Of word salads and firebrands on the UN waterfront

So, while the U.K. Met Office (presumably still inspired by their enhanced status as a “jewel in the crown, of British and global science”) has been unable to master the technology required to correct an unsupportable headline as part of their effort to “bridge the gap between climate scientists and the public”, an organization called UN Water has has been moving at the speed of lightning.

Well, for a UN bureaucracy … it’s the speed of lightning!

You see, If you didn’t know that UN Water exists, you might have missed the chance of a lifetime (which began on April 29 and, sadly, ended on May 5) to “contribute to the online discussion” of:

The final draft of the Post-2015 Water Thematic Consultation report

Look at that, folks! We’ve been moved from the pre- and post-Rio+20 “The Future We Want” to “The World We Want”. Amazing, eh?!

Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to take look at this “final draft”. But, I have seen the:

Recognition of Outcomes, High Level Forum –World Water Day The Hague, 22 March, 2013

Ah, yes, World Water Day … I know we did get some advance notice of the “International Year of Water Cooperation, 2013″, but World Water Day on March 22?

Who knew, eh?! Of course, I should have made a note of it in my calendar for this year … when I missed it last year …. and (truth be told) every year since its inception in 1993:

World Water Day – 22 March

World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.

An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

Needless to say, this particular child of the United Nations comes with its very own scary stories (and calls for “innovative financial mechanisms”). As the March 22, 2013 “Recognition of Outcomes – High Level Forum” (pdf) duly notes (all emphases in quoted text throughout this post are mine -hro):

This process has allowed for an inclusive and bottom-up approach that encouraged all stakeholders to help construct a new sustainable development framework that is measurable, realistic and inter-generational that will promote an equitable and sustainable use of water for growth and development. People from 185 Member States, and 8 non-Member States/territories, have participated through social media and meetings at the national, regional and global levels. It engaged a wide range of stakeholders from national authorities, civil society, youth and the private sector in the discussion on the role of water in a future sustainable development framework. A synthesis report, that will soon be available for public comment, provides a comprehensive view of the outcomes of the consultation.

So, let’s see … it was announced on March 22 that this “comprehensive view” would soon be available for “public comment”. Yet – as I had noted above – “soon” turned out to be well over a month later. And the window of opportunity for this “public comment” was a grand total of seven (count ‘em 7) days – and possibly less depending on when on April 29 this inclusive … probably more apt to call it an exclusive window of opportunity opened, and when on May 5 the window closed.

What a process, eh?! But I digress … Back to the highlights of the High Level Forum’s “Recognition of Outcomes” document which included:

Although water challenges are growing incrementally, complacency is not an option. Political recognition and policy action are urgently needed. Significant water-related challenges remain. Water pollution continues to grow and more than 80% of used water is discharged to nature untreated. This is not only a threat to the environment, economic development and human health, but also a waste of valuable resources

Feeding a world of nine billion people in 2050 will require more water for food. The demands for energy will more than double and, at the same time, extreme events, droughts and floods will also increase.

[...]

Higher rates of urbanization will mean a growing demand for drinking water [...]

Hang on a minute! Do people in an urban environment require more drinking water than those in a rural setting?! Surely not! Oh, well … who am I to argue with these nameless authorities, eh?! Here are some excerpts from their “Conclusions”:

• Water is a key determinant in all aspects of social, economic and environmental development …
• Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Water Resources Management and Wastewater Management and Water Quality are all indispensable elements for building a water-secure world
• Water security will be of growing importance …
• Governments play a key role in securing water for competing demands; however the quest for a water-secure world is a joint responsibility and can only be achieved through water cooperation at local, national, regional and global level and through partnerships with a multitude of stakeholders …
• Water-related capacity development [...] will be fundamental in the realization and implementation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda
• Innovative, inclusive and sustainable financing mechanisms for water need to be implemented

And here are some excerpts from their vision for “The Way Forward”:

There must be ambitious goals and targets which take account of unfinished business and the emerging and future challenges. These goals must inspire and create incentives for a change in behaviour to manage and allocate resources in a sustainable way whose benefits reach every person without discrimination

You’ll be pleased to know that there’s no “overwhelming scientific consensus”, but there was an:

overwhelming participation of stakeholders

which along with their own “deliberations” led this illustrious group to “recognise” that:

water is a prerequisite in the future development framework in order to attain vital economic, equity, employment, health, educational, agriculture/food and energy benefits and for maintaining ecosystems services and supporting resilience to climate change

Not only that, but they have “committed” themselves to:

bringing these messages to the attention of relevant fora, such as the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

But wait, there’s more that we missed on March 22. There was a Press Release (here come the scary stories and more!):

‘Water Security’: Experts propose a UN definition on which much depends

World Water Day 2013: International year of water cooperation

Amid changing weather and water patterns worldwide and forecasts of more severe transformations to come, calls have been growing for the UN Security Council to include water issues on its agenda.

And there’s rising international support for adopting “universal water security” as one of the Sustainable Development Goals — a set of mid-term global objectives being formulated to succeed the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, agreed by world leaders in 2000 for achievement by 2015.

But what does “water security” mean? The absence of a definition undermines progress in international forums. Marking World Water Day today at UN Headquarters in New York, a common working definition was published, forged by UN and international experts from around the world.

UN-Water, the United Nations’ inter-agency coordination mechanism for all water-related issues, says water security should be defined as:

“The capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of and acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability.”

Setting aside the abysmal record of the UN Security Council in even fulfilling its current mandate, isn’t it good to know that it’s only taken twenty years for this group of “experts” to propose a definition?! But, I guess they’re ahead of the “interagency coordination mechanism” for all climate and/or biodiversity-related issues.

You see, last I heard, this particular group (in the run-up to Rio+20) had not even agreed on a definition of “green economy” (let alone the “blue economy“)

But wait! There’s more! This Press Release continues:

“Security has now come to mean human security and its achievement through development. Water fits within this broader definition of security — embracing political, health, economic, personal, food, energy, environmental and other concerns — and acts as a central link between them.”

“Common understanding has central importance in international discussions and water security can’t continue to have a variety of meanings,” says Zafar Adeel, co-chair of the UN-Water Task Force on Water Security and Director of the United Nations University’s Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

“A shared and working definition is needed to get everyone on the same page. Only then can we collectively start to write a coherent response to the challenges.”

“Access to safe water and sanitation is now a fundamental human right. But water management also requires realistic ways of recovering delivery costs. An agreed definition of water security is vitally important in that context.”

Many observers have identified water as an “urgent security issue,” a group that last year included both former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the InterAction Council, an association of 37 former heads of state and government co-chaired by the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien, former Prime Minister of Canada, and H.E. Dr. Franz Vranitzky, former Chancellor of Austria.

According to Mr. Chrétien: “Nothing is more fundamental to life than water. Few issues, therefore, have the potential to create friction more than the management of water shared across international borders, especially now with serious scarcity problems in prospect.”

While he may on rare occasion have written in the manner noted above, anyone who’s ever heard Jean Chretien speak, knows damn well that he does not talk that way! So if this is a “direct quote”, someone’s been putting word salads in his mouth!

But that aside, I would have to say that carbon dioxide is equally fundamental to life – as are other gases and elements. Well, at least it was until the UN – in its infinite “expert” wisdom – decided to embark on an utterly wasteful and harmful path of demonization.

Just imagine if these “experts” had given the matter some thought – prior to foisting on the world the useless Kyoto protocol and the concomitant obsession with the purported (and far from proven) perils of CO₂ which has resulted in costly and inefficient wind turbines and solar panels blighting our landscapes and shamefully increasing the cost of food and energy, which are also fundamental to life.

Had the bureaucrats and politicians (not to mention the “climate scientists”) acted more wisely – and in the public interest, rather than that of firebrands such as Al Gore, David Suzuki, the proliferation of virtually uncountable (and unaccountable) NGOs and the BIG green machine that forged the now corrupted and collapsing UN and/or European Union inspired “innovative financial mechanisms” such as “emissions trading schemes” – we could have invested all those wasted years and billion$ in securing the “fundamental human right” to safe water and sanitation for all.

No demonizing, “definitions” – or redefining – necessary.

