"Climate Gate" Casts Cloud on Change Meet

(CBS)  Hundreds of world leaders and climate change experts are descending on Copenhagen to try to come up with a new pact to slow global warming.

At the same time, thousands of protestors across Europe Saturday : time to stop talking and make a deal.

Reaching that deal has now been complicated by what's being called "Climate Gate," a string of hacked private e-mails between global climate change scientists in the U.S. and Europe, casting doubts on the very science of which this summit is based, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

The e-mails show some of the world's top experts decided to exclude or manipulate some research that didn't help prove global warming exists.

1998 was the hottest year since record-keeping began...but the temperature went down the next year, and it's only spiked a couple times since.

An e-mail exchange in 1999 shows scientists worked hard to demonstrate an upward trend. They talk of using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures.

It worked like this: when temperature readings extrapolated from tree rings showed what looked like a decline in temperatures from the 1980s to the present, the scientists added in measurements taken later by more modern instruments, which gave them the answer they wanted.

The scientists say the e-mails are being misinterpreted.

"A lot of charges have been made that I think are quiet unjustified, cherry-picking information and taking it our of context and misrepresenting what it is actually saying," Kevin Trenberth of National Center for Atmospheric Research told Dozier.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe - a climate change skeptic - says the e-mails prove the global warming threat is exaggerated. He wants a congressional investigation.

"We are relying upon that science for a bunch of stuff that we would be doing that would lose a lot of jobs and really affect Americans," Inhofe told Dozier. "I do believe an investigation would show that they clearly have manipulated the data."

The official U.S. position hasn't changed: that climate change is real and needs to be addressed.

"Climate change is happening," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. "I don't think that's anything that is, quite frankly among most people, in dispute anymore."

Two major carbon producers - India and China - agree, and just announced they will set goals to lower their carbon emissions.

Though Congress hasn't agreed on an American plan to lower emissons, President Obama's visit to Copenhagen at the end of the meeting, instead of the beginning as originally planned, is being taken as a positive sign.

"President Obama said he will come to Copenhagen if a deal is feasible, and I have always said, and we have in the United Nations said, that while nothing is guaranteed, the world is ready for a deal," Achim Steiner, director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said.

But the leaked memos have given ammunition to critics of climate change, so climate change supporters say Copenhagen may only produce a framework for an agreement for an agreement that could be finalized next year.

[Paul-Revere]

Diversity is an important aspect to living in a country such as America and a world such as ours. However, at what point to your individual rights to believe what you want, say what you want, and behave in a manner in which you want become less important than hurting someone else?s feelings? Imagine this on a global scale. Our bill of rights ? which our founders wrote so as to keep the individual?s rights protected from government infringement ? will be destroyed at the expense of ?diversity.? It ceases to become diversity when only certain opinions are allowed. Imagine if suddenly ? around the world ? Muslim women who chose to wear the hijab were not allowed to do so. Imagine if suddenly ? around the world ? the construction of new Presbyterian churches was illegal. What would happen to diversity at the expense of diversity?

What does this have to do with World government? Conformity. The destruction of the individual and his or her desires, needs, dreams, personalities will be complete. Again, necessarily World government will have to streamline and level the world population, curbing our speech, beliefs, and actions. We?re easier to control then.

These are just some of the problems with World government. There are more ? many more. Consider this a call to action ? perhaps to add your own ideas, but more simply to become aware that this is our fate unless you wake up to the realities of what?s going on around you. The trend is towards global governance; it is almost upon us. According to the new EU president Herman van Rompuy, 2009 was the first year of World governance. Despite what I want, I agree with him. It happened seemingly without warning, but in truth people have been screaming about this for decades. They?re crazy, though; the ?conspiracy theorists? who are derided on television by the accepted talking heads tell us so, and many people believe them.

