This from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.
After watching this, I was reminded of Thomas Jefferson’s famous phrase (paraphrased): Freedom is measured not by the freedoms we give ourselves, but by the freedoms we give each other.
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When Science Meets Money
Respected botanist, author of 35 books and presenter of some 400 tv programs on the devastation humans are wreaking upon our planet, British Naturalist David Bellamy is no longer welcome at the BBC. His crime, according to the Daily Express? Bellamy doesn’t buy the theory that global warming is man made.
I’ve seen this play before! Back in the early 80s, when I was heavily involved in environmental politics at the national level, I saw good, hard working scientists “black listed” because they didn’t toe the accepted scientific party line. Their papers were no longer accepted for publication. Resumes sent to major universities for teaching positions were ignored by the hiring boards. Doors to jobs with research firms in their field were closed. And nobody, nobody would fund their research.
They were very quietly, but very effectively frozen out of their profession because they had challenged the popular theories (note that they are theories, not proven scientific fact) that were providing millions of dollars of funding to government and private organizations.
In this case, Bellamy is not alone in feeling the pain and displeasure of the very powerful man-made global warming lobby.
Back in December of last year a U.S. Senate Report was published where “Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims… ” And we’re not talking about a bunch of fringe nut cases, either. We’re talking scientists from NASA, NOAA, NCAR, the Danish National Space Center, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, University of Notre Dame, and the World Federation of Scientists, to name just a few. Some of the scientists who participated have won the Nobel Prize for outstanding contribution to their field of expertise.
Their complaint? They object to:
“…major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.”
Needless to say, former Vice President Gore was quick to respond. Unfortunately for him, The Washington Times pulled the statement (hence the page not found error if you click on the link).
And those 400 scientists aren’t alone. The 2009 issue of The Old Farmer’s Almanac† published an article titled “Is Global Warming On The Wane?” Climatologists at The Old Farmer’s Almanac are some of the oldest climate scientists in the U.S.A. Their focus, since the founding of the publication, has been on the connection of solar activity to planetary weather. And guess what? They don’t buy the man-made theory either.
Graphs of their climate models (which are published in the article) show a a near perfect tract between what they call “mean solar irradiance” (solar activity) and mean U.S. temperatures.
Meanwhile, measurements of temperature anomalies as measured by the Hadley Center and the UAH MSU satellite and plotted against CO² emissions, which as everyone knows have been rising steadily for fifty years, don’t track at all. In fact, for the last 4 years, they’ve been running in opposite directions. CO² emissions have continued to rise, but temperatures have fallen every year. The article concludes that the case for a solar origin to global warming is 4 times stronger that the case for CO².
But has this slowed the drum beat? In October 2008 PBS’s Frontline, the PBS community’s supposedly fair and balanced answer to the network’s 20/20 and 60 Minutes programs, aired its “investigative report” into global warming called Heat. Did it air the problems with the man-made global warming theory? Such as:
- “According to official data, in every year since 1998 world temperatures
have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased.” (Bellamy) - “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth’s climatic history. There’s nothing special about the recent rise!” (Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
- “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” (Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)
- “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases.” (Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland)
But no — of course not. Instead, Heat pounded the dogmatic drum:
Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, fires, floods and droughts. On the eve of a historic election, award-winning producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates how the world’s largest corporations and governments are responding to Earth’s looming environmental disaster.
The introduction on their website begins. And then, of course:
The world needs to dramatically cut the carbon emissions responsible for wreaking havoc on the planet’s climate, according to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, whose organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shared last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. “If we don’t take action immediately, we face a crisis,” Pachauri tells Smith. “Climate change is caused by human actions, and we need to do something about it. The sooner we realize that, the better.”
In this last comment is revealed the reason for the chest pounding, the reason that this theory, and only this theory, can be allowed to be perceived as correct. There is the reason former Vice President Al Gore responded to the Senate Report within hours of it’s release!
Money!
Where would all the scientists like Dr. Rajendra Pachauri be if the IPCC pulled their funding, not to mention the IPCC’s employees. Al Gore knew darned good and well that if the Senate Report were allowed to stand there was a good chance Congress would pull funding for all kinds of man-made global warming related programs. And in fact, if the man-made global warming theory loses favor, he stands to lose millions of dollars in speaking fees, book royalties, and non-profit revenue. He’d be out of a job!
So of course, scientists like David Bellamy and the 400 note-worthy individuals who participated in the Senate Report simply must be vilified and black listed — for the greater good of all whose (taxpayer funded) paychecks depend on it!
Believe it!
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† As of the time of this writing, the article referenced here in is up on the The Old Farmer’s Almanac website as the “sample” article. Because I have no idea how long it will remain the sample article, and no permalink is offered, the link in this article takes you to the website, rather than directly to the article.
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Sorry! No Lights For You…
You knew it was coming! Just like banks, utilities are far more lenient with their customers who are having trouble paying their bills when the can pay than when they can’t. As jobs vanish and budget shortfalls grow: “Utilities are becoming more aggressive about collecting money from delinquent customers,” according to this Wall Street Journal article.
According to the article:
- PPL Corp. increased shutoffs by 78% in the first three quarters of the year!
- Memphis Light, Gas & Water, the city-owned utility, cut off 38% more people in the first eight months of this year than the year previous. It also said the number of accounts that were 90 days past due or more was up 148% for the same period.
- The State of Michigan has seen an increase of 39% in disconnects.
- So. Cal Edison has decided to be human and disconnect late-paying customers who owe as little as $30! They go on to admit that amount could go lower in the future. (No doubt an attempt to be even more understanding by disconnecting needy customers for $5 accounting errors.)
According to the same article, regulators in New Jersey have noticed disconnects creeping up the economic ladder into the middle-class. A social class that usually panics when they get so much as a late notice (it might affect their credit score!), they’re entirely unused to having to make the kinds of hard choices (gas and electricity or food?) the poor live with every day.
Isn’t it fascinating that Congress rushes to spend 1.3 trillion dollars bailing out the banks who created this mess, but now drags its feet when it comes to helping the ordinary folks now paying the price of their folly in lost homes, jobs, retirement accounts — and who now can’t even afford to pay their electric bill.
Nor are does anybody seem willing to step in as these utilities increase their own predatory practices. New digital meters make it easier for utility companies to shut off a customer’s power with the flip of a switch: Encouragement for them to choose to pay their bill rather than buying food for the kids, no doubt.
And now, the ability to get the gas and power needed to cook the food and keep the house warm and lit is slowly being linked to the mighty and omniscient credit score. Soon our rush toward a two tiered society will have taken a major leap: The poor, who never have a good credit score, will be pushed back into the dark days of candles, oil lamps, and wooden cook stoves. While right across the street their middle class neighbor’s security lights will gleam brightly as the robotic security system, tied into the internet, allows they and their web-wired children to watch their house from afar.
Welcome to the new America!
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