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None dare call it fraud
By Paul Driessen
web posted October 19, 2009
Imagine the reaction if investment companies provided only rosy stock
and economic data to prospective investors; manufacturers withheld
chemical spill statistics from government regulators; or medical
device and pharmaceutical companies doctored data on patients injured
by their products.
Media frenzies, congressional hearings, regulatory investigations,
fines and jail sentences would come faster than you can say Henry
Waxman. If those same standards were applied to global warming
alarmists, many of them would be fined, dismissed and imprisoned,
sanity might prevail, and the House-Senate cap-and-tax freight train
would come to a screeching halt.
Fortunately for alarmists, corporate standards do not apply - even
though sloppiness, ineptitude, cherry-picking, exaggeration,
deception, falsification, concealed or lost data, flawed studies and
virtual fraud have become systemic and epidemic. Instead of being
investigated and incarcerated, the perpetrators are revered and
rewarded, receiving billions in research grants, mandates, subsidies
and other profit-making opportunities.
On this bogus foundation Congress, EPA and the White House propose to
legislate and regulate our nation's energy and economic future.
Understanding the scams is essential. Here are just a few of them.
Michael Mann's hockey-stick-shaped historical temperature chart
supposedly proved that twentieth century warming was "unprecedented"
in the last 2000 years. After it became the centerpiece of the UN
climate group's 2001 Third Assessment Report, Canadian analysts Ross
McKitrick and Steve McIntyre asked Mann to divulge his data and
statistical algorithms. Mann refused. Ultimately, Mc-Mc, the National
Science Foundation and investigators led by renowned statistician
Edward Wegman found that the hockey stick was based on cherry-picked
tree-ring data and a computer program that generated temperature
spikes even when random numbers were fed into it.
This year, another "unprecedented" warming study went down in flames.
Lead scientist Keith Briffa managed to keep his tree-ring data secret
for a decade, during which the study became a poster child for climate
alarmism. Finally, McKitrick and McIntyre gained access to the data.
Amazingly, there were 252 cores in the Yamal group, plus cores from
other Siberian locations. Together, they showed no anomalous warming
trend due to rising carbon dioxide levels. But Briffa selected just
twelve cores, to "prove" a dramatic recent temperature spike, and
chose three cores that "demonstrated" there had never been a Medieval
Warm Period. It was a case study in how to lie with statistics.
Meanwhile, scientists associated with Britain's Climatic Research Unit
(CRU) also withheld temperature data and methods, while publishing
papers that lent support to climate chaos claims, hydrocarbon taxes
and restrictions, and renewable energy mandates. In response to one
request, lead scientist Phil Jones replied testily: "Why should I make
the data available, when your aim is to try and find something wrong
with it?" Of course, that's what the scientific method is all about -
subjecting data, methods and analyses to rigorous testing, to confirm
or refute theories and conclusions. When pressure to release the
original data became too intense to ignore, the CRU finally claimed it
had "lost" (destroyed?) all the original data.
The supposedly "final" text of the IPCC's 1995 Second Assessment
Report emphasized that no studies had found clear evidence that
observed climate changes could be attributed to greenhouse gases or
other manmade causes. However, without the authors' and reviewers'
knowledge or approval, lead author Dr. Ben Santer and alarmist
colleagues revised the text and inserted the infamous assertion that
there is "a discernable human influence" on Earth's climate.
Highly accurate satellite measurements show no significant global
warming, whereas ground-based temperature stations show warming since
1978. However, half of the surface monitoring stations are located
close to concrete and asphalt parking lots, window or industrial-size
air conditioning exhausts, highways, airport tarmac and even jetliner
engines - all of which skew the data upward. The White House, EPA,
IPCC and Congress use the deceptive data anyway, to promote their
agenda.
With virtually no actual evidence to link CO2 and global warming, the
climate chaos community has to rely increasingly on computer models.
However, the models do a poor job of portraying an incredibly complex
global climate system that scientists are only beginning to
understand; assume carbon dioxide is a principle driving force;
inadequately handle cloud, solar, precipitation, ocean currents and
other critical factors; and incorporate assumptions and data that many
experts say are inadequate or falsified. The models crank out
(worst-case) climate change scenarios that often conflict with one
another. Not one correctly forecast the planetary cooling that began
earlier this century, as CO2 levels continued to climb.
Al Gore's climate cataclysm movie is replete with assertions that are
misleading, dishonest or what a British court chastised as "partisan"
propaganda about melting ice caps, rising sea levels, hurricanes,
malaria, "endangered" polar bears and other issues. But the film
garnered him Oscar and Nobel awards, speaking and expert witness
appearances, millions of dollars, and star status with UN and
congressional interests that want to tax and penalize energy use and
economic growth. Perhaps worse, a recent Society of Environmental
Journalists meeting made it clear that those supposed professionals
are solidly behind Mr. Gore and his apocalyptic beliefs, and will
defend him against skeptics.
These and other scandals have slipped past the peer review process
that is supposed to prevent them and ensure sound science for a simple
reason. Global warming disaster papers are written and reviewed by
closely knit groups of scientists, who mutually support one another's
work. The same names appear in different orders on a series of
"independent" reports, all of which depend on the same original data,
as in the Yamal case. Scientific journals refuse to demand the
researchers' data and methodologies. And as in the case of Briffa, the
IPCC and journals typically ignore and refuse to publish contrary
studies.
Scandals like these prompted EPA career analyst Alan Carlin to prepare
a detailed report, arguing that the agency should not find that CO2
"endangers" human health and welfare, because climate disaster
predictions were not based on sound science. EPA suppressed his report
and told Carlin not to talk to anyone outside his immediate office, on
the ground that his "comments do not help the legal or policy case for
this decision," which the agency supposedly would not make for several
more weeks.
The endless litany of scandals underscores the inconvenient truth
about global warming hysteria. The White House, Congress and United
Nations are imperiling our future on the basis of deceptive science,
phony "evidence" and worthless computer models. The climate protection
racket will enrich Al Gore, alarmist scientists who get the next $89
billion in US government research money, financial institutions that
process trillion$$ in carbon trades, and certain companies, like those
that recently left the US Chamber of Commerce. For everyone else, it
will mean massive pain for no environmental gain.
Still not angry and disgusted? Read Chris Horner's Red Hot Lies,
Lawrence Solomon's Financial Post articles, Steve Milloy's Green Hell,
and Benny Peiser's CCNet daily climate policy review. Go to a premier
showing of Not Evil Just Wrong.
Then get on your telephone or computer, and tell your legislators and
local media this nonsense has got to stop. It may be that none dare
call it fraud - but it comes perilously close. ESR
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A
Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of
Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.
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