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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-01-15 Sherilyn Wells From: Sherilvn Wells To: WPCtestimonv; LPCtestimonv Subject: Comments on proposed changes to General Plan Date: Wednesday,January 15,2025 11:31:51 PM Attachments: Hawaii General Plan Proposed Chances 2025 comments by Sherilvn Wells January 2025.doc This is my first submission. Please see attached document. Opening observation: Hawai'i General Plan re Proposed Changes in 2025 —Submission Number One (January 2025) • Need to study plan's foundational topic(s) more inclusively—review scientific dissent/dialogue for a more scientific approach and better informed choices 1 , • Need to broaden the range of future scenario assumptions to include inventions already in existence and patents that will no longer remain suppressed, • Preconceived (but unstated) alliances and their premises apparently exist in this plan, thus immediately narrowing the field of options under consideration: Is this plan on the verge of becoming a WEF Great Reset clone, based/focused on, for one example, prevalent terms like STAKEHOLDER, while neglecting to mention the essential, fundamental notion of HOMEOWNER? If our Plan is going to ally itself with an entity, let's make that choice transparent and let's choose one that values humanity and freedom, not one that seeks to dominate and control. 1 htU2s://judithciLrii.-y.com/blog-rules-and-netiquette/ Mahalo, Sherilyn Wells Sent with Proton Mail secure email. 1 Hawai'i General Plan re Proposed Changes in 2025— Submission Number One (January 2025) • Need to study plan's foundational topic(s) more inclusively—review scientific dissent/dialogue for a more scientific approach and better informed choices • Need to broaden the range of future scenario assumptions to include inventions already in existence and patents that will no longer remain suppressed, • Preconceived(but unstated) alliances and their premises apparently exist in this plan, thus immediately narrowing the field of options under consideration: Is this plan on the verge of becoming a WEF Great Reset clone, based/focused on, for one example,prevalent terms like STAKEHOLDER, while neglecting to mention the essential, fundamental notion of HOMEOWNER? If our Plan is going to ally itself with an entity, let's make that choice transparent and let's choose one that values humanity and freedom, not one that seeks to dominate and control. Sherilyn Wells Waikoloa Village Submission Number One January 2025 Climate change (natural climate variation) is and has always been real (reflect on the mini Ice Age of a few centuries ago; reflect on the warning in the 1970's that another such ice age was almost upon us2). Recently,the term was narrowed by a small group of researchers to refer ONLY to the human factor,based on these underlying assumptions - • that there is a high level of anthropogenic/human influence on climate due to burning fossil fuels, • that that influence is uniformly negative, • that global climate modeling can predict the future complexities of climate, • that a continuation down that fossil fuel energy path is leading to disaster. "The narrow and politicized framing of the climate change debate has resulted in an oversimplification of the scientific problem and its solutions." The three incontrovertible facts about global warming, as listed by Prof. Emeritus Judith Curry: Average global surface temperatures have overall increased since about 1860. 'hops://judithcM.com/blog-rules-and-netiguette/ 2 On April 28, 1975,Newsweek published a provocative article,"The Cooling World,"in which writer and science editor Peter Gwynne described a significant chilling of the world's climate,with evidence accumulating"so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it."He raised the possibility of shorter growing seasons and poor crop yields,famine,and shipping lanes blocked by ice, perhaps to begin as soon as the mid-1980s.Meteorologists,he wrote,were"almost unanimous"in the opinion that our planet was getting colder.Over the years that followed,Gwynne's article became one of the most-cited stories in Newsweek's history.... Scores of similar articles,some with even more dire predictions of a"little ice age"to come,appeared during the 1970s in such mainstream publications as Time, Science Digest, The Los Angeles Times,Fortune, The Chicago Tribune,New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor,Popular Science, and National Geographic. 