2 December, 2009

The leaked emails from the University of East Anglia seem to have put the proverbial cat in with the climatic pigeons. So what to make of it? Firstly, there’s an awful lot of information to wade through, some of which I find extremely confusing eg, Climate Change: This is the Worst Scientific Scandal of our Generation by Prof. Christopher Booker. What is he saying? That the data has been fixed to prove that the planet is heating up? And if so, does the ‘fix’ mean that the planet isn’t heating up after all? And what of the agenda of the individuals who hacked the emails, are they only concerned with the truth? And what is the ‘truth’?

As far as I can ascertain the debate comes down to the finding that the planet’s temperature appears to have dropped by an average of 1C over the past ten years. What isn’t clear is whether this is a ‘blip’ in the graph of steadily rising temperatures or as some analysts claim, a natural process connected to changes in the Sun’s activity?

What is sinister about the leaks is their timing, only weeks before the COP-15 meeting in Copenhagen, a meeting whose agenda has already been fixed by the corporate elite and of course in their favour, especially the crucial issue of Carbon Trading or Cap and Trade as it’s being called. And mighty convenient the leaks are as they dovetail perfectly into the Carbon Trading scam.

“The Copenhagen Summit not only serves powerful corporate interests, which have a stake in the global multibillion dollar carbon trading scheme, it also serves to divert public attention from the devastation resulting from the “real crisis” underlying the process of economic globalization and a profit driven war without borders, which the Pentagon calls “the long war”.” — ‘Global Warming: Fixing the Climate Data around the Policy’ By Michel Chossudovsky

It seems to me that there are two quite distinct but connected issues involved in the climate change debate:

1. Is the planet heating up because of human activity and even if it isn’t does this mean that it’s okay to keep chowing the planet?

2. Regardless, from a socialist perspective the disastrous impact of industrial capitalism on the great majority of the planet’s people is plain for all to see. Thus the leaks serve a very definite purpose, to divert attention away from the issue of capitalism’s plunder of the planet’s resources.

What doesn’t seem to be questioned by the climate skeptics is the rise in sea temperatures and the rising sea levels. Are these also ‘natural’? And what of the extremes of weather the world is experiencing, even if as one scientist says, the drop in world temperature is natural? But this only since 1999 and the one thing we do know about the world’s weather is that it’s incredibly complex and trends can only be measured relatively accurately over decades if not centuries and definitely not over a ten-year period (this is the same argument climate skeptics have used, namely that short-term observations are meaningless).

What is incredible is that some on the left, after years of accusing the developed nations of denying climate change, are now saying that Climate Change was a corporate plot all along! Come on guys, get it together!

“The current global warming propaganda scare is being hyped by politicians and special interests such as Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street financial firms that stand to reap billions trading new carbon credit financial futures. They are making an all-out effort to scare the world into a deal at the December Copenhagen Global Warming summit, the successor to the Kyoto agreement on CO2 emission reduction. It’s been estimated that the Global Warming bill supported by Barack Obama and his Wall Street patrons, passed by the House of Representatives but not by the more conservative US Senate, would cost US taxpayers some $10 trillion.” – ‘Global Warming or Global Freezing: is the ice really melting?’ by F. William Engdahl

Of one thing we can be sure, the leaked emails have sown confusion the world over and succeeded in diverting attention away from the real culprit: capitalism.

Global Research have created an archive of articles on Climate Change some which I have provided links to below, an invaluable resource for anyone who has the time to wade through one hundred essays.

Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?
– by Prof. Richard S. Lindzen – 2009-11-30

The Day Global Warming Stood Still
– by Mark Sircus – 2009-11-29

Emails originating from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia
Access to Email data bank
– by eastangliaemails.com – 2009-11-29

Manipulation of Data and Concepts: The Climate Change Emails
University of East Anglia emails: the most contentious quotes
– 2009-11-29

Copenhagen: A Climate of Suspicion
– by Christopher Caldwell – 2009-11-29

Climategate: the Whitewash Begins
– by James Delingpole – 2009-11-28

Climate Change: This is the Worst Scientific Scandal of our Generation
– by Prof. Christopher Booker – 2009-11-28

Climate Change: The current rate of CO2 rise is unprecedented in the recent history of the Earth
Last Train to Copenhagen
– by Dr. Andrew Glikson – 2009-11-28