Climategate Part II: Help us follow the money
Since it’s clear the Internet (notably the blogosphere) exposed the dubious science of anthropogenic global warming, thankfully before we all went broke (or more broke than we already are), it’s time to turn to our next assignment – following the money.
Cui bono in this giant metastasizing scam? Yes, we already know that the IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri may have some ill-gotten gains, not to mention a few scientists who may have flown first class to Bali and other such boondoggles, but they are indeed small potatoes. Big money was – or was intended to be – made with carbon exchanges set up in Europe and the USA. Fraud at the European exchange to the tune of one and half billion dollars is already under investigation by Scotland Yard. But that’s the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As far back as July 2009, the Science and Public Policy Institute published a broadside – Climate Money – alleging that 79 billion had already been spent on this unproven science. That’s an extraordinary sum, even if exaggerated by eighty or ninety percent. Who knows how much has been spent and who has benefited?
Well, we at PJ Media would like to know – and we imagine you would too. And speaking of the tip of that proverbial iceberg, this is not only about Al Gore. There are plenty of high rent dots to be connected here with much pertinent information to be revealed and names to be named. I am writing this post to solicit your help. Just as the blogosphere was so instrumental in dissecting the science, it can also help track the money. If you have knowledge or expertise in this area, please contact us at webmaster@pjmedia.com. We will forward this on to Charles Martin – our resident guru on all matters climatic – who will collate and report back. Thanks for your help.
FLASH!!
This Brand New Video Blows a Huge Gaping Hole in Obama’s Cap and Tax Scheme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVm5-6H_sH4
Lord Monckton is a good person to ask! He’s all over the subject.
Indeed, he is, Adam Cassidy. And we already have!
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/viscount-monckton-on-global-warminggate-they-are-criminals-pjm-exclusive/
Climate-Resistance reports that World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace have have collected billions of dollars over the last decade. They are both prime sources for the IPCC reports.
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2010/01/wwf-wtf.html
The national media’s continued silence on ClimateGate and increasing revelations of outright fraud and wrongdoing at all levels of government, academia and the media itself, tells the truth of the tail. That truth is there’s a lot more to this ClimateGate story than what little is being reported. The small (2 to 3 dozen) international cabal of climate scientists could not have possibly gotten to this point without extraordinary funding, political support at virtually all levels of government, especially at the national level and unparalleled cooperation from the national and world media. This wide-spread networked support continues even as we-the-people puzzle over what this is all about. I ask you, “What are you seeing and hearing from our national media on the subject?” Anything? What are you seeing and hearing from all levels of our government, local and regional newspapers and media outlets? Anything of substance? At all of these levels the chatter has remained remarkably quite on the subject, wouldn’t you say? Why? What points and positions are you beginning to hear on the radio and see on the television? This cabal of scientists has an unprecedented level of support given the revelations contained in the emails, documented in the computer software code and elaborated in the associated programmer remarks (REM) within the code. And —- this has gone on for years, AND continues even in the presence of the most damning evidence one could imagine, or even hope for. Watergate pales in comparison, given the trillions of dollars in carbon offset taxes, cap & trade fees hanging in the balance and the unimaginable political control over people’s lives this all implies. The mainstream media’s conspiracy of silence proves the point. Their continued cover-up is as much a part of this crime as the actual scientific fraud. ABC, CBS and NBC are simply co-conspirators exercising their 5th Amendment rights.
On my own blog (not intending to spam) but lists some of the nefarious activity of Gore/UNIPCC of seeking access to;
1.Superannuation/retirement funds
http://twawki.com/2010/02/04/super-green-putting-your-retirement-in-al-gores-hands/
2.Business control – UN Global compact
http://twawki.com/2010/02/04/the-global-compact/
The dots all lead back to the villainous Maurice Strong, currently hiding out in China.
Thanks, guys. I’ll be following up on all this.
Bohemond, we agree with you re: Strong, but we need more information, more leads.
Eric Holder’s Justice Department is unlikely to investigate global warming corruption. On the contrary, we can expect the opposite. Only the common folk give a damn. If they don’t investigate on their own—then nothing will be done. Candidates can also use the resulting information during this year’s political campaigns. In other words, the research will not go to waste.
We must start publicly listing the compensation received by scientists involved in government contracts. Are we perhaps getting into their personal business? We already know the exact salaries of our elected officials and the approximate salaries of regular government employees. Why not include the scientists? We should also be informed of the costs of their conferences and general traveling expenses.
Related to Paul’s comment, don’t forget the power that NGOs gain from such campaigns. Check out Brent Spar at Wiki and elsewhere. Here is a German take on that incident.
http://www.maxeiner-miersch.de/lessons_from_brent_spar_e.htm
I’d love to know how many Greenpeace workers Shell now supports to avoid becoming a target-
The money is not necessarily flowing through Washington DC but the politicians are driving this racket. The politicians have the power to impose regulations and taxes. The companies probably feel they have to be on board (at least make the right noises) or risk being targeted or marginalized. Follow the money means identify the political groups advancing the cause. This is not unlike the anti-smoking movement. Whatever happened to lawsuits against tobacco companies? That seems to have quieted down since the Clinton administration pressed the tobacco companies into a settlement and government became a partner that now needs the companies to stay in business.
@12 David Thomson
That should be public information although you might have to file a FOIA request But as far as most things go you should be able to get it through documentation publicly available but you would probably have to dig through it for a long time!
Remember you are dealing with a governmental entity which can do well almost whatever it pleases so long as the people do not revolt, which might be coming in November if not sooner!
Mr Simon:
Jeffrey R. Immelt would be a good person to look at. The favors he has received in total may add up to more potential $ than any other company. Look at what GE stood to gain; wind turbine, electrical controllers, carbon tax $ etc… Look at the curious thing that happened to GE capital being declared a bank and receiving 140 billion of taxpayer backed dollars (Loan guarantees?). Meanwhile Mr. Jeffrey R Immelt has been a prophet of doom in the global warming hoax 2nd only to big Al. Where is the alleged crime here? Propagating a lie for unjust gain. Fraud. Look at his circle of friends, in on the same scam?
Their defense will be “we were lied to” their conviction will be that they did not repent after the truth was known. They should have dropped it like a hot potato the day after climate gate revelations. The President makes a joke out of it during his SOTU speech when he said AGW was settled science, ha ha ha.
Of course everyone is innocent until proven guilty and that is true here as well. As far as being involved and invested, Mr. Immelt will make a very interesting study and certinly not the only one.
Let’s see how funny it is when justice comes knocking on the door.
Mr. Immelt what do you have to say for yourself now? Are you going to fight for your lie?
The same Maurice Strong involved with Power Corp? If so you will have a lot of material to wade through…
Where is Soros’ money in all this?
Stuff like;
I have no inside info, but if I were looking for a smoking gun, I would start with GE. We have a major corp, that has been broadcasting propaganda continuously for years on their own family of networks. Propaganda that plays right in to their lobby efforts for the massive amounts of money from selling wind turbines, CF light bulbs, and whole lot of other crap that we don’t need or even want but would be forced to pay for.
Please don’t forget Ken Lay (Enron) who began the whole carbon credit business.
This all started with Maurice Strong , pile on him hard . A list of some of the usual suspects .
Computer models grow towards results that produce funding.
No particular trickery is involved.
It’s evolution in action.
Actual science is based on curiosity, not funding.
It’s hard to be curious about a model, since actual physics equations are left far behind.
Model building is a management career track, is all.
As a commenter on my blog put it yesterday…
“No one seems to be asking suitably probing questions of one political body which is deeply involved in all of this, which is the Norwegian Parliament. They are the people who decide who gets Peace prizes, and they have a distinguished history of cock-up: giving the Peace Prize to Gore and the IPCC is merely the most recent. It’s possible that as the news emerges of how much money these two are making out of non-existent AGW/Climate Change the left-leaning Norwegians may feel some remorse; but the Peace Committee will never show it unless they’re tried…”
I have posted on this today, linking with you.
http://mickysmuses.blogspot.com/2010/02/no-way-norway.html
Follow the money trail – that is indeed interesting. The Obama administration is diverting billions from manned space exploration and letting China, Russia, India and S. Korea lead the way back to the moon and beyond while we study what seems to be a made up climate crisis. Who is profiting from climate gate and is there a money trail to the Obama administration?
I hearby certify that I never saw a dime from any global warming extortion schemes.
Of course that’s exactly what we would expect you to say, Clown. Turn out your pockets.
I would go a different direction as far as “the money” is concerned. Keep in mind that each time a new US study comes out pushing the AGW cause, it is likely financed by a grant from the National Science Foundation. In other words, a federal grant of taxpayer money is used to finance pre-summarized studies. The question that needs to be answered is the “granting process” and whether “skeptic” studies are being cut off at the root while pro-AGW studies are receiving the massive and disproportional grant money.
