[PluggyRug]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

I was hoping you guys would go the "blame the MSM" route.

Here's a couple more actual news articles from the MSM (as opposed to the opinion pieces N_fidel Dog keeps trying to pass off as MSM news).

Here's the New York Times

An interesting excerpt:

$1:

Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

...

Reuters

$1:

Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer
Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:07pm EST

By Timothy Gardner - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Revelation of a series of embarrassing e-mails by climate scientists provides fodder for critics, but experts believe the issue will not hurt the U.S. climate bill's chance for passage or efforts to forge a global climate change deal.

Already dubbed "Climategate," e-mails stolen from a British university are sparking outrage from climate change skeptics who say they show that the scientists were colluding on suppressing data on how humans affect climate change.

The e-mails, some written as long as 13 years ago, ranged from nasty comments by global warming researchers about climate skeptics to exchanges between researchers on how to present data in charts to make global warming look convincing.

In one e-mail, according to news accounts, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

Climate skeptics seized on the release of the e-mails as a game changer. The documents will speed the end of "global warming alarmism," said Myron Ebell, a climate change skeptic at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He said research that has been relied upon for official reports "is now very suspect."

Patrick Michaels, one of the scientists derided in the e-mails for doubting global warming, said he thinks the documents will finally "open up the scientific debate."

"That's probably the good news," said Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

But others say the damage may be limited as the evidence is still overwhelming that a buildup of greenhouse gases is melting snow on mountain tops and shrinking global ice caps.

"The issue of scientists behaving badly does nothing to invalidate the science," said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, LLC in Washington. "This does nothing to the U.S. climate bill, which will be decided mostly by economic forces, not environmental ones."

[/quote]


Well, given the light of day, one would think some the "science" purported by some of the "scientists" are nothing more than opinion pieces.

[Zipperfish]

$1:

Well, given the light of day, one would think some the "science" purported by some of the "scientists" are nothing more than opinion pieces.

Looks like it was "sexed up"--just like Iraq! The worse thing is those scientists are carrying on as if they did nothing wrong. I mean I realize it appears it was a criminal act that revealed these emails and documents, but it also looks like these guys were giving the gears to editors of peer-reviewed journals who printed papers these guys didn't like. They should 'fess up and take their lumps. And as far as research is concerned--stick a fork in 'em, they're done.

Looks like the right wing is going to overplay their hand by immediately dragging the whole affair off to la-la-land, with the "liberal MSM" and the "socialist world government" business.

[N_Fiddledog]

This one surprised me. It's supposed to be from some sort of Russian TV network. It's surprisingly fair and balanced compared to those stilted, hack jobs we've seen coming from the America mainstream networks, papers, and BBC.

[N_Fiddledog]

Here's the American mainstream and BBC coverage so far...

[Zipperfish]

I can't believe it--the guy who thinks pretty much exactly what I do is frickin' neo-con--David Frum. Mind you, I think he's lost his keys to the executive washroom with the neo-cons for some reason.

FrumForum

$1:

A False Lesson on Climate Change
November 25th, 2009 at 10:35 pm by David Frum


On their way to discovering the double helix structure of DNA, James Watson and Francis Crick drew important inspiration from an unauthorized glimpse at the unpublished research of a third scientist, Rosalind Franklin.

Yet when James Watson published his famous memoir in 1968, he made scant mention of Franklin’s contributions—holding her up instead to vicious and misogynistic mockery.

Scientists—even brilliant ones—are not better than other people. They are at least as prone to vanity, malice, groupthink, charlatanism, and outright dishonesty as those in any other line of work. Happily, science is bigger than the scientists. Nobody would respond to Watson’s bad behavior by saying, “See—that proves that DNA does not exist!”

Yet that is just the kind of debate we are having in the wake of the exposure of hundreds of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. These emails depict the scientists of the CRU in the worst possible light: manipulating data to reach preordained conclusions, disparaging critics, stonewalling legitimate requests for information.

Climate change skeptics have seized on the misconduct of the East Anglian scientists as confirmation of all their doubts about man-made global warming. You can see why! The case for global warming has often been pressed with disgracefully reckless and manipulative language. Again and again, climate alarmists like former Vice President Al Gore have indulged in apocalypic exaggerations that their own allies have had to repudiate.

For example:

No, we are not in imminent danger of a 7-meter increase in sea levels – or the disappearance of the Gulf Stream. It’s not planetary climate change that is drying up Lake Chad or melting the snows of Kilimanjaro. The polar bears are doing just fine. In the wake of the exposure of the CRU emails, such overstatements now look less like over-zealous mistakes, more like conscious fabrications.

But as with James Watson, so with the East Anglian CRU: the abusive behavior of scientists does not invalidate the confirmed facts of science.

Whatever those shifty scientists were doing in East Anglia, it’s still a fact that there is a lot more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there used to be — about 35 percent more than at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. (We know this by comparing the atmosphere of today to the atmosphere preserved in the lower archaeological layers of glacier ice.)

We also know that the burning of fossil fuels is an important cause of this atmospheric change. Every year, the burning of coal, oil and natural gas releases some 27 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

We know that carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases entrap more of the sun’s warmth on earth.

And we have observed that over the past half century, until about the year 2000, temperatures in the northern hemisphere trended upward, peaking in 1998. The warming trend seems to have abated over the past decade, but rising carbon emissions give reason to fear that it will resume in the future. Those fears remain intact despite the moral defects of any group of scientists.

So what’s the lesson of this story? It’s that the environmental realists like Bjorn Lomberg are right. Climate change is a problem, not an emergency; climate models are frail human guesses, not attested facts; knowledge is uncertain; costs matter.

[N_Fiddledog]

Everybody has their favorite scientist-story to connect to Climategate.

Mine is the story of Trofim Lysenko, and the cabal of scientists working under him who controlled soviet agricultural policy in Stalinist Russia.

Lysenko was Stalinist Russia's director of biology. That's kind of like what might be referred to in Obamaist America as the agriculture czar.

He had these nutty theories, and claimed they were based on science. They weren't, of course, but that was the claim, and you didn't argue with the goldenboy of Joey S. in those days, so everybody just kind of nodded their heads, and agreed, for the most part, for awhile anyway.

Lysenkoists would do stuff like plant many more times the amount of seeds in a trough than what were needed; the theory being plants wouldn't compete with each other. The problem there was plants do compete with each other, and that coupled with other genius agricultural techniques of the Lysenkoists created pathetic crop yields.

The claim is Lysenkoism was either, in whole or in part, responsible for massive famines both in Russia, and China.

Lysenko had strong political power. In the 1940s a purge was conducted of all scientists dissenting with Lysenkoism.

Unfortunately for Climategate stars like Mann, Shmidt, and Jones the current state of science does not allow for standing dissenting scientists up against the wall, like it did in the halcyon days of Stalin, so their attempts at a purge have thus far been thwarted, or at least slowed.

[sandorski]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Everybody has their favorite scientist-story to connect to Climategate.

Mine is the story of Trofim Lysenko, and the cabal of scientists working under him who controlled soviet agricultural policy in Stalinist Russia.

Lysenko was Stalinist Russia's director of biology. That's kind of like what might be referred to in Obamaist America as the agriculture czar.

He had these nutty theories, and claimed they were based on science. They weren't, of course, but that was the claim, and you didn't argue with the goldenboy of Joey S. in those days, so everybody just kind of nodded their heads, and agreed, for the most part, for awhile anyway.

Lysenkoists would do stuff like plant many more times the amount of seeds in a trough than what were needed; the theory being plants wouldn't compete with each other. The problem there was plants do compete with each other, and that coupled with other genius agricultural techniques of the Lysenkoists created pathetic crop yields.

The claim is Lysenkoism was either, in whole or in part, responsible for massive famines both in Russia, and China.

Lysenko had strong political power. In the 1940s a purge was conducted of all scientists dissenting with Lysenkoism.

Unfortunately for Climategate stars like Mann, Shmidt, and Jones the current state of science does not allow for standing dissenting scientists up against the wall, like it did in the halcyon days of Stalin, so their attempts at a purge have thus far been thwarted, or at least slowed.

This is why you constantly and consistently Fail. Drawing Parallels where none exist.

[N_Fiddledog]

Well yeah, if you're so brainwashed your mind has been virtually sand-blasted clean of all capability to reason, I can see where you'd say that.

Oh wait...I just thought of something. I'm going to call you Sandy.

[Akhenaten]

$1:

It's surprisingly fair and balanced compared to those stilted, hack jobs we've seen coming from the America mainstream networks, papers, and BBC.

Excuse me but the story itself is a hack job. Since when did half-quotes, out of context, from stolen documents constitute 'proof'?

The only thing that's relevant now, since the hacked emails prove nothing, they merely insinuate, is for the scientists themselves to be given a chance to respond to the half-assed email quotes.

I don't see FOX or anyone else in MSM for that matter doing that.

THe larger point from my perspective is if you don't believe in global warming then your reason for that should be the evidence. Then stick to the evidence. Contrary to current perception here this story discredits the "deniers" not the proponents. Same goes for them as well though: If you believe in MM global warming than stick to the evidence.

The thing I don't like about the con-MM-global-warming argument is they can't pick a lane: The Earth is warming up but it's not man made....the earth isn't warming up....the world is cooling....okay the world IS warming up but it's a natural phase.

Either you have a solid reason to believe a solid, cohesive, immutable and inalienable conclusion of truth, or you're just throwing stuff at a wall hoping something will stick -- which is a sure indication you don't know one way or another, you just refuse to accept the possibilty.

[sandorski]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Well yeah, if you're so brainwashed your mind has been virtually sand-blasted clean of all capability to reason, I can see where you'd say that.

Oh wait...I just thought of something. I'm going to call you Sandy.

Fail on Bro, Fail on.

[sandorski]

Akhenaten Akhenaten:

$1:

It's surprisingly fair and balanced compared to those stilted, hack jobs we've seen coming from the America mainstream networks, papers, and BBC.

