The effort to stop global warming came full force to the United States with the election of Barack Obama. Both as a presidential candidate, and later as the new President, Obama has led the charge to pass a bill commonly referred to as Cap and Trade. Simply put, the bill would significantly increase taxes on all forms of energy produced using fossil fuels. In addition, companies would be given strict emissions limits, known as a "cap". And they would be able to sell a portion of those limits on an exchange - known as a "trade". The policy would place significant taxes on individuals and industry and is widely recognized as a job killer. But over the past week, it was revealed that much of the data being used in the scientific community to back up the claims of global warming was actually fabricated. And that could be enough to permanently stop Cap and Trade.
This week, the headlines in Europe have been filled with articles on what is now being referred to as "ClimateGate"; the publication of hacked e-mail messages between some climate scientists.
The mail messages in question resided on computer servers at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia in England. CRU is widely regarded as the premier repository of climate science data. And that data has been used by the UN and governments around the world to show that the temperature of the Earth is rising.
The e-mail messages appear to show that scientists at the CRU engaged in a concerted effort to prevent the publication of scientific data that disagreed with their findings on global warming. One message appeared to admit that current data didn't substantiate the claim that the planet was heating up. It read, “The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.”
Following the publications of the hacked e-mail message, CRU also had to admit that it had destroyed 150 years of raw data on global temperatures. This was the actual data being used by scientists to show that global warming was real. Instead, the CRU maintained what it called "value-added data". This is data that has been manipulated using mathematical models or simply altered to support published conclusions. But because there is no record of the original data that was used, there is no way for anyone to prove or disprove that the models used were actually or that the conclusions published are accurate. In short, it mean that there is no reliable data to show that global warming is actually happening or that it is caused by man and not some other phenomena.
These revelations couldn't have come at a worse time for those trying to implement Cap and Trade on the entire planet. There is a summit taking place in Copenhagen this month to try to develop a global treaty on climate change. Last week, Barack Obama even agreed to attend even though the chances of reaching an agreement were considered to be low. Now with the revelations regarding CRU, it is unlikely that anyone will agree to implement a policy that will be quite expensive and which may have no effect on the climate.
All of this is good news for the economy and bad news for the government. I've been saying for some time that government has a vested interest in global warming. After all, what better way to stop the planet from warming up than by imposing draconian energy taxes on everyone? Every government in the western world likes that idea. It was estimated that the cost to US taxpayers alone would have been more than $670 Billion. Global warming was a profit center for governments around the globe. With a little luck, the CRU revelations will stop pending government action to implement Cap and Trade.
The good news for the economy is that if Cap and Trade is actually dead, companies will be able to focus on spending their money to expand. This will create jobs and stimulate new growth.
Either way, we will probably have a better idea of the damage done to CRU and its cause after the Copenhagen summit is over.
by Jim Malmberg
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