mckennawilliams-54896 Review of The Trick

The Trick (2021 TV Movie)

Scientists Naivety used as a Climate denier weapon

[8/10 · 11 January 2022]

Despite the climates deniers attempts in these reviews to misrepresent the story, the dramatizes the complexity of science and how the media's attempts to simplify it distorts it. The so called 'Climategate affair' was nothing of the sort, no data was hidden it just wasn't used when it became clear that some unknown process was causing it to no longer match actual temperature readings. This is the data derived from tree ring data which up to the 1960's was a close match to actual temperature readings but from the 60's onward diverged and stopped tracking the actual temperature readings. Research in the 90's and 2000's indicate this was due human activity impacting tree growth rates (pollution, acid rain, ozone depletion amongst others). The actual issue the hacked emails revealed was not corruption but rather mismatch between scientific expectations where considerations like the balance of probabilities and lack of certainty are part of how science works and the political requirement for certainty and definite answers. This combined with the affected individuals lack of experience with dealing with the media and the public lead to innocent actions appearing to be suspicious.