Sunday
Jul082012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Horner's latest FOI success
Chris Horner of the American Tradition Institute has got hold of the emails of some academics working at Texas A&M and Texas Tech universities. He has written about what he has found here.
[The emails] reveal a sophisticated UCS operation to assist activist academics and other government employees as authorities for promoting UCS's agenda. This includes "moot-courting" congressional hearings with a team of UCS staff, all the way down to providing dossiers on key committee members, addressing in particular their faith, stance on gay marriage and stimulus spending. Of course.
This also includes directing the taxpayers' servants to outside PR consultants -- apparently pro bono or else on UCS's dime.
Reader Comments (33)
Why am I less than totally flabbergasted, I ask myself.
So it turns out that, in all these emails which must remain confidential from taxpayers at all costs to allow "free interchange of ideas" - the "interchange" is largely between climate "scientists" and their buddies in activist groups and sympathetic media.
I'm beginning to understand why it's so important for them to keep their emails secret - and so important for us to have a look at them.
Time for Climategate 3 ?
Re: Jul 8, 2012 at 10:23 AM | Foxgoose
"Time for Climategate 3 ? "
Yes, please! I look forward to the day when our FOIA friend releases the rest of the cache of emails and even more 'context' reveals the even deeper pit that the Climate 'scientists' , the media, green pressure groups and of course our politicians and bureacracy have dug for themselves!
http://foia2011.org/
Well, in defense of the green lobby, they've always maintained that billions of US dollars in contributions were at stake. We wouldn't want these "friends of the earth" (ie, one such US group) to lose out on all those benefit were CAGW not true - would me?
So two days ago, it was so important to never take anyone's word for anything without checking. While, today there is no question about Horner's 'success' regardless that no actual incriminating emails have been shown. Free the data!
Plus,.... what does this actually amount to? What is a 'sophisticated UCS operation'? (this is not the CIA here). Are scientists forbidden from talking to UCS? Are people not allowed to ask for advice from whoever they like?
Just another example of you wishcasting some scandal that doesn't exist.
yah, free the emails. I'm sure Justin Gillis' covered himself in glory.
Let's see,what have we here? Freedom of association,people with common values and interests connecting and making their voices heard. How very 'sinister'. When is academic 'activism' acceptable,or not? You do know that Honer is a professionally paranoic nutter,don't you? The company you keep...
"Freedom of association,people with common values and interests connecting and making their voices heard."
But only to each other, while attempting to conceal their conversation from the public, and in fact going so far as to declare to the uninvited that such connections did not exist and such conversations had not taken place. Much like "JournoList".
Oh, and that the people who avidly shared the "common value" declared themselves to be unbiased and neutral observers while enjoying a vastly amplified "voice" in a national media outlet.
Other than all that, nothing to concern ourselves with here, at all, at all.
"...people with common values and interests connecting and making their voices heard. "
Yes indeed!
I would like people and entities who deign to be independent and impartial sources to not have colluded with interests groups they pretend, as it turns out, to question and cross-examine.
I think you must have struck a cord here, Your Grace.
Frank and Nick trying to muddy the waters.
Two professionally paranoic trolls for the price of one.
And on a Sunday, yet!
"Two professionally paranoic trolls for the price of one."
Stole the words out of my mouth! Horner's substantially less trafficked blog (I am assuming here) has seen a visit by someone seeking to 'frame the issue' too.
"Journalists contacting scientists for information on.... science! And scientists communicating with journalists so the strongest and latest work is conveyed accurately. "
I am yet again reminded of Amazongate, where Jonathan Leake was slammed for not having contacted the activist authors of the WWF report and not reproducing verbatim the spin Simon Lewis', a WWF scientist no less, and Dan Nepstad put on the issue. "Journalist, know your role and shut your mouth".
It is hard to see if environmental journalism was hijacked by activist scientists or if environmental science was hijacked by activist journalists.
"Let's see,what have we here? Freedom of association,people with common values and interests connecting and making their voices heard"
The beauty of that comment is that whilst attempting to defend the indefensible, Nick reveals the mindset that is damning the CAGW crowd. Out of their own mouths. He thinks there's nothing wrong with journalists pretending to be neutral whilst conspiring activists. Nothing wrong at all.
And that is one of the reasons they will lose in the end. The public have very good bull***t detectors.
"..Freedom of association,people with common values and interests connecting and making their voices heard."
Jul 8, 2012 at 1:34 PM Nick "
Sort of "Common Purpose" - eh Nick?
The UCS accepted Watts' dog as a member. So, along with supporting Hansenkoism, are they also Pavlovian? When Marxists ring the bell, do UCS members react according to their programming?
Frank and Nick,
It's about people who pose as 'objective' impartial rigorous scientists and turn out to be part of a rabid cabal of activists. Their freedom of association is not in question, it's the fraudulence of people are rabid Greens while pretending to be something else.
UCS is a non-scientific lobbying group for left-wing causes, posing as a body of scientists. Anthony Watts was easily able to enroll his DOG as a member of that august scientific body "Union of Concerned Scientists" because there is no qualification except paying the membership fee..... UCS is no more scientific than Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. The fraud is that they pretend otherwise.
Political activism is now rife and endemic in academia.
