Murray-Rust on Pearce

Jun 15, 2010
Bishop Hill in Climate: CRU, FOI

Peter Murray-Rust, a Cambridge chemist who is also a bigwig in the Open Knowledge Foundation, has written a report on Fred Pearce's presentation at the Royal Institution last night.

As far as I can tell, Fred's book is going to conclude that CRU scientists didn't do anything bad, and he certainly seems to have persuaded Peter of his case:

I would agree from his analysis that there is no “smoking gun” and that many of the emails were unfortunate rather than malicious.

However, Peter concludes also that there are serious issues over data availability. I particularly liked this:

Climate research appears to have generated a priesthood which controls the release of information. For a science with global implications this is not acceptable.

Some common ground at least then.

This was interesting too:

My superficial analysis is that the CR community has retreated into defensive mode and has not changed its communication methods or interaction with the community. This is perhaps understandable given the hostility and publicity of much of the media coverage and further comment (and UEA has put a ban on staff speaking on the issue). Such bans can recoil, as it is then easier to believe there is something to hide. It may be difficult, but it seems essential to radically overhaul the governance and communication.

I think this would explain why my emails to UEA's Paul Dennis have gone unanswered.

Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).