With ‘ClimateGate,’ some Republicans embrace thug politics
New Republican heroes?
As much as climatologists in America may have hoped the ‘ClimateGate’ scandal would go away during the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s here to stay. To recap: 160 MB of e-mails and documents (access them here) were stolen from servers at the University of East Anglia, a British school that hosts the Climate Research Unit. The unit’s climatologists have played a powerful role in shaping the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which document the established scientific consensus in favor of the existence of human-caused climate change, or ‘global warming’ as our dumbed-down media calls it.
Conservatives who deny the existence of climate change, much as they denied the harmful health impacts of cigarettes in an earlier era, are falling all over themselves. Noisily, they declare, the science is bunk, there is no climate change, and we should not pass the ‘cap and trade’ greenhouse emission reduction policy that is favored by many in our Democratic Congress. Some are going as far as to call for the criminal prosecution of the scientists named in the stolen CRU e-mails.
I’m not a fan of cap and trade as a policy, but what’s going on in the ‘ClimateGate’ controversy is worth noting because of the careful effort on the part of the climate change deniers to also cover up the criminal manner in which their bounty of ‘evidence’ was acquired.
In the setting of criminal law, you would refer to the ‘ClimateGate’ e-mails as ‘fruit of the forbidden tree,’ the legal principle that says that if evidence of a misdeed is acquired by means of an illegal act, it’s inadmissible in court. While we’re not dealing with criminal law here, but politics, you’d think that the ‘ClimateGate’-criers might at least acknowledge that their new blunderbuss was gained through a criminal act. They haven’t done so. Instead, they’re trying to cover up the fact that criminal hackers penetrated a secure university computer network and selectively published information they stole from these servers.
Take Kim Strassel’s column in today’s Wall Street Journal, which is being held up as evidence that ‘Cap and Trade is dead’:
The more than 3,000 emails and documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have found their way to the Internet have blown the lid off the “science” of manmade global warming.
‘Found their way’ is of course a complete lie. The e-mails were stolen by hackers. Strassel won’t even add the asterisk to her column that she’s crowing about something that was gained by way of the activities of criminals.
Or take Jed Babbin, the Washington Times Radio interviewer who on his program recently hosted Senator Jim Inhofe, the climate change-denying and birther-embracing Republican from Oklahoma who is the ranking minority member on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. On the program, Babbin described the stolen e-mails in the following manner:
Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven’t followed that story, what Senator Inhofe’s talking about, in Britain, a blogger got into some of the official government records about climate change and how the measurements were being taken to show…
Melanie Morgan: And the politics behind it.
Jed Babbin: And the – well but they were basically saying, “Oh yea, hey, let’s make it look like Jim so-and-so did that, and let’s help him cook the books, and let’s change the data…”
Again, another bald lie by a climate change denier. A ‘blogger’ did not ‘get into’ ‘official government records.’ A hacker broke into a secure university system, stole, and distributed these e-mails and files.
What’s worse than Strassel or Babbin’s lies about how the climatologists’ exchanges were stolen was the way Senator Inhofe went on during Babbin’s program condone the criminal actions that have resulted in ‘ClimateGate.’ Please, read the following statement from Inhofe and tell me that this doesn’t sound as though he is saluting the cyber criminals who broke into a secure system in order to help him out politically:
Senator Inhofe: Well, I don’t know how you do that, though, ‘cause we’re not the ones that are calling the shots. The interesting part of this is it’s happening right before Copenhagen. And, so, the timing couldn’t be better. Whoever is on the ball in Great Britain, their time was good.
The people who are ‘on the ball,’ of course, are criminals. Senator Inhofe really seems to appreciate the acts of the criminals who hacked into a computer network and published information that helps him push his extreme, minority-viewpoint that climate change does not exist. Senator Inhofe is celebrating not some ‘Deep Throat’-like whistleblower, fearful for the survival of our democracy. Instead, he’s cheering on cyber criminals who are more like ‘the Plumbers,’ the crooks who helped Richard Nixon’s Republican political machine systematically dismantle any Democratic opposition he might face.
Of course, at this stage of poisonous partisan warfare in American life, we probably shouldn’t be surprised that a powerful Senator would endorse criminal means in order to advance his narrow political agenda. Inhofe is backed up by people like Andrew Breitbart whose BigGovernment.com is under investigation in two states for surreptitiously taping staff from the national non-profit organization ACORN. And then of course there is the mother of ‘forbidden fruit’ in American politics in the past decade – the confessions to terrorist conspiracies secured from alleged Al Qaida members as a result of acts of torture. Just as the ‘ClimateGate’ screechers are trying to cover up the crime that resulted in their acquisition of the e-mails they are building their case upon, the Bush Justice Department conveniently re-defined acts of torture as ‘enhanced interrogations,’ ignoring generations of case law in order to do so.
Crime begets crime, and ‘ClimateGate’ is the same song, different verse.
