Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Climaquiddick Redux

32 Comments

They’ve found more incriminating emails. Validating that the “exoneration” of Mann was a whitewash.

[Update a while later]

A lot more over at Yid With Lid.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ace has more, too.

These people aren’t doing science. They should be drummed out of their so-called profession.

[Late afternoon update]

The emails seem to be real. At least Mann isn’t denying them. Though certainly he’ll continue to spin.

[Bumped]

32 thoughts on “Climaquiddick Redux”

  1. I agree with the importance of extreme events as foci for public and governmental opinion. ‘Climate change’ needs to be present in people’s daily lives.

    Having established scale and urgency, the political challenge is then to turn this from an argument about the cost of cutting emissions – bad politics – to one about the value of a stable climate – much better politics. The most valuable thing to do is to tell the story about abrupt change as vividly as possible.

    Wow. So increased CO2 leads to more “extreme events” and “abrupt change”. Without humans, the planet would be experiencing a “stable climate”. Words fail.

    I guess it’s a good thing to see their strategy.

    2. You’d think an astrophysicist that understands processes that occur on the scale of millions of years wouldn’t get caught up in what happens every 100 or so.

        1. Funny how all those guy predict the doom of the world!!! Just a scant few years after they’ll probably die….

    3. Thx for the link Ed. That guy is a mess:

      That last bit about Berkeley is from just a few weeks ago, showing once again that global warming is real, and that Dr. Mann’s results show that there has been a sudden, recent, and large increase in global temperatures.

      … except for the last 10 years.

      It’s hilarious watching him hop from “warming” to “climate change”, like that desert lizard that runs in place all day.

      None of this comes as a surprise to any of us who have been covering this for the past few years. I wonder, though, if the mainstream media have learned their lesson?

      If they haven’t, all they need to do is actually read the things. “Extreme events”, “abrupt change”, “stable climate”. It’s all there for them.

  4. This has all been thoroughly rebutted. Fox News will continue to use it to deny the reality of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, but 99% of scientists know that they are wrong.

    — The 99% of Scientists

    1. Then I must be one of the one percent of Scientists who are on the right side! Occupy Scientific Method!

  5. Oh, theres another 20,000 emails in an encrypted zip file there. Enterprising cryptanalysts are encouraged to try to crack it for more dirt.

  6. What specifically are you talking about? If he, say, completely agreed with Rand on climate change, and laid out the case in his typical manner, what economic ramifications do you think there would be for him?

    I think his pay is ultimately connected to his number of readers. If he agreed with Rand and said so in his typical fashion, it would be rather more controversial than the position he actually is taking, and I think the ensuing controversy would entertain his readership and drive up his numbers.

    1. Bob – you shouldn’t try and inject logic in an emotional debate like this. (see, “Pig, teaching to sing”). I mean, somebody came up with data that said neutrinos moved faster than light (a clear violation of concensus science) and look what happened – they were ran out of town on a rail everybody and their brother got funding to re-run the experiment. /end sarcasm/

      The reality is, if somebody comes up with data that disproves / disputes global warming, they’ll get all kinds of funding and academic attention, because finding out new stuff is what science is about. Not only will the “anti-warmer” get funding, but the “pro-warmers” will get funding to check the data.

        1. Results that disprove the concensus get more press and attention than results that prove the concensus. If you really want to make a name for yourself as a researcher, coming up with (and proving) a new idea or concept is the way to do that.

          2. If you really want to make a name for yourself as a researcher, coming up with (and proving) a new idea or concept is the way to do that.

            Correct. If, on the other hand, you’re not a “researcher” in any sense of the word, but are instead an evangelical endorsing “the cause”, new ideas and concepts are not tools that exist in your workshop.

          3. Want to buy my phlogiston-displacing Dean drive? It was formerly owned by Thomas Kuhn, and it gets great miles per paradigm!

      2. Bob – you shouldn’t try and inject logic in an emotional debate like this.

        I disagree. Bob should try logic sometime. There’s clearly a deeply emotional component to this debate, but it’s not useful.

  7. My question was for Titus – I intended it to be a reply to his comment about Plait knowing which side his bread was buttered.

  9. Curt Thomson – so everybody in the climate sciences community is lying, and out to get you. How is that different from what the anti-vaccination people are saying about doctors?

    1. Lying and proselytizing (and paranoia) are different pathologies. What do you think Mann is going to claim he means by “the cause”:

      Mann: By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc.

      Mann: They will (see below) allow us to provide some discussion of the synthetic example, referring to the J. Cimate paper (which should be finally accepted upon submission of the revised final draft), so that should help the cause a bit.

      Mann: I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but its not helping the cause.

      I’m guessing he’s going to be VERY careful about claiming a particular “context” while there is still a chunk of emails still to be cracked/released.

      1. Mann believes in and has evidence to support the idea of global warming. The “cause” in his mind is much the same as the “cause” of the vaccine developers – to help humanity.

        1. But unlike a vaccine developer, Mann wants to force us all to take a “vaccine” that has never been tested and that can’t be proven to work. Furthermore, the “science” he used to develop his theories about the “illness” rests on computer models which ought to be held up as textbook examples of confirmation bias.

        2. Mann believes in and has evidence to support the idea of global warming.

          Does the “idea of global warming” include “abrupt change”? Is there any science, or data, or models, that can definitively link “global warming” to “extreme events”? No. So when his colleague writes:

          The most valuable thing to do is to tell the story about abrupt change as vividly as possible.

          he’s gone off the res. And note the word “valuable”. Illuminating.

          2. and such a change could be triggered instantly by natural processes or by human-caused global warming with little warning.

            Oh… wait…

            In the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers (PDF File) it states that, based on current model simulations, it is very likely (90-99% confidence) that the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic Ocean will slow down during the 21st century. It also confirms the scientific consensus that is very unlikely the MOC will undergo a large abrupt transition during this century. Today’s science is such that any long-term assessments of the MOC cannot be made with confidence.

            But the valuable thing to do is to tell the story about abrupt change. And… do it vividly.

  10. Here is what president Eisenhower had to say about Climategate.

    Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

    In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

    Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

    The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

    Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

    1. That’s a great and relevant quote. Unfortunately the same sorts of folks who used to get upset about the military-industrial complex now pretty much by into teachings of the climate “science”-governmental complex.

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