ClimateGate: People need to go to jail
Via Hot Air. They tried to hide the decline.
As Robert Tracinski correctly notes, the Global Warming hoax is the scandal of the century. People should be investigated and prosecuted for perpetrating a fraud so large it makes Bernie Madoff look like Santa Claus.
Congressional Republicans are already looking into the Global Cooling cover-up.
Congressional Republicans have started investigating climate scientists whose hacked emails suggest they tried to squelch dissenting views about global warming.
An aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said investigators are studying the documents, which unknown hackers stole last week from the computer of a prominent British climate-research center.
Investigators are focusing on the correspondence of White House Science Adviser John Holdren, he said. . . .
Separately, Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), an outspoken critic of the view that humans are causing global warming, said that in light of the emails, he will call for an investigation into the state of climate science if the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works doesn’t act soon.
Here is a little sample of the fraud (with lots more at the link) we are talking about.
More seriously, in one e-mail, a prominent global warming alarmist admits to using a statistical “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperatures. Anthony Watts provides an explanation of this case in technical detail; the “trick” consists of selectively mixing two different kinds of data-temperature “proxies” from tree rings and actual thermometer measurements-in a way designed to produce a graph of global temperatures that ends the way the global warming establishment wants it to: with an upward “hockey stick” slope.
Confirming the earlier scandal about cherry-picked data, the e-mails show CRU scientists conspiring to evade legal requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, for their underlying data. It’s a basic rule of science that you don’t just get to report your results and ask other people to take you on faith. You also have to report your data and your specific method of analysis, so that others can check it and, yes, even criticize it. Yet that is precisely what the CRU scientists have refused.
So maybe it is time for people to start going to jail. In England, if these faux scientists deleted emails that were subject to FOIA requests, they are going to need good lawyers.
But university researchers may also find themselves in legal jeopardy if they deleted emails requested under the U.K.’s Freedom of Information (FOIA) legislation, a crime under U.K. law. . . .
“It’s definitely a crime to do that in the U.K., and we have reported it to the police,” said Simon Dunford, a spokesman at East Anglia, which is conducting an internal probe.
But the emails, which appear to be genuine, though their authenticity could not be confirmed, indicate a concerted effort to fight the FOI requests that may itself have slipped into questionable territory.
For instance, in May of 2008, the school received a legal information request for correspondence of an East Anglia researcher, Keith Briffa, involved in the preparation of the most recent scientific report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, known as AR4. Two days later, according to the alleged correspondence, Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, sent out an email to colleagues asking them to delete any such emails.
And while it would be nice to see a bunch of geeks doing the perp walk for geek crimes like FOIA violations, the real crime in this mammoth scam is the the fraud perpetrated on everyone in the world by the Warmers, from Al Gore on down to the MSM.
Governments all over the world (mostly those run by liberals and socialists) have spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a non-existent threat. All of those tax dollars could have gone to the taxpayers’ families for real needs like food and education. Instead, it was taken by governments in the form of taxes and given as grants to the Global Warming industry. These Global Warming taxes and regulations were designed to limit our freedom by controlling our thermostats, making us drive smaller cars, and outlawing big-screen TV’s. They even considered eliminating black cars.
If these emails are accurate, they have committed fraud on us, a crime that requires a willful and knowing intent to deceive. And when there is a group of them, all agreeing to participate in the crime, it is called a conspiracy.
In this country, if you solicit government money for a fraudulent purpose you pay a fine and go to jail.
In essence, government fraud refers to illegal acts that intentionally divest the government of funds through deception or scams. When the government gets swindled, taxpayers pay the price. Government fraud is a serious crime, and is generally pursued to the fullest extent of the law. In fact, in many government fraud cases, both criminal and civil charges are brought against the defendant.
The Federal False Claims Act makes it illegal to present a false claim in order to defraud the government, or to conspire to do so. . . . The penalties for government fraud under the False Claims Act are quite harsh. A convict must pay back three times the amount stolen in addition to a civil fine of $5,000 to $10,000.
And under the Criminal Statutes the penalty is up to 5 years in prison.
