green thing.
Reader Comments (45)
His emotive writings on climate in the Guardian were presumably composed with some sense of assurance that he was standing on solid scientific ground. Of course, that was not, and is not, true. The squalid world revealed by the CRU emails is not just shoddy at the inter-personal level, but reveals a lack of assurance and openness at the scientific level. I suspect Mr Monbiot was genuinely shocked. That shows just how effectively the wool had been pulled over his eyes, and reveals much about the alarmist culture for which he has been something of a voice for many years.
Anything to do with the "Climate Science in the Media" seminar?
"Just simply say nothing lads, it'll go away"
O/T Has anything happened with regards to this seminar?
I will not forgive him this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/mar/09/climate-change-deniers-monbiot-cards
Monbiot's royal flush: Cut out and keep climate change denier cards
Dr David Bellamy, No 1.
Bellamy the Bearded Bungler doesn't disappoint
Eight falsehoods and a startling assertion of independence 'peer-reviewed journals - it's the last thing I would use now'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/16/monbiot-bellamy-climate-change-denier
Winner of climate change denial's premier award revealed
John Tomlinson, the Michigan Mauler, wins the one and only Christopher Booker prize for falsehoods about global warming
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jan/21/christopher-booker-prize-climate-change-scepticism
Should climate deniers be allowed to speak on the Today programme?
Had the BBC done its research, Ian Plimer's falsehoods would not been allowed to pass unchallenged
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/nov/13/climate-deniers-today-programme
But especially:
Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial. But I'm not celebrating yet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/21/comment.georgemonbiot
Actually most of his work, was just mudslinging, look at all his articles about Plimer, Booker, Delingpole, etc
Actually have a look at his full archive:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/georgemonbiot
'true believers' are the most vicious.
George DOES understan the scientfic process..
So maybe we can start to forgive a little:
I wonder what RealClimate will have to say?
"Since I began writing about this issue, I've been assailed by climate scientists and environmentalists, all insisting that Jones did nothing wrong. If these emails meet their standards of professional rectitude I dread to think what else they would find acceptable.
You could argue, as many have, that Jones was responding to a campaign of harassment by climate change deniers. It's true that he was being badgered, and that some of those doing the badgering seemed to be motivated by something other than the unsullied spirit of scientific inquiry. But there was a simple means of getting the hasslers off his back: release the sodding data.
In 2005, Jones made it clear to one of his petitioners that he wasn't going to do that:
Even if WMO [the World Meteorological Organisation] agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.
This cuts to the heart of the matter. Science must be falsifiable: otherwise it's not science. Those who seek to find something wrong with your data are the first people who should have access to it, not the last. Challenging, refining and improving other people's work is the means by which science proceeds.
Whatever the motivation of the questioners might have been, the original FoI requests appear to have been genuine attempts to obtain information. As the replies sent to one enquirer, Willis Essenbach, show, they were fobbed off in a way guaranteed to make anyone seethe with rage. The letters sent to him by CRU epitomise bureaucratic obfuscation of the kind that anyone who believes in democracy should challenge."
I think he has demonstrated wilful & sustained dishonesty & has attempted to attack & discredit people & firefight a story that would not die. He used old tools to try to kill the story, & like many in corporate media, he got his arse slapped publicly.
Corporate media is riddled with shills who are bought & paid for by the same power structures that bought you the UN, IPCC, AGW, 9/11, 7/7, Bailouts... to form & manufacture public opinion & has nothing to do with reporting events, truth or integrity.
My intuition tells me George is too intelligent to believe the shit he writes & realises the battle is lost. He must be aware of the impact that CLIMATEGATE has had on his precious campaign & if he was writing from a place of integrity he would want to develop or explain this world changing event???
His posts have become less & less frequent & now this.
He's a liar.
& he can't get away with writing his propaganda for the ministry of truth now that the information has filtered into public awareness so the best option is to stop writing as if it's all a storm in a teacup.
CoIntel PRO Loser.
@ John Shade
He quickly backed away to a large extent from his initial stance on Jones and the CRU and I guess as the first enquiry was a "greenwash" with very little direct criticism of Jones and assurances that there was some sort of concensus on AGW it suited his cause. Probably more like discretion is the better part of valour. If he perceives a concensus exists in the political arena and his cause is in tact, why keep raking over it.
"One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a
brutal gang of facts."
La Rochefoucauld, François duc de, 1613-1680
Too bad, George -- get a life and a real job.
Perhaps he's taken my advice and headed to hospital to have his lungs removed. The precautionary principle asserts that having your lungs removed is absolutely necessary, if you intend to head off the future possibility of lung cancer.
I wonder if he'll put pen to paper should "hack" turn out to be a "leak"? For an arch investigative journalist, surely that would be irresistible?
He claims to be giving up writing about home power generation, too:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/12/the-german-disease/
Reality must have bitten him hard!
Some of you guys are assuming he's shutting up about climategate because he's disillusioned. I find it infinitely more likely that he's shutting up about climategate for the same reasons the rest of the MSM never wanted to mention it in the first instance.. head-burying. Climategate is acutely embarrassing to Moonbat because it exposes him, as an individual, for the political activist that he truly is, and for the abysmally uncritical and shamefully under-sceptical journalist he's been found out to be.
I doubt anyone as ardent an advocate of the process of politicising science as Moonbat would hang up his coat on the subject. Traditionally, after a brief hiatus, they're back - recharged with ever-more distorted justifications for their crumbling stance. Don't expect a rationalised version of Moonbat to surface.
@ James P
I mentioned his spat with arch green Porritt in the unthreaded section on feed-in rules.
"Just reading Monbiot's blog I saw his response to a blast from Porritt over solar engergy and feed-in rules, where he asks Porritt "So please Jonathan, a bit of fair-mindedness and objectivity from you". When has Monbiot ever given anyone who questions his beloved AGW that benefit? Total hypochracy."
"Science progresses funeral by funeral."
Max Planck
Here's a link to the Monbiot piece
I wouldn't trust a word he writes.
PS: don't forget he was a founder member of the whacko "Respect Party".
"This is probably the last piece I'll write on the hacked emails saga"
Hacked? Even Pachauri said it was a "Leak of emails from the UEA" in this interview at 2:38
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/03/theyve-been-on-rampage.html
I wonder why he couldn't have written this piece back in Dec/Jan when everyone else had it covered. Why now?
"Science progresses funeral by funeral."
Unfortunately most sceptics seem to be on the middle-aged to elderly side.
Sincerely hope there are youngsters coming along to take our places.
My bet is that Moonbat is shutting down the discussion in order to shut down the discussion.
He is not willing to see his faith challenged any more. He hopes that silence will at least give him enough tranquility to sustain his faith.
I think he will find silence ineffective, unless he stays properly distracted so as to suppress his conscience.
I have to thank George for turning me into a AGW skeptic.
This occurred some years ago when George wrote a piece of vitriolic nastiness about David Bellamy. At first I was simply shocked at the anger involved, but it lead me to follow up on some of the reasons given by George as "proof" that Bellamy was a nutter.
Since I had known of and respected the work and attitudes of David Bellamy for many years, it seemed very unlikely to me that he could be so wrong about AGW, so started doing my own internet research, which I must admit has become somewhat obsessive, but has left me quite convinced that being skeptical is the only sensible choice at present.
Which of course now leaves a new conundrum - since the only serious parties in the forthcoming UK elections are ALL AGW fanatics, where can one cast a skeptical vote?
Monbiot called carbon trading a scam before he was employed by the Guardian. I have challenged him to repeat that. He deletes the message. He is living in a sad little fantasy world where he thinks he can selll out to Royal Dutch Shell and keep his credibility.
**
Monbiot
There are still two years to go, but so far the new agreement is even worse than the Kyoto Protocol. It contains no targets and no dates. A new set of guidelines also agreed at Bali extend and strengthen the worst of Al Gore’s trading scams, the clean development mechanism(6). Benn and the other dupes are cheering and waving their hats as the train leaves the station at last, having failed to notice that it is travelling in the wrong direction.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/12/17/hurray-were-going-backwards/
For Monbiot, I think this this pretty much amounts to eating crow. The past four months or so must have been pretty traumatic for the guy - maybe about the same as for his former hero Phil Jones.
Monbiot realised, almost at once, that some of the high priests of his beloved AGW religion had let the show down. Presumably, he then read The CRUtape Letters and The Hockey Stick Illusion and it dawned on him that the whole temple ("my life's work") was built on nothing but quicksand - it was far worse than he had thought possible.
I think that Monbiot would be an ideal person to be co-opted onto Muir's inquiry - we can see that George is not in the mood for whitewashing anything.
For Monbiot, I think this this pretty much amounts to eating crow. The past four months or so must have been pretty traumatic for the guy - maybe about the same as for his former hero Phil Jones.
Returning to my favorite "psychological" theory, we are just seeing the "bargaining" and "depression" stages of Kübler-Ross Grief cycle. You have pretty much explained it in lay terms, Martin A.
In time, he will grow out of it and accept it.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/kubler_ross.htm
RealClimate will have kittens!!!!!!
George Monbiot:
"Jones reveals:
I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!
Since I began writing about this issue, I've been assailed by climate scientists and environmentalists, all insisting that Jones did nothing wrong. If these emails meet their standards of professional rectitude I dread to think what else they would find acceptable."
And:
“In 2005, Jones made it clear to one of his petitioners that he wasn’t going to do that:
- Even if WMO [the World Meteorological Organisation] agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.-
This cuts to the heart of the matter. Science must be falsifiable: otherwise it’s not science. Those who seek to find something wrong with your data are the first people who should have access to it, not the last. Challenging, refining and improving other people’s work is the means by which science proceeds.”
I wonder how RealClimate wil respond - ref the previous Guardian articles they criticised...
I would love to know what James Randerson (Guardian environment) makes of this!?
Whether you agree with Monbiot or not, he is always interesting to read, and you can learn something from him
It's very difficult to find anything in his article to disagree with. Very strong piece.
Bishop - the piece is so entirely about FOI that I think it's reasonable to suggest nothing new will turn up there?
And George has been very vocal on RC and elsewhere trying to explain to warmists that he thinks FoI is sacrosanct, as a journalist.
"Unless the two remaining inquiries throw up something unexpected, there is not a lot more to say."
Or, to put it another way - "I know that they're going to be a whitewash..."
I think he's hacked off.
Bishop
I have noticed a warmist meme out and about to the effect that skeptics are anti-science. Might I suggest that if your readers come across this meme, that they respond by quoting Phil Jones, the pope of anti science: -
We have 25 years invested in this data, why should I share it with you when your objective is to find something wrong with it.
We have 25 years invested in this data, why should I share it with you when your objective is to find something wrong with it.
Is that not what the scientific method is all about? To find the faults in a theory so that we can improve it? It sounds like Reverend Jones has gotten his degree from a seminary and is defending the TRUTH from all heretics. Next they will be wanting to burn skeptics at the stake, or is it on the Holy Hockey Stick?
If the 28 writers of the intelligent and perceptive posts above had posted on the Monbiot thread, their comments would have been read by many more people, and might have had a significant effect on the discussion. (Of course, you risk being called a creationist and murderer, as I was yesterday, but that's environmentalists for you). Monbiot reads the comments and even replies. It was in replying to a comment that he made the gigantic mistake of stating that what Jones did was "not science", two words which have caused a rift in the warmist camp.
@ geoffchambers
"If the 28 writers of the intelligent and perceptive posts above had posted on the Monbiot thread, their comments would have been read by many more people..."
Unfortunately, the Grauniad thought police would have very rapidly deleted them all in the interests of free speech.
Like steveta_uk I found his attack on Bellamy counter productive, especially since Dr Bellamy was a colleague and friend of my father's from the 1960s and on. Dr Bellamy has his faults, as we all do, but he has great deal to persuade people to care about the world we live in, at both grass roots and mass media levels. As I recall he was a "conservationist" decades before it was trendy to be an environmentalist, and I couldn't help wondering if it was petty jealousy or somesuch which really niggled Mr Monbiot.
Monbiot has repeatedly called for the resignations of Jones and Acton, but says there is nothing in the emails of wrong doing.
Such a contradiction damns Monbiot. He has become another victim that has been claimed by the sinking sands of Climategate.
re posting in the Guardian rather than here
We can do both, but let us not stop posting here. An oasis of calm, of reason and restraint, is worth something. Perhaps the more aggressive of us can come here for refreshment before returning to the uglier and messier 'posting opportunties'?
To Jabba the Cat and Geoff Chambers - you're both right. I have experienced the ruthless censorship of the Grauniad's mods. It is often quite chilling: you can see they are quite happy to let through some crazier rants that might be seen as 'sceptical'. But they block anything factual and considered.
Nevertheless, anyone who has looked into what is being promulgated as climate science and found it wanting should try to get their voice heard. And that means outside blogs such as these, however hospitable the Bishop's house may be. There are a lot of smart people who detect a stench of something wrong in climate 'science'. They may be right. I want to know more. I am open to persuasion. It's just that, the more I delved into the subject, the more suspicious I became of the 'settled science' and 'consensus'. Much of it consisted of assertion, opinion and assumption. There was a vitriolic, nasty, defensive tone to almost everything I read from the climate change 'establishment'. They weren't keen on producing convincing science to support their arguments and shied away from any intellectual engagement. (Good on Walt Meier for entering the house of pain and bringing his side of the argument here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/08/nsidcs-walt-meier-responds-to-willis/#more-18307)
The more reasoned arguments seemed to come from the 'sceptical' side; more open, less defensive, willing to accept weaknesses and go away to look harder at things.
The strength of climate change 'scepticism' is that openness. There are good arguments and some very clear scientific principles supporting it. So, bring that view to the world. Do it by writing to the letters pages, submitting Op-Ed pieces and making clear, supportable points. Do it with candour and humility, but do it in the sure need that it needs to be done.
Say what? There is a hell of lot more to say. Until we have full transparency of all the data and code that science and potential taxes are based on, there is more to say. We're just scratching the surface.
"When has Monbiot ever given anyone who questions his beloved AGW that benefit?"
I notice on his own blog (monbiot.com) where comment doesn't seem to be invited, he complains about the "the level of viciousness" in responses to a Grauniad piece. Sounds like gander sauce to me!
@steveta_uk
Re: Who to vote for?
I find myself with a similar conundrum. Beyond the main parties collective AGW worship is the depressing realisation that that I couldn't get a fag paper between most of their other policies either. For the first time in my life, I may not bother to vote.
To me, AGW/energy and substantial banking reform are vitally important issues. None of them appear to have the balls or intellect to sort either out.
Don Pablo de la Sierra
In time, he will grow out of it and accept it.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/kubler_ross.htm
Thanks - v. interesting.
I think that Monbiot is one of those people who are very hard on others (witness his venomous comments directed at Bellamy for not holding the same views as Monbiot) but are even harder on themselves when they slip up.
He regards having been duped by Jones, Mann and co as his own failure (which to some extent it is, but he's not alone) and is probably giving himself an *extremely* hard time for it.
PaulH from Scotland
If you can't bring yourself to choose a candidate, please go to the polling station and spoil your vote in some way, perhaps writing "none of these " or "global warming science is not settled" so that it is not seen as apathy, and we at least try to get some message across.
for the people that say post on the Guardian..
Well they CAN NOT..
They are blocked and deleted... (I'm not allowed to say anything)
Not even: I wonder what George Monbiot will make of it!
following the lovelock interview
see the blog about it earlier..
Bishop Hill reply to the Guardians James Randerson was priceless:
"I left a comment on an article in which Monbiot called for Phil Jones to resign.
I said that Monbiot should resign.
I was put on moderation for being abusive.
George still seems to be writing for the Guardian though."
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/3/29/graun-still-deleting-comments.html
Barry Woods. Further to your comments on Monbiot's unforgivable article the "Monbiot Cards", I am reminded of some AGW extremists referring to David Bellamy as an "ex environmentalist".
Their viciousness knows no bounds.
and the tory party censor as well...
who would have though it, I'm barred by the Guardian AND the Tory party, and Greenpeace, AND i have to remind the mods, with copies to my mp/trust enquiry to get things printed, even stuff at the Telegraph goes awol...
I always follow any house rules, non abusive (though irony/sarcasm may leak through)
Just tried this at tory party (blue blog) i have given up at the guardian (i eve still but it for other topics!!!
http://blog.conservatives.com/index.php/2010/03/19/our-radical-overhaul-of-energy-policy/#comments
"Just wondering if the mods will let me comment? I merely disagree with the tories policy, yet they are the party I am most likely to vote for..
South Africa got the approval for a coal fired power plant, from the world bank, despite abstentions from US, UK.
Yet we face a massive energy gap in the next 10 years...
Windfarms have proven - In Denmark - to be incapbable of meeting any of the claims.. ie you need a alternative source (ie coal) to balance when the wind is not blowin.. thus these plants operate inefficiently, so the net effect is more CO2 (even if you believe in AGW) and more expensive..
I ask the tories to look at the Denmark experience, and the windfarms around the world, in disrepair, etc, when the massive subsidies ran out."
[Snip - venting]
Thought so, my tory blue blog comment, is as if it was never there...
Who can/do you complain to?
I will try again, on their energy insecurity article:
http://blog.conservatives.com/index.php/2010/04/12/labour-are-the-party-of-energy-insecurity/comment-page-1/#comment-20813
South Africa got the approval for a coal fired power plant, from the world bank, despite abstentions from US, UK.
Yet we face a massive energy gap in the next 10 years…
Fire up a few modern, efficient, clean coal fired power stations in the interim, China is doing this once a week. Why damage our economy, for gestures sake (ie no effect at all on overall emissions), with respect to the catastrophic , unprecedented agw delusion.
Windfarms have proven – In Denmark – to be incapable of meeting any of the claims.. ie you need a alternative source (ie coal) to balance when the wind is not blowin.. thus these plants operate inefficiently, so the net effect is more CO2 (even if you believe in AGW) and more expensive..
I ask the tories to look at the Denmark experience, and the windfarms around the world, in disrepair, etc, when the massive subsidies ran out.
@steveta_uk (and paulH)
Re: Who to vote for?
One thing I refuse to do this time round is not vote. I refuse to waste my vote because x party has no chance of getting in. A significant surge in votes for "fringe" parties would be a wake up call for the LibLabCon. Hell, I will be voting Communist if they are fourth on the ballot paper.