Bishop Hill Pathological mendacity
Feb 6, 2012 Climate: CRU A few months back, Steve McIntyre said something that stuck in my memory:
Never under-estimate the capacity for institutional mendacity.
Today he writes in similar vein about the extraordinary range of mutually inconsistent stories put forward by the University of East Anglia in its various pronouncements on the availability of the CRU emails. Institutional mendacity indeed.
The story of Climategate is one of repeated - nay, continuous - mendacity and deceit, but I don't think we should fool ourselves that this is a problem that is restricted to CRU or to climatology or to science. I was struck by this story, in which MPs on the Public Accounts Select Committee decided that they would ask a civil servant at the Revenue (HMRC) to give evidence on oath - a very rare event if the article is to be believed. This has apparently caused outrage among senior civil servants.
During the inquiry, HMRC lawyer Anthony Inglese was the subject of an unusual exchange when the committee called for a Bible to be brought in for him to swear on – a rare but critical moment in establishing the truth of what had happened in a tax deal he described as perhaps "unconscionable". This seems to have been the cause of the angry letter from O'Donnell to Hodge, and a wider campaign against the committee now being waged.
O'Donnell accused the PAC of being "a theatrical exercise in public humiliation" and argued that civil servants were not accountable to parliament, but only to ministers. This goes back to Whitehall conventions, most recently asserted by one of O'Donnell's predecessors, Lord Armstrong. The PAC, because it investigates how public money is spent, rather than policy issues – which clearly are for ministers – has always been an exception. O'Donnell argues that this only affects the person at the top, the "accounting officer", not advisers such as Inglese. The committee wonders, in that case, how they are possibly supposed to get to the bottom of failures in an organisation like HMRC.
Given that senior civil servants seem to have no qualms about lying to Parliament or to anyone else, I think it is high time that they were forced to give evidence on oath in this way. As we have seen, the Science and Technology COmmittee inquiries were a sham, in which people on the public payroll consistently misled MPs and we were left with the farcical situation in which everybody - MPs, civil servants and the public - knew that lies had been told and the truth covered up, but nobody who was in a position to do anything about it was willing to do anything about it. Perhaps if Acton and Russell and Oxburgh and Jones had been speaking on oath we would have reached a different outcome. And as we know from Don Keiller's Information Tribunal hearing, UEA are very, very keen that Jones should say nothing on oath.
Reader Comments (85)
"And as we know from Don Keiller's Information Tribunal hearing, UEA are very, very keen that Jones should say nothing on oath."
I hold no brief for Prof Jones as a scientist or as a human being nor do I have anything but contempt for a lot of the antics of the UEA but that, I think, is an assumption too far.
"As we might reasonably infer....." perhaps?
I wonder how such people sleep at night?
How do they deal with other areas of their lives?
Robin (NZ)
Civil servants are servants and are supposed to serve the people. They are paid by taxpayers to be honest.
At public inquiries, where witnesses are not under oath, lying by professional witnesses is commonplace. I wonder how many of them would continue to lie, even under oath.
Checks and balances which don't work, summarises many english institutional arrangements. in this case, the civil servant is employed by and is responsible to his department. Does he, apart from as a moral being, have any particular obligation to tell the truth, fully answer the PAC's questions if that would put his organisation in a bad light? In doing that, might he not be in a career-truncation situation? Might he not regard the PAC and any other 'oversight' body as a bunch of busybodies who know nothing abouty the realities of the department's situation, what its trying to achieve in the face of countless constraints? What would be the point in trying to engage in any meaningful conversation with a bunch of ignorant nitwits? And of course, for all the 'authority' of Parliament, technically this bloke could have walked out, told them to take a jump. Which Ms Hodge might well have been aware of. Surely no-one would dare suggest that this highly paid friend of the little people (highly paid with the money of the little people themselves, God bless 'em) would do such a thing as grandstanding?
Did someone mention the capacity for institutional mendacity?
Which brings us to the EU, and Carbon Connie's fine work. Some days I really like China.
"BEIJING - China's airlines are not allowed to pay a charge on carbon emissions imposed by the Europe Union (EU), and neither to hike freights nor to add other fees accordingly without government permission, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said Monday...
The statement said the EU's decision to charge flights into and out of EU airports for carbon emission "runs contrary to relevant principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the international civil aviation regulations.""
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-02/06/content_14543325.htm
All that scheming just hit the wall.
McIntyre continues to shine a light on to areas that others would prefer him not to. No wonder the left considers him the anti-Christ :)
Regards
Mailman
I passed my driving test in 1957.
When I went to insure my first vehicle, shortly therafter, I was told that in the event of an accident, I must not under any circumastances, admit liability. (even if it was obviously my falt). From that point on, the world changed for me and it has been downhill ever since.
Very little surprises me these days.
Sad.
even my spelling mistakes..........circumstances
pesadia - I agree about everything going downhill but I think you can be forgiven for the typo.
who would have guessed - thanks to the EU's climate policies, China has now become one of the last bastions to freedom...
As for the UEA, nothing I can think about it is printable without me getting into trouble. Perhaps I'll organize a little demo outside of their London offices...
This comment is specifically addressed to Richard Betts and Tamsin Edwards:
Read the piece at CA, this explains why my (and I suspect many other scientists) default position in reading any work by climate scientists is one of distrust.
Out in the fens there is a den
With a hint of some iniquity
The saving grace for the human race
Is that incompetence there has ubiquity
But not sufficient to be deficient
In scheming and manoeuvres
But chinks of light and bits of right
Are getting through their louvres
That noble sire, good McIntyre
Has found some odd pretences
His eagle eye does not go by
Without piercing their defences
For the actualité will see the day
When it shall clearly be presented
Without the skin of mandarin spin
That fog so foolishly fomented
I am ignorant: can anyone enlighten me.
If someone lies to the PAC (or other Select Committees of the House) are they breaking the Law (and if so, which one) if:
They are under oath
They are not under oath.
Also, is there any penalty under Civil Service rules of conduct? (Are there any such rules openly available to the public, their paymasters?)
In my (IT) professional life I spent some time as an auditor. We would often ask the type of question that Graham Stringer asked of Sir Muir Russell - along the lines of 'Do you have documentation for that?'
An answer in the affirmative was always followed by the instruction: 'Show me.' No chance of ambiguity then.
In light of this new information , is it possible for the S & T committee to haul Acton & co back in?
It is widely understood by people who are 'in the know', that most of our institutions bear allegiance to a higher authority than the British Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, make no mistake about it. Most, if not all of our top civil servants 'the great panjandrums' owe their allegiance [probably forswearing loyalty to Britain] to their over-masters in Brussels.
Parliament, it has no power, we are no longer a sovereign and independent nation, civil servants 'get it' so should we. We are now, a provincial area within the EU and run by the faceless, unaccountable Kommissars residing in the Brussels 'politburo'. And, the green energy agenda will be enforced, thus, the UEA CRU is unimpeachable. Here endeth the first lesson.
In my analysis of the climate models, I have now found the most basic error., the claim [Trenberth and Kiehl 1997] of 390 W/m^2 average IR radiation emitted by the Earth's surface.
This could only happen in a vacuum: for an emissivity typical of land surfaces, radiation only exceeds convection at >~120°C. [As a process engineer, I know this very well].
The IPCC's 4 other mistakes are ways of correcting the most appalling basic mistake and of them 2 are elementary failures no professional would have made. The subject needs new leadership and the undergraduate courses redesigned to teach correct science.
Alan, I think those called before PAC are not under oath, and it was the attempt of the PAC to put this bloke on oath that caused the uproar. Whether 'witnesses' should be on oath is another matter. Clearly the Civil Service view is that a departmental employee should not be put in the position of having to drop his department (his employer) in the shit. And of course there is the view that servants, even civil ones, are not there to have their bottoms kicked in public. It is the Minister who is responsible to Parliament for the Department he heads, not the civil servants. The most cynical interpretation of events of this sort is that the politician is letting the servant take the kicking for him. Which, given the standards of honour and integrity among our 'professional' politicians, seems not wholly impossible. The other side of the argument I suppose is how can a minister seriously be responsible for all the activities and attitudes of a huge organisation, many thousand strong, so if Parliament really wants to know about operational nitty-gritty, it must quizz the staff. But the staff are duty bound to be loyal to their employer, the Department, not to Parliament in the form of a grand-standing committee. Which perhaps leads to the position that all oversight and enquiries of various sorts are fundamentally pointless. Who'd have thought it?
