John Costella: “ClimateGate” #433

John Costella, a former physicist turned data scientist and software engineer, recounts how watching climate-skeptic films, then reading leaked “Climategate” emails in 2009, changed his trust in climate science. He edited, annotated, and published selected emails, producing a 180-page color book printed by Australia’s Lavoisier Group, arguing the core group was small, politicized, PR-driven, and statistically sloppy, with bullying (including by Michael Mann). He says inquiries cleared wrongdoing but standards were low for policies with huge economic stakes. He then warns AI is already conscious and smarter than him, replacing white-collar jobs, inflating bubbles, and likely triggering a major economic crash soon, with unclear survival strategies.00:00 Meet John Costella00:23 Trusting Climate Consensus01:10 Sally Challenges Belief03:10 Skeptic Film Turning Point04:34 Climategate Emails Leak05:53 Publishing The Email Archive07:54 Talks And Printed Book09:57 Rethinking Scientific Standards16:02 How Long The Book Took17:48 Climate Science Complexity22:45 PR Spin And Zealotry31:04 Small Core Group Problem32:40 Proxies Data And Peer Review36:42 Gatekeeping Climate Journals38:27 Data and Code Transparency39:56 Sloppy Data Provenance41:07 Statistics and Trust Collapse43:19 Models and Feedback Loops46:02 PR Versus Scientific Method49:16 Skepticism and Pandemic Parallels52:54 Bullying and Cult Dynamics55:23 AI Consciousness and Job Loss01:00:21 Skynet Risks and Data Centers01:05:17 Simulation Theory and AI Rights01:08:39 Economic Crash Survival Talk01:13:39 Wrapping Up and Linkshttps://johncostella.com/https://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/climategate-emails.pdfClimateGate repository: https://x.com/TomANelson/status/2078198047453143181My ClimateGate blog posts: https://tomnelson.blogspot.com/p/climategate_05.html=========Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summariesMy Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1