A Case Of Classic SwiftBoating: How The Right-Wing Noise Machine Manufactured ‘Climategate’
A Case Of Classic SwiftBoating: How The Right-Wing Noise Machine Manufactured ‘Climategate’
In mid-November, thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit webmail server — a top climate research center in the United Kingdom — were hacked and dumped on a Russian web server. Polluter-funded climate skeptics, along with their allies in conservative media and the Republican Party, sifted through the e-mails, and quickly cherry picked quotes to falsely accuse climate scientists of concocting climate change science out of whole cloth. The skeptics also propelled the story, dubbed “Climategate,” to the cover of the New York Times and newspapers across the globe. According to a Nexis news search, the Climategate story has been reported at least 325 times in the American press alone.
While the hacked e-mails may reveal that scientists might not have nice things to say about climate change deniers at times, they do nothing to change the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are raising temperatures and making oceans more acidic. As the right attempts to use the Climategate story to derail the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this week, arctic sea ice is still at historically low levels, Australia is still on fire, the northern United Kingdom is still underwater, the world’s glaciers are still disappearing and today NOAA confirmed that not only is it the hottest decade in history, but 2009 was one of the hottest years in history. But how did the right-wing noise machine hijack the debate?
The methods for the right-wing political hit machine were honed during the Clinton years. Columnist and language-guru William Safire, a former aide to actual Watergate crook President Nixon, attached “-gate” to any minor post-Nixon incident as a “rhetorical legerdemain” intended “to establish moral equivalence.” (See phony manufactured scandals “Travelgate,” “Whitewatergate,” etc.) A right-wing echo chamber — including the Rev. Moon-funded Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, talk radio, and the constellation of various conservative front groups and think tanks — would then blare the scandal incessantly, regardless of the truth. But the more troubling aspect of this gimmick is the increasing willingness for traditional media outlets, from the Evening News to the Washington Post, to largely reprint unfounded right-wing smears without context or critical reporting.
One of the most successful coups for right-wing hit men was the “SwiftBoat” campaign, a well financed effort orchestrated by lobbyists and Bush allies to smear Sen. John Kerry’s (D-MA) war record. But “Climategate” is no different, with many of the same conservatives actors playing their respective roles:
(Click MORE to read the Wonk Room’s timeline of Climategate)
Nov. 17:
– RealClimate blogger Gavin Schmidt realized that someone was hacking his computer and downloading 160MB of files from a Turkish IP address. About an hour after the intrusion, a mysterious commenter at the climate skeptic blog Climate Audit posted a link to the hacked files with a note reading: “A miracle just happened.” Schmidt noted that, “four downloads occurred from that link while the file was still there (it no longer is).”
Nov. 19:
– Hackers then used a computer in Saudi Arabia to post the stolen e-mails, stored on a Russian server, on the climate skeptic website Air Vent.
– Skeptic blog “Watts Up With That” curiously is among the first blogs to posts the hacked e-mails.
– Chris Horner, an operative of the Koch Industries/ExxonMobil-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, blogged giddily at National Review that although he had not been “able to fully digest this at present,” “the blue dress moment may have arrived” on climate science.
– Sarah Palin appears on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor to discuss her new book. Palin and O’Reilly compare a young man who briefly hacked into her e-mail account in 2008, calling the incident “extremely disconcerting and disruptive” and “Watergate-lite.” O’Reilly and Plain do not discussed the hacked climate e-mails.
Nov. 20:
– In a front page article, the New York Times’ Andy Revkin reports that the e-mails “might lend themselves to being interpreted as sinister.”
– Myron Ebell, of the Koch Industries/ExxonMobil-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, releases a statement pointing to the stolen e-mails to conclude that global warming science is “phony.”
– Reading reports on right-wing blogs on air, Rush Limbaugh dedicates a segment to the hacked e-mails, claiming they vindicate his belief that global warming does not exist.
– Conservative Ed Morrissey concluded the e-mails prove global warming is “not science; it’s religious belief.”
– Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin cheers “the global warming scandal of the century,” adding: “The Chicago Way is the Global Warming Mob Way.”
– ExxonMobil-funded front group FreedomWorks blasts out an e-mail asking “Has the Global Warming Lie and Conspiracy Been Truly Exposed?”
