Backfire on the #RICO20 and Jagadish Shukla is imminent; wagon circling, climbdown, dissolution begins

This story has legs now, as I predicted in this piece yesterday “The ‘RICO 20 letter’ to Obama asking for prosecution of climate skeptics disappears from Shukla’s IGES website amid financial concerns” the Streisand Effect has been unleashed. Now, instead of explaining why the RICO 20 letter was mysteriously withdrawn from the IGES website after questions began to be asked about the millions of dollars that George Mason’s Jagadish Shukla apparently has received, some of it while apparently “double dipping” against university policy, all the while claiming climate skeptics are the recipients of money that should be prosecuted under the RICO act, we find this curious missive posted in place of the RICO20 letter at the URL where it previously resided:

shukla-lame-excuse

Source: http://www.iges.org/letter/LetterPresidentAG.pdf

“Inadvertently placed on this web site”? I think not, especially since that URL was the “go to” given in their press release about the letter and referenced in numerous news outlets, without so much as a peep of a correction for over a month while that story ran wild. All of the sudden it was posted in the wrong place?

I call that explanation “BS of the highest order”. He got caught with his pants down, tables have turned, and now its damage control, and badly done damage control at that, since the actions are making the situation with Shukla even more suspect.

Then there’s the apparent nepotism going on with all that public money used to fund Shukla’s climate dreams:

IGES Personnel:

President Shukla, Jagadish

Business Manager Shukla, Anastasia

Assistant Business Manager Shukla, Sonia

Director, COLA Kinter, James

Assistant to the President Shukla, Sonia

Source: http://www.iges.org/aboutiges.html

And, Steve McIntyre had called out one of the signatories, Barry Klinger, over untrue claims in Reckless Misinformation from Barry Klinger and the RICO 20

Klinger has now started a climbdown, screencap of http://mason.gmu.edu/~bklinger/ricoDebate.html below:

klinger-climbdown

Popcorn futures are climbing, and this episode, along with all the many many “follow the money” tentacles it has, may very well become the takedown of organized climate science. The RICO20 has opened a Pandora’s box upon themselves.

As Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. Tweeted:

shukla-10million-pielke

People that live in Greenhouses shouldn’t cast stones.

Note: shortly after publication this article was edited to include a missing comma, a misplaced “to” instead of “the”,  and to fix a text formatting problem

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VicV
September 30, 2015 8:37 am

For those not aware: The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet. -Google Dictionary

Reply to  VicV
September 30, 2015 8:43 am

Named after our good friend Barbara Streisand, who thought a photographic survey of the California coast from public airspace violated her privacy, and discovered that due to her lawsuit people started actually looking at the photographs of what would have been an otherwise unremarkable plush ocean-front villa that dot that bit of countryside.

Caligula Jones
Reply to  tarran
September 30, 2015 9:47 am

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a certain Naomi Orekes a former thingy of Ms. Streisand’s Environmental Defense Fund?

Paul Westhaver
September 30, 2015 8:38 am

You gotta love WUWT.
Nobody would know anything about this otherwise. Turn the screws please.

Resourceguy
Reply to  Paul Westhaver
September 30, 2015 9:19 am

Yes, it has more of a real time feel to it and under the radar in most cases.

Mick
Reply to  Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 9:39 am

Slightly off topic I guess but another skeptical opinion column in the Vancouver Province
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2015/09/29/michelle-stirling-paris-is-about-saving-green-investors-not-the-earth/

Billy Liar
Reply to  Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 9:54 am

O/T but good article. Pity the rest of BC is not so skeptical.

Mick
Reply to  Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 11:30 am

You know what Billy? I don’t know anyone personally who believes or seems to give a care one way or another. For most people, it isn’t even on their radar. It just seems that way because of the local media. The Sun in particular, with their writer Stephen Hume. He’s some ex-old hippy living on the Island.

asybot
Reply to  Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 7:03 pm

@ Mick, as far as living on the Island is concerned ( and I lived there and it is beautiful and in some ways unparalleled) If for what ever reason it would get cut off from the daily supplies like food and fuel it would be a mess in short order, so if an ” age old hippy” wants to live there fine with me. ( I have family still there and it is a topic of discussion).

Jay Turberville
Reply to  Paul Westhaver
September 30, 2015 10:20 am

I’m pretty sure I read about it first on Climate Etc. I like and value WUWT, but there are other resources.

Reply to  Jay Turberville
September 30, 2015 10:24 am

You beat me to it, Jay!

Paul Westhaver
Reply to  Jay Turberville
September 30, 2015 10:53 am

True, but not in terms or reach.
Effective communication = value of information X broadcast reach
I am sure that the elements RICO conspiracy was known long before. WUWT provides a substantial hammer blow.

dp
Reply to  Jay Turberville
September 30, 2015 11:20 am

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html
Why this guy still has a job we pay for is to me astonishing. This part of the story was reported in June.
It’s actually a rather old story, news cycle wise. The side story of corruption is obviously also an old story that Steve M and R Pieke Jr. recently uncovered. Breitbart reported 10 days ago the request by a group of scientists for the Obama (a willing accomplice in the shredding of the first amendment) to prosecute using RICO statutes. RICO is often used as a harassment tool since it is easy to invoke for everything from hording toilette paper to armed extortion.
Tallbloke wrote a about it on 09/19/2015 citing a non-climate blog entry from the day before.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/do-you-dare-to-disagree-you-must-go-to-jail/
Steve M began his series on Sep 25 and had to have spent some time prior to publishing to analyze the story.
I was surprised that WUWT still dishing up another series of Eschenbach diary entries while this story was breaking.

Paul Westhaver
Reply to  Jay Turberville
September 30, 2015 12:09 pm

dp… “It’s actually a rather old story, news cycle wise.”
That is the problem. The MSM and big broad news orgs simply cannot keep this news story in prominent view. The corruption in the UN Climate mafia needs to be seen. a la Climategate.

Reply to  Paul Westhaver
September 30, 2015 10:22 am

Nobody would know anything about this otherwise.

Paul, I love WUWT but if I’m not mistaken other people wrote about RICO20 earlier: World Net Daily, Marc Morano, Hot Air, James Delingpole at Breitbart, etc.
It’s another data point showing that AGW is a political power grab fight first, funding trough brawl second, and a scientific controversy a distant third, if at all.
Yes, turn the screws, please!

Paul Westhaver
Reply to  Colorado Wellington
September 30, 2015 10:59 am

Yes…
That usually is the case. But as noted above, WUWT brings it to another level. I don’t frequent WND daily or Climate Depot (though excellent sites). WUWT is an aggregator/opinion site largely focused on the AGW issue, my pet peeve. I do frequent Breitbart but their site is broad and largely focuses on politics and cultural issues, diluting their focus on AGW.
If you want to get a AGW related issue to the most people in a hurry, where would you go?

Paul Westhaver
Reply to  Colorado Wellington
September 30, 2015 11:09 am

As a courtesy to WND and Breitbart, both great sites!, I went back to find the tread and see if the screws are being turned.. and the articles are “below the fold” so to speak…. IF you can find them. WUWT’s focus allows the subject to sustain multiple postings, 3 here so far, and the necessary durability to make the tyrants knuckle under.
effective communication = value of information X broadcast reach X exposure time X # of exposures.

Reply to  Paul Westhaver
September 30, 2015 11:41 am

I agree, Paul, and I think it’s hugely important that WUWT keeps the pressure up on the sleazy AGW politics. I also appreciate that Curry, Pielke and McIntyre pay attention to this unscientific dirt.

Paul Westhaver
Reply to  Colorado Wellington
September 30, 2015 12:06 pm

Agreed. MacIntyre, Delingpole, Morano Curry et al were all over this out of the gate. This story needs persistence & reach because the MSM will slide this under the rug just like they tried to do with climategate 1.0. The MSM monitor WUWT. Note another RICO story just got posted at the top of WUWT.

Reply to  Paul Westhaver
September 30, 2015 5:20 pm

Except for Pielke, Delingpole, Climate Audit, and quite a few others.

September 30, 2015 8:40 am

Thanks, Anthony. Good article, speaking against the corruption of alarmist climate science.

Gaia is Not Pleased
September 30, 2015 8:47 am

Gotta love it when some hard core Eco Greenie scammers are outed making the $Big $Coin Coin off the Glowball Warming scam.
Especially when they convince their kids to go morally corrupt in the name of Gaia.

September 30, 2015 8:49 am

The Streisand effect is in full gear

Tucci78
September 30, 2015 8:54 am

People who make their living peddling swamp gas ought not to strike matches.
Napalm, anyone?

Michael D Smith
Reply to  Tucci78
September 30, 2015 10:48 am

I’m putting that on a T-Shirt!

Barbara Skolaut
Reply to  Tucci78
September 30, 2015 10:54 am

Beautiful!
I am so stealing that. 😀

Denis Ables
Reply to  Barbara Skolaut
September 30, 2015 12:27 pm

Another one … (which I heard about and had several bumper stickers printed)
“FRAUD: The #1 cause of global warming”

Reply to  Barbara Skolaut
September 30, 2015 2:22 pm

This one just occurred to me:
Sunrise: The #1 cause of Global Warming.

Kurt
September 30, 2015 8:55 am

Great article – thanks Anthony. I wonder how much tax money has gone down drains similar to Shukla.

September 30, 2015 8:57 am

I’m waiting for the BBC to report this………..

Editor
Reply to  Phillip Bratby
September 30, 2015 9:15 am

……………………………………….

Reply to  Paul Homewood
September 30, 2015 9:42 am

Keeping it pithy, huh Paul?

Mickey Reno
Reply to  Paul Homewood
September 30, 2015 11:52 am

That’s the most brilliant reply I’ve ever seen which had no actual characters in it.

Tom J
Reply to  Paul Homewood
September 30, 2015 12:51 pm

Most brilliant reply, period … period, period, period …

Jimbo
Reply to  Phillip Bratby
September 30, 2015 9:40 am

I just can’t seem to find anything at the Guardian. Maybe it’s my keyword search. All I found was this.

Guardian – 29 May 2008
A unique collection of 1,700 leading scientists today called on the US government to take the lead in fighting global warming……
Another signatory, Jagadish Shukla, lead author of a recent IPCC report, said: “The consequences of global climate change constitute one of the most serious threats facing humanity. While the poor and the impoverished will suffer the most, the potential for catastrophic climate change that can adversely affect the habitability of the entire planet is quite real.”…..
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/29/usa.climatechange

I don’t think this climastrologist-activist is scary enough.

Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 11:43 am

Dana’s doubling down at the Guardian. He still calls for RICO investigations into sceptic science.
Thus proving that Klinger is being disingenuous when he claims that “jailing skeptics” references are spurious.
The anti-science mob are still at it and Kilnger’s in their ranks.

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 1:13 pm

Thanks M Courtney. I notice that comments are closed on that page. Dana says:

Guardian – Tuesday 29 September 2015
By Dana Nuccitelli
“Is the fossil fuel industry, like the tobacco industry, guilty of racketeering?”

I do hope he tells people a little bit about his brazen hypocrisy.
Dana Nuccitelli is a Guardian environmental contributor and has worked for Tetra Tech oil and gas services company since June 2006. In June 2012 it was announced that Tetra Tech had acquired Rooney Engineering. “REI has worked on projects across the United States, including in Alaska and the Gulf Coast, but many of the firm’s current clients are strategically located in the Bakken and Niobrara shale oil regions.”
22 July 2013 – WUWT
Dana Nuccitelli’s ‘vested interest’? – oil and gas

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 1:19 pm

Here is more on the hypocrite Dana of the Guardian. He attacked Exxon in his Guardian piece. Now look.

Further research reveals that Tetra Tech is specifically being funded by ExxonMobil to lead the design and construction of their new 386-acre campus north of Houston, Texas.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/07/dana-nuccitellis-paycheck-funded-by.html

Oil money for me but not for thee. Dana is not alone.
By Jimbo on NTZ
Long List Of Warmist Organizations, Scientists Haul In Huge Money From BIG OIL And Heavy Industry!

3x2
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 1:31 pm

[…] While the poor and the impoverished will suffer the most […]
It hurts to read sometimes

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 1:46 pm
Gary Pearse
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 9:46 pm

Jimbo, you understand that the “oil service industry” is fracking the Bakken and Niobrara shales! That frackin Nuticelli is a piece of work!!!

DayHay
September 30, 2015 8:58 am

What I constantly still hear from CAGW’s (almost everyone under 30) “Are you telling me there is some vast left wing conspiracy and that thousands of scientists are all in on it?” Uh. yes.

MarkW
Reply to  DayHay
September 30, 2015 10:32 am

It’s only hundreds, most of the rest just aren’t paying attention yet.

Reply to  DayHay
September 30, 2015 10:54 am

It doesn’t require a “vast conspiracy” at all. It’s sooooo much easier than that. All it takes is a dozen well placed individuals with an agenda exploiting the normal apathy, sheep, hive-mind, low information human nature of the general population. I don’t think the majority of scientists are corrupt. I think they are busy, not examining every single piece of climate research, and probably guilty of basic group think and/or naive loyalty to those whom they feel know more about it than they do.

3x2
Reply to  Aphan
September 30, 2015 1:34 pm

It doesn’t require a “vast conspiracy” at all.
As has been pointed out so many times. The Baptist and The Bootlegger.

MarkW
Reply to  Aphan
September 30, 2015 4:42 pm

I’ve talked with several who take the position that “a scientist of his stature just wouldn’t do something like that”. Then refuse to look at anything I presented because it wasn’t from one of their peer reviewed sites recommended by their good colleague.

rogerknights
Reply to  Aphan
September 30, 2015 6:03 pm

“I think they are busy, not examining every single piece of climate research,…”
and they haven’t read skeptical articles and threads; they’ve just read about them.

indefatigablefrog
Reply to  Aphan
September 30, 2015 6:35 pm

It doesn’t require a “vast conspiracy” at all. It’s sooooo much easier than that. All it takes is a set of incentives which are common to many actors.
The incentive to take over the energy market using a false pretext is a vast incentive for everybody on board. Energy is the life-blood of all economies. Control energy and you control everything.
This monstrosity was decades in the making, and now that the pieces are in place, it will be very very hard to destroy it.
Far too many people are invested and want their slice of the cake.

JohnKnight
Reply to  Aphan
October 1, 2015 1:01 am

I can understand the urge to avoid sounding paranoid or conspiracy happy, but one does not have to know everything about such a conspiracy to be a part of it, knowingly. With something this big and long-running, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if several thousands have knowingly participated in some helpful way, And tens of thousands bit their tongues, so to speak, when they saw indications that funny business was going on of one form or another. .
The one who cases a joint and the one who drives the getaway car might not even know what is being stolen, and the fence may not know where or how the goods were acquired, but they are all part of the conspiracy of criminals required to pull off the crime successfully.

September 30, 2015 9:06 am

[Anthony wrote in the lead post]
Then there’s the apparent nepotism going on with all that public money used to fund Shukla’s climate dreams:
IGES Personnel:
President Shukla, Jagadish
Business Manager Shukla, Anastasia
Assistant Business Manager Shukla, Sonia
Director, COLA Kinter, James
Assistant to the President Shukla, Sonia
Source: http://www.iges.org/aboutiges.html

The channeling of grant funds to family members make it a triple dip instead of a double dip.
John

Resourceguy
Reply to  John Whitman
September 30, 2015 9:47 am

This is illegal in most states, even though a lot of academicians think tenure awards them immunity from laws of common citizens off campus.

