New Climategate Development

The password protecting the remaining Climategate material has been released to blogger Tom Nelson.

Read the rest here.

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Writing About Climate Change

Is a new academic network just a cover for climate activists?

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Scientific Consensus, Leadership & Stephen Schneider

Is it any wonder that young climate scientists behave badly? Their elders set the example – by hurling insults at dissenters.

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IPCC Scientists - Guests of the Environmental Defense Fund

A powerful lobby group supplied their meeting space, helped with their travel documents & subsidized their meals. Top IPCC scientists went along for the ride.

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Inside the IPCC: the Climategate E-Mails

Newly released e-mails shed an unkind light on internal IPCC politics.

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Climategate 2.0

A recently-released collection of candid insider comments confirms many of our worst fears about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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A Powerful New Research Tool

A hyperlinked and annotated version of the 2007 climate bible gives us new ways of viewing this document. Produced by two dedicated volunteers, it’s a gift to the public as well as the research community.

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Still Clueless in Australia

Journalist Margot O’Neill has just completed an Oxford University sabbatical on climate change reporting, but her views aren’t much altered from a year ago – when she accused IPCC critics of embracing conspiracies.

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The Shoddy Climategate Inquiries

A new report examines three inquiries launched after the Climategate documents surfaced in late 2009. Intended to restore public confidence, those inquiries have done nothing of the sort.

Read the full post here.

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Earth Hour 2010

Tomorrow's the day we're all supposed to turn off our lights for an hour. The Earth Hour campaign is organized by the World Wildlife Fund. While the point of the exercise is apparently to "take a stand against climate change" it might be argued that Earth Hour is a wildly successful fundraising tool in which the WWF receives oodles of free publicity from media outlets, politicians, celebrities - even Google.

The high profile nature of Earth Hour is surely one of the reasons the WWF is now the world's wealthiest environmental organization. According to publicly-available figures compiled by Climate-Resistance.org, the World Wildlife Fund raised $3.1 billion in just six years (2003-2008). That's half a billion dollars annually.

The hype and silliness associated with Earth Hour 2009 was what finally pushed me, personally, over the edge. It was then I decided to begin researching the global warming debate in earnest. Too many things didn't seem to add up. Too much of what I was reading and hearing seemed to be mindless hype reported by people who had no real idea of what they were talking about.

This year I'll be joining those folks who are deliberately turning on all their lights during Earth Hour - to demonstrate that I am aware of Climategate and consider it an important matter.

Fellow Canadian Ross McKitrick teaches economics at the University of Guelph. After being questioned by a journalist regarding Earth Hour he has written up a short statement in PDF format explaining why he "abhors" this campaign. Two of my favourite quotes:

I don't want to go back to nature. Haiti just went back to nature. For humans, living in "Nature" meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance.

...through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s despite the expansion of industry and the power supply. If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children...then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations. No thanks. I like visiting nature but I don't want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization is something to be ashamed of.

..

See also, Canadian newspaper columnist Lorrie Goldstein's views here

>> Independent bloggers vs corporate environmentalists
>> Green time capsule: 1970s eco ideas weren't pretty
>> Global disaster is so 1976
>> That's it, I've had it

The Battle for the Soul of Science

At long last, the giants have begun to stir. Like the ents in the film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, they've taken their time about it. While climate war wounded sway, buckle, and fall, the giants are are so ponderous they take days just to greet each another.

They must have decided something by now sound bite The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers sound bites

Pippin, Treebeard & Merry, The Two Towers

Now, however, they're stepping into the sunlight, making their voices heard in a battle over the future (indeed, the very soul) of science.

For too long we, the public, have been told that science academies don't just endorse the theory of dangerous man-made global warming, they also support specific political responses (including emissions reduction and transitioning to a low-carbon society). We've been told that science journals and magazines agree.

We've been lectured by scientists, politicians, journalists, filmmakers, and celebrities about how our lives need to become less pleasant and less free because "science says" so. We've been told that to doubt global warming is to be anti-science, that to question behaviour reminiscent of adolescent gamers is to "attack" climate scientists for doing their job.

But the distressing fact of the matter is that much of climate "science" has been conducted by people who - as evidenced by their refusal to share their data or explain their methods to third parties - are blatantly unscientific in their approach. Much of climate science appears to have been produced by people who would prefer to destroy their evidence instead of sharing it with critics. Who have tried to circumvent Freedom of Information laws. Who have advised other scientists to delete e-mails.

