October 19, 2010 | Graham

Why you should be careful dealing with Bob Ward, Director of Communications for the Grantham Institute



PR professionals who are genuinely professional are generally very careful not to lie to journalists, or at least get caught out lying. It’s not so much a matter of professional courtesy, but necessity. A journalist who buys a lie damages their own reputation, and they don’t like that. Other journalists tend not to like it happening to one of their colleagues either. So the initiator of the lie will be punished.

The Grantham Institute should take a close look at their Director of Communications, Bob Ward. In the last few weeks in Australia he has been complicit in so many untruths that it should have a flow-on consequence for them in their dealings with the media.

I have been a victim of his behaviour.

Last Saturday the Weekend Australian published Old thinking deters crucial carbon debate which was a critique of how the climate change debate is still being conducted using as its centrepiece a hatchet job that Robyn Williams (presenter of ABC’s  The Science Show) and Ward perpetrated on Bob Carter, who had a climate change book coming out the following week.

The program claimed that Ward had done a “systematic analysis of the doubters’ works” and that a paper on climate change by Bob Carter was possibly the worst paper ever published on the subject. This claim was used as the promo for the program during the preceding days. I was copied into some email correspondence about the program and decided there was a story in it. I approached both Ward and Williams asking for a copy of the “systematic analysis” and was referred to a paper that dealt only with Bob Carter’s paper. As this could not be the work referred to in the program which referred to “doubters” rather than “doubter” I asked again for the work. I was ignored by Ward and blithely assured by Williams that “that is what they do at the Grantham Institute”, but without any evidence being provided to support that claim.

I duly reported in my article the inability, or unwillingness, of either man to provide me with the “systematic study”.

Sometime later Ward wrote a letter to the Australian which claimed I had falsely said that he had refused to give me access to the study and that it was linked to from The Science Show’s website. The document that is linked to is not a “systematic study” but his critique of Carter’s paper which does not contain any comparison with any other papers and reaches the conclusion that it “is possibly the most inaccurate and misleading article about climate change that has ever been published by a journal” without comparing Carter to any other papers. It is no more than a rhetorical flourish, if that is what you call abuse of this type.

The letter from Ward is not still on The Australian’s site, but has obviously been seen by many. It is an affront to my professionalism. It is also an object lesson in the sort of tactics that are used by some in the climate change debate and a clear example of why we need to encourage and fund critical analysis of the claims being made by many establishment scientists.

I have put the email correspondence between me and Ward, and Williams where appropriate, below. You’ve got the gist of it already, but it is amazing that knowing that this documentary trail exists Ward would make the claims that he did.

Sunday October 3, 2010

Dear Bob,

I have been copied into this intriguing argument and I’ve taken it upon myself to follow the various pieces of information offered up.I can’t find a link to your “systematic analysis of the doubters’ works”. Could you shoot it through to me? I’m particularly interested in the metrics that you have used to demonstrate that Professor Carter’s work is as Robyn Wiliams says in the interview “the worst paper ever published on climate change” and your sample?

As it is obvious from the interview that you regard active research into climate science as being a necessary qualifier for expressing views in this area I would also appreciate a list of your recent refereed research publications in climate science.

Robyn Williams notes that you worked at the Royal Society with Lord May. Can you confirm that this was as a spin doctor?

Regards,

Graham Young

Wednesday October 6, 2010

Dear Bob Ward,

I’m just wondering if you got my last email. I’ve copied it below. I’m wanting to write an article on this and I need to make sure I have your side of the story straight

[Follows text of previous email]

There was no response to this email from Ward until after the article in The Australian was published. I did however get some correspondence from Williams on the 6th. I hadn’t
written directly to Williams but I had copied him into my email to Ward.

Dear Graham Young,

Ward’s paper should be on our website. But it’s above, anyway.

You’ll be aware that the Grantham Institute, chaired by Nicholas Stern, specialises in all aspects of climate research and policy. Ward would be well qualified to analyse papers in this position of policy director.

Both Ward’s critique and Carter’s reply (Sept 2) are in the public domain – hence our willingness to deal with them.

Bob Cater chose not to go to air, but we’ve mounted his reply.

Best

RW

I responded to this email with:

Dear Robyn,

Thanks for the document, but I have already seen it.

What I am after is the “systematic analysis of the doubters’ work” that you refer to in your broadcast. It is on the basis of this that you seem to substantiate the claim that Carter’s paper is the “worst ever published”. A single paper on its own can’t establish anything comparative.

I’m also wondering why you didn’t reveal that Ward is in fact a journalist, and that he works for a think tank. It would have been easy for a listener to get the impression that he was an academic at the LSE, which he quite clearly is not. I’m also interested in why you mentioned that the Royal Society, with which you also linked Ward, had put out a new statement on global warming without mentioning that this statement softens its previous stance.

