Sir John responds

The "government" has responded to the Science and Technology Committee's report into the UEA inquiries.

After two independent reviews, and two reviews by the Science and Technology Committee, we find no evidence to question the scientific basis of human influence on the climate.

We note that this report from the Committee makes recommendations aimed at strengthening the transparency of scientific research, and that the principle of transparency is one to which the Government is fundamentally committed.

Which I guess is pretty much as expected.

The report was apparently prepared by the Government Office for Science - Sir John Beddington's crowd - with input from various other ministries. One wonders what input the government actually had, apart from applying a signature to the document in question.

I'll take a look at the report in more detail in a moment, but first I want to say something about Sir John's role in the Climategate affair. We know that the first person UEA's Trevor Davies wrote to when the story broke was Sir John. We know that Sir John pushed Lord Oxburgh, conflict of interest and all, to stand as chairman of the scientific inquiry, despite the noble lord's objections. We know that on completion of that inquiry, Sir John wrote to congratulate Lord Oxburgh, saying that all agreed that he had "played a blinder". We also know that Sir John was pivotal in getting the Russell panel to spend a lot of time on the peripheral issue of the surface temperature records.

And now he is personally responsible for putting together the government's response? And he tells us that there is no evidence that the scientific conclusions on the IPCC are undermined?

Are we expected to take this seriously?

Attention deficit disorder

Political Climate is a new blog to me. I chanced upon their article about the media's interest in climate change (or the lack thereof), and was struck by this graph.

Amusingly the uptick in 2009 appears to be ascribed to the Copenhagen conference rather than anything else that may have been happening at the time. 

Click to read more ...

Von Storch on stroppy answers

Gosselin reports on an interview with Hans von Storch in the German media.

On the loss of credibility, climate science itself is to blame. The science has stirred up scientifically unfounded expectations, says von Storch. The demand that the public has to rapidly accept instructions on how to act in order to save the planet has blurred the boundaries between policy and science. As a result, science has not become something that has to do with “curiosity”, but rather gives the impression that it’s all about pushing a pre-conceived value-based agenda: “As scientists we have become political tools who are to deliver sought arguments to get citizens to do the right thing.”

http://notrickszone.com/2011/05/04/hans-von-strorch-science-has-failed-to-answer-legitimate-questions-warmists-have-responded-with-a-stroppy-reply/

Climate consultancy

On the subject of conflicted panels, I was thinking about Sarah Muckherjee's statement that NGOs were paying for climate research. I'm pretty sure that nobody has come across universities paid anything by NGOs in relation to climate research, but a comment by Richard Tol suggested that consultancy payments often go straight into academics' bank accounts rather than university coffers. This would make it impossible to trace them, even via FOI.

In medical science similar situations arise, and the journals have put in place a requirement for scientists to make positive declarations regarding conflict of interest. Do any climate journals carry such a requirement?

Conflicted panels? Whatever next?

A fascinating article at the British Medical Journal site, looking at the problem of the medicalisation of every problem in society. The author reckons it's a lot to do with new diseases being created by expert panels with financial conflicts of interest. Sound familiar?

Among the 12 members of the panel that created the controversial diagnostic category “pre-hypertension” in 2003, 11 received money from drug companies, and half of those people declared extensive ties to more than 10 companies each. Critics have rejected “pre-hypertension” as a dangerous pseudo-syndrome that could increase drug company markets, while others point out that it gives a diagnostic label to nearly 60% of the adult population of the United States. Similarly, 11 of the 12 authors of a 2009 statement on type 2 diabetes were heavily conflicted, with authors working as consultants, speakers, or researchers for an average of nine companies each. That panel advocated a contentiously low blood sugar target, and explicitly defended the use of rosiglitazone, a drug since suspended from the European market because of its hazards to human health. Within the field of sexual dysfunction, conflicts of interest have reached new heights of absurdity, with drug company employees joining their paid consultants to design diagnostic tools to identify and then medicate millions of women with a disorder of low desire that may not even exist.  

Scientists behaving badly

Times Higher Education has a cover story about scientists behaving badly. The focus is on biomedical research and, in particular, the story of how two dogged biostatisticians named Baggerly and Coombes struggled to expose the errors in a paper on chemotherapy by Potti and Nevins.

The Climategate parallels in the story are obvious.

As well as the article (which is by Darrel Ince of the Open University) there is an accompanying editorial, which looks significant.

We may struggle to change human nature, but we ought to be able to ensure that journals, as Professor Ince says, "acknowledge that falsifiability lies at the heart of the scientific endeavour" - they must be less quick to dismiss challenges to their published papers and more willing to admit mistakes.

Duke itself has acknowledged that in work involving complex statistical analyses, most scientists could benefit from a little help from the statistics department before publishing.

Professor Ince goes a step further, arguing that all elements of all the work (in the Duke case, the full raw data and relevant computer code) should be made publicly available so that others can replicate or repudiate the findings.

