John Coleman: "Global warming is a scam."

The latest "fringe," "ignorant," "big-oil-funded," "Bush-apologist," "non-scientific" voice to join the chorus of scientists opposing the so-called global warming "consensus" is John Coleman. Coleman isn't exactly a household name, he's just the guy who founded the Weather Channel. Coleman wrote this week:



COMMENTS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
By John Coleman
jcoleman@kusi.com

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.

Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990's to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15-minute documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party.

However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you "believe in." It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

I suspect you might like to say to me, "John, look the research that supports the case for global warming was done by research scientists; people with PHD's in Meteorology. They are employed by major universities and important research institutions. Their work has been reviewed by other scientists with PHD's. They have to know a lot more about it than you do. Come on, John, get with it. The experts say our pollution has created an strong and increasing greenhouse effect and a rapid, out of control global warming is underway that will sky rocket temperatures, destroy agriculture, melt the ice caps, flood the coastlines and end life as we know it. How can you dissent from this crisis? You must be a bit nutty."

Allow me, please, to explain how I think this all came about. Our universities have become somewhat isolated from the rest of us. There is a culture and attitudes and values and pressures on campus that are very different. I know this group well. My father and my older brother were both PHD-University types. I was raised in the university culture. Any person who spends a decade at a university obtaining a PHD in Meteorology and become a research scientist, more likely than not, becomes a part of that single-minded culture. They all look askance at the rest of us, certain of their superiority. They respect government and disrespect business, particularly big business. They are environmentalists above all else.

And, there is something else. These scientists know that if they do research and results are in no way alarming, their research will gather dust on the shelf and their research careers will languish. But if they do research that sounds alarms, they will become well known and respected and receive scholarly awards and, very importantly, more research dollars will come flooding their way.

So when these researchers did climate change studies in the late 90's they were eager to produce findings that would be important and be widely noticed and trigger more research funding. It was easy for them to manipulate the data to come up with the results they wanted to make headlines and at the same time drive their environmental agendas. Then their like minded PHD colleagues reviewed their work and hastened to endorse it without question.

There were a few who didn't fit the mold. They did ask questions and raised objections. They did research with contradictory results. The environmental elitists berated them brushed their studies aside.

I have learned since the Ice Age is coming scare in the 1970's to always be a skeptic about research. In the case of global warming, I didn't accept media accounts. Instead I read dozens of the scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct when I assure you there is no runaway climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. It is all a scam, the result of bad science.

I am not alone in this assessment. There are hundreds of other meteorologists, many of them PHD's, who are as certain as I am that this global warming frenzy is based on bad science and is not valid.

I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped.

The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway.

I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.



(Note: I took the liberty of copy-editing for grammar and spelling in a few places.)

Let me be clear: I am a naturalist. I rescue animals, I recycle, I vacation in the wilderness. I conserve whatever I can, and I am letting some of my land run wild to serve as habitat. I drive fuel-efficient vehicles, and believe we should be moving toward hydrogen-powered engines, skipping the hybrid and ethanol phases in an Apollo-program-sized leap of technology. I believe we are running out of oil. I don't like pollution, I don't like smog, and I don't like the foam on the James River.

But when we have Weather Channel "climate expert" Dr. Heidi Cullen openly stating that people who disagree with her should be stripped of their academic credentials, and none of her colleagues stand up to say she's wrong, that's not science. And when Al Gore touts the fact that 2500 scientists signed the UN's ridiculous statement on global warming, as if facts are determined by democratic process--or as if there isn't a document opposing the UN paper signed by 17,000 scientists--that's not science. If you can't see the pattern of propaganda and oppression dominating this debate, you're as blind as the bloggers at sluniverse who answer a poll thus:

What is wrong with John Coleman?
Early onset senility. 6 26.09%
In the back pocket of the Republican party. 9 39.13%
Heavily invested in BIG OIL. 6 26.09%
Kidnapped and forced to read false statements by anti-earth terrorists. 4 17.39%
Simple. He’s STUPID. 8 34.78%
I don’t know … YET. But I will Google him and find SOME reason to disregard his take on the subject. 5 21.74%
Pie (But really hot pie because Global Warming *IS* real!!) 8 34.78%

This poll is a perfect example of the tendency of people who pride themselves on being so very "open-minded" on social issues can't even spare a moment to consider whether this internationally-renowned expert might be making his statements in good conscience and with some facts behind him.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this is that when I google "global warming is a scam & weather channel" I get mostly wacko websites (on both sides). I can't find this statement at CNN or MSNBC or even Fox News. Can we at least agree that the freaking founder of the Weather Channel, a meteorologist since 1953, is worth listening to with some attentiveness and respect?

I find myself more and more agreeing with the scientists over at Demand Debate:

EDIT: Glenn Beck commented on Coleman's statement this morning, a few hours after I posted. Do I really want to be labeled as a trend-setter for conservative thought? Should I mention here that I support a ban on assault weapons and that I oppose the death penalty under any circumstances? Would that make me seem a bit more "fair and balanced"?...

