Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the “scientists” at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they’d like it to be.

In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism. This, it seems, is what motivated the whistleblower ‘FOIA 2011′ (or “thief”, as the usual suspects at RealClimate will no doubt prefer to tar him or her) to go public.

As FOIA 2011 puts it when introducing the selected highlights, culled from a file of 220,000 emails:

“Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.”

“Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes.”

“One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.

“Poverty is a death sentence.”

“Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize
greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.”

Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on
hiding the decline.

FOIA 2011 is right, of course. If you’re going to bomb the global economy back to the dark ages with environmental tax and regulation, if you’re going to favour costly, landscape-blighting, inefficient renewables over real, abundant, relatively cheap energy that works like shale gas and oil, if you’re going to cause food riots and starvation in the developing world by giving over farmland (and rainforests) to biofuel production, then at the very least you it owe to the world to base your policies on sound, transparent, evidence-based science rather than on the politicised, disingenuous junk churned out by the charlatans at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

You’ll find the full taster menu of delights here at Tall Bloke’s website. Shrub Niggurath is on the case too. As is the Air Vent.

Full article here.

And, wouldn’t you know it! Al Gore emerges from his palatial, energy-sucking estate for a media blitz (here, here, and here) in which he peddles his usual hokum: ”If you don’t do what I say … we’re all doomed. DOOMED, I say!!! Why won’t you LISTEN TO ME!!! YOU FOOOOOOLS!!!!” (Blah, blah, blah … and paraphrasing)

We couldn’t ask for a more timely example of why we put on these conferences. Thanks, Al. By the way, the invitation for you to speak and/or debate at our climate conference still stands — if you’re up for it. And the offer is real.

In Rolling Stone this week, Gore slimed those who don’t agree with his view that the planet is at mortal peril. If Gore doesn’t accept the invitation, it might be because he’s out of energy after putting out the 7,000-word opus Rolling Stone saw fit to publish.

Gore starts out with a cute, anecdotal lead that harkens to a childhood memory of attending a pro wrasslin’ match. In Gore’s moralistic fable, only children — or idiots and rubes — think wrasslin’ is real. And to believe (or see) that the observable scientific data continually proves the climate models wrong is to be as dumb as a Triple H fan.

But Gore’s real problem is not with the Triple H fans, but the media that plays the part of the “referee” that is always looking at the distraction created by the villain’s manager while the bad wrassler cracks the hero over the head with a folding chair. Writes Gore:

Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the referee because it’s a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.

That childish set-up for Gore’s thesis — the global warming debate as a wrasslin’ match — should do just fine for Rolling Stone’s readers, who would fall for such an absurd morality play: the dark and muscular “Poisonous Polluter” on one side, and the scrawny but heroic “Science and Reason” on the other. Only the ideologues who edit Rolling Stone would allow an author 6,700 more words to follow that juvenile set-up. They obviously have no standards for what qualifies as a logical argument. But Gore’s a Nobel Laureate and an Oscar winner! And Jann Wenner is easy to impress. Oh, well. It only gets sillier from there.

But whatever the cause, the referee appears not to notice that the Polluters and Ideologues are trampling all over the “rules” of democratic discourse. They are financing pseudoscientists whose job is to manufacture doubt about what is true and what is false; buying elected officials wholesale with bribes that the politicians themselves have made “legal” and can now be made in secret; spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on misleading advertisements in the mass media; hiring four anti-climate lobbyists for every member of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. (Question: Would Michael Jordan have been a star if he was covered by four defensive players every step he took on the basketball court?)

We’ll get to the “pseudoscientists” stuff later. But … please. I guess there’s no money in alarmism — despite the tens (or probably hundreds) of millions in government funding that goes to Gore-approved scientists world-wide. And there’s no lobbyists on that side, either. Sure. And if you believe that, I can hook you up with a lobbyist who will lobby against lobbying.

Gore, of course, equates those who deny alarmism with those who denied smoking cigarettes causes cancer. But “this time,” Gore writes, the scientific consensus that man is killing the planet “is even stronger” than the scientific consensus that smoking cigarettes causes cancer. And we’ve “been sowing doubt even more effectively than the tobacco companies before” us.

