We must take steps to un-do the corruption of government funded science

8/28/10, "Many people have come to understand that the climate scam involves collusion between corrupt politicians and dishonest scientists. The problem however, is much broader even than Al Gore. Science is critical to our modern existence. Large amounts of public money are spent on a wide range of scientific activities each year; a practice that has become the heart of the problem.

• Yet, precious little focus has been placed on developing reforms

• to undo the ongoing damage.

The climate change example has demonstrated that scientific integrity can be compromised with money. This doesn’t mean that all scientists are dishonest. But experience shows that these kinds of problems, involving insufficiently safeguarded access to money, tend to grow. Indeed, as more money was offered to a broader group of scientists during Al Gore’s political tenure, we discovered that many scientists are willing to compromise at least a little. When funding was offered to virtually any scientist who was willing to include an untested support phrase for man-made global warming in final reports and articles, propagandists got the result they wanted; a large number of published papers containing a gratuitous statement of support.

• (Publishing scientists cited reports that claimed that man-made global warming is really bad and destined to get worse without containing any research to test the claims.)

Those who compromised got funding and published papers, padding out their resumes and improving their chances of more funding and greater numbers of research students. Those who did not compromise would later be characterized as lesser scientists by those who did, based on having received less funding and having published fewer papers in “climate science,” an activity now nearly completely defined by paid support for a political agenda. The snowballing continues as

• increased taxation and spending related to global warming is one of the key goals in the Obama agenda; it’s execution already involving impeachable abuses of power and
  

• open corruption in the EPA. The argument for their agenda is that they are supported by a “scientific consensus.”

The circle of corruption is almost complete. As children were indoctrinated with the fake science, they (and many others) were pushed to a level of ignorance previously thought impossible in the modern, civilized world. Millions accepted, in effect, the outlandish superstitious idea that insufficient sacrifice to and worship of the leftist Political Class would summon the wrath of nature.

• The social, emotional, and intellectual damage caused by such well-funded misinformation campaigns is immeasurable.

Corrupt use of experts is not confined to research. It is common practice for politicians and bureaucrats to construct commissions to investigate policy issues, padded with members who they can trust will recommend the policies that they desire. Policies are then constructed based on commission reports,

• allowing bureaucrats to sidestep lack of real justification and to ignore public criticism. (Related article on publicly funded EPA propaganda campaign.)
  

Commission members can easily be found among academics who have built careers on public funding and have shown a willingness to compromise on other occasions. They can even be drawn from the population that owes their appointments to cronyism; providing them with pseudo-qualifications by job title and position history. (Even in Supreme Court appointments. This is how the Political Class operates.)

• In reaching toward One World Government, US government funding has even been causing chaos in other countries.
  

Using counter-terrorism related funding, the Department of Homeland Security has been able to fund technical research and development in all politically friendly nations. This gave an unprecedented level of control to a US bureaucracy in effecting strategic research throughout the Western World. Thinking it a good deal, and feeling some obligation to join a unified front against terrorism, politicians accepted the offer and reorganized their strategic research plans toward a “cooperative” plan. This sometimes involved dropping some of the most promising and critical research being done in their own countries; decisions that will ultimately weaken the Western alliance economically and militarily.

What to do? Certainly, public funding for science and engineering has historically produced enormous benefits. It would be easy to respond to the misuse of the power of funding by politicians by simply arguing for greater scientific independence. But we know that scientists are people too, subject to temptation like everyone else. One should also consider that mission focused research and development in some areas, such as military technology, is critical. Advancements in energy production, storage, distribution, and use throughout our history (not all publicly funded) have dramatically improved our lives and will likely lead to economically sound alternative energy sources in the future. Someone has to decide how and how much public money should be spent.

• How do we allow continuous spraying of funds into the right areas while assuring that holes are not being poked in the hose?
  

How do we sustain an effective public effort while checking the influence of our government representatives?"

• "What about the destructive influence of US government funding on science?" by Roger F. Gay, Mens News Daily

The US taxpayer via the government has funded the ClimateGate group every year since 1990, to the sum of at least 131,000UK pounds per year:

• from Times UK, 7/18/10
  

"The US Department of Energy (DoE) was one of the (East Anglia CRU) unit’s main sources of funding for its work assembling a database of global temperatures.

