Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away (Monbiot)
bo-no
deniers funded by Big
Fossils.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response
Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away
Climate sceptics have lied, obscured and cheated for years. That's why we
climate rationalists must
uphold the highest standards of science
[image] Research and rationalism: ice core drilling on the summit of
Quelccaya ice cap, Peru.
Photograph: Peter Essick/Getty
I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the
environmentalists I know have gone
into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the
University of East
Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of
all recognition. It is
true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material
can't possibly support
(the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also
true that the emails are
very damaging.
The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly
ironic, as we spend so
much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this
isn't a real crisis isn't
going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with
technicalities. We'll be
able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where
appropriate and demonstrating
that it cannot happen again.
It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the
usual cut and thrust of
the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the
scientists were facing from
a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails
was sent by the head of
the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of
these papers being in the
next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have
to redefine what the
peer-review literature is!"
One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research
turned out to be so badly
flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief.
Jones knew that any
incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by
climate change deniers
funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often - as I documented in my book
Heat - use all sorts of
dirty tricks to advance their cause.
Even so, his message looks awful. It gives the impression of confirming a
potent meme circulated by
those who campaign against taking action on climate change: that the IPCC
process is biased.
However good the detailed explanations may be, most people aren't going to
follow or understand
them. Jones's statement, on the other hand, is stark and easy to grasp.
In this case you could argue that technically he has done nothing wrong. But
a fat lot of good that
will do. Think of the MPs' expenses scandal: complaints about stolen data,
denials and huffy
responses achieved nothing at all. Most of the MPs could demonstrate that
technically they were
innocent: their expenses had been approved by the Commons office. It didn't
change public
perceptions one jot. The only responses that have helped to restore public
trust in Parliament are
humility, openness and promises of reform.
When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor
Jones might struggle
even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one
case he appears to be
suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he
seems to be advocating
potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked,
this would be sufficient
to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.
I feel desperately sorry for him: he must be walking through hell. But there
is no helping it; he
has to go, and the longer he leaves it, the worse it will get. He has a few
days left in which to
make an honourable exit. Otherwise, like the former Speaker of the House of
Commons, Michael
Martin, he will linger on until his remaining credibility vanishes,
inflicting continuing damage to
climate science.
Some people say that I am romanticising science, that it is never as open
and honest as the
Popperian ideal. Perhaps. But I know that opaqueness and secrecy are the
enemies of science. There
is a word for the apparent repeated attempts to prevent disclosure revealed
in these emails:
unscientific.
The crisis has been exacerbated by the university's handling of it, which
has been a total
trainwreck: a textbook example of how not to respond. RealClimate reports
that "We were made aware
of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers
attempted to upload it to
RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later
that day." In other words,
the university knew what was coming three days before the story broke. As
far as I can tell, it sat
like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting for disaster to strike.
When the emails hit the news on Friday morning, the university appeared
completely unprepared.
There was no statement, no position, no one to interview. Reporters kept
being fobbed off while
CRU's opponents landed blow upon blow on it. When a journalist I know
finally managed to track down
Phil Jones, he snapped "no comment" and put down the phone. This response is
generally taken by the
media to mean "guilty as charged". When I got hold of him on Saturday, his
answer was to send me a
pdf called "WMO statement on the status of the global climate in 1999". Had
I a couple of hours to
spare I might have been able to work out what the heck this had to do with
the current crisis, but
he offered no explanation.
By then he should have been touring the TV studios for the past 36 hours,
confronting his critics,
making his case and apologising for his mistakes. Instead, he had
disappeared off the face of the
Earth. Now, far too late, he has given an interview to the Press
Association, which has done
nothing to change the story.
The handling of this crisis suggests that nothing has been learnt by climate
scientists in this
country from 20 years of assaults on their discipline. They appear to have
no idea what they're up
against or how to confront it. Their opponents might be scumbags, but their
media strategy is
exemplary.
The greatest tragedy here is that despite many years of outright
fabrication, fraud and deceit on
the part of the climate change denial industry, documented in James Hoggan
and Richard Littlemore's
brilliant new book Climate Cover-up, it is now the climate scientists who
look bad. By comparison
to his opponents, Phil Jones is pure as the driven snow. Hoggan and
Littlemore have shown how
fossil fuel industries have employed "experts" to lie, cheat and manipulate
on their behalf. The
revelations in their book (as well as in Heat and in Ross Gelbspan's book
The Heat Is On) are 100
times graver than anything contained in these emails.
But the deniers' campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify
secrecy and suppression on
the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must
distinguish themselves from
their opponents in every way. No one has been as badly let down by the
revelations in these emails
as those of us who have championed the science. We should be the first to
demand that it is
unimpeachable, not the last.
Eunometic
> Poor Moonbat. Still in denial that skeptics do solid science, they are not
> deniers funded by Big
> Fossils.
>
>
> Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away
> Climate sceptics have lied, obscured and cheated for years. That's why we
> climate rationalists must uphold the highest standards of science
People like Monibot are part of the problem, not the solution.
If AGW proponents just practice good, open, honest science and give
their opponents respect and fair opportunity they will develop
credibillity themselves. One day again.
Monibot is one of those partisans who has politicised 'truth' in his
desire to advance his other environmental agendas.
Monibot does good things occaisionally, such as pointing out that the
fad for biodiesel is leading to the extinction of orang outans as
their habitat is cleared for planting of oil producing palms.
(biodiesel itself is a AGW promoted thing)