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The website RealClimate.com, which is a website run by climate scientists, has been following the controversy and concludes that the discussions taken out of context are innocent. Read the comments; most of them are made by scientists and other assorted geeks who can speak intelligently about their peers. They criticize them for some things, but for the most part find that the scientists in question are innocent.
@taritac002: RealClimate.com isn't just run by climate scientists. It's run by the climate scientists whose emails were leaked. It's not terribly surprising that their response was 'nothing to see here, move along folks!'
This is just a hunch, but I'm betting one of the qualifications for being considered "bona fide" is NOT being a climate change conspiracy theory nutjob. Anyone?
The thing is, for a conspiracy theory to hold any water, there has to be a motive. NASA wanted to beat Russia to the moon to prove their dominance, but there was no way they could do it for real. Obama is part of a secret plot of Kenyans to take over the US Reserve (ha, joke's on you guys!). If Greedo really did shoot first just shows how lucky Solo is (hence his convo later with Luke on the Falcon).
But this conspiracy theory has no motive. What, so all these scientists are conspiring with the "enormous alternative energy consortium"? There's no such thing. Before we started taking this shit seriously there were no viable alternative energy sources besides nuclear, and nuclear isn't even being pushed by these guys. There's no money in making up a claim that global temperatures are going to rise.
(BTW, the conspiracy theories above are not the views of this commenter, or of any rational thinking individual.)
@Segador: You're basing that on the current existence of an economy based on climate change. That wouldn't exist without the scientific arguments for the existence of climate change to begin with.
Chicken and egg. The money came after the climate crisis was recognized, not before.
@comrade_leviathan: You completely failed to address your main point, which was that there would be no financial incentive to perpetuating a climate crisis theory.
@Segador: Nope, my statement directly addressed that, but I can clarify.
Arguing that the motive of grants for scientific study is enough to prompt a conspiracy of this magnitude is a valid argument. Not likely, but valid. My case on that would be the simple evidence that most governments face the daunting reality of an intensely expensive redesign of their industrial infrastructure if they agree that climate change needs to be addressed. So it's still an uphill battle to prove that anyone would have profited from climate change BEFORE anyone agreed it was an issue.
@comrade_leviathan: I disagree, but I truly respect your ability to expound on your statements clearly and free of hostility. Mature discussion of the issue is the only way anything will ever be accomplished here. This is too big an issue to allow it to dissolve into petty name-calling.
@Segador: Global warming does not really pay the paychecks of the scientists exploring the issue. Most scientists are interested in making innovations and discoveries. The amount of money earned to be a scientist compared to the amount of time used, the difficulty of the work, the cost of the experiments, and the amount of time needed to spend in school in preparation to becoming a climatologist do not justify doing the job for the money. Becoming a climatologist requires a dedication that for the majority of people is only possible with an actual interest and passion for the subject matter.
While there is a lot of money being dumped into climate research right now, the same spirit of discovery that drives scientists to research the climate for evidence of anthropogenic global warming would drive them to research something different if there were no signs of agw, so the paychecks would still exist, they would just come from researching something different. This further reduces the likelihood that scientists would be faking climate research because their receiving a paycheck is not dependent on agw existing. If anything, scientists would not want to fake results on agw not only because it would lead us to waste money on cleaning up our act and reducing emissions when not necessary, but it would take them away from doing research in other fields that they feel are dire.
Also, most grants are not payouts. Government funds and research facilities do not care about the results of an experiment as long as there are results. If they find that a study is capable of making an important discovery the experiment will get funding. This funding will come regardless of whether or not the results are favorable. The only case that fudging results to make extra money would make sense is to fake results refuting agw. Companies that would benefit from research that finds that agw exists do not have the funds necessary to buyout researchers because they are spending their money on R&D for whatever product they are producing since green tech is still lagging far behind. Meanwhile, companies such as coal companies and oil companies that have a vested interest in making sure that any research proving agw exists does not become public are the ones that have the available funds to buyout scientists.
Its a sad day when you find out you were lied to by "scientists". The very individuals that are supposed to be objective and just relay the facts to you unbiased.
