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Via a reader:

#4101 - Edward Cook tells Phil Jones that Mike Mann is "serious enemy" and "vindictive". Mike Mann had criticized his work.

#4091 – Phil Jones tries to teach a statistician to suck eggs, and gets his ass handed to him.

#4025 – Keith Briffa questions Mike Mann’s objectivity

#0497 - Jones falls out with Mann

Comments

[Jonathan Jones]

#4945

date: Thu Sep 17 08:28:03 2009
from: Phil Jones <REDACTED>
subject: FW: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request
to: "Myles Allen" <REDACTED>

Myles,
Never say you got this email from me! I probably shouldn't be passing this on - maybe
it's protected under the Data Protection Act. Several other people have tried the same ploy
he has used about what the agreements we had with Met Services mean. His response contains
a very mild implicit threat, but it is very mild. Some others have been much more explicit.
As an aside some of the papers published on the CRU dataset contain more information
than you would get with the GISS or NCDC data.
The web page we put up is here - this is what he's referring to.
[1]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/availability/
Good to see you again - and see you on Oct 15 at the UKCP09 meet.
Cheers
Phil

Followed by the complete text of my appeal of my first appeal of UEA's initial refusal of my FOI request, which was held by UEA under a duty of confidence at this stage. I am considering a formal complaint to the Information Comissioner.

[Latimer Alder]

'Philip Eden; "I would be interested in any list of sceptics you may have."

I am very very disappointed to discover Philip Eden making such remarks. Way back when in the days of the original LBC, I always considered him as a thoughtful and measured presenter with a good broadcasting style and a pleasant manner ideal for radio. And I have followed his other work with interest and respect too.

Now it transpires that he is no better than the other BBC cabal of warmists. 'Betrayed' is too strong a word...but not by much. I am a sadder and sadly wiser Latimer this evening.

[Gareth]

3711 - Phil Jones replying to someone who was wanting a pointer on what to tell a student of theirs, subsequent to the Swindle documentary being broadcast.

There is only one view worth listening to - and that is what IPCC says on the subject. Climate change is happening, it will continue to get warmer and all the things said in the SPM. I understand how awkward it is when the public and fellow scientists see programmes like that produced by Channel 4 a week or so ago. There were barely any climate scientists on the programme and the few that were had their views distorted. Why the media (both paper and TV) want to portray divisions is beyond me.

Because there *are* divisions Phil, and I'll take any claim by the IPCC with a pinch of salt. They are not an impartial actor in this.

[Gareth]

Whoops. Got me blockquotes wrong there.

"Because there *are* divisions Phil, and I'll take any claim by the IPCC with a pinch of salt. They are not an impartial actor in this." is me.

[Latimer Alder]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall when the few remaining Mannians at Penn State get to read how their liittle blue-eyed boy behaves in private.

Having already lost half their senior management over sex abuse. they can hardly lose another faculty member to 'colleague abuse'. Especially considering all the grant money he brings in for them.

And yet anybody there with a shred of integrity must be very concerned that they have such a loose cannon supposedly acting on their behalf and potentially dragging the already heavily tarnished name of their institution yet further into the mire.

A conundrum that we technical people call

'A Bit of a Bummer'

[ThinkingScientist]

I was thinking how I might compare the characters of Mann and Schmidt to politicians of New Labour.

I think Mann would either be Gordon Brown (not as clever as he thinks, clunking, huge temper tantrums) or possibly Alastair Campbell.

Schmidt would probably be Peter Mandleson: careful, clever, devious, long term strategic thinking

As for Phil Jones, I am thinking along the lines of Nick Clegg - earnest and helpful but not too bright.

[Latimer Alder]

@jonathan jones

'Followed by the complete text of my appeal of my first appeal of UEA's initial refusal of my FOI request, which was held by UEA under a duty of confidence at this stage. I am considering a formal complaint to the Information Comissioner'

Not only consider, but do! Once you have carefully explained the error of his ways to your fellow Oxonian, Myles Allen.

