The ‘Skeptical Seven’ Witch Hunt is Just the Beginning

Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) has sent letters to universities requesting information on the sources of financial support of seven climate researchers. A few of these might well have some portion of their funding come from energy companies, I don’t know.
 
The implication, of course, is that research money from fossil fuel companies to any skeptics is bad, even though much greater amounts of fossil fuel money goes to Green organizations.
Can you spell “hypocrisy”?
One of the biggest misconceptions about climate research funding is that government funding is unbiased. That is, the belief that government funding does not favor one outcome over another.
This might be true for benign research projects, like the mating habits of the Arctic sea slug, but when it comes to research topics with massive political and economic implications, nothing could be further from the truth.
Government funding programs are, in part, formulated by government political appointees who prefer research with outcomes that support their government programs. ......

That Roger Pielke, Jr. is one of the current ‘Skeptical Seven’ targets is especially troubling. Roger is quite green and hardly considers himself a skeptic. In fact, he largely agrees with the IPCC. All he asks is that people stop making demonstrably incorrect claims that “climate change” is causing greater damage today than it ever has. (Total monetary losses due to weather rise as prosperity and infrastructure increases, even if weather becomes somewhat less severe). Yet, Roger is now backing out of climate change related research due to the current witch hunt.
I’ll leave it to others to decide whether McCarthyism is a good description of the current situation."

U.N. Official Admits Belief In Global Warming Is Religious

Investors.com
Alarmists started to come clean at a news conference in Brussels in early February when Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, owned up to their agenda. She made clear what so many already know: The goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological ruin but to extinguish capitalism.
"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution," she said.   ......
Pachauri resigned this week from his cushy U.N. job after a female researcher lodged a sexual harassment complaint against him in his home country, India. In his letter of resignation, he explained why he did what he did at the U.N.
"For me, the protection of planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my religion and my dharma."

Why the "Green Blob" owns the US Democrat Party

The President and the Pipeline (The New Yorker, 2013)

Steyer is, at first glance, an unlikely leader of the environmental movement. He is rangy and square-jawed, and he has exquisite establishmentarian credentials, to say nothing of a vast pile of money. ......Steyer’s goal, at his fund-raiser for Obama, was not so much to berate the President, he said, as to “do the old F.D.R. thing,” showing Obama that the green movement was growing, and that supporting its goals was good politics.    ......For many activists, the opposition to Keystone isn’t really about the pipeline; they admit that no single project will tip the balance on climate change. Rather, they want Obama to use Keystone as a symbolic opportunity to move America away from fossil fuels. ....The stakes for Obama are higher. There are few opportunities to influence the politics of climate change and leave a legacy on the issue."

For Climate Alarmists Every Day is Groundhog Day

Breitbart

All right, the author of the piece Dr Jay Michaelson appears to be fairly new to this game – his specialities are gay activism and Judaism – and probably hasn’t had time to do much background reading. But seriously, how did his editors allow him to get away with such a poisonous assertion, which wouldn’t stand a moment’s scrutiny in a court of law?

Soon has not been exposed as a liar or a fraud. In order to prove that he were, Michaelson would have to do rather more than simply assert that Soon has, over the years, received grant money from fossil fuel companies. ........He would have to demonstrate that this funding had suborned Soon’s research to the point where he told deliberate and conscious untruths to please his paymasters."

Greenpeace enlists Justin Gillis & John Schwartz of the NY Times in Journalistic Terrorist Attack on Willie Soon – Miss Target, Hit Smithsonian Instead

WUWT
I cannot bring myself to quote from this unconscionable piece of journalistic malfeasance:

Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher

By JUSTIN GILLIS and JOHN SCHWARTZ FEB. 21, 2015
Instead, I simply let my title and the following excerpts from the so-called “supporting” documents offered by Greenpeace speak for themselves. Their [non-]journalist lackeys: Justin Gillis and John Schwartz of the NY Times, apparently didn’t actually read them – or they might have noticed that the contracts are between the Smithsonian (not Soon) and Southern and if they had stretched themselves, might have uncovered the definition of “deliverables”….I can’t believe Gillis and Schwartz allowed themselves to be duped again."

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EDITOR:  Roger Pielke Jr 's University received this letter from US Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and it is worthy of a look, to quote : " As you may have heard the Koch Foundation appears to have funded climate research by Dr Willi Soon....."  This accusation  has been robustly de-bunked (see above) yet the letter uses this as an excuse to smear Dr Pielke Jr, and intimidate his University. All because Dr Pielke Jr uses factual evidence in his testimony to the US  Congress.

The final nail in the coffin of the NYT witchhunt against Dr. Willie Soon?

Greenie Watch
I was one of the earliest writers to respond to the NYT article by hack NYT journalist Justin Gillis in which astrophysicist Willie Soon was accused of writing for hire.  A quite amusing accusation when you realize that Gillis himself was doing exactly that.  As always, you just have to look at what Leftists say about conservatives to see what is true of Leftists  themselves.