While this shocking behaviour unfolded in excruciating slow-mo in recent years, the science academies of the world averted their eyes. They refused to see or to hear – never mind investigate and call people to account. Instead, they inappropriately inserted themselves into the global warming debate by declaring support for one perspective. In doing so they abandoned their core mission – which is to defend and uphold the scientific method. They not only permitted people who'd abandoned the scientific method to speak with the authority of science – they stood behind them in public and thumped them on the back.

An investigation is currently being conducted by the Science and Technology Committee of the British Parliament. Yesterday Phil Jones, the head of Climatic Research Unit and a key participant in the UN's climate consensus process, testified. He confirmed that it hasn't been standard practice in climate change research to disclose all of one's data to third parties. (Which means we're just supposed to take the word of these researchers that abandoning the entire fossil-fuel-based world economy is necessary.) Jones also admitted that, during the peer-review process, no reviewers had ever asked to see his raw data.

(Incidentally, it's fascinating what different people watching the same proceedings see. According to Simon Hoggart in the Guardian, Jones "looked taut, nervous, often miserable. At times his hands shook." You "had to feel sorry for him," says Hoggart. Meanwhile, over at the London Times, Anne Treneman insists that Jones "seemed eerily calm," that his "face was immobile, eyes steady behind wire specs. He seemed, like a dead calm sea, almost glassy." Video of Jones' testimony appear HERE.)

In any case, those giants I mentioned begin with the Institute of Physics. A scientific charity with a worldwide membership of 36,000, it has submitted a formal statement to the British parliamentary committee. The statement says the Climategate e-mails raise "worrying implications" regarding the integrity of climate research and "the credibility of the scientific method."

According to the physics institute, it's vital that scientists "expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others." The institute also says it's concerned by the "intolerance" on display in the Climategate e-mails, since this attitude impedes "the process of scientific 'self correction', which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself."

The second giant is Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry, with its membership of 46,000. It, too, has submitted a formal statement to the parliamentary committee. The chemistry society reminds us that the "true nature of science dictates that research is transparent and robust enough to survive scrutiny." It points out that, since "advances in science frequently occur when the prevailing view is challenged by informed scepticism, this is fundamental to the scientific method and should be encouraged…"

The third giant is the Royal Statistical Society, with a membership of 7,000. Its submission to the parliamentary committee declares that "the data, the analysis methods and the models" used in climate research should all enter the public domain so that findings may be independently verified. The statistical society statement continues:

…science progresses as an ongoing debate and not by a series of authoritative and oracular pronouncements…the quality of that debate is best served by ensuring that all parties have access to the facts...The best guarantor of scientific quality is that others are able to examine in detail the arguments that have been used and not just their published conclusions. It is important that experiments and calculations can be repeated to verify their conclusions. If data, or the methods used, are withheld, it is impossible to do this.

Amen and hallelujah. The forces defending the scientific method have begun to gather. Now it's time for others to step forward. Science academies, meteorological associations, science journals, science funding bodies – that means you.

Do it soon - before disgraced climate scientists drag you down with them.

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>> Let there be no more scientific consensuses
>> Systemic failure: invasion of the drama queens
>> Is this politics or science?
>> Independent bloggers vs corporate environmentalists

Reuters' Climate Change Fiction

Is the average journalist completely clueless when it comes to climate change? Do they go out of their way to quote equally clueless "experts"? Do they ignore profoundly significant news events and instead write articles brimming with their own assumptions and prejudices? A look at the recent behaviour of Reuters - which forms part of "the world's largest international multimedia news agency" - suggests all of the above.

Remember the BBC interview with Dr. Phil Jones published 11 days ago? It was immensely newsworthy because Jones is not just the director of the Climatic Research Unit (the home of the explosive leaked/hacked Climategate e-mails), he has played a central role in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consensus process.

It is because of senior climate researchers like Jones that Time magazine told us last August: "the science is clear...we're boiling the planet." Except that, in the BBC interview (in which he was by no means ambushed, but was instead assisted by his university's press office), Jones made a startling admission.

He was asked: "Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?" He responded: "Yes, but only just." He then continued on for four more sentences, arguing that the "trend is quite close to the significance level" and pointing out that statistical significance is more likely to show up when one examines longer time periods rather than shorter ones.

Some day that "Yes" may come to be regarded as the utterance that inexplicably failed to shake the world. If warming over the past 15 years has been so marginal that even people who believe firmly in human-caused global warming admit it isn't significant, what's all the fuss about? On what basis have news outlets advised us that "humanity faces a profound emergency"?