2 Carbon dioxide has infrared emission spectra and thus acts to warm the planet. Humans have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere by the emissions from burning of fossil fuels.' BUT.... 1. De2ree of human influence on climate is not settled, however 4, despite dire pronouncements prematurely posted(a)by a highly controlled media owned by agenda- driven, vastly reduced (concentrated) ownership and(b) by editors of journals who curate publications to favor only those studies expressing one particular viewpoint. Judith Curry's five minutes of testimony to Commerce/Science/Transportation subcommittee re SR253 — https://x.com/TakingoutTrash7/status/1682911250437611521 This restriction on information via"official channels" is why a scientist who co-authored the Hurricane Katrina study that was a major accelerant for the Climate Change movement in 2005 now suggests publishing online, bypassing those journal-gatekeepers. Publishing online allows for much broader peer review, often far superior in depth of analysis and more nuanced observations, along with much greater transparency regarding data sets and methodology. "Science is a process of continuously evaluating the evidence, challenging our assumptions, and critically reassessing our conclusions, rather than a collective of decreed truths."Dr. Judith Curry Rather than dismiss critics of her Hurricane Katrina study, which the Climate Change community adored, Prof. Judith Curry took a deeper look at their criticisms and published a thoughtful review entitled"Mixing Politics and Science in Testing the Hypothesis That Greenhouse Warming Is Causing a Global Increase in Hurricane Intensity."' 'hLtps://www.youtube.com/results?search guea=stem-talk+podcast+ihmc+Judith+curry 4 https://youtu.be/_2Bw52FjYi4 s https://joumals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/87/8/bams-87-8-1025.xml The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active and costly season on record.Recent publications linking an increase in hurricane intensity to increasing tropical sea surface temperatures have fueled the debate on whether or not global warming is causing an increase in hurricane intensity.Because of the substantial implications of the hurricane—global warming issue for society and the immediate policy relevance associated with decision making related to Hurricane Katrina,attacks and rebuttals related to this research are being made in the media and on the World Wide Web without the rigor or accountability expected of scientific discourse.In this paper,we aim to promote a balanced and thoughtful examination of this subject by • clarifying the debate surrounding the subject as to whether or not global warming is causing an increase in global hurricane intensity, • illustrating a methodology of hypothesis testing to address multiple criticisms of a complex hypothesis that involves a causal chain,and • providing a case study of the impact of politics,the media,and the World Wide Web on the scientific process. 3 2. But then the shock of CLIMATEGATE, circa 2009, reverberated throughout the climate change community. The revelation, due to an unauthorized release of HADCRU emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia(part of the IPCC), that some researchers were manipulating climate data to make it appear the earth was heating up dangerously, was a game-changer for ethical scientists who had previously trusted the IPCC to present honest and accurate reports. The emails revealed that a number of IPCC authors (1) had evaded FOIA requests for data, (2) had cherry-picked data, (3) had manipulated the peer review process, (4) had downplayed uncertainty, and(5) had otherwise attempted to squash and discredit skeptics. The IPCC had been funded to study/discover only negative, anthropogenic influences on climate change, thus avoiding a comprehensive look at all influences and all results, both positive and negative, which would have been the most scientific approach to the topic. And Climategate was, apparently, one result of this narrow directive. In the aftermath of Climategate, one scientist—Judith Curry—posted this commentary6 "ON THE CREDIBILITY OF CLIMATE RESEARCH" on Climate Audit, an award- winning skeptics blog'. The Climate Audit site is worth reviewing, to read alternate professional viewpoints on issues (the essence of what science is supposed to do— discuss/debate in an arena where all information is welcomed, where all voices may be heard). '��I @K �[ rd winner Prof. Curry points to the need for the climate scientists to do better at making data publicly available, to be completely transparent about their methods, to be honest about uncertainties, and to be more respectful to scientists critical of the research. "..two broader issues raised by these emails that are impeding the public credibility of climate research: lack of transparency in climate data, and "tribalism"in some segments of the climate research community that is impeding peer review and the assessment process." School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,Georgia Institute of Technology,Atlanta,Georgia;National Center for Atmospheric Research,Boulder,Colorado CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:Judith A.Curry,School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,Georgia Institute of Technology,311 Ferst Drive,Atlanta.,GA 30332-0340,E-mail:curryjaneas.gatech.edu 6 hops://climateaudit.org/2009/11/22/curry-on-the-credibility-of-climate-research/ 'hLtps://climateaudit.org/author/stevemciptyre/re/ 4 Dr. Curry's entire commentary on the aftermath of CLIMATEGATE is posted at the end of my testimony. 