World government will be inevitable unless people start taking action in whatever way they need to in order to avoid it. We must take back the power that we?ve been letting go of gradually since this country?s founding. We must wake up. For those of you who voted for him, Barack Obama is NOT the savior of this country ? you must see that by now. He?s committed to using the farce of climate change and destroying the United States financially in order to bring about Global governance, regardless if it?s what?s best for you, the individual! Check out what Government is doing behind your back at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU

Take a look at this video clip with a little humor that states the case of where things stand with the CRU East Anglia Email Leaks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8O-E_GN0Kg&feature=player_embedded

[DanMorin007]

Yes, it took a long time for CBS to cover the story. For those who want to learn more, I highly recommend reading the Resignation Letter of Chris Landsea from IPCC written in 2005. This letter shows the fraud committed by the IPCC. http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm

There has been fraud regarding funds on Climate Change research:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100019956/climategate-the-lawyers-move-in-those-scientists-are-toast/

and more fraud in the carbon trading scheme:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-european-carbon-credit-trading-system-plagued-by-fraud/

More links regarding ClimateGate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLKCyk_DhVI (How much carbon reduction is needed to reduce the temperature to the UN target? Answer: A minimum of 80 years without electricity and without fuel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_ok37HDuE (ClimateGate Who's Who)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI (Armed Response to 'Climategate' question). This is how the UN censors questions about Global Warming.

Follow the money....

?The carbon market in the US is expected to be trillions of dollars by 2015, and the technology we are offering is as little as 10% to half of that number?. Earning only 10% of a trillion represents an income of 100 billions a year, which is twice the total wealth of Bill Gates. Guess who is behind this corporation, to become a trillionaire? You have to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuifVNofEtk

[traubj]

Wow took you long enough to cover this story CBS...and good job not telling the whole story. Then again I shouldn't be shocked. When will you care to actually be journalists instead of politicians?

[thinkoutsidethebox]

TEST for TRUTH!!! Believe NOTHING! Sort out the lies from the truth!

But these scientists (encouraged by young indoctrinated protestors---probably college students EVANGELIZED into HYSTERIA) push on

"You can believe ANYTHING - if only our OUTLOOK is sufficiently limited!""" (quote from great thinker Dorothy L. Sayers)

[wakeuplease]

Of course scientists are never wrong or influenced by greed or power or blinded to their own personal biases. Thank goodness for that. Now that the argument is settled, lets all stop driving cars so we can get this weather changed asap!

Wow having the power to alter the Earth temperature at our discretion sure is a big responsibility, we'd better be careful. Wait! What if we start cooling it too fast and instead of polar bears drowning, we start freezing monkeys?? We should probably stop the Earth from spinning too just for good measure.

It doesn't take scientist to see the folly of man.

[PolicyThree]

Right, because that's what everyone is suggesting. Another brilliant insight illustrating why GW doesn't exist, despite mountains of evidence, because NEWSFLASH scientists are human. A great example of what passes for critical thinking in the blogging age.

[eimorfin]

LOL....GW IS A LOT OF HYPE MAKING MANY RICHER THAN MOST CEO'S WITH FALSE SCIENCE....NATURAL CYCLE? ITS GETTING MIGHTY COLD IN THE DESERT OF NEW MEXICO...RECORD BREAKING LOWS COOL SUMMERS...WHILE THE REST OF THE WORLD IS HEATING WE IN THE DESERT ARE COOLING...HMMMM MAKES A LOT OF SENSE

[eimorfin]

Global Warming has been proven a way for AL Gore to roll around his millions laughing all the way to the bank with the ignorance of humanity thinking they are bigger than Mother Nature....We hate the CEOS but love Al Gore? Something wrong here libs!!!!

[PolicyThree]

You really think it's right versus left don't you. You really believe it's tree-huggers against big industry. The mountain of science produced by people who get paid the same no matter how hot it is, just can't burst your bubble. Using your brilliant scientific expertise, you've sussed out the real conspiracy of thousands of scientists scheming to get rich, although it's not clear exactly how you think they might benefit, by making the whole thing up. Please tell me you're not a product of public schools in America. This can't be. As an avowed conservative, one thing I refuse to do is timeshare Rush Limbaugh's brain. This is about science, it's not CEO's versus bunny-lovers.

