It is continually stunning to me that people can see the evidence before their eyes” and continue to doubt the reality of climate change, he said. He turned to Holdren and said, sarcastically, “I just want to ask you if you’re a member of a global conspiracy.
We request that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the questions raised by the disclosure of emails from Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (CRU). Additionally, EPA should withdraw the Proposed Endangerment Finding, as well as the Light Duty Vehicle Rule, and the Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule until the Agency can demonstrate that the science underlying these regulatory decisions has not been compromised.
“The scientific community enjoys a tremendous amount of public trust. Unfortunately, the themes exposed in the CRU documents led to a loss of confidence in certain individuals as dispassionate arbiters of climate science,” Broun said in his letter. “At the least, the contents of the emails point to a troubling trend of groupthink where data is manipulated and withheld, scientific journals are intimidated, and reputations are attacked for political expedience,” the letter continued.
The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus … that tells us the earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity.
However this particular controversy comes out, the result will not call into question the bulk of our understanding of how the climate works or how humans are affecting it.
On the second part, I think Carol Browner addressed that last week, on the order of several thousand scientists have come to the conclusion that climate change is happening. I don’t think that’s anything that is, quite frankly, among — most people — in dispute anymore.
Well, first of all, we’ve all seen bits and pieces, we haven’t seen the full e-mails. But I think more importantly there has been for a very long time a very small group of people who continue to say this isn’t a real problem, that we don’t need to do anything. On the other hand, we have 2,500 of the world’s foremost scientists who are in absolute agreement that this is a real problem and that we need to do something and we need to do something as soon as possible.
What am I going to do, side with the couple of naysayers out there, or the 2,500 scientists? I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists. I mean, these people have been studying this issue for a very, very long time, and agree that the problem is real.
The beauty of science is that it depends on independent verification and replication as part of the process of confirming research results. This process, which is tied intrinsically to the procedures leading to publication of research results in the peer-reviewed literature, allows the scientific community to confirm some results while rejecting others. It also, in a sense, lessens the impact of any one set of research results, especially as the body of research on any topic grows. The AMS plays an important role in the scientific process through its peer-reviewed publications, as well as through its many other activities, such as scientific conferences. The Society strives to maintain integrity in the editorial process for all its publications.
For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited.
Opponents of climate change legislation are trying to deceive the American public on climate science. After years attacking the science on its merits and failing, they’re now using stolen e-mails to attack climate scientists directly.
Our understanding of climate science is based on decades of research from thousands of scientists. These e-mails don’t affect what we know about human activity driving dangerous levels of global warming or the measures we must take to address it.
I think it is important for scientists to clearly state that if basic data were withheld, or if there was unprofessional tampering with the peer-review process, we do not condone these acts. It is equally essential to emphasize that alleged problems with a few scientists’ behavior do not change the consensus understanding of human-induced, global climate change, which is a robust hypothesis based on well-established observations and inferences.
Scientifically, it means little. All scientists know that this kind of language and kidding goes on verbally all the time. Some of us forget that email has the potential to become public at any time. The public perception is another matter. There may be some people who do not know any scientist personally and think they are lily pure, dedicated (do-gooder) nerds. These private comments might lead to less confidence in science. It is a shame, since our country is so scientifically illiterate and is easily swayed by perceptions that have little to do with scientific method and culture. They have very little influence on my opinion.
The “contrarians” or “deniers” do not have a scientific leg to stand on. Their aim is to win a public relations battle, or at least get a draw, which may be enough to stymie the actions that are needed to stabilize climate.
t is not unlikely that this event may have some real repercussions for the public perception of climate science, however unfair it may seem (unfair both in terms of the actual intended meaning of the emails, as in terms of the way they were obtained). ”Skeptics” will certainly try to get as much mileage out of this as possible, in order to undermine the science and the political process (e.g. Copenhagen). However, there are also plenty of sane voices commenting on the issue.
One of the issues with how the UEA emails are perceived is whether the reader understands the context of the dubious pseudoscience and constant harassment the field faces. If you understand that, the emails are understandable and mostly excusable. If you don’t, if you think that normal science is being stymied, then you come away with a very different impression.
This episode is not a window into how climate science works. It’s a window into how electronic communication has altered our standards and the way we work. Nobody looks good here. We should all be embarrassed.
