Climate science is a matter of global importance. On the basis of the science, governments across the world will be spending trillions of pounds on climate change mitigation. The quality of the science therefore has to be irreproachable. What this inquiry revealed was that climate scientists need to take steps to make available all the data that support their work and full methodological workings, including their computer codes. Had both been available, many of the problems at CRU could have been avoided.
Phil Willis, Member of Parliament; Chair, Commons Science & Technology Committee, London.
MP Willis gets it partially. Climate science is important, and if governments worldwide spend trillions of dollars on climate change mitigation, those expenditures should be based on unimpeachable science, or, in his words, science that is “irreproachable.”
The science, according to the investigation by Parliament, reveals that not only is the science impeachable, but the scientific process was bastardized, impugned and maligned to the point that any attempt by any government at this point to spend money by enacting cap and trade policies is almost criminal.
However, the media in the United States has been amazingly quiet on the results of this investigation. As one who is a news junkie, an inveterate reader of newspapers, blogs, books and magazines, I somehow missed coverage of the release of this report in London almost thirty days ago. I can only assume at this point that NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX and a host of other media outlets pooh-poohed the story or buried it.
But the report out of London is valuable for those who oppose the expenditure of tax dollars chasing a problem that does not exist, or which we cannot control.
During the course of the investigation, Lord Lawson of Blaby, chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, submitted answers to four questions from the investigating committee. The answers and the memorandum confirms the claims by global warming skeptics that those advocating global warming science were indeed hiding data and silencing any criticism.
From the second volume of the report:
Memorandum submitted by The Global Warming Policy Foundation (CRU 27)
INQUIRY INTO THE DISCLOSURE OF CLIMATE DATA FROM THE CLIMATIC RESEARCH UNIT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA
1. The Global Warming Policy Foundation is a registered charity (no1131448) of an educational nature. Further details may be obtained from our website, www.thegwpf.org. The Foundation’s Chairman, the Rt Hon Lord Lawson of Blaby, and its Director, Dr Benny Peiser, will be happy to give oral evidence at the Committee’s projected March evidence session in elaboration of this brief written submission. If invited, we may wish to be accompanied, if the Committee agrees, by an expert in one of the matters at issue. We have no declarable interests.
2. On the first of your three questions, we believe there are four distinct issues:
(i) Have the CRU scientists been manipulating the raw surface temperature data in a way that is less than wholly objective and dispassionate?
(ii) Have they refused dissenting scientists and/or other outsiders with a bona fide interest in global warming access to the raw data, contrary to the proper canons of scientific research and to the demands of scientific integrity?
(iii) Have they been improperly seeking to avoid answering Freedom of Information Act requests?
(iv) Have they actively sought to prevent papers by dissenting scientists, statisticians, or other informed commentators from being peer-reviewed and/or published, again contrary to the proper canons of scientific research and to the demands of scientific integrity?
3. We believe that there is compelling evidence both independent of the leaked email exchanges and arising from those emails to suggest that the answers to (ii), (iii) and (iv) above are clearly “yes”.
As to (i) above, we believe that the jury is still out, although the motive for the improper behaviour involved in (ii), (iii) and (iv) above needs to be investigated, as it may well have a bearing on the answer to this.
Moreover, we are disturbed by the CRU scientists’ treatment of the so-called divergence problem. That is the fact that, for that period of time where both a proxy global temperature series and a recorded global temperature series are available, the two series markedly diverge. This clearly suggests either that the proxy series is unreliable or that the recorded series is unreliable (or possibly both: the point is that they cannot both be true).
The CRU scientists’ attempt to hide the problem by concealing the divergence demonstrates, we believe, a lack of integrity.
You can see the report here. I would encourage you to at least browse through it.
My conclusion from this investigation: climate science is, at this stage, not science, but pure politics. The scientists have debased their profession by manipulating data, hiding data, blackballing and hiding dissenting opinions, and, simple fraud.
The discussion regarding cap-and-trade legislation in this country should be tabled until science regains its integrity, new models developed, peer-reviewed and published. To do otherwise is to subject the American to fraud, and taxation based on fraud.
Lindsey Graham, Al Gore, Barack Obama, are you listening?
For a complete review of Parliament’s inquiry, please see the Committee’s page here.
