The largest U.S. farm group will oppose aggressively “misguided” climate legislation pending in Congress and fight animal rights activists, said American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman on Sunday. In a speech opening the four-day AFBF convention, Stallman said American farmers and ranchers “must aggressively respond to extremists” and “misguided, activist-driven regulation … The days of their elitist power grabs are over.”
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.
Embracing the fevered speculations of right-wing bloggers, a top Republican Senate staffer has accused climate scientists of orchestrating a planetwide conspiracy to convince the public that global warming is real. In an error-ridden email acquired by the Wonk Room, Bryan Zumwalt, legislative counsel for Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), claims hacked emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) are evidence for what “could well be the greatest act of scientific fraud in history.” Zumwalt’s attacks are part of a global right-wing effort — from Rush Limbaugh to right-wing members of the British House of Lords — to Swiftboat climate scientists on the eve of international climate treaty negotiations. He argues that the “theory of global warming” is now tainted with “data corruption and fraud.”
This has got to be one of the sloppiest emails in goofy GOP Senate staffer history.
Brad Johnson meticulously covers climate change and energy policy both at The Wonk Room and Think Progress. Brad’s sharp eye for detail leaves no stone unturned as he continuously makes the strong case for job-creating clean energy legislation.
I’ve written several times in the past few weeks about the $1,761 energy tax lie Republicans have latched onto to oppose clean energy legislation. For those who haven’t been following, here is how this went down:
STEP ONE: “News” generated by right-wing think tank.
Today, Representative Ed Markey pushed this story back to the forefront with a Huffington Post piece. After setting the record straight on Romney’s falsehood and explaining the urgency of clean energy legislation, Markey finishes strong:
So the next time you hear Mitt Romney or other opponents of clean energy and climate legislation railing about the costs of action, you should multiply your suspicion by whatever number they are attempting to sell. Odds are, it is far from even-handed.
While this is a solid piece, and Representative Markey makes his case well, he barely mentions the other Republican politicians who have repeated this lie. I understand the value of pegging this on a potential 2012 Presidential candidate, but there are over a dozen current elected officials in the Republican party who have repeated this lie as well.
Since I last updated the count a few weeks ago, eight additional Republican politicians and party organizations have repeated the lie, bringing the total to 20.
Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) released a statement claiming that “The Obama administration’s own estimate found a cap-and-trade scheme could cost American families an extra $1,761 per year.”
Rep. Cynthia Lummis’ Chief of Staff told a local Chamber of Commerce that Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill “could cost individual households an extra $1,761 a year.”
The Oregon GOP sent a fundraising email claiming that Democrats in Congress “Passed a huge energy tax that adds an estimated $1,761 to every family’s yearly budget.”
Joel Pollack, Republican candidate for Congrss in IL-9 told the Cook Country Republican party that “The House passed a cap-and-trade bill that will cost each family in America $1,761 per year.”
Rep. Blaine Leutkemeyer issued a press release lamenting the “Majority’s obvious disregard for the plight of American families who would have to shell out at least $1,700 a year in additional taxes…” (h/t Fired Up Missouri)
Rep. John Culberson blogged that “Treasury also estimates the cost per household would be $1,761 a year, while American families are struggling to make ends meet.”
MN State Rep. Mike Beard blogged that “We are gaining some more perspective as to how much cap-and-trade proposals at the federal and state levels would cost the average Minnesota family: $1,761 and $575 per year, respectively.”
Finally, here is one I missed as this lie was just beginning to take hold:
On September 16th, the National Republican Congressional Committee issued dozens of press releases with the headline “National Energy Tax Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year.”
Here is the full list of 20 Republican politicians and local party organizations who have parroted some version of this widely debunked $1,761 lie:
This is a blatant falsehood, by any definition. The Chamber has a long history of questioning the science of climate change. The Chamber’s present campaign against regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency questions the existence of global warming as well as the scientific evidence of its impacts on the public health and welfare. The Chamber promotes global warming denier books “to advance our thinking about issues of significance,” and has promoted the work of global warming denier Pat Michaels since at least 1992.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.
We believe that in order to succeed, any climate change response must include all major CO2 emitting economies, promote new technologies, emphasize efficiency, ensure affordable energy for families and businesses, and help create American jobs and return our economy to prosperity. The Congress should carefully deliberate on and enact legislation that meets these goals.
We also have called upon the United States to join with other nations to negotiate a new international agreement that sets binding CO2 reduction commitments for each nation, while allowing each to devise its own best path to meeting its target.
These are mainstream, commonsense views that are shared by a broad majority of the American people, the business community, and a growing number of Democrat and Republican legislators.
Furthermore, we believe that Congress should set climate change policy through legislation, rather than having the EPA apply existing environmental statutes that were not created to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is also the stated position of the President and Congressional leaders. If determined to proceed on its own, EPA should publicly present its finding and answer questions on the limited studies it cited, in keeping with the President’s pledge of transparency.
We oppose the Waxman-Markey bill because it is neither comprehensive nor international, and it falls short on moving renewable and alternative technologies into the marketplace and enabling our transition to a lower carbon future. It would also impose carbon tariffs on goods imported into the United States, a move that would almost certainly spur retaliation from global trading partners.
Some in the environmental movement claim that, because of our opposition to a specific bill or approach, we must be opposed to all efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, or that we deny the existence of any problem. They are dead wrong. The Chamber has in its public documents, Hill letters and testimony, as well as dozens of concrete policy recommendations, supported efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere while keeping our economy healthy.
We have vigorously supported the production and use of renewable and alternative energy. We have repeatedly supported tax incentives and credits, appropriations, and stimulus funding to promote the accelerated development of new technologies. We are leading the fight to clear the regulatory, legal and Not-In–My-Backyard roadblocks that are currently delaying promising wind, solar, nuclear, and other renewable or emissions-free energy projects across the nation.