Regards,

Graham
Young

Williams responded to this later the same day:

Dear Graham,

As the interview showed: Ward had been through a great number of papers put out by ‘sceptics’ (some were named), as well as their books. This is also what they do at Grantham, both LSE and Imperial.

Lord May had told me enthusiastically of Ward’s work at the Royal Society and I had intended to follow this up for a long time.

The point about our interview with Ward was whether he’s right about errors in the sceptics’ publications. What you call Ward is secondary. YOU could say (as Fred Pearce, a journo, did with IPCC and glaciers) that a ‘fact’ is false. You could be right, even if you’re a cleaner.

The RS did not ‘soften’ its stance on the science; you’ll see this noted in two letters to The Australian yesterday and two days ago. It gave more note to uncertainties and measured responses in policy – as we did in the SS in my interview with Prof Mike Hulme only 2 weeks ago.

Best

RW

To which I responded:

Dear Robyn,

So I gather that there has been no “systematic analysis” at all. No robust comparison of papers, no methodology, no definition of what constitutes “skepticism”, just the ad hoc opinion of a lobbyist, albeit expressed in an article published in a journal. If it was “what they do at Grantham…” then either you or Bob Ward would have provided me with the document or documents containing the analysis by now.

Aren’t you embarrassed that you would use that level of accusation as the hook to hang a whole segment on, and to use that same hook to promote the entire Science Show last weekend?

BTW, I’ve read the new Royal Society document and the old one, rather than rely on the letters section of The Australian for my analysis (which appears to me to lean in favour of my view rather than yours, for what that’s worth, which is not very much). I suspect that a lot of the people labeled “skeptics” by Ward and you would be able to live with the new Royal Society document, but not the old one, in which case my judgement is that the society has softened its stance.

Regards,

Graham

There was no response from Williams to this. So I’d asked for the systematic analysis from Ward. Both he and Williams had responded, Williams more fully, but in the end there is no “systematic analysis” produced. Assuming Ward and Williams were in correspondence they both knew that I was aware of the Ward paper and Williams at least appears to agree that this paper does not justify his claim of “systematic analysis”. He is also not prepared, it seems, to justify his use of it.  My next correspondence was from Ward after the article was published.

Saturday October 16, 2010

Dear Graham,

I have just seen your article posted on the website of The Australian in which you make the wholly untruthful statement that “neither presenter Robin Williams nor Ward has been able to provide me a copy of his analysis or details of the methodology”.

In fact, I provided a link to my paper in my e-mail which was copied to you on 3 October and which appears below as part of the string of messages.

I suggest you correct your error immediately otherwise you will leave me with little choice but to draw the newspaper’s attention to the complete inaccuracy of your statement.

Best wishes,

Bob
Bob Ward

To which I responded:

Dear Bob,

I was referring to the “systematic analysis” that you claim to have done of the work of skeptics but of which there is no paper in existence, nor any methodology that you were prepared to reveal to me.

One data point does not amount to a systematic analysis and does not allow for making comparisons.

I asked both you and Williams for a copy of this analysis and concluded that it probably did not exist because you were not able to give it to me.

Of course I have seen the paper that was published responding to Bob Carter’s paper. You made some reasonable points and some unreasonable ones. But it was not the work that I was referring to.

I suggest next time you decide to make claims that you have data and documentation to substantiate them.

Regards,

Graham Young

Ward then responds as below, which is quite interesting, because he seems to suggest that Williams made the claim up.

Dear Graham,

It’s a shame you don’t have the decency to admit when you have made a mistake.

Your article falsely claimed that I had carried out a “systematic analysis of the doubters’ works”. No I didn’t. I said that I had performed a systematic analysis of Carter’s paper.

And in my opinion, Carter’s paper is the most misleading and inaccurate article on climate change ever published by a journal.

If you have evidence that there is some other paper that is more inaccurate and misleading, then please let me know.

Otherwise, please correct your false claim.

Best wishes,

Bob

To which I replied, and to date without a response:

Dear Bob,

I have not made any mistakes. But perhaps Robyn Williams has.

He says in his program that you have carried out a “systematic analysis of the doubters’ works”. Are you saying that this is wrong? That he has misrepresented you?

He does put it to you in the program.

“You’re here at the London School of Economics, are spending your time systematically going through these publications, looking for the science and looking for ways in which to assess their worth as academic statements…is that what you do?”

You don’t contradict him. You appear to expand on his position.

“What we do is we look at the documents which claim to be the basis of scepticism on climate change, and what one finds is that they don’t stand up to scrutiny. Quite often they haven’t been through academic peer review, which is a standard quality control process for any kind of science. It’s perfectly true to say that not all of the science about climate change in the mainstream is right, it is certainly true that some people have made some exaggerated claims about the impacts, but anybody who seriously argues that carbon dioxide and methane are not greenhouse gases, that increasing the concentrations in the atmosphere doesn’t warm the world…I mean, they’re basically fighting against 200 years worth of science.”

