Tuesday
Nov222011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The Heretic wins Evening Standard award
Nov 22, 2011 Climate: Sceptics 
Congratulations to Richard Bean, whose climate sceptic play The Heretic has won an Evening Standard best play award. The award was given jointly to The Heretic and one of Bean's other plays, One Man Two Guv'nors.
I understand the show will transfer to the US and Australia in due course.
Reader Comments (124)
I confess to being a litle unhappy with an email from someone in DEFRA called Humphrey. Looks a bit obvious to my mnd.
On the other hand if this lot is fake someone has put a real power of work into creating it. The volume alone suggests authenticity but I would like to have the views of someone in the relevant discipline to give an opinion on the constistency of language. If this is a fraud it has to be a team effort and maintaining a consistency in someone else's lingustic style is not easy.
I can't help feeling a bit sorry for Keith Briffa..
"I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!"
As we often say in our house, no good deed goes unpunished. (Saki, I think.)
Mike, you don't believe it's her, or you think it's too convenient?
This is highly unlikely to be a fraud as the emails are informed, technical, and refer to the then current events. It would take a work of diabolical genius and a lot of expensive resources to fake this convincingly, but then again we could be dealing with "Big Green".
I assume someone has asked UEA if the emails are genuine. What was their reply?
Mike, when there was a Cardinal Sin, and (currently I think) Judge Judge, then you just have to assume that somewhere in the Civil Service there are going to be a squad of Humphrey's. Not sure if any of them have been knighted!
There are emails to Steve McIntyre in there, so he'd be able to vouch for at least some of them.
Extended story from the BBC...
"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."
Have the police confirmed this? This seems to be more information than I remember.
J4R @ Nov 22, 2011 at 1:48 PM
Oh dear.
I agree with Mosher and Kellow that it's noble cause corruption, although I have always argued that from the Hockey Stick to Climategate there's a huge component of slapstick incompetence. Screw-up A begat Screw-up B begat Screw-up C etc.
But then you go and spoil it with Nazi stuff. That ordure you can keep.
I've also mentioned in the past that I am a humble student of the long game, although you probably missed that. When GAT starts climbing again and it becomes clear that we are indeed in trouble, I will remind you of your taunts about CAGW alarmism.
See you down the road.
Terry S@3:10,
You and a lot of other people I suspect?
I vote for 'password' or '12345'
I also suspect that quite a few people who have spent a great deal of time and effort defending, and explaining, and clarifying, and expanding on what was 'meant' by statements in the first set of emails, will now wish they hadn't? Fool me once...
http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0902/klingon-proverb-klingon-star-trek-demotivational-poster-1233948171.jpg
BBD -
The lenses on your world-view glasses become evident when you say "When GAT starts climbing again and it becomes clear that we are indeed in trouble...."
It seems to me you inappropriately conflate the two. In the sensible world, the rise in GAT and us 'being in trouble' are not the same thing at all.
A little bit more mildness? Excellent - enjoy the interglacial! ;)
@Chuckles
No wonder Richard Black is smearing so desperately over at the BBC right now - an honest employer would dispense with his services* to truth forthwith.
*agricultural use of the word indicating delivery of male gametes
BBD
"When GAT starts climbing again.." it could just be "natural fluctuation".
Another ice-age seems the most likely really long-term outlook...
<1682> Wils:
[2007] What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural
fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably [...]
Psssst. Guys... The Bish finally got out of bed and posted a dedicated Climategate " thread.
@SayNoTF,
Yes Leo is spooling up the spreaders at the Guardian as well -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/22/fresh-hacked-climate-science-emails
I'm sure the 'Climate Emergency Response Team' can set us straight in no time
The uncertainty about the science would now seem to be whether any was going on at all. We see that corruption of what they were doing was as much from external pressure for a saleable narrative as it was from their own exuberance for it. Durban is now a wake: I suggest they move the venue to a Norwegian Fiord.
Richard Black calls it "a hack", Leo Hickman and Mann call it "a release". Guardian headline on Hickman's article calls it a hack- editor taking over the message?
Anteros @ Nov 22, 2011 at 3:55 PM
We've been over your non-grasp of climate sensitivity at KK's. No need for a rehash here, but I will ask this: why do you think the warming will stop at some 'harmless' level, even as CO2 concentrations rise and rise over coming decades?
Or have you not realised that your argument is entirely unphysical and thus nonsense?
I've said elsewhere it will be ignored. Few in the CAGW camp will see anything wrong with these emails, after all they saw the previous emails and Ron Oxburgh was considered to have played a blinder when he announced the innocence of the CRU without an inquiry.
Don't hold your breath, it will be a very long game, everyone in the CAGW camp knows that the Team have been gaming the system, knows that the IPCC reports are wildy pessimistic given and knows that the big bucks will keep coming in while they can milk this particular cow. Governments will be able to tax the little guy on the grounds that they're saving the planet. It will take something really big to shock, maybe UKIP getting 50 seats in the next election. I don't have a party I can vote for now.
You can see how the alarmists on this thread are reacting.
"Yes the boys have been a little on the naughty side, twisting the science, hiding declines, working for a "cause". And yes these are the guys at the very heart of the IPCC, but that doesn't mean there isn't CAGW in the pipeline, just wait and see."
That's right geronimo. Just wait, and you will see.
Just precautionary: Twitter claims a 'Phil Jones' is 'trending'. I clicked then "Phil Jones" and saw that the Tweets are linked to another prominent Phil Jones. I followed Twitter the whole day and can say honestly I saw no Tweets concerning CRU's Jones.
WARNING: ON-TOPIC MATERIAL. WITH APOLOGIES.
"The Heretic was funny, well-researched and, yes, heretical, but the plot was all over the place, so I am rather surprised that it has won an award." --Nicholas Hallam
If a playwright is attempting to treat a controversial topic from all relevant viewpoints, as opposed to taking a single, propagandist's slant, it's rather difficult not to go "all over the place."
My internet system is cranky today. Hope this doesn't replicate.
May be, precautionary, it would be good if someone makes some 'photos' of the trendy Twitter-Jones (see above) to show that the Tweets aren't about CRU's Jones.