Climategate scandals grows: more revelation of data tampering.

Climategate is proving to be bigger than just the revelations obtained from the e-mail hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.

As reported by examiner.com,"For the past six days, several climate scientists have discovered an alarming trend: clear evidence of alteration of historical data at weather stations around the world, in order to support the contention of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)."

One of those scientist who reported a discrepancy between what his own research showed and what is reported in the official version of the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) report is Robert Keen. Dr. Keen had conducted research into the climate of Alaska and found "no substantial difference in average temperature between 1935-1944 and the present time." The IPCC, however, found substantial warming over the past three decades.

This is serious stuff. Robert Keen is no amateur hack setting out to disprove climate change theory. Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen is a lecturer in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, a member of the American Meteorological Society and has worked with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Keen specializes in volcanic aerosols and climate change studies.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific body established by the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization. It reviews and assesses scientific, technical, and socio-economic work relevant to climate change, but does not carry out its own research. The IPCC was honoured, along with Al Gore, with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

To see more on Dr. Keen's report on the discrepancy between what his research showed and the official IPCC report, see his published report, Alaska Climate – Station Data vs Adjusted GHCN/IPCC. In this report he says that the agency producing the information included in the IPCC report had to use the same data he used in his report since there his only one source of that data. "One can only guess," writes Keen, "what 'corrections' were applied to the GHCN and IPCC data sets."

Others who are discovering discrepancies in the data and what the "data with corrections" are showing are people with less credentials than Dr. Keen. Anthony Watts is a meteorologist who is editor of the blog What up with that? He is not a degreed scientist, but then neither is Al Gore. His research cast serious doubt on the finding of the IPCC. While I am going to take the finding of non-degreed scientist with a gain of salt, given the revealed use of "tricks" by degreed scientist to manipulate data in order to prove the theory of global warming, I am also taking the findings of those scientist with a grain of salt.

The establishment, including the scientific community and the mainstream media, refuse to pay serious attention to the doubt cast on the science of global warming by the revelations of climategate. They hope that if they continue to ignore it that nothing will change and they can maintain their "consensus," can marginalize their critics, and that this will all go away. Like the Wizard of Oz, they want us to ignore that man behind the curtain.

I am still not ready to call all global warming science "junk science." I am, however, very suspicious of the science. The burden of proof has been shifted. The data needs to be reevaluated by those not tainted by this scandal. Well-credentialed scientist whose financial well being is not dependent on a predetermined outcome need to look at the evidence with fresh eyes and an open mind. We need to know if global warming is a pending worldwide catastrophe of unprecedented proportions in the history of mankind, or if it is minor inconvenience we can address and live with, or if there is nothing to it.

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Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Delivers Weekly Republican Address

Rep. Blackburn: “If President Obama has his way, the Copenhagen conference will produce mandatory emissions limits that would destroy millions of American jobs and damage our economic competitiveness for decades to come.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Delivering the weekly Republican Address, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) outlined how the Obama Administration’s participation in the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen could lead to a “cap and trade” national energy tax that will destroy millions of American jobs. A member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Blackburn is one of several Republican lawmakers traveling to Copenhagen next week. In the address, Blackburn also highlights Republicans’ better solutions to create jobs, ease the strain on family budgets, and clean up our environment through an “all of the above” energy strategy. Audio of the address is available here.

Following is the text of Rep. Blackburn’s address:

“Hi, I’m Congressman Marsha Blackburn, and I have the great honor of representing Tennessee’s Seventh District.

“Next week, I and a number of my Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives will head to Copenhagen – Denmark’s capital city – where diplomats and politicians from around the world have gathered in an attempt to try to reach an international, UN-brokered agreement on climate change.

“If President Obama has his way, the Copenhagen conference will produce mandatory emissions limits that would destroy millions of American jobs and damage our economic competitiveness for decades to come.

“To comply with this UN-brokered agreement, Washington Democrats want to impose a ‘cap-and-trade’ national energy tax, a bureaucratic nightmare that would make households, small businesses and family farms pay higher prices for electricity, gasoline, food and virtually every product made in America. This legislation is currently making its way through the Senate after passing the House of Representatives in June.

“President Obama himself has said that as a result of this national energy tax, electricity prices would, and I quote, ‘necessarily skyrocket.’ His own Department of Energy has determined that millions of jobs would be lost.

“Since Democrats in Congress have failed to get a cap and trade bill to the President’s desk ahead of the Copenhagen Summit, President Obama took unilateral action this week to pile more regulation on the backs of families and small businesses in the name of combating global warming. On Monday the President’s EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, took the first step toward imposing costly new regulations on businesses for emitting carbon. My bill, H.R. 391 would stop the EPA.

