From Climate Science Watch , their take on the issue, though a bit political, shows how it is viewed:
Just before 2 a.m. on February 19, the war on climate science showed its grip on the U.S. House of Representatives as it voted to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Republican majority, on a mostly party-line vote of 244-179, went on record as essentially saying that it no longer wishes to have the IPCC prepare its comprehensive international climate science assessments. Transcript of floor debate follows.
…
The amendment was sponsored by second-term Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), who obviously knows nothing about climate science or the IPCC, and I expect could care less. His talking points were clearly provided by some denial machine operative and Mr. Leutkemeyer simply followed the script. Leading off with a reference to the stolen climate scientists emails (‘climategate’), he said:
Luetkemeyer: Scientists manipulated climate data, suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals, and researchers were asked to destroy emails, so that a small number of climate alarmists could continue to advance their environmental agenda.
Since then, more than 700 acclaimed international scientists have challenged the claims made by the IPCC, in this comprehensive 740-page report. These 700 scientists represent some of the most respected institutions at home and around the world, including the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, U.S. Air Force and Navy, and even the Environmental Protection Agency.
For example, famed Princeton University physicist Dr. Robert Austin, who has published 170 scientific papers and was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Austin told a congressional committee that, unfortunately, climate has become a political science. It is tragic the some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomenon which is statistically questionable at best.
Mr. Chairman, if the families in my district have been able to tighten their belts, surely the federal government can do the same and stop funding an organization that is fraught with waste and abuse. My amendment simply says that no funds in this bill can go to the IPCC. This would save taxpayers millions of dollars this year and millions of dollars in years to come. In fact, the President has requested an additional $13 million in his fiscal 2012 budget request.
My constituents should not have to continue to foot the bill for an organization to keep producing corrupt findings that can be used as justification to impose a massive new energy tax on every American.
That is now the prevailing viewpoint of the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives.
more here
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This comes on the heels of defunding some EPA programs and voting to take control of GHG regulations away from the EPA.
House votes to block EPA’s global warming power
(AP)
The Republican-controlled House has voted to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases that scientists say cause global warming.
The 249-177 vote added the regulation ban to a sweeping spending bill that would fund the government through Sept. 30. The restriction is opposed by the Obama administration, which is using its regulatory powers to curb greenhouse gases after global warming legislation collapsed last year. The administration also says the ban would cost thousands of construction jobs.
full story here
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Smokey says:
February 19, 2011 at 9:36 am
They didn’t go far enough. The entire UN should be defunded.
Yes! Saving that $50 billion every year is needed right now in America. But instead they will print money to pay it, and so many other unneeded expenses. Inflation is now just starting from the continuing printing of money. And inflation is going to continue. There is no way around that when money is printed. 2012 might be a bad year in America.
walt man says: “…The IPCC cost each taxpayer $0.01 in 2008.’
Theft is still theft. Shut them off. That 1 cent is being used against us. Your argument is specious.
thegoodlocust says:
February 19, 2011 at 10:07 am
Nobel – not the pinnacle “attaboy” of the left known as the Nobel Peace Prize.
I really like how Thomas Sowell puts it, that, the Nobel Peace Prize is the Kentucky Derby of the famous names of the political left.
You have to look at it from the communist point of view, control the media & tell a lie enough times and becomes the truth for the great unwashed multitude. Has worked so far with AGW.
William says:
February 19, 2011 at 11:22 am
Finally, clarity and action. Enough is enough.
“My constituents should not have to continue to foot the bill for an organization to keep producing corrupt findings that can be used as justification to impose a massive new energy tax on every American.”
Nahhh! It’s the same as buying Maybelline.
/sarc
Next NGOs – WWF 2010 revenue from Government Grants and Contracts $40m up from $28m in 2007.
walt man says:
February 19, 2011 at 9:27 am
How much of an Albatross (tallbloke) is £100M over 21 years? When spread out over 50 contributors?? It is 1/1000 of the money spent on cosmetics in US in one year.
I think it’s less about the money than the stigma attached to climategate. An ill omen indeed.
walt man says:
February 19, 2011 at 10:43 am
“If science says that disease is caused by bacteria but others say that it is caused by miasmata…
Then should these others be given equal airtime to the science? Many could be taken in by the non-science.”
That is an interesting point. If disease is caused by bacteria only then presumably we should all perish. Even the worst diseases ever have left a good number of humans to survive. They have resistance when others have not. A different “miasmata” perhaps. Call it what you like but often some are struck down by a particular bacteria we all carry at a particular time. This is an individual response and shows the blanket acceptance of a scientific theory is not always right and it is so obvious that it does not always apply 100% or maybe never above 50%. The same with AGW. It is sweeping in its pronouncements, but if you listen to people such as Dr Roy Spencer, CO2 may account for around 20% of global warming over the last 100 years or around 0.2 degree C max.
