February 04, 2010
By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily
Two members of Congress have written to the Environmental Protection Agency demanding answers about scientific documentation that was used to support the agency's determination that "greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of the American people."
The letter is from U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Greg Walden, R-Ore., and follows by just a day a recommendation from officials at Penn State University that the work of one of their own – Michael Mann – regarding climate change documentation be investigated further.
The developments follow a tsunami that was triggered shortly before Christmas when a cache of e-mails sent among global warming proponents was hacked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, one of the world's premier global warming investigative organizations.. It revealed there were references to a "trick" to "hide the [temperature] decline," suggestions that other e-mails were being purged to prevent their revelations and indicated scientists who did not agree deliberately were being excluded from the discussion.
Barton, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Walden, ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, addressed their concerns to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson because the agency has based much of its work on information from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which worked closely with the officials East Anglia.
"In response to our letters this past summer regarding your proposed endangerment finding, you advised us that, in making the finding, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed great weight upon the assessment literature of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)," the letter said. "Consistent with your statements, the technical support document for the endangerment finding … largely relied upon the IPCC's most recent 2007 assessment, including the IPCC's attribution of observed climate change to human emissions of greenhouse gases."
However, there have been raised some alarming questions about the data from the IPCC that the EPA used, the letter notes.
"A lead author for the IPCC's Working Group II report has reportedly admitted to publishing a completely unsubstantiated IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers risk disappearing in 25 years at current rates of global warming," the letter said.
It noted that the existing evidence suggests that estimate is off by "at least 300 years."
That particular issue developed when it was reported in the Times Online and other publications that the IPCC published information about glaciers that the author now concedes was based on "speculation" and wasn't supported by any research.
Now the validity of any information processed through a system that would allow such a mistake is in question, the letter said.
"We believe this error raises questions about whether EPA's due diligence and review of the IPCC assessments has been sufficiently rigorous. … We see no evidence that EPA has examined whether and how the IPCC implements and adheres to [guidelines to assure quality data]."
So now the members of Congress want Jackson to explain her agency's peer-review process and scientific objectivity as related to the determination that greenhouse gases are endangering the world.
The IPCC report that has come into question was generated from Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist in Dehli. He included the estimate of massive glacier loss based on "speculation," and the IPCC published, then re-used the information later, because the author of a report said, "We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policymakers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action."
The members of Congress then raised a long list of questions for the EPA, including what it did to evaluate the validity of the information and how it considered "full information and all scientific viewpoints relating to climate change."
Did the EPA even look at the credibility of the information it was using to make its decisions, the members of Congress want to know.
Fuill story HERE
