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ClimateGate reveals nefarious conspiracy? NOT!

November 20th, 2009 · 13 Comments

Roaring through the denialosphere are claims that “Climategate” somehow represents “the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming'”.

Sigh.

What do we see in these emails? There seem to be some strong anger at those who work hard to distort information in their work and distort science when speaking to non-scientific communities. There is (passionate) frustration with self-proclaimed ‘skeptics’ collaborating to create ‘peer reviewed’ journal space where non-scientifically sound work can be published. There is discussion of how to do analysis and how to account for confusing anomalies. There is plenty of material to cherry pick from and scream about in efforts to foster confusion about and disdain for actual science.

On the other hand, what is not being waved about from the hilltops by anti-science syndrome suffering skeptics?

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords.

Obviously, though, this means that hackers must have deleted these portions of the emails because of … “The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.”

Brad Johnson at Wonkroom concludes ClimateGate : Hacked Emails Reveal Global Warming Deniers Are Crazed Conspiracy Theorists .

Evidently due to this e-mail conspiracy, Arctic sea ice is at historically low levels, Australia is on fire, the northern United Kingdom is underwater, and the world’s glaciers are disappearing.

In any event, Joe Romm accurately summarizes ClimateGate:


Here’s what we know so far: CRU’s emails were hacked, the 2000s will easily be the hottest decade on record, and the planet keeps warming thanks to us!

Whatever smoke the anti-scientific disinformers are able to blow into people’s faces over this bunch of emails dating back over a decade, it doesn’t change the basic facts about human-caused warming:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

Truly, it would be great news for all of us if the anti-science syndrome promoting skeptics were correct. Sadly, it isn’t the scientists, but the planet which is skating on thinner ice.

update:

From Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog On ClimateGate:

I’ll admit, as someone who spends most days looking for leaked documents, the package of stolen emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University is pretty juicy. Anything that provides insight into the inner-workings of your opponents is pretty much manna from heaven in this line of work.

I have been going through all the files today and I hate to disappoint but it just ain’t the scandal climate conspiracy theorists want it to be.

These emails are blissfully being spun by the climate contrarians as proof of some type of worldwide conspiracy by scientists to fake the climate change crisis. Michelle Malkin, who relishes Ann Coulter-esque statements, goes so far as to call it “the global warming scandal of the century.”

Right.

Nate Silver at 538 with I Read Through 160,000,000 Bytes of Hacked Files And All I Got Was This Lousy E-Mail

There you have it! The smoking gun! Irrefutable proof of the Anthropogenic Warming Global Super-Duper Major-Mega International Socialist Conspiracy!

If you see Al Gore parking his Ford Fusion hybrid near any major bridges, make sure to call the police! …

But let’s be clear: Jones is talking to his colleagues about making a prettier picture out of his data, and not about manipulating the data itself. Again, I’m not trying to excuse what he did — we make a lot of charts here and 538 and make every effort to ensure that they fairly and accurately reflect the underlying data (in addition to being aesthetically appealing.) I wish everybody would abide by that standard.

Still: I don’t know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that’s literally what some of these bloggers are saying!

Incidentally, 2009 is shaping up to be the 5th warmist year on record, according to the conspiracists at NASA

Tags: climate change · climate delayers · Global Warming · global warming deniers

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