Climate Gate, Covid and the manipulation of Science:
Introduction: I am back after a two-month sojourn in Southern Africa, visiting Mozambique, Eswatini and South Africa. It is one of the most interesting parts of the world and pertinent to the topic being discussed here – climate change and covid. South Africa is now exporting vast amounts of coal to Europe, especially Germany, since the sanctions on Russia are preventing Europe from importing Russian coal, oil, and gas. We saw thousands of coal trucks on way to Richard’s Bay in the Natal, shipping millions of tons of coal to Europe and yet our politicians are talking about climate change and net zero as if they really believe in it.
South Africa has also been in the front line of the agenda of Big Pharma in the Covid vaccine roll out. But after 2-3 years and massive pressure on the country, with some of the most draconian lockdowns and social control, only about 25% of the population bothered doing it. They have more important issues to deal with. Consequences of lockdowns are estimating to cause hundreds of thousands more cases of Tuberculosis in the region, especially in the terribly poor and congested townships.
The following article explores the so-called science and narrative of the Climate Change agenda and its parallels with the Covid agenda and how science has been manipulated for political ends. The article is in four sections:
Part One: Climate Gate: the story and the developing climate change agenda
Part Two: The politicization of Climate Change and Covid and the dynamics of control
Part Three: Follow the Money
Part Four: Viable options for a sustainable energy future
The first part is mostly taken from a book called “The Climate Files: The battle for the truth about Global Warming”. I also reference and quote in parts two to four from two of my favorite substack columns: Eugyppius and Amidwesterndoctor. My thanks to them for their work here.
Its good to be back and I will endeavor to keep a regular flow of articles but also ideally to broaden out beyond the Covid and vaccine issue. But that being said, we are now seeing the FDA trying to roll out a new RSV vaccine even though it is showing terrible safety figures!
PART ONE
Climate Gate: the story and the developing climate change agenda:
In a book written way back in 2010 – “The Climate Files: The battle for the truth about Global Warming”, environmental journalist Fred Pearce painstakingly dissects what happened back in November 2009, when thousands of emails were released into the public domain, from the University of East Anglia, in the department of the Climate Research Unit (CRU). The CRU has been at the heart of climate change research in the world, being founded in 1972 by Hubert Lamb. Interestingly, Lamb stated that in fact the impact of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may not be as significant as many had been thinking, and drew attention to the climatic anomalies of the Medieval warm period between 1000-1300AD and the subsequent mini-ice age in the 1500’s. Although Lamb’s work was to explore the science of climate change/global warming, he had not concluded at the time that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would inevitably lead to dangerous temperature increases across the world. However, his proteges, including Phil Jones, who led the CRU from 2004 were certain that C02 was the guilty party and the goal of Jones and many other climatologists was to find the evidence to scientifically validate these assumptions.
Various institutes in the United States were involved in the growing scientific research into Climate Change, the term morphing from the previous descriptive known as Global Warming. These terms have now been with us since 1972 when the book Limits of Growth was published. The book commissioned by Club of Rome, one of the many “globalist” style organizations that seek to influence the future of the planet, often tied to large corporations and government bodies. In the United States two of the organizations involved in climate change research are the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) based in Boulder, Colorado and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Another person who is discussed in the book nearly as much as Phil Jones, above, is Michael Mann, of Penn State University. Mann famously constructed the “Hockey Stick” graph, that showed the increase in global warming in the 20th century, reflecting the arc of a hockey stick as it reaches for the sky, the rest of flat stick reflecting the lack of warming for over a thousand years.
When the hockey stick was included in the annual report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001, it initiated a storm of controversy as Mann was unable to fully prove what he was postulating, including the so-called Medieval warm period and if it really happened or not. As Pearce wrote in the book, Mann’s reaction to any criticism was confrontational, which only created more problems for him in the years that followed. It also created problems for the IPCC that was being increasingly seen to have an agenda – that is to find whatever evidence it could to “prove” global warming due to C02 existed and that it was the biggest threat to the planet.