These studies relayed and shoved down our throats, the amount of money these people stole from governments and concerned citizens of the world... it makes banking look like childs play (in terms of scandals).
But man, i would of loved to of been there when the head researcher whoever he was walked into the office and just about every government, environmental group, and company was waiting there and wanted to know, "what the hell dude?"
I think that guys comment about the paradigm shift is interesting.
My assumption has been that the bad guys in this drama would be the usual suspects: vested business interests , the lobbyists, and the bought politicians, who oppose the consensus.
It's sad that such an important issue has essentially boiled down to futile, ranting arguments between the "OMG Save The Golden Unicorn Ice Rat" camps and the "Don't You Believe a Goddamn Word These Liberal Commie Hippies Say" camps. It fuels bad science and worse rhetoric from both sides.
@Segador: I totally agree with you. This reminds me of Sir Francis Bacon and his declaration against the mixing of science and religion. Politics is the new religion.
@the real that guy dave: I also am not a fan of mixing politics with gizmodo. I come here to escape politics and read about awesome stuff, good deals and crazy japanese shit.
@Segador: I attempted to respond with a lengthy post but deleted the whole thing cuz I really like how polically-neutral (Giz appropriate) your comment is. I'll keep it much more simple by saying I agree.
@the real that guy dave: Isn't that kind of the same way global warming should be too? The whole problem with the argument is that both sides are arguing for power and money so who knows what the real facts are.
The University of East Anglia provides summaries to UN about "global warming". What about some transparency and let other labs check the data: they say NO!
I'd like to take exception to the headline of this story. I'm not a climate skeptic. I know there is a thing we call climate and that it changes constantly. I believe that these emails prove there is some sort of conspiracy.
I also believe if people chose to look behind the curtain of "climate change", they would see that the folks fueling the fire and funding the research, that happens to increase the heat of the flames, stand to gain the most FINANCIALLY from all of the legislation and products tied into the hysteria. Al Gore has increased his net worth over 500% due to his involvement and that's without the government's cap and trade legislation (Al Gore's company sells carbon offset credits, hmmmm). GE sells all sorts of new fangled poisony light bulbs that have a low carbon footprint.
I implore you, look behind the scenes with a logical (not emotional) approach. I promise you'll see the corruption, besides that of a few idiots who can't encrypt email properly (and who will say anything to keep their funders happy).
@the real that guy dave:
You are free to believe that the consensus on global climate change is a conspiracy, but in order to do so you must also acknowledge how broad it is, which is to say, you must hold in your head the idea, and tell others with a straight face that scientists in china, japan, Russia, South America Europe, and North America are all "in on it." That they, despite different governments and forms of economy, they all have some unseen gain to be had. and perhaps most preposterously, that what they stand to gain is better than writing the tell all book about the process.
You propose nothing less than most climate scientists in the world being hopelessly incompetent or corrupt, and as we all know, the reason to study science is because its easy and the reason you go into climate science is to make the big bucks.
@the real that guy dave: go at google maps, find the glaciers. See all the blue in the white? thats water in the ice. Now find a picture of the same location 30 years ago. Notice that lack of blue? Also notice how much MORE white there is? thats caused by GLOBAL WARMING.
Just because some people are profiting from try to stop global warming doesn't mean its not real.
@Mathew Schultz: Go at a history book and look at the ice age. See all those cavemen in fur? Did they drive their Hummers and melt the ice? No, the climate change was naturally occurring.
I'm not a climatologist or any other kind of ologist, I just have common sense. In the 70's, the big cause was global cooling. Didn't catch on. Global warming did, better marketing. I'm not saying there is global warming or there isn't (though the data suggests that there was and it has reversed). I'm saying that Anthropomorphic Global Warming is not scientifically sound.
Should we be cleaner and more efficient? YES
Should we consider our impact on the environment? YES
Should we do these things at the expense of our economic and otherwise well-being? NO
@gregoryjohnsonsmail: Those countries look to the UN for the lead on these things. Also, China and Russia aren't exactly on board with these ideas.
My point is to simply look at your source. Who stands to gain? Who stands to lose? Maybe there is your answer.
Also: The size of the conspiracy doesn't actually have to be that big. I mean, how many climate scientists do you know?
