Times are not too kind to global warming advocates. Besieged by reports of data falsification and shoddy academic work, they are facing a crisis of credibility which, to use their rhetoric, might well be of “apocalyptic” proportions. One case in point is Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) housed at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. Until recently, Jones basked in the limelight of the world media for having sounded the alarm about the rise in temperature due to anthropological global warming coming from First World industrialized countries. He was hailed as the environmental “savior.” Not any more.
A Convenient Truth
Today, the limelight may be a little too bright for Phil Jones. He is at the epicenter of Climategate, a scandal that started after CRU emails were hacked and published all over world. The result was a global meltdown of the CRU position as blatant falsification of data and cover-ups were exposed. The world now knows the truth, not just the spin.
Those close to Jones say he needs medication to get through the day or fall asleep. He has considered suicide, shakes often and is noticeably more pale than normal. There is no doubt he has aged considerably since this whole affair went public. He is the object of online cutting remarks, provocative insults and even death threats. He spends most of his time sitting in on hearings held by an investigative commission at the University of East Anglia, and in British Parliament that is now scrutinizing his work.
This is the man who only short while ago went on record as saying: “I am 100 percent confident that the climate has warmed. I did not manipulate or fabricate any data.” He further claims that the “average temperature on earth rose by 0.166 degrees Celsius per decade between 1975 and 1998.” Now, no one trusts him anymore. Having played politician, he fed the world bad or shoddy data based on his agenda, he no doubt feels the wrath of a public that has suspiciously viewed “global warming” as nothing more than the junk science they always suspected it was.
Shoddy Work and Intentional Spin
Phil Jones is not alone. Behind the efforts of his CRU, is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a U.N. sanctioned organization that does not carry out its own original research, or monitor climate or related phenomena itself.
The organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Former Vice President Al Gore in 2007.
IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has long echoed the alarmist declarations of the global warming crowd. He warns, for example, of the risk of not taking action: “Every year of delay implies a commitment to greater climate change in the future.” However, the methodology and assessments of the IPCC have long been questioned. The organization has admitted, for example, that it falsely asserted that all of the Himalayan glaciers would be completely melted by the year 2035. Yet another report found that an IPCC’s panel wrongly said that more than half of the Netherlands would be below sea level.Still others complain that the agency frequently uses “grey literature” data that has not been scientifically verified.
While the panel has brushed off such glacier meltdown errors as minor, there is a growing consensus that the climate research establishment has been corrupted by politicization. Remarks by IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, calling scientific evidence criticizing the IPCC as “voodoo science,” have not set well with the public in general, and have given the skeptics exactly what they are looking for.
It is no wonder that the U.N. has appointed a council comprised of a coalition of 15 national academies of science that will review the shoddy work of the IPCC. But, one might ask, who will watch the watchdogs?
The charges of politicization are not without some foundation. All too frequently, the industrialized nations come out badly in these studies while less developed nations will definitely profit. There are certainly incentives beyond scientific research for reaching the right conclusions.
Cap and trade policy is now big business. Nations like the Maldive islands, for example, could gain much aid from an alarmist perspective of a dramatic rising of sea levels. Perhaps that is why President Mohamed Nasheed has accused the U.S. of engaging in intrigue to make climatology appear ridiculous, even calling such criticism “a diabolical plan.”
Junk Science in Need of Recycling
Climategate could not have come at a more inconvenient time for the green agenda. Like the freezing winter storm that marked the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December of 2009, the scandal has put a chilling damper on the global warming advocacy. The discrediting of the IPCC and similar groups has even led to the abandoning of their “global warming” mantra for a more generic “climate change.” It is evident, that which was once regarded as highly publicized research, has now become junk science in need of recycling.