The very last sentance got me.
The administration also says the ban would cost thousands of construction jobs.
I’m thinking make-work jobs prepping for wind farms that will never happen, if they are referring to “green jobs.” If my money is going to be wasted on make-work, I’d prefer the administration blow the money on murals in public areas as was done in the 1930s. At least we’d get something nice to gaze upon.
.
.
Wait! On second thought, if you really want to fund make-work, wind turbines are great!
Jobs to make them. Jobs to install them. Jobs to maintain them. Jobs to tear them down after they fail. Of course the requisite studies will have to be made at each step and there will be tons of paperwork that needs to be filled out in triplicate, stamped by inumerable unrelated agencies and signed by people whose job it is to sign such paperwork, and then all that paperwork will have to be scanned and the electronic files backed up in perpetuity.
.
.
.
Nahhh… I think I’ll stick with murals in public areas.
Roger Longstaff says: February 19, 2011 at 8:58 am
This is excellent! But can your Senate, or President, block it? (I am an ignorant Limey).
It is true either can, and Obama has said he will veto the spending bill with these attachments. I would guess it unlikely for this bill to get past the liberally-controlled Senate. I expect a stand-off as to who can stand the most pain, no budget at all, or one with compromises.
Yes and no… senate and president can refuse to agree on this budget, but then there’s NO budget, which as far as the IPCC is concerned means the same thing. The house is unlikely to approve ANY budget containing money for the IPCC, even if this particular bill isn’t the one ultimately passed.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says: February 19, 2011 at 12:52 pm
…If you’d like you can give me some of your money to spend in ways that will cause further spending of your money down the road which will lead to spending even more of your money. I’m sure you’d like that…
I would be pleased to contribute $0.01 to a fund enabling you to research non-AGW. Send me your address and a prepaid envelope.
The IPCC has caused billions in expenditure. And it has caused deaths through biofuel programs.
I did not know that the IPCC was involved in biofuels. Care to share a reference?
hmmm!
Who Supports Biofuels (bio-ethanol etc)
is it the Greenies?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8559661.stm
Environmentalists fear it is – and their latest manoeuvre to stem the biofuel tide is a legal action to force the European Commission to publish thousands of pages of evidence of the impacts of plant fuels on the environment.
…
Green campaigners want to see all the background research immediately because they believe that some of the papers already confirm that biofuels may do more harm than good.
…
The environmentalists say they suspect that the Commission’s analysis contains explosive evidence that could blow the EU’s biofuels strategy apart
…
Green groups have also been angered by a separate EU policy statement leaked to BBC News. They say it could grant plantations of palm oil the same status as natural rainforests.
…
Kenneth Richter from Friends of the Earth said: “This is absolutely appalling – they are bending over backwards to support the palm oil industry. To equate a palm oil plantation in the same category as a rainforest is dishonest and outrageous.” When I queried the Commission about this policy, they declined to comment.
…
But environmentalists point out that the E4tech study doesn’t even attempt to factor in the other potentially malign side-effects of fuel crops displacing food crops.
…
http://www.vivergofuels.com/web/about
Vivergo Fuels
Who are the backers? Greenies again?
BP is one of the world’s largest energy companies, offering expertise in fuels technology and access to major fuel markets.
British Sugar offers experience across the agricultural value chain, links to feedstock supply, and co-product expertise.
DuPont holds expertise in biotechnology and bio-manufacturing capabilities.
Looks like misguided government policies and Oil industries to me
From a UK biofuel co:
http://www.vivergofuels.com/
they take 1.1 M tonnes high starch grain
create 420M litres bioethanol
+500,000 tonnes high protein animal feed
so is it that bad?
I think it is wrong to use food this way!
The comparisons I made were simply about the money not the product. IPCC funding make no visible dent in the economy of most countries.
“The IPCC’s work has been lauded by the U.S. Academy of Sciences, and by the Interacademy Council, a body comprised of the national academies of the world. The organization won the Nobel Prize in 2007 for its assessment work.
This institution is a nonpartisan and technically extraordinarily sound organization. The Republican majority has already voted to prevent EPA from using funds to regulate greenhouse gases. Now we’re being asked to de-fund the work of international scientists to learn about the threat.
The assumption seems to be that there is no threat, and therefore let’s not study it. I think that is not a wise assumption. This is a very shortsighted proposal to cut these funds. It’s like putting our heads in the sand, denying the science, and then stopping the scientists from working – because they might come to a different conclusion from the Republican Party’s ideology, in believing that there’s no problem and therefore we don’t need to know anything about it.”
