Scientists go to the darkest depths of the oceans to discover a world populated by creatures straight out of Dr. Seuss — and, some that might inspire a Hollywood monster flick.
Tax Rich, Fund War?
Top Dems propose new taxes on America's wealthiest to foot the bill for any troop increases in Afghanistan
U.S. to Make Climate Change Pitch
Obama administration will propose its goals for emissions reduction at U.N. summit in Copenhagen
'Rann should agree to lie detector'
THE woman who claims she had an affair with a premier says she would agree to a lie detector test.
Feds Set for Massive Crib Recall
One of the largest crib recalls in U.S. history reportedly to be announced tomorrow
People smugglers reveal secret methods
"I HEARD when we're arrested, we are put in a fancy prison," a people smuggler tells reporter
In a world first, Australian researchers will use multi-million-dollar technology used to make Hollywood blockbusters to find out how much stress we are putting on our feet by wearing thongs
Startled roo tries to drown man, dog
A MAN was almost drowned by a savage kangaroo after he dived into his farm dam to save his dog.
Grans are rescuing our children
A GENERATION of children lost in the Australian judicial system is being raised by their grandparents because their parents are unfit to look after them.
Fort Hood military shooter 'paralysed'
A US Army Major charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, could be permanently paralysed from gunshot wounds.
Newton says sorry for trashed hotel room
POLICE are investigating after a hotel room Matthew Newton was staying in was badly damaged.
Judges pandering to masses, says justice
A RISE in the number of people imprisoned is being blamed on judges embracing "populism".
Polly Waffle bar gets the axe after 62 years
ICONIC Aussie chocolate bar the Polly Waffle has become a victim of newer sweets' success.
Jeststar removed athlete's chair
PARALYMPIAN crawls through the airport after Jetstar refuse to allow him to use his own wheelchair.
=== Comments ===
Statistics con the final nail in Rudd’s climate change coffin
Piers Akerman
UNTIL last Friday, Wall Street’s scammer Bernard Madoff was considered the biggest fraud in world history, having taken his greedy clients for an estimated $US64.8 billion. - I like to believe that Mr Turnbull’s clam to only back effective measures meant he was never going to back the ETS. Rudd’s statement that we have to do something highlights the fact that although he was willing to do anything, including the ineffective and wasteful, he was also going to create an enormous pork barrel from which the ALP would indefinitely draw funds.
Rudd has not only used the proposed ETS for this money grab. I note he also has recreated the divisive ATSIC theme in which Aboriginal peoples are ‘given’ money by paying ALP mates. Note the education revolution praxis of giving too much to developers who are ALP friendly for jobs which are worth less. Or the extra layers of bureaucracy which mop up funds which might otherwise have spilled onto professionals in medicine, police, education and so on. Or the extraordinary amounts paid to consultants who twist ideas for voters. Or the vast army of supporters who feel obligated to abuse people on the ‘net for not supporting Rudd or the ALP. - ed.===
Obama Breaks His Own Promise on Gitmo
By Sean Hannity
The news that is not White House approved...
Gitmo: Still Open
President Obama's first major act after being sworn into office was to sign an executive order demanding the closure of Gitmo by January 2010. As it turns out, he's run into a couple of roadblocks and he's not going to be able to meet that deadline — among other things.
The president seems to have discovered a minor inconvenience: There are a lot of terrorists down there. Here's what he told our own Major Garrett.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There are a set of detainees, though, that are dangerous to the United States, but unfortunately the evidence against them may be tainted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
I think that's why the Bush administration set up the military tribunals at Gitmo to begin with. So will the president actually follow through on his big promise?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: In Washington, things move slower than I anticipated. We are on a path and a process where I would anticipate that Guantanamo will be closed next year. I'm not going to set an exact date.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Things in Washington move slowly? Who knew?
Given his experience with health care and now Gitmo, this president might want to shy away from setting those firm deadlines. They don't seem to be working out too well for him.
One More Tax Cheat
It seems like a week never goes by that a tax-troubled nominee isn't discovered in the Obama administration. Meet Lael Brainard, whom President Obama nominated in March to serve as undersecretary of treasury for international affairs. Unfortunately for the president, his vetters failed him once again.
According to the AP, a Senate investigation has revealed that Brainard was late paying her taxes on property in 2005, 2006, 2007, oh and by the way, in 2008.
All of this is not sitting well with Chuck Grassley. He told the AP that the Senate Finance Committee had to submit 10 sets of questions to the nominee before she disclosed information about the late payments.
She'll fit right in at the Treasury Department with Turbo Tax cheat Tim Geithner at the helm.
Great Moments in Liberal Foreign Policy
Just two months ago, President Obama caved into pressure from the Chinese and refused to meet with Tibet's spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama. According to The Weekly Standard, the president's decision was not just a slap in the face to human rights activists around the world, it was also hypocritical.
Just last year, then-Senator Obama called on President Bush to "do more" for the Tibetan people. In a letter to President Bush, he wrote: "It is important that we give high priority to the plight of Tibetans and make clear to President Hu that the way in which China treats all Chinese citizens including Tibetans profoundly affects how China is viewed in the U.S."
President Bush did meet with the Dalai Lama, embraced his cause and presented him with the Congressional Gold Medal — which, by the way, is the highest civilian award bestowed by American lawmakers.
You can add this to the list of many presidential flip-flops.
Junk Scientist
Tonight's Meltdown is brought to you by a guy who never has let the facts get in his way. Former Vice President Al Gore recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien and he was asked to talk about geothermal energy. As you will hear, he was not afraid to rattle off some statistics during his response:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, "THE TONIGHT SHOW" HOST: Can you tell me — is this a viable solution, geothermal?
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: It definitely is. And it's a relevantly new one. People think about geothermal energy, when they think about it at all, in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places. But two kilometers or so down, in most places, there are these incredibly hot rocks. Because the interior of the Earth is extremely hot — several million degrees. And the crust of the Earth is hot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Now, Al Gore is right. The interior of the Earth is pretty darn hot. But several million degrees? Sorry, Al. I don't think so. In fact, as the National Review points out, even the Earth's core, thousands of miles underground, is only 5,000 degrees Celsius — not millions.
Great job, Al. By the way, that's the kind of performance that can help you win probably another peace prize.
===
DEVASTATION REAPED
Tim Blair
The Sydney Morning Herald claims:
Climate change protesters are removed by force after blocking the main entrance to Federal Parliament.By “force”? Take a look. It’s just the usual scene of cops politely removing stupid hippies – who, by the way, had themselves blocked the entrance by force. Some went limp when led away, a tactic that should allow a minimum of two penalty-free police punches.
In fact, the protesters seemed unusually willing to leave, probably to get away from Mama Cass and her almost-tearful apocalypse predictions:
The people in power are not doing the right thing in terms of social justice, when there are billions of people on this planet who are going to be reaping the devastation, who are going to be victim to the devastation that will happen …Today’s Parliamentary devastation may involve Rudd.
===
UH O
Tim Blair
Just click and scroll as critics of Sarah Palin gradually realise that they’re criticising … someone else.
===
KEV TRENDING
Tim Blair
Kevin Rudd’s linguistic influence reaches the US:
Good grief! — the New York Times has used the phrase “illegal immigrants”! In a headline! On the front page!!Just as well for the NYT that it is beyond the authority of Australia’s Press Council, which forbids the Ruddish phrase.
===
ANNA REXIC
Tim Blair
Two weeks into her climate fast, justice jitterbugger Anna Keenan looks forward to further foodlessness:
I dare say there are very few people on the planet who have done 40 days without food before. There are very few people in the developed world who’ve done even one day without food in their entire life.Besides anorexics, I guess, who’ll be thrilled to learn from Keenan that more than a month without food is “totally amazing” and will leave you feeling “happy” and “healthy”:
Another highlight: Ribcage Annie is still cooking for her boyfriend, even though she hasn’t eaten for 14 days. The sisterhood will be impressed.
===
NICE COLOURS, THOUGH
Tim Blair
A big seller in Lakemba.
===
NAME SOUGHT
Tim Blair
A proper title for the email antics of East Anglia’s rock steady CRU (“show us what you do, twist the data, make a move”) still eludes us. A German newspaper suggests this, however:
MANIPULATIONSVORWÜRFEHmm. It’s got a certain … rhythm. From the same source, a headline that when translated via Babelfish gives us something even sweeter:
Those cheat the researcher with the climate change
===
FEETAL POSITION
Tim Blair
The BBC finds a foot man:
This is a time of global warming. Through our feet, I think we can begin to feel it. Through our feet, I think we can begin to be one people, standing through gravity on one earth.Gravity is helpful like that.
