The University of East Anglia mail server was hacked earlier in the week and a string of private correspondences between esteemed climate scientists were published. In addition to some juicy internecine gossip becoming embarrassingly public, a few of the messages seem to reveal doubts about the evidence for global warming and at least one refers to a statistical “trick” being used to hide lower-than-predicted surface temperatures in recent years. James Delingpole dubs this “Climategate” and pronounces it “the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming.’” Andrew Bolt calls it evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory – a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. Michelle Malkin terms it “The global warming scandal of the century.”
Andrew Revkin of the NYT — himself a subject of some of the emails in question — summarizes the controversy:
The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.
In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”
Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.
Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.
The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.
In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Dr. Trenberth wrote.
Ronald Bailey, though, warns, “Before jumping to conclusions, remember that many of us write private emails that we might not want to see publicly distributed.”
Indeed, an unsigned post at the RealClimate blog (which I presume was written by NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, given parallels with the Revkin story) argues,
Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).
More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.
Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.
It’s obvious that the noise-generating components of the blogosphere will generate a lot of noise about this. but it’s important to remember that science doesn’t work because people are polite at all times. Gravity isn’t a useful theory because Newton was a nice person. QED isn’t powerful because Feynman was respectful of other people around him. Science works because different groups go about trying to find the best approximations of the truth, and are generally very competitive about that. That the same scientists can still all agree on the wording of an IPCC chapter for instance is thus even more remarkable.
No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.
Given what I know about academia, research, and science, this strikes me as eminently plausible.
Ed Morrissey sees evidence in the emails that the scientists in question are rejecting data that goes against the prevailing consensus and concludes, “That’s not science; it’s religious belief.” But producing research findings that conclusively shatters the prevailing wisdom is the gold standard of science. It’s the stuff of Nobel Prizes and eternal fame. That’s how the handful of scientists known to every schoolboy (Galileo, Newton, Einstein, etc.) got there.
But one doesn’t want to publish findings claiming to shatter the consensus only to have one’s work revealed as shoddy. So, scientists having a Eureka! finding are likely to test and test again before going public. And, sadly for them, they’ll likely find that their novel finding was a not so novel error.
Climate change, while an important topic, is one that I follow only at the periphery. Frankly, it’s an incredibly specialized field and I lack the time to keep up with the literature, the training to understand it, and the motivation to change either of those facts. My biases and general impressions on the matter, however, are as follows:
There’s overwhelming consensus among the experts on this subject
Conspiracies involving hundreds of people over several decades are next to impossible to pull off
There’s next to zero incentive to perpetrate this conspiracy on the part of scientists
There are enormous incentives for people wanting to influence government to leap from the scientific data to grandiose public policy solutions
Because of the above and biases that spring from my academic training and political ideology,
I tend to believe the vast preponderance of scientists who say the climate is changing and that human technology is a significant variable in said change
I tend to be skeptical of radical government-mandated fixes
A CNN poll released today finds that “opinion about which political party is responsible for the severe economic downturn is shifting.” According to the survey, “38 percent of the public blames Republicans for the country’s current economic problems. That’s down 15 points from May, when 53 percent blamed the GOP. According to the poll 27 percent now blame the Democrats for the recession, up 6 points from May. Twenty-seven percent now say both parties are responsible for the economic mess.”
Similarly, the Gallup tracking poll has President Obama dipping below 50 percent approval for the first time, with 49 percent approving and 44 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing as president.
None of this is surprising, really. While we may technically be out of the recession, unemployment is now in the double digits for the first time in many Americans’ memory and trending upwards. Obama’s sitting in the White House and, rightly or wrongly, he gets the blame.
It’s actually rather remarkable that he’s doing as well as he is. I credit Bush Fatigue. People were so glad to see his predecessor leave office that Obama still seems good by comparison.
But that won’t last forever.
As longtime readers know, I believe presidents get far, far too much credit for good economic circumstances and far, far too much blame for economic downturns. But that’s the nature of the game.
Yesterday, the NYT and other outlets reported that former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided against running for governor of New York. But the Daily News is reporting that he is instead “very likely” to run in the special election to fill the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate seat.
The Republican heavyweight was considered the GOP’s best shot at reclaiming the governor’s mansion. The only declared candidate on the Republican side is little-known former Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio.
