Al Gore wins the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: Doing well by doing good?
Or is Al Gore a modern day Flim Flam Man?
Posted on 11/30/2009 5:08:53 PM PST by ricks_place
Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.
Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."
To read some of the press accounts of these gifts—amounting to about 0.0027% of Exxon's 2008 profits of $45 billion—you might think you'd hit upon the scandal of the age. But thanks to what now goes by the name of climategate, it turns out the real scandal lies elsewhere.
Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.
But the deeper question is why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them.
Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Al Gore wins the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: Doing well by doing good?
Or is Al Gore a modern day Flim Flam Man?
This is a great article, for at least two reasons.
1) It appears in a respected MSM venue; but more importantly,
2) It represents real JOURNALISM. That is, Stephens is *advancing* the probe into Climategate by researching and reporting on funding issues.
Just the tip of the iceberg, but an excellent article with many good points. Thanks for posting it!
ping
Thank you for posting this.
For the past few days I’ve been mining the emails for comments on Yamal Tree Ring data. I’ve found a lot of talk about transferring money. It turns out the CRU researchers were very excited by the Siberian data and were willing to go to great lengths to get it, including cash transfers by hand in Switzerland at amounts that would not be noticed by banking regulations, i.e. <$10k.
Here are some quotes from the emails.
7 Mar 96 Shiyatov tells Briffa Also, it is important for us if you can transfer the ADVANCE money on the personal accounts which we gave you earlier and the sum for one occasion transfer (for example, during one day) will not be more than 10,000 USD. Only in this case we can avoid big taxes and use money for our work as much as possible. Please, inform us what kind of documents and financial reports we must represent you and your administration for these money.
17 Jun 96 Stepan Shiyatov said to briffa “We hoped to use some money of the ADVANCE project. But we have not received this money until now and the program of collecting during this summer will be reduced. Some days ago I received an information that the INTAS-RFBR project was rejected. The competition was very high.”
17 Sep 1996 Keith Briffa to Mike Salmon “Dear Stepan I have received the receipts. Thankyou. Unfortunately I have also heard that our request to COPERNICUS was not successfull. I am very disappointed about this.”
13 Oct 96 Fred Pearce provides a preview of a long article to biffa detailing the fact that arctic proxy data will be sought. “Briffa grins at the prospect. “The trend seems to be accelerating. We are getting reports back from Stepan, our man in the Urals, that it was warmer this spring on the Yamal peninsula there than ever before, and tree growth has been absolutely fantastic. It is a major warming, like nothing seen there for a thousand years — and it is what the climate models predict.” Caution prevails, but the elusive pattern of man-made global warming may just be emerging amid the larch groves on the sunny hills of northern Siberia.”
9 Dec 96 Rashit tells briffa “Some periods are notable for missing rings: 988-964 BC, 882 BC, 143 AD, 623-646 AD (especially 640 AD), 814-816-818 AD, 1453 AD and beginning of 1800th AD.”
6 Mar 97 Eugene Vaganov formal proposal for briffa’s review
5 May 97 Stepan Shiyatov says “After our long silence we would like inform you about our sucesses, problems and plans.” and asks That is why we and E.Vaganov ask you to transfer each of us 7-8.000 USD until the end of June from the ADVANCE project, if it is possible. Last summer, when I was in England, you promised to help us with money to organise field works this year.
5 June, 1997 Stepan Shiyatov says “anderstanding your difficulties with transfering money and I
think the best way for us if you will bring money to Krasnoyarsk and I give you a receipt.”
17 Jun 97 Stepan Shiyatov repeats 5 June, 1997 email
9 Sep 1998 “Stepan G. Shiyatov” says to briffa “Rashit could not be able to go to the Yamal Peninsula for collecting subfossil wood this summer as a result of deficiency of money. I am glad that we have been successful in INTAS proposal. Financial situation in our country so terrible that we will not work successfully without support from international grants. Yesterday I have sent by post the signed form (official power of attorney). If you have any additional information concerning this grant, please give me know.”
2 Oct 1998 Keith Briffa sends email to stepan, and evag “I have received the real signed Power Of Attorney form from Stepan , but not from Eugene.It seems I must have both . I am a bit reluctant to forge Eugene’s signature! We will need to think about how the money should be handled” and goes on to say “I have looked at the remaining money and I think I can give you each a final payment of between 4000 and 4500 US dollars.
9 Oct 1998 Rashit Hantemirov to Keith Briffa “Tree line has been shifting within 3-5 km near recent one. Low abundance of trees has been fixed during 1410-1250 BC and 500-350 BC. Relatively high number of trees has been noted during 750-1450 AD. There are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the north during last century.”
