Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
Promoters of ‘official’ climate, which is defined as the works of the UN IPCC, are desperate. Twenty of them, including Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) members like Kevin Trenberth, asked the Obama administration to file Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges against climate deniers. All but two of the twenty are at Universities, and the two are career bureaucrats associated with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). They all live off the public purse, but somehow in the weird world of climate science that is untainted money. The RICO charge is ad hominem, not about the science. If Virtually all the research funding for global warming comes from government and goes to those supporting the unproven hypothesis. There is no comparison between the amounts of government money going to the ‘official’ side of the science and that going to skeptics.
Their RICO charge is so ridiculous it hardly warrants a response, but it does require scientific perspective. It is important to note that none of the authors of the academic peer reviewed papers and books, they claim provide the evidence for their charge, signed the letter. It is likely that most, if not all of them or their institutes, receive funding from a government beyond their academic or government salaries.
The RICO charge is a particularly nasty form of ad hominem attack. By applying it in the global warming case, it tries to make criminals out of people doing their job properly. The real criminal part of their enterprise is that skeptics are doing what scientists are supposed to do, that is disproving the AGW hypothesis. They accuse these properly named scientific skeptics of performing the scientific method, either through ignorance of the method or to silence them. The twenty, like the IPCC and its supporters, directly or indirectly thwart the scientific method by accepting the hypothesis as proven. They then deflect or ignore overwhelming evidence that the hypothesis is wrong including failed predictions (projections). They consistently refuse to consider the null hypothesis.
The attack is not surprising because the IPCC created a monster and were driven to keep it alive. Once you create the monster it becomes uncontrollable and even if it becomes a threat to society, the creator will resist its destruction; worse, you have to keep feeding the monster and will take extreme measures if necessary. This inevitability is the moral message of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Establishment of the IPCC through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) put national weather office bureaucrats in control of national climate policy and most of the research funding. They appointed the members of the IPCC and used their offices to promote and perpetuate the unproven hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Extreme measures taken to keep the monster alive included adjusting the record to eliminate previous warm periods and lowering the historic instrumental record to increase the slope of the curve to create or accentuate warming. More recently it was the adjustments designed to offset the pause they directly contradicted the hypothesis. They were on a treadmill for two main reasons. By accepting the IPCC AGW hypothesis as proved, required ignoring or diverting from evidence. It was the destructive effect T.H. Huxley identified when he wrote,
“The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
By convincing politicians to establish policy based on their information, it became difficult to admit they were wrong.
The natural tendency of any bureaucracy is to perpetuate its existence. This includes expanding the scope and scale of the work, promoting speculative dangers and threats to society, emphasizing the urgency to resolve the problem, and involving as many other public and private agencies as possible. This list summarizes the claims of those making the RICO charge. The structure and involvement of people and agencies has become so large that reduction or elimination is virtually impossible. It parallels the idea of “too big to fail” but becomes, “too important to fail”.
Another challenge is that the numbers of people involved, directly or indirectly, becomes large enough to influence votes and keep the monster alive. For example, how many tax accountants, tax lawyers, IRS employees or anyone else in the taxation industry would vote for a flat tax? Other than those with a vested interest there are many others who Niccolo Machiavelli identified when he said,
One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
It is also why Upton Sinclair said,
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
There is also the problem of admitting error that many find difficult. Tolstoi summarized their plight.
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
In The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science, I identified some of the groups and agencies across the world involved in the promotion and opportunities that the global warming deception offered. They include
· Members of the cabal who chose climate and environment as vehicles for their political agenda.
· Academics attracted by the significant amounts of funding offered.
· Academics with political sympathies for the cabal’s objectives.
· Bureaucrats employed by the national weather offices that comprise the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) chosen as the vehicle for controlling the IPCC.
· Bureaucrats with political sympathies with the cabal objectives.
· Bureaucrats in other government agencies, such as Agriculture or Transport that are secondarily affected by weather and climate issues.
· Departments of Education who directed unbalanced teaching of only the ‘official’ science as Justice Burton UK court ruled.
· Politicians who saw an opportunity to “be green.”
· Politicians who saw an opportunity for more taxation.
· Businesses that saw an opportunity for a profitable business guaranteed by government policy and funding.
