cc: "Read Rupert Dr (SOC)" date: Fri Feb 6 14:49:02 2004 from: Mike Hulme subject: RE: sexing-up evidence to: "Boswell Andrew Dr (ITCS) s139" Thanks Andrew (and Rupert) for your apology. I feel passionate about many things, including scientists who trash good sound evidence about global warming and also about non-scientists who reduce complex messages to simple one-liners. I know I don't always get it right and that some communication media are particularly difficult to use for educating, dialoguing and listening, which in the end is what it is all about to help people critically reflect on their own attitudes and behaviour. Anyway let's draw a line under this one. I just hope Dick Lindzen doesn't read the EDP at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts! Then I really would have some explaining to do. Mike At 15:00 05/02/2004 +0000, Boswell Andrew Dr (ITCS) s139 wrote: Dear Mike, On behalf of Rupert and myself, first, we would like to apologise. We appreciate the witty approach of your email, but also acknowledge the seriousness of its message. We clearly want anything which bears our names to be fully in line with the scientific evidence, and not to offend or embarrass you and other colleagues at UEA. We did contact you to try and make sure that we were in line with credible science and Tyndall views. We weren't trying to quote you, or Tyndall, but rather make the point that the vast majority of climatologists do support climate change as real ... then draw in the local context by mentioning Tyndall. In retrospect, the flat-earthers sentence, was slightly amusing, but not very helpful. We are sorry if it seems we were making a more direct connection to Tyndall (ie quoting you in some way). Another part of the letter did make good points about the costs of Kyoto implementation, using in part the reference which you gave us. We feel passionately about this issue, as we are sure you do too. It's very important locally, particularly with CRed just started, that climate change is taken seriously, and in time that this is reflected in local and national policy. In this, we are all working to the same end, so we hope that we can support each other in the future. We regret any rifts over this letter, and to help mend and avoid this for the future, can we suggest that we may ask you, or Asher, to check any similar letter in the future? By the way, we copied you on the draft sent to EDP on Sunday morning. If you had alerted us earlier to your concerns, then we would considered recalling the letter for amendment (which we think EDP would have accepted up to about yesterday afternoon). With best wishes Andrew (and Rupert) > -----Original Message----- > From: f037 [[1]mailto:M.Hulme@uea.ac.uk] > Sent: 05 February 2004 09:30 > To: a.boswell@uea.ac.uk; r.read@uea.ac.uk > Subject: sexing-up evidence > > Dear Rupert and Andrew, > > Sexing-up evidence is so easy to do, isn't it? > > Reading your letter in the EDP today makes me wonder who your source > inside > the Tyndall Centre was supplying you with such exaggerated evidence? > Surely > it wasn't me, was it? Treating Dick Lindzen with the esteem of flat- > earthers; > could this claim have been inserted by politicians seeking to make a > dramatic > point to their audience? Or was it really what the experts in the Tyndall > Centre think? Perhaps we need an enquiry. > > Don't worry - I'm not thinking of committing suicide should I be exposed > as > the source of this story; but then again, it couldn't have been me, could > it? > I didn't say that after all; all I said was that we are well aware of Dick > Lindzen and his arguments (in fact, Dick Lindzen is a pretty smart > meteorologist who just takes a more cautious view of the scientific > evidence > for human causes of global warming; similar in caution in some ways to > David > Kelly even). > > Yes, sexing-up is so easy to do. Be warned. > > Mike