Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

First the good news. George Monbiot – aka the Great Moonbat – has issued a personal apology for the shabby behaviour of his climate-fear-promoting scientist chums in the Climategate scandal.

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging(1). I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released(2,3), and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request(4).

Now the not-so-good-news. He’s trying to limit the damage by pinning the blame on one (admittedly very deserving, but there are others, Lord knows there are others) man.

Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics(5,6), or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(7). I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

Now for the bit where it gets unpleasant. So seriously unpleasant that I’m not sure I should be posting such things in a family newspaper. You ready? I’m warning you, it’s not pretty. The Moonbat makes a brave but not – I fear – wholly successful foray into the unfamiliar terrain of humour and satire. Here goes:

To bury manmade climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed. Luckily for the sceptics, and to my intense disappointment, I have now been passed the damning email which confirms that the entire science of global warming is indeed a scam. Had I known that it was this easy to rig the evidence, I wouldn’t have wasted years of my life promoting a bogus discipline. In the interests of open discourse, I feel obliged to reproduce it here.

No, no. Keep up there at the back! The Moonbat isn’t really experiencing “intense disappointment.” This is a joke, geddit? He’s about to show you the kind of letter which really would be a smoking gun, if it existed, which of course it doesn’t because you see – (ho ho!, stap me vitals, ooh nurse, etc) – George made it up using the humorous medium of comical exaggeration for satirical effect.

Now read on:

“From: ernst.kattweizel@redcar.ac.uk
Sent: 29th October 2009
To: The Knights Carbonic

Gentlemen, the culmination of our great plan approaches fast. What the Master called “the ordering of men’s affairs by a transcendent world state, ordained by God and answerable to no man”, which we now know as Communist World Government, advances towards its climax at Copenhagen. For 185 years since the Master, known to the laity as Joseph Fourier, launched his scheme for world domination, the entire physical science community has been working towards this moment.

The early phases of the plan worked magnificently. First the Master’s initial thesis – that the release of infrared radiation is delayed by the atmosphere – had to be accepted by the scientific establishment. I will not bother you with details of the gold paid, the threats made and the blood spilt to achieve this end. But the result was the elimination of the naysayers and the disgrace or incarceration of the Master’s rivals. Within 35 years the 3rd Warden of the Grand Temple of the Knights Carbonic (our revered prophet John Tyndall) was able to “demonstrate” the Master’s thesis. Our control of physical science was by then so tight that no major objections were sustained.

Etc. Anyway, I’m not going to run the thing in full lest you damage your sides. Suffice to say that thanks to the Moonbat’s ingenious reductio ad absurdum of the Climate Change Deniers’ position, we can all now happily agree that Climategate isn’t at all an important story and that the scientists revealed to have manipulated data, shut down debate and hidden evidence are in no wise part of any conspiracy to promote belief in AGW. They were just ordinary, decent chaps doing their job. Thanks George.

James Delingpole

James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books including Welcome To Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future And It Doesn't Work, How To Be Right, and the Coward series of WWII adventure novels. His website is www.jamesdelingpole.com