A trendy topic

Over at RealClimate.org, Kevin Wood and Eric Steig present the results of a comparison between time series of temperature data taken at random from the CRU historical temperature dataset, and equivalent time series (i.e. representing the same geographical locations) from other historical datasets. The aim is to see if there is any significant difference between the CRU data and the non-CRU data. This is important because a lot of the attacks on CRU are claiming that CRU scientists massaged the data to support the case for global warming. The “sceptics” claim that the world isn’t warming, or that it isn’t our fault if it is – it’s difficult to keep up with which argument they’re using.

Anyway, the upshot is that the trends in the CRU data are also present in the other other data. Wood and Steig describe them as “statistically identical”. The CRU data have not been massaged by CRU scientists to produce a false warming trend (in fact I recall discussions in CRU back in the early 1990s about correcting the data to remove urban heat island effects , in order to avoid spurious warming trends – “CRU scientists massage data to remove warming” shock!).

If you’re not convinced, Wood and Steig provide links to the data, both CRU and non-CRU, the latter from the US University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). Yes, the data are freely available over the internet, as they have been for ages. So you can repeat their analysis yourself. Anyone claiming that CRU have been massaging the data to show false trends needs to do this before they’re in a position to throw any more mud. If you unable to do your own independent analysis then you’re probably not in a credible position to attack the science.

Real swivel-eyed conspiracy theorists will no doubt claim that UCAR are involved in the same conspiracy to mislead the world about climate change. If you’re one of those then you at least need to extend your invective to include UCAR and other organisations involved in data gathering, management and processing, as, given the apparently revealed truth that the world isn’t warming, anyone providing evidence that it is must surely be lying. However, if you’re one of the many normal people who are simply genuinely confused about the science as a result of this fiasco, and who have been persuaded by the sceptics that there is no scientific consensus on climate change after all, maybe this post on RealClimate will help (like I said, if you’re genuinely sceptical in the original and proper sense of the word, you can repeat the analysis or get someone you trust to do so).

Attacks singling out CRU for misrepresenting the science are no longer viable. Either CRU’s science is sound, even if its staff have said some unkind things about sceptics and their work in some private emails, or there has been a global conspiracy to fabricate data stretching back decades – to before anybody had even heard of global warming and predating the 1970s worries about the next ice age. If you think the latter, you’re not going to be convinced otherwise by me, or anyone else, and I’m not going to push it.

New web addresses, courtesty of climategate

I have a new address for my personal website, with details of my research, consultancy, publications and the like, here:

http://www.nickbrooks.org/

The Western Sahara Project also has a new web address:

http://www.nickbrooks.org/WS/WSahara.htm

Note that we are currently looking for volunteers for a season of fieldwork in November 2010. More details here:

http://www.nickbrooks.org/WS/WSahara-volunteers.htm

The website move is the result of the disruption caused by the theft of data and personal emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), on whose servers the above websites were previously hosted. These servers are currently being examined as part of the investigation into the theft. You may have read about the hacking incident associated with the theft, and the subsequent controversy over the content of some of the emails (see a couple of brief previous posts, any newspaper, or the millions of uninformed rantings on the – ahem – blogosphere).

The data and email theft was carried out by people looking for evidence of a grand conspiracy between climate scientists and governments to misinform the public about global warming, which the same sceptics claim is not happening (their view is that scientists are engaged in a massive cover-up and are lying to the public about climate change). The motivation behind this attempt at muck-raking appears to be a desire to wreck the Copenhagen climate summit and ensure that no agreement on reducing the magnitude or impact of climate change is reached. Needless to say no evidence supporting the claims of a campaign to mislead the world about climate change has been found. The emails that are the subject of most of the media coverage contain some fruity language indicating exasperation with the climate sceptics’ misrepresentation of science and their harassment of people carrying out climate change research, but not much else.

