By E. Thomas McClanahan, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
CBS News Correspondent Declan McCullough provides an excellent summary of where things stand and the significance of the revelations. George Monbiot, a U.K. climate-change activist, admits that it's "no use pretending that this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging."
Congress may investigate. East Anglia acknowledges that it's systems were hacked, but hasn't yet confirmed the e-mails' authenticity. The scandal already has its own Wikipedia page. For journalists, the question of whether to delve into this would seem obvious. You already have a very big breaking story. Maybe it will ultimately support the claims of those skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, maybe it won't.
But right now, we have enough info to conclude there's probable cause to believe people at the Climate Research Unit fiddled with the data and discussed destroying e-mails to thwart a freedom-of-information requests. One e-mail talked about how to "hide the decline," the phrase that's become a rallying cry for AGW skeptics. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com is all over this one: Just keep scrolling.
Update: Mega McArdle seizes on a pivotal point:
I think most people--including me--missed the biggest part of the climate emails story. Sexing up a graph is at best a misdemeanor. But [the] Declan McCullough story suggests a more disturbing possibility: the CRU's main computer model may be, to put it bluntly, complete rubbish. ... The emails seem to describe a model which frequently breaks, and being constantly "tweaked" with manual interventions of dubious quality in order to make them fit the historical data. These stories suggest that the model, and the past manual interventions, are so poorly documented that CRU cannot now replicate its own past findings.
That is a big problem. The IPCC report, which is the most widely relied upon in policy circles, uses this model to estimate the costs of global warming. If those costs are unreliable, then any cost-benefit analysis is totally worthless.
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Carbon dioxide cause or effect?
We should take the climate change seriously because these changes have created and destroyed huge empires within the history of mankind. However, it is a shame that billion dollar decisions in Copenhagen may be based on tuned temperature data and wrong conclusions.
The climate activists believe that the CO2 has been the main reason for the climate changes within the last million of years. However, the chemical calculations prove that the reason is the temperature changes of the oceans. Warm seawater dissolves much less CO2 than the cold seawater. See details from:
http://www.antti-roine.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=73
This means that CO2 content of the atmosphere will automatically increase, if the sea surface temperature increases for any reason. Most likely, carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, but it is hardly the primary reason for climate change.
The magnitude of CO2 and water vapor emissivity and absorptivity are the same, however, the concentration of CO2 (0.04%) is much less than water 1% in atmosphere. In this mean the first assumption is that water vapor effect on the climate change must be much larger than CO2.
The climate models may give wrong results, 1) if they assume that the CO2 is the primary reason for the temperature changes, 2) if they do not take into account the role of oceans, and 3) especially if they are based on purpose-oriented CRU temperature data.
Kyoto-type agreements transfers emissions and jobs to those countries which do not care about environmental issues. New post-Kyoto agreements must channel emissions trading funds directly to the R&D of new solar technology and commit to curb population growth. Feeding money to underdeveloped countries does not help, because this money will be used to increase population and wellfare.
Antti Roine
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Truth my mother taught me
When I was growing up, when my mother would catch me in a lie, she would remind me that when a person lies, they lose the trust of the person they lied to. In the future, it becomes much harder for the person that was lied to, to trust.
And we, the American citizen, have been lied to... by the warmists, by industries of various sorts, by the Democrats, by the traditional media.
Climategate has proven what we felt in our gut... that this wasn't really about saving the world. It was about greed and power.
There will come a reckoning.
Still waiting
I'm still waiting for an item in the Star's "environmental" blog about this.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Still waiting...
jennnedarc...
you better hope your clock is running on a bank of Energizers.....
Energy Alternatives.
If the earth really is burning to a crisp because of the evils of mankind, shouldn't honest debate also include discussion on energy alternatives?
Any one heard of "gas hydrates" and wether GTL techonology can be applied to methane?
There are compelling reasons to look for alternatives:
1. Real pollutants that are health issues (not CO2).
2. Geopolitics of oil. Namely the unstable Middle East primarily (among other issues).
ClimateGate or Climaquiddick
Makes no difference, Obama and the lefties in Congress are going to press ahead --- just as health care "reform" has nothing to do tih health, climate change has nothing to do climate. Its all about government control of every aspect of our lives. Leftists are totalitarians at heart, they are more equal than everyone else.
I wonder...
...when we will actually see this story covered by the STAR and other media outlets besides FOX. Just like the ACORN story, the media is far behind and either is doing research or ignoring it. Any guesses which one?
ClimateGate
The real problem with ClimateGate is that it renders the entire argument worthless, because there is no way to know deception from fact.
It no longer matters whether climatologists present real scientific fact or not, whether their models are adequate or not, their credibility is forever gone. A discussion that thought it was decided, now never can be. Unmitigated duplicity has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory
Once science crossed the seductive threshold of politics, its credibility had to be called into question. Once they conducted themselves in action as venal as demonstrated in the Climate Gate e-mails, any credibility was forever shot to hell.
RUKiddingKC - I agree with your conclusion, but
knowing how the libs are, they will keeping pushing that empty cart up the hill, until they reach the top - and we all get to watch the cart go barreling down the other side to a crash. Then, and only then, will they acknowledge that the cart was empty.
The value of the facts
Good Point Tom, but the facts ceased to matter on this topic long ago. We are constantly reminded that the debate is over...