ClimateGate: A criminal offense (or two)

cartoon scientist behind bars

We all know something is gravely wrong, but what exactly are the crimes implicated?  This insight comes from Richard S. Courtney, who has been an expert witness for the UK Parliament, and House of Lords, the IPCC and was one of 15 scientists invited to speak for the US congress in 2000.

Jones, Briffa and Mann seem to have committed several criminal offences.

These include:

1. Misappropriation of public funds

They deliberately falsified data then used the results of the falsification to obtain additional research funding.  This is criminal fraud under English Law.

2. Deliberate attempt to prevent disclosure of information that was requested under the FOI Act

They colluded to destroy information that was the subject of an FOI request.  This is a criminal offence under English Law.

These two offences will do for starters, but there are others, too.  Indeed, both of the above offences can be doubled by charging the alleged miscreants with conspiracy in each case. Jones, Briffa and Mann should be prosecuted as a warning to others who would pervert science as a method to promote a political agenda. However, there is little probability that the Crown Prosecution Service will charge the alleged miscreants.  It is more likely that they will be awarded Knighthoods.

And those like Monbiot who colluded in all of this will say, “We did not know”.

Monbiot has repeatedly vilified those of us who have been championing the cause of science against the unfounded climate scare.  He is not alone in such behaviour.

Climate realists and our work have been vilified and smeared.  Entire web sites have been established to tell lies about us.  Publication of our scientific work has been inhibited, and personal attacks have been the norm:  for example, I have had computer systems damaged by concerted attacks, Lomborg has had a pie pushed in his face, some (e.g. Tenekes, Michaels, etc.) have had their employment terminated, and Tim Ball has had death threats.

Monbiot seems to be covering himself now what has been happening is plain for all to see as a result of the stolen (?) CRU files having been released.

In a side meeting organised by Fred Singer at an IPCC Meeting in London in 2001 I said; “When the ‘chickens come home to roost’ – as they surely will with efluxion of time – the journalists and politicians won’t say, “It was our fault”. They will say, “it was the scientists’ fault“, and that’s me, and I object!

I can still see no reason to change that opinion.

Richard Courtney


A question of justice

Any experts of the UK legal system out there? Can we expand on his thoughts. Who could bring these charges forward? What would it take to make sure that these men face justice? Not only would this remind other scientists of their scientific and legal obligations, it would also make it harder for those in power to find scientists they could exploit. This is critical if we are to stop ambitious greedy people wielding science as a weapon against us.

How do we prevent this?

These crimes appear to have been going on for ten years. The system has failed all of us, including Jones, Mann and Briffa. They would be far better off now if they had been picked up for something minor right at the start. Ideally it would be best if scientists themselves had a system to deal with this form of transgression before it became a question of criminal proceedings, but all forms of auditing have failed. The peer review system became corrupted due to monopolistic money distorting the incentives; science journals failed; scientific associations failed too (death by committee?), and poorly trained science journalists were oblivious (ignoring whistle-blowers, and logic, while they parroted press releases). Ultimately the only “net” left to catch any crimes in science were the bloggers, and a few individual scientists.

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121 comments to ClimateGate: A criminal offense (or two)

  • #
    Henry chance

    Mann is not under British law. Jones is under under mail fraud and using the mail system to commit fraudulent activity.

    School policies on FOIA

    http://www.uea.ac.uk/is/foi/guidance

    2. That any individual making a request for information is entitled to be informed in writing by the University whether or not the University holds the information, and if it does to have the information communicated to them within the specified time limit of 20 working days.

    Jones tampered with University property by reason of altering and deleting files.

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  • #

    What kind of justice is possible for the crime of conspiring with the wannabe dictators of the world to steal the combined productive wealth of the developed world? Such a theft, if allowed to occur, can only result in a total collapse of the world’s economy and mass extinction of man. Most of us are alive today BECAUSE of modern technological civilization and would not know how to survive without it. After its all over, there might be a few miserable specimens of humans living in dank caves eating rats, cockroaches, and grass. The perpetrators of the greatest crime ever would have already expired with the words “I didn’t mean this to happen – I meant well”. No, they didn’t. They mean ill for mankind as is evidenced by their every corrupt word and action. Their words have been proven to have no real world significance.

    In response to the obscenity of their actions, one is almost tempted to say “Hang em high and then give them a fair trial.” Perhaps they should be required to live out THEIR lives in dank caves eating rats, cockroaches, and grass. While the rest of us put on a huge barbecue and beer party to celebrate the end of the Anthropomorphic Global Warming (aka Climate Change) fraud.

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  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    I’ve written to my MP, but will it do any good? I suspect the best we can hope for is an independent commission which the government will set up to investigate and which will after many months apply a good coating of whitewash.

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  • #
    Denny

    Came across this great article from Statistician William M Briggs. It’s what He’s been stating all along.

    http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1285.last

    and Marc Sheppard, American Thinker, he always provides a great article:

    http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1283.last

    Joanne, hope you are able to burn the “Candle” at both ends for you have to be busy!!! Another great article, I posted it today at GWH.com and proud to do so…

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  • #
    Denny

    Phillip Bratby: Post 3,

    I’ve written to my MP, but will it do any good?

    Phillip, always remember, a “snow storm” ALWAYS starts with a snow flake!!!!

    Keep at it and don’t give up! Keep sending emails to your Politicans…also to friends and family…

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  • #
    Rob H

    What about the 100 years of world wide temperature data that was “destroyed” by the CRU in August 2009, after years of requests for the data were turned down for specious reasons? This data is the support for the IPCC claim of 0.7C warming in the 20th century. From the emails leaked from the CRU there is reason to doubt this warming took place.
    Without this claim being proved the IPCC global warming reports collapse.

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  • #
    Mike Davis

    I understand our Senate is demanding an investigation and has advised these people who have written these e-mails to not delete any files are the files are to be reviewed. The circling of the wagons and taking a defensive position on this only makes these people appear they have more to hide than what has already been revealed.
    This appears similar to the situation where there are 20 witnesses to a shooting and the suspect pleads not guilty and claims he did not do anything wrong because in the end it comes out he was hiding other crimes by killing the victim and those crimes involved many more perpetrators who he was protecting.
    I wonder how many will turn states evidence to help convict others for a lighter sentence.

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  • #
    Ray Hibbard

    It’s defiantly getting hotter in the states for the global warmest. But not the kind of heat they were forecasting. I have been watching this unfold over the last few days and being the die hard pessimist that I am expected that everything would be quietly brushed under the rug. At first that seemed to be what was happening if you read the New York Times. But now other news outlets are picking up the story and running with it. The Washington Post had a not to flattering article and Drudge is keeping it above the fold. I won’t switch teams yet and become an optimist but I see a chance for us all to dodge one hell of a bullet.

    Perhaps a fitting punishment for these men would be, to be stripped of there positions, denied to ever work in any scientific field or to publish any work from this day forth. In short be treated as the intellectual lepers they in fact are. Then when they are working the cash register at the convenience store they can come to terms with the immediacy with which most people live their lives and how just a gentle push in the wrong direction can make the difference between making it and ending up on the street dumpster diving.

    I have been reading all the posts for the last few days. Words tend to fail when confronted with the enormity of the lies and the venom spewed from these people. When you consider how many would pay the price should their grand plan be implemented it is difficult to remain calm or civilized. They are beneath contempt.

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  • #
    MattB

    I see reference to Lomborg… but Lomborg is a warmist isn’t he… just one who thinks we should adapt as it is cheaper.

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  • #
    CyberForester

    “a fitting punishment” – To take out national daily newspaper and television advertising worldwide, at the own expense, and state that they fudged the numbers and there is no proven causal link between CO2 emissions and climate change. (Problem is they are utterly discredited so who could believe them).

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  • #
    Denny

    Here’s the latest!

    Breaking: NZ’s NIWA Accused of CRU-Style Temperature Faking by TBR.cc

    http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1286.last

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  • #
    MattB

    I know you’ll suggest ad-hom, but I encourage people to google “Richard S. Courtney”… considerable debate about claims to be an IPCC expert witness… or at least regarding the fact that ANYONE could be one through the channels that Courtney participated. Does not appear to have any climate related qualifications or publications I note.

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  • #
    Anne-Kit Littler

    I’m sorry, I’m a little confused. Richard S Courtney’s status and qualifications are relevant to this post in …. exactly what manner, MattB?

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  • #
    MattB

    You’d have to ask Jo AKL – relevent enough for them to be referenced in Jo’s opening paragraph I guess: “This insight comes from Richard S. Courtney, who has been an expert witness for the UK Parliament, and House of Lords, the IPCC and was one of 15 scientists invited to speak for the US congress in 2000.”

    Credit to Jo at least she didn’t refer to him as Dr Richard S. Courtney, or PhD.

    But basically they are relevant as the post is clearly framed to make it appear that he has some standing and respect in the field of climate change. If you like an “appeal to authority”.

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  • #
    Peter Pond

    Like Phillip Bratby I sometimes have moments when I wonder if the real climate science (whatever that is) will ever come to the fore. Australian’s Chief Scientist has a recent piece on our ABC website ( http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/11/25/2753561.htm?topic=enviro&WT.mc_id=news_climatechange ) where she says ” Current CO2 equivalent emissions are 455 ppm and rising ”

    I am not sure where she got that figure from? Perhaps there is a difference between “emissions level” and the level of CO2 in the atmosphere (as measured at Mauna Loa), which is around 390ppm?

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  • #
    Anne-Kit Littler

    MattB, you are grasping at straws. Introducing a writer by stating his background is not the same as “appeal to authority”.

    Richard’s headline statement: “Jones, Briffa and Mann seem to have committed several criminal offences” could be made by anyone with the basic knowledge of his or her national laws (which should be all of us, right?).

    We should all be able to speak up against possible criminal activity without ideologues bleating “nah, nah, you don’t have the right qualifications to speak!”

    You reveal yourself as the “appealant to authority” by doing just that, Matt.

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  • #
    co2isnotevil

    Matt,

    Does the leak of this information make the results pushed by those involved more or less authoritative? Most AGW skeptics only want to see an open debate. If all this does is enable debate, whoever leaked the data should get a medal.

    George

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  • #
    Zany

    Who is the INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY that will investigate these apparently criminal activities? Another government funded body? This is corruption from the highest level down!

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  • #
    Denny

    MattB: Post 14,

    Credit to Jo at least she didn’t refer to him as Dr Richard S. Courtney, or PhD.

    Matt, Joanne didn’t give any credentials because Mr. Courtney isn’t a Scientist. He’s a Consultant! You can see His credentials at the top of this article!

    Here is His credentials! Your sarcasum is getting old…..
    http://www.globalwarmingheartland.com/expert.cfm?expertId=135

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  • #
    Denny

    Here at Powerline, John has some interesting views about what is going on in the ClimateGate Affair..Check it out!

    http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1287.last

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  • #
    MattB

    Sorry Anne you can’t have it both ways. The intro to the article selivers reasons why Mr Courtney is someone who should be taken seriously on the issue. Of course it does not change the context of the main article, and absolutely it could stand alone without the appeal in the introduction. I never said he does not have the right to speak, although I personally doubt that either of the accusations made in point 1 and 2 would stand up in court, especially point 1, but of course if it ends up way that will be a court’s decision, not a court jester’s.

    CO2 I don;t disagree with your post in #17. Personally I don;t think there is much more than embarrasment for the authors about some loosely chosen words, and also some seemingly non-ideal behaviour, but I think it takes a particularly one-eyed reading of the emails to say “They deliberately falsified data then used the results of the falsification to obtain additional research funding.”

    Take Monbiot’s claim they should resign… maybe, but it is more the erosion of public faith in an instituation than actual criminal activity. A bit like when a pollie gets turfed for sleeping with a barmaid… and I guess science isn;t politics, but if you are at the cutting edge of such a profile and high-impact public debate then you occupy a grey area between science and politics, especially when emails show up that suggest you are making quasi-political judgements. He should step down if only to take one for the team… fall on his sword.

    But again this goes to the introduction… here people are bleating about integrity in science, but then happily say that COurtney was an expert witness for the IPCC…

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  • #
    NikFromNYC

    Sounds like Monbiot was one of the few to actually have figured this all out before hand so he’s the only one so far to know how to spin it in a way that makes him come out looking good instead of bad.

    Except that he bad mouthed skeptics. Oops. He’s no longer invited to the table, no matter how dumb he plays. As *if* these e-mails were his first inkling that something was amiss? You don’t change your whole self image overnight if you hadn’t already been prepared to do so when and if the scandal broke.

    This is the chart that turned me into a skeptic in the first place. Oddly enough it’s one of the few arguments (besides the fact that T sensitivity to CO2 is likely *not* subject to massive positive feedback) that self-skepticism hasn’t made me any less proud to put on display:

    http://i45.tinypic.com/iwq8a1.jpg

    It’s the temperature of East Anglia. I’m not sure if it’s raw data. It might actually be cooling there if it’s not.

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  • #
    David Harrington

    I have started a petition for Uk residents and expats on the Number 10 web site. If you are a UK resident or national please support it.

    http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/HADLEY-LEAK/

    if we make enough noise we can get a hearing.

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  • #
    kuhnkat

    MattB,

    ” I never said he does not have the right to speak, although I personally doubt that either of the accusations made in point 1 and 2 would stand up in court, especially point 1, but of course if it ends up way that will be a court’s decision, not a court jester’s.”

    Nothing like a little ad hom among friends huh Matt??

    Why don’t we try a little reason. Depending on the actual EVIDENCE, the allegations will or will not stand up in court. Your opinion is about as useful as my dead dogs.

    There is EVIDENCE, in the form of their own statements, that support the allegations. Suck it up Bubba!!

