Wednesday
Oct312012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Hiding the Decline
Oct 31, 2012 Climate: HTD 
You may have thought that you had heard everything there is to know about Climategate, but in fact there are still details of what happened that have yet to be aired.
For example, did you know that UEA were investigated by the police under suspicion of perverting the course of justice?
Or that Lord Oxburgh quietly changed his evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, introducing a falsehood into the official record?
It's all in Hiding the Decline, my definitive history of the Climategate affair, which is now on sale here.
Reader Comments (91)
ePUB doesn’t work on my not -very-old Mac, nor do the ePUB-to-PDF apps available, so the version I’m reading has been tortured to bits being cut and pasted from pillar to post. Good read though. Your Grace’s even temper never ceases to amaze. I think I’ll have to order a paper version from Guardian books.
This is rather bad. In chapter five you’ve identified the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as IPCC throughout, leading to enormous confusion when the real IPCC is mentioned, sometimes in the same paragraph.
If there’s any possibility of correcting the online versions, I’ll happily do a complete proofread.
Spent 10 mins with the wife explaining the divergence problem from the book and showing her the diagrams.
With a non.scientific mind, she fully understood how hiding the decline has no scientific credibility. Indefensible.
Apologies for /OT -
@geoffchambers at 4:24
Geoff, Have you tried Calibre for the epub - pdf or any other conversion? It usually does a fairly acceptable job of it, both on Mac and PC.
My signed copy has just arrived in the post. Thanks very much Andrew. I'll have to extend my subscription to pay for the exorbitant cost of the postage (£2.70). I now have too much reading to do and not enough time.
I found a nice way for subscribers to "buy" the book directly from Andrew:
Request the complimentary signed book and donate money through the tip jar.
My copy just thudded on the mat as I was contributing to the previous post. Great - just in time for holiday reading as I am away next week. Thanks.
I've just downloaded my copy (epub) - soon to be read and reviewed. Also, totally agree with Chuckes re Calibre; it's an excellent and very useful piece of kit.
John-whitman 12.20am re the use of outwith. O/T I know but it did remind me of all those years I spent at school morning assembly wondering why there was "a green hill far away without a city wall"!
I wonder about it being on sale at Amazon since they block every book not following the alarmist theme, or seem to.
Geoff, I already received a corrected version from Andrew! Quick action, I think I keep also the original version ... you never know if it turns out later to be a valuable "collector's item" ;)
Book landed today delivered by Postman Pat and already it has coffee and butter stains on it. Do you do free re-fills Bish?
Anyone who thinks that in “Hiding the Decline” His Grace is leaning over backwards to be fair, here’s the kicker paragraph from near the end:
Brilliant. Bravo. I’d just add that they only get away with it because the private sector media let them.First typo page 34 of the hard copy
'In fact, there appears TO have been only a single such request....'
Bish happy to make my world-renowned proof-reading skills available to you FOC on future ventures
xx
Ordered the printed version (can't read books on screens, even on Kindle). Looking forward to it hugely
Hey, Bish, send Judy Curry a free copy. She doesn't do PayPal.
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His Grace (reportedly): "We still have no idea of the identity of the person who disclosed the Climategate emails (nor indeed if they were a hacker or a whistleblower). I refer to the person involved as ‘he’..."
john-whitman (Oct 26, 2012 at 8:54 PM): "Do you mean to say that you know there is only a single individual responsible for disclosure of the Climategate emails? It seems that you do, yet you also use the word 'they' in your paragraph so I am sincerely confused by what you said."
Let me take that up since none of the natives bothered with the challenge. And let me state again that when it comes to English language and grammar, I am merely an amateur enthusiast.
Back in the late 1980s and early1990s, when 'reasonable man' became 'reasonable person', it also became imperative to state clearly that the 'person' could be either he or she. The trannies and androgynous types still didn't count at the time, but the ladies attacked in numbers if 'she' wasn't stated clearly and distinctly. The chaps gave in order to maintain the spirit of collegiality between the sexes. ;-)
This had a major downside to the flow of the English language. The form came to dominate the substance of the argument as can be seen in the extract below, which I read, by fortiutius coincidence, fewer than 12 hours ago:
As can be seen, even though the author has reduced the 'observer' to 'he/she' (as opposed to 'he or she'), the form still dominates the substance of the extract above. The reader's attention is overwhelmed by matters not directly relevant to the subject at hand, which is about quantum physics. Yes, the irony is not lost on those of us who are literary types.
The word 'they' has lately come in to use to overcome these difficulties. The word 'they' is now used to mean 'he or she' or 'he/she'. Grammatically speaking, it is not halal... not yet, but it is getting there.
His Grace ought to be congratulated for being up to date with the ever-evolving language of his land.
Arrived - faster than Amazon.
Kindle, location 3347
"but had only wondered by such a series had apparently not been created"
I guess "by" should be "why"...
sHx
"Man embraces woman, and so throughout"!
I bow to no person (!) in my post as Pedant in Chief but frankly the obsession with upending the English language in order not to piss off the Militant Wimmin Tendency is more than a little tedious.
The word "he" has been used for centuries to denote "human being" of any age and any sex (and in this instance, also any number) where the context requires it.
