I am no climate change denier or skeptic. After all the climate changes on a daily basis in New England. When you think the sun will shine it rains, when you think it will snow it's warm and when the alarmists tell you the worst hurricanes seasons are coming they usually don't.
Global history is full of climate changes. Ice ages, volcanoes, meteor hits and primordial soups have all been part of the mix. So the climate is going to change and frequently. What I wasn't convinced of is that science has advanced far enough yet that specific global climate change can be predicted with any truly accurate results.
What I do believe in however is the scientific method. You know, where you ask a question, do research, construct a hypothesis, test your hypothesis by doing experiments, draw a conclusion and then tell all the skeptics in the world about your results and challenge them to prove you wrong.
I was starting to be convinced that indeed science was on to something with this global warming issue. After all, Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar touting the science behind global warming. Lots of actors, writers, politicians and even royalty were sure of it. Captains of industry were beginning to put substantial money into being green. The United Nations was building a whole bureaucracy around the threat to humanity.You knew it was gaining momentum as congress was considering a monumental taxing scheme to combat the imminent danger. The up coming meetings in Copenhagen were going to be a resounding victory for the renowned climatologists.
All of that momentum however came to a grinding halt on or around the 20th of November when some party pooper poked a finger in the eye of climate change science. By releasing the East Anglia emails the curtain was drawn and what we see behind the curtain is nothing but a bunch of technical politicians who have no interest in the scientific method. They only want their point of view to be the consensus and to Hell with anybody who thinks otherwise.
It is not the fact the director of the Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones has now admitted that the original data on which his conclusions were built has been lost, or that he systematically refused legal freedom of information requests, or that he attempted to exclude papers skeptical of his work or that he deleted emails pertaining to data that disagreed with his findings that is most irksome. It is that the information in the Harry.read.me files tells the tale of computer programs that he knew simply were not producing accurate or even consistent data. For a hypothesis that exists almost solely on the basis of computer modeling doesn't the old adage garbage in garbage out count for anything? Any eighth grader with a computer at home knows this.
Not only are poor scientific practices on display in this drama, so to is journalistic malfeasance.
This whole ( building) storm began rather innocuously. Apparently, a whistle blower at East Anglia thought this information important enough to leak to the BBC. Paul Hudson of the BBC had done a semi negative piece on global warming asking where was temperature decline? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm This must have been enough for the whistle blower to think Hudson might be an ally and think the information contained in the emails to be newsworthy. Hudson now admits that he received them five weeks ago and sat on the information. No reasons explained yet as to why.
Getting no response this intrepid guy or gal decided to go all out by releasing the emails in a variety of places on the web. Traditional media had no interest in them but the blogosphere has gone wild. The climate change establishment had held out hoping for it to blow over by pointing out such things as the emails were stolen! The comments were simply collegial conversation taken out of context! After all don't you and all your friends regularly delete emails that are the subject of Freedom of Information requests? All of this obfuscation was dutifully carried by the main stream water boys in the U.S. big media.
Our own Boston Globe is now a full 12 days and counting without so much as a whisper of the controversy. Well all of that is going to change very quickly. This scandal can longer be contained. Tonight it has been announced that Phil Jones has temporarily been relieved of duty. Michael Mann of Penn State and Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research may not be far behind.
The geo political ramifications are being felt as far away as Australia as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's consensus is rapidly falling apart with open rebellion in the oppositions ranks. The U.S. Senate may conduct investigations and even the New York Times ran a critical piece on the subject.
The whole issue of climate change is finally going to get the non peer review it so desperately needs.
