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Good opinion piece in LA Times, re the "Cimategate" brouhaha, which has various right-wingers and other deniers (if any deniers are not right-wing!) hot under the collar about some stolen emails from climate scientists. Includes:
Quote:we Americans are, by and large, technologically advanced but scientifically illiterate. Our national conversation is dominated by a culture of assertion rather than a respect for evidence reasonably assessed. Thus the endless wrangling over self-evident nonsense like creationism. It's precisely the insistence on treating a scientific theory, evolution, and an allegorical notion, creationism, with a faux evenhandedness that creates a situation in which 75% of Americans believe most scientists disagree over global warming.In fact, the scientific consensus on the issue is broad and deep.
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As Alan I. Leshner, who heads the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, wrote this week: "It is wrong to suggest that apparently stolen e-mails . . . somehow refute a century of evidence based on thousands of studies. . . . Doubters insist that the Earth is not warming. This is in stark contrast to the consensus of 18 of the world's most respected scientific organizations, who strongly stated in an Oct. 21 letter to the U.S. Senate that human-induced climate change is real. Still, the doubters try to leverage any remaining points of scientific uncertainty about the details of warming trends to cast doubt on the overall conclusions shared by traditionally cautious, decidedly nonradical science organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences and the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science."
Long ago, Cicero suggested that a mysterious public act could be best assessed by asking: Who benefits? Is it really any accident that Palin and most of the GOP lawmakers trying to discredit the science on global warming come from states enriched by petroleum production and industries with sizable carbon footprints? (The delegate from Saudi Arabia has taken a similar position at Copenhagen.)
If you feel like you've been here before, think back on the long and agonizing debate over tobacco regulation and second-hand smoke. As additional tens of thousands died, Big Tobacco produced one eccentric scientific skeptic after another. Every one of them got a sympathetic hearing from lawmakers elected from tobacco-growing states.
– and surely worth noting that while such a "scandal" is unusual for climate scientists, hence the fuss, it's perfectly normal for folk in denier camp to be fudging and obfuscating and telling half truths and downright lies. See, for instance, thread on this site: Global warming lies and climate change hysteria.
The Guardian has done a huge amount to investigate the Climategate emails; now publishing investigation online. Has commentary by Fred Pearce, who has done much of the work oand writing on the emails. Includes:
Quote:Almost all the media and political discussion about the hacked climate emails has been based on soundbites publicised by professional sceptics and their blogs. In many cases, these have been taken out of context and twisted to mean something they were never intended to.Elizabeth May, veteran head of the Canadian Green party, claims to have read all the emails and declared: "How dare the world's media fall into the trap set by contrarian propagandists without reading the whole set?"
If those journalists had read even a few words beyond the soundbites, they would have realised that they were often being fed lies.
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