· Individuals who saw a career or business opportunity.
· Environmental groups who supported the political objectives of blaming humans for the world’s ills.
· Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). Maurice Strong reconstituted the term coined by the UN in 1945 for the Rio 1992 conference. It purportedly gave voice to organizations not part of a government or conventional for-profit businesses. At Conference of the Parties (COP) climate meetings, they constitute at least half of the attendees.
· Most of the media who actively supported the AGW hypothesis.
· National science academies persuaded by the British Royal Society to support the IPCC position.
There is one thing likely about most of these people, 97 percent of them know little or nothing about climate change.
The Climate Conference of the Parties (COP21) scheduled for Paris is clearly facing failure, which is pushing IPCC defenders, such as the twenty making the RICO request, to extremes. Their comparison of scientists trying to perform proper science to organized crime leaders is beyond outrageous. It is especially egregious because the people making the charges are guilty of scientific malfeasance. While not necessarily criminal, it is worse in the damage it has and will do to everyone. The monster they created using incorrect science became the justification for imposing destructive, expensive, and completely unnecessary policies on the world. These policies will do far more damage to the poor and the environment they claim to protect. As it was anonymously said,
If an honest man is wrong, after demonstrating that he is wrong, he either stops being wrong or he stops being honest.
So on a perfect sunday morning with resort weather to enjoy here in the corn belt, while catching up with Joe Bastardi’s weekly summary, it occurs to me that nothing about this whole climate change thing is unprecedented, except for the extent and speed of the viral spreading of anti-human sentimentality and fear mongering that today’s tech facilitates for opportunists of ill intent.
The envelope of science has been stretched by having been used to enclose a political agenda, giving it a philanthropic appearance based on a gross overestimation of a theoretical process in nature, and has begun to tear from the stress. It has become necessary to place the scientific envelope inside the envelope of religion to keep it away from honest scrutiny.
As the envelope of religion already contains many holes, mostly due it’s deterioration with age, it will be necessary to apply the ‘camo duck tape’ of the law to sufficiently obscure the contents and damage that has occurred.
What an excellent post!
Well done Dr. Tim Ball. So many great points that I – oh so wholeheartedly – agree with. Great to see this hosted on WUWT.
A Dutch court recently ruled that greenhouse gas reduction is a state obligation. Here’s what that could mean for the rest of the world.
http://ensia.com/features/are-countries-legally-required-to-protect-their-citizens-from-climate-change/
Maybe they’ll declare it a “Dutch treat” and every country pays for their own…
The RICO Act cannot be used against people exercising their free speech right to disagree with mainstream science. It can be applied to for-profit companies using dishonest information to mislead the public. Medical science was not damaged by the RICO Act convictions against the tobacco industry and no one was jailed for disagreeing that tobacco is harmful. But just as companies cannot legally engage in false advertising, there are limits on deceptive lobbying.
http://www.dwlr.com/blog/2011-05-12/rico-convictions-major-tobacco-companies-affirmed
Perhaps you could provide an example of a statement on climate which merits imprisoning someone under RICO. Thanks.
What about a court ruling short of imprisonment of persons named to spend time in prison? Such as a settlement that involves paying a fine, signing a commitment to not continue such wrongdoing (or maybe “wrongdoing” or whatever), stuff like that?
I have been unable to find decent words for an adequate response to what these 20 persons have done. I just hope that their superiors in their respective organizations can give them appropriate lessons about scientific theory, history and humanity.
The last time we tried a ‘flat tax’ was during the Reagan administration. They compromised by creating a two-tier tax in exchange for eliminating or reducing most deductions in exchange for lower rates. The economy took off.
However, today the high rates are back and so are the multiple progressive tax brackets. But surprise: The deductions they once eliminated, in exchange for temporarily lower rates, are still gone. The economy is stagnant.
This is what I remember when dreamers talk about a ‘flat tax’.
The high rates of taxation are not back here again. None of the rates of personal taxation are higher than they were in 1998, or higher than Reagan said he would go along with.
Furthermore, two important taxation rates plunged to a new low level after Clinton left office, and they remain at such a low level now. They are the rates of taxation of long-term capital gains, and the newly post-Clinton distinction of “qualified dividends”. Both of these are on income that is gained and enjoyed mostly by “corporate fat cats”.
