In keeping with our role as a site that tries to deal with the science of climate change rather than the politics, we have specifically refrained from commenting on various politically-motivated legal shenanigans relating to climate science. Some of them have involved us directly, but we didn’t (don’t) want to have RC become just a blog about us. However, the latest move by Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General of Virginia, against Mike Mann and UVa is so ridiculous it needs to be highlighted to the widest audience possible.
For background, Rosalind Helderman at the Washington Post has covered most of the story. The last installment was that Cuccinelli’s attempt to subpoena 10 years of emails between 39 scientists and Mike Mann and ‘all documents’ residing at UVa related to four federal and one Commonwealth of Virginia grant, was thrown out by a judge because Cuccinelli did not provide any reason to suspect that fraud had occurred and that federal grants are not covered by the relevant statute. Without due cause, the AG is not allowed to investigate (and without such a restriction, there would be no end to politically motivated witch hunts).
Yesterday, Cuccinelli filed a new demand that takes this previous judgment into account. Namely, he attempts to give a reason to suspect fraud and only targets the Commonwealth grant – though still asks for 10 years of emails with an assortment of scientists. However, his reasoning should scare the bejesus of anyone who has ever published a paper on any topic that any attorney might have a political grudge against. For the two papers in question the fraud allegation is that the authors
… knew or should have known [that they] contained false information, unsubstantiated claims, and/or were otherwise misleading. Specifically, but without limitation, some of the conclusions of the papers demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect.
So in other words, if you publish a result that might turn out to be statistically weak or with understated error bars – even if this was in no way deliberate and regardless if you were aware of it at the time – Cuccinelli thinks that is equivalent to fraud. And any grant that you apply for that even cites this paper would therefore be a false claim under the statute. Cuccinelli is specifically not stating that deliberate scientific misconduct must have occurred, all you need to have performed is an inadequate (according to him) statistical treatment or you made an unsubstantiated claim. If you want “unsubstainted claims”, Soon and Baliunas (2003) (cited approvingly by Cuccinelli) would be a great example of course. But more generally, this would clearly open up pretty much the entire literature to ‘fraud’ investigations since one can almost always improve on the statistics. You didn’t take temporal auto-correlation into account in calculating the trend? Cuccinelli thinks that’s fraud. You didn’t fully characterise the systematic uncertainty in the “unknown unknowns”? That too. You weren’t aware of the new data that showed an older paper was incomplete? Too bad. This is not just an attack on Mike Mann, it is an attack on the whole scientific enterprise.
However, as appalling as this reasoning is, Cuccinelli’s latest request is simply bone-headed because the grant in question, entitled “Resolving the scale-wise sensitivities in the dynamical coupling between the climate and biosphere”, simply has nothing to do with the MBH98 and MBH99 papers! Even if one agreed with Cuccinelli about their quality (which we don’t), they are not referenced or mentioned even obliquely. The grant was to look at how climate variability impacted land-atmosphere fluxes of carbon, water and heat and doesn’t involve paleo-climate at all. So even if, for arguments sake, one accepted Cuccinelli’s definition of what constitutes ‘fraud’, nothing associated with this grant would qualify. We doubt there could be a clearer demonstration of the inappropriateness of Cuccinelli’s case.
Well, maybe one. In the attachment to the subpoena, Cuccinelli repeats his claim that since Mann used the word “community” in a blog post here on RC, he must therefore be using “Post Normal” jargon, and that might be “misleading/fraudulent” in the context of a grant application. Really? Scientists who use the word “community” regardless of context are therefore to be suspected of fraud? This is just embarrassing.
It might be worth pointing out that under the Virginia Bar ethics guidelines, it states that:
A lawyer should use the law’s procedures only for legitimate purposes and not to harass or intimidate others.
We can only wonder when this will start to be applied to the current AG.
Hank @ 292
A good rule of thumb is that green wood is ~50% water, dry wood is ~ 50% carbon.
And from http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=coal_home-basics
Anthracite: 86-97% carbon, less than 0.5% of the coal mined in the United States.
