Once in a blue moon … UN does something right

Readers of this blog are probably quite aware that I am no fan of the United Nations … and in fact I have called for a “divorce” from this decreasingly credible bastion of doublespeak and bloated bureaucracy.

But yesterday (March 5), there must have been a “blue moon”: The UN actually did something right!

As a self-described “jaded journalist”, Chemi Shalev at Haaretz had observed (registration required):

Inside the hall of the General Assembly at the United Nations building in New York, it seemed at times that either the messiah had arrived or the world had turned inside-out Bizarro, like in the Superman comics: Rita, one of Israel’s most popular performers, was singing in Farsi and Hebrew; Israelis were dancing in the aisles: diplomats from around the world were clapping and begging for more; Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor was the hero of the day; Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said “shalom” and General Assembly President Vuk Jeremic, it turned out, hails from a family of Righteous Gentiles.

[...]

Even jaded journalists like the one writing this report were moved, knowing that they had witnessed an event that had never been seen before, at least from an Israeli point of view, and is unlikely to be seen over and over again for a very long time.

A big thank you and h/t to longtime family friend, Dr. Victor Z., whose E-mail today alerted me to this. If you want to skip the speeches, concert begins at approx. 16:15. Enjoy!

 

Of journalists, their sources and … evidence

In my post a few days ago, I had observed that the narratives offered by the New York Times‘ Andrew Revkin (and some of his counterparts at other MSM establishments) often struck me as being somewhat shallow in that he seems overly-inclined to rely solely on the word of a climate scientist, simply because, well, because a climate scientist said so! As I had demonstrated in my post, those who are deemed to be “skeptics” are not accorded such reverence sorry, deference.

This same “deference” is apparently bestowed on News Releases which accord with Revkin’s narrative(s) – without requiring any further exploration. As I had noted in my post, Revkin seemed to be unaware of a subsequent Q & A from the Norfolk Constabulary which clearly indicated that it was only through the application of “screening fallacies” that they were able to “conclude” – as Revkin had dutifully reported:

“There is no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime.”

Surely, once I had made him aware of their subsequent clarification:

“Generally speaking, it was a screening exercise which did not provide any positive lines of enquiry.

“Whilst – because we have not found the perpetrators – we cannot say categorically that no-one at the UEA is involved, there is no evidence to suggest that there was. The nature and sophistication of the attack does not suggest that it was anyone at the UEA.” [emphasis added -hro]

this would have warranted an update to those posts in which he had quoted from – and cited – the July 18, 2012 News Release.

Alas, my expectations must be too high. Revkin did grace my previous post with a reply in which he noted that a link to the Q & A would be “helpful”. Why Revkin didn’t ask for this when he tagged my comment on his blog as an “NYT Pick” is left as an exercise for the reader – as is his apparent inability to find it for himself, if my word does not warrant the same deference and acceptance as that of … oh, I dunno … David Karoly or Gavin Schmidt, for example! But I digress …

I did respond to Revkin’s request for the link and indicated why I had not previously supplied it. Seeing no response to my reply, I decided to post the information in a further comment on his blog, in which I also referred back to my:

Could you share with us the evidence presented to you circa Nov. 20/09 – and duly analyzed by those with appropriate expertise – which led you to conclude that the alleged “hack” for the purpose of an “upload” (an action which has never made any sense to me!) can reasonably be described as: “Real Climate … was clearly subjected to a computer hack …”

Revkin’s reply:

Andrew Revkin Dot Earth blogger

Indeed, my statements about the “hack” of Real Climate rely entirely on the statements of Gavin Schmidt, and not any independent line of evidence. So you’re correct that there’s no independent evidence-based foundation for that level of definitiveness.

In reply to Hilary Ostrov July 24, 2012 at 4:13 a.m [emphasis added -hro]

Well, I give full credit to Revkin for this unequivocal confirmation of what I have long suspected! Although I do wonder if he is fully aware of the many fault-lines in Schmidt’s ever-changing story on this alleged “hack”.

Nonetheless, if I were at Revkin’s keyboard – at the very least – I would want to update the various posts I’d made, PDQ, in order to better reflect the facts and nuances that had been made known to (and/or by) me. As of 07/24/2012 05:04 PM PDT, as far as I can tell, he has not done this.

And I suppose it’s probably going to be too much to expect that he will update his June 11, 2012 post – in which he took the word of David Karoly that a much publicized paper, of which Karoly was a co-author, had been “put on hold” (a rather novel – if not previously unknown – “status” in the realm of academic journal publications). As Steve McIntyre reported today, according to correspondence from Joelle Gergis, the lead author, this paper was, in fact, “voluntarily withdraw[n]“.

In his comment on my previous post, Revkin had offered the excuse that:

I’d love to probe more into this morass, but — as I think you know — Dot Earth is not a climate blog, but has a much wider scope. Just not possible to cover every angle.

I wonder whatever happened to the maxim that “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”. It certainly doesn’t seem to apply to a good number of papers by noble climate scientists – or to the work of their friends and fellow activists in the mainstream media.

But what do I know, eh?! After all, I’m not a noble climate scientist – or a “respected” and well-known environmental “journalist”.

Our planet is under pressure

I don’t know how you decided to observe “Earth Hour” last night. As Donna Laframboise had noted in a recent series of posts, this much over-hyped and – mis-typed – “event” is a propaganda exercise in persuasion of the hypocritical kind, and it leaves me, well, cold.

According to a CBC report from AP which was “Posted: Mar 31, 2012 8:38 AM ET” and “Last Updated: Mar 31, 2012 8:27 AM ET“:

CBC's dhimmitude to obligatory dimness

Let’s take a look at the cities and/or countries named in this “back to the future” post from the CBC regarding this alleged “sweep across North America”:

In the image above (which may – or may not – have been photo-shopped), Amman, Jordan plus:

• United States, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
• New York City’s Empire State Building [plus "hundreds" of unnamed "world landmarks" -hro]
• Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate
• Great Wall of China
• Sydney [Australia] Harbor Bridge and Opera House
• Rudy Ko, of Taiwanese environmental group Society of Wilderness.
• Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate (second mention -hro)
• Notre Dame Cathedral, the Arc de Triomphe, as well as fountains and bridges over the Seine
• Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral were among the other London [UK, not Ontario -hro] landmarks
• Nordic nations, government buildings and municipalities
• Stockholm’s royal castle and the Swedish capital’s huge globe-shaped sports arena
• Goteborg [Sweden]
• St. Petersburg, Russia
• Washington’s National Cathedral and New York’s Empire State Building (again!)
• Libya, Algeria, Bhutan and French Guinea

Wow! That sure is a very impressive “sweep across North America”, eh?! Canada doesn’t even rate an honourable mention!

Because I was concerned that this dhimmitude to dimness on the part of the CBC might constitute a “tipping point”, I stuck to my plan of brightness: I turned up all the thermostats, ran my washer, dryer and dishwasher and my three computers – and, of course, turned on all the lights and even baked a cake! And while the cake was cooking in the oven, I took my ’92 Tercel for a drive while my PVR recorded the rest of one of the very few TV programs I ever watch, “Heartbeat“. And just for good measure, I left them all on/running for twenty minutes longer than the designated hour :-)

But CBC dhimmitude to dimness and other exhortations notwithstanding, I doubt very much that any or all of the above made a damn bit of difference to the future of our planet!