I obtained my PhD from CRU in 2000, and I want to express my full support for all my colleagues in CRU, who are currently experiencing considerable harassment from various quarters of the lunatic fringe. I also want to express my support for and confidence in CRU’s science, which shows the same climatic trends as apparent in independent data sets developed by other organisations. The evidence of climate change is all around us, despite the shrill protestations of those who seek to deny the evidence on the basis of ideology or economic interests.

There is a good article by science journalist Fred Pearce about the whole fiasco here: http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2221. I think he’s a bit harsh on UEA, which has tried its best to handle the sudden global media spotlight, which may be unprecedented for an academic institution. If UEA has failed to respond appropriately it’s because it’s out of its depth – scientists are not good at PR, and PR people don’t know the science. Confronting the well orchestrated propaganda of the climate “sceptics” requires a deep knowledge of their tactics and arguments, and the ability to take them on publicly. Given that the sceptics have spent years honing their PR skills this is not a trivial undertaken. Unfortunately science does not automatically trump pseudoscience in PR terms – presentation is important.

UEA’s responses can be found here:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements

If anyone wants to argue climate science I suggest they go and hang out at RealClimate.org – I don’t have the time to repeat old arguments about the reliability of climate science over and over again in the blogosphere in response to individual sceptical commenters who seem to think they have access to some revealed truth about the way the Earth’s climate behaves that scientists are not party to.

Low-down on the CRU data leak saga

For those of you following (whether with glee or despair) the story about the theft and subsequent publication of emails and data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the discussion of the affair at RealClimate.org is worth a look. You can find the CRU thread here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/

There are some nice nuggets, such as the fact that a paper by sceptics that the distributors of the leaked material claim were being cut out of the loop by evil climate scientists bent on keeping that sort of thing out of the IPCC reports was, er, cited and discussed in the latest IPCC report.

But then, who needs a sober assessment of the facts when you can get this sort of bilge from the oxymoronic Fox News:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,578206,00.html

This story claims that the notion that emissions of greenhouse gases are causing the world to warm is based on “computerized projections of future temperatures based on vast amounts of previously observed climate data”. It also claims that “the original raw data used to create these models has been destroyed or otherwise disposed of”. So, the scientists at CRU (not scientists but “alarmists” in Fox’s words) have been entirely responsible for the science of global warming, which is based soley on their models of what the future climate might be like (actually CRU don’t run global climate models – they use data generated by places such as the Hadley Centre). And now, CRU have apparently lost or deliberately deleted all the data on which all the world’s climate projections are founded, so we’ll never know if these data were any good! All the world’s observed climate data in one tiny little round building at the University of East Anglia? All of the projections used to assess potential future climatic trajectories based soley on the work of a small group of scientists (sorry, alarmists) at CRU? Well, this is a strange parallel universe. Must be the one in which Fox News lives. It is indeed a scary place – I can see why they’re worried. Thankfully the real world that most of us inhabit is quite different, with intact data (not lost or deleted by CRU or anyone else) and climate science based on the work of numerous groups all over the world, who look at all sorts of things  such as evidence from past climates, energy budgets, and observed changes, as well as models of the future. I know which universe I’d feel better informed in.

Climate change email and data theft hoo-ha

Some of you may have been following the scandal about the theft of data and emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, most likely by hackers paid by climate contrarians bent on undermining support for a deal on climate change at the rapidly approaching (and unravelling) Copenhagen meeting. As I did my PhD in CRU, and as I still have strong links to UEA, I might write a post about this little drama. But then again, I might not, as everybody else seems to be busy doing precisely that. So, in the meantime, here is a link to some of the most intelligent commentary on the whole affair.

The Daily Mash – CLIMATE CHANGE EMAILS STOP GLACIERS FROM MELTING

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Petition against the EU’s exploitation of occupied Western Saharan waters

I’d like to suggest that people sign the following petition against the illegal exploitation of occupied Western Saharan waters by EU fishing vessels. This has been made possible by the EU’s granting of “Advanced Status” to Morocco, despite the latter’s continuing occupation of much of Western Sahara and the continuing efforts of the Moroccan government to subvert the UN mandated referendum on self determination for Western Sahara. The petition is open to organisations and individuals. Thanks.

http://www.fishelsewhere.eu/

Visit Western Sahara

Apologies for the long silence – things have been very busy. I’ll try and write a post on recent Western Sahara developments and gossip soon.