Bituminous coal: 45-86% carbon, about half of U.S. coal production
Subbituminous: 35-45% carbon, about 46% of the coal produced in the United States
Lignite: 25%-35%, about 7% of U.S. coal
I can’t be bothered to do the math, but it looks like Jim Bullis’s assumption about comparability of carbon in coal and wood may be in the right ballpark. Given the abundant flawed assumptions in the rest of his scenario, a very large ballpark may suffice. As for addressing those flawed assumptions, I’m not sure I know where to begin; my little brain stutters to a halt with “distribution of water in North America on a continental basis” “At No Cost”
299 Paul Tremblay: Keep in mind Cuccinelli wants the last 10 years of Mann’s emails!
No one should write in email something he or she would not want to be made public. Especially not using a computer or network owned by the state.
I used to think, as a statistician, how much better my life would have been if everyone I worked with knew that all our work would become public. In industry, the documents all go to FDA, PTO, or someplace like that, and the work product that eventuates is a good or service in the market that gets judged by the market. In academics it is never so clear that the public will ever express its judgment on the work that it has paid for.
Septic Matthew,
I’m going to have to assume that you didn’t read Ken the Cooch’s little memo. Because had you read it, you would realise that the scientific basis for his challenge is non-existent, making the legal basis equally imaginary.
Dr. Mann’s reconstruction could be wrong, but if it is, then a couple dozen other independent reconstructions, some with quite different proxies, that show the same trend are also wrong.
Mr. Cuccinelli has the right to investigate public expenditures where he has reason to suspect malfeasance. That condition is unfulfilled here, making his witch hunt a clear abuse o power.
293 Hank Roberts
Hank question, \How much carbon by weight in a ton of coal?\
Jim answer, \About 50% of Powder River Basin coal (cheap) is the element carbon. Some coal (expensive) goes up to around 90% carbon, so the word ‘roughly’ was used.\
Hank question, \How much carbon by weight in a ton of forest mass?\
Jim answer, \The hydrocarbons that make up wood also vary somewhat depending on the kind of wood, but a quick look at wood chemistry showed that the element carbon was roughly 50% of these compounds. But in a concept discussion, it is not necessary to speak with great precision. Of course, better data needs to be brought into the picture as the project design takes on the kind of detail that a next phase study would require.\
The key thought is that new standing forests would be established, where the CO2 capture would be greatest during the time of maximum growth rate. Once the forest reached maturity, it would be managed to maintain the forest mass to maintain sequestration of carbon, in the form of compounds in wood. When and where it was appropriate to do so, selective harvesting would take place.
This would be a project set apart from all the logging issues all over the world that are now going on, and while these are important for CO2, there should be clear understanding that the new forests that I would use to balance use of coal in power plants are entirely different and are in entirely different places.
When we get into the details of where the new forests should be and the type of wood to grow, the history of forests becomes an important knowledge base. And that might get confused with the issues of logging that are currently in conflict. For example, if we were to to re-establish the forests of the eastern \Midwest\ that were demolished 150 years ago, we would need to guard against thinking that this would justify mowing down more of the Amazon rain forest. Partly for this reason, I would tend to favor establishing the new forests in relatively un-productive, formerly dry regions, where there is no forest history.
301 Rick Brown
Thanks for the wood and coal data.
But ‘flawed assumptions’?
“No cost” means that there is a net result that I see as potentially very much positive, but was being reserved about it. Sure there would be up-front costs, but from the history of the California Central valley agricultural production that resulted from the most recent California Aquaduct, an enormous payback seems likely. Forest products would also be an eventual, though probably not as big a payback.
Maybe some review of the history of the WPA and the CCC during the 1930s would stir up some brain activity from its stuttered halt, where these organizations carried out much development of infrastructure that we still benefit from. On the other hand, aquaducts are maybe better done with bigger tools than the famous WPA shovels.
Aquaducts are not all that hard. The latest California aquaduct was started under Governor Brown the First, and the cost was carried with barely a whimper from the politicians. Maybe this is because everyone could see a long term value to both the City of Los Angeles and the farmers of the Central Valley. When a project becomes a common cause, it can get easy.
You also might compare this project to the Federal Highway program that built our National Interstate highways. Surely, the future burdens that global warming would impose are worth fighting off with a project like that. And the North American water distribution I speak of would probably be less costly than that was.
Just to hold back the rising sea levels would take levees more difficult to build than an aquaduct.
Getting into the ballpark, as you say, is quite satisfactory from my point of view for a concept such as this at this stage. But how about the rest of the “abundant flawed assumptions?”
Septic Matthew,
There’s no question that a grantor has the right to ask questions about how a grantee has conducted activities under a grant. As a former senior official of a state grant-making agency (not in Virginia), I have some first-hand knowledge here. The grantor has the right to receive financial and scientific reports; the right to enter and audit, to assure that the grantee’s reporting is accurate; the right to investigate allegations both of misuse of funds and of fraud (either in the performance under the grant or in the process of obtaining the grant).
That said, a couple of observations. First, the Commonwealth of Virginia was not the grantor of the grant Mr. Cuccinelli is questioning. The grantor was the University of Virginia… and the grantor does not appear to share Mr. Cuccinelli’s concerns.
Second, Mr. Cuccinelli’s CID does not indicate any concern with the expenditure of funds or the performance of activities under the questioned grant. There is no indication that he has even sought an audit of grant expenditures or activities – no indication that he believes the grant was misused in any way.
Mr. Cuccinelli has alleged potential fraud in the application for the grant in question. However, his allegation is… well, silly. His argument is that Mr. Mann listed MBH98 and MBH99 on his curriculum vitae, and that there is controversy about the science in those two papers. That’s it; that’s the argument.
But… 1) Mr. Mann was not the PI on the subject grant. He was included as a participating researcher. The fact that a participating researcher had a couple of well-known (and controversial, even at the time) papers on his CV was not likely to be much of a determinant in a grant-making decision. Had Mr. Mann excluded these papers, there would have been the question of why his CV was incomplete. 2) The materials requested by Mr. Cuccinelli (ten years worth of emails) bear no relationship to the subject grant.
It is painfully obvious to this observer – and I expect to the court, as well – that Mr. Cuccinelli’s stated interest in the subject grant is nothing but a pretext. His real interest is not with this grant – neither with how the grant was won, nor with how it was executed. His real interest is digging into Michael Mann’s email correspondence, simply to see what he can find. He has no probable cause suggesting any crime – if he did, he would be talking to a grand jury and pursuing criminal charges, not this trumped-up civil action.
This is the definition of a fishing expedition. There’s no evidence of any malfeasance on Mr. Mann’s part – and a large and growing body of evidence that Mr. Cuccinelli is simply abusing his office. And this is not to argue that the AG should not have the power to investigate credible allegations of fraud – but there is no credible allegation here. Cuccinelli hasn’t even argued that there is, unless you accept the premise that Mann’s listing MBH98 as his publication (which is clearly is) is somehow “fraud.” This is absurd on its face; it is transparently just a pretext, an attempt to gain access to Mr. Mann’s entire correspondence for a decade, to see what, if anything, can be dug up to discredit the man – not because of anything he’s done wrong, but simply because Cuccinelli sees discrediting Mann as politically convenient.
Cuccinelli should be disbarred and removed from office. And perhaps given fifty lashes of the cat-o-nine-tails in a public square in Richmond, as an object lesson to any who might try to follow in his footsteps.
In view of what Snapple has been suggesting about Russian acivities, trying to spread doubt about global warming,have people considered the possibility that the Russiansmight be behind the UAE hack? After all, I believe the attack came from a Russian site or at least the one on Real Climate did. I thought that the use of such a site was probably because investigators would have very litte access to a Russian site but maybe there was another reason.
Jim Bullis 305
Okay, we’ve established that “at no cost” doesn’t really mean no cost, just some unspecified cost that your intuition tells you is achievable. My intuition says otherwise and I think there are doubtless much more effective ways to spend the very, very substantial sums involved. Your references to times when California and the United States had money to spare are . . . interesting.
You haven’t mentioned the time it would take to achieve your pipe dream, but implicitly it seems to be “in no time.” My doubts here are comparable.
Others previously pointed out the difficulties involved in sustainably irrigating in the desert. And don’t forget the fertilizer (and pesticides) that will need to be added.
Clearing and tilling the land where you would plant trees (not forests) would not only destroy ecosystems, it would release substantial amounts of carbon from vegetation and soils, creating a carbon deficit that your envisioned plantations would probably take a decade or two to overcome, just to become locally carbon-neutral. Add this to the decades necessary to plan and construct the aqueduct and irrigation system (and oh yeah, negotiate with Canada). Guess what, you’ve run out of time.
I stopped reading your posts some time ago and I’m not about to go back and look for details, but as best I can tell your aqueduct would begin in areas where elevation is measured in a few hundreds of feet and terminate in territory where elevations are measured in thousands of feet. How will you power the pumps and what’s the associated carbon cost?
I’m done. If you hope to engage me in additional back and forth I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.
