Geoscience Reference
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been an author of it himself. North expressed similar thoughts. 9
The NAS report was widely reported to be an affirmation of our work. Even contrarian pundit
Roger A. Pielke Jr. characterized the report as a “near-complete vindication for the work of Mann et
al.” 10 The Associated Press (AP), 11 first off the block on June 22 , the day the report was released,
announced that the National Academy of Sciences had determined that “recent warmth is
unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia.” 12 The New
York Times headlined the report “Science Panel Backs Study on Warming Climate,” 13 while the
Washington Post announced “Study Confirms Past Few Decades Warmest on Record.” 14 Meanwhile,
in the United Kingdom the BBC characterized the findings as “Backing for 'Hockey Stick' Graph.” 15
Nature, which had published our original hockey stick article, declared, “Academy affirms hockey-
stick graph.” 16 In the days and weeks ahead, dozens of similarly themed articles would appear in
publications around the world. 17
CNN's Lou Dobbs, once considered a contrarian in the climate change debate, characterized the
NAS findings 18 as having “supported the conclusions of the scientists.” 19 I had been invited to appear
on the show along with my two coauthors Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes. I was unable to make it
in time, however, having been detained by the extreme weather—the irony of which Dobbs
commented on in his show. The following month, I appeared along with fellow climate scientists
Gavin Schmidt and Alan Robock. Shortly before the three of us were to go on the air, Dobbs entered
the green room and explained that he didn't even want to broach the scientific debate. We'd moved
past that—the scientific debate in his view “was over.” Instead, he wanted to discuss solutions .
Of course, some individuals sought to downplay, cherry-pick, or simply misrepresent the NAS
findings. The Wall Street Journal could only muster up the anemic “Panel Study Fails to Settle
Debate on Past Climates.” 20 Written by Antonio Regalado, the same reporter who had publicized
McIntyre's attacks against the hockey stick on the paper's front page two years earlier, the coverage
of our formal vindication by the NAS was buried on page B2. The article invoked the classic straw
man: “An expert panel … said that the key conclusion of a widely cited study of past temperatures is
'plausible' but not proved ” (my emphasis), as if any scientific proposition can ever be “proved.”
Giving new meaning to the word spin , Congressman James Inhofe announced that “Today's NAS
report reaffirms what I have been saying all along, that Mann's 'hockey stick' is broken,” a claim that
prompted Al Gore to remark that deniers like Inhofe “will seize on anything to say up is down and
black is white.” 21 This didn't stop the perpetuation of Inhofe's false assertion. In December 2009, for
example, James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)—a leading climate change denier in the U.S. House of
Representatives—claimed in a hearing that the hockey stick had been discredited by the 2006 NAS
study. 22 Testifying at the hearing, presidential science adviser John Holdren politely pointed out that
the NAS study had in fact confirmed our conclusions. 23
The NAS panel members unambiguously rejected the accusations of scientific misconduct that
had been leveled by some of our detractors. The New York Times reported that “several members of
the panel reviewing the study said they saw no sign that its authors had intentionally chosen data sets
or methods to get a desired result.” 24 North announced: “I can tell you that is my own opinion and I
think it's probably true across the board here, I certainly did not see anything inappropriate.”
Bloomfield stated he “saw nothing that spoke to me of any manipulation,” adding that the hockey stick
study was “an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure.” One might think that this would
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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