Congressman Rohrabacher's speech on climate issues

Remarks given by Mr. Rohrabacher of California on December 8, 2011 on the floor of the House, a matter of public record.

Mr. Speaker, tonight, as a strong advocate of human progress through advancing mankind’s understanding of science and engineering, I rise to discuss a blatant abuse and misuse of science.

A few nights ago, I watched a video of President Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell Address.

Unfortunately, his much heralded prescient warning of a military/industrial complex has obscured another warning in that farewell address that is just as significant:

Eisenhower pointed to the danger “of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded. 

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” 

In my lifetime there’s been no greater example of this threat, which Ike warned us about, than the insidious coalition of research science and political largess, a coalition that has conducted an unrelenting crusade to convince the American People that their health and safety, and yes the very survival of our planet, is at risk due to man-made global warming.  The purpose of this greatest of all propaganda campaigns is to enlist public support for, if not just acquiescence to, dramatic mandated change of our society, and to our way of life.

This campaign has such momentum and power that it is now a tangible threat to our freedom, and to our prosperity as a people.  Ironically, as the crusade against Man-made Global Warming grows in power, more evidence surfaces every day that the scientific theory, on which the alarmists base their crusade, is totally bogus. The general public and decision makers for decades have been inundated with phony science, altered numbers, and outright fraud. This is the ultimate power grab in the name of saving the world.  And like all fanatics, disagreement is not allowed.

Prominent scientists who have been skeptical with the claims of man-made Global Warming have themselves been cut from research grants, and obstructed when trying to publish peer reviewed dissenting opinions.  How the mainstream media, or publications like the National Journal, have ignored this systematic oppression is beyond me.

If you’ve heard the words “case closed,” it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the purpose of such a proclamation is limiting and repressing debate. Well, the case isn’t closed, so let’s start with some facts about the man-made global warming theory.

First and foremost, the Earth has experienced cooling and warming climate cycles for millions of years, which a significant number of prominent scientists believe was tied to solar activity, just like the similar temperature trends  identified on Mars and other bodies in the solar system.  So how about those ice caps on Mars that seem to expand and recede mirroring our own polar ice caps?  Doesn’t that point to the Sun rather than human activity?  After all, there were very few, if any, human beings around a million years ago, but there were climate cycles.  What causes climate cycles?

Right off the bat lets acknowledge that man-made global warming advocates, who I suggest are Alarmists, do not believe the sun has no impact on climate cycles. They just believe the sun has a minimal impact as compared to the increasing level of CO2 in the atmosphere, which today they believe is expanding at a frightening rate due to mankind’s use of fossil fuel.

Similarly, skeptics, like me, believe solar activity, or the Sun, is the major factor in creating the Earth’s climate cycles, including the one we’re currently in.  We also believe man-made CO2 buildup may have a minor impact. The debate isn’t all Sun or all man-made CO2, it’s over which of these factors is the major determinant, or even a significant determinant.

And, at this point, one other fact needed to understand this issue:  Many intelligent people believe that CO2 represents 10, 20, or even 30 percent of our atmosphere.  In reality, CO2 is less than one half of one tenth of one percent of the atmosphere, and human kind’s contribution to that represents a small fraction of that one half of one tenth of one percent.  To say it is miniscule is not small enough.  It’s microscopic.

Frankly, I believe CO2 is so irrelevant that it should not be the focus of air standards and regulations.  Other gases, like NOX, which are damaging to human health should be a much higher priority.  It’s global pollution, not global warming, that we should be concerned about.

Not making this distinction has cost us billions, maybe more. The temperature of the planet isn’t man-made, and we can’t do anything about it.  Our energy challenges and our air quality are man-influenced, if not man-made.  We can do something about these maladies.

But the alarmists are not interested in solving such problems.  They are part of a coalition that wants to change our way of life – which requires us to acquiesce – or better yet, to frighten us into submission.  Make no mistake; the man-made global warming theory is being pushed by people who believe in Global Government, they have been looking for an excuse for an incredible freedom-busting centralization of power, and they found it in the specter of man-made global warming.

Well, for the past thirty years the alarmists have been spouting “Chicken Little” climate science.  This campaign was turbo charged in the 1990s, when the Clinton Administration made it part of its agenda, thanks to Vice President Al Gore.  One of the first actions of that administration was to fire the top scientist at the Department of Energy, Dr. William Happer, a professional who, at the time, dared to be open minded about the manmade global warming theory.  Al Gore decided Dr. Happer just didn’t fit in, so out he went.  From there the pattern became all too clear.  In order to receive, even one iota of federal research funds, a scientist had to toe the line of man-made global warming.

There is a Biblical quote: The truth shall set you free.  Well, this is a battle for truth and we are up against a political machine yelling CASE CLOSED, and restricting federal research grants only to those who agree with them. That we have politicos who believe in centralizing power should not surprise anyone.

But that a scientific-technological elite, the very group that President Eisenhower warned us about fifty years ago, allied themselves with such a political power play is totally contrary of what science and scientists are supposed to be all about.

Because of the retaliation of those alarmists, in charge of bestowing federal research grants, opposition to this power grab has taken time to coalesce. But the opposition to the man-made global warming theory is now evident and won’t be ignored.

There have been major conferences, here in Washington and at other locations around the nation, with hundreds of prominent members of the scientific community.  Individuals, many of whom are renowned scientists, Ph.D.’s, and heads of major university science departments, including a few Nobel Prize winners, have stepped up and spoken out.  Even with little news coverage, this group who are accurately referred to as skeptics, are gaining ever more recognition and ever more influence.  They face a daunting challenge.  For a list of some of these well credentialed skeptics, one can visit my website.

So what is this apocalyptic man-made global warming theory that the globalists and radical environmentalists would have us believe?  It is that our planet is dramatically heating up because we human beings, especially Americans, put large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere as a result of using oil, gas, and coal as fuel.

The CO2 has an impact in that it entraps a certain amount of heat in the atmosphere, thus dangerously warming the planet.  We have been warned about huge changes in our environment, including a ten degree jump in the overall temperature, thus a serious rise in the levels of the world’s oceans.

Vice President Al Gore, in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, showed what seemed to be video of melting, breaking ice caps. Inconveniently, somebody squealed – the video was a special effect – Styrofoam made to look like melting and breaking ice caps.  But that is no problem.  People still listen to Al Gore.

The alarmists have reported over and over again, the Earth is dramatically heating up.  Look close at what date was picked as the baseline for comparing temperatures.  It is 1850, the end of a 500 year decline in the Earth’s temperatures – the Little Ice Age.  Skeptics say that a one or two degree increase in the planet’s temperature is irrelevant if the basis of comparison is 500 year low temperature.  To skeptics, currently we are just in another of many natural climate cycles.  To alarmists, the sky is falling – I mean heating – all caused by mankind’s pumping CO2 into the air.

This theory of man-made CO2 causing global warming emerged when scientists mistakenly believed that data from the study of ice cores indicated a warming of our planet after major increases in CO2.  However, later it was found that the ice cores were misread.  As Nicolas Caillon pointed out in Science Magazine in 2003, “the CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 ± 200 years.”

So the heating came first, and then the CO2 increased, not the other way around.  Yes, when the earth heats up, there is more CO2.  We have been told the opposite over and over again and we were told that the earth would keep heating  until we reached a tipping point and the temperature would shoot up rapidly, and we could expect this warming to go on and on until we quit using CO2-emitting fossil fuels as a major source of energy.  The future they described was hot and bleak, but their frightening illusion began to disintegrate when, about nine years ago, even as more CO2 was being pumped into the air, the earth quit warming and now may be in a cooling cycle.

That’s right, the NOAA National Climatic Data Center shows that ground surface temperatures have flattened out and there hasn’t been any net warming since 1998; and the RSS Microwave Sounding Units (MSU) operating on NOAA satellites, show a net cooling since 1998; totally opposite of every prediction from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and their faulty computer models.

Miraculously, the frantic claims and predictions of Man-made Global Warming have now been replaced with a new, all encompassing warning – the words “Climate Change” have replaced Global Warming.  I guess they think we’ll just forget about their predictions being one hundred percent wrong.  Even the much touted melting in the ice caps has now reversed itself the last few years, according to the most recent readings from the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.  So the polar ice caps aren’t going away, and the polar bears are not becoming extinct.  Warming has ended, the power grab continues.  What we now are finding out is exactly how ruthless, and yes, deceitful this power grab has been.

One example is the “blackballing” of prominent scientists like Dr. William Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU), and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences.  Gray had the courage and honesty to point out that there have not, in recent years, been more and stronger hurricanes and other such storms than in the past.  No more research grants for him.  No attention from the media either.

Zealots can usually find high sounding excuses for their transgressions against professionals like Dr. Gray.

Professional figures in white coats, with authoritative tones of voice and lots of credentials, repeatedly dismissed criticism by claiming their so-called scientific findings had been peer reviewed, verified by other scientists.  It sounds so beyond reproach.  They gave each other prizes as they selectively handed out research grants.

Those who disagreed, no matter how prominent, were treated like nonentities, like they didn’t exist, or were personally disparaged; labeled “deniers.”  You know, like the Holocaust deniers.  How much uglier can you get?  But such substandard and unprofessional tactics won’t work forever.  It’s clear the man-made global warming steam roller operation is beginning to fall apart.

We now know, the scientists, clamoring for subservient acceptance of their theory of man-made global warming, were themselves making a sham out of scientific methodology.  Now we know.

I am speaking, of course, about Climate Gate – the publication of over one thousand e-mails, and three thousand other unofficially obtained documents, from one of the world’s foremost Global Warming research institutes, the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the United Kingdom.

We’ve all heard the quotes:

  • “… we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t. ”
  • “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick … to hide the decline. ”
  • “[we’ll] keep them [meaning the skeptics of this dubious science] out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
  • “If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send [it] to anyone.”

The unauthorized release of those internal memos, exposed the shenanigans of the man-made global warming alarmists, and the crime being committed against science and the public.  Even though hand-picked panels of their peers held a “kangaroo court” and loudly proclaimed that there had been no wrongdoing, public confidence was justifiably shaken.

Now, just as the scandal was about to be forgotten, we have an even larger database of communications being exposed, showing even more clearly how this elite operates, and it ain’t pretty.

Some of the quotes from this newly released database:

From Roy Spencer:

“Unfortunately, there is no way to “fix” the IPCC, and there never was. The reason is that its formation over 20 years ago was to support political and energy policy goals, not to search for scientific truth.”

“If you disagree with their interpretation of climate change, you are left out of the IPCC process. They ignore or fight against any evidence which does not support their policy-driven mission, even to the point of pressuring scientific journals not to publish papers which might hurt the IPCC’s efforts.”

From Peter Thorne:

“… [regarding the IPCC] I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it.”

From Bo Christiansen:

“It is very likely that the … mean temperature has shown much larger past variability than caught by previous reconstructions. We cannot from these reconstructions conclude that the previous 50-year period has been unique in the context of the last 500-1000 years.”