On the other hand, consider the following …

As The Commentator observed regarding the London UK four-day feel-good-while-disguising-the-harm-you-intend Planet Under Pressure 2012 conference:

The organisers, and indeed the attendees, of Planet Under Pressure 2012 may try to console themselves with carbon-offsetting and vegetarian-heavy, nitrogen-low diets – indeed, it was claimed that London’s ExCeL centre, where the conference was held, had 30 percent less nitrogen than is normal due to the type of food on offer – but this misses the point entirely.

Because this isn’t really about carbon per se; it’s not even really about global warming. It’s about corporatism.

[...]

Ultimately – and here is where the irony comes into play – it’s about moving away from the very system that brought us the very same laptops, iPads, iPhones and cameras that those in the conference were using to document their sojourn in East London. And to deny the billions of people in the world the most basic standards of living, from food to social services that we in the UK [and elsewhere in the dastardly developed world -hro] so readily take for granted.

It’s all about the run-up to Rio+20, as no less an authority than the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner – along with that body’s Chief Scientist, Joseph Alcamo (former climate consensus coordinator extraordinaire) and former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Chair, Robert Watson – made quite clear during the course of a “side event” at this high-priced London confab.

Steiner is well known for never missing an opportunity to pronounce anything and everything he deems to fall within the UNEP’s ever-increasing purview and bailiwick as the greatest threat to the future of the planet. Certainly his words, as reported by the IISD, at this side-event were no exception. Here are some excerpts from the respective words of wisdom of Steiner, Alcamo and Watson which they proffered at the “Meeting of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF)”.

But first a little “background” … Believe it or not, the GEF is not a “facility” as the word is commonly understood. It would not surprise me to learn that somewhere in the UN maze there’s a department, division – or at the very least a committee – dedicated to the formulation of acronyms and less than transparent names!

The GEF is actually a “fund”; in fact it is a fund that was so well-managed in its first two years of “independence” that in 1994 the powers that be decided that the World Bank should henceforth “[serve] as the Trustee of the GEF Trust Fund and [provide] administrative services.” But it takes pride in being (since 1991):

the largest funder of projects to improve the global environment. The GEF has allocated $10 billion, supplemented by more than $47 billion in cofinancing, for more than 2,800 projects in more than 168 developing countries and countries with economies in transition. Through its Small Grants Programme (SGP), the GEF has also made more than 13,000 small grants directly to civil society and community based organizations, totalling $634 million

Sounds like a lot of money (which may or may not have been enhanced by some very creative accounting practices) but it pales in comparison to US government expenditures on “climate research” in 2011 alone:

Be sure to visit cartoonsbyjosh.com

Now that you know everything you need to about the GEF, here’s what I gleaned from Steiner, Alcamo and Watson (all emphases are mine -hro).

Steiner:

Reflecting on the fact that STAP is meeting in the margins of the 2012 Planet Under Pressure conference, shortly prior to the launch of UNEP’s fifth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5), and the announcement of the launch of Future Earth, a 10-year initiative aiming to deliver knowledge to enable societies to meet their sustainable development goals, Steiner said science is reconfiguring itself. He explained that the STAP Panel is in a unique position to enforce the collective influence of science.

Wait a minute! “Future Earth”?! A “10-year initiative … to enable societies to meet their sustainable development goals”? Where in Gaia’s name did that spring from?! Read all about it folks, courtesy of the “International Council for Science” (ICSU):

ICSU, the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the Belmont Forum, a high level group of major funders of global environmental change research, together with UNEP, UNU and UNESCO, and with WMO as observer, are jointly establishing this new 10-year initiative.**

** Just for the record, the ICSU was formerly known as the “International Council of Scientific Unions” by which name it appears to be still known, according to the UN’s roster of NGOs with “Special consultative status”, since 1971. The ISSC has also been accredited as an NGO with “Special consultative status”, since 1985. But the Belmont Forum is a relatively new kid on the block and hasn’t made the “consultative status” grade, yet. We all know about UNEP, UNESCO and WMO, but for those who may not be familiar with the acronym, UNU = United Nations University, which bills itself as “The Academic Arm of the United Nations”.

But I digress … Steiner also told those assembled that:

the mixed experiences of the GEF Instrument, noting it should be viewed as a catalytic instrument, as opposed to one creating transformational change, as its size is an indictment in itself.
[...]
the scientific community is now speaking with a louder voice, and that humanity has a clearer view than ever before about the state of the environment.
[...]
[he] queried the wisdom of focusing on the perfect implementation mechanism
[...]
[and he] drew attention to the Green Economy discourse, and underscored that GEF finance and development finance, do not equate to more than proof of concept money. He noted that through the Stern Report and the work of the The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) [which I wrote about here -hro], true costs are increasingly understood, and said that such information is influencing assessments of supply chain risks and reinsurers.

Alcamo:

[Spoke of 3 sciencey concerns and noted that:]

although there remain broken bridges between the science policy communities, the climate change process has begun to mend these, with scientists increasingly talking to governments. He called for more explicit interaction, noting that scientists need to ready themselves to undertake the research demanded by the policy community, as well as continuing to undertake curiosity driven research.

I’m not sure who might constitute the “policy community”, nor what “research” they might be demanding!

Watson:

noted the increasing nexus between the science and policy communities, including the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Montreal Protocol Technology and Economic Assessment Panel. He noted improvements could still be made and that Future Earth plans to involve policy makers, scientists, civil society and business in shaping the research agenda. Ravindranath supported this point, underscoring that lack of access to knowledge, as opposed to the knowledge itself, is the key challenge. He suggested parallel bodies to the IPCC be set on the regional and subregional levels. Watson noted that the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is planning regional assessments, with subregional assessments embedded in them, as global assessments do not make sense for adaptation. He also stressed the importance of building the capacity of the scientific community to undertake assessments, as well as the capacity of policy staff who utilize the information.

Hmmm … if “global assessments do not make sense for adaptation” why would they “make sense” for “mitigation”?! Curious minds would like to know!

“Civil society”, of course, is UN-speak for NGOs – particularly, one suspects, those that have been “accredited” with “Special consultative status”.

In light of all of the foregoing, I will concede that our planet is under pressure!

Not from anything you or I might be doing (or not) to the environment, but rather from the agenda of these ideologically driven bureaucrats and their very closely aligned stable of NGOs – not to mention their stooges partners, such as the CBC and the BBC’s Richard Black, in the mainstream media.

YMMV, but I’m inclined to suspect that as far as “pressure” goes, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet – and that those who inhabit our planet will be under considerably more pressure during the next ten years of this new, improved “Future Earth” initiative to “meet … sustainable development goals”.

Update: 06:39 PM PDT … totally o/t but considering the date, and considering that CBC rarely provides an opportunity for praise, I have to make note of their “storified (sic) collection of April Fools’ videos … have a look!

Climatic licence

The matter of “global warming” aka “climate change” first crossed my radar a little under two and a half years ago. When I began my exercise in due diligence – apart from the then standard appeal to the authority of “thousands of scientists” who cannot possibly be wrong – the very first element of doubt that crept into my mind was learning that much, if not most, of what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “climate scientists” have been telling us is derived from what they believe the output from computer simulations is telling us.

