First, this press release today from the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and chair Lamar Smith . Some material obtained from George Mason University today via FOIA shed some light on the IGES/COLA organization and its founders and director.
For Immediate Release | October 1, 2015
Media Contacts: Zachary Kurz, Laura Crist
Smith: Taxpayer-Funded Climate Org Allegedly Seeks Criminal Penalties for Skeptics
Washington, D.C. – Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today sent a letter to Dr. Jagadish Shukla, a professor of climate dynamics at George Mason University who founded the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES). IGES is a non-profit organization that has received millions of dollars in federal grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA.
According to media reports, IGES is responsible for circulating a letter to the president and senior White House officials requesting a criminal investigation of organizations who question the risks of climate change. Specifically, the letter seeks a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) investigation that would allow the government to impose criminal penalties. The letter was posted to the IGES website and later removed and replaced with a note saying it had been “inadvertently posted.”
Chairman Smith: “IGES appears to be almost fully funded by taxpayer money while simultaneously participating in partisan political activity by requesting a RICO investigation of companies and organizations that disagree with the Obama administration on climate change. In fact, IGES has reportedly received $63 million from taxpayers since 2001, comprising over 98 percent of its total revenue during that time.”
In light of the non-profit’s decision to remove the controversial letter from its website, Smith directs IGES to preserve “all e-mail, electronic documents, and data created since January 1, 2009, that can be reasonably anticipated to be subject to a request for production by the Committee.”
The full letter can be found here.
h/t to Mike Bastasch for the PR from the House
Also today, I have been given some materials obtained by attorney Chris Horner of CEI, who made a request to The Virginia Governor’s Office for materials related to Shukla and IGES/COLA. Props to the Virginia Governor’s Office, as they responded very quickly to the request.
Of most interest is a document that answers the question I raised yesterday about what, if any, separation exists between the Shukla family enterprises IGES and COLA, especially since it was announced (in place of the disappeared letter) that IGES would be dissolved while COLA was getting NSF grants active through 2017. This is what replaced the disappeared letter to Obama:
The Schedule A attached to the 2012 through 2015 Statement of Economic Interests from COLA director James Kinter removes any doubt about any separation of IGES/COLA, and further, since the last dated Schedule A was of May 31st of this year, it suggests that “dissolution” of IGES really wasn’t in the cards at all:
Above, 2015 through 2012 (top to bottom) Schedule A’s from Kinter.
Source: FOIA obtained documents – PDF’s are linked below:
Horner, Chris – Horner Law – GMU Professor Request
Sec Commonwealth GMU Faculty Statements of Economic Interests Records Request
Shukla, Jagadish – SOEI – 2012
Shukla, Jagadish – SOEI – 2013
Shukla, Jagadish – SOEI – 2014
Shukla, Jagadish – SOEI – 2015
Note: shortly after publication this story was edited to correct the order of and some captions of the Kinter Schedule A screencaps
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Popcorn futures are exploding …
Yes, sit back and enjoy…
http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/George-Costanza-Eating-Popcorn.gif
Is this the long awaited ” smoking gun” of the CAGW disinformation campaign?
What more proof could anyone need that these guys get the results they are paid to get, and push only that point of view which assures continued funding?
I sure hope so. I think everyone who has been fighting this hoax (including myself) would love to get back to their lives. I cannot begin to imagine the amount of wasted time, energy, and resources this issue has sucked up. Government expenditures we have an estimate – but not for the rest of us…
Was the battle worth it? Absolutely. But I sure can’t wait to see it come to an end.
I feel the same. This has taken a lot of time off my work, QFT.
But how can one let a bunch of crooks take over our science and economy?
If we did nothing, it would mean that everything and everybody was for sale now…
This is too rich.
yes,apparently $63 million rich, all taxpayers money. I can say RICO!
Just being a contrarian here.
How does this prove anything about IGES and COLA? Yes, they are completely interrelated. However, there is nothing here that cannot be explained by saying that they are completely interrelated and redundant, so they are planning to shut down the IGES side while maintaining COLA (possibly to simplify management and paperwork), but are in no rush to do so since there was no reason to hurry. It seems to me that this is an extremely weak and tangential line of reasoning that doesn’t amount to much of anything.
Focus on the accusations of corruption and nepotism. The 800k annual salary and entire board full of Shuklas with next to no results for the millions received. This is just diluting your argument
Grants at one time flowed through IGES to COLA. Now grants bypass IGES and go directly to GMU and COLA.
It’s almost as if someone recognized the inappropriate nature of the previous arrangement and shut it down.
State employees may not be compensated by another employer for work that falls under their state employee remit. In this case that would include scientific research by a Professor (a state employee).
Mr. Michaels, you make a very good point, and I. I think that this point should be made strongly and repeatedly in all future posts. Without this statement to tie it together, it appears to be grasping at straws.
Steve McIntyre has excerpts from NSF and GMU policy. That may be the better resource to use. http://climateaudit.org/2015/09/28/shuklas-gold/
So the University would have been right to shut him down, insisting that future grant money go to directly to them. Either way they were content to let the past alone. That may come back to bite them. Who knew what?
