Climate Gate RoundUp

Various stories about Climate Gate.

Coleman: Media Will Ignore Climategate Until They Hear ‘I Was Wrong’ (PJM Exclusive)

This simple three-word phrase is almost impossible to say because it changes everything. It is easiest for a child to say it — after all, a child isn’t expected to be right about things. But the higher you climb through life, the more difficult it becomes to admit being wrong. It would be devastating for a president of the United States to say it: “I was wrong.” And it may be about as difficult for an established, respected scientist who does research at an institution funded by millions of tax dollars.

That is why I don’t expect any of the scientists caught by the Climategate leak to admit “I was wrong” anytime soon.

~

The High Costs of Copenhagen
What Obama's pledge to reduce emissions by 83% would mean in practice.

When President Obama goes to the Copenhagen climate change summit next week, he is expected to once again declare that the U.S. will reduce its carbon emissions 83% by 2050. Even though no legally binding agreement is expected, what Mr. Obama says in Denmark will define the U.S. position in subsequent international negotiations. He will not say how the cuts will be accomplished. For Americans, the details are worth knowing.

~

Climate Fog

As Barack Obama prepares to head to the climate change conference in Copenhagen, there are some distressing signs about the drift of public opinion on the issue.

A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found that the percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening at all has dropped eight points in just the past year. A comprehensive Pew poll released in October was even more worrying: only 57 percent of respondents think there's evidence of warming (down from 71 percent last year), and just 36 percent think it's because of human activity (down from 47 percent). The number of people who think it's a "very serious problem" declined to just 35 percent.

~

We-Don't-Want-to-Talk-About-It-Gate

Americans honor the courageous informant, the gutsy citizen who stands against the savagery of the profit-mongering conglomerate. Well, sometimes. It appears, believe it or not, that there are those who aren't religiously tethered to this sacred obligation.

For now -- because of revelations of the ClimateGate scandal, in which hacked e-mails revealed discussions among top climate scientists about the manipulation of evidence -- Phil Jones, head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in Britain, has stepped down from his position. Michael Mann, architect of the famous "hockey stick" graph, is now under investigation by Pennsylvania State University. Similar inquiries should follow.

~

Tainted science
Climate-change research fraud is an outrage

This editorial page has accepted the predominant view of the scientific community that global warming is occurring partly because of mankind’s industrial activity, specifically the release of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” into the atmosphere. This view was strongly buttressed by a March 2007 editorial board interview with climate change experts Tony Haymet and Richard C.J. Somervill of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who laid out a comprehensive view of the scientific case for global warming and the risks it posed to civilization.

But after the events of recent weeks, we have deep doubts about at least one assertion of Haymet’s: that climate researchers operate in “a very open community.” Instead, the recent leak of thousands of e-mails to and from scientists at the University of East Anglia in England, the world’s most influential climate research center, showed something else entirely.

The e-mails described systematic manipulation of data to promote conventional wisdom on global warming and of trying to marginalize or harm scientists with contrary theories. They spoke of deleting e-mails, documents and raw data that were the target of public records requests, in apparent violation of British law.

~

Big Costs Are Hurdle to Climate Pact
Many Countries Agree to the Idea of Cutting Greenhouse-Gas Emissions, But They Are Sharply Divided Over How to Fund It

BRUSSELS -- In the weeks leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference, countries from China to Singapore have pledged cuts to their greenhouse-gas emissions.

One question still lurks unanswered: Who is going to pay for it?

Cutting carbon costs money. Factories must be retrofit and industries must be prodded to buy more-expensive green technology. Estimates for the annual tab in developing countries vary widely, but could reach €100 billion ($150 billion) by 2020, and poorer nations are insisting their richer brethren pick up the bulk of it.

~

UN panel promises to investigate leaked 'climategate' e-mails

The United Nations panel on climate change has promised to investigate claims that scientists at a British university deliberately manipulated data to support the theory of man-made global warming.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that the allegations raised by leaked e-mails in the so-called "climategate" controversy were too serious to ignore.

