Unsurprising silence on scandalous corruption of science

It was about two years ago that I mentioned in this space a very important story that was being entirely ignored by the mainstream, which is to say ragingly liberal, media. It had to do with the release of email messages from the leading climate "scientists" in which many of their claims were shown to be knowingly fraudulent.

It was pretty much ignored or poo-poohed by The New York Times and its smaller-media lickspittles who as always were eager to sing Times karaoke. Now there's been a second release, even more damning and it is again being ignored. As with the previous one, the cache of emails comes from the scientist-politicians at the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia in England, and others working with them. Here's a sample:

"What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They'll kill us probably." So much for the "consensus" among scientists.

Here's one, addressed to Phil Jones, who ran the CRU: "Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest." Didn't happen, though.

There is discussion of a paper co-written by Jones and Michael Mann of Penn State: "I'm sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don't want to be associated with that 2000-year 'reconstruction'."

(Following the first release of damning papers, Mann was investigated by Penn State and was given a clean bill of health. That ought to make us all breath easier, no?)

Indeed, here is a note to Mann from one of his colleagues: "Mike, The figure you sent is very deceptive… There have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC." IPCC is the United Nations's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and co-winner, with Al Gore, of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Another message about Mann: " I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly can not be defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the science move ahead."

And from Mann himself: "… the important thing is to make sure they're loosing [sic] the PR battle." This in reference to those who do not drink the global warming koolaid, chief among them Stephen McIntyre, who disproved Mann's so-called hockey-stick "proof" of global warming by measuring tree rings. McIntyre is mentioned in 941 of the 5,000 emails released.

Alas. In a note one of the scientists describes putting McIntyre's assertions to the test: "I thought I'd play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I could 'reconstruct' northern hemisphere temperatures. The reconstructions clearly show a 'hockey-stick' trend. I guess this is precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre [sic] has been going on about."

Some of us who are skeptical of the assertions of human-caused climate change have noted that before industrialization the same variations happened, caused by cycles of the sun. This has been vehemently denied — publicly. Privately, though, there's this: "[I]t seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from the sun alone."

It goes on and on, and it becomes clear that there is nothing at all settled about global warming "science," except that it isn't science at all: "I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run," wrote Peter Thorne, then of the British meteorological office and now of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

The emails delve into how to hide things from freedom of information requests: "I've been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts," wrote Phil Jones. "One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 [IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report] would be to delete all emails at the end of the process."

Imagine if a right-wing outfit were caught trying to do that? The screaming would echo far and wide. Yet to the extent there's been coverage at all, it's been "nothing to see here, move along. Scientists being scientists. Out of context. Bla bla bla. Oh, look a squirrel!"

What you've heard is that "climate change" is caused by people and we'll all die, Die! DIE! A lot of advocates of this position have grown very rich capitalizing on those fears. You've contributed to the wealth of some of them, such as whoever ended up with the half-billion of your dollars given by the Obama administration — with much fanfare — to the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar-panel company.

Or such as Al Gore, who does not seem to have reduced his carbon fatprint in the slightest. There's potential profit for him even in these new disclosures.

For instance, he could re-release his, um, documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

This time with a laugh track.

Editor's note: Dennis E. Powell was an award-winning reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio and becoming a full-time crackpot. His column appears on Mondays. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com.