The Global Warming Gestapo

You don’t even have to know anything about science to understand that there is something seriously wrong with claims of imminent disaster from so-called man-made global warming. You don’t even have to pay attention to the weather. All you have to do is examine the rhetoric and actions of the global warming alarmists.

So instead of delving into the science, let’s spend some time examining the tactics of the global warming alarmists, beginning with the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, otherwise known as Hadley CRU. You may have heard recently in the news that Hadley CRU had some incriminating documents leaked, including email correspondence about their research. What is so significant about Hadley CRU? It is one of four official global climate research labs used by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Hide the Decline 
“Hide the decline”, wrote Phil Jones, head of Hadley CRU [1]. What decline was Phil Jones referring to? To the decline in global temperatures that was inconveniently compromising their political agenda, not to mention their future funding.

What else was said that Hadley CRU doesn’t want you and I to know about? Here’s one email excerpt:

So… What do you do when scientific evidence doesn’t match your thesis? If you are Hadley CRU, you manipulate the data:

And what do you do if other scientists don’t agree with you and publish research that questions or contradicts yours? If you are an IPCC-sponsored “scientist”, you get mad and attempt to silence them:

This isn’t the first time that Hadley CRU has been in the news for being — to put it nicely — very unscientific. Just this past August Hadley CRU “disclosed that it had destroyed the raw data for its global surface temperature data set because of an alleged lack of storage space.” The very data that “have been the basis for several of the major international studies that claim we face a global warming crisis.” [4]Who in their right mind would purge the raw data behind such important scientific studies? Lack of storage space? Hogwash. Data storage is cheap. Very cheap. Raw scientific data is expensive. Very expensive. Why would they destroy it? There is only one possible explanation: It didn’t support their conclusions.Back in 2005 Australian scientist Warwick Hughes wrote to Hadley CRU to ask for the data behind the IPCC’s global warming claims. He wanted to replicate their work. Hadley CRU’s response is revealing: “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” [5]

Huh? Wouldn’t Hadley CRU welcome peer review? Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, writes:

Silence the Skeptics 
Hadley CRU “scientists” aren’t alone in wanting to silence global warming skeptics. They are part of what you might call a widespread global warming gestapo. Let me introduce you to some of Hadley’s co-conspirators.

James Hansen, head of Nasa’s Goodard Institute for Space Studies, complained about the “natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process” and said that oil company executives should be locked up for denying global warming [7]. If you take Hansen’s “reasoning” (or lack thereof) to a logical conclusion, everyone who denies global warming, even if they use the scientific process to refute it, should be locked up.

Robert Kennedy Jr. said “we need to start treating [people who doubt global warming and companies like Exxon and Southern Company] as traitors” [8]. Really? No. The real traitors are people like Robert Kennedy Jr. who subvert the Constitution of the United States for the sake of global government, socialism, wealth redistribution, power and private gain, using alarmist propaganda like global warming.

The environmental magazine Grist published this by staff writer David Roberts: “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg” [9].

Heidi Cullen, host of the Weather Channel’s weekly global warming program “The Climate Code”, speaking against global warming skeptics said that “if a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval” [10]. It is clear now that it was Ms. Cullen that didn’t understand the fundamental science of climate change. And if Ms. Cullen were intellectually honest, she would voluntarily surrender her Seal of Approval.

David Suzuki, a “prominent scientist” and former member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said, speaking against conservative politicians that haven’t jumped on the global warming bandwagon: “What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act” [11]. Do you think Mr. Suzuki will be calling for Hadley CRU scientists to be thrown in jail for their criminal acts? I doubt it.

The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) censured a television station in the UK for showing an independent film documentary called “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. Why? Because the IPCC didn’t like it [12]. Journalist Brendan O’Neill writes:

David Legates, Delaware state climatologist and professor at the University of Delaware, is a skeptic of man-made global warming theory. He received a letter from the Governor of Delaware telling him that he cannot, as state climatologist, speak out against the global warming alarmism. Legates says he has “several friends who have essentially been told if you speak out as climate — on climate change, you will essentially be fired” [13].

