Climategate

[Peter]

Here are two interesting stories out on Climategate. Senator Jim Inhofe is a true hero, in the first story. In the second, an interview from the BBC shows the key conspirator in the Climategate scandal about to crack.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Inhofe getting last laugh on global warming, IPCC

By: Mark Tapscott Editorial Page Editor

02/10/10 11:23 AM EST

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK, was the object of much scorn back in December when he held an impromptu news conference in Copenhagen to declare that cap-and-trade was dead in Congress and the UN's IPCC global warming report a hoax.

At one point during the news conference, a German reporter told the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that he was "ridiculous" for making such claims.

The Copenhagen scorn heaped on Inhofe was not surprising, considering the months and months of abuse Inhofe had endured throughout the campaign launched by Environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer, D-CA, on behalf of the cap-and-trade proposal. For much of that time, cap-and-trade had a look of inevitability about it, particularly after the House passed the Waxman-Markey version of the bill.

Now, two months after Copenhagen and a succession of investigative reports in the British press exposing false claims, misrepresented data and outright scientific fraud in the IPCC report, Inhofe is looking more and more like a prophet who may finally be on the verge of being heard.

He went on Fox News earlier this week to discuss President Obama's proposal to establish a new government agency devoted to providing "timely and relevant" global warming information. The interview provides a succinct summary of why the so-called "global warming consensus" has fallen to pieces and what that means in terms of the legislative situation in Congress.

Bottomline, according to Inhofe, is this: "The Barbara Boxers, the John Kerrys, the Barack Obamas are in denial. They just can't believe that their post, their poster child is gone. So they don't want to believe it, they are still scheduling hearings and yet they don't have anywhere close to the votes. In the Senate today, in my opinion, they don't have as many as 20 votes and they need 60 votes to pass a cap-and-trade bill."

And now Inhofe is making plans to challenge UN global warming funding in the federal budget. This is going to get very interesting in coming months.

From BBC News

Q&A: Professor Phil Jones

Phil Jones is director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), which has been at the centre of the row over hacked e-mails.

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin put questions to Professor Jones, including several gathered from climate sceptics. The questions were put to Professor Jones with the co-operation of UEA's press office.

A - Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I've assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.

Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).

I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.

So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

Here are the trends and significances for each period:

B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

C - Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?

No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.

D - Do you agree that natural influences could have contributed significantly to the global warming observed from 1975-1998, and, if so, please could you specify each natural influence and express its radiative forcing over the period in Watts per square metre.

This area is slightly outside my area of expertise. When considering changes over this period we need to consider all possible factors (so human and natural influences as well as natural internal variability of the climate system). Natural influences (from volcanoes and the Sun) over this period could have contributed to the change over this period. Volcanic influences from the two large eruptions (El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991) would exert a negative influence. Solar influence was about flat over this period.

Combining only these two natural influences, therefore, we might have expected some cooling over this period.

E - How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

F - Sceptics of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) suggest that the official surface record paints a different story from the actual station records. To restore trust, should we start again with new quality control on input data in total transparency?

First, I am assuming again that you are referring to the surface record from both land and marine regions of the world, although in this answer as you specifically say "station" records, I will emphasize the land regions.

There is more than one "official" surface temperature record, based on actual land station records. There is the one we have developed in CRU, but there are also the series developed at NCDC and GISS. Although we all use very similar station datasets, we each employ different ways of assessing the quality of the individual series and different ways of developing gridded products. The GISS data and their program are freely available for people to experiment with. The agreement between the three series is very good.

Given the web-based availability of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN), which is used by both NCDC and GISS, anyone else can develop their own global temperature record from land stations.

Through the Met Office we have released (as of 29 January 2010) 80% of the station data that enters the CRU analysis (CRUTEM3).

The graphic in the link below shows that the global land temperature series from these 80% of stations (red line) replicates the analysis based on all 100% of stations (black line).

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/data-graphic.GIF

The locations of the 80% of stations are shown on the next link in red. The stations we have yet to get agreement to release are shown in grey.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/locations.GIF

I accept that some have had their trust in science shaken and this needs the Met Office to release more of the data beyond the 80% released so far. Before all the furor broke we had begun discussions with the Met Office for an updated set of station temperatures. With any new station dataset we will make sure we will be able to release all the station temperature data and give source details for all the series.

G - There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?

There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.

We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.

