Journalists should've beaten hacked climate emails

The Wall Street Journal's eloquent Daniel Henninger had a terrific column in today's edition showing how post-modernism has crippled science. But Henninger didn't put any blame on journalists for not discovering this before the recently hacked emails exhibited fraud and intimidation. I wrote the following letter to the Journal on that subject.

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Daniel Henninger’s column on “Climategate: Science Is Dying” was brilliant at revealing post-modernism’s ideological destruction of science.

But a point missing from Mr. Henninger’s columns is this: We already knew this was happening. Journalists, for years, could’ve extrapolated that this was happening by the sounds of silence from the so-called skeptics. Moreover, we’ve had revelations in some print, such as this:

In its July 16, 2007, edition, the Washington Times, reported that Michael T. Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), sent an ominous message to Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, which read: "Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on."

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, held hearings on the matter. Following the hearings, the senator sent letters to agencies asking them to "reconsider their membership in ACORE. Www.capmag.com has reported extensively on this subject.

My question to objective journalists is this: Why haven’t they pursued this matter in an “All the President’s Men” fashion? There’s clearly been a cover-up, intimidation, distortion of facts, rejection of facts, etc., for years.

Modern journalists must not just point a finger at the fraudulent science and scientists; they must also point a finger at themselves in this woeful matter, and protect us, the public, in a manner that is not commensurate with cowardly scientists.