I’ve been keeping an eye on the Wikileaks disclosure of classified documents, which has deeply embarrassed a wide collection world political leaders, and particularly the US government in general.
I was hoping that among all of these confidential documents, some would be protocols, messages or reports on discussions on climate policy. So I did some trolling in the Internet, hoping to find more on this, but came up with nothing. Admittedly my search was not the most thorough of searches.
Seems very odd that this “vital” issue, one we are told our very survival hinges on, is nowhere mentioned in any of these hot documents. Do you mean to tell me world leaders never talk about it behind the scenes? I have a truly difficult time believing that. Call it the deafening silence.
Either:
a) World leaders, in reality, couldn’t care less about the topic, and thus all the talk about rescuing the climate is just a facade issue in front cameras and mikes to distract the public, meaning the leaders never really talk about it behind the scenes, and so no climate-related protocols exist. This seems highly unlikely to me.
or
b) The leaked documents were selectively disclosed to simply to target and cause personal embarrassment to some world leaders, while others were kept under wraps, meaning climate-related documents were sifted away by Wikileaks or by the media outlets with whom they were entrusted (e.g. the Guardian and Der Spiegel). Selective release with the intent to produce a designed reaction would be immoral, irresponsible, arrogant and a complete abuse of journalistic power.
The danger and the probability here is that Wikileaks, or the media outlets with whom the documents have been entrusted, have carefully cherry-picked the documents in order to engineer and produce a desired political reaction. This is what makes the release of the documents so disturbing, dangerous, and untrustworthy. We probably are getting only the picture that the disclosers want us to see.
I’m not into conspiracy theories, but I do smell a rat. We’ve seen this pattern of behavior time and again in climate science journalism.
If anyone knows of the existence of any climate-related documents that are already out in the public domain, we would all like to see them. All the data is needed to make an accurate picture of the situation.
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UPDATE 1: h/t Ron de Haan: Wikileaks co-founder on Climategate E-mails:
At 4-min mark:
UK Intelligence tried to frame us as a conduit for the FSB because they didn’t like the truth of what was in those e-mails.”
They’re both hiding things.
I’m afraid you’ll never be reading the messages or reports on discussions on climate policy. They have become very carefully after the climate gate from 2009.
Pierre,
I did the same search as you did…also found nothing.
But when I look at the top left of the wikileak homepage http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/index.html
I read:
“Currently released so far:
281 / 251287”
Am I wrong, when stating, that only 281 docs are released so far?
If yes, then is the chance, that climate related docs will show up soon.
Ike
Beats me. But looking at the video I’ve added, I think Mr Assange is a save-the-world type of environmentalist who would bury documents.
Don’t expect anything to pop up.
If you want to control the debate, cover all positions yourself. 😉
I suspect they think about climate change a lot less than the amount of money spent on it suggests. It’s become a subject a bit like health and safety, everybody does something about it, but nobody really cares. Hardly a source for meaty gossip which the released documents are really all about. Messages (if there are any) probably read like
Is anyone senior coming to Copenhagen?
No, X wants to get away early for a golfing holiday and Y is stuck in trade negotiations.
or
Have we agreed on climate proposal v23.23?
No, Chinese don’t like clause 2341.2344 b and c. Good news though, it looks like we may get a panda in the new year.
Yes Ike, they make a slow release so the press has time to follow suit and digest the material.
There is a lot of pressure on the organization however and bigger dumps could follow.
Not exactly riviting climate change news from Wikileaks.
http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/11/obama-wikileaks-saudi-arabia-copenhagen/
ClimateWire has revealed that leading up to the UN meeting at Copenhagen last December, the Obama administration leaned hard on the Saudis to get them to agree to the Copenhagen Accord.
cont.
Another article
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/11/wikileaks-cables-u-s-pressured-saudi-arabia-back-copenhagen-accord.php
According to NYT analysis “the handful of time that climate change is raised, it appears to be a front-burner Obama administration issue.”
Ummm, aren’t those two contradictory points?