Elitist Journal Rejects Skeptic Study As ‘Not Helpful’ To Climate Cult

A scientific study which suggests global warming has been exaggerated was rejected by a respected journal because it might fuel climate scepticism, it was claimed last night.

The alarming intervention, which raises fears of ‘McCarthyist’ pressure for environmental scientists to conform, came after a reviewer said the research was ‘less than helpful’ to the climate cause. professor

Professor Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading and one of five authors of the study, said he suspected that intolerance of dissenting views on climate science was preventing his paper from being published.

‘The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist,’ he told the Times.

Prof Bengtsson’s paper suggests that the Earth’s environment might be much less sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought. If he and his four co-authors are correct, it would mean that carbon dioxide and other pollutants are having a far less severe impact on climate than green activists would have us believe.

The research, if made public, would be a huge challenge to the finding of the UN’s Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that the global average temperature would rise by up to 4.5C if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were allowed to double.

The paper suggested that the climate might be less sensitive to greenhouse gases than had been claimed by the IPCC in its report last September, and recommended that more work be carried out ‘to reduce the underlying uncertainty’.

The five contributing scientists submitted the paper to Environmental Research Letters – a highly regarded journal – but were told it had been rejected. A scientist asked by the journal to assess the paper under the peer review process reportedly wrote: ‘It is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.’

Prof Bengtsson, 79, said it was ‘utterly unacceptable’ to advise against publishing a paper on the political grounds. He said: ‘It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the [computer] models.

‘If people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system we must have much more solid information.’

Next year the UN hopes to broker an international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol which would impose legally binding targets on every country. The last attempt, at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, ended in disaster, with recriminations flying and all chances of a deal in tatters.

The Paris conference in December 2015 is thought by many politicians to be the last realistic chance for a deal to be made if disastrous climate change is to be averted. A controversy at this stage risks putting the science which underpins the negotiations at doubt, something many – not least politicians in Britain and the US – will be keen to avoid.

The publisher of the Environmental Research Letters journal last night said Professor Bengtsson’s paper had been rejected because it contained errors and did not sufficiently advance the science.

A spokesman for IOP Publishing said: ‘The paper, co-authored by Lennart Bengtsson, was originally submitted to Environmental Research Letters as a research Letter.

‘This was peer-reviewed by two independent reviewers, who reported that the paper contained errors and did not provide a significant advancement in the field, and therefore failed to meet the journal’s required acceptance criteria.

‘As a consequence, the independent reviewers recommended that the paper should not be published in the journal which led to the final editorial decision to reject the paper.’

SOURCE




Now comes the hard, fun and vital part

“Making America great again” requires deep-sixing punitive energy and environmental rules

Paul Driessen

The American people have roundly rejected a third Obama term and legacy of deplorable policies that were too often imposed via executive edicts, with minimal attempts to work with Congress or the states.

This election shows that hard-working Americans do not want their country and its constitutional, energy and economic systems “fundamentally transformed.” They want America to be great and exceptional again. They want all people to live under the same laws and have the same opportunities, rights and responsibilities for making their lives, families, communities and nation better than they found them.

We the People also made it clear that we have had a bellyful of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, media moguls and intellectual elites dictating what we can read, think and say, how we may worship, what insurance and doctors can have, what rules, jobs and living standards we must live with.

With the elections over, the truly difficult tasks lie before us. Filling Supreme Court vacancies with jurists who believe in our Constitution, repealing and replacing ObamaCare, reforming the politicized IRS, DOJ and FBI, immigration issues, and fixing the VA and incomprehensible tax code are all high on every list.

However, abundant, reliable, affordable energy remains the foundation of modern civilization, jobs, health and prosperity. So these suggestions for President Trump’s first years focus on critical tasks that can be accomplished by his Executive Branch alone or in conjunction with Congress and the states.

As you read them, thousands of politicians, regulators, scientists and activists are gathered for yet another “climate conference,” this time in Marrakech, Morocco. They are shocked and despondent over the election results, and worried that the Trump Administration won’t support their agenda. They’re right.

Under the guise of preventing “dangerous manmade climate change” and compensating poor countries for alleged “losses and damages” due to climate and weather caused by rich country fossil fuel use, they had planned to control the world’s energy supplies and living standards, replace capitalism with a new UN-centered global economic order, and redistribute wealth from those who create it to those who want it. So:

Job One) Let the assembled delegates and world know America has a president – and a Congress – not a king. Suspend and defund any initiatives and orders issued under the Paris climate treaty, and send it to the Senate for Advice and Consent (and assured rejection) under Article II of the Constitution. Its impacts are so onerous and far-reaching that it is clearly a “treaty” within the meaning of our founding document, even if President Obama prefers to call it a “nonbinding agreement” to avoid Senate review.

