20150209_CB

Source: CBC

URL: http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2653078338

Date: 09/02/2015

Event: Andrew Weaver on Climategate: "let's be very clear - this is an artificial scandal"

Credit: CBC

People:

Carol Off: TV and radio journalist, co-host of CBC's "As It Happens"
Dr. Andrew Weaver: Climate scientist and politician

Carol Off: Mr. Weaver, how did you react, when you learned that you had won this defamation suit?

Andrew Weaver: Well, I was absolutely thrilled. I mean, this has been five long years, and to get complete vindication - I was just ecstatic.

Carol Off: Can we go back to where this began? And this - I want to ask you, first of all, about some break-ins you had at your office at the University of Victoria - what happened?

Andrew Weaver: So, there was a couple of break-ins, back in 2009. There was some - I was asked some questions on that - and there was also my colleagues, downstairs in the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, had been... attempted security breach from the bots attacking their system, and so... that was basically it.

Carol Off: And what did you say to the National Post about those break-ins?

Andrew Weaver: I didn't. I - when you look at the transcripts, I was phoned up as it was pointed out in here - I was essentially saying, um, climate science in general and climate scientists in general are being the subject of, um, a lot of nastiness, a lot of nasty emails, a lot of nasty attacks - verbal attacks - this was at the time when, in 2009, some emails were hacked out of the University of East Anglia and a story was concocted by putting them as a package and releasing them across the internet, and -

Carol Off: This was known as "Climategate"... so -

Andrew Weaver: That's an unfortunate name, but -

Carol Off: Yes. But the National Post reporter was interviewing you about the University of East Anglia scandal, and did the break-ins come up, in the course of that?

Andrew Weaver: Correct, right towards the very end - there was a discussion about that, and so I just reported the facts.

Carol Off: And what did the National Post print about those break-ins?

Andrew Weaver: Well, the flood [?] of the many things was that they claimed I was blaming the oil industry for breaking into my office, which was utterly - there's just no, as the judge points out, there's no substance to that, it was just complete fabrication.

Carol Off: There was a transcript of the interview you had with the National Post?

Andrew Weaver: Correct, it was very clear. There was a sequence of stories, there was four stories that were attributing views to me that I never held. The same stories were accusing me of things that I never did and they also attributed statements to me that I never made. So there was a sequence of four of them, around the time - around the time that the Copenhagen meeting was about to occur. So this is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Conference of Parties was in Copenhagen. It was a big meeting, there was discussions there for the carry-on for Kyoto, and of course it was a bit of a failure, that meeting, but it was around that time - a sequence of stories, and one was called "Weaver's Web", the second was called "Weaver's Web II" and then there was two following up, where one's claiming I was calling for the leader of the IPCC to resign and I was jumping ship - just complete fabrications.

Carol Off: The International [sic] Panel on Climate Change - you were a lead author for certain, many of their assessments, their studies, and you mention Copenhagen - this was a particularly difficult time, because there was the scandal, we've mentioned it - Climategate, its nickname - but it came from the hacking of emails at the University of East Anglia. Can you tell us what happened there?

Andrew Weaver: Yeah, let's be very clear - this is an artificial scandal. What happened is the University of East Anglia computer system was broken into, a vast array of documents and emails were stolen, selected amounts were put together and distributed via a server in Russia, but was uploaded into some blogs, here and there. So there was a - this was an illegal activity. Now, what then happened, very soon after that, is selected bits of these were taken out of context, and with the narrative being attacked where there's somehow this conspiracy of scientists to pull the wool over the entire world's eyes. It was just absolutely ludicrous - so, you know, they've had numerous investigations into it, and each and every one of them found that there was nothing done wrong by the scientists. There -

Carol Off: In fairness, there were some issues, were there not, and it - the hacked emails showed that there were some scientists who were very reluctant to share data with those who they thought would try to discredit climate change, and they appeared to try to block requests for information under Freedom of Information. Did that not leave some damage to the University of East Anglia?

Andrew Weaver: Scientists at the University of East Anglia was getting inundated with them, and indeed it was overwhelmed by the number of requests, and - I'm not defending the fact that, you know, an FOI request is an FOI request, and you have to respond. But at some points, you know, one has to question as to how often these are being done, and is this the best valuable use of the time of the scientists.

Carol Off: To return to your issue, which is that the story of what was happening at the University of East Anglia was conflated with the break-ins and with remarks you were making, that you believed the fossil-fuel industry got a benefit from this campaign to discredit climate change - that is true.

Andrew Weaver: That was a very small component, that, but you see, this is a discussion, you know, it's a - if you have the transcript, as we did a long discussion, it was nothing to do with the break-ins, we were talking, at this stage, we were talking about the overarching vested interests and what is the - if we maintain the status quo, who benefits from maintaining the status quo, and there's nothing surprising there, and that's in the context of a big, long discussion.

Carol Off: And this is a question -

Andrew Weaver: That doesn't sell newspapers, though - it sounds much better if that's spun into me blaming the oil industry into breaking into my office. So adherence to the facts is kind of important, and as the judge said it was either careless or indifference to the facts, and that's - that's important.

Carol Off: The National Post is being - has to pay $50,000 but also that they have to remove all the stories - have the stories still, until now, been available for people to read?

Andrew Weaver: Yes, I haven't checked this morning but they were there on the weekend and they're still there. I suspect that they're mulling their options, at this stage, and, you know, we'll see whether they indeed comply, and they have, I think, 30 days is the appeal period so we'll see where this goes.

Carol Off: All right, we will be following. Mr. Weaver, thank you.

Andrew Weaver: Thank you so much.