The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is very important. (acts I should say since there are different ones in different countries) It’s one of the few powers journalists and the people have to find out the truth when it is being deliberately hidden from them. Further it allows us to go back and gain a historical understanding of what happened in the past.
I am hugely in favor of the FOIA and would like to see it expanded. But like any power granted to the people, even the FOIA can also be abused and used to mislead and deceive rather than bring out the truth.
With regards to Climate Change it’s unclear which role the FOIA is serving. There is reason to suspect inappropriate behavior surrounding the FOIA requests leveled against two institutions at the heart of the climate change debate: NASA Goddard and CRU. We need to analyze what has been happening surrounding these requests and do appropriate investigations where necessary. But most importantly, we need know whether any of these behaviors cast any real doubt on whether or why Global Warming is happening.
First off here are two stories that present these FOIA questions.
“Climate Gate” Development: CEI Files Notice of Intent to Sue NASA
Researcher: NASA hiding climate data
Note the tone of these articles. The authors could hardly be more blatant. They assert with all extreme confidence that this hiding on the part of NASA is part of a deliberate conspiracy to deceive everyone on Climate Change which is all a big stupid lie.
The reason this kind of controversey with regard to NASA has gained new traction is because of a bigger crises at CRU where amongst 1000 stolen emails and 2000 stolen documents there were a couple that suggested deliberate attempts to delete emails either in response to FOIA requests or in anticipation of future FOIA requests.
As of yet the scientists involved are relatively quiet about these emails except that Michael Mann (one of the receivers of the emails) and Trevor Davies (Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research at CRU) have denied that anything relevant to FOIA requests have been deleted. In one comment on RealClimate Gavin Schmidt suggested that one of the emails wasn’t even serious but that was hard to tell since the context was left out. We don’t know why the writer of both Phil Jones suggested emails be deleted or whether anything was actually deleted. We do know Phil Jones has temporarily stepped down and an investigation is underway at CRU. And when we know more we’ll better be able to judge about the integrity of the scientists involved. Still, despite how shadily these emails were obtained, there’s definitely reason to be concerned.
But does this effect the truth of Global Warming? Does it show a hoax? According to the IPCC chair (Dr. Rajendra Pachauri) the IPCC is “a very transparent, a very comprehensive process which ensures that even if someone wants to leave out a piece of peer reviewed literature there is virtually no possibility of that happening.”
But that’s peer reviewed papers. Let’s take the skeptics seriously. What they are claiming (right now anyway) is not that the papers are wrong but that they are ALL being based on the same wrong false information. So the deeper question becomes where is the data? Has it been hidden. Are we really getting this data solely from a few institutions like Goddard and CRU that could easily be conspiratorially doctoring the data?
Here are some answers by Gavin Schmidt in response to questions on the RealClimate blog that give light to both the answer to this question and the very nature of the FOIA requests being waged against Climate Scientists and their motivations:
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Where can I find the raw data that the deniers keep claiming is being kept from them under the FOIA? Do they have rights to the data? Are the claims that the temperature data has been lost true?
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[Response: Claims that data has been destroyed or lost are untrue. Claims that there is no access to the raw temperature data are untrue. There is nothing in any of the CRU archives that is particularly special or noteworthy and that isn't mostly available to anyone already via NOAA. They got access to some extra data that some National Met. Services normally only sell, or was given with the express proviso that it not be passed on to third parties. CRU is not at fault for honoring those agreements - even if everyone wishes they didn't exist. The harassment of CRU people for doing so has been twisted into the meme you are channeling, that somehow they are hiding something nefarious. They aren't, but it might not be surprising that they become aggrieved when people keep repeating that falsehood. - gavin]
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My question is, and maybe its been answered in one of the other 150 comments, but why is Jones so hesitant to release his data? Why fight FOI? Why write specifically about stonewalling any request to see his data and attempt to recreate his findings? The IPCC is basing most, if not all, its recommendations on his data. If they want to spend Trillions based on his research…his research should be avaialble to any and all who think they can discredit it.
[Response: Because, as he has explained frequently, that in order to get the maximum amount of data available they gave assurances and signed memoranda with many National weather services not to distribute raw data that the NWS's would rather sell. If you want the free stuff, you can just look at the GHCN records (which is the basis for the GISTEMP product - all of which is online and available for anyone to look at). - gavin]
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Gavin,
I hope you guys will come clean soon. I do appreciate your (finally) allowing differing views post even if it has to come through in such a personally troubling way for you.
First off, I never wish anyone ill will, however I will admit I am not exactly rooting for you at this point. I just wanted to make that clear so you understand where my opinions lie.
