Summary: Follow-up to Important News, still breaking, about Climate Science propaganda.
The best analysis of this to date IMO is this: “Baby Steps“, Jeff Id, The Air Vent, 21 November 2009. Below is long excerpt. I recommend visiting his website to see some of the best coverage of this issue.
Excerpt
There are several people who want to claim that these emails and data have no meaning, there are others who feel they spell complete doom for the global warming movement. We all have our own opinions on the matter and while this blog is not dedicated to moderate views, it is dedicated to real views. What the scientists need to understand is that their work affects everyone, and thus we have a right to know.
… These new emails do not provide any huge revelation of collusion, we already knew about that. They don’t provide any smoking gun proving intentional corruption of data for a conclusion (although the Jones quote was good enough for me). They don’t have any proof of making a conclusion in exchange for money or proof of changing a conclusion for personal benefit. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t expect any of that. The mechanism of reward for certain results is exactly what some of us expected it to be.
What the emails show is that there is some good science going on. There are some quality open discussions in them for sure.
What they also show however, is a pattern of elimination of dissenting views. They show an advocacy by some ’scientists’ which belies scientific credibility. These few names are universally limited to the top people in the field — think about what that means. These are the ones who actively work to make sure that dissent is unpublished and are often the loudest in public to discredit others. Mann (creator of the bogus Al Gore hockey stick) seems to be the worst offender along these lines but he clearly has a circle of trusted friends. Finally, these files show a lot of money involved in the industry. Big dollars are in play with big travel budgets, prestige and a lot of power for those who follow the main player’s lead.
What is probably the #1 legal issue is the FOIA obstruction and the conspiring with government officials to block legal and properly worded requests. Of that we have proof. Again, we outsiders (non team members) are not surprised. It’s been pretty obvious that something was happening but what we have is complicity of the government in blocking legal Freedom of Information Act requests.
For those who would sweep this under the rug — not so fast. There are serious issues brought to the foreront by the emails which need to be addressed. Global warming affects everyone. Whether it’s through massive taxation and regulation or more storms. We do have a right to know where the conclusions come from and how they are arrived at.
For instance:
- I want to know what they mean when Mann says – “don’t think that the entire AGU hierarchy has yet been compromised!”
- I want to know why it’s ok to ignore “certain” FOIA requests but not others.
- I want to know why it’s ok to cover up alleged temperature data extracted from trees when the data doesn’t agree with temperature.
- How did Saiers get removed from the GRL {Geophysical Research Letters}?
There are a thousand questions which remain unanswered. These emails have at least taken a step toward verifying a complaint by outsiders about why some papers which seem quite accurate don’t get published. Now we know.
The emails are a step forward in understanding of both positives and negatives in this highly politicized science.
Baby steps.
For more information from the FM site
To read other articles about these things, see the following:
- About Science & Nature – my articles
- About Science & nature – studies & reports (esp section 4 about the solar cycle)
- About Science & Nature – general media articles
- About Science & Nature – the history of climate fears
Reference pages about other topics appear on the right side menu bar, including About the FM website page.
Some of the posts about climate change on the FM website:
- An article giving strong evidence of global warming, 30 June 2008
- More forecasts of a global cooling cycle, 15 July 2008
- Two valuable perspectives on global warming, 4 August 2008
- Good news about global warming!, 21 October 2008 – More evidence of cooling.
- One of the most interesting sources of news about science and nature!, 27 October 2008
- Watching the world change before our eyes, 29 November 2008
- The Senate Minority report is out: “More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims”, 12 December 2008
- My “wish list” for the climate sciences in 2009, 2 January 2009
- How warm is the Earth? How do we measure it?, 28 January 2009
- Science in action, a confused and often nasty debate among scientists, 5 February 2009
- Richard Feynmann, one of the 20th centuries greatest scientists, talks to us about climate science, 12 February 2009
- Lost voices in the climate science debate, 22 April 2009
- Aerosols (pollutionants, like soot) as a driver of climate change, 8 May 2009
- A look at the temperature record of Alaska – any sign of global warming?, 17 May 2009
- Big news from NASA about the causes of climate change!, 6 June 2009
Afterword
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