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'Climate Emails Hacked by Spies'
Interception Bore Hallmarks of Foreign Intelligence Agency, says Expert
A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, according to the Government's former chief scientist. Sir David King, who was Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser for seven years until 2007, said that the hacking and selective leaking of the unit's emails, going back 13 years, bore all the hallmarks of a co-ordinated intelligence operation - especially given their release just before the Copenhagen climate conference in December.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (EPA File)
The emails were stolen from a backup computer server used by the University of
East Anglia. They contained private discussions between climate scientists
that have embarrassed those involved, particularly Professor Phil Jones, who
has stepped down from his post as head of the unit pending an independent
inquiry into whether there is any evidence of scientific misconduct. He is
not implicated in the hacking.
In an interview with The Independent, Sir David suggested the email leaks were deliberately designed to destabilise Copenhagen and he dismissed the idea that it was a run-of-the-mill hacking. It was carried out by a team of skilled professionals, either on behalf of a foreign government or at the behest of anti-climate change lobbyists in the United States, he said.
"A very clever nerd can cause a great deal of disruption and obviously make intelligence services very nervous, but a sophisticated intelligence operation is capable of yielding the sort of results we've seen here," Sir David said.
"Quite simply, it's the sophistication of the operation. I know there's a possibility that they had a very good hacker working for these people, but it was an extraordinarily sophisticated operation. There are are several bodies of people who could do this sort of work. These are national intelligence agencies and it seems to me that it was the work of such a group of people," he said.
More than 1,000 emails, and some 2,000 documents, were stolen from a university back-up server where remote access is difficult. This represents a small fraction of the total number of emails for the period from 1996 to 2009, suggesting they had been selected for the most incriminating phrases relating to possible scientific misconduct and breaches of the Freedom of Information Act. The leak of the emails in the weeks running up to the climate change conference in Copenhagen appeared to be carefully timed to destabilise the meeting.
"I don't think that it's a coincidence that the stealing of the emails from the individuals involved in East Anglia was put out for publication one month before Copenhagen. That wasn't a coincidence," Sir David said. "The emails date back to 1996, so someone was collecting the data over many years. It looks like possibly the work of an intelligence service. What it was was a very well co-ordinated part of a campaign. It was a difficult piece of work to get that done.
"I've no inside knowledge except for the fact that I did work with our [intelligence] agencies, and the American agencies, that I have some experience," he added.
The existence of the stolen emails came to light on 17 November when someone tried to load them onto the RealClimate website run by climate scientists, including Gavin Schmidt of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Dr Schmidt said that the hackers were using a legitimate computer based in Turkey as a proxy server but the attack could have been launched from another computer anywhere in the world.
He attempted to disable the hacking operation as it was taking place, but was prevented several times before finally succeeding because the hackers had penetrated deep into the website's database software. This required considerable skill and knowledge which an opportunistic hacker would not have had, he said. "That requires some kind of monitoring-tool set-up and required them to have more access than you would get by simply logging into the blog," Dr Schmidt said.
Two days after the attempted RealClimate hack, the file of stolen emails appeared on a server used by a company called Tomcity operating from the Russian city of Tomsk in Siberia. However, again, the uploading could have been done by someone operating a proxy server anywhere else in the world.
Experts have suggested that loading the email file onto a Tomsk computer server may have been a clumsy attempt to lay a trail to the door of the Russian intelligence service, which has since denied any involvement in the hacking incident. Some commentators in Russia have said that China had more to gain from destabilising the Copenhagen conference than Russia.
Sir David said, however, that it was not possible to dismiss the possibility of Russia's involvement. "If it was a job done on behalf of a government, then I suppose there is the possibility that it could be the Russian intelligence agency," he said.
"If it was a maverick group then I suppose it could be the Americans, but I am hazarding a guess as much as anyone else. The only thing is, I've worked within government and I've seen this in operation," Sir David added. "It was a sophisticated and expensive operation. In terms of the expense, there is the American lobby system which is a very likely source of finance. Right now, the American lobbyists are a very likely source of finance for this, so the finger must point to them," he said.
Norfolk Constabulary is conducting an investigation into the hacking but said yesterday it would not comment on speculation that a foreign intelligence agency was involved. The University of East Anglia also said that it could not comment.
Cyber crime: The 21st century threat
*Espionage once conjured images of lonely spooks on foreign assignations during the height of the Cold War. Not any longer. The rise of capitalism, a free-market economy and an interconnected digital world have changed those terms of engagement.
Last week Hillary Clinton issued a warning to China and Russia to tighten up their internet security amid a growing threat of international cyber crime. "We cannot afford in today's interconnected world to have too many instances ... where companies' accounts can be hacked into," she said. It came after Google threatened to end its operations in China following what it described as a "sophisticated and targeted" cyberattack on Google, Adobe and 20 other US companies.
More recently MI5 has accused China of setting up so-called "honeytraps" with a view to obtaining sensitive commercial secrets from top UK companies. According to The Sunday Times, promotional gifts handed out at business trade shows included cameras and memory sticks have allegedly been found to contain bugs that provide the Chinese with remote access to users' computers.
Estonia, too, has been a victim of cyber crime. In 2007 it was subject to a three-week cyber attack that saw hackers permeate firewalls and infiltrate websites of banks and political institutions, in a move that threatened to wipe out the country's digital infrastructure. Nato has now established a cyber-defence centre in the region and the FBI has despatched a computer security expert.
Last year, Russian hackers were accused of a sophisticated cyber attack which temporarily shut down two social networking sites in order to silence a Georgian blogger critical of Moscow's policies.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri
*With his swept-back hair and wispy beard, Dr Rajendra Pachauri looks every inch the climate change visionary. And as chairman of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who accepted a Nobel Peace Prize alongside Al Gore in 2007 he has become an international figurehead in the battle against global warming and one of the most powerful figures at the Copenhagen summit. But a spate of controversy over recent IPCC research papers and a resurgent mood among challengers to the theory of man-made climate change have led many to wonder who, exactly, he is.
According to the "brief" two-page CV on his personal website, Dr Pachauri, 68, juggles his UN role with his position as chief executive of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) which has strong historic ties (although not for the past decade) with the Tata Group, India's largest privately-owned corporation which also owns Jaguar, Land Rover and steelmaker Corus in the UK. His critics say the other high-profile positions he holds - more than 20 - with banks, universities and think tanks could pose potential conflicts of interest with his UN role. Among his many directorships was one from 1999-2003 with the Indian Oil Corporation. Dr Pachauri says he receives no money for these roles.
Yet he began his career as an engineer working with the Diesel Locomotive Works in Varanasi. Today, despite cooling relations with the Government, he is one of India's most famous figures, inhabiting the exclusive Golf Links area of Delhi where Lakshmi Mittal, Britain's richest man, owns a house and where, despite owning his own electric car, he was photographed this week being chauffeur-driven on the one-mile journey to his offices in a 1.8-litre Toyota.
Perhaps most intriguingly, the cricket-loving environmentalist showed yet another side to his personality with the publication this month of a raunchy novel, Return to Almora, about an ageing academic looking back over his spiritual and sexual journey through life.
- Posted in
53 Comments so far
Show All"I don't think that it's a coincidence that the stealing of the emails from the individuals involved in East Anglia was put out for publication one month before Copenhagen. That wasn't a coincidence," Sir David said.
------------
Nor is it a coincidence that Osama Bin Laden, allegedly, released a tape last week blaming the U.S. for climate change and urging a dollar dump to target our economy.
I'm convinced that almost all our "news" is complete made-up bullsh*t on par with professional wrestling.
Bingo. There you go. First comment. Bravo.
This is actually old news.
Just before Obama's Nobel worthy performance at Nopenhagen, evidence surfaced that tracked the hack back to a Russian service provider.
Russia would be one of the big losers if any kind of comprehensive action would be taken vis a vis Climate Change. But they would not be alone, and most of the modern intel agencies work very hand in glove with each other.
