Green Hell Blog

Here’s our early take on today’s Penn State report on its Michael Mann investigation:

• The review apparently extended little further than the Climategate e-mails themselves, an interview with Mann, materials submitted by Mann and whatever e-mails and comments floated in over the transom. Not thorough at all.

  One of the Penn State investigative committee members, Henry Foley, did endeavor to get external views on Michael Mann — unfortunately, they came from:

  • Gerald North, who dismissed Climategate in a Washington Post interview a only few days after the news of the scandal first broke and who assisted in the National Research Council’s 2006 effort to whitewash Mann’s hockey stick; and
  • Donald Kennedy, a former editor of Science magazine and an outspoken zealot for climate alarmism.
• Comically, the report explains at length how the use of the word “trick” can mean a “clever device.” The report ignores that it was a “trick… to hide the decline.” There is no mention of “hide the decline” in the report.
• The report concludes there is no evidence to indicate that Mann intended to delete e-mails. But this is contradicted by the plain language and circumstances surrounding Mann’s e-mail exchange with Phil Jones — See page 9 of Climategate & Penn State: The Case for an Independent Investigation.
• The report dismisses the accusation that Mann conspired to silence skeptics by stating, “one finds enormous confusion has been caused by interpretations of the e-mails and their content.” Maybe there wouldn’t be so much “confusion” if PSU actually did a thorough investigation rather than just relying on the word of Michael Mann.
• Although PSU is continuing the investigation, its reason is not to investigate Mann so much as it is to exonerate climate alarmism. On page 9 of the report, it says that “questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct… may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist… and public trust in science in general and climate science specifically.”

There needs to be a thorough and independent investigation of Climategate. PSU’s report is a primer for a whitewash.

CAUTION: Don’t be fooled by the Penn State media release. It gives the impression that PSU’s investigation into Mann will continue. But if you read the report, PSU has essentially already exonerated him. Moreover, PSU has changed the nature of the investigation away from Climategate being a scandal and toward Climategate being a public relations problem for global warming alarmism.

From PRNewswire:

SEC Climate Disclosure Rules Shaped By Global Warming Skeptics; Defunct Conservative Activist Mutual Fund Makes Lasting Impact on Climate Debate

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Though it no longer exists, the impact of the Free Enterprise Action Fund on the global warming debate was concretized last week when the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to require that publicly-owned companies disclose the risks of global warming laws and regulation.

“The Free Enterprise Action Fund turned the tables on the green activists and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) companies that were seeking to use the SEC to advance the global warming agenda,” said Steve Milloy, who along with Tom Borelli, co-managed the Free Enterprise Action Fund.

“Rather than forcing publicly-owned companies into helping make climate change regulation inevitable as the greens tried to do, our efforts have resulted in the SEC requiring companies to expose the business-killing nature of junk science-fueled climate regulation,” Milloy added.

One month after green groups petitioned the SEC to require publicly-owned companies to disclose the physical risks of climate change — in hopes pressuring companies to come to terms with green groups on climate regulation — the Free Enterprise Action Fund petitioned the SEC to require companies to disclose the financial risks to themselves of global warming regulation. The Fund’s petition placed pressure on the greens to modify their demands to include a call for disclosure of the financial risks of regulation.

Last week, the SEC announced that it would issue guidance to publicly-owned corporations requiring disclosure of climate-related risks.

“It’s clear from the SEC’s press release that the Fund’s call for financial disclosure of the risks of regulation outweighed in the Commission’s mind the call for disclosure of the physical risks of climate change,” said Milloy.

“This is significant going forward since companies lobbying for global warming regulation, like the USCAP companies, will be loathe to disclose the risks of such regulation to their bottom lines,” said Milloy.

Milloy says we should watch for support for climate regulation from publicly-owned companies to be on the wane. “USCAP companies will no longer be able to say that they must have climate regulation to avoid hypothetical physical risks without also disclosing that climate regulation imposes on them much greater and more certain financial risks.”

“Add in Climategate, glaciergate and the general unraveling of global warming alarmism, and publicly-owned companies oughtn’t want to touch climate regulation with a ten-foot pole,” Milloy concluded.

The Free Enterprise Action Fund was a publicly traded mutual fund from March 2005 until July 2009, at which time it was merged with the Congressional Effect Fund.

The Free Enterprise Action Fund October 2007 petition to the SEC may be viewed at: http://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2007/petn4-549.pdf.
SOURCE Free Enterprise Action Fund

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes in Al Gore but not the Holocaust.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at the COP-15 conference in Copenhagen (Dec. 17) that Iran supports strengthening the Kyoto Protocol’s cap-and-trade scheme.

Though Venezuela is energy rich, President Hugo Chavez started 2010 by announcing that electricity will be rationed.

Hugo Chavez said at the COP-15 conference in Copenhagen (Dec. 17) that his motto was to “respect and enhance” the Kyoto protocol and that capitalism is the “road to hell.”

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe blames global warming for the destruction of Zimbabwe's agricultural productivity -- not his own racially-motivated seizures of white-owned farms.

Robert Mugabe said at the COP-15 Copenhagen conference that Zimbabwe “stands by” the Kyoto Protocol and that, by not acceding to it, the U.S. is “undermining the rule of global law.”

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro is an Al Gore acolyte.

Fidel Castro has repeatedly criticized the U.S. for not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

Arkansas Rep. Vic Snyder voted as Nancy Pelosi told him.

Rep. Vic Snyder was the only Arkansas congressman to vote in favor of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill last June.

He is apparently the only Arkansas congressman who doesn’t want to be re-elected in November.

Stay tuned for more “Look who’s for cap-and-trade…”