A year on from Climategate

Posted 16th November 2010

In the run up to Copenhagen, a selection of documents, files and emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were leaked onto the internet.  When what came to be known as Climategate could no longer be ignored, the man-made global warming supporters swung into action.  Numerous “talking heads” were trotted out to confirm that nothing in the emails invalidated the science underpinning the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) and it mustn’t delay progress at Copenhagen.  Fortunately, for most of us, it did derail Copenhagen but in an increasingly febrile atmosphere the epithet “denier” was hurled at anyone suggesting that something is rotten in the state of climate science.

The various inquiries into Climategate studiously failed to expose the extent to which the IPCC process had been hijacked by a coterie of climate scientists and their supporters.  The man-made global warming narrative remained intact in the media in spite of various IPCC’s alarmist claims being proven as false.

However, little by little the “climate change” edifice is crumbling, aided and abetted by a particularly savage winter across the Northern Hemisphere in spite of the Met Office’s confident prediction to the contrary.

In the US, President Obama struggled in vain to put “cap and trade” on the agenda, while trading in carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange slumped (it will cease trading credits at the end of this year).  Al Gore pocketed $18 million from the sale of his shares in the exchange earlier this year (and Goldman Sachs considerably more).   Gore sold once he learned an inconvenient truth: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Meanwhile, in Europe, credits on the European Climate Exchange continue to be supported by binding agreements to reduce emissions.    But people’s faith in the establishment view has been, and is being, shaken.  Already fraudulent trading, on the European exchange, in Chinese emission certificates has been uncovered.  The withdrawal of government subsidies for solar power threatens to bankrupt farmers in Spain.   Citizens are increasingly hostile to wind farms “in their backyard” and suspicious of nuclear power.

It is against this background that a more open debate on climate change science is taking place in the blogosphere.  Immediately following the revelations of Climategate a prominent IPCC scientist, Dr Judith Curry,  spoke out in the blogosphere questioning the IPCC process and practices revealed in the CRU emails.

Dr Curry has engaged with sceptics and on her recently launched blog issued the following invitation: “I hope that each of you will post something on your background, how you became interested in climate science, and what/how you have been learning.   You might want to briefly discuss your stance on an issue that you regard as important (or provide a link to your “defining” blog posts). If you have a blog or a professional web site, please provide a link.”   If you think sceptics are right wing-nuts funded by big-oil, go and have a look: http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/12/the-denizens-of-climate-etc/#more-1065

Judith Curry has broadened the climate science debate and is to be applauded for her courage and integrity.  She speaks truth to power, a rarity amongst “insiders” in this day and age.