I would now like to insert an article from James Taylor of Forbes, who says about ClimateGate II: “these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry.”

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Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate

by James Taylor, Contributor

A new batch of 5,000 emails among scientists central to the assertion that humans are causing a global warming crisis were anonymously released to the public yesterday, igniting a new firestorm of controversy nearly two years to the day after similar emails ignited the Climategate scandal.

Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.

Regarding scientific transparency, a defining characteristic of science is the open sharing of scientific data, theories and procedures so that independent parties, and especially skeptics of a particular theory or hypothesis, can replicate and validate asserted experiments or observations. Emails between Climategate scientists, however, show a concerted effort to hide rather than disseminate underlying evidence and procedures.

“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process,” writes Phil Jones, a scientist working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a newly released email.

“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”

The original Climategate emails contained similar evidence of destroying information and data that the public would naturally assume would be available according to freedom of information principles. “Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment]?” Jones wrote to Penn State University scientist Michael Mann in an email released in Climategate 1.0. “Keith will do likewise. … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. I see that CA [the Climate Audit Web site] claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!”

The new emails also reveal the scientists’ attempts to politicize the debate and advance predetermined outcomes.

“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out” of IPCC reports, writes Jonathan Overpeck, coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s most recent climate assessment.

“I gave up on [Georgia Institute of Technology climate professor] Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but its not helping the cause,” wrote Mann in another newly released email.

“I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose” skeptical scientist Steve McIntyre, Mann writes in another newly released email.

These new emails add weight to Climategate 1.0 emails revealing efforts to politicize the scientific debate. For example, Tom Wigley, a scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, authored a Climategate 1.0 email asserting  that his fellow Climategate scientists “must get rid of” the editor for a peer-reviewed science journal because he published some papers contradicting assertions of a global warming crisis.

More than revealing misconduct and improper motives, the newly released emails additionally reveal frank admissions of the scientific shortcomings of global warming assertions.

“Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary,” writes Peter Thorne of the UK Met Office.

“I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,” Thorne adds.

“Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive … there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC,” Wigley acknowledges.

More damaging emails will likely be uncovered during the next few days as observers pour through the 5,000 emails. What is already clear, however, is the need for more objective research and ethical conduct by the scientists at the heart of the IPCC and the global warming discussion.

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

Op/Ed|11/23/2011 @ 11:38AM

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/

Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of all of this, amid all the consternation about their malpractices, to which we have now been exposed, the global warming elite just keep a straight-face, and keep up their power point presentations, distorted graphs and all, and continue projections of man-made doom and gloom.  They can try to ignore the uproar or change the subject, but these recent revelations seriously call into question the basic science that man-made global warming fanatics claim is irrefutable.

In the meantime, a report was recently issued by the world-respected scientists at CERN in Switzerland.  The CERN study demonstrated that it is cosmic rays from the Sun that determine global cloud cover – and clouds have dramatically more to do with temperature than the miniscule amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The CLOUD project at the highly respected CERN laboratory published a paper in the journal Nature this past August based on this research which shows that the Sun’s activity is influencing cloud formation, and may account for most of the recorded temperature changes in the past century.

I now submit an editorial about this project from The Wall Street Journal by Anne Jolis for the record.

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The Other Climate Theory

Al Gore won’t hear it, but heavenly bodies might be driving long-term weather trends.

By ANNE JOLIS

In April 1990, Al Gore published an open letter in the New York Times “To Skeptics on Global Warming” in which he compared them to medieval flat-Earthers. He soon became vice president and his conviction that climate change was dominated by man-made emissions went mainstream. Western governments embarked on a new era of anti-emission regulation and poured billions into research that might justify it. As far as the average Western politician was concerned, the debate was over.

But a few physicists weren’t worrying about Al Gore in the 1990s. They were theorizing about another possible factor in climate change: charged subatomic particles from outer space, or “cosmic rays,” whose atmospheric levels appear to rise and fall with the weakness or strength of solar winds that deflect them from the earth. These shifts might significantly impact the type and quantity of clouds covering the earth, providing a clue to one of the least-understood but most important questions about climate. Heavenly bodies might be driving long-term weather trends.

The theory has now moved from the corners of climate skepticism to the center of the physical-science universe: the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN. At the Franco-Swiss home of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, scientists have been shooting simulated cosmic rays into a cloud chamber to isolate and measure their contribution to cloud formation. CERN’s researchers reported last month that in the conditions they’ve observed so far, these rays appear to be enhancing the formation rates of pre-cloud seeds by up to a factor of 10. Current climate models do not consider any impact of cosmic rays on clouds.

Scientists have been speculating on the relationship among cosmic rays, solar activity and clouds since at least the 1970s. But the notion didn’t get a workout until 1995, when Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark came across a 1991 paper by Eigil Friis-Christensen and Knud Lassen, who had charted a close relationship between solar variations and changes in the earth’s surface temperature since 1860.

“I had this idea that the real link could be between cloud cover and cosmic rays, and I wanted to try to figure out if it was a good idea or a bad idea,” Mr. Svensmark told me from Copenhagen, where he leads sun-climate research at the Danish National Space Institute.

He wasn’t the first scientist to have the idea, but he was the first to try to demonstrate it. He got in touch with Mr. Friis-Christensen, and they used satellite data to show a close correlation among solar activity, cloud cover and cosmic-ray levels since 1979.

They announced their findings, and the possible climatic implications, at a 1996 space conference in Birmingham, England. Then, as Mr. Svensmark recalls, “everything went completely crazy. . . . It turned out it was very, very sensitive to say these things already at that time.” He returned to Copenhagen to find his local daily leading with a quote from the then-chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): “I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naïve and irresponsible.”

Mr. Svensmark had been, at the very least, politically naïve. “Before 1995 I was doing things related to quantum fluctuations. Nobody was interested, it was just me sitting in my office. It was really an eye-opener, that baptism into climate science.” He says his work was “very much ignored” by the climate-science establishment—but not by CERN physicist Jasper Kirkby, who is leading today’s ongoing cloud-chamber experiment.

On the phone from Geneva, Mr. Kirkby says that Mr. Svensmark’s hypothesis “started me thinking: There’s good evidence that pre-industrial climate has frequently varied on 100-year timescales, and what’s been found is that often these variations correlate with changes in solar activity, solar wind. You see correlations in the atmosphere between cosmic rays and clouds—that’s what Svensmark reported. But these correlations don’t prove cause and effect, and it’s very difficult to isolate what’s due to cosmic rays and what’s due to other things.”

In 1997 he decided that “the best way to settle it would be to use the CERN particle beam as an artificial source of cosmic rays and reconstruct an artificial atmosphere in the lab.” He predicted to reporters at the time that, based on Mr. Svensmark’s paper, the theory would “probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole” of 20th-century warming. He gathered a team of scientists, including Mr. Svensmark, and proposed the groundbreaking experiment to his bosses at CERN.

Then he waited. It took six years for CERN to greenlight and fund the experiment. Mr. Kirkby cites financial pressures for the delay and says that “it wasn’t political.”

Mr. Svensmark declines entirely to guess why CERN took so long, noting only that “more generally in the climate community that is so sensitive, sometimes science goes into the background.”

By 2002, a handful of other scientists had started to explore the correlation, and Mr. Svensmark decided that “if I was going to be proved wrong, it would be nice if I did it myself.” He decided to go ahead in Denmark and construct his own cloud chamber. “In 2006 we had our first results: We had demonstrated the mechanism” of cosmic rays enhancing cloud formation. The IPCC’s 2007 report all but dismissed the theory.

Mr. Kirkby’s CERN experiment was finally approved in 2006 and has been under way since 2009. So far, it has not proved Mr. Svensmark wrong. “The result simply leaves open the possibility that cosmic rays could influence the climate,” stresses Mr. Kirkby, quick to tamp down any interpretation that would make for a good headline.

This seems wise: In July, CERN Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer told Die Welt that he was asking his researchers to make the forthcoming cloud-chamber results “clear, however, not to interpret them. This would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate-change debate.”

But while the cosmic-ray theory has been ridiculed from the start by those who subscribe to the anthropogenic-warming theory, both Mr. Kirkby and Mr. Svensmark hold that human activity is contributing to climate change. All they question is its importance relative to other, natural factors.

Through several more years of “careful, quantitative measurement” at CERN, Mr. Kirkby predicts he and his team will “definitively answer the question of whether or not cosmic rays have a climatically significant effect on clouds.” His old ally Mr. Svensmark feels he’s already answered that question, and he guesses that CERN’s initial results “could have been achieved eight to 10 years ago, if the project had been approved and financed.”

The biggest milestone in last month’s publication may be not the content but the source, which will be a lot harder to ignore than Mr. Svensmark and his small Danish institute.

Any regrets, now that CERN’s particle accelerator is spinning without him? “No. It’s been both a blessing and the opposite,” says Mr. Svensmark. “I had this field more or less to myself for years—that would never have happened in other areas of science, such as particle physics. But this has been something that most climate scientists would not be associated with. I remember another researcher saying to me years ago that the only thing he could say about cosmic rays and climate was it that it was a really bad career move.”

On that point, Mr. Kirkby—whose organization is controlled by not one but 20 governments—really does not want to discuss politics at all: “I’m an experimental particle physicist, okay? That somehow nature may have decided to connect the high-energy physics of the cosmos with the earth’s atmosphere—that’s what nature may have done, not what I’ve done.”

Last month’s findings don’t herald the end of a debate, but the resumption of one. That is, if the politicians purporting to legislate based on science will allow it.

Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904537404576554750502443800.html#

In this piece she says: “charged subatomic particles from outer space, or “cosmic rays,” … might significantly impact the type and quantity of clouds covering the earth, providing a clue to one of the least-understood but most important questions about climate. Heavenly bodies might be driving long-term weather trends.”

And while scientists have discovered the Sun’s relation to cloud cover, even more recently a study was released directly undermining the theory that CO2 levels are the major determinant of the Earth’s temperature.

And a recent editorial from Investor’s Business Daily, on the topic of this new study about temperature sensitivity to carbon dioxide, undermines the “case closed” arguments of the scientific-technological elite.

From the editorial:

“The left’s proposed solutions for the world’s ills are based on the idea that carbon dioxide is a climate-heating poison that must be scrubbed from the global economy at all cost. Yet another study shows this is foolish.”

I now submit this editorial for the record.

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Investor’s Business Daily Editorial

Global Warming Models Called Into Question By New Study

Climate: The left’s proposed solutions for the world’s ills are based on the idea that carbon dioxide is a climate-heating poison that must be scrubbed from the global economy at all cost. Yet another study shows this is foolish.

The study in the journal Science found that global temperatures appear to be far less sensitive to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere than originally estimated.

This sounds prosaic, but it’s a bombshell — another in a long line of revelations showing the scientific fraud at the heart of the anti-global warming movement.

The study’s findings are simple and devastating. “This implies that the effect of CO2 on climate is less than previously thought,” said Oregon State University’s Andreas Schmittner, the study’s main author.

Even with a doubling of CO2 from levels that existed before the Industrial Revolution, the study found a likely increase in Earth’s temperature only from about 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit to 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

That compares with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report, which predicted an increase of 3.6 degrees to 8.6 degrees.

Coupled with the fact the average global temperature hasn’t increased at all over the past decade — even though under all of the global warming models now in use, this is impossible — warmist ideology is crumbling. There is no climate armageddon on the horizon.

But don’t expect global warm-mongers to admit this. As we’ve discovered from a new trove of emails sent by leading European climate-change scientists, there has been a vast, global green conspiracy to silence scientific opposition to the idea — even to the point of falsifying data and ruining others’ careers.

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The left’s entire prescription for solving the world’s ills — ranging from population control to strict regulation of businesses to shrinking CO2 output — are premised on the notion that carbon-dioxide is a poison.

Happily, the left’s pernicious, economy-destroying and false global warming ideology is collapsing under a growing body of evidence that the CO2 scare is a fraud.

Who says we have nothing to be thankful for?

http://news.investors.com/article/592860/201111251503/new-study-casts-doubt-on-global-warming.htm

Posted 11/25/2011 06:03 PM ET

And despite the weakness of the linkage between CO2 and temperature, they continue with their alarmist tactics.  We just had a report published in Nature Climate Change in the last few days that CO2 emissions in 2010 went up by 5.9%, which the scientists claimed was “the highest total annual growth recorded.”

Except they didn’t actually record any CO2 emissions – they estimated them based on energy usage.  They didn’t take into account new technology that makes oil, gas and coal cleaner and greener.  The Scientists didn’t care how cleanly the coal or oil is burned.  They just estimated CO2 emissions based on the total amount of coal or oil used.  And the media, like their little lap dogs, faithfully report what sounds like a calamity – both Reuters and the NY Times reported that this is the largest increase ever recorded, despite no emissions actually being recorded.

The truth is that CO2 is not a pollutant.  Anyone perpetuating the myth that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant is contributing to the health-destructive impact of real pollution by diverting resources and attention from these very real challenges.  We have wasted $25 billion on this foolishness.  That is money that could have been used to develop new energy technologies, for example, that could move us off of dependence on foreign oil.

Some examples of these potential technologies, if we had the money to invest, we could build Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, which could actually use as fuel what today we consider nuclear waste.  These reactors would have no possibility of turning into another Fukushima or Chernobyl, and no possibility of a radioactive leak.  And some designs can use the fuel so efficiently that there is no plutonium for bombs left over, and no huge piles of waste to be stored or buried.  The pile of spent material currently spread around the country goes down, not up.  That’s if we had the money.

Space-based solar power could allow us to collect solar power in space, where the Sun is constantly shining, and transmit that energy to any place on Earth.  This technology has the potential to provide global baseload power, and is the ultimate “renewable” energy.

Developing these energy technologies will take money, hundreds of millions for the new reactors, billions for space based solar; instead we’ve squandered our limited science and technology dollars on trying to prove man-made global warming and spreading fear about the supposed impact.

We have not pursued these or other technologies which could fundamentally benefit everyone on Earth, because we have been wasting our time and resources figuring out how to bury carbon in the ground, and atoning for the guilt of industrialization by paying dictators in poor countries, and, of course, paying for research grants with the sole purpose of proving man-made global warming.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I am here to explain why this is complete and utter non-sense, and warn of the danger that lurks behind such a high sounding cause.

Well, don’t miss the significance of an international conference that is now convening in Durban, South Africa, to decide how best to control people’s lives.

In the past, the efforts at Kyoto and Copenhagen were thwarted or minimized.

Globalists will try to use the international conference in Durban to lay the foundations for the future these global elites envision for the United States; their vision of controls, mandates, changes in our lifestyles, lowering our economic activity.  That may not seem real, but their people, quite literally, would not only outlaw frequent flier miles, but also backyard BBQ.  In fact, elements in the global warming camp would take the burgers right off the grill.  They keep harping on meat eaters.  Others consistently talk about there being too many people in the world.  So we should let an international elite like this set down a plan we must follow?  Let them mandate our behavior, and control our lives?  It’s only if we’re frightened out of our wits by a vision of the world turning into a chaotic ball of rising, acidic oceans, expanding deserts, and too many damn people, then rational people would take these radical proposals seriously.

Wake up, America! It’s time for the patriots to stand tall and say enough! It’s time for patriots to act. We still have time to turn this around.

Future generations of Americans are in the process of being shackled like slaves to a monstrous burden of economy killing debt.  We will not give away the freedom of our children to global planners because some white coated know-it-alls conspire to create a phony alarm, a phony crisis to justify changing our way of life.  The sky is not falling.  There is no need to give up or restrict our freedoms or that of future Americans.

There have been warming and cooling cycles for the entire history of our planet and other planets, too.  The effect of man-made CO2 is miniscule compared to cloud cover affected by cosmic rays from the Sun.  Science is important, but it is being abused to create rules, and a global bureaucracy, to control us all.  We will not be stampeded into giving up our freedom to a global elite, or to anybody else.

We are not powerless.  We will stand together, Americans of every race and religion; of every ethnic group and social status.  We patriots will fight, and we will win.

We must stand up and defeat this power grab by the scientific-technological elite, and those who would impose global governance. Wake up America! We don’t have Eisenhower to save us.  Now it’s up to us.

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Gixxerboy
December 17, 2011 4:13 pm

This man should be President.

Beesaman
December 17, 2011 4:17 pm

Bravo……
Was that recorded on video by any chance? It would be great on youtube!

James
December 17, 2011 4:24 pm

Bravo

DesertYote
December 17, 2011 4:26 pm

Wow, talk about “Speaking truth to power”, and to think this was from a Kalifornian!

December 17, 2011 4:30 pm

Rohrabacher is the first politician I in some time to make any sense. The question however, is anyone listening?

pete50
December 17, 2011 4:31 pm

This bloke is sane and rational – we need more like him. And he should get lots of support from other sane rationalists What’s his e-address?

Paul80
December 17, 2011 4:35 pm

Very comprehensive and compelling case against CAGW which should be prepared in summary for all world media with the whole text available for detailed study. The media should be made to take notice!!

December 17, 2011 4:35 pm

It’s 1.30 am here in spain and I have just read this amazing speech.I am going to bed a happy man and will think about all the poignient issues raised in this speech.
This is very encouraging.
Lots and lots of mileasge left in the climategates yet.

Richard de W.
December 17, 2011 4:36 pm

Thats one hell of a statement.

Hoser
December 17, 2011 4:37 pm

Finally. One of them gets it.

Dave G
December 17, 2011 4:41 pm

I wonder how many members of congress were present to actually hear his speech?

DBD
December 17, 2011 4:44 pm

Goodness – what’s he doing in California?? Great speech…I wonder if anyone heard it?

December 17, 2011 4:49 pm

Great speech by a rare Congressman who is very concerned about the existential threat to the Republic.

KevinK
December 17, 2011 4:50 pm

Whoa, another crack in the mortar of the brick wall that is the FACADE of climate “SCIENCE”. I do indeed agree with everything stated by this REPRESENTATIVE of the PEOPLE.
Lets keep working to produce more cracks in the wall, eventually it will come down as another wall around an old German capital did………………
Cheers, Kevin.

Jay
December 17, 2011 4:51 pm

Amen !
Tell it like it is brother.
A group of like minded legislators in congress such as this would put a big clamp on the funding for UN nonsense and money wasted on “climate change” research.

Pascvaks
December 17, 2011 4:56 pm

Unfortunately, very few in Congress heard these words, and no doubt too, only a pitiful few more were likely to have read them. When lemmings are in a tizzy and hell bent on running around in ever bigger circles, they can’t hear much at all.

Dr Burns
December 17, 2011 4:56 pm

Fantastic !
Will we ever hear such a speech in Australian parliament ?

DonB in VA
December 17, 2011 4:56 pm

Right On! Right On, Brother!

Jeff id
December 17, 2011 4:59 pm

It seems like I have read every argument in the world against this man’s remarks and cannot disagree with him.
It is almost impossible to let the politics of current days influence my views. Science is science and politics is politics yet when you see the crap the left is pulling against blogs now it is impossible to ignore how deep the activism goes. I am currently more skeptical than I ever have been about climate science.
Well said Mr. Rohrabacher….

Noelene
December 17, 2011 5:00 pm

A well read man.He’s looked at both sides,unlike Obama,Gillard and all the rest that screech doom and gloom every week.

December 17, 2011 5:06 pm

“…lets acknowledge that man-made global warming advocates, who I suggest are Alarmists, do not believe the sun has no impact on climate cycles”.
——————————————————————
That is so crazy. If the sun has no impact on climate cycles, why does a ~23.5 degree tilt in the Earth’s axis generate the seasons? A part of the Earth can be at times a little bit closer or a little bit farther away from the sun and hey presto! – it is correspondingly hotter or colder.
The warmunists prolly consider our obliquity of the ecliptic to be the axis of evil cuz it causes climate change. Maybe the IPCC should tax money from us for a fund to straighten the tilt!
(maybe i shouldn’t give them any ideas)

jimbojinx
December 17, 2011 5:07 pm

This is a GREAT summary of most of the best arguments against CAGW-Catastrophic Anthroprogenic Global Warming….Many thanks Mr. Senator !!!
However we have one recent study which concerns me and should concern all of us and I have not seen it adequately answered: ” Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf- They set out to remove the effect of three large natural influences on global temperature variability, El Nino, volcanic and solar effects, to find the “real global warming signal.”
They claim they have got it:
http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/4502-global-temperature-evolution-1979-2010.html
Can anyone direct me to a credible evaluation of their techniques which eviscerates the validity of their claims ?

John West
December 17, 2011 5:12 pm

Not a bad grasp of the situation for a politician, however, I wish he would have used a better climate model questioning analysis than an “Investor’s Business Daily” Editorial with outdated figures. Something like what Bob Tisdale posted here a few days ago would have been much better and harder to criticize. I don’t particularly care for getting a 3.1 to 4.7 degree sensitivity associated with “even the skeptics”, particularly in light of the previously declared 2 degree safety limit. Even though the 2 degree max is complete arbitrary nonesense, I could see those figures in such a public usage being turned around into “even the skeptics agree that there will be dangerous warming”.

dave d
December 17, 2011 5:14 pm

I may move to Ca so I can vote for him, next time!

