Climategate Anniversary Humor

Well, one year ago this week, a tipping point occurred. The apple cart was upset. Richard A. left this humorous satirical comment which seemed appropriate for today, so I’ve elevated it to a full post.

Press Relase – CRU East Anglia –

Everything is consistent with Global Warming

The CRU at East Anglia has released a new study which proves conclusively that Global Warming caused Climate Change, which in turn caused Climate Disruption, which in turn is the cause of everything else. Based on previous research by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster linking global warming with the decrease in the number of pirates over the last few hundred years, and new research showing that the current flat trend in global temperatures correlates with a recent resurgence of piracy, especially in the waters off of Somalia, Phil Jones et al, have submitted a new research paper to the Journal of Unbelievably New Claptrap (JUNC) that proves everything is caused by Global Warming.

“It was really very simple in the end,” said Jones. “Once we went over the Pastafarian research, which was very robust, we realized anything and everything with even the barest correlation to global temperatures could in fact be linked via other correlations to any and every other trend in the universe.” Indeed, the new paper which is currently under review at JUNC has linked Global Warming with trends in the stock market, the orbit of Mars and Jupiter, whale migrations, and turtle droppings. The algorithm used to draw these conclusions has been called “ground breaking” and “robust” by many of Jones’ colleagues.

Said Professor Michael Mann of The Earth System Science Center at Penn State, a coauthor of the paper: “How they have come up with these links is amazing, the cross disciplinary work has been very heartening.” Responding to criticisms from statisticians and engineers that such work is suspect, Mann replied, “Nonsense, they’re obviously being paid millions by ExxonMobile. The work I have done with the zoological community alone in order to get the requisite number of monkeys into one room to come up with the equations is proof enough of the robustness of the work.”

Gavin Schmidt of NASA agreed. “The critics of this paper are obviously being paid off by Big Oil, we know this because they drive cars and have to buy gas occasionally.” Schmidt, a contributor to the space based portion of the paper that found correlations with global warming and the movements of a blueberry muffin launched into orbit last year, declined further comment. When asked about their refusal of requests to release the algorithm in question in order to review the paper, Jones declined saying, “How or why anyone would want to check this kind of work is beyond me, the conclusions are so staggeringly awesome that they don’t need to be reviewed.” The editors and peer reviewers at JUNC agreed.

Said editor Alvin Hicks: “We don’t need to check this kind of work too carefully, and since I’d like to keep my job and would lose it if I dared question anything these guys put out, I’m confident in declaring it sound and worthy of publication.” Al Gore also hailed the paper as a milestone, writing in a press release, “All questions and skepticism should be ended at this point, the proof is in.” Gore declined to comment, aids saying he was too busy selling carbon offsets to himself.

The paper came at a fortuitous time for alarmists, who have been taking a bit of a beating lately due to the Climategate emails and the tendency of the IPCC to cite Leisure magazine and other sources in their reports on the current state of the science of global climate disruption. Jones concluded his remarks with this reporter, “I think we’ve finally got the name right so no one can question cause and effect via that route, now we have the science to back the name up and it’s really beyond criticism or question now that Global Warming is the cause of everything.” When asked about the convenience of having a theory that can’t under any circumstances ever be falsified, Jones shrugged. “Why would I want to falsify it? It’s bringing in tons of dough. The only people who would want to falsify it are Big Oil and their stooges.”

A passerby had been listening to Jones and I speak as Jones fished in the fountain, and asked, “Isn’t it a little paranoid and contradictory to posit this grand conspiracy by Big Oil and then claim their grand plan is to covertly fund a few blogs run by retired statisticians and weathermen?” Jones quickly jumped on the man and proceeded to try and strangle him with a spaghetti strand, and was subsequently arrested for assault with a deadly noodle.

On follow-up in the court Jones blamed Global Warming for his behavior, and was let off with a suspended sentence. Claims that Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth, and others put pressure on the local government to impeach the judge and that Greenpeace activists harassed the judge by rummaging through his trash and egging his house unless the trial came to ‘the right decision’ were dismissed out of hand.