Dr. John Happs
PA Pundits – International
papundits.wordpress.com
Marcus Cicero (106–43 BCE) was a Roman lawyer, statesman, philosopher, skeptic and writer.
Cicero was also a senator who wanted a Republic that better served all the people. He was deeply involved in the political conflicts of Rome and questioned the motives behind a number of decisions made by some Roman politicians, asking the question “Cui bono” or “To whom is it a benefit?”
Marcus Cicero
Cicero was of the opinion that political decisions were often made to benefit the decision-makers and their friends rather than the people who they are meant to serve. Unfortunately his outspokenness ultimately led to his exile, from where he urged:
“If our voices are no longer heard in the Senate and in the Forum,
let us follow the example of the ancient sages and serve our country through our writings…”
https://www.cordula.ws/authors/cicero.html
Were Cicero alive today to witness the huge amounts of money that continue to fuel the climate change fraud, he would soon find the answer to his question: “Cui bono.”
The low level of scientific literacy in the community has allowed vested interest groups to promote unfounded climate alarm until it gained enough traction to become an almost unstoppable force. This has happened despite the complete lack of empirical evidence to support the promotion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, aka climate change aka extreme or weird weather.
Many vested interest groups are profiteering from a climate scare that has no basis in science and has been rejected by so many scientists. More than 4,000 scientists, including 70 Nobel Laureates have signed the Heidelberg Appeal:
Over 1,500 scientists, including 200 with expertise and qualifications in climate science have signed the Manhattan Declaration:
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=54
More than 31,000 scientists, including geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists, have signed the Oregon Petition:
http://www.petitionproject.org/
One question Cicero’s would likely ask is:
“Why are climate alarmists ignoring the thousands of scientists that have signed the above petitions rejecting climate alarm?”
The politicizing of climate change started when the United Nations (UN) made no secret of the fact they wanted to promote socialism and see the redistribution of wealth from those nations that had earned it to those nations that simply wanted it.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/ambler_un_governance.pdf
The UN also wanted population control alongside the destruction of capitalism.
The global warming fraud was triggered in 1988 when the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as its instrument to convince politicians around the world that the world’s best climate scientists had demonstrated that a climate emergency existed.
It doesn’t!
The UN argued that extreme weather is a consequence of the carbon dioxide emissions released by developed nations.
It isn’t!
Antonio Guterres
The UN is currently led by its Secretary-General and former leader of Portugal’s Socialist Party, Antonio Guterres who argues that developed nations should provide compensation to developing nations for climate damage already incurred and for damage that he believes will occur in the future.
Representatives from 154 developing nations attended the 2015 Conference of the Parties (COP21) in which Compensation was set to reach $100,billion USD by 2020 and this would come from those “guilty” wealthy nations, including Australia.
It appears that the spectre of socialism is always behind claims of concern for the environment. Paragraph 33 of annex 1 reads:
“By 2020 the scale of financial flows to support adaptation in developing countries must be [at least USD 67 billion] [in the range of USD 70-140 billion] per year.”
https://giovanniworld.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/climate-change-world- govt/
Ottmar Edenhofer
Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer was co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III, and lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007. Edenhofer hasn’t even tried to hide the UN’s ideological goals, saying:
“The climate summit in Cancun —- is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.”
He reiterated what the UN intentions are:
“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
In 2014, Christiana Figueres replaced Yvo de Boer as the Executive Secretary to the UNFCCC, the body responsible for the annual Conferences of the Parties (COPS).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/18/christiana-figueres-climate-chief-un
Christiana Figueres
Figueres freely admitted that the goal of the UN was never about preventing ecological calamity. Rather, it was about changing the global economic model:
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
And:
“Our aim is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.”
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com/2015/02/unfccc-chief-our- aim-is-not-to-save.html
The UN’s Figueres went on to say that democracy is getting in the way of the UN’s political/ideological objectives.
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool- to-destroy-capitalism/
Foreign Editor for The Australian newspaper Greg Sheridan observed:
“The more deeply you get associated with the UN, the less mere foibles like the truth seem to matter.” (The Weekend Australian, October 20-21, 2012, P 6)
The Daily Telegraph’s Piers Akerman agrees, saying:
“Searching for truth at the United Nations is like looking for kernels of wheat in a mountain of horse dung.”
https://www.icjs-online.org/indarch.php?article=2073
Green groups that gain public sympathy (and donations) by claiming they are saving the planet and all its plants and animals have found that climate alarmism is very good for business and their politics. Judi Bari, organiser of Earth First shamelessly links socialism with “saving the planet.” She says:
“I think if we don’t overthrow capitalism, we don’t have a chance of saving the world ecologically.”
https://panamazonsynodwatch.info/articles/commented-news/global- warming-global-myth-part-3/
Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Emma Brindal agrees:
“A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources. Not protecting Earth from manmade CO2 emissions or natural and manmade climate change – but redistributing wealth and resources, according to formulas that self-appointed ruling elites decide is “socially just.”
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/climategate-ten-years-later
Money has poured into these “planet-saving groups” yet, in 2014, India’s Intelligence Bureau noted how Greenpeace activists were campaigning against coal-fired and nuclear power stations when nearly 4 million Indians are still living in poverty. India’s population needs inexpensive, accessible power to lift people into a higher standard of living. India’s Intelligence Bureau noted:
“Greenpeace has been growing exponentially in terms of reach and impact, volunteers, movements it supports and media influence. Activists have been focused on ways to create obstacles in India’s coal based energy plans and methods to pressure India to use only renewable energy.”
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2014/08/big-green- hypocrites/
Norman Rogers sums up the situation thus:
“There are organizations whose purpose is to save us from impending catastrophes. I’m not talking about the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Red Cross. I’m thinking of the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the World Wildlife Fund, the National Geographic Society, The National Audubon Society, The Environmental Defense Fund, The Population Connection, and many more. These organizations depend on impending catastrophes for their lifeblood, to say nothing of their revenue. So a shortage of real impending catastrophes is a problem. The solution has been to manufacture impending catastrophes.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/04/the_parade_of_impending_catastrophes.html
Investigative journalist Donna Laframboise has listed 78 IPCC contributors that have links with activist groups yet the IPCC claims to be an independent body of scientists and many politicians still believe this.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/10/01/78-names/
It would appear then that some scientists care more about environmental activism than scientific integrity.
When the Royal Society was founded in 1663, John Evelyn and others adopted the motto: Nullius in verba, the Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it.” This sentiment was echoed by Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Feynman (1918-1988) who said:
“Learn from science that you must doubt the experts … science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/Richard_Feynmans_Philosophy_of_Science
Climate alarm instigated by the IPCC was never about unbiased, objective science based on empirical evidence. It has always been a UN-driven political/ideological issue and to argue that the trivial amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to dangerous global warming and extreme weather is completely without foundation. No matter how excited politicians and green activists become, alarming climate model predictions that have been paraded for decades and dramatic forecasts from activist scientists have all proved to be hopelessly wrong.
Global temperature has remained relatively unchanged for at least the last 30 years and many peer-reviewed, published papers show there has been no increase in extreme weather events.
IPCC scientists (and some other scientists) support the CAGW alarmism since they have vested interests including their salaries, travel opportunities, research grants and ease of publication via favourable pal review.
Many scientists understand that, if there is no dangerous global warming that they have strenuously predicted, funding for their work will eventually be curtailed. Thus it is in their financial interest to keep the public and politicians alarmed about (imaginary) catastrophic global warming or the threat of severe weather.
Dr. William Happer, Professor of atmospheric physics at Princeton University points out:
“A major problem has been the co-option of climate science by politics, ambition, greed, and what seems to be a hereditary human need for a righteous cause. What better cause than “saving” the planet, especially if one can get ample, secure funding at the same time?”
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/06/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases
Dr. Martin Keeley laments the fact that so many scientists continue to promote the climate fraud:
“Global warming is indeed a scam, perpetrated by scientists with vested interests …”
The promotion of the climate scare has channelled millions of dollars towards any piece of research that vaguely relates to climate change. For instance, if a scientist were to lodge a research proposal along the lines:
“The fluctuation of frog populations in equatorial swamplands.”