Another early eye-opening experience related to the much-vaunted “peer review” of the scientific literature (well, not all of it, of course) on which the IPCC bases its assessments – and the so-called “consensus“. My mind positively boggled when I learned that the process of peer review does not include any verification of the underlying data or methodology. Not to mention that some “climate scientists” depend on … wait for it … intuition when conducting peer review. But I digress …

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Luddite and I love computers! I certainly couldn’t imagine my life today without one – or even without the three in my possession that are currently functioning … not to mention my very recently acquired (much to the shock of some of my friends!) iPad which has a fabulous app for practicing and improving my Bridge-playing skills:-)

I mean, imagine trying to create a visual representation such as:

The jolly green sustainable hockey stick ... Eat your heart out, Michael Mann!

as I did to supplement my recent post on the phenomenal growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs aka “civil society” in UN-speak) accredited with “consultative status” by the United Nations.

I could not have created that graph without the aid of a computer! Nor could Michael Mann have created his work of art. As Dr. Judith Curry noted in a post today:

When people say that the hockey stick and paleoclimate analysis of the last 1000 years isn’t an important part of the climate change argument, well it should be. We have been seduced by the relatively flat blade of the hockey stick into thinking that natural internal variability isn’t important. With improved proxies and analysis methods, we may find out that natural internal variability is significantly larger than is indicated by the Mann et al. reconstructions. [emphasis added -hro]

And speaking of seduction … thanks to a virtual army of mainstream media commentators, I think we may have also been “seduced” by their unrelenting repetition of hype – aided and abetted, of course, by hypsters such as Al Gore. He began his hyping twenty-three years ago. But simple hype wasn’t enough for Gore; he gave himself licence to inappropriately and appallingly invoke memory of – and word-images from – the Holocaust [h/t Richard Drake via Climate Audit]:

An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen.

By Albert Gore; Albert Gore Jr., a Democrat, is Senator from Tennessee
Published: March 19, 1989

Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with our planet.

Unless we quickly and profoundly change the course of our civilization, we face an immediate and grave danger of destroying the worldwide ecological system that sustains life as we know it.

It is time to confront this danger.

In 1939, as clouds of war gathered over Europe, many refused to recognize what was about to happen. No one could imagine a Holocaust, even after shattered glass had filled the streets on Kristallnacht. World leaders waffled and waited, hoping that Hitler was not what he seemed, that world war could be avoided. Later, when aerial photographs revealed death camps, many pretended not to see. Even now, many fail to acknowledge that our victory was not only over Nazism but also over dark forces deep within us.

In 1989, clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.

Twenty-three years ago, folks! And in the intervening years, billions of dollars have been spent and countless “peer-reviewed” papers have been written; all touting the glory of green – and the gory stories of projected gloom and doom.

In the interim, we have had to learn to, well, acclimatize ourselves to “climate scientists” who give themselves licence to redefine commonly understood words in the English language; words such as “trick“, “decline”, “fudge” – and even “experiments”

And in twenty-three years, regardless of medium, the message has not changed:

Humanity is at a crossroads. Social, economic and environmental crises that have played out in recent years offer a unique opportunity for a step change in the way humanity does business. Although the concept of the ‘green economy’ was introduced to address today’s challenges, its continued dependence on traditional – and questionable – trickle-down economic growth theory has rendered it inadequate. A fast-growing population, rapidly diminishing resources and planetary boundaries are forcing humanity to find innovative ways to use resources more efficiently, to work within the limits of the Earth’s natural capital, and to make fundamental changes to our economic systems. This policy brief sets out the guidelines for the social and technological transformations needed for a new economic system, as well as the new ways in which we will need to measure and monitor this system.[emphasis added -hro]

Where did that come from, you might well ask?! In case you hadn’t heard, in addition to various and sundry panels, pronouncements and preparatory papers peddling the “must act now” mantra all emanating from the UN en route to Rio+20, next week there will be yet another “international” confab with the ominous theme of “Planet Under Pressure”**. The text I quoted above was excerpted from one of their nine “policy briefs“.

[** For a more thorough discussion of the background (and self-licensed foreground, under the auspices of the U.K.'s Royal Society, a co-sponsor) of this conference, please see Donna Laframboise's recent post, Fairy Tales on the Road to Rio]

If you’ve done any reading lately, you will perhaps have recognized that the emphasis seems to be shifting away from “global warming” aka “climate change” and towards the more fashionable “sustainability” – which covers a multitude of our “sins”, not just production of the dreaded human-generated CO₂.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that we’re probably in for yet another outpouring of “science” that is nothing more – and nothing less – than computer generated simulations designed to support the conclusions and mantras of the day. But you don’t have to take my word for the rather dubious nature of the output from the “climate scientists’” computer modelling exercises; Bishop Hill has a very enlightening post (with comments from those who are far more knowledgeable than I) that is well worth reading: Mathematical models for newbies.

And consider the following from Wikipedia

Artistic licence (also known as dramatic license, historical license, poetic license, narrative license, licentia poetica, or simply license) is a colloquial term, sometimes euphemism, used to denote the distortion of fact, alteration of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by an artist to improve a piece of art.

The artistic license may also refer to the ability of an artist to apply smaller distortions, such as a poet ignoring some of the minor requirements of grammar for poetic effect.
[...]

In summary, artistic license is:

• Entirely at the artist’s discretion
• Intended to be tolerated by the viewer (cf. “willing suspension of disbelief“)
• Useful for filling in gaps, whether they be factual, compositional, historical or other gaps
• Used consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally or in tandem

[emphasis added -hro]

YMMV, but it seems to me that climatic licence is another form of “artistic licence” that falls well within the criteria listed in the summary above. At the very least, that with which the hypsters and “climate scientists” have been regaling us for so many years does require a “willing suspension of disbelief”.

More porkies ‘n propaganda from Pachauri

Accuracy, consistency and transparency are not attributes that come to mind when one considers the many pronouncements of Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In a March 1, 2012 TreeHugger.com interview with Jacob Gordon [h/t IPCC Coordinating* Lead Author, Richard Betts via Twitter] Pachauri remains true to form.

[* 03/3/2012 04:28 PM PST Richard has advised me that he is a Lead Author, not a Coordinating Lead Author. Fortunately, unlike the IPCC, I am able to make this correction without convening a committee to approve ;-)]

Some excerpts from the transcript (all emphases are mine -hro):

TreeHugger: Explain for people what the IPCC is, what it does, how far it reaches.

Rajendra Pachauri: The IPCC was established in 1988 to carry out a scientific assessment of all aspects of climate change. It’s a body that’s truly intergovernmental in character, and all the decisions that are taken are essentially through consensus. That means every country that’s represented in the IPCC has to agree to decisions that are taken on behalf of the panel.

We mobilize the best scientists from all over the world to carry out our assessments. Just to give you an indication, in the fifth assessment report, which is currently in hand and we are working on it right now, we invited nominations from all the governments and several other organizations across the globe. We received about 3,000 nominations with the CVs of outstanding scientists from which we selected 831 who would be the lead authors as well as what we call review editors for the assessment.

And these teams of researchers and scientists work together. We carry out our assessment on the basis of published literature. So in other words, the IPCC is not doing any research of its own; it looks at the best published literature that’s available and then carries out an assessment and puts reports together. In the business of writing up these reports, each single draft which is written has to be peer reviewed. It’s sent out to expert reviewers and they provide a whole set of comments. To give you an indication from the fourth assessment report, it was completed in 2007 and had something like 90,000 different comments, and each one of these has to be taken on board by the authors.

If they accept or don’t accept the comment, they have to give reasons why it’s not accepted and that has to be put on the website. Now, I’m explaining all this because this is a totally transparent and completely objective exercise, [...]

TH: Are you able to speak about any of the findings from the fifth assessment?

Pachauri: Well, the outline of the report which has to be approved by all the governments as well, and it’s put together with a great deal of care and thoughtfulness. In fact, we have typically what we call scoping meetings where about 200 scientists, government officials, and others who have some knowledge of the subject get together and draw up the outline of the report, which is approved by the entire panel, all the governments of the world.

All the governments of the world? Hmmm … I’ve heard that myth before. Until the IPCC is prepared – in the interest of transparency – to prominently display attendance records for the sessions/meetings at which such decisions are taken, I, for one, will take this claim with a very hefty grain of salt.

When asked about Gleickgate, Pachauri ducks and invokes the myth of “97% of scientists”:

TH: This has been a very action packed month for climate debating. First the “No Need to Panic about Global Warming” letter ran in The Wall Street Journal follow by the rebutting letter. Then we had this whole scandal with the Heartland Institute: Peter Gleick, the president of the Pacific Institute, used a fake name to get documents from the Heartland Institute about its programs to discredit manmade climate change. Do you have any thoughts on this sort of warfare?

Pachauri: Well, I really don’t know enough to be able to comment on this. But since you mentioned these happenings, let me say there’s also been an assessment which clearly shows that 97 percent of the scientists who have worked on any aspect of the climate change are fully convinced that the changing climate we see, particularly since the last century, is largely the result of human action. So on the other issue, to be quite honest, I don’t know enough about it. When I do, I’d be happy to write my comments.

You’d think he would have made it his business to “inform” himself. Oh, well, perhaps UNEP honcho, Achim Steiner, hasn’t yet told him what he’s supposed to say about the increasingly disgraceful and desperate acts of the “climate concerned” and their media stooges partners. The interview continues:

TreeHugger: As the chairman of the IPCC you aren’t allowed to make any prescriptive statements, or at least the IPCC isn’t. However, there’s been criticism both from those who support the IPCC and from those who don’t. People like Andy Revkin of The New York Times has said that your personal opinion tends to shine through too much, to a degree where it opens the IPCC up for criticism. What’s it like being the face of the organization yet still being a human being and having your own opinions about what to do with the implications of the science?

Rajendra Pachauri: Whenever I’m expressing opinion which is not directly drawn from the reports of the IPCC, I’ve always qualified it by saying that I’m saying it purely in my personal capacity. And I don’t want to comment on Andrew Revkin’s writings either recently or earlier. I know him very well and I’d much rather not comment on that. He holds his opinion. I don’t agree with his opinion. But he’s entitled to hold his opinion as I’m entitled to mine.

The findings of the IPCC reports, particularly the fourth assessment report, often get questioned in terms of: “Give us an example.” When we talk about mitigation actions we assess what these actions are and naturally, in the course of a discussion, a media person would ask, “Okay, well, give us an example.” And one has to give real life practical examples, and those may not be entirely in the letter of our reports but they very much flow out of the assessment that’s carried out.

So you know, I’m afraid this is an issue of interpretation of what I’ve been putting forward. Perhaps some people say it is policy prescriptive, but I can say this very clearly: I’ve never said anything which is policy prescriptive. And when you’re talking about generally global issues, you’re really not pinning down any particular society by prescribing any kind of policy actions.

I’ll just give you an example. If we want to stabilize temperature increase to around two degrees Celsius, the forth assessment report clearly says that if that has to be done at least cost, then global CO2 emissions must peak no later than 2015. Now, that’s not policy prescriptive in my view, that’s something that people must accept and base their policies on. So you know, these are things that often get misinterpreted either because there’s some ambiguity in the understanding of those interpreting them. Or in some cases, without ascribing any reasons, I will say that people have made up their minds that they see something like this as policy prescriptive. But I’m generally very careful about that, and I am prepared to get into a discussion with anyone who thinks that what I’m saying or have said has been policy prescriptive.

It is worth noting that at the conclusion of this interview, Pachauri succeeds in weaving in and echoing the latest and greatest buzzwords from the “sustainable development” crowd:

I think we should be aware of the fact that our actions, both with respect to consumption and production, can have major impacts on the ecosystems of this planet and the global commons. The atmosphere certainly can be counted as a global common, and if we’re increasing the concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, certainly it has an impact and I think science has established that. That’s why in the fourth assessment report we said, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

Now if we accept these realities, then when we carry out our own activities, when we lead our own lives, we should become a little more responsible in seeing that simple things like when moving from one room to the other, you should shut off the light if you don’t need it. If you have to travel someplace, if you’re going a quarter of a mile, don’t jump into a car and drive there. If you can walk, do so. If you can bicycle, do that. And if you have to buy a car, buy a fuel-efficient car. And where you got good public transport, please use that rather than using your own car. And when you buy products, please look at the labeling. Household appliances, for example. Use one which is more efficient. In most of these cases, even if there’s a slight increase in upfront cost, it pays back in a very short period of time.

In the fourth assessment report we have identified that by 2030 there will be six gigatons of CO2 equivalent of mitigation potential, which will be available at negative cost. In other words, if we were to do some of those things, we would actually be able to enhance your income and global income and global prosperity.

I think we just need to reflect on these truths. And this doesn’t mean that we have to change our lifestyle to go back and live in caves or wrap ourselves in sheepskin. I think we can do all the good things in life but do them in a manner that uses the Earth’s natural resources efficiently and protects the ecosystems of this planet, which are the only things that we survive on. You just need that realization, and I think that if we can do that, each one of us could make a difference.

And the beat goes on.

Gleick and the green factor$

Well, I’m still waiting, as are others, for the MSM luminaries – who were so quick to publish what has now been unequivocally established as the contents of an obvious forgery – to apologize for their ethical failure in not verifying the provenance of the document purported to have originated from The Heartland Institute (HI).

So, I thought it might be interesting to stroll down some avenues that others do not yet appear to have explored.

I wonder if these journolites™ happened to see Dr. Judith Curry’s Feb. 24 post, in which she had posed the question: Why target Heartland?. This post resulted in an E-mail from HI’s Joe Bast, which Dr. Curry subsequently appended to her post with the observation that:

With virtually no effort on my part (beyond reading an email, cutting and pasting into the blog post), I have uncovered “juicier stuff” about Heartland than anything Gleick uncovered. Okay, maybe the HI are actually the baddest guys in town from the perspective of the alarmists. The irony of Gleick committing professional seppuku over getting information about stuff that is either generally known or suspected or regarded as no big deal. When all he had to do was ask Joseph Bast some questions, and he would have told him all sorts of things (just not the names of the donors, which aren’t all that interesting anyways.) [emphasis added -hro]

So why did Gleick do it?

That he had a rather longstanding dislike of the very fact of the perfectly legal activities and existence of “think tanks” is not in dispute. What has reinforced this particular conclusion, apart from his venom towards HI – or indeed any who do not share his view of the world – is the very high praise he had uttered via twitter for the contents of a blog called “Climate Ethics“.

His tell-tale tweet:

Sun 1/22 10:46 – Tweets “Fantastic analysis and essay on climate ethics here: http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/ – http://twitter.com/#!/petergleick

This page might best be characterized as the extension of the “Protocols of the Elders of Climate”. You would not believe the extent to which the author stretches in his mission to demonize “think tanks”. No wonder Gleick thought it was a “fantastic analysis and essay”. Here’s an example:

This is the fourth and last entry in a series that has examined the climate change disinformation campaign as an ethical matter. The purpose of this series has been to distinguish between responsible scientific skepticism, an approach to climate change science that should be encouraged, and the tactics of the climate change disinformation campaign, strategies deployed to undermine mainstream climate change science that are often deeply ethically offensive.