H - If you agree that there were similar periods of warming since 1850 to the current period, and that the MWP is under debate, what factors convince you that recent warming has been largely man-made?

The fact that we can't explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing - see my answer to your question D.

I - Would it be reasonable looking at the same scientific evidence to take the view that recent warming is not predominantly manmade?

No - see again my answer to D.

J - Are there lessons to be learned for society or scientists about the way we see uncertainty and risk?

Yes - as stated by Sir John Beddington - the government chief scientist. And this doesn't just apply to climate science.

K - How much faith do you have - and should we have - in the Yamal tree ring data from Siberia? Should we trust the science behind the palaeoclimate record?

First, we would all accept that palaeoclimatic data are considerably less certain than the instrumental data. However, we must use what data are available in order to look at the last 1,000 years.

I believe that our current interpretation of the Yamal tree-ring data in Siberia is sound. Yamal is just one series that enters some of the millennial long reconstructions that are available.

My colleague Keith Briffa has responded to suggestions that there is something amiss with the Yamal tree-ring data. Here is his response:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/

L - Can you confirm that the IPCC rules were changed so lead authors could add references to any scientific paper which did not meet the 16 December 2005 deadline but was in press on 24 July 2006, so long as it was published in 2006? If this is the case, who made the decision and why?

This is a question for the IPCC.

M - What advice did you seek in handling FOI requests?

The university's policy and guidelines on FOI and the Environmental Information Regulations are on our website and the information policy and compliance manager (IPCM) takes responsibility for co-ordinating responses to requests within that framework. We also have colleagues in each unit and faculty who are trained in FOI to help in gathering information and assessing any possible exceptions or exemptions.

I worked with those colleagues and the IPCM to handle the requests with responses going from the IPCM. He also liaises with the Information Commissioner's Office where necessary and did so on several occasions in relation to requests made to CRU. Where appropriate he also consulted with other colleagues in the university on specific issues.

N - When scientists say "the debate on climate change is over", what exactly do they mean - and what don't they mean?

It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.

O - Can you tell us about your working life over the past decades in climate science. Paint a picture about the debate with your allies and scientific rivals etc.

I have been at CRU since November 1976. Up until 1994, my working life was almost totally in research. Since 1994, I have become more involved in teaching and student supervision both at the postgraduate and undergraduate level. I became a Professor in 1998 and the director of the

Climatic Research Unit in 2004 (I was joint director from 1998).

I am most well known for being involved in the publication of a series of papers (from 1982 to 2006) that have developed a gridded dataset of land-based temperature records. These are only a part of the work I do, as I have been involved in about 270 peer-reviewed publications on many different aspects of climate research.

Over the years at scientific meetings, I've met many people and had numerous discussions with them. I work with a number of different groups of people on different subjects, and some of these groups come together to undertake collaborative pieces of work. We have lively debates about the work we're doing together.

P - The "Climategate" stolen emails were published in November. How has your life been since then?

My life has been awful since that time, but I have discussed this once (in the Sunday Times) and have no wish to go over it again. I am trying to continue my research and supervise the CRU staff and students who I am responsible for.

Q - Let's talk about the e-mails now: In the e-mails you refer to a "trick" which your critics say suggests you conspired to trick the public? You also mentioned "hiding the decline" (in temperatures). Why did you say these things?

This remark has nothing to do with any "decline" in observed instrumental temperatures. The remark referred to a well-known observation, in a particular set of tree-ring data, that I had used in a figure to represent large-scale summer temperature changes over the last 600 years.

The phrase 'hide the decline' was shorthand for providing a composite representation of long-term temperature changes made up of recent instrumental data and earlier tree-ring based evidence, where it was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were.

This "divergence" is well known in the tree-ring literature and "trick" did not refer to any intention to deceive - but rather "a convenient way of achieving something", in this case joining the earlier valid part of the tree-ring record with the recent, more reliable instrumental record.

I was justified in curtailing the tree-ring reconstruction in the mid-20th Century because these particular data were not valid after that time - an issue which was later directly discussed in the 2007 IPCC AR4 Report.

The misinterpretation of the remark stems from its being quoted out of context. The 1999 WMO report wanted just the three curves, without the split between the proxy part of the reconstruction and the last few years of instrumental data that brought the series up to the end of 1999. Only one of the three curves was based solely on tree-ring data.

The e-mail was sent to a few colleagues pointing out their data was being used in the WMO Annual Statement in 1999. I was pointing out to them how the lines were physically drawn. This e-mail was not written for a general audience. If it had been I would have explained what I had done in much more detail.

