This question is well worth discussing at length. The discussion on the “death threat” thread is worth putting alongside the later one on Worstall’s toilet talk.
I’ve been banned from CiF from being rude, deliberately so, out of frustration at the Graun journalist’s stupidity, or his sheer power, the fact that he can talk nonsense and get away with it. Then I’ve been banned again for being mildly ironic. So you think “might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb” and go overboard into extreme threats or extreme vulgarity. It’s human, but not very effective.

There’s no point, I think, in thinking in terms of “what Phil deserves”.
I’ve been trying to drop the tough talk and face the fact that turning other the cheek, though it isn’t much fun, is the only way to avoid timewasting. Here’s part of a comment I left at
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2012/06/reinventing-precaution.html

Tony Newbery at Harmless Sky has long proposed a judicial review as the only way to get an honest assessment of the global warming saga, and at his instigation I read Judge Burton’s review of Dimmock v the Crown over the showing of the Gore film in schools. I was really impressed by the tenor of the thing, the whole judicial mindset which seemed to speak from centuries of listening to bickering plaintiffs. It’s probably just me, but behind the dry legal analysis there seemed to be a message: “Nobody’s at fault, nobody’s going to win or lose anything worth worrying about. We’re not put on earth for these brief years in order to waste our time squabbling. Let’s pick the truth out of this mess and forget the rest”.
it’s a very humanist message. (Unfortunately it’ll set you back £50,000 minimum to hear it)...
On the other hand, idiots need naming and blaming, and once you set out on that route, why stop short of the truth?

Thanks Geoff

Until recently I considered the most important issue on my political radar was the fact that here in the UK we no longer live in a democracy. The only people able to table new laws in most policy areas are the unelected EU Commissioners and we are not able to vote about whether they should be removed from office. We live in a dictatorship and it is not benign. With the three major parties all in favour of remaining in the EU then unless UKIP can make a breakthrough (I am a card carrying member) we are totally disenfranchised. People around the world have been in the past and are today still willing to put their lives on the line to protect or regain freedom and democracy.
However I believe that Sustainability of which CAGW is just a part, is now the greater threat.
The UN already talks internally about reducing population, taking emphasis away from GDP and placing it on an environmental audit of a country's activities, forcing us to change our lifestyles shrink our economies. These aims are not the result of demands from the population, they are the views of a small group of environmental activists who have seen the opportunity to impose their will on every one of us, particularly in Europe.
I place Phil and the team in the vanguard of this movement and they proved something very important.

Prior to the publication of the first MBH Hockey Stick, not a single nation had ratified the Kyoto Protocol (some had signed it but not ratified it). Within months of the Hockey Stick publication almost all nations had ratified it. Talk to politicians and mention Environment and Crisis, offer some bodged scientific proof and government policy could be changed and huge funding released.
Time now to exume Malthus and go the whole hog folks! Our politicians will take this NeoMalthusian claptrap hook line and sinker and then we really will be in the proverbial. They will be told that to continue as we are at the moment is to condemn our children and our children's children to starvation, poverty, resource and fuel scarcity, etc etc.
Phil and the team are responsible for this (almost alone and entirely IMHO), no Hockey Stick; no Kyoto Protocol and no problem.

Most of the regulars on BH have read the brilliant book he wrote and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Hockey Stick is bogus science. That means that in your heart of hearts you also believe that these people are dishonest, manipulative frauds yet there they sit in their ivory towers, untouchable, well paid, famous and powerful. While we discuss whether or not we should be polite to our Phil, some people even in the UK are thrown into fuel poverty and elsewhere people are thrown off their land so that biofuels can be produced.
Should we really be polite to these people?

I suggest you address them with the same respect with which you would expect them to address you. If your arguments have weight, they will speak louder than any insults you might throw.

BitBucket

As far as I know I have not insulted them. However I think that Steve McIntyre would tell you that reasoned argument does not speak loudly to them. I simply ask how we should regard them.

Hi Dung, your question was on the correct way to behave towards people, not how to regard them. The two are not necessarily connected. You might regard climate scientists as liars and cheats, but if I want their attention you would be best advised to behave towards them with respect.

Did I say it went just one way? If prof Jones wants to be well regarded by sceptics he would be best advised to treat them with respect. But possibly he doesn't want such regard. Now why might that be? Perhaps because he is constantly depicted as dishonest or worse; that would engender contempt for adversaries in most of us.

Dear Mr Bucket

As far as I know there no "deniers" who are being paid out of public taxation either for their opinions or because of their opinions, this puts Prof Jones in a different category. Prof Jones should realise that he has an obligation to explain and justify his opinions but sadly he does not.

Hey Martin: "The Team" invariably referred to his website as "Climate Fraudit"

Do you mean between themselves or to him? Makes a difference...

Martin, you are using private emails to condemn. Are you telling me that given access to McIntyre's private emails we would find no exchanges that questioned the honesty, motives etc of Prof. Jones et al?

Regarding this 'bad behaviour', what is Prof. Jones accused of doing that was evident before the theft of his emails? (I ask because I don't know, not as wind-up).

Regards, BB

Mr Bucket

You can read about the accusation of fraud here:

http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/climate-change-scandal-prof-phil-jones-accused-fraud

Thanks Dung. I hadn't come across that. Are there more or is that it (not implying any judgement on the case provided, I just want to know the extent of accusations)?

Regards, BB

Hi Martin, did I say they were stolen? ("If you have evidence that CRU emails were stolen, you should pass it to the Norfolk Police") I know I thought of saying that, but I don't recall actually posting it (maybe in another thread?). Perhaps you are a mind reader :-)

I agree with you that the data should be openly available, but opinions on that have changed over the last decade or so. Back in the 90s I expect not so many people thought that way. And as someone said on another thread, when you have spent a lot of time and effort compiling a dataset, giving it away might not be the first thing on your mind (look at Watts' tantrum over Muller and his data) especially when you consider those who want it to have 'bad' intentions (from your perspective).

Regards, BB