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stepanovich
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stepanovich
Follow-up on John Cook’s iPhone app that debunks inactivist talking points: now inactivists are talking about countering it: [cached]
WARNING! There is an iphone app trying to put down what we have to say under the heading of “Skeptical Science”.
We need as many of you as possible to promote that this iphone app is yet another attempt to discredit “Climate Realists”.
I can only hope the general public can see through this as a cheap trick to prop up the FAILED SCIENCE OF MAN MADE CLIMATE CHANGE.
We need another iphone app that shows our side of the argument as it is, rather then what a supporter AGW thinks it is!
Please send this message to all known friendly sites that support our side.
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stepanovich
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stepanovich
John Cook has created an iPhone app for debunking climate inactivist talking points:
With Tim Lambert debating Christopher Monckton this Friday [12 Feb 2010], there’s been no shortage of debating suggestions. One interesting idea was for audience members to have skepticalscience.com on their mobiles. Coincidentally, Skeptical Science has just become available today as an iPhone or iPod app. The app lets you use an iPhone or iPod to view the entire list of skeptic arguments as well as (more importantly) what the science says on each argument. To download the app, go to http://itunes.com/apps/skepticalscience
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stepanovich
At the inactivist Bishop Hill blog, UEA climatologist Paul Dennis gives his account of his communications with Steve McIntyre around the time of the CRU crack: [cached]
2) My first knowledge of anything untoward was a departmental email circular saying that emails and files were hacked from ENV (environmental sciences) and CRU (climatic research unit). My interest was piqued so I emailed Steve McIntyre to ask if he was aware of anything. Steve replied that he wasn’t and that if he did find out anything he’d let me know. It was apparently this email that I sent that confirmed to both Steves (McIntyre and Mosher) that the leaked files were authentic.
3) The following day Steve emailed me a single url. It was to Jeff Id’s site. I clicked the link but couldn’t find anything and forgot about it.
4) Next day all hell breaks loose as the files have gone wild.
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stepanovich
Analysis by the Guardian and digital forensics experts suggests that an outside hacker gained access to a server at the UEA which held backups of CRU emails and a collection of staff documents. It also suggests the access occurred over a period of days, if not weeks, and was carried out from a computer based on the east coast of north America. […]
The Guardian’s analysis shows that a small group of just four of the scientists from among the dozens employed at the CRU were targeted in the sifting of email. They are: Phil Jones, the head of the CRU; Professor Keith Briffa, who studied tree rings; Tim Osborn, who worked on climate modelling for modern and archaeological data; and Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. […]
But who was the hacker, and what were they after? Jeff Condon, who runs the climate-sceptical Air Vent blog – which posted one of the links to the archive – told the Guardian that the content of the emails and documents actually points to someone who is not expert in the topic. […]
So what was the hacker looking for, and how? […] One quick way to see into the hacker’s mind is to use “concordance analysis” – examining what the common words or phrases are in the emails and documents. […] emails with the words “data”, “climate”, “paper”, “research”, “temperature” and “model” prevail, according to a concordance plot.
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frankbi
Michael Tobis says:
I’m rereading some of the popular materials written by Norbert Wiener that helped me form my point of view as a teenager. […]
Some of it is particularly germane to the question of “bad guys” [purveyors of misinformation] on questions of fact and what to do about them. I think, like it or not, this is the crucial question we face. As scientists, we start off at a disadvantage. Wiener addresses why.
Wiener distinguished two diametrically opposed religious traditions, the Manichean heresy (or I would say, Zoroastrian) wherein the universe is finely balanced between good and evil and the final triumph of good is in no way certain, and on the other hand what he calls the “Augustinean” tradition (referring to St. Augustine), wherein evil is perceived as incompleteness, in other words lack or absence of good, and is therefore effectively countered by ethical efforts into filling the gaps.
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frankbi
Anti-science disinformers step up efforts to intimidate and harass climate scientists.
(Via BlueRock on Reddit.)
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frankbi
Mark Lynas: How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room.
[…] what is China’s game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, “not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?” The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now “in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years’ time”.
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China’s growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.
Via DeSmogBlog.
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frankbi
Today we sent Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests to the home institutions of several prominent global warming skeptics. The request letters were sent to various state governors’ offices and state universities, as well as to the Smithsonian Institute, seeking information on scientists who are employees or former employees of these institutions. […]
The FOIA requests were sent to:
- Dr. Patrick Micheals, recently retired from University of Virginia
- Dr. David Legates, University of Delaware and Delaware State Climatologist
- Dr. John Christy and Roy Spencer, University of Alabama in Huntsville
- Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysics Research Center
- Dr. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia
International Journal of Inactivism -- Mindless Link Propagation section 