I heartily agree with Ross Gittins' assessment of Tony Abbott, and I also tend to agree with Harry Clarke about the respective current merits of Labor and the Coalition, although I'm not quite as scathing about Labor and certainly not a long-time Liberal supporter:
Because of the appalling climate change policies of the Coalition I will probably vote Labor in the next Federal election. Unfortunately I might be backing a losing team but I won’t vote for the Liberals while people of Tony Abbott’s ilk are leading the party. It’s a difficult choice for me because I have long supported the Liberal Party and I regard the Labor Party at the Federal level as a poor first choice. If Malcolm Turnbull led the Liberals my allegiances would switch in a flash back to the Liberals – so too, astonishingly, would those of social democrats like John Quiggin.
Still, it's an invidious choice. If only there was a genuine "third force" in Australian politics, a bit like the Lib-Dems in the UK. Australia's Dems were essentially a principled centrist grouping when formed by Don Chipp, and largely stayed that way until Meg Lees' expedient but sensible deal with John Howard over GST caused it to split, lurch to the left and eventually disintegrate. What chance a new principled but pragmatic centrist party (liberal democratic with very moderate social democrat overtones) emerging in Australia, given such widespread disillusionment with the two existing major parties? I imagine at the very least it would require impetus from one or more prominent, credible public figures. Lindsay Tanner and Malcolm Turnbull, for example. Of course it won't happen, but still ...
If the polls are a guide, there would be even more widespread disillusionment with the policies of this 'new principled but pragmatic centrist party'.
Andrew is right. But it would clearly have the blogosphere vote completely sewn up.
"liberal democratic with very moderate social democrat overtones"
Sounds like the Federal Labor Party to me.
Turnbull joined the wrong party, is all.
The labor party is not a liberal democratic party in its present incarnation. They have little to no regard for human rights as seen in the deal with Malaysia, a country with a dreadful human rights record that does not belong to the Refugee Convention, and that has a long history of rejecting international obligations as interference in domestic affairs.
Consider, for instance, the statement of the Malaysian Bar:
We can only presume that Burma was unavailable as a processing centre.
Internally the labor party maintains an elaborate democratic structure that has almost no influence on the actions of its leaders or anything else. All power to the leader and who cares about the electorate is not a longterm strategy for government.
The only good news is that party systems, despite the fond hopes of labor apparatchiks, do not last forever.
We're still in the Howard era as far as our two main political parties are concerned - keep brown people in boats out, ride the commodity boom, ladle out welfare to the middle class and govern from a deckchair - responding occasionally to issues picked up from focus group surveys. It doesn't really matter which one of them is in. Both will employ policies that pander to by the less educated, most bigoted and unenlightened voters who think governments survive to subsidise their aspirational lifestyles. Both will make noises about the great forgotten working people, while urging them to work ever harder to pay for a retirement that they never will be able to afford.
The Greens are the only party that has any principles at all. I fear a Liberal Democratic centrist party would just be a beige, passionless Ikea-assembled grouping that excites no-one's imagination.
Our party politics are broken because our problems are global in origin - climate change, sustainability, mass movements of people seeking better lives, virtually bankrupt developed economies and a rising Asia which is using up natural resources faster than we can dig them out of the ground.
So the parties here are inventing and beating up issues to distinguish one from the other - the media is playing along to keep up the pretence that it has any social use any more - and the rest of us are supposed to pretend this means anything.
A plague on both their houses! I will be quite content for Oliver Cromwell to return, and drive away most of the politicians. And then set up a staunch conservative party of sensible ideas for a cohesive society of individuals (i.e very right wing). Enough of the navel-gazers and societal parasites - they have stayed too long.
"The Greens are the only party that has any principles at all." Ah yes. The party that rejected Rudd's ETS because the polluters needed to be punished more.
Labor is defnitely NOT a liberal democratic party in its current guise. Small-l liberals' allegiances are currently spread between the greens (if they care a lot of about climate change and a more humanitarian social policy), Labor and the Liberal party, but few could feel happy within any of those parties because none have a liberal democratic platform. A truly small-l liberal party in Australia could not hope to be the party of government - there just isn't a large enough proportion of the population that holds those views. However, if one could get off the ground, it could have a shot at being the balance of power party in the Senate and then use that power to shape legislation in a more liberal way. To make it happen I think you need a couple of relatively high profile libs and laborites to jump ship to form a new party - Turnbull, Hockey and perhaps someone like Emerson from Labor. I can't see it happening though...
We took many times more refugees out of Malaysia than we sent to there, so if refugees in Malaysia are badly treated then overall the situation has been improved. Why is it a problem to make things better?
Tony Abbott epitomises everything that liberal Australia should be against. He’s a believer in the dead hand of government in climate policy, in taxing people more by removal of income tax cuts for compensation. He’s also declared he’ll raise corporation tax on the biggest companies and socially he’s an avowed monarchist. Abbott eschews the political edifice that Keating built.
Tel
It's a clever and elegant debating point, and it's why Labor is in such trouble. Malaysia has a record of disregarding its own limited human rights standards. There is no reason to believe a government that disregards its own laws, and in any case has whipping as a legal sanction for asylum seekers, is going to adhere Australian standards. I doubt even the most passionate pearl-clutching by Australian representatives will do much to change what happens in Malaysia's camps.
It follows that we are consigning refugees already in our territory and entitled to our protection to a non-convention country where they can be (and on the record most likely will be) subject to severe mistreatment. Both the refouled refugees from Australia and the additional refugees from Malaysia will face the same harsh regime in that country. That is not an appropriate trade-off for taking more refugees.
This is collective punishment plain and simple and its only motive is a terror of the polls.
Ken, that's a somewhat ignorant rewriting of Democrat history. The party didn't "lurch to the left" as a result of the GST debacle; it had shifted left long before that as the member vote on the GST and other issues demonstrated (very much against). T
he actual reality is that Lees and Murray no longer represented the majority of the Dems voting pool and membership. The difference wasn't so noticeable until the GST vote, which essentially killed the party, as droves of Dems voters shifted to the Greens, or back to the majors. That in itself is always the risk for a "protest" party, surviving on such a diversity of voters and ideologies. The weight became to much too bear. I personally think we were left much the poorer for it as idiots like Fielding etc had a great few years, as did the Libs.
In about 1980, my conservative sister surprised our family by announcing that she was going to vote for the Democrats. The Fraser Government had done something to annoy her and she was choosing the middle ground. She would not have voted Labor, which still had a whiff of Whitlamite radicalism about it. But during the later 80's and early 90's, Labor moved to the right and Democrats were squeezed out of the middle to the left. They went downhill after Kernot defected, and the GST split was the end for most of their supporters. As amateurish as they were, I miss the Democrats. The Greens are too radical, and we could do a sensible party of the left.
