Something huge is developing in the climate change controversy. Earlier this month someone hacked into the computer server at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of Britain's University of East Anglia. They took e-mail files and other data going back over a decade that show that leading climate scientists in Britain and the US manipulated and suppressed data in an effort to exagerate their claims of man-made global warming. The emails also show a concerted smear campaign against scientists who are global warming skeptics along with efforts to block their research from publication in the scientific literature. The e-mails and data hacked had long been sought from the CRU under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, but the CRU had been stonewalling on the release. There is speculation that the hacker may have been an insider acting as a whistle blower.
The skeptic community has focused so far on e-mails and data that show that the research published in the late 90's, and featured in Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth" showing a sharp rise in global temperatures in the 20th century, the so called "hockey stick", was the result of data manipulation. One reviewer has been quoted as saying, "This isn't just a smoking gun; it's a mushroom cloud." I'd have to agree. I'm not sure what kind of coverage this has gotten in the mainstream press yet. I know there were at least a couple of articles in the New York Times about it, but the quality of those articles were somewhat disparaged by the author of the article that I am linking to below. I found a few FoxNews clips referencing the scandal, and they are quite good. I think Glenn Beck may have run a short segment on this on his show yesterday, but I'm not sure. Its funny. I was listening to him yesterday on-line on a different matter. The video was running in the background while I was reading something else. I think I remember him speaking about this issue last night. I can't believe I paid no attention to it. I had just finished writing yesterday's somewhat tongue in cheek blogpost about continental drift replacing global warming as the new cause du jour now that global warming was seeing more criticism in the press. At the time I wrote that, I had no idea that this other scandal was taking shape. And I am amazed that I failed to take note of the significance of Glenn Beck's comments on the video. Anyway, as I said at the beginning of this post, I think this is huge. I seriously believe this could turn out to be the scandal of the decade. Watch these videos first. Its the easiest way to get the summary. Then read the article linked below. Its well written if a little complex, but with a couple of readings and a check of the further links in that article, you will be up to speed on what I think is going to be a blockbuster of a story. And it looks like FoxNews may lead the way once again. I'll be watching the mainstream media to see if they are as slow to pick up on this story as they were on the ACORN or Van Jones stories.
And here is a link to Robert Tracinski's article at Real Clear Politics
Jess
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2 comments:
The "hockey stick" graph has been known to be based on manipulated data by the skeptic community for some time, skeptics had also often complained of harassment, exclusion, etc. based on their unwillingness to "toe the line". They have also well documented the "climate-lobbying complex" not dissimilar from the "military-industrial" one of greater fame which consists of scientists being funded by government and NGO subsidies, provided they came up with a sufficiently frightening problem and suggested sufficiently expensive and statist solutions.
These emails and files only serve to confirm the suspicions and experiences of anthropogenic climate change skeptics. That it took a "criminal" "hacking" a climate "research" facility to expose this truth to the public in a verifiable way makes me think that some hacking deserves to be legal under "Whistle Blower Protection" legislation...
That it took a "criminal" "hacking" a climate "research" facility to expose this truth to the public in a verifiable way makes me think that some hacking deserves to be legal under "Whistle Blower Protection" legislation...
I would agree with that
Jess
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