Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics


I've blogged about my concerns regarding climate change before. Now a recent incident involving the Climate Research Unit located at the University of East Anglia has revealed to the world that the data and methodology used by that institution to create reports intended inform policymakers was corrupt, spurious and deeply flawed - as were the conclusions in those reports.

I was tipped to this by John Gormely on his radio show today where he was interviewing Kate McMillan, author of the weblog "Small Dead Animals". Kate has done a superb job of gathering the most useful links in this emerging story under the ongoing title - "The Sound of All Hell Breaking Loose". If you care at all about the Earth and our economic and political future you need to read up on this - and then remember it at the next election, and the one after that, and the one after that.

The real tragedy in all of this will be the huge damage done to the scientific community in general. If it results in a "cry wolf" response from the public world-wide (as I suspect it will) then I can safely predict humanity will fall victim to a true catastrophe soon - even though we will likely be warned about it. We just won't believe the messenger.

The image linked to this post is not the property of the author and is used without permission with purely illustrative intent and with no intent to defraud or injure the original owner.

1 comment:

Matt said...

I would like to point out two particular articles that (I hope) further adds to the point made here and expounds on it ( even in on how it plays economically, or at the very least, be something to ponder). The first article is this: http://earth2tech.com/2009/12/06/notes-from-copenhagen-a-bit-of-warmth-amidst-the-cold/, article number 2 is this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07krugman.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman