“Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore will speak at Rice University’s Tudor Fieldhouse at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 23. Gore, who is chairman of the Climate Reality Project and a board member of Rice’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders, will present ‘The Climate Crisis and Extreme Weather.’ The discussion, which will include Gore answering [prescreened] audience questions, is presented by Rice’s Office of the President and the Doerr Institute.”

– Rice University, Former Vice President Al Gore to speak at Rice Oct. 23 , Press Release (October 10, 2017).

The propagandists are hard at work trying to make Houston, Texas, ground zero in the cause of climate alarmism and a carbon tax. The Houston Chronicle, New York-influenced with its ideology, incessantly ran stories of Hurricane Harvey being a man-made anomaly (see my Houston Chronicle: Preaching Climate Alarmism Post Harvey and Charles Battig’s Politicizing Harvey in the Houston Chronicle.)…

“We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.”

– James Hansen, “The Threat to the Planet.” The New York Times Review of Books (2006).

“Contrary to the impression favored by governments, the corner has not been turned toward declining emissions and GHG amounts…. Negative CO2 emissions, i. e., extraction of CO2 from the air, is now required.”

– James Hansen, “Young People’s Burden.” October 4, 2016.

Ten years ago, James Hansen predicted doom if mankind did not “fundamentally” reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in ten years. This ultimatum to the world came due this summer.

But far from raising the white flag, the father of the modern climate alarm now demands via legal action that CO2 and other GHG emissions go negative “if climate is to be stabilized on the century time scale, as a result of past failure to reduce emissions.”…

“The stories in Eichenwald’s book [on Enron] about [Andy] Fastow’s rage reminded me of [Michael] Mann’s rage – often exemplified in public, but now placed further into context by the Climategate letters.”

“The comparison with Enron may also be helpful in placing Climategate into context.”

– Steve McIntyre, February 2010

Back in 2010, Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit wrote a post, Rob Bradley: Climategate from an Enron Perspective. Bradley and McIntyre focus on the intellectual specter of bad science driving out good. As revealed by Climategate, mainstream climate scientists, driven by an agenda of alarmism in the service of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), chose to defend each other (with some exceptions) rather than let the hammer of the scientific method fall where it might.

Jerry North at Texas A&M, featured below, particularly culpable in the wake of Climategate, has largely withdrawn from the debate after a period of activism with his colleague Andy Dessler (who is no doubt having second thought about his I-am-certain high-sensitivity warming position of years past).…

More than a decade ago, I penned a 175-page overview/primer for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), titled Climate Alarmism Reconsidered. This work was the result of a decade of studying, writing, and debating about climate and energy policy at Enron Corp where I was a full-time employee (1985–2001).

As director of public policy analysis, I was the Enron’s representative to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (a Clinton/Gore task force). I also was involved with the World Energy Council drafting of Living in One World: Sustainability from an Economic Perspective, published in 2001. My comments, however, were rejected by the rest of the task force with distain; how could I not be alarmed at rising CO2 emissions, they stated. One member actually threatened to resign if my comments were incorporated in the draft.

The above experiences, as well as much tutelage from noted climatologist Gerald North of Texas A&M (an experience I describe here), as well as my own research in the free-market literature, resulted in my IEA effort post-Enron.…