Climategate 2.0 and “toecurling” journalism

Posted on November 25, 2011 | 26 Comments

It’s the silly season again. Another climate change conference (Durban) – another climategate hoax. This cartoon from crikey (Bitter Climate Science Tryst Shock Scandal Rift Emails Exposed) sums it up.

Credit: Firstdog at crikey

Thanks to: Bitter Climate Science Tryst Shock Scandal Rift Emails Exposed.

“Festering syphilitic repellance!”

And this from one of the most extreme climate change deniers, Telegraph journalist James Delingpole in Climategate 2.0: the most damning email of them all. It’s attacking an email with a Christmas song celebrating the IPCC Nobel prize. We will leave such enthusiastic but naive song writing aside. But it certainly puts Delingpole’s nose out of joint. It’s a bit over the top to describe such attempts at composition as “toecurlingly, . . vile,  reprehensible, stomach-churningly dreadful, . . .festering syphilitic repellance. .” isn’t it!

“The worst, most toecurlingly awful, damning, vile, reprehensible, stomach-churningly dreadful email – the one that shows the Warmist junk-scientists in a light of such festering syphilitic repellance they can never possibly recover is this, the Christmas ditty specially written by Kevin Trenberth in celebration of the Nobel committee’s comedic decision to award the Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC.”

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26 responses to “Climategate 2.0 and “toecurling” journalism”

  1. Cedric Katesby | November 25, 2011 at 2:01 pm |

    Science by email.
    What could possibly go wrong?
    Climate deniers are dumber than a bag of hammers.

    You’d think at least one of them would slow down for a moment and say “Why am I reading…emails?”

    In the space of two years, they have learned nothing. They fall for the same hamfisted deception all over again. That level of stupid is frightening.

    Climategate: Global Warming Denial & Hacked Emails

    Like

  2. Richard Christie | November 25, 2011 at 9:13 pm |

    Delingpole is obviously a few flybuys short of a holiday.

    Like

  3. Recovering Agnostic | November 26, 2011 at 9:11 pm |

    Nice cartoon, and scarily true.

    The world would be a much better place if everyone realised that Delingpole’s only a reliable arbiter of truth in the sense that the correct position is always the exact opposite of the one he holds.

    Like

  4. Mick | November 27, 2011 at 8:32 pm |

    So I take it you have read the emails Ken?

    I’m just interested in why you are supporting these corrupt scientists. I see that you are amongst the few who follow “Professor” Michael Mann on Twitter.

    Do you have financial interests in this?

    Just a thought.

    Like

  5. Richard Christie | November 28, 2011 at 9:57 am |

    So I take it you have read the emails Ken?

    Have you Mick?
    Thought not.
    Just the quotes fed to you by intellectual midgets such as Delingpole.
    You are a sucker.

    Climategate mark 2 — the quotes and the context

    Like

  6. Woody | November 28, 2011 at 10:54 am |

    We battle with a known human condition. Independence of thought is rare.
    While much has been written exploring the difficulty of communicating good science, the impact and consequences of acceptance have some effect on how that process can happen.
    A topical discussion.
    http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-moone

    Like

  7. Cedric Katesby | November 28, 2011 at 2:21 pm |

    Imagine you haven’t been feeling at the top of your game. Nothing consistently terrible, just a low-grade fever you notice now and then and few bad days here and there. You figure it’s just normal aging. But you go to your doctor anyway who runs some tests. You’re told it’s cancer. A really, really bad type of cancer that’s been growing for a long time and is only now starting to make you feel sick. Since you feel basically OK, you don’t believe the diagnosis. You want to ignore the whole situation, even when you’re told that if you wait until you feel sick it will be too late. You have to get treatment now or face catastrophic health changes. Your doctor also tells you that 97 to 98 percent of oncologists all agree that you’ve got cancer and you need immediate treatment. Being careful, you get a second opinion, and a third. And then a fourth from the hospital with the best reputation in your area. They all agree. Finally, you find someone who tells you what you want to hear: don’t worry, it’s just normal aging; ignore all those other doctors, they’re just trying to sell you the treatments they provide.

