AP Report Says Climate Emails Do Not Reveal Faked Science

by Katherine Gustafson · 2009-12-14 06:00:00 UTC

Five Associated Press reporters read and re-read all the emails stolen from UK's University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit to seek any evidence that the scientists who wrote them were tampering with their results to make the evidence for global warming seem stronger than it in fact was. They found none.

"The exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions," the AP wrote. The reporters flagged a set of emails, which they shared with three climate scientists considered moderates to see if they could interpret any wrong-doing. In no case did the emails change these scientists' conclusion that climate change is a man-made threat or dampen their support for the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

What the AP's reports did find evidence of is "a stunning disdain for global warming skeptics" and, most troubling, an intense reluctance to share scientific data with others who might be critical of their conclusions. The institution was clearly cultivating an appallingly insular environment and a dismissive attitude toward the larger global dialogue. Even so, the "exhaustive review" by the AP found that "the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked." Which is ultimately what we should be most concerned with at this point.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

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