SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report entitled The Climate Deception Dossiers.
For nearly three decades, many of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.
Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven "deception dossiers"—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.
So now we have some idea of "What fossil fuel companies knew and when they knew it". Full report available here [pdf].
Original Submission
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Climategate: the Shoe is on the Other Foot
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 65 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 09 2015, @10:53PM
Good point, sorry, but the humble submitter was only referring to prior usage.
The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (also known as "Climategate")[2][3] began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) by an external attacker.[4][5] Several weeks before the Copenhagen Summit on climate change, an unknown individual or group breached CRU's server and copied thousands of emails and computer files to various locations on the Internet.
The story was first broken by climate change critics on their blogs,[6] with columnist James Delingpole popularising the term "Climategate" to describe the controversy.[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate [wikipedia.org] Blame Delingpole.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday July 10 2015, @12:50PM
That wikipedia summary is poorly written.
You have to get to the final paragraph of the summary to find out that the claims were complete bullshit. Up until there it's a very "he said-she said" faux-balance wording.
I guess that's an objection I should take to wikipedia and not here, but jeez.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday July 10 2015, @02:09PM
That's better than media reporting on a lot of controversial subjects. For example, in most media coverage of scientific subjects, they'll have on 1 scientist and 1 spokesweasel for the company or industry that the science makes look bad - the spokesweasel need not supply any actual evidence or studies, and is often completely full of it. And that's why a lot of people in the US believe that there's a serious debate on subjects that have been settled science for years (and in some cases over a century).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 10 2015, @03:13PM
You have to get to the final paragraph of the summary to find out that the claims were complete bullshit.
And going on to the final paragraph:
Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.[15] However, the reports called on the scientists to avoid any such allegations in the future by taking steps to regain public confidence in their work, for example by opening up access to their supporting data, processing methods and software, and by promptly honouring freedom of information requests.[16] The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged throughout the investigations.
Genuine problems were found which runs counter to your claim of "complete bullshit". And of course, the real problem wasn't fraud or scientific misconduct, but rather that a supposed large group of impartial scientists was instead acting as biased cheerleaders for AGW, including hiding internal dissent, legitimate concerns, and raw data so it couldn't be used as ammunition for the opposition.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday July 10 2015, @03:35PM
And this is an example of a complete bullshit true believer. Dedicated to find something tenuous to turn into a real allegation, they take statements intended to improve PR as implication of completely different wrongdoing. The actual allegations: falsification, were complete and utter bullshit and you're a goddamn liar.
User khallow is goddamn liar.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 10 2015, @04:22PM
The actual allegations: falsification, were complete and utter bullshit and you're a goddamn liar.
I never made those allegations.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 10 2015, @04:37PM
However, it is worth noting that the disclosure of these stolen emails did not serve the public interest.
I disagree.
Rather, it impeded the work of some of the premier climate research units in the world and was used for political purposes to create a false impression that climate scientists were concealing and manipulating data.
If that were all it did, then you'd have a point.
After 3 separate inquiries at considerable expense, it was found that nothing of the sort occurred
It was found that Jones had obstructed FOIA requests and deleted emails associated with legitimate FOIA requests. While these inquiries might not consider that concealing data, I do.
It seems certain that the progress of science would be impeded if researchers are no longer able to speak frankly to one another out of the fear that any email might be read by people unaware of the context.
What makes you think that was the problem here? There are three things to keep in mind here. First, the most important thing to come out of "Climategate" was the computer code. How can you base scientific work on data which has been processed in unknown and bug ridden ways? Second, was the discovery that CRU leadership indeed obstructed FOIA requests. That's a crime even if nobody is inclined to punish it. Third, was the heavily unscientific bias and ideology present in the emails. This doesn't mean that current climatology is incorrect. But it's not how you build a public consensus on AGW or other climate change theory.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 10 2015, @09:07PM
And this is an example of a complete bullshit true believer. . . .The actual allegations: falsification, were complete and utter bullshit and you're a goddamn liar.
User khallow is goddamn liar.
Now, now, ikanread, it's not a lie if you really believe it! (George Kastanza on Seinfeld, I believe.) But still, we are dealing not with lies, but with a FUD campaign. Climate scientists, rightly, it would seem post Climategate (he said it again!!), were paranoid about their research being attacked, and so were less open with their data than they would have been otherwise. From khallow's post:
finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.[15] However, the reports called on the scientists to avoid any such allegations in the future by taking steps to regain public confidence in their work,
(from the Wikipedia article?)
The question is, why would scientists, some of the most respected members of human society, need to regain public confidence? Could it be that they had unintentionally played right into the hands of a concerted conspiracy to precisely undermine scientific credibility?
The American Petroleum Institute had this as an explicit goal:
According to the memo (Figure 4, p. 10), “victory” would
be achieved for the campaign when “average citizens” and the
media were convinced of “uncertainties” in climate science
despite overwhelming evidence of the impact of human-
caused global warming and nearly unanimous agreement
about it in the scientific community.
(p.9, Dossier #2)
So, accidental lack of transparency versus an intentional attempt to create lack of confidence in science: which of these is a lie? Once Lyndon Johnson was running for the US Senate, and told one of his campaign managers that he wanted to accuse his opponent of having had sex with animals. The manager said he didn't thing that was true, and in any case hard to prove. Johnson replied, "I don't think it's true, either. But I just want to make him deny it!" Climate deniers do not have to prove any accusations, they just need to get them stuck to climate scientists in the public mind. So this is where khallow may unwittingly be being used by fossil fuel companies.
And of course this is the point of the article: is scientific credibility worth defending? If it can be destroyed by monied interests, whether in regards to tobacco or CO2, what is to stop it from losing authority about engineering, health, or what plants crave? Are the Oil Companies responsible for the anti-Vaxers? Homeopathy? Hey, we found a witch!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday July 11 2015, @02:53AM
The question is, why would scientists, some of the most respected members of human society, need to regain public confidence? Could it be that they had unintentionally played right into the hands of a concerted conspiracy to precisely undermine scientific credibility?
That's another way to put the problem. When you say one thing for the public and another for the in group you're part of, that undermines your credibility when it comes to light. Much is being made of the "concerted conspiracy", little is being made of the owned goals by climate researchers.
Climate deniers do not have to prove any accusations, they just need to get them stuck to climate scientists in the public mind.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Remember what is ultimately at stake here is not whether or not the Earth is warming, but rather the entire future of humanity. It's not good enough to have crude models of climate change and a surfeit of ulterior agendas.
And of course this is the point of the article: is scientific credibility worth defending?
Depends on whether you're willing to do what it takes to have it in the first place.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday July 11 2015, @09:15PM
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Remember what is ultimately at stake here is not whether or not the Earth is warming, but rather the entire future of humanity.
So who is making extraordinary claims? I suspect it is the fossil fuel companies. And hyperbole much? Entire future of the human species? I guess I have been around longer than you, but petrochemicals is really a blip on the history of the human species, we will have to stop using it for energy no matter what happens.
And of course this is the point of the article: is scientific credibility worth defending?
Depends on whether you're willing to do what it takes to have it in the first place.
What makes you think that climate scientists are not deserving of credulity, other than the campaign of deception mounted by Oil companies? My point is that they are not very discriminate in their attacks, and undermine the credibility of all science, for monetary gain, and that this is in general a very bad thing. Fomenting "uncertainty" about science is hardly a critique of any particular practices of any particular field of science. Unsubstantiated accusations of covert "owned goals" and "a surfeit of ulterior agendas" is the basic FUD strategy.
So, khallow, I know you are better than this. Read the memos, it's all there. You have been had!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday July 12 2015, @05:44AM
What makes you think that climate scientists are not deserving of credulity, other than the campaign of deception mounted by Oil companies?
I already indicated why. The pattern of saying one thing in public and a different thing in private, just by itself is a demonstration of untrustworthiness. In addition, there was actual breaking of the law with respect to obstruction of UK FOIA requests. Third, what "campaign of deception"? There isn't an actual campaign mentioned in this documentation. Nor do we have spending comparable to the campaign of deception put forth by the IPCC which gets over ten million dollars a year (plus NGO spending which is at least an order of magnitude higher).