@gregoryjohnsonsmail: It's the parable of the emporer's new clothes all over again. All that the core group has to do is get the ball rolling, and then once the larger science community gets pulled in by some compelling (but not necessarily true) data, then they'll follow the core group rather than be labeled crackpots or denialists. I've been watching this play out for the last 15 years or more.
@the real that guy dave: Al Gore donates the money that he earns from his global warming appearances and his company back into global warming research. Those "poisony light bulbs" reduce far more mercury emissions than the amount of mercury present within the light bulb.
The argument is not whether or not we cause global warming, it is whether or not we have an effect on global warming; nobody believes that there are not natural cycles, just that we are impacting the temperature in a positive direction on top of the natural global cycles.
If you feel that your economic well being is more important than your surrounding environment's well being, that is unfortunate, especially because continuing to neglect the environment will eventually hurt our overall well being, with or without global warming. The mentality that the Earth is a resource specifically existing for our exploitation is a dangerous one that could lead to more economic demise in the future than investing in green tech now could even come close to causing.
What these emails prove is that scientists are humans, too. They do not like the competition and will throw insults at them and do whatever they can to have their arguments heard louder than the arguments of those who disagree with them.
@ceilingFANBOY: So, should I just assume you live in a teepee somewhere and these comments are being posted telepathically?
I explained my position. Clean, efficient and profitable. If it wasn't for profit, no one would be in business. And unfortunately, we don't all live in teepees.
@the real that guy dave: I don't live in a teepee and I wouldn't expect anyone else to do so. I wasn't saying that people should give up all of their worldly possessions, just that people need to learn to coexist with their surroundings in a sustainable manner because if we continue to take more out than we put in, it will eventually catch up to us.
By the way, this is the problem when scientests get either too financially or emotinally tied to a theorom. They stop being objective and start finding ways for it to come out as expected.
@Brian Richards: Scientists have no financial ties to their research whatsoever. You can't even pay your own salary out of a research grant, much less reward yourself in any way.
Really the financial motive just isn't present. Well, except if you're a global warming denier of any prominence, where you can usually find an oil company or a right-wing think-tank or a not-so-scrupulous vanity press ready to promote your nuts off, and hand you personal checks for the privilege of doing so.
@crashfrog: You do realize that the Oil companies are on board with this right? Hell, BP is putting more money into this movement than they are in finding more oil. They want to shut down coal.
Don't think that scientists won't make their results look good to those who supply the funding. That's a way to maintain funding.
Now, selling carbon credits and taxing the living shit out of people makes some people money, not anyone who is a "global warming denier".
You know, some people believe in the boogeyman. I don't. Am I a boogeyman denier?
This thread of comments is literally the sanest, most even-handed non "wharbllgarbbl other side blarghablah" online discussion on this topic I have seen in the last week and a half. Kudos.
I started reading a rather lengthy article about this the other day. Then I thought to myself, "Don't they keep mentioning the rising sea level when discussing global warming?"
I deduced an answer to the rising sea level: More ships keep being built. Perhaps it's not rising sea levels, but over-displacement of the ocean?
@STiger: This would be the greatest faux blog EVER! Holy smokes you'd make a fortune and be constantly amazed (read disappointed in humanity) by all of the followers you gather.
@Lite: hates Illinois Nazis: It isn't, but the source code for such programs used to display the data gathered could be altered to reflect biased information. Sadly I have seen some of the source code, and indeed there were even comments left by the authors in it that indicates that the data was in fact being manipulated.
Lite: hates Illinois Nazis promoted this comment
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@Lite: hates Illinois Nazis: on one hand, yeah, that's the inherent problem with "data" - you can pretty much make it say anything you want. I'm getting the drift that there was some..."heavy handed" manipulation if you will, in order to show a point or what have you.
@nachobel: You know what I object to? People that literally over-use the word literally. Whenever people say that to me I simply respond with, "As opposed to figuratively." at this point.
A big problem is that Gore and others push AGW based on the "consensus" of climate scientists rather than the data itself, so the exclusion and/or suppression of dissent revealed by the emails becomes much more important, and frankly egregious. The AGW crowd's argument is that all reputable scientists agree; the corollary is that anyone who disagrees won't be reputable for long, and that includes some very well credentialed scientists.