Jones' acknowledgment that things aren't nearly so dire is a HUGE story. So what has Reuters said about it? Not one word.

Check for yourself. Click on over to Reuters.com, type "Phil Jones" into the search box at the top right of your screen, scroll through the pages of results and you won't find a single mention of his name since the BBC interview.

Type "statistically significant" into that same box and you'll discover that Reuters journalists have used this term recently when discussing in vitro fertilization, pharmaceutical trials, energy efficiency, and premature births – but that it has not passed their lips in a climate change context since the Jones BBC interview appeared on February 13th until today.

What have they been writing instead? Well, yesterday Reuters published an article by journalist Ed Stoddard. Dubiously labeled an "analysis" piece, its central claim is that American climate change skepticism is at odds "with prevailing views in Europe."

Why does journalist Stoddard believe this to be the case? Partly because a Canadian pollster says so. Here's Stoddard's copy in all it's glory:

"It's a very different debate in Europe, where there is no discussion about whether climate change is occurring. But in the United States it is about whether it exists," said John Wright of pollster Ipsos.

As blogger/aggregator Tom Nelson pointed out almost immediately, however, Ipsos employees in different parts of the world apparently don't read each other's polling results. It so happens that a headline in yesterday's Guardian smartly contradicts Wright: "Sharp decline in public's belief in climate threat, British poll reveals." Here are a few snippets from the article:

The proportion of adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, from 44% to 31%, in the latest survey by Ipsos Mori.

… Another finding…is a significant drop in those who said climate change was caused by human activities. One year ago this number was one in three, but this year just one in five people believes global warming to be man-made, according to Edward Langley, Ipsos Mori's head of environment research. [bold added]

So while Langley of Ipsos Mori tells a newspaper that only 1 in 3 UK adults believe climate change is real and only one in five believe humans are responsible for it, Wright of Ipsos Reid gets quoted by Reuters declaring that, in Europe, "there is no discussion about whether climate change is occurring."

Anyone remotely familiar with the climate change debate knows that skepticism is alive and well in many nations around the world, including European ones. That a Canadian pollster would be so misinformed is disturbing. That a Reuters journalist would write down and distribute such fiction is inexcusable.

If climate skepticism is purely an American phenomenon:

• why did the largest daily paper in The Netherlands run a story recently vindicating a prominent climate skeptic? ("He was right after all" declared the headline)
• why did the weekly left-leaning, one-million-circulation German news magazine Der Spiegel recently run a two-part series titled "Can Climate Forecasts Still be Trusted?"
• why did Harris poll results released last October find that, when you total them up, the exact same number of Germans as Americans believe climate change poses either "no threat" or only a minor one? (see the first blurb of red text on page 2 of this PDF)
  
• why does every last one of the top 10 conservative blogs in the UK embrace climate skepticism - even though the British Conservative Party says man-made climate change is real?
• why did 6,000 Australians attend the sold-out public speaking engagements of British climate skeptic Christopher Monckton recently? (on at least one occasion he went out into the parking lot to deliver a short version to the overflow audience)
• why did Australia's federal minister for Climate Change and Water devote so much time in a speech last week to bad-mouthing skeptics?
• why did Open Magazine, an English-language publication in India, splash "The Climate Change Fraud" in large text across its front cover on January 30th, followed by a story inside titled "The Hottest Hoax in the World"?
  

I could continue, but we all get the picture.

So what's going on at Reuters? In the Stoddard piece US climate skepticism is linked to some of the same old bogeymen: "the influence of U.S. talk radio" and the "oil lobby." Despite the fact that America has long been the source of many of the world's most significant technological innovations, Reuters implies that it's home to anti-scientific bumpkins who fail to show academics sufficient respect:

Science can be controversial in a country where evangelical Christians make up a quarter of the adult population. Many, for example, doubt the theory of evolution..."In other countries academics hold a more revered position...And so some of these Europeans look at America and say there is all this evidence, why don't you believe?..." said Michael Lindsay, a political sociologist at Rice University in Houston.

A quote from the Sierra Club adds insult to injury by suggesting the American public is easily befuddled:

"I don't think it's that Americans are confused about global warming, it's that they're being confused," said the incoming executive director of conservation group Sierra Club, Michael Brune, who blames big spending by oil, coal and other energy industries.

Curiously, the only European poll numbers Reuters bothers to quote involve France (in addition to non-European Brazil and Japan). This is hardly convincing support for the claim that the American situation is dramatically different from the one in Europe.

In short, Reuters has published utter rubbish. It should hang its head in shame.

