“Impartial” inquiry descends into farce
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Feb 15, 2010
The so called “independent” investigation into the climategate emails scandal has descended into farce before it is barely off the ground as a third member of the six man panel has been revealed to hold strong views on human induced climate change.
The impartiality of glaciologist Geoffrey Boulton has been questioned after he admitted he firmly believed that human activities were causing global warming.
Professor Boulton, who was officially appointed to the investigative team by civil servant Sir Muir Russell, has also written numerous articles indicating a strong belief in anthropogenic warming.
In a 2005 paper Boulton penned for Edinburgh University, he wrote that the argument regarding climate change was “over”.
It has also been revealed that Boulton was one of a group of scientists and meteorologists who signed a statement in December, in the wake of the climate research scandal, pledging their continued support for the IPCC and their unwavering conviction that global warming is being caused by humans.
The statement read:
We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method.
Boulton’s views clearly contradict the founding principle of the inquiry – to appoint experts who do not have a “predetermined view on climate change and climate science”.
Boulton told The London Times: “I may be rapped over the knuckles by Sir Muir for saying this, but I think that statement needs to be clarified. I think the committee needs someone like me who is close to the field of climate change and it would be quite amazing if that person didn’t have a view on one side or the other.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Boulton actually worked at the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences – where the Climate Research Unit (CRU) is housed – for 18 years until 1986. His biography on the “independent” commission website fails to mention this fact.
The controversy comes within hours of the resignation of another member of the so called “impartial” panel. Dr Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature magazine, stood down on Thursday, after it was disclosed he had previously given an interview in which he defended the actions of researchers at the CRU.
Campbell had been a member of the panel for just six hours when his statement dating from December 2009 was cited, in which he said:
“The scientists have not hidden the data. If you look at the e-mails there are one or two bits of language that are jargon used between professionals that suggest something to outsiders that is wrong. In fact, the only problem there has been is on some official restrictions on their ability to disseminate data. Otherwise they have behaved as researchers should.”
Both cases come as little surprise, given that the head of the “investigation”, Muir Russell, is a member of one of the most vehemently pro man-made global warming advocacy organizations in Europe.
While absurdly billing himself as impartial and unconnected to climate science, Russell is intimately involved with The Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The RSE has thrown its weight behind the global warming movement, lending its absolute support for legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 80%, a process that will devastate the global economy and living standards.
This organization has been even more vehement than national governments in its advocacy of the man-made cause of global warming, calling for such drastic CO2 cuts to be made in the short term, not even by the usual target date of 2050.
A February 2009 response to the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill outlines the organization’s staunch advocacy for the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming.
The head of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in Britain, and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson has issued the following statement regarding the lack of impartiality of the investigative panel:
“As the first person to call for an independent inquiry into ‘climategate’, I regret that what has been announced today is defective in a number of ways. The inquiry will wholly lack transparency, with the hearings held in private, and no transcripts to be published.
The terms of reference, while better than nothing, are inadequate in a number of ways, not least the failure to include the question of the efforts made by CRU scientists to prevent the publication of papers by dissenting scientists and others, contrary to the canons of scientific integrity. And the objectivity and independence of the inquiry is seriously called into question by the composition of Sir Muir Russell’s team, in particular the Editor in Chief of Nature, who has already published an editorial on the matter strongly supportive of the CRU scientists and accusing their critics of being ‘paranoid’.”
