By John O’Sullivan, Suite101

The University of East Anglia’s inquiry into the Climategate scandal finds British scientists were “subjective” and tree ring data was unreliable.

After a three-week deliberation the Oxburgh Panel concluded that climate scientists at the university’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), at the centre of the climate data fraud controversy, had not committed intentional data fraud. However, the findings of the Information Commissioner’s Office had already affirmed that Freedom of Information (FOIA) laws had been broken by the unit.

The panel of five ‘independent’ investigators concluded that the CRU’s climate data results were “subjective” and that tree ring growth, used as a climate proxy for older Earth temperatures, was “influenced by many factors of which temperature is only one”.

Accusations of Conflict of Interest

The committee examined 11 published articles written by CRU authors and produced a short five-page report after interviewing employees of CRU. No other evidence was admitted. Britain’s Climatic Research Unit receives most of its money from both by the British government and prominent energy companies including British Petroleum, Shell and KFA Germany (Nuclear).

Lord Ron Oxburgh, in charge of the Climategate committee was accused of failing to disclose an alleged conflict of interest, according to the sender of the unlawfully denied Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests that precipitated the inquiry, Canadian statistician, Steve McIntyre.

As well as being chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and the wind energy company Falck Renewables, McIntyre revealed Oxburgh had at least one other conflict of interest; he is UK Vice Chair of Globe International. McIntyre describes Globe International as an “off-balance sheet “private company” funded predominantly by governments and NGOs. It brings legislators together - with a particular concern to the advancement of climate change legislation “(Climate Audit, Mar 24, 2010).

Prior to his appointment as committee chief, Oxburgh went on record stating, “What we don’t want to see is in two years’ time the government simply becoming bored with climate change after we’ve invested a lot of our shareholders’ money” (The Guardian, June 15, 2005).

The Divergence Problem Undermines Past Climate Records

In the UK’s Daily Telegraph (April 17, 2010) Christopher Booker noted, “If there was anything in the CRU’s record which a proper inquiry should have addressed...was the device used by the CRU to get round the fact that its tree-ring data hopelessly failed to show the result the warmist establishment wanted.”

Oxburgh is criticized for not thoroughly reviewing the disputed temperature reconstructions from tree ring data much maligned by climate sceptics for their so called ‘divergence problem.’

Indeed, respected independent climate analysts such as Steve McIntyre (see below) argues that the CRU tree ring samples have been systematically cherry-picked to make past temperatures appear artificially cooler than they were. McIntyre repeatedly condemns those results from Yamal as determined by Keith Briffa on his blog, Climate Audit.

The Oxburgh committee conceded that it was “regrettable” that common reliance had been placed upon such tree ring data. They further agreed with sceptics that there was a notable “discrepancy” from actual thermometer readings in modern comparisons with tree rings rendering them questionable as reliable proxies.

Conspicuously, despite the British government affirming the law had been broken, Oxburgh made no comment on the unlawful refusal of CRU climate scientists to comply with Freedom of Information (FIOA) requests from the Canadian statistician, Steve McIntyre.

‘Trick’ to ‘Hide the Decline’

The much criticized ‘trick’ to ‘hide the decline’ was admitted to in the leaked CRU email written by Professor Phil Jones. Jones referred to the ‘trick’ of American climate professor, Michael Mann of Penn. State University. This involved the splicing of the actual temperature record over the declining tree ring record that hid the unreliablity of such tree ring data to discern past temperatures.

Mann’s work was subsequently discredited in an independent peer-reviewed statistical audit by McIntyre and Professor Ross McKitrick (2003).

Because the ‘trick’ was concealed in publication of tree ring graphs by the discredited IPCC in its the Third and Fourth Reports, this alleged fraudulent deceit misled many observers.

Oxburgh criticized the CRU’s approach to the temperature record as being “subjective.” To affirm the sceptic argument that cherry-picking of data had occurred the committee summed it up as, “From our perspective it seems that the CRU sins were of omission rather than commission.”

Ultimately, climate scientists were found out as poor data handlers and statisticians, as Oxburgh concludes, “it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians.”

Climate Scientist Have Inadequate Statistical Skills

Thus it may be inferred that the committee affirms that the CRU has omitted to apply statistical due diligence because of their subjective approach and that the professional standards of these climate scientists require remedial revue.

The question that the committee left unanswered is; if tree rings were proven so inadequate in reflecting 20th-century temperatures, why should they be relied on to reflect temperatures in earlier centuries?

No Documents Retained By Oxburgh Inquiry

On July 4, 2010, climate analyst Steve McIntryre received a reply from Lord Oxburgh in response to McIntryre’s request for access to committee documents used in the review. Oxburgh replied that his investigation was conducted with, “a minimum of formality” so that “I am afraid that I am not able to be very helpful as none of the documents about which you inquire exists.”

References:

‘Report of the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia to examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit,’ Oxburgh et al. (April 12, 2010), University of East Anglia, UK (accessed online April 16, 2010)

‘Climategate: a scandal that won’t go away,’ Booker, Christopher, Daily Telegraph, London (published and accessed online: April 17, 2010)

Gray, Louise, ‘Climategate’ scientists criticised for not using best statistical tools,’ (April 14, 2010) Daily Telegraph, London, UK

‘The boat is sinking’ The Guardian, London (June 15, 2005); accessed online: April 16, 2010.

McIntyre, S. and McKitrick, R., (2003), “Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series” Energy and Environment Vol. 14, pp. 751–771.

McIntyre, S. ‘Oxburgh Refuses to Answer’ (June 4, 2010); Climate Audit website ( accessed: June 7, 2010).

