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JBowers at 20:12 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
"Given that Monnett and Gleason are biologists being persecuted for a paper on polar bears, would it be considered not 'climate science'?" PEER were already helping Monnett before becoming involved with CSLDF, IIRC. But Monnett's 2006 article discussed polar bear population within context of sea ice loss, and biological sciences can be part of the climate sciences. "Biological Sciences: Ecology, Synthetic biology, Biochemistry, Global change biology, Biogeography, Ecophysiology, Ecological genetics" -
CBDunkerson at 19:29 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Is there a clear line between what CSLDF and PEER will be handling? For instance, I recall that PEER has been dealing with the witch hunt and smear campaign against Charles Monnett and Jeff Gleason. That travesty has been conducted entirely in the workplace and the press because the chief inquisitor's repeated requests for prosecution have all been turned down by the DoJ... presumably for being insane. If it DID become a legal matter would the CSLDF become involved at that point or would PEER continue handling it? Given that Monnett and Gleason are biologists being persecuted for a paper on polar bears, would it be considered not 'climate science'? -
JBowers at 19:13 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
For some perspective on archiving costs: A History of Storage Cost (1980-2012). For instance, cost per GB (2012 adjusted price in brackets)... 1980: $193,000 ($538,280) 1985: $71,000 ($151,644) 1990: $9,000 ($15,825) 1995: $1,260 ($1,900) How many researcher salaries could be covered in 1985 or 1990 by the cost of a GB of storage? How many field trips, even? And then you'd have to do what dbostrom did, which still doesn't mean "plug'n'play". For example, requesting 1990 data in 2007, seventeen years after publication, isn't being very realistic, IMHO. -
Doug Bostrom at 18:43 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Further to tlitb1's questions, I should add that I think my writeup of CSLDF didn't sufficiently emphasize the larger role CSLDF intends to play in terms of helping scientists and institute staff quickly get up to speed on efficiently dealing with FOI/FOIA requests, being a clearinghouse for pertinent information and resources. This will benefit everybody, including those who choose to launch inquiries. To the extent the wheel does not need to be reinvented with each new request, that's good. Again, it's easy to lose sight of how strange and unfamiliar it is for the research community to be confronted with "out of band" activities that ignore tried-and-true means of conducting science. For researchers it's a new form of communication, arguably inefficient, distracting, not very useful in terms of growing our sphere of understanding but nonetheless something that cannot be ignored. -
Doug Bostrom at 18:26 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Good questions, tlitb1, and (presuming one of the principles does not reply here first) I'll endeavor to obtain an answer about CSLDF's process of deciding who needs help. I'll hazard a guess that CSLDF won't be in the business of "offense" or countersuits but that's worth asking about as well. Regarding people directly benefiting from CSLDF assistance, so far the roster includes Mann, Hayhoe, Dessler. -
tlitb1 at 18:11 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
First time I have heard of the CSDL. If I may I am going to ask a couple of questions here since this seems a good place to ask them, but if they cannot be answered here, or have been answered elsewhere (please tell me where) then my apologies. Firstly, I wonder if anyone could point me to a more detailed charter of what this organisation will do and who would qualify for its support? I have been through the rather sparse CSDL site and don’t see anything that would qualify for that. For example one thing I am curious about is will the “Defense” part of the name mean it will limit the organisation so there will be no supporting litigating against other parties? Secondly I went through all the press links via the CSDL and I think the CDSL need to explain the versatility of the benefactors so this doesn’t just seem a one man organisation. As far as I can see only Michael Mann seems to be benefiting from the CSDL. Whilst I understand there has to be a first case to launch the organisation – the following statement is madeCurrently several climate scientists have litigation in the courts.
Are these litigants being supported by CDSL? If so why can't they be named? ThanksModerator Response: Regarding selection of cases, Joshua Wolfe of CSLDF tells us "...we deal with things of a case by case basis. Some people just need referal to a pro-bono lawyer or a quick conversation, others need litigation support. Our goal is to keep people out of a courtroom if at all possible."
Further to choosing whom to assist, Joshua says CSLDF is keen to avoid joining in unnecessary scraps; indications that an applicant for help might be spoiling for a fight would be a negative for deciding to lend support. Of this, Joshua says "Our goal is to keep scientists out of the crosshairs, not pick fights for the sake of picking fights. All this litigation around scientists is a distraction from important issues…we want to end the distraction not perpetuate it."
CSLDF does not have any plans for proactive litigation but does not rule it out if the benefits of so doing appear to be worthwhile.
