Governor Palin 4 President

The hacked e-mails have been mined for words and phrases that can be distorted to misrepresent what the scientists were discussing. In a Dec. 9 op-ed, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin argued that "The e-mails reveal that leading climate 'experts' . . . manipulated data to 'hide the decline' in global temperatures." Yet the e-mail she cites was written in 1999, just after the warmest year ever recorded (1998) to that date. It could not possibly have referred to the claim that global temperatures have declined over this decade -- a claim that is false (the current decade, as has been recently reported, will go down as the warmest on record).

In one case, professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia refers to a "trick" regarding temperature data that he attributes to an article that co-authors and I published in the journal Nature in 1998. We showed one up-to-date temperature data set from thermometer measurements along with a longer data set, based on calculations from natural "proxy" records such as ice cores, corals and tree rings, that ended in 1980. The "trick" (by which scientists generally mean a clever solution, i.e., a "trick of the trade") was that the longer-term record could be viewed in the context of recent temperature measurements.

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In the same e-mail, Jones uses the phrase "hide the decline" in reference to work by tree-ring expert Keith Briffa. Because tree-ring information has been found to correlate well with temperature readings, it is used to plot temperatures going back hundreds of years or more. Briffa described a phenomenon in which the density of wood exhibits an enigmatic decline in response to temperature after about 1960. This decline was the focus of Briffa's original article, and Briffa was clear that these data should not be used to represent temperatures after 1960. By saying "hide the decline," Jones meant that a diagram he was producing was not to show those data during the unreliable post-1960 period.

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The conspiracy theories about the e-mails are fueled in part by their criticisms of the quality of two papers regarding global warming and a suggestion that at least one of the papers be kept out of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. As Nature noted in a recent editorial, neither the e-mail writers nor the IPCC suppressed any findings. Both papers were included in the IPCC's report. Some statements in the stolen e-mails reflect poor judgment -- for example, a colleague referring to deleting e-mails that might be subject to a Freedom of Information Act request -- but there is no evidence that this happened.

Palin wrote that Alaska's climate is changing but referred to "thawing permafrost and retreating sea ice" as "natural, cyclical environmental trends." In fact, such changes are among the effects scientists predicted would occur as greenhouse gas levels increase. Scientific evidence for the reality of human-caused climate change includes independently replicated data documenting the extent of warming; unprecedented melting of glaciers; rises in global sea levels; increasingly widespread continental drought; and models that predict all of these things but only when human impacts are included. Those same models project far more profound and potentially damaging impacts of climate change if we do not take action to stabilize greenhouse gas levels.

The scientific consensus regarding human-caused climate change is based on decades of work by thousands of scientists around the world. The National Academy of Sciences has concluded that the scientific case is clear. As world leaders work in Copenhagen to try to combat this problem, some critics are seeking to cloud the debate and confuse the public.

What I find quite comical is the “THEROY” of man-made climate change is based on real and genuine research, for the most part, but the model in which it is based on has been manipulated by man negating all of it.   Ah!!

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Letter To The Editor: I’d like to thank Eugene Robinson for highlighting Alaska’s achievements on climate change [“Palin’s own ‘Climate- gate,’” op-ed, Dec. 15] and for noting that I’ve “treated the issue as serious, complex, and worthy of urgent attention,” while making “any number of pragmatic, reasonable, smart decisions as governor.” But he’s wrong to suggest that my views have somehow changed or that now I’ll have to “renounce” my past efforts.

Once again: I don’t deny that climate change is real. In creating a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with the issue, I said that “Alaska’s climate change strategy must be built on sound science and the best available facts and must recognize Alaska’s interest in economic growth and the development of its resources.” That goal made sense to me then, and it makes sense to me now. 

Mr. Robinson tries to make hay out of the fact that I asked the group to advise me regarding opportunities to participate in “carbon-trading markets.” But considering voluntary participation in carbon-trading programs is much different from endorsing the economically disastrous cap-and-tax proposals put forward by Democrats in Washington. Those proposals will burden our job creators and raise energy prices for all of us, and that’s why I oppose them. 

