Temperature History, Temperature Measurement

Defending the Tribe

217 Comments

This is a really interesting email string form the CRU emails, via Steve McIntyre:

June 4, 2003 Briffa to Cook 1054748574
On June 4, 2003, Briffa, apparently acting as editor (presumably for Holocene), contacted his friend Ed Cook of Lamont-Doherty in the U.S. who was acting as a reviewer telling him that “confidentially” he needed a “hard and if required extensive case for rejecting”, in the process advising Cook of the identity and recommendation of the other reviewer. There are obviously many issues involved in the following as an editor instruction:

From: Keith Briffa
To: Edward Cook
Subject: Re: Review- confidential REALLY URGENT
Date: Wed Jun 4 13:42:54 2003

I am really sorry but I have to nag about that review – Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting – to support Dave Stahle’s and really as soon as you can. Please
Keith

Cook to Briffa, June 4, 2003
In a reply the same day, Cook told Briffa about a review for Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences of a paper which, if not rejected, could “really do some damage”. Cook goes on to say that it is an “ugly” paper to review because it is “rather mathematical” and it “won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically”. Here is the complete email:

Hi Keith,
Okay, today. Promise! Now something to ask from you. Actually somewhat important too. I got a paper to review (submitted to the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences), written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression) is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc. They use your Tornetrask recon as the main whipping boy. I have a file that you gave me in 1993 that comes from your 1992 paper. Below is part of that file. Is this the right one? Also, is it possible to resurrect the column headings? I would like to play with it in an effort to refute their claims. If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically, but it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a practical sense. So they do lots of monte carlo stuff that shows the superiority of their method and the deficiencies of our way of doing things, but NEVER actually show how their method would change the Tornetrask reconstruction from what you produced. Your assistance here is greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will let Tornetrask sink into the melting permafrost of northern Sweden (just kidding of course).
Cheers,
Ed

A couple of observations

  1. For guys who supposedly represent the consensus science of tens of thousands of scientists, these guys sure have a bunker mentality
  2. I would love an explanation of how math can have theoretical deficiencies but be better in a practical sense.  In the practical sense of … giving the answer one wants?
  3. The general whitewash answer to all the FOIA obstructionism is that these are scientists doing important work not to be bothered by nutcases trying to waste their time.  But here is exactly the hypocrisy:  The email author says that some third party’s study is deficient because he can’t demonstrate how his mathematical approach might change the answer the hockey team is getting.  But no third party can do this because the hockey team won’t release the data needed for replication.  This kind of data – to check the mathematical methodologies behind the hockey stick regressions – is exactly what Steve McIntyre et al have been trying to get.  Ed Cook is explaining here, effectively, why release of this data is indeed important
  4. At the very same time these guys are saying to the world not to listen to critics because they are not peer-reviewed, they are working as hard as they can back-channel to keep their critics out of peer-reviewed literature they control.
  5. For years I have said that one problem with the hockey team is not just that the team is insular, but he reviewers of their work are the same guys doing the work.  And now we see that these same guys are asked to review the critics of their work.

217 thoughts on “Defending the Tribe”

  1. Waldo,
    Even wikipedia, friend of AGW true beleivers, fails to support your pose on ‘the science is settled’.
    But if the science is not settled, why do true beleivers act as if it were?
    And please, do save that aftermarket faux integrity of yours for someone who would not know the difference.

  2. “fails to support your pose on ‘the science is settled’.”

    Never said that or anything remotely like it. Said we should listen to the experts. In fact, no one said that. Look up the phrase. It is a deception.

  3. They said it close enough, and I am not convinced Gore did not use those specific words. Certainly close enough for people who believe that tricks to hid diverging proxies are valid.
    But are you now suggesting that ‘the science is settled’ no longer reflects the rality of what AGW proponents believe?
    Just wondering, do you still think ‘apoclaypse’ is a deceptive skeptic term that is not used by AGW believers and promoters?

  4. @Waldo

    *****”It seems to me that it has been shown in this thread that there are many experts who reject the concept of catastrophic AGW (1).”
    **”Few to no experts and what appears to be a fair amount of deception.”

    Facts, please. How many of the 500 papers are deceiving and how many are not written by experts?

    *****”It has been pointed out that science is not done by consensus, it only takes one guy to disprove a theory (2).”
    **”It has also been pointed out that there are a great many scientists who look at the information and come to the same conclusion. I tend to go with the great many scientists.”

    Do you answer “yes” or “no”? Can one guy disprove a theory or does it take more than one?

    **”And who is this “one guy” who has proved AGW a fraud?”

    There have been multiple guys who proved that some of the key results are based on cherry-picked data (eg, McIntyre, McKittrick), that some other key results don’t depend on data at all (eg, Motl) and various other things.

