Michelle Malkin » The global warming scandal of the century

The global warming scandal of the century

By Michelle Malkin • November 20, 2009 12:23 PM

Anthony Watts of Watt’s Up With That? and Stephen McIntrye of Climate Audit broke the story this morning of the hacking break-in at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU).

BBC confirms:

The e-mail system of one of the world’s leading climate research units has been breached by hackers.

E-mails reportedly from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), including personal exchanges, appeared on the internet on Thursday.

A university spokesman confirmed the email system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission.

An investigation was underway and the police had been informed, he added.

“We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites,” the spokesman stated.

“Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm that all of this material is genuine.

“This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation.

“We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and we have involved the police in this enquiry.”

Researchers at CRU, one of the world’s leading research bodies on natural and human-induced climate change, played a key role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, which is considered to be the most authoritative report of its kind.

First things first: The alleged hackers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

That said: The crimes revealed in the e-mails promise to be the global warming scandal of the century — and have massive bearing on the climate change legislation being considered by our lawmakers here at home.

Helpful rundowns of all the latest developments at Hot Air, Shout First, Andrew Bolt, and from James Delingpole at the Telegraph, who sums up some of the most damning e-mails:

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

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. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority…

The Chicago Way is the Global Warming Mob Way.

Stay tuned.

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#101

On November 20th, 2009 at 6:33 pm, tarpon said:

This is going to be good. Teh whole thing is a fraud and the information is now public. What will Al Gore say to his investors?
#102

On November 20th, 2009 at 7:23 pm, AlohaGuy said:

What will Al Gore say to his investors?

I need more money – my suits don’t fit.
#103

On November 20th, 2009 at 8:02 pm, blogagog said:

“First things first: The alleged hackers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Rly? That’s what’s important? Really?
#104

On November 20th, 2009 at 9:01 pm, tbear44 said:

On November 20th, 2009 at 7:23 pm, AlohaGuy said:
What will Al Gore say to his investors?
I need more money – my suits don’t fit.

lol
#105

On November 20th, 2009 at 10:21 pm, Mostly Annoyed said:

I believe intentionally distorting data in federally funded research is fraud. Knowingly using that fraudlent data to obtain more federal funding is also fraud. They should all be put in jail and when they do get out, prohibited from getting closer than 100 yards of any school and banned from any research.

Anyone involved in this fraud (all of the global warming ~~criminals~~ should be investigated by the FBI. This may be the worst criminal enterprise in history because it is being used to justify radical schemes and policies all over the world. Since there is collusion on a massive level this (and the ACORN mess) is what RICO should be used for.

However I expect President “O” is looking into how to give them all the “Presidential Medal of Freedom”, more research money and appoint them as czars.

If we are lucky this will blow up in the Dem’s faces, but I suspect if anything happens, these “few bad apples” will get a slap on the wrist and defended with more federal funds.

I wonder how many jobs they saved with their share of the stimulas money!
#106

On November 20th, 2009 at 11:49 pm, sbw999 said:

If true, this is just exhibit # 23458759098 showing that liberals are the most morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest POS on the face of the planet. This is a fraud of gargantuan proportions; and only liberal lemmings are stupid enough to have bought this man made global warming horse crap 100%.
#107

On November 20th, 2009 at 11:55 pm, Republicanvet said:

On November 20th, 2009 at 10:21 pm, Mostly Annoyed said:

However I expect President “O” is looking into how to give them all the “Presidential Medal of Freedom”, more research money and appoint them as czars.

I doubt ObowMao would do anything, or any other dimmy for that matter.

Considering the volume of email, they should take the same tack as Breitbart.

Should the powers that be choose not to act on this fraud, trickle them out a little at a time.

Kill the whole Gorebal Warming Religion by a thousand email paper cuts.
#108

On November 21st, 2009 at 7:44 am, Danceswithdachshunds said:

The damage control spin machine quickly went into over-drive. Gavin Schmitt:

The timing of this particular episode is probably not coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.

Is it just me or does anybody else notice one GIGANTONORMOUS ASSUMPTION in the logic of that statement?

Gavin – Real scientists probably should not worry too much about cherry picked emails but … they ought to damn well care about cherry picked DATA that comprises the very essence of the ‘scientific evidence’ that you so pompously claim has weight.

(I posted this here because Gavin Schmitt routinely DELETES all comments on his site that are too tough for his ego to deal with.)
#109

On November 21st, 2009 at 8:07 am, Danceswithdachshunds said:

On the GRAVY TRAIN of politically crafted ‘science’ – there’s bound to be a little ~leakage~ along the way.

Joanne Nova wrote:

The most telling point is that after spending $30 billion on pure science research no one is able to point to a single piece of empirical evidence that man-made carbon dioxide has a significant effect on the global climate.

IMO, that statement concisely describes the FOUNDATIONAL problem at hand.
#110

On November 21st, 2009 at 8:49 am, jangar said:

As a professor I knew once said, “Anyone who is in complete harmony with the science of today will most certainly be out of step with the science of tomorrow.”

Yes. It’s as if they have declared “We have arrived at all truth…now shut up and go away”.
#111

On November 21st, 2009 at 1:16 pm, yohannbiimu said:

I can’t say that I’m shocked and surprised, not only that the environmental scare-mongers pulled something like this, but that the usual liberal suspects who used to defend them and their heroes in the federal government have been eerily silent lately. Could it be that this sort of behavior actually shocks and surprises THEM?
#112

On November 21st, 2009 at 2:53 pm, arromdee said:

The “trick” email could easily be innocuous. It’s not uncommon for people in any technical field to say that they have a trick to doing something, without necessarily meaning that they’re going to deceive anyone.

It’s the ones about hiding the information and not responding to FOI requests that are more damning.
#113

On November 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm, Rekd said:

Could it be that this sort of behavior actually shocks and surprises THEM?

Probably more like they hope this sort of behavior will go away or go un-noticed if they ignore it.
#114

On November 21st, 2009 at 6:14 pm, scrubjay said:

First things first: The alleged hackers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Why? They have uncovered a major fraud against humanity. I think of this more as investigative journalism.
#115

On November 23rd, 2009 at 8:07 am, jah said:

This quote pretty much sums it up,

“I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. “Well,” I said, “there aren’t any.” He said, “Yes, but then we won’t get support for more research of this kind.” I think that’s kind of dishonest. If you’re representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you’re doing– and if they don’t support you under those circumstances, then that’s their decision.

One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish BOTH kinds of results.

I say that’s also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don’t publish such a result, it seems to me you’re not giving scientific advice. You’re being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don’t publish at all. That’s not giving scientific advice.”

Richard Feynman
From a Caltech commencement address given in 1974
(Cargo Cult Science)
#116

On December 3rd, 2009 at 5:27 am, kurthanson said:

Why are the CRU climate-changer goofs treating weather data as top-secret information?

Under what authority are they allowed to hide data on the weather?!