I Told You So! (Well, Maybe.)

86 thoughts on “I Told You So! (Well, Maybe.)”

1. The Climategate scandal proves that anthropogenic global warming is false in the same way that the Piltdown Man scandal proved that human evolution is false.

2. I’ve never bought GW, since I’m old enough to remember the scare of a global cooling in the late 70’s to early 80’s.
   However, I honestly thought that, like then, the scientists were just looking at precarious data that spans less than a blip in Earth’s history and jumping to conclusions. In other words, I thought that they were as honest as my consideration. Surely, jumping to conclusions is forgivable, but sinister international interests co-opted such conclusions to their good, or so I thought.
   So now we know that it was all a fraud. Yet, I’m afraid that the political class around the world will remain steady in its course to create humongous national and international bureaucracies to nanny climate nevertheless and to tax our every breath.
   God, help us!

3. The Climategate scandal proves that anthropogenic global warming is false in the same way that the Piltdown Man scandal proved that human evolution is false.
   If you need me to nuance what I said a little more, I can easily do that.
   I’m not saying that there hasn’t been a global rise in temperature.
   I’m not excluding the possibility that–if there is one–it is in some measure due to human factors.
   I *AM* asserting that the claims being made in the popular press and by the scientists who are leading the AGW movement are based on junk science.

4. “I *AM* asserting that the claims being made in the popular press and by the scientists who are leading the AGW movement are based on junk science.”
   And I will add, “They mostly knew it”.

5. The left’s moral bankruptcy spreads to science. What was that about not mixing science with politics? Oh wait, that’s only when dealing with killing babies…..

6. Please please, it’s not Climategate, it’s Climaquiddick.

7. From STILL YET MORE: THE REIMAGINED SERIES.
   “They clearly have some history of massaging the data — hell, practically water-boarding the data — to get it to fit their other results.”
   I loved this article. I once had the “joy” of picking apart a program written in fortran77 and sympathized with poor Harry.

8. “The Climategate scandal proves that anthropogenic global warming is false in the same way that the Piltdown Man scandal proved that human evolution is false.”

   N.b. Jimmy never said that anthropogenic global warming is false. What he said is: “the man-made global warming claim is based on junk science.” Nothing says a claim based on junk science can’t be true — only that the basis for asserting its truth is severely compromised.

9. You forgot the “New and IMPROVED MORE – Now with 25% MORE more!”

10. This story needs to be taken farther before these conclusions can be made. Professor Jones, who is at the center of this contraversy, is only one person. The original data of much of his research has been conveniently “lost”.
    However, let us call for real unbiased science to be the judge. I want to see how this scandal relates to the other research done by the US government and other independent agencies. One piece of evidence isn’t going to make the whole house come down. What we need is to honestly look at each independent research lab, see where their data came from, and evaluate it accordingly.
    We should not be afraid of the truth wherever it leads us. That being said, I also think that this man-made climate warming is junk science, but let’s do it the right way this time, by an honest peer review of EVERYONE’s scientific data.
    One other thing:
    I have been searching everywhere to find the emails and documents. They were said to be on several internet locations, but i’ve been searching for several days, and I can’t find the raw emails themselves.
    So far we are relying only on the news reports and blogs.
    Let’s see the actual details of the emails for ourselves.
    It’s time for total transparency everywhere. Wouldn’t others agree?

11. “I have been searching everywhere to find the emails and documents.”
    Are you looking for something like this? http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php
    A zip file can be downloaded here: http://www.filedropper.com/foi2009
    Hope that helps.

12. Awesome, Christina. Thanks for posting that!
    I’ve been looking for days. Apparently, i’m not that bright.

13. How about — Warmergate?
    anyway, you got admire the way Wikipedia manages to harp on “hacked” and “stolen” when they were probably leaked — and possibly even accidentally, as once before this group has accidentally left information publicly accessible (and it got accessed!).
    Probably leaked, since I have heard reports that whoever was behind it made several attempts to get this data out.

14. This to me is pretty much how the whole birth control catastrophe came about, through junk science that was not backed up with legitimate data, so now we have the modern holocaust of abortion and the breakdown of society by the destruction of the family. I see way too many similarities here, but way too many people want to believe the lies that have been told that people use to justify the murder of the innocent. If this whole climate garbage proceeds, we will see the same justification for the limiting of the poor and underprivileged that we see with the eugenic promoters of the past and present.

15. Hi Jimmy. I see the Vatican is sending a delegation to Copenhagen along with members of Caritas Internationalis and others. From what I can gather the Vatican seems to be backing man-made climate change theory (now debunked) all the way to Copenhagen and Caritas Internationalis are in there as well. That means that our representatives from within the Catholic Church will be backing this climate conference. I can’t find any comments from Caritas or the Vatican regarding this email scandal. I have no doubt the Catholic Church will be there in order to get the best possible deal for the poor, but under the circumstances, would it not be better for the Vatican speak out about this and seek answers before giving it’s, and ultimately our/s, backing to this Huge lie? The implications of this are enormous for people all over the world let alone the people of third world countries. I believe millions of poor people in developing countries will die as a conscience of this. We, all of us, will be paying a carbon tax on everything we do; based on fraudulent data. I really think jimmy, given your scope and readership, that you should give this more attention.
    I am not trying to tell you what you should blog on but this is big news, news by the way that the MSM is hush-hush about.