Ultimately, this lemon of a charge needs to be turned into lemonade. The e-mails do not prove that climate change is a hoax. Nate Silver offers a measured explanation of why the climate change reports of the IPCC are not a fraud, and Kevin Trenberth of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research showed the AP on Monday how the e-mails were published selectively and actually demonstrate the integrity of the scientists in question:
Trenberth said he’s identified 102 e-mails stolen from a British university’s computer server. Hackers distributed only documents that could help attempts by skeptics to undermine the scientific consensus on man-made climate change.
Many of the exchanges were between him and Phil Jones, the British research center’s director. The two men worked on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, which articulated the scientific community’s consensus on global warming in 2001 and 2007.
“What you see in those e-mails are exchanges among a whole bunch of scientists on issues,” Trenberth said. “What you will find is that there is a tremendous amount of integrity, vigorous discussion about issues and exactly how to handle issues… So it’s far from a whole bunch of scientists agreeing and colluding to do things. They’re actually arguing, vigorously, about the science.”
Trenberth, a well-respected atmospheric scientist, said it did not appear that all the documents stolen from the university had been distributed on the Internet by the hackers.
With Trenberth’s take on ‘ClimateGate’ in mind, I think that climatologists should get ready to fight back strongly against the idea that the stolen e-mails (not the leaked e-mails) are some akin to President Clinton’s ‘blue dress moment.’ They should assent to a thorough investigation by the US Senate of their statements in private e-mails and how they relate to the credible science underlying the IPCC’s findings. And, just as importantly, they should insist that any investigation of their scientific work include a probe into how their files were stolen, and who helped distribute them in the first place.
Then we’ll find out who the real criminals are.
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This is an interesting read, like so many of the others who claim the sky is falling. I’ve read through the e-mails released as well as some of the code released. Here is a non-partisan bottom line: The e-mails reveal a concerted attempt to cover up factual data that the warmist community did not want the public to have.
In other words, like most liberal politics, “do what we say, we know what’s best for you.”
The e-mails and code also revealed that warming has not happened for the past 11 years and none of the scientists in question can figure out why.
The emails also revealed that the scientists were doing colluding on this issue to continue riding the gravy train of UN and government grants.
And those are indisputable facts. Those things that I mentioned above are not in question. Anyone with a high school education can then simply interpret, without affectation or hyperbole, that at very least, the scientists don’t really have a clue as to why the earth does what it does. This, of course, explains why weather forecasts are so notoriously wrong–they cannot tell what’s happening tomorrow let alone what will happen 10 years from now.
So, in essence, what you’ve written here is faith based. I don’t know your religious leanings nor do I judge them. Each person has a right to believe what they want. What they–and by extension you–don’t have a right to do is tax me, take my money and tell me to change my lightbulbs when, at very minimum, you–nor any of the learned scientists in question have any idea of what’s happening to the earth and its temperatures.
Mr. Storer,
You wrote” “The e-mails reveal a concerted attempt to cover up factual data that the warmist community did not want the public to have.”
No one actually knows that since we don’t know that these emails were not altered after they were stolen. We also do not know the full context of these emails, we do not the difference between the number of emails that exist, the number stolen, and the number released by the thieves. What might look to you like evidence might, the full context of all emails, might not.
These emails in no way challenge the existing science. The authors appear to be making an attempt to prevent the publication of scientific papers they do not consider worthy of publication. This is what the “peer-review” process is supposed to achieve.
This is all smoke and no fire.
In response to another comment. See in context »For starters, you’re not even addressing the fact that deniers of climate change have resorted to criminal acts or the endorsement of criminal acts by others in order to accomplish their political goals. That’s more than ‘interesting.’
Ayways, you’re right: I don’t have a right to tax anyone. Our fairly elected government can attempt to pass a policy, and if that policy is universally reviled by the people who elected that government, they can elect another government to repeal it. No proposed policy for limiting greenhouse gas emissions is in any way a violation of your ‘rights’ as an American citizen. The current approach, cap and trade, is not one I think is a good idea. But there’s nothing about it that would bend your rights if Congress passed a law, the President signed that law law, and the Courts upheld the law against any legal challenges.
Second, the climatologists don’t agree with you. Your conclusion that they’ve colluded to cover up scientific findings contrary to their theses on human-induced climate change is based on your interpretation of e-mails that were stolen and then leaked selectively to reinforce your pre-existing view that there is no such thing as climate change.
If the climatologists fail to get involved and support a probe that I suspect will ultimately find that they did not obscure data contrary to their overall findings, they’re asking for trouble.
Last, thanks for your shot about my ‘faith-based’ interpretation. I’m no climatologist, but over the years I’ve followed the debate over the climate change science with varying levels of intensity. I have found that most of the ‘climate change exists’ research makes more sense to me than the fossil fuel-industry backed doubters and deniers. That the latest ‘ClimateGate’ scandal is the result of an illegal act that climate change deniers are doggedly attempting to obscure reinforces my existing belief.
