Within a few seconds of cranking up my computer this morning I was reading this posting by Steve McIntyre, which I got to via Bishop Hill, who says of it:
McIntyre has posted his first analysis of some of the emails. It’s not looking good for the Hockey Team, with their scheming to remove the divergence problem and “hide the decline” from the IPCC reports laid out in horrifying detail.
There are going to be months of revelations like this.
So that’s two links to the McIntyre posting in this already. The internet already contains a lot more. Watch it go viral, much as this just did.
A commenter on McIntyre’s posting, Jonathan Fischoff, says:
Every time I hear people say “the emails are out of context!” I think, be careful what you wish for.
Chris S says:
People are now beginning to realize how “so much was owed by so many” IPCC Summaries, “to so few”.
Indeed.
What of Al Gore‘s other argument (beside the taken-out-of-context argument), that all these CRU emails are ten year’s old, so, really, what the flip? As thousands have already pointed out, many of the CRU emails, which Gore has clearly not read or even read very much about, are far more recent. But yes indeed, the emails scrutinised in this latest McIntyre posting do indeed go back a decade. But what that shows is: so does the scientific dishonesty. Gore is saying: “Relax, it goes back a long way, these guys have been conning us for a decade.” This doesn’t really work as a put-down, does it?
Will “the media” give this McIntyre posting the attention it deserves? I am increasingly thinking that it doesn’t matter what these people say or don’t say about this story, or about anything else. McIntyre’s posting, one of the many fragments of this far bigger mega-story, is now out there, for anyone with internet access who wants to read it, and read about it. Tens of thousands of comments on it, attached directly to it, and such as this one that you are reading now, are even now being concocted, by and for all who care. Whether the old-school journos join in (Delingpole is a good example of that trend) and thereby become part of the new media, or prefer to keep looking away (see Delingpole’s excellent recent posting about the pathetic Climategate non-performance so far of Private Eye) this says more about their own future than it says about the story itself. As with the named and shamed CRU scientists, the exact motivation behind each particular item of old-school media deception, neglect or misdirection is a matter of debate. The fact of it is not, and any who want to can now see this.
Michael J just emailed me this link to a piece by a scientist. The point is, guys like this can now can now say all this. He no longer needs any journo to open the door for him.
Private Eye’s latest cover, with a picture of a polar bear on it with a sort of Greenie propaganda point, shows that that mag does not realise the full satirical potential of the Green movement. You would have thought that the Eye would be delighted to run the CRU email story, but if such stories do not please its political views, the story does not get covered.
I stopped reading the Eye some time ago. A lot of its stuff is anti-capitalist, adolescent crud, despite the odd decent article. The Onion is far better and far funnier.
The line that “Scientists are in total agreement on this” is almost as pernicious a line as “The science is settled”. There have always been a huge number of scientists outside the clique of “climate scientists” who have expressed, as a minimum, scepticism. There are now a good many more who are looking at the incredible sloppiness of the CRU work and wondering how these people got away with it, and who resent the damage it is doing to the good name of science. (Science will survive, though. There is good and bad work, and people are learning how to tell the difference).
However, the bulk of these scientists work for organisations controlled by or at least funded by the state, they are not experts on the specific field, and they have so kept their heads down. The current controversy has encouraged at least a few to speak out.
The fundamental problem is still there though. Universities have voluntarily handed the control of their organisations over to the state. Most scientists have leftish politics, and they have generally done this willingly. Having done so, they are generally appalled by the immense level of bureaucracy, the “professional managers” who have no idea what they do and impose upon them a vast world of mission statements, targets, goals, and all kinds of other crap, but generally fail to see cause and effect. That there is a political agenda that comes with it was okay as long as it was an agenda that a large portion of academics agreed with. They may now be having second thoughts, though, which is something.
Very helpful post and links, BM.
Here is another essay which I would commend. While McIntyre does sterling work on the statistics, the author at this link takes a broader view and includes reference to the psychology and sociology of climate alarmism: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=409454
One good thing that could come out of this ugly episode, this stain on our intellectual and moral history, is an improved understanding of how such alarmism is created and sustained in the face of hard evidence to the contrary.
As a statistician who has been following this ‘hoax’ for over 15 years, the amazing thing to me after I read a large number of the CRU emails, is the total lack of humor in them. How many of you who send e-mails to co-workers or friends over the course of many years do not include one humorous joke or comment. It is just the opposite. Any emotion is just mean and vicious comments. There is something wrong with the Hockey Team
Hey, trying to fool the entire world is serious business.
JerryM,
I don’t see the lack of humour in the leaked CRU emails as significant. After all, the emails we have seen are a selection made by the unknown hacker/whistleblower.
The fact that he or she could select so many that demonstrate failures of ethics and scientific method is what bothers me.
Natalie
Spot on.
I particularly agree about the probable editing out of humour. Just what I was thinking.
Natalie and Brian,
I’m not sure I agree. There are long strings of e-mails with no obvious editing and no obvious humour. An englishman who makes no attempt at even wry humour is either a zealot or a socialist or both.
Jones et al have not even suggested there was bias in the editing. Why do you think that is?
Possibly the best thing about this leak is that the scientists cannot defend themselves properly because the leaker still has them by the balls.
The motivation of the leaker fascinates me, he/she seems to want a balanced debate more than simply to damage one side. If it was me I would have kept back a few juicy bombshells for deployment as and when necessary.
Ian Hislop was useless on Have I Got News For You tonight. All he did was accuse the blogosphere of being bonkers and always going on about Hitler. Disappointing, as Hislop can be good when he’s right.
Rob: Totally agree with you about Ian Hislop on HIGNFY. In addition to his disparaging remarks about the blogosphere, he implied that the scepticism over global warming was based on “well, Sarah Palin says so, so it must be right.” and repeated the usual mantra about scientific consensus. The only thing that stopped me from switching off the TV there and then was James May instructing him, in that world-weary way of his, about water displacement theory.