Climate scientists under attack before Copenhagen summit

Thousands of files recently stolen from the University of East Anglia’s climate-research unit have the world buzzing ahead of December’s summit in Copenhagen. Some have alleged that the documents and e-mails contain evidence of a conspiracy orchestrated by the scientific community to silence those who refute links between climate change and human activity.

But the University of Victoria’s Andrew Weaver, a prominent climatologist, dismissed the entire matter outright and said that it does not change a thing about humanity’s understanding of the environment.

“People don’t like the freaking numbers,” Weaver said from Victoria. “So what they are trying to do is create all sorts of controversy when controversy doesn’t exist.”

One e-mail receiving more attention than any other is a November 1999 message attributed to Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at UEA. Jones wrote: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature [the scientific journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Jones has since denied manipulating any data and said he regrets using “poorly chosen words” written during a moment of frustration.

Weaver maintained that thousands of scientists from around the world are in agreement on climate change, and noted that the UEA researchers are not the only climate scientists under attack.

He claimed to have knowledge of repeated attempts to hack into computers used by Environment Canada’s Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, which has offices in the same building as Weaver’s.

“There are people who don’t like that message and they are trying to undercut that message by selectively targeting individuals,” Weaver said.

Tracy Lacroix-Wilson, a spokesperson for the department, said that it had no evidence of computer attacks and refused to comment further.

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, told the Straight that she wouldn’t be surprised if someone was trying to steal documents from other research centres.

“This is about the biggest, best-funded industry on the planet—the fossil-fuel industry,” May said from Ottawa. “It is fighting for its life and using every dirty trick it can find.”

She argued that the volume of climate science presented in peer-reviewed journals is now "incontrovertible".

On the stolen e-mails, May said: “Someone expressed themselves in ways that are intemperate. But it doesn’t affect the fundamentals of the science nor the very, very rigorous process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

Ian Rutherford is a meteorologist and the executive director of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. He told the Straight that members of his organization have been “harassed” by individuals associated with groups that deny climate change is related to human activity. “Individual members of CMOS have received ugly phone calls and that kind of thing,” Rutherford said.

He singled out a Calgary-based organization called Friends of Science as being of particular concern. According to Rutherford, the group is largely composed of geologists, many of whom have ties to the petroleum industry.

CMOS is preparing a letter for delivery to Parliament that will urge the federal government to “do something concrete” at Copenhagen, Rutherford said. As this message was being drafted, e-mails debating its contents were leaked to Friends of Science. The result was a wave of critical e-mails from members of that group to CMOS council and staff members.

“If you call that harassment, I guess that’s harassment,” Rutherford said. He went on to take issue with the tactics of groups such as Friends of Science and the Ottawa-based International Climate Science Coalition, which, according to Rutherford, make their arguments in the media.

“They present themselves as climate scientists and climate experts and the public knows no better,” Rutherford said. “The proper place for debate is in the scientific literature and its scientific meetings.”

Friends of Science did not respond to an interview request.

An abbreviated version of this story appeared in print on November 26, 2009.


You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.

Comments

19 Comments

RodSmelser

Nov 26, 2009 at 8:54am

Weaver maintained that thousands of scientists from around the world are in agreement on climate change, and noted that the UEA researchers are not the only climate scientists under attack.

He claimed to have knowledge of repeated attempts to hack into computers used by Environment Canada’s Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, which has offices in the same building as Weaver’s.

“There are people who don’t like that message and they are trying to undercut that message by selectively targeting individuals,” Weaver said.

A spokesperson said that the department had no evidence of computer attacks and refused to comment further.
====================================

Travis, a couple of questions. In the phrase "spokesperson for the department", which department? The UVic computer science department, or Weaver's own department?

As I read it the spokesperson is flatly contradicting Weaver. Is that right?

Also, what qualifications does Elizabeth May have that would allow her to even read, let alone summarize the scientific literature? I believe, I stand to be corrected, but I believe her degree is in the field of theology.

Rod Smelser

Travis Lupick

Nov 26, 2009 at 10:17am

@RodSmelser: Here is Environment Canada's e-mailed response in full. I also spoke with Tracy Lacroix-Wilson, a "media relations advisor" with Environment Canada. I did attempt to interview an employee with the "local computing support department" for Environment Canada's Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, but was told that I would only be allowed to speak with a spokesperson.

Based on the e-mail below and on my brief conversation with Ms. Lacroix-Wilson, it is my understanding that the department has contradicted Dr. Weaver.