So it would not be impossible for say an American CIA or UK Ministry of Intelligence hacker to route his work through a Russian service provider. And it pays to remember that Vladimir Putin hails from the hardcore element of the old KGB. There is more than enough evidence to suggest he would approve of an action like this, based on his history.
It bears reiteration though. This was a sustained coordinated effort of many people, requiring substantial financing and access, and all designed to disrupt Copenhagen by flaming climate scientists. The relish and speed with which the media, esp Faux News, pounced on the topic suggests they may have known about the effort before it happened, and were already geared to publicize and comment on what was released. Their 'reportage' of the hacks suggests a classic 'assault' style, in which you so overwhelm the news with the most negative tid-bits that you essentially nail the coffin shut before the person inside is dead. In the minds of many of the Faux News drones: mission accomplished. They still refer to the hacks as the holy grail proving that all Climate Change is a hoax.
Agreed.
This entire charade by the MSM is almost as blatant as the BBC reporting that Building 7 had just collapsed on 9/11/01, when the building was clearly visible over the reporter's shoulder, and did not collapse until some time later that day.
There is a small, very wealthy number of people who have too much to lose, and so much to gain, if Climate Change is not dealt with until it is far too late.
I believe that was an honest mistake in reporting.
The fire in building 7 could not be put out and the fire dept. told everyone to move out because they thought number 7 would collapse just like the towers. Yes, the fire dept. knew the risk of another collapse was too great and they had already lost hundreds of firemen.
So they pulled out, isolated the area let it fall.
No steel framed building has *ever* collapsed from fire alone, before or since 9/11.
But that is not the point here.
What is the point is how fast the MSM descended on the story, making it clear they were on the side of the Climate Change deniers.
And why is that? We all know why. They're owned by the very companies who would lose the most if we actually implemented what we need to implement to try and change the way we've been treating our beautiful planet.
Well, since you brought it up.
It was not just a fire.
A more accurate claim not framed to mislead would be "No steel framed buildings before 9/11 were ever hit by jet airliners before they collapsed". The Empire State Building was built to take a hit and was made to last but was hit by a smaller slower prop airliner.
These buildings were built on the cheap cutting corners for profit.
The towers Were not built to withstand both a massive explosive hit with an out of control fire.
Why?
The floors were connected to the sides with steel lips jutting out the sides a few inches with rubber pads for movement.
Designed to easily pancake in this situation while one of the towers collapsed with Number 7 in its path which tore away much of the backside of building 7 with mass amounts of burning debris with the steel beams peeling off the sides of the towers which hold up the floors OK as long as they are not damaged.
I agree about your main point though.
Jim Glover: You simply cannot deny that workers clearly tell onlookers to get back because the building is about to come down. I'm sure you've seen the video. There are also cops who have said they heard a countdown on police radio. Buildings do not fall at such speed, and with such symmetry, by themselves, no matter how damaged. These are facts you cannot wish away. I don't understand why you so doggedly persist in your cognitive dissonance on these threads. I guess it's the party line.
Jim Glover: "The floors were connected to the sides with steel lips jutting out the sides a few inches with rubber pads for movement.
"Designed to easily pancake in this situation while one of the towers collapsed with Number 7 in its path which tore away much of the backside of building 7..."
This is nonsense and exaggeration. What about Rudy's bunker, Jim? Why'd you leave that out? WTC 7 was one of the sturdiest buildings in Manhattan, with Rudy's reinforced "command bunker" and offices of CIA, FBI, Army Intelligence, and SEC, among others.
"These buildings were built on the cheap cutting corners for profit."
Says who, Jim? Do the cops drive heaps of tin?
"What is the point is how fast the MSM descended on the story, making it clear they were on the side of the Climate Change deniers."
I absolutely agree, and will add additional evidence: The gross actions put into play to absolve Georgia of its easily determined guilt in its assault on Ossetia. Add to that the deliberate cutting out by CNN of the portion of its interview with Putin where he praised the power of the Western Propaganda machine to bury the truth and makes its own lies into Truth--information you would only discover from reading the transcript or seeing it cited as proof of US/NATO abetting the invasion.
