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In the previous post I used the example of the Hockey Stick graph used successfully by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) to ramp up awareness of the warming trend caused (they say) by human industry and consumption.

Keep in mind, the above graph is what, until the IPCC got on the case, was an agreed record of global temperature trends. Agreed across Science, backed by historical records as well as things like ice core data.

So what happened? If you enter a search in your favourite search engine of ‘hockey stick graph’ you will find the main author was Dr Michael Mann. He was an IPCC lead reviewer who somehow got to highlight his own work as being most indicative of the AGW. (Anthropogenic Global Warming – the warming caused by Man) This situation alone is already a breach of how good science works. The whole ‘peer-review’ process is to prevent exactly this situation.

So to find out what is going on, we need to know just what the IPCC is – a search using ‘ipcc history’ gives a variety of pages to have a read about what it is and where it came from. A good one, although a little wordy, is Spiked Online http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3540/ which gives an essay about the history of the Climate Change situation, including the formation of the IPCC.

In the most recent IPCC publication, the infamous Hockey Stick graph has been discarded and replaced by a new ‘spaghetti’ graph. It’s called that because, after the furore kicked up by the reliance on Mann’s graph, they decided to present every graph from any source that even appears to back the IPCC position. Which makes it horribly confusing – which may be the purpose behind it. Mann’s graph was simple enough that even nonscientists could understand it and many found major flaws in it. The new one is so confusing even scientists have trouble wading through what it means.

So now, we are seeing how the internet can be used. By paying attention to what we’re reading and using the resource to find further information, we are able to find consistencies and contradictions, data and opinions from a wider variety of sources than we could ever have achieved prior to the World Wide Web.

And incidentally, using the internet for the purpose for which the originators (some of them) conceived it.