The origins of the IPCC can be traced back to the Villach conference in 1985 in Austria. Eighty nine scientists from 23 countries gathered in the Austrian Alps, and after six days were able to construct a narrative that put Climate Change into the front seat of global issues, that has continued to this day. They stated “ in the first half of the next century, a rise in global mean temperatures could occur which is greater than any in man’s history.” They called for the UN to “ensure periodic assessments of the state of scientific understanding” of climate change along with “consideration of a global convention” to tackle the threat. It should be noted though that only individual scientists were there at the meeting, no formal government representatives. This allowed the scientists to speak their mind, outside of political interference, which they did. At the time in the USA, President Ronald Reagan was not a climate change advocate and in fact in the years that followed, all the way into the 21st century and the Presidency of George Bush Jnr, many in US political circles were quite antagonistic to the climate change agenda as it was seen to challenge business interests, particularly the fossil fuel industry.
As Pearce writes in the book, there has been a very active group of individuals and organizations that have attacked the climate change narrative. Some were directly funded by the fossil fuel industry, whose motives were purely profit driven, and therefore could be accused of having an agenda. Other individuals and scientists from many backgrounds challenged the climate change narrative because they felt the science that supported it was still not proven. in fact, even today, it still cannot be categorically proven that C02 increases are the most significant threat to the planet today and the major factor in any rise in global temperature. The book is really an exploration of the forces on both sides of the argument, revealing agendas on both sides. Pearce is a journalist and worked for the UK Guardian, that did a laudable job after Climate Gate to explore the issues. Although Pearce believes personally in the influence on C02 on the warming of the planet, he tried very hard to find a balance in the exploration of the impact of Climate Gate.
For most of the 2000’s the fight between various sides in the argument really heated up on both sides, especially for climatologists working for the CRU, and other organizations, who were often authors of the IPCC documents. They often felt under attack and having to justify all their comments and reports. Also from 2000, a new Freedom of Information Act in the UK led to many requests for data and documentation so that other researchers could study the data and conclusions drawn. What is revealed in the book is that due to the increasing pressure many climate change scientists experienced, including Phil Jones of CRU, they deliberately either denied or limited any access to the data. The author is in fact critical of the actions of many of those involved as it impugned upon their reputation and the larger debate around climate change. Many of the scientists did not come out looking good and ironically for a journalist working on environmental issues, including Climate Change, his work and that of the Guardian objectively revealed one very large elephant in the room.
The science that proves that increases in C02 is the major factor in global warming and now justifies increasingly dramatic actions on every level of society – political, environmental, energy policy, travel behaviour, net zero, carbon taxes, carbon offsetting, Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion etc., is based on a lack of absolute scientific fact. Even if levels of C02 are rising and are having some impact on the planetary temperature, is it really as cataclysmic as people are saying? Are other factors such as methane, chlorofluorocarbons, greater urbanization, general increase in population, sunspot activities, also factors?
One of the biggest revelations in the book for those of us not up with the science behind global warming, is how much mathematical modelling is necessary to make these calculations. Some of the data used to analyze temperatures from 1000 to 300 years ago is from tree rings taken from trees as far away as in remote parts of Siberia to the Bristle Cone Pines of the Sierra Nevada in California. It is complicated stuff and fraught with possible error, as is taking data from weather temperature stations placed in rural areas of the world, which were then moved without people’s knowledge and to more urban areas which would alter the temperature markers. When Jones and others were asked for the geographical location of these stations, they couldn’t validate all of them, or even find the relevant information. There is quite a lot of this type of thing in the book, which is why Climate Gate, as it is called, caused such a profound impact on the whole issue, and all around the world. It led to several enquiries and investigations, the ramifications of which are still being felt. Many environmentalists have dismissed Climate Gate and many simply tried to ignore it, but important questions remain.