Gleick’s Feb. 20 “confession”, as I had mentioned previously was very carefully crafted and wrapped in a fog of creative ambiguity.

Needless to say, since the 20th, those in the skeptic blogosphere have been amazingly productive in sweeping the virtual scene for more “fingerprints” – and much has been discovered, with plausible narratives emerging. I did my own chronology a few days ago, after Steve McIntyre had posted the chain of correspondence between HI’s Jim Lakely and Gleick.

Gleick and HI’s James Taylor both write blog columns at Forbes (although I doubt that Gleick is still writing for Forbes). On Jan. 12, in a comment on Taylor’s post, Gleick had challenged Taylor to provide HI’s list of donors – a list which, IMHO, should have been none of his business; but, as Steve had noted:

On Jan 13, Jim Lakely of Heartland invited Gleick to participate in their forthcoming 28th Anniversary Dinner, a dinner that would be attended by Heartland’s supporters and donors. It would presumably have been an opportunity for Gleick to persuade his opponents. Heartland offered Gleick a charitable contribution of $5,000 to the charity of his choice

Gleick replied on Jan 16th; he neither accepted nor declined the invitation, but he thought he’d make another attempt to get HI’s list of funders. His response included:

In order for me to consider this invitation, please let me know if the Heartland Institute publishes its financial records and donors for the public and where to find this information. Such transparency is important to me when I am offered a speaking fee (or in this case, a comparable donation to a charity). My own institution puts this information on our website.

Lakely replied on the 17th – reminding Gleick that:

I’m sure you’ve seen James M. Taylor’s response to the funding questions at Forbes.com – a question he has answered publicly many times. In short: We used to publicly list our donors by name, but stopped a few years ago, in part, because people who disagree with The Heartland Institute decided to harass our donors in person and via email.

[and]

as you know, we are under no legal obligation to release a detailed list of our donors – nor is any other non-profit organization. Our 990 forms are in full compliance with the IRS. [emphasis added -hro]

Gleick took a full 10 days to “give serious consideration” to Lakely’s invite before declining.

He chose to completely ignore Lakely’s reasonable explanation of why HI does not disclose the names of its donors.

Here’s Gleick’s primary “reason” for his Jan. 27 … uh … decline:

Perhaps more importantly, the lack of transparency about the financial support for the Heartland Institute is at odds with my belief in transparency, especially when your institute and its donors benefit from major tax breaks at the expense of the public.

No doubt in the “ethical” world according to Gleick, it’s OK for his non-profit organization’s donors to “benefit from major tax breaks” but not for HI’s. But that aside, I certainly do wonder what might have been going on behind closed screens during Gleick’s ten days of “serious consideration”.

Jan. 27 appears to have been a somewhat busy day for Gleick. He turned down an invitation to debate; a “debate” which on Feb. 20 he declared needed to happen. In so doing, he also declined a perfect opportunity to meet and greet the funders whose names had become so important to him.

That same day, Gleick published a whine on his Forbes blog. Evidently, he wasn’t very happy that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had chosen to publish a letter from Dr. Richard Lindzen and 15 other scientists. And – no doubt adding insult to injury – according to Gleick, the WSJ had dared to decline to publish a missive from Gleick and 254 friends.

But what Gleick conveniently neglected to mention is that this allegedly declined missive from the gang of 255 pertained to an article published in Science on May 7, 2010. Funny that he doesn’t mention this date during the course of his whine, eh?

Nor did he give any reason on Jan 27/2012 why the WSJ should have been obliged to publish the piece from the gang of 255 on May 7/2010. If you read the 2010 article, it’s merely an attempt to bolster the – by then – rapidly declining credibility of the IPCC. It began with a recitation of the big scare:

For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet

and continued with a repetition of the mantra that salvation of the planet depends on action now, along with the frequently repeated unsubstantiated allegations of “harassment” etc. of these poor beleaguered “climate scientists”.

This was also the day he embarked on his phishing expedition during which he cast his net several times: first on Jan. 27 and finally on Feb. 6. Hmmm …. another 10 day time lapse. Feb. 8 Hmmm … a twelve day time lapse.

UPDATE: It’s worse than I thought! Above edit 02/29/2012 07:58 PM PDT [h/t Paul Matthews' "Copner's Gleick Timeline"]

At any time along the way, he could have checked his moral compass (assuming he has one) and seen that he was sailing in the wrong direction. Had he done so, he would have headed back to port, contacted HI and turned himself in! But this was not the choice Gleick made.

Yet on Feb. 17 – a mere 3 days after the botched virtual Valentines Day massacre – out of the blue, the U.K. Guardian very obligingly made available* the undated “An Open Letter to the Heartland Institute” purportedly written and signed by 7 noble climate scientists (with Gleick’s name being as conspicuously absent as those of the CRU crew on the 2009 Statement in the immediate aftermath of Climategate).

This “open letter” not only echoed the claims in the forged “strategy” doc, but also laid out the false equivalence to Climategate, interspersed with what some might consider to be a restatement of the May 7/10 article allegedly rejected by the WSJ – incorporating the “principles” and buzzwords offered by what Gleick might well have gleaned from the “fantastic analysis and essay” he had spotted on Jan. 22.

* http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2012/02/17/heartland.pdf

There’s something else that’s rather odd about this very speedily written “Open Letter”. In his analysis of the forged document, Joe Bast notes:

I always capitalize the “T” in “The Heartland Institute,” the author of this [forged] memo did not.

The undated “Open Letter …” at the Guardian contains no actual signatures, just a list of 7 names and their academic affiliations. Yet there are 9 instances throughout this document of “the Heartland Institute”. Hmmm … Must be coincidence.

Some have postulated that Gleick was driven by “anger” or “fear”. Indeed his own “confession” suggested such a rationale for his behaviours. But I think it may be something completely different.

Consider the following from their respective Form 990 “Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax”

The Heartland Institute, founded 1984. 2010 Revenue $6,074,947 [Source]

Pacific Institute, founded 1987. 2010 Revenue $2,288,518 [Source]

Until his recent self-aggrandizing escapades which probably began circa August 2011 with his active involvement in l’affaire Wagner (as noted in my earlier post) Gleick was a relatively unknown little pisher in the Big Green Pond.

His claim to “international expert” fame was as a “water” man, not a “climate” guy. And his organization‘s “mission” gives the impression of being far more dedicated to “sustainable development” than to pushing the putative perils of “dangerous” climate change.

Considering the extended timelines I noted above, I fail to see how a credible case can be made that Gleick had reached a “tipping point” and that his behaviours can legitimately be construed – as he and his army of apologists lamely attempt to portray them – as the consequence of a mere temporary lapse of judgment.

Could it be that – notwithstanding his MacArthur “genius” status (which makes him “too smart to get caught”) and his apparent lack of a functional moral compass – Gleick is afflicted, if not driven, by chronic green envy?

From pisher to phisher in less than a year. What a legacy, eh?!

A Gleickgate “teleconnection” or coincidence?

In my recent post on Gleickgate (also known as Fakegate), I had written:

He certainly succeeded in generating enough blog and MSM coverage that at the AAAS Annual Meeting held in Vancouver – which just happened to end Feb. 20 – the AAAS president was sufficiently “alarmed” to echo and amplify Gleick’s “concerns”.

[Excerpt from the Guardian]

Was AAAS president Federoff one of [Gleick's] 15 “fences” – or perhaps one of the 15 had “teleconnections” to Federoff?!