The U.S. Chamber is the world’s largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.
STEP THREE: Promoted by Drudge, story repeated endlessly on right-wing blogs, Twitter, and talk radio.
STEP FOUR: Republican politicians, right-wing think tanks, and polluter front groups release statements of shock and outrage.
STEP FIVE: On Fox News, Glenn Beck calls President Obama a liar/socialist/Marxist/communist/fascist/racist.
Reading Brad’s meticulous documentation of how this meme was disseminated, I realized that they are setting this up to be one of the major talking points in the fight against clean energy legislation in the months to come. From the looks of things, marching orders have already gone out. Eight Republican elected officials, several of whom are in leadership positions, have already begun parroting this talking point:
Senator Lamar Alexander issued a press release saying “American families can’t afford a new $1,761 yearly energy tax.”
Senator James Inhofe issued a press release claiming that “the President’s own economic team said his cap-and-trade proposal would cost each family $1,761 per year.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski issued a press release stating that “At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be $1,761 a year, on top of what they already pay in taxes to the government.”
2008 also-ran Mitt Romney told the crowd at the conservative Value Voters Summit on Saturday that the clean energy legislation “would cost the average American family $1,761 a year, the equivalent to a 15% income tax hike.”
Representative Roy Blunt tweeted: “CBS reports the Obama Admin privately concluded cap & trade could cost families $1,761 a year. Same as a 15% personal income tax increase.”
Representative Fred Upton fired off a letter, which cites the $1700 figure, accusing the Treasury Department of censoring information in the FOIA release.
House Minority Leader John Boehner said on PBS’ NewsHour: “It’s a cap-and-trade proposal that came through the House that we now find out from the Treasury Department would cost each American family over $1,700 per year.”
Update 9/21: Representative Pete Sessions writes “American households could pay an additional $1,761 a year in expenses.”
Update 9/22: John Cornyn issued a press release saying “According to a the Department of Treasury’s analysis, new taxes would be between $100 and $200 billion each year, costing families up to 1,761 each year.” Unlike some of the others, Cornyn didn’t even try to hide his source. He linked directly to the conservative blogger who came up with the $1,761 figure. He attributes the figure to the Treasury Department — which is false.
Update 9/22: According to user casinclair on Twitter, Sarah Palin repeated the lie at her speech in Hong Kong yesterday. I’m assuming this is paraphrased, and am trying to find a full transcript: “Cap and tax (trade) will cause unemployment. Say it will cost $1800 per Americans and cause no change.”
Update 9/22: Republican Senate Candidate Scott Brown said yesterday: “They want a “yes” vote on cap and trade, even if it will raise energy costs on the average family in this country by $1,761 a year.”
These eight twelve Republican politicians either think you are too stupid or too lazy to do even the most cursory fact-checking research on their increasingly hysterical claims. Tellingly, four of the eight — Alexander, Inhofe, Boehner and Pence — were also heavily involved in promoting another intentionally misinterpreted study claiming the legislation would cost each household $3,100 per year.
These staunch advocates of the status quo are grasping at increasingly ludicrous straws in their attempts to make Americans afraid of meaningful reform. When your position is based on ignoring science to prop up polluting industries, you have little choice but to cite misleading statistics to make your point. The problem for opponents of clean energy reform is that when Americans know the truth about the full range of costs and benefits associated with the legislation, they overwhelmingly approve — even in districts that are generally considered conservative. As long as we don’t let manufactured lies dominate the debate, support will remain strong and we’ll pass legislation in the next few months.
According to Declan McCullagh, a libertarian blogger who works for CBS Interactive, secret Obama administration documents reveal that the cost of clean energy cap-and-trade legislation would be $1,761 per household — despite official estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Energy Information Administration of about a postage stamp a day. Based on Treasury Department documents acquired by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), McCullagh claims that “a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent“.
There are lots of other updates on this story in the Wonk Room piece. Please read the whole thing.
The CBS piece, which can be found here, was later updated with this statement from the Environmental Defense Fund:
Even if a 100 percent auction was a live legislative proposal, which it’s not, that math ignores the redistribution of revenue back to consumers. It only looks at one side of the balance sheet. It would only be true if you think the Administration was going to pile all the cash on the White House lawn and set it on fire.
The bill passed by the House sends the value of pollution permits to consumers, and it contains robust cost-containment provisions. Every credible and independent economic analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (such as those done by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Energy Information Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency) says the costs will be small and affordable — and that the U.S. economy will grow with a cap on carbon.
Clean Energy Works responded to the highly flawed CBS piece with this document:
CORRECTION: The League of Conservation Voters’ Navin Nayak points out to me that the documents are a bit less than meets the eye: They refer to a version of the legislation profoundly different than the one that passed. Specifically, the original White House plan had 100% of emissions permits being distributed by auction; the plan that passed has just 15%. “Can you say ‘irrelevant analysis’? It would be like pricing the health care bills currently in front of Congress based on a single-payer system,” he writes.
Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan Krueger has now weighed in:
“The reporting on the Treasury analysis is flat out wrong. Treasury’s analysis is consistent with public analyses by the EIA, EPA, and CBO, and the reporting and blogging on this issue ignores the fact that the revenue raised from emission permits would be returned to consumers under both administration and legislative proposals. It is time for an honest debate about how to solve a long-term challenge and deliver comprehensive energy reform – not for misrepresentations of the facts.”
Responding to a question from the Wonk Room about the fears being expressed at town hall meetings about the cap-and-trade legislation, Markey explained that the American public need to know how this bill will cut our dependence on foreign oil, create millions of new jobs, and strengthen our national security.
