NOAA Climate Science Probe: Cover-up or Weapon of Mass Distraction?

Climate Change, Anthropocene, & Associated Issues

Date posted: 11/24/15

Gayathri Vaidyanathan reports in the past month, Congressional Republicans have subpoenaed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to gain access to the private documents and emails of scientists involved in a landmark climate change study to look for evidence of alleged wrongdoing. The attempts, by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, timed before COP-21 talks in Paris next month to negotiate a new global climate change agreement, have prompted some comparisons to Climategate. During that November 2009 scandal, the private emails of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in England were hacked and released, and their words were cherry-picked to suggest a global warming conspiracy. This entire fiasco reminds me of another hype-driven, fact-lacking conspiracy ... the so-called Climategate, wrote Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), ranking member of the committee in a letter to Smith. Climategate preceded the climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009 and dominated media coverage for at least a year. The scientists at its center had to participate in 5 independent investigations, which all cleared them of wrongdoing. The biggest impact of Climategate was on Conservatives, who became more distrustful of scientists and global warming than they were previously, some studies show. Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University said that he would not be surprised if the objective is the same here. It seems to him the sweeping nature of [Smith] request means that the primary objective is to harass the scientists, waste their time and try to scare other scientists in the government from ever getting involved in the climate change issue. In the lead up to Paris, the pledges from all the governments have set a tone toward moving forward and actually solving the problem that was absent before Copenhagen, Lewandowsky said.