By Michael Goldfarb, Heartland Institute

It’s been more than 20 years since James Hansen first warned America of impending doom. On a hot summer day in June 1988, Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, announced before a Senate committee that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now.”

The greenhouse effect would have looked obvious enough to anyone watching on television. The senators conducting the hearing, including Al Gore, had turned the committee room into an oven. That day it was a balmy 98 degrees, and as former Colorado Sen. Timothy Wirth later revealed, the committee members “went in the night before and opened all the windows. And so when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and [high ratings], but it was really hot.”

Holocaust Accusations

Hansen has been a star ever since. On the twentieth anniversary of his testimony to Congress, and still serving in the same role at NASA, Hansen was invited back for an encore performance where he warned that time was running out. He also conducted a media tour that included calling for the CEOs of fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, to be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity and nature.”

If you hear the echo of Nuremberg in those trials, it’s because Hansen doesn’t shy away from Holocaust metaphors to make his point. In 2007, Hansen testified before the Iowa Utilities Board not in his capacity as a government employee but “as a private citizen, a resident of Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, on behalf of the planet, of life on Earth, including all species.” Hansen told the board, “if we cannot stop the building of more coal-fired power plants, those coal trains will be death trains - no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species.”

More recently, but presumably still in his capacity as a private citizen and defender of the Earth, Hansen wrote an op-ed for the Guardian in which he described coal-fired power plants as “factories of death.” This on the heels of testifying in a British court on behalf of six Greenpeace activists on trial for causing $60,000 in criminal damage to a coal-fired power station in England.

The Greenpeace activists had offered climate change as a “lawful excuse” for their actions, and with Hansen’s helpful testimony they were acquitted of all charges. Less than six months later, Hansen - a federal employee - would call for “the largest display of civil disobedience against global warming in U.S. history” as part of a protest at the Capitol power plant in Washington.

Prolific Alarmism

Hansen, by his own count, has conducted more than 1,400 interviews in recent years. Yet Hansen also would insist, in a speech just days before the 2004 presidential election, that the Bush administration had “muzzled” him because of his global warming activism.

When asked about this contradiction in 2007, Hansen told Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), “for the sake of the taxpayers, they should be availed of my expertise. I shouldn’t be required to parrot some company line.”

But Hansen has never parroted the company line. As the head of NASA’s Weather and Climate Research Program from 1982 to 1994, John Theon was James Hansen’s supervisor. Theon says Hansen’s testimony in 1988 was “a huge embarrassment” to NASA, and he remains skeptical of Hansen’s predictions. “I don’t have much faith in the models,” Theon says, pointing to the “huge uncertainty in the role clouds play.”

Theon describes Hansen as a “nice, likeable fellow,” but worries, “he’s been overcome by his belief - almost religious - that he’s going to save the world.”
Indeed, Roy Spencer, who served as the senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Center, puts Hansen “at the extreme end of global warming alarmism.” Spencer doesn’t know of anyone “who thinks it’s a bigger problem than [Hansen] does.”

Skeptic Muzzled

Spencer, a meteorologist by training and a skeptic of man-made global warming, was genuinely muzzled during the Clinton administration. “I would get the message down through the NASA chain [of command] of what I could and couldn’t say in testimony,” he says. Spencer left NASA with little fuss for a job at the University of Alabama in 2001, but he still seems in awe of Hansen’s ability to do as he pleases. “For many years Hansen got away with going around NASA rules, and they looked the other way because it helped sell Mission to Planet Earth,” the NASA research program studying human effects on climate. Spencer figures that “at some point, someone in the Bush administration said ‘why don’t you start enforcing your rules?’”

Theon says the same kind of models that now predict runaway warming were predicting runaway cooling prior to 1975, when the popular fear was not melting ice caps but a new ice age, and “not one model predicted the cooling we’ve had since 1998.” Spencer insists “it’s all make believe - if you took one look at the assumptions that go into this, you’d laugh.” But none of that seems to matter too much. Read story here.

Temperatures globally were nearly 1F colder at the 20th anniversary of Hansen’s 1988 testimony.

Climate Depot - Transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight

LOU DOBBS: Well, the extent of the threat posed by climate change is the subject of our face-off debate tonight, and, as always, it is an emotional, a controversial issue, and the emotionalism that surround it is in and of itself fascinating - at least to me. Joining me now is Phelim McAleer. He is the director and the producer of the documentary ‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’ - who you just saw, by the way, questioning Al Gore. Good to have you with us. And Fred Krupp. He is the president of the Environmental Defense Fund. Good to have you with us.

