The scientists at the center of a media storm known as “climategate” have been cleared of accusations that they fudged their results and silenced critics to bolster the case for man-made Global Warming.
Sir Muir Russell, the senior civil servant who led a six-month inquiry into the affair, said the
“rigour and honesty” of the scientists at the world-leading Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are not in doubt. They did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism as alleged, the panel found, while key data needed to reproduce their findings was freely available to any “competent” researcher.
The panel did criticize the scientists for not being open enough about their work, and said they were “unhelpful and defensive” when responding to legitimate requests made under freedom of information (FOI) laws.
The row was sparked when 13 years of emails from CRU scientists were hacked and released online last year Skeptics claimed they showed scientists manipulating and suppressing data to back up a theory of man-made climate change. Critics also alleged that the scientists abused their positions to cover up flaws and distort the peer review process that determines which studies are published in journals, and so enter the scientific record. Some alleged that the emails cast doubt on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Announcing the findings, Russell said: “Ultimately this has to be about what they did, not what they said.”
He added: “The honesty and rigour of CRU as scientists are not in doubt … We have not found any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.”
This third and most detailed report on the “climategate” affair came to the same conclusions as the previous two. Two enquires by Penn State University have also exonerated the US scientists at the other end of the e-mail exchange.
Lessons? Well clearly in the age of the Internet scientists must be open to public scrutiny. Informed bloggers have played a big role in identifying errors and misconceptions within mainstream science –as in other spheres. Of course scientists, like anyone, have a right to privacy, but that does not mean that their data remain private forever.
At just4theplanet we believe that public scrutiny of science and the scientific method is never a bad thing, especially when the research involves something as important as Climate Change. But there comes a time when results should be accepted by all reasonable people. Of course there will be people arguing that climate change – if it exists at all – has nothing to do with Humans. But such people are often not interested in the evidence. Unfortunately they start from a belief system that is often unmovable. This is not a far cry from those who believe that the US government is responsible for 9/11 and all terrorist attacks in the West and that Christianity is the cause of evil in the world. Documentaries such as “Zeitgeist” – which has been watched by many – portray pseudo science in a way that is compelling – but quite ludicrous.
The most important outcome from the publication of all five reports in the UK and the USA is proof that there is no evidence whatsoever that climate scientists set out to manipulate the data in order to boost the case for climate change. We should not be distracted any further from devising methods to deal with it.
finally.
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