Last fall I alerted Spectator readers to the start-up nonprofit Alliance for Climate Education, which spreads the global warming alarmism gospel to students one school assembly at a time.
It turns out that the slick ACE lecturers are more than just preachers; they are recruiters too. After they dazzle teens with hip talk, animation and jokes, they work to sign them up for their anti-consumption (Americans are to blame) cause, often collecting cell phone numbers and email addresses without parents’ knowledge.
Earlier this month ACE visited Northampton (Mass.) High School, where a teacher persuaded colleagues to let students skip final period classes in order to attend their assembly. One student reported on the presentation by ACE’s Julian Rodriguez-Drix:
He dealt with issues of climate change in a positive and non-judgmental way by raising students’ awareness of the problem at hand and the methods by which they are actively polluting and contributing to global warming. The presentation explained how climate change has been caused and continued by social influence and our culture of consumption. Students learned how their seemingly minimal consumption is connected to huge companies, large usage of fossil fuels, and incredible amounts of waste. Julian clearly summarized his message in his statement, “We’re all wrapped up in [an] economic cycle that just leads to garbage.” He also discussed “super-sized” American living, excessive use of non-renewable resources, and the results of pollution in an urgent, but humorous, manner.
It all makes for one entertaining guilt trip — for students to lay on others. The Left is so clever in not offending their recruits: “It’s not your ‘minimal consumption’ that’s causing the problem — it’s those large corporations and fat Americans that are the problem!” And then they continue living their own privileged lives.
Of course, they pretend otherwise. ACE trainers like Rodriguez-Drix belch greenhouse gases driving across several state lines to give their talks, when a simple Webcast would deliver the message and serve as a good example of energy efficiency. But when asked how he would “Do One Thing” (an ACE campaign) to fight climate change, he came up with the innovative idea to turn off his lights (video). Wish I’d thought of that one.
When a Penn State board of inquiry unilaterally decided that Michael Mann had broken no rules in the climate-data scandal, global-warming alarmists breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the most damaging episode in their effort to save the planet was behind them. They were wrong.
The geology professor’s 1998 climate study, which showed a sharp increase in the world’s temperatures in the past century, Â was seen by many as proof that climate change was rapidly occurring and that humans played a significant role in the change. Despite ongoing criticism, the study formed the backbone of global warming theories — until leaked e-mails cast fresh doubt on Mann’s methodology and integrity, notably “the trick” he used to make his data so compelling.
It was those e-mails, stolen from British university East Anglia’s climate study group, that sparked Penn State’s probe into Mann’s work. On Feb. 3, he was exonerated on three of four charges, and the investigation of the fourth charge will be concluded by June 3.Â
But the final say will be in the hands of a skeptical inspector general at the National Science Foundation, the primary funder of the research into global warming. According to published documents obtained by FoxNews.com, the IG must determine whether Penn State’s investigation was adequate.
We need a more authoritative world. We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course.
But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.
By Leo Hickman
When I recently interviewed James Lovelock for the G2 section of the Guardian, we spoke for nearly two hours about the various events of the past few months – a period in which he’d remained silent because he’d been over-wintering with his wife Sandy in her native Missouri. There was a lot to talk about: the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia, the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, the intense scrutiny placed on the IPCC, and the rather nippy winter experienced across much of the Northern Hemisphere. As is inevitable with an interview appearing in the newspaper, space was at a premium so the quotes used were tightly edited. But, just as I did with my interview with Al Gore last year, I have decided to publish a transcript of his key points here online for anyone interested in hearing in much more detail what Lovelock had to say on some of these controversial and much-discussed topics.Â
Lovelock’s reaction to first reading about the stolen CRU emails [he later clarified that he hadn't read the originals, saying: "Oddly, I felt reluctant to pry"]:Â
I was utterly disgusted. My second thought was that it was inevitable. It was bound to happen. Science, not so very long ago, pre-1960s, was largely vocational. Back when I was young, I didn’t want to do anything else other than be a scientist. They’re not like that nowadays. They don’t give a damn. They go to these massive, mass-produced universities and churn them out. They say: “Science is a good career. You can get a job for life doing government work.” That’s no way to do science.
I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done.
Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I’m not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It’s the one thing you do not ever do. You’ve got to have standards.
You can make mistakes; they’re helpful. In the old days, it was perfectly OK to make a mistake and say so. You often learned from it. Nowadays if you’re dependent on a grant – and 99% of them are – you can’t make mistakes as you won’t get another one if you do. It’s an awful moral climate and it was all set up for the best of reasons. I think it was felt there was far too much inequality in science and there was an enormous redress. Looking around the country [at the wider society] this was good on the whole, but in some special professions you want the best, the elite. Elitism is important in science. It is vital.
With the climate science party-line case for global warming rapidly unwinding there is growing interest by researchers from outside the climate change community in applying advanced statistical techniques to climate data. It has long been recognized that statistical acumen has been lacking among mainstream climate scientists. This dirty little secret was first publicly disclosed during Congressional hearings regarding the 2006 Wegman Report. Even newer analyses have revealed that many of the predictions made by the IPCC reports and other global warming boosters are wrong, often because inappropriate statistical techniques were applied.
The Wegman Report was the result of an ad hoc committee of independent statisticians who were asked by a congressional committee to assess the statistical information presented in the Michael Mann “Hockey Stick†papers. Dr. Edward Wegman, a prominent statistics professor at George Mason University and chairman of the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, headed the panel of experts who examined the use of statistics in climate science. They found the climate science community was far too insular and did not consult with experts in statistics outside of their own field.
This self imposed isolation led, in the opinion of the committee, to misuse of statistics and a peer review process that only included the close-knit circle of researchers at the center of the global warming controversy. Wegman stated in testimony before the energy and commerce committee: “I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.†More on the Wegman Report can be found in Chapter 13 of The Resilient Earth.
On February 3, 2010, the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) released a report on its internal inquiry of Professor Michael Mann, clearing him of any wrongdoing for his involvement in the “climategate” scandal. Â Mann’s work, including the infamous “hockey stick graph,” concluded: “the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium.” Mann’s study has been debunked by the academic community, but has played a key role in aiding the “global warming” propaganda used in the attempt to pass legislation to end such warming effects. Â PSU Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) has launched an online petition urging Penn State to preserve academic integrity and order an independent investigation of Mann and his role in climategate.
PSU YAF Chairman Samuel Settle said, “The university’s supposed independent inquiry report by Professor Mann’s colleagues clearly states they never wanted to do an inquiry and sounds more like a letter of recommendation for their friend Mann than a legitimate investigation of academic integrity. This report does not address the student and community concerns regarding the possible suppression of data by a faculty member. Â This report by Penn State is a whitewash, nothing more.” Â Settle added, “Many students go to college expecting to ‘stick it to the man,’ however, Penn State Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is now ‘standing up to the Mann’ and his university lackeys calling for a fair, independent investigation of Mann and his involvement in the ‘Climategate’ scandal.”
Jordan Marks, YAF Executive Director, said, “Students are held to a high level of academic integrity on a daily basis and when the academic code of honesty is broken universities go to great lengths to investigate and administer justice.” Â Marks continued, “The cover up of Professor Mann’s suppression of climate data because he is one of the faculty’s own is a disgrace to the academic community and an insult to the students who buy into the system of integrity and honesty. The fact that Mann falsified data to promote his personal agenda should be cause for him to stripped of his PhD and removed from his position as a Professor.”
To sign the PSU YAF online petition urging Penn State preserve academic integrity and order an independent investigation of Professor Mann, please go to http://yaf.com/petition/.
YAF is the nation’s oldest and most recognized conservative/libertarian youth activist organization. Founded on September 11, 1960 in Sharon, Connecticut at the home of William F. Buckley, Jr., YAF is a non-profit organization engaged in advocating public policies and activism consistent with The Sharon Statement. For more information call YAF’s national headquarters at 202-596-7923 or our visit our website at www.yaf.com.
So let us see, the hockey stick of Michael Mann predicted that the temperature of the Earth would rise exponentially and melt the polar ice caps.
That seems to have ebbed.
And now from a real scientist, Hiroshi L. Tanaka of the University of the University of Tsukuba in Japan: “It is concluded that the arctic warming before 1989 especially in winter was explained by the positive trend of the AOI. Moreover the intensified Beaufort High and the drastic decrease of the sea ice concentrations in September after 1989 were associated with the recent negative trend of the AOI [Arctic Oscillation]. Since the decadal variation of the AO is recognized as the natural variability of the global atmosphere, it is shown that both of decadal variabilities before and after 1989 in the Arctic can be mostly explained by the natural variability of the AO not by the external response due to the human activity.â€
The high-pressure sales techniques of junk scientists like Michael Mann is one tip-off that he and his crackpot theory is a scam. The other tip-off is Al Gore and company have done nothing to ameliorate their carbon footprint is another tip-off.