And when I sent you an email on the 6th October, asking the following:

“I’m just wondering if you got my last email. I’ve copied it below. I’m wanting to write an article on this and I need to make sure I have your side of the story straight.

” I have been copied into this intriguing argument and I’ve taken it upon myself to follow the various pieces of information offered up.

I can’t find a link to your “systematic analysis of the doubters’ works”.

Could you shoot it through to me? I’m particularly interested in the metrics that you have used to demonstrate that Professor Carter’s work is as Robyn Wiliams says in the interview “the worst paper ever published on climate change” and your sample?

As it is obvious from the interview that you regard active research into climate science as being a necessary qualifier for expressing views in this area I would also appreciate a list of your recent refereed research publications in climate science.

Robyn Williams notes that you worked at the Royal Society with Lord May. Can you confirm that this was as a spin doctor?”

Why didn’t you respond and tell me that Williams had made it up?

BTW, I’ll be posting this to the Australian’s site where you made your defamatory comment about me yesterday.

Graham



Posted by Graham at 1:04 pm | Comments (27) |
Filed under: Uncategorized

27 Comments

  1. “The consequence of this decision, if it is allowed to stand, is that by joining the Liberal Party members give up the right to publicly and honestly criticise the party. Rather, they are required to suppress any information that the State Council, or the Disciplinary Committee, might retrospectively decide should be suppressed.”

    Graham,
    With regard to your article and with reference to your words above –
    It seems that this sort of thing is escalating; is just part of the way of the world.

    Clearly you don’t like obfuscation and being led down blind pathways by acts of omission and have demonstrated that by your actions published as record.

    I chose to quote from an earlier article of yours not to embarrass you, rather to demonstrate what happens when someone disagrees with the herd mentality.

    Yep, I’m suggesting that if Messrs Ward and Williams even mistakenly hinted at something that could be perceived as ‘rollback’ from the dogma that they’d risk censure or worse too.

    Personally it beggars my belief that anyone would want a carbon tax.
    It has already been adequately demonstrated that enough overpaid idiots have caused too much detriment with too many arcane derivatives and the like.
    When will the lesson of the Emperor’s new clothes sink in?

    How about an oxygen tax instead?

    By the way. The moon landings were not filmed on a “parking lot in Hollywood”. It was at a sound stage in Pinewood Studios.

    Comment by A NON FARMER — October 20, 2010 @ 3:51 am

  2. I’ll take your advice on the moon landings. 😉 I won’t on the Liberal Party. Journalists are in a different position to political party members. I don’t agree that I did anything which should have led to me being expelled, but what I did I did as a journalist. Journalists operate under entirely different rules. If Williams isn’t prepared to act as he should then he should go and work as a public relations consultant. They’d pay him more than he’s getting at the moment, and he’d be turning out much the same work.

    Comment by Graham — October 25, 2010 @ 1:06 pm

  3. Dear Graham,
    I’ve crossed your bows before and on the strength of that decided to lead you into shoal water about that moon landing location.
    You knew I was gulling you about that conspiracy theory stuff but you bit the hook anyway.

    You go on to differentiate between journos and liberal party members.
    I note that you differentiate but cannot quite grasp the nicety of your meaning.

    Perhaps it is all completely above the head of the likes of me but permit me to say that in my experience journalists operate in ways not too different from liberals – or from laborites, or greens or independents – or anyone else involved with that game.

    I will say though that you do have my heart and soul in support against your expulsion from your political party.

    You believed you’d derive benefit from the association but discovered otherwise to your detriment.
    They don’t reward candour, do they?
    In fact they don’t reward much at all.

    In this respect they are much the same as every little organization or association I’ve ever bounced across or anyone I know has had the misfortune to deal with from pub darts to John Howard’s attempt to take bribes from international cricket.

    Nope. You can be the very soul of altruistic intent or so scheming that Macchiavelli looks like a choirboy but there’s always someone who has you in their sights.

    Just ask Kev or Mal.

    Comment by A NON FARMER — October 27, 2010 @ 3:44 pm

  4. I thought I was joining in the joke with you.

    You’re totally wrong about my political position. I have derived a benefit from my membership of the Liberal Party, but it was never my intention in joining or participating.

    The journalism came much later when I saw a need for informed voices that had real expertise in what was going on. I’d essentially moved on at that stage and I knew there were many weren’t going to thank me. I don’t think they had the right to expel me, but I wasn’t surprised.

    When I point to my Liberal Party past it is generally as a necessary declaration of potential conflict of interest.

    I think political parties ought to be different from darts clubs. In other countries they are. Dissent is much more broadly tolerated in the UK or the US for example.

    I’m very sympathetic to Doug Cameron’s call for the Labor Party to be more open. Although I suspect it is more a declaration of war than a genuine desire that the party allow more public dissent from within.

    Comment by Graham — October 28, 2010 @ 2:13 am

  5. Graham,
    Firstly, apologies. Upon review my words, moon landing etc., did come across as a bit snide.

    Rolling back to your original post and the e-mail traffic copied there.
    I’m sure you’d agree that while I read that I don’t possess all the background detail about the topic that’s in your own head.
    I have to make do by interpreting what’s written.

