One Year After "Climategate"

By Theodora Filis

When unknown hackers stole more than 1,000 e-mails written by British climate researchers last year and published some of them on the Internet, the media dubbed the affair "Climategate" in reference to the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon.

Leaked from the Climate Research Unit in England, “Climategate” is said to be the result of someone deep in the inner circle of the climate movement, who chose to take a stand against lies and deceptions. The e-mails showed the scientists behind the climate scare plotting to hide, delete and manipulate data. To denigrate scientists presenting different views, and to force journals to publish only papers promoting climate alarm. The corruption spread through governments, universities, scientific societies, and journals.

Critics claimed the e-mails would prove that climate change predictions were based on unsound calculations.  Although a British parliamentary inquiry soon after confirmed that climate change was definitely not a conspiracy a climate debate tug-of-war continues.

On one side of the rope is a handful of highly influential climate researchers, on the other a powerful lobby of industrial associations determined to trivialize the dangers of global warming. This latter group is supported by the conservative wing of the American political spectrum, conspiracy theorists as well as critical scientists.

According to a strategy paper by the Global Climate Science Team, a crude-oil lobby group, "Victory will be achieved when average citizens recognize uncertainties in climate science."

The aim of the industrial lobby was to focus as much doubt on scientific findings. Forcing scientists to defend their findings and convince the public, time and again, that their warnings were indeed well-founded.

"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.

The lobby spent millions on propaganda campaigns issuing a strategy paper aimed at what the Information Council on the Environment (ICE) called "less-educated people." This proposed a campaign that would "reposition global warming as a theory (not fact)."

It has been a year since the Climategate e-mails were leaked and a challenging 12 months for climate science, and the ever-changing face of journalism as we struggle, or not, to keep our audience informed and knowledgeable.

An increasingly challenging political environment promises difficult times ahead.

So what have we learned in the past year? 

Are scientists and journalists better off today having experienced “Climategate”? 

Has the “truth” set us free or caused greater confusion?

One thing is for sure, the methods used by governments and journalists are not those of science and research but of salesmanship and propaganda. Only once that changes, can we ask ourselves what we’ve learned.