A real "Inconvenient Truth"


BenRaines
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I'd like to suggest some talking points for the climate change camp:

* These guys are innocent! After all, scientists never lie, unless they speak out against global warming.

* What is this "glow ball warr ming" you speak of? We've always been concerned only with "human-caused climate change", and that's why it's getting colder!

* Using stolen data is just the latest tactic of the bad skeptic bad guys!

* So what if they lied a little - at least they're not out running over children with their SUV's like you are, ya big conservative poopyhead!

LM

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Did you read the article folks. The guy who wrote the emails that were found, his resonse was, I don't know what I meant when I wrote the email. Sheesh it was ten years ago. Laughable.

But, the conversation is 10 years old. What "decline" was being talked about? The most dramatic cooling has occurred more recently than that. Although a skeptic myself, I didn't see the article articulating any real smoking gun with the decline comment.

Lord Monckton, a primary critic of anthropogenic climate change gave a lecture last month regarding the issue. See the lecture

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Did you read the article folks. The guy who wrote the emails that were found, his resonse was, I don't know what I meant when I wrote the email. Sheesh it was ten years ago. Laughable.

Ben Raines

I have to write about 10 very technical work related emails per day. I barely remember what I was talking about when looking at my own emails from a month ago.

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Quote from article "TGIF Edition asked Jones about the controversial "hide the decline" comment from an e-mail he wrote in 1999. He told the magazine that there was no intention to mislead, but he had "no idea" what he meant by those words.".

Let's see what else could have been meant by "hide the decline" Hmm hide the decline in warming? Hide the decline in carbon? Hide the decline? Why would you have to hide anything.

Not like you bought a new fishing rod and have to "hide" it from the wife.

Ben Raines

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Quote from article "TGIF Edition asked Jones about the controversial "hide the decline" comment from an e-mail he wrote in 1999. He told the magazine that there was no intention to mislead, but he had "no idea" what he meant by those words.".

Let's see what else could have been meant by "hide the decline" Hmm hide the decline in warming? Hide the decline in carbon? Hide the decline? Why would you have to hide anything.

Not like you bought a new fishing rod and have to "hide" it from the wife.

Ben Raines

If after sifting through years of an organizations hacked emails the best they have is a vague reference to "hide the decline", I really don't see a "smoking gun" here.

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Hmmm, I have only e-mails that I sent dating back to 2004 (back when the free e-mail space revolution occured ;) ). But that is still five years ago. Anyway, reading back over the oldest ones just now, I remember exactly what I was talking about and regarding the technical ones I sent; I've even spotted some mistakes that I made, which I thought were correct at the time, and remembered a few things that happened which I'd completely forgotten about. A lot of the e-mails I don't actually remember sending, but there isn't really anything in them that has me scratching my head, and my memory is known to be little better than the memory of a fish.

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Hmmm, I have only e-mails that I sent dating back to 2004 (back when the free e-mail space revolution occured ;) ). But that is still five years ago. Anyway, reading back over the oldest ones just now, I remember exactly what I was talking about and regarding the technical ones I sent; I've even spotted some mistakes that I made, which I thought were correct at the time, and remembered a few things that happened which I'd completely forgotten about. A lot of the e-mails I don't actually remember sending, but there isn't really anything in them that has me scratching my head, and my memory is known to be little better than the memory of a fish.

Our product currently has nearly 200 config settings and even though I wrote most of them, I don't remember the intricacies of how they all work. I often send out emails explaining how they work and have to document them. On more than a few occasions I have been left scratching my head as to what exactly I was talking about when I wrote the brief one sentence description (yes, like most coders I hate to document).

So yes, I can understand how when you are caught up in the mindset of a particular project, a brief description of something can make perfect sense to you and even co-workers, but then years or even months later when you are no longer actively working on that project it will suddenly make very little sense even though you are the one who wrote it.

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Especially the "let's hide the decline" If anything needs to be hidden it makes me wonder. Now if it is "let's hide the stain on the rug" that is a different story. Let's hide data or information that does not look to favorably on our position is wrong, for whichever side you are on.

If this were the tobacco industry, food industry, car industry, etc. There would be a Senate investigation.

Ben Raines

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I read a similar report elsewhere (by the AP). Some of those emails and documents could not be authenticated by the scientists, and may have been fakes.

However, most of the emails and documents were authentic, regardless of being cherry-picked or not, the scientists haven't been putting a full effort into investigating global warming theory more seriously.

Remember, we are putting a lot of power into the hands of these scientists. Regardless of where you stand on the debate, it is important to value honesty, especially for something so influential.