    What I do have is my own experience of similar situations with all sorts of individuals and organizations here in Oz and internationally.
    These days I’m convinced that Oz. has become a very ‘hard’ place populated by a majority of people who’d rather argue that apples were blue than admit the obvious.
    Furthermore I contend the attitude prevails in darts clubs and the corridors of power.

    I could relate to you numerous instances of all sorts of organisations being whiteanted to the extent that they effectively ceased performing their original functions and became nothing more than depleted bank accounts being ‘administered’ by klatches of people. Newby blow-ins with absolutely no interest in the organizations core activities.

    I’ve become convinced that the forced ‘incorporation’ of so many organizations coupled with the continued encroachment of what some innocently call the ‘nanny state’ has ‘Pavloved’ a whole generation of ‘Kommissars’ into mindsets that have no ‘Laissez faire’ modes whatsoever.

    I’m sure it begins in education, becomes enforced in occupation then projects just as negatively into vocation and recreation.

    So you see, my view is perhaps different from yours inasmuch as I believe both dart clubs and political parties should act honestly, transparently, humbly and decently.
    I know that’s idealism and that is exactly why we should all strive for that ideal.

    But as you say there is no room for dissent here and I suspect the reason for that in clubs and political parties is encroaching overarching dishonesty and secrecy right across the board.
    In short Australians are now acting in their affairs in like manner to our governments.

    What Doug Cameron says (I refer to his words with Lyndal Curtis) absolutely reinforces my view while the ‘dismissal’ of his view by his party leader is only another in a litany of such immensely stupid statements and postures.
    I cannot think of anything more infuriating than an ‘elected person’ saying that she rejects this or that.

    One week Gordon Nuttall, for instance, was an honoured colleague, pure as driven snow. Next week that paragon was offhandedly ‘rejected’ to his fate.
    Strikes me JG is picking up terminally bad habits from her “Emily’s List” sister and intends to deploy the same secrecy that lead to Mr. Nuttall’s apparent ‘indiscretion’.

    I don’t particularly fancy Mr Abbott as PM but it becomes increasingly likely if labor continues to eschew reform.

    Comment by A NON FARMER — October 28, 2010 @ 5:29 am

  6. Graham,

    Good article only made even better by the facts you collected along the way.

    Sadly people like Bob are given the lions share of airtime by the BBC (and the Guardian, which btw is nothing more than the printed version of the BBC) where people like Bob are worshipped and asked convenient questions without their actual positions EVER being delved in to in any depth.

    I guess the BBC doesnt ask probing questions to people like Bob simply because that would highlight just how empty a bag he (and people like him) really are.

    Sadly I fear that journalists like yourself are a dyeing breed and its even worse when you think that organisations like the BBC are supposed to be here for the good of the people. Instead, organisations like the BBC have swallowed the Mann Made Global Warming ™ story completely to the point where anything that threatens their beloved religion is simply not reported.

    Keep up the good work.

    Regards

    Mailman

    Comment by Mailman — November 2, 2010 @ 11:37 pm

  7. Great article that exposes much of the idiocy that goes on in the media and is accepted by the public. But as an outsider I am beginning to wonder if Australians are mentally deficient in some way for still accepting a great deal of the hype as facts without ever asking for empirical evidence to verify the hype.

    Comment by Vangel — November 3, 2010 @ 1:21 am

  8. Really good articale.

    Mailman mentions that once-respected font of information, the BBC, and wonders why its reporters don’t ask probing questions. Have a look here:

    http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/?p=3094

    and Google for more info.

    BBC and ABC have both lost public trust, in my view.

    Sad.

    Comment by FijiDave — November 3, 2010 @ 7:43 am

  9. Oops, Article! Blasted dyslexia!

    Comment by FijiDave — November 3, 2010 @ 7:46 am

  10. Well done Graham – so you’ve come up against the global warming industry’s ‘attack dog’ Bob Ward – always big on accusations, but always short on substance.

    If Bob wants to see the worst papers ever published, then all the ‘Hockey Stick Team’ papers are worth a read, as explained nicely, verifiable and referenced in Andrew Montford’s book ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion,’ to which Bob Ward failed to provide any substantive criticism.

    The McLean/Carter paper is a paragon of scientific virtue compared to the flawed, selected data and methodology used by the Hockey Team.

    Comment by Paul Biggs — November 3, 2010 @ 10:41 am

  11. To Graham – Why you should be careful dealing with “Professor” Bob Carter

    ”Credentials: Dr. Robert (Bob) Carter is an adjunct researcher (non-paid) at James Cook University who runs a small one-man show called the Marine Geophysical Laboratory. He often refers to himself as Professor although he does not have a paid position with this title. His background is in marine geology (particularly deep ocean drilling).

