Climate-gate or Email-gate?

December 3, 2009

THE scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”. Professor Ian Plimer condemned the climate change lobby as “climate comrades” keeping the “gravy train” going. But Barbara Boxer calls the latest news Email-gate.

In a controversial talk just days before the start of a climate summit attended by world leaders in Copenhagen, Prof. Plimer said Governments were treating the public like “fools” and using climate change to increase taxes. He said carbon dioxide has had no impact on temperature and that recent warming was part of the natural cycle of climate stretching over ¬billions of years.

Can fraudulently constructed data be SCIENCE?

Ah, but if you are “wanting” global warming then it’s not the FRAUD committed by the scientists that matters, but the FRUAD committed by those who HACKED into the computers: maybe a new form of “Whistleblowers”?

Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the recently released e-mails, showing scientists allegedly overstating the case for climate change, should be treated as a crime. “You call it ‘Climate-gate’; I call it ‘E-mail-theft-gate,’” she said during a committee meeting. “Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I’m looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public.”

Prof Plimer – author of Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, The Missing Science – told a London audience: “Climates always change. They always have and they always will. They are driven by a number of factors that are random and cyclical.” His comments came days after a scandal in climate-change research emerged through the leak of emails from the world-leading research unit at the University of East Anglia. They appeared to show that scientists had been massaging data to prove that global warming was taking place

And what’s up with the document shredding?

The Climate Research Unit also admitted getting rid of much of its raw climate data, which means other scientists cannot check the subsequent research. Last night the head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, said he would stand down while an independent review took place.

Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation. He said: “Carbon dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher in the past. CO2 cannot be driving global warming now. “In the past we have had rapid and significant climate change with temperature changes greater than anything we are measuring today. They are driven by processes that have been going on since the beginning of time.”

It’s not exactly the kind of news Obama wanted as he prepares to go to Copenhagen. But of course in these days, nothing seems to be good news for Barack.

Written by Ernie · Filed Under Daily Commentary