This article by Michael Roston is the best unconscious parody of attempts by the climate ’scientists’ to defend themselves I’ve seen so far. It equates the (alleged) fact that the emails, programs and data were hacked from the University with the (admitted) fact that some of the evidence against alleged terrorists was obtained by torture. Hacking is not a crime against humanity. A court should not use evidence produced by torture, but a journalist may use evidence obtained by hacking! From the reaction of the climate scientists, it is obvious that the emails, the data and the program code are genuine. It’s dynamite. There are many aspects of this scandal which will thoroughly discredit the top climate ’scientists’, but the most outrageous is this, from the director of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit: “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”. If you know ANYTHING about science, you know that is precisely what scientists do – they make the data available to EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY those who are trying to find something wrong with it. I am totally an environmentalist, but with friends like these…
Hello rodmclaughlin,
1) Can you testify that the emails shown on the internet are not completely manufactured or altered from those that had existed on the University of East Anglia servers?
2) Can you cite any statement in those alleged emails that challenges the existing science of global warming?
3) The science of global warming was developed about 120 years and has been he work of hundreds of scientists. How does the work of these scientists at University of East Anglia affect the interpretation of the work of the work done all over the world over the last century?
Despite the sound and fury of your posting, this tale told to us by you, signifies nothing.
In response to another comment. See in context »A court should not use evidence produced by torture, but a journalist may use evidence obtained by hacking!
Point taken, but hacked emails are “duressed” in their own way. I rely on hacked emails* to form an opinion on an issue the way I rely on information from any anonymous source, ie, pretty much not at all. There’s just no way to assess the integrity and the accuracy of the information and its context, and of course the info-dispenser has his own biases and motives.
*I’d also like to point out that someone sophisticated enough to hack into a secure system is likely sophisticated enough to plant incriminating material in the same system. I’m not saying that occurred in this situation, but cyber rat-fucking does occur.
In response to another comment. See in context »I think Dr. Jones reasoned that he couldn’t share the data in question because of intellectual property concerns first and foremost – from what I can tell, that e-mail has rarely been presented in its full context.
In any event, I agree – the climatologists circled the wagons way too much in response to the flood of phony FOIA requests they got slapped with. They need to consent in an investigation of this whole scandal in order to clear their names.
Last, you’ll notice that I’m not questioning that the e-mails say what they say in real life here – if other commenters want to do that, that’s their right. But I think they are being presented out of context, and more investigation will help to clear up the shadow they’re casting over the greenhouse gas emission reduction debate.
In response to another comment. See in context »What a classsic case of trying to change the base. The author tries to shift foucs off the real issue, which is the complete fraud of global warming, and instead tries to shift focus to another issue that of the manner in which this information was obtained. The author further tries to confuse the issue by reversing the roles of the participants. Senator Inhofe now “really seems to appreciate the acts of the criminals” “that helps him push his extreme, minority-viewpoint” and “he’s cheering on cyber criminals”. Amazingly this leads to a sideline on ACORN and torture, and to President Clinton. Nice try Mr Roston, but the issue of how the e-mails were obtained is important, but it has NO bearing on the substantive information that was revealed by them. What was revealed is that the entire global warming issue is a fraud and a lie. No effort on your part to try and take focus off that point, will overcome the reality that man made global warming is a complet and utter fraud and lie.
Hellojgates89,
You wrote:”…the issue of how the e-mails were obtained is important, but it has NO bearing on the substantive information that was revealed by them.” Ah but it has everything to do with it. There is no reason that the thieves in question did not alter the emails after they stole them, released only some but all of the stolen emails and suppressed others. This ‘evidence’ is hopelessly tainted.
In any event, can you yourself cite any statement in those alleged emails that challenges the existing science of global warming?
In response to another comment. See in context »First up JGates, I didn’t bring up the President Clinton thing, the National Review’s climate change denier on Planet Gore did.
Beyond that, other than re-stating what I said in fewer words for those with shorter attention spans, what are you saying? Yes, I am comparing the sly endorsement of using cyber crime to bust cap and trade with the Bush administration’s lie that ‘enhanced interrogation’ is not torture. Republicans can’t win national elections, so they have to rely on criminal activities in order to help advance their political agenda now. If that’s the side you want to get behind, you’re welcome to it.
Last the entire issue of climate change (not global warming) is not a fraud – some scientists circled the wagons in ways that are not productive to honest discourse, and as I said, they should consent to an investigation. By cooperating with a probe into how their e-mails relate to the underlying science, they will be able to prove what we already know – that unconstrained anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases will change planetary climate systems in ways that are not good for humans and many other species.
In response to another comment. See in context »All this shows is that scientists are people, just like the rest of us–that’s why we have methods and scientific procedures. Those who claim that potentially catastrophic human-caused climate change is NOT taking place are ignoring the results of those methods and procedures.
These stolen emails, even if they had been obtained legally, do nothing to change the basic science, however inconvenient.
