The Bell Tells for You
The Climate Crisis Hoax
Forbes Magazine 01.05.2011
Larry Bell, 01.05.11, 10:00 AM ESTOn this subject, there's very little to debate.
I've encountered some folks who appear offended by the title of my new book Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax. Why do you call it a "hoax"? they ask. Why not refer to the matter as a debate? The reason is quite simple: A debate describes a discussion in which participants competitively argue opposing points of view that are assumed to be based upon honest positions.
A hoax is a deceptive act intended to hoodwink people through deliberate misinformation, including factual omissions. My book is about the latter. (And by the way, it can be ordered through primary vendors, and is currently being featured on "new releases" tables at 200 major Barnes and Noble stores.)
The central lie is that we are experiencing a known human-caused climate crisis, a claim based on speculative theories, contrived data and totally unproven modeling predictions. And the evidence? Much is revealed by politically corrupted processes and agenda-driven report conclusions rendered by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are trumpeted in the media as authoritative gospel.
S. Fred Singer, former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service and University of Virginia professor emeritus commented about these sorry circumstances in the foreword of my book, stating in part:
"Many would place the beginning of the global warming hoax on the Senate testimony delivered by James Hansen of NASA [director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies] during the summer of 1988. More than anything else, this exhibition of hyped alarm triggered my active skepticism about the man-made global warming scare. This skepticism was amplified when I acted as reviewer of the first three IPCC reports, in 1990, 1996, and 2001. Increasingly claims were made for which there was no evidence; in some cases the 'evidence' was clearly manufactured. For example, the 1966 report used selective data and doctored graphs. It also featured changes in the text that were made after the scientists had approved it and before it was printed."
Other fraud is evident through public exposure of e-mail files retrieved from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's University of East Anglia. Scandalous exchanges among prominent researchers who have fomented global warming hysteria confirm long-standing and broadly suspected manipulations of climate data. The communications also reveal conspiracies to falsify and withhold information, to suppress contrary findings in scholarly publications, and to exaggerate the existence and threats of man-made global warming. Many of these individuals have had major influence over summary report findings issued by the IPCC. Still other evidence comes from mouths of government officials, international climate summit organizers and leading science spokespeople recorded in candid public admissions.
This brings us to a third, and most dangerous, lie of all--a fallacy that compelling evidence exists linking "unprecedented" climate warming to fossil CO2 emissions since the Industrial Revolution arising from an atmospheric "greenhouse effect." Alarmists project such horrors as melting Greenland and Antarctic ice that causes oceans to flood coastal areas, increasingly severe weather and hurricane trends, migration of mosquito-borne plagues northward from the tropics, destruction of coral reefs, and yeah, lest we forget, those stranded and starving polar bears and penguins.Another lie claims that there is a consensus among climate scientists that a known man-made global warming crisis exists. Official statements to the contrary presented by more than 650 international climate-related experts who presented contrary official testimony recorded in a 2008 U.S. Senate minority report suggest otherwise. So do petitions signed by more than 30,000 scientists that have challenged IPCC's 1995 procedures and report representations. Those circumstances prompted Dr. Frederick Seitz, former president of the U.S. Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, and Rockefeller University to write in The Wall Street Journal: "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer review process than events that led to this IPCC report."
And what redemptive solutions are urgently implored? We must implement carbon cap-and-trade legislation; give lots of money to the U.N. to redistribute, and empower them to preside over world governments; abandon fossil fuel use in favor of heavily subsidized but assuredly abundant, "free," and "renewable" alternatives; and empower expanding government bureaucracies to protect us from free market excesses. These include the same agencies that declared CO2 a "pollutant" (something rain forests certainly dispute), and that listed polar bears as a threatened species (despite expanding populations), presumably to discourage public support for oil and gas drilling in ANWR.
Corrupt climate science, upon which such fallacies are based, presents incalculably vast economic and social consequences. It provides justification and cover for gross regulatory intrusion by the EPA, DoE and other government agencies into agriculture, energy, transportation and construction industries; escalates food, fuel and manufacturing costs through unwarranted mandates and subsidies for otherwise uncompetitive "renewable" fuels; provokes legislation and legal suits that paralyze vital fossil energy exploration and infrastructure development; drives drilling operations and other job-supporting businesses overseas; politicizes and subverts science, education and media reporting; and defrauds hardworking taxpayers who pay many billions of dollars for honest information.
Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham contributed a statement for my book that conveys deep concern about corruption of climate science in general, and within NASA in particular: He comments that "Those of us fortunate enough to have traveled in space bet our lives on the competence, dedication and integrity of science and technology professionals who made our missions possible...In the last twenty years, I have watched the high standards of science being violated by a few climate scientists, including some at NASA, while special interest opportunists have dangerously abused our public trust."
Clearly, most proponents of man-made global warming theory are very sincere, often well-informed, people. Here, honest debate based upon facts and logic should be openly welcomed, and nothing in the foregoing should be interpreted to suggest otherwise. Some, holding strong viewpoints on both sides of the issues, may be inclined to challenge base motives and affiliations of those who disagree, and responsibility for full disclosure of any serious conflicts of interest should be expected. In this regard, being part of any science community that depends on funding from biased sponsors (including government agencies and industries), doesn't make those individuals or their work corrupt. The vast majority of all science professionals are in that situation.
Yet isn't it remarkable that Al Gore, who has recently become extremely wealthy, has never felt obliged to publicly disclose his large stakes in green market industries through his Generation Investment Management firm, or in Chicago Climate Exchange cap-and-trade legislation interests? Would you trust a financial advisor who committed the same ethical breach?
Who stands to gain from the politics of corrupt climate science? There are many culprits, and they are becoming ever more powerful. Principal among them are certain agenda-driven federal government regulatory agencies; alternative energy and environmental lobbies; a captive multibillion-dollar per year climate science industry; cap-and-trade marketers; large, associated special-interest hedge fund managers; and yes, the U.N. and other organizations seeking global resource and wealth redistribution.
While it might be overreaching to bundle certain dishonest players within various categories into a unified conspiracy theory, many of these organs of misinformation clearly do appear to be joined at a common colon. Either way, the end results are much the same.
Weekly columnistLarry Bell is a professor at the University of Houston and author of Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax, which can be previewed and ordered at:www.climateofcorruption.com.