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Judge Preserves Privacy of Climate Scientist's Emails
ananyo writes "Climate scientist Michael Mann reported Monday that he and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have prevailed in a court case against the conservative American Tradition Institute (ATI), which had sought access to emails he wrote while serving as a professor at the school from 1999-2005. Now at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Mann says the ruling supports the University of Virginia's argument than an exemption to the state's freedom-of-information law 'applies to faculty communications in furtherance of their work.' The Prince William County Circuit Court ruling came directly from the bench in and was not immediately available online. The Virgina Supreme Court tossed out a case against Mann in March. The state's conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, had, among other things, demanded access to the climatologist's emails, arguing that Mann might have manipulated data and thus defrauded the government in applying for scientific grants."
Mann (the system always hates a guy whose surname starts with "Mann" - for he might be human!) should take a lesson from Sara Palin, politics' own Hazel Bergeron: do all your work over hotmail, then people going on fishing expeditions can be prosecuted.
> "The state's conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, had, among other things, demanded access to the climatologist's emails, arguing that Mann might have manipulated data and thus defrauded the government in applying for scientific grants."
Ken Cuccinelli *might* beat his wife. I demand access to his wife's medical records.
I didn't RTFA. Doesn't Virgina have an open records law? If he was an employee of the state then his emails are a matter of public record.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
"Hide the decline"
The UN-IPCC Hockey Stick graph made from a knowingly BS formula.
The blind sheep in Patagonia
The seas will rise by X-feet in the next 20-50 years
etc...
What is that saying about outrageous claims? I guess that rule does not apply if your position matches a certain political platform.
The state's conservative attorney general,
Not conservative. A conservative would want things to stay the same, to oppose human change for good or bad solely because its a human change, would want to conserve natural resources, be a "good steward of Gods creation" or whatever religious claim floats their boat of preserving the status quo.
Yes I know "political conservative" means the exact opposite since the neo's kicked all the normal people like myself (uh, more or less) out, so all we have left is the Santorums (the politician, not the "frothy liquid") and Rmoneys. The bigger point is you know a society is completely F'd when its words become doublespeak. When I was a kid it was a running joke that any country name including "peoples" "democratic" or "republic" almost always was the opposite. Its a dark day in America, I'm sad to say.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I wonder if he, or anyone else learned a lesson from this. Setting aside the whole climate change issue and focusing only on the facts that he had to bring a court fight and spend money to prevent someone else from accessing his emails from 13 years ago.
Had he not kept those emails, the demand could have been simply responded to with: No Longer Exists.
Keeping email forever will bite you in the ass! Even if you never face a demand for your historical emails, storage issues, database fragility, low performance, something will cost you for keeping it.
Purge that shit!
Let me start out by saying that I don't have any dog in the global warming fight, whatsoever (don't own any stock/have no affiliation with big oil OR big green). I think that, as a whole, people need to conserve resources and embrace new technologies to make the world a cleaner place. But I won't take it as far as the anti-human agenda of many of the fundie AGW supporters. That being said, why would you NOT want to release emails/research? It just gives the conspiracy theorists more fuel for their fires! It's things like this that make those who are not in the know skeptical about the things we say.
If anything, I say release all the emails, release all the data, be as open and transparent as possible. Funny how the people who scream about openness the most are the first to hide when the request comes their way.
If your work is paid for with government money, your work emails should be public. Simple as that.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
>
What is that saying about outrageous claims?
The saying is "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof." For a claim that the laws of physics are exactly the same for human generated carbon dioxide as for carbon dioxide measured in a laboratory, measurements used to understand the surface temperature of all of the planets with atmospheres in the solar system (as well as one moon), and supporting atmospheric science that has been known since the late 1800s, what kind of proof might you demand? Perhaps you'd want detailed numerical models to match with the back of the envelope calculations, and you'd want to ask nineteen different groups on four continents to make different computer models; you'd want temperature measurements taken from a variety of different methods-- say, ground, ocean, balloon, and satellite-- to all agree; you'd want satellite measurements of infrared; you'd want vertical temperature profiles...
Well, ok. We've got all that. But it turns out that, if someone has a profit motive to deny the facts, or a political agenda funded by the people with a profit motive to deny the facts, no possible amount of data can change their mind.
