Obama Opens First of Eight Federal Climate Centers While Waiting for 2012 to Move Forward with Carbon Taxes

Critics Say Obama EPA Moves Made With 2012 in Mind

President Barack Obama is sacking a controversial proposed regulation tightening government smog standards, bowing to the demands of congressional Republicans and some business leaders. The move is sure to raise the ire of environmentalists, a core Obama constituency. In his statement, Obama said he was still committed to protecting public health and the environment. "I will continue to stand with the hardworking men and women at the EPA as they strive every day to hold polluters accountable and protect our families from harmful pollution," he said. - Obama halts controversial EPA regulation, Associated Press, September 2, 2011

FoxNews.com
September 1, 2011

While Republican foes and many in the business community accuse President Obama of pushing aggressive environmental agenda, the Obama EPA has actually been holding back on many of its key initiatives.

Critics say the go-slow approach at the Environmental Protection Agency is part of a 2012 re-election strategy for the president.

In July, the EPA announced that it would postpone, for the fourth time, new ozone standards, with a promise to reconsider them at a later date. Then in August, EPA regulators chose to ignore a promised toughening of carbon monoxide standards, angering many environmentalists. That followed a decision to postpone indefinitely rules that would have punished companies for emissions the agency says are linked to global warming.

By holding back on key initiatives, the White House has quieted concerns in swing states like Ohio, helping vulnerable Rust Belt congressional Democrats. The business world warns that the rules are still looming and that if Obama wins a second term, the consequences will be dire. Environmentalists, meanwhile, express their frustration with what they see as an overly politicized process.

"We think that's a really awful thing because we think that the decisions on clean air should be made on science not political science," said Frank O'Donnell of the environmental group, Clean Air Watch.

But conservative critics suggest that EPA's relaxation of enforcement is the exception, not the rule.

"There's absolutely no indication right now that they're pulling back on any fronts when it pertains to the EPA," said Evan Tracey of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry group.

Tracey and others point to the EPA's tough new standards for increased auto mileage that begin to take effect in 2012, and still tougher regulations set for 2025 that would require cars to get 54.5 miles per gallon.

They also point to the EPA's crackdown on mountaintop coal mining, and to its new requirement for power plants to reduce pollution across state lines. That’s a rule that the industry maintains will strain power grids and increase costs for electricity.

At an August town hall meeting, in response to a farmer's question about EPA over-regulation, Obama said the EPA weighs its regulatory input very carefully.

"There is not a rule or regulation that we don't do a complete cost-benefit analysis at this point and that we don't have intensive discussions with those who would potentially be affected, "said Obama.

Obama Opens First of Eight Federal Climate Centers While House Votes to Defund UN Climate Change Panel

CNSNews.com
February 24, 2011

The U.S. Interior Department is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday to officially open the Alaska Climate Science Center -- the first of its kind in the nation, the Interior Department says.

Located at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, the center is the first of eight regional climate science centers the federal government plans to establish across the U.S.

The U.S. Geological Survey is taking the lead in establishing the centers.

According to the Fiscal 2012 U.S. Geological Survey budget proposal,

“The Climate Science Centers will provide the scientific base for land and water management decisions related to changing climates.”

The budget requests $11 million to complete the planned network of eight Climate Science Centers.

The Interior Department says the centers will work closely with government agencies and universities, using "existing science programs to build new capabilities." The eight regional centers will provide data on the impacts of climate change and help land managers respond.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Alaska as the site of the first regional climate center last March:

"With its rapidly melting Arctic sea ice and permafrost, and threats to the survival of Native Alaskan coastal communities, Alaska is ground zero for climate change," he said at the time. “We must put science to work to help us adjust to the impacts of climate change on Alaska’s resources and peoples.”

Salazar said the climate science centers will "provide science about climate change impacts, help land managers adapt to the impacts, and engage the public through education initiatives.”

Four other climate science centers will be located in at Oregon State University, North Carolina State University, University of Arizona-Tucson, and Colorado State University-Fort Collins. The remaining three centers -- to be located in the South Central, Northeastern U.S. and the Pacific Islands -- have not yet been announced.

According to the Interior Department, "Climate change is driving rapid and broad changes across the United States and the world," and the Interior Department "has an obligation to address the impacts that climate change is having on America’s resources by developing effective adaptation and mitigation strategies."

But when it comes to "climate change science," the government appears to have overlapping -- and duplicative -- efforts.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- which falls under the U.S. Commerce Department -- also operates Regional Climate Centers (as opposed to the Interior Department's regional Climate Science Centers).

NOAA's six centers are "engaged in the timely production and delivery of useful climate data, information and knowledge for decision makers and other users at the local, state, regional and national levels," the agency says on its Web site.

