Weathergate bullies

Washington Ag Today February 11, 2010 Those scientists involved in what has become known as Climategate or Weathergate were described as bullies by a speaker at the recent Pacific Northwest Farm Forum in Spokane. Dr. Art Douglas Professor Emeritus of Climatology at Creighton University said he knew many of the scientists whose emails suggested manipulation of data to support global warming.

Douglas: “I have had to deal with them on different committees and I will tell you they are bullies. I don‘t think there is any better word to describe it other than that they are bullies. They have been pushing their own cause and they have been trying to push anyone who does not think like them out. I mean, this is part of Weathergate.”

Later in an interview Douglas summed up the significance of the email controversy.

Douglas: “Weathergate was kind of a wake up call for science that we need to be honest. We also need to allow differing opinions thrown out there and not bullied around. And I think what probably has happened with Weathergate is the U.S. government is going to be very cautious with its funding in terms of global warming. It is an important, critical issue in the world there is no two doubts about it but I think we just have to be more scientific and less political in how we are doing it.”

Douglas believes scientists like himself, who are skeptical of how important global warming is, may be more willing to express their doubts publicly. He also thinks that what happened at Copenhagen was that too many European countries wondered if they got fooled and decided they better check the data again.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.