If the growing scandal that is known as "climategate" were just about a bunch of hacks and whackos saying "Look here, we found proof that the world is flat" then it could safely be ignored. That's not the case any longer, this is about more than hacked emails and questions about source code.
The revelations over the weekend that the original source data was junked, this being the source data that underlies the research which climate change is based on is an eyebrow raising moment. The news that Phil Jones the director the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia is stepping down while the university investigates his conduct is another eyebrow raising moment. The further news that Penn State is investigating Professor Michael Mann for any possible wrongdoing, well it would raise another eyebrow but I've only got two.
So today questions were asked about these issues and whether it causes any pause for concern as Canada heads to Copenhagen. The short answer, no.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice was the first man up,
"What I take from what's happened at the East Anglia Institution is that there were some serious allegations of impropriety and some serious questions about the quality of the scientific work that was done there. That doesn't - I mean we're all interested in getting to the bottom of that, finding out exactly what happened. It does not change the position of Canada relative to the Copenhagen agreement and the Copenhagen thoughts. The science overall is relatively clear on all of this and as a conservationist and as a responsible environmental steward Canada wants to see carbon emissions reduced."
It would be hard to get Liberal Environment Critic David McGuinty to agree with Prentice on what time of day it is but on this issue the two are on the same page. I asked McGuinty specifically about Mann and Jones being investigated by their respective universities, here is his answer.
"Well look, if, if, if there are scientists out there on any side of this spectrum of opinions who have not been abiding by the scientific method and haven't been, you know, basing their positions and their comments on objective criteria, that's a problem. But there's no evidence to suggest that 2,200 scientists who are part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have deliberately cooked books. I mean, this is a ruse."
NDP Leader Jack Layton also says there is nothing to see here. Layton, when asked about Jones and Mann tried to make it sound like these were two scientists out denying climate science and should therefore be ignored. When I pointed out that these were two scientists at the centre of climate science having their work questioned, he told me that he has seen permafrost melting.
If this were a case of two people being investigated for say, claiming Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium just to start a war, there would be plenty of calls for an investigation. I don't expect politicians to drop an issue they have invested so much in based on what has come out, but I do think a touch of curiosity is in order and so far in Ottawa, that's lacking.
Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.
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Comments
sucks to be Canadian, according to Heather Mallick! (hint google Mallick's latest rant in a brit tabloid. wouldn't get printed in canada)
Australia just got a party leader changed because of the old one pushing the global warming line. It was the result of an unprecedented email and letter campaign from hundreds of thousands of people (totally unorganized by the way) who were outraged that the party was supporting an emissions trading scheme that would have cost taxpayers a minimum of $1100/year each (to start with).
Where are the Reformers when you need them?
Ottawa can ignore it if they want to. a cancer patient can ignore a tumor too ... for awhile.
These dolts in Ottawa and Toronto, are simply not doing their research wither or they would understand what has changed.
The tide is turning to the side of truth and the Left is coming up short yet again.
There are too many smart, freedom loving people in North America to pull this crapola off successfully. If the truth can't win this debate on it's own merit, there will be violent revolt.
Global warming = Global government ... and that ain't goon happen any time soon.
Unfortunately, as you say, there's a lot invested in climate orthodoxy. The financial investment is peanuts compared to the personal investment of "believing".
Regardless of the science (which I'm still on the fence over), asking a believer to admit doubt is like asking a catholic priest to give honest opinion about certain church scandals. They simply can't do it because it would be a betrayal of all that they stand for in the public eye.
In the modern world, saying "I may have been wrong" scores no points on the academic, and even less on the political, stage.
McGuinty....there WEREN'T 2,200 scientists involved in the IPCC. Stooge.
Note to Canadian Parliament....see what is happening in Australia.
Heh, only 'experts' can F-up yis badly eh? Why do we really need them again? Rather than 'climategate' this should be called data rape - or more correctly consumer rape.
The revelations of climate sleaze better start effecting decisions in Ottawa, that is if the parasitic class don't want to be down-sized in the backlash to all this scare-them-then-tax-them-into-subdued-austerity meme sweeping communitarian think tanks in the west.
Corrupt science, greedy academics, big government, big money and big media are all complicit in this fraud and the crime of selling western democracies out to forced austerity premised on on fraud.
I swear an oath to either stage a tax strike or sue any bureaucrat that attempts to justify inflationary economics and taxing justified by this obviously bogus science.
Heads up parasite class, the natives are restless
The problem is the whole peer review process may have been corrupted and no analysis/data contrary to the "hide the decline" guys views may have been allowed into the IPCC reports. So,it all may be bogus.
The responses by officials are reminiscent of the CBS-Dan Rather-Mary Mapes-Forgery incident in the US. Even after it all blew up, Rather's "apology" said, in essence, "Sorry for the forgery upon which this story was based, but that doesn't take away from the other substance of the story."
