Dangers of a Monoculture — Reactions to the Hadley Emails

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2009/11/dangers-of-a-monoculture-reactions-to-the-hadley-emails.html ^ | Climate Skeptic

[ventanax5]

I am disappointed to see folks like Lord Monkton calling for scientists to go to jail over what has been discovered in the Hadley CRU emails. No one is going to jail, at least based on what we know so far. Laws were broken, but of the type that perhaps people lose their jobs but not their freedom. And demanding that people go to jail just paints skeptics as opportunistic, over-the-top and vindictive. We sound like the looniest of the alarmists when we say stuff like this.

This is not to say that the emails (as well as the source code, which Steve McIntyre and his readers are starting to dig into) don’t give us useful insights about the climate science process. And what they really point to for me is the danger of a monoculture.

For years, with the media’s active participation, criticism of the mainstream scientific position on global warming has been painted as somehow outside the bounds of reasonable discourse. Skeptics are called “deniers,” with the intent to equate them with those who deny the Holocaust. At every turn, global warming activists with the help of the media, have tried to make it uncomfortable, even impossible, to criticize the science of catastrophic man-made global warming.

[Ditto]

Laws were broken, but of the type that perhaps people lose their jobs but not their freedom.

I don't know about the UK, but in the US, yes you can go to jail for intentionally destroying documents or falsifying accounts involving government supplied funds.

[hinckley buzzard]

This is not to say that the emails... don’t give us useful insights about the climate science process.

Well actually they don't. What they give us is insight into the political process of perverting science for nonscientific ends.

[jwparkerjr]

re: perhaps people lose their jobs but not their freedom

BS! These guys were complicit in trying to pass off a scam that would defraud the world of more money than Bernie Maddoff is in jail for stealing, they should pay the same price.

They knew full well what they were doing, and knew full well their dishonest science would be used to bolster the scam.

[Zathras]

Skeptics were called NUTS and much worse.
The scientific method DEMANDS that theories are tested and challenged.

[muawiyah]

It's pretty commonly the case that committing fraud with respect to a government contract can send you to prison for a long time.

[blueplum]

Laws were broken, but of the type that perhaps people lose their jobs but not their freedom.

I don't know about the UK, but in the US, yes you can go to jail for intentionally destroying documents or falsifying accounts involving government supplied funds.

add to that, government/county/state-employed/grant-funded employees intentionally destroying documents and distorting information sent back up the chain

[TASMANIANRED]

What part of fraud doesn’t he get?

How many hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars have been spent on this?

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[GladesGuru]

When a scientist, or other AgencyPerson, takes money for performing a job which is known to be based upon a falsehood, that person commits a fraud and is guilty of “improper enrichment”.

Indict ‘em, convict ‘em, jail ‘em.

Then sue for recovery, keeping in mind that all pension monies earned under conditions of fraud are forfeit.

All assets of said frauds should be hunted down and seized.