# ClimateGate 2.0? Are you fucking kidding me?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [November 27, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243 "2011-11-27T15:39:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 17

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**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/321 "2011-12-03T15:28:13Z")

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The sentence “By chance [SB03](http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/soon+baliunas.cr.2003.pdf) may have got some of these precip things right, but **we don’t want to give them any way to claim credit**.” is extremely damning, when uttered by a climate researcher. In the context of that set of emails, and the time period, it’s extremely offensive to science and any scientists who understand the wider issues.

The ignorant believer, who only knows what the “warmers” feed them, can’t understand what it means, much less fathom why it is damning for that particular emails to have been released.

The “deniers” of course are dancing with glee, or perhaps shaking their heads. In no way is it a good thing.

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/322 "2011-12-03T15:59:09Z")

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> [@Uzi](#):
>
> I don’t want our economies to tank any further than they are. When people say our only solution is to tax, I get worried.

Your simple declarations are not what it is actually recommended, taxes are not the only way to do it, unfortunately what it is clear is that many politicians have decided to ignore the issue and when the inevitable takes place, the reality is that people will then demand “worse” solutions (from the point of view of a conservative) to deal with the then worsening problem, while some would think liberals are against free enterprise I can tell you that that is not the case with me, but I do believe that ignoring science will in the long run make some people that could be part of the future economy not only into losers, but criminals for funding what it is turning to be a denalist racket.

> [@Uzi](#):
>
> I remember many years ago an announcement was made about cold fusion. My co-workers wondered why I was so excited about it. I told them that places like the Sahara Desert no longer had to be a desert. Turned out it was a bust, but I’d like to see that sort of game changer. Spend money on fusion rather then war and we might see it in our lifetime. Spend money of ways to tax people without offering them a legitimate alternative and we’ll get no where other than making people poor.

Well, as it turns out I’m also aware of that case, what I wonder is why you think that should be a good example, as it turns out science could not reproduce what the “discoverers” of cold fusion did and it did not take long to be dismissed and it took less than than a year for scientists to tell wanna be funders of a new industry to forget about it and saving humanity untold loses.

> **[Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/050399sci-cold-fusion.html)**

As it was mentioned before, AGW was described more than 100 years ago by Arhenius and the actual properties of CO2 in the atmosphere with the actual accumulation of human made CO2 told us in the 50’s forward that this was a problem. By now the point is more clear regardless of the efforts of the deniers, we should had acted yesterday and now it is harder to deal with the issue \*\*but \*\*it will be even harder to deal with it if we do not start with other efforts soon besides taxation.

Scientists are more confident now on what is coming on average for the future, they are less confident on local effects like hurricanes, FX over here is once again ignoring that in the emails those are scientists demanding others to be better and they are showing us efforts to get others to do the right thing in their view, and the evidence now is that the accusation of Tremberg controlling this to get only his point of view across is nonsense.

In the matter of hurricanes there is still a controversy on the effects global warming will have on them, so the there are reports that mention that the next IPCC one will essentially punt on this, as recent papers tell us that more probably than not there will be slightly less hurricanes but the ones that come will be more powerful than average. So, so much from Trenberg and the accusation of dictatorial powers.

OTOH scientists did punt on the previous report on the issue of accelerated ice loss from the poles because there was not enough evidence to even make a good guess on what the actual loss would be, of course this does then mean that the point of the IPCC being more conservative than it is actually a valid one, in the matter of the ice loss in the poles the recent evidence is telling us that it is more serious than many expected and it should be mentioned so in the coming report.

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/323 "2011-12-03T16:07:53Z")

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> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> The sentence “By chance [SB03](http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/soon+baliunas.cr.2003.pdf) may have got some of these precip things right, but **we don’t want to give them any way to claim credit**.” is extremely damning, when uttered by a climate researcher. In the context of that set of emails, and the time period, it’s extremely offensive to science and any scientists who understand the wider issues.
> 
> The ignorant believer, who only knows what the “warmers” feed them, can’t understand what it means, much less fathom why it is damning for that particular emails to have been released.
> 
> The “deniers” of course are dancing with glee, or perhaps shaking their heads. In no way is it a good thing.

