Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Fraudster Michael Mann continues to rage at the "deniers"; suggests that the fossil-fuel industry orchestrated a CRU email hack

Professional climate change deniers' crusade continues - environment - 02 November 2010 - New Scientist
I'D LIKE to say I was surprised when news broke a year ago that emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, had been hacked into and leaked, and that scientists' personal emails were being quoted out of context to disingenuously imply impropriety on their part. But I wasn't.

Books such as Merchants of Doubt by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have detailed how front groups for the fossil-fuel industry have been waging an orchestrated, well-funded campaign against climate science and climate scientists for more than two decades. Hacking into the CRU's email was simply the latest skirmish in this war against science, timed to forestall any progress towards lowering carbon emissions at the Copenhagen climate conference being held about a month later.
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The problem for them, however, is that dozens of groups, using different statistical methods, different data sources, and so on, have all come to the same conclusion as our study: recent warming is anomalous in a long-term context. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2007 report extended the period of warming back even further to at least the past 1300 years.

Moreover, the case for human influence on climate change hardly rests on our palaeoclimate research, or even on the entire field of palaeoclimatology. It is based, instead, on multiple lines of evidence and, in particular, the match between modern observations and the predictions of simulations using climate models.
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Cuccinelli's actions also underscore the remarkable disconnect between the rhetoric of climate change denialism and reality. While professional climate change deniers continue their crusade against climate science, this year is likely to go down as either the warmest or the second warmest on record.
Oct 2010: The right to question Michael Mann's climate research
Mr. Mann, however, wants to return to the bad old days when nobody was permitted to question the research that drives public policy. He insists that Congress simply do what he says because free debate is troublesome and because anyone who wonders if Mr. Mann got it right can be silenced with derision. I think Mr. Mann is entitled to make up his own mind, but not his own truth.

Joe Barton, Washington
Oct 2010: Michael Mann responds to Rep. Barton | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
I recently wrote an essay arguing that politicians should stop attacking scientists. Rep. Joe Barton’s response was to write a letter attacking me yet again. He continues to misrepresent my research, insult my character and spread misinformation about climate science.
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After six years of these attacks, is it possible that Barton cannot even identify the nature of our work?

Rep. Barton apologized to former BP CEO Tony Hayward after the company was required to pay for damage from the Gulf oil leak. He should apologize to me and my colleagues too, but I won’t be holding my breath.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would someone please tell Dr. Mann that the Earth is not flat? His rage would only be justifiable if the dreaded fossil fuel industries had falsified the data, but, apparently, that was Dr. Mann's (and his associate's) job.

Anonymous said...

There is a significant difference between "leaking" and "hacking" information. In analogy between money and data, leaking is like embezzlement and hacking is like robbery. The difference is whether the perp was an insider or an outsider. Given the data security measures in place at CRU at the time, a leak is far more likely than a hack, but there is no evidence to support either. Given the lack of forensic data to support his position, Mann's claims have the appearance of pure paranoia.

Ben said...

The evidence definitely supports a leak. The data was released in a folder titled "FOIA" one day after the FOIA request was illegitimately declined. Most importantly, the information is exclusively relevant. I don't know about your job, but 3/4 of my job's e-mails are meeting announcements, gossip, bad jokes, baby pictures, or panic over broken coffeemakers. There isn't a single such e-mail in the Climategate documents. Long story short, this data was manually compiled and quality controlled. This could not have been done by a computer in a short amount of time. It had to have been compiled over a significant amount of time by someone knowledgable of the field.

The fact that this reveals illegal activity means your embezzlement analogy is inappropriate. This was on the same level and long-term importance as Deep Throat himself.

Mike M. said...

The leaker was Keith Briffa. And why have we heard nothing about or from Keith for a year now? Is he in a shallow grave by the roadside somewhere in gloomy England?

Naunton said...

I'm not sure who exactly is meant to be getting all this Big Oil money, Professor Mann. Time to put up or shut up.

Anonymous said...

Charles Sainte Claire says;

Michael Mann and his hockey stick are nonsense. The Little Ice Age existed. The Medieval Warm Period existed and the Roman Warm Period existed. Warm is Good. Cold, not so good. Cold brings wars and starvation.

Chris said...

@Naunton - here's who's funding (and getting) the big oil money: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDSvqsr_k-M