Example: Dr. Forister and his study of beleaguered butterflies. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-02-04-butterflies_N.htm
Cheers,
The Worm
Michael Mann of the Hockey Stick fame, the guy Al Gore based a lot of his movie on made a fortune off his bogus, discredited claims. http://bit.ly/a0UNm7
There’s plenty of self-interested people in the carbon futures trading business:
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=64
The first people to advocate carbon futures trading were libertarians in the 1980s. Talk about politically naive in the extreme.
As #10 Bohemond says – Maurice Strong (spit) or Mao Stlong as he is sometimes called – is to climate change as Moriarty was to crime in the Sherlock Holmes stories.
For example see http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2704
As #10 Bohemond says – Maurice Strong or Mao Stlong as he is sometimes called – is to climate change as Moriarty was to crime in the Sherlock Holmes stories.
For example see http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2704
Computer models grow towards results that produce funding.
I propose this should henceforth be known as Hardin’s Law.
#30 James: We;ve been looking at the Mann “stimulus” grants over in the comments at my recent (Roger linked it above) after David brought it up. Basically, you’ve got a mistaken impression of what happens with grant money: when Mann received, say, a million dollar grant, that doesn’t mean he personally gets a check for a million dollars. It means the University gets the money, with a very specific plan for how it’s to be spent: research expenses, travel funding, post-doc salaries and grad-student assistantships, summer support (most academic contracts are nine-month contracts) and so on. About the most Mann can have personally profited from those grants is an additional three months of salary every year; not inconsiderable, but hardly wealth.
As I told David, if you have any evidence that Mann has become personally wealthy from this stuff, I’d love to see it, but grants where he’s PI or co-PI aren’t likely to do it.
It’s not all that interesting that corporations or rich men are pushing global warming and making money thereby. That’s ordinary business, and we expect it, just as we expect companies on the other side to be skeptical of global warming. Nonprofits that tell lies to raise funds are more interesting, particularly if you can find fundraising letters with deliberate untruths. But what’s most interesting are corrupted scientists (or supposed scientists like the IPCC bureaucrats).
Here are some places to sniff around:
1. Are any relevant learned societies getting corporate or other big gifts?
2. Are the research institutes (e.g. at East Anglia) getting big donations?
3. What exactly is the relation to RealClimate of the lobbying firm to which the RealClimate website is registered? Is it funding the entire operation? Is it providing in-kind help such as programming?
4. Are the journals getting big donations from interesting sources?
5. What is the full story on the journal editors being threatened in the ClimateGate emails? The publisher was in a dispute with some editors at one of them. Who controls the publishers of the various journals— learned societies? for-profit companies?
Looking at funding sources is like ad hominem attacks. It usually isn’t all the informative, because what a scientist says can be true even if he is funded by biased interests, and even if he is biased himself. But transparency is helpful, and sometimes, as with Pachauri and his pals, what we find is shocking.
Charles Martin, sounds like Charles Martel who held back and defeated the Islamic wave at Poitiers. Hopefully your Charles is bvictorious in defeating the IsWarmic wave that was seen sweeping the world.
People in the travel/resort industries may be able to assist, as these folks tend to be the National-Geo-type globe-trotting, luxury resorting, ocean cruising exotic world traveller types – attending conferences and meetings and exclusive retreats worldwide, ostensibly for Science, but really just because that’s their way of life: pretend to do something important while spending other people’s money on luxury and vice. Academia is full of this sort of Suck, and the elites therein share the above traits with our government and media elites.
Globetrotting versions of Orwell’s “Animal Farm” pigs- producing nothing, living in lavish excess.
Also, people who sell Volvos may have a few clues… /snark //maybe
Not kidding about the other stuff. Jetsetting is their life, the progressive elites from all three categories.
28. wagnert
Let’s see. I’ve got pocket lint, a pen, a house key, and a clipping from Ranger Rick Magazine that was footnoted as a source in the IPCC report.
Nope, I’m clean.
Something that I found interesting, not that there is any wrong doing in it, is the financial arrangments of Sciblogs.
It’s a “product” (Their business is propaganda for sciency type scares; sort of like the Fenton communications in the silicon valley, that runs RealClimate – ties to Al Gore, a pretend nonprofit under the umbrella of the Tides Foundation – but I digress)
of Seed Media Group LLC. Which is in turn a subsidiary of Innovium Media Properties Corp., formerly Innovia Capital Corp.
