I keep meaning to write something substantive about the theft of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, but my day job does sometime intervene. (Over six hundred postdoc applications in theoretical physics, but not to worry — only about 400 of them are in areas related to my interests.) There are some good discussions at Time and Foreign Policy, and you can’t poke your nose into the science blogosphere without reading someone’s take on the issue.
My own take is: what in the world is the big deal? Indeed, I would go so far as to ask: what could possibly be the big deal? Most of the noise has simply been nonsensical, focusing on misunderstandings of what scientists mean by the word “trick” and similar deep issues. And some people got upset when a dodgy paper was accepted by a journal, and they discussed giving the journal a cold shoulder. Cry me a river.
But I don’t really want to defend the scientists involved, because I’m not informed enough about who they are and what they did. For all I know, they may be very nasty and unethical human beings. (Actually that’s not true; I know Michael Mann, and he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.) And I see no reason not to do a thorough investigation, and hand out appropriate sanctions if there’s real evidence of wrongdoing.
What baffles me is the idea that this changes the conversation about climate change in any way. This isn’t a case like Jan Hendrik Schon, the rogue physicist who rose to prominence on the basis of falsified data, and was later exposed. The job of monitoring the climate is one that has been taken up by more than just one or two groups of people. There have been thousands of peer-reviewed papers that have provided evidence of global warming. Not to mention common sense; when the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has shot up dramatically over the last century, and the temperature has done the same thing, it takes some willful stubbornness to avoid the obvious conclusion. All of the noise we’re hearing about “Climategate” is based on politics, not on science.
And that’s what really puzzles me. I understand the non-scientific motivations of certain climate denialists; in the abstract, they don’t want to accept that the unfettered actions of capitalism can ever have any deleterious effects, and in the concrete, many of them are paid by oil companies. (See this charming “letter to the American Physical Society,” whose handful of signatories includes “Roger Cohen, former Manager, Strategic Planning, ExxonMobil.”) Those are powerful incentives to ignore the evidence.
But what is the incentive on the other side supposed to be? What exactly is the motivation for the nefarious conspiracy of people who are supposedly plotting to mislead the world about global warming? What do the people counting oysters get out of this?
Are there a lot of people out there who think that scientists as a group (since the vast majority of scientists appreciate the problems of global warming) have knee-jerk reactions against technology and industry? Let me propose another motivation for whatever corners the East Anglia group might have contemplated cutting: they’ve seen the data, they know what’s happening to the planet, and they’re terrified of what the consequences might be. They know that the other side is motivated by non-scientific concerns, and they want to fight back as hard as they can, both for the good of humanity and for the integrity of science. There’s no question that scientists can go overboard, pulling the occasional shenanigans in the pursuit of their less lofty goals. (Like, you know, other human beings.) But nobody wants to believe that we’re facing a looming global ecological catastrophe. They believe it because that’s what the data imply.
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It seems they get money to count oysters, to answer your question about what the oyster counters get.
It seems in general folks don’t describe what hyptheses they are talking about when they use the term “climate change” or “gloabl warming”. Folks labled as “denyers” seem to be argueing over a specific hyothesis, or collection of hypotheses. Not that the Earths climate is changing, to the extent that I read what “denyers” say. In fact, everyone that I talk and read, agrees that the climate is changing, and has always changed.
What I get the sense of from the CRU emails is that they attempted to hide information covered by an FOI reqest. Oh and they destroyed old data, so you can’t reproduce some of their calculations. The emails themselves should have been released via an FOI, so their leaking to the public via a “hacker” , or insider, isn’t really an issue, that I know of.
I like to reason about climate hypotheses via the scientific method. So I group things by observations, hypotheses, and experiments conducted to falsify the hypotheses. When I do that, I don’t see many attempts at falsifying some of the hypothese that folks put forward, like that CO2 increases will lead 2 to 11.5 degrees F by 2100. It appears to me that most published research is calculations, aka computer models, and observations. It seems the computer models always predict things that are not observed, at least in part, and so they are not something to take on face value: they need to be falsified via an experiment since they are predicitions.
While I agree with your basic point, I feel that some of what you say points to answers to your own questions.
” Are there a lot of people out there who think that scientists as a group (since the vast majority of scientists appreciate the problems of global warming) have knee-jerk reactions against technology and industry? ”
Of course there are, and the fact that you even have to ask the question tells its own story. Most people regard academics as knee-jerk liberals and leftists. We are not a particularly well-trusted group, and many many people think that we would not hesitate to let politics interfere with our research. You can ask whether we deserve such a reputation, but those are the facts.
A great many people are thinking along these lines: for many years, the left has been declaring that money is bad, consumerism blah blah blah. Global warming looks like a heaven-sent opportunity for the left to get some scientific justification for their moralizing superstitions. It just looks very fishy to a lot of people.
“They know that the other side is motivated by non-scientific concerns, and they want to fight back as hard as they can, both for the good of humanity and for the integrity of science. ”
I see. The integrity of science is to be defended by fabricating data. Great.
I know that the climategate business is a load of nonsense. But it is equally nonsensical to see it as a vast right-wing conspiracy, and in doing so you are just repeating the errors of the denialists. The reason climategate has attracted so much attention is that it confirms the suspicions that a *lot* of people have about academics as a class. And a lot of the blame for that goes to us, for assiduously cultivating an image of being a bunch of people who are very good at finding high-powered excuses for our political delusions.
“But what is the incentive on the other side supposed to be? What exactly is the motivation for the nefarious conspiracy of people who are supposedly plotting to mislead the world about global warming? What do the people counting oysters get out of this?”
They get jobs. This is not a hard question. If there were not a global crisis, their hype and their money would dry up and they would be like the rest of us, struggling to find a non-academic position for which they have no training or experience, after six years of graduate school and four years of postdoc positions. I would not be surprised to find significant numbers of scientists who have given up on the system that has taken so much of their lives, with nothing to show for it.
The greenhouse effects of certain gases including carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor can be demonstrated by scientific experiments in the laboratory. The increasing amounts in the atmosphere can be measured by scientific instruments. The amount caused by human activity can be measured. If the result were not global warming, that is what would be surprising and would need explaining.
Your kidding right? Carbon credits – that’s why there is (or might be) a conspiracy. Its easy to sell a lie, just sprinkle in some truth. The Earth goes through cycles, it wasn’t that long ago when there was a mini-iceage – the world didn’t freeze! The Sun isn’t a static force, as we all that plays the biggest part on our weather.
I’m not denying that spewing CO2 into the atmosphere is bad, very bad – and things need to be done but what is happening is a complete farce! Just because some scientists say its true don’t mean squak to me – where to they get their funding and grant money? Check it, this is all about carbon credits and a new world order.
I personally do not believe anything about this is even remotely related to reality, its a shame but we are all being manipulated.
If so much of the ICE is gone than why have no coastlines been affected? By now we should have lost miles of coastline and yet we haven’t lost even inches. The south jersey coastline is getting bigger every year for over 30 years! I own a home in the FL keys for 25 years – zero change, exactly the same.
The oligarchy took advantage of the weird hurricane season a few years back and pushed this BS agenda further downstream, everyone’s buying it hook, line and sinker so no worries.
Frankly I am surprised that you asked the question – that hook is hard to get out of your mouth you’ll find out. Did “they” put you up to this? Who are your sponsors? The same puppet scientists that are signing these document and letters are creating things like dark energy and dark matter -:) I’m thinking we have some “dark global warming” happening, you know something that you can infer but can never see or directly measure.
Sorry everyone, that’s a bit of a rant.
What happens when I can’t pay for the carbon I exhale? Maybe Russia will sell me some of their carbon credits -:) Oh yea, this is all real. Sorta like catholics, the more money you give the closer to God you are (or maybe they put in a word for you I forget).
It would be nice if you did elaborate on the papers, I find it interesting that ANYONE would steal such papers – right? What did the papers represent?
Timon I don’t think its as complicated as using this to justify some stance against capitalism, it is in fact a way to leverage that system – in fact it becomes a (yet another) common denominator across all people, countries, etc. Will we have a carbon tax gustapo? Don’t laugh because we will (actually the whole infrastructure is in place already) – controlled by who? you guessed it.
Your right about scientists and the way people feel, let’s face it scientists are puppets for money – puppets being the nice word to use. First science was filtered by the church, now its filtered by the politicians who are puppets themselves – to the buck. Ugly system it is, that’s why it takes so long to change scientific thinking.
Russia might (I hope) muck things up enough that the plan can’t be implemented…yet anyway. They have like a trillion carbon tax credits and they want to be able to sell them because carbon put into the atmosphere that is paid for doesn’t hurt the environment. Let’s all hope that Russia is unreasonable and wants to keep their credits – allowing them too would be a pretty clear sign that this is just about money, control and power.
BTW, I believe the scientists (in general) do believe this $hit – they can be manipulated just like the rest of us.
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sylar: as an impartial observer, i cordially invite you to go babble angrily somewhere else.
jeb I invite you to jump in a globally cold lake. Climate change is simply a means to redistribute wealth on a massive scale. There is simply no justification for all this. Climate change is the biggest fraud ever, but the jig is up the CRU emails prove it. I guess you could say it’s not man made global warming i’m worried about it’s man made-up global warming i’m worried about.
Why do I read comments on climate change articles? It’s always so depressing…
“I used the trick […] to hide … data”
Great use of ellipses in that particular quote Dustin.
Greenhouse effect can be demonstrated in a lab, but the earth is not a clean lab enviroment. The lab doesn’t have vast oceans, a magnetosphere and a biosphere. Earth is a very complex fundamentally unpredictable nonlinear system.
