Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Jan 18, 2012 FOI Quotes Royal Society I am all for making things available but, at the same time, I shall mention something which is perhaps tactless-if not even politically incorrect-which is that the Freedom of Information Act has, as many of your Lordships will know, been used as a weapon of harassment in some circumstances. The climate change community in general, and the community at the University of East Anglia in particular, have not only been subject to criminal invasion of their databases, carefully timed for particular events, but are continually bombarded with very elaborate requests for information that go well beyond the sharing of basic data, so we have to be careful in how we draft this.
Lord May of Oxford seems to oppose attempts to replicate climate scientists' work
Reader Comments (35)
Methinks the good Lord do protest too much!
It seems that the good Baron is misinformed.
So who is there who will take him by the hand and explain some of the facts of life to him?
Lord Lawson, perhaps?
Certainly if this sort of misleading information is allowed to go unchallenged — and I mean unchallenged by someone to whom May might reasonably be expected to listen — then we might as well pack up and go home, taking what is left of the Freedom of Information Act with us. (We can always drop it in a skip on the way).
And this has nothing to do with the science per se and everything to do with a small clique of lazy toerags in one university who cannot keep proper records and (for all we know) have been stringing together any old data they can find on the assumption that no-one is going to find out.*
If the FoIA has been used to harrass anybody it is only because they asked for it with their pointless and illegal prevarications aimed at ensuring that people with a genuine interest in the scientific method never got a close look at what they were doing.
*And it may also be that their research is worthwhile, their data accurate and their conclusions correct.
But we don't bloody know, do we, Lord May, because they won't bloody well tell us.
Are you surprised that we use FoI to find out and get shirty when they start playing their silly games?
Wake up!
Expert in 'theoretical ecology'. Sums him up to a tee, forget about fieldwork or labwork, just think it up.
If UEA/CRU had coherent policies in place for data management, it would never have got themselves in this mess.
They brought this debacle upon themselves and only have themselves to blame.
As always, the cover-up causes more problems...
Their Lordships should be aware of all the facts before pontificating.
FOIAs from 2005 to January 2009 for CRU:
2005 - 0
2006 - 0
2007 - 4
2008 - 2
2009 - 97
Of the 97 in 2009 59 were from Climate Audit readers trying to ascertain which AMS' had contractual agreements with the CRU that prevented them, the CRU, from passing the data onto others. 15 were before the Climategate 1 revelations and the remainder took place after climategate.
They're telling lies, and Lord May knows it, or he's incompetent.
Aussie science bigwig emeritus Lord May seems to be self evidently still expert in at least one thing - conflation.
I wonder if his academic output is littered with similar irrational leaps of logic and self evident bias? I see he fancies himself as an expert on banking too....
There seems no end to his talents or the collection of gongs he's acquired.
Given the pretty exhaustive array of climate change interests he's signed up to - hardly surprising that he's lashing out and feels threatened by lesser mortals who've the temerity to ask a few relevant questions that he is uncomfortable giving the answers to.
BH:
"Lord May of Oxford seems to oppose attempts to replicate climate scientists' work."
Was it ever otherwise with the true believers?
TomO;
Gong-collector just about sums him up. He did a great job in helping to dumb-down and de-professionalize the Civil Service
Seems to tick the ususal boxes:
Register of Interests
1: Directorships
Non-executive Director, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Board (DSTL)
2: Remunerated employment, office, profession etc.
Member, Corporate Sustainability Board HSBC (previously Corporate Social Responsibility Committee)
Member, International Advisory Board, Sustainable Consumption Institute, Manchester University
Member, UK Climate Change Committee
Does anyone have contact details for Lord May so that his error can be pointed out to him? I think he should be made aware of the facts, as detailed by geronimo above. One would like to think that he is not too set in his ways to realise that the UEA have been running a deliberate disinformation campaign.
'theoretical ecology' indeed. He is not above using any hypocritical means possible to pursue his policies:
"Although an atheist since age 11, May has stated that religion may help society deal with climate change. While referring to what he believes to be a rigid structure of fundamentalist religion, he stated that the co-operational aspects of non-fundamentalist religion may in fact help with climate change. When asked if religious leaders should be doing more to persuade people to combat climate change, he stated that it was absolutely necessary."
Dave S
FWIW
HoL contact no. here
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/robert-may/26570
KevinUK
Is it still illegal to wilfully mislead Parliament?
All,
Don't you love Google? I was just googling 'Lord May' and came across this link.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=406609
Now its an old link but after finding it I can't help but ask the question
"Does Michael Mann have a big d**k? It appears that Lord May seems to think he does!"
KevinUK
And we know that Robert May can show no detailed case study to show this "elaborateness" of requesting tactic, he is just using innuendo with parliamentary priviliges.
