New Climate Law? WAIT!
Bensblurb #549 5/20/10
New Climate Law? Wait !
Poor Ken Cuccinelli. Our state’s attorney general is delving into scientist Michael Mann’s research findings which Virginia’s taxes supported to the tune of $500,000 some years ago at UVA to see if they were legit.
Predictably, the roof has fallen in on our young AG. Science, you see, is a closed society and outsiders stay out if they know what’s good for them. Seems that Cuccinelli based his query on a suspicion that Mann, now at Penn State U., had resorted to monkeyshines in creating an infamous climate graph (aka hockey stick) that, while influential in convincing other climate officials about how dreadful global warming was, arrayed his data so as to make the situation look worse. That surfaced last fall via public revelations of the “Climate Gate” emails among leading warmist scientists, including Mann.
Cuccinelli has said he’s only making sure Virginia’s public funds weren’t misused. He denies any connection to the fact he’s been a global warming skeptic. In any event, his query highlights at least two things.
There is a ton of taxpayer money supporting climate science. For example, the National Science Foundation hands out about $10 million a year for research into climate change. So delving into its possible misuse, by taxpayers’ representatives like Cuccinelli, should be OK.
More important, Congress is now trying to pass a new climate law that would greatly raise everyone’s energy costs and taxes. That impetus reflects many scientists’ worries that the world will otherwise get too warm.
It surely might, if Mann’s hockey-stick graph had truly shown great global warming in recent years. But detractors say it was a purposeful exaggeration to build support for remedies.
A few years ago, the detractors seemed a lonely bunch, but with the disclosure of the Climate Gate emails, they are swaying the public to increasingly doubt the purported dangers or the facts of global warming. A mainly stable, non-warming climate over the past decade, contrary to the heating predicted in scientists’ climate models, has also raised questions over the research and its proponents.
As our young AG can attest, the climate scientists aren’t taking this lying down. “The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change..." --James Hansen, longtime global warmist at NASA’s Goddard Institute. More: "[if we produce] climate disasters for young people and nature – we would destroy creation."
Whatever. What’s the next logical step other than a vast new energy law? “Only a thorough investigation will be able to document that there was really no strong warming after 1979, that the instrumented record is based on data manipulation involving the selection of certain weather stations (and the omission of others that showed no warming), plus applying insufficient corrections for local heating,” claims retired climate scientist Fred Singer, also from the University of Virginia.
And according to the Science and Environmental Policy Project: “In 2006...Edward Wegman of George Mason University...headed a team of statisticians testing the methods used by Mann. Professor Wegman testified before Congress that Mann's faulty statistical techniques always produce the infamous hockey stick configuration...”-- Power Line.
So Virginians, pro and con, are in this fight. It won’t likely end soon.
Ben Blankenship is an Aquia Harbour resident and career journalist. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com.
New Climate Law? Wait !
Poor Ken Cuccinelli. Our state’s attorney general is delving into scientist Michael Mann’s research findings which Virginia’s taxes supported to the tune of $500,000 some years ago at UVA to see if they were legit.
Predictably, the roof has fallen in on our young AG. Science, you see, is a closed society and outsiders stay out if they know what’s good for them. Seems that Cuccinelli based his query on a suspicion that Mann, now at Penn State U., had resorted to monkeyshines in creating an infamous climate graph (aka hockey stick) that, while influential in convincing other climate officials about how dreadful global warming was, arrayed his data so as to make the situation look worse. That surfaced last fall via public revelations of the “Climate Gate” emails among leading warmist scientists, including Mann.
Cuccinelli has said he’s only making sure Virginia’s public funds weren’t misused. He denies any connection to the fact he’s been a global warming skeptic. In any event, his query highlights at least two things.
There is a ton of taxpayer money supporting climate science. For example, the National Science Foundation hands out about $10 million a year for research into climate change. So delving into its possible misuse, by taxpayers’ representatives like Cuccinelli, should be OK.
More important, Congress is now trying to pass a new climate law that would greatly raise everyone’s energy costs and taxes. That impetus reflects many scientists’ worries that the world will otherwise get too warm.
It surely might, if Mann’s hockey-stick graph had truly shown great global warming in recent years. But detractors say it was a purposeful exaggeration to build support for remedies.
A few years ago, the detractors seemed a lonely bunch, but with the disclosure of the Climate Gate emails, they are swaying the public to increasingly doubt the purported dangers or the facts of global warming. A mainly stable, non-warming climate over the past decade, contrary to the heating predicted in scientists’ climate models, has also raised questions over the research and its proponents.
As our young AG can attest, the climate scientists aren’t taking this lying down. “The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change..." --James Hansen, longtime global warmist at NASA’s Goddard Institute. More: "[if we produce] climate disasters for young people and nature – we would destroy creation."
Whatever. What’s the next logical step other than a vast new energy law? “Only a thorough investigation will be able to document that there was really no strong warming after 1979, that the instrumented record is based on data manipulation involving the selection of certain weather stations (and the omission of others that showed no warming), plus applying insufficient corrections for local heating,” claims retired climate scientist Fred Singer, also from the University of Virginia.
And according to the Science and Environmental Policy Project: “In 2006...Edward Wegman of George Mason University...headed a team of statisticians testing the methods used by Mann. Professor Wegman testified before Congress that Mann's faulty statistical techniques always produce the infamous hockey stick configuration...”-- Power Line.
So Virginians, pro and con, are in this fight. It won’t likely end soon.
Ben Blankenship is an Aquia Harbour resident and career journalist. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com.
posted by Ben Blankenship at
12:23 PM
