Crunchy Con

I don't see how the astonishing climate change e-mail scandal is anything but a disaster for the global warming community. This thing really does make one doubt what one had accepted as scientifically true, because the consensus was reported as overwhelming. Excerpt:

And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.

Wanna read all the files hacked out of the University of East Anglia's computer? Here ya go.

Karl Denninger has been reading them. Excerpt:

It gets better. Another message, this one allegedly from 2000:

It was good to see you again yesterday - if briefly. One particular thing you said - and we agreed - was about the IPCC reports and the broader climate negotiations were working to the globalisation agenda driven by organisations like the WTO. So my first question is do you have anything written or published, or know of anything particularly on this subject, which talks about this in more detail?

Oh, so it's not about the planet getting warmer, but rather is a convenient means of advancing an agenda that has already been pre-determined?

That's chilling (no pun intended). Honestly, I don't know what to believe now about this stuff. I mean, seriously, read this:

A partial review of the emails shows that in many cases, climate scientists revealed that their own research wasn't always conclusive. In others, they discussed ways to paper over differences among themselves in order to present a "unified" view on climate change. On at least one occasion, climate scientists were asked to "beef up" conclusions about climate change and extreme weather events because environmental officials in one country were planning a "big public splash."

The release of the documents has given ammunition to many skeptics of man-made global warming, who for years have argued that the scientific "consensus" was less robust than the official IPCC summaries indicated and that climate researchers systematically ostracized other scientists who presented findings that differed from orthodox views.

Since the hacking, many Web sites catering to climate skeptics have pored over the material and concluded that it shows a concerted effort to distort climate science. Other Web sites catering to climate scientists have dismissed those claims.

The tension between those two camps is apparent in the emails. More recent messages showed climate scientists were increasingly concerned about blog postings and articles on leading skeptical Web sites. Much of the internal discussion over scientific papers centered on how to pre-empt attacks from prominent skeptics, for example.

Fellow scientists who disagreed with orthodox views on climate change were variously referred to as "prats" and "utter prats." In other exchanges, one climate researcher said he was "very tempted" to "beat the crap out of" a prominent, skeptical U.S. climate scientist.

In several of the emails, climate researchers discussed how to arrange for favorable reviewers for papers they planned to publish in scientific journals. At the same time, climate researchers at times appeared to pressure scientific journals not to publish research by other scientists whose findings they disagreed with.

One email from 1999, titled "CENSORED!!!!!" showed one U.S.-based scientist uncomfortable with such tactics. "As for thinking that it is 'Better that nothing appear, than something unacceptable to us' ... as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not," the email said.

More recent exchanges centered on requests by independent climate researchers for access to data used by British scientists for some of their papers. The hacked folder is labeled "FOIA," a reference to the Freedom of Information Act requests made by other scientists for access to raw data used to reach conclusions about global temperatures.

Many of the email exchanges discussed ways to decline such requests for information, on the grounds that the data was confidential or was intellectual property. In other email exchanges related to the FOIA requests, some U.K. researchers asked foreign scientists to delete all emails related to their work for the upcoming IPCC summary. In others, they discussed boycotting scientific journals that require them to make their data public.

So much for disinterested science, and just-the-facts. I'm not ready to say that man-made climate change is a hoax, but I'd say those hackers did us all a great service by lifting the veil on those nasty sh**s in labcoats.

UPDATE: I'm not saying that I no longer believe that climate change is occurring, and that mankind has a lot to do with this. I find it hard to believe that so much data have been faked. Still, I am saying that I'm not sure what to believe, because my faith in the integrity and the honesty of climate scientists has been shaken by this.

It seems like I've been hearing about the coming commercial real estate crash for a long time now. This real estate guy on New Geography explains why in his view, it really is about to hit, and how we're all in for a world of hurt. Excerpt:

A year from now, the landscape of America will be forever changed. The office and retail markets will be vastly different than they look today. Not much of it will be good. Five years from now, will empty shopping centers and auto dealerships remain shuttered or will they be rebuilt or torn down and their use converted to something more productive? Will our politicians cease their meddling in the market and allow the market to heal itself? These are questions that will haunt our economy for the next decade.

Could be. I talked to a real estate agent today about the economy. He said he's had a terrible year. "And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better," he told me. He went on to say that financial trader friends of his are deeply pessimistic about our economic future. Said this fellow, "Those guys believe we're going to see 25 percent unemployment before this thing turns around. That's Great Depression levels."

If this stuff comes to pass, ideas like Slow Money will seem awfully boutique.

You've heard of Slow Food, now here's Slow Money. Here are the principles:

I. We must bring money back down to earth.

II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down -- not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.

III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later--what one venture capitalist called "the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history." The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence.

IV. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises.

V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living.

VI. Paul Newman said, "I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out." Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking:

What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?

What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits?

What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?

Here's more about Slow Money and the Slow Money book from NPR's Planet Money blog. What kind of company gives away 50 percent of its profits, instead of putting it back into the business? Other than that, I like most of this.

Via Mark Shea, who got it from Tom Tomorrow, we now have actual documentary footage of Andrew Sullivan taunting a toothsome foe in his indefatigable and courageous online research into the terrifying Palin menace.

Glenn Greenwald explains why Ron Paul's victory in the House Finance Committee regarding his legislation to audit the Federal Reserve was such a big deal -- and such a great thing. Excerpt:

Our leading media outlets are capable of understanding political debates only by stuffing them into melodramatic, trite and often distracting "right v. left" storylines. While some debates fit comfortably into that framework, many do not. Anger over the Wall Street bailouts, the control by the banking industry of Congress, and the impenetrable secrecy with which the Fed conducts itself resonates across the political spectrum, as the truly bipartisan and trans-ideological vote yesterday reflects. Populist anger over elite-favoring economic policies has long been brewing on both the Right and Left (and in between), but neither political party can capitalize on it because they're both dependent upon and subservient to the same elite interests which benefit from those policies.

For that reason, many of the most consequential political conflicts are shaped far more by an "insider v. outsider" dichotomy than by a "GOP v. Democrat" or "Left v. Right" split. The pillaging of America's economic security by financial elites, with the eager assistance of the government officials who they own and who serve them, is the prime example of such a conflict. The political system as a whole -- both parties' leadership -- is owned and controlled by a handful of key industry interests, and anger over the fact is found across the political spectrum. Yesterday's vote is a very rare example where the true nature of political power was expressed and the petty distractions and artificial fault lines overcome.

Greenwald recommends Ryan Grim's account of how the Paul legislation got through the committee, despite the opposition of Chairman Barney Frank, who was for it until it became apparent the thing was actually going to pass.