At the end of the day this guy is a lawmaker with his own policy agenda he wants to push through with as little difficulty as possible and he is using his position to casually cast aspersion with no evidence. Imagine an MP saying "I'm all for accounting for my expenses but I shall mention something which is perhaps tactless-if not even politically incorrect-which is some people who don't trust me might want to check them too"
Dave S,
Email address and PA contact details here
http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/staff/academics/may_r.htm
KevinUK
Didn't the science select committe also state that CRU hadn't received an over the top number of foo requests? ABD didn't they (or Stringer) Aldo state they were their own worst enemies because a lot of the requests were generated because CRU wouldn't share it's data with Steve McIntyre?
Regards
Mailman
Foo = FOI
ABD = And
:)
seriously guys....how do we combat this BS?
I wish to tug my forelock towards such a great Lord of the Realm and direct his attention to this paper:
http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/unskilledandunaware.pdf
and hope that his Lordship will accept it in the spirit in which it is offered.
Shall I be tactful and ask any scientist reading this to comment on Lord May's almost 'total distortion of the facts/truth' and whether it bothers them...
Or should I just be honest, and perhaps upset some people.. and ask them what I consider to be his 'lies'
OT:
More from the Department of Misleading Blather:
"Tougher 30% emissions cut would be cheaper than expected: report
Chris Huhne's support for higher 30% emissions cut target gets boost as European Commission analysis concludes it would actually save money over a smaller cut"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/18/30-percent-emissions-cut-cheaper
Perhaps somebody should point out to Lord May the following Information Commission decisions regarding complaints about UEA:
Complaint FER0280033 Upheld
Complaint FS50171494 Upheld
Complaint FER0238017 Upheld
Complaint FER0282488 Upheld
Every complaint made against the UEA that has gone to a decision has been upheld
As a comparison, the five complaints made against Norfolk Police that have gone to a decision have not been upheld.
diogenes
"seriously guys....how do we combat this BS?"
To do that we would need to gain the attention of the Members of the Upper Chamber of the Mother of all Parliaments and that would require the mother of all séances.
4 links and I didn't get asked for a captcha.
Mind you it did come back with an error and resending resulted in 4 copies being posted.
Sounds like retrodiction to me.
"The climate change community" - priceless.
If I might emulate TerryS:-
Lord May is either a fraud or an egregious nincompoop.
Lord May is either a fraud or an egregious nincompoop.
Lord May is either a fraud or an egregious nincompoop.
Lord May is either a fraud or an egregious nincompoop.
"that go well beyond the sharing of basic data"
It's quite the opposite Lord May. I find it disturbing that as an active participant in this legislation you are so badly informed.
The only consolation I take from your words is that your apparent motivation to speak was born from a desire to produce carefully drafted and appropriate legislation. This is admirable and necessary - please take the time and trouble to get yourself properly up to speed on the issues and then reengage with the the legislative process.
Read the decisions Terry S links above. If you need a further quick point of orientation, ask if all the most simple basic data of unadjusted global temperature records are shared in the public domain. If they are not in the public domain, ask where they are and ask how can they be obtained.
If you are not prepared to do this I respectfully request you remain silent on matters beyond your knowledge. You claim this phrase as yours: "No more closed rooms. Everything open. We want to see it published". Please stand by it or sit down.
This needed to be read again. Actually, the post ought to be updated with this 'insignificant' factoid.
I just googled Lord May (yup, he was an Aussie), and the Wiki (thank gods it's back on) has a photo of him seemingly being assisted away from the microphone.
Bring back the Hereditaries! These crony-placemen day-boys don't have the common sense which the old brigade had, AND the Hereditaries had no axes to grind.
No one does smugness, complacency and ignorance like a Labour peer.
Lord May said:
[Climate scientists] "are continually bombarded with very elaborate requests for information that go well beyond the sharing of basic data ..."
Presumably Lord May has absolutely nothing against the sharing of basic data. Therefore he should condemn anyone who intentionally puts obstacles in the way of making the basic data universally accessible.
From Wiki
"Although an atheist since age 11, May has stated that religion may help society deal with climate change. While referring to what he believes to be a rigid structure of fundamentalist religion, he stated that the co-operational aspects of non-fundamentalist religion may in fact help with climate change. When asked if religious leaders should be doing more to persuade people to combat climate change, he stated that it was absolutely necessary"
A compromised atheist ............. fundamentally
What May has yet to grasp, is that the process by which conclusions are arrived at is at least as important as the conclusions themselves. We cannot assess the science without also asessing the process. And in climate science, the process is far from transparent.
So, to make an honest science of climatology, we absolutely need information on the process. We not only need to know what they are telling us, we need to know what (if anything) they are deliberately not tellng us.