21.11.09 | 23:55 | Uncategorized 2 Comments

Hackers and deniers

AFP PHOTO/NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY

AFP PHOTO/NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY

Yesterday, hundreds of emails and other documents hacked from the University of East Anglia leaked online. The emails, some of them up to 13 years old, were accessed at the university's Climate Research Unit renowned for the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change. The emails, many by prominent international climate researchers, exchange and  discuss scientific data, release procedures - and they also discuss how to combat and debase arguments of climate sceptics and deniers. Well, sometimes this was expressed in quite derisive terms.

The story first broke on a blog called the Air Vent, a blog some consider sceptical regarding human made climate change. Sceptics are having a field day. Mike Morano, of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth fame,  has filled his denialist site climatedepot.com with every allegation imaginable. James Delingpole from the Daily Telegraph blares: Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of  'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?Fox commentator and bloggger Michelle Malkin calls it: The global warming scandal of the century.

However, the New York Times quoted several scientists whose names appear in the e-mail messages. They

said they merely revealed that scientists were human, and did nothing to undercut the body of research on global warming.

True, some of those emails are quite juicy. But do they really debunk the general consensus about man-made climate change, refute thousands of research papers, melt glaciers, bring on droughts and floods and reveal the conspiracy against sceptics? Up to you and your common sense...

2 Comments »

  1. [...] of hundreds of emails sent by scientists in its climate research unit, writes the Guardian (see previous post). However,  while some scientists calles for an investigation into the theft, others think this [...]

    Pingback by Swiftboating the swiftboaters? « East of Eden — November 24, 2009 @ 5:09 pm

  2. [...] East Anglia in England, has stepped down. He stands at the center of  "Climategate" the affair of thousands of emails between climate scientists that were hacked from the computer of the renowned  British research unit.  Their release  has triggered a heated [...]

    Pingback by In the eye of the storm « East of Eden — December 2, 2009 @ 12:17 pm

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