Climate Change: No Longer the "Change you can Believe in"?

It seems you can't even trust the "real" climate Change scientists anymore.
Where I first found out

Quote :

The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

Download a torrent of the files here (61.9 MB)
The CRU director himself has said that the e-mails and data appear legit and that the CRU was hacked.

Some of these e-mails are a "GW deniers wet-dream" and if they are true, make Piltdown Man look like a minor flap over the spelling of a scientific name.

Is it time for wank about climate change? I think so..

I hate this subject so much. I really, really do. When studying geology, we covered how climate changes leave patterns in rock layers, and there's been a cycle of warming and cooling throughout all the geologic record. The simple fact is we don't know one hundred percent for certain if the "global warming" we're experiencing is a natural phenomenon or not.

That being said, putting pollutants into our atmosphere and increasing the greenhouse effect is definitely adding to the warming effect we seem to be going through now.

And another thing to keep in mind? Scientists in the 70's said we were heading for an Ice Age.

If this is true, I propose we retroactively award the Nobel Peace Prize to whoever stole and published this. Not because 'ARRGH THOSE DIRTY GLOBAL WARMING PROPONENTS' but because hiding relevant information from the public makes you a Douche with a capital D.

EDIT: emphasis on 'if this is true'. Reel in your dogpiling impulse, you fucks.

Maximilia wrote:

And another thing to keep in mind? Scientists The media in the 70's said we were heading for an Ice Age.

Fixed that for you. There was never any kind of widespread belief on the part of climatologists on global cooling, let alone the kind of consensus GCC enjoys. In fact, even back then the hypothesis of man-made global warming was being floated around.

As for this, I am skeptical it really says what the global warming skeptics think it says. Isolated bits of conversation, without context, don't a conspiracy make, though it seems deniers are desperate to read a worst-case-scenario into it. It's going to take a lot of time to go through and piece together what's really being said here, and statements that appear damning could turn out to be entirely innocuous once the context is understood.

Is it possible it's as bad as they think? Sure. But I wouldn't leap to any conclusions without taking in the full context. Innocent until proven guilty.

But just in case anyone thinks I'm being an apologist: If the allegations are true, and they were hiding or misrepresenting data? Fuck those guys. Seriously.

Excerpts from the emails

Keep in mind that these may have been cherry-picked to look like something they're not. Or, they could be class A examples of scientific fraud. Opinions, anyone?

EDIT: More e-mails in the comments section. I'm curious to know what you all think.

Ah, my bad.

Sloth wrote:

Excerpts from the emails

Keep in mind that these may have been cherry-picked to look like something they're not. Or, they could be class A examples of scientific fraud. Opinions, anyone?

EDIT: More e-mails in the comments section. I'm curious to know what you all think.

If those are the cherry picked (best) examples, they're not stellar evidence for fraud. IMO.

Lexin wrote:

Sloth wrote:

Excerpts from the emails

Keep in mind that these may have been cherry-picked to look like something they're not. Or, they could be class A examples of scientific fraud. Opinions, anyone?

EDIT: More e-mails in the comments section. I'm curious to know what you all think.

If those are the cherry picked (best) examples, they're not stellar evidence for fraud. IMO.

Agreed. I've been squinting at this stuff and I can't see any major conspiracies going on.

However, I can't be arsed to go through this at all. Academic emails are boring.

How do we know the hackers didn't go in and change the content of the e-mails?

I would love for global warming not to be real. It would take a load off my mind. However, I've been studying the environment for 20 years--long before any of this stuff was written. Yes, it's real, in spite of what the global warming deniers keep trying to say. It wouldn't surprise me if this whole hacking thing was a major hoax. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Lady Anne wrote:

How do we know the hackers didn't go in and change the content of the e-mails?

I would love for global warming not to be real. It would take a load off my mind. However, I've been studying the environment for 20 years--long before any of this stuff was written. Yes, it's real, in spite of what the global warming deniers keep trying to say. It wouldn't surprise me if this whole hacking thing was a major hoax. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I think the deniers/sceptics are moving away from outright denying that the global temperature is rising or that climate change is occurring, and towards denying that human activities have anything to do with it.

Soooooo now that I've had a couple days to sift through it, it looks like the climate change deniers are once again full of shit. There's nothing incriminating in those emails. All they show is that sometimes scientists don't get along and sometimes they use multiple sets of data. That's pretty much it. Climate change is still real and still man-made.

I just don't get why they don't just attempt to make the air nicer and cleaner without having the threat of our planet frying us over-easy looming in everyone's minds. I'm not saying global warming doesn't exist, but it'd be nice if everyone wanted clean air because they genuinely liked to breathe and work towards the betterment of humankind....

ah, who am I kidding the world is run by money not altruism

I can understand the motivation to exaggerate things, if that's actually what happened. People are selfish, they won't respond to "stop doing this it will have negative consequences to Earth down the line and make things harder for future humans" but they will respond to "stop now the Earth is going to heat up and the ice caps will melt and you'll all drown."

Alex, I am torn between my agreement that a womaxxn should be in the White House and that it is that particular womyn, who is a betrayl to vaginae everywhere.

Unskilled, you would see a maxxle conspiracy every time some would-be liberal farts.

An attempt was made to burglarize a climate change research center in Canada.

Looks like this week in Copenhagen will be oodles of fun with the deniers pulling out all the stops.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Looks like this week in Copenhagen will be oodles of fun with the deniers pulling out all the stops.

Yes, it's wonderful, isn't it?

unskilled78 wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

Looks like this week in Copenhagen will be oodles of fun with the deniers pulling out all the stops.

Yes, it's wonderful, isn't it?

Burn on earth, Unskilled.

Lady Anne wrote:

unskilled78 wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

Looks like this week in Copenhagen will be oodles of fun with the deniers pulling out all the stops.

Yes, it's wonderful, isn't it?

Burn on earth, Unskilled.

If you're right, he will. If he's right, you're going to look very silly.

Nihilist wrote:

I just don't get why they don't just attempt to make the air nicer and cleaner without having the threat of our planet frying us over-easy looming in everyone's minds. I'm not saying global warming doesn't exist, but it'd be nice if everyone wanted clean air because they genuinely liked to breathe and work towards the betterment of humankind....

ah, who am I kidding the world is run by money not altruism

Don't forget apathy. People would rather not have to 'attempt' to do anything. All these screaming conspiracy-theory-spewing deniers were nowhere to be seen until governments started actually levying green taxes and telling people to turn down their heating etc.