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US Senate's Top Climate Skeptic Accused of Waging 'McCarthyite Witch-Hunt'
James Inhofe calls for criminal investigation of climate scientists as senators prepare proposal that would ditch cap and trade
Climate scientists say Senator James Inhofe's call for a criminal investigation into American as well as British scientists who worked on the UN climate body's report or had communications with East Anglia's climate research unit represents an attempt to silence debate on the eve of new proposals for a climate change law.
The Republican James Inhofe during the Senate Environment and Public Works hearing on global climate change. (Photograph: Scott J Ferrell/Getty) Inhofe's document ends by naming 17 "key players" in the controversy about CRU's stolen emails, including the Britons Phil Jones and Keith Briffa.
"I think this is like a drag net, just to try and catch everyone whose name happens to be on this list. It's guilt by association and I thought those days were over 50 years ago," said Michael Oppenheimer, of Princeton University, who is on the list of 17 scientists. "It looks like a McCarthyite tactic: pull in anyone who had anything to do with anyone because they happened to converse with some by email, and threaten them with criminal activity."
Inhofe is also accused of further fuelling a spike in hate mail and politically motivated freedom of information requests in the three months since the emails of climate scientists were stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
Rick Piltz, a former official in the US government climate science program who now runs the Climate Science Watch website, said Inhofe and others were getting in the way of scientific work. "Scientists who are working in federal labs are being subjected to inquisitions coming from Congress," he said. "There is no question that this is an orchestrated campaign to intimidate scientists."
Michael Mann, a scientist at Penn State University who is on Inhofe's list of 17, said that he had seen a sharp rise in hostile email since November.
"Some of the emails make thinly veiled threats of violence against me and even my family, and law enforcement authorities have been made aware of the matter," he told the Guardian.
He said the attacks appeared to be a co-ordinated effort. "Some of them look cut-and-paste."
A university investigation largely cleared Mann of misconduct for his connection to the East Anglia controversy. However, a rightwing group in Pennsylvania are demanding further action.
Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute who is also on the list of 17, said he had seen an increase in freedom of information act requests. "In my previous six years I dealt with one FoIA request. In the last three months, we have had to deal with I think eight," he said. "These FoIAs are fishing expeditions for potentially embarrassing content but they are not FoIA requests for scientific information."
He said Inhofe's call for a criminal investigation created an atmosphere of intimidation. "The idea very clearly is to let it be known that should you be a scientist who speaks out in public then you will be intimidated, you will be harassed, and you will be threatened," he said. "The idea very clearly is to put a chilling effect on scientists speaking out in public and to tell others to keep their heads down. That kind of intimidation is very reminiscent of other periods in US history where people abused their position."
Other scientists on Inhofe's list of 17 admitted they were disturbed by the threat of criminal prosecution.
"I am worried about it, I have to say," said Raymond Bradley, director of the climate science research center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who is also on the list of 17. "You can understand that this powerful person is using the power of his office to intimidate people and to harass people and you wonder whether you should have legal counsel. It is a very intimidating thing and that is the point."
Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican on the Senate's environment and public works committee, released a document last week suggesting scientists be investigated for breaking three laws and four government regulations.
The document, produced by members of Inhofe's staff, recycles now familiar skeptic arguments about the stolen emails from East Anglia and the mistakes in the IPCC report.
But climate scientists say the report takes the campaign to a new level by threatening criminal prosecution. The report calls for the inspector generals of all US government agencies touching on the environment to investigate the scientists as a first step to possible prosecution.
"The minority staff of the Senate committee on environment and public works believe the scientists involved violated fundamental ethical principles governing taxpayer-funded research and, in some cases, may have violated federal laws," the report says.
A spokesman for Inhofe rejected the charges of a witch-hunt. But he said a criminal investigation was warranted and that it should not necessarily be limited to the 17 "key players".
"We are not saying that there are 17 scientists we should be calling criminals," said Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for Inhofe. "I'm not putting a number on 17."
He added: "The bottom line though is that there was manipulation of data and it appears that they violated a law." "In terms of what these email demonstrate, there are possible criminal violations here with FoIA and other laws."
Senate leaders are expected to release new proposals for action on climate change as early as this week. Environmentalists fear the proposal, crafted by a troika of Democratic, Republican, and Independent senators, would weaken a climate change bill passed by the house last June.
The Washington Post reported at the weekend that the senators could scrap a cap-and-trade bill that was the core of the house bill and bring in more limited measures.
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54 Comments so far
Show AllWhy wouldn't Inhofe attack easier targets with greater potential for reducing losses? Military contracts are rife with deception and fraud costing untold billions and resulting in the unnecessary loss of life.
Ask Inhofe what our return on investment is for the 4400 lives and $2.8 trillion we've sunk into Iraq.
On the fraudometer:
AGW - 1
Iraq Invasion and Occupation - 9
Inhofe - 10
While scraping cap and trade is a BLESSING in disguise, replacing it with more limited measures is no solution.
A refined cap and dividend program would, unlike cap and trade, have the potential to actually reduce pollution and prevent the banksters from exploiting it, if the program was properly organized.
I am surprised that Galileo and Darwin are not on the list.
The ignorant and blatantly stupid have found a spokesman in Inhofe. I would hope the people of OK wake the fuck up and kick this dimwit to the curb. If they don't we need some competency hearings to determine if these so-called reps are fit to work on any committee. Inhofe clearly has no business working on the Senate's environment and public works committee. It's like getting tech advise from Ted 'the internet is like a system of tubes' Stevens or John 'the luddite' McCain. These pinheads are not competent enough to make decisions that affect others much less chair a committee that dictates policy.
There is probably some Constitutional precedent against members of Congress throwing their weight around.
Somebody call Jonathan Turley or Glenn Greenwald.
The evil is spreading into every corner and crevice.
Millions have already been found guilty and will be imprisoned and, then, eliminated.
How about an investigation into how Exxon-Mobil paid "scientists" to say global warming was false?
In a related article:
API Snags Enviro Group Vet to Take on New Role as Director of Grassroots Push
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/84187-api-snags-enviro-organizer-for-grassroots-director-slot
"[The American Petroleum Institute] API said Spooner will coordinate efforts to 'develop, mobilize and sustain a political infrastructure of individuals, groups and coalitions to advance priority advocacy issues with elected officials.' The move comes amid API efforts to rally members of the public against energy and climate change plans it believes would hamper domestic energy production and raise prices."
Shoot the messengers! Shoot them! (jumps up and down and froths at the mouth)
How dare they point out that the Earth is round, when the bible clearly states that it's flat! How dare they point out the lack of foundations in the Earth, when the bible clearly states the Earth has foundations. How dare they claim the earth is very very old, when the bible...
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I posted the first response to this article earlier today and it was deleted although I didn't use any profanity.
All I said was Inhofe should be allowed to pursue his witch hunt because there are some climate change scientists who were encouraging factional academic suppression of scientists whose findings opposed the predominant scientific stance regarding global warming (that it exists and is aggravated by human inputs) as well as several scientists who were lying about the rate of melting taking place in the Himalayan glaciers. These scientists should be purged from the scientific community for their bias and/or self interest. Once Inhofe takes his witch hunt too far, as he invariably will (being the dinosaur reactionary he is), then there will be a backlash by more a more disciplined, competent scientific community around this issue who will be taken more seriously. More free speech is the cure for this problem of dubious scientists, not less.
[encouraging factional academic suppression]
Out of all the emails the critics found a few that had them saying nasty things about other people in emails... How many of us have done exactly that? I know that I've said things about people in emails that I'd never think of actually doing to them. There is no evidence that anyones academic papers were suppressed, nor was anyone banned from publishing anything. None.
On the other hand there is a lot of evidence that the people who leaked those emails had ties to a national government's spy agency, and that those spies were working on behalf of the energy companies.
So, who is it really that wants to suppress free speech and subvert research?
I've also noticed that lately when CD deletes something they leave a note that says why it was deleted. I noticed no such post from you, but you just might be special.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
When one of these scientists who has decision making power over the inclusion or exclusion of scientific findings in peer reviewed publications even suggests 'maybe we shouldn't publish so and so because he/she's attempting to refute well supported science and that's very annoying' that creates a chilling effect on other scientists trying to approach the problem of global warming from directions outside the box of the preponderance of existing science on the subject--some of which may be important work.
And yet, those scientific papers were published. In the very papers that the guys wanted to prevent them from being published in. They were not censored.
The thing that creates chills in scientists isn't other scientists dissing their work, it's idiots like Inhofe who think the scientists should be called before congress to testify. Inhofe is a freaking creationist! The guy thinks that humans lived at the same time as bloody dinosaurs. It's not just climate science that this Republican doesn't understand, or accept. He doesn't accept the basics of modern biological science. The man has no business calling for any scientist to 'testify' before him.
