Politics and Money in Climate Hysteria

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI, www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org) released its newest study this week, "Climate Money" written by Joanne Nova (19 pages, pdf).

Below is the "Summary for Policy Makers":

"The US government has spent over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, education campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks.

Despite the billions: 'audits' of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of the theory and compete with a well funded highly organized climate monopoly. They have exposed major errors.

Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks are calling for more carbon‐trading. And experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 ‐ $10 trillion making carbon the largest single commodity traded.

Meanwhile in a distracting sideshow, Exxon‐Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying a grand total of $23 million to skeptics—less than a thousandth of what the US government has put in, and less than one five‐thousandth of the value of carbon trading in just the single year of 2008.

The large expenditure in search of a connection between carbon and climate creates enormous momentum and a powerful set of vested interests. By pouring so much money into a question have we inadvertently created a self‐fulfilling prophesy instead of an unbiased investigation?

Can science survive the vice‐like grip of politics and finance?"

The full report can be viewed at http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf

Actually, $79 billion over 19 years (1989 to 2008) is peanuts as far as the US government is concerned. President Obama’s cap and trade bill alone will cost around $5.7 trillion of carbon tax revenues over 18 years (2012 to 2030), which is around $317 billion/year, and that’s for federal carbon taxes alone. Excluded there are carbon taxes by various states, counties and cities.

So spend $79 billion, even $150 billion over 20 years, scare the American public, scare the world, lie if you must -- for big carbon tax revenues in the future, for income taxes from carbon trading among private corporations, for the power to tell people what energy sources they can use and what they cannot use, for the arbitrary power to give away subsidies to favored power plants (solar, wind, etc.) regardless of the amount of electricity those power plants can produce, and so on.

This is not just a big scam. It is monster scam. No wonder why the ecological socialists and rent-seekers are riding vehemently on this climate hysteria.
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Last July 02, 2009,  I write this:

Politics Over Science: the US Climate Bill

I am posting here a letter by some top notch American scientists to the US Congress. I have personally heard some of them in an international climate change conference in NY last March.

Short but very clear message. Among the signatories here, Dr. Fred Singer is a co-author of the comprehensive report, "Climate Change Reconsidered" by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC, http://www.nipccreport.org/), an 880-pages paper explaining why the UN IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4) is wrong.
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TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: YOU ARE BEING DECEIVED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

You have recently received an Open Letter from the Woods Hole Research Center, exhorting you to act quickly to avoid global disaster. The letter purports to be from independent scientists, but that Center is the former den of the President’s science advisor, John Holdren, and is far from independent. This is the same science advisor who has given us predictions of “almost certain” thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.

The facts are:

The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for ten years, without help.
The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists’ computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.
The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren?

We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact

THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN’T EXIST.

The proposed legislation would cripple the US economy, putting us at a disadvantage compared to our competitors. For such drastic action, it is only prudent to demand genuine proof that it is needed, not guesswork, and not false claims about the state of the science.

DEMAND PROOF, NOT CONSENSUS

Finally, climate alarmism pays well. Many alarmists are profiting from their activism. There are billions of dollars floating around for the taking, and being taken.

Robert H. Austin
Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
American Association of Arts and Science Member National Academy of Sciences

William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
Member National Academy of Sciences

S. Fred Singer
Professor of Environmental Sciences Emeritus, University of Virginia
First Director of the National Weather Satellite Service
Fellow APS, AAAS, AGU

Roger W. Cohen
Manager, Strategic Planning and Programs, ExxonMobil Corporation (retired)
Fellow APS

Harold W. Lewis
Professor of Physics Emeritus
University of California at Santa Barbara
Fellow APS, AAAS; Chairman, APS Reactor Safety Study

Laurence I. Gould
Professor of Physics
University of Hartford
Chairman (2004), New England Section of APS

Richard Lindzen
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences, AGU, AAAS, and AMS
Member Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Member National Academy of Sciences

Climate Change Reconsidered, Cooling News in Asia

A new 2009 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), "Climate Change Reconsidered", is the report on global warming the United Nations’ climate panel should have written—but didnt.

The 880-page report was released last June 2 at the 3rd International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) in Washington DC. It rigorously critiques the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which concluded that harmful global warming “very likely” has been due to human activity in the release of greenhouse gases. The science behind that conclusion is soundly refuted in that report, coauthored by Dr. S. Fred Singer and Dr. Craig Idso.

