Climate change is in the news again and not just because
of an upcoming conference in Copenhagen or continued
discussion by Congress to pass "cap and trade" laws.
Files from the University of East Anglia were hacked and
uploaded onto the internet. These files include
numerous emails and internal documents on the discussion
over climate change.
It's no surprise that scientists
disagree on the issue and it is no real revelation that
there is even childish namecalling among dissenting views.
What is cause for concern is the accusation that scientists
manipulated data to support their view rather than deriving
their view from an objective evaluation of the information.
Among the more interesting bits leaked was a statement
implying that scientists can't account for a lack of global
warming going on currently. “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.” Another alarm comes from the
fact that examination of tree growth rings stopped when they
did not support their thermometer readings. The New
York Times writes
here:
"Through the last century, tree rings and thermometers
show a consistent rise in temperature until 1960, when some
tree rings, for unknown reasons, no longer show that rise,
while the thermometers continue to do so until the present."
There may be a good reason for abandoning the tree rings
but no explanation is offered as to why the tree rings show
different data and why that data is not attempted to be
reconciled rather than disregarding it.
Scientists point out that the timing of this information
leak is suspicious at best given the climate change
conference coming up. But that seems beside the point.
The information was obtained illegally and obviously was
meant to damage backers of the climate change position.
The point is that these conversations happened and the
public has been told that climate change is universally
accepted and all scientific data backs this up.
Instead there are dissenting opinions and apparently data
that contradicts what the climate change supporters want us
to believe.
Before this seems like an isolated event with a few bad
apples, in my search for actual information about these
climate change emails, (I first read about this on CNN
yesterday, almost two weeks after the emails were first
reported about elsewhere on the web - and CNN offered no
information about the actual contents of the emails) I
uncovered that this is not the first set of damaging leaks.
This
site discusses leaked emails from the EPA and a demand
for more information to be released to the public.
In the EPA emails, a scientists was told not to speak
about climate change outside of the National Center for
Environmental Economics. Another email forbid him from
researching the topic any further. A third email gives
the impression that the organization's position was set and
releasing data to the contrary would only cause trouble.
We should be good stewards of God's creation. We
certainly have an impact on our environment and there are
things that we can do to cut down on pollution that should
be done. Clouds of smog over Mexico City and Los
Angeles are not naturally occurring and it doesn't take
scientific data to prove this. Perhaps we need to be a
bit less trusting when science tells us that something is a
proven fact and that everyone agrees with it. It
sounds very similar to the story of evolution that we've
been told as well.