=========

A few footnotes of interest …

The contact on the above March 22 Press Release is listed as Terry Collins. Collins was, evidently, the proud author as can be seen from his company website.

Collins’ company also put out the Press Release noted by Donna Laframboise, yesterday, in which they had crafted a rather one-sided story.

But speaking of firebrands, word salads and the UN water front …

About midway through Collins’ March 22 Press Release, (which was presumably widely distributed via EurekAlert) one finds <scary stories alert>:

In 2011, for example, driven largely by water and food shortages linked to drought in the Horn of Africa, almost 185,000 Somalis fled to neighbouring countries. In Sudan, violence broke out in March 2012 in the Jamam refugee camp where large numbers of people faced serious water scarcity. And in South Sudan, entire communities were forced to leave due to scarce water resources as a result of conflict in 2012.

Disasters and conflicts can also affect the physical infrastructure needed to access water, sanitation and hygiene services (water services infrastructure, treatment plants, drainage systems, dams, irrigation channels, etc.), reducing levels of water security.

Water insecurity, therefore, leads to cascading political, social, economic and environmental consequences, the brief says. (For a larger history of water-related conflicts, documented by The Pacific Institute: http://worldwater.org/conflict.html)

But if you follow the link, you’ll see that there’s a typo in the name: it should read the Pacific Institute. Ring any bells?! It should. As the about page indicates, Worldwater.org is:

A project of the Pacific Institute, [...]

which just happens to be the personal fiefdom of Peter Gleick. Gleick’s claim to fame includes writing a review of a book he has not read and even more unethically and notoriously fraudulently obtaining confidential details from another non-profit organization – and promulgating this material, along with an obviously forged word salad, to some of his friends and media contacts.

Small world, eh?!

Climategate 3.0: Practicing what I preach

In my previous post, I had written:

To my mind the password protected files [included in CG2] were more akin to an archive of documents written in an obscure language that required “translation”.

And there was only one person on the planet who could provide the “translation” so that the material in the archive would be comprehensible to all who might read it: The Saint.

So maybe what we should be doing – instead of expending hours complaining (and/or trying to guess The Saint’s identity) and arguing while the “translated” documents are being compiled into a useful database – is taking the time to revisit the material we already have at our virtual fingertips to see what we might have missed. [emphasis now added -hro]

Yesterday, I had also made a comment to this effect in the (now very long) comment thread at WUWT.

So I was delighted to see a reply from Duke C. in which he had written:

Hilary, I converted Buffy Minton’s spreadsheet to an html index with a link in the subject line that opens the selected email in your web browser window, all offline. 35 Meg zip file here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4EzgaD0DOfYaFBmdUZoaUJvTmM/edit?usp=sharing

Next step is to imbed a more comprehensive search engine, something better than Ctrl-f.

Posted this on Tips and Notes awhile back, but it went unnoticed, apparently.

So, my mouse and I followed Duke’s link, downloaded the file, unzipped it, read the readme … and it works like a charm!

I also found that if I import Duke’s “CG1CG2Merge_index.html” into an MS Access database, I can run queries to my heart’s content. For example, one of the NYT‘s Andrew Revkin’s conspicuous shortcomings is his failure to give equal time, treatment and consideration to any skeptic’s investigation into (and/or observations on) alarmist publications.

As I noted a year ago, Revkin (amongst others) wasted no time at all posting Peter Gleick’s cooked up allegations – without bothering to conduct any due diligence on the provenance:

Unlike the NYT‘s Andrew Revkin, or the U.K. Guardian‘s Suzanne Goldenberg and Leo Hickman, for whom fact-checking and provenance confirmation is – for all intents and purposes – anathema when it comes to matters enironmental, Megan McArdle of the Atlantic has been following this story and asking questions, as a journalist should.

McArdle readily acknowledges her green-tinted glasses; but she does not permit her vision to become as clouded and biased by advocacy as Revkin, Goldenberg or Hickman.

More recently, Revkin has continued this practice. He happily churned out a blog-post on March 7 on the highly dubious Marcott et al’s latest reincarnation of the “hockey-stick”. And he subsequently gave lots of air-time to Michael Mann (who’s been singing glowing praises of Marcott to beat the band!)

In the meantime, Steve McIntyre has been conducting the due diligence that obviously was not done by Revkin (nor, evidently, by those who “peer-reviewed” the paper for Science). So how did Revkin deal with this fact when it finally appeared to cross his radar, circa March 16? I’m so glad you asked. Here’s Revkin’s update:

Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit has been dissecting the Marcott et al. paper and corresponding with lead author Shaun Marcott, raising constructive and important questions.

As a result, I sent a note to Marcott and his co-authors asking for some elaboration on points Marcott made in the exchanges with McIntyre. Peter Clark of Oregon State replied (copying all) on Friday, saying they’re preparing a general list of points about their study.

So all he’s interested in is “the points Marcott [et al]” had made during the course of this correspondence.

Did Revkin understand (or even ask McIntyre about) “the points” McIntyre had made?! Perhaps. But I have yet to see any evidence of this. OTOH, Revkin had provided a link (
http://climateaudit.org/?s=marcott+holocene
) but the criteria Revkin chose only yields four of McIntyre’s six posts since March 13. I found that
http://climateaudit.org/?s=Marcott
yields all six – and I suspect that if I use it in future, it will also list any subsequent Marcott-related posts.

Although Revkin – to his credit – has acknowledged that his name (and emails) can be found in the Climategate files, I was curious to know how many were sent to or from him. So, using my Handy-Dandy-Duke’s-Database, a simple query tells me that between Sept. 27, 2004 and Sept. 29, 2009 there were 22 (well, actually only 21, as the last is readily identified – both by timestamp and by Duke’s filename – as a duplicate).

I haven’t looked at the content yet, but I’ll let you know what I find :-) In the meantime … speaking of Michael Mann, Marcott et al (and Duke’s diligent work) …

Yesterday via twitter, I came across two related interesting tweets. The first from Anthony Watts WUWT

People send me stuff. Word has it that Michael Mann was one of the reviewers of Marcott et al.

And the second was Richard Tol’s tweet in reply:

@wattsupwiththat I would be surprised if he wasn’t.

By pure serendipity, while I was perusing Duke’s index (before I created my Access database), I came across the following. The subject is listed as “no_subject” (which suggests that there wasn’t one, but it piqued my curiosity) [paragraph breaks and emphases in body inserted for ease of reading, email addresses partially redacted, and signature stripped by me ... I'm sure they get their fair share of spam already]:

From: Keith Briffa
Date: 7/24/2002 12:01 PM
To: mas@xxxxx
CC: ppn@xxxxx

Dear Meric

The purpose of this short message is to ask that you do not send my RAPID proposal to Mike Mann for refereeing.

I do this openly (i.e. by cc’ing this message to Philip) because I wish it to be an above-board statement , made simply for information. I am genuinely a little nervous as to whether Mike could remain sufficiently objective . We have had a debate (politely phrased) as to the merits of trying methods of data assimilation that are independent of his approach. Ray Bradley is a coauthor on the most significant Mann papers and is very aware of the needs of the science in this area – but I have suggested him as a potential referee rather than Mike because , although he may disagree on some matters , I am confident of his objectivity. If our proposal has gone (or does go ) to Mike , I at least feel happier having made this statement before you receive any report from him.

best wishes
Keith

–
[sig]

REF: CG2 <4025.txt>

So, if you want to verify for yourself that the E-mail reads as above, Duke has provided (on each of the 6,366 pages) a reference to the Climategate release in which the file can be found, as well as the text filename one can use to search any of the current online databases; my choice is EcoWho – and here’s a link to 4025.txt

Assuming that the source of Watts’ tweet above has reported accurately, I would think that by now Marcott might be kicking himself for not having taken a good hard look at the emails released in CG1 and CG2. He might have spared himself considerable grief and embarrassment.

Incidentally, Revkin’s quasi-journalistic green-heart-on-sleeve endeavour had noted that when he wrote to Marcott, his co-author and thesis supervisor (and AR5 WG1 Ch13 Coordinating Lead Author) Peter Clark had responded:

[...] we’ve decided that the best tack to take now is to prepare a FAQ document that will explain, in some detail but at a level that should be understandable by most, how we derived our conclusions. [...]

So, I can’t help wondering if Mann will be giving them a helpful hand in writing this FAQ!

P.S. Many thanks, Duke C … for making it so easy for me to practice what I preach ;-)

Memo to journos: Why you are not trusted

Two interesting posts today from two investigative journalists – both in the U.K.

The first is from Brendan O’Neill, whose opening remarks about investigative journalism, at University College Cork Journalism Society’s annual conference. include the following:

Investigating the crisis of 21st Century Journalism

[...] There is a great deal of investigative journalism around today. The problem is that a lot of it is not very good; it is very different to the investigative journalism of the past and it often ends up distorting the truth rather than enlightening public debate.

I want to run through three C-words in modern journalism that I think are having a detrimental impact on investigative reporting.

The first C-word is “conspiratorial thinking”, the tendency of journalists to write about power and power relations in a quite juvenile, teenage way [...]

The second C-word is “crusading mentality”, the way more and more journalists now conceive of themselves as moral crusaders against evil – whether that evil is climate change or Catholic child abusers or Bosnian-Serbo maniacs or whatever.

And the third C-word is “conformism”. I want to argue that the sphere of what it is acceptable to think and say has shrunk dramatically in recent years, and even radical journalists now investigate things and say things that are not nearly as daring as they think.

[...]

The second problematic C-word in modern journalism is “crusader”. Lots of investigative journalists today seem to believe they are moral crusaders against wickedness, that they are forces for Good against Evil.

You can see this, for example, in environmentalist exposes of Big Oil and its wicked antics. Green journalism is the most annoying kind of journalism today, employing a very childlike, almost Biblical language to describe the nastiness and destructiveness of modern industry and the modern world. [...] [emphasis added -hro]

YMMV, but I certainly cannot disagree with O’Neill’s observations.

Complementing these obvious shortcomings of the media mavens, are Richard North’s observations on the recent “reporting” of the horsemeat crisis/scandal in Europe [h/t Shub Niggurath via twitter].

The innumeracy of these particular journos is almost beyond belief. One of the examples cited by North:

Media: no wonder we have a problem

[...]
We now have an explanation not only for the horsemeat crisis, but also the economic crisis. Europe is drowning in horsemeat.
[...]
But, if the Telegraph would thus have us drowning in horsemeat, the Independent on Sunday doesn’t do so much better. It has Canada exporting 1.8 million tons of horsemeat to France in 2011, with Mexico sending another 1.2 million tons. The actual figures are, respectively, 1,800 and 1,200 tons.

Newspapers these days are becoming a joke. Not only are their journalists profoundly ignorant, they are also inumerate. If these figures were taken at face value, they would represent something like 10 million horses – 50 times the entire number of horses (200,000) slaughtered in the EU annually. [emphasis added -hro]

O’Neill had also observed:

Investigative journalists are turned from active seekers of truth into passive recipients of gossip, passive recipients of titillating information from within the citadels of power. They become messengers between squabbling sections of the elite, rather than properly independent pursuers of political and social insights or truths. This is a problem because truth is not something that can be revealed to us – it is something we find and even formulate through the very act of looking for it and uncovering it. It doesn’t exist externally to us, in Julian Assange’s computer; it is made by us through investigation and thought. [emphasis added -hro]

Andrew Revkin’s acknowledgement a few months ago of his failure to verify Gavin Schmidt’s Nov. 2009 claim that RealClimate had been “hacked” is a perfect example of (crusading?) journalist as messenger – as was Revkin’s even more ignominious unverified repetition of the claims in Peter Gleick’s creative writing exercises a year ago.

Could this combination of dedication to blind “crusading” and “passivity” be the cause of the MSM’s continued failure to highlight Donna Laframboise’s thoroughly investigated – and meticulously documented -shortcomings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?

Could this same combination be the cause of these same media mavens’ decision to ignore (rather than investigate) the evidence which strongly suggests that fellow green crusader, Saint David Suzuki has a very tarnished halo?

Revkin screens out cops’ Climategate screening exercises

There’s a myth out there that has gained the status of a cliché: that scientists love proving themselves wrong, that the first thing they do after constructing a hypothesis is to try to falsify it. Professors tell students that this is the essence of science.

Yet most scientists behave very differently in practice. They not only become strongly attached to their own theories; they perpetually look for evidence that supports rather than challenges their theories. Like defense attorneys building a case, they collect confirming evidence.

Matt Ridley on The perils of confirmation bias

And speaking of those who “collect confirming evidence” … I wonder if journalists such as the Guardian‘s Suzanne Goldenberg or the New York Times‘ Andrew Revkin realize (or care about!) the extent to which their green-tinted views – and confirmation bias – colour their narratives (I hesitate to call it “reporting”!) and, in the process, undermine their credibility.

When Gleickgate erupted last February, both were very quick to publish without verifying any of the material they were purveying. To Revkin’s credit, he did partially walk-back his rather gullible repetition of the unverified claims. Goldenberg, as is her wont, did not. To this day she has not explained how she came by such premature knowledge of the “findings” of the so-called independent investigation of Gleick’s appallingly unethical behaviours.

Last month, on the heels of the Gergis and Karoly paper being “put on hold”, Revkin felt obliged to “confirm the accuracy of a post by [Steve] McIntyre quoting him”. Karoly had been quite creatively ambiguous in this E-mail, and Revkin did his best to slant his article in such a way as to avoid mentioning the fact that it was at Climate Audit that the errors in this much publicized paper had been discovered.

And to add insult to injury, in this instance, Revkin chose not to “update” his post to indicate that he had subsequently received an E-mail from McIntyre, but rather to merely add the E-mail as a comment where it remains, effectively, “buried” without warranting even the distinction of an “NYT Pick” flag.

By contrast, when Revkin was alerted to a press release from the Norfolk Constabulary on their recent decision to close their “investigation” into Climategate, he was very quick to add a July 18 “update” – to a post he’d written on July 6, 2010. Here’s a screen-capture of his update (highlighting added by me) – in the context of his original post:

Let’s set aside the fact that Revkin – perhaps motivated by his confirmation bias?! – did not seem to have any interest in what any skeptics might have had to say in response to his questions of July 6, 2010. Let’s also set aside that further in this same article – as I have previously noted – Revkin unquestioningly accepted Gavin Schmidt’s very flimsy excuse for not having contacted the appropriate authorities regarding the alleged Nov. 17/09 “hack” at RealClimate.

To his credit, on March 1, 2011, Revkin had reiterated his rather minimal level of concern regarding Schmidt’s failure to notify the appropriate authorities:

Setting aside the East Anglia incident, one might note that, well, there was a clear “hack” in the intrusion at Realclimate.org in the United States, where someone planted the same folders and prepared a faux post, as described in detail by Gavin Schmidt, one of the founders of that climate blog (and which was reported by me and others at the very start of this saga).

But even there, the situation is not so simple — in part because no one involved in Realclimate.org filed a complaint with the police.

A post of mine from last summer — “Was the East Anglia Incident a Crime?” — picks up the story:

I asked Schmidt whether a criminal investigation was ever conducted into the Real Climate hack. Here’s his reply:

“It would have been up to us to report it, and I didn’t think it was worth it – If you recall, we were kind of busy. ;)”

I think it’s unfortunate that the Real Climate team did not press this case if the law in the United States is as clear-cut as Schmidt asserted. But, in his defense, he clearly did have vast challenges on his plate then…

I still think it’s unfortunate that a complaint wasn’t filed. Perhaps it might have led to an investigation that could have pulled back the curtain a bit on the chain of events leading back to that moment in 2009 when someone hit the “copy” key.[emphasis added -hro]

It is worth noting that Revkin’s July 6, 2010 post was entitled (as noted by the bolded reference above): “Was the East Anglia Incident a Crime?” Yet, it would appear that when he updated this post, he also changed the title which now reads: “Was the East Anglia Incident a Crime? Yes.”

