A few days after e-mails hacked from secure servers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in eastern England, were widely circulated on the Internet, global warming deniers gleefully declared it was the “smoking gun” that proves what they have believed all along.
According to CBS news, Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said on Monday the leaked correspondence suggested researchers "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."
The University of Anglia released a statement condemning the incident, calling it “irresponsible and mischievous.”
Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit, pointed out how the use of one particular word in one e-mail was cited as proof of fraud and he wanted set the record straight. This is the e-mail in question:
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct +is 0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.”
The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. Jones said, “it is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward.”
Anthony Leiserowitz, a social scientist and director of the Yale Project on Climate Change said the e-mails would provide fodder for the small percentage of radical hard-core global warming deniers.
“For that small group, this is like throwing red meat to the wolves,” said Leiserowitz.
George Marshall, founder of Climatedenial.org seems to agree. Marshall wrote on his web site:
“The denial industry (and hordes of climate nerds) has trawled through these e-mails and found sentences which, when removed from context, support their storyline that climate science is being deliberately distorted and exaggerated for a mixed bag of self interested and politicized ends.”
Marshall feels that it has been, “an orchestrated smear campaign and does not require balance or context. The speed with which the emails have been cut apart and fed into existing storylines is remarkable.”
Most scientists agree that the e-mails may represent an embarrassment and may even reflect the realization that scientists are also human beings, but it does not change the fact that the Earth is warming and climate change is already upon us.
Frances Bienecke, president of Natural Resources Defense Council wrote in her new book Clean Energy Common Sense:
“From the Sahara to Central Asia, a belt of dry land growing ever thirstier has seen the first trickles of what refugees International already fears will be wave upon wave of climate refugees on the move in the decades ahead. Closer to home for Americans, the summer of 2009 brought the worst drought in 70 years to Mexico, killing an estimated 50,000 cows and wiping out 17 million acres of cropland.”
Furthermore, in mid November, Melbourne, Australia, a country battling decades of drought--got hammered with a month’s worth of rain in just 17 hours. The continent struggled with horrific bushfire conditions and record breaking temperatures. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong linked the unpredictable weather patterns to the effects of global warming.
“Everyone in Australia thinking about this, this weekend, would work it out that we are among the hottest and driest continents on Earth,” the Prime Minister said.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is preparing for the Climate Summit in Copenhagen this December. President Obama will be one of 60 presidents and prime ministers along with delegates from 192 countries, who will attend this vital meeting on how best to proceed in replacing the Kyoto Protocol set to expire in 2012.
Every major government on this planet is taking global warming and climate change seriously. Not only due to the scientific evidence, but common sense 101. The planet’s population is approaching 7 billion people, living in industrialized nations that spew out pollution and greenhouse gases on a massive scale. Combined with our current agriculture, farming, and consumption, it is driving Earth’s natural C02 balance so far out of whack that if we don’t take corrective measures the results will be catastrophic for the next 50 generations.
The leaking of selectively chosen e-mails does nothing to invalidate decades of work by thousands of reputable scientists. The evidence is everywhere: melting glaciers, increased storm intensity, spreading deserts, more virulent diseases, increase of damaging insects, water shortages, erratic weather patterns, global wildfire increase, disappearing species, national security concerns, and the health impact on children, the poor and the elderly.
Sorry, deniers, it will take more than a few questionable e-mails to make a case against a wall of climate change evidence, which mostly requires that one just open their eyes and look around.
***Copyright Jean Williams 2009. Permission to reprint up to three paragraphs and link back to this page for full story.
Comments
Sorry, climate cultist, you seem to forget that besides the e-mails there was also code leaked and its more than damning. Do some real research for a change. O and there's more to come. Only a third has been released so far. Love your consenting tone Jean. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make arrogant.
With regards to Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd: well, they would say that, wouldn't they? But to specifically address their statements: Kevin Rudd is wilfully ignoring meteorologists' warning that Australia is entering a periodic El Nino event this summer, which will make the summer hotter and drier than usual. Nothing new there. "We are among the hottest and driest continents on Earth"? Tell Australians something they haven't known for the past 200 years.
Richard, and your research is based on what? There isn't any ridiculous thing you deniers can come up with that will change the fact that global warming is real and it is caused by human activity.
Sorry, denial cultist, you shouldn't pop that bottle of champagne just yet.
Ms Williams obviously can't understand the implications of the emails and computer code herself, if she even read them. All she can do is parrot what she's been told.
It is now clear that the proxy temperature data such as tree rings, ice cores, coral, etc. are not an accurate enough indicator of temperature to detect the global trends claimed by the IPCC. They had to manipulate the reconstruction to show what they wanted to show, i.e. unprecedented 20th century warming.
BTW, those bad weather being caused by climate change stories in the article are an embarrassment to even the global warming so called scientists.
The author is a journalist, not a scientist, so why would anyone expect her to "read the code"?
To make a statement indicating the weather anomolies that have increased dramatically this decade mentioned in this article as something that scientists would be embarrassed about--just shows a fundamental desperation on the part of deniers.
Many of whom are paid bloggers who crawl through the Internet looking for any platform to spread and propagate ignorance and misinformation about a very serious problem.
To PMG and John, in response to your comments below -
"The finding that the climate has warmed in recent decades and that this warming is likely attributable to human influence has been endorsed by every national science academy that has issued a statement on climate change, including the science academies of all of the major industrialized countries. At present, no scientific body of national or international standing has issued a dissenting statement. A small minority of professional associations have issued noncommittal statements"
Perhaps, Marie. But more to the point. If what we all really want is to improve the quality of life for present and future generations, how can our time, money and effort be best spent? A sensible debate would offer that HIV/Aids, malaria, clean water, sanitation, etc. would be our most pressing focus and the most appropriate targets of policy and expenditure. To the hysterics I say, while the evidence is clear that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased due to human activity, and that, on a more probable than not basis, there is a link between increased CO2 and temperature patterns....it is emphatically not the end of the world. To the so-called deniers, put your energy and creative thought into solving problems that do matter to you.
Significantly slowing climate change will require a 50+ year effort and the political will to develop and implement policy that transcends parties, nations, generations and petty dynamic between hysteria and denial.
Even if you could ignore melting ice caps, glaciers, and the rise of the world's seas, or attribute it to "natural warming" why would anybody be against slowing the rate at which we are polluting the air and water?
As I read this email I heard a noise in the background. It was the sound of frantic damage control.
pmg and John, you both share the typical denier mentality, when you don't have an intelligent argument try to discredit the messenger.
Examiner is a citizen journalist web site not the Associated Press and writers are allowed to put their personal slant on their writing. It doesn't make Ms. Williams anything other than a member of the majority, who believe that climate change is going to have serious consequences if drastic measures aren't taken in time.
Take a look at the data in early July on this graph. The lines for 2005, 2008, and 2009 are all very close together.
(And by the way, where is the rest of the year's data?)
So, Show me from the Arctic ice data, from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, supported by NASA, the dramatic loss of ice I am supposed to be worrying about? Where is it, please?
Kat, geez, are you blind? Are the deniers so bent on discrediting global warming, that they feel justified in pretending that real time climate disruption is happening around the globe? The Earth has been experiencing mostly warming trends over the cooling trends for 50 years.
The obvious thing about this article is that even with the abscence of any kind of scientific proof, the common sense approach and the real time climate disturbances that are increasing around the world every year--are a real "duh" factor.
All the little denier minions put together are not going to disuade actual fact of climate irregularities that are happening now. NOT 10-20-50 years from now, but NOW!
You all are like a bunch of stalwart deniers, who will still bemoan the science, while the sea level rises and floods your homes.
The world one day should recognize that this hacking event SHOULD HAVE BEEN UN-NECESSARY, because the "global warming" farce is/was attempting to affect the lives of every human (elite excepted) on the planet - negatively!
Now we know the "science" was settled - as desired, by the forces which intend to destroy and enslave humanity.
Funny how the same people, who pushed for "open government" and "freedom of information" seem to believe that it is ok for evil to create false data in secrecy.
Bravo to the perpetrators of this hacking event!
jsbroadhead,
So, the thousands of scientists and international governments coming together to find ways to curb greenhouse gases are only doing it to "destroy and enslave humanity."
First of all, your accusations are nothing more than irrational blathering and secondly, the urgent need to control pollution and reverse the effects of climate change are the things that will SAVE humanity--not enslave and destroy it.
RealClimate.org has done a great job explaining the issue of Email context, but don't let that distract the denial crowd from their short attention span.
