COMMENTARY | When a report on global warming by the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature Group was released to the media about a week ago, it was hailed as definitive proof that man caused climate change is real, case closed.
However, it appears the global warming advocates are up to their old tricks, having concealed data and trumpeted questionable conclusions to the media, in advance of the BEST study being peer reviewed. According to the Daily Mail, a member of the BEST study group, professor Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has accused the group’s head of concealing data. It seems that the BEST study shows that global warming essentially stopped in the 1990s.
The resulting scandal is similar to the “Climategate” affair of a few years ago when leaked emails from the East Anglia University’s Climatic Research Unit showed that global warming advocates were plotting to hide and fudge data and to suppress critics of the theory of man caused global warming.
The spectacle of respected scientists engaging in this kind of fraud would be shocking if it were not so consistent. The idea of man caused global warming is a convenient one for politicians who want to grab political power to stop what is in effect a man made crisis. It is also convenient for scientists who are in need of grant money, largely controlled by those same politicians.
Unfortunately continuing revelations such as the hiding of data from the BEST study has eroded public confidence in the scientific community. The Washington Examiner’s Michael Barone pointed out, in a recent piece, that the public has largely tuned out cried of global warming alarmism.
The political corruption of science could have some long range, deleterious effects. What if scientists come upon some impending crisis that turns out to be real? Public skepticism, fueled by the made up global warming hysteria, would have to be overcome. For example, if scientists were to announce that a killer asteroid were headed toward Earth and that efforts to deflect it had to be made, how many people would shrug and wonder if it’s another global warming hoax?
The global warming alarmists have become like the boy who cried wolf. If the wolf next time turns out to be real, the result could turn out badly for all concerned.
Sources: Independent Study Confirms That Global Warming Exists, Alex Knapp, Forbes, Oct 24, 2011
Scientist who said climate change skeptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague, David Rose, Daily Mail, Oct 30, 2011
Global Warming E-mails Rock Scientific Community, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, Nov 23, 2009
Public cools to global warming alarmism, Michael Barone, Washington Examiner, Oct 22, 2011