The Hockey Stick Graph

Al Gore just announced he has canceled his $1,200 per person speaking engagement at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this week.  His press secretary said he had “unforeseen schedule changes”. Perhaps Mr. Gore’s decision not to go to Copenhagen is coincidental.  However, it may be due to the cloud that has been cast by the recent “Climategate” release of emails and documents by internet hackers who accessed the world’s leading climate research center.

In case you haven’t heard of this important but little reported story, Phil Jones, the prominent head of the University of East Anglia’s research department, has stepped aside as Director because the situation is under investigation. Mr. Jones was a key player in building the United Nation’s argument that humans are behind global warming.

The emails in question suggest that there was a concerted effort by some scientists to collude in exaggerating warming data, organize resistance to those with opposing views, destroy information which could undermine the global warming theory, and manipulate data. Below you’ll see a small sample of these emails:

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

“Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”  “I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming but the data are surely wrong”

Now none of this is to say that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is not true.  Frankly, I have no idea whether humans are a major cause of global weather changes.

What concerns me is science and scientist becoming “married” to particular theories or agendas…and then advancing those agendas based on nonscientific findings. This is an affront to the very concept of the scientific method.

Stake holding advocates with political/monetary agendas told us repeatedly that the “scientific community” had affirmed the science of global warming and that there was virtual unanimity of the issue. Those that were unconvinced as to the truth of the matter were scoffed at.

What makes modernity and the advent of western science so compelling is the focus on facts and finding truth.  In a world of spin, politics and big money influencing decisions, hard science needs to be a harbor where truth prevails whatever its direction.

The Climategate scandal is important more for the possible corruption of the purity of science itself……than whether it stains the argument for man-made global warming.

Michael Mann, the originator of the discredited hockey stick graph, the famous data compilation which purported to show a large spike in global temperatures, is now under investigation from his employer (University of Pennsylvania) because of things he wrote in the recently publicized Climategate emails.  The hockey stick graph was a key piece of evidence in the United Nations 2001 IPCC’s Global Warming report which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr.Gore.

The world is discussing undertaking an enormous investment in an attempt to change the planet’s future temperature.  By trying to conceal data that argued against global warming, and shutting up those that disagreed with the dominant paradigm, some scientists seem to have betrayed the very principles which makes science such a unique and vital pursuit.

Galileo

Four centuries ago Galileo was imprisoned by religious authorities for opining a Sun-centered theory of the solar system.  The reality was religion and science were able to co-exist happily with the truth.  Whether humans are instrumental in effecting Earth’s climate…or whether we actually have very little to do with temperature changes….mankind will be able to co-exist with the truth.

Perhaps those that worship at the alter of scientific agendas should take a page from the new testament. John 8:32 “then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”.