"if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn't much to it."
tinyurl.com/yjxrbf3
In response, the Competitive Enterprise Institute is suing blogger Gavin Schmidt for the "inappropriate behavior" of moderating comments at RealClimate. I guess CEI just can't take the heat, no pun intended.
tinyurl.com/y9s3te8
i hope some day when it's not too late humanity will understand that the earth does NOT need us but vice versa. regardless if we cause the change of climate (don't tap yourself on the shoulders yet) or not (there is still the sun and many other factors in the system), human kind needs to learn that there's a much greater threat to our existence and that is our own greed. we always want more, so we turn up the global thermostat figuratively, saying we need to buy more efficient stuff because the earth is in danger. not the planet is suffering but our conception of ourselves. you are all being played like puppets. me too, occasionally. after reading the article and perhaps these comments, go back to your life of consumption. everything is okay.
So, according to a story today in the Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, it now it turns out the replenishing of the arctic sea ice thought to be observed by NASA satellites is not happening. What is happening is that that the permanent multi-year ice is being replaced by seasonal ice which is much thinner "rotten ice," although both look the same to a satellite. In fact, the Arctic sea ice has nearly vanished, according to David Barber, who holds the Chair in Arctic Science at the University of Manitoba. His findings will shortly be published in the Geophysical Research Letters.
Whenever the rightwingers don't like what the scientific evidence is telling us they invent a massive conspiracy to explain the discrepancy between evidence-based fact and faith-based belief. They do the same thing with evolution as they've done with climate science. In fact, I just saw Ben Stein on CNN peddling the exact same conspiracy theory about climate that he gave in the "Expelled" movie about evolution. It continues to astonish me that this kind of thinking is "mainstream" on the right. Lead man for the Reps on climate: Jim Inhofe, who has accused the hundreds of scientists that produced the IPCC concensus report of perpetrating a "socialist hoax". The poor old guy seems to be suffering from paranoid dementia. The Dems, of course, ostracized the "9/11 truth" loonies, but the right continues to put people who are essentially flat-earthers in leadership rolse on climate change. It's time for policy to be guided by science, not paranoid bloggers a demented Senator.
The most telling part of all this is the fact that this cabal of scientists not only manipulated the codes to build a fake warming trend, they worked over time to keep other scientists (oh, sorry, deniers) from publishing their findings. So that's indisputable proof?? We sure can't have other facts cloud the religion (oops, again, sorry, I meant science). The sound you hear is another leftist agenda crashing down. What arrogance that the only media coverage is trying to explain away a huge news story.
The industrial revolution hasn't reached the planet Mars yet. The sun shines on both Earth and Mars. The temperature on mars has risen WITHOUT any help from America's unbridled burning of fossil fuels. This leads me to believe that THE SUN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RISE IN TEMPERATURE. Arguing about "falsifying data", "hacked" emails, conspiracies etc is such a waste of time, effort, money, when we should be trying to control the unregulated output of the sun so we can have endless Utopian weather on this planet. The world is populated with imbeciles!!!!!
You left out the living world! My own personal evidence includes the fact that the lakes in the Boundary waters that we have fished for 20 years now contain Bass instead of Walleye - species that have water temperature preferences a few degrees apart. (and Bass like it warmer!) Number 2 we are still waiting for the October migration of Cranes to our part of Florida and its almost December. There are thousands of documented changes in migration times and reproductive cycles of the Worlds surviving species. Everything from when a Monarch Butterfly migrates to when a cardinal builds a nest and layer her eggs has changed. This is a huge warning message staring us all in the face and it should not be about whether the Oil and Gas barons make a few more billions. It should be about whether our grand children and our fellow species survive!
I'm going to put this out there for all the global warming truebelievers ready to believe that climate change-deniers are anti-environment, anti-nature, anti-empathetic and all that... Some of us are just looking for the real data. Good, responsible, well-gathered, scientific data... Like the source data the IPCC has just admitted they destroyed ("OOPS!"). And that includes long-term local and global trends of bass vs walleye and "good" ice vs "bad" ice.
And really, I do, as do many of my "denial" friends, believe it is very important to be responsible to the environment, and want to see Responsible solutions to real problems, not political agendas.
Who throws out their source data on something as contentious as this??? The IPCC scientists would have failed high school chemistry for that!!!
I'd bet Al Gore still flys on a private or semi-private jet, and has a HUGE carbon footprint. When he starts flying coach class, middle seat to Copenhagen, you may get my attention.
p.s. as a clarification - the sentence on walleye vs bass was not part of the source "non-value-added" data that the IPCC destroyed.. I just ran out of characters. :)
which source data was thrown out? proxy treering data e.g. is still on the graphs; its just that with modern intrumentation there are much better and more accurate data sources that science can use, which have superseded that data on the graphs.
I dont find that controversial at all; any scientist will move to a more accurate measure wherever possible.
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