Politics muddies the debate

THE heavy political focus on a vanishing Great Barrier Reef and wild weather can be seen in a new light given the release of a further 5000 "climategate" emails.

The latest emails demolish any lingering doubts that those at the heart of climate research have been focused as much on social advocacy and political spin as scientific finding.

On first analysis, the emails - the release of which appears to have been timed to undermine the IPCC's Durban conference next week - do not contain a smoking gun that proves a cover-up or dramatically challenges the core science.

But others are riddled with conversations that confirm politics has sometimes trumped good scientific methodology.

This includes the internal politics of making sure "friendly" scientists were appointed to the IPCC investigation and review process.

And it stretches to the politics of selling the climate change message to the outside world.

The emails confirm that some authors did not want IPCC research findings to be complicated with uncertainties.

They also discuss the intense pressure coming back from politicians for an easy climate change message to sell to their constituents.

"I can't overstate the huge amount of political interest in the project as a message that the government can give on climate change to help them tell their story," one email says.

"They want the story to be a very strong one and don't want to be made to look foolish."

Another says: "I still think for climate change we rely fundamentally on people's personal experiences - the more extreme the better - coinciding with scientific narratives giving meaning to those experiences in order to motivate behavioural change."

To be fair, the emails also contain evidence of robust scientific debate.

And the fact that the IPCC's extreme weather report last week has been seen as more balanced than earlier reports shows how much has changed since the emails were written.

This is no doubt in large measure due to the "inconvenient" first release of emails ahead of the Copenhagen conference two years ago which blew the whistle on the politicisation of the climate change review process.