'Climate change' group think and the heretics

Jonah Goldberg:

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These documents reveal the trick behind how they hide the dissent. Climate change activists often dismiss critics by noting that the skeptics haven't offered their arguments in peer-reviewed literature. Hence why they work so hard to keep dissenters out of the literature! Indeed, whatever the final verdict on the CRU's shenanigans, two things are already firmly established by even a sympathetic reading of these documents.

First, the climate change industry is shot through with groupthink (or what climate scientist Judith Curry calls "climate tribalism"). Activists would have us believe that the overwhelming majority of "real" scientists agree with them while the few dissenters are all either crazed or greedy "deniers" akin to flat-earthers and creationists. These e-mails show that what's really at work is a very large clique of scientists is attempting to excommunicate perceived heretics for reasons that have more to do with psychology and sociology than physics or climatology.

Second, the climate industry really is an industry. Climate scientists make their money and careers from government, academia, the United Nations and foundations. The grantors want the grantees to confirm the global warming "consensus." The tenure and peer-review processes likewise hinge on conformity. That doesn't necessarily mean climate change is untrue, but it does mean sloppiness and bias are unavoidable.

How big a scandal this is for the scientific community is being hotly debated on the Internet. But in big newspapers and TV news, the story has gotten less attention. And that's a scandal, too. The New York Times' leading climate reporter, Andrew Revkin (whose name appears in some of the e-mails), won't publish the contents of the e-mail on the grounds it would violate the scientists' privacy. Can anyone imagine the Times being so prissy if such damning e-mails were from ExxonMobil, never mind Dick Cheney?

Indeed, the closer you look at the scandal the more you realize it's all one big outrage. The same journalistic tribalism that allowed Dan Rather to destroy his career over "Memogate" keeps reinforcing itself. Rather picked sources who said what he wanted to hear, then he reported what they said as if it were indisputable. The same thing is happening on climate change. Ideological bias is a major factor in the news media's work as a transmission belt for the climate industry....

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Don't forget there is also big money for the scientist who go along with the scam. Bret Stephens looks at the money trail today.

The media has been too willing to ignore the skeptics and the whistle blowers who have been sounding the alarm. They still have that problem. They persist in producing stories suggesting dire consequences if we do not adopt draconian control freak measures, without also balancing those accounts with the serious doubts that exist. Fair and balanced they are not.