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The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report entitled The Climate Deception Dossiers.
For nearly three decades, many of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.
Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven "deception dossiers"—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.
So now we have some idea of "What fossil fuel companies knew and when they knew it". Full report available here [pdf].
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Climategate: the Shoe is on the Other Foot
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 10 2015, @04:37PM
However, it is worth noting that the disclosure of these stolen emails did not serve the public interest.
I disagree.
Rather, it impeded the work of some of the premier climate research units in the world and was used for political purposes to create a false impression that climate scientists were concealing and manipulating data.
If that were all it did, then you'd have a point.
After 3 separate inquiries at considerable expense, it was found that nothing of the sort occurred
It was found that Jones had obstructed FOIA requests and deleted emails associated with legitimate FOIA requests. While these inquiries might not consider that concealing data, I do.
It seems certain that the progress of science would be impeded if researchers are no longer able to speak frankly to one another out of the fear that any email might be read by people unaware of the context.
What makes you think that was the problem here? There are three things to keep in mind here. First, the most important thing to come out of "Climategate" was the computer code. How can you base scientific work on data which has been processed in unknown and bug ridden ways? Second, was the discovery that CRU leadership indeed obstructed FOIA requests. That's a crime even if nobody is inclined to punish it. Third, was the heavily unscientific bias and ideology present in the emails. This doesn't mean that current climatology is incorrect. But it's not how you build a public consensus on AGW or other climate change theory.