RICOchet

In een recente ‘posting’, onder de titel ‘Heksenjacht tegen klimaatsceptici’, schonk ik aandacht aan een verzoek van een twintigtal Amerikaanse klimaatwetenschappers aan president Obama en enkelen van diens adviseurs om klimaatsceptici aan te klagen op grond van de zogenoemde RICO–wet.

Ik schreef:

Wie dacht dat heksenjacht tot een duister verleden behoorde, heeft het mis. Wanneer het om die verschrikkelijke opwarming van de aarde gaat (die maar steeds niet wil komen) bloeien obscurantisme en inquisitie als nooit tevoren.

In een brief heeft een twintigtal klimatologen president Obama onlangs verzocht om klimaatsceptici te vervolgen op basis van de RICO–wet. RICO staat voor ‘Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act’ en was oorspronkelijk bedoeld als wapen in de strijd tegen de activiteiten van criminele organisaties, zoals de maffia.

Uiteraard hebben verschillende klimaatsceptici dit initiatief scherp veroordeeld.

Nu blijkt dat dit verzoek een boemerang–effect heeft op de initiatiefnemer, prof. Jagadish Shukla van de Mason Universiteit, omdat het de aandacht heeft gevestigd op diens grote bijverdiensten uit bijklussen, waarvan ook zijn directe familie heeft geprofiteerd. In de VS is dit tot een zeker relatief bescheiden maximum toegestaan, maar daarboven is het verboden.

Onder de titel, ‘IPCC author exposed in climate profiteering’, rapporteerde Lorraine Yapps Cohen op de website van de ‘Examiner’ daarover het volgende:

Jagadish Shukla, professor, IPCC author, and global-warming myth-mongering profiteer, is in the money from the climate change game.

Jagadish Shukla, IPCC author and George Mason University professor, profoundly profited from the lucrative industry grown around the global warming hoax. He made millions promoting climate change while condemning skeptics for opposing opinion on the science.

The RICO 20, consisting of Shukla as lead signatory and nineteen other scientists, penned a letter to Obama urging the RICO investigation of climate science skeptics. What is RICO? It stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and it was meant to combat organized crime.

The ‘crime’ in this case has nothing to do with Mafioso-based racketeering but everything to do with opposing the Obama’s global warming narrative. It’s also time to question the IPCC’s authority on the climate change story.

The organized groups committing such ‘crimes’ include any individuals whose studies of climate cast doubt on the politically acclaimed and positively proclaimed predictions of a catastrophically warming globe. The caca of climate models do not match actual global temperature measurements, thereby making climate model predictions meaningless, 100 percent wrong, if not entirely ridiculous.

Such unjustly accused groups include scientists who study the vastly overlooked benefits of CO2, the promoters of prosperity that comes to the poor from a hydrocarbon economy, the makers of a moral case for fossil fuels energy, the observers of global temperatures that measure no rise, or anybody who questions whether the science of catastrophic warming is in any way settled.

Whatever racketeering is going on is occurring on the part of Shukla, who paid himself and his wife $1.5 million from government climate grants for part-time work. This is profiteering in its prime from a person positioned to personally gain from the political game. Besides the profit, Shukla encouraged the charges be used against skeptics for disagreeing with his views on climate change. Shukla stands to succeed in what is a very big business if he can shut up the skeptics.

It was Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. who revealed the greedy motivation behind the Shukla et al. letter. A purportedly ‘non-profit’ group employs both Mr. and Mrs. Shukla for part time work that pays half a million dollars per year to the couple. This comes on top of Shukla’s quarter-million-dollar salary as a university professor professing the myth of catastrophic climate change and silencing skeptics. The RICO letter hoped to lighten Shukla’s myth-promoting workload while retaining the cash flow from the climate myth-mongering industry. ….

Lees verder hier.

De activiteiten van Shukla hebben inmiddels ook de aandacht getrokken van de ‘Science, Space, and Technology Committee’ van het Congres. Onder de titel, ‘US Congress To Investigate Climate Scientists Behind RICO Campaign’ berichtte SpaceRef:

Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today sent a letter to Dr. Jagadish Shukla, a professor of climate dynamics at George Mason University who founded the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES).

IGES is a non-profit organization that has received millions of dollars in federal grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA.

According to media reports, IGES is responsible for circulating a letter to the president and senior White House officials requesting a criminal investigation of organizations who question the risks of climate change. Specifically, the letter seeks a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) investigation that would allow the government to impose criminal penalties.

The letter was posted to the IGES website and later removed and replaced with a note saying it had been “inadvertently posted.”

Chairman Smith: “IGES appears to be almost fully funded by taxpayer money while simultaneously participating in partisan political activity by requesting a RICO investigation of companies and organizations that disagree with the Obama administration on climate change. In fact, IGES has reportedly received $63 million from taxpayers since 2001, comprising over 98 percent of its total revenue during that time.”

In light of the non-profit’s decision to remove the controversial letter from its website, Smith directs IGES to preserve “all e-mail, electronic documents, and data created since January 1, 2009, that can be reasonably anticipated to be subject to a request for production by the Committee.” The full letter can be found here.

Lees verder hier.

Meer achtergrondinformatie is hier en hier te vinden.

E.e.a. zou wel weer eens tot een groot schandaal kunnen uitgroeien.

Ik schreef het al eerder: ‘Klimaat’ maakt meer kapot dan je lief is.

Voor mijn eerdere bijdragen over klimaat en aanverwante zaken zie hier, hier, hier, hier en hier.