An article just up on Anthony Watts' site does I think blow the whole nasty campaign out of the water.  It points out, as I have done, that the money allegedly coming from business to Soon was in fact paid to the Smithsonian so was in no way clandestine and was part of normal academic procedures.  Far from the money being "undeclared" income that the Smithsonian should look into it was in fact money given to the Smithsonian itself.  If they were to investigate anything they would be investigating themselves! "

I am Under “Investigation”

Roger Pielke Jr

 Before continuing, let me make one point abundantly clear: I have no funding, declared or undeclared, with any fossil fuel company or interest. I never have. Representative Grijalva knows this too, because when I have testified before the US Congress, I have disclosed my funding and possible conflicts of interest. So I know with complete certainty that this investigation is a politically-motivated “witch hunt” designed to intimidate me (and others) and to smear my name.

Congressman Grijalva doesn’t have any evidence of any wrongdoing on my part, either ethical or legal, because there is none. He simply disagrees with the substance of my testimony – which is based on peer-reviewed research funded by the US taxpayer, and which also happens to be the consensus of the IPCC (despite Holdren’s incorrect views)."

Why you can't trust climatology

Bishop Hill
Roger has always struck me as one of the most robust participants in the climate debate. When someone as thick-skinned as he is is forced out then it really does tell you something about the trustworthiness of what climatologists and the IPCC tell us."

Roger Pielke, Jr. Being Investigated by Representative Grijalva for Presenting Inconvenient Data

WUWT
Again, Roger presented graphs of data that support his statements.
Yet, somehow, presenting data that contradict alarmist hype is worthy of an investigation by an elected US representative—an investigation that has so far been a waste of Roger’s time, the time of the President of the University of Colorado Boulder, and, of course, the time of US Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ). "

Toronto's extreme cold breaks record for Feb. 23

The Star

We are off to a chilly start to the week as an extreme cold warning from Environment Canada remains in effect for Toronto.

While the morning temperature hovers between -19 to -21 C, winds will make it feel like -30 to -40 C — well below the seasonal normals of 1 to -7 C.

According to The Weather Network, the 5 a.m. temperature of -20.1 C at Pearson airport broke the 1972 cold record of -19.4 C for Feb. 23."

Are Climate Modelers Scientists?

WUWT
Bottom line? Climate modelers are not scientists. Climate modeling is not a branch of physical science. Climate modelers are unequipped to evaluate the physical reliability of their own models.
The incredibleness that follows is verbatim reviewer transcript; quoted in italics. Every idea below is presented as the reviewer meant it. No quotes are contextually deprived, and none has been truncated into something different than the reviewer meant.
And keep in mind that these are arguments that certain editors of certain high-ranking climate journals found persuasive.  ..."

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hannam Grossly Deceives His Readers Using Massively Doctored Photo

NoTricksZone
Reader Jim sent an e-mail bringing attention to probably the most amateur photo-shopping work on behalf of global warming propaganda I’ve seen in a long time, all used by eco-journalist Peter Hannam of the Sydney Morning Herald in a piece about the coal-fired Liddel Power Station in Hunter Valley, NSW.
Not only is the photo totally manipulated with the aim of deceiving readers, but Hannam’s facts are just as misleading as the photo-shopped power plant image itself: .... "

Rajendra Pachauri’s Resignation Letter

Donna Laframboise
The resignation letter of the IPCC chairman is a two-page love letter to himself.

Pachauri’s letter talks about his “greatest joy,” and his “sublime satisfaction.” And about religion:

For me the protection of Planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my religion and my dharma. [bold added]

Yes, the IPCC – which we’re told to take seriously because it is a scientific body producing scientific reports – has, in fact, been led by an environmentalist on a mission. By someone for whom protecting the planet is a religious calling.
Even here, at the end, Pachauri fails to grasp that science and religion don’t belong in the same sentence; that those on a political mission are unlikely to be upholders of rigorous scientific practice."

Ismail El Gizouli, new IPCC boss

The reference frame
In this video, he shows how excellent thinker, leader, speaker, and manager he is. "My name is Ismail El Gizouli and I come from Soudan. I joined the Working Group 3 in 2002. And I was elected again in two thousand sevyn. I like the IPC. The IPC is very good. The IPC has won a Nobel prize with Al Gore. It is a good achievement. I want to look to the climate change issue. And to specific issues."

NYT Smears Scientist Willie Soon for Telling the Truth About ‘Global Warming’

Breitbart
Another day, another attack on the integrity of the Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, this time in the New York Times.
I first became aware of Soon in 2009 when reading through the Climategate emails. One of them was a jocular suggestion by a warmist called Tom Wigley as to how best to smear Soon and his co-author Sallie Baliunas."