• It has supported the CRU financially since 1990 and gives the unit about £131,000 a year on a rolling three-year contract."...

(The above article mentioned payments were going on slight hiatus, but they've no doubt resumed ten-fold. There are of course many other ways US taxpayers have "contributed" to global warming "research" they never know about).

• via Tom Nelson

"What the Chinese really think about 'man-made global warming'"

• Robert Redford raises himself to the level of Frank Luntz (who dreams things up for money) when he claims that US cap and trade would mean we'd have a chance to beat China in a so-called race for 'green jobs.'

8/12/10: "One of the great lies told us by our political leaders in order to persuade us to accept their swingeing and pointless green taxes and their economically suicidal, environmentally

• vandalistic wind-farm building programmes is that if we don’t do it China will.

Apparently, just waiting to be grabbed out there are these glittering, golden prizes marked “Green jobs” and “Green technologies” – and if only we can get there before those scary, mysterious Chinese do, well, maybe the West will enjoy just a few more years of economic hegemony before the BRICs nations thwack us into the long grass.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. The Chinese do not remotely believe in the myth of Man-Made Global Warming nor in the efficacy of “alternative energy”. Why should they? It’s not as if there is any evidence for it. The only reason the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming myth has penetrated so deeply into Western culture is… No. I’m going to save that stuff for my fairly imminent (Nov?) book on the subject which I hope you’re all going to buy.

What do the Chinese think about CAGW? Well, until now it was largely a question of educated guesswork, based on inferences like the fact that it was the Chinese who derailed the Copenhagen negotiations. But thanks to a new book called Low Carbon Plot by Gou Hongyang we know exactly what the official view is....

Here, for example, is the author’s damning verdict on the Climate Change industry. Noting the irony of the spate of freezing cold weather that greeted the Copenhagen summit, the author wrily notes:

It was as if the freezing cold winter was having a laugh at all of these “Global Warming” theories. If the world was warming at an ever quickening pace, as all of these environmentalists say, then whence from such extreme cold? Whenever there are any doubts about Global Warming, it is almost as though environmentalists turn everything around and claim that this is too, a result of Global Warming. The Greenhouse Effect has turned in to a big basket, no matter what bad thing it is, just chuck it in.

He is even more damning about solar power in which, let it not be forgotten, China is supposed to be the world’s most shining example of just how well it can work.

First, he neatly captures the wishy-washy, John-Clare-esque pastoral utopianism which drives greenies to throw commonsense out of the window and pursue “renewable energy” regardless of all the facts:

Isn’t this the most beautiful thought possible, no pollution, everywhere is just greenery mountains and rivers, people won’t need to worry about coal mines collapsing, no need to worry about forests being chopped down, no need to worry about rising sea levels submerging island nations. It is as if, if only humanity could adopt clean energy, then all of our problems would be resolved with one sweep of the knife. But is the result really thus?

There is a very real problem staring everybody in the face. Solar power, wind power, can they be implemented on a large scale? Can they provide large scale industries with enough electricity? Can they supply trains with the power to fly along the tracks?

It is obvious, that the answer is in the negative.

He then – rather daringly, I think – weighs into the environmental unsoundness of this supposedly clean energy source:

Is solar power really clean? Investigations show that the base silicon that solar panels rely on is extracted via a energy intensive, heavily polluting industry. And where is this industry based? China.

China has already become the world’s biggest photovoltaic industrial market. The most important ingredient in solar power is polycrystalline silicon. The efficiency of manufacturing the panels is rather low, and a lot of pollution is generated as a by-product. When local industries started producing polycrystalline silicon, they were mostly reliant on outdated technology. Apart from high energy consumption, for every ton of pure polycrystalline silicon created, there were also more than 8 tons of ammonium chlorid[adized] silcon as by-product, as well as [other shit that a cursory look at google translate doesn't answer].

The prosperity of China’s solar power industry, at the price of the environment of those rather weak distant regions, in order to attract commerce and investment, in order to collect tax revenue, very many environmental appraisal programmes have not yet been strictly implemented.

