The Washington Post misses the real "Climate-gate" scandal
December 06, 2009 9:03 am ET by Jamison Foser
The Washington Post reports on the stolen global warming emails:
[I]t has mushroomed into what is being called "Climate-gate," a scandal that has done what many slide shows and public-service ads could not: focus public attention on the science of a warming planet.
"What is being called 'Climate-gate'"? Why the passive voice? Who is calling it that? Right-wing global-warming deniers and their enablers in the media?
And that mention of "slide shows" is presumably a snide reference to Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth -- a movie that won an Oscar and helped Gore win the Nobel Peace Prize. But according to the Washington Post, it didn't do nearly as much to "focus public attention" on global warming science than some right-wing web sites yammering on about stolen emails. Right.
The Post continues:
The e-mails don't say that: They don't provide proof that human-caused climate change is a lie or a swindle.
But they do raise hard questions. In an effort to control what the public hears, did prominent scientists who link climate change to human behavior try to squelch a back-and-forth that is central to the scientific method? Is the science of global warming messier than they have admitted?
The stolen electronic files include more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents, all taken from servers at the Climatic Research Unit, a world-famous center at the University of East Anglia in Britain.
But there are some pretty obvious "hard questions" that somehow haven't occurred to the Post: Who stole the files? Does "Climate-gate" show that climate change deniers are nothing more than common criminals -- or simply that they eagerly make use of the criminal efforts of others? What does it say about the honesty of the global warming deniers that they portray emails that "don't provide proof that human-caused climate change is a lie" as doing exactly that?
It was an insider/whistleblower.
They are the residual emails of a batch which had already been *sanitized* from the CRU systems, in order to illegally prepare an incomplete response for a future (likely successful) FOIA request. The emails in question were *not* going to be provided under a FOIA request.
Note that there is a very small percentage of personal-chatter emails that typically characterize friendly colleague's familiar communication. Therefore, this lack of small-talk emails points to a deliberate culling. They were going to “leave in” the harmless small talk to be produces under FOIA.
These are deleted emails from a sanitized batch which were foolishly or purposely archived and/or discovered by an insider or whistleblower (perhaps the sanitizer himself). The insider then had pangs of conscience or an axe to grind and released them surreptitiously.
If so, he may enjoy protection under the UK’s Public Interest Disclosure Act of 1998, which was enacted to protect whistleblowers.
For an interesting clue to the possible identity of the whistleblower, see: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/climategate_which_one_blew_the_whistle/
What was so secret in those documents? And what was so secret that a scientist asked another to commit a criminal act to avoid a FOIA request?
MMfA who needs to ask more questions as well.
Aristotle's "science" held back knowledge for millennia because there was no vigorous debate. Is that what we want today?
To reiterate the point, Jamison; if you want Climategate, here's where the -Gate parallel comes in. Oh, G. Gordon, where are you now?...
How do you know that the emails and documents were not leaked?
The Post is clearly on the side of K-Street and their corporate backers, as evidenced by publisher Katharine Weymouth's craven behavior in the health care reform debate.
~
That is the McCarthyesque witch hunt mentality that is the most damaging to the warmist cause, and will cause the more zealous AGW advocates to take a future walk of shame.
The entire contents of the leaked files were part a large body of publicly funded work, all of which is subject to (routinely evaded and denied) FOIA requests. Furthermore, the authenticity of the contents has been confirmed, and is not even in question.
The climate has changed (warmed even), and continues to change. By definition that makes me "not a climate change denier", since a "climate change denier" would have to be "one who denies that the climate changes". The only people I've seen thus far who fit that description are those who believe that the climate is essentially static (like no MWP, no little ice age), that any temperatures above or below the arbitrarily chosen 1950's baseline is a "temperature anomaly" (Hansen et al), and that the climate would not/could not have changed at all had it not been for human contributions to atmospheric trace gases.
Sen. Barbara Boxer would like dearly for the focus of this "non-event/non-scandal" to shift onto "Email-theft-gate", as if this was like a criminal court, wherein evidence obtained illegally is ruled inadmissible, and juries are instructed to disregard. Somehow I think it's not going to be that easy.
How do you know the documents and emails were not leaked by an insider? Should you not wait on the investigation before going off?
Where I live (the UK) the "climate-gate" scandal is not a politically charged topic. It's being received as a question of scientific principle and integrity. No left-wing agenda, no right-wing shouting, no New World Order conspiracies. We just want the truth behind the science at the UEA CRU and the Met Office. We haven't had it yet, but we're waiting. Patiently.
That said, I would caution against riding the "stolen e-mails" bit too hard. The news media and, arguably, the public benefit from leaked material all the time; in almost all such cases, we conclude that whatever is being leaked is of more public import than the fact that the way in which the leaked material became public might not have been entirely legal.
Pushing the criminal aspect of the leak in this case could lead to its being pushed in cases in which the leaked material actually is of public value. Let's not open that door, shall we? I don't think many of us would like the country that would result.