Climate-Change and the Integrity of the Supporting Science – As the Copenhagen Climate Conference completes its first week, the “elephant in the room” has been the crisis known as “Climategate”.
Last month, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) located in the UK, had its computer security compromised. The result was that over 1000 e-mails and other documents were anonymously removed and disseminated to the media. Computer security is breached every day of the week somewhere in the world, and it’s not big news. But what makes this story so compelling, is that the CRU is – and has been for many years – a primary supplier of information on manmade global warming to the United Nations, and by extension to the UN sponsored Copenhagen Conference.
The e-mails suggest that:
* raw data supporting conclusions reached has now been lost.
* test and measurement results were manipulated and distorted to support predetermined objectives.
* significant energy was expended to suppress dissenting opinions.
After the CBC had been conspicuously quiet on the affair, Rex Murphy invited viewers of The National, to “[r]ead the e-mails. You’ll never think of climate science quite the same way again.”
The climate-change issue has been given global prominence over the past decade – together with funding and political cachet. It would be brutal for taxpayers to have to accept that anything other than empirical science – chasing objective, verifiable, evidence-based conclusions - was driving the agenda.
Climate-change advocates point to changing weather patterns right here in Ontario. And in the insurance business, we are seeing increasingly more damage due to wind and rain. It has been estimated that 40% of property claims globally are now directly related to changing weather.
Some anecdotal evidence closer to home:
* July’s rainfall was heavy across the province, with Ottawa’s airport reporting more rain in the month than in any month on record - ever!
* Our province statistically sees about one F2 tornado touch down each year. (An F2 packs winds of 180-240 km/h.) So far in 2009, Ontario has been walloped by at least five F2s.
And so the debate will continue to rage – is climate change man-made? Or are we experiencing part of a natural cycle of weather change that has occurred before and will transform back to what we remember as ”normal”??