Climategate and United Nations' Controversies Eroding Political Support for Obama's Warmist policies

Corporate and Environmental Special Interests Scramble to Lobby Administration Officials on Global Warming Legislation

Desperation and panic over the imminent failure of cap-and-trade legislation is driving a new White House lobbying push by special interest groups, according to policy experts at the National Center for Public Research.

Corporate and environmental special interest groups are meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Climate Change Czar Carol Browner this week, spurred by comments by President Obama that the politically-unpopular cap-and-trade requirements might be split from the "green jobs" section of the cap-and-trade bill. Such a change would likely doom the chances of a national law mandating reductions in carbon emissions.

President Obama made the remarks at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last week.

Obama's comments follow a series of highly publicized controversies surrounding the quality of science behind claims that industrial activity is causing global warming. Climategate and politicized material in the United Nations' most recent IPCC report appear to be eroding both political and public support for global warming legislation.

"Elected officials are recognizing that supporting cap-and-trade is a political loser and they are shielding themselves from the shrapnel of the exploding global warming bubble. A recent poll by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found global warming last on a list of public policy priorities for the president and Congress," said Deneen Borelli, a fellow with National Center's Project 21 black leadership network. "While there are serious questions about the science, there is no doubt that cap-and-trade will lead to higher energy prices, slower economic growth, and additional job losses," added Deneen Borelli.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt and Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, members of the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition that supports cap-and-trade, attended the lobbying sessions. "Importantly, only a handful of USCAP CEOs participated in the high-level lobbying pitch. It appears the majority of the USCAP CEOs are abandoning the cap-and-trade gambit leaving a handful of CEOs. Since Immelt and Rogers have bet the fortunes of their respective companies on the bill, it seems they are willing to go down with the cap-and-trade ship," said Tom Borelli, PhD, Director of the National Center's Free Enterprise Project.

"It's clear the political winds are blowing against the few active members of USCAP. Immelt and Rogers are serving as poster children for CEOs who failed the political game and put their shareholders in jeopardy," said Tom Borelli.

Congressional backlash against new global warming laws and/or regulation also includes proposed actions by the EPA. Democratic Congressmen Ike Skelton and Collin Peterson have introduced a bill to strip the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas. Congressional efforts to block the EPA from regulating carbon emissions only adds momentum to the anti-climate change wave moving across the political arena. "The fact that Democrats are rising against EPA's regulatory overreach shows the political tide has turned against global warming alarmism. It's a great sign for liberty," said Deneen Borelli.

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Global warming snow job

Record snowfall illustrates the obvious: The global warming fraud is without equal in modern science

The fundamental problems exposed about climate-change theory undermine the very basis of scientific inquiry. Huge numbers of researchers refuse to provide their data to other scientists. Some referenced data is found not to have existed. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report that global warming activists continually cite invented a large number of purported facts. Consider a few of the problems with the U.N. report that came to light over the past few weeks.

• The Himalayan glaciers were supposed to disappear as soon as 2035. The United Nations didn't base this hysteria on an academic study. Instead, it relied on a news story that interviewed a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. Syed Hasnain, the glaciologist in question, says he was misquoted and provided no date to the reporter. The doomsday account was simply made up, and the United Nations never bothered to confirm the claim.

• Because of purported global warming, the world supposedly "suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s." The U.N. cited one unpublished study to prove this. When the research eventually was published in 2008 after the IPCC report was released, the authors backpedaled: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."

• Up to 40 percent of the Amazon rain forest was said to be at risk because of rising global temperatures. Again, the U.N. didn't cite any academic studies but merely one non-refereed report authored by two non-scientists, one of whom worked for the World Wildlife Fund, an activist organization.

• The U.N. dramatically claimed that 55 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level when the accurate portion is 26 percent.

Getting facts wrong and citing dubious sources isn't the worst of it. Rajendra K. Pachauri, the U.N.'s climate chief, remained silent when he knew information was false and denied he had been aware of the Himalayan glaciers error before the recent climate-change summit in Copenhagen, which made a big deal about this nonexistent crisis. He only grudgingly came partly clean when Pallava Bagla, a writer for the journal Science, pointed to e-mail correspondence from last autumn showing Mr. Pachauri already knew of the fraud.

Adolescent name-calling further exposes the weakness of the case for man-made global warming and how desperate the leaders of this cult are becoming. On Feb. 3, Mr. Pachauri defended the fudged IPCC report and slandered critics as "people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder. I hope that they apply [asbestos] to their faces every day." This nasty piece of work tries to redirect attention away from his phony science by blaming skepticism about climate change on "business interests" that "spread a lot of disinformation."

