Today, WaPo is featuring on its front page a story on Climategate that has a decidedly Bob Murphy take on the story. It's more of a popular piece than Murphy's more wonky exposition, but the conclusions are the same. There are a lot more extreme views on Climategate from both sides, but Murphy and, now WaPo, tend to look at the leaked emails from a more objective view and put into perspective what they do mean, and what they don't. Here's WaPo:
It began with an anonymous Internet posting, and a link to a wonky set of e-mails and files. Stolen, apparently, from a research center in Britain, the files showed the leaders of climate-change science discussing flaws in their own data, and seemingly scheming to muzzle their critics.
Now it has mushroomed into what is being called "Climate-gate," a scandal that has done what many slide shows and public-service ads could not: focus public attention on the science of a warming planet.
Except now, much of that attention is focused on the science's flaws. Leaked just before international climate talks begin in Copenhagen -- the culmination of years of work by scientists to raise alarms about greenhouse-gas emissions -- the e-mails have cast those scientists in a political light and given new energy to others who think the issue of climate change is all overblown.
The e-mails don't say that: They don't provide proof that human-caused climate change is a lie or a swindle.
But they do raise hard questions.
I'm not sure about WaPo, but it's safe to say the New York Times does not read my work.
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