13 Oct 1998 List of publications of Yamal data
Nov 18 1998 Briffa says to evag and stepan “I am told that the money transfer ( 5000 u.s. dollars) should have gone to the bank account you stated. Please let me know if this is received by you. I am also sending Stepan’s 5000 dollars to Switzerland now to be carried back by his colleague.”
21 Dec 1998 An unusual direct email from Shiyatov to Briffa “Thank you for the money transfer via Fritz Schweingruber. I received 5000 USD. Is it necessary to give you a receipt for this sum of money? Money will be used for organization of field works in the Yamal Peninsula and Polar Urals next year. Of course, this sum is not enough. I hope we shall have an additional money from the INTAS project and the Russian Funds.”
Oct 6 2000 Briffa tells Stepan and Eugene “I have asked INTAS for an extension on the report period. Stepan some problem has now arisen regarding your final payment . I have asked Janet to sort this out and contact you directly.”
31 May 2001 Stepan Shiyatov tells Briffa “I have sent you the necessary form to transfer the money for my name, but the Ekaterinburg Branch of Bank for Foreing Trade did not receive the money until now. Do you know the reason?”
Jun 8 2001 Briffa appologizes to Stepan Shiyatov I still expect we will get the money outstanding - just late . Sorry.
Time to write Arnold and state legislators about rescinding this $600M funding.
Good stuff!
Have you considered posting at WattsUpWithThat? Or ClimateAudit (although I think CA may limit itself to technical concerns and discourage political/policy stuff. You could ask.)
FRegards
Sorry SOB.
I love to ask liberal acquaintences, “When are you going to require your beloved elites to live the kind of life they’re prescribing for US?”
I have yet to receive any sort of meaningful answer. Lots of staring at the shoes though.
Even Robert Zimmerman flies at least a GIII. ; )
It seems that there really is “Mann”-made global warming. It is made of fraud, data manipulation, collusion, squelching dissent, hiding data, deleting data, and punishing scientific journals that dared to publish papers challenging the carbon cabal.
The global warming industry is very big business and there is a huge vested interest in maintaining the myth that human carbon dioxide emissions are dangerous. “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” George Orwell, 1984.
The upcoming Copenhagen meeting sponsored by the United Nations had hoped for a global redistribution of wealth over the next 20 years of between $6 trillion and $10.5 trillion, according to the draft treaty, to “Compensate for damage to the less developed countries’ economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees.” Third world governments see dollar signs.
In the U.S., the Treasury Department estimates that the president’s cap-and-trade approach would “generate federal receipts on the order of $100- to $200 billion annually.” The Congressional Budget Office reports that a 15 percent CO2 reduction would cost an average household $1,600 a year.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a bureaucrat’s paradise that exists solely to perpetrate the myth, while enjoying frequent meetings at exotic venues throughout the world.
(snip)
On the world commodities market, and big banks are collecting fees, and some project a market worth $2 trillion. Al Gore’s venture capital firm, Hara Software which makes software to track greenhouse gas emissions, stands to make billions of dollars from cap-and-trade regulation. If the myth is destroyed, this market will evaporate.
The Obama administration, which promised to “restore science to its rightful place,” is ignoring events and sailing its ideological titanic to Copenhagen.
(snip)
The global warming industry is predicated on manipulated computer modeling rather than observational data. The touted “consensus” has been shown to be the result of suppression of dissenting voices, and fueled by greed, power seeking, and the perversion of the scientific method.<
If the “warmists” have their way, the result will be suppression of freedom and a criminal waste of resources.
“The money is fine...Hide the decline...hide the decline.”
Now the rest of the MSM’s silence will have to be lifted....great job by Murdoch’s Newscorp. Foxnews was talking about this today on the special report with Bret Hume making an appearance and was very factual ...and he said it might even be a SCAM!
The states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative.
Might be a Scam????
I’m shocked!
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/bill-clinton/
Sure is going to be interesting now that it has been exposed the data was cooked to see what happens next. There is a lot of money tied up in this scam from the UN right on down to the big take, IF somebody can legislate a global tax.
Scam, or a bunch of guys who think their white lab coats have the magical power of allowing them to walk on (liquid or gaseous) water.
What is not widely recognized...yet, is the fact that the governments’ waste on global warming is another nail in coffin of socialism around the world.
A smoking gun on money laundering has the ability to put some of these guys in jail.
Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.The way research is conducted can be inherently corrupt, in that your findings need to induce further funding from the people who issue the grants.None of these outfits are per se corrupt, in the sense that the monies they get are spent on something other than their intended purposes. But they depend on an inherently corrupting premise, namely that the hypothesis on which their livelihood depends has in fact been proved. Absent that proof, everything they represent—including the thousands of jobs they provide—vanishes. This is what's known as a vested interest, and vested interests are an enemy of sound science.
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