--Doug Bostrom -
Doug Bostrom at 17:24 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
JohnB: I doubt that I've ever seen such overblown self importance. Not even here? That link isn't randomly chosen. We've established that storage of data isn't free and isn't being accounted for and we have not even touched the matter of paying for retrieval. Surely the fecund imagination behind the writing at that post can picture the problem? Sure, data should be available but there needs to be a means to pay for that. When does Joe Public get to see the data that he paid for? At the whim of the researcher? After he dies? When? When the bill for storage is paid? My family shares a rented storage unit; when the credit card it's charged to expired we discovered that the lock on the unit was changed. We got access to our stuff when the payment data was renewed. Seriously, thanks for the acknowledgement of the problem, John. Obviously there are better ways to archive data. Thinking of McIntyre's beefing about Lonnie and Ellen Thompson immediately leads my mind back to the pile of hard disks and dormant or dead computers here at my home. There's data frozen in the garage museum that cost many thousands of dollars to obtain but the operating systems and software providing the support framework for that data have long since shuffled their mortal coils. Naked disk drives need host hardware, then they need an OS capable of mounting the partitions on the drives, then they need software able to read the data storage formats. Quick: the person with a 1986 version of SPSS, raise your hand! Is it reasonable to expect that somebody should have continuously maintained the native host environment for 25 year old data? No, obviously not; simple hardware mortality and lack of replacement availability makes that an unreasonable demand, let alone the issues with maintaining software with terminated time-based licensing schemes, etc. How about a rotating program of migration? Should Lonnie and Ellen Thompson have maintained a data management plan that was able to navigate serial obsolescence of multiple iterations of hardware platforms, operating systems and application software? Is that reasonable? Maybe, with a commitment from funding agencies to maintain support continuity on long-dead grants. Is it the fault of Lonnie and Ellen Thompson that they could not build such a perfect world around themselves? Paradoxically the best course available short of a overarching system akin to what John describes would have been paper copies of the data. But guess what? Rummage through McIntyre's site and you'll actually find him fussing about the trouble of transferring numbers from a PDF to his spreadsheet. In fact, he implies that he was supplied with PDF data specifically to thwart him. A PDF printed and scanned is the same as any other piece of paper printed and scanned. So paper's not good enough. There's no pleasing some people. Faced with the Thompson situation, McIntyre's confronted with choices. Instead of following a counterproductive rising trajectory of insult and fulminations McIntyre could sweetly inquire of the Thompsons as to the status of their data, whether the problem is that their material is in a fossilized electronic state, or if it's in paper form and in need of sorting or some other manual labor input. McIntyre could offer to help. I wonder why that never occurs to him? I'm thinking about what I'd need to do to get one of the drives in the garage research data boneyard here going. Most of them are SCSI; I'd need a machine with the correct SCSI interface. Assuming I found the drive still operable, I'd then need to identify the partition scheme and filesystem on the drive. With the right version of Linux I could probably mount almost any partition and filesystem. Then I'd need to deal with data formats. I'd most likely not be able to deal with the data in native fashion with the software that processed and wrote that data; it's not impossible that I'd need to actually do some reverse engineering to get anything useful at all off the drive. Somehow all of this does not sound like something somebody's going to be able to do in their spare time; if professional services are needed the job would require serious amounts of cash to complete. Maybe McIntyre could exert himself to imagine these challenges, instead of simply bitching about not being helped to avoid doing the hard work of basic research himself. -
skywatcher at 17:17 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
When does Joe Public get to see the data that he paid for?
Interesting question. A more interesting question is this: What would Joe Public do with such raw data? Joe Public gets to see the results, as published in the scientific journals. Depending on access, they can get articles for free, bought from publisher, or for a small fee through their local library. These articles will digest the data, methods used, and results into a format accessible to many. If Joe Public does not understand the journal articles, then Joe is not going to be in a position to perform their own analysis on the data. They will not realise or understand the elementary methods, and elementary errors to avoid, in analysing such data. If there are errors in the paper, Joe Public is not going to know what they are, or whether they are important. Joe has a lot of learning to do! This sort of process is painfully evident with many of the self-styled 'auditors' of climate data who, being charitable, make dreaful errors in reanalysing the copious quantities of raw data they have ample access to. But alternatively, if Joe Public really thinks he can understand the science and the methodology, why does Joe Public not do something much more powerful? In science, replication is a hundred times better than repetition. Joe can see if he gets the same result, using a different dataset, different methods, or both. Of course the key results in climate science have been replicated many times over, including those favourites of the skeptics, the Hockey Stick and the surface temperature record, so this is actually a rather fruitless exercise. But maybe you can find an oil company with massive daily profits who would fund such a venture? After all, it's in their interests! Of course Richard Muller already did that with BEST, and replicated the existing results on the surface temperature dataset! Key datasets are already freely available online. Where are the skeptics' own dendrochronology datasets, or surface temperature analyses, that are both robust and in conflict with the accepted science? Has Steve McIntyre gone to the remote forests of the world and done the hard work collecting, analysing, interpreting and publishing his own dendrochronology record? He hasn't. Why not? Is he afraid of replicating the currently-accepted science? -
Uncle Pete at 17:04 PM on 16 July 2012Welcome to the Rest of Our Lives
Here in Qld Australia,in a number of inland towns the insurance companies are refusing to insure some homeowners against flooding. So far not many people seem to have connected the dots. -
soo doh nim at 16:08 PM on 16 July 2012CO2 limits will make little difference
I followed this link from the Spencer slip ups page. This doesn't seem to rebut Spencer's point that even massive reductions in CO2 output will only marginally decrease warming. Is there a link to a more direct rebuttal? -
JohnB7198 at 15:56 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
I doubt that I've ever seen such overblown self importance. Comparing climate data or data in general to Department of Defence and Treasury? Seriuosly? Do you get a little light for your car and "Access" passes? "I'm from the Department of Climate and it's vital to the Nations security that you let me pass"? Seriously?We aren't talking security restricted stuff here so why in the name of sanity it is being compared to that I do not understand. @#96 Tom. (Wasn't that a TV show back in the 70s? :)) I don't think your argument quite works. In the first part you are agreeing with me that the artifacts/data does not belong to the researcher, which was my position. I agree with your second part and lump that type of thing in with "Publication rights". To be very clear here. I expect any researcher to have first publication rights from any data etc he collects. I also expect that govs should pick up the badly dropped ball and provide data storage facilities. Years ago this would have been expensive but not now. The data that a paper is based on must be collated somewhere, otherwise you don't have it in one place to work with. To my mind a system where the paper is written and submitted, then the data is zipped and sent to central archives is the way to go. I notice that every responder so far has failed to answer the simple question I posed. When does Joe Public get to see the data that he paid for? At the whim of the researcher? After he dies? When? Note that what I'm talking about is not what is, it's how I think it should be. There is a difference. The present system is a mess and FOIs are flying, so rather than bitch and moan, how about improving the system? @ Doug. I'm assuming that you're in the US. I see the problem you face and I do "get it". If we do nothing then the problem will only get worse. I'm sure that there are Oz researchers in exactly the same boat. I think that it is required that Democratic govs provide the people and facilities to empty those garages. I would certainly back any effort on the part of the Oz gov to set up something like that. So from a given date all new data is in central archiving and anything before that date is "in process" of being added. Which allows you to handball any enquiry for data etc to central archives. Once data is collected and the paper published it's become old (so to speak) and should be the purview of the librarian. I'd like to see a system that empties your garage and puts all the information to easy availability. If Joe public wants to see it then fine, just ask the online librarian and download it. Let's take the burden away from those whose time is better spent than hunting around old records. I think that this is the sort of system we should be aiming for but a prerequisite is to know who actually owns the data to be stored. @97 Bob. I don't know where you are but with a population of 35 million it isn't Oz. Australia is a Democracy and we have a Parliament that sets the rules. After the next election, how about we change the rules so that anybody who won't go the "Archive your data" road gets no further funding? Since Parliament represents ALL of the people, that saves trying to divide the work into tiny packets. -