One of the next big events in the evolution of Climate Change was the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where the UN Climate Change Convention, precursor to the Kyoto Protocol, was signed. Then in 1998, Jim Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies testified to a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in sweltering heat, that global warming “has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause-and-effect relationship between this greenhouse effect and observed warming.” A few days later, researchers in Toronto demanded a 20% cut in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2005, which later, in a watered-down version became the basis of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. The fact that politicians had been left out of this debate caused concern, especially in Ronald Reagan’s government in the USA, which led to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1998 by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
As Pearce’s book outlines, the IPCC then became the center of a storm of conflicting interests: scientists and climatologists seeking the evidence to substantiate anthropogenic global warming, other scientists and researchers challenging this, some with sincere motives, and some backed by the fossil fuel industry. Then there were politicians of all stripes, with their own agendas, influencing the discussion and the annual IPCC publications and the meetings around the world, which have become more significant as the years have worn on. Annual Conference of Parties (COP) are now held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change since 1994, the last one, COP27, being in 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The irony was not lost for many, watching the great and the good of the world, politicians, “philanthropists”, business people flying in, often on private jets, with mouthwatering feasts of meat and other goodies, to wring their hands on how the curb the production of carbon dioxide on the planet.
The IPCC took a risk in 2001 and visibly published Michael Mann’s hockey stick graph. This began a decade of serious controversy and infighting, even amongst climatologists who agreed with anthropogenic global warming who thought it rash and provocative to publish his graph. It also led to more concerted attempts to challenge what was being published and offering alternative arguments. Another controversy in the book, which the author inadvertently contributed to, was the totally inaccurate statement that Himalayan icebergs would melt by 2035. This somehow slipped into the narrative and then was repeated enough till it became part of the “folklore” of climate change. It was inaccurate and was called “Glaciergate.” But it got enough airtime for a while to be believed until investigated by other scientists. It was a simple mistake but one of many. Other controversies, as mentioned, was about the mathematical modelling used on the tree ring data, the position of temperature stations to monitor temperatures in rural areas and to discern this from the influence of urban warming, but perhaps most significantly it was the attempts by some members of the CRU in the University of East Anglia and also in the USA, to prevent access to the data and the ways in which this data was used, which only confirmed to critics that some of the scientists were not being transparent at all, even if they were not deliberately manufacturing the evidence. UK Freedom of Information Acts were being willfully ignored, with enquiries investigating if criminal activities took place. In one preliminary enquiry, Michael Mann, in the USA came out looking bad with accusations that data was suppressed and/or falsified, information went missing. It did not look good and a more formal investigation was recommended. One investigation by the Institute of Physics, a London based body of 36,000 physicists from around the world wrote of “prima facie evidence of determined and coordinated refusals to comply with honorable scientific traditions and freedom of information law,” “manipulation of the publication and peer review system”, and “intolerance to challenge…. Which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process.”
However even after all the controversy of many years since the formation of the IPCC and then the Climate Gate scandal of 2009, when there was serious talk of disbanding the IPCC, the narrative that says that carbon dioxide is the enemy of humanity and threatens our survival has seemingly held sway, even in the face of substantial evidence that questions this and interestingly, against the apparent interests of the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests. Even the Republican party in the USA, which historically challenged the Climate Change narrative for years, are now basically going along with it, with certain exemptions. Donald Trump, when President, didn’t really agree with the agenda, but was somewhat powerless to do that much about it. Why is this?
Nearly all politicians to attain power and legitimacy have to now pay homage to the gods of Climate Change, in particular the term “Net Zero” which is a nice little title, implying that they agree to their being no more carbon dioxide being produced than is being consumed. This term now being used ubiquitously means many things to many people but no one can yet prove that this is achievable without basically “stopping the world”, meaning a lot of economic activity has to stop or alternative forms of power have to be brought up to speed very quickly. Alternatively, a large part of the world, especially the developing world have to return to some form of rural agrarianism. Tell that to the many millions of Chinese living in urban areas. China, India and large parts of Africa have become increasingly urbanized in the last 30 years and are producing more CO2 all the time and a large part of the coal burning air pollution. Is Net Zero anything more than a massive delusion but a convenient one to attempt to control China, India and others countries economic development and manipulate energy policy?