What's that other saying? Oh, yes: "It's hard to get a man to understand something when he is being paid to not understand. .... "
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I mean, why should someone working on the public's dime be accountable to the public?
Liberty in your lifetime
and say something political
Political any code for any science that disagrees with your politics.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"Public records" means all writings and recordings that consist of letters, words or numbers, or their equivalent, set down by handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostatting, photography, magnetic impulse, optical or magneto-optical form, mechanical or electronic recording or other form of data compilation, however stored, and regardless of physical form or characteristics, prepared or owned by, or in the possession of a public body or its officers, employees or agents in the transaction of public business. Records that are not prepared for or used in the transaction of public business are not public records." VA Code 2.2-3701
IANAL, but it seems this case would likely hinge upon whether Prof. Mann is considered an employee of the State, and whether his emails were documenting transactions of public business.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
One thing you're missing is the condition of the data. Unfortunately, it's not very good, especially temperature data. There are gaps, there are insturmentation issues, there are siting issues, and, the 800lb gorilla in the room, there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
So we must proxy, and normalize, and adjust, and model. Really, I don't think anyone can definitively prove anything one way or the other yet. It's not like people have no legitimate reason for doubting claims on either side.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Left -- the system is rigged, so increase taxes and redistribute to make it fair
I see this so often, but honestly think it is baloney. Some liberals eye others' stuff -- the homologues to Hannity and Beck -- but the *vast* majority of liberals do not believe that taxes should be increased to make a rigged system fair. There are two orthogonal concerns there. The first is social justice, which doesn't involve raising taxes at all. (Most social justice programs are generally cheap.) The second is about balancing the budget -- something that the GOP seems unable to do, but the Dems have a fine record. And the second is also about Kensyian economics, and liberals have the record on job creation by 2-1. (Rich people take money out of the system because they save moe. This slows down the economy. Poor people spend everything, and this raises demand and speed the economy. Trickle-down economics is about increasing the amount of investment money; however, we already have a glut of that.)
So please get the motivations correct.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
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Let me start out by saying that I don't have any dog in the global warming fight, whatsoever (don't own any stock/have no affiliation with big oil OR big green). I think that, as a whole, people need to conserve resources and embrace new technologies to make the world a cleaner place. But I won't take it as far as the anti-human agenda of many of the fundie AGW supporters. .
The purportedly "anti-human agenda" of the "fundie AGW supporters" is almost entirely a myth created by the deniers. In general, these are scientists working very hard to try to understand the atmosphere, who are being attacked by people who have no interest in understanding the research, only in discrediting it.
That being said, why would you NOT want to release emails/research?
Because releasing the email wouldn't be the end of it-- it's the beginning. It's their expressed intent to waste all of his time, so that he never does any actual work again. Every typo in the email will spur a query: "what did you mean by xx?" and if he doesn't answer immediately, a flurry of blog posts about withholding information and not answering questions. Every single statement of fact will spur another FOIA demand (note that the word "request" is a euphemism): "We demand that you give us all the information in your files you used to support statement Y, and also all of the information in your files that may support the opposite conclusion which you withheld from the public". And, for that matter, every statement of opinion will trigger a FOIA demand. There's no limit on number of FOIA requests-- they can file a dozen requests a week, and every single one must be answered.
And if, by chance, you wrote about a preliminary analysis that differs in any way from the final analysis, or speculated about a result, or failed to draw a conclusion the very first time you saw some data-- oh, you're going to spend the rest of your life explaining that. A computer model that had an error that you found and fixed? We will use that to completely discredit you and everybody you know.
"Why not release the email" you say?
OK, you first. I want every e-mail you ever sent-- I want all your passwords, and root access to the e-mail servers-- and here's what I intend to do: I am going to destroy you and to discredit you personally and professionally. Failing that, I intend to destroy and discredit everybody you may have communicated with personally or professionally. Nothing will be considered private; if you ever accidentally mentioned anything about your personal life, consider it public knowledge. And if you expressed a less-than-flattering opinion of anybody, it will be out in public.
And I don't care anything about facts, only appearances. Any offhand opinion you may have typed is fair game, any typos you've made. If you've ever typed the words "I don't understand"-- well, that will be headline news: "admits he doesn't understand the science!" If you've ever been wrong, well, that will also be headline news-- and I have a team of people to comb through them in exacting detail with the intent of picking out anything that might be useful.