Jimbo
Reply to  John Whitman
September 30, 2015 9:57 am

Since Sonia Shukla is the ‘Assistant to the President’ AND the ‘Assistant Business Manager’ does she get TWO salaries? Just askin’.
Here is Sonia at the Gandhi College for women in her dad’s home village of Mirdha U.P. He helped establish it. Now I wonder who is administering that school? Maybe an aunt, a couz,………….
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/visitor_shuklafamily.html
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/images/mod_IMG_0109.jpg

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 9:59 am

Corr blimey, talk about keeping it in the family Wallace and Wallace, Shukla and Shukla!

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 10:03 am

Corr blimey again another Shkla! There is nothing wrong with nepotism, as long as you keep it in the family. I paraphrase Yogi.
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/academicsframe.html
[Shriram Shukla and Jagadish Shukla in the office of the Rector, Dr. S.P. Upadhyay]
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/images/office.jpg

Jimbo
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 10:14 am

From the Gandhi College pages of IGES it says his brother is the manager of the college.

“J. Shukla has three brothers (Mahendra, Kanhaiya and Shriram Shukla),…..”
“The manager of the college is Mr. Shriram Shukla. ”
http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/aboutframe.html

http://www.iges.org/gandhicollege/images/entrance.png

Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 10:40 am

Jimbo, the company name is:
Shukla, Shukla, Shukla & Look! Another Shukla! (R)

John M. Ware
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 6:27 pm

I’ve never seen the word “welcome” rendered in print as two words before: “wel come”. It appears that the Shuklas are not the only nepotists: I see two Wallaces as well. What degrees does one suppose the college grants?

JohnKnight
Reply to  Jimbo
October 1, 2015 1:22 am

What are you willing to spend?

Reply to  Jimbo
October 1, 2015 5:30 am

Jimbo says:

Corr blimey, talk about keeping it in the family Wallace and Wallace, Shukla and Shukla!

Similar to the law-firm “Dewey, Fleecesum and Howe”.

MarkW
Reply to  John Whitman
September 30, 2015 10:33 am

Daughter and wife, apparently. Quad dip?

Reply to  MarkW
September 30, 2015 11:12 am

MarkW on September 30, 2015 at 10:33 am
Daughter and wife, apparently. Quad dip?

MarkW,
I do not know what to think about the possibility of ‘n’ Shukla dips of grant funds, where ‘n’ could be greater than 3.
Before imagining it is turtles ‘dips’ all the way down I need go out and buy some popcorn; that’s entertainment.
John

Jimbo
Reply to  John Whitman
September 30, 2015 1:38 pm

Is this a typo?

…Government $US16m funding for the Shukla family’s institute alone, for one-sixth of its existence since 1991, contrasts markedly with top sceptic bloggers funded by tip jars.
One estimate is that, in current dollars, Shukla’s foundation has collected about $US100m in total….
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2015/09/warmists-golden-fleece/#_edn1

I see where RICO should be applied. What a bloody racket! We are in carbon dioxide danger, apply for lavish funding. Rinse and repeat for 2 decades.

Ian
Reply to  Jimbo
September 30, 2015 7:03 pm

Undoubtedly why he is given awards.

September 30, 2015 9:16 am

It would wonderful, and a welcomed irony, if the technical inadequacies, inconsistencies and falsehoods of the climate establishment gurus do not result in their ultimate downfall, but that they are stranded on a lee shore by their own greed. It would be full circle revenge because their greed is what causes them to push inadequate science, to behave inconsistently and to lie.

September 30, 2015 9:17 am

While I share the desire that this episode may begin the unraveling of the CAGW cartel, I am 97% certain that it will not happen. The CAGW agenda is now too deeply embedded within our federal bureaucracies and the manipulated media for it to be excised quickly. The best we can hope for is that as the public slowly realizes the prognostications of these alarmists amounts to mere buffoonery, this agenda will die a slow death as attention moves to another fabricated crisis.

Mickey Reno
Reply to  kelleydr
October 2, 2015 11:58 am

I agree with you, KellyDr. Let’s not forget that while the Shukla family appears to be double dipping contrary to university policy, it’s highly unlikely that George Mason U. will want to rock this boat. After all, the university’s rake off the top of all grant money is usually 50% and 50% of zero is zero. Not only are the Shuklas feathering their nests with this grant money, so are the non-climate people at GMU, Presidents, Provosts, officers, administrators, lawyers, compliance officers, professors in other disciplines that need this money for their salaries and benefits. Then think about how this money allows each US state that funds higher education to avoid more spending in it’s budget for its public universities, which adds them to the toll of people tainted by this more subtle area of corruption of climate science.

Eliza
September 30, 2015 9:19 am

My apologies to Dr Watts re elephant in the room comment what I really meant in the posting would have been left sticky as it was obvious this was a huge story that’s all. I think the moderator overreacted. Cheers and thnk you Mr watts for your wonderfulk efforts I just happen to be more vehemently a doubter that’s all

GTL
September 30, 2015 9:20 am

Physician, heal thyself!

September 30, 2015 9:23 am

I love a good flogging!! Continue with your great work, Cap’n Anthony!