That being said, I'd actually like to see some scientists take the fool up on this challenge. They'd destroy Inhofe, unless the senator called someone who had a stutter, and looked worse than he does on tv.
'maybe we shouldn't publish so and so because he/she's attempting to refute well supported science and that's very annoying'
This is an example of the kind of day dreaming that the deniers do. It reflect their own projections onto other people.
In the real world where science is done, papers are rejected because of actual errors, like using a statistical test that is inappropriate, or falsely stating that some earlier paper supported their work when in fact the paper refuted their work, or using a serological test that isn't applicable to the particular organism under discussion, or something similar. And even then, the paper isn't refused. It is sent back for corrections. If the corrections of the statistical analysis shows that the conclusions drawn are erroneous, then either it is rewritten or finally rejected. If the support of the contradictory paper is necessary, then the paper is withdrawn. If the test doesn't show what the authors claim, then they have to redo the work.
Papers are not rejected just because the reviewers don't like the conclusions. They are rejected when the work doesn't support the conclusions. Occasionally an editor will have a particular orientation and will print a paper without sending it out for review because he knows that it would never pass review and he wants it printed anyhow. Something similar to this happened with the paper under discussion in the East Anglia emails and it also happened once with a paper at the Smithsonian Institute supporting creationism. This is considered totally unethical and results in resignations.
metal
I believe you are exactly correct. Though I don't think Sen. Inhofe is going anywhere with his BS.
I also don't believe it will make any difference to Climate Change legislation here. Now there will be none. Between Al Gore's goof's in his movie, the Himalayan spoof, the E-mails, the admission by Jones that there has been no warming for 15v years and the Medieval warming period is probably real, its done.
"a backlash by more a more disciplined, competent scientific community around this issue who will be taken more seriously. More free speech is the cure for this problem of dubious scientists, not less."
That could revive it. Along with ditching the Demonizing of disagreement
Your statement that there has been no warming for 15v years is puzzling. What does the "v" indicate? In fact, 2005 was the warmest year of the decade, followed by two years of leveling off, due to an El Nina. But 2008 was nearly as warm as 2005. So where is the so-called cooling?
And what does the Medieval warming have to do with anything? From about 1600 to about 1850, temperatures dropped (the "Little Ice Age") but they have been increasing every since. The annual increase is not always monotonic, but the average increase has been monotonic. And the rate of increase is greater than warmings in the past.
sheepherder
"no warming for 15v years is puzzling. What does the "v" indicate?"
It would be puzzling. I beg your pardon, a slip of my one finger typing!
I was speaking of Phil Jones statement that there has been no significant warming for 15 years.
"And what does the Medieval warming have to do with anything?"
Because Scientific evidence showed that the Medieval period was warmer than now, and it was claimed that this had never happened before. Once again I was referring to Phil Jones admission that it may very well have happened after he and all GW Scientists refuted it vigorously.
I saw a report today about what a scientist actually said about the Medival warming period as opposed to what Fuchs Nous said that he said. His point was that yes, Greenland and Europe were warmer then, but we had no evidence that the rest of the planet followed. Sort of like we are in the hottest winter worldwide on record, but northeast US is cold. They have been looking for evidence but so far haven't found any that warming was generalized.
Phil Jones: “We have no data to delete. It comes to us from institutions around the world. We interpret data. We don’t create or collect it. It’s all available from other sources." Jones added that "I am obviously going to be much more careful about my emails in future. I will write every email as if it is for publication. But I stand 100% behind the science. I did not manipulate or fabricate any data, and I look forward to proving that to the Sir Muir Russell inquiry."
Gary
"The science overwhelmingly shows that we have to reduce emissions by at least half by mid-century to avoid catastrophic consequences. This isn't gonna get us even close, or started on the right foot.”
-- John Stanton
If the Mediaval Warm Period was hotter than it is now and it was global, why are the corals bleaching now and not then? Why, if the oceans were as hot as now, were cold water fish still being caught in the North Sea?
I haven't got a clue. I have been studying up on this with Ubrew12 and Alcyon's help on the issue and I now know enough to know I don't know enough.
But I can read political reality with the best of them.
My point is that it doesn't make any difference. Even if everyone concerned were innocent as lambs and obviously in some cases they are not, the issue is dead for the foreseeable future.
The scientists who deny that global warming is occurring or that it is human-induced are not actually doing science. Most of them are located at right-wing think tanks and are being funded to make the denials look respectable. When one of these think tanks has a conference on the subject, most of those attending are economists.