One source said Giuliani is prepared to run for U.S. Senate against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand next year to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term.
Still, a number of sources said no decision has been made and a Giuliani spokeswoman downplayed the reports. “Rudy has a history of making up his own mind and has no problem speaking it,” she said. “When Mayor Giuliani makes a decision about serving in public office, he will inform New Yorkers on his own.”
[...]
Former Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, a close Giuliani pal, said the former mayor has shared doubts with him for weeks about running for governor. “What he said to me is that he doesn’t think he’s going to do it,” Molinari said about a conversation earlier this month with the former mayor. “It just didn’t make any sense to him.” Molinari said the ongoing circus in the state Senate, combined with Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s iron grip on Assembly matters, had convinced Giuliani that a Republican governor would have little ability to get things done quickly in Albany. “The big drawback for him was – could I really be effective?” Molinari said. “He saw too many hangups there. He’s not running for the title, that’s for sure.”
That, and the very real possibility he’d lose to popular Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
But it’s not entirely clear what a Senate seat would do for Giuliani, either. He’s used to making decisions, so he’d be an ineffective legislator. And if his goal is to run for president again in 2012, it’s not clear how five minutes in the Senate would bolster his resume — as he’d have to hit the campaign trail almost immediately. He’d be better off going the Newt Gingrich route and simply establishing himself as a Republican Wise Man, doing as many public appearances as possible.
Frankly, 2008 was his best chance and he blew it. He was at the height of his popularity and running against a lackluster field for the nomination. Yet he ran a joke of a campaign — literally — “A noun, a verb, and 9/11.” As he moves further and further away from the 9/11 attacks, his light dims.
He’ll be 68 during the 2012 race — facing, should he make it to the nomination, an incumbent president with superb campaign skills — and 72 for 2016. The latter will be 15 years after his finest hour.
For the second time in a week, Fox News has been caught using old video to give the false impression of larger-than-actual turnout at appearances of politicos they supported. Sufficiently embarrassed at having been caught, Fox executives are promising “serious disciplinary action” for those responsible.
While the incidents add fuel to the fire that Fox is a Republican shill outlet rather than real news — and there’s growing truth to that charge — the real story here is that Fox has joined the larger trend in broadcast journalist of becoming a hype machine.
I was a big fan of Fox News when I first came across it a decade or so ago. Mostly, I just watched Brit Hume’s nightly “Special Report” newscast, although I did occasionally watch some of the talking heads. At the time, I found it a refreshing alternative to the networks and CNN, all of which had a significant leftward bias but pretended otherwise. Fox — or, again, at least the Hume show of that time — had a slight rightward bias but it seemed genuinely interested in being “Fair and Balanced” and more-or-less living up to its “We Report, You Decide” mantra.
Somewhere along the way, it became both more partisan and more shrill. Everything was Breaking News and hype.
The thing is, it’s not just Fox.
As I’ve mentioned perhaps too many times, I’ve long since drifted away from watching television news on a regular basis, finding the Internet a much more efficient and less aggravating means of getting information. But I catch news shows from time-to-time, usually while traveling or because someone else has the television on. And everything from “Good Morning America” to the nightly network news promos to local news radio is in the same hype mode. It’s all crisis this, emergency that, and tragedy the other.
It’s like Jerry Springer is suddenly in charge of all news programming.
Still, Fox is in a special category because it is perceived as the conservative network. Too many of these episodes and it will simply be dismissed as hackery by all but the most die-hard Republicans.
There are already a goodly number of conservative-leaning outlets such as Drudge, WorldNetDaily, and CNS that even unabashed Republicans are embarrassed to cite as sources for their arguments.
Fox isn’t there yet. It would be a shame if it crossed into that territory, however, as there’s no road back.
Amanda Carpenter broke the news Tuesday that “The government Web site that promised to show exactly where the $787 billion in stimulus spending was going to ‘create or save’ jobs is allocating billions of tax dollars to hundreds of congressional districts that don’t exist.”
Researchers at the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity found 440 “phantom districts” listed on Recovery.gov, consuming $6.4 billion and creating or saving nearly 30,000 jobs. Their findings are listed HERE.
