Creationists, climate change deniers, the tobacco industry ... they all use the same arguments.

Actually this is pretty humorous. Do you think your narrow rationalizations have any meaning beyond the straw man characterizations within your own head ?

Here, I can play too ! Lets add a couple of more entries to your list: Homeopathy denialist, Racial superiority denialist, these guys use the exact arguments too. Hey, we are onto something. By your logic we must believe in homeopathy and maifest destiny as well. Pardon me if I think your reasoning is a bit flawed .So are you claiming these guys have a point too, or are you just engaging in a straw man argument to compare someone you want to smear (climate skeptics) with someone you believe is seen in a bad light (Creationists)

Actually the comparison I find more illuminating is:
Argues from authority/ Censors debates/Avoids specifics that could be damning (RealClimate/Mann/Creationists) VS. Argues from Method/Open debate/Heavy on the specifics (Credible Skeptics/Evolutionists)

I hate to break it to you, but the American public has everything to do with this and is entirely at fault thought it might hurt their delicate feelings to think about it.


Every time you advocate something you know is a great evil because you don't want the other team to win, you did it.
Every time you advocate removing a safeguard from the constitution because my guys are good guys and those freedoms are getting in the way of the glorious plans to make everything perfect, you did it.
Every time you decide things should be "regulated" without understanding what the regulations do and what powers will seek to seize control of those regulations, you did it.
Every time, you vote to start some glorious new immortal government program without understanding what power block you are creating and how that may be used against you, you did it.

In short, you took a system that was designed to keep government small and non-invasive, shutdown all of the safeties built into the system and then look on in shocked amazement when the newly formed powers you just created have their own agendas. Maybe if you had policed your rulers a little bit better and chucked their asses out the door when they sold out to special interests, we wouldn't be where we are now. But nope, too many people have the attitude "a little corruption is fine as long as it advances my agenda". So here we are ....

Um, one of the pieces that was desired under FOIA was the list of stations that was actually used

While it is true that much of the data used by CRU was/is still available, it is not very useful if you don't know where or what it actually is. The point that the data was available is characteristic of this particular set of hacks. They point out that the data was available while cleverly never mentioning that they wouldn't tell you what that data was. What does the fact that this form of argument is made tell you bout the folks making it ?

Another amusing thing that might not be known if you haven't been following this for a while. The documents indicating the data was confidential and could not be released was also requested under FOIA. Turns out they couldn't produce that either.

Nope, they should be considered and examined.

What is right out is the practice of gathering a bunch of really weak proxies and then using the decidedly unscientific argument "It doesn't matter if that weak proxy fails because I have these other weak proxies"

There is some real scientific value in some of the proxies. Unfortunately with the stonewalling of many of the participants, it is difficult to tell what is good and what is junk.

You are looking at a single file. Check out biffa_sept98e.pro in the harris-tree subdirectory. I have not done an exhaustive search and would go to pains to point out that even an uncommented section does not necessarily mean the code in question generated anything for publication. This is in no way "a smoking gun". However, confirmation bias is a powerful force and I wouldn't trust much from these folks until this replicated and discussed elsewhere.

Exactly, which is why you need to take a close look at all of the cash flowing from the oil corporations into enviro-research. I hate to break it to you, but these guys win both coming and going. It's not like they are actually going to take the price increase as a loss. YOU are going to take the price increase as a loss when they pass it on to you. If things get more expensive due to regulations, and they continue to take a fixed percentage of cost, guess what ? They win, you lose. There is great incentive for them to support these sorts of things

From looking at the files, this does not seem to be true in all instances. Even if it was uncommented everywhere, we still would not know if it actually made it into published results. Sounds like a job for someone of audit and figure out what actually happened and how outraged to be realistically. I wonder if they have learned their lesson and will actually cooperate instedd of stonewall.

Not everywhere - It is NOT commented out in all directories and files.

As referenced by climateadit.org

Michael Mann, Dec 2004 (at realclimate and also one of the folks involved in the email scandel)

No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum [realclimate].

Phil Jones, Nov 1999 (the guy who is stepping down in one of the purloined emails)

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Gavin Schmidt, Nov 2009 realclimate spinmaster

Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.

Now unless your incredibly thick or lost in the depths of some pseuedo-science/religious rapture, you are going to have a problem with this. After being accused by some of the folks at climateaudit of padding the proxy data with instrument data at the end of the record, Mann reacts angrily that only an oil industry funded shill would suggest such a thing. In the purloined email we find out not only is Mann doing the thing that he angrily denied, but others are doing the same thing. The current crew over at realclimate find nothing problematic with this. After all, I guess it's OK to "distort a bit" to get the correct message out. One have massive cognitive dissonance to not understand why there is so much distrust of such tactics. realclimate is ready to just plow under what amounts to a bald faced lie because it doesn't meet the party line. I know we want to concentrate on the word trick and explain it out of existance, but the adding real temps to each series for the last 20 years part is far more troubling especially since it highlights earlier cases of playing fast and loose with the facts

Thats because they might obscure the surveillance cameras !