Why You Should Be Skeptical About 'Climategate'

Source: By DREW HALFNIGHT, AOL News

Posted: 12/05/09 2:22PM

Filed Under: Environment

Here we are, a mere two weeks after “Climategate” entered the lexicon, and the term turns up almost 14 million Google hits.

Apparently, "Climategate" – the recent leak to the news media of hundreds of contentious e-mails from a handful of U.K. climate scientists – is big news.

According to some commentators (most of them employed by London’s Daily Telegraph, Fox News and a handful of blogs) it’s not just big news - it’s “a massive scandal,” “the worst scientific scandal of our age” or the “final nail in the coffin of the anthropogenic global warming myth.”

There is no doubt the affair has grabbed people’s attention, or that it brings to light all sorts of interesting topics for discussion.

Unfortunately, the people leading that discussion are mostly climate change skeptics promoting the affair as a “smoking gun,” or “a battery of machine guns,” that debunks the so-called scientific consensus on climate change - namely, that it’s happening, that we’re responsible for it and that we should do something about it.

The fact is, far from being a monumental scandal or a smoking gun, "Climategate" is a monumental red herring deployed by climate change skeptics. It is the most puffed-up, sensationalized news event in recent memory. If it were a gun, it would shoot water, and not very far.

What new facts have come to light? And what do they prove? So far the answers are precious few and precious little.

In honour of the thousands of species that will become extinct before "Climategate" is behind us, let’s set a few things straight.

First, the story stinks of partisanship. It was not brought to the media’s attention by an impartial observer. It was stolen, packaged and disseminated by ideologues to serve a narrow agenda. Make no mistake, the hackers who broke into the e-mail accounts of researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit sought to undermine efforts to address climate change. Full-stop. They weren’t scientists. They weren’t politicians. They were not journalists. They were web-savvy goons who rifled through the scientists’ private things with the clear intent of defaming them and swaying public opinion.

Second, the people leading the “coverage” of this story are also partisan. Let’s start and end with James Delingpole of London’s Daily Telegraph, who apparently coined the term “Climategate” (more on this later) and is upset that the mainstream media does not share his obsession with this story. Who is this guy? An arch-conservative ideologue who opposes restrictions of virtually any kind (carbon taxes, for example) on his country’s or his own capacity to accrue wealth and privilege. It is not surprising that Delingpole is beating this dead-horse story to a pulp, since he thinks it vindicates his entire, crass belief system. His colleagues at the Telegraph can call him “brilliant,” and he can tell us, as he does, that he “is right about everything.” His paper's claims about "Climategate" may be true, but the public will need confirmation from less partisan, less compromised sources.

Third, scientists are human. No doubt about it, the East Anglia e-mails are disturbing. They bring to light instances of underhanded, unprofessional manipulation by some of the world’s most trusted climate scientists. They show, beyond a doubt, that the International Panel on Climate Change and its “structural tendency to politicize climate change science,” as one commentator put it, need to be re-visited.

That said, there are no earth-shattering or game-changing revelations in the e-mails (except for those who previously laboured under the misapprehension that science is conducted by robots in labcoats on a secret island laboratory in the future). Alas, the e-mails remind us that it is conducted by real people, our friends and neighbours, ordinary humans who are subject to pressures and politics and fears like the rest of us. Does this mean we don’t expect them to adhere rigorously to professional standards? No. Does it mean we should throw four decades of climate science out the window because a handful of them screwed up? No.

Fourth, a note on skeptics. "Climategate" can only be understood in the broader context of the challenge levied against the so-called consensus on climate change by skeptics, deniers and dissenters. To my mind, these people are of two distinct breeds. On one hand, they are good scientists engaged in the humble work of complicating our understanding of climate change. These men and women, of which there are a considerable number, have come by their doubts or “dissent” honestly, and deserve to be heard, published and given the same opportunities that other scientists enjoy.

On the other hand is a motley collection of paranoiacs, contrarians, free-market fundamentalists and all-round jackasses of the same ilk that, for a brief time anyway, rallied around the Intelligent Design banner. Just as this last group felt vindicated by Ben Stein's inane movie that supposedly unmasked a conspiracy to suppress dissenting views on evolution, these goofs are gloating over “Climategate.” Get a life.

Fifth, “Climategate” is an insult to Carl Bernstein. Media were quick to give this affair a wacky, memorable name, jamming the words “climate” and “gate” together to lend the story a whiff of importance.

The term is insidious. It exploits the historic commitment of the Nixon-era Washington Post and other newspapers to confront real abuses of power and degrades that heroic commitment in the process.

Remember: At the core of the Watergate investigation was the Nixon administration’s willingness to break the law in pursuit of its political ends – most famously and emblematically when it ordered a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.

In today’s “gate” scandal, those roles are reversed. It is the anonymous hackers who, under the cover of secrecy, broke the law to obtain private information they thought might serve their cause - namely, scandalizing climate science and distracting reporters and politicians who would otherwise be hearing and acting on the broad call for action in Copenhagen.

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