Cleaning Out the Climate Science Cesspool
November 28, 2009 | Paul Driessen
townhall.com
As legions of scientists, activists, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians prepare to embark for Copenhagen, a predictable barrage of climate horrors has been unleashed, to advance proposals to slash hydrocarbon use and carbon dioxide emissions, restrict economic growth, and implement global governance and taxation.
CO2 has reached a new high (0.0385% of the atmosphere), we’re told, because of cars and “coal-fired factories of death.” Rising seas are forcing families to “flee their homes.” Oceans are becoming “toxic.” Climate change is driving Philippine women into prostitution. Higher temperatures will “increase the likelihood of civil war in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “bring human civilization to a screeching halt.” The Associated Press, BBC and other “mainstream” media dutifully regurgitate every press release.
However, the planet and science are not cooperating with the fear-mongering. There has been no statistically significant global warming for over a decade, despite steadily increasing CO2 levels – and for several years average annual global temperatures have actually declined.
Carbon dioxide plays only a minor role, many scientists now say, and our climate is still controlled by the same natural forces that caused previous climate changes: periodic shifts in ocean currents and jet streams, water vapor and cloud cover, evaporation and precipitation, planetary alignments and the shape of the Earth’s orbit, the tilt and wobble of Earth’s axis, cosmic ray levels and especially solar energy output.
Far worse for the Climate Armageddon movement, newly released emails from its leading scientists reveal a cesspool of intimidation, duplicity and fraud that could rock Copenhagen and the alarmist agenda to their core. The emails cast deepening suspicion over global warming data, science and models.
They reveal an unprecedented, systematic conspiracy to stifle discussion and debate, conceal and manipulate data, revise temperature trends that contradict predictions of dangerous warming, skew the peer-review process, pressure scientific journals and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to publish alarmist studies and exclude dissenting analyses, and avoid compliance with Freedom of Information requests.
British Climate Research Unit (CRU) chief Phil Jones to Penn State climatologist Michael Mann, of Hockey Stick infamy: “Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report and Briffa’s suspect tree-ring data]. Keith will do likewise.”
Jones to Mann: “If they [Canadian researchers Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre] ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.”
(These actions appear intended to avoid Freedom of Information inquiries. Jones had previously told a researcher, “Why should I make the data available, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” Drs. J&M, that’s the scientific method – to ensure that research and experiments are honest, accurate and replicable. Deleting files and data also raises serious ethical, scientific and legal issues.)
Jones: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” (Thereby excluding non-alarmist peer-reviewed papers and skewing the IPCC process.)
Jones: “I’ve just completed Mike [Mann’s] trick of adding in the real temps to each series, to hide the decline [in average global temperatures] .…” (Maintain a warming trend, despite contrary evidence.)
Climate scientist Tom Wigley to Mann: “If you think [Yale Professor and Global Renewables editor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” (Saiers was subsequently dismissed. The American Geophysical Union is a once professional society that has likewise gotten into the censorship, intimidation, climate alarm and money train business.)
These are the very tip of the melting iceberg. To gauge the scope, depth and depravity of the conspiracy, visit Bishop Hill, ClimateDepot.com and An Elegant Chaos on the web.
These supposed scientists built their careers and reputations on conjuring datasets, computer models, scenarios and reports – all claiming that modern civilization’s use of hydrocarbons is about to destroy the planet, and all financed by well over $100 billion in US, UK, EU and other taxpayer money.
Realist climate experts have long smelled a rat. The alarmists’ data didn’t match other data. Their models never worked. Their claims of “consensus” and “unprecedented” warming had no basis in fact. Too many grant and publication decisions were decided by which side of the issue someone was on.
Now, finally, the rat has been flushed from its sewer – by a hacker, whistle-blower or someone who carelessly left “secret” files where a website visitor could find them … and reveal them to the world. Now, finally, even the “mainstream” media can no longer ignore or whitewash the scandal.
The stakes are incredibly high. This bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify expensive, intrusive, repressive, abusive treaties, laws and regulations. The new rules would undermine economies, destroy jobs, close down companies and entire industries, impoverish families and communities, roll back personal freedoms and civil rights – and enrich the lucky few whose lobbyists and connections enable them to corner markets for renewable energy technologies, carbon offsets and emissions trading.
For the most destitute people on the planet, the repercussions from this fraud are even higher. These people – 750 million in Africa alone – do not have electricity, cars, modern homes, jobs or hope for a better future. They die by the millions from malnutrition and lung, intestinal and insect-borne diseases that would be dramatically reduced with access to dependable, affordable energy.
But the alarmists’ bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify building a Climate Wall between these desperate people and the modern, energy-rich world. To justify perpetuating misery, disease and death.
Jones, Mann, Briffa, Trenberth, Wigley, IPCC chief Rajenda Pachauri, White House science advisor John Holdren, CRU scientist Tim Osborn, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Ben Santer and others implicated in this growing scandal should do the honorable thing – and resign their posts. If they refuse, they should be put on paid administrative leave, until every aspect of this collusion and junk science scandal can be thoroughly investigated. Dismissal or other appropriate action should follow.
They should not be allowed to represent their governments or organizations in Copenhagen.
Institutions that received climate alarm grants should be disciplined and removed from future grant conduits, if they knew about these actions – or would have known, had they exercised due diligence.
The entire IPCC and peer review process needs to be repaired. The alarmists and self-appointed censors who have corrupted the system must be replaced with scientists who will ensure honest inquiry and a full airing of all data, hypotheses and perspectives on climate science, economics and policy.
Most importantly, the United States, Britain and all other responsible nations should slam the brakes on every proposed “climate crisis” treaty, agreement, bill, regulatory proposal and endangered species action – until we get to the bottom of this scandal, and determine which data and claims are honest and accurate, which are bogus and unfounded. President Obama should cancel his trip to Copenhagen, and his plans to lobby for a new climate treaty and commit the US to slash its carbon dioxide emissions to a job-killing 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.
It is time to clean out the climate cesspool, and bring integrity, transparency and accountability back to science, law and public policy. |