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By Marlo Lewis

Last night’s State of the Union Address shows that President Obama learned only one lesson from the failure that was Copenhagen, the farce that was Cancun, the death of cap-and-trade, and the “slaughter” of House Democrats who voted for Waxman-Markey. Namely, dissemble, repackage Kyotoism in new verbiage, and press on with an agenda that voters rejected in November.

Anyone paying attention to Obama EPA’s campaign to ‘legislate’ climate policy through the regulatory backdoor would expect as much. But - true confession - I was surprised when Obama proposed to restructure the U.S. electric power sector along the lines contemplated by H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA), the infamous Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

In his SOTU speech, President Obama said:

Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. (Applause.)

Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all - and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen. (Applause.)

Upon hearing those words, I wondered: How does Obama’s 80% ‘clean energy’ target compare with the projected electric power sector fuel mix under Waxman-Markey?

......

When Obama was a presidential candidate, he acknowledged that under cap-and-trade, U.S. electric rates would “necessarily skyrocket.” He never said this again, but once the public understood that cap-and-trade would impose a stealth energy tax on the economy in the midst of a deep recession, they turned against it in droves.

Obama, however, never abandoned the big-government agenda of which cap-and-trade was an expression. The day after Election Day, he told the Washington press corps: “Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way.  It was a means, not an end.  And I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.”

Well, now we know what other means besides EPA ‘lawmaking’ he intends to employ. The good news is this ploy is not going to work. As soon as Tea Party activists recognize the clean energy mandate for the de-facto energy tax/Waxman-Markey knockoff that it is, it’s toast.

Imagine if President Obama had said last night: 

I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. This will restructure the electric power sector the same way Waxman-Markey would have if Congress had passed it. It will also cause your electric rates to necessarily skyrocket. As I’ve said before, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Such candor would not have won applause.

See more details here.

By Alan Caruba

The announced departure of Carol Browner as President Obama’s climate “czar” is very good news for America, given her long record of contempt for the truth regarding “global warming” and a range of other Environmental Protection Agency initiatives when she served as former President Clinton’s director of the EPA.

The decision to leave could have been motivated to put some distance between herself and the White House to afford the President some political cover.

Whatever reason will be put forth for her leaving, the real reason is her justified concern that she will be summoned before a congressional committee to explain why, for example, she deliberately misled Americans during the BP oil spill, going on national television to say that most of the oil was gone. She cited a White House commission created to investigate the spill, implying that the scientist’s report had confirmed the need for a moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf when, in fact, they had not supported it.

Browner has been a dedicated socialist, serving as a Commissioner of the Socialist International, an umbrella group for 170 “social democratic, socialist, and labor parties” in 55 nations. According to its “organizing document”, the SI cites capitalism as the cause of “devastating crisis”, “mass unemployment”, “imperialist expansion” and “colonial exploitation” worldwide. This is straight out of the Communist Manifesto.

When her role with SI was revealed, its website scrubbed her photo and evidence of her commission membership. No doubt several of Obama’s “czars” have shared similar views of capitalism. One, Van Jones, was forced to resign as the “Green Jobs Czar” when it was revealed he was a communist.

Obama’s election was, in effect, a socialist takeover of the executive branch of the U.S. government.

Browner’s dedication to the Big Lie of “global warming” goes back to her days when she served as then-Senator Al Gore’s legislative director from 1988 to 1988. Browner’s devotion to environmentalism resulted in her being named Florida’s Secretary of Environmental Regulation from 1991 to 1993. After the 1992 presidential election, she served as a transition director for Vice President-elect Gore.

Global warming is the assertion that the Earth is rapidly warming as the result of the buildup of “greenhouse gases”, most particularly carbon dioxide.

The “theory” is now totally discredited, but continues as justification for a variety of policies such as the administration’s emphasis on wind and solar energy, attacks on the coal and oil industries, and efforts that would drive up the cost of electricity to business, industry, and all consumers.

Browner is on record saying that global warming is “the greatest challenge ever faced” despite revelations in 2009 that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had rigged the computer model’s global temperature records to advance the fraud.

Global warming is the basis for the Cap-and-Trade legislation that was stalled in the Senate during the first half of Obama’s term. Since then, the EPA under Lisa Jackson, a Browner acolyte, has asserted that it intends to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The EPA has no such authority under the Clean Air Act. Such regulations would have a devastating affect on the nation’s economy.

In December 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton named Browner as his choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency and she was confirmed by the Senate on January 21, 1993. She would become the longest-serving EPA director.

Despite a J.D. degree from the University of Florida College of Law in 1979, Browner has frequently shown a contempt for the law. In 1995, she used her position at the EPA to lobby more than a hundred grassroots environmental groups to oppose the Republican-led Congress’s regulatory initiatives to curb the EPA. In doing so, she violated the Anti-Lobbying Act. The Browner-led EPA was strongly rebuked by a bipartisan subcommittee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

On her last day as EPA Director, Browner ordered a computer technician to delete all her computer files despite a federal judge’s order requiring the agency to preserve those files. It was later learned that three other high-ranking EPA officials had also violated the judge’s order. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held the EPA in contempt of Congress in 2001.

During secret negotiations with auto industry executives on behalf of the Obama administration, Browner directed them “to put nothing in writing” as she orchestrated an agreement to increase federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Federal law requires officials to preserve documents concerning significant policy decisions.

In these and countless other unknown ways, Carol Browner has used the reins of power as EPA Director and later as President Obama’s climate advisor to assert EPA and government control over every aspect of the lives of Americans, limiting their choices, and in the process harming the nation’s economy.

Until the nation is released from the grip of such environmental/socialist zealots, its future remains in jeopardy.

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