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  • #
    Papertiger

    Hide the decline Bom style.

    See the hockeystick…

    Say the magic words “East Anglia

    … and Poof! Now it’s gone.

    Where’d it go?

    /Tip o the magic hat to BernieL at WUWT

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  • #
    MattB

    kuhnkat – the above post is about criminal offences… hence my statement about standing up in court is a valid one to make.

    That court jester line was a good one – glad you liked it:)

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  • #
    Matty

    Re; # 22 – Pre-emptive spin from Monbiot?

    Ii don’t think Monbiot knows what he has done with the “we need an inquiry, Jone’s head, and more preparedness from greens to deal with their own denial” stuff. The preservation of the AGW faith, cognitively, is like a closed circuit that doesn’t tolerate much incursion of logic or fact. They can’t afford to do any of that and I’d be surprised if he wasn’t getting emails saying, shut up! Jon Faine at ABC saye climategate “not newsworthy”. That’s the kind of siege mentality they need at the moment and George is breaking ranks a little and prizing that door ajar a bit means the closed circuit get tested. Like you, writer Michael Duffy’s curiousity started with one graph, but if he was Jon Faine he would have binned it, and George didn’t. I think the circuit goes pow as soon as the logic gets in and these people have developed all sorts of tricks to avoid that. If it isn’t reinforced and insulated all the time with group think and doses of revolutionary zeal it’s in trouble. I notice he says “we all know sceptics are scumbags”, which makes him ignorant mainly(surprised anyone?), but I think he has set himself up for a breach of his own circuit. I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes the first high profile convert to climate realism because any inquiring/accountable disposition leads one way only with this one. As long as he means it!

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Papertiger

    I hate that IPCC graph. It assumes that all of the observed warming, all 0.7 deg C of it, is due to anthropomorphic causes.

    Rubbish! The world is still emerging from the Little Ice Age and has been by about 0.6 deg C per year for the last 1500 years.

    Oh sorry, I forgot, the Little Ice Age was expunged by Mann, et al at the same time as they got rid of the Medieval Warming Period. How silly of me to forget that the little ice age never occurred.

    OMG, nearly a whole degree a year – Everybody Panic!

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  • #
    Richard S Courtney

    Matt B:

    The culpability of Jones, Briffa and Mann is not affected in any way by my being the Devil Incarnate. The stolen (?) CRU files demonstrate their culpability.

    I am an evil soul. Say that to the world if you want. But do not think your saying that alters the culpability of Jones, Briffa and Mann.

    Attempts are often made to divert attention from issues by smearing those who point to the issues: it is a common tactic. So, smear me any way you want. Entire web sites have been set up to smear climate realists including myself. I have nothing to fear. But Jones, Briffa and Mann do.

    The CRU is but one part of what has been happening. The stolen (?) CRU files show what has been happening at CRU. It has been happening around the world, for example see
    http://www.nzclimatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/global_warming_nz2.pdf

    The dam has burst and evidence for the corruption of so-called climate science is coming before the public. Those who have vested interest in hiding the corruption are trying to put fingers in the hole, but the flow of evidence cannot be stopped.

    It seems that those trying to plug the hole are saying
    (a)
    there is nothing to see (the Nelsonian eye defence),
    (b)
    those explaining the meaning of the corruption are not nice people (well, I am not, but so what?),
    (c)
    Jones, Briffa and Mann are ‘a few rotten apples in the barrel’ so the corruption will be corrected by sacrificing them (but the rot extends throughout much of the barrel).

    Pressure is building to use Jones as a scapegoat, but that will not work because it is not sufficient to stop the flow. This time the damage limitation will need to be more than finding a scapegoat and smearing those who point out the dam has burst.

    Jones, Briffa and Mann need to be prosecuted as a deterrent to others.

    Richard

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  • #
    Aqua Fyre

    The media are walking around like zombies as if nothing has happened.

    This whole email scam is dying on the Google news page.

    Almost no mainstream media group has bothered to pick it up.

    Don’t bother telling me why they are not…

    It’s obvious that the media moguls have vested interests in pushing the whole AGW scam.

    Maybe they’ll use all that money to paper over the sordid nature of their souls.

    God help us all.

    Aqua Fyre

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  • #
    Mattb

    Richard if you read the posts you’ll see I’ve not smeared you. The “court Jester” line was actually a sly little rib-poke at AK Littler and not yourself if that is what offended. I don;t think I said you are evil either so I doubt I’ll be telling it to the world anytime soon. I do question the accuracy of Jo’s intro, designed to “talk up” your climate credentials to add authority to your post – you may not be aware that the blog pointedly criticises such appeals to authority by others on a regular basis.

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  • #
    Richard S Courtney

    MattB:

    The point at issue is that the CRUgate files demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that Jones, Briffa and Mann behaved in a corrupt manner and some of their actions were clearly illegal. This is demonstrated by their own words in the emails, and they do not dispute the authenticity of the emails.

    A start to cleaning up the corruption of so-called climate science requires that Jones, Briffa and Mann be prosecuted for their illegal actions.

    You ignore the point at issue and keep trying to get me to bite on your red herring. I will not bite, so I have made no mention of any of your falsehoods about me, and I will not be drawn into discussion of them. I hope that is now clear.

    All your points about me are irrelevant to the point at issue. But your points demonstrate the nature of the arguments of those who support the corruption. I mention one example.

    You assert that I have not published on climate. This is a variant of the common lie that climate realists do not publish in the peer-reviewed literature. So, look for my name as author or co-author in papers in this list of ‘450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming’ and see the date of my first such publication in that list (it is not my first such publication).
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

    The need to clean up the corruption of climate science is not reduced by lies and defamations of those who point out what needs to be done.

    Richard

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  • #
    Mattb

    I’m not surprised you’re not biting, I’ve thrown no bait? I encourage you to read my posts and find anything offensive, smearing or falsehoods?

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  • #
    Mattb

    and a counter opinion to that posted in #11 by Denny re: data manipulation in NZ:
    http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/

    “Unfortunately for him, and for the credibility of any of the members of the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition, Treadgold’s approach to the issue is ignorant, his results meaningless, and he can have no excuse for not knowing he was wrong. Worse, Treadgold, Dunleavy and the rest of the NZ CSC seem determined to smear NZ’s best-known and most respected climatologist, Jim Salinger (who did much of the early work on NZ’s temperature record), based on little more than straightforward lies.”

    such unfortunate double standards Denny.

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  • #
    Steve Clark

    AGW sat on a wall
    AGW had a great fall
    All the kings slugs
    And all of MSM
    Couldn’t put AGW back together again.

    It’s over.

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  • #

    […] Meanwhile, it appears that several of the gents involved in the ClimateGate emails might have broken laws. […]

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  • #

    The climate change scandal is to science what the gay pedophile problem is to the Catholic Church. The alleged bad behavior of a small number of scientists–CRU, Penn, et cetera–are adversely impacting the credibility of all scientists.
    The public now wonders if all Catholic priests are gay pedophiles. How long before they think all scientists regularly falsify data and twist studies to achieve a political end?

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  • #
    Mattb

    Newt I seriously think that the comment “The public now wonders if all Catholic priests are gay pedophiles” is possibly the most absurd I’ve ever heard, with or without the even more absurd comparison to AGW. I suggest you don;t become a political speech writer any time soon.

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  • #

    Mattb:
    hyperbole –noun Rhetoric.
    1. obvious and intentional exaggeration.
    2. an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

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  • #
    Mattb

    No Newt – I really do think your statement is absurd.

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  • #

    Mattb:
    Then at least be accurate in your analysis of my original post. I used the words “climate change” and made no reference to AGW. Yet, you said that I had made an “absurd comparison to AGW.” Your eagerness to criticize must have distorted my words after they entered your eyes, but before the reached your brain.
    I regret trying to voice an opinion here. Web sites are best left to the trolls.

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  • #
    Mattb

    Sorry Newt I didn’t realise that using Anthropogenic Global Warming not Climate Change made any difference to your post.

    But you miss the point which is the the public DON”T wonder if all Catholic Priests are gay pedophiles.

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  • #

    Newt,

    Ignore Mattb. He couldn’t get a clue from a warehouse full of clues. He is nothing but a troll but he is our troll. We use him for comic relief. He has this “interesting” distortion filter in his brain that morphs anything he sees, hears, or reads into something quite different from what it actually is.

    I agree with your statement except I don’t think it hyperbole. If anything, its an understatement. The Catholic Church and its adherent’s are irrelevant to the modern world and technological civilization. It is simply doing what it has done since the Dark Ages and asserting power and control over the helpless and ignorant. Science has done better than that or we would not have the technological civilization we have.

    Bad science drives out good science just as bad money drives out good money. It will take absolute honesty and transparency along with a staggering amount of education on the basics of the scientific method to reverse the problem. In fact, we will have to fight the whole postmodern philosophy establishment to do it. It won’t be easy.

    There is one thing though, we have reality as our greatest ally and reality is the AGW-Climate-Changers greatest enemy. Reality simply does not cooperate with wishes, expectations, needs, demands, whims, consensus opinion, or fraud. When you are fighting reality you will lose sooner or later but you WILL lose. Our challenge is to avoid getting caught in the consequences of that losing.

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  • #

    Quick background: I’m an aerospace Technical Fellow of Modeling, Simulation & Analysis. I may not be a climatologist, but in aerospace, especially military wireless communication, I’m a highly respected leader in the MS&A arena. For the last 2 years, I have been one of the organizers and chaired several sessions at an annual international IEEE.org conference.

    I won’t speak to the climate topics because that isn’t my field, but in the data, data cleaning, data mining, software, simulation and analysis realm, I am one of the folks who do peer review for publication in my neck of the industrial woods.

    From what I can see, climatology is a muck-pit where the practitioners need to return to the scientific method.

    No theory, study, or finding should be accepted until the results are reproducible by critics and competitors. (Note the attempts to reproduce the “cold fusion” experiments of the Utah professors.) So, rather than hiding data and methods, the CRU and Penn scientists should have freely shared all data and formulas, so that others could confirm their work, rather than them confirming each others’ work to the exclusion of outsider examination.

    In science, the science should be primary, and not the personalities who state it. If personal authority would have triumphed over science in the 1920s, the young upstart Albert Einstein would never have been heard. His science and not his pedigree made his early success.

    If we ever allow personalities to rule over science, we will then be equivalent to the Catholic Church where the Pope can decree who is a hieratic.

    Maybe I’m archaic, but scientific measured data is NEVER to be destroyed. Archives are golden and to be protected.

    Real data / observations is where real science starts. Boyle’s gas laws were derived from real data. They weren’t derived from simulation data.

    Speaking as an expert MS&A practitioner, simulated data should never triumph over actual data. After all, in a simulation, we tell it what probability distribution to use and the mean and variance to use, and so we get exactly what we told the simulation to give us.

    I have noticed that the few times I have dared to speak my opinions in public, questioning the methodology of climatologists, I was quickly labeled a GW Bush supporter. (I detest both the Demlican and the Republocrat parties.) When I question the methodology of aerospace industry studies, nobody accuses me of having a particular political philosophy. Why is it that any inquiry into matters of climate must instantly be placed in a political pigeon hole?

    I am a scientist, a believer in the scientific method, and firmly committed to discarding less adequate theories and models for new ones that have been proven–by competitors and critics reproducing the experiments / analysis–to more completely explain real measured data.

    I believe in evaluating models and theory against real data using the classic R-squared goodness of fit, modeled plus residual sum of squares method, to determine which theory is the winner.

    I do not believe in allowing the Pope to jail Galileo. I do not believe in letting a popularity contest pick the winning scientific theory.

    I do not believe in personality over science.

    I am disgusted that I should have to even write a defense of science and the scientific method in a blog about science.

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  • #
    Papertiger

    Don’t let Matt throw you Newt.

    I think you’re on the right track (unless you happen to be a scientist – in which case, I need to see the data).

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  • #
    Papertiger

    Well there you go 😉

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    co2isnotevil

    As much as I would like to see Briffa, Mann and Jones go to jail for what they’ve done, I don’t think their transgressions rise to criminal status, despite the fact that their unethical actions have secured public funds. Collusion between like minded individuals is not uncommon nor is cherry picking and/or adjusting data to fit a hypothesis (within the uncertainty) in order to secure federal funding. Relative to the pursuit of science, these tactics are unethical, but they aren’t illegal. The fact that there are many clueless politicians who perpetuate the lie is also not illegal since being stupid isn’t necessarily a crime.

    The most important result that can come from this is the wide spread recognition that climate science is not the done deal that the politicians seem to think. This is the message that must be pushed and not any sort of vindictive retribution, which only serves to make AGW skeptics appear petty. I’m willing to give these folks the benefit of doubt relative to criminal intent, as I’m sure they thought they were doing the right thing based on an ends justifies the means’ rationalization, it just happens that they were wrong.

    George

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    Ray Hibbard

    This might be more suitable for one of the other threads. I have been spending most of my time looking through a file called HARRY_READ_ME.txt. Let me start off by saying I am not blaming whoever Harry is for any of the following. I have in the past been involved in situations such as his. I call it forensic programming because of its similarity with a crime scene. If you want to watch a programmer go bald right before your eyes put him in this situation.

    First we have this bit. From this we can infer that they have no systems in place to safeguard or document their data.

    So.. we don’t have the coefficients files (just .eps plots of something). But
    what are all those monthly files? DON’T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look,
    there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And
    that’s useless.. take the above example, the filenames in the _mon and _ann
    directories are identical, but the contents are not. And the only difference
    is that one directory is apparently ‘monthly’ and the other ‘annual’ – yet
    both contain monthly files.

