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The Forum > Article Comments > Climategate: anatomy of a public relations disaster > Comments

Climategate: anatomy of a public relations disaster : Comments

By Fred Pearce, published 15/12/2009

The way that climate scientists have handled the fallout from the leaking of hacked emails is a case study in how not to respond to a crisis.

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The issue is not the emails. The emails are just the icing on the cake. The issue is the data. Here are some quotes from the poor bastard working at and for HCRU who was trying to make some sense of the data set:

"Uses "corrected" MXD - but shouldn't usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures."

"Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1940 to avoid the decline"

"getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren't documented. Every time a cloud forms I'm presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too."

"the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was."

"As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. ... Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too."

"Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!"

You can find all these and many more documented at http://tinyurl.com/ycr4jq3 -- and yet this is the 'settled science' on the basis of which our beloved leaders want to spend billions of dollars of our money.

Bear in mind too that the other datasets on which the AGW hypothesis is based follow it closely, and are kept just as secret as this one was before Climategate: does this seem to you like the behaviour of a group with nothing to hide?
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 9:20:34 AM
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A very good article Fred Pearce.

Now, just watch the holes in the wordwork, as seen in the 1st comment.
Posted by Q&A, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 10:01:19 AM
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Fred, this is a beautifully written piece of mitigation. It also serves to draw attention away from the indefensible issues surrounding the CRU leak.

Jon J is spot on when pointing to the data not the emails.

I find it quite outrageous that Fred can talk about the easy defense of the emails yet fail to address the core issues of data integrity, data manipulation, coding errors, flawed database access paths and lack of integrated legacy code.

If we are to accept the output of these systems as so critical to massive social, political, industrial and economic changes, the above problems render output as totally invalid.

In the real world any computer programs in production, those of your suppliers and your downstream customers must carry ISO 9000 (International) or AS 35XX (Australian) certification. Without such certification those applications are considered non-compliant rubbish.

The CRU applications are not ISO 9000 compliant and should be removed from production immediately. The UK Government tender conditions mandate ISO 9000 compliance, audit and certification. How did Hadley/CRU/EAU obtain massive funding from the UK Government, via the Met Office, without mandatory quality compliance?

The answer, grants! What a lovely stunt.

Fred, you really need to understand that the core tools of your science are computer programs. AGW science is generated by the uncertified blunt force trauma of legacy code. Imagine yourself as a micro-surgeon and being satisfied with a rusty saw and a hammer. You should be ashamed and embarrassed by any association with these scientific hacks.

Stop mitigating and focus your energy upon those who have brought your profession into disrepute.

Q&A, I feel your pain, you have every right to be angry and you have invested much. The first stage is anger/denial. Without your acceptance of being “had” you are at risk of getting “stuck” within the trauma cycle never to emerge.
Posted by spindoc, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 10:15:17 AM
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"Lots of people believe in UFOs. It doesn’t make them right. Lots of people don’t believe in man-made climate change. It doesn’t make them right either."

A bit klutzy. Perhaps, to be consistent, those last two sentences should have read "Lots of people believe in man-made climate change. It doesn’t make them right either." x = 0

"Climategate could also make scientists more cautious in their day-to-day work and their communications. That would be a big blow since science is a necessarily adversarial process that thrives on blunt debate. "

Well, I'm glad that Mr Pearce didn't have the cheek to say 'open debate'.

Who are the flat-earthers, I wonder ?

For the record, I believe in AGW, that wherever possible energy should be generated from renewable resources, that glaciers are retreating, that polar bears are jumping between smaller and small ice-floes, that it's all one world and that ice bears can melt even in Copenhagen. But with friends like these ......

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 11:04:26 AM
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If the emails had been stolen from an oil company, and showed conspiracy to discredit AGW researchers, you would have been crowing about the final nail in the coffin of climate denial.

But because you personally support the theory of AGW, you clutch at any excuse to avoid having to face your own doubts.

Please grow up. Face your doubts. And find out what else is rotten in the world of climate research.

Even if AGW is a real problem, we shall never believe anything the IPCC or CRU says again, unless we are satisfied the rot has been excised.
Posted by eworrall, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 11:23:55 AM
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All we can really learn from this is "At least we have learned how not to conduct a climate change investigation."

From now on trust I had for Scientists will be seriously compromised .

Is it really true that Al Gore has made a fortune promoting Climate Change ? He had a Climate Change Business ? He Charged Public Radio and Television to Interview him ? Why did I think he was on Crusade for Mankind and all other in the World .

I was conned !