The IPCC doesn’t study a thing. It writes a very expensive paper gathering information from other sources. Mostly sources that support their thesis, but other sources never-the-less. Whether the IPCC exists or not, scientific funding is a seperate issue.
Congress sees no point in paying people to tell us what we “want/don’t want” to hear (depending on who is in control of congress at the time), because the message our of the IPCC is a foregone conclusion at this point. Why pay for a slightly ammended version of last year’s paper?
walt man
what color is the sky in your world where science is absolute and moderated by political fiat. [trimmed]
walt man says:
February 19, 2011 at 9:27 am
So around 0.05% of cosmetic spend (a personal choice of course) is spent by the US on the IPCC.
How much of an Albatross (tallbloke) is £100M over 21 years? When spread out over 50 contributors?? It is 1/1000 of the money spent on cosmetics in US in one year.
—————-
I remember the same type of argument being used by John Cleese bemoaning the underfunding of the “Ministry of Silly Walks”.
I like this Congress, they are moving in the right direction. The fact that an amendment to defund the IPCC came up — and passed! — is in itself a major step forward.
Thanks for posting this important piece of news.
One of my favorite blogs reports on a “scientific smackdown” of AGW:
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/16631-Scientific-smackdown!.html
walt man says:
“”IPCC funding make no visible dent in the economy of most countries.””
The problem walt man is that the IPCC uses that money to spread disinformation. It doesn’t matter how much or how little money is involved. The problem is that the IPCC is pushing a cAGW agenda in order to secure more funding for itself and to promote a cap and tax scheme. The IPCC should be defunded and disbanded for spreading a false alarm.
Obama sez we’d lose thousands of construction jobs. I am sure we will. And since it has been estimated that each green job costs six other jobs, our Congresscritters have saved tens of thousands of jobs! Who woulda thunk they could ever do anything right?
House votes to block EPA’s global warming power
—-
(…) The administration also says the ban would cost thousands of construction jobs.
But the Stimulus Bill created (or saved) tens to hundreds of thousands of construction jobs, by funding very many infrastructure and green energy projects, just as the Big O said would happen. It was so successful that he was again promoting spending on infrastructure and green energy during the budget battles after the November elections with the lame-duck Democrat-controlled House and Senate, wanting to create (or save) even more construction jobs. He was promoting such “investing” with such fervor, one could mistakenly assume the Stimulus Bill hadn’t done One Dang Thing for construction jobs and the Big O was asking for another try, like if somehow his administration could get it right next time.
Thus we can well afford to lose a few to help the greater economy.
walt man
So it’s a moral issue? Cosmetics and the IPCC? You made it into a prying with guilt? You are on the moral high ground?
How moral is a scientific/political movement? Should it be defunded? Yes. And it should be accountable to the public for it immorality:
Corny, I know, but the words “God bless America” come to mind.
And if Democrats choose to allow Government to be shut down over this, GOP needs to make it clear to the US voters that it is all due to Obama’s putting his pet $2.3 million UN project ahead of their social security cheques. Funding UN bureaucrat ahead of doing his job of governing America.
This action was a long time coming. Let us hope that it maintains.
I did not know that 98% of all scientific organizations believe in human-caused global warming and/or climate change before viewing the Senator Inhofe YouTube clip. Live and learn.
I believe that Nature is constantly changing the environment on Earth and there is nothing we can do about it except adapt.
The beauty of the IPCC attack on humanity is in their selection of Carbon Dioxide as the culprit. Notice that Carbon Dioxide is not explicitly mentioned but is now implicit in all discussions involving climate or temperature with the short-hand reference to Carbon in some instances (Carbon taxes). Carbon, being the basis of life-forms and the molecule, CO2, being necessary for the life-cycle of the Flora and Fauna of Earth’s Nature, is a politician’s dream as a source of tax revenues.
It is like the Commerce Clause in the Constitution of the United States which the Congress deems to be justification for regulating and taxing all activity within the borders of the United States, although the southern border with Mexico is somewhat fuzzy with US citizens being warned to stay away from certain areas of the United States that have been set-aside as drug-trafficking routes.
Inhofe Takes on Global Warming Alarmist Attempted Ambush
Nothing personal. Of course not. No apologies necessary.
>> walt man says:
February 19, 2011 at 10:29 am
The IPCC cost each taxpayer $0.01 in 2008.
The total UK contribution to IPCC is £3.1M over 21 years <<
You're missing the green value in this. Cuttting off the IPCC funding will eliminate hundreds of flights to some tropical paradise. That's probably a CO2 reduction greater than all of the CO2 generated by your lifetime existance on this planet. And it saved you $0.01 too! What more could a greenie possibly ask for?
walt
it’s just a penny a person? You sure? I’m not, not by a long shot