[conspiracygirl]

"I am tired of hearing all of this pseudoscience. The complex non-linear dynamic system that it is, long term climate prediction is simply impossible. If there is a problem, which we can't say, our only hope is climate control.

Climate has many variables (solar activity, volcanic activity, orbital variations of the planet, CO2 atmospheric concentrations etc.). Of these sets of variables the only one we can possibly control is CO2 concentrations. For this there is no consensus on the sensitivity of climate to this variable. Even if it were significantly sensitive, it is the only one we can control.

To put this in simpler terms it would be like trying to drive a car (which has many control variables) when all that you can control is the accelerator (no brakes, no steering wheel). Control also requires accurate short term predictive models (turn the wheel right the car goes right). That we don't have that is dramatically demonstrated by the deception attempt by climate scientists -- the car went right when it should have gone left, and they tried to pretend it was going right even to the point of trying to silence occupants seeing it going left. So they are not really in the drivers seat....

The question is: Should they collect a fare from each passenger, grossly enriching themselves nevertheless?"

Albert Kong

[PolicyThree]

I seriously hope people take a look at the science, and stop relying so heavily on information from the popular press, where the overwhelming tonnage of pseudo science is disseminated. There was no deception despite sloppy and ignorant mis-characterizations of the emails in question by the popular press, Ms Dozier and CBS News included. Read the actual emails, they are an open discussion on, among other things, EXACTLY what YOU point out: namely that Earth is a complex dynamic system and in recognition of that, what the best methodology would be to isolate temperature-only effects on tree rings.

Of course Earth is a complex dynamic system. Shockingly, scientists realize this, and categorize data, predictions, and the capabilities of models accordingly.

[PolicyThree]

Yikes - The country that sent men to the moon has out-bred it's capacity to teach it's people about science, and about critical thinking. Even as an avowed conservative I can't ignore the science that supports GW. This simply isn't a political debate -- it's wholly scientific and depends not a bit on whether you hate tree-huggers, love your SUV, or don't trust the profit motive. Ms. Dozier's, and hence CBS's reporting here is, at a minimum, irresponsible. Read the actual emails, then ask yourself if the extent of your scientific background qualifies you to understand them. If it helps... the emails, the controversial parts, refer to non-temperature related markers in tree-ring data. They illustrate an open discussion among scientists about various methodologies they may use to curve-fit data and get data point for same, as well as the unreliability of tree-ring measurements that are influenced by factors other than temperature. These emails are controversial only because they are re-interpreted in ignorance by people like Ms. Dozier. Look, folks, the scietific evidence and consensus for Global Warming influenced by man is enormous. Please join the 21st century at your earliest convenience.

[engBarisax]

As a Mechanical Engineer, I have been trained to scrutinize data, and to continually ask myself "does this make sense?" As someone who reads a lot, I have educated myself a bit on Geology, and I have learned that Earth's climate has undergone tremendous changes that far exceed what we have witnessed in the last 100 years. There were several ice ages in Earth's very recent history, with the last one ending about 12,000 years ago. In between the ice ages were interglacial periods which were on average warmer than our current climate. Most of the tropical glaciers are only as old as the start of the last ice age, which means that they had completely disappeared in between them. The small amount of warming (0.6 to 0.8 deg Celsius) that took place in the 20th century pales in comparison to the natural changes that took place in Earth's recent past. As an engineer, I have to ask "If recent changes are not unprecedented and well within the range of normal, how can we be so sure that man caused the change? Clearly, man had nothing to do with the warming and cooling between ice ages, so there are natural mechanisms at work here.
As an engineer, I am also trained to evaluate costs (not just financial) and benefits of proposed scenarios. Let's say the climate will continue to get warmer, what will happen? Sure, glaciers will melt, and rivers that depend on their meltwater will be disrupted. As icecaps melt the sea levels would rise, but even in the worst case this would take centuries...plenty of time to adjust. Some argue that weather would become more extreme, but this is speculation, and there is no evidence that bears this out. These are the potential costs we have been told by politicians and environmentalists. No one has mentioned any possible benefits of a warmer climate.
Naturally, growing seasons would be longer, and farming could be done at higher latitudes. This would be a boon for countries like Canada and Russia. Milder winters would mean a reduction in the use of natural gas and fuel oil to heat our homes. In fact, history shows that our civilization has flourished when the climate was warm, and it suffered from famine and disease during the cool periods. (Just Google "Medieval Warm Period" and "Little Ice Age" for more info.) I could go on about the costs of trying to change the climate as opposed to working on other pressing issues that we know we can make a difference in, but I'll save that for later.

