Lessons from climategate

The mainstream media has been slow to pick up on climategate, but now the scandal is getting widespread coverage. Email correspondence that was never meant to be public has cast doubt over the whole science of climate change. There’s talk of lost data and data that has been manipulated. The emails also show concerted efforts to stifle any dissenting views. Climategate does not disprove global warming, but it confirms what many skeptics have suspected. Science has become intermingled with advocacy. For a while, it looked like climategate would not make major headlines. Now, even the big media outlets that seldom question global warming theories are covering the scandal. Yet to be determined, will climategate affect what happens in Copenhagen where world leaders are meeting to talk about new carbon reduction targets? Reducing emissions and cutting our carbon footprint are laudable goals even if the link between carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures is tenuous. Policies around the world are being geared to reducing emissions and climategate may not have much effect on the overall momentum. Hopefully, however, this will be a wakeup call for the scientific community. Don’t mix science with spin doctoring. I’m Kevin Hursh.