DAVID ROSE: How can we trust global warming scientists if they keep twisting the truth?
By David Rose for The Mail on Sunday
Published: 21:21 EST, 11 February 2017 | Updated: 04:59 EST, 12 February 2017
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...avid-Rose.html
They were duped – and so were we. That was the conclusion of
last week’s damning revelation that world leaders signed the Paris Agreement on climate change
under the sway of unverified and questionable data.
A landmark scientific paper –the one that caused a sensation by claiming there has been NO slowdown in global warming since 2000 – was
critically flawed. And thanks to the bravery of a whistleblower,
we now know that for a fact....
...It has even triggered an
inquiry by Congress. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who chairs the House of Representatives’ science committee, is renewing demands for documents about the controversial paper, which was
produced by America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the world’s leading source of climate data.
In his view, the whistleblower had shown that
‘NOAA cheated and got caught’. No wonder Smith and many others are concerned: the
revelations go
to the very heart of
the climate change industry and the
scientific claims we are told we can trust.
Remember, the 2015 Paris Agreement imposes
gigantic burdens and its effects are felt on every household in the country. Emissions pledges made by David Cameron will cost British consumers a staggering £319 billion by 2030 – almost three times the annual budget for the NHS in England.
That is not the end of it. Taxpayers also face an additional hefty contribution to an annual £80 billion in ‘climate aid’ from advanced countries to the developing world. That is on top of our already gargantuan aid budget. Green levies and taxes already cost the average household more than £150 a year.
The contentious paper at the heart of this furor – with the less than accessible title of Possible Artifacts Of Data Biases In The Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus – was published
just six months before the Paris conference by the influential journal Science.
It made a
sensational claim: that contrary to what scientists have been saying for years, there was no ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the early 21st Century.
Indeed, this ‘Pausebuster’ paper as it has become known,
claimed the rate of warming was even
higher than before,
making ‘urgent action’ imperative.
There can be no doubting the
impact of this document. It sat
prominently in the scientific briefings handed out to international negotiators, including EU and UK diplomats.
An official report from the European Science Advisory Council stated that the paper had ‘refined the corrections in temperature records’ and shown the warming rate after 2000 was higher than for 1950-99.
So,
flawed as it was, the Pausebuster paper
unquestionably helped persuade world leaders to sign
an agreement that imposes massive emissions cuts on developed countries.
No wonder, then, that our revelations were
met with fury by green propagandists. Some claimed the MoS had published ‘fake news’. One scientist accused me of becoming the ‘David Irving of climate change denial’ – a reference to the infamous Holocaust denier.
Yet perhaps more damaging is the claim from some in the green lobby that our disclosures are small beer.
In fact, their importance cannot be overstated. They strike at the heart of climate science because
they question the integrity of the global climate datasets on which pretty much
everything else depends....