Slashdot Mirror
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."
> "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
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
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.
email is email. It contains more than simply work related stuff, and rarely contains anything useful to someone trying to judge the quality of some work.
If I had to publish all my email from work for the past 20 years simply because someone wanted to prove I was a terrible programmer, it would be massively humiliating, and wouldn't prove jack shit about my programming ability, which would be more easily done by demanding to look at the code I write.
The FoIA request is about intimidating climate research scientists, not about trying to determine the truth behind the science. The science is already in the public domain. It's well described, people can repeat it, add to it, or theorize as to how it could be wrong and devise experiments to determine whether those theories hold.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
>
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 mostly agree with you, other than something you're overlooking.
That being said, why would you NOT want to release emails/research?
According to GOOG analytics my gmail account got over 2000 emails last month, times 18 months... You can't "just release everything" because some conversations have to remain private. HIPPA violations for students providing way too much detail about why they were out sick, etc. NDA info for unrelated topics. Closed source code license issues (so you're talking about a bug in non-free software and including code excerpts). Its a non-judicial punishment assigned by politican ... err, until a judge overturns it, which is exactly what just happened.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
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 question the equivalence here. "Big green"? Big oil made 137 billion dollars in profits in 2011 and owns more politicians than you can shake a stick at. How many billions of dollars does "big green" make in a year and how many senators do they control?
But I won't take it as far as the anti-human agenda of many of the fundie AGW supporters.
Anti-human? You do realize the fossil fuel FUD about "Al Gore wants to TAX YOUR BREATHING!" is complete BS, right? Coal is the target of AGW supporters. Not humanity. You seem to be judging the movement by the extremists. That's always a foolish move: you wouldn't say that Anne Coulter represents America, would you?
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.
Okay, put your money where your mouth is. What is your personal e-mail address and password? Where are the e-mails from the fossil fuel industry? The issue here is not data, the issue here is e-mails. As in they were fishing for something to smear the guy with. The data is out there for legitimate criticisms to be made.
What is that saying about outrageous claims? I guess that rule does not apply if your position matches a certain political platform.
Exactly! You should not be able to make the outrageous claim that artificially increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, an empirically proven greenhouse gas, by approximately 30% has no effect on global temperatures just because your position matches a right-wing political platform.
"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
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
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.
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
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
The volume of the mercury in your thermometer is only a proxy for temperature too.
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!
Well, I'm convinced climate change is a real threat that can't be solved by happy thoughts. Drugs and terrorism, on the other hand, are not serious problems in my book. Furthermore, I don't see anyone giving the government carte blanche to step on our civil rights to fight global warming. But I'm glad you claim to find humor in it.
... 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.
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".
"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
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
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'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.
You are confusing data that Phil Jones at the CRU deleted (which was a copy, the original data is still available from original sources) with Michael Mann. The data and methods for Mann's original "Hockey Stick Graph" are located here.