Bob Loblaw at 14:23 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
As for the "it wasn't a threat, yes it was" argument: - I used to work for a fellow that lost his temper one day and said that if I was going to "be that way" then perhaps we should "end our working relationship". He later denied threatening to fire me. Perhaps that wasn't what he meant, but I'm damn sure he wasn't planning on quitting. Even if he just meant he'd have me transferred somewhere else, it was clearly intended as a threat. Knowing him (and his previous problems with subordinates), I suspect that he actually had used the words "I'll fire you" once before and got in trouble for it - and had learned how to make sure he had "plausible deniability". Perhaps he even got legal advice on how far he could go without getting into trouble (but given that he tended to do these things in a rage, I doubt he could think that quickly). I've also known people that were owed money that just sent polite letters to former employees asking for it - on their lawyer's letterhead... No threat to sue, but but it sure stakes out ground. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:20 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
I should add the final twist to the waxy data buildup situation in my garage: it's not even my data. My garage is choked with my SO's work product, not mine. That's ok; I'm signed on to the scientific enterprise, joined in holy matrimony for better or worse. I understand the value of the data and I'm committed to playing my little role in helping the scientific enterprise along by tending the data dehumidifier and stacking more boxes in my garage. But when a Stan McSwain comes along, disparages my kitchen, asks for a free sandwich and then either doesn't get his free sandwich because it turns out lunch is not actually free or complains that his sandwich is no good, he's not going to earn my sympathy and cooperation. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:06 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
JohnB: Doug Bostrom in #73 gave a testimonial which demonstrates how difficult things have been in the past and how inconvenient it can be today. However Doug, if the data etc is yours, then storage is your problem, why should the taxpayer help? The taxpayer doesn't pay for storage of my personal items, why shoould they pay for yours? but if it ultimately belongs to the taxpayer then of course they should pay for storage. The clue to the answer is here: NSF et al are coasting on our dime. I'll spell it out: it's your data but I'm paying to store it, forever according to the rigorous standards set by the "blauditor" community. Imagine that a year or so from now I decided to unleash my inner child, obtain a clapped-out Jag XJ and nurse it back to life. I'll need some room for that. Casting my eye around I see that not only do I not have room for a restoration project but my treasured table saw is already jammed in the corner of my garage because the space is stuffed with moldering research components. Well, it's all years old and frankly I'm sick of taking care of the taxpayer's data and not being paid for it. Out it all goes and in comes the rusty XJ. Now let's suppose somebody (we'll call him Stan McSwain) notices publications built on the termite attractant in my garage as a bit player in a gripe he's got with another researcher's work. McSwain needs to call into question the publications sourced from the moldering mound as a means of undermining the target in his sights. He can't find anything overtly wrong with those publications so he needs some other means of casting doubt on the work. Suppose a mistake was made in the analysis of the fusty source data? There's no reason to believe that's the case but that doesn't really matter; doubt is the product here, not scientific progress. McSwain asks to see the data but not before publishing suspicions and speculations about errors in the work based on the data. The reply he gets is "Sorry, pal, no can do; NSF's free ride ended a little before you got here. And you're a rude SOB so don't expect a box of chocolates as a consolation prize. Buzz off." For McSwain this is the perfect situation; now he can go on a sermonizing crusade about feckless scientists not preserving their data, martyr himself for being mistreated by the object of his bile while simultaneously farming doubt about whether the publications in question are properly founded. For me, it's a bad arrangement. I have to store the data for free, forever, because if I don't I run the risk of a deranged McSwain invading my life and smearing me in public, forever. -
Tom Curtis at 13:59 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
"..but if JohnB happens to be one of the people that paid taxes to help pay for my work, I'll be glad to send him one thirty-five-millionth of my code and data, because that's all he's paid for. "
ROFLMAO -
Bob Loblaw at 13:52 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
JohnB certainly seems to have a strange view of who owns what. I happen to work for a government. That government (which I think can legitimately be referred to as "democratically elected") has a whole raft of regulations on retention of documents, who can see them. etc. There are a whole range of security classifications from basically no security at all up to "top secret" and beyond. People have to have a reason (and appropriate security clearance) to see most of them, and a good way to get into trouble is to not keep secure documents secure. As for things like computer code and data - yes, these can be shared, but my department has an Office of Intellectual Property, and a set of regulations that require many things be considered before code or data be provided to outside sources. Typically, some sort of agreement must be signed by outside agents, accepting the various Intellectual Property rights and acceptable use for the data. There are two issues here: - all people requesting code or data must be treated equally and fairly. - the code and data is owned by all the citizens, regardless of how much they may have paid in various sorts of taxes. It is perfectly fair and reasonable to keep things private if it is in the interest of all citizens to preserve Intellectual Property, the rights of other citizens, and for security reasons. You don't just give anything out to any blowhard that thinks they deserve access to everything. ..but if JohnB happens to be one of the people that paid taxes to help pay for my work, I'll be glad to send him one thirty-five-millionth of my code and data, because that's all he's paid for. -
Tom Curtis at 13:51 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
JohnB @91, your analogy is inapt. Under Australian law, if a private individual, privately funded undertakes archeological work in Australia, any artifacts they find belong to the Australian government by law. Nor will that fact give any private citizen the right to view those artifacts in any way. The artifacts will be kept in a museum or university, or on site, and access to the artifacts will be strictly the perogative of the person responsible for maintaining the collection. So, clearly your analogy does not apply, and if it did it would not support the notion that you or any other citizen or tax payer can demand access to the data. Further, if we take a more apposite example, the analogy clearly works against your case. Specifically, in an Australian lecturer or professor writes a text book on university time, it is they, not the university and not the Australian government who retain copyright. It is one of the compensations for Australian academics that they typically retain the intellectual property rights to the product of their labours. That is both to encourage such intellectual activity (which all Australian's benefit from in the long run) and as part compensation for the typically lower wages paid to academics compared to equivalently qualified people in the private sector. In fact, this is necessary because Australian academics are typically not payed hourly rates. Rather, they are payed a salary so that the distinction between "study on their own time" and "study on the University's time" is vague at best. -
Daniel Bailey at 13:36 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
"This means that if you are working on public money I get to see your emails." Perhaps the most unintentionally funny statement I've seen this year. My former employers with the US Department of Defense would also find it very humorous. There exists a vast gulf between being employed at the public expense and being subject to every vapid whim of the public. -
Bernard J. at 13:20 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
JohnB at #91:This means that if you are working on public money I get to see your emails.
