ClimateGate: A Slightly Different Take...

Amazing Commercial...

An interesting and emotionally-charged story packed into short video.  Kudos to the creators, for a commercial I actually enjoyed watching...

What Will They Think of Next?

Should the city supply tents for amorous couples who would otherwise have sex in public?  This debate could only happen in San Francisco...

ClimateGate: Daily Dump...

Judging from the events, it's looking to me like the ClimateGate scandal has reached and gone over a sort of tipping point: scientists and policy makers now appear to be taking it quite seriously.  It hasn't yet dented the true warmenists religious fervor, but...when that happens, I think it's pretty much time to declare victory and go home.

Some interesting bits from my reading today:

• The UK Meterology Office (their equivalent of our NOAA) is going to re-examine all 160 years of their temperature data.  They are no longer confident of their own data, because of the ClimateGate revelations.  This is quite significant, as the UK Met's data is one of the three primary sources of data used in the IPCC report that is in turn driving much of the policy movement toward AGW mitigation.  What heartens me about this development is that I'm pretty sure the result will be greatly increased transparency on the data collection and analysis, which means some wonderful sunlight on the foundations of the AGW claims.
  
  
• The London Globe and Mail has a nice summary of the current ClimateGate situation, with this bit that I quite liked:
  
  

  Unusually, even sympathetic scientists and some activists have concluded that the credibility of climate science has been seriously harmed.
  
  “We should not underestimate the damage caused by what has happened, either for the science or for the politics of climate change, and potentially it could have some very far-reaching consequences,” said Mike Hulme, a climate scientist at East Anglia whose e-mails were among those included in the pirated files and who has been critical of the secrecy and lack of impartiality in his colleagues' work.
  
  

  The whole piece is nicely even-handed, and not so credulous of the AGW proponents claims as we've seen in the past.  It's very refreshing to see this sort of reporting in the mainstream media – even thought it's only in the British media so far, and not in the U.S...
  
  
  
• Speaking of sunshine...  Here's a great example – a fellow blogging under the pseudonym of AJStrata has done some nice, independent analysis on the raw data revealed in ClimateGate.  Unlike the CRU folks, he's placed his methods and results out in public view for the sun to shine on them.  He's an amateur, but he's looking far more professional than CRU.  I have no idea how correct his analysis is, and that's not the point.  The point is that this is how science ought to work.
  
  
• Finally, there's this quite well-done summary of ClimateGate by Steven Hayward in the Weekly Standard.  The entire piece is balanced and sober; a good example of the kind of journalism I wish we had been seeing for the past few years regarding AGW.  And, alas, while the Weekly Standard is an American webzine, by no means can I call it “mainstream” – they're a struggling little site that truthfully isn't far removed from a blog, except that the often well-known writers (presumably) are paid.  Read the whole thing...but here's the conclusion:
  
  

  The distinction between utterly politicized scientists such as Jones, Mann, and NASA's James Hansen, and other more sober scientists has been lost on the media and climate campaigners for a long time now, and as a result, the CRUtape letters will cast a shadow on the entire field. There is no doubt plenty more of this kind of corruption in other hotbeds of climate science, but there are also a lot of unbiased scientists trying to do important and valuable work. Climate alarmists and their media cheerleaders are fond of warning about "tipping points" to disaster, but ironically this episode may represent a tipping point against the alarmists. The biggest hazard to serious climate science all along was not so much contrarian arguments from skeptics, but rather the damage that the hyperbole of the environmental community would inflict on their own cause.
  