And when is someone going to finally stop referring to all those 2,200 "IPCC Scientists" as if that's what they all were, and implying further that they're climate scientists, and even further that they all signed onto the Summary for Policymakers? That is just one of a huge stack of intellectually daft (or outright dishonest) claims out there.
This whole disgraceful process needs a nice big ice-water enema.
John and Rob H
The Australian Prime Minister made a speech to the Lowie Institute that was one step short of inciting violence against "Extermist Deniers" as he calls them. If I had made that speech I could be prosecuted under the Racial Villification laws.
He has fled the country and left his Stalinist attack dogs (Guillard, Wong & Combet) to try to smear any person who doesn't believe.
Not believing in Climate Change (as they call it) is a Thought Crime here in Aus.
They call the cap & trade scheme here, The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The kids here are taught at school that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant.
The Greens are calling for the suspension of the democratic process to deal with Climate Change.
The Australian Broadcasting Commission (the government run media outlet) won't even mention it. If you ring into talk-back radio stations they won't let you on to talk about Climategate.
But they are losing their grip..... People are waking up.
Maybe it was Hitler who was behind the global warming scam? google: hitler was behind global warming youtube
Why don't Canadians get on it then. Start writing our politicians en masse . Ignatieff said recently that we must institute CAP n Trade just like the US. So it'll be taxes and a future "green hell". This is scientific fraud. We would no more allow this than people of the old days, running men out of town who were selling cures for ailments on a street corner. I for one, am sick of my children being brainwashed by this garbage in our education system. Political policy should not be shoved down our children's throats. Where's the outrage?
Sad, but no big surprise. So many of our politicians have spent their entire lives butting in to other peoples business that this is just too good to pass up for them.
Ottawa used to be under a mile of ice, long before the internal combustion engine, and Layton's blames melting permafrost on our love afair with fossile fules... what a joke.
Either way: The IPCC Scientists aren't exactly a majority. Check out www dot petitionproject dot org to see a list of 31,000 scientists who do NOT agree with AGW.
I am ashamed of my fellow Canadians, and my sister who still lives there, who never trusted me that CO2 could not possibly explain stuff like: temperatures rising measurably,and extreme weather. Many years ago I watched a gem on SouthPark about Al Gore's 'manbearpig'. Since they love to lampoon the Canadians so much they need a sequel, like Scott goes to bed with Al. Don't worry fellow canucks you will soon be brought up to speed with the rest of us.
The CBC Doc Zone on Cap and Trade was enough to convince me that this has been a well orchestrated plot for people to take over the environmental/green forces and played into their hands with the Global Warming...ooops, Climate Change panic. The millions/trillions of dollars reported to buy carbon credits around the world will bankrupt the US and Canada. I hope Harper holds out on signing anything. The Climate will change but paying millions to other countries isn't going to stop that.....
Heather Mallick is an irrelevant sanctimonious ecomentalist turd.
while Jim Prentice conclusively claims there's nothing to see here, the two men at the center of the scandal, THE two men who are THE face of Mann-made climate change, are being investigated by their bosses over this. So Jim Prentice can't say there's nothing to see here. This is powerful dirty. I wish our right wing government would just this one time act like one. Instead of making sure Mark Emory gets deported and health care gets destroyed, and GMOs creep into our food chain, I wish just this one time our right wing government acted like one, and threw out cap and trade, cap, trade, and barrel.
phil jones: "until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor"
henry Vlll: "who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"
The genie is out of the bottle...
The science being used to sell global-warming has been exposed for the fraud it is, the numbers were fudged.
Everyone knows that policy based on fraudulent data is...
well .. fraudulent!
All politicians the world over are risking their livelyhood pushing policy based on fraud, they can't deny it much longer.
The bubble is about to burst.
Snowmaneasy in Vancouver.
Events in Australia make Canadian politicians look like "village Idiots"....climategate on google just hit 24,900,000 posts
The UK botanist David Bellamy said a decade ago that man-made global warming was absurd. He consequently saw his reputation and t.v. career shot to pieces by the 'establishment'. The facts are that the the earth is experiencing a gentle cooling and has been for nearly 10 years - with glacial growth reported. CO2 has indeed risen, but has had no discernible effect of climatechange. So why the big cover-up and tampering with data? duh!!!- M O N E Y, the fledgling 'green' industry and carbon trading is worth billions. I am sick of the governments of this world treating us like fools.
Hey, its a shame what happened to bellamy's career in britian. that dude loves the environment and i was suspicious at the time when he was called a crank when he said anthro-warming was false.Bellamy was right!!! hope he feels vindicated
Jack Layton's counter part in British Columbia Carole James (NDP) just ran an election platform against Carbon Tax. She lost because people like David Susuki use his cred as a TV hack to yell the earth is flat Carole. I want my Carbon Tax back BC Liberals tut sweet....
I never watched Gores Sci Fi movie on the Climate but I hear it's a good B Movie, Laugh Out Loud :)
Canadian politicians are living proof that it's possible to simultaneously talk out of both sides of one's mouth and out the back of one's neck!
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