Climate Change

Page 1, above the fold of our school's newspaper, was an article showing that climate change hysteria is alive and well at the school at which I teach. Read the article online, see for yourself if you agree with the author. That author is what's known as a "true believer" in the Church of Global Warming. (For the sake of professionalism, considering that this is the school at which I teach, I'll reserve further comment on this student's article--but you might guess what I'd say.)

Now read this summary of the emails that were (illegally?) hacked from some prominent global warming enthusiasts/scientists in England. They don't sound very enthused with the data they're getting, do they?

And they can't be very happy that their charades have been exposed to public scrutiny, either.

I find it hilariously coincidental that the first article and these emails were released at about the same time. :-)

Update: One blogger refers to the Climate Research Unit email release as the biggest scientific scandal since Piltdown Man.

Update #2: This post compares what's in the emails with what those same scientists were contemporaneously saying publicly. It doesn't make the CRU scientists look very good.

Update #3: So what about all that consensus? There's some information in the CRU emails about that, too:

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

Global warming adherents, your Church has been exposed as a sham.

Update #4, 11/22/09: Here's a pretty good summary of what's going on:

But, at least on this first look, it appears that the three scandals are:

* First, a real attempt by a small group of scientists to subvert the peer-review process and suppress dissenting voices. (For another look at this, by a respected climate scientist who was one of the targets, see these posts on Roger Pielke Sr.’s blog.) This is at best massively unethical.
* Second, a willingness to manipulate the data to make a political case. This is certainly misconduct and possibly scientific fraud. This, if it proves true, should make these scientists subject to strong disciplinary action, even termination of their tenured positions.
* Third, what gives every appearance of an actual conspiracy to prevent data from being released as required by the Freedom of Information Acts in the US and UK. If this is proven true, that is a federal crime.

These emails and the data associated, taken together, raise really important questions about the whole scientific structure of AGW. Is the data really valid? Has the data been effectively peer reviewed and have attempts to falsify been fairly treated? Is CO2-forced AGW really the best hypothesis?Until these questions are answered, the various attempts to “deal with the climate change crisis” have no acceptable scientific basis.

No acceptable scientific basis.

Update #5, 11/22/09: When in doubt, delete.

These emails appear to show that, when faced with a legitimate request under Britain's Freedom of Information Act, these global warming alarmists preferred to delete their emails with one another about the crucially important IPCC report--the main basis for the purported "consensus" in favor of anthropogenic global warming--rather than allow them to come to light. This is one of many instances in the East Anglia documents where the global warming alarmists act like a gang of co-conspirators rather than respectable scientists.

Update #6, 11/22/09: It just keeps getting better.

Al Gore's award-winning global warming film "An Inconvenient Truth," socked two years ago by a British court ruling that found several errors, is facing additional scrutiny with the release of a new documentary that seeks to rebut many of Gore's claims.