On July 19, Revkin posted his take on the Norfolk Constabulary’s decision to close the file. Again he relies on the News Release of July 18:

British Police Say Climate E-mail Case Was Crime, While Giving Up the Chase
[...]
The news release ends with a paragraph that, in essence, says users of the Internet are on their own:

Norfolk Assistant Chief Constable Charlie Hall, Protective Services lead, said: “Online crime is a global issue. While law enforcement agencies continue to develop our response to emerging threats, it falls upon individuals and organizations to be alert to this and and take steps to mitigate risk as far as is practicable.”

While unable to close in on suspects, the Norfolk police at least said they could confirm that the files were illegally extracted from outside the university:

[A]s a result of our enquiries, we can say that the data breach was the result of a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack on the CRU’s data files, carried out remotely via the internet. The offenders used methods common in unlawful internet activity to obstruct enquiries.

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

Revkin seems to be quite taken with the claim of “sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack” – which appears twice in the news release. He chose to feature it in both his “update” to his July 6, 2010 post, and in this one!

But again, I give Revkin credit for reiterating:

I also think it was a mistake for the administrators of the American blog Real Climate, which was clearly subjected to a computer hack at the same time back in 2009, not to file a formal complaint with the police.

Although I’m not sure how (or when) he might have arrived at the conclusion that “Real Climate … was clearly subjected to a computer hack …”

When he interviewed Schmidt circa Nov. 20 (three days after this alleged “hack”) what evidence did Revkin (and/or anyone at the NYT with the appropriate log-reading skills) examine in support of Schmidt’s ever-changing story?

Or did his confirmation bias permit him to simply take Schmidt’s word for this alleged “hack”? And is it this same confirmation bias that was operating when he failed to take into account the “screening fallacies” which permitted the Norfolk Constabulary to arrive at the far from credible conclusions in the News Release on which Revkin appears to depend?

In a comment on this July 19, 2012 post, I had written:

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

OTOH, as the summary of their Q&A at a press conference, today, indicates, this apparent lack of “evidence” could well be the result of a “screening fallacy”:

[Q]Can you describe what investigations you undertook at the UEA and who you interviewed there?

[A]“The focus internally was on the IT infrastructure and working out from there. We also looked at people working at or with connections to the Climate Research Unit and, in simple terms, we were looking for anything obvious. All members of staff were interviewed. If someone had some obvious links or had an axe to grind, then that might have been a line of enquiry.

“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 (which did not come through in comment posted) added -hro]

I trust you’ll also update your
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/was-the-east-anglia-incident-a-crime/

to reflect this important additional detail from the Norfolk Constabulary.

While Revkin apparently did not deem it necessary to respond to this comment (or – as far as I’m able to determine – to add a further update to his post of July 6, 2010) someone at the NYT decided that my comment was deserving of an “NYT Pick” flag!

Revkin also appears to be oblivious to further “screening fallacies” which became evident from Leo Hickman’s July 20, 2012 interview with “Detective chief superintendent Julian Gregory, the senior investigating officer”:

Did you quickly rule out anyone from the university being involved?

It was the focus of the first few months to go through that option. But our primary line of inquiry was always the technology. We did work through everyone at UEA looking for the obvious, but once we’d achieved that that was mothballed.

[...]

Did you interview any students, as opposed to just staff at UEA?

No. As you can imagine, the university is quite significant in size. It goes back to this being a proportionate investigation and finding a line of enquiry most likely to take us somewhere. We didn’t engage on that kind of speculation. We dealt with some students within CRU, but we limited it to that. [emphasis added -hro]

So what are we to conclude from all this? That Revkin’s narratives are indicative of “confirmation bias” or that his green-tinted advocacy prevents him from conducting even minimal due diligence when presented with claims from a noble climate scientist™? At the very least, he appears to find it necessary to … uh … screen from his readers’ view that which puts his own (very shallow, IMHO) narratives in a somewhat different light.

Out of the blue … Gleick on the road to Rio?

[Pls. see Update at end of this post -hro]

I’m not a frequent tweeter … but I came across an interesting tweet a few minutes ago (although it was posted 6 hours before I saw it!):

Climate Resistance is the blog of the U.K.’s Ben Pile, someone whose links I have confidence in following. Sure enough, Pile’s link took me to a site called Rio+20 Dialogues Vote for the Future you Want. On this site, in rather foggy fine-print, I found:

10,000+ Participants
First, experts, stakeholders, and academics from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds brainstormed ideas for improving the planet.

100 Recommendations
Then, a set of concrete recommendations were crafted and refined.

Your Vote
Now, it is up to YOU to suggest which ones are most needed.

Rio+20
In June, the recommendations will be discussed in the Sustainable Development Dialogues and 30 will be chosen to be conveyed directly to world leaders and decision makers at the Rio+20 Conference.

10,000+ Participants? Wow that’s an awful lot, even if they “participated” virtually … as it appears they did. But alas, I wasn’t “invited”, were you?! No, didn’t think so!

So I was curious to know why this exercise in participatory “democracy” had been going on so quietly that no one seems to have mentioned it before. Google, as usual was my friend. One of the top listings was a site called “Circle of Blue” … Never heard of this one either … But off I went into the wild blue yonder.

I landed on Circle of Blue where I learned:

Countdown To Rio
TUESDAY, 12 JUNE 2012 18:30
Check back with Circle of Blue for the latest news and reports in the lead-up to the Rio+20 conference. Make sure to stay tuned during the conference, as well, as we will be continuing our coverage through June 26.

By Lydia Belanger
Circle of Blue

Tuesday, June 12, 2002 (sic): Voting On 100 Recommendations
There are less than four days left to vote for Rio+20 priorities in water, food, energy, and sustainable development.

More than 20,000 government, organization, and business leaders from across the globe will descend on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this week for Rio+20, what is billed as the world’s most important gathering to date on global environmental issues.

[...]

The conference is a follow-up to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which also took place in Rio and resulted in Agenda21, a comprehensive document detailing sustainable development goals for members of the United Nations, as well as the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, which served to reaffirm the goals that had been laid out in Agenda21.

I thought they were expecting 50,000, but what’s 30,000 between friends, eh?! Very conveniently, this page reiterates “Vote for the Future You Want” — Ballot Topics and Recommendations”. All 100 of them. As I scrolled through the page, I noticed a rather familiar face smiling out from the sidebar: that of the notorious – and recently rehabilitated – Peter Gleick.

So I decided to check the About page for “Circle of Blue”. And you’ll never guess what I found!

Pacific Institute? hmmmm …Small world, eh?!

If you are having a mouse-malfunction moment and cannot embiggen the image I captured, here’s all you need to know:

Circle of Blue is the international network of leading journalists, scientists and communications design experts that reports and presents the information necessary to respond to the global freshwater crisis. It is a nonprofit independent affiliate of the internationally recognized water, climate and policy think tank, the Pacific Institute. The Institute has fiduciary responsibilities for our grants and other income. Circle of Blue’s projects and journalism are independently overseen by our senior staff and advisory board.

Fancy that … an “international network of leading journalists”. And not one of them seems to have told us about this “Rio+20 Dialogue” in which we could have participated – if we’d been invited, of course!

But isn’t it good to know that we now have a “global freshwater crisis” on our hands! And it’s also good to know that “Circle of Blue” is a “non-profit independent affiliate” of Gleick’s personal fiefdom, the Pacific Institute.

Speaking of which, I believe that Anthony Watts is still waiting to hear from the principals at Independent Employment Counsel who allegedly conducted the highly questionable “independent investigation” on the Board’s behalf.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

UPDATE: 06/12/2012 11:12 PM PDT Found a few, well, circles I can’t quite square … From the About page:

Circle of Blue practices non-advocacy journalism and science, striving to report issues to the highest standards of journalistic and scientific ethics. [...] (emphasis mine -hro]

Yet in the “General Support Section” of their “Sponsorship Policy” on their “Ethics and Sponsorship” page, one finds:

Contributions may in no way limit or put unspoken expectations on actions Circle of Blue or the Pacific Institute may take, research we may publish, or positions we may advocate.

How can an organization (or “project” as it is described on the Pacific Institute site) claim to “practice non-advocacy” whatever, when they refer to “positions [they] may advocate”?! Curious, eh?!

