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Via a reader:

#4101 - Edward Cook tells Phil Jones that Mike Mann is "serious enemy" and "vindictive". Mike Mann had criticized his work.

#4091 – Phil Jones tries to teach a statistician to suck eggs, and gets his ass handed to him.

#4025 – Keith Briffa questions Mike Mann’s objectivity

#0497 - Jones falls out with Mann

Comments

[matthu]

Regarding Ian Hislop: because he is also intimately involved in the BBC TV show "Have I Got News for You" I guess that means he needs to maintain good relationships with both the BBC and the various politicians they invite onto their show from time to time ...

[Sleepalot]

Re: Ian Hislop. David Bellamy is the answer to that question.

[NW]

Sleepalot, if you're saying that Hislop doesn't want to disapear from TV as Bellamy did, I'm not sure there is a parallel. Bellamy was a mainstream figure in "green" programmes who couldn't be seen to question the party line, Hislop's reputation is an anti establishment maverick and it would be headline news if he was forced off HIGNFY. Mind you he does seem to have landed a few gigs recently fronting various documentaries.

[lapogus]

I've been a Private Eye reader/subsriber for nearly 30 years now, but am giving it up when this year's runs out. Hislop is a gullible fool. And not just over climate change, he turned his back on the MMR parents, and turned a blind eye to the despicable witch-hunt the government instigated against Wakefield. The last decent thing the Eye did was The Lockerbie Report, for which the late Paul Foot deserves the credit, not Hislop.

[Gareth]

Email 0801 is an interesting one imo. 1997, and Mike Hulme is cc'd into an email where a climate researcher is discussing a forthcoming attempt by climate researchers in Europe and the WWF to put pressure on ministers at the Kyoto meeting.

It's really quite shameless. Rob Swart writes:

Dear Merylyn,

I am very happy that you are enthusiastic about the idea of presenting a letter by European scientists to the Kyoto negotiations. What we had in mind was a similar procedure as in the US. After the initial drafting of the letter by a limited number of scientists (done), an ngo with more time/resources would take the letter and start collecting signatures through their network, primarily through email, but possibly also through mail/fax. I think we have reached that step.

What would be needed is WWF distrbuting a message/letter from WWF accompanying the scientists's letter explaining the plan on their behalf. The letter should be relatively "objective" not to scare scientists that they are used in an unscientific ngo advocacy action. That is why we have approached you rather than Greenpeace, Climate Action Network or Friends of the Earth. I am sure you have your own network of climate scientists, screening the IPCC reports for IPCC lead authors would be an important second step. The people that are in the process now (like Mike Hulme, Joe Alcamo, Jill Jaeger, Pier Vellinga and others) will also provide you with as many names and addresses as they can come up with.

In trying to find a little bit more to the story I found a Spiegel article from last year that details the story from a different angle thanks to the first climategate emails. It is interesting to see what Tom Wigley got worked up about.

How the Science of Global Warming Was Compromised Part 3: How Climate Researchers Plotted with Interest Groups

Even before the UN climate conference in Kyoto in 1997, environmentalist groups and leading climate researchers began joining forces to put pressure on industry and politicians. In August 1997, Greenpeace sent a letter to The Times newspaper in London, appealing on behalf of British researchers. All the climatologists had to do was sign on the dotted line. In October of that year, other climate researchers -- ostensibly acting on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, or WWF -- e-mailed hundreds of colleagues calling on them to sign an appeal to the politicians in connection with the Kyoto conference.

The tactic was controversial. Whereas German scientists immediately put their names on the list, others had their doubts. In a leaked e-mail dated Nov. 25, 1997, renowned American paleoclimatologist Tom Wigley told a colleague he was worried that such appeals were almost as "dishonest " as the propaganda employed by the skeptics' lobby. Personal views, Wigley said, should not be confused with scientific facts.

[Menth]

I'm not a climate scientist but I'm pretty sure we can go ahead and attribute apprx 0.3 deg of recent global warming to Mike Mann being an unbelievably hotheaded jackass.

[DaveS]

Oops, this was meant to go in this thread. Reproduced with typo corrections.

Geoffrey Lean has been doing his 'nothing to see here, folks, move along' bit in today's DailyTelegraph. Interesting to see his name crop up in a list of journos suggested by a WWF press handler (Cherry Farrow) to Mike Hulme back in 1997 in the context of getting (presumably sympathetic) press coverage for a 'European Scientists Statement' linked to Kyoto. See emails 0876250531.txt, 0981.txt, 0927.txt and 3275.txt. Note Cherry Farrows pharse 'If you want to retain "neutrality"...' with the nudge, nudge, wink, wink quotes around the word neutrality. Also, the first of these emails appears to have been forwarded from an EU email address, ??@DG12.cec.be. The subtext in the WWF emails is a clear desire to influence European governments. Why was Mike Hulme seeking WWF support to get a "neutral" message out?

[DaveS]

PS to previous email; it is related to Nov 26, 2011 at 8:07 PM | Gareth.