FRED KRUPP, PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND: Good to be here.

DOBBS: I just - let’s deal with the first issue. Why is something like in climate change so emotional, such a - if you will - contentious issue. It seems there are straightforward facts that would be there for everyone to either agree upon or disagree, stay away from the ambiguous and deal with the salient and the crystal clear. Why don’t we do that?

KRUPP: Well, I think, just like a lot of things in Washington, Lou, climate change has become a bit of a partisan football. But now there is bipartisan pathway forward, and ‘The New York Times’ just on Sunday, both Lindsey Graham, the Conservative Republican senator from South Carolina, and John Kerry agreed on a market-based path forward, the same sort of cap and trade system that was used so successfully in the 1990s to combat acid rain. So hopefully we’re getting across that partisan divide right this week.

DOBBS: All right. First of all, you were working hard to get a straightforward answer from the former vice president. What drove your - your inquiry?

MCALEER: Well, as the organizers said, this was the first time in four years he agreed to take questions from reporters. That’s a disgrace. For someone who says the world is ending, the world is in crisis, that - that he wouldn’t put the facts out there and take difficult questions is bizarre. I must - I must believe that he doesn’t really believe the world is about to end.

So I went there to ask him. This documentary has been shown in schools across America and across the world to children who get scared about these scare tactics, and I wanted to say, you have a moral duty either to accept the judge’s rulings and issue corrections or reject the judge’s rulings. But you haven’t the moral - you have no right to not - refuse to answer those questions.

DOBBS: What do you think?

KRUPP: Well, Lou, first of all, the vice president takes questions from reporters routinely. He took questions on September 22nd, he took questions from reporters at the UN September 24th, he took questions at this event. So, actually, after Phelim had his say, it was in a desire to take more questions that - there are other journalists who were waiting in time (ph). So the idea that he hasn’t taken questions in three years is - is just wrong. He takes questions weekly.

DOBBS: All right. Let’s go to a couple of things. The BBC climate reporter this weekend I think probably shook up society there a bit this weekend, talking about the fact that over the course of the - of this new millennia, young though we are, nine years into it, he begins his lead, ‘You may be surprised to learn that the hottest year recorded is not 2008, not 2007, nor one of the previous - the last ten years, but rather you have to go back to 1998.’ And I have to say, I think most people would say - what? Because they’ve been led to believe that the climate is warming almost daily.

KRUPP: Well, Lou, actually if you look at the trend line, it’s undoubtedly - definitely rising up. There is year to year variability because of El Ninos. But when you plot the dots on the trend line, we’re going up. Since 2000, all eight years, 2001 to 2008, have been eight of the 14 warmest years on record, and 2009, when the data comes in, that this decade will be the warmest decade since we’ve been keeping records.

MCALEER: No. That’s - that’s just not true. And let’s be honest - the climate models, those quick climate models that say we’re all going to die by 2050, missed this cooling period. In fact, if it cools much longer, it will be cooling longer than it warmed. And the same environmentalists who are now saying it is warming, 20 and 30 years ago were saying we’re going to have an Ice Age. I’m old enough to be at school and I was told that we’re going into a new Ice Age. So - so for them to - for these people to say, for people like Fred to say that - that the facts aren’t there, it has cooled. It hasn’t warmed in 13 years, and it was warmer before. Britain was warmer. We used to grow wine in Yorkshire, in Britain, you know, (INAUDIBLE) grow wine. But if they did grow wine - you know, grapes were growing there, it has been warmer before and - and these are all part of the natural variability of climate.

And, you know - and who’s to say that 10 years ago the climate was perfect then? Why - why are we so obsessed with, you know, the climate is warming or cooling? You know, Helsinki is one of the coldest places on the planet. It’s very rich. Singapore is one of the wealthiest places on the planet. It’s very hot. Man will adapt. But it’s not - this is not - you should not close down the American economy and drive jobs out of America and stop using fossil fuels for fake science.

KRUPP: The good news - the good news, Phelim, is it’s not fake science. If you go to the National Academy of Sciences or look at the reports from NASA - anyone on -in our audience can go to the website - you can see that this decade has been the warmest on record.

