Media Cultures, Anti-politics and the “Climategate” Affair

The hacking of thousands of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in November 2009 was widely represented as a scandalous moment for climate change scientists. According to the narrative originally articulated in the blogosphere, the documents showed how CRU researchers had “manipulated” data to conceal evidence at odds with the assumption of anthropogenic climate change. The revelation resulted in the widespread publication of news stories questioning the integrity of climate change scientists, though “multiple investigations concluded that no fraud or scientific misconduct had occurred” (Maibach et al., 2012, p. 289). The event dubbed “climategate” exemplified the “cultural politics” of climate change (Boykoff, 2013, p. 800), the “gate” suffix communicating the intended aura of scandal and wrongdoing.1 It gave new life to the idea of a vibrant debate between an “imperious” scientific establishment and “brave” heterodox scientists, belying the impression that the science has been “settled”. And it politicized the domain of scientific practice itself, eliding any meaningful distinction between science and politics among those most gripped by the scandal.