The
Rational Argumentator
Cleaning Out the Climate Science Cesspool
As frigid Copenhagen prepares for
the upcoming Climate Armageddon confab, a predictable barrage of hothouse
horrors has been unleashed, to advance proposals to slash hydrocarbon use and carbon
dioxide emissions, restrict agriculture and 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 say, and our climate is still controlled by periodic
variations in the same natural forces that caused previous climate changes: 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.
Worst of all, newly released emails
from leading crisis-promoting scientists have exposed a cesspool of
intimidation, duplicity and fraud that could rock Copenhagen and the alarmist
agenda to their core. Their views, data and models are central to reports by
the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Kyoto Protocol
and proposed successors, and US cap-tax-and-trade bills, polar bear
“protection” schemes and EPA “endangerment” findings.
The ClimateGate emails reveal an
unprecedented, systematic conspiracy to stifle discussion and debate, conceal
and manipulate data, alter temperature trends that contradict predictions of
dangerous warming, pervert the peer-review process, pressure scientific
journals and the 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.” Jones
subsequently “lost” all the original, raw temperature that had been entrusted
to the CRU’s care.
(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 [Trenberth, lead author of two IPCC
reports] 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 Geophysical Research Letters
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.” (The American Geophysical Union has likewise gotten into the
censorship, intimidation, climate alarm and money train business.)
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. Now, finally, honest elements of the “mainstream” media
will 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 may 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 must 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,
“endangerment” finding, 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, fraudulent and unfounded. President Obama should
cancel his trip to Copenhagen, his plans to lobby for a new climate treaty, and
his intention to commit the US to slashing 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, government, universities and public policy.
Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which is sponsoring the All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype. He also is a senior policy adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.
Click here to return to TRA's Issue CCXXI Index.
Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.Read Mr. Stolyarov's comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.