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ClimateGate Anniversary

ClimateGate, whether you love it or hate it, has certainly changed the climate change discussion and made the science behind climate change much more visible to the general public.

For those who have been living under a rock, ClimateGate refers to the release of emails and data files from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, see this article for more details.

Basically, this has exposed several short comings in the underlying academic approach to the science and also has indicated a rather 'them and us' approach to dealing with criticism and questioning of the research and conclusions being presented - i.e. stone wall, defend, silence or attack anyone who 'damages' the cause of promoting man made climate change.

Further, given the lack of real forensic journalism around this and climate change in general; ClimateGate has served to put a spotlight on the lack of real journalism occurring around this subject area and demonstrate that there is an implied 'group think' going on to diminish everything negative and up sell the need to deal with man made climate change.

Although, thank god, it is beginning to appear like even all this is not enough to stop reality biting; i.e.:

• The failure of the Chicago Climate Exchange .
• The self implosion of the 10:10 campaign . 
• Research and reports showing that carbon trading does not work.
• The failure of Copenhagen to get any meaningful agreements.
• The Royal Society adjusting its position on uncertainly in climate models.
• The BBC called for the resignation of Dr Pachauri from the IPCC .
• Climate Change rebranded to Climate Disruption as nobody takes notice.
• IAC recommends the IPCC to reform.

These are just the headline topics I covered, a whole of lot of other research and investigation has and is going on into the whole climate change science issue.



In essence, ClimateGate acted as a useful catalyst to open a lot of peoples eyes to what was happening - and most of this was found out through blogs and the Internet; completely behind (and to the annoyance of) the main stream media. This must be seen as a very good thing indeed.