Climategate Cover Up Continues With CRU Hacking Saga

by DR. TIM BALL on JULY 22, 2011

Climategate was named after Watergate and like its namesake the cover up is amplifying the disgraceful behavior of the original disclosure. The most bizarre to date is the fact that the University of East Anglia hired Neil Wallis of Outside Organization to handle the fall out from the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in November 2009. Wallis, a former editor at the News of The World was arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandals that led to the resignation of London Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner as well as Andy Coulson, Prime Minister Cameron’s press secretary.

Phil Jones, CRU Director, advised the world and the police that their computers were hacked. This was important and possibly done on advice. Involving the police froze disclosure of information and implied a crime was committed. Calling it a hacking reinforced this with implication for future legal action. Reportedly, hacked material is not admissible in court, unlike information disclosed by a whistleblower. Apparently a special police unit was assigned, but nothing has emerged since. It is critical beyond the CRU because its members dominated and controlled the major portions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports.

Few are aware that the first leak was to Paul Hudson, meteorologist reporter with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He sat on the material for five weeks, likely concerned about the implications learned from previous interactions with the CRU gang. When Hudson, a former Met Office employee working at the BBC, wrote an article that questioned the CRU science Mann wrote,

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what’s up here?

It appears Richard Black did speak to — and intimidate — Hudson, because he never released them. The “leaker” was apparently determined to have the material out before the Copenhagen Conference that planned to perpetuate the Kyoto Protocol. He sent them out through a Russian IP that reportedly prevented a trace. The BBC continues its biased work on the climate issue with attempts to “muzzle climate sceptics”.

The leaked emails triggered a shock wave reflecting the degree to which climate science was politicized; therefore, it required the top political spin-doctors. University spokesperson Trevor Davies said it was a “reputation management” problem, which he claimed they don’t handle well. Apparently, telling the truth was not considered.

George Monbiot of The Guardian actively sold the scientific rubbish produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose major scientists were members of the CRU. This makes his reaction more telling. He was shocked by the emails, and said,

…why was CRU’s response to this issue such a total car crash.

George, the answer is because they were deceiving you, the politicians, and the public. Meanwhile, you were attacking scientists who knew what was going on and dared out speak out.

The spin-doctors put in place two investigation panels that separated out the science and limited their investigation with terms of reference. The University of East Anglia (UEA) and Muir Russell both said the Lord Oxburgh inquiry would examine the science. At a press conference on February 11, 2010, Muir Russell said,

Our job is to investigate scientific rigor, the honesty, the openness and the due process of CRU’s approach as well as the other things in the remit and compliance with rules. It’s not our job to audit CRU’s scientific conclusions. That would require a different set of skills and resources.

The Lord Oxburgh investigation was doomed from the start.

A member of the House of Lords appointed to investigate the veracity of climate science has close links to businesses that stand to make billions of pounds from low-carbon technology.

The cover-up was easily detectable. Clive Crook, Senior editor of the The Atlantic, wrote a searing indictment of the whitewash.

I had hoped, not very confidently, that the various Climategate inquiries would be severe. This would have been a first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific consensus. But no, the reports make things worse. At best they are mealy-mouthed apologies; at worst they are patently incompetent and even wilfully wrong. The climate-science establishment, of which these inquiries have chosen to make themselves a part, seems entirely incapable of understanding, let alone repairing, the harm it has done to its own cause.

Worse, they concluded that what went on was within normal patterns of interchanges and activities between a group of scientists. It’s inconceivable that any reasonable person reading the emails can reach such a conclusion. Meanwhile, we still don’t know who leaked the material. The public is aware of the everyday behavior anomalies of the CRU group, but is still unaware of the extent of the problems with the climate science. Emeritus Professor Garth Paltridge said:

Basically, the problem is that the research community has gone so far along the path of frightening the life out of the man in the street that to recant publicly even part of the story would massively damage the reputation and political clout of science in general. And so, like corpuscles in the blood, researchers all over the world now rush in overwhelming numbers to repel infection by any idea that threatens the carefully cultivated belief in climatic disaster.

They’ve gone so far along the path because climate science was used to frighten people for a political agenda. But this is not surprising because the first IPCC Chairman, Sir John Houghton said,

Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.

That is why they used political operatives for the cover up that continues apace – and, like Watergate, will be their undoing.

Related articles: