The media has been abuzz the last week after the hacking of the e-mail server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The e-mails were released on the web and climate deniers were quick to claim that they demonstrated that climate scientists have manipulated and/or suppressed data and documentation to further an agenda exaggerating – or even fabricating the impact of climate change.
These are ridiculous claims and the e-mails have been taken out of context, however, the university acted quickly to establish an independent inquiry into the allegations and into the circumstances of the hack.
Sir Muir Russell will head an independent review into the e-mails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Norwich, UK.
Sir Muir, a former civil servant, will look into allegations that have arisen from the security breach.
The review will examine whether there is evidence of manipulation or suppression of data “at odds with acceptable scientific practice”. […]
Less attention has been given to two attempts at compromising the work of Andrew Weaver at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria. It was recently revealed that (the Guardian):
Attempts have been made to break into the offices of one of Canada’s leading climate scientists, it was revealed yesterday. The victim was Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria scientist and a key contributor to the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In one incident, an old computer was stolen and papers were disturbed.
In addition, individuals have attempted to impersonate technicians in a bid to access data from his office, said Weaver. The attempted breaches, on top of the hacking of files from British climate researcher Phil Jones, have heightened fears that climate-change deniers are mounting a campaign to discredit the work of leading meteorologists before the start of the Copenhagen climate summit tomorrow.
“The key thing is to try to find anybody who’s involved in any aspect of the IPCC and find something that you can … take out of context,” said Weaver. The prospect of more break-ins and hacking has forced researchers to step up computer security.
This makes it increasingly clear that the hack at CRU was not the ‘work’ of a concerned whistleblower, but part of a criminal scheme to discredit the climate science consensus that climate change is a reality and that it is in part caused by human activity. It is also symptomatic that these actions to discredit climate science have happened just as the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is about to start.
Senator Boxer (D-Calif.) seems to be entirely correct:
Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the recently released e-mails, showing scientists allegedly overstating the case for climate change, should be treated as a crime.
“You call it ‘Climategate’; I call it ‘E-mail-theft-gate,'” she said during a committee meeting. “Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I’m looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public.”
[…]
Boxer said her committee may hold hearings into the matter as its top Republican, Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), has asked for, but that a criminal probe would be part of any such hearings.
And she made this statement even before the news of the transgressions at the University of Victoria were released.
We do not know (yet) who were behind the criminal activities that occurred at the CRU and at the University of Victoria, let us hope that thorough criminal probes will be made into all such attacks.
In the mean time, here is a reminder of the array of organizations that are benefiting from stirring up doubt and ‘skepticism’:
The below list/briefs are taken from Kevin Grandia’s blog at Desmogblog.com – I hope he doesn’t mind the extensive quote. He blogged the University of Victoria story on Friday night – Breaking: Hackers attempt to access Canadian government Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow: owns and operate ClimateDepot.com, which has been a main clearinghouse for the right-wing climategate echo chamber. ClimateDepot.com is managed by Marc Morano, former aide to Republican Senator James Inhofe. CFACT has received grants from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and well-known right-wing foundations like the Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.
American Enterprise Institute: Offered to pay “experts” $10,000 to write papers that countered the IPCC reports. AEI has received close to half a million from oil-giant ExxonMobil, former Exxon Chairman Lee Raymond sits on AEI’s board of directors.
Media Research Center: run by Brett Bozell, this group also operates the popular right-wing blog, Newsbusters.org. The Media Research Center has received over $257,000 from oil-giant ExxonMobil since 1998.
Cato Institute: Is the main front group for the most prolific climate denier, Patrick Michaels. Cato is the second largest recipient of funding the foundations run by Koch Industries Inc. (the largest private energy company in the United States).
Heartland Institute: Organizes a “denier conference” every year for the past three years. Used to receive funding from ExxonMobil, still recieve grants from tobacco companies and are also a major recipient of grants from the foundations run by Koch Industries Inc. (the largest private energy company in the United States).
Heritage Foundation: Heritage is massive and operates on about $50 million a year. They have received significant funding from ExxonMobil, Koch Industries and other fossil fuel companies.
National Center for Policy Analysis: the NCPA is a small, but very vocal Dallas, Texas-based freemarket think tank and has received over $540,900 from oil giant ExxonMobil since 1998.
Competitive Enterprise Institute: The CEI is well-known for its public efforts to aggressively counter the scientific evidence for human-induced climate change, especially after their infamous set of television ads with the tag line “C02, We Call it Life.” Since 1998, the CEI has received over $2 million in funding from oil-giant ExxonMobil.
(Each of the above are linked in Kevin’s story.)
Also posted at orange.
UN hits back at climate sceptics amid e-mails row
Met Office to publish climate change data amid fraud claims
Bonus link – enjoy reading:
Coalition of denial: The sceptics who are trying to reshape the climate debate
Thanks for this, ask.