16. So, do those who know how academic scientists operate and who have studied climate science more than any of us ‘Google-PhDs’ think these emails show that “the man-made global warming claim is based on junk science.”?
    From an editorial in the world’s most prestigious science journal – Nature 462, 545 (3 Dec 2009) (my emphasis) Apologies for the length, but it addresses the main allegations.

    Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.
    The e-mail archives … have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall … To these denialists, the scientists’ scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial ‘smoking gun’: proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.
    …
    Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.
    First, Earth’s cryosphere is changing as one would expect in a warming climate. These changes include glacier retreat, thinning and areal reduction of Arctic sea ice, reductions in permafrost and accelerated loss of mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Second, the global sea level is rising. The rise is caused in part by water pouring in from melting glaciers and ice sheets, but also by thermal expansion as the oceans warm. Third, decades of biological data on blooming dates and the like suggest that spring is arriving earlier each year.
    Denialists often maintain that these changes are just a symptom of natural climate variability. But when climate modellers test this assertion by running their simulations with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide held fixed, the results bear little resemblance to the observed warming. The strong implication is that increased greenhouse-gas emissions have played an important part in recent warming, meaning that curbing the world’s voracious appetite for carbon is essential …
    A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists’ conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick Energy Environ. 14, 751–771; 2003 and W. Soon and S. Baliunas Clim. Res. 23, 89–110; 2003) and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers.
    If there are benefits to the e-mail theft, one is to highlight yet again the harassment that denialists inflict on some climate-change researchers, often in the form of endless, time-consuming demands for information under the US and UK Freedom of Information Acts. Governments and institutions need to provide tangible assistance for researchers facing such a burden.
    The e-mail theft also highlights how difficult it can be for climate researchers to follow the canons of scientific openness, which require them to make public the data on which they base their conclusions. This is best done via open online archives, such as the ones maintained by the IPCC (http://www.ipcc-data.org) and the US National Climatic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html).
    But for much crucial information the reality is very different. Researchers are barred from publicly releasing meteorological data from many countries owing to contractual restrictions. Moreover, in countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the national meteorological services will provide data sets only when researchers specifically request them, and only after a significant delay. The lack of standard formats can also make it hard to compare and integrate data from different sources. Every aspect of this situation needs to change: if the current episode does not spur meteorological services to improve researchers’ ease of access, governments should force them to do so.
    The stolen e-mails have prompted queries about whether Nature will investigate some of the researchers’ own papers. One e-mail talked of displaying the data using a ‘trick’ — slang for a clever (and legitimate) technique, but a word that denialists have used to accuse the researchers of fabricating their results. It is Nature’s policy to investigate such matters if there are substantive reasons for concern, but nothing we have seen so far in the e-mails qualifies.
    …
    In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values. Yet it is precisely in such circumstances that researchers should strive to act and communicate professionally, and make their data and methods available to others, lest they provide their worst critics with ammunition. After all, the pressures the UEA e-mailers experienced may be nothing compared with what will emerge as the United States debates a climate bill next year, and denialists use every means at their disposal to undermine trust in scientists and science.

    See also CRU statement scroll down to Prof Phil Jones

17. Gore cancels copenhagen lecture.
    hummmmm make you wonder, dosen’t it?
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/03/gore-cancels-on-copenhagen-lecture-leaves-ticketholders-in-a-lurch/

18. Thank you for not only blogging about Climategate, but also providing many more resources (both yourself and through the contributions to the combox) than I have been able to locate on my own.
    I have been trying to tell my family members this for quite a while, but they had “newspaper science” backing them up. Now that it has folded, I’m trying to figure out the most compassionate, non-accusatory way to break it to them that everything they’ve been told and believed was a lie.
    I don’t want to gloat – I want to, well, “evangelize” about this, and I know that you’ve got to touch the heart rather than beat the head.
    Any advice?

19. FWIW, the AP reports:
    House Republicans pointed to controversial e-mails leaked from climate scientists and said it was evidence of corruption. Top administration scientists looking at the same thing found no such sign, saying it doesn’t change the fact that the world is warming. [Sigh]
    “These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit,” said U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. who holds a B.A. in political science.
    The science is proper and this is about a small fraction of research on the issue, said John Holdren, the president’s science advisor, a physicist who has studied climate change.
    “The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus … that tells us the earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity,” said another government scientist Jane Lubchenco. A marine biologist and climate researcher, she heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
    The e-mails don’t negate or even deal with data from both NOAA and NASA, which keep independent climate records and show dramatic warming, Lubchenco told members of the House global warming committee.
    Sensenbrenner also attacked the work of Penn State’s Mann, who is frequently brought up in the communications. Mann is the author of what is called the “hockey stick” theory, first described in the late 1990s. It suggested that the past 50 years had been the hottest in several centuries, if not 1,000 years, and that man-made global warming was to blame. That research was so controversial that the National Academy of Sciences studied the work in depth.
    Sensenbrenner said the 2006 National Academy study showed Mann’s hockey stick was incorrect and that Mann’s theory was discredited. But Holdren said the NAS study had quibbles with Mann’s methods but agreed with his results.
    The chairman of the Academy of Science panel, Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist Gerald North, confirmed in an interview Wednesday that physicist Holdren was right, not politician Sensenbrenner.
    “The conclusions that we came to were essentially the same as the hockey stick” theory that Mann proposed, North told The Associated Press. North said even if Jones, Mann and others had done no research at all, the world would still be warming and scientists would still be able to show it. [sigh]

20. I will restrain my comments on this topic for a while as my sheer anger over the Nature editorial, in itself, comes close to sin. Needless to say, I have a lot to say, but I will have to say it later and more calmly (if that happens).
    The Chicken

21. Breathe in, breathe out. More Village.

22. Jimmy, thanks for the document dump. Just what I was looking for to start digging in to the matter.
    Leo,
    The Nature editorial looked alot like wagon circling to me, but I need to dig in deeper to decide for myself. Also, concerning your East Anglia reference, are you refering to the update where Prof. Jones is “stepping aside”?

23. Terry,
    NASA’s apparently been refusing FOIA requests for it’s data…
    http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/nasa-embroiled-in-climate-dispute

24. Let’s play PaRaNoIa, the game where They make up the rules.
    It isn’t conspiracy theory if they really are out to control you life, is it?
    The Chicken

25. Curious, if “NASA’s apparently been refusing” is Mr. Horner’s view (and apparently yours?), your article also expresses another view, that NASA is complying rather than refusing but compliance takes time. From your article:
    Mr. Horner says he’s never received an official acknowledgment of his three separate FOIA requests, but has received e-mails showing that the agency is aware of them.
    Mark Hess, public affairs director for the Goddard Space Flight Center, which runs the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) laboratory, said officials are working on Mr. Horner’s request, though he couldn’t say why they have taken so long.
    “We’re collecting the information and will respond with all the responsive relevant information to all of his requests,” Mr. Hess said. “It’s just a process you have to go through where you have to collect data that’s responsive.”

26. Dear Curious
    You are right to dig deeper – the devil is in the detail. Vague feelings of unease are not enough. It is necessary to examine specific emails in their context so see what they actually prove or disprove, after reading the case for the defence too! We have all written emails and blog comments which could be taken out of context and twisted against us.
    Yes, Prof Jones is stepping aside pending an investigation – standard procedure. But I was referring to his explanation/defence “Statement from Professor Phil Jones” which a fair-minded person would also read.

27. These emails do not appear to have changed the views of any of the thousands of scientists working on climate, the vast majority of whom believe in AGW.
    Why?
    Is it that they agree with the main points of the Nature editorial that “a fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists’ conspiracy theories” but even if it did there are multiple “robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated”. cf Piltdown Man and evidence for evolution.
    Or are thousands of scientists in many different countries with different types of funding and tenure, with different political systems and political parties in power: are they too part of the global conspiracy? Can we trust mainstream science?
    I would expect a smoking gun to have emails like the Knights Carbonic parody
    “More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords.” from Real Climate (run by climate scientists) with explanations by some of the accused.
    I might add that these emails do not appear to have any orders from Algore, or the NWO.
    George Marshall has some interesting points on the psychology of trust

28. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy,

    Note the adjective. I’ve seen others, like “grand conspiracy.”
    The problem is that there is plenty of evidence of “conspiracy” in the plain old legal definiton, so you have to throw in some adjective — but local, or petit, conspiracies are also conspiracies.

29. Mary,

    The problem is that there is plenty of evidence of “conspiracy” in the plain old legal definiton, so you have to throw in some adjective

    Note the adjective you threw in: “legal”.
    There are many definitions for “conspiracy”. Here’s one: “any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.” The supporters and the denialists are involved in a conspiracy.

30. I just watched a lecture given by Lord Christopher Monckton about this whole man-made climate change lie. You can see it at
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8

31. “any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result”

    That is a terrible definition.

32. “any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result”
    Why, that almost sounds like a plus sign 🙂
    The Chicken

33. That is a terrible definition.

    Given that the etymology for “conspire” is reported as “from O.Fr. conspirer, from L. conspirare ‘to agree, unite, plot,’ lit. ‘to breathe together,’ from com- ‘together’ + spirare ‘to breathe’ (see spirit),” the dictionary’s longstanding definition of “any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result” is quite genuine and appropriate. Indeed, as to “plot”, the pope himself has said we’re “actors in a marvellous and splendid adventure”.

34. SDG, is there some reason my post about Christopher Monckton has been suppressed from appearing?

35. In the absence of my previous post about Christopher Monckton and the video of his talk in St. Paul to which Brian posted a link, here is a short recap:
    Subsequent to his talk in St. Paul, Monckton has reportedly denied that he claimed to be a Nobel laureate, but in the video to which Brian posted a link, Monckton points to the pin on his lapel and says “I wear with pride my Nobel Peace Prize pin. I too, Al baby, am a Nobel laureate, but I got it for telling the truth and you got it for telling lies.” Similarly, here too, Monckton claimed, “As a contributor to the IPCC’s 2007 report, I share the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.” But on another occasion, to an audience in Texas, Monckton admitted that the pin is a “joke” given to him by David Douglas at the University of Rochester who described Monckton as “a layman with no qualifications in science.” But again, to the audience in St. Paul and elsewhere, he claimed to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and even to being a climatologist, saying “In the technical language that we climatologists like to use…”. The applause Monckton received in St. Paul when he showed off his pin did not suggest that his audience thought he was joking.
    Monckton has also reportedly claimed on multiple occasions to be “a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom legislature” and invited people to enquire for themselves. On questioning, he reportedly affirmed the claim while adding that he’s not a sitting or voting member. But enquiry also seems to reveal a less inflated story, that although he is on the list of hereditary peers because of his father, being on that list does not in itself qualify him for membership in the House of Lords: “The House of Lords Act 1999 disqualified all hereditary peers for membership of the House, but excepted from this general exclusion 90 hereditary peers and the holders of the offices of Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain” who may be elected upon vacancy. As best I can tell, Monckton is not and has not been among the excepted 90. He did put his name up for by-election to the House of Lords in 2007 but did not receive any votes.
    To be fair, in the St. Paul video, Monckton did warn his audience early on by saying, “You must not believe a word I say.”

