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Climate center's server hacked, revealing documents and emails

171 points by nice1 17y ago

limist 17y ago
The leaked files are available here at least: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75J4XO4T http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75J4XO4T If there's a better place to get/post it, please advise.
- limist 17y ago
  Also, this is the blog where the files were first leaked to: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-files-62-mb-of-gold/ http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-file...
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
The problem here has always been the nature of the debate, not the nature of the science. You can make a good case that these are just scientists blowing off steam in informal e-mails -- or you could make the case that this is evidence that scientific integrity has gone in the crapper. I take a third view: the problem here is that people do not want to have an honest debate. This is evident by the emotional content of the emails -- "idiots", etc. If you view yourself as the annointed and people who criticize you as stupid rabble, then it becomes very, very difficult to correct course when you screw up (as you inevitably will) Getting emotionally attached to something and viewing yourself as an expert are potentially intellectually crippling things to do, whether it's climate science or database design.
- Vivtek 17y ago
  I find it odd to say that the climatologists are the ones uninterested in an "honest debate". Not to mention that "honest debate" would involve acknowledging who has the, you know, expertise in the field. The reason they use the word "idiots" is that it is a descriptive term. Some random schmoe with an opinion is not engaged in "debate" when he questions scientific fact, and the emotional charge here is entirely due to the fact that public opinion seems to think that such entitlement is perfectly legitimate, when in point of fact it is a waste of everyone's time.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    Some random schmoe with an opinion is not engaged in "debate" when he questions scientific fact Sigh. I'll do this one time, and then I have to get back to work. Here's the deal: science is not dependent on "smarts". I can take a 4-year-old kid and we can test Newton's Laws of Motion just fine without any knowledge of algebra. In fact, the whole point about science being based on reproducible experiments is that we take appeal to authority out of the mix. If we still keep appeal to authority as a legitimate scientific tool of investigation then we might as well be studying phrenology or Lysenksoism (look it up). Now the appropriate response is: but this isn't about science, this is about prevailing scientific opinion -- the best guess we have at what might happen. If you're prepared to go there, that's awesome, because then we're in a spot where we're talking about how political decisions get made, both inside and outside of science. But in that case, both sides are more on equal ground because the topics are all about how different groups arrive at various forms of consensus, not science. It's when you get the two mixed up that the discussion gets really out of whack (to my lights, at least)
    - tome 17y ago
      Sorry this is disingenuous. Sure, science is not about appealing to a specific authority, but you do need some background and training in it to be able to pull off the necessary experiments and understand the theory. How would you and your 4 year old go about deciding whether you believe in Quantum Electrodynamics? Would you do an experiment, or would you ask an expert?
      - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
        I would ask an expert who could show me a reproducible experiment.
        dave_au 17y ago
        Not wanting to step into an argument here, but I'd like to tie it back to the climate thing. I think it's cool that you'd go to an expert to see a reproducible experiment. I'm also going to assume that it goes without saying (could be putting words in your mouth but it seems to flow from your responses) that you'd ask a lot of questions if there was unfamiliar math or concepts and basically receive very narrowly focused training in the fields around the experiment. It's interesting to consider the likelihood/prevalence of the casual commenters on climate change (ie the ones being referred to as idiots) reproducing the climate scientists experiments or coming up to speed on the maths/concepts behind the experiment to be able to critique the experiment in the way that an expert in the field with an opinion opposed to the prevailing thought could. I know quite a few very vocal climate change skeptics and none of them have a science background or the willingness to attain one, and they seem very proud of that. Hopefully that's a local quirk of my small sample relative to the population. As an aside, if you can find a set of experts with the time to spend (plus, you know, equipment and money) I'd bet a decent chunk of change that you could take the prevailing scientific opinion and ask for reproducible experiments - in this case a lot would involve analysis of data already given to explain why they want to test want they want to - then you'd end up if not agreeing with them then at seeing where they were coming from.
ugh 17y ago
Just one thing I would like to point out: many quoted statements in the article are not in any way damning. At least not without further context. To pick out just one quote: In what way is comment moderation on RealClimate problematic?
- tome 17y ago
  Indeed. For example: As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations. Well, whose fault is that it's not about truth but about perception. Of course it is the fault of those very well funded pressure groups who represent the vested interests of CO2 emission.
  - iamwil 17y ago
    It sounded more of a conversation between marketers than scientists--or at least what we think scientists ought to do. In reality, even science does some PR and marketing, it's just where you draw the line.
    - tome 17y ago
      Sure, and if researchers are being forced to draw the line higher than usual due to external pressure from highly funded deniers, whose fault is that?
  - dkarl 17y ago
    I think this is an excellent point. The issue is unavoidably political; scientists are being forced to respond to political arguments and pressure. Of course, when put in a political arena and forced to deal with political attacks, scientists start to talk like politicians. I'm a software engineer, and we talk this way at work sometimes. It's happens when we're dealing with sales or executive types who aren't amenable to technical arguments. Don't let these guys see that email, because then they'll replace all our Cisco routers with cheese wheels, ha ha ha except sadly not kidding! The bottom line is that the real science happens in labs and in scientific journals, and the climate change debate is perforce dominated by people who have never been closer to the science than reading a book or article written by somebody with an agenda who talked to a few scientists who keep up with the climate change literature. (That's the only way the debate can be open and democratic.) That's the closest people get to the science, but scientists are forced to deal with their questions and complaints and flights of fantasy anyway. Of course scientists don't sound very scientific when they're forced to do this job, because it isn't science.
igrekel 17y ago
Most of these comments from the email don't seem to be that much of a problem really, unless you really believed that these people were not humans. And if people are offended that they had this idea of "bad hands" remember that their results existed for a long while and when opposition appeared it was financed by large corporations and interest groups withe the explicit goal of denying their findings. Sadly that is what happens when you put people in a tough spot in terms of public relations, public relations concerns start to take over everything.
pierrefar 17y ago
When you're a skeptic looking for "evidence", you'll find plenty in there. When you're a scientist looking for an informal discussion about thinking critically about the evidence and data interpretation, you'll also find plenty in there.
- izend 17y ago
