Politicising and scare tactics cloud the issue
Friday, 12 March 2010
Fiona Harvey
Every night, Anthony Watts blogs on developments in a climate change scandal that he helped to uncover. The routine has made the Californian meteorologist one of the most followed global warming sceptics in the world.
"It's busier than ever it's hard to keep up," says Mr Watts. a TV weatherman for 25 years who now sells weather equipment. "I've been blogging every day and some days 1 wish 1 could take a vacation."
Mr Watts is at the centre of a loose network of internet sites where sceptics criticise climate change science. His life changed last November when he was sent e-mails that became known as "climategate" and showed climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in the UK refusing to release information and allegedly distorting data.
After posting the e-mails on wattsupwiththat.com, his website, traffic tripled, topping 37m hits since it was set up. He now receives 3.5m visitors a month.
Sceptics have had much to celebrate in recent weeks, with "climategate"' allowing them to challenge scientific findings as well as growing evidence they are swaying public opinion.
"Climategate is a very big scandal and it is only going to get bigger," says Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who is one of the most prominent sceptics in Washington. "I don't think the climate alarmists can ever recover from this."
The e-mails were followed by revelations of flaws in the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, chiefly a claim that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.
Among people who doubt the world is warming as the result of human activity, the claims are greeted with glee. "It's clear that [these scientists] make a lot of this stuff up," Mr Ebell says. "They are primarily interested in the political impact of what they do, rather than being good scientists."
The issue has brought to the fore thousands of amateur scientists and political bloggers who have toiled for years to point out what they regard as falsehoods by climate academics.
Julian Morris of the International Policy Network, a UK think-tank, says sceptic bloggers have been key in challenging the consensus view. "This was largely amateur scientists investigating claims that were made by supposedly professional scientists, then having discussions about it on the internet," he says.
There are also a few well-funded sceptic groups, such as the US-based Heartland Institute, supported to the tune of $5.2m in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. These blogs have also seen a sudden surge in traffic. Marc Morano, who runs ClimateDepot.com, says: "No one believes [the mainstream scientists] as they have overreached themselves and brought in politics. It became a silly game where they were trying to scare people."
In the UK, "climategate" has become a political issue. MPs on an influential committee grilled climate scientists and sceptics early this month in parliament's first hearing into the scandal.
For mainstream scientists, the surge in sceptic popularity is frustrating. They say only a handful of flaws has been found in the IPCC's work and it does not affect the main conclusions, forged by thousands of scientists through decades of research, that human activity is warming the climate.
Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, one of the UK's most prominent climate scientists, says one of the problems is the misleading use of the term "sceptics", suggesting climate scientists are not sceptical in testing their own research, when in fact they are. "All good scientists are sceptical," he says. "We are always testing, probing, evaluating and trying to knock down theories."
Nevertheless, public opinion is being swayed: in the UK, an Ipsos poll of 1,043 people found the number describing climate change as a reality was down from 44 per cent last year to 31 per cent.
There are signs people view climate research less as a science than as a belief system. Robert Spicer, professor at the UK's Open University, says: "I am often asked if I 'believe' in global warming as if [it] were a religion. It is not a case of belief [but] evaluating evidence - and the evidence is overwhelming."
Every night, Anthony Watts blogs on developments in a climate change scandal that he helped to uncover. The routine has made the Californian meteorologist one of the most followed global warming sceptics in the world.
"It's busier than ever it's hard to keep up," says Mr Watts. a TV weatherman for 25 years who now sells weather equipment. "I've been blogging every day and some days 1 wish 1 could take a vacation."
Mr Watts is at the centre of a loose network of internet sites where sceptics criticise climate change science. His life changed last November when he was sent e-mails that became known as "climategate" and showed climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in the UK refusing to release information and allegedly distorting data.
After posting the e-mails on wattsupwiththat.com, his website, traffic tripled, topping 37m hits since it was set up. He now receives 3.5m visitors a month.
Sceptics have had much to celebrate in recent weeks, with "climategate"' allowing them to challenge scientific findings as well as growing evidence they are swaying public opinion.
"Climategate is a very big scandal and it is only going to get bigger," says Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who is one of the most prominent sceptics in Washington. "I don't think the climate alarmists can ever recover from this."
The e-mails were followed by revelations of flaws in the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, chiefly a claim that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.
Among people who doubt the world is warming as the result of human activity, the claims are greeted with glee. "It's clear that [these scientists] make a lot of this stuff up," Mr Ebell says. "They are primarily interested in the political impact of what they do, rather than being good scientists."
The issue has brought to the fore thousands of amateur scientists and political bloggers who have toiled for years to point out what they regard as falsehoods by climate academics.
Julian Morris of the International Policy Network, a UK think-tank, says sceptic bloggers have been key in challenging the consensus view. "This was largely amateur scientists investigating claims that were made by supposedly professional scientists, then having discussions about it on the internet," he says.
There are also a few well-funded sceptic groups, such as the US-based Heartland Institute, supported to the tune of $5.2m in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. These blogs have also seen a sudden surge in traffic. Marc Morano, who runs ClimateDepot.com, says: "No one believes [the mainstream scientists] as they have overreached themselves and brought in politics. It became a silly game where they were trying to scare people."
In the UK, "climategate" has become a political issue. MPs on an influential committee grilled climate scientists and sceptics early this month in parliament's first hearing into the scandal.
For mainstream scientists, the surge in sceptic popularity is frustrating. They say only a handful of flaws has been found in the IPCC's work and it does not affect the main conclusions, forged by thousands of scientists through decades of research, that human activity is warming the climate.
Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, one of the UK's most prominent climate scientists, says one of the problems is the misleading use of the term "sceptics", suggesting climate scientists are not sceptical in testing their own research, when in fact they are. "All good scientists are sceptical," he says. "We are always testing, probing, evaluating and trying to knock down theories."
Nevertheless, public opinion is being swayed: in the UK, an Ipsos poll of 1,043 people found the number describing climate change as a reality was down from 44 per cent last year to 31 per cent.
There are signs people view climate research less as a science than as a belief system. Robert Spicer, professor at the UK's Open University, says: "I am often asked if I 'believe' in global warming as if [it] were a religion. It is not a case of belief [but] evaluating evidence - and the evidence is overwhelming."