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Dec 3, 2009

The Holocaust as Weapon in Slow Motion...THE JERUSALEM POST

 



 

Analysis: Has Germany learned from its Nazi history?

Dec. 2, 2009
BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, jpost correspondent in Berlin , THE JERUSALEM POST

Where is the intersection of the trial of alleged Nazi guard John Demjanjuk and the Islamic Republic of Iran?

The Demjanjuk trial is an example of Germany grappling with its historic responsibility to the victims of the Holocaust and to universal justice. Yet with regard to its more future-oriented responsibility to prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons and its threats to obliterate Israel, critics say Germany is stumbling.

The cross-paths of Iran and Demjanjuk were evident at the international Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin conference "Time to Act" this past weekend.

The Berlin conference's policy experts, journalists and academics raised questions about Germany's historic responsibility to Israel and the lessons from genocidal Nazi anti-Semitism.

The head of the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism, Dr. Charles Small, rhetorically asked if Germany had extracted lessons from the Nazi period in order to prevent an Iran-organized Shoah. His answer: No.

Small cited the passivity and indifference of German academics, think-tank representatives and government officials who were fleeing this historical responsibility by not confronting Iran's genocidal anti-Semitism.

He exposed a number of raw nerves in his keynote speech.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration's docile approach to Iran revolves more around fluffy rhetoric than punishing Iran for its hatred of Israel and its energetic pursuit of nuclear weapons, critics say.

A telling example, according to critics at the Iran conference: The new German Ambassador to Iran Bernd Erbe announced that he looked forward to "preserving the historical treasure of the German-Iranian friendship."

Erbe issued his statement despite the repression of the pro-democracy movement in Iran and the discovery of a new uranium enrichment plant.

Erbe's statement boded well for German industry. To the frustration and disappointment of Israel, the German government has refused to introduce unilateral economic sanctions on Iran and stop its flourishing trade relationship with the Islamic Republic.

Holocaust denial is unlawful in Germany. Yet Iranian Holocaust-deniers such as Muhammad Javad Ardashir Larijani, himself a former politician, denied the Holocaust yet again at a trans-Atlantic security conference organized by former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin.

His brother, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, also denied the Holocaust this past year at the Munich security conference.

While there seems to be no stomach to fight Iranian deniers of the Holocaust, German authorities have pursued such figures as Bishop Richard Williamson and the neo-Nazi Horst Mahler.

Critics in Germany argue that Germany's Iran-friendly policies allow for excusing Islamic anti-Semitism. There is no shortage of civil campaigns not to conduct business with the neo-Nazi German party NPD, but there exists no hesitation by Siemens, Mercedes-Benz, MAN, and Linde to trade with Teheran and its cadre of Holocaust deniers.

Actually, the snail-like process of pursuing war crimes charges against Demjanjuk parallels the passive posture of German authorities to Iran's human rights violations against the religious minority Baha'is, Iranian Kurds, women, gays and trade unionists.

While the German media such as Der Spiegel sharply criticized their country's missed opportunities in pursuing Demjanjuk, there seemed to be more apathy regarding the Iranian regime.

There is, however, growing awareness among the German media about the role of German technology in supporting repression in Iran. While the "Time to Act" conference could not compete with the saturation coverage the Demjanjuk trial has been receiving, the popular television news show Die Tagesschau broadcast a report on the conference, reaching almost seven million viewers on Sunday.

Historical responsibility unites Demjanjuk and the Islamic Republic, but the glacier-like pace at which the connection is being understood is rather surprising in a country that helped to develop philosophical thinking based on connections.




