The e-mails that were stolen from servers at the British University of East Anglia’s climate science center do not show evidence of any conspiracy to falsify science; all they really reveal is evidence of how poorly some people handle political tensions regarding an issue of grave importance for human civilization. So far, the only thing the e-mail scandal has shown is that a handful of people felt that junk science might derail needed environmental regulatory reforms on which the future of human civilization will depend.
The US House of Representatives has called for hearings in to the matter, with Republican opponents of a coordinated climate change response alleging that the East Anglia emails show the entire field of climate science over the last quarter century to be an elaborate, global “hoax”. But testimony from experts in the field shows otherwise. The East Anglia emails are an isolated incident regarding the specific attitudes and reactions of a handful of individuals and do not in any way alter the results of ongoing research.
Another government scientist, Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist and climate researcher who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus that tells us the earth is warming and that warming is largely a result of human activity.
Lubchenco told members of the House global warming committee that the e-mails don’t negate or even deal with data from both NOAA and NASA, which keep independent climate records and show dramatic warming.
The East Anglia emails scandal also specifically highlights the ongoing confusion that exists, both in the scientific community and among policy-makers and the general public, over what the status of the scientific consensus on global climate destabilization really is. There is, if we study the methodology and the source-material, the geological record and the climate-modeling techniques, a fundamental difference between the hard science done by climatologists who observe a persistent warming trend in association with carbon emissions, throughout the industrial age, and the speculative nature of reports that embrace skeptical views of climate destabilization science.
Global warming science is not a fringe field using unusual or unverifiable techniques to determine warming and cooling patterns; it is an interdisciplinary field of research that uses well-established scientific methods for gathering data about atmospheric composition, including temperatures, going back millions of years. This entails the in-depth study of the geological record, ice-cores, glacial wear on mountain ranges, the shifting of river systems, rainfall patterns, fossil remains, and other indicators of atmospheric and thermal change.
Even with regard to the examination of recent trends, the climate-skeptic viewpoint is so frail as to have recently been described by one ideological opponent of the climate-change consensus as being based on the idea that “biased thermometers” have caused a worldwide echo-chamber of distortions. Recent studies called into question some of the methods of inference used by one climate scientist, whose “hockey-stick” analysis of recent global average temperatures has been instrumental in shaping global perceptions of the issue: but the findings themselves were not questioned, in fact, were upheld.
Again, Red Orbit:
[Penn State University researcher Michael] Mann authored what is known as the “hockey stick” theory, first described in the late 1990s, which suggests that the past 50 years had been the hottest in several centuries, if not 1,000 years, and that man-made global warming was to blame.
His controversial research was studied in depth by the National Academy of Sciences and was even used in former Vice President Al Gore’s global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”.
According to Sensenbrenner, the 2006 National Academy study showed Mann’s hockey stick theory was incorrect and should be discredited. However, Holdren argued that the NAS study had quibbles with Mann’s methods but agreed with his final results.
Much of the tension that has arisen between the fairly small “climate skeptic” community and seasoned climatologists like Mann is rooted in the outright distortion and misrepresentation of the scientific process and the nature of the reported results of the leading climatologists’ research. Those distortions have filtered into the scientific research of some self-proclaimed “climate skeptics”, despite massive and well-known scientific evidence disproving the distortions.
On Friday, just days before the most important climate-policy conference ever held, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) —which shared the Nobel Prize with former US VP Al Gore, for its role in exploring and disseminating the science on the greenhouse effect and global climate destabilization— announced it would investigate the significance of the stolen East Anglia emails.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, said that though the organization wanted to make sure there was no bias filtering into the science it reported, he believed it was “virtually impossible” for any handful of scientists, even if they acted with deliberate bias, to skew the overall science reported by the IPCC. The IPCC process is intensely peer-reviewed, perhaps more substantively than any other global research body to date, in part due to the intense skepticism industrial lobbies have injected into political debate on the issue in countries across the world.
A group of climate activists at the DeSmogBlog are now arguing that the mainstream media have been complicit in spreading the false impression that the few hacked emails might constitute evidence of a massive global conspiracy to defraud governments, and alter political history by using climate science to harm industry. There is, of course, no evidence of any such conspiracy, no clear motive for such a conspiracy to exist, and a global scientific consensus that the science is valid, with a limited number of dissenters.
The activists argue that the real question in the East Anglia email case is really: who stole the emails? who organized and funded the well-concealed hack? what were their motives? why was it done immediately before the most important climate-policy conference ever held? what laws were violated? and what connection might there be between monied interests and the very “climate skeptics” who are up in arms about their research, or proposed research, being questioned?