    ”Key point of view: Dr. Carter has published 74 peer-reviewed papers on sedimentology and other non-climate change related subjects. There is a single paper on climate change published with Carter as an author (McLean et al. 2009) on the influence of ENSO variability which claims to refute the evidence of rising global temperatures.

    “Its acceptance was controversial and subsequently has been found to have serious methodological flaws which completely undermine its conclusions by Foster et al (2010). The latter paper included several top US researchers in the authorship. The details of this paper and the associated controversies can be found in several places.

    ”The majority of Carter’s claims of ‘expertise’ as a ‘climate scientist’ seems to come in the form of opinion pieces, letters to newspaper editors and media relationships. The majority of his anti climate change statements are unsupported by science.” (Source: Climate Institute Australia)

    (http://www.climateshifts.org/?s=McLean+et+al&x=0&y=0)

    Or here:

    http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/Foster_et%20alJGR09_formatted.pdf

    Or what about this one:

    http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/09/12/spot-the-recycled-denial-v-%E2%80%93-prof-bob-carter/

    Ho hum – another one:

    http://polesapart.com/files/3_lbc.pdf

    Your straw man’s blown over Graham because Bob Carter was found fudging data long before Bob Ward’s review. As a result, Carter wears the lepers’ bell and has zero credibility considering also his paucity of research and his lack of peer-reviewed papers on CC. Additionally 97% of actively publishing climate scientists endorse the tenets of anthropogenic climate change so do try to keep up.

    Comment by Dryblower — November 8, 2010 @ 12:12 pm

  12. Graham: Again it has been observed that when you run errands for thoroughly discredited climate change denialists, you adhere to the rule that you only reveal to punters what you want them to hear.

    Facts are pesky little things in your camp aren’t they, best treated as optional. Nevertheless, I have made a mental note and a copy of my post (Number 11 on November 8, 2010) to remind me that your definition of ‘ethical’ journalism is to obscure, withhold or delete any opinions that oppose your puff propaganda.

    Comment by Dryblower — November 19, 2010 @ 4:08 am

  13. Dryblower,

    Best you completely avoid realclimate if you don’t like facts or opinions being cherry picked, ignored or deleted, lest you have a conniption of some kind 🙂

    Mailman

    Comment by Mailman — November 19, 2010 @ 7:51 am

  14. I regret to advise Mailman that you are not qualified to comment on my post which is actually Comment 12 and not Comment 11 as Graham would have you believe. Then again, perhaps you are he?

    The reason being that Graham has obscured from your view, my post of Comment 11 (on Bob Carter’s lack of credentials on climate change) posted on 8/11/2010, but he saw fit to publish my post of Comment 12 on 19/11/2010. Your post is actually Comment 13.

    The discredited Graham has earned himself a reputation for obscuring, distorting, withholding or deleting any opposing views that conflict with his denial of climate change and his self-interests.

    Comment by Dryblower — November 20, 2010 @ 11:00 am

  15. Credentials aye. Remind me, had Mann completed his pjs when he was engaged to provide the hockey stick for AR4?

    And inspite of Phil jones credentials that hasn’t stopped him from playing fast and loose with climate data nda’s in regards to his Chinese uhi paper and supporting data.

    How about instead if playing the man you instead address what YOU think are the issues with carters paper.

    Mailman

    Comment by Mailman — November 20, 2010 @ 11:35 pm

  16. Hmmm. I’ve just come back to look at this thread after seeing a comment by “Dryblower”. The comment he refers to was caught by the spam mechanism because it had too many links in it. Of course, if you’re trained to look for conspiracies, then everything looks like a conspiracy.

    I’ve approved the post, with much pleasure. It exposes Dryblower for what he is – a blow hard.

    Dryblower doesn’t appear to have anything to say, because if he did he could deal with substantive issues, not whether Professor Carter is entitled to call himself Professor.

    Dryblower gives a good example of the sort of nonsense one has to put up with from people who, while insisting that everyone else’s credentials ought to meet their own “standards” are anonymous and probably uncredentialled themselves.

    So Carter is a retired professor and Dryblower uses that to try to damage his reputation. Pretty pitiful really.

    Comment by Graham — November 25, 2010 @ 1:11 am

  17. “Dryblower gives a good example of the sort of nonsense one has to put up with from people who, while insisting that everyone else’s credentials ought to meet their own “standards” are anonymous and probably uncredentialled themselves.”

    Actually, he is a good example of people who do not think very clearly. Bob Ward is a liar and a fraud who has absolutely no qualifications to evaluate the quality of Bob Carter’s work. But his biggest problem is not the lack of qualifications but his inability and unwillingness to deal with the actual facts. The Australian and New Zealand data does not show substantial warming since the 1930s. Neither does the American data. While CRU claims that its value added data set will produce global warming it cannot link that set to the actual measurements from real weather stations. Until the warmers can actually show the data and the computer codes that added the artificial warming signal that produced the claimed warming there is no scientific basis for any of the conclusions that use that data set. If Australians would really accept conclusions that cannot be traced to actual measurements then they are morons. But I doubt that Australians are willing to accept the conclusions and see no credible polls that would suggest that. It is very likely that they are doing what people around the globe have chosen to do since the IPCC problems were exposed; turn away from the hype and ask that the facts that support the AGW cause are provided for independent analysis.