It just gives the conspiracy theorists more fuel for their fires!
And you think "give people who have stated that they intend to destroy you personally and professionally by any means that they can" unlimited access to comb through your email on a fishing expedition won't give them more fuel? Are you so personally pure that you've never ever even once written anything in a private email that could be misinterpreted by people who intend to damage you and don't care about facts?
Here's a suggestion for you. Have you actually read the "climategate" emails? Not just the selected excerpts picked out of context to discredit the scientists, but the whole file, from the beginning? Try it. (And if you can, not just the first 2000 emails released by t
there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
I'm sitting less that 250 metres away from a giant freezer full of Ice and sediment core samples that would disagree with your statement.
Temperature data back to 1850 is pretty good, yes some adjustments are necessary, but the denial community can't decide whether they like that or not. If it is adjusted, "LOOK it's been adjusted", if not "LOOK you didn't adjust for that". Deniers like Watts and McKintyre have been unable to find anything significantly wrong with any of the temperature record. Watts inadvertently confirmed the USA temperature record with his surface statiosn project. McKintyre put in dozens of FOI requests to the University of East Anglia for its temperature data so he could analyse it. He has not yet provided any analysis even though he has had the data for a couple of years.
Prior to 1850 the records depend on proxies because there weren't enough thermometers. But that works both ways. Deniers use the temperature data to point at things like the little ice age and medieval warm period, but then say the record is inacurate. Double standards?
As you will remember the BEST project funded by deniers like the Koch brothers endorsed teh existing science.
If you have any evidence suggesting the temperature record is incorrect I suggest you publish it.
Just another anti-science, anti-intellectual, conservative shithead abusing his position of power to push a totally fucked up ideological fantasy onto everyone else. Republicans complain about government wasting money, yet they're the worthless fucks who waste the most with stupid shit like this.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
He's another of these Bush Patriot Act appointees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._Michael_Fisher
Do you recall the outcry over the political motivated dismissal of Attorney Generals and the subsequent cover up?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy
The Patriot Act changed the way Attorney generals are appointed. Bush sacked a bunch of Attorney Generals because they wouldn't do political prosecutions and put a lot of conservative stooges in their places. One of those political stooges was this Michael Fisher, another was the the U.S. attorney in Alabama.
They went on to do a political prosecutions including prosecuting Dan Siegelman, the Democrat governor for Alabama, using a witness that claimed to have been at a meeting when a donation check was handed over.
The witness said the donation was for passing legislation, and thus a bribe not a donation, and he claimed to have witnessed the discussion and the signing of the check. However the check was signed days later so the witness was lying. However it did get the Democrat out, and a Republican in his place.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/11/former_alabama_gov_don_siegelman_speaks
One thing you're missing is the condition of the data. Unfortunately, it's not very good, especially temperature data.
And one thing you're missing is that there are multiple sources of data from independent methods of measurement, with data analysis being done by multiple independent groups around the globe. This is not simply one single data set that is ambiguous; there is everything from balloon measurements to satellite infrared, and even gravity measurements of the thickness of polar ice taken by satellites.
Most notably, there is the Berkeley independent reanalysis of temperature data ("Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature"), which was done explicitly to try to address the claims of bias in the data: http://berkeleyearth.org/ . This is the work of which climate skeptic Anthony Watts said--before the results were released-- "I will believe this study", and which, as it turns out, shows results that pretty much lie exactly on top of the graph produced from the NOAA data, the NASA data, and even the CRU data. (see the comparison here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15373071 )
There are gaps, there are insturmentation issues, there are siting issues
All of which are addressed.
, and, the 800lb gorilla in the room, there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
And that is an "800lb gorilla" for what reason, exactly? The question is about the effect of human-generated carbon dioxide over time scales of decades-- questions about the temperature record over time scales of millions to billions of years ("geologic time frames") is of great scientific interest, but not really relevant to criticizing the record over time scales five to eight orders of magnitude shorter.
So we must proxy, and normalize, and adjust, and model. Really, I don't think anyone can definitively prove anything one way or the other yet.
Sorry, but this is what science does: take data, analyze it, and compare it to models. Science is remarkably good at this.
Another thing science is remarkably good at is comparing two different models and determining which one works. The problem is, there isn't a credible model that doesn't show global warming. The deniers don't have any models. (Haven't you ever wondered how come the results from climate modelling are often critiqued, but the critics never show their own models? That's because they don't have any.) There have been many attempts to find a model with negative feedback loops that cancel out the greenhouse effect, but none of these have ever worked even at the top level.
The "denier" claims aren't falsifiable, because there isn't actually any model to falsify. Their entire model consists of "you're wrong".
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
... and that would be a proxy for temperature, not a direct measurement.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
This proves that Mann and his hockey-stick are perfectly correct science, and that he has behaved perfectly properly
No, that's what released emails would have shown. When your salary is from the public you have no expectation of privacy from the public. This was a FOI for work related mails, nothing else.
If anything, the enormous amounts of money having been spent on keeping Mann's mails secret is suspicious.
(Also, the judge expected this to be appealed. That's the motivation for the ruling)
Watts published an entire paper on siting problems for temperature recording stations. But in any event, even temperature going "all the way back" to the 1800s doesn't do much to help us with the problem of a geologic time scale. We can see that temperatures are cyclical, but on which side of the slope are we? Probably something in the magnitude of the interval between ice ages is about as fine as one should cut it.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
I'm sitting less that 250 metres away from a giant freezer full of Ice and sediment core samples that would disagree with your statement.
These are indirect measurements. Are you really a scientist?
The volume of the mercury in your thermometer is only a proxy for temperature too.
So, lets recap. Occupy Wall Street electronic exchanges, not private. Scientist electronic exchanges that may show tampered results... private.
So we require time machines to be able to deal with climate change. Hm. Might as well give up. Call BP and give them the keys to the Arctic!
Where they looking for all his email or all his email mentioning his research? I was under the impression it was only all concerning the research paid for by the government and not the the email tech support for his toaster oven.
They demanded all his email. The expressed reason was to fish through them for any evidence of fraud.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Right, so Mitt Romney should release his tax returns being governor of Massachusetts an all.
Fair enough? He worked for government money, why should he have anything private?
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This is a very confusing troll.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
... the laws of physics are exactly the same for human generated carbon dioxide as for carbon dioxide measured in a laboratory...
There's the problem right there. To mangle the quote: You can't very well dust CO2 for fingerprints.
No, but you can get a pretty good idea of how much is getting into the atmosphere from the Mauna Loa data: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full
And we have a pretty good numbers for how much coal is burned worldwide:
http://gregor.us/coal/the-world-turns-to-coal/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
So, unless you're suggesting some hithertofore unsuspected place that the CO2 from burning that coal is going, I'd say it's a pretty definitive smoking gun.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Go on, I'm fascinated. How do you make a direct measurement of temperature?
Ideal gas thermometer? But there's no such thing as an ideal gas. Anyway, the ideal gas thermometer is only based on the model pV = nRT. A model that is chosen because it's nice and linear. Not like any thermometer in the real world. Or any gas.
Of course, it all makes sense now. There is no increasing temperature. Those dumb scientists don't know what they're talking about. Pah. zeroth law gives us that objects at equilibrium are at the same temperature and second law says energy flows from higher temperatures to lower temperatures. But energy cannot flow back in time therefore it cannot be hotter now than it was 50 years ago.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
continue to scream and shout and grasp at straws while trying to use ad hom attacks to show there is no climate warming caused by man.
Beside, it won't matter becasue there god wouldn't let it happen.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Only if you don't understand cause and effect.
We can see that temperatures are cyclical, but on which side of the slope are we?
It doesn't really matter, since the cyclical changes are, at their fastest rates, an order of magnitude slower than the recent changes described as "global warming".
Most likely protected from disclosure.
The estimated temperature of the Sun's inner core is about 15.8 million K. I don't believe that number was reached by flying a grad student through the sun with a thermometer. Unless someone has invented a time machine, no one was measuring temperatures for the last hundreds of thousands of years with a thermometer. It's all proxy.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
1850? Call me when you have records going back to 10,000.
Then go suck an egg because your records are inaccurate, imprecise, unreliable, etc.
Actually, it's pretty damn good.
"we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale. "
yes we do.
Jeez, it's like you appeared here from 1973. Or you're source are still stuck with arguments from 1973.
" I don't think anyone can definitively prove anything one way or the other yet. "
That's nice, but you're wrong.
Ice core samples are a direct measurement, so..I'm not sure what you are talking about, but i am sure you don't know what the fuck you are talking about .
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Many measurements in science are indirect. What's the temperature of the sun's inner core? Is it direct? Are you a scientist?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
No, those complaining about that lipstick dipstick's emails that SHE WAS BREAKING THE LAW. The law says that her official emails MUST be on official servers. NOT on her google mail account.
I don't understand how a position against GM foods and for reducing CO2 emissions is not a conservative position. Both of these positions are for maintaining status quo. Developing GM foods will change the status quo of our basic food. CO2 emissions change our climate.
How can conservative even call themselves conservative?
Or is the notion of conservatism somehow mangled to mean "I drive a pickup truck so I am conservative"?
Look at some of the most conservative societies on in the US eg. the Amish. They don't drive pickup trucks. They don't develop GM foods. Maybe conservatives would call these real conservatives liberals??
So how can the conservatives call each other conservatives when they have *nothing* in common with the values of conservatives??
"Watts published an entire paper on siting problems for temperature recording stations."
which were dealt with. And when you move what he considers problems the data still holds. SO that argument is dead. so shut up unless you have actual new data.
Next:
"geologic time scale"
what you, and everyone else with argument from 1970 seem to fail to realize is that we are not talking about warming at a geological scale. We are talking about a much FASTER warming. This isn't thousands of years, its 100-200 years.
Oh, and becasue you didn't see the memo* the change is ON TOP OF normal cycles. Not in liue of, on top of. SO we can see the normal cycle, and the see warming on top of it. When the cycle is 'cooling' we don't return to previous temperature. What happens is about increase slows, and sometime goes flat, but doesn't return to the previous cooler temperature.
I used to believe in public discourse in scientific matter. Now I see all that does is cause people to spread lies and disinformation when the science is counter to there money making . Anti-vaxers, anti-fluoride, climate denialists,.. gah. SO any ignorant people sure they are correct in their ignorance. The n given a platform to speak there ignorance.
I think that we should go back into ivory towers.. preferable ivory tower with guns mounted on them. Even better: an education system the teaches critical thinking and science. Barring that, towers with guns. And rest assured the guns design by science will be far superior then any one else's guns.
*becasue that don't send memos up you ass
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Really? the only balanced budget in recent history happened with a republican congress
Clutching at straws much??
Reagan, Bush & Bush were huge budget offenders. At least the first two had the sense to try and raise revenue to cover their big-government spending. George W's own treasury secretary resigned because of GW's profligate attitude towards money.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I don't believe that number was reached by flying a grad student through the sun with a thermometer.
That's exactly how that measurement was made. Turns out that grad students are both cheaper and more expendable than alternative techniques.
Your comment smacks heavily of "If he has nothing to hide, why is he fighting to hide things?" Here's an alternate explanation for why he's fighting too hard: The professor was personally offended by what he probably saw as a mob of science-denying jackals that were to sure to pick at his emails, find some quote, take it horribly out of context and trumpet it in the news as loudly as could be, front page headlines blaring. And then when a correction is published showing he did no wrong, that correction will be published on the 5th page of the middle section of the newspaper where none will ever see it.
It's hard not to be personally insulted in such a case. Hell. I'm starting to feel more than a touch offended on his behalf. I know in such a case, even if there was nothing I had ever written that could be misconstrued, I would fight bitterly and with all my reserves to thwart such an attack on purely personal grounds. As someone on slashdot, I'm surprised you don't realize that sometimes people fight even losing battles purely on principle.
Nixon was. He admired them. He didn't know much about the environment, and frankly, he wasn't very curious about it. He never asked me the whole time I was at EPA -- the first time he appointed me or the second time -- "Is the air really dirty? Is something wrong with the water? What are we worried about here?" Reagan asked me that several times, when I worked there the second time. Nixon never did.
Memories of Nixon and his interest in the environment
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
She didn't realize the implications.
Now Democrat Mario Cuomo has his guys use Blackberry PIN to PIN communications to purposely avoid FOIA.
