“Hide the Decline”: Birth of a Blog Post, and Credit Where Credit is Due

Iain Murray

Iain Murray

Short version: My BFF Iain Murray wrote the best analysis I’ve seen about exactly why last week’s revelation of suspicious global warming documents is so incriminating to the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK.

Iain (I call him Iain because last year he linked to me — twice!) relentlessly uses the scientists’ own words to incriminate them, with each passage carefully linked to a specific damning document in the treasure trove.

If you think global warming is probably “settled science,” but you’re willing to read one article to give skeptics a chance to change your mind,  read this remarkable indictment, published all the way last Tuesday, while the pixels of the original leak were still quivering.

Long version (back-story): Yesterday, before I posted “Hide the Decline”: Global Warmists Got Some ‘Splainin’ to Do, I spent a great deal of time trying to find the seminal articles that first piqued my interest in the topic that is becoming known as Climategate — incriminating emails and programmers’ notes revealing the apparent falsification of global warming data.

This happens to me a lot, I need to find a better system for doing research.  I see something that interests me slightly, then I move on and forget about it — I don’t think I know enough about the subject to even consider blogging about it.  Then I stumble upon links showing that the blogosphere is ramping up to focus on the topic, and I start to get more interested.  Then I do more research, and start to think maybe I do have something to say on the matter.  This plays out over a period of a few days, while I go on about my complicated life.

By the time I’m interested enough to blog, I can’t find the documents that first got me interested.  Then I find something, but I’m not sure it’s the right post.  This time, however, I found something that clarified the matter for me.

I must have skimmed Iain’s article without noticing his byline, because his name would have jumped out at me.  Near the bottom of his second page is this passage:

So what does this all mean? It does not mean that there is no warming trend or that mankind has not been responsible for at least some of the warming. To claim that as result of these documents is clearly a step too far.

The boldface is the clinching factor.  I used that Briticism in my previous post without knowing why I chose the words.  Iain Murray, unlike your humble scribe, is actually a Brit by birth.