Monday, November 23, 2009

The global warming crowd is in big trouble

I have long been a skeptic on the issue of whether global warming was a man-made phenomenon. The cause of skeptics has now been hugely advanced by the spectacular hacking of the email and data archives of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Center. John Hinderaker of Powerline sums up the current state of affairs thusly:

Climate science is in its infancy, and every proposition is controversial. What climate scientists like those at East Anglia don't know dwarfs what they do know. They can produce a model for every occasion, but are the models any good? If so, which one? One thing we know for sure is that they don't generate reliable predictions. In every scientific field other than global warming, a scientific hypothesis that generates false predictions is considered disproved. When it comes to global warming, however, there is no such thing as falsification. Which is the ultimate evidence that the alarmist scientists are engaged in a political enterprise, not a scientific one.

This can only be good news for the economy, since it means that the scientific community has virtually no proof for the proposition that we must effectively roll back the industrial revolution in order to "save the planet." An extremely important inflection point has been achieved in the past few days. The burden of proof is now on the politicians, and they have no way to defend themselves.

UPDATE: Here is a very good summary of the issues as of Nov. 24th, written by CBS correspondent Declan McCullagh. This story just keeps getting bigger.
UPDATE: Now the London Times tells us that the original data disappeared long ago.

14 comments:

  1. I'll be surprised if they're in "big trouble". There are an awful lot of true believers. My bet is that they'll just throw the CRU people under a bus, and continue on as if nothing has happened.

    But I do hope you're right.

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  2. The True Believers, those who use cult like behaviors (deniers! you heretics to the true faith!) will ignore this. It's just those deniers again.

    Those who see power in this to stampede people to their political agenda will ignore this. They always knew this was a phony excuse for their action. So it's still phony. So what?

    Those who see an enormous amount of money in global warming will ignore this. Do yuo think this little inconvenient truth will stop Al Gore's $100,000,000 carbon trading brokerage scheme?

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  3. everybody can do what he/she want but I do care about effects of me using lots of energy and I do try to waste as little of it as possible. Regardless of someones research and hacking skills. Our kids will live in this world and hopefully will be able to use as much energy as we do

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  4. Mr. Grannis:

    These three recent references have plenty of additional information to support your post:

    http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/cru-gate-climate-conspiracy-or-much-ado.html

    http://www.americansforprosperity.org/files/Policy_Paper_0909_0.pdf

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/with-hurricanes-at-thirty-year-low-gore-turns-to-photoshop.html

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  5. I would side with Bret. I think it's been clear for a long time that the global warming crusade hasn't had any good science behind it -- but the crusade continues, gathering strength through it's religious converts.

    Look at our state of contemporary economics. People at the highest levels continue to make economic policy based on obviously incorrect ideas. Their policies fail time after time, but they prescribe nothing but more of the same.

    At least the climate change charlatans won't have to confront their obvious failures for decades. It's the perfect fraud.

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  6. Scott,

    I think the "burden of proof" is a very optimistic comment when applied to politicians, who, in general, will say whatever it takes to remain in power.

    In that respect, I am very doubtful this new makes a change. It may be different in other countries, but public opinion in Spain has adopted the "global warming" and "sustainable economy" mantras, without making any questions.

    As a proof, take the renewable energies. Everyone is so delighted with them, that they tend to forget the little detail of how expensive they are. It is just a environmental tax disguised as technical progress, at least for the time being.

    Saludos.

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  7. Does anyone know if it even hit the MSM? I tend to not watch broadcast networks and I try periodically to watch MSNBC but that usually lasts about 5 minutes before I go running out of the room pulling the hair out of my head.

    It is who controls the voice that matters. Most people will believe what they are told. (Obama's election is proof of that).

    One can only hope that between the internet and Fox News this information will make it to enough people to make a difference at the polls next election.

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  8. Consider what the market reaction might be should the consensus start to shift: http://humblestudentofthemarkets.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-cooling.html

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  9. The gist of these comments is that the global warming religion is firmly entrenched in the market and in our psyches. That's not surprising. But I still think this news has the potential to result in a shift in the balance of power, and as such is highly significant.

    Consider how entrenched ACORN was, and now it is a shambles.

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  10. This is no more shocking than Bernanke telling America he sees nothing out of the ordinary right before the global economy collapsed.

    He ended up with more power, not less.

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  11. Mr. Grannis is likely correct with his analogy to ACORN.

    Climate Science morphed into Political Science which lead to “Schemes”. Then Political-Science, based in this particular case upon schemes, morphed into a quasi-religion. Now coming forward is the components of the scheme.

    All schemes unravel.

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  12. The Competitive Enterprise Institute plans to sue NASA for failure to comply with Freedom of Information requests. This scandal has real legs; we are only in the beginning stages. Imagine if the EPA were eventually forced to rescind its determination that carbon dioxide is a pollutant!

    http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/competitive-enterprise-institute-sues-nasa-in-wake-of-climategate-scandal/

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  13. Mr. Grannis:

    Read Pajama Media post as well as watched the associated media on Pajama TV.

    Oh yes! This has legs is exactly right. The ACORN analogy above is now looking like a pretty dog-gone good prediction.

    You have to love cascading unintended consequences within the field of Political-Economy

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  14. Gotta' love the internet for stripping away the domination of the mainstream media. Acorn, Climategate... it's only just started.

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