Chapter 18 of Pearce’s book is titled “Bonfire of the Vanities” and begins with a quote: “Einstein did not start his career at Princeton, but rather at a patent office.” (Judy Curry on the need to open up science to sceptics, November 2009).
“The process of scientific discovery requires producing findings that others can test by trying to replicate or falsify them. That is how good theories are bolstered how bad theories are discarded, and how knowledge is advanced. Some research is easy to replicate. All you need is a lab. Some is more complicated. And not much is more complicated than research that relies on huge amounts of data assembled from all over the world over many decades. Both Jones’s temperature data for the past 160 years and Mann’s proxy data of temperatures before that fall into this category.”
The author continues: “The difficulty in replicating this work is one reason that sceptics, rightly or wrongly, have been able to claim that bad climate science has proliferated. That is why the demands have grown for scientists to release their raw data, even to people outside the research community. But the complexity of the work is also why researchers who have spent years, sometimes decades, assembling and analyzing their data are unwilling to hand it out to the first blogger to ask for it under a freedom of information request. It is “their” data, analyzed using “their” protocols and computer codes. As Jones notoriously put it Warwick Hughes: “why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it”.”
So the author, a committed environmentalist and believer in climate change being caused by C02 admits to the complexity of the science and the human failings of some climate scientists. In the next chapter he makes the case that man made climate change is a serious concern in his opinion, which is fair enough, but after reading the book carefully twice, one is left with the concern that in fact, the science is not yet settled. There are still serious questions, especially regarding the specific link between C02 and global warming. However, that is now not stopping governments across the globe and massive corporations jumping on the bandwagon and seeking ways to “monetize” the transition to a green economy. Fossil fuel companies are doing it. BlackRock Investments are doing the same, Bill Gates is writing books on it and the whole economy of carbon bonds, carbon trading, carbon offsetting and even the hideous sounding term “climate lockdowns” are being mentioned, along with insidious social experiments like 15-minute cities and restriction of freedom of movement, all to save the planet. The US government is doing it with billions of dollars of subsidies in its Inflation Reduction Act, the European Union with its Net Zero Industry Act. The UK government has yet to follow suit but none the less still subsidizes “green” energy, some of which is not green at all. The opposition Labour Party said they will spend billions of tax payers money doing the same. This is how you get big power companies on board. It’s the same as Big Pharma and the Military Industrial complex. You basically subsidize them with tax payer’s money.
The wider “Green movement”, including mainstream environmental organizations, Green parties, and others seem willing to accept this development, even it is being controlled by the same bankers, elite organizations and individuals who have been at the center of environmental destruction for decades. Also, an argument can be made that other very serious environmental issues like air pollution, plastic pollution, water pollution, deforestation, industrial farming, geo engineering, weather modification, GMOs etc., are moving ahead as many environmentalists focus solely on C02. The Green Party in Germany is quite happy it seems to see its nuclear plants close while importing vast amounts of coal from Russia before and now South Africa. Contradictions abound and under the surface of much of the green talk, it is business as usual. Subsidizing of biomass wood burning plants in the UK. Inefficient and inadequate solar farms and dubious benefits of wind power, the false economy of electric vehicles, amongst others are basically avoided by much of the mainstream environmental movement, as was described in the movie “Planet of the Humans.” All is not what it seems.
The fight for the “scientific truth” in the climate change narrative is one example where the very notion of “science” itself has been questioned. Of course, we have seen this in even more extreme form during the last three years of Covid, where the term “follow the Science” meant exactly the opposite. Similar tactics could be seen where Pfizer and the FDA in the USA wanted to keep secret the research on the mRNA vaccines for 75 years. Why would they want to do this if not to cover themselves from the intruding enquires of other scientists. Who is really controlling the Climate narrative and who is controlling the Covid narrative and who is controlling the science?