[Global warming] has been has been endorsed by every National Academy of science of every major country on the planet, every major professional scientific society related to the study of global warming and 98 percent of climate scientists throughout the world. In the latest and most authoritative study by 3,000 of the very best scientific experts in the world, the evidence was judged ”unequivocal.”

But wait! The good guys transgressed the rules of decorum, as evidenced in their private e-mails that were stolen and put on the Internet. The referee is all over it: Penalty! Go to your corner! And in their 3,000-page report, the scientists made some mistakes! Another penalty!

And if more of the audience is left confused about whether the climate crisis is real? Well, the show must go on. After all, it’s entertainment. There are tickets to be sold, eyeballs to glue to the screen.

That’s right. It’s all a show. It’s just entertainment — says the man who made an Oscar-winning movie to promote his views. Yet everyone in the media and the larger American culture is against him. Right. Heartland certainly hopes we have lots of eyes glued to the live-stream of our next climate conference. Yet despite us being one of the most prominent and active promoters of a science-based view that is an alternative to Gore’s dystopia, we’d have to pry open the eyes of tens of millions of folks Clockwork-Orange-style to even approach the audience he enjoyed — which was propped up by mandatory school showings, an Oscar, and a Nobel Prize.

Yet Gore is the victim here. He’s put upon. His view isn’t being sufficiently drilled into the mind of the culture. C’mon, Al. Whining should be beneath you.

But lets put the whining aside and get to more substance. You’ve got to love how Gore dismisses with a wave of the hand the incriminating Climategate emails, which exposed a conspiracy to rig the data and “hide the decline” to keep the myth of catastrophic global warming going. Gore fails to mention how those Climategate emails exposed the warmists’ blackballing from scientific journals colleagues who saw data that went against the faith. No matter (since Gore is a “denier” on that fact), we’re back to wrasslin’! If you point out mistakes? You’re just like a dufus referee of the WWE.

Just one more excerpt for now, because I can hardly take anymore:

To sell their false narrative, the Polluters and Ideologues have found it essential to undermine the public’s respect for Science and Reason by attacking the integrity of the climate scientists. That is why the scientists are regularly accused of falsifying evidence and exaggerating its implications in a greedy effort to win more research grants, or secretly pursuing a hidden political agenda to expand the power of government. Such slanderous insults are deeply ironic: extremist ideologues — many financed or employed by carbon polluters — accusing scientists of being greedy extremist ideologues.

Despite the libelous beginning of that paragraph, Gore probably committed the most truth in that passage.

Alarmist scientists are “regularly accused of falsifying evidence and exaggerating its implications in a greedy effort to win more research grants” because many of them are guilty. Alarmist scientists are accused of “secretly pursuing a hidden political agenda to expand the power of government” because that’s what they (and Gore) have been doing for decades. And I’d like to see the tax returns of the top 10 most famous alarmist scientists and advocates and compare them to those of the top 10 most famous “deniers.” I’d bet my modest tax refund this year that it would be no contest of who is more “greedy” and wealthy – on the alarmist side.

Like I said, I’d get back to Gore — who is no scientist — calling those who disagree with him “pseudoscientists.” He undoubtedly puts the scientists in Heartland’s conference lineup in that category.

So … If they are so wrong. If they are so easily refuted. This is your chance! We have reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the cable networks registered as credentialed media attending this event. Scores of bloggers — including warmist friendlies from The Huffington Post — will also be there. We’ll make any schedule adjustments you require Al. Come and prove those “pseudoscientists” wrong to the world. Put action behind your Rolling Stone piece. We’d love to have you attend.

(Follow Heartland’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change on Twitter: #ICCC6)

Here’s the rub, on which I will have more to say. I attended the hearing a week ago Friday at which the parties argued the University’s motion to dismiss. The Deputy AG Wesley Russell’s arguments dominated, so badly I almost felt sorry for the University. The judge’s queries were puzzling, as he pleaded with the University’s counsel to come up with some argument how he might rule in their favor, as were other comments (continue reading).

