Learning lessons from Climategate

The Climategate scandal of leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) has thrust the inner workings of the once obscure scientific community onto the world stage. CRU scientists are reported to be walking around in a daze, wondering what the great Godfather of climatology and former CRU director, Professor HH Lamb, would have made of it all.

That question, at least, is easy to answer. Lamb alerted the world to the instability and constant variability of global climate, and his name has been recruited to the cause of both consensus-mongers and sceptics in the global warming debate. But he would have resented absolutely anything that smacks of scientific censorship. His death in 1997 robbed the climate research community of a strong figurehead who would perhaps have steered it clear of the rocks upon which it may now be foundering.

Essentially, the leaked emails reveal that the global warming consensus, far from being watertight, is actually an uneasy coalition bonded together by an unholy glue of environmental fundamentalism and a misplaced moral compass. The “consensus” is trying to brush off Climategate by arguing that while it affects climate politics, it will have no impact on climate science. This is laughably disingenuous, for the incident shows precisely how tightly entwined climate science and politics have become. It reveals that climate scientists have been under pressure, not just subliminally but also in terms of their very livelihoods, to fall in line.



True, only lunatics would deny the greenhouse nature of carbon dioxide and methane. But over the next 50 years the impact of greenhouse gases is still uncertain, given the global climate system’s complex feedbacks and mediators—only some of which are incorporated in models and, even then, often inaccurately. It is this nuanced story that is reflected in many of the leaked emails, along with the rather clumsy attempts by some to suppress "inconvenient data," paraphrasing Al Gore. There is an almost desperate desire within the climate change research community to present the public and governments with a clear, unequivocal message that the Earth is warming because of greenhouse gases—as a result of human activities.

But I too have some emails to leak, although I have promised not to reveal their source. They come from climate scientists, and at least one IPCC panel member, confirming that the debate over the direction of global climate over the next 50 or even 100 years is far from settled, and much more research is needed to make more confident predictions.

Against this background it would surely be wise to reach a new consensus actually worthy of the name; one which even the more responsible sceptics might embrace. Namely, abandoning our mad dash for renewable sources like wind power that will only meet energy needs on a planet with a much smaller carbon footprint, and instead embarking on a serious, long-term research project into alternative energy sources.