Kind of different:
* Private, versus public sector
* FOI request versus Joe Shareholder's request
But, if it's a case of litigation, corporate emails are subject to subpoena.
sig: sauer
Fact: It sounds suspicious that he fights to keep it from being released.
Fact: Sometimes even a wacko has a valid point.
He should offer to release only the climate related portions as vetted by a single independent third party.
The vetting contract reads something like this:
- should the email have textual water marks added (like juicy sex, blackmail, treason, etc.) ???
- vetting party gets all (watermarked) email
- all other copies of this email are destroyed (perhaps one is kept, encrypted with key and data separated. Mann gets one and ATI or vetting party gets the other. Putting the two together requires a new contract)
- vetting party releases only emails or excerps relating to climate
- vetting party codes all mention of other private entities with "use once" numbers
- vetting party agrees to hugely steep fine if anything but climate is ever released anywhere by anyone
- entity who wants the information pays the bill
That way:
- everyone knows what went on, bad or good, and we can move on (we know that climate change is real, move along)
- personal privacy gets protected (with the threat of sufficiently large sums of money paid to the persons harmed to cause vetting party to actually care)
- Mann doesn't get his deviant emails aired
What would happen if this were offered:
- entity who wants the info would not want to pay the bill and so their argument and the damage from "why is he hiding it" would be gone
So why hasn't something similar been offered?
- Mann does have something to hide which would hurt his career (climate science would get over it, but not him)
It's not like people have no legitimate reason for doubting claims on either side.
Sure we do. One side is backed by researchers and data who keep making predictions that turn out to be too conservative. The other side is backed by people accusing the researchers of being money-grubbing grant-chasers, people who blame the "myth" on some government conspiracy, and armchair analysts who obviously have a better grasp of the data than the people who study this for a living.
Guess which side is which.
Fuck, the side of ignorance has even conceded that yes, it appears that global warming is happening -- we just can't prove that *humans* are causing it. (as if it matters -- for any other natural disaster we'd at least try to mitigate the damage, but for some reason with global warming all we can do is throw up our hands and say "it's impossible to do anything about it!") So you're a few years behind on your denialism there -- get with the program.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
It is just as relevant to the conversation as tax returns.
Not quite, there is short cycle of about 20 years that at least used to be bigger than global warming. It should have been at its highest in 1998, and its lowest around 2008'ish, but 1998 and 2008 shows at best a non-rise in global temperatures, which indicates global warming is much bigger already than assumed, and we have had 10 years of effective non-warming fuelling denialists.
The estimated temperature of the Sun's inner core is about 15.8 million K. I don't believe that number was reached by flying a grad student through the sun with a thermometer. Unless someone has invented a time machine, no one was measuring temperatures for the last hundreds of thousands of years with a thermometer. It's all proxy.
Or so you think. I knew that grad student.... poor kid. Didn't even last a fraction of a second... and neither did his thermometer. It was only designed to stand up to 15.7 million K, which is why they estimated the temperature at 15.8. True story.
....but the lid's pretty much blown on the whole AGW false science anyway so it's a minor issue.
We know Mann long ago stopped doing real science in favor of becoming a climate zealot; the fact that he fought so hard to hide these emails is just contributory evidence...
Ferretman
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Not remotely, though I guess I can see how some would take it that way.
The hard fact is that his research, if funded by public $$$, is *all* open and accessible unless there's a national security issue. You're a touch offended he's been asked to show whether or not he doctored data? I'M a touch offended he's denying it with little more than a "trust me"--that's not how it works.
A man of integrity would want--would INSIST--on proving his innocence. This isn't the first time Mann has fought disclosure of his work; it's for a reason.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
The liberals most certainly throw around poorly defined crap like "fair share,"
As part of a psych course, I went around to 12 different people (6 conservatives, 6 liberals), and asked them all the same questions about what they think should be done on certain policy issues. I also asked them what the typical liberal would say, and what the typical conservative would say.
Turns out (and this is a very robust result in literature), that most everybody agrees on everything. AND, most everybody believes that conservatives and liberals are polarized on the issues.
The moral of the story is, that if you think "liberals think this and conservatives think that", then you are almost certainly talking about a caricature in your head, and not what liberals and conservatives really think. This is such a common mistake it is shocking when you try it for yourself.
