Wikipedia . . . Exercises in Raw Power?

How ethically challenged advocates within the Anthropogenic Global Warming Community appear to have acted almost as intellectual enforcers online:

Briffa and other members of the band overcame their doubts and settled on their dogma. With the help of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the highest climate change authority of all, they published what became the icon of their movement — the hockey stick graph. This icon showed temperatures in the last 1,000 years to have been stable — no Medieval Warm Period, not even the Little Ice Age of a few centuries ago.

But the UN’s official verdict that the Medieval Warm Period had not existed did not erase the countless schoolbooks, encyclopedias, and other scholarly sources that claimed it had. Rewriting those would take decades, time that the band members didn’t have if they were to save the globe from warming.

Instead, the band members turned to their friends in the media and to the blogosphere, creating a website called RealClimate.org.”The idea is that we working climate scientists should have a place where we can mount a rapid response to supposedly ‘bombshell’ papers that are doing the rounds” in aid of “combating dis-information,” one email explained, referring to criticisms of the hockey stick and anything else suggesting that temperatures today were not the hottest in recorded time.

One person in the nine-member Realclimate.org team — U.K. scientist and Green Party activist William Connolley — would take on particularly crucial duties. Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known — Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug. 11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the [AGW] band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics — authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

The Medieval Warm Period disappeared, as did criticism of the global warming orthodoxy. With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed. The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books . . . .

My emphasis. If half of this is true, it’s terribly provocative.

Tim Ball takes up the case in Canada Free Press:

[I]n a 1983 article Wigley was convincing climate science of a falsely low pre-industrial level of CO2. Early attempts to challenge what they were doing followed normal academic processes and little interference occurred. For example, a book review I wrote based on the bad science became a Review Editorial In Climatic Change (Volume 35, Number 4 / April, 1997).

Computer Models and Computer Modelers

The big change came when computer modelers took over climate science. I knew modeling global climate was impossible; apart from the inadequate surface and upper atmosphere database computer capacity was and is still inadequate. At conference after conference I watched modelers bully everybody. Models are the most corrupt part of the CRU and IPCC fiasco, an exposure yet to emerge. They produced the ridiculous ‘predictions’ of disaster used to promote control through fear.

We’ve learned of data manipulation, publication and peer review control, and personal attacks on those who asked questions. Yet to emerge is how they manipulated the computer models to reach a result that was not a simulation of nature but proof that human CO2 was causing global warming and climate change. As the IPCC and its model projections grew in power to dominate global energy policy it drew increasing attention. This grew threatening and triggered the need for a Palace Guard to defend the CRU and the IPCC.

The Goon Squad

A group of scientists established themselves as the goon squad for the gangster bosses at the CRU. Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt led and quickly earned reputations for nasty and vindictive responses. On December 10, 2004 Schmidt gave the CRU gang a Christmas present: “Colleagues, No doubt some of you share our frustration with the current state of media reporting on the climate change issue. Far too often we see agenda-driven “commentary” on the Internet and in the opinion columns of newspapers crowding out careful analysis. Many of us work hard on educating the public and journalists through lectures, interviews and letters to the editor, but this is often a thankless task. In order to be a little bit more pro-active, a group of us (see below) have recently got together to build a new ‘climate blog’ website: RealClimate.org which will be launched over the next few days:” The group was, Mike Mann – Eric Steig – William Connolley – Stefan Rahmstorf – Ray Bradley – Amy Clement – Rasmus Benestad – William Connolley (sic) – Caspar Ammann.

They’re familiar names to people who got in their way. Now the world should know. Evasiveness pervading the behavior recorded in the CRU emails was present at RealClimate (RC) and beyond. Note that William Connolley is listed twice –- a Freudian slip because he was the nastiest and did double duty, but more on him shortly.

Schmidt elaborates, “The idea is that we working climate scientists should have a place where we can mount a rapid response to supposedly ‘bombshell’ papers that are doing the rounds and give more context to climate related stories or events.” The phrase “working climate scientists” was used frequently and typifies their arrogance. Unless you are one you have no credibility or right to an opinion. It’s similar to their peer review charge and establishes them as the elite.

Modus Operandi Involved Mainstream Media

Activities of these “working climate scientists” were not to answer questions about their work but to divert, distract, ignore and marginalize with lies about people and ideas. Here is a February 9, 2006 email from Michael Mann that gives a flavor of the almost paranoid behavior.“I see that Science (the journal) has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we put up the RC post. By now, you’ve probably read that nasty McIntyre thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don’t go there personally, but so I’m informed). Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include. You’re also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We’ll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics don’t get to use the RC comments as a megaphone…”

Mann spread his lies about McIntyre by using Andrew Revkin of the New York Times. As recently as September 29, 2009 he wrote, “those such as McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted.” Jones did it when he defended his refusal to answer FOI’s to the administration at the University of East Anglia. The emails from Revkin are disturbing and reveal unhealthy involvement and lack of journalistic integrity. No wonder he blocked use of the Climategate material in the newspaper when it appeared. It was not journalistic integrity it covered his involvement.

Schmidt notes, “This is a strictly volunteer/spare time/personal capacity project and obviously nothing we say there reflects any kind of ‘official’ position.” What hypocrisy. This is the game James Hansen and others play. He is Director of the NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) when it suits and a private citizen when it suits. It’s a duplicity that underlines the politics of their activities.

Wikipedia – A Falsified Resource For Students and Media

The most insidious activity included controlling climate information through Wikipedia. When I ask students how many use Wikipedia for their research all hands go up. I know most media rely on it. Most have no idea how the material is entered or edited.

William Connolley knew and exploited the opportunity. A participant in computer modeling he was as nasty as Mann and Schmidt. His activities are shocking. He established himself as an editor at Wikipedia and with a cadre (I use the term deliberately) of supporters he controlled all entries relating to climate, climate change and the people involved. This included putting up false material about skeptics. They constantly monitored the entries and if you tried to correct anything it was rapidly returned to the original false information. With so many people they could easily circumvent the limit on number of edits per person. Connolley as a designated editor [Administrator] had even more latitude . . . .

Hm. That second critique seems even more brightly colored. Still, Connolley was relieved of his duties as an administrator at Wikipedia this past September for overstepping. Of course, if his conflicts of interest were as extensive as what we are hearing now, I suspect this would have happened years earlier.

But there is something a bit unsavory in the abstract about having a politician edit Wikipedia articles that are related to the policy areas he covers in, um, “RL.”

I’ll be interested in hearing how Wikipedia reacts to the allegations that they allowed Connolley to violate the “Neutral Point of View” so extensively. For what it’s worth, the Wikipedia entry on the ClimateGate “CRU Hacked Emails” (as I understand it, the article is to be re-titled) not only repeats the term “stolen” in reference to the released files over and over again–it also refers to the AGW point of view as “mainstream,” and uses that term “mainstream” as a way of designating who does and doesn’t represent respectable opinion.