Jesse
December 17, 2011 5:22 pm

“Remarks given by Mr. Rohrabacher of California on December 8, 2011 on the floor of the House, a matter of public record.”
Is there a source for this?

mpaul
December 17, 2011 5:27 pm

Great speech. My one quibble is that I think its too early for skeptics to rally behind an alternative theory (solar wind) as the chief cause of climate variation. The solar guys still need to make their case. Yes, they already offer a substantially better argument than the the CO2ers, but more validation is needed. Offering an alternative theory allows the CO2 Alarmists to go ont he offense against the alternative theory rather than defending their own theory.
I’d prefer that we skeptics keep them on defense — stick to the argument that the CO2 alarmists have utterly failed to make the case that the climate’s CO2 sensitivity is high. Where’s the evidence? The only things they have proffered are hockey sticks and computer models — and both have now been conclusively shown to be wrong.

jorgekafkazar
December 17, 2011 5:43 pm

I’ve met Representative Rohrabacher. He’s very intelligent and well-informed. We need hundreds like him in government.

Reed Coray
December 17, 2011 5:55 pm

Message to Senator Boxer: “Please have a member of your staff read Congressman Rohrabacher’s Address To Congress to you. It’s just possible you might learn something.” No, I take that back–some things are just not possible.

December 17, 2011 5:57 pm

Here is his official home page, contact info included.
http://rohrabacher.house.gov/Contact/

Lew Skannen
December 17, 2011 6:11 pm

Excellent. I am glad this sort of thing is finally getting a public airing. The first tactic of the warmists will be to ignore the speech but it is now at least on record and can be quoted again and again.
I will now start posting a few links to it around my spots on the web.

Mike Bromley the Kurd
December 17, 2011 6:16 pm

Comprehensive in scope! He calls for America to wake up but I think Canada already has. When the cowed masses finally realize that this is all a scam……

Luther Wu
December 17, 2011 6:17 pm

Bravo, Sir!
(watch your back)

December 17, 2011 6:28 pm

Whoa!
Representative Rohrabacher is one politican who is both paying attention and using his intelligence to see what is going on.
Folks like him may actually give hope to the rest of the US that there are reasonable and rational people in California politics.

RockyRoad
December 17, 2011 6:31 pm

This guy can’t be a Republican… only Democrats are smart, persuasive, insightful, well-read, and erudite, especially when speaking out on Global Warming.
/sarc

December 17, 2011 6:33 pm

Representative Rohrabacher is a 12 term Republican congressman. I am an independent who usually votes Democratic and will probably vote for Obama (unless Huntsman wins the Republican nomination). As an old style conservationist, not a “green,” I find his record on conservation issues dismaying, but his record on most human rights issues (not gay marriage, unfortuately) and most other issues is fiscally conservative and socially moderate to progressive, similar to my own. Of course, I support him on the climate change/global warming issue, but I am not a one issue ideologue, far from it. Nevertheless, I am considering sending Congressman Rohrabacher a contribution for re-election.
Here are two websites with further information-
http://rohrabacher.house.gov/Biography/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Rohrabacher

December 17, 2011 6:37 pm

Contact
Washington, D.C. Office
2300 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2415
Fax (202) 225-0145
District Office
101 Main Street, Suite 380
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
(714) 960-6483
(310) 377-9493
Fax (714) 960-7806
Congress Mans Contact Information… email seems to be ONLY via web which is no good for those not in USA information taken from http://rohrabacher.house.gov/

December 17, 2011 6:38 pm

“Reed Coray says: December 17, 2011 at 5:55 pm………
Reed,
Senator Boxer supports a “Moral and Ethical Response to Climate Change” as noted http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/29/national-climate-ethics-statement/
The “Handbook for Community and Organizational Activities” http://climateethicscampaign.org/storage/CEC%20Handbook%20final%2011-9.pdf states-
“Why Start a Climate Ethics Campaign?
The debate about climate change has produced deep divisions in America that prevent
many people from grasping the reality and urgency of the issue. This is because, at the
most fundamental level, climate change is not a scientific, political, or even an energy
problem. It is a moral and ethical crisis. Our energy use and consumption levels and the
greenhouse gas emissions they generate now threaten life as we know it, and this
challenges long held views about the righteousness of our economy and lifestyles.
Ethical and cultural divides like this cannot be overcome with more scientific facts or
technical arguments. From women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, history has
shown that harmful beliefs, practices, and policies can only be overcome when they are
declared to be morally wrong and decidedly unjust. Only then are people motivated to right
that wrong by working for a higher moral purpose.
Social movements create change. They start at the individual level, and grow one person at
a time until social contagion occurs. The climate crisis will be resolved only when people
like you demand that their communities and organizations live up to our nation’s long
standing ethical and moral obligations to:
• Protect current and future generations from unjustifiable suffering and death;
• Act in a just and equitable manner; and
• Protect the natural systems that support all life on earth, including human.
Your community and organization can abide by these ethical obligations by:
• Rapidly & significantly reducing carbon emissions;
• Preparing for the consequences of climate change; and
• Demanding and enacting policies that support those goals.”………………..

LexingtonGreen
December 17, 2011 6:38 pm

Sweet! I think after redistricting he will be my congressman.

John West
December 17, 2011 6:40 pm

jimbojinx says:
“Can anyone direct me to a credible evaluation of their techniques which eviscerates the validity of their claims ?”
The paper is not pay walled:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf
While I haven’t seen an evaluation after reading the paper the following pops to mind:

“ we list the linear trend in the signals due to ENSO, volcanic forcing and solar variation”

Why just ENSO, volcanic, & solar variation? What about NAO, SAM, ozone, sulfates, aerosols, albedo, etc? It appears they’ve merely searched through the forcings until they found the combination that they could use to show global warming was still occurring to 2010. In other words, they cherry picked the forcings that gave them the results they wanted. I can’t think of any valid reason not to include ALL known forcings and sources of internal variability in such a hindcast analysis.

“There is no indication of any slowdown or acceleration of global warming, beyond the variability induced by these known natural factors.”

So, they “show” a nice steady increase in temperature of between 1.4 and 1.7 degrees Celsius per century between 1979 and 2010 without any acceleration.

Seems like backpedaling to me!
I wouldn’t worry too much about this particular paper, IMHO, its transitional as “science” abandons the discredited conjecture and those that won’t let it go in a slow “face saving” manner. There will be another that puts it at 1.2 to 1.5, then it’ll be 1.0 to 1.3, so forth and so on.

Werner Brozek
December 17, 2011 6:49 pm

Excellent!!
“and the RSS Microwave Sounding Units (MSU) operating on NOAA satellites, show a net cooling since 1998;”
The cooling at RSS actually goes back to March, 1997.
Selected data from 1997.17
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.000755818 per year
See: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1997.17/trend

Roger Carr
December 17, 2011 6:51 pm

Many thanks from an Australian for this speech, Congressman Rohrabacher.

Harry Kal
December 17, 2011 6:52 pm

This is great.
A politician with brains.
Harry

eyesonu
December 17, 2011 6:55 pm

Very good and thorough presentation Representative Rohrabacher.
The USA and other countries need more statesmen like you.

John West
December 17, 2011 7:02 pm

jimbojinx says:
“Can anyone direct me to a credible evaluation of their techniques which eviscerates the validity of their claims ?”
Well, now there’s an evaluation right here at WUWT. While I was reading it, Frank Lansner was busy debunking it, very thoroughly too.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/17/frank-lansner-on-foster-and-rahmstorf-2011/#more-53252

Werner Brozek
December 17, 2011 7:06 pm

“John West says:
December 17, 2011 at 5:12 pm
I don’t particularly care for getting a 3.1 to 4.7 degree sensitivity associated with “even the skeptics”, particularly in light of the previously declared 2 degree safety limit.”
The 3.1 to 4.7 is in degrees F, but the 2 is degrees C. (2 C = 3.6 F)

Paul80
December 17, 2011 7:15 pm

Having started to read kakatoa said: (December 17, 2011 at 6:38 pm) about a topic which should be of interest – “Climate & Ethics” – I stopped abruptly at:
“Our energy use and consumption levels and the greenhouse gas emissions they generate now threaten life as we know it …”
Do they really??? Who proved this? What evidence of is there of such a ‘threat’ in the last decade or so? The rest of the exhortations may be very noble in concept, but is there any assurance of real benefit?

Werner Brozek
December 17, 2011 7:19 pm

John West says:
December 17, 2011 at 6:40 pm
In addition to the excellent points made regarding
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf
I would like to point out that their average slope was 0.17/decade from 1979 to 2011.
When looking at the following, we see that 1979 to 2011 very roughly corresponds to the ascending part of the 60 year sine wave at the following site:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
So presumably, it will go down for the next 30 years. But even if it stays flat for the next 30 years and then resumes at 0.17/decade for the following 30 years, it only gives an average slope of 0.085/decade over 60 years. At that rate, we will NOT reach 2 C by 2100.

Pat Moffitt
December 17, 2011 7:33 pm

Oh great! In making the case against AGW alarmism the Congressman embraced CO2’s replacement- the Nitrogen Cascade -claiming we should all be worrying about NOx. We are going to look back on CO2 as the good old days. Wait till you see what EPA is planning to do with limitations on reactive nitrogen. As an example the 45% N reduction being considered for the Mississippi River basin will shut down fossil fuels use far more effectively than will CO2 as well as give EPA the hammer it has long sought to control agriculture. If you think the climate models are bad — wait till you get a look at the nitrogen models. Only the name of the molecule will have changed- the strategy remains the same.
If anyone knows the Congressman– please caution him to investigate further.
An overview of the Nitrogen Cascade crisis can be found in the August 2011 Sci. Advisory Bd. report to EPA here:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab/sabproduct.nsf/67057225CC780623852578F10059533D/$File/EPA-SAB-11-013-unsigned.pdf

dtbronzich
December 17, 2011 8:33 pm

Wow.

December 17, 2011 8:59 pm

Dr Burns says: (December 17, 2011 at 4:56 pm)

Fantastic !
Will we ever hear such a speech in Australian parliament ?

Whenever Dr Dennis Jensen MHR is speaking.

John West
December 17, 2011 9:01 pm

Werner Brozek says:
“The 3.1 to 4.7 is in degrees F, but the 2 is degrees C. (2 C = 3.6 F)”
Sure enough: “3.1 degrees Fahrenheit to 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Thanks! That is much better. (And English is my native language, so no excuse there.) LOL! [The 8.6 should’ve clued me in.]
Probably still a little high, but at least five ninths better.

Hide The Income
December 17, 2011 9:03 pm

Sub-atomic particle rays — that is the sCeptics soup du jour. What will it be next week — a change in magnetic north? Here is an idea — lets go with what every science academy in the world believes is warmning the atmosphere — CO2.

grayman
December 17, 2011 9:30 pm

All i can say is finally a polotician with a head on his shoulders!! “HEAR HEAR”

Reed Coray
December 17, 2011 9:36 pm

kakatoa says: December 17, 2011 at 6:38 pm
If your response to my comment [December 17, 2011 at 5:55 pm] was meant as sarcasm aimed at Senator Boxer, read no further. However, if you meant to imply that Senator Boxer is a paragon of virtue when it comes to global warming, please continue reading.
You don’t have any idea how happy it makes me feel to know that Senator Boxer “supports a ‘Moral and Ethical Response to Climate Change’. At Starbucks, that and one dollar (now six dollars what with Starbucks’ $5 donation job program) will get you a cup of coffee. Talk about a bunch of motherhood, apple pie, and double talk. Orwell would be proud. If you’re trying to convince me that Senator Boxer is correct about anything, you have a huge hill to climb. In my opinion, Senator Boxer is without doubt the dumbest Senator in the US Congress.
Reed,
Senator Boxer supports a “Moral and Ethical Response to Climate Change” as noted http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/29/national-climate-ethics-statement/
The “Handbook for Community and Organizational Activities” http://climateethicscampaign.org/storage/CEC%20Handbook%20final%2011-9.pdf states-
“Why Start a Climate Ethics Campaign?
“The debate about climate change has produced deep divisions in America that prevent
many people from grasping the reality and urgency of the issue.”