Feb 6, 2012 at 9:28 AM | pesadia
Insurance companies don't want us to admit liability but that doesn't mean we should lie. Just don't admit liability! I would say something on the lines of, "That's up to the insurance companies to decide" or something similar. You might (I'm not a lawyer!) invalidate your insurance if you accept liability. May also depend on how much the company wants your repeat business!
Further to Feb 6, 2012 at 11:21 AM | Alan Bates
Presumably the same path is available to Civil Servants although I assume they would not take it because it then becomes obvious that they don't want to answer. With appropriate questioning this can become obvious anyway.
Clearly we will never be granted a full public Inquiry on anything to do with CAGW. The risk of having to give evidence under oath is far too risky. What a shabby state we are in.
Global warming is real, is happening now and is the result of human activities. The number of Category 4
and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Glaciers are melting faster; the polar ice caps are
shrinking; trees are blooming earlier; oceans are becoming more acidic, threatening marine life; people are
dying in heat waves; species are migrating, and eventually many will become extinct. Scientists predict that
absent major emission reductions, climate change will worsen famine and drought in some of the poorest
places in the world and wreak havoc across the globe. In the U.S., sea-level rise threatens to cause massive
economic and ecological damage to our populated coastal areas.
Source:
Barackobama.com,
http://obama.3cdn.net/4465b108758abf7a42_a3jmvyfa5.pdf
Can this be true ?
Bish here's another memorable phrase for you:- "obvious statistical absurdities and inherent mendacity".
It's from Stephen Budansky and is about another aspect of acedeme deceit.
Read more: http://budiansky.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-news-root-of-all-evil.html#ixzz1lbUNjRZu
Paul
For information, I just posted this (see below) at "Climateaudit". The ICO and UEA must not be allowed to get away with this.
Steve, this rejection of your request by the ICO, is an absurdity and must be appealed.
My case clearly demonstrated that emails "deleted" from CRU's staff computers, prior to "Climategate1", were, in all probability, retained on the backup server, both physically and for the purposes of the EIR Act.
It would appear that both UEA and the ICO are in flagrant disregard of this Decision.
They are also clearly in possession of the emails, either as descibed above or as described below.
Here I quote from the Science and Technology Committee meeting on 27 October 2010 (Oral Evidence EV13 and 14)
However, Mr Colam-French, himself, in the 18 December meeting is recorded as giving a very important item of evidence to the Commissioner which should have immediately raised serious concerns as to what was going on at CRU with respect to information requests. Mr Colam-French is reported to have said among other things,
"Working data, emails, more transitory working information – may be stored in other locations. For example Keith Briffa took home emails that were subject to FOI to ensure their safekeeping."
So here we have it "Delete" has a special meaning for CRU. It means transfer to other storage media (pen drives), deleting them from their personal PC, then taking the pen drives home.
This means they can say we "didn't delete the emails", yet still conceal them from FOI/EIR requests.
There is a whole string of emails showing this practice:
16th January 2004 Mike this is for YOURS EYES ONLY. Delete after reading - please ! PLEASE DELETE - just for you, not even Ray and Malcolm
2nd. February, 2005: ―. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone.
9th May 2008 You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but
this is the person who is putting in FOI requests for all emails Keith and Tim have written and received re Ch 6 of AR4. This message will self destruct in 10 seconds!
29th. May 2008 Mike Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene [Wahl] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise.
4th June 2008 John Mitchell did respond to a request. John had conveniently lost many emails, but he did reply with a few. Keith and Tim have moved all their emails from all the named people off their PCs and they are all on a memory stick.
25th Sep 25 2008 I’ve called Jo to say I’m happy with their response I’ll also delete this email after I’ve sent it. We’ve had a request for all our internal UEA emails that have any bearing on the subject, so apologies for brevity.
3rd December 2008 When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. I am supposed to go through my emails and he can get anything I’ve written about him. About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little — if anything at all.
3rd December 2008 With the earlier FOI requests, I wasted a part of a day deleting numerous emails and exchanges with almost all the skeptics. So I have virtually nothing. I even deleted the email that I inadvertently sent.
12th May 2009 One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember to do it.
12th Sep 2009 I’ve saved emails at CRU and then deleted them from the server. Now I’m at home I just have some hard copies
Here we have incontrovertible evidence that not only did Professor Jones advocate deleting emails, post 2005, that he knew would be subject to FOIA/RIR requests, but he deleted emails from his own PC, after I note saving them for his own future use, but also attempted to delete emails from the server. Fortunately he could not remove them from the backup server.
Finally, as we all know the Muir Russell Enquiry requested emails from the backup server.
See this email
From: XXXXXXXXX
Sent: 08 April 2010 08:59
To: XXXXXXXXX
Cc: ; ALASTAIRMUIR RUSSELL
Subject: FW: Action from this morning
Importance: High
As I outlined in my initial response below I think that our Review will need
to simplify our requirements in order to achieve a more manageable timeframe
and cost. Could you please put some supplementary questions to Qinetiq as
detailed below?
1. Could Qinetiq please quote costs and timescale just to extract the
e-mails from the backups of four specific machines - those of Prof. Phillip
Jones, Prof. Keith Briffa, Dr. Tim Osborn and Dr. Mike Hulme?
2. Does CRUBACK3 contain any backup of a central e-mail server (such as an
Exchange Server)? If it does, could Qinetiq please quote costs and
timescale to extract all the e-mails just from that backup?
I have an invoice for £10469.25, addressed to UEA for this service.
I also have an email which states explicitly that the UEA VC (Acton) "owns" this information in terms of the Data Protection Act.
So, there we have it UEA does "possess" the emails, either
1) On the backup server (currently in possession of the Police)
2) On pen drives taken by CRU staff offsite
3) Bought and paid for.
How can they possibly deny this?
Feb 6, 2012 at 10:17 AM | Arthur Dent
Yes, I've read it. It's been clear to me for a while that the field of climate science has a lot of work to do in regaining trust from people such as yourself.
The reason for not admitting liability for a motor accident is that a driver may not know who is liable. The classic case is a driver who stops suddenly and is hit by a car from behind. The driver may believe that this is the cause of the accident and admit liability but in reality the car behind may have been travelling too fast or too close.
Like Jack Savage I hold no brief for Jones but I believe that requiring witnesses to take the oath should be used sparingly and in an appropriate context. In a Court of Law there is a judge on hand to prevent questions such as “Professor Jones, have you stopped breaching the Freedom of Information Act - Yes or No?”
As small point. The copyright statement below still says "(c) 2006-2010".
All of this is quite extraordinary and depressing since one should tell the truth irrespective of whether one is or is not on oath.
Richard Betts: very carefully and professionally phrased..
(Ie we do not know if you agree with the reasoning or not)
Do you accept the reasoning why, or think Mcintyre is incorrect....
Or your own thoughts (do not wnat to force it into a Yes/NO issue Mcintyre right/wrong)
Sadly, many people here may not understand why you are being professionally diplomatic, and may think your reply is also part of the problem.
I do think scienctist do need to throw some scientists and behaviour of some public institutions (publically) under the proverbial academic bus, to prevent further damage to the reputation of science.
Sorry, being a bit tough minded today, fed up with the 'dance'
"The dance" - I like that Barry. I can see Peter Gleick as the Lord of the Dance, leading everyone astray.
Richard Betts: 10.17 AM: You can't restore trust is a scientific subject that has made 5 glaring scientific errors, three elementary, two more subtle.
The modelling which predicts 3-6 times real present warming [assuming it is mostly GHG-AGW, not correct] is offset by double real low level cloud optical depth and a variable net AIE, 3-6 times experimental values when those data have been also mangled by the incorrect optical physics. The real net AIE is of the opposite sign once you correct the physics and explains much palaeo and present warming, solar effects being the other part.
You couldn't find a worse example of s shared scientific delusion: the GCMs are fine but the IR, heat transfer and cloud cooling physics put in by 'climate science' is plain wrong.
Richard Betts says: "It's been clear to me for a while that the field of climate science has a lot of work to do in regaining trust from people such as yourself."
So you've had a while to think about it - so I wonder what you think the work is that needs doing?
Better communication?
Less communication?
More truthful communication?
Or a greater willingness to stand up and be counted by dissassociating oneself from statements and actions that bring science and academics into disrepute?
I personally don't think any of the first three will have any effect on their own unless they are combined with the fourth. But I don't see any evidence of the fourth happening.
I do think scienctist do need to throw some scientists and behaviour of some public institutions (publically) under the proverbial academic bus, to prevent further damage to the reputation of science.
Although I agree with Barry, the number and seniority of scientists that are implicated in this type of activity is so wide that it requires heroic demands of any individual to stand up to them. They are a very powerful community who have alredy demonstrated their capability. I don't think either Richard or Tamsin are contaminated by this stain on the scientific community but nor do I wish to see them to paint themselves into a corner.
Richard, with respect, it's not just fellow scientists like Arthur you need to regain trust with - it's the substantial majority of your fellow citizens who exist outside the "climatology" bubble.
That "kumbaya" approach to "climatology" not working out too well Barry?
;-)
Would Tamsin and Richard sign this now.. knowing more about the climategate emails than they possibly could less than 3 weeks after the event?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2009/science-community-statement
ie see my hide the decline comment here: (ie Gleick find me offensibe, even speaking about it)
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/2/5/climate-authorities.html?currentPage=2#comments
And I also have a VERY good friend on that list as well and no I haven't been brave enough to ask them.
Yet six months after they signed the statement, they had NOT read any of the emails (this friend has over a hundredmetions, in the climategate emails)
But I am getting increasingly fed up with the dancing around the issue.
If this was in business, the debate would be much much more robust - plus consequences.
The Australian Parliament has the power to find any person in contempt of Parliament, for which they may be fined and/or imprisoned. The sorts of offences that could attract this sanction are typically refusing to appear before the Parliament (including Committees) when asked, and deliberately misleading Parliament.
I understand that the UK Parliament has similar powers, including the power to require a person to give evidence under oath.
These powers are seldom exercised, but they certainly exist.
I had misunderstood Richard Betts' words at first so it's been a good thing I didn't comment earlier.
I can only offer praise now, and really I don't think we can get any more out of him, unless we really think it necessary to increase the number of unemployed by one.
Let me brutal. I come from Calabria in Southern Italy, and Calabria has a huge mafia problem. When people talk about that I don't think about spinning stories in a way that could make Calabria's image better: all I can think is that Calabria has a lot of work to do in regaining trust from people all over the world.
If Richard or anybody else needs a hand to fight the climate mafia, I'm here to help.
[off topic]
Barry Woods
Barry, a better adjective is "clintonesque"
I have long thought we should drop all references to "civil servants". These people are simply pursuing careers in government, like ordinary people pursue careers in business. They are not servants of the people...rather individuals who try to maximize their personal careers. If that requires lying...hey, why not? Most of them are protected by the dominant party; unless an election changes things.
I suggest we use "government employees", which is accurate and does not infer any holy aspect to such employment.
I've been feeling a bit guilty about deriding the attempts by Barry and others to establish a constructive dialogue with climate scientists who are amenable to this, like Richard and Tamsin.
I've spent a bit of time looking at the Met Office site, Bristol University climate science web pages, including the page covering Tamsin's work, and the sites of her collaborators at UKCIP and their parent organisation ECI Oxford. I got the same feeling that I get whenever I start following links about the practice of climate science – it's surely the only branch of science that comes with its own integrated belief system. To be fair to Tamsin, the Bristol pages are among the most scientific and open minded but practically every page on the Met Office, UKCIP and ECI websites screams activism and confirmation bias in every other paragraph. Richard's job title as “Head of Climate Impacts” tells the whole story in itself. I just don't see how any individual can express serious doubts in such a committed environment. It would be like a junior prelate coming down to breakfast in the Vatican and saying to the assembled Cardinals - “You know, I've been thinking about this whole God business......................”.
Just to see if the “scientific method” is still alive and well in other disciplines, I had a look at the CERN website, describing their search for the Higgs Boson:-
....This idea provided a satisfactory solution and fitted well with established theories and phenomena. The problem is that no one has ever observed the Higgs boson in an experiment to confirm the theory. Finding this particle would give an insight into why particles have certain mass, and help to develop subsequent physics. The technical problem is that we do not know the mass of the Higgs boson itself, which makes it more difficult to identify. Physicists have to look for it by systematically searching a range of mass within which it is predicted to exist. The yet unexplored range is accessible using the Large Hadron Collider, which will determine the existence of the Higgs boson. If it turns out that we cannot find it, this will leave the field wide open for physicists to develop a completely new theory to explain the origin of particle mass.