In the meantime, check out what a world renowned engineer has to say about climate change:

http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm

[orionabc]

If what you say is indeed correct, which it isnt, then at the very least, the scientist you refer to....who happen to be major players in the AGW debate.... have no idea what so ever as to how to perform basic statistical data reduction. I prefer to think they do and that they are being intentionally deceiptive. For evidence that they are cooking the data follow this link,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/

[Professor_Mandia]

The news varies depending on the political views of the organization but some blogs and newspapers/television claim that this hack has revealed that human caused global warming has been faked. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is my opinion:

To date, there has not been a single credible journal article that shows a natural cause for the modern day warming while also showing how record high greenhouse gas concentrations are not significant.

NOT ONE.

Do people really believe that the scientists at CRU are able to squelch every scientist on the planet who tried to publish this landmark anti-AGW paper? Is there no sense of the low probability and the large scale of this conspiracy for this to be true?

If one throws out the HadCRU data and all papers by these folks, there is still a mountain of evidence for AGW.

Do the rapidly melting ice sheets and glaciers have access to these emails and joined in on the conspiracy?

Do the various climate models that show GHGs as the dominant forcing mechanism have access to these emails and joined in on the conspiracy?

Do the GISS, UAH, RSS data that show global warming of approximately 0.2C per decade over the past 30 years have access to these emails and joined in on the conspiracy? Certainly Spencer and Christy who run UAH and are well-known skeptics of AGW would not align themselves with AGW and yet their satellite-derived measurements track reasonably with GISS, RSS, and HadCRU. (BTW, 2009 will likely end up being a Top 10 or Top 5 warmest year since 1850)

Does the ocean read these emails and magically increase its heat content?

Does the cooling stratosphere (even accounting for ozone loss) read the emails and join in on the hoax?

Do the plants and animals read these emails and decide to die off and/or change their migratory habits so that they can support the conspiracy?

I could go on ad infinitum.

For quite a long time, we have known that a doubling of CO2 will warm the climate at least 1C and there is fairly good certainty that the resulting feedbacks will produce at least 2C additional warming with 3C more likely. We are also measuring CO2 increases of 2 ppm and climbing (except last year where there was a slight decrease due to the global recession) and we have levels that have not been seen in the past 15 million years.

Are we to conclude that these emails deny all of this evidence?

There are many scientists from many fields that have published data that show the effects of global warming and why humans are the primary drivers of this warming. These scientists include some of the obvious: climatologists, meteorologists, geologists, modelers, and oceanographers. Some less obvious include: biologists, marine biologists, zoologists, chemists, astrophysicists, economists, environmental politics reasearchers, and others. I am quite confident that MANY of these folks have NEVER spoken to the CRU folks nor emailed them.

It is obvious that pre-Copenhagen, the tried and true method of ?if one does not like the message then attack the messenger or redirect the conversation? practiced by Big Tobacco and now ExxonMobil and their front groups (Heartland Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, etc.) is alive and well.