In the meantime, I want to advertise the fact that the Western Sahara Project is looking for volunteers for a season on fieldwork in October 2009. We are looking for volunteers to help with archaeological excavations and also with archaeological and environmental reconnaissance work. No experience is necessary – volunteers will work with experienced archaeologists and environmental scientists and all necessary training will be given. Excavations will last for 4 weeks, and reconnaissance survey for 3 weeks. You can volunteer for either excavations or reconnaissance. This season will be funded entirely by the contributions of volunteers. Costs will be comparable to those of a high-end adventure holiday or volunteering on a conservation project.

For more information, take a look at the Project website (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~e118/WS/WSahara.htm) and drop me a line if you’re interested.

Green Sahara

I’ve written to a few politicians about the Western Sahara issue in my time. Most don’t reply. The replies that I have received (from Charles Clarke and Andrew Duff) consist predominantly of platitudes assuring me that this issue is being taken very seriously by big important people that know a lot more than I do about how this complicated world works, and that the Right Decisions are being taken on my behalf.

Recently I wrote to the Green Party to ask if they’d consider signing the Western Sahara Resource Watch petition to keep occupied Western Sahara out of the EU-Morocco “Advanced Status” cooperation (in order to prevent European companies and the Moroccan state from benefiting from the latter’s illegal occupation at the expense of the marginalised and often-abused indigenous Sahrawi). Both my local branch of the UK Green Party and the Green Party at the national level have undertaken to sign the petition. I received this from the office of Caroline Lucas, leader of the UK Greens and Green MEP for the South East of England:

Dear Nick,

Thank you for your email about the EU and Western Sahara. Caroline has asked me to respond on her behalf and I am sorry for the delay in doing so. She receives a vast amount of correspondence, so it is not always possible to reply to people as promptly as would like. We also give priority to constituents.

Caroline and the Greens in the European Parliament have been active in opposing Morocco being granted advanced status by the EU. She has lobbied the British government about this and submitted a number of written questions to the European Commission, looking specifically at fishing rights for the Western Saharan people. You can read these via her website at http://www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk/2008/10/01/correspondence-about-western-sahara/ and at http://www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk/2008/11/12/written-questions-western-sahara/

Caroline’s colleague, Jean Lambert the London Green MEP, has also visited Western Sahara to raise awareness of the conditions there. They both support the petition you have sent through so have put it to the Party’s Executive Committee and hope to sign up shortly.

Thank you for alerting us to the campaign by Western Sahara Resource Watch and your commitment to human rights in Western Sahara. Please be assured that if Caroline is re-elected to the European Parliament on June 4th, opposing advanced status for Morocco and pressing the EU to do far more to challenge the illegal occupation will remain a priority for her.

I have to say it was a sheer delight to receive a serious and positive response to such a request – almost enough to restore my faith in domestic politics. So, if you’re in the UK, fed up with venal, expenses-dripping MPs who respond to every demand for change with a platitude crafted by spinners at party HQ, and if you’re interested in voting for a party that has a principled foreign policy stand and which is working for, rather than against, the people of Western Sahara, why not vote Green? Their other policies aren’t bad either.

Foreign friends

History demonstrates that unpleasant regimes bent on suppressing dissent and menacing their neighbours can always find foreign apologists who are ready to scurry to their defence without bothering to understand precisely what it is they are defending. It seems that Morocco is no exception in having an army of foreign sycophants ready to fight for its right to expand its territory through force and stamp on anyone who might object to its imperial designs. A growing chorus of appeasement can be heard from lobbyists, politicians and certain elements of the media by anyone who tunes into the news on Western Sahara.

