Climate Science: follow the money

From Samuel Butler (1612-1680; a fierce satirist of Puritanism under Oliver Cromwell (UK history for you foreigners)):
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before,
Prove false again? Two hundred more.
(Hudibras pt. 3, canto 1, l. 1277)
Only inflation has changed the numbers. Now its “trillion.” Still scans.

I had a similar observation with regard to an email from Sen. Carl Levin’s office:
There is no reason to be duplicitous with the senators. Our Congressmen need to hear clearly the reasons and reasoning behind opposition to what they have been told is popular or obvious.
Perhaps they might listen for no other reason than, if they follow the money, it leads to those with a vested financial or power interest in the passage of the legislation in question… not necessarily to those who seek real, scientific answers. Real answers are more important ultimately… even if those answers are slightly more complex and difficult than ΔCO2 → Δ°. And the correct course of action may well have little or nothing to do with schemes to limit CO2 through massive government programs.
But maybe our Congressmen do not want to know the real answers. That’s a more difficult course than the simple, easy answers. And that’s a more difficult situation for those of us seeking real answers before starting unnecessary solutions.
http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/2009/07/climate-data-shuffle.html

Thanks to someone here, this is now at Drudge.

She’s obviously claiming that this is all some huge government conspiracy to prove AGW and …. actually I’m have no idea what she thinks the government will gain from this.
Cap and Trade Taxes.
We also see this with the drug war. The lies about every drug are astounding. All backed by government “research”. What does the government get out of it? Taxes without question.
Read The Consumer Union Reports and then compare it to Government “reports”.
http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/LIBRARY/studies/cu/cumenu.htm
You think climate “science” is any different? Not when fleecing the taxpayer is concerned. If you are paying attention this is definitely not the first time this sort of thing has been done.

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) is a global warming skeptics group which appears to primarily be the work of Robert Ferguson, its President.
Robert Ferguson is the President of the Science and Public Policy Institute (SIPP), an organization that promotes the views of global warming skeptics and was founded in mid-2007.
Ferguson is a speaker at the International Conference on Climate Change (2009) organized by the Heartland Institute think tank.
He has an undergraduate degree in history from Brigham Young University, and a master’s degree in legislative affairs from George Washington University.
Work for Frontiers of Freedom
Ferguson was previously the initial Executive Director of the Center for Science and Public Policy (CSSP), a project of the corporate-funded Frontiers of Freedom Institute (FOF). Exxon had provided $100,000 in 2002 specifically for the “Center for Sound Science and Public Policy” (sic) as well as a further $97,000 for “Global Climate Change Outreach Activities”, and a further $35,000 for “Global Climate Change Science Projects”; In subsequent years Exxon continued it support for the project including $50,000 for “Project Support – Sound Science Center” in 2003, $70,000 for “Project Support- Science Center & Climate Change” in 2004, $140,000 to the organization in 2005 but without a specific amount for CSPP identified, $90,000 for the “Science & Policy Center” in 2006 and $90,000 for “energy literacy” in 2007.
FOF’s 2004 annual return submitted to the Internal Revenue Service states that for his work for CSSP Ferguson was paid $100,000 and also lists him as one of the Director’s of the think tank] In FOF’s 2007 annual return, Ferguson is listed as working 40 hours a week on CCSP duties and as director of the organization, but without being paid.
Praise for climate skeptics
In a February 2007 interview with Michael Coulter for the Heartland Institute’s publication Environment & Climate News, Ferguson stated that “there are quite a few environmental groups who bring scientists to the Hill, but CSPP is the only group that tries to bring in both sides.” Ferguson stated that “misdirected global warming policies will likely create a monstrous misallocation of resources. We could give housing and clean water to the entire world, and eliminate all major diseases, for just a fifth of what proposals such as the Kyoto Protocol and the British Stern Report might end up costing.” He went on to prise [sic -ed] the role of the global warming skeptics. “It is my experience which guides my firm support of the proposition that skeptics and those who have the courage to support them are actually helpful in getting the science right … They do not, as some improperly suggest, ‘obfuscate’ the issue: They assist in clarifying it by challenging weaknesses in the ‘consensus’ argument, and they compel necessary corrections,” he said. Michael Coulter’s article made no mention of the role of Exxon in funding the CSPP.
Background
A biographical note states that he “has 26 years of Capitol Hill experience, having worked in both the House and Senate. He served in the House Republican Study Committee, the Senate Republican Policy Committee; as Chief of Staff to Congressman Jack Fields (R-TX) from 1981-1997, Chief of Staff to Congressman John E. Peterson (R-PA) from 1997-2002 and Chief of Staff to Congressman Rick Renzi (R-AZ) in 2002. He has considerable policy experience in climate change science, mercury science, energy and mining, forests and resources, clean air and the environment. His undergraduate and advanced degrees were taken at Brigham Young University and George Washington University, respectively. Ferguson served active duty in the US Army from 1966-1970.”
[edit]
Speaking engagements
November 14, 2007: Ferguson was a speaker, along with Lord Monckton, at the “the Eastern Coal States Coalition” conference at the Marriott Griffin Gate Conference Center in Lexington Ky. The announcement for the event by the West Virginia Coal Association stated that Ferguson would “present his new text — ‘Essential Readings in Climate Science'”

jim brobeck (08:12:35) What is your point ? Plenty of corporations fund both liberal think tanks and climate change research .