3. What global climate models can and can't do well: Global climate models create a coarse grained simulation of earth's climate system using computers. These models simulate atmosphere, ocean, land surface, sea ice, and glaciers. Models use complex mathematical equations that can only be approximately solved on computers. Some of the equations and climate models are based on laws of physics.. However, there are key processes in climate models that are approximated and not based on physical laws. Hence, there are a LOT of"tunable parameters" in these climate models, including solar direct effects and CLOUDS. Climate models can't tell us anything about climate sensitivity to CO21, but recent studies may be shedding more light on CO2 saturation dynamics — Two recently-published papers found that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere led to minimal temperature increases. The calculated figures can be considered to be in margin of error territory and on past observational evidence they pose no threat to the climate on Earth. They also destroy the shaky scientific foundation upon which Net Zero rests. Eight Taiwanese scientists led by Professor Peng-Sheng Wei found that the sensitivity of the climate to a rise in CO2 atmospheric levels from 100 to 400 parts per million(ppm)was "negligibly small" at 0.3°C. The paper is complex and examines heat transfers as a function of longitude, latitude and altitude "as well as diffuse radiation determined by absorption bands based on wavelength,temperature and the concentration or pressure of carbon dioxide vapour." The rest of the article above is posted at the end of this testimony. And there is still a factor of 3 uncertainty in these models, as per Dr. Curry. In addition, the effect of our solar system transiting through a highly magnetized interstellar cloud(which appears to be a factor in changes observed on ALL the planets, as per extensive David Wilcock references on Gaiam to scientific articles)is not included in these models - https://web.archive.org/web/20230604143301/https://science.nasa.gov/science- news/science-at-nasa/2009/23dec_voyager Global models are exceedingly complex .. and are amazing tools for trying to understand how global climate works, but are NOT fit for making future predictions, simulating regional climates or extreme weather or climate events. 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHhV_RY ac https://mindandmatter.substack.coli p/udith-curry-climatology-climate https://www.nickiikomes.com post/Judith-curry-climatology-climate-change-computer-modelinggreen- energy-greenhouse-gasses-84-1 5 The Global Warming Policy Foundation— Climate Models For The Layman https://www.thegwpf.org > content> uploads > 2017 > 02 > Curry-2017.pdf Global Warming Policy Foundation —2024 Annual GWTF Lecture (with transcript) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icisZV8i3OlE The most important gaps in current understanding of climate change Climate Uncertainty and Risk by Judith A. Curry,page 8): • Solar impacts on climate,including indirect effects beyond solar heating • Multi-decadal and century-scale natural internal variability associated with large-scale ocean circulations • Mechanisms of vertical heat transfer in the ocean • Fast thermodynamic feedbacks (water vapor, clouds, atmospheric lapse rate) that determine the climate sensitivity to increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases • Earth's carbon budget and carbon cycle • Ice sheet dynamics • Geothermal heat transfer under the oceans and ice sheets Disagreement— Causes of Recent Climate Change Climate is generally stable/Change caused by external inputs VERSUS Climate is dynamic/Change primarily occurs naturally E.G. Chart shows global sea level rise began around 1860,well before fossil carbon emissions became significant https://Youtu.be/ 2Bw52FiYi4 6 �r change �QMY) temperaturesshifts in 0 E t>O ) �. G .OM W -100 -u 1 SOU ➢ J�ai41 � 1 1900 1960 Y"r • Global sea level rise started-1860, well before + fossil carbon emissions became significant. a ' � a • i a "` it � i i r Clir1-'ate is generally stableClimate is dynamic 7 Chanee caused by external inputs Change primarily occurs naturally • CO. . i', *'ht: prii iary c.lirnate ' H ghly complex cis➢7,.,r°r➢�_,.il sy,ttr➢r "control knob' 4 No i:r,~_PIS • CO. warmin,g is amplii'ied by * Clirnate shifts naturally in known w+n factors unexpected ways. • Key driver- large-scale ocean $ circulations and changes in cloudiness There remains a factor of 3 uncertainty in the sensitivity of the climate to increasing CO2. For radically reducing CO2 emissions to make any sense in terms of the climate, the climate sensitivity of CO2 would need to be on the high end and natural climate variability would need to be discounted. On the other hand,if the climate 7 sensitivity to increasing CO2 is on the low end and natural variability is dominant, then decreasing CO2 emissions won't have much of a noticeable effect. Further,we are unable to predict SOLAR VARIATIONS,volcanic eruptions, and multidecadal oscillations, so there's a great deal of uncertainty in the model. There's a key difference between a scientific consensus and a consensus of scientists: Scientific consensus reflects our longstanding knowledge base about a topic about which there is, essentially, no scientific disagreement(e.g., earth orbits the sun). On the other hand, a consensus of scientists represents a deliberate expression of collective judgment by a group of scientists on a poorly understood topic. This is often at the official request of a government or organization, ergo will have political overtones and pressures. See Dr.Judith Curry testimony to Congressional subcommittee (link on page 1). NEW ENERGY SOURCES The Plan fails to account for emergence of energy systems that have nothing to do with fossil fuels, that will moot the basis for the assertion of anthropogenic climate change. Working models of patents (such as anti-gravity vehicles) already exist, according to U.S. Navy, in confirming Patent Office inquiries re whether to approve the patents submitted by Salvatore Cezar Pais, a Romanian-American scientist. In addition to the U.S. Navy/Salvatore Pais patents, there are thousands of suppressed patents,including clean (free, anti-gravity,zero point, etc.) energy production and propulsion systems and medical technology, many of which President Trump is committed to releasing, as first indicated in his 2017 inaugural address9. Although administrative agencies resisted his executive order and slowed the release of such patents to a mere trickle during his first term, there is every reason to believe THIS time the administrative response will be much livelier, far more in the public interest. President Trump had better luck in his first term with the category of"mysteries of space," as referenced in that address, when he oversaw the creation of Space Force. See quote in footnote and the following screenshot. 9"We stand at the birth of a new millennium,ready to unlock the mysteries of space,to free the earth from the miseries of disease,and to harness the energies,industries,and technologies of tomorrow." 8 i i %rri PC %P404 WAPI b 1*1 1 N1 0 A S' IL 661 qWCWWwWMTC13" I POPMW MWKM MWJM-M,C6111ift I 10 Md,NO Azti w:Pi"Y 4wrkm (-- Rmrn tmrffararr i.pm47nducII y.:Iwi I I I 4 FrwencfJ3 -Jachpnk C14 (— GM-AAMW Skipat4#41,14 � PT�1 4M-11 i(AME1 IhM[Ile ljeclt-'I`A9'fl I '1 "71.'. 1 S'k WO.,C'or':&A,r ri.c,,+L,_LI:t t k t c. W,­­F;c d"eAwj LM'­M JWv"WM11h#owtm "="'Opfidirt"b'd-iftift Regarding patents for new energy options, propulsion, etc., with some working models already in existence. Listen to inventor Salvatore Cezar Pais (affiliated with U.S.Navy) on Curt Jaimungal's Theory of Everything. hLtps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E6QyAhTB3o tti)s://www.voutube.com/watch?v=PE4C7017Frg&t--Os P oi l THE PHYSICS OF UFOs Salvatore Pais on Quantum Gravity, UAP Patents,Pais- 0 1 153K wiews 6 mr,`­ J 9 AY ` 0 Ad- .'Oda'. r 1 F NEW STUDIES ON SATURATION OF CO2 AND ITS PLANETARY BENEFITS Dramatic evidence has been published in a number of recent science papers that carbon dioxide levels are already 'saturated', meaning little or no further warming is to be expected and rising CO2 levels are all beneficial. Half of human emissions are being quickly pushed back into the biosphere,the scientists say, causing substantial, famine-busting plant growth, while the rest is entering a 'saturated' atmosphere and having a minimal effect on global temperatures. One of the papers accepting the human involvement in rising CO2 is published by the CO2 Coalition,which notes: "We like CO2,so should you." None of this work will be reported in the mainstream since it disrupts a'settled' climate science narrative tied to the political Net Zero fantasy. But the opinion that humans control the climate thermostat by releasing CO2, leading to runaway temperatures, belongs to a dark period in science when it was captured to promote political aims. 10 However, work continues in skeptical climate circles to understand how a number of gases with warming properties behave in a chaotic, non-linear atmosphere. Two recently-published papers found that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere led to minimal temperature increases. The calculated figures can be considered to be in margin of error territory and on past observational evidence they pose no threat to the climate on Earth. They also destroy the shaky scientific foundation upon which Net Zero rests. Eight Taiwanese scientists led by Professor Peng-Sheng Wei found that the sensitivity of the climate to a rise in CO2 atmospheric levels from 100 to 400 parts per million (ppm)was "negligibly small" at 0.3°C. The paper is complex and examines heat transfers as a function of longitude, latitude and altitude "as well as diffuse radiation determined by absorption bands based on wavelength, temperature and the concentration or pressure of carbon dioxide vapour." What the scientists are looking at here is the narrow absorption bands within the infrared (IR) spectrum that allow `greenhouse' gases to trap heat and warm the planet. Many argue that after a certain level the gases `saturate' and lose most of their warming properties. One simple way to understand this is to observe that doubling insulation in a loft will not trap twice as much heat. The saturation hypothesis would appear to explain how CO2 has been 10-15 times higher in the past without runaway temperatures,while the anthropogenic warming opinion does little more than provide scientific cover for a dodgy but fashionable extreme eco scare. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims a climate sensitivity number based on doubling CO2 levels of around 3°C. But many climate models ramp up mass public hysteria by using 'pathways'with much larger and highly improbable estimates. The latter form the basis of numerous'scientists say'stories faithfully reported by unquestioning mainstream media. The Taiwanese scientists found that ground temperature warming of 0.3°C was associated with the increase from 100 ppm to 350 ppm and there was no additional warming at all as CO2 rose further from 350 ppm to 400 ppm. The current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is 420 ppm. Seven Austrian scientists have also recently concentrated on CO2 and the infrared spectrum, noting that a future doubling of the gas up to 800 ppm "shows no increase in the IR absorption for the 15 u-central peak". It is concluded that this can lead to 0.5°C warming at most. The scientists argue that climate models and their CO2 influences should be revised. Much more experimental evidence about IR radiation should be collected "before appointing current warming trends and climate change mechanisms monocausal to greenhouse gas theories." The recent papers on CO2 saturation are not the only ones to have been published lately. Earlier this year a group of Polish scientists led by Dr. Jan Kubicki supplied three papers arguing that above 400 ppm, "the CO2 concentration can no longer cause any increase in temperature." In 2023, three scientists including Atmospheric Professor Yi Huang of McGill University stated that: "in the CO2 band centre is unchanged by increased CO2 as the absorption is already saturated." In Chen et al. 2023, it is reported that CO2 had a severely reduced warming effect past pre-industrial concentrations. It was also noted that water vapour and cloud influences overlap and thus dominate absorption in the CO2 IR band. In 2022, the German Physics Professor Dieter Schildnecht set the CO2 saturation level at lust 300 ppm. The CO2 Coalition is an educational foundation that says it provides facts, resources and information about the "vital role" CO2 plays in the environment. It recently published a detailed paper that accepted humans had contributed most of the CO2 that has entered the atmosphere in industrial times. The paper is sub-titled: "How 11 human emissions are restoring vital atmospheric CO2." The coalition has long promoted the role that saturation plays in tempering the effect of a number of gases with warming properties.Attention is often drawn in its work to the part played by water vapour that makes up around 4% of the atmosphere and contributes as much as 80%of the Earth's vital warming. It saturates over large parts of the IR spectrum, reducing the effect of other gases in their own specific bands. The coalition's board includes the distinguished Professor William Happer, who has long argued the merits of the saturation hypothesis, and it was recently joined by the 2022 Nobel Physics Laureate Dr. John Clauser. Levels of CO2 have been much higher in the past, with evidence of vibrant animal and plant life. Many plants evolved to thrive with higher levels than they feed on today, a period some scientists argue is one of CO2 denudation. In its recently published paper, the coalition observes that the higher the CO2 content in the atmosphere,the greater the pressure from physical processes to drive CO2 into the oceans and vegetation. This is borne out by considerable evidence, although the recent substantial 'greening' of the planet is largely hidden from readers reliant on mainstream media. In fact the new 'green revolution' is feeding the world. The authors of a recent science paper, Charles Taylor and Wolfram Schlenker, state: "We consistently find a large fertilisation effect; a 1 ppm increase in CO2 equates to a 0.4%, 0.6%, 1% yield increase for corn, soybean and wheat respectively." The heavy greening of the Earth can be seen in a map first published in Donohue/CSIRO 2015 and republished in another recent paper from the CO2 Coalition. This examined the nutritive value of plants growing in enhanced CO2 concentrations. Deserts 'greening' from rising CO2 r . 20% 10% s 4r _10% -20% The map was produced from satellite leaf data and shows that greening between 1982-2012 grew by 20-30% in India, West Australia, the Sahel and the Anatolian highlands. A more recent paper Chen et al. 2024 found that greening had actually accelerated in the last two decades. The increase in CO2 was found to be the dominant driver of the positive trend of the Leaf Area Index over most of the global land surface. Article author: Chris Morrison Curry —On The Credibility Of Climate Research Nov. 22, 2009 Having been riveted for the last few days by posts in the blogosphere on the HADCRU hack and the increasing attention being given to this by the mainstream media, I would 12 like to provide an"external but insider" assessment and perspective. My perspective is as a climate researcher that is not involved directly in any of the controversies and issues in the purloined HADCRU emails, but as one that is familiar with this research, the surrounding controversies, and many of the individuals who sent these emails. While the blogosphere has identified many emails that allegedly indicate malfeasance, clarifications especially from Gavin Schmidt have been very helpful in providing explanations and the appropriate context for these emails. However, even if the hacked emails from HADCRU end up to be much ado about nothing in the context of any actual misfeasance that impacts the climate data records, the damage to the public credibility of climate research is likely to be significant. In my opinion,there are two broader issues raised by these emails that are impeding the public credibility of climate research: lack of transparency in climate data, and "tribalism"in some segments of the climate research community that is impeding peer review and the assessment process. 1. Transparency. Climate data needs to be publicly available and well documented. This includes metadata that explains how the data were treated and manipulated, what assumptions were made in assembling the data sets, and what data was omitted and why. This would seem to be an obvious and simple requirement, but the need for such transparency has only been voiced recently as the policy relevance of climate data has increased. The HADCRU surface climate dataset and the paleoclimate dataset that has gone into the various "hockeystick" analyses stand out as lacking such transparency. Much of the paleoclimate data and metadata has become available only because of continued public pressure from Steve McIntyre. Datasets that were processed and developed decades ago and that are now regarded as essential elements of the climate data record often contain elements whose raw data or metadata were not preserved (this appears to be the case with HADCRUT). The HADCRU surface climate dataset needs public documentation that details the time period and location of individual station measurements used in the data set, statistical adjustments to the data, how the data were analyzed to produce the climatology, and what measurements were omitted and why. If these data and metadata are unavailable, I would argue that the data set needs to be reprocessed(presumably the original raw data is available from the original sources). Climate data sets should be regularly reprocessed as new data becomes available and analysis methods improve. There are a number of aspects of the surface climate record that need to be understood better. For example, the surface temperature bump ca. 1940 needs to be sorted out, and I am personally lacking confidence in how this period is being treated in the HADCRUT analysis. In summary, given the growing policy relevance of climate data, increasingly higher standards must be applied to the transparency and availability of climate data and metadata. These standards should be clarified, applied and enforced by the relevant national funding agencies and professional societies that publish scientific journals. 2. Climate tribalism. Tribalism is defined here as a strong identity that separates one's group from members of another group, characterized by strong in-group loyalty and regarding other groups differing from the tribe's defining characteristics as inferior. In the context of scientific research, tribes differ from groups of colleagues that collaborate and otherwise associate with each other professionally. As a result of the politicization of climate science, climate tribes (consisting of a small number of climate researchers)were 13 established in response to the politically motivated climate disinformation machine that was associated with e.g. ExxonMobil, CEI, Inhofe/Morano etc. The reaction of the climate tribes to the political assault has been to circle the wagons and point the guns outward in an attempt to discredit misinformation from politicized advocacy groups. The motivation of scientists in the pro AGW tribes appears to be less about politics and more about professional ego and scientific integrity as their research was under assault for nonscientific reasons (I'm sure there are individual exceptions, but this is my overall perception). I