After this hits the WSJ, it will be interesting to see how GMU responds.
GMU issued an announcement on 5/10/2013 that COLA was ‘joining the University’. Hard to know what that means beyond seeing that the 2014 NSF grant flowed through GMU to COLA rather than flowing through IGES.
It would appear that there’s about $31.5 million in overhead (1/2 of 63 million) that should have gone to GMU, but the grants were run through the consulting company, in clear violation of the rules for state employees. This is money that the taxpayers of Virginia had to pony up instead.
IGES’ Form 990 shows Shukla worked 28 hours per week for it. That can only happen if the Dean approves an overage beyond the eight hours allowed.
GMU’s faculty Dean had to know about the magnitude of the money flowing through IGES and into the Shukla family.
GMU’s Provost had to know this, because no Dean would permit that all that overhead to not go to the university on his or her own.
Perhaps the President knew.
NSF had to know this.
NOAA had to know this.
NASA had to know this.
Apparently each one of these entities felt they were above the law. You may be looking at the largest science scandal in US history.
Psychological operations (psych-ops or psy-ops)
Which refer to the planned use of psychological knowledge to influence the behavior of groups, organizations or populations. Although associated with guerilla warfare, rebellion and subversion; many marketing and political strategies include psych-ops techniques … including office politics and social engineering.
Peacetime applications of psych-ops are perhaps most evident in political election campaigns. Common techniques used to influence public attitude and opinion are:
– using radio and television to distort events
– manufacturing “news” in staged events
– recruiting and using opinion leaders and media figures
– adjusting appeals to group interests (e.g. trade unions)
Psychological operations have maximum effect with people who:
– have little education
– accept information uncritically
– benefit from the proposed change
– want to believe the propaganda
– do not wish to understand their own motivations
Psychological operations are also used by anti-nuclear groups, women’s rights activists, pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups, gun-control lobbies, supporters of capital punishment, senior citizen groups, and small political organizations. Recent advances of electronic media (e.g. internet and cell phones) greatly expand the influence of psych-ops efforts.
Propaganda
Create effective propaganda that changes attitudes This is achieved if people identify with a new or changed mission. Propaganda is used to extend this identification to increase popular support for a mission and provide points of convergence for transformative action.
Propaganda Teams
Form Propaganda Teams by selecting and training persuasive, motivated people, who move within an organization and encourage people to support the organizational mission. Trained Propaganda Teams can provide a multi-stage persuasion program that integrates strategic planning with organizational attitudes. Propaganda Teams can also provide feedback about rumors and attitude changes. This role is fulfilled by secret police in authoritarian societies.
Psychological operations have maximum effect with people who:
– have little education
– accept information uncritically
– benefit from the proposed change
– want to believe the propaganda
– do not wish to understand their own motivations
http://www.systemiccoaching.com/psych-ops.htm
How many of the ‘maximum effect’ check marks to you have?
DD More
How many of the ‘maximum effect’ check marks
to youdo ALL of the government-paid academic-alarmist CAGW have in common?Oh, Witch Doctor Al Gore, et al, have been making use of this from the start: https://twitter.com/4TimesAYear/status/649293372272832512
Well said. Keep your eyes on the pea, ladies and gentlemen! Side issues will lead to losing focus.
Pea?
This is like trying to hide a bowling ball under a doily…
My guess is that it will be downplayed like climategate and Rajendra Pachauri and the press will attempt to bury it with hurricanes, “hottest year evah”, scary predictions, etc..
That will be the politically correct action.
Congress can stem the flow of $s if they have evidence of criminal activity. This is different with majorities in both houses and an election coming up. Obama have hands full with Putin making a fool of him in Syria now. Where is the guts and Regan attitude. Forget about Climate change and focus on USA’s standing and our security.
Perhaps he wants a war to stay in office…
Congressman Lamar Smith has many incentives to hunt this down. Malfeasance by NSF, NOAA, NASA concerning research grants. Probable criminal diversion, at least of the $100,000. Probable violation of Virginia law about its employees. And then the RICO demand by the perps, including Trenberth, a NOAA NCAR employee. Don’t think this is going away any time soon.
For the life of me, I still can’t understand why Trenberth would have signed that letter.
Trenberth may have some positives in his favor. I sometimes see that he can be a scientist first. He had some links to Bob’s El nino articles on his website but took them down right after Bob thanked him for being open minded. So much for that. And he got all pissed off at Pielke Jr. for basically saying things about extreme weather not being affected by “Climate Change TM” that were identical to what the IPCC has said so he does show lack of good sense often.
“For the life of me, I still can’t understand why Trenberth would have signed that letter.”
Well, he’s not the sharpest pencil in the box. Maybe he’s going a bit senile and not liking the fact that his purportedly distinguished career has turned out to be a pile of steaming crap.
But wait, there’s more … of them. Thousands.
…. and then there’s the useful idiots who believed them. Probably millions of people “combatting climate change” – zero parts per million of CO2 at a time.
I don’t feel sorry for them. I’ll still be laughing at them 20 years from now.
When this story of the letter first came out I said Trenberth would regret why he signed that letter. Things are moving faster than I previously thought. We may have hit the tipping point!
