Editorial: Alarmists' credibility melting

Successive disclosures suggesting global warming science has been rigged to advance political and economic agendas is undermining the theory that manmade greenhouse gas emissions threaten the globe.

The latest revelation involves an Indian climate researcher admitting there was no scientific basis for his claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. In a British newspaper interview, he said his claim was mere speculation, after which he was hired by an Indian think tank to research the supposedly melting glaciers. Nevertheless, his bogus assertion was included in the United Nations' 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, and cited as proof that governments must crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.

Further, in an interview with the U.K.'s Sunday Mail newspaper, Murari Lal, coordinating lead author of the IPCC report's Asia chapter, admitted he knew there was no solid evidence to support the researcher's claim, but included it, anyway, to pressure world leaders into curbing global warming.

These are only the latest evidence of a strategy explained by Stanford University professor Steven Schneider, who said, in the nascent days of the global warming movement, that to obtain media coverage and win public opinion, "[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have."

Despite IPCC denials, analysis of 500 submitted comments suggests that reviewers of the 2007 report questioned the Himalayan assertion, but were ignored, according to former British chancellor Nigel Lawson of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

This follows December's "Climategate" scandal in which thousands of e-mails leaked from a U.K. climate research center indicated data were manipulated and skeptical voices silenced to advance the global warming theory. Afterward, a Russian think tank alleged climate researchers cherry-picked that nation's temperature readings to falsely show dramatic temperature increases. In the U.S. similar charges have been lodged about selectively choosing data later used by the IPCC to falsely show higher temperatures.

IPCC reports have been used to project economic catastrophe from global warming. But since last December's Copenhagen climate summit fizzled amid demands by poor countries that rich nations subsidize them to fight global warming, "banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market," which was intended to buy and sell credits issued by governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In an encouraging development, a high-ranking Chinese official Monday urged the United Nations to make its next report, "comprehensive by also citing contrarian views," noting climate changes can result from natural cycles. "We need to adopt an open attitude to scientific research and incorporate all views," Xie Zhenhua said. Not a bad idea because the science clearly isn't settled.

Source: Orange County Register. Link here