Before the hearing commenced Peatross, substituting for the vacationing chief judge, cited his wife’s 1982 degree in environmental science from UVA –  oddly, he then said “but not in global warming” — as part of a rather spare recitation of why he was hearing of this case (which he attested he had never heard about until reading the briefs that morning. A prominent case in the local, state and national news assigned to his old court! This man takes his retirement seriously…), and articulating his history so that counsel might decide whether he carried any conflict such that he should not hear the University’s motion.

That fact of her 1982 degree from Mann’s former Department, apparently, was relevant. Okay. But…

The fact that the judge’s wife had in fact previously worked in that Department of Environmental Sciences — the very Department that stands to suffer should he have ruled in favor of the Attorney General – was somehow not worth disclosing to counsel.

I only learned of this after the hearing by others who had also worked at the same time Ms. Peatross did, in messages expressing astonishment that her husband would decide such a matter given the obvious appearance of an inability to objectively hear it.

Also not worth disclosing was that Ms. Peatross’s relationships go much deeper, being, e.g., lauded for her role in producing a book edited by the Department’s then-chairman during Mann’s alleged hijinks, as well as, it appears, at least two of his papers.

But that she has a degree from the Department in 1982 merited consideration in determining the judge’s suitability to hear the case. And only that.

Amazing.

Now, to be completely accurate, it is an open question whether Ms. Peatross worked for the Department of Environmental Sciences, or simply in the building, physically (which I am told with no doubts that she did), for one of two particular former colleagues of Mann’s (and one supervisor at the relevant times) in their consultancies. The latter response, if it were the case, would beg other questions about mixing research and consulting. Which is to say, there is no good answer to the question. Which may be why the University refused to answer it when I asked. Four times. The two former colleagues of Mann for whom Ms. Peatross worked, according to a very basic Google search, also declined my invitation to clarify.

Charlottsville (I live here) is indeed the epitome of a company town – with UVA the company – as is surrounding Albemarle County. An adverse ruling leading to release of Mann’s relevant documents was the biggest possible black eye for a university that zealously promotes its prestige derived, in part, from Thomas Jefferson having founded it…a history the school’s lawyers rather sadly invoked up front in their brief arguing that, while some people are subject to laws, others simply cannot suffer the indiginity (if you’re thinking “Hollywood and Roman Polanski”, I’m way ahead of you). Well, of course. It’s on Jefferson’s headstone up on the hill, no doubt.

But while that particular argument of “academic freedom” did not prevail, the University did nonetheless manage to persuade Judge Peatross to block the taxpayer from discovering whether the University’s employee, Mann, engaged in fraud on the taxpayer. Again, this is for now as, according to press reports, Mr. Cuccinelli intends to press on with a new civil investigative demand (CID). It was not a complete victory for the University but, if you attended argument and/or read the briefs, you know such an outcome was not a consideration.

However that turns out, this series of events at best provides a very uncomfortable appearance of failure to disclose. Indeed, it seems to clearly rise to the level of a basis for the judge to recuse himself, instead of asking counsel, in his presence, whether they thought he was possibly biased.

The last thing our institutions of government need right now is more reason to question their operation. This is unfortunate and could easily have been avoided. Having read Cuccinelli’s briefs and seen his Deputy argue rings around the school and its hapless case for hiding the truth, I feel the truth will inevitably out, if later and after more wrangling than was necessary.

Researchers who have long questioned the premise of man-made global warming theories point out that alarmist claims are driven more by computer models that omit key variables than they are by actual observations. The growing “climategate” scandal goes a long way toward vindicating the scientific skeptics who have been ostracized in the media and the academic community. Emails that have been leaked to the Internet from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia show that researchers have deliberately fudged and manipulated data in an effort to account for predicted catastrophic warming that has not materialized.

