Climatologism Temporarily Indisposed
Here’s an excellent, brief case in point in the puckering-up of media coverage in the slow motion trainwreck of global warmalism theory and academic practice, that is helping to keep the political agenda on the tracks for now. AP: “UK Climate Scientist to Temporarily Step Down.”
LONDON — Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.
The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.
The allegations were made after more than a decade of correspondence between leading British and U.S. scientists were posted to the Web following the security breach last month.
The e-mails were seized upon by some skeptics of man-made climate change as proof that scientists are manipulating the data about its extent.
First off, in keeping with fair-use standards, I’d like to note that I only excerpted those parts of the article necessary for a critique. Which turns out to be the whole thing.
OK, on to the lede. You’ll note that the allegation is he “overstated the case for man-made climate change.” That would suggest excessive enthusiasm, something along the lines of Gorean exuberance. “I really really think warming is caused by human activity, and its really really bad. Come on, people …” Something like that. In fact, what is alleged to have happened is entirely different and in scientific terms, orders of magnitude more sinister than simple overstatement. It’s the purposeful, conspiratorial doctoring of data in presentations to avoid undercutting arguments for climate change, obscuring inconvenient facts, and actively attempting to isolate and silence opposing views.
We inch a little closer in the second graph, with “worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented,” but I’d argue that construction describes nothing more than an editing process. It would be helpful for the readers understanding at this point for phrases such as “trick” and “hide the decline” to be included. Also absent, by the way, is any mention of conspiring and coaching to avoid Freedom of Information Act disclosures.
In graph three, AP weirdly avoids mentioning the illegality of the security breach, which is brought up without explanation or prior reference as if the allegorical milkman AP’s writing for — the average citizen who gets most of his or her news filtered through AP — already knows about that and everything else … a high level of expectation given the way this business has been successfully buried. The illegal hacking of emails was seized on by stalwarts such as the BBC early on as an excuse to avoid focusing unduly on the content of the emails, and has been echoed widely as a discrediting point, deployed like a skirmisher in advance of subsequent excuse-making arguments.
In graph four, we get to what it is about. Turns out it’s not an issue of scientific credibility that threatens to undermine zealots. It’s about opportunistic skeptics seeking to diminish something the AP informs us is fixed and unassailable — man-made climate change — because all that is seized on here is proof about the manipulation of its “extent.”
Thus far, these omissions and euphemistic descriptions have characterized a lot of the coverage that I’ve seen, particularly AP’s, with studious efforts to aboid conveying any hint of scandal or blood in the water. Which I’d suggest is patent when the head of a prestigious institute has to take a leave over academic integrity. Particularly when the issue at hand — global warming — is not only highly controversial but the subject of numerous high-profile political initiatives and not a little scaremongering rhetoric, plus Academy awards and Nobel prizes.
That’s why what is also important among the many things that don’t appear in this article is anything approaching perspective or analysis. No observers or expert quotes that might tell us what any of this means. Whether this has turned the warmal movement on its head, caused a scramble, consternation in Copenhagen, political problems for the president of the United States and other leaders, what have you. The coverage is incidental. It is a brief. Some academic somewhere is stepping down briefly due to some kind of odd irregularity.
Oh yeah, the other thing missing here is any mention of the fact that it stopped getting warmer about 10 years ago.
Washington Post makes some slight improvements. It’s still about climate skeptic seizures, but the words “tirck” and “hide the decline” actually appear, along with a gloating skeptic. I like the Union of Concerned Scientists take, by the way, that the hacked emails are being used to “spread disinformation.” Finely tuned sense of irony.
Ironically, AP’s lead “Related Articles” link is Examiner.com, which has a party with the AP’s news:
The A.P. is reporting that the director of the prestigious U.K. Hadley Climate Research Unit will step down during an investigation into allegations that he and his colleagues for years slanted climate research toward man-made greenhouse gases as the central cause of global warming. Initial reviews of the hacked files reveal world-renowned climate scientists conspiring to manipulate computer climate modeling data, terminology and research reports to promote the theories of global warming.
Hadley officials say that Unit head Phil Jones will be suspended from his chief researcher’s position pending completion of an independent review of his involvement in altering the way in which global temperature data were presented.
The allegations are based upon recently released decades-long correspondence between leading U.K. and U.S. climate scientists. Thousands of e-mails revealed evidence of climate scientists’:
- Manipulation of scientific data;
- Concealing private doubts about global warming;
- Suppression of evidence;
- Contemplating revenge against prominent climate skeptics;
- Attempting to disguise the pre-industrial Medieval Warm Period;
- Scheming to marginalize dissenting scientists out of the peer review process.
If true, this climate research manipulation could be the biggest scientific and political fraud in the history of mankind.
Now that’s what you could call beating the AP like the rented mule it is. God bless the Internet.
Speaking of the stereotypic lowest-common-denominator reader, BTW, AP might want to note that the milkman an not a few highbrows are increasingly getting their news from Fox, which chimes in: “Think ‘Climate-Gate’ Is Non-Event? Think Again.” No wonder the Obama admin hates Fox. As long as everyone’s reliant on AP, they could keep calling it a non-event.
Steyn works in a crazy Nepali royal’s machine-gun party/comatose ascension to the throne in his own examination of man-made climatological media obtuseness. Hey, it’s relevant. With global warming melting the glaciers, chances are another tragic archery incident in Bhutan is next. Do the math. This is why Al Gore got the Peace prize.
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Topics: academia, media, warmalism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:21 am Comments (2) on Wednesday, December 2, 2009
2 Responses to “Climatologism Temporarily Indisposed”
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December 2nd, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Thank’s for writing this. And thanks in advance for writing about it every day. You’re keeping hope alive! If this turns out like I hope, i.e. complete discrediting of global warmism and its addition to the history of scientific fraud and stupidity, you’ll be one of those getting the Nobel anti peace prize.
The whole thing is an unexpected gift from the gods for me. I knew that someday this would happen but I thought I’d be long dead by then. You can’t gloat when you’re dead and schadenfreud backfires in that case. You can say, “hahaha” but then they’ll just say, “hahaha… you’re dead!” For me to actually witness it makes it worthwhile to keep living for a while longer.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
What’s the significance of the “hacked email” angle, anyway? These are workplace emails. In every work environment I’ve heard of, management repeatedly instructs employees that there is no expectation of privacy for workplace emails, and that nothing should be committed to email that the sender would not wish to see publicized on the Internet. Hasn’t just about everyone received this message by now? I’ve heard it time and again.