Stolen E-Mails Embolden Climate Skeptics

(AP)  At a critical time, the uproar over stolen e-mails suggesting scientists suppressed contrary views about climate change has emboldened skeptics including U.S. congressional Republicans looking to scuttle President Barack Obama's push for mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases.

The e-mail brouhaha dubbed "Climategate" by doubters comes as U.S. delegates to the international climate conference in Copenhagen are trying to convince the world the United States is determined to move aggressively to rein in heat-trapping pollution. To counter the delegates, a group of Republican lawmakers is going to Copenhagen to argue against mandatory greenhouse gas reductions.

The climate skeptics gained political momentum when former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Obama should boycott the negotiations in Denmark and "not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices" a clear reference to the purloined e-mails from computers belonging to scientists at a British climate research center.

Obama is going anyway.

Former Vice President Al Gore, the most recognized U.S. voice on climate change, quickly rebutted Palin and accused the climate deniers in an interview with CNN television of "taking things out of context and misrepresenting" what the e-mails actually said. On Thursday, more than 1,700 British scientists released a statement saying they continue to have "the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities."

That has not stopped Republican members of Congress, two dozen of whom sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon demanding that he investigate the e-mails. Republican lawmakers say they will loudly and often raise questions about what they consider a corruption of climate science at the Denmark conference, where delegates from 192 nations are trying to forge a climate agreement.

It all began when hackers broke into a computer system belonging to a highly respected climate research center at Britain's University of East Anglia, stole several thousand e-mails spanning a decade between some of the worlds leading climate scientists, and three weeks ago put some of the spiciest ones on the Internet.

One referred to using a "trick" that could be used to "hide the decline" of temperatures. Another disparaged the skeptics, and a scientist said "the last thing I need is news articles claiming to question temperature increases."

Yet another complained about "getting hassled by a couple of people" to release temperature data that suggests uncertainties about climate change.

"Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act," Phil Jones, the director of climate research unit, wrote in one e-mail.

Jones, who temporarily stepped aside as unit director as an investigation into the matter proceeds, has said the comments have been taken out of context and there never was an intent to manipulate data.

Opponents of legislation before Congress to cap heat-trapping emissions and cut them as much as 17 percent by 2020 have seized on the e-mail disclosures and are likely to use them not only at the Copenhagen talks, but also in the Senate debate of climate change early next year.

"These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy," insisted Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican and longtime climate skeptic who is among a group of party lawmakers heading for Copenhagen.

"We now have thousands of e-mails showing several of the U.N.'s top scientists apparently evading laws requiring transparency, defaming scientists with opposing viewpoints, and manipulating data to fit preconceived opinions," declared Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican and another leading climate skeptic in Congress, also going to Copenhagen.

Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said she is not surprised by the recent e-mail uproar.

"The closer you get to actually doing something about this problem the more shrill and the more dogmatic the skeptics become because they are trying their hardest to stand in front of a train essentially," said Claussen.

Earlier this week, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that the agency had concluded, based on science, that greenhouse gases are public health threat and should be regulated. "The vast body of evidence not only remains unassailable, it has grown even stronger," she said.

Rep. Ed Markey, a Democrat and the co-author of the House-passed climate legislation, said the hacked e-mails scandal was being perpetuated by a "paid-for" coalition of deniers who are using it to distract from the action the U.S. and world should be taking.

"These small number of deniers are out there still trying to derail something the rest of the world sees as an imperative for action," Markey said.

[actornaught]

I like the part about teasack corporate dupes are protecting the big businesses that stand to lose the most, should we get the USA and other world economies to shift towards more sensible energy choices.

It's all about the money. As with any change in any element of an economy, there's winners, and there's losers. And existing corp's want to keep their stack of money.

If you consider fox comedians & rush to be sources of information, you've been punked.

[jankebenzone]

Scientists have ben caught fudging the numbers at the prodding of their financial political supporters to uphold
their agendas and yet some still believe the climate change baloney. Now thats really laughable, looking more foolish every day you keep this up.

[doctor_know]

They were not caught fudging the number! They were caught talking loosely about their colleagues...

[ubrew12]

Since 1950, the atmosphere has heated up about 8 zettajoules (a zettajoule is 10^21 joules). Yes this is taken from the surface temperature record, CRU produces one of these, but due to ClimateGate this is suspect (according to deniers). GISS also produces one. NCDC also produces one. And I believe the Japanese also produce an independent estimate of the surface temperature record. These all largely match to produce the dreaded hockey stick.

