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The IPCC is controlled by senior committees who decide which data is used in IPCC reports, and the circle of scientists mentioned in those emails (and their associates) are the ones who have the most influence to decide what gets included in IPCC reports (they have the most influence with those committees and/or their members).

That’s the REAL issue which many posters here don’t fully understand yet.

So what is the argument of most skeptics?

It’s not about the “scientific theory” of global warming, it’s about the METHODS used to conclusively say that temperatures have been rising at an alarming rate.

That’s why the MWP is such a thorn in the side of the CRU (it’s hard to argue that man made warming is happening today IF the temps were hotter during the medieval warm period — when fossil fuels were not burned).

But let’s forget about the MWP for now, let’s focus on the reliability of temp data in the IPCC charts.

For example, most people believe that all post-1960 temp data has been charted (on the IPCC charts) directly from thermometers and satellites.

However, before any temp data gets peer reviewed it first gets ADJUSTED to account for all kinds of SUBJECTIVE factors (which is necessary).

However, this “ADJUSTMENT” process forces scientists go make EDUCATED GUESSES about how much to add (or) subtract from each year’s temperature readings (for thousands of temp stations around the globe).

Likewise, they also ADJUST the proxy data from past centuries by using SUBJECTIVE computer models (which are ridiculously subjective, as verified by the computer coding in the recently leaked computer programs).

Anyway, this whole ADJUSTMENT PROCESS makes charting temperatures very SUBJECTIVE and prone to error (especially since just a “fraction” of a degree every few years can make the difference between global warming or not).

So if the raw temp data is being ADJUSTED by “educated guessing” and “error-prone computer models” (which have never proven to be even 75% accurate), then how can the ultimate result be said to be “settled science” and unequivocal?

An IPCC report does not have the same confidence level as the basic laws of physics (the IPCC data is much more subjective than that).

By contrast, the same study found that the media bogeyman “Exxon Mobil gave a mere $23 million, spread over ten years, to climate sceptics.”

July 6, 2009

A polar bear biologist formerly from Nunavut was barred from an international scientific meeting because his beliefs on climate change and its effects on the species are inconsistent with the group’s opinion.

Mitch Taylor, who was a polar bear biologist with the Nunavut government until last year, was not invited to the Polar Bear Specialist Group’s meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, this past weekend.

The group of scientists meets periodically to discuss the status of polar bear populations around the world. Taylor said he had been attending the group’s meetings since 1981.

Dissenting view ‘extremely unhelpful’
But in email correspondence obtained by CBC News, then-chairman Andrew Derocher told Taylor that his beliefs about climate change — that it is a natural cycle, not mainly driven by human-caused pollution — are not “helpful” to the group.

“I do believe, as do many [Polar Bear Specialist Group] members, that for the sake of polar bear conservation, views that run counter to human-induced climate change are extremely unhelpful,” Derocher, a polar bear researcher at the University of Alberta, wrote in his email to Taylor.

“I, too, was not surprised by the members not endorsing an invitation. Nothing I heard had to do with your science on harvesting or your research on polar bears,” Derocher added in the message, dated June 15.

“It was the positions you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition.”

Taylor retired from Nunavut’s Environment Department last year and moved to Ontario, but he said he is still involved in polar bear research.

“I feel actually disappointed, sad, because I don’t think this is how science should work,” Taylor told CBC News.

“I don’t think the credibility of the specialist group was served by this decision.”

Membership limited, chairman says
In an email to CBC News, Derocher said involvement in the Polar Bear Specialist Group is limited to those who are active in polar bear research and management.

Taylor no longer fits those criteria, said Derocher, whose term as group chairman ended last week.

Taylor said he believes the Arctic has warmed, but said it’s more related to natural cycles with just some impact from human-caused pollution such as greenhouse gases.

While he said polar bear populations in some areas, such as the western Hudson Bay region in Nunavut, have been adversely affected by the changing climate, he said predictions that polar bears will disappear because of climate change are overblown.

“Even though you might see a shrinking of the range of polar bears — maybe in some of the southern areas, maybe a reduction in numbers and productivity and in some, maybe all of the populations — you’re not looking at something that would cause polar bears to go extinct,” he said.

