Court Finds Conservative Newspaper Guilty for Spreading 'Climategate' Smears, Defaming Scientist

This is an interesting case of the media actually being held accountable for their lies.

Many of you will likely remember the alleged ‘Climategate’ “scandal” from a few years ago - where some scientists had their emails hacked and published. Choice bits of dialogue were quote-mined around the internet, implying all sorts of seedy corruption and data manipulation. The most notorious of these was the infamous “hide the decline” email.

The MSM had a field day with it, joining in on all the knee-jerk judgment and hyperbole going on at the time. A funny thing eventually settled in though – some people actually bothered reading the emails in full, and examined the quotes in context. What they found was the deeply incriminating soundbites we were all reading across headlines back then were in fact grossly misrepresenting what was really being said or done. Here’s a great breakdown of the most famous email for example:

Clearing up misconceptions regarding 'hide the decline'

Eventually numerous investigations were conducted, and all of them reached the same conclusions over and over – the emails were blown wildly out of proportion, and the scientific integrity of the people and data remained intact. This got some MSM to actually retract their claims (albeit well after the original hype had died down):

Newspapers Retract 'Climategate' Claims, but Damage Still Done

Yet others, particularly those of the right-wing persuasion, continued singing about scandal and corruption. They maintained that all these independent investigations were just a convenient whitewashing now, so apparently everyone involved, from The National Science Foundation to The Associated Press, were just in on the conspiracy too! Some of them continue with these ridiculous insinuations to this day - and indeed you can hear the same sort of rhetoric repeated often here on ATS.

One source that will no longer be regurgitating this politically motivated meme though is Canadian newspaper The National Post, since they have been successfully sued for slander by local climate scientist Andrew Weaver:

Canad ian Paper Found Guilty of Defaming Climate Scientist Andrew Weaver with "Climategate" Smears

Here’s what the judge had to say herself:

In this case, the defendants altered the complexion of the facts and omitted facts sufficiently fundamental that they undermine the accuracy of the facts expressed in the commentary to the extent the facts cannot be properly regarded as a true statement of the facts.

That’s some serious legal speak, but essentially it says “the National Post are a bunch of f***ing liars”.


Anyway, this should probably be celebrated as a small victory in the fight against MSM misinformation, but since the topic at hand is so contentious to begin with – I have a feeling these results will just be flatly rejected by a certain portion of the political spectrum.

Those who have already made up their minds (because the above disinformation is firmly spoonfed and digested in their bloodstream) will probably decide now that the Canadian justice system is just in on the conspiracy too. One more interesting caveat to the overall case then is this:

However, in the first court decision in Canada to address the issue of whether a newspaper can be liable for reader postings on its website, she sided with the Post, which had argued it was not the publisher of the comments, and had removed them.

I imagine the professional disinformers will just refocus their efforts now on spreading the propaganda through comment postings and message boards, since there is a legal free-for-all on sock puppets and other useful idiots.


For those willing to buck the trend by way of critical thinking and denying ignorance – I offer some follow up reading and viewing:

What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?

"Climategate" exposed: Conservative media distort stolen emails in latest attack on global warming consensus

Here's 100% Proof That FOX News Are Straight Up Lying, Corporate Shills.

a reply to: mc_squared

I thought this was a reasonably down to earth assessment of the political climate of the AGW debate:

Forget Climategate: This 'Global Warming' Scandal is Much Bigger

Really? A judge becomes the 'decision point' on a scientific debate? One that has many scientists expressing skepticism of those 'facts'?

This doesn't move my views on whit. If anything it reinforces my opinion that the whole issue is a deliberate politically motivated misdirect of the public's attention from far more serious events.

Yawn....

a reply to: mc_squared

This is the old "strawman" argument. It evades the true nature of the thousands of claims by some scientists that climate change is all man-made. That definitely has been shown to not be true--a presumption at the least. So this narrowly pointed finger at some low judge's ruling wipes away the false assertions by those scientists? Are you attempting to say or literally prove with a low court case that manmade climate change has been vindicated?

originally posted by: nwtrucker
Really? A judge becomes the 'decision point' on a scientific debate? One that has many scientists expressing skepticism of those 'facts'?

This doesn't move my views on whit. If anything it reinforces my opinion that the whole issue is a deliberate politically motivated misdirect of the public's attention from far more serious events.

Yawn....

What no?

The Judge ruled that they had defamed him. Lied about him and hurt his character with their articles.

It doesn't have anything to do with whether or not his climate science is good or bad.

~Tenth

a reply to: mc_squared

So basically, you think there was no cover-up of climate 'science' because THEY SAID SO. Ok, right. I'll just line you up with all the other rubes who think that anything the MSM and .gov tell you is the truth. Keep eating those lies, perhaps one day, your belly will be too full of crap to digest anymore.

Yeah nowhere did I say the court case justifies the science. The science does a perfectly fine job of justifying the science.

What this court case does is justify all the lying media that have been trying to undermine and derail the science.

But just as I predicted in the OP - some people have this disinfo so deeply ingrained into their bloodstream there's just no going back to facts and truth.

a reply to: Chronogoblin

Did you read anything posted above? This thread is laying out information about the media lying about a fake scientific scandal to undermine the science. That was the "cover up", and they got busted.

Funny I should find this thread after I read a bit of a analysis on the decision . Seems that the Judge in this case got appointed from a position where she worked closely with Weaver . This blog post is worth a read . make up your own mind what may have happened . hro001.wordpress.com...

a reply to: the2ofusr1

lol and there it is^

I'm gonna quote the OP for posterity:

Those who have already made up their minds (because the above disinformation is firmly spoonfed and digested in their bloodstream) will probably decide now that the Canadian justice system is just in on the conspiracy too.

a reply to: mc_squared

Courts make wrong decisions all the time .NP may end up appealing so it's may not be the end of the story .

originally posted by: greencmp
a reply to: mc_squared

I thought this was a reasonably down to earth assessment of the political climate of the AGW debate:

Forget Climategate: This 'Global Warming' Scandal is Much Bigger

Oh and by the way - that article has been discussed in its own thread. It is, just like climategate - much ado about nothing. See for example this post and this one explaining why.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

Oh, OK. That's a different story, then. perhaps it's valid in that case.

although why am I not surprised that it's a so-called conservative publication that gets this decision. I eagerly await similar ruling those the 'fair-minded' left publications.....

originally posted by: mc_squared

originally posted by: greencmp
a reply to: mc_squared

I thought this was a reasonably down to earth assessment of the political climate of the AGW debate:

Forget Climategate: This 'Global Warming' Scandal is Much Bigger

Oh and by the way - that article has been discussed in its own thread. It is, just like climategate - much ado about nothing. See for example this post and this one explaining why.

Ok, so I went back and perused that thread as you suggested. Unsurprisingly, I did not find any incontrovertible evidence dispelling the assertions made in the article. For the record, in the interests of ongoing debate, I included the ref to that particular article because I thought it was fairly unemotional and unconfrontational.

I did however find this little gem from the illustrious semicollegiate which I found to be quite logical.

originally posted by: semicollegiate[/post]
400 ppm CO2 is 0.04 % of the atmosphere.

Climate alarmists cry that 0.04% of the atmosphere is going to heat up the planet by absorbing 8% of the ambient (i.e. room temperature) heat.

.0004 x .08 = 0.000032 of the energy released from the surface of the Earth.

The average earth surface temperature is 14.0 C or 273 + 14 = 287 K (Kelvin is absolute temperature, aka energy, measured from absolute zero, the coldest possible temperature, same units as Celsius.)

287 x 0.000032 = .009184 C at 400ppm CO2.

400ppm CO2 increases the temperature of the atmosphere something like .009184 degrees Celsius, compared to no CO2 in the atmosphere at all. So the fraction of heat put in the air by man is even less than that.

Once the heat is absorbed by CO2 it becomes motion. The heat is passed on to other gas molecules in collisions, after which the hottest molecules will evolve into higher altitudes by convection. Finally, the heat is lost by the phenomenon of black body radiation, which all matter is doing all of the time, into space.

Only an alarmist, or fascist opportunist, would see a threat in that.

Please explain otherwise if you can.

If you can't, why do you believe in global warming?

a reply to: greencmp

Yes, and that was debunked here and here.

If you want to take up issues with that thread then please comment on that thread and not this one.

a reply to: mc_squared

It is no surprise that some still believe the Climategate scandal has teeth. It isn't like they will actually read the papers themselves most will not even read the findings on the investigations which concluded no wrongdoing.

It is good to see that a publication is being held accoutable for pushing the claims after investigations have been concluded. It is one thing if individuals want to keep believing and pushing the disinformation it is entirely another when publications do it.

originally posted by: mc_squared
a reply to: greencmp

Yes, and that was debunked here and here.

If you want to take up issues with that thread then please comment on that thread and not this one.

Erm, neat trick, refer dissent to another thread where you say the same thing and claim thread drift for a completely relevant response.

Class.

a reply to: nwtrucker

No. A judge became the decision point on a legal matter... defamation. If you would bother reading the emails yourself (posted a gajillion times on ATS btw), you would see for yourself that the quotes had been taken wildly out of text.

For people such as yourself it really boils down to this... do you want the truth or do you prefer to continue to bathe in the comfortable confirmation bias waters of ignorance?

a reply to: Kali74

Spare me the holier than thou rhetoric.

If you had rest the rest of the posts you'd see I've already corrected my Prima Facie comment. My bad. Yours is not reading all the posts....

a reply to: nwtrucker

It bore repeating.