Climate McCarthyism

[Albert Hidel]

Climate McCarthyism claims yet another victim



by James Delingpole 13 Jun 2014

Climate McCarthyism has claimed another victim. Dr Caleb Rossiter - an adjunct professor at [regionally accredited] American University, Washington DC - has been fired by a progressive think tank after publicly expressing doubt about man-made global warming.

Rossiter, a former Democratic congressional candidate, has impeccably liberal credentials. As the founder of Demilitarization for Democracy he has campaigned against US backed wars in Central America and Southern Africa, against US military support for dictators and against anti-personnel landmines. But none of this was enough to spare him the wrath of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) when he wrote an OpEd in the Wall Street Journal describing man-made global warming as an "unproved science."

Two days later, he was sacked by email. The IPS said: "We would like to inform you that we are terminating your position as an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies...Unfortunately, we now feel that your views on key issues, including climate science, climate justice, and many aspects of US policy to Africa, diverge so significantly from ours."

In the WSJ OpEd entitled Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change, Rossiter argued that Africans should benefit from the same mixed energy policy as Americans rather than being denied access to fossil fuels on spurious environmental grounds by green activists. He wrote: "The left wants to stop industrialization - even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false."

But the Institute for Policy Studies ("Ideas into Action for Peace, Justice, and the Environment") is ideologically committed to ensuring that Africans only enjoy the benefits of expensive, intermittent, inefficient renewable energy such as wind and solar.

Rossiter told Climate Depot:

"If people ever say that fears of censorship for 'climate change' views are overblown, have them take a look at this: Just two days after I published a piece in the Wall Street Journal calling for Africa to be allowed the 'all of the above' energy strategy we have in the U.S., the Institute for Policy Studies terminated my 23-year relationship with them…because my analysis and theirs 'diverge.'"

His sacking follows the persecution last month of Lennart Bengtsson, a Swedish meteorologist and climatologist who decided to resign his position at the Global Warming Policy Foundation after being harassed by climate alarmists for his "incorrect" views on man-made climate change.

[Don Dresden]

CO2 Good; Climate Change Bunk; Greens are Raging Extremists, says Greenpeace Co-Founder



by James Delingpole 19 Jun 2014, 1:11 AM

"Climate change" is a theory for which there is "no scientific proof at all" says the co-founder of Greenpeace. And the green movement has become a "combination of extreme political ideology and religious fundamentalism rolled into one."

Patrick Moore, a Canadian environmentalist who helped found Greenpeace in the Seventies but subsequently left in protest at its increasingly extreme, anti-scientific, anti-capitalist stance, argues that the green position on climate change fails the most basic principles of the scientific method.

"The certainty among many scientists that humans are the main cause of climate change, including global warming, is not based on the replication of observable events. It is based on just two things, the theoretical effect of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, predominantly carbon dioxide, and the predictions of computer models using those theoretical calculations. There is no scientific "proof" at all."

Moore goes on to list some key facts about "climate change" which are ignored by true believers.

1. The concentration of CO2 in the global atmosphere is lower today, even including human emissions, than it has been during most of the existence of life on Earth.

2. The global climate has been much warmer than it is today during most of the existence of life on Earth. Today we are in an interglacial period of the Pleistocene Ice Age that began 2.5 million years ago and has not ended.

3. There was an Ice Age 450 million years ago when CO2 was about 10 times higher than it is today.

4. Humans evolved in the tropics near the equator. We are a tropical species and can only survive in colder climates due to fire, clothing and shelter.

5. CO2 is the most important food for all life on earth. All green plants use CO2 to produce the sugars that provide energy for their growth and our growth. Without CO2 in the atmosphere carbon-based life could never have evolved.

6. The optimum CO2 level for most plants is about 1600 parts per million, four times higher than the level today. This is why greenhouse growers purposely inject the CO2-rich exhaust from their gas and wood-fired heaters into the greenhouse, resulting in a 40-80 per cent increase in growth.

7. If human emissions of CO2 do end up causing significant warming (which is not certain) it may be possible to grow food crops in northern Canada and Russia, vast areas that are now too cold for agriculture.

8. Whether increased CO2 levels cause significant warming or not, the increased CO2 levels themselves will result in considerable increases in the growth rate of plants, including our food crops and forests.

9. There has been no further global warming for nearly 18 years during which time about 25 per cent of all the CO2 ever emitted by humans has been added to the atmosphere. How long will it remain flat and will it next go up or back down? Now we are out of the realm of facts and back into the game of predictions.

Moore makes his remarks in the foreword to a new book by bestselling Australian geologist Dr Ian Plimer called Not For Greens. The book describes the various, complex industrial processes which go into the making of just a single teaspoon, starting with the mining of various metals.

If Greenpeace's membership remained true to their principles they would have to eat with their bare hands because, as Moore notes, they are opposed to mining in all its forms.

"If you ask them for the name of any mine that is operating in an environmentally acceptable standard you will draw a blank. They have become so cornered by their own extremism that they must deny their daily use of cell phones, computers, bicycles, rapid transit, and yes, the simple teaspoon."