Most of the contents that have had people getting so excited about on the blogs seem pretty innocuous to me – the usual to-and-fro of scientists discussing, arguing, sometimes exhibiting frustration. We are, after all, human. A handful of messages hint at something a bit worse, and I’m not going to excuse anyone who has behaved in an unethical manner, but it is hard to condemn anyone based on a few cherry-picked emails, many of which in any case have straightforward explanations. If there was a lot of serious malpractice, I’d expect to see more substantial evidence from the past decade of email at one of the world’s leading climate research centres. On the whole it is thin gruel indeed. It is clear that most of what people are getting excited by is just the typical banter of scientists engaged in debate and discussion, and many of the commenters just don’t have a clue about the scientific process. The person who quoted our email correspondence about the edits to the manuscript claimed that this proved how political all us scientists are! In fact we were simply improving the paper in accordance with various comments from reviewers (which we basically agreed with), which is how the peer review process normally works.
In summary, there are probably some minor lapses in there, but everyone who has read any of the emails is already guilty of something worse and there’s no firm evidence of major crimes.
Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.
First of all, this story should never have been called ClimateGate. Given the similarities between this smear job and the Swift Boat attacks on Senator John Kerry, SwiftHack is a far more appropriate name.
I’ve attempted to cover the major points of interest in this story. Consider this post a perpetual work in progress. It will be continually updated. Please leave appropriate links and angles I’m missing in the comments.
For your convenience, the following 10 headings each links to the corresponding section of this post:
1. The scientific consensus that humans are responsible for climate change — and that we must stabilize concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases at 350 parts per million — remains overwhelming. This latest cybercrime and the private emails it revealed do nothing whatsoever to change that.
Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-based warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.190C per decade, in every good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short- term fluctuations are occurring as usual but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.
Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.
Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. This area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.
Current sea-level rise underestimates: Satellites show great global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be 80% above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets.
This is in line with the most recent assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 declared that global warming is unequivical and that human behavior is ‘very likely’ the key driver.
Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that all of the worst and most damning interpretations of these exposed emails are accurate. I don’t think this is remotely true, but let’s assume it.
Even if this is the case, it does not prove the following:
1) The scientists whose emails have been revealed are representative of or somehow a proxy for every other climate scientist on the planet.
2) The studies that have been called into questions based on the emails (e.g., that old chestnut the “hockey stick”) are somehow the foundations of our concern about global warming, and those concerns stand or fall based on those studies.
Neither one of these is true, which is why I can say confidently that “ClimateGate” is overblown–and which is why I’ve never been impressed by systematic attacks on the “hockey stick.” Even if that study falls, we still have global warming on our hands, and it’s still human caused.
Physicist Spencer Weart notes that this is part of a broader trend, in which rather than dealing with uncertainties climate scientists are increasingly forced to respond to criticisms leveled at established science, criticisms which are largely based on ignorance:
Back around 2000 leading climate scientists talked to each other mostly about their science–debating one another’s data and analysis and negotiating travel, collaboration and other administration–and a little bit about policy. As time passed they have had to spend more and more of their time answering criticism of the scientific results already established, criticism mostly based on ignorance, fallacious reasoning, and even deliberately deceptive claims. Still more recently they have had to spend far too much of their time defending their personal reputations against ignorant or slanderous attacks.
But let’s be clear: Jones is talking to his colleagues about making a prettier picture out of his data, and not about manipulating the data itself. Again, I’m not trying to excuse what he did — we make a lot of charts here and 538 and make every effort to ensure that they fairly and accurately reflect the underlying data (in addition to being aesthetically appealing.) I wish everybody would abide by that standard.
Still: I don’t know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that’s literally what some of these bloggers are saying!
2. Physics doesn’t care about hacked emails and conspiracy theories. The impacts of catastrophic climate change continue to rear their ugly head.
The impacts of climate change are not limited to computer models and projections. Consider the following domestic examples from recent weeks:
“2009 continues to climb up the rainiest-years-ever chart” in Illinois. This year’s rainfall in Peoria of 49.34 inches — 50 percent above normal — has already exceeded the total of 2008, itself 25 percent above normal. With only six more inches of precipitation, 2009 will break the record rainfall set in 1990.
Similarly, the September 21st flood in Atlanta, Georgia “was worse than what’s statistically projected to happen once every 100 years — even worse than every 500 years.” It was “extremely rare”, “epic” and so “stunning”, the U.S. Geological Survey says the “flood has defied its attempts to define it.”
Alex Steffen at WorldChanging rightly notes that the real scandal is that all of this serves as a distraction from the very real challenge of dealing with climate change.
3. Hacking into private computer files is illegal. Posting their contents publicly is highly unethical. The entire process is an intentional effort to intimidate scientists.
I’m not up-to-date on British law, but the hack was at bare minimum a violation of the Computer Misuse Act of 1990. I’m sure there are newer laws on the books, but suffice it to say, hacking a University computer for private emails and data is illegal and unethical. The University of East Anglia certainly considers it illegal, and a criminal investigation is underway.
Perhaps more importantly, this is an intentional attempt to interfere with the efforts of scientists doing important work. Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, writing at Dot Earth, explains:
this is a criminal act of vandalism and of harassment of a group of scientists that are only going about their business doing science. It represents a whole new escalation in the war on climate scientists who are only trying to get at the truth. Think — this was a very concerted and sophisticated hacker attack.
…
I don’t think Jones’ emails had any personally compromising data in them, but that was just luck; this illegal act of cyber-terrorism against a climate scientist (and I don’t think that’s too strong a word) is ominous and frightening. What next? Deliberate monkeying with data on servers? Insertion of bugs into climate models? Or at the next level, since the forces of darkness have moved to illegal operations, will we all have to get bodyguards to do climate science?
Kevin Grandia is trying to track the guilty party down. He notes that, given the files that were included, the culprit was someone who knew exactly what they were looking for:
The folder of information contains over 3,800 separate files and it is clear that someone has taken a lot of time to pull together what they thought would be the most damaging. This is not the work of a hacker, unless that hacker is extremely well-versed in climate science, and specifically the conspiracy theories of the climate denial movement.
This package of stolen data and emails would have taken hundreds of hours to compile and someone out there knows exactly how all this went down.
Anyone ethically challenged enough to hack into private files or distribute their contents publicly is likely to have also nefariously edited the files.
4. The emails in question were taken out of context, and they don’t mean what deniers claim they mean.
Out of thousands and thousands of emails that were hacked, the climate change denying conspiracy theorists have only managed to identify a few that they consider to be incriminating. The supposedly incriminating emails are in fact, at worst, merely embarrassing.
More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords.
One of the gotcha emails, which has generated the ‘hide the decline’, does not mean what deniers are claiming:
No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.
This RealClimate post explains the context behind some of the other supposedly controversial emails.
I work in electrical engineering where I use words and phrases that, taken out of context, could be misinterpreted as nefarious by people who are ignorant of the context or who have an axe to grind. For example, I regularly talk about “fiddling with” or “twiddling” the data, “faking out” something, “messing around with” testing, and so on. In the first case, I’m analyzing the data to see if I can make it make sense or if I can extract the signal from the noise. In the second case, I’m often forced to force a piece of electronics into a specific mode manually so I can test it and verify some other function, or I use the phrase to provide artificial test data for calibration and/or verification that my electronics are working correctly. And in the third case, it usually involves trying to deduce whether a problem is caused by the electronic board I;m testing or by the equipment that is doing the testing.
The edited bits we are getting can sound bad, but the actually say absolutely nothing. Stripped of context they could suggest all kinds of unethical behaviour … or nothing at all.
As I pointed out above, it is actually pretty incredible that out of thousands of emails the conspiracy theorists were only able to identify a few they consider to be damning.
Kevin Grandia wonders what would be uncovered if thousands of emails from the Conservative Enterprise Institute or Exxon Mobile were released in a similar manner:
Think for a millisecond about how juicy the news might be if someone hacked the CEI computer, finding a way to track funding and listening in on the conversations that have occurred between Ebells and his collaborators at Exxon, Ford and the Bush Whitehouse.
Hand over, say, six months of email communications beginning in 2003 around the time the Whitehouse asked you to sue it (yes, the Whitehouse asked you to sue the Whitehouse) to help block climate legislation. Then we’ll have a serious talk about who’s credible.
Kevin’s colleague at DeSmogBlog, Richard Littlemore, adds:
As a stunning amount of email traffic on this issue currently seems to be coming from uberDenier Marc Morano, why doesn’t the former aide to Okalahoma Senator and Republican Denier-in-Chief James Inhofe volunteer to share his correspondence?
Kevin suggested a six-month supply from CEI. I reckon the last six days from Morano might significantly advance the question of who’s credible on this issue. It might even show who hacked Hadley.
5. This story is being pushed by the exact same crazies who have been behind many other conspiracy theories and blatantly false smear campaigns.
Quickly moving through the right-wing propaganda network, this story immediately popped up in all of the familiar spots: industry-funded conservative think tanks, conservative and global warming denier blogs, talk radio blowhards, the Drudge Report and Glenn Beck / Fox News. When all of these folks latch onto a story with such force, it is a good indication that the story is false (see: the Van Jones smearing and the $1761 clean energy bill lie).
