It took 16 months after Climategate for the mainstream media admit to its existence...except for some passing references to the whitewashes of the University that was ground zero, the University of East Anglia by biased panels. See in this James Delingpole piece how the University efforts to stop Delingpole and others from covering the scandal failed. Meanwhile Michael Mann front and center in this story in going after his critics in the court and solicited the help of the university professors, Union of Concerned Scientists, ACLU and other liberal groups to try and block UVA FOIA release of Mann’s emails while at UVA. He is now at PSU. These groups were silent when Greenpeace forced FOIAs on UVA’s Pat Michaels, David Legates at UDel and Dr Willie Soon at Harvard.
By Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones News
IT’S DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE how a guy who spends most of his time looking at endless columns of temperature records became a “fucking terrorist,” “killer,” or “one-world-government socialist.” It’s even harder when you meet Michael Mann, a balding 45-year-old climate scientist who speaks haltingly and has a habit of nervously clearing his throat. And when you realize that the reason for all the hostility is a 12-year-old chart, it seems more than a little surreal.
Back in 1999, Mann - then a newly minted Ph.D. (PDF) - and a pair of colleagues constructed a chart that plotted historical climate data, spanning from 1000 to 1980. Because recorded temperatures only begin in the late 19th century, Mann and his team largely relied on so-called proxy records - measurements of tree rings, coral, and ice cores whose variations illustrate temperature changes over the years. The graph showed that after nearly 900 years of relatively stable temperatures, there was a sharp uptick starting in the 20th century.
You may have seen a version of the graph, known as the “hockey stick,” in the film An Inconvenient Truth - the rise in carbon dioxide levels* is so steep, Al Gore uses a mechanical ladder to reach the most recent readings. The graph was featured prominently in a seminal 2001 report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that concluded, for its first time, that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”
The film and the IPCC report made the chart famous, but Mann’s version (PDF) appeared in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. There, he and his colleagues explained the complex methodology, and the uncertainties, involved in their study; but let’s face it, phrases like “multiproxy data network” and “extensive cross-validation experiments” are lost on most of us. “This,” Mann says with an upward swoop of the arm, “the public understands.” The chart tells “a very simple story."Watch our video on how we fact-checked the hockey stick graph.
In fact, some complained that it was too simple, glossing over uncertainties in historical climate readings in order to make a more dramatic point. Yet numerous other reconstructions of historical temperature records made since Mann’s graph have also shown a dramatic uptick in the 20th century, and a 2006 assessment from the National Academy of Sciences concluded (PDF) that while Mann’s methodology wasn’t perfect, the story the chart told was accurate.
Yet global warming skeptics have made the graph exhibit A in their cause. Congressional hearings have focused on it, and it has been the impetus for multiple critical books and blog posts. Skeptics have dismissed the graph as “little more than paleo-phrenology” and claimed that “Mann-made warming is real, while man-made warming remains at best a theory, more likely a hypothesis.”
And Mann himself has become a target. Virginia’s crusading Republican attorney general has suggested that he may have committed research “fraud.” The 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference had a booth where attendees could throw eggs at his picture. There was a flood of hate mail, much of it containing death threats: “Your work is finished. YOU ARE GOING TO HANG SOON!”
There was a flood of hate mail, much of it containing death threats: “Your work is finished. YOU ARE GOING TO HANG SOON!""Climate science has basically been at the receiving end of the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known - that’s the bottom line,” Mann told me when I visited him at his Penn State office last November. Near his desk, Mann keeps an actual hockey stick, signed by Middlebury College’s championship hockey team to show the school’s support for his work.
Things really heated up for Mann in late 2009, when more than 1,000 emails from him and other climate scientists were lifted from a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the UK’s University of East Anglia, the world’s leading research institution focused on climate change. The emails offered a window into the climate-science bunker, with a view of Mann and his fellow researchers growing increasingly defensive. One scientist wrote that he was “tempted to beat the crap out of” a skeptic at the libertarian Cato Institute. Another joked that the way to deal with skeptics was “continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit).” Scientists suggested that they would rather destroy data than provide them to their critics. They also discussed using “tricks” in their research, debated how to frame uncertainties in some of their data, and attempted to control access to peer-reviewed journals.
Click here to see our timeline of the Climategate scandal.
Within days, the heist - soon dubbed “Climategate” - was all over the news. Glenn Beck called it a “potentially major scandal”; Fox News crowed that the emails “undercut the whole scientific claim for man’s impact on global warming.” Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) decried (PDF) them as evidence of “scientific fascism.”
The immediate impact on public opinion was dramatic. A poll by Yale and George Mason University (GMU) found that in November 2008, 71 percent of respondents agreed that the planet is warming (PDF). Five weeks after Climategate, only 57 percent believed it. The emails, said a Yale report (PDF), had “a significant effect on public beliefs in global warming and trust in scientists.”
IF A SINGLE PERSON CAN BE credited with setting the stage for Climategate, it’s Stephen McIntyre, the retired mining consultant behind the popular skeptic blog Climate Audit. Over the past decade, McIntyre has built a reputation for finding methodological errors - some real, some perceived - in climate studies. The Wall Street Journal heralded McIntyre as “global warming’s most dangerous apostate.”
Indeed, McIntyre has made goading scientists - particularly Mann-close to a full-time job. Like Mann, McIntyre is genial in interviews, but on his blog, his tone toward the scientists targeted by his audits ranges from inquisitive to openly hostile.
The 63-year-old squash enthusiast from Toronto made his money in mining. He has also consulted for the Canadian oil and gas exploration company CGX Energy. He says his mining ties don’t affect his views on climate change and insists that his prolific blogging on the topic has not benefited him financially - rather, it’s taken time away from more profitable business.
See much more here.
Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.