Good luck telling that to anyone in Parliament House, or in Defence, or Treasury, or Immigration, or ASIO, or... Do tell us how you manage with that. -
Bernard J. at 13:16 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Whether or not SteveMcIntyre [sic] intended to threatened legal action and whether his words conveyed such a threat is certainly pertinent to determining whether any such threat occurred.
You've already been corrected on this multiple times, but you're still not getting the message. If either Karoly or his institution's legal department perceive the letter as containing implications of legal action, it becomes a threat of legal action. McIntyre's intentions are irrelevant - he might genuinely have had no thought of taking it to a legal footing, or he might have intended exactly that it be perceived as a threat but one where he wrapped it in plausible deniability to exactly the end currently manifesting. It's no different from an act of assault, where such may be validly perceived as occurring even if the act was not intended to be followed through by the assaulter. As the saying goes, and as Tom observes at #87, one's right to swing one's fist ends where another's nose begins. It is irrelevant that McIntyre claims that he was merely flapping at a fly. If McIntyre didn't want to finish the manouevre, he should not have started it. -
Albatross at 13:13 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Doug @84 and Grypo @85, Well stated. Additionally, it seems that one person here who is loyally defending Mr.McIntyre is much less objective than they would perhaps like to have readers think. In contrast, unlike said commentator, I for one (and probably other's here defending Dr. Karoly), do not know Dr. Karoly, nor have I corresponded with him, never mind enjoyed dinner with him as said commentator has done with Mr. McIntyre. Furthermore, said commentator has not offered a shred of evidence, not one iota of substance to support her claims, all we have is her opinion which is confidently stated as fact. Now perhaps given her ties with Mr. McIntyre she is privy to some information about this that we are unaware of. But as yet, nothing more than unsubstantiated claims have been presented in the defence of Mr. McIntyre. Mr. McIntyre can of course clarify a lot about this by having an independent party audit all his correspondence in which he refers to or discusses Dr. Karoly and/or Dr. Gergis and/or Gergis et al. (2012). But curiously enough, while Mr. McIntyre passionately and aggressively demands transparency and openness of others and the opportunity to read their correspondence (even stolen correspondence), he at the same time does not apply he same criterion/standards to his own endeavours and communications. I would like to take Mr. McIntyre's word for it that he has not threatened legal action against Dr. Karoly, but given Mr. McIntyre's unfortunate propensity to be less than accurate in presenting the facts or forthcoming with the facts in the past (as DeepClimate and Dr. Schmidt have illustrated above), to unequivocally determine that would require an audit of Mr. McIntyre's communications. For that, Mr. McIntyre has no-one else but himself to blame. With that all said, I doubt very much that Mr. McIntyre or his loyal supporters here would agree to such an audit. If they do not, then they of course come across as being highly hypocritical and having a gross double standard. Finally, I doubt very much that the "skeptics", self-styled lukewarmers and those who deny the theory of AGW would be able to bring themselves to acknowledge that it is a travesty that a legal defence fund is required (out of necessity) to protect the rights, integrity and academic freedoms of certain climate scientists following repeated harassment, threats, bullying and intimidation from certain "skeptics" and certain individuals and groups who deny the theory of AGW. Then again, maybe they will prove me wrong and go on the record in adding their support to the scientists who have been the victims of the above mentioned actions. In this case, I am only too happy to be wrong.... "Skeptics" et al.., the ball is in your court. Do you support the scientists or those who bully, intimidate, threaten and harass them? -
JohnB7198 at 13:05 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Wow, defensive bunch around here. Some clarification required I think. In my last comment I did use the word "I" but I actually meant data access in a general sense. My thoughts on data ownership are based on the idea that the person paying the bills owns the data. The researcher gets first dibs at publishing obviously but he doesn't "own" the data. If we take it away from climate for a minute you'll perhaps see what I mean. What if the Oz taxpayer funds an archaeological dig somewhere, to whom do the artifacts belong? The idea that the taxpayer should pay the archaeologist a salary AND fund the digs, all so that the archaeologist can expand his private collection of artifacts is plainly ludicrous. In this case data is analogous to the artifacts. If the paying public do not own the data then when do they get to see what they have paid for? When the authors grandchildren decide to release it? Or should the public have to buy the data? The funding public deserve to get more for their money than just a warm fuzzy feeling that a researcher has a high publication count. I believe that "after first publication" is as good a time as any for the release of data etc. The opposite view is to say that the researcher expects the public to pay him a salary (presumably for life), provide him with equipment, offices, staff and some possibly very expensive toys, and get nothing tangible in return. Somehow I don't see this as a very fair arrangement. That funding should be made available for large amounts of data storage etc is a given. Doug Bostrom in #73 gave a testimonial which demonstrates how difficult things have been in the past and how inconvenient it can be today. However Doug, if the data etc is yours, then storage is your problem, why should the taxpayer help? The taxpayer doesn't pay for storage of my personal items, why shoould they pay for yours? but if it ultimately belongs to the taxpayer then of course they should pay for storage. As to who gets to see emails through FOI, the principle is rather clear. The employer has the right to monitor emails. The person who pays the bills is the employer. In a democracy like Australia and when talking about public funded things the employer is the Government of Australia representing the people of Australia. So ultimately the people are the employer. This means that if you are working on public money I get to see your emails. Because I do not work for you, you don't get to see mine. These are the virtues of a representative Democracy which has a Rule of Law, things that I will always defend. Others only defend them when it is "convenient". -
nealjking at 12:04 PM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
doug bostrom, grypo, Tom Curtis & lucia: Indeed, the purpose of writing a strongly worded letter (redolent with legal terminology) is to convey a sense of menace, whilst committing oneself to as little as possible. -
Tom Curtis at 11:58 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
doug_bostrom @84, well summarized. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:55 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
grypo: So all I see is a strangely worded letter, that uses legalese and objects to someone's opinion. All sound and fury, conveying nothing? It was indeed strikingly generous of McIntyre to volunteer responsibility for the entire list of offenses. -
