Global Warming Cover Up?
By Don Irvine | November 22, 2009
E-mails that were hacked from a prominent British climate research center have sparked new debate about the validity of global warming claims.
From the Washington Post
Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.
While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world’s climate — nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal — public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain’s Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies.
In one e-mail, the center’s director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University’s Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” Jones writes. “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal,” Mann writes.
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor,” Jones replies.
Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute who comes under fire in the e-mails, said these same academics repeatedly criticized him for not having published more peer-reviewed papers.
“There’s an egregious problem here, their intimidation of journal editors,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘If you print anything by this group, we won’t send you any papers.’ “
Mann, who directs Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, said the e-mails reflected the sort of “vigorous debate” researchers engage in before reaching scientific conclusions. “We shouldn’t expect the sort of refined statements that scientists make when they’re speaking in public,” he said.
Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who has questioned whether climate change is human-caused, blogged that the e-mails have “the makings of a very big” scandal. “Imagine this sort of news coming in the field of AIDS research,” he added.
The story of the hacking has ranked among the most popular on Web sites ranging from The Washington Post’s to that of London’s Daily Telegraph. And it has spurred a flood of e-mails from climate skeptics to U.S. news organizations, some likening the disclosure to the release of the Pentagon Papers during Vietnam.
Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and wrote some of the pirated e-mails, said it is the implications rather than the content of climate research that make some people uncomfortable.
“It is incontrovertible” that the world is warming as a result of human actions, Trenberth said. “The question to me is what to do.”
“It’s certainly a legitimate question,” he added. “Unfortunately one of the side effects of this is the messengers get attacked.”
In his new book, “Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save the Earth’s Climate,” Stanford University climate scientist Stephen H. Schneider details the intense debate over warming, arguing that it has helped slow the nation’s public policy response.
“I’ve been here on the ground, in the trenches, for my entire career,” writes Schneider, who was copied on one of the controversial e-mails. “I’m still at it, and the battle, while looking more winnable these days, is still not a done deal.”
There will be plenty of accusations on both sides going forward as to whether or not the e-mails show that experts who believe in global warming actually have the scientific evidence to back up their claims but it does appear that global warming advocates don’t have as much scientific proof as they previously claimed and that they aren’t in total agreement.
Post #2474
Here is the link to realclimate.org that I referred to in my prior post.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#comments
It is just that the Global Warming is an issue that is caused by the deeds of the man for his greed for more luxury. This will sooner or later have some dangerous effect on the entire world.
The global warming advocates bring it on themselves by trying to force their pronouncments on global warming as PC. Like any other scientific problem, it must be open to continuing discussion, research and debate—or no one can claim it as science. The public is wise to be wary of anything that is censored by the government—there are just too many historical antecedents to the stifling of scientific progress through censorship. Until open discussion/dabate/research is encouraged, until global warming enjoys all the prerequisites of true scientific inquiry, I and a host of others have little choice other than to continue to be sceptics. Certainly, beyond the scientists, suborned and otherwise, the last persons whom the public should believe are the politicians. [read Al Gore, the “Chicken Little of global warming,” and his ilk.]
Forget global warming: concentrate on air and water pollution, and the other deleterious effects of overpopulation, the root of today’s environmental problems.
Just even more proof that it is and has always been a hoax, Al Gore would have never gotten involved if if did not line his pocket, as well with the others.
As ctr, I am in favor of cleaner air, but remember the investigations into Ethanol, has proven not only to be a cancer causing agent, but has also increase pollution in the much larger cities. It is more of a pollutant than 100% unleaded gasoline. Been to L.A. recently, the color of the pollution has turned a very yellowish color, I have never seen it that color before last…and this year.
This has always been junk science, that theory was enhanced just a week or so ago, when Global Warming Advocates wanted to ban eating Beef, due to excessive Flatulence. Beef hardly causes any flatulence, in fact to put it into perspective. One single serving of Pinto Beans (4 Ounces) produces more farting than 18 lbs of beef. I chose the Beef and Bean study due to the close content of proteins.
If you look a Complex Carbohydrates and most vegetables cause more human methane than meats. In the name of false global warming, I suppose they would rather us just not eat…
Further proof that warming of a hoax is my own experiences. I now live in Houston (one day I will change my old User ID), spent 6 years working and living in the Libyan Desert, where the average temps are 126 degrees, summers were agv. 137 up to the high of 142 during the 1980’s through the early 1990’s, in the past 10-12 years the temps have dropped by 10 to 16 degrees.
At the same time here in Houston (normally very hot and humid) we have been below normal noticeably. We are now having Ice Storms, the past few years it has only reached over 100 degrees perhaps once or twice a year, as opposed to 30 or 40 days per year at 100 or above.
The northern States have had record setting cool and cold fronts and snow falls late into spring, and some in the first summer months. Ice shelves falling into the western seas due to too much Ice creation. Antarctic now has more Ice than in the past. The Polar Bear population has tripled in the past 10 years. More proof, the oceans levels have only risen 1/8th of an inch in the last 22 years, and is falling.
The emails show collision to deceive people into believing in this myth, too bad they only got 1,027 before being cut off, the rest have been destroyed, so why destroy them if they are telling the truth?
The proof that warming of a hoax is my own experiences. I now live in Houston (one day I will change my old User ID), spent 6 years working and living in the Libyan Desert, where the average temps are 126 degrees, summers were agv.
Rick,
Do you have a point to make, since you used part of my above statement, yet did not make you own comment?
Anyway…
The following is actually from CBS News:
“The leaked documents show that prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of man-made global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data, plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing, and concealed apparently buggy computer code from being disclosed under the Freedom of Information law,” CBS News reported.
One climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research was quoted as saying: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” End of CBS Report.
November 22 at 6:35 pm | #1 | Link
The link above is to the Real Climate site where for the past two days there’s been plenty of activity between people who think the leaked emails amount to something and some climate scientists that basically say the emails leaked amount to nothing. Two things are apparent:
1. Some of the scientists posting say all the facts are in and the debate is over. Global warming is a fact, man is causing an increase and everyone that doesn’t agree with them are idiots.
2. The debate about the entire issue has become as distasteful as any political discussion to date.