EPA Scientist Silenced in Coverup

The EPA declaration was puffed to the media as the way the Obama administration could impose limits on carbon dioxide emissions despite the fact that its “cap and trade” bill -- which passed the House earlier this year -- remains stalled in the Senate. It was obviously intended to increase pressure on the Senate to pass the House “cap and tax” bill and to give Obama leeway in Copenhagen to promise -- perhaps even agree to treaty limitations -- on U.S. carbon emissions.

Global warmists such as former VP Al Gore have insisted for years that there was no doubt that the consensus among scientists was that man-made carbon dioxide emissions were the cause of global warming.

That theory was severely damaged last week when a hacker (or whistleblower) disclosed about 61 megabytes of e-mails to and from global warming scientists at the UK’s East Anglia University Climate Research Unit.  The CRU e-mails are now widely quoted to show that weather temperature data were manipulated to produce false results -- results that “proved” the theory of anthropogenic global warming.  

Hence the “Climategate” scandal. Two university professors are under suspension and some researchers -- who took U.S. government grant or contract money -- may be civilly or criminally liable under the False Claims Acts.

The CRU e-mails have created a firestorm of criticism against the liberals -- including President Obama -- who insist that we enact the “cap and trade” energy tax without further delay.  

And now the EPA has its own “Climategate.”  It is in the report by EPA’s Dr. Alan Carlin who was -- according to this July 16 letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson -- subjected to a gag order.

The March 16, 2009 report by Dr. Alan Carlin says -- among other things -- that
“As of the best information we currently have, the GHG/CO2 hypothesis as to the cause of global warming, which this Draft TSD supports, is currently an invalid hypothesis from a scientific viewpoint because it fails a number of critical comparisons with available observable data. Any one of these failings should be enough to invalidate the hypothesis; the breadth of these failings leaves no other possible conclusion based on current data.”

You can read the entire report here. The report was disclosed by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) at a Tuesday afternoon press conference in which he said that the report was not considered by EPA in reaching its Monday determination.  

Eleven House Republicans at the press conference warned President Obama to not make promises of U.S. greenhouse gas emission reductions when he attends the U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen later this week.

Republicans, led by Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), warned the president to not promise anything to the UN group, because the EPA determination doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.

Pence said the EPA action was a “naked example of international public relations.”  Asked to comment on the timing of the EPA action -- which came on the first day of the Copenhagen meeting, Pence said, “You can believe in coincidences or you can work in Washington.”

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) said that America lost a lot of international credibility when then-Vice President Al Gore went to the original Kyoto global warming conference and promised something that Congress wouldn’t deliver: America’s signature on the economy-smashing emissions-limitation treaty.

Sensenbrenner also pointed out that private citizens can bring suit against climate fraudsters (including possibly the East Anglia U. climate researchers) under the False Claims Act and keep part of the money they recover in the government’s behalf.  (This is under the “qui tam” provisions of the Civil False Claims Act.)

Texas Republican Joe Barton is a licensed professional engineer as well as the ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Barton hit out hard at the EPA finding predicting it would be challenged in court and saying that if it was, it would be thrown out.

Barton pointed out that carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere and that the computer models used by UN scientists -- including those working with the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, now the focus of “Climategate” -- are completely unreliable to project the weather decades in the future.

Other conclusions of the Carlin report -- which the EPA refused to consider in making its Monday determination seem to debunk directly some of the main assertions of the global warmists.   Among them are:

*  “Global temperatures have declined -- extending the current downtrend to 11 years… At the same time atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to increase and CO2 emissions have accelerated;”

* “One of the worst economic recessions since World War II has greatly decreased GHG
emissions compared to the assumptions made by the IPCC. To the extent that ambient
GHG levels are relevant for future global temperatures, these emissions reductions should greatly influence the adverse effects of these emissions on public health and welfare; and

* “A new 2009 paper by Scafetta and Wilson suggests that the [UN’s International Panel on Climate Change] used faulty solar data in dismissing the direct effect of solar variability on global temperatures. Other research by Scafetta and others suggests that solar variability could account for up to 68% of the increase in Earth’s global temperatures.”

We will have more analysis of the Carlin report as it becomes available.