And I invite you to try it for yourself, and learn something about the nature of political discourse.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
How do you figure an FOI request to see his emails would prevent him from doing his job? He can't teach his students if his emails are scrutinized? He can't continue with his research?
A person of integrity would not presume he's guilty until he shows that he's innocent.
There's an adage about wrestling pigs from Shaw that's relevant to this.
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It's a small amount compared to the amount that has been used to smear him.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. --Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
It's a small amount compared to the amount that has been used to smear him.
I'm quite sure you believe that to be true. If you tried to verify it, however, you'd find the opposite.
The opposite is also true when it comes to climate change funding. There's no "big oil" funding denialists. On the contrary, they're funding the Mann-type climate scientists.
Don't accept popular myths just because they're popular.
Again, Galtian goron. (One of those two should not begin with a G....)
GOVERNMENT. EMPLOYEES. ARE. NOT. YOUR. PERSONAL. SLAVES.
More importantly, YOUR interpretation of what the law means doesn't mean ANYTHING if the rest of us disagree with it.
Watts published an entire paper on siting problems for temperature recording stations.
Again: the point is that it isn't just one set of data that is suspect-- multiple groups on many continents, measuring temperature in many different ways, all show consistent results, and these results are all very much what is explained by the (well understood) theory. Isn't it a bit unlikely that this exact same bias would show up in satellite measurements, which don't depend on ground stations at all? In gravity maps of polar ice thickness? Not to mention in the Berkeley "BEST" project to reanalyze the temperature record, which reproduced pretty much exactly the same results (his is the project that Watts--the guy you just cited--specifically said would do a thorough and unbiased job.)
But in any event, even temperature going "all the way back" to the 1800s doesn't do much to help us with the problem of a geologic time scale.
Wow, is this the new denialist position? "We can't know anything about global warming on a time scale of decades, for which which we have many extremely good measurements by multiple independent methods,unless you can show direct, well-calibrated measurements that go back a hundred million years at least. And since you can't do that, global warming isn't real!" Talk about unfalsifiable!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
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There's a difference between squelching private emails and squelching work emails when your work is publicly funded.
This is why politicians using private email addresses to conduct business is a big no-no, because their public office assumes that their work emails are/will be public information and allows their private emails to remain private.
This isn't a matter of "What's your search history after-hours?" It's a matter of "What was the discussion that we paid you to have, which led to your prediction that we need to give you a fuckton of money?" It's not a private matter.
One thing you're missing is the condition of the data. Unfortunately, it's not very good, especially temperature data. There are gaps, there are insturmentation issues, there are siting issues, and, the 800lb gorilla in the room, there's just the simple fact that climate changes happen in geologic time frames, and we literally don't have any direct measurements of that scale.
Alas, the skeptics love to quote satellite temperature data - you can't get more indirect than that.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The problem with grad students is that they tend to lose their thermometers, and those are expensive.
I think that we should go back into ivory towers.. preferable ivory tower with guns mounted on them.
It doesn't work for as long as those ivory towers need funding.
Some young democrat who believes "information wants to be free" (or who just hates) should break into the e-mail account and dump the contents for the world to examine... and then major "unbiased" news outlets should ask their readers/viewers to help go through the e-mails looking for "dirt". Come to think of it, why has some young idealist who is against government employees having any privacy or secrets broken into and dumped Obama's personal e-mail yet?
yeah, I know, "don't hold your breath..."
The tree ring data doesn't even correspond with the last 150 years of accurate temperature readings. How do you think the 150,000 years of data with a margin of error somewhere in Charlamagne's reign will work out?
Sounds very scientific.
only source of funding is a grant to explore what you've identified as a 'problem'?
Again, why is it acceptable for scientists to hide their data and methods?
To only share it with people that agree with them?
To scour the data for "outliers" that don't agree with their theories.
Let's go back to that computer model. A bunch of amateur software developers with no source control, no data integrity and no experience with formal software engineering procedures are claiming to model something that is incredibly complex using what is by definition an abstraction.
Do you understand what an abstraction is? Doesn't sound like it.
mercury is readily observable and empirically repeatable.