I said before the last election that voting was going to be a hold-your-nose thing. Abbott might be a nice guy, but he doesn't ever strike me as Liberal PM material. But for everyone who frets about Abbott you just have to consider Wayne Swan! I don't think much of Julia for that matter.
Still, the basis for the post is CC policy and I still can't understand how anyone thinks it sensible to spend real money on AGW mitigation of any sort. Even the report the other day and claims since show the pointlessness of preparing for anything but adaptation unless there is a global mitigation scheme that will actually do something. And then I hear this morning about a new report that solar will collapse in generation costs in just 10 years. If true, perfect evidence of common sense in waiting.
Tel's argument is like those standard puzzles about deliberately killing one person to save five.
"Abbott might be a nice guy"
He might? Fuck, he sure hides it well.
He is over a private beer. I don't know about anything else. No doubt someone here has spent more time with him than me. Some people I like that know him like him.
He comes across as a nice guy to me too.
Gotta be suspicious of anyone who comes across as two people. Kevin Rudd certainly did. The glad hander who used warm mateship expressions and got on well with the average guy, on the one hand who was a slave driving unsympathetic perfectionist on the other.
Abbott is similarly two people. I have heard him speak in person, where he came across as quite nuanced and thoughtful. This is trumped consistently by the unsympathetic, right wing Catholic, ideologically rigid, pugilist Abbott who rarely speaks in challenging forums because he might not control himself.
The trouble with people who are two people is you never know who they'll be on the day.
I personally do not care whether Abbott or Rudd are 'nice guys'. Debating the issue puts us on a fast track to the wilder idiocies of celebrity politics in the manner of the US.
Alan,
Agreed. This whole post smacks of celebrity politics. ("Isn't Malcolm wonderful? I wish he wasn't in the Liberal party.") It should be about policies. And, apart from on the Boat People issue, nobody has suggested any policies that this new centrist party would have that would be different to current Labor policy.
Labor has pragmatically (or cynically?) sought to adopt the policy preferences/prejudices of the median voter. Perhaps that isn't "centrism" but I'm not clear what the difference is. The opposition has cynically (or pragmatically?) decided to rubbish every Labor policy, irrespective of its intrinsic appeal to a liberal/conservative party.
So, where exactly would a new party fit between "median" and "anti-median"?
I disagree that Labor is chasing the median voter. Labor people frequently tell you that they 'own the progressive vote'. What they seem to be chasing is small groups of voters in marginal electorates and if those voters want refugees caned in Malaysia then that is what Labor will give them. They do not seem to grasp that the Greens are a second progressive party and that what pleases the mythical bogan vote in Western Sydney may well deeply offend traditional Labor voters elsewhere in the country.
Alan,
Given our electoral system, swinging voters in marginal constituencies are the median voters.
You are making my point for me. Labor has forsaken its position as a progressive party and is aiming to be a centrist party. They are doing, this, presumably, because they expect all of the progressive votes to return to them somewhere: either through preferences or through alliance with a progressive party MP.
Alan, are you sure that celebrity politics is so stupid? Granted, it led to the election of Obama, but leaving that aside, isn't it the case that whether someone is 'a nice guy' may actually be more relevant than their policies?
Most voters, even quite intelligent ones, cannot and do not usefully distinguish policies. This is not only because they lack the ability, time and even interest, but also because, notable exceptions such as GST aside, campaign policies bear reasonably scant resemblance to enacted policies (which in turn often bear only tenuous resemblance to their effects). And then there are all the policy dilemmas that are not anticipated at the election.
So my understanding was that most people vote either locally or on their perceptions of the dominant policy figures in the respective party - in Australia, invariably the PM. They effectively vote on who they trust to better govern by their lights, to make decisions that they would agree on.
Sometimes party affiliation is the only factor. Sometimes announced policies play a larger part in that choice, sometimes a smaller part. Personality (although not likeability necessarily, people voted for Rudd) seems to me to often play a large part in that.
The Economist weighs in with an editorial this week:
Given our electoral system, swinging voters in marginal constituencies are the median voters.>/i>
Umm, no. By definition the median voter is identified with respect to the policy preferences of the entire electorate. Once you limit the choice to a small number of electoral divisions you are no longer dealing with the same voter. There are a number of other problems with the median voter theorem, such as its total collapse if you arrange policy preferences along more than one axis. The gap between the Australia-wide median voter and the Labor-targeted marginal seats median voter is one reason they are in electoral difficulty.
"The trouble with people who are two people is you never know who they’ll be on the day."
The problem is that you do not know who the third person is. I will bet that the third person is the real one.
Mr. Howard was also able to present two persona's but early in his career, we saw the real one. Anyone that took the time to think knew what to expect with Mr. Howard.e have no idea with Mr. Abbott. Look back in his past and all we see is confusion.
Alan,
Yes, agreed. There is a difference between the conventional idea of the median voter as one with equal numbers of voters to the left and to the right of them and my idea of the median voter as the one that Labor needs to win (together with all voters to the left of them) to win power.
I'm not sure how different these two medians are in practice but, in any case, I don't think that this is the source of Labor's ills.
"Most voters, even quite intelligent ones, cannot and do not usefully distinguish policies. This is not only because they lack the ability, time and even interest, but also because, notable exceptions such as GST aside, campaign policies bear reasonably scant resemblance to enacted policies"
Perhaps the real problem is that all parties have a range of policies and only some will be attractive to the average supporter and they will differ between supporters. Except in cases like the GST election, nobody really knows what the "electorate" was thinking. How could it be otherwise when the electorate does not have one brain.
"They effectively vote on who they trust to better govern by their lights, to make decisions that they would agree on."
Yes. I think most people have a general feeling about which party most suits them and vote accordingly. Swinging voters are just the people who don't have really fixed views about that.
"All attempts at a climate-change bill have failed."
The way the Economist wrote that, you'd think it was a bad thing!
Right idea, wrong party breakup.
Leave the Libs in bed with the Nats. It may be a marriage of convenience, but it has stood the test of time.
Leave Labor with the Greens - they deserve each other.
The problem is... where will the climate deniers go, when the big four parties finally decide to stop arguing IF and move on to questions of WHAT and WHEN and COST for CO2 reduction efforts.
All parties would be so much better without the fact-avoiders. Who knows? We might even see some real action (as against Real Action, Tony A) in response to this truly world-changing and urgent issue.
Vote 1 Climate Denial... or whatever.
"All parties would be so much better without the fact-avoiders. Who knows? We might even see some real action (as against Real Action, Tony A) in response to this truly world-changing and urgent issue."