It is extremely damming for FX that he is ignoring that the paper being referred here was indeed debunked and discredited, so much so that scientists quit the journal in disgust when the journal refused to publish even a rebuttal.

> **[potholer54](https://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#p/u/42/uXesBhYwdRo)**
>
> The purpose of this channel is to correct false scientific information on the internet. I am a former science journalist and geologist (see the "Who I am" video or channel trailer).
> 
> Feel free to post. The only rules are :
> 
> DON'T...
> 1)...

So when the researcher said “By chance SB03 may have got some of these precip things right, but we don’t want to give them any way to claim credit.” he was being generous with the makers of that sorry paper considering what was going on.

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**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/324 "2011-12-03T17:12:52Z")

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> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> [http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=632](http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=632) (email 632)
> 
> Now the problem with something like that brief section is to understand what the hell it even means, you have to be pretty educated in a lot of history, and science, and politics, and what has been going on for the last decade in regards to proxies and temperature reconstructions.
> 
> Even then, you might not grasp what it means.
> 
> I’m sure the true believer won’t have a clue. Unless they can find a prerecorded message from the warmer religion, they may be at a loss to both comprehend, as well as dismiss.

…All right, you know what, let’s just go ahead and get _the full conversation up here_.

First email:

> [@](#):
>
> Tom Wigley wrote:
> 
> Mike et al.,  
> I will send tracked editorial suggestions later. In the meantime, what is lacking in my  
> view is a clear statement at the start of the SB method. At present, the context of your later comments is a bit unclear to those who have not read the papers – which will be the case for most readers. I suggest adding the attached before your point (1). What I say here overlaps with some things you say later, so minor changes are needed (which I will send later) to avoid clear duplication.  
> We are using this to educate people about the good paleo work, but a key motivation is to demolish the bad stuff. I think, therefore, that the criticism of SB must be more focussed [sic] and specific – which is why a statement of their work is essential. This suggested new material also provides a balance, and makes what we now have appear less self serving (which I know you are not trying to do, but there is still a hint of this).  
> Tom.

Email 2:

> [@](#):
>
> At 02:53 PM 6/5/REDACTED, Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> 
> Tom  
> I agree with Mike that it is not possible to directly confront their methods in this  
> way. It can be confronted by stating clearly that cold periods that are not contemporaneous at different locations do not make for a cold hemispheric value: currently the article already makes this point to some extent but it can be made more  
> directly relevant to SB. In fact it may be worthwhile pointing out that the LIA is defined by different authors to be in different periods precisely because they were looking at a different part of the world (like blind men exploring the elephant). And we can also say that it makes no sense to equate wet or dry period with cold or warm  
> universally (ref SB). In fact what is found generally in mid lats is that warm in winter goes with wet (through moist and warm advection) and with dry in summer (drought and heat waves). So seasonality matters a lot.
> 
> Maybe we can say womething like this: It is well established in current climate studies that warm conditions tend to accompany wet conditions in the extratropics in winter owing to the dominant role of the atmospheric circulation so that southerlies are warm and moist in the northern hemisphere while northerlies are cold and dry. But in summer, the weaker atmospheric circulation means that moist thermodynamics is more important so that dry conditions favor warm spells and heat waves, as heat from the sun no longer evaporates moisture and instead increase temperatures. In the Tropics, during El Nino events, droughts occur in one part of the world (e.g. Australia) while wet conditions and floods occur in other parts (e.g. Peru), and the wet spots tend to switch with the dry spots during La Nina.
> 
> Accordingly, there is no unique link between wet or dry with warm or cold conditions (such as erroneously assumed by SB).
> 
> Not sure if this is useful but I offer it anyway.  
> Kevin