"We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it," he told BBC Radio 4's The Report programme. "We certainly don’t want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail."

~

White House Pushes Back on Climate Change Email Controversy

President Obama's science adviser, Dr. John Holdren, faced a barrage of questions yesterday from Republican Members of Congress about a series of hacked emails at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit that climate change skeptics have seized upon as evidence that the whole concept of climate change is a hoax.

~

Webb warns Obama on Copenhagen trip

President Barack Obama should be wary of committing the U.S. to any binding climate standards at a global conference this month without congressional input, one senator warned.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) sent a letter to the president late last week warning Obama against agreeing to any binding climate change agreement during a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark this month.

"I would like to express my concern regarding reports that the Administration may believe it has the unilateral power to commit the government of the United States to certain standards that may be agreed upon at the upcoming [conference]," Webb wrote to Obama.

~

Rep. Issa: Obama's refusal to investigate 'Climategate' emails is 'unconscionable'

The U.N.'s decision this week to investigate whether some of its climate change research had been manipulated constitutes a "direct rebuke" of the Obama administration, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Friday.

The White House's unwillingness to open a similar inquiry could now only be characterized as "a sad abdication of their responsibility to ensure that U.S. policies are not driven by corrupted science and data," the congressman added.

“The very integrity of the report that the Obama administration has predicated much of its climate change policy has been called into question and it is unconscionable that this administration and Congress is willing to abdicate responsibility of uncovering the truth to the United Nations," explained Issa, the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

~

Day Fourteen and Counting
Bozell Defends Networks’ Silence on ClimateGate:“Maybe They Just Don’t Know”

Alexandria, VA – For the fourteenth straight day, the three broadcast networks have failed to report on the great and growing ClimateGate scandal on their weekday morning or evening news programs. How to explain this?

Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, despite two weeks of non-stop reporting on and discussion of ClimateGate in a whole host of media outlets.

~

Parliamentary Speaker: Climate debate derailed?
The Speaker of the Danish Parliament has issued a damning criticism of the climate debate, saying politicians gullibly turn theories into facts.

As the world prepares to converge on Copenhagen for the COP15 Climate Summit, Denmark’s Speaker of Parliament has expressed serious doubts as to the way in which the climate debate has developed.

“The problem is that lots of people go around saying that the climate change we see is a result of human activity. That is a very dangerous claim,” Parliamentary Speaker and former Finance Minister Thor Pedersen (Lib) tells DR.

“Unfortunately I seem to experience that scientists say: ‘We have a theory’ – then that crosses the road to the politicians who say: ‘We know’. Who can be bothered to hear a scientist who says ‘I have a theory’ when politicians go around saying ‘I know’” Thor Pedersen says

~

Take back Al Gore's Oscar, 2 Academy members demand in light of Climategate

No, it wouldn't do anything for the environment.

But two Hollywood conservatives (yes, there are some) have called upon the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rescind the prestigious, profitable gold Oscar statuette that it gave ex-Vice President Al Gore et al two years ago for the environmental movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

~

Academy — Take Back Gore’s Oscar!

Los Angeles, CA — Today, Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Oscar nominees, called on the Academy to rescind Al Gore’s Oscar in light of the Climategate revelations.

~

Researcher: NASA hiding climate data

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.

"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," Mr. Horner said. "These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."

~

Copenhagen targets not tough enough, says Al Gore

Even if a deal is reached at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next week it will only be the first step towards the far more radical cuts that are needed in global carbon emissions, Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, told The Times last night.

Mr Gore said that to avoid the worst ravages of climate change world leaders would have to come together again to set more drastic reductions than those now planned.

“Even a final treaty will have to set the stage for other tougher reductions at a later date,” he said. “We have already overshot the safe levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.”

~

India will not sign binding emission cuts-minister

NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuters) - India will not accept a legally binding emission cut nor a peak year of carbon emissions at the global climate talks in Copenhagen, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday.