NOAA’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget request includes a reorganization that brings together NOAA’s existing climate capabilities under a single office -- a new Climate Service -- which will "more effectively and efficiently respond to America’s increasing demand for climate information."

According to NOAA, its new Climate Service "will provide a reliable and authoritative source for climate data, information, and decision-support services," and it will "advance and transform climate science into useable and relevant services to better meet the needs of the nation."

House Votes to Defund U.N. Climate Change Panel that Missouri Congressman Calls ‘Nefarious’

CNSNews.com
February 23, 2011

The House of Representatives has voted to defund a United Nations climate change panel after the Republican who introduced the proposal said the body had “whipped up a global frenzy” over climate change because its members were politically motivated.

“It is tragic that some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomenon which is statistically questionable at best,” Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) said on the House floor late Saturday night.

Luetkemeyer introduced the amendment to the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, a bill that will fund the federal government for the balance of the year. His amendment prohibits any of the money the government plans to spend this year from supporting the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body that reports on climate change science.

The amendment -- which passed on a 244-179 vote, with nine Democrats joining the majority -- would add a section to the end of the spending bill that says,

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

Luetkemeyer accused the U.N. IPCC of giving incorrect information.

“This group has been in the headlines for their activities with regard to how they are trying to tinker with the data that they put out,” Luetkemeyer said. “(W)hy would we want to fund a group of folks who are nefarious and give us incorrect information? It’s beyond me.”

During debate, however, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, challenged Luetkemeyer’s characterization of the panel and called the IPCC an “extraordinarily sound” and “nonpartisan” organization.

“This institution is a nonpartisan and technically extraordinarily sound organization,” Waxman said on the floor. “The Republican majority has already voted to prevent EPA from using funds to regulate greenhouse gases. Now we’re being asked to de-fund the work of international scientists to learn about the threat. The assumption seems to be that there is no threat, and therefore let’s not study it. I think that is not a wise assumption.”

Waxman pointed out that several of the scientists have won the Nobel Prize for their activities.

“I used to think that people from Missouri were the ‘show-me’ state,” he continued, referring to Luetkemeyer’s home state. “Now I gather what this gentleman from Missouri is suggesting is, I don’t want to know about it. And I don’t think that’s what the position ought to be of the United States Congress. Let’s learn the facts, and then decide what to do about it, and not stop trying to learn what the science is behind the global threats.”

House Republicans, however, have targeted the IPCC because the group, which releases a semi-annual assessment of the climate and the threats to populations around the globe, has admitted to a series of factual errors in its reports.

Some of the contributing scientists were also caught up in a scandal, widely known as “Climategate,” in which leaked e-mails showed a group of scientists seemingly hiding requests for the raw data they used to reach their conclusions.

After his amendment passed, Luetkemeyer released a statement, saying,

“The (IPCC) is an entity that is fraught with waste and fraud, and engaged in dubious science, which is the last thing hard-working American taxpayers should be paying for at a time of out-of-control spending and historic debt, which is why I am extremely pleased that my amendment passed.”

The amendment is one of many that the Republican-controlled House has passed that may or may not survive the Democrat-controlled Senate and ultimately land on President Obama’s desk for a signature.

The bill Congress is considering is known as a “continuing resolution” or “C.R.” because it largely continues funding the government at the previous budgeted levels, save for any amendments made. A C.R. is currently under consideration because Democrats failed to present or have a vote on an official budget for Fiscal Year 2011.

Instead, they produced a C.R. that expires on March 4, by which time Congress will need to have passed the new C.R. needed for the balance of the year.

Carbon Taxes Will Go Directly to the World Bank, Not to Developing Countries to Lower Carbon Emissions or Alleviate Poverty

Dominique Strauss-Kahn (head of the IMF) and George Soros (billionaire money-lender) call for a giant international slush fund to bankroll the infrastructure needed to implement global carbon taxes, which they need in order to tax all humans, countries and industries for emitting carbon dioxide, the very gas we exhale. The creation of revenue streams to bankroll the structure of global governance that will oversee the implementation of a “green world order” will again be up for discussion at a series of new Copenhagen process negotiations set to take place in April, May and June... Leaked policy documents reveal that the United Nations plans to create a “green world order” by 2012 which will be enforced by a structure of global governance and funded by a gargantuan $45 trillion transfer of wealth from richer countries, as the globalists’ insidious plan to centralize power and crush sovereignty while devastating the economy is exposed once again. [Paul Joseph Watson, IMF Head Calls For Huge Global Warming Slush Fund, Prison Planet.com, March 8, 2010]