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[Full disclosure. In my earlier life as a journalist I, too, have interviewed Canadian pollster John Wright. Moreover, my husband was employed by Ipsos between 2000 and 2005.]


>> Time magazine's controversial glacier expert
>> Science says: hop on one foot
>> What she said about the climate bible 3 months ago
>> Did IQs drop sharply?

Is This Politics or Science?

When someone makes a statement about global warming it's important to ask ourselves: are they informing us about a scientific issue or are they taking bits of latex, inflating them with lots of hot air, and presenting us with a bouquet of political assumptions?

Everyone does the latter, to some degree. We interpret the world according to our beliefs, experiences, and values. (Hopefully, we also strive to be fair-minded.) But a problem arises when certain people insist that the processed, dyed, manufactured, and inflated balloons clutched in their hand are actually a cup of unadulterated liquid sap fresh from the rubber tree.

I've now been researching the global warming debate for the better part of a year. I've read a variety of perspectives and encountered all sorts of political spin. I find it curious that those who believe humanity has set in motion catastrophic global warming deny vociferously that they themselves are in any way political. They believe their perspective is simply the truth - and that the very existence of alternative viewpoints shows that science has been corrupted by politics.

This week's news contains flagrant examples of such thinking. I'm going to discuss just one [more here and here]. In an interview published yesterday, Dr. Michael Mann, (who has revealed himself, via the Climategate e-mails, to be a less-than-attractive human being) accused climate skeptics of creating a "poisonous atmosphere." This, he says, is:

…similar in many ways to that poisonous atmosphere we saw last summer in those healthcare town hall meetings — irrational sort of conspiracy-driven lunatics, frankly…

Now I'm not an American, but even I recognize Democratic Party rhetoric. Those who exercised their free-speech right to criticize proposed health care measures at public meetings have been written off by fans of the party in power as irrational nutcases.

There's nothing measured or good-natured about this. It's an example of partisan politics at its ugliest. It demonstrates that, rather than dealing with the content of people's concerns, Democratic Party hardliners prefer to hurl insults and name-call. No one who values diversity and inclusiveness can regard this as admirable.

Mann has therefore advertised – as surely as if he'd splashed it on a Times Square billboard – his own political orientation. He's made it clear that he personally buys into this profoundly partisan view of the world. He isn't merely a Democratic, he's hardcore.

Which is important to have clarity about since he then declares that: "The science community isn’t organized — it doesn’t have a single politically driven motive as the climate change deniers do." [bold added]

That sound you hear is me spitting up my chai latte. Does Mann mean climate scientists are never politically motivated? Or does he regard people whom he nastily denigrates as "climate change deniers" to be unified around a single motivation?

Both ways of interpreting this statement render it absurd. If science were conducted entirely by robots on a remote planet, politics-free science might be possible. But scientific research is undertaken by human beings – very few of whom could ever be described as not having "a single politically driven motive."

It's equally preposterous to suggest that the millions of people who have reservations about the current state of climate science can be viewed as any sort of monolith. Humans are never motivated by one thing alone. Declaring that a geographically and professionally diverse group are all propelled by a single doctrine is psychology too simplistic even for comic books.

It's clear that Mann - the hardcore Democrat - regards his own viewpoint as the unadorned truth, the equivalent of unprocessed liquid latex collected moments ago from the rubber tree. In his mind, other people exaggerate and twist the facts while he just tells it like it is.

Yet not once does he acknowledge that some criticisms of current climate science are valid, that other viewpoints deserve a hearing, or that climate skeptics have identified legitimate research shortcomings. In his opinion, anyone who sees the world differently is engaging in "a war…against the climate science and scientists". Tellingly, he speaks of the climate science rather than of competing perspectives.

But there are always multiple points-of-view. In his collection of thoughtful essays, The Scientist as Rebel, renowned physicist Freeman Dyson describes science as "a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions." No one has all the answers. Two different researchers, with different areas of expertise, will inevitably assess the same scientific question differently. It may be that both of them are at least somewhat correct – or that both of them will be proved wrong in the fullness of time.

As Tom Fuller wrote yesterday:

…the [global warming] argument isn't really about CO2. Most people with a bit of a scientific background understand…that more CO2 in the atmosphere will tend to elevate temperatures. The argument is really about water vapor. Does doubling CO2 then create enough extra water vapor to amplify this heating by a multiple, and if so, what is that multiple? How sensitive is the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2?

