Political Quotes

“OK. The conservative media--remember, this doubt is amplified in the conservative echo chamber, talk radio, et cetera. You know what it is, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fox News, et cetera. Conservative media pounced, taking quotes out of context to sensational lies like this ``scandal.'' Most of the attacks were directed at an e-mail by Phil Jones, a climate scientist working with the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, in which in this e-mail he referred to using ``Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years to hide the decline.'' That sounds very bad, ``trick'' and ``hide the decline.'' That went viral in the conservative media--evidence that the scientific consensus on climate change was a giant hoax. We had a Member of this body who said the science behind this consensus ``is the same science that, through climategate, has been totally rebuffed and no longer legitimate, either in reality or in the eyes of the American people and the people around the world.'' But it turns out that the trick being referred to in the e-mail is actually a technique to use the most accurate data available. Pre-1960, temperature data would include measurements from thermometers, tree rings, and other so-called temperature proxies. Post-1960--this is the trick--they excluded tree ring data from some specific kinds of trees that were widely recognized by the scientific community to be unreliable after 1960.…”