Russell inquiry can't report the truth

David Holland emails with the amazing news that the Russell panel is unable to publish his submission because of fears of claims of defamation claims. Here is what the panel told him:

Your submission has not yet been published as the Review's legal advice is that it could be open to a claim of defamation under English law if it publishes the current version of your submission, as it makes references to, and comments upon, a large number of individuals. The Review, unlike the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee, does not have Parliamentary privilege.

Click to read more ...

Russell review submissions

Sir Muir and his band of merry men have published some of the submissions they have received. Included among them is a letter I wrote to Sir Muir after the resignation of Philip Campbell, suggesting a way by which his panel could appoint a mutually acceptable replacement. I didn't received a reply to this, or to a subsequent email. It's rather odd to see it now listed as a submission to the panel.

Russell panel minutes 25th Feb

Another set of minutes of Sir Muir Russell's panel has been published. Not much has happened.

• They are going to give £1500 to the Science Media Centre
• They are going to appoint a project manager
• Peter Clark says BP has not funded CRU in recent years
• Evidence to be published
• Norton and Clark to meet Jones and Osborn 

Emmanuel on the Climategate emails

Reader Mac notes Kerry Emmanuel's comments on the Climategate emails, delivered at an MIT debate on the subject:

"What we have here," says Kerry Emanuel, are "thousands of emails collectively showing scientists hard at work, trying to figure out the meaning of evidence that confronts them. Among a few messages, there are a few lines showing the human failings of a few scientists…" Emanuel believes that "scientifically, it means nothing," because the controversy doesn't challenge the overwhelming evidence supporting anthropogenic warming. He is far more concerned with the well-funded "public relations campaign" to drown out or distort the message of climate science, which he links to "interests where billions, even trillions are at stake..." This "machine … has been highly successful in branding climate scientists as a bunch of sandal-wearing, fruit-juice drinking leftist radicals engaged in a massive conspiracy to return us to agrarian society…"

I'm speechless. Even after the debacle of Philip Campbell's resignation from the Russell panel, no lessons appear to have been learned.

CCE panel prelaunch minutes

Muir Russell's panel have published the minutes of a prelaunch meeting from a month ago. It's not hugely exciting but a few points are worth making:

• They have two PR people on the team
• Boulton's history at UEA was discussed, but Philip Campbell didn't raise the subject of Nature's part in the back story
• "It was recognised that the questions were to be answered with respect to the standards and practices of the day".
• "It was noted that it had historically been difficult to secure funding for curation of data"
• "Muir agreed to approach the ICO in order to clarify where the review stood with respect to FOI"
• "William, Kate and Jim agreed to speak about how submissions and correspondence to the review should be filtered. A protocol for this should be prepared."

Does anyone else get a vague sense that solutions are being worked out?

(As an aside, I might point out that protecting the PDF file so that the contents can't be copied and pasted is rather irritating). [Update: I've got a work around for this now - thanks]

http://www.cce-review.org/Meetings.php

Update on Mar 2, 2010 by Bishop Hill

I'm grateful to the correspondent who emailed to point out that Kate Moffatt, one of the PR people on Russell's team, is an employee of Luther Pendragon, whose clients include Pew Charitable Trusts and Climate Strategies, both well known to climate watchers.

The hearings - Muir Russell

One more to go

17:20 When will they report? Russell says he doesn't know.

17:19 Ian Stewart asks about Jones refusal to give data to Hughes. Was he consistent in refusing this? Russell confirms they will look at this. This is important because we know it was supplied to others.

17:17 Willis says peer review aspects have disturbed the committee.

17:14 Willis asks why scientific inquiry is not part of the Russell review. Why can't I understand Russell's responses? "It would be a completely different thing".

Click to read more ...

Channel Four on Boulton's CV

Nick Scott-Plummer updates the story of Geoffrey Boulton's CV over at the Channel Four website. You may remember that Steve McIntyre found a copy of the CV from 2007 that referred to Boulton being on the IPCC. Boulton has now sent a contemporaneous copy of his CV to Channel Four, pointing out that this version doesn't include the line about the IPCC. Nick continues:

Asked whether he was implying dirty tricks we received another email: "Professor Boulton has no CV with that line on it, because there is no reason for it", adding: "people are free to draw their own conclusions as to why it seems to have appeared now".

There's also some pertinent comments about how the blogs are making the running on these stories, digging up small details in a very short space of time. And in fact, commenter Turning Tide, has already pointed out that the last edit date for the new version of Boulton's CV is actually July 2008, so this is perhaps not the vindication that was originally thought.

...a British geologist with the IPCC...

This is interesting: an old article (2008) from the Gulf News in which Geoffrey Boulton is described as "a British geologist with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".

Sir Muir on independence

I can't remember seeing this before, but even if it has been mentioned, it's worth reminding ourselves of what has been said. This is what Sir Muir said shortly after his appointment as head of the CCE Review:

"Given the nature of the allegations, it is right someone who has no links to either the university or the climate science community looks at the evidence and makes recommendations based on what they find."

It's possible he has changed his mind.

That Boulton IPCC connection

An eagle-eyed commenter has noticed that the CCE Review webpage now carries a new FAQ item addressing the concerns raised at Climate Audit, and echoed here, that Geoffrey Boulton appears to have been involved in the IPCC process.

What they say is this:

Some of the blogs are saying that Professor Geoffrey Boulton is connected to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – is this true?
No, it is not true. Professor Boulton has had no formal contact with the IPCC. He has not been a member of the Panel or made any submissions to it.

First up, it's good that the review panel are responding to concerns raised out here on the blogs. Having sent Sir Muir two emails since the review was announced back in December and having not yet received a reply or even an acknowledgement to either, it's nice to know that there is a way to get a hearing.

However, the statement today still leaves something of a mystery. If Prof Boulton has never been a member of the IPCC or made any submissions to it, why does his old CV say that his contributions to science and research policy include work "As contributor to G8 Preparatory Groups and Intergovernmental Panels on climate change"?

To submit or not to submit

Doug Keenan in the comments wonders if sceptics should make submissions to the Russell Review, now it seems clear that its representations on the independence of the panellists are hollow.

Please feel free to discuss here.

Geoffrey Boulton and the IPCC

The news of the day is the discovery by Climate Audit readers that until quite recently Geoffrey Boulton's CV included in the information that he was involved in the IPCC process. This detail, together with the fact that he had worked at UEA for twenty years, was omitted from the version of his CV that was presented to the press when the Russell Review panel was announced.

While the omission of his time at UEA was explained to the press corps, the fact of his involvement with the IPCC was not, an oversight that is problematic in view of the panel's statements that none of the panellists had IPCC links.

Read the whole thing.

It's in the Nature of the beast

A couple of interesting climategate postings over at Nature's website - some more statements from Phil Jones, the most startling of which is this:

I don't think we should be taking much notice of what's on blogs because they seem to be hijacking the peer-review process.

Golly. I can't imagine for a minute which journals have had their peer review process hijacked by us motley band of sceptics.

Then there's this piece by Daniel Cressey, who does a reasonable job of rounding up the developments on the Russell Review and the latest errors from the IPCC. He then blows it unfortunately by suggesting that readers head over to RealClimate to get a good dose of truth, which looks slightly foolish given that these are the guys who are being investigated.

Unless Daniel Cressey, like his boss Philip Campbell, knows something about the outcome of the review already.

Boulton pulls the strings

Well, well, well. You really can't pull the wool over Steve McIntyre's eyes can you? It turns out that the issues paper for the CRU emails review was written, not by Sir Muir Russell, but by Professor Geoffrey Boulton, the secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the body that is supplying the secretariat to the review, the man who works along the hall from Hockey Team staffers, the man who promotes global warming, the man who stands in breach of the panel's own rules but refuses to stand down.

No wonder he's staying put - he's running the show.

Update on Feb 15, 2010 by Bishop Hill

In the comments to the CA piece, Mr Pete notes that the PDF was generated from a Word file and that the Word file's author was Boulton too.

Boulton is staying

Sir Muir Russell and his team have rejected the concerns of those of those sceptics who have questioned his suitability as a panel member.

Sir Muir Russell said:

"This Review must determine if there is evidence of poor scientific practice, as well as investigate allegations around the manipulation and suppression of data.

"As others have pointed out, it would be impossible to find somebody with the qualifications and experience we need who has not formed an opinion on climate change.

"I am completely confident that each member of the Review team has the integrity, the expertise, and the experience to complete our work impartially."

Unfortunately it is not Sir Muir who needs to be confident of the integrity of the review team, it is the public who will be the consumers of his findings. Sir Muir said at the start of his review that he considered it important to carry the confidence of sceptics. It seems clear now that this is not an issue that is occupying his mind any longer.