[Editor Note: It was during the Thanksgiving weekend 11 years ago that the Climategate’s unsettling oeuvre was first being disseminated and analyzed. This post summarizes some remembrances from that period.]

“The conflict between the two ideas about how science should be conducted–a closed system dominated by gatekeepers, or a more chaotic but less hierarchical open system–is the dominant story of the [Climategate] emails over more than a decade.” – Fred Pearce, The Climate Files (2010), p. 13.

“There is no doubt that these emails are embarrassing and a public-relations disaster for science.” – Andrew Dessler, “Climate E-Mails Cloud the Debate,” December 10, 2009.

Climategate lives in infamy. Then, and now, it is a case study of agendas driving science rather than science driving agendas.

A decade ago, climate alarmists and friends (including Dessler above) went into damage control.…

“… the climate crusade has central planning and totalitarianism written all over it. It is a ‘road to serfdom.’ The settled science is more on the side of CO2 emissions/concentrations being positive, not negative (CO2 fertilization; 1.2C primary warming). And yes, the greenest fuels are fossil (as in mineral energies).”

I am a historian of thought on many things energy and climate, including on myself. I want to be as clear as possible about my positions and ideas for the future to judge. There are interviews and biographical entries on me to this end.

So it was of interest when I came across some mentions of me on Twitter (which I do not partake in). My comments follow the mentions.

This is from August 14, 2019.

“In terms of sunk cost and opportunity cost, Trump is the one for liberty. Job #1, after all, is to defeat Biden/Harris or Harris/Biden.” (Bradley, below)

“But these are extraordinary times, and perhaps ‘all things considered, the other guy’s worse’ is a profound compliment. That’s why this libertarian is voting for Donald J. Trump, and recommending that my fellow opponents of the welfare-warfare state do the same.” (D. Dowd Muska, below)

It is fair to say that Donald Trump has upended politics and the Republican Party in the last five years or more. But he has also fractured the libertarian movement too, with some turning into Never Trumpers, even Trump Haters, namely David Boaz, gatekeeper at Cato, and Tom Palmer of Atlas Network.

In contrast, I appreciate the many openings Trump has provided to free-market groups coast-to-coast, border-to-border.…

“‘Trump says that climate change is a hoax, but Biden acts like climate change is a hoax,’ [Green Party nominee Howie] Hawkins said. ‘I wonder if he really understands the issue,’ he mused.”

“‘We’ve been pretty much blanked out of the media,’ he said. ‘We’re not part of the conversation.’ … ‘I’ve got nothing, pretty much nothing, certainly from cable, the big three cable networks.'”

If Green Party Presidential nominee Howie Hawkins did not like Joe Biden’s energy and climate platform months ago, Hawkins has a lot more complaining to do this time around. In search of electoral votes in swing states, Shifty Joe has endorsed fracking on private land, rejected the Green New Deal, and apologized to the oil industry for his sin of talking about an energy transition.

In Green Party Presidential Candidate Says Progressives Are Going Too Easy on Biden (September 10, 2020), Chantal Da Silva documented the bridge-too-far between Biden’s camouflaged energy program and the Green Party’s open proposals.…