We are not even sure if those emails were hacked,it’s more likely that someone at the institute was tired of the cover-up and released the emails clandestinely. Hacking is not right but neither is faking info that could affect not only the worlds economy but even the political make-up.Does global warming exist,possibly, the greater issue is WHY does it exist. There really has’nt been any honest debate just a rush by liberals to to say the “science is irrefutable” when now we see what has always been suspected that in fact the science is not irrefutable. Intellectual honesty is the real issue and not if someone hacked a computer or not. Had this been hacking a Pentagon computer during the Bush administration you would be calling the hackers “patriots”……………
OK, I’ve got my evidence, a statement from EAU that their system was hacked. Where’s yours?
And no, I’d never call cyber criminals ‘patriots’ in a constitutional democracy. It’d be one thing if George W. Bush was a tyrant, but he wasn’t. He was, eventually, elected by a majority of the American public.
In response to another comment. See in context »Have you really? I may have missed something but all the statements I have read say the emails were “stolen” with no further descriptive terms. The distinction is, of course, that “hacked” pretty much means an outsider was involved by definition but stolen leaves open the possiblity of the source being internal.
That said, you have a potentially valid point about the illegality of the means used to access the information. However, you shoot yourself in the foot repeatedly with your rhetoric.
First, with your reference to the “fruit of the poison tree” you seem to be unaware that the concept only applies to evidence acquired illegally by GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS. Evidence unlawfully obtained by a private person is admissible. Unless you think the FBI or Scotland Yard are behind this, you have completely missed the mark.
Second, you are ignoring a longstanding tradition (legal and otherwise) of support for whistleblowers and others who reveal information that exposes wrongdoing. Your sole potential valid point rests with what I must admit is a much greater acceptance of this concept by the political left than by conservatives. However, it then becomes you who slides down a slippery slope by condemning the source of the Climategate information, if you are among those leftists who supported the leaking or hacking of the Pentagon Papers, Sarah Palin’s yahoo account, or Norm Coleman’s donor list.
Lastly (and I say last only because it is the last point I have time to address – there are several more flaws in your argument), your hyperbole in reference to the use of torture to obtain information actually deflates your point about “thug” tactics. The comparison is so over the top that it almost has a Godwin’s Law flavor to it (first one to compare misdemeanors to torture automatically loses and the thread is ended)
Despite the clear differences in our opinions on AGW (and probably most other issues), we agree on one thing. The need for an immediate thorough and objective review of the emails, the CRU data, and the documents and codes used to develop their reports. But we go right back to disagreeing – on what that investigation would reveal. Let’s go for it!
In response to another comment. See in context »rrd, the EAU statement from their vice-chancellor explicitly states that it was a hack. It’s linked above, go have a read.
And I can’t understand why anyone brings up the Palin e-mail account hack. Then-Governor Palin’s e-mail was hacked by a teenager for shits and giggles. I am not aware of any instance in which Palin’s e-mails were used for political purposes by the Democratic National Committee, the Obama for America organization, or any credible organization that worked to help elect our current President.
In contrast, a major Senate Republican is calling for a highly charged investigation based on e-mails that came to him via criminal means.
And this is not at all like the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg was an identifiable whistleblower who was willing to risk jail time to publicly reveal what he saw as crimes against the Constitution by both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations. Whoever infiltrated EAU’s servers is operating in the shadows and won’t come out and identify themselves. If the EAU hacker is an insider, the United Kingdom provides a legal framework for his or her protection.
And Godwin’s Law be damned. ClimateGate screechers are trying their best to not even mention that their treasure trove of selected e-mails is the result of a criminal act, possibly a criminal conspiracy. That reminds me a lot of Dick Cheney and co.’s insane insistence that waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation methods’ did not amount to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment as defined by the Convention Against Torture which the United States ratified inthe 1990s. Or James O’Keefe’s declaration that ACORN were thugs and BigGovernment.com out-thugged them. The message is: we can’t win elections or Congressional votes in order to pursue our political agenda through traditional means, so crime is our last resort. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but that’s what has happened here.
In response to another comment. See in context »1) Re-read your own link. They use very careful PR speak to avoid ever saying that the CRU data was hacked – they use the word once in a vague allusion to other instances of secured information. Some lawyer somewhere made them use CYA language and probably for a good reason.
2) Ellsberg tried for almost 2 years to get the papers out covertly before leaking them to the NYT and going underground. Eventually, he decided to give himself up but not without trying very hard and very long to avoid going public. If the internet had been around back then, we would have never heard his name.
3) The point here is not at all that this makes me uncomfortable. Quite the contrary, it amuses me. If you can’t see the irony of a rabid leftist up in arms about a whistleblower sticking it to the man, crying about the rule of law, while a Republican senator uses the information to unleash the powers of a govenrment investigation, you have a serious failing in your sense of humor, sense of history, or both.