Third email:

> [@](#):
>
> Michael E. Mann wrote:
> 
> Thanks Kevin,  
> I’ve already made some revisions in response to your earlier comment about explicitly discussing the spatial variability issue with regard to the LIA/MWP. The prospective Figure 2 should help in this regard–looking forward to hearing back from Ray/Phil on that…  
> I’ll do my best to come up w/ a revised version that reflects everyones suggestions and wishes once all the comments are in,  
> mike

Fourth email:

> [@](#):
>
> At 05:08 PM 6/5/REDACTED, Tom Wigley wrote:
> 
> Dear all,  
> Re AGU’s position, this is something I must have overlooked if it was in an earlier email. One way around this is to make the scientific error points and quote SB as an example of how not to do it (which one would have to do for at least three specific points).
> 
> Re Kevin’s suggestion, his text could be misinterpreted. It implies that one might be able to use wet/dry as a T proxy if the right statistical analysis were done first. I agree with what Kevin says, but I have looked at these sort of physically meaningful relationships and they are invariably too weak to use in a paleo context. For example, if the paleo indicator explains 50% of the precip (seasonal) variance (and such a high, independently validated value is rare), and if the r\*\*2 for precip vs temp were similar, then we are left with 25% (at most – the above assumptions are very optimistic). This is weak. Worse still, this assumes no paleo atmos circulation changes, also doubtful. The bottom line is that proxy precip data _cannot_ be used as a T indicator except in the rarest of circumstances. Even in high latitudes there are problems – see, e.g., Bradley and England, late 1970s report (Ray, I’m sure you will remember this about the  
> rareness of precip events).
> 
> I think it is extremely dangerous to leave SB any loopholes here. In my view, what Kevin  
> says does just this.  
> Tom.

5th Email (and this one is pretty important, so pay close attention):