As for the foreign intelligence sevice, my money is on the CIA, as it's very clear to me that the US federal government has no intention of doing anything to counter Global Warming, aside from some research grants to provide a guise of action. Overwhelming evidence proves it doesn't care how many millions die, are injured or displaced by its policies (or their nationalities as with Katrina), nor has an attempt ever been made to hold its murderous presidents accountible for their crimes--100% continuity from Truman to Obama--and of course the deliberate cover-up of those crimes perpetrated by the Propaganda and Indoctrination Systems. Of all the global entities with something to lose if Global Warming gets actively combatted, Wall Street has the most to lose--all those hundreds of Trillions in dirivatives are tied to Business as Usual going forward as uninterruptd as possible. Furthermore, Wall Street and the CIA have very longstanding interconnections--since the latter's inception.
The final piece is Obama's performance at Copenhagen--he ensured it would end in a clusterfuck, and he did. And I haven't even mentioned the third leg of the Iron Triangle at work here--Big Oil, which is intimitly tied to Wall Street and the CIA.
Excellent post, Karlof. Food for thought.
And don't forget the many connections between the CIA and America's corporate owned main stream media.
Yeah, that's sort-of implied by the CIA's intimate links with Wall Street.
I wonder what the NSA twerp charged with reading this site thinks about the fact that the government s/he works for is actively working to destroy the planet's fundamental basis for providing human life support and the Billions that will die as a result. It will be the Mother of all Holocausts--somewhat like a Nuclear Winter, but in slow motion and without the fallout (perhaps).
"I believe that was an honest mistake in reporting."
I wish you were right. I'm almost 99.9% certain that you're wrong. Very little "reporting" is going on these days. Anchors read what they're handed and who knows where it comes from. (Well, ahem, a little research and thoughtfulness usually will reveal where it comes from.) Far too many questions remain about that day. But from what has been uncovered, an "honest mistake" doesn't seem likely.
I do appreciate your optimism, though.
The idea in modern reportage isn't to be right on Monday's front page. It's to make the correction on page 29 of Friday's edition, after the damage has been done. Or in 2005, if the story is about Iraq's WMDs...
While the crazy motherf'ers launch their clandestine whosaid whatsaid, the ice caps melt...is it HARPP? That Pachauri guy must be a piece of work. It is so funny when they say, I get no compensation for this or that...no, just a whole bunch of investments are escalated. That's like us believing that our congress people get no compensations. Are we too stupid?
And what about the fact that every listening device for spys goes through two private companies in Israel...huh, huh, and can't they tell us whodunit? hahahhhahhahhahhaha
The real question which is not addressed: Is it true? Did they fudge data? The hacking is what whistleblowers do, and we should not be shooting the messenger, whatever the motive may be.
Re: scientists and the UN. Be aware that the UN changed the definition of a pandemic so they could declare the swine flu a pandemic--at the behest of Big Pharma. When a pandemic is declared, governments around the world go on a vaccine buying spree. Trust not what comes out of the UN.
As Jacques Cousteau once noted--CO2 is irrelevant. We need clean, renewable sources of energy whether or not there is a CO2 problem. Focusing on this argument is meant to derail change. You know, change like stopping subsidies for oil, gas and nuclear so alternatives can compete. DON'T FALL INTO THE TRAP!
It is sad whenever you find scientists that fudge their numbers, however remember this is one academic body out of hundreds. The findings are corroborated by dozens of other studies, and the fudging was minor compared to the overall findings.
Compare that to the absolute lies that pervade political advertising, the absolute fiction reported as financials that arguably caused 20 million people to lose their jobs, and you get some idea of the difference in scope.
Let it go already - the few scientists involved have, or are in danger of losing their careers. I wish I could say that about the blatent lies that have led to mountaintop removal, "election" of corporate goons, and the death of over one million for "just" wars.
This scandal together with ACORN are the two most hyped non events in the world. I will pay attention to complaints about a few individuals with no power when the transgressions of those with unlimited power see even the slightest press.
