Climategate: Senator Inhofe and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Defamed and Persecuted Climatologist Dr. Phil Jones of the East Anglia University Climatic Research Unit (CRU)

Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma is spearheading a vicious and mendacious campaign to intimidate and repress brilliant scientists who study global warming. The Senator, his political operatives, and other opponents of anthropogenic global warming---the tabloid U.K. Daily Mail, Fox News, Pravda, Libertarians, 9-11 "Truthers," and computer hackers (criminals)---are using a noxious slurry of dirty tricks, disinformation, manipulation of the media, and illegal activity to discredit and destroy climate scientists.

Senator Inhofe and other conspiracists in the denialist camp are depicting anthropogenic global warming as as a hoax perpetrated by scientists who are conspiring to steal our money and seize power.

Senator Inhofe sounds like a Nazi ranting about the Jewish conspiracy or like a communist ranting about the underhanded schemes of coniving capitalists and rich kulaks. It's probably no accident that Senator Inhofe is also singing the same tune about global warming as the Russian tabloid Pravda and the lunatics who peddle junk science for the 9-11 Truth Movement (see my previous post).

Senator Inhofe's propaganda against the climate scientists sounds like that infamous anti-Semitic fabrication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Only now, the poor scientists are the Jews. He makes me so ashamed to have been a Republican. Of course, not all Republicans in the Senate agree with Senator Inhofe.

Senator Inhofe wants the Department of Justice to investigate scientists and even charge them with crimes. I think that Senator Inhofe is the one who should be investigated for lying to the American people, not the scientists.

The conspiracist Inhofe is nothing but an ignorant, arrogant, evil, meretricious prostitute who dresses as a demagogue, peddles junk science, and destroys the reputations of honest scientists.

In England, the climatologist Phil Jones at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia has been victimized by criminals who hacked into the CRU computer and posted stolen e-mails on the Internet. Some bloggers even suspect that the criminals are associated with Senator Inhofe since he knew about the hacking so quickly.

According to news reports, the hacker was using a computer on the East Coast of N. America when he stole the CRU e-mails. First, the hacker tried to post the stolen e-mails on a blog called Real Climate, but when he didn't succeed, the hacker posted the documents on the server in the Russian city of Tomsk. This server is used by the Tomsk State University. According to news reports, the Tomcity server belongs to a Russian Internet security business called Tomcity.

I had originally assumed that the hackers were Russians, because Tomsk hackers have a reputation for hacking into sites that get under the Kremlin's skin. The viciousness and mendacity of the propaganda campaign on the blogs and in the media also reminded me of Russian propaganda campaigns.

Now it seems that the hackers might have been Canadians or American denialists who seem to have a common cause with the powerful energy interests that rule Russia these days. Russia's President Medvedev is the former Chariman of the Board of Russia's giant natural gas and oil company Gazprom, and many former KGB officials hold important posts in Gazprom, which is half-owned by the Russian government and half owned by stockholders. Gazprom owns a lot of the media in Russia, too.

Senator Inhofe gets some of his junk science about global warming from the Russian scientist Andrei Kapitsa and from the Russian economist Andrei Illarionov, who used to be associated with Gazprom.

Andrei Illarionov has an institute in Russia called the Institute for Economic Analysis. He also is associated with the Libertarian Cato Institute. I don't like the Libertarians because they talk a lot about free enterprise and liberty, but they never seem to notice that powerful businesses can also destroy liberty and opportunities for smaller companies if they take over the government. One of the most noxious Libertarians is the ignorant U.K. blogger-denialist James Delingpole, who slanders and attacks anyone who questions the denialists' junk science. James Delingpole reminds me a lot of the professional slanderers in the Soviet and Russian media.

In Russia, powerful "natural monopolies" like Gazprom, which are staffed by former KGB officers, rule Russia. That's not freedom. That's a police state.

In America, we broke up some of these monopolies many decades ago because they exercised a stranglehold on the economy and had too much power. I think that was a good thing.

The Libertarians talk about liberty and free enterprise, but I don't believe them. Libertarians criticize big government, but they never seem to worry what would happen to our liberties and to our free enterprise system if we had a weak government controlled by large unregulated monopolies. I think that's why the Russian government/Gazprom likes the Libertarians.

Yesterday, the University of East Anglia published its submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology. In this document, the British scholars explain in their own words what the global warming denialists mischaracterise and falsify.

Senator Inhofe should read what real scientists say before he makes an even bigger display of his junk science in the Senate.

I posted a bit of the University's submission to the Parliament below, but these links to read the submission and appendix.

Memorandum submitted by the University of East Anglia

1. Introduction
1.1 This memorandum is submitted by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Edward Acton, the University’s principal academic and administrative officer, with additional comment provided, where indicated, by the University’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

1.2 Freedom and Integrity of scientific research
The University of East Anglia (UEA) was founded in 1963. For over forty-five years it has sought to identify fruitful fields for research and study, notably in the sciences, and to provide a free environment in which new and challenging research can flourish. It is now recognised as a world leader in several branches of the geophysical sciences, and it is understandably proud of that reputation.

1.3 Like all British universities, it has a set of policies, regulations and codes of good conduct which UEA’s researchers are required to follow. At the heart of these is the requirement to maintain “honesty, openness, accountability and integrity.” Plagiarism, deception or the fabrication or falsification of results are regarded as serious disciplinary offences, and are a betrayal of the life of science.

1.4 When assessing the quality of scientific research work, UEA relies first and foremost on critical evaluation by the international network of specialists working in each field. This “peer review” is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research: the scrutiny, probing, questioning and evaluation of the work of each scientist by other experts in the field. It is through peer review that scientific reputations and esteem are established, that competition for research funding is determined, and that editors decide which work to publish and which to reject.

1.5 The Climatic Research Unit
Four decades ago, UEA identified climate as an important field of study but one in which the data and methods used were primitive. In 1972 the University founded the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) which has played a pioneering role in advancing human ability to understand the world’s changing climate. It is part of a department with an international reputation.

1.6 CRU’s contribution has included the compilation of a global land temperature record and the development of increasingly sophisticated methods by which to represent the average temperature of the globe and changes in that average over time. The evidence has steadily mounted of a marked increase in average global temperatures. This has given CRU’s work momentous political and social significance.

1.7 We are well aware that research addressing issues with such profound implications for the human species is liable to trigger fierce debate. Moreover, we believe that such debate is a crucial and necessary part of the role of science in society. Currently there are deep concerns lest scientific analysis has exaggerated the rise in global temperature. But equally, there are fears that the rise may be underplayed, or dismissed altogether, by powerful commercial or political interests. [Read the full submission and appendix.]