– Marc Morano, a former Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) staffer who helps to distribute climate change denying propaganda to a network of news outlets and conservative organizations, broadcasts Climategate to talk radio.
— The Wall Street Journal’s environmental blog publicizes the conservative blogosphere’s furor: “this should get interesting … Maybe this will spice things up.”
Nov. 22:
– Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) staff distributes a letter claiming the stolen e-mails reveal what “could well be the greatest act of scientific fraud in history.”
Nov. 23:
– Heralding the stolen e-mails, infamous climate science skeptic Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) call for congressional investigations against climate scientists.
– Fox News’ Fox Nation headlines the e-mails: “Global Warming’s Waterloo”
– Glenn Beck devotes both his radio and Fox News program to covering Climategate, claims the e-mails show a “brand new reality” on climate science.
– Investors’ Business Daily editorializes that the e-mails show that global warming is “junk science.”
– The ExxonMobil-funded Heritage Foundation publicizes the stolen e-mails.
– Right-wing activist Viscount Monckton says climate scientists are “criminals.”
Nov. 24:
– Fox News’ Stu Varney begins his daily coverage of Climategate. He continues to attack global warming science, using the e-mails, on both the Fox News and Fox Business network.
– Washington Times editorial board, Drudge Report, both chime in to claim hacked e-mails show global warming is not real.
Nov. 29:
– Fox News regular Andrew Breitbart calls for climate scientists to be killed over Climategate.
Nov. 30:
– Rep. Candace Miller (R-MI) issues a statement to demand for an investigation of Climategate, and begins speaking about it on the floor of the House. In the following week, Reps Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Darrell Issa (R-CA), John Linder (R-GA), Bill Shuster (R-PA), Joe Barton (R-TX), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), Mike Rogers (R-MI), Dan Burton (R-IN), Steve Scalise (R-LA), Greg Walden (R-OR) and Charlie Dent (R-PA) begin blasting press releases on the subject.
Dec. 1:
– Newt Gingrich, who only 2 years ago said America must act “urgently” to address climate change, seizes on the stolen e-mails to spread skepticism of global warming science. Gingrich’s political attack group, ASWF, is heavily funded by coal interests.
Dec. 2:
– Right-wing billionaire David Koch, of the oil empire Koch Industries, sends his front group Americans for Prosperity to attend the Copenhagen conference to attempt to hijack the debate. AFP intends to “expose” the science using the stolen e-mails.
Dec. 3:
– Canada’s National Post reports that burglars and hackers have been attacking the Canadian Center for Climate Modeling and Analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. In the lead up to the Copenhagen conference, Andrew Weaver — a University of Victoria scientist and key contributor to the Nobel prize-winning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — noted that his campus office was broken into twice and that a dead computer was stolen and papers were rummaged through.
– Saudi Arabian climate negotiators for the Copenhagen summit endorse Climategate, charging that the e-mail show “there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change.”
– Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade says “damning” e-mails show scientists who “think … Antartica is becoming like the Bahamas.”
Dec. 4:
– NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams adopts right-wing Climategate smear: “Have the books been cooked on climate change?”
Dec. 7:
– ExxonMobil-funded think tanks the Heartland Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis publicize the e-mails to “discredit” global warming science.
Dec. 8:
– The Wall Street Journal accuses climate scientists of being Stalinists.
– Fox News devotes a segment to a right-wing Rasmussen poll with a graphic that claims 120 percent of the public believes scientists falsified global warming data.
Dec. 9:
– Sarah Palin, who only weeks earlier decried the hacking of e-mails, writes in an op-ed that the Climategate e-mails are proof that anthropogenic global warming does not exist. The Washington Post publishes Palin’s op-ed, despite the fact it is riddled with errors and outright falsehoods.
27 Responses to “A Case Of Classic SwiftBoating: How The Right-Wing Noise Machine Manufactured ‘Climategate’”
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Since you saw fit to do a track-back to Climate Audit (where I’ve hung out since it started) I’ll take the opportunity to point out a few problems with your post.
1.) Most people recognize the emails and other files were compiled with an eye to a possible need to respond to FOIA requests. Since the next day after the outing of the .zip file Steve Mcintyre received a denial of a FOIA request which could have been answered via this file or a portion thereof, odds are the file was leaked (for whatever reason) rather than hacked.
2. Certainly skeptics of AGW looked for the most damaging quotes from the emails, but did not, in general, make any claim that this disproved AGW in general. Indeed, if you’d take the time to read the early posts they generally made a point of saying “Of course these messages don’t disprove AGW” or the equilivant. Note these messages are still there and if you want examples, I’d be happy to provide some.
3. Rather than being at “historically low levels, Arctic sea ice is recovering quite nicely from the minimum (as usual each year) and is in the middle of the pack. Of course I realize you’re just trying to wax poetic when you speak of “as the… still”, but since I’m not going to comment on your more egregious insults toward skeptics, I thought I’d be a little too literal in return.
4. “But the more troubling aspect of this gimmick is the increasing willingness for traditional media outlets, from the Evening News to the Washington Post, to largely reprint unfounded right-wing smears without context or critical reporting.”
The truth is that the MSM has finally had to actually look at the context of the e-mails and recognize that there is truth in the skeptic’s pointing out of unscientific bias in them which needs to be addressed. But I’ve not noticed any uncritical reprinting of skeptical positions. Instead the MSM try their best to white-wash the CRU e-mails and files and attack those skeptics that they do allow on the air or in print.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:28 pmAre you willing to present a more accurate rendition of the truth? For example,
1) We now know that many of the climate alarmists’ work is Shell-Oil funded. (So how important are funding sources after all?)
2) We have exactly zero evidence that the material was stolen or hacked. And plenty of indirect evidence that it was released from the inside (which is by far the most common way for these kinds of things to take place. And CRU made exactly such a mistake earlier this year!)
December 9th, 2009 at 5:37 pmActually, Arctic ice extent is still at historically low levels, not “in the middle of the pack.”
MrPete: Yes, it’s a Shell Oil conspiracy, you’ve figured it out.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:58 pmTom Wigley to Phil Jones:
(1188557698.txt)
Phil,
Seems to me that Keenan has a valid point. The statements in the papers that he quotes seem to be incorrect statements, and that someone (WCW [Wang] at the very least) must have known at the time that they were incorrect.
Whether or not this makes a difference is not the issue here.
Tom.
————————————————————–
(1241415427.txt)
Date: Mon, 04 May 2009
Phil,
Do you know where this stands? The key things from the Peiser items are …
“Wang had been claiming the existence of such exonerating documents for nearly a year, but he has not been able to produce them. Additionally, there was a report published in 1991 (with a second version in 1997) explicitly stating that no such documents exist. Moreover, the report was published as part of the Department of Energy Carbon Dioxide Research Program, and Wang was the Chief Scientist of that program.”
{snip}
“Wang had a co-worker in Britain. In Britain, the Freedom of Information Act requires that data from publicly-funded research be made available.
I was able to get the data by requiring Wang’s co-worker to release it, under British law. It was only then that I was able to confirm that Wang had committed fraud.”
You are the co-worker, so you must have done something like provide Keenan with the DOE report that shows that there are no station records for 49 of the 84 stations. I presume Keenan therefore thinks that it was not possible to select stations on the basis of …
“… station histories: selected stations have relatively few, if any, changes in instrumentation, location, or observation times”
[THIS IS ITEM “X"]
Of course, if the only stations used were ones from the 35 stations that *did* have station histories, then all could be OK. However, if some of the stations used were from the remaining 49, then the above selection method could not have been applied (but see below) — unless there are other “hard copy” station history data not in the DOE report (but in China) that were used. From what Wang has said, if what he says is true, the second possibility appears to be the case.
What is the answer here?
The next puzzle is why Wei-Chyung didn’t make the hard copy information available. Either it does not exist, or he thought it was too much trouble to access and copy. My guess is that it does not exist — if it did then why was it not in the DOE report? In support of this, it seems that there are other papers from 1991 and 1997 that show that the datado not exist. What are these papers? Do they really show this?
Now my views. (1) I have always thought W-C W was a rather sloppy scientist. I therefore would not be surprised if he screwed up here. But ITEM X is in both the W-C W and Jones et al. papers — so where does it come from first? Were you taking W-C W on trust?
(2) It also seems to me that the University at Albany has screwed up. To accept a complaint from Keenan and not refer directly to the complaint and the complainant in its report really is asking for trouble.
(3) At the very start it seems this could have been easily dispatched.