    Comment by Vangel — November 25, 2010 @ 1:59 am

  18. Dryblower is merely trotting out one of the many lines of attack the alarmists use when they are on the back foot, in this instance its the appeal to authority attack.

    As I mentioned earlier, what authority did Mann have when he created the hockey stick and was in a position of authority on AR4 when he hadnt completed his phd?

    And again, all those fancy titles didnt stop Phil Jones from playing fast and loose with the data he used for his UHI paper did it?

    Vangel,

    Actually, the NZ data, provided by NIWA, cant be used because NIWA cannot be certain it is right. NIWA was embarrassed recently when it was forced to admit that it didnt know where the data was coming from after many years of arguments and obstruction from NIWA itself when being probed and asked for information by sceptics.

    BUT…guess who was involved in the NIWA scandal? Yes, one of the very scientists at the centre of Mann Made Global Warming, Trenbeth.

    Lets be honest here, climate science has become corrupted by green dollars, research dollars and big ego’s. Lets not forget that Phil Jones only became suicidal once his reputation was threatened. He didnt become suicidal because he was being asked for data under FOI. He didnt become suicidal once his work was being questioned. No, he only became suicidal when his reputation and his ego, were threatened.

    The sad thing about Jones is that had he been open, honest and transparent from the beginning he wouldnt be in the position he is now where his science has massive question marks above it…and in fact, he probably would have actually made a positive contribution to humanities understanding of the world around us.

    Mailman

    Comment by Mailman — November 26, 2010 @ 3:10 pm

  19. “Actually, the NZ data, provided by NIWA, cant be used because NIWA cannot be certain it is right. NIWA was embarrassed recently when it was forced to admit that it didnt know where the data was coming from after many years of arguments and obstruction from NIWA itself when being probed and asked for information by sceptics.”

    The raw data, which is ‘right’ shows no statistically significant warming trend for the 20th century. The government can’t be sure that the reported data is not right because the raw data was ‘adjusted’ using methods that have not been disclosed because they can’t be justified by using any legitimate arguments. The reported trend was a fraud and there was no narrative that could survive a detailed examination in a court challenge. The NZ took the easy way out and claimed that there was no ‘official’ record. Given the importance of NZ and Australia, which is having a similar problem, to the global temperature reconstruction the AGW industry will have trouble defending its own reported trends.

    Keep in mind that the US data shows no material warming since the 1930s and that the raw data from most nations shows not major increase in rural areas. That makes the AGW claims very difficult to support.

    Comment by Vangel — November 26, 2010 @ 4:17 pm

  20. “Actually, he is a good example of people who do not think very clearly. Bob Ward is a liar and a fraud who has absolutely no qualifications to evaluate the quality of Bob Carter’s work.” (Vangel)

    Dear me Vangel – Why does one need a qualification to evaluate Carter’s rubbish? He’s written one paper and was exposed as a fraud, caught out fudging data and is the laughing stock of the science community. Why would one need qualifications to evaluate McLean’s work? McLean has zero qualifications in climate science – one of the dime a dozen who work in IT and masquerades as a climate change expert.

    http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=4911

    The only qualifications one would need to evaluate these quacks is to be in possession of more than one half of a sensory neuron.

    And I believe the representatives of 185 nations attending the Cancun Conference to address climate change ramifications would most heartily disagree with losers, Carter, de Freitas and Mclean. Oh and let’s not leave out Toad of Toad Hall aka “Lord” Monckton who has received a stern request from the House of Lords to cease masquerading under a title forthwith.

    Comment by Dryblower — December 12, 2010 @ 3:17 pm

  21. “Dear me Vangel – Why does one need a qualification to evaluate Carter’s rubbish? He’s written one paper and was exposed as a fraud, caught out fudging data and is the laughing stock of the science community. Why would one need qualifications to evaluate McLean’s work? McLean has zero qualifications in climate science – one of the dime a dozen who work in IT and masquerades as a climate change expert.”

    Stay on topic. Ward is a PR guy who specializes in lying and spinning to sell stories that have no merit. He made claims that were false. End of story.

