THE GREATEST FRAUD IN HISTORY GOES DOWN IN COLD FLAMES

Unseasonable cold greeted delegates to the UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa Nov. 28.  They were chilled more by the impending collapse of the biggest, most brazen scam in the history of the world.

The warnings of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world faced imminent doom from anthropogenic (man-made) global warming were based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, the IPCC chairman claimed.  But when Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise checked the 18,531 references in the 2007 report, she found 5,587 were newspaper and magazine articles written by non-experts, unpublished doctoral theses, and pamphlets produced by environmental groups.

IPCC reports were written by leading scientists, the UN claimed.  Ms. Lafromboise found many of the authors were graduate students selected more for political connections and "diversity" than for expertise.  This explains, in part, why these reports contain so many factual errors.

Fraud is a better explanation.  Dr. Nils-Axel Morner asked a British member of the IPCC why the IPCC altered data to indicate sea levels were rising when they were not.

"We had to, otherwise there would be no trend," he told Dr. Morner.

In her review of the book Ms. Lafromboise published electronically in October, Judith Curry, chair of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, said she "feels duped" by the IPCC, which she supported until December, 2009.

That month someone posted on the Internet 1,000 emails in which prominent scientists discussed how to "hide the decline" in global temperatures; how to evade Freedom of Information Act requests for their data, and how to smear scientists who disagreed with them.

The UN climate change conference in December, 2009 failed to produce the treaty the IPCC sought to restrict carbon emissions, in part because of the flap those emails caused.  Just in time for Durban, 5,000 more have been leaked.

In this batch, the scientists admit to each other the science supporting AGW is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of data.  They conspire with politicians and journalists to conceal this from the public.

"What if climate change appears to be just a multi-decadal natural fluctuation?" wrote one.  "They’ll kill us, probably."

A multi-decadal natural fluctuation is precisely what "climate change" is.  Temperatures in the lower atmosphere this October were just one tenth of one degree Celsius warmer than in 1979, according to data from weather satellites.  Temperatures haven’t risen in 13 years, according to measurements from ground stations.  Proxy data from tree rings and ice cores show no warming since 1940.

Few journalists have reported these facts.  That’s why so many accepted for so long the preposterous assertions of the scammers.  The most preposterous is that carbon dioxide — which is to plants what oxygen is to us — is a pollutant.

For some, the scam is about power.  Politicians saw in the regulation of CO2 an opportunity to control peoples’ lives.

For others, it’s about money.  Scammers sought to cash in on carbon credits and government subsidies. More than 80 percent of the $20.5 billion in loan guarantees made by the Department of Energy went to firms either run or owned by financial supporters of President Barack Obama.

Some, like Solyndra, already are bankrupt.  Most never will create many jobs or produce much energy.  But that was never their purpose. enormous wealth has been transferred from taxpayers and consumers to politicians and their political allies.

Alarmism has made former Vice President Al Gore a centimillionaire, though virtually everything he’s said has proved to be false.

The leading alarmist among American scientists, James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been as spectacularly wrong as Mr. Gore.  Mr. Hansen said in a 1988 interview the sea level off Manhattan would rise 10 feet within 40 years.  In the 23 years since, the sea level has risen just 2.5 inches.  Sea levels are falling now.

But alarmism has been good for his pocketbook.  Mr. Hansen failed to report $1.6 million in outside income, much of it in violation of NASA’s rules.

Contrary to what the IPCC said, there never was a consensus among scientists in support of AGW.  Some who signed on did so because that was the only way to get governments to support their research.  Dr. Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia in Britain, the man at the heart of the Climategate emails, received $19 million in government grants between 2000 and 2006.  As the gulf widens between climate change models and real world data, more are skeptical.

Exposure has hurt the scammers, but it’s the global financial crisis that’s going to kill them.  Cash strapped European governments are slashing costly subsidies for solar and wind.  The fraud has become too expensive for politicos there to continue.  Of Western leaders, only Barack Obama strives to keep it going.

So attendance is down in Durban, and faces are long.  A chill wind is blowing.  It will power no windmills.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.