--
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Global Warming Climagate, Fixing the Climate Data around the Policy

 

Global Warming Climagate, Fixing the Climate Data around the Policy


Politics / Climate ChangeDec 01, 2009 - 09:52 AM

By: Michel_Chossudovsky

Politics

Diamond Rated - Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleMore than 15,000 people will be gathering in Copenhagen for COP 15: the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 

Official delegations from 192 nations will mingle with the representatives of  major multinational corporations, including Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, The representatives of environmental and civil society organizations will also be in attendance. Parties & Observers 



Heads of state and heads of government are slated to be in appearance in the later part of the Summit event. (See The essentials in Copenhagen - COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009)

It is worth noting that key decisions and orientations on COP15 had already been wrapped up at the World Business Summit on Climate Change (WBSCC) held in May in Copenhagen, six months ahead of COP15. The WBSCC brought together some of the World's most prominent business executives and World leaders including Al Gore and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. (The World Business Summit on Climate Change, includes webcast)

The results of these high level consultations were forwarded to the Danish government as well as to the governments of participating member states. A so-called summary report for policymakers was drafted by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, on behalf the corporate executives participating in the event. This report has very little to do with environmental protection. It largely consists in a profit driven agenda, which uses the global warming consensus as a justification. (For details seeClimate Council: The World Business Summit on Climate Change)

"The underlying ambition of the Summit was to address the twin challenges of climate change and the economic crisis. Participants at the Summit considered how these risks can be turned into opportunity if business and governments work together, and what policies, incentives, and investments will most effectively stimulate low-carbon growth." (Copenhagen Climate Council)

The agenda of the Copenhagen Climate Summit (7-18 December 2009), is upheld both by the governments, the business executives and the NGO community as "one of the most significant gatherings in history. It is being called the most complex and vital agreement the world has ever seen."

CO2 emissions are heralded as the single and most important threat to the future of humanity.   The focus of the Summit is on strictly environmental issues. No mention of the word "war" --i.e. the US-NATO led war and its devastating environmental consequences.   

No mention of the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons as an instrument of "peacemaking".  

No mention, as part of an environmental debate, of the radioactive fallout resulting from the Pentagon's humanitarian nuclear bombs. Tactical nuclear weapons, according to scientific opinion commissioned by the Pentagon are "safe for the surrounding civilian population". 

No mention of "weather warfare" or "environmental modification techniques" (ENMOD) and climatic warfare.

No mention in the debate on climate change of the US Air Force 2025 project entitled "Owning the Weather" for military use. (See FAS, AF2025 v3c15-1 | Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning... | (Ch 1) see also SPACE.com -- U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather)

Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the issue of deliberate climatic manipulations for military use is no longer part of the UN agenda on climate change. It was, however, part of the agenda of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Environmental Warfare and Climate Change, Global Research, 27 November 2005, See also Michel Chossudovsky,  Weather Warfare: Beware the US military's experiments with climatic warfare, The Ecologist, December 2007 )

CO2 is the logo, which describes the Worldwide crisis. No other variable is contemplated.

Moreover, no meaningful anti-pollution clean air policy directed against CO2 emissions can be formulated as an objective in its own right, because the reduction of CO2 emissions is subordinate to the Global Warming consensus. The words "poverty", "unemployment" and "disease" resulting from a global economic depression are not a matter of emphasis because authoritative financial sources state unequivocally: "the economic recession is over". And the war in the Middle East and Central Asia is not a war but "a humanitarian operation directed against terrorists and rogue states."

The Real Crisis

The Copenhagen Summit not only serves powerful corporate interests, which have a stake in the global multibillion dollar carbon trading scheme, it also serves to divert public attention from the devastation resulting from the "real crisis" underlying the process of economic globalization and a profit driven war without borders, which the Pentagon calls "the long war".  

We are at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. War and economic depression constitute the real crisis, yet both the governments and the media have focused their attention on the environmental devastation resulting from CO2 emissions, which is upheld as the greatest threat to humanity.  

The Multibillion Dollar Carbon Trading System

The carbon trading system is a multibillion money-making bonanza for the financial establishment. The stakes are extremely high and the various lobby groups on behalf of Wall Street have already positioned themselves.