In January of this year, Jeff Condon at The Air Vent had made a valiant attempt to warn the National Center for Science Education (NSCE) that appointing Gleick to their board was not a wise move – and that they would come to regret this decision.

NSCE had decided to expand its mandate and jump into the climate wars, in order to combat the forces of darkness etc. in the schools of the nation.

Included in his Feb. 23 post, is a press release from NSCE in which one finds inter alia:

The scientific community is applauding NCSE’s new initiative. Said Alan I. Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

“Teleconnection” or coincidence?! You be the judge!

No, I am not suggesting that either Leshner or Federoff was one of the 15 “fences”. However, YMMV, but I do consider the AAAS “amplification” of the new, improved warm-side mantra to be somewhat, well, alarming!

In the meantime … while I have seen no sign that Revkin, Goldenberg, Hickman or Black have apologized for their role in promulgating the contents of Gleick’s forgery, the Chicago Tribune has an editorial worth reading:

Climate madness

Skulduggery undermines the case for global warming

Earlier this month, the Internet lit up with a tantalizing whodunit. Someone had leaked to bloggers confidential internal fundraising and strategic documents from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think-tank that questions global warming orthodoxy.

The apparent goal: to discredit and embarrass those who raise doubts about the science behind climate change.

Heartland officials cried foul, asserting that at least one of the documents was forged. They vowed to track down the leaker and pursue charges.

This week, Peter Gleick saved them the trouble of a search. He confessed that he had assumed a false identity to obtain some of the documents and then leaked them. That sounded plausible: Heartland had said last week that someone got the documents by calling its Chicago headquarters and posing as a Heartland board member seeking information, the Tribune reported.

[...]

[Climategate], too, was an embarrassment to serious scientists who warn about the dangers of climate change. RIP, any chance for global climate action.

Now this fresh climate madness, with Mr. Ethics stalking his Chicago-based foes from afar.

Gleick may have thought he could undercut Heartland and thereby advance the case for global warming. Instead, he fueled doubts about which side is right in this long-running debate.

That’s a shame. Science relies on multiple layers of honesty. They include the honorably conducted gathering and analysis of facts, a perpetual quest for irrefutable evidence supporting conclusions — and trust that everyone is acting with integrity.

When scientific truth becomes sufficiently compelling, it matters little what the critics or skeptics say. It doesn’t matter if everyone doesn’t believe. Doubters cannot make the Earth flat.

But stunts such as Gleick’s — this effort to sully opponents with dishonest tactics — undercuts scientists around the world as they marshal evidence to convince an increasingly skeptical public about the dangers of global warming.

Of consensus and the weakness of plastic pillars

There’s been an interesting confluence (but I’m sure it must be coincidental) of blogposts in the last twenty-four hours or so. Much of the “consensus” alarmism to which we’ve been subjected by the mainstream media (MSM) for so many years can be traced back to the European Union’s (and in particular Germany’s) deep-green-tinted “science”. But as Pierre Gosselin noted in a post today:

“THE CO2 LIES … pure fear-mongering … should we blindly trust the experts?”

That’s what Germany’s leading daily Bild (see photo) wrote in its print and online editions today, on the very day that renowned publisher Hoffmann & Campe officially released a skeptic book – one written by a prominent socialist and environmental figure.

This is huge. More than I ever could have possibly imagined. And more is coming in the days ahead! The Bild piece was just the first of a series.

Mark this as the date that Germany’s global warming movement took a massive body blow.

Today, not one, but two of Germany’s most widely read news media published comprehensive skeptical climate science articles in their print and online editions, coinciding with the release of a major climate skeptical book, Die kalte Sonne (The Cold Sun).

And on the U.K. alarmist front, Andrew Montford, author of The Hockey Stick Illusion [which Gosselin had indicated was quite influential in the formulation of views of the authors of Die kalte Sonne], at Bishop Hill notes that the BBC’s Richard Black has declared that, in effect, “consensus doesn’t matter“. Montford quotes Black:

But if the presence of a consensus is irrelevant, so, logically, is its absence; which makes the continued use by sceptics’ groups of the “consensus is cracking” meme a bit mystifying.

After all, how many times can you say it’s cracking before people start asking “so why hasn’t it cracked, then?”

In both cases – consensus and breaking consensus – it’s surely the evidence that should count, not the number of people you can get to sign your letter.

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)’s Joseph Alcamo would probably differ from Black; or at least he would have circa October 1997, when his recipe contribution to the climate consensus co-ordinators’ cookbook, included:

Distribution for Endorsements –

I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed” or “1500 signed”. No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000 without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a different story.

Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those names! [emphasis added -hro]

Seems to me that perhaps, in the intervening years, “consensus” has morphed into one of those “ideas” that – not unlike “climate change” – according to Mike Hulme, is “so plastic“.

Hulme:

“Claims such as ’2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous.

“That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.”

Richard Klein:

[I]t is this line-by-line approval process that results in the actual consensus that the IPCC is famous for, and which is sometimes misunderstood. The consensus is not a consensus among all authors about every issue assessed in the report; it is a consensus among governments about the summary for policymakers.

The above page also contains (along with source links):

Greenpeace:

Scientific consensus

There is, in fact, a broad and overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, is caused in large part by human activities (such as burning fossil fuels), and if left unchecked will likely have disastrous consequences. Furthermore, there is solid scientific evidence that we should act now on climate change, and this is reflected in the statements by these definitive scientific authorities.

Union of Concerned Scientists:

Scientific Consensus on Global Warming

Scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science. A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community on whether or not global warming is happening and if it is caused by humans. However, there is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is indeed happening and humans are contributing to it. [emphasis added -hro]

Oreskes:

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC’s purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities. [...]

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members’ expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements.[emphasis added -hro]

As Steve McIntyre noted, he has never made the claim that “the consensus is cracking”. Nor am I aware of any skeptic who has actually made such a claim. So Black’s “consensus is cracking meme” is either a strawman or a figment of his imagination. Although, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Black – not unlike James Painter, whose 2011 Poles Apart “study” of MSM presentations of skeptic views has been elegantly deconstructed by Maurizio Morabito – has chosen to blinker himself (and/or his readers).

OTOH, there is the recent (Jan. 30/2012) report from the “UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability”.

Some might interpret their “diplomatic”:

As international sustainable development policy is fragmented and, in particular, the environmental pillar is weak, [the United Nations Environmental Program, parent of the IPCC, IPBES, and a host of other acronymic offspring and purveyor of increasingly scary stories since 1972 -hro] UNEP should be strengthened.

as implying that the “consensus is cracking”. But I couldn’t possibly comment!

Mind you, come to think of it … “plastic pillars” certainly do have some inherent weaknesses, don’t they?

Of Climategate, constabularies, Hickman and l’affaire Tallbloke: a timeline to consider

Just in case you hadn’t heard, a U.K. blogger, Tallbloke, recently had his home invaded by six police officers who – after approximately three hours – left with two computers and a router, claiming that they wished to “clone” the hard drives as part of their (now two-year old) “investigation” into a “data security breach” at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Why this could not have been done on site, with far less inconvenience to one whom they’ve declared is not a suspect, and why this “cloning” has not yet been completed and Tallbloke’s equipment returned to him, are questions that one sincerely hopes will be answered in the fullness of time.

In the meantime, several bloggers have written about this – and related events – since Tallbloke first broke the news on December 14. And, as I had noted a few days ago, the MSM seem to have suddenly noticed Climategate 2.0:

[...] this incident seems to have generated far more interest from the MSM (including the CBC!) than the actual release of the CG2 emails on Nov. 22, and I suspect will encourage even more people to begin their own exercises in due diligence regarding the messages of doom and gloom.