Once Again, the Rules Don't Apply to Al Gore

Mister Gore, he of the massive carbon footprint and the private planes, once again believes himself to be above the rules. From the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:

Gore first demanded to be granted an unprecedented 30 minute opening statement to the Senate EPW Committee for Wednesday’s (March 21) global warming hearing scheduled for 2:30 pm ET.

The GOP minority on the EPW committee agreed to the 30 minute opening statement.

But then Gore demanded a waiver of the EPW committee’s 48 hour rule that requires all witnesses before EPW to submit their testimony in advance. The GOP minority on the EPW committee then agreed to waive the 48 hour rule in favor of allowing Gore to submit his testimony 24 hours before the hearing.

But in a breaking news development on Capitol Hill -- the former Vice President has violated the new 24 hour deadline extension by failing to submit his testimony – even with the new time extension granted to Gore.

As of 8pm ET Tuesday evening, the testimony still has not been received by EPW, a clear violation of committee rules.

Apparently global warming (being of course a "moral issue" not a political one) exempts Gore from the rules and procedures of the United States Senate. If it was a Republican behaving this way, there would be a holy freaking uproar on the Senate floor. He would be accused of "corruption," "railroading," and "playing politics." But Gore gets a pass; this complete disregard for parliamentary procedures and the rules of the body Gore was once a member of are barely even being reported anywhere.

Mister Vice President, are you afraid to give your opponents an opportunity to read your statement before you make it? Or is it just that your data is shaky and you don't want your detractors to have any time to fact-check it?

This is exactly the kind of crap that kills a good cause. The more Gore makes himself the poster boy for the issue, the more Gore himself becomes the linchpin for the whole environmentalist movement. If he wants to get a message of conservation out there, he has got to be above reproach in his dissemination of the information. If Gore wants to change people's minds and not just fire up the people who already agree with him, he's got to find some new methods, because I really believe that what's he's been doing so far is turning off more people than it's turning on. There's a point at which your intentions and even your information become irrelevant if you are seen to be playing politics with it.

Pathetic.

NASA boss: Rename us 'Offices of Propaganda'

I have removed my original commentary on this article at WND about Dr. James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who said:

"Interference with communication of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career," ... during testimony before the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee. "In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now."

Hansen said in his view, the problem stems from the fact that public affairs offices at the headquarters level of America's science agencies are headed by political appointees. He said no matter which political party was in control, the inevitable result is a pressure for science to show the answers that the party in power prefers to see.

"The best solution to this problem would be to have the public affairs offices professionally staffed, with no political appointees," he said. "If this is not possible, they should be renamed as Offices of Propaganda."

As it turns out, Hansesn has done approximately 1,400 interviews on the subject of global warming which the administration has in no way interfered with. He has indeed been instructed to skip a handful of interviews in specific instances, but come on, 1,400 interviews? No one's censoring you, man.

New York Times to Al Gore: "Cool the Hype."

A rather surprising piece from The Times' William J. Broad yesterday.

"From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype."

An excerpt:

Although Mr. Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims.

Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. [Don J.] Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at theUniversity of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

Typically, the concern is not over the existence of climate change, or the idea that the human production of heat-trapping gases is partly or largely to blame for the globe’s recent warming. The question is whether Mr. Gore has gone beyond the scientific evidence.

“He’s a very polarizing figure in the science community,” said Roger A. Pielke Jr., an environmental scientist who is a colleague of Dr. Vranes at the University of Colorado center. “Very quickly, these discussions turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Mr. Gore.”

A fairly brave article from the Times, and one that is very likely to enrage most of their readership. This is kind of nice for me, because I'm very close to occupying the same ground as Easterbrook and Vranes.

Scotto and I have been throwing grenades at each other over this issue for a couple weeks on each other's blogs. For all our differences in philosophy (as passionate as I am about resisting the tyranny of the scientific establishment, Scott argues just as strongly that urgent action to save the world is needed), I think we completely agree on many issues of action:

Conserve.

Recycle everything you can.

Drive a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Walk or bike when you can.

Work for alternative fuel and power sources.

Challenge power bases that tell you what to believe.

Global Warming Update: 2/28/07!

According to the National Weather Service, this was the coldest February in Richmond since 1979. Coincidentally, 1979 is the year Newsweek published their groundbreaking scientific expose on Global Cooling and the coming ice age that would cover the northern third of the U.S.A. in glaciers.

But you can just add this to the pile of inconvenient truths that the Inconvenient Truth crowd turns a blind eye to. Al Gore's political agenda isn't served by snow in southern California for the first time since 1962, it isn't served by record snows in the Midwest and Northeast, and it certainly isn't served by NASA scientists noting that Mars' polar ice caps are shrinking more than usual. Either someone's driving a whole hell of a lot of Hummers up and down Olympus Mons or there's a force much more powerful than man controlling climate fluctuation. Like the Sun, for example.

You want to talk about the GWBA fostering an environment of fear to enable a social agenda? How about looking at Global Warming Incorporated, which efficiently obfuscates or discredits scientists who even suggest that man-made causes just might not be a major culprit in climate change.

Pretty soon, they'll be writing the Ice Age out of history books...