For example, Recovery.gov shows 12 districts, using up more than $2.7 billion, in Washington, D.C, which only has one congressional district. [Actually, it has none. - jhj]
Recovery.gov also shows 2,893.9 jobs created with $194,537,372 in stimulus funding in New Hampshire’s 00 congressional district. But, there is no such thing.
The site also shows $1,471,518 going to New Hampshire’s 6th congressional district, $1,033,809 to the 4th congressional district and $124,774 to the 27th congressional district. In fact, New Hampshire only has two congressional districts; inviting confusion about where the money listed for the 00, 4th, 6th and 27th districts is going.
After being beat over the head with this on the blogs, Twitter, and the late-night comic shows, the White House admitted error and has said it’ll put out a more accurate list, while muttering something about distractions.
Aside from the obvious 57 states joke (which an Instapundit reader beat me to), I’ve dismissed this story as mildly amusing but no big deal.
It seems, however, that the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee is less than amused and will hold hearings on the matter. Others in Congress were also upset — and not just the usual suspects.
The errors raised the ire of Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wisconsin, and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. On Monday, he said the mistakes “are outrageous and the administration owes itself, the Congress and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”
“Credibility counts in government, and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We’ve got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen,” Obey said.
While I agree in principle, the reality is that large bureaucracies continually make incredibly boneheaded mistakes of this variety. The key is transparency, which lets interested parties quickly spot problems and get them corrected — as happened in this case.
It is, however, refreshing to see Congress investigate something that is actually under their purview and to do so with a president of the same political party that controls both Houses. That’s how the system is supposed to work but, alas, frequently doesn’t.
A few months ago, when Ross Douthat became a New York Times columnist, I was pretty excited that the Times had chosen a fresh, conservative perspective for its editorial pages. Since then, I admit I’ve been a little disappointed. Douthat’s columns have, by and large, been pretty lackluster–there was none of the depth, wit, or thoughtfulness that made his blog a daily read for me.
However, this week Douthat has started blogging for the Times and I have to say that in one week of blogging, he’s already produced better stuff than his six months of columns. Go check it out–it’s good stuff.
Gail Collins proclaims the first ten years of the new millennium “the Decade of Medical Backtracking.”
Somewhere between the reports that Pap smears and tests for prostate cancer aren’t all they were cracked up to be and the news that a high fiber diet doesn’t do anything to prevent cancer, the health establishment began looking decidedly nonomniscient. Then this week, a federal task force reported that most women don’t need annual mammograms. Even more fascinating, they suggested that doctors stop telling their female patients to self-examine their breasts for lumps.
[...]
Every rational American wants qualified experts to keep re-examining current medical practices. The only thing that bothers me about the mammogram report is all the emphasis on the “anxiety” that might follow a false-positive. We live in a time when we are constantly being reminded that a fellow plane passenger might be trying to smuggle explosives in his sneakers. We can manage anxiety.
I am going out on a limb to say that the real problem with a test that creates a lot of false-positive results is that it leads to a lot of other medical procedures, some involving hospitals. Unless you are genuinely sick, there is no more dangerous place to be hanging around than a hospital.
And let’s not forget the longer-term changes of mind on things like silicon breast implants, artificial sweeteners, and the danger of eating eggs.
Collins is right that we want medical science to constantly challenge prevailing assumptions and give us their best guess as to the truth. I continue to wonder, however, about the rigors of medical scholarship, which seems to frequently draw wide conclusions based on studies of very small, self-selected samples.
Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Democratic candidate for Texas attorney general, claims a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages actually bans all marriages.
The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”
Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively “eliminates marriage in Texas,” including common-law marriages.
She calls it a “massive mistake” and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem. “You do not have to have a fancy law degree to read this and understand what it plainly says,” said Radnofsky, who will be at Texas Christian University today as part of a five-city tour to kick off her campaign.
While I don’t have any fancy law degrees, it’s pretty clear to me that the amendment does not endanger “marriage” in Texas. The key word in the clause in question is “create.” Given that 1) marriage existed in Texas before the amendment and 2) that the first clause in the amendment reiterates the existence of marriage, merely clarifying its definition, the subsequent clause rather clearly bans only the creation of analogous institutions.
First: yetanotherjohn – Behold the majestic eagle … as it is passed out of a joint committee with bipartisan support.
