---
title: "Climatic Research Unit email controversy"
chunk: 12/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:22:41.916840+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Climategate had a significant effect on public beliefs in global warming and trust in scientists. The loss of trust in scientists, however, was primarily among individuals with a strongly individualistic worldview or politically conservative ideology. Nonetheless, Americans overall continue to trust scientists more than other sources of information about global warming.
In late 2011, Steven F. Hayward wrote that "Climategate did for the global warming controversy what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam war 40 years ago: It changed the narrative decisively." An editorial in Nature said that many in the media "were led by the nose, by those with a clear agenda, to a sizzling scandal that steadily defused as the true facts and context were made clear".

== Further release, 2011 ==
On 22 November 2011, a second set of approximately 5,000 emails, apparently hacked from University of East Anglia servers at the same time as those in the 2009 release, was posted on a Russian server, with links distributed to the message boards on several climate-sceptic websites. A message accompanying the emails quoted selective passages from them, highlighting many of the same issues raised following the original incident. Juliette Jowit and Leo Hickman of The Guardian said that the new release was "an apparent attempt to undermine public support for international action to tackle climate change" with the start of the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled in Durban, South Africa, a week later. Nature described the further release as a "poor sequel" and claimed that "it is hard for anyone except the most committed conspiracy theorist to see much of interest in the content of the released e-mails, even taken out of context".

== Further reading ==

== See also ==

Climate change in the United Kingdom
Global warming conspiracy theory
Global warming controversy
List of -gate scandals and controversies

== References ==

== External links ==
Unwinding “Hide the Decline”, detailed video coverage on climatecrocks.com, 28 April 2011.
Climate wars: The story of the hacked emails, the full manuscript of an investigation by The Guardian into the emails.
Audio recording of a Guardian-sponsored debate on Climategate, held on 15 July 2010. The debaters were Trevor Davies, Doug Keenan, Stephen McIntyre, Fred Pearce, and Bob Watson; the debate was chaired by George Monbiot.
"The Great Climategate Debate". A video of a lecture held at the MIT School of Science on 10 December 2009. The moderator was Henry D. Jacoby (MIT). Speakers were Kerry Emanuel (MIT), Judith Layzer (MIT), Stephen Ansolabehere (MIT and Harvard), Ronald G. Prinn (MIT), and Richard Lindzen (MIT).
"The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia". Video of House of Commons Select Committee oral evidence session, held on Monday 1 March 2010 at 3 pm. Witnesses are: (1) Rt Hon Nigel Lawson, Chairman, and Dr Benny Peiser, Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation; (2) Richard Thomas CBE; (3) Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor, University of East Anglia, and Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit; (4) Sir Muir Russell KCB, Head of the Independent Climate Change emails Review; (5) Professor John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Julia Slingo OBE, Chief Scientist, Met Office, and Professor Bob Watson, Chief Scientist, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
"Climate of Doubt". Frontline. Season 30. Episode 22. 23 October 2012. PBS. WGBH. Retrieved 26 April 2025.