New Batch of Leaked Climate Emails 585
New submitter kenboldt writes "Someone going by the alias 'foia' has dropped a link to a zip file containing thousands more emails similar to those released in 2009. There are apparently many more which are locked behind a password, presumably waiting to be released at some time in the future."
The University of East Anglia has released a brief statement indicating that the emails were probably obtained during the 2009 breach and held back until now as "a carefully-timed attempt to reignite controversy."
When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:2, Insightful)
But there was no controversy (Score:4, Insightful)
The previous leaked e-mails had two results:
Sham news reporting like Fox News cherry-picked out-of-context blurbs that made it sound like the scientists couldn't agree on anything.
Real news reporting actually read all the conversations and saw the conclusion was that the scientists were unanimous in agreeing that climate change is real.
That they'd do a second leak proves that the leakers are morons who think this offensive sound-bites Fox reports will have some kind of impact, whereas the actual content of the e-mail will reaffirm what everybody already knows. Climate change is real and these upcoming leaked emails won't change anything.
Also I love that Fox sympathizers have to commit a crime (hacking into an institution) just to get ammo which they mistakenly think will bolster their "cause". If they had the brains to actually read the emails themselves, they'd see it hurts them.
That other study (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid Motive (Score:5, Insightful)
Following some bullet-pointed quotes such as "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day" and, "Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels," the message states:
"Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline. This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets. The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning to publicly release the passphrase. We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics."
Listen, I'm all for the publication of the data and methods these scientists are using. But what exactly is releasing internal e-mails supposed to accomplish? Acting all righteous about "hiding the decline" and then you turn around and censor what you release?! That's pretty funny to me. Who do you think climate change is going to hurt the most anyway? My fat American ass shoving honey coated whole wheat pretzels into my gaping maw while surfing the internet? Or the truly poor people [wbur.org]? You know that subsistence farmer in Africa or China where a drought, famine or conflict could wipe him out at the drop of a hat? When times get tough, I'll have to give up my XBox Live Gold Account ... what the hell is someone living on less than $2 a day going to do?
It'll probably turn out like the UN anyway where the US pays $362 million and China pays $29 million [un.org] so that's some pretty flimsy motivation there when the wealthiest nations will most likely be footing the bill.
Re:Climate change ceased to be a scientific issue (Score:3, Insightful)
But don't let little things like facts and observable reality get in the way of your diatribe of made up facts and fabrications.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:2, Insightful)
Except in this case the crazies are the ones who:
Believe models that have never predicted anything correctly.
Trust data that is manually manipulated, incomplete, inaccurate, disparate, and only goes back a blink of the eye in terms of the planet's history.
Trust statistical manipulation of said bad data.
Trust politicians whose only concerns are money and power, and whose only "solutions" involve shifting money and power, and not reducing consumption or pollution, or building things that are actually green, like nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
Believe that the Earth will be doomed if temperatures rise closer to points in Earth's past, despite the fact that throughout all of Earth's history, higher temperatures are when life flourished.
Global Warming, Global Climate Change, Anthropogenic Global Warming, Anthropogenic Climate Change, or whatever other bullshit labels you want to try out, is NOT an environmental issue.
It is a political issue.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That other study (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because transparent research has found the same we shouldn't give credit to data forgers. They caused more harm in the public view.
tough to be unbiased (Score:3, Insightful)
This event helps highlight the difficulty in approaching any non-trivial problem in an unbiased way. The problem is less about the science than it is that the researches were clearly biased and pursuing specific results. The fact that others have claimed to reproduce the results does not lend credibility as long as they fail to acknowledge their bias and operate in a fully transparent way.
Whether you agree or disagree with the question of human affected climate change you really can't deny the fact that these folks are heavily biased toward a specific outcome for their research.
Of course it is real (Score:4, Insightful)
Problem is we've been able to accurately measure the minuscule changes in climate for about 50 of 14 billion years. Second problem is we have absolutely no idea what climate changes the earth can sustain and which ones the earth cannot sustain.
Still no definite answers here. Some of this junk research "confirming" that climate change exists adds confusion to those not smart enough to understand this.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:4, Insightful)
The saddest part about the whole climate debate is that neither side behaves rationally anymore. The debate has become so politically polarized that I feel it is difficult to trust nearly any evidence presented by either side, although the recent Koch-funded study looked like good science. Add in the fact that climate is so vastly complex it is impossible, without intensely studying it, for even the generally scientifically inclined to make judgments given the facts, and you have an issue that it becomes nearly pointless to even talk about anymore. Every time it comes up on Slashdot it inevitably comes down to a flamewar. And that flame comes from both sides.
And you aren't helping.
Re:Climate change ceased to be a scientific issue (Score:5, Insightful)
What we get is every 10 years a new set of predictions and models explaining why the last 20 years models and predictions weren't correct but we are still doomed anyway
In the words of Issac Asimov [tufts.edu]
The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe models that have never predicted anything correctly.
You mean like the models that predict ocean currents, pacific oscillation, jet stream, gulf stream, and whose decadal temperature predictions are, if anything, a bit on the conservative side?
Trust data that is manually manipulated, incomplete, inaccurate, disparate, and only goes back a blink of the eye in terms of the planet's history.
Yes, every data set has been manipulated. Weird that no one seems to come up with a data set that is clean, or without statistical error. I mean, they'd get their names into the annales of science pretty much immediately. I'm sure Exxon has a few billion lying around with which to sponsor such a study. Weird that they don't... they must know something we don't. Wait, they just know something you don't. And how much data do you need? Are you going to be happy when climate data goes back to when the earth was a loose amalgam of space dust?
Trust politicians whose only concerns are money and power, and whose only "solutions" involve shifting money and power, and not reducing consumption or pollution, or building things that are actually green, like nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Al Gore might be a convenient whipping boy, but no climate scientist is quoting Al Gore. Not to mention that you'd crucify him if he weren't putting his money where his mouth is. Nice straw man, but no win.
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
There's no need to believe when you have a physical model for how man influences the current trend, data that supports the existence of the physical model and data that disproves the assumption that CO2 emitted by man does not influence the global temperature.
Believe that the Earth will be doomed if temperatures rise closer to points in Earth's past, despite the fact that throughout all of Earth's history, higher temperatures are when life flourished.
One straw man, one lie through omission and one lie through commission in one sentence. Nice going.
1) No one is arguing that the earth is doomed, outside of people like you. Climate scientists are arguing that life is going to get mighty uncomfortable for a large swath of humanity, costing everyone on earth a nice chunk of change to adapt to.
2) Humans weren't around when temperatures and CO2 concentrations were much higher than now.
3) Mass extinctions are tied to high temperatures and high CO2 contents. Look up PETM extinction event.
Man, whatever it takes to continue living your own life, and screw whoever comes after you, right? Nice going. The last guy who made this his official motto caused massive international bloodshed.
No, they aren't (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they aren't, and no, they haven't.
And no, I'm not wasting my time with this because like most intelligent adults I already understand that having doubts is what people who are right do. Having doubts is scientifically valid. It's how science gets done, not religion.
Having no doubts and exuding false confidence is what people who are wrong do all the time.
In other words, shove those fucking emails up your ass. They do not mean what you desperately wish they mean. Global warming is a done discussion. Governments and corporations are already moving to adapt -- except for a few parasites like the Koch brothers (who are funding much of the anti-science "research" that you are lapping up so eagerly), who simply need to be pried off our nation's neck and burned like the blood-ticks that they are.
Re:That other study (Score:2, Insightful)
whether things like cap and trade would do any good under any circumstances
Even if you assume that the A in AGW is true, cap and trade seems unlikely to work. For a reason why it's not likely to work, see Free Trade with China, the war on drugs, or any other attempt by government to stop a black market that has universal appeal and isn't regarded as immoral by a sufficient majority.
The government has a hard enough time when behavior *is* regarded as immoral by the majority. See Penn State for an example of that.
So. Cap and trade. Whatever. Corrupt Chinese CEOs, start your smokestacks...
Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:1, Insightful)
providing context
Your weasel word detector should have gone off right there.
The saddest thing is that there are not two sides (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no "other side" to the climate debate. There is a widely accepted set of facts, and there are professional doubters employed by the industries who stand to lose money if they are required to behave with even a smidgeon of responsibility towards the communities they are polluting and damaging with their pollutants.