36. Our local weatherman, Gary England, who developed the first commercial doppler radar and has been on several shows, including “Twister”– is always poo-pooing the idea of man-made global warming. One can tell he gets a kick out of showing how the climate-changers are ridiculous. The other night, he showed a picture of a huge ship near the polar ice cap–a bunch of alarmists came to see the snow cap melting and got stuck in the ice and couldn’t get out because there was a lot more ice than they figured on! Go Gary!

37. Is Gary still sporting his really bad comb-over? Do you have any links to the fella’s stuck in the ice?

38. http://www.surfacestations.com has some very interesting information about the quality of the climate stations that gather weather data.
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

39. Does Terry believe Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to be truthful?

40. I mean, given that it needed corrective notes in the U.K.

41. Terry: In ordinary English, we sometimes use the verb form “conspire” to refer to chance circumstance (e.g., “events conspired”). I think most English speakers would find similar use of the noun form “conspiracy” extremely odd to say the least. It it a terrible definition.
    I am not aware of any reason why you should be having any more difficulty posting any comment in any combox than anyone else is having. Cheers.

42. A leading link to wikipedia of all places, three links to some site named “chicagoboyz.net” (whose tag line under a google search reads “Commentary from a group of University of Chicago alumni students and their friends.”), two links to a MSM british newspaper (whose reporting on religious matters is almost universally derided here — apparently it’s accurate enough on matters of science?)…
    I mean, really?
    I honestly don’t know much about climate science — I have no strong opinion on the matter and withhold my judgement pending better education — but the obvious uneven blogging about matters political and scientific on this site turn me off to considering the validity of meatier subjects discussed here such as apologetics.

43. Does Terry believe Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to be truthful? I mean, given that it needed corrective notes in the U.K.

    David, if you mean to ask if “mainstream” science has considered it to be an absolutely flawless presentation, no. On the other hand, the same UK judge whose opinion Monckton presented in his talk as seemingly worthy of respect and which you seem to reflect in your mention, concluded: “I have no doubt that Dr Stott, the Defendant’s expert, is right when he says that: ‘Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.’” Needless to say, Monckton omitted that detail (or “inconvenient truth” if you will) from his talk.

    Terry: In ordinary English, we sometimes use the verb form “conspire” to refer to chance circumstance (e.g., “events conspired”). I think most English speakers would find similar use of the noun form “conspiracy” extremely odd to say the least. It it a terrible definition.

    SDG, “ordinary” English is, to borrow a definition from ordinary English, “of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional,” perhaps even “somewhat inferior or below average”. Nevertheless, “most English speakers would find”, if they opened up ordinary dictionaries of ordinary English for centuries past and present, the very sense of the word as I’ve described. Of course, the truth can often appear “extremely odd”, even “terrible”, to many, perhaps most people. I rather like “awful” (as in filled with awe), or “great” or “extremely formidable”. If you like “terrible”, that’s wonderful too! It’s so “bad”!

44. I want to just follow-up to my post briefly.
    I’ve followed this blog long enough to know that occasionally people write things like “Dude, Jimmy, stick to apologetics”, and occasionally Jimmy (or if not Jimmy then certainly Tim J or bill912) will respond “Dude, this is my blog and I can write whatever I want”.
    Certainly that’s true, but this blog is very public, and when you express rather strong opinions on politics and so forth, which have very little to do with (what I thought was) the primary subject matter of this blog, you risk turning off a certain portion of your potential readership.
    I suspect that the “certain portion” is large, but that’s debatable.
    If that’s ok with you, so be it. Just my 2 cents.

45. There is a connection of climatology with apologetics, albeit obscure. Since Christians have a responsibility to subdue the earth, how this should be done is a matter of discussion. Since the people calling the shots are not taking moral theology into consideration, such things have to be discussed somewhere. Why not, here?
    The Chicken

46. Smoky! Good to hear from you. You’ve been missed.
    P.S. Terry: It looks to me as if you may have chosen the LAST definitions provided in your source(s) both for your word and for mine (conspiracy and ordinary, respectively), for maximum perverse effect. Try any of the preceding definitions, and I expect all manner of thing will be well.

47. Smoky! Good to hear from you. You’ve been missed.
    🙂 I’ve not gone anywhere. I’ve merely been silent.
    TMC wrote:
    Since Christians have a responsibility to subdue the earth
    Subdue? That has a strange ring to my ears. I’ve heard that Christians ought to be stewards of creation — which suggests to me a responsibility to not only use creation but importantly to guard it and protect it for future generations. But subdue?

48. It looks to me as if you may have chosen the LAST definitions provided in your source(s) both for your word and for mine (conspiracy and ordinary, respectively), for maximum perverse effect.

    Know yourself.

