Climate of denial
Last weekend was a good one for climate-change deniers. A hacker stole and released scores of documents, including personal e-mail exchanges, from a server at Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, a premier climate-change research center.
LAST WEEKEND was a good one for climate-change deniers. A hacker stole and released scores of documents, including personal e-mail exchanges, from a server at Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, a premier climate-change research center. "This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud," proclaimed one skeptic.
Not quite. Assuming the documents are genuine -- the authenticity of all has not been confirmed -- critics are taking them out of context and misinterpreting at least one controversial e-mail exchange. None of it seriously undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change. But a few of the documents are damaging for other reasons.
