The Upside to Climategate

The most immediate one is the vigorous debate Climategate has engendered between individuals of all political, ideological, and scientific stripes. Judith Curry from the Georgia Institute of Technology deserves much of the credit for kickstarting this, first in speaking directly to Steven McIntyre's audience at Climate Audit, and then shortly after that with another essay posted over at Climate Progress. Following this, Andy Revkin at Dot Earth generated a lively exhange by also highlighting Curry, as well as Mike Hulme, another distinguished climate scientist. Unlike the majority of their peers, Curry and Hulme have not downplayed the significance of the CRU email controversy. On this note, I'm disappointed that William Connolley has failed to use his influential corner of the climate blogosphere to foster a healthy discussion of the salient issues, be it the integrity of the peer review process, FOIA evasion, CRU data storage, or the "tribalism" that Curry notes. Connolley appears to be taking a nothing to see here, move along attitude. That seems to be the position taken by many environmental and science journalists as well. (Notable exceptions include George Monbiot and Tom Yulsman.) Incredibly, nobody at Columbia University's The Observatory has yet commented on Climategate. The journalism site's motto is: "A lens on the science press." I guess their "lens" has found nothing noteworthy (or lacking) about the media coverage thus far. More typical are the shrugs exhibited by Kevin Drum ("As near as I can tell, ClimateGate is almost entirely a tempest in a teacup") and David Roberts, who can't be bothered to see what all the fuss is about: