To dean #62:

Me: “Are the NOAA *emails and internal communications* available online? Because I understood the committee to be subpoenaing NOAA emails and internal communications, not data and the methods of analysis.”

You: “I have no idea if private communications are on-line, but an intelligent response (which you can’t provide, of course) would be that they are not. An intelligent question would be why, absent any accusation of wrongdoing, private communications are needed when the science committee is interested in the data and analysis, as they claim to be.”

But if NOAA is a federal government agency, paid for by my tax dollars and subject to FOIA, as well as to subpoenas, why should the NOAA communications be considered “private”?

I think we’ve already covered that. To create a climate of intimidation among scientists whose findings challenge the cherished ideological belief of many in government that the market can do no wrong, not to mention the profits of the richest industry on Earth.

I fully realize that, and agree. My point was that habitual science deniers like sn (he’s never met a subject he doesn’t claim is false: evolution, modern cosmology, geology’s dating of the earth, science based medical procedures, on and on and on) harbor conspiracy theories and in their minds such investigations are justified.

@#62:

// An intelligent question would be why, absent any accusation of wrongdoing, private communications are needed when the science committee is interested in the data and analysis, as they claim to be. //

I think we’ve already covered that. To create a climate of intimidation among scientists whose findings challenge the cherished ideological belief of many in government that the market can do no wrong, not to mention the profits of the richest industry on Earth. Also, to fish for taken-out-of-context smear material – a tactic which we all know has been very successful in the past.

“the committee is claiming they are being denied access to the data and the methods of analysis in the study: NOAA has repeatedly pointed out those are available on-line…”

Are the NOAA *emails and internal communications* available online?
Because I understood the committee to be subpoenaing NOAA emails and internal communications, not data and the methods of analysis.

Someone screwed up in saying there is no subpoena, but as for the rest, this is the same old same old fishing expedition for smear material that has been going on since Republicans went off the deep end and started taking the craziness of people like Fred Singer seriously.

Here’s the key point:

// The committee issued the subpoena on Oct. 13 and gave NOAA until Tuesday to respond. The agency responded with a letter that cites the many scientific briefings, datasets and studies it gave the committee over the past few months, but said it would not turn over emails and other deliberative research communications.

“Because the confidentiality of these communications among scientists is essential to frank discourse among scientists, those documents were not provided to the Committee,” NOAA said in a statement. “It is the end product of exchanges between scientists – the detailed publication of scientific work and the data that underpins the authors’ findings– that are key to understanding the conclusions reached.” //

Demanding scientists’ personal communications Harrassment and intimidation. What other scientists… SCIENTISTS, dammit – have to deal with this kind of treatment? None but the ones who challenge the cherished ideology of free market fundamentalists with the reality that the market can create hfs problems it can’t fix. None but the scientists whose findings threaten the profits of the richest industry on Earth.

You need to educate yourself on the history of climate denialism. Read Orekes’ “Merchant of Doubt” and Mann’s “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”. But for a quick primer and pertinent primer, read this:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/02/virginia-court-sceptic-access-climate-emails

a useful topic has been totally hijacked

That is what climate science denial is all about, after all.

They are actors, running a schtick, and yanking people’s chains. DNFTT.