> [@](#):
>
> Hi Tom et al,  
> Wanted to comment briefly on some of the specifics below, just to make sure we don’t get too sidetracked. This is a very interesting and worthwhile discussion. In fact, these are precisely the kinds of issues that Phil and I are trying to sort out w/ the review paper we’re writing for ROG [we’ll probably be soliciting comments from many of you on different sections of that paper in the near future]. But I think its useful at this juncture to make a make a distinction between these sorts of scientifically interesting issues, and the nonsensical arguments that SB03 are actually making. We can quibble, for example, over the nature of the relationship between past variations in the surface temperature field, the atmospheric circulation, and the types of proxies that might inform our knowledge of each of these. I agree with Tom’s point that in many case precipitation indicators don’t tell us much at all about the surface temperature field, certainly in the ‘local’ sense. In a sort of ‘state space’ sense, however, they may in some instances be quite helpful. Winter drought-sensitive tree-ring chronologies provide us some of our best proxy information with regard to winter synoptic-scale variability in semi-arid regions like the desert southwest or the mediterannean. There appears to been some success (i.e., demonstrated statistical skill) in reconstructing patterns of anomalous atmospheric circulation related to the usual suspect sorts of indices (PNA, NAO, etc.) from those sorts of proxies. To the extent that much of the regional winter season variability in the extratropical surface temperature field is related to these sorts of atmospheric circulation anomalies, one expects some skill in using these predictors to reconstruct features of the cold-season atmospheric circulation and, thus, regional temperature anomalies related to those features. I think a good case has been made that we can, perhaps, understand a good detail of the structure of the extratropical winter temperature anomalies during parts of the ‘LIA’ in terms of, e.g., the behavior of the NAO–a lot of evidence now seems to be pointing in that direction. A similar argument can be made, for example, that a precipitation proxy in the western tropical Pacific may be an excellent predictor of SST variability in the eastern and central tropical Pacific, for the obvious reasons. So, in this larger-scale sense, there are some potentially useful relationships, and I agree with what Kevin says in this regard. Of  
> course, it is also true that there are some obvious stationarity assumptions implicit in this sort of reasoning, and in the use of any proxy precip/drought/atmospheric circulation information to infer or help reconstruction features in the surface  
> temperature field. There are, however, similar stationarity assumptions implicit in the idea that a modest network (say, of a dozen) proxy surface temperatures over, say, the Northern Hemisphere, can be used to reconstruct hemispheric mean temperature. The implicit assumption is that the relative importance of each of a small number of  
> locations in estimating the large-scale temperature field remains constant over time. As the number of regions sampled approaches the number of degrees of freedom in the surface temperature field, this because a better and better assumption. If were only talking about a handful of locations, it may be a pretty bad assumption. This sort of  
> stationarity assumption is potentially just as, or even more (depending on the size of the network used) suspect than the former stationarity assumption, but is much more rarely discussed or acknowledge. Of course, there are ways to test these sorts of assumptions in a modeling context, and there are several studies now published, and others in the works, , that suggest the situation probably isn’t as bad as we might have feared (again, something Phil and I will touch on in our ROG paper). See for example, these:
> 
> […]
> 
> But these are all legitimate caveats, and interesting points, that would be great to discuss over some beers sometime, and which will be given more than adequate treatment in e.g. the review paper mentioned above. Unfortunately, that’s not the task at hand. **SB03 have no appreciation whatsoever for these sorts of subtle, legitimate considerations, which involve thinking in a much higher sphere than the one they are thinking in, and certainly, the one that they are playing to. Their logic is much more basic, and immensely less reasonable, than anything we’re talking about here.**  
> Their logic, in essence, literally EQUATES hydroclimatic and temperature anomalies, since they hold that the existence of a large extreme in precipitation/drought in a particular region is as good as evidence of anomalous warmth, in support of the proposition of e.g. a “medieval warm period”. So, in a very roundabout way, what I’m saying is, lets definitely not give these bozos more credit than they deserve! Unfortunately, we have precious little space in this Eos piece. Phil and I have a lot more space in our ROG article, and this sort of discussion will help us in making sure that these issues are adequately addressed there. I suspect that this longer review, and others that Ray and folks are working on, will be helpful in e.g. the next IPCC report. But for the time being, we have to keep things simple and to the point here. What we say of course needs to be rigorously defensible and we would like to educate the readers as much as we can in the short space available, but **most of all we really have to do, in as simple terms as possible, is explain why the SB03 stuff is so fundmentally flawed**. And, to boot, we have to do so in such a way that it seems more a casual consequence of what we say, than (as it is in fact) the central motivation of the article. So there is a real balancing act here, and thats what we’re coming up against. Let me do my best to strike this balance, and see if I can come up with a revised version that strikes the right balance between everyones concerns here. Again, I still need comments from several more people before I can attempt a revised draft. So responses (e.g. in the next day or so) would be greatly appreciated from those I haven’t heard back from…  
> thanks in advance,  
> mike

Email 6 is yours:

> [@](#):
>
> Mike,  
> Well put! By chance SB03 may have got some of these precip things right, but we don’t want to give them any way to claim credit. Also, stationarity is the key. Let me tell you a story. A few years back, my son Eirik did a tree ring science fair project using trees behind NCAR. He found that widths correlated with both temp and precip. However, temp and precip also correlate. There is much other evidence that it is precip that is the driver, and that the temp/width correlation arises via the temp/precip correlation. Interestingly, the temp correlations are much more ephemeral, so the complexities conspire to make this linkage nonstationary.
> 
> I have not seen any papers in the literature demonstrating this – but, as you point out Mike, it is a crucial issue.  
> Tom.

Email 7 is inconsequential.