Second, I think that you can try to explain away a “trick” all that you like, however I think most reasonable people can understand what is going on. A “trick” used in science is putting the data into the proper context. I work with marketing people who are utterly useless when it comes to science. So I must essentially use “tricks” to put my data into proper context. I do not have to use “tricks” to change the outcome of my results.
Third, I think it is difficult to ignore several things found in the emails. They range from tax evasion (don’t deposit more than 10k at a time!) to outright bullying of the peer review process.
Fourth, and this is the point I would like you to address adequately. Yes, I said adequately and by that I mean without your usual snark and with absolute sincerity. It would appear that in the context of these emails that there is a combined effort to withhold information from those who may want to challenge your findings. Let’s not be childish and ignore it and play word games… it is now a fact. There also seems to be an aligned effort to stifle the efforts of science contrary to your opinions and findings. This may be by influencing the peer review process or controlling reviewers and editors. So, what in your opinion, can be done to ensure that there is a proper debate of the science and facts in an open and public way? I’m sure that being a man of integrity you feel that raw data should be supplied as well as all supplementary data in order to recreate results. So surely you would support complete and open debate on the subject. You don’t have to worry about being wrong. Most scientists… good scientists… are wrong most of the time. It is not about right or wrong, but more about the work you do. There is a value in climate science and most citizens have no problem offering a few bucks to support it. Do you think there is a too closed off circle tied around Michael Mann as was shown in M&M? It would surely seem that he makes a compelling point. This is why in my science-based line of work we sometimes need to go to outside independent sources. So, with all of that said, what do you think can be done to make the system better so that the people can be sure that the science from here on out is completely truthful and able to be replicated?
Thanks.
[Response: You have a very distorted view of the situation. But before addressing that, let's make some things clear. Openness and transparency aid replication and are essential to the progress of science. As far as possible, data and code should be available to everyone. Note, however, that replication of results is much more usefully achieved using independent approaches and sources of data rather than checking other people's arithmetic. Independent explorations of problems are far more fruitful in terms of learning about the details and seeing new ways of looking at things than simply running someone else's code. Open debate about uncertainties and approaches are essential (and if you ever go to a conference you will see this happening in spades).
[Response: Now that is out of the way, let's examine what is actually happening in the public sphere. There are undeniably people who fervently do not wish for results of the science to be true. This can be motivated many things - vested interest, inclination, background etc. Regardless of why that exists, it undoubtedly does. However, among the scientific community no-one doubts that humans are causing CO2 (and other GHGs) to rise, no-one is confused about the fact that there is a greenhouse effect and that we are enhancing it, and no-one is in denial of the fact that the temperatures (as predicted) are in fact warming. This information, and the vast amount of ancillary data, theory and modelling that exists has led the science community to warn that continued emissions of GHGs risk changing the climate substantially. Given the first group of people's inclination to not want this to be true, there have been (and continue to be) determined efforts to undermine the scientific conclusions. One of the most effective tactics is to continually claim that data is being hidden and that the process is not open and transparent. This is successful, not because anything is actually being hidden, but because regardless of what data is available you can always ask for more. Five years ago it was a demand than Mann make his code and data available - it was, and nothing changed. A couple of years ago the demand was for the GISTEMP data and code - that was made available... and nothing changed. The requests then moved to CRU, who because of their agreements with the Met Centers, can't release everything in the public domain. This fact has been greatly exploited by people who conveniently ignore it when making ever more harassing demands for 'the data'. Whether they get it or not, nothing will change. The target will simply be moved. Meanwhile, the real need for openness and transparency is set back because the vast majority of demands are very clearly partisan and insincere.
[Response: As for the peer-reviewed literature, bad papers (such as are described in the emails) sometimes make it through the process due to various events. Note that the papers in question are just bad - they come to unjustified conclusions based on faulty reasoning, bad analysis, and (often) a desire to get the 'right' result. This is not unique to papers that go counter to the mainstream (there are many bad papers on the other side too), but these are the ones that get picked up by the denial-o-sphere and are loudly touted in Senate hearings as if they undermined a century of work. Improving the functioning of the peer-review system so that this happens less often is a good idea - because it will lessen the chance of bad papers of any stripe wasting everyone's time. Note that peer-review is simply an (imperfect) filter that allows scientists to focus on work that has passed a least a basic screening (usually). When we have to respond to obviously flawed, but highly publicised, papers it takes us away from doing real research and focussing on issues about which there is genuine (as opposed to manufactured) uncertainty.
