Wow, this is DYNAMITE! And you can the T-shirt now too!

SORRY - Posterous made a mess of posting this but, as it was easier to fix on the Posterous blog than here, go here to get the full post http://maniraptor.posterous.com/wow-this-is-dynamite-and-you-can-the-t-shirt

Scientists accused of 'manipulating global warming data'

Still a developing story, - it made the front page of this morning's The Australian - but the recent hacking, (or release by an insider), of the computer system at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has the potential to be a major scientific scandal and the "tipping point" in the debate over man-made climate change.

The first reaction of many people to the news that emails, data files etc had been released onto a publicly accessible file sharing website, and that they appeared to vindicate and support many of the claims made by climate sceptics about how the science behind the claims of catastrophic climate change was being manipulated by a core of activist scientists, was caution.

It all appeared too good to be true.

Surely it had to be a hoax contrived by someone wanting to discredit the sceptics at the point when it is becoming clear that more and more people were starting to listen to them and to question the hysterical doom-mongering of transnational money making rackets like Greenpeace and the WWF.

(Glenn Milne has an interesting piece today, which includes this after poring over all the leading published surveys, CPI concludes of climate change: ”The trend over the past 18 months has seen a significant softening in concern for the issue.)

Even The Age's cartoonist is asking questions that the Age mostly dares not to:

But no, the CRU has confirmed that its system was hacked and has moved to change all passwords there.

There may still be some carefully hidden booby traps in the material, but Professor Phil Jones from the CRU has essentially admitted that it is genuine.

And he may be a very worried man at the moment.

Apart from emails that appear to clearly indicate how these men colluded with each other to manipulate results to make sure they were what they wanted them to be, whether the data supported them or not, ie that they engaged in scientific fraud, Jones may have engaged in criminal behaviour by deleting emails subject to official freedom of information requests.

Email 1107454306 is particularly interesting. In it, Dr Jones writes:

The two MMs [McKittrick and McIntyre] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.

What makes this interesting is that the CRU, in later years, If you are interested in more on global warming material [from Bishop Hill], check out Caspar and the Jesus Paper [This is about how the Hockey Stick was shown to be false] and The Yamal Implosion, or check out the forthcoming book."

Here's Powerline's take.

And yes, you can actually get the T-shirt!

“What really annoys me about this whole thing," comments Chilly in Connecticut, “is that it’s been out there for 24 hours already, and I still can’t find anyplace to buy a Hide the Decline t-shirt.”

You can now, Chilly:

Also available: mugs, bags, aprons and so on. This could lead to a whole line of fashionable denialist – or correctivist – wear. Meanwhile, here’s a leftist’s view of the CRU email scandal:

If this is revealed to be motivated by a wish to derail political action at Copenhagen or what may come after, those responsible have committed crimes against humanity.

An insider may face the firing squad … when solar rifles are invented.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous