Whitewashing over the cracks
You wait ages, and then two climate whitewashes come along at once. A few days ago it was Penn State, sweeping Michael Mann under the carpet (so to speak), and now we have Muir Russell clearing the CRU lot of any wrongdoing as well. I guess that’s what happens when you only investigate one side of the story. And our own moonbat media lap it up. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
The email leak heightened challenges to the legitimacy of climate change science on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit, prompting claims of data manipulation and suppression of inconvenient evidence and opposing views.
The Independent Climate Change Email Review, headed by former senior British public servant Sir Muir Russell, last night dismissed many of these accusations, finding no suggestion the world’s leading scientists had prejudiced the advice given to politicians.
”We conclude that the argument that [the unit] has something to hide does not stand up,” Sir Muir said at a London press conference. (source)
Gee, what a surprise. But with so much financial and emotional investment in the climate scam, what could we expect? So we have to look to the blogosphere to find the truth (as is so often the case these days). From Climate Depot:
Shameful Sham Climategate report urges ‘campaign to win hearts and minds’ to restore confidence in global warming science — ‘University of East Anglia’s enquiry into the conduct of its own staff at its Climatic Research — The most serious charge is poor communication — Sir Muir Russell even calls for ‘a concerted and sustained campaign to win hearts and minds’ to restore confidence in the team’s work’ (Full PDF report here.)
The Muir Russell Review gets basic IPCC info wrong! Pielke Jr.: ‘The idea that IPCC presents a ‘best estimate’ understanding based on views of a selected group of scientists is completely contrary to how IPCC characterizes its own work… ‘To suggest that the IPCC is “not to produce a review of the scientific literature” is just plain wrong’
Climate Audit’s McIntyre on Climategate report: It ‘adopted a unique inquiry process in which they interviewed only one side – CRU. As a result, report is heavily weighted towards CRU apologia’ — ‘…a not unexpected result given that the writing team came from Geoffrey Boulton’s Royal Society of Edinburgh. Remarkably, the Muir Russell inquiry ruled on this issue without actually citing IPCC procedures…Instead of examining IPCC rules, they asked John Mitchell, the Review Editor, for his opinion. Mitchell, needless to say, was a Climategate correspondent, who gave untruthful answers when refusing David Holland’s FOI request for materials’
Climate Audit’s McIntyre: ‘Muir Russell’s [climategate report] contains many gaffes and errors, which are going to get placed into the sunshine over the next few days, as critics get a chance to work through the report. It’s too bad that Muir Russell decided that it was a good idea not to interview critics during the preparation of the report’
More Errors: Muir Russell writes that Oxburgh inquiry looked at the science. Lord Oxburgh has specifically stated that his inquiry did not look at the science’ — ‘An inquiry that doesn’t look at the science cannot understand Climategate’ — ‘Nor did the Parliamentary sub-committee’s one day hearing. Nor did either of the Penn State investigations [look at the science].’ ‘But in terms of making this issue go away, which is the obvious goal of all these investigations, it failed to do what it was meant to do…without looking at the science, they didn’t look at Climategate’
‘The subjects of their criticism were not invited, nor were climate scientists critical of their behavior’ — Sham: ‘The report finds a criterion: a ‘consistence of view’ with earlier work. The earlier work here was produced the academics under scrutiny. So the academics were judged against their earlier work, and not surprisingly, found to be consistent’
Microsoft Made Climategate professors Do It!? ‘Calling people ‘frauds’, ‘fraudit’, ‘bozos’, ‘morons’ and so on. It was Microsoft’s fault’ — Muir Russell blamed email itself for the language: ‘Finding: The extreme modes of expression used in many e-mails are characteristic of the medium….Extreme forms of language are frequently applied to quite normal situations by people who would never use it in other communication channels’
Mockery for Climategate whitewash: ‘We’re shocked, shocked!’ ‘Utterly shocked – that anyone could have thought that the review might have found otherwise’
Climategate? Never heard of it. ‘Climategate’ professor Phil Jones gets his job back has cleared Prof Jones of dishonest behavior — ‘Skeptics claimed report was a whitewash and questioned the reinstatement of Prof Jones. David Holland, one of the leading skeptics on the blogosphere, pointed out that Prof Jones referred to deleting emails in one of his communications. ‘Would you trust a man who has asked to delete evidence?’ he said’
‘Climategate’ scientists were ‘unhelpful’ and not open about their studies, finds review — ‘Review found that the graph referred to in this now infamous email from the centre’s head, Professor Phil Jones, was ‘misleading’ because it did not make plain what the scientists had done’
Anthony Watts sums it up:
“The investigations thus far are much like having a trial with judge, jury, reporters, spectators, and defendant, but no plaintiff. The plaintiff is locked outside the courtroom sitting in the hall hollering and hoping the jury hears some of what he has to say. Is it any wonder the verdicts keep coming up ‘not guilty’?”
UPDATE: Fred Pearce, writing at The Guardian, argues that it’s not so much of a whitewash after all:
The report is far from being a whitewash. And nor does it justify the claim of university vice-chancellor Sir Edward Action that it is a “complete exoneration”. In particular it backs critics who see in the emails a widespread effort to suppress public knowledge about their activities and to sideline bloggers who want to access their data and do their own analysis.
Most seriously, it finds “evidence that emails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them [under Freedom of information law]”. Yet, extraordinarily, it emerged during questioning that Russell and his team never asked Jones or his colleagues whether they had actually done this.
Secrecy was the order of the day at CRU. “We find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness,” says the report. That criticism applied not just to Jones and his team at CRU. It applied equally to the university itself, which may have been embarrassed to find itself in the dock as much as the scientists on whom it asked Russell to sit in judgment.
The university “failed to recognise not only the significance of statutory requirements” – FOI law in particular – and “also the risk to the reputation of the university and indeed the credibility of UK climate science” from the affair. (source)
Australian Climate Madness 
All that whitepaint is starting to affect earth’s albedo!
The likes of Muir Russell etc must think that anyone interested in the affair are completely stupid. It’s an insult to the world in general when he can say that there was no evidence of an intention to delete emails when it is staring at everyone right in the face.
His credibility is edging close to zero.