So, you want us to split the hairs ~for~ them? Nah, I want to see them make that argument with a straight face.
Oops!
I wonder how if any investigation will end? “It’s only wrong if your side does it, it’s fine if our side does it.”
I’m suggesting that someone may have known it was wrong. If they were shutting down IGES as Shukla says, then the question is why? Why would he give up something that proved so lucrative to himself, family & friends?
Unfortunately for them, they did not shut it down fast enough…and now must answer some tough questions.
The RICO letter to Obama is dated September 2015, the shutdown statement from IGES suggests the shutdown was implemented in June 2015. The thing is – scientists don’t think like coppers and every touch leaves a trace. The IGES shutdown notice after their RICO request to Obama went south real quick was a hasty – “oops we screwed the pooch, let’s hope no one notices and they stop asking more questions about our funding if we make em believe it was a mistake and we were already closed.”
Pride goeth before a fall and there is nothing more prideful than a senior academic who believes in the right to a lifestyle at the expense of all others who are not senior academics.
Those who are prideful are most at risk from those who are not senior academics and who have a personal axe to grind.
So as a IGES insider, i have to say that there is far too much speculation about this matter that is just flat out false. IGES was being dissolved for personal reasons mainly because Shukla’s wife, the business office manager, did not want to handle all the administrative work any longer. The compromise was for IGES to be absorbed by GMU so that COLA would be its own department attached closely to the AOES department, which some employees of IGES already held professorships with. This is an odd uproar and its pretty weak evidence of anything nefarious. It was a personal and logical move to not layoff a bunch of employees, maintain continuity, and gain an entire administrative body that would handle the paper work involved in grant management.
If you think the amount of grant money that IGES researchers were awarded is excessive, thats an entirely different opinion. But lets not frame this as a malicious, shady dealing. We have to have more integrity than to resort to baseless speculation.
unknown generic October 1, 2015 at 10:21 pm
So as an IGES outsider, I have to say that I find this explanation highly unlikely. IGES was a large organization bringing in millions of dollars in grants, and paying its employees quite handsomely. It is extremely rare for such an organization to fold their tent simply because the office manager wants to resign.
They simply hire another office manager, duh.
The fact that they were that unwilling to have someone else come in and start handling the money and the information would lead me to wonder if a full-scale audit might be in order …
As a result, I’d need a bunch of evidence to convince me that your explanation is the correct one. It may be correct … but on my planet it’s very unlikely.
w.
In my comments on another thread, I pointed out that recent grants had been in the name of George Mason rather than IGES and that Anthony’s prior post about continuation of IGES was, in my opinion, incorrec “unknown generic” observes that IGES was winding down and expresses puzzlement at some of the comments. For what it’s worth, I think that there is evidence that they were planning to wind IGES down. One of the sections in my post was “Migration to George Mason”. I believe that there are important issues here, but all the more reason to be precise.
If anyone should be hit with RICO lawsuits, it should be them, the gravy-train AGWers.
No, no, a thousand times no. While that might sound superficially reasonable, do you seriously want the US Government deciding scientific issues? Beware of what you wish for.
Me, I wish that scientific questions be decided by the scientific method—put your brilliant idea out there complete with data and code, hand around the hammers, and invite your worst enemies to try to break it …
w.
I agree with you in general but when they get paid for the same research from different government agencies at the same time they are committing fraud, I
it should not be RICO, but it is obviously fraud and the warmers who are engaging in it should be jailed and sued by local prosecutors. the federal government is definitely the wrong way to go for anything.
that said since all the fraudsters are on the same side as many government officials I don’t see it realistically going anywhere. the Mark Stein case with the hockey sticker guy shows that from a societal standpoint we are in a “tight spot”
basically the rule of law in the USA is dead. it is cronyism and we are not the cronies.
what is missing here is the root of all of this …IT IS NOT ABOUT CLIMATE. IT IS ABOUT CONTROL.
I continually see the skeptics run circles around the fraudsters yet we are still losing. ASK any school kid what is happening and they will tell you the earth is warming and it is the fault of humans. actually ask any university student and you get the same answer.
until the root is addressed (and I don’t see that happening) then we will eventually find ourselves interred or killed. severe yes but what do you think will happen? that they will leave you alone. really does anyone think they will leave you alone.
Willis I don’t want my tax dollars used to fund research on a willy-nilly basis! A thousand times no! The only research the federal government should fund is that which they have the resources to closely monitor the work, and analyze the results. Where it is made crystal clear to researchers that whoever funds the work, owns the results! If academics want freedom from supervision, they can damn well do it on their own nickel. Not on the government dime! Currently 90% of government funded research is a complete waste of money and needs to be cut. Since climate research consumes about 90% of gov research funds all we need to do is cut it to near zero, and problem solved!
This is not (as you assert) a scientific issue. We are dealing with graft and the theft of tax payer funds as exemplified by runaway nepotism.
Also note that “Science Hearings” occur on a regular basis in Congress.
It is startling to me that brilliant minds like W. Eschenbach can miss so much,
Gentlemen, you miss my meaning. This is why I ask people to quote my words. I said that using RICO against scientists is is a very bad idea. I said NOTHING about anything but that. Nothing about fraud. Nothing about double-dipping. Nothing about tax dollars. Nothing about doing “research on a willy-nilly basis”.
I said, and I hold, that using or even threatening to use RICO against scientists is industrial-strength stupid. You’ve already seen that very threat coming back to bite them in the ass, and now you think it’s a good plan to repeat the threat?
Really???
sysiphus / October 1, 2015 at 6:06 pm
Sorry, my friend, but it is you who missed my meaning.
w.
How about using the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RlCO) statute against a constellation of corrupt organizations consisting of “scientists” who’ve spent the last several decades perpetrating theft of value by deception (i.e., criminal fraud) in their funding grant applications, in their publications and other promulgations, and even – arguably – in peculation pertinent to expenditures from their grant funds?
They’re certainly organized (if the Climategate e-mail tranches show nothing else, they surely show indications of that), they’re certainly utterly and completely corrupt, and it’s not too much of a stretch to classify them as running a racket.
It’s not “scientists” who’d be pursued were the RICO statute invoked to discommode and otherwise punish these alarmist liars, thieves, and predators, but rather malefactors of arguable criminal mens rea, just as RICO prosecutions against Mafia and Narcotrafficante money-laundering bankers isn’t an “industrial-strength stupid” attack on the financial industry as a whole.
Why would filing a RICO suit against people, who are paid by taxpayer dollars, and who are colluding to obstruct/corrupt the scientific method in order to advance and advocate for policies to be enforced under color of law, be a bad idea? How would that lead to “the US government deciding scientific issues”? Please clarify.
In the couple of successful RICO suits I’m familiar with, the “government” (meaning the federal court) only decided whether or not corruption was involved in the particular endeavor, and made no decisions as to the merit of the endeavor itself, unless the endeavor itself was already illegal (e.g. selling street drugs).
Sorry Willis
The U.S. Government is already deciding scientific issues..NASA, NOAA, EPA, FDA, etc., etc.,. What are you talking about? They are mostly deciding many scientific issues in a very biased way. So, what is your point?
Ok Willis, I quote your words and repeat my comment:
Willis Eschenbach October 1, 2015 at 2:33 pm
No, no, a thousand times no. While that might sound superficially reasonable, do you seriously want the US Government deciding scientific issues? Beware of what you wish for.
Dahlquist October 1, 2015 at 10:10 pm
Sorry Willis
The U.S. Government is already deciding scientific issues..NASA, NOAA, EPA, FDA, etc., etc.,. What are you talking about? They are mostly deciding many scientific issues in a very biased way. So, what is your point?
Dahlquist October 1, 2015 at 10:10 pm
Thanks, Dahlquist. Yes, NOAA and the rest are making scientific choices … but that is very, very different from the Justice Department making scientific judgements as to what is “bad science”, and using the legal system to punish people who they deem to be “bad scientists”.
Again I say, you can see the revulsion with which their attempt to use RICO has been met on most sides … why on Earth would you want to advocate RICO as well?
w.
msbehavin’ October 1, 2015 at 9:28 pm
Thank, ms. Look. The 20 scientists want the US to file a RICO suit against scientists, some of whom are paid by taxpayer dollars, and who they think are colluding to obstruct/corrupt the scientific method in order to oppose the crucial actions needed to save the world from global warming.
In other words, THEY ARE MAKING THE SAME CHARGES YOU ARE SAYING WE SHOULD MAKE.
To make a choice between the two, or to act against either group (skeptics or alarmists), the US legal system would have to get involved in the scientific process, and make scientific judgements as to who is right or wrong.
Perhaps you think getting the legal system mixed up with the scientific process would be a good idea … me, I hate lawyers like poison, and I think having the US Department of Injustice involved in the scientific process is a horrible, terrible, really bad idea, no matter which side wants it. That way lies madness.
w.
“and invite your worst enemies to try to break it …” Exactly! It should be hard wired in to every PhD recipient and it should be a basic understanding for every HS graduate who aspires to any degree of literacy about science.
Willis,
Isn’t that what’s happening now?…Deciding scientific research? To me, that’s a major part of the problem. NO ONE is funding the other side of the CAGW view.
Although I don’t want to see RICO used against the CAGW crowd, it’s more because I see it as abuse of the law, using it for harassment of one’s opponents. Also,with respect, I have to disagree about the US Government deciding scientific issues–that’s exactly what I want them to do regarding Ebola, vaccines, electromagnetic field “cancer”, etc. Sometimes, you need somebody to make a decision. While they’re not perfect, I can’t think of anyone better to do it.
do you seriously want the US Government deciding scientific issues?
===========
they already do, by funding research in specific directions and not in others, often for political reasons – for example to create jobs in specific areas or to bring in large political donations to fund re-election campaigns.
For example, I get a grant to do scientific research. I donate a good percentage of that back to the political party in power. What are the chances of securing further grants? Now if my area of research is aligned with the policies of the political party approving my grants, if I’m conducting research to “prove” them right, what are the chances of securing further grants?
How about if my research is to prove the parties policies wrong? For example would the Democrats look favorably on research to prove Climate Change isn’t happening, given that harmful Climate Change is a major plant in party policy?
