Though some uninformed idiots continue to blame "right-wing hackers" for the CRU document dump of over 3000 emails and other documents, people on all sides are beginning to take notice, even (sort of) in the USA. The WarmMongers, of course, insist that things have been taken out of context, yadda, yadda. Even people who have been most vocally on their side now recognize that the dump goes far beyond contextual interpretation.
One of the first out of the gate to recognize the seriousness of the implications was widely respected writer George Monbiot, over in the U.K.'s The Guardian, who has called for the resignation of Phil Jones and who has apologized for his ability to be deluded by those whom he thought were trustworthy.
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, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign.
Now The Atlantic has dug in, as Clive Crook notes:
The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues, this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process. It is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David Henderson called the environmental policy milieu[subscription required]. It goes to the core of that process.
I'm also surprised by the IPCC's response. Amid the self-justification, I had hoped for a word of apology, or even of censure. (George Monbiot called for Phil Jones to resign, for crying out loud.) At any rate I had expected no more than ordinary evasion. The declaration from Rajendra Pachaurithat the emails confirm all is as it should be is stunning. Science at its best. Science as it should be. Good lord. This is pure George Orwell. And these guys call the other side "deniers".
Right-wing hackers? No, Virginia, there is no Santa Clause. As Leftists have delighted in continually telling you, "deniers" are simply stupid. There's no way that they could have cobbled together enough working neurons to pull off such a feat.
What we have, here, is evidence of the duplicity of the Left: The documents in question are all related to Freedom of Information requests that CRU was actively impeding. There's nothing in there about Phil's trip to the beach, his Christmas plans, or anything along such lines. Every document involves how to cover up, hide data, or discredit unbelievers.
And anybody who has ever hacked into a network knows how improbable it is to be able to uncover and copy only information of direct relevance - let alone thousands of such documents.
No, these emails and documents were clearly bundled together by staff at CRU. If they found that they would ultimately lose the FOI battle, they had two choices: nuke the bundle, or release it. Given the content, it seems highly probable that they would have opted for the former; overwriting the disks to render the content unretrievable.
These documents weren't stumbled upon by some nefarious "right-wing hackers" - they were released by somebody inside CRU; apparently one of the few with a conscience.