If Senator Boxer heads the list of “people who can’t seem to grasp the reality of the [global warming’ issue”, I agree. I am, however, curious to know exactly what the reality and urgency are. Maybe Babs will tell us later in her “words of wisdom”. We’ll see.
“This is because, at the most fundamental level, climate change is not a scientific, political, or even an energy problem. It is a moral and ethical crisis.”
What the f*&%*k. Climate change is a moral problem!. You mean what the sun does, the Earth’s orbit, the ice ages, the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, etc. are moral issues? Come on. A moral issue is a decision to take the last cookie, not a decision to reprimand or applaud the sun.
“Our energy use and consumption levels and the greenhouse gas emissions they generate now threaten life as we know it,”
Who says we’re threatened? It can’t be the scientists–because as Babs says in her spiel “climate change isn’t a scientific issue.” If it’s a political problem, God help us. Politicians care first, last, and always about getting elected; so any concern they voice is first, last, and always about their power, not reality. And if you think politicians can do anything about the sun, well more power to you. And energy can’t be the threat. Well, actually energy in the form of a fast moving car can be a threat, but energy in general. That’s like saying water can be a threat to your welfare–it’s true (you can drown), but try living without water.
“and this challenges long held views about the righteousness of our economy and lifestyles.”
When a politician lectures me on the “righteousness of our economy and lifestyles” I want to puke. Especially when the lecture comes from people like Senator Boxer, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Vice President Al Gore. Spare me the moral righteousness; actions speak louder than words.
“Ethical and cultural divides like this cannot be overcome with more scientific facts or
technical arguments.”

This statement impliles “global warming” is an ethical and/or a cultural divide–neither of which is true. How culture has anything to do with global warming is beyond comprehension. It’s possible that our response to global warming is an ethical issue, but not global warming per se. Our ethical response can range from “Thank God for global warming–it will reduce the number of people who freeze to death” to “global warming is Satan incarnate.” I lean towards the former more than to the latter.
“women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, history has shown that harmful beliefs, practices, and policies can only be overcome when they are declared to be morally wrong and decidedly unjust.”
I’m surprised Babs didn’t also write: 2 + 2 = 4, having good is good for your, it’s better to be rich than poor, etc. Statements that are all true and have no relevance to global warming. Here the sage Senator Boxer equates global warming with “harmful beliefs”, and/or “[harmful] practices”, and/or “[harmful] policies.” Global warming is NOT a belief, practice, or policy. To the extent it exists, it is a manifestation of nature. Yes, NATURE because man is a part of nature; and if he has any role (good or bad) in global warming, it’s still nature.
“Only then are people motivated to right that wrong by working for a higher moral purpose.”
Here global warming is equated with “a wrong” and that “wrong” can be fixed by “working for a higher moral purpose.” I’m sure glad I have Babs to lead me as I “work to a higher moral purpose.” When Bill Walton told coach John Wooden that he (Walton) had principles and it went against those principles to get the haircut coach Wooden required of all players at UCLA, coach Wooden’s response was something like: “That’s fine Bill. I admire a man with principles. The problem is I have principles too. So I wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors.” Like John Wooden, I too have “higher moral purposes” and near the top of my list is the “higher moral purpose” to by any legal means rid the Senate of idiots like Senator Boxer.
“Social movements create change. They start at the individual level, and grow one person at a time until social contagion occurs.”
Here I applly Godwin’s law. Communism, Nazism, and I imagine headhunting in certain societies are/were social movements. How did the contagion they produced work out?
“The climate crisis will be resolved only when people like you demand that their communities and organizations live up to our nation’s long standing ethical and moral obligations to:
• Protect current and future generations from unjustifiable suffering and death;
• Act in a just and equitable manner; and
• Protect the natural systems that support all life on earth, including human.”

Talk about motherhood, apple pie and the American flag. Who doesn’t want to accomplish the above? However, when attempting to impose your way of thinking on the world, the desire to do good is NOT sufficient. A teensy-eensy bit of knowledge about how to accomplish your goals helps. Unfortunately, in Senator Boxer’s case, that level of knowledge is not only absent, it is non-existent.
“Your community and organization can abide by these ethical obligations by:
• Rapidly & significantly reducing carbon emissions;
• Preparing for the consequences of climate change; and
• Demanding and enacting policies that support those goals.”………………..”

The next time I see someone who is about to light a stove to keep from freezing to death, I’ll remind him that before lighting the stove, it is his moral obligation to check his carbon footprint and make sure he hasn’t exceeded his limit of CO2 emission. The next time an ambulance driver trys to start his engine to transport a critically ill patient to the hospital, I’ll grab his keys and refuse to give them back until he has made the “moral case” that the person he is trying to save is worth the CO2 that is about to pollute the atmosphere.
Again, if you meant your comment as sarcasm against Senator Boxer, my apologies. Otherwise, I both hope and believe that you will have trouble finding the voting booth at the next election.

Paul Vaughan
December 17, 2011 9:46 pm

“The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath,
The drums will shake the castle wall, the ring wraiths ride in black, […]
The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back. Bring it back.
At last the sun is shining, The clouds of blue roll by,
With flames from the dragon of darkness, the sunlight blinds his eyes.”

– Led Zeppelin “Battle of Evermore”

E.M.Smith
Editor
December 17, 2011 10:09 pm

Golly. Sanity. And from a Rep from California, too. Must be Christmas soon 😉
Either that, or it’s just a dream….

Brian H
December 17, 2011 10:36 pm

John West says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:01 pm
… (And English is my native language, so no excuse there.)

Probably still a little high, but at least five ninths better.

How about grade school fractions? Four ninths better (9/9 – 5/9 = 4/9).
😉
😛

Phil R
December 17, 2011 10:59 pm

Jesse says:
December 17, 2011 at 5:22 pm
“Remarks given by Mr. Rohrabacher of California on December 8, 2011 on the floor of the House, a matter of public record.”
Is there a source for this?
Uhmm…yes. It’s called the Congressional Record.

December 17, 2011 11:11 pm

At 5:43 PM on 17 December, jorgekafkazar had posted:

I’ve met Representative Rohrabacher. He’s very intelligent and well-informed. We need hundreds like him in government.

A couple of decades ago, I bumped into Dr. Ron Paul at a convention, and we spent an hour or so talking about this and that, including how each of us had gotten into the study of Austrian School economics.
I went in by way of Henry Hazlitt’s The Conquest of Poverty (1973) while Dr. Paul jumped right into Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action (1949).
Ron Paul is definitely both “very intelligent” and “well-informed.”
We need him replacing our Kenyan Keynesian in the White House in 2013, no [snip . . no profanity please . . kbmod] doubt about it.

December 17, 2011 11:59 pm

Considering he is a politician, he is surprisingly well informed and capable into technical details. We need people like him to speak openly, preferably premiers and presidents. Up to now, only Czech president Vaclav Klaus has qualified as an independent mind, correctly recognizing the leftist religious push behind all that.

Reply to  Juraj V.
December 18, 2011 12:47 am

At 11:59 PM on 17 December, Juraj V. had written:

Considering he [Rep. Rohrabacher] is a politician, he is surprisingly well informed and capable into technical details. We need people like him to speak openly, preferably premiers and presidents. Up to now, only Czech president Vaclav Klaus has qualified as an independent mind, correctly recognizing the leftist religious push behind all that.

Not even close. Congressional Representative Ron Paul – who is presently doing very nicely in the Red Faction contest for the Republican Party presidential nomination next year, thank you – has long been openly and scrupulously skeptical of the anthropogenic global warming (“man-made global climate change”) bogosity for many years.
In a Freakanomics interview posted online on 20 November 2008 (about a year pre-Climategate), Dr. Paul replied to a question on “global warming” as follows:

I try to look at global warming the same way I look at all other serious issues: as objectively and open-minded as possible. There is clear evidence that the temperatures in some parts of the globe are rising, but temperatures are cooling in other parts. The average surface temperature had risen for several decades, but it fell back substantially in the past few years.
Clearly there is something afoot. The question is: Is the upward fluctuation in temperature man-made or part of a natural phenomenon. Geological records indicate that in the 12th century, Earth experienced a warming period during which Greenland was literally green and served as rich farmland for Nordic peoples. There was then a mini ice age, the polar ice caps grew, and the once-thriving population of Greenland was virtually wiped out.
It is clear that the earth experiences natural cycles in temperature. However, science shows that human activity probably does play a role in stimulating the current fluctuations.

It’s not just Rep. Rohrabacher and Czech President Vaclav Klaus on the political side, but also the single man best qualified to replace our Fraudulence-in-Chief in the White House in 2013.

Al Gore's Holy Hologram
December 18, 2011 1:13 am

Atmospheric NOX is well within safety limits and these days athletes are trying to stimulate NOX to be produced in their bodies as a vasodilator to improve stamina, endurance and nutrient uptake.

Neil Jones
December 18, 2011 1:35 am

“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
This is the purpose of the EU, that Technocrats, not Democrats should govern and the EU is the model for the World Government they want to impose.

Peter Miller
December 18, 2011 1:40 am

I think this could be another instance of Winston Churchill’s famous comment:
“You can always rely on the Americans to do the right thing……………………………….eventually.”
Perhaps ‘eventually’ has now come a little closer as a result of Mr. Rohrabacher’s statement. .

TBear (Sydney, where it has finally warmed up, but just a bit ...)
December 18, 2011 2:04 am

It was an okay speech.
We need many more like it.
Maybe if the others could leave out the call to `patriots to rise up’, it might sound a bit less corny.
But, yep, good stuff …
The Bear approves and awars his `Free Jar of Honey (extra sweet)’ to the good Congressman.

TBear (Sydney, where it has finally warmed up, but just a bit ...)
December 18, 2011 2:04 am

It was an okay speech.
We need many more like it.
Maybe if the others could leave out the call to `patriots to rise up’, it might sound a bit less corny.
But, yep, good stuff …
The Bear approves and awards his weekly `Free Jar of Honey (extra sweet)’ to the good Congressman.