Reply to  Ashe Blackthorne
September 30, 2015 9:45 am

John Ashe Blackthorne,
Ahhh . . . let’s give him a field commission . . . leap him to the rank of Admiral . . .
And let’s not forget to also credit Steve McIntyre in creating an essential cause of this story gaining momentum.
John

1saveenergy
Reply to  Ashe Blackthorne
September 30, 2015 1:48 pm

The floggings will continue until moral improves !!

MarkW
Reply to  1saveenergy
September 30, 2015 4:43 pm

I feel better already.

Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 9:27 am

The railroad engineer effect is in play.

Editor
September 30, 2015 9:31 am

Anne (or Anastasia, as she is sometimes referred to) earns $160,000 plus as “Business Manager”.
As IGES as a “business” does not trade, sell, or produce in any shape or fashion, and only employs a handful of people, and simply collects govt funding to produce reports, it is difficult to see what could possibly justify payment of such a large amount of money to the manager.
It seems she can do little other than a bit of admin/bookkeeping, which could probably be contracted out for a few thousand dollars a year.
The conclusion is clear – that this is a “made up” position, used simply as an excuse to cream off govt funding.

Stuart Jones
Reply to  Paul Homewood
September 30, 2015 6:32 pm

“which could probably be contracted out for a few thousand dollars a year.” a few hundred if it was offshored to erm India !

Alan Robertson
September 30, 2015 9:38 am

Any possible reportage of this story in the MSM will be buried under the upcoming avalanche of “Hurricane Joaquin” fear mongering.

Stuart Jones
Reply to  Alan Robertson
September 30, 2015 6:32 pm

what reportage?

GeoLurking
Reply to  Stuart Jones
September 30, 2015 8:54 pm

Give it a bit, they are making this out to be a Cat 5 in damage… even though it’s a pretty anemic mid Cat 1 at the time.

Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 9:41 am

There is more money in climate fraud than doomsday books. Climate policy overreach fraud is the gift that keeps on giving. See Ravi Batra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Batra#Outcomes_of_predictions

Reply to  Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 12:18 pm

There is more money in climate fraud than doomsday books. Resourceguy, you say that like there is a difference.

September 30, 2015 9:47 am

The updated website says that they’ve been planning to shut down IGES for over two years now. That makes no sense since in October 2013 they were awarded NSF Grant #1338427, which started in May 2014 and is expected to continue into 2017. Does that mean they were planning to shutter the doors while they were still applying for grants? Did they tell the NSF that they planned on shutting down?
As others have said – something smells fishy…

Caligula Jones
Reply to  Dean P
September 30, 2015 9:50 am

“expected to continue into 2017”
Maybe there is a very small asterisk there that says “…or until the money runs out”, re: nepotism.

Resourceguy
Reply to  Caligula Jones
September 30, 2015 10:15 am

Someone call the IGs office to investigate the use of NSF funds.

GTL
Reply to  Caligula Jones
September 30, 2015 2:07 pm

That grant is not to IGES. Investigator is James Kinter and sponsor is George Mason University

Resourceguy
Reply to  Dean P
September 30, 2015 10:14 am

I’m not surprised that they got NSF funding. They said all the right words of bias and secured the funds. Next.

Mark from the Midwest
September 30, 2015 9:47 am

“Is in the process of being decommissioned?”
Should have done that in July, we all know how those inactive web pages are just an invitation to trouble …

Reply to  Mark from the Midwest
September 30, 2015 5:29 pm

But now you can hear the shredders working full time.

September 30, 2015 9:49 am

good job Anthony, MacIntyre, and Pielke Jr!

Caligula Jones
September 30, 2015 9:54 am

As I’ve mentioned, we hare having federal election here in Canada, and the ruling Conservatives are being hammered by the Usual Suspects, in particular over Alberta’s so-called tar sands.
Much of the “grey” money, i.e., money not being spent by the left-wing Liberal, the very left-wing New Democrats, and the off-the-charts Green Party, is coming from American sources (i.e., Tides Foundation), and ultimately Russian and Gulf Oil States. Oh, its filtered down and passed around so that it becomes “crunchy organic and local” money, of course.
An acquaintance is a forensic accountant and points out that this is also the way that organized crime launders their money.
Not saying anything is related, only that the process is the same: shell companies, money for nothing jobs, etc.

Tom J
September 30, 2015 9:58 am

Institute for Greedy Enrichment and Sleaze

September 30, 2015 10:13 am

Gravy train derailment.

graphicconception
September 30, 2015 10:21 am

So if the URL on the IGES site was the wrong one, what was the right one? Enquiring minds need to know. Shouldn’t there be an new press release with the correction? And a new posting of the letter in its correct place?

Tom J
September 30, 2015 10:24 am

Sung to the tune of “The Way We Were”
With no particular apologies to Barbara Streisand
Mem’ries,
Light the dollars signs in my mind
Misty dollar-colored memories
Of the scoundrels that we were
Scattered URLs,
Of the evidence we left behind
Schemes we gave to one another
For the greed heads that we were
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has exposure re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Wouldn’t we?
Mem’ries, of shattered schemes, and yet
What’s too painful to remember
Was the research monopoly,
We’re not gonna’ get
So it’s the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember…
The scoundrels that we were…
The scoundrels that we were…

Eugene WR Gallun
Reply to  Tom J
September 30, 2015 10:37 am

Tom J — very apt, very true — Eugene WR Gallun

Admad
Reply to  Tom J
September 30, 2015 11:35 am

+ lots (we should write together!)