ITEM X really should have been …
“Where possible, stations were chosen on the basis of station histories and/or local knowledge: selected stations have relatively few, if any, changes in instrumentation, location, or observation times”
Of course the real get out is the final “or”. A station could be selected if either it had relatively few “changes in instrumentation”
OR “changes in location” OR “changes in observation times”. Not all three, simply any one of the three. One could argue about the science here — it would be better to have all three — but this is not what the statement says.
Why, why, why did you and W-C W not simply say this right at the start?
Perhaps it’s not too late?
=================================================
Wigley was head of CRU at the time of the e-mails.
Wang has received $7Million in research grants for his work at SUNY Albany.
Wigley & Jones knew his data was compromised, if not fraudulent.
The “settled science” was corrupt and the “consensus”
December 9th, 2009 at 11:58 pmis the unanimity of mafiosi.
Thanks for the article; sorry to quible, but these two bits of hyperbole don’t help. It’s beholden on us to carefully avoid accusations of “climate alarmism”, and “the northern United Kingdom is still underwater” comes into that category. I live there, I can promise you it isn’t. Cumbria was severely flooded, and is recovering slowly – that’s a long way from the entire north of the country being underwater.
December 10th, 2009 at 2:42 am“the northern United Kingdom is still underwater”.
“Cumbria was severely flooded, and is recovering slowly – that’s a long way from the entire north of the country being underwater.”
Hey, it’s a long way from the northern UK, for that matter. (Water in Caithness shock horror !).
Seriously alarmist, though, right enough, for anybody that’s seen how hilly it is. You’d be talking serious raises in sea level to get the northern half of the UK under water. Which is not to express a lack of sympathy for the people of the Derwent valley, the cleaning up must be horrible.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:46 amOh, good grief.
The funny thing is guys like Michael Mann tell you (inadvertently) just how weak their “science” is:
Fruit of the Poison Tree, Tarts From the Poison Fruit
December 10th, 2009 at 8:12 amI noticed in the readers’ comments section of some of the main Spanish news websites from Spain, at least one individual was very-very fast in using the word “climategate” and circulating the URL where the stolen files had been stored. Maybe only a few hours…The guy was so fast, it was the first time I red the word “climategate”, and way before the Spanish media picked that story. I wonder why/how this (or these) Spanish guy(s) were so fast…
December 10th, 2009 at 8:44 am…the hacked e-mails…do nothing to change the scientific consensus…
Why? Because you and other liberals say so? To many of us, the ad hoc data manipulation and corruption of the peer review process exhibited in the emails indicate that the so-called consensus was not scientific at all.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:59 amso right-wingers, how’s your google bomb going?
those “hacked” emails remind me of nothing more than normal scientific, geeky nerdy junk i used to deal with all the time. putting in hours of work typing in your raw data into a computer program only to have it spit out a graph that looks like a failed pac-man game. yikes. the data was immensely important, and i gotta present this crap to class tomorrow morning, how do i fix my graph so it looks like something important? and IT IS IMPORTANT.
i know that the art of graph-making and a basic understanding of peer review is totally lost on most of the right wing–hell, i was the one that always had to tutor your butt in math and science, after all those hours and you STILL only got a C-…well, i knew we’d all have to grow up and run the world together one day, and i’d still have to put up with this nonsense. when will the stupid jocks finally listen to the geeky nerds?
the truth is, the world needs the nerds right now, something important is going on and we’re trying to explain it. yes, it will cut into your oil profiteering, but darn it get over it, and find something else that makes money.
the idea of truly sustainable energy is exciting and extraordinary, and has never been done in mankind’s history–i’m happy for this movement and to be a part of these times, but i’m also deeply concerned about the consequences of not acting, and really pissed that the real corruption is between special interests and our government, and it’s allll over this made-up scandal. all politicians involved with this should be kicked out of office.
December 10th, 2009 at 10:24 amYou are intentionally misleading the public with assertions that this information was “hacked”. Where is your evidence to support your belief on the matter?
December 10th, 2009 at 11:02 am>>…the hacked e-mails…do nothing to change the scientific consensus…
>Why? Because you and other liberals say so?
No…because the FACTS say so.