    *****”It has also been pointed out that there is evidence of the pro-AGW folks silencing their opponents for years, thus there is reason even for those inclined to judge science on relatively tangential factors such as the number of articles pro- or contra- a particular concept to put these factors aside at least in this case (3).”
    **”If the “evidence” you cite is the CRU emails, I cannot figure out what the big deal is.”

    There are letters that show that folks at CRU have deleted data that were subject to FOIA. Do you deny that or do you not see this as a big deal?

    There are letters that show that folks at CRU have cooperated with editors of several key scientific magazines in order to stop papers of their opponents from getting into these magazines at review stage. Do you deny that or do you not see this as a big deal?

    There are notes of a software developer in charge of creating HadCRUT3. These notes show a lot of situations where that developer had to fill data with, basically, garbage, because he didn’t know what to fill with and nobody at CRU could help, etc, etc. Do you deny that or do you not see this as a big deal? Keep in mind that HadCRUT3 is *the* central aggregate data set for making hockey sticks.

  5. “For instance, how does one “walk like shady business”? What does that even mean?”

    This was paraphrasing the Duck Test:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

    “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” But you can google walk like a duck talk like a duck and you’ll see this is used often as well.

    I stand by my duck!

    In regards to whether or not “Science is settled”, it’s usually attributed to Al Gorical Gore, as well as “the Debate has ended”. Although, I think if you dig, you’ll find that Mr. Gibbs and an Australian official said the same thing.

    Regardless, you’re playing a theme and variation. It doesn’t matter which side of the mouth you say it, they all mean the same thing. All of them including such classics as, 2500 IPCC reviewers, 4000 Scientist, Consensus, Skeptics, Deniers, etc. etc. And yes “Said we should listen to experts”. They are all plays to authority and as I mentioned before, people see through that.

    You’re trying to marginalize dissent and shut down the debate. It’s the tactic favored most by online debaters from the AGW camp. The reason has to do with my previous posts, most of the people debating online are not experts. They have nearly always fallen back to the “Well you’re wrong and all the scientists and science associations say your wrong. Trust the experts.”

    Which brings us to the climategate scandal. What that did was to destroy the experts credibility. Now we hear that there was no consensus, only gatekeeping. What is in the published literature is a function of bullying not objective reviews. Now when you see the debates online, you’ll see the comments myself and others have made on this site and others recently casting doubt on the ‘experts’. No longer will people be left unchallenged when they make the argument that there is consensus and trust the experts.

    When you lie, it puts in doubt everything you have or will say. The experts have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and the public discourse has fundamentally changed.

    With enough public pressure, maybe the institutions that depend on public financing will be forced to take corrective action to save the climate science field. It will take a great deal to restore the public confidence and credibility of scientists. They over played their cards and are being taken down by their own hubris.

  6. Joe,

    At this point it’s not just Climate Science that’s endangered. The entire ‘environmental movement’ and even Science itself are at risk of lasting public discredit. Damage to the first is a shame, to the second a tragedy, and to the third a catastrophe. Each is far to valuable to not watch their being suborned by ideology with dismay!

    The one saving grace would be renewed awareness that judgment cannot be delegated. If one defers one’s judgment to ‘experts’, of any stripe, then judgment must inevitably ‘go out the window’. Human nature does not change. Whatever their initial purpose or intention, all institutions and ‘movements’ ultimately become their own ends.

  7. “Facts, please. How many of the 500 papers are deceiving and how many are not written by experts?”

    An excellent question. I cannot promise I will look up every single citation or source, but let’s take a closer look. And just when things were starting to get boring! My counts may not be exact but the figures are pretty close.

    So: 95 papers or thereabouts are published in “Energy and the Environment,” a trade publication of the coal industry, which is by far the single leading publication on this list. I like it because it has Richard Courtney on the editorial board (look him up, he’s an excellent example of why I spend my time on boards like these).

    And there are other publications which are pretty obviously industry or neocon mouthpieces.

    2 papers are from the AAPG Bulletin
    1 is from Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology
    1 is from Energy Fuels
    2 are from the Cato Journal.
    2 are from the Electricity Journal
    1 is from Chemical Innovation

    So there is a fifth of your list right there which should probably be removed for dubious associations with industry sources. I mean, really, do we expect E&E to publish an article which calls for reductions in CO2 emissions?

    Some, such as “International Journal of Global Warming,” I could not find. Perhaps I will do a more thorough search later, but for now I could not find a web presence.

    Then there are some pretty odd journals for climate change (“Civil Engineering,” “Economics Bulletin”) and one from “Irrigation and Drainage” is published by the World Water Council, which also seems like an industry publication.

