The Climate Files Review

The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth About Global Warming is the real story behind the leaking of climate change emails at the University of East Anglia, the biggest scandal to hit global warming science in years.

One of the world’s leading writers on climate change, Fred Pearce, tells the inside story of the events leading up to the much-publicized theft of climate-change related emails. He explores the personalities involved, the feuds and disagreements at the heart of climate science, and the implications the scandal has for the future.

In November 2009 it came to the public’s attention that thousands of documents and emails had been stolen from one of the top climate science centers in the world. The emails appeared to reveal that scientists had twisted research in order to strengthen the case for global warming. With the UN’s climate summit in Copenhagen just days away, the hack could not have happened at a worse time for climate researchers, or at a better time for climate skeptics. Although the scandal caused a media frenzy, the fact is that just about everything the public heard and read about the University of East Anglia emails is wrong. They are not, as some have claimed, the smoking gun for a great global warming hoax, nor do they reveal a sinister conspiracy by scientists to fabricate global warming data. They do, however, raise deeply disturbing questions about the way climate science is conducted, about researchers’ preparedness to block access to climate data and downplay flaws in their data, and about the siege mentality and scientific tribalism at the heart of the most important international issue of the age.

About the Author
Fred Pearce has reported on environment, science, and development issues from 64 countries over the past 20 years. Trained as a geographer, he has been an environment consultant and award-winning editor of New Scientist magazine since 1992 He has written for such publications as Audubon, Foreign Policy, Popular Science, Seed, and Time, and has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian, and recently published a 12-part investigation of the University of East Anglia “climategate” emails affair. His books include The Coming Population Crash, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, Earth: Then and Now, When the Rivers Run Dry, and With Speed and Violence.

Bibliographic information
Title: The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth About Global Warming
Author: Fred Pearce
Publisher: Random House UK, 2010
ISBN: 0852652291, 9780852652299
Length: 288 pages
Subjects: Science, Environmental Science

Reviews
“In this, the first book to look in depth at Climategate, Pearce offers a remarkably well balanced and up-to-date account of what really happened, what it all means and where climate science finds itself in the wake of the whole sorry saga.” Transition Culture

Guardian ‘Climategate’ Debate
George Monbiot chairs the Guardian ‘Climategate’ Debate with Professors Trevor Davies and Bob Watson, and environmental journalists Fred Pearce, Steve McIntyre and Doug Keenan.

A live debate in London bought together a panel of experts to debate what the ‘climategate’ affair did – and did not – reveal about the study of global warming.

The panel included:

• Professor Trevor Davies, pro-vice-chancellor (research), University of East Anglia, and former director of the Climatic Research Unit.
• Professor Bob Watson, chief scientific advisor, Defra, visiting professor at the University of East Anglia and former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;
• Fred Pearce, environment journalist and author of The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth about Global Warming;
• Steve McIntyre, editor of climateaudit.org
• Doug Keenan, blogger and independent researcher.
• The chair was George Monbiot, Guardian comment writer.
• Some parts of the debate have been edited out for legal reasons.