Wegman scandal rocks cornerstone of climate denial
Climate science is a solid edifice built around the work of thousands of scientists, vast amounts of data, and countless peer-reviewed publications. As the National Academy of Sciences report put it, “Although the scientific process is always open to new ideas and results, the fundamental causes and consequences of climate change have been established by many years of scientific research, are supported by many different lines of evidence, and have stood firm in the face of careful examination, repeated testing, and the rigorous evaluation of alternative theories and explanation.”
Climate denial is a house of cards, built around the sleight of hand of a few disinformers, deniers, and pseudo-scientists — who keep repeating the same falsehoods no matter how many times they have been debunked. One of the most important, yet flimsiest, cards holding up the house is the attack on the so-called Hockey Stick research — multiple, independent lines of data and analysis that demonstrate recent global warming is unprecedented in magnitude and speed and cause (see “Two more independent studies back the Hockey Stick and below). Indeed, as WAG notes, within a few decades, nobody is going to be talking about hockey sticks, they will be talking about right angles or hockey skates (see chart above).