I wonder how the BBC environment correspondent Richard Black would report it if the Climatic Research Unit's Phil Jones were suddenly to confess that everything he'd said in the last two decades about the anthropogenic warming threat was total rubbish. I'm guessing something like: "Hero climate scientist announces glorious discovery: world saved, research at CRU now shows!"
I wonder how the New York Times, or the Guardian environment pages or Huffington Post would report it if NASA's James Hansen were to burst in with a machine gun and grenades at the next Heartland climate sceptics' conference and wipe out half the delegates. "NASA expert helps solve global overpopulation problem!", probably.
If you think I'm joking consider how all the above-mentioned organs responded to the story of Fakegate, in which climate activist Peter Gleick engaged in identity theft and used a forged document in order to smear the Heartland institute with a pack of lies. The way they covered it, you'd think the real villain of the piece was not Gleick but Heartland. One liberal commentator went so far as to suggest that the person who had faked the one (and only) incriminating document was none other than Heartland's president Joe Bast. Some kind of sinister, false-flag operation to make the environmental movement look bad, I suppose. (Yeah, like it needs any help on that score).
Anyway, now Anthony Watts reports that the forged document has been submitted to forensic analysis and that the most likely culprit turns out to be – as Steven Mosher suspected weeks ago – none other than Peter Gleick. Well quelle surprise and whoulda thunk?! Gleick denies it. Well of course he would. Looks kind of embarrassing, doesn't it, when your cause is so desperate that the only dirt you can manage to get on your opposition is dirt you've manufactured yourself?
After Climategate Donna Laframboise asked in a Tweet:
To those minimizing ClimateGate: How badly do people have to behave? What line must they cross before you’ll stop excusing them?
And after Gleickgate/Fakegate she asked a similar question. Just how badly does the alarmist/warmist camp have to behave before their amen corner in their liberal MSM finally concedes that their behaviour is beyond the pale?
The answer, I fear, is more badly than you could possibly imagine. Climatism (as Steve Goreham calls it) has very little to do with science, if indeed it ever did. Rather it's the new global religion and as with all religions it's really not about evidence but about faith. And when you're filled with zeal of religious conviction, what crime is there that you wouldn't commit to spread your wondrous, right and noble creed?
As a perfect example of this blind faith in action, Jo Nova compares and contrasts the coverage of two stories – Climategate and Fakegate – by our old friend Richard Black of the BBC.
On ClimateGate, Black waited until after he had a spokesman from the CRU to comment, and having confirmed the emails were from the CRU, Black quoted exactly none of them. On FakeGate, Black posted so quickly that he had to rewrite it after Heartland replied, which happened in the first 24 hours.
With ClimateGate, Black ignored the emails that were effectively public property in the first place and turned out to be real. With Fakegate, Black either detailed or linked to quotes that turned out to be nonexistent (at least, I presume that’s what he needed to “re-work”, where is the original stored?).
Then there’s the point that ClimateGate is material to the scientific practices of lead authors in an issue of major planetary concern; FakeGate is about small amounts of legal, private funding that are irrelevant to the science. Oh yessity, those influential tiny funds from anonymous citizens must be public knowledge, (and forthwith!) but the original raw data of the worlds temperature stations? I don’t think so and stop harassing those scientists.
Point to note: Black is paid by public funds to report both sides of the story in an unbiased manner. The Heartland Institute is not.
Let's repeat that last one because it's so important, so true.
Point to note: Black is paid by public funds to report both sides of the story in an unbiased manner. The Heartland Institute is not.
Hey, but as anyone from the Warmist/Alarmist camp could tell you: never let the facts get in the way of a good story. In fact, if you're a believer in the great global warming religion, facts are actually your enemy. They're your enemy a) because they so comprehensively undermine everything you believe in and b) because facts are nasty, horrid things that "deniers" use, whereas true believers have no need of them: faith, that's the thing, pure blind faith.
Poster Comment:
Warmism is the new secular religion of the Granola Left.