R - Why did you ask a colleague to delete all e-mails relating to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC?

This was an e-mail sent out of frustration at one FOI request that was asking for the e-mail correspondence between the lead authors on chapter six of the Working Group One Report of the IPCC. This is one of the issues which the Independent Review will look at.

S - The e-mails suggest you were trying to subvert the process of peer review and to influence editors in their decisions about which papers to publish. Do you accept that?

I do not accept that I was trying to subvert the peer-review process and unfairly influence editors in their decisions. I undertook all the reviews I made in good faith and sent them back to the editors. In some e-mails I questioned the peer-review process with respect to what I believed were poor papers that had appeared. Isn't this called freedom of speech? On some occasions I joined with others to submit a response to some of these papers. Since the beginning of 2005 I have reviewed 43 papers. I take my reviewing seriously and in 2006 I was given an editor's award from Geophysical Research Letters for conscientious and constructive reviewing.

T - Where do you draw the line on the handling of data? What is at odds with acceptable scientific practice? Do you accept that you crossed the line?

This is a matter for the independent review.

U - Now, on to the fallout from "Climategate", as it has become known. You had a leading role in a part of the IPCC, Working Group I. Do you accept that credibility in the IPCC has been damaged - partly as a result of your actions? Does the IPCC need reform to gain public trust?

Some have said that the credibility in the IPCC has been damaged, partly due to the misleading and selective release of particular e-mails. I wish people would spend as much time reading my scientific papers as they do reading my e-mails. The IPCC does need to reassure people about the quality of its assessments.

V - If you have confidence in your science why didn't you come out fighting like the UK government's drugs adviser David Nutt when he was criticized?

I don't feel this question merits an answer.

W - Finally, a personal question: Do you expect to return as director of the Climatic Research Unit? What is next for you?

This question is not for me to answer.

Some brief answers have been slightly expanded following more information from UEA.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

Published: 2010/02/13 16:05:54 GMT

© BBC MMX

[Peter]

TIA Daily • February 17, 2010

FEATURE ARTICLE

Lord Monckton Returns

The IPCC Is "Corrupt from Top to Bottom"

by Tom Minchin

Chief Policy Advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute and former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Lord Christopher Monckton became widely known in 2009 as the man who exposed the draft Copenhagen climate change treaty that would have—had it been agreed—wiped out US national sovereignty.

Copenhagen collapsed and became a fiasco for many reasons, but thanks to Monckton, the full scope of the warmist totalitarian vision was uncovered. Huge numbers of people have watched the different YouTube versions of his treaty speech. This version alone has had 2.5 million hits.

Monckton is about to begin a new series of events in the US on March 10. The series is likely to be riveting: he livens up whatever he touches. It will be interesting to see if the Obama administration does for his visit what the Australian government did for his tour Down Under.

Named last November by the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, as one of a handful of "reckless" skeptics who were holding the world back from a climate change agreement (really: See here, or here for Rudd's full speech), Monckton responded by touring Australia to sell-out crowds in early February. He was a media sensation here, attracting controversy and pages of coverage in the major dailies. (Read a sample here.)

As a result of that tour, I met Lord Monckton at a lunch in Melbourne, Australia and was impressed by his intelligence and flair in debate—a striking combination. His ability to capture the public imagination—and the mathematical ability he uses to expose the frauds of "climate science"—may be judged from the fact that he once invented a mathematical problem, the Eternity Puzzle, and offered a million pounds sterling (US $1.56 million) to whoever could solve it. The prize was eventually claimed, but not before 500,000 entries had been received at an entry fee of 35 pounds (US $54.60). When I asked him if the story was true, he confirmed it. As one Australian journalist summarized the venture's success: "Do the math."

But the serious side of his nature is what impressed me most. The man hates a disguised power grab. I talked to him on behalf of TIA Daily to get more insight into his campaign against global warming fraud. I began by asking him what had started him on the road to that YouTube speech:

TIA Daily: What first made you suspect the "climate change" research of recent decades was skewed?