And speaking of “ethics” – as Circle of Blue so proudly and repeatedly does – how can an organization with such “high” standards tolerate the presence on its Advisory Board of one who is so profoundly ethically-challenged as Peter Gleick has proven himself to be?

And speaking of Gleick and Pacific Institute … If Circle of Blue, as noted on their About page, is an

independent affiliate of … Pacific Institute [which] has fiduciary responsibilities for our grants and other income

why is it that this is not disclosed on Pacific Institute’s financial statement?

YMMV, but this fuzziness reminds me of the “relationship” between the non-entity known as “Forest Ethics Canada” and Tides Canada.

I suppose it’s possible that in “non-advocacy” advocate circles of environmentalism and eco-activism, such “ethics” are acceptable. But there’s something about such arrangements that strikes me as being, well, somewhat less than strictly kosher!

Of Goldenberg and Gleick: What did she know when … and how does she know it?

As I had noted yesterday, the notorious Peter Gleick has been granted absolution by the Board of Directors of the Pacific Institute (PI).

PI stonewalled on releasing the name of the firm that did the “investigation” on which they evidently relied, while Gleick’s primary media cheerleader – the U.K. Guardian‘s Suzanne Goldenberg, along with her colleagues in the MSM Gleick cheerleading section – was most uncharacteristically silent until Thursday 7 June 2012 17.03 BST when she posted [backup link]:

Captured from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/07/peter-gleick-reinstated-heartland-expose

For the record, the “Article History” on this page indicates: “It was last modified at 20.43 BST on Thursday 7 June 2012″. But in true Goldenberg foggy fashion, her text gives no indication of what she might have modified. Her article recycles the myths and memes of Gleick’s mysteriously acquired – but obviously fake – memo, as though they were established “fact”. No comments are allowed.

As Anthony Watts has noted:

UPDATE4: Apparently feeling the blowback from the lack of transparency, Pacific Institute Communications Director Nancy Ross sent me an email this morning stating:

The investigator is Independent Employment Counsel, LLP.

I am waiting for confirmation that they performed the review from one of the two partners at the firm.
http://www.iecounsel.com/
If I get credible confirmation, I’ll edit the headline to fit the facts as they are known.

The Independent Employment Counsel (IEC)’s website indicates that this is a two-person shop whose principals’ expertise is limited to the field of employment and labour law.

Now, I might consider contracting with such a firm if my employees were about to unionize, or if some of my employees had expressed some ethical concerns about the conduct of the CEO – and/or if I were desperately seeking an excuse not to fire this CEO as a consequence of his admitted disgraceful behaviours.

But I cannot imagine why any organization would even dream of contracting with such a firm if they wanted to investigate his involvement in the acquisition and/or production of an obviously faked “memo” – which he subsequently forwarded to 15 unnamed but friendly “fences” along with a number of documents he had acquired illegally over an extended period.

It is curious – if not amazingly coincidental – that The Guardian and/or Goldenberg should have been privy to the “findings” of IEC as early as May 21 when she published [backup link] her first recycling of this fake memo’s myths and memes while announcing that Gleick had been “cleared”:

Captured from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/21/peter-gleick-cleared-heartland?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

For the record, according to the article history (which does not record its now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t, now-you-do trail), this post of Monday 21 May 2012 16.01 BST was “last modified at 16.19 BST on Monday 21 May 2012″. Again, the article gives no indication of which part of the text might have been modified – and no comments were allowed.

One has to ask: Who prematurely disclosed IEC’s “findings” to Goldenberg? Was it Gleick (he likes to leap ‘n leak)? Was it someone else aboard the sinking Pacific Institute ship? Surely it would have been highly unethical for IEC – and very damaging their “reputation” (whatever it might be) – to have made such a premature disclosure to a member of the media.

In light of all the known facts to date – in particular, IEC’s conspicuous lack of the expertise required for such an “investigation” – surely it is not beyond the realm of possibility that IEC might have sub-contracted with an “investigative” journalist of Goldenberg’s “calibre”, and known lack of …ethics. Conflict of interest has never seemed to concern her, so I can well imagine that she would have no qualms about publishing a story – well over two weeks before its time – which she could readily do if she was the source!

Stay tuned, folks! Who knows what twists and turns might be revealed in the days ahead :-) At this point, as far as I know, IEC have not responded to Watts’ request for confirmation that they conducted this so-called “investigation”.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn – if/when they do respond – that they have done so with something along the lines of “For confidentiality reasons, we do not disclose, confirm or deny the names of any of our clients and/or sub-contractors and/or the specific service(s) IEC might have provided directly or via sub-contract”.

Prophets of doom forecasting gloom … while Gleick re-enters his room

Oh, well … another day, another decision by the CBC to engage in the practice of mediocre reporting characterized by the likes of the U.K. Guardian‘s Suzanne Goldenberg: that of making claims without providing a link to their alleged source, so that the reader may verify the validity of the reporter’s (misbegotten?!) perceptions and/or willful misperceptions.

In an article today, the CBC’s Kazi Stastna reports:

World’s environmental outlook grim, UN warns

Little progress made on goals set by nations

Two weeks before the start of a global conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janiero, the United Nations is warning that progress has stalled on key environmental goals the world’s nations have set for themselves, like tackling climate change, combating desertification and protecting biodiversity.

“The world continues to speed down an unsustainable path despite over 500 internationally agreed goals and objectives to support the sustainable management of the environment and improve human well-being,” the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) said when it released its Global Environmental Outlook Wednesday.

[...]

Once again, the CBC chooses to pepper its article with links, but none to the apparent source of the relevant details from which their reporter appears to have churned the quotes.

The UNEP, of course, has been a prime promulgator (if not creator) of scary stories since 1972; so I would expect no less of any report issued under their auspices – or that of any of the ever-increasing multitude of acronymic offspring they have spawned.

For the record, the UNEP’s headline, subhead and opening paragraphs:

World Remains on Unsustainable Track Despite Hundreds of Internationally Agreed Goals and Objectives

Ambitious Set of Sustainability Targets Can be Met, But Only with Renewed Commitment and Rapid Scaling-Up of Successful Policies

Rio, 6 June 2012 – The world continues to speed down an unsustainable path despite over 500 internationally agreed goals and objectives to support the sustainable management of the environment and improve human wellbeing, according to a new and wide-ranging assessment coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The fifth edition of the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5), launched on the eve of the Rio+20 Summit, assessed 90 of the most-important environmental goals and objectives and found that significant progress had only been made in four.

But speaking of the UNEP and the GEO … have you ever noticed that there is virtually no report issued under its auspices which it has not described as the “most authoritative”? This one is no exception. From the “Notes to Editors” of this particular press release:

Global Environment Outlook (GEO-5) is the most authoritative assessment of the state, trends and outlook of the global environment. The report was produced over three years in a process that involved more than six hundred experts worldwide, who collated and analyzed data from every continent to build up a detailed picture of the world’s wellbeing.

It’s almost as if the UNEP’s PR writer works with a fill-in-the-blanks one-size-fits-all-reports template! And for this, I’m sure s/he gets paid big bucks (which come from our pockets!). Oh, wait a minute … a little further down in this brief section I find:

For more information, please contact:

In Brazil:

Nick Nuttall, Spokesperson and Acting Director, UNEP Division of Communication and Public Information [contact details -hro]

Hmmm … Nick Nutall … now that name rings a very familiar bell! Oh, yes, I remember now! I’ve actually had some correspondence with him. Cheerful chap (particularly considering that he’s so closely aligned with an organization whose core business is the spreading of doom and gloom); but, sad to say, not well-informed – or informative. So good luck with getting “more information” from Nutall. Your chances of success are about as likely as Steve McIntyre’s recent efforts to obtain data from Joelle Gergis regarding her latest and greatest contribution to the annals of “climate science”.

But I digress … back to the Guardian‘s Goldenberg and her contributions to the world of “informed” reporting. Readers might recall that back in February, Goldenberg was one of the first off the mark to report as “fact” that which she had not – in fact – fact-checked. She seems to be an ardent fan and supporter of the notorious Peter Gleick (whose previous claim to fame was that of “reviewing” a book which he clearly had not read).