4) By the way, Republicans win national elections all the time – with much greater frequency than Dems. In my voting lifetime, Reps lead Dems 7 to 4 (you do realize that the presidency is the only national election we hold reularly). I think the probablity that this pattern will continue (very soon) is what has your panties in a wad these days – not the hacking of CRU
In response to another comment. See in context »We have found that EAU statements are not all that reliable so don’t be to sure of your “evidence”. We need to have this whole story investigated and find out what really happened. You are worried about how the info on the climate came out because it shakes up your liberal mindset when it comes to the climate. You can argue that until your blue in the face but you would’nt have written this article if it was’nt upsetting you that the info got out.There are all kinds of hacking going on all over the world daily and you have never reacted with such irritation. Let’s find out what the story is as regards these emails, do they show fraud ? do they show deliberate cover up of vital climate info ? do they show concerted effort to fudge the info to meet peoples agenda? who’s agenda and why ? We are talking about things that can profoundly affect the world future and you are ignoring the implications of these emails in order to accuse opponents of skullduggery. Well pal the skullduggery exists and it’s your climate change heroes that are apparently committing it…….
vesey, you’re right, it’s upsetting to me that climate change deniers are relying on criminal means to accomplish their extremist minority political goals. Your suggestion that a university official’s statement that his university’s servers were not hacked is not credible is pretty desperate.
And I’m not ignoring the implications of anything. I’m calling for a thorough investigation of these e-mails and how they relate to the underlying science behind the credible theory of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. However, that probe cannot happen without an investigation, including a possible criminal investigation, of how the e-mails and files first came to light. Would you have it any other way?
In response to another comment. See in context »You are not upset by “criminal means” you are upset that the truth about the climate scam is coming out. If you want an investigation of the emails then just say so. The way the emails became public would come out as a matter of course.Your anger should be over the deceptive practices of the scientist to push an agenda but you don’t say a word about that. You talk about “science denying senators” what about the emails by the scientists that deny their own science because it does’nt agree with their agenda?? You don’t need to reply to this email ,i’m tired of your silly whining about the mean old world of conservatives. Don’t send anymore emails to me i’ve blocked your address. Find something useful to do with your life……
Vesey, I’m calling out your comment because it’s hysterical. You’re writing comments on my blog on the website I work for, and asking me not to write you e-mails anymore. If this comment demonstrates your understanding of the Internet, I wonder what’s going on up in that brain of yours when it comes into reading up on the complicated science of climate change.
In response to another comment. See in context »The English language is the English language and the scientific method is the scientific method. Your pretense at not understanding the former is as obtuse as the CRU’s pretense at living up to the latter.
You people got owned. You were conned. The con ran so deep that even when you get slapped in the face with evidence of the con, you still cling to it like it was your mother nipple.
It’s kind of funny to watch all the AGW advocates scurry to come up with reasons to still buy into their lies. (And ‘buy’ is the right word; the carbon credit ponzi scheme that’s in the works stands to make a few very rich people a whole lot richer).
Nothing near a majority of the worlds people bought into your stories before this evidence came out. Even less will buy into it now.
Look who the new deniers are, all of a sudden.
If you actually read anything I wrote you’d know that I don’t favor cap and trade as a policy approach to limiting emissions of greenhouse gases. I agree, it’s a ponzi scheme! I also called for an investigation of of the e-mails, so I’m not sure who ‘you people’ are. Maybe you should try talking to them.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] I published my article Friday about the concerted effort of climate change deniers to cover up the criminal origins of the leaked [...]
[...] With ‘ClimateGate,’ Some Republicans Embrace Thug Politics [...]
[...] With ‘ClimateGate,’ Some Republicans Embrace Thug Politics [...]
Allow me just to ask a simple question of the author of the piece and those who support this position: When lefties have evidence of cover-up or manipulation, it’s called “whistle-blowing” yes? This was true when President Bush was in office and the New York Times ran an article that the admin. told them would possibly damage National Security. I believe Senator Boxer called hearings on it-and there was, of course, nothing there. But again–the left calls that “whistle blowing.”
When the right reveals something that the left has done, it’s “a crime” and “theft.” Sorry–you simply cannot have it both ways, no? The e-mails were hacked and that can technically, of course, be considered a crime. But it also revealed the truth about attempts to cover up what is a conspiracy. And that’s the best thing it is.
As for Mr. Roston’s assertion that deniers are “oil and carbon backed,” I’m just interested in your opinion as to what the “scientists” at the CRU are? They are “backed” in some cases up to 95% of their income, grants and all else, by the UN and the IPCC–whose entire stated mission was to “reveal the damage done by AGW.” Since that is the essence of the question–whether or not global warming is anthropogenic, and the IPCC has simply decided that it is—along with a LOT of politicians (Al Gore, I believe, was buying carbon credits from a company in which he owned stock).
Now–is that the definition of the pot and the kettle—or am I missing something?
Mark, forgive me for correcting several of your false assertions about the nature of the NSA surveillance programs.
For starters, the entire Justice Department leadership, the ones ushered in with John Ashcroft, nearly resigned over the Bush administration’s surveillance programs in 2004. Furthermore, the controversy prompted a massive legislative debate and substantial changes to the laws governing spying by the US intelligence community. Including blanket liability protections for telecommunications companies so they’d be protected from prosecution for previous law breaking they did on the governments’ behalf. That’s not what I’d call ‘nothing there.’