Septic Matthew #302:
You just abolished, in a practical sense, the practice of collaborative authorship. Try to imagine science without it.
306, dreater
That was a very good post, especially the bit about the granter being the University of Virginia, not the state of VA.
I wouldn’t go along with the 50 lashings, which I take as metaphorical. I assume that you are serious about disbarment. Surely some interested party will start proceedings?
While serious issues have surfaced regarding the Wegman report, I think this could potentially backfire, since it seems the kind of game that “skeptics” usually play. The main problem as I see it is the bias and misrepresentation in the Wegman report rather than the plagiarism per se. That seems to be getting lost in some outlets. And the pushback is already being organized: http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/1301868857/perhaps-the-best-way-to-honor-bradleys-newfound
See also http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/skeptic-gate-wegman-gate-copy-gate-everything-gate-gate-gate/
SM 284: Nothing in the IPCC scenarios leads to an expectation that the entire world will be worse than those places in response to CO2.
BPL: But something in my scenarios does. Namely that if harvests fail all over the world in any one year, we only have 40 days of food supplies worldwide. See the problem?
SM 302: No one should write in email something he or she would not want to be made public. Especially not using a computer or network owned by the state.
BPL: Carelessness does not justify invasion of privacy.
L. Flack writes:
“have people considered the possibility that the Russians might be behind the UAE hack?”
As far as I know, I may have been the first person to suggest this possibility.
I wrote about this on my blog about a week before the British media speculated about this possibility.
I can’t prove it, but that’s what it looks like to me. This is what the Russians call “kompromat” and we call “swiftboarding”, I suppose.
The Russians don’t just do this in Russia, and usually they use people in the target country. Look at the CIA’s report on the KGB AIDS propaganda. The KGB called that Operation Infektion.
Here was my post back in November. I didn’t know anything about global warming then, but the whole think looked like a Russian kompromat operation to me. I have had many follow-ups about this possibility, but this was my first observation. A lot of people said what I wrote about a week later. Probably they just had the same idea since my blog is really obscure.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Did Russian “Hacker Patriots” Embarrass Proponents of Global Warming at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia?
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2009/11/russias-hacker-patriots-embarrass.html
I am a Republican, and I voted for Cuccinelli because a friend liked him; but Climategate made me notice some bad things. For one thing, Cuccinelli’s office won’t tell me who is giving them campaign money.
I noticed that Cuccinelli’s dad was a marketing lobbyist for the American Gas Company. Since that job he has been an executive/owner at other marketing/advertising/consulting companies.
The elder Cuccinelli’s experience in the natural gas industry is touted and the site says he has “European” clients.
Details here:
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2010/09/attorney-general-cuccinellis-daddy-and.html
Cuccinelli wants information from everyone else, but his office won’t answer my many questions about the daddy’s clients.
The elder Cuccinelli’s firm gave over 96,000 to Cuccinelli, so I want to know if those clients are gas companies–especially Russian gas companies.
I am worried that foreign money formally disguised as “professional services” is buying the services of my Attorney General.
The AG office won’t ever answer.
Cuccinelli is always talking about a revolution against the federal government, too. He brings up the Revolution, which Virginians fought to rid ourselves of EUROPEAN tyrants.
Cuccinelli calls Dr. Mann and climate scientists greedy people who are making a big plot to steal our money and freedom.
These people are scholars, teachers.
I think Cuccinelli is probably the greedy moneybags who is part of a big plot to steal our money and freedom.
Also, Cuccinelli sounds exactly like President Medvedev in Tomsk last winter.
“Last winter when Russia’s President Medvedev was in TOMSK, he claimed that global warming was ‘some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects.’” Time (8-2-10)
I think that global warming DENIALISM is “some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects.”
Cuccinelli is a radical. There is nothing “conservative” about what he is doing. He’s not conserving our civilization, the independence of science, or the integrity of our justice system.
He talks about a revolution, and I am revolting (peacefully/legally) against him!
dreater (#306) says:
Direct hit! Case closed. But will that blatant fact satisfy the likes of Septic Matthew, who seems to be in permanent “I’m just asking questions” mode on this site? That’s about the 5th time in this thread alone it had to be explained to him why this is clearly a political witch hunt on Cuccinelli’s part.
I am not suggesting that the Kremlin and Kremlin-finaced media promote denialism. I read the Russian press. It is a fact.