I oppose these tax cuts, while I favor less taxation of corporation income. Corporate taxation appears to me as not so good for targeting “corporate fat cats”; instead that appears to me as casting a broader net that impacts corporations’ employees, suppliers, and shareholders such as those with IRAs and 401Ks. Isn’t America supposed to be a place with a middle class that includes a large majority of Americans, mainly ones who work for a living?
The United States greatest period of sustained economic growth was in the 1950s, when corporate tax rates were much, much higher, as well as individual tax rates (which were up to 90%). There are still lots of deductions – for example, many corporations pay nearly 0% of their earnings in taxes due to write-offs, and many wealthy people have low effective rates. Warren Buffet provided one of the best examples when he stated that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary, because nearly all of his income comes as capital gains, which are taxed at a low rate.
Dr Ball,
Well said.
Hey, this observer brought up the RICO issue a long time ago, hypothetically, in regard to the corrupt character of many of the government members of the IPCC. Interesting that, as with the “d-words” this is warped into a “stop thief” type of evasion.
If only we might see CAGW claims adjudicated by a court, with experts on both sides giving testimony, counsel from both sides allowed to cross examine, and a jury needed to give a unanimous verdict. That is the debate all the honest thinkers of the world have been asking for these many years. An honest debate on the science, without fear or favor. Unfortunately, that is not what is on offer here.
http://news.yahoo.com/vw-chief-sorry-epa-says-firm-skirted-clean-161554587.htm
Gosh darn when Volkswagen lies to the EPA and public .. well my faith is just crushed. You don’t suppose its Volkswagen that the “Noble ones” were referring to when they brought up the idea of RICO prosecution (persecution)?
michael
Nah, it’s more that you either get out of business or you cheat. When the restrictions objectively are nonsense anyway…
Liberals are for freedom!
It amazes me, that someone could so accurately describe what is happening today, over 50 years ago. These people clearly represent the “scientific technological elite” that Eisenhower was speaking about in his farewell address.
Tim, you w\rite that
“..The structure and involvement of people and agencies has become so large that reduction or elimination is virtually impossible. It parallels the idea of “too big to fail” but becomes, “too important to fail”.
I agree with your reasoning but historically this is not true. The unthinkable was done to terminate our moon landing program. When Nixon won his second election he found to his annoyance that the lunar landing program started by his nemesis from 1960 was planning to send 20 lunar landing vehicles to the surface of the moon. His response was to cancel work on the last three vehicles that had not yet been started. This is why Apollo 17 and not Apollo 20 became our last lunar landing vehicle. I was then with Grumman, the prime contractor for LM, and know what happened. Grumman had already done advance planning and had the personnel lined up to handle the technical aspects. Nixon just told them to fire them all. Grumman had no choice and in the month of January 1970 they laid off ten thousand highly qualified people. I was one of these ten thousand. There were no similar jobs elsewhere on Long Island and the large majority of those laid off had to sell their homes and find work in other parts of the country. Luckily my wife had urged me to take education courses which I never used but which now allowed me to find a teaching job instead of transferring to Cape Canaveral. To lay off ten thousand in a month is drastic and I don’t advocate it except as a last resort. Clearly a phased drawdown of undesired work force is preferable. But however it is done, the entire global warming operation is a cancer that must be destroyed. As Cato the Elder would have put it, “Cancrum delenda est.”
Arno,
I’ve had many members of my family that worked for NASA and I remember the cuts. However, to your point I believe this drastic action is fairly rare. The only thing I can remember in the last thirty years is Reagan firing the striking air traffic controllers. Can you cite other instances?
[snip -hate speech -mod]
The longer the time to follow the main efforts of science and policy to define and determine the cause of climate change and the consequences in terms of global warming. But, unfortunately, I have not seen anything logical in many stories, especially those that support the policy and not a science that studies and respecting the laws of nature.
In many places I have called attention to the fact that climate change on the planet, not only on nšoj planet, depend on the relationships of the planets and the sun.
In what way can this be proved? It depends on the interests and moods of powerful circles and when they realize that the progress of science can not be achieved with a profit interest in this field.
Today they all run and rush headlong into the unknown, only if they consider that there can be realized a personal profit.