Email 8:

> [@](#):
>
> Mike  
> there is often no benefit in bandying fine points of emphasis and implication- Hence , I think that what you have already drafted is fine. Do not start to dilute or confuse the issue with too much additional detail. The job , as you state , is to place on record the statement of disagreement with the “science(!)” and spin. To this end , it may also be worth stating in less couched terms that merely eyeballing the relative magnitudes of recent versus prior period(s) of large scale warmth, is in itself very limited as a basis for claiming the reality OR OTHERWISE of anthropogenic forcing of the recent warming , if this is done without reference to the uncertainty and causes of these differences. The points you make to Tom are of course very valid , but do not be tempted to guild the lily too much here - stick with your current content.
> 
> Keith

So… Yeah. Look through all of that for a moment and see if you can spot why that one email is not as damning as you think it is. First of all, SB03 was a piece of research which they have _completely_ debunked. As GIGO pointed out:

> [@](#):
>
> It is extremely damming for FX that he is ignoring that the paper being referred here was indeed debunked and discredited, so much so that scientists quit the journal in disgust when the journal refused to publish even a rebuttal.

So they’re trying to ensure that it gets no credit… because it _deserves_ no credit. They’re trying to work the point into their research that SB03 was completely debunked without making it too heavy-handed, because things like that tend to confuse the general public. So, once again, we have someone taking the email _out of context_, and using it to further their agenda by claiming that it says something which, upon further research, it clearly does not. Pretty much everything found here belongs to the category of honest scientific discussion and debate. Not a cover-up, not a smear campaign, honest scientific discussion and debate. I wish we could say the same of your attempts to take these things out of context.

> [@FXMastermind](#):
>
> Again, the fallacy of a leading question.

How the fuck is this a leading question? Seriously, define “leading question” for me, so that I can get a clue what the hell you’re talking about. Alternatively, you could _ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION_, and if you’re not pleased by the way it’s formulated, then you can reformulate it in a way you are more pleased with, or explain what exactly you _are_ trying to do. It is _incredibly_ dishonest to bring up something like this and not make it clear what you’re trying to do when there are 3 very clear, very different reasons why it could possibly matter.

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**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/325 "2011-12-03T20:19:29Z")

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> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> It’s called public opinion.

Well why should the likes of Michael Mann or Phil Jones care about public opinion? The only reason I can think of is if they are advocates for a particular position, which you seem to admit they are. Do you agree with this?

> [@](#):
>
> Does it even matter worth a damn? In regards to the science involved, you have absolutely no change in the actual data.

I’m not sure what your point is here. Are you claiming that all information which was attempted to be supressed was available elsewhere? That the equivalent was available elsewhere?

> [@](#):
>
> Unfinished work? Incomplete analyses? Private Emails? Fuck yes, I think it’s reasonable to withhold that.

So just so we are clear, your position is that the desire to avoid hostile and unfair scrutiny:

(1) is NOT a legitimate reason to withhold the data which underlies a published study;

(2) IS a legitimate reason to withhold correspondence between or among government employees and government-funded researchers.

Is that your position?

> [@](#):
>
> Maybe then, you can understand, if just for a moment, why these people are reluctant to give it out to them?

Of course I can understand. Nobody likes having their work subjected to hostile scrutiny. I personally run a business in a regulated industry. Once in a while, an unsatisfied customer will call me and ask for a copy of his entire file. I’m never thrilled about such requests, but I always comply even though it can and does lead to unfounded complaints which waste my time.

Nonetheless, the law requires that I provide a copy of the file. Even if in my judgment the customer is crazy and dishonest and is just looking to cause problems for me. Ultimately, it’s a just law because long experience has shown that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/326 "2011-12-03T20:28:44Z")

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> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> but why not then follow up with a quick _“but, having said that, we currently forecast at least X rise in temperature over the next Y years,”_ for whatever values of X and Y you believe are coming?

Besides the problem of falsifiability, there is another issue at stake, which is the prescriptive aspect of the debate.