Google Tomsk hackers
Related topic.
Climate change and the law.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v72r3
(this series has been informative ; I must be fair to the BBC when it does better)
309 Martin quoted SM “No one should write in email something he or she would not want to be made public. Especially not using a computer or network owned by the state.”
and replied
“You just abolished, in a practical sense, the practice of collaborative authorship. Try to imagine science without it.”
I collaborate with people all the time. I never say anything in an e-mail that would embarrass me if it were made public. It simply isn’t an issue. I adopted that policy about 13 years ago after a few panic stricken moments during which I thought I’d accidentally sent an e-mail in which I’d said uncomplimentary things about PRofessor Z to Professor Z himself rather than to Professor X. It hasn’t been a burden at all.
#305, 308–
It pains me to be negative about anything resembling reforestation, but my intuition is with Rick on this one. Significantly rearranging the hydrology of North America won’t come easily, cheaply or quickly.
Nor is it probable that it’s a good idea. Literally everyplace you’d put a “new forest” has an existing ecology, and many of them aren’t even all that degraded by human interference. Most of them will have their defenders–inhabitants, researchers, economic interests, recreational users–and they’ll be quite adept at deploying existing legal safeguards. Massive transformation of plains and grasslands to forest would certainly endanger a goodly number of species and trigger legal protections. Again, no easy, cheap or quick change will result.
Which is not to say that reforestation is a bad idea. That’s why it’s a staple of existing carbon offset programs. I think it would be great to work on legal, administrative and technical measures to strengthen such programs, making them more efficient, effective and transparent, and thereby increasing their reach.
But it won’t be a “silver bullet.” There aren’t any, for this crisis; multiple strategies are going to be needed. Luckily, some of them continue to make some headway even as the political process continues to flounder, globally and in the US at least.
“‘I think America is about to make a clear statement that the course we are on is not one that is sustainable or that they would like to continue,’ Cuccinelli said.” http://www.wset.com/Global/story.asp?S=13316582
dreater, informative, rational well-done summary at -306. (You did fall off the wagon with the last sentence, but I suppose that’s allowed…)
Further to the issue of water supplies, this just in:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/has-the-us-passed-the-poi_b_758698.html
Not a rigorous statement, but I haven’t looked at the underlying work–yet, at least.
Hank, while you were extracting ironic quotes from the release, you missed this:
“. . .Cuccinelli told supporters he expects Hurt to be part of a dynamic turnaround, with a new wave of Republicans working to undue policies. . .”
320 Kevin McKinney,
You say: It pains me to be negative about anything resembling reforestation, – – –
I say: The pain must be not so serious as to restrain you from negative pronouncements based on intuition. But you seem encouraged that Rick thinks like you do.
[Response: As would I be, because Rick knows what he’s talking about and his “intuition” is in fact based on a solid understanding of forest ecology principles, for which I can vouch.–Jim]
Also, it might not be necessary to label the concept as ‘significantly rearranging the hydrology of North America’.But ok, I agree that there will be diffiiculty.
[Response: No, that is exactly what it would take to afforest arid lands on a large scale, and the operational words would be “extreme difficulty” to “impossibility”, assuming we leave “insanity” out of the mix–Jim]
Not only will the current interested parties be united agaianst change, there will be environmentalists swooping in to find species to defend. The test for environmentalists would be how they made the choice between global warming, which is said to be massively threatening to all manner of species, including mankind, and local species that might be endangered, but in most cases, these local species could be given reasonable care.
[Response:What in the world are you talking about? Whatever it is, it’s WAY off topic. No more–Jim]
Actually, I am hoping environmentalists will first join in making the important choice that this was an important thing to do, and second, to participate in carrying out the project in a way that is protective as much as is reasonably possible.
You say: — Again, no easy, cheap or quick change will result.
I say: There is nothing quick about perpetual storage of ‘carbon’, whether it is in the form of CO2 in caverns or in the form of wood hydrocarbons in standing forests. The choice at hand is whether to ‘capture’ CO2 as it comes out of smokestacks at capture cost up to $180 to $320 per ton of coal used, plus undisclosed but acknowledged costs of transporting and inserting that CO2 into caverns; or establish a new forestation system that would require building a massive scale aquaduct, where water would be used for growing forests and crops, the crops being an ancillary activity intended to make payback more near term.
You say: Reforestation is not a bad idea.
