Politiek, klimaat en gestolen emails: Whodunnit?

Thu Dec 10 23:27:49 CET 2009

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Een reaktie van een van de schrijvers/ontvangers van de betreffende
emails.

Groet / Cees

PS Op http://www.physorg.com/news179588220.html het verhaal over een
twee meter lange torpedo, die in 7 maanden van New Jersey naar de
Spaanse kust de Atlantische Oceaan is overgestoken om in de top 200
meter metingen te doen in het kader van klimaatontwikkelingen.
(Cees: moeten goede batterijen zijn geweest :)

http://www.physorg.com/news178269251.html
Key scientist says politics behind stolen e-mails
November 24, 2009 By P. SOLOMON BANDA , Associated Press Writer

(AP) -- A leading climate change scientist said hackers breaking into a
university's computer server and then posting documents online show the
nasty politics of global warming.

Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section of the U.S.
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, said the hackers'
intentions may have been to influence discussions in an upcoming global
climate change summit in Denmark.

"It comes down to politics at sort of all levels, and some of it's nasty
and some of it is trying to destroy the message or even kill the
messenger so to speak," Trenberth said Monday in an interview with The
Associated Press.

The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, said hackers last
week stole about a decade's worth of data from a computer server at the
university's Climatic Research Unit, a leading global research center on
climate change.

About 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents have been posted on Web sites
and seized on by climate change skeptics, who claim correspondence shows
collusion between scientists to overstate the case for global warming,
and evidence that some have manipulated evidence.

"The messengers in this case are the scientists who are putting forward
a basis for this, the basis for the climate change based on, and founded
upon the facts, the measurements and the observations and our best
interpretation of those," Trenberth said.

Trenberth said he's identified 102 e-mails stolen from a British
university's computer server. Hackers distributed only documents that
could help attempts by skeptics to undermine the scientific consensus on
man-made climate change.

Many of the exchanges were between him and Phil Jones, the British
research center's director. The two men worked on the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change assessments, which articulated the scientific
community's consensus on global warming in 2001 and 2007.

"What you see in those e-mails are exchanges among a whole bunch of
scientists on issues," Trenberth said. "What you will find is that there
is a tremendous amount of integrity, vigorous discussion about issues
and exactly how to handle issues... So it's far from a whole bunch of
scientists agreeing and colluding to do things. They're actually
arguing, vigorously, about the science."

Trenberth, a well-respected atmospheric scientist, said it did not
appear that all the documents stolen from the university had been
distributed on the Internet by the hackers.

At least 65 world leaders will attend the Copenhagen climate summit in
December as representatives of 191 nations seek agreement on a new
global treaty on limiting emissions of greenhouse gases.

http://www.physorg.com/news179683744.html
Stolen e-mails embolden climate change skeptics
December 10, 2009 By H. JOSEF HEBERT , Associated Press Writer

(AP) -- At a critical time, the uproar over stolen e-mails suggesting
scientists suppressed contrary views about climate change has emboldened
skeptics - including congressional Republicans looking to scuttle
President Barack Obama's push for mandatory reductions in greenhouse
gases.

The e-mail brouhaha dubbed "Climategate" by doubters comes as U.S.
delegates to the international climate conference in Copenhagen are
trying to convince the world the United States is determined to move
aggressively to rein in heat-trapping pollution. To counter the
delegates, a group of GOP lawmakers is going to Copenhagen to argue
against mandatory greenhouse gas reductions.

The climate skeptics gained political momentum when former Republican
vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Obama should boycott the
negotiations in Denmark and "not be a party to fraudulent scientific
practices" - a clear reference to the purloined e-mails from computers
belonging to scientists at a British climate research center.

Obama is going anyway.

Former Vice President Al Gore, the most recognized U.S. voice on climate
change, quickly rebutted Palin and accused the climate deniers in an
interview with CNN of "taking things out of context and misrepresenting"
what the e-mails actually said. On Thursday, more than 1,700 British
scientists released a statement saying they continue to have "the utmost
confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the
scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human
activities."

That hasn't stopped Senate Republicans. More than two dozen sent a
letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon Thursday
demanding that he launch an independent inquiry into the e-mails. GOP
lawmakers say they will loundly and often raise questions about what
they consider a corruption of climate science at the Denmark conference,
where delegates from 192 nations are trying to forge a political
agreement.

It all began when hackers broke into a computer system belonging to a
highly respected climate research center at Britain's University of East
Anglia, stole several thousand e-mails spanning a decade between some of
the world's leading climate scientists, and three weeks ago put some of
the spiciest ones on the Internet.

One referred to using a "trick" that could be used to "hide the decline"
of temperatures. Another disparaged the skeptics, and a scientist said
"the last thing I need is news articles claiming to question temperature
increases."

Yet another complained about "getting hassled by a couple of people" to
release temperature data that suggests uncertainties about climate
change. "Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom
of Information Act," Phil Jones, the director of climate research unit,
wrote in one e-mail.

Jones, who temporarily stepped aside as unit director as an
investigation into the matter proceeds, has said the comments have been
taken out of context and there never was an intent to manipulate data.

Opponents of legislation before Congress to cap heat-trapping emissions
and cut them as much as 17 percent by 2020 have seized on the e-mail
disclosures and are likely to use them not only at the Copenhagen talks,
but in the Senate debate of climate change early next year.

"These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy,"
insisted Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a longtime climate skeptic
who is among a group of GOP lawmakers heading for Copenhagen.

"We now have thousands of e-mails showing several of the U.N.'s top
scientists apparently evading laws requiring transparency, defaming
scientists with opposing viewpoints, and manipulating data to fit
preconceived opinions," declared Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., another
leading climate skeptic in Congress, also going to Copenhagen.

Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change,
said she's not surprised by the recent e-mail uproar.

"The closer you get to actually doing something about this problem the
more shrill and the more dogmatic the skeptics become because they are
trying their hardest to stand in front of a train essentially," said
Claussen.

Earlier this week, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that the
agency had concluded, based on science, that greenhouse gases are public
health threat and should be regulated. "The vast body of evidence not
only remains unassailable, it has grown even stronger," she said.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and the co-author of the house-passed
legislation, said the hacked e-mails scandal was being perpetuated by a
"paid-for" coalition of deniers who are using it to distract from the
action the U.S. and world should be taking.

"These small number of deniers are out there still trying to derail
something the rest of the world sees as an imperative for action,"
Markey said.

      * freethinking - 19 minutes ago
              * Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
        Whoever controls the langage wins. Leftist media says "stolen
        emails embolden climate change skeptics." This headline is ment
        to demean those that don't follow Al (earths a million degree, I
        invented the Internet) Gore's and AGW believers messages. Who
        cares about the facts.

        The headline if it was written by a nutral reporter and not a
        AGW hack would have been "Leaked emails damage AGW claims"

        Can anyone do better writing a nutral headline? Maybe we can
        teach AP reporters how to write?

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********