"remember this is one academic body out of hundreds." The Climate Research Unit that was hacked is composed of 30 people, half of whom are graduate students. Mountain... meet molehill. Since GW research is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise casting its net all over the world, studying ice depth, salinity, radiation, etc, we know there were actually TWO hack jobs: one on CRU's emails, and the other, by the MSM, to convince people that CRU WAS Climate Change Research. If CRU is the extent of Climate Change Research, we're all in a lot of trouble. The mere fact that the 'smoking gun' computer program that synthesizes their data was written in a computer language that predates FORTRAN should have been a red flag to anyone of any technical training. Here's a group of researchers too poor to ungrade their central software. Someone throw these poor people a bone.
"The real question which is not addressed: Is it true? Did they fudge data?"
I don't know and don't care to waste my time looking into it. It would not be the first case of scientific fraud.
If the data is fraudulent it still hasn't stopped the Artic ice melting, the beetles atacking our BC forests and the snow geese now overwintering here and devasting our green spaces in the search for food.
BTW: We've just had the warmest January ever; but that's just an anecdotal note.
>>>TheProf wrote: BTW: We've just had the warmest January ever; but that's just an anecdotal note.
I bet it's more than of anecdotal interest to the organizers of the Vancouver Olympics - starting in less than 2 weeks. I read something about the David Suzuki Foundation doing an estimate of the carbon footprint of the Olympics - and I remember thinking at that time they were being too generous to the organizers, since this report was used to claim the green credentials of the 2010 games. I wonder if anyone is working on revised estimates - to include the emissions due to all the artificial snow that may be needed for some events.
As with the last Winter Olympics in Italy, snow is being imported to make possible the lower elevation events. Further anecdotal evidence. The El Nino is rather powerful this year with drought already starting in a long arc east of the Cascades to Arizona as this site shows, http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html Also note the extreme drought in Hawaii illustrated at the same site.
The author, Steve Connor, also just wrote a piece arguing for geoengineering the planet as the only way to attack Global Warming, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/simulated-volcanoes-and-manmade-sun-blocks-can-rescue-the-planet-1881336.html (As usual, CD's comment software truncated the long URL, so you'll need to add anet-1881336.html after the-pl to find the article.)
In another development, Pine Island Glacier is losing ice at such a rapid rate that demands re-evaluating the likely rate/extent of sea level rise by 2100, http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/2010/01/pine-island-glacier-loss-must-force.html
karlof1, thanks for the links, although it's all pretty depressing and alarming news (as if we haven't heard enough to depress and alarm us already!). I don't know why scientists are not thinking of some kind of direct action - like crashing into some media event and making a scene or something like that.
As for the geoengineering bit, I've heard of that before, and I really don't know what to say on that. The scientists who propose that approach of course do that as a last-ditch option, and not as a substitute for reducing emissions. But still, to tinker with the earth's climate on such a massive scale so as to mitigate the effects of earlier tampering (in the form of massive amounts of GHG emissions) seems a bit risky, but I'm sure there are others more qualified to say how risky it might be.
BTW, when faced with posting long URLs, you can use a service such as tinyurl (http://tinyurl.com), copy and paste the original long url, and it will create a short url, like so:
http://tinyurl.com/y8mjghe
That should take you to the geoengineering article you cited. You can also specify your own url (words after tinyurl.com/), to make it look more meaningful.
What a great idea -- added tinyurl to my browser.
Much thanks amigo.
Gary
"Although computer memory is no longer expensive, there's always a finite size buffer somewhere. When a big piece of news arrives, everybody sends a message to everybody else, and the buffer fills."
-- Benoit Mandelbrot
The bad thing about tinyurl, is that people cannot see the url you are linking them too.
Some people do not like that. Myself, I basically refuse to click through on any tinyurl links.
A little trick to remember on those long URLs -- if you simply hit reply you get a larger window that wraps around the URL. Or one can simply "divide" up the URL with hitting return part-way through the URL and thus fitting it into the CD window.
Gary
"Alchemy is the art of far and near, and I think poetry is alchemy in that way. It's delightful to distort size, to see something that's tiny as though it were vast."
-- Robert Morgan
Thanks for the tips, Gary and Alcyon.