    Every programmer I know has done this, bit off more than he should have. It has one common cause behind it, no documentation to work from. The programmer can’t get a clear high level idea of what the system is doing.

    Wahey! It’s halfway through April and I’m still working on it. This
    surely is the worst project I’ve ever attempted. Eeeek. I think the main
    problem is the rather nebulous concept of the automatic updater. If I
    hadn’t had to write it to add the 1991-2006 temperature file to the ‘main’
    one, it would probably have been a lot simpler. But that one operation has
    proved so costly in terms of time, etc that the program has had to bend
    over backwards to accommodate it. So yes, in retrospect it was not a
    brilliant idea to try and kill two birds with one stone – I should have
    realised that one of the birds was actually a pterodactyl with a temper
    problem.

    This is the most interesting one.

    If an update station matches a ‘master’ station by WMO code, but the data is unpalatably
    inconsistent, the operator is given three choices:

    You have failed a match despite the WMO codes matching.
    This must be resolved!! Please choose one:

    1. Match them after all.
    2. Leave the existing station alone, and discard the update.
    3. Give existing station a false code, and make the update the new WMO station.

    Enter 1,2 or 3:

    You can’t imagine what this has cost me – to actually allow the operator to assign false
    WMO codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a ‘Master’
    database of dubious provenance (which, er, they all are and always will be).

    False codes will be obtained by multiplying the legitimate code (5 digits) by 100, then adding
    1 at a time until a number is found with no matches in the database. THIS IS NOT PERFECT but as
    there is no central repository for WMO codes – especially made-up ones – we’ll have to chance
    duplicating one that’s present in one of the other databases. In any case, anyone comparing WMO
    codes between databases – something I’ve studiously avoided doing except for tmin/tmax where I
    had to – will be treating the false codes with suspicion anyway. Hopefully.

    Of course, option 3 cannot be offered for CLIMAT bulletins, there being no metadata with which
    to form a new station.

    This still meant an awful lot of encounters with naughty Master stations, when really I suspect
    nobody else gives a hoot about. So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option –
    to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations (er, CLIMAT excepted). In other
    words, what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to
    become bad, but I really don’t think people care enough to fix ’em, and it’s the main reason the
    project is nearly a year late.

    First, you never allow a human near the data, and you never ever allow a human to go near any data that might be used as an identifying key, which is what this station code seems to be. This guy seems to realize this but it’s been done so there is no turning back now and that’s why you don’t do it. I hope that nobody missed his reference to ‘Master database of dubious provenance (which, er, they all are and always will be)’.

    The last paragraph just leaves one speechless. He doesn’t like what he is forced to do but it is what it is, a hairball. There is much more in the read me file but this post is too long. The upshot I get from this is that they where woefully short on talent when it came to dealing with large amounts of data and IT in general. That is not to say that the IT talent they had was bad they were most likely not given enough time to do their jobs properly.

    But one thing I am confident about is the only way one can say anything about global warming is to go alllllll the way back to the raaaaw data entry and start over. That is if you still have that!

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    Newt: I am disgusted that I should have to even write a defense of science and the scientific method in a blog about science.

    Join the crowd.

    However, the only long run solution is to do science, teach science, publicize science AND uphold an objective philosophy that stands behind science. It took man tens of thousands of years to clime out of the muck of superstition and a tribal existence. We are rushing headlong back to that state. Its time to stand and fight with everything you have and can do. We might lose but if we don’t do anything we can’t win.

    PS: I have an analogous background in science with over 40 years of technical computer programming experience – including modeling, simulation, and data analysis. I have experienced the madness of working in a NASA environment in which actual results and their correctness was largely irrelevant. All that mattered was pretty words, pretty pictures, AND the next budget cycle.

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    Lionell Griffith:
    > … the only long run solution is to do
    > science, teach science, publicize science
    > AND uphold an objective philosophy that
    > stands behind science.

    I stand in solidarity with you on that topic.

    > PS: I have an analogous background in science
    > with over 40 years of technical computer
    > programming experience – including modeling,
    > simulation, and data analysis. I have
    > experienced the madness of working in a NASA
    > environment in which actual results and their
    > correctness was largely irrelevant…

    We both wear similar scar tissue.
    There is an old parable of a child with sight born in a blind village. He could see and warn people of when they would bump into things.
    The child’s vision made the villagers fearful. Their solution was to put out the boy’s eyes.
    They continued in blind happiness.
    The point here is that almost all human stories are old stories. This AGW/GW/Climate Change is just another episode of an old story with new players and a cause du jour.

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    dave ward

    2 days ago I emailed the editor of the “Eastern Evening News” (the local paper in Norwich – home of the UEA), asking him why there had been virtually no coverage of this story. I haven’t had a reply, and nothing of my mail has appeared in the readers letters.

    I’m not really surprised, as in tonight’s edition is a full page article by their “new” regular contributor former MP Dr Ian Gibson. He does mention the CRU “hack” but it clearly hasn’t made the slightest difference to his pro AGW agenda. Nobody I speak to round here has heard about it…..

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    Bondservant1958

    For most of this week I like most minded people have been completely absorbed by the revelations coming from the e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at The University of East Anglia. Given the lack of reporting from the “trusted” alphabet soup of news organizations, ABC,CBS,CNN,BBC we have ourselves read the e-mails and inspected the notes in the code. My understanding is that the CRU headed by Dr Jones supplied the data in their possession to the United Nations IPCC to support the UN goal of implementing Cap and Trade legislation on the whole world in order to combat a man made contribution to the destruction of the world. A “if we do not act quickly there is no hope scenario” much like the financial bailouts No Time to Think Trust Us This is TOO BIG TO FAIL! Trust is what the e-mails from the CRU speak to and manifest. How can I trust the data used to create the theory that Global Warming was man made and not influenced more by an object 93 million miles away that constitutes 99% of the mass of the solar system and in which we live, in its “atmospheric influence”, recognizing that it only takes 8 min for the warm to reach us. All we ever asked for was Show Us the Math!, well we have seen the math and we have seen collusion, and we have seen stifling of criticism or inspection, and we have seen the trick of adding real temps where your code fails so that anyone else that has records from 1961 on cannot refute your algorithm, and we have seen willful and criminal misuse of US taxpayers money (Roger’s missed trip and all the stuff you did not buy that US hardworking and suffering taxpayers paid for through the NOAA), and we have seen the deliberate destruction of evidence in the face of Freedom of Information Act requests. I am more concerned about what we have not seen. I have not seen or heard a peep from Al Gore. I still see the President of the United States prepared to agree to putting a greater burden on the US taxpayer in the now unfounded belief that somehow man was responsible for this last period of warming that certainly ended more than 10YEARS AGO! Hide the decline my great-mother! I as a law abiding tax paying citizen of the United States Demand a Federal Investigation of this matter Climategate!

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    Robert

    For starters these sceintist were driven by the the Governments around the world hence do not leave them out when speaking of charges. IPCC Intergovernmental Panal on Climate Change.They produced the numbers that the Gooberments (governments)wanted because of the government grants. Need not leave out the true thieves on this and that is every polotician that has a Global Warming foundation should also be charge with fraud ie Al Gore.

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    Aqua Fyre

    Bondservant.

    The media are complicit in hiding this story.

    For as long as Obama, the EEC , Labor in England and all the other idiot left wing governments in the world keep shelling out money to the UN, this story will be dead.

    The gravy train has barely been rocked off its tracks.

    I sincerely wish it were otherwise. Please don’t think that I am not a defeatist

    I will fight by spreading grass roots emails to as many people and politicians as I know.

    A campaign of Civil disobedience needs to be begun.

    Pressure needs to be put on politicians.

    The main story for the media is Copenhagen

    The main story for us skeptics is the emails.

    But the ONLY LESSON for all of us, is that the public is being manipulated and kept in the dark.

    Its time to fight back and reclaim the truth.

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    AStoner

    Actually, scientists have a system to deal with this kind of problem. Unfortunately, that system was hijacked by the progressive/liberal/socialist/statist/authoritatarianist(s). Scientific peer review should have caught these guys with-in 2 years of first publishing. But because the journals refused to force them to release the pertinent raw data and methods they came to their conclusions, no other scientists could do a proper vetting of the science. Then, one by one, the progressives took control of the science journals and the debate was over.

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    Anne-Kit Littler

    Lionell @ #43: “When you are fighting reality you will lose sooner or later but you WILL lose.”

    No-one says it better than John Cleese:

    Fight against Reality

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    As AStoner pointed out above, standard peer review should have corrected the troubles in the climate change narrative. Precisely because both sides of the debate have tainted the reputations of the other, and because the integrity of the journals and peer reviewers have been compromised, I emailed Mark Morano of climatedepot.com to pass along to Sen. Inhofe that I suggest that he call for a blue-ribbon panel of modeling, simulation and analysis (MS&A) experts from other fields–like me in aerospace and IEEE.org–to evaluate the credibility and veracity of the data and methodologies of the climatologists, to see if standard MS&A protocols and integrity safeguards were followed. I’m an publication peer reviewer for an annual international IEEE.org conference specializing in MS&A, and would be happy to assist, if they can’t find more distinguished objective judges.

    Sadly, only the subject matter experts (SMEs) of climatology can properly debate that science, but any top-ranked MS&A practitioner can disassemble the work of a colleague, regardless of the specific subject matter. Data taking, cleaning, and mining are pretty standard in their statistical rigor. The mathematics of modeling and simulation are well defined. Climatology is either following standard methodologies or fudging the numbers and cooking the books. I believe that only outside inspectors should be trusted to audit the CRU and Penn et al MS&A work.

    If you ask any convicted felon, they will assure you that they are innocent. As such, I cannot believe the testimony of anyone involved on either side of this debate. I need impartial expert witnesses before I will believe either side. I’m qualified and ready to go. I’ll bet that Lionell Griffith is ready to serve with me.

    Newt Love (my real name)
    newtlove.com

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    Denny

    MattB, post 34,

    such unfortunate double standards Denny

    .

    Matt, the difference is how the research was ran..The article I posted counterdicted what the original research ran! By using the RAW DATA the second graph is it’s result..This is the same process Alarmists use in the first graph..You cannot defeat raw data. Only in the context of leaving something out, if you have ALL of the Raw Data. The result will be accurate and repetitious. The result is in the quote below…Wake up Matt…Open your Mind and defy the “tunnel vision” that you incorporate!!! You would be wise to listen to Mr. Courtney..He’s seeing a part of you that is self defeating!

    Gone is the relentless rising temperature trend, and instead there appears to have been a much smaller growth in warming, consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.

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    MadJak

    Ok,

    First of all, Thanks Jo for actually giving this some publicity.

    Some fragmented thoughts here today… Down with the dreaded lurgy….

    Here’s the deal, as I see it. The Left wing will start hitting back with all the tactics they claim big business uses on them. Of course, I haven’t seen much of that directed on them over the last 5 years as I think Big business has figured out they can make huge money from the AGW paranoia.

    The will start by confusing the issue posting things that look like they are supporting the skeptic view with fudged data and then discrediting the data. They will then use that as a side issue to beat the crap out of the whole thing.

    Be careful and check everything that comes out regarding this sort of thing before commenting on it is my free, unsolicited advice. They will bait and switch, I bet. And no, I don’t trust them to do otherwise anymore than I would trust phillip morris to do otherwise.

    Of course, their ominous silence over the last week tells me the following:
    1) They know they’re busted. They’re probably now trying to figure out what research confirms their belief system that wasn’t defendant on the CRU data. That must be a tough call, see you next year guys…
    2) They have seen the fortran code I have which is showing comments about fudging the decline

    One more thought on this too. Does anyone find the silence of the left unreal? Normally at least some of them would start trolling. This suggests to me that they’re actually a lot more organised than I thought.

    Here’s a thought too. There must be no shortage of ex Enron/Lehman brothers crooks just chomping at the bit to run companies handling an ETS – it’s just what they’re into – a barely measurable chance to make money from nothing.

    BTW: Stolen emails? hardly. The emails should have been released as a part of the many FOI requests in the first place. Whoever leaked this was really just enforcing english law (and yes Mann and Co, you are accountable to english law when receiving Govt funds), the IPCC is not above any countries laws.

    Whoever did source this information should get the IPCCs and Al Gores Nobel Peace prize as they obviously have got enough guts and conviction to stand up to things that are obviously wrong. Of course, it’s clear to me that they obviously are not associated with any of the Australian or Canadian Mainstream press.

    Which leads me to the media censorship issue. After many years of denying that there is collusion with the mainstream media, I can only conclude that there is collusion. probably related to the number of pollies in power now who have hung their reputation on Manns hockey stick and al gores rubbish.

    BTW did anyone watch the ABC interview RE: Copenhagen last night? First of all the AGW advocates’ body language speaked volumes. He dressed for Power (red Tie) with a Blue shirt, signifying “I have the money”. When the question of the leaked emails came up his body language speaked volumes – he just about jumped out of his chair. His legs were saying run, but his brain was saying don’t.

    Then of course, you could see all the questions were butchered by the editor…

    Maybe the mainstream press are seeing the following and are dead scared about keeping their own jobs:

    1) The generations coming through are using the net more than the TV for information and entertainment
    2) Newspapers are in decline around the globe. Heaps of reported looking for work maybe?

    Maybe this is why the press is too gutless to break the story? Talk about gutless wonders.

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    MattB

    Oh Denny – did you even read my link which totally dissects why your appeals to “RAW DATA” are a total crock. Your link is a total fraud which you swallow hook line and sinker, undermining any genuine attempts to filter the CRU hack issues.

    Note to skeptics – the CRU hack does not automatically validate every single crackpot loon theory you find on the interwebs. True skeptics, of course, would recognise this. I guess you message pre-copenhagen is to muddy the waters with whatever muck is within arms reach. Pretty pathetic really.