Donna Laframboise has summarized these events in her post today (which also includes a fully linked version of a great piece she had written for the National Post, on December 20, regarding the involvement of the US Department of Justice).

But one thing that I have not seen highlighted throughout the commentaries I’ve read, is the curious timing of the involvement of The Guardian‘s “features journalist and editor”, Leo <free speech for me and no comment from thee when it doesn’t suit me> Hickman – and his failure to verify prior to posting. Hickman’s partner in alarmism is Damian Carrington (another Guardian “journalist” of the green persuasion not known for fact-checking) who was responsible for The Guardian‘s “exclusive” preview of the notorious October 2010 “No Pressure” video.

Bearing in mind the above, as well as The Guardian‘s rather uncanny ability to get the jump on much of the reportage that contributed to the Murdochmania media-frenzy last summer, and the questionably close relationship between some elements of the U.K. press and U.K. law enforcement officials (not the least of which is perhaps best illustrated by the ease with which former News of The World honcho, Neil Wallis succeeded in crossing so many boundaries) … Consider the following …

November 22:

Climategate 2.0 emails released by FOIA (whom I prefer to call The Saint) with announcement and download link placed on various non-alarmist blogs (including Roger Tattersall’s Tallbloke’s Talkshop, JeffId’s The Air Vent, Anthony Watts’ WUWT, and Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit)

November 23:

Damian Carrington, who seems to have appointed himself as The Guardian‘s “expert” on what constitutes a “real scandal”, declared:

Failure to catch climate email hacker is the real scandal
While evidence of global warming grows ever clearer, we are still in the dark over who is putting climate scientists’ emails online

As an aside, it was when I attempted to post a comment in response to this post of Carrington’s that I found that, for some strange reason, any comment from me is now subject to “pre-moderation”. Since the last comment I had made in response to a Carrington post – or indeed anywhere on the Guardian site – was merely to politely ask him (for the second time, since he had ignored my first request) to correct an error his July 28/11 blogpost – in which he had declared another “real scandal” – I can only conclude that Carrington’s advocacy overrides any interest in journalistic inegrity or accuracy. It would have been nice if someone at the Guardian had sent me a note explaining why this second attempt had been deleted (and comments from me placed on “pre-moderation”). But I digress …

November 25:

Hickman “invited” his readers to:

Help us find clues in climate email hacker’s message A README.txt file left by ‘FOIA’ with the hacked emails that were dumped online this week contains tantalising clues

The invitation generated 225 responses during the “open window” period … which didn’t last very long, as comments were closed at 5:00 p.m. GMT. It is not known how long the E-mail address (to which readers could also direct responses) remained active and/or was monitored.

It is worth noting that when challenged on the “hack” labelling, Hickman engaged in the Team’s – by now tried and true – exercise in redefining the meaning of commonly understood English words. When asked:

“Can you also present your evidence that this was a hack and not a leak?”

Hickman responded:

Please let’s not get distracted by the whole “hack/leak” debate again. The Guardian has used the term “hack” for this story since the beginning as a generic term

I’m not sure what Hickman’s new, improved definition of “generic” might be, but his assertion is certainly at odds with two “Related Items” that are linked on the very same page as his post:

To the best of my knowledge, Hickman did not post any follow-up which would indicate that any of the comments or emails he received in response to this November 25 “crowd-sourcing” effort, yielded any information that was, well, post-worthy. Unless one wants to count yet another Hickman <free speech for me and no comment from thee when it doesn’t suit me> post

November 29:

Secret message hidden among fresh climate email files
Folder containing second tranche of emails taken from University of East Anglia server included a message from the perpetrator in an encrypted text file

Certainly, there was nothing significant in Hickman’s post that hadn’t been known in the non-alarmist blogosphere since, well, Nov. 22. Although one might wonder about the “secret message” he thought might be conveyed by the image of “A fallen tree [which] lies in the Mongolian desert” which accompanied this very old news. Yet for some reason, perhaps best known only to himself, sometime on or before …

December 5:

Hickman (or someone from The Guardian posing as an “investigative journalist”) decided to “interview” Tallbloke. In Tallbloke’s words:

I have been put in contact with a journalist from the warmer side of the UK press. He was interested in knowing about anything which might help discover the identity of the Climategate whistleblower, or as he referred to them ‘ the hacker’, and why ‘foia’ might have chosen ‘the Talkshop’ to place a link to the server where he had uploaded the FOIA2011.zip file rather than another ‘higher profile’ UK climate blog.

[followed by Tallbloke's response, which is well worth reading in full and included:]

Investigative journalists also have a duty to follow the trail of interdependent public and private bodies and NGO’s which make use of public money, especially when large sums of it are never seen again and no accounting is forthcoming.

In my opinion that is the bigger story waiting out there, rather than the discovery of the identity of the person who chose to pull the dirty laundry out of the closet.
[...]
[and to which post Tallbloke subsequently appended the following:]

The investigative journalist in question thanked me for my response, and for my wider views, which I’m grateful he took the time to read, although he chose not to respond to them.

It may just be coincidence that (as the Norfolk Constabulary subsequently told Tallbloke), at the request of Norfolk’s finest (or perhaps the Metropolitan Police and/or the National Domestic Extremism Team who had been providing “assistance” to Norfolk’s finest since they first began their “investigation” two years ago) a mere four days later …

December 9:

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) issued a “Request for Preservation of Records” via electronic mail to WordPress’ parent company. This letter, addressed to the attention of “law-enforcement[at]wordpress.com” is dated December 9, but we do not know when it was actually sent to or received by WordPress. The content included:

I request that you not disclose the existence of this request to the subscriber or any other person, other than as necessary to comply with this request. If compliance with this request might result in a permanent or temporary termination of service to the Accounts, or otherwise alert any user of the Accounts as to your actions to preserve the information described below, please contact me as soon as possible and before taking action. [emphasis added -hro]

Which suggests that there may have been some discussion or negotiation prior to …

December 13:

When WordPress forwarded this DoJ request to Tallbloke, Jeff (and presumably Steve McIntyre).

December 14:

The police arrive at Tallbloke Towers – and Roger posts the news.

December 15:

In an unecessarily misleading and erroneous account of the police raid, Hickman also wrote:

During an interview with the Guardian last week before the seizing of his computers, Tattersall said that he had been questioned by Norfolk police “some two months” after the initial breach in 2009, but had heard nothing since. A number of climate scientists and bloggers are known to have been questioned by the police. [emphasis added -hro]

December 16:

When I saw Roger’s post regarding Hickman’s factual inaccuracy, I followed his link to Hickman’s article – and then went off in search of this “interview” on the Guardian site, where I found nothing. So I asked Roger about this “interview” and he responded:

Leo asked me in email why my blog was chosen rather than a higher profile uk site. I told him maybe it was because I made one of the FOI requests to CRU back in 2009 and because of this, I was one of the people contacted for a telephone interview by Norfolk police in early 2010. I probably said “some two months” off the cuff from (dodgy post crash) memory. I speculated that because I had commented about that on Climate Audit, FOIA might have chosen me as a recipient for the link comment, or it was just a random blog roll click from another site, or FOIA likes my science.
:-)

You can read the exact words and the rest of what I said to him here:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/opinion-foia-and-where-its-at-with-the-global-warming-issue/ [see also December 5, above -hro]

Within a few hours of Roger’s post, at 9:11 a.m. Hickman posted a comment, in which he wrote:

Thanks for clarifying that about WordPress. I will try and get that reworded as soon as possible.

