The CRU hack
More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.
Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.
Dream of money-bags tonight by scientist David Horton
Just two weeks from Copenhagen the British Climate Research Unit computers are hacked, their emails downloaded and sent off into Deniaworld. There, just as in the lead up to the Iraq War, words are cherry picked, context removed, common sense abandoned, outrage simulated, war declared, counter views demonised. Vials of imaginary anthrax are displayed, trucks become mobile laboratories, aluminum tubes become nuclear bombs, rockets are ready to launch at New York in ten minutes.
And suddenly, it seems, temperatures are no longer rising, the Arctic is no longer melting, glaciers don't retreat, droughts don't happen, record temperatures are no longer set, marine acidity doesn't increase, sea levels don't rise, plants don't flower at different times, birds don't breed at different times, firestorms no longer erupt.
It was, apparently, all just a dream.