[SandyS]

Nov 25, 2011 at 6:45 PM | Latimer Alder
Re Philip Eden
I too am surprised and disappointed in reading his contribution. I always regarded him as a neutral.

It makes me sad not angry in this case.

[RB]

Kim,

Even knowing what I know about the BBC #1683 made me take a sharp intake of breath. It says it all, really.

[RB]

Mann's personality certainly shines through these emails as it did the first set. But its not as if this is a revelation. He has done much over the last 2 years to display that personality publicly.

Just a thought. I had a business partner very much like this for over 5 years. Incredibly thin skinned; always right no matter what anyone else said, even if they were highly completent in any relevant field; no idea about collegiate working; any hint of a suggestion of constructive criticism resulted in a def con 1 type defence (you hesitated to raise even the slightest criticism or suggestion because you knew it would result in at least 3 days of strife); convinced that he was a consummate professional, at the top of his game; rude; pompous; incredibly combative; (I subsequently discovered that in his early years in our profession his first three employed positions ended in the same way - with a boot up his arse out of the door when senior management could no longer ignore his "style"; and, as I came to realise, very insecure and in fact decidedly mediocre in our chosen profession.

Other professionals, I recall vividly, such as our acountants used to phone me and ask me to deal with things he had brought to them because they just couldn't deal with him any more. Clients did likewise and many asked for their work to be taken off him. Other professional colleagues even asked in whispered tones if he was "bi-polar" or had some other issue. And yet he survived in the business and it was me who was so sick of dealing with him for those years that I got out, almost at any cost, and he retained the business that I had solely founded. My choice (also involving personal family reasons) and anything was better than staying.

People like this always last well beyond their sell by date. Colleagues and professional acquaintances are too busy, too pre-occupied, and too reluctant to take it on. They just can't be bothered with the combat. They form their private opinions about this individual and end up deferring to him by default as a result rather than tackling him. He gets a boost because he thinks people are in fact deferential and that he has influence. The reality is that he is widely derided and disliked (in private) and avoided in public as much as is seemly.

Michael Mann reminds me so much of this former partner and I recognise him as cut from the same block.

Even going through the climategate 2 emails on the latest search engine where results are only snapshots of the emails and do not give details of the full mail or the parties, I identified, without fail every time, emails that were Mann's just from the style and language used in those snapshots.

Unfortunately, I cannot think of a worse profession for someone with this personality trait and professional "style" than science.

[Gareth]

Email 1738 is one Rod Savidge taking a very dim view of dendrochronology/climatology.

My aim is not to kill dendrochronology, and it is not with an air of superiority that I dare to examine its weaknesses. However, there are bounds to dendrochronology, as there are to every field of investigation, and the discipline has spilled over way outside of those bounds, to the point of absurdity.

There is uncertainty associated with estimating an accurate age for even a living tree that you cut down today, and much more when you try to make chronological sense out of pieces of trees of
uncertain origin.

What troubles me even more than the inexactness attending chronological estimates is how much absolute nonsense -- really nothing but imaginative speculation -- about the environment of the past is being deduced from tree rings and published in dendrochronology journals.

[Douglas J. Keenan]

Following is a quote from Christopher Caldwell, “Why climategate is a catastrophe for science”, Financial Times [26 November 2011].

… the emails have shown … that scientists are no less prone to vanity, rivalries and corner-cutting than people in other walks of life.

But that is everything. Voters in a democracy do not argue about science. They argue about the authority of scientists. And scientists’ claim to authority comes from the perception that, in fact, they do not let their vanities and rivalries influence their work. Where others pursue their grubby little self-interest, scientists pursue only the truth.

