I have to admit I haven’t spent enough time fully take in this rather lengthy blog post by Judith Curry — Legacy of Climategate – 10 Years Later. (from November 2019) Mainly because it has A LOT of information about the genesis and history of climate alarmism. I have covered some of this information in my last few blog posts, but Curry’s post peels the whole onion.
Climategate is in reference to the uncovering that climate scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK had deleted, then fudged climate data and then lied about it, presenting climate papers to the IPCC based on this knowingly falsified data. Once outed, there was sufficient evidence and concern that five inquiries or investigations were conducted by, respectively, The UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, The Oxburgh panel, the Independent Climate Change Emails Review under Sir Muir Russell, Penn State University and the InterAcademy Council. The first three were established in the UK and focused on scientists at the CRU. The fourth was focused on our friend, Mr Climate Hockey Stick, Michael Mann of Penn State University. The fifth was commissioned by the IPCC itself as a review of its policies and procedures.
Curry references a paper by Ross McKitrick, Professor of Environmental Economics at Guelph University, Understanding the Climategate Inquiries. (The link is to a Word document).
The net finding of these inquiries is that there was a conspiracy and collusion to fraudulently fake and then misrepresent climate data, which coincidentally provided research-based “evidence” of global warming. Fancy that. Didn’t see that coming.
Its mind-boggling how vast this climate hysteria conspiracy is. Its not like what has been going on has been a secret. Rather it is A Big Lie. But progressives in the climate science community, aided and abetted by MSM, have succeeding in shouting down and censoring critics. Ahh, yes, the Cancel Culture, the progressive’s grim reaper, will come for anyone that challenges THE NARRATIVE. The word for that is fascism.
p.s. I did learn something very interesting in this. For his “seminal” hockey stick analysis in the mid-’90s, Michael Mann used an algorithm which mined data for hockey-stick shaped series (i.e. it specifically looked for correlations in the data which formed a hockey stick when graphed). The algorithm was so powerful that it could produce hockey-stick shaped “reconstructions” from auto-correlated red noise (i.e. randomly generated data). Mann failed to disclose the use of the algorithm for his climate work, even into 2004. Small wonder he failed to reveal the algorithm in his defamation suit in British Columbia, which he lost for failure to produce court ordered data and methodology. As a result of the loss in his defamation suit, Mann is a wholly discredited climate charlatan.
update 240120: Speaking of Mann, watch Hide The Decline: A Climategate Backgrounder. Dr. John Robson looks back on the 10th anniversary of the exposure of the scandalous “Climategate” decision to delete awkward data that contradicted the idea that settled science said we face a man-made global warming crisis. IPCC cannot be trusted. It was clearly complicit in developing and promoting Climate Alarmism to suit their agenda, not the science. Conceal data that counter their narrative, slice and dice the data to suit the narrative. Their narrative? Climate is warming and the change is man-made = climate crisis … NOT! Fake data, fraudulent science. Wake up! Video from December 6, 2019