    Now if you want to debate the merits of Carter’s paper we can do so. But you might have better luck doing so if you were not referencing the work of known liars who wrote in their private e-mails about using statistical tricks, censoring critics, refusing to allow skeptics to publish their work, fudging data, and hiding computer code. It would certainly help if these people actually understood the statistical methods that they need to do the work that they claim to do. Or if the paper that you quote was published in a journal that did not prevent the people being criticized to respond. (http://tinyurl.com/yehh7cn)

    This debate is now just about over. The year started with record cold hitting many areas around the world. It is ending the same way. While there are many claims of warming the actual data does not support those claims. Most of the warming comes from imputed readings in areas where actual measurements are not being taken even though there are plenty of functional weather stations there. We have already seen some of the liars pull back as the government of New Zealand was forced to admit that it could not justify transforming raw data that showed a flat trend for a century into a warming of 1C. Exactly the same process was used to turn the flat trend that shows up in the Australian data into a similar warming. The same is true of many Arctic areas where there is no evidence of material warming over the past 100 years and countries around the world that show the same thing. Even in the US, which has the most stations and the best data, the 1930s were warmer than the 1990s, when the warmers were screaming about unprecedented and catastrophic warming.

    People are not stupid and they have already turned away from the AGW fraud towards real problems. As they are asked to pay much higher energy prices and higher energy taxes there will be massive protests against the idiot politicians and the frauds who provided them with the false support to meet their political goals. In the end the AGW proponents will hold the same place in science as the supporters of eugenics.

    Comment by Vangel — December 13, 2010 @ 1:32 am

  22. “People are not stupid and they have already turned away from the AGW fraud towards real problems.”

    And who would they be Vangel? The ragtag assembly of greedy fossil fuel corporations and their dancing boys and girls who have zero credentials in climate change or the “stupid” representatives (including scientists) of 185 nations attending the Cancun conference?

    Alas Carter’s crackpot theories have been shot to pieces by eminent climate scientists but the data is perhaps beyond your intellectual curiosity?:

    http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/Foster_et%20alJGR09_formatted.pdf

    http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=5086

    http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=4968

    It’s to do with ENSO says Carter? Huh? Despite La Nina arriving at the end of the year and despite the cold in the Northern Hemisphere, it was smoldering enough worldwide for the year 2010 to be more than among the top three hottest years since record-keeping began 160 years ago, says the World Meteorological Organization.

    The most recent decade, 2000-2009, was also the warmest on record. I guess the rabble rousers would have us believe that the WMO are also “liars and frauds?”

    History will not be kind to the ignominious marine oil and gas driller and polluters’ dream come true, Carter.

    When La Nina’s little brother arrives to exacerbate a soaring anthropogenic global warming coupled with droughts and flooding rains and record breaking temperatures, I imagine the geriatric Carter will choose to become a deaf mute, a welcome respite from his incoherent ramblings for those already suffering the impacts of an outraged planet.

    Comment by Dryblower — December 14, 2010 @ 6:31 am

  23. “And who would they be Vangel? The ragtag assembly of greedy fossil fuel corporations and their dancing boys and girls who have zero credentials in climate change or the “stupid” representatives (including scientists) of 185 nations attending the Cancun conference?”

    ‘They’ are the public, which has already reversed its opinion because it does not believe the dire predictions. Polls all across the globe are showing that people are no longer buying the global warming nonsense. That is why the AGW frauds are now talking about climate change and claim that they predicted that warming would cause extreme cold temperatures.

    “It’s to do with ENSO says Carter? Huh? Despite La Nina arriving at the end of the year and despite the cold in the Northern Hemisphere, it was smoldering enough worldwide for the year 2010 to be more than among the top three hottest years since record-keeping began 160 years ago, says the World Meteorological Organization.”

    ENSO has a much bigger effect than CO2. As does solar activity. That is why we have seen no statistical increase in temperatures for the past 15 years. That is why we are seeing new cold records in many areas across the globe. It is why livestock is dying from exposure to cold in Thailand and Vietnam, why frozen lizards are falling off tress in Florida, why millions of fish died of cold in Bolivia and why all those poor kids died in Peru. Annual variations are much larger than the manufactured trend that the IPCC was creating by adding a warming signal to the actual temperature measurements.

    The public is somewhat tired of claims that are not supported by access to the real data and the methodology. Almost a decade after GISS and CRU were asked for access to the actual raw data, the ‘adjustment’ algorithms, and the metadata there is still no way to independently verify any of their actual reconstructions. The AGW cult has consistently ran away from debate on the actual science and has resorted to PR stunts and outright lies by attack dogs like Bob Ward, Gavin Schmidt, and Joe Romm.

    But as I wrote before, the game is now about over. After years of telling us that the mild winters were evidence of AGW the frauds are now trying to claim that very cold winters are also evidence of AGW. People are seeing though the claims and now realize that the way that the AGW fraud has been structured, falsification is impossible because no matter what happens the AGW cult can claim support for its religion. That is why the polls have turned against the warmers and why their time at the top has ended.

