Skeptical bloggers claim they are vindicated by leaked climate change emails
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[quote]LONDON – Computer hackers have broken into a server at a well-respected climate change research center in Britain and posted hundreds of private e-mails and documents online — stoking debate over whether some scientists have overstated the case for man-made climate change.
The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, said in a statement Saturday that the hackers had entered the server and stolen data at its Climatic Research Unit, a leading global research center on climate change. The university said police are investigating the theft of the information, but could not confirm if all the materials posted online are genuine.
More than a decade of correspondence between leading British and U.S. scientists is included in about 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents posted on Web sites following the security breach last week.
Some climate change skeptics and bloggers claim the information shows scientists have overstated the case for global warming, and allege the documents contain proof that some researchers have attempted to manipulate data.
The furor over the leaked data comes weeks before the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, when 192 nations will seek to reach a binding treaty to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases worldwide. Many officials — including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — regard the prospects of a pact being sealed at the meeting as bleak.
In one leaked e-mail, the research center's director, Phil Jones, writes to colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium. He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to "hide the decline" in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.
Jones wrote that, in compiling new data, he had "just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline," according to a leaked e-mail, which the author confirmed was genuine.
One of the colleague referred to by Jones — Michael Mann, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University — did not immediately respond to requests for comment via telephone and e-mail.
The use of the word "trick" by Jones has been seized on by skeptics — who say his e-mail offers proof of collusion between scientists to distort evidence to support their assertion that human activity is influencing climate change.
"Words fail me," Stephen McIntyre — a blogger whose climateaudit.org Web site challenges popular thinking on climate change — wrote on the site following the leak of the messages.
However, Jones denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been taken out of context. "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially, as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward," he said in a statement Saturday.
Jones did not indicate who "Keith" was in his e-mail.
Two other American scientists named in leaked e-mails — Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and Kevin Trenberth, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado — did not immediately return requests for comment.
The University of East Anglica said that information published on the Internet had been selected deliberately to undermine "the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world's climate in ways that are potentially dangerous."
"The selective publication of some stolen e-mails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way," the university said in a statement.
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I must say, I was extremely surprised, I wonder how this will effect perceptions of Climate Change.
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_climate_hacked_e_mails[/url]
hopefully not at all since the private emails of a few british scrubs hardly stand for the entire world's scientific community
Doesn't mean we don't have to act a bit lighter on our carbone gas emissions
[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;18493052]hopefully not at all since the private emails of a few british scrubs hardly stand for the entire world's scientific community[/QUOTE]
Did you read the part where it said between US and UK scientists?
Just a small point I wanted to add. We are not talking about real scientists here. These guys are mostly political. Real scientists usually question the assumptions.
[QUOTE=Giner;18493102]Did you read the part where it said between US and UK scientists?[/QUOTE]
But the article hardly has any evidence that the scientists are overreacting. It just cites one email where some guy alluded to techniques to "hide the decline" of global temperatures, which really doesn't make sense since the fact that global temperatures have been increasing isn't contested at all.
Yea they are completely overreacting over one little thing that isn't true
[quote]However, Jones denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been taken out of context. "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially, as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward," he said in a statement Saturday.
The University of East Anglica said that information published on the Internet had been selected deliberately to undermine "the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world's climate in ways that are potentially dangerous."
"The selective publication of some stolen e-mails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way," the university said in a statement.[/quote]
This isn't really surprising, conspiracy theorist bloggers have been quoting people out of context for years now
They have it down to an art
I hope this won't end up like the thimerosal vaccine scare. Documents taken out of context shown to people they aren't meant for.
I dunno, maybe now the that the internet is more mainstream perhaps people have better learned to interpret information they are given. I doubt it though.
[QUOTE=TH89;18493429]This isn't really surprising, conspiracy theorist bloggers have been quoting people out of context for years now
They have it down to an art[/QUOTE]
Why did you rename this thread to match your opinion? “Stolen E-Mails between Scientists suggest they are overreacting over Climate Change” seems neutral enough for me, your title, however, doesn't.
[QUOTE=Tu154M;18493759]Why did you rename this thread to match your opinion? “Stolen E-Mails between Scientists suggest they are overreacting over Climate Change” seems neutral enough for me, your title, however, doesn't.[/QUOTE]
maybe it's because the bloggers themselves aren't neutral?
[QUOTE=Tu154M;18493759]Why did you rename this thread to match your opinion? “Stolen E-Mails between Scientists suggest they are overreacting over Climate Change” seems neutral enough for me, your title, however, doesn't.[/QUOTE]
I renamed it to be neutral, not to match my opinion. In journalism, you have to cite your source, you don't repeat their word as fact. Especially when the source is something as non-authoritative as a blog. It would be like making a thread about Iran saying they aren't trying to make nukes, and calling it "Iran not trying to make nukes."
If you think citing sources is spinning the issue against your side, maybe your side has bad sources?
[QUOTE=TH89;18493429]This isn't really surprising, conspiracy theorist bloggers have been quoting people out of context for years now
They have it down to an art[/QUOTE]
"[G]lobal warming" "as shown by our evidence" "nonexistent".
This is going to end up like that fucking ridiculously fraudulent anti-global warming petition people always bring up.
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