Fudging Science On Climate Change: Here We Go Again

More evidence that the "Obama Era" is changing absolutely nothing (emphasis added):

U.S. pressures International Energy Agency on peak oil timeline

Why would Western industrialized countries want to downplay the arrival of peak oil? There are two related reasons: First, as consumer nations they want to keep the price of oil low and second, they want to delay taking any action on climate change including spending hundreds of billions on shifting their economies to alternate fuels.

The United Nations climate-change summit in the Copenhagen next month has already been declared a failure -- at least insofar as reaching any kind of agreement on capping emissions of greenhouse gases. Now the only hope is for an agreement on "principles" -- whatever that means. It is clear that the Western industrialized nations are simply not prepared to sacrifice their prospects of economic growth or, more to the point, the potential profitability of their corporate sector and the wealth of their shareholders.

The U.S. is by far the biggest player on the issue and behind the scenes is putting enormous pressure on the International Energy Agency (IEA) to fudge the numbers to make it look as though peak oil is a long way off.

So say a couple of articles in the Guardian newspaper. The first, published just a day before the IEA released its yearly World Energy Outlook report, quoted a IEA whistle-blower -- a senior official who stated: "The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The senior official claims the U.S. has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves."

Three days later the paper published a follow-up article reporting on a Swedish study out of Uppsala University which delivered a "scathing assessment" of the IEA's predictions of oil production, use and discovery between now and 2020.

(...) The main reason for the U.S. pressure on the IEA was revealed by Colin Campbell, a former executive with Total of France who stated: "If the real [oil reserve] figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets ... in the end that would suit no one."

First - Q.E.D. once again regarding running in circles around climate change.

Second - well, here we go again fudging/re-writing factual science to better suit one's purpose ... especially pertaining to climate change. Remember this, from April 2008?

(...) Kyoto was never ratified by the U.S.A., in large part due to Climate Change denialism and economic scare tactic-driven arguments. Furthermore, President Bush - like a good neocon - double-talked the nation into confusion: his "global warming is real but not man-made" proclamation has become infamous to this effect. Likewise, his so-called initiatives with regards to the environment have typically proven to constitute nothing more than shams, the usual (neo)con games forte we have become used to. For instance, his Clear Skies Act of 2003 was an obvious fraud - albeit very much approved by Big Oil and Big Corporation interests, not surprisingly - and its "improved", somewhat less laughable 2005 version has remained in legislative limbo. In an obvious attempt at rendering the Kyoto process moot, Bush and his Bushies promoted the downward redefinition of the ways to reduce climate change outside of Kyoto, without any reinforcement measures but with much "voluntary measures" - winkwink.

(...) In this respect, the Bush environmental circus has kept on going and going, to this very day.

And how about this, then?

On top of all of this, the Bush administration established and enacted a policy of systematic censorship, re-writing, controlling, falsifying, fund cutting, hiding, lying and spinning the de facto science underlying the reality of Climate Change

Bravo, President Obama, for your demonstrated incompetence. You not only join George W. Bush (yes, this G.W. Bush) with this policy of yours, but you also join by default the following luminaries of our time:

Glenn Beck;

Steve Doocy;

Sean Hannity;

Sen. James Inhofe;

Rush Limbaugh;

Mary Matalin;

Lt. Col. Oliver North (retired);

Gov. Sarah Palin (resigned);

Gov. Tim Pawlenty;

George Will.

(Note that these are all Republicans/conservatives ...)

So - congratulations, President Obama! You are now in quite good company indeed.

Stephen Harper and his Harpies must be giddy right about now. Because, let us not forget their own sins in this respect:

Indeed, and just as in the U.S.A., typical neocon pro-Big Oil and pro-Big Business scare tactic-driven, false and hypothetical arguments were used to belittle Kyoto, including outright disinformation and the promotion of climate change denialism. Not counting simple lack of concern. Furthermore, actually going outside of the Kyoto process was floated, in an obvious attempt at following in the footsteps of The Leader. Even environmental funding designed to meet the Kyoto standards was cut, including programs aimed at monitoring industries. In addition, outright scaling back of funding for climate science and adaptation programs was enacted by The Mini Leader's government - again, obviously in order to follow the "lead" of The Leader. The last nail in the coffin of Canada's commitment to Kyoto was hammered in whenthe Harper government flat out announced that Canada would not meet its targets under the Kyoto accords. In the end, Harper and his Harpies came up with what I have come to call Kyoto-Ultra Light - which was such a fraud that it prompted opposition parties in the House of Commons to put forth legislation (bill C-288) in order to force the Harper government in meeting Kyoto targets by 2012. However, Harper and his Harpies resorted to the usual economic scare tactics (same ones they used against Kyoto) to debunk the bill which, since then, has remained essentially lettre morte and unlawfully ignored by the Harper government.

(And we also have this, of course - not counting this, and that, and this, and that ... and so on and so forth)

Hell - it is now no wonder that Harper and his Harpies are intent of first negociating a climate change treaty with the Obama administration before enacting any climate change laws in Canada ...

WIBDI? indeed ...