Instapundit Sources: When Facts Get in the Way, Make up Opposite Ones

Insta BS is all gleeful (and yesterday alone had no less than six other posts) about the largely irrelevant "climategate" scandal, that showed some old data was potentially compromised to support a determined position.

Jeez, where have we heard that before. It's only happened thousands of times with respect to climate change data by anti climate interests. But does a single instance of the latter prove that climate change therefore is as Al Gore claims? 

Of course not.  Nor is the fact of some old perhaps manipulated data scrunching by some concerned climate scientists very relevant to the opposite; that is, it has no bearing on the actual issue and the science and facts underlying it. 

So here is one of the quotes provided to show how alert, informed readers are pushing back in this "hilariously bizarre situation" where "climategate" is not being given enough "mention" by the media (emphasis added):

You are kidding me. Over the weekend we learned a server at East Anglia was hacked and emails were distributed that contradict Global Warming. In addition, they discuss how to overstate the findings in order to further their agenda. Yet, The Chronicle still blindlly pushes the Global Warming agenda. If that is not enough, [temperatures] have not risen over the last ten years. In fact, they have dropped slightly. How can any reader take a publication seriously when they refuse to report facts.

So the article is all about how some scientists may have tried to push some selective data years back, and how it is bizarre that the media largely ignores this as it examines the actual scientific issue of increasing heat trapping gas concentrations in our atmosphere. And it does this how?  By citing things that are simply made up, and diametrically incorrect.

Here are some facts, which to Newsbusters -- even in a piece with the express purpose of making much ado about some purposefully selected facts (by trying to quash contradictory data) years ago --apparently otherwise have less relevancy than "climategate."

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer.  Graphs here. 

The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years.  And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

That is, in five years, the amount of non seasonal, constant ice was reduced by about half.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):, the world’s ocean surface temperature just this past summer was "the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August."

More importantly, "breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land.”

Additionally, over the past ten years, "daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States":

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.  

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun.  Heat drives climate.  Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

But none of that matters in the world of predetermined ideology.  Even though some scientists who acted improperly a while back really has almost no relevance to the scientific issue, data or question and challenge at hand.  As Reuters noted two days ago:

The issue of scientists behaving badly does nothing to invalidate the science,” said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, LLC in Washington. “This does nothing to the U.S. climate bill, which will be decided mostly by economic forces, not environmental ones.”

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, said the release of the e-mails will be remembered mostly as as embarrassment to the researchers.

“It shows that the process of science is not always pristine,” said Leiserowitz. “But there’s no smoking gun in the e-mails from what I’ve seen.”

Leiserowitz, who is a social scientist, said the e-mails would provide fodder for the 2 to 3 percent of the general public that are hard-core climate change doubters. “For that small group it is like meat to the wolves.”

No doubt.