According to a recent report, "the carbon market could become double the size of the vast oil market, according to the new breed of City players who trade greenhouse gas emissions through the EU's emissions trading scheme...  The speed of that growth will depend on whether the Copenhagen summit gives a go-ahead for a low-carbon economy, but Ager says whatever happens schemes such as the ETS will expand around the globe." (Terry Macalister, Carbon trading could be worth twice that of oil in next decade, The Guardian, 28 November 2009)

The large financial conglomerates, involved in derivative trade, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank America Merrill Lynch, Barclay's, Citi Bank, Nomura, Société Générale, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are actively involved in carbon trading.( FACTBOX: Investment banks in carbon trading | Reuters, 14 September 2009)

The legitimacy of the carbon trading system rests on the legitimacy of the Global Warming Consensus, which views CO2 emissions as the single threat to the environment. And for Wall Street the carbon trading system is a convenient and secure money-making safety-net, allowing for the transfer of billions of dollars into the pockets of a handful of conglomerates.

"Every major financial house in New York and London has set up carbon trading operations. Very big numbers are dancing in their heads, and they need them to replace the "wealth" that evaporated in the housing bust. Louis Redshaw, head of environmental markets at Barclays Capital, told the New York Times, "Carbon will be the world's biggest market over all." Barclays thinks the current $60 billion carbon market could grow to $1 trillion within a decade. Four years ago Redshaw, a former electricity trader, couldn't get anyone to talk to him about carbon." (Mark Braly, The Multibillion Dollar Carbon Trading, RenewableEnergyWorld.com, 5 March 2008)

The Global Warming Data Base

Is the Global Warming Consensus based on reliable data?

There are indications that both the concepts and the data on temperature and greenhouse gas emissions including CO2 have been adjusted and shaped to fit the agenda of the UN Panel on Climate Change. 

For several years, the claims of the UN Panel on Climate Change (UNPCC) including the data base have been questioned. (See Global Research's Climate Change Dossier: Archive of more than 100 articles) 

Critical analysis of the climate change consensus has been conveyed in reports by several prominent scientists.

There has been, in this regard, a persistent attempt to silence the critics as conveyed in the writings of MIT meteorologist Richard S. Lindzen (See  Richard Lindzen, Climate of Fear: Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence., Global Research, 7 April 2007)

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libelled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis. (Ibid)

ClimateGate and the Emails' Scandal 

In November 2009, barely a few weeks before the inauguration of the Copenhagen Summit, a vast data bank of over 3000 email exchanges between key Climate Change scientists and researchers was revealed. 

While the emails do not prove that the entire data base was falsified, they nonetheless point to scientific dishonesty and deceit on the part of several prominent scientists who are directly linked to the UNPCC.

The emails suggest that the data was shaped, with a view to supporting a predetermined policy agenda. "Fixing the climate data to fit the policy" is the modus operandi as revealed in the email messages of top scientists, directly linked to the work of the UN Panel on Climate Change?

The British media has acknowledged that the scientists were intent upon manipulating the data on Climate Change as well as excluding the critics:

[the comments below the quotes are by The Telegraph].

From: Phil Jones. To: Many. Nov 16, 1999 "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." Critics cite this as evidence that data was manipulated to mask the fact that global temperatures are falling. Prof Jones claims the meaning of "trick" has been misinterpreted

The IPCC is the UN body charged with monitoring climate change. The scientists did not want it to consider studies that challenge the view that global warming is genuine and man-made. From: Kevin Trenberth (US National Center for Atmospheric Research). To: Michael Mann. Oct 12, 2009 "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't... Our observing system is inadequate"

Prof Trenberth appears to accept a key argument of global warming sceptics - that there is no evidence temperatures have increased over the past 10 years.

From: Phil Jones. To: Many. March 11, 2003 "I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor."

Prof Jones appears to be lobbying for the dismissal of the editor of Climate Research, a scientific journal that published papers downplaying climate change.

From Phil Jones. To: Michael Mann. Date: May 29, 2008 "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise."

Climate change sceptics tried to use Freedom of Information laws to obtain raw climate data submitted to an IPCC report known as AR4. The scientists did not want their email exchanges about the data to be made public.

From: Michael Mann. To: Phil Jones and Gabi Hegerl (University of Edinburgh). Date: Aug 10, 2004 "Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future." The scientists make no attempt to hide their disdain for climate change sceptics who request more information about their work

(University of East Anglia emails: the most contentious quotes - Telegraph, 23 November 2009).

The complete list of contentious emails can be consulted at Alleged CRU Emails - Searchablepublished by eastangliaemails.com:

What is significant is that the authors of the emails are directly involved in the UN Panel on Climate Change:

"[They are] the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Professor Philip Jones, the CRU's director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC's key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.

Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history. (Prof. Christopher Booker, Climate Change: This is the Worst Scientific Scandal of our Generation, The Telegraph, 28 November 2009)

One of the contentious emails by Dr Jones (published by  eastangliaemails.com) points to the deliberate manipulation of the data:

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm, Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998. Thanks for the comments, Ray. Cheers Phil Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 xxx xxxx xxxx School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 xxx xxxx xxxx University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx NR4 7TJ UK

Source: Alleged CRU Emails - Searchable published by eastangliaemails.com

US Congressional Probe

Barely two weeks before the inauguration of the Copenhagen Summit, the US Congress is now probing into "the Global Warming Emails": 

"U.S. congress has begun investigating climate scientists whose emails and documents were hacked into to see if their global warming theories have misrepresented the truth behind the cause of climate change.

Investigators have begun "studying" the 1,079 e-mails and over 3,800 documents that hackers stole last week from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University in the U.K, Rep. Darrel Issa from California told the Wall Street Journal.

Some of the leaked e-mails and files - which were posted on sites like www.Wikileaks.org  andwww.EastAngliaEmails.com - show growing tensions between scientists and skeptics. Others are mundane announcements of upcoming conferences or research trips.

According to his website, Rep. James Inhofe from Oklahoma said on Monday the leaked correspondence suggested researchers "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."

The White House Science Adviser John Holdren has also come under investigation, after one of his emails written in 2003 to Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, was hacked.

"I'm happy to stand by my contribution to this exchange. I think anybody who reads what I wrote in its entirety will find it a serious and balanced treatment of the question of 'burden of proof' in situations where science germane to public policy is in dispute," Holdren said.

Meanwhile, The University of East Anglia said it will cooperate with police and proceed with its own internal investigation. The University posted a statement calling the disclosure "mischievous" and saying it is aiding the police in an investigation.

The statement also quotes Jones, CRU's director, explaining his November 1999 e-mail, which said: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Jones said that the word trick was used "colloquially as in a clever thing to do" and that it "is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward."

The leaked data comes just two weeks before the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen will begin on Dec. 7 -18, when 192 nations will meet to discuss a solution on how to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases worldwide. (International Business Times, November 24, 2009)

Meanwhile, the "international community" (supported by the mainstream media) has launched a counteroffensive, accusing the critics of waging a smear campaign: 

The chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, stood by his panel's 2007 findings last week. That study is the foundation for a global climate response, including carbon emission targets proposed this week by both the US and China.

So far, climate scientists say nothing in the leaked emails [that] takes away from the fact that the climate change evidence is solid. In fact, a new study in the journal Science shows the polar ice cap melting is happening at a faster rate than predicted just a few years ago.

In a teleconference call with reporters this week, one of the scientists whose emails were leaked, Pennsylvania State University paleoclimatologist Michael Mann, said that "regardless of how cherry-picked" the emails are, there is "absolutely nothing in any of the emails that calls into the question the deep level of consensus of climate change."

...

This is a "smear campaign to distract the public," added Mann, a coauthor of the Copenhagen Diagnosis, the report on climate change released this week ahead of the Copenhagen. "Those opposed to climate action, simply don't have the science on their side," he added.

Professor Trevor Davies of the East Anglia CRU called the stolen data the latest example of a campaign intended "to distract from reasoned debate" about global climate change ahead of the Copenhagen summit. (As Copenhagen summit nears, 'Climategate' dogs global warming debate | csmonitor.com, Christian Science Monitor, 28 November 2009, emphasis added)

But what is significant in this counteroffensive, is that the authenticity of the emails has not been challenged by the IPCC scientists.

The scientists are not saying "we did not do it". What they are saying is that the Global Warming Consensus holds irrespective of their actions to selectively manipulate the data as well as exclude the critics from the scientific debate on climate change.