Goldenberg’s most recent venture into the realm of non-fact-checked “reporting” occurred last month when she published a column announcing the rehabilitation of Gleick while cleverly recyling his most serious unsubstantiated self-exculpatory myths and memes.

Turns out that Goldenberg’s May 21 “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t, now-you-do” article – as documented by Anthony Watts at WUWT – was remarkably prescient. Although definitely written well before its time, as Gleick’s Pacific Institute confirmed announced in a press release today:

June 6 , 2012

PACIFIC INSTITUTE BOARD OF DIRECTORS STATEMENT

The Pacific Institute is pleased to welcome Dr. Peter Gleick back to his position as president of the Institute. An independent review conducted by outside counsel on behalf of the Institute has supported what Dr. Gleick has stated publicly regarding his interaction with the Heartland Institute. This independent investigation has further confirmed and the Pacific Institute is satisfied that none of its staff knew of or was involved in any way.
[...]

There was no mention whatsoever in this press release of any findings pertaining to the rather crucial aspect of Gleick’s “confession” – his involvement in the promulgation of an obviously faked “memo”. But perhaps in their wisdom (or that of their “in memoriam” Advisory Board member, the long departed bully and smear-artist par excellence, Stephen Schneider [h/t Donna Laframboise]), they determined that there was no need for them to do so: Goldenberg had very conveniently muddied the waters – and already did it for them on May 21!

Come to think of it … for all we know, Goldenberg may have taken a leaf out of Neil Wallis‘ book and/or might have been the “independent outside … counsel” on whose “report” the Institute decided to rely.

Certainly the Pacific Institute’s “press contact” was no more forthcoming (or informative!) than the UNEP’s Nick Nutall, as Anthony Watts quickly discovered shortly after he wrote to ask the following questions:

1. What organization, law firm, or group conducted the investigation?

2. Why has that investigation not been made public?

The response from the designated “Press Room Contact”:

It was conducted by an independent professional investigation firm. The independent review conducted by outside counsel on behalf of the Pacific Institute has supported what Dr. Gleick stated publicly and has further confirmed and the Pacific Institute is satisfied that none of its staff knew of or was involved in any way. It will not be released because it is a confidential personnel matter. [emphasis added -hro]

How very, well, convenient, eh?! Knowing that Gleick had absolutely no compunctions about demanding – and subsequently illicitly acquiring and releasing – the confidential material (including “personnel matters”) of Heartland, am I the only one who sees the utter brazen hypocrisy of this rationalization by Gleick and his Institute?! Talk about chutzpah … Gleick surely deserves some kind of “award” for this blatant subversion of …ethics.

Maybe its time to call in the used car salesmen – in order to inject a note (however feint) of integrity into the fields of “climate science”, environmental advocacy and “reporting”.

The UN font of discord and disappointment

To anyone who has followed media coverage of the United Nations (UN) activities and pronouncements over the years – not to mention the UN’s own “official” documents – it will come as no surprise to learn that yet another UN sponsored conference has ended in “discord and disappointment”, as Fiona Harvey reports in the U.K. Guardian today:

Bonn climate talks end in discord and disappointment

Climate crisis is not caused by lack of options and solutions, but lack of political action, says Greenpeace spokeswoman

The latest round of international climate change talks finished on Friday in discord and disappointment, with some participants concerned that important progress made last year was being unpicked.

At the talks, countries were supposed to set out a workplan on negotiations that should result in a new global climate treaty, to be drafted by the end of 2015 and to come into force in 2020. But participants told the Guardian they were downbeat, disappointed and frustrated that the decision to work on a new treaty – reached after marathon late-running talks last December in Durban – was being questioned.

[...] Instead of a workplan for the next three years to achieve the objective of a new pact, governments have only managed to draw up a partial agenda. “It’s incredibly frustrating to have achieved so little,” said one developed country participant. “We’re stepping backwards, not forwards.”
[...]

As I’ve been following the IISD’s daily bulletins on these “talks”, I’ve been trying to recall anything “good” that has come out of any of the branches of this self-perpetuating bureaucratic maze in the last thirty years.

Any wars prevented? Nope. Any genuine progress on advancing human rights in countries in which they are conspicuously absent? Nope. I could go on, but it seems to me that the only “successes” one could conceivably attribute to the UN is the remarkable facility of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to spin scary stories and spawn commissions, committees – and, of course, convene conferences of convolution.

So this one was really no exception. Here’s how this two-week confab was billed on the conference website [text reformatted for ease of reading -hro]:

The 36th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA),

the fifteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA),

the seventeenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and

the first session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP)

takes place concurrently from 14 to 25 May.

Talk about a three-ring circus, eh?!

The format of the IISD daily bulletins is interesting. At the end of the bulletin – each of which is packed with so much jargon and so many abstruse acronyms, it would take hours to “translate” into comprehensible English – is a section called “In the corridors”. Here’s what they had to say about the May 24 discussions:

Efforts continued on Thursday to bring the ADP out of the “deadlock.” With parties reluctant to set a precedent of voting, the COP 17 Presidency resumed consultations on the ADP chairing arrangements. Last ditch efforts were also made to reach agreement on the ADP agenda. The ADP plenary, originally scheduled for the evening, eventually disappeared from the meeting schedule as informal consultations around the ADP continued into the evening.

After 9 pm, a group of relieved delegates emerged and reported that agreement on the ADP agenda had been reached. Moments later, rumors began to circulate that agreement had also been reached on the ADP’s chairing arrangements.

Meanwhile, the AWG-LCA closing plenary was delayed until past 10:30 pm pending “brief” informal consultations inside the plenary hall on mitigation workshops.

While many apparently tired delegates welcomed the opportunity to get some rest before the ADP, SBI and SBSTA closing plenaries on Friday, some expressed hope that the delay would not “unravel” the “hard-won” agreement reached under the ADP. [emphasis added -hro]

Voting would “set a precedent”?! Seems that in the UN-iverse, “consultations” ad infinitum and ad nauseam are superior to the democratic process of “voting”. Perhaps this is how they “forge consensus”. Take your pick as to which meaning of “forge” is the most appropriate!

But back to the Guardian‘s coverage … As I have reported in the past (for example here, here and here), the so-called “journalists” at this enviro-advocacy-tainted newspaper do not have a reputation for fact-checking prior to publication (or for correcting their errors promptly).

Harvey’s contribution, today, has more of a ring of truth to it than can be found in, for example, anything written by Suzanne Goldenberg whose recent efforts to “rehabilitate” the now notorious Peter Gleick – while recycling the myths and memes of the fake memo she had rushed to publish without verifying its provenance and authenticity – have done little to enhance the credibility of anything she might write (or “churn”, as the case may be).

Yet, in keeping with the Guardian‘s adherence to the green party-line, Harvey gives “top billing” and the last words to Greenpeace – preceded by an opening act parting-shot, so to speak, from Oxfam:

Celine Charveriat, advocacy and campaigns director at Oxfam, said: “No progress was made to deliver the financial support that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable need to deal with the growing impacts of climate change. It is now vital that, at the next UN climate summit in Qatar in November, rich countries commit to an initial US$10-15bn to the Green Climate Fund between 2013 and 2015, as part of a broader financial package.

“At a time when ambitious emission reductions are more urgent than ever, developed countries in Bonn made no progress to close the gap between current climate targets and what is required to avoid the worst of climate change. Developed countries must improve on their current low level of ambition and accept higher reduction targets no later than at the Qatar summit.”

Tove Maria Ryding, coordinator for climate policy at Greenpeace International, said: “Here in Bonn we’ve clearly seen that the climate crisis is not caused by lack of options and solutions, but lack of political action. It’s absurd to watch governments sit and point fingers and fight like little kids while the scientists explain about the terrifying impacts of climate change and the fact that we have all the technology we need to solve the problem while creating new green jobs.”

Discord and disappointment, indeed! And (as I shall show in a post I hope to finish writing this weekend!), from the UN Secretary-General’s perspective, it would seem that – as the old song goes – ‘that’s the way [he] likes it”!