In this age of information and the internet, that can't be too difficult, can it?

Monbiot on reality

While many people have assumed that George Monbiot would always remain an overgrown teenager, his recent outpourings seems to have at least a whiff of maturity and even a newfound willingness to engage with the world as it actually is. Monbiot's column on Monday has attracted much attention (Judith Curry here, Anthony Watts here) and there is now a follow-up piece looking at the same areas.

Environmentalism is stuck – factional and uncertain even of the goals we seek. But we must face facts and engage with reality.

Of course many people have been saying that environmentalists were delusional for years, but I'm sure we were denounced for doing so.

More on disasters

Anthony Watts has picked up the Houghton quotes story, and I thought it was worth expanding on what makes me uneasy about these links between disasters and global warming.

It seems clear to me that the original misquoted version hinted that Sir John was in favour of inventing catastrophes. His true words don't carry anything of that meaning.

The question then become one of whether his true words suggest creating links between disasters and global warming. Again, I'm not sure they do. A commenter here points out the rest of the quote in which Sir John says

It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.

Click to read more ...

Huh Czar

Another great comic strip from Fenbeagle, this time taking aim at Chris Huhne. Do take a look at the whole thing.

UEA Chancellor's emails

Someone - not me - has got hold of the Climategate emails of UEA's Chancellor, Brandon Gough. This is a slightly odd choice of target, as university Chancellors are usually figureheads as far as I know.

However, it did throw up two things: one trivial but odd, the other just rather funny.

The trivial-but-odd thing is that a whole host of Spanish universities wrote to Brandon Gough in the wake of Climategate pledging their undying support. I would have waited for the investigation to finish myself.

Secondly, a rather amusing job application sent to Gough shortly after the emails hit the internet:

Dear Sir,

I am inquiring about the possibility of employment at the University.

I was recently sacked from my previous job for conspiring to distort company figures. Before that I was fired for gross incompetence and for losing critical corporate data; and before that for attempting to corrupt audits by getting my mates assigned to the role, and for attempting to cover-up my dishonesty by criminally inciting others to delete incriminating files and emails.

I was thinking maybe something in your Climate Research Unit, but I'm concerned I
may be over-qualified.

I also have two convictions for fraud. Is this enough?

Please advise soonest.

Yours Sincerely,

Update on May 5, 2011 by Bishop Hill

ZT in the comments appears to have found Gough's response ;-)

Dear Lord Oxburgh,

Thank you for your recent application for a position at the UEA's internationally renowned CRU. You are indeed eminently well qualified for the arduous and painstaking work performed at the CRU, upon which the entire human race depends. It is a tremendous privilege to be able to draw on the talents of preeminent and studious researchers, such as yourself, in our cutting edge creative climatological research.

However, I fear that your predisposition to the forthright disclosure of minute details may render the work of the CRU burdensome. I will keep your resume on hand, if I may, as I feel that your talents may be of value in an entirely independent inquiry which I am about to institute (though you will, of course, need to suppress that forthrightness and focus on a selection of papers independently selected by my esteemed colleague, Professor Philip D. Jones).

Yours, as ever, Lord Rockingham of Daventry, formerly B. Gough Esq.

Watch with care

Some readers may be familiar with the name of Dr Gabrielle Walker. It was Dr Walker who co-wrote The Hot Topic with Sir David King - the global warming book with a whole new "hide the decline" graph in.

I notice that Dr Walker has been commissioned to front a BBC TV programme about the science of ice.

One to watch...(carefully). 

Also coming up in the BBC's new season are a series about the science of the weather and a show called What's the Point of Satellites?, (to which the answer is probably "to promote global warming").

Ridley and Dyson on shale

Matt Ridley has written a report on shale gas for GWPF. This is an excellent, even-handed look at the pros and cons of this new energy source.

It's hard not to come away with the impression that shale gas is pretty benign compared to the alternatives. For example, the footprint of a shale well is amazingly small...

Click to read more ...

Plodding along

Last night I had a response to an FOI request to Norfolk Police for financial information relating to the UEA emails inquiry. I asked for costs per month for the investigation, expecting these to show a tailing-off over the period since Climategate.

Imagine my surprise then, to be sent this:

I wonder what happened in November 2010? A big anniversary party perhaps? :-) These could be big lumps of periodic recharges from external bodies - perhaps NDET? Your guess is as good as mine.

SciTech on peer review

The House of Commons inquiry into peer review is live streaming from 10:15 this morning. I will not be able to watch, so reports and comments are particularly welcome.

The stream should be here.

Exit stage left, Huhne...?

Guido Fawkes reckons that Chris Huhne could stand down as the UK's Energy and Climate Change Secretary at the cabinet meeting on Friday, with (relative) right-winger David Laws favourite to replace him.