In his testimony before the British Parliament, Phil Jones, the CRU director, suggested that he would be cleared of any wrongdoing once a fuller body of evidence is presented. The emails that have been made public were only a “tenth of one percent” of his correspondence, Jones said.

If anything, the more recent email revelations serve to invalidate the use of climate models that figure prominently into the reports issued through the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“The fact is we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Kevin Trenberth, an IPCC author wrote in an email addressed to other alarmists in October of last year. “The CERES data published in August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data surely are wrong.  Our observing system is inadequate.”

In another email addressed to Tom Wigley, a physicist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Trenberth makes the following comment:

“Hi Tom — How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”

This exchange is particularly significant because it demonstrates that climate models that have been used to rationalize expansive regulatory schemes are in error, Steve Milloy editor and founder of JunkScience.com said in interview.

“We’ve had no warming for the past 10-15 years, even though carbon dioxide emissions have increased,” he observed. “The upper atmosphere should be warming at a much greater rate than the lower atmosphere but this is not happening. It means that we don’t understand energy flows, and if you don’t understand how something works it cannot be modeled. It’s insanity to go forward with regulations that are not based on something we understand, but that’s what is being proposed.”

Although “climategate” is properly viewed as an “unexpected gift” to skeptics in that it shows  “Big Science in its natural state,” it is not exactly new, laments David Berlinski, a senior fellow with The Discovery Institute.

“In the 1970s, the Club of Rome was on everyone’s lips with their hysterical warnings of mass disasters that were shortly to arrive,” he wrote in an email message. “My first book, On Systems Analysis, which I wrote for the MIT press, was an expose and a denunciation of the kind of stuff then current. I cannot see that anything has changed. Then as now, the people doing the hustle were doing it for money. Phil Jones and the CRU, after all, took 23 million dollars of public funds to fudge their data and the Club of Rome in their time took in as much.”

Berlinski continues:

“The overwhelming consensus is, as it always is, utter nonsense because it is in the first place an illusion: There are very many scientists who dissent from global warming. And it is utter nonsense because it is based on nothing more than a trend line. No one has the faintest idea what the trend represents or whether it will continue or whether even the trend itself was based on data so fudged as to be meaningless. The latter, I think.”

“What is at work deep down is a delusion as striking as various Zulu beliefs and no more credible: To wit, that because there is something that might for the sake of convenience be designated as the global atmosphere, there is as well a science of the global atmosphere, one in which for various initial conditions of the GA, laws of its evolution might be adduced from which explanations and predictions would flow. There is no such science; there are no such laws. To be sure one can say with easy confidence that the GA is determined by fundamental physics.”

Berlinski appeared in the 2008 documentary “Expelled : No Intelligence Allowed,” which probes into the mistreatment of scientists who have raised questions about Charles Darwin’s 150 year old theory of evolution.  Ben Stein, the former Nixon speechwriter turned Hollywood actor, served as the film’s narrator. The film is built around the idea that free thinkers who dissent from the orthodoxy of “Big Science” are being silenced and marginalized. In light of the “climategate” scandal, “Expelled” now appears quite prescient.

Berlinski, who is also a noted mathematician, is not himself a proponent of Intelligent Design theory, but he does defend biologists and astronomers appearing in the documentary who are open to the idea as an alternative to Darwinian views that continue to dominate the scientific academy.

In reality, science has never operated by consensus. Over time, prevailing views are either substantiated or dismissed as new evidence emerges. The momentum is now very much with Easterbrook and other researchers who have identified natural forces as opposed to human activity as the primary driving force behind warming and cooling trends. Ideally, they should find greater expression.

But Berlinski is not so confident over the long term.

“Climate science stands exposed but only for the moment,” he wrote. “It will be back. I cannot see much difference between evolutionary science and climate science and I have no expectation that the winds of dissent will ever blow from the one to the other. Why should they? In just the past few years, large scale econometric models have, once again, been shown to be unreliable and intellectually worthless. The world-wide economy tanked and not one — not one! — econometric model predicted it.”

