A member of the Brainy Science Guys Who Are Smarter Than You has now admitted that no, the Abominable Snowman isn’t going surfing anytime soon after all. The Daily Mail:
The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.
Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action. It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’
Why does something need to be true if you can use it to get what you want? That’s what I call science!
As if that’s not embarrassing enough in the wake of Climategate, now we’re starting to find out just how flamin’ expensive Copenhagen was. CBS reports on how much it cost the attendees. Wait, no. How much it cost you. Assuming you pay taxes:
For 15 Democratic and 6 Republican Congressmen, food and rooms for two nights cost $4,406 tax dollars each. That’s $2,200 a day – more than most Americans spend on their monthly mortgage payment.
CBS News asked members of Congress and staff about whether they’re mindful that it’s public tax dollars they’re spending. Many said they had never even seen the bills or the expense reports.
Why would they? It’s not their money.
Pelosi and the rest had no comment for the CBS reporter, but as Ed Morrissey asks: “Why did the Ways and Means chair need to go to Copenhagen? For that matter, why did most of these Senators and Representatives need to go on the public dime?” Yeah, we sent 165 people. Did we accomplish 165 times as much?
Ed has more. Ed always has more. Now that I’m doing this blogging thing every day as an actual job, I’m starting to think Ed is a robot from the future. Which would be awesome.
P.S. “You may ask how they’ll negotiate a climate treaty if they can’t get a better rate on hotel rooms.” SLAM!!