Climategate Reloaded
Washington,
D.C., March 5, 2010—Prominent
climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have
been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global
warming alarmism, according to recently disclosed e-mail
messages. Their
scheme would involve officials at the National Academies
and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the
researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the
revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate”
scandal.
The e-mails were first reported in a
front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute
has independently obtained copies of the e-mails and has posted them at
GlobalWarming.org.
“The response of these alarmist scientists to the
Climategate scientific fraud scandal has little to do with their
responsibilities as scientists and everything to do with saving their political
position. The e-mails reveal a group of scientists plotting a political
strategy to minimize the effects of Climategate in the public debate on global
warming,” said Myron Ebell,
Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy at the Competitive Enterprise
Institute.
“Of special interest is the disclosure by Stanford Professor
Stephen H. Schneider that he has already sent an e-mail to ‘media, NGOs etc’
that accuses Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) of McCarthyite behavior and asks them to
‘decry this McCarthyite regression, and by name point out what this Senator is
doing by a continuing smear campaign,’” said Ebell. “Apparently,
Professor Schneider objects to a report
on Climategate that Sen. Inhofe recently released which merely lists 17 of
the scientists involved in the scandal.”
Prof. Paul Falkowski,
who kicks off the email exchange, claims the public has “lost faith in science”
because scientists “do not speak out to the public.”
“Falkowski’s got it backwards,” said CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis. “The public has
lost faith not in science but in scientists whose shrill alarmism and
cheerleading for energy rationing schemes exposes them as advocates and
partisans.”
“While these people claim to be acting as scientists,
they’ve got an embarrassingly clear political agenda,” said CEI General Counsel
Sam Kazman. “Their plans range
from turning the Academies into a ‘transformational agent in America’ to planning a new Academy
report that would be ‘factual’ and ‘authoritative’ even though the purpose of its
preordained conclusions would be to ‘provide talking points.’”
Selected Excerpts from the
National Academies Email Exchange
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26: “I will accept corporate
sponsorship at a 5 to 1 ratio….”
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 26: “I want the NAS to be a
transformational agent in America.”
Robert Paine, Feb. 27: “The beltway’s foolishness about
climate change seems especially ironic given the snowless plight of the
Vancouver Olympics.”
Paul R. Ehrlich, Feb. 27: “Most of our colleagues don’t seem
to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight
against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.”
William Jury, Feb. 27: “I am seeing formerly committed
public sector leaders backing off from positions aimed at reducing our fossil
fuel dependence.”
Steve Carpenter, Feb. 27: “We need a report with the
authority of the NAS that summarizes the status and trends of the planet, and
the logical consequences of plausible responses.”
Paul Falkowski, Feb. 27: “…but the issue at hand is not
integrity of the IPCC—it is making sure that the public is aware of OUR
concerns for all of our futures.”
George Woodwell, Feb. 28: “Those who deny the biophysical
facts of the world would deny the reality of the law of gravity. The
product of such denials is systematic progress destroying this
civilization. If one wants a view of where that process leads, take a
quick look at Haiti
at the moment.”
George Woodwell, Feb. 28: “Yes, you will blast me for such
an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach, but you are wondering how to be
effective against an enemy that is very skillfully using our classical
reasonableness against us….”
CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan
public interest group that studies the intersection of regulation, risk, and
markets.