Global warming alarmism as a movement appears to have peaked; that’s the good news. A new Gallup Poll shows the American public now dismisses catastrophic claims. Unfortunately, the political agenda that always stood behind the man-made global warming scare remains in motion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding aimed against greenhouse gasses could open the way to centralized planning and government control that irrevocably transforms American society.

Sen. Lisa  Murkowsi (R-Alaska) has introduced a resolution to block EPA action under the Congressional Review Act. It deserves the full support of small government activists. But the economic case against new regulations, as important and compelling as they are, may be insufficient standing alone.

The grand designs of the statists who now hold sway in Washington D.C. can only be uprooted and defeated by attacking the nexus that exists between Big Government and Big Science. Swollen federal agencies that have victimized private property owners, business owners and private citizens in the name of environmentalism could become quite vulnerable in short order.

Lockitch gave a presentation arguing free-market economies are better positioned than socialist societies to deal with any severe weather events caused by climate change — and was called a “denier” and compared to a shill for “Big Tobacco” for his trouble. Taylor got off a little easier, receiving only scoffs and curious-to-annoyed glances for asking inconvenient questions.

But that’s not to say we were the only people to question the assumptions of the attendees who believe the “science is settled” on global warming. Perhaps the greatest challenge came from one of their own — renowned climate scientist William Sprigg — who urged his colleagues to stop treating the ClimateGate scandal as irrelevant noise promoted by “deniers.” In an amazingly telling moment, green energy consultant Andy Van Horn, who introduced Sprigg, admitted he’d never heard of ClimateGate until Sprigg suggested it a few weeks ago as a topic worthy of discussion. (Who are the real “deniers” again?)

Sprigg, adjunct research professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, believes the planet is on a potentially dangerous warming path and atmospheric carbon dioxide is to blame. He also led the technical review of the first global warming report issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990. Clealry, Sprigg is no “outlier” or “rebel,” but one of the most respected and “mainstream” scientists in the field of climatology. So it came to a bit of shock to the audience when Sprigg expressed concerns about how contrarian scientists are treated with contempt by many of his colleagues.

It’s not right, he said, that the game is rigged to keep skeptics out of peer-reviewed journals. It violates the scientific method to refuse to release raw data so others can test your theories. And it’s a big mistake to keep defending the likes of infamous “Hide the Decline” emailers Phil Jones and Michael Mann. The very credibility of the entire discipline of climate science is at stake, Sprigg said, and it’s time to stop ignoring this fact. As one might imagine, this all did not go over very well in the audience — who were undoubtedly expecting to hear a lecture ratifying their view that ClimateGate was no big deal when they saw Sprigg’s topic on the agenda.

I recorded Sprigg’s remarks on video for Heartland, and (from what I could tell) mine was the only camera in the room. The footage below features Taylor — who is also managing editor of Environment & Climate News — asking Sprigg what he thinks the future holds for the wholly corrupted IPCC. Sprigg nodded as Taylor referred to “mounting scandals” at the IPCC and then responded:

“There will be some reform. I think there are going to be big changes in the peer review process for the IPCC. There will be — there are — calls for the head of [IPCC Chairman Raj] Pachauri. Some of my colleagues have written letters saying that he needs to be taken off the job.”

In his 24-minute lecture, Sprigg also:

• warned of a growing perception that “the IPCC is biased, conflicted, [and] pushing political agendas.”;

• called for a new climate research agency supported not entirely by the government, but in conjunction with the private sector;

• and declared: “We need to stick to our scientific principles,” and “improve our peer preview process, and expand the stakeholders’ role to keep us all honest.”

It was a remarkable presentation, one that The Heartland Institute has summarized with commentary in the video below. One gets the feeling Sprigg has put himself on the path to pariah status among the true-believers of global warming, But this honest scientist deserves praise from all sides of the debate for demanding politics, group-think and a desire to control our lives through government mandates not replace scientific rigor.

Findings_Mann_Inquiry –

My take-away, to spoil the ending for you, is that the panel revealed most of what we need to know about the ability of this internal inquiry to credibly assess charges of misfeasance, by limiting their evidentiary pursuit outside of select blogs and media reports to speaking with Mann, aided by a supportive NAS report (to the exclusion of the Wegman Committee report, inexplicable including for a factor cited, below) and one panel member interviewing ex parte two Mann supporters.

In my opinion, by this approach they did not do, and will in hindsight not be deemed as having done, themselves or their institution any favors.

1. This is simply a point of interest but, in describing the CRU e-mail cache that finally (not first) shined a light on Mann’s practices so as to bring the sort of scrutiny that can yield direct professional consequence, the panel chose the word “purloined”, vs. hacked or stolen. P. 3, p. 5.

This is an odd word choice in the general style and vocabulary of the document, and I am guessing that this was selected as the most neutral term; even if it includes “to steal”, the word also contemplates the actions of a suddenly unwelcome “whistleblower”, that erstwhile celebrated creature which the facts available indicate was the source of the documents long-sought under the UK’s freedom of information law.   p. 3

2. The panel considered the NAS report that Mann’s suspect practices had prompted, but not the Wegman Committee Report p. 3. The University’s odd decision had already been noted by others, for its sheer incomprehensibility. Even CRU emails acknowledge the importance of reading both, not one of them (go here and hit search for the numerous entries; why, even Mann delves into the Wegman problem his CRU emails at issue — assuming this mail wasn’t weeded out in the paring down from 377 “Mann” emails to focus on 47 of them). “No inquiry, even (especially?) threshold , can be credible if it excludes that detailed assessment of relevant behavior even if it addresses work predating Mann’s tenure at PSU..so did the NAS report the panel reviewed.” Not that the reports predated his tenure, they addressed work that did.

3. Just as a point of interest, I was struck by the panel’s inclusion of this assessment in a ten-page summary of two-months’ work. “Throughout the interview, Dr. Mann answered each question carefully:”    p. 4  ["... In addition, Dr. Mann provided a ten page supplemental written response to the matters discussed during his interview." P. 4]

4. In the in-person interview, “He explained the content and meaning of the emails about which we inquired;”  p. 4

It is problematic that they only interviewed Mann even to reach a threshold determination. If the content and meaning of the emails is important, as is implicit, then why would they not speak to the authors of these important emails mentioning him, and many others not written by him, which made the final cut for scrutiny and assessment?

Consider this in a judicial context and you see the curiosity of calling in Mann but only Mann to explain what other people wrote and meant. Happens in trials all the time. Um, like when the authors are dead.

5. “He explained that he never used inappropriate influence in reviewing papers by other scientists who disagreed with the conclusions of his science;” though I note that this does not cover Mann pressuring others re: reviewing and publication. Seems sort of relevant, even if he did also issued a blanket denial of any inappropriate behavior.

6. “On January 22, 2010, the inquiry committee and Dr. Brune met again to review the evidence, including but not limited to Dr. Mann’s answers to the committee’s questions, both in the interview and in his subsequent submissions. All were impressed by Dr. Mann’s composure and his forthright responses to all of the queries that were asked of him.” (emphasis added) The assertion of Mann’s “forthrightness” alone, given inter alia the panel did not, as noted above, apparently interview others necessary to make such a determination (outside of one panel member meeting ex parte with two well-known Mann supports, see bottom of page 4), is troubling. But I suppose that’s what internal inquiries and other self-policing often produces.

7. The money conclusion, except for any that inform your assessment of the credibility of the inquiry, is this:

Finding 4. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee could not make a definitive finding whether there exists any evidence to substantiate that Dr. Mann did engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities.” Pp. 6-7.

Reading the panel’s quantification of this finding over the next two pages, they sure look like a band edging over toward the outcome, when the music (inquiries) stops, that leaves them standing pretty squarely on the spot staked out in the initial wagon-circling, dismissive response of the relevant and cloistered scientific community detailed by Wegman et al. Maybe they behaved less purely than is the driven snow, but that’s more a matter of perception derived from “private” correspondence never intended for outside assessment; who has not been indiscreet? However that is not the same as violating laws, etc.

