Climategate: Gore Falsifies the Record

or he misspoke. (Ooo I hate that word.)

This from Andrew Bolt of Australia's Herald Sun, regarding Slate magazine's Q&A with Al Gore over global warming, those pesky leaked emails, and his new book (what a surprise). Andrew Bolt has other excellent posts on global warming and the "Climategate".

(Remember that Australia's Senate voted down the government's bill on carbon trading recently, partly thanks to the "Climategate" emails.)

Climategate: Gore falsifies the record (12/9/09, Herald Sun, Australia)
[emphasis is original]

"Al Gore has studied the Climategate emails with his typically rigorous eye and dismissed them as mere piffle:

Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University?

A: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.

" And in case you think that was a mere slip of the tongue:

Q: There is a sense in these e-mails, though, that data was hidden and hoarded, which is the opposite of the case you make [in your book] about having an open and fair debate.

A: I think it’s been taken wildly out of context. The discussion you’re referring to was about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed. So an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago including somebody’s opinion that a particular study isn’t any good is one thing, but the fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is.

"In fact, thrice denied:

These people are examining what they can or should do to deal with the P.R.
dimensions of this, but where the scientific consensus is concerned, it’s completely unchanged. What we’re seeing is a set of changes worldwide that just make this discussion over 10-year-old e-mails kind of silly.

"In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, one Climategate email was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 - just a month ago. The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year.

"How closely did Gore read these emails? Did he actually read any at all? Was he lying or just terribly mistaken? What else has he got wrong?"


It's Newspeak, Mr. Bolt. "One month ago" means "10-years ago", and "two months ago" means "more than 10 years ago", by imperious Al Gore's decree. Well, Mr. Gore has a lot depending on the global consensus on global warming and implementation of cap and trade globally.

What I want to ask in addition is this: Since when is the validity of science determined by consensus?

If the age of the planet earth had been determined by the consensus, it would have stayed at 100 million years, the number mathematically derived by the very influential and brilliant physicist (Lord Kelvin). For the next three decades, it stayed that way during which scientists tried their best to come up with the evidence that would justify Lord Kelvin's conclusion. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

This brilliant conclusion about the age of the planet, agreed upon by most scientists, was rudely overturned by empirical evidence: Discovery of radioactivity that threw a monkey wrench into Lord Kelvin's meticulous calculation on thermodynamics. (For more, please read the article by David Deming, titled "Global Warming and the Age of the Earth: A Lesson on the Nature of Scientific Knowledge", 12/3/09 Lewrockwell.com)

But the age of the planet didn't affect nation's GDP or welfare of the nation's inhabitants the way this idea of global warming is going to affect.

Mr. Gore, himself a non-scientist, seems to have decided science should be run like politics - compromise, consensus, arm-twisting, silencing the opponent, outspending the opponent to win the race. And partly thanks to people like Mr. Gore, science, particularly climate science, has become exactly that: a branch of politics.

Another thing I want to ask is about Slate: Were they also unaware that the emails were as recent as a month ago? Or are they taking part in perpetuating this new myth created by Al Gore that those emails were "more than 10 years ago"?

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