Telegraph: Climategate is no problem! Just ask those under suspicion!

The London Telegraph was so profoundly upset by the news that the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU) had allegedly falsified data that they felt compelled to issue a press release:

Sceptics claim the emails show climate change data was being manipulated.

Prof Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), has said he “absolutely” stands by the science produced by the centre – and that suggestions of a conspiracy to alter evidence to support a theory of man-made global warming were “complete rubbish”.

Nowhere in the article does the Telegraph cite any Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) skeptic, but byline-free (no author listed) article managed to talk to four individuals closely associated with the CRU to find their take on the matter, now that the unit’s director is temporarily stepping down while an “independent investigation” is launched.

The Telegraph even managed to include some interesting global warming “proof:”

While Lord Stern, speaking at the launch of reports calling for an ambitious deal to tackle climate change in Copenhagen, said it was important for all views to be heard, the degree of scepticism among “real scientists” was very small.

Climate science had a strong basis stretching back 200 years, while evidence for global warming came from a number of different sources including ice cores which went back as far as 800,000 years into the past, he said.

“This is evidence that is overwhelming, from all sources, that’s the kind of climate science we’re talking about,” he said.

“I think it is very important that those with any kind of views on the science or economics have their say – that does not mean that unscientific muddle also has the right to be recognised as searing insight.”

One wonders if Lord Stern will consider the CRU to be “unscientific muddle” if the allegations prove to be true.

He added: “If they are muddled and confused, they do not have the right to be described as anything other than muddled and confused.”

What is “muddled and confused,” Lord Stern, is what is considered to be valid scientific evidence in anything related to global warming. Despite Michael Chricton’s scathing analysis of the “science” of climate change half a decade ago and the billions of dollars, pounds, yen, yuan and euros spent on climate “research,” there has yet to be a single double-blind study on the matter that I can find. The simple truth is, none of the evidence from either side can be taken at face value.

Further, peer review is a long-standing validation process. This is the process where scientists share their findings and experimental methodology, and their peers in their respective and related fields critique the process and/or attempt to replicate the results. The CRU has been less than forthcoming with these processes in the past, citing everything from lost data to political sensitivity to prevent other scientits from getting data and other information. When one scientist was finally able to retrieve some data from the CRU, his findings not only did not match those of the CRU, but seemed in many ways to refute their conclusions (as I noted in my linked article).

Until and unless the scientific community is willing to engage in the proper practice of science (and that includes both sides and all researchers), then every finding everywhere will continue to be, as Lord Stern puts it, “muddled and confused.”

Originally posted at The Minority Report Blog.

Filed under: environment, media, science, agw, climate, climate change, climategate, cru, global warming, scandal, telegraph