  However, the way Al Gore has presented Climate Change has not at all been like scientific discussion, it has been portrait as a topic where the discussion and debate is over. That is my problem with individual such as Al Gore because statements like this, "Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming — and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important." show me there is still room to discuss and debate the evidence.
  - pierrefar 17y ago
    There is plenty of room for debate if the skeptics stop polarizing and politicizing the debate. Also, if anyone in this debate can be counted on to change their mind, it's the scientists: we do it all the time when shown evidence to the contrary of the current belief. I sincerely doubt that your average skeptic walking into this debate is actually willing to change their mind if shown evidence. Their mind is already made up and it won't change. So yes, plenty of room for debate, but it needs the right mentality. BTW, I once convinced a very creationist skeptic that evolution just might be correct in like 3 hours. How? He was willing to listen and see that there just might be an alternative explanation to the things he's seeing. He was willing to accept a different point of view and my job was to present my case. Luckily I did OK.
    - jswinghammer 17y ago
      Wait you're accusing the skeptics of politicizing the debate? It's the climate change promoters (many of whom are scientists) who have been saying that the sky is falling and that we need to cut our emissions now through massive government intervention. I don't know how that isn't politicizing the debate.
jerf 17y ago
I'm basically a skeptic on climate stuff, but I'd encourage people to wait a bit before jumping to conclusions. Some of the pull quotes in this article seem sort of damning, but I can easily come up with perfectly legitimate reasons for some of the others, and for all I know there are legitimate reasons for the ones that look damning out of context. The Golden Rule also dictates that I cut them the same slack that I would want given to me if my private emails got out; we all talk differently in private than we would if we were talking to the world, and there's nothing wrong with that.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  Agreed. You can pull anything out of context and make it sound like anything. Almost. At some point it becomes very difficult to say it's all a trap, however. If the size of the data is as large as indicated, it should be fairly trivial to determine this one way or the other. If the discussions did proceed as indicated, this data might make a great study in how science is carried out behind closed doors, so aside from the political squawking, there could be something here of real long-term value to science. I bet you'd never get these guys to publicly admit what their internal discussions were like.
  - jerf 17y ago
    "If the size of the data is as large as indicated, it should be fairly trivial to determine this one way or the other." That's why I said we should wait, rather than claiming this is meaningless. This data set, if legitimate as it seems to be, is large enough to draw conclusions from, and if there are issues clearly indicated, OK, conclude away, once the data is in. I'm just not willing to conclude anything from a handful of selected quotes from a clearly biased source. And if those are the best quotes, I'm generally unimpressed.
    - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
      I'm more interested in the process of how science is conducted than this particular subject or this particular article. What we're seeing here, on both sides, is that folks have already decided on way or another. It's the solution looking for the problem. So I'm afraid the signal-to-noise ratio is going to be very low for this no matter what the entirety of the data shows.
lincolnq 17y ago
I'm not too surprised at this. I think this is a great case study on groupthink. I've observed groupthink / "the outside is the enemy" behaviour in several groups that I've participated in. It can be caused by one person setting the tone of the group (e.g., by making jokes), and then everyone else follows along. In this case, I could imagine a joke about skeptics, or perhaps someone misguidedly suggesting it was the group's "mission" to convince people that climate change was a big problem to be fixed. Setting that sort of tone, especially early in the group's formation, usually quickly blossoms into an us-vs.-them mentality. Sometimes that's ok, but if you are trying to claim that you are objective, it's highly counterproductive -- and the worst part is that it's hard to realize how harmful groupthink can be when you are genuinely trying to learn something. Anyway, if you want to reduce this effect in groups you're in, you have to have a sharp groupthink detector and you have to be fearless about saying stuff that's counter to the group's tone. I've defused groupthink situations by visibly becoming offended when I recognize that groupthink is occurring: it's usually fairly easy to explain why you're offended, and (in most kinds of groups) people usually have social pressure to stay away from discussions which will offend others. The problem is that the groupthinky memes can be fun, so you may be seen as a captain buzzkill.
- crux_ 17y ago
  Yet people doing climate science have enemies, and not imagined ones. This is not just group-think conjuring an imaginary "them." This is true regardless of whether you believe in their integrity or not, and as a result they can no longer behave objectively, even if it turns out that their conclusions were reached in a thoroughly objective manner.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    If the scientists can no longer behave objectively then they've already lost everything.
    - jongraehl 17y ago
      That's an impractical statement.
cjoh 17y ago
The EXAMINER is an organization filled with political operatives, not anybody interested in telling any form of truth. They're about as bad as Fox news at choosing between facts and agenda.
- tome 17y ago
  Interesting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com Examiners are paid based on page views, or the "Gawker-model," made famous by the blog Gawker.com. The more page views an Examiner generates, the more they are reportedly paid.[citation needed]
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
    Huh, odd that Wikipedia had a "citation needed" note on there. This indeed is exactly their business model; we found the same while scouting the news publishing market.
    - imd 17y ago
      It doesn't seem odd to me; just because you find something to be true doesn't mean it doesn't need a citation.
      - thaumaturgy 17y ago
        Oh, sorry! I agree, but that wasn't what I meant. What I meant was, we found the information on their site, and I was surprised that WP hadn't gotten around to it. The relevant link is: http://www.examiner.com/assets/examinerfaq.html http://www.examiner.com/assets/examinerfaq.html (under, "Will I be compensated?") I attempted to update the Wikipedia page, but found that the examiner.com domain is blacklisted in WP -- page edits don't allow links to anything in examiner.com. So! Mystery solved, and it'll stay uncited because I'm not about to set aside a bunch of paid projects to take on the bureaucracy that is Wikipedia.
  - by 17y ago
    Examiner.com seems to be owned by Clarity Digital Group who are in turn owned by the Anschutz Company. The primary business of the Anschutz Company appears to be "Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations". http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMPANY-DENVER-CO http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP... http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=932266 http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn... http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschutz-Corporation-Company-History.html http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschut...
motters 17y ago
Even if you are a climate change skeptic, apply typical journalistic investigation here. Perhaps the apparent damning statements are taken out of context. Science is not about certainty, and there is always debate about what the data really means. Also, those reporting the leak may not be politically neutral, and may have their own hidden agendas.
jacoblyles 17y ago
I've followed Steve McIntyre for awhile, and it is in fact shameful, damning, and unscientific how ardently climate scientists have fought to keep their data from him when he has requested it to check their models. The problem seems to be particularly acute among the old guard of the profession. Seeing the other side of the conversation doesn't add a whole lot, we already knew what bastards they are. For those who haven't checked out Steve's work, look at http://www.climateaudit.org/ http://www.climateaudit.org/ . But be warned, if you're looking for politics over numbers, he will put you to sleep. And the server is getting hammered at the moment. But please book mark it and go back later. His blog is an important piece of the internet, what we all thought the internet could be before lolcats disillusioned us. It doesn't surprise me to see a lot of people here coming to the climate scientists' defense. They are, after all, a popular and respected group in society at the moment. But when you cherry-pick data, create unreproducible models, and then refuse to share your data with other people, you ought to lose a little bit of that respect. We will get precisely the quality of science we enforce, which at present is any quality of science the authoritative voices in the area chose to give us. When Steve has been successful at obtaining the data he wants, he has been able to find flaws in various analyses. If you come from a scientific perspective, that ought to be great news! Independent confirmation or refutation of results increases the quality of our knowledge. But if you come from a political perspective then Steve is bad news indeed. Why climate scientists are respected and treated as the high priests of truth while they hide data from the world and McIntyre is treated as a vaguely dangerous rogue, I don't understand it. I suspect it's politics. But in a perfect world there would be a thousand McIntyre's and they wouldn't have to fight for data. It would be available in public online databases, hosting paid for by tax dollars. That ought to be the least we ask of any science with the potential to route trillions of dollars in government spending policy over the next decade. But sadly, when bad science comes to light, all we get instead is a circling of the wagons around the favored group. Why? Again, I suspect politics.
- ellyagg 17y ago
  That's one of the worst things I noticed from the data, the overwhelming and negative responses to Steve Mcintyre. Mcintyre is not some demagogue. He's extremely dry and analytical. Why are they strategizing on how to give him dirty, annoying, and obfuscated data? I don't care if climate scientists consider Mcintyre an adversary. Does everyone remember how the shuttle software is written? The testing team has an adversarial relationship with the developers. This is how quality work is forged. If these guys can't stand to have an adversary review their work, I submit that something is seriously awry. Peer review isn't strong enough right now. If you read these docs, you find that they are asking that reviewers be hand-picked for "objectivity", and it's clear from the context that this means "not global warming skeptics". Peer review needs to be more adversarial. I don't think the scientific literature is much less important than the shuttle software. If the scientific method is working, then the data and methods should be able to withstand ANYONE'S scrutiny. It should be completely open. Most people here are strong supporters of open source software. Don't tell me for one second that free and open scientific debate doesn't benefit exactly as much from being open.
hop 17y ago
I'm agnostic on climate change - haven't scrutinized the data myself. That said... Climate scientists that produce polarizing studies - either the world is freezing or boiling (mostly the latter) get fame, fortune, respect from colleagues and huge grants to further their groundbreaking research. They are more incentivised to create a wow factor than to be rigorous and subjective with the data.
- deleted 17y ago
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gjm11 17y ago
Title as submitted here is pure flamebait. Most of the quoted statements aren't in fact problematic at all (many of them I would in fact describe as so obviously not-problematic as to call into question the integrity of the person offering them up as evidence of dishonesty, and I wouldn't be surprised if every one of them turned out to have an innocent explanation), but even if each of those quotations demonstrated that the person who sent it had no integrity whatever, that would not justify the scare-quotes around "scientists" (dishonest scientists are still scientists), nor the blanket condemnation of "the climate scientists", as if the ones whose emails have been pilfered are the only climate scientists in the world. Better would be something like "Leaked email archive allegedly calls into question the integrity of a few climate scientists". Better still would be "62MB of climate science emails leaked; here are some alarming quotations" or something.
- jordyhoyt 17y ago
  "Dishonest scientists are still scientists" I disagree. If they are not following the scientific method, but fudging their data to agree with their pre-determined conclusions, they are not scientists.
  - gjm11 17y ago
    1. Assuming, for the sake of argument, the most uncharitable interpretation possible for all the quotations on display at the Examiner, it seems to me that most of them do not involve any sort of data-fudging. 2. I appreciate the rhetorical point you're making, but I prefer to distinguish between "not a scientist", "bad scientist" and "evildoing scientist". (But I do agree that if someone's found to have been falsifying results, whatever scientific work they've done is of little use to anyone unless there's some reliable way to disentangle the fraudulent and non-fraudulent bits.)
- nkurz 17y ago
  I agree that the title is bad, but it is empirically effective. I earlier submitted a parallel article with pretty much the title that you suggested, and it went nowhere: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952082 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952082 Leaked FOIA files 62 mb of gold Even before me, 'ellyagg' submitted an even closer parallel with a non-sensational title. It also has not garnered any discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=951915 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=951915 Climate News: Hadley CRU hacked with release of hundreds of docs and emails So while I personally will continue to submit with the title of the original article rather than bait, one could argue that having a discussion is better than not having a discussion.
patio11 17y ago
In many scientific fields, having one's research methodology and professional communications publicized would not be considered a bad thing. Perhaps that was a low blow.
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lionhearted 17y ago
Y'know, I hang out around smart people who like science, and I read a lot of science, and I do some science, so I get asked about science a lot. And when I've said that I'm not convinced that there's human global warming happening, I've been called all sorts of nasty names. I didn't say it isn't happening; I just said the information I've seen doesn't convince me. I see a lot of strongly held beliefs that global warming is happening, but the actual data seemed murky at best to me. In short, I wasn't convinced either way. But by casually interested people, I got called all sorts of terrible names. "Denier", things like that. Compared to a creationist as someone who obviously doesn't get it, who just has beliefs by faith. Really? I say the data hasn't convince me, that makes me a denier and a creationist? This whole thing has seemed much more like a religion than science to me. There's some science happening, but a lot of people want and need this to be true as a part of their identity rather than science. It doesn't surprise me at all that you see corruption from scientists in a culture like that. It goes against everything science is supposed to be.
- tome 17y ago
  Sure, there's a nasty popular undercurrent of slating anyone who expresses doubt. I've experienced it myself. But that shouldn't have a bearing on the facts of a situation.
  - deleted 17y ago
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- dschobel 17y ago
  I think most honest people found themselves in the situation as you. I'm starting to think it's a good thing that American society by and large is ignorant of science issues. Any time you incentivize scientific research with fame and fortune in popular society, you end up with crap like this. Let's keep popular acclaim to things which don't matter, such as sports.
- martian 17y ago
  Fair point. And the thing about climate science is that while you may or may not disagree about global warming, the strategies we would employ to fight global warming are the same strategies we should be employing regardless. Take the issue of renewable energy. It might prevent global warming, but it also promotes energy independence, reduces pollution generally, allays fears about peak-oil or peak-coal.
robotrout 17y ago
To whomever hacked these emails, I thank you. I really think this was a valuable service to mankind that you've achieved. You've lifted up the robes of the priesthood, and exposed them to be at best, flawed scientists, and at worst, social engineers. Whether this knowledge will have any effect on the truly brainwashed, we see that it doesn't, but it will have an effect on saner minds. The marketing geniuses who turned 'global warming' into 'climate change','carbon dioxide' into 'carbon', and migrating polar bears into victims, will surely not be knocked out by this, but they're deleting emails this morning, you can be sure!
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  Emotionally, I'm glad it happened. But that doesn't make it right. The hackers were stealing, there's no getting around that fact. The end doesn't justify the means.
  - robotrout 17y ago
    The end doesn't justify the means. Sir, you appear to have a highly developed moral sense. I respectfully submit that you haven't really analyzed that sentence carefully, however. Many means are justified by their ends. It's left to history to decide if the means really were justified. Some things, like Hiroshima, we still agonize over, 50 years later, whether the end justified the means. As for hacking some scientist's emails, and possibly saving hundreds of thousands or even millions of human lives by stopping a gross misallocation of resources? Yeah, I could sleep with a smile on my face on that one. No qualms about justification in my mind.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      You are begging the question, assuming that climate change is a fraud and that any resources allocated to dealing with it will be detrimental to life. We might equally consider that if you're incorrect, many lives could be endangered through lack of necessary action...although given your characterization of this whole episode as a religious issue, I'm not sure you are aware of the fallacy in your argument.
nkurz 17y ago
The quotes used as examples in this article really don't do justice to the damage that will be done by this leak. If the documents turn out to be authentic, many of the participants will be spending years to come defending themselves from academic disciplinary committees and criminal prosecutions. Beyond the superficial 'blowing off steam', there's conspiracy to destroy evidence in advance of FOIA requests, tax evasion, and overtly political data manipulation. It's ugly. It seems likely this will derail Copenhagen, and probably destroy the political momentum for Climate Change legislation for years to come. The sad part is that this really isn't an outcome desired by anyone who actually cares about climate change as a scientific issue. This is a political win for Big Oil, rather than resolution of the issues. Rather than refocusing the issue on the science (as desired by the true skeptics) the issue becomes politicized even further. A different team takes the lead, but the science gets left even further behind.
- tome 17y ago
  This confuses me. FOI in the UK only applies to government agencies. How can a scientific body be required to release information?
  - cschneid 17y ago
    Guessing, but it's quite possible they did work in the scope of government funding, exposing it to this kind of access.
  - forensic 17y ago
    Government funding = public is entitled to the data.
    - petercooper 17y ago
      If that were true then the postcode database would be public, but it ain't: http://ernestmarples.com/blog/2009/10/ernest-marples-postcodes-has-been-threatened-by-the-royal-mail/ http://ernestmarples.com/blog/2009/10/ernest-marples-postcod...
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hzzn 17y ago
A quote from http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GlobWarm.HTM http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GlobWarm.HTM The science, reduced to its simplest terms, is that carbon dioxide is known to be effective at trapping solar heat. So are water vapor (the source of 90% of earth's natural greenhouse effect), methane, and other gases. The natural carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere has doubled in the last 200 years, climate is getting warmer, so the logical conclusion is that there is a connection between the two trends. If you feel uncomfortably warm at night and wake up to find someone has put another blanket over you, you don't need to look beyond that to identify the source of the warming. * Nobody - nobody - argues with the carbon dioxide trend. It's established beyond doubt. * The debate over whether climate is getting warmer is mostly over. * The debate now is over whether the connection between warming and human emission of carbon dioxide is real, or whether there are other causes of climate change at work. * The real issue is whether the benefits of taking action will outweigh the costs and regulatory burdens. * There are some who argue that warming will be beneficial by reducing energy demands for heating, lengthening growing seasons, and creating larger habitable and arable territory. The case for human-caused global warming is simultaneously a lot clearer than George W. Bush believes, and a whole lot less so than Al Gore does. There are legitimate questions about the data, past climate reconstructions, and the computer modeling still to be answered.
JulianMorrison 17y ago
That sounds like scientists talking shop in the understanding they are trying to extract structure out of intrinsically messy data, from a complex and imperfectly modeled real world that contains causes unaccounted-for, while not leaking the mess to a public and skeptics who really don't understand how the real world looks and who expect clean sharp lines in the visible work product.
joecode 17y ago
I'm reposting this comment by "by" that got lost in the comments below. While all this seems pretty damming, it could be misinformation. Examiner.com seems to be owned by Clarity Digital Group who are in turn owned by the Anschutz Company. The primary business of the Anschutz Company appears to be "Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations". http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP.. http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP.... http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn.. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn.... http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschut...* http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschut...
- joecode 17y ago
  what, i'm being voted down? so sources don't matter? i don't know whether the emails are authentic or not, but certainly there is cause for concern, no? if you look at the other articles of the author, tony hake, you will see they invariably fall into the "climate change skeptic" realm. maybe that's fine, maybe not. the warning is simply: wait for verification before jumping to any conclusions.
  - Maktab 17y ago
    The Examiner was not the source for the documents and emails, it merely picked up on the story after it had appeared on some climate change skeptic sites first. It had no role in this other than reporting on a story that already had legs. Therefore the organisation's background and corporate structure is irrelevant to this issue and bringing it up offers nothing new or of value to the discussion.
chrisb 17y ago
See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cr... for the other side of the story. The oft-made claim about the non-availability of the climate model data can be proven false by visiting: http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php - contains all the models used in the IPCC AR4 http://tamino.wordpress.com/climate-data-links/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/climate-data-links/ - contains a huge amount of climate data. Of course, all this data is extremely complex, but it cannot be claimed that it is unavailable.
deleted 17y ago
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dzlobin 17y ago
This is a great thing to do to show the world the truth. But I must say, unlike politicians and celebrities, I admire the scientists' acceptance of everything and no attempt to fight this.
1gor 17y ago
If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted. Shameful. Going after your scientific opponents 'through official channels' and getting them fired?

171 points by nice1 17y ago

The leaked files are available here at least: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75J4XO4T http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75J4XO4T If there's a better place to get/post it, please advise.

limist 17y ago
Also, this is the blog where the files were first leaked to: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-files-62-mb-of-gold/ http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-file...

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

The problem here has always been the nature of the debate, not the nature of the science. You can make a good case that these are just scientists blowing off steam in informal e-mails -- or you could make the case that this is evidence that scientific integrity has gone in the crapper. I take a third view: the problem here is that people do not want to have an honest debate. This is evident by the emotional content of the emails -- "idiots", etc. If you view yourself as the annointed and people who criticize you as stupid rabble, then it becomes very, very difficult to correct course when you screw up (as you inevitably will) Getting emotionally attached to something and viewing yourself as an expert are potentially intellectually crippling things to do, whether it's climate science or database design.

Vivtek 17y ago
I find it odd to say that the climatologists are the ones uninterested in an "honest debate". Not to mention that "honest debate" would involve acknowledging who has the, you know, expertise in the field. The reason they use the word "idiots" is that it is a descriptive term. Some random schmoe with an opinion is not engaged in "debate" when he questions scientific fact, and the emotional charge here is entirely due to the fact that public opinion seems to think that such entitlement is perfectly legitimate, when in point of fact it is a waste of everyone's time.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  Some random schmoe with an opinion is not engaged in "debate" when he questions scientific fact Sigh. I'll do this one time, and then I have to get back to work. Here's the deal: science is not dependent on "smarts". I can take a 4-year-old kid and we can test Newton's Laws of Motion just fine without any knowledge of algebra. In fact, the whole point about science being based on reproducible experiments is that we take appeal to authority out of the mix. If we still keep appeal to authority as a legitimate scientific tool of investigation then we might as well be studying phrenology or Lysenksoism (look it up). Now the appropriate response is: but this isn't about science, this is about prevailing scientific opinion -- the best guess we have at what might happen. If you're prepared to go there, that's awesome, because then we're in a spot where we're talking about how political decisions get made, both inside and outside of science. But in that case, both sides are more on equal ground because the topics are all about how different groups arrive at various forms of consensus, not science. It's when you get the two mixed up that the discussion gets really out of whack (to my lights, at least)
  - tome 17y ago
    Sorry this is disingenuous. Sure, science is not about appealing to a specific authority, but you do need some background and training in it to be able to pull off the necessary experiments and understand the theory. How would you and your 4 year old go about deciding whether you believe in Quantum Electrodynamics? Would you do an experiment, or would you ask an expert?
    - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
      I would ask an expert who could show me a reproducible experiment.
      - dave_au 17y ago
        Not wanting to step into an argument here, but I'd like to tie it back to the climate thing. I think it's cool that you'd go to an expert to see a reproducible experiment. I'm also going to assume that it goes without saying (could be putting words in your mouth but it seems to flow from your responses) that you'd ask a lot of questions if there was unfamiliar math or concepts and basically receive very narrowly focused training in the fields around the experiment. It's interesting to consider the likelihood/prevalence of the casual commenters on climate change (ie the ones being referred to as idiots) reproducing the climate scientists experiments or coming up to speed on the maths/concepts behind the experiment to be able to critique the experiment in the way that an expert in the field with an opinion opposed to the prevailing thought could. I know quite a few very vocal climate change skeptics and none of them have a science background or the willingness to attain one, and they seem very proud of that. Hopefully that's a local quirk of my small sample relative to the population. As an aside, if you can find a set of experts with the time to spend (plus, you know, equipment and money) I'd bet a decent chunk of change that you could take the prevailing scientific opinion and ask for reproducible experiments - in this case a lot would involve analysis of data already given to explain why they want to test want they want to - then you'd end up if not agreeing with them then at seeing where they were coming from.

ugh 17y ago

Just one thing I would like to point out: many quoted statements in the article are not in any way damning. At least not without further context. To pick out just one quote: In what way is comment moderation on RealClimate problematic?

tome 17y ago
Indeed. For example: As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations. Well, whose fault is that it's not about truth but about perception. Of course it is the fault of those very well funded pressure groups who represent the vested interests of CO2 emission.
- iamwil 17y ago
  It sounded more of a conversation between marketers than scientists--or at least what we think scientists ought to do. In reality, even science does some PR and marketing, it's just where you draw the line.
  - tome 17y ago
    Sure, and if researchers are being forced to draw the line higher than usual due to external pressure from highly funded deniers, whose fault is that?
- dkarl 17y ago
  I think this is an excellent point. The issue is unavoidably political; scientists are being forced to respond to political arguments and pressure. Of course, when put in a political arena and forced to deal with political attacks, scientists start to talk like politicians. I'm a software engineer, and we talk this way at work sometimes. It's happens when we're dealing with sales or executive types who aren't amenable to technical arguments. Don't let these guys see that email, because then they'll replace all our Cisco routers with cheese wheels, ha ha ha except sadly not kidding! The bottom line is that the real science happens in labs and in scientific journals, and the climate change debate is perforce dominated by people who have never been closer to the science than reading a book or article written by somebody with an agenda who talked to a few scientists who keep up with the climate change literature. (That's the only way the debate can be open and democratic.) That's the closest people get to the science, but scientists are forced to deal with their questions and complaints and flights of fantasy anyway. Of course scientists don't sound very scientific when they're forced to do this job, because it isn't science.

igrekel 17y ago

Most of these comments from the email don't seem to be that much of a problem really, unless you really believed that these people were not humans. And if people are offended that they had this idea of "bad hands" remember that their results existed for a long while and when opposition appeared it was financed by large corporations and interest groups withe the explicit goal of denying their findings. Sadly that is what happens when you put people in a tough spot in terms of public relations, public relations concerns start to take over everything.

pierrefar 17y ago

When you're a skeptic looking for "evidence", you'll find plenty in there. When you're a scientist looking for an informal discussion about thinking critically about the evidence and data interpretation, you'll also find plenty in there.

