Eloise Gibson of the New Zealand Herald writes about the recent ‘Climategate’ scandal, in which emails stolen from a leading climate research institute have prompted claims by some that anthropogenic climate change is a scam.
There has been much debate over the actual importance of the emails – in this article, Eloise looks at some of the most widely-cited emails, and examines the criticisms/defence thereof.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“Emails seen by the Herald, from New Zealand scientists, reveal little apart from some grumbling about a research paper they had already publicly panned, by Auckland University’s Chris de Freitas.
…
“Climate experts in several countries went into damage control – stressing that while the emails were personally embarrassing for three or four scientists, they did not undermine the evidence of man-made global warming gathered by hundreds of top scientists over many years.
“But while the scientific questions were answered, the “delete the emails” message left questions which prompted Guardian columnist George Monbiot – a strong supporter of action to fight man-made global warming – to call for Dr Jones’ resignation.”