Climate Cat out of the Bag? Potentially dynamite revelations

[jshell]

Guam said:

....however after "alien Autopsy" it pays to be cautious)

Anyone thought that real, or are you being ironic?

[turbobloke]

B Oeuf said:

The Excession said:

The 'RulesOfTheGame.pdf' document is pure dynamite!

link?

It's one of the documents in the zip file (the leaked messages and documents) downloadable from various web sources. There's a link below here a bit of a way down the posts now.

[Dan_1981]

ANY mainstream media interest in any of this yet?

[AshVX220]

ludo said:

You would have to be bloody stupid to do so with climate change, as if you know it is bullst, you will be proved wrong by the climate within your own lifetime, so there is little to gain (other than a prison sentence for fraud).

And yet you still don't see that because of the point you made above that it is most likely to be real and not bullst?
I'm being cautious with this whole story, as are many others TB included. You really should consider doing the same until more info becomes available. This is an evolving story which is yet to hit the mainstream, but it is big, and it will be heavily scrutinised.
Whichever side of the fence we sit on (ludo et al, Tb et al) someone will be eating their words when this is over and someone will be celebrating. This will end the debate I feel. Currently it looks like it will end it in the skeptics favour, but we shall see what government/climate "scientist" spin can do.

[Marf]

Dan_1981 said:

ANY mainstream media interest in any of this yet?

Nothing on Google News

http://news.google.co.uk/news/search?aq=f&um=1...

Plenty of hits on the search engine though, but none mainstream

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&...

[AshVX220]

Guam said:

I would be more inclined to believe (if this is what occurred) that the bulk is correct and selected items may have been forged.

Thats a concern for me as that would raise question marks over the whole thing.

[turbobloke]

One response and a riposte from elsewhere:

“Most cyber attacks are opportunistic and against soft targets. I doubt that CRU has gaping holes in their security systems, precisely because they fear the risk of attack from people wanting access their data.”


“Gary McKinnon faces extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for allegedly hacking into computers at the Pentagon and NASA.”

[ludo]

FunkyGibbon said:

ludo said:

An occasional individual scientist does that sort of thing, but an organized conspiracy? Not likely.

But they may not be working on a conspiracy, they may just be doing what they are asked by governments based on a political. On the big debate thread:

ludo said:

it is not unreasonable for them [governments] to ask the scientists to investigate such a scenario and make projections based on their best understanding of the physics (as built into the models).

So maybe that's exactly what they have done, but as the data doesn't support the wishes of the pay masters people may have become more "flexible" with interpretation.

Just a thought.

Not really the same situation, as in the IPCC report the document the projection using a scenario requested by governments, so the scientists are not doing anything other than good science. The implications of the emails is that the scientists are deliberately fraudulent in the performing the science, which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

Funky Gibbon said:

However, I agree that until there is any voracity on the provenance of this material it is all speculation.

yes, absolutely. One way to provide voracity would be to reproduce the studies where the results have been doctored using the original data sources, most of which are not controlled by CRU/Hadley. The doctoring ought to be detectable if it is there.

[grumbledoak]

ludo said:

...which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

Rubbish. The 'Coming Ice Age' of the 1970s was a very profitable wheeze for some climate 'scientists'...

[ludo]

AshVX220 said:

ludo said:

You would have to be bloody stupid to do so with climate change, as if you know it is bullst, you will be proved wrong by the climate within your own lifetime, so there is little to gain (other than a prison sentence for fraud).

And yet you still don't see that because of the point you made above that it is most likely to be real and not bullst?

No, funnily enough I don't. I would have thought that the fact that the scientists would almost certainly leave themselves with their reputations in ruins and quite possibly in prison for fraud, when the climate data prove them wrong, is pretty good evidence that the hacked material is a hoax. I certainly don't see how it makes it less likely to be a hoax.

[FunkyGibbon]

ludo said:

The implications of the emails is that the scientists are deliberately fraudulent in the performing the science, which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

That's what I meant re: pay masters and flexibility. A lot of people have a lot of money tied up in this, so quite easy to believe that some decisions could be driven by financial agendas rather than science.

But we'll have to wait and see, it all could be bks.

[ewenm]

Much as the debate between the various sides in the climate arena is intellectually interesting (and frustrating at times), I have no confidence that any proof of this latest salvo as true or as a hoax will make any material difference to our lives.

Our government is committed to maximising their tax take, currently through a "green" agenda. We all know that the politicians will use or ignore science as it fits their taxation (or other) plans. The potential discrediting of the "true believers" position would cause the government to drop climate change and pick a new cause, a new fear, a new stick with which to (attempt to) subjugate the population. A few heads might roll for spinning purposes but remarkably shortly after such a discrediting we'd have moved onto a new subject.

Those in power have never been "true believers" anyway - how much of the "green" tax take is actually being put to use preparing for the "true believers" predictions? None as far as I can tell. How are the government encouraging us to actually change our behaviour (rather than just paying more for the our current behaviour)? Not at all.

The science is a mere sideshow to the politicians, there to be used if it fits, ignored if it doesn't.

[Pesty]

From here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-new...

"The director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition tonight that his organization has been hacked, and the data flying all over the internet appears to be genuine.

In an exclusive interview, Jones told TGIF, “It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”

“Have you alerted police”

“Not yet. We were not aware of what had been taken.”

Jones says he was first tipped off to the security breach by colleagues at the website RealClimate.

“Real Climate were given information, but took it down off their site and told me they would send it across to me. They didn’t do that. I only found out it had been released five minutes ago.”"

[turbobloke]

FunkyGibbon said:

ludo said:

The implications of the emails is that the scientists are deliberately fraudulent in the performing the science, which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

That's what I meant re: pay masters and flexibility. A lot of people have a lot of money tied up in this, so quite easy to believe that some decisions could be driven by financial agendas rather than science.

But we'll have to wait and see, it all could be bks.

Indeed, it could.

[ludo]

grumbledoak said:

ludo said:

...which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

Rubbish. The 'Coming Ice Age' of the 1970s was a very profitable wheeze for some climate 'scientists'...

No, it was a very profitable wheeze for some journalists. Would you care to give a list of the individual scientists making claims of a "coming ice age in the 70s" along with evidence that their careers flourished as a consequence?

[HRG]

ludo said:

grumbledoak said:

ludo said:

...which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

Rubbish. The 'Coming Ice Age' of the 1970s was a very profitable wheeze for some climate 'scientists'...

No, it was a very profitable wheeze for some journalists. Would you care to give a list of the individual scientists making claims of a "coming ice age in the 70s" along with evidence that their careers flourished as a consequence?

If, and I repeat the if, this turns out to be true how will it affect your views on MMGW?

[ludo]

FunkyGibbon said:

ludo said:

The implications of the emails is that the scientists are deliberately fraudulent in the performing the science, which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

That's what I meant re: pay masters and flexibility. A lot of people have a lot of money tied up in this, so quite easy to believe that some decisions could be driven by financial agendas rather than science.

Doubtful, if financial benefit was a key driver for them, they wouldn't be academics, it simply isn't paid all that well. When I started I turned down a job offer that was about 2/3rds more than I started on as a junior lecturer, if money rather than intellectual freedom to pursue ideas I found interesting was my primary concern, I would have never stepped foot in academia in the first place (and I would have been able to afford a new Elise in 1999, rather than a 1999 model in 2006!).

I'm still paid a lot less than the average GP, or other similarly qualified professional outside academia.

[turbobloke]

IL_JDM said:

I just can't imagine someone putting in this much effort to fake it.

1,000's of emails, which are rather large and go into extreme depth.

With real telephone numbers, faxes, e-mails...that's how it looks.

Still, time will tell.

[grumbledoak]

ludo said:

Would you care to...

No. As I don't personally profit from this shameful little bangwagon, I shall let those that do push it themselves.

[ludo]

HRG said:

ludo said:

grumbledoak said:

ludo said:

...which as I have said isn't a game that is likely to pay off for them if they know what they are saying to be untrue.

Rubbish. The 'Coming Ice Age' of the 1970s was a very profitable wheeze for some climate 'scientists'...

No, it was a very profitable wheeze for some journalists. Would you care to give a list of the individual scientists making claims of a "coming ice age in the 70s" along with evidence that their careers flourished as a consequence?

If, and I repeat the if, this turns out to be true how will it affect your views on MMGW?

it is a big if, it would mean that I would re-evalute the papers written by those involved. If they had been reproduced or validated by other groups and they were in good agreement with the data there would be no reason not to accept them, if they hadn't I would view them (the papers) as being "questionable" (I don't generally reject an idea completely unless I know it to be unequivocally incorrect, note that fact that I don't reject the possibility of the galactic cosmic ray theory, it is just I haven't seen convincing evidence that it is the cause of climatic change).