THE CLIMATE SCANDAL – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Thoughtful skeptics of global-warming theories have long suspected that there is some real malpractice involved in this issue.  Now a serious charge becomes public.  Oh, I haven't read this in mainstream American reporting.  Wonder why.  From London's Daily Mail: 

A top US academic has dramatically revealed how government officials forced him to change a hugely influential scientific report on climate change to suit their own interests.

Harvard professor Robert Stavins electrified the worldwide debate on climate change on Friday by sensationally publishing a letter online in which he spelled out the astonishing interference.

He said the officials, representing ‘all the main countries and regions of the world’ insisted on the changes in a late-night meeting at a Berlin conference centre two weeks ago.

Three quarters of the original version of the document ended up being deleted.

Prof Stavins claimed the intervention amounted to a serious ‘conflict of interest’ between scientists and governments. His revelation is significant because it is rare for climate change experts to publicly question the process behind the compilation of reports on the subject.

Prof Stavins, Harvard’s Professor of Business and Government, was one of two ‘co-ordinating lead authors’ of a key report published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) earlier this month.

His chapter of the 2,000-page original report concerned ways countries can co-operate to reduce carbon emissions.

IPCC reports are supposed to be scrupulously independent as they give scientific advice to governments around the world to help them shape energy policies – which in turn affect subsidies and domestic power bills.

Prof Stavins said the government officials in Berlin fought to make big changes to the full report’s ‘summary for policymakers’. This is the condensed version usually cited by the world’s media and politicians. He said their goal was to protect their ‘negotiating stances’ at forthcoming talks over a new greenhouse gas reduction treaty.

COMMENT:  Investigations anyone?  Will the fashion plates of American journalism take notice?  Will Congress?  How about the Republicans? 

This could be a decisive moment in the debate over climate change, and one in which real questions are asked about the integrity of some of the "research."   I suspect the moment will pass rather quietly.  At we see a Harvard professor with the courage to speak out.

April 28,  2014