OT - ClimateGate Is Watergate Redux
Tom Sherman °_°
by Richard Graves
Some environmental leaders have been working to minimize the scandal of
ClimateGate, by focusing on the fact the hacked email archive of East
Anglia's Climate Research Unit has nothing, besides a few cherry picked
quotes taken out of context, that casts a shadow of a doubt upon
validity of modern climate science. They are wrong. ClimateGate is a
huge scandal, probably bigger than they even imagine.
The real scandal is not the email archive, or even how it was acquired,
sorted, and uploaded to a Russian server, but rather the emerging
evidence of a coordinated international campaign to target and harass
climate scientists, break and enter into government climate labs, and
misrepresent climate science through a sophisticated media
infrastructure on the eve of the international climate talks.
One leaked archive could have been the result of an aggrieved staff
member or rogue hacker, out to grind a political axe or wreak revenge
upon a colleague. However, the University of Victoria was targeted in a
similar attack, when two people disguised as network computer
technicians attempted to penetrate the security of the facility and
access the data servers of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and
Analysis. When challenged by an employee, the two individuals fled the
scene. The network penetration effort was confirmed by University
spokespeople in the National Post and was reported by Kevin Grandia of
DeSmogBlog.
"This is disturbing news and it shows that there is an organized
criminal campaign that is going to great lengths to infiltrate secure
facilities and steal private data," said Jim Hoggan, author of the new
book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. "We don't
know who is behind these criminal acts, but we hope they will eventually
be unmasked by police."
This campaign has been proved to be international in scope, with
criminal acts of breaking and entering probable in both the UK and
Canada, as well as coordinated with the sophisticated communications
infrastructure founded and built by former tobacco lobbyists that were
hired by fossil fuel interests, such as ExxonMobil, to cast doubt on the
links between the sale and use of fossil fuels and the changing of the
world's climate. This infrastructure was detailed by within Hoggan's
book, as well as documented in extensive detail by projects like
Exxonsecrets.org.
One major mistake these groups, including ClimateDepot and Newsbusters,
made was in labeling this manufactured crisis as ClimateGate. Perhaps a
little history is in order, as almost no news reports even referenced
the fact that the Watergate scandal centered around the breaking and
entering of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the
Watergate hotel, by a group of right-wing shadow operatives that a
subsequent investigation by the FBI connected to the 1972 Committee to
Re-elect the President, CREEP.
President Nixon was exposed as having commissioned the break-in, to
uncover the state of the Democratic party, as he had given into fears of
electoral defeat and resorted to desperate and criminal measures.
Pioneering reporters Woodward and Bernstein made history for exposing
the criminal conspiracy at the heart of the White House.
Conspiracy theory has recently become mainstream within the conservative
movement in the United States, with both media figures and politicians
implying that President Obama falsified his birth records, is setting up
death panels to euthanize seniors, or impose communism upon the people
of the United States.
The two policy issues that have aroused the most conspiracy theory have
been Healthcare reform and Clean Energy Reform, with hugely profitable
insurance and fossil fuel companies funding massive lobbying and
disinformation campaigns. The Center for Public Integrity recently
detailed the massive expansion in lobbying by polluting energy
interests, leading to over 1,150 lobbying groups buying influence as the
U.S. Congress sought to pass the Waxman-Markey climate bill.
The actual dollar amount spent is unknown, as disclosure laws require
few details and have huge loopholes, but the Center calculated that an
extremely conservative estimate would give you a minimum figure of more
than $27 million dollars spent in direct lobbying from April to June of
this year. In a major and still unfolding scandal, Bonner and
Associates, an astroturf lobbying organization contracted to the coal
industry's trade association, falsified letters to lawmakers from local
civil rights, veterans, and other groups opposing federal climate
legislation. This comes on top of the documented campaign of industrial
espionage against environmental organizations, including Friends of the
Earth and Greenpeace, that was exposed last year by Mother Jones magazine.
The picture painted by these facts lead to the open question to if, as
huge amounts of corporate money started being spent in unregulated
funds, including to ethically compromised contractors and security
firms, to defeat federal and international climate regulations, some of
that money was diverted to fund a criminal conspiracy?
Could there be a criminal campaign to break into the climate research
centers of foreign governments, review their archives for damaging
snippets of text, and then elevate a fringe conspiracy theory that
climate change is a hoax by the world's scientists, civil society
organizations, and governments to impose socialism upon the people of
the world? If so, this story would be an eerie and ironic echo of
Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" that was embraced by many of the same
groups currently promoting the ClimateGate talking points.
However, most journalists seem content to play into the false balance
trap that has served the opponents of climate action so well over the
years, by looking only at cherry-picked quotes and disinformation turned
out by the climate denial industry. While the surface parallels between
Watergate and ClimateGate may be strong, to uncover the truth will
require a serious investigation by media, law enforcement, or even
international security organizations.
An investigation into who is coordinating, funding, and leading a
last-ditch effort to stall climate legislation through the use of
criminal tactics and a well-funded and coordinated disinformation
campaign seems to be beyond the capacity of the field of journalism. An
industry so critically wounded by budget and staffing cuts that it is
perhaps unable or unwilling to spend the resources or staff time to
tackle serious investigative issues, even if the direction of a policy
critical to the future development of the global economy depends on the
outcome.
If so, the question remains, who will get to the bottom of ClimateGate?
This could be a scandal bigger than anybody has imagined.
Richard Graves is the Director of Fired Up Media, an Associate Producer
for LinkTV: EarthFocus, and a contributing editor for It's Getting Hot
in Here.
Andre Jute
manner of their exposure, even if your source is right (very
unlikely!), excuse the crimes of the climate "science" scum who
confessed in the Climategate e-mails that they invented global warming
out of cooked data for political reasons? Surely the point here is
that the criminals confessed and that no one can any longer believe in
global warming, regardless of the channel by which their confession
came to us. You should also note that the Climategate scum's
confession of statistical dishonesty and lying is merely confirmation
of what some of us have been saying since 1996, thirteen years ago,
and what McIntyre proved before 2003, and Wegman and North confirmed
under oath before the US Senate in 2005. It's not exactly news that
that this paleoclimatological scum lied; even some of the insiders,
like Briffa, thought they went too far, were too obvious in their
lies.
Andre Jute
Billions want to know...
On Dec 20, 9:38 am, Tom Sherman °_°
Tom Sherman °_°
> I just lurf your conspiracy, Liddell Tommi. But do tell, how does the
> manner of their exposure, even if your source is right (very
> unlikely!), excuse the crimes of the climate "science" scum who
> confessed in the Climategate e-mails that they invented global warming
> out of cooked data for political reasons? Surely the point here is
> that the criminals confessed and that no one can any longer believe in
> global warming, regardless of the channel by which their confession
> came to us. You should also note that the Climategate scum's
> confession of statistical dishonesty and lying is merely confirmation
> of what some of us have been saying since 1996, thirteen years ago,
> and what McIntyre proved before 2003, and Wegman and North confirmed
> under oath before the US Senate in 2005. It's not exactly news that
> that this paleoclimatological scum lied; even some of the insiders,
> like Briffa, thought they went too far, were too obvious in their
> lies.
>
What I want to know is why Jute wants hundred of billions to die
prematurely from the effects of global warming? Cleansing the planet of
worthless eaters, perhaps?
--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.
Tom Sherman °_°
> On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:52:15 -0600, Tom Sherman �_�
> <twsherm...@THISsouthslope.net> wrote:
>
>> What I want to know is why Jute wants hundred of billions to die
>> prematurely from the effects of global warming? Cleansing the planet of
>> worthless eaters, perhaps?
>
> including wildlife :-)
>
Think of the plankton that will die from excessive carbonation of the
oceans. Then all the other aquatic life further up the food chain,
including the ca. 2 billion people that depend on seafood.
> If you meant hundreds of millions... well Jute wants to make sure that
> they don't get killed by malaria from a lack of DDT.