2) Review the assertions, models, “homogenized” data, science and research behind the multitude of climate and renewable energy mandates – to see if they reflect Real World empirical evidence. Many, most or all will be found to be biased, wildly exaggerated, faulty, falsified or fraudulent.

The recent listing of polar bears as “endangered” was based on junk science and GIGO computer models that claim manmade global warming will send the bears’ record population numbers into oblivion. EPA’s Clean Power Plan assumes shutting down US coal-fired power plants will stop climate change, even if China, India and other countries build thousands of new coal-fueled generators over the next 20 years.

The all-encompassing “social cost of carbon” scheme attributes every imaginable harm to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. It ignores the incredible benefits of carbon-based energy, and dismisses the horrendous impacts that abandoning these fuels would have on human health and welfare.

Every one of these EPA, Interior and other regulatory diktats assumes that CO2 has suddenly replaced the powerful natural forces that have driven climate fluctuations throughout Earth’s history – and ignores this miracle molecule’s role in making crops, forests and grasslands grow faster and better, with less water.

As reviews are completed, agenda-driven rules and executive orders should be suspended, rescinded and defunded, so that they are no longer part of the $1.9 trillion regulatory drag on job and economic growth.

Grants for biased research can be terminated, agency personnel assigned to climate programs can be reassigned, and those found falsifying data or engaging in other corrupt practices should be punished.

3) A recent White House report lists $21.4 billion in annual spending on climate research and renewable energy programs. That’s in addition to EPA and other federal agency regulatory budgets – and on top of the burdensome impacts the programs have had on families, businesses, jobs and our future.

Terminating biased, needless or punitive programs would go a long way toward balancing the budget and getting our nation back on track. Ending crony corporatist deal-making, power grabbing and enrichment schemes would ensure that The Billionaire’s Club and its government and industry allies no longer have access to taxpayer billions, no longer have a stranglehold on our energy and economy, and no longer get still richer on the backs of American workers, taxpayers and consumers.

4) Revise Endangered Species Act provisions and regulations to require that any listings, permit denials or penalties reflect honest empirical science – not computer models or baseless assertions. Exemptions for bird and bat-killing wind turbines must no longer be permitted, and ESA rules must be applied with equal force to all projects, not just drilling, mining, pipelines, power plants, grazing and timber cutting.

5) Approve the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines; end the obstructionism and finish the projects. Standing Rock Sioux Indians had multiple opportunities to participate in the review process, but refused to do so. Now they and Soros-supported radicals are preventing work, destroying expensive equipment, butchering ranchers’ cattle and bison, and harassing local families. This can no longer be tolerated.

6) Prohibit and terminate sue-and-settle lawsuits, under which activists and regulators collude to secure a sympathetic judge’s order implementing regulations that they all want. (Or initiate a series of sue-and-settle actions by energy and manufacturing interests against Trump agencies – and then stop the practice!)

7) Reform the 1906 Antiquities Act. Intended to protect small areas of historic or scenic value, it has been abused too often to place millions of acres off limits to energy development and other economic uses, by presidential edict. Losing Senate candidate Katie McGinty engineered a massive land lock-up in Utah that double-crossed the state’s governor and congressional delegation, and even President Clinton.

Congress must more clearly define its purposes, limit the acreage that can be designated by presidential decree, and provide for congressional review and approval of all decisions.

8) Reform the Environmental Protection Agency, and devolve many of its powers and responsibilities back to the states, under a consortium representing all 50 state EPAs. We have won the major pollution battles that EPA was created to address. Now we must devote appropriate funding and personnel to real remaining environmental problems – and shrink or terminate Obama-era agenda-driven programs.

Recent EPA actions on climate, air quality, human experiments, the Clean Power Plan, the war on coal, and “waters of the United States” were used to expand its budget, personnel, and powers over the nation’s environment, energy and economy. EPA needs a shorter leash, less money and a smaller staff.

9) Shrink the renewable energy programs, and jumpstart onshore and offshore leasing, drilling, fracking and mining on federally managed lands. America can again produce the fossil fuel blessings that lifted billions out of poverty, disease and early death – and created jobs, prosperity, health, living standards and life spans unimaginable barely a century ago. We should also encourage other nations to do likewise.

