A review of the climategate scandal and the corruption of climate science.

1. Climate of
Corruption
Climategate and the Corruption
of Climate Science presented by Ryan
Welch

2. RyanWelch
Purpose:
1. To discuss the politicization
and corruption of climate
science based on evidence
presented in the books by A.W.
Montford and Larry Bell.
2. Agenda-based bias in climate
science publications as
exposed by the Climategate
emails.
3. Flaws in journal peer review
process as exposed by the
hoax papers submitted by
Peter Boghossian, Helen
Pluckrose, and James Lindsay.
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3. RyanWelch
Importance: Money
The federal government has spent
more than $154 billion on climate-
change-related activities since 1993
• According to the U.S. Government
Accountability Office (GAO) Federal
funding for climate change research,
technology, assistance, and
adaptation has increased from $2.4
billion in 1993 to $13.2 billion in
2017, with an additional $26.1 billion
for climate change programs and
activities provided by the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act in
2009
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4. RyanWelch
Importance: Policy Consequences
The sweeping "Green New Deal“
could cost as much as $93 trillion, or
approximately $600,000 per
household.
• Jobs: According to researchers at the
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Spain,
every green job eliminates 2.2 existing
jobs.
• Blackouts: Converting reliable power to
unreliable renewable power production
is already causing blackouts.
• Costs: Renewable energy increases the
cost of electricity to some consumers by
50% - 500%.
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5. RyanWelch
Politicization of
Climate
The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change
• The politicization of climate began with the
creation of a separate climate bureaucracy
under the World Meterological Organization
(WMO) in 1977.
• The WMO and the UN created the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) in 1988, which is political body, and
does not conduct any research.
• IPCC’s History webpage states that their
purpose is “understanding the scientific basis
of risk of HUMAN-INDUCED climate change.”
• The IPPC is mandated to find evidence that
climate change is due to “HUMAN” activity,
for government and political action.
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6. RyanWelch
The Hockey Stick Illusion
Nature published a research paper in
1998 Authored by Michael Mann, Ray
Bradley, and Malcom Hughes
(MBH98)
• MBH98 was a temperature reconstruction
study taken from various proxies (blue)
spliced with modern temperature data (red).
• The graph from MBH98 became the icon of
the Global Warming agenda and is known as
the “Hockey Stick” graph for its straight
handle and sharply upward turning blade on
the end.
• The Hockey Stick graph temperature
reconstruction contrasted with Figure 7.1c
from the IPCC’s First Assessment Report
(FAR) published in 1990. 6

7. What Happened to the Medieval Warm
(MWP) Period and the Little Ice Age (LIA)?
7
If the earth’s climate changed naturally then the IPCC could not
blame temperature changes on “HUMAN-INDUCED climate change”
therefore, there was a motive to remove or minimize those well-
known events.
Evidence:
David Deming, a University of Oklahoma borehole expert wrote, “With the
publication of [my] article in Science, I gained credibility in the community of
scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone
who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. A major
person working on the area of climate change and global warming sent me an
email that said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.””

8. RyanWelch
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What Happened to the Medieval Warm
(MWP) Period and the Little Ice Age (LIA)?
Evidence
Continued:
Jonathan Overpeck wrote this in an email to Keith Briffa, “I get the sense that I’m
not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed
warm period terms and myths in the literature.”
Keith Briffa, a climatologist and deputy director of the Climatic Research Unit
(CRU), wrote in an email, “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as
regards apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the
proxy data but the reality of the situation is not quite so simple.”

9. RyanWelch
What are the Climategate emails?
• In November of 2009 someone with
access to the computer servers of the
Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the
University of East Anglia in Norwich,
England, posted over 1000 emails from
the most influential climate researchers
and vast quantities of data, including the
code from the HADCRUT temperature
index and posted the data in a Russian
server.
• The scientists exposed in email dump
have authored/co-authored many of the
studies relied on by the UN IPCC, and
world governments. The studies have
been used to pronounce global warming
an immediate and catastrophic threat. 9

10. What did the Climategate emails reveal?
10
1. Scientists colluded in efforts to thwart Freedom of Information Act
requests. They reference deleting data, hiding source code from
requests, manipulating data to make it more annoying to use, and
attempting to deny requests from people recognized as contributors to
specific internet sites.
2. Scientists discussed black-balling journals that published opposing
views and preventing opposing views from being published in journals
they controlled. They used pressure to remove journal editors from their
positions if they allowed skeptical science to be published. They
mention changing the rules midstream in areas they control to ensure
opposing views would not see the light of day. They discuss amongst
themselves which scientists can be trusted and who should be excluded
from having data because they may not be “predictable”.

11. RyanWelch
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What did the Climategate emails reveal?
3. Scientists expressed concern privately over a lack of increase in global
temperatures in the last decade, and the fact that they could not explain this.
Publicly they discounted it as simple natural variations. In one instance, data
was [apparently] manipulated to hide a decline in temperatures when graphed.
Other discussions included ways to discount historic warming trends that
inconveniently did not occur during increases in atmospheric CO2.
4. The emails show examples of top scientists working to create public
relations messaging with favorable news outlets. It shows them identifying
and cataloging, by name and association, people with opposing views. These
people are then disparaged in a coordinated fashion via favorable online
communities.
5. Media members admitted that they helped to promote man-made global
warming stories while they spiked stories attributing some warming to natural
causes.

