Politicians notice Fakegate

Rep Edward Markey of Massachusetts has written to Heartland asking for them to document the inaccuracies in the Fakegate documents and asking for originals.

In a letter to Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast, Markey asked the group for an explanation of any inaccuracies in the leaked documents as well as accurate versions of those documents.

“These documents appear to indicate that the Heartland Institute is receiving large donations from corporations for the direct purpose of discrediting the mainstream science of climate change and has planned to engage in a campaign to undermine the teaching of well-established science at our public schools,” Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in the letter.

If I recall correctly, Heartland's climate change activities were not actually corporate funded at all. What an extraordinary error to make.

I think it is probably worth Heartland documenting what is wrong in the fake document, since this is in the public realm. As to the real one, I suggest they tell him to mind his own business. Private matters should remain private.

Curry and Mandia on Fakegate

There's an interview with Judith Curry and Scott Mandia on the Fakegate affair here.

Wegman slapped on wrist

The accusation of plagiarism against Edward Wegman, author of one of the Congressional reports into the Hockey Stick, appears to have been upheld, but I think it's fair to say the university hasn't treated it as a capital offence, presumably because the passages in question were background material.

In a statement to GMU faculty, provost Peter Stearns said that one investigation committee unanimously found that "no misconduct was involved" in the 2006 Congressional report. "Extensive paraphrasing of another work did occur, in a background section, but the work was repeatedly referenced and the committee found that the paraphrasing did not constitute misconduct," he said, in the statement.

A second university committee found unanimously, "that plagiarism occurred in contextual sections of the (CSDA) article, as a result of poor judgment for which Professor Wegman, as team leader, must bear responsibility." Wegman will receive an "official letter of reprimand", Stearns said, as sanction for the plagiarism.

Update on Feb 24, 2012 by Bishop Hill

When the plagiarism allegations were raised against Wegman, there were many people who argued that anything he had ever written should be treated as untrustworthy. There are interesting parallels to the Gleick case there.

For me, it's a logical fallacy to argue in that way, so I say that the oeuvres of Wegman and Gleick still stand.

Lindzen in London - Josh 152

Below are the cartoon notes from the superb lecture by Richard Lindzen on Wednesday 22nd Feb 2012.

The notes do not do the talk justice in any way and one or two are a bit obscure. They might make more sense if you read the pdf notes here. Click the image below to see a larger version - warning, it is quite big!

 

Cartoons by Josh

Update on Feb 27, 2012 by Josh

Video Part 1

Video Part 2

BBC World Service on Fakegate

The BBC World Service covered Fakegate this morning, interviewing Bob Ward and Mike McPhadden, the president of the AGU.

Considering the post-Jones-report choice of guests, the coverage was not too bad. We could have done with some challenge of the dark mutterings about "disturbing revelations" from the documents though. I was interested in McPhadden's description of the tumult at the AGU and their desire for public trust. It seems to me that while they allow Chris Mooney to use their organisation in the way they do, they are going to be seen as a political organisation rather than a scientific one. Mooney to me looks like another AGU accident waiting to happen. That being the case, it will interesting to see how the AGU responds to the Gleick affair.

The audio is attached below.

Science in Action on Fakegate

Update on Feb 24, 2012 by Bishop Hill

In the comments I am advised that Mooney resigned from the AGU some time ago, although  his replacement, Susan Joy Hassol, doesn't look much better.

Gloves off

The gloves appear to have come off in the Fakegate affair, with Heartland calling in the FBI.

The Chicago-based free market Heartland Institute has called in the FBI and threatened other legal action against a global warming proponent who has admitted stealing emails from the institute in a bid to embarrass and discredit the group’s questioning of climate change.

Heartland officials tell Washington Secrets that they have been in talks with the FBI over the case against prominent global warming proponent Peter Gleick, co-founder of the respected Pacific Institute. Heartland is getting ready to reveal their probe of the affair, which they hope the FBI will act on.

Redoubt or bunker?

H/T Anoneumouse

Show us yer code

John Graham-Cumming, Les Hatton and Darrell Ince are all well known around these here parts. John Graham Cumming was quite prominent after Climategate for his critiques of the standard of CRU's computer code. Darrell Ince wrote an article making similar criticisms. Les Hatton was mentioned as the author of an article criticising the IPCC's handling of hurricane data.

The three of them have just published a new paper in Nature, looking at the issue of code availability and trying to address the question of how we can move to a world in which academic computer code is routinely made available.

More tactical lying

This website purports to present an easy to understand overview of the dangers of fracking.

This bit made me fall off my chair:

Fracking fluid

Up to 600 chemicals are used in fracking fluid, including such known carcinogens and toxins as:

• Lead
• Uranium
• Mercury
• Ethylene glycol
• Radium
• Methanol
• Hydrochloric acid
• Formaldehyde

Radium eh? You know, I'm struggling slightly with the idea that a gas company would want to collect hard-to-handle materials such as radium and use them as industrial surfactants. I mean, radium as a surfactant? Who knew?

Independent on Lindzen

Richard Lindzen's talk in London yesterday is reported at the Independent:

How to explain the procession of eminent opinion leaders – some even in our own Royal Society – who advance the tenets of catastrophic global warming? “It is science in the service of politics,” he said.

If Lindzen is right, we will never be able to calculate the trillions that have been spent on the advice of “scientists in the service of politics”.

Interesting to see the Independent giving such a fair hearing to a sceptic.

Update on Feb 23, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Lindzen's talk can be seen here.

Preaching to the unconverted

Matt Ridley spoke to 200 artists at a "Tipping Point" event in Newcastle recently. Apparently it didn't go down too well.

The audio is here.

The comedy of fakers

Hilariously, DeSmog appears to have decided to try to uphold the line that the fake Heartland strategy document is real. I'm struggling to keep my jaw off the floor.

In response, Anthony Watts has launched a crowdsourced textual analysis project to see if science will provide backup to Mosher's observations about the similarities between the literary styles of the counterfeiter and Peter Gleick. You can find out how to take part here.

It's a good idea, but I'm worried that nobody is going to be able to stop laughing at DeSmog for long enough to take part.

Behind the lines

Just a short note written from the Met Office library, where I'm going to spend an hour before heading back home. The day has gone extremely well, with some really interesting exchanges of views, some of which were quite unexpected.

My talk was probably pitched at a level that was a bit too general and not science-y enough, but as ever with these things it was the Q&A that was the most interesting anyway. Richard Betts had invited Martin Juckes to attend and Juckes was the source of several probing questions. (Long-term readers at Climate Audit may remember him as having a long exchange with McIntyre back in 2007 or thereabouts). This led onto an interesting discussion of uncertainty bands and inverse regression. Peter Stott also wanted to take me to task over some of the things I said, and there was a frank, but not unfriendly exchange there too.

It was great to meet Richard and (briefly) Tamsin. Although unfortunately we had less time for informal chats than I would have liked.

Thanks are certainly due to Vicky Pope and Richard for their hospitality. It was a productive and, I think, a very useful day.

Naked Churnalism - Josh 151

Some journalists seem keen to get their kit off for a bit of exposure.

Cartoons by Josh

Booker on biofuels

Christopher Booker sends this excerpt from his splendid book, The Real Global Warming Disaster. It describes events in 2008 and ties in nicely with my Entrepreneur post a couple of days ago.

In startling contrast, however, one Commission proposal met with a storm of protest. This was its requirement that by 2020 10 percent of the EU’s transport should be powered by biofuels.  Over the previous two years a sea-change had been taking place in attitudes towards biofuels, not least among many of the organisations normally looked on as the EU’s closest environmental allies.

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