Here is the author eloquently demolishing the Carbon = Poison meme:

Will the increase in Carbon Dioxide definitely lead to the planet warming? Although there have been many many reports published by research institutes that verify this, but from the viewpoint of the history of man, and scientific method, the theories have not yet achieved scientific proof.

But, after many years of repeated indoctrination from every kind of propaganda machine, and the mixing together of environmental pollution and the exhaustion of natural resources, people have already formed a conditioned reflex, when the wind blows, the grass bends with it, and quickly hang these things on the hook of “carbon”, and attempted to get rid of carbon at a faster rate. We need to start peeling, and get back to the real world, and cannot stick labels everywhere. “Carbon” is the same “carbon” it was before, we must not get in to too much of a fluster. It is with polluted water/effluent, acid rain, destructive logging and waste with which we must struggle over the long term.

And here he is concluding that it is a fiendish plot – a new Cold War to all intents and purposes – by the West to suppress the economic growth of the BRICS nations.

• "Behind the back of the demonizing of “carbon”, we must recognize that it is the sinister intention of the Developed Countries to attempt to use “carbon” to block the living space of the Developing Countries.

• There is only one Earth, natural resources are limited. If according to current technological conditions, and Developing Countries had the same living standard as Developed Countries, then we’d need at least 3 to 5 Earth’s to satisfy our appetites. This is what Developed Countries are most afraid of, the development of the Developing Countries poses an enormous threat to their way of lives....

• In the eyes of some Westerners, the many developing countries have absolutely no right to enjoy the same standard of life as them.

• If we really are equal, are of one mind, and together protect the Earth – our garden, we really can see a beautiful utopia in the future. But the Developed countries do not in the slightest wish to take any responsibility, they have set up double standards over “carbon emissions”, everywhere reflecting their arrogance and selfishness.

• Behind “the Carbon Plot” is national interest, it is the bitter struggle for the right to existance for every country.
  

• At this time, we again see the struggle between two camps, Europe, the USA and other developed countries, and China, India, Brazil, and Russia as the representatives of the Developing Countries, owing to their common interest, now walking closely together."

Personally, I think his conclusion says more about BRICs chippiness and paranioa than it does socio-political actualite.

• The CAGW scam owes much more to an attempted power grab by the left in order to achieve “environmentally” in the 21st century what it couldn’t achieve economically in the 20th Century, viz: total state control of the means of production, in the guise of ecological correctness.

But it doesn’t really matter whether the author is right or wrong in what he thinks. What matters is simply that this IS how the Chinese think, which, whether you love China or loathe it

• is fantastically good news for those of us in the realist/sceptics camp.
  

China, after all, is the world’s future dominant economic power and, this being so, it makes an absolute nonsense of attempts by the EU and the US to hamper our industrial growth by imposing on our economies

• eco-taxes and eco-regulations which the Chinese intend to ignore completely.

This truth hasn’t hit home yet: not in the EU; not in the Cleggeron Coalition; not in Obama’s USA. Here’s my bet. The first to see sense on this will be whichever Republican administration takes over from Obama’s one-term presidency in 2012. From that point on – by which time we’ll have had two more exceptionally cold winters to concentrate our minds – British and European environmental policy will look increasingly foolish and irrelevant." ***

• Great piece except I question the ending-the Republican Party still does not exist in the US. Those who control the apparent 'business side' of the entrenched GOP are determined to re-elect Obama. On top of that, from what I see of new guys elected on the Republican line such as Scott Brown and Chris Christie, they're already completely detached from American voters. ed.

article via Prison Planet

• P.S. If you gave a billion dollar grant to an impoverished nation in Africa or a small island nation in the Pacific for a 'jobs' program, the money would eventually run out.

The jobs would mostly be temporary, transferred from productive people elsewhere. Unless people develop their own industry, they will always be poor. This is what is happening now, as a Chinese poet describes communism and tyranny:

• "I felt that I wanted to drink some water but you
  
• used a kiss to block off my mouth
  
• I don’t want to leave and I don’t want to cry
• Because my body is already withered and dry"...

poem via American Thinker

• (The few words of that poem made me think of the George Soros method).

