My Cameo in the "ClimateGate" Emails

The Intersection
By Chris Mooney
Dec 28, 2009 8:34 PMNov 19, 2019 8:44 PM

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It has been brought to my attention that I am mentioned, once, in the "ClimateGate" email stash. If you go here and search for my name, you find this, an email from Tom Wigley of NCAR, who I have interviewed for various stories:

From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> To: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Subject: Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: FW: Press Release from The Science & Environmental Policy Project]] Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:17:14 -0700 Cc: carl mears <mears@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Frank Wentz <frank.wentz@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Steven Sherwood <Steven.Sherwood@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, John Lanzante <John.Lanzante@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "'Dian J. Seidel'" <dian.seidel@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Melissa Free <Melissa.Free@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Steve Klein <klein21@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Leopold Haimberger <leopold.haimberger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Thorne, Peter" <peter.thorne@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "'Philip D. Jones'" <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Dear all,

I think the scientific fraud committed by Douglass needs to be exposed. His co-authors may be innocent bystanders, but I doubt it.

In normal circumstances, what Douglass has done would cause him to lose his job -- a parallel is the South Korean cloning fraud case.

I have suggested that someone like Chris Mooney should be told about this.

Tom.

In searching my emails, I was never told about this, and certainly never wrote anything about the situation, which I am not familiar with. As a journalist, though, I certainly do want to receive tips of things to write about, and I frequently do from a wide variety of folks. With only the most rare of exceptions, I never get around to writing anything; but in this case, I wasn't even tipped. Still, I can see why scientists concerned about global warming, and accepting of the scientific consensus, would want me to cover the topic, including its political side. By 2007 I already had a track record for exposing the misinformation campaign to mislead the public about climate change, something I continue to do today. And given that there is such a misinformation campaign--with "ClimateGate" being the latest and perhaps the most severe example--we need scientists and journalists alike striving to set the record straight. I guess that that's my way of saying that, as with virtually all of the "ClimateGate" emails that I have seen, the single one mentioning my name is not very surprising--especially as it regards me, who never even heard of this until now.

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