Screw Science I have an agenda!

Back about the time I got out of the US Navy and returned to New England there was a threat to the environment that was a daily staple of the news, the threat of acid rain. We were told acid rain would strip the mountains of the northeast of trees within 20 years; the forest was dying we must act now! While government regulation moved to clean up the heavy sulfur emissions that primarily originated in the older coal burning power plants of the midwest that effort was eventually stalled as congress after congress 'grandfathered' those plants and the pollution continued unabated. Over time news coverage of acid rain disappeared. Small wonder since it has been nearly 30 years and I can tell you not only are the forests intact, they are thriving.

In the mid 1970's we were warned about the world ending environmental catastrophe, caused by man's reckless disregard for the environment, the coming ice age spurred on by the use of aerosol spray deodorants and similar products. Yet that too slipped from public view as it failed to engage the imagination of the ignorant masses. Acid rain and global cooling were replaced by global warming. I believed, lord knows I believed! As an outdoorsman, an avid fly fisherman in pursuit of cold water species I saw in global warming the demise of my sport. I identified every lousy fishing season with global warming AND acid rain AND the ozone hole. I set out to read as much as I possibly could about global warming to better educate myself on the implications. The problem was the more I read the more I detected a troubling trend. Those who believed that humans were causing warming were adamant that "the science" was settled. Red flag! Anytime a scientist claims the 'science is settled' it's a sure sign he's no longer a scientist he's become a true believer. They were shrill in denouncing those scientists that disagreed. In that shrillness I began to detect themes, themes that began to look more like a propaganda campaign than science. The scientists who questioned the theory seemed to be advocating scientific method, those who endorsed the theory seemed to produce studies but it became apparent that they were refusing to share their raw data; defeating any possibility of substantial peer review. The media picked up the cry. Then the UN endorsed global warming hysteria. Yet we knew the very models that were being used to predict a grim future for humanity were simplistic and unable to predict the known past. I discovered the little ice age, the medieval warm period and other things that had been glossed over by team warming. The most troubling thing was that the solution to global warming advocated by those who claim it was real and caused by humans was no less than a surrender of individual freedom and a massive wealth transfer from the richer developed west to the poorer undeveloped world, with people like Al Gore selling carbon indulgences and skimming a percentage of the trade all while using their credibility to help sell the hyperbole.

I've read with increasing fascination, how the global warming hysterics have found themselves in a bit of a pickle. This article is well worth the read because it covers the salient points of the scandal and doesn't sugar coat the implications of the fraud.

For years, the left has spun the debate over global warming in the starkest Manichean terms. Those who disagree with the scientific and policy orthodoxy have been maligned as greedy capitalists bent on raping the earth of its natural resources for cheap material gain; they have been cast as the benighted enemies of reason itself. Efforts to publicly challenge the science behind global warming have too often resulted in professional and political character assassination. To be skeptical about the fashionable scientific and policy platform aggressively advocated by the mainstream media and self-indulgently championed by the Hollywood elite is nothing less than an “assault on reason,” to borrow Al Gore’s hyperbolic rhetoric. In predictably technocratic fashion, the left has claimed its own peculiar position as the only scientifically legitimate one—everything else reduces to craven interest, manifest dishonesty, or antiquarian faith.

However, maintaining this self-serving narrative just got a lot harder. In the last few days, the cause of climate alarmism took a big hit when more than a thousand e-mails exchanged by scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climactic Research Unit (CRU) suddenly surfaced online. These e-mails were published by the computer hackers who apparently stole them, a crime that should be investigated and prosecuted. But notwithstanding the e-mails’ route to publication, their actual content is extraordinary. These behind-the-scenes discussions among leading global-warming exponents are remarkable both in their candor and in their sheer contempt for scientific objectivity. There can be little doubt after even a casual perusal that the scientific case for global warming and the policy that springs from it are based upon a volatile combination of political ideology, unapologetic mendacity, and simmering contempt for even the best-intentioned disagreement. Especially in anticipation of the major climate summit taking place in Copenhagen next month, the significance of this explosive disclosure is hard to underestimate. According to climatologist Patrick J. Michaels, “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud.”

A couple of other interesting takes on this from PJM
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-alarmism-is-underpinned-by-fraud-pjm-exclusive/
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/deconstructing-climategates-smoking-gun-email/

The entire facade is deconstructing, Al Gore's investments in carbon indulgences look self serving, his Nobel is as meaningless as Obama's. These people are criminals who distorted science in order to sell one of the largest wealth transfer schemes in history but I expect the majority of the media who apparently signed on for the effort will continue in their attempts to turf the story.