Three on the fun and games at the Climatic Research Unit
By now you've read about the interesting information from the Climatic Research Unit that has recently been made public. Here, though, are three pieces you may not have seen.
Two months ago, Patrick J. Michaels warned that CRU seemed to have "lost or destroyed" much of the key historical temperature data: "The Dog Ate Global Warming".
Many in the climate change community have condemned what they call “skeptics,” often to the point of declaring them de facto criminals and assigning them to the same category as Holocaust deniers. They tell us that “the science is settled” and that we should shut up. But every scientist worthy of the name should be a skeptic. Every theory should be subject to challenge on a scientific basis. Every claim of a model’s validity should be accompanied by the complete model and data set that supposedly validated it, so that it can be replicated. That is how science works. It is how it advances. And when the science is supposedly “settled” and they refuse to do so, it’s not unreasonable to wonder why.
Well, now we know.
In fact, when scientists become politicians but continue to pretend to be doing science, that is the real crime. The theory being promoted by these men was being used to justify government actions that would result in greatly diminished future economic growth of the most powerful economy on earth (and the rest of the world as well). It would make it more difficult and less affordable to address any real problems that might be caused in the future by a change in climate, whether due to human activity or other causes. It could impoverish millions in the future, with little actual change in adverse climate effects. And when such a theory has the potential to do so much unjustified harm, and it has a fraudulent basis, who are the real criminals against humanity?
And here's a very interesting speculation on how the information became public, involving neither "hacking" or whistle-blowing.
For those who'd like to keep up with the controversy, these sites are useful:
The wheels continue to fall off of this scare hoax. I used to think that there was something going on and that maybe humans had some involvement. But now I see it for what it was all along. A cynical way to get more government funding, sell books, and promote socialism.
Posted by: kyle8 | November 24, 2009 at 09:42 AM