No, but it's very political.
is no longer used because it has no Medieval Warming Period, right? Or that interns and other scientists within the E.A.C.R.U. had great difficultly even reproducing his results, and only did so after removing outliers that didn't fit the facts
But you keep going with "I don't need to share my data because your assertion that my data is flawed personally offends me". That sounds so scientific.
that is not subject to review because it was attained through some mysterious process that is known only to them.
This is about an investigation as to whether a scientist has engaged in academic fraud. Why doesn't he want to release the data which will definitively clear his name again?
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this also applies to govt emails.
bring on the litigation.
may i see your email for the last 6 years, then?
it's quite likely he doesn't wish to make his email public for personal reasons - like some of the things he says to colleagues about people like you. i'm sure that would not look good.
the public funding issue is complicated when you look at the university setup - it's not all public funding, a big chunk (most?) of it comes from the university generating it's own income. there's also the issue of just what is in the public interest. the fruits of public funding should absolutely belong to the public, but the email correspondence involved in sowing that fruit may not necessarily be something that's mandated.
people swear, people express opinion, people make personal emails that are not always work related using their work addresses simply because they're more convenient to use. over the years that have been FOI'd, i'm sure Mann's done all these things, and who the hell hasn't?
try take on the science, if you can. the sources are all referenced and backed up, or he'd have failed peer review.
just get the fuck over your worldview and try to see that all this AGW hogwash might actually be happening. and if you can't accept that, shut up and try to disprove it.
don't accept anything without a reference. this is the internet, and hyperlinks are a thing.
*becasue that don't send memos up you ass
Sir,
If I had mod points ATM, I'd mod up 5 of your other posts for a post of that quality.
Bravo
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
As I said, no amount of data can change the mind of people who are determined to not pay attention to data.
Climate scientists publish all the time. They don't "hide their data and methods," nor "share only with people that agree with them"-- the whole point of peer-reviewed research is to publish and get the data out there in the community. I really, really, suggest that you should read the IPCC WG-1 report; http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html ; it won't change your mind (since you've determined you aren't interested in changing your opinions), but at least it will allow you to argue with some actual knowledge, instead of simply parroting the third-hand opinions of people who simply assert that climate scientists are frauds.
...Let's go back to that computer model.
What do you mean by "that" computer model? At the moment I'm aware of nineteen major global circulation models, being run by groups in America, Canada, France, Australia, China, Russia, Japan, Germany, Korea, UK, Norway, and Sweden, but I'm sure that there are more. You talk as if there's one model, that's made one prediction. There are a series of many different global circulation models, run by many different institutions, dating back nearly fifty years. (The earliest real global climate model incorporating convective/radiative transfer with an assumption of constant relative humidity was Manabe and Wetherald, 1967; but I've referenced that so many times I'm tired of it.)
A bunch of amateur software developers
"Amateur." Well, that's a charge that's impossible to refute, since whoever does it, I'm sure you will just say "they're amateurs." One of the major models was the Los Alamos model, for example; their experience in running finite-element supercomputer models of fluid and thermal transfer comes from the fact that they model nuclear weapons explosions. But I'm sure you can say "oh, they're amateurs" if you want to. Yeah, nuclear bombs probably don't even work, it's all a hoax. The National Center for Supercomputer Applications? Amateurs. Yeah, sure.
Pretty much all of the supercomputer centers in the world have worked on climate models over the last fifty years. "Amateurs." Yeah, right. Whatever.
with no source control, no data integrity and no experience with formal software engineering procedures
You know, Los Alamos National Labs pretty much invented formal software engineering procedures on supercomputers. And, yes, they do apply it to climate models. (discussed, among many many many other places, here, for example http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~bbd/IJHPCASpecialIssue05/Drake.pdf or here http://www.nd.edu/~gmadey/sim06/Classnotes/Validation/pope.pdf or here http://www.informs-sim.org/wsc98papers/016.PDF )
And for that matter, the majority of the computer models, including the source code, are publicly available-- many of them are even on the web.
are claiming to model something that is incredibly complex using what is by definition an abstraction. Do you understand what an abstraction is? Doesn't sound like it.
Yes, a computer model involves making abstractions. All equations are abstractions, for that matter, but guess what? Physics still works.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Oh Ac so I imagined the heartland institues donor list. You sir are a dumbfuck