Hmmm, isn’t Al Gore’s company going to benefit directly from trading in the carbon credits contemplated by Cap and Trade? Didn’t Al Gore testify before Congress to have them pass Cap and Trade? Doesn’t Al Gore know all about Global Warming? Aren’t all these phony scientists the experts Gore said proved the science was settled?
It is high time we shut down government-funded Global Warming projects, repeal regulations designed to reduce Global Warming, kill Cap and Trade, and most of all, round up all these swindlers and throw them all in jail.
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That some people doctored up their findings != climate change is a “hoax”.
Let’s make a deal: I will continue to not claim any right to health care if you’ll stop talking about wasting energy and burning unsustainable fossil fuels as a ‘freedom’ to which you’re entitled.
Because ultimately, that’s what this discussion is all about – having a better energy economy. Whether or not climate change is real (and it is), the people who stand to lose the most from sensible reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases are the fossil fuel corporations who have failed to provide us with alternative energy technologies because of a lack of incentives in a market they do their most to fix.
We’ll probably never know whether or not the cyber criminals who hacked into EAU’s servers were working for the fossil fuel interests. But while you’re waving this forbidden fruit around like the bloody shirt, and dreaming of academic scientists getting sent to jail, it’s worth reminding you, and your readers, that these e-mails were acquired by way of a criminal act. While the FOI matter you bring up certainly bears investigation, I hope you have the decency to agree that cyber crime should not be the modus operandi of the climate change denier movement.
Addressing your last point first. If the hackers committed a crime, punish them. This of course, is entirely irrelevant to the issue of potential conspiracy, fraud, cover-up, and just plain bad science that may be in the emails. But yes, one crime does not justify another.
I certainly do have the decency to agree that cyber-crime should not be the M.O. of deniers (again irrelevant to the underlying charges here, but anyway), just as I am sure you would agree that hacking into Sarah Palin’s personal email account should not become the M.O. of the Democrat Party.
I do find it ironic, however, that you caution the denier movement not to make crime their M.O., when it appears that is exactly the M.O. the Warmers have adopted for themselves.
On your first two points, there is no right to health care. There is a right to individual freedom and liberty. There is a free market to purchase and use legal goods and services any way we please. It is not the right of the government to decide, for example, how much milk I drink, how many cigars I smoke, what kind of car I drive (or how much I drive it). They have no right to tell me how cool I can keep my house in the summer and how warm in the winter. These are all a matter of individual freedom and liberty. If you say the government has right to impose a one size fits all plan for these things then you have deprived us of the ability to lead our lives in the way that maximizes the pursuit of happiness.
If fossil fuels become scarce enough, then a supply of alternative fuels, energy, and products will be developed. When individuals decide that the new technology is the best fit for them, among all other choices, then the new technology will sell. You cannot change market behavior by mandating new technology through legislation without an organic demand for it. If there are cheaper or better alternatives out there, those are the ones that will be purchased. So, unless the government plans to increase the tax on gasoline by a hefty amount, which I have heard many liberals advocate, the petroleum products will be the cheapest, most available energy and people will not go, en masse, to an expensive, mandated green product.
By the way, I noticed that nowhere in your comment did you address the subject matter of the post. Do you have any thoughts on what this means for the Global Warming movement or the perpetrators thereof?
In response to another comment. See in context »The Democratic Party didn’t hack into Sarah Palin’s e-mail account, a teenager did. Then-Governor Palin was also using an unsecure free e-mail account for government business. Unlike the EAU researchers who were using a secure academic network that was hacked by someone much more sophisticated than the 4chan user who decided to have some fun at then-Governor Palin’s expense. I’m pretty sure I didn’t the see Democratic Party or the Obama for America organization utilizing the e-mails in attack ads, etc., during the ‘08 campaign. So I can only assume you’re bringing it up to engage in the traditional ‘two wrongs make a right’ argument strategy that is sadly too common in the less sophisticated parts of our nation’s political discourse. However, I’m happy to see that you agree that the hacking of the EAU computers is a criminal act, and should be remembered as such.
