Reasonable people can be perplexed about the myriad problems and difficulties surrounding measuring the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on global warming. But no reasonable person should be permitted to make up data. But that’s exactly what NASA’s James Hansen is doing:
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
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The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.
September 2008 was the warmest October on record! Whether or not October was really cold or hot is irrelevant. What is relevant is that serious scientists, that have the ear and mind of the public, are making up data in order to advance an agenda. This is not a simple misunderstanding of data, but a deliberate manipulation of the truth. What would happen if a private corporation did such a thing? OK, don’t imagine … look at what happens. Or at least it used to happen.
This reminds me of this: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-05-08/
I also have it posted in my office as econometrics in one lesson.