There is an informative article by Ross McKittrick: McKitrick, Ross R. (2011) “Bias in the Peer Review Process: A Cautionary and Personal Account” in Climate Coup, Patrick J. Michaels ed., Cato Inst. Washington DC.
This article appears in the book: Michaels, Patrick J., 2011: Climate Coup: Global Warming’s Invasion of Our Government and Our Lives. Cato Institute. ISBN: 978-1-935308447
with the summary of its content
“A first-rate team of experts offers compelling documentation on the pervasive influence global warming alarmism now has on almost every aspect of our society-from national defense, law, trade, and politics to health, education, and international development.”
With respect to Ross’s chapter, Pat Michaels writes:
“The second chapter in this volume goes to the core of what we consider to be the canon of science, which is the peer-reviewed, refereed scientific literature. McKitrick’s and my trials and tribulations over journal publication are similar to those experienced by many other colleagues. Unfortunately, the Climategate e-mails revealed that indeed there has been systematic pressure on journal editors to reject manuscripts not toeing the line about disastrous climate change. Even more unfortunate, my experience and that of others are that the post-Climategate environment has made this situation worse, not better. It is now virtually impossible to publish anything against the alarmist grain. The piles of unpublished manuscripts sitting on active scientists’ desks are growing into gargantuan proportions...”
Pat is correct that the peer reviews process and, also, the funding of research, has become very politicized and biased.
Ross starts his article with the text [highlight added]
“Showing that the IPCC claim is also false took some mundane statistical work, but the results were clear. Once the numbers were crunched and the paper was written, I began sending it to science journals. Having published several against-the-flow papers in climatology journals, I did not expect a smooth ride, but the process eventually became surreal. In the end, the paper was accepted for publication, but not in a climatology journal. Fortunately for me, I am an economist, not a climatologist, and my career doesn’t depend on getting published in climatology journals. If I were a young climatologist, I would have learned that my career prospects would be much better if I never wrote papers that question the IPCC. The skewing of the literature (and careers) can only be bad for society, which depends on scientists and the scientific literature for trustworthy advice for wise policy decisions.”
His conclusion has the text:
“Some people might be tempted to defend climatology by saying that normal scientific procedures have broken down due to the intense policy fights and political interference. But in my opinion that confuses cause and effect. The policy community has aggressively intervened in climate science because of all the breaches of normal scientific procedures. The public has lost confidence in the ability of the major institutions of climatology, including the IPCC and the leading journals, to deal impartially with the evidence. It doesn’t have to be this way. My own field of economics constantly deals with policy-relevant topics with major public consequences. Of course, differences of opinion exist and vigorous disputes play out among opposing camps. But what is happening in climate science is very different, or at least is on a much more intense scale. I know of no parallels in modern economics. It appears to be a profession-wide decision that, due to the conjectured threat of global warming, the ethic of scientific objectivity has had an asterisk added to it: there is now the additional condition that objectivity cannot compromise the imperative of supporting one particular point of view.
This strategy is backfiring badly: rather than creating the appearance of genuine scientific progress, the situation appears more like a chokehold of indoctrination and intellectual corruption. I do not know what the solution is, since I have yet to see a case in which an institution or a segment of society, having once been contaminated or knocked off balance by the global warming issue, is subsequently able to right itself. But perhaps, as time progresses, climate science will find a way to do so. Now that would be progress.”
Both Pat and Ross are correct that a prejudice exists in the climate science community with respect to publication and in funding. My experiences have been similar to theirs.
I have posted on this subject in my posts. Read more and see links.
As the recession drags on, energy prices rise, the federal deficit continues to soar and the S&P has now declared the outlook of US credit as unstable, the Obama administration seems to think that now is a good time to spend money on experimenting with the green energy agenda. The proverbial laboratory is going to begin in California.
Since there aren’t presently any private investors who see a commercial marketplace for a solar power project, the U.S. Energy Department will be supplying a green energy conditional guaranteed loan of $2.1 billion to support “the Blythe Solar Power Project,” reported CNS News on Tuesday.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu noted that the green energy loan amount “is the largest amount ever offered to a solar project through the Energy Department’s loan office.”
He went on to claim that over 1000 jobs will be created and that the economy would be strengthened as a result of green energy solar projects, even though there isn’t a commercial marketplace demand for what is being produced. In addition, “The Department of Energy has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling $21 billion to support 22 clean energy projects across 14 states.” Projects are supposed to include “wind, geothermal, solar, biofuels and nuclear.”
Meanwhile, Republicans are claiming that the price of gas is being pushed higher to assist Washington liberals and the Obama administration with their political agenda, according to World Net Daily
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash) pointed out that, “We need to look at the actions of this administration, which are leading to more of a domestic shortage of energy production in this country - whether you are looking at the outer continental shelf or whether you are looking at offshore lease sales.”
The Obama administration’s oil moratorium has caused over 12,000 jobs to be lost, and 12 oil rigs have left the Gulf for locations such as Nigeria, Egypt and Brazil.
Moves such as this by the Obama administration have caused “the nation’s energy, manufacturing, and job sectors [to become] ‘paralyzed’ in terms of growth, and [companies] are terrified of the regulations imposed by the federal government,” political analyst Dick Morris stated at a gathering of both Christians and non-Christians during the Justice Institute’s annual gala in California according to One News Now.
The above is simply the newest version of the old cap and trade, which Washington has recently referred to as the nationwide renewable-electricity standard, or RES.
The administration has got its head in the sand (some suggest somewhere else) ignoring the reality of the failed green policies in Europe and elsewhere, with lost jobs, skyrocketing energy costs and increased unemployment. Maybe that is the real intent of the administration. The more people dependent on the government, the more, they think, that would have to vote to keep their government support going.