Climate Researchers resort to "Guerrilla Archiving" to Safeguard Key Data from Trump

a reply to: theantediluvian

From the memo you have posted.

"Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

So the public should not know that there is a lack of scientific certainy????

Its called a confidence game. Act as if you are sure. Don't let the public see hear or sense any uncertainty. When you control the information, you control the public. It used to be called propaganda.

And anyone who opposes your strategy is "evil". Really????

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: projectvxn

From my side, it looks like you can't tell the difference.

Tired of Control Freaks

So they are effectively "leaking" government owned data into a private archive of their own?
Why is that wrong when other people do it?

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: projectvxn

From my side, it looks like you can't tell the difference.

Tired of Control Freaks

When's the last time you read a scientific paper on any given subject?

I subscribe to several journals. Regularly updated with relevant data.

I prefer to have first source observational data.

I used to be just like the people who viewed all science with suspicion. I stopped taking that view when I was confronted with evidence to the contrary.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

You clearly missed all of this:

"The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science," Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.

"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.

It's a flat admission that scientific consensus has been reached but there's still a tiny little gap into which a wedge can be hammered to achieve the political goal of sowing enough of a perception of uncertainty to be relevant.

I don't expect you to agree. You obviously don't appreciate the implications of 50% of the political opinion being based on 3% (hell, 5%, 10% — let's just go all out and pretend it's 25%).

In other words, a tiny amount of skepticism in the scientific community is being massively disproportionately represented in the political discussion of a scientific proposition. Don't let that stop your inane histrionics though.

a reply to: theantediluvian

It's a logical fallacy known as amplification of a minority.

It's basically this:

originally posted by: Greven

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
Because locking data up is the way to progress science.

If they really wanted it to be safe they would distribute it far and wide.

But then if they did that, people would be able dissect the 'data' and see what a sham it is.

Anyone can see that the reason they are fearful is that the data would be lost due to funding cuts.

Gotta put some nefarious spin on those you disagree with, huh?

Clearly you do not work in the hard sciences.

Existing data cannot be lost to funding cuts. It is either archived as electronic or physical data.

If physical (unlikely), it would have to be kept isolated on one or more printouts and literally shredded to be lost.

If electronic it would have to be kept in one (or very few) servers and kept isolated from public consumption. It would not be hard to distribute this data with extra means to designate if the data had been manipulated afterwards.

As I have seen, climate 'researchers' have been very careful to not show their data to others who want to analyze it. To paraphrase, they do not want other people to challenge their 'findings.' This is the opposite of the scientific method. you are supposed to present your observations to other people so that they can either duplicate your results or show that your analysis was flawed.

Too bad they weren't concerned about archiving the original data in the first place.

originally posted by: projectvxn
I used to be just like the people who viewed all science with suspicion. I stopped taking that view when I was confronted with evidence to the contrary.

The point of science is that it is always supposed to be viewed with suspicion. It is always supposed to be challenged. Anything that survives the challenge advances our knowledge.

I have seen no evidence that proves humans are causing climate change. I have seen climate models that use data from cherry-picked areas of the globe. I have seen computer models that cannot predict the past, then when they are 'calibrated' to replicate the past they cannot replicate the present.

In other scientific fields, this would mean that the researchers should scrap their current theory and start over. 'Climate science' is a different animal and it appears to make them double down on their flawed models.

It tells me that our so-called 'climate scientists' are missing crucial variables in their analysis, and/or that they are not interested in presenting the whole truth.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Climate sciences are not the only sciences that fall victim to this strategy. This happens in physics as well - particularly when it comes to the math, where the imagination is greater than the facts. And archaeology, where the imagination is greater than facts.

There isn't very much wrong with the data, however. What's wrong is how people choose to interpret the data to suit their biases.

But one must justify one's paycheck.

If people were honest enough to consider that the information we have is still incomplete, even on some basic levels, then we would know where we need to actually look to find the next set of facts.

One thing I've learned is that going with the mainstream will generally land you on the wrong boat; but going with the alternative can leave you treading water.

If only we were as objective as we claimed to be. The social creature is rarely objective.

originally posted by: FamCore
Trump himself, along with the media, have done a great job of getting people all worried about what the next 4-8 years could mean for a number of important issues, including of course climate change. Personally I'm trying to remain objective about this possibility, and simply making a thread based on what researchers and organizations are doing in response to the shift in politics we are seeing take place in America. Here are the facts:

A UC Davis (University of California) researcher Nick Santos has been backing up government climate data to a non-government server in anticipation of Trump's upcoming presidency.