And the Scientists , He who pays gets the Science he wants !
Posted by ShazBaz001, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 11:50:47 AM
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No matter. The Copenhagen Conference is a shambles, which is not surprising coming from the people who gave us the Great CO2 Scam.
Posted by Leigh, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 1:09:24 PM
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Just what is going on with the presentation of data said to measure the past temperature of our planet.
This journalist claims that is not clandestine data manipulation to use a “trick” - or "a graphic device" - that was used by Michael Mann in a 1998 paper in Nature in which he added aggregated temperature records from instruments to complete a set of temperature data derived from tree rings.
He states that the “trick” got around a widely discussed problem that tree ring data after about 1960 do not show warming.
Yet trees have been growing, trees have even been cut down and tree rings analysed. Huon Pine at Mt Read in Tasmania has been studied to give a reconstruction of the temperature record from 1600 BC to 1991 AD. The accepted scientific paper uses a calibration period of 1920-1991 comparing the reconstructed temperature to the “actual”.
Yet this journalist states that tree rings show no recent warming “ probably because of intervening factors like nitrogen pollution or changes in atmospheric humidity.
And the author states that Mann, chose to hide this ‘discredited’ tree ring proxy..
Such statements would normally result in demands for royal commissions and examination by independent experts, yet because it is “green” science aimed at saving the world it is dismissed as a PR disaster.
Posted by cinders, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 3:40:20 PM
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Carbon taxes are all about funding a NEW WORLD ORDER or world govt owned and controlled by the corporate elites.

Carbon taxes will not reduce CO2 by one molecule.Aust has increased the production of coal.If we were truly serious we would decrease exports instead of increasing taxes.

There are better ways of decreasing CO2 than increasing taxes.In any case,I don't think that CO2 is the monster it is portrayed.

Climategate shows us more than just scientific fraud,it shows appalling attitudes of venom,ad hominem and tribalism,that have nothing to do with scientific objectivity.
Posted by Arjay, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 6:38:42 PM
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Ah yes, how silly of people, the problem is not with the data or how it is manipulated, the problem is the way the release of it was handled, of course it was.

How to respond to the "crises of the data being let loose into the wild, no longer shepherded by ever so clever climate scientists".

This is an attempt to shift the problem from data manipulation, for nefarious and clearly monetary reasons, to mere slips in language and a problem of perception.

The method is called, "Bait and Switch", well used by politicians and their "climate minions" now it seems.

How terribly trivial, and all this fuss .. indeed. If it wasn't for scaring the children, if it didn't affect our lifestyles, if it wasn't going to cripple our economy and put the world's countries against each other, it would be trivial.

As someone else posted, if this had been oil companies using such language, then no amount of silly and clumsy attempts at coverup would be tolerated.

Instead of explaining when they issue hysterical forecasts, to the press and politicians, about the ways and vagaries of how their "science" is done, they give the Jack and Jill version.

It's clearly not a strong and factual arena of science, is it?

Our resident supposed scientist (RSS), regular as clockwork posts in an attempt to discredit other posters and suppress the debate. It seems he really is a climate scientist, he behaves like one and seeks to manipulate data and "hide the decline"! (no, we don't believe your explanation, climate scientists are short on credibility right now)

I can see the author and RSS are in different stages of Grief, the RSS is in "denial", the author is at "bargaining" .

People are pointing at this fiasco in a supposed science, it seems now is partially made up, it might be explained in complex papers, but it is always left out as mere details when going public.

Well, it turns out people are not so gullible, and you are all accountable.
Posted by odo, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 7:06:58 PM
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A poster here said who pays for the scientists to prove global warming? Well the politicians of course. The modelling has to reflect what is called for. To pay for thier imeptitude.

In the state of NSW today we have just been informed by Energy Australia that we will all pay $900 extra for electricity this coming year and more over 3 years, that, after just receiving a huge price hike.

Government inaction on infrastructure and outright ineptitude have put this state where it is presently. The price hikes are partly due, we are also told to the ETS that appears to be coming regardless of Copenhagen. I have to wonder what we would pay if indeed the whole process was correct.

Computers will prove anything you want from data input. However, computers have not yet learned to think for themselves; analysis only reflects the input and the programming which are put there by? Oh, scientists, being paid to do so, and you can programme a computer whatever way you wish. Get what I mean? Particularly, if your livlihood and remuneration for the next decade or more depends on it.
Posted by RaeBee, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 7:23:15 PM
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Hehehe! The herd mentality is strong in this one. Could he be the one to bring balance to the force?