[Steve Jones]

Something quite strange going on over at the BBC's Environment/Science web page. There is a story titled 'CO2 climate sensitivity 'overestimated'' that contains a far more balanced and reasonable, but still heavily caveated, view than has been the recent norm.
Funnily enough, it isn't written by our old friend Richard 'Please pick me for the Team' Black but somebody called Jennifer Carpenter.
Hopefully, this is a sign of the charlatans and activists being gently nudged to one side. Although I would still like to see the current environment reporting rabble being very publicly sacked.

[Steve Jones]

Mr Keenan,

Thank you for posting Christopher Caldwell's most eloquent analysis. Therein lies one of the greatest crimes these contemptible crooks have perpetrated. I started following the climate change debate having heard terms like 'consensus' being used as if that somehow was a valid way to win a scientific argument. It was Gore's antics that truly made me suspicious of the whole AGW viewpoint. Political sophistry being applied to scientific debate is all it was and all it continues to be.

[HaroldW]

I'm partial to #3500, from Phil Jones. This concerns Comment on “Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature” by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter by Grant Foster, and eight others including Jones, which was published by JGR in 2010. With the submission, the journal asks the author to provide a list of five possible reviewers, "experts who are knowledgeable in your area and could give an unbiased review of your work". Kevin Trenberth suggests some names; Phil Jones weighs in with some alternatives, concluding

To get a spread, I'd go with 3 US, One Australian and one in Europe. So Neville Nicholls and David Parker. All of them know the sorts of things to say - about our comment and the awful original, without any prompting.

In #4743, it's clear that one of the reviewers *does* know the "sorts of thing to say": "The real mystery here, of course, is how the McLean et al. paper ever made it into JGR. How that happened, I have no idea. I can't see it ever getting published through J Climate. The analyses in McLean et al. are among the worst I have seen in the climate literature. The paper is also a poorly guised attack on the integrity of the climate community, and I guess that is why Foster et al. have taken the energy to contradict its findings."

Earlier, in #3750, Foster suggests that their approach should be considered with care: "[I]t should be brought to the attention of the chief editor, and should not be reviewed by the same editor who approved MFC09. [...] Does anyone know the chief editor?"

Disclaimer: I haven't read either the original McLean et al. paper or the Comment, so it may be that Foster et al. are correct. And perhaps such jockeying for positive reviews is common in academia. But it doesn't leave a good taste in one's mouth.

[KnR]

The good new is any decent lawyer that gets Mann in the doc will know just what buttons , sadly for Mann he will not be able to bully and bluster in a court room the same way he does in what he things as 'his team'

Jonathan Jones, so Jones as repeatably made it clear he has little regard for the law and has no hesitation using lies when its suits . Like Mann above to see this little piggy have to face a court room could be very sweet , outside of pal review and rubbish review this guys have simply never had to answer for anything.

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

Very interesting insights into the psychodynamics of these people, particularly Mann ans Phil Jones.

[MarcH]

Roy Spencer seems to cop a lot of flack for his religious views, here's a letter from Mike Hulme I found somewhat revealing...

http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/0080.txt

Margaret,
I wondered whether you would like to put this in line for the January church magazine?
Mike

Connecting with Culture?
I guess for an increasing number of people in Holy Trinity, email is a
dominant mode of communication and medium for the receipt of information.
It certainly is for me. Amongst this non-stop flow of messages in my inbox
- some important, some trivial, some junk - I am very grateful to receive
twice a week a short Biblically-based commentary on topical issues in
todays culture. It takes only 2 minutes to read, but it injects into my
working day nuggets of Christian thought and perspective which compete
effectively, and sometimes by surprise, with the constant flow of
electronic information I receive. So whether it is a comment on Myra
Hindley and the reality of repentance, the latest Harry Potter film as seen
through Christian eyes, or a sharp analysis of the contrasts of abundance
and poverty we see at Christmas, these 2-minute thought pieces are studded
through my working week and bring Christ into the workplace. And on
occasions, the comment is so apt and timely I find it appropriate to
forward to a secular colleague.
The service is free to anyone with an email address and is offered by the
London Institute for Contemporary Christianity - of which John Stott is a
founder and patron - and is called "Connecting with culture". For those
interested simply send an email request to <mail@licc.org.uk>
Mike Hulme <m.hulme@XXX.ac.uk>

[Jonathan Jones]

@Latimer Alder,

I have no quarrel with Myles Allen over this matter. Any involvement he may have had was, it appears, entirely at the instigation of Phil Jones.

