Wikileaks sordid details reveals climate science is irrelevant

JoNova ^ | December 4th, 2010 | Joanne

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It’s all a grand charade — the matinee show put on by the Theater of Science was merely being used for the Grand Extravaganza called the Theater of Politics.

Wikileaks, not surprisingly, turned up some not-so-diplomatic and not-so-scientific goings-on in the political race to steer power and dollars.

From The Guardian

The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial “Copenhagen accord“, the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected.

The wrangling behind the scenes involve the usual offerings of pork-barreling type funding for piddling little projects  — like $50 million dollar projects in the Maldives, or $30 million in aid for Bolivia — to win support for the weak non-binding Copenhagen Accord, which suited the US. Thus the $2 trillion market was being made and unmade by votes bought with the spare change from carbon trades during morning tea.

Even the Saudis were asking for a handout:

Perhaps the most audacious appeal for funds revealed in the cables is from Saudi Arabia, the world’s second biggest oil producer and one of the 25 richest countries in the world. A secret cable sent on 12 February records a meeting between US embassy officials and lead climate change negotiator Mohammad al-Sabban. “The kingdom will need time to diversify its economy away from petroleum, [Sabban] said, noting a US commitment to help Saudi Arabia with its economic diversification efforts would ‘take the pressure off climate change negotiations‘.”

The Saudi’s were worried they might have missed the gravy train:

The assistant petroleum minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told US officials that he had told his minister Ali al-Naimi that Saudi Arabia had “missed a real opportunity to submit ‘something clever’, like India or China, that was not legally binding but indicated some goodwill towards the process without compromising key economic interests”.

In the end, it’s mostly what we all suspected anyway. Call me a cynic, but did anyone believe that atmospheric research really affected the political decisions?

The political wheeling and dealing behind the scenes is where the big moves occur:

The cables obtained by WikiLeaks finish at the end of February 2010. Today, 116 countries have associated themselves with the accord. Another 26 say they intend to associate. That total, of 140, is at the upper end of a 100-150 country target revealed by Pershing in his meeting with Hedegaard on 11 February.

The wikileaks material shows again that voting at these COP meetings is nothing to do with the science put forward in the IPCC reports (which in turn are not based on the scientific method, or what wide body of the worlds scientists actually said anyway).

It all merely proves that the best protection for the people of Planet Earth is to have many competing democratic governments, none of which can gain too much power over many of the others. The UN process of mock democracy plays a dangerous game, where buying off single officials in tin-pot countries is a cheaper form of pork barrelling than the domestic politics of large Western election campaigns.

More sordid details are exposed in The Guardian:

WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord

Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats, and promises of aid to get support for a Copenhagen accord.

US goes to Basics over Copenhagen accord tactics

WikiLeaks cables show US admiration for how emerging economies work together to achieve common short-term goals.

WikiLeaks cables: Cancún climate talks doomed to fail, says EU president

Herman van Rompuy dismisses the Copenhagen climate summit as ‘incredible disaster’ and expects Cancún to be no better.

The third article implies this all could be just another incarnation of the long silent trading war going on for power between the EU and the USA.

Thanks to Ecotretas and Oliver S.

The short killer summary: The Skeptics Handbook. The most deadly point: The Missing Hot Spot.

[Let's Roll]

BTTT!

[ExTexasRedhead]

Now, hang it around them in 2012.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting this.

These leaks are past the control of 0b0z0 and his Chicago thugs. They control the America media except for Fox and don’t control the foriegn media.

This will get very interesting before this is over.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

The most interesting line in the piece: "From The Guardian".

If it has been in the Telegraph it wouldn't be such a big deal but this sort of says "we're done here". I suspect the left must be looking for a new scam right about now to use to destroy the Western economies on a global scale.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I was just reading thru this at Wired:

‘I Can’t Believe What I’m Confessing to You’: The Wikileaks Chats

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Yes,...very interesting since they were pretty gung-ho on the Global Warming Hype.

[Grampa Dave]

Incredible.

One can only imagine the damage that has been done by the unvetted POTUS and his Chicago Thugs.

[rockinqsranch]

Thanks for posting that caww.

[palmer]

The beer needs to be warm enough for the yeast enzymes to work. If too cold, they become dormant and the fermentation ceases.

That definitely is one of the most interesting CO2 generation analogies I have heard. But manmade CO2, including beer emissions, is about twice the observed atmospheric rise.

Remove man from the equation and there would still be a rise in CO2 from natural warming. But the rise would be much less.

[TigersEye]

Whoever the author was that is an excellent piece of work. Thanks for posting it.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

The CO2 concentration is 4/100ths of one percent.

If the atmosphere was $100 dollars, CO2 would be 4 cents.

It the atmosphere were 10,000 pennies ($100) on a table, four of them would be CO2.

Now take those four pennies and form a layer among the others to prevent the passage of heat. (and that was just two dimensional)

That’s not even a “drop in the bucket.”

[caww]

I was on line the night this whole Global Warming fiasco went down. “Hide the Decline” etc. as they unloaded the information. One of the most exciting times on line as they sought to confirm the e-mails and reports, Back and forth between sites and communication lines...at breathtaking speed. Was important to them that the “facts” were confirmed. Just a thrilling experience seeing these guys work. All before it hit the news too!

So following this from the get go made me look closer at what Global Warming really was about and who was involved in these trumped up reports...who funded and such. Well we know now what this is about and why.

When I saw this posters comments this week I was impressed as he made it all understandable to those unfamiliar with the technical verbage so many of them use. Peppered with enough history...well it was just a very good piece. Worthy of FR IMO. So am glad you enjoyed and appreciated this work.

I am going to try and find the site where these comments were made...but I honestly cannot recall as I was flipping thru so many. If I find it I will post the site.

[Marine_Uncle]

The dam is forming to many holes to put one’s fingers in.

[Pagey]

bttt

[rockinqsranch]

If you can find it great. Will be happy to see the site, but understand the needle in a haystack analogy in such a task. Good luck.

Thanks again.

[Chaguito]

Your statement that CO₂ would be rising "much" less without human beings is in reality is a hypothesis, not a conclusion.

It could be relatively easily tested by measuring the ratio of C¹⁴O₂ to C¹²O₂ in the atmosphere, vs. the same ratio in, say, wood of an exactly known age from, say, the 18th century. By reversing the known decay rate of C¹⁴, the ratio in the pre-industrial 18th century could be calculated.

Since all the fossil fuel that has been burned since the 19th century has had 0.000% C¹⁴, the current ratio of C¹⁴O₂ to C¹²O₂, all things being equal, should be "much" lower, if your hypothesis is correct.

[palmer]

It is true that the C13/C12 ratio has dropped since around 1850 or so and is used as "proof" of manmade CO2, e.g. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/ whereas the C14/C12 ratio is affected by the sun http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/carbon-isotope-ratios-and-climate.html

My best guess is that some of each ratio change (13/12 and 14/12) is natural and some is from fossil fuel burning. In the case of 14/12, one natural factor is high solar activity in the late 20th century. But most of the rise is fossil fuels. For 13/12, some of the ratio change is natural because some natural sources mimic the fossil fuel ratio (e.g. deep ocean). Dr Spencer also has some thoughts on 13/12 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/ answered by Englebeen who says that vegetation and fossil fuels show a similar ratio (due to growing plants preference for C12).

[Chaguito]

Thanks for the info. I knew that the C14/C12 ratio had dropped. The change in C13/C12 ratio I find a bit difficult to swallow as anthropogenic. But I do think that the ratios are far more accessible than some of the other climate data that is presented as fact.