Marc Morano, who has been leading the charge, was the originator of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smear campaign against John Kerry. His site, Climate Depot, has been the hub of activity around the hacked emails.
The coordinator of climatedepot.com is Marc Morano, a libertarian right self publicist and former aid to the outspoken denier Senator Inhofe, who has been seeking to become a kingpin in the climate denial industry. Marc Morano is not new to this kind of dirty fighting. According to the investigative site Source Watch, Morano, whilst working as a journalist for the right wing Cybercast News Service, was the first source in May 2004 of the smear campaign against John Kerry that later became known the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Although different in context and content, there are marked similarities between the Swift Boat campaign and the hacking of the UEA e-mails. Both were sophisticated strategies to undermine trust. Both identified trust and integrity as a major strength of the opponent and then played carefully chosen story lines to undermine them. At the very least the UEA e-mail campaign is an application of dirty political tactics to climate change campaigning.
Here are some of the other crazed conspiracy theorists who are leading the efforts to push this story:
“I’m happy to stand by my contribution to this exchange. I think anybody who reads what I wrote in its entirety will find it a serious and balanced treatment of the question of ‘burden of proof’ in situations where science germane to public policy is in dispute.”
Climate science contrarians are using the release of e-mails from several top scientists to attack climate science. Unfortunately for these conspiracy theorists, what the e-mails show are simply scientists at work, grappling with key issues, and displaying the full range of emotions and motivations characteristic of any urgent endeavor. Any suggestions that these e-mails will affect public and policymakers’ understanding of climate science give far too much credence to blog chatter and boastful spin from groups opposed to addressing climate change.
“We should keep in mind that our understanding of climate science is based not on private correspondence, but on the rigorous accumulation, testing and synthesis of knowledge often represented in the dry and factual prose of peer-reviewed literature. The scientific community is united in calling on U.S. policymakers to recognize that emissions of heat-trapping gases must be dramatically reduced if we are to avoid the worst consequences of human-induced climate change.
Global warming deniers are having a field day, because in some of the emails, the scientists are acting like, you know, people. They are also acting like scientists under fire, which is what they were and are.
…
Of course, none of this is at all relevant to the climate issue today. It’s a nasty, ugly sideshow. The science of climate change doesn’t stand or fall based upon what a few scientists said in emails they always thought would remain private.
A huge amount of email from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit was hacked and released onto the web, causing much rejoicing from the climate change denialists. They read through the corpus of email and found that the scientists working on climate change often have substantive disagreements with one another, which they debate vigorously in email, and cited this as evidence of a conspiracy to cover up dissent and present a scientific consensus on climate change.
Futurismic’s Tom Marcinko does a great job of putting this in context, rounding up several links to other good commentators around the web. In a nutshell: science is about the advancement of competing theories and the evaluation of these theories in light of evidence. The East Anglia Climate Research Unit’s scientists disagreed in some particulars, and used peer-review to resolve them (and continue to do so).
The beauty of science is that it depends on independent verification and replication as part of the process of confirming research results. This process, which is tied intrinsically to the procedures leading to publication of research results in the peer-reviewed literature, allows the scientific community to confirm some results while rejecting others. It also, in a sense, lessens the impact of any one set of research results, especially as the body of research on any topic grows. The AMS plays an important role in the scientific process through its peer-reviewed publications, as well as through its many other activities, such as scientific conferences. The Society strives to maintain integrity in the editorial process for all its publications.
For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited.
Opponents of climate change legislation are trying to deceive the American public on climate science. After years attacking the science on its merits and failing, they’re now using stolen e-mails to attack climate scientists directly.
Our understanding of climate science is based on decades of research from thousands of scientists. These e-mails don’t affect what we know about human activity driving dangerous levels of global warming or the measures we must take to address it.
I think it is important for scientists to clearly state that if basic data were withheld, or if there was unprofessional tampering with the peer-review process, we do not condone these acts. It is equally essential to emphasize that alleged problems with a few scientists’ behavior do not change the consensus understanding of human-induced, global climate change, which is a robust hypothesis based on well-established observations and inferences.
Scientifically, it means little. All scientists know that this kind of language and kidding goes on verbally all the time. Some of us forget that email has the potential to become public at any time. The public perception is another matter. There may be some people who do not know any scientist personally and think they are lily pure, dedicated (do-gooder) nerds. These private comments might lead to less confidence in science. It is a shame, since our country is so scientifically illiterate and is easily swayed by perceptions that have little to do with scientific method and culture. They have very little influence on my opinion.