[Martin A]

ThinkingScientist On the topic of Ian Hislop, I have often wondered why the only topic that appears to be taboo for Private Eye is Climate Change. I would have thought it would be right up their street and the emails would be a gold mine for them. Their silence on this topic is deafening.

Christopher Booker asked Hislop that question. Hislop's reply was "I've discussed climate change with George Monbiot and he knows much more about the subject than you".

(that's my recollection - not the precise words)

[woodentop]

@lapogus

I gave up my decade-long plus subscription with PE a few years ago, after Climategate 1 I think, when the deafening silence on all matters CAGW became too much to bear. I haven't bought or looked at a copy since.

[ThinkingScientist]

Martin A:

"Hislop's reply was "I've discussed climate change with George Monbiot and he knows much more about the subject than you".

Always difficult to tell with Hislop when he's being sarcastic or not.

As for the idea that someone might catch him out or "skewer him" on the climate change topic on HIGNFY, given Hislop's sharp mind and tongue its a bit unlikely you can find anyone that would even have a chance. As far as I am aware, both Hislop and Merton are unscripted when they do the show...

[HuhneMustGo]

ThinkingScientist 12:43 AM
As far as I am aware, both Hislop and Merton are unscripted when they do the show...

I thought it was all heavily rehearsed, so Hislop would not let it happen.

[hro001]

@ScientistForTruth Nov 25, 2011 at 4:57 PM

Now we know why Mann is so litigious - he's a horrible bully. We also know why he's desperate to stop his emails being released from University - because he will be seen as a foul manipulator and bully, and not a scientist.

Bingo! If nothing else this new release confirms that Mann the Bully (and Jones his emulator) reigns supreme (at least in his own mind - and that of those who fear his excoriations).

One thought that has occurred to me, btw, is that (unless I'm very much mistaken) the size/number of files in the currently protected/encrypted part of this latest release is approximately the same as those contained in the archive that Mann (and/or his enablers/supporters) are expending inordinate $ (and unreasonable arguments) to suppress and prevent any examination thereof.

But if I'm not mistaken about this approximation, I'm sure it must just be ... yet another "coincidence".

[hro001]

@Niklas Nov 26, 2011 at 3:09 PM

[from 3563.txt ... showing "poor Phil" in action:]

[...]
We are now going to have to write a 2 page context letter to go to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to explain what IPCC is, how it works, the drafts and their comments and responses - and where these can be accessed. This will all go them once we have an officer assigned.

We have emails from all on Ch 6 saying they don't want their emails to Keith/Tim sent on, so this should be enough. The detail that Holland wants is in some of these emails and the attachments, which are parts (or the whole) of Ch 6 in word documents. If we're forced to send these, then we'll send hard copies, so he can't see who changed what - which you can in tracker. One odd thing with the ICO is that in order for them to assess the complaint, they need to see all. We're trying the above with a few examples to circumvent this.
[...]
We're claiming we can't comply on several issues. One of these is that if we do, then we'll be ignored by IPCC when it comes to future IPCC CLA/LA assignments. It wouldn't just be UEA, but would then apply to anyone working in the UK. The clause relates to compliance affecting international relations!

WOW! Great find, Niklas.

So the ludicrous "international relations" ploy (which IIRC first surfaced during the U.K. HoC Scitech "enquiry"), was really all about future IPCC CLA/LA assignments. And if they had to disclose their correspondence, they might not get such plumb assignments! Talk about damning himself (and the IPCC) with his very own words!

Amazing. Simply amazing.

[Shub]

niklas, gareth,
Absolutely super stuff. The finds are flying so thick and fast, especially here and on Tom Nelson, that it is going to be hard to track them all.

geoff, on the sociology....Yes! Especially considering that scientists view research as an intensely private and confidential matter particularly in medicine, just like Phil Jones does. Only in Jones' case, it is just temperature data and no one outside could fathom why he would his temperatures and calculations kept secret, and that he continued to feel like it years after the work had been published, and that it had been carried out with taxpayer funds, and that things had reached a point where he was legally obliged to release such paperwork and data.

These guys have perpetrated a great injustice on Dave Holland. What a bunch of bozos.

[NW]

Thinkingscientist, I agree it would not be easy to find the right person, Hislop is very good at what he does on HIGNFY, but he doesn't always come off best. It would also be a serious setback if someone did take him on over CAGW and appeared to lose.

It would be interesting if they got a guest who is associated with the "team" and couldn't resist the temptation to hang him or her out to dry for being an obvious idiot, as they did with "Swampy" some time ago, which effectively destroyed any credibility he had.

[September 2011]

Ban Ki Moon:

"If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet broke up, sea levels could rise by six meters. It may not
happen for 100 years - or it could happen in 10. We simply do not know. But when it
happens, it could occur quickly, almost overnight. It sounds like the script of a disaster
movie. But this is science, not science fiction."

A few days ago there was an article by Ban on the official UN web page with this quote and there was also a NYT link on Google to that quote. Now the pages/search_machines are much more 'cleared'.

[September 2011]

I apologize for any confusion (cf. my previous comment). If I search:

"It may not
happen for 100 years - or it could happen in 10. "

I find the articles.