Last night while you were posting this I was watching the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car.” It’s worth seeing again as a reminder of what can be pulled off under our very noses.
The film leaves no doubt of the power of Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Beyond Petroleum, or whatever they call themselves now.
Yet somehow I maintain my optimism. The wealthy know that people are easily manipulated by emotion – fear, style and status. I am proud to know that the status has been removed from ‘Republican.’
We are learning ever so slowly. We must be relentless in shining the spotlight of shame on those who would despoil our planet, our community, and our bodies.
Brilliant diary ASK. Do you mind if I use some of your sources for a story on Thinksboutit? There has been quite a bit of climate change denial going on there and schadenfreude at the e-mail theft – but they don’t allow non-members post stories there.
You’re very welcome, Frank!
Grab whatever you want – I only put together publicly available info – the kind of info the MSM is to lazy, or prejudiced to dig into.
Can you to your post when done?
Can you to your post when done?
OK, we’re having a holiday party in the building tonight. That would be:
Can you to link your post when done?
I started following the global warming issue only a few years ago. Oddly, since I lived in Boulder, Colorado for most my life, I was surrounded by climate scientists, besides being surrounded by environmental activists, so these issues were already well-manned by people who knew far more about their subjects than I did. I felt that my help could be be put to better use elsewhere, and only somewhat recently began educating myself on this general subject.
Culling a few suspicious sounding phases out of thirteen years of emails by a large group of people isn’t difficult. The context of the hacked emails explains their meaning but the point of disinformation is to obscure meaning rather explain it.
Anyone who’s interested should see RealClimate’s posts on this subject.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/
At worst, the meaning behind some of the wording in the hacked emails refers to technical aspects of the science, which is why I won’t try to explain them, but I encourage others to read through RealClimate’s posts on the subject. RealClimate is not easily understood by laypeople but I think that many of posters here at Booman are intelligent enough to understand — if imperfectly — the technical issues being discussed. However, it’s not necessary to fully understand the science in order to understand why certain language was used in the hacked emails.
In case you have not seen it yet; a brilliant debunk of the ’email-gate’.
Wonderful video!
My own post above links to RealClimate’s treatment of the subject, which is dry and technical in most cases but refers to the same issues.
Explaining “proxy” data isn’t necessarily difficult but I was hesitant to wade in on subject that’s challenging (at times) since I refuse to post on topics which I don’t fully comprehend and can explain in a guaranteed error-free posting.
Tree ring data are useful for time periods before temperature records were kept (a recent development) but became an unreliable indicator in recent times because of changes in plant chemistry. This may sound odd, but you can access papers on the subject that explain the subject in great detail. To sum up the situation, tree ring data are quite useful for understanding pre-historical weather but aren’t of use for current conditions. My understanding, although poor, is that there are a number of proxies that are used in tandem, which allows scientists a way of checking whether data has been corrupted or false assumptions are being made.
As is often the case in science, bad data are thrown out, for reasons that are widely understood by everyone who’s actually in the field. The process of science itself is all about correcting and replacing older and poorer estimations/models, so it should hardly be a surprise to anyone. For instance, Newton wasn’t wrong but he failed to portray a completely accurate picture. Einstein wasn’t wrong but he failed to provide a completely accurate picture, ad infinitum. Nobody is claiming Newton was wrong (nobody with a brain), but the picture becomes clearer as you climb the ladder of understanding in physics. Newton was right but he’s only right to a certain extent. A little knowledge of fuzzy logic would help here but the main point is simply that science is not a long deductive chain of reasoning the falls down once a single error is discovered. The entire picture merely becomes clearer through a process of finding and rectifying past mistakes.
I have further comments on this general topic but I’m behind in my reading so a more extensive commentary will have to wait till I’m up to speed.
I wanted to post one more resource. It’s a high quality article from McClatchey that explains the context for the stolen emails in layman’s terms.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/80425.html
Thanks – a concise debunking of the “controversy”.
The deniers are willing to gamble the futures of their kids and grandchildren on their being right rather than take a little hurt now themselves. That is a big gamble if you turn out to be wrong if you do indeed love your kids and grandchildren
I just wanted to leave one more resource.
Joe Romm at Climate Progress does a particularly good job at covering these issues. There are other good sites, too, almost more than I can mention, but I’ve been very impressed with the amount of graphic material that Romm puts into his posts, which I now receive in my email.
Romm also goes into great detail in every post, and I’m very impressed by his command of the subject and his thoroughness in covering issues related to GW.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/20/hacked-hadley-emails-hottest-decade-on-record-and-the-oceans-p
lanet-keep-warming/#more-14355
Climate Progress, or Romm, cover this issue starting on November 21, so there’s a lot of posts after the one above.