What is the Stance of the Civil Society and Environmentalist Organizations

Civil society organisations are currently mobilizing with a view to pressuring the official governmental delegations:

 "Two years ago, at a previous UN climate conference in Bali, all UN governments agreed on a timetable that would ensure a strong climate deal by the time of the Copenhagen conference. The implications of not achieving this goal are massive, and nearly unthinkable. Turn to our great partners film – the Age of Stupid – if you need to be convinced why.

The meeting – which should include major heads of state for the last three days, will attempt to reach a massively complex agreement on cutting carbon, providing finance for mitigation and adaptation, and supporting technology transfer from the North to the South.

This is a major milestone in history, and one where civil society must speak with one voice in calling for a fair, ambitious and binding deal. We are ready, but we need to let the leaders know the world is ready too. Are you? (COP-15 Copenhagen Climate Conference | TckTckTck)

Where do civil society activists stand in relation to the climate change email scandal?

Will these civil society organizations, many of which are funded by major foundations and governments, continue to unreservedly endorse the Global Warming consensus?

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Greenpeace are among several key civil society organizations which are pushing the Copenhagen agenda. Their position is unchanged.

Environmentalist organizations are demanding a reduction in CO2 emissions, not as a means to tackling polution, but as an instrument to reverse the process of global warming. For many of these organizations, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the "bible". It cannot be challenged even if the climate data base which supports the Global Warming Consensus turns out to be questionable or contentious.  

While the mainstream NGO lobby groups including Greenpeace and WWF continue to support the consensus, there is a small and growing movement which challenges the legitimacy of  the Copenhagen CO15 Summit agenda, while also accusing the UNPCC of manipulating the data. This manipulation of the data also serves the profit driven carbon trading scheme.   

The Alternative Summit: KlimaForum09

The NGOs will be meeting in a parallel alternative summit, KlimaForum09. More than 10,000 people a day are expected to attend the sessions of KlimatForum09

Major international NGOs and environmentalist groups will be in attendance including Friends of the Earth, Campaign against Climate Change among others. 

Klimaforum09 is to finalize a draft declaration which "will put forth a vision of a more socially just world society, [while]  emphasizing  the need to create substantial changes in the social and economic structures of society in order to meet the challenges of global warming and food sovereignty." (See  Declaration · Klimaforum09)

While there is fierce opposition to the multibillion carbon trading system within the NGO community, the Alternative Summit will not challenge the Global Warming consensus and its underlying data base. (All events · Klimaforum09)

While critical and active voices will emerge from within the various sessions of the Alternative Forum, the organizational envelope of KlimaForum09 remains compliant to the official agenda. In many regards, the rhetoric of the KlimaForum09's Danish organizers ties in with that of the host government of the offical Summit, which coincidentally also funds the Alternative Summit. (Political Platform · Klimaforum09"). What this means is that the boundaries of dissent within the Alternative Summit have been carefully defined.

There can be no real activism unless the falsehoods and manipulations underlying the activities of the UNPCC, including the data base and the multibillion profit driven carbon trading scheme, are fully revealed, debated and understood.

 Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky

© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky , Global Research, 2009



--  
Debating the Holocaust: A New Look At Both Sides by Thomas Dalton

http://www.amazon.com/DEBATING-HOLOCAUST-Thomas-Dalton-ebook/dp/B002SN9HEW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259095221&sr=1-2


Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
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A Composer's Ties to Nazi Germany Come Under New Scrutiny

 

November 29, 2009

A Composer's Ties to Nazi Germany Come Under New Scrutiny

Excerpt:

He allows that Jackson is doing a service to the history of Finnish
cultural, scientific, and political relations with German colleagues during
the Third Reich. But while Jackson insists that his evidence against
Sibelius is more than circumstantial, Murtomäki is not so sure: "So,
Sibelius was selfish and flattered by his fame in Germany and wanted the
money. I am sorry for that. But it does not make him a Nazi or a great
friend of any SS person or acts made by them. History is not that easy."


