If you’re going to make claims that an environmental catastrophe is killing the lives of polar bears, you better pray to god that he has your back.
Facing skepticism from within the scientific community, the US is asking leading researchers responsible for Polarbeargate to undergo a polygraph test.
In 2006, American wildlife researchers Jeffrey Gleason and Charles Monnett alleged that ice caps in the Arctic region were being melted away, thus raising ocean water levels and drowning poor, defenseless polar bears unequipped to keep afloat in the deep, icy waters. When their claims about global warming made it to the public, many became concerned over conditions being caused by what the scientists suggested was a global warming epidemic.
As skepticism grew over questionable claims by Gleason and Monnett in the years since, however, American authorities and scientists worldwide began to question the legitimacy of their claims. Earlier this year, the US Department of the Interior suggested that the senseless drowning of the polar bears might not have been everything that the scientists said it was, and an inquiry out of the Department’s Office of Inspector General was launched to investigate misconduct by the scientists in a scandal that quickly grew to be called Polarbeargate.
Polarbeargate is not just the tip of the iceberg either when put in the big picture. Over the last decade, there has been a series of climate scandals that skeptics suggest scientists have spawned in order to create a false information about the world’s environment. 2009 saw the release of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study, which suggested that falsities within the international temperature records led to false assumptions in a global warming epidemic blown out of proportion by proponents of a disaster that was largely exaggerated. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has also acknowledged during the last decade of incasing allegations of global warming that some of the key “factors” that prove of an epidemic have been falsified, including a 2007 report where scientists offered an estimate on the lifespan of Himalayan glaciers that was off by more than three centuries.
Dr Robert Watson, former chairman of the IPCC, has also acknowledged in the past that the mistakes coming out of his former organization were overstating the actual impact of global warming, something he said needed to be investigated as its results were “worrying.”
Investigators now want to hook the two men behind the 2006 report up to lie-detector, and with opposition erupting from Gleason, the scandal is only escalading into something bigger than the arctic itself.
According to the UK’s Independent, Gleason faced intense probes by investigators earlier in 2011, but with suspicion over the authenticity and validity of their report from yesteryear still causing concern, they have asked him to take a polygraph test. Suspiciously, Gleason has responded that he will only submit to one if the administering agent agrees to be rigged to the machine as well.
“There appears to be kind of a desperate, almost fierce nature to pursue this until they find something,” Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said on behalf Gleason, whom he is representing legally in what he insists is a witch-hunt to counter the scientists;’ claims.
To the Alaska Dispatch, Ruch adds that the investigation is attempting to prosecute his client, but he insists that the Inspector General doesn’t even know what for. A year and a half into the investigation, no charges have officially been filed by the government, but the probe is ongoing and will only escalate as Gleason’s gripe with the polygraph continues.
Among allegations from US authorities and the scientific community is that Gleason and Monnett were not honest with the death toll of polar bears they say they encountered in their research, and that sloppy management in their filings could have caused for false reports to be rendered.