    Of course I’ll be interepreted as somehow being a blind defender of CRU – nothing could be further form the truth. Some of you guys just need some discipline and focus on actual real issues of the CRU hack – but that of course assumes you are in it for the science not just creating a smokescreen.

    Any true sceptic out there would look at DEnny’s NZ issue, and my correcting link, and back up my interpretation. I challenge you to back me up on this!

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    Denny

    MadJak: Post 59,

    One more thought on this too. Does anyone find the silence of the left unreal? Normally at least some of them would start trolling. This suggests to me that they’re actually a lot more organised than I thought.

    Happy to hear you’ve come to see the “overall” picture! If you have studied AGW and the Alarmist Platform, no I’m not surprised! They are sitting back to see what the “Realists” have found. You have to remember that a majority of the Alarmist’s believe what Mann, Hanson, Joe Romm and others are stating..They trust them..It’s amazing how these people just come in and condem and don’t read the latest in Science that is changing their results. Joanne has also hit the Issue with the Trillions of Dollars to be made in trading Carbon…A lot of things are part of the Carbon picture and they saw Huge amounts to be made…Just sitting back and watching is now not enough..The Biased Media is not going to turn this around because of Past commitments towards AGW…This ball is rolling and it will depend on how LONG the Realist’s can keep it rolling..The Internet obviously has broke this open…Wow, my local home town paper hasn’t even posted an article at least on the Internet about ClimateGate..With todays technology, the word gets around very very fast…You should thank God for this because other wise it would have been in the last page of every magazine and newpaper associated with the Left and brought to a halt!!!

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    Mattb, OMG, are you for real?

    Original data are in legal terms, eye-witness accounts. Massaged data are modified witness accounts. Simulation smoothed data are computer generated cartoons mouthing the words of the coder as if it was an eye-witness account.

    To help you understand–we Lakota (American Indians called “the sioux” by you anglos) use analogies a lot–imagine you arrested for a felony. Instead of eye-witness accounts, somebody generates a simulation that has cartoon “witnesses” speaking dialog stating that they saw you commit the crime. You scream your innocence, and demand to face the accusers, the eye-witnesses. The (CRU) lawyers who are prosecuting you state “The original testimony is lost or unreleasable. Trust me that the cartoons are telling the truth.”

    You, Mattb are the naive one at the table.

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    Mattb,
    To quote Groucho Marx: “Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?”

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    Brian G Valentine

    Mike Mann was asked to explain Jones’s use of the terms “trick” to “hide the decline.”

    Mann’s response sounded something like this:

    “Xwih if eif ifjijf jheufhp fiefi if epfh sffiufhgh hiuv”

    [Translation: You were born yesterday, and I’m arrogant enough to believe that you’ll swallow any stupid thing I tell you. You’re so stupid and so gullible that you don’t even deserve a coherent explanation of obvious fraud.]

    Why are people like Hansen “worried” that this will “fuel” “contrarians or deniers or whatever they are”?

    Truth is truth, independently of Hansen or anybody else. If Hansen claims AGW is as certain as physical law, then what is Hansen’s concern over? Nothing anybody says will conflict with physical law – Hansen might be left with a sneaking suspicion that AGW is bunk and people will end up mocking him. Now THAT is consistent with his “worries” about what “deniers” will think or do.

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    MattB

    Newt in 62 – I can only assume you’ve not read my link. ahh well no great loss.

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    Matty

    RE: Madjak #59
    Denny #61

    [“suggests to me they are a lot more organized than we think].

    So why aren’t the lefties biting? Good point, I’ve always found them well organized – that’s one of the reasons this mumbo is still going. I think it’s because lefties/greens are attuned to deception because they are used to lugging unpopular or extreme ideas(common baggage). I saw a bumper sticker yesterday, “greens tell lies”, and they do it in concert really well. They do have a knack of staying on message without much real coordination, but with this they were spending their ammo as they went, shooting up sceptics all the way. Then climategate lands lands and it’s like shooting at a tank with small arms, and noone brought a bazooka. There is nothing new up the sleeve to use, just stuff we have all heard ad-nauseum.

    They are in conflict over old growth forests because it turns out they are not sinks, they actually emit, but that stuff is kept away from us pretty well. What do we worship – nature, or some trace gas regulation regime? They are more divided than they look.

    But many journalists in Australia seem also to be engaged in shepherding this issue through, with almost an unspoken code.

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    Ray Hibbard

    I think the worm may be turning. In this link Al and a bud of his go on about capitalism and global warming. I could make little sense of it but the part I found interesting were the comments. Out of 61 comments only one, one comment, tried a feeble attempt to defend this carnival barker. This is the Financial Times folks, this is a well respected rag in Europe. Remember that the holidays are upon us. The news cycle will be pushed around by this. I think we won’t know the real impact of all this until well into next week.

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    Richard S Courtney

    Friends:

    Willis Essenbach has uncovered and circulated an email I sent 6 years ago but I had forgotten. It is directly relevant to the fraudulent actions of CRU staff being discussed in this thread, so I copy it here. Please note its original circulation list and contents, especially its final sentence.

    Richard

    From: [email protected]

    To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

    Subject: Re: Workshop: Reconciling Vertical Temperature Trends

    Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 18:42:59 EST

    Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], cfk @lanl.gov, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], jahlbeck@ab

    Dear All:

    The excuses seem to be becoming desperate. Unjustified assertion that I fail to understand “Myles’ comments and/or work on trying the detect/attribute climate change” does not stop the attribution study being an error. The problem is that I do understand what is being done, and I am willing to say why it is GIGO.

    Tim Allen said;
    In a message dated 19/11/03 08:47:16 GMT Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
    “I would just like to add that those of us working on climate change detection and attribution are careful to mask model simulations in the same way that the observations have been sampled, so these well-known dependencies of nominal trends on the trend-estimation technique have no bearing on formal detection and attribution results as quoted, for example, in the IPCC TAR.”

    I rejected this saying:
    At 09:31 21/11/2003, [email protected] wrote:
    “It cannot be known that the ‘masking’ does not generate additional spurious trends. Anyway, why assume the errors in the data sets are geographical and not?. The masking is a ‘fix’ applied to the model simulations to adjust them to fit the surface data known to contain spurious trends. This is simple GIGO.”

    Now, Tim Osborn says of my comment;
    In a message dated 21/11/03 10:04:56 GMT Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
    “Richard’s statement makes it clear, to me at least, that he misunderstands Myles’ comments and/or work on trying the detect/attribute climate change.

    As far as I understand it, the masking is applied to the model to remove those locations/times when there are no observations. This is quite different to removing those locations which do not match, in some way, with the observations – that would clearly be the wrong thing to do. To mask those that have no observations, however, is clearly the right thing to do – what is the point of attempting to detect a simulated signal of climate change over some part of (e.g.) the Southern Ocean if there are no observations there in which to detect the expected signal? That would clearly be pointless.”

    Yes it would. And I fully understand Myles’ comments. Indeed, my comments clearly and unarguably relate to Myles comments. But, as my response states, Myles’ comments do not alter the fact that the masked data and the unmasked data contain demonstrated false trends. And the masking may introduce other spurious trends. So, the conducted attribution study is pointless because it is GIGO. Ad hominem insults don’t change that.

    And nor does the use of peer review to block my publication of the facts of these matters.

    Richard

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    allen mcmahon

    Truth is truth, independently of Hansen or anybody else

    an appropriate quote that should be taken on board by some of the supposed skeptics commenting on this site.

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    Denny

    Matty: Post 66,

    Yes, good post and you understand what is going on! Not sure about your comment:

    They are in conflict over old growth forests because it turns out they are not sinks, they actually emit, but that stuff is kept away from us pretty well. What do we worship – nature, or some trace gas regulation regime? They are more divided than they look.

    In something as big as this Issue, I’m sure there is some “division” in the ranks. A good example of this is in the Western U.S.. In the Sierra Desert, Alarmists see all of this sunshine so they want to build a huge solar furnace with acres of mirrors..Well, the “divided” side said no and stopped it in Court because of a rare lizzard that propregates there..Is that what you mean, Matty??

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    Denny

    Richard S Courtney: Post 70,

    Mr. Courtney, thank you for this! Very insightful and adds more towards this immense Issue at hand!

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    Denny

    Here’s the latest from the U.K..

    Breaking: Pressure Mounts From Inside: Scientist From U. of East Anglia: UN IPCC has Run it’s Course

    http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1303.last

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    Tel

    Interesting article putting John Holdren into the picture, I do believe he has been mentioned on this blog earlier.

    http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17183

    I’ll admit it in public, Holdren gives me the creeps. That’s not a precise measurement, just my natural instincts kicking into play. Holdren has an “I know best for you” attitude that runs my blood cold.

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    MadJak

    This one just in,

    Lord Rees will command the climategate whitewash in the UK:

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018144/climategate-the-whitewash-begins/

    Really, the politicians in the UK obviously believe the people are naive imbeciles if they think appointing Lord Rees will result in anything other than vindication for Mann and Co incorporated.

    Of course, maybe this is an opportunity for Lord Rees to demonstrate his objectiveness and come out looking like a real scientist (hopefully he’s reading this).

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    Tel

    MadJak, seems obvious to me that Lord Rees has been given the job of making sure the whole carpet doesn’t unravel. He will look carefully at which bits can be salvaged, and he will protect those bits, the rest he will trim off and throw away. Restitch the edges a bit to tighten things up. Probably he will need enough of a show trial to give the punters a bit of spectacle, maybe throw a bone to the wolves.

    The thing about Establishment people is they are very good at protecting the Establishment that in turn protects them. Everything else becomes secondary to that purpose, which is quite rational as a survival strategy (even when it entails irrationality as a logic strategy). This is why computers don’t rule the earth, they are not treacherous enough.

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    Matty

    RE: Denny #72 Please clarify – “Greens more divided than they look”

    With the greens around my neck of the woods(Perth, WA) they have gotten in a few twists, but have managed to keep it out of the way. Preservation of old growth forests have been a sacred cow locally for a long time, because of our unique Karri and Jarrah forests etc. But the trees they chain themself too don’t represent the kind of sinks they were thought to be and the younger ones are wired for CO2. So much so that some are even softening on nuclear power so fault lines will open if they don’t distill their values back down I’d say. If the crazed quest of atmospheric regulation becomes the new deity then ecology has to bow to it, and they are fundamentally changed. That would be an irony.

    I invite them to apply their logic to some other planet. IE: How plausible is it that a trace gas at .0385% of the atmosphere, could be controlling the climate on Venus? They admit that it sounds ridiculous, then the horse s*#t starts. Says a bit about where they have ended up.

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    Fran Manns

    Climategate Foretold…
    “• What is the current scientific consensus on the conclusions reached by Drs. Mann, Bradley and Hughes? [Referring to the hockey stick propagated in UN IPCC 2001 by Michael Mann.]
    Ans: Based on the literature we have reviewed, there is no overarching consensus on MBH98/99. As analyzed in our social network, there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.”
    AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION, also known as The Wegman report was authored by Edward J. Wegman, George Mason University, David W. Scott, Rice University, and Yasmin H. Said, The Johns Hopkins University with the contributions of John T. Rigsby, III, Naval Surface Warfare Center, and Denise M. Reeves, MITRE Corporation.

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    Tom Forrester-Paton

    I agree with an earlier post that the UK Public Prosecutor is unlikely to be proactive. Seems to me the fastest way any of this ends up in a court of law is when the scientists whose reputations have been impugned and careers impaired sue these guys. Evidence arising in the trial of such cases might then compel the a criminal investigation?

    Any thought, lawyers?

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    Scottar

    NewLove:

    On the DEnny’s NZ issue: How can you average temperature across the continents that are at different altitudes and different humidities. Even correcting for the alleged drops seems to me it would make it worse. Just tacking on temp series on to another doesn’t seem right as were the setups and conditions uniform? I even wonder about satellite/ balloon tropospheric measurements. Temps do not reflect the heat locked up in various masses.

    Surface temperatures are subject to all kinds of influences. I think a better indicator would be oceans basin temps. The ARGOs buoys show a slight cooling. An interesting article on Roger Pielke Sr. site shows that cooling:

    have-changes-in-ocean-heat-falsified-the-global-warming-hypothesis-a-guest-weblog-by-william-dipuccio

    From this, and the lack of a “Hotspot“, it’s clear to me AGW is not evident. Yet time and again the AGW believers will point to cooked surface temps from the WMO to GISS as evidence that AGW is there. They all swear by the IPCC and other official science watering holes like NASA, AAAS, Real Climate, Nature, others. You take them to a site with valid references and they scream fraud, bogus blog site, not peered reviewed!

    Now with the “climategate” emails they will have less of a peer reviewed argument to fall back on. Still they will try to cut you down and yell obscenities at you. I’ve run up against two of them. Ones a guitar player in a band and another a climate community organizer. LOL

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    Adamson

    This doco on “The Secret Life of Climate Researchers” shows that they just can’t help it:

    http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/11/iowahawk-geographic-the-secret-life-of-climate-researchers.html

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    Scottar wrote:
    > NewLove:
    My name is Newt Love, and I’m named after my father, Newton.

    > On the DEnny’s NZ issue: How can you average
    > temperature across the continents that are at
    > different altitudes and different humidities.

    Don’t forget to use a question mark when asking a question in text format.

    There are several oblate spheroid models of the earth and atmosphere that provide temperature gradient as a function of altitude. Just as there are gravitational anomalies by (Lat,Long) that have been factored into accelerometer data readings inside inertial navigation systems, there can be localized temperature anomalies that are tracked by temperature readings, with an expected values map being compared to exact readings. Sensor drift phenomena can also be factored in to hone the data toward a more homogeneous behavior without discrediting the source data or smoothing methodology. Please don’t take this off-the-cuff answer as my best-offering on the topic. If I get a chance to delve deeper, I can provide a more thoughtful answer. All I’m saying is that there are standard MS&A methodologies for data processing, cleaning and mining. Climatologists need a refresher course in probability and statistics.