  Climate change is a genuine phenomenon, and there is a nontrivial risk of major consequences in the future. Yet the hysteria of the global warming campaigners and their monomaniacal advocacy of absurdly expensive curbs on fossil fuel use have led to a political dead end that will become more apparent with the imminent collapse of the Kyoto-Copenhagen process. I have long expected that 20 or so years from now we will look back on the turn-of-the-millennium climate hysteria in the same way we look back now on the population bomb hysteria of the late 1960s and early 1970s--as a phenomenon whose magnitude and effects were vastly overestimated, and whose proposed solutions were wrongheaded and often genuinely evil (such as the forced sterilizations of thousands of Indian men in the 1970s, much of it funded by the Ford Foundation). Today the climate campaigners want to forcibly sterilize the world's energy supply, and until recently they looked to be within an ace of doing so. But even before Climategate, the campaign was beginning to resemble a Broadway musical that had run too long, with sagging box office and declining enthusiasm from a dwindling audience. Someone needs to break the bad news to the players that it's closing time for the climate horror show.
  

On Sarah Palin's Birther Remarks...

What Ace said, except that my perspective is not as a Republican, but rather as an observer of how politics actually works....

Men and Women: Viva la Difference!

Contributed by reader Bill G., and offered without comment (considering that my wife reads this blog):

ClimateGate: Rex Murphy Holds Forth...

ClimateGate: a Great Summary...

In the London Times...

Google Introduces Free Faster, Better DNS...

I'm telling you, they're going to take over the world!

ClimateGate: Sarah Palin Weighs In...

On her Facebook page, Sarah Palin says:

Policy decisions require real science and real solutions, not junk science and doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that capitalizes on the public’s worry and makes them feel that owning an SUV is a “sin” against the planet. In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to “restore science to its rightful place.” Boycotting Copenhagen while this scandal is thoroughly investigated would send a strong message that the United States government will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices. Saying no to Copenhagen and cap and tax are first steps in “restoring science to its rightful place.”

Can't disagree with that, though some of the other things she says I might quibble with...

ClimateGate: Al Gore Opts Out...

Numerous sites are reporting that Al Gore has canceled a scheduled appearance at the Copenhagen climate summit.  The appearance was to promote his new book.  Now why would he choose this moment to cancel what must be the single best event at which to promote his new AGW book?

Maybe he's busy reassessing his positions in the face of the ClimateGate evidence.  Or maybe he's just afraid of the questions the crowd will be asking...

ClimateGate: Steyn Spouts...

Whenever Mark Steyn comes out with a new column, I wait to read it until I have at least 15 minutes or so to cherish it.  It doesn't matter what the topic is; the combination of Steyn's wit and his observational skills are like a drug for me.

So you can probably imagine how I've been anticipating his (inevitable) column on ClimateGate (which he calls “Warmergate”).  And the column doesn't disappoint.  A sample:

Phil Jones and Michael Mann are two of the most influential figures in the whole “climate change” racket. What these documents reveal is the greatest scientific scandal of our times—and a tragedy. It’s not just their graphs but their battle lines that are drawn all wrong. Science is never “settled,” and certainly not on the basis of predictive models. And any scientist who says it is is no longer a scientist. And the dismissal of “skeptics” throughout the Jones/Mann correspondence is most revealing: a real scientist is always a skeptic.

It may well be that Warmergate has come along too late. I won’t pretend to know the motivations of Jones, Mann and their colleagues, but judging from recent eco-advertising their work appears to have driven worshippers at the First Church of the Settled Scientist literally insane. A new commercial shows polar bears dropping from the skies onto city streets and crushing the cars below. To those of us who still quaintly recall 9/11, it evokes grotesquely those poor souls who chose to jump from the Twin Towers and die in one last gulp of air rather than perish in the fireball within. But who cares? Their plight is as nothing next to that of the polar bear. Why are they plummeting to their deaths from the heavens? As the ad explains, “An average European flight produces over 400 kg of greenhouse gases for every passenger. That’s the weight of an adult polar bear.”

Oooookay. It’s A Warmerful Life: every time they call your flight, a poley bear loses its wings.

You won't want to miss Steyn's first draft of a comprehensive statement on the state of AGW evidence.  Read the whole thing here.

Quote of the Day...

U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Allen West has been fined after admitting to allowing and participating in harsh interrogation techniques on an Iraqi policeman he believed had information about a planned ambush on West and his troops.  The Iraqi policeman “cracked” and provided information that allowed West and his troops to evade the ambush.  The would-be ambushers were captured or killed, and there were no more ambuses on West's troops while he was in Iraq.

