Walter Russell Mead Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, CFR :
When the
'climategate' story broke, I doubted that it would ultimately amount to much. Scientists are as nasty and conniving as other people; anybody who digs deep enough is likely to turn up some dirt. And I'm old fashioned enough to hate sneak thieves who pry into other peoples' emails and publish them on-line. I'd like my private correspondence to stay private and believe other people deserve this as well.
But the story keeps growing. Laws may have been broken when it comes to the Freedom Of Information Act requests. "Lame" would be a charitable description of the defenses mounted by some of the scientists involved. And the scientists I've talked to about this, people who like me generally accept the IPCC position on climate change, have been more horrified by the revelations than I was. I've been learning a lot more about the low regard in which some hard scientists hold climatologists than I ever expected to hear.
It begins to look to me as if some of the world's leading climate scientists have been caught pulling an 'Acheson'. Dean Acheson said he had to be 'clearer than truth' about the Communist danger to get American public support for the Truman administration's initial steps to contain the USSR; I think maybe some climate scientists have made the same call. Their motives may be noble (let's stretch the truth to save the world) or mixed (and also keep those research grants flowing in); the consequences could be grave.
We live in an increasingly skeptical, populist political climate. It was already looking extremely unlikely that the Senate and the House could agree on a serious climate change bill next year. Now we could be going from slim to none.
The media is making a big mistake if it thinks ignoring this story will save cap-and-trade.
Thorough and relentless investigative reporting is the only way to deal with this story now.
