Because I am majoring in Biology, the recent “Climate-gate” scandal has been a story of great interest to me. So, as a scientist in the making, I thought I’d add my two cents to your blog.
First and foremost, with the exception of blowhards like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly (who aren’t scientists to begin with), the dissent in the scientific community is not about whether “Global Warming” is happening. We know that the Earth’s climate has constantly changed since the advent of this planet 4.5 billion years ago. Rather, I think, the excitement that “Climate-gate” has generated is because the recent revelation of the shenanigans at the University of East Anglia’s CRU exposes much of what we have been told about anthropogenic (man-made) climate change as bad science. The researchers at East Anglia’s CRU did a great disservice to science. Not only did they falsify their data, but they destroyed the raw data that they used to come to their conclusions. This means that Anthropogenic Global Warming could be TRUE, but we will not know for another decade or two because the researchers at East Anglia caught themselves up in their own political agendas. Where religion and other man made systems of thought can be tainted by emotion, science is supposed to be objective. What the ‘scientists’ at East Anglia did was break that system of objectivity. Their transgressions were against everything that science is supposed to be and stand for. So that is problem #1.
Problem #2 lies in the public’s perception of science. There is already a massive amount of distrust levied against science by the public, namely against the Theory of Evolution for religiously motivated reasons. What the researcher’s at East Anglia have made way for is this: That sanctimonious, uneducated religious zealots can now look at science as a whole and say “Ah ha! Because of “Climate-gate” we should no longer trust science period!” And these idiots will go about their day with that much more confidence that everything they read in Jack Chick tracts about the “lie of Evolution” is true. This is not good. According to a recent Pew Research study, nearly 50% of Americans believe in special creation that took place somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-10 thousand years ago. Only roughly 17% of Americans accept Evolution as a valid scientific theory explaining the diversity of life on this planet. ‘Climate-gate’ has only enabled that 50% to further shy away from science, and that is a shame, given how uneducated Americans are in general about science.
The East Anglia’s CRU also shows us how bad it can be when political agendas taint science. As I’m sure you and many of your readers know, President Obama has promoted alternative energy sources to meet our energy demands. While this is all well and good, the problem is that Washington is promoting the wrong sources of alternative energy. Take corn/soy ethanol for instance. One acre of corn can only produce 15 gallons of ethanol, and one acre of soy can produce 48 gallons of ethanol. On the other hand, certain species of microalgae emit biodiesel as a waste, such that one acre of land alotted to said species yeilds 1850 gallons of biodiesel per acre, with potential yeilds up to 5-10 thousand gallons/acre. But the government has expressed zero interest in this source of alternative energy. Not only is it cheaper to produce, easier to maintain, and entirely renewable on an industrial scale, but biodiesel requires zero transport and zero refining. There are farmers that currently use this technology, who no longer have to go to a gas pump to fill up their tractors and combines. Yet, the government ignores the potential of this source of alternative energy. The government also promotes sources like wind and solar, which also has major problems. Wind and solar energy are clean, but aren’t as practical on a large scale, due to problems with transport and construction, and the conditions required to make these sources viable are not constant. The government needs to do its job to promote practical forms of alternative energy, instead of stumbling around like a drunk grabbing whatever first catches its eye. Nuclear energy, both fission and fusion, is probably the most practical alternative to powering our electric grid, but archaic laws and the byzantine set of regulations and fees to install new nuclear plants often gets in the way (not to mention the ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome – though that tends to be more about aesthetics than anything else). The point of all this being that while ‘earth-friendly’ people like Al Gore, President Obama etc. etc. may have the best intentions in mind, they are… how do you say it… doing it completely wrong.
I would also encourage you to read an article called ‘The Climate Science Isn’t Settled’ by Richard S. Lindzen, professor of Meteorology at MIT. He points out several major inconsistencies in the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, and offers alternative explanations for some of the contentious issues. There are also other evidences that routinely get glossed over by the AGW promoters, namely, that other planets in our solar system are warming. Now, this means one of two things. Either all that nasty CO2 we have been releasing has somehow escaped to other planets, where it is laying waste to those environments, OR climate change is connected to the cyclical behavior of our nearest star, the Sun. But, of course, evidences like that and the ones pointed out by Richard Lindzen are routinely ignored because they are politically inconvenient.

Before we accept massive climate legislation (Cap & Trade) from Washington, we should make sure we have all our bases covered. AGW promoters routinely make the mistake of assuming that the debate on climate change is akin in nature to the “debate” between Creationists and Biologists on the Theory of Evolution. I assure you, it is not. How this debate IS similar, however, is that one side HAS been tainted by bad science and emotional appeals, and that, regrettably, is the Anthropogenic Global Warming promoters. The shenanigans from the East Anglia CRU show that, with more, I’m told, coming from NASA.