    What are you going to do? Especially given how I set it up, it’s pretty clear almost everyone would seek the recommended treatment after working through their fear (maybe rage, or even despair) and conquering the difficult challenge of making decisions based on an assessment of risk far in the future.

    And this brings me to the obvious question: Why is it any different for human-caused global climate change? And to a non-obvious one: How should we act towards someone denying a cancer-diagnosis and should we treat someone denying anthropogenic climate change any differently?

    For those denying either a cancer diagnosis or anthropogenic climate change the psychological start is recognizing that logic and data will fail; you can’t smash emotions with reason. For each, there are…

    Link

    Like

  8. Mick | November 28, 2011 at 4:46 pm |

    As it happens I have downloaded the emails to my PC and have started reading through them.

    It doesn’t look good for Jim Salinger
    Of course, The Faithful will never see it this way. The Cause ™ is too big

    Like

  9. Cedric Katesby | November 28, 2011 at 11:32 pm |

    As it happens I have downloaded the emails to my PC and have started reading through them.

    All 220, 000 of them?
    Goodness.
    You do have your work cut out for you. Better you than me.
    Well, good luck and all that.

    Fraud is indeed a crime and it should be brought out into the open and punished.
    Remember to call the police the instant you discover evidence of corruption and fraud. The people deserve no less.

    Why, do this right and you could end up famous!
    How exciting.
    Only you had better be quick. You are not the only dedicated sleuth out there. Be the first. Don’t let anyone snatch away your inevitable glory.
    Book offers, TV interviews and groupies are yours for the taking.
    Go to it.

    Like

  10. Mick | November 29, 2011 at 7:45 am |

    “All 220,000 of them”.
    As it happens, there are 5292 emails that are readable. There is a 7z archive that is encrypted and password protected that is 136,928 kb in size.

    Like

  11. Richard Christie | November 29, 2011 at 8:00 am |

    There is a 7z archive that is encrypted and password protected that is 136,928 kb in size.
    There you go then, that’s proof that Jim Salinger is hiding something.

    Like

  12. Cedric Katesby | November 29, 2011 at 8:47 am |

    There is a 7z archive that is encrypted and password protected that is 136,928 kb in size.

    Odd way for a “whistle blower” to behave.
    All 220,000 emails were nicked two years ago. The various investigations are long over and done with.
    Yet they just sat on them and kept them from the public.
    Maybe…”they” are part of “it”.
    Hmm.

    Like

  13. Mick | November 29, 2011 at 9:16 am |

    date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 11:13:21 -0400
    from: Edward Cook
    subject: Re: forgot
    to: Keith Briffa

    Hi Keith,

    Glad to hear you are enthusiastically interested. The stuff related
    to low-frequency and RCS that you want to do with Tom and I is a bit
    of an extention of what I want to do right now. I mainly want to do a
    “state-of-the-art” comparison of existing recons to determine where
    the greatest uncertainties currently lie. The work with Tom could
    build upon that very naturally because I am sure that the greatest
    uncertainties lie in the multi-centennial band where tree-ring
    standardization methods have the greatest impact.

    >to say would prefer no involvement of Mann and Phil –
    >and can you tell me what reconstruction Bradley did ever ? unless
    >you mean the Bradley and Jones early decadal series?

    I agree that Phil and Mike are best left out of this. Bradley? Yeah,
    he has done fuck-all except for the Bradley/Jones decadal series,
    which he maintains has withstood the test of time. Typical posturing
    on his part.

    Cheers,

    Ed

    >
    >–
    >Professor Keith Briffa,
    >Climatic Research Unit
    >University of East Anglia
    >Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.
    >
    >Phone: +44-1603-593909
    >Fax: +44-1603-507784
    >
    >http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

    —
    ==================================
    Dr. Edward R. Cook
    Doherty Senior Scholar and
    Director, Tree-Ring Laboratory
    Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
    Palisades, New York 10964 USA
    Email: drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu
    Phone: 845-365-8618
    Fax: 845-365-8152
    ==================================

    Like

  14. Ken | November 29, 2011 at 9:29 am |

    I think that in future I will treat as spam anything contributed which is purely a copy of something else (such as an email or biblical quote) without accompanying comment. It is after all not adding anything except proving something pathetic about the commenter.

