The Financial Post has announced the winners of its annual Rubber Duck Awards for junk science.

It reports:

FP Comment’s 12th annual Junk Science Week comes to a triumphant close with today’s 2nd annual Rubber Duck Awards to recognize the scientists, NGOs, activists, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks and quacks who each year advance the principles of junk science. Junk Science occurs when scientific facts are distorted, when risk is exaggerated or discounted, when science is adapted and warped by politics and ideology to serve another agenda.

Among the winners we are delighted to see this one:

The Rubber Duck award in the climate category goes to Lord Oxburgh, who gave “peer review” a whole new meaning in rushing out the first whitewash of the Climategate scandal. He headed an inquiry into the scientific integrity of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, from which the emails emerged, and concluded in record time that there was nothing to see here. Move along please.

Lord Oxburgh’s skimpy survey — which was carried out by a group distinctly free of skeptics — found in the CRU little more than a “small group of dedicated if slightly disorganized researchers.” His Lordship found the CRU’s “loss” of data infinitely excusable, as also was its lack of statistical sophistication, even though its field was “fundamentally statistical.”

We were a little surprised, and felt a little foolish, when we heard about this one , because we’d been taken in by the claim:

There’s a great deal of chatter in the press and online about the tremendous US$1-trillion-dollar mineral “discovery” in Afghanistan headlined by The New York Times recently.  Few … seem to be questioning the value of the so-called discovery…  The US$1-trillion-dollar figure, at best, cannot be anything more than the wildest of hopeful guesses. …

When geologists find outcropping mineralization, or other signs that an economic deposit of minerals may be present, that is not called a discovery. Even if the signs come from the latest scientific equipment flown over the country, as the U.S. government appears to have used, the result is still just an anomaly: a hopeful indication of where to look. …

Once an anomaly is identified, it takes extensive and very expensive field work to determine the best locations for drilling holes in the ground, which you have to do to calculate a volume of mineralized rock, from which you can estimate the metal contained. …

But even after you drill off a deposit, and know how big it is, how deep it is, and roughly what’s in it, you still don’t know what it’s worth. For that, you have to conduct extensive testing on the mineralized material, not just to quantify the metals or other desirable minerals within but also to see if there are contaminants, or other elements present that can complicate, or even make impossible the economic recovery of the valuable mineral. …

Now, back to Afghanistan. A “small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists” cannot possibly have drilled off these deposits, let alone done the engineering required to value them. At very best, they’ve spotted some outcrops and taken some samples. This is not a discovery — no serious exploration geologist would call anything a discovery until enough holes have been drilled into it to outline a significant volume of potentially economic material. …

Where do they get the trillion-dollar figure? … They cannot have done the work necessary to generate any reasonable estimate. It’s worth pointing out that the vast majority of mineral outcroppings and other anomalies never lead to economic discoveries, much less mines. Even a very rich vein sticking right out on surface can turn out to be the last dregs of a system that has been eroded away, leaving nothing but a tease behind. For gold, the odds of an anomaly leading to an economic discovery are often cited as being on the order of 300 to one, against. …

Note that this doesn’t mean the minerals are not there — Afghanistan has, for obvious reasons, not seen any modern exploration, or even antiquated exploration, for decades. It is, in all likelihood, a terrific place to look for minerals. But … it will take time for any real discoveries to be made …

And the great global warming hoax was recognized again:

Every country on Earth is still officially committed to catastrophic man-made warming as a reality that demands a draconian policy response. The erection of such a massive commitment on such shaky foundations begs for explanation, and must be put in both a larger political and psychological context.

Hubristic overestimation of human significance … may be the fundamental reason for broad acceptance of man-made climate change theory. The notion that man’s sinful and selfish ways will be punished goes back to the myth of the Flood. In many ways this belief in climate apocalypse reflects similar moralistic disapproval of “materialist” Western society …

This quasi-religious belief is particularly appealing to the political and bureaucratic classes, because it provides new justifications for intervention to correct the imperfections and ongoing inequities of perpetually demonized capitalism. In a classic example of psychological “projection,” however, alarmists claim that it is their opponents who are tainted by “greed” and “self-interest.” …

For most modern liberals, including many scientists, the market sun still goes round the government Earth, and it’s a paradigm they are reluctant to change. Policy skeptics, by contrast, who are still trying to establish the revolutionary and counterintuitive insights of Adam Smith, point out that carbon rationing, green industrial strategy and aid transfers under the aegis of “clean development” are — whatever the science — economic junk.