10) If President Obama finishes his term with a tsunami of regulations and executive orders, it should be met with similar suspend, defund and rescind reactions. Mr. Obama, congressional Democrats and their riot-prone base should understand that programs and rules imposed with the stroke of a pen, and without the support of Congress and the American people, can and should also be undone with the stroke of a pen.

Without these difficult but necessary (and fun) steps, it will be very hard to make America great again.

Via email




Tears, angst as EPA workforce braces for Trump takeover

U.S. EPA employees were in tears. Worried Energy Department staffers were offered counseling. Some federal employees were so depressed, they took time off. Others might retire early.

And some employees are in downright panic mode in the aftermath of Donald Trump's victory.

"People are upset. Some people took the day off because they were depressed," said John O'Grady, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, a union that represents thousands of EPA employees. After Election Day, "people were crying," added O'Grady, who works in EPA's Region 5 office in Chicago. "They were recommending that people take sick leave and go home."

EPA employees stand to see some of the most drastic changes under the Trump administration, and they may be taking things a bit harder than other government workers.

The president-elect has vowed to repeal some of the rules they've toiled on for the last eight years during the Obama administration, including the Clean Power Plan rule to cut power plants' greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump has even suggested abolishing the agency entirely, although that would be an uphill political climb. Trump has picked a top climate change skeptic to lead his EPA transition team — Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute — and has promised sweeping reforms in the agency that's long been a target for industry groups and Republicans who say its rules overreach.

"If you look at the seven stages of grief, I'm still in denial. I will not look at the news. I will not read the news," said an EPA career employee.

Another EPA staffer said, "I don't actually know anybody here that was supporting Trump." That person said people are "worried" that their work over the last eight years will be unraveled. "It's always a time of uncertainty" when a new administration comes in, the employee said, and there were fears when the George W. Bush administration came into office, too. But "people are more worried this time," the person added.

Silvia Saracco, head of a union chapter that represents EPA employees in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, said, "There is a lot of angst out there, nervousness."

Some DOE employees are feeling glum, too.

"I think it's a sadness and a worry about just how far someone will go, especially when you never believe anything he says," said one longtime Energy Department employee. "Many of us have worked in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, and I don't think that we feel like it will be like just going back to Bush again."

The DOE employee added, "We know that now more than ever, it is important to do whatever we can to do a good job in the areas that we care about. ... What we can do is not lose sight of whatever ideals brought us to this work in the first place."

One Fish and Wildlife Service employee witnessed "business as usual" after the election, although, "obviously, there was some surprise."

Most federal employees "will work for whomever is elected," that person said. "That's just part of what I've always believed, that we should not be extremely emotional about it, certainly not in our public life."

Mass exodus?

There's been speculation that many of Trump's critics in the federal workforce might opt to leave or retire early.

"If [Trump] starts doing rotten things, then people will say, 'Enough of this crap,'" said O'Grady. "You might see retirements from people who say, 'Why bother working there anyway?'"

Saracco worked at EPA during the Reagan administration. "There was a big exodus" then, she said.

Several also noted that EPA has an aging workforce like other government agencies — about 31 percent of the federal workforce is eligible to retire. In addition, according to this year's Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, 3.57 percent of EPA employees plan to retire within the year, while another 10.76 percent plan to retire within one to three years.

"Whenever there is a change of administration, career officials that are retirement eligible take stock and decide what to do next, even if you agree with the party coming in," said Joe Edgell, senior vice president of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 280, which also represents EPA employees.

"Do I think a lot of people are going to retire? Well, yeah," Edgell said. "Could it be higher than normal? We have to see what happens."

Government workers have expressed worry about a Trump victory in the past. A poll by the Government Business Council released earlier this year found that 14 percent of responding federal employees said they would consider leaving government service if the GOP nominee won, while another 11 percent answered "maybe" (Greenwire, Feb. 1).

By and large, agency employees say they and their colleagues are planning to stick around — at least for a while.

"They're going to try to work from within as much as possible and do their job," Saracco said. "That's what we're supposed to do as civil servants, ... not have people who politically are going back and forth."

She's been trying to console worried workers by reminding them that they've lived through changing administrations before.

"We all have to keep in mind that we are federal employees, we swear allegiance to the Constitution, and we are executive branch employees. Whoever wins the election is who gives us the direction that we're to go in. That's our job," Saracco said.

She also cautioned that it isn't clear yet what exactly a Trump administration will do in office.