There is a long-running history of direct financial connection between high-polluting industries (such as the major multinational oil firms) and those scientists conducting research that claims to discredit the general finding that carbon emissions contribute to global warming and climate destabilization and other toxins produced by burning carbon-based fuels are contaminants that pose a real risk to public health.
That historically demonstrable direct link between the very interests that seek to discredit science showing the ill effects of their activities and the scientists who claim to be able to produce that science means a conflict of interest that cannot be easily ignored. True peer-reviewed research needs to be free of such specific financial incentives for pre-determined outcomes, and the climate-skeptic science has rarely met that standard.
Today, at the opening of the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, attended by 192 nations, Dr. Pachauri told the delegates that “The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these email exchanges”. His message is clear: the science is clear, it is verified, it constitutes a consensus, and the Copenhagen Conference is meant to be this generation’s attempt to correct its mistakes and make way for a better future for all of humanity.
More news on climate destabilization & the policy response:
- Copenhagen Conference Opens, with 192 Nations in Attendance
- Climate Scientists Say Destabilization Much Worse than IPCC Reporting
- Copenhagen Diagnosis Report Summary (transcript)
- Emissions Expansion Could Be Leading Threat to Developing Countries
- Water Resource Depletion Threatens Global Food Supply
- California Could Build Renewable Resource Export Economy
- Carbon Offsetting May Be Means of Fighting Global Poverty
- UK Announces Plan for 40% Low-carbon Energy by 2020
- The Tipping Point: How Naturally Occurring Compounds Become Dangerous Pollutants
- 190-page White House Report Urges Immediate Climate Action (discussion)
- THE END OF AN ERA: Closing the Door on Building New Coal-fired Power Plants in America
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So much of global climate change is based on theory that is largely supported by computer models. Is the ocean rising? Yes it is at a rate of 1 to 1.8 mm per year. Is the ice on the polar ice caps melting? Yes in the water, but on the land mass it is building up. If all the ice in the water melted it would not rise the ocean level more than a half a foot, but real science has not know if this is a natural trend or man caused.
My granddaddy told me if you want the truth as to why people do and say what they do.... follow the money. Al Gore who is the poster child of global warming left office with a net worth of around 2 million dollars. Now he is worth close to 100 million and his rise in fortune is tied to selling the idea of global warming. He will make millions more if he has his way. People's actions show what they really believe. Al and his wife Tipper occupy a total of around 30,00o sq feet of living space. Compared to the average family of 4's 2,400 sq ft. While he wants us to pay carbon credits to fly on commercial airlines, Mr Gore flies on a private jet which produces the equivalent of 10o cars in greenhouse gas for each hour of opperation. His actions say screw the plant, so why should I listen to him?
As for money on a large scale. These scientist who are suppressing all the date stand to make billions in grant money. The global companies what have moved their manufacturing to China and India what these countries to have an exemption for 30 years. Already companies have set up brokerages to sell and buy carbon credits. The federal government will make about 690 billion in taxes from carbon credits mainly from small business who cannot move their manufacturing to the exempt countries like the multi-nationals. In the end who wins? The same groups who make fortunes from war and unregulated financial manipulations and unfair trade agreements. Who looses, the same people who always loose..... us.
When I see Al and his group practicing what they preach I will listen, until then I want to see this so called junk science and I want to know why a very small group of the science community feels they have the right to control the information from all the scientific community.
So much of global climate change is based on theory that is largely supported by computer models."
This claim is patently untrue. Global climate science is not ideological in nature and it is not a "theory"; it is the result shown by evidence, based on real numbers, hard facts, and intensely peer-reviewed research across fields ranging from geology to meteorology, ice-core study to chemical atmospheric analysis.
What you call "unsupported theory being sold as fact" is the collective work of many thousands of scientists working in dozens of different disciplines over hundreds of years, producing the global consensus on what the science of chemistry, physics and biology, mean for the collective impact of emissions and concentrations of organic compounds on global average temperatures.
You ask "Is the ocean rising? Yes it is at a rate of 1 to 1.8 mm per year." — This is enough (in part, because there is a spiral effect that means it will accelerate over time) to lead to as much as a 1.4 meter sea-level rise by 2100; hundreds of millions of people will have to change location (i.e. migrate) if this occurs.
You ask "Is the ice on the polar ice caps melting? Yes in the water, but on the land mass it is building up." — This is untrue. The Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet are both melting at unprecedented rates; glaciers are disappearing (melting) at an unprecedented rate, on every continent. The collective impact of the glacial melt is not only a contribution to rising sea levels and diminished rainfall on currently arable land, but also the depletion of river systems on which literally more than half the world's population depends for food cultivation.
You cite Al Gore's personal net worth as evidence that global warming is a "theory" and not fact, although the bulk of his net worth is unrelated to his work on climate change, and is associated with technology (Google, Apple [board member] and his [co-founded] Current TV network).
The scientists doing climate research do not stand "to make billions in grant money". Grant money is used for research. The world over, money is being spent on climate research, because governments, insurance companies and major corporations are in need of reliable climate-forecasting data in order to make intelligent plans for the future.
What you need to trace is the wealth that heavy-polluting interests have poured into the "climate-skeptic research", a sub-category of scientific research which has always been linked either to the corporate interests funding pre-determined conclusions or to the ideology of radical deregulation (read: zero responsibility for harm caused).
Trace that money, and you will find how the junk science that claims to be fact based "dissent" (dissent is by nature interested and thought-based, not fact-based) has been consistently predetermined, manipulated and disseminated by for-profit interests whose explicit aim is to undermine the consensus that exists among scientists doing peer-reviewed, independently verifiable and verified, fact-based research.
The oceans levels could accelerate, but as it stands right now the what could happen is based on a lot of speculation not actual data. They could stay stable who knows. And it seems not all the data or theories are being giving the same importance.
Global warming is a theory. Great all science starts with theory, but as any scientist knows theories have to be tested, duplicated and produce real empirical evidence before they become fact. 40 years ago, science was saying we where heading towards the next ice age, good thing we did not act on that theory.
Al Gore made most of his money from family oil stock but his claim to fame is selling his books and movies. He has diversified that into TV and other business. But, his lifestyle says screw the planet. That is what does not what he says.
Global warming was a hypothesis, and then a theory, but is now demonstrable fact. What some skeptics, usually in connection with claims made by industry about nature's ability to right itself, are still obsessing over is whether or not the visible warming trend over the last 2.5 centuries is linked to human industrial activity.
On that question, the science is so clear that the US Supreme Court, which in its current makeup is notably right of center and heavily inclined toward business interests —Chief Justice Roberts is rated the #1 most pro-business judge on the federal courts, and Justice Sotomayor is considered one of the most pro-business among progressively inclined judges— has ruled (Sotomayor was not there yet in '07) that there is a clear danger to human health from excessive carbon emissions, granting the EPA the right to regulate them under the public health provisions of the Clean Air Act.
On the question of melting ice and rising seas, it's not a question of waiting for concrete proof. We not only have verifiable evidence, in real time, and which is mounting, but over the last 9 years, the actual numbers have advanced far further far faster than anyone projected. The current trend for glacial retreat and sea level rise is actually worse than the worst-case scenario contemplated by mainstream climatologists just 8 years ago.
On Al Gore: his lifestyle does not say "screw the planet". I'm not in the business of defending well-contected ex-politicos and media moguls, but the spin on Gore's lifestyle is a product of the same rumor mill that is pushing the "global warming is a hoax" hoax. His home is bigger than other homes, but uses renewable energy, so has a far smaller total "carbon footprint" than the average home.
He travels a lot, yes, but does more to raise awareness about the need for corrective action with regard to climate policy than any other individual—that's not to say one gets a pass for carbon emissions from fuel consumption; it's just that those emissions are somewhat offset by the resulting achievements in promoting major emissions cuts across the world. If we count policy shifts and their attendant benefits, Mr. Gore has done a great deal to slow the growth in carbon emissions and move the world closer to a zero-combustion energy and transportation model.
In the last couple of decades we have made a lot of bad moves because of the experts. We have gone to war because of "experts" who it seemed presented an air tight case for war. What came out is the reason was not wrong and even worse the dissenting views (which were unpopular) were discredited. I find similar tactics used to sell global warming. Last year we were sold the idea that banks needed bailed out without question and now I think giving Wall street money without question was a bad idea. Again any dissenting view was brushed under the carpet.
Dissenting views are good especially in science because they force real fact finding and expose faulty methods and even sometimes those dissenting views are the real truth. I have no idea if global warming is real.
I do know that Al Gore has a over 20,000 sq feet of living space (misstated 30,00 earlier) and that is for two people. I do know he did not even begin to add solar and other energy saving upgrades until the critics started to point these things out. I do know that Al Gore has made his fortune and his fame hinges on global warming. I do know that Al Gore makes 20,00o dollars from mineral rights on a zinc mine that is a documented poulter and he says nothing.
What I did find out in my recent searching is that GW Bush who is no friend to the environment built one of the most eco friendly homes in Crawford Texas that uses the most state of the art energy and non carbon foot print available. The home uses no gas or fossil fuel and for a comparable 4000 sq foot home uses 75% less energy. I find it almost insane that Gore who is the environmentalist is less Eco friendly that Bush.
Also the cap and trade idea is nothing more than a 690 billion dollar tax hike that will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gasses. That 690 billion will have to be paid by you and me not the multinational companies that have moved their manufacturing to exempt countries like China and India.
Admirable, intelligent, and cogent.
However, the M Todds are legion, unfortunately. Did he even read your essay or click on any of the links? How can he call the 2,500 scientists of the IPCC a small group of zealots?
I was a research assistant on the peer-reviewed international book the Social Construction of Climate Change which shows how politics is more important than the science when it comes to action. I have thought of the book as how power embraces (or not) truth.
I have high hopes for this latest meeting.
I never used the word small group or zealots. Please do not put words in my mouth. You would be surprised to find I feel very strongly about the environment and feel a lot should be done, even at the expense of industry growth or this so called loss of jobs. The utilities have been given a free ride and I actually work with companies that offer clean solutions for coal and other carbon producing fuels, but because of the powerful utility lobbies have been exempt from implementing these technologies.
I am happy the EPA standards of the 70s which the critics said would kill the auto industry has 30 years later forced auto makers to engineer cars that produce 20 times LESS pollution than before the mandates.
I am not one of the "legions" who believes climate change is a hoax. But, I do believe all the data should be seen and then a real plan that will produce results not increased revenues for the government to spend and an additional advantage to multinational companies who have moved their manufacturing to China and India.
To clarify here is what I am saying. The debate over climate change, like almost everything, in this country has become politicized. There is a fair amount of ideology not science being thrown around as fact from both sides of the argument. All these emails show is that there are concerns of how the data is being used and there seems to be at least from the information coming out that some scientist are being silenced just for raising any questions that do not fit this ideology of global warming. That is dangerous to me. It was not long ago that we bought the "word" of the experts and now we are in a two wars that seem to have no end.
I feel the cap and trade (as it stands right now) will not reduce any carbon and has a lot of room for abuse by the same players that are screwing up things now. It also means a 690 billion dollar tax hike. It is one thing if this money was used to implement environmental technology, but most likely it will be used by Washington to create more wasteful spending.
I feel this country needs to change its ways. We need to change our life style and I really believe between conservation and development of alternative fuels and energy this country can revive its manufacturing base and rebuild the middle class which is the backbone of our economy. For example the average car produced today could be twice as energy efficient. What has happened is the technology has been diverted into HP not fuel savings. Even though the typical engine requires half the fuel to produce a unit of HP of energy, the auto makers have increased the HP in the average car to the point nothing is gained. This is why you see cars that have 200, 300 and more HP and have the same fuel efficiency of cars with less HP built in the 70s. If we would have employed the technology in efficiency cars today would have the same HP of cars of the 70s and be twice as fuel efficient. The same goes with housing. We produce homes that are more efficient, but the average size of a home has increased to the point nothing in the way of conservation has been gained. In a nut shell everyone in this country must change its thinking about how are resources are being used.
I also do not like Al Gore, I think he is a hypocrite because his actions do not match what he is saying. If I was to go by his actions alone I would conclude there is no global warming or that he knows there is and just does not care. He is a phony.
The 2000s have largely been decisive in producing huge amounts of empirical data showing that climate change is not speculation, it is already happening, and that it is in fact linked to human activity.
in 2007, William Stevens, the former New York Times chief correspondent on global climate change, wrote for the newspaper that there had been a heated theoretical debate over the findings of top climate scientists, throughout the 1990s, but that the 2000s had brought enough evidence that a “sea change” had occurred, in which it was no longer a viable scientific claim that climate change might not be caused by human activity.
Stevens argued that in fact it appeared the science had produced enough hard evidence that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold had been crossed, and there was the very real possibility of legal judgements finding criminal liability in cases of excessive contributions to overall emissions. The Supreme Court ruling later that year, recognizing the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act essentially confirmed Stevens’ observations.
Indeed, the burden of proof was legally shifted by that Supreme Court ruling, in which Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the only way the EPA could conceivably “avoid taking further action” would be “if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change”. The Clean Air Act was found to have “clear statutory command” over the EPA, and the ruling essentially mandated immediate change in policy to ensure the EPA acts to curb carbon emissions, unless it can be scientifically proven that emissions are not a threat.
That language is the law of the land in the United States, meaning neither the EPA nor the United States Congress can simply treat the issue of emissions-related climate-destabilization as a matter of unsettled science, raw opinion or ideological dispute. There is a tangible, legally-based responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases, and Copenhagen provides the opportunity to coordinate those regulations with 191 other nations.
Here's another link to an important new finding related to climate destabilization:
The new report “Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis” projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year, people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion.
– Climate change is a silent human crisis. Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time. Already today, it causes suffering to hundreds of millions of people most of whom are not even aware that they are victims of climate change, comments Kofi A. Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, in a press release. [Complete text...]