Scott A. Mandia ? Professor, Meteorologist, Concerned Citizen
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/

[PolicyThree]

Well-articulated and apparently beyond the grasp of most who have posted here. This is the country that sent men to the moon? Really? The incompetence of CBS and Ms. Dozier in particular is most stunning.

For instance, "the scientists added in measurements taken later by more modern instruments, which gave them the answer they wanted." No Ms. Dozier, no CBS, the scientists were looking for ways to verify data and mitigate known accuracy problems with tree rings. But thanks for mis-charactering what the emails actually mean. The word 'trick' is not used in the context of deception, but in the context of methodology. The funny thing about science is that there are great rewards for those who upend an established, well-supported theory, or a wild claim. The data is real and massive, and CBS would do well to issue a more critically reviewed, balanced revision of Ms. Dozier's reporting.

[wakeuplease]

I can't believe people are falling for all of this sky is falling rhetoric! Did everyone go mad?

The one sidedness and blind disregard for the opposing view in this argument is frightening. You global warming zealots can?t bring yourselves to even consider an alternative. Why don?t you all just try saying out loud to yourselves, ?I believe that if we all stop driving cars the weather will change??.say it few more times until you realize how absolutely ridicules you sound.

Personally I could care less if you believe it, I agree there is plenty of data to raise a concern, but it?s also entirely refutable, and in my view the opposition simply makes more sense. You have about as much control over the sun as you do your eminent death, which may or may not be caused by global warming. I simply do not buy, monetarily or spiritually into the notion that that my truck and generous use of paper towels is causing the globe to warm.

The people that are 100% hooked on this hocus pocus are really frightening to me. Can?t you see how your fears are being exploited for monetary gain? It?s sad to go through life believing everything you hear, I feel sorry for you. I imagine you would have been the same group of people burning witches at the stake in the 16th century. Are you going to start sacrificing virgins on hot summer?s days? Wake up please.

[PolicyThree]

It's funny that the vast majority of people who think Global Warming doesn't exist do so for political reasons, or because they simply "do not but" it. Or, because massive volumes of scientific data seems similar to the beliefs that lead to "burning witches". Maybe you're right, WAKEUPPLEASE, but the vast majority of scientists, with no vested political interest, don't think so, and given the 'depth' of evidence you say leads you to refute global warming, your post and your screen name amount to hilarious irony. Read this again in a decade or two.

[deteoj]

OK, so now it's global warming, it was global cooling in the '70s, for God's sake Chesapeake Bay froze solid in 1977! The science was "settled" then too and global cooling was all the rage then among the bed wetters!

I think global warming started in the '80s when it started to get warmer. For such a complex issue, there is simply no way in hell that all the data could be in on this issue in only the last thirty years, absolutely not a chance.

Furthermore, the CRU folks and the others will not archive and make available their raw data for peer review, so there is no such thing as peer reviewed studies, NOT ONE Professor Mandia, go chew on that for awhile. Read the studies then ask for the data archive's from these scientists or from their publishers, ask to see the statistical analysis that shows their data is relevant to or in other words "does it correlate" well with their conclusions? This lack of data archival and correlation analysis is just shoddy science, it is always given in medical journal articles. And yes they were fudging charts they showed to the world, some recent annual mean temperatures here in North America are cooler than the year 1900 and with the tree ring data was trending down they grafted on the instrument data, did you know this? Nice and easy isn't it when you can pick and choose the data from whatever sources?

And there is no way to explain the sharp cooling from 1940 to 1970's in the face of rising CO2 levels. In fact the IPCC has yet to remove the cooling attributed to the little ice age that ended in 1900, so all our real instrument data started in the coldest era in the last 8000 years, Then means there is no where to go but up in temperature. They don't remove this bias why?

Science has always been political and or for personal gain, we should be suspicious of anyone that says we can control the temperature of the earth.

Surely they have been at this now long enough to predict the temperature for next year or next month, for any given place on this earth? Have you heard of this being done, their models should be cranking out these predictions right and left with precision, Right!