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Bait & Switch Climate Change Public Relations

Scepticaemia : Blood Brotherhood Trouble

Far be it from me to comment on a matter under criminal investigation… Oh, OK then, I will.

As some readers of this post will know, some time in the recent past, a person or persons unknown allegedly took some files from a computer server belonging to the CRU, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

They may have been “hackers”, “stealing” the files. They may have fabricated them. That is a matter for the Police and authorities yet to decide. The files may have been taken/invented last week : another fact open to investigation.

These alleged files allegedly contained information and e-mails pertaining to work by Climate Change scientists spanning a number of years.

Those who acquired/created the files posted them on the Internet and proceeded to inform the Climate Change sceptic network of their presence, since which there has been a flurry of Internet and Media activity asking questions of the character, motives and actions of Climate Change scientists, based on the contents of the supposed e-mails.

Nigel Lawson is even calling for an independent inquiry into allegations that Climate Change scientists manipulated data :-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6634282/Lord-Lawson-calls-for-public-inquiry-into-UEA-global-warming-data-manipulation.html

I think there should be an inquiry, but it should cover other aspects of this incident.

I was only wondering the other day where the Climate Change deniers and sceptics were hiding, as I hadn’t heard a peep from them for a while.

And then last week, several people who write on Climate Change, who write weblogs or run news services, found that their webservers were being subjected to heavy traffic.

It is suggested that there was possibly a coordinated attempt to perhaps upload the real/fake e-mail files onto the personal websites of Climate Change scientists and webloggers, from remote servers, presumably as an attempt to smear them for having copies of this information.

In addition, people have been reporting that they have been under DoS (Denial of Service) style attacks, where automated computer programmes have been accessing websites in great volumes in order to drag down their speed and squeeze out their availability.

My own webhost contacted me to let me know that the slow speed of my personal website was due to the fact that it was under a DoS style attack, apparently from a webserver in China, which has now been blocked.

This appears to be showing that the Climate Change deniers and sceptics are all acting in a coordinated fashion to bring Climate Change Science into disrepute and to deny reasonable, intellectual commentary on it.

I would propose we give this a name : scepticaemia, a poison in the blood of a global brotherhood that seek to stop action on Climate Change.

They’ve already shown they are prepared to commit possibly criminal acts in taking/faking information that is not theirs. They are busy waging a propaganda war against Science. They are clearly highly networked. Are they strongly coordinated ? Did they plan this “Climategate”, as James Delingpole puts it, so unoriginally ? Was there any group behind it ? Any particular people ?

I would like to ask you to take part in a few suggestions for action :-

1. Call for an investigation into the behaviour of the Climate Change Sceptics in light of this potentially criminal, certainly destabilising, incident. Use the Media channels.

2. Assert your personal acceptance of the Climate Change Science, and dismiss the accusations of bad scientist behaviour coming from the sceptics.

3. Post copies of e-mail traffic that you have had with Climate Change sceptics on your websites, with some analysis of their communications techniques. After all, Climate Change scientists may have been tempted to badmouth their opponents, but they are not the only people who may be tempted to badmouth their opponents. I think we should see publicly what sceptics have been writing in their e-mails, particularly if they may have been plotting. If it’s anything like the e-mails and comments I have received on this weblog and in forums and my Inbox, then it can be very abusive, mendacious, conspiratorial, manipulative and insulting. Oh, and threatening, too; even some that I would consider “hate crime”.

4. Refuse to answer the sceptic accusations against Climate Change scientists. You will only end up in long, detailed, heated arguments, which nobody has time for.

The Climate Change Sceptics have shot themselves in the foot with this ridiculous and underhand manoeuvre regarding CRU. People aren’t going to listen to them for very much longer if they continue to behave like this. The plot (if it is a plot) has failed.

Some of the links to the news and commentary on this matter :-

Climateer Views
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/
https://climatedenial.org/2009/11/22/swiftboating-the-climate-scientists/
https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/on_those_stolen_cru_emails.php
https://www.desmogblog.com/climategate-perspective-featuring-isaac-newton
https://climateprogress.org/2009/11/21/hacked-emails-ncar-kevin-trenberth/
https://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-20-skeptics-claim-global-warming-fake-scientists-emails-CRU/

Denier Views
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/20/cru_climate_hack/
https://www.lettersfromatory.com/2009/11/21/climate-change-comes-under-heavy-fire-in-the-blogosphere/
https://bishophill.squarespace.com/
https://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Climate-change-conspiracy-busted-by-computer-hackers–Links-to-important-reports-here
https://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/those-cru-emails-2.html
https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017451/climategate-how-the-msm-reported-the-greatest-scandal-in-modern-science/
https://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Who-leaked-the-Hadley-CRU-files-and-why
https://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17102
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230122/How-climate-change-scientists-dodged-sceptics.html

Please submit your own links to articles and commentary on this mess in the comments section below. (Keep it clean or it will be wiped and tidied, I assure you.)

One reply on “Scepticaemia : Blood Brotherhood Trouble”

I’m not sure I share your optimism Jo, this all looks very bad, potentially illegal actions by Professors of Climatology.

I don’t know what fightback you are hoping for but the current response has been pretty weak. It is all well and good to put up rebuttals on here, real climate etc. but in the meantime the right wing press and bloggers are churning away with their own narrative which is going largely unchallenged…

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