As Lily Tomlin once said, “I grow more cynical every day, but it’s still hard to keep up.”
And so it is with the deniers. I’ve probably said a dozen times online over the last year that the deniers haven’t yet begun to fight. Between the ones fighting for their money and the ones fighting for their ideology, not to mention the far less restrictive rules they have to play by (compared to the climate scientists they’re harassing), none of this should be a surprise. Yet it’s still as shocking as it is dismaying when things like this keep surfacing…
“Independent” critique of Hockey Stick revealed as fatally flawed right-wing anti-science set up:
No one can possibly undo all of the damage to climate science and individual scientists done by the diarrhea of disinformation spewing out of the anti-science crowd. In large part that’s because of the reckless laziness of many in the status quo media, such as CBS, who prefer easy sensationalism to thoughtful journalism.
Few scientists have been more victimized than Michael Mann, Director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center. Than again, few scientists have been more vindicated than Michael Mann (see “Penn State inquiry finds no evidence for allegations against Michael Mann” and below).
that’s why I feel compelled to keep doing my small part in helping to set the record straight as often as possible – and to publicize the tremendous work of others doing the same, such as the blogger Deep Climate, who has uncovered previously unknown details of just how some of the most fraudulent charges against Mann and the Hockey Stick graph were trumped up by the anti-science crowd in the first place.
Remember the question scientists are trying to answer: Is the planet now as hot (or hotter) than it has been in a millenium? Try two millennia (see this 2008 PNAS study, which is the source of the figure above, and this “seminal” 2009 Science study).
In the interests of not spending my time rewriting the terrific work done by others, let me urge you all to read Deep Climate, while I excerpt a very good summary by DeSmogBlog:
The purportedly independent report that Dr. Edward Wegman prepared in 2006 for the Congressional Committee on Energy and Commerce was actually a partisan set-up, according to information revealed today.
Wegman, who had presented himself as an impartial “referee” between two “teams” debating the quality of the so-called Hockey Stick graph was, in fact, coached throughout his review by Republican staffer Peter Spencer. Wegman and his colleagues also worked closely with one of the teams (and especially with retired mining stock promoter Stephen McIntyre) to try to replicate criticism of the Hockey Stick graph, while at the same time foregoing contact with the actual authors of the seminal climate reconstruction.
Click through to ClimateProgress to read the whole incredible thing.
Rabett Run: Steve Had a Little List:
A list of the FOI requests received by the University of East Anglia about the CRU has been posted. Most of the Climate Audit fishing expedition were turned down, but there is one priceless one FOI 09-97 for which additional information was sought
I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involing the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested 1]
1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
2. the parties to such confidentiality agreement, including the full name of any organization;
3. a copy of the section of the confidentiality agreement that “prevents further transmission to non-academics”.
4. a copy of the entire confidentiality agreement,
It was clear that the requests were vexatious and they were turned down.
Yep, there was a coordinated effort to flood scientists with bogus FOI requests–a paper-based version of a distributed denial-of-service attack, in geek speak.
Climate row scientist says he considered suicide:
The UK scientist at the center of a controversy surrounding e-mails leaked from a leading UK climate research unit has admitted the strain of the affair led him to consider suicide.
In an interview with a British newspaper, Phil Jones, the former director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia said he had thought about killing himself “several times” after receiving death threats in the wake of the “climategate” scandal.
“I was shocked. People said I should go and kill myself. They said that they knew where I lived. They were coming from all over the world,” Jones told the The Sunday Times.
Death threats? How lovely. I guess we know what’s next when the deniers decide to ratchet things up another notch or three.
