Press complaints ruling on UEA, Delingpole and climate didn’t stick to the science
“I wasn’t going to crow, really I wasn’t. But I’m afraid I can’t resist,” writes climate sceptic James Delingpole on his Telegraph blog. “I’m talking about the Press Complaints Commission’s ruling on a complaint brought against this blog by our old friends at the University of East Anglia. They lost. We won.”
UEA had complained about three posts written by Mr Delingpole on the subject of “Climategate” which enlarged upon his opinion that the “corrupt, mendacious Climate Change industry” has conspired on a global level, successfully hoodwinking governments, national academies and even multi-national oil companies in order to get a few more research grants.
The first of the contested posts described Professor Phil Jones of the UEA as “disgraced, FOI-breaching, email-deleting, scientific-method abusing” while the second claimed the university’s scientists were “untrustworthy, unreliable and entirely unfit to write the kind of reports on which governments around the world make their economic and environmental decisions”.
In its ruling, the PCC said:
“The Commission emphasised that the articles in question were blog posts and were clearly identifiable as such to readers generally â?¦ The Commission was satisfied that readers would be aware that the comments therein represented the columnist’s own robust views of the matters in question. Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code permits the publication of such comment provided it is clearly distinguished from fact and does not contain significantly inaccurate, misleading or distorted information.”
The Press Complaints Commission based part of its ruling on the now infamous note by Professor Jones, revealed when his emails were stolen, which stated:
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline”.
The commission said this statement alone was enough to describe Professor Jones as “scientific method-abusing”, a conclusion which puts the PCC at odds with the views of the scientific community, and the government chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, who previously said “I welcome that Muir Russell’s review finds the rigour and honesty of UEA scientists to be in no doubt. This is the third review to find no evidence of scientific malpractice at the university.”
Some climate sceptics have been quick to describe this as a legal victory for Delingpole, but the PCC is a regulatory body not a statutory one, and has no powers to issue legal decisions or to ‘gag’ newspaper bloggers, which Delingpole claimed was the aim of the complaint. If this had actually been a legal case, it would have been treated quite differently.
The claims made by Mr Delingpole against Professor Phil Jones specifically and scientists at the Climatic Research Unit generally appear defamatory: calculated to disparage the team members in their profession. A judge could command a much more thorough investigation into whether splicing data in a diagram using a method discussed thoroughly in scientific papers is an “abuse” and can be used as evidence that Professor Jones and his colleagues are “untrustworthy”.
Such an approach which might involve examining the science behind the method. The “decline” mentioned in the email – the divergence between proxy tree ring data and thermometer recorded temperatures – has been discussed in peer review science from as early as 1995. By his own admission, Delingpole does not read scientific papers.
In court, the blogger would reach for the defence of fair comment – that his robust but genuinely held views are based on facts that have come out since “Climategate”. As a last refuge he could claim qualified privilege because some of the allegations made have been heard before a parliamentary committee. But Delingpole is sailing erratically and perilously close to the wind – which probably explains why the Daily Express has been so quick to remove similar articles from its website after complaints.
Professor Jones has been driven to the edge of suicide by the allegations made against him, as reported in the Telegraph. His reputation and the reputation of climate science have become fused. In these circumstances, seeking to correct material it believes to be inaccurate seems like a reasonable course of action from UEA.
Finally, it does seem rather unwise of Delingpole to “crow” about this result. The main thrust of the PCC findings is that his writing appeared on a blog and can therefore be taken with a pinch of salt. In the interests of free speech, bloggers can present “subjective opinion” and the PCC “permits the publication of such comment provided it is clearly distinguished from factâ?¦”
The implication is clear: had this article appeared in the print edition of the Telegraph it would not have been given the same latitude. Readers in turn must remember that the PCC’s verdict is that Delingpole does not produce journalism. By the standards of the PCC, his personal blogs contain “subjective opinion” and “are clearly distinguished from fact”.