===
BIG TABLE
Tim Blair
When you already get £22,508 a year in benefits because you’re too fat to work, you might pause before demanding more money to put “food on the table”.
===
GIVE THESE GUYS A BEER
Tim Blair
Trash-talking Iraqi detainees torment Wisconsin-sourced troops with Brett Favre barbs:
“They know Favre by name,” said First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen, who is from New Richmond, Wis.Via Rick Chandler, who adds: “Once they learn a little more about football, they can start increasing the pressure: Like calling for Matt Flynn to replace Aaron Rodgers, or making fun of cheese.”
“One of the big words they know now is shenanigan. They’ll constantly talk about ‘Favre shenanigans,’ ‘He’s so good for the Vikings,’ and ‘The Packers have got to really feel bad about that one.’ ”
According to Boehnen, it started when troops there started decorating their camp in Packers colors.
“They obviously then started up the conversations, and started talking about Brett Favre. They soon learned about Favre going to the Vikings, and things just started going downhill from there.”
===
WEAR THE DECLINE
Tim Blair
“What really annoys me about this whole thing," comments Chilly in Connecticut, “is that it’s been out there for 24 hours already, and I still can’t find anyplace to buy a Hide the Decline t-shirt.”
You can now, Chilly:
Also available: mugs, bags, aprons and so on. This could lead to a whole line of fashionable denialist – or correctivist – wear. Meanwhile, here’s a leftist’s view of the CRU email scandal:
If this is revealed to be motivated by a wish to derail political action at Copenhagen or what may come after, those responsible have committed crimes against humanity.An insider may face the firing squad … when solar rifles are invented.
UPDATE. Waaah! Waaaaaah! Raymond T. Pierrehumbert is one upset academic:
This is a criminal act of vandalism and of harassment of a group of scientists that are only going about their business doing science. It represents a whole new escalation in the war on climate scientists who are only trying to get at the truth …He says “deliberate monkeying with data” as though it’s a bad thing. Keep on hiding the decline, Raymond.
This illegal act of cyber-terrorism against a climate scientist (and I don’t think that’s too strong a word) is ominous and frightening. What next? Deliberate monkeying with data on servers? Insertion of bugs into climate models? Or at the next level, since the forces of darkness have moved to illegal operations, will we all have to get bodyguards to do climate science?
UPDATE II. Graham Readfearn provides “some perspective and context on this story” by using the word “illegal” four times. I prefer the term “civil disobedience”.
UPDATE III. Previously from Andrew Revkin, whose NYT blog published Pierrehumbert’s exquisite howl:
The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.A new slogan for the NYT: “All the news that is intended for the public eye.” Michael Goldfarb responds: “Of course, when the choice is between publishing classified information that might endanger the lives of U.S. troops in the field or intelligence programs vital to national security, that information is published without hesitation …” Another reason Revkin would prefer that the emails remain concealed: Revkin’s friendly missives are among them. Michael Mann calls him “Andy”.
UPDATE IV. Paul Connor, currently starving himself because he thinks the weather is wrong, says breaking laws is just fine, especially when climate matters are involved. So our whistle-blower is off the hook.
===
GREEN = LIES
Tim Blair
As usual, green claims are revealed to be dishonest:
Energy-efficient light bulbs lose on average 22% of their brightness over their lifetime, a study has found.Not that you can read it in the dark. And don’t forget the mercury. Also:
In some cases they emit just 60% as much light as traditional models which are being phased out of shops, it says.
The study in Engineering and Technology magazine concluded that consumers were being misled by the bulbs’ packaging.
Millions of plastic shopping bags being touted as biodegradable in IGA supermarkets around Australia have failed to decompose as advertised during independent tests, raising serious questions over green marketing claims.They learn this sort of thing at university.
UPDATE. Further on the green deceit gene from Christopher Booker:
Just imagine if we learned we were about to be landed with the biggest bill in the history of the world - simply on the say-so of a group of scientists. Would we not want to be absolutely sure that those scientists were 100 per cent dependable in what they were saying?