If this article was spun any harder we might have corrected the shift in the earths axis! :rolls eyes:
Posted by RawMustard, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 7:31:29 PM
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Dodgey data, dodgey manipulation, dodgey culture, and you think we should be worried about the dodgey PR! Not every fool in the world, Fred, was buying it from the start, and climategate only reinforces what many have long suspected. "Problem" tree ring data from the 1960s? Hmm, this'll fix it, because it's only "probably" due to nitrogen or whatever. Ever wondered if there are a few other "probablies" and "possiblies" in the history of planet earth? Climate "science" (actually modelling and stats which can say whatever you want) is compromised by political activism. If CO2 concentrations are a problem, get our most imaginative and ingenious to work on ways of removing it from the atmosphere - that's what creative people in the past, and my cleaning lady would do (not that CO2 is a pollutant - that's just more spin). Solvents, vaccuums, chemical reactions, - get on with it. Brainstorm! But as this is political, it has to be all about cutting emissions. It's just another way for self-righteous hypocrites to attack development, democracy, free trade and civilisation, which from what I can see have greatly improved man's lot over the last century - but ooh, it's a wittle bit warmer. So, hey, let's punish the well-off, engage in grandiose protests like on the Sydney Opera House today to draw attention to Copenhagen (thanks guys, I might have missed it - why don't you just go and kick letter boxes like other ferals) and more importantly keep the poor poor, and make the struggling workers of the world get priced out of home and hearth. (so much for the old concerns of the Left!) God bless those African nations for walking out in Copenhagen, although of course they know how to play politics too!
Posted by whitmus, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 9:47:59 PM
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I have great concern about the statement explaining why Phil Jones wouldn't release the data.. "It is worth explaining why that was so. Jones had always refused to release the data, partly, as the emails reveal, because he simply didn’t want to..........(other reasons given)"

Because he didn't want to! So we should just accept this as a good enough reason? I am stunned.
Posted by Atman, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 3:22:41 PM
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Spindoc

<< Q&A, I feel your pain, you have every right to be angry and you have invested much. The first stage is anger/denial. Without your acceptance of being “had” you are at risk of getting “stuck” within the trauma cycle never to emerge. >>

Excuse me?

No Spindoc, I am not in any pain (so I can't imagine what your feeling) - nor am I angry.

The rest of your spiel is just spin, so apt.
Posted by Q&A, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 11:10:23 PM
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Has anyone wondered by the Russians hardly took part in Copenhagen? Because in that huge country their scientists, who in the past have put people into space, have been taking readings all over Russia on climate change "global warming" and sending the information to the English Climate Change Centre or whatever they call it, where their scientists politely cherry picked the information. Hence the Russians were not actually convinced about the whole scenario of the Copenhagen debarcle. The English seem to have "gone cold" on it too. The only ones that seem to be "red hot" to trot is our Mr. Rudd and Ms Wong. Lucky us, we might get an ETS regardless so the brainless protestors on the Opera House may get their wish. Of course most of those twits don't pay tax, they don't work!

Why not try cleaning up carbon monoxide, that would help, in Sydney anyway. But that would not attract a tax. Sorry I keep bringing up the tax, but I will never be happy to pay taxes to put money into the pockets of people like Magabe or any of the leaders of the African countries who only take whatever they get for themselves and still kill their people. They kill more people than climate change because their wars and violence will not allow the people to live any sort of lifestyle and there will still be droughts in Africa.

As for sinking islands in the Pacific and a disappearing Great Barrier Reef, get real, bring on another fairy story. It's not happening. You don't believe it, go look for yourself and talk to the people who live and work there.
Posted by RaeBee, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 9:25:27 AM
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Raebee

You may, or may not, be interested:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9844#158279

People believe what they want to believe - quite often, facts and truth are collateral damage.
Posted by Q&A, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 9:45:47 AM
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Thanks Q&A, I am interested in all sides, though it may seem I am one sided sometimes or perhaps most of the time.

That's because I don't trust politicians and their motives. I also think they are told what they want to hear and do what is expedient to collect more taxes.

I wonder, if we get another change of government, will we get another tax, we got the GST with Howard, we look like getting an ETS of some form with the Rudd team. I wonder what they will call the next one if the Liberals get back in? Or will they just up the ante on the GST?How much is enough?

You know as well as I do we cannot "save the world". And it certainly won't be done with more taxes; the world is over-populated now. Modern medicine saves lives that would not have been saved previously, for what? To live a deprived life in an over populated world, still starving to death or being killed? But perhaps that's what some people want. I don't know anymore.

We cannot make this world a Utopia. Cynical, of course I am, but us cynics are open to argument. However, I can't see myself changing my opinion about carbon trading,nor the Labour Goverment and I was a very left wing most of my life. Not now. I really used to think Labour was about a fair deal for the ordinary person. Not any more.
Posted by RaeBee, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 7:48:24 PM
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This is very unconvincing special pleading.

It is misleading to splice together two incommensurable types of data (tree rings up to 1850 and then instrumental measurements beyond) to produce a desired effect (rising temperature trend). To show the trend over 1,000 years they should only present proxy measures that continue over the whole period unchanged. But they don't because this doesn't reveal the dramatic red blade of the hockey stick at the end.
Posted by Michael T, Wednesday, 23 December 2009 11:55:49 AM
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