General P. Malaise: I agree with the colonel of your argument, but I think you meant “interned or killed”. Being interred without being killed is bury bury uncomfortable.
Willis , thanks for the clarification of your perspective..
My perspective is similar to what Tucci78 October 1, 2015 at 10:48 pm said. I don’t see the court “deciding the science” any more than I saw it deciding whether or not elephants should perform in circuses.(Ringling Bros. V, HSUS). At least with the science of medicine , one could sue for malpractice. Ditto for an Engineer.
Unlike you, however, I’ve also met some honorable and competent lawyers over the years. I have even less faith in Congress (Democrat or Republican), than you have in lawyers.
Willis
I do agree that using RICO as a means to pursue and prosecute this lawlessness and abuse of the U.S. taxpayers and citizens may not be an appropriate means of prosecuting this all, but it needs to be prosecuted, either way. I think “RICO” in this debate may be overused and overemphasized in all this mess, but “Prosecution” of these abuses is necessary, however it is accomplished.
In what way would you be satisfied with separating the science from the crimes and abuses? It is inseparable. There are very many cases of scientific issues being introduced into trials and prosecutions where expert witnesses bring their expertise and experience into witness testimony for the judge or jury and the evidence is very appropriately presented and well understood in most cases.
I would rather a Justice Dept. prosecution than a Congressional inquiry…Or both. Congress would, as is the usual case these days, be incompetent and without any teeth. All of us reasonable, everyday citizens of this country are becoming very tired and angry with the incompetence/ injustice/ stupidity/ wasteful/ racist/ idiotic/ weak/ traitorous/ abusive, etc., etc., abuse of power and office of all of our branches of government…Judicial, legislative and our special Executive branch with our Special King of stupidity, who has thrown a wrench into every aspect of anything respectable our Constitution and beliefs as a people that we stand for. Rant…. And considering these issues, it should be a very strong prosecution, with all of the rights of the accused respected, but prosecuted thoroughly and to the fullest extent considering the abuse of the taxpayers and trust we have placed in these people, which they have abused so callously, to the extent of actually abusing their position and status to directly petition the President of the United States to persecute their opposition in our free society, within which they themselves operate so freely and believe themselves safe from the same form of oppression.
Anyway, before anyone in these abuses is prosecuted, the most important thing is, is to wait for this President to be out of power so that he cannot pardon any of these criminals and allow them to walk away scott free.
Oops, forgot to provide a link to the RICO case I cited.
http://www.ringlingbrostrialinfo.com/ RTWT
In this case, several well known animal rights groups got together and sued Ringling Bros. over alleged mistreatment of its elephants.(intending to make a much broader case against keeping elephants for use in entertainment activities) Ringling countersued under the RICO Act and prevailed.
As we can see ,one doesn’t need to be a “mobster” ,per se, to be prosecuted under the RICO statute, as paying a witness through a roundabout way of funneling the money is one of the crimes that sunk (mainly, as this is what the various organizations’ principal actors eventually morphed into) HSUS’s case.
Also , collusion among the various groups and the “evolution” of those groups (in order to hide their illegally collusive activities) was a factor. This case also took place in Virginia but the whole thing took 14 years to resolve, just last year.
All that swamp gas, and then the silly bastids get to playing with matches.
Anybody else familiar with Niven’s First Law?
That made me think of Marvin the Martian: “Oh goody! My illudium Q32 Space Modulator! (BOOM)
Absent any information regarding the accomplishments or useful products from the massive grants in question, one wonders what the taxpayer gets for the annual budget for climate change of $20+ billion dollars ($21.408 billion in 2014) .
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
One suspects it is full of fraud and waste subsidizing a good life style of many aligned with the agenda.
Along the same lines can anyone help me understand the benefits derived from the $9.9 billion annual budget of the DOE. Have they funded anything that has provided a significant energy breakthrough? Compare that with the enormous energy impact from private business provided via fracking.
Missing Link for DOE
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/15Highlights%20%281%29.pdf
Interesting choice of words.
Used to be, the space race was the biggest contributor to our emerging tech. Now the resources and brainpool are redirected to fighting climate change, so real scientific progress has been slowed considerably.
Where in the world do they get the notion that fighting climate change is easier and wiser than adapting to climate change
I have to question your use of “brainpool” because, in my humble opinion, those conducting the research to fight climate change are far from being the best and the brightest.
Agreed. there seems to be a different kind of zeal here, a monetary one.
As many, many articles on this site have shown in conclusion, AGW types are either IQ knuckle draggers or a bright but thoroughly corrupt, unscrupulous and scamming lot interested only in monetary extortion from the taxpayer.
Climate research is the only field I am aware of, where results are concluded prior to entering the field, and then once in, the research seeks only to prove the preconceived notions. For example, the thought processes of people entering this field goes like this: “Dumping all of that CO2 into the atmosphere has just GOT to be bad. I’m going into climate research to prove that it is, and thereby I will help save the world! Finally I know my true calling in life.”
Being a gummint agency, I would be they feel that their primary mission is to control things, and has nothing to do with innovation/discovery, etc.