LOL, why exactly should we spend money on pointless mitigation. I never understand the rush to do something NOW!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/solar-may-be-cheaper-than-fossil-power-in-five-years-ge-says.html
Pedro,
Some of us believe very strongly that NOW is the alternative to NEVER, because LATER will be TOO LATE.
Science on this was pretty much in the bag in 1979. Google "Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A scientific Assessment." It's a short read - 30 pages, from the US National Academy of Sciences. What was said then is still true now.
So, the scientific basis of my stance is firm. I could present a long list of serious published works which support my gloomy perception of the need for haste. The list would include some very persuasive books which look at the denial movement, its work and its commercial supporters. I won't, though, because, Pedro, I don't believe that you have an open mind on this subject. It would be a waste of my time.
So, here's a test for you:
Read the reference I have cited, then provide a comment on it and I will post another reference or two. When you have read and commented on them, I will post another few, and so on.
Perhaps you would like to provide references for my own reading. I'll play.
If you don't want to know why this issue is urgent, for every single one of us, then don't bother taking the first step.
The problem is, John B, you don't believe that at all. I know this because you said the same thing 5 years ago and will be saying the same thing in 5 years...funnily enough, now is always and always will be contemporary and later is always and always will be prospective...
I have a different challenge: when will it really be too late, so that we will be able to relax and get on with our lives knowing that the massive ambiguous threat is now truly imminent (as in will arrive this century, or the next, but certainly one day) and irreversible?
Patrick, you cannot argue two contrary propositions at the same time.
If you deny the climate science there is no threat and no action is required. If you accept the climate science, and your argument is about the timing of the threat, that is a different situation. You would need, for example, to cite climate scientists who believe that action should be delayed.
Apparently you believe that snakebite is best addressed by letting yourself get bitten and hoping you get the antivenin in time. Me? I walk away from snakes.
Patrick, you are a confused puppy. I said no such thing 5 years ago and what I might say in 5 minutes' time, let alone 5 years, is mere conjecture.
So, for you I prescribe a different reading task.
Have a good look at Heat (George Monbiot, Penguin, 2006). It addresses issues of HOW MUCH much and WHEN far better than I could, and it is almost certainly in your local library.
If that isn't to your liking, try Nonsense On Stilts - How to Tell Science From Bunk (Massimo Pigliucci, University of Chicago Press, 2010). Find out what science is after all, and how to pick your own expert.
Both are good reads, but be careful... they will challenge any misapprehensions and preconceptions you may harbour.
Then read or re-read the brand new report which was released this week by the Australian Climate Commission. You will find it easily via Google without a specific reference.
It appears to me that there is, at most, a window of 10 years, during which serious and permanent reductions in carbon dioxide output must be achieved if the world is to avoid becoming a much poorer and meaner place for all of its inhabitants - mankind and other species. The final crunch may not come for another 50 or 100 years, but the locked-in climate change is what matters, not the current climate, in which you have offered to relax while kidding yourself that the threat of climate change is ambiguous.
The average personal carbon budget from then onwards will need to be no more than 1 tonne per annum. That means a 95% reduction for Aussies and Americans and 90% for the Poms. Think on it... your kids and their kids will live in the world that you and I hand them. Are you relaxed about the thought that the world's armies may soon be dealing with the consequences of this co-called ambiguous threat, for no better reason than because the politicians didn't do their jobs? Relaxed and ambiguous is no way to describe being trapped on Planet Earth with a crook climate and collapsing societies, food and energy crises and failing international security.
Another book: Jarred Diamond's Collapse . A professor, long ago, once told my class that we were not capable of original thought, so everything we said our Master's theses must be cited. Apparently, original thought is reserved for the PhD typesand for post-docs. Nothing that I have written above is original in any way. Better brains than mine have already done the work.
Personal note: I am still way over my carbon budget, which is something of a worry for us all.
John B, I should have thought you could be completely convinced we are going to an hell in an AGW hand-basket and still think CO2 mitigation is a pointless activity in this country. The logic is pretty simple:
1 Nothing much is being done to stop the CO2 increase at a world level.
2 Anything little old us did would make a meaningless difference to the actual level of CO2 in the atmosphere while being expensive to us.
3 If our puny efforts are singularly pointless then the only reason to make then is to joint the global effort.
4 See point 1.
I also linked to the GE claim about the future of solar. If cheap solar is right around the corner why are we frothing about the expensive and wasteful stuff now? I don't know if the claim is true, but I feel pretty confident the Greens' line about industries of the future is just plain dumb for a range of reasons, including the evidence about first-mover disadvantage.
Alan, your analogy about snakes doesn't quite work. For a proper comparison to AGW you'd have to include a whole bunch of chinese guys throwing new snakes at you as you try and flee.
Pedro's tired non-analysis of the situation lacks anything close to rigour.
1. Man-induced climate change was predicted 100 years ago. The scientific foundations were sorted out 40+ years ago. Continuing observations and refinements of climate models have confirmed the predictions made way back then, yet for some reason, people such as Pedro choose to play a nonsense game with the future of the world at stake. I find extraordinary the notion that sentient Aussies would spout such cr_p as we have just read from Pedro, yet many, either blind or foolish or, at least, ill-advised, persist in so doing. It's sad, really sad.
2. Nothing will happen at world level until the worst polluters, that's us, indicate willingness to change.
3. Little old us, as world champion carbon emitters, can set the bar highest and make real changes (Take note, Tony A) at least cost. We have resources and a standard of living far above those of, say, Chindia, who we will need to convince to join us as we reduce our CO2 emissions. Our task is not to make all the changes, but to make a meaningful start, use our resources to set the pace and, most of all, to stop being such international spoil sports on this subject.
4. Read Point 1.
As stated above, if Pedro and others would like to review the range of possible avenues for making a change for the better, a good place to start would be Heat, George Monbiot, 2006.
To understand why it is that anti-science such as that spouted by Pedro is so common and why it persists despite being debunked, see Nonsense on Stilts, 2011, cited above, or Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskis & Erik M Conway, Bloomsbury, 2011 or Climate Cover-up, James Hoggan & Richard Littlemore, 2009.
Perhaps numbers are more to your liking, in which case try Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air David C McKay, 2009. NB I found this book a little dense. The others are better reads. It has the advantage available for free as a download.
These authors have already done the hard work. Besides which, they are much smarter than I.
To those who have read this far, I thank you. Simplistic throw-away lines are no answer to real problems and are an insult to the intelligence of both the originator and of the receiver. I commend all the above works highly - four stars out of five or better.
OOPS!
Close italics after "...Hot air"
Close bold after "...McKay"
I didn't mean to shout.