True or not, I think either way it's great how companies worldwide are stepping up their efforts with more eco-friendly products. I doubt there would be as much of a push in this direction if not for "global warming".
@TailsNZ: Agreed, but when states start making proposals for severely uneconomical (read: economically dangerous) legislation for the sake of "slowing or preventing climate change", then this movement has become very hurtful.
@TailsNZ: Perhaps, but if you spend your money chasing the little CO2 molecule, you have less to devote to real culprits like mercury (useful, but not in drinking water) and SO2 (a/k/a acid rain). By pushing global warming instead of more verifiable environmental concerns, the likely result will be a misallocation of enviro dollars.
@Louis Krause: At the bottom of the page, it says "last updated October 2007". The question I have is, how well was this page publicized? If it was quietly put up without any notice to anybody, then Rosa's statement's still solid.
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The thing is, for a conspiracy theory to hold any water, there has to be a motive. NASA wanted to beat Russia to the moon to prove their dominance, but there was no way they could do it for real. Obama is part of a secret plot of Kenyans to take over the US Reserve (ha, joke's on you guys!). If Greedo really did shoot first just shows how lucky Solo is (hence his convo later with Luke on the Falcon).
But this conspiracy theory has no motive. What, so all these scientists are conspiring with the "enormous alternative energy consortium"? There's no such thing. Before we started taking this shit seriously there were no viable alternative energy sources besides nuclear, and nuclear isn't even being pushed by these guys. There's no money in making up a claim that global temperatures are going to rise.
(BTW, the conspiracy theories above are not the views of this commenter, or of any rational thinking individual.)
11/25/09
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people who rely on a global climate crisis to to pay their paychecks.
I'm not saying climate change is a conspiracy, but saying that no one's making money off it is just plain wrong.
11/25/09
Chicken and egg. The money came after the climate crisis was recognized, not before.
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Arguing that the motive of grants for scientific study is enough to prompt a conspiracy of this magnitude is a valid argument. Not likely, but valid. My case on that would be the simple evidence that most governments face the daunting reality of an intensely expensive redesign of their industrial infrastructure if they agree that climate change needs to be addressed. So it's still an uphill battle to prove that anyone would have profited from climate change BEFORE anyone agreed it was an issue.
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While there is a lot of money being dumped into climate research right now, the same spirit of discovery that drives scientists to research the climate for evidence of anthropogenic global warming would drive them to research something different if there were no signs of agw, so the paychecks would still exist, they would just come from researching something different. This further reduces the likelihood that scientists would be faking climate research because their receiving a paycheck is not dependent on agw existing. If anything, scientists would not want to fake results on agw not only because it would lead us to waste money on cleaning up our act and reducing emissions when not necessary, but it would take them away from doing research in other fields that they feel are dire.
Also, most grants are not payouts. Government funds and research facilities do not care about the results of an experiment as long as there are results. If they find that a study is capable of making an important discovery the experiment will get funding. This funding will come regardless of whether or not the results are favorable. The only case that fudging results to make extra money would make sense is to fake results refuting agw. Companies that would benefit from research that finds that agw exists do not have the funds necessary to buyout researchers because they are spending their money on R&D for whatever product they are producing since green tech is still lagging far behind. Meanwhile, companies such as coal companies and oil companies that have a vested interest in making sure that any research proving agw exists does not become public are the ones that have the available funds to buyout scientists.
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@the real that guy dave: @DH405:
11/25/09
These studies relayed and shoved down our throats, the amount of money these people stole from governments and concerned citizens of the world... it makes banking look like childs play (in terms of scandals).
But man, i would of loved to of been there when the head researcher whoever he was walked into the office and just about every government, environmental group, and company was waiting there and wanted to know, "what the hell dude?"
11/25/09
My assumption has been that the bad guys in this drama would be the usual suspects: vested business interests , the lobbyists, and the bought politicians, who oppose the consensus.
But it fits that they are all fucking crooks eh?
11/25/09
They all want our money.
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That's about the best I can do.