    > Even correcting for the alleged drops seems to me
    > it would make it worse. Just tacking on temp
    > series on to another doesn’t seem right as were
    > the setups and conditions uniform?

    Your logic seems right. If I had to guess what they were doing with mixing the data from one series into the other series, it looks to me like chemistry, where they mix in one liquid to dilute the other. In cooking, if you over-salt the sauce, you can reduce the saltiness by mixing in large amounts of unsalted sauce. The analogy is nice for “salting a mine” and “diluting” both being terms used to describe fraudulent practices.

    > I even wonder about satellite/ balloon
    > tropospheric measurements…
    > Surface temperatures are subject to all kinds
    > of influences…
    > An interesting article on Roger Pielke Sr.
    > site shows that cooling

    You are onto something there, for sure. I will wait to delve until the CRU releases the data, as they have recently promised. Let’s hope that is before 2015 or 2020.

    I need to maintain my objectivity, in case I’m called on as an outside reviewer. I know the chances are very slim–make up your own funny probability hyperbole–but I still have hope I can help unravel this tangled mess.

    Newt Love (my real name)
    newtlove.com

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    Scottar

    NewtLove:

    Sorry for misspelling your username:

    I appreciate your candid response.

    Another thing that incriminates some temperature data processors is that I heard that the CRU dumped temperature records when they moved to a new facilities and NASA GISS has been blocking access to their temperature data from individuals like McIntyre. This is more incriminating info that discredits the IPCC peer review process and other major science organizations like the AAAS.

    Of course the biggest discreditation of AGW is the missing hotspot that is covered in this website. Another factor is the claimed predictability of climate models. This website shows how even basic computer sim programs can be erroneous in their outcomes:

    Only-Computer-Illiterates-Believe

    Monday, November 10, 2008
    Only Computer Illiterates believe in “Man-Made” Global Warming

    It just goes to show you there’s still a human element required behind programs that predict processes, and the more complicated the process the less the predictability of the outcome. You take climate, that has all kind of solar, orbital, cosmic, gas, biological, particulate, ocean, current, weather, tectonic, etc. influences you begin to realize how hard it is to predict long term climate trends, or even short term weather trends. That’s why the IPCC and others keep on revising their predictions and have a wide swing of forecasts.

    The liberals, like Senator Udall, like to use the worse case predictions when trying to promote cap and trade of other green mandates. I’ve told him twice what an idiot he is trying to use that extreme forecast. But there’s the believers that will swallow the ambiguity of it whole due to repeated mantra of main stream media groups and scammers like Mr. Al Gore and his seventh grade science presentations.

    Lets us hope that the year after the CRU bust, true peer reviewed science will once again be re-established, and the scientific process will be revived over the current political and special interest driven pseudo science becomes discredited.

    I hope your apart of that process.

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    […] ClimateGate: ‘Jones, Briffa and Mann seem to have committed several criminal offences’ […]

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    […] The perjured anti-science scientists leading the AGW movement. Here is an interesting short-list of AGW leaders. I use perjured here as an adjective. Consult a dictionary if needed. These leading AGW proponents, “some of whom receive or have received UK & US taxpayer funds,” conspired, “to stifle open, transparent debate on the most pressing issues of climate science.” Jo Nova has a short legal analysis of some of the crimes posted here. […]

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    […] discussed some criminal charges in […]

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    David Bailey

    Please do not attack the Green movement as such for this – certainly the grass roots workers and activists are victims of the sloppy science just as much as everyone else. Even Obama – well he never claimed to be a climatologist!

    Greens used to campaign against the cutting down of rain forests, depletion of resources, pollution by real toxins (not CO2), the proliferation of weapons, these were, and remain important issues.

    I agree with most people here that there has been a vast distortion of the proper scientific process, but this is not a left vs right issue, or a green vs some other colour issue, it is the problem of what happens when science becomes politicised – when truth slips down the list of priorities.

    Looking at all those noisy graphs, and the list of ‘corrections’ that were applied to the raw data, I really wonder if there is any worthwhile scientific conclusion that can be reached!

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    David Bailey,

    The so called Green movement is up to its eyeballs in this mess. It takes a staggering level of conscious evasion to maintain their position. Their many contradictions and hypocrisies are plainly visible. They are part and parcel of the scam. It is so trivially easy to see it’s nothing but a scam there is no excuse. There is a level of willful ignorance that is tantamount to being criminal. They have long since reached that level.

    Worthwhile scientific conclusions can be reached but not based upon anything out of the IPCC and associated processes. Do do so, you have to become guardian of your own mind, learn what you must learn, understand what you must understand, take full responsibility for your own choices, and not demand that others pay for YOUR mistakes. To abandon that responsibility is the highest crime against human kind you can commit. Present day society has committed that crime on a monumentally global scale. The Copenhagen meeting is simply the latest symptom of this crime. It is not the cause but it is a consequence.

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    David Bailey

    Lionell Griffith

    I am not defending any part of this mess – certainly not the IPCC. But the Green movement used to be about worthwhile things – such as the preservation of the rain forests, and other such causes. These didn’t need complex scientific methods to demonstrate that they were real. Then AGW came along, and I would say a lot of people in the Green movement – I am talking about ordinary people – just assumed the science was real.

    I’d say I AM the guardian of my own mind (to use your phrase), which is why I never really bought the idea of AGW, but the bulk of those who did are simply additional victims of Jones, Mann, Briffa, Hansen et al.

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    Scottar

    Bailey

    I generally don’t condemn worthwhile green projects, everyone wants to live in a healthy, stimulating environment. But when green organizations get so wacko that they lose their commonsense perspectives, then they deserve condemnation. Examples would be Greenpeace the tried to demonize nuclear over the hyped nonsense that was broadcasted, and trying to portray the global warming part of climate change as a human caused event over minor emissions. This is what Griffith is referring to.

    I don’t call myself green but a conservationist, we must conserve those lands important to unique ascetics and important to water, environment and sustenance. I don’t think that trying to preserve majority wildlands as pristine wilderness when they can have multiple uses of forestry and cattle grazing is very smart. Of course there are some pockets of the Earth that deserve natural preservation as special places of natural beauty. The trouble with many greens is they went too far with things like the Spotted Owl and ANWR. But then there are politicians and industry heads that have a hand in it too.

    The Earth does not support specifically support the biosphere, so called Gaia, it exists at the Earths grace. If the Earth’s environment changes then Gaia will either have to adapt or it will disappear. Humans can spoil their nest but they will never destroy the biosphere except though drastic measure like total war. More evidence is coming out that the climate change is mostly natural. Humans can cause local damage temporarily but past climate changes have shown that the biosphere has survived past catastrophes in time. But the biosphere is constantly changing as entropy is a constant presence in many systems.

    The greatest threat to our environment, as I see it, is overpopulation. Since humans have not yet really found a sustainable energy source other then basic medieval technology of wood and harnessing of animals, basic wind and solar usage, that would be the future. Current wind and solar technology is not really sustainable without heavy density fuels such as coal, oil or nuclear. When you start digging into the feasibility of such technologies their is much hype due to the reliance of government subsidies with the green mantra of the promise of renewables. It’s how the present climategate happened with the government pouring so much money into the hyped mongering of AGW nonsense. They played upon peoples fears and ignorance of the climate system and some energy systems.

    Populations would have to come down substantially in order to live comfortable off of those so called renewables. Life styles would have to change to a more communal level to use those technologies sustainably. Europeans have somewhat adopted that lifestyle. And energy conservation, efficiency is an important factor but not CO2 or human caused methane emissions.

    Read this scientists finding to the reality of why GHG effects are over hyped:

    The Saturated Greenhouse Effecto

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    David Bailey

    Scottar,

    I agree with almost everything you wrote, with the exception of nuclear power. I feel that technology is too dangerous because it may result in:

    A major escape of radioactivity as in Chernobyl but in a more populated location – such as Britain!

    Terrorists getting hold of radioactive material to create a dirt bomb – far easier than making a fission device.

    Waste that contains long-lived radioactive isotopes that must be managed for unreasonable amounts of time.

    Clearly, over population is the real problem on Earth. In many ways I see Global Warming as a form of displacement activity by politicians.

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    Scottar

    Bailey:

    You are definitely a victim of the nuclear mongers. You need to lookup the real facts about nuclear issues here:

    Chernobyl Legacy

    and here

    World Nuclear

    Chernobyl was a result of gross mismanagement by then USSR. The other two reactors have been re-engineered with proper safety oversite since then and have not experienced any more incidents.

    What did we tell you about getting past the feel mantra and checking the FACTS!

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    David Bailey

    Scottar wrote “Chernobyl was a result of gross mismanagement by then USSR.”

    Possibly, but we can achieve just as gross mismanagement as the USSR! A few years back, BNFL had a contract to sell reprocessed plutonium back to Japan. Part of the specification of that project was that the size of the pellets should be checked several times (presumably to avoid a buildup of fuel that might approach a critical mass!).

    They voided that contract when it became clear that workers were filling in the paper work, but not doing the checks! The real problem is that people become blase and bored – it doesn’t matter what political system they are in.

    Every time I fly, I remember that the only reason I can rely on the plane to get me safely to my destination, is because every now and again a plane does crash, and that keeps everyone involved on their toes. When the risk becomes very large, but very low probability, people get blase.

    There is also a severe problem with terrorism and storing the long lived waste that you did not even discuss.

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    Scottar

    Baily:

    You are what Griffith referred to in his previous post. You and the other green wacko’s are not acting in a sense of reality but emotional fear and perceptions. I don’t believe you even went out to those websites I referred to.

    Look at the records of the other countries having nuclear power. The US Navy has been operating and building nuclear powered vessels since the 1950s. Has one exploded? Have we had any nuclear catastrophes since then? Your comparisons to the Chernobyl incident are silly. There are more accidents in regular industries yearly then have happened in nuclear in 3 decades. Farming is one of the most hazardous.

    You are like the antigun advocates thinking banning guns will prevent crimes and deaths when it actually acerbates crime. More people get killed by cars then guns. Now the enviro-green inquisition is trying to make people believe CO2 is a pollutant when it is a key ingredient to life.

    As for terrorists, they could very well get the nuclear materials from Iran or Pakistan, N Korea or China, or even Russia. No reason for the US to stop with a viable, safe nuclear program. The nuclear Genie is already out of the bag and nothing can stop it.

    And in the new reactor designs, once the fuel is composed it can’t be used as a weapon except through high tech reprocessing. But terrorists don’t need dirty bombs to wreck havoc with Western economies. Too many western nations are formulating their own demise by allowing radical Moslem communities to have their Shariah way though silly PC measures. It only a matter of time before the next terror incident happens. There are many bio agents that can be spawned in basements that would be more devastating then dirty bombs and easier to make, all it takes is bottles, food and bio-agent with the proper environment. Easier then growing pot.

    On waste, if you bothered to stop by the World Nuclear site you would have discovered that most high level radioactive waste degrade to low levels within 10 to 50 years. The low level waste can be safely disposed of by reducing the volume and enclosing it in glass. Once done terrorist would have a hard time trying to make a dirty bomb out of that. And much of the spent fuel rods contain recyclable fuel, up to 90%. You obviously have fallen for the waste mantra from the nuclear scare mongers. You did not check out the facts! In the US the waste became a problem when xpres Carter got a ban past on nuclear recycling and breeding for much the same silly reasons you have. Carter was a nut!

    If you want to know what’s really stupid is in Germany they are decommissioning the old nuclear plants. Do they replace them with modern ones? Noooooo! They build more coal plants and they are mining lignite coal they are so desperate for energy. They have to move towns and villages to get to the remaining reserves. So much for their solar and wind power replacing the nuclear and coal!

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    David Bailey

    Scottar said “You are what Griffith referred to in his previous post. You and the other green wacko’s are not acting in a sense of reality but emotional fear and perceptions. I don’t believe you even went out to those websites I referred to.”

    Well, I am not your standard gullible Green, am I – otherwise I would not be here agreeing that global warming is almost certainly a horrible mistake.

    I do feel deeply uneasy about lots of nuclear power stations. Just because they are so safe (in terms of frequency of incident), people get blase about the risks. Maybe terrorists would get their radioactive material from Pakistan or Iran – but maybe that is not so easy. Crashing a plane into a nuclear power station right where they wanted the pollution, might be more their style!

    You really don’t need to come across so angry about everything. Different countries have different approaches to many things. In Britain (and many other countries) we have very tight gun control. I support that, because although criminals can still get hold of guns if they want to, it avoids those awful massacres where someone just flips and picks up the family gun… I have walked about quite a bit in the US, and no-way would I feel safer carrying a gun. My girlfriend and I were once returning to our motel on foot, crossing over a barely lit rail bridge in Salt Lake. When we got on the bridge, we saw two people looking very furtive at the other end. If I had had a gun, I’d have been pulling it out, or at least fingering it. We walked on, and it turned out that they were a middle aged Japanese couple who were equally relieved to discover that we meant them no harm!

    The global warming debacle has made me aware of the extent to which people can be manipulated and react in a hysterical way. Maybe there is a hysterical dislike of nuclear power, but remember that we were a lot closer to Chernobyl than you. The sheep on some our uplands were deemed too contaminated to eat. However, hysteria works all ways – it is not just a left-right thing – think of the hysteria to go to war with Iraq, and the mess that has created, for example.

    I really hope that controlled nuclear fusion can come on stream before too long!