@Pedro
Ummm, no. There are 2 problems with the Chinese snakes theory. The first, of course, is that if every nation must wait for everyone else to act then nothing can ever happen. The second, and more serious, is that Australia made a difference at Bali. We were then the only developed nation apart from the US which had not signed Kyoto and our change of policy added significant diplomatic pressure on the US.
That was not possible at Copenhagen, partly because the previous ETS had set ridiculously low targets that simply excluded us from the conversation, partly because of Chinese intransigence, partly because of Obama's actions in seeking compromise at any price.
Your argument also suffers the weakness that you are massively overstating the costs of transition to a low carbon future. What, precisely, do you say are the costs of acting now. An actual number would be nice.
Among developed nations the only denialist governments are Canada and the US. The developed economies as a whole are moving, if slowly, into a low carbon future. Australia can be part of that process or it can be a poor little rich country insisting it cannot afford to change. There is actually a precedent to this argument in the tariff reforms of the 1970s and 80s where the opponents of change invariably argued that cutting tariffs would cost too much and we should wait for the rest of the world. Fortunately mindlessness did not triumph then and it should not triumph now.
John B, this climate stuff has been discussed massively on other blogs. However, in terms of clarifying your position I have a few questions: how do you feel about the "Climategate" emails? Have you read the emails? Do you believe that it is reasonable practice for scientists to:
* hide their raw data,
* refuse FOI requests,
* delete data points from their presentation graphs,
* lambaste each other with threats of funding cuts,
* rig the peer review process by secretly contacting reviewers,
* threaten to "oust" journal editors?
Do you believe that the investigations into "Climategate" were adequate to discourage such behaviour in future (presuming you think anything needs discouraging)?
With regards to Australians being "the worst polluters" does that include coal and gas exports against our tally? If you are including our exports in that tally, then do you recommend that Australia could "do our bit" by cutting carbon exports?
Tel
The so-called Climategate matter had been extensively investigated by both parliamentary and scientific committees on both sides of the Atlantic. Every inquiry exonerated the scientists involved. None substantiated the claims you make here or that are so often repeated on other blogs. Naturally those who question the science had no trouble at all questioning the inquiries but it's a bit rich repeating your allegations as though they were established facts.
Ah yes, the good old inquiries. Like the "House of Commons Science and Technology Committee" report for example, the one where they put a token skeptic
(Graham Stringer) into the mix and then on every point he wanted to make they just out voted him, until finally he gave up and released his own minority report.
Have you read that report? Let me post a few highlights from it:
Note that "failure to grasp" phrase, as if it was just a bit of a misunderstanding, could have happened to anyone. But here is a quote from Phil Jones takes out of that same report:
That's what he said to the inquiry, demonstrating that he obviously knew perfectly well what the correct and proper behaviour would be, but this is what he said in reply to a request for data:
A little two-faced? Here is what he says in his email:
... and ...
That's solidly two-faced compared to, "what science needs is the most openness" which is the face he shows for public purposes.
So what conclusion does the report come to?
So the inquiry knew it was wrong, Jones knew it was wrong, but everyone does it, so that's really OK. Great! I'm so relieved about that.
They try to convince me that the following is not deceptive:
Apparently I'm supposed to believe that "trick" just means a clever statistical methodology, and it's a well used colloquialism. Pardon me, but I have read a lot of context and explanations about that they did, and I still find it deceptive. Trying to convince me that I am too stupid to read English words and assign meaning to those words is not in my book a valid approach to debate.
The inquiry decided:
Yet the only basis for deciding this data was erroneous was that it did not fit where they wanted it to fit. Essentially they were just deleting the data points that didn't fit. Worse actually, they were melding in the data that they did like and smoothing over the cracks with a bit of filtering. That sort of thing is acceptable which doing studio production, not so good for science (that's my view of science at any rate, the House of Commons has other ideas).
Now of course, I get, "None substantiated the claims you make here", to which I must say, did you read the report? Really?
I'd say the inquiry completely substantiated the claims, then shrugged and ignored the problem. I find that not only dissatisfying, but deeply disturbing. Even more so when I see so many others happy to just wave hands and similarly ignore the problem, as if sufficient weight of ignorance would fix something.
Tel,
I have said all that I am about to say on the subject of climate change.
However, I am extremely disappointed that unsubstantiated and fraudulent opinions such as yours are still circulating.
Disappointed that you are only one of many who uncritically swallow this tripe.
Disappointed that there are public spokespersons for the falsehoods which you are spreading.
Disappointed by media who give highly public yet unqualified fudgers such as Bob Carter, "Lord" Bigmouth Monkton and so forth pulpits from which to preach their horrid nonsense. The journalists who present these well paid charlatans as though they are able to be trusted are themselves not worthy of our trust.
So, Tel, the answers to your final three questions are Yes, No and No.
Tel
The relevant parts of the House of Commons inquiry are its conclusions at Para 22 and 23. they specifically reject the 'hide the decline' allegation. They find no evidence of dishonesty. You are welcome to quote selectively as much as you like but you cannot escape the conclusions.
For the record I do not propose to follow you through each of the other inquiries wheb you try to escape the conclusions by quoting selectively from the body of the report.
No-one gets near the top of the greasy pole in politics unless they have considerable face-to-face charm - you don't get there unless you're personally persuasive. There are actually few senior politicians I've met who would not be interesting company for a quiet ale in the bar. The quality of their company, IME, has little correspondence with either their public persona, their idealism or lack thereof, or their ideology. I'd love to sink a pint with Tony, for instance.
Tel, give it away. Clearly Club Troppo, like all except a handful of brave patriots (US of course, and funded by altruistic energy companies), has been brainwashed en masse by a hateful conspiracy of climate scientists pursuing Machiavellian plots to make their fortunes in research grants.
Given that the paragraphs are numbered, I take it you mean this:
... and ...
Hopefully you can guess by now that I don't much like people stringing me along, but at least I made the tiny bit of effort to pull out something moderately relevant from the report rather than picking two random paragraphs and expecting me not to bother following up.
Sorry, I note that the conclusions are numbered separately to the paragraphs.
From 22:
That is the "we knew it was wrong but everyone was doing it" answer, I've already stated that I don't accept this. My idea of science is that it be done right.
From 23:
They are entitled to their opinion, and I'm entitled to mine. I don't believe that a culture of secrecy delivers good science. I personally read the background context and the various explanations of the "hide the decline" episode and I found it to be what I would consider deceptive. I don't believe that science is done by consensus, my idea of the scientific method does not have a place for a democratic system of votes. Science is an activity that seeks to understand the observable evidence and if that evidence is hidden, muddled, tampered with or tainted in any way then science cannot operate as a process.
In my opinion Jones does have a case to answer, if we are trying to do science here. The fact that other people are willing to wave this past convinces me that they have a different idea of what science is than what's in my mind.
Ha ha, they got caught screwing with their data, now hand waving can't make it go away. People largely cling to what they dearly want to believe, but that's not science either. Just because a lot of people believe something, doesn't produce a scientific fact.
They weren't doing it the 'wrong' way. They were doing it the 'scientific' way, rather than the 'convince the idiots' way. The point the report was making is that given the significance of the issue, the 'convince the idiots' part of it might just be as important as the actual science.
Tel, umm, no.
Conclusion 2:
Conclusion 2 In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty—for example, Professor Jones's alleged attempt to "hide the decline"—we consider that there is no case to answer. Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, that "global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity".[184] It was not our purpose to examine, nor did we seek evidence on, the science produced by CRU. It will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel to look in detail into all the evidence to determine whether or not the consensus view remains valid.
The exoneration by this inquiry was more thoroughgoing than your selective quote shows. Just for the record, the scientific inquiry's results were no different so let's not go through the whole record with you attempting to misrepresent what they found.
My idea of quotation is that it be done right.
Well at least get your referencing right, so I can figure out what you are on about. You just quoted conclusion 23 but numbered it conclusion 2, or are we in a different document now?
Ahh I found it, you are quoting paragraph 137, but you have deleted the paragraph number. I think...
Oh no you don't... I know what is scientific and deleting data points because you don't like where they sit is one of the least scientific things you can do.
Try again please.
'deleting data points because you don’t like where they sit' is precisely what no less than six inquiries found the CRU did not do. An example is the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia:
My apologies for screwing up the reference numbers, ever since the Big Tobacco company took away my supply of free cigarettes as penalty for saying the wrong thing on a blog, I get a bit irritated. Anyhow, if you want to take the conclusions of the "climategate" investigation at face value rather than critically working through from the evidence to the conclusion, that's your call. I've read all the first principles material that available out there, and I've come to my conclusions.
Quoting more stuff and going through the argument one more time won't make any difference... just don't expect my unquestioning support on policies that are based on what looks to me very much like bad science. If the climatologists want to know why there are dissenters out amongst the public, they need look no further than their own behaviour.
When you consider what this game is being played for, the green movement wants:
* Control over energy
* Control over transport
* Control over heating, cooking, electricity and all household activity
* Control over land use and agriculture
* Control over food supply
* Control over belief
* Control over the methodology that we use to come to our beliefs
That's what would be termed "full spectrum dominance" or complete capitulation.
After this, the debate just boils down to tribalism, and who sits on one side, who sits on the other side. If it had been a big tobacco company that maintained a culture of secrecy, and gave duplicitous statements in public vs behind closed doors, and they deleted data points from their research then no one would be even slightly favourable in the interpretation of words such as "trick" and "hide". Of course, when good old boy Phil Jones does it all in a good cause to save the world, that's perfectly OK.
But you know, for people who honestly believe they are saving the world, it's downright weird that we are not talking about cutting coal and gas exports. I mean, that's the single biggest gesture that Australia could make to a low carbon future. Anyone who really believed in the absolute need to act now for the sake of the children would also be cutting exports.
China demonstrated at Copenhagen that they don't honestly believe there is a life or death situation coming up for the whole world. Their primary goal is development, and they have not the slightest with filling their streets with motorcars just to be like the West.
Thus we are back to the old favourite "bash the householders" theme.
Well, don't expect the complete capitulation to come willingly. I'm too old to unlearn the meaning of science now.
Tel
To review the record, you made claims about the science that are wrong, then you made claims about the scientists that are wrongs, then you made claims about the inquiries that are wrong, but somehow all this wrongness proves that the evil Greens want to rule the world?
John B, my points are irrelevant to the science. Whether to have a carbon tax or ets or anything else is a public policy question. There is no point in a policy that achieves no goals. The idea that the US and Chindia will materially reduce emissions because we have a carbon tax is laughable. For that matter, Bali is laughable. The idea that our ratifying Kyoto has placed any pressure on the US is clearly contradicted by the trajectory of US policy.
As for the cost. If the goal is to transfer from low cost to high cost energy sources then we must in the process reduce productivity. If we reduce productivity we necessarily reduce future wealth. I should that thought that claim uncontrovesial. The extent of any tax and transfer in the process is irrelevant to the actual outcome on productivity.
Pedro
You may care to read John Gummer, Conservative member of the House of Peers, in today's Australian. China will act. Europe has already. When China does are you then going to argue that we have to wait for North America? India? Liechtenstein?
Alan Is China bringing in a carbon tax? Or is it directly investing in low emissions gear?
Pedro, of course your points are irrelevant to the science.
Science trumps opinion and that nature always gets last kick of the ball.
Shilly-shallying gets nobody anywhere when the only rational response is action to reduce carbon emissions and the only action that any of us can control is our personal response to the demonstrated need.
Failure to take action on a personal or collective basis is not excused by reference to similarly inappropriate responses.
What are you personally doing about your own carbon footprint? That's the question. If the answer is "nothing", then you are part of the carbon problem.
If you make matters worse by advocating that others do nothing, then that is environmental vandalism.
I hope that this makes clear my point that it is no longer about science.
Tel (@ #55):
The same applies to you.
Pontificate about the motives or otherwise of the Greens and of fairies at the bottom of the garden if you like, but in the final assessment, you can only be held responsible for your own actions. Words, printed or spoken, don't count, for or against whatever barrow you are pushing - and at times I must confess to being confused on that score.
What are you personally doing about your own carbon footprint? If the answer is “nothing”, then you are part of the carbon problem, and you know that you are.
If you make matters worse by advocating that others do nothing, then that is environmental vandalism. Even worse: You know that this is true. By referring to the much-debunked Hide The Decline argument, you indicate that you are really trying to hide from your own guilty feelings, because you know that these are just tired denialist excuses.
"China will act"
What does that mean, exactly?
I understood that they were building lots of nuclear power plants and using public spending on transport infrastructure and so on , I have not heard of a plan for a China carbon tax (or trading scheme... ... I would love to see the look on Kevins face!)
PS johnb "the only rational response is action to reduce carbon emissions" does not logically mean that there is only one solution to reducing carbon emissions.
Slippery, sophisticated, Holier than 'thou miserable sinners' sermons from the pulpit do not help . It is a political problem and that is the problem.
What use is a tax (or any other measure)if the, quite likely, next government repeals it?
In my experience claims of universal uptake of the 'only' way of doing 'x' are nearly always self serving merde ; 'my way is the only way'.
This tax sounds like the old sales tax regime, very hard to understand lots of anomalies and special treatments, odd unexpected side effects-a sort of reverse trade barrier and a lot of extra management costs .
I know its out of favor but maybe in this situation direct investment in (rational )public works like replacing the brown coal generators could be both more rational and cost effective?
PS there are reports of China bringing in a "20 yuan (£1.95) per tonne" carbon price .
Australia should act like china.
Who votes green and why, From the Chaser.
OK, just one simple claim. There are others but let's start with one simple claim:
From the House of Commons Report, page 13, paragraph number 32, the words of Phil Jones:
The emphasis is mine, all the context you want can be obtained from the report.
From the email that Phil Jones sent to an actual request for data:
This is fully documented at http://climateaudit.org/2005/10/15/we-have-25-years-invested-in-this-work/
All of the relevant background material is right there, these are the people reporting on what happened to them when they attempted to get hold of climate data. As before, the emphasis was inserted by me.
If you are going to tell me that my claims are wrong, then answer me this one very specific question: Why does Phil Jones give a completely different statement to the inquiry than the statement he gives to people attempting to get hold of data?
When you can answer that question, I'll move to another.
Tel
I will stick with the conclusions of the report which rejected your allegations. Now that you've admitted you are not really invested in the argument because you 'know' the answer already, I do not propose to exchange posts with you.
I will go so far as to point out that the words you cite as those of Phil Jones in fact are not. From the House of Commons Report, page 13, paragraph number 32 (boldface mine)
Professor Acton is the head of the University of East Anglia. He is not, as far as I know, Phil Jones, although no doubt Climate Audit will assure me that he is.
4 dollars a tonne in China , 30 dollars a tonne in Australia: it will not work.
What is their scheme really for? : Fabians crave authority much more than workable systems.
It is hard to see how this is a Fabian issue. David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are not strong advocates of the Fabian tradition. As Garnaut says:
If the price needs to be 30$ - 50 $ a tonne and the price in China (the worlds biggest emitter) is 5$ a tonne it wont work.
Fair enough, you caught me out on a detail. Professor Edward Acton is not the same person as Phil Jones, he is indeed the supervisor and boss of Phil Jones. They work at the same CRU and when Lord Acton (East Anglia Vice-Chancellor) says "we are longing to publish" he speaks on behalf of Phil Jones by saying "we".
I'll concede you half a point on a technicality but the fundamental contradiction remains. To be fair, that section of the report is interleaved with comments from both Lord Acton and Phil Jones -- they worked as a team.
Here's another email from Phil Jones:
Reference is http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=891
Context can be found be reading the rest of the emails, which are on the same site. Does that sound like someone who is "longing to publish it because what science needs is the most openness" ? It sounds like quite the opposite to me.
Speaking of openness, can you answer the specific question of whether there is a culture of secrecy at East Anglia. To help, I've quoted, from paragraph 103, page 34:
From paragraph 104 page 35:
Are you still able to plausibly believe statements such as "longing to publish" or are you willing to accept that they made it difficult for anyone who wanted to check their work?
Why would Lord Acton make a false statement about what his research unit was doing?
Sorry Tel, Professor Acton and Phil Jones are not the same person. Nor is Lord Acton listed among the people who 'work at the same CRU'.
I did not catch you in a technicality, I caught you attributing Acton's words to Jones.
You tell us you have read the report. The report attributes those words to Acton. Are you suggesting that Jones is a ventriloquist and that Lord Acton was seated on his lap during evidence before the committee?
Before we cross-examine Lord Acton let us hear your explanation, and spare us theories by which it is okay to say that Acton's words are Jones' because they work at the same university. Even in your technicality explanation you have managed to add further inaccuracy by putting Acton on the CRU staff.
It will if there's a difference between the marginal cost of abatement in the two countries.
can you explain?
From a friend that does a lot of biz in China ,I Understood that a lot(virtually all) of the old really bad plant had already been replaced?
And they chew through new concrete like nobody's business.
Prices are generally lower in China, so why wouldn't the 'carbon price' be lower? Even if the ratios between higher emission and lower emission are the same as in developed countries, the magnitude of each will be lower and so the magnitude of the difference will be lower.
If you look at ratios of GDP per capita the fraction of personal income sacrificed per CO2 unit would be reasonably close. So if you consider labour productivity sacrifices, or quality of life effects from consumption substituion, the price changes required to drive changes in behaviour would be much less in China.
China has just built hundreds of Ks of Maglev train line , is building thousands of Ks of 6 lane expressways , and about 10 new airports a year. China is well on its way to being the biggest car manufacturer in the world and inflation is a growing problem. Sure most people still live in poverty and china's income spread is 'medieval' but a consumer middle class is growing in absolute numbers at a rapid rate.
And-- Doesn't the net make it possible for more and more people to buy direct, in china -take advantage of the price gradient- to offset the costs of running the air conditioner?
Dont get me wrong - the science is scary, Tel look up the "Great Dying') and I am well aware of Peabody.
But all of this involves interventions , why rule some interventions out on 'ideological' grounds?
Especially if most (apart from the EU) are doing things that are not taxes.
Yes China is growing rapidly and will begin to produce a higher portion of the global emissions than they currently do (and more in total as well). This means developed nations (such as Australia) will need to reduce their emissions by a greater proportion, which also means a higher relative price on carbon.
You want something actually attributed to Jones? No problem, right here:
Which can be found from the House of Commons transcript.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387b/38714.htm
So that's the picture Phil Jones tries to paint, "We were not excluding anybody," and all the data is available if you know where to look. Now some people don't much like Steve McIntyre but the man is not a complete fool, if he was able to check the CRU methodology by pulling data from elsewhere he would have done so. Phil Jones could have just told him where it was. However, here is the email that explains what really went on:
http://www.au.agwscam.com/cru/emails.php?eid=490&filename=1107454306.txt
So Phil Jones was very happy to selectively distribute material to the people he figured were on his side, while going to great lengths to exclude distribution to anyone who might be critical. The whole story of Steve McIntyre's attempts to review this material is very long and complex, I'm not about to quote all of it, search around because there are heaps of hits.
Then to top things off, the CRU then decide that they don't have the data after all!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
If you don't trust the times to report the incident correctly, it was reported all over the place in other papers.
But wait a moment, the House of Commons was told that all the data was available from other websites, surely if the CRU just lost a tape or something, they could easily just download it over again? After all, that's what they expected Steve McIntyre to be doing... but now suddenly the data is impossible to get. See how screwy this process is? How the statements don't line up with one another? So now we have both Lord Acton and Phil Jones offering misleading statements to the House of Commons -- that's supposed to be a bad thing right?