[Response: If people want genuine public debate over issues that matter, the way is clear: Stop fuelling fake witchhunts looking for evidence that GW is a hoax, stop continually going back to long debunked talking points, and instead engage with scientists, here and elsewhere, on real questions. You will actually find scientists of all stripes remarkably keen to talk about their research and it's implications once you get past the 'when did you stop hiding your data' type accusations. Not everyone has unlimited patience in dealing with constant attacks on their integrity that comes with being in the public eye on these issues, and so many choose not to be involved in that public debate at all. That is a shame, but it's not a mystery. - gavin]
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The last comment in particular paints a VERY different story from the one you’ve been hearing in the news lately. Rather than Climate Scientists in a secret cabal trying to deceive everyone, instead we see a steady abuse of FOIA to try and pressure Climate Scientists into making a mistake that will allow their opponents to gain a political advantage.
The question of data availability is striking when seen through this lens. The demand for data no longer seems like an innocent effort to get at the truth and more like a vindictive kind of attack. It’s like someone peskering you and poking you over and over again. The skeptics demanded data. “Gimme your data! Gimme your data!” And they were given the data. But then they just demanded data again and they were given data again and so on. Yet whenever they get the data they don’t find any smoking guns that show evil misconduct. So they are unsatisfied and so they just keep demanding for more.
Worse when a legal force beyond CRU’s control makes it impossible for them to comply with the FOIA request, the sekptics cry AHA! You must be hiding something! Global warming must REALLY be happening.
But take a step back. The problem is National Weather Services have constrained CRU and said that CRU cannot release their data to the public. NWS wants to sell the data third parties so they don’t want it in the public domain and part of the agreements they made with CRU contained clauses that prevent CRU from releasing the data to anyone. This creates a legal quagmire. That’s the deal with the famous “raw” data that’s being “hidden”.
Here’s the thing though, take a step back. If the skeptics really WANTED the data they could very well go to the National Weather Services THEMSELVES and ask for the raw data. They can PAY for it. You can’t tell me Exxon Mobile can’t afford it. And then Exxon Mobile could just as easily release the data to the skeptics that are on their side who would then analyze it and announce to the world that AHA! The RAW DATA shows that Climate Change is a HOAX!
But they don’t do that. Why not? Probably because they absolutely LOVE the fact that CRU can’t release the data. It makes it seem like CRU is hiding something. It feeds the conspiracy.
And that’s why CRU has been scrambling to try and get letters of consent from all the National Weather Services so that they CAN release all the raw data. The worst thing for them is being portrayed as a part of a global conspiracy. They believe that their research is the truth and they WANT people to know about it. They want the data out so they can go back about their real business of doing science without being hounded.
Of course what will happen once the data is released? The Skeptics will simply go on to the next institution and send out lots and lots of FOIA requests hoping that they’ll hit another road block that they can use to claim yet again that scientists are obstructionists and so you shouldn’t worry the least bit about Global Warming. Or maybe they’ll hire Russian hackers to go in and steal more emails that they can pick through and find a few phrases to take out of context to suggest the worst of the entire Scientific community.
If you think about it there are two competing narratives being told with regard to Climate Science. On the one hand there’s the narrative that goes that Global Warming was never happening or was never as severe as it was made out to be in the Scientific community and certainly was never caused by Man’s activities especially not the burning of fossil fuels. Instead, a conspiracy was started by Margaret Thatcher who wanted to ally the conservative party with the Green party and promote the development of nuclear power.
Later the conspiracy just became part of the usual liberal attempt to promote bigger government and world wide governance heavily funded by George Soros and of course promoted by Al Gore. the conspiracy finds its way deeply into the most popular and famous scientific institutions world wide. It attempts to hide the skeptical science and only promote the works of a few of their scientist allies who are lying and manipulating data in order to support their pro-AGW agenda. The other scientists who are on board are corrupted by their desire for money in the terms of grants that are only given out to those who can show evidence of global warming creating a perverse incentive system. When that doesn’t work, scientists are directly bullied and their works removed from the peer review process by force.
The ultimate aim of course is the typical liberal aim to redistribute wealth from rich countries like America to poor countries, and from rich companies like oil companies to poor people, and hence undermine the entire capitalist system with disastrous consequences. Thankfully a hero leaked or hacked into a system at one of these conspiracy ridden pseudo science centers and found the conclusive final evidence that AGW is and always has been one big lie. Now it’s just a matter of convincing the stupid masses and getting the word out through our biased liberal media of the truth.
Did I get that about right?
