Renowned climate scientist who once warned about global warming now says alarmists push crisis for 'fame and fortune'

A renowned climate scientist has proclaimed that the consensus regarding climate change among the scientific community is "manufactured." The climatologist declared that climate crisis alarmists push an extreme narrative for "fame and fortune."

Dr. Judith Curry is the president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network. She served on the NASA Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee, was part of the NOAA Climate Working Group, and was a fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Curry was the former chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and held faculty positions at the University of Colorado, Penn State University, and Purdue University. Curry has authored more than 180 scientific papers. She has received scientific funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy.

Curry became a media darling after she published a paper in 2005 that claimed there was a relation between the increased intensity of hurricanes and global warming. The research claimed that Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had doubled and attributed this trend to climate change.

"I was adopted by the environmental advocacy groups and the alarmists, and I was treated like a rock star," Curry told independent journalist John Stossel in a recent interview. "Flown all over the place to meet with politicians and to give these talks, and lots of media attention."

However, other scientists noted that Curry's research had gaps with low-intensity hurricanes.

Curry, an expert on hurricanes and Arctic ice dynamics, re-examined her own research. She later admitted that her critics had a point and confessed that her research had some "bad data" and that "natural climate variability" was a factor.

Curry became skeptical of climate change alarmism after the Climategate scandal erupted in 2009.

In November 2009, thousands of emails and documents from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit were hacked. Some say the emails spanning 13 years hint that climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct and data manipulation.

One email shows a Penn State professor seemingly wanting to hide certain climate data: "This is the sort of 'dirty laundry' one doesn't want to fall into the [wrong] hands."

A climate scientist with the University Corporation for Academic Research wrote, "If you think that [Yale professor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted."

Curry said that Climategate showed "a lot of really ugly things."

She explained, "Avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests, trying to get journal editors fired from their jobs."

Curry said climate change fanaticism goes back to the formation of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was established in 1988.

Curry accused some United Nations officials of pushing an "anti-capitalism" agenda.

"They hated the oil companies and seized on the climate change issue to move their policies along," she told Stossel.

"The IPCC wasn’t supposed to focus on any benefits of warming," Curry stated. "The IPCC’s mandate was to look for dangerous human-caused climate change."

"The announcements of opportunity for funding are really tied to assuming there are dangerous impacts," Curry said.

Stossel added, "So the researchers aren't stupid. They know what they need to say to get funding. This is how manufactured consensus happens."

Curry said journal editors are also climate alarmists, making it difficult for climate change skeptics to get published.

"Promote the alarming papers. Don’t even send the other ones out for review," Curry said. "If you wanted to advance in your career, like be at a prestigious university and get a big salary, have big laboratory space, get lots of grant funding, be director of an institute, there was clearly one path to go."

Curry said climate crisis advocates declared her a climate denier and misinformer, and she felt "hostility" at Georgia Tech. Curry said she attempted to look for another university job, but was denied because of her stances on climate change.

Curry said climate change is a problem, but it is not a crisis.

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Judith Curry: How Climate “Science” Got Hijacked by Alarmistswww.youtube.com