    Comment by Vangel — December 21, 2010 @ 4:06 pm

  24. “Actually, the NZ data, provided by NIWA, cant be used because NIWA cannot be certain it is right. NIWA was embarrassed recently when it was forced to admit that it didnt know where the data was coming from after many years of arguments and obstruction from NIWA itself when being probed and asked for information by sceptics.” The raw data, which is ‘right’ shows no statistically significant warming trend for the 20th century. The government can’t be sure that the reported data is not right because the raw data was ‘adjusted’ using methods that have not been disclosed because they can’t be justified by using any legitimate arguments. The reported trend was a fraud and there was no narrative that could survive a detailed examination in a court challenge. The NZ took the easy way out and claimed that there was no ‘official’ record. Given the importance of NZ and Australia, which is having a similar problem, to the global temperature reconstruction the AGW industry will have trouble defending its own reported trends. Keep in mind that the US data shows no material warming since the 1930s and that the raw data from most nations shows not major increase in rural areas. That makes the AGW claims very difficult to support.

    Comment by Marisol Perry — December 22, 2010 @ 1:48 am

  25. “But as I wrote before, the game is now about over. After years of telling us that the mild winters were evidence of AGW the frauds are now trying to claim that very cold winters are also evidence of AGW.”

    Yes indeed Vangel the game is over for polluters and their ignorant and greed-driven sycophants but Vangel –where is your data? Got none? Or perhaps your obscured data has been plagiarized from the cut and paste WUWT – the TV weatherman and recycled crank?

    Extreme cold and extreme heat? Extreme cold and extreme heat kills. It’s called climate change and prophetic it is!

    You were warned but remain too aliterate to read the science on carbon pollution which also kills humans – hundreds of thousands every year with or without climate change, according to the World Health Organisation.

    The above is elementary my dear Vangel and the facts are written into peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals. No not the E&E trade rag – the haven for denialists who don’t know a VOC from a sock and can’t get their papers published in reputable journals.

    Bah – humbug Marisol Perry!: Enough of the hyperbolic nonsense!:

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/niwa-v-cranks-4-shoot-out-at-the-fantasy-factory/

    Comment by Dryblower — December 24, 2010 @ 4:09 am

  26. “Yes indeed Vangel the game is over for polluters and their ignorant and greed-driven sycophants but Vangel –where is your data? Got none? Or perhaps your obscured data has been plagiarized from the cut and paste WUWT – the TV weatherman and recycled crank?”

    My data is below. Have a look and tell me where you see significant warming.

    http://tinyurl.com/2dmpwjm

    We just found out that NIWA has just dumped its old temperature adjustments that added a 1 C warming trend and is now looking at another set that shows no material warming for New Zealand for the past century.

    http://tinyurl.com/396szjk

    But where is your data that shows that we have had warming? Did it come from actual measurements or was it adjusted by someone? Were the adjustments justified? Were they made available for independent review? And if there is no independent review and no access to the code that made the adjustments how can you accept what you are told?

    Extreme cold and extreme heat? Extreme cold and extreme heat kills. It’s called climate change and prophetic it is!

    It is not the same. Extreme heat will certainly kill unhealthy individuals who are near death but do not show up in the annual mortality rates because they only move deaths forward a few weeks and do not kill otherwise healthy people. But extreme cold does kill healthy people because it tends to be much more persistent, brings disease, and is more difficult to deal with. One can easily escape extreme heat by looking for air conditioned public spaces that are usually open during the time of day when temperatures are highest. That is not so easy for extreme cold, which tends to last for much longer and is often the worst when heated public spaces are not open and accessible. If you look at the data you will find that a much greater portion of the population dies during the cold winter months than during the hot summer months. That is why old people are much more likely to move to Florida or Arizona instead of Minnesota or Manitoba.

    “You were warned but remain too aliterate to read the science on carbon pollution which also kills humans – hundreds of thousands every year with or without climate change, according to the World Health Organisation.”

    Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. And where does the WHO say that more people die during the hot summer than in the cold winter?

    “The above is elementary my dear Vangel and the facts are written into peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals. No not the E&E trade rag – the haven for denialists who don’t know a VOC from a sock and can’t get their papers published in reputable journals.”

    You are either confused, ignorant of the facts, or not telling the truth. The medical journals make it clear that far more people die due to exposure to excess cold in December, January, and February than due to exposure to heat in June, July, and August.

    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_n4_v19/ai_19310644/

    “http://hot-topic.co.nz/niwa-v-cranks-4-shoot-out-at-the-fantasy-factory/”

    Sorry but the ship has already sailed. You might try a newer article from the past week or so. The bottom line is that NIWA has dumped almost all of the ‘adjustments’ made by former CRU employee Jim Salinger, who was fired last year. Without the justified adjustments the reported warming shows no warming and there is no warming.

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1012/S00054/climate-science-coalition-vindicated.htm

    The game is not entirely over. The seven station record will be reviewed early next year and we will get a better idea of how bad the fraud was. The problem for the warmers is that the Australian record shows exactly the same type of fraud. Since the raw data showed no warming it was adjusted by a significant amount to match the predetermined temperature profile that would be desirable in order to perpetuate the AGW myth.

    http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hammer-graph-3-us-temps.jpg

    Comment by Vangel — December 25, 2010 @ 3:04 am

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