Dispatch from the bizarre world inhabited by Tony Haymet, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Scripps: Impact of 'Climate-gate' limited - SignOnSanDiego.com

Q: Is there a major fallout here (from the climate controversies)?

[Tony Haymet, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography]: I am very relaxed about it. You mentioned that it's been a bad year for climate science. I think its been a terrific year for the science of climate change. We've discovered new things and done very important experiments that really test hypotheses. (There have been) some wonderful advances in our understanding of the ice caps of the world. Wonderful advances in our understanding of the biological impact of climate change.

From the public relations point of view, yes, you're right, it was a disaster. It emphasizes one of my two golden rules; that one is, never make a mistake. So there were a couple of just horrible errors in the IPCC report. Anyone who has worked in science knows (if) you do something right, they remember it for an hour. If you do something wrong people remember it for a decade. So it is really unforgivable that there were mistakes in (the IPCC) Working Group Two. (A) horrendous number on Himalayan glaciers. Anyone who studies thermodynamics would know that is incorrect. But that's one or two errors in a 2,000 page report. A CIA report on Iran or Iraq would be lucky to have that low an error rate.

What I learned from this year is that advertising works. If people really want to mount an advertising campaign about the science of climate change and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars about it [What, exactly, is Haymet talking about here?!]... it's like advertising Coke or Pepsi. You can have a short-term impact on people's beliefs.