I say: Yup. Keep it coming. But don’t try to reframe this new forestation concept as something that is part of that. That would limit it in scale, which is exactly what is wrong with most supposed solutions to global warming. Sure, we should keep working on reforestation issues, so that we can all feel good about ‘doing a little’, though of course together we would be accomplishing very little. (see Prof. David MacKay as source for this line)
You say: But it won’t be a “silver bullet.” There aren’t any, for this crisis; multiple strategies are going to be needed. Luckily, some of them continue to make some headway even as the political process continues to flounder, globally and in the US at least.
I say: Apparently your pronounced verdict: ‘–nor is it probable that it is a good idea –‘ and ‘– it is not a silver bullet – -‘ is based on something more than you provided here as evidence.
Somehow, it seems I have heard that ‘silver bullet’ thing before. It seems to come from purveyors of inadequate solutions that wish to garner support for their favored project in return for supporting all imaginable other projects.
I would not presume to think that President Hu of China has it in mind that their efforts along this line are a ‘silver bullet’, but his stated plan seems to show that they appreciate the large scale implications of it.
308 Rick Brown,
Indeed, I write here without hope.
[Response: How about you go do that somewhere else then?–Jim]
Still, for general understanding, I need to correct what you say we have ‘established’; this ‘established’ fact having been restated by you in a pejorative manner so as to indicate your general scorn.
Your general scorn is still acknowledged.
(Regarding Jim Bullis 305)
You say: Okay, we’ve established that “at no cost” doesn’t really mean no cost, just some unspecified cost that your intuition tells you is achievable. My intuition says otherwise and I think there are doubtless much more effective ways to spend the very, very substantial sums involved. Your references to times when California and the United States had money to spare are . . . interesting.
I say: Nope. My words, ‘at no cost’ mean ‘at no net cost to the public over the long term’. But additionally, I thought I clarified that I really expected that this would be a broadly productive enterprise that would actually end in a sizable return on investment. And while it might be that intuition is your basis for pronouncing judgment, I offered comparisons with the California Central Valley where immense profitability did indeed come to pass. I also referred to President Hu’s statement where I hoped to garner some general credibility, in what I consider to be more than just intuition.
But being short of public money seems to bother you in this instance; would you have been bothered by eager funding in $10 Billion for just starters for a high speed train that has no prospects for recovery of the money, and models pretending to show that have not even been offered.
You say: You haven’t mentioned the time it would take to achieve your pipe dream, but implicitly it seems to be “in no time.” My doubts here are comparable.
I say: I believe the term ‘permanent’ might suggest the time contemplated. But as to a pipe dream, my pipe is not as well filled as that of Pres. Hu of China. We might note that he has the wherewithall to back up his plan with the Yangtze River dam. China also just secured natural gas supplies in North America, and some of us realize that this resource is important as the feedstock for production of urea, that being a powerful fertilizer that would also be important to their project.
You say: Others previously pointed out the difficulties involved in sustainably irrigating in the desert. And don’t forget the fertilizer (and pesticides) that will need to be added.
I say: The California Central Valley agriculture somehow managed to handle the sustainability issue. First to be noted is that the ‘salts’ that accumulate are not sea ‘salt’; rather they are substantially like the ‘salts’ brought in by fresh water, and such salts are for example CaCl which is related to limestone. Yes, the existence of ‘hardpan’ meant that drainage into the earth was limited, so as evaporation took place, water left behind these ‘salts’ and because there was no mechanism that carried them downward. Machines exist for breaking up ‘hardpan’ but I can not say if these were used in the still continuing agriculture there.
We might ask Norman Borlaug about fertilizer and pesticides, as well as how to handle the water. (I am not sure he is still alive, but his legacy is at least; but you get the idea.)
You say: Clearing and tilling the land where you would plant trees (not forests) would not only destroy ecosystems, it would release substantial amounts of carbon from vegetation and soils, creating a carbon deficit that your envisioned plantations would probably take a decade or two to overcome, just to become locally carbon-neutral. Add this to the decades necessary to plan and construct the aqueduct and irrigation system (and oh yeah, negotiate with Canada). Guess what, you’ve run out of time.
I say: Are you saying reforestation is bad? Intuition is a dangerous thing when it provides negative ammunition without limit. Oh, and where did the time limit come from?
You say: I stopped reading your posts some time ago and I’m not about to go back and look for details, but as best I can tell your aqueduct would begin in areas where elevation is measured in a few hundreds of feet and terminate in territory where elevations are measured in thousands of feet. How will you power the pumps and what’s the associated carbon cost?
