Month: April 2017

Former Obama Official: Bureaucrats Manipulate Climate Stats To Influence Policy

Former Obama Official: Bureaucrats Manipulate Climate Stats To Influence Policy

via Watts Up With That?
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by Chris White

A former member of the Obama administration claims Washington D.C. often uses “misleading” news releases about climate data to influence public opinion.

Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama’s administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion.

“What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I’d say, misleading, sometimes just wrong,” Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data.

He pointed to a National Climate Assessment in 2014 showing hurricane activity has increased from 1980 as an illustration of how federal agencies fudged climate data. Koonin said the NCA’s assessment was technically incorrect.

“What they forgot to tell you, and you don’t know until you read all the way into the fine print is that it actually decreased in the decades before that,” he said. The U.N. published reports in 2014 essentially mirroring Koonin’s argument.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported

…”there is limited evidence of changes in extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th century” and current data shows “no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century.”

Press officers work with scientists within agencies like the National Oceanic Administration (NOAA) and NASA and are responsible for crafting misleading press releases on climate, he added.

Koonin is not the only one claiming wrongdoing. House lawmakers with the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, for instance, recently jumpstarted an investigation into NOAA after a whistleblower said agency scientists rushed a landmark global warming study to influence policymakers.

Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, the committee’s chairman, will “move forward as soon as possible” in asking NOAA to hand over documents included in a 2015 subpoena on potential climate data tampering.

Koonin, who served under Obama from 2009 to 2011, went on to lament the politicization of science suggested that the ethos should be to “tell it like it is. You’re a scientist and it is your responsibility to put the facts on the table.”

NASA and NOAA’s actions, he said, are problematic, because “public opinion is formed by the data that is formed from those organizations and appears in newspapers.”

Neither agency responded to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

April 25, 2017 at 12:48AM

Anti-Shale Europe: Companies Ready To Fund $5.1 Billion For Russia Gas Pipeline

Anti-Shale Europe: Companies Ready To Fund $5.1 Billion For Russia Gas Pipeline

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

European energy firms pledged Monday to finance half the cost of a natural-gas link from Russia to Germany, lending support to a pipeline plan that is fueling tensions within the European Union.

A consortium of five companies said they would provide up to €4.75 billion ($5.1 billion) in long-term financing to Nord Stream 2 AG, a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned PAO Gazprom.

The move highlights Europe’s complicated relationship with Russia, and comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected Exxon Mobil Corp.’s request for a waiver of sanctions so it could resume an oil venture with a Russian partner.

While European firms seek to protect access to Russia’s market and resources, most EU countries oppose the Kremlin’s intervention in Ukraine and fear its push to project more power across the world. That dichotomy has pitted EU nations against each other, with some calling Nord Stream 2 a Trojan horse put forth by Russia to exploit European disagreements while others, led by Germany, are championing the project as a key energy initiative.

About a dozen EU countries claim that allowing Gazprom to double the existing Nord Stream pipeline’s capacity would increase Europe’s reliance on Russian gas while enabling Moscow to cut back on eastern routes through Ukraine and Belarus. That would threaten the bloc’s energy security, while also undermining a key diplomatic objective for Brussels: supporting Kiev amid its conflict with Moscow.

“There will need to be a very tough discussion,” an EU official said Monday. “Nord Stream is clearly a divisive project; we’ll need to do some kind of damage control.”

EU sanctions against Russia are not an obstacle to the funding agreement between Gazprom and its European partners, said Nord Stream 2’s representative to Brussels, Sebastian Sass.

Each European firm will provide up to €950 million in long- and short-term loans, according to the deal. The Russian gas giant will tap more than €1.4 billion of the cash this year, and access the rest as it decides on how to finance the pipeline, the lenders said.

“The financial commitment by the European companies underscores the Nord Stream 2 project’s strategic importance for the European gas market,” Gazprom, its European partners and the pipeline company said in a joint statement.

Monday’s agreement follows the EU’s admission last month that Brussels cannot legally block the proposed pipeline, which would be ready by the end of 2019. Nord Stream 2 would add another 55 billion cubic meters to annual gas flows to Germany, about 14% of the EU’s yearly consumption.

Full story

 

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

April 25, 2017 at 12:33AM

“Curse of the Gas Giant” – a Novel Analysis

“Curse of the Gas Giant” – a Novel Analysis

via Current News – Principia Scientific International
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Is atmospheric phenomena on Jupiter better explained under a new concept of electromagnetic resistance generating heat? Retired science writer and analyst provides a novel and compelling re-examination.
On April 19, 2017 the Science channel ran a program titled “Curse of the Gas Giant” It stated:
“The NASA satellite probe recorded a temperature of 1,300 degrees F. above the clouds in the area…

Click title above to read the full article

via Current News – Principia Scientific International http://ift.tt/1kjWLPW

April 25, 2017 at 12:32AM

Academics Play the Global Warming Card

Academics Play the Global Warming Card

via Climate Change Dispatch
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Philip Kitcher of Columbia and Evelyn Fox Keller of MIT are professors specializing in the philosophy and history of science. They’ve written a book filled with basic scientific errors regarding climate change, showing they have a poor understanding of the main topic.

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

April 25, 2017 at 12:18AM