Climate Alarmist Caught in ‘Largest Science Scandal in
U.S. History’
by James Delingpole 2 Oct 2015
The plan by climate
alarmists to have other scientists imprisoned for their ‘global warming’
skepticism is backfiring horribly, and the chief alarmist is now facing a
House investigation into what has been called “the largest science
scandal in US history.”
Rep.
Lamar Smith (R-TX) 60%, Chairman of the House Committee on Space,
Science and Technology, has written
to Professor Jagadish Shukla of George Mason
University, in Virginia, requesting that he release all relevant documents
pertaining to his activities as head of a non-profit organization called the
Institute of Global Environment And Society.
Smith has two main areas of concern.
First, the apparent engagement by the institute in “partisan
political activity” – which, as a non-profit, it is forbidden by law from
doing.
Second, what precisely has the IGES institute done with the
$63 million in taxpayer grants which it has received since 2001 and which appears
to have resulted in remarkably little published research?
For example, as Watts Up With That?
notes, a $4.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to one of the
institute’s offshoots appears to have resulted in just one published paper.
But the amount which has gone into the pockets of Shukla and
his cronies runs into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2013 and
2014, for example, Shukla and his wife enjoyed a combined income in excess of
$800,000 a year.
Steve McIntyre, the investigator who shattered Michael
Mann’s global-warming ‘Hockey Stick’ claim, has done a detailed breakdown of
the sums involved. He calls it Shukla’s Gold.
In 2001, the earliest year thus far publicly
available, in 2001, in addition to his university salary (not yet
available, but presumably about $125,000), Shukla and his wife received a
further $214,496 in compensation from IGES (Shukla -$128,796; Anne Shukla
– $85,700). Their combined compensation from IGES doubled over the next
two years to approximately $400,000 (additional to Shukla’s university salary
of say $130,000), for combined compensation of about $530,000 by 2004.
Shukla’s university salary increased dramatically over the
decade reaching $250,866 by 2013 and $314,000 by 2014. (In this latter
year, Shukla was paid much more than Ed Wegman, a George Mason professor of
similar seniority). Meanwhile, despite the apparent transition of IGES to
George Mason, the income of the Shuklas from IGES continued to increase,
reaching $547,000 by 2013. Combined with Shukla’s university salary, the
total compensation of Shukla and his wife exceeded $800,000 in both 2013 and
2014. In addition, as noted above, Shukla’s daughter continued to be
employed by IGES in 2014; IGES also distributed $100,000 from its climate grant
revenue to support an educational charity in India which Shukla had founded.
The story began last month when, as we reported at Breitbart,
twenty alarmist scientists – led by Shukla – wrote a letter to President Obama
urging him to use RICO laws to crush climate skeptics.
Shukla’s second
big mistake was to send the letter not from his university address
but from his non-profit, the IGES.
But his first, far bigger mistake, was his hubris in
organizing the letter in the first place. It drew the attention of
Shukla’s critics to something which, presumably, he would have
preferred to keep secret: that for nearly 14 years, he, his family and his
friends have been gorging themselves on taxpayers’ money at IGES; and
that this money comes on top of the very generous salary he receives for doing
much the same work at George Mason University (GMU).
It’s the latter detail which has led former Virginia State
Climatologist Pat Michaels – one of the skeptics who might have been affected
by Shukla’s proposed RICO prosecutions – to describe this as “the largest
science scandal in US history.”
Under federal
law, state employees may not be remunerated for doing work which
falls under their state employee remit. As a Professor at GMU, Shukla is
definitely an employee of the state. And the work for which he has most
lavishly been rewarding himself at IGES appears to be remarkably similar to the
work he does at GMU as professor of climate dynamics.
If GMU was aware of these extra-curricular payments, then it
was in breach of its own policy on “financial
conflicts of interest in federally funded research.”
If it wasn’t aware of them, then, Shukla legally may be
required to send half of that $63 million in federal grants to his employer,
GMU.
For many readers, though, perhaps the biggest take-home
message of this extraordinary story is: Who do these climate alarmists think
they are?
Perhaps $63 million in federal grants is just peanuts if
you’re gorging on the climate-change smorgasbord, but for most of the rest of
us, that constitutes a serious sum of money. Especially when we know it is
being taken from us in the form of taxes.
Do they really feel under no obligation to spend it well?
Do they actually feel so sanctified by the rightness of
their cause that they deserve to be immune from scrutiny or criticism?
Climate
Rajendra K.
Pachauri was the chairman for the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, and is an advisory board member for the Earth Institute.
Note: Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change is a Nobel
Foundation Nobel peace prize winner.
United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an organization for the
United Nations.
Elie
Wiesel is a messenger of peace for the United
Nations, and a Nobel Foundation
Nobel peace prize winner.
Peace Prize Tell-All Book: Some Didn't Want to Honor Al
Gore (PAST RESEARCH ON THE NOBEL FOUNDATION WINNERS)
Friday, October 2, 2015
Mario
J. Molina is a Nobel Foundation Nobel
prize winner (chemistry), and was a director at the ClimateWorks Foundation.
Joseph E.
Stiglitz is a Nobel Foundation
Nobel Prize winner (economics, 2001), and was a director at the Climate Reality Project.
Albert
A. Gore Jr. is a Nobel Foundation
Nobel peace prize winner, and the chairman for the Climate Reality Project.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the ClimateWorks Foundation, the Climate
Reality Project, the Roosevelt
Institute, and the New America
Foundation.
George
Soros was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society, is an advisory board member for the Earth Institute, and Jonathan Soros’s father.
Jonathan
Soros is George Soros’s son, a senior
fellow at the Roosevelt Institute,
and a director at the New America
Foundation.
Spencer
R. Crew is a governor at the Roosevelt
Institute, and a professor at George
Mason University.
Charles
S. Robb is a professor at George
Mason University, and a director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Committee
for a Responsible Federal Budget was housed at the New America Foundation.
Eric E. Schmidt is the chairman of the New
America Foundation, the chairman
for Google Inc, was a funder for the New America Foundation, and
a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Schmidt
Family Foundation was a funder for the New
America Foundation, and the Rocky
Mountain Institute.
George
Polk is a trustee at the Rocky
Mountain Institute, and was a managing partner at the Soros Climate Fund Management LLC.
Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers is an investor in Google Inc.
Albert
A. Gore Jr. is a partner at Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, a senior adviser for Google Inc, a Nobel Foundation Nobel peace prize
winner, and the chairman for the Climate Reality Project.
Vernon
L. Smith is a Nobel Foundation
Nobel Prize winner (economics), and a director at the Mercatus Center.
Mercatus Center
is a research center at George Mason
University.
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