Now that the global warming scam has been blown wide open, those responsible for perpetrating it should meet with condign punishment. Michael Mann of the hockey-stick-graph fraud; Al Gore, profiteer from the sale of carbon indulgences; Phil Jones who conned donors into giving him more than $20 million in grants to pursue his alchemy:  on the necks of these and all the others who would have impoverished us and subjected us to collective misery on the ludicrous pretext that the earth is burning up, may the sword of justice fall!

It’s a wish that just may come true.

James Delingpole writes in the Telegraph:

Dr Phil Jones – the (suspended) head of the Prince of Wales’s favourite AGW-promotion institution the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia – had a narrow squeak the other day. Though the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found his department in breach of Freedom of Information laws (Jones and his team had deliberately withheld or conspired to destroy data), Jones was able to escape prosecution on a technicality.

Next time, he may not be so lucky. Our friend John O’Sullivan at Climategate.com has been looking closely at the Climategate emails and reckons there is still a very strong case for a criminal prosecution, which could see Dr Jones facing ten years on fraud charges.

John O’Sullivan argues (at length, in an article well worth reading in full):

Yesterday the London Times broke the latest news on the fate of disgraced British climatologist Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia (UEA). Jones breached the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming. The Times reports that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided that the UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late. …

What is not being intelligently reported is that Jones is still liable as lead conspirator in the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and may face prosecution under the United Kingdom Fraud Act (2006). If convicted of the offense of fraud by either false representation, failing to disclose information or fraud by abuse of his position, he stands liable to a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment.

And in this article Delingpole reports how happy that would make him and one professor of Biogeography:

A mighty outpouring of rage today from [Professor] Philip Stott, foaming with righteous indignation, on the life and imminent death of the AGW scam.

Part of him is naturally enthralled:

“… as an independent academic, it has been fascinating to witness the classical collapse of a Grand Narrative, in which social and philosophical theories are being played out before our gaze. It is like watching the Berlin Wall being torn down, concrete slab by concrete slab, brick by brick, with cracks appearing and widening daily on every face – political, economic, and scientific.” …

But his overwhelming mood is one of white-hot fury at the way so many of his fellow scientists have colluded in this nauseating conspiracy:

“And what can one say about ‘the science’? ‘The ‘science’ is already paying dearly for its abuse of freedom of information, for unacceptable cronyism, for unwonted arrogance, and for the disgraceful misuse of data at every level, from temperature measurements to glaciers to the Amazon rain forest. What is worse, the usurping of the scientific method, and of justified scientific scepticism, by political policies and political propaganda could well damage science … in the public eye for decades… ”

I’m in no mood for being magnanimous in victory. I want the lying, cheating, fraudulent scientists prosecuted and fined or imprisoned. I want warmist politicians like [Prime Minister] Brown and disgusting [Foreign Secretary] Miliband booted out and I want Conservative fellow-travellers who are still pushing this green con trick … to be punished at the polls for their culpable idiocy.

Yes.

Yet another revelation about the bad science behind the IPCC report on global warming. They’re coming thick and fast now.

From Canada Free Press, by Barry Napier:

IPCC [the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Again Shown to Be Liars!

This is the fourth exposé of IPCC lies and deception to emerge in the past two weeks. This time the lies are documented in a scientific paper, issued 27th January, 2010 (‘Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?’ by Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts, in the SPPI Original Paper series. Copies from the Science and Public Policy Institute).

The incriminating paper shows how the IPCC eliminated GHCN [Global Historical Climatology Network] weather recording stations, starting in 1990. In the 1970s there were more than 6000 GHCN stations that helped to give average temperatures. In 1990 the IPCC dropped all but 1500 of these stations. Therefore, the same method of calculation was used even though the number of stations providing measurements fell to less than one quarter of all stations. This is one reason why the Russians warned the figures were fake. …

It is a simple fact that if the number of measurements went down by three quarters, then the size of anomalies must grow with it. That is, the areas covered by the remaining stations must be huge, with many variables in between.

But that is only the start. The IPCC then based their fake figures on stations that were mainly sited in the USA, and in places affected badly by urban heating! If that isn’t fakery, then what is?

There is plenty of evidence that urban heating is a very real problem when calculating actual temperatures. It is impossible to provide actual temperatures for urban heating areas, because one would have to also provide a very wide adjustment value, which would make measurements useless. But, the IPCC was desperate to convince us that big global warming was a reality. So, they literally cooked the books.

You will have to read the paper for yourselves, because it is 111 pages long – but it is an eye-opener. On its fourth page, there is the claim that instrument data has been “widely, systematically… tampered with (so that) it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant ‘global warming’ in the 20th century”. …

As for the oceans: “data are missing and uncertainties are substantial. Comprehensive coverage has only been available since 2003, and shows no warming.” From 2003 to now is a ‘nothing’ time scale in which to claim warming of the seas! I think you will find that any reports that claim such warming are either written as second-source articles by gullible scientists who accept prejudiced first-reports, or by greeny activists, not by genuine oceanologists.

Though the IPCC claims the CRU was only one of many sources on which it based its 2007 report, this is shown to be a lie: “NOAA [National Oceanic and Athmospheric Administration – the US national weather service] and NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration], along with CRU [ Climatic Research Unit in Britian],  were the driving forces behind the systematic hyping of 20th century ‘global warming’. “ The CRU, then, was a major source, not just one of many. And we now know the CRU was involved in fraud and lies.

“Changes have been made to alter the historic record to mask cyclical changes that could be readily explained by natural factors like multidecadal ocean and solar changes.” Lies and more lies based on a deliberate alteration of data! As we keep saying – what we see today is consistent with natural cyclical patterns, with a few extremes thrown in… but all are natural. CO2 has nothing to do with it!

“Global terrestrial data bases are seriously flawed and can no longer be trusted to assess climate trends or validate model forecasts.” The paper calls for an independent assessment undertaken by scientists who have “no vested interest in the outcome of evaluations.” The last of 15 summaries is that the IPCC and the US GCRP/CCSP [Global Change Research Program/Climate Change Science Program] require a “full investigation and audit” of their data.

So, we challenge all greenies and supporters of global warming to justify their stance! The data are corrupt; the IPCC has lied; governments are ruining their countries and paying out vast sums to Third World countries over a deception!

I repeat my legitimate question – how many more Climategates will it take to shut down global warming, climate change and CO2 frauds? How much longer will pro-greens continue to support climate change theories? And when will you at last oppose governments who want to strip you of every cent in your pocket, because of these climate frauds? Obama and Gordon Brown are driving hard to bring about huge changes to the USA because of fake climate change ideas. This has nothing to do with your well-being – it is to do with their Marxist ideals and your demise as free people.

Footnote February 1, 2010: It turns out that the scare over the Amazon rainforest was based on a false report too. Read about it here.

Global warmists accuse scientists who disagree with them of being in the pay of ‘Big Oil’. The implication is that those who say climate change is not caused by carbon emissions resulting chiefly from human activity are untrustworthy because they are bought.

In fact the warmists themselves have been funded by oil companies.

Here is a list of the  funders of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), whose scientists’ emails, exposing the deceptions they have been practicing, were recently made public by a hacker or whistle-blower (most probably the latter):

British Council, British Petroleum, Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, Central Electricity Generating Board, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Commercial Union, Commission of European Communities [the EU], Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), Department of Energy, Department of the Environment (DETR, now DEFRA), Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Eastern Electricity, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Greenpeace International, International Institute of Environmental Development (IIED), Irish Electricity Supply Board, KFA Germany, Leverhulme Trust, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), National Power, National Rivers Authority, Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), Norwich Union, Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Overseas Development Administration (ODA), Reinsurance Underwriters and Syndicates, Royal Society, Scientific Consultants, Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), Scottish and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research, Shell, Stockholm Environment Agency, Sultanate of Oman, Tate and Lyle, UK Met. Office, UK Nirex Ltd., United Nations Environment Plan (UNEP), United States Department of Energy, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Wolfson Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

The list is worth examining. Much could be said about the donors. But for the present we only want to point out that British Petroleum and Shell contributed to the millions that have financed dishonest research.