Of ethics, forests and fuelling fury: the CBC in action

[Please see UPDATE at end of this post -hro]

Canada’s “national” broadcaster, the CBC. used to have a reputation for excellent journalism. This was in the days of the late Barbara Frum who once said:

I hate falseness…I hate a lie – the big ones as well as the little tiny ones…and that really fuels me.

Yet, particularly when it comes to matters environmental, the CBC long ago lost its moorings; its reports are guilty of both big and little lies – not necessarily of commission, but of omission. Consider the following which it picked up from Canadian Press (CP) today:

ForestEthics giving up charity status to take Tories on

Environmental group spearheaded campaign to get U.S. companies to boycott oilsands-derived fuel

An environmental group that angered the energy industry has given up its charitable status so it can take on the federal government.

ForestEthics, which spearheaded campaigns to get U.S. companies to avoid oilsands-derived fuel, is splitting into two in response to Ottawa’s crackdown on charitable groups in the recent budget.

One half will continue conservation work and remain a charity, but the other will no longer offer tax receipts and will focus its efforts on what it calls Conservative attacks on the environment.

Neither group will be associated with Tides Canada, a charitable umbrella group.

The move “shows our resolve in this very hostile climate to continue the work that we feel Canadians actually want,” said Valerie Langer, who will head ForestEthics Solutions, which will remain a charity.

[...]

Civil rights lawyer Clayton Ruby, who will help lead the other group called ForestEthics Advocacy, said the Harper government has started a “relentless” attack on the environment and environmental groups,

[...]

ForestEthics has also worked to get people to sign up to address a National Energy Board review currently underway into Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline between Alberta and Kitimat, B.C. More than 4,000 people have asked to appear.

There are some links in the above article: five to other CBC stories and not a single one to ForestEthics.org. Yet the reader is left with the distinct impression that ForestEthics is a Canadian charitable organization. Well, one of its three offices does have a Vancouver, BC address [350-163 Hastings Street W]; but the other two are in the US.

I’m not sure if it’s coincidence or convenience that 163 Hastings Street W. also happens to be the address known to Canada Revenue Agency as the home of the TIDES CANADA INITIATIVES SOCIETY as well as the TIDES CANADA CENTRE SOCIETY and TIDES CANADA FOUNDATION. The latter of which is the only one which lists a website – where one finds an April 17 press release indicating that:

Tides Canada supports the reinvention of ForestEthics in Canada

VANCOUVER – Tides Canada today affirmed its support for ForestEthics Canada in splitting away from the Tides Canada family and reorganizing itself into two new independent entities.

“We are proud of the work that ForestEthics Canada has done since it joined the Tides Canada family eight years ago,” said Ross McMillan, President and CEO [of Tides Canada -hro].

“As a project of Tides Canada, ForestEthics Canada has played critical roles in both the Great Bear Rainforest and Canadian Boreal Forest agreements—two landmark conservation initiatives that Tides Canada continues to support along with government, industry and First Nations,” added McMillan.
[...]

I’m not sure how one goes about “reinventing” something that, for all intents and purposes, never was!

There is no indication that ForestEthics.org is registered as a Canadian charitable organization. Not unlike Peter Gleick’s pet project, it does have US charitable status – at least according to its website [backup link]. But, to ForestEthics credit, it does indicate that:

ForestEthics is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization incorporated under the laws of the State of California in 1999. In Canada, ForestEthics is a project of Tides Canada Initiatives who have full governing, legal, and fiduciary responsibility for the project.

Notwithstanding the “project” status of this non-entity – sometimes known as “ForestEthics Canada” – in the process of “reinventing” itself, Valerie Langer (mentioned in the CBC article above) is listed as “Director of BC Forest Campaigns, ForestEthics Solutions” on the ForestEthics.org staff page [backup link]. I’m sure her degree in Semiotics makes her eminently qualified for the semantics games being deployed in the marketing of this “reinvention” story.

Someone certainly managed to convince well-known criminal defence lawyer, Clayton Ruby of the worthiness of “the cause”. Then again, Ruby is Chair of the Board of Directors of “Earthroots” (yet another green advocacy organization) whose “Community Affiliations [include] Board Member, Greenpeace Canada; Advisory Board Member, Ecojustice”.

It may or may not be worth noting that “Earthroots Fund” and “Ecojustice Canada Society” were both beneficiaries of largesse from Tides Canada according to their 2010 Annual Report (pdf p. 17)

This same Annual Report indicates (p. 14) that:

Tides Canada Initiatives (TCI) is home to 40 of Canada’s leading social change initiatives. As an operating charity, TCI has pioneered a shared governance and administrative platform to support initiatives and collaborations that advance our mission. We take care of financial transactions, contracts, and human resource needs, allowing the leaders of these initiatives to drive real-world change without the administrative challenges of managing a stand-alone charity

How very kind of TCI, eh? The non-entity sometimes known as “ForestEthics Canada” is listed as one of these “Initiatives”. But certainly the CBC didn’t seem to think that any of this was worth noting while ensuring that the article focussed on the non-entity rather than the questionable source of its funding.

I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe that the CBC has reported on the recent Angus Reid poll which indicates that – contrary to Langer’s claim regarding what they “feel Canadians actually want” – there is:

High support for requiring charities to provide more information on their activities and foreign funding (80%) [emphasis added -hro]

As for the questionable activities and funding of Tides Canada which CBC (and, it would seem, Clayton Ruby) would prefer that we not concern ourselves with, be sure to check out the excellent investigative work of Vivian Krause.

I do look forward to the CBC (or Clayton Ruby) explaining how a non-existent organization can “give up” a “status” it never had!

In the meantime, no doubt we can continue to count on the CBC to fuel the fury of its readers with its lies of omission: such biased and deceptive story-lines will ensure that many readers are likely to miss the forest surrounding the transplanted cross-border tree branches that Tides washes up on our shores.

UPDATE 04/20/2012 02:40 PM PDT: On a related note, Vivian Krause has an excellent piece in yesterday’s Financial Post in which she discusses David Suzuki’s funding. (As Donna Laframboise has documented, Suzuki is no stranger to the game of smoke and mirrors being played by the likes of Langer and Ruby)

Vivian Krause: Suzuki’s funding

On top of the U.S. funding that the David Suzuki Foundation has received directly from U.S. foundations, the foundation has also received U.S. money indirectly through Tides Canada.

For example, in 2008 Tides Canada granted $377,586 to Suzuki’s foundation. That money originated from the [US Gordon and Betty] Moore foundation, which has granted at least $92-million to BC. environmental organizations, including $32-million to Tides Canada. [h/t Clipe via comment at WUWT]

Introducing … the UN’s jolly green sustainable hockey stick

The blogger Autonomous Mind had an interesting – but disturbing – essay a few days ago, “Forget climate change, we must focus on the real issue”, in which he concludes:

No matter what the ‘science’ reveals and how much it is debunked, there will always be another line of attack from the sustainability playbook to further the political – and dare I say economic corporatist – agenda. This is where the battle needs to be fought, not in the theatre of carbon dioxide emissions, raw and adjusted data or fractions of a degree of temperature change. [emphasis added - hro]

I’m not entirely sure about the “corporatist” agenda. No question that there has been no shortage of Johnny-come-lately opportunists and shady operators on the corporate side. But surely not all corporations are bad – and without them there would be far fewer jobs, and more people without jobs means far less disposable income to keep the economy going

That aside, I definitely agree that we need to brace ourselves for another line of attack from the “sustainability playbook”. There are already a number of indications that the jargon is shifting (being reframed for the umpteenth time?!)

It was all laid out so warmly and fuzzily in the UN’s Agenda 21 – more than 20 years ago.

In 1987 Gro Harlem Bruntland, Maurice Strong et al coined the “official term” of “sustainable development” – and its “three pillars”. This gave rise to the not necessarily alarming at the time:

Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. [Source]

Agenda 21, so we’re told, was adopted by all the nations of the world 20 years ago in Rio at the first “Earth Summit”. Reading through the bromides and bureaucratese in this document is enough to make one fall asleep – which may well have been the intent when it was written :-)

But here we are, en route to Rio+20, and – as I had noted about a month ago – there’s now a “High Level Panel” UN document on the table that unashamedly declares:

The peoples of the world will simply not tolerate continued environmental devastation or the persistent inequality which offends deeply held universal principles of social justice.
[...]
Achieving sustainability requires us to transform the global economy.
[...]