The “contrarians” or “deniers” do not have a scientific leg to stand on. Their aim is to win a public relations battle, or at least get a draw, which may be enough to stymie the actions that are needed to stabilize climate.
t is not unlikely that this event may have some real repercussions for the public perception of climate science, however unfair it may seem (unfair both in terms of the actual intended meaning of the emails, as in terms of the way they were obtained). ”Skeptics” will certainly try to get as much mileage out of this as possible, in order to undermine the science and the political process (e.g. Copenhagen). However, there are also plenty of sane voices commenting on the issue.
One of the issues with how the UEA emails are perceived is whether the reader understands the context of the dubious pseudoscience and constant harassment the field faces. If you understand that, the emails are understandable and mostly excusable. If you don’t, if you think that normal science is being stymied, then you come away with a very different impression.
This episode is not a window into how climate science works. It’s a window into how electronic communication has altered our standards and the way we work. Nobody looks good here. We should all be embarrassed.
Most of the contents that have had people getting so excited about on the blogs seem pretty innocuous to me – the usual to-and-fro of scientists discussing, arguing, sometimes exhibiting frustration. We are, after all, human. A handful of messages hint at something a bit worse, and I’m not going to excuse anyone who has behaved in an unethical manner, but it is hard to condemn anyone based on a few cherry-picked emails, many of which in any case have straightforward explanations. If there was a lot of serious malpractice, I’d expect to see more substantial evidence from the past decade of email at one of the world’s leading climate research centres. On the whole it is thin gruel indeed. It is clear that most of what people are getting excited by is just the typical banter of scientists engaged in debate and discussion, and many of the commenters just don’t have a clue about the scientific process. The person who quoted our email correspondence about the edits to the manuscript claimed that this proved how political all us scientists are! In fact we were simply improving the paper in accordance with various comments from reviewers (which we basically agreed with), which is how the peer review process normally works.
In summary, there are probably some minor lapses in there, but everyone who has read any of the emails is already guilty of something worse and there’s no firm evidence of major crimes.
The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change. We are committed to furthering this debate despite being faced with difficult circumstances related to a criminal breach of our security systems and our concern to protect colleagues from the more extreme behaviour of some who have responded in irrational and unpleasant ways to the publication of personal information.
In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.
One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks.
That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.
Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.
What they’ve done is search through stolen personal emails—confidential between colleagues who often speak in a language they understand and is often foreign to the outside world. Suddenly, all these are subject to cherry picking. They’ve turned “something innocent into something nefarious.
To sum, it doesn’t reflect badly at all – it reflects badly on the people who are so desperate to discredit global warming that they will unhesitatingly seize on a figure of speech, take it out of context, blow it all out of proportion (notice how quickly the WSJ [Wall Street Journal] got in on this?) and use it for their own predetermined purpose. Now that’s real dishonesty!
This private communication in no way damages the credibility of the AR4 findings.
The entire report writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as governments,” he added in a written statement to Reuters.
There is, therefore, no possibility of exclusion of any contrarian views, if they have been published in established journals or other publications which are peer reviewed.
Science doesn’t work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, because scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Haven’t any of these guys ever heard of “peer review”?
There’s this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. Most people know it’s a myth, of course; they subscribe to a more nuanced view in which scientists are as petty and vain and human as anyone (and as egotistical as any therapist or financier), people who use scientific methodology to tamp down their human imperfections and manage some approximation of objectivity.
But that’s a myth too. The fact is, we are all humans; and humans come with dogma as standard equipment. We can no more shake off our biases than Liz Cheney could pay a compliment to Barack Obama. The best we can do— the best science can do— is make sure that at least, we get to choose among competing biases.
The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus … that tells us the earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity.
However this particular controversy comes out, the result will not call into question the bulk of our understanding of how the climate works or how humans are affecting it.
On the second part, I think Carol Browner addressed that last week, on the order of several thousand scientists have come to the conclusion that climate change is happening. I don’t think that’s anything that is, quite frankly, among — most people — in dispute anymore.
Well, first of all, we’ve all seen bits and pieces, we haven’t seen the full e-mails. But I think more importantly there has been for a very long time a very small group of people who continue to say this isn’t a real problem, that we don’t need to do anything. On the other hand, we have 2,500 of the world’s foremost scientists who are in absolute agreement that this is a real problem and that we need to do something and we need to do something as soon as possible.
