You're not a climatologist, you're implying that public access will come to erroneous conclusions, and you're complaining about dogma?
"Wow! I could swear I was really playing virtual skeeball!"
1) Tap into old school hacker community mentality.
2) Rely on good people to do your large organizations work for free.
3) Degrade your own service.
4) Profit!
Of course peolpe helping each other and a solid community are great, but in the context of this happening in lieu of large for-profit organizations providing quality service? I think not.
Seeing how they point out how this can save them millions of dollars leaves me nonplussed.
"So why don't you make like a tree, and get outta here." -- Biff in "Back to the Future"