49. Dear Smoky Mountain,
    Subdue? That has a strange ring to my ears. I’ve heard that Christians ought to be stewards of creation — which suggests to me a responsibility to not only use creation but importantly to guard it and protect it for future generations. But subdue?
    Straight out of the KJV of Genesis (Gen 1: 27- 28):
    So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
    And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth..
    Not to change the subject, radically, but in case anyone is interested, tonight is the last episode of Monk. Monk has been poisoned and has to solve Trudy’s murder before he dies.
    The Chicken

50. “:) I’ve not gone anywhere. I’ve merely been silent.”

    Your voice has been missed. It’s the only way we know you’re there.

    “Subdue? That has a strange ring to my ears. I’ve heard that Christians ought to be stewards of creation — which suggests to me a responsibility to not only use creation but importantly to guard it and protect it for future generations. But subdue?”

    In Genesis 1 God tells man (mankind) to “subdue the earth and have dominion over it.” The Church’s understanding of this “dominion” is consistent with the points you make about stewardship and responsibility:

    2415 Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.196

    2416 Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.197 Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.

    2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image.198 Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.

    2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.

    Hope that helps.

51. Lucien,
    Gary ditched the comb-over. I think he might have hair plugs or implants–he’s not bald, but has a short haircut these days.
    I looked over News9’s (Oklahoma) website, but couldn’t find any of his on-air graphics that he uses for global warming, but there is a section dedicated to the “myths of climate change” on the bottom of the weather page. It could be there.

52. From what I’ve read in the documents, and commentary on what others have found, I’ve reached my own conclusions.
    1. This information was not “hacked” from the CRU. It was either accidentally made available or leaked. The odds of someone hacking into the CRU system and stumbling across an incriminating FOI folder is much lower (in my mind) than human carelessness with regards to file security (e.g., someone put the zip file on a public server).
    2. Looking at the comments in the code, I question the validity of how they merged differing data sets. Making up site numbers? The lack of raw data to recreate things is also troubling.
    3. I am very disgusted by the corruption of the peer-review process. I don’t know how that would be prevented, however.
    4. Allegedly “independent” proof isn’t necessarily completely independent. It’s possible that methodology was justified for use at another location because CRU used it. It’s also possible that, just as there was a “fudge factor” in the CRU code, other places used their own fudge factors to bring their data in line with the CRU data.
    5. Software quality is questionable, at best. I’ve been coding for 15+ years, and any software I worked on went through tons of tests with data meant to try and find coding flaws. The normalization processes used in some of the code I saw would hide problems like this, which means the code could be taking perfectly valid data and putting out junk (like a negative value in a sum-of-squares collector).
    Due to all of the above, I have strong doubts about the validity of the data that has been presented by all climate scientists. I just don’t know what to believe…were they using CRU datasets in their research?
    I don’t believe that the revelations contained in the disclosed material proves that AGW doesn’t exist, but it certainly calls into question the validity of the numbers being touted by people at CRU and anywhere that uses CRU-based data.
    My solution, oddly enough, is not to defund climate researchers, but to continue to fund them, while at the same time funding independent auditors…to put a check on the research processes. And the software should be completely redone by a separate group, with quality audits throughout. Until the research can pass such an audit, any policy decisions meant to reverse AGW must be either put on hold or of minimal impact.
    While CRU doesn’t have the raw data from each station that originally provided data to them for their datasets, each station/provider of data should still have it. It should be possible, albeit possibly expensive, to regather most of the original raw data…without the uncertainty of where the data is from, or putting in fudge factors, or any of the other programming “tricks” that were used to combine the messed up data.
    We shouldn’t assume that we have no impact on global temperature, but we have every right to question what we’ve been told so far. So the scientists should step back, regroup, and redo some early work. Unfortunately for them, the lost data needs to be recovered and the data and processes need to be independently verifiable. Otherwise, it’s no longer “science” it’s “trust us, we had the data but we lost it”.

53. First Thoughts blog: Physicist Stephen Barr defends AGW skeptics against the charge of being “deniers.”
    Among other things, he writes:

    “…there are very well-known, highly respected and accomplished scientists, knowledgeable in the relevant fields, who are openly skeptical about various aspects the ‘consensus view’ on global warming. Just to mention two: Prof. Richard S. Lindzen of MIT, one of the world’s leading climatologists, and Prof. Will Happer of Princeton University, who was for several years the director of energy research at the United States Department of Energy (one of the main funders of scientific research in this country). Nor are Lindzen and Happer alone. Scientists who share their views may be in the minority, but it is hardly an insignificant minority.”

    I’m inclined to accept Barr’s assessment that AGW skepticism is minimally within the realm of reasonable scientific opinion, and that efforts to marginalize skepticism as a radical-fringe or willfully-perverse phenomenon akin to Holocaust denial or flat-earthism represent an overweening political gambit rather than the mere assertion of good science over bad.
    Smoky, do you disagree? Just curious.