The Francophone world has always been keen on Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara (with some noble exceptions), and this phenomenon shows no sign of abating. The latest bare-faced brown-nosing comes from the mayor for Woippy (no, I’d never heard of it either), François Grosdidier, who also happens to be vice-president of the French-Moroccan friendship group in the French parliament. In a article in Religious Intelligence (no jokes please) he is quoted regurgitating the Moroccan line. Here are a couple of choice quotes:

“Given Morocco’s legitimacy on the Sahara, this autonomy initiative, under the kingdom’s sovereignty, is wise and generous, and provides an honourable way out for all the parties.”

“[The Polisario] approach is useless, there is no point (for them) in continuing and they are no longer in the sense of history.”

It seems that French politicians love to talk about being part of history – Sarkozy has claimed that one of the problems with Africa is that “the African man has never really entered history“. Oh dear – despite the benefits of colonialism and the heroic attempts of Europe to civilise the benighted continent, not to mention all those fantastically well-conceived post-colonial development initiatives, those ungrateful Africans haven’t grasped the nettle of historical progress and lifted themselves “up” to the same level as Europe. What a pity Sarkozy doesn’t realise that ideas of historical progress are based on perversions of Darwinian evolutionary theory that have more to do with justifying racism and colonialism than they do with rational scientific enquiry. Unfortunately the dogma of historical progress is still used to justify aggression dressed up as the promotion and extension of civilisation – something else I’ve noticed in the arguments of those that support Rabat’s military push into the Sahara. But I digress.

Grosdidier also claims that the Western Sahara conflict is impairing international relations, and uses this as an argument for supporting the autonomy initiative. As I’ve argued on several previous occasions (e.g. here), this is indicative of a poor understanding of the the situation, as the autonomy plan does not address the reality of partition or the issue of the refugees around Tindouf – as if Morocco would welcome tens of thousands of independence-minded Sahrawi and make any real attempt to come to an agreement with the Polisario. Grosdidier says that “pluralism does not exist” in the camps, but I don’t see too much evidence of it in occupied Western Sahara either.

I sometimes wonder what drives certain European politicians (and I include the UK here) who seem so eager to offer their services to foreign governments, effectively acting as agents of foreign powers with little or no regard to the interests of the people whom they have been elected to serve. After Blair’s stint as Bush’s enforcer/poodle (delete according to your preference), which served only to support ill-conceived foreign policy adventures and increase risks to British citizens, some of us are a little annoyed with this sort of behaviour. Well, maybe it’s just the money, the power, the foreign junkets, or a simple messiah complex.

It’s not only politicians that are busy appeasing Moroccan aggression, and not only in Europe. I keep receiving news alerts from the African Press Agency (with the byline “Unity is in Truth”), based in Dakar, Senegal, which could have been written by the Moroccan interior ministry. A common theme is how so-and-so supports the autonomy initiative or hails Morocco’s commitment to solve the conflict. The border between Western Sahara and Morocco is conspicuous by its absence on the the maps on the APA website. Hell, they could even use a dashed line rather than a solid one if they wanted to reflect its unresolved status, but I suppose even that would be too much for their Moroccan friends.

Another unedifying spectacle is this love-in between the author and the outgoing Moroccan ambassador. Reading it is like watching two extremely ugly people make out in public – a nauseating experience which makes you think “is that really necessary?” (No offence intended to the extremely ugly by the way.)

The Lebanese Dar al-Hayat has also been at it, or at least one Mohammed el-Ashab has, writing in its pages. el-Ashab talks about the Sahrawi’s “popular reluctance to unite under one umbrella”, which he claims is the biggest obstacle to solving the conflict. So not the partition or the blocking of the referendum then? To cast the problem as one of divisions between the Sahrawi rather than one of invasion, occupation, displacement and partition is disingenuous to say the least. He also talks about “the cease-fire which classified the areas outside the security fence as buffer zones in which no military or civilian movement is allowed.” Well, actually, it didn’t. The buffer zone, into which neither side is allowed, extends for only 5km east and south of the berm, i.e. in the Polisario controlled areas. Restricted areas extend for 30km either side of the berm, and no arms are to be carried in these areas. Outside of the restricted areas are two vast “areas with limited restrictions” in which normal military activity is allowed with the exception of anything that would constitute a concentration of firepower. As I’ve pointed out before, these conditions of the ceasfire are set out on the MINURSO website, which Mohammed el-Ashab evidently has not bothered to examine before putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. Not that he’s unusual in such uninformed pontificating (or is it deliberate misinformation?). Using elections as his theme, el-Ashab strives to convince us that everyone (the UN, the EU) is happy to see Morocco “practicing sovereignty in all its forms – including holding elections in all parts of the country since 1978″. I assume the country he is referring to is a putative greater Morocco which incorporates all of Western Sahara, although he doesn’t make it clear how Morocco has been or will be holding elections in the parts of Western Sahara that it doesn’t control. From his statement about “the frequent announcement of the “Polisario Front” that it operates in regions described as “liberated lands”" it seems that he might believe Morocco’s propaganda line that the Polisario doesn’t control any territory in Western Sahara, but this is not clear. I like the placing of “Polisario Front” in inverted commas – usually a sign of hostility.

There’s much more where all the above came from, and I’ll perodically highlight it. Of course if you want a real giggle you can always go to any number of websites whose purpose is to promote Moroccan interests and push pro-Morocco propaganda, such as that of the Morocco Board, the Moroccan-American Center for Policy, Maghreb Arabe Presse, CORCAS, or the dedicated anti-Polisario (and personal defamation) sites such as Polisario Confidential, Polisario Think Twice, Polisario Cannibals and Polisario Human Sacrifice. OK, I made the last two up, but those are about the only allegations that Morocco has not leveled at the Polisario.

All of this propaganda is designed to give the impression that the conflict is effectively over and that Moroccan control over Western Sahara is all but a done deal. The point of all the misinformation dissemminated by Morocco and its foreign toadies is to persuade people that all they have to do is endorse the situation on the ground and the issue of Western Sahara will go away, userhing in a new era of regional cooperation, development and progress. But of course it won’t, as long as Western Sahara remains partitioned and between 100,000 and 200,000 disaffected Sahrawi remain in camps in the inhospitable Algerian desert. Even if Morocco’s autonomy plan is officially endorsed by the likes of the EU, the USA and the UN, the reality on the ground will still poison the politics of the region. And the African Union still stands behind the Polisario and the Sahrawi’s right to self-determination. Morocco may be planning to further entrench its position by invading the Polisario controlled areas once its autonomy plan gets the green light from the world’s major political powers, but this is hardly likely to achieve the stated aims of all those foreign politicians and pundits who are so keen to promote autonomy in the name of progress.

Related link: http://w-sahara.blogspot.com/2008/09/polisario-confidential-goes-to.html (Western Sahara Info)

Human Rights in Western Sahara & the Refugee Camps: Report

Human Rights Watch has released a 216 page report on human rights in Western Sahara (focusing on the Moroccan-occupied areas) and in the Polisario-run Sahrawi refugee camps around the Algerian town of Tindouf. You can download it from this page:

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/12/19/human-rights-western-sahara-and-tindouf-refugee-camps-0

Even without having read it, I’m confident it will make more reliable reading than the claims of partisans from either side of the conflict, which can be found on a variety of web-based discussion forums, as some of us know only too well. If I have time to read and digest it I may comment on it, but no promises. And it is probably best to let the report speak for itself, unless there is anything specific in it to take issue with or discuss at greater length.

Rock Art Update II

Rekeiz Lemgassem Archaeological Park (Polisario sign)

On my recent trip to Tifariti (in the Polisario-controlled “Free Zone” of Western Sahara), I made an excursion to Rekeiz Lemgassem, one of the rock art sites that has suffered significant damage as a result of vandalism by foreign visitors, local people, and UN staff from the MINURSO peacekeeping mission (1). Things had changed since I last visited the site in late 2006, before the furore over vandalism by MINURSO personnel erupted. As a result of this scandal MINURSO had erected signs at  Lajuad and Rekeiz Lemgassem, the two sites where damage has been most extensive (see an earlier post). What was new this time was the presence of a Polisario checkpoint at the approach to the Rekeiz Lemgassem, in order to control access to the site. Anyone visiting the rock art here must now obtain a permit from Tifariti in advance, and must be accompanied around the site by a guide.

