Narrator
Our very planet depends on them. Yet they remain nature's most elusive scientific species, inhabiting some of the world's most delicate and daunting academic environments. But thanks to new breakthroughs in high speed cameras and email files, metascientists are finally beginning to understand their mysterious behaviors and complex social interactions. Tonight on Iowahawk Geographic: step inside the Secret Life of the Climate Researchers.
French Horn Fanfare Theme
Fast-cut montage of walrus mating with polar bear, astronomer peering through telescope into neighbor's window, cheetahs chasing penguins on the Serengeti, scientists filling out NSF grant proposals
Dah dat dat DAAAH dat, dah daht duh dah dee-dah dee dah-dah!
Narrator
This is the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, home of one of the largest nesting populations of climate scientists in Europe.
Gentle ant's-eye scene of idyllic campus lawn, strewn about with drunken mating undergraduates
Each year it attracts magnificent migratory flocks of graduate students, adjuncts and visiting faculty from across the northern hemisphere.
Shots of jumbo jets landing at Heathrow; herds of climate researchers busily milling at Duty Free shops, retrieving baggage, phoning for prearranged limo service
Within minutes of arriving on campus, the migratory researchers approach the entrance of the Climate Research Unit and perform the secret credential dance, fiercely displaying their prominent curriculum vitae. This signals to the security drone that they can be trusted with the sacred electronic lanyard badge that will grant them entrance to the hive's inner sanctum.
During the upcoming research season, this hive alone will produce over 6 million metric tons of grant-sustaining climate data guano, but until recently little was known about the elusive genus of homo scientifica living inside. Where do they come from? What strange force draws them here year after year? In order to unravel the mystery, Iowahawk Geographic documentary filmmaker David Burge undertook a painstaking one-week project to finally capture the climate researchers in their native habitat.
In this exclusive footage, Burge warily approaches the hive's security drone, disguising himself as smelly graduate student. Burge has theorized that as a member of the lowest stratum in the hive's social system, the drone likely enjoys partying. He reaches into his backpack and offers the drone a pint of Guinness and a small bag of weed in exchange for the hive's internal security tapes and email files. Success.
The never-before seen security tapes obtained by Burge provide a rare glimpse into the inner working of the climate research hive and its amazing guano production. In this sequence, we see one group of researchers entering the hive each carrying a datum they have retrieved from a distant climate measuring station. This is the cause of much excitement among their colleagues, who buzz around in a grant-writing frenzy.
Infrared heat map film of highly agitated researchers
But there's a problem: as the worker researchers attempt to store each raw datum into the neat honeycomb hockey stick structure provided by the hive's Alpha Grantwriter, they discover that few will fit. The infrared shows them growing cool with fear. This signals the climate researcher's instinctive behavior to begin viciously beating, rolling and normalizing the data into submission. According to Dr. Nigel V.H. Oldham, professor emeritus at Oxford University's Centre for Metascience, this violent data dance is what makes climate researchers unique among breeds of scientists.
Professor Nigel V.H. Oldham
Like other species in the order homo scientifica, the climate researcher gathers and organizes data to lure grant money to the hive. In contrast to those other species, however, the climate researcher has evolved a set of complex violent behaviors to insure any data leaving the hive is perfectly adapted to nature's most lucrative and sweetest grants. It really is a marvel of natural selection, and explains why the climate researcher continues to thrive in any kind of weather condition....
This piece is referring to the unfolding ClimateGate scandal. If you haven't heard about it yet, don't be surprised. Most media outlets talk about Anthropogenic (man-created) Global Warming (AGW) as if it is already established indisputable scientific fact.
I'm mostly skeptical of claims like this, not because I am a scientist, but because anytime "science" blends with politics - it inevitably becomes ideological (if you don't agree, you are bad), rather than scientific (if you don't agree, that's good. Curiosity about why things are the way they are, is the foundation of science). The fact that Al Gore is the chief proponent of AGW, should be a sign, not to just write off his opinion, but to at least approach the topic with a measure of skepticism. (Political alignment is irrelevant. If Al Gore were substituted with George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, it wouldn't make AGW one bit more or less true, or scientific.) Also, red flags seem especially appropriate whenever any 'science' a) claims to be "closed," or that the "debate is over," (For example - here's the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change Report which argues the opposite) or b) predicts doom and gloom on an apocalyptic scale... "unless..."
And I can't stress this point enough: Whether or not you agree that man is causing detrimental climate change is not the issue. The issue is that AGW has entered the political body and there is already legislation (Cap and Trade) on it being written which will cause drastic changes to our economy. And make no mistake - additional fees or taxes on companies to regulate their carbon emissions WILL have drastic effects. Most notably with regard to jobs, and the poor. Rising costs of energy and products, due to climate legislation will take a huge toll on people who are already hardest hit by lack of jobs and/or poverty.
If we are going to pass legislation in regard to AGW - we had better be absolutely certain that we know:
- Beyond a reasonable doubt - AGW is a Fact,
- How much the legislation will cost,
- Who will pay for it?, and most importantly
- Will the legislation address the problem?
If AGW is just speculation - why would we need legislation?
If the legislation will cost everyone a fortune (Important: remember the Seen vs. the Unseen), not just in jobs and rising costs, but also in restricting personal liberty - there must exist no possible alternative.
If the proposed political action will not fix the problem - but will instead dramatically damage the poor and unemployed - then it is an unscientific and irrational policy, and must be rejected.
Remember, once a law is passed to tax businesses or people for their carbon emissions - it is highly improbably that it will ever be repealed even if the 'scientific claims' on which it is based are disproven in the future. Governments do not readily give up taxes.
With that in mind, here's ClimateGate in a nutshell
Basically - some hackers got their hands on a ton of emails between a notable group of climate scientists who are leading the charge for the idea that man is causing climate change through carbon emissions (AGW). The emails reveal many disturbing things, from attempts to manipulate the data to fit their hypothesis, unlawful destruction (hiding) of data contrary to their position, and even spite against other scientists who disagree with their position.
Obviously - if this is true - then it is a big deal given everything we just discussed.
Here are some articles to get you started:
