CLIMATEGATE 2.0 EXPOSES CLIMATE SCIENCE HYPOCRISY ON EVE OF UN's DURBAN CONFERENCE
BlueMax372
2011/11/23 16:03:08
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 23, 2011
Climategate 2.0 exposes climate science hypocrisy on eve of UN's Durban Conference
A second batch of leaked emails from scientists working on board and alongside the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have come to light. They contain shocking revelations which show an insular cadre of climate scientists coordinating efforts to place advocacy ahead of science, stifle dissent, and conceal information which detracts from a preconceived, ideologically driven, global warming narrative.
This shockingly candid look at the machinations of the high priests of global warming has given rise to renewed demands that the EPA, EU and global community cancel existing plans and programs designed to radically lower or cap and tax carbon emissions. These misguided policies already have created economic havoc in Europe, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. and pose a major threat to the world economy.
Marc Morano, publisher of CFACT’s ClimateDepot.com, said that the emails, known collectively as Climategate 2.0, “arrived to drain what little life there was left in the man-made global warming movement.”
The new emails led Morano to conclude that they “... further expose the upper echelon of the UN IPCC as being more interested in crafting a careful narrative than following the evidence.” He notes, for example, that Penn State professor Michael Mann stated in one email that, “The important thing is to make sure they're [climate skeptics] losing the PR battle.” The University of East Anglia's Keith Briffa (a colleague of the already discredited EAU Climate Research Center head Phil Jones) also chimed in, “I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!”
The revelations come just as thousands are preparing to descend on Durban, South Africa, for the IPCC's COP 17 Climate Change conference that begins on November 28th. CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker noted that “The release of these emails is yet another major setback for alarmists who are hyping fears over climate change in order to exercise influence over ever-increasing segments of the U.S. and world economy.”
CFACT, which has been a fully accredited non-governmental organization at these UN events for two decades, will be closely monitoring and offering daily reports on the developments in Durban. Rucker says the new emails provide even stronger reasons to oppose such radical Green initiatives as the World Wildlife Fund-Oxfam proposal for a new $25 per ton global tax on shipping with the goal of curtailing carbon emissions; the call by Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for a new climate tax on worldwide financial transactions; and a proposed new “sustainability treaty.”
As Rucker notes, “The real agenda of the climate radicals is to promote massively expanded government regulation worldwide, at the expense of jobs creation and economic growth. The policies they advocate will do the greatest harm to the world's poorest people and ensure that citizens of developing nations have no chance at true freedom and prosperity.”
Go to www.CLIMATEDEPOT.com for details on Climategate 2.0. More information on CFACT's mission to Durban at www.CFACT.tv. Also at www.CFACT.org, &www.CFACT.eu.
A second batch of leaked emails from scientists working on board and alongside the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have come to light. They contain shocking revelations which show an insular cadre of climate scientists coordinating efforts to place advocacy ahead of science, stifle dissent, and conceal information which detracts from a preconceived, ideologically driven, global warming narrative.
This shockingly candid look at the machinations of the high priests of global warming has given rise to renewed demands that the EPA, EU and global community cancel existing plans and programs designed to radically lower or cap and tax carbon emissions. These misguided policies already have created economic havoc in Europe, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. and pose a major threat to the world economy.
Marc Morano, publisher of CFACT’s ClimateDepot.com, said that the emails, known collectively as Climategate 2.0, “arrived to drain what little life there was left in the man-made global warming movement.”
The new emails led Morano to conclude that they “... further expose the upper echelon of the UN IPCC as being more interested in crafting a careful narrative than following the evidence.” He notes, for example, that Penn State professor Michael Mann stated in one email that, “The important thing is to make sure they're [climate skeptics] losing the PR battle.” The University of East Anglia's Keith Briffa (a colleague of the already discredited EAU Climate Research Center head Phil Jones) also chimed in, “I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!”
The revelations come just as thousands are preparing to descend on Durban, South Africa, for the IPCC's COP 17 Climate Change conference that begins on November 28th. CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker noted that “The release of these emails is yet another major setback for alarmists who are hyping fears over climate change in order to exercise influence over ever-increasing segments of the U.S. and world economy.”
CFACT, which has been a fully accredited non-governmental organization at these UN events for two decades, will be closely monitoring and offering daily reports on the developments in Durban. Rucker says the new emails provide even stronger reasons to oppose such radical Green initiatives as the World Wildlife Fund-Oxfam proposal for a new $25 per ton global tax on shipping with the goal of curtailing carbon emissions; the call by Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for a new climate tax on worldwide financial transactions; and a proposed new “sustainability treaty.”
As Rucker notes, “The real agenda of the climate radicals is to promote massively expanded government regulation worldwide, at the expense of jobs creation and economic growth. The policies they advocate will do the greatest harm to the world's poorest people and ensure that citizens of developing nations have no chance at true freedom and prosperity.”
Go to www.CLIMATEDEPOT.com for details on Climategate 2.0. More information on CFACT's mission to Durban at www.CFACT.tv. Also at www.CFACT.org, &www.CFACT.eu.
- # # # -
Top Opinion
-
Quietman ~PWCM~JLA 2011/11/23 16:14:19
“Our response to disturbing information is very complex. We negotiate it. We don’t just take it in and respond in a rational way,” said Norgaard.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared in 2007 that greenhouse gases had reached levels not seen in 650,000 years, and were rising rapidly as a result of people burning fossil fuel. Because these gases trap the sun’s heat, they would — depending on human energy habits — heat Earth by an average of between 1.5 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by century’s end. Even a midrange rise would likely disrupt the planet’s climate, producing droughts and floods, acidified oceans, altered ecosystems and coastal cities drowned by rising seas.
“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, when the report was released. “This is the defining moment.”
Studies published since then have only str...
“Our response to disturbing information is very complex. We negotiate it. We don’t just take it in and respond in a rational way,” said Norgaard.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared in 2007 that greenhouse gases had reached levels not seen in 650,000 years, and were rising rapidly as a result of people burning fossil fuel. Because these gases trap the sun’s heat, they would — depending on human energy habits — heat Earth by an average of between 1.5 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by century’s end. Even a midrange rise would likely disrupt the planet’s climate, producing droughts and floods, acidified oceans, altered ecosystems and coastal cities drowned by rising seas.
“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, when the report was released. “This is the defining moment.”
Studies published since then have only strengthened the IPCC’s predictions, or suggested they underestimate future warming. But as world leaders gather in Copenhagen to discuss how to avoid catastrophic climate change, barely half the U.S. public thinks carbon pollution could warm Earth. That’s 20 percent less than in 2007, and lower than at any point in the last 12 years. In a Pew Research Center poll, Americans ranked climate dead last out of 20 top issues, behind immigration and trade policy.
Wired.com talked to Norgaard about the divide between science and public opinion.
Wired.com: Why don’t people seem to care?
Kari Norgaard: On the one hand, there have been extremely well-organized, well-funded climate-skeptic campaigns. Those are backed by Exxon Mobil in particular, and the same PR firms who helped the tobacco industry (.pdf) deny the link between cancer and smoking are involved with magnifying doubt around climate change.
That’s extremely important, but my work has been in a different area. It’s been about people who believe in science, who aren’t out to question whether science has a place in society.
Wired.com: People who are coming at the issue in good faith, you mean. What’s their response?
Norgaard: Climate change is disturbing. It’s something we don’t want to think about. So what we do in our everyday lives is create a world where it’s not there, and keep it distant.
For relatively privileged people like myself, we don’t have to see the impact in everyday life. I can read about different flood regimes in Bangladesh, or people in the Maldives losing their islands to sea level rise, or highways in Alaska that are altered as permafrost changes. But that’s not my life. We have a vast capacity for this.
Wired.com: How is this bubble maintained?
Norgaard: In order to have a positive sense of self-identity and get through the day, we’re constantly being selective of what we think about and pay attention to. To create a sense of a good, safe world for ourselves, we screen out all kinds of information, from where food comes from to how our clothes our made. When we talk with our friends, we talk about something pleasant.
Wired.com: How does this translate into skepticism about climate change?
Norgaard: It’s a paradox. Awareness has increased. There’s been a lot more information available. This is much more in our face. And this is where the psychological defense mechanisms are relevant, especially when coupled with the fact that other people, as we’ve lately seen with the e-mail attacks, are systematically trying to create the sense that there’s doubt.
If I don’t want to believe that climate change is true, that my lifestyle and high carbon emissions are causing devastation, then it’s convenient to say that it doesn’t.
Wired.com: Is that what this comes down to — not wanting to confront our own roles?
Norgaard: I think so. And the reason is that we don’t have a clear sense of what we can do. Any community organizer knows that if you want people to respond to something, you need to tell them what to do, and make it seem do-able. Stanford University psychologist Jon Krosnick has studied this, and showed that people stop paying attention to climate change when they realize there’s no easy solution. People judge as serious only those problems for which actions can be taken.
Another factor is that we no longer have a sense of permanence. Another psychologist, Robert Lifton, wrote about what the existence of atomic bombs did to our psyche. There was a sense that the world could end at any moment.
Global warming is the same in that it threatens the survival of our species. Psychologists tell us that it’s very important to have a sense of the continuity of life. That’s why we invest in big monuments and want our work to stand after we die and have our family name go on.
That sense of continuity is being ruptured. But climate change has an added aspect that is very important. The scientists who built nuclear bombs felt guilt about what they did. Now the guilt is real for the broader public.
Wired.com: So we don’t want to believe climate change is happening, feel guilty that it is, and don’t know what to do about it? So we pretend it’s not a problem?
Norgaard: Yes, but I don’t want to make it seem crass. Sometimes people who are very empathetic are less likely to help in certain situations, because they’re so disturbed by it. The human capacity of empathy is really profound, and that’s part of our weakness. If we were more callous, then we’d approach it in a more straightforward way. It may be a weakness of our capacity as sentient beings to cope with this problem.
Image: Greenpeace/Flickr
“Cognitive and Behavioral Challenges in Responding to Climate Change,” Norgaard’s World Bank white paper.
No shock there...
Simple denial: deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether
Minimisation: admit the fact but deny its seriousness (a combination of denial and rationalization)
Projection: admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility.
Denial of fact:
In this form of denial, someone avoids a fact by lying. This lying can take the form of an outright falsehood (commission), leaving out certain details to tailor a story (omission), or by falsely agreeing to something (assent, also referred to as "yessing" behavior). Someone who is in denial of fact is typically using lies to avoid facts they think may be painful to themselves or others.
Denial of responsibility:
This form of denial involves avoiding personal responsibility by:
blaming: a direct statement shifting culpability and may overlap with denial of fact
minimizing: an attempt to make the effects or results of an action appear to be less harmful than they may actually be, or
justifying: when someone takes a choice and attempts to make that choice look okay ...
Simple denial: deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether
Minimisation: admit the fact but deny its seriousness (a combination of denial and rationalization)
Projection: admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility.
Denial of fact:
In this form of denial, someone avoids a fact by lying. This lying can take the form of an outright falsehood (commission), leaving out certain details to tailor a story (omission), or by falsely agreeing to something (assent, also referred to as "yessing" behavior). Someone who is in denial of fact is typically using lies to avoid facts they think may be painful to themselves or others.
Denial of responsibility:
This form of denial involves avoiding personal responsibility by:
blaming: a direct statement shifting culpability and may overlap with denial of fact
minimizing: an attempt to make the effects or results of an action appear to be less harmful than they may actually be, or
justifying: when someone takes a choice and attempts to make that choice look okay due to their perception of what is "right" in a situation.
Someone using denial of responsibility is usually attempting to avoid potential harm or pain by shifting attention away from themselves.
For example:
Troy breaks up with his girlfriend because he is unable to control his anger, and then blames her for everything that ever happened.
Denial of impact:
Denial of impact involves a person's avoiding thinking about or understanding the harms his or her behavior has caused to self or others, i.e. denial of the consequences. Doing this enables that person to avoid feeling a sense of guilt and it can prevent him or her from developing remorse or empathy for others. Denial of impact reduces or eliminates a sense of pain or harm from poor decisions.
Looks like you folks have the full bag.
I wondered why these conferences were held in Durban? I do not wonder any more. I am just glad that they are held outside the US because we have enough lunatic libs here already.