Tom Curtis at 11:54 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
lucia @77 and @78, I must complement you that, among your many other accomplishments you have become an expert in Australian Law. How do you find the time? Regardless, the actual situation so far as I can determine is analogous to a person how points an unloaded gun at another persons head. Such an act is a threat of violence. It is irrelevant whether the person pointing the gun intended to shoot or not. It is irrelevant whether they even intended to threaten violence. What matters is, given only the information available to the person who had the gun pointed at them, could they form a reasonable belief that violence, ie, the firing of the gun, would follow should they fail to comply with the requests of the person pointing the gun. In this case, it is not a gun, but a letter, but having received that letter Karoly certainly had reasonable grounds to believe that not complying with McIntyre's requests would result in legal action. Further more, as I understand it, have "respectfully requested a retraction" (as McIntyre plainly did) a person intending to sue for defamation can go straight to court, so that the next communication with the alleged defamer would be a summons issued by the court. The situation that Karoly and his lawyers or university legal officers (if he consulted any) was that a letter indistinguishable from the first step in the process of suing for defamation had been received, and no indication had been given that this was not the first step in a suite for defamation. That is a threat of a legal action for defamation. I am happy to accept that that is not what McIntyre intended. He, however, should man up, and admit that he accomplished more than he intended by phrasing his letter in legalese while not knowing what he was doing. If he can't man up, and do that, I believe the correct interpretation is that he is using legalese in his letters to scientists so that they will indeed feel threatened, even though he has no intention to carry through on the threat. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:49 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Clarifying my 11:35 AM on 16 July, 2012 comment: -- Feelings never lie. Karoly says he felt threatened by the letter. Claiming otherwise is to claim Karoly is lying. -- McIntyre says he intended no threat. Declaring otherwise is to say McIntyre is lying. -- McGrath says as a lawyer that regardless of the letter's sincere intentions it's his considered opinion that as expressed the demands in the letter conveyed a threat. At a minimum to disagree with McGrath is to impugn the truthfulness and/or sincerity of his opinion. -
grypo at 11:39 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
This situation is being talked about all wrong. Let's parse the statement and use some logic. In his review, Karoly said:Commentators with no scientific expertise, ranging from politicians such as Republican congressman Joe Barton from Texas, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, or Republican Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma, to blog writers Stephen McIntyre and Marc Morano
This denotes a group of people. Notice the important words, "commentators with no scientific expertise", "ranging from" and "to". So now we can all agree that Karoly was talking about a group of people, a few of which he named . Right away, McIntyre is not the only person who Karoly believes has done the following:repeatedly promulgated misinformation and sought to launch formal investigations into Mann’s research, claiming professional misconduct
So now, I'm sure we can all agree, there are a range of behaviors for a range of people, none of which has been specifically attributed. 1) promulgated misinformation 2) sought to launch formal investigations into Mann’s research 3) claiming professional misconduct So knowing we have several people and a range of behavior, how could McIntyre accuse Karoly of defamation without knowing which behavior Karoly ascribed to him? At the very least, McIntyre would need to defend each of the three behaviors mentioned before writing that letter, or at least include more than just a defense of "promulgated misinformation". Or, write the letter to find out which behavior is his. And that, to me, is where it gets even weirder. The "promulgated misinformation" is a rather subjective phrase. There are many people who believe McIntyre does that all the time. McIntyre may disagree, but that is meaningless in this context. So all I see is a strangely worded letter, that uses legalese and objects to someone's opinion. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:35 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Law of Unintended Consequences at work. This comment thread and in particular the Karoly subtopic is a lovely illustration of the degrading effects of swerving from science and off into the la-la-land of fact-free imagination. The devil in me celebrates the emergence of this accidental model of the wasteland I was attempting to describe in my original post. FOI and FOIA and all the rest of the legal Kudzu swarming over climate-related geophysics and an ever-widening swath of other research specialties are all based on imagination run wild, the notion that hidden forces are at play in the world of climate science. Thank you. Here's where we stand, and it's not complicated as long we don't let our imaginations run away with us: -- Steve McIntyre sent a letter to David Karoly requesting in unmistakable terms and using words that might be found in a formal legal request that Karoly perform certain actions. We have McIntyre's word as to what his intentions were; McIntyre says he intended no threat. -- David Karoly received a letter from Steve McIntyre requesting in unmistakable terms and using words that might be found in a formal legal request that Karoly perform certain actions. We have Karoly's word on what was his interpretation of McIntyre's intentions; Karoly found the letter's language threatening. -- A lawyer-- Chris McGrath-- reads McIntyre's letter as one that may reasonably be interpreted as a legal threat and thus should be treated as such. Having no reason to believe otherwise we must take McGrath's word that he's provided a sound opinion on a topic within his scope as an expert. All of these people can simultaneously be correct. Making a definite declaration that any of these people are conveying untruth relies on speculation. As well, it's an accusation of dishonesty, necessarily unfounded because none of us are telepathic. -
Tom Curtis at 11:21 AM on 16 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
Dissembly @52, false again."The Low Income Supplement is a payment for people in low-income households, including some self-funded retirees, who miss out on the full benefit of tax cuts and increases to government payments delivered through the Household Assistance Package. The Low Income Supplement is an annual payment of $300. Applications need to be made each year through the Department of Human Services. Claims can be lodged from 1 July 2012. You may be eligible to receive the Low Income Supplement if your assessed taxable income in the 2011-12 financial year was below $30,000 if you are single, $45,000 combined if you are a member of a couple or $60 000 if you are single or a member of a couple and have a dependent child. In addition your assessed tax payable, as determined by the Australian Taxation Office, needs to be below $300 in the 2011-12 financial year. From 1 July 2012, a self assessment tool will be available to assess your eligibility. For more information about the Low Income Supplement visit the Department of Human Services."
