White House Energy and Environment Czar Shrugs Off Hot Debate on Climate Change Emails

By Jonathan Weisman
Wall Street Journal
Nov. 25, 2009

Translation: Trillions of dollars and our new world order are on the line, shut the hell up and give up your sovereignty without a fight.White House energy and environment czar Carol Browner tried Wednesday to shrug off the swirling controversy over purloined British emails suggesting collusion on the part of climate scientists trying to stoke up fears of global warming. She hadn’t read them, she said, and besides, only a few have come to light - second hand.

But with President Barack Obama now committing to attend the international climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, Browner couldn’t escape the debate that easily. The emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia are being used by climate change skeptics to castigate the very purpose of the United Nations summit.

“There has been for a very long time a very small group of people who continue to say this isn’t a real problem, that we don’t need to do anything,” Browner said at the White House. “On the other hand, we have 2,500 of the word’s foremost scientists who are in absolute agreement that this is a real problem and that we need to do something and we need to do something as soon as possible. What am I going to do, side with the couple of naysayers out there or the 2,500 scientists? I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists.”

The controversy is not likely to go away too soon. Republicans in Congress are launching their own investigation. Conservative newspapers and Web sites are buzzing. Of particular note has been the exchange between Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, and Professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University.

Among the emails tapped by a hacker is one in which Jones talks to Mann about the “trick of adding in the real temps to each series … to hide the decline [in temperature].”

“If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone,” Jones allegedly told Mann.

The University of East Anglia said Tuesday it will conduct an independent review – addressing data security, how it responded to “a deluge of Freedom of Information” requests as well as “and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed.”

In an accompanying statement, Jones wrote: “My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well… Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues.” He added that he and colleagues “have always been scrupulous in ensuring that our science publications are robust and honest.”