Tuesday
Nov222011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Climategate 2
Nov 22, 2011 I'm away from my desk, so this is just a placeholder until I can get home, get hold of the files, and make some comment.
Nov 22, 2011 
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Reader Comments (216)
Our host gets a mention from Osborn in 1794.txt, re a Jan 09 FOI about temperature adjustments:
"By the way, the request appears to originate from a "Bishop Hill" email address, which is also a blog (not so well read as Climate Audit) that spreads misinformation about climate science (e.g. that Phil has been accused by Doug Keenan of fabricating claims made in one of Phil's papers!):"
UEA
Well it seems that as well as flying fingers Bob Ward has speed reading down to a fine art.
And today's small moment of insignificant pleasure?
Jo Abbess turned up on this blog out of the blue to give us the benefit of her "mind controlling" wisdom. What a day to choose...:-)
Mann:
"the only way to stop these people is by exposing them and discrediting them"
He said it!
"clearly designed to mislead the public"
In what way, Bob?
it seems that Bob instantly accepted that they were genuine...
Can you imagine Bob's reaction had these emails been from the "opposition"?
No one even knows what is in all the e-mails and already the weasling has started from the usual suspects. They never learn do they that it might be better to say nothing until you have had time to understand what you are commenting on, although they have the advantage of being the ones that wrote most of the e-mails who can rememeber every e-mail they sent 2 years ago?
As has been pointed out in other places on the web you can keep cleaning the cliamte science turd but eventually the polish will run out.
Roger Black has just updated his story again - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15840562 - though I can't spot what he has changed this time. And still no mention or any excerpts from any of the new emails.
He is displaying his bias so blatantly that he may as well change the headline to "Move along please, nothing to see here ".
"I imagine it would be a lot more honest and neutral than what is happening here.I imagine it would be a lot more honest and neutral than what is happening here."
:-*
There're a lot of trolls out on the various sites. It seems there's been one allocated to each of the major blogs. Don't let them stop the flow. They're not happy you know, not happy at all.
That 1680.txt is a real cracker isn't it? Michael Mann trying to set investigators on Steve Mc. What a nice man. That's one where full email is worse than the soundbite!
My Phil's a good boy. I blame that Micky Mann. 'e's a bad lot. Nuffink but trouble.
Good to 'is old mum, is my Phil.
The Mann email quoted above (by Mac and others)...
"I (Mann) have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an
investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his
thusfar unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests.Perhaps the
same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy."...
is potentially very explosive, especially in the USA.
Way back a certain Ralph Nader was actually put under surveillance by GM, the car maker, after the publication of Nader`s book Unsafe At Any Speed. They were caught. It cost GM, and the industry, very dear; it also fuelled Nader`s (legitimate) campaign for better car safety rules and testing.
It will be interesting to discover:
(a) if they actually went ahead and spied on McIntyre and Holland;
(b) if so, whether McIntyre and Holland were/are actually aware of it;
(c) and who paid for the surveillance and who conducted it, including whether there was official connivance or even participation - in the UK I regret to say I think the latter is entirely plausible;
(d) if attitudes in the USA to these things are more relaxed today than they were in the 1960s/70s.
the real ad hominem attacks are in the emails themselves:
<4241> Wilson:
I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I
could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures.
[...] The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is
precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.
<3373> Bradley:
I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should
never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year
“reconstruction”.
<4758> Osborn:
Because how can we be critical of Crowley for throwing out 40-years in the
middle of his calibration, when we’re throwing out all post-1960 data ‘cos the
MXD has a non-temperature signal in it, and also all pre-1881 or pre-1871 data
‘cos the temperature data may have a non-temperature signal in it!
<4369> Cook:
I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly can not be
defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the
science move ahead.
<5055> Cook:
One problem is that he [Mann] will be using the RegEM method, which provides no
better diagnostics (e.g. betas) than his original method. So we will still not
know where his estimates are coming from.
Don't have time to read through all the comments. The significance of this is not so much the impact on the public (or journalists) although it might be expected to have some impact. The significance is the impact it has on the Judy Currys of the science world. She has hinted at others who agree with her concerns but who wish not to come public. This will perhaps shake a few more loose. And it won't take many more before the whole notion of consensus is exploded for good.
@ Lapogus 5:56; I think he's just updating it with the latest releases from the UEA press office. Verbatim of course and no evidence of impartial journalism.
Zed is being very brave. J Bowers on Tallbloke and Colose at Climate Audit and OPatrick on tAV are clearlt flailing around because the party line has not yet been established. Zed at least has the guts to make up a party line - "the planet is in danger and here you guys are reading private emails". It is not a great response but it is better than the clowning of J Bowers.