Sea ice shrinking, group says
In his email to Taylor, Derocher said he has no problem with dissenting views on the polar bears’ survival “as long as they are supportable by logic, scientific reasoning and the literature.”

Following the weekend meeting, the group concluded that the overall condition of the world’s 19 polar bear populations is deteriorating due in part to shrinking sea ice.

The group says that eight bear populations are in decline — up from five in its last report in 2005. Three populations are considered stable compared to five previously.

Only one population is increasing. Information on seven populations is still too scarce for scientists to draw solid conclusions.

The report, released Monday, suggests an “unprecedented” loss in sea ice, which bears use as a seal-hunting platform, is behind the downward trend.

Because of the amount of uncertainty involved with counting polar bears, the polar bear group has kept its estimate of the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000. About two-thirds of those are believed to live in Canada.

With files from CBC’s Patricia Bell, the Canadian Press

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2009/07/06/pbear-taylor-meeting.html

Senate Democrats move to curb Fed’s powers
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer – Tue Nov 10, 5:17 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats on Tuesday proposed stripping the Federal Reserve of its supervisory powers and creating instead three new federal agencies to police banks, protect consumers and dismantle failing institutions.

The 1,136-page bill, released by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, would represent a significant shift in power in federal oversight of the U.S. market. The Fed has been a dominant figure in managing the economy, although many lawmakers blame the central bank for not doing enough to prevent last year’s crisis.

“We saw over the last number of years when (the Fed) took on consumer protection responsibilities and the regulation of bank holding companies, it was an abysmal failure,” said Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.

Dodd’s proposal prompted cheers from consumer advocates and other Democrats, including Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., an influential moderate who said swift action was necessary to prevent future government bailouts of big banks.

“Never again should the American taxpayers have to hear about ‘too big to fail,’ where the American taxpayer has to pick up the slack,” Warner said.

But the financial industry quickly pushed back.

The bill “would produce conflicts among regulators, undermine the state-chartered banking system and impose extensive new regulatory burdens on those banks that had nothing to do with creating the financial crisis,” said Edward Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association.

While Republicans were expected to oppose much of the bill, Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican on Dodd’s committee, issued a statement setting an optimistic tone.

“I’m more hopeful than I was a few weeks ago that we will be able to come up with a bipartisan bill,” said Corker, who has worked closely with Warner on banking issues.

Among the top points of contention is Dodd’s desire to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers taking out home loans or using credit cards against predatory lending and surprise interest rate hikes.

Republicans and industry officials say that creating another bureaucracy will make it harder for banks to do business and would limit the availability of credit.

Other provisions in Dodd’s bill would:

• Consolidate federal supervision of banks under a “Financial Institutions Regulatory Administration.”

• Abolish the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, and strip the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Fed of their bank supervision duties.

• Create an “Agency for Financial Stability” that would enforce new rules and dismantle complex financial firms if they threaten the broader economy.

• Regulate privately traded derivatives, hedge funds and other private pools of capital so that regulators have a sense of how much risk is being assumed by financial firms.

• Impose new rules on investment rating agencies.

• Limit the Fed’s ability to provide emergency loans to mostly healthy institutions, instead of failing firms.

The Senate Banking Committee was expected to take up the legislation next week and vote by early December. Dodd said he expects to need Republican support to get the bill through Congress and that he remains optimistic consensus could be reached.

The bill will also have to be reconciled with the House version. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he expects a floor vote in December on his proposal.

Like Dodd, Frank wants to strip the Fed of its consumer protection powers and create a separate agency dedicated to the mission. Both House and Senate bills also would limit the Fed’s ability to provide emergency loans and create a council of regulators to monitor the risks posed by large financial firms.

But the House bill wouldn’t consolidate federal banking supervision and would ultimately put the Fed in charge of enforcing new requirements for large and influential firms.

Frank said Dodd’s announcement on Tuesday confirmed that “we are moving in the same direction” and will enact legislation soon.

http://www.timesrepublican.com/page/content.detail/id/520821.html