UK carbon schemes well set up for organized crime, 'green' taxes pile on already struggling companies

8/9, Central Europe's largest utility "CEZ stops some carbon trade over fraud suspicions," Reuters,

• "A 5 billion euro ($6.65 billion) tax evasion scam in carbon trading in at least 11 countries" is being investigated by authorities.
  

8/10, "Business facing a wave of green taxes," Telegraph UK, by Kirkup, Wallop, and Gray

• "From April 2011, firms will need to buy permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide emitted.

Companies that fail to register their energy use by next month will be hit with fines that could reach £45,000

• under the little-known rules.

Those that do participate in the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) initiative by declaring their energy use will face charges for every ton of greenhouse gas they produce.

• These payments are expected to average £38,000 a year for medium-sized firms, and could reach £100,000 for larger organisations.

Surveys have shown that

• thousands of businesses are unaware they are supposed to be taking part,
  
• or even that the scheme exists at all.

The imposition of new charges and fines will put pressure on firms at a time when economists are

• warning of a “double dip” recession as companies, consumers and the public sector all
  
• cut their spending....

The scheme is intended to create a financial incentive

• to cut energy use,
  

and those organisations that record the biggest reductions will get bonuses, funded by penalties imposed on those with the worst record.

• Of about 4,000 organisations estimated to qualify for the scheme, only 1,229 have registered to date,
  
• leaving thousands at risk of fines....

Another 15,000 smaller organisations are also required to register and could be expected to buy permits in the future. If they miss the September deadline, they face fines of £500....

• The Environment Agency, which will run the scheme for the Government,
  
• has refused even to publish a list of the companies that are required to register.

The Coalition is pressing ahead with the CRC despite Conservative pledges to cut red-tape on businesses.

• Business groups said the paperwork and costs involved in complying with the CRC scheme could put a
  

• significant new burden on companies already struggling
  

• in an uncertain economic climate.
  

The Bank of England is expected to underline fears about the economy today with forecasts for

• faltering economic growth and persistent inflation.

• Yesterday, the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply reported
  

• a slowdown in British manufacturing exports to Europe."...

6/22/10, "UK raises VAT tax to 20% in budget," RTE News. (VAT tax countries are most easily exploited

• by organized crime carbon trading).

via Tom Nelson

35th anniversary of the term "global warming"

"I strongly doubt whether Wally Broecker realised that when his 1975 Science paper was titled "Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?"

• he knew that the term would go on to gain such international traction."...Guardian UK, Environment blog, "Is is time to retire the term 'global warming'?"
  

Time to retire another member of the Ruling Class, Senator Sam Brownback (R) Kansas over 'wind' pork

Senator Sam Brownback, (R) Kansas wants "wind" dollars pretty bad. That means abandoning the country and jumping on board with 'climate' profiteers. A concerned citizen writes an open letter to him about how wrong this is.

• A Commenter to the letter says this is a great example of how our entire political system is now an open pig call, in effect:

"Jon Boone { 08.01.10 at 10:29 am }

"Nothing exemplifies the rot at the core of our political culture like the ongoing bipartisan rush to the bottom in support of wind technology subsidies. For those who think the Obama Administration is pushing wind as part of a “liberal” agenda, let me suggest they look at the

• recent activities of former president George W. Bush, who is now a poster boy for the American Wind Energy Association:http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/05-19-10-Speakers_at_WindPower2010.html.

As governor of Texas, Bush signed into law one of the early RPS bills, then appointed the head of the Texas Public Utility Commission, Pat Wood, to “put in place non-discriminatory transmission policies,” assuring wind would not pay its fair share of the costs of doing business.

Sam Brownback is merely securing pride of place at the public trough, joining colleagues like North Dakota’s Byron Dorgan and Chuck Grassley from Iowa, among many others on both sides of the aisle–from Boxer to Snowe, from Mikulski to Landrieu. And, hey, let’s not forget Lindsey Graham.

Using public funds to pimp for the wind welfare queen brings us all together, in the process corrupting

the heart and soul of our body politic."

from 8/1, "Open letter to Senator Brownback on his support for a federal renewable energy standard" by Thomas Stacy II, MasterResource blog

• via Tom Nelson