There is no fucking "other side" to this debate. Climate change IS NOW HAPPENING. There is no longer any reason to dispute this subject because the signs are obvious. I grew up in Colorado in the 1970's and 1980's. When I go back there now, it is totally fucking unambiguous to me that on a global scale the temperature is rising. Look up from your feet at some previously snow-capped mountains -- it's not that damn hard.
Large-scale glaciers calving off into icebergs. The polar sea is now navigable for greater and greater periods of the year. If anything the prognostications of climate scientists have been overwhelmingly vindicated well ahead of schedule.
If you think there is another "side" to this, I would like you to produce the science that they are doing. Scientific papers, evidence -- ANY DAMN THING that contradicts the current accepted model.
I submit you will find exactly DICK in that regard. Except for the fictional natterings of Bjorn Lomborg (not a climate scientist in any way shape or form) you are not going to find much.
But if you do, bring it, mofo. Bring it the fuck on.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no need to falsify info proving global warming if it would be easier to produce evidence DISproving it. Certainly not for financial reasons.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Real Climate = Mann's spin control website (Score:5, Insightful)
Your source proving the fraud accusation?
Last I checked, Mann had been cleared by not one, not two, at least t-h-r-e-e different boards of inquiry.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes it is! (Score:1, Insightful)
Nobody would argue the existence gravity... but people may be a tad upset that the trusted scientific base fudged figures for personal reasons.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:4, Insightful)
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made.
Where?
You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
Oil companies grew to love 'Global Warmnig' when they realised it makes oil more attractive than coal.
After all, that's why Margaret Thatcher pushed it in the first place; it was another stick to beat the coal mining unions with.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course CO2 emitted by man affects global climate. CO2 emitted by every creature does the same. There is no living being on this planet that does not affect the climate around it.
Problem is we have so little understanding of how the earth reacts to these changes over time. The earth has sustained itself through *much* more drastic changes than anything man has introduced.
Best thing we can do is observe common sense. Recycle, limit chemicals released into the atmosphere, etc. Problem is we've been spending trillions and trillions of dollars in order to be "green" beyond simple common sense activities when we have absolutely no idea if that money is well spent.
Re:At a time when TV starts to edit-out AGW shows: (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair it could be because it makes all the denialists (remember that 24% of *Slashdotters* are denialists, and 9% are "skeptical" - and that's a technical/science-oriented community) change the channel and reduces the likelihood of them changing back (because they'll get a reputation as a "warmist" channel).
It's like showing a movie with a topless scene to an audience containing ~50% uptight puritans. They'll run away and label you a smut peddler.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe in global warming, I believe mankind causes it, I believe it is a serious threat to human civilization even.
The thing is, nothing will be done until trillions have been spent building sea walls to protect the rich nation's coastal cities, irrigating the rapidly drying areas, building drainage in the rapidly flooding areas, killing mosquitoes in the new swamp lands, and any number of other band aids that you can think of.
There is simply no social or political will to cut CO2 emissions because there is simply no way to do it without reducing the perceived future quality of life for billions of people around the world (even if actual quality of life might be better than the worst case scenarios for global warming). Hell, even if we started reducing emissions today, which isn't going to happen, it would take decades to hit a point of stability where CO2 going into the atmosphere is equal to CO2 coming out, and even that may not be enough to avoid some of the worst effects.
It's simply not going to happen. If you're worried about the long term effects of global warming you'd be better spending your money on researching and developing Geo-engineering mega-projects because that is the only cost effective way you are going to prevent the worst effects. Yeah, the risks are large and the costs are non-trivial, but they are tiny compared to the costs of moving away from a fossil fuel economy at the rate that averting global warming would take.
Re:But there was no controversy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No the models they mean are like these... (Score:4, Insightful)
Their hypocrisy would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but #1, you had about 20 years to educate yourself on this issue. #2, there are plenty of rational discussions around this that are polite, fact-based and available online. IPCC reports are one. The NOAA studies are another. Those are just two samples out of a good dozen. There's a huge host of information available if you want to learn.
If you are still complaining that you don't understand the topic at at least a basic level, it's because you haven't been trying. And quite frankly, I'm tired of lazy people complaining that they don't know what's going on, and then voting based on sound bites they heard on CBS. You don't know what's going on? STFU and look it up.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:4, Insightful)
Disagree.
I don't see what one's credibility has to do with the language one uses. Credibility comes from having data that backs one's position, and there's lots of it for climate change, including multiple groups that came up with the same conclusion.
But it is a black and white issue: it either happens or it doesn't. I don't understand what would constitute an acceptable way of putting it in your view.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't pretend that his language or his attitude are appropriate or helpful to situation but I can understand the frustration. How long can most of us talk about evolution with a creationist before we start to show how exasperating the whole argument is? How long can we talk about vaccines and autism without losing our cool a little bit? Or about the moon landings being a hoax? Or that electric fans can cause deaths in enclosed spaces.
On the one side there is a body of evidence supporting the theory that doubles every time you look at it, on the other there is... what exactly? Either the doubters chose to believe that tens of thousands of scientists are grossly incompetent or that tens of thousands of scientists are conspiring against the rest of the world.
So yeah, his language is inappropriate, but his message is spot on.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:2, Insightful)
"I believe in global warming, I believe mankind causes it, I believe it is a serious threat to human civilization even. I believe in the Holy Technocrats, the Scientist, and their Slashdot Sycophants. Deliver us from Warming and the Evil Conservatives and take us to Utopia....Amen"
Re:Real Climate = Mann's spin control website (Score:1, Insightful)
None of which actually cleared him of anything.
Re:No, they aren't (Score:5, Insightful)
"Having doubts is scientifically valid"
Except that this is not the content of the emails. The emails show gross unprofessional conduct. They should adults, acting, consistently and frequently, like out of control children. The show people whom we entrust; thinking uncritically and aggressively shouting down anyone who has the temerity to stray from the party line. They show that the institution is fundamentally and hopelessly broken and the rhetoric, including your own, has strayed significantly away from what any objective observer would characterise as sound scientific inquiry.
Your post, with its aggressive and unnecessary invective and school-yard tone is at least consistent with the tone of language revealed in the emails and around this discussion in general. But keep on carrying on like delinquent know-it-all child if you must. It only serves to reinforce doubts that the institutions that we as a civilization have commissioned to explore the CAGW hypothesis are actually up to the task.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably. But I'm honestly growing a bit ambivalent as to how one should approach people about climate change. Normally, I would say civil discussion is the most effective way to reach someone, but considering the seriousness of the matter, when nothing happens at some point you ought to start getting angry.
If somebody were pouring gasoline onto my house, and were about to set fire to it while insisting that I have nothing to worry about because surely nothing is going to happen, I wouldn't be very civil with them. We more or less have the same situation right now, only at a much slower pace.
By refusing to accept facts and take responsibility for the situation we have created, millions will be forced from their homes around the world, people will die from starvation and floods, species will become extinct, etc. etc.. How can we in good conscience stand by and be civil about it as others spread lies and misinformation for their own personal gain?
Re:No, they aren't (Score:5, Insightful)
That you are trying to disparage their work by highlighting their character makes me thing it their science is good. Otherwise we'd all be arguing the merit of their science and public discussion of their character on /. would amount to secondary gossip. Email etiquette is not something nerds get riled up over.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:3, Insightful)
Prove to me that you really believe the theory and go live in a fucking hit in Kenya. Until then, you are %100 pure bullshit.
Ah yes, the argument that either you're hypocrite and I don't have to listen to you, or you want to destroy the American way of life and I don't have to listen to you. It's nice to create a rhetorical structure where no matter what the reality of the situation, you are allowed to ignore it. Not to mention that you get to either have your lifestyle subsidized by the other person, or you are actually entitled to shoot them. Nice work.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:2, Insightful)
Reading comprehension fail.
1) Irreversible Change != Doom.
2) Can != Must
Not to mention that contextual understanding is also fail.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:3, Insightful)
And it doubles to what end?
So they keep accumulating more and more and more and then what? They want a carbon tax? Sure, that will solve it all.
The best thing AGW folks could do is to start press hard for Nuclear energy. It's here, and it's non-CO2. If they stopped trying to tax people and enforce austerity measures and instead said, hey let's go nuclear, then they would get what they want (low CO2 emissions) and the other side would get what they want (no higher taxes or energy cutbacks). Further, the West could go tell the middle east to go fuck themselves.
If indeed AGW is such a threat, such a dire situation, then everyone should be more than willing to set aside their anti-nuke bias and ignorance and embrace it as the one way we can solve this problem.
But if instead they object, then we will all know they've been blowing smoke up our asses.
Re:What a difference a few years makes... (Score:2, Insightful)
This thread is a good example. Currently posts in favor of AGW are highly rated while posts bringing up skeptical points have been modded "troll", no matter the quality of the actual content. I find it slightly amusing, and sad.
Re:No the models they mean are like these... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? You're calling a model from 1988 a failure where the only major deviations are the 1998 outlier and 2008-2009? Where the median estimate has gotten the overall trend and magnitude right? For a model that is 23 years old, I'd call that pretty damn good.
As for the IPCC prediction, the 1.5 and 4.5 degree of climate sensitivity are the generally accepted boundaries for climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing. The data collected so far seems to run in and out of those boundaries, with major differences traceable to exceptional events that are outside the climate model.
This is the best you have? That one of the very first global climate models isn't 100% accurate, and that a somewhat more recent model doesn't account properly for events that are outside its modeling parameters? Seems that these people might know what they're doing after all.
By the way, where's your model that calculates future temperatures more accurately?
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:3, Insightful)
.
Even the latest IPCC report shies away from the AGW hypothesis - noting that over the next few decades, natural variation will outweigh any man-made contribution.
Is there a reason to cut our use of fossil fuels? Yes, but it has nothing to do with any notional harm due to CO2 emissions, and everything to do with an increasing population and finite resources. The impositions of the climate change advocates are, if anything, contributing to the downfall of the very technological societies which could solve the problem, while putting the developing nations (who are surprisingly exempt from the strictures about cutting carbon emissions) at the head.
The whole thing is a political guilt trip, and if AGW advocates could get their fat heads out of their quinoa fed asses, they'd see that they have been taken for suckers.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm doing A but fantasizing about B because I'm tired of the enviro-extremists telling me that the science is settled and denying, or even questioning, their (sometimes) ridiculous assertions is tantamount to being a Nazi.
Re:No the models they mean are like these... (Score:4, Insightful)
But that's the thing - even the models they point at as wrong really aren't. At worst, they don't march in lock-step with every yearly average - which would be an absurdly, and quite frankly, suspiciously good model.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:3, Insightful)
CO2 emitted by every creature does the same. There is no living being on this planet that does not affect the climate around it.
It is a matter of degree. For example, you being alive is currently speeding up the end of the universe, because you are wasting entropy.
Problem is we have so little understanding of how the earth reacts to these changes over time.
Not a problem at all. We understand VERY WELL what is happening an the IPCC predictions are very CONSERVATIVE with well established and agreed upon error bars. Just because YOU don't have a clue doesn't mean that professional scientists don't.
The earth has sustained itself through *much* more drastic changes than anything man has introduced.
I heard that a guy fell out of an airplane at 30,000ft, and lived. Therefore, it should be fine to throw people out of airplans at 30,000ft, since it is possible to sustain oneself through this drastic event.
Let me guess -- if there was a mass extinction event, it would be because socialists ruined the environment. I am afraid that that is how cognitive dissonance works.
Best thing we can do is observe common sense.
You sir, are an IDIOT.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint: Climate scientists are aware of past environmental changes. This is not new information. You are not unusually well-informed. You are not the lone voice of sanity in the wilderness, you are just a loudmouth idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, repeating nonsense spewed by other, more cynical loudmouth idiots. Your post shows such fundamental misunderstandings of the data and issues involved that it would be best to leave
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
Where?
Are your really that naive? The oil industry has acted so brazenly in its disinformation campaign, and funding of astroturf and denialist "research". The paper trail is there for everyone to see. "Merchants of Doubt" is a recent history book the chronicles just how perfectly the wool has been pulled over your eyes -- in plain sight!
There's something interesting about the human condition there -- and you are being played by people who understand you better then you know yourself. Of course, this just makes you mad, and you want to say that *I* am the one who doesn't understand. This is called projection.
There is something interesting about the human condition there.