Meet the Russian Scientist from Tomsk, Sergei Kirpotin (Сергей Кирпотин)

The Russian scientist Dr. Sergei Kirpotin (above) is an advocate of anthropogenic global warming who teaches at Tomsk State University (TSU) in western Siberia. He believes that anthropogenic global warming is melting the permafrost and releasing the greenhouse gas methane.

I really can't explain climate science, but all the major science organizations in the world believe that AGW is a scientific fact, not a hoax.

The Tomsk scientist Dr. Kirpotin is very angry about the scandal called "Climategate." He views Climategate as a "provocation" to damage the credibility of the Climatic Research unit (CRU) scientists and their research right before the December 2009 Copenhagen meeting on climate change. (See my previous post).

According to the Independent (12-7-09):

The leaked emails, which claimed to provide evidence that the unit's head, Professor Phil Jones, colluded with colleagues to manipulate data and hide "unhelpful" research from critics of climate change science, were originally posted on a server in the Siberian city of Tomsk, at a firm called Tomcity, an internet security business.

Dr. Kirpotin says that it is clear that an "order" was given to steal selected e-mails from the CRU server, post them on the Tomsk server used by TSU, and spread the e-mails on the Internet in order to increase skepticism about global warming. Except for Russian Greenpeace, no Russian media carried Sergei Kirpotin's views.

Something is wrong when the views of a prominent scientist with an international reputation like Dr. Kirpotin do not receive a fair hearing in his own country during this debate.

Western scientists suspect that the Russian state security--the FSB--is behind the kompromat of the CRU scientists. The FSB denies responsibility for the hacking and claims they have proof that the Chinese are the culprits.

Sometimes Western scientists have defended Soviet scientists who were defamed and maligned by the Soviet-era KGB, but here it seems that a Russian scientist who lives in Russia is defending Western scientists who may have been defamed and maligned by the Russian successor-agency of the KGB, the FSB. I think Dr. Kirpotin has a lot of courage.

Many Western bloggers who are skeptics of AGW have jumped on the anti-CRU bandwagon and are insulting the integrity of the CRU scientists without really understanding what the "defamatory" e-mails are actually discussing. The blogger-skeptics say that it doesn't matter who posted the e-mails because the evidence speaks for for itself. In fact, scientists are trying to explain what these out-of-context e-mails mean (See here, here, here, and here).

The blogger-skeptics typically claim that a disillusioned CRU insider "leaked" the e-mails. If so, why would the Russian FSB claim that they have proof that the culprits are Chinese hackers?

Russian Greenpeace (12-9-09) reports:

Сергей Кирпотин, доктор биологических наук, проректор по международным связям Томского Государственного Университета, Россия: «Во-первых, информация, полученная таким путём, не может заслуживать доверия. Совершенно очевидно, что имел место заказ, поскольку не просто была взломана личная переписка, но и сделана подборка совершенно определённой направленности, никакой хакер просто ради развлечения этого бы делать не стал.

Во-вторых, это нормальное явление, что в личной переписке учёные могут подвергать сомнению ту или иную гипотезу. Если вырвать из контекста отдельные фразы учёных, создававших в XVIII-XIX веках нашу современную науку, можно прийти к выводам, что все мы сегодня в школе изучаем совершенный бред, не имеющий под собой абсолютно никаких оснований.

И, наконец, вброс подобной информации (особенно перед самым началом конференции в Копенгагене) носит деструктивный характер для общества, особенно в России, где слабо сформированы социальные институты, и подобные провокации только укрепляют преобладающий в общественном мнении скептицизм на тему проблемы изменения климата». [Read the full text with your Google tool bar for the translation. It's not terrible.] Read more about Sergei Kirpotin's research in English by searching "Sergei Kirpotin" or in Russian by serching "Сергей Кирпотин" ]

Here is the Google translation. When I have time, I will clean it up:

Sergei Kirpotin, Sc.D., Vice Rector for International Relations, Tomsk State University, Russia: "First, the information obtained in this way can not be credible. It is clear that there was an order, because not only was hacked personal correspondence, but also to assemble quite certain direction, no hacker just for fun this would be done was not.

Secondly, it is normal that in personal correspondence, scientists may be questioning this or that hypothesis. If out of context certain phrases scientists who built in XVIII-XIX centuries, our modern science, we can conclude that we are all now in school to learn a completely nonsense that have no absolutely no reason.

And finally, stuffing such information (especially just before the start of the conference in Copenhagen) is destructive to society, particularly in Russia, where poorly formed social institutions, and such provocations only strengthen the prevailing skepticism in public opinion on climate change."