These all who read this, I can not ignore this, as they wish, because nobody can forbid you, but remember, that I have the obvious idea that these ENIGMA successfully complete !!.
Offering up with his idea, but now I stand by that, that NASA and the Government of the United States if they have this interest, can be a little “lowered down” and to accept the offer with a contractual obligation to perform it in detail.
Read this and think there is no need to be making fun of this, but to try to solve.
I can not wait to fall soon many false theories about climate change.
This all reminds me, in an admittedly macabre and over the top way, of an account by Christopher Hitchens about Saddam Hussein’s silencing of the Iraqi parliament.
During a parliamentary session, Saddam appeared and took the podium to speak. From one of the side doors a disheveled and broken man was dragged in and installed next to him. The man had obviously been tortured mercilessly. The man began to denounce a large number of parliamentarians present as traitors. Armed police then came in from every door and dragged away the named individuals kicking and screaming their innocence. The parliament erupted and the remaining delegates swarmed around the podium professing undying loyalty to Saddam in abject terror. Saddam then declared that he would only trust them if they went outside and executed the traitors at once with rifles provided by the police.
The delegates rushed out to comply.
I saw that on tv at the time.
Hitchens version here, the action starts around 1:35
Why not have a RICO investigation of the promoters of CAGW? I won’t list them here for fear of legal action, but there are many who have a vested interest in promoting their theme.
“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Coming Climate Change Catastrophe Cult does not care about climate science.
There are few science debates on climate change.
Skeptics are countered with ridicule and character attacks.
This is the Alinsky method to gain political power.
Scaring people is a political tool used to gain political power.
Character attacking people who object, creates a (false) reason to avoid debating them … and is also effective in silencing dissent from others who may have been thinking about making skeptical statements.
Recent calls for a RICO investigation of “climate deniers” are just an unusually harsh form of a character attack.
The odd thing about climate change is most skeptics get involved with temperature minutia and miss many opportunities to ridicule 40+ years of grossly inaccurate computer game climate predictions.
Real climate scientists are rarely able to communicate effectively — they tend to get bogged down with math, science, and charts that few laymen will understand.
Anyone who is an expert in a subject ought to be able to teach an overview of the subject in simple words, and short sentences, that a high school student could understand.
The problem with climate change science is there are no experts.
There are so many unknowns about climate change that it’s impossible to know if a climate scientist is really an expert, or whether his current theories will be proven completely wrong in the future.
What real climate scientists (not smarmy climate modelers) forget is the climate change cult is almost entirely interested in the FUTURE climate, which they “predict” with computer games.
Predictions of the future are real science.
Humans are so inaccurate when predicting the future.
“Experts” are actually less accurate then laymen.
Predictions resemble astrology.
Real science resembles astronomy.
Computer models are not science — they are not data, and without data there is no science.
The communication of basic climate change knowledge has to be very simple to influence the average person.
Simple words.
Short sentences.
No math.
Few numbers.
Here’s a first draft of my attempt to summarize climate “science” in simple language:
There were quite a few cool centuries from 1300 to 1850.
The slight warming since 1850 is good news for people and green plants.
The increase of CO2 in the air since 1850 is good news for green plants.
There has never been a correlation between CO2 levels and average temperature.
There is no scientific proof CO2 is more than a minor factor in climate change.
Climate model games have been predicting global warming doom for over 40 years.
How many decades do the models have to be wrong before people stop listening?
Real scientists know Earth is always warming or cooling.
In the past, based on written anecdotal evidence, most people liked warm centuries, and hated cool centuries.
Global warming is something to celebrate.
Don’t people often travel to warm climates for vacations?
If warming stops, there can only be global cooling.
Global cooling is something to fear.
15,000 years ago Manhattan was under miles of ice.
No one knows why that happened.
No one knows why the ice melted.
No one knows if it will happen again.
Climate change is not something that started 50 years ago.
It has been happening for all 4.5 billion years of earth’s existence.
Be thankful for a degree or two of warming since 1850.
Hope for more warming in the future.
And speaking for the green plants, more CO2 (plant food) in the air would be great too.
There are many things in the world to worry about.
Often not the things politicians tell you to worry about.
Climate change is something to celebrate — not worry about.
But you can start worrying if the climate starts getting colder.
Climate blog for non-scientists:
Free
No ads.
No money for me.
A public service.
http://www.elOnionBloggle.blogspot.com
In my prior post,
“Predictions of the future are real science”
should have been typed as:
“Predictions of the future are NOT real science.”
That typing error was not my fault.
I was distracted by knee pain caused by climate change.
For which I have written the UN demanding climate reparations to ease my pain and suffering.
Three days ago the local weatherman predicted 96 F for Sunday. The high was 87 F. I want reparations for bringing my shot sleeve shirt.
The past president of the National Academy of Sciences dos not think there is a current global warming threat
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/seitz.html
That proves he is a “denier”,
paid off by the Koch Brothers,
owns ExxonMobil stock,
is too old and feeble-minded to express a scientific opinion (like Al Bore said about Roger Revelle),
is consulting for fossil fuel companies,
is being misinterpreted by you,
is angry he is no longer President of the NAS, and is trying to get back at them,
and/or he is really the “passed” President, not “past” President, and since he is no longer alive, his climate change opinion no longer counts.
Perhaps he really meant the climate is fine TODAY — there’s no current threat — but in the FUTURE life on Earth will end as we know it from climate change?
When life on Earth ends, however, no one will know what caused it — the cause could have been ANY of the MANY environmental threats we were told were going to end life on Earth as we knew it, starting in the 1960s with DDT … then other pesticides, acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, global warming, global cooling, climate change, etc.
Did I miss a few ?
Zionist?
Neo-con?
Or the latest fashion:
Hungarian?
The libcultists have never had a problem with arrogating whatever POWER they can to try and destroy their enemies, especially if that power is governmental in nature. The IRS attacks against Tea Party and other conservative orgs are well known now and fairly well understood, yet NO ONE has been held accountable. Nor will they be.
This latest group of Klimate Kultists demand that government yet again intercede on the behalf of their “bigger truth” is just a logical extension of those Tea Party attacks. Success breeds success.
Since the GOPe and the demonRATs actively conspired to eliminate their hated mutual enemy, the Tea Party, the temptation to employ the same tactics in every area is irresistible to those who are fundamentally totalitarians at heart.
I guess what I’m really saying is this: Ya ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
“Research” from GreenPeace said “jump!” and almost everyone jumped. The few that did not jump were labeled deniers and hounded by the Administration, media groups, advocacy groups, and message managers under contract. “Research” from EPA screamed “jump!” and the few that did not jump were fined at a rate of $24,000 per day. Thus, there is great incentive to stretch the enforcement cost onto more victims and into more venues.
When ‘Godzilla’ came out last year (and of course all the warmists jumped on it as a global warming metaphor even though the director pointedly debunked this, indicating it was more of a ‘nature bats last’ story), I thought it was actually a pretty good analogy going back the other way – the Big Green Industry can easily be seen as an unstoppable green monster that wants to destroy humanity and that no one can stop.
If ever in the course of history there has been a more poetic symbol of dogma over science than the Pope coming to visit our current president, I have yet to find it.
The actual head of the organization that imprisoned Galileo Galilei is coming to the U.S. to confer his blessing on our federal government’s ordination of the doctrine of CAGW.
Nevermind that the left has absolutely no use for Christianity whatsoever. This Pope is clearly a marxist, and what’s more; he agrees with them on their single most important scientific pronouncement; that man is an evil danger to the world and must be stopped. So, for at least the time being, he is their hero.
And never mind the “optics” of the situation.
Somewhere in heaven or hell, depending on your particular faith tradition, there is a room. A room with a table around which are seated Socrates, Galileo and Saint Thomas Aquinas. They are either collectively laughing their hind-ends off about the comedy of it all, or face palming at the lack of progress humanity has made in the advancement and proliferation of understanding of scientific knowledge.
Either way, future generations will hopefully see this as the high water mark for the political high jacking of science.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Dr. Tim Ball’s perspective on the RICO letter: “Their RICO charge is so ridiculous it hardly warrants a response, but it does require scientific perspective. It is important to note that none of the authors of the academic peer reviewed papers and books, they claim provide the evidence for their charge, signed the letter. It is likely that most, if not all of them or their institutes, receive funding from a government beyond their academic or government salaries.”