These practical measures to protect the site – put in place by the Polisario government – are complemented by more symbolic measures, namely the declaration of the area around Rekeiz Lemgassem as an archaeological park and promises to protect the site in law, as stated on the sign pictured above, which was erected on the day of my visit near to the MINURSO sign which was put in place earlier in the year. What this means in practice is debatable – the practical steps of controlling access and preventing people from wanderning around by themselves are likely to have the biggest impact. I suspect that the Polisario sign is at least in part a response to the MINURSO sign, which was put up unilaterally (MINURSO have to tread carefully and can not be seen to endorse the Polisario as any kind of “official” governing authority, so joint declarations with the Polisario as the government of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic are out) (2). Presumably this is an attempt by Polisario to take the initiative and declare and/or demonstrate ownership over the cultural heritage of the Free Zone.

Politically-motivated or not, any measures on the part of Polisario to protect archaeological sites and to take responsibility for the preservation of cultural heritage can only be welcomed. One thing that became clear during my time in Tifariti and at the cultural festival in Auserd is that the scandal over the MINURSO vandalism was big news, and did a lot to raise awareness of Western Sahara’s incredibly rich prehistoric archaeology among the Sahrawi in the camps. People who might not have given any previous thought to the issue of archaeological heritage were angry about the actions of MINURSO personnel, and this appears to have stimulated a wider sense of ownership over the territory’s prehistoric heritage. This may be the point at which prehistoric archaeology becomes important in the Sahrawi’s national self-image, and we might be seeing the beginning of a process in which archaeology plays a role in national identity, and nationalism generally, as has happened in so many other countries.

Archaeologists may ask themselves whether this is a welcome development. Archaeology and politics do not always mix well, particularly from the point of view of academic research. However, archaeology and politics have a tendency to become enmeshed with one another despite the best efforts of archaeologists, and the chances that archaeology can remain untouched by politics in such a contested territory as Western Sahara are, well, nil. That is, unless those of us doing the research keep it secret and withhold all our findings from the Sahrawi, which in itself would be unethical, not to mention impractical.

The main challenge now is to avoid the politicisation of the interpretation of the archaeological record. So far this hasn’t been a problem – the Polisario know that they can make political capital out of the archaeology, and are manifestly doing so as the above actions illustrate. However, so far there is no indication that they see archaeology as a means of illustrating historical “rights” to land, which is the point at which a certain substance usually tends to hit the fan.

So far, so good. It appears that for the archaeological heritage to be protected it must demonstrate its relevance to today’s concerns – protection in exchange for publicity value and potential to demonstrate stewardship over heritage and, by extension, territory. As long as archaeologists are free to ask their own research questions and develop their own interpretations of the the archaeological record, this should be a deal we can live with.

(1) For an inventory of damage to rock art sites in the Free Zone cause by staff from the MINURSO peacekeeping mission you can download this PowerPoint presentation (in pdf format, 15 Mb), prepared by Nick Brooks and Joaquim Soler i Subils.

(2) Last I heard, MINURSO was looking into the possibility of removing the graffiti at Lajuad. As far as I know they are still pursuing this via negotiations with arcaheologists from the University of Girona and external experts (they have been talking to my colleage Joaquim Soler), but no further details are available at present. The main issue here is likely to be who pays for any such work, and which agencies are involved in implementation of any clean-up.

For more discussion of cultural heritage and its relationship to the Western Sahara conflict, see Cultural Heritage and Conflict: The Threatened Archaeology of Western Sahara, by Nick Brooks, in The Journal of North African Studies (pdf file, 3.1 Mb).

For more information on the work of the Western Sahara Project (archaeological and palaeo-environmental research), see the Project website.