I find it hilarious how the Reality-Deniers out there are so quick to whine and simper when their imaginary scandal is exposed as nothing more than an astroturf campaign. Makes your wonder what the Anti-Reality community’s agenda truly is – perhaps next they can try and convince the world that two plus two equals five? That would be doubleplusgood.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:05 amKershin,
Well, I’m a rightwinger, had perfectly fine grades in college and graduate school, without anyone like you having to tutor me or type in data.
BTW, while I’m glad you’re happy at what you’re doing, it’s important to be right, not just happy. And while it’s fun imagining you’re saving the world, the truth is you’re trying to destroy western civilization, after which the memory of the radical environmentalist movement won’t be near as positive as you seem to think it will be. That is unless radical islam is the final victor and they glorify the “useful idiots” who gained them their victory.
December 10th, 2009 at 3:02 pmDave Dardingner,
Well, thanks for allowing us to see that “radical islam” is the real monster under the bed that has you spooked. If this is so, then you might want to reconsider that one of your chief bedfellows in climate denial is (wait for it!) The House of Saud. They advocate the burning of hydrocarbons you know; makes them lots of money that gets funneled to Al Qaeda.
Now, who was calling whom a “useful idiot?”
December 10th, 2009 at 5:07 pmDave,
The really important part of the debate that almost no one is talking about is the right wing lie that adjusting our culture and economy to take global warming into account = destruction of Western civilization. Give me a break!
I was young, but I remember hearing how all the motor companies would collapse if: we went to unleaded gas, added catalytic converters, increased gas mileage; I also remember from history class that chemical companies said they wouldn’t be able to function if we taxed them to pay for the messes they left (Superfund). Both of these happened and everything was just fine.
Now, clearly this is different because the Right Wing can’t say it will hurt us economically: the ante has been upped and now it has to be “destroy Western civilization”. Please. It just makes conservatives sound stupid when you talk this way. So please knock it off.
BTW, the world as we know it today is constantly destroyed by change every day int the future.
December 10th, 2009 at 5:36 pmOne more thing for the “end of Western civilization” folks: have you absolutely no faith in American ingenuity?
The most efficient solar cells are made in America, and the world is buying them. It won’t hurt us to invest in them because this will decrease their cost (mass production, economies of scale). And where do the profits go? Oh, yeah, to an American company.
If you insist on your argument, please tell me what happens if all the world decides to invest in their green technology, and we decide that we won’t. In addition to being an international parriah (who cares), we will miss the opportunity to expand our green tech base at the very instant our companies will need that investment to compete with global competitors receiving government aid.
My point is: either way you look at the CC or GW, the market trend analysis says we should help out our companies because future demand is going to skyrocket.
December 10th, 2009 at 5:41 pmJoshua, you are dead on to call out the flat-earthers on their use of language. Shouldn’t they be the “alarmists” with their claims about cap-and-tax destroying our free-market system? Isn’t it they who have made a “religion” out of their beliefs? Seems like much of the language they use to attack those of us in the reality-based community is really a classic case of psychological projection.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:43 pmNo problem here with skepticism. We’re not seeing skepticism from right wing here. It’s dogma creating conspiracy.
Skeptics investigate climate change scientifically. They would compare/contrast their results with those of other climate scientists, and then begin to form conclusions.
Resorting to Nixon-like burglaries and hacking computers underline the fact that these people have already made up their mind. There is no interest in studying the issue further in a empirical manner.
The ambiguous danger of climate change is easily disregarded by conservatives. Conservatives have a low tolerance for ambiguity. Radical islam sparks the fear response in their brain, climate change is incapable of doing that. Their brains are not physically wired accept the danger of climate change.
conservatives liberals cognition
December 11th, 2009 at 8:47 amThe timeline is hilarious, hilariously wrong! The very first line is “RealClimate blogger Gavin Schmidt realized that someone was hacking his computer and downloading 160MB of files from a Turkish IP address.” Follow the link and Gavin quite clearly states that the files were ‘uploaded’ to RC by the hacker. This is how the Climategate file briefly appeared on the RC server. Gavin erased the file from RC as soon as he saw it and then it appeared at the Air Vent blog later that day. Most of the rest of the timeline demonstrates similar poor comprehension skills.
December 11th, 2009 at 3:09 pmthe Right Wing can’t say it will hurt us economically: the ante has been upped and now it has to be “destroy Western civilization”.
