Comments on: A thread of hope

By: A positive view of Copenhagen â€” Hot Topic

A positive view of Copenhagen â€” Hot Topic — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:27:44 +0000

[...] wrote a column early in December trying toÂ discern reasons for hope even in the face of the likelihood that [...]

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:04:52 +0000

I suspect that he would not have chosen those words. He would have left himself some wiggle room!

By: Mike C

Mike C — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:32:57 +0000

If you’re going to try to smear reputable scientists such as Jim Hansen then at least back up your smear with evidence.
What lies has Hansen told? Where, When, about What?

By: Gareth

Gareth — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:45:00 +0000

The CRU temp record has no bearing on the science being settled. Basic physics establishes that more CO2 will warm the planet, we’ve been chucking out lots of CO2, and we observe the planet warming (other temp series, melting ice, phenological changes etc). The CRU email thefts are a sideshow, crude PR.

By: Rob Taylor

Rob Taylor — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:23:13 +0000

Australis, AGW is a consequence of basic physics and chemistry that has been understood since the 60s, but I believe Groser was referring to the Toronto scientific conference in 1988.

“The Toronto Conference attracted much publicity, and politicians at the highest level began to pay attention to greenhouse gases. It helped that the Conference was held during the summer of 1988, when exceptional heat and drought caused much public concern in the United States â€” the nation whose cooperation was indispensable for any effective agreement. But officials were also impressed by the insistent warnings of leading scientists. In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher â€” trained as a chemist and one of the few prominent politicians able to fully understand her briefings by scientists â€” gave global warming official standing when she described it as a key issue in a September 1988 speech to the Royal Society.”

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Internat.htm#L_M052
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm

By: Gareth

Gareth — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:57:19 +0000

This attempt to paint the thief as a “hero” is risible. If it was an “inside job” it most certainly would not have been done in the manner described at microWatts. It is far more likely that someone who knows how to find their way in through typical server security systems did so, scraped as much data as they could, and then spent some time sorting through the stuff before posting it as a zip file elsewhere. Note that they first attempted to post the file at RealClimate, by hacking their servers. RC admins caught the hack in process and were able to stop it, but you have to be some kind of hacker to be able to do that sort of thing. In other words, the chances that this was an “inside job” look slim indeed.
My guess — and it’s only that — is that the timing (the run up to Copenhagen) and the rapid response of the sceptic blogosphere (who all seem to have the read the mails and decided the same thing – it’s a fraud! ) make it far more likely that the break in was a part of a concerted PR attempt to make noise. Mud flinging is all they’ve got, so that’s what they did.
You can defend that if you wish, but it makes you as morally and ethically bankrupt as the hackers.

By: Australis

Australis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:43:42 +0000

On Sunday, I heard Tim Groser saying on National Radio that “the science on global warming was settled 20 years ago”. Cutting a bit of slack, I assume he might have meant since Rio in 1992.

Is that right? If so, doesn’t it mean that a great deal of reliance was placed on the work of CRU in compiling and adjusting the historical instrumental records up to that time?

By: Bryan Walker

Bryan Walker — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:23:00 +0000

Roger, all the triumphant detail of your revelation is wasted on us. There is no highly profitable fraud and systematic corruption. Bluster away as much as you like, there is nothing in the emails which could possibly call into question the evidence that is now piling up, from all quarters, of the reality and danger of anthropogenic global warming. Have you no idea of how widespread that evidence has become? Heaven knows what your motivation is in denying it with such vehemence.

By: samv

samv — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:35:31 +0000

I call BS on this – it’s obviously rubbish, the MSM don’t have standards any more.

Well, at least we’re in agreement that the person who “hacked” the files (possibly an insider CCD sympathizer) is a low life.

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:49:38 +0000

>From Watts up

The unnamed hero of ‘Climategate’, after months of work gathering emails, computer code, and data, quietly sent a 61-megabyte compressed file from one of the university’s servers to an obscure public message-board on the internet, with a short covering note to the effect that the climate was too important to keep the material secret, and that the data from the University would be available for a short time only.
He had caught the world’s politico-scientific establishment green-handed. Yet his first attempts to reveal the highly-profitable fraud and systematic corruption at the very heart of the UN’s climate panel and among the scientists most prominent in influencing it’s prejudiced and absurdly doom-laden reports had failed. He had made the mistake of sending the data-file to the mainstream news media, which had also profited for decades by fostering the “global warming” scare, and by generally denying anyone who disagreed with the official viewpoint any platform

Someone might like to tell Renowden – who vents his spleen on the low lifes that hacked HADCRU files.