A recent study called A Crisis Of Confidence- The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism
in the University of California makes for grim reading, declining teaching standards etc. It provides much food for thought, such as this excerpt
'There are two diametrically opposed ways of responding to new evidence. The approach of a disciplined thinker is to set the new evidence in the context of previous explanations of the issue in question to see how the new evidence might change the relative standing of those explanations. Which are advanced, and which are undermined by the new facts? But a person whose mindset is that of a political activist will want to assimilate the new evidence to his or her pre-existing belief system as quickly as possible, and in a way that does not change that system. Unexpected new evidence is a challenge to rethink, and it presents a most valuable opportunity to do so, but the political activist will be too much the captive of an existing mental framework to take advantage of so welcome an opportunity.'
http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
This excerpted line
apparently referred to Roy Spencer
The CO2 religion is a construct of carbon traders and dependent politicians. Thus the £17 million to the Tories under Cameron will expect a return which is for The City to become dominant in carbon trading. The likes of UCS, WWF and Greenpeace are funded by the corporates to act as Lefty political cover.
The last thing they want is the truth which is that due to 'self absorption' CO2, ceases to be able to trap any more IR energy above ~200 ppmV in a long optical path at ambient temperature, an experimental fact dating back 64 years used to design furnaces where GHGs in air are the energy transport medium
www.tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-1-details-c.pdf
Jul 8, 2012 at 5:50 PM | shub
What are you quoting from?
Paul
Jul 8, 2012 at 5:50 PM | shub
Sorry, Shub. I have your quote. On what are you basing the conclusion that it was RS?
Paul
Chris Horner's comment on this thread:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/sunday-reflection-the-collusion-of-the-climate-crowd/article/2501500
Paul_K
Horner has commented that the "trap" was laid for Spencer at the link provided at the top of the post.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/sunday-reflection-the-collusion-of-the-climate-crowd/article/2501500
This of course led to a couple of irate CAGWAs to go all ad hom, apparently because Spencer is a religious sort.
Follow the logic?
Oops, sorry Shub, looks like your response posted while I was composing mine.
Climategate is turning into "social liberal revolution gate"?
Historic the " believers/religion" have had great control over the individual and the society, religion based science. Then came the enlightment and changed that. We then got more science based politics. They are fighting back with ideology against science to get politic based science again?
http://www.uib.no/ledelsen/en/arrangement/2012/01/announcement-of-holberg-prize-2012
"Holberg International Memorial Prize is awarded annually for outstanding scholarly work in the fields of the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology. The prize amount is NOK 4.5 million (Appr. EUR 570,000/ USD 800,000)"
"arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology"
These are the people science and enlightment is up against?
Uh oh - the Holberg Prize sounds suspiciously like it was designed for the do-gooders in The Club of Rome!
I think Climategate 3 will have to wait until its 1000% obvious that Global temps stopped rising some time ago and actually fall at least 0.3C lets say in the next 2 years. Then Mr Climategate can really hammer all the @##### that promoted this scam. I predict a date around mid 2015
Looks like "academic freedom" is no defence.
Now let's hope this precedent can be used to gain access to the Augean Stables that are Mann's emails.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/08/us-court-ira-secret-testimony?newsfeed=true
Secret testimony from an IRA woman who bombed the Old Bailey can now be handed over to the Police Service of Northern Ireland as part of its investigations into one of the most controversial murders during the Troubles, a US court has ruled.
In the ongoing battle between academic freedom and demands for justice from the families of those killed by the IRA in the conflict, a United States appeal court has found that the PSNI can seize tapes from the ex-IRA bomber Dolours Price.
There is nothing innately wrong with scientists being "rabid Greens" or rabid Tea Partiers. However, when they testify before Congress or write reports for the IPCC, they should to ACT like scientists, not policy advocates. Steve Schneider inadvertently did an excellent job of defining the between these two roles: Scientists are expected to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts". Policy advocates want to make "the world a better place" and "capture the public's imagination" by "getting loads of media coverage" and "offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have". Can a scientist consult with the UCS and PR specialists before testifying and still ACT like a scientist in front of a Congressional committee? Do scientists really need help from the UCS and PR specialists if they only intend to speak as a scientist? When scientists choose to speak as policy advocates, they certainly should warn their audience (legislators, the press, or the public).
Likewise, there is nothing wrong with Gillis or any reporter carefully investigating Lindzen's claims about cloud feedback. The real problem arises when Gillis doesn't investigate Dessler's claims about cloud feedback as carefully as those of Lindzen.
Although suggestive, Horner's report doesn't seem to disclose unambiguous evidence of inappropriate behavior. Try replacing "UCS" with the "Heartland Institute", "Lindzen" with Mann, NYT with WSJ, and Climategate with WMD in Iran. Do you feel the same?
Piers Corbyn has just roped himself to the mast, giving detailed predictions of US weather for July, some of it near apocalyptic as solar activity causes frequent low pressure over the Great Lakes: climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/rynewspageFullfcKeyUSAMapsandExtremesSLAT8Aprod29Jun.pdf
Because not a CO2 molecule is mentioned, is Corbyn being unscientific in not including the IPCC 'consensus' in his predictions? Is he indeed a 'denier' because of this? Should be be excommunicated from the new Official State Church of Scientists, sorry you can't join us unless you believe in our dogma?
:that due to outstanding enquiries:
What does this mean? That UEA has not responded to the police, so the investigation has not gone forward? That someone is not cooperating, as in "the victims are not cooperating with the police"?