The suggested geoengineering falls far short of dealing with the multitude of problems that Global Warming is/will cause. The item's opening sentence tells us all we really need to know about the agenda of such scientists: "It would be 100 times cheaper to shield the Earth from sunlight with a man-made 'sun block' than to cut emissions of greenhouse gases." Don't worry; be happy. Just daub on some sunblock and continue to enjoy the eroding beaches, shopping at WalMart, and driving the SUV to and from them.
I didn't look at the site, but here's my two-cents: fighting global warming by encouraging global dimming is like battling a plugged toilet by drinking less water. Earth thrives on light, get rid of it and you will solve GW, and hatch an entire NEW pantheon of problems related to light. For example, last time I checked, the meager crops that feed this overpopulated world are 100% dependent on light to grow. Cut the light, cut the yield, starve the people. Brilliant.
Also, solving warming in such a manner does little to solve the other consequences of too much CO2 in our atmosphere, like acidification of the oceans, and consequent killing of coral reefs everywhere. Imagine preventing sea level rise through such draconian methods, only to find the reefs die anyway.
The warning about GW was always, 'if you like the planet you've been living on, kiss it goodbye'. It's hubris to conclude your planet will be better or worse. But, if its worse, its worse in ways you cannot imagine, and cannot anticipate... Deniers say 'you don't know the planet, but its bigger than you imagine'. The GW response is 'YOU don't know the planet. And if it starts moving, it'll go places YOU can't imagine, and can't combat.'
Yes, there is serious climate change--in the Midwest we are colder than we've been for years. It has been my belief for many years that the cause was tied in some way to the Industrial Revolution and CO2.
But you are missing the point--that a debate over CO2, for which definitive data will always be questioned, allows vested interests to stay vested.
When barriers are put up, it's usually more effective to go around them (think Maginot Line). Simply stop arguing with them and say, OK, maybe it isn't CO2 but that is irrelevant in the face of fossil fuel pollution and the increasing expense of retrieving oil and gas. Call for a btu tax and the stopping of subsidies to oil, gas and nuclear.
Actually the Guardian now states this 'intelligence operation' was a mischaracterization:
David King admits to speculation over source of climate science emails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/david-king-climate-emails-speculation
Fascinating. The article then becomes also a study in the readiness of the MSM to take the assertion of officials as probable truth.
rhenley, I've been thinking - maybe I should pay attention to the source of such articles, although I don't know enough about where to place these newspapers - like The Independent, The Telegraph, etc. Also, it may not be so easy to categorize like FoxNews, I think. I've noticed that The Guardian is somewhat left-leaning - based on the occasional reproduction of The Guardian stories in another left-leaning newspaper in India ("The Hindu" - which, despite its name, seems left-leaning, sometimes too much so - in its pro-China stance).
It doesn't matter who hacked the emails, and I have heard it suggested that the culprit (or whistleblower) was Keith Briffa - one of the scientists at the CRU, who seemed unhappy with the CRU's efforts to overstate the dangers of AGW.
Anyway, the real point is that the CRU has had plenty of time to call foul if those emails had been tampered with - one quick file comparison with the originals would have done the trick - so we can assume they are genuine - with all the discussion of deliberately deleting data subject to the FOI, bending the refereeing process, and not cooperating with researchers with whom they disagreed.
However, perhaps the most damning document is the HARRY_README.TXT file, which documents the sheer incompetence of the way the CRU stored its data!
Whoever hacked the information did us all a favour - does anyone here - even the most ardent supporter of the AGW theory - really want the research to be done like that?
Big business has a billion dollars worth of power, and an equal number of reasons to disprove the climate change model.
Scientists make their careers on publications.
When big business can use these leaked emails to blow the current model away, smear the reputation of the scientists involved, and suggest a replacement model, then I will be more interested. Until they can use these leaked emails to publish that paper, then having these leaks public only strengthens the science, because the science is standing up to big business, unlike our politicians.