As governor of Alaska, I sought common-sense solutions that took real-world costs and benefits into account. That’s what I’m looking for now. But that’s not what’s on the table in Washington or in Copenhagen. 

Sarah Palin, Wasilla, Alaska 

Stephen H. Dinan, of the Huffington Post, actually wrote a very positive review of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue.  As a liberal he came to the realization that the liberal histaria and hate directed at Sarah Palin was manufactured and she really is something special.  As part of the 12 steps for recovery from liberalism all liberals should be required to read Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny and Going Rogue. I posted part of the review of Dissolving the Palin Prejudice:

Reading Going Rogue was something of a test for myself - could I find the place of appreciation, respect, and even love for Sarah Palin?

What I found is that it wasn't really that hard, actually, simply by taking the time to meet her on her own turf rather than through sounds bites, spin, and polarized media battles. Reading someone's personal memoir is an intimate journey into their inner sanctum, and I developed a real appreciation for Sarah in reading the book. Aspects of her that seemed coarse, simplistic, or combative during the campaign were revealed to be a product of frontier values and growing up in a culture that is faced with subzero temperatures and constant tests of survival.

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Perhaps the most moving aspect of the book is the way in which she never waivers in her family commitments throughout the political journey. She passes up an opportunity to contest a Senate seat in order to manage her son's hockey team. She breast feeds in front of a taken-aback lawmaker. Team Palin is a part of every campaign and a constant presence in her official roles. Her family is at the center of her life in a way that feels whole and balanced, which is both impressive and commendable as we all seek to balance competing demands on our time.

My developing appreciation of her formative years in the book led to a different view of the pressure cooker of national, presidential politics - I felt far more compassion for the ugly way in which she was attacked by the press, dismissed by the opposition, and muzzled by patronizing campaign bosses. She faced strong prejudices from people like myself who were scared that her more black-or-white, provincial-seeming perspective would someday be in the Oval Office. We were also worried by her folksy appeal and ability to attack Obama aggressively while appearing quite charming. The result of that reaction was a barrage of distorted stories, inflated fears, and downright misrepresentations, some of which were quite damaging to her family. After reading in her own words what she went through, I felt more compassion for her and dismay about the meat grinder that we've created for political leaders - an occupation for which we truly need our best and brightest.

Reading Going Rogue makes me understand that Sarah is not the ruthlessly ambitious and cutthroat caricature we feared; she is a woman who has befriended Democrats personally and professionally, shown real leadership in fighting corruption, and taken a more nuanced position on several issues in which she seemed far more polarizing. She seems quite sincere in her desire to serve in whatever way the universe calls for that service.

All that said, I still bristled when she launches in the final part of the book into a diatribe about what our country needs, which is strongly colored with right-wing platitudes and a self-righteous air as well as the tendency to portray liberals as the enemy rather than fellow allies in evolving our country. I would love to see more thoughtful reflections on positions and values, a deeper understanding of history, and less of the combative edge, all of which would make her a more unifying leader (and likely lead to fewer arrows back at her and her family).

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Most of all, I come way from the book seeing Sarah as a woman who loves her family deeply, seeks to live a life of integrity, and wants America to be strong, successful and vibrant. While I may disagree with some of her policies and perspectives, I can better respect both her sincere patriotic intent as well as her willingness to take on hard fights in the service of democracy, in addition to her championing of the everyday people who often feel marginalized in our political process. I still would not vote for her for President, but I do respect her more as a person and as a leader of an important base of Americans.

I come away from reading Going Rogue feeling that it would be a useful act of citizenship for all those who feel prejudice towards her to read her book and meet her on her own turf in order to heal the lingering prejudices. I feel more balanced for having done so. I would also urge conservatives who hate or fear Obama to read his autobiography to better understand the man behind the political leader and thus heal their own biases.

Full Review:

Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation’s only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change. While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can’t primarily blame man’s activities for those changes. And while I did look for practical responses to those changes, what I didn’t do was hamstring Alaska’s job creators with burdensome regulations so that I could act “greener than thou” when talking to reporters.