~
A Few Good Scientists
You want the truth? You can't understand the truth!

You do not understand the first thing about climate research. Man-made global warming is settled science. Disaster is imminent. We know this. It is a fact. We don’t waste time on studies that say otherwise, the same way we don’t waste time on studies that assert that the earth is flat. We are very smart people, and when we say something is so, you should just accept it.

So you think what is in those emails is important? Well, what exactly do you know? Do you see the white lab coats we wear? That color symbolizes pure science. Were someone like you to wear one, within five minutes it would be stained with neon orange powdered cheese and wet with drool from you trying to comprehend the data sets people like me look at every day.

~

Dutch: Gore Wrong on Snows of Kilimanjaro
The Netherlands is afire today over a Dutch study concluding Mount Kilimanjaro's snow melt — used as a symbol of AGW by Al Gore — is entirely natural.

Newspapers and news sites in the Netherlands today extensively broke the news of the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize — about the melting icecap of the Kilimanjaro, the African mountain that became a symbol of anthropogenic global warming.

Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”

~

Climategate – it ain’t just about the weather

Climategate is about a lot more than climate. It’s about science and its relationship to politics and profit, the academy, the state and, perhaps most importantly, information control. The manner through which we learn (or thought we did) important knowledge about key aspects of our existence, the way things are hidden, has been exposed in this one instance like the Wizard of Oz.

It’s obvious similar methods of control apply to many other information sources in our society. That is why Barbara Boxer is in shrill blaming-the-messenger mode, insisting that any Congressional investigation of Climategate would target the nefarious “hacker.” She realizes a great unraveling could come from this. So do to the global bureaucrats at the UN and the EU as they prepare for the Copenhagen conference. It is also why the mainstream media was so slow to report the East Anglia CRU emails and documents. They know that if you begin to report these things, you have to report on a lot of other things they have so scrupulously chosen to avoid.

~

The End of the Line for Climate Hysteria?
Global warming: the junk science of the modern age.

Following the release into the webworld of hacked emails, computer codes, and a raft of supplementary documents recording the antics of sundry paleoclimatolgists at the University of East Anglia’s influential Climate Research Unit, it has now become ice-crystal clear not only that the world has been cooling for the last decade, but that the global warming crusade is an environmental racket of historical proportions. Many “climate skeptics” and independent researchers have long known this to be the case and have understood that the motivating factor behind this massive and unprecedented fraud is the unsavory quest for power and profit on the part of governments, corporations, and ambitious individuals, scientists as well as entrepreneurs. The evidence for data tampering and all manner of hocus-pocus was available some time ago for anyone who cared to look.

~

Competitive Enterprise Institute Petitions EPA to Suspend Proposed CO2 Regs
CEI is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to halt efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions in light of Climategate information.

In light of the Climategate fraud scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on Wednesday filed a petition asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, pending a thorough investigation of and public comment on the newly released information.

The still unfolding Climategate scandal produced by the release of thousands of emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University in the UK raises new questions and doubts about the scientific basis for the Kyoto climate treaty, the successor treaty to be negotiated later this month in Copenhagen, the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer climate bills, the EPA’s proposed finding that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger public health and welfare, and other EPA regulatory proposals related to the endangerment determination.

~

Liberals on Climate: A bridge too far?
Denmark’s prime minister may be battling for a firm agreement at the COP15 meeting, but several members of his party constituency say the climate and energy debate has gone too far.

A mere three days before Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen moves into COP15 negotiating mode to reach a political agreement in Copenhagen, there is unrest on the issue in his own Liberal Party parliamentary group.

According to Berlingske Tidende, several members of the group told a group meeting yesterday, that the climate and energy debate has gone too far, and restricts personal freedoms to an unreasonable degree.

~

. . . and some would call it a "Nontroversy."
(Nontroversy? What a creepy Orwelian term. The Irony is thick.)