The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] thinks it's moderate. The alarmist extreme thinks it's high. Lukewarmers think it's low. Real skeptics think it's non-existent, or even negative. The argument before the court is that we don't know. And until we do know, what right does one faction have to blacken the names and reputations of those with opposing views?

Mann approaches climate science the way he approaches the health care debate. If you're not on his team, you deserve neither respect nor consideration. He's all about scoring points, trashing the opposition, and winning at all costs.

For those of us who think science is about being open to new ideas and new perspectives, Mann isn't the kind of scientist we'd want our kids to grow up to be.

..

>> Bullies need not apply
>> If we don't agree, you're crazy
>> The cult of the expert
>> Bias: how the media distort the news

ClimateGate Links

For someone like moi, who's been researching the global warming debate for several months, the past few weeks have been especially fascinating. The ClimateGate files, apparently released into the public domain on November 13, began receiving widespread notice on Nov. 20th.

Since then, it's been a non-stop whirlwind as bloggers have examined these files, the prominent climate scientists in the purloined e-mails have attempted damage control, and political partisans have spun this development to the far reaches of the solar system and back.

The widespread discussion of these matters is a marvelous thing. So is the multiplicity of voices taking part. But it can be tough for someone unconnected to this debate to get a handle on the controversy.

Below is a list of links worth taking a look at. Because ClimateGate's real impact won't be fully understood for some years, anything written within the first few weeks is highly preliminary. Nevertheless, some of the main themes are already evident.

• the 1,073 e-mails may be read or searched here
  


• Global warming with the lid off
  -this Wall Street Journal editorial highlights some of the most serious concerns


• Tom Fuller's coverage in the San Francisco Examiner is thorough, sober-minded, and even-handed. This article links to all 7 parts of a series he wrote as the ClimateGate story began to unfold. Highly recommended.


• Special Investigation: Climate change email row deepens as Russians admit they DID come from their Siberian server
  -don't be misled by the headline, this is a solid view of the larger story
  


• Climategate peer review: science red in tooth and claw
  -"Claiming lack of peer review was once a reasonable weapon in scientists’ [arsenal]...After climategate, all can see that this line of logic is as effective as a paper sword."


• Global warming, loyalty oaths, and Climategate's smoking gun
  -"These scientists wrote a report for politicians everywhere. The report was paid for and backed by the United Nations...These scientists, to promote their personal viewpoint, hid evidence that global warming couldn't be judged as accurately as all of their statements indicated."


• Data horribilia: the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file
  -some of the color commentary here may be over-the-top, but this paints a picture of a junior computer programmer struggling mightily to make sense of poorly-documented data analysis tools. Although he works hard to keep his work logically consistent, he eventually appears to throw up his hands and to make changes he knows are questionable - in order to produce results he knows are expected. If this is how world-class climate data gets produced, we all need to be very worried.
  


• Scientists are not software engineers
  -"Arguably, these are the most important computer programs in the world...[and they are] complete and utter train wrecks."


• More on Climategate
  -"The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. "
  
  
• Why the GlimateGate controversy matters
  -"If the phrase ‘an informed citizenry’ is to be more than a pious and empty sentiment, we need to make rational decisions with all the evidence available. If we are to give our consent to dramatic changes in public policy, we need to know all the weaknesses of a hypothesis."


• Climate-change - a story too often told the same way
  -This article rambles a little, but contains solid analysis: "So science was not speaking with one voice on the matter. It only seemed to be, because the media, on the whole, was giving no other story. Then this Climate Research Unit thing happened, and it was the end of the monologue."
  

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Al Gore: Not This Thinking Woman's Thinking Man

How about that Al Gore? The "Thinking Man's Thinking Man" and the "Eco-Prophet" (as dubbed by Newsweek last month.) Or Al Gore the Christ (Time magazine's implication in May 2007).


Attention fawning media outlets: your environmental savior with the supposedly high-octane intellect is looking rather shabby. I mean, an intellectual researches things a tad before making public pronouncements, doesn't he?

So what are we to make of the interview Mr. Gore gave to Slate magazine four days ago? He was asked about the 1,073 e-mails that comprise part of the ClimateGate documents leaked/hacked last month. These e-mails reveal prominent climate scientists discussing amongst themselves oh-so-unscientific behavior like evading Freedom of Information requests, deleting select e-mails, and boycotting journals that publish articles they disagree with.

