Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), other senators and
Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) recently sent letters to
institutions that employ or support climate change researchers whose work
questions claims that Earth and humanity face unprecedented manmade climate
change catastrophes.
The letters allege that the targeted researchers may have “conflicts of
interest” or may not have fully disclosed corporate funding sources. They say
such researchers may have testified before congressional committees, written
articles or spoken at conferences, emphasizing the role of natural forces
in climate change, or questioning evidence and computer models that emphasize
predominantly human causes.
Mr. Grijalva asserts that disclosure of certain information will
“establish the impartiality of climate research and policy recommendations” published
in the institutions’ names and help Congress make better laws. “Companies with
a direct financial interest in climate and air quality standards are funding
environmental research that influences state and federal regulations and shapes
public understanding of climate science.” These conflicts need to be made
clear, because members of Congress cannot perform their duties if research or
testimony is “influenced by undisclosed financial relationships,” it says.
The targeted institutions are asked to reveal their policies on
financial disclosure; drafts of testimony before Congress or agencies;
communications regarding testimony preparation; and sources of “external
funding,” including consulting and speaking fees, research grants, honoraria,
travel expenses and other monies – for any work that questions the manmade
climate cataclysm catechism.
Conflicts of interest can indeed pose problems. However, it is clearly
not only fossil fuel companies that have major financial or other interests in
climate and air quality standards – nor only manmade climate change skeptics
who can have conflicts and personal, financial or institutional interests in
these issues.
Renewable energy companies want to perpetuate the mandates, subsidies
and climate disruption claims that keep them solvent. Insurance companies want
to justify higher rates, to cover costs from allegedly rising seas and more
frequent or intense storms. Government agencies seek bigger budgets, more
personnel, more power and control, more money for grants to researchers and
activist groups that promote their agendas and regulations, and limited
oversight, transparency and accountability for their actions. Researchers and
organizations funded by these entities naturally want the financing to
continue.
You would therefore expect that these members of Congress would send
similar letters to researchers and institutions on the other side of
this contentious climate controversy. But they did not, even though climate
alarmism is embroiled in serious financial, scientific, ethical and conflict of
interest disputes.
As Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT atmospheric sciences professor emeritus and
one of Grijalva’s targets, has pointed out: “Billions of dollars have been
poured into studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of dollars have
been involved in overthrowing the energy economy” – and replacing it with
expensive, inefficient, insufficient, job-killing, environmentally harmful
wind, solar and biofuel sources.
Their 1090 forms reveal that, during the 2010-2012 period, six environmentalist
groups received a whopping $332 million from six federal agencies! That is 270
times what Dr.
Willie Soon and Harvard-Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics
received from fossil fuel companies in a decade – the funding that supposedly
triggered the lawmakers’ letters, mere days after Greenpeace launched its
attack on Dr. Soon.
The EPA, Fish & Wildlife Service, NOAA, USAID, Army and State
Department transferred this taxpayer money to Environmental Defense, Friends of
the Earth, Nature Conservancy, Natural Resource Defense Council, National
Wildlife Fund and Clean Air Council, for research, reports, press releases and
other activities that support and promote federal programs and agendas on air quality,
climate change, climate impacts on wildlife, and many similar topics related to
the Obama war on fossil fuels. The activists also testified before Congress and
lobbied intensively behind the scenes on these issues.
Between 2000 and 2013, EPA also paid the American Lung Association well
over $20 million, and lavished over $180 million on its Clean Air Scientific
Advisory Committee members, to support agency positions. Chesapeake energy gave
the Sierra Club $26 million to advance its Beyond Coal campaign. Russia gave generously to anti-fracking,
climate change and related “green” efforts.
Government agencies and laboratories, universities and other
organizations have received billions of taxpayer dollars, to develop computer
models, data and reports confirming alarmist claims. Abundant corporate money
has also flowed to researchers who promote climate alarms and keep any doubts
to themselves. Hundreds of billions went to renewable energy companies, many of
which went bankrupt. Wind and solar companies have been exempted from
endangered species laws, to protect them against legal actions for destroying
wildlife habitats, birds and bats. Full disclosure? Rarely, if ever.
In gratitude and to keep the money train on track, many of these
recipients contribute hefty sums to congressional candidates. During his recent
primary and general campaign, for example, Senator Markey received $3.8 million
from Harvard and MIT professors, government unions, Tom Steyer and a dozen
environmentalist groups (including recipients of some of that $332 million in
taxpayer funds), in direct support and via advertisements opposing candidates
running against the champion of disclosure.
As to the ethics of climate disaster researchers, and the credibility of
their models, data and reports, ClimateGate emails reveal that researchers used
various “tricks” to mix datasets and “hide the decline” in average global
temperatures since 1998; colluded to keep skeptical scientific papers out of
peer-reviewed journals; deleted potentially damaging or incriminating emails;
and engaged in other practices designed to advance manmade climate change
alarms. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based many of its most
notorious disappearing ice cap, glacier and rainforest claims on student
papers, magazine articles, emails and other materials that received no peer
review. The IPCC routinely tells its scientists to revise their original
studies to reflect Summaries for Policymakers written by politicians and
bureaucrats.
Yet, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy relies almost entirely on this junk
science to justify her agency’s policies – and repeats EPA models and hype on
extreme weather, refusing to acknowledge that not one Category
3-5 hurricane has made U.S. landfall for a record 9.3 years. Her former EPA air
quality and climate czar John Beale is in prison for fraud, and the
agency has conducted numerous illegal air pollution experiments on adults and even
children – and then ignored their results in promulgating regulations.
Long-time IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has resigned in disgrace, after
saying manmade climate change is “my religion, my dharma” (principle of the
cosmic order), rather than a matter for honest, quality science and open,
robust debate. The scandals go on and on: see here, here, here and here.
It’s no wonder support for job and economy-killing carbon taxes and
regulations is at rock bottom. And not one bit surprising that alarmists refuse
to debate realist scientists: the “skeptics” would eviscerate their computer
models, ridiculous climate disaster claims, and “adjusted” or fabricated
evidence.
Instead, alarmists defame scientists who question their mantra of
“dangerous manmade climate change.” The Markey and Grijalva letters “convey an
unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate
should cease, lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive
inconvenience and expense – and scientists holding such views should not offer
testimony to Congress,” Professor Lindzen writes. They are “a warning to any
other researcher who may dare question in the slightest their fervently held
orthodoxy of anthropogenic global warming,” says Dr. Soon. Be silent, or
perish.
Now the White House is going after Members of Congress! Its new
Climate-Change-Deniers website wants citizens to contact and harass senators
and congressmen who dare to question its climate diktats.
Somehow, though, Markey, Grijalva, et al. have not evinced any
interest in investigating any of this. The tactics are as despicable and
destructive as the junk science and anti-energy policies of climate alarmism.
It is time to reform the IPCC and EPA, and curtail this
climate crisis insanity.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A
Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org),
author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death,
and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the
Save-the-Earth money machine.
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