    This will mean that in future comments from that person are automatically treated as spam and filtered out (with other WordPress blogs also possibly treating the person as a spammer).

    I do not in any way wish to inhibit discussion but simple copy and paste surely are sign of ineptness rather than intelligence and deserve to be treated as spam. They certainly don’t raise the level of discussion.

    Like

  15. Mick | November 29, 2011 at 9:43 am |

    I am merely proving to your commenters that I do actually have the emails, and I have read them.

    Clearly this is of no interest to you Ken.
    You mind is closed. You are blind to the corruption and lies.
    Naturally, I understand that.
    You have a position to maintain and will maintain this to death if necessary.

    You are so deep in this that there is no way out.
    NZ is the most scientifically corrupt country in the world, You all deserve to rot in hell,festering in your own faeces.

    Like

  16. Cedric Katesby | November 29, 2011 at 11:05 am |

    Evidence of corruption should be immediately sent to the police. Not much point in posting it on a blog. A tad self-defeating, really.

    As it happens I have downloaded the emails to my PC and have started reading through them.

    Then read ’em. Don’t spam ’em.
    Read ’em, find something and call the police.
    Go to it. There’s not a moment to lose. Fame and fortune are within your grasp.
    Get back to us on what the police say whenever you like.

    (…crickets chirping…)

    Like

  17. Mick 2.0 | November 29, 2011 at 3:00 pm |

    Too bad my previous iteration couldn’t respond.

    Like

  18. Mick 2.0 | November 29, 2011 at 3:37 pm |

    Why do you think the Police would be interested in emails from UEA Cedric?

    There isn’t a law against gaming the peer-review system and ganging up on people to get them sacked, as far as I know.

    There isn’t a law against writing algorithms that generate hockey sticks out of random noise as far as I know

    The role of Police is to raise revenue from speeding and parking tickets, not to monitor the academic system.

    Surely even you know that

    Like

  19. Cedric Katesby | November 29, 2011 at 10:05 pm |

    They are interested in fraud.
    Fraud is a crime.

    Like

  20. Mick 2.0 | November 30, 2011 at 9:03 am |

    Well maybe Ken should contact the police. After all, he claims Climategate 2 is a “hoax”.

    Like

  21. Cedric Katesby | November 30, 2011 at 9:12 am |

    Well maybe…

    Nope.
    Misdirection will get you nowhere.

    Like

  22. Mick 2.0 | November 30, 2011 at 9:20 am |

    He said it was a “hoax”.
    Which part of Climategate 2 is a “hoax” Ken?

    Just asking a question.

    Like

  23. Richard Christie | November 30, 2011 at 2:52 pm |

    Mick, how many unanswered questions do you need to put before it finally dawns on you that Ken will no longer engage with you in conversation?
    A perfectly reasonable position for Ken to take given your offensive and infantile outbursts in the past.

    Like

  24. Mick 2.0 | November 30, 2011 at 3:16 pm |

    I would have thought that Ken would back up his claim that CG2 was a “hoax”.

    For example, if I wrote that “climate change” was a hoax, you’d be laughing and high-fiving each other.
    So why do we have to take this from ken?

    Why?

    Just answer the question.
    Ken, you are basically a dishonest person.
    Answer the question.

    Do you understand me?

    Answer me.
    Why is “Climategate 2” a hoax?

    Why Ken?

    Just answer the question.
    Why
    why?

    WHY?

    Why is Climategate 2 a hoax

    Why?
    Why is it Ken?

    Why?

    Just a thought.
    Just asking a question.
    A simple one Ken.

    WHY?

    Like

  25. Cedric Katesby | November 30, 2011 at 3:18 pm |

    Offensive and infantile covers it very well.

    Like

  26. Mick 2.0 | December 7, 2011 at 10:53 am |

    Why is Climategate 2 a hoax Ken?
    Are the emails not real?
    Is there no indication of any wrongdoing?
    Just asking a question
    Just a thought.
    Just a tiny little question for you

    Eh Ken?
    Why?
    Just a thought

    Like

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