Ten years ago the “Climategate” scandal broke.

A group of climate scientists consistently refused to comply with public records requests for data and communications concerning their research.  What was the quality of the research the public had lavished so many taxpayer dollars on?  They did not want us to know.

Then suddenly the dam broke and hundreds of thousands of emails were made public.  The source of the emails remained anonymous, styling himself only as “Mr. FOIA,” adopting the acronym for the Freedom of Information Act.

Now that’s a whistleblower!

South African nuclear physicist and CFACT’s close fried Kelvin Kemm posted a detailed account at CFACT.org:

On the morning of 17 November 2009 a Pandora’s box of embarrassing CRU information exploded onto the world scene. A computer hacker penetrated the university’s computer system and took 61 Megs of material that showed the CRU had been manipulating scientific information to make global warming appear to be the fault of mankind and industrial CO2. Among many other scandals, the shocking leaked emails showed then-CRU-director Prof. Phil Jones boasting of using statistical “tricks” to remove evidence of observed declines in global temperatures.

In another email, he advocated deleting data rather than providing it to scientists who did not share his view and might criticize his analyses. Non-alarmist scientists had to invoke British freedom of information laws to get the information. Jones was later suspended, and former British Chancellor Lord Lawson called for a Government enquiry into the embarrassing exposé.  The affair became known as “Climategate.”

CFACT’s Marc Morano posted an excerpt from his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change at ClimateDepot:

The Climategate scandal revealed that the UN IPCC was simply a lobbying organization portraying itself as a science panel. If the UN failed to find carbon dioxide was a problem, it would no longer have a reason to continue studying it—or to be in charge of offering “solutions” …The leading UN IPCC scientists were caught red-handed artificially manufacturing the “scientific consensus” for the global warming narrative. Their own words betrayed that they were acting like political partisans, not scientists—crafting a predetermined message rather than following the evidence. Climategate exposed the work product of the IPCC as the best science that politics and activism could manufacture.

Marc posted this summary from Rex Murphy of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

(Climategate) pulls back the curtain on a scene of pettiness, turf protection, manipulation, defiance of freedom of information, lost or destroyed data and attempts to blacklist critics or skeptics of the global warming cause… Science has gone to bed with advocacy and both have had a very good time.

The Climategate emails reveal just how much damage was done when scientists abandoned the scientific method and the ethics that come with it in favor of political advocacy.

There’s a lot of work to be done if the climate science establishment hopes to ever earn back the public’s trust.