At the hearing, West testifed that “I know the method I used was not right, but I wanted to take care of my soldiers.”  After that, West was asked if he'd act differently now under similar circumstances, and he said:

“If it's about the lives of my soldiers at stake, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can.”

Now that's the kind of leader I'd want to have, if I were in a combat group.  Come to think of it, that's the kind of leader I'd like to have as an American.

Awesome, Lt. Col. West, just absolutely awesome...

ClimateGate: Daily Dump...

Thanks, Jon.  Now some more:

• Kate says the ClimateGate genie is out of the bottle on Canadian mainstream media.
  
  
• Ann Coulter applies her usual wit (which generally involves knives and other edged instruments of evisceration) to ClimateGate.
  
  
• Ken Green gives us the meaning of Motley CRU.
  
  
• Chris Horner says “Gimme my data, NASA!”
  
  
• Inhofe is trying to getting Congress into the ClimateGate business.
  
  
• Roger Simon takes Barbara Boxer to task.

To a long-time AGW skeptic like me, seeing all this stuff happening is more than slightly mind-boggling.  It's also a huge relief, because it sure looks like the laundry is going to get washed and dried in the sunlight here...

Going Rogue...

Last night I finished reading Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.  A few reactions:

• It's certainly no literary masterpiece, and I suspect she'd be quick to agree with that.  I had no problem staying awake while reading it, but I wasn't riveted by either the prose or the content.
  
  
• She's very quick to use her religious beliefs instead of thinking.  By this I mean that you'll find her quite casually attributing an event to God's will (and not thinking it out any further), or justifying a position with by invoking God's desire instead of a thought-out ideology.  Palin invokes Reagan frequently in the book, but Reagan was in fact a very different kind of political animal – he was religious, of course, but his religion was the foundation for his ideology, not the ideology itself.  Palin comes across as having very little ideology beyond her religion and a vague, general sort of Alaskan independence, libertarianism, and scrappiness.  I like the latter elements; the first one scares me.
  
  
• The last ten pages or so were the most interesting part of the entire book.  In this section, she comes closest to offering a vision of what we might expect from her in the future.  I read it closely, as I strongly suspect that Palin will be a factor in our nation's future politics.  I was disappointed, not so much by what's there, but by what's not there.  There is no clear vision, no clear agenda, no clear ideology.  I still know only vaguely what Sarah Palin believes in (other than God) – and I suspect the same thing is true of her.  I don't see a Ronald Reagan or Maggie Thatcher here, but rather a cartoonish copy, without foundation, wrapped in an attractive package.  I wish I could say otherwise.
  
  
• I'm less likely to vote for her now (for any office) than I was before reading the book.  I can still imagine circumstances where I might vote for her as the lesser of two evils.  For example, if one could imagine (say) a 2012 ticket of Obama/Pelosi vs. Palin/Romney, I might well hold my nose and vote the Republican ticket – not so much because I was attracted to it, but because the alternative was so much worse.  But I would certainly not be an enthusiastic supporter of hers.
  
  
• It seems to me unlikely that Palin would actually be able to clinch the Republican ticket in 2012.  Not impossible, but unlikely.  More likely is that she could make a robust run as an independent, like a modern Ross Perot.  I can easily imagine her forming a strong third party with the “tea party” folks as her base.  I can imagine any number of partners for her (Glenn Beck came immediately to mind, though the thought sends shivers of fear through me).  Would such an independent ticket have a chance?  The probabilities are against it; a more likely outcome is a badly split vote on the right, and a unified vote from the liberal opposition – not a pleasant outcome for me. 
  

ClimateGate: The Models are for Crap!

Interesting and entertaining geek's-eye view of the software revealed by ClimateGate, starting with:

This much we have learned from the Climategate scandal: the computer models used to justify the policy proposals are for crap.

Excellent!

On Skepticism...

