Editorial: Dark clouds gather over climate scientists

OPINION: Zealotry and science is a toxic combination. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the long-running debate over whether climate change is happening, why it is happening and whether we should be worried about it.

Both sides are convinced they are on the side of the angels and are willing to push the boundaries as they push their points of view. Opponents on both sides are harangued, and those who normally defend free speech will go as far as to clamour for censorship.

Climate-change sceptics are convinced there is a conspiracy to suppress their views because climate change has become big business. Their theory has been given legs by the release of purloined emails among those who argue that climate change is real, and that it is manmade. Not coincidently, the release comes as world leaders are preparing for talks in Copenhagen on limiting carbon emissions.

The climate scientists have done themselves no favours with their behaviour, and damaged the credibility of their cause. The emails range from the merely nasty to the sinister. One announces that a climate change sceptic has died, before observing it is "cheering news". Another advises caution in providing information to a journalist because "he's not as predictable as we'd like". Yet another appears to suggest deleting emails so that they will not be released if there is a Freedom of Information request. And then there is discussion of a "trick" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures, and how to keep dissenting papers out of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, even if it means bending the rules. Sceptics are also making much of a message sent by climate scientist Kevin Trenberth which observes "the fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't".

The excuses that have been offered so far are not convincing. They have included attempts to say scientists mean something different to everybody else when they say trick, with one defender offering "scientists say trick not just to mean deception. They mean it as a clever way of doing something – a short cut can be a trick" and that some of the remarks were made jokingly.

There have also been attempts to shift the focus to the fact that the emails were stolen, rather than their content. That is futile.

That did not work for former National Party leader Don Brash and it will not work for the scientists. The contents of the emails are no less damaging because they were acquired illicitly.

What the emails reveal is not the way science should work. It should be about open debate, and the free contest of ideas.

However, it would be wrong to assume that because some of the climate-change messengers are all too obviously flawed, so is their message.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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PETER J PAOLA   #1   11:23 am Nov 30 2009

I commend you on this report. Would that it would be the lead story with follow ups. I am neither a skeptic not a protagonist. I want the truth but have a gut feel with some intelligence that the hysteria surrounding the protagonists is detrimental to any dialogue. As you rightly state, their cause has been severely damaged - my use of the word, severely. Why, because with the trashing of the data and the manipulating, do you really believe that confidence can be maintained? Your comment to ameliorate the situations with this quote: 'However, it would be wrong to assume that because some of the climate-change messengers are all too obviously flawed, so is their message.' does not do you justice. Many, many scientists relegated to the skeptics group have published many papers and findings indicating that the conclusions of the CRU groups are simply wrong. (Hockey stick, warming trend vs cooling; Arctic ice declining yet returning, Polar Bears etc.etc. ) This equivalency only bodes well for someone who wants to sit on the fence. My vote would be to stop everything, begin an exhaustive study, remove the fanatics and postpone Copenhagen.

Kyoto was so hyped but with the majority of the signatories not able to meet their targets. Does this not tell you something about Copenhagen?

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