“Just think of what will happen to small businesses and manufacturers hit with these skyrocketing energy bills, especially when nations like India and China don’t agree to these mandatory emissions limits. With Americans already facing double-digit unemployment, there could not be a worse time to unilaterally disarm our engines of job creation and economic growth.

“In fact, small businesses are already feeling anxiety and holding off on hiring due to the prospect of this national energy tax, a government takeover of health care, and other costly policies Democrats have in the works. These aren’t issues President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Democrats in Congress will talk about when they are in Copenhagen, but Republicans will.

“Also absent from the discussion in Copenhagen is the Climategate scandal. Recently leaked e-mails reveal climate scientists have a long track record of manipulating data to hide scientific evidence that contradicts the global warming establishment. And why? To bully citizens and lawmakers into supporting job-killing energy tax schemes. This scandal raises serious questions about Democrats’ climate control plans, questions that deserve a transparent investigation – not a rush to judgment – by the bureaucrats in Copenhagen.

“Republicans are all for clean water, clean air, and clean energy. We just don't think we have to tax people out of house and home to get there. That’s why we have proposed an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy that says, let’s put every clean, responsible energy option on the table so we can create jobs, ease the strain on family budgets, and clean up our environment.

“This is one of a series of common-sense solutions Republicans have proposed to empower families and small businesses while Democrats have continued to rely on more spending, more regulation, and more government to try and solve every problem.

“Nothing sums this up more than the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ of borrowing and spending that has failed to create jobs ‘immediately’ and keeps unemployment below eight percent as promised. Instead, more than three million Americans have lost their jobs and unemployment has risen to double-digits.

“Given the opportunity to try a new approach, President Obama has instead proposed more of the same ‘stimulus’ spending paid for by borrowing from our children and grandchildren.

“It’s time for Washington to learn the hard lesson that families already know: growing debt only cripples freedom and spending more money than you have is no plan for prosperity. Only Republicans have provided a fiscally responsible blueprint for helping families and small businesses weather this economic crisis and get back up on their feet.

“Thank you for listening.”

Comment

Way to go Marsha!

I love Marsha Blackburn. She is principled, smart, and so darn cute. In 2012 after Senator Bob Corker is elected President defeating Barack Obama, I expect to see Marsha elected Senator. After Corker's eight years as President, Marsha Blackburn is elected President becoming America's first female to be elected to the nation's highest office.

President Marsha Blackburn? I like the sound of that.

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The Tip of the Climategate Iceberg

The Wall Street Journal, DECEMBER 8, 2009, 7:20 P.M

The opening days of the Copenhagen climate-change conference have been rife with denials and—dare we say it?—deniers. American delegate Jonathan Pershing said the emails and files leaked from East Anglia have helped make clear "the robustness of the science." Talk about brazening it out. And Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and so ex-officio guardian of the integrity of the science, said the leak proved only that his opponents would stop at nothing to avoid facing the truth of climate change. Uh-huh. (link)

Comment

I admit that until the climategate scandal broke I had been guilty of being dismissive of climate warming skeptics. I had reached the conclusion some time ago that global warming theory was correct and that the science was settled. Global warming theory is a complicated scientific question and I am not a scientist so I deferred to the experts.

I have been guilty of closing my mind to the arguments of the skeptics and I derisively referred to skeptics as “deniers.” I put the “deniers” in the same camp as creationist and flat-earthers of a previous era. I will say the “deniers,” however, often did not help their case. The leading spokesmen for the skeptics were often people like Rush Limbaugh and other ideologues and “scientist” who were often no more than TV weathermen.

Since the climategate scandal broke however, I have taken a fresh look at the evidence. I still do not know if global warming theory is correct or not. It very well could be. A few things are clear however. Not all skeptics are uneducated ideologues. The science is not as settled as we were led to believe; the “consensus” is not as firm. There has been a conspiracy to deny skeptics a voice and the data has been fudged. Another thing that is clear and is reported in this article is that there has been a relentless effort to keep scientific data from being scrutinized. There has been a consistent obstruction of freedom-of-information requests.

If the science is so firm, why do the advocates of global warming theory feel it is necessary to hide the data? Why are they afraid to engage in open scientific inquiry? When scientific fraud is exposed, does not the burden of proof shift to those who advocate the theory which is in part based on that fraud? Instead of defending the science, why are the proponents of the theory circling the wagons and refusing to answer their critics?

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Sen. Coburn: $7 Billion In Stimulus Waste

Comment: This is amazing! If we needed a stimulus bill to address the economic crisis, surely we could have done a better job than this. This nation has crumbling infrastructure. There are water lines that need replacing and collapsing sewer systems to replace and dangerous bridges to rebuild, yet the stimulus bill funded wasteful exotic studies and projects that created almost no jobs. One $246,436 project created a single $59,857 per year job. With a $1.4 trillion deficit is this the way we need to be spending money?