The funding organizations should’ve monitored spending of the funds as well as the work performed. Why don’t we all focus on the funding agencies as they are the root and the cause of what is happening in science (not only climate science) these days. Read Leo Szilard’s The Mark Gable Foundation… And Shukla is just a tip of the iceberg.
Indeed. I have a feeling the Committee on science, sparce & technology is just getting started.
– Get a picture of whats going on at IGES and COLA
– From there, go up the food chain
– Find other NGOs or Non-Profits who have done the same
– Dismantle the gravy train
I’m sure there are many more steps than that and perhaps I am day dreaming of unicorns and somehow this will all disappear into a /dev/null black hole.
I definitely agree, that when it comes to AGW, the science is sparse.
Hey Walt, +1000!
The funds came from people like YOU. Why don’t we focus on that?
Will you accept any responsibility for the harm done on your dime?
Do you want someone superior to you to absolve you of your failure to mind your own business? Or is it that you merely want a goat to blame?
Since that’s what you are paying for- it’s self evident that it’s what you want to buy.
Thus, nothing has changed; nothing will change; the outcome is exactly what one should expect.
You feed corruption, you breed corruption. If you didn’t want corruption, you would not buy it wholesale.
Bring on the craven alibis, now. Trade them like pokemon cards.
Where excuses are acceptable currency, fraud is the economy.
Nothing will change; the outcome is exactly what one should expect.
The funding organizations should’ve monitored spending of the funds as well as the work performed.
In my experience with such agencies that’s exactly what they do, we always had to submit annual reports and itemize all spending, any divergence from the proposal of more than a few percent required permission. In addition we had a regular (every 5 years) audit, for example during one of those audits I was asked to justify why I had sole sourced a particular item 4 years before. Because of my detailed records I was able to successfully do so. I am aware of three cases like this including this one, two of which resulted in disciplinary and legal action, the common denominator was the existence of an outside company through which the faculty member was able to channel outside funds (in the case I’m most familiar with in contravention of university regulations). Abuse of this type is much less likely when the funding is channeled through the university.
What has happened to science standing on it’s own merits?
one pill makes you larger…
….one pill makes you small
Either it does….or it doesn’t
Lovely example,
w.
> Either it does….or it doesn’t
You probably took the ones your mother gave you
Do you think shukla might have thought he was ten feet tall?
And the saddest and worse thing are “the pills that don’t do anything at all”.
Shukla must have known that the RICO letter would draw attention to his lavishly-funded and oddly-staffed organization. So, why did he do it? My guess is that someone on high asked/told him to do it, at the risk of funding loss. The other signers were presumably feeding at the same trough, which will likely be investigated in due time.
There’s a variant of Occam’s Razor that goes like this: Don’t ascribe malicious intent when simple stupidity will suffice.
The self-righteous nearly always fail to see the faults in themselves they think they see in others.
Ego. After twenty years sucking the government teat, and getting more and more powerful and influential, people get overconfident. They convince themselves that ‘this is the way it is done’, ‘I am invulnerable’, ‘I can never be caught’, ‘and if I am I shall shout ‘bias’ ‘. And so they forget they are living on the edge, or beyond the edge.
There was a commercial pilot a few years back, on passenger jet routes, who started flexing his muscles and pushing his weight around. And in his over confidence he forgot one basic but vital point – he did not have a licence. He was not a pilot, although he had been flying commercial jets for ten years. The eventual result was five police cars around the aircraft. Why did he get so overconfident? Ego.
Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad!
I think it may be simply that as the world fails to warm (or, better, demonstrate negative effects from the posited warming), perhaps the grant money is flowing less earnestly. That would be a problem for IGES, GISS, NCDC (I keep forgetting their new name). If they could get the skeptics shut up, that might help keep the money flowing. What could possibly go wrong? Perhaps they underestimated our powers of observation. 🙂
@ur momisugly Ric by now they would not give a rat’s behind they have collected ( if proven) 63 mil in the past 14 years that is over 4 mil a year for them and their families.
adam, I know many professors, and in general the brainier they are the more lacking in common sense as well. Many struggle with accepting experimental data that differs from their theoretical conclusions, because they cannot believe that they can be wrong. Chances are when it comes to street smarts Shukla is dummer than a fence post. How I relish watching this play out! Perhaps there is a god after all 🙂
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”. Proverbs 16:18 (KJV)
The real irony here: RICO – Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. I think this episode is shedding a lot of light on what is truly a Corrupt Organization.
Why don’t “skeptics” demand RICO prosecution of warmist organizations?
They are much more “organized” and able to “influonce”/
I think it’s because sceptics don’t jump the gun and make random demands upon others.
Sceptics research the application of RICO, weather it applies, and considers the likelyhood of a government department investigating another government department and finding anything.
Sceptics are far more pragmatic.
Rascal, sooner or later, the truth comes out.
It sure is a huge racket… Largest ever. With trillions at stake. I would call it racketeering, no doubt about it. But who’s gonna prosecute someone for trying to “save the world”?. It gets murky there.
The world has been in this shape (or worse) many times before, and managed to pull through!
Ususally with no “help” from man.
