Roundup Myron

The Myron Ebell keeps fighting for the death of the human race, even when we at the Myron Ebell Climate are otherwise engaged.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a good article 'Climategate' fallout may impact legislation

Five investigations into the "Climategate" scandal have now cleared a group of scientists accused of twisting data in an effort to prove the world is getting warmer... "The accusations were on A1, the exonerations are usually on A15," said Aaron Huertas, press secretary for the Union of Concerned Scientists...

"In general, I think the scandal has made the opponents of energy-rationing legislation stronger and more confident," said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank.

Ebell, who for years has been one of the fiercest critics of global warming science, doubts that Climategate by itself changed any votes in the Senate. But the scandal may have solidified skepticism about climate science among the public, he said. That would make any global warming bill harder for Senate Democrats to pass.

"The American public opposes policies that are going to raise their energy prices," Ebell said. "And I just don't see how they can get around that."...

...Unless you include more than just the financial prices of things. For example, when Myron gets a severe pain in his ear, he goes to the doctor, even though it raises the price he annually spends on medical supplies. That's because when you are in pain you will pay anything necessary to get rid of the pain.

Global warming causes pain, so we will pay money to get around it -- if it weren't for people lying about the effectiveness of such intervention, who want to sell you snake oil rather than real medicine. Because they are evil and don't care if you die.

It goes on:

Ebell and other critics call the investigations a farce, saying they represent an attempt by the academic community to defend their own.

"These establishment reports to whitewash this scandal - they have no credibility," Ebell said. "It's pretty obvious that they're not independent inquiries, that they were designed to come up with an exoneration. You need (an investigation with) people who don't have connections, who haven't written papers with the people who are accused or served on faculty with them."

Over at the Tennessean, there's an article about a climate change threat report:

Many are skeptical of the claims made in such reports, including Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for limited government.

Ebell said these reports make shaky predictions, exaggerate the possibilities, and are written to scare people into supporting climate change. They run counter to other reports, which say global warming will mostly affect the North and South poles, he said.

"A lot of the conclusions are highly speculative and debatable and some just go against what we know," Ebell said. "A lot are based on computer modeling, and there is no climate model that can give useful forecasts for local and regional climate change. They have no scientific validity."

This is an interesting statement. The thing about predictions of the future based on physics and thermodynamics is you can either work it out with a pencil and paper (in which case your calculations will have limited complexity) or use one of these amazing computer devices.

Or, if you are Myron Ebell, you favour pulling it out of your ass.

For avoidance of doubt, we are well within the margin of error of the computer predictions, and it's all looking bad.

The Nashville Scene picked up on the Myron Ebell reference:

Update: Apparently the highest degree CEI's resident climate-change expert [Myron Ebell] holds is a master's in economics. Again, it's unclear why he's trotted out in the story as some sort of authority, aside from the fact that he disagrees with the premise of the EPA's report.

Finally Myron Blames Obama for the BP oil leak and fights against the Blowout Prevention Act.