[Anoneumouse]

@ Buffy Minton

"Gavin should always be referred to by his complete title "Nasa Blogger Gavin Schmidt"

Not 'Nassaschimidt' then?

[RoyFOMR]

@RB,
You did the right thing mate. It must have been very difficult but you took the right choice.
Hope it all worked out in the end.

[Ron R]

Details of a disgusting attempt to get a skeptical scientist sacked from his Auckland University position. (cc includes Pachauri). The Team's modus operandi is well illustrated.
http://newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/climategatte-2-salinger-puts-the-boot-into-de-freitas/

[pat]

moving right along...

25 Nov: Guardian Editorial: Climate change summit: aim for the top
Global emissions need to start to fall within the next five years or so, and each delay makes failure costlier and harder to avoid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/25/durban-climate-change-summit-editorial?newsfeed=true

[pat]

Tele moving on, sponsored by Shell Oil...

25 Nov: UK Telegraph: Durban must finish what Kyoto began
Energy and climate secretary Chris Huhne, believes South African summit is a chance for real change
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/earth/the-age-of-energy/8916103/Durban-must-finish-what-Kyoto-began.html

[Ripper]

Nov 26, 2011 at 1:22 AM | Unregistered CommenterRon R

Yes, Ron , the cc list on that email shows how interconnected all the institutions are. Salinger (who adjusted in all the NZ warming) is calling for backup from the top down.

[Gareth]

Email 4663: Another casual mention of the BBC. Phil is outlining an existing module he has previously has students at UEA considering, I think.

Climate Change: Is the science done and dusted?
[edited to remove email address]
Most governments around the world have signed up to Kyoto, and it is likely that the US will engage much more readily in many processes after Jan 20, 2009. The UK has a climate change bill which seeks to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050, and to produce national risk assessments every 5 years. To almost all in government circles (including the US from Jan 20, 2009), the science is done and dusted. The reporting of climate stories within the media (especially the BBC) is generally one-sided, i.e. the counter argument is rarely made. There is, however, still a vociferous and small majority of climate change skeptics (also called deniers, but these almost entirely exclude any climate-trained climate scientists) who engage the public/govt/media through web sites. Mainstream climate science does not engage with them, and most of these skeptics/deniers do not write regular scientific papers in peer-review journals.

Email 2315: In converstation with Jon Stewart (not that one) at the BBC discussing a future radio programme about climate change Phil says in passing

Even though the issue has the prominence it has, not much has happened to reduce future impacts. Many govts are stalling and there is still a band of skeptics making lots of waves trying to muddy waters.

The BBC is raising the issue at every opportunity, so you're doing your bit.

3815: Asher Minns of the UEA drafts a letter in response to a Horizon programme that hadn't been broadcast.

[Theo Goodwin]

Gareth on "Email 1738 is one Rod Savidge taking a very dim view of dendrochronology/climatology."

It is really nice to see that someone who knows the field lectured the paleoclimatologists on their ignorance way back when. I have been harping on the same since encountering "hide the decline." The forty years of data beginning in 1960 that showed a decline in tree rings should have called into question use of tree rings as proxies. But Warmists have no empirical instincts whatsoever.

To be a science, the field must develop physical hypotheses which explain the effects of environmental changes on their tree rings. They haven't tried. When Briffa published back in 2000 or so, all he could say is that he had no idea why the tree rings declined. And that sort of thing is why good scientists have told these people that the field shoud choose to emply the scientific method.

[tutu]

"The BBC is raising the issue at every opportunity"

intrsting .. I thought albeebjah was more into unbiased reporting instead of raising issues at every opportunity ?? we shld raise issues a @ their bloated penshun funds we have been filling up with our tax money, at every opportunity, in return.

