Uh, oh…It’s about to become more about the people behind the letter, than the letter itself.
Now all we need is a steamy potboiler novel and some internal investigations and it could be Rajenda Pachauri all over again.
The big story at Climate Audit this week (see Shukla’s Gold) is about the twenty authors of the letter demanding that climate skeptics be put on trial, and in particular the man pushing the letter, Jagadish Shukla, seems to be getting quite prosperous with all that Koch Brothers money Oil Money public money he gets sent his way. Steve McIntyre writes:
In 2001, the earliest year thus far publicly available, in 2001, in addition to his university salary (not yet available, but presumably about $125,000), Shukla and his wife received a further $214,496 in compensation from IGES (Shukla -$128,796; Anne Shukla – $85,700). Their combined compensation from IGES doubled over the next two years to approximately $400,000 (additional to Shukla’s university salary of say $130,000), for combined compensation of about $530,000 by 2004.
Shukla’s university salary increased dramatically over the decade reaching $250,866 by 2013 and $314,000 by 2014. (In this latter year, Shukla was paid much more than Ed Wegman, a George Mason professor of similar seniority). Meanwhile, despite the apparent transition of IGES to George Mason, the income of the Shuklas from IGES continued to increase, reaching $547,000 by 2013. Combined with Shukla’s university salary, the total compensation of Shukla and his wife exceeded $800,000 in both 2013 and 2014. In addition, as noted above, Shukla’s daughter continued to be employed by IGES in 2014; IGES also distributed $100,000 from its climate grant revenue to support an educational charity in India which Shukla had founded.
But it seems Shukla doesn’t like people looking into that, because the letter seems to have been disappeared from the IGES website. I’ve confirmed this over 24 hours and several search techniques. What was once visible to search engines, is no more:
The original link that no longer works: http://www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf
The letter survives on the Wayback Machine here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20150920110942/http://www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf
And here is the letter as a single image, with page 1 and 2 combined from the PDF:
Bishop Hill notes:
You can imagine the horror on the signatories’ faces when they realised that some very determined people were about to take a close interest in their financial arrangements and those of their colleagues at IGES.
I’m not sure taking the letter down is going to help much though.
The Streisand effect has been unleashed Mr. Shukla, enjoy the ride.
h/t to Russell Cook
Note: shortly after publication, this story was updated to make two links active (a recent wordpress problem caused this) and a hat tip added.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I wonder what would happen if McSteve, Pielke or any others with similar skills started investigating the finances of other ‘warmist leaders’. Even those who haven’t sent letters to the Prez..
While the fact that none of the alarmists are out defending this sleaze, it is still disheartening to not see the likes of Mosher and Stokes joining in the condemnation. Silence is tacit consent of the actions done.
E-mail addresses for these people are available on their respective university web sites. The reply from one of them mystifies me. His comments and work seem to contradict the RICO letter especially the settled science part. Is it possible that some or several of these names were attached w/o permission, full disclosure or understanding? Or are we skeptics being spoofed?
. . LOL…It wouldn’t be the first time !!
They scatter for the shadows, like roaches, when the lights suddenly shine upon them. They will, of course, hold tight to the (six-figure) morsels they collected when no one was looking.
It would be fantasy land if the IGES should choose to sue Steve McIntyre like Dr. Mann sued Mark Steyn. The discovery process would be a real Bee Eye Itch.
This is yet another cottage academic industry set up in the U.S. by Indian entrepreneurs. They do serve to highlight the misuse of such university orgs, especially in their blatant forms. Their aggressive money plays tend to be messy, misguided, and easy to spot for their pathetic tactics. Once you study the blatant ones, it becomes easier to understand the more discrete operators up to the same money trolling.
They should have copied the NRDC in the letter. That group is the real Rasputin power center these days. They are the main puppet handlers and they even make the mouth move on the sock puppet President to say their words and speeches.
Somebody should update Jagadish Shukla’s Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdish_Shukla
Ideally, Court is where this argument should be made. The facts will come out, the truth will be told, maybe, and the theory would proven groundless, once and for all. In a perfect world…
The last place IPCC followers want this to play out in a courtroom where evidence is examined. Never happen, I suppose.
I wonder whether Shukla would publish the accounts for the $100,000 he is purported to have spent on the Educational charity in India!
Denialists are prime candidates for the darwin award. God obviously disagrees.