This is the real significance of the climategate emails. They show that major scientists who inform the IPCC can't be trusted to stick to the science and avoid political activism. This, in turn, has very worrying implications for the major international policy decisions adopted on the basis of their research.
That tells me what I need to know. I don't need to know about the accuracy of the interpretation of every single email involved. The bottom line is that the data for the entire project are questionable and Phil Jones, who was in charge of the data set, lied about it (tip to Instapundit):
Here’s my problem with all of this, Dr. Jones. You tried out a variety of claimed reasons for not responding to a request for your data. None of them were even remotely true. They were all intended to hide the fact that you didn’t know where the data was. Dave clearly spelled out the problem: “we don’t know which data belongs to which stations, right?”
You claimed that the data was out there on the web somewhere. You claimed you couldn’t send any of it because of restrictions on a few datasets. You claimed it came from GHCN, then you said from NCAR, but you couldn’t say exactly where.
You gave lots and lots of explanations to me, everything except the truth—that your records were in such disarray that you could not fulfill my request. It is clear now from the Climategate emails that some records were there, some were missing, the lists were not up to date, there was orphan data, some stations had multiple sets of data, some data was only identified by folder not by filename, you didn’t know which data might have been covered by confidentiality agreements, and the provenance of some datasets could not be established. The unfortunate reality was that you simply couldn’t do what I asked.
And if he wasn't lying about it, his lack of knowledge about it is equally damning. Knave or fool are equally damning choices, eh?
In the end, Doctor. Jones stands there telling us we don't need to know anything more about the model. The data are real and they're spectacular!
As I've said many times on this issue, we don't even need to have the debate over whether authoritarian and socialist policies are the correct response to the problem of global warming. That question should be answered with a firm "no" even if the science is settled on the issue of what will happen and what the consequences of that will be.
But we aren't at the point of settling the science. Hell, we aren't even at the point of settling on the data that is the foundation of the science! And the scientists themselves know that they can't prove what their faith tells them is true. Which is lovely for them--freedom of religion, and all that--but why we should have to pay for their beliefs is beyond me.
UPDATE: Doh! Now I know why the Seinfeld reference came to me when I read the main story--I'd already seen it. Funny enough, that episode was also on TV yesterday after I wrote the post. Spectacular, indeed.