(Or Mann)
If they were only trying to save the world. I assume some are, but not most. I just finished reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. Throughout history, time and time again, scientists trade off decency for fame and ego. I was amazed how many times the major discoveries of famous scientists have a grubby underpinning. Just read about the DNA discovery glory hunt and the role of Rosalind Franklin. The scientists are like many of us, the ego drives and the facts are embellished to support the ego.
John D, yes this the one lesson the human race have never learned, so history repeats it self. Can you just imagine what this planet would look like if our egos or power could not corrupt us, We’d be flying among the stars by now.
Though I do suspect feminist types over-egged that pudding. In fact, having read the initial paper releases, I cannot see that it happened. But extremists never follow inconvenient facts.
Brett, it certainly happened, no over egging needed.
For me I see the top warmists behavior worse than racketeering, even treason. Their false confidence has damaged national security for developed nations. I would applaud a federal prosecutor bringing charges of treason to a few of the worst offenders.
Which could well include Obama for his shameful activities in this regard.
One of the interesting things about most I.T. departments.
We tend to back up everything.
Usually to multiple and often off site locations.
So if it should happen that an FOIA request gets met with a “We don’t” have the data on our servers , it was deleted”
Ask for the offsite backups.
The mantra of any good server admin is simple “Yes , I am paranoid, but am I paranoid enough ?”
“IGES has reportedly received $63 million from taxpayers since 2001”
What did it deliver for that sum?
That is the big question here. Shukla was big on collecting awards, massaging his ego, and burnishing his image – but what did his organisations actually do and produce??
Having seen this all before, my guess is ‘very little’. And what was produced, was probably done on a shoestring budget, while the majority of these grants was being creamed off in executive salaries.
All too comon in certain parts of the world. Check out government aid to Africa, where only 20% ever reaches those in need. Why the West continues funding African corruption, is beyond understanding.
An opulent lifestyle for the Shukla family.
COLA has a very long list of publications, that is probably where most of the money went, question is how much was skimmed off for inappropriate purposes, a question that should be put to many charities, such as Oxfam and WWF.
COLA publications: http://www.iges.org/pubs/pubs.html
An example
http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec7.html
See here, p. 9 et seq.
w.
Hi Willis. The “here” link doesn’t seem to be working. I would love to see what we’ve gotten over the years for all that money…
Fixed, try it again.
w.
Thanks for the replies. Are those papers COLA papers or just papers by authors who now work for COLA? eg There are two papers written with Lindzen. Was it a remote co-operation or did they work together?
If we were in a similar situation as was common to the French Revolution I am positive that many, many, many heads would be rolling around in big baskets under the Guillotine. The “common man” is getting really pissed off at all this crap with the government, politicians, special interests, media bias, the idiots running the U.S. who infest the White House, etc., etc,…. Maybe it’s time to invent a modern style Guillotine. Just watch out where you stand…Physically and politically.
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but if Climategate wasn’t enough to settle the matter once and for all, why would this be. Seriously, watching them shove the s*** back in the horse back in 2009 was almost stupefying. They did it so well, that same horse has been constipated ever since.
My gut is that things are going to get a lot worse, with no guarantee of getting better.
I tend to agree with you Joe. At issue overall is not really whether the climate is changing it’s the damage being done by junk science to the notions of the average citizen.
Joel, as one of the folks mentioned (unfavorably) in the Climategate emails, and as a somewhat-reformed cowboy, I did bust up at your description of their replumbing of the equine exhaust …
w.
I thought Climategate would have little impact in the long run, but I think I was wrong. I think it greatly contributed to the collapse of the Copenhagen COP, thought the Saudis and Chinese had a bigger role. No COP since then has had the number of heads of state that Copenhagen did.
Also, I think it got many ordinary folks to learn something about the shoddy science involved. WUWT, more than any other blog, picked up a lot of readers and commenters – and kept them.
It will be interesting to see how far this goes – there could be some major repercussions to the entire climate science community and their backers not so much to the RICO letter but to the idea that they want skeptics silenced to protect their cash cow. Especially with with Trenberth involved. Without him people could brush this under the rug more easily, but Trenberth is one of the apex scientists and he’s going to have trouble for a while dissing the skeptics’ community.
Interesting times!
Imagine Trenberth trying to talk about Big Oil funding skeptics now. We will all laugh at him …. and he will know why.
I have yet to see much acknowledgment from the “climate alarmist” community (for want of a better term) over the RICO 20 letter or the accusations that Shukla has misused money and violated the terms of his employment.
But they will have to eventually. I expect that they will claim Shukla is being persecuted.
Agree; I have yet to read a single troll comment on any of these RICO threads.
Step 1: Ignore
Step 2: When Step 1 fails, Deny
Step 3: When Steps 1 & 2 both fail, claim persecution
Step 4: Point to some other shiny thing.
Rinse and repeat.
There are some jokes which shouldn’t be used. For NASA “Uhoh.”
But I think Hello Houston control we have a problem…. is Okay. And yes, “Houston control you have a problem.”!!!
michael
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH !!
This current Congress is going to investigate??
Pardon my lack of excitement.
Matthew W
a stop gap budget bill was just signed two three days ago? Were funds appropriated to these people?