    And I see a great many engineering journals which I would give the benefit of the doubt to but seem like a rather weird place to publish one’s article on climate change (I mean, who’re their reviewers? What climate scientist wants her or his article in anything but a climate journal? Oh wait – that’s right, someone is censoring them and they have to publish with the honest engineers. You may buy that, as it is your right, but I will remain dubious).

    Paper dates.

    1 from the 1959.
    1 from the 1961..
    4 from the 1970s.
    9 from the 1980s.
    77, give or take, were from the 90s.
    The rest, obviously, must be from the 21st century.

    While these may have some very good science in them for their times, that is once again about a fifth that are relatively out-of-date, and a few very out of date.

    Now, the experts (Part I).

    I found Pielke’s name on 21 papers. Bravo. Although I do have to point out that this is about a quarter of the papers from dubious sources…so I hope you can see where I’m going with this.

    But after this I am afraid I’m going to have to take a break. At least until tomorrow. Ciao.

  8. Waldo,
    No, the papers should not be removed simply because they are associated with industry, and especially simply because you deem that it should be so.
    The only relevant question, is are they accurate in what they say.
    Your approach- to believe at face value anything from sources you like, and weasel out excuses to ignore everything you dislike, is a sort of solitary fulfillment for you, but not really relevant to discovering anything.
    If you had something else than faux integrity, you would realize that.
    Here is a nice abstract of a typical conversation with a typical AGW true believer:
    “Excuse me sir, but your Emperor appears to have no clothes”

    “You have raised a valid point, but this observation was dealt with effectively by Dr X in a 4,000 page technical manuscript, reviewed by a group of his peers. Since you cannot refute that document and several other documents have corroborated the original document, when it appeared to have been refuted, we now need money from you to remove the buttons that are being sewn onto his coat, without which the Emperor will die of the heat.”

    Meanwhile outside the palace it snows.
    – h/t to Bishop’s Hill

  9. Double big sigh. But hunter, hunter, hunter – how do you, who is obviously a layperson as I am, KNOW who is “accurate” and who is not? Have you read these papers? Can you understand them? You are correct in theory, but you cannot tell anymore than I can…and so many of these journals are clearly paid for by people who want a particular conclusion…

    I sense there is no point in writing this.

  10. @Waldo:

    I asked how many of the 500 papers are deceiving and how many are not written by experts.

    Instead of pointing out an example paper and explain exactly why it is deceiving, which is something that has been done by skeptics to a lot of papers defending catastrophic AGW, you again return to discussing sources. Same with experts.

    We go in rounds. I repeatedly ask you to put aside the question of who you’d rather believe (as your point of view has been understood and no logical argument could change it, since it is not based on logic) and discuss actual science. You say “ok” and immediately get back to discussing who you’d rather trust.

    Who is the shill here?

  11. Waldo,
    Is receiving money from a source proof that the article is not valid?
    I cannot tell, but from your reply, you think you can.
    I am suggesting that dismissing a paper by your criteria does not work, if one is after truth. But I am pretty confident you know that.
    You are acting out the parable rather well.
    >sigh< backatcha,

  12. @Anon.

    *****”I asked how many of the 500 papers are deceiving and how many are not written by experts.”

    And we’re getting there, my friend, patience, patience; we must look at the list first, no? To date, I personally would put a little over a hundred in the “deceiving” category (see above). You may believe their science if you like, but I would not. I doubt they are telling the truth.

    *****”I repeatedly ask you to put aside the question of who you’d rather believe”

    Well, no you didn’t – in fact, I think I’ve answered your questions pretty directly before; if there are ones I’ve missed, I’m sorry but it is too late to go back.

    Repeatedly I have written that, as a layperson, I have no choice except to decide who I can believe – never said “ok” to anything (in fact, there is some deliberate obtuseness on this point here, my friend, I don’t think you do understand my point of view). The source is all I’ve got to go on and, I suspect, that’s all you’ve got to go on also.

    And unless you too are a climate physicist or meteorologist or, at the outside, a geologist, you too will have to make the decision about who you believe and why.

    So? Let’s look at our sources. It is all we laypeople can do.

    And please, let’s not pretend that it is illogical to want an honest scientist or scientific organization – this whole thread got started because the pundits here declared that Mann et al are trying to deceive the world but will happily cite a coal or petroleum industry publication. If that is the outcome of your version of “logic,” you may have it.

    *****”We go in rounds.”

    Yes and it’s getting tedious. I cannot think how to make myself any clearer and probably won’t answer this kind of charge again…

  13. @Waldo:

    “To date, I personally would put a little over a hundred in the “deceiving” category (see above).”

    You present no scientific basis for that. Critics of catastrophic AGW did present such basis for a number of articles. This is what makes their contributions useful to the scientific debate and yours not.

    “The source is all I’ve got to go on and, I suspect, that’s all you’ve got to go on also.”

    Then let’s stop this pointless talk. I have more to “go on” on than just sources. Some other people in the thread have more to “go on” as well. The fact that you haven’t, yet you are still here, reiterating the same old point about who to trust over and over again, makes you a troll.

    Merry Christmas, indeed.

  14. Anon.

    So, is it the not agreeing with you part that makes me a “troll” or is it that you keep asking me the same thing over and over again that makes me a “troll”?

    It appears that not everyone actually wants to discuss despite this being a discussion board; if this is “pointless,” no one is forcing you to talk (you did ask me which papers were… etc etc after all).

    And you and I have the same “sources,” my friend, you simply seem to trust one side of the argument in all cases, despite common sense. I have repeatedly stated my position that AGW is unproven, but what bothers me are the extreme attitudes on both sides of the debate from people who claim the ability to understand the science but who pretty clearly do not, nor do they actually talk science. Look at your boards – here and there someone opines about the actual science involved, most of these comments are about the political nature of events.

    Indeed…Merry Christmas.

  15. For those still accepting the IPCC at face value, please read
    blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/12/must_read_texas_climatologist_gets_to_the_bottom_o.html
    The state climatologist of Texas demonstrates the fraudulent nature of the IPCC irt imminent melting of Himalyan glaciers.

    Waldo, what makes you a troll is that you decline to answer questions, even when politely repeated.

  16. “what makes you a troll is that you decline to answer questions, even when politely repeated”

    Such as?

  17. Now this one off the list is an interesting study:

    Landscape and Regional Impacts of Hurricanes in New England
    (Ecological Monographs, Volume 71, Number 1, pp. 27-48, February 2001)
    – Emery R. Boose, Kristen E. Chamberlin, David R. Foster

    It is an article “examining hurricanes since European settlement in 1620.” Has anyone read it? It does not appear to be about AGW per se but I think it is included on the Popular Technology list because of one sentence in the abstract: “There was no clear century-scale trend in the number of major hurricanes.” Tangential to AGW but valuable nevertheless, I’m sure.

    The interesting thing is that it a) relies on the historical record and b) uses computer climate models. Can we doubt its veracity for these reasons?

  18. Waldo,
    The hurricane study is relevant because one of the tenets of AGW theory is that hurricanes have changed in frequency and strength.
    Mann, for instance, claimed last year based on evidence from a very small number sediment studies, that hurricanes were increasing in a (no surprise)hockey stick pattern.
    This was a big surprise to people who have studied hurricanes in depth, and they shredded his paper.
    Waldo, what makes you a troll is that not only do you not answer questions that are repeatedly asked, but that you pretend to be open minded on the topic.

  19. This one is another interesting study:

    Case for Carbon Dioxide
    (Journal of Environmental Sciences, Volume 27, Number 3, pp. 19-22, May/June 1984)
    – Sherwood B. Idso

    Argues first that AGW is not observable in nature and, second, that the increased CO2 will be good for the soil. See a contradiction? Idso does have a PhD in soil science so I am willing to buy the second part but it is also a paper that is over 20 years old. Interestingly, I found this on “Sourcewatch”:

    “Sherwood B. Idso is the President of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. He received in 2003 the Petr Beckmann Award from Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP) for ‘courage and achievement in the defense of scientific truth and freedom’. It was given ‘for his work demonstrating the fertilizing effect of increased carbon dioxide on the biosphere’.[1][2] DDP is closely associated with Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.”

    Now, I lived in Oregon for a number of years. There is no OISM – it is a rather odd association which materialized around the time of the Oregon Petition Project – you may draw your own conclusions about either.

    And:

    “The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CSCDGC) was founded in 1998. It states on its website that its mission is to distribute ‘factual reports and sound commentary on new developments in the world-wide scientific quest to determine the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content’ [1]

    The Center produces a weekly online science newsletter called CO2 Science Magazine.

    In October 1999 Craig D. Idso and Keith E. Idso mentioned that they had ‘recently completed a project commissioned by the Greening Earth Society entitled ‘Forecasting World Food Supplies: The Impact of the Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentration,’ which we presented at the Second Annual Dixy Lee Ray Memorial Symposium held in Washington, DC on 31 August – 2 September 1999.’ [1] The Greening Earth Society, a front group of the Western Fuels Association.”

    Perhaps someone will now call “Sourcewatch” a “liberal front” or some such nonsense, but one should attempt to check this guy out, nevertheless.

  21. Okay you science and econ types, what’s the deal here? Below is the abstract for –

    A test of corrections for extraneous signals in gridded surface temperature data (PDF)
    (Climate Research, Volume 26, Number 2, pp. 159-173, May 2004)
    – Ross McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels

    Am I wrong of does this abstract seem to indicate that the paper agrees with IPCC findings?

    “ABSTRACT: Monthly surface temperature records from 1979 to 2000 were obtained from 218 individual
    stations in 93 countries and a linear trend coefficient determined for each site. This vector of
    trends was regressed on measures of local climate, as well as indicators of local economic activity
    (income, gross domestic product [GDP] growth rates, coal use) and data quality. The spatial pattern
    of trends is shown to be significantly correlated with non-climatic factors, including economic activity and sociopolitical characteristics of the region. The analysis is then repeated on the corresponding Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gridded data, and very similar correlations appear, despite previous attempts to remove non-climatic effects. The socioeconomic effects in the data are shown to add up to a net warming bias, although more precise estimation of its magnitude will require further research.”

    This is the sentence that caught my eye:

    “The analysis is then repeated on the corresponding Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gridded data, and very similar correlations appear, despite previous attempts to remove non-climatic effects.”

    And “the data are shown to add up to a net warming bias” – what is a net warming bias anyone?

    Hmmmmm….

  22. “what makes you a troll is that not only do you not answer questions that are repeatedly asked…”

    Again, such as?

    “…you pretend to be open minded on the topic.”

    Never said anything of the sort. I said don’t believe AGW is a proven. What I don’t like is junk science. Not open minded about that.

  23. Waldo,

    “What I don’t like is junk science. Not open minded about that.”

    I don’t know about all this being a troll business. Your problem is in how you decide what is junk science. You’re inclinded to completely ignore, to throw out, papers coming out specific journals simply because of an editors connections, or what have you. Or to even discredit a paper because its more than 10 years old. On the issue of changing this faulty behavior that is detrimental to science you are completely close minded. That’s your problem, and I suspect your advancement in the scientific world (if that Ph.D. is in the sciences, which I now doubt) will be hindered by this irrational and illogical behavior. Regardless of that, and to repeat what another poster said, if you’re here to push this attitude toward science on the rest of us, you might as well stop. I don’t think anyone here is going to be convinced that this behavior is better than examining each paper for its credibility (or relivence or impact, or what ever) based on the science done within it, as opposed the name of the journal it appears in (or the year or author, etc). The science, the research itself, the data analysis, the methods of data collection, those are the things that matter when evaluating the work, not any of the names. To be a good scientist, you need to learn this.

  24. @Waldo:

    “Such as?”

    Just so you don’t feel all smug about out-trolling everyone, here are the questions I asked that you avoided:

    Can one guy disprove a theory or does it take more than one? Yes or no.

    There are letters that show that folks at CRU have deleted data that were subject to FOIA. Do you deny that or do you not see this as a big deal?

    There are letters that show that folks at CRU have cooperated with editors of several key scientific magazines in order to stop papers of their opponents from getting into these magazines at review stage. Do you deny that or do you not see this as a big deal?

    There are notes of a software developer in charge of creating HadCRUT3. These notes show a lot of situations where that developer had to fill data with, basically, garbage, because he didn’t know what to fill with and nobody at CRU could help, etc, etc. Do you deny that or do you not see this as a big deal? Keep in mind that HadCRUT3 is *the* central aggregate data set for making hockey sticks.

    When I asked about how many of the 500 papers are deceiving, I meant you to demonstrate the fact of deception using numbers and logic. If that was not clear at the start, I just clarified.

    There are other questions that I asked and you didn’t answer, too. But, again, you know it. You simply want to pretend that you are answering questions and participating in the factual discussion, while in reality all you are doing is repeating the same point. The point I asked you to stop bringing because, after being repeated more than 5 (10?) times already, it does not add to the discussion.

  25. Fine Anon. I’ll answer your questions (although I actually think I’ve answered these or very similar ones so far…quite tedious):

    Can one guy (or girl) disprove a theory? Sure. Who would possibly argue otherwise? I think I’ve answered this one actually.

    If there are said letters at CRU, off with their heads. But only if these charges can be proven as would be the case with any of us in any of our professions. I’ve answered this one too.

    If there are said data manipulation at CRU, off with their heads a second time! (Yawn) Already answered…

    “I meant you to demonstrate the fact of deception using numbers and logic”

    Huh? No, you didn’t really clarify. Let’s look at the papers, right? Let’s see what they say? What do you want here? (Well…to be honest, it doesn’t matter – I plan to take a close look at what is on this list if for no other reason than it is very interesting.)

    “The point I asked you to stop bringing”

    Fine. We no longer need to rehash it.

    And please, Wally, spare me the pious rhetoric.

  26. Climate change: detection and attribution of trends from long-term geologic data
    (Ecological Modelling, Volume 171, Issue 4, pp. 433-450, February 2004)
    – Craig Loehle

    “Craig Loehle is the principal scientist with the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, which was “established in 1943 by the pulp and paper industry to provide technical assistance for the industry’s goal of lowering the ecological impact of its spent pulping liquors.” [1]. He is considered a “global warming expert” by the Heartland Institute.[2]”

    Hmmmmmmm….

  27. Well…

    Climate change projections lack reality check
    (Weather, Volume 61, Issue 7, pp. 212, December 2006)
    – Madhav L. Khandekar

    And…

    “Listed as an “Allied Expert” for a Canadian group called the “Natural Resource Stewardship Project,” (NRSP) a lobby organization that refuses to disclose its funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball. An October 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article on who funds the NRSP, it states that “a confidentiality agreement doesn’t allow him [Tom Harris] to say whether energy companies are funding his group.”

    DeSmog recently uncovered information that two of the three Directors on the board of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project are senior executives of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto-based lobby firm that specializes in “energy, environment and ethics.”
    Khandekar and the “Friends of Science”

    Listed as a member of the “Scientific Advisory Board” for a Calgary-based global warming skeptic organization called the Friends of Science (FOS). In a January 28, 2007 article in the Toronto Star, the President of the FOS admitted that about one-third of the funding for the FOS is provided by the oil industry. In an August 2006 Globe and Mail feature , the FOS was exposed as being funded in part by the oil and gas sector and hiding the fact that they were. According to the Globe and Mail, the oil industry money was funnelled through the Calgary Foundation charity, to the University of Calgary and then put into an education trust for the FOS.”

    Hmmmm….

    I’m sensing a trend here…

  28. Waldo,

    Nice responce, I will assume you mean that litterally, and take it as a compliment as well as a sign that you can’t keep up.

  29. “Climate Change Re-examined (PDF)
    (Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 21, Number 4, pp. 723–749, 2007)
    – Joel M. Kauffman”

    Hmmmm….

    This guy has a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. His website reads:

    “One of my principal research areas of interest is in medicinal chemistry, where the focus is on the design and synthesis of potential new drugs with antiinflammatory and antimicrobial properties.

    A second research area of interest is the synthesis of new molecules with defined fluorescent properties. Applications include laser dyes, scintillation fluors, waveshifters, and eye protection. These fluorescent molecules, in addition to having high quantum yields and good chemical stability, must be resistant to the exciting light, and in the case of scintillators used to detect radiation from nuclear process, must be resistant to free radical production.”

    His most recent publications include

    aduate Student
    Joel M. Kauffman, “Malignant Medical Myths”, Infinity Publishing Co., West Conshohocken, PA (2006).

    Kauffman JM, “Water Fluoridation: Review of Recent Research and Actions”, Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons, 10(2), 38-44 (2005).

    Kauffman JM, “Long-Term Aspirin for Women: What Did the Women’s Health Study Really Show?”, Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons, 10(3), 90 (2005).

    Kauffman JM, “New Vaccine for Shingles: Is Prevention Really Better than Treatment?” Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons, 10(4),117 (2005).

    He does not list this one on his webpage.

    He’s a medical researcher? What the heck is this guy doing writing about climate science?

  30. @Waldo:

    Thanks for the answers. We are making progress. Specifically:

    “If there are said letters at CRU, off with their heads.” [showing that folks at CRU have deleted data that were subject to FOIA / have cooperated with the editors of several key scientific magazines in order to stop papers of their opponents from getting into these magazines at review stage]

    Yes, there are such letters. Plenty of URLs around, but if you want me to share some, I will do it.

    “If there are said data manipulation at CRU, off with their heads a second time!”

    Yes, there are said data manipulations. Again, plenty of URLs. Not to mention that CRU themselves say that they have lost track of what kind of manipulations they made to the data, and can now neither say why these manipulations have been made nor what their effect was. See their PDF on HadCRUT – I gave a citation in another thread on this site.

    You agree that it only takes one guy to disprove a scientific theory. Good.

    Pressing on:

    “Let’s look at the papers, right? Let’s see what they say? What do you want here?”

    Let’s. I prefer we look at the content, not affiliations of authors though. I think classifying papers as “potentially OK” or “deceiving” based on sources as you do is simply a waste of time. But we can try it both ways.

    You seem willing to ignore the paper from a guy who has a PhD in Organic Chemistry. You do realize that William Connolley, which is a member of the core climate team at CRU, an author and a co-author of a number of papers on catastrophic AGW, and an ever-willing censor of all questions related to climate change on Wikipedia is a *software engineer*?

    Now, if you want to see a real expert, for which climate research is a lifetime endeavour, take Richard Lindzen. His credentials as a climate scientist match or exceed those of anyone in CRU (now, that, of course, is just a terribly silly contest, but if that’s what you want to look at, so be it). There are many more scientists on the skeptics side as well. You named one (Pielke) yourself.

    Can we now conclude that skeptics really have a case which is worth listening to?

  32. Waldo,
    The information in this article ( http://tinyurl.com/yc5hzwl ) in the Chron is a perfect example of why we “lay people” do not trust the climate scientists. I will pull a quote out of the article since I suspect you would not want to challenge your reliance on the experts by actually following the link.

    Here is the context. Remember the IPCC claiming that the Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035? What was the source for that conclusion?

    “Recall that the IPCC quote referred to a table. The table lists the retreat of 8 Himalayan glaciers. Only one such retreat is as stated in the WWF report. Another retreat, recorded as 2840 m from 1845-1966, is listed as a rate of 134 m/yr, but the actual rate is 23 m/yr. Whoever did the calculation for the IPCC divided by 21 years instead of 121 years! The rest of the values are from other, unnamed sources.”

    The IPCC team either failed to check the source for one of their most outlandish claims or they collectively could not pass a grade school math test!

    If you really believe that all people who do not hold a PhD in climate science should defer to this type of “expertise”, there is no point in having a discussion. We are not willing to be sheep, happily walking into the slaughterhouse,

    I see three possibilities: 1.) I have missed something (if so, please tell me what that is without a reference to authority. Just the referenced facts); 2.) You are a sheep; 3.) You profit from climate scaremongering in some way and are trying to soften the impact of skeptics.

  33. *****”Can we now conclude that skeptics really have a case which is worth listening to?”

    Oh For the Love of God, man! I know you are not dense because I you write so eloquently and intelligibly but you, like little hunter, seem absolutely bent on the idea that (somehow, despite my numerous protestations to the opposite) I am trying to discredit the entire anti-AGW camp! You entire thought process seems predicated upon a tribal notion of Alarmists vs. Skeptics.

    Yes, of course the skeptics have a case worth listening to – I’ve been writing that all along.

    My issue is that, mixed in with the legitimate science community (Lindzen, Pielke among others…who are fairly absent from this blog), is a good deal of questionable science done by tangentially qualified people or people who may be working for an organization that stands to lose money or people who are simply charlatans (Tim Ball, for instance, who is on the “500” list) or who are clearly people writing in the blogosphere who question the scientists but who rely on the blogosphere for their information (Papa Bear above).

    My issue is that the skeptic camp takes the word of anyone or any source, usually another blog (see Papa Bear and hunter above, who both posted the same blog) as long as it tells them what they want to hear. The skeptic camps repeatedly calls for a reference to “facts” (ibid.) but will cherry-pick the source of said “facts” (ibid.) ad nauseam.

    As for the CRU emails, like the one which began this entire exchange, I have said before and I’ll say again, I think there is a good deal of inference going on from the skeptic camps about these documents (see how many times the American Thinker article uses the word “imply” or makes an inference about what the scientists are writing to each other based upon snippets of emails). I suspect Climategate will blow away, leaving skeptics furious. I admit that I may be wrong about this and, in any event, I’m not sure Climategate discounts two decades worth of work involving hundreds of institutions and thousands of scientists. And it would be interesting to see where you are getting your information about these incidents from. Sure, post them.

    And you should look at some of the papers. I’d be interested in what they say. I will continue checking on the sources and reading the abstracts.

    Cheers.

  35. @Waldo:

    “Yes, of course the skeptics have a case worth listening to – I’ve been writing that all along. My issue is that, mixed in with the legitimate science community (Lindzen, Pielke among others…who are fairly absent from this blog), is a good deal of questionable science …”

    Oh, so *that* was your point of view. If I knew that before, I wouldn’t have argued. Not that I agree, but the entire question that the skeptics community has its twats (disagree with the examples you give) does not look very interesting to me. It seems rather obvious that when you are talking about a large group of people, you can find a lot of differences across various axes. I guess I have to learn to read.

    “Why would we look at this? He makes a convincing case for adjusted climate data but – and this is my whole problem with the blogosphere – this guy is a medical biotechnologist.”

    I gave this as an example of the thing I’d like to discuss when talking whether or not a particular paper is deceiving. His case contains several errors, which completely deny the conclusions he makes, by the way.

    All right. Merry Christmas. Let’s hope that the science prevails.

  36. “I gave this as an example of the thing I’d like to discuss when talking whether or not a particular paper is deceiving. His case contains several errors, which completely deny the conclusions he makes, by the way.”

    This is why we have peer review, journals that will only publish refereed articles, and why we should listen to experts in their fields.

  37. “This is why we have peer review, journals that will only publish refereed articles, and why we should listen to experts in their fields.”

    True. And we also want as much science to be public as humanly possible, so that the peer review process works how it should work and coups like Climategate are impossible.

  38. Waldo,
    So, your total defense for the IPCC’s Himalayan OOPS is “My issue is that the skeptic camp takes the word of anyone or any source, usually another blog (see Papa Bear and hunter above, who both posted the same blog) as long as it tells them what they want to hear.”?

    Wow! That is such an elegant defense.

    No facts.

    No figures.

    No references.

    You Sir, are a TROLL.

  39. Got facts

    Got figures.

    Got references.

    Here:
    http://www.ipcc.ch/

    And here:
    http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

    And here:
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

    And here:
    http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/jhansen.html

    This is your science made public as humanly possible.

    If you want to play this silly game all over again.

    You, Sir BEAR, have got a blog written by a questionable source citing another questionable source.

    This, Anon., is why the “source” is all important. Where does one get one’s “facts,” “figures,” and “data.”

  41. Well then, fine.

    Got facts.

    Got figures.

    Got references.

    Here:
    http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/jhansen.html

    And here:
    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm

    And here:
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#q1

    And here:
    http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

    You have a blog. If Dr. ng has a bone to grind, have him actually publish it. His source is Pielke’s blog, which a guest posting from this guy:

    Madhav Khandekar

    Who seems to have an interesting association with industry.

    Khandekar and the NRSP

    “Listed as an “Allied Expert” for a Canadian group called the “Natural Resource Stewardship Project,” (NRSP) a lobby organization that refuses to disclose its funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball. An October 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article on who funds the NRSP, it states that “a confidentiality agreement doesn’t allow him [Tom Harris] to say whether energy companies are funding his group.”

    DeSmog recently uncovered information that two of the three Directors on the board of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project are senior executives of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto-based lobby firm that specializes in “energy, environment and ethics.”
    Khandekar and the “Friends of Science”

    Listed as a member of the “Scientific Advisory Board” for a Calgary-based global warming skeptic organization called the Friends of Science (FOS). In a January 28, 2007 article in the Toronto Star, the President of the FOS admitted that about one-third of the funding for the FOS is provided by the oil industry. In an August 2006 Globe and Mail feature , the FOS was exposed as being funded in part by the oil and gas sector and hiding the fact that they were. According to the Globe and Mail, the oil industry money was funnelled through the Calgary Foundation charity, to the University of Calgary and then put into an education trust for the FOS.
    Research background

    Khandekar is a retired Environment Canada scientist. According to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Khandekar has published 19 pieces of research in peer-reviewed journals, mainly in the area of El Nino and climate.”

  42. Got facts.

    Got figures.

    Got references.

    Here:
    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm

    And here:
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

    And here:
    http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/jhansen.html

    And here:
    http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

    You, Sir BEAR, have a blog. Which comes from a guest posting on another blog

    If Dr. ng has an actual breakthrough, have him publish it somewhere where human scientists can examine it as humanly possible. (The science is out there for all to see, Anon.)

    Dr. ng’s post comes from Pielke’s blog which had a guest posting from this guy:

    Madhav Khandekar
    Khandekar and the NRSP

    Listed as an “Allied Expert” for a Canadian group called the “Natural Resource Stewardship Project,” (NRSP) a lobby organization that refuses to disclose its funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball. An October 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article on who funds the NRSP, it states that “a confidentiality agreement doesn’t allow him [Tom Harris] to say whether energy companies are funding his group.”

    DeSmog recently uncovered information that two of the three Directors on the board of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project are senior executives of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto-based lobby firm that specializes in “energy, environment and ethics.”
    Khandekar and the “Friends of Science”

    Listed as a member of the “Scientific Advisory Board” for a Calgary-based global warming skeptic organization called the Friends of Science (FOS). In a January 28, 2007 article in the Toronto Star, the President of the FOS admitted that about one-third of the funding for the FOS is provided by the oil industry. In an August 2006 Globe and Mail feature , the FOS was exposed as being funded in part by the oil and gas sector and hiding the fact that they were. According to the Globe and Mail, the oil industry money was funnelled through the Calgary Foundation charity, to the University of Calgary and then put into an education trust for the FOS.
    Research background

    Khandekar is a retired Environment Canada scientist. According to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Khandekar has published 19 pieces of research in peer-reviewed journals, mainly in the area of El Nino and climate.

    And this is why, Anon., the “source” is all important. Papa Bear wants to argue “facts” but actually has none of his own. He is relying on an “authority” who is somewhat dubious.

  43. Got facts.

    Got figures.

    Got references.

    Here:
    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data.htm

    And here:
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

    And here:
    http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/jhansen.html

    And here:
    http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

    You, Sir BEAR, have a blog. Which comes from a guest posting on another blog

    If Dr. ng has an actual breakthrough, have him publish it somewhere where human scientists can examine it as humanly possible. (The science is out there for all to see, Anon.)

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