[MarcH]

I for one will not be turning my back on the Labour Party.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Mike Hulme

http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/0186.txt

[phil]

Email 4092.txt from 1998 shows that University of East Anglia has a ”strategic alliance” with Goldman-Sachs. This is proof of UEA scientists' conflict of interest and a fixed agenda to drive the AGW narrative to enable carbon trading and renewable energy markets. Science is about being impartial and investigating the facts, not green activism to push a narrative that bankers want.

http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=4092.txt&search=Goldman-Sachs

date: Mon, 18 May 1998 10:00:38 +010 ???
from: Trevor Davies ???@uea.ac.uk
subject: goldman-sachs
to: ???@uea,???@uea,???@uea

Jean,

We (Mike H) have done a modest amount of work on degree-days for G-S. They
now want to extend this. They are involved in dealing in the developing
energy futures market.

G-S is the sort of company that we might be looking for a ”strategic
alliance” with. I suggest the four of us meet with ?? (forgotten his name)
for an hour on the afternoon of Friday 12 June (best guess for Phil & Jean
- he needs a date from us). Thanks.

Trevor

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Professor Trevor D. Davies
Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom

Tel. +44 ???
Fax. +44 ???
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[Summertown]

0248. Narasimha D. Rao of Stanfod writes an email with the subject line 'BBC U-turn on climate' regarding the piece from Paul Hudson asking whatever happened to global warming.

Rao writes "It is not outrageously biased in presentation as are other skeptics views.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100013173/the-bbcs-amazing-u-turn-on
-climate-change/
BBC has significant influence on public opinion outside the US.
Do you think this merits an op-ed response in the BBC from a scientist?

Clearly the community regards the BBC as its own communications channel.

[geoffchambers]

Gareth (2:27 AM) quotes Phil Jones from #4663:

“The reporting of climate stories within the media (especially the BBC) is GENERALLY ONE-SIDED, i.e. the counter argument is rarely made. There is, however, still a vociferous and small MAJORITY of climate change skeptics (also called deniers, but these almost entirely exclude any climate-trained climate scientists) who engage the public/govt/media through web sites. Mainstream climate science does not engage with them..” [caps mine]

Note that Phil quotes with approval the fact that the BBC is one-sided, and (Freudian slip, surely?) calls us a majority.
He can’t think straight, morally or logically. He really needs to take a long holiday.

[Ibrahim]

YUP

At 11:14 19/10/2003 -0400, Michael E. Mann wrote:
At 11:14 19/10/2003 -0400, Michael E. Mann wrote:
..................................
The irony here, of course, is that simple composites of proxy records (e.g. Bradley and Jones; Mann and Jones, etc) give very similar results to the pattern reconstruction approaches (Mann et
al EOF approach, Rutherford et al RegEM approach), so anyone looking to criticize the
basic NH temperature history based on details of e.g. the Mann et al ’98 methodology
are misguided in their efforts…..........................

[phil]

The climategate emails really are a goldmine for a TV comedy. Call it Hot Air. All the internal backstabbing, bitching, and ineptness makes The Office look like a serious drama. Ricky Gervais, are you following this?

[Foxgooose]

The climategate emails really are a goldmine for a TV comedy. Call it Hot Air. All the internal backstabbing, bitching, and ineptness makes The Office look like a serious drama. Ricky Gervais, are you following this?
Nov 26, 2011 at 9:13 AM phil

Don't hold your breath.

TV satire is an exclusively left wing activity nowadays.

Nobody's taken the piss out of the left since "Wolfie Smith" in the 70's.

"Spitting Image" magically disappeared as soon as Blair got elected.

I once heard Ian Hislop asked why this was, in a radio interview. I never considered him particularly left wing, but his answer was - "Because Tories are basically more ridiculous".