TBear (Sydney, where it has finally warmed up, but just a bit ...)
December 18, 2011 2:10 am

And, just BTW, very cold in Sydney.
Coldest start to summer the Bear can remember, though we have to wait until the end of December to get a real comparison.
Met a honeymooning couple, Jamie and Amy, from New York, in Sydney yesterday
They bought the Bear a beer. The Bear returned the shout.
Smart, well educated people. God, young people from NY can talk!!! We talked a lot, about almost everything. They offered (the Bear did not raise the topic) as a comment that AGW is a crock
Nice to hear …

wayne Job
December 18, 2011 2:43 am

It is very frustrating for an Australian to try and give praise to a politician such as this when their web sites will not accept Australian addresses. From me please some one pass on my best wishes to this rather unusual Californian politician.

A. C. Osborn
December 18, 2011 2:58 am

An Excellent speach.
Like others outside the USA I find it sad that i can’t email him and add my backing/thanks for his trying to bring sanity back to the world.

al gallacher
December 18, 2011 3:01 am

Well, PC and other nonsenses began life in Cal, maybe it is time for something good to have it’s Genesis in that fair State!

Allan M
December 18, 2011 3:13 am

Wow! That’s telling ‘um.
Even though hand-picked panels of their peers held a “kangaroo court” and loudly proclaimed that there had been no wrongdoing, public confidence was justifiably shaken.
I finally worked out what an “independent enquiry” means – the findings are independent of the facts available.
Pity about the space based solar bit; that’s just too expensive.

wayne
December 18, 2011 3:26 am

wayne Job says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:43 am
“It is very frustrating for an Australian to try and give praise to a politician such as this when their web sites will not accept Australian addresses. From me please some one pass on my best wishes to this rather unusual Californian politician.”
Done Wayne. So you are from down under too. I always had you placed up here! ☺

ocker
December 18, 2011 3:28 am

Tell the congressman that if he migrates to Australia, he has my vote

December 18, 2011 3:38 am

Excellent speech, however if he’s saying we don’t need to reduce population, I disagree with that – I think we do need to.

Kozlowski
December 18, 2011 3:41 am

“pesadia says:
December 17, 2011 at 4:35 pm
It’s 1.30 am here in spain and I have just read this amazing speech.I am going to bed a happy man and will think about all the poignient issues raised in this speech.
This is very encouraging.”
And its 3:30 AM here in CA, and I just read this amazing speech. I too am going to bed a happy man 😉
Cheers!

December 18, 2011 3:46 am

Everyone must check out Pachauri’s latest statements. He is indeed hoping that skeptics are killed, by blasting them into outer space:
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2011/12/pachauri-openly-defends-killing.html
He has to leave the IPCC and apologize!
Ecotretas

mwhite
December 18, 2011 3:50 am

Vaclav Havel, Czech statesman and playwright, dies at 75
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16236393

astrodragon
December 18, 2011 4:05 am

Cant you guys in the USA elect this guy President??
Please…

Philip Mulholland
December 18, 2011 4:17 am

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

St Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians 4:8

Jesse
December 18, 2011 4:43 am

As some pointed out (and which I’d already seen) is a paper from March 2009 and not from December 2011. Is it possible someone got things mixed up somewhere. Not trying to be contrary; I just don’t want to quote something that I can’t verify.

A. C. Osborn
December 18, 2011 5:37 am

GregS says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:38 am
Are you volunteering?

Editor
December 18, 2011 5:46 am

Awesome…

Robertvdl
December 18, 2011 6:07 am

This should be all over the news media. Where are the people who are there to inform the public. Why do they silence this kind of news ?
JFK Blows The Whistle on Secret Societies!
http://youtu.be/FnkdfFAqsHA
This great man also tried to warn the public of the dangers that undermine the free world, and those that detest the US constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Bennett
December 18, 2011 6:15 am

Rep. Rohrabacher is also one of the few in congress fighting the military-industrial-complex in order to get our manned space program moving forward. His support of SpaceX is well known, and his criticism of the “business as usual” porkfest by Senators Hutchison and Shelby is worthy of high praise.
Please DO contribute to his campaign fund, or at least send an email of thanks and encouragement!

December 18, 2011 6:22 am

Hear, hear.

kMc2
December 18, 2011 6:28 am

Jesse @ 4:43 a.m. A 2009 speech would not likely be quoting from articles published in 2011.

Brian H
December 18, 2011 6:35 am

E.M.Smith says:
December 17, 2011 at 10:09 pm
Golly. Sanity. And from a Rep from California, too. Must be Christmas soon 😉
Either that, or it’s just a dream….

It’s actually very disturbing. A CA Congresscritter said that? The cog-dis is making my eyeballs throb.

Fredrick Lightfoot
December 18, 2011 6:42 am

The worlds political problem is;
You never have a President/ Prime minister make such a speech,
no wonder we are such a mess !!!!!!

Robertvdl
December 18, 2011 6:54 am

House Session 2011-12-08 (15:52:49-16:55:44)
Full speech.
http://youtu.be/Akn6WIWTqt8
min 35.00

Robertvdl
December 18, 2011 7:35 am

and
House Session 2011-12-08 (16:55:24-17:15:41)
http://youtu.be/z_jSx7rKiIw

December 18, 2011 7:57 am

Reed Coray says: December 17, 2011 at 9:36 pm…….
Reed,
It appears you are somewhat aghast at the logic used by the authors of the “Handbook for Community and Organizational Activists”. I noted the handbook, and Senator Boxer’s support of the “The National Climate Ethics Campaign- 2011”, to provide a contrast to Representative Rohrabacher thoughts. Dr. Curry would likely find it helpful to know the thoughts of the handbook authors on uncertainty- “Because the risks to humanity and the planet associated with inaction are extremely high, it is also morally wrong to use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for to delay or prevent emission reductions or preparations for the consequences of climate change” (see page 4 of the handbook).
Ignoring one of the principles of the scientific method and calling someone morally wrong for pointing out the inconsistencies, errors, omissions, etc. in a theory seems to take us back in time to the Spanish Inquisition. Professor Brown- http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/02/foia-is-not-enough-why-not-legally-mandate-transparency-in-climate-research-a-modest- is better suited then I to explore the ramifications of tossing out the scientific method for an advocacy position.

George Lawson
December 18, 2011 7:59 am

What a wonderful contribution towards bringing the world back to sanity. It’s now up to one of our sceptic Members of Parliament in the UK to do the same in the House of Commons, I feel we would then be truly at the beginning of the end in the eradication of this blight on modern society. Which British MP has the courage to put his head above the parapet?

December 18, 2011 8:21 am

Senator James Imhofe, R-Oklahoma, has done great work fighting the “consensus” as well. Scroll down to “Environmental Issues” here to see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Inhofe

John A
December 18, 2011 8:34 am

I do not understand why, if the Republicans have a majority in Congress, that they do not mandate that the transparency and reproducibility rules inherent in funding from the US taxpayer, are enforced before submission for publication is allowed.

Reply to  John A
December 18, 2011 6:16 pm

At 8:34 AM on 18 December, John A had written:

I do not understand why, if the Republicans have a majority in Congress, that they do not mandate that the transparency and reproducibility rules inherent in funding from the US taxpayer, are enforced before submission for publication is allowed.

For the same reason that, in spite of the “Tea Party” infusion of freshman Red Faction representatives in the 112th Congress which deprived the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP) control of the junior chamber, the still overwhelmingly preponderant number of reelected incumbents making up the Republican majority in the House of Representatives selected the orange-complected John Boehner (“Go Along to Get Along” RINO, Ohio) as Speaker instead of someone like Mr. Rohrabacher or Dr. Ron Paul, both of whom certainly have the seniority to assume that post.
The permanently “bipartisan” big government corporate socialist careerists of the Republican Party have been flipping the bird to the American people ever since Boehner picked up that big gavel – without disinfecting it, you’ll note – last January.
At 9:55 AM on 18 December, Blade put forward a good response to John A’s post, which I heartily endorse.

Olen
December 18, 2011 9:00 am

One of the comments, although not intended by the writer best describes what is wrong with the global warming cause.
In part comment of kakatoa I assume taken from The “Handbook for Community and Organizational Activities.
“Ethical and cultural divides like this cannot be overcome with more scientific facts or
technical arguments. From women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, history has
shown that harmful beliefs, practices, and policies can only be overcome when they are
declared to be morally wrong and decidedly unjust. Only then are people motivated to right
that wrong by working for a higher moral purpose.”
The good ethics is squarely on the side of the scientists and politicians who believe true scientific facts and technical arguments are important and that morality is not determined by political goals.
The climate change supporters want no more information except their own. Their view is that we should reduce our energy consumption and share equally in the poverty of the third world while a central organization of unaccountable elites determine the ethics, fairness and the higher moral purpose.
Good for Rohrabacher and well put.

Paul Vaughan
December 18, 2011 9:49 am

Ruthlessly tactical politician addressing naive scientist:
“When the storm arrives,
would you be seen with me?
by the merciless eyes I’ve deceived?
I’ve seen angels fall from blinding heights,
but you yourself are nothing so divine — just next in line.”
“The odds will betray you
and I will replace you.”
“If you think you’ve won,
you never saw me change
the game that we have been playing.
I’ve seen diamonds cut through harder men
than you yourself,
but if you must pretend:
You may meet your end.”
“The coldest blood runs through my veins.”

— Chris Cornell “You Know My Name”

Blade
December 18, 2011 9:55 am

John A [December 18, 2011 at 8:34 am] says:
“I do not understand why, if the Republicans have a majority in Congress, that they do not mandate that the transparency and reproducibility rules inherent in funding from the US taxpayer, are enforced before submission for publication is allowed.”

Similar to 2001-2003 (when Jeffords switched to ‘D”), House==(R), Senate==(D), so it’s a fatally deadlocked Congress.
Truthfully speaking, even during the handful of times during the past three decades when the (R)’s had a slight numerical majority in the Senate, they really didn’t. There are so many damn RINOs in there that a true majority would necessitate an (R) Senate with at least 70 members, and even that large numerical majority (70-30) still might not be enough to obtain the 60 votes needed on most bills. The Senate has twisted rules and is occupied by 100 giant egos, and on any given day 90 of them couldn’t care less about the Constitution.
We can thank the 17th Amendment for this, which after the 16th was the second major chisel job done by the ‘progressives’ on the foundation of the republic. The 17th upset the balance of power against the States by changing their seating from appointment by the State Legislatures to direct election. Consequently, the are no longer Senators of the individual States, but Senators of the (D) or (R) parties. Mostly (D) naturally.
The Senate is dangerous to the Republics’ health and should carry the surgeon general’s warning label. I forget who said it, but the old quotation: ‘Beware the Tyranny of the Senate’ is alive and well.