These discussions never seem to reflect much on actual measured data. I would like to be pointed out to peer reviewed articles backed with measurements concerning CO2 emissions and absorptions by the biosphere and the oceans.
Sam, reading the comments is so often a mistake…
I’m sympathetic too, Sam. So far we’ve heard “new world order,” “global cooling,” and “Michael Crichton.” It’s a well-oiled noise machine, I’ll give them that.
Employing fudge factors as REM in Fortran codes, manipulating data to “hide the decline,” “homogenizing” the Australian weather station data, blacklisting colleagues with differing opinions, withholding raw data under request for release by FOIA (both at NASA and CRU), losing raw data such that the above actions are indefensible and conclusions cannot be confirmed by independent observers and making efforts to take over the peer review process is not sound science. Given reliance on this data by parties on both sides of the Atlantic and the obvious biases and intolerance of the investigators, the only thing supported by overwhelming evidence is corruption of the scientific method with the scientist as advocate as opposed to observer. Systematic error is evident in experimental design. No conclusions can be made until science acts independent of advocacy and investigators can review data with transparency on a level playing field without fear of character assassination for the conclusions that they reach. The science needs to be redone…now is not the time to use flawed and biased data to make policy conclusions.
It does seem pretty obvious that there is “motivated thinking” on both sides. I don’t mean to imply that there is equally much, but to claim that “deniers” are oil-funded and “alarmists” are perfectly neutral seems crazy.
A friend who is a biologist was explaining just how much it helps you get funding if you can find some way to slip “climate change” into your abstract. Not that anything she’s doing wouldn’t be of interest without it, but still the incentive is there.
How big a deal “climategate” is doesn’t seem clear yet, to me… of course it’s political, political action (meaning Carbon regulation) is by definition political. Without this, this looming trillion-dollar-question, we could happily sit back and wait for the inevitable progress of science to clean things up.
Let’s bring you up to date, then:
Jones ‘stepped aside’, Mann ‘under investigation, Gore cancels Copenhagen speech, APA petition demands repudiation of the fraud, senators investigating on the hill…
The news we all knew is even trickling in to CBS.
The emails and programmer’s notes reveal the vast context of ten years of intellectual corruption. They were not doing science- they were disgracing it.
This is proof of fraud:
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/#more-4660 best aggregation (with reference links)
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/smoking-guns-across-australia-wheres-the-warming/ individual plots of raw australian data. more
And here is the level of reasoning performed by the warm mongers to maximize their fear franchise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_9mjBUSDng
(Good reason to keep kids from watching TV)
Now, if you want to spend 40 trillion dollars on lightweight, highly reflective Precautionary headgear guaranteed to keep you cool in any weather, I’d like to offer you some precautionary beachfront property in Arizona!
You know- the globe has been getting warmer, you’re right. That’s why you can plant corn in Iowa and why humans can live in Canada. The glaciers melted. I’ll have more of that, please.
Hey Dave, you left out Alex Jones’s rants and Lord Monckton’s ravings. Surely you must have links for those too.
“But what is the incentive on the other side supposed to be? What exactly is the motivation for the nefarious conspiracy of people who are supposedly plotting to mislead the world about global warming? What do the people counting oysters get out of this?”
I’ll admit that the public in general is quite ignorant about the science behind global warming. But this kind of statement shows you to be equally ignorant about what motivates people, and how science gets done. The oyster-counter gets prestige and money by linking her studies to global warming.
I think this is completely obvious to the average American, and yet you can’t seem even to imagine it. Global warming may be completely obvious to you, but I don’t trust you.
“when the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has shot up dramatically over the last century, and the temperature has done the same thing, it takes some willful stubbornness to avoid the obvious conclusion”
No it doesn’t. All it takes is an independent mind, free of bias towards other scientists. When the climate guys can tell us what the temperature will be next week, next month, next summer, then maybe we can give credence to their longer term predictions.
Science isn’t about publishing suppositions like this as proven fact.
Lots of leftist politicians are jumping ecstatically at the fact that unfettered actions of capitalism can have deleterious effects, trying to squeeze out of it as much as possible of halted economic growth, economic planning and power to themselves in general.
A load of denialist smoke screens, hearsay and misinformation in this thread.
What the denialists don’t have is any credible science. The Earth is warming. The polar ice is melting. CO2 levels are rising. Sea-levels are rising. The oceans are becoming more acidic.
If they had the science to back them up, they wouldn’t be picking through one university department’s emails and seizing on whatever they can take out of context.
http://www.realclimate.org for all the facts
UK met Office to release global-average temperature data
A blog by a former climate scientist
Oh, and OXO (comment #24) simply doesn’t understand that climate variation is a lot easier to predict in the long term than weather in the short term. Not that the change relies on predictions – it has been observed, by looking at the actual past weather!.
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