Climate Scientists Cleared
Not that this will matter to the educationally challenged.
A British panel issued a sweeping exoneration on Wednesday of scientists caught up in the controversy known as Climategate, saying it found no evidence that they had manipulated their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming.
John Cole states that the damage is already done, and I tend to agree. The blame for these lies gaining traction falls on our lazy press – who become breathless over controversy and bored over facts. Because, let’s face it, gathering facts and educating yourself on a subject is hard work. And why bother to do the work when you can simply interview some loudmouth wearing a flag shirt and carrying a don’t tread on me sign? And by raising a faux debate between leading climatologists and conservatives who point to snow outside their window as “scientific” evidence the media doesn’t even break a sweat. But hey, those climate-change deniers sure are entertaining.
That said, I wouldn’t count on this story getting as much coverage as all those Congressmen building snowmen in DC with their families. Really sad.
Tags: Climate Change
From the report:
“On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.”
More:
“In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.”
Data manipulation?
“On the allegation of withholding [land station] temperature data, we find that CRU was not in a position to withhold access to such data or tamper with it. We demonstrated that any independent researcher can download station data directly from primary sources and undertake their own temperature trend analysis.”
More:
“We do not find that the way that data derived from tree rings is described and presented in IPCC AR4 and shown in its Figure 6.10 is misleading.”
Read it yourself: http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
It’s a zombie lie that will live on.
It’s summer now, so we have about 3 more months of quiet before the deniers start pointing out winter weather.
… while conveniently ignoring this heatwave. Just looking for a bit of consistency.
i seem to recall that in the last week there was also the announcement that the Penn State researcher was similarly cleared.
http://live.psu.edu/story/47378 for penn state researcher story
Thanks for posting that link… especially since our media will ignore the story.
One caveat: This review was paid for by the EAU. That’s like all those “smoking doesn’t cause cancer” studies paid for by the tobacco industry.
Here is an interesting article about David Eyton and The panel’s connection to BP and big oil.