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Actually, I'm going to post a well-earned Kudos to Fox for this article.

It posted what had happened(A hacker stole emails that stretched over a period of years), it posted what dissenting voices had to say about the theory that this was a smoking gun, including the defense of the person who was accused.

I'd like to read the emails themselves before I make a decision as to their contents, but this actual article was a refreshing change. Does anybody know who wrote the article? I'd like to find more of his stuff. The article that is linked to at the Telegraph is typically bad, but the Fox news article pointed to the article for what it is. So:

1) Is there any place we can read the full contents of the emails?

2) Does anyone know the name of the author of this piece?

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I had the same desire too read the full emails. But then I thought that it put the whole privacy issue at odds with my desire for the truth.

Well, hackers have already taken all the information. The doctor's best option now, since he's being nailed to the wall, is to release all of them and provide either an explanation or an apology. If he simply hides the information, he will lose all credibility.

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Hmmm, I have only e-mails that I sent dating back to 2004 (back when the free e-mail space revolution occured ;) ). But that is still five years ago. Anyway, reading back over the oldest ones just now, I remember exactly what I was talking about and regarding the technical ones I sent; I've even spotted some mistakes that I made, which I thought were correct at the time, and remembered a few things that happened which I'd completely forgotten about. A lot of the e-mails I don't actually remember sending, but there isn't really anything in them that has me scratching my head, and my memory is known to be little better than the memory of a fish.

This is why we use electonic journals to capture those moments. ^_^

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Well, hackers have already taken all the information. The doctor's best option now, since he's being nailed to the wall, is to release all of them and provide either an explanation or an apology. If he simply hides the information, he will lose all credibility.

He will only lose credibility if the news get out beyond those who are of the fox news crowd. Other wise, it is just preaching to the choir.

I don't for a minute believe that man made global warming or climate change, exist. At the same time, I don't believe that the scientist, who have devoted there life's to proving that man is destroying the planet, can except that they may be wrong. We see and hear what we want to see and hear. We, including these scientist, are only human.

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1) Is there any place we can read the full contents of the emails?

From what I've heard there's a 61 mb torrent of the "random sampling" of emails that the hackers decided to post. As for the full archive of emails obtained by the hackers, they ironically won't release that. I'd rather not post a link to it, but I'm sure you could find it pretty quickly with some creative googling or even looking through the comments on the slashdot coverage of this.

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I believe man has contributed some to the earth's changing temperature. It may be fair to say that we're responsible for ~1% of the total change, but we still make a difference.

What I don't like- and what these emails seem to be a "smoking gun" of- is political and sceintific maneuvering to blow the issue out of proportion and use it for their own gains. It's no secret that there's lots of money and power to be gained by playing the global warming game (look at Al Gore, for instance)- evidence that the scientific data may be fudged, even a little, speaks volumes about the motivations of the scientists involved.

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I believe man has contributed some to the earth's changing temperature. It may be fair to say that we're responsible for ~1% of the total change, but we still make a difference.

What I don't like- and what these emails seem to be a "smoking gun" of- is political and sceintific maneuvering to blow the issue out of proportion and use it for their own gains. It's no secret that there's lots of money and power to be gained by playing the global warming game (look at Al Gore, for instance)- evidence that the scientific data may be fudged, even a little, speaks volumes about the motivations of the scientists involved.

What I don't like is that a few emails out of years of private correspondence contain a couple phrases that vaguely suggest fudging and people are calling it a "smoking gun" against human influenced climate change as a whole. If you knew of a few reports or even organizations speaking out against global warming that had some fudged data, would that be a "smoking gun" for you?

Climate change is a very political topic and I am sure there are people on both sides who fudge data for their own gain, the more important question is how much of the data is fudged and what specific reports were fudged and none of the reports on the hacked data seem to address that other than a few "gotcha" quotes that still seem rather vague when you read the whole email they came from. Frankly I think if there were a massive cover up or large scale attempts to alter data, it seems there would be far more incriminating emails surfacing.

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If you knew of a few reports or even organizations speaking out against global warming that had some fudged data, would that be a "smoking gun" for you?

It would be a "smoking gun" proving that the organization is not above manipulating the data to bolster their case- that the organization is untrustworthy.

My concern is the emphasis placed on the issue of global warming and the fact that it's being used as a tool to gain power. When prominent organizations researching and supporting global warming are exposed fudging the data, that sends up red flags. Where there's smoke, there's often fire. If a group of people are willing to lie and hide certain facts for their political gain, what will they not do?

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