One of Britain’s leading climate change research organisations, Climate Research Unit, has recently been hacked and had much of its private data and email conversations leaked onto the internet. What is perhaps most interesting about the data that has been leaked, is that in some cases it shows a very real and conscious effort to distort scientific findings in order to fit predetermined opinions.
The alleged leaked emails can be read here.
It is quite shocking to consider really, and looking through some other blog posts that have highlighted particularly interesting/damning emails points to some extraordinary findings. I’m not bringing attention to this to necessarily side with those who are skeptical of the global warming hypothesis – I am not well versed enough in the topic to pass judgment either way – but it does seem like there is a lot in this recent leaked data to make people question some of the scientific validity and transparency of some presentations referred to. Even more damning is evidence that climate change skeptics have been purposefully sidelined from large conferences, with their findings intentionally ignored.
It opens up a whole different can of worms, in asking whether or not it is ethical to break into a private organisation’s servers in order to capture their data and disseminate it. However, I do think that in this particular case there is something more going on here that allows us to see that both sides of the equation are acting unethically. The hacker themselves committed a crime, that much seems certain; but to the same degree, some of the emails really do point to some very unethical behaviour on the behalf of those who were are putting trust into reporting back accurate findings on climate change.
If the data shows something different then what is being presented, we deserve to hear this. To see that some people involved in the research feel that the public will become ‘confused’ or unable to handle any change in message really points to a dangerous path being walked scientifically. On the other hand, many of the skeptics are using this to promote a sense of a large cohesive conspiracy; often leading to the predictable evil of the ‘One World Government’ monster. It all makes both sides hard to completely believe in, if I’m honest…
This is one that I’m definitely going to hand over without commenting too much upon, as I haven’t read enough of what’s going on yet. So what do you think about this? We definitely want to hear from you in the comments on this one…
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