Man-made global warming theory isn't backed up by science; it's a hoax. The fact that the world has been asked to spend tens of trillions of dollars on global warming solutions without being able to evaluate the data upon which the claims were made should have been the first warning that something was seriously wrong. The public and world leaders have been sold expensive snake oil by charlatans like Mr. Pachauri. It's time to admit it's all baloney and move on.

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13 years of Climategate emails show tawdry manipulation of science by a powerful cabal at the heart of the global warming campaign

Having now read all the Climategate emails, I can conclusively say they demonstrate a level of scientific chicanery of the most appalling kind that deserves the widest possible public exposure.

The emails reveal that the entire global warming debate and the IPCC process is controlled by a small cabal of climate specialists in England and North America. This cabal, who call themselves “the Team,” bully and smear any critics. They control the “peer review” process for research in the field and use their power to prevent contrary research being published.

The Team’s members are the heart of the IPCC process, many of them the lead authors of its reports.

They falsely claim there is a scientific “consensus” that the “science is settled,” by getting lists of scientists to sign petitions claiming there is such a consensus. They have fought for years to conceal the actual shonky data they have used to wrongly claim there has been unprecedented global warming this past 50 years. Their emailed discussions among each other show they have concocted their data by matching analyses of tree rings from around 1000 AD to 1960, then actual temperatures from 1960 to make it look temperatures have shot up alarmingly since then, after the tree rings from 1960 on inconveniently failed to match observed temperatures.

The emails show that some of them at least concede in private that the world was warmer 1000 years ago (in the Medieval Warm Period) than it is today, but the emails also show they had to get rid of the MWP from the records to claim today’s temperatures are unprecedented.

They show Team members becoming alarmed and despondent at global temperatures peaking in 1998, then slowly falling to the present, while publicly trying to hide the fact that there was a peak and now a decline.

Revealingly, they show them even smugly nominating each other for prestigious awards, using factually wrong details in the information sent in nominating letters in support of the awards.

The Climategate emails (and accompanying computer data) were almost certainly leaked by a whistleblower inside the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (the “CRU” — the supplier of much key IPCC historic climate data), not hacked from there by an outsider, as initially thought. Their sheer volume and content makes that clear, as do postings to some websites made by the still anonymous leaker. They are a treasure trove that begins on March 7 1996 and runs to November 12 2009, just before they were released and first publicised in an incredulous post on the Watts Up With That blog, which had been sent a link to them.

Don’t take my word for what their contents reveal. Read the emails for yourselves. They have been conveniently posted online in full and in date order. My article here looks at a range of them to back up the assertions I have made about what they reveal. It would take a book to discuss all of them, and you can be sure several books are already being written.

Much more HERE




Snow totals for the season are at record levels in places like Washington and Baltimore

On Wednesday in Alexandria, Va., D.J. Nordquist was looking out her second-floor window when she saw three men on the roof next door, trying to shovel off the snow in the howling blizzard. “We did it yesterday before the snow hit,” Ms. Nordquist says. “The newspapers say all the snow on the roof is like having an elephant up there.” Indeed, snow totals for the season are at record levels in places like Washington and Baltimore. And now, many residents are worrying about the cumulative weight of the snow.

It can be a serious matter. On Wednesday, for example, part of a roof for a storage building owned by the Smithsonian Institution collapsed. People who market products to remove the snow from rooftops are quick to warn about ice dams, which can lead to water rolling down the inside of a structure. It can also lead to gutters ripping out – not something cheap to fix.

“The heavier the snow, the more compacting you get and the more damage you end up with,” says Todd Miller, who has a website that answers questions about roofing issues.

Replacing the roof on an average 2,000-square-foot house can run from $9,000 to $12,000, says Mr. Miller, who also owns a roofing company in Piqua, Ohio (near Dayton). If some shingles get cracked by the ice buildup, he says, a homeowner may not be able to match them. “About all you can do is replace the entire roof,” Miller says. “And if you don’t do something about it this summer, next winter you could have major problems.”

In the mid-Atlantic region, contractors are offering to remove the snow for about $50 an hour. A typical roof takes four hours or more. However, experts caution, homeowners should be careful, because a lot of people are offering to clean roofs but are not doing the job properly. “It is a ripe time for scammers,” warns Pat Katauskas, owner of MinnSNOWta Inc. in Ely, Minn., which sells a product called a Roof Razor. Ms. Katauskas’s phone has been ringing off the hook. According to her, people in areas that aren’t usually snowy, such as Virginia and Maryland, are “clueless” about the dangers of ice dams and snow loads.

In addition, she says, many homeowners are climbing out on their roof to try to remove the snow. “You don’t belong up there,” she warns, referring to the potential for injury. Even when contractors get on the roof, there could be a problem. “If you already have 30 inches of snow, then you add a 200-pound man. Just the weight of the man and the snow may mean you have your roof and a man in the middle of your family room,” says Cheryl Rotole, who sells a product called a Roof Rake.

Ms. Rotole, in Rochester Hills, Mich., says she is fielding 20 calls an hour from people desperate to get the snow off their roof. “I’ve gotten calls from people who hold their cellphone up so I can hear the roof creaking, and I tell them, ‘You need to get out of the house,’ ” she says.

In Nordquist’s case, she was having work done on her house already and asked her contractor about the snow on the roof. “He said, ‘To replace the gutters will cost you $4,000. To get the snow shoveled off will cost you $300,’ ” says Nordquist, who hired him to do the job. “Right now, anyone with a shovel is getting a kiss.”

SOURCE






GREENIE ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA

Three current articles below

Australiagate: Now NASA caught in trick over Aussie climate data

In this article we look at the findings of two independent climate researchers who analyse climatic data used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to show warming of two degrees per century for Australia without explanation. We find that an earlier study by Willis Eschenbach in an article on What’s up with That (WUWT) is wholly substantiated by Kens Kingdom’slatest analysis of Ken Stewart at his ‘kenskingdom’ blog. As a consequence, absent any other justification from NASA, we must conclude that the NASA data has been fraudulently cooked.

GISS, based at Columbia University in New York City, has adjusted over a century’s worth of temperature records from the vast Queensland State (the Sunshine State) to reverse a cooling trend in one ground weather station and increase a warming trend in another to skew the overall data set.

Independent analysis by Aussie blogger Ken Stewart exposes a deplorable smoking gun of cynical manipulation of raw temperature data.

The process of adjusting raw data to create a “homogenised” final global temperature chart is standard practice by climatologists whose work is relied upon by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and world governments. This homogenisation process of temperature data has fallen into disrepute since the Climategate scandal where scientists were proven to have unlawfully used a “trick” to fake climate data and then destroyed their calculations rendering it impossible for independent auditors to examine and justify the methodologies used.

Ken Stewart has his own take on these latest findings from Down Under: “Wow- when they adjust, they don’t muck around!”

GISS combines GHCN data from all urban stations applying the same inexplicable two degree temperature increase as shown below to reveal the shocking disparity between ‘raw’ data and the ‘cooked’ GISS data:

Ken proves that the GISS homogenised older data to make the climate appear cooler a hundred years ago and then ramped up modern data to artificially make recent years appear warmer. Thus climate scientists have artificially created a steep trend line to falsely give an impression of a 2 degrees rise in Australian temperatures over a 100 year period. Ken found that if climatologists had stuck to the raw data the trendline would have been as low as 0.2 degrees per 100 years – thus the overall temperature rise has been magnified by a factor of ten for no apparent reason other than to cause alarm.

Ken explains how he undertook his research: "I decided to have a look at the temperature records of the weather stations closest to where I live, near Mackay in North Queensland. The Bureau of Meteorology lists 3 current stations: Mackay MO, Mackay Aero, and Te Kowai Exp Station, plus the closed station Mackay Post Office. GISS has a list of nearby stations… Te Kowai is an experimental farm for developing new varieties of sugar cane, run by scientists and technicians since 1889. It has a temperature record of over 100 years with only a couple of gaps. So in fact it’s an ideal rural station for referencing a nearby urban station, as it should have a similar climate."

Ken found that the “Mackay Sugar Mill Station” was far hotter in the 1920’s and 30’s but GISS “disappeared” this data. However, if we add the warming period back in we find that the warming trend almost disappears to become less then 0.2 degrees per 100 years! Ken concludes, “How can GISS justify their manipulation of the data, which they claim not to do?”

Upon closer examination of GISS methodology it appears that accidentally on purpose they used a “trick” whereby they turned “Mackay Sugar Mill Station” into a small town rather than a rural station even though it’s been nothing much more than cane fields for the last 130 years. There are different procedures applied to homogenising data between urban and rural weather stations.

I have examined Ken’s findings and can concur with him that there exists inexplicable anomalies that, without exception, appear concocted (homogenized) to create a warming trend when no evidence in changes in the local environmental conditions warrants any such manipulation. Moreover, GISS does not publish any explanations of why they chose to make cooler those temperatures in the first 40 years of their sample and then ramp up the temperatures for recent years. Absent any explanation from them, we may draw our own conclusions that the GISS lowered the older temperature records and raised the temperatures of recent years to create a fictitiously steeper homogenised warming slope to fit a pre-conceived warmist agenda.

Ken says this is fraud, “And it’s happening in my own backyard! I’m furious!”

This finding, when compared to those from other independent observers shows further attempts by government and government-funded agencies to fraudulent create a man made warming signal in Australia from natural events and data.

Ken’s findings tie in really well with the anomaly exposed by WUWT where Willis Eschenbach found similar dodgy data for Darwin, in the Northern Territory ( a vast Aussie state of 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi):

Here is Eschenbach’s comment on the data about Darwin: "YIKES! Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celsius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century … when those guys “adjust”, they don’t mess around. And the adjustment is an odd shape, with the adjustment first going stepwise, then climbing roughly to stop at 2.4C."

The similarities in degree and extent of fakery found separately by Eschenbach and Stewart proves a consistent fraudulent objective: make older temperatures appear artificially cooler and exagerrate recent temperature data.

Climategate.com has built up a close affinity with Australian skeptics who have worked tirelessly to expose the climate scam still being brainlessly plugged by Aussie Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Further similar contributions submitted to us for publication are most welcome. We intend to continue to expose such fraud relying on the technical and analytical skills of gifted amateur bloggers to fully expose the greatest scam in the history of science. Our aim is to bring forth criminal and civil proceedings against all those involved.

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Top science body 'in denial' over policy debate

THE CSIRO and the Rudd government are in "a state of denial" if they believe science can be separated from public policy, says eminent economist Clive Spash. He's hit back at criticisms his controversial paper on emissions trading read like "weak polemical journalism" and that the quality of his writing was substandard.

Professor Spash resigned in December following a long-running and bitter dispute over his report - The Brave New World of Carbon Trading. In the paper, Prof Spash suggests emission trading schemes, like the one the federal government hopes to introduce, are not the answer to climate change. It could even exacerbate the problem of human-induced global warming.

But the CSIRO blocked the paper's publication, arguing employees are restricted from commenting on public policy. CSIRO boss Megan Clark told a Senate estimates committee today she stood by the company charter. "I make no apologies for maintaining the standards of the CSIRO." She again defended the CSIRO's treatment of Prof Spash, saying she made every effort to convince him to make changes and thereby ensure its publication.

But Prof Spash was quick to return fire, and in a long list of grievances accused the CSIRO of harassment, intimidation and censorship over the course of several months. He was also gagged from talking publicly about his situation, he said. "My co-author withdrew from the paper feeling their job was under threat and I myself was harassed," he said in an email to AAP.

"Inappropriate mention of disciplinary action and implied dismissal were cited. "I was promised senior management would work with me. "Instead, I was given a substantially altered document without any input on my part. "I was then given an ultimatum to accept the changes or have the paper banned."

Prof Spash, a leading ecological economist originally head-hunted by the CSIRO, resigned two weeks later. He savaged the new charter as an attempt to micromanage CSIRO researchers, leading to self-censorship and preventing them from having any personal views made public. That was an infringement on free speech.

The CSIRO was wrong to think science could remain separate from public policy, Prof Spash said. "Open debate amongst researchers and in society is required to inform public policy, not manipulation of results due to fear of annoying political paymasters. "New information changes society in unpredictable ways and requires open public debate. "Management seems to be in a state of denial as to (this) reality."

He also took aim at Science Minister Kim Carr, who referred the Senate committee to an external review which labelled the paper "weak polemical journalism". "As a former school teacher I really wondered whether or not this was the sort of thing we were employing people to write on behalf of the CSIRO," Senator Carr also said. "The quality was just not there."

But journal New Political Economy, which was prevented from publishing the report, agreed the CSIRO was trying to censor it. It was "clearly improper" for the CSIRO to browbeat employees into changes which alter its conclusions, an editor wrote to Senator Carr in November. The unamended report was released publicly two days later.

SOURCE

PM left alone and exposed as big business backs away from Warmist laws

THE Rudd government has lost the last fig leaf on an emissions trading scheme that starts ahead of the rest of the world: "business certainty". The Business Council of Australia no longer considers the introduction of an ETS as providing business certainty and has put a caveat on support for an Australian scheme that cannot be met.

Given the fiasco of Copenhagen, the BCA has urged the government to change its scheme "in line with other international responses". Further, it has demanded the unconditional target of cutting greenhouse gases by 5 per cent by 2020, the same target as the Coalition's, not be lifted "before we have clear and credible commitments, and actions, from both developed and developing countries that are verifiable and monitored". That's impossible for nations such as China and India to meet: the BCA may as well have urged an ETS be set up on the moon before Australia lifts its target.

For more than two years, Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong have argued that there needed to be an early start for an ETS in Australia -- not just because climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time but also to give business certainty for planning. That's why Labor originally argued for a 2010 start date and pushed it back only one year. It's also why the Prime Minister argued passionately for ETS legislation to pass last year when the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill first went to parliament and why he said it had to be passed before the climate change conference in Copenhagen .

Yet business and industry were not united on this need for "certainty"; even Malcolm Turnbull, as a Liberal leader supporting an ETS, argued for Australia to wait until after the UN conference.

Rudd consistently quoted the BCA as supporting his position. While some individual members were alarmed at Labor's plan, the BCA continued to support the government's position. That support's no longer there: the infant ETS is exposed on a hillside.

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