izend 17y ago
However, the way Al Gore has presented Climate Change has not at all been like scientific discussion, it has been portrait as a topic where the discussion and debate is over. That is my problem with individual such as Al Gore because statements like this, "Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming — and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important." show me there is still room to discuss and debate the evidence.
- pierrefar 17y ago
  There is plenty of room for debate if the skeptics stop polarizing and politicizing the debate. Also, if anyone in this debate can be counted on to change their mind, it's the scientists: we do it all the time when shown evidence to the contrary of the current belief. I sincerely doubt that your average skeptic walking into this debate is actually willing to change their mind if shown evidence. Their mind is already made up and it won't change. So yes, plenty of room for debate, but it needs the right mentality. BTW, I once convinced a very creationist skeptic that evolution just might be correct in like 3 hours. How? He was willing to listen and see that there just might be an alternative explanation to the things he's seeing. He was willing to accept a different point of view and my job was to present my case. Luckily I did OK.
  - jswinghammer 17y ago
    Wait you're accusing the skeptics of politicizing the debate? It's the climate change promoters (many of whom are scientists) who have been saying that the sky is falling and that we need to cut our emissions now through massive government intervention. I don't know how that isn't politicizing the debate.

jerf 17y ago

I'm basically a skeptic on climate stuff, but I'd encourage people to wait a bit before jumping to conclusions. Some of the pull quotes in this article seem sort of damning, but I can easily come up with perfectly legitimate reasons for some of the others, and for all I know there are legitimate reasons for the ones that look damning out of context. The Golden Rule also dictates that I cut them the same slack that I would want given to me if my private emails got out; we all talk differently in private than we would if we were talking to the world, and there's nothing wrong with that.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Agreed. You can pull anything out of context and make it sound like anything. Almost. At some point it becomes very difficult to say it's all a trap, however. If the size of the data is as large as indicated, it should be fairly trivial to determine this one way or the other. If the discussions did proceed as indicated, this data might make a great study in how science is carried out behind closed doors, so aside from the political squawking, there could be something here of real long-term value to science. I bet you'd never get these guys to publicly admit what their internal discussions were like.
- jerf 17y ago
  "If the size of the data is as large as indicated, it should be fairly trivial to determine this one way or the other." That's why I said we should wait, rather than claiming this is meaningless. This data set, if legitimate as it seems to be, is large enough to draw conclusions from, and if there are issues clearly indicated, OK, conclude away, once the data is in. I'm just not willing to conclude anything from a handful of selected quotes from a clearly biased source. And if those are the best quotes, I'm generally unimpressed.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    I'm more interested in the process of how science is conducted than this particular subject or this particular article. What we're seeing here, on both sides, is that folks have already decided on way or another. It's the solution looking for the problem. So I'm afraid the signal-to-noise ratio is going to be very low for this no matter what the entirety of the data shows.

lincolnq 17y ago

I'm not too surprised at this. I think this is a great case study on groupthink. I've observed groupthink / "the outside is the enemy" behaviour in several groups that I've participated in. It can be caused by one person setting the tone of the group (e.g., by making jokes), and then everyone else follows along. In this case, I could imagine a joke about skeptics, or perhaps someone misguidedly suggesting it was the group's "mission" to convince people that climate change was a big problem to be fixed. Setting that sort of tone, especially early in the group's formation, usually quickly blossoms into an us-vs.-them mentality. Sometimes that's ok, but if you are trying to claim that you are objective, it's highly counterproductive -- and the worst part is that it's hard to realize how harmful groupthink can be when you are genuinely trying to learn something. Anyway, if you want to reduce this effect in groups you're in, you have to have a sharp groupthink detector and you have to be fearless about saying stuff that's counter to the group's tone. I've defused groupthink situations by visibly becoming offended when I recognize that groupthink is occurring: it's usually fairly easy to explain why you're offended, and (in most kinds of groups) people usually have social pressure to stay away from discussions which will offend others. The problem is that the groupthinky memes can be fun, so you may be seen as a captain buzzkill.

crux_ 17y ago
Yet people doing climate science have enemies, and not imagined ones. This is not just group-think conjuring an imaginary "them." This is true regardless of whether you believe in their integrity or not, and as a result they can no longer behave objectively, even if it turns out that their conclusions were reached in a thoroughly objective manner.
- dschobel 17y ago
  If the scientists can no longer behave objectively then they've already lost everything.
  - jongraehl 17y ago
    That's an impractical statement.

cjoh 17y ago

The EXAMINER is an organization filled with political operatives, not anybody interested in telling any form of truth. They're about as bad as Fox news at choosing between facts and agenda.

tome 17y ago
Interesting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com Examiners are paid based on page views, or the "Gawker-model," made famous by the blog Gawker.com. The more page views an Examiner generates, the more they are reportedly paid.[citation needed]
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  Huh, odd that Wikipedia had a "citation needed" note on there. This indeed is exactly their business model; we found the same while scouting the news publishing market.
  - imd 17y ago
    It doesn't seem odd to me; just because you find something to be true doesn't mean it doesn't need a citation.
    - thaumaturgy 17y ago
      Oh, sorry! I agree, but that wasn't what I meant. What I meant was, we found the information on their site, and I was surprised that WP hadn't gotten around to it. The relevant link is: http://www.examiner.com/assets/examinerfaq.html http://www.examiner.com/assets/examinerfaq.html (under, "Will I be compensated?") I attempted to update the Wikipedia page, but found that the examiner.com domain is blacklisted in WP -- page edits don't allow links to anything in examiner.com. So! Mystery solved, and it'll stay uncited because I'm not about to set aside a bunch of paid projects to take on the bureaucracy that is Wikipedia.
- by 17y ago
  Examiner.com seems to be owned by Clarity Digital Group who are in turn owned by the Anschutz Company. The primary business of the Anschutz Company appears to be "Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations". http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMPANY-DENVER-CO http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP... http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=932266 http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn... http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschutz-Corporation-Company-History.html http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschut...

motters 17y ago

Even if you are a climate change skeptic, apply typical journalistic investigation here. Perhaps the apparent damning statements are taken out of context. Science is not about certainty, and there is always debate about what the data really means. Also, those reporting the leak may not be politically neutral, and may have their own hidden agendas.

