Opinion Forum

ClimateGate Revisited

December 4th, 2009

Is it just me, or is there a significant portion of our world trying to pretend that this issue doesn’t even exist?

Obama is heading off to Copenhagen soon with grand US emission targets; when reporters asked questions about the scandal, his scientists insisted that global warming was a proven fact and that the data was sound (apparently Obama couldn’t be bothered to reply himself). The Democrats continue to press for more stringent climate change legislation, and the world continues to clamor for more US dollars even as the US promises to oblige with a proposal of a new Climate Fund for poor nations. As for the hacked data itself, the mainstream media seems by-and-large blissfully ignorant.

Unfortunately for them, the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be buying the idea that their leaders’ resounding deafness on the issue must mean that nothing is wrong. Australia took a first step by rejecting an emissions cap bill, which will leave their PM sorely embarrassed as he comes to Copenhagen empty-handed. And US belief in global warming, which has always been less than total, is falling faster by the hour. Most appalling of all, note that this New York Times article was published just yesterday, but makes absolutely no mention of the CRU emails in its entire two-page analysis of why American belief in climate change might be somewhat lagging (and they wonder why their readership has been falling lately).

Speaking of the NYT, one of the more prominent issues in the whole ClimateGate debate centers around NYT environmental reporter Andrew Revkin. Y’know, the guy who basically allowed himself to be spoon-fed half-truths and lies through the stacked-deck that is the RealClimate forum? Well, today, he put up a post on his blog admitting that yes, the scandal featured yours truly, but he felt that he couldn’t post the details because those conversations were meant to be private.

So you can’t write anything damning about ClimateGate because of your conscience, Mr. Revkin? Good for you and your (apparently shiny-new) professional integrity. Just think how much better our world would have been if your colleagues who published the Pentagon Papers had shared your matchless commitment to ethical journalism.

Stuff it, NYT. This rocket scientist still remembers Robert Goddard, even if the rest of the world has forgotten.

So let’s sum up what’s going on here:

We are being told by our leaders that the data is accurate, even as it is revealed that CRU and the University of East Anglia somehow managed to misplace the raw information upon which all their conclusions are based.
We are being reassured by the activists that the science is settled, even as the programmers who have gone over the “HARRY_READ_ME.txt” are finding that it was full of errors and bugs and that the results were non-reproducible.
We are comforted by the professors that the peer-review process is sound, even as the emails show that scientists conspired to fire unfriendly reviewers, denounced journals that published skeptic articles, and literally threatened to redefine the process of peer-review to keep the journals from disagreeing with them (see my original article, which speaks for itself in this regard).
We are told by the press that science is the purest of fields and that the scientists would never do such a thing, even as Prof. Phil Jones is forced to resign and Prof. Michael Mann is investigated by his employers.

Here’s a clue, Mr. Politician and Scientist Guys: Just because most of us aren’t climatologists, academics or scientists doesn’t mean we don’t know con men when we see them.

For those of you who have been told (falsely) that your perception is flawed, your judgment is faulty, and that science is a vast and mysterious process that you need an advanced degree to even begin to comprehend, let me explain a few basic principles of the scientific method. No data, no science. No reproduction, no results. No integrity, no credibility. If the best the indicted scientists can do on this issue is that the dog ate their data, the science is settled, and their words have been tragically misunderstood, then all I have left to say to them is this:

“Get out of my wallet. Get out of my government. Get out of my life.”

Articles written by Brianna Aubin
Tags: AGW, climate, Copenhagen, corrupt data, emails, global warming
Categories: News, Politics, Science | Comments (11) | Home

11 Responses to “ClimateGate Revisited”

Brian | December 4th, 2009 at 8:46 am

Off to room 101 with you. Don’t you know that sometimes, 2+2=3, sometimes it equals 5, and sitll others it equals 4. And sometimes, it equals them all at the same time.

Brianna | December 4th, 2009 at 9:37 am

For those of you not up on your dystopian fiction, that was a reference to Orwell’s 1984.

Thanks Brian. I got a good laugh out of that one.

Brianna | December 4th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

Found this as a comment to a WSJ article, couldn’t help but share.

“Let us know when you, CEI and Pajamas vanity press media land a rover on Mars. Wait! You’re already there. I mean really. College graduates aren’t fooled by this ruse [Climategate] from the right. Then again, not everyone graduates.”

The reason I had to laugh and share is because one of the guys who helped put the rovers on Mars is a longtime NASA employee as well as one of my best friends, and he thinks AGW is a load of crock too.

Cristla | December 4th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

“Get out of my wallet. Get out of my government. Get out of my life.” AMEN GIRL!!!!!!

Brian | December 5th, 2009 at 2:49 am

Brianna, if you think about Animal Farm, there are even more apt analogies to be made. Squealer changing the rules in the middle of the night comes to mind. Running Napoleon off the farm also comes to mind. The bleating sheep, “four legs good, two legs bad” covers every useful idiot that ever bought into this swill.

Tom | December 5th, 2009 at 8:04 am

The weird thing about all this is the way some pretend that nothing has happened. I’ve read that the broadcast network news programs have barely mentioned this, if they’ve mentioned it at all. The global warmers who do speak pretend that it doesn’t mean anything. Some demand that whoever leaked the emails be found and prosecuted. It’s like the kid who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, looking wide-eyed at his mom, and spluttering, “Cookie jar? What cookie jar?”

Now Al Gore is saying that whatever agreement may be reached in Copenhagen (if there is one), it won’t be enough. As he continues counting his money….

Brianna | December 5th, 2009 at 11:25 am

One of the bloggers I read has made no less than 3 posts asserting that global warming is real and we must fight it with everything we have since the emails broke out. She probably doesn’t like me very much right now because I posted the list of email tips in the comment section of my first article in the comment section of each of her 3 entries. I really don’t much like her right now either though, because she has completely refused to acknowledge either the emails or the appended list of tips. Instead, she has merely asserted that the catastrophe is nigh, the science is sound, and refusing to listen to the scientists and politicians is stupid.

To me, what is almost more damning about the emails than their content is the fact that the establishment has absolutely refused to acknowledge them. We all know that if the hacker had come up with a list of emails passed between climate skeptics with even a tenth this degree of evidence of scientific fraud, that the global warming catastrophists would be all over it with tweezers and a fine-toothed comb, dredging up every bit of evidence they could possibly coax out of the data. But now that their own side of the argument has been exposed as corrupt and possibly fraudulent… the silence is so deafening we can hear the crickets chirp.

Brianna | December 5th, 2009 at 11:55 am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/05/AR2009120501280.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a30cDVcK3N8k

Two more stories that go on for pages about climate change without mentioning the emails that are making the public a wee bit skeptical of the idea right now. Not a mention, not a sentence, not a word. Absolutely no problem with having the US and the other “wealthy” nations (I put that in quotes because pretty much the entire western world is in debt and has huge unfunded liabilities) pay out billions in “development money” to the poor ones though.

Lisa | December 5th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

Newsmax reported that 2 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have called on the group to revoke Al Gore’s Oscar for his documentary. Interestingly, some of the Academy’s actions in support of the documentary helped Gore receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This may be just the beginning of what we hear about this controversy. There are some who are suggesting this is the biggest scientific fraud of our lifetime.

Brian | December 5th, 2009 at 5:16 pm

Of our lifetimes? How about ever?

Brianna | December 6th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

Now that CRU’s data has been revealed as highly suspect/missing, NASA is probably the best remaining source for the AGW advocates to use in their defense. It is also refusing to show its data:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/researcher-says-nasa-hiding-climate-data/

I am ashamed for my colleagues.