Tomorrow the Association of British Science Writers begin their annual conference in London. Browsing idly to see what they were up to, I chanced upon a podcast of a session of their first conference in 2010, in which they discussed Climategate.
It really is amazing stuff. Here's a brief summary of what was said
Bob Watson
- Seems under the impression that Climategate was about CRUTEM
- Says inquiries reported that there was no perversion of peer review, no perversion of IPCC process, no scientific wrongdoing
- Uses the d-word
Myles Allen
- Also seems under the impression that Climategate was about CRUTEM
- Says von Storch, Christy and Zorita can all get CRU data
- Says he picks and chooses who to send data to
- Discusses the "only tiny change to CRUTEM" graph that was discussed at BH a few weeks back
Fiona (? - questioner)
- Mentions that Watson did 12 interviews after Climategate but couldn't shed any light on the contents of the emails [readers here know that's because Watson didn't read the emails]
Oliver Morton (The Economist)
- Understands that Climategate involved tree rings
- Uses d-word
- Notes that Watson has got the inquiry findings wrong
- Says Climategate doesn't really matter
James Randerson (Guardian)
- Trots out the "out of context" line
- Says Steve McIntyre has genuine contribution to make
- Says CG reveals uncomfortable things about peer review
Tom Clark (Channel Four)
- Says Pearce should have checked his facts.
- Clarke phone Gavin Schmidt and got confirmation that CRUTEM in line with GISS
- Phoned Briffa and found that he was editor not peer reviewer [not sure which incident this refers to]
- Clarke tried to ignore Climategate for 2 months
- Only started to get involved when ICO investigation began
- Watson on Channel Four several times unopposed
- Unfair of scientists to respond to all requests for data
- Scientists need to engage with citizen scientists
Alok Jhan (Guardian - questioner)
- Said Fred Pearce articles on Climategate should not have been done
- Spent hours trying to persuade editors not to look at Climategate
Myles Allen (again)
- Pearce shoudl have showed the "only tiny change to CRUTEM" graph
- Scientists receiving "entrapment" emails for data
Clive Cookson (FT)
- Fiona Harvey accused of being biased in favour of greens by her editor
- Other scientists saying better data needed, less reliance on models
- Lack of funding for data collection work is a scandal
Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).
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