The Denials Continue

Tim Gamble, on his so-called Sustainable Future blog has just published snippets of articles or blog posts that comment on the recent hacked e-mails incident. What has become increasingly more usual is Tim's uneven-handed approach. Here is a comment I made to that article, though, as yet, it has not been approved:

I'm not sure why this particular set of comments was put up here but there are some very odd beliefs.

Shikha Dalmia's thinks the email theft was from the Hadley Centre when it was from a department at the University of East Anglia. An early report did, erroneously, give the Hadley Centre, and maybe that simply stuck in Shikha's mind. It's a shame Shikha didn't attempt to check the story.

Neal Boortz claims that "much of the information they've been fed about a warming world has been manufactured and faked". This is pure fantasy. He gives no detail about what he has surmised from one email from one climate science group that gives cause for concern but actually resulted in no false data.

I find it remarkable, Tim, that you have hardened your line considerably as a climate change denier, from merely appearing to have some doubt about the severity. Otherwise, why not print comments about the other side of the story? About how 3 of the 4 emails (out of about a thousand) had quite reasonable explanations and about how only 1 gave rise to some concern and at least 2 inquiries but which, so far, do not show that the science is wrong.

So, in a area where it is very difficult to find a peer reviewed scientific report that counters the IPCC assessment (though others suggest the situation is likely worse than those projections), you choose to continue promoting the idea that climate change is a big scam and absolutely nothing to worry about. For someone who supposedly supports sustainable approaches, I find this remarkable.

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Climategate?

From what I've read on the matter, it looks like only about 4 or 5 emails out of nearly a thousand got the denial lobby all worked up. Of these, only one appeared to give genuine cause for concern (the others having, at least for now, plausible explanations). That one was about a request to delete emails. It looks like, as it turns out, the request was not actioned (as the existence of the email will attest) and other potential dubious actions turned out to cause no information to be hidden (like the apparent attempt to keep a couple of papers out of the IPCC report, which weren't left out).

So, all in all, it's looking like a storm in a teacup (though the outcomes of those inquiries could alter than interim conclusion), except for there being a case for Chris Jones to resign.

It's unfortunate that even some who claim not to deny AGW have jumped on board to claim this might show that the climate science isn't settled.