Freedom of (Dis)Information

-- by Horatio Algeranon

Who needs Bill Nye,
The Science Guy,
When you have Mosher
And FOI?

And who needs facts
When you've Big Macs
And email hackers
Who launch attacks?

And who needs "Review"
When you can just sue
And level fraud
Accusations Too?

And who needs FUD
When you have FOD
And Climate Audiots
Who applaude?

And who needs truth
When you have "proof"
That climate activists
Are "Hitler Youth"?

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FUD = Fear, uncertainty and doubt: "a tactic of rhetoric and fallacy used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics and propaganda." (wikipedia)

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"Viscount Monckton calls young climate activists 'Hitler Youth' "(Guardian, UK). At least one of those whom Christopher Monckton called "Hitler Youth" is Jewish and had grandparents who had actually 'escaped the Nazis growing up in Germany'.

Monckton is one of the global warming "skeptics" most widely quoted by the mainstream media (see, for example, a recent NT Times article by Elizabeth Rosenthal, which simply acts as a megaphone for Monckton's unsubstantiated claim that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] and its Chief are "corrupt". )

The reality is that Monckton is not a scientist. Indeed, his "Hitler Youth" claim and others indicate that he is little more than a crackpot, but that does not stop the media from holding him up as some sort of climate "expert." His (sometimes vile) nonsense has been debunked (and shown to be "deliberate manipulation") time and again by real climate scientists, here and here, by Real Climate, for example.

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"Review" = Scientific Peer Review, "the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field" (wikipedia) -- the standard procedure for publication in a scientific journal. Compare that to "no review", the case for blogs and most "think tanks" -- and to "Potty Peer Review", the Christopher Monckton standard (see above).

Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) -- a right wing "think tank" funded by Exxon-Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute (among others) and actively involved in the campaign against action on climate change -- filed 3 "notices of intent to sue" NASA and alleged

"document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies"

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Steven Mosher, a regular Climate Change "Skeptic"/Conspiracy theorist at Climate Audit (forgive the redundancy) just opined a book entitled "Climategate"* (purportedly) about the "significance" of emails stolen from the the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

Mosher has also used the phrase "Piltdown Mann" on the web on more than one occasion. "Piltdown Man" (one "n") is one of the most infamous scientific frauds in history and Mosher's association of that with Michael Mann (specifically, Mann's "hockey stick" shaped historical temperature reconstruction) through the word play has obvious implications.

But far from having been proved "fraudulent" (or even false), the fundamental "hockey stick"shape has been validated time and again by scientists using independent methods as described by Real Climate here and by the National Research Council (National Academy of Sciences), among others.

And as Eli Rabett points out here, Michael Mann's University has cleared him of any professional misconduct related to the recent email controversy. But of course, that makes no difference to the children in the Climate Auditorium, who are still screaming "fraud!" (or maybe it's just the echos in the chamber?) -- and will undoubtedly continue to do so as long as Mann is employed as a scientist.

Update (Feb 27)
Chris Mooney interview of Michael Mann on Point of Inquiry: "Michael Mann - Unprecedented Attacks on Climate Research".

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Whether it was the intention or not, as has been pointed out by Bart Verheggen and others, the flood of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests made to climate scientists by Steve McIntyre and his minions do bear more than a passing resemblance to classic "Denial of Service" attacks, which bog down the "server" and bring all useful work to a halt.

Update (Feb 24, 2010)
One of the climate scientists who has been the "target" of Steve McIntyre's FOI requests is Dr. Ben Santer (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

In a post on Real Climate, Santer has this to say:

My encounter with Mr. McIntyre’s use of FOIA requests for “audit” purposes is not an isolated event. In my opinion, Mr. McIntyre’s FOIA requests serve the purpose of initiating fishing expeditions, and are not being used for true scientific discovery.

Mr. McIntyre’s own words do not present a picture of a man engaged in purely dispassionate and objective scientific inquiry:

“But if Santer wants to try this kind of stunt, as I’ve said above, I’ve submitted FOI requests and we’ll see what they turn up [bold added by Horatio]. We’ll see what the journal policies require. I’ll also see what DOE and PCDMI administrators have to say. We’ll see if any of Santer’s buddies are obligated to produce the data. We’ll see if Santer ever sent any of the data to his buddies”

(Steven McIntyre; posting on his ClimateAudit blog; Nov. 21, 2008).

//end update

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*Horatio much prefers his own title for the paranoid perspective of global warming denialists: "Climate of Intrigue".

For more on the goofy climate conspiracy theories found at Climate Audit and Watts Up With That?, read Climate Science Hoaxus Poaxus and The House that Jackasses Built and of course, the mother of all climate conspiracies, Grassy Knolls & Rabett Holes.