--

Debating the Holocaust: A New Look At Both Sides by Thomas Dalton

http://www.amazon.com/DEBATING-HOLOCAUST-Thomas-Dalton-ebook/dp/B002SN9HEW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259095221&sr=1-2


Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com

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**News Flash** Climategate emails force Al Gore to cancel talk at Copenhagen

 

Climategate emails force Al Gore to cancel talk at Copenhagen

December 3, 4:14 PMBaltimore Weather ExaminerTony Pann

Al Gore spreading the word on man made climate change.  AP Image

Al Gore's scheduled December 16th speech with the auspicious title "Climate Conclusion" has been canceled amid the scandal of Climategate.  About 3,000 Danes had tickets for  the Berlinske Media event that was announced in August.  Al Gore has been the poster child for Global Warming, but has been under scrutiny from scientists who argue against the findings of humans' involvement in our climate.

Mr. Gore had to deal with some hard questions at a book signing this past week, and had the readers escorted away rather than discuss Climategate.  See that video at the bottom of this LINK. Unfortunately this apears like a direct attack, but this is all about getting the truth out.


MORE:

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Sean Gabb - Brief Thoughts on the Climate Change Scandal

 


Issue Number 188
3rd December 2009

Available for debate on LA Blog at  http://wp.me/p29oR-30a
Comments | Trackback

Are the Russians Coming?
Brief Thoughts on the Climate Change Scandal
By Sean Gabb



Like many other people in our movement, I have been delighted by the
publication of that computer archive from the Climate Research Unit at
the University of East Anglia. I have spent most of my life denouncing
every excuse for state activism as a pack of lies. I have never yet had
the joy of seeing the projectors of those lies revealed as little more
than pantomime villains – twirling their moustaches while confessing
their villainy in whispered asides. Compared with this, the "weapons of
mass destruction" lies were misunderstanding in good faith.

But the question uppermost in my mind at present is what all this will
mean for the climate change cult. Will this be a more complete moral and
intellectual collapse than Communism ever suffered? To begin my answer, I
will discuss the subsidiary questions of who and why.

In short, I believe the Russians are behind this. It may be that all
those megabytes of data were stolen by a computer hacker. There may be
any number of people who are up to such hacking in the technical sense.
But this seems to have been an integrated operation. Having the technical
skills to get access to a computer archive is not the same as knowing
where to look in that archive and what to look for. Nor is it the same as
knowing what to do with it.

But the Russians had means and opportunity to do the job. Perhaps their
security services are no longer as efficient and as well-funded as in
Soviet times. But they are still there. Their mission is no longer to win
the Cold War. But making life easier for Mr Putin and his friends is a
large mission in itself. They no longer have an active network in British
universities. But there must be any number of senior managers there whose
activities back in the 1980s would merit an outing in The Daily Mail, and
who therefore are open to blackmail.

And the Russians had the best motive imaginable. Anthropogenic global
warming is, as said, a pack of lies. But there is huge money behind it.
And it is conceivable that Western scientific ingenuity will find a
"carbon free" energy source that both works and is economically viable.
Now, where would that leave Russia? Without its exports of oil and gas,
the place is little more than a bankrupt post-Soviet slagheap. I believe
the Russian state budget only balances on a minimum oil price of $40 a
barrel. Knock the bottom out of the market in fossil fuels, and Russia
can say goodbye to what progress it has made since 1991.

This is only a conspiracy theory. But it is interesting that the stolen
data surfaced on a Russian server. Of course, Russia is beyond the reach
of the British courts. But it is an interesting fact even so. I think
this operation has gone so smoothly that only an efficient security
service can be behind it. We can discount the Arabs and Iranians as not
being up to the job. We can also discount the big oil companies – like
the tobacco companies, they have been deterred from this sort of
operation because of all those transparency laws. That leaves us with the
Russians. They got the information. They packaged it. They have delivered
it to maximum effect.

So what will be that effect? I cannot believe that it will be to prick
the whole climate change bubble. There is too much corporate money and
too much government activity now resting on the assumption that we must
"do something" if sea levels are not to rise ten foot by next Tuesday.
The cult leaders will not hang their heads and behave like the villain at
the end of a Scooby Doo cartoon. When power and money on this scale are
involved, things like that surely do not happen.

