What’s really behind the ‘ClimateGate’ controversy?

There are a couple of logistical reasons that may help explain why the mainstream press has not exactly risen to the occasion. The first problem for reporters was the sheer size of the cache — I doubt that many journalists had time to comb through all of the e-mails (most of which, it seems, are quite mundane) before being asked to write about the most controversial lines being picked out by critics and climate-change skeptics. I certainly haven’t. The second major problem is that there are quite a few controversial lines. Figuring out and explaining each and every one of them in a single article is damn near impossible.

However, that is exactly what’s called for — over the course of the coverage, at least — and the press still hasn’t lived up to its responsibilities. With national and international policy on the line, this story deserves more and better coverage. To assess what it has done well and poorly so far, it’s useful to group criticism of the e-mails into two categories: what they say about the science of climate science, and what they say about the politics of climate science.

As Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, wrote Wednesday for The Wall Street Journal — in one of the most sage assessments of the situation yet published — the inability to “disentangle” climate science and climate politics is imperiling both.

From Hacked E-mails and “Journalistic Tribalism” in the Columbia Journalism Review. A long read, but an interesting look at why this has received sparse coverage in the press and the ways in which journalists are and aren’t to blame.