(Source) Readers should note that the compensation I have discussed here are not the limit of compensation available. Addition compensation is paid if you have dependent children, or you have essential medical equipment the operation of which will increase your electricity bill. dissembly @51:"However, the point I make (along with every single other point I've made) is still valid: those on low incomes are still hit proportionately harder than those on higher incomes; compensation for them is systematically less effective. This is the case with any flat tax."
Again this is simply false. The impact of the carbon tax on somebody on minimum wage, whose compensation package exceeds the increases in costs due to the carbon tax, cannot be greater than the impact on somebody earning $80,000 plus per annum, and who therefore receives no compensation. To suggest that people who will be receiving a net benefit will be hit harder than those facing a net cost is absurd. Like the other points you have made, this one is built on sand. -
lucia at 11:08 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
That person would be SteveMcIntyre who says he did not threaten legal action. The words he wrote also do not convey any such threat. Saying so is not "jumping the gun". Steve said he did not send a threat, he posted his letter and it contains no threat.One thing that certainly didn't happen is SteveMc did not threaten Karoly with legal action.
Jumping the gun again. There's only one person who really knows the fact of intentionsbut it turns out intentions are not really pertinent; for what a recipient of the communication might perceive and how that person should respond see Chris McGrath, above.
Whether or not SteveMcIntyre intended to threatened legal action and whether his words conveyed such a threat is certainly pertinent to determining whether any such threat occurred. (-Snip-) It is quite clear there was no threat of legal action. The threat is simply not there. It is not jumping the gun to say so it was not there. It is merely reading what is in the letter SteveMc wrote and reading what SteveMc said he intended.Moderator Response:[DB] Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
Inflammatory snipped.
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Doug Bostrom at 09:41 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Lucia: Karoly appears to be the source for this [FOI] story. No, the folks who transmitted the FOI requests are the source of the story. Whomever was involved in created and sending the FOI requests could publish them. As champions of transparency why wouldn't they? -
nealjking at 09:40 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
One certainly cannot judge Karoly's perception of the strength of his position in a case where legal action is possible, when the University legal department is involved: They have decisive authority, and potentially much wider interests than just one staff member. A personal example: I once worked in a corporation in a managerial capacity, and an employee who was both incompetent and uncooperative attempted to get out of the situation by accusing me of sexual harassment. I was mad as hell, and was ready and willing to go to court on the matter. However, the head of the legal department took me aside, and said, "She's got nothing, and if our company were not involved, and I were you, I'd tell her to go s__t in a hat. But our company IS involved; and the problem is that the case will end up being, NOT about what YOU did or didn't do, but about how THE CORPORATION handled this situation. It makes a big difference: Even if her lawyer were to win the case against you (very unlikely), they wouldn't get much; but if they win the case against the corporation for not handling this 'appropriately', they're going after very deep pockets. "So we need to deal with this in an 'appropriate' 'managerial' way." Their final solution was to separate us into different departments. I was still pissed off; but it probably saved everybody a lot of trouble. The moral of the story: When an institution and a legal department are involved, the visible conflict may be just the tip of the iceberg. The actions will be taken with consideration for the whole iceberg; if you're just thinking about the tip, they may not make much sense. -
Doug Bostrom at 09:38 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Lucia: doug Lucia @61, the more reasonable inference I believe you're addressing Tom there. -
Doug Bostrom at 09:36 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
One thing that certainly didn't happen is SteveMc did not threaten Karoly with legal action. Jumping the gun again. There's only one person who really knows the fact of intentions but it turns out intentions are not really pertinent; for what a recipient of the communication might perceive and how that person should respond see Chris McGrath, above. I'm not Steven McIntyre, I'm not David Karoly and I'm not a lawyer; I'm ignorant of the true facts of the situation. Failing having better, more concrete information I'll go with expert opinion. The expert on scene here says the letter was easily interpreted as a threat and should have be treated as such. -
lucia at 09:28 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
dougLucia @61, the more reasonable inference is that Karoly was instructed to take them down because his universities legal department did not want the expense of defending them.
Oh? I'm a bit puzzled by your rather speculative notion that this yours is a reasonable conclusion to jump to. Is "australianbookreview.com.au/" a branch of his university? I suspect not. So would the university be required to spend any money defending statements a faculty member posted on a 3rd party web site? I'm not familiar with Australian law, but the notion that a university would be required to defend defamatory statements made by an employees on non-university web sites seems rather amazing to me. Also: Do you have any evidence to suggest Karoly withdrew this on the advice of his employers attorneys? I'd be interested in reading that. doug_bostromPoint is, we don't know what happened. It would be helpful if we did but in the meantime let's not make the mistake of substituting with our imaginations what actually happened.
