Wasting Time With Alex

Climategate deniers are lying.

The AGW cultists have recently been up in arms about how an “independent review” of the Climategate scandal cleared the cultist, finding no evidence to question the “rigor and honesty” of scientists involved. Of course, as was obvious to anyone but the cultists, there wasn’t anything independent, and nothing much other than a political whitewash to continue to lend credibility to, and defend, the indefensible and incredible , as this WSJ article clearly points out.

The problem:

Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called “a nice, tidy story” of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.

The setup:

Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, “nothing to see here.” Last week “The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review,” commissioned and paid for by the University of East Anglia, exonerated the University of East Anglia. The review committee was chaired by Sir Muir Russell, former vice chancellor at the University of Glasgow.

Mr. Russell took pains to present his committee, which consisted of four other academics, as independent. He told the Times of London that “Given the nature of the allegations it is right that someone who has no links to either the university or the climate science community looks at the evidence and makes recommendations based on what they find.”

The facts:

No links? One of the panel’s four members, Prof. Geoffrey Boulton, was on the faculty of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences for 18 years. At the beginning of his tenure, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU)—the source of the Climategate emails—was established in Mr. Boulton’s school at East Anglia. Last December, Mr. Boulton signed a petition declaring that the scientists who established the global climate records at East Anglia “adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity.”

Heh, not much cause for all that “independent review” claim after this information about the ties of one of the panelists is gleaned, huh? The other 3 aren’t much better either, but we should seriously dispense with the pretense that this review was anything but an inside hack job to cover for the cult. There is big money here and the governments that want to control people’s lives and energy are quite willing to go along with the lies if it helps them get there. And those other “independent review”?

This purportedly independent review comes on the heels of two others—one by the University of East Anglia itself and the other by Penn State University, both completed in the spring, concerning its own employee, Prof. Michael Mann. Mr. Mann was one of the Climategate principals who proposed a plan, which was clearly laid out in emails whose veracity Mr. Mann has not challenged, to destroy a scientific journal that dared to publish three papers with which he and his East Anglia friends disagreed. These two reviews also saw no evil. For example, Penn State “determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community.”

This is like having the child molester investigate the accusations made against him, and say that the video showing him molesting the kid exonerates him of the charge because in his “independent” analysis it doesn’t look like he is doing anything wrong. Nobody interested in the truth should take that defense seriously. Same applies to the defense and supposed exoneration of those that fabricated and manipulated data and supporting systems to model their claims, to push an agenda, concealed that agenda behind a veneer of legitimacy by consensus science, and then investigated themselves and gave themselves a slap on the wrist but continue to claim that the whole house of cards is on solid foundations and still to be taken seriously.

It’s impossible to find anything wrong if you really aren’t looking.

That’s the magic quote right there. Evidence of criminal intent and absolutely unscientific behavior?

In a famous email of May 29, 2008, Phil Jones, director of East Anglia’s CRU, wrote to Mr. Mann, under the subject line “IPCC & FOI,” “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report]? Keith will do likewise . . . can you also email Gene [Wahl, an employee of the U.S. Department of Commerce] to do the same . . . We will be getting Caspar [Amman, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research] to do likewise.”

Mr. Jones emailed later that he had “deleted loads of emails” so that anyone who might bring a Freedom of Information Act request would get very little. According to New Scientist writer Fred Pearce, “Russell and his team never asked Jones or his colleagues whether they had actually done this.”

The Russell report states that “On the allegation of withholding temperature data, we find that the CRU was not in a position to withhold access to such data.” Really? Here’s what CRU director Jones wrote to Australian scientist Warrick Hughes in February 2005: “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it[?]”

Why should that matter? These guys are pure, and their agenda is good! They are trying to better the world. Save it from the capitalist pigs. Social justice and redistribution of wealth through an all knowing governmental entity. After all, the people opposing the church of AGW’s findings and “science”, are in it for the money!

Readers of both earlier reports need to know that both institutions receive tens of millions in federal global warming research funding (which can be confirmed by perusing the grant histories of Messrs. Jones or Mann, compiled from public sources, that are available online at freerepublic.com). Any admission of substantial scientific misbehavior would likely result in a significant loss of funding.

Heh, but only the people getting money form those evil bastards that oppose the church of AGW, should not be taken seriously. That the church itself is making billions, and proponents and supporters of this apocalyptic gospel stand to make trillions, drastically expand the powers of government if not outright create that one-world collectivist government the UN and the leftists so pine for, to control the lives of peasants through the regulation of the availability of energy and transportation, stand to gain big-time, should simply be ignored.

Of course, Mr. Russell didn’t look to see if the ugly pressure tactics discussed in the Climategate emails had any consequences. That’s because they only interviewed CRU people, not the people whom they had trashed.

This sort of stuff is referred to as an echo chamber. I have been caught cheating? Ask my fellow cheats to prove that I did so! Yeah, really. Independent review my ass.