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    Scottar

    Bailey-
    Comment:

    Well, I am not your standard gullible Green, am I – otherwise I would not be here agreeing that global warming is almost certainly a horrible mistake.

    I do feel deeply uneasy about lots of nuclear power stations. Just because they are so safe (in terms of frequency of incident), people get blase about the risks. Maybe terrorists would get their radioactive material from Pakistan or Iran – but maybe that is not so easy. Crashing a plane into a nuclear power station right where they wanted the pollution, might be more their style!

    This is what I meant by you being more emotional then logical. Flying a large plane into a massive skyscraper is easy compared to trying to fly a large jet into a nuclear reactor. If you had checked that out at the World Nuclear site you would know that several tests conducted on the integrity of the containment structure would make it impossible for the plane’s impact to disrupt the integrity of the nuclear reactor. And the newer ones can be built underground. Also, flying a large plane that close to the ground makes it difficult to fly accurately due to ground air turbulences. And since 9/11 vigilance about stray aircraft is very high, any stray aircraft would be intercepted in minuets. So there goes that argument up in smoke.

    Different countries have different approaches to many things. In Britain (and many other countries) we have very tight gun control. I support that, because although criminals can still get hold of guns if they want to, it avoids those awful massacres where someone just flips and picks up the family gun… I have walked about quite a bit in the US, and no-way would I feel safer carrying a gun.

    I read several articles about what happens when countries ban citizens from owning guns, they become more vulnerable to criminals and crime goes up. I’m an NRA guy and I know the facts. Of course, people aren’t required to own a gun. If people could own a stun gun or without all the ridiculous legal ramifications then that could be better, but the lawyers made that very difficult. But if a guy is cranked up on drugs then a 45 is the only weapon, short of a high powered bean bag gun, that will stop them immediately. That was found out back in the days of the 1800s rough riders who encountered guy jacked up on cocaine and other drugs.

    Mass killing by automatic weapons are rare but more observations by those prone to it need to be done. I fear mass killings from a government that has lost it democratic bearings then one lone individual. And just look at what is happening in Mexico where guns are banned. They haven’t stopped the Drug Cartels from getting weapons and armor. You can’t keep guns out of criminal hands.

    And what’s to prevent a person from plowing a car into a crowd, or even a plane? It just doesn’t just take a gun. And history has shown when people loose their access to guns they loose their freedoms and are subject to the tyranny of the governments. Just look at what happened with the Communists and the NAZI. The educated intellectuals who opposed them were either executed or imprisoned. I would be scared to walk in Britian. I would be scared to walk in San Francisco where the city banned guns.

    Maybe there is a hysterical dislike of nuclear power, but remember that we were a lot closer to Chernobyl than you.

    Again you are being emotional, you are trying to compare apples to pomegranates. The Chernobyl reactor had no real containment structure, very poor oversite and trained workers. The people who the main stream press initially reported that had died was greatly exaggerated. With the cooperation and oversite by responsible industrial nations there is little danger of another Chernobyl, especially in most Western nations.

    The Soviets learned their lesson and they are officially no more. The other 2 RMBK reactors there have had no further incidents. RMBK reactors had an instability problem and re-engineering has corrected that. No other country to my knowledge uses those reactor types. Plus, the Soviets where conducting experiments at the time on what was a commercial reactor. That is never done at the commercial level in properly regulated plants. It’s done on prototypes that have the proper safety equipment to prevent Chernobyl incidents. The Soviets where bypassing the prototype stage and that can be very dangerous as was the outcome of their gross carelessness. It can happen in any industry, and has, wether intentionally or unintentionally.

    You are like someone that lived next to a large airplane crash incident that occurred due to a bad design or operator error. Does that mean we should ban all aircraft? More people die from accidents in the home then at work or away from the home. Should we mandate safety nannies to every household? A meteor could be on a collision course with Earth, and there have been several close calls in the recent past, what would it take to deflect the object? Windmills…. solar…. biofuel powered spaceships…..? The coming energy crunch is the meteor heading toward us now. What would you think would be the most likely candidate to advert it?

    You would do well to educate yourself about the nuclear industry instead of just succumbing to your irrational fears. Think of all the people who have died to industrial accidents like chlorine or other chemicals. It’s a matter of establishing reasonable standards.

    think of the hysteria to go to war with Iraq, and the mess that has created, for example.

    If Saddam had gotten his WMD going, and it was revealed that he had the infrastructure in place, he probably would have gone to war with Iran, which would have disrupted a major oil flow supply driving oil prices up to $600usd/bl. yes the war was partially about oil because that is still the main grease of economies. The US was loosing containment due to the increasing tensions from the local Arab Moslem clerics and Saddam building up his defenses by getting help from the likes of the Chinese and other rouge nations. It was only a matter of time, Saddam could have waited it out. But I depress, people of this country went hog wild on affluence and failed to have good oversite of the politicos that brought us to the point our present economic debacle. Tea parties are addressing that for both parties. But there where many European manufactures that supplied Saddam with his weapons and infrastructure, more so then the US.

    I really hope that controlled nuclear fusion can come on stream before too long!

    Fusion would be very desirable, but most of the observations predict that is a long way off, 50 to 100 years, unless someone does a miracle and makes table top fusion a reality. Fusion is a possibility but not an inevitably. I once thought I could be a part of it’s evolution but it’s a nitch industry for researchers and those workers who are fortunate to get involved with it. Some people think it’s a waste of money and think the government should be spending that on things like healthcare, education, subsidized green jobs and other humanitarian darlings. If the socialists, humanitarians had their way what do you think would be the result of that? Perhaps another world war. Or much worse a new world order of socialist control via the UN by CO2 emissions due to fear mongering by AGW proponents! Get the picture now?

    If you don’t want nuclear reactors in your country well fine, but don’t condemn countries that want them for energy and are responsible in having them. Even coal plants are fine with me if they can clean up the mercury, SO2 and particulate emissions. And I heard they can with technology like the carbon fuel cell which has shown recent progress. You get 2x the energy output over boiler combustion methods. And if they do come up with a cost effective way of storing energy then solar and wind could be economically feasible but I would still advocate nuclear research. But presently I see a bunch of ENRON types trying to hoodwink the populous in the false viability of Green energy that requires massive subsidization. It’s a game of charades. And by the way, Al Gore was a founder of ENRON back during the Clinton administration. Al has quite a legacy!

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    MattB

    you guys should check out bravenewclimate for a pro-nuclear green stance. You’re nuts about guns Scottar, but you are I think correct about nuclear power… although probably only because it matches your politics.

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    David Bailey

    Scottar,

    Let’s leave guns out of this debate (suffice it to say that we in the UK have far fewer murders per head of population despite or because we have tight gun controls and no death penalty – and I am proud of both). I guess my fear with nuclear power is that people (and particularly politicians) don’t always tell the truth – have you ever noticed that? I already knew studies had been done to ‘prove’ that a plane could not be used to burst open a nuclear reactor. The question is, do I believe them any more than I believe in AGW. Both results have been produced by teams of ‘experts’ with one particular axe to grind. Both of these results have something else in common – to really evaluate them, it is no use simply having a decent science background, it doesn’t help you because the devil is in all the details – such as whether (in the case of AGW) data sets were explicitly or implicitly cherry-picked – which skews the statistics, or what ‘corrections’ were applied to the raw data.

    No I haven’t yet read the pro-nuclear sites that you linked, though I may well do. Again, the problem is that it is very much like reading a pro-AGW site such as RealClimate – it isn’t like reading a maths text or something – you absolutely know the message is being skewed.

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    Btok

    http://www.nogw.com/illuminati.html
    Do you really believe Climate protection is what the UN and the Elite IMF is after? After witnessing the Fraud at Copenhagen? It’s time we faced the truth of what these fraud criminal Elites are after! Know thy enemy!
    Re:In its quest to create a New World Order that restricts individual freedoms and places ultimate power solely in the hands of a small cult of wealthy, prominent families Skull and Bones has already succeeded in infiltrating nearly every major research, policy, financial, media and government institution in the country. Skull and Bones, in fact, has been running the United States for years.Chaos, confusion and ultimately a battle between the individual and the State. The individual is the stronger and will win. The state is a fiction sanctified by Hegel and his followers to CONTROL the individual.
    Sooner or later people will wake up. First we have to dump the trap of right and left, this is a Hegelian trap to divide and control. The battle is not between right and left; it is between us and them. The message is getting through. ASE America’s Secret Establishment has sold for 15 years, small but steady. No advertising. Its an underground work. But the breadth of interest is amazing. From Black Africa, to Russia (12,000 copies), right, left…it cuts across all ethnic, political, social lines…The spirit of God is within us as individuals. Skull & Bones represents death. It has no life spirit and pretends that the State “is the march of God on earth”.
    The thinking of immature juveniles, deadly and destructive and has almost totally infected Washington. What to do? Find yourself and then go to work tell your friends and put out the message. The answer is within you. The Illuminati teaches its disciples that as they acquire knowledge and power they are illuminated as such they are better than the ordinary people in the world. To them their purpose as they are “above the Law”. Their purpose is simple, to unite the earth into a one world government. They will use any ruthless means to achieve that goal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU

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    Francis Manns

    As a geologist I am very comfortable with the multiple working hypothesis – I would like someone in media to start noticing there are other ideas out there. I offer this. The Danes have been on the case for a long while, studying the sun; who would have thought? The first paper to get is Friis-Christensen and Lassen (Science; 1991) If you can find the entire issue in the reference library, you will see the editors comment referred to this paper as hitting the ball into the anthropogenic court. George Monbiot of the Guardian attacked this paper in an article a few years ago wherein Monbiot stated the results BACKWARDS.
    In 1991, the Danes revealed an important correlation between warming and cooling with the sunspot peak frequency (not the actual number of spots, but the cycle length). When the cycle is long all the planets cool; when the cycle is short, the planets warm. Furthermore, cosmic radiation is currently at its highest ever measured. This is happening because the sun is currently relatively inactive and the earth’s magnetic shield is down; therefore, climate is changing (and it always will). This correlation between long sunspot cycle and weather is happening at the moment and spoiling the party. However, correlation is not causation.
    The climate celebrities, however, are linking climate and the economy. We can likely kick some of the carbon economy late the twenty-first century, but we must not rush to judgement for the wrong reason. There has been warming to end the Ice Age. Climate is a chaotic system; the facts, however, do not support CO2 as a serious ‘pollutant’. In fact, it is plant fertilizer and seriously important to all life on the planet. It is the red herring used to unwind our economy. That issue makes the science relevant.
    Sulphate from volcanoes can have a catastrophic effect, but water vapour is far more important. Water vapour (0.4% overall by volume in air, but 1 – 4 % near the surface) is the most effective green house blanket followed by methane (0.0001745%). The third ranking gas is CO2 (0.0383%), and it does not correlate well with global warming or cooling either; in fact, CO2 in the atmosphere trails warming which is clear natural evidence for its well-studied inverse solubility in water: CO2 dissolves rapidly in cold water and bubbles rapidly out of warm water. The equilibrium in seawater is very high; making seawater a great ’sink’; CO2 is 34 times more soluble in water than air is soluble in water.
    CO2 has been rising and Earth and her oceans have been warming. However, the correlation trails. Correlation, moreover, is not causation. The causation is under scientific review, however, and while the radiation from the sun varies only in the fourth decimal place, the magnetism is awesome.
    In 2006 the Danish geophysicists published an experiment in the papers of the Royal Society: “Using a box of air in a Copenhagen lab, physicists traced the growth of clusters of molecules of the kind that build cloud condensation nuclei. These are specks of sulphuric acid on which cloud droplets form. High-energy particles driven through the laboratory ceiling by exploded stars far away in the Galaxy – the cosmic rays – liberate electrons in the air, which help the molecular clusters to form much faster than climate scientists have modeled in the atmosphere. That may explain the link between cosmic rays, cloudiness and climate change.” The condensation in the chamber formed instantaneously.
    Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center has further experiments scheduled for the Hadron collider to test his basement experiment. He believes in muons, but elevated solar flux (> 10 protons per cc) appears to cause fog in the Great Lakes and clouds too.
    As I understand it, the hypothesis of the Danish National Space Center goes as follows: quiet sun allows the geomagnetic shield to drop. Incoming galactic cosmic ray flux creates more low-level clouds, more snow, and more albedo effect as more is heat reflected resulting in a colder climate. Active sun has an enhanced magnetic field which induces Earth’s geomagnetic shield response. Earth has fewer low-level clouds, less rain, snow and ice, and less albedo (less heat reflected) producing a warmer climate.
    That is how the bulk of climate change likely works, coupled with (modulated by) sunspot peak frequency there are cycles of global warming and cooling like waves in the ocean. When the waves are closely spaced, all the planets warm; when the waves are spaced farther apart, as they have been for this century, all the planets cool. The change in cloud cover is only a small percentage, but enough to be subtle. In other words, it’s not the heat, it is the humidity. The ultimate cause of the solar magnetic cycle may be a wobble in the cyclicity in the Sun-Jupiter centre of gravity. We await more on that.
    Although the post 60s warming period appears to be over, it has allowed the principal green house gas, water vapour, to build up with more humidity, clouds, rain and snow depending on where you live to provide the negative feedback that scientists use to explain the existence of complex life on Earth for 550 million years. Ancient sedimentary rocks and paleontological evidence indicate the planet has had abundant liquid water over the entire span. The planet heats and cools naturally and our gasses are the thermostat. In my opinion, nothing unusual is going on except for the Orwellian politics.
    Check the web site of the Danish National Space Center and read Svensmark and Calder’s book, “The Chilling Stars”.

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    Scottar

    I don’t know about skull and bones but there are all kinds of similar conspiracy theories.

