The Policy Lass

The House of Commons has released its report on the CRU email release. Here is the summary of its findings:

We believe that the focus on CRU and Professor Phil Jones, Director of CRU, in particular,
has largely been misplaced. Whilst we are concerned that the disclosed e-mails suggest a
blunt refusal to share scientific data and methodologies with others, we can sympathise
with Professor Jones, who must have found it frustrating to handle requests for data that he
knew—or perceived—were motivated by a desire simply to undermine his work.

In the context of the sharing of data and methodologies, we consider that Professor Jones’s
actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community. It is not
standard practice in climate science to publish the raw data and the computer code in
academic papers. However, climate science is a matter of great importance and the quality
of the science should be irreproachable. We therefore consider that climate scientists
should take steps to make available all the data that support their work (including raw data)
and full methodological workings (including the computer codes). Had both been
available, many of the problems at UEA could have been avoided. Continue reading →…

High on the WTFIUWT? list of experiences, a close encounter with ASS.

Earlier, I cruised on over to WUWT and noted that he’s claiming WUWT hit 40 million — that’s MILLION — hits.

Momentarily blinded by the burn of anti-science, I was just so disgusted to think that WUWT, Climate Depot and Climate Audit taken together beat Real Climate and Climate Progress. Continue reading →…

Part One: Canada

“There is only one problem — confidence and how to establish it; public assurance and how to create it.” Hill and Knowlton

Sage advice to the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) in 1950s when the industry faced scientific research showing that substances in their products caused fatal cancers in lab mice.

If you haven’t already, you should read the Waxman majority staff report “The Hill and Knowlton Documents: How the Tobacco Industry Launched Its Disinformation Campaign” –– the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, May 26, 1994. You should also read the related documents for a model of how the current denialist industry operates with respect to the issue of global warming. Continue reading →…

Over at WUWT, there’s a new post up about a Queensland U prof who has accused McIntyre of either directly or indirectly being responsible for the CRU hack.

The original article is by none other than Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun.

Here’s an excerpt from WUWT:

Somebody needs to educate Quiggin on the CRU ftp security blunder that was “the mole”. He doesn’t get it, and then proceeds to use that as “evidence” against McIntyre. It’s comical.

Here’s Professor Quiggin’s page at the University of Queensland: Continue reading →…

Over at DeSmogBlog, Ross Gelbspan has an article titled Is Canadian Government Muzzling the Messengers? about the Canadian Government’s new rules governing when and how climate scientists can speak to the media.

Since the introduction of the new rules governing how environment Canada scientists speak to media, the article claims there has been an 80% reduction in stories about climate science.

The post links to an article in the Montreal Gazette that looks into the issue: Climate-change scientists feel ‘muzzled by Ottawa’: Documents: Continue reading →…

I’m trying to think as a neophyte who happens onto the net and comes across a contrarian or denialist website. What claims about climate science do they see on such websites as CA and WUWT and others.

1. Climate scientists do not follow the basic tenets of science, which include openness and sharing of data for the purposes of peer-review and replication and therefore climate science is not ‘science’.

2. Climate scientists have manipulated data to show global warming that does not in fact exist.

What has Steve McIntyre claimed in his inquiry submission? Continue reading →…