George Taylor, Oregon state climatologist, got in trouble for his views on global warming. He said that “most of the climate change we’ve seen up until now has been as a result of natural variations.” Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski wanted to strip Taylor of his state climatologist title. Kulongoski said “I just think there has to be somebody that says … the state position on this” [13]. In other words: Never mind the truth. Forget about debate and scientific inquiry. Let’s just get a parrot for state climatologist to repeat my political position on global warming.

Al Gore said that scientists who criticize his global warming claims are part of a lunatic fringe, and he said that “the debate’s over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona” [14]. This from the fellow who claimed that he invented the internet. Speaking of moon landings, two NASA moonwalkers, Buzz Aldrin and Jack Schmitt, have publicly stated that they are global warming skeptics [26].

David Bellamy, botanist, author of 35 books, and television personality on hundreds of botany-related programs, was an early critic of the man-made global warming theory. His unwillingness to toe the party line ended up costing him his television career at the BBC. Mr. Bellamy had this to say in a recent interview [15]:

I am a scientist and I have to ­follow the directions of science but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my ­opinions.

According to official data, in every year since 1998 world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that?

The sad fact is that since I said I didn’t believe human beings caused global warming I’ve not been allowed to make a TV programme.

It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on Blue Peter and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock.

The truth is, I didn’t think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line and I wasn’t doing that.

At that point I was still making loads of television programmes and I was enjoying it greatly. Then I suddenly found I was sending in ideas for TV shows and they weren’t getting taken up. I’ve asked around about why I’ve been ignored but I found that people didn’t get back to me.

At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: “This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic,” and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we’ve seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly – and they’ve not grown for a long time.

I’ve seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies – carbon dioxide is not the driver.

The idiot fringe have accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles, it’s a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer.

The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I’m still an environmentalist, I’m still a Green and I’m still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming “problem” that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world.

Marlo Lewis is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and a vocal critic of man-made global warming. He received an email from Michael T. Eckhart, president of the environmental group the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), saying: “It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on” [35].

And the ultimate recent attempt to silence the skeptics? None other than United States President Barak Obama. Speaking at the governors climate summit, Obama claimed that “the science [of global warming] is beyond dispute… Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response” [16]. In other words, no more debate. No more inquiry. Ignore anyone who disagrees or has other evidence. Let’s get on with our political agenda of power and wealth redistribution and socialism that we established long ago on the premise of global warming, and the truth be damned.

I could go on, and on, and on, and on…. There are thousands of quotes and incidents and articles demonstrating the intolerance that man-made global warming alarmists have for opposition. If you want to read more, see “Climate Skeptics Reveal ‘Horror Stories’ of Scientific Suppression” [34] on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works web site. (http://epw.senate.gov) Then do your own internet search.

David Legates summed it all up nicely: “When you have the science on your side, you argue the science. When you don’t have the science on your side you attack the messenger” [13].

Run and Hide 
Global warming alarmists, chief of which is Al Gore, have been repeatedly challenged to public debate. In the few instances I am aware of where a debate challenge has been accepted, the global warming alarmist has lost. In most other instances the challenge to public debate has been refused or ignored. (If you can contradict this statement, please feel free to comment with your evidence.)

U.S. House Democrats invited an “unnamed celebrity witness” (none other than Al Gore) to testify at a global warming hearing back in April of this year. The Republicans decided to bring in their own “celebrity” witness, Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. When the Democrats found out it would be Monckton, they wouldn’t allow Monckton to appear. Said Monckton, “The House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face. They are cowards” [17].

Monckton had just the prior month challenged Al Gore to public debate:

Just this month the Cooperative Enterprise Institute has launched a “pledge-a-dollar drive”, promising Gore the proceeds if he accepts Lord Monckton’s challenge. Here is the text of their press release:

I pledged my dollar by emailing goredebate@cei.org. I’ll be more than happy to send that dollar if Gore steps up to the plate. But does anyone think Gore will accept the challenge? I certainly never expect him to. Gore probably knows about how Richard Littlemore of DeSmogBlog.com agreed to a radio debate with Lord Monckton, and wished afterwards that he had not. Of course in his blog afterwards Littlemore was still claiming that he was right and Monckton was “talking fiction” [23].

At an international conference on global warming back in March, Al Gore was to be on stage at the same time with Czech President Vaclav Klaus, and was to have a dialogue with Klaus on global warming. At the last minute Gore’s presentation was rescheduled for another day. The conference organizers claimed that the change wasn’t made to spare Gore from having to debate Klaus [19]. I seriously doubt that. Klaus had attempted previously to get Gore to engage in a “public exchange of views”, but with no success [21].

Back in 2007 a debate between prominent scientists was held in New York City. A pre-debate poll showed 29.9% of the audience did not believed that global warming was a crisis. After the two hour debate 46.2% didn’t believe it was a crisis. [24]

Greenpeace now conveniently has a policy that they “no longer debate people who don’t accept the scientific reality of anthropogenic [man-made] climate change” [20]. Of course not. Why argue if you can’t win?

Change the Topic
If you have ever been in a debate with someone who doesn’t have a leg to stand on you’ll probably fall victim to the “change the topic” tactic. Environmental alarmists are very good at it. Just look at how they changed the debate from global warming to the broader, more nebulous, and much easier-to-defend “climate change”. Funny how that can cover just about any weather event. Apparently they’ve learned their lesson from past failures of mother nature to cooperate with their hysteria.

Indeed, the recent global warming hysteria isn’t the first example of politicians and activists abusing science to try to further their personal agendas.

Take, for example, Obama’s “science” czar, John Holdren. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, Holdren latched on to the idea that earth was heading for another ice age due to man-made pollution. He trumpets this view in his book Global Ecology: Readings Toward a Rational Strategy for Man. Of course there was no ice age, and it wasn’t long before he jumped on the front of the global warming bandwagon. [25]

In 1991 a political organization call the Club of Rome published a book called The First Global Revolution. In it they wrote: “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.” This is the same group that back in 1972 published a report called Limits to Growth that claimed that by the year 2000 there would be an “environmental holocaust” because of overpopulation and other environmental problems. They used a computer model to back their prediction. A computer model that Aurelio Peccei, a Club of Rome founder, admitted was rigged. [27]

Now that their backs are against the wall and their pet theory of man-made global warming is increasingly debunked, I have no doubt that we’ll see a drastic shift in the environmental alarmists’ strategy. It will be interesting to see what they latch on to next. Perhaps the cooling climate will lead them to reverse their position and claim that CO2 actually causes global cooling, and that we’ll all be buried under glaciers if we don’t forfeit our freedom to a global government that they and their elitist friends will be in charge of.

Why So Desperate? 
Why are the environmental alarmists so desperate that they have to falsify their research and attempt to silence their opponents? What is it they are trying to achieve?

Money

Many environmental alarmists stand to profit directly from global warming hysteria. “Scientific objectivity on [global warming] has long ago been suspended” says William Gray, professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University. He says that scientists that disagree with the party line are not listened to and that people are being “brainwashed”, and that some scientists are afraid to speak up for fear of losing funding. [6]

Indeed, many scientists have linked their reputations and their livelihoods to their hypothesis of man-made global warming. If they are exposed as frauds, or even as just incompetents, or if governments and universities no longer recognize global warming as a problem… goodbye funding. But it isn’t just certain scientists that will lose out if the truth is known. Politicians and businessmen who have invested in “green” enterprises will see their returns dwindle or disappear.

Al Gore is the poster child of someone with a lot to lose.

Gore stands to profit much, much more. A few weeks ago the Department of Energy gave $560 million in contracts to utilities that are partnering with the Al Gore-backed “green” energy company called Silver Springs Networks. If the “green revolution” continues be pushed politically and maintains its recent trajectory, Silver Springs will reap tremendous profits, and so would Gore. [29]

According to the New York Times, Gore has “invested in partnerships and funds that try to identify and support companies that are advancing cutting-edge green technologies and are paving the way toward a low-carbon economy”, and “he has a stake in the world’s pre-eminent carbon credit trading market and in an array of companies in bio-fuels, sustainable fish farming, electric vehicles and solar power” [30].

Gore isn’t alone. The New York Times reported that “other public figures, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who have vocally supported government financing of energy-saving technologies, have investments in alternative energy ventures. Some scientists and policy advocates also promote energy policies that personally enrich them” [30].

Power

In May 2008, during a congressional hearing, John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil, and Maxine Waters, a Democrat member of the House of Representatives, had an interesting exchange. Mr. Hofmeister testified that if oil companies weren’t allowed to drill and find more supply that gasoline prices would continue to rise, following which Waters threatened the oil industry with a government takeover: “Guess what this liberal will be all about. This liberal will be all about socializ… uh uhmm [pause] Will be about [pause] basically taking over and the government running all of your companies” [31].

That is basically the agenda of the left: to take over private industry and redistribute wealth and resources by executive fiat rather than by free market forces. I’ve already posted a lengthy blog entry on the Copenhagen Agreement, a global climate change treaty that, if signed, will impose onerous regulations and taxes on industry and provide broad enforcement powers to unelected officials. [32]

Bigger government, higher taxes, more regulations: all these mean more political power for the U.N., Obama, Holdren, Gore, Kennedy, and their elitist friends. With that power they want to redistribute everyone else’s wealth and resurrect the ill-conceived ridiculous unattainable supposed-utopian socialist communist vision that has repeatedly died a barbaric death under the brutal despotic hands of power-mongering mass murderers like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro.

That is the real danger behind the Global Warming Gestapo.

References
1 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576009,00.html2 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/ 

3 http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked/

4 http://cei.org/news-release/2009/10/05/govt-funded-research-unit-destroyed-original-climate-data

5 http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTBiMTRlMDQxNzEyMmRhZjU3ZmYzODI5MGY4ZWI5OWM=

6 http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2009/aug/29/experts_challenge_climate_crisis/

7 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/23/hansen_dc/

8 http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/30859/doubting_global_warming_could_be_treason.html?cat=75

9 http://www.grist.org/article/the-denial-industry/

10 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=32ABC0B0-802A-23AD-440A-88824BB8E528

11 http://nospeedbumps.com/?p=1465

12 http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5490/

13 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0705/02/gb.01.html

14 http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/20/134405.shtml?s=ic

15 http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623

16 http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/president_elect_obama_promises_new_chapter_on_climate_change/

17 http://climatedepot.com/a/429/Flashback-April-2009-Democrats-Refuse-to-Allow-Skeptic-to-Testify-Alongside-Gore-At-Congressional-Hearing

18 http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/3765

19 http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/gore-allegedly-afraid-to-debate-klaus-on-climate/

20 http://m.democracyforum.co.uk/environment-energy/44864-iaine-dale-leeps-my-estimations.html

21 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/208338,czech-president-klaus-ready-to-debate-gore-on-climate-change.html

22 http://cei.org/news-release/2009/11/16/will-al-gore-change-his-no-debate-policy-after-cei%E2%80%99s-offer-big-bucks

23 http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hot_debate_for_warming_priest

24 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5AC1C0D6-802A-23AD-4A8C-EE5A888DFE7E

25 http://vocalminority.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/liberal-lie-15-the-right-is-against-science-the-left-promotes-it-john-holdren-obamas-science-czar.html

26 http://www.newswithviews.com/Morano/marc101.htm

27 http://www.prisonplanet.com/research-reports-obama-intimately-tied-to-phony-environmental-movement.html

28 http://www.prisonplanet.com/al-gore-set-to-become-first-carbon-billionaire.html

29 http://www.barnesville.com/archives/1610-Gore-Vulture-Capitalism-At-Its-Worst.html

30 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html?_r=2

31 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb8LTXss1Os

32 http://truthisreason.com/10/the-climate-change-conspiracy/

33 http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml

34 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=865DBE39-802A-23AD-4949-EE9098538277

35 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=04373015-802A-23AD-4BF9-C3F02278F4CF