So... This almost deserves a whole new topic. But whatever, I'll begin with by quoting myself from several months ago:
Drunken Idaho wrote:But it's not just greenpeace, not even just Al Gore or David Suzuki... It's scientists! That's right, the scientific community. No one has any other agenda, except for preserving a livable environment for humans. People don't attack cars and CO2 emissions just for fun. They have solid reasons, and it all has to do with the greenhouse effect. This is basic stuff.
This was me putting faith in the climate scientists (particularly those involved with the IPCC, who wrote the reports upon which we've all been basing much of our knowledge of climate change). That was me, before I found out about Climategate.
What is Climategate? It's the name recently given to the scandal that different scientific groups on the IPCC have been involved with, apparently since 1995 (possibly even earlier). What's the scandal? It's essentially the fudging of facts when it comes to certain aspects of climate change science. For instance, temperature cycles in previous millenia were made to look less significant, whereas recent decades were made to look a lot warmer than they actually were. This was mainly done through tricky equations and much gap-filling of data when it came to tree-ring research and ice-core samples. I'm still reading up on it, but so far that seems to be how they're doing it.
How did this all come out into the public? News sources have been saying that a hacker illegally obtained tons of emails and documents from the server of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in the UK. I'm more inclined to believe that this wasn't necessarily a hacker, but instead a whistleblower. The reason I think so is because, while it certainly isn't just a random selection of emails, the emails released tell a particular story. By the way, download the emails here and judge for yourself:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XD050VKY
The story they tell is that of a small group of leaders on the IPCC slowly devising ways to use certain information either in the wrong light, or falsifying data in subtle ways. These emails go as far back as 1996, and I've only begun reading them, but so far it reads like a legal thriller. A full picture is slowly unraveling, and I'm interested to see exactly what it is.
So does this mean climate change is a myth? Certainly not. The simple science remains that greenhouses get hot, and humans create lots of greenhouse cases. Is humanity responsible for some kind of climate catastrophe any time in the near future? Apparently we're not. Apparently these scientists knew from the get-go that the changes we make in the composition of the atmosphere are a drop in the bucket (a notion that until recently I would have balked at), and that oceans will always have more of an influence on climate than we do. Also, apparently the polar ice caps won't melt and sea levels won't rise with even a 4-degree rise in average global temp like the earth saw during a period of warming roughly 5000 BCE, let alone the 1-degree increase we see right now. There's also lots more to this, I'll try to keep you updated as I read these emails.
But why male models? That is, why would the IPCC fudge the facts? According to people at the Climatic Research Unit, they oversimplified the severity of man-made global warming, but they did this in order to counter the oversimplification by those corporate and political interests who would claim that it's all nothing to be concerned about. I've also heard that the small group at the top of the IPCC were trying to gain influence on policy and legislation. Either way, I'm thinking that this whistleblower must have gotten fed up with the lies, and I thank him/her. I've always been a staunch advocate for action against man-made climate change and other environmental issues, and I still am, but I had put my faith in people who claimed to represent the scientific community, but apparently did not. I'm disappointed in those lying scientists, but on the plus side these emails should be quite entertaining to read (oh, and I guess doomsday isn't necessarily immediately around the corner too).
Any thoughts?