Image courtesy of CartoonbyJosh.com
Reposted from the The Global Warming Policy Foundation
Saturday, 19 February 2011 06:40 Josiah Ryan, The Hill
Republicans put forth an amendment late Friday night that would remove American funding for a prominent intergovernmental body tasked with exploring the effects of climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) drew a firestorm of criticism in 2009 when a hacker revealed a series of emails among some of the organization’s scientists that suggested they had suppressed dissenting work and excluded it from a 2002 panel report.
“They have been in the headlines for their activities in regards to how they are tinkering with the data they want to put out,” said Rep Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.)., who introduced the amendment. Luetkemeyer also called the agency “nefarious.”
But Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) argued that global warming is a major threat and that the U.S. must continue its patronage of the organization’s efforts.
“Its like burying our heads in the sand,” said Waxman of the Luetkemeyer’s amendment.
The IPCC receives about $12.5 million per year from the government. The Republican’s proposal would entirely defund it.
Following debate on defunding the IPCC the House proceeded to consider a series of amendments in which Republicans attempted to roll back the regulatory scope and power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The Hill, 19 February 2011
Update: The vote is in. 244 to 179
Views from other blogs:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/02/house-votes-to-ban-us-funding-for-ipcc.html
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/02/19/house-votes-244-179-to-kill-u-s-funding-of-ipcc/
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7247&linkbox=true&position=1
http://biofuels.einnews.com/pr-news/294528-gop-efforts-to-defund-ipcc-is-foolhardy
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/19/house-votes-to-defund-ipcc/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/02/on-the-house-vote-to-defund-the-ipcc/
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
In my opinion it would be a better idea to reduce funding rather than cut it dead, and give the balance to another team (NIPCC?) to produce another report from another perspective.
There is no chance of them funding a view from a sceptical (or impartial) perspective on an international scale. To much money and too many careers depend upon the warming meme.
Cuts, cuts, cuts. Is nothing sacred?!
http://townhall.com/cartoons/mikelester
EPA funding is more important – and they have voted to defund the EPA
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20110218/pl_dailycaller/republicanhousevotestodefundenvironmentalprotectionagency
The effect of this defunding is a poison pill in the budget that the President has to sign to keep the Federal government funded. The EPA was attempting to put Waxman like constraints on industry but by regulation rather than through Congress which had voted down the Waxman-Markey Bill.
Ian, Wow! That *is* a big deal. I think the EPA brought this on itself by classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant. A ridiculous notion. It is a naturally occurring gas vital to the survival of almost all life on the planet except the sulfue eating bacteria round those undersea vents I blogged the other day.
Dr. Alan Carlin will be having a wry smile today.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dr+alan+carlin&aq=f
I’ve set up a new thread for the EPA discussion.
Tallbloke,
The American government is so desperate for funds now, they also want to tax all imports from Canada and tax any citizen visiting. Let the foreigners pay for their government spending.
Has Pachauri not said that as the scientists devote their time for free, the IPCC is a lean organisation without much of a budget? 15 Million? Not exactly a tight ship IMHO.
And that’s just the U.S. contribution.
The funny side of the story: …Waxman (D-Calif.) argued that global warming is a major threat …
Sure, it is….for a wax-man 🙂
Adolfo,
Your such a card! 🙂
Lucky he was not the “Ice man”.
What a lovely image!
IPCC should not only be defunded, it should be deleted as an agency. The reason is its misuse of the concept of science. It has never been meant to rely on correct science and uses science for one simple reason. People believe in science, since people have seen the result of powerful applications of it during 100 years. IPCC uses this fact to “sell” its political message to get support from ordinary people. Science is a “brand” for selling propaganda. The only way to keep the IPCC is for it to skip any claim of being scientific at all and clearly declare what it really is: a political organization.
My tutor when writing my exam paper in meteorology was Bert Bolin, the founder of IPCC. He was for sure a screwed influential politician and and a dishonest and ordinary scientist.
Hans Jelbring, BSc, meteorologist, Stockholm University, Civil engineer, electronics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, PhD, institution of Paleogeophysics & geodynamics, Stockholm University.
Well said Hans, and it is good to see you are enjoying the other posts on this blog.
I started it to try to defend science and the scientific method, and to explore interesting discoveries I made in solar system dynamics, without making any big claims for them until we are really sure we know what we are talking about.
If only the tree ring circus hockey team had done the same…
[…] This morning, I noticed someone had visited and commented on an old thread from last year about the Republican vote to defund the IPCC. The comment showed a strong belief in science, and condemnation of the way politics and other […]
I’ll add my voice too but we scientists need also to understand the political foundation behind the CAGW agenda. Hans knows me, and as an exploration geologist, I discovered the lack of “science” some time ago but after McIntyre’s demolition of the Hockey Stick. Sadly many scientists still have difficulties with intensive and extensive variables, and what one can, and cannot, do with them.
My principal reason for rejecting the CAGW idea was because mainstream science (i.e. institutionalised science) seemed to have the basic physics wrong – that, in very general terms, the energy balance equation of the earth system is incomplete – science in general, and climate science in particular, has completely ignored the role of electro-magnetics and plasma physics. Add the EM factor and the need for a greenhouse effect disappears when any thermal anomaly can be explained by known plasma phenomena like double layers, etc.
Take heart that the dissident geological fraternity publishing under “New Concepts in Global Tectonics” (www.ncgt.org) have taken on board the ideas generally described as the physics of the plasma universe.
I have been asked to deliver a keynote address to the 34th International Geological Congress, to be held in Brisbane, Australia, 2012, on this topic.
The problems in modern science can be traced back to Charles Lyell and his political machinations, and science since has suffered for them.
Louis Hissink M.Sc. M.AIG M.IEEE
Editor Aust. Inst. Geoscientists News.
Hans!
Can I translate it to Swedish and put it on my blog??