Sure.Come to think of it, as long as we're continuing to explore and thus emphasize the unscientific nature of "auditing" another thing we could learn and which is easily within the power of "auditors" to disclose is the content of the FOI letters sent to Karoly. Transparency is good; we've been told that everything should be published. Does anybody know where copies of the FOI letters to Karoly are made public?
Karoly appears to be the source for this story. Maybe he knows.Moderator Response:[DB] "the notion that a university would be required to defend defamatory statements made by an employees on non-university web sites seems rather amazing to me.
Please provide a link for these supposed defamatory statements. Or withdraw the supposition
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lucia at 09:06 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Point is, we don't know what happened. It would be helpful if we did but in the meantime let's not make the mistake of substituting with our imaginations what actually happened.
Fair enough. One thing that certainly didn't happen is SteveMc did not threaten Karoly with legal action. -
dissembly at 08:32 AM on 16 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
I would also make the point that despite my mistake, a person on $16,000 a year would be completely immune to any compensation package benefits. But you're right, Tom, a person earning $2,000 more a year would recieve $300 back. I guess that proves I was trying to mislead everyone. -
Doug Bostrom at 08:21 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Tom: My personal opinion is that anybody who demands FOI requests of scientists should voluntarily make themselves available for FOI requests from all comers, and let it be known. Well, sure. Fair is as fair does; if transparency is good then FOI initiatives themselves should be fully transparent. After all, one of the justifications for FOI requests is to expose possible potential waste of taxpayer funds. FOI requests cost taxpayer funds to satisfy, so of course it follows that the FOI itself should be fully transparent so taxpayers may understand their money is not being wasted. Full transparency would of course involve all email contacts even remotely related to the promulgation of a particular FOI, any private discussion of the FOI (for after all, it's not really a "private" discussion when taxpayer funds are involved), any communications whatsoever concerning FOI requests. All of that information could be volunteered, used by FOI enthusiasts to set a good example. Really, to make the deal complete these people would offer third-party access to their personal records, right? Who'll volunteer? Any takers? -
dissembly at 08:11 AM on 16 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
"There is no justification for asserting such easily checked falsehoods." Well there is a justification, I was mistaken. I did a rapid check of the tax-free threshold on wikipedia, and skimmed the article without reading carefully enough. However, the point I make (along with every single other point I've made) is still valid: those on low incomes are still hit proportionately harder than those on higher incomes; compensation for them is systematically less effective. This is the case with any flat tax. -
Tom Curtis at 08:10 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
doug_bostrom @73, this testimonial reinforces why the repeated FOI requests by unappointed auditors constitute harassment. Should you get an FOI request for data from a study completed in 1988, for example, even if you were able to charge the time taken to satisfy satisfy the requests as costs (which is not the case in all jurisdictions), the time involved would be wasted time with regard to your current research. If only one or two FOI requests where involved, perhaps you could wear that. But with a half dozen (Karoly) or much more (UEA) the quantity of FOI requests could keep a researcher from active research for months or more. Nor, given the time limits set for satisfying FOI requests, can the FOI request be dealt with in available free time. It would need the highest priority. My personal opinion is that anybody who demands FOI requests of scientists should voluntarily make themselves available for FOI requests from all comers, and let it be known. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the ganda; and taking advantage of the fact that scientists are subject to FOI requests without taking on the equivalent administrative burden themselves smacks of hypocrisy. -
Tom Curtis at 07:59 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Further to Albatross's post @68, Gavin Schmidt weighs in on Real Climate. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:54 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
WheelsOC: Making scientific data available is definitely not trivial, in terms of either cost or effort. How about a testimonial? Our notionally two-car garage is 1/3rd occupied floor-ceiling by a polyethylene-tented enclosure equipped with a dehumidifier and containing ~100 boxes (and still growing) of papers, notebooks, diskettes, Zip disks, optical disks, old hard drives and antiquated laptops. It's effectively a museum of obsolescent data storage technology. We're maintaining a tomb for data that might need to be resurrected; King Tut would be proud. That's one researcher's work product dating back to ~1985. Best of intentions: "We'll scan the papers and dump the data to some sort of redundant disk arragement." Sure, right. Scan -all- of it? And "who's we," Kimo Sabe? And what about that PowerBook 170 that's not been fired up in 17 years? If it doesn't cough up data when asked, is it down to negligence? Nobody pays for this space and the electric bill is on us; NSF et al are coasting on our dime. Don't mention it, you're welcome. :-) This problem reminds of the article in the Journal of Irreproducible Results describing the isostatic adjustment of the East Coast of the US due to accumulating back issues of National Geographic. -
Tom Curtis at 07:46 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
I would like to draw everybody's attention to Chris McGrath's comment @63, referring to my comment @53. Let me state that this is not a legal opinion, but I have no doubt that Chris McGrath could draft that up as a formal legal opinion if so desired. Therefore, in the absence of a formal legal opinion by an Australian Lawyer to the contrary, anybody suggesting that McIntyre's letter did not constitute a threat of legal action is doing so in despite of the evidence, not based on it. In particular, McInyre is not a lawyer. His opinion as to his intention is decisive. He did not intend to make a legal threat, but his opinion as the the legal effect of his actions is irrelevant. Once he started using legal language, and legal forms in his letter, whether or not his letter constituted a legal threat became a legal issue; a topic on which he is not qualified. -
Tom Curtis at 07:36 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Lucia @61, the more reasonable inference is that Karoly was instructed to take them down because his universities legal department did not want the expense of defending them. Without evidence to the contrary, any speculation beyond that may well be slandering Dr Karoly. As it happens, Dr Karoly would have not difficulty in defending his claims, as Albatross @17 and @68 shows. -