Regarding purging those who claimed the Himalayan glaciers were going to melt by 2035, you don't really know how those numbers ended up in the report. To say those who put them in were lying implies that you know as much as God knows about the matter. Are you really omniscient?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Most of us who follow this issue are well aware of the oil and coal company financed pseudo-science that continually tries to refute global warming. Regarding the Himalayan glaciers and their melt rates, one of the key scientists from India involved in purveying bad numbers admitted he knew they were incorrect and that they were made public but refused to step down from his important post in the scientific community. This only hurts the overall effort of the preponderance of scientists trying to do serious work on this issue because of the machinations of these few self-seekers.
To ditch cap and trade and go for a streight 'carbon' tax used to reduce the National Debt would be much better at providing clean air and a lighter tax burden for our children. Our senatorial thugs must surely be against anything that makes sense.
The national debt is meaningless. Viewing policies in terms of government budgetary "affordability" is a fiction whose only use is to limit the use of the government's power to change things for the better and to concentrate wealth in the financial sector and those who run it.
http://www.newdeal20.org/?p=8547
A carbon tax with the proceeds going toward subsidies for the poor and middle-class people to cope with the increased energy costs would be much better.
Humbaba
I believe any Carbon tax is dead. Of any kind. About the best they can do is add a gasoline tax, if they can even pass that.
What kind of meth is Inhofe doing? That must be some strong stuff.
Regrettably, we get the government we deserve. As jefferson observed, democracy can only work with an informed electorate. No informed electorate would ever elect the reactionaries that make up the current republican party.
Jim Shea
Inhofe is scum from the residual pond of McCarthyism, and he is in the good company of the Republican party. Same pond, same scum. If the issue weren't so goddam serious the world would be laughing at this clown, at the Congress of Clowns, and at the United States. I think the world is coming to realize that even after Bush has gone, the United States is no longer a beacon of hope and reason, but a land of fools and sociopaths, a country that prizes ignorance and money above all else. James Inhofe is a symptom of the sickness, and is himself a pathetically sick individual.
won't it be funny if the Himalaya glaciers are gone by 2035, after all?
Not to South Asia, but I get your point.
I doubt Inhofe realizes what he is getting into. This threatens not just climate scientists, but all scientists, and all of science -- a bunch of very smart people who are generally fairly laid back (unless fighting over hypotheses among themselves) but who, when aroused, are formidable (and tend to be progressive, or at least fact-based, on the whole). They also understand how to organize.
These are not the average, easily intimidated, peasants which politicians are used to dealing with -- there are even cognitive linguistic, sociology, and mental health experts among them (they invented modern propaganda). Starting a war with the scientists and technocrats is not too smart.
[I doubt Inhofe realizes what he is getting into. This threatens not just climate scientists, but all scientists, and all of science ]
Sure he does, google 'Inhofe' and 'creationism'. Guess what you'll find...
I haven't seen Inhofe trying to bring criminal charges against evolutionary biologists (et al). This looks like a significant escalation and threat to individual scientists.
of course, some background information on inhofe might be in order. wonder why there's no press on this:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005582
a very nice nest egg of top 5 campaign contributors over the last five years. yes, indeed. thus, the real need for witch hunts.
What I would really like to see is Sen. Inhofe go back to school for a few years. He might have to start in high school. This man is seriously under-educated
He appears to be bought and paid for by the oil and gas industry.
The SCOTUS said bribes are okay.
"Until this moment, Senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness...."
"Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
The little s.o.b. is too stupid and greedy to be decent. He's a pig feeding at the corporate trough, and that's an insult to pigs unfortunately: most of them are smarter than he is. You can quote Welch at him until you're blue in the face, and the little Republican turd won't get it.
Just as with Sen. McCarthy himself, may Sen. Inhofe's extremism be his undoing.
We can hope -- and we can also try to persuade Oklahoma to stop electing such nuts to office. Thanks to the Internet and its wonderful web, we can all participate in online debate with Oklahomans, if we so choose.
In fact, I have already done some of this myself as it seems more satisfying than just spectating or complaining; though I cannot be sure, of course, how much good such debating ultimately does.
Nobody has mentioned the so called "hockey stick" curve -- this curve is somewhat flat like the part of the hockey stick and that touches the puck and then the handle goes up steap-- up up and away.
This is the curve of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is a run away train that started with the industrialization at the end of the 19th century, when machines started to burn up fuel and replaced the horse.
And then there is the curve of the temperature of the planet and guess what-- it follows the same curve.
The tipping point is when the ice caps melt ( we all know that they do-- just look at a photograph of them a couple of years back). When the ground underneath the icecap will melt and release a lot of methane which is four times as much of a heat absorber than is carbon dioxide- then we are beyond the point of no return.
The tipping point is the point of no return- we will not be able to stop the destruction of life on earth as we know it and it is coming!!!!-- unless we change course SOON.
I learned a great deal from www.UCTV.TV this is the University of California TV and there are many scientists who speak there in the field of oceonography, metereology, biology, ecology,icebergstudy and penguins and ocean life which is affected by acidification from carbon dioxide. Other programs on UCTV.TV are on arts, poetry, music and all can be viewed on broadband -- wonderful programing and it will make you realize we are talking facts about global warming-- WE MUST CHANGE OUR WAYS.
PERILS OF GLOBAL WARMING NEGLECT
The misinformation campaigns waged by Inhofe,Fox News, and other disciples of the energy cartels to disprove the perils of global warming, and undercut its mitigation efforts, typify their contempt for our planet.
The dedicated and non-political international scientific community has concluded that global warming concerns are as close to certain as science can be. These villians attack their credibility by hiring pundits to pick through the reams of scientific data for some inconsequential innaccuracies. The e-mail thefts to undermine progress at Copenhagen is only one example,
Their dismissal of positive indicators such as unprecedented melting of the glaciers, Arctic ice, and Northwest Passage--while asserting that the recent unseasonable snow storms disprove warming, when they actually support it-- typify the fallacies of their claims.
Often overlooked is the fact that the measures required to mitigate carbon polution should be undertaken to curtail other crucial problems--even if warming were no issue. These include poisoning of our air, waters, & lands; and our dangerous trade deficits & dependance on foreign oil-- all of which will worsen if we continue these abuses to our planet.
If those who impede mitigation of carbon pollution had to suffer as much from it as the billions who live on marginal means, the world outlook would change.
CONSPIRACY AT COPENHAGEN& EVIL WITCHHUNT
Not satisfied with his war against global warming mitigation measures here, Senator Inhofe travels to Copenhagen (at our expense) and resounds his claims that warming is a hoax with his fabrications of science and unreal alleged economic consequencess. He further humiliated our nation by vowing to use his senate seat to undercut any related reform measures that our president proposes.
He joins the cadre of conspirators who implemented the e-mail thefts, which were also timed to impede progress at this conference by misrepresenting the conclusions of the international scientific community.
This disciple for the energy cartel can now take credit for his impediments in mitigating this dangerous climatic trend--which can only add to world wide suffering, and increase the chasm between those nations most responsible for warming and those who suffer most from it.
If we allow this criminal to succeed in his current character assinations and fraudelent prosecutions of valuable scientists, we will have granted him success in his mission to invoke irreversible damage to our planet.
His despicable actions speak as much about those who reelected him as for Mr Inhofe himself.
It seems to me that climate change has played into the hands of the deniers like Senator Inhofe. The increased moisture that has led to record snowfalls in the US North East has given him a soapbox (or snowbox igloo).
Two words: El Nino. But good luck explaining that to Inhofe.
Next, we're coming for them evilutionists!!
Oh Lord! Run for it! :)
If the press wasn't owned by the same corporate interests that own the politicians and courts that philosophically endorse it, maybe we would hear a relentless drumbeat about these frontmen furthering the agenda of special interests over the future of the environment.
As punishment for betrayal of those who voted them in as opposed to those who bought them, should be life on the frontlines of climate decline--ongoing flooding, waterless drought, extreme swings and destruction of biosphere.
These right wing religious fascists were in power less than two years ago and the democrats are simply to weak to defend the republic against these theocrats so the future looks bleak for america. People on the left have consistenly underestimated the appeal these people have to an ignorant population drugged out on sports and religion.
Perhaps it would be simplest to say that the issue is dead for the foreseeable future?
Even if everyone concerned were innocent as lambs and obviously in some cases they are not (Himalayan glaciers)and Gore's boo-boo's,etc...the general public is not going to buy their story now.
And in the present political climate, if these clowns in government try to go around the public and use the EPA or anything else to back door anything, it may be dead period.
People don't trust Obama/democrats at the moment so its unlikely they will trust them on something like this. They screwed the pooch with their ill-timed and ignorant Health Care push