But will they be able to live this down? I have no doubt they will try.
There will be an inquiry. Individual heads will roll. There will be the
pretence of breast beating. But the lies will continue pouring out. The
default response will be to turn up the volume of the lies to try and
drown out the truth. After a few years, the embarrassment may have been
forgotten, and discussion will have turned to how many units individuals
should be given for their "carbon passports."

And I shall be interested to see how well this can work. How powerful is
the ideological state apparatus at imposing proven lies on the public
mind? On the one hand, the propaganda streams out of every school and
university and from every television screen in the civilised world. The
message is nearly as uniform as in Soviet Russia. On the other hand, the
weakness of the cult is that it has no message of hope and grants no
indulgence to the masses. Christianity and Islam – regardless of their
truth or falsehood – both offer an infinity of bliss for doing little
more than good sense requires. Christians have to be a little more
continent than nature seems to allow. Moslems have to keep off the
bottle. There is no good news for believers in anthropogenic global
warming. We are told to accept the rolling back of the industrial
revolution simply to avoid catastrophe that hardly anyone dares tell us
will strike within the reasonable future.

We know that the most notable preachers of this message have no intention
of cutting back on their own living standards. Look at the Prince of
Wales and his private jets. Look at Al Gore and his inflated utility
bills. Add to this that the cult is not formally based on an
extra-rational revelation, but on alleged scientific evidence – and the
knowledge that this evidence has been fakes must count for something.

What I predict will happen is that the propaganda will continue for the
next few years. But it will be gradually be replaced by a new set of
justificatory lies. Global warming itself was the replacement for acid
rain pollution, ozone holes, and even global cooling. In the absence of
some new environmental claims, I suggest that we shall hear much more for
now on about "peak oil" – the notion that fossil fuels exist in limited
supplies and that they will run out within the next few generations.

This has the advantage of being arguably true. I know that people have
been predicting the exhaustion of oil reserves for at least a century.
But the world economy is growing fast at the moment, and may grow still
faster. There must be some physical limit to how much oil and gas and
coal can be economically extracted. Otherwise, there is the problem that
the cheapest supplies are in unstable parts of the world. Doubtless, the
specific claims made will be lies. But they will not require the same
barefaced dishonesty as ignoring the historical and geological facts
about temperatures and carbon dioxide levels, and ignoring all
considerations of solar activity and other natural phenomena.

The other advantage, however, is that the peak oil hypothesis can be used
to justify every tax and regulation so far made in the name of fighting
climate change. Wind turbine construction, energy efficiency laws, the
war on private motoring, bleats about "food miles", and the like – all
work just as well on the assumption that fossil fuels must be conserved.

This is a depressing prediction, so far as it allows the same caravan of
liars to roll forward if on different wheels. But I am not sure if the
transition will be as smooth as may be hoped. Liars who have been so
visibly caught out in one set of claims may not find it easy to switch to
another and maintain their full credibility. Until a few weeks ago, I saw
the anthropogenic global warming claims as a new legitimising ideology
for despotism as powerful in modern circumstances as state socialism had
once been. Perhaps it has now been revealed as a fairly short-lived
rescue hypothesis. It may not have anything like the long term appeal of
state socialism. Whatever replaces it may be weaker still.

If this is the case, I for one will give thanks to Mr Putin. In the old
days, he was a KGB officer. Nothing he may now have done can bring back
all the people he helped murder. But repentance is always to be welcomed
– especially when attended by so many good works.


--
Sean Gabb
Director, The Libertarian Alliance (Carbon Positive since 1979)
sean@libertarian.co.uk  Tel: 07956 472 199
Skype Username: seangabb

http://www.libertarian.co.uk
http://www.seangabb.co.uk
http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk
http://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com
http://vimeo.com/seangabb

Wikipedia Entry: http://tinyurl.com/23jvoz

Buy these novels by Richard Blake: "Conspiracies of Rome"
<http://tinyurl.com/l8uj8r> ("Fascinating to read, very well written, an
intriguing plot" Derek Jacobi); "Terror of Constantinople"
<http://tinyurl.com/n9ugw3> ("Nasty, fun and educational" The Daily
Telegraph)






--
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Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com

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