What am I going to do, side with the couple of naysayers out there, or the 2,500 scientists? I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists. I mean, these people have been studying this issue for a very, very long time, and agree that the problem is real.
It is continually stunning to me that people can see the evidence before their eyes” and continue to doubt the reality of climate change, he said. He turned to Holdren and said, sarcastically, “I just want to ask you if you’re a member of a global conspiracy.
We request that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the questions raised by the disclosure of emails from Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (CRU). Additionally, EPA should withdraw the Proposed Endangerment Finding, as well as the Light Duty Vehicle Rule, and the Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule until the Agency can demonstrate that the science underlying these regulatory decisions has not been compromised.
“The scientific community enjoys a tremendous amount of public trust. Unfortunately, the themes exposed in the CRU documents led to a loss of confidence in certain individuals as dispassionate arbiters of climate science,” Broun said in his letter. “At the least, the contents of the emails point to a troubling trend of groupthink where data is manipulated and withheld, scientific journals are intimidated, and reputations are attacked for political expedience,” the letter continued.
Pieces of General Interest
These are pieces that are worth reading but don’t necessarily fit into one of the headings above. As new key takeaways emerge some of these may be moved into those sections.
Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.
On yesterday’s television program, Glenn Beck lamented the fact that Fox News is the only news outlet covering the ‘climategate scandal.’ He then mentioned that the New York Times and Washington Post had covered the story, in order to give it legitimacy. He then went back to lamenting the mainstream media blackout of the story. You can’t have it both ways, Glenn.
What are the odds? A crime was committed, and Republican Congressman Darrell Issa wants to investigate one of the victims:
An aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said investigators are studying the documents, which unknown hackers stole last week from the computer of a prominent British climate-research center.
Investigators are focusing on the correspondence of White House Science Adviser John Holdren, he said. Dr. Holdren, a point man for the Obama administration on climate change, sent one of the hacked emails. In the 2003 email, Dr. Holdren, then at the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Mass., defended research by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a scientist who believes global warming is man-made and who also sent some of the hacked emails.
On Monday, Dr. Holden said: “I’m happy to stand by my contribution to this exchange. I think anybody who reads what I wrote in its entirety will find it a serious and balanced treatment of the question of ‘burden of proof’ in situations where science germane to public policy is in dispute.”
Typical blame the victim nonsense. Glenn Beck tried to take Holdren down over the summer. It looks like Congressman Issa is now picking up where Beck left off.
“One of our jobs as journalists is to be the referee, the honest broker who sorts through the accusations and says, This is fact, and this is fantasy.”
Greg Mitchell has already taken on the piece as a whole, taking particular issue with the he-said she-said style of journalism Stengel implies the piece would avoid.
I’d like to focus specifically on the short paragraph dedicated to Beck’s recent — and ultimately successful — smear campaign against former White House green jobs adviser Van Jones.
He is having an impact. Along with St. Louis, Mo., blogger Jim Hoft, whose site is called Gateway Pundit, Beck pushed one of Obama’s so-called czars, Van Jones, to resign during Labor Day weekend. Jones, whose task was to oversee a green-jobs initiative, turned out to be as enchanted by conspiracies as Beck — he once theorized that “white polluters and the white environmentalists” are “steering poison into the people-of-color’s communities” and signed a petition demanding an investigation into whether the Bush Administration had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.
Distortion 1: Van Jones “turned out to be as enchanted by conspiracies as Beck”.
This is absurd. Glenn Beck is a well-known conspiracy theorist. Here are a few examples of the crazy shit this guy believes:
Distortion 2: Time’s justification for claiming Jones was “as enchanted by conspiracy theories as Beck” was a statement Jones made prior to joining the Obama administration: “The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities because they don’t have a racial justice frame.”
This statement is largely true. United States history is filled with examples of corporations, state/local governments, and the Environmental Protection Agency — all run by white people — intentionally steering toxic and hazardous materials into impoverished communities of color. The Institute for Southern Studies recently documented some of this history. Here are just a few examples: Sumter County, Alabama (1974)
In 1974, EPA nominated Sumter County, Alabama as a possible hazardous waste landfill site. The county, located in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt, is 71.8 percent is black. Over 35.9 percent of the county’s population is below poverty. In 1977, Resource Industries Inc. purchased a 300-acre tract of land just outside of Emelle, Ala. where over 90 percent of the residents are black. The permit for the facility was approved by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) and EPA Region 4 over opposition of local residents who thought they were getting a brick factory. In 1978, Chemical Waste Management, a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc. bought the permit from Resource Industries Inc. and opened the nation’s largest hazardous was landfill, often tagged the Cadillac of Dumps.
