Abu Wabu

Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard points to his brother Marc's work in examining the ClimateGate scandal over at American Thinker. The devastating wrap-up:

Clamoring alarmists can and will spin this until they're dizzy. The ever-clueless mainstream media can and will ignore this until it's forced upon them as front-page news, and then most will join the alarmists on the denial merry-go-round.

But here's what's undeniable: If a divergence exists between measured temperatures and those derived from dendrochronological data after (circa) 1960 then discarding only the post-1960 figures is disingenuous to say the least. The very existence of a divergence betrays a potential serious flaw in the process by which temperatures are reconstructed from tree-ring density. If it's bogus beyond a set threshold, then any honest men of science would instinctively question its integrity prior to that boundary. And only the lowliest would apply a hack in order to produce a desired result.

And to do so without declaring as such in a footnote on every chart in every report in every study in every book in every classroom on every website that such a corrupt process is relied upon is not just a crime against science, it's a crime against mankind.

Indeed, miners of the CRU folder have unearthed dozens of email threads and supporting documents revealing much to loathe about this cadre of hucksters and their vile intentions. This veritable goldmine has given us tales ranging from evidence destruction to spitting on the Freedom of Information Act on both sides of the Atlantic. But the now irrefutable evidence that alarmists have indeed been cooking the data for at least a decade may just be the most important strike in human history.

Comments Newsbusters' Sheppard:

If a software designer, consultant, and business owner in his spare time can uncover this, why can't America's leading science periodicals or key "journalists" in this debate?

Is investigative journalism truly dead in this country, or is it only employed to uncover truths that either buttress the media's view of the world or undermine those that don't?

Consider that in the past two years, we have witnessed the press:

- Ignore important facts about a presidential candidate in order to get him elected
- Ignore or gloss over important facts about a President's appointees to get them approved by Congress
- Ignore important facts about a President's "czars"
- Ignore important facts about a major "community organizing" group

In the case of the latter two issues, conservative bloggers, talk show hosts, and Fox News were alone in coverage until the mainstream media eventually came aboard kicking and screaming.

Now, revelations about some of the country's leading climate scientists and activists -- who have ties to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as the ear of the White House and leading members of Congress -- are going largely ignored or soft-soaped.

In the meantime, the media is all over the Tiger Woods story. Chrissakes.

American Thinker: CRU's Source Code: Climategate Uncovered