jacoblyles 17y ago

I've followed Steve McIntyre for awhile, and it is in fact shameful, damning, and unscientific how ardently climate scientists have fought to keep their data from him when he has requested it to check their models. The problem seems to be particularly acute among the old guard of the profession. Seeing the other side of the conversation doesn't add a whole lot, we already knew what bastards they are. For those who haven't checked out Steve's work, look at http://www.climateaudit.org/ http://www.climateaudit.org/ . But be warned, if you're looking for politics over numbers, he will put you to sleep. And the server is getting hammered at the moment. But please book mark it and go back later. His blog is an important piece of the internet, what we all thought the internet could be before lolcats disillusioned us. It doesn't surprise me to see a lot of people here coming to the climate scientists' defense. They are, after all, a popular and respected group in society at the moment. But when you cherry-pick data, create unreproducible models, and then refuse to share your data with other people, you ought to lose a little bit of that respect. We will get precisely the quality of science we enforce, which at present is any quality of science the authoritative voices in the area chose to give us. When Steve has been successful at obtaining the data he wants, he has been able to find flaws in various analyses. If you come from a scientific perspective, that ought to be great news! Independent confirmation or refutation of results increases the quality of our knowledge. But if you come from a political perspective then Steve is bad news indeed. Why climate scientists are respected and treated as the high priests of truth while they hide data from the world and McIntyre is treated as a vaguely dangerous rogue, I don't understand it. I suspect it's politics. But in a perfect world there would be a thousand McIntyre's and they wouldn't have to fight for data. It would be available in public online databases, hosting paid for by tax dollars. That ought to be the least we ask of any science with the potential to route trillions of dollars in government spending policy over the next decade. But sadly, when bad science comes to light, all we get instead is a circling of the wagons around the favored group. Why? Again, I suspect politics.

ellyagg 17y ago
That's one of the worst things I noticed from the data, the overwhelming and negative responses to Steve Mcintyre. Mcintyre is not some demagogue. He's extremely dry and analytical. Why are they strategizing on how to give him dirty, annoying, and obfuscated data? I don't care if climate scientists consider Mcintyre an adversary. Does everyone remember how the shuttle software is written? The testing team has an adversarial relationship with the developers. This is how quality work is forged. If these guys can't stand to have an adversary review their work, I submit that something is seriously awry. Peer review isn't strong enough right now. If you read these docs, you find that they are asking that reviewers be hand-picked for "objectivity", and it's clear from the context that this means "not global warming skeptics". Peer review needs to be more adversarial. I don't think the scientific literature is much less important than the shuttle software. If the scientific method is working, then the data and methods should be able to withstand ANYONE'S scrutiny. It should be completely open. Most people here are strong supporters of open source software. Don't tell me for one second that free and open scientific debate doesn't benefit exactly as much from being open.

hop 17y ago

I'm agnostic on climate change - haven't scrutinized the data myself. That said... Climate scientists that produce polarizing studies - either the world is freezing or boiling (mostly the latter) get fame, fortune, respect from colleagues and huge grants to further their groundbreaking research. They are more incentivised to create a wow factor than to be rigorous and subjective with the data.

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gjm11 17y ago

Title as submitted here is pure flamebait. Most of the quoted statements aren't in fact problematic at all (many of them I would in fact describe as so obviously not-problematic as to call into question the integrity of the person offering them up as evidence of dishonesty, and I wouldn't be surprised if every one of them turned out to have an innocent explanation), but even if each of those quotations demonstrated that the person who sent it had no integrity whatever, that would not justify the scare-quotes around "scientists" (dishonest scientists are still scientists), nor the blanket condemnation of "the climate scientists", as if the ones whose emails have been pilfered are the only climate scientists in the world. Better would be something like "Leaked email archive allegedly calls into question the integrity of a few climate scientists". Better still would be "62MB of climate science emails leaked; here are some alarming quotations" or something.

jordyhoyt 17y ago
"Dishonest scientists are still scientists" I disagree. If they are not following the scientific method, but fudging their data to agree with their pre-determined conclusions, they are not scientists.
- gjm11 17y ago
  1. Assuming, for the sake of argument, the most uncharitable interpretation possible for all the quotations on display at the Examiner, it seems to me that most of them do not involve any sort of data-fudging. 2. I appreciate the rhetorical point you're making, but I prefer to distinguish between "not a scientist", "bad scientist" and "evildoing scientist". (But I do agree that if someone's found to have been falsifying results, whatever scientific work they've done is of little use to anyone unless there's some reliable way to disentangle the fraudulent and non-fraudulent bits.)
nkurz 17y ago
I agree that the title is bad, but it is empirically effective. I earlier submitted a parallel article with pretty much the title that you suggested, and it went nowhere: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952082 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952082 Leaked FOIA files 62 mb of gold Even before me, 'ellyagg' submitted an even closer parallel with a non-sensational title. It also has not garnered any discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=951915 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=951915 Climate News: Hadley CRU hacked with release of hundreds of docs and emails So while I personally will continue to submit with the title of the original article rather than bait, one could argue that having a discussion is better than not having a discussion.

patio11 17y ago

In many scientific fields, having one's research methodology and professional communications publicized would not be considered a bad thing. Perhaps that was a low blow.

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lionhearted 17y ago

Y'know, I hang out around smart people who like science, and I read a lot of science, and I do some science, so I get asked about science a lot. And when I've said that I'm not convinced that there's human global warming happening, I've been called all sorts of nasty names. I didn't say it isn't happening; I just said the information I've seen doesn't convince me. I see a lot of strongly held beliefs that global warming is happening, but the actual data seemed murky at best to me. In short, I wasn't convinced either way. But by casually interested people, I got called all sorts of terrible names. "Denier", things like that. Compared to a creationist as someone who obviously doesn't get it, who just has beliefs by faith. Really? I say the data hasn't convince me, that makes me a denier and a creationist? This whole thing has seemed much more like a religion than science to me. There's some science happening, but a lot of people want and need this to be true as a part of their identity rather than science. It doesn't surprise me at all that you see corruption from scientists in a culture like that. It goes against everything science is supposed to be.

tome 17y ago
Sure, there's a nasty popular undercurrent of slating anyone who expresses doubt. I've experienced it myself. But that shouldn't have a bearing on the facts of a situation.
- deleted 17y ago
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dschobel 17y ago
I think most honest people found themselves in the situation as you. I'm starting to think it's a good thing that American society by and large is ignorant of science issues. Any time you incentivize scientific research with fame and fortune in popular society, you end up with crap like this. Let's keep popular acclaim to things which don't matter, such as sports.
martian 17y ago
Fair point. And the thing about climate science is that while you may or may not disagree about global warming, the strategies we would employ to fight global warming are the same strategies we should be employing regardless. Take the issue of renewable energy. It might prevent global warming, but it also promotes energy independence, reduces pollution generally, allays fears about peak-oil or peak-coal.

robotrout 17y ago

To whomever hacked these emails, I thank you. I really think this was a valuable service to mankind that you've achieved. You've lifted up the robes of the priesthood, and exposed them to be at best, flawed scientists, and at worst, social engineers. Whether this knowledge will have any effect on the truly brainwashed, we see that it doesn't, but it will have an effect on saner minds. The marketing geniuses who turned 'global warming' into 'climate change','carbon dioxide' into 'carbon', and migrating polar bears into victims, will surely not be knocked out by this, but they're deleting emails this morning, you can be sure!