I checked out their stock quote last year and they were tumbling down in what looked like to me a death spiral. From 15 cents a share down to 3 cents a share. Then a miracle. Somehow the operation was recapitalized a half million dollars. Just when they needed it most, they found a sugar daddy. Who or what that was I don’t know. But it was interesting timing as it happened just in the middle of the house campaign for the Cap & Trade bill.
I stopped looking after that. It was giving me a headache.
Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have interests in carbon trading.
I would suspect UBS as well.
There also is a Chicago Climate Exchange if I’m not mistaken.
WSJ had an interesting article a while back on the CEO of UBS meeting Obama in Soros office.
He has a cozy relationship with the president.
Good luck on your search, and cast a wide net !!
A good place to start would be Obama’s Cabinet and his czars … and all of their contacts on Wall Street, international finance and in academia.
Don’t forget that crass former CEO of GE. He was buddies with Ken Lay, promoted Immelt, dumped his old wife for a new plastic trophy one and hangs out at the CNBC, FOX Business Channel green rooms. That new wife will be one expensive plaything. I would interview Jeff Skilling, he might be ready to turn. How about the female accountant who worked for Enron who was the whistleblower?
God Speed and get the lawsuit ready !!
Charlie,
Let me suggest you go to this Richard Black BBC column and scroll down to comment number 11.
Well there’s Malcolm Turnbull, former leader of the Australian Liberal Party and former global equity partner in Goldman Sachs.
Turnbull has crossed the floor of the parliament and betrayed his own party to vote in favour of the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme.
It all stinks to high heaven. One has to ask where Turnbull’s financial interest lies.
I’m mystified here. Where do these “carbon credits” come from? Where do they originate, and who has been trading them? That’s the key. And I’m sure a lot of the rat trails lead back to and through the UN.
I know I’m just stating the obvious here, but I would look for correlations between the people on the board of directors (or their equivalents) of entities that gave money to fund such research with the people that have been selling such credits. If this could be placed into a central database I imagine that some very interesting connections would appear.
Macmillian Mcgraw Hill – the company that prints public school textbooks (I guess just about all of them) must have big government contracts. I bet they’re a dumping ground for out of work politicians too (if they happen to be of the right political persuasion).
Well they own Nature Publishing Group http://www.nature.com/.
Nature Magazine – the place where all of those global warming studies go to get their official “peer reviewed” stamp of approval.
A wholey owned subsidiary of the text book meat market.
Roger,
How would you like to do some original reporting, coupled with doing the State of California a solid service?
Assemblyman Dan Logue of Linda (contact information)has just received approval to collect signatures for a ballot measure he authored to suspend AB 32. http://www.suspendab32.org/index.htm
If everything goes right we’ll get a chance to cast an up or down vote on global warming on the same ballot that we’re voting for or against Jerry Brown for Governor.
I bet Dan would like to talk about suspending AB 32. How about an interview?
Don’t forget the Fish and Wildlife Service – publicly funded, burearcratic pile on to climate change — a new initiative to shut down extractive industry (coal and precious metals) among other things.
http://www.fws.gov/home/climatechange/strategic_plan.html
Strategic Plan for Climate Change
Strategic Plan
5-Year Action Plan
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed Strategic Plan for Climate Change lays the foundation for the agency’s role in the Department of the Interior’s national efforts to conserve fish and wildlife in a rapidly changing climate. The proposed Action Plan for Climate Change, an appendix to the Strategic Plan, details the specific actions the Service will take during the next five years to implement the Strategic Plan.
BRAVO! Simon.
Please set aside an intern or two to collate evidence of the indirect costs which FAR exceed the direct expenditures of corruption.
Those are the costs of societal detours such as:
no new refineries for 30 years, neglect of nuclear power for 40 years, no offshore drilling, no new field developments, limited exploration, 5-15% over-burning of gasoline due to catalytic converters, product price rises due to inane “smoke stack” over-regulation, cost of mutating educational materials, etc., etc.,…
— and the indirect-indirect costs such as future costs of miseducated generations, etc., etc….
“As I told David, if you have any evidence that Mann has become personally wealthy from this stuff, I’d love to see it, but grants where he’s PI or co-PI aren’t likely to do it.”
I simply do not have the hard evidence. Michael Mann had obviously benefited financially from his involvement in the global warming crusade, but is he now a wealthy man? Has he perhaps been paid enormous sums for his speeches and possible outside contracting? We just don’t know for sure. This is why the laws must be changed so that such monetary rewards are publicly known.
“There also is a Chicago Climate Exchange if I’m not mistaken.”