54. Below is an excerpt from the website I linked above about the quality of the data being gathered to determine “Global Warming alias Climate Change.”
    Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?
    By Anthony Watts
    SurfaceStations.org
    I’m inclined to accept Barr’s assessment that AGW skepticism is minimally within the realm of reasonable scientific opinion
    Honestly I don’t know, but I’m inclined to agree.
    and that efforts to marginalize skepticism as a radical-fringe or willfully-perverse phenomenon akin to Holocaust denial or flat-earthism represent an overweening political gambit rather than the mere assertion of good science over bad.
    Sure, but it goes both ways: some conservative skeptics of AGW paint the issue as a massive political conspiracy. I am inclined to believe that most policy makers and most scientists — even climate scientists — are mainly good people trying to do mainly good work.
    I think my issue with the original blog post was more about its unbalanced (I would even say extreme) tone. The set of links provided as “additional reading” only added to that tone. I mean, imagine someone writing a blog post about finally uncovering some alleged Vatican conspiracy and then linking to wikipedia & the Telegraph for support!
    Matthew Siekierski’s comment struck me as more reasonable:
    I don’t believe that the revelations contained in the disclosed material proves that AGW doesn’t exist, but it certainly calls into question the validity of the numbers being touted by people at CRU and anywhere that uses CRU-based data.
    That’s something I can wholeheartedly agree with.
    I don’t mean to be rude here. It just sometimes strikes me that there are two Jimmy’s — the reasoned, logical, cautious apologist, and Political Jimmy.
    Cheers,
    Smoky

55. In the angry comment I never posted last night, I was going to make some of the same points as Matthew Siekierski did, above. I do computer modeling of acoustic/fluid phenomena and no one uses code for realistic work that hasn’t met strict ANSI, ASME, or some other regulatory agency criteria. In graduate school, one sometimes writes homebrew code, but in industry, one has to meet legal guidelines.
    Unfortunately, the sort of fluid mechanics and heat transfer equations used to model atmospheric processes are among the most difficult to model because they are usually slow flow, medium Reynold’s number problems (just below turbulence) with poorly defined end conditions. Just defining the motion of water in a lake bed can be tricky, at times.
    One often has to resort to approximations or change the cell size to avoid having to deal with small perturbations. This increases the error and can overlook nonlinear processes. One is, in effect, linearizing the data. This can give rise to artifacts that may seem plausible, such as linear trends. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to prove this in the code, itself. One has to actually build scalable models. I know of no such models that have been built to calibrate the computer code (not that I keep up in the field, so if anyone knows of any, it would be nice to know).
    Most people who do theoretical or computational work know about these things, so it would be interesting to find where they took these things into account in the code.
    Now, before anyone starts talking about “tricks” that one can play on the computer to make data say anything, one must realize that time series analysis is not a science, it is an art. One is expected to have to use some sort of approximations and even guesses. I don’t really fault the scientists for that. I fault them for lousy documentation of what they did.
    What should be done, of course, (this is so obvious it is pathetic – thing cold fusion) is to release all of the data and let independent scientists try to replicate the data. That this was NOT done from the start, to my mind, makes all of the results suspicious.
    The Chicken

56. “Sure, but it goes both ways: some conservative skeptics of AGW paint the issue as a massive political conspiracy. I am inclined to believe that most policy makers and most scientists — even climate scientists — are mainly good people trying to do mainly good work.”

    I think we have converging views here, though I might put it more cautiously: I would say that efforts to paint either side of the debate as per se willfully perverse are unhelpful, though I do think there are willfully perverse people on both sides. I wouldn’t want to take a stab at percentages.
    FWIW, it seems to me that Matthew Siekierski’s comment and Jimmy’s central assertion that “the man-made global warming claim is based on junk science” differ less in substance than in tone and emphasis. Beyond that, I’ll let Jimmy speak for himself.

57. Two thoughts on this:
    1. As to the hand-wringing over the “stolen” or “hacked” e-mails, what do you suppose the response from the MSM would be had such damning e-mails been “stolen” from Haliburton? I would reckon that the hackers would be the featured guests in a ticker-tape parade.
    2. Many a wise man has made the point that one should “follow the money.” And if the point isn’t proven by simply examining the sharp increase in Al Gore’s personal wealth due to this fraud, there are plenty of filthy money trails leading to academia, local governments, and many “alternative energy” companies. This is the same MO as the hucksters and snake oil salesmen of the past, just expanded to a degree to which the pioneers of fraud could have only dreamed.

58. Saludos:
    Jimmy Akin
    ¿Dominas Español?
    Deseo preguntarte sobre la Peshitta
    ¿Es cierto que en el ¨New Testament¨aparece YHWH?.
    Soy nuevo en este foro y entre con el fin de hacerte esta pregunta.
    josua3000@yahoo.com.mx

59. Saludos:
    Jimmy Akin
    ¿Dominas Español?
    Deseo preguntarte sobre la Peshitta
    ¿Es cierto que en el ¨New Testament¨aparece YHWH?.
    Soy nuevo en este foro y entre con el fin de hacerte esta pregunta.
    josua3000@yahoo.com.mx

60. Terry, thanks for the response.
    “On the other hand, the same UK judge … concluded: “I have no doubt that Dr Stott, the Defendant’s expert, is right when he says that: ‘Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.'””
    That may be right. For my part, I can’t name a “broadly accurate” research paper I have ever done which needed 70 pages of corrective notes. Maybe apples and oranges, but that is my view. 😀

61. The Masked Chicken,
    “Monk has been poisoned an…”
    You might have given a spoiler warning for those Monk fans (moi) who are waiting for the DVD. 🙁 😉

62. Sorry, David B. At least I didn’t say whether Monk lived or died or who poisoned him or how or with what poison. Consider it a teaser. Sorry, again 🙁
    The Chicken

63. That’s ok. What’s a spoiler among friends? ;-D

64. FORTRAN 77? LUXURY!
    I learned my FORTRAN on FORTRAN IV.
    ON PUNCHED CARDS!
    Try to tell that to this year’s graduates and they won’t believe you.