CWuestefeld 17y ago
Emotionally, I'm glad it happened. But that doesn't make it right. The hackers were stealing, there's no getting around that fact. The end doesn't justify the means.
- robotrout 17y ago
  The end doesn't justify the means. Sir, you appear to have a highly developed moral sense. I respectfully submit that you haven't really analyzed that sentence carefully, however. Many means are justified by their ends. It's left to history to decide if the means really were justified. Some things, like Hiroshima, we still agonize over, 50 years later, whether the end justified the means. As for hacking some scientist's emails, and possibly saving hundreds of thousands or even millions of human lives by stopping a gross misallocation of resources? Yeah, I could sleep with a smile on my face on that one. No qualms about justification in my mind.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    You are begging the question, assuming that climate change is a fraud and that any resources allocated to dealing with it will be detrimental to life. We might equally consider that if you're incorrect, many lives could be endangered through lack of necessary action...although given your characterization of this whole episode as a religious issue, I'm not sure you are aware of the fallacy in your argument.

nkurz 17y ago

The quotes used as examples in this article really don't do justice to the damage that will be done by this leak. If the documents turn out to be authentic, many of the participants will be spending years to come defending themselves from academic disciplinary committees and criminal prosecutions. Beyond the superficial 'blowing off steam', there's conspiracy to destroy evidence in advance of FOIA requests, tax evasion, and overtly political data manipulation. It's ugly. It seems likely this will derail Copenhagen, and probably destroy the political momentum for Climate Change legislation for years to come. The sad part is that this really isn't an outcome desired by anyone who actually cares about climate change as a scientific issue. This is a political win for Big Oil, rather than resolution of the issues. Rather than refocusing the issue on the science (as desired by the true skeptics) the issue becomes politicized even further. A different team takes the lead, but the science gets left even further behind.

tome 17y ago
This confuses me. FOI in the UK only applies to government agencies. How can a scientific body be required to release information?
- cschneid 17y ago
  Guessing, but it's quite possible they did work in the scope of government funding, exposing it to this kind of access.
- forensic 17y ago
  Government funding = public is entitled to the data.
  - petercooper 17y ago
    If that were true then the postcode database would be public, but it ain't: http://ernestmarples.com/blog/2009/10/ernest-marples-postcodes-has-been-threatened-by-the-royal-mail/ http://ernestmarples.com/blog/2009/10/ernest-marples-postcod...
- 17y ago

hzzn 17y ago

A quote from http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GlobWarm.HTM http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GlobWarm.HTM The science, reduced to its simplest terms, is that carbon dioxide is known to be effective at trapping solar heat. So are water vapor (the source of 90% of earth's natural greenhouse effect), methane, and other gases. The natural carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere has doubled in the last 200 years, climate is getting warmer, so the logical conclusion is that there is a connection between the two trends. If you feel uncomfortably warm at night and wake up to find someone has put another blanket over you, you don't need to look beyond that to identify the source of the warming. * Nobody - nobody - argues with the carbon dioxide trend. It's established beyond doubt. * The debate over whether climate is getting warmer is mostly over. * The debate now is over whether the connection between warming and human emission of carbon dioxide is real, or whether there are other causes of climate change at work. * The real issue is whether the benefits of taking action will outweigh the costs and regulatory burdens. * There are some who argue that warming will be beneficial by reducing energy demands for heating, lengthening growing seasons, and creating larger habitable and arable territory. The case for human-caused global warming is simultaneously a lot clearer than George W. Bush believes, and a whole lot less so than Al Gore does. There are legitimate questions about the data, past climate reconstructions, and the computer modeling still to be answered.

JulianMorrison 17y ago

That sounds like scientists talking shop in the understanding they are trying to extract structure out of intrinsically messy data, from a complex and imperfectly modeled real world that contains causes unaccounted-for, while not leaking the mess to a public and skeptics who really don't understand how the real world looks and who expect clean sharp lines in the visible work product.

joecode 17y ago

I'm reposting this comment by "by" that got lost in the comments below. While all this seems pretty damming, it could be misinformation. Examiner.com seems to be owned by Clarity Digital Group who are in turn owned by the Anschutz Company. The primary business of the Anschutz Company appears to be "Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations". http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP.. http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP.... http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn.. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn.... http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschut...* http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschut...

joecode 17y ago
what, i'm being voted down? so sources don't matter? i don't know whether the emails are authentic or not, but certainly there is cause for concern, no? if you look at the other articles of the author, tony hake, you will see they invariably fall into the "climate change skeptic" realm. maybe that's fine, maybe not. the warning is simply: wait for verification before jumping to any conclusions.
- Maktab 17y ago
  The Examiner was not the source for the documents and emails, it merely picked up on the story after it had appeared on some climate change skeptic sites first. It had no role in this other than reporting on a story that already had legs. Therefore the organisation's background and corporate structure is irrelevant to this issue and bringing it up offers nothing new or of value to the discussion.

chrisb 17y ago

See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cr... for the other side of the story. The oft-made claim about the non-availability of the climate model data can be proven false by visiting: http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php - contains all the models used in the IPCC AR4 http://tamino.wordpress.com/climate-data-links/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/climate-data-links/ - contains a huge amount of climate data. Of course, all this data is extremely complex, but it cannot be claimed that it is unavailable.

deleted 17y ago

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dzlobin 17y ago

This is a great thing to do to show the world the truth. But I must say, unlike politicians and celebrities, I admire the scientists' acceptance of everything and no attempt to fight this.

1gor 17y ago

If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted. Shameful. Going after your scientific opponents 'through official channels' and getting them fired?