# AGW Revealed as a Hoax? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 25, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854 "2009-11-25T01:34:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/1 "2009-11-25T01:34:14Z")
Read it and weep: [WWW.DRUDGEREPORT.COM](http://WWW.DRUDGEREPORT.COM) The extent of this fraud is amazing-we have evidence of outright destruction of data, evidence of collusion (in suppressing acdemic data), and conspiracy. So, do the revelations exposed by the hackers invalidate the AGW proponents?:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/2 "2009-11-25T01:44:11Z")
Moving to Great Debates. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/3 "2009-11-25T01:46:59Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > So, do the revelations exposed by the hackers invalidate the AGW proponents?:smack: The short answer: absolutely not. The evidence for AGW goes far beyond the research produced by a single institution. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/4 "2009-11-25T01:47:44Z")
Hmmm. Have any of the documents in question been verified? All I can seem to find is claims about an unnamed hacker breaking into an email system, then releasing some sensational-sounding documents to the press. Can we be sure he didn’t just make it all up? If the conspiracy was as deep and blatantly wilful as is being suggested, how on earth was the lid kept on it until now? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/5 "2009-11-25T01:57:05Z")
> **[What do the hacked CRU emails tell us?](https://skepticalscience.com/What-do-the-hacked-CRU-emails-tell-us.html)** > > Earlier this week, the servers at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked. Emails dating back to 1996 were stolen and leaked onto the web. Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit, has confirmed the emails are not forgeries... > [@](#): > > What do the hacked CRU emails tell us? > > Earlier this week, the servers at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked. Emails dating back to 1996 were stolen and leaked onto the web. Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit, has confirmed the emails are not forgeries although there is over 60Mb worth of material - they can’t guarantee all of it is genuine. What does it all mean? Michelle Malkin labels it the global warming scandal of the century (of course the century is only 9 years old but even ‘scandal of the decade’ would be no mean feat). James Delingpole at the UK Telegraph claims the emails are the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’? So just what do these emails tell us? > > Some of the emails must be embarrassing for the authors. One email responds in poor taste to the death of a well known skeptic. There’s scathing discussion of skeptics such as Steve McIntyre and Roger Pielke, including imaginings of violence. However, the crucial question is whether these emails reveal that climate data has been falsified. The most quoted email is from Phil Jones in 1999 discussing paleo-data used to reconstruct past temperatures (emphasis mine): > > ``` > "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." > > ``` > > What do the suggestive “tricks” and “hiding the decline” mean? Is this evidence of a nefarious climate conspiracy? “Mike’s Nature trick” refers to the paper Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries (Mann 1998), published in Nature by lead author Michael Mann. The “trick” is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales. > [@](#): > > In the skeptic blogosphere, there is a disproportionate preoccupation with one small aspect of climate science - proxy record reconstructions of past climate (or even worse, ad hominem attacks on the scientists who perform these proxy reconstructions). This serves to distract from the physical realities currently being observed. Humans are raising CO2 levels. We’re observing an enhanced greenhouse effect. The planet is still accumulating heat. What are the consequences of our climate’s energy imbalance? Sea levels rise is accelerating. Greenland ice loss is accelerating. Arctic ice loss is accelerating. Globally, glacier ice loss is accelerating. Antarctic ice loss is accelerating. > > When you read through the many global warming skeptic arguments, a pattern emerges. Each skeptic argument misleads by focusing on one small piece of the puzzle while ignoring the broader picture. To focus on a few suggestive emails while ignoring the wealth of empirical evidence for manmade global warming is yet another repeat of this tactic. Same old, I still remember several years ago yet another report that claimed AGW was a hoax, seems that it did not turn to be that way as some need to remind us once again. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/6 "2009-11-25T01:57:06Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Hmmm. Have any of the documents in question been verified? All I can seem to find is claims about an unnamed hacker breaking into an email system, then releasing some sensational-sounding documents to the press. Can we be sure he didn’t just make it all up? > > If the conspiracy was as deep and blatantly wilful as is being suggested, how on earth was the lid kept on it until now? By that logic there are no conspiracy theories since if there are they all would have been revealed. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/7 "2009-11-25T01:59:17Z")
No. Not a hoax. I think this shows that the issue has unfortunately veered from science to politics and we need to be very careful about what we believe and accept. Personally, I’m sure we have an effect on the planet. -Clean and efficient energy production is a worthy goal in itself. -Waste is bad. -Pollution is bad. -Conserving resources is good. Whether or not the temperature is going up or down or Manhattan is going to sink into the ocean or not doesn’t change this. That being said, unfortunately climate change is no longer science. It’s politics and religion. Oddly enough, the ethics I’ve outlined above serve me quite well in the absence of certainty. Got a thread here on the subject: > **[Is Global Warming science?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=541300)** > > In SuperFreakonomics Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner devote a chapter towards global warming. The questions being posed are if we actually know what we think we know about climate change and possible solutions. They met with several different... ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/8 "2009-11-25T02:06:53Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Read it and weep: [WWW.DRUDGEREPORT.COM](http://WWW.DRUDGEREPORT.COM) > The extent of this fraud is amazing-we have evidence of outright destruction of data, evidence of collusion (in suppressing acdemic data), and conspiracy. > So, do the revelations exposed by the hackers invalidate the AGW proponents?:smack: Ralph. You need to stop believing everything you read on the internet. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/9 "2009-11-25T02:17:03Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > By that logic there are no conspiracy theories since if there are they all would have been revealed. No. Let’s try again: > [@Mangetout](#): > > **If the conspiracy was as deep and blatantly wilful as is being suggested** , how on earth was the lid kept on it until now? Do you see that I was not talking about _all conspiracies_? I was expressing doubt that _ **a conspiracy of this supposed magnitude** _ could remain intact. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/10 "2009-11-25T02:31:50Z")
