You know what the problem is? The “noise machine of the climate deniers.” Yep, that’s the problem. Gore spoke to Slate yesterday, dismissing the ClimateGate correspondence as “private exchanges” (which, by the way, he hasn’t read) from more than “10 years ago,” taken “wildly out of context.”
Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University? A: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.* These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus. But the noise machine built by the climate deniers often seizes on what they can blow out of proportion, so they’ve thought this is a bigger deal than it is. Q: There is a sense in these e-mails, though, that data was hidden and hoarded, which is the opposite of the case you make [in your book] about having an open and fair debate. A: I think it’s been taken wildly out of context. The discussion you’re referring to was about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed. So an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago* including somebody’s opinion that a particular study isn’t any good is one thing, but the fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is. These people are examining what they can or should do to deal with the P.R. dimensions of this, but where the scientific consensus is concerned, it’s completely unchanged. What we’re seeing is a set of changes worldwide that just make this discussion over 10-year-old e-mails kind of silly.* The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our very eyes. It’s been the size of the continental United States for the last 3 million years and now 40 percent is gone and the rest of it is going. The mountain glaciers are going. We’ve had record storms, droughts, fires, and floods. There is an air of unreality in debating these arcane points when the world is changing in such dramatic ways right in front of our eyes because of global warming.
He sure does lean heavily on the fact that the e-mails don’t matter because they’re 10 years old. But what does that little asterisk mean after each of Gore’s references? Australian journalist Andrew Bolt enlightens us:
In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, one Climategate email was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 – just a month ago. The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year.
Bolt’s article forced Gore to issue a statement, cited at the end of the Slate interview: “The e-mail exchanges that I focused on are approximately 10 years old. Some of the e-mail exchanges cited by others are more recent. None of them change the scientific consensus in any way.” Reasonably well-informed people who may be skeptical of the climate crisis and have heard about the ClimateGate e-mails might wonder, if the e-mails signify nothing, why Gore must lie to minimize them. They might also wonder why the subject rouses Gore from his sonorous lecture tone into spitting anger:
The physical relationship between CO2 molecules and the atmosphere and the trapping of heat is as well-established as gravity, for God’s sakes. It’s not some mystery…. But the basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!-physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn’t trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it?…
Seeing the stuttering of the Goracle has more impact in video form. CNN could have been harder on him about ClimateGate, but they do ask several questions about it, and at least mention the fact that many of the e-mails are fewer than 10 years old. The line of questioning about nuclear energy, toward the end, is pretty entertaining. For a guy who’s so deadly sure that everything he believes is as “settled” as “gravity,” and anyone with less faith than he is simply the kind of person who would question the moon landing, he sure doesn’t like to be asked about it, does he?
