Orson Olson - 11/26/2009

IT GETS CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER. ARE THERE CRIMES in the CRU scandal?

“Jones, Briffa [both at CRU] and Mann [at Penn State] seem to have committed several criminal offences” reports Joanne Nova from Australia, with a climate scientist based in Britain as her source:

These include:

1. Misappropriation of public funds
They deliberately falsified data then used the results of the falsification to obtain additional research funding. This is criminal fraud under English Law.

2. Deliberate attempt to prevent disclosure of information that was requested under the FOI Act. They colluded to destroy information that was the subject of an FOI request. This is a criminal offence under English Law.

These two offences will do for starters, but there are others, too. Indeed, both of the above offences can be doubled by charging the alleged miscreants with conspiracy in each case. Jones, Briffa and Mann should be prosecuted as a warning to others who would pervert science as a method to promote a political agenda.
However, there is little probability that the Crown Prosecution Service will charge the alleged miscreants. It is more likely that they will be awarded Knighthoods.

And those like [George] Monbiot [the Al Gore of the UK] who colluded in all of this will say, “We did not know”.

Monbiot has repeatedly vilified those of us who have been championing the cause of science against the unfounded climate scare. He is not alone in such behaviour.

Climate realists and our work have been vilified and smeared. Entire web sites have been established to tell lies about us. Publication of our scientific work has been inhibited, and personal attacks have been the norm: for example, I have had computer systems damaged by concerted attacks, Lomborg has had a pie pushed in his face, some (e.g. [Hans] Tenekes [in the Netherlands], [Pat] Michaels [at UVa], etc.) have had their employment terminated, and Tim Ball [prof emeritus, University of Winnipeg, Canada] has had death threats.

Monbiot seems to be covering himself now what has been happening is plain for all to see as a result of the stolen (?) CRU files having been released.

In a side meeting organised by Fred Singer at an IPCC Meeting in London in 2001 I said; “When the ‘chickens come home to roost’ – as they surely will with efluxion of time – the journalists and politicians won’t say, “It was our fault”. They will say, “it was the scientists’ fault“, and that’s me, and I object!

I can still see no reason to change that opinion.

Richard Courtney