I say: Your disdain has been noted and so has your declaration of no further thought. But then you heap on negativity by throwing in impediments that were overcome, as can be seen in a drive from Sacramento to Los Angeles on Interstate 5.
You say: I’m done. If you hope to engage me in additional back and forth I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.
I say: Rejection is indeed unpleasant, but somehow it is not surprising. Thus, I have been prepared for this disappointment. After I crawl away in shame, I will try to gather my strength and return for more discussion with others.
[Response: Don’t bother, unless you decide you want to stay strictly on topic, with defensible references to the literature. I’m tired of this shit.–Jim]
#325–Jim, I appreciate that you are willing to think big. I do think that there is considerable devil in the details that I mentioned–much more so than you evidently do.
So, in order to avoid needless opining in the absence of information (even projected information), do you have, say, a map of where you’d put the forest? Routes for water transport? Cost estimates for its construction? Environmental assessments for the ecosystems you’d destroy?
And just how would this be paid for, anyway? With carbon capture–skeptical as I am about that–you’d at least have the “polluter pays” principle pointing toward some funding sources. Would this be straight out of tax revenues, a vast public work?
Because I think this would be far, far beyond any water supply project ever attempted, or possibly even designed. Others here will be better able than I to calculate the amounts of water involved, but I’m pretty sure they’d be truly, truly massive. And worse, they’d be very diffuse–remember, you’ve got to get the water to every last tree.
Again, I don’t want to be unduly negative, particularly given how slowly mitigation is developing and how unappetizing other geo-engineering schemes are, but if you want me to take this idea seriously, you need to address these objections, not just hand-wave them away. ‘Cause right now, that “intuition” you mention is sensing a lot of problems.
Arguably on-topic here:
I have another writing project in hand–or at least in contemplation–and think that some content illustrating harassment of climate scientists would be valuable. I’m thinking of legal harassment, such as Cuccinelli is perpetrating, and McIntyre fomented against the CRU, but also extra-legal harassment–threats, “pranks,” insults and so forth.
Pointers to published or otherwise public material would be welcome. So would first-person experiences if anyone cares to share them. (Contact can be made off RC via my website.)
Finally, I’m aware that I, personally, am not at threat now–AFAIK. So I don’t want to worsen the situation for someone else by anything that I may write. I do think in general that openness is best, that problems are better addressed openly than left in silence. But I have to acknowledge that there are nuts out there–and there are nuts who are also copycats. So any thoughts on relevant ethical, legal and practical/strategic considerations around writing about this would also be more than welcome. In short, what is the responsible course of action? Are there parameters for what is best said, or best left unsaid?
327 Kevin McKinney
[edit-OT. You’ve been warned enough.]
[edit-OT]
[edit–ditto. Discuss the topic of the post please.]
#300–Jim Eager: What if the Middle East is an uninhabitable desert? You apparently mean before that point is reached, but while I’m not certain about this, I think it strains credulity to interpret the document I mentioned earlier in that way. The substance and tenor of that document seems incompatible with the ultimate consequences of global warming, consequences which are far more likely to ensue if enough people remain in denial. And that’s why I made the point about something that would seem to have nothing to do with climate science but may in fact turn out to have a great deal to do with global warming, and with finding a political solution. Scientists would be making a mistake to ignore this possibility. The multitude of ordinary folks who make up the ranks of the “weak” denialists (among whom I used to count myself) can’t be explained in terms of free-market utopianism, and certainly not in terms of financial self-interest. The “strong” denialists–the “conservative” writers and lobbyists who heap misdirected and often dishonest scorn on climate scientists–will get nowhere without the weak denialists, whose ignorance and uncertainty they manipulate.
>>No one should write in email something he or she would not want to be made public. Especially not using a computer or network owned by the state.
Yes, and no one should fart in public or complain about their boss while at work. But we are human. You are saying it is okay for the state to engage in a witch hunt to exploit those understandable weaknesses for political ends. And please, spare me the bit about the computer being owned by the state; that’s just an excuse to harass your political opponents, as was done in the Soviet Union, a practice you seem to condone. I note you are the only poster to actually try to defend Cuccinelli; even long time denier who have never posted chimed in to express dismay. So congratulations.
>>In academics it is never so clear that the public will ever express its judgment on the work that it has paid for.