I am sure that despite the statute of limitation on FOI's Jones and Osborns actions could be prosecuted under the Fraud Act 2006
Fraud by failing to disclose information
Section 3 makes it an offence to commit fraud by failing to disclose information to another person where there is a legal duty to disclose the information. A legal duty to disclose information may include duties under oral contracts as well as written contracts. The concept of “legal duty” is explained in the Law Commission’s Report on Fraud, which said at paragraphs 7.28 and 7.29:
“7.28 …Such a duty may derive from statute (such as the provisions governing company prospectuses), from the fact that the transaction in question is one of the utmost good faith (such as a contract of insurance), from the express or implied terms of a contract, from the custom of a particular trade or market, or from the existence of a fiduciary relationship between the parties (such as that of agent and principal).
7.29.For this purpose there is a legal duty to disclose information not only if the defendant’s failure to disclose it gives the victim a cause of action for damages, but also if the law gives the victim a right to set aside any change in his or her legal position to which he or she may consent as a result of the non-disclosure. For example, a person in a fiduciary position has a duty to disclose material information when entering into a contract with his or her beneficiary, in the sense that a failure to make such disclosure will entitle the beneficiary to rescind the contract and to reclaim any property transferred under it.”
There are 11 refs to Montford in the emails. 1577 mentions him and provides insight into how David Palmer attempted to deal with the FOI requests (giving Phil Jones' response to this at the top of the email).
Despite the 42 coordinated requests to obtain confidentiality agreements, Dave Palmer says they: "...are not really vexatious."
And follows this with: "We are going to have to monitor the press as a number of the requesters are very 'legit' academics in their own right and would not be dismissed as the 'usual suspects'"
Re: diogenes
Justice4Rinka parodied (sp?) Zeds response hours before Zed responded.
Nicely done.
@ Anoneumouse at 6:23 PM
The U.K. does not have a Statute of Limitations.
I have discussed the Fraud Act 2006 with legal people in the past, following on from my letter to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. The advice I got was that filing a formal complaint would go nowhere, because the police would view this as “too political”.
lapogus said:
The News Sniffer website has got the different versions cached here
1527.txt, Dendro man Rob Wilson says Steve Mc is right:
RE = 0.63, while CE = -0.74.
In this example, a sole reliance on RE would be wrong and could result in a highly bias reconstruction. CE is telling the correct story - i.e. the predicted values should not be trusted.
There has been criticism by Macintyre of Mann's sole reliance on RE, and I am now starting to believe the accusations.
Nothing on the BBC news then. But I do see that "showers are not better for the environment than baths". Which is quite important really when one is saving the world from CC/AGW/CAGW.
It looks like the main change Roger Black made to the BBC report at 17:30 was to recognise the data as being a genuine release of emails:
changes to
I thought I would leave a message of support with our Gav and his friends at UnReal Climate. They seem to have a problem so I thought I would post it here?
You guys are very quiet at the moment but don't worry it is obvious that your remarks in the newly released emails have been taken out of context.
Now what type of person normally says their words have been taken out of context?
Of course someone who is completely honest like for instance politicians.
The middle game was Climategate 1 which your mates managed to help you out with we are now into the end game and unfortunately you have no credible pieces on the board.
Three cheers for the "cause".
Richard Black's take on this is absolutely pathetic and shows his absolute lack of credibility.
Also posted at CA, Watts Jo Nova and James Delingpole
Black again has the inside scoop:
"A hacker entered a backup server at the university and downloaded a file containing administrative passwords, which were subsequently used to access a vast number of files and emails dating back to 1997."
He is not quoting a source. There are no quotation marks. Black is reporting this statement as a fact. BBC guidelines are that two independent sources are required to make such a statement. AFAIK this has never been confirmed to the public by Norfolk police and it is an ongoing investigation; the leaking of which is a criminal offense (as the current Levesden Inquiry makes plain).
So once again I have to ask Mr Black: "How do YOU know this?"
We have only provided a selection in clear. The remaining are protected by a public key...
No pressure.
Anteros,
Two points:
First - I am curious about whether the password to the "The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons." is given somewhere in the message "/// FOIA 2011 — Background and Context ///"
Second - The message "/// FOIA 2011 — Background and Context ///" has three references to "we". The initial comments introducing the climategate 1.0 release in Nov 2009 had a reference to "we" also. This, prima fascia, indicates a proud team effort or misdirection. It doesn't feel like misdirection to me.
John
Bernie: "A quick Google shows that periods are used by the Germans and Dutch in writing large numbers. Other languages may also adopt this approach rather the typical comma in English speaking countries."
IIRC, according to ISO, only in English and international banking is the comma "," used to separate thousands and the dot "." as decimal. Everyone else (IIRC) uses the dot or half space for thousands separation and comma for decimal. It's like the a.m., p.m. time thing.
Why should the police be involved in these leaks anyway? I thought "whistleblowing" in the public interest was supposed to be a protected activity.
A couple of days ago in the comments of this very blog I asked who funded the GWPF. The response I got was something along the lines of why do you think it is any of your business. The privacy of the GWPF was invoked.
Today and no doubt for some time to come my efforts at keeping up with what's going on in the world of climate skepticism will mean reading through another tranche of private emails. So perhaps now would be a good time to ask why is any of this any of my business? The people that wrote the emails expected privacy, ( as well as to not be judged out of context ) and in order to follow the narrative of the climate skeptic I am going to have to deny them that right.