We've also got the University of Toronto sponsoring what they termed a 'Guerrilla Archiving Event' for their End of Term 2016 project. This event entailed the archiving of federal data that can currently be found online, in hopes of preserving this information in case Trump's administration plans to censor or remove the information once he is inaugurated.

Researchers at University of Pennsylvania are also partnering with groups like Open Data Philly
and the software company Azavea in an attempt to preserve and 'harvest' crucial climate data.

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund is also offering consultation services for researchers who feel threatened or intimidated because of their work involving climate data. The group has even been reportedly distributing pamphlets with the title "Handling Political Harassment and Legal Intimidation: A Pocket Guide for Scientists" (see this related article from the New Yorker that discusses this pamphlet here).

An atmospheric professor Andrew Dessler believes a 'digital book-burning' would cause such a rapid and impactful response that if it is their goal to silence climate change promoters, they would be much more likely to enact policies that would prohibit future collection of the data instead. Here, Dessler weighs in on the subject (a quote from the primary source):

I think it’s much more likely they’d try to end the collection of data, which would minimize its value. Having continuous data is crucial for understanding long-term trends. Trends are what climate change is about — understanding these long-term changes. Think about how much better off the people who don’t want to do anything about climate change would be if all the long-term temperature trends didn’t exist.

Link

Good! Lock it up and bury it really deep and throw away the key!

Throw them people down there too.

I find it weird that it is only in the USA where you find all these climate change deniers.

The rest of the world is onboard with the utterly overwhelming evidence, yet in America there are people who scream about it all being faked and a con. Without a single shred of evidence for it being faked and a con.

It's the strangest disconnect from scientific reality.

originally posted by: JacKatMtn
a reply to: projectvxn

Don't be throwing that "peer reviewed" mantra on me...

I ain't buying... and I notice how those peers have been so vicious to anyone in the scientific community who don't draw water for them...

Seems a bit CLOSED minded for folks who claim to be scientific?

I know, right?!

Hey, I'll lie and get a bunch of my buds to swear to it!

I could be hillary!

I use science to deny this BS.

How? Science is never settled and logic.

a reply to: FamCore

Good. Scientific data should always be saved from religion *ahem* I mean politics.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: JacKatMtn

Yes all those evil scientists just wanna enslave you. They go to school all their lives in order to bring about the new world order.

Peer review is just part of the agenda. Climate change is a ruse, vaccines are killing you, GMOs will turn everyone into mutants, and so forth and so on.


The worst part about this is when you people ask for evidence and the reject it. But you're ok accepting political religion in place of scientific evidence.

So you are saying there is no political cult going on with climate change?

Am I a "denier"?

Is there a God in there somewhere to be called a "denier"?

I can't wait till you guys use blasphemy and apostasy.

Climate changers might as well apply for tax exempt status now.

are they archiving the real raw data, or the

interpolated, extrapolated, munged fake data

a reply to: projectvxn

I have been reading and examining peer reviewed studies in respectable journals for over 20 years. I see the cherry picking, I see the times that statements in the abstract are unsupported by the data in the study. I see the bias. I see retracted studies. You don't???? Apparently you don't read as well as you think you do.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: theantediluvian

I saw it and I read it. You seem to have trouble misinterpreting.

Yes the debate is closing. yes, the science is settled. Except, except the dabate NEVER happened. Opposing points of view were dismissed out of hand. Propaganda ruled. and science is never settled.

The memo outlines a strategy for keeping the debate open and opposing the propaganda

The public should be informed about doubt on an issue that costs billions and trillions of dollars.

WE are paying for it. Dammit! We deserve proper debate. We deserve a voice before out wallets are raped.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: projectvxn

Quantity of evidence not quality of evidence. Especially not on a subject where billions of dollars are available to anybody who can fill in a grant application.

Correlation is not causation.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: Painterz

Most other countries hope to benefit from cash handed over from the developed countries to "help" them adjust to climate change

A scheme whereby the poor of developed countries donate money to the rich of undeveloped countries. You don't sincerely expect them to protest that scheme do you.

Try looking again at Canada , Germany and Australia. Protests aplenty

Also India and China profit by the scheme because they can built coal plants and use cheap electricity and we can't.

They are not going to protest either.

Tired of Control Freaks