What exactly is this bizarre statement supposed to mean? Most of the academic work is never judged by the public because they don’t understand it and wouldn’t care anyway. Should we stop funding universities?
Ken, actually, the geographic local I had in mind was much further to the east and involves not the document you refer to but two real world states that possess nuclear weapons and that have already gone to war several times over the most precious resource in the region.
OK, this may be off-topic for the post, but could I put in yet anothr request for an Open Thread where commenters could post off-topic comments and to which moderators could divert off-topic comments, thereby perhaps making it possible to have other threads that were actually more or less on topic?
Septic Matthew — “No one should write in email something he or she would not want to be made public. Especially not using a computer or network owned by the state.”
They weren’t plotting to rob a bank. They were discussing and gossiping about the job, and only the most disingenuous would holler about that as if it were a crime. As it so happens…
Home vs public office; personal computer vs publicly supplied computer; [edit. that’s enough on this.]
While this might seem bad, in the long run it might prove highly beneficial…the argument right now is science v politics….yes lets see it in front of a court, we all know how weak the deniers counter-claims are in terms of science, maths and logic….when they fill their blogs with such rubbish its hard to counter…in a court of law they can only tell the truth….I cant see how they can win, so they will lose and better yet look like idiots.
regards
Steven says, “While this might seem bad, in the long run it might prove highly beneficial…the argument right now is science v politics….yes lets see it in front of a court,…”
If you think the goal is to get this into a courtroom, you are deluded. No the goal is to get the emails and then express “SHOCK, SHOCK” when somehow they are leaked to anti-reality operatives to be quote-mined for all eternity. Ken the Cooch will follow the precedent of his namesake, Ken Starr, even to the point of taking a sinecure as dean of a conservative law school.
Septic Matthew, It is difficult for me to believe that you remain so bloody naive even after the selective release of emails from UEA. Ken the Cooch knows there’s no case he can pursue. He is merely looking for more emails his buddies can quote mine. Are you as out of touch with reality as he is?
“in a court of law they can only tell the truth”
I hate to tell you this, but they can bald-faced lie in a courtroom as well. All they have to do is tap-dance fast enough that the layman judge and jury don’t catch on.
Now, hooking them up to a lie-detector might be entertaining, though…
1) People can lie anywhere and lie detectors don’t work very well at best, but especially when people absolutely believe what they are saying.
2) But if one lies in court, and is caught, it’s perjury.
If one does that under oath to Congress, and gets caught, it is not only perjury, and may even be a felony.
If one does that under oath to Congress, and gets caught, it is not only perjury, and may even be a felony.
Except when you are a member of congress. They appear to be exempt from the law, particularly when it comes to perjury. The only recourse is censure, and that can only be performed by their peers, who are similarly exempt.
Case in point : Joe Barton.
Steven (338), if you think you have a slam dunk if only you could get everything in a courtroom, you should better review courts.
r: #343
Ahh, but 18USC1001 may well apply. Hopefully, maybe some day it will actually get tested, or maybe you know a Congressional exemption from this one?
Help! DotEarth again, column inches for Hal Lewis. Not much I could see on Mann’s stalwart credibility, but reams for contrarians. And please, people, don’t pile it on too heavily on Andy Revkin, who is just trying to do his job in difficult circumstances. Driving him further into the arms of the welcoming contrarians is not helpful. Just the facts, please!
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/a-physicists-climate-complaints/
re #325
Moderator Jim says: [Response: As would I be, because Rick knows what he’s talking about and his “intuition” is in fact based on a solid understanding of forest ecology principles, for which I can vouch.–Jim]
Protections for the panthers in Florida is what this link about forest ecology is discussing. That validates expertise in forest ecology? We clealy are not on the same wavelength.
[Response: Botched link. Correct one is here–Jim.]
Susan,
Hmm, I would have though Andy Revkin’s job description might have had someting to do with the truth. Silly me. It would appear that the 4th estate is too busy attracting eyeballs by selling the controversy to care about mundane things like the truth.
Re 347 moderator etc.
Thanks for the useful link, which indeed shows Rick’s knowledge of forest ecology, and it disagrees not at all with what I am saying about establishing ‘new standing forests’. Intuition should not prevent thinking out of the box, and if that were something that could be done, that intuition might be very useful.
340, Ray Bradbury: Are you as out of touch with reality as he is?
I don’t know. I also don’t know whether I am naive.