We can't prove what we claimed as the truth so

Kevin Libin: You'll just have to take our word on the global warming stuff

Though a striking number of prominent scientists have recently recanted their initial belief in manmade global warming, joining an already robust community of distinguished skeptics, those who continue to advance the theory could be their own worst enemy. Whatever the truth is about anthropogenic climate change — the contention that carbon dioxide emitted by human industrial activity — the tendency among some climate-change believers to embellish the effects of planetary warming has only served to undermine their credibility in the eyes of the public and, less so, the media.

But probably nothing could damage the credibility of climate change believers than the recent revelation by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) that it has lost or destroyed all the original data used to construct historic global temperature records. The CRU, at the University of East Anglia in the UK, which has been using information collected from weather stations across the globe for decades, is probably the most widely cited source worldwide for those mounting a case that the earth has exhibited an inexorable warming trend: its website boasts that CRU’s research has “set the agenda for the major research effort in, and political preoccupation with, climate research.” The critical raw climate data responsible, which scientists of all climate-creeds have a natural interest in, is now gone, apparently, forever. With the exception of a handful of countries that the CRU has agreements with to sell its data, all that remains for the bulk of the statistics are “value added” versions, which is to say, consolidated, homogenized data.

(snip)

With access only to “homogenized” consolidated data, there is no way for researchers — skeptical or believers — to verify or refute the original statistics or calculations behind the CRU’s widely relied-upon weather information.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/08/18/kevin-libin-you-ll-just-have-to-take-our-word-on-the-global-warming-stuff.aspx

SamCogar wrote:

Kevin Libin: You'll just have to take our word on the global warming stuff

Though a striking number of prominent scientists have recently recanted their initial belief in manmade global warming, joining an already robust community of distinguished skeptics, those who continue to advance the theory could be their own worst enemy. Whatever the truth is about anthropogenic climate change — the contention that carbon dioxide emitted by human industrial activity — the tendency among some climate-change believers to embellish the effects of planetary warming has only served to undermine their credibility in the eyes of the public and, less so, the media.

But probably nothing could damage the credibility of climate change believers than the recent revelation by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) that it has lost or destroyed all the original data used to construct historic global temperature records. The CRU, at the University of East Anglia in the UK, which has been using information collected from weather stations across the globe for decades, is probably the most widely cited source worldwide for those mounting a case that the earth has exhibited an inexorable warming trend: its website boasts that CRU’s research has “set the agenda for the major research effort in, and political preoccupation with, climate research.” The critical raw climate data responsible, which scientists of all climate-creeds have a natural interest in, is now gone, apparently, forever. With the exception of a handful of countries that the CRU has agreements with to sell its data, all that remains for the bulk of the statistics are “value added” versions, which is to say, consolidated, homogenized data.

(snip)

With access only to “homogenized” consolidated data, there is no way for researchers — skeptical or believers — to verify or refute the original statistics or calculations behind the CRU’s widely relied-upon weather information.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/08/18/kevin-libin-you-ll-just-have-to-take-our-word-on-the-global-warming-stuff.aspx