Between June 1978 and August 1978, over 30,000 gallons of waste transformer oil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were illegally discharged on roadsides in fourteen North Carolina counties. The PCBs resulted in the U.S. EPA designating the roadsides as a superfund site to protect public health. North Carolina needed a place to dispose of the PCB-contaminated soil that was scraped up from 210 miles of roadside shoulders. In 1979, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) along with EPA Region 4 selected rural, poor, and mostly black Warren County as the site for the PCB landfill.
In 1982, the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed suit in district court to block the landfill. The residents lost their case in court despite the fact that the Warren County PCB Landfill site was not scientifically the most suitable because the water table at the landfill is very shallow, only 5-10 feet below the surface and where the residents of the community get all of their drinking water from local wells. William Sanjour, head of the EPA’s hazardous waste implementation branch, questioned the Warren County landfill siting decision. The first truckload of contaminated soil that arrived at the landfill in September 1982 was met protesters. More than 500 demonstrators were jailed protesting landfill, sparking the national Environmental Justice Movement.
While an individual reporter for Time Magazine can be excused for complete unfamiliarity with the environmental justice movement, the magazine’s editorial staff can not. Portraying an accurate expression of environmental justice concerns as a conspiracy on par with Glenn Beck’s consistently hysterical lunacy is just not credible.
Distortion 3: Van Jones “signed a petition demanding an investigation into whether the Bush Administration had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.”
Reporting on this claim without so much as noting the questions surrounding the claim’s veracity is the height of irresponsible journalism. Consider these facts:
As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.
Several of the other supposed signatories of the petition have disputed the method in which signatures were collected. Rabbi Michael Lerner: “I did not authorize my name to be used for all the other stuff that I now see was included surrounding the letter.” Howard Zinn: “I did not sign a statement suggesting that ‘Bush had prior knowledge.’ I signed a statement calling for an investigation.”
I will never cease to be amazed by the corporate media’s ability to cram three blatant distortions into one short paragraph. I’d accuse Time of printing such distortions intentionally but they would probably respond by calling me a conspiracy theorist and comparing me to Glenn Beck — a fate I’d rather avoid if at all possible.
Looking for further evidence that the Time profile of Beck was way off the mark? Glenn Beck himself has deemed it fair. This alone should make it clear to the casual observer that it is in fact anything but.
My family and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support that we have received over the past week or so. I resigned from the White House on September 6, and I have remained silent since then – in keeping with my promise not to be a distraction during a key moment in the Obama Presidency.
Over the past several days, however, many people have been asking how they can help and what they can do.
The main thing is this: please do everything you can to support both President Obama and the green jobs movement. Winning real change is ultimately the best response to these kinds of smear campaigns.
I ask everyone to:
1. Support President Obama’s efforts to fix our nation’s health care, energy and education systems. His victory last fall did not represent the “finish line” in the fight to renew America; his election was just the “starting line.” This autumn, it is time to make history again – with victories on health care and clean energy.
2. Sign up to support groups that are working for green jobs. As others seek to vilify or marginalize the movement for a clean energy economy, the leading groups deserve increased support. This is the year to ensure that the clean energy transformation creates good job opportunities for everyone in America.
3. Spread the green jobs gospel. The ideas and ideals of the green jobs movement are grounded in fundamental American values – innovation, entrepreneurship and equal opportunity. My true thoughts can be found in my book: The Green Collar
Economy. Check it out from the library – or order a copy and share it with a friend. See for yourself why clean energy and green jobs are good for our country.
4. Stay connected and speak up for me via your favorite blogs (e.g., Huffington Post, Grist, Jack & Jill, etc.), on message boards and all of your favorite social networking platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Supporters have set up a couple of them, to help you stay engaged, including: I Stand With Van Jones and I Love Van Jones.
In due course, I will be offering my perspective on what has happened – including correcting the record about false charges. In the meantime, I must get my family affairs in order and sort through numerous offers and options.
I want to be clear that I have nothing but love and admiration for President Obama and the entire Administration. White House staffers are there to serve and support the President, not the other way around. At this critical moment in history, I could not in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. The White House needs all its hands on deck, fighting for the future.
Of course, some supporters actually think I will be more effective on the “outside.” Maybe so. But those ideas always remind me of that old canard about Winston Churchill. After he lost a hard-fought election, a friend told him: “Winston, this really is just a blessing in disguise.” Churchill quipped: “Damned good disguise.” I can certainly relate to that sentiment right now. :)
Nonetheless, we must keep moving forward. Let’s continue our work to make an America as good as its promise. These are historic times. And we have a lot more history to make.