But the good news is even if we don’t convince you of that, and I hear both arguments, maybe it’s not warming, and even if it is, so what? The good news is we have a common sense plan that’s tried and tested in the United States, a market-based plan that will keep America in the driver’s seat for the economy.

Lou, you know, China - China is…

DOBBS: Well, (INAUDIBLE) keep us in the driver’s seat. I just have to interrupt you there. This is the driver’s seat we’re in right now?

MCALEER: Lou, it’s a common sense plan by a millionaire head of an environmental organization, with big business to keep smaller competitors out. It’s about regulating and keeping big business in the position it’s in by these millionaire environmental organizations.

KRUPP: Not so. You know, we have a website…

MCALEER: You know, Fred - Fred earns $500,000 a year. Do the people of America want their future and their economy to be decided by a millionaire lawyer who calls himself an environmentalist working with big business, keeping competitors out and bringing in increased regulations?

KRUPP: There is a website called More Carbon - Less Carbon, More Jobs, where a series of small businesses have come out saying pass cap and trade and the cap puts a driver in place that allows…

DOBBS: So you’re supporting cap and trade?

KRUPP: Supporting cap and trade, Lou, because it - it gives the economic incentives to energy efficiency that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

DOBBS: You call that a private - you call that a market solution? That is - it is extraordinarily based on government intervention in the market place. How could you call that a market solution? I’m not discussing the merits of cap and trade, but, my God, if there’s - if that’s not government intervention what is?

KRUPP: Yes, the government creates a market. That’s true. And for these tragedies (INAUDIBLE)…

MCALEER: It’s what George W. - George H. W. Bush put in place, the best of the Republican intellectual capital. It creates incentives to get new jobs for Americans.

DOBBS: All right. Thank you very much. Phil, thank you. We’re just plain out of time. I hope y’all will come back soon. We need a lot more time, obviously. Thank you so much.

Read more here.

UPDATE: See Climate Depot Report: Losing Their Religion: 2009 officially declared year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears

By Michael Coren

It’s truly extraordinary how every left-of-centre journalist in the country has managed to become an instant expert on the arcane subjects of global warming and the science of climate change.

Imagine, for example, if some average Canadian hack who had never studied the Middle East suddenly announced that he was an authority on Israel-Palestine, knew which side was right and knew how to solve all of the associated problems. This, however, is what we are told every day when it comes to the fashion of sounding green. The more sympathy we can exhibit for Al Gore’s polar bear or David Suzuki’s whining, the more trendy and acceptable we become.

There are, however, an increasing number of peer-reviewed and intensely credible scientific minds who believe conventional thinking on global warming is nonsense. One such being Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and a world-renowned scholar.

He was in Canada recently and appeared on my television show. A man of compelling wit and eloquence, he has defeated so many environmental activists—he calls them “bedwetters”—that few of them will now debate him.

“Al Gore has refused several times. Here is a man who is paid $300,000 per speech and has his staff control all of the questions that are asked. People ask why he is so committed,” Monckton said. “Simple. He was a failed politician worth $2 million; he’s now a famous activist worth $200 million!”

According to Monckton there are more than 700 major scientists who steadfastly refute the notion that the climate is changing to any worrying degree, that global warming is a reality and that the planet is in danger. “It’s all about the need of the international left to rally round a new flag.”

Minimal

In a series of articles he appears to show that Earth’s sensitivity to increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide is minimal. “Take the example of the medieval warm period,” he says. “The bedwetters tell us that this was brief and irrelevant. Yet if we look at history we see it wasn’t brief and is certainly relevant. Climate does change but it’s minor and it has little if anything to do with man’s intervention.” A brief pause. “It’s about money and control. There is a lot of money to be made out of the so-called green economy and it allows people to tell us what to do—which is what some people relish doing.”

He continues: “Remember DDT, the pesticide used to kill mosquitoes that carried malaria. Jackie Kennedy read a book saying it was harmful, got her husband the president to bring pressure to have it banned and in 40 years 40 million people, mainly children, died. Now we’ve come to our senses and re-introduced it but only after the fashionable left did their damage.

“Global warming is similar. It makes no sense, is bad science and policies to deal with it will cause terrible problems. People are being indoctrinated and critics are intimidated into silence.” Is he annoyed at his opponents’ refusal to take him on? “Actually I’m rather delighted. It means I’m winning.” Frankly, he’s probably right.

9 minutes from his Apocalpse NO! talk to the Cambridge Union Society on the 8th of October 2007 (read more here):