"You wouldn't accept that at a grade 9 science fair…" – CBC finds a moment of clarity on Climategate

This superb editorial is getting international attention, and so it should.
What makes it especially satisfying is that it’s coming from the CBC, the usual epitome of the mushy left.
Is this a sign that that they’ve finally decided to get involved in the real world? We can only hope.

‘ debreuil (00:52:57) :
The CBC is in general very left, but Rex Murphy is not house trained like most there.”
You’re a whackjob. CBC is by far the most objective news source in Canada and one of the most objective in the world. You’re visiting too many loony sites that see a political bent in everything that doesnt kowtow to your its subjective whims and ideologies.
Scientists behaving badly isn’t left or right. The ozone hole didn’t belong to a party. Grow up, your partisanship is showing and and its not good for your cause.

“This is significant. The official position at the CBC (aka government funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, aka “Pravda”) was always “global warming is real, it’s proven, ice caps are melting, we’re all gonna die unless we do what we’re told, etc. etc.” I am not however convinced that even a respected commentator like Mr Murphy will be able to tear down the wall at the CBC. But I’m hopeful. :-)”
You’re a [snip], hurling criminal insinuations. The CBC is TAX funded – accountable to the citizens, not corporations – and not government controlled. The government has NO control over content. In fact, successive governments of all political leanings are constantly frustrated at the CBC’s tenacious exposure of their behaviour.
[snip]
Reply: Change your tone or post elsewhere. First and Last warning. ~ ctm

“You’re a whackjob”
This is so sadly typical of the left wingers. When reality conflicts with their deeply held beliefs they revert to schoolyard taunts. It’s why they should never be taken too seriously, except as a threat to our security and incomes.
As to the CBC being “objective”, this is a silly belief that only a juvenile lefty could claim.

“I am not however convinced that even a respected commentator like Mr Murphy will be able to tear down the wall at the CBC. But I’m hopeful. :-)”
It’s possible that Rex Murphy was hired as a token right winger, as a ‘character’ with oddly held beliefs.
But over the years the stature of Rex Murphy has grown while the reputation of the rest of them, one the same as the next, has gone nowhere.

The Canadian media are starting awake
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Canadians+changed+climate+debate/2306516/story.html

I am very pleased that someone at the CBC has finally come out and discussed this matter. The CBC seems to think it knows what is best for us and therefore tends to pick and choose what it thinks we should hear. It has taken far to long. This is going to be the scandle of the century!!!
Way to go Rex.

It’s good to hear from a climate scientist like yourself, Bill Davidson, who can possibly bring clarity to this situation.
My understanding, and that of most observers of this ongoing controversy, was that the data upon which much of the dire predictions were based was indeed lost.
Where did you find it?

Getting flipping tired of this Artic cooling below 49*N.
4:30PM and 19*F, expected low of 6*F.
Monday, high 14*F and low 2*F.
How the Artic Ice does not freeze deep, with significantly colder 40* farther North? Maybe new, broad conveyor currents, with colder water flowing toward equator and warmer surface waters flowing North – rotting (if true) the insulating layer of ice from below?

I wouldn’t put too much stock in Rex Murphy’s understanding of the issue. He has long been a global warming skeptic. However, in this particular exposes himself as nothing more than an opportunistic talking head with no more journalistic integrity than those found on FOX news.
The climate-gate emails have caused the accuracy of the climate models to come into question, and Rex uses this as a basis to attack the science behind global warming. He implies that climate scientists are alarmists and are exploiting public fears by making dire predictions of future warming. To quote him, “Climate-gate is evidence that the science has gone to bed with advocacy” and “Climate science has been shown to be a sub-branch of climate politics”. I wonder if he realizes the irony of these statements?
If he had bothered to do his homework he would have realized that the computer models in question, and also the IPCC projections have historically underestimated rates of warming and sea level rise:
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_etal_science_2007
[snip]
As for the rest of his sensationalist musings, such as his somewhat lazy usage of the catchphrase ‘hide the decline’ (again taken out of context), its obvious he himself did not read the emails, nor understand them if he did. Instead he goes on to reinforce doubt on the scientific consensus, which has long been the strategy of corporate interests in [snip]
To draw parallels [snip] Further, most of the skeptics often cite each other and their (non-peer reviewed) studies to support their claims. If you look into their funding sources they are primarily from oil & gas or filtered through front organizations; all of whom advocate the need for ‘sound science’. This strategy is well documented here:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
Another example of this strategy being implemented was [snip] Are you starting to notice a pattern?
As per loss of the data, here is the original statement (which has also been ‘cherry-picked’ and misrepresented) for your perusal:
“Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.”
Thus the original data has not been destroyed, but rather amended, compiled and updated. In fact, when discussing the ‘adjustments for homogeneity issues’, this included the ‘weeding out’ of sites affected by the ‘urban heat island effect’, long touted as a source of inaccuracy in the models by skeptics (hence the term ‘quality controlled’).
The original data has not been destroyed, in fact it is still available from various meteorological organizations. However, I assume climate skeptics will not bother to cross check the (freely available) data because they are well aware that this would prove nothing more than that these issues are distractions designed to delay legislation and protect corporate profits. Their strategy is not to produce valid science, nor advocate the scientific method but rather to undermine and cast doubt upon it.
In short, Rex Murphy is an idiot…
[Reply: objectionable rants about deniers, the tobacco industry and other non-issues snipped. Tone it down. ~dbs, mod.]

wonderful comments all. However….! If Rex Murphy were a black man would you call him the n-word? No. So why are people so comfortable calling him and the rest of us Newfoundlanders ”Newfies”.
We don’t like it. It’s derogatory. It conjures up images of stupidity and incompetence. By the tone of your comments I don’t think Rex fits that image. Neither do the rest of us!

This blog has an excellent explanation of why Rex Murphy is so out to lunch on this particular topic, and guilty of misleading the public by quoting the emails out of context.
http://www.weightymatters.ca/2009/12/beavis-and-butthead-allegory-for.html

And it was fear of the climate science thugs that prompted the wimpy G&M to kick Rex off their Saturday pages and send him to the NP. How long before the lefty cbc does the same?