<em>From: Media [NCR]
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 2:38 PM
To: Travis Lupick
Subject: Response re: hacking attempts

Travis:

I am sorry for the delay in replying, we are however able to provide you with the following response:

We have no evidence that any attempts to hack into computers at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis have been successful.
For security reasons, Environment Canada does not comment on threats against its infrastructure.

Environment Canada routinely monitors its infrastructure and takes necessary precautions to protect its information assets.

Thank you kindly.

Sujata Raisinghani
Media Relations
Environment Canada</em>

Travis Lupick

Nov 26, 2009 at 10:30am

No, Elizabeth May is not a climatologist. But she is a former employee of Environment Canada and someone who has followed the scientific literature on climate change closely for more than 20 years. As leader of the Green Party of Canada and an outspoken advocate on climate change, I felt that readers could be interested to hear her opinions on the issues discussed in this story.

RodSmelser

Nov 26, 2009 at 11:15am

Travis:

Thanks for that Email. By department I assumed you meant university department rather than government department.

On Elizabeth May, her official biography states that she had no undergraduate degree, but entered Dalhousie Law School based on other experience, graduating in 1983 and being called to the Nova Scotia bar in 1984.

Her work at Environment Canada wasn't so much inside the department as on top of it. She was a political appointee, an aide to the Min, Tom McMillan, in the early Mulroney years. It appears she was acting as very much an environmentally aware lawyer and policy adviser, working on legislation and park boundaries, and that this same focus became the issue on which she resigned.

http://www.greenparty.ca/files/Elizabeth_bio_long.pdf

So, just to be boring and repetitive I still don't see where she'd be able to read and review the scientific literature in question any better than I could with an economics degree. I couldn't, and I think it would be silly of me to pretend otherwise.

Rod Smelser

Rob

Nov 26, 2009 at 11:23am

@Travis - I'm not sure about your conversation with Ms. Lacroix-Wilson, but the email you reproduce here does not contradict Weaver.

It says that there is "no evidence that any attempts to hack into computers at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis have been successful".

It doesn't say that there haven't been any hacking ATTEMPTS, just that there have been no SUCCESSFUL attempts.

It then goes onto say that "For security reasons, Environment Canada does not comment on threats against its infrastructure." So, as in CIA policy re: identity of agents, etc., Enviro Canada won't publicly confirm or deny this type of claim, which probably means there is ultimately no way of officially confirming whether or not there have been any unsuccessful attempts to hack their computers, as Weaver claims.

RodSmelser

Nov 26, 2009 at 1:29pm

Rob:

That's an extremely tight reading. It seems to assume that everyone measures their words with the same precision as a lawyer or a post-doc student.

I am not up on hacking, but if there were no successful attempts to hack the system, how would Weaver know there had been any attempts at all? Do unsuccessful hack attempts leave some kind of trace? Indeed, for the sake of computer illiterates like me, what is an "attempted hack"?

If there are hacking programs out there seeking out targets of opportunity more or less at random, then surely most host systems at least get approached by such programs daily if not hourly with "attempted hacks".

Maybe when Weaver was composing the script for his Dallas Heneault get-out-vote robo-call he accidentally misshuffled some of his own saved files, then figured a hacker must have done it?

Rod Smelser

greggron

Nov 26, 2009 at 6:21pm

This is like Christmas come early! The Man-made Global Warming Hoax exposed for all to see. Rev up those tar sands...our economy needs them and trees love the extra CO2.
And where ARE David Suzuki, Al Gore, Elizabeth May and the other fraudsters hiding this week in shame?

Miketeevee

Nov 26, 2009 at 6:25pm

What a ridiculoius article and thread. Top scientistics, whose research has Underpinned the creation of public policy, have been exposed participating in scientific fraud.
After a softball question which Weaver essentially ignores, the focus is put on computer hacking??
Travis: are you stupid, incompetent or a climate change appologist? I know one thing you are not, a competent journalist.

FallenOne

Nov 26, 2009 at 7:15pm

Climate changes, what our real problems are is cutting down trees and dumping toxic waste in the water, where's the enviroment movement for those problems? No where, you know why? Gore and co. can't make money from that.

Stryder

Nov 26, 2009 at 10:17pm

There is no controversy about global warming, there is only big money desperately trying to hold on to their big money, and an ignorant bunch of contrarys getting on the bandwagon to shill for them.