You only have to look at the wording "We do not hold the original raw data" to see that this is a dodge aimed at deflecting FOI requests. As the email shows Phil Jones was looking for anything he can find to "hide behind", so now he can "hide behind" pretending to have lost the data. This is even less plausible when you consider that Phil Jones did share data with some selected people -- can't he just ask for it back again?
You still think this guy is plausible?
Desipis
According to new scientist China already is %50.
Kinds of questions a 'Tony Windsor' might want answers to.
•How high will the tax in Australia need to go to be effective and more importantly how do you stop the 'exporting' of the burning of fossil coal?
•How many countries have a carbon tax ? And of those countries, how many can provide evidence that is really applied?
Tel- the data comes from millions of places , it is scattered in format: metric , imperial and place some is old post office records and some is satellite data ,so on, and it has gaps- none the less it is much much better than the fossil record. The development of chaos theory and massive computers means that the models are much much more reliable than they were even ten years ago.
Creationism created plenty of practice in very skilled sophistry combined with folk religion , it was easily transferred to another anti-science campaign.
I think Jones was pretty silly to take the approach he did to information requests. So did the parliamentary committee. Jones did not, as far as I know, attribute his own words to someone else or attempt to paper over such an attribution with silly claims that Acton 'worked at the same CRU'.
And none of this effects the validity of the CRU's science. As Garnaut >a href="http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/garnaut-review-2011/chapter1.html">points out:
For the record, I do not think either Garnaut or Muller is actually Jones or that either secretly work at the same CRU as Jones.
Tell
Forgive the oxymoron, but how do you define vagueness?
A vague concept allows borderline cases. The potential confusion is that people think vagueness is when they don't quite get what someone means. For people in my area of logic, it's actually a much narrower phenomenon, such as the word "grey". Some birds are clearly grey, some are clearly not, while others are somewhere in between. The fact that such birds exist makes "grey" a vague concept. The vagueness does not arise from insufficient information: some concepts are fundamentally vague.
On the other hand, if I say that I have fewer than three children, that's not vague. In fact, it is the opposite, it is "crisp""
It is about meta (changing) level mapping 'picture grain'. It is true that the position of the weather station in my town has moved Ks from the post office , it is true that there is a gap in the records and that some of the record was written down in a completely different recording system; that does not mean that at the meta level ,of hundreds of observatories over a hundred years, that true long term crisply vague patterns can be seen.
Alan
About those questions; it is not the greens that hold the balance in the house of Reps .
john, according to this they're about 25%.
I generally would prefer import and export tariffs where related carbon emissions are in a country that doesn't meet its targets. That way if enough countries get on board it might be able to push others to sign up and actually make the effort to meet the targets.
Tel, judging from the link you associate with your name, you seem to be confusing the ideals of open source software with those of science. Science doesn't demand that every little detail of the work be published. Only enough that someone else experienced in the field can follow the methodology and replicate the results. This is what has happened with climate modelling time and time again.
In fact that independent redoing of the work is actually an important part of building confidence in the results. Making the detailed decisions without the influence of knowing exactly what others have done can help prevent the perpetuation of simple mistakes. There is nothing unscientific about the way they've done their work, even if it does fall short of more ambitious ideals of openness.
There's also the fact that FOI requests take time and money away from the actual research (not education) the climate scientists are trying to do. They have the potential to be used as an effective DoS on the actual science. It's clear why the scientists are hostile towards them.
"Science doesn’t demand that every little detail of the work be published. Only enough that someone else experienced in the field can follow the methodology and replicate the results. This is what has happened with climate modelling time and time again."
Jones was not climate modelling in the usual sense, he was creating a climate record based on proxy date and absent the actual raw data, his methods cannot be checked. A strongly possible reason that the raw data is hidden is that McIntyre had previously embarrassed Jones' friend by examining the data.
When people get funny about their data you are entitled to wonder if the data are not funny also.
Also, let's not confuse a climate model with an experiment testing a falsifiable hypothesis.
Pedro
What is your evidence for the proposition that Jones was not climate modelling in the usual sense, he was creating a climate record based on proxy date?
How do you explain the convergence of the Hadley Centre, NASA, NOAA and Muller studies towards the same conclusion?
desipis, the internet has widely distributed the means of distribution. Controls over imports and exports in this situation are really difficult. The huge amount of action around copyright is, I think, but a foretaste of a problem. What if every single person in the country is potentially an importer?
I cant find the issue that had the figure ( I forgot to renew my subscription ) The figure may have been about coal emissions. However this Wiki graphic If correct puts US and China on a level.
Tony Windsor is pretty important in the equation. The Questions are my understanding of his questions
Oh get off it. I said perfectly clearly that Acton is Vice Chancellor of East Anglia. He is the supervisor of the CRU, the head honcho, the man in charge, the guy who takes responsibility, the boss, the overseer, clear enough? The research grants that support the CRU also serve to support the university as a whole. I never said Acton was just "staff". Why do you suppose that Acton was up there giving evidence if he was not involved?
Point being, Acton was in full knowledge of CRU activities (or else hopelessly incompetent because he should have known), and Acton quite clearly says, "we" in an inclusive reference to the CRU team. Who do you think Acton was referring to when he said "we" when he says "we are longing to publish" ? Who else could he have been referring to?
I at least admit when I make a small mistake by misreading something (and I'll point out again that Acton's evidence was interleaved with Jones' evidence) but what I can't understand is how people can stubbornly defend the indefensible. It's not one minor bad email that skeptics are worried about, it's a whole culture of bad science, and apparently it goes right to the top. It seems you are ignoring all the issues I am raising, so you can pick on trivial stuff like exact reference numbers of a minor misquote. Now that I've corrected those details, the heart of the problem remains and will continue so long as it gets ignored.
I said perfectly clearly that Acton is Vice Chancellor of East Anglia. He is the supervisor of the CRU, the head honcho, the man in charge, the guy who takes responsibility, the boss, the overseer, clear enough?
Umm, no. Your actual words were:
Are we now to understand that by saying 'They work at the same CRU' you meant us to understand that they do not work at the same CRU?
The House of Commons report clearly identifies Acton as the author of those words. For some reason you wanted us to believe otherwise and are now flailing about screeching 'technicality' at every chance.
If you think that a uni VC (particularly one who doesn't come from a science background) is the supervisor of a research unit in any meaningful sense of the word, then you're clueless.
Errr , Alan, can you read? Go back to comment #72 and look at the next few words right after the bit you quoted.
I presume you must be saying that the House of Commons inquiry was equally clueless then? After all Acton was giving evidence on the matter. If he really knew nothing then he should have said as much rather than pretending.
I'll ask a third time: who was Acton referring to with his inclusive "we" ?