Marcus
September 30, 2015 10:33 am

LOL…They can’t figure out which website the letter should be posted on BUT we should trust them to tell us what the climate will be in 85 years ????? Not Fu@king likely !!!!

Mike Smith
September 30, 2015 10:34 am

Do we have a prosecutor with the cojones to file RICO charges against this family?

Marcus
Reply to  Mike Smith
September 30, 2015 10:35 am

2017

Eugene WR Gallun
September 30, 2015 10:34 am

DOING GOOD BY DOING GOOD — DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD — etc. There are a few more variations in phrasing describing what has become one of the favorite mantras of the left — but they all posit the same idea.
Essentially the idea is that personal financial benefit can be legitimately derived from the act of “doing good” for others.
To put it bluntly — this is noble cause corruption taken to the max. Very quickly the flow of money into your own pocket becomes the deciding factor of what “doing good” for others is all about.
It is the mantra of “snake oil salesmen”.
The left sells “snake oil” claiming that it is good for the public while pocketing big bucks.
“Global Warming” is nothing but snake oil being sold by frauds who are pocketing big bucks. (But, of course, most of the policies of the left are really all just “snake oil”.)
Shukla is just a fool who didn’t have the brains to quietly pocket the money (like most do) and keep a low profile. He just had to open his mouth and shout.
Eugene WR Gallun

Eugene WR Gallun
Reply to  Eugene WR Gallun
September 30, 2015 10:39 am

I should have mentioned that Shukla is just a “little fish” — but, my god, look at the amount of money such a little fish is pocketing!
Eugene WR Gallun

Marcus
Reply to  Eugene WR Gallun
September 30, 2015 10:41 am

The biggest fish is Obama himself !!!!

Resourceguy
Reply to  Marcus
September 30, 2015 10:45 am

Except he was the Senator who sponsored the bill to be able to fire Investigator Generals. Check mate

Marcus
Reply to  Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 11:02 am

What , exactly , is your point ?????

commieBob
Reply to  Marcus
September 30, 2015 12:15 pm

You replied to the main article so I assume you are asking the question about it.

1 – “… questions began to be asked about the millions of dollars that George Mason’s Jagadish Shukla apparently has received, some of it while apparently “double dipping” against university policy, ”
2 – “all the while claiming climate skeptics are the recipients of money that should be prosecuted under the RICO act” …

Jagadish Shukla has apparently violated a workplace policy that could get him fired. He may have violated the conditions of some of his grants. He may have strayed into criminality.
He is involved in a high profile ‘thing’ that is guaranteed to bring attention to himself. These days, everything one has ever done or said is available on the internet. Those who do not have his best interests at heart will find out about his shenanigans and publish them.
This guy is really really stupid. Maybe he wasn’t quite as stupid as General Petraeus who, as Director of the CIA, should as known better; but he was really stupid nevertheless.
What’s the point? The moral is that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The gods always punish hubris. Think of this as a morality play. It’s a good time to invest in popcorn futures.

commieBob
Reply to  Eugene WR Gallun
September 30, 2015 12:25 pm

Something messed up. I was replying to:

Marcus says:
September 30, 2015 at 11:02 am
What , exactly , is your point ?????

At the time I replied, it looked like Marcus was replying to Anthony’s story. I don’t know if it was WordPress or my browser or my grey matter. Sorry for the confusion.

jvcstone
Reply to  Eugene WR Gallun
September 30, 2015 2:13 pm

[Shukla is just a fool who didn’t have the brains to quietly pocket the money (like most do) and keep a low profile. He just had to open his mouth and shout.]
My thought exactly–what hubris of these people to think there would be no “blow back” for their actions

