Message From the Editor

It was this past week in 2009 that an unknown hacker published a cache of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in the UK. It was meant to be the hack that brought down climate science. But it made the research — and researchers — stronger than ever.

Ten years later, we published a five-part series tracking the key players that manufactured the scandal that came to be known as “Climategate,” exploring how climate science has continued to advance and how Climategate’s myths haven’t aged well, and reflecting on DeSmog’s own modest role in puncturing the hot air around the scandal and our continued efforts to combat misinformation on climate change

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmogblog.com.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

Introducing Climategate @ 10

— By Mat Hope (2 min. read) —

On November 19, 2009, an unknown hacker published a cache of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. It was meant to be the hack that brought down climate science. But it made the research — and researchers — stronger than ever.

10 years on, this five-part series looks back at the key players that manufactured the scandal that came to be known as 'Climategate'.

Where Are the Ring-Leaders of the Manufactured Climategate Scandal Now?

— By Richard Collett-White (12 min. read) —

Ten years ago, leading climate scientists at the University of East Anglia had a mass of email correspondence stolen from their computers and broadcast around the world, in what became known as ‘Climategate’.

Climate science deniers pounced on the leaked emails as supposed proof that scientists were manipulating data and creating panic about climate change out of nothing.

Interview: Climategate Felt Like a Disaster, But Climate Science Is Now Stronger Than Ever

— By Sophie Yeo (4 min. read) —

“There was this incredible hullabaloo,” says Robert Brulle, recalling the moment that the Climategate scandal broke, 10 years ago today. He remembers thinking that it was all much ado about nothing: a coordinated PR campaign by climate deniers to discredit the science of global warming.

Brulle is a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, who has researched the environmentalism movement for more than two decades, and has focused in recent years on the funding of climate denial. In some sense, his prediction would be proven correct.

Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

— By Dana Nuccitelli (7 min. read) —

Excessive media coverage of an email hacking tilted the outcome of a critically important event against the victims of the crime. Sound familiar?

In 2016, it happened to the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. That was déjà vu for climate scientists, who seven years earlier had experienced a nearly identical chain of events leading up to the 2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.

DeSmog Was Created to Combat Climategate-Style Misinformation. We’re Still Going

— By Brendan DeMelle (4 min. read) —

DeSmog was launched in January 2006 to call out the public relations industry for working with fossil fuel industry clients to sow doubt and seed misinformation about climate science. In those early years, we focused most of our attention on the merchants of doubt who were scuttling political action to address global warming in the United States.

Little did we know that climate science denial was spreading throughout the English-speaking world, and we would have to follow it to the UK and beyond.

Stanford Study Says Renewable Power Eliminates Argument for Using Carbon Capture with Fossil Fuels

— By Justin Mikulka (7 min. read) —

New research from Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson questions the climate and health benefits of carbon capture technology against simply switching to renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Carbon capture technology is premised on two possible approaches to reducing climate pollution: removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere anywhere in the world, an approach generally known as direct air capture, or removing it directly from the emissions source, such as the smoke stack of a fossil fuel power plant.

Rachel Maddow’s New Book on Russia, Oil, and Politics Accidentally Had Perfect Timing With Trump Impeachment Inquiry

— By Dana Drugmand (4 min. read) —

As public hearings in the Trump impeachment inquiry headed into their second week, one of the nation’s top political cable news hosts was connecting the dots between the rise of authoritarianism, challenges to democracy, and the corrupting power of the oil and gas industry.

“I didn’t set out to write about the oil and gas industry,” Rachel Maddow told the audience at Mount Holyoke College on Sunday, November 17 in what was the final stop on a nationwide tour for her new book Blowout.

Citing Latest Climate Science, Nearly 30 Arrested Protesting New Natural Gas Plant in New York’s Hudson Valley

— By Justin Nobel (6 min. read) —

On Saturday, November 16, 29 people were arrested in a rally at a massive natural gas-fired power plant, the Cricket Valley Energy Center, that is being constructed in a picturesque rural valley of farms and forests near the New York-Connecticut border, about 80 miles north of New York City.

“This is my first arrestable action, I am definitely excited,” said 18-year-old Lucinda Carroll, who wore thick mittens and numerous layers to brace against the sub-freezing cold and was one of 10 people chained to a neon green and yellow tractor.

How the Climategate Email Hack Laid the Foundations for the Fake News Era

— By Brendan Montague (8 min. read) —

DeSmog UK’s first editor, Brendan Montague, shares his personal experience of investigating climate science deniers at the time of Climategate.

Lord Lawson stepped to the curb hailing a taxi. We had both been at an event in a swish Fleet Street hotel discussing illegal phone hacking by journalists. I had followed him out onto the pavement and asked whether the hacking of scientists' emails from the servers of the British university had been unethical — as well as criminal. “It was a whistleblower,” he scowled. The black taxi took off, leaving me in a cloud of diesel.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: James Delingpole

James Delingpole is an English columnist and anti-windfarm activist who formerly blogged for The Daily Telegraph and now writes for The Spectator and the far-right news site Breitbart. Delingpole was one of the first journalists to write about the hacked University of East Anglia emails in 2009 and was credited with coining the term “Climategate,” though he has since admitted he came across it in the comments section of a climate skeptic blog.
Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database or our new Koch Network Database.