I'm hesitant to write about Climate-gate, because I don't want anyone to think that my beliefs align in any way with the beliefs of the myopic conservative mob.  Still, there have been three recent incidents regarding climate change that further my own skepticism about what we were told was the "scientific consensus."

“Climate-gate”

A recent headline from SWAC Girl read: "Climate-gate ... global warming is a hoax and now there's proof."  That is partisan hyperbole at its finest and her conclusions are silly, but this snippet of news should at least cause one to think a little before embracing the carbon derivative market.

Apparently some politically-motivated hackers broke into the Climate Research Unit (CRU) mail server and stole a bunch of emails.  Then they posted a "random selection" on the Internet.  Conservatives, eager for any opportunity to discredit Democrat Al Gore, immediately pointed out some emails that hinted CRU was manipulating climate data.

I myself am a skeptic of anthropomorphic climate forces, but I find it highly suspicious that the hackers only posted a "random selection" and not the entire set of emails.  One must immediately assume that there was something in the emails that didn't fit their agenda, so they had to suppress it.

But at the same time, nothing has yet surfaced in the emails to indicate that "global warming is a hoax," as SWAC Girl so naively put it.  There are only some indications that statistical data was presented in a way that highlighted the global warming theory.  It's disingenuous, but far from uncommon.  I would estimate that somewhere around 100% of statistical data presentations are "spun" to support the presenter's viewpoint.  Just ask anyone in politics.

In reality, Climate-gate has nothing to do with the scientific subject of climate change.  It only underscores how politicized the subject is, and that there are people on both sides that will use dubious methods to advance their cause.

CRU searchable email index: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

Deleted Climate Data

Another story that should cast doubt on CRU's credibility occurred earlier in the year.  CRU actually deleted raw climate data because they didn't have enough room to store it.  Yes, you read that right.  In the age where you can walk into Best Buy and pick up a terabyte drive for under $100, these bozos couldn't figure out how to store critical data on which the entire future world energy economy may be based.

It is suspicious, but again, it doesn't mean global warming is a hoax.  Even if CRU did delete some inconvenient data on purpose, it only suggests that CRU is biased, which is not at all surprising considering the entire focus of their department is global warming.  If global warming went away, so would their department.

The deleted data only proves that CRU has a very bad IT department.  If I were in charge of a group that deleted critical data *and* allowed hackers to get into the mail servers, I'd be handing out some pink slips.

Flat Temperatures

A recent article in Der Spiegel contained perhaps the most interesting climate change news for me.  The article almost apologetically revealed that global temperatures actually haven't risen as the IPCC predicted for the last 10 years.  In fact, they report temperatures have not risen at all since 1999.

"According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008 and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius."

You probably won't be hearing about that on Nightly News - there is far too much going on with Tiger Woods and Swine Flu.  (Not to mention that green technology giant GE is the parent company of NBC.)  Scientists have no explanation for the flat temperatures, but for some reason they remain convinced that human-induced climate change is still raging out of control.

But arguing over the science of global warming is a moot point now.  It’s been taken over as a political and economic issue.  The green industry is building itself up to try to dislodge the oil industry as the dominant resource provider in the world economy, and liberals vociferously championing it are probably its biggest investors.  We might hate the oil industry, but the green industry isn't going to be any better.  It isn't going to do anything for the planet except create another cabal of untouchable billionaires.