Bishop
To follow up geoffchambers' earlier comment, I also am available to proof-read if needed.
Geoff, you can download a free app called Kitabu from the Mac App Store and read ePubs.
Location 5117...
The same basic phrase is repeated..
"He has now issued a formal complaint..."
Next sentence, basically the same again.
"In the Spring of 2012 he issued a formal complaint..."
Thanks for the corrections everyone.
No matter how many times you check....
Bish I have found quite a few typos. Happy to deal with it by email if you want to contact me.
Just finished. Feel disappointed in my fellow citizens. My initial reaction is that this will end with a public enquiry at some point but we may have to wait 20 years.
I'm still holding off buying any of your publications Bishop until the full trilogy(?) box-set is available. I don't mind giving the odd contribution to the tip-jar as funds become available but I do deplore the lack of indexing and an incomplete chronology necessitated by the foot-dragging of FOIA.
I still remember the excitement with which I viewed 'Police Academy 6: City Under Siege', thinking that it would be the last one only to be crushed when 'Police Academy: Mission to Moscow' came out shortly after I'd viewed 'Police Academy 3: Back in Training'
Yours etc. Grumpy Old Glenrothes Man
Dolphinhead
By all means send them over.
"No matter how many times you check...."
It has to be someone else. You can't proof-read your own stuff...
Mike
"Man embraces woman, and so throughout"!
"All men are rapists, and so throughout"!
I am prepared to cannibalise the English language if that is what makes my woman happy.
OK. Sorry, that the might be too cryptic.
I just want to state that for sake of clarity so as not to be mistaken for a sexist that some of my best friends are femo-nazis. :D
OK. Heavily pronounced winks in both of my comments above so as to definitely not leave any room for doubt.
A small addendum for page 28 of the hard copy, courtesy Chris Horner and the US FOIA. Released 25 August 2012.
I could never understand how Eugene Wahl and Caspar Ammann could have persuaded Stephen Schneider to move heaven and earth to get their tawdry paper "in press" to meet the end Feb 2006 deadline. They had a powerful backer in the shape of John Houghton but I still think a bit more leverage was needed. I have no idea whether Jonathan Overpeck acted on Eugene Wahl's email below, but with just hours to the deadline I would not be surprised if he had.
Just purchased. Looking forward to a good read and will pass on to the partner and the children when I have finished. Well done, Bish.
I will buy it. I am curious, were you able to reach a conclusion regarding 'Hide the Decline'? Specifically is it modifying Mike's Nature Trick as in I've used Mike Nature Trick to hide the decline, or is it cutting off Briffa at 1960 to hide the decline?
Oct 27, 2012 at 2:46 PM | sHx
O/T, but my wife referred to me the other day, in public, as "THAT" !
O/T related to sexist avoidance hoop jumping. Having been to many business meetings in my time, I enjoy pulling the tail of people when they come all sexist PC...
Chairperson? Shouldn't that be Chairperdaughter?
Chair? So can I use wo? How many wo are working on the project?
Is this product for hu use or animal use?
They really have no answer. I do it because it annoys me that people have no understanding of language and that words have developed to stand in their own right. Germans have even bigger issues, Mannschaft indeed.
HTD arrived here in Blackrock, Co Dublin 01 April 2012. I'm looking forward to a good read.
PW
Arrived yesterday. Writing style taut and lucid. My first impression is that, instead of concentrating solely on the fraudulent science, the Bish is showing how polished are the political manoeuvrings of The Hockey Team.
If we are indeed seeing politicians of integrity step forward (viz. John Hayes's recent statement), this book needs to be circulated to many of them. Politicians: you and the taxpayers have been deceived!
"..definitive history..."? You really do have a hide [pun intended].
peterwalsh: HTD 1 April 2012?? or November?
My copy arrived yesterday and I am deeply engrossed in it to the detriment of everything else I am supposed to be doing. I am forcing myself to work but keep taking extended tea breaks to read another few pages. It's a good job I work for myself at home otherwise the old P45 would be winging its way towards me. Great, easy writing style, Bish, but the subject matter is making my blood boil all over again, especially when you read the whole thing in a few hours rather than over the years as it all unfolded. Not being a scientist, I found a lot of Steve McIntyre's blog and the erudite discussions incomprehensible at times but appreciated the sincerity and tenacity he showed and continues to show, but you have made it all come alive again. I shall be revisiting some of the blog entries again to remind myself of events and the enormity of the scandals. But even after all this, where have we got to? Nothing much seems to have changed and I cannot see how this supertanker of the green gravy train (to mix my metaphors) can ever be turned around, and that makes me VERY Grumpy.
Enjoyed reading your book Bish. Downloaded the Kindle version and Kindle computer software and got right at it.
Thnks for spelling the story out for us, Very interesting and at the same time depressing when you see how the game is rigged by the scientists, the government authorities and the MSM. Everyone has a vested interest in making the problem go away. As you say in the book however, people are not fools. Those that are interested can see or surmise where the truth lies.
I saw this weekend that the former president of Penn State has been charged for his role in the coverup of the football coach youth sex scandal. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.