The warmists are saying in essence the following:

> [@](#):
>
> We need to promptly and drastically curtail CO2 emissions, because if we do not do so then A, B, and C will happen.

If “A, B, and C” includes stable or cooling temperatures for the next 100 years, then the warmist call for action doesn’t seem that compelling.

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**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/327 "2011-12-03T21:34:03Z")

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Preface: slightly drunk. Again. Take my post with a grain of salt.

> [@brazil84](#):
>
> Well why should the likes of Michael Mann or Phil Jones care about public opinion? The only reason I can think of is if they are advocates for a particular position, which you seem to admit they are. Do you agree with this?

They should care about public opinion for the same reason an evolutionary paleontologist should care about public opinion in regards to creationism – if enough stupid people elect enough ignorant/biased/corrupt politicians, they could see any and all hints of funding dry up. If it gets to the point where funding them becomes a political liability, _no government employee will do it_. That’s why public opinion matters in all cases in regards to science; that isn’t even touching on the moral issues involved in global warming or the reputations of the scientists involved. To claim that the way the public views your research doesn’t matter is stupid. One needs merely look back to the 2008 elections and recall what Sarah Palin said about crucial genetic research on fruit flies.

> [@](#):
>
> I’m not sure what your point is here. Are you claiming that all information which was attempted to be supressed was available elsewhere? That the equivalent was available elsewhere?

I’m claiming that it doesn’t change the actual facts. Whether or not they suppressed the data, their information (and the conclusions pulled from it) was confirmed by outside sources, including the BEST study, a study funded by _Koch Industries_. The data is still the same, and it actually is currently openly available; I’m not sure if it was or not back then, but from what I’ve seen that does seem to be the case. Whether or not you use their reluctance to release it as a way of discrediting the researchers, the overall science still stands. And this is why I posted that post a ways back about how we really should determine what exactly we’re trying to do.

> [@](#):
>
> So just so we are clear, your position is that the desire to avoid hostile and unfair scrutiny:
> 
> (1) is NOT a legitimate reason to withhold the data which underlies a published study;

Indeed; the full, raw data should be available to everyone, although it is perhaps reasonable to sit on it before a paper’s publication (to prevent things like, say, incomplete data sets).

> [@](#):
>
> (2) IS a legitimate reason to withhold correspondence between or among government employees and government-funded researchers.
> 
> Is that your position?

More or less. I mean, why should it not be okay for these employees to have _private correspondence_ when they are not directly employed by the government and they have no real authority figures?

> [@](#):
>
> Of course I can understand. Nobody likes having their work subjected to hostile scrutiny. I personally run a business in a regulated industry. Once in a while, an unsatisfied customer will call me and ask for a copy of his entire file. I’m never thrilled about such requests, but I always comply even though it can and does lead to unfounded complaints which waste my time.
> 
> Nonetheless, the law requires that I provide a copy of the file. Even if in my judgment the customer is crazy and dishonest and is just looking to cause problems for me. Ultimately, it’s a just law because long experience has shown that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Is the law on the side of those who demand the private conversations? The data I can understand, but the emails? O.o

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/328 "2011-12-04T11:45:02Z")

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Slight tangent:

[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/9K74fzNAUq4/hqdefault.jpg "Monckton responds (part 1/2)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K74fzNAUq4)

[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/1xx5h1KNMAA/hqdefault.jpg "Monckton responds (part 2/2)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xx5h1KNMAA)

Fuck “Lord” Monckton.

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**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/329 "2011-12-04T14:46:10Z")

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> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> Preface: slightly drunk. Again. Take my post with a grain of salt…

Quick, somebody warn Poland!

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**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/330 "2011-12-04T15:36:47Z")

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[Farnsworth] Good news, everyone! [/Wernstrom]

Or at least, the potential for good news.

New battery technology, a way to store energy from unreliable and/or intermittent sources. I wont cite, its all over the place.

[Trump] This is gonna be huge! [/Toupee]

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**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/331 "2011-12-04T15:46:12Z")

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Changed my mind. Here.