On the other hand, there’s the other account. It goes like this. Climate Scientists were doing their normal work trying to unearth the truth about reality through good observational science, models, and mathematics same as is done in every other field of science. But as time passed scientists began to be alarmed at what they were seeing. The warming trends were much more rapid than they at first expected and way out of sync with expectations based on all available historical data. The data was not just born out by temperature readings but observations across dozens of fields. Everything from melting glaciers to increased desertification to more severe weather patterns all seemed to suggest an inordinately rapid warming. So they analyzed the occurrences and found a likely culprit, the well understood phenomenon of the Green House Effect. What had changed was that in the industrial era we pumped far more CO2 in the atmosphere at a faster rate than had ever occurred over the last several thousand years and it was having a profound effect on our environment.
These scientists in good conscience could not simply ignore their findings and keep their head in the clouds and stick to their ivory towers. No, they told people. They created models and made projections to see what would happen if global warming continued as it had been. The results were disastrous so they warned people that there was pressing imminent need to reduce CO2 emissions drastically unless we want to find ourselves dealing with the consequences of a transformation to a vastly different world than we have enjoyed thus far in human history.
So scientists found themselves reluctantly trying to influence policy and what they found was not just skepticism but outright hostility. But worse than that there were certain parties that had a monetary interest in not believing that Global Warming had any merit to it and they chose not just to disbelieve but also to stop at no ends in their attempt to at the very least slow the response to Climate Change and hopefully derail it altogether.
And thus began what can only be described as a massive war over public opinion. Scientists were reluctant warriors who did not engage in this war willingly. They were slow to adapt and slow to respond, more used to dealing with data and theory. But on the other side there were practiced experts who had previously helped major companies cover up fiascos in the past, from nuclear accidents to oil spills. Indeed many of the same companies that were a part of the attempted cover up of the dangers of cigarette smoking were hired to mislead on the dangers of climate change. They created dummy organizations to promote climate skepticism and hired and paid off anyone they could get their money into in order to get them to promote skepticism. They would stop at no lengths from frivilous FOIA requests, to falsified petitions, to trying to take over major scientific journals, to hiring spies, to paying Russian hackers, to trying to break in directly into major research institutions in an attempt to find anything the least bit incriminating. They worked deligently to expand the global warming denial industry as far and wide as they can and utilized any and all sympathetic media outlets to echo their beliefs to the public. They got people to analyze every once of every piece of data coming out of the scientific community looking for anything from a typo to a data blip. Anything at all that suggested either deception or could be used to cast doubt on the truth of climate change was heralded as resoundingly conclusive evidence of the great hoax and fraud that is global warming!
Scientists unprepared and under siege reacted as anyone under attack does. They became defensive and they tried to fight back against the bullies assaulting them. Bullies who were attacking their integrity and their entire life’s work and indeed the credibility of their entire field. These scientists received death threats and were insulted and attacked repeatedly by skeptics. The Scientists tried to explain and reason with the people. They tried to do outreach. But it seemed that in so many cases no matter how logical their arguments were it proved difficult to convince.
Some few scientists went beyond or at least contemplated going beyond simply trying to tell the truth. Those scientists under extreme pressure and thinking the very fate of the planet was at stake, started to try and think of ways to keep the skeptical community from getting evidence they could use to keep casting unwarranted doubt on the science. The scientists new the evidence would be bullshit but they started to loose faith that people would see through the lies. Some of those scientists may have gone too far and even broken the law in their attempts to fight back against the skeptics. Time and investigation will determine whether they did or not. Yet of course skeptics did not wait for the investigations. They proclaimed victory and proof positive of the climate change hoax.
In spite of all this, nearly every government across the world and scientists in nearly every institution have chosen not to deny the evidence of their own senses nor to disbelieve thousands of peer reviewed papers. They have chosen to at least choose to act to mitigate climate change using the best available theory as to what is its cause as their guideline. And these governments met this week in Copenhagen to try and hobble together an agreement that might just might lay the groundwork for saving our planet. But of course not if the opposition has anything to say about it.
So those are the two stories as best as I can tell them in my own words. With regards to FOIA, in the one story the attempts to deny FOIA information is proof positive of the deception that lies at the heart of the liberal conspiracy that is climate change. In the other story FOIA requests are another avenue of attack engaged in by most likely industry funded climate skeptics to try to discredit Scientists and distract from the Science itself which remains unassailable.
Obviously I don’t have to tell you which one seems more believable and closer to the truth to me. Of course you are welcome to believe whichever account you wish but it would behoove you to try to understand both accounts and observe new information in the light of both stories before coming to your conclusions about whether or not AGW is real and what if anything we ought to do about it.