Monckton: The CEO of a boutique finance house in the City of London asked me to have a look at "global warming" because his analysts could not decide whether it was real or not. I first realized something was wrong when I wanted to find out how to convert radiative forcings in Watts per square meter to temperature in Kelvin, but not once in 1,000 pages did the IPCC's 2001 science assessment report reveal the existence of the Stefan-Boltzmann radiative-transfer equation, without which one cannot even begin the calculation. So obscurantist was the IPCC's methodology for determining climate sensitivity that it took me two years to research the underlying equations, some of which I had to derive for myself. A scientific establishment that was confident of its results would have explained the matter clearly and concisely.

TIA Daily: What do you predict will be the outcome of the current wave of revelations about the quality of IPCC research?

Monckton: Governments, banks, businesses, environmental groups, academics, scientists, schoolteachers, and journalists have all nailed their colors so firmly to the mast of the IPCC's sinking ship that they will do their level best to keep it afloat for as long as they can get away with it. The reaction of "Ed" Miliband, the Climate Change Minister in the UK, is typical. As soon as he learned of the IPCC's defalcations, he announced a war on climate skeptics. Gradually, the opinion polls will continue to move against the IPCC as its absurdly exaggerated predictions continue to fail. Eventually, nations already hard-pressed as the second, deeper and longer trough of the double-dip recession sets in will decide that stopping the massive leakage of taxpayers' cash represented by the climate nonsense would be a good idea. How long this process will take, I cannot say.

TIA Daily: How did science go so wrong on this issue? What caused the corruption of the scientific establishment?

Monckton: An ancient economic principle holds that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Climate science, like almost all science, is a monopsony—the only paying customer is the state. Bureaucrats and politicians find the notion of saving us from ourselves at our expense mesmerically attractive. So, as soon as the environmental pressure groups had got the scare going, the classe politique joined in with gusto because they found it socially convenient, politically expedient, and financially profitable. Scientists who dared to step out of line were menaced with loss of tenure and of funding. When Garth Paltridge first spoke out against the nonsense, the Australian funding authority for all scientific research telephoned him within 24 hours and threatened that if he ever went public again he would be cut off without a penny. That's how the "consensus" was built—by brute force.

[Selene]

Lordy lordy!

Great speaker. No teleprompter. He instituted the suit that got Al "frozen brain" Gore's An insignifantly inconvenient fantasy movie from being shown in British schools.

It is over an hour long, but it has pictures and shiny graphs, so it should maintain your interest.

Love this guy, a Margaret Thatcher member of her cabinet I believe.

Adam

[Peter]

Two Republican "Good Guys" are mentioned who deserve your support. Two Republican bad guys on Cap and Trade, Graham and McCain need to be defeated.

Peter

From TIA Daily, Robert Tracinski

4. Intellectual Climate Change, Part 3

Finally, the global warming hysteria is beginning to face resistance on the federal level. Recently several Democrats have joined with congressional Republicans seeking to deny the EPA regulatory authority over carbon dioxide. In a desperate attempt to stall that legislation, the EPA is now promising to delay its new regulations for at least a year.

But in another year, of course, Republicans are likely to control Congress. And Richard Pombo—former scourge of the environmentalist movement—may be back in Congress, though he will still have to get through a contested Republican primary.

Pombo held the line against global warming legislation in the House for the better part of a decade, and we all owe him an enormous debt of gratitude for staving off cap-and-trade just long enough for Climategate to come along. With Pombo back in the House and James Inhofe back in control of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, we would have an excellent clean-up crew in place to fully exploit the intellectual climate change that has occurred in the past year.

"EPA Delays Start of New Rules on Emissions," Ian Talley and Stephen Power, Wall Street Journal, February 23

The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency said Monday the agency would delay subjecting large greenhouse-gas emitters such as power plants and crude-oil refiners to new regulations until 2011, and would raise the threshold for using the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

After an outcry from state regulators and members of Congress, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency would also limit regulations for the first half of 2011 to emitters already required to apply for new construction and modification permits under the Clean Air Act….

Industry officials say regulating emissions such as carbon dioxide with the Clean Air Act could be overly burdensome to many energy-intensive sectors, such as steel mills and cement kilns, and regions that rely on coal-fired power.

Ms. Jackson's decision could help Democrats who want to undercut a Republican-led proposal to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases from stationary sources.

[BaalChatzaf]

Lordy lordy!

Great speaker. No teleprompter. He instituted the suit that got Al "frozen brain" Gore's An insignifantly inconvenient fantasy movie from being shown in British schools.

It is over an hour long, but it has pictures and shiny graphs, so it should maintain your interest.

Love this guy, a Margaret Thatcher member of her cabinet I believe.