Steve Garcia
December 18, 2011 10:07 am

Eisenhower…”…of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

It isn’t one or the other, but the confluence of both. But it is DRIVEN BY the Federal money. Should we be surprised that some scientists learned which side their bread was buttered on and found out how to game that system? Hardly.
Just as in the U.S. National Institute of Health, which garners power to the small group of individuals who control where the money goes, and some scientists get in thick as fleas with those holding the purse strings, climate science is a dipole, with the policy makers dangling money and a small number of scientists mixing with them and learning how to cajole and wheedle.
It isn’t so much that those scientists are, thus, getting a good amount of money for their research. We should all be happy that science has patronage. The danger is in the research that does NOT get funded, and which has almost certainly as much technical reasons to be funded. With the billions now that have gone to the climate science insiders, how much are we retarding our scientific progress by continually funding the same scientists, over and over?
THAT is certainly what Ike meant by “gravely to be regarded” – the loss of balance in scientific inquiry because of funneling money in one direction, for political, policy-insider scientist reasons.
It is a pretty unholy alliance.

richdo
December 18, 2011 10:11 am

For those interested this speach by Rep. Rohrabacher on the US House floor is recorded here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akn6WIWTqt8
His remarks begin at about the 35min mark

December 18, 2011 10:13 am

Congratulations to Rohrbacher! Great job. Living in California, I am simply amazed that two of the best congress people come from this state (Rohrabacher and Issa) considering Californians have elected so many ultra liberal, “Americans and CO2 are evil” congress people (Pelosi, Waxman and Waters to name but a few). There are currently TV ads running in the state now to get rid of Issa and Rohrabacher because they aren’t towing the Green economy line, hopefully they do NOT succeed.

albertalad
December 18, 2011 10:14 am

Perhaps what is sweetest of all the congressman directly used Climategate 1.0 and Climategate 2.0 material directly on the floor of the House that the US Justice Department and the UK Justice raided TALLBLOKE’S home to take his computers in reference to the said email used on the floor of the House. It just doesn’t get any better than that.
Moreover, directly across the border from Obama sits Canada – he knows Canada just dropped out of the UN IPCC climate scam – the same Canada that told HIM in no uncertain terms if face to face you don’t want our oil China does! You don’t want our pipeline China will build a pipeline to the west coast of Canada. Obama delayed thinking to avoid problems with this far left wing of his party over the XL pipeline – NOW that same pipeline IS the center of the republican bill heading Obama’s way and once again the war is on.
This congressman took this war directly into the US House – the war between the AGW side and the realists side. And for the first time – we’re (skeptical community) is tasking the fight directly to THEM! We’ve stopped playing defense – we’re now on the offense – and the AGW community never even seen this coming.

Brian Johnson uk
December 18, 2011 11:01 am

What a breath of very fresh air and so sad that the speech will be ignored in the UK by our present Government, especially Greenie Huhne and his cronies.
Wake up England/UK/Europe!

Steve C
December 18, 2011 11:14 am

Good Lord. I’ve just read a speech by a politician which is both coherent and based on facts. If only he were in our “Palace of Varieties”. About the only part I’d take any issue with is “We will stand together, Americans of every race and religion; of every ethnic group and social status.” – this isn’t just an American problem, congressman, those of us in all countries need to stand together against this. I note that a few Aussies here feel the same, too. 🙂
Another request for an American resident please to inform this gentleman that his speech has just gained him another supporter outside the States, and if he wonders why just point him at any public statement by the UK’s very own (alas) Chris Huhne, or pretty much any other of our brain-dead crew – no other explanation needed.

JPeden
December 18, 2011 11:17 am

Hide The Income says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:03 pm
Sub-atomic particle rays — that is the sCeptics soup du jour. What will it be next week — a change in magnetic north? Here is an idea — lets go with what every science academy in the world believes is warmning the atmosphere — CO2.
Here’s an idea, O’ Freudian one. Let’s abandon a CO2 = CAGW “theory” whose “hypotheses” cannot even explain the empirical past much less produce even one> correct relevant empirical prediction. And call it straight out for what it is, “A mass of unhinged verbiage whose Propaganda is both scientifically and rhetorically nonsensical.”
Instead of repeating what is apparently your own greedy little business model: “Next week, let’s continue to procure and Hide The Fraudulently Obtained and ‘Redistributed’ Income, by ‘Expert Consensus’.” And, of course, by means of Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals, and by any other intentionally irrational means possible.
It’s your choice, “Mike”, and you can’t hide from that!

Keitho
Editor
December 18, 2011 11:42 am

jimbojinx says:
December 17, 2011 at 5:07 pm (Edit)
*********************************************
Just in case you didn’t get it . . .
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/17/frank-lansner-on-foster-and-rahmstorf-2011/

Keitho
Editor
December 18, 2011 11:44 am

Mark and two Cats says:
December 17, 2011 at 5:06 pm (Edit)
“…lets acknowledge that man-made global warming advocates, who I suggest are Alarmists, do not believe the sun has no impact on climate cycles”.
——————————————————————
Comprehension is important. You will, on close inspection, see that you both agree.

Jean Parisot
December 18, 2011 11:52 am

Perhaps what is sweetest of all the congressman directly used Climategate 1.0 and Climategate 2.0 material directly on the floor of the House that the US Justice Department One US congressman has a staff recommendation to enter the whole CG email/file into the House record.

Rich
December 18, 2011 11:54 am

I sure wish I was in his district as opposed to the one now that also goes along scare tactic party lines. So glad to see some sanity and push back – at last.

Jordan
December 18, 2011 12:12 pm

I agree with mpaul (on December 17, 2011 at 5:27 pm)
The speech could have attacked the weaknesses in the CAGW position without committing itself to an alternative theory. This was a tactical error.
Another mistake was floating fanciful notions of the technologies we could have had. This sounds cranky. If anybody thinks wind turbines and rooftop solar are expensive, just think about the costs of orbital solar, and the practical and safety issues in transmission of many megawatts to the surface. Another tactical error.
That’s two rods for his own back that could have been avoided.
A good try, but sadly I can’t get excited about it.

Rhys Jaggar
December 18, 2011 12:49 pm

The first time I have read such an article by a current politician.
The man should be lauded for his diligence, praised for his lucidity and connected to like-minded people for the purposes of political action.
2012 will be the year that decides things. The year when politics starts to revert back to representing people, not interests. Because the people have had enough and once that happens, ain’t nothing no-one can do to change folks’ minds.
Politics is like an astrological scorpio. It resists change like no-one else on earth, but when change comes, real change, rahter than phoney change, then it is massive, irrevocable and fundamental.
We live in intersting times…

RayG
December 18, 2011 4:05 pm

I attempted to send Rep. Rohrabacher a “thank you” email and point he or a staffer to Donna L.’s Delinquent Teenager but his web site will only accept email from residents of his district. Unfortunately, my local representative has swallowed the CAGW koolaid.

December 18, 2011 4:06 pm

Keith Battye said:
December 18, 2011 at 11:44 am
Mark and two Cats says:
December 17, 2011 at 5:06 pm (Edit)
“…lets acknowledge that man-made global warming advocates, who I suggest are Alarmists, do not believe the sun has no impact on climate cycles”.
——————————————————————
Comprehension is important. You will, on close inspection, see that you both agree.
=================================================================
I guess I copied and pasted the wrong sentence. Rather than that sentence please translate my comments to be a reaction to the intent of the following sentence in the same paragraph: [the warmunists] “…believe the sun has a minimal impact as compared to the increasing level of CO2 in the atmosphere…”
My comments stand.

dana1981
December 18, 2011 5:50 pm

OMG Watts, this is an embarrassingly ignorant Gish Gallop even by WUWT standards. I counted over 30 ridiculous myths in this rant – no exaggeration. This includes “it’s not warming”, “warming is caused by clouds”, “warming is caused by the sun”, “warming is caused by cosmic rays”, etc. Do you honestly not see the contradictions? Do you honestly not realize how utterly stupid Rohrabacher sounds?
Then you readers say that this ignoramus should be President of the USA.
This whole post is an utter embarrassment.

Gail Combs
December 18, 2011 6:17 pm

Pat Moffitt says:
December 17, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Oh great! In making the case against AGW alarmism the Congressman embraced CO2′s replacement- the Nitrogen Cascade -claiming we should all be worrying about NOx. We are going to look back on CO2 as the good old days. Wait till you see what EPA is planning to do with limitations on reactive nitrogen…..
_______________________________________________
OH great ANOTHER battle looms on the horizon, I am getting too old for this crap….
reactive nitrogen = FOOD! = STARVATION!
(Crop fertilizers & Animal waste)
Remember that when they start pulling this next hammer out. (Might make a good bumper sticker)

December 18, 2011 6:18 pm

dana1981,
Almost as ridiculous as the myth that “carbon” is evil. It’s a travesty that global warming has stopped, isn’t it?
Congressman Rohrbacher has noted the fact that the AGW Emeror has no clothes. At this point, that is a big step among the generally scientifically illiterates in Congress. And regarding credibility, would you like to bring a former Vice President into the conversation?☺

December 18, 2011 6:30 pm

At 5:50 PM on 18 December, dana1981 writes:

I counted over 30 ridiculous myths in this rant – no exaggeration. This includes “it’s not warming”, “warming is caused by clouds”, “warming is caused by the sun”, “warming is caused by cosmic rays”, etc. Do you honestly not see the contradictions? Do you honestly not realize how utterly stupid Rohrabacher sounds?

Jeez, dana, but don’t you realize how utterly stupid Rohrabacher is?
Recall, please, that the guy’s highest educational attainment is “…a master’s degree in American Studies at the University of Southern California. While in graduate school and during the early 1970s, he had a side activity as a folk singer.” (courtesy Wiki-bloody-pedia)
I submit that anybody who engages in any of the various “…studies” areas is to be presumed an intellectual lightweight until proven otherwise, and Mr. Rohrabacher’s career in public office sure as hell doesn’t do anything to contravene that presumption.
Look, whenever you’ve got the average Red Faction popularity contest winner being steered by his staffers (all of whom are, ceteris paribus, a helluva lot better educated, more intelligent, and more perceptive of the tide of the times than he’ll ever be) who says anything remotely congruent with plain damned sense in matters of scientific thought, it’s something of a miracle.
Think “dancing bear” here. It’s not how well Mr. Rohrabacher understands the nuts and bolts of climate science but that he understands enough about it to realize that the “We’re All Gonna Die, So Give Me Lotsa Money!” crap that’s been pushed by los warmistas for the past couple of decades is about as firmly rooted as Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane.