[HuhneMustGo]

Foxgoose 9.53

I once heard Ian Hislop asked why this was, in a radio interview. I never considered him particularly left wing, but his answer was - "Because Tories are basically more ridiculous".

No, I would have thought this remark denotes Hislop's humour rather than his politics.

[Messenger]

#3434.txt
Wed, 10 Sep 2003
The Tyndall Centre to UEA- no freedom for the press.

A disgraceful letter in my opinion.

[geoffchambers]

phil (9:13 AM) says:
“All the internal backstabbing, bitching, and ineptness makes The Office look like a serious drama”.
The comparison is spot on. Both “the Office” and the Climatic Research Unit result from one of the most profound changes in Western Society over the past 50 years:- the emergence of an overeducated, largely useless whitecollar class engaged in pointless displacement activities (pointless managerial psycho-drama in the Office, backbiting and a bit of averaging of global temperatures at CRU).
A whole stratum of society (the chattering classes) believes that, thanks to refined leisure activities such as watching Panorama and reading the Guardian, it is equipped to run the world, with the help of some graphs and a powerpoint presentation.
I know, I belong to this class. We need overthrowing before we do any more damage.

[phil]

Geoff, that is so spot on. I think that this was predicted by Schumpeter in his notion of the rise of the dissatisfied educated class. Note the ipad and iphone wielding occupy protesters.

[ThinkingScientist]

On the topic of Ian Hislop, I have often wondered why the only topic that appears to be taboo for Private Eye is Climate Change. I would have thought it would be right up their street and the emails would be a gold mine for them. Their silence on this topic is deafening.

[ThinkingScientist]

Probably too many topics in that last post....

[sHx]

Shock, horror!

Commie conspiracy exposed!

#1027

Keith,
I came across your e-mail address some time ago after I did a web search to
settle an argument about Lysenko. (He really wasn't such a 'good guy' as I
remembered)
It would be pleasant to meet up and swap some stories if you are ever in
London.

Martin Collins, formerly of the Norwich Anarchist Group, and Mike Tucker's
barmy army (USFI)

[geoffchambers]

phil
Thanks for the tip about Schumpeter. I’ve long thought the classic sociologists (mostly German) are the place to look for insights into what’s going on. See e.g. Canetti “Crowds and Power” and Max Weber “Science as a Vocation”.

Thinkingscientist
Someone commented here once (possibly after Climategate1) that Hislop was a true believer and would countenance no criticism of warmism. Same is true of the excellent Marxist humorous writer (and why not?) Mark Steel in the Independent. The idea that you can make fun of anyone and anything except Phil Jones is the clearest proof that we have all gone insane.

[Shub]

Geoff, that is so true. But one would guess that such has always been the case...? If you read Hayek's essay on the "Intellectuals and Socialism"

The class does not consist of only journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists all of whom may be masters of the technique of conveying ideas but are usually amateurs so far as the substance of what they convey is concerned. The class also includes many professional men and technicians, such as scientists and doctors, who through their habitual intercourse with the printed word become carriers of new ideas outside their own fields and who, because of their expert knowledge of their own subjects, are listened with respect on most others. There is little that the ordinary man of today learns about events or ideas
except through the medium of this class; and outside our special fields of work we are in this respect almost all ordinary men, dependent for our information and instruction on those who make it their job to keep abreast of opinion.

It is the intellectuals in this sense who decide what views and opinions are to reach us, which facts are important enough to be told to us, and in what form and from what angle they are to be presented. Whether we shall ever learn of the results of the work of the expert and the original thinker depends mainly on their decision.

One would think that climate scientists, as experts, would be less shrill and less politicized that their lay enthusiast counterparts (sceptic and consensusist alike) who for lack for deep knowledge fill their own bowls with opinions rather than true insight.

But Climategate 2.0 clearly shows that is not the case. At least with an important handful, Climategate 2.0 shows the experts to be even more shrill and politicized, and importantly, less expert than their lay counterparts (for instance, ...doesn't know Excel, perhaps doesn't know Powerpoint too!) In effect, these are just like sceptic and warmist bloggers but with a title of Professor.