The reason there are not ‘cheaper or better alternatives’ to fossil fuels is because large corporations stack regulatory frameworks to maximize their pursuit of happiness at the expense of yours and mine. You *can* change the market by giving an advantage to things that are discriminated against by existing laws and regulations which favor fossil energy importers, producers, etc. And if your pursuit of happiness comes at a high enough social cost, then yes, the government, at the local, state, or ultimately federal level, can regulate it. You can keep your house as cool as you want, or drive a dumptruck down I-95 for all I care. But doing those things does have a social cost to it, and you should pay for that social cost. Government is a great mechanism for managing the public, social costs of private activities. But you knew that already.
And yes, I favor an old-fashioned carbon tax over the cap and trade approach, which I believe will just create a new market for bad behaviors – society from the bottom to the top should pay equally for its use of fossil fuels. You won’t find me enthusiastically writing about the trading of greenhouse gas emission permits anywhere.
Anyways, I said that I agree that the scientists in question relating to the FOI question certainly should lawyer up. However, I imagine that the forbidden fruit that is the root of any criminal investigation – illegally obtained private e-mails – will poison it before it gets far.
I tend to agree with Nate Silver on whether or not this is the fraud you allege it is – it’s not.
Ultimately, if handled deftly by the climatologists who have been signaling us for decades about the long-term risks of unconstrained greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere, I think they could actually make a plus out of this, given that it shows that some climate change deniers are so desperate to make their case that they’ll resort to criminal actions to do so. In fact, I think from your position, you should be afraid of a criminal prosecution of any of the scientists in question as it is likely to just generate public sympathy for them.
In response to another comment. See in context »And what would the government set my “social cost” to be for that? There is the rub. I pay a cost when I buy the truck, buy the gas, and pay the maintenance (all of which efficiently create jobs in those industries). You want me to pay a social penalty arbitrarily set by the government, depending on who is in charge. By those lights, if I think that hybrids cost too much to manufacture in relation to the amount of energy they save, can I simply outlaw them as a penalty? Can I add a $5,000 tax to dissuade people from buying them? See, it depends on whose ox is getting gored. That is why I prefer to let individuals decide which products to buy, with as little market interference by the government as possible. That really is the difference between Conservatives and Liberals, individual freedom versus we-know-what-is-best government control. It is not a criticism, just the philosophical distinction.
In response to another comment. See in context »Yes, I agree with you, someone’s ox is going to get gored. That’s why we have elections and try out different policies, and if the public really hates them, a new government comes in and changes them.
Sadly, we are not in a classical free market with individuals. In addition to the state, we have large corporate interests that work overtime to maximize their price-setting and profit-earning ability relative to individuals like you and me, preventing us from having free choices. While government creates market distortions in their favor, it is also the only institution that is capable of undoing them.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Dupray,
Your posting is full of sound and fury but what does it signify? Not much.
The theory that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations was originally proposed almost 120 years ago by one of the greatest scientists of all time Svante Arrhenius in a paper entitled “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” (Philosophical Magazine 41, 237-276 1896). You can read the original paper here…
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/18/Arrhenius.pdf
You will note that he applies the Stefan–Boltzmann law and the concentration of CO2 (”carbonic acid”) to accurately calculate the average temperature of the Earth’s surface in 1896. He then states that “We now possess all the necessary data for an estimation of the effect on the earth’s temperature which would be the result of a given variation of the aërial carbonic acid”. Using the equations and calculations in his paper Dr. Arrhenius concluded “if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.”
If two scientists working in the UK wrote a few emails with quotes taken out of context it is not going to change over a century’s worth of scientific work. The theory and data are not dependent on any one or two individuals working in one place or time but hundreds working world wide for 12 decades. When you can debunk Dr. Arrhenius’ paper then you will have something to post. Until then, it is all just a tale told – by you.
The scientists who “settled” the science are same guys who tried to hide the decline in temperatures and stifle and bury contrary data and opinions. The argument was “over” because they possessed all the incontrovertible evidence (the controvertible stuff was erased, so I guess they were correct). If they were cancer researchers, would you trust their conclusions in treating your family? I wouldn’t. Trust is gone. Credibility is gone. To enact Cap and Trade on the word of these clowns (and they are the guys on whom the U.N. and EPA rely) is folly of the highest order.
I would like to hear one person on the left who believes wholeheartedly in Global Warming at least damn these guys for giving the deniers the ammo to kill the movement. If the data is so clear, then nobody should have to hide anything. Real scientists do research to find answers, not to support a foregone conclusion. These guys have called into question an entire field of study because they, as the leading proponents, were not honest. That has got to gall some people on their side as well.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Dupray,
What the original emails actual say is unknown. We only have copies of emails as delivered to the public domain by thieves. We do not know what changes those thieves introduced into the emails between the theft and their publication. This “evidence” is tainted. Further we only know of the emails that were stolen and released, we know nothing of the other emails either not stolen or not released. The quotes circulating, even if accurate, are taken out of context.
However, let us assume that these emails are in fact unaltered. There is not really very much in these that is substantial as regards to the actual science of global warming. It is all “procedural” issues written informally. The case to date is that they have attempted to prevent the publication of data from other scientists with whom they disagree. That does not make them wrong or those they disagree with right.
They have not “called into question an entire field of study”. I have not seen any thing in the emails that does so and I would challenge you to cite something that does.
However let even assume that all of the science that these particular scientists have produced is false. Fine. There is still all of the work of hundreds of other scientists over the last 120 years. Are we to throw all of that out too? Why?
I still stand by what I posted. I challenge you to read the original paper by Svante Arrhenius and find an error. The same with work of Thomas C. Chamberlin, a very important geologist. Where Arrhenius and Chamberlin they in cahoots to help Al Gore? What about Roger Revelle, Hans Suess, and Gilbert Plass, who were working the 1940’s and 1950’s in CO2 and climate change, were their work also fraudulent? Were they too working with Gore – Arrhenius – Champerlin Cabal even though the former was not born and the latter two dead?
The science of climatic change is bigger and more substantial than a few emails or even individual scientists. “Pas de touché”.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’ll make another deal here, when we agree to lock up some guys that DEFINITELY falsified information that lead to a little war type thing in a Middle Eastern country resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents, then we can talk about locking up the guys who, according to illegally obtained emails, may have fudged numbers on something that the vast science community at large is still heavily debating with no side winning out.
But, again, the matter at hand is that, even as exaggerated and overblown as it has been, the push of Global Warming (besides the obvious money for those heavily involved in it) has always been to move towards alternative resources of energy and pushing for other renewable ideas like recycling. Y’know, so we can stop doing the little things like smogging up areas so bad the air quality results in birth defects, so we have actual drinkable water that doesn’t have to be ran through a purifier half a dozen times, so that half this country doesn’t become a landfill like India has, and so. So we can finally get ourselves off that foreign oil “teet” we’ve now fought two wars over. How about that one?
But no, lets not be productive about any of this and make this yet another bullshit partisan argument. Because guys like Gore having their hand in the Clean Energy cookie jar is nothing like having a former President/Vice President combo having ties to some of the biggest energy producers in the world while waging a war on the biggest oil producer. Except that, god forbid, his greed at least might move us towards doing something productive for a change, instead of just a lot of dead brown people. Rich people win again while we lose because we can’t be bothered to not play the party card and just do what’s bloody right for a change.
Some days I honestly hope I die within the next twenty years so I won’t be around to see how history starts to remember us, because it sure as hell ain’t going to read pretty. If there’s anything relevant to record at all except a giant “How not to be” reminder…
[...] Dupray trueslant.com Thursday, Nov 26th, [...]
I would just like to mention that there are people on the right who believe in global warming or climate change. I believe even George Bush acknowledged that something is happening.
Many find the arguments confusing, since there is strong evidence that the climate is undergoing changes, natural or not, the political argument seems to revolve around who or what is causing the change.
Those of libertarian leanings think it is not the responsibility of government to blame industry and thus force them to change.
Although in the past both sides of the aisle thought cleaning up rivers polluted by paper mills be cleaned up and force paper mills to clean their water before dumping it. The clean air and water legislation was backed by Nixon and if I’m not mistaken signed by Bush the elder.
The government also made the local sewage plant in my city clean up after surfers noted swimming with turds and high enough bacteria levels to endanger their lives. Beaches were closed, a real summer bummer for surf cities.