"does anyone here... really want the research to be done like [CRU did it]?" Scientists publish their methods so that they can be independently verified. When they are (and THESE methods were), then the verifier uses their own team, programs, data verification techniques, and equipment. The only thing the verifier doesn't use of their own, is the method. For that, they reference the published method in their references section. CRU was rather poorly equiped for the task they were given, but they did their job using what they had. The point is: they published their methods (not their data), and anyone who wanted to could independently use CRU's method, with their OWN data, and either verify the method, or not. Given the kind of money granted to the GW denier community, the only reason CRU's published methods have never been independently verified by the denier community, is probably because they KNOW they would work out as they did for CRU. Sure, CRU had bad data and bad equipment, and bad programmers. They were dirt poor, and still are. But, it doesn't matter: they published their methods, they were verified by GISS and others, they could easily have been verified by the denier community (as wealthy as it is) if they wanted to. And THAT's what's important. Believe it or not, whats important in science is the method, NOT the conclusion. That's why its called the scientific METHOD. Thats why people publish their METHODS. As long as others have your METHODS, they can verify your conclusions, or not, using their own [better] equipment and data.
If the denier community didn't independently verify CRU's methods, its probably because they knew what they would find: that they worked just fine, even when you have ten times as much money to spend employing them. The denier community finds its money is better spent on obfuscation, innuendo, and character assassination: stuff the FAUX News crowd thrives on in place of the search for truth.
""Anchors read what they're handed and who knows where it comes from. (Well, ahem, a little research and thoughtfulness usually will reveal where it comes from."
Reference Jon Stewart how he shows us regularly that the news people are Pete and RePete...hhhahhahhaa we are so screwed
>>>But a spate of controversy over recent IPCC research papers and a resurgent mood among challengers to the theory of man-made climate change have led many to wonder who, exactly, he [Pachauri] is.
And picking bits and pieces of totally trivial pieces of information makes ME wonder who this Steve Connor chap is. Pachauri was initially chosen - most likely because the petroleum lobby in the US was opposed to the other candidate - Robert Watson, and Pachauri was viewed as a 'moderate' - which he probably was, though he was already the Vice Chairman of the IPCC at that time. But Pachauri has also been known as a great institution-builder - and IPCC at that time was clearly an institution that was still being built, still struggling to make itself heard. Here's why I think it's a malicious whining by a British hack, most likely a paid hack:
Robert Watson, though spent a lot of time in the US and is a friend of Al Gore, is British born. Just as Al Gore wrote at least one scathing op-ed attacking Pachauri when Watson was replaced by Pachauri, this British writer has probably not forgiven Pachauri for overshadowing their native son.
The name of TERI was changed to "The Energy and Resources Institute" in the 1990's, dropping the "Tata" name - something unthinkable in India, since the Tatas were generally the most-respected business name, who have set up India's first private steel plant more than a 100 years ago, started India's first airline, which the government took over and made it into Air India, been manufacturing trucks and buses with technology from Daimler-Benz from the 1950's, and so on. At that time, many people in the field suggested that Pachauri had greater ambitions for TERI and so he wanted to retain sufficient independence for this NGO. While TERI can clearly use Tata's financing, the Tatas don't need TERI - anyone who has an elementary knowledge about the Indian business scene can tell you that. And when Tata Motors launched their $2500 car, Tata Nano, Pachauri called it a "nightmare", even though Ratan Tata, the CEO, tried his best by talking about the car's environmental credentials. It's the total emissions that mattered and that's why Pachauri caled it a nightmare, clearly favoring increased investment in public transport.
So, to keep referring to TERI's past connection with the Tata's is pathetic. Pathetic, but not surprising - since such references are made ONLY in British papers - because the Tatas have bought Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford. There are some people there who did not mind when their beloved British brands were bought by an American company (Ford), but suddenly became all nationalistic when Ford decided to dump them on to an Indian buyer. They did not even care that the employees unions were firmly in favor of the Tatas buying these companies, instead of other rivals, knowing the labor practices of the Tatas - who had instituted an 8-hour work day in India, along with other labor benefits, long before the British or anyone else followed suit. The Tatas have since bought another British company, Corus steel, though they subsequently faced criticism for laying off people.
