Politics & Beliefs

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

The Rat — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:10:37 GMT

I hate you!

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Newman — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:08:52 GMT

Razor Shines:

To whom can I send the formal request to eradicate the "-gate" suffix for every controversy? I promise I'll cc everyone I need to so I can ensure this happens.

Eradicategate!

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

The Rat — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:11:19 GMT

To whom can I send the formal request to eradicate the "-gate" suffix for every controversy? I promise I'll cc everyone I need to so I can ensure this happens.

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

GG — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:27:23 GMT

Climategate: Follow the Money

Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

By BRET STEPHENS

Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."

To read some of the press accounts of these gifts—amounting to about 0.00027% of Exxon's 2008 profits of $45 billion—you might think you'd hit upon the scandal of the age. But thanks to what now goes by the name of climategate, it turns out the real scandal lies elsewhere.

Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.

But the deeper question is why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them.

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.

Supply, as we know, creates its own demand. So for every additional billion in government-funded grants (or the tens of millions supplied by foundations like the Pew Charitable Trusts), universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs and dependents have emerged from the woodwork to receive them.

Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

None of these outfits is per se corrupt, in the sense that the monies they get are spent on something other than their intended purposes. But they depend on an inherently corrupting premise, namely that the hypothesis on which their livelihood depends has in fact been proved. Absent that proof, everything they represent—including the thousands of jobs they provide—vanishes. This is what's known as a vested interest, and vested interests are an enemy of sound science.

Which brings us back to the climategate scientists, the keepers of the keys to the global warming cathedral. In one of the more telling disclosures from last week, a computer programmer writes of the CRU's temperature database: "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"

This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Professor Farnsworth — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:29:19 GMT

Newman:

Nobody puts Rost in the corner.

Seem to be the only accurate statement you guys made.

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

GG — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:36:10 GMT

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30291.html

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Professor Farnsworth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:05:22 GMT

GG:

Neither does NASA apparently.

My money's on NASA.

BTW,

Q: What does NASA stand for?

A: Need another seven astronauts (this joke came out after Columbia went up in flames).

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

GG — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:46:28 GMT

Neither does NASA apparently.

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Professor Farnsworth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:23:48 GMT

GG:

I think "the earth is getting hotter because we drive so many cars" is a big conclusion to jump to. Especially when we have very little data to base our assessments from. (Except for the data that was lost.)

I know you think that. Science doesn't agree with you.

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

GG — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:14:14 GMT

I think "the earth is getting hotter because we drive so many cars" is a big conclusion to jump to. Especially when we have very little data to base our assessments from. (Except for the data that was lost.)

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Professor Farnsworth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:09:45 GMT

GG:
How come if the earth is heating from accumulating carbon dioxide, the earth's temp has remained flat for a decade? Shouldn't every year be hotter than the year before?

That's not how physics works. Or climate. Or reality. But once again, feel free to jump to conclusions like you do. I guess I would have though that you learned your lesson about jumping to conclusions...

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

GG — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:03:21 GMT

Those are fine articles. I didn't watch the video.

This article was good too.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/researcher-says-nasa-hiding-climate-data/?page=2

How come if the earth is heating from accumulating carbon dioxide, the earth's temp has remained flat for a decade? Shouldn't every year be hotter than the year before?

I think my kids swam twice this year. It was a super-cold summer.

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Professor Farnsworth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:54:39 GMT

GG:
Besides, how many chances do I get to call you religious? I'm taking full advantage even if it does chap your beanbag.

While it may "chap my beanbag", I'm glad that you finally feel that calling someone religious is an insult.

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Professor Farnsworth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:49:36 GMT

GG:

Jumping to conclusions you say? The CRU is dirty. You read the messages yourself. At the VERY LEAST, people would be wise to consider anything they have to say in the future with some level of scepticism. They've already demonstrated that they'll lie and withhold facts. Or cover for collegues when they submit "crap". Naturally, their peers will rally to their aid. That's just what they did for Eugenia. This just in: Global warming scientists are have some sweet job security and federal grants to research GW science. What are they going to say? "Yeah, this is a blatant black mark on our "science". We wish these dumbasses wouldn't have been so dumb as to be this obvious.

Why can't you see those missing numbers that disappeared in the 80's? Uh...well...we...lost them BUT global warming wasn't a big deal then so...."

That is simply incorrect. Go back and watch the video if you have time, but at the very least read the articles. They post full explanations. The comments that were supposedly made in secret and leaked were actually mentioned in their published papers. So nice try but you're full of it.

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Professor Farnsworth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:46:37 GMT

Scobbs:
And come on. That first article you posted is so blatently biased it's not even funny. Here's a tip. Anytime you see the phrase "climate-change-denialist" , just stop reading.

This is why I posted 3 sources. Oh, and all three list references.

Scobbs:
Did he need to make a whole video to point that out?

Apparently so since the only way to satisfy your (not yours explicitly) urge for these scientists' blood will only be satisfied by a public hanging. You can bet your ass that Limbaugh, Beck, and GG won't be retracting their statements, regardless of the outcome.

Politics & Beliefs

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Climategate: Follow the Money

Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

By BRET STEPHENS

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"

Re: WTF is "Climategate?"