NASA: A Circus of Climate Change Clowns

Could it be that global warming is returning with a vengeance? One has to hand it to Jim Hansen, NASA’s climate head honcho. He has no hesitation for dishonesty. His latest whopper is reporting October 2008 as the hottest on record. Since his theory is dying, Hansen is now making last ditch efforts to prop up his hoax.

October was supposedly the hottest because Russia’s temperatures were 10 degrees above normal. But a curious phenomenon occurred there. Its October temperatures were exactly the same as September’s. What an incredible coincidence!

Two bloggers, WattsUpWithThat and Climate Audit, discovered the discrepancy. Actually, it’s more like blatant falsification. Afterwards, NASA updated their world temperature map not once, but twice! While Siberia cooled a little, new hotspots were popping up elsewhere. No explanations were given. Under Hansen’s control, there never are. Nevertheless, Hansen claims NASA’s data analysis and quality control are rigorous. Actually, they’re more like rigor mortis.

And, Hansen blames under-funding despite NASA’s $1 billion budget. Isn’t that always the excuse when government screws up? Yet, what’s really being said here is that NASA doesn’t have the money to falsify data in such a way that busybody bloggers can’t eventually decipher it.

The real rub is that most people will hear only that October was the hottest ever. Hansen knows that. The macaca media reports the litany, but only the alternative media covers the revelation that the headline’s a hoax. A much smaller audience will get that truth while many will remain ill informed, sort of like the 2008 election.

In fact, global warming has nothing to do with climate change. It’s politics that’s just an excuse to tax and control. When Barack Obama talks about creating 5 million green jobs, he means an army of bureaucrats marching around measuring everyone’s carbon footprint to determine what penalties to mete out.

“State of Fear,” a novel written by recently deceased author, Michael Crichton, was described by Amazon.com’s review as a “diatribe against global warming.” Yet, Crichton originally set out to write in favor of Hansen’s hoax. Crichton said prophetically, “Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”

No doubt, Earth is entering a cooling period, which may last for decades. “Reality challenged” alarmists will argue that massive warming is just being masked. This is possibly a valid argument. However, with grand assertions, good scientists should first eliminate all other possibilities. Natural variability exists in every system. Weather and climate are no exceptions.

For example, oceanic oscillations seem to modulate temperatures on a 60-year cycle, but temperatures in the 1930’s were warmer than the 1990’s that after a bug fix (by a Canadian no less!) to NASA’s data crunching algorithm. So, colder temperatures in the 1970’s enough to make weirdoes worried that another ice age cometh then, make them whine about warming now. And, the sun missing cycle 24 possibly indicating a significant irradiance drop could enhance the already natural cooling.

Surface stations could also have been severely corrupted. In the past locations were chosen that were outside the cities but close enough for monitoring. As cities grew, they encroached on many a station. An all-volunteer group, surfacestations.org, is working to quantify this urban creep.

With almost half of the surface station surveyed, almost 90% have some corruption with 63% moderate to severe. Corruption includes artificial heating sources such as buildings, parking lots and even air conditioning exhausts.

Un-naturally, these stations all show substantial warming of at least 2.0°C. NASA’s adjustment is an insignificant 0.06°C. Undoubtedly, there’s substantial “man-made localized global warming,” but this phenomenon is of little import and really shouldn’t cause concern.

Unfortunately, verifying surface temperature data is apparently another job America’s space agency is unwilling to do. Since Canadians are pesky enough to fix NASA’s algorithms, maybe one, preferably illegal, should take over Hansen’s helm.

Finally, some studies have been done that estimate how much humans may have actually contributed to the Global Mean Temperature. Most indicate that it’s negligible, a mere 0.0022°C. That’s due to the fact that CO2 contributes so little to warming (water vapor is 95%), and man contributes so little (3%) to overall atmospheric CO2. Fretting about burning fossil fuels for a few more decades is like worrying that excessive toilet flushing will cause the next Noah sized flood.

Still, for shivering alarmists, who continue in their faith of CO2’s power, if the world cools too drastically, then one cure would be more CO2, maybe even substantially more. That’s why in this economic downturn a carbon creation credit company could be a great investment. This “industry” would sell carbon sources instead of carbon sinks. No stinking tree planting, just many trees chopped for what will be much needed warmth.

Explaining our tax system with beer

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beers by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.'

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before and the first four continued to drink for free, but once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. 'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right, exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!'

'That's true!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something very important....they didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, accountants and lawyers, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes DO get the most benefit from a tax reduction. They also PAY more than the rest. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

And remember people: the top wage earners, those who earn $250,000/year and up, make up ONLY 5% of tax payers, YET THEY PAY 60% OF PERSONAL INCOME TAXES. That means us 95% pay only 40% of taxes.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
Michigan State University