Pachauri has many detractors in India - and many are put off by his somewhat flamboyant lifestyle, including being an active cricket player. While other NGOs in India have openly attacked corporations for polluting the air and water, TERI has sought to work with them, governments and various funding agencies, in upgrading their technologies. TERI has divisions working on a whole range of energy issues - from rural energy, renewables to industrial energy - carrying out energy audits, retrofits and such, and people at TERI are not averse to taking consultancy jobs for foreign companies and institutions - since surviving as an NGO takes a bit of juggling various interests in a country like India. TERI's (and Pachauri's) ambitious approach is often used in attacks - as being corporate-friendly, whereas those inside TERI feel they are not activists, but professionals working to bring about change by working with the system.
But Pachauri has also done a pretty decent job at the IPCC, and we have to notice that the scientists working for the IPCC have not criticized him, nor have the activists demanding action on climate change.
Posting personal details about Pachauri - which MUST HAVE come only from his detractors, in an article that talks about a conspiracy - an article that goes to a ridiculous length blaming foreign spy agencies, which does not even consider the possibility that someone on the inside - a British climate change-denier who happened to be working in one of the IT departments, for example - could have had a role, is somewhat suspicious.
Oh, and the Norfolk Constabulary that is "conducting an investigation into the hacking" - I hope they have experts on cyber crime with sufficient capability. With big names like Scotland Yard, MI-5, 6 and so on, I wonder why it should be left to a Norfolk Constabulary to investigate a crime of this magnitude.
P.S. Actually, attacks on Pachauri is not just from the British papers. At least one paper in India (Indian Express) that seems quite a bit friendly to the US and corporate interests has also started attacking Pachauri in recent times. So it seems like an orchestrated attempt to me.
"...and where, despite owning his own electric car, he was photographed this week being chauffeur-driven on the one-mile journey to his offices in a 1.8-litre Toyota."
What is this remark doing in here?
This remark needs a bit of cultural translation for USAn readers. When I first read this, I thought "at least he is being chauffered in a small economical car" but then I realized that in the rest of the world, 1.8 liters is regarded as a large, gas-guzzling engine. But in the US only a handful of car models even come with engines that small.
Yeah, lots of gossip in the article's last two segments having almost nothing to do with the main subject. I would red pencil most of it and give it back to the student for a rewrite.
Considering the prevalance of market-extremist "libertarianism" and associated AGW denial among the software-geek set (the global pro-"libertarian" bias in Wikipedia is very noticable), it probably wasn't hard to find dedicated talent.
And this 'talent' could have come from within Britain, too. I have my suspicion as to why a local police unit is "investigating" such a sensational story.
Yes, it probably wasn't. If these scientists didn't lie, they shouldn't have any qualms about their research being scrutinised and that scrutiny publicised.
Otherwise, they are a disgrace to science. The key point isn't whether the stuff was hacked, or whether it was leaked, the key point is that whether the hacked / leaked / whatever stuff was TRUE. If it is true, then really, the hackers / leakers should be hailed as heroes.
I see no good reason to doubt the assumption presented as the premise of this article, that is, that "(a) highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency," but am I the only reader (I haven't read the thread yet) to note the absence of any mention of, indeed the strict avoidance of any language referring to such a presupposition as a *theory* of presumed conspiracy on the part of a national intelligence service, based as it is primarily on (admittedly probable) surmise?
Surely a sense of irony is in order here, among our appointed scribes?
How is such speculation any different in semantic nature from, or even as compelling as, the assumption that WTC 7 was demolished, based as that is on hard forensic, documentary (video), eyewitness, and circumstantial evidence, to say nothing of libraries of analysis and debate?
Reading the thread, I see to my delight that you guys are all over this angle, so please consider henceforth the question "am I the only reader" strictly rhetorical.
I agree with you. If you were as interested in the meat of the subject as in the semantic gymnastics others might agree with you as well.
A poorly written article. Sir David King's conjectures are provocative, but nowhere does anybody specify whether, how and by whom they can be tested.
I suggest you reread, especially the testimony by Gavin Schmidt.
I guess you can't trust any country these days!