As was uncovered during the Copenhagen summit, the program of “global redistribution of wealth” and transaction taxes largely centers around looting the wealth of the middle classes in richer countries and then using that money to bankroll the establishment of world government. As the leaked “Danish text” revealed, the money generated from consumption taxes will go directly to the World Bank, not to developing countries to lower carbon emissions or alleviate poverty. Under the terms of this proposal, poorer countries will not simply be handed the money pillaged from richer nations; instead, they will be forced to accept “green loans” in the name of combating climate change, a policy that would land the already financially devastated third world with even more debt, payable to globalist institutions such as the IMF. Even if you accept that global institutions, which have proven to be completely corrupt time and time again, should be empowered to steal from the rich and give to the poor, these proposals don’t even do that. This is all about bankrolling the expansion of world government and creating a giant slush fund that will be used to coerce smaller countries into allowing themselves to be ruled and regulated by a global bureaucracy funded by increasingly destitute taxpayers in the West. [Paul Joseph Watson, Globalists Plan to Dismantle Middle Class With UN Tax, Infowars.com, September 19, 2010

Nation Shall Rise Against Nation, But the End Is Not Yet

The Green Agenda

The activists behind the Global Green Agenda have established regulatory control in many societies through Agenda 21, they have written a Constitution for their transformed global society with the Earth Charter, and they have even described, in detail, how their new global system will operate in 'Our Global Neighbourhood.' However, several obstacles must be removed before the final phase of the Agenda, global governance based on a system of earth-worship, can be fulfilled:

• Firstly, a situation must arise where otherwise apathetic, or even hostile, members of society will beg for a new global system. They must feel so personally threatened that they will eagerly give up their personal liberty for the promise of safety and security. 'Our Global Neighbourhood' said the surrender of liberty is "a principle that will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation." In my opinion, global warming is currently being used as a conditioning tool with its fervent call for global unity to save a wounded planet.


• Secondly, certain nations and religious groups are unlikely to accept a new global system that involves the loss of national sovereignty, the loss of individual liberty, and reverence for the earth as a divine being...

As David Rockefeller stated, “all we need is the right crisis.” Everything is now in place. They are just building momentum and waiting for the storm they know is coming. You don’t need to look in the shadows for the coming world government: it is standing right before your eyes. When they bring “order out of chaos,” the United Nations will be transformed and the final global empire will be born.

Global Warming Alarmists Invent New Alien Hoax After Failing with Everything Else

Infowars.com
August 19, 2011

Having failed with drowning polar bears, global superstorms, rising sea levels and a myriad of other manufactured hoaxes, global warming alarmists have invented a new threat to try and persuade us to pay carbon taxes directly to Al Gore and the global elite – vengeful environmentalist extraterrestrials from outer space.

“It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim,” according to a Guardian report.

A new study conducted by researchers at Nasa’s Planetary Science Division posits that “green” ETs might get angry at Bubba driving his gas-guzzling SUV and respond by wiping humankind off the face of the earth to “protect other civilizations”.

“Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. “These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the authors write.

Is it really any wonder why polls show belief in global warming is collapsing? A recent Rasmussen survey found that 69 per cent of Americans believed scientists had likely falsified climate change data to push their agenda.

They’ve fed us with drowning polar bears, overpopulation paranoia, global superstorms and all manner of manufactured lies in an effort to terrify people into accepting the hoax and blithely handing over their carbon taxes to Al Gore and the Rothschilds, but none of it has worked. Gore’s Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has all but collapsed. The fact that they have now resorted to playing the “alien invasion” card illustrates how desperate and discredited the climate change cult has become.

There are many people who lament the decline and fall of NASA since its Apollo heydays, but if this is what taxpayer funds are being spent on, the organization’s demise cannot come soon enough.

Let’s not forget this is the same government agency that uses taxpayer dollars to fund the work of global warming activist Dr. James Hansen, the man who endorsed an eco-fascist book that called for cities to be razed to the ground, industrial civilization to be destroyed and genocidal population reduction measures to be implemented in the name of preventing climate change.

Perhaps the aliens should hire Hansen as their PR spokesman.

Hansen has received well over $1 million taxpayer dollars from NASA in the last four years to pursue his activist agenda. He is a key figure in the global warming movement, for it was his 1988 testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore that really got the ball rolling for the elite in their mission to hijack the environmental movement and promote apocalyptic fears of climate change as a means of pushing carbon taxes and a highly regulated society.

Aside from all this, why do we need aliens to destroy humanity and “save the planet”? White House science czar John P. Holdren seems to have it all in hand. Holdren’s 1977 book Ecoscience called for a “planetary regime” to carry out forced abortions and mandatory sterilization procedures, as well as drugging the water supply, in an effort to cull the human surplus.

Holdren is now in charge of “geoengineering” the planet to protect against supposed man-made climate change. For me, this represents a far greater and more imminent threat to humanity than any fantasy about alien invasions from outer space.

Read more here.

Green Agenda Has Parallels with Excesses of Communism

"The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself." - Club of Rome, Environmental Think-Tank Consultants to the United Nations

Herald Sun
July 28, 2011

In a serendipitous coincidence of timing, in the space of two hours this week, Australians were afforded a sharp, momentary insight into the two opposing ideological mindsets that are competing for the soul of our nation.

In a Sydney hotel on Monday night, Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an economist who fought against communism, was warning of the new threats to our freedom he recognises in the doctrine of global warming.

Almost simultaneously, in a Hobart casino, Greens senator Christine Milne was unilaterally announcing, on ABC-TV's Q&A show, that the Government would be conducting an inquiry into the section of the Australian media that she finds "extreme(ly) bias(ed) against action on climate change".

Milne's every illiberal pronouncement was greeted with applause by an audience that seemed full of tree huggers, bearded public servants and other recipients of government largesse, about the only growth industry left in Tasmania.

Klaus, on the other hand, was speaking to an audience of economic liberals and climate change realists invited by the Institute of Public Affairs, the Melbourne-based free-market think tank.

"Twenty years ago we still felt threatened by the remnants of communism. This is really over," Klaus said.

"I feel threatened now, not by global warming -- I don't see any -- (but) by the global warming doctrine, which I consider a new dangerous attempt to control and mastermind my life and our lives, in the name of controlling the climate or temperature."

Klaus, 70, who has twice been elected as Czech President and is its former prime minister, is one of the most important figures in post-communist Europe. His experiences under totalitarian rule have made him exquisitely alert to the erosion of democratic freedoms.

He said environmentalists had been arguing for decades that we should reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, using various farcical ploys from the exhaustion of natural resources to the threat of "imminent mass poverty and starvation for billions".

Those same environmentalists shamelessly talk now about dangerous global warming.

"They don't care about resources or poverty or pollution.

"They hate us, the humans. They consider us dangerous and sinful creatures who must be controlled by them.

"I used to live in a similar world called communism. And I know it led to the worst environmental damage the world has ever experienced."

Global warming alarmists "want to change us, they want to change our behaviour, our way of life, our values and preferences. They want to restrict our freedom because they themselves believe they know what is good for us. They are not interested in climate. They misuse the climate in their goal to restrict our freedom. Therefore ...what is in danger is freedom, not the climate".

He described the parallels he sees between the loss of freedom under communism and the new global warming doctrine.

Under communism, "politics dictated the economics and dictated life. Our main ambition during the dark communist days was to change that and create an autonomous society and autonomous economic system with only a marginal role played by politics ... I am sorry to discover now politics dictates the economics again. And the global warming debate is the same story (in which) politicians dictate the issue".

He said because of his experience of communism, "maybe I am over-sensitive. I am afraid that some of the people who spend their lives in a free society don't appreciate sufficiently all the issues connected with freedom.

"So my over-sensitivity is like an alarm clock warning about the potential development, which I am really afraid of."

With Klaus's words ringing in my ears I went home and watched a recording of Milne's performance on Q&A.

There Milne was equating those decent Australians who have been exercising their democratic right to protest at anti-carbon tax rallies with the crazed gunman who killed 76 people in Norway on the weekend.

"It's been pretty shocking around Australia over the last month or two in relation particularly to the carbon price," she said.

Coupled with her view that the voices of those in the media who are against the carbon tax ought to be investigated, it was a chilling echo of the attack on freedom Klaus had just warned against.

The speed at which the arrogance of the Greens has grown since they entered a power-sharing arrangement with the Gillard Government almost a year ago, and the shambolic acquiescence of the Government to their demands, has caught us unawares. It has lulled us into accepting as normal some remarkably illiberal ideas.

• For instance, there is the drastic reshaping of the economy by the carbon tax Gillard assured us we would not have, and its six unaccountable new bureaucracies.


• There is the media inquiry flagrantly designed by the Government and Greens to punish only the media organisation whose newspapers (such as this one) have most embarrassed them and exposed their mistakes.


• THERE is the idea that companies that create wealth and jobs for Australia are evil "big polluters", and that our most important industry, mining, should be saddled with a "super-profits tax".


• There is the idea that there is something so wrong with private school funding that an inquiry is needed, and that the Greens' policy of 30 per cent death duties on estates over $5 million is perfectly reasonable.

We are like frogs in boiling water.

Even Reserve Bank chairman Glenn Stevens this week blamed the "increasingly bitter political debate" for declining consumer confidence.

No, the bitterness of the debate comes from the fact people feel their way of life being compromised by a Government that is a rule unto itself and seems to believe it knows better than us what is good for us.

The carbon tax is a factor, but the single most unsettling event was the live cattle trade fiasco, which is still unresolved. It prompted the feeling that, if the Government can suddenly and arbitrarily stop a legitimate thriving industry in its tracks, based on a one-sided television show, with no right of reply, then what can it do to me? That is a very sobering thought.

It is what stops people shopping, and it is what makes the debate bitter.

The more the Government turns a deaf ear to the people, the louder the people shout. And then, what is the reaction of an undemocratic Government but to find ways to muzzle dissent?

The Climate Change Doctrine is Part of Environmentalism, Not of Science

Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus' Speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation on October 19, 2010

It is a great honor for me to be here tonight, getting a chance to deliver the inaugural lecture of the Global Warming Policy Foundation to such a distinguished audience.

Even though it may seem that there is a whole range of institutions both here and overseas which bring together and support those who openly express doubts about the currently prevailing dogma of man-made global warming and who dare to criticize it, it apparently is still not enough. We are subject to a heavily biased and carefully organized propaganda and a serious and highly qualified forum here, on this side of the Atlantic, that would stand for rationality, objectivity and fairness in public policy discussion is more than needed. That is why I consider the launching of the foundation an important step in the right direction.

We should keep saying very loudly that the current debate about global warming — and I agree with the Australian paleoclimatologist Prof. Carter that we should always speak about “dangerous human caused global warming” because it is not “warming per se that we are concerned with” — is in its substance not part of the scientific discourse about the relative role of a myriad of factors influencing swings in global temperature but part of public policy debate about man and society. As R. M. Carter stresses in his recent book, “the global warming issue long ago ceased being a scientific problem.”

The current debate is a public policy debate with enormous implications. It is no longer about climate. It is about the government, the politicians, their scribes and the lobbyists who want to get more decision making and power for themselves. It seems to me that the widespread acceptance of the global warming dogma has become one of the main, most costly and most undemocratic public policy mistakes in generations. The previous one was communism.

The debate has, of course, its scientific dimension but this part of the debate doesn’t belong here. I also do not intend to play the role of an amateur climatologist.

What belongs here is our insisting upon the undisputable fact that there are respectable but highly conflicting scientific hypotheses concerning this subject. What also belongs here is our resolute opposition to the attempts to shut down such a crucial public debate concerning us and our way of life on the pretext that the overwhelming scientific consensus is there and that we have to act now. This is not true. Being free to raise questions and oppose fashionable politically and “lobbystically” promoted ideas forms an important and irreplaceable part of our democratic society. Not being allowed to do so would be a proof that we have already moved to the “brave new world” of a post-democratic order. (I am tempted to say that we are already very close to it).

We need a help from the scientists. They shouldn’t only try to maximize the number of peer-reviewed articles or grants but should help the politicians as well as the public to separate environmentalists’ myths from reality. They should present relevant scientific theories and findings in such a way that would make it possible for us to decide for ourselves what to accept and what to question. I have been trying to follow the published theories for a couple of years and am strongly on the side of those who say that “carbon dioxide is a minor player. It is not the primary cause of global warming and therefore humanity is not to blame.”

Looking back at geologic time, the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physics laureate Robert Laughlin says that

“Climate change is something that the Earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission” and that “far from being responsible for damaging the Earth’s climate, civilization might not be able to forestall any of these changes once the Earth has decided to make them” (p. 11).

He adds that “the geologic record suggests that climate ought not to concern us too much when we are gazing into the energy future, not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s beyond our power to control” (p. 12).

These formulations seem to me rather persuasive.

Most of us gathered here are not climatologists or scientists in related disciplines of natural sciences, but economists, lawyers, sociologists and perhaps also politicians or ex-politicians who have been for years or decades involved in public policy debates. This is the reason why we follow with such an interest and with an even greater concern the prevailing intellectual and political climate, its biases and misconceptions, as well as its dangerous public policy consequences.

Many of us came to the conclusion that the case for the currently promoted anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is very weak. We also know that it is always wrong to pick a simple, attractive, perhaps appealing scientific hypothesis, especially when it is not sufficiently tested and non-contentiously pushed forward, and to base ambitious, radical and far-reaching policies on it — without paying attention to all the arguments and to all the direct and indirect as well as opportunity costs associated with it. The feeling that this is exactly what we have been experiencing motivated me to write a book with the title Blue Planet in Green Shackles, which was published in May 2007 and in which I attempted to put the global warming debate into a broader perspective. A year after its publication, I was extremely pleased to get a book An Appeal to Reason, A Cool Look at Global Warming, in many respects similar to mine, written by Nigel Lawson.

We are not on the winning side, but looking back, we can afford to say that since the launching of the massive global warming propaganda at the UN Rio Summit in 1992 and since its subsequent acceptance worldwide, several things happened that suggest some degree of optimism:

- the global temperature ceased rising;

- new alternative hypotheses for the explanation of climate fluctuations have been formulated;

- the reputation of the “scientific standing” of some of the leading exponents of the global warming doctrine has been heavily undermined recently (the most scandalous example being the case of the “hockey stick”, which constituted the basis of the 2001 Third Assessment Report of the IPCC);

- the Copenhagen Conference in December 2009 revealed to everyone willing to see the existing heterogeneity of views and the apparent contradictions of interests.

