Were some of you waiting with interest to the BP analysis of CRU email promised in the March 20, 2010 meeting of the Muir Russell Team – see here
DE [David Eyton, BP Group Vice President, Research & Technology] presented an analysis (to be published on completion of the Review) of the emails which were the subject of unauthorized release from the UEA.
I, for one, was waiting with eager anticipation for this analysis. Unfortunately, Muir Russell has welshed on his promise and the analysis isn’t in the website documents.
As panelist Norton said at the opening press conference:
Either you or you accept that the process is as open and transparent and, as we discover things, they will put on the record as soon as it can be or you accuse us of covering up.
Yep.
People sometimes say that I don’t ask for things politely emough ( I disagree.) However, deferring to this criticism, I tried to be especially deferential in my request to the panel for publication of this promised document:
Dear Sirs,
In your minutes of March 22, 2010, you stated:
DE presented an analysis (to be published on completion of the Review) of the emails which were the subject of unauthorized release from the UEA.
I have been unable to locate this document in the documents released on July 7, 2010 and would appreciate it if you would either post this document on your website now that the Review is completed or send it to be. Thank you for your attention.
Since I am sometimes criticized for being insufficiently polite in making this sort of request,
Pretty please with sugar on it,
Steve McIntyre
That didn’t work. The Team has “moved on”.
Sir/Madam
Many thanks for your email to the Independent Climate Change Emails Review.
Please note that the work of the Review team has now been completed and our final report has been published. As such we will no longer be accepting submissions or responding to questions raised.
With best wishes
The Independent Climate Change Email Review team
I just tried sending it to the “Consultations and Enquiries” email at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but didn’t say “Pretty please with sugar on it.” I sure hope that they don’t think that I’m being impolite by leaving this out of my request.
Update – July 9
Even though I received an automated response yesterday, that the Team had moved on and will no longer be “responding to questions raised”, today I received the following acknowledgement:
Thank you for your enquiry which we will aim to answer as soon as possible.
Independent Climate Change Email Review team
Climate Audit 
20 Comments
You’re fighting the good fight, Steve, and we all appreciate it.
I am with you.
Did you send your request to the submissions email address or to Kate Moffat (of Luther Pendragon: katemoffat@luther.co.uk) who handled general enquiries? I don’t know if she’s still responding.
Herein lies your problem: Modern manners require “Pretty please with sugar on it, **rooty-toot-toot**.
How will BP’s David Eyton be able to fill his days now that his inquiry duties are complete?
By the way, it is probably best to send all future correspondence for this team to the House of Lords in-waiting room – they’ll be there trying on their robes and practicing sleeping.
well, I don’t know what else one can call this but a cover-up. Heck, they wrote that BP’s David Eyton’s report has been Done – but now they will not even admit to having promised to publish it though the promise is also there in black and white.
So – why are they covering-up? why are these people continuing to treat Steve McIntyre so abusively? Heck, there are two reasons for the enquiries, (1) Steve’s work and (2) the emails that bore out his work and proved many of his beliefs. It seems as if Steve is still the One They Will Not Name.
Given that nutritional alarmism is beginning to rival climate change alarmism in its shrillness, perhaps they interpreted “Pretty please with sugar on it” as a wish for their premature death from poor nutritional habits, which of course would be highly impolite.
That’s an interesting subject. I just happened to do a little research on types of sugars a month or so ago and came across an interesting article on glucose-fructose syrup. Now I was already aware of the glycemic “hit” given by sugars which leaves you with a “sugar high” — the body pumps in insulin, and then an hour later you get a “insulin munchy” and you then have a desperate desire to go looking for more food/sugar.
What I wasn’t aware of, is that glucose fructose syrup is a lot worse and now seems to be stuffed into everything. Being much smaller than sucrose and not needing to be broken down to give the hit, glucose-fructose syrup will hit the body like a bunch of storm troopers , perhaps triggering such a massive insulin surge that even though the rest of the meal is digested gradually, you may still get the “insulin muchies” an hour or so later.
Moreover it “super sweetens” food making you accustomed to super-sweet food which I personally blame as the reason kids refuse to eat basic foods.
Obviously this is just conjecture – but after we finish the current diluting juices – I’m buying them all at Tesco because both Asda and Sainsburys stuff their’s full of glucose-fructose syrup!
I don’t know that I’d expect a whole lot of objectivity from Eyton considering he has been BP’s point man in their sponsorship of Princeton University’s ‘Carbon Mitigation Initiative’.
Per CMI web site from 2008, Eyton is quoted:
“The challenge of climate change requires policy development at all levels: global, national and local. … We trust that governments will be successful in reaching a consensus for significant action, and we are working to inform their actions based on our experience of low-carbon technologies and businesses.”
How much does BP have invested in a low-carbon future? A lot I would guess given Eyton’s odd invitation to join the Russell panel.
We would have to say that Wikipedia has given fair coverage to SM (SM subject)
The routine contempt for individuals demonstrated by the British establishment sticks in the craw, especially when you have to read self-serving puffery like this from UEA’s Edward Acton (on his appointment).
“It is an enormous honour and privilege to be invited to lead this intellectual powerhouse. It is also a particularly bracing moment to take responsibility as the University embarks on an exciting period of development in an increasingly challenging and competitive environment.”
Er, responsibility to whom, exactly…?
Steve I think you should line up as many media interviews as possible for when you are in London next week. You need to get the message out. You need a publicist!
I was surprised that you are being made the poster boy of frivolous/vexatious/tiresome etc inquiries and so on. It seemed oddly rude, and unnecessary in what was, on the face of it, quite a grown-up report. But I think it goes with the territory. Rise above it. 🙂 I’m looking forward to your Guardian evening.
I agree – but the “pretty please with sugar on it” line would get up my nose and, I think, any casual observer.
Steve; they’ve chosen not to interview CRU critics as beneath their dignity. So sure I’ll satirize them.
Steve
When you say that he “welshed on his promise”, so that us welshmen and women don’t get upset it comes from the fact that Edward the VII never paid his gambling debts and as he was the Prince of Wales hence the derivation.
Sorry if this seems like I am chastising you for the use of the term.
What was David Eyton doing on the Team anyway? He should have resigned, for everyone’s sake, the moment the accident in the Gulf occurred — if not sooner. SteveM made this point last May.
Eyton reflects badly on everything he associates with, and eventually BP will recognize this and fire him.
“…emough”
“…send it to be.”
It’s a trivial matter, but Steve, you gotta get a proof-reader, at least for the official requests.
Dear Steve,
I consider myself a dispassionate observer here, but mostly on your side.
When I read:
“… Since I am sometimes criticized for being insufficiently polite in making this sort of request, Pretty please with sugar on it, …”
The tone is confrontational throughout, and the section I have quoted is quite sarcastic. This would kind of reinforce any prior perception that the requests are not made politely.
Best,
Alex
Steve: Of course I was confronting them in this instance.
.
Steve
As you probably realise, I think you are sometimes too polite but I respect totally your methods and your opinions.
You will know only too well that serious high level board meetings are not always as polite as you have been to all either attached to or enquiring into, the team.
Look at the hypocrisy at stoat of William Connoly and james Annan.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/07/good_news_for_the_gulf.php#comments