Results from GOP inquiry on Climategate

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by zenMachine, Feb 25, 2011.

  1. zenMachine

    zenMachine Just another Onionhead

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    GOP inquiry finds no evidence that ‘climategate’ scientists misused data | The Raw Story

    WASHINGTON – A Republican-led federal probe of climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found no evidence that they manipulated data, after leaked e-mails in 2009 sparked the "climategate" controversy.

    The investigation was conducted by the inspector general of the Commerce Department. It reviewed the 1,073 leaked messages, particularly the 289 that were exchanged with NOAA scientists, and interviewed NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco and her staff about them.

    "We did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data," the inspector general concluded in a recent report. It also cleared Lucbhenco for testifying before Congress that the e-mails did not weaken the science of climate change.

    The probe was requested by Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the environment committee, who has called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
     
  2. pingnak

    pingnak New Member

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    Yes, but the Fox News people will still be parroting the original B.S. for the rest of their lives. Even as they drown in rising tides.
     
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  3. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Fine, but things are still percolating in and near the Virginia attorney general's office.

    Law Center, Taxpayers Request University of Virginia Documents Pertaining to Climate Scientist Michael Mann | The SPPI Blog

    But this also googled up and I found it even more interesting

    Ten Million Dollar Offer goes out to Virginia

    Ten million dollars payoff to offer evidence that might tend to show fraund related to $466,000 in grant funding. As has been said many times before you can't make this stuff up.

    the 466k number came from NY Times

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/science/earth/31climate.html

    so I should not wish to be blamed (or sued!) if it is not precisely correct.

    Anyway, the show goes on...
     
  4. chogan2

    chogan2 Senior Member

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    This was by the IG of Commerce. So, one may hope, the title of the thread is incorrect. One can hope . Heaven help us if the IGs become part of partisan politics. All I can say is that, from my experience, the US DHHS IG consists of straight shooters. Whether the Commerce IG is tainted, I could not say.

    As for Mann, the hockey stick, the VA AG, it's clearly ignorant that this suit persists, because the world has moved on. It's an embarrassment to educated Virginians, and, as pointed out earlier, the costs of the suit substantially exceed any plausible reparations.

    Historically, we here in the Commonwealth haven't stood for bulls**t like this for very long. Wasting our money on nonsense. Triple-A bond rating and all that. It would surprise me if this stood for much longer.
     
  5. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Inhofe is a real piece of work. Since he believes GW is a hoax, he must go after the data that shows that he is wrong. Climate gate did happen, but NOAA did not fudge the information. Its sad that many of those that chair congressional committees don't have a clue about science.

    Another sad use of public resources, the science has already been corrected for mann. I think we went over it on a different thread. The handle of the hockey stick is indeed not flat and needs to account for the medieval warm period and little ice age. It isn't fraud its a mistake. The only thing I think was done wrong was the peer review, and maybe it did take some congressional pressure to share the data, so the writer of the report did not have the power to hand pick the peers to review the research.
     
  6. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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  7. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    It would be an excellent forum for showing up the deniers as fools and pawns.
     
  8. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I'm in favor of the whistleblower law, just not the government paid lawyers really spending their time trying to drum up fake evidence on global warming. The public came from your link ...

    And if there are real whistle blowers let them come forward. More likely the lawyers are trying to get people to make up evidence to get some of this cash. Most of the facts of the case and research are well known by now. Mann has disclosed his methods so a whistle blower can not change the science.
     
  9. bac

    bac Active Member

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    Faux News will not even report this news.

    -Brad
     
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  10. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    The republicans must be horrified -- they got something right.
     
  11. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    Why are we even talking about this? It's a non-story.
    Don't you realize that the "we were wrong" stories area always three-paragraph bits on page 17 right next to the obituaries?

    Of course I'm kidding about the non-story part. I'm going to throw it on my facebook and tell as many people as I can.
     
  12. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    The thread title is a close quote of the story in the link.
    Agreed. Except that if they do become part of partisan politics, I have a feeling Heaven will be used against us.
     
  13. Stev0

    Stev0 Honorary Hong Kong Cavalier

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    This is why I always ROTFLMAO when anybody says the phrase "liberal media".
     
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  14. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Not taking a stand for pro or anti climategate or climate anythng . . . but after the Koch brothers were burned recently (as well as their prior running of the right) it's hard to believe anything that comes from the camp of Koch
     
  15. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    You just TOOK a stand, for if you were a patriot, a few things would be clear to you:

    1. You have never heard of the Koch brothers;
    2. If you had, you would be sure it was the liberal news conspiracy at it again
    3. Palin is ggggooood; Obama is baaaaad
     
  16. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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  17. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    The Inhofe moron is coming awfully close to slander. I wonder if it is intentional.
     
  18. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    The EPW Minority Comittee report is here

    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....Store_id=7db3fbd8-f1b4-4fdf-bd15-12b7df1a0b63

    although that link may not be quite right. I cannot download it (to educate myself) because, as it happens, a lot of dot gov (US govt) websites are blocked in my country of residence. So I call on The PriusChat Climate Posse to check it out and see if it contains any items of note. Or even of high amusement.
     
  19. chogan2

    chogan2 Senior Member

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    I've attached in here. It is as bad as you would expect.

    Here's an example of how thorough their research is, from the 3rd paragraph of the report:
    "Another independent inquiry, headed by Sir Muir Russell, is investigating allegations that the scientists in the CRU scandal manipulated climate change data.2"

    The reference is to a newspaper article.

    The Muir Russel report actually came out in July of last year. They found no "manipulation", their initial finding was that the honesty and integrity of the persons involved was not in doubt. And they went further -- they downloaded the raw temperature data and reproduced the Hadley-CRU timeseries. I believe it took one analyst two work days to do it. That directly validated that the temperature series was not somehow "manipulated" and it showed that people who were alleging that simply hadn't bothered to do their homework.

    Much like authors of that Senate report.

    I read another couple of pages, but it all seemed to be pretty much in the same vein, effectively calling for all activity in this area to cease until this has been investigated. While ignoring the conclusions of the ... four? ... yeah, four government and university investigations of this issue already, regarding the science at issue.

    Of course, if you really want to plumb the depths of stupidity, you have to visit the US Senate Public Works and Environment minority page, here:

    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....ecord_id=d6d95751-802a-23ad-4496-7ec7e1641f2f

    Quite an amazing piece of work there. Pretty much every nut-job fallacy you can think of, listed out with links. Yet, despite the fact that global warming is the thing they are perseverating about, they somehow completely fail to mention that 2010 was the warmest (and wettest) year in the instrumental record.

    On a completely unrelated note, anybody care to bet that the arctic ice makes a record low this summer (for the 40 year instrumental record there)? It's been running at record lows for the past few months. Given the thinning of the ice (assuming the PIOMAS model is correct), it should only take an average summer to bring the ice extent to a new low. It's a high-variance statistic though -- extent at any instant depends on wind and currents as well as melting.

    [​IMG]

    I mean, well, if we're going to have guano-brains setting our non-policies in this area, we might as well sit back and enjoy the view.
     

    Attached Files:

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  20. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Thanks Chogan2 for posting. The .gov document I still cannot read as indicated before. But it is still as I have suggested here before - does the US choose to lead in developing technology for a low-carbon economy, or instead purchase low-carbon energy technology from other countries at prices of their choosing?

    If anyone supposes that we will not all trend toward lower-carbon energy systems in this century, you have been missing a lot of memos.

    I suppose that the next set of House Hearings, when they happen, will relate to this directly - and they will be dressed with the idea that there is no reason (climatological or otherwise) for the US to lead. Prius Chat readers may agree, or they may not.