This proposal would stand a much better chance of being funded and published if it were modified to read:
“The threat to frog populations in equatorial swamplands in a warming world.”
The fact that the world isn’t warming doesn’t appear to matter.
Climate science has clearly been corrupted by an increasing number of impending catastrophes invented by a number of grant-chasing, publication-seeking scientists. We have seen (imaginary) global warming being blamed for an increase in killer jellyfish numbers; blackbirds no longer singing; increase in dog diseases and dozens of other absurd claims. The list of ridiculous, unsubstantiated alarmist claims is long:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Marc Morano has provided a list of ridiculous and contradictory claims by alarmist scientists along the lines:
Climate change caused more rain, according to a study in the journal Nature. It also causes more rain, but less water.
Climate change causes less snow, according to an IPCC UN scientist, but it also causes more snow. They changed that when we had record snow here on the East Coast, within a couple of years of 2010 that decade became the snowiest on record and then everyone started talking about, ‘did we say less snow? No, climate change causes more snow.
Climate change causes Antarctica to lose ice. It also causes Antarctica to gain ice.
Climate change causes dull autumn leaves, but it also causes more colorful autumn leaves.?
Climate change makes for saltier seas, but climate change also makes for less salty seas.
Climate change increases the spread of malaria, but it also decreases the spread of malaria.
Dengue fever will increase with climate change, but can also decrease with climate change.
The U.S. will see more lightning strikes thanks to global warming, but actually lightning strikes may drop.
San Francisco will get foggier summers and San Francisco will get less foggy summers.
Hurricanes will increase due to climate change. Hurricanes will be less according to climate change.
http://www.coalzoom.com/article.cfm?articleid=19755
Billions of dollars have already been spent on research that points the alarmist finger at carbon dioxide as the climate driver, with unsubstantiated predictions of dangerous global warming, more extreme weather, dramatic sea level rise and melting ice sheets. Such predictions, over the last several decades have all proved wrong so the climate alarmists switch to future predictions based on unvalidated computer models that continue to give failed predictions.
As Christopher Balkaran suggested to Dr. Judith Curry:
“If I’m a scientist and I want to fully study climate change in a specific way, I’m dependent in some part, perhaps a large part on government funding. And if government is politicized in saying climate change is happening and it’s human caused, or whatever the case is, if my research doesn’t align with that, I can see my research being defunded.”
Dr. George Kukla, climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University agrees:
“The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid.”
Stephen Mosher observes:
“I’m really appalled at how the scientific community has sold out for big research grants and to get their name highlighted in the faculty journal and get invited to U.N. conferences.”
He added:
“This is the biggest scientific fraud ever perpetrated on the family of man.”
Dr. Harold Lewis, emeritus professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, recently resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) after 67 years. In his resignation letter, he wrote about:
“… the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.”
https://www.andrewcusack.com/2010/harold-lewis/
A number of scientists, motivated by the lure of research grants, have built their careers by giving what some politicians and the media want to hear. Atmospheric scientist and former IPCC contributor Dr. John Christy reflected:
“We have a vested interest in creating panic because money will then flow to climate scientists.”
https://www.yachtforums.com/threads/global-warming-rising-sea-level.7519/page-2
Since the IPCC’s inception in 1988, alarmist claims of global warming, sea level rise, ocean acidification, extreme weather and a host of other imaginative calamities have not happened. Clive Best has looked at the long and dismal history of computer model climate predictions. He has noted the poor results from several years of computer predictions and asks the question:
“Where is the scientific accountability? Has not climate science perhaps simply merged with climate activism?”
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=9252
Whilst some scientists continue to shamelessly promote climate fear in order to keep their research funds flowing, some uncorrupted scientists who have provided hard evidence to challenge climate alarmism, are ridiculed by the media, sidelined by their institutions, have their talks cancelled and see their research funds drying up.
Atmospheric scientist, the late Dr. Reid Bryson, pointed out:
“There is a lot of money to be made in this… If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can’t get grants unless you say, “Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.”
https://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Social/Testimony.htm
Atmospheric scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen observed how Dr. Richard Newell lost National Science Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net warming over the past century.
