We are told climate change is a crisis, and that there is an “overwhelming scientific consensus.”
“It’s a manufactured consensus,” climate scientist Judith Curry tells me.
She says scientists have an incentive to exaggerate risk to pursue “fame and fortune.”
She knows about that because she once spread alarm about climate change.
The media loved her when she published a study that seemed to show a dramatic increase in hurricane intensity.
“We found that the percent of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had doubled,” says Curry.
“This was picked up by the media,” and then climate alarmists realized, “Oh, here is the way to do it. Tie extreme weather events to global warming!”
“So, this hysteria is your fault!” I tell her.
“Not really,” she smiles.
“They would have picked up on it anyways.”
“I was adopted by the environmental advocacy groups and the alarmists and I was treated like a rock star,” Curry recounts.
“Flown all over the place to meet with politicians.”
“Like a good scientist, I investigated,” says Curry.
She realized that the critics were right.
“Part of it was bad data. Part of it is natural climate variability.”
Curry was the unusual researcher who looked at criticism of her work and actually concluded: “They had a point.”
Then the Climategate scandal taught her that other climate researchers weren’t so open-minded.
Alarmist scientists’ aggressive attempts to hide data suggesting climate change is not a crisis were revealed in leaked emails.
“Ugly things,” says Curry.
Source: Scientist admits the ‘overwhelming consensus’ on the climate change crisis is ‘manufactured’