December 17:

At 8:07 a.m. Roger posted a comment in the same thread indicating that a “corrected” version had appeared – and that it was (IMHO) even worse than the original. He even provided a suggested re-write:

I’ll give the Guardian one more opportunity to get it right before I get my solicitor to send them a letter copied to the Press Complaints Commission. They just shouldn’t be this sloppy when reporting on legal matters which can seriously affect people’s livelihood.

This would be my suggested rewrite:

“Both Tattersall and a US-based climate sceptic blogger known as Jeff Id said they had received a copy of a “formal notice” sent to blogging platform WordPress.com by the US Department of Justice’s criminal division, dated 9 December. This requested that Automattic inc, owners of WordPress.com preserve “all stored communications, records, and other evidence in your possession” related to the two blogs for Nov 22/23rd, as well as those for Climate Audit, a climate sceptic blog run by a Canadian mining consultant called Steve McIntyre.”

This prompted a rather long and convoluted defensive comment from Hickman an hour later, in which he blamed the delay on “[his] editors”.

Finally, at 4:00 p.m., Roger received an E-mail from Hickman indicating that a further change had been made and an additional explanatory note appended. Roger – who, I must say, was far more gracious than I think I would have been in such circumstances – thanked Hickman and closed the thread to further comments.

So I didn’t get a chance to ask:

Wait a minute! According to The Guardian … Leo Hickman is a “features journalist and editor” How many “editors” does an “editor” need in order to make a correction to a paragraph that could have been written with greater clarity and accuracy the first time?

Well, at least it would have been, had the “features journalist and editor” either read the available material more carefully, or chosen to exercise due diligence by verifying before making such a potentially damaging statement.

Had he done so, he could also have spared a few bloggers (of the ultra green persuasion) the embarrassment of having to eat their words (and in at least one instance, eventually remove a post) by which they had uttered a baseless and defamatory assertion.

And considering the timeline above, I’d also be very interested in knowing with whom Hickman decided to share the non-published December 5 “interview” noted above. Wouldn’t you?

In the meantime, perhaps Hickman should take some lessons from Donna Laframboise, so he can learn how a real investigative journalist practices due diligence and verification – before going to print. Even on the simple matter of the raid at midnight meme, Donna checked with Roger, so that her article (unlike Hickman’s) was right – the first time.

UPDATE: 12/22/2011 10:30 AM PST

It seems that I’m not the only one who’s interested in knowing with whom (and when) Hickman might have shared the December 5 non-published “interview”. In a comment below, Roger has provided some additional details, which I’m adding here, for the record:

I have asked Leo straight out if he had any form of communication regarding me with the police between my email exchange with him (he never told me it was an ‘interview’) and the raid on my home.

He denies it:

“No. Bishop Hill asked me that via Twitter yesterday and I confirmed it to him too. Why, do you have evidence that suggests otherwise? Very curious to know where this suspicion has come from.”

To which I replied:
“Just an unhappy close coincidence of events I guess. I hadn’t made any such suggestion to Andrew by the way.” [emphasis added -hro]

This raises another question, in my mind: How ethical is it for a journalist to claim that a response to an E-mail question is an “interview”?

Of Climategate, constabularies and Copenhagen: an “elusive line in the sand”

Sorry folks … another detour. Bishop Hill has received that which the University of East Anglia (UEA)’s Vice Chancellor, Edward Acton (the designated “qualified person”) deems not to be exempt according to his interpretation invocation of the rules and regulations pertaining to Freedom of Information requests.

This particular request was pursuant to the recently discovered engagement of the services of Neil Wallis and his colleagues at the PR firm, The Outside Organization (OO) by UEA – at some point – in the aftermath of Climategate.

The first item in the correspondence that was disclosed is dated Feb. 6, 2010 from Neil Wallis. It is an advance copy of one of two “Poor Phil” articles that appeared in The Sunday Times on Feb. 7.

The Times seems to like to do things in two’s. Here’s the headline of the advance copy:

The leak was bad. Then came the death threats

I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones

According to the Music World article in which Wallis’ involvement was disclosed:

“They came to us and said, ‘We have a huge problem – we are being completely knocked apart in the press,’” says (OO’s) Sam Bowen. “They needed someone with heavyweight contacts who could come in and sort things out, and next week there was a front-page story telling it from their side.”

So, if this Feb. 6 E-mail represents the first of OO’s efforts on behalf of UEA – and assuming Sam Bowen was quoted correctly – this would seem to indicate that it took UEA from Nov. 20, 2009 until the end of January 2010 before they realized that they were “being completely knocked apart in the press.” Either that or OO was being very misleading and unprofessional in Sept. 2010, when they used an illustration from a Dec. 1 2009 article to demonstrate the bad press mess in which UEA were mired before the OO team, lead by Wallis, came to their rescue!

In his “reasons” for not disclosing the remit to and/or contract details with OO – or any invoices – Acton chose to hide behind OO’s skirts:

Certain correspondence contains information, the release of which would constitute an actionable breach of confidence and be prejudicial to the commercial interests of the Outside Organisation. Were it to be released it would enable competitors in the same field of work to gain a commercial advantage in winning future business.

It is difficult to imagine any self-respecting business that would say to its clients, “Please do tell your friends about our wonderful work, but don’t tell them when you hired us or what our rates are”. It’s very considerate of UEA to be concerned about the “commercial interests” of OO – after all “actionable breach of confidence” is pretty serious stuff.

But, you know, if I were in Acton’s shoes, I would have been far more concerned about securing an airtight confidentiality agreement which would ensure that OO would never disclose its involvement with UEA, without UEA’s express permission. Wouldn’t you?!

Anyway, Acton was very pleased with the work of Sam Bowen and Neil Wallis. In an E-mail with the subject line “Re: Confidential. Sunday 7″, Acton wrote:

I am delighted by the amount achieved. Now we must see how the coverage unfolds. But it seems to me you and Sam have helped us maximise the chances of that elusive line in the sand. Warmest thanks for everything thus far…

I don’t know about you, but considering the headlines I noted above, I find Acton’s “delight” is somewhat difficult to reconcile with his professed adherence to UEA’s “duty of care to its staff”. I would have been up in arms about the “intrusiveness” of such articles into the personal life of poor Phil.

For the record, Neil Wallis obviously must have understood what Acton meant by “maximize the chances of that elusive line in the sand”, because all he said was “Thanks. Lets hope we can continue.”

But I always thought that one “draws” a line in the sand. Nothing “elusive” about it – once it is drawn, one knows where to find it and will not cross it. So I’m not sure how one would “maximise [its] chances” But then in my dictionary, a “trick” really is a “trick” and “decline” always means “decline”. So what do I know, eh?!

One of the last items in the disclosed emails is an Aug. 30 invitation to Wallis from Acton to a Sept. 29 “do” at UEA. This was one day before the release of the pre-publication version of the InterAcademy Council (IAC)’s review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s policies and procedures. The copy I downloaded from IAC site indicates that it was compiled on August 25.

Do you think that perhaps someone at UEA had received an advance copy of this report – and that this Sept. 29 “do” was to be a “PR” victory celebration now that they knew that UEA was not going to be directly implicated in the IAC report? Nah … must just be yet another coincidence.

Wallis did accept the invitation, btw. I wonder if he took along some copies of the Sept. 25, 2010 Music World spread to share with Acton and other celebrants?!