[NW]

Yes, Private Eye's silence on Climategate is deafening, considering that it has all the aspects of their bread and butter - dodgy dealings and whitewash enquires. Presumably they don't realise that if they allow sites like this to do their job for them, they will become redundant.

[geoffchambers]

NW
The silence covers ALL comedy. Comic writers as different as David Mitchell, Giles Coren, and Mark Steel go all po-faced and hot under the collar about AGW, saying in effect, “some things are just too serious to make jokes about”.
The big test will come next Tuesday, on Radio 4’s Infinite Monkey Cage, with Brian Cox and Paul Nurse discussing “is it only fair to give everyone a platform however wrong they are?”

[Buffy Minton]

The big test will come next Tuesday, on Radio 4’s Infinite Monkey Cage, with Brian Cox and Paul Nurse discussing “is it only fair to give everyone a platform however wrong they are?”

Surely the point is that you don't know something or someone is wrong until you hear what they have to say? The viewpoint of the discussion is already thoroughly skewed by the pompous assertion that the BBC already know what is right and wrong before any platform is given.

[geoffchambers]

Shub
Thanks for the Hayek quote. The sociology of CAGW is something which deserves discussion at length some time. Perhaps on your blog?

[NW]

I know what you mean about comedy, but Private Eye does have a serious side in publicising corruption and dodgy dealings, particularly in politics. They are certainly familiar with the "official enquiry" which comes to a pre defined conclusion that there is "nothing to see here". That is what makes it so obvious that the PE contributors are under strict instructions not to mention the CAGW scam in a negative light.

Someone on HIGNFY needs to skewer Hislop on his hipocrisy, but it needs to be someone who can do it effectively.

[Niklas]

3563.txt

Phil Jones:

PS talking of McIntyre, Keith, Tim and I have a meeting with the FOI people here at
UEA later today. A UK person (David Holland) has appealed UEA's refusal to send emails
about who said what/changed what re Ch 6 of AR4. We have emails from all on Ch 6 saying
that they don't want their emails sent on, so don't think there are any grounds.
Holland
is trying also on EIR (Environmental Information Regulations) as well as FOI. He also
included emails from Caspar Ammann and Mike Mann as well. Will let you know
Monday what happens.
The whole thing is a pain. The FOI person sent all the correspondence yesterday -
~ 25 emails, including the UEA responses each time. Has been going on since March 2008!

Ben Santer:

I'm very sorry to hear about the problems that David Holland is causing you. I'm hoping
that UEA is providing you with strong support. Please let me know if there's anything I
can do from over here. I'd be very happy to write a letter to the University, supporting
your decision not to release emails to Mr. Holland.

Phil:

UEA is being very supportive. We need a meeting to respond - it just takes time.
We are now going to have to write a 2 page context letter to go to the Information
Commissioner's Office (ICO) to explain what IPCC is, how it works, the drafts and
their comments and responses - and where these can be accessed. This will
all go them once we have an officer assigned.
We have emails from all on Ch 6 saying they don't want their emails to Keith/Tim
sent on, so this should be enough. The detail that Holland wants is in some
of these emails and the attachments, which are parts (or the whole) of Ch 6 in
word documents. If we're forced to send these, then we'll send hard copies, so
he can't see who changed what - which you can in tracker.
One odd thing with the ICO is that in order for them to assess the complaint,
they need to see all. We're trying the above with a few examples to circumvent this.
If they want to see everything, then they decide to uphold the original UEA decision,
the ICO can then be asked for the material by Holland! Seems a bizarre situation.
We're claiming we can't comply on several issues. One of these is that if we do,
then we'll be ignored by IPCC when it comes to future IPCC CLA/LA assignments.
It wouldn't just be UEA, but would then apply to anyone working in the UK. The
clause relates to compliance affecting international relations!