"There's a lot of rhetoric that takes place on the campaign trail. We all have to remember that," she said. "Let's not assume we know. We need to see what's going to happen."

EPA managers have stressed to staff to stay professional and work with Trump's transition team. In an agencywide email after the election, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy emphasized that there should be a smooth transition

After Trump's inauguration in January, "I will be coming to work and continue to be paid for the work that I do," said the career EPA employee. "Whether I like it, whether they like it, that remains to be seen."

Another EPA career employee said the agency has been able to function under prior Republican administrations.

"We have been through Reagan, got through [George W. Bush]. We will get through this."

SOURCE





Defy 'Stalinist' global warming rules and burn much more coal, says Trump's key economic adviser

Regulations on climate change are ‘Stalinistic’. And America can earn more than $100billion from global companies by cutting their tax rates.

If this sounds like the extreme rhetoric of America’s President-elect Donald Trump, that’s because they are the words of his senior economic adviser, Stephen Moore.

A former adviser to the Reagan administration, Moore has the ear of ‘The Donald’ on economic issues.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday just hours after Trump’s election victory, he outlined a vision for the US and world economy that will fuel fury among critics, but may also calm fears that the planet’s biggest economy may be about to close its doors on the world. And there was good news for Britain as he hailed the idea of a US-UK trade deal.

As well as having worked for Reagan when he was only in his 20s, Moore has sat on the board of the Wall Street Journal and is chief economist for the US think-tank the Heritage Foundation.

And he is in no doubt that the rest of the world will be affected by Trump’s Presidency. ‘If we get it wrong, the whole world gets it wrong,’ he declares. ‘But I think this is going to be like the 1980s. We are going to get it right. And the rest of the world will follow. Britain and France and Spain and other nations will say, “Ah, that’s what you do! You cut taxes. You get regulations off the back of business.”

‘This could be the start of an expansion like we saw in the 1980s and 1990s – the greatest period of wealth creation and poverty reduction in the history of mankind.’

SOURCE




Washington State voters reject carbon tax

Washington voters gave an overwhelming thumbs down Tuesday to a citizen initiative to impose a direct tax on carbon emissions. But that doesn’t look to be the end of the story on regulating global warming pollution at the state level.

With much of the vote now tallied in Washington state, the nation’s first voter initiative to create a carbon tax is going down 59 to 41 percent. The campaign director for the opposition to Initiative 732 said the discussion on climate and energy policy is not over in the state.

“We believe that we have an obligation to act and to do what is right,” said Brandon Houskeeper from the Association of Washington Business. “The question is how do we come up with a pathway that is commensurate with Washington’s contribution to a global problem. I think it requires us having a broad table.”

In the short term, the action shifts to the courtroom. Industry associations are hoping to strike down separate Inslee administration global warming pollution regulations. The main feature of the state’s new Clean Air Rule is a gradually tightening cap on emissions from the state’s biggest sources.

Further down the road, another initiative that taxes carbon pollution is a possibility, but an alliance behind that said in a statement Wednesday that it will first take a stab at passing something through the 2017 Washington Legislature.

The labor and environmental group-backed Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy posted a summary of a revised legislative proposal Tuesday. It would put an escalating price on carbon emissions and use the proceeds to support alternative energy projects as well as “investments” to mitigate effects of climate change on forests and vulnerable communities.

“With everything else the legislature has on its plate … the climate proposal will face an uphill battle,” Washington Environmental Council President Becky Kelley acknowledged.

But in light of the election of climate change skeptic Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, “State level action is where it’s going to be at,” Kelley said.

If there were to be another ballot measure, Washington State Labor Council President Jeff Johnson said he would target the general election two years hence. “2017 would be nearly impossible to pull off,” Johnson said in an interview. “2018 is more appropriate time wise.”

“It’s a dark moment for the climate landscape,” said state Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, a Democrat from Seattle, reflecting on the election fallout Wednesday. In a subsequent email, Fitzgibbon shed some of his glumness.

“Voters have shown, by reelecting Gov. Inslee and electing a pro-climate action majority in the (state) House, that we are ready for climate action in Washington,” Fitzgibbon wrote.

“Carbon Washington will continue as an organization,” said Joe Ryan, co-chair of the group that sponsored the failed Initiative 732. “Our grassroots base is our strength. We are energized to continue our work on carbon pricing in the state legislature, and to promote effective, equitable, economically sound and politically viable carbon pricing in other states and in Washington, D.C.”

SOURCE

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