Did we risk a government shut down for this?
michael
That’s my point.
The Government cannot get “shut down” all essential services go on. The few people that were shut down were Parks and Recreation businesses etc. This tactic is really wearing thin! ( And all of those that were “shut down” were compensated afterwards including back pay, pay raises and bonuses)
asybot
October 1, 2015 at 5:25 pm
The Government cannot get “shut down”
=============================================
Shuts down every Friday
They’ll investigate. It just won’t be focused on THEM. It will be focused on the accusers.
Better get the tickets to India purchased now.
Is it Jagdish or Jagadish? I’m finding both while checking sources. I think it’s Jagadish.
Just two ways of transcribing an Indian name into English. There are more, and he could be using either.
Or both?? What if he mistakenly had checks issued to both names?? 🙂
Ben of Houston wrote in part (my bold):
I’m still unclear what we, the taxpayers, have received for 98% of the $63 million in taxpayer funds IGES has received since 2001. Okay, so there may or may not be a little skimming of the cream from these grants by the Shuklas, but even if so, what did we get for the rest of the money?
An earlier post on WUWT said only one paper had been produced. That doesn’t mean much because data gathering, research, and analysis may have taken a lot of people a lot of time to get what was needed for that one paper. So I’m wondering, what do the activity reports for the various grants say? Aren’t the grantees supposed to give an account of the hours spent and some description of the work performed in those hours? Maybe so, maybe not. Perhaps there is just a final deliverable e.g., “You gave me $6 million bucks, here’s the climate model you asked for.”
So I’m with Ben on the nepotism issue. If it’s shown there was some grant-skimming going on through the nepotism, the appropriate penalties should apply. But I’m also interested to find out if e.g., “computer-based research by senior scientists” was actually months and months of shopping on Amazon, playing video games, and watching funny YouTube videos of cats.
What did we get for the rest of the money, besides possibly a not-exactly-in-the-taxpayer’s-name $100,000 donation to a charity in India?
I think the charity in Shukla’s home town is run by members of his family
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/about.html
Great link. My favorite quotes were:
“The manager of the college is Mr. Shriram Shukla.”
and
“Gandhi College has another specific purpose. It is to inculcate … the principles of honesty, perseverance and selflessness.” Har.
Two days ago I posted in response to an earlier Shukla article:
“Anybody want to speculate on how many family members in India are employed by the personal Charitable Foundation”.
The paper produced that you mention..
Badger, A. M., and P. A. Dirmeyer. “Climate response to Amazon forest replacement by heterogeneous crop cover.,” Hydrol. Earth Sys. Sci., v.12, 2015, p. 879.
Only P.A. Dirmeyer appears on the list of employees for IGES/COLA as shown in yesterdays posting..
So who is Badger, A.M. ?? and did he receive tax payer funding to write the paper as well?
A M Badgers are thin on the ground in Environmental Research, although some work has been done on a stealth project involving burrowing and underground carbon capture,
‘The Stingray Secret’
Most likely a graduate student by the order of the names.
Andrew Badger was listed as a graduate teaching assistant on a course at GMU in 2011, so as I surmised he was a grad student.
And, don’t forget that the institution, George Mason University central administration received an automatic overhead payment of nearly 50% that is paid by the federal government to the host institution of the recipient entity or person. In other words, if professor A from X University gets a million dollar grant, he administrators of X University receive a no-strings-attached payment of half a million on top of the million for professor A.
This is why ‘grantsmanship’ has become an overriding driver of tenure. No grants, no tenure, since you are not producing payola for the X University administrators.
The section of Eisenhower’s farewell address that addressed the Academic-Governmental complex was larger, scarier and completely ignored.
And it’s the same in all areas of science, just think about cholesterol and all that nonsense. The money they sucked up dwarfs the climate money, possibly by an order of magnitude.
It doesn’t work like that, some of the charges, such as salaries, constitute ‘indirect costs’ which are subject to overhead. So if there are $100,000 of indirect charges then there will be $50,000 of overhead for a total of $150,000.
Indirect rates vary by institution. Sometimes they are 38%, often 50% or more. I’ve got one client at 62.5%, and recently heard of an institution complaining because the grant application form only allowed entry of up to 99% and theirs was higher than that.
This rate applies to nearly all direct costs, not just salaries. Equipment and supplies, as well. There is a limit to indirect rates on subcontracted work, usually applying the indirect calculation only to the first $25k of each contract. So, of course, that part gets gamed as well.
There is also a limit on each salary chargeable to a federal grant; this year, the cap is $183,300 per year and increases each year. For many of university professors, this is less than half of their actual salaries.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Try Operation Cold Anger, Conservative Treehouse . com. Good identification of many of the players and why there is absolutely no opposition in current mess of (uni-party) politicians. They all are on the take or the make — open borders, fine, gaining trillions in trade; AGW, fine, gaining control of the molecule of life and energy. Thanks for the investigation here.
I really hope this or a similar investigation turns up the fact that Greenpeace alone receives more funding from the Oil industry than what I believe all the skeptics receive combined from all sources.
do you have a link on that? I seem to recall that during the whole mess about PCPs that there was a great deal of money from the chemical companies for environmentalist groups?