In only twenty-four hours, I’ve come across three blatant examples of hidden agendas. And the examples have followed so quickly on the heels of one another that even the conspiracy theorist in me is starting to get a bit shaken.

Example One

Andrew Wheeler recently blogged about the obvious and incorrect bias in a cartoon by Lisa Benson about Detroit and the UAW. Go here for his blog. As well as proving that I have no life by commenting on recent actions of the UAW, my comment on Andrew’s blog contained the following:

Putting my conspiracy theorist hat on for a moment, what is the tie between the media organisations where these cartoons appear and the auto-makers? How is public opinion being manipulated via satire in order to push a particular agenda?

Okay, all well and good. It’s Kaz being her usual narrow-eyed, cynical self again. Let’s move on.

Example Two

I’m a regular reader of the China Matters blog and, also recently, China Hand wrote a blog about General Motors. (If you’re wondering about the coincidence of two successive blogs on the automotive industry, it’s because it’s a big subject at the moment. No more.) CH’s post (“Buying a Sick Horse and Turning It Into a Dead Horse”, Wednesday 19 November 2008) was, as usual, illuminating and interesting and also contained this little snippet:

The tubes of the Internet have been abuzz concerning a report on the auto industry website www.allaboutcars.com headlined “Breaking News—Chinese May Buy GM and Chrysler”. … The Chinese appear to have no plans to acquire GM. And perhaps Allaboutcars was getting vigorously massaged by Deloitte-Touche, which has a vested interest in all things M&A, China-wise.

CH quotes, as always, excerpts from the items in question to bolster the argument. (That’s one reason I like reading the blog. No namby-pamby I’ll-just-say-what-I-want-and-damn-the-facts rhetoric. Here are references I can follow, if I’m so inclined.)

During the consolidation [i.e. a conclusion to the possibility that some Chinese industrial manufacturers will successfully internationalise as the global economic climate reduces resistance to Chinese penetration of European and American manufacturers] , Chinese enterprises could begin by purchasing GM suppliers and GM’s China joint ventures, Deloitte Touche China believes. [my emphasis] …

I bet they do! So Deloitte Touche China has a vested interested in Chinese matters concerning the manufacturing and automotive industries and they just happen to drop a statement in a news article that would increase their own business tenfold (at least) if proven correct? It isn’t the comment itself that raised my eyebrows (such moves are common in the business world), it’s the brazenness of it, considering that Deloitte is trying to obviously influence the Chinese government in the matter. Ten out of ten for chutzpah, guys, but I’m not confident of your chances, tbh.

Example Three

Possibly the most worrisome one of all. But first, some background. The GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) is … well, let me use their words:

The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), at Columbia University in New York City, is a laboratory of the Earth Sciences Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute. Research at GISS emphasizes a broad study of global climate change.

But what does this mean? From their About page:

A key objective of GISS research is prediction of atmospheric and climate changes in the 21st century. The research combines analysis of comprehensive global datasets, derived mainly from spacecraft observations, with global models of atmospheric, land surface, and oceanic processes. Study of past climate change on Earth and of other planetary atmospheres serves as a useful tool in assessing our general understanding of the atmosphere and its evolution.

Essentially, the GISS is the go-to body for climate change data. So far, so good. The problem is this. Their October data, which prompted the report that October 2008 was the warmest October since reliable record-keeping began in 1880, was wrong, because September data from Russia was used in place of October’s. (And, as anyone in the northern hemisphere knows, September is a warmer month than October.)

If you want to know more about this issue by the person who first nailed the October anomaly, check out Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog. Further investigation leads to the conclusion that, in fact, many terrestrial temperature-monitoring sites (which the GISS uses more than would seem evident from their quote above) tend to err on the side of higher temperatures, usually through bad station placement. So Question Number One for the dilettante scientist (that’s me and perhaps thee) is, as Anthony Watts puts it:

If Russian weather stations are located in cities that have [a hot water/steam pipe ] district heating plan, and a good percentage of the pipes are uninsulated, how much of the waste heat from the pipes ends up creating a local micro-climate of warmth?

This dodgy data (from all over the place, not just Russia) gets collected by the GISS to present a, shall we say, less than accurate picture of global warming. But it gets worse. Considering its importance, the GISS (with a billion-dollar annual budget) only allocates one quarter of one resource (25% of one person’s time) on checking the data it uses. Just the kind of priority a peak scientific establishment should give to its source data, right?

But that’s not all. The baseline data has changed. The 1930s temperature data is now (in 2008) lower than it was during the 1990s. Which means that today’s average temperatures are, of course, seen as relatively higher. Can you see the picture forming here?

But wait. There’s more. An algorithm that caters for missing historical temperature data arbitrarily increases the temperature by 0.1 degrees Celsius regularly throughout the 20th Century without any apparent justification.

The Register puts it succinctly:

GISS makes unannounced, unexplained changes, and this practice is confusing and gets in the way of scholarship. GISS calibrates its data to 0.01°C. This implies a very high degree of accuracy and low margin of error. But their aggregate adjustments [the aforeto mentioned algorithm] add up to tens of times greater than this scale. Therefore to provide data in hundredths of a degree is a clear case of misplaced precision.

Can all of this surreptitious tweaking be traced back to one person? Like GISS Director, James Hansen? A man who would like to see oil company executives prosecuted for their contribution to global warming? Is he stacking the GISS data deck so he can make the statement:

Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationships between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming

a vindication of his own personal views? This is a passionate man who believes that the actions of oil executives, their lobbyists and pandering politicians are undermining democracy. But how far can he be trusted? And should such a person be put in charge of a premier, supposedly unbiased, longitudinal scientific study? What do you think?

Conclusions

Straight news items, especially when they concern big-ticket items like car companies or the environment, never are, as these examples illustrate. In each, you have the vested interests of a person or organisation trying to push a particular agenda. I’ve written this long-assed post to hopefully get you to act a little more sceptically in the face of news, no matter how wholesome the source may appear to be. (NASA? But they’re my heroes!)

On the NASA GISS front, the example I cited is particularly troublesome. I ascribe to the personal view that I cannot believe the accumulation of humanity’s agricultural, social and industrial interventions on the planet throughout history have not contributed in some way to some change in how the Earth’s biosphere works. However, I cannot condone the tricks undertaken by the GISS in the name of science and the environment. Fudging data may work in the short term, but it only hurts its own cause, no matter how noble that may be. Science should not work like that.

As for Hansen, as head of a public service organisation of critical importance to the whole world, his personal views should remain exactly that. Personal.