Yet the global warming alarmism and especially the public policy measures connected with it have been triumphally marching on. Even the recent worldwide financial and economic crisis and the enormous confusion, fear, as well as indebtedness it created did not stop this victorious “long march.”

Let me repeat the three simple facts that most of us — I hope — are aware of. We can only wish our opponents, the global warming alarmists, accept that we do not question them. Otherwise, they would continue shooting at wrong targets, which is what they — probably intentionally — have been doing up until now.

1. Let’s start with a long-term fact that the global mean climate does change. No one disputes that. It changes now, it was changing in the past and will — undoubtedly — be changing also in the future. In spite of that, we have to add that over the last ten thousand years (the era of Holocene), the climate has been much the same as at present and the average surface temperature did not vary significantly. If there has been any long term trend there has been an overall gentle cooling trend.

   Presenting the climate changes we’ve been experiencing in the last decades as a threat to the Planet and letting the global warming alarmists use this bizarre argument as a justification for their attempts to substantially change our way of life, to weaken and restrain our freedom, to control us, to dictate what it is we should and should not be doing is unacceptable.
   

   Their success in influencing millions of quite rational people all around the world is rather surprising. How is it possible that they are so successful in it? And so rapidly? For older doctrines and ideologies, it took usually much longer to get such an influential and widely shared position in society. Is this because of the specifics of our times? Is this because we are continuously “online”? Is this because religious and other metaphysical ideologies have become less attractive and less persuasive? Is this because of the need to promptly refill the existing spiritual emptiness — connected with “the end of history” theories — with a new “noble cause,” such as saving the Planet?

   The environmentalists succeeded in discovering a new “noble cause.” They try to limit human freedom in the name of “something” that is more important and more noble than our very down-to-earth lives. For someone who spent most of his life in the “noble” era of communism this is impossible to accept.

2. The second undisputable fact is that — with all the well-known problems of measurement and data collection — over the last 150 years, which is a medium-term time scale in climatology, the average global temperature has shown warming-cooling rhythms superimposed on a small upward warming trend.This trend has existed since the Earth (or rather its Northern Hemisphere because data from the Southern Hemisphere are not available) emerged from the Little Ice Age approximately two centuries ago.
   

   We also know that this new trend was repeatedly interrupted, one important example being the period from the 1940s to the middle of the 1970s, another the period of the last 10 – 12 years. The warming in the last 150 years is modest and everything suggests that also the future warming and its consequences will be neither dramatic, nor catastrophic. It does not look like a threat we must respond to.

3. The third fact is that also the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere fluctuates in time, sometimes precedes, sometimes follows the temperature increase, and that — with all the problems of not fully compatible time series — in the last two centuries we witness a mostly anthropogenically enhanced amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Its concentration increased from 284.7 ppmv in the year 1850 to 310.7 in the year 1950, and to 387.3 in 2009.

There is no need to dispute these facts. The dispute starts when we are confronted with a doctrine which claims that the rough coexistence of climate changes, of growing temperatures and of man-made increments of CO₂ in the atmosphere — and what is more, only in a relatively short period of time — is a proof of a causal relationship between these phenomena. To the best of my knowledge there is no such relationship between them. It is, nevertheless, this claim that forms the basis for the doctrine of environmentalism.

It is not a new doctrine. It has existed under various headings and in various forms and manifestations for centuries, always based on the idea that the starting point of our thinking should be the Earth, the Planet, or Nature, not Man or Mankind. It has always been accompanied by the plan that we have to come back to the original state of the Earth, unspoiled by us, humans. The adherents of this doctrine have always considered us, the people, a foreign element. They forget that it doesn’t make sense to speak about the world without people because there would be no one to speak. In my book, I noted that,

“If we take the reasoning of the environmentalists seriously, we find that theirs is an anti-human ideology” (p. 4).

To reduce the interpretation of the causality of all kinds of climate changes and of global warming to one variable, CO₂, or to a small proportion of one variable — human-induced CO₂ — is impossible to accept. Elementary rationality and my decades-long experience with econometric modeling and statistical testing of scientific hypotheses tell me that it is impossible to make strong conclusions based on mere correlation of two (or more) time series. In addition to this, it is relevant that in this case such a simple correlation does not exist. The rise of global temperature started approximately 150 years ago but man-made CO₂ emissions did not start to grow visibly before the 1940s. Temperature changes also repeatedly moved in the opposite direction than the CO₂ emissions trend suggests.

Theory is crucial and in this case it is missing. Pure statistical analysis does not explain or confirm anything. Two Chinese scientists, Guang Wu and Shaomin Yan, published a study, in which they used the random walk model to analyze the global temperature fluctuations in the last 160 years. Their results — rather unpleasantly for the global warming alarmists — show that the random walk model perfectly fits the temperature changes. Because “the random walk model has a perfect fit for the recorded temperature … there is no need to include various man-made factors such as CO₂, and non-human factors, such as Sun” to improve the quality of the model fit, they say. It is an important result. Do other models give a better fit? I have not seen any.

The untenable argument that there exists a simple causal nexus, a simple functional relationship, between temperature and man-made CO₂ is only one part of the whole story and only one tenet of environmentalism. The other, not less important aspect of this doctrine is the claim that there is a very strong and exclusively damaging relationship between temperature and its impact upon Nature, upon the Earth and upon the Planet.

The original ambition probably used to be saving the Planet for human beings but we see now that this target has gradually become less and less important. Many environmentalists do not pay attention to the fate of the people. They want to save the Planet, not mankind. They speak about Nature, not about men. For these people, the sophisticated economic reasoning we offer is irrelevant.

Only some of them look at the people. Only with them the debate about the intergenerational discrimination and solidarity and about the proper size of discount rates used in any intertemporal analysis comes into consideration, only here can the economists make use of some of their concepts. The unjustifiably low rate of discount used by the environmentalists (notably in the Stern Review) was for me the original motivation to enter the discussion.

Chapter 4 of my book was devoted to the importance of proper discounting. Nigel Lawson did something very similar in his Chapter 7 with the title “Discounting the Future: Ethics, Risk and Uncertainty.”

For him, “the choice of discount rate is critical in assessing which policies might make sense, and which clearly do not.”

I agree with him that “with a higher discount rate, the argument for radical action over global warming now collapses completely” (p. 83).

Many serious economists argue the same way and are in favor of using higher discount rates. University of Chicago Prof. Murphy says quite strongly:

“We should use the market rate as the discount rate because it is the opportunity cost of climate mitigation.”

This is what N. Stern and others clearly do not want to do. They think in misconceived ethical terms, but it is wrong. We do not deny that if the existing trend continues, rising temperatures will have both its winners and losers. Even if the overall impact happens to be detrimental — which is something I am not convinced of — the appropriately defined discount for the future will ensure that the loss of value in the years to come will be too small for the present generation to worry about.

How is it possible that so many politicians, their huge bureaucracies, important groups in the scientific establishment, an important segment of business people and almost all journalists see it differently? The only reasonable explanation is that — without having paid sufficient attention to the arguments — they have already invested too much into global warming alarmism. Some of them are afraid that by losing this doctrine their political and professional pride would suffer. Others are earning a lot of money on it and are afraid of losing that source of income. Business people hope they will make a fortune out of it and are not ready to write it off. They all have a very tangible vested interest in it. We should say loudly: this coalition of powerful special interests is endangering us.

Our interest is, or should be, a free, democratic and prosperous society. That is the reason why we have to stand up against all attempts to undermine it. We should be prepared to adapt to all kinds of future climate changes (including cooling) but we should never accept losing our freedom.

Václav Klaus, The Global Warming Policy Foundation Annual Lecture, London, October 19, 2010.

Global Warming Ideology Still on Top

The science has crumbled, but too much money backs the scare

The Washington Times
December 8, 2010

"Climate change" has suffered significant setbacks in the past year. First there was Climategate. Then the Copenhagen conference ended without binding agreements on either mitigation or adaptation. This was followed quickly by Glaciergate, Amazongate, Kiwigate and serious challenges to the credibility of Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Next, professor Phil Jones of the United Kingdom's Climatic Research Unit (and lead author of the IPCC chapter on temperatures) admitted that there has been no statistically significant warming for 15 years. Then "hockey stick" promoters finally acknowledged that there indeed was a Medieval Warm Period.

These events, coupled with the economic downturn and the education efforts of climate realists -- those who take a balanced perspective of climate change -- have impacted public opinion. Now, a significant fraction of the public regards the past century's warming as primarily natural and a human-induced global-warming catastrophe as improbable. So public support for expensive greenhouse-gas-reduction policies has eroded.

Republican climate skeptics have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives, thereby killing any chance of federal "cap-and-trade" legislation for now. Republican congressional leaders also have vowed to use every trick in the book to block Environmental Protection Agency carbon-dioxide (CO2) regulations scheduled to start on Jan. 2. And, not surprisingly, the United Nations' 2010 Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, is failing, with Mother Nature helping to dampen warming fears as an early winter sets in across the Northern Hemisphere.

Some commentators tell us that this is the beginning of the end of the climate scare. More likely, it is just the end of the beginning. If this were a hockey game, the first period would have just ended with a couple of quick goals by climate realists. But alarmists built up a 5-0 lead while realists were still learning to play. The score is now 5-2, with most of the game yet to go. While it is appropriate for realists to revel in their late-period success, it is vastly premature to celebrate.