Isn't there an assymetric moral code going on here, with skeptic activists using hacked material to (amongst other things no doubt) promote a view that there is a lack of openness by climate scientists, yet hiding behind an assumed right to privacy when it suits them.
Can I suggest that links to the various blogs discussing these e-mails are posted, wherever possible, on the BBC comments boards. Rather than 'wherever possible' I was originally going to say 'wherever appropriate'. This is not possible at the moment as the most appropriate location would have been in the BBC's Science and Environment section where, strangely, comments do not appear to be welcome right now.
No surprise to see Richard Black instantly launch into a damage limitation exercise. If I was Inspector Knacker I would certainly be wanting to clarify his unambiguous statements about how the e-mails were accessed.
Interesting times for decent folk, worrying times for conspirators.
Norfolk Constabulary are more interested in finding the leaker of the emails than investigating the massive fraud and abuse of public funds that has been perpetrated at the UEA.
I bet the Common Purpose crooks controlling the AGW fraud at the UEA are in a bit of a tizz: http://stopcp.com/cpclimategate.php
Up on Nature news blog, and with two provoke-worthy quotes
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/11/yet_another_climategate.html
"The people that wrote the emails expected privacy, ( as well as to not be judged out of context ) and in order to follow the narrative of the climate skeptic I am going to have to deny them that right."
In the emails disclosed today, even before climategate 1, there are several references to deleting their emails. So you are wrong to say they expected privacy.
Secondly they were being paid for this work to be done from public funding, so they were not private emails. These emails were, and are public property.
Thirdly in the emails are references to Mike Manm hiring private investigators to dig the dirt on MacIntyre. So who is respecting privacy in thsi debate?
They have the oportunity to put it all in context, I think everyone on the sceptic side are waiting for them to do just that. Don't hold your breath, they are very reluctant to show the context, and I suspect teh reasons have very little to do with privacy.
Hengist
"Isn't there an assymetric moral code going on here"
The short answer is no.There is not an asymmetric moral code operating. Where is the equivalence between the funding of a charitable organisation such as Greenpeace or the GWPF and the investigation of emails that have turned up on the internet showing that the climate scientists have been behaving in odd ways? The Charities Commission web-site will show you all that there is in the public domain re the funding of any charity you wish to investigate. Why would you expect the readers of this blog to have any inside information on the subject?
Promotion for palm oil in 5317.txt.
re Hengist
Please don't mention asymetric and code at the moment, people may take it out of context. For moral code, what do you think of Dr Mann's suggestion that they hire a private investigator to try and find some dirt on Steve McIntyre? Didn't the Murdochs get in a bit of trouble recently for doing that. Or EDF get fined £1.3m and people imprisoned for investigating Greenpeace? Do you think Dr Mann's comments (if accurate) are morally acceptable?
Zed
Don't get drawn into a slanging match (except in Discussion!).
Ask pertinent questions like: how did the previous emails show that the core science was flawed?
And: how do these emails show that the core science is flawed?
If no answers are forthcoming, then it might be reasonable to consider the realpolitik angle.
Cui bono? Why, for example, might - oh, I dunno, the Russians, say - want to delay the phase-out of fossil fuels, eg natural gas? Now what possible benefit might there be in that?
No doubt Zed was in the forefront of the protests against the Wikileaks disclosures. Oh, wait... there weren't any protests, were there? Presumably lefty leaks are alright and all other leaks are illegal.
But then the left wing is intrinsically more moral than the right wing, isn't it? So they can do what they like.
We are indeed privileged to have both zebedee and hengist come here to defend the "cause". Other sites only seem to have one troll from central control.
BBD:Cui bono? Why, for example, might - oh, I dunno, the Russians, say - want to delay the phase-out of fossil fuels, eg natural gas? Now what possible benefit might there be in that?
Yes, as the French say, look for who's profiting from the crime. Who's profiting from subsidized wind turbines and photovoltaic panels? And from subsidized energy production? And from taxes on "carbon"? And from "carbon" market exchange? And from high energy cost? And from a slower drip of fossil fuels, while the price keeps going higher and higher? And all the rest. And who's paying for all this, and shivering and dying during the winter?
Zed et all.
If two blokes in a Wiltshire pub were recorded discussing their hobby of crop circle making and you were presented with that evidence, would you believe the circles were caused by alien spaceships? No? Well some still do and CAGWers display the same illogic. The fact that you want something to be true does not make it so. You need to examine your own reasoning not that of others who have come to the opposite conclusion.
[snip]
J4R
As unsubstantiated statements go, that went ;-)
Josh
The stars are smiling on you! Your gift from above to select twelve stonking new quotes to augment your 2012 calender, (the challenge of an advent calender would be mission impossible).
J4R
I bet you here and now that the emails don't matter and they won't change anything. I said it hours ago (and elsewhere, Richard Tol agrees): Durban was never going to do anything anyway.