When Joe romm and the other Soros sock puppets put all the hostility into the expression BIG oil.
They can’t find a font size big enough when they blame all planet troubles on BIG OIL.
Enron was once big and funded and started the mess. They paid off James Hansen
GE wind owns the remnants of Enron wind and Warren Buffett owns the gas pipeline from Enron we once knew as Internorth.
Buffet is big OIL. liberal and tight with the agenda.

Anyone who has written a grant knows that your submission must follow the parameters of the grant’s purpose. For example, it would be usual to see parameters of grants related to climate change in terms of the affects of AGW. If you submitted a proposal to disprove AGW, you would not get funded under that grant. Grants whose purpose is to refute AGW would be far and few between. The deck is stacked. I would venture to guess that there are NO government grants with that purpose in mind.

This site should start collecting a list of all the scientist who have been rejected publication or have had grants denied because of their anti-AGW stance.
This site does have a large following, and would be the perfect place to collect the voices of all the scientists who have been gagged by the government and peer review journals.

This is an unbelievable story.
It’s about a prominent scientist who, in my opinion, has sold his scientific integrity for his political views.
And for this we have won the freking Cold War?
Jul 24, 2009
Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity
Book review by Joseph Bast
Having participated in the national and international debate over climate change for more than 15 years, I eagerly bought and read this book in the hope that it would examine the ideas and motives of both sides in the global warming debate. But that is not what this book is about.
The author, Mike Hulme, is a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. He helped write the influential reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many other government agencies that are commonly cited by alarmists in the debate. He has been one of the most prominent scientists declaring that “the debate is over” and that man-made global warming will be a catastrophe.
In this book, Hulme comes clean about the uncertain state of scientific knowledge about global warming, something alarmists almost never admit in public. For example, he writes, “the three questions examined above – What is causing climate change? By how much is warming likely to accelerate? What level of warming is dangerous? – represent just three of a number of contested or uncertain areas of knowledge about climate change.” (p. 75)
Later he admits, “Uncertainty pervades scientific predictions about the future performance of global and regional climates. And uncertainties multiply when considering all the consequences that might follow from such changes in climate.” (p. 83) On the subject of the IPCC’s credibility, he admits it is “governed by a Bureau consisting of selected governmental representatives, thus ensuring that the Panel’s work was clearly seen to be serving the needs of government and policy. The Panel was not to be a self-governing body of independent scientists.” (p. 95)
All this is exactly what global warming “skeptics” have been saying for years. It is utterly damning to the alarmists’ case to read these words in a book by one of their most prominent scientists.
How does Hulme justify hiding these truths from the general public? He calls climate change “a classic example of … `post-normal science,’” and quoting Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz, defines this as “the application of science to public issues where `facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.’” Issues that are put into the category of “post-normal science” are no longer subject to the cardinal requirements of true science: skepticism, universalism, communalism, and disinterestedness.
In “post-normal science,” consensus substitutes for true science. Political processes run by government bureaucracies, like the IPCC, are created to determine the views of a majority of carefully selected scientists. Any questioning of their statements and claims is dismissed as coming from the “fringe” of the scientific community. From this reasoning comes the claims of James Hansen, Al Gore, and many other alarmists that “the debate is over” and there is “virtually unanimous consensus” about the causes and consequences of global warming, even though according to the rules of true science, and scientists like Mike Hulme, the debate is definitely not over and there is no consensus.
Having freed himself from the restraints of true science, Hulme can indulge his political biases. In another amazing admission, he says his views on global warming are inseparable from his politics–he’s a self-described socialist. He writes, “The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us.” (p. 326)
According to Hulme, climate change can do a lot: “Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.”
In other words, socialists like Hulme can frame the global warming issue to achieve unrelated goals such as sustainable development, income redistribution, population control, social justice, and many other items on the liberal/socialist wishlist.
Like the notorious Stephen Schneider, who once said, “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts one might have. … Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest,” Hulme writes, “We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise them in support of our projects.”
These “myths,” he writes, “transcend the scientific categories of `true’ and `false’.” He suggests that his fellow global warming alarmists promote four myths, which he labels Lamenting Eden, Presaging Apocalypse, Constructing Babel, and Celebrating Jubilee.
It is troubling to read a prominent scientist who has so clearly lost sight of his cardinal duty–to be skeptical of all theories and always open to new data. It is particularly troubling when this scientist endorses lying to advance his personal political agenda. See review here.
From icecap.us

Its basically $79 Billion of welfare for do-gooders and tree huggers.