Repent! Global Warming Is Near!

We should take responsibility for the protection of the earth regardless of the extent of anthropogenic influences on global temperatures. It just seems practical and desirable to breathe cleaner air and and drink uncontaminated water for their own sakes. However, I've always had deep suspicions about the global warming bandwagon since I stumbled upon Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Global warming is a multi-billion-dollar industry that provides reliable source of funding and revenues for various research institutes and green and sustainable businesses. This arrangement creates a dependency that almost always leads and necessitates anything from perpetuation, to exaggeration, and even to fabrication of crises in order to justify the continued flow of research grants and business loans. Needless to say, this dependency can and often compromise the independence and integrity of scientific research.

The attacks against anthropogenic global warming skeptics seemed to take on a religious dimension in its intensity and absolutism over time. For those who have at least a passing familiarity with the agw debate, the persecution of skeptics (ie by being hauled into kangaroo courts for intellectual crimes, like what happend to Lomborg or losing chairmanships or memberships in science organizations like what happened to several scientists) is eerily reminiscent of the Inquisition.

Earlier today, the blogosphere was buzzing with reports that the computer server of a british university involved in agw research has been hacked. Notes and emails allegedly stolen from the server detail how the agw inquisitors distorted their own research and minimized contradictory findings in order to whip up an agw frenzy.

Now, the NY Times has picked up the story and confirmed in interviews with several scientists on the email list the authenticity of the stolen files. Even if only partially true, this story further reinforces the worst suspicions the skeptics already have towards the financial beneficiaries of pro-agw research and could potentially damage public measures taken thus far to curb carbon emissions.