Yes, and Goldman Sachs owns 10% of it. Also, Obama helped set up the CCX when he was on the board of the Joyce Foundation. No wonder Obama got so much more Wall Street money than McCain did.
So the Chicago crowd is hip deep in this, and so is the Joyce Foundation, which is also huge into gun control. Very Soros-ish.
Not sure what happened to my other comment, but leftist magazine Harper’s has a featured cover story on the UN’s carbon trading shell game.
Help you follow the money? It’s like trying to find accountability in the U.N. Same good ol’ boy network. Claudia Rosett has an example of that.
The AGW scam is merely a vehicle through which a control and command political ideology can be achieved via the enviro-wacko movement. The money is relevant but the most telling is the ideological trail. The ideology doesn’t hate Capitalism as long as it’s the Crony kind and is reserved for the select few. What it does hate; is a Representative Republic. Democracies are too easily swayed; so that’s not much fun.
Three men fom very different backgrounds:
Ted Turner: Millions in donations to the U.N.
Soros: Esperantist anti-Semite with a avowed esperantist goal; one language, one currency, one government.
Maurice Strong: Respected activist environmentalist organiser with multiple talents.
plus:
EU and U.N.- dedicated to creating a superpower that rivals the U.S.
Then, there’s the Club of Rome (C0R).
This site may be somewhat helpful:
http://green-agenda.com/globalrevolution.html
35 Charlie Martin:
It’s true that Mann doesn’t pocket research grants. HOWEVER, grants are the lifeblood of academia; they enable creatures like Mann to keep it up, and fund graduate assistants’ and postdocs’ stipends. Government grants to the likes of Mann amount to tax-funded propaganda.
More to the point, the $25 mil+ that Mann brings in to Penn State is absolutely relevant to the whitewash “investigation” PSU conducted into his unethical conduct. Money talks.
Another avenue worth pursuing would be Carole Browner. Between her gigs as Clinton’s EPA chief (remember the wiped hard drives?) and Obama’s climate czarina, Browner was a member of the Socialist International’s “Commission on Global Governance.”
Tie that into the language in the draft Copenhagen Treaty imposing just that, or at least a transnational taxing-regulating-rationing authority so close to having governmental powers as makes no nevermind.
From the comment section of Wattsupwiththat.com:
“There is a MASSIVE conflict of interest in the UK. If you knew that your pension was being invested in enterprises that would be practically worthless if the AGW scam was exposed, do you think you would be willing to run news or articles that would expose the scam? And what if running news and articles that pumped up the value of your pension investments – would they get an airing?
It’s now known that the BBC Pension Trust, the Environment Agency Pension Fund and the Universities Superannuation Scheme are members of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC). UK Media, UK Government and UK Universities! It’s almost unbelievable.
IIGCC for its part is bankrolled and controlled by The Climate Group, a very powerful – perhaps the most powerful – lobby group for the Green agenda. The Annual report 2005/6 of The Climate Group declares in the notes to the accounts:
“IIGCC: Funding to manage and facilitate the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, a network of pension funds and asset managers seeking to be active on climate change.”
Bohemond, you’re absolutely right that the grant gravy train is important and worth looking at; I understood you, however, to be saying that Mike Mann has become personally wealthy through this. What he’s become is tenured at an Ivy or near-Ivy (I can never remember if Penn State is officially an Ivy) — which, in some ways, might be just about as good.
Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7176262/Climate-makes-money-move-in-mysterious-ways.html
The Green Rich List Sunday Times
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/specials/article5816774.ece
Britains Green Rich List
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6968333.ece
In the course of researching Jim O’Neill, head of Goldman Sachs in London, I found that he too is involved in “carbon capture” schemes. I have written a couple of pieces on him at my blog. He is an associate of George Soros,
http://dlvr.it/lGrr (-I’m not sure if that is I l or 1 sorry)
Also on the same site http://dlvr/lGrr : Soros said: We need cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emmission rights”.
This is linked to “de-coupling”; disinvestment in the West in favour of BRICs (created by same Jim O’Neill)Brazil, Russia, China, India.
De-Coupling Theory: http://finance30.com
As our Dear Leader wants a Global Warming Agency, I would suggest a thorough review of Barack Hussein Obama (or Barry Sotero as he was know in his prior life). If you can find out his handlers other than who is obvious … George Soros and David Axelrod (look at his client list, please), I think you will open the door on the real power behind this. If it is not too Ron Paulesque for you I would look at the 12 international bankers and banking interests that own the Federal Reserve and also the British Royal Family. Remember, that example of inbreeding gone wrong, Prince Charles, is a REALLY big force behind the global warming scams.
The list of who to look at is a long list of names we are all familiar with. Soros, Gore, Strong, Moon, Annan, numerous politicians.. both domestic & international, numerous businesses who would profit handsomely.. both domestic & international.
Many of the NGO’s have special interests in this. The WWF has been mentioned. Greenpeace must also be on the list. But so too should many of the other smaller groups.
Look to those who wrote much of America’s Cap & Trade legislation passed by the House. Lets face it, no politician wrote that crap. There were insiders who had access to the system so they could make sure all the i’s were dotted & the t’s crossed. They had the ability to write in all of the special provisions that will make sure there will be profits galore for those connected.
On the media side….. boy is that a mess. While some media outlets have reported on some of this, few have reported on the extent of the scam. In America, we know less about ClimateGate than in Europe where British newspapers are going nuts reporting on events & findings almost every day.
The UN needs special investigation. They said at Copenhagen they wanted funding for global governance. They meant, we need money to establish our global one world government. Yea, I know. Ain’t it a kick? All this time the same culprits now revealed as scam artists, were the one’s telling everyone those speaking out about one world government were nut jobs.
Now the obvious question is, were they? The answer is as plain as the news the Himalayan glaciers are not rapidly melting away & the surface temperature readings for the planet would look altogether different had the UN included the lower readings from Siberia, where surface temperatures are significantly lower than many places on earth.
All the UN IPCC is now saying is not really important, was critically important when they were selling their scam. Now its been revealed their data is faulty, suddenly such data is no longer really important.
Oh please. Please. Go after these despicable jerks & this time, lets we the people demand there be criminal investigations & prosecutions because this look like a serious conspiracy to defraud if I ever saw one.
This is from the Harper’s article I mentioned:
“These developers [of carbon offset projects]—which partner with local
businesses and governments to set up offset proj-
ects—are by and large funded or owned outright
by multinational firms, particularly financial
houses such as JP Morgan Chase, which owns
the biggest developer in the world, Eco-
Securities; Goldman Sachs, which has a signifi –
cant interest in the largest U.S.-based developer,
Blue Source; and Cantor Fitzgerald, which owns
CantorCO2e, another major player. Other large
investors in the field are the agricultural-
commodities fi rm Cargill, which is now one of
the top developers of
carbon projects, as
well as BHP Billiton, one of the world’s largest mining companies.”
For the scientists it may be as much about ego as it is money, that and advancing their career. I used to work in a research lab and the pressure to obtain grants is non-stop. The universities don’t fund research, the PIs have to obtain their funding through outside grants. I was technically a state employee but if my PI didn’t obtain enough funding to pay my salary I was out of a job.
No grants = no research = no job.
One reason I’d be skeptical of universities doing internal investigations is their reliance on donations, especially from alumni. I’d imagine the pressure to coverup any problems is tremendous.
Another point on the ego front. The climate change garbage has spread to all layers of government. My rural county has a Climate Change subcommittee of it’s volunteer Environmental Review Board. These are some of the people that propose and review new planning ordinances and review proposed building permit applications. They have a lot invested emotionally in this and don’t want to give it up.
I’m afraid this could make it even harder to find information because even your local government will be working to preserve the myth. You might want to look into money connections with some of the organizations that back the Sustainable Development movement which gets a lot of it’s justification from the climate change scare.
http://www.usgbc.org/
http://www.icleiusa.org/
Note last sentence by Barnett. What foundation is he referring? How does it benefit from AGW or cap and trade?
http://thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2010/02/philanthropist_gates_pushes_ba.html
Hi,
… I’m a behind the scenes volunteer who pops up occasionally in interesting places. No money, just help.
A bit late to this game due to Real Life commitments
On this topic, I think you’ll find significant fruit by connecting the dots at the board level. Conflict of Interest (COI) is one of the great unexamined issues in many high-visibility topics today, and AGW is one. I have significant background on COI issues; can share more offline.
For now, suffice it to say that potential COI pops up whenever a person is in a position to steer a “corporate opportunity”… which is a barn door through which you can drive a very large John Deere.
Worst case, collect boards and senior staff past and present, and their official and advisory relationships. You’ll find plenty of money pools. Government, UN, science centers, journals, etc.
Actually, you won’t have to dig very far. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit.
Seems to me there are tools to help w/ this…
OH — one other touch point while I’m here. follow the threads leading to and from this influential, funded PR document: Warm Words.
[Send email, I'll give you more contact info.]
What are the real benefits of this?
I thought it was lacking some substance…