Second, Thomas Tamm, the whistleblower who started the whole investigation by the Times, first tried to go to DOJ staff and Members of Congress with his concerns, but was rebuffed. In spite of that, sadly, he still did not go through standard whistleblowing channels. And because he did not, he has been the subject of a major investigation on the part of the FBI. He may yet still be prosecuted. He acted knowing that he faced that risk.
Did whoever was rooting around in CRU’s servers put anything close to that on the line? No, they broke into a computer system, harvested files, and then dumped them on a series of blog comment threads much like this one, possibly frustrated with the fact that when a reporter, Paul Hudson at BBC News, received some of the e-mails, he had applied journalistic ethics and standards and didn’t just jump into the e-mail head on and start drawing conclusions.
That was a crime. Put that asterisk next to your ClimateGate. Because right now, manufacturers of conservative conventional wisdom are trying to deny that a crime occurred at all by inventing an imaginary CRU whistleblower who they can’t produce.
My opinion on the CRU people is that they’re not bought and paid for by massive energy corporations with a vested interest in denying climate change and proposed modifications to our energy economy that those companies currently monopolize with their 19th century technologies. Many of them draw university salaries that are underwritten by public funds. If their work were so biased and wrong, the GOP had close to 10 years in the majority of both houses of Congress in which they could have deeply probed their work and cut off the spigot. Fortunately for America, and the rest of the world, they did not. Fortunately for America, a lot of politicians, supported by the leadership of people like Al Gore who spent 20-plus years toiling in the public interest in Congress and the White House, agree that beginning a transition to a renewable energy economy is in our nation’s interest.
In response to another comment. See in context »Michael-I stand corrected. I apologize. I was referring to this piece by David Harsanyi(sp?)
“But surely there is time for some sort of investigation? This is, after all, the senator who ran a vital committee hearing in 2008 so that an Environmental Protection Agency whistle-blower, who accused the Bush administration of failing to address greenhouse gas emissions appropriately, could have his say.
Boxer’s rigid devotion to rule of law is also admirable. But this is the senator who championed the Military Whistleblower Protection Act and fought for whistle-blowing rights for defense contractor employees (to ferret out bureaucratic waste) and for nurses (to protect patients’ rights).
All of which sound like sensible protections for the truth-seeking citizen. Because taxpayers matter.”
Obviously, Mr. Harsanyi is in my camp on this. The point being–what my larger point was that I stupidly mis-paraphrased, if I may coin the term. I was referring to Mrs. Boxer’s call for this very stuff.
Look, I’m not your other comment-makers. You seem an affable chap and really, I’ve no reason to argue with you. I merely point out–and still come to the conclusion–that this is a huge scandal for the scientific community. If anything, it has undone the cause of understanding climate science, which is a truly complex bit of work. I’m no scientist—I know that. But I too have followed the debate, or what little there has been of one.
I’ve also followed the money and I contend simply that if you really assert that deniers are in big oil’s back pocket–or front for that matter, I can only say follow the money on the AGW side.
Aside from that–I’m not in big oil’s pockets. I’m a guy in California who writes articles about wine and general news stories for publications. But to take lightly–or dismiss–the revelation of these e-mails–is indeed to cling to a faith, and not a reasoning.
Let’s at least allow dissenting voices, yes?
Thanks again. I really do appreciate your writing and your time.
Mark, who’s taking this revelation lightly? This blog post argues that climatologists, “should assent to a thorough investigation by the US Senate of their statements in private e-mails and how they relate to the credible science underlying the IPCC’s findings.”
I subsequently dinged Senator Boxer for her “we may have a hearing, we may not have a hearing” statement, contrasting it with the University of East Anglia which has appointed an impartial civil servant to investigate the matter already.
At this point, I’m not so sure that Members of Congress and their staffs should be doing the investigating. Perhaps the inspectors general at NASA and NOAA or of some other relevant institution. Or, an independent, credible panel. I’m open to suggestion on how it should be done. But when that probe takes place, it needs to consider the results of the British criminal investigation into the source of the documents. And everyone who follows the ClimateGate controversy should note which of its propagators are saying the e-mails came from hackers and which say it came from an imaginary whistleblower. Intellectual honesty makes a difference.
In response to another comment. See in context »Sounds like we agree on the seriousness of the matter. Your article indeed makes that point. But, I simply don’t agree that it is the Republicans playing “thug politics.” If anything, it is the left who has used the issue of AGW, then “Climate change” and “climate crisis” to bludgeon the rest of us with.
An independent panel or NASA or NOAA investigation does seem the right thing to do. But the investigation shouldn’t be about the hacking-let the university worry about that. It should be about the scandalized scientists and their 95% funding coming from government bodies who, it turns out, they essentially extorted by telling them the sky was falling.
[...] of the hacked emails from CRU was praised as the act of a “whistleblower” by conservatives. “The timing couldn’t be better,” chortled Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). The original Watergate scandal began when right-wing [...]
[...] I published my article Friday about the concerted effort of climate change deniers to cover up the criminal origins of the leaked [...]