The wagon-circlers in ClimateGate’s early days involved climate scientists waving away the actions of fellow climate scientists with whom they shared parallel interests of not seeing their gravy train derailed; Indeed, the panel summarizes that response of others as “nothing more than the private discussions of scientists engaged in a hotly debated topic of enormous social impact.”

Penn State risks the appearance of waving away the actions of a fellow Penn Stater with whom they share the interests in this not being a drawn-out tawdry affair for the University. We will see how they distinguish their own, surely more verbose ultimate conclusions from the wagon-circlers’ pithy dismissal.

8. Also troubling is the panel’s selective notation that “some may seek to use the debate over Dr. Mann’s research conduct and that of his colleagues as a proxy for the larger and more substantive debate over the science of anthropogenic global warming and its societal (political and economic) ramifications”. P. 8.

Yes. And some may seek to diminish the scrutiny of Mann’s research and conduct and that of his colleagues to protect the larger and more substantive industry that they represent. Why only one of these interests is worth mentioning is of a part with the panel being taken by just how forthright their subject was, despite not acquiring context to make that judgment but which assertion was material for inclusion in a ten-page assessment of more than two months’ work.

Sadly, the panel’s express focus, the only one among the relevant issues which troubles them for further inquiry — “questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically” (p. 9) — is likely to be viewed in hindsight as having revealed a driving desire of dispelling questions and rehabilitating Mann, “science” and/or the University, not into fairly exploring the substance.

In conclusion, these points all remind us of the frequent need for and widespread use of independent inquiry when seeking to truly discern the meaning and importance of credibly alleged misfeasance. Penn State is heading toward concluding that this is all a big misperception, a matter of appearances more than substance. Something similar can be said about their initial assessment. Appearances matter, and this doesn’t appear good.

The allegations — or “possible allegations” as they put it — stem from Mann’s alleged involvement in the “ClimateGate” e-mails scandal that surfaced in early December and seemed to show evidence of fraud and conspiracy among the research scientists and others whose work formed much of the basis of calls for extreme climate change regulation.

At the center of the scandal was Mann, the inventor of the famous “hockey stick” graph which claimed to show that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures had shot up to their highest level in recorded history. It was made famous in Al Gore’s Academy Award®-winning documentary on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

While this is good news, I suspect panel members are secretly hoping someone else will shoulder responsibility for determining Mann’s guilt or innocence before they’re forced to reach any conclusion(s).

Below is the text of the release about the inquiry issued by members of the panel a short while ago:

University Park, Pa. — An internal inquiry by Penn State into the research and scholarly activities of a well-known climate scientist will move into the investigatory stage, which is the next step in the University’s process for reviewing research conduct.

A University committee has concluded its inquiry into allegations of research impropriety that were leveled in November against Professor Michael Mann, after information contained in a collection of stolen e-mails was revealed. More than a thousand e-mails are reported to have been “hacked” from computer servers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England, one of the main repositories of information about climate change.

During the inquiry, all relevant e-mails pertaining to Mann or his work were reviewed, as well as related journal articles, reports and additional information. The committee followed a well-established University policy during the inquiry (http://guru.psu.edu/policies/ra10.html ).

In looking at four possible allegations of research misconduct, the committee determined that further investigation is warranted for one of those allegations. The recommended investigation will focus on determining if Mann “engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities.” A full report (http://www.research.psu.edu/orp) concerning the allegations and the findings of the inquiry committee has been submitted.

In the investigatory phase, as in the inquiry phase, the committee will not address the science of global climate change, a matter more appropriately left to the profession. The committee is charged with looking at the ethical behavior of the scientist and determining whether he violated professional standards in the course of his work.

The investigatory committee will consist of five tenured full professor faculty members who will assess the evidence in the case and make a determination on Mann’s conduct.

Worth noting is the time frame set forth by university policy:

If an investigation is undertaken pursuant to this policy, the investigation should normally be concluded, and a decision made by the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, within 120 days from the initiation of the investigation.

Stay tuned!