became adopted into a"tribe" during Autumn 2005 after publication of the Webster et al. hurricane and global warming paper. I and my colleagues were totally bewildered and overwhelmed by the assault we found ourselves under, and associating with a tribe where others were more experienced and savvy about how to deal with this was a relief and very helpful at the time. After becoming more knowledgeable about the politics of climate change (both the external politics and the internal politics within the climate field),I became concerned about some of the tribes pointing their guns inward at other climate researchers who question their research or don't pass various loyalty tests. I even started spending time at climateaudit, and my public congratulations to Steve McIntyre when climateaudit won the "best science blog award"was greeted with a rather unpleasant email from one of the tribal members. While the "hurricane wars" fizzled out in less than a year as the scientists recovered from the external assault and got back to business as usual in terms of arguing science with their colleagues, the "hockey wars" have continued apparently unabated. With the publication of the IPCC 4th Assessment report, the Nobel Peace Prize, and energy legislation near the top of the national legislative agenda, the"denialists"were becoming increasingly irrelevant(the Heartland Conference and NIPCC are not exactly household words). Hence it is difficult to understand the continued circling of the wagons by some climate researchers with guns pointed at skeptical researchers by apparently trying to withhold data and other information of relevance to published research, thwart the peer review process, and keep papers out of assessment reports. Scientists are of course human, and short-term emotional responses to attacks and adversity are to be expected, but I am particularly concerned by this apparent systematic and continuing behavior from scientists that hold editorial positions, serve on important boards and committees and participate in the major assessment reports. It is these issues revealed in the HADCRU emails that concern me the most, and it seems difficult to spin many of the emails related to FOIA,peer review, and the assessment process. I sincerely hope that these emails do not in actuality reflect what they appear to, and I encourage Gavin Schmidt et al. to continue explaining the individual emails and the broader issues of concern. In summary, the problem seems to be that the circling of the wagons strategy developed by small groups of climate researchers in response to the politically motivated attacks against climate science are now being used against other climate researchers and the more technical blogs (e.g. Climateaudit, Lucia, etc). Particularly on a topic of such great public relevance, scientists need to consider carefully skeptical arguments and either rebut them or learn from them. Trying to suppress them or discredit the skeptical researcher or blogger is not an ethical strategy and one that will backfire in the long run. I have some sympathy for Phil Jones' concern of not wanting to lose control of his personal research agenda by having to take the time to respond to all the queries and 14 requests regarding his dataset, but the receipt of large amounts of public funding pretty much obligates CRU to respond to these requests. The number of such requests would be drastically diminished if all relevant and available data and metadata were made publicly accessible, and if requests from Steve McIntyre were honored(I assume that many spurious requests have been made to support Steve McIntyre's request, and these would all disappear). The HADCRU hack has substantially increased the relevance of Climateaudit, WUWT, etc. The quickest way for HADCRU et al. to put Climateaudit and the rest of this tribe out of business is make all climate data and metadata public and make every effort to improve the datasets based on all feedback that you receive. Do this and they will quickly run out of steam and become irrelevant . Gavin Schmidt's current efforts at realclimate are a good step in the right direction of increasing transparency. But the broader issue is the need to increase the public credibility of climate science. This requires publicly available data and metadata, a rigorous peer review process, and responding to arguments raised by skeptics. The integrity of individual scientists that are in positions of responsibility (e.g. administrators at major research institutions, editorial boards, major committees, and assessments) is particularly important for the public credibility of climate science. The need for public credibility and transparency has dramatically increased in recent years as the policy relevance of climate research has increased. The climate research enterprise has not yet adapted to this need, and our institutions need to strategize to respond to this need. https://climateaudit.org/2009/11/22/curry-on-the-credibility-of-climate-research/