What is Climategate and What Should Be Done About it?

Just like the infamous event referenced by the name, Climategate is a wash in politics and conspiracy theory.  Scandal erupted when a hacker stole e-mails from the UK’s Climate Research Unit server and spread them around the web. Unfortunately for the scientists, the emails show that the scientific community is not all polite and courteous.

In fact, there will likely be some firings that occur in conjunction with the leaked e-mails.  There is, however, a cause for skepticism, as some of the e-mails contain what appears to be an attempt to slant information in the favor of the scientists’ conclusions.  The leaked e-mails could also have an adverse effect on the Copenhagen climate treaty process; the US may not be so eager to commit to the treaty until research has come back into a better light.

This is tough for the climate change scientific community.  The scandal is deep and there are some strange things that have happened in connection with the e-mails.  For instance, a man was fired after an e-mail between climate science colleagues called for the man’s removal from his position.  But what is more important to me is that the scientists were, at the very least, engaging in something akin to a marketing campaign.  Whether they were falsifying their findings is doubtful, but they may have been presenting them in a less-than-objective light, which is frightening.  Science is rooted in objectivity, not the sale of conclusions from any leg of the community.

Most dangerous is that Climategate could have discredited what are actually 100-percent real findings.  Skeptics, led by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., are all over this, calling for independent reviews of the University of East Anglia, the home of the UK Climate Research Unit and major player in climate change science. The skeptics claim that the scientists are ignoring data that speaks against their desired results.  Essentially, most skeptics maintain that urban heat islands are warming the globe rather than greenhouse gases.  The bottom line?  Either way, the polar ice caps are melting and something must be done about it now.

There’s another important question to ask here. Who would hack a scientific database to retrieve communications? I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy, just that it makes me wonder because politics are notoriously dirty and Climategate reeks of politics.

Either way, it’s safe to say that Climategate shed a bright light on the very human inner workings of the scientific community.  A Bnet post explains, “What could be a big deal — the broader scientific community will have to be the judge — is the politicization, which really doesn’t have a place in good science. But most scientists, being all too aware of how much in-fighting is common within their own fields, probably won’t find much shocking about the e-mails.”

Whether it is scientists trying to find a way to turn non-believers into their fold or not, this type of science is not in the best interest of humankind.  It’s always difficult to prove a new theory when the world is unbelieving, but do it by startling research, not clever media.

For a complete directory of the hacked emails, click here.

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