Dull text of the report and related materials can be found at http://www.nipccreport.org.
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Cooling news, Asia and Australia

Below are some news reports that I gathered reporting cooling in other Asian countries and in Australia. This list is not complete, of course.

(1) Cold spell blamed for three deaths in sunny Thailand

Submitted by Mohit Joshi on Tue, 01/13/2009

http://www.topnews.in/cold-spell-blamed-three-deaths-sunny-thailand-2109042

Bangkok - A cold front sweeping in from China that has dropped temperatures to as low as 7 degrees celsius in parts of sunny Thailand has been blamed for three deaths, although alcohol may have contributed, media reports said Tuesday.

The high pressure system that moved into Thailand over the weekend was blamed for the death of a 71-year-old Buddhist monk in Ayutthaya province on Sunday and two men in northern Thailand on Monday, the Bangkok Post reported….

(2) Will it snow in Thailand?
January 14, 2009

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20090114-114493.html

The wintry weather that has gripped the country over the past few days has chilled Bangkok residents with the coldest air in a decade, said a top official at the Meteorological Department.

The department's Weather Forecast Bureau director Somchai Baimoung told Daily Xpress yesterday that the 15.1 degrees Celsius in Bangkok's Don Muang district on Monday was the lowest the mercury had fallen since 1999….

(3) Low pressure, cold front promise rough weather in Vietnam
April 03, 2009

http://www.travelvietnam.org/tvn/news/low-pressure-cold-front-promise-rough-weather-in-vietnam-id6974.html

The weather office warned of gusts, high seas, and rains in the next few days after a low pressure strengthened into a tropical trough off Vietnam’s central coast, and a cold front formed over the northern regions.

The Southern Hydrometeorology Station announced Thursday a low pressure to the south of Hoang Sa archipelago, 170 nautical miles from the central Danang city, had strengthened into a tropical trough with its eye 420km east of Danang and Phu Yen province, and winds blowing at 39-49km per hour…

(4) Northern Vietnam set for chilly weather

http://www.thanhniennews.com/travel/?catid=7&newsid=24688

A cold front is hovering over northern Vietnam and is expected to be followed by another, triggering a cold spell in the region.

The National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasts further reported Friday that light, scattered showers would occur in the northern and central regions while there would be heavy winds and rough seas off the central coast and in the Tonkin Gulf.

(5) It is a chill season for summer appliances in Kashmir

Rashid Paul
The Daily Rising Kashmir, June 17, 2009

http://www.risingkashmir.com/?option=com_content&task=view&id=14006

Srinagar June 17: The consumer durables industry in Kashmir is clouded by a spell of coolness this summer as cold weather has put off consumers from making purchases in summer appliances.

The market for the summer appliances like refrigerators, air conditioners, fans and coolers has dipped approximately by 90 percent, said Shafat Ahmed, a prominent dealer in refrigerators. Shafat, who owns a chain of retail outlets in the city, says the cool weather is inflicting serious damage to his business….


(6) AFGHANISTAN: Uphill struggle for potato farmers in Bamyan Province
IRIN, June 17, 2009

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84876

BAMYAN, 17 June 2009 (IRIN) - Farmers in Afghanistan’s top potato-producing province are complaining about declining profits, mainly because of cold weather, lack of storage facilities and bad roads.

Potato cultivation in Bamyan Province, central Afghanistan, employs thousands of people and output can top 150,000 tons a year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock….

(7) New Australian continent wide low temperature record set for April
Minus 13 degrees – the coldest it’s been in April

From Weatherzone – Brett Dutschke,
Wednesday April 29, 2009 – 14:58 EST

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/29/new-australian-continent-wide-low-record-set-for-april/#more-7427

A new Australian record was set early this morning, a temperature of minus 13 degrees, at Charlotte Pass on the Snowy Mountains.

This is the lowest temperature recorded anywhere in Australia in April and is 13 below the average. Nearby at Perisher it dipped to minus 11 degrees and at the top of Thredbo it dipped to minus 10.

Across the border, on the Victorian Alps April records were broken at Mt Hotham where it chilled to minus eight degrees and Mt Buller and Falls Creek where it got as low as minus seven….