September 30, 2015 10:41 am

Well, well, well. Backtracking already. But these guys gave me an idea that RICO really should be evoked for their handiwork which is falsifying scientific information. Satellite record shows that there was no warming in the eighties and nineties but official temperature curves show it as a false warming they call “late twentieth century warming.” Proof is in my book “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change.” The eighties and the nineties were actually a ‘pause’/’hiatus’ no-warming period like the current one that is well known. There are several dozen papers attempting to disprove the current hiatus, with no success so far. It will even be harder for them to do it once they hear that there is another hiatus to explain. I traced the original perpetrators of the cover-up to HadCRUT3 and even put a warning about it into the preface of my book when it came out. Nothing happened. Since then I have determined that co-conspirators with HadCRUT3 were GISS and NCDC. They just kept rerunning that false temperature curve until this day, which is 18 years by now, thinking that I can not prove it. It shows far more warming than actually existed just to fool the public. Well, one of my readers has finally unearthed a NASA document proving that NASA knew about that lack of warming in 1997. The perpetrators should be taken to court under the RICO statute for falsifying scientific information for the purpose of deceiving other scientists and the public. I first suggested this in a comment I posted on Bishop Hill blog. I am including a copy of that comment below. The only change I made in it is to add a journal reference to the paper that the comment was aimed at. There is also other information that you may find useful.
Text of comment follows.
******************************************
This paper by Lenowski et al.[http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00106.1] is another attempt to prove the non-existence of the present hiatus. For the information of these alleged climate scientists, they now have two hiatuses to deal with, not one. The first one occurred in the eighties and nineties but you can not see it on official temperature records because they have been falsified. While doing research for my book “What Warming?” in 2008 I used satellite data and discovered the existence of this former hiatus. But when I went to cross check with official land-based temperature curves it was nowhere in sight .What was in sight was a fake temperature rise they called “late twentieth century warming.” No warming there, just a complete lack of warming according to satellites. It lasted from 1979 to 1997, an 18 year stretch like the current one.
A further investigation showed that HadCRUT3 was the source of this cover-up. I even put a warning about it into the preface of the book when it came out but nothing happened. They just brazenly displayed that fake warming until this day which is eighteen years by now. I note that a group of climate “scientists” that includes Kevin Trenberth just wrote a letter to the President asking him to use the RICO Act to silence the critics of global warming. The proper use for the RICO Act would be to investigate and punish those individuals responsible for the cover-up of the hiatus in the eighties and nineties.
It does not end there because later I discovered that GISS and NCDC were co-conspirators with HadCRUT3 in the cover-up scheme. All three had their databases treated by the same computer and the computer left its footprints on their publicly available temperature curves in exactly identical locations. These comprise sharp upward spikes near the ends of years. Two of them sit in plain sight right on top of the super El Nino of 1998, easy to spot by comparison with satellite data. They have been part of these global temperature data-sets since 1997 when the hiatus ended. If you want accurate data, use satellites, not the compromised data they want us to believe in.
As to the current hiatus, its very existence sets the value of climate sensitivity to zero. At this time, carbon dioxide is increasing but greenhouse warming is not. The greenhouse theory used by IPCC is the Arrhenius theory and Arrhenius requires that addition of carbon dioxide to air must cause warming. Having made a wrong prediction the Arrhenius theory has become invalid and belongs in the waste basket of history. The correct greenhouse theory to use is MGT, the Miskolczi greenhouse theory. It came out in 2007 and was promptly blacklisted by the global warming clique. They did not like its predictions, particularly that about water vapor. MGT predicts what we see, namely that addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere does not warm the air. According to Miskolczi, carbon dioxide and water vapor form a joint optimal absorption window in the infrared whose optical thickness is 1.87. The latter is an empirical value obtained from an analysis of radiosonde observations. Miskolczi has demonstrated that this optical thickness remains invariant when atmospheric carbon dioxide is increased. If you now add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb in the IR as Arrhenius predicts. But this will increase the optical thickness. And as soon as this happens water vapor starts to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. The added carbon dioxide will of course keep absorbing but the reduction of water vapor has reduced total absorption and no Arrhenius-type warming is possible. Result is that we observe addition of carbon dioxide but there is no parallel absorption, exactly what is happening today. Note also that this completely contradicts theories of water vapor absorption that IPCC favors.
Since now we have two hiatuses in action, not one, they jointly cover the bulk of the satellite era that began in 1979 and in effect render it greenhouse-free.
[Paragraphs added for easier reading. BH]
Sep 20, 2015 at 3:53 AM Arno Arrak

rogerknights
Reply to  Arno Arrak (@ArnoArrak)
September 30, 2015 5:49 pm

“[Paragraphs added for easier reading. BH]”
Thank goodness!

indefatigablefrog
Reply to  Arno Arrak (@ArnoArrak)
September 30, 2015 8:02 pm

In agreement with your approach – There never was a consensus conclusion about how water vapour and clouds would respond.
Claims of certainty in this regard are simply dishonest.
It has always been the big unknown and hence the big guess at the heart of all models. Models which have all failed due to exaggeration of predicted post 1990 warming.
Why are the public not being told that a simple change in assumptions re: water vapour and clouds could wipe out almost all of the warming predicted by current models.
“In one of the earliest models of global warming in 1967, Manabe and Weatherald of Princeton’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory made the simplifying assumption that the relative humidity of the atmosphere remains unchanged when the atmosphere warms. This is in effect saying that the atmosphere can hold more water vapor if it is warmer. The presence of this additional greenhouse gas (i.e.
water vapor) would amplify the initial warming and double it. That is, the climate gain factor isf
Nevertheless,the fact that most models tend to have similar water-vapor feedback factors DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THAT THEY ARE CORRECT”
http://depts.washington.edu/amath/faculty/tung/journals/tung07.pdf

sean2829
September 30, 2015 10:42 am

There is an old saying about picking fights, never pick one with an organization that orders ink by the tank car. In the internet era, it might be best to avoid people who do data mining for a living since we all live in glass houses now.

EdeF
September 30, 2015 10:43 am

Haven’t seen this much Wagon Circling since a ’60s episode of Wagon Train.

Stephen Richards
Reply to  EdeF
September 30, 2015 12:11 pm

Rawhide. It was the cows they circled.

Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 10:49 am

Here you go….
Inspector General Hotline – NSF
http://www.nsf.gov/oig/hotline.jsp
National Science Foundation
Recent news articles have raised some concern about the security of the online complaint process used to report fraud, waste, and abuse to more than two …

Kurt in Switzerland
September 30, 2015 11:06 am

O/T:
Samie Al-Achrafi, in Huffington Post, plagiarized Eric Worrall’s Google search and WUWT posting. LOL!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/26/google-forecasts-no-interest-in-paris-cop21/#comment-2038144

Berényi Péter
September 30, 2015 11:28 am

Is it true or false, that public money stopped flowing to IGES in July 2015? There’s no reference to it on their about page. Neither is there anything on its purported dissolution.

John F. Hultquist
September 30, 2015 11:43 am

Let’s see a 2 column ledger. On the right side of the page there should be a listing of all the accomplishments of these folks as regards climate issues. On the left side of the page there should be a listing of all the recently acquired real property possessions and accoutrements of IGES associates.
Right side label: What you got for your money
Left side label: What we got for your money

Marcus
Reply to  John F. Hultquist
September 30, 2015 11:58 am

WHAT !!!! Your expecting liberals to be…gasp …HONEST ????

Stephen Richards
September 30, 2015 12:10 pm

There is one person on this planet I would not want to be investigating me. STEVE McIntyre.
You bloody fools at George Mason have gone and done it now. OMG

Marcus
Reply to  Stephen Richards
September 30, 2015 12:17 pm

socialists always have a habit of self destructing !!

Jeff Mitchell
Reply to  Marcus
October 1, 2015 1:35 am

Yes, socialism is the seed of its own destruction, but they also destroy the rest of us on the way down. Best not let it grow in the first place.

rogerknights
Reply to  Stephen Richards
September 30, 2015 5:53 pm

What’s needed now is an article in the WSJ to bring this front and center.

Stuart Jones
Reply to  Stephen Richards
September 30, 2015 6:39 pm

thing is, even if he were caught at the airport with a suitcase of money, nothing will be done. he is one of them and will probably be sitting, laughing at all of us, safe in the knowledge that no one will ever take this issue further. Oh we can rant and rave but in the end we are powerless the system is on his side and he pays his dues to the system therefore the system will not hurt him.

Resourceguy
September 30, 2015 1:56 pm

See NSF conflict of interest policy–section 510
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/manuals/gpm05_131/gpm5.jsp

Editor
September 30, 2015 2:50 pm

At http://www.iges.org/map.html there are references to two sites:

Contact Information
Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA)
280 Research Hall, Mail Stop 6C5
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030 USA
Main Phone #: 703-993-5700
Fax #: 703-993-5770
www.iges.org
IGES Business Office
11300 Rockville Pike, Suite 101
Rockville, MD 20852
Phone #: 301-595-7000
Fax #: 240-669-9363

I took a look with Google Maps, but it doesn’t show much beyond an area with several glassy office buildings. I’m a bit tempted to call them up and ask when the office will be closing. Is there anyone near Rockville who can check them out?
There’s very little about |”IGES Business Office”| them in Google, dropping the quotes adds a lot of noise, using Institute-Global Environment looks like it would get several more low utility links.

September 30, 2015 3:07 pm

Poor Kevin Trenberth of Climategate fame, he just keeps hitching his wagon to the wrong star.

Richard M
September 30, 2015 3:16 pm

We are dealing with puppets. With apologies to a real puppeteer can we now refer to Shukla, Mann and Oreske? 😉

Editor
Reply to  Richard M
September 30, 2015 3:20 pm

Wow, are you old! 🙂

Editor
September 30, 2015 3:19 pm

One of my searches got me to a text list of attendees at a meeting of cola.iges.org folks with one guest:

Prof. Lennart Bengtsson
Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie
Bundesstr. 55
D-20146 Hamburg, Germany
Telephone: 49 40 ……..
Fax: 49 40 ……..
email: …@dkrz.de
Reception: yes
Dinner: yes

The name may be familiar, he made the mistake of joinf the GWPF and finding that was enough to be ostracized by the warmista.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/14/shameless-climate-mccarthyism-on-full-display-scientist-forced-to-resign/
I don’t think there’s a strong connection between Bengtsson and the Shuklas, but thought it worth noting in passing.

Reply to  observa
September 30, 2015 5:34 pm

Not forgetting Klinger’s “…ambivalence about the RICO letter…”
Ambivalent? Is that why he signed the letter and then made silly assumptions along with silly public announcements?

Mervyn
September 30, 2015 9:32 pm

Can someone call the FBI?

Gary Pearse
September 30, 2015 9:56 pm

there must be an avenue for getting the FBI involved in this open and shut case of fraud and other ethical no nos.

October 1, 2015 3:20 am

Someone needs to make sure that passports of all members of the Shukla family are removed from their person so that they do not skip the country until a full investigation has been concluded.

Proud Skeptic
October 1, 2015 4:18 am

“Organized Climate Science” I like that. Shall we add a poetic note and change it to “Organized Clime”?

October 1, 2015 9:12 am

Like my daddy used to say, “you can’t put sh*t back in the horse.”

Craig Loehle
October 1, 2015 11:33 am

It is worse than double-dipping. It looks like government grants for research were sent off to fund a school in India. No doubt a wonderful thing, but this is not permitted for grant money. If it was institute overhead, then they were falsely claiming the overhead from the grants, because overhead is supposed to be actual costs, not a slush fund.

October 3, 2015 1:36 pm

Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Description of the damage control by RICO20 gang.

Alan Penn
October 3, 2015 3:56 pm

(Trimmed. Fake screen name. -mod)