Second: FormerHostage – What’s the difference between this and Barney Frank? One’s a creepy, blood-sucking rodent that craps on the floor, and the other’s a bat.
Third: Lisa T. – Alfred, how many times do I have to tell you – STOP PUTTING MY BAT SUIT IN THE DRYER!
✰ DODD’S END OF THE DOCKET ✰
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Speaker Pelosi prepares for her next press conference. – Wyatt Earp
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Susette Kelo’s little, pink house in New London, Conn. — like the houses of all her neighbors — is now a pile of rubble, overgrown with weeds. But Pfizer, the company that called for the demolition in order to build a new research and development plant, announced Monday it is packing up and leaving town in order to cut costs after its merger with fellow drug-giant Wyeth.
[...]
The Fort Trumbull neighborhood Pfizer had bulldozed today consists only of “weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters,” according to the Associated Press. Nobody has built the high-rise hotel or the luxury condos the city’s planners had envisioned. The credit crunch and housing collapse took the air of out of that grand plan.
And Pfizer’s sparkling R&D facility that was supposed to anchor the city’s “rejuvenation?” It’s being shuttered as a cost-saving measure following Pfizer’s merger with Wyeth. Some of the 1,400 jobs there will move across the river to Groton. Some will be terminated.
The best-laid plans of central planners, it seems, have once again gone awry-unless you look at it from Pfizer’s perspective.
The Hartford Courant reports Pfizer may sell the building and the land, which it got for nearly nothing. Or it may lease it out. So, the drug giant still gets the profits from the government’s taking. But for New London? No more R&D jobs. No development of Fort Trumbull. Just some rubble where families once lived.
Despicable.
Update: I was on vacation last week, so I totally missed the fact that Steve Verdon covered this already. Still, we can keep being mad, right?
Brookins cartoon courtesy Richmond Times-Dispatch via Doug Mataconis.
Tomorrow night, the European Union will have its first-ever president. Time’s Leo Cendrowicz reports that few Europeans much care, perhaps because they have no voice in the selection.
In my New Atlanticist essay “Europe’s President Selected, Not Elected,” I both marvel at the fact that Europeans “not only have no direct voice in choosing the leader but don’t even know who the likely candidates are a day before the announcement is made” and argue that the person who holds the office first will, as with George Washington here, “have enormous power to shape the position.”
My personal favorite would be Tony Blair, although I assess his chances at being selected as virtually nil. Former Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga is a more plausible winner, who would be an excellent choice for reasons Caroline Hammargren outlines.
In my initial posting on the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial, I asserted that “there’s an incredibly good chance that Mohammed and his comrades will go free. The fact that KSM was repeatedly waterboarded would seem to taint any subsequent evidence, including his own confession.”
This was based on the presumption that the whole point of trying KSM in a civilian court was to demonstrate that we’ve changed our evil ways and would allow accused terrorists to avail themselves of the finest justice system in the world.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa: “I don’t think you can say that failure to convict is not an option, when we have juries in this country.”
Attorney General Eric Holder: I have thought about that possibility. Congress has passed legislation that would not allow the release of these individuals in this country. If there is not a successful conclusion to this trial, that would not mean that this person would be released into this country…
Grassley: My understanding is that if for some reason he’s not convicted, or a judge lets him off on a technicality, he’ll be an enemy combatant, so you’re right back where you started.
I can’t find the full transcript online elsewhere, so don’t have Holder’s retort. But if the defendants have zero chance of being released, this is a show trial and a sham. That’s frankly much worse than the status quo, much less a military tribunal.
In addition to uncertain healthcare services, economic disadvantages, and finding a place to call home, veterans certainly do not need any more challenges. Unfortunately, the wounds of war can be less obvious than those that we can see. Psychological disorders and sicknesses caused by toxic exposure can be the most damaging aspects of war that veterans bring home. Toxin exposure in particular is of particular concern as previous exposure to asbestos among veterans is causing incidence of the aggressive cancer mesothelioma to rise among former members of the armed services. We must not leave those who risked their lives for our nation in the cold. Our veterans have never questioned the right or wrong of war when it mattered most. They simply did as they were trained. We must now show the same unwavering determination, in all ways we are able, by affording those opportunities to which they are entitled, including financial, medical and emotional support to all veterans.
