Blogmocracy in Action

Guest Blogger: Snork

In a previous life on a previous blog, there was a pejorative term “moonbat”. This term was in reference to one of the UK’s nuttier enviroloons, George Monbiot. Well, that was then and this is now. And in the present Bizarro warp of the past, once again, the proprietor of that blog and Mr. Moonbat are on the opposite sides of an issue. Only this time, Moonbat is right.

Let me explain. This piece in the Weekly Standard about the CRUtape letters™, frames the issue superbly:

As in the furor over Dan Rather’s fabricated documents about George W. Bush’s National Guard service back in 2004, bloggers have been swarming over the material and highlighting the bad faith, bad science, and possibly even criminal behavior (deleting material requested under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act and perhaps tax evasion) of a small group of highly influential climate scientists. As with Rathergate, diehard climate campaigners are repairing to the “fake but accurate” defense–what these scientists did may be unethical or deeply biased, they say, but the science is settled, don’t you know, so move along, nothing to see here.

Irony #1: The guy who took all the bows for showing how obviously fake the Rathergate memos were is now arguing that the CRUtape letters™ are fake, not accurate.

The article goes on:

There are a few notable exceptions, such as Guardian columnist George Monbiot, who in the past has trafficked in the most extreme climate mongering: “It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow,” Monbiot wrote in a November 23 column. “The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. … I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them. … I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely.” Monbiot has joined a number of prominent climate scientists in demanding that the CRU figures resign their posts and be excluded from future climate science work.

Irony #2: Moonbat is right. And Nancy is wrong. And the universe is on its head. And the CRUtape letters™ are accurate but not fake, and the data are fake but not accurate. And just like in Rather’s case, nothing in this story is fake but accurate.
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Note: To the best of my knowledge, “CRUtape letters”, a play on C. S. Lewis’ “Screwtape letters”, was coined by Stephen Mosher, of many climate blogs, the individual who broke this story.
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