12. RyanWelch
Climategate emails, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0
• Climategate 2.0 - On November 22,
2011, FOIA.org produced an enormous
zip file of 5,000 additional emails similar
to those released in 2009. There are
almost 1/4 million additional emails
locked behind a password, which the
organization did not release.
• Climategate 3.0 - On March 13, 2013 it
was announced that another 220,000
emails were released hidden behind a
password provided by an anonymous
source known as “Mr. FOIA.”
• Climategate 4.0 - On March 4, 2019 after
years of trying to suppress their release,
the emails from Michael Mann while at
the University of Arizona were ordered
to be released by a judge. 12

13. RyanWelch
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Climategate Email Evidence of
Corruption
• An email from Michael Mann says, “Can you delete any emails you may have had with
Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. Can you email Gene and get him to do the same?
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”
• An email from Keith Briffa says, “Finally, might I ask that you note and then erase this
email. I have found that recent enquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, or Data
Protection Act, can become considerable time sinks, or the basis of some inconvenient
subsequent distractions.”
Scientists colluded in efforts to thwart Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests
• An email from Phil Jones says, “[Keith Briffa and Tom Osborn] are still getting FOI
requests as well as [the Hadley Center at the Met Office and the University of Reading].
All our FOI officers have been in discussion and are now using the same exceptions not
to respond – advice they got from the Information Commissioner… The…line we’re all
using is this. IPCC is exempt from any country’s FOI – the skeptics have been told this.”
• Phil Jones wrote, “If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act here now in the
UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.”

14. RyanWelch
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Climategate Email Evidence of
Corruption
• Tom Wigley who was the director of the CRU wrote that we, “must get rid of von Storch
too.” Von Storch was an editor of the Climate Research Journal. Wigley suggested, “we
could get a large group of highly credentialed scientists to sign such a letter”….
“otherwise holes will be filled up with people like Legates, Lindzen, Michaels, Singer* etc.”
(*a list of skeptical scientists)
• An email from Tom Wigley says, “If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse sceptics
camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official
AGU channels, to get him ousted.”
Scientists exerted pressure to remove journal editors from their positions if they
allowed skeptical science to be published
• An email from Michael Mann to Phil Jones says, “Whilst we do not know who reviewed
the Soon/Baliunas manuscript, there is sufficient evidence in my view to justify a "loss of
confidence" in the peer review process operated by the journal and hence a mass
resignation of review editors may be warranted.”

15. RyanWelch
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Climategate Email Evidence of
Corruption
• An email from Phil Jones says, “I've just completed Mike's Nature [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.”
Scientists discuss the lack of increase in temperatures with rising CO2, the
manipulation of data to hide a decline in temperatures, and discount historic
warm periods that did not occur during increases in atmospheric CO2.
• An email from Kevin Trenberth says, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of
warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t….the data is surely wrong.”
• An email from Ed Cook to Keith Briffa says, “Here is the Oroko Swamp RCS chronology
plot in an attached Word 98 file and actual data values below. It certainly looks pretty
spooky to me with strong "Medieval Warm Period" and "Little Ice Age" signals in it. It's
based on substantially more replication than the series in the paper you have to review
(hint, hint!).”

16. RyanWelch
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Climategate Email Evidence of
CorruptionScientists colluding with the media to print only the types of stories they want
and using friendly press to attack sceptics.
• In this email from Phil Jones, he brags about getting the BBC World Service to kill further
stories that showed evidence of natural climate change after they already published one.
"I managed to stop the World Service doing anything on this [type of story] (see below).“
"Oh Phil, what can I say? ... All I can say is I'm sorry ... -- I hope you'll still talk to me
despite this."
• An email from Ray Bradley says, “If you are willing, a quick and forceful statement from
The Distinguished CRU boys would help quash further arguments, although here, at least,
it is already quite out of control...”
• An email from Michael Mann says, “Let’s let our supporters in higher places use our
scientific response to push the broader case against [McIntyre and McKittrick].”

17. RyanWelch
Flaws in the peer review process primarily
come in two forms. The first is
gatekeeping to keep papers that don’t
conform to current ideological beliefs out
of publication, as exposed in the
Climategate emails.
The second is publishing flawed science or
even hoax papers that appear to conform
to current ideological beliefs. The most
infamous of these hoax papers is known
as the Sokal affair where Alan Sokal, a
physics professor at New York University
submitted a hoax article to Social Text in
1996.
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Problems with Peer Review

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Seven of the hoax papers were accepted at peer-reviewed journals, including
"Our Struggle Is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to
Neoliberal and Choice Feminism," composed of passages of Hitler’s Mein Kampf
rewritten as a theoretical argument about social justice. Their first hoax paper
was about the culture of dog rape at dog parks titled "Human Reactions to Rape
Culture and Queer Performativity at the Dog Park.” During the initial peer review
for its second and ultimately successful attempt at publication in Gender, Place &
Culture, the paper was praised by the first reviewer as "incredibly innovative, rich
in analysis, and extremely well-written and organized".
In 2017 Helen Pluckrose, the editor of the online magazine Areo,
James A. Lindsay, a Ph.D. in math, and Peter Boghossian, an
assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University,
submitted 20 fake papers to peer reviewed journals to expose a
lack of scientific rigor in the peer review process. This hoax is now
known as "Sokal Squared.”
Sokal
Squared

19. RyanWelch
Conclusion:
This presentation is just a tiny
fraction of the evidence presented in
the books by A.W. Montford and
Larry Bell. It also cannot fully discuss
the 250,000 climategate emails, let
alone the numerous other books and
articles that show bias and
corruption in climate change
scientists, but it should be enough to
create doubt in the minds of the
readers to be skeptical of climate
change science. They cannot be
trusted to produce truthful science,
let alone to persuade our
government to tax and spend $93
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20. Thank
You Ryan Welch
stdrsw15@shsu.edu.com