[...] Link Summaryhttp://www.grist.org/…-11-28-on-climategatehttp://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/http://www.research.p…ings_Mann_Inquiry.pdfhttp://www.scholarsan…cusations-shriveling/http://dotearth.blogs…lias-climate-lessons/http://www.guardian.c…ked-email-uea-inquiryhttp://www.grist.org/…long-live-climategatehttp://www.oig.doc.go…orts/2011/001688.htmlhttp://www.oig.doc.go…2.18_IG_to_Inhofe.pdfhttp://epw.senate.gov…af9-7bce-c09203f891dbhttp://trueslant.com/…hacked-stolen-leaked/http://online.wsj.com…?mod=rss_opinion_mainhttp://blogs.abcnews….ann-off-the-hook.htmlhttp://dotearth.blogs…07/gate-fever-breaks/http://wonkroom.think…limategate-watergate/http://www.grist.org/…something-much-largerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotologyhttp://crookedtimber….11/02/17/shibboleths/http://www.juliansanc…-the-end-of-distance/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibbolethhttp://www.grist.org/…ause-wired-extinctionhttp://www.grist.org/…her-to-global-warminghttp://www.grist.org/…-slashing-epa-funding [...]
[...] yet recall, the story began with a crime. Hackers pennyless into a East Anglia email complement and stole emails and documents, an bootleg advance of privacy. Yet according to The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel, a emails [...]
[...] I published my article Friday about the concerted effort of climate change deniers to cover up the criminal origins of the leaked [...]
[...] I published my article Friday about the concerted effort of climate change deniers to cover up the criminal origins of the leaked [...]
[...] I published my article Friday about the concerted effort of climate change deniers to cover up the criminal origins of the leaked [...]
Tucci: Publicly call for violence on my person once get ignored. Publicly call for violence on my person a second time, you get banned. Nice not getting to know you.
rrd, I’m starting to think that intellectual honesty comes at a price you can’t afford, just like the PR flacks and junk scientists who rely on fossil fuel industry financing to deny climate change. Trevor Davies of EAU stated outright in my link above:
You can toss out as many counter-factuals about people like Daniel Ellsworth as you want, but I’m going to rely on stated facts: someone penetrated the security of EAU’s computer servers and stole information that later became ‘FOIA2009.zip.’ If that’s the work of some EAU whistleblower, he and she can show him or herself and get showered millions of bucks by the same fossil fuel companies who fund the junk PR masquerading as science known as climate change doubt and denial. Until then, all we know is the stated on the line fact that a cyber criminal broke into private servers.
You know, from 1996 to 2006, with the exception of the brief period when Jim Jeffords switched sides from 2001-2002, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Climate change science continued to be funded and pursued by the US government in spite of the presence of science-denying senators like Inhofe. This is the last leg he’s got to stand on.
I have plenty of intellectual honesty – you, on the other hand, seem to have a reading comprehension problem. One would think that someone who tries to make their living as a wordsmith would know the difference between stated and implied. The quote you lifted never directly states and only vaguely implies they were hacked. (Hint: the would use words like “hacked our system” or “penetrated CRU databases” not “can sometimes hack into apparently secure systems.” if they were trying to be direct and not trying to weasel around the topic).
So far, you have been absolutely wrong about the poison fruit, Daniel Ellsberg, and the EAU statement. Your next reply will surely break new ground…
More idle speculation on your part rrd, just like your idle speculation that an Ellsberg in this day and age would never go public – but it has happened, in the form of Sgt. Joe Darby, who blew the whistle on abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. So whistleblowers do go public when they’re whistleblowers, and not criminals.
And two can play at that game: If the East Anglia PR people really wanted to play a game of CYA, they wouldn’t have even allowed a top university official to bring up hacking. Just because they don’t meet your self-serving standard of proof doesn’t mean they’re trying to cover up the existence of a whistleblower in their own shop.
Fortunately, the CRU’s climatologists don’t need to prove to you that they’re not witches.
By the way, this on Sgt Darby from his CBS interview:
“Still, Darby decided he had to turn in the pictures but he didn’t want his friends to know that he had done it.
Asked why it was important to him to remain anonymous, Darby says, “I knew a lot of them wouldn’t understand and would view me being a stool pigeon or however, a rat, however you want to put it.”
“You knew there would be some kind of investigation?” Cooper asks.
“I knew these people were going to prison,” Darby says. And in his opinion, they deserved to go to prison.
Darby copied Graner’s pictures onto a disc and put it in an envelope with an anonymous letter. He took the envelope to the Criminal Investigations Division — CID — and told them it had been left on his desk.
“I said, ‘This was left in my office. I was told to give it to the CID.’ I said, ‘Have a nice day, Sir,’ and turned around and walked away,” Darby recalls.
Darby hoped that would be the end of it but within less than 45 minutes, the investigator came to him.
And the investigator knew that Darby wasn’t telling the truth. He promised to keep Darby’s name secret, and convinced him to explain how he had really gotten those pictures. Then investigators immediately began to round up the suspects.