The one thing that was great about the 20th century was Science (and its daughter technology). The human race could be justifiably proud of it. It was the highest triumph of reason. Everything else that the age produced might arguably be decadent and worthless – its art, music, literature, architecture, morality – but real Science (not the ‘social sciences’) was indisputably the genius of the age, and scientists were authentic heroes. Thanks to them, men walked on the moon, countless diseases became curable, the cosmos was explored, nuclear energy helped to sustain our civilization … and more, much more. (If the gifts of Science were put to bad uses, that was the fault of the users not the scientists.)

The CRU fraudsters and their co-conspirators have brought Science itself into disrepute, and that is what they should be most ashamed of. But they are fanatics. To judge by their reactions thus far to the ‘Climategate’ scandal, they will probably maintain that they have been misunderstood rather than that they have disgraced themselves and their discipline.

All religions have a foundation myth.

The foundation myth of the religion of Environmentalism is man-made global warming.

Its Old Testament consists of the books of Karl Marx and the lesser prophets who came after him: eg Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, Mao, Marcuse … Its New Testament consists of the Gospel according to Michael Mann and Al Gore, and the E-pistles  of the Climatic Research Unit Apostles.

This is part of an article on the (priestly and inquisitorial) powers of the Environmental Protection Agency, by Jonah Goldberg:

Tim Wirth, a former Senator and now chairman of the United Nations Foundation, once said: “We’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” New York Times columnist and prominent warm-monger Thomas Friedman has repeatedly said (most recently this week) that he doesn’t care if global warming is a “hoax” because even if it is, the fear of it will force us to do what we need to do.

And it just so happens that … global warming fuels nearly every progressive ambition. Wealth transfers from rich to poor nations: Check. The rise of “global governance” and the decline of American sovereignty: Check. A secular fatwa not only to erode capitalism but to intrude on every aspect of our lives (Greenpeace offers a guide to carbon-neutral sex): Check. Weaning us off of oil (which, don’t let the Goregonauts fool you, was a priority back when we were still worried about global cooling): Check. The checks go on for as far as the eye can see, and we will be writing them for years to come.

Obama is prepared to damage the economy even more than he has already. He threatens through his officials that if he doesn’t get his way with cap-and-trade, he will take steps that will ‘deter investment’. But then if he does get his way with cap-and-trade, the economy will be grossly harmed anyway. Whose economy is it that he’s threatening? Is it not the economy of the country he leads? So why would he want to wreck it?  The answer is not hard to find. Look to Copenhagen, where the rampaging Left is using false science to try and impose ‘world governance’.  This was to be the moment when international socialism triumphed. It’s been spoilt by exposure of the scientists’ deceptions. The global warmists/global government conspirers are fighting mad. They’ll wreck anything, everything, to achieve their hellish aim.

From Fox News:

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jackson, however, tried to strike a tone of cooperation in her address Wednesday, explaining that the EPA’s new powers to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending in Congress, not replace it.”This is not an ‘either-or’ moment. It’s a ‘both-and’ moment,” she said. But while administration officials have long said they prefer Congress take action on climate change, the economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own.

And it won’t be pretty.

“If you don’t pass this legislation, then … the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area,” the official said. “And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it’s going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.”

Climate change legislation that passed the House is stuck in the Senate, but the EPA finding Monday was seen as a boost to the U.S. delegation in Denmark trying to convince other countries that Washington is capable of taking action to follow through with any global commitments.

The economic official explained that congressional action could be better for the economy, since it would provide “compensation” for higher energy prices, especially for small businesses dealing with those higher energy costs. Otherwise, the official warned that the kind of “uncertainty” generated by unilateral EPA action would be a huge “deterrent to investment,” in an economy already desperate for jobs.

“So, passing the right kind of legislation with the right kind of compensations seems to us to be the best way to reduce uncertainty and actually to encourage investment,” the official said.

Republicans fear that the EPA will ultimately end up stepping in to regulate emissions — though many oppose the congressional legislation as well. They had urged Jackson to withdraw the finding in light of leaked e-mails from a British research center that appeared to show scientists discussing the manipulation of climate data.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., ranking Republican on the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, said Tuesday he is going to attend the Copenhagen conference to inform world leaders that despite any promises made by President Obama, no new laws will be passed in the United States until the “scientific fascism” ends.

Go, James, go!