[http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/november/longlife-power-storage-112311.html](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/november/longlife-power-storage-112311.html)

**Nanoparticle electrode for batteries could make large-scale power storage on the energy grid feasible, say Stanford researchers**

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**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/332 "2011-12-04T23:24:18Z")

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Cool!  
Now imagine such a battery hooked up to the current grid. Even the current fossil fuel driven generators become more efficient as they don’t need so many online spares, while it makes it easier to add alternative sources, including home power generation, to the grid.  
Technology is the way to move forward.🙂

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**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/333 "2011-12-05T00:02:30Z")

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We of the Techno-Amish movement agree: use technology to create simplicity. Use the same tools we used to plunder the Earth to save it. Swords into plowshares, more or less.

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/334 "2011-12-05T00:42:05Z")

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> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> Slight tangent:  
> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K74fzNAUq4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K74fzNAUq4)  
> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xx5h1KNMAA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xx5h1KNMAA)
> 
> Fuck “Lord” Monckton.

For those that do not want to check the video, that is Peter Hadfield demonstrating once again what a dishonest piece of crap Lord (not of the commons) Monckton is, it is to the eternal shame of the Republican partly that they invited Monckton in the recent past to testify in congress to say that we should not worry at all about this issue based on his false arguments. And even after all that, Monckton \*\*continues \*\*to be a darling for the Tea Party and FOX news.

Contrarians are indeed filing for intellectual bankruptcy and that includes the right wing media and sites that are is giving them attention that is not deserved at all.

> **[Contrarians File for Intellectual Bankruptcy](https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/contrarians-file-for-intellectual-bankruptcy/)**
>
> As a recovering climate change contrarian, I remember well the kinds of things that most impressed me as I went through the process of changing my mind.  It’s true that the mainstream scienti…

> [@](#):
>
> The recent release of 5,000 more stolen e-mails from the University of East Anglia servers has served to reinforce this impression. The stolen e-mails were released along with a README file that included what the hackers apparently thought of as the most damning quotes, and which contrarians have gleefully repeated. (Juliette Jowit at The Guardian has investigated the context of many of these quotes, and her article is well worth a read.) As a working scientist, none of the quotes I have seen has been even remotely surprising. In many of them, the mainstream climate scientists involved made waspish remarks about EACH OTHER, or expressed strong disagreement about EACH OTHER’S work. **Wait… I thought the contrarian argument was that these guys uncritically accept anything from their side of the fence. The stolen e-mails make it abundantly clear that this is not the case, although they might provide some limited support for contrarians who have also expressed disagreement about one point or another.**
> 
> Even out of context, however, I am baffled by the inclusion of some of the quotes in a list that is supposed to be damning to the mainstream scientists. Tommy Wills, for instance, wrote in one e-mail, “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably….” The only possible reason for thinking this quote is damning is that Wills mentions the possibility that recent global warming is mainly due to natural fluctuations. But since the mainstream view is that this appears very unlikely, rather than impossible, given presently available data, I fail to see why this would impress anyone, aside from the sort of dullards who are incapable of understanding arguments based on probability.
> 
> Wills not only mentioned the bare possibility that the mainstream scientists were wrong, however. He went on to say that if they were, they would probably end up getting lynched. I imagine Wills was making a lighthearted joke, here, but sometimes we make jokes out of things that aren’t too far from the truth. Arch-contrarian Lord Christopher Monckton recently told a cheering Australian crowd, for instance, “So to the bogus scientists who have produced the bogus science that invented this bogus scare I say, we are coming after you. We are going to prosecute you, and we are going to lock you up.” So what the out-of-context quote from Tommy Wills really indicates is that 1) mainstream climate scientists like Wills do consider the possibility that their main conclusions are wrong, and 2) they are aware that the issue is so politically charged that there might be serious consequences for being wrong. Honestly, how stupid would a contrarian have to be to include Wills’s quote in the highlights reel?
> 
> Am I mistaken to think this kind of thing represents a serious lack of intellectual horsepower under the hood? Could it be that the contrarians are simply having a little petty fun exposing e-mails from (and about) their opponents that seem mildly embarrassing? I don’t think so, but let me illustrate why by pointing to a little mini-controversy I participated in just as the story broke about the new e-mails.