Excuse me but the story itself is a hack job. Since when did half-quotes, out of context, from stolen documents constitute 'proof'?

The only thing that's relevant now, since the hacked emails prove nothing, they merely insinuate, is for the scientists themselves to be given a chance to respond to the half-assed email quotes.

I don't see FOX or anyone else in MSM for that matter doing that.

THe larger point from my perspective is if you don't believe in global warming then your reason for that should be the evidence. Then stick to the evidence. Contrary to current perception here this story discredits the "deniers" not the proponents. Same goes for them as well though: If you believe in MM global warming than stick to the evidence.

The thing I don't like about the con-MM-global-warming argument is they can't pick a lane: The Earth is warming up but it's not man made....the earth isn't warming up....the world is cooling....okay the world IS warming up but it's a natural phase.

Either you have a solid reason to believe a solid, cohesive, immutable and inalienable conclusion of truth, or you're just throwing stuff at a wall hoping something will stick -- which is a sure indication you don't know one way or another, you just refuse to accept the possibilty.

Exactly.

[Zipperfish]

Akhenaten Akhenaten:

Either you have a solid reason to believe a solid, cohesive, immutable and inalienable conclusion of truth, or you're just throwing stuff at a wall hoping something will stick -- which is a sure indication you don't know one way or another, you just refuse to accept the possibilty.

Excellent point!

[N_Fiddledog]

There's tons of science out there casting doubt on the expectation of catastrophic warming from CO2 forced warming but that's not essentially what climategate is about.

It's more about, among other things, rigging the game so only one group of scientists adhering to the proper ideologically forged, preconceived conclusions, can be heard. It's about the perversion of science. It's about the Lysenkoesque purge of dissenting thought.

From the Wall Wtreet Journal...

$1:

How to Forge a Consensus


The climatologists at the center of last week's leaked-email and document scandal have taken the line that it is all much ado about nothing. Yes, the wording of the some of their messages was unfortunate, but they insist this in no way undermines the underlying science, which is as certain as ever.

"What they've done is search through stolen personal emails—confidential between colleagues who often speak in a language they understand and is often foreign to the outside world," Penn State's Michael Mann told Reuters Wednesday. Mr. Mann added that this has made "something innocent into something nefarious."

Phil Jones, Director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, from which the emails were lifted, is singing from the same climate hymnal. "My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues," he said this week.

We don't doubt that Mr. Jones would have phrased his emails differently if he expected them to end up in the newspaper. His May 2008 email to Mr. Mann regarding the U.N.'s Fourth Assessment Report: "Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?" does not "read well," it's true. (Mr. Mann has said he didn't delete any such emails.)

But the furor over these documents is not about tone, colloquialisms or even whether climatologists are nice people in private. The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at in the first place, and how even now a single view is being enforced. In short, the impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.

According to this privileged group, only those whose work has been published in select scientific journals, after having gone through the "peer-review" process, can be relied on to critique the science. And sure enough, any challenges that critics have lobbed at climatologists from outside this clique are routinely dismissed and disparaged.

This past September, Mr. Mann told a New York Times reporter in one of the leaked emails that: "Those such as [Stephen] McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted." Mr. McIntyre is a retired Canadian businessman who fact-checks the findings of climate scientists and often publishes the mistakes he finds—including some in Mr. Mann's work—on his Web site, Climateaudit.org. He holds the rare distinction of having forced Mr. Mann to publish a correction to one of his more-famous papers.

As anonymous reviewers of choice for certain journals, Mr. Mann & Co. had considerable power to enforce the consensus, but it was not absolute, as they discovered in 2003. Mr. Mann noted to several colleagues in an email from March 2003, when the journal "Climate Research" published a paper not to Mr. Mann's liking, that "This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the 'peer-reviewed literature'. Obviously, they found a solution to that—take over a journal!"

The scare quotes around "peer-reviewed literature," by the way, are Mr. Mann's. He went on in the email to suggest that the journal itself be blackballed: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board." In other words, keep dissent out of the respected journals. When that fails, re-define what constitutes a respected journal to exclude any that publish inconvenient views. It's easy to manufacture a scientific consensus when you get to decide what counts as science.

The response to this among the defenders of Mr. Mann and his circle has been that even if they did disparage doubters and exclude contrary points of view, theirs is still the best climate science we've got. The proof for this is circular. It's the best, we're told, because it's the most-published and most-cited—in that same peer-reviewed literature.

Even so, by rigging the rules, they've made it impossible to know how good it really is. And then, one is left to wonder why they felt the need to rig the game in the first place, if their science is as robust as they claim. If there's an innocent explanation for that, we'd love to hear it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... s_comments

[ASLplease]

wouldn't it make sense that returning all of the carbon source from underground to above - a feat that is virtually impossible - might return the climate temperature to less than what we have already experienced in the history of man.

[Zipperfish]

That's an excellent point, but I think the important thing to remmeber is that I'm right and everybody else is wrong.