PrintNovember 27, 2009
Warmist denial won't work
The warmists really have no argument when it comes to the CRU whistleblower leak.
The evidence in their own words, in the leaked emails that were being withheld from a Freedom of Information request is already deeply incriminating. Even worse for their scientific case, the underlying database they used was hopelessly mis-organized and altered on an ad hoc basis, as demonstrated by Marc Sheppard Wednesday.
Science still has accountability mechanisms. The refusal of the CRU to share its data, as the open science requirement demands, is already a scandal. But in light of the exchanges over manipulating the peer review process and the need use tricks to hide the decline, a full review of all their data is in order. Senator Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the environmental issues, is demanding an investigation. Science Magazine, the flagship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, once virtually banned skeptical papers, but now is looking into the fraud.
Rush Limbaugh sagely warned his vast audience that if science does not discipline the miscreants, but allow junk science to stand, then science itself will lose public support. Fewer and fewer people are taken in by the scam.
Yet President Obama and his administration are pretending everything is still "settled science". Obama is even doubling down, going to Copenhagen for the treaty negotiations that are bound to be unsuccessful, since China and India are not willing to join the suicide pact, and the cost of the carbon regulation scheme would be unbearable, especially in a globally difficult economy.
This can only indicate sheer desperation. Keep pretending there is no scandal. Give speeches, because that's was Obama does best, and keep the true extent of the story out of the media.
All the warmists have left is denial. CRU head Phil Jones calls the accusations "complete rubbish." He does add:
"Some of the emails probably had poorly chosen words and were sent in the heat of the moment, when I was frustrated. I do regret sending some of them. We've not deleted any emails or data here at CRU. I would never manipulate the data one bit - I would categorically deny that."
He confirmed that all of the leaked emails that had provoked heated debate - including the now infamous email from 1999 in which he discussed a "trick" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures - appeared to be genuine.
"The use of the term 'hiding the decline' was in an email written in haste," he said. "CRU has not sought to hide the decline." (The University of East Anglia has now posted a detailed explanation of why this phrase was used on its website)
Their "explanation" in a nutshell:
The use of the word "trick" was not intended to imply any deception.
The global warming fraud is an easy-to-understand concept, and the rascals have provided ample evidence. The clever video produced by Minnesotans For Global Warming demonstrates that ridicule is on the way for those who cling to this scheme. The graphics, combined with the words "hide the decline" in a song paroday, are hard to answer.
George Monbiot of the Guardian, a passionate supporter of AGW theory is a thorn in the side of all of these in denial over the hoax. He still doesn't concede that fraud has been proven -- but he probably hasn't read Marc Sheppard on the source code corruption yet. Monbiot writes:
I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.
That denial is only going to make matters worse for the warmists. Are they going to pretend that Monbiot is in the pay of the hydrocarbon industry? The Warmist toothpaste is not going back into the tube. Pretending that there isn't an ugly pile of dentifrice on the sink is not going to make the mess go away.