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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Studying Arizona Ants Does Not Deserve Stimulus Money

"I can't leave out my Arizona projects that have been awarded. $500,000 to Arizona State University to study the genetic makeup of ants...and then, incredibly, $450,000 to the University of Arizona to study division of labor in ant colonies...I had no idea that so much expertise concerning ants resided in the major universities in my state and I must say I say that with an element of pride, but I'm not sure that it is deserving of these taxpayers dollars."

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Cliamategate cartoon book

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Hide the Decline (hide the decline) - Climategate

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Jon Stewart on Climategate! Very funny.

Fantastic! This is great! I am surprised and pleased. Jon Steward is very entertaining and funny in his report on Climategate.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people, especially young people, who get most of their news and form their opinions from watching Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report and Jon Stewart. Many people who are inclined to have liberal opinions, who will never read George Will or listen to a conservative pundit and who seldom read a newspaper, now know about the climategate scandal. To many people, if Jon Stewart uses his sarcastic wit and humor to lambaste the climate research conspirators then the climategate scandal is newsworthy and it is OK to question the validity of the supposed scientific consensus. Great!

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Earth's Next Last Chance

by George Will, Sunday December 8th, 2009

[Excerpt] The CRU materials also reveal paranoia on the part of scientists who believe that in trying to engineer "consensus" and alarm about warming, they are a brave and embattled minority. Actually, never in peacetime history has the government-media-academic complex been in such sustained propagandistic lockstep about any subject.

[Excerpt] Were their science as unassailable as they insist it is, and were the consensus as broad as they say it is, and were they as brave as they claim to be, they would not be "goaded" into intellectual corruption. Nor would they meretriciously bandy the word "deniers" to disparage skepticism that shocks communicants in the faith-based global warming community. (link)

Comment: This is a good analysis of the climategate scandal.

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The Story of Cap and Trade

I know there is a lot of news and talk about the pending cap and trade legislation but I suspect that many people do not really understand it. This cartoon presentation simplifies and explains how cap and trade works. I certainly don’t agree with the political perspective of this video, but even people with whom you disagree can tell a truth sometimes or help shed light on an issue. Try to watch this video without gagging over the left-wing rhetoric. It does a good job of explaining two of the majors defects in the current cap and trade proposal: give away of credits and off sets.

Since the climategate scandal revelations of scientific fraud, I am not now convinced we need to address global warming at all. Before we address it, we need to be sure it is a problem that needs to be solved. For me, Cliamategate threw into question the severity of the problem of man-made global warming. I need to again be convinced that man-made global warming is a problem before I am ready to support efforts to fix it.

If the theory of global warming is correct however, we must address it. If it is true, if can not be ignored simply because it is inconvenient. Assuming for a moment that the theory is correct, I think the preferred method of addressing the problem is a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Just as a subsidy can lead to the production of more of something by reducing the cost of that something to the consumer, a tax can result in less of something by increasing the cost of that something. If we put a tax on products that produce carbon people will choose to use less of those products and we will have less carbon emission. If gas cost more, people use less of it. If gas cost more, battery power and hybrid vehicles will comparatively cost less. To offset the cost increase in taxing carbon however, we should cut the income tax by every dollar raised by a carbon tax. I would prefer to tax carbon more and tax income less; this will produce less carbon and more income.

Unfortunately a carbon tax has never been given serious consideration and cap and trade has. In theory, cap and trade could work. Just like a carbon tax, cap and trade is also a tax but is not as direct. Like a carbon tax, a cap and trade system is designed to change consumer behaviour by attaching a cost to carbon emission. While I would prefer a carbon tax to a cap and trade system, cap and trade is much to be preferred over a system of regulation that mandates carbon levels for each producer of carbon emissions. Incentivizing desired behaviour is preferable to the use of force to change behaviour. I would much rather use the tax structure and markets to solve a problem rather than use the police. In theory cap and trade is sound. Cap and trade was the way we curtailed the pollutants that caused acid rain. Acid rain was a serious problem that was brought under control by the very same method we are proposing to address carbon emissions.

Cap and Trade can work in theory, but unfortunately the devil is in the details. Cap and trade will not work if we give away too many credits and if we have a fraudulent system of offsets. Also, to avoid cap and trade being a huge tax to simply grow government, cap and trade should be revenue-neutral. Revenue raised from the sell of credits should be used to reduce personal income taxes and in order to put more money into the hands of the people in order to help offset the increase energy cost and other cost of living that will follow cap and trade legislation.

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On a personal note: My lovely wife Louella

On Friday Louella and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary.

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