Adam

Monkton is always entertaining, but he is a bit of a show-boat. In one YouTube he showed off a pin or medal indicating he had received a Nobel Award. That is simply not the case. He exaggerated the effect of the Copenhagen Kaffe Klatch wherein he alleged that it would be kick-off for world government. Nothing of the kind happened. The Chinese paid lip service to the ideals of carbon reduction but they are going full steam (pun semi-intended) with their construction of coal fired power plants.

I know this is shocking but -- the world has warmed up since the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-19 th century. Prior to the Little Ice Age (which started around 1300 c.e.) the world was just about as warm as it is now. Greenland was --- well, green. Grass and trees grew there and the Vikings came to live and farm on Greenland (around 1000 c.e.). When the cooling set in the Viking colonists could not adapt and they died out. The other inhabitants of Greenland, the Inuit survived very well.

Again the world is warming. The question is why. There are natural factors that have nothing to do with human activity. There is the Malancovich cycle, volcanic activity, variation in solar output, and cosmic rays. They all have an effect on the climate. The IPCC has pushed the idea that the current warming epoch is the result of human activity, particularly hydrocarbon burning industry. If that is the case, how do they account for the Medieval Warming Period? They don't. In fact the IPCC number crunchers have actually tried to statistically eliminate the Medieval Warming Period. Shame on them!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Peter]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

Monkton is always entertaining, but he is a bit of a show-boat. In one YouTube he showed off a pin or medal indicating he had received a Nobel Award.

End quote

I thought that was spoofing the medal. I like him.

Here is a letter I have sent to a half dozen meteorologists who appear on television. If you see anything wrong with the science, please let me know.

The letter begins:

I hope you are keeping a scientifically open mind about the Global warming debate.

I think proponents of the Global Warming theory think like this quote from the Talmud.

From the Talmud:

“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

In other words, they have a subjective view reinforcing their preconceived prejudices.

Compare this viewpoint to another quote. A scientist will look at the facts, not the spin.

Ayn Rand:

“We begin as philosophers where we began as babies, at the only place there is to begin: by looking at the world.”

What a 'literal,' world of difference. I definitely go with the second point of view, which is the scientific point of view. We need to see things as they are.

I am enjoying a good read: "Heaven and Earth, Global Warming, the Missing Science," by Ian Plimer.

When The Earth has climatic warming, species thrive, including humans. When it cools, species decline or become extinct.

So, global warming alarmists are fighting against what is good for us.

And unfortunately, warming is not happening, except as a temporary weather phenomenon. There has been no beneficial warming since 1998.

You could go back 4 billion years and it would demonstrate that warmth is good, but let’s start more recently with some more modern history:

The Roman Warming. (500BC to 535AD) “Good for us!”

Then the Dark Ages. (535 to 900) “Cold is bad for us.”

Medieval Warming. (900 to 1300) “Good!”

The Little Ice Age. (1300 to 1850) “Bad.”

Modern Warming. (1850 to Present) “Good for us!”

Every time we “warm,” we thrive.

If mankind were causing global warming, then we would not see simultaneous warming on other planets or moons. But we do. If it warms on Earth, it simultaneously warms on Mars and Jupiter at the same time. The sun is the primary driver of climate change. Mankind has nothing to do with warming or cooling in a climatic sense. And "warming" from the sun historically means just a bit, not a lot.

Unfortunately, things "may be" getting cooler soon. We are in a temporary upswing in temperature within a much larger downswing in temperature. Author Ian Plimer mentions, in his heavily notated book, that by 2013, the global warming position will, universally, be considered a fraud.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Brant Gaede]

As a revealed fraud will be a giant relief, but we'll still have the recycling bullshit.

--Brant

[Selene]

Gentlemen:

"Scientists," funded by your tax dollar, schemed to defraud the tax payer. These individuals, acting in concert, fraudulently certified a set of scientific data, specifically to gain money from the taxpayer, for their own personal pursuits.

These individual scientists should be indicted and tried.

If convicted, we can discuss sentencing terms, but we would want complete disclosure of which specific politicians were involved. The scientists can be placed on probation, if their information is credible. I am more than happy for them to return to scientific pursuits with a second chance.

The politicians that are named should be indicted and tried. If convicted, I would seriously consider public executions, except for that damn personal opposition to the death penalty that I have.

I do have that Constitutional justification for treason, but that would only apply to our politicians.

Adam