By Printus LeBlanc

In the 1970’s it was called “Global Cooling.” When that didn’t happen, it was switched to “Global Warming.” After another failure, the Church of Environmentalism finally came up with a new phrase that was sure to catch all, “Climate Change.” This new phrase could not possibly be wrong because it means if anything changes, it must be Climate Change. Now the church has gone even further than changing a name, it has resorted to changing the data to fit its narrative.

For anyone that has taken a high school science class, manipulating data to fit a hypothesis is not considered science. But that is where we find ourselves, and one of the U.S. government’s scientific organizations is in the crosshairs again. It seems the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been caught manipulating weather data to fit a narrative yet again.

Paul Homewood was reviewing the NOAA data for the recent cold spell experienced in the Northeast. You may remember it was bitterly cold this past January with tales of animals freezing and falling from trees and sharks freezing in the ocean. But when Homewood looked at the data from NOAA, it didn’t seem to match what was observed. When Homewood got to the raw temperature data, he found it had been manipulated.

Homewood stated, “So at the three sites of Ithaca, Auburn and Geneva, we find that January 2018 was colder than January 1943 by 1.0, 1.7 and 1.3F respectively.” He continued, “Yet NOAA say that the division was 2.1F warmer last month. NOAA’s figure makes last month at least 3.1F warmer in comparison with 1943 than the actual station data warrants.”

Upon further investigation, Homewood found more data manipulation in 2013. Homewood remarked, “on average the mean temperatures in Jan 2014 were 2.7F less than in 1943. Yet, according to NOAA, the difference was only 0.9F…Somehow, NOAA has adjusted past temperatures down, relatively, by 1.8F.”

This is not the first time NOAA has manipulated data to prove a hypothesis. In 2015, NOAA published the Karl study that reportedly showed there was no “climate change hiatus” between 1998 and 2013. During this time frame, the rate of global temperature growth slowed, throwing a wrench in every climate model. The Karl study adjusted the data to show the warming had not decreased.

John Bates, a retired NOAA climate scientist, blew the whistle on the study accusing NOAA of, “flagrant manipulation of scientific integrity guidelines.” He went on to hint the study was rushed to publication, so it could have an impact on the 2015 Paris climate talks. You may remember the Paris Climate Agreement is an international agreement that does nothing for the environment. However, it does put a stranglehold on the U.S. economy, because the U.S. government was the only government likely to enforce the harsh regulations against its citizens.

The situation has gotten so bad Congress has gotten involved. For over two years the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has been fighting with NOAA to get to the bottom of the data manipulation. NOAA has decided it is not going to cooperate with Congress and has fought oversight through the entire process. If they did nothing wrong and are proud of their work, what are they hiding?

As people sit back and try to figure out why data manipulation is crucial to them, they must realize policymakers and government bureaucrats are making decisions based on the manipulated data. When policy is enacted based on biased data grocery and fuel bills go up, electric and heating bills go up, and people are put out of work.

It is not enough to be wrong about almost every prediction since the 1970’s. The Church of Environmentalism has taken to flat out lying to reach its goals. Congress must continue to investigate NOAA and force the truth to come out. Scientists that manipulate data to fit a narrative are not scientists; they are committing fraud.

Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.