I am all for a good conspiracy theory to pass the time, but mostly due to the fact that they are a good read, rather than that they lead to a fundamentally modified understanding of reality. The latest from the climate sceptics is that they believe to have uncovered a vast conspiracy on the left to falsify science in order to win the argument on climate change. They site mass volume of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia in England, one of the centres where climate change research is being carried out, and a participant in the IPCC. Now, like all good conspiracy theories, it starts out with some kernels of fact and possibly even the smoking-gun of fraud.
According to the best news report of the substance with regard to the issue in the American Academy for Advancement of Science (publishers of the peer-reviewed journal Science) the facts are that the Director of the Climate Research Unit there asked other scientists to delete data that might be the subject of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. But why would they do such a thing? Well further examination of the emails shows that the motivation was, that ,“. . . colleagues feared that releasing information would draw them deeper into disputes with amateur scientists, who would use it to create new controversies and cut into their research time.”
Now, while I could understand the motive, if say, I had to argue science with a demonstrable moron such as Steven Fielding on a repetitive basis. However, deleting information subject to a FOIA request is against the law, so regardless of the motive, one or more people at the University of East Anglia could face some heat and possibly prosecution. And good thing when they do. Just as I would want someone like Dick Cheney to face the music if we could prove he lied, I don’t want liars and obfuscators on my team. The rules are the rules and they apply to all.
That being said, there is no proof in all these hacked emails that any of the people who were asked by others from England to delete files or data aver did so, and coordinating such a mass deletion across countries, institutions and by other scientists would leave a trail, even if it were attempted. In fact, the hack that resulted in the release of the information was very possibly caused by one of the scientists asked to do something improper instead leaked a bunch of the information. That is, unless Occam’s Razor wins out, because in fact one of the scientists left their email and data wide open to the outside world by including their password in their email address. And let’s face it, you aren’t going to run a very good conspiracy with people like that involved.
So basically, despite an inappropriate (or possibly illegal) request by one person, there no evidence in the information released that there was a multi-organisational, worldwide conspiracy to modify data, carry out false modelling, or alter the peer-reviewed system of the IPCC for arriving at their conclusions on climate change.
The rules of science are that one sound data set can prove all the science before it wrong. Unfortunately for the climate change sceptics, this is not that data set, and for the time being, I will stick with the peer-reviewed science on the side that demonstrates anthropogenic climate change as being real and a problem. Anyone still with me?
For an amusing side of this story, watch as the chaos over the Coalition leadership plays itself out this week. I venture to guess that Fielding, Minchin, Abbott or other climate change sceptics will attempt to use the smoking gun they think they now have to win the argument. They will continue to attempt to tear the other side down, but they will find no bullets in their gun, and they are not be able to offer a substantive alternative explanation of the scientific data we all can agree on. And eventually, their logic on the CPRS will also collapse, either this week, or during the double dissolution election to follow.