Through the tireless work of hundreds of thousands of mostly unpaid activists, aided by unquestioning journalists, grant-seeking scientists, pandering politicians, opportunistic or naive industries and well-meaning but misinformed citizens, climate campaigners made "stopping global warming" a cause celebre. The warmists' message was pounded out, free of charge, daily for years:

"We in the West are causing a planetary emergency and the poor of the world are the primary victims."

Celebrities, leading scientists and charismatic mega-fauna such as the polar bear were recruited as the faces of responsible environmental stewardship.

As a result, massive donations from left-wing foundations poured in to groups focused on promoting alarm. With unprecedented resources at their disposal, climate campaigners hired communications and legal exerts to help craft long-term, often ruthless strategies to sway public opinion and frighten industry away from effectively defending itself. Meanwhile, throughout the 1980s and '90s, nature cooperated. Global warming, later to become "climate change," was ready for prime time.

It wasn't long before scientifically illiterate politicians faced intense pressure to "do something to save the planet." And so, instead of helping educate the public about climate realities or even seeking qualified alternative opinions, they capitulated, signing international agreements prescribing crippling restrictions on "global warming pollution." Western governments then diverted billions of dollars of public money to help finance climate alarmism, resulting in the creation of countless climate-change public- and private-sector jobs. These bureaucrats then rewarded activists with yet more grants and donations, which were used to push governments and industry to do still more.

Today, climate alarmism is de rigueur "science" in virtually all public schools, colleges and universities. Most mainstream media, corporations, even churches and essentially all environmental organizations promote the now politically correct view of human-caused climate change. Aside from President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, not a single prominent world leader contests the hypothesis that humanity's CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming. The fact that the basic science behind the scare is crumbling appears to have no impact on these groups. Instead, science is cherry-picked to prop up public policy that has more to do with pleasing vested interests and satisfying social ideology than protecting the environment.

There simply is too much money and political capital, and too many reputations are at stake for alarmists to back down. After their late first-period letdown, environmental activists have stepped up their campaign to keep governments and media from falling off the climate-change bandwagon. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars are still being funneled into promoting alarm and futile solutions. In the third quarter of this year, the McKnight Foundation alone donated $26 million to the Climate Works Foundation, a group originated in 2008 with roughly a half-billion dollars in start-up funding.

As a result, the worldwide climate movement continues to enjoy significant successes. For example, Australia's new prime minister has just called for a countrywide price on CO2. Across the world, "climate-safe energy solutions" such as wind turbines still receive billions in subsidies. This has led to soaring energy costs in many jurisdictions, where dangerous brownouts and blackouts await if such programs aren't canceled quickly and replaced by lower-cost and more effective solutions to the need for more power.

As we enter into the second period of the climate game, no one should be under the illusion that victory will be quick. Although they are still behind, climate realists finally have earned some respect. But we can be sure alarmists are strategizing to bring the contest back under their control. Now the game is going to get really interesting.

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming

FoxNews.com
September 14, 2011

The global warming theory left him out in the cold. Dr. Ivar Giaever, a former professor with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday, Sept. 13, from the premier physics society in disgust over its officially stated policy that "global warming is occurring."

The official position of the American Physical Society (APS) supports the theory that man's actions have inexorably led to the warming of the planet, through increased emissions of carbon dioxide.

Giaever does not agree -- and put it bluntly and succinctly in the subject line of his email, reprinted at Climate Depot, a website devoted to debunking the theory of man-made climate change.

"I resign from APS," Giaever wrote.

Giaever was cooled to the statement on warming theory by a line claiming that "the evidence is incontrovertible."

"In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?" he wrote in an email to Kate Kirby, executive officer of the physics society.

"The claim … is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period," his email message said.

A spokesman for the APS confirmed to FoxNews.com that the Nobel Laureate had declined to pay his annual dues in the society and had resigned. He also noted that the society had no plans to revise its statement.

The use of the word "incontrovertible" had already caused debate within the group, so much so that an addendum was added to the statement discussing its use in April, 2010."

The word 'incontrovertible' ... is rarely used in science because by its very nature, science questions prevailing ideas. The observational data indicate a global surface warming of 0.74 °C (+/- 0.18 °C) since the late 19th century."

Giaever earned his Nobel for his experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in superconductors. He has since become a vocal dissenter from the alleged “consensus” regarding man-made climate fears, Climate Depot reported, noting that he was one of more than 100 co-signers of a 2009 letter to President Obama critical of his position on climate change.

Public perception of climate change has steadily fallen since late 2009. A Rasmussen Reports public opinion poll from August noted that 57 percent of adults believe there is significant disagreement within the scientific community on global warming, up five points from late 2009.

The same study showed that 69 percent of those polled believe it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs. Just 6 percent felt confident enough to report that such falsification was "not at all likely."

Read more and here and here.