The Global Warming Movement is Cooling
Ian Katz, The Guardian | February 10, 2010
There has been a sharp shift away from the urgency for a climate deal in the lead up to Copenhagen. ++ “Climategate,” the failure to reach a meaningful deal at Copenhagen, and the faulty evidence produced by the IPCC have all undermined the global warming movement. ++ “Whatever the full postmortem reveals, it is clear that the energy has drained from the push for a global deal.” ++ To re-energize the movement, scientists need to be committed to more transparency in their data and activists need to accept that action will have to be gradual.
Wed, Mar 10th 2010, 07:52
John Hadjisky, Blogger, Platinum Contributor (328)
Of course, the blogging community broke this story well before traditional journalism.
My personal view, based on extensive reading, is that the movement, rather than thinking about re-energizing, should instead focus on death with dignity. The current scandals, following the American "-gate" naming convention, include Climategate, Glaciergate, Amazongate, Hurricanegate, and the list continues to grow. As many in the the blogging community have pointed out, these errors have waited patiently, sometimes for years, before being "discovered", and there are many, many more discoveries waiting to be made.
The official response seems to be limited acknowledgement and embarrassment (both long overdue), followed by minimization. Typically: "these are a few serious mistakes but they don't disprove the fundamental theory which has mountains of evidence". However, this response conveniently fails to acknowledge the NIPCC's detailed, peer reviewed critique of the fundamental AGW theory by prestigious scientists. If the NIPCC is correct, the entire AGW theory ignores mountains of evidence, and is fatally flawed in a number of different ways, any one of which is dispositive.
For those of you who are less technically inclined, this Weekly Standard article summarizes why the problem goes way beyond a few scandals to the very heart of the AGW movement and theory. The Weekly Standard is, of course, a partisan magazine, but this article does a decent job discussing the many problems while avoiding cheap "gotcha" rhetoric.