Of interest, [Real Climate’s report](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/) on the UEA hack – which apparently did not affect Hadley CRU’s servers. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/11 "2009-11-25T02:36:55Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > By that logic there are no conspiracy theories since if there are they all would have been revealed. Of course there are conspiracies in real life, and sometimes they are revealed. There is a whole body of criminal law for dealing with them. The kind of conspiracies posited by conspiracy **theories** – international conspiracies shaping the course of history over several generations – are never plausible, precisely because it would be impossible to keep anything that big, involving that many people, secret for that long. ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/12 "2009-11-25T03:02:34Z")
At minimum, AGW has taken a serious credibility broadside. [“Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists](http://info-wars.org/2009/11/23/climategate-peer-review-system-was-hijacked-by-warming-alarmists/) > [@](#): > > “On a global scale it’s frightening because this group of people not only control the Hadley Centre, which controls the data on global temperature through the Hadley Climate Research Unit but they also control the IPCC and they’ve manipulated that. And of course the IPCC has become the basis in all governments for the Kyoto protocol, the Copenhagen accord and so on….” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/13 "2009-11-25T03:16:16Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Ralph. You need to stop believing everything you read on the internet. > > -Joe Including that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/14 "2009-11-25T03:19:56Z")
I’m curious what makes the OP happier - that his grandchildren won’t die of skin cancer, or that some filthy liberal scum were proven wrong. Assuming, of course, the claim about AGW is true. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/15 "2009-11-25T05:58:43Z")
I think the truth is that there’s an awful lot of fabrication and willful ignorance on both sides of this issue. And a great deal of it smacks more of knee-jerk religion than rational thought. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/16 "2009-11-25T06:17:35Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I think the truth is that there’s an awful lot of fabrication and willful ignorance on both sides of this issue. And a great deal of it smacks more of knee-jerk religion than rational thought. Well, it is a funny religion that one that had to hunt for evidence for many years to then convince most scientists. [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm) Long history yes, but one has to say that the willful ignorance is not coming from climate researchers. Nor from most physicists, meteorologists, and other researchers. > **[Scientific consensus on climate change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change)** > > There is scientific consensus that the Earth has been consistently warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution, that the rate of recent warming is largely unprecedented,: 8 : 11  and that this warming is mainly the result of a rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human activities. The human activities causing this warming include fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and land use changes such as deforestation,: 10–11  with a significant supporting ro Nearl... ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/17 "2009-11-25T06:36:12Z")
It isn’t news to me that scientists get petty, and hyperbolic when describing those who detract from the work they have done. If the entire weight of evidence for global climate change, and human involvement in it were based on proxy data models of the type most prominently featured in the “scandal” being discussed, it would be a significant argument that AGW was seriously flawed. But that is not the case, and a lot of evidence not under the consideration by the UEA’s CRU also supports the fundamental contention that climate change is happening, and the effect is global. The harsh facts of climate science are that it is presently not at a sufficiently mature state that any sort of unified authoritative body can exist. I don’t find that troubling. Academic hierarchies are not likely to improve the quality of research, and politics has no place in science. However both of them have a lot to do with who gets money. No news there. The “trick” so prominently displayed, by the way, is one of several methods used to eliminate proxy evidence results that are known to produce false data. The reason that proxy method fails at that particular point in history is not known. It is known that the results given by following that particular proxy (Tree rings) goes wrong in 1960. So, various statistical methods are used to replace the data in that critical period with actual recorded data, and the results of that change are then examined to create models for future changes. Is that a questionable method? Well, I think so. But it was no where near the conspiracy to defraud the world public that has been suggested. Proxy models are not that great. I happen to favor the instrument record, wherever it can be referenced. But that record is very short, and very local to the northern hemisphere. But the instrument record agrees quite closely with the projections of the past, although according to them, Global Climate Change is more rapid than was predicted in the First IPCC reports. The fact of a criminal invasion of the proprietary is not much referenced by the Drudge Report. In a court the testimony of a thief on the nature of the work stolen is suspect. If he could steal it, he could add to it, or subtract from it, or entirely fabricate as much of it as he wanted. I can’t consider this theft a credible addition to even the very narrow part of the AGW evidence. I don’t expect that to be a common view. Tris ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/18 "2009-11-25T09:15:38Z")
OK what does AGW mean? Linking to the front page of the drudge report is about as effective as linking to [CNN.COM](http://CNN.COM) for ‘breaking news’. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/19 "2009-11-25T09:27:21Z")
“Anthropogenic global warming” (that is, not just that the climate is changing, but specifically that it’s changing because of what humans are doing). ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854/20 "2009-11-25T13:05:03Z")
How on earth did the University of East Anglia end up being considered so important? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agw-revealed-as-a-hoax/518854.md?page=2)