Climate of Fraud

November 25, 2009 4:00 AM

What do hacked e-mails tell us about global-warming research?

An NRO Symposium

The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit’s e-mail account was hacked earlier this month, exposing communications among CRU faculty members and researchers that reveal their willingness to distort climate-change data. Do those e-mails mark a sea-change moment in the global-warming debate? National Review Online asked environmentalism experts to weigh in.


H. STERLING BURNETT
Why anyone should be surprised by this, I don’t know. Twenty years ago, Steve Schneider of Stanford stated that to be effective advocates on the issue of global warming, scientists would have to “offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” His disciples have tried to suppress criticism of the “hockey stick” graph; when that proves impossible and researchers such as Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick expose the graph’s deep flaws, they settle for ignoring or downplaying the problem.

And all of this with the cooperation of the mainstream media. Even when errors are found and admitted to, “legitimate journalists” such as those at the New York Times and the Washington Post, rather than asking hard questions of the scientists who have made the errors or conducting independent investigations, have simply given these scientists a platform to say, “Yeah, we were wrong, but the error was not important.” The reporters never question the claim that the errors aren’t important.

↓ Keep reading this article ↓

Desperate Dems

Posted 11/05/2009 07:33 PM ET

Politics: Despite the whipping they took in Tuesday's election, congressional Democrats are moving fast on cap-and-trade and health care. Are they politically tone-deaf, or is this some kind of desperate strategy?

Our guess is that Democratic leaders, having gotten a very negative message from the off-year balloting, are moving as fast as they can to pass the main big-spending items on their unpopular agenda. If they don't act now, the know their radical agenda is dead.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats hustled the cap-and-trade bill out of committee without so much as a hello-and-howdy to the Republicans — knowing full well the GOPers would oppose it.

All this haste, even though global participants in the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks planned for December agree that any CO2-cutting deal is probably a year away.

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in the House want a Saturday showdown for their $1.2 trillion health care takeover after trumpeting support from the AARP and American Medical Association.

As the publication The Hill noted, Democratic leaders are still scrambling to "placate party factions threatening to defeat the health care bill over hot-button issues such as spending, immigration and abortion." They need 218 votes in the House, and they don't seem to have them.

What's the big hurry for a bill that won't even go into effect until 2013? And why act with such haste to move the cap-and-trade bill out of committee? The only obvious answer is Democratic leaders are running scared. Yet there's an element of self-delusion to their strategy.

Just listen to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi>>>

Is Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty?

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Factoids

Submitted by Samah Elsayed on Thu, 2009-10-15 23:49

Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event where bloggers worldwide combine their energies to highlight a specific issue. Over 10,000 sites from more than 150 countries, are participating in this years discussion on climate change.

As part of EarthTrends contribution we will be highlighting a few key climate change trends and statistics.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by nearly 30% over the last century.

Figure 1: Global Atmospheric CO2>>>

Going Back In Time

Posted 09/24/2009 06:53 PM ET

Environmentalists: What sort of future are green groups pushing us toward? If they get their way, it will be one that won't look much different than the world our great-grandparents were born into.

While some want to put an end to soft toilet paper, the Brits are moving toward a regime in which workers who discharge "more than their fair share of carbon emissions" will have their pay docked. Meanwhile, in California, regulators are hoping to ban big-screen TVs.

There are no limits to which environmentalists won't go to, to put limits on human freedom and progress. Not even our personal choice of toilet paper is beyond what they believe to be their business. The Washington Post reported Thursday that environmentalists have been campaigning against soft toilet paper because of the timber needed to make it.

"We don't need old-growth forests ... to wipe our behinds," said Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council who presumes that he speaks for everyone.

The thinking in Britain is no clearer than it is here. Last week the London Times reported that a trial program in which employees are fined for exceeding their personal carbon dioxide emissions caps will be extended.

"The rationing scheme monitors employees' personal emissions, including home energy bills, petrol purchases and holiday flights," writes Times environmental editor Ben Webster. "Employees are required to submit quarterly reports detailing their consumption. They are also set a target, which reduces each year, for the amount of carbon they can emit."

The maximum fine is $164, but it's "likely to>>>

Greens Vs. Solar

Posted 09/23/2009 07:09 PM ET

Environmentalism: The ditching of a desert renewable-energy project shows just how difficult it is to maintain our standard of living while pleasing the purists. Maybe we shouldn't even try.

Anyone who has set foot on a dry lake bed in California's Mojave Desert knows the meaning of barren. There's not much growing or moving there — just hot sun beating down on parched earth. So why not use it for a solar farm, since nothing else can be done with it?

That train of thought has led a number of solar power companies, backed by utilities and encouraged by the federal government, to propose big energy facilities in the wide-open spaces between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Huge swaths of that land are under federal ownership, and a law passed in 2005 opened up most of those federal holdings for solar and wind energy projects.

A land rush has ensued, with firms such as Oakland Calif.-based BrightSource Energy staking out sites to develop solar power plants.

The technology to be used is called "solar thermal." Rather than convert sunlight directly into electricity (photovoltaics), solar thermal plants use mirrors to heat water with sunlight and create steam to power electric generators.

Of all the solar technologies in use or on the drawing board, solar thermal is the cheapest per watt. With the right economies of scale, it also seems to stand the best chance of getting the price of its power down to that of coal-fired plants.

But those economies of scale are part>>>

The Story Of My Life !