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I also believe if people chose to look behind the curtain of "climate change", they would see that the folks fueling the fire and funding the research, that happens to increase the heat of the flames, stand to gain the most FINANCIALLY from all of the legislation and products tied into the hysteria. Al Gore has increased his net worth over 500% due to his involvement and that's without the government's cap and trade legislation (Al Gore's company sells carbon offset credits, hmmmm). GE sells all sorts of new fangled poisony light bulbs that have a low carbon footprint.
I implore you, look behind the scenes with a logical (not emotional) approach. I promise you'll see the corruption, besides that of a few idiots who can't encrypt email properly (and who will say anything to keep their funders happy).
11/25/09
con·spir·a·cy
1 : the act of conspiring together
2 a : an agreement among conspirators b : a group of conspirators
11/25/09
You are free to believe that the consensus on global climate change is a conspiracy, but in order to do so you must also acknowledge how broad it is, which is to say, you must hold in your head the idea, and tell others with a straight face that scientists in china, japan, Russia, South America Europe, and North America are all "in on it." That they, despite different governments and forms of economy, they all have some unseen gain to be had. and perhaps most preposterously, that what they stand to gain is better than writing the tell all book about the process.
You propose nothing less than most climate scientists in the world being hopelessly incompetent or corrupt, and as we all know, the reason to study science is because its easy and the reason you go into climate science is to make the big bucks.
11/25/09
Just because some people are profiting from try to stop global warming doesn't mean its not real.
11/25/09
The Earth's climate changes in cycles. It's been this way for longer than humans have been on this planet.
The argument is what is the cause of "global warming."
11/25/09
I'm not a climatologist or any other kind of ologist, I just have common sense. In the 70's, the big cause was global cooling. Didn't catch on. Global warming did, better marketing. I'm not saying there is global warming or there isn't (though the data suggests that there was and it has reversed). I'm saying that Anthropomorphic Global Warming is not scientifically sound.
Should we be cleaner and more efficient? YES
Should we consider our impact on the environment? YES
Should we do these things at the expense of our economic and otherwise well-being? NO
11/25/09
My point is to simply look at your source. Who stands to gain? Who stands to lose? Maybe there is your answer.
Also: The size of the conspiracy doesn't actually have to be that big. I mean, how many climate scientists do you know?
11/25/09
Don't these emails kind of prove that whole conspiracy thing?
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The argument is not whether or not we cause global warming, it is whether or not we have an effect on global warming; nobody believes that there are not natural cycles, just that we are impacting the temperature in a positive direction on top of the natural global cycles.
If you feel that your economic well being is more important than your surrounding environment's well being, that is unfortunate, especially because continuing to neglect the environment will eventually hurt our overall well being, with or without global warming. The mentality that the Earth is a resource specifically existing for our exploitation is a dangerous one that could lead to more economic demise in the future than investing in green tech now could even come close to causing.
What these emails prove is that scientists are humans, too. They do not like the competition and will throw insults at them and do whatever they can to have their arguments heard louder than the arguments of those who disagree with them.
11/25/09
I explained my position. Clean, efficient and profitable. If it wasn't for profit, no one would be in business. And unfortunately, we don't all live in teepees.
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Really the financial motive just isn't present. Well, except if you're a global warming denier of any prominence, where you can usually find an oil company or a right-wing think-tank or a not-so-scrupulous vanity press ready to promote your nuts off, and hand you personal checks for the privilege of doing so.
11/25/09
That statement is provably untrue, and calls into question the accuracy of anything else you say.
11/25/09
Don't think that scientists won't make their results look good to those who supply the funding. That's a way to maintain funding.
Now, selling carbon credits and taxing the living shit out of people makes some people money, not anyone who is a "global warming denier".
You know, some people believe in the boogeyman. I don't. Am I a boogeyman denier?
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Way to go, Giz commenters.
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I deduced an answer to the rising sea level: More ships keep being built. Perhaps it's not rising sea levels, but over-displacement of the ocean?
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I bet this is extremely prevalent.
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See CA Prop 7 (2008) for an example.
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Yes... if only all the data was already available....
[www.cru.uea.ac.uk]
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