The Weekly Enlightenment

A short week this week as I was in Minnesota and South Dakota for Thanksgiving. To all those we saw, it was very nice seeing you and we had a great time.

The big news this past week was revelations about some main scientists in the IPCC (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), who have been fanning the flames of climate change alarmism, found to try to silence skeptics, possibly hide data despite requests about freedom of information, and even possibly falsifying data. As more details develop I will be glad to post them. The reaction to these has been typical. The media is ignoring it or arguing that those who leaked it should be punished (how about revelations about the SWIFT program), the UN and other IPCC members are trying to say this isn't indicative of the entire IPCC, and the administration continues to insist on the consensus and the science is pure. I thought these were scientists above reproach, the purest of the pure, and so on. Obviously not.

Of course I don't think science is all that pure. There are probably quite a few groups that are either funded by the government, funded by companies that have a vested interest in the outcome, or simple advocacy groups that appear decidedly anti-capitalist (Center for Science in the Public Interest).

* A summary of some of the leaked emails. At the end of the article is a mention of An Elegant Chaos, which I highly recommend.
* A discussion of deleting emails rather than allowing them to be seen through freedom of information request.
* A major building block in the theory questioned, and the response is decidely anti-science, at least from what we've been led to believe about the purity of GW scientists.
* Still more. In this case, hiding that the next 10 years or so will continue to remain cool, despite their claims. If they couldn't predict current trends, how can we trust them to predict future trends?
* Typical media response. Punish the whistleblower. While I can see some merit to the argument, not only were the media happy about publishing other private things - Palin emails, Pentagon Papers, and SWIFT, but they have been seriously derelict in publishing or making known any criticisms of global warming.
* More exposure.

Silly Liberals
* ACORN also dumping documents.
*Seven big lies about the stimulus.
* Obama's unprecedented use of the word "unprecedented".