“If you own any shares in alternative energy companies,” writes James Delingpole in his blog for the Daily Telegraph, “I should start dumping them NOW.” Why on earth? Just ask Anthony Watts of Watt’s Up With That? and Stephen McIntrye of Climate Audit, who broke the story this morning of the hacking break-in at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. The story of how the conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth has been brutally exposed after a heap of very confidential files, emails, etc. have been made available on the internet.It is no exaggeration to say that this scandal could turn out to be the greatest in modern science, with stories of conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, private doubts about whether the world really is heating up, attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims, and, last but not least, how to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with the Anthropogenic Global Warming can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.
[Thanks: Michelle Malkin]
Thanks Rob. Great article.
ReplyDeleteciao
We are blest with such a wealth of information today that one can find whatever allegedly confirmed report to accord with one's claims, political tendency or economical interests. As long as one deals with the pros and not the cons.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to global warming however, it's incontestable that the world is effected by climate change and that the Arctic ice is melting at an ever increasing rate.
Latest studies show that between 2004 and 2008 the thickness of the polar ice-cap has lessened considerably. Nasa reports that 'first year ice' is now larger than 'permanent ice'. (In 2003 more half the volume of the Arctic ice was composed of 'permanent ice'. Less thick 'first year ice' represented 38% of this volume. Five years later the proportions have reversed. The volume of permanent ice is now only 32% of the ice-cap.
http://www.sustainable-development.com/environment/2009/07/A233/global-warming-the-polar-icecap-melting-at-a-faster-rate.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091112141311.htm
There seems however to be a conflict of reports regarding the South Pole. While some studies confirm that the South Pole is also melting (A 'Larsen A ledge' broke off two or three years ago)-
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/announce/ann_dryice.htm
-other reports suggest that the extreme cold over the South Pole proves that Global Warming models are wrong-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/749611/posts.
If, inspite of this, it's generally agreed that global warming is an incontestable reality, what might be more subject to debate would be what's causing it.
@ Mirino:
ReplyDeletePlease reasd the next post ...
Statists have a vested interest in keeping this global warming myth alive. It's only purpose is to take money from wealthier nations, mostly the US, and use it to lay the foundation for a world government. Al Gore has become a billionaire propagating the lie. I recommend the book "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg, published in 2007, where he scientifically and economicallly broke elements of the lie down, and disproved them.
ReplyDeleteFor years we have been fed a steady diet of this tripe... We have been conned in the worst way.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is like a breath of fresh air.
Good article, Rob. Please keep up the fight against lies and liars.
ReplyDeleteI read all the comments on the link and the extracts from the hacked files. I don't think there's much of a "smocking gun".
ReplyDeleteThere's a 1999 email where they admit cherrypicking some data to increase their (warming) effect, but this fact has been already pointed out, if I remember correctly. There's some academic name-calling and a rather shameful email where one of those scientist seems to be almost glad one of their opponents died, and another were another one says he feels the urge to "beat the crap out" of a nasty critic.
In the files there are also raw data and the code of the statistical procedures they used. I wouldn't expect much from that, though. This is not about some experimental secret formula: weather data is public (despite some recent attempt at copyrighting it), and the statistical analysis you have to perform are rather straightforward. Anybody can check it: for example, I did recover the temperature data for the last 50 years in my home town, and yes, I found a slight warming trend, don't know how statistically significant however.
Also the climatological models are not secret, I believe a couple have even been open-sourced. The more advanced ones need some computing power, but within the reach of a middling research budget. I suspect that anti-GW institutions won't spend time and money running climate models: paying politicians is (as always) much more cost-efficient.
@StefanoC:
ReplyDeleteI thought this might be of interest: even British writer George Monbiot, a leading environmentalist and columnist for The Guardian, has admitted to being "dismayed and deeply shaken" by some of the emails, particularly those which indicate a cover-up to prevent records being released under Freedom of Information laws.
@rob:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. I'd already read that post. I hope you read it in full.
Monbiot's point is that even if the people at CRU didn't use that scientific objectivity and transparency that were expected from them, and made their data look more precise and comprehensive than in fact was, evidence of global warming is however abundant, from shrinking glaciers to melting arctic ice, and it cannot all be explained away as a conspiration.
George Monbiot has taken an intellectually honest stance, and I really appreciate him for that. Yet, I didn’t expect him to suddenly change his mind about the whole matter. Intellectual honesty is enough of a reason, for me, to recommend a thorough reading of Monbiot’s article. And please bear in mind that I have no dogmatic stand on this (as well as on many other issues).
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