65. That may be right. For my part, I can’t name a “broadly accurate” research paper I have ever done which needed 70 pages of corrective notes. Maybe apples and oranges

    David, yes, apples and oranges. The Inconvenient Truth is not one of your research papers. It’s a controversial 94-minute Academy Award winning movie documentary (the first documentary to win 2 Oscars and the first to win a best original song Oscar) featuring a former Vice President of the U.S. that was made subject to litigation in the UK because someone wanted to distribute it in state schools throughout the UK as a teaching aid. How many of those have you ever done? As to your papers, I could write 70 pages of “guidance notes” on any of them if a UK judge ordered me to. It might be 70 pages of rubbish (or maybe not), but it would be 70 pages.

66. As to your papers, I could write 70 pages of “guidance notes” on any of them if a UK judge ordered me to. It might be 70 pages of rubbish (or maybe not), but it would be 70 pages.
    Yes, but it would still be white crayon on white paper.
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

67. Yes, but it would still be white crayon on white paper.

    For others read black where I read white.

68. off topic i know, but did any of you see this.
    http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-363871
    No respect at all. Christians should boycott these stores.

69. Josua,
    Creo que el Sr. Akin si sabe algo de español, pero te sugiero que le envies un e-mail… o mejor trata Catholic Answers.
    Brian,
    The pose the doll representing Virgin Mary and the shortness of her dress is unfortunate, but I think otherwise the display is fine. It seems to me a pious fashionista’s take on the Nativity. Madison’s spokespersons claim the store didn’t mean to offend, and I believe them.
    For another modern take on the Nativity, see here: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/10/wdtprs-psa-historical-critical-nativity-set/

70. MeilinPR. I am not so sure that the store in question didn’t mean to offend. If I seen this in my high street I would be very hurt and offended. I see things like this as a mark of the times, especially within Christian societies, where the sacred is sacred no more. We are so sophisticated these days. Our intellect has left us blind.
    Try depicting Muhammad in this thought provoking fashion and see what happens. When I look at a nativity seen I think of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the angels, Salvation and so on.
    I am a man and this Nativity scene brings thoughts of a sexual nature to my mind, and any man who says otherwise is lying to himself.
    It’s just something I do not want to think about when contemplating the birth of my saviour.
    So I believe the store did mean to offend or the window dresser was physically blind
    (I think not) and put the wrong dress on THE MOTHER OF GOD.

71. SDG, I agree with your impression of things. I think people may be reading more into what Jimmy said than what is really there. It would appear that the some of the core claims regarding AGW are based on junk science…heavily polluted data that makes the conclusions worthless. But it’s easy for a reader to jump to the conclusion that Jimmy is claiming that AGW doesn’t exist at all. If he believes that, he hasn’t said so in this post.
    All that I see Jimmy saying is that “the man-made global warming claim is based on junk science.” Since CRU data is so central to the IPCC AR4, he’s mostly right. The only area where I could take issue with his statement is that it implies that ALL such claims are based on junk science (implied absolute), instead of limiting the junk science label to CRU-based research. But I just don’t know how much the CRU data influenced other research, so even the implied absolute could be right.

72. Terry,
    The Inconvenient Truth is… a controversial 94-minute Academy Award winning movie documentary (the first documentary to win 2 Oscars and the first to win a best original song Oscar) featuring a former Vice President of the U.S.
    And these facts prove its truthfulness? Being Vice pres doesn’t make one a climatologist, and the academy will gives Oscars to practically anyone who promotes a message they like, factual or otherwise (Michael Moore, anyone?).
    …that was made subject to litigation in the UK because someone wanted to distribute it in state schools throughout the UK as a teaching aid. How many of those have you ever done?
    Me? None, but I have seen plenty of good ones, and they usually don’t have 70 pages of guidance notes attached. ;-D
    As to your papers, I could write 70 pages of “guidance notes” on any of them if a UK judge ordered me to. It might be 70 pages of rubbish (or maybe not), but it would be 70 pages.
    I have no doubt you could. 😉 The U.K. documentary case, however, was about Mr. Gore’s work, and they found that it needed at least a few facts clarified.
    Thanks for the reply. I also apologize to all for going off-topic on Gore’s movie.

73. To all those Climategate apologists who seem to think that the story here is the “stolen” emails rather than the fabricated data, I have only two words in response: Pentagon papers.

74. David,

    And these facts prove its truthfulness?

    These facts demonstrate how comparing AIT with your research papers, or even comparing AIT with virtually any other documentary to date, is like comparing apples to oranges.
    As to the film’s “truthfulness”, the judge’s opinion was that AIT “is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science was used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme,” and that all four of the film’s major scientific points (as found by the court) “are supported by a vast quantity of research published in peer-reviewed journals worldwide and by the great majority of the world’s climate scientists.” The judge accepted the witness evidence that “Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.”
    The judge looked at a “long schedule” of alleged errors and exaggerations but was only persuaded that nine of these were of relevance. He ruled that these nine should be identified and discussed as revisions to the already existing Guidance Notes for the film to avoid the appearance of either the DFES, or local schools, promoting “partisan” views. As such, the final length of the Guidance Notes (which is 58 pages, not 70 pages) does not constitute the number of pages of scientific corrections ordered by the judge but instead reflects the length of the already existing guidance notes plus revisions mandated by the judge to avoid a one-sided political presentation, to explain where AIT deviated from the consensus view as set out in the IPCC report and to identify that there are also views of “skeptics” who do not accept even the consensus views of the IPCC.
    You can view the Guidance Notes for the film here. There you will see that it’s a teaching guide (e.g. containing non-controversial questions for students like “What does ice look like?” and “Is hot or cold water more dense?”) and not a document of scientific corrections.