===
No more than we deserve, and less
Andrew Bolt
A worthy winner of the fifth spot on Virtual Tourist’s list of the “world’s ugliest buildings”:
5) Federation Square; Melbourne, AustraliaReturning from a trip in which I saw the Coliseum, Milan’s Duomo and Schoenbrun, I did wonder why we built ugly instead.
Billed as “Melbourne’s Meeting Place,” we’re guessing that this is where city residents meet…to go somewhere else. Frenzied and overly complicated, the chaotic feel of the complex is made worse by a web of unsightly wires from which overhead lights dangle.
===
The global warming conspiracy - news spreads
Andrew Bolt
Even alarmist Tim Flannery, confronted on Lateline with the emails of the global warming conspiracy, concedes holes in the “science is settled” argument and admits to what he didn’t before:
We’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate...We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem… Sure for the last 10 years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend.And on these now-admitted uncertainties we must scrap all coal-fired generators, impose massive new taxes, shut entire industries, hand billions to the UN and change the way we live?
Incidentally, note that journalists absolutely refused to hear exactly this from me on Insiders. Even Lateline host Tony Jones will now hear from Flannery what he wouldn’t just days earlier from sceptic Tony Abbott,
In the Senate:
Senator PARRYClimate Change Minister Penny Wong shows no evidence will be admitted to her closed mind:
I also want to raise some questions about new information that seems to have come to light in recent times which probably bears testimony as to why we should not be rushing this. I am looking at reports in the media, and I stress they are allegations and the veracity of the alleged emails has not been confirmed. … Documents have been leaked going back some years. Some of these documents, if they are found to be true, just raise further questions which, if I were the Prime Minister of this country … would mean that I would want to hold off a bit. I would want to cool off a bit before I charged off to Copenhagen or put monumental legislation to this parliament.…Reports say: … some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real, and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind
Senator JOYCE (2.50 pm)—But the facts will out, even if the New York Times declares it will not publish them. On ABC Lateline:
My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong. Is the minister aware of reports in today’s Australian, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal and other leading world newspapers documenting Kevin Trenberth, the IPCC lead author in 2001-07, when he said: … we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.Is the minister also aware of the director of the British Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones, and emails that talk of ‘tricks’ to hide the decline in global warming?Or Phil Jones’ statement that he ‘cheered’ at the death of John L Daly in Launceston, a scientists and climate sceptic, in 2004? Is the minister also aware of the culture within the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit that has strong links, as demonstrated, with the IPCC of intimidation towards the free expression of views on climate change, referring to sceptical colleagues—(Time expired)
Senator WONG—
Through you, Mr President, what is clear to every senator, and to any Australian who is interested in what the Senate is doing, is that Senator Joyce, Senator Bernardi, Senator Minchin and many others on that side are not interested in the facts....Everything he does and everything he says needs to be listened to with that in mind—that he comes to this debate with a completely closed mind...(waffle follows, and no answer.)
Some of the world’s leading climate scientists have been embarrassed by the publication of hundreds of private emails and research documents, which were stolen by computer hackers from a British university. Climate change sceptics have hailed the material as proof that research data has been skewed and suppressed.(Please check on that link Andy Pitman‘s preposterous excuses for Phil Jones wanting to destroy emails apparently requested under FOI, excuses not even Jones canvassed in writing about it. Note that Tim Flannery is then wheeled on as well to the defence, with Tony Jones first asking him to explain the badness of ....the sceptics.)
Climatologist Tim Ball points out that the 2006 Wegman report into Michael Mann’s discredited “hocky stick” had already warned there was a small group of 43 climate scientists operating in too-close concert:
In fact, that Wegman report, commissioned by the United States House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, named as members of this clique the very people are the centre of these emails. Professor Wegman:
One of the interesting questions associated with the ‚"hockey stick controversy’ are the relationships among the authors and consequently how confident one can be in the peer review process. In particular, if there is a tight relationship among the authors and there are not a large number of individuals engaged in a particular topic area, then one may suspect that the peer review process does not fully vet papers before they are published…Lord Monckton says those implicated by the leaked emails are “crooks”:
“However, it is immediately clear that the Mann, Rutherford, Jones, Osborn, Briffa, Bradley and Hughes form a clique, each interacting with all of the others. A clique is a fully connected subgraph, meaning everyone in the clique interacts with every one else in the clique.
The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.Over at Lucia’s, the party mix version:
Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up…
(P)rocurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.
Tim Blair has the shirt.
===
Floodgates now open
Andrew Bolt
Yet another boatload of people wanting one of Kevin Rudd’s special deals, too:
AN Australian naval vessel has intercepted a boat carrying 56 suspected asylum seekers and two crew off Australia’s northwest coast. The vessel was intercepted by HMAS Bathurst at about 3.35pm (AEDT) today about 100 nautical miles northwest of Derby.Expect even more very soon:
It is the 46th asylum seeker boat intercepted in Australian waters this year and the second in as many days.
Sri Lanka says people held in special camps since the end of the conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels will be allowed out for short periods from next month. An aide to the president also confirmed a pledge to close the facilities, which house more than 130,000 people.UPDATE
They’ve noted how kind we’ve been to pick them up at sea in boats like the Oceanic Viking:
Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen gained rare access to a network of smugglers who revealed some of their closely-guarded methods. These include using secret compartments taking asylum seekers to Australian waters and then issuing distress calls in the hope of being picked up by rescue boats and taken to Australian detention centres.
===
Climategate latest
Andrew Bolt
Slowly seeping into the local media.
The Australian:
COMPUTER hackers have broken into Britain’s leading climate science research centre, making public thousands of private emails between top climate change scientists and, in the process, laying bare their bitter disagreements about the cause of climate change.Tim Blair in the Daily Telegraph:
Should they be proved genuine, which is looking likely at this point, in the absence of any denials, these emails are absolute dynamite.Sydney Morning Herald (devoting an entire artice to the defence):
A leading climate change scientist whose private emails are included in thousands of documents stolen by hackers and posted online says the leaks may have been aimed at undermining next month’s global climate summit in Denmark.Prominent climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr says we now need to review the extent of the hijacking of the IPCC:
The challenge to the IPCC community, now that their duplicity has been exposed, is to communicate to all of us why the peer-reviewed papers that we documented, and that were available in time for the IPCC review process, were considered “bad papers” and thus ignored in the IPCC report. A balanced assessment would comment on these papers, and provide the reason they disagree with their results.UPDATE
Did my bit to alert the voters on Steve Price’s 2UE morning show today. UPDATE: Will be on the ABC’s Lateline tonight.
UPDATE 2
Former British Chancellor Lord Lawson in The Times:
Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals.UPDATE 3
There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay.
For those who missed the most damning of the emails so far, I’ve posted on them here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
UPDATE 4
More links…
The emails show the astonishing funds behind warmist scientists - with nearly $25 million going to Professor Phil Jones alone. The American Thinker points out the hypcrisy of warming preachers for then denouncing sceptical scientists such as Richard Lindzen as Big Oil shills for having charged, in his case, just $10,000 to appear as an expert witness 20 years ago.
Meanwhile Charlie Martin links to the emails which prove his charge:
The emails suggest the authors co-operated covertly to ensure that only papers favorable to CO2-forced AGW were published, and that editors and journals publishing contrary papers were punished. They also attempted to “discipline” scientists and journalists who published skeptical information.UPDATE 5
Professor Aynsley Kellow warned about just this corruption of science by evangelism in his 2007 book Science and Public Policy: The Virtuous Corruption of Virtual Environmental Science.
He now writes:
The e-mails leaked suggest the situation was much worse than my analysis – but then I was just pointing to the degree of collaboration and the effects of the communications revolution in breaking down the normal safeguards. We now have evidence of: collective ‘dealing’ with inconvenient data; attempts to hijack peer review; the keeping of inconvenient published science out of the IPCC process; keeping that which did appear out of the important Summary for Policy-Makers; attempts to intimidate journal editors; inability to acocunt for observational data which are ‘surely wrong’ . . . .UPDATE 6
Really quite amazing stuff! And on this we will base an ETS which assumes we know (because the science is settled) what size the cap should be in a cap-and-trade scheme.
Oh, but how those crusading scientists felt in their guts the faith burn! No way could - should - the Medieval Warm Period have been warmer than today:
From: Phil JonesThis may help explain why Jones’ CRU produced a graphic derived from tree rings that indeed showed this recent warming was unprecedented - but only because the CRU researcher deliberately ignored a much bigger sample of tree rings that said it most certainly was not. And, privately, his colleagues knew the work was error-riddled.
To: Tom Wigley
Subject: Re: MBH
Date: Fri Oct 22 15:13:20 2004
Cc: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Bottom line - their is no way the MWP (whenever it was) was as warm globally as the last 20 years. There is also no way a whole decade in the LIA period was more than 1 deg C on a global basis cooler than the 1961-90 mean. This is all gut feeling, no science, but years of experience of dealing with global scales and varaibility.
Must got to Florence now. Back in Nov 1.
Cheers
Phil
UPDATE 7
Gavin Atkins has a quiz. Sample question:
3. Director of the CRU Phil Jones says that if contrarians ever hear there is a new Freedom of Information Act operating in Britain he will:Test yourself.
a) Gladly comply, after all, it is in the interests of good science.
b) Reluctantly comply – he has many better things to do with his time
c) Seek legal advice as to the best path to follow
d) Delete the files.
UPDATE 8
Wall Street Journal Online:
The correspondence between dozens of climate-change researchers, including many in the U.S., illustrates bitter feelings among those who believe human activities cause global warming toward rivals who argue that the link between humans and climate change remains uncertain. Some emails also refer to efforts by scientists who believe man is causing global warming to exclude contrary views from important scientific publications.
“This is horrible,” said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. “This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn’t questionable practice, this is unethical.”
===
DISMAYED AND SHAKEN
Tim Blair
Greeno supremo George Monbiot concedes:
It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.The Great George has spoken. Tim Flannery is also sounding a little wobbly. At that same link, Terry McCrann: “This is one of those moments in time. You are either on the right side of history or you are not.”
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign.
===
Even Monbiot says the science now needs “reanalyising”Andrew Bolt
Even George Monbiot, one of the fiercest media propagandists of the warming faith, admits he should have been more sceptical and says the science now needs to be rechecked:
It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.Sure, Monbiot claims the fudging of what he extremely optimistically puts as just “three or four” scientists doesn’t knock over the whole global warming edifice, yet…
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.
If even Monbiot, an extremist, can say that much, why cannot the Liberals say far more? And will now the legion of warmist journalists in our own media dare say as Monbiot has so belatedly:
I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely.Scepticism is the essential disposition of our craft, yet too many journalists have abandoned it. Remember: the opposite of sceptical is gullible.
===
INVESTIGATION BEGINS
Tim Blair
The Guardian breathes a sigh of relief:
In the political world, the email affair has elicited no comment …Oh, really?
===
THEY QUESTION THE TIMING
Tim Blair
Greenist George Marshall senses a Copenhagen-derailing email conspiracy:
The storyline is too clever, the timing on the brink of Copenhagen and the US climate bill too convenient.Sort of like the 2004 election was convenient for Lancet, you mean? Michael Mann also raises the timing alarm:
Michael Mann, director of the earth system science centre at the University of Pennsylvania, and a long-term target of sceptics, agreed the timing was suspicious.Be careful what you wish for, Mr Mann. Here’s a boomerang coming right back at you, via BBC weather presenter and climate correspondent Paul Hudson:
“What appears to have happened is that going into this monumental climate summit in a couple of weeks the other side, which does not favour taking action to combat climate change, resorted to an illegal smear campaign,” he said …
He told the Guardian the emails – though embarrassing – did not undermine the body of science. “This doesn’t make any difference at all in degree of consensus on climate change,” Mann said. “I hope it boomerangs back on the criminals.”
I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the worlds leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article ‘whatever happened to global warming’. The e-mails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded … as far as l can see, they are authentic.So the emails—at least some of them—weren’t leaked “on the brink of Copenhagen” but had apparently been kicking around for an entire five weeks before publication. For a genuine example of questionable timing, try this instead:
Three UK groups studying climate change have issued an unprecedented statement about the dangers of failing to cut emissions of greenhouse gases.The storyline is too clever, the timing too convenient …
The Royal Society, Met Office, and Natural Environment Research Council say the science underpinning climate change is more alarming than ever …
Their comments came ahead of crunch UN climate talks in Copenhagen next month.
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