There are many other examples where scientists have been sidelined for daring to challenge global warming alarmism.
Dr. Howard Brady was scheduled to give a seminar at the Australian National University (ANU) in 2020. Dr. Paul Burke ruled that the seminar would not go ahead and Dr. Brady speculated:
“This upset many in that department as an attack on academic freedom … it seems that some in the faculty are receiving funds with regard to carbon emissions and climate change etc. (including Professor Burke). The excuse was that the paper was not on economics. Farcical considering the billions of dollars being spent on climate change.”
The late Dr. Bob Carter worked at James Cook University for over 30 years and was an honorary Adjunct Professor when this position was taken from him.
Jo Nova observed:
“The only reasons given were that the staff of the School of Earth and Environmental Studies had discussed the issue (without any consultation with Carter) and decided that his views on climate change did not fit well within the School’s own teaching and research activities.”
Dr. Will Happer is Professor of Atmospheric physics at Princeton University and was Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy until 1993.
Happer commented:
“I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect, for example, absorption and emission of visible and infrared radiation and fluid flow.”
He added:
“Fears about man-made warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science.”
Happer was sacked by politician Al Gore because he did not agree with Gore’s alarmist views on climate change. Happer was critical of the climate alarmism as promoted in Gore’s discredited movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Whilst a number of other scientists have been removed from their positions for challenging those promoting catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, other scientists have been pressured into tempering their skepticism. These include Dr. Roger Pielke:
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/12/wikileaks-climate-researcher-roger- pielke/
Dr. David Legates:
Dr. Willie Soon:
Dr. Murray Salby:
Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi:
Dr. Rex Fleming, former atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), admitted that:
“Censoring evidence, ‘fiddling’ with data and silencing skeptics were part of life at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”
Fleming told journalist James Delingpole about:
“The manipulation of data within NOAA.”
He accused a few individuals of ‘fiddling’ with ocean and atmospheric data and how:
“The ‘deniers’ have so much evidence, while the global-warming believers bring nothing to the table of scientific proof. All they have is hearsay. All they have is media coverage. All they have is government people saying it’s true.”
More tellingly, Fleming observed:
“More scientists would abandon the theory, but they are in this groove of getting funds for huge, bigger computer systems to run these massive climate models and they want their salaries to increase. They don’t want to change; it’s a wonderful gravy train.”
Science should be about robust debate and the challenging of ideas put forward by other scientists. It isn’t happening in climate science since it appears there are too many vested interests involved, often robustly supported by politicians.
It has been easy for the climate alarmists to get a number of politicians on side. After all, if a scientific issue can be made into a political issue, then some politicians can convince their electorates that they can save them and the Earth from impending doom.
A number of political parties have absorbed some “green members” or they have needed “green support” to form government. Politicians have come under increasing pressure from the environmental movement whilst some government departments have staff who are associated with green movements.
Elizabeth May
Politicians, always ready to save us from disaster, were quick to jump on the climate hysteria bandwagon and ramp up the alarm without fear of any consequences for being wrong.
In 2009 Elizabeth May, leader of the Greens Party in Canada said:
“We have hours to act to avert a slow-motion tsunami that could destroy civilization as we know it.”
https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/05/global-warming-warnings-united-nations/
Gordon Brown
In 2009, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned there were fewer than 50 days left for world leaders to save the planet from devastating climate change.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/brown-fifty-days-save-world-2443299
Laurent Fabius
In 2014 France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius said:
“We only have 500 days to stop climate chaos.”
https://dailycaller.com/2015/05/04/25-years-of-predicting-the-global-warming-tipping-point/
There is little doubt that climate alarm continues to be fuelled by many politicians from around the world and perhaps it is this group that we should worry most about since they can severely damage their county’s economy. Trillions of taxpayer dollars have already been wasted on the climate non-problem.
(All the images for this Post were sourced at bing.com)
Dr. John Happs M.Sc.1st Class; D.Phil. John has an academic background in the geosciences with special interests in climate, and paleoclimate. He has been a science educator at several universities in Australia and overseas and was President of the Western Australian Skeptics for 25 years.
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