Tricksters?

The Trick is a BBC One dramatisation of events that occurred in 2009, when emails of the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University were hacked. The Head of the Climatic Research Unit, at that time, was Professor Phillip Jones. He received hate mail, death threats, as well as demands to the University for his sacking. Right-wing newspapers and TV stations carried the 'news' of his 'crimes', as if it was gospel. The Trick will get a timely airing just before COP26. It should, hopefully, remind the world of the dirty tricks frequently used by climate change deniers (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/10/this-is-a-story-that-needs-to-be-told-bbc-film-tackles-climategate-scandal). The hacked emails were used as part of a massive disinformation campaign. Carefully extracted quotes from the emails were used by climate change deniers to promote the idea, that scientists were falsely alledging that fossil fuel emissions were warming the planet. An example of the technique, includes Jones' use of the word 'trick' in an email. He was referring to a mathematical method. The word was, however, taken out of context and presented as 'evidence' of a 'tweaking the figures'. OK, Jones might have been more careful with his words but these were private emails to colleagues who understood the short-hand terminology. One wonders who might have benefited, in 2009, from the planting of the idea that climate change was bogus? The Copenhagen COP meeting was imminent. The whole disinformation operation appears rather too professional, for it to be the work of an amateur obsessive. Access to serious money was probably involved. Sadly, even now, most people who recall the 2009 events, 'remember' a scientist as being caught massaging the numbers. Interestingly, the makers of The Trick were refused permission to use 'news' footage by US TV stations, who had carried news of Professor Jones' crimes. Money talks?