Conservative bloggers are going wild after hackers got into the email from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The global warming deniers and conspiracy theorists are distorting the emails which have been posted on line to fuel their fantasies that the scientific consensus on climate change is a hoax. While it would be great if it turned out that we do not have to worry about climate change, the emails do not support the conspiracy theories of the right wing. Real Climate and Grist have reviewed their claims.
We are seeing three common techniques used by the right wing to distort the facts:
1) Taking statements out of context
2) Ignoring alternate meanings of words (for example, when scientists use “trick” in informal communications they are talking about finding a clever way to make things work, not trying to deceive people or distort data), and
3) Ignoring the science. There is a strong body of scientific evidence supporting climate change and this is the consensus view of scientists working in the field from different institutions from around the world. The science is not altered by anything in these emails.