Pretty simple question huh? Must take a lot of hard thinking to answer one like that.
The people condemning my phasing are conspicuously unable to come up with something that does a better job of describing Acton's relationship with the CRU. So is that the best you have to pick on, or wanna have a go at addressing the issues here?
Tel
You are at it again.
Do you now deny you used the words 'They work at the same CRU'? By using those words did you intend us to understand that Acton does or does not work at the CRU?
What is an 'inclusive we'? There are languages which possess separate second person forms to express inclusivity and exclusivity, but Indo-European languages do not. How then do you 'know' that Acton was using an 'inclusive we', other than that it is necessary for your argument not to leap to its feet and run screaming down the road.
Well actually the principle of openness and reproducibility of results is a lot older in science than in software, I suggest that the Enlightenment thinking was the origin of that concept (long before anyone even considered that computers might exist).
As for exactly which details should and should not be published, I accept some people have different opinions, but very few scientists would hold up Phil Jones as the exemplar of the way it should be done. Yet amongst climatologists, this sort of behaviour is completely normal... as the House of Commons concluded. Amongst AGW supporters they are so determined that Phil Jones must be absolutely and completely exonerated that they will defend the most ridiculous misbehaviour.
Like I said, it's tribalism.
In this particular case we are not talking about climate modelling, we are only looking at data collection and distribution. This data became the input to climate models, and there's a well known saying in the software industry: "garbage in garbage out". You can do all the modelling in the world, but science depends very fundamentally on good measured data.
Wrong. A bigger computer model does not compensate for feeding it with poor quality input data. You are right that piecing together old post office data with modern satellite data to determine a long term trend is fraught with uncertainty. We know a lot less about the climate than the AGW faithful are willing to admit.
Chaos theory only gives you a basis for knowing how much you don't know... that is to say that the error increases at a certain rate before it swamps any ability to make a prediction, hence the difficulty in predicting whether it will rain on a particular place in 30 days time. Climate scientists claim they can average out the chaos, which is strange when you consider that we have a glaciation happening on 100k year orbital cycle, so you would need to take an average over a whole 100k years if you wanted to get a complete baseline.
Climate scientists have rather arbitrarily chosen 30 year averages, in order to try and smooth out the Bruckner cycle, which is a nice try but the Russians have observed 70 year cycles in the Arctic, and ice cores have shown evidence of 1000 year cycles as well.
http://oi51.tinypic.com/357pvme.jpg
There is an example of an alternative analysis using data from city stations. It has the advantage that these stations are continuous and also go back a long way. Unfortunately it has the disadvantage of Urban Heat island, and how exactly you want to handle that problem is very arguable. Point is that alternative interpretations of the data do exist, the above graphic shows none of the dramatic "hockey stick" shape upsurge in temperature that makes for good scaremongering. It shows a slow trend of warming going back hundreds of years. It also shows that variability features can exist on a year by year basis, or on a decade timescale, or on a multi-decade timescale. There are cycles within cycles within cycles.
At least this guy tells you where he gets his data from, regardless of how you feel about his analysis. My point is that Phil Jones' conclusions are not by a long shot the only interpretation of the station data.
I intend my sentence to be read as a whole and in context.
Anyhow, the word "work" is a well accepted description of the reciprocal exchange of labour for benefit. Acton (in a supervisory capacity) contributed labour to the CRU and in turn the CRU helped the university get grant money, and build a reputation. You still have not put up your own improved phrase that describes this relationship so until you do, I guess you just can't think of anything better.
Heck, if "trick" can mean a neat method of handling data, and "hide" can mean to
remove the effects of data known to be problematic, then there's no value in debating semantics, because "work" can mean whatever.
Oh I suppose he was using the royal "we". You still want to call other people silly? Really this is beyond the pale. You are clinging to the thinnest of straws.
Let's see, how about 'Acton was the vice-chancellor of a university that employs hundreds of academics including the academics at the CRU'. Seriously if you imagine university VCs can impose their preferences and policies on every academic they employ, then I can only guess you have spent little time in any large organisations. If anything the central administration of a university tends to exist in a state of high tension with teaching and research areas within the university.
The university as a whole, a separate entity from the CRU, had questions to answer before the inquiry which is why Lord Acton was called.
Each of your evasive circumlocutions simply confirms that you are willing to make just about any claim so long as it re-inforces your position.
You made an untrue statement in a post that made no sense unless the statement had been true. You have since then played every which way trying to find some way for your post to be true despite its self-evident untruth. It's been several posts since you claimed it was just a technicality, perhaps you could try that one again.
"Pedro
What is your evidence for the proposition that Jones was not climate modelling in the usual sense, he was creating a climate record based on proxy date?
How do you explain the convergence of the Hadley Centre, NASA, NOAA and Muller studies towards the same conclusion?"
This is what Dr Wegman said:
"One of the interesting questions associated with the ‘hockey stick controversy’ are the relationships among the authors and consequently how confident one can be in the peer review process. In particular, if there is a tight relationship among the authors and there are not a large number of individuals engaged in a particular topic area, then one may suspect that the peer review process does not fully vet papers before they are published. Indeed, a common practice among associate editors for scholarly journals is to look in the list of references for a submitted paper to see who else is writing in a given area and thus who might legitimately be called on to provide knowledgeable peer review. Of course, if a given discipline area is small and the authors in the area are tightly coupled, then this process is likely to turn up very sympathetic referees. These referees may have coauthored other papers with a given author. They may believe they know that author’s other writings well enough that errors can continue to propagate and indeed be reinforced."
Secondly Alan, my "evidence" is that Jones was creating a proxy record and not a general circulation climate model which is what climate scientists use to make predictions about changes to inputs in the climate system.
The point of Jones' work is to look at what has actually happened to the temperature record in the past and try and find the changes in temperature that can be plotted against other data to learn how the climate has previously been affected by various things like industrialisation.
The really neat thing is the way proxy data gets spliced into actual data and then the models to show this big trend, but somebody forgot to mention that the proxy data temperature signal majorly diverged from the modern recorded data.
Like I sort of said before, when people do funny stuff you have to wonder how much funny business is actually going on. I'm a trusting kinda guy, but when people just rub your nose in their suspicious behaviour you can't miss it unless you try really hard.
Pedro
Are you citing the Wegman scientific (sic) paper which has now been withdrawn for plagiarism or the Wegman report to Congress that the US Republicans ares till citing as holy writ? Or the sections of the Wegman paper drawn from Wikipedia? Or the sections that Wegman himself blames on an anonymous graduate student?
Apparently in the US when you use another's work without citation and then alter their results that is known as plagiarism although I would call it fabrication.