AGW Science Controversy Heats Up

by McQ | November 24, 2009 8:34 pm

At least in Europe. And it is the only thing about this controversy that’s warming. One of the main warmist propagandists has been forced to concede that the revelation of the emails from within the CRU is a damning bit of evidence that things are not right (or ethical) with the results produced there[1]:

It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.

Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

George Monboit then goes on to try to salvage the theory by downplaying the significance of the find. According to him, it’s only about three or four scientists and one or two lines of evidence out of hundreds.

Of course “one line” of incorrect or fudged evidence is more than sufficient to crash a theory. In an article that can only be characterized as goal post shifting, Monboit claims skeptics would have to produce evidence of a much wider conspiracy to fudge or hide evidence before he’s willing to concede AGW is a scam. He writes a rather sarcastic faux email to demonstrate the level of evidence necessary as far as he’s concerned.

However, one has to recall that the CRU’s data was part of the basis for the UN’s IPCC report that is being used to move these absurd and costly climate change treaties, such as Copenhagen, forward. When even alarmists like Monboit are forced to concede the CRU emails are damaging, that provides more than a reason to stop this mad rush to do stupid and unnecessary things and, as he says, “re-analyse” the data. This time by real scientists, in the open and with all the data.

One other thing Monboit and I agree on – Phil Jones should resign. Too bad he can’t take Al Gore with him.

Christopher Monckton, a leading warming skeptic[2], is mad:

The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud – for fraud is what we now know it to be – tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years – and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.

Worse, these arrogant fraudsters – for fraudsters are what we now know them to be – have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset – the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.

Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers – for that is what they are – have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists – they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.

There you have a representation of the two sides at the moment – the AGW side forced to admit the significance of the scientific misbehavior of some of the primary scientists behind the warming theory and the skeptical side, feeling vindicated but angry.

Stay tuned for more developments, but don’t look for them in the US media. They seem to be preoccupied with much more important things – like the Obama’s first state dinner[3] (in a tent, no less).

[Crossposted at QandO[4]]

Endnotes:
  1. with the results produced there: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists
  2. a leading warming skeptic: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/viscount-monckton-on-global-warminggate-they-are-criminals-pjm-exclusive/
  3. Obama’s first state dinner: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-state-dinner-dos-donts/story?id=9160318
  4. QandO: http://www.qando.net

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