GOP Vows to Continue Climategate Investigations if They Win the House

23 by Zachary Shahan on September 28, 2010

Yes, the illegal hacking of people's private email accounts, the out-of-context quotes pulled from decades of emails, and the excessive media coverage of a false scandal may not be over. While leading scientific bodies conducting multiple independent reviews of the so-called "Climategate" emails have determined that the scientific work and findings of these publicly abused climate scientists are both legitimate and something worth paying attention to, California Rep. Darrell Issa has vowed to make another investigation of "climategate" his top priority if the GOP wins back the House of Representatives and he becomes head of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the Fall.

The scientific findings regarding global warming and established global warming facts are extremely broad and all point to the same conclusion (that we are experiencing accelerated global warming due to human activity). This means that even if one piece of the puzzle were off, the picture would still be obvious. Nonetheless, Issa believes that we should spend more government money and research on investigating a fabricated scandal that has already been over-investigated.

"It’s actually unfathomable that the man potentially leading the Oversight and Government Reform Committee would consider an investigation into the personal e-mails of scientists more important than keeping watch over further financial ruin, political corruption, or any number of other issues our country faces," Nikki Gloudeman of Change.org and Mother Jones writes.

Numerous Independent Reviews of Climategate, Don't Fit Republican Agenda

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (in the UK), the Independent Climate Change Emails Review, Pennsylvania State University, the Science Assessment Panel, and 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, have evaluated this scandal in detail and/or told us that the science is strong and it is high time we do something about this critical topic.

Is one more independent review led by Republicans going to find anything different? If it did, who would you trust? Wouldn't it be more useful to try to find out who successfully undermined the work of climate scientists and shifted international discourse on the topic, causing more climate change inaction by world leaders? Or do Republican leaders already know the answer to that?

Photo Credit: The Office of Congressman Darrel Issa, Wikimedia Commons

cdr
Something bothered me about this sentence…
“The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (in the UK), the Independent Climate Change Emails Review, Pennsylvania State University, the Science Assessment Panel, and 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, have evaluated this scandal in detail and/or told us that the science is strong…”
Don’t people in each of these organizations lose significant credibility, and potential future funding, if their findings were otherwise?
turkeyfish
It would appear that all time record 113 degree days in LA are insufficient to change the minds of GOP global-warming deniers. Looks as if residents of the US Southwest will have to wait until temperatures rise above 120 degrees for weeks at a time, before they begin to notice the heat. It appears that some learn more slowly than others.
However, with evaporation rates running several times normal in the Colorado River basin and only about 50 ft to for water levels to drop at Lake Meade before the turbines powering all those LA and Las Vegas air-conditioners are forced to shut down, perhaps these folks may be singing a different tune a lot sooner than they expect.
Remember real-global climate deniers wear their parkas year-round, the rest have limited credibility.
chris
Yes they do…that is why the debate is not over, no one like to be proven wrong..and after reading the Club of Rome publication limits to growth, I have a lot of questions most of the Science Experts are tied to a lot of the so called think tanks, which makes me very leery of their so called experts…not only that these different climate exchanges that are popping up make me look at what this is really about, then there is this bit if info that concerns me even more http://www.dni.gov/ and their publication which is a real eye opener..http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Governance.pdf this seems very strange this would be out there.
Blaine S Tate
I read the emails and I looked at the source code. They deleted the emails and the data to prevent the information from being made public. The only data available is the homogenized data from the CRU. Anything based on CRU data should be thrown out as unsupported. You should search on the source code from the climategate leak. The comments from the developer alone would be evidence to open an investigation, Think Chicago Carbon exchange. Think for yourself and follow the money.

drklassen
No raw data?! You mean like this stuff — http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Climate_data_raw
As for comments in “the source code”, which code?
This one http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/#Reconstructions or some of one of the others there? As for coder comments, who cares?! Those are coder comments. I’ve seem some really weird comments in code that merely represent what the *coder* was thinking at the time (usually frustration as another fix is made for another boneheaded error).
Of course, that you can even get their code is absurd. You want code to do reconstructions, write it yourself, then publish *your* results and see how we compare. That would go double for any congress-critter, quadruple for the yahoos making criminal allegations.

Blaine S Tate
Yep that is data. Scrubbed clean as a whistle. The original data was deleted to save space, per Phil Jones. I guess thats why he asked everyone else to delete it too. Such a caring man.
I like the “what the *coder* was thinking at the time (usually frustration as another fix is made for another boneheaded error).” His comments were directing frustration to the boneheads that wanted the hockey stick. The hockey stick has been debunked so many times even before the climategate heros. He was frustrated. It didnt matter what was right it mattered that the results support AWG and Mann’s charts.
I could write my own code. You see I cant get funding for that because I dont believe. I have to be saved before I can attend the church. I couldn’t get it published either because of the collusion from the AWG world to get opposing papers banned. The code is coming. There is a ww effort to recompile the source. Some have parts are running. It produces the hockey stick even with bogus data. No matter what you put in you get the same result.
You know clean environment is not a problem for me. I hate foreign oil. I hate oil in my gulf. The CO2 tax is where I have the problem. We should not give the government the go ahead to tax the air I exhale. We can do much more in more ways the clean up and lose the dependance.
Better solutions such as standardized energy cells, incentives to automakers to develop cars on that standard, incentives for service stations to adopt the standard, incentives for consumers to buy the new standard. That same standard can be expanded to the home. Hydrogen cells, hydrogen lines, and anything else. We just needs the standards. Think MP3. One standard changed everything. That standard would spread worldwide. The US just needs to state what our standard is and everyone gets in line. The EPA should be doing this but what they want to do is protect the money. The week after climategate, the EPA had the finding. That was the backup in case cap and trade failed.
Wake up man before it is too late.

drklassen
You’re going to have to define “scrubbed”; they say it’s raw data, you claim it isn’t. Where’s your proof?
As for coder comments, I downloaded the code and haven’t seen anything like what you are claiming. Which code? Which programs? What comments? Without specifics you’re just making assertions without proof.
There is no conspiracy against funding or publication except in those who believe the world is out to get them. Funding is VERY competitive so unless you can show your specific project has merit (i.e. will answer the questions posed) you won’t get it. I’ve seen things funded that go against orthodoxy before (e.g. methane on Mars) so a persecution complex doesn’t cut it with me. Ditto on publication. The issue Mann had with the GRL was more that the paper they published that was “anti-AGW” was simply shoddy science at best. Add to that, the political nature of the topic (thank you Joe Barton and James Inhofe), does make the fact shoddy science was published even more egregious. Sorry, but if morons on the Hill were calling me criminally fraudulent, I’d be pissed if they could arm themselves with “legitimized” shoddy work and call it legitimate just because some editor let it slide.
The problem with getting “new standards” is the HUGE barriers of entry, the massive government subsidies to the current fossil-fuel industries, and the fact that they don’t have to fully clean up their own messes (mountain top removal?!). Thus, I’m all in favor of a CO2 tax—not the crap CO2, cap-and-trade exchanges, but a REAL, simple, cap-and-tax. Use those funds to provide the alternatives a start-up funding to give them an economic chance. Without it, oil and coal can simply undercut them in the market until they are dead. Add to that removal of ALL fossil fuel subsidies and begin charging them for their environmental impacts at every level.

http://climatedepot.com/ Mike the Hun
Global Warming is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the world. I can barely contain my schadenfreude-tinged joy watching all you climate clowns spiral into madness as the charade fails. Remember, when you do go insane there won’t be any more government money to pay for the nuthouse they’ll put you in You broke it, you bought it !!