Turns out that the attack was orchestrated by a fringe group of free-marketeers called the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) who describe themselves as “grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels.” You can read a complete backgrounder on AFP here. It suffices to say they get a lot of money from some of the biggest players in the right-wing attack machine.
On Fox News forum AFP’s director of policy, Phil Kerpen brags about how his oragnization brought down Van Jones:
“I spent the next two weeks researching everything I could find about Jones and the Apollo Alliance (much of which is still to be published, including a forthcoming paper from the Capital Research Center next month), the national umbrella organization for coordinating between the environmentalists, the labor unions, and the social justice street organizers that Jones has served as a board member and a primary national spokesman for.”
EnviroKnow has obtained two flowcharts created by American For Prosperity outlining the “Green Jobs Radical Network.” Both documents place Van Jones near the center of this so-called radical network. Other prominent individuals in the environmental and progressive movements mentioned in the documents include Stephen Chu, John Podesta, John Holdren, Jason Grumet, Bracken Hendricks, Robert Borosage, Carl Pope and Andy Stern, among others.
The July 28th version was authored by an individual named “Rich.” The only Rich on AFP’s staff list is Richard Burke, who joined AFP in January after serving as the Executive Director of the Oregon Libertarian Party.
The Ella Baker Center family is deeply saddened by the news that Van Jones has resigned as Special Adviser on Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation to President Obama. It’s a dark day when attacks based in half-truths, full lies, and old news deny the nation its most talented advocate in the fight against climate change and for rebuilding our economy.
“Smear campaigns designed to sabotage our movement for an equitable, green economy are attempts to distract people from what really matters: building a future that is green and just for everyone,” said Jakada Imani, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. “It’s our dream, shared by Van Jones and so many others, that this country can rise above the politics of hate to once again become a beacon of hope and innovation for the world. When fear-mongering and sensationalism drown out important discussions about the real issues of the day, we all lose.”
Co-founded 13 years ago by Van Jones, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights promotes positive solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing our country. At this critical time in our nation’s history, the Ella Baker Center champions policies that lift people up and bring about renewed hope and optimism for all. We’re outraged by the attacks Van and his family have suffered at the hands of those who have made it their mission to derail a clean, green, and just future for our country.
Van Jones has been lauded as a modern day civil rights hero and champion of change who has worked to bridge the gap between communities and across lines of race and class. For years, Van has helped lead the social and environmental justice movements with solution-oriented, market-based ideas that provide some of our most marginalized communities with effective tools to create lasting change in their lives — and for the greater good of their communities.
Under Van’s leadership, and continuing under the direction of Jakada Imani, the Ella Baker Center has led the charge to build California’s movement for a green-collar economy that truly creates opportunity for all by fighting poverty and climate change at the same time. Through vibrant, cross-sector coalitions that bring together unions, green businesses, environmental organizations, social justice groups, and education and training institutions, we’ve helped craft cutting edge public policy solutions and pilot programs like the Oakland Green Jobs Corps that prove what’s possible. Our focus has always been — and will remain — providing solutions that lift people up rather than tearing them down. Solutions that unite, not divide. Our goal — and Van’s — is simple: save the planet and its people.
Late last night, Van Jones resigned from his position with the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Many of us are left with pain and anger after seeing a leader of integrity, vision, and commitment targeted by hateful personal attacks. Van stepped down in service to our movement. He felt that fighting the attacks would draw attention to him and detract from our mission.
Now, our challenge is to turn our disappointment and anger into action and renewed resolve for our common goals.
Like the great social justice movements of the 20th century, our movement for an inclusive green economy is based in the most fundamental American values: equality, justice, and opportunity for all.
That’s why our opponents reduced the debate to fear, hatred, and division. They cannot win a debate about values. They cannot win a debate about solutions.
Our allies and friends may be redirected by these attacks, and focus on the rants of those who fear our vision. For Green For All, our struggle must be defined by the issues our opponents refuse to debate: ending global warming; lifting people out of poverty; restoring the economy; and bringing health to our communities. These are the challenges that matter the most.
This moment reaffirms our commitment and makes us more steadfast in pushing for our goals, including a climate bill that delivers on the promise of a clean-energy economy. We will not be led astray. We will not let our anger cloud our vision.
Instead, it is the time to come together around the values our movement stands for: clean air; healthy communities; good jobs; and opportunity for all.
This week’s Time Magazine cover story is dedicated to an 