    I recommend forming or joining tea party groups to get responsible legislators elected because here in the US both parties went berserk over special interest monies. The GOP seems to be getting back on track but their are still some boneheads in the party and on the Democratic side most are despicable scoundrels if not nuts. Start at the bottom and work up.

    I hope we can recover in 2010 but it seems iffy. We are now up against the enviro-industrial complex that want to create a new world green ordered economy. When the government has to unnecessarily subsidize industries then you know you’ve got a problem. Have to break the chains. Of course bankers and lawyers are also involved, and they almost always run the shadow government. Pay not attention to those guys in the back smoke filled rooms.

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    David Bailey

    I have never really been keen on conspiracy theories – at least not if they involve large numbers of people. For example, people used to argue that Bush’s crowd conspired to let 9/11 happen, or even contributed to the tragedy, because of the power it gave them. Just looking at the foul-up in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Katrina, and the economy, I don’t credit them with enough intelligence to successfully conspire to do anything!

    In the case of AGW, my sense is that science has split into so many specialties that some of them fill up with second rate people. Such people get away with it because they all referee each others papers. They probably believed their own ‘results’ at the start, and nobody brought them down to earth. After that, the funds started rolling in, and they are locked into the process whether they still believe or not.

    I do agree with Scottar that there are now a frightening number of vested interests that need AGW to make money.

    I also note that there are people seriously suggesting that the CFC/ozone hole scare was also overblown – that if the ozone was used up, the UV radiation would merely penetrate a little deeper and react with oxygen to produce ozone instead.

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    artesian

    Friend in the nuclear industry (retired) says it’s dangerous: like handing the keys to the Cadillac to a child.

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    Scottar

    Artesian:

    I have a friend in the nuclear industry too and he says when you consider the advanced technology, they are the BMW of power generation. Just keep the kids away from the Caddie.

    Anyone can do a driveby but few can give an intelligent, enlightening discussion. Where did your friend work at, Chernobyl?

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    David Bailey

    The problem with the nuclear industry is that accidents are so rare that people lose concentration. I read of one incident in a nuclear plant (not sure if it was power generation or reprocessing) where engineers were puzzled by the excessive corrosion on certain structures. It turned out that a disgruntled employee had taken to peeing on it!

    The technology can be sound, and the procedures correct, but you still need evolved apes to run it all!

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    Scottar

    Baily:

    It would be more honest to give this incident more details like date, country, reactor. And to my knowledge the critical cooling pipes are stainless steel. There are countries in the past where they were lax concerning nuclear. Chernobyl is one of them. It doesn’t sound like it happened in a western country, certainly not in the US.

    Right now the world is at a tipping point in energy. If the wrong investments are implemented, the balance will go negative with disastrous consequences. I go to this one energy site to hear professional engineers talk about energy options. It’s http://www.energypulse.net. When I hear them talk about so called green energy they generally have a pessimistic tone. I consistently hear that investing in nuclear technology will greatly help with the energy crunch and possibly totally eliminate it. But the longer it’s putoff the harder it will be to bring the technologies online. the infrastructure has to be built and engineers have to be educated and seasoned.

    When airplanes and internal combustion engines first appeared people had irrational fears of them. The technology seemed iffy. But private enterprise brought them to fruition with little government interference. Today you have all kinds of government interference for the “welfare of the people”. Communist countries make the same claim.

    Today government intervention has gone beyond reasonable and caters more to special interests who beguiling the people with government freebes and share the wealth plans. The present bureaucrats don’t want a free and self supporting constituency, they want people to be dependent on them for welfare services. So they comeup with all kinds of ponzi schemes to ensure their seat of control of the fortunes of their voters. I read about it every day.

    Every industry has it’s hazards but advances in technology allows for more safer industrial processes when allowed to progress. Government regulation on industries and financial institutes have increasingly had the opposite effect. The US government has had the swine flue on spending for the last 40 years. European governments are finding that socialism doesn’t really solve the plights of the have nots. Bankers have taken advantage of people’s desires by making responsible loans by buying off their overseers in government committees and seats of influence.

    And right alone with the financial schemers their are the enviros counterparts like Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri who use their seats of influence, money and power to enhance their investments and power more and more by playing on the masses ignorance, feelings and fears. And that, inturn, spurs investors to invest in their green energy schemes that are more about the green of money then the welfare of the populous.

    Reviewing the past you will realize that people are impulsive and not all that idealistic, they will generally do what they need to do to survive. This is especially true of people in third world countries. How long do you think the green revolution will last with people who are increasingly facing poverty, hunger and cold? You can either stave off the inevitable with utopian energy and socialistic promises of alternative visions or give them what works, even if it’s not enviro- PC. So far, most of the green revolution has been a ponzi bust and a charades circus. Do you think the masses will continue to be amused? It will require a smart mix of energy sources depending on what resources are locally available.

    Final point. The Earth does not care what Gaia does. The Earth and malevolent entities in the cosmos have smitten and reformed Gaia in various ways. It has been predicted that the Earth is due for another super volcanic event. There are various places where large subterranean magmas seethe with unrest and they may likely burst forth in a cataclysmic event that can wipeout 50 to 75% of the Gaia organism including humans. So I fail to see the catastrophe of using nuclear to find a future way out of the inevitability of likely future malevolent events now beyond human control, the risks are minor. Human civilization would not be where it is today if there were not risks taken. We just have to avoid the foolhardy, stupid ones. I don’t see responsible, smart, state of the art nuclear as foolhardy. I do see the hype of renewables supplying all the energy needs as foolhardy, ENRON speculation.

    I think you have a narrow point of view on nuclear based on irrational fears. I think you are exaggerating the real circumstances concerning the event. Your lack of details screams that! Same as what AGWers and enviro extremists do.

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    David Bailey

    Scotar,

    I would say I am not 100% against nuclear power, but if we can burn fossil fuel until we find a better alternative, I would prefer that. I can’t give you an exact reference to the pee incident – I heard it years ago, but I feel the essential point is that:

    Planes are safe precisely because some have crashed – it keeps everyone on their toes.

    It is easy to do a paper study that shows that a nuclear plant would withstand a direct hit with a jet airliner, but how much trust do YOU have in that?

    If you get to the point where even one major incident would have unbearable consequences, you have problems.

    I agree, renewables do seem to be a problem – not least because you need a way to store the energy to buffer the supply.

    Quite why you think the EU is socialist, I can’t imagine! The EU is going off the rails because it is not very democratic – which is not the same thing. However, the EU has done one very important thing – it has stopped wars between its member states – there are just too many forms to fill in before you are allowed to start one – LOL!

    I think becoming blase because there might be another super volcanic event is a bit like some Christians that don’t seem to care about overpopulation or nuclear war because the second coming is overdue anyway!

    I agree, nuclear technological fears are rather like AGW. The facts are rather hard to come by, subject to distortion by vested interests, and hard to evaluate even with a science background because they cover many subjects.

    You are too ready to disparage environmentalists. Traditionally, they have been the small guys railing against powerful state forces to oppose nuclear weapons, real pollution with toxic chemicals, habitat destruction, etc etc. It is really only with AGW that they appear on the side of Big Brother!

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    Francis Manns

    A Message in a Bottle
    The report on my imminent death is immature. I have been sloshing around in the basins on the crust for more than four billion years. I now cover nearly 71 per cent of the planet. Since the last ice age, I have lifted myself out of the basin by 120 metres and scared the tribes of Noah to the higher ground. During deep time, I became the universal solvent for the volcanoes and the clouds. I have taken up as much salt as required by local circumstances and sometimes give it back in hot shallows and desert areas of my world. I have given man the salt in his blood. I have absorbed as much gas as I need to maintain balance with the organic world within me and on land. Your CO2 output is infinitesimally small. The exchange is so peaceful that science calls it equilibrium. I can absorb more CO2, if the plants do not need it, and it does not give me acid imbalance. My pH will remain basic no matter what you say. The variations you measure have come and gone many uncountable times on the planet and your baseline is too small to know the truth. What you do not get is that warming of the oceans releases CO2 and other gasses from my water, while cooling my water allows me to take up CO2 in vast amounts to nestle with the other molecules in my coldest most remote realms. I can absorb all that man can produce because your impact is feeble compared to my capacity.
    Please watch me with humility for you cannot change me. I am the ongoing sink for the planet, and I am huge and my heat content is beyond your estimation. Measure me here and there with your microscopes but know that I will never be that way in that place again. Open your mind to the infinite cycles of chemistry and physics and kneel on my beach. You can only hurt me by not respecting my infinite ability to change chemistry and temperature in all the corners of the seas. My CO2 feeds your plants and your plants provide all the oxygen you breathe. Your base line is infinitesimally small yet your mouth is wide open. Stop sending me your plastic water bottles.
    Poseidon, the King
    __________________________________________________________
    I am mostly invisible, but not space. I am the wind you breathe, the 20 km thick shell around your sphere. I am bigger than Poseidon’s realm by many times. I am oxygen, and I am 80% nitrogen. I am both water vapour and humidity. I am carbon dioxide, methane, laughing gas and ozone. Argon, neon helium, and hydrogen make my fireworks in the lightening. I heat you by convection like an oven, cool you with my wind chill, and bury you in my microscopic hexagonal crystal frost. From the poles to the equator and from your caves to Kathmandu, I cover you, feed, and water you and your plants: no wind, and there is no food worth eating, for plants or man. Over four billion years and more, I practiced my cycles. My ozone protects you from your sun’s blue rays; my methane warms your coldest nights. Your green plants whirl out my oxygen all night trading it for my CO2 in the sunshine. When you walk in your forest, be thankful for the bargain.
    Without my parts per million CO2, you would choke. Without my parts per million CO2, you would freeze. As your people grow in numbers and size, I need more CO2 to fertilize your food. In my opinion, the more fat children, the merrier, because the earth does not laugh enough. Do not pump my CO2 underground or earth will quake from the wrong as it did under Denver on August 9th1967. When you sequester, be prepared to scavenge for food, and perhaps burn your oxygen for warmth
    I am Aeolus
    ___________________________________________________________________________
    Vulcan – god of fire said, “All the gasses from the mantle of the earth drive my fire and push up my liquid rock. Water affects my temper. When I foam, I am deadly. My carbon dioxide is colourless, and difficult to detect. It is heavy. It sinks and has killed many camped near Lake Nyos, in Cameroon. My sulphur dioxide is a killer too. At more than 20 ppm, it irritates, burns your eyes and is dangerous to breathe. When inhaled, most becomes sulphuric acid. My hydrogen sulphide is easy to smell, like rotten eggs. People are generally able to notice the odour; it can kill you at 50 ppm. My radon is colorless, odourless, tasteless, and radioactive. It can creep into your basement. My hydrochloric acid is colorless, but with an ‘acidic’ odour and taste, My HCl is common around blowholes and in eruptions. It can and will destroy the ozone when it blows to the top of the atmosphere. Just like the liquid acid, my vaporous acid will burn anything it touches – especially the breathers. My sulphuric acid comes in shades of brown and is odourless; exposure results in quick burns and dissolves the outer layers of the teeth. However, my worst most painful acid is hydrofluoric. It is also invisible and will cause deep burns and permanent blindness if not flushed with water. Death by hydrofluoric acid is horrible. Ask the ghosts of Iceland in 1783.
    My chimneys are scattered around the planet and one big puff like Krakatau or Pinatubo can ruin your air and cool your world. Between expulsions, my gasses are usually scattered. You will never know when I will speak and kill you because your lives are too short. My CO2 is my most benevolent gas, and I have given you parts per million for you to feed your plants. Use it carefully and do not abuse it. It is weak to fear me and not prosper. I come when I want.
    I do not respond to human sacrifice.”
    __________________________________________________________________________
    Finally, Gaia – the earth element said:
    “Among the ancient elements of Aristotle, the earth element was both cold and dry. He thought I occupied a place between water and fire. Aristotle lived a short span, just a moment ago in universal time, and he did not ask me. I am wet and dry, hot and cold, light and dark in all the rainbow colours. Gaia is rich and overflowing with goodness. My sphere vibrates with the gravity of the solar system. I ring like a bell when I quake, and if gravity dropped me, my sphere would splash like a tear. When my skin slides, I create wealth and prosperity in your copper mines. You dress to match me at your atomic scale with treasures from your tiny mines.
    I must admit, your choices of where to cluster astonish me. I guess you do not know me yet.
    I condensed more than four billion years ago as stardust gathered at my core. In all that time continuing tomorrow, I am sorting out the stardust into separate useful solids and liquids. I give most of the vapours to Vulcan and Aeolus and most of the fluids to Poseidon and they all share.
    So far, you have found only enough gold to fill one house and enough diamonds to fill one truck. There is more where that came from. Find where I have hidden it in the mountains and under the waters. It is good for you to quest – good luck.
    Man is late to the life that began in the salty wet clay. You have the salt of Poseidon, the gills of fish, and the brains of monkeys; you have the muscles of babies and the lips of giants. Your eyes magnify everything and what you see scares you. You must place your optical illusions in the perspective of prosperity, health, food, shelter, and clothing. Please listen to your science and not your demagogues . Your footprint is light. How many of you have seen a mine or a well? None! They are rare like diamonds.
    Do what you need to do. Make all your people happy. You have wit enough to do it cleanly. Dig my coal and burn it; make it into plant food again and water. Pump my oil and burn it. There is more where you have not looked. There is much where you have already looked in billion tonne layers of rock in Colorado. It is for man to use and recycle. Do not hesitate to scratch me; I do not bleed; I give.
    I do not want to be alone. Gaia and man belong together, and you do not know why. Much of my surface is empty of man. Perhaps illusions are the answer to the riddle. There is always more room for the children. Oh yes, the sunspots will be back when the lying stops. ”

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    Scottar

    Bailey:

    {Scotar,}

    It’s Scottar Bailey, don’t play games.

