Most everyone who reads HW knows we think the warmists are dangerous pranksters whose vision is of one globe under the boot of big government.  This is a most comprehensive article on the global warming hoax.  Be sure to visit the sites listed. -BB

Global warming science is “settled” they say for public consumption, but privately…

Posted on Mon, 2009-12-14 02:18

* climategate
* global warming
* huckers
* pseudo-science

In public pronouncements the warmists – the ideologists of global warming – tell us that the science is “settled.” Global temperatures are on an inexorable and dangerous upward trend, they claim. That’s because we drive naughty gasoline automobiles and other devices emitting carbon dioxide, that increase concentrations of manmade CO2 in the atmosphere. The ‘greenhouse effect’, they claim, threatens the earth’s ecosystem with irreparable damage unless those bad bad CO2 emissions are drastically curbed.

All this supposedly settled science is the basis for the recent international summit in Copenhagen, proposed ‘cap and trade’ legislation in the US Congress, and a radical shift of resources away from roads to supposedly more ‘sustainable’ modes proposed by House transportation chair James Oberstar in his 775 page 6-year Surface Transportation Authorization Act HB44.

http://transportation.house.gov/Media/file/Highways/HPP/OBERST_044

The settled science behind global warming is also claimed by the USEPA as justification for the December 7 “Endangerment Finding” and “Cause or Contribute Finding(s)” that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases “threaten public health and welfare,” laying the basis for a whole new regulatory regime restricting use of automobiles and other combustion-powered devices.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html

What would that do to toll revenues?

There are several big problems with the whole warmist/greenhouse gas supression agenda:

(1) A huge number of scientists don’t agree that the science is settled.

Indeed over 30,000 scientists have signed a petition saying “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases will in the foreseeable future cause catastrophic heating…” (reproduced nearby)

http://www.petitionproject.org/

(2) A whistleblower’s release of thousands of private emails from the center of global warming pseudo-science at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the UK shows that many of the leading warmists themselves are in a panic over the failure of the earth’s atmosphere to conform to the projections of their alarmist theory.

http://www.eastangliaemails.com for a whole searchable database of the UEA/CRU emails

For example Kevin Trenberth a ‘scientist’ on the US government payroll emailed a bunch of other leading warmists:

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can’t.”

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257.txt

Note his phrase: “lack of warming”!

For almost ten years now the trend of global mean temperatures has been flat, or if anything, a decline, not the inexorable rise in global temperatures that the warmists publicly proclaim, and which their theory demands.

In their private communications these academics and so called research scientists who have made careers out of the global warming gravy-train discuss how to discredit skeptics and how to prevent them being published.

They scheme against editors who publish skeptics.

They talk about “tricks” they use with temperature data to “hide the decline.”

Warmist Phil Jones at UEA/CRU threatened in private emails to destroy original temperature data rather than be forced to release it under freedom of information laws – so desperate are they to conceal the very unsettled state of the “science.”

Jones’ university at least has put him on “leave” and instituted an inquiry following publication of his “I’ll-destroy-data-rather-than-hand-it-over” email.

Bjorn Lomborg writes:

“What seems to have motivated the scientists involved in Climategate was the arrogant belief that that the way to save the world was to conceal or misrepresent ambiguous and contradictory findings about global warming that might “confuse” the public. But substituting spin for scientific rigor is a terrible strategy.

“So, too, is continuing to embrace a response to global warming that has failed for nearly two decades. Instead of papering over the flaws in the Kyoto approach and pretending that grand promises translate into real action, we need to acknowledge that saving the world requires a smarter strategy than the one being pursued so dogmatically in Copenhagen.”

http://www.project-syndicate.org

Capt Obama sails on oblivious

So far the US ship of state under Captain Obama plows ahead full steam on its CO2-restrictive course as if nothing has happened.

But our Christmas at least will be brightened by this Climategate medley from Minnesotans for Global Warming featuring many of the leading warmists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQXY4tWaoI&NR=1

It follows “Hide the Decline” a little musical featuring the most frenetic of the warmists Michael Mann of Penn State (CORRECTION):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk

More serious stuff at these websites:

http://climateaudit.org/

http://www.climatechangefraud.com

http://www.climatedepot.com/

http://climaterealists.com/

http://www.cfact.org

http://cei.org/issue/48

http://www.aei.org/issue/100016

http://junkscience.com/

There’s a whole long history of pseudo-scientific scares like global warming.

http://kestencgreen.com/green&armstrong-agw-analogies.pdf

Perhaps the best comment is one made back in 2003 by Michael Crichton in a talk at Caltech:

“Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re asked to believe a prediction that goes 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everyone lost their minds?”

LATE ADDITION: they really exist! http://www.minnesotansforglobalwarming.com/m4gw/

APOLOGIES: Apologies to University of Pennsylvania who we incorrectly identified as hosting Michael Mann, the most shrieky of the warmists. He’s at Penn State.

“We used to make things in this country. Now we just pick the other guy’s pocket”- The Wire, Season 2

“The EU Referendum blog has a fascinating story on how Cap’n Trade–or, as it’s called in Europe, the “emission trading scheme”–works. It seems that the Corus Group, a London-based steel maker that is a subsidiary of India’s Tata Group, is shutting down one of its plants–a plant the company bought just two years ago “as part of its strategy to give it better access to European (including UK markets) [sic].”

Closing the plant, the site explains, will give the company an ETS jackpot:

With redundancy and decommissions costs, very little of that can actually come from the process of closing down the Redcar plant. But, with a capacity of 3,000,000 tons of steel, closure of the plant will deliver further “savings” over 6 million tons of carbon dioxide, worth an additional £80 million per annum at current rates but around £200 million at expected market levels.

This, even for a company the size of Tara steel, is a considerable windfall, over and above the money it will already make from the EU scheme. But, with a little manipulation, the company can still double its money. By “offshoring” production to India and bringing emissions down – from over twice the EU level–to the level currently produced by the Redcar plant, it stands to make another £200 million per annum from the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism.

Thus we see Indian plants being paid up to £30 a ton for each ton of carbon dixoide “saved” by building new plant, while the company which owns them also gets gets paid £30 for each ton of carbon dioxide not produced in its Redcar plant. That gives it an estimated £400 million a year from the closure of the Redcar plant up to 2012–potentially up to £1.2 billion. And that is over and above benefitting from cheaper production costs on the sub-continent.

So the company gets a windfall for moving jobs from Britain to India, and the new plant will produce no less carbon than before. Brilliant, isn’t it? We can’t wait till America has such a policy.”

This severing of productivity from profit is the next major step in the financialization of the economy.

The large scale production-profit model has been in place for a few hundred years. It is remarkably simple- produce something, sell it (in quantity) for more than it costs to make, and one turns a profit. Finance was an auxillary to this model in that it was needed for starting or expanding a business, manufacturing plant, purchasing raw materials, etc. Within the past 30 years or so, Finance has become its own engine, effectively replacing manufacturing, and to a lesser extent services, as a dominant engine of wealth creation.

Now what cap ‘n trade does is turn that upside down. One can now make a profit by not producing anything at all. In fact, as Tata has proved, one can idle production and make a fantastic amount of money. The obvious downside is that only so many people can exploit this model. This leaves most of us, those for whom the production-profit model has provided wealth and comfort beyond the imaginings of our ancestors, looking at a future where a wealthy elite (because who else runs a steel consortium, or an auto maker, etc) turn a profit by idling the dominant mechanism of wealth creation.

Outside of the cap ‘n trade construct, such a proposition is the stuff of a Monty Python routine, or a biting work place satire, not a serious model of a future business practice.

The following was found floating around the tubes this afternoon. Smile, laugh, cry, gnash teeth, it is the current way of things:

I’d like to make you a business offer. Seriously. This is a real offer. In fact, you really can’t turn me down, as you’ll come to understand in a moment…

Here’s the deal. You’re going to start a business or expand the one you’ve got now. It doesn’t really matter what you do or what you’re going to do. I’ll partner with you no matter what business you’re in – as long as it’s legal. But I can’t give you any capital (unless you’re already too big to fail) – you have to come up with that on your own. I won’t give you any labor – that’s definitely up to you. What I will do, however, is demand you follow all sorts of rules about what products and services you can offer, how much (and how often) you pay your employees, and where and when you’re allowed to operate your business. That’s my role in the affair: to tell you what to do.

Now in return for my rules, I’m going to take roughly half of whatever you make in the business, each year. Half seems fair, doesn’t it? I think so. Of course, that’s half of your profits. You’re also going to have to pay me about 12% of whatever you decide to pay your employees because you’ve got to cover my expenses for promulgating all of the rules about who you can employ, when, where, and how. Come on, you’re my partner. It’s only “fair.”

Now… after you’ve put your hard-earned savings at risk to start this business and after you’ve worked hard at it for a few decades (paying me my 50% or a bit more along the way each year), you might decide you’d like to cash out – to finally live the good life.

Whether or not this is “fair” – some people never can afford to retire – is a different argument. As your partner, I’m happy for you to sell whenever you’d like… because our agreement says, if you sell, you have to pay me an additional 20% of whatever the capitalized value of the business is at that time.

I know… I know… you put up all the original capital. You took all the risks. You put in all of the labor. That’s all true. But I’ve done my part, too. I’ve collected 50% of the profits each year. And I’ve always come up with more rules for you to follow each year. Therefore, I deserve another, final 20% slice of the business. Oh… and one more thing…

Even after you’ve sold the business and paid all of my fees… I’d recommend buying lots of life insurance. You see, even after you’ve been retired for years, when you die, you’ll have to pay me 50% of whatever your estate is worth. After all, I’ve got lots of partners and not all of them are as successful as you and your family. We don’t think it’s “fair” for your kids to have such a big advantage. But if you buy enough life insurance, you can finance this expense for your children. All in all, if you’re a very successful entrepreneur… if you’re one of the rare, lucky, and hard-working people who can create a new company, employ lots of people, and satisfy the public… you’ll end up paying me more than 75% of your income over your life. Thanks so much.

I’m sure you’ll think my offer is reasonable and happily partner with me… but it doesn’t really matter how you feel about it because if you ever try to stiff me – or cheat me on any of my fees or rules – I’ll break down your door in the middle of the night, threaten you and your family with heavy, automatic weapons, and throw you in jail. That’s how civil society is supposed to work, right? This is America , isn’t it?

That’s the offer America gives its entrepreneurs. And the idiots in Washington wonder why there are no new jobs…