“Once they were brought in, once this investigation began, were they removed from the base?” Cooper asks.
“No,” Darby says. “They still had their weapons. They still had unlimited access to the facility and me the whole time, for almost a month.”
He says he was very scared and even slept with a pistol under his pillow. “With my hand on it. I put it in my pillow case, I put my hand on it and cocked it, cocked the hammer and I’d sleep with it under my hand under my pillow,” he remembers.
He slept like this every night. “I slept in a room by myself. And anybody could come in in the middle of the night. You walk in the door, you hang a left, and then come in and cut my throat,” Darby says.
“And you really thought that could happen, someone could cut your throat?” Cooper asks.
“I knew that if they found out who did it, they would be after me,” he says.
Weeks later, the guards under investigation were removed and Darby could finally sleep without a gun under his pillow. The suspects were gone, and his name was still secret.
Several months later, 60 Minutes II broke the story of the pictures. An article in “The New Yorker” revealed Darby’s role, though no one in Iraq seemed to notice. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/07/60minutes/main2238188_page2.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Admittedly, it is likely that someone at CRU has less to worry about than Darby (although, it is undeniable that they are witches, they would never cast a spell with so many people watching) but, again, the whistleblower tried to avoid oing public and, in essence had it forced on them. You really should read more and write less.
rrd, Darby went through Army whistleblowing channels. He didn’t just post the links to his photos in the comments section of the New York Times and say ’see ya.’ That’s the point I’m making.
Anyway, I’m glad you have the sincerity to admit that your imaginary UEA whistleblower doesn’t have anything close to Darby’s mortal fears to contend with. Your imaginary whistleblower would probably have an imaginary desk with an imaginary window waiting for him or her at the Competitive Enterprise Institute which loves imaginary science and imaginary whistleblowers.
Anyway, I just wrote another post about the ‘not a hacker’ meme you’re doggedly trying to propagate, so maybe you can go there and take potshots at me by hurling out non-sequiturs like ‘Sarah Palin’s hacked e-mail account’ and ‘Republicans win elections all the time’ that you immediately drop when they are swiftly shot down.
Let’s see if there is any need to correct you on another thread
1 Rosten makes inaccurate statement bout “fruit of the poisoned tree” – I corrected him (he does not reply) – Point made
2)Roston says “Republicans can’t win national elections, so they have to rely on criminal activities” – I point out that Republicans have won 7 of the last 11 national elections and his only response is call my response a non-sequitur and to claim he shot it down (despite making no other related comment). Point made and, apparently, either delusion exposed (if Rosten thought anything he said was a response) or severe memory loss exposed (if he thought he had a great response but never posted it)
3)Rosten claims the EAU made a statement that their system was hacked – I point out that they avoided directly making that statement and Rosten posts a quote that proves my point. Point made (by Rosten)
4)I point out the slippery slope of “condemning the source of the Climategate information, if you are among those leftists who supported the leaking or hacking of the Pentagon Papers, Sarah Palin’s yahoo account, or Norm Coleman’s donor list.” Roston’s reply indicates he did not think much about the Palin hack (fair enough), makes no comment about the Coleman leak, and tries to claim that the Ellsberg situation was different. I point out that “Ellsberg tried for almost 2 years to get the papers out covertly before leaking them to the NYT and going underground. Eventually, he decided to give himself up but not without trying very hard and very long to avoid going public. If the internet had been around back then, we would have never heard his name” Rosten ignores the 2 years effort and going underground parts of the statement (the IMPORTANT parts) to focus on the fact that it is only speculation that the internet would have allowed Ellsberg the anonymity he so fervently desired. Rosten is correct on this but ignores the real point that Ellsberg clearly wanted to remain anonymous and merely lacked the means to do so. Roston also ignores the reality that, until the Climategate leaker is identified, his claims about the leaker are purely idle speculation. Point made and Roston exposed as an intellectual coward.
5) I point out that Roston’s comparison of the alleged hacking to torture is over the top hyperbole. Roston’s response is “damn Godwin’s Law” Point obviously made and Roston exposed as thin-skinned.
6)In a response to me Roston posts “You know, from 1996 to 2006, with the exception of the brief period when Jim Jeffords switched sides from 2001-2002, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Climate change science continued to be funded and pursued by the US government in spite of the presence of science-denying senators like Inhofe. This is the last leg he’s got to stand on” No real point but it is funny in light of his subsequent post about non-sequiturs.
7)Roston decides to use Sgt Joe Darby as proof that “whistleblowers do go public when they’re whistleblowers, and not criminals.” I point out that Darby only provided information under the condition of anonymity and that he only went public when the New Yorker exposed him. Roston- despite his point being printed in black and white mere inches from his subsequent statement – claims that “whistleblowers do go public when they’re whistleblowers, and not criminals” was NOT his point. My point made again, Roston’s hypocrisy and incompetence as a liar exposed.
No, Mr Roston, I’d say my work here is done. Your other post may be just as bad but I doubt if it will be just as amusing.