    {It is easy to do a paper study that shows that a nuclear plant would withstand a direct hit with a jet airliner, but how much trust do YOU have in that? If you get to the point where even one major incident would have unbearable consequences, you have problems.}

    Bailey, your irrational fears are adolescent. DOE has done actual crash tests that confirm the resiliency of the containment structures and they can extrapolate from that to structural design. If you have concerns about that then avoid bridges and skyscrapers.

    They NRC insures the safety and reliability of the nuclear reactors, the new type III have passive cooling features and shutdown safeguards that I would have next to zero concerns living next to one in the US. If it was a Chinese reactor I may have concerns.

    One company has modular reactors batteries that can power anything from a small community to a large town. They are self sufficient, last 30+ years and are placed underground. That would be better than either wind or solar PV energy and can even beat coal. I would have a concern living next to a wind farm and very much to a chemical factory or refinery.

    {Quite why you think the EU is socialist, I can’t imagine! The EU is going off the rails because it is not very democratic – which is not the same thing. However, the EU has done one very important thing – it has stopped wars between its member states – there are just too many forms to fill in before you are allowed to start one – LOL!}

    They are postponing the inevitable and they are at the mercy of Russian energy sources like Gasprom. They are being overrun by Moslems and they support the ridiculous Kyoto protocol. The way the world is headed now there will certainly be wars breaking out unless China develops a viable nano technology or energy weapon that can neutralize nuclear retaliation. the EU lives in a security bubble of fantasy. And the fact that they have one of the highest tax rate to support all their overloaded bureaucracies and subsidizations, they tax their fuel at 50%! Other then that, their countries are charming.

    {You are too ready to disparage environmentalists. Traditionally, they have been the small guys railing against powerful state forces to oppose nuclear weapons, real pollution with toxic chemicals, habitat destruction, etc etc. It is really only with AGW that they appear on the side of Big Brother!}

    I’m talking about the radical enviros who distort the science along with the department heads who are after grant monies and prestige and even political power. You have learned nothing to little about the Climategate incident. That is what I mean about the enviro- industrial complex. If I was talking about the industrial-defense industry I would not be including the enlisted nor much of command, it would be those involved in the procurement process and contracts.

    If you worked for a pharmaceutical corporation that produces a drug that has some negatives you may have a tendency to object to that. But since the corporation is international and has deep pockets and much influence over the government….. you would be taking a career suicide step by whistle blowing. You are up against an entity that can employ Mafia tactics to discredit you and even threaten your family or love ones. You would be very reluctant to come out unless you had outside funding or support from credible sources.

    This is the scenario that people in various scientific realms, like the EPA in the US, that don’t dare come out to tell the truth for fear of retaliation that would wreak their careers. The CRU emails were leaked by an insider whistleblower and has caught the corrupt science instigators red handed. But in spite of that you still see politicals and industrialists still embracing carbon capping or sequestering. That is because their financial and political futures have been stamped in enviro gold- translate money and power.

    The present IPCC head, Pachauri, has ‘green’ investments just like Mr. Gore. The IPCC doesn’t have a peer review process from the 2,500 science contributors, it has a cherry picking review process that involves some 5,000 committee head reviewers, finalized by about some 15 head chiefs that message the reports into supporting AGW claims.

    This science of convenience pervades the political and industrial sectors and other related government bureaucracies. Any opposition is oppressed or discredited by those who are voted in or appointed by those the voters got conned into voting for. BO is a perfect example. Where money and power is involved there can be corruption, especially when those roots go back to origins of corruption and tainted influence.

    This is what Climategate exposes concerning the enviro-industrial-political complex. Get a clue Bailey, David Evans has been through that process and that is what this site is all about. Read Evan’s “I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train”

    Regards to Francis Manns:

    I like your posts, great analogy on the last one. Human’s can stop global warming????- the Gods are laughing! Time for a political reality check.

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    Con Michael

    I ask any believer in AGW theory to state what would prove him/her wrong.Unless they answer correctly,further discussion is fruitless.In recent decades,global cooling occurred during a period of increasing CO2 emissions.According to the rigors of scientific discipline,theories are formulated to explain events.Predictions are then made based on the theory.If somethig happens that should not have.and vice versa,the theory is discarded and it’s back to the drwawing board.Ergo the AGW theory has been discredited.End of story,game over;the global warming alarmists lose.

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    Denny

    Con Michael: Post 113,

    Con Michael, Wish it was that simple..The Alarmists do not use “True Scientific” principals towards their work…All you have to do is read the ClimateGate emails and this confirms this suspicion. You are correct on all Science discipline’s this how it’s done but not in the newly founded Climate arena…

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    Scottar

    Denny:

    Wish it was that simple..The Alarmists do not use “True Scientific” principals towards their work

    Yes, you are so right. They will cut down your science, reasoning and sources without any real intelligent dialog. If it doesn’t come from one of their holy climate grail sites like NASA, IPCC, realclimate, no matter what credentials the source has, it’s crap to them. Hit them with the truth, shove it in their faces and demand an intelligent reply. And if you don’t get it then tell them they haven’t convinced you and take your leave. You may want to come back with new overwhelming info from time to time, it’s always surfacing.

    But if they don’t delete your reply then you have one more path for others to evaluate and check out.

    Here’s one site that lists a bunch of peer reviewed skeptic articles and sites:
    peer-reviewed-papers-supporting

    Another good reference is:
    http://climatesci.org/2009/05/05/have-changes-in-ocean-heat-falsified-the-global-warming-hypothesis-a-guest-weblog-by-william-dipuccio/

    There it is shown that ocean heat and not CO2 forcing is has a great effect on climate by directly absorbing the Suns energy.

    The information is changing weekly as new revelations come about. My mainstay is icecap.us, the Newsmax of climate news. some of the info is peer reviewed so don’t let the AGWers blow you off with- Well it’s a blog site! It’s a climate blog news site. It’s the sources and quality of the material plus the credentials of the personnel. The information is out there, you just have to dig it up.

    Then there’s CO2science.org with more professional scientific articles.

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    David Bailey

    Scottar,

    Sorry I misspelt your name – no gamesmanship involved!

    You wrote, “Bailey, your irrational fears are adolescent. DOE has done actual crash tests that confirm the resiliency of the containment structures and they can extrapolate from that to structural design. If you have concerns about that then avoid bridges and skyscrapers.”

    You see the problem is that what one might call the AGW phenomenon can work in other areas too. Science is more easily coruptable than we like to think. There must be huge financial incentives to come to the ‘right’ conclusion in studies such as those you quote, and without getting totally immersed in the subject, it is hard to know what the truth is. Certainly the fact that people often survive car crashes that destroy their car, does not mean that this happens every time.

    It may be that we end up with more nuclear power, which would be preferable to the social collapse that might otherwise result from “low carbon” policies.

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    Scottar

    David Bailey:

    Certainly the fact that people often survive car crashes that destroy their car, does not mean that this happens every time.

    It may be that we end up with more nuclear power, which would be preferable to the social collapse that might otherwise result from “low carbon” policies.

    I find your comparisons of cars and planes and whatnot to nuclear ridiculousness. You are comparing apples to bananas and coconuts. First of all there are not as many reactors as cars and planes and will never be so. 2nd, nuclear reactors do not experience high volumes of consumer contact except via the grid. 3rd, oversight is much more stringent.
    You just have a phobia against something you don’t really understand.

    Working in a fab as a maintenance technician would be more hazardous. Many chip manufacturers use an acid that can dissolve bones, and once a limb gets contaminated, the only cure is amputation. And they use chlorine compounds along with other nasty chemicals. I think your stuck on 1970’s technology which was a hazard back in that period. But that’s progress, sometimes you learn as you go, you have to start somewhere.

    But I find living with the Earth and Gaia far more hazardous to ones existence then much of that dangerous, dirty technology. Tornadoes, hurricanes, carnivores, poisonous insects and reptiles and amphibians, volcanoes, earthquakes, mudslides, floods, droughts, and other common hazards found on this living planet that have happened in the past and will continue to happen in the future regardless of human activities. Humans can make their environment worse by stupid actions but they really can’t destroy the planet with all it’s complex systems simply by energy usage and raising CO2 levels incrementally. Human contributions to the yearly 2ppm CO2 increase is only about 5% or even less.

    The question is, what steps will be taken to sustain or improve just basic living standards? Some people talk about living in a pristine world but one they enter that world they establish some sort of carbon foot print. So do we go back to medievil living standards, what is really carbon neutral? Can people live comfortability all squished together on a minimal allotment of land verses housing? That smells of Communism and that has never really worked in the past, never! When you look at where people want to live with just follow the human herd for lifestyle choices, it’s hardly ever to communist- socialists republics, although under BO and the Dems, the US seems headed in that direction.

    Climatologists have discovered that the Sahara was once a fertile breadbasket around 10,000 BCE to 4,000 BCE. It was caused by the Earth’s orbit wobbling slightly around 10,000 BCE, causing a shift in weather patterns. The monsoons which drench Southern Africa today shifted up, pouring water onto the Sahara, where it formed bodies of water. Around 4,000 BCE, the Sahara became a desert once more, and it is now rapidly expanding, due to a variety of factors. It was known as the Green Sahara period and you will find things like that over the planet wide that had no human fingerprint. So much of this AGW mantra is exaggerations of natural processes. It most likely will happen again just like the present cooling phenomena and past warming.

    To let the economy degrade to depression levels is suicide for any country. The economy will lose momentum for R&D and the low carbon replacement will be low revenue service and agrijobs. Is that what you want?

    Bailey, you just don’t get it. Present green technology doesn’t even come close to replacing the high energy capacities of nuclear, oil or coal. Conservation can only do so much plus house would have to be rebuilt with the most efficient use of solar thermal usage. Forget PV, it still not efficient enough to replace fossils, show me the economics!

    Green technology is like present healthcare, only the rich can afford the best, the middle class person will have to do bandaide approach such as hot air solar, solar films over windows, perhaps solar thermal ad-ons, solar thermal water heaters, LEDs. I noticed that in England people are having a hard time even getting fuel for their cars and homes. But getting people to accept and live with these alternative butts up against quality of life issues, just look at how Al Gore lives his life, would you call him a roll model?!

    Here in the US people bought much out of convenience. They though that wind and solar would replace the coal and gas and oil to heat their homes of convenience. So we have these inefficient home everywhere with more space then people can afford to heat and light. Governments are going bankrupt across the nation as the banking fiascoes mounts, as is also being experienced in other countries. Right now the economy is being floated on stimulus and not real productivity.

    So with the climate getting colder due to solar irradiance waning and possible other factors down the road, people are going to need more energy to counter that. Green energy doesn’t even come close, unless a major breakthrough in battery technology is at hand to counter fossil replacement energy needs. An economic collapse of what your referring to means people freezing, overheating, and starving or being malnourished. The population would have to die off by half.

    So dream on Bailey, like the guy who buys a home e’ can’t afford on the future prospects of a raise or promotion just because e’ can get into a low interest ARM loan. That’s what precipitated the current economic mess, playing on people prospects. If it requires too much subsidization for the return then it probably won’t pan out down the road. But some people still fall for the idealized hype and not the reality. The biggest problem is governments getting in the way of free enterprise solutions with ridiculousness regulations and mandates while being in bed with bankers and other special interest groups. Did you read of the Copenhagen charades? That right there should show you the fiasco of the enviro-politico-industrial complex. It’s carpet bagging on a new level.

    What is your energy use situation that makes you think green energy will sustain you Bailey, or the world? Or what sources do you rely on that make you think that? What kind of life style would you expect people to acquire based on current, non fossil and nuclear technology? You seem to be stuck in a revolving door of green expectations based on political and exaggerated salesmanship flatulence rather then realities.

    And I see that in one post I inadvertently misspelled your name, it was a typo and not intentional. Sorry about that.

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    David Bailey

    Scottar,

    You don’t seem to read what I say, and possibly you just like arguing – because we agree about a lot of things! My central point is that I don’t trust research done by organisations that have a vested interest in the outcome – just as neither of us trusts the research done by climatologists. So I am not that keen to accept claims that a power station would withstand a well-aimed hit by a large plane – maybe a cargo plane filled with explosives.

    As regards hydrofluoric acid, to which I think you were referring, yes it is very dangerous, but the danger would be confined to a few people at most. After a tragedy the safety standards would be improved as necessary.

    Conversely, if a plane did fly into a power station, and broke the containment vessel, and if the research into reactor safety had been performed in the same way as AGW research, the results for the UK might be catastrophic.

    Last time I filled my tank, I had no problems, and the gas is still flowing to warm my house. It sometimes scares me that totally untrue stories sometimes bounce around the internet.

    I totally agree about green energy production – you absolutely have to have a good way to store the energy, which is intermittent. Possibly hydrogen production and storage might be an answer, but simply coupling wind turbines to the national grid is useless.

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    I don’t see global warming taking place on our planet. The earth has not changed its climate more than a degree or two over tens of thousands of years. You may have weather changes in certain places on earth but it is not caused by man. Weather changes have taken place in certain areas but taking our planet as a whole body our earths tempature has remained constant. Volcanos have a greater effect on our weather than man.

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    […] ClimateGate a criminal offense or two […]

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    BobC

    So, come on MattB! Lay it all out, make the argument you really want to make: The climate emails are not incriminating because Jo may have exaggerated Richard Courtney’s credentials. Let’s have it chapter and verse — quote from the emails and demonstrate how they are now harmless to their authors because of Joanne’s actions. Give it to us syllogism by syllogism.

    You’re being stupider than usual today.

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