75. People, here, might find Richard Feynmann’s Cal Tech commencement speech enlightening[Note: there is a slightly lurid description of nude hot tub bathers towards the beginning. R-rated, not X].
    Did the climate people standardize their data? Against what? Can there data reproduce current data as well as make accurate predictions? Some models have been out long enough to see if they have made accurate predictions. How many have?
    The Chicken

76. Ahem, Can THEIR data reproduce current data as well as make accurate predictions?
    Boys and girls out there, Chicken says, “There are three sound-alike words (adults call them homophones): there, their, and they’re.” Can you spot the flaw in my last post (corrected, above)? Circle the mistake with a red crayon (after printing it out – do not mark up the computer screen!) and ask the pronoun fairy to leave a nickel under your parent’s pillow with your name on it . It’s not THEIR money and THEY’RE obligated to take it from THERE and give it to you (provided the pronoun fairy can correctly spell your name).
    This message is a public service provided by the Guild of Pronoun Fairies, local 101a.
    The Chicken
    P. S., Never post while giving a final exam.

77. My Goodness, I’ve killed the combox.
    The Chicken

78. “(It)’s not quite dead”.

79. Yet another case of leftists lying. Surprise, surprise.
    It won’t matter, Congress will pass Crap & Tax next year. Al Gore will still become a billionaire.

80. Some ask, Who wants to be a billionaire?
    And Al Gore has testified: “[Sigh]… I believe that the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us. And I have invested in it. But every penny that I have made, I have put right into a nonprofit, the Alliance for Climate Protection, to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge. And, Congresswoman, if you’re… if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me… Every penny that I have made has gone to it. Every penny from the movie, from the book… from any investments from renewable energy. I have been willing to put my money where my mouth is. Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country? … I’m proud of it. I’m proud of it.”
    And has said: “I have advocated policies to promote renewable energy and accelerate reductions in global warming pollution for decades, including all of the time I was in public service,” Mr. Gore wrote. “As a private citizen, I have continued to advocate the same policies. Even though the vast majority of my business career has been in areas that do not involve renewable energy or global warming pollution reductions, I absolutely believe in investing in ways that are consistent with my values and beliefs. I encourage others to invest in the same way.”

81. Jimmy, I’ve been following this issue for decades. It’s especially interesting to me because I have a degree in Geology (so I know that the climate has changed a lot over the years).
    I am also skeptical of AGW, but the “Climategate” emails do not by any stretch prove that all of AGW is “junk science.”
    The emails seem to indicate the same sort of bad motives we’ve seen among scientists in so many other areas. E.g., a pc-style dismissal of anybody who doesn’t toe their line. An arrogance towards people who don’t believe everything they say. Attempts to stifle dissent. And even, perhaps, some funny business with the data.
    But it’s not as if CRU is the only place with climate data, and it’s not as if their data sets were out of the ordinary. So are you alleging a world-wide conspiracy?
    You need to be careful to keep two things separate (which most people don’t). (1) Is the globe getting warmer. (2) Is the warming due to human activity.
    It’s entirely reasonable to admit 1 but deny 2.

82. Hide the decline 🙂
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk

83. On CNN, this issue was debated from both sides and the skeptical guest did not express the florid conclusions in the OP. There was a consensus that conservation and alternate energy sources are prudent steps.
    The skeptical guest said this would lead to better climate science.
    So let’s look at the data and be scientists about it. Doing a victory dance does not lead to better science.

84. “the skeptical guest did not express the florid conclusions in the OP. There was a consensus that conservation and alternate energy sources are prudent steps.”
    Can you point me to where Jimmy said (in so many words) “let’s not conserve energy or seek alternate sources of it”? Also, I don’t think you proved that Jimmy was unscientific in his reaction.

85. “But it’s not as if CRU is the only place with climate data, and it’s not as if their data sets were out of the ordinary. So are you alleging a world-wide conspiracy?”
    Not a conspiracy, but if the data set NASA uses were calibrated with the CRU data, then their numbers are just as corrupted. If success in the field required that ones numbers match up with CRU’s data sets, others may (only “may”) have fudged their data. We have no way of knowing.
    That’s why all of the raw data and the algorithms used to adjust the numbers need to be released. For it to be science, it has to be reproducible, but it can’t be reproduced if others don’t have access. That applies for not just CRU but all major climate data set (raw data, adjusted data, and how the adjustment was applied).
    The “junk science” aspect is apparent to me in the programming notes, both inline comments and the Harry readme text. All of the fudging of data in order to combine it somehow…making up station numbers and hoping there wasn’t duplication…lack of quality test with fixed data sets and pre-determined results…all the rest. There appears to be no real quality in the most basic data on which all other calculations rest. GIGO.
    It should be treated as junk unless and until it is fully released and reproduced.

86. or anyone who wants to see what the graphs really look like, here is a picture. This data plot looks downright weird. Notice how all of the markers except the red (measured temperatures) looks to be starting back down at the year 2000.
    The Chicken

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