Well, the Right Wing is right, of you equate “Western civilization” with exurban lifestyles and gas-guzzling vehicles.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:38 pmOf course, it’s a well-known fact that those EnviroIslamoStalinists want us all to live in Soviet-style apartment blocks and travel to and from work in (ewww!) public transit! Our way of life is clearly in danger.
Matthew Drabik has very, very poor comprehension skills. Hacking someone’s computer and downloading 160MB of files FROM a Turkish IP address could go either way (that is, the hacker downloading files onto Schmidt’s computer using control of that same machine). It is an unclear sentence, and should probably have been written differently, but it is a bad example for you to choose to impugn the whole timeline. Try again.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:59 pmthinking americans need to stop ignoring the problem and give credit where it needs to go – to limbaugh. this is a good eg. of how talk radio works.
the MSM rightly did not touch this bullshit but after enough dittohead screamers got going…
“A right-wing echo chamber — including the Rev. Moon-funded Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, talk radio, and the constellation of various conservative front groups and think tanks — would then blare the scandal incessantly, regardless of the truth. But the more troubling aspect of this gimmick is the increasing willingness for traditional media outlets, from the Evening News to the Washington Post, to largely reprint unfounded right-wing smears without context or critical reporting.”
these:
“including the Rev. Moon-funded Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page,”
don’t generate shit, they just reinforce it, like fox. it starts here:
“the constellation of various conservative front groups and think tank”
generate the package that gets put on limbaugh’s show prep desk in the morning, so he always gets first dibs, and then all the others (hannity, etc.) reinforce it the rest of the day to make the transition to the
“traditional media outlets,”
easier.
December 12th, 2009 at 12:01 am“Climate-gate” follows the patterns described in The Republican War on Science, a detailed and powerful description of the abuse of facts by entrenched interests. We liberals have some responsibility here, though. We need to emphasize the positives in jobs, wealth and quality of life that are created by living a more sustainable lifestyle more than the “sky is falling” doomsday scenarios that raise the hair on our conservative brethrens’ backs. And we need to call out environmentalists who distort their findings to justify their own political or other ends (e.g., where spotted owls habitats stopped timber harvesting, the owls now build nests in construction equipment).
December 12th, 2009 at 2:38 amJust to be clear, “Denier-Hacker-gate” is not an example of scientists distorting their findings. It is an example of them being pissed off at idiots.
December 12th, 2009 at 2:40 amThe second to last item on your list is not quite correct:
“– Fox News devotes a segment to a right-wing Rasmussen poll with a graphic that claims 120 percent of the public believes scientists falsified global warming data.”
It’s not that 120% believes in falsification. It’s that 120% of the public has an opinion (for and against). In order to get to 120%, that means that something was inflated, or there was a typo.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:20 amTo all the demonizers of climate skeptics.
December 13th, 2009 at 11:59 amFirst of all, consensus science is an oxymoron. Science is theory, substantiated by experimental evidence and corroborated by independent sources. There is nothing in this formula that defines a need for consensus, only agreement.
Secondly, anyone who alters, adulterates or destroys raw data is not practicing scientific procedure and deserves to be scorned.
The CRU admitted destroying the raw data because they had modified, massaged and otherwise manipulated the raw data and felt it “unnecessary” to retain the raw data. This is an example of deceit, conspiracy and nothing else.
Whether the files were “hacked”, released or whatever, they are now part of the public domain and answers are necessary. To claim that this banter was merely scientific back-room conversation is the ultimate heresy.
I spent 43 years as a scientist and manager and never had a incident of data alteration either occur or even suggested. Simply put, raw data is never altered even if wrong. It remains in original format, always.
The cases of “Cold Fusion” or Schon’s escapades at Lucent Technologies should be evidence enough of the charlatans that roam the scientific field.
RE: jxn – Comment 21
“Matthew Drabik has very, very poor comprehension skills.”
I know places where you could make good money selling t-shirts with that quote, but it don’t make it true :)
Since the file transfer was initiated from the Turkish IP address it was an upload, as Gavin states. Words don’t mean whatever you want them to mean just because you believe in AGW.
“Try again”
OK, the second entry in this hilariously erroneous timeline states that the link at Air Vent blog was posted Nov 19th. It was posted on Nov 17th (again, just like Gavin says).
I could go on…and on….and on…
December 16th, 2009 at 5:09 pm