Mr. Gore is asked by Slate how "damaging to [his] argument" he feels the e-mails are. His reply:

To paraphrase Shakespeare, it's sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven't read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. [bold added by me]

The journalist says the e-mails suggest "that data was hidden and hoarded" and points out this runs counter to the apparent claim in Mr. Gore's latest book that there's been "an open and fair debate" about climate change. Mr. Gore's reply:

I think it's been taken wildly out of context...an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago... [my bold]

Two sentences further on, he makes this assertion one more time:

What we're seeing is a set of changes worldwide that just make this discussion over 10-year-old e-mails kind of silly. [my bold]

Well, here's the problem. The "thinking man's thinking man" appears to have left planet Earth during his Slate interview and the journalist, I'm sorry to report, apparently didn't notice. Even a liberal-arts-major like me can do this math. Mr. Gore may be stuck in a 1999 time warp, but

• 44% of these e-mails are from 2006 or later
  
• only 1 in 7 are ten years old or older

The e-mails are listed here, 25 to a page. There's nearly 10 full pages from the last two years alone. The most recent one, rather than being written a decade ago as Mr. Gore claims, was authored less than four weeks before the Slate interview.

These e-mails, penned by some of the scientists who produce the United Nations' climate Bible - the IPCC reports (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) - are not old news. They are not obscured by the sands of time and cannot be dismissed as being, in essence, "silly old things."

But the journalist didn't point that out. Perhaps he chose - more wisely than did Mr. Gore - to not go there since he wasn't entirely sure. Slate later inserted astericks after each of the above quotes which all link to this interesting addendum:

In the interview, Al Gore said that the e-mails printed from researchers at the University of East Anglia were 10 years old. They are more recent than that, including many from 2009. In response, Gore has issued a statement: "The e-mail exchanges that I focused on are approximately 10 years old. Some of the e-mail exchanges cited by others are more recent. None of them change the scientific consensus in any way."

There's a website out there called AlGoreLied.com. Honestly, I think its name is unfortunate. I prefer to believe that people make mistakes, that they get carried away in the heat of the moment, that their mouths overtake their brain on occasion. I think it's rude to accuse someone of being a liar.

But if Mr. Gore isn't intellectually impaired and he isn't an outright liar what are we left with?

Option A: He's a salesman. He apparently doesn't care whether his remarks are accurate. He appears not to have read these e-mails and seems unlikely to do so. For him, facts are beside the point.

Mr. Gore may simply be interested in selling stuff: his books, his film, his speeches ($175,000 per) and his photo standing beside you (for the equivalent of $1,200). And let's not even talk about the various green ventures in which he's financially involved.

Option B: He's grown complacent and lazy. Mr. Gore has gotten used to having his ring kissed by the media. (CBS news anchor Katie Couric gushed last month that she was "honored" to be giving Mr. Gore, the "Godfather of Green [and] the King of Conservation," publicity for his new book.)

That's not the kind of milieu that keeps one sharp. Once you've been declared the "thinking man's thinking man" maybe you start to believe that any assertion that comes out of your mouth will be treated like gospel, so why sweat it.

It seems to me the mainstream media now faces a choice. It can start doing its job - which used to be understood as helping ensure the little folk aren't victimized by wealthy, powerful, famous ones pushing schemes designed to enrich themselves. It can start writing stories that represent the checks and balances the press is supposed to supply in a democratic society.

Or it can carry on being the public relations arm of I-can't-be-bothered-to-get-basic-facts-right politicians like Al Gore. In that case, the sooner such "journalists" are relegated to the dustbin of history the better.

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Is Corporate E-mail Private E-Mail?

In my view, it's still too early to say much about the vast amount of information that has become public over the past few days in what is being called ClimateGate or CRUgate. The significance of these documents will, one hopes, become clearer with time. [see & search them here]

But there is one point about which we should not be confused. Contrary to the opening line of this news story, these are NOT private e-mails. E-mail messages sent at the place of one's employment, pertaining to one's on-the-job responsibilities, belong to one's employer.

Dr. Kevin Trenberth tells this reporter, "I personally feel violated."

Tough luck. As an employee of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research - which is funded by public dollars and is, one would expect, subject to Freedom of Information legislation - what Prof. Trenberth does in the course of his employment is NOT his own private business.

Full Disclaimer:
So far, no one - on any side of this issue - has declared any of these documents to be fake. But since forgeries aren't unknown, it's appropriate to tread carefully. Fictional e-mails could be mixed in with real messages.

We should also take note of the significant chronological gaps in these documents. This isn't the entire record of e-mail sent and received by certain people, but a partial one. According to what criteria was this selection made? By whom? What agenda might be motivating this person(s)? If we could access the entire record, would the picture that is currently emerging differ significantly? How?

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