I have a feeling that, if the IPCC had been in charge of the project, it might have read like this:-
A committee of the world's most eminent scientists has investigated the evidence for the Higgs boson and, since it fits perfectly with current theory and observations, determined that it's existence is beyond doubt. The current experiment will seek to improve our knowledge about the particle by establishing it's exact mass within a predicted range. In the event that we are unable to find the exact mass of the particle by this method we will obviously have to design even more complex and expensive experiments to achieve this. Inability to determine the mass of the Higgs boson will not, of course, cast any doubt on its existence which has been determined beyond doubt and accepted by 97% of physicists working in the field.
All this has reinforced my belief that any change in this whole debacle will have to be political and top down - and not through currently practicing scientists.
FRom "Climateaudit" UEA’s (disingenuous) response to the Commissioner’s question was:
“In his testimony in front of the Select Committee, the Vice-Chancellor was merely stating that no emails had been deleted as a result of, or subsequent to, an email form Prof. P. Jones of 28 May 2008 that suggested such an action. The documents at the heart of this present request, and the emails to which they were attached, all date from 2006. It is highly likely, even good records management practice, that such emails and attachments would have been deleted in the normal course of business between 2006 and 2008, well in advance of any request for either the emails or the attached documents.
The Vice-Chancellor was not aware of this request, or these documents, when he made his comments before the Select Committee, nor were his comments directed at these documents. The question and the answer pertained to an entirely different set of documents within a different time frame.”
So, apparently, these “documents” (emails) “pertained to an entirely different set of documents within a different time frame”.
Really?
A quick search of the “Climategate” email releases show that stored emails date back to at least 1996 and up until late 2009.
How by any stretch of the imagination are emails, sent in 2004, in a “different time frame” to other emails, stored on the backup server, which we now know “holds” emails for the purpose of the EIR/FOI Acts?
Here is the relevant statement from the Information Tribunal in my recent case.
“We concluded that the particular email described at 16(1)
above was probably stored on the CRU’s back-up server and probably
contained information of the nature sought by Dr Keiller. We also
concluded that the email being stored in such circumstances was ‘held’ by
the UEA for the purposes of the relevant legislation.”
If the email I asked for is “held”, then so are those asked for by Steve McIntyre. There is no “wriggle room” here.
The ICO's decision is a disgrace and one must now question their competence.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2009/science-community-statement
The above page should be copied, before the revisionists in the climate mafia deny that it ever existed.
Hey, its not personal just business.
I rather like the disclaimer at the bottom:
"This statement constitutes the personal views of the signatories only"
Actually, that statement is just as interesting for some of the eminent names omitted from the list...
Foxgoose:
I disagree in the same way that I disagree with the IPCC when it says that the main cause of the warming since 1970 is man's greenhouse gas emissions. I don't know what the causes (plural) of the warming are. It's a system exhibiting spatiotemporal chaos, for goodness sake. I don't for a moment buy the Harry Dale Huffman line either. I don't believe we know, in fact I don't think we have a clue, based on the evidence we have so far. The missing heat in the oceans is a travesty, as the man said, and much else besides.
Likewise 'any change in this whole debacle'. I don't know what will crack it,. What I am sure of is that it won't be monocausal. Richard Betts talking to sceptics in a polite tone may not be seen as the main cause of radical change but future historians but I'd never rule it out. Steve Hilton saying he doesn't believe in climate change recently may also be a significant pointer. But in this case, unlike the warming one, where we can't do anything about CO2 emissions anyway, given China and India, we should all speak and act as if our contribution really matters. Because one day, I believe, we will see that it did. But that will after the historians no longer see in a glass darkly and faith, hope and love are revealed as the only things that really endure.
I wish I shared your faith in the essential goodness of humanity Richard.
But I'd be happy to be pleasantly surprised.
[Off topic]
Feb 6, 2012 at 3:27 PM | Anoneumouse:
I read the statement in your link. It is interesting that there are 16 Jones on the list, but not Dr Phil Jones. However, I do think that the following from the statement must have made our Phil choke and probably meant he couldn't sign it, in all conscience (my bold):