Reader and friend Doug W. passes along this link to a lecture at Cal Tech by Michael Crichton.  The lecture covers a range of issues, but largely it's an energetic defense of AGW skepticism – and the speech was given almost six years ago!  Here's an excerpt on the reliance of AGW science on computer modeling:

To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model."

But now, large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data.

As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs. This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well.

Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands. Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?

Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the model-makers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.

Anyone who invokes Richard Feymann has my ear <smile>.

Go read the whole thing – it's still fresh and relevant after six years...

ClimateGate: Holy Moley!

Reactions to the ClimateGate revelations seem to be accelerating – and chinks in the lamestream media's nearly perfect shield are appearing.  Lots of online sources are reporting the latest events:

• Phil Jones is temporarily stepping aside as director of the CRU.  This could be the start of a whitewash, or it could be the only way East Anglia could get Jones out of the way without a public fight – can't tell a darned thing from the skimpy press release.  But one thing's for sure: this wouldn't have happened if the university didn't believe there were problems revealed in the ClimateGate data.
  
  
• Malcom Turnbull (leader of Australia's Liberal party and a vocal proponent of AGW mitigation measures) has been replaced by Tony Abbott (an AGW skeptic).  This happened because of resistance within the Liberal party to Turnbull's aggressive promotion of anti-AGW measures – and that resistance was almost certainly solidified because of the ClimateGate revelations.  Further, at least one observer believes that it's likely elections will result from this change – and that ClimateGate-driven skepticism is likely to be a major issue in the campaigning.
  
  
• Reason has a great summary piece (by Ronald Bailey) on the scientific tragedy ClimateGate represents.  Reason is on the leading edge here (as they tend to be), but I expect to see a lot more relatively sober analysis like this – including in the mainstream media.  I'm starting to be cautiously optimistic that the AGW debate is going to get back onto a sound scientific basis...
  
  
• Scientists are starting to speak out about ClimateGate, like Peter Keleman in this Popular Mechanics piece and Derek Lowe on his blog.  It's safe for them to do so now, thanks to the ugly revelations of ClimateGate.  Others can now find a platform, where they couldn't before, like Doug Keenan writing at Pajamas Media.  Expect more like this.
  
  
• AGW skepticism has become politically correct.  Unapologetic commentary can now be found all over the place, not just on fringe blogs (like this one!) and “crank” web sites (examples here, here, and here).  Awesome!

Holy moley!!!

Life on Mars?

NASA scientists are back with a new analysis of the meteorite originally from Mars discovered back in 1996 that they believed showed evidence of fossilized bacteria-like life.  The new analysis, using newly-available technology, shows that alternative explanations involving chemical processes are not likely explanations.  This leaves fossilized living creatures as the only explanation still standing.

This won't close the case for science.  There will have to be much more evidence for living creatures on Mars before it becomes a generally accepted notion.  But if life did in fact exist on Mars (and possibly still does today), then this leads naturally to a couple of very intriguing lines of thought.  First, that possibly life is far more common than we have heretofore believed (if it arose independently on two planets in a single star system, then surely it will have arisen commonly in other star systems).  Second, that possibly life has been “seeded” by something completely outside our star system – perhaps something as simple as chirally-sorted amino acids being distributed by junk floating around in space, or cosmic rays turning out to be the key to amino acid formation.  And of course that latter line of thought will lead some to immediately assume intervention by alien civilizations or deities...

ClimateGate: Follow the Money...

Longtime readers of this blog know that I have long believed that the corrupt behavior of leading AGW scientists was most likely caused by the pursuit of money – grant money, that is.  You'd have to be an idiot not to notice that the more AGW controversy there was, the more grant money magically appeared.

The WSJ is now taking up that notion:

Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.

Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?

Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. The states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.

And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC Bank estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls "green stimulus"—largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes—of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit handsomely.

While I am totally disgusted and disappointed by the revealed behavior in the CRU trove, there is one very good thing resulting from this: it's going to be very hard for corrupt science to prevail in the AGW debate going forward...