Gail Combs
December 18, 2011 7:20 pm

GregS says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:38 am
Excellent speech, however if he’s saying we don’t need to reduce population, I disagree with that – I think we do need to.
___________________________
Technology reduces population automatically.
A subsistence level farmer in Africa looks at kids as free labor, a person living in the USA or the EU looks at a kid as a financial burden. ….the cost of raising a child from birth to age 18…. is $226,920 And that is before adding in college.
Take a look at this page and you will see what I mean. 2.1 is replacement (the 0.1 is for those who do not reproduce in the next generation ) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
The EU is below replacement as is Canada, Australia, China, New Zealand, and the USA. (1.25 to 2.08)
India is at 2.62, South Africa at 2.30, Mexico at 2.29 at and Brazil at 2.18. Much of South America is the same (all under 2.45) Saudi Arabia is at 2.31 and Egypt is at 2.97.
It is really only Africa, the very poor third world countries that still have high birth rates. They also have high infant mortality, starvation, rebellion and wars. The rates are for the POTENTIAL birth rate if all the women lived. BTW
“This entry gives a figure for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age”

Gail Combs
December 18, 2011 7:46 pm

John A says:
December 18, 2011 at 8:34 am
I do not understand why, if the Republicans have a majority in Congress, that they do not mandate that the transparency and reproducibility rules inherent in funding from the US taxpayer, are enforced before submission for publication is allowed.
________________________________
Very simple the Republicans AND the Democrats represent Corporate/banker interest and NOT Taxpayer interests. We are just the cows to be milked of our wealth.
The “Elite” have finally gotten tired of dancing around the “democracy” issue and spending all that time and money coming up with the propaganda to herd the “Sheeple” in the direction they wish us to go.
They figure something like the EU where people THINK they are still voting in reps. but where policy is actually handed down by an unelected body is the best way to go. They tried Communism and the experiment did not worked. 72 years is about three generations and the propaganda, purges and brainwashing did not produce compliant industrious workers. The other experiment, the European Union seems to be a better working model from their point of view.

by Pascal Lamy, Director, World Trade Organization (WTO)
I define global governance as the system assisting human society to achieve common objectives in a sustainable (i.e., fair and just) manner. Growing interdependence means that our laws, standards, and values, as well as the other social mechanisms that shape human behaviour, need to be analyzed, discussed, understood, and articulated in the most coherent way possible. This, in my opinion, is the condition for truly sustainable development in economic, social, and environmental terms….
…the European Union, the very incarnation of an international organization of integration in which Member States have agreed to relinquish sovereignty in order to strengthen the coherence and effectiveness of their actions….
A new paradigm of global governance exists, and its name is Europe.
If there is one place on earth where new forms of global governance have been tested since the Second World War, it is in Europe.
European integration is the most ambitious supranational governance experience ever undertaken. It is the story of interdependence desired, defined, and organized by the Member States. In no respect is the work complete—
http://theglobaljournal.net/article/view/56/

Bankrolling the Bolshevik Revolution: http://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=NoneDare&C=4#Bolshevik
It is so nice to know we are viewed as nothing more than lab rats…..

TomB
December 18, 2011 7:52 pm

Doug Allen says:
December 17, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Representative Rohrabacher is a 12 term Republican congressman…..
….I am not a one issue ideologue, far from it

I AM a one issue idealogue, and as a 12 term congressman (regardless of party) it is well past time to send him back to the private sector.
Look, I love this speech – though (as many have pointed out) none heard it. I completely agree with the sentiment. I think the submissions to record and some of his points basically saying he knows what controls global climate and climate scientists do not put him on very slippery ground. He’s a career politician playing to his crowd.
Respect the man and his accomplishments, but it is well past time that we fired all career politicians.
I live in, and come from, the Democratic National Socialists Workers Party Peoples Republic of Maryland. While I’ve been pleasantly surprised over the decades how, in some rare instances, Barbara Mikulski has defied her own party and voted in a sane manner, that doesn’t mean the same doesn’t apply to her.
I am no longer a young man, far from it. But from every election since I was eligible to vote there has been the names “Mikulski” and “Sarbanes” on the ballot. And they’ve won. This is inherently wrong.
Fire. All. Career. Politicians!

Gail Combs
December 18, 2011 7:59 pm

Blade says:
December 18, 2011 at 9:55 am
….We can thank the 17th Amendment for this, which after the 16th was the second major chisel job done by the ‘progressives’ on the foundation of the republic…..
__________________________
AMEN!
If the Senate represented the STATES’ interest as it was originally designed to do we would not have such a massive Federal Government. One that rides rough shod over our states.
There was a DARN good reason why the power was allocated in the way it was. How ever the would be tyrants have managed to pretty much turn the Constitution into toilet paper.

December 18, 2011 8:17 pm

@dana1981 December 18, 2011 at 5:50 pm
says: “…. myths ….include(s) “it’s not warming”, “warming is caused by clouds”, “warming is caused by the sun”, “warming is caused by cosmic rays”, etc. Do you honestly not see the contradictions? …”
Dana, these are not contradictions, Trenberth himself noted recent ‘lack of warming’ as a problem, and whether or not a similar rate of warming (to the 1970s to 1998 period) has occurred in earlier times (without the help of industrialized man) is surely quite relevant to the discussion.
And, simply put, cosmic rays, the sun, and cloud formation are obviously interlinked, and the latter is acknowledged by all parties to not by fully accounted for in warming models (oh, sorry, I meant climate models).

Anon
December 18, 2011 9:35 pm

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), thanks for speaking against the evil Global Warming Hoax agenda, as well as, defending the Scientific Method, and Science.
I have at least two times previously addressed President Eisenhower´s Farewell Address to the Nation in 1961 in conjunction with Mr. Rohrabacher´s recent (2011-12-08) speech in Congress, at http://weaselzippers.us/ , (Octoober 5, 2011 at 5:48 pm), and at http://wattsupwiththat.com/ , (November 24, 2011 at 11:09 pm). (My remark: I first find this analyse of President Eisenhower´s Farewell Address to the Nation in 1961 by http://isthereglobalcooling.com/ .)
My previous post(s):
“From “Eisenhower´s Farewell Address to the Nation,” January 17, 1961, at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm :
— “The prospect of domination of the nation´s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.” [Birth of junk science, and junk scientists.]
— “Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy [global warming hoax] could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” [IPCC.]
Defund all “Green Economy” companies, IPCC, and all of their subsidies, as well.
SAY NO TO GLOBAL WARMING HOAX
SAY NO TO JUNK SCIENCE”

Brian H
December 18, 2011 11:22 pm

Gail Combs says:
December 18, 2011 at 7:46 pm
John A says:
December 18, 2011 at 8:34 am
I do not understand why, if the Republicans have a majority in Congress,

They don’t. The Senate is Democrat-controlled for the next 11 months. Watch Harry Reid, Senate boss, spinning and fulminating as he blocks everything the House tries to do–if you like observing arrogance and duplicity.

Steve Schapel
December 18, 2011 11:39 pm

GregS: “… if he’s saying we don’t need to reduce population, I disagree with that – I think we do need to”
I am not sure what is the basis of your belief here, Greg. Maybe you are associating with some negative people, or maybe you are getting your information from TV or something. As I understand it, there are currently about 7 billion people alive right now. Earth’s a big place – I think there’s plenty of room for a lot more than that.

crosspatch
December 19, 2011 2:29 am

Exactly. The Republicans only hold the House of Representatives. Democrats hold the White House and the Senate. 2012 looks like a good possibility of a divided Senate or the Republicans gaining but not taking the majority (barring a major surprise) as some of the most vulnerable Democrats are not up for election this cycle (1/3 of the Senate stands for election every 2 years. The entire House stands for election ever 2 years).
In case of a 50-50 tie in the Senate, the Vice President may act as a 51st Senator. His official title is President of the Senate but in practice that role is given to the majority leader unless there is a tie and the Vice President then casts the deciding vote. This is why on a video of Senate proceedings you will hear a Senator addressing the chair as “Mr. President” as that role is “President of the Senate”.
That said, it takes a vote of 60 Senators to allow a bill to be voted on. At least 60 Senators must vote to allow an end of debate on the issue (cloture). So a party with less than 60 votes can STILL be stonewalled by the opposition.
Even having 60 votes doesn’t even guarantee you much if members of the the majority party vote with the minority. The Democrats learned that lesson when they had 60 Democrats and still couldn’t get much passed.

Pat Moffitt
December 19, 2011 7:57 am

Gail,
One of the new NOAA nitrogen models allows the researcher to make an assumption of what the future aquatic impacts will be if nitrogen controls are not implemented and derive a factor that is then used to “adjust” the existing data.
“In an effort to simplify the comparison of the status of systems, the last step is to combine the influencing factor, overall eutrophic condition, and future outlook components into a single overall score for each system.” (National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment model 2007)
The future now controls the present! Studies dismissing the nitrogen cascade are being thrown out, scientists smeared and raw data and supporting studies are being declared confidential. And no-one seems to care. So I will remain screaming into the void. (The projected $100bn nitrogen costs for the States draining into the Chesapeake are starting to get attention as are the secondary impacts to development, energy and agriculture)
You may also appreciate the methodology being used to set river phosphorus standards. Photos of rivers were sent to a group of people showing a range of conditions from perfectly clear water with no evidence of plant growth (macrophytes) or attached algae (periphyton) to heavy growth. The non-biologists in the survey picked the streams with no plant growth which were associated with nearly nonexistent phosphorus levels as most aesthetically pleasing. So the new proposed standards will use the 0.05mg/l P standard based an aesthetic considerations. The fact that it is far below the value required for a healthy fishery seems unimportant.
This has got to stop. There are real challenges our aquatic systems face– we have chased the ideological ones for 40 years- and the new push on nutrients looks like political science will continue to push back the real work for decades yet to come.
Have an article in the Fall Regulation magazine on the subject titled “the standard environmental narrative” with errata in the next issue clarifying the Chesapeake has all the same narrative problems http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv34n3/regv34n3-4.pdf

timg56
December 19, 2011 11:02 am

I think we should take note of dana1981’s courage.
Not everyone is willing to risk being seen as an arrogant ass. Dana bravely brushes aside any fear and proudly shows us his willingness to sacrifice his reputation on behalf of a cause he holds near and dear.

dana1981
Reply to  timg56
December 19, 2011 11:17 am

[snip – not interested in your denigration – Anthony]

Dave H
December 19, 2011 12:22 pm

Yup, gullible reactionary fools can be politicians. What else is new?

It's the Sun, Stupid!
December 21, 2011 4:10 pm

@dana1981
The statement that this is “an embarrassingly ignorant Gish Gallop” says it all!
Dana is evidently an devotee of John “Skeptical [sic] Science” Cook, recent winner of the Australian ‘Eureka’ prize and promoter of specious arguments to prove that 2+2=5 using oh-so-clever and highly-intellectual arguments – don’t worry about the facts. If you don’t agree with someone you denigrate them and engage in ‘ad hominem’ attacks. Mr Cook uses the term ‘Gish Gallop’ to describe anything that provides a whole list of facts in contradiction of the said Mr Cook’s solemn pronouncements, and this is his way of dismissing those facts that demonstrate the pure fantasy behind his blind faith in following the religion of Al Gore & Co.
dana1981 reminds me of a squabble between my two daughters age 14 and 12 some years ago. The older girl is somewhat pedantic, always ‘follows a party line’, and is totally impractical – but academically well-qualified (whatever that means!); whereas the younger is rather hopeless academically, but always ‘spot on’ practically, and successful in business. (I know which one I would call on in an emergency!)
At the end of the squabble the younger one – the practical one – said to her sister: “You are so clever, you’re stupid!”
Sums dana1981 up perfectly!