Climategate: The Real Story - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars - page 154

scientists of playing tricks and engaged in fraud, yet at the same time engage in the very things they
accuse the scientific community of.” 72 Journalist Johann Hari made a related point in The Nation :
“when it comes to coverage of global warming, we are trapped in the logic of a guerrilla insurgency.
The climate scientists have to be right 100 percent of the time, or their 0.01 percent error becomes
Glaciergate, and they are frauds. By contrast, the deniers only have to be right 0.01 percent of the time
for their narrative.” 73
In some cases, the distortions were almost comical. For example, in February 2010, a paper on
sea level rise that had previously been published in Nature Geosciences 74 was formally withdrawn 75
by the authors because of an error they had identified subsequently in their calculations. Fox News
announced the development in this vein: “More Questions About Validity of Global Warming
Theory.” 76 In fact, the error in the calculations had led the authors to projections of future sea level
rise that were too low! 77
After a while, many in the media seemed to realize they'd been had one too many times by the
deniers, and they stopped taking the bait. In May 2010, for example, Marc Morano attempted to
manufacture a new scandal, “MalariaGate,” but he found few takers. On his Web site and through his
broad e-mail distribution list, Morano misrepresented what the IPCC said about climate change
influences on malaria and argued that a recent paper in Nature 78 had overthrown the IPCC thinking on
the problem, which it hadn't. In the process, he took potshots at a Penn State collaborator of mine
who had commented on the study, and me as well. 79 But media outlets ignored him. They had also
ignored (with the predictable exception of Fox News) the latest Heartland Institute climate change
denial conference that took place around the same time, despite the many efforts of the sponsors to
manufacture publicity.
Political Intimidation
Especially disturbing, given the painful lessons of history, were the attempts of politicians to vilify
and intimidate climate scientists in Congress and beyond. The attacks by congressional Republicans
with close ties to the fossil fuel industry, though, were not unexpected. 80 Within days of the release of
the hacked e-mails (November 23, 2009), the staff of Senator David Vitter (R-LA) released a letter
claiming that global warming “could well be the greatest act of scientific fraud in history,” 81
essentially parroting James Inhofe's “greatest hoax” line. Not to be outdone, Inhofe called for
congressional investigations of various climate scientists, including me, the very next day. 82 Inhofe
blasted off threatening letters 83 to me, my coauthors Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes, and eight
other prominent U.S. climate scientists, including IPCC working group I chair and Presidential Medal
of Science winner Susan Solomon. He sent similar letters to representatives of a half dozen
government agencies and a half dozen universities (including Penn State) and government research
labs. These letters threatened impending investigations and vexatious demands for personal e-mail
and other materials, though their real intent appeared simply to intimidate.
Similar attacks soon came from House Republicans. Within twenty-four hours, far-right
Republican Congressman Darrel Issa of California, the ranking member of the House Investigations
Committee, joined with Inhofe in calling for investigations of various scientists, including me. 84
Within a week, Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the-now-familiar Joe Barton (R-TX), and the leader of