Heck, lets assume they are ALL invalid. Lets turn them upside down and assume the atmosphere has actually COOLED by 8 zettajoules since 1950. Since 1950, the ocean has heated up about 210 zettajoules. So, the difference with having the surface temperature record right side up, or upside down, is the difference between 218 zettajoules, and 202 zettajoules. Both in the direction of heating. 'Global warming' is dependent on ocean temperatures, not surface temperatures, and especially not on CRU's calculations or miscalculations.

So, when people say that ClimateGate is the 'end of global warming' can you understand why some of us are laughing??

[troutfishyman]

by rainbowroosie December 11, 2009 11:54 AM EST
None of you seem interested in finding out what really is occurring/not occurring. I neither believe nor disbelieve in the global warming thesis. Notice I said "thesis." If scientists can PROVE this thesis I will believe.


What proof would you accept?

[j_mcdonald-2009]

It's a trick. Since scientists never prove any theory, roosie will never need to believe ANYTHING science has to offer.

[rainbowroosie]

None of you seem interested in finding out what really is occurring/not occurring. I neither believe nor disbelieve in the global warming thesis. Notice I said "thesis." If scientists can PROVE this thesis I will believe. Unfortunately, the scientists supporting global warming adopted very poor metrics and methodologies and exclude dissenting opinions and data from their assessment. If you want to convince the open minded people, PROVE what you are saying don't state it as a fact.

[troutfishyman]

by luadda22 December 10, 2009 10:58 PM EST
CO2 is not a pollutant. With out it we all die.


The Supreme Court differs with your opinion, LOL!

[luadda22]

trout, The Supreme Court did not state that CO2 was a pollutant. Justice John Paul Stevens said the only way the agency could "avoid taking further action" now is "if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change" or provides a good explanation why it cannot or will not find out whether they do. But let's just say they did, Congress should pass a law outlawing CO2 (of course if they did we would all have to stop breathing, but that's another story), and if Mother Earth did not eliminate it from our atmosphere by 2020, we take her to court and sue her!!

[doctor_know]

... and with too much of it we all die!

[oneriot1rang]

Actually Palin's response to the "gravity" BS is pretty good:

Newser) ? Sarah Palin says Al Gore was wrong to call her a climate change ?denier,? even though she doesn?t think humans are ?primarily responsible? for global warming. Asked about a Palin op-ed that called for President Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate change summit, Gore replied, ?Deniers are persisting in an era of unreality. ? It?s a principle in physics. It?s like gravity. It exists.?

A Facebook post on Palin's page countered, ?Perhaps he?s right. Climate change is like gravity?a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it.? She said she wasn?t a ?denier? because she does believe in climate change but not that humans cause it. She concluded that Climategate threw doubt on the ?larger method? scientists were using, characterizing their findings as ?flawed, falsified or inconclusive.?

[doctor_know]

She is wrong again.
Gore was referring to the greenhouse effect, not global warming, when he made the comparison to gravity. The greenhouse effect is the physical process underlying global warming.

[Noval53]

The climate change / global warming scam has been exposed for the lie that it is. The scam denialists will now do everything possible to cover up the lie, with new bogus research, manipulated data, and dire predictions of doom & gloom; unless we pay big bucks now. Hang on to your wallets as members of the climate change cult church in Copenhagen scheme to make donations mandatory for us all. The giant chicken little scam might work; if enough fools fall for it.

[rwsmith29456]

In general, cutting pollution can't be a bad thing even if the global warming thing is a crock.

[luadda22]

CO2 is not a pollutant. With out it we all die.

[doctor_know]

.... and with too much CO2 we also all die. Many things are safe at certain levels and harmful at higher levels.

[ubrew12]

Everyone has an opinion we should trust on the Climate, except the Climatologists. This is just as Exxon would want it. If you get rid of the experts, what is left is whoever can shout the loudest, and that, frankly, is Exxon.

What's worse, none of the emails indicates anything amiss.

[luadda22]

And I thought it was the right-wing nuts that believed in all the conspiracy theories. The tree-huggers and environmental whackos do not have an agenda; therefore it must be ?big oil?.