More on the link from a former skeptic that looked at the evidence and became convinced, \*\*Republican \*\*Scientist from BYU, Barry Brickmore.

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**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/335 "2011-12-05T03:15:19Z")

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> [@elucidator](#):
>
> …use technology to create simplicity.

Oddly enough, that’s what my role has been for the last few years. Demonstrating the effectiveness of simplifying systems and how to create efficiency because of it. Identifying the goal and ensuring all work being done is only done if it moves us in the correct direction. Simplifying because complex systems fail while simple systems are more robust and easier to fix when they do eventually fail. Then ensuring that the correct reporting is in place to monitor and to allow predictions on when that failure will occur.  
But I don’t throw out the older, complex systems until I have something to effectively replace it with.

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**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/336 "2011-12-05T16:43:10Z")

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Hey FX! Still waiting!

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**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/337 "2011-12-05T17:52:08Z")

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For what?

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**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/338 "2011-12-05T18:14:36Z")

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A few things…

1. A definition of what you consider a “leading question”
2. An email which is _actually damning_ to the research
3. Failing 2, An admission of wrongness

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**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/339 "2011-12-07T19:39:51Z")

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Sen. Barbara Boxer to climate change deniers:

[‘You are endangering humankind.’](http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/197815-boxer-to-climate-deniers-you-are-endangering-human-kind)

> [@](#):
>
> “The message I have for climate deniers is this: you are endangering humankind,” Boxer said during a press conference in the Capitol. “It is time for climate deniers to face reality, because the body of evidence is overwhelming and the world’s leading scientists agree.”
> 
> “Wishing that climate change will go away by clinging to a tiny minority view is not a policy — it is a fantasy,” Boxer said. “Problems do not go away by pretending they do not exist. And the longer that vocal minority insists on keeping their heads in the sand, the more it endangers billions of people around the globe and threatens to dramatically and negatively reshape the world as we know it.”

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**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/climategate-2-0-are-you-fucking-kidding-me/604243/340 "2011-12-11T03:34:08Z")

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> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> They should care about public opinion for the same reason an evolutionary paleontologist should care about public opinion in regards to creationism – if enough stupid people elect enough ignorant/biased/corrupt politicians, they could see any and all hints of funding dry up.

I’m glad to see someone admit that the likes of Phil Jones and Michael Mann have a direct personal financial interest in public belief that AGW is a serious problem.

> [@](#):
>
> I’m claiming that it doesn’t change the actual facts.

I would say that there is no way to know that without full disclosure. There’s no way to know for sure how many climate simulations and temperature reconstructions have been quietly discarded by warmist researchers. Which means all of their work is suspect.

> [@](#):
>
> Indeed; the full, raw data should be available to everyone, although it is perhaps reasonable to sit on it before a paper’s publication (to prevent things like, say, incomplete data sets).

Well, it would appear that the warmist researchers have not lived up even to your standards. For example, Phil Jones published a paper in 2004 “Climate Over Past Millennia” which seems to have relied in part on CRU station data.

In 2005, Jones apparently stated the following in an e-mail:

> [@](#):
>
> The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.
> 
> We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.

> [@](#):
>
> More or less. I mean, why should it not be okay for these employees to have _private correspondence_ when they are not directly employed by the government and they have no real authority figures?

:shrug: Phil Jones was and is a government employee.

> [@](#):
>
> The data I can understand, but the emails? O.o

In my opinion, they should not be allowed to hide anything with respect to their research.

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