I’ve never been a believer in the conspiracy theory of history. But …I have to admit that there have been days when I’ve wondered if the whole climate change “controversy” (for want of a better word) has been fostered (if not allowed to fester) in order to distract our attention – just in case anyone with any common sense and influence should wake up and see what we’re being lulled (or bullied!) into accepting!

Consider the circus that has evolved thanks to the big players in the “climate change game” – particularly in the past few years. Certainly the recent antics of Peter Gleick and Michael Mann, along with the highly risible nonsense that passes for “journalism” in the MSM can only be described as a three-ring circus!

Meanwhile the United Nations continues adding branches and shrubbery to its merry maze, spawning acronymic panels, working groups, committees and cultivating and enabling the influence of Non-governmental organizations (NGO)s – whom they call “civil society”. I’m not sure where that leaves the rest of us whose organizational affiliations might not lead to membership in one of the “chosen” (?!) groups. Indeed, one might well ask: “What am I, chopped liver?”

Within the maze (and there’s no other way to describe it because the multiplicity of UN websites makes it almost impossible to determine the “chain of command”), there’s a Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) which has an “Office for Economic and Social Council Support and Coordination” (ECOSOC) – or maybe it’s the other way around. But in any event, there is an “NGO Branch” – here’s a link to an org chart, if you’re curious!

The NGO Branch does have a very pretty banner:

I hope you noticed the very friendly slogan at the top of this banner. Just in case you missed it, the message to the NGOs is … drum-roll please … “Welcome to the United Nations. It’s your world.” (emphasis added -hro)

They have a lovely glossy 49 page brochure, written in a close approximation of “plain English”. Quite a refreshing change from the plethora of other UN docs I’ve slogged through during the past few years! Lots of pretty pictures, too. No walls of words for this elite group!

A little background and context from this glossy brochure (all emphases are mine -hro):

NGOs contribute to a number of activities including information dissemination, awareness raising, development education, policy advocacy, joint operational projects, participation in intergovernmental processes and in the contribution of services and technical expertise.

[...]

Article 71 of the UN Charter opened the door to provide suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations.

And in case you’re curious, here’s the rather wide doorway – which, considering the bios of some of the UN’s top honchos, might well be the frame of a “revolving door”, come to think of it – provided by Article 71:

The Economic and Social Council [ECOSOC] may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned.

It also appears as though in 1996, for some reason, it was determined that the door might not have been quite as open as it could be. The following suggests that in response to this concern, ECOSOC acted as follows:

This accreditation framework benefits both the United Nations and the NGOs. As stated by resolution 1996/31 on the “Consultative relationship between the United Nations and non-governmental organizations,”

“… Consultative arrangements are to be made, on the one hand, for the purpose of enabling the Council or one of its bodies to secure expert information or advice from organizations having special competence in the subjects for which consultative arrangements are made, and, on the other hand, to enable international, regional, sub-regional and national organizations that represent important elements of public opinion to express their views.”

— ECOSOC resolution 1996/31, part II, paragraph 20

Oh, well …Once an NGO is in the door accredited, it can:

participate in a number of events, including, but not limited to, the regular sessions� of ECOSOC, its functional commissions [pls. see below -hro] and its other subsidiary bodies. [... An NGO] may:

• Attend official meetings;
• Submit written statements prior to sessions;
• Make oral statements;
• Meet official government delegations and other NGO representatives;
• Organize and attend parallel events that take place during the session;
• Participate in debates, interactive dialogues, panel discussions and informal meetings.

What fun, eh? But only for representatives of the 3,523 (make that 3,421, because there are 102 NGOs under suspension – because they haven’t filed their “quadrennial reports”. Naughty, naughty NGOs!).

Here’s a big picture for you:

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

My thanks to Peter Bobroff, the wizard behind AccessIPCC, who very kindly extracted the data from ECOSOC’s “official list” for me. At this point, please consider our data – and this analysis – to be preliminary and subject to further refinement.

So, in 1946, four NGOs were granted “consultative status”. Between then and 2011, there were six years during which no NGOs were accredited: 1958, 1965, 1968, 1982, 1988 and 1992. Although it is within the realm of possibility that during each of these years a number of NGOs – who acquired their accreditation by virtue of their affiliation with other “UN agencies or bodies” – were added. The total of such NGOs, as of Nov. 2011, was 412.

Needless to say, not all NGOs are accredited equally; this “consultative status” is a creation of the UN, after all:

General, Special and Roster status

There are three categories of status: General consultative status, Special consultative status and Roster status.

General consultative status is reserved for large international NGOs whose area of work coversmost of the issues on the agenda of ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies. These tend to be fairly large,established international NGOs with a broad geographical reach.

Special consultative status is granted to NGOs which have a special competence in, and are concerned specifically with, only a few of the fields of activity covered by the ECOSOC.These NGOs tend to be smaller and more recently established.

Organizations that apply for consultative status but do not fit in any of the other categories are usually included in the Roster. These NGOs tend to have a rather narrow and/or technical focus. NGOs that have formal status with other UN bodies or specialized agencies (FAO, ILO, UNCTAD,UNESCO, UNIDO, WHO and others), can be included on the ECOSOC Roster. The roster lists NGOs that ECOSOC or the UN Secretary-General considers can make “occasional and useful contributionsto the work of the Council or its subsidiary bodies.” Source [emphasis added -hro]

In typical UN “transparency” fashion, even though 2300+ NGOs are in the “Special consultative status” category, there is no indication of the “special competence” or “fields of activity” which got them through the open door! Although, to be fair, there is an online database which may provide such details for each agency, but I have not yet succeeded in persuading the database to yield any response to my query attempts.

Nor, as far as I have been able to determine, is there any restriction placed on their participation in whatever sphere of UN endeavour their little hearts desire:

Participation in International Conferences

Non-governmental organizations in general consultative status, special consultative status and on the Roster, that express their wish to attend the relevant international conferences convened by the United Nations and the meetings of the preparatory bodies of the said conferences shall as a rule be accredited for participation. Other non-governmental organizations wishing to be accredited may apply to the secretariat of the conference for this purpose.

But I digress … back to the glossy brochure …

So what are these “functional commissions“? The first one listed is:

The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)

The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED — also known as the Earth Summit), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where world leaders signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity; endorsed the Rio Declaration and the Forest Principles; and adopted Agenda 21, a 300-page plan for achieving sustainable development in the twenty-first century.

[...]focusing on clusters of specific thematic and cross-sectoral issues. The CSD encourages broad NGO participation.

Now there’s a familiar sounding bell: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), according to Rajendra Pachauri, the UNFCCC is the “primary client” of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Interesting, eh?

Other “functional commissions” include the Commission on the Status of Women, the Human Rights Council (and we know how well that’s been working for the last twenty years) – and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

And I’m sure you’ll be as thrilled as I am to learn that one of Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice’s “mandated priority areas” is:

Promoting the role of criminal law in protecting the environment

Certainly makes one wonder: did this inspire Polly Higgins’ “ecocide” campaign? Or did Higgins inspire the Commission?

While you ponder that chicken and egg question … take another look at that hockey stick above, folks! I know that correlation does not equal causation. But consider the following:

• prior to 1995, only 574 NGOs (plus an unknown number of NGOs whose year of accreditation is unknown) had made it through the open door. 1993 was the best year ever – at that point. 47 NGOs received accreditation
• between 1995 and 2011, 2,534 NGOs made it through the door. 2011 became the best year ever: 262 NGOs received accreditation, of which 258 were granted “Special consultative status”
• each accredited NGO on the “roster” is permitted to have 7 “passes” per year

Perhaps the significant, observable increase in the number of NGOs ensconced in the shrubbery of the UN’s maze is the primary “forcing” of “human-caused global warming” deemed to be a serious threat to the future of our planet. I would expect that they might be generating an awful lot of hot air (and CO2, of course).

I wonder how one might test such an hypothesis … hmmm ….Clearly, further research is required ;-)