I interviewed Steve McIntyre, founder of the blog Climate Audit, about his journey into climate science and debunking the infamous ‘hockey stick.’

This is the most in-depth interview with Steve McIntyre ever to be published, and there’s a bonus secret revealed at the end.

Steve McIntyre, founder and editor of the blog dedicated to analysis of climate data Climate Audit, discusses how he first became interested in climate discussion. He and friend Dr. Ross McKitrick helped debunk one of the most important climate papers: ‘The Hockey Stick.’ Though only a businessman with a little formal knowledge of the climate debate, he had strong mathematical and statistical skills which led him to wonder about how the data and statistical methods worked to create the “hockey stick” shape.

McIntyre reached out to Michael Mann only to be informed that he did not have the data on hand. In fact, when asking another researcher, he was told nobody had ever asked for data in 28 years.

What McIntyre found (and what was denied him in the quest for accurate science) reverberated in the climate science community and eventually paved the way to “Climategate”.

He goes to show that if there truly is a consensus on the issue, there would be no need to hide and obfuscate data.