The government also tried and had some success in reducing the pollutants that caused acid rain because forests were being devastated.
I really don’t care what type of car or truck anyone chooses to drive but if your truck or car is making the air hard to breath in a place like Los Angeles a city that has a natural inversion problem, something has to be done. Pollution that affects my children and grandparents and growth for the area, I believe the government forcing industry to make cleaner cars is for the benefit of the community. It’s like your cigar, you can smoke it all you want, but if you start blowing smoke in my child’s face while she is eating I can either shove it down your throat and beat the shit out of you or we can have some agreement in polite society as to where you can smoke so not to endanger or infringe on the rights of non-cigar smokers. I usually enjoy a pipe myself.
The public good vs. individual rights is always a clash but while one used to be able to ride a horse any which way the government had to come up with traffic laws to ensure some public safety. Now it may be offensive to some to stop at red lights, here in LA there seems to be many who just can’t stand the government interference to delay their trips, but there it is.
This is a democracy and while you have the all sorts of individual rights, religion, guns, speech, freedom of travel and protections from the government. There are limits on all of them based around the rights of public good. So the argument of individual rights is a nice sounding American anthem it is usually trumped by the public good. For instance I would like the government to have a warrant to enter my house and I would like the right to be present for any search but under today’s laws, because of fear of terrorists I have to surrender that right. Trumped I suppose for the public good.
Now I suppose we should allow pollution to go on for the sake of the economy, but if I had a choice of where I would like to raise children, Beijing or some nice town in the Midwest with clean water and air, well I go with America. But when I lived in the Northwest they had rare pollution warnings that affected the weather and the pollution came from China. Hard to believe but as the planet shrinks and populations grow it is not a bad thing to talk about the effects of a global industrial world and the effect on air and water. Forget the cap and trade and carbon tax and whatever, lets think about future and how we can stop shitting in our nests as much as we do.
[...] 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 [...]
[...] Science; Climate Change Research: Institutions Ranked by Citations – this list shows why the influences of corrupt scientists in Climategate are so pervasive and significant, Penny Wrong says its better to trust the corrupt scientists – guess they’re the only ones who agree with her! The corrupt scientists are starting to be investigated for their corrupt behavior, with calls they be jailed. [...]
[...] ClimateGate: People need to go to jail [...]
[...] People within the US government are complicit in possible criminal fraud; members of Congress are initiating investigation. Other counties’ legislators are also responding; Australia here. The revealed e-mails [...]
To the comment above. Look you really are deluding yourself, I’m really not trying to insult you, but you are being irrational. If we were to imagine a disinterested robot that wanted to get to the bottom of this, this robot would look for evidence, take into account both sides of the story, AND THEN PROVIDE JUSTIFICATION for accusations. Your article does NONE of this. Out of 12 years of emails among hundreds of scientists it finds half-a-dozen lines and quotes them without asking any questions whatsoever. Is there a context? What do the scientists have to say for themselves? How would they defend themselves? Well why don’t you go to realclimate.org and ask gavin and he will tell you himself of the context. I mean you HAVE TO agree that it’s POSSIBLE that you are interpreting this incorrectly, that there’s a POSSIBILITY that you have read these emails out of context, isn’t it even POSSIBLE?
I’m sure you’ll say no, because your fundamental values drive your illogic. It’s not as if you really can see the other side of things because the other side of things, if true, would be such an affront to what defines you. I mean this is clear from your complete dismissible of any counter-evidence and immediate assumption that it must be, MUST BE a fraud. The simple fact is that these emails do not invalidate a single paper published in the last 100 years, 96% of scientists still believe AGW at the 90% CL (all scientifically studied).
The blog you should post is under what circumstances you would admit that you were wrong, because–let’s face it–since IPCC WG1 a lot of progress has been made (about 13 years) and the graphs are only going up and becoming evermore obvious. I certainly have had a soul-searching exercise about what it would take for me to admit I was wrong, have you? I really hope so, because although your misplaced values and ignorance of the science is on your side, reality has a very liberal bias–at least in this case.
[...] of the Freedom of Information Act. Others are calling for investigations into whether there is a case for criminal fraud against scientists using government grants to produce misleading reports. Many of the people [...]