WheelsOC at 06:54 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Making scientific data available is definitely not trivial, in terms of either cost or effort. Ars Technica has a series of articles about some of the bigger issues related to data retention and sharing, it might be worth a read for those not extremely familiar with the challenges. It was partly inspired by the CRU incident and questions people have about data availability, but it's more about the sciences generally than climate science specifically. Preserving Science Part 1 looks at raw materials. Part 2 looks at questions about what is actually relevant for retention and analysis. These issues have to be dealt with before data collection even starts, and continue after the immediate studies are published. Part 3 looks at the problem from the standpoint of digital data formats and storage hardware, which is not trivial to address. It also touches on some of the restrictions on data sharing that get in the way of this "I paid for it, it's mine!" mentality some folks seem to be displaying. Part 4 jumps from there into the problem of actually using old data (or even recent data from someone else's lab enviroment). A separate but relevant article, How Science Funding is Putting Scientific Data at Risk, examines who is expected (or expects not) to pay for indefinite data curation. -
Albatross at 05:49 AM on 16 July 2012Extreme heat becoming more likely under climate change
These inconvenient facts and troubling findings probably explain why the fake skeptics and those in denial about the theory of AGW are in full damage control and spin mode. Denial is clearly very powerful, it is unfortunate that we humans are oftentimes so good at encouraging and reinforcing it. Alas, ultimately it means that we all potentially suffer, especially future generations. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:46 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
Carrick Your evasive reply is a great example of the problem with the climate debate. You completely ignored the substantive point of my post (that much of the data requested was not actually owned by CRU and they only had access to it on terms that did not allow distribution - just like their access to MATLAB - the topic you brought up), and chose to discuss the funding issue instead. Sadly I noticed the evasion. As to the finance issue, I wasn't talking in that paragraph about FOIs, I was talking about making code and data available as an ongoing activity (as some other posters were suggesting). That does have a cost, and it isn't trivial. Now, are you going to asnwer my original point? -
Doug Bostrom at 05:05 AM on 16 July 2012AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
Nice. Meta-science seems to be fixed on the menu so may as well prepare the dish properly, within the context of the scientific community. -
Albatross at 04:57 AM on 16 July 2012What is the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund?
For those here (and elsewhere) who insist on defending Mr. McIntyre's repeated harassment and intimidation of certain scientists.
[Mr. McIntyre]
Surely if you have been paying attention to this sorry saga you would know in your heart of hearts that it is an establish fact, a truth, on the public record even that Mr. McIntyre is in the unfortunate habit of frequently promulgating misinformation and much worse too. It is not even a matter that is up for debate anymore. That Mr. McIntyre seems to believe in his letter to Dr. Karoly that he has never "promulgated misinformation" demonstrates that he is either being incredibly disingenuous or is out of touch with reality and needs to re-read everything he has written. I'll provide a few examples, there are many more:
1) Mr. McIntyre has said that:
"However, as CA readers know, the resulting Yamal chronology with its enormous HS blade was like crack cocaine for paleoclimatologists"
As DeepClimate shows, this accusation/insinuation is not only inflammatory, but it is also simply not true, and as such Mr. McIntyre is promulgating misinformation. Dr. Karoly is correct and has nothing to apologize for. There are many paleo reconstructions out there that do not use dendro data, never mind the much contested Yamal data. RealClimate also addressed McIntyre's misinformation on this issue.
2) McIntyre also repeatedly accuses pale climate scientists of "cherry picking" (ironic given how his code identified only those chronologies that have hockey-shapes to falsely claim that Mann's method produced a hockey stick even when fed persistent red noise).
3) Mr. McIntyre has also misrepresented facts about Dr. Trenberth. DeepClimate exposes Mr. McIntyre's distortion of facts and misinformation here.
4) Mr. McIntyre made false accusations about one of the figures in the Third IPCC assessment report-- that is, misinformation. Again, exposed by DeepClimate.
5) Here is an example of Mr. McIntyre being exposed for misleading readers in the Mail on Sunday.
6) Here is Mr. McIntyre exposed for promulgating misinformation and false claims to none other than the UK parliamentary committee investigating the theft of emails from UEA. Mr. McIntyre misinforming a parliamentary committee...!
7) Here is Mr. McIntyre exposed for cherry picking and quote mining text from the stolen emails to fit his narrative. That is misinformation on the part of Mr. McIntyre.
8) Here Mr. McIntyre is exposed for promulgating misinformation about Dr. Briffa's work and using it to (wrongly) insinuate fraud and misconduct.
9) McIntyre exposed for spreading yet more misinformation about Dr. Briffa, misinformation that was happily gobbled up by some denier pundits in the media.
10) "Here is Mr. McIntyre being exposed for falsely claiming that he had not been provided data and that pale scientists were withholding data from him, when in fact he had been in possession of the data for almost 5 years!
There is much more of course, for example Mr. McIntyre being exposed for quote mining-- the net result being misinformation, by Deltoid
Now Mr. McIntyre and his defenders of can choose to ignore such inconvenient facts, but that will not disappear them. As I show din my posts above, Dr. Karoly has nothing to apologize for, Mr. McIntyre does, and a lot too. If anything this whole saga shows Mr. McIntyre to either be incredibly disingenuous or completely out of touch with reality.
As for the Gergis affair, even McIntyre himself advised his readers noted that the problem/s with the Gergis paper may not be of much consequence, or something to that effect. So once again, we have what is probably an inconsequential error that will not dramatically alter the paper's primary conclusions being elevated and spun as something much worse by "skeptics" and those who deny the theory of AGW.
But that has not stopped McIntyre from trying to squeeze something to his benefit out of the Gergis issue. It is actions, such as this letter by Mr. McIntyre to Dr. Karoly, that have forced the formation of the climate defense fund. Ludicrous as this is, it is sadly the truth.
Moderator Response: [DB] Resized picture.
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