The main target may not be the rule itself, which came after painstaking negotiations with the auto industry, but what it portends.
“It will trigger other requirements under the Clean Air Act that other companies outside the auto industry don’t like,” said Columbia Law School professor Michael Gerrard, director of the school’s Center for Climate Change Law. “The Chamber of Commerce and other industry associations have been trying to fight this in every possible venue.”
The rules announced today establish increasingly strict fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas emission standards for 2012 to 2016 model year vehicles. By 2016, new cars and trucks will average 35.5 miles per gallon. Carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by about 960 million metric tons over the lifetime of the vehicles regulated.
“The standards themselves are noncontroversial, and EPA has done a strong job building consensus with other states, the auto industry, and environmental groups on those standards. Thus, it is unlikely industry would seek to challenge those standards themselves,” said Roger Martella Jr., a partner in Sidley Austin‘s environmental practice group and former general counsel of the EPA, in an email. “The determining factor likely will be how EPA decides an upcoming rule, called the PSD tailoring rule, to mitigate the impacts on stationary sources.”
Stationary sources of air pollution include facilities like factories and power plants.
In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore.
A press release from the committee quotes a chagrined Rajendra Pachauri, the UN climate panel’s chair, who claims that he was the victim of a “cunning deception spanning decades”:
“I am deeply ashamed for having unwittingly perpetuated such a massive fraud on the governments of the world,” said Mr. Pachauri.
“It turns out that all that data from satellites and radiosondes, surface temperature readings, borehole analysis, measurements of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and permafrost, phenological data, and proxy reconstructions of paleoclimatic conditions were all fabricated out of thin air by my former friend, Al Gore. Now that I think about it, I suppose that we should have instituted some sort of peer-review process before publishing such alarming conclusions. Once again, I’m very sorry.”
After revoking the 2007 prize from Gore and the IPCC, the Nobel committee retroactively awarded it to the more than 31,000 people who signed the Oregon Petition – an appeal challenging the notion that there exists a scientific consensus regarding global warming – “for their efforts to pursue pure, objective science that is free from the influence of any special interest group.”
New oil drilling, if it happens, is many years away, while cap-and-trade legislation is here and now
By Philip Elliot, AP
Reversing a ban on oil drilling off most U.S. shores, President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced an expansive new policy that could put new oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska.
Speaking at Andrews air base outside Washington, Obama said, “This is not a decision that I’ve made lightly.” He addressed the expected outcry from disappointed environmentalists by saying he had studied the issue for more than a year and concluded it was the right call given the nation’s voracious thirst for energy and the need to produce jobs and keep American businesses competitive.
“We’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources,” Obama said, standing in front of a Navy F-18 fighter scheduled to fly on Earth Day with a half-biomass fuel mix.
The president said his decision is part of a broader strategy that also includes expanding the production of nuclear power and clean energy sources, to “move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy.”
It’s been a heady few months for climate sceptics – or “deniers” as the opposition loves to call us. Starting with “climategate”, through a progression of “gates” with much else in between – including the apparent collapse at Copenhagen – it seemed as if we had the warmists on the run.Certainly, we’ve scored some hits and, aided and abetted by Mother Nature who has been generous in her deliveries of global warming this winter, we have seen a turnaround in public opinion, with a distinct loss of enthusiasm for the surfeit of alarmism on offer.
The successes have led to a certain amount of triumphalism amongst the sceptics, with a feeling in certain quarters that we are winning the game. But any such sentiment is, to say the very least, premature. In fact, a more realistic appraisal might suggest that we have not even dented the underlying agenda.
Herein lies a certain definitional problem, as we have certainly dented the confidence of many so-called climate “scientists”, worried some of the hangers-on and made serious inroads into the intellectual argument, challenging the science.
But as to the “agenda”, this has nothing to do with science or even climate change. The climate change scare is merely a front used to conceal on the one hand and, on the other, to legitimise a far more sinister movement which has at its root politics, power and money. And its agenda might have suffered a few setbacks and some delays, but it is essentially intact.
By Paul Chesser
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