Members of parliament walk out on ETS over carbon tax

Climategate: five Aussie MPs lead the way by resigning in disgust over carbon tax

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

By James Delingpole

Australia is leading the revolt against Al Gore’s great big AGW conspiracy – just as the Aussie geologist and AGW sceptic Professor Ian Plimer predicted it would.

ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.

The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.

Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.

Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position.

The ETS is Australia’s version of America’s proposed Cap and Trade and the EU’s various carbon reduction schemes: a way of taxing business on its CO2 output. As Professor Plimer pointed out when I interviewed him in the summer, this threatens to cause enormous economic damage in Australia’s industrial and mining heartlands, not least because both are massively dependent on Australia’s vast reserves of coal. It is correspondingly extremely unpopular with Aussie’s outside the pinko, libtard metropolitan fleshpots.

Though the ETS squeaked narrowly through Australia’s House of Representatives, its Senate is proving more robust – thanks not least to the widespread disgust by the many Senators who have read Professor Plimer’s book Heaven And Earth at the dishonesty and corruption of the AGW industry. If the Senate keeps rejecting the scheme, then the Australian government will be forced to dissolve.

For the rapidly increasing number of us who believe that AGW is little more than a scheme by bullying eco-fascists to deprive us of our liberty, by big government to spread its controlling tentacles into every aspect our lives, and scheming industrialists such as Al Gore to enrich themselves through carbon trading, this principled act by Australia’s Carbon Five is fantastic news.

Where they lead, the rest of the world’s politicians will eventually be forced to follow: their appalled electorates will make sure of it.

The devastating book which debunks climate change

The Real Global Warming Disaster By Christopher Booker

Daily Mail | Nov 23, 2009

By Christopher Booker

Just imagine if we learned we were about to be landed with the biggest bill in the history of the world – simply on the say-so of a group of scientists. Would we not want to be absolutely sure that those scientists were 100 per cent dependable in what they were saying?

Should we not then be extremely worried – and even very angry – if it emerged that those scientists had been conspiring among themselves to fiddle the evidence for what they were telling us?

This is the extraordinary position in which we find ourselves thanks to news reported in Saturday’s Daily Mail which has raised huge question marks over the reliability of the science behind the theory of global warming.

Hundreds of emails leaked from the internal computer system of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia show how a small group of highly influential senior British and U.S. scientists have for years been secretly discussing ways in which their evidence could be manipulated to make the threat posed by global warming sound much worse than it is.

To place the significance of these revelations into context, let us recall how exactly a year ago, Parliament passed, virtually unopposed, what was far and away the most expensive new law ever put before it. On the Government’s own figures, the Climate Change Act is going to cost Britain £18 billion a year – that’s £720 for every household in the country – every year from now until 2050.

We shall be paying this through soaring ‘green taxes’ on everything from air travel to the £3,300 tax being proposed on each new car; through rocketing fuel bills to subsidise thousands more wind turbines and to pay for removing carbon dioxide from coal-fired power stations.

In fact, the true cost of the act, if complied with to the letter, would certainly be far higher, because what it lays down is that, over the next 40 years, we must cut our emissions of carbon dioxide by over 80 per cent.

Pretty well every aspect of our lives in today’s industrialised society involves emitting carbon dioxide – and short of some technological revolution as yet undreamed of, the only way we could meet that target would be to close almost every part of our economy. Yet, astonishingly, scarcely a single MP even questioned the need for such a law; only three voted against it.

I recently published a book on what I have no hesitation in calling the most alarming story I have ever reported in all my years as a journalist.

This is the story of how the belief that the world has to fight the threat of global warming has crept to the top of the political agenda, to the point where, not just in Britain but across the world, governments are solemnly discussing by far the most costly series of measures any bunch of politicians has proposed.

This is what they will all be discussing at next month’s great UN conference, when 20,000 politicians, officials, scientists and environmental activists from all over the world gather in Copenhagen to discuss a new treaty to decide just what measures we shall all have to accept to keep the supposed threat of global warming at bay.

We all know the basic thesis: that thanks to mankind burning fossil fuels, the world’s temperatures are hurtling upwards, and that unless the most drastic action is taken, we can look forward to an unprecedented global catastrophe – droughts, hurricanes, killer heatwaves, melting icecaps, sea levels rising to the point where many of the world’s major cities are submerged.

All this is what has been predicted by the expensive computer models relied on by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC), which the politicians tell us we must trust as the ultimate source of authority on the future of the world’s climate.

On every side we are told that ‘the science is settled’, that ‘2,500 of the world’s top climate scientists’ agree that these terrifying predictions will all come true unless we take the most drastic action. So carried away have they all been by this belief that scarcely a single politician dares question it.

Yet the oddest thing which has become increasingly evident in the past year or two is the fact that almost none of these things is happening, certainly not in the way those computer models have been predicting. Although carbon dioxide levels have continued to increase, temperatures have not been rising in the way the computer models all agree they should have done.

In the past decade, the overall trend of temperatures has been not upwards, but down.

The hard evidence tells us that there have actually been fewer major droughts, hurricanes and heatwaves in recent years than there were in earlier decades.

There is no less ice at the Earth’s poles today than there was 30 years ago. Sea levels may have been rising very slowly, but no faster than they have been for 200 years.

In other words, as a growing army of genuine experts across the world has been trying to tell us, there is not a single item on the list of apocalyptic predictions we have been fed for so long by the IPCC and the likes of Al Gore which is not being called into question by what is actually happening to the world’s climate.

The scientists who have been challenging almost every aspect of the official theory on global warming have ranged from world-ranking physicists such as Professor Richard Lindzen, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Professors Will Happer and Freeman Dyson of Princeton University, to 700 scientists of many disciplines.

These include Nobel Prize-winners and former contributors to the IPCC, who signed a ‘minority report’ of the U.S. Senate’s environment committee.

It is beginning to look as though the panic over global warming, which has our politicians so in its grip, may have been no more than a colossal scare story – to line up alongside all those other scares which have raced in and out of the headlines in recent decades, such as the ‘Millennium Bug’, which at midnight on December 31, 1999, was going to crash the world’s computers.

So the real question which arises from this most terrifying of all scare scenarios is: why did the world’s politicians get swept along by it?

One of the more suspicious features of the man-made global warming theory is precisely this extraordinary pressure, which has been built up to insist the evidence for it is so overwhelming that it is a moral crime to question it.

For several years, anyone daring to doubt the theory – not least some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists – has been vilified as a ‘denier’, to be compared with those who try to deny the historical reality of Hitler’s Holocaust.

Al Gore was one of the first to condemn as ‘flat earthers’ anyone who was sceptical of his reckless scaremongering, likening such people to the cranks who believe the Moon landings were all somehow ‘faked on a movie lot in Arizona’ (delightfully, among the scientists who have come out as ‘climate sceptics’ are two of the U.S. astronauts who did land on the Moon, Dr Buzz Aldrin and Dr Jack Schmitt).

In the scientific world, notably in the U.S. and Europe, it has long been a major scandal that those daring to doubt the official orthodoxy on global warming face ostracism from their academic colleagues, have had research funding withdrawn and have not been allowed to publish their papers in the leading scientific journals.

But equally suspicious has been the way the advocates of the warming orthodoxy have been repeatedly shown to have fiddled the scientific evidence being used to promote it.

The most notorious example of this was the so-called ‘hockey stick’ graph, which for years was brandished to show that, after flat-lining for 1,000 years, global temperatures had suddenly soared upwards in the late 20th century to levels never known before in recorded history.

The hockey stick was used by the IPCC and Gore as the supreme icon of their cause. Then, two statisticians revealed that the graph had been created by a computer model programmed to produce hockey stick shapes whatever data were fed into it.

And now come these leaked emails showing that the very scientists who were responsible for championing the hockey stick – all at the heart of the IPCC establishment – have been regularly discussing how the evidence could be manipulated to promote their cause.

The greatest myth of all in this story is the claim that the succession of alarmist reports produced by the IPCC represents a ‘consensus’ of the views of ‘2,500 of the world’s top climate scientists’.

In every way, this is wildly misleading. The vast majority of those who contribute to those IPCC reports are not climate scientists. Many are not scientists at all, but economists or sociologists – even just environmental activists with no scientific qualifications whatever.

The IPCC was never intended to be an impartial body, weighing the evidence for and against man-made global warming and coming up with objective conclusions.

It was set up by a small group of scientists already so firmly committed to the belief in ‘human-induced climate change’ that they were not prepared to examine any evidence which contradicted it.

A detailed study of the contributors to the most recent IPCC report has shown that the number of scientists responsible for the key chapter on the extent and causes of global warming – on which everything else in the report depended – was not 2,500, but barely 50.

Almost all this handful of scientists were firmly committed to the official view on global warming before they were appointed – and they include those whose leaked emails have now created a shock wave running around the world.

Tellingly, what they also all have in common is that their findings are based on computer models programmed to assume the chief cause of global warming is the rise in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

It is precisely this assumption which more than anything else has been called into question by the fact that global temperatures have not been continuing to rise as the computer models insisted they should.

Even some of the most committed scientific supporters of the global warming theory now admit the warming process has come to a halt – although they insist that in a decade or two it will re- emerge again stronger than ever.

The fact remains that the models on which the whole global warming panic was based have been proved dismally wrong, suggesting that the theory on which they were programmed may itself have been fundamentally flawed.

Yet on this basis, the world’s politicians, led by our own in Britain, are nevertheless proposing the most damaging measures ever put forward in history – cuts in carbon emission which, if implemented, would plunge our world back into the Dark Ages – to meet a crisis which it now seems was never going to happen anyway.

Before it is too late, we must insist our politicians re- examine the increasingly shaky scientific case on which all those proposals are based.

For nearly 20 years, from Al Gore to President Obama, they have been intoning to us that ‘the science is settled’. But as ever more scientists from outside the IPCC’s self- selected ‘magic circle’ now maintain, it has never been more obvious that this simply isn’t true.

No one has put this better than Professor Lindzen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, when he wrote: ‘Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st-century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally average temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections contemplated a roll-back of the industrial age.’

With the entire future of our civilisation at stake, it is no longer good enough for our politicians just to shout ‘deniers’ and ‘flat earthers’ at all those genuinely expert scientists now begging them to look properly at the evidence. They must be prepared to listen – and, for the sake of our planet, to think again.

Canadians think H1N1 risks exaggerated: poll

CBC News | Nov 12, 2009

Canadians are evenly split over the federal government’s handling of the swine flu, but more than half believe concerns over the risk of H1N1 are exaggerated, a new poll by EKOS indicates.

In the poll, conducted exclusively for CBC News, Canadians were asked their opinion of the public level of concern over the risks associated with the virus.

Fifty-three per cent said the level of concern about swine flu is exaggerated, considering the real risks involved with the virus. Thirty-seven per cent said the concern was consistent with the level of risk, and 10 per cent said the level of risk was understated.

More men than women thought the risk was exaggerated, as did younger Canadians compared with older ones, the poll said.

A third of Canadians surveyed said they will definitely get the H1N1 vaccination, but a quarter said they will not.

Ironically, older Canadians aged 65 and up are more likely to get the shot than younger Canadians who are considered at higher risk.

Canadians in Atlantic Canada and Quebec were also more likely to get the shot than those in other regions.

The poll also found that while 39 per cent of Canadians approve of the government’s handling of the virus’s threat, 39 per cent disapprove. About 22 per cent did not know or had no response.

Canadians had a more favourable view of their provincial or municipal governments’ handling of the issue, with 42 per cent indicating their approval and 35 per cent disapproval.

The H1N1 issue didn’t seem to have much effect on federal political party standings.

The Tories remain on top, dropping slightly to 36.6 per cent support from 37.4 per cent a week ago. The Liberals stayed virtually the same at 26.6 per cent (compared with 26.8 per cent) while the NDP was up slightly at 16.8 per cent from 16.3 per cent.

The Green Party gained, up to 11.2 per cent from 10 per cent support, and the Bloc Québécois dipped to 8.8 per cent from 9.4 per cent.

Respondents were asked which party they would vote for if a federal election were held tomorrow.

The survey of 3,502 people was conducted by telephone between Nov. 4 and Nov. 10, 2009, and has an error margin of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Both landline and cellphone users were included.

School CCTV seized after kids filmed changing

manchestereveningnews.co.uk | Nov 6, 2009

by Yakub Qureshi and Neal Keeling

POLICE seized video footage from a primary school after children were filmed on a CCTV system as they changed for gym lessons.

The recording was seized after angry parents protested outside Charlestown Primary School in Salford.

The parents had discovered that the school’s surveillance cameras were running round the clock and some children had been inadvertently filmed changing into gym gear in their classrooms before PE lessons.

Staff at the school had contacted police to ask them to remove the protesting parents. But after speaking to the parents officers took the footage from the cameras and a computer hard drive.

Police have studied the images and decided no further action is needed.

The school has disconnected the cameras involved in the row. there is no suggestion the footage was being used inappropriately.

But now Salford council is to review the use of all CCTV at its 82 primary schools. The review will look at which schools have cameras, where they are sited and what they are used for.

Parents say they were assured that cameras at Charlestown – installed to improve security – would be kept switched off most of the time. Police were called to the 220-pupil school on Monday after dad Jason Lowe began collecting signatures for a petition.

Mr Lowe, who has two sons at the school, said: “We were originally told that the cameras would hardly ever be used. But in the last week we have just found out that they are recording all the time.

“The children have to get changed in the classrooms because there are no changing facilities. We think it is wrong that the cameras are there. It is a breach of their privacy.”

Headteacher Daniel Gauld, who has been at the school since 2006, was not available for comment.

The school is highly rated by Ofsted. Chairman of the school governors, Davina Heyhoe said: “The cameras were installed in 2006, prior to the current headteacher’s appointment.

“They were put in to help improve security for pupils and for equipment. Parents would have been fully aware of the system, which complies with all the appropriate legislation.

“The system was renewed for the start of term with two new cameras put in for a specific security need. Charlestown is an open plan design inside so the cameras are sited at the most strategic points to help with security. In some cases, this means their coverage includes some classroom areas that are also walk-through routes.

“We were responding to concerns from some parents about the cameras being on while children got changed for gym class and had planned to put caps over the lens when required.

“However, the head decided this was not adequate and these particular cameras have been disconnected from the system pending a better, long-term solution which satisfies parents and still provides security for the school.”

Cllr John Warmisham from salford council said: “Data Protection laws govern the privacy of individuals but I want to be clear that we give schools the right guidance for capturing and recording images of children.

“Our parents need to be confident that schools have the right procedures in place to protect any images they have of children and I want to be sure that parents have been properly informed about cameras in their child’s school.

“Closed-circuit TV in schools is relatively new but it looks like it is here to stay and we need to ensure that our procedures and guidelines keep pace with this.”

Police Officer Uses Taser On 10-Year-Old Girl

4029tv.com | Nov 17, 2009

OZARK, Ark. — Ozark police said they were called to a home where a mother asked for help with her unruly child, but the 10-year-old’s father said he’s outraged at the force police used against his daughter.

“I would like to say Ozark police Tased this little girl right here. Ten years old and [they] shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God’s green earth can they get away with this,” said the girl’s father, Anthony Medlock.

Medlock said his daughter was at her mother’s house when Ozark police Officer Dustin Bradshaw shocked her in the back with a Taser and arrested her.

“If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer,” Medlock said.

Medlock said his daughter does show signs of having emotional issues, but she “doesn’t deserve to be treated like a dog. She’s not a tiger.”

According to a police report, the officer was called to the home by the mother and witnessed the child kicking and screaming.

The officer’s statement said the girl’s mother, Kelly Hamlert, told him to use a Taser on her if he needed to.

The officer did shock the girl after he said she kicked him in the groin.

“He had no other choice. He had to get the child under control,” said Ozark police Chief Jim Noggle.

Noggle said the officer shocked the girl for about a second.

Ozark police said it is their policy to use a Taser on someone who is a threat to others, no matter their age.

Noggle said simply restraining the child could be harmful.

“Well, if he tried to restrain her, he might hurt her by restraining her. If you grab somebody, you can slip an arm out of joint. They can slip from you and fall on the ground,” Noggle said.

“I don’t know what kind of policy it is. I don’t think it’s right,” Medlock said.

Medlock said this is not the first time the girl’s mother has called police to take her daughter to a juvenile facility. He said he will now try to get custody of his daughter.

“She just wants somebody to love her, and I do,” he said.

40/29 News checked with several other police agencies about their taser policies. The Fort Smith Police Department said it will only uses a Taser on a person 14 years old or older if they are a threat to someone.

Fort Smith Police said it’s usually the discretion of each police department to make their own policies on using a Taser.

Noggle said no action is being taken against the Ozark officer who used the Taser on the girl, and he said her case will go before the juvenile court system.

Australian Prime Minister: “Dangerous” warming-deniers “holding world to ransom”

Australian PM Rudd warns skeptics ‘are too ‘dangerous to ignore’ and are ‘holding the world to ransom’ — Climate Depot Responds

‘Yes, we plead guilty to promoting ‘inaction’ — ‘Skeptics will proudly celebrate the collapse of Copenhagen Treaty’

Climate Depot | Nov 6, 2009

By Marc Morano

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spewed out a rhetorical barrage on climate skeptics worldwide. See: Australian PM warns skeptics ‘are too ‘dangerous to ignore’ and are ‘holding the world to ransom’ – November 6, 2009.

Climate Depot has undertaken a point by point rebuttal to Rudd’s claims. The full text of Rudd’s speech is available here.

Rudd Claim: Skeptics are “powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond.”

Climate Depot Response: Yes, skepticism, the foundation of science, is and always has been strong enough to derail lavishly funded and politically motivated science based on wildly speculative climate model “predictions” and distortions of past climate records. A “scientifically meaningless” domestic carbon trading or international treaties will not impact global climate in any detectable ways, but will have huge human impacts.

Rudd Claim: Skeptics “constitute a powerful global force for inaction.”

Climate Depot Response: On the contrary, skeptics constitute a powerful force for scientific truth and morality based vibrant energy expansion to the developing world’s poor. To the extent that we can prevent “scientifically meaningless” climate treaties and regulations from passing, then yes, we plead guilty to promoting “inaction.” As former Thatcher science advisor Lord Christopher Monckton has said: “Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”

Rudd Claim: “Climate skeptics are quite literally holding the world to ransom.”

Climate Depot Response: Reality check Mr. Rudd. Science, economics and reality are holding man-made global warming fear promoters like Rudd to ransom. It must be frustrating Mr. Rudd to have once believed you could hoodwink the people of your nation and the world to believe in climate fears and your purely symbolic “solutions.” Polling data from the U.S., the UK, Canada and your Australia show the public growing more skeptical. (See: Polls: ‘More Americans believe in haunted houses than man-made global warming’ – 37% vs. 36% ) The only “ransom” involved in this debate is the financial demands placed on countries to redistribute money based on collapsing climate fears. See: Reparations: Africa seeks climate change cash…demands billions in compensation for ‘damage caused by global warming’ & Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference & ‘Controlling climate? More like controlling humans’: Beware of ‘unprecedented transfer of wealth, power and control to domestic and global governance’

Rudd Claim: Our “children’s fate – and our grandchildren’s fate – will lie entirely with [skeptics' opposition].

Climate Depot Response: Nice maudlin touch, Mr. Rudd. The fact is children are probably the only ones left that you and your climate fear promoting friends can convince that a climate catastrophe is just around the corner and you and your colleagues are their saviors. You are in luck, Mr. Rudd. Climate Depot takes full responsibility for the fate of your children and grandchildren from any future man-made climate catastrophe. Climate Depot can and will gladly take public responsibility for the children and future grandchildren of our planet for “doing nothing” about climate. So there, problem solved.

Rudd Claim: “The legion of climate change skeptics are active across the world…”

Climate Depot Response: Yes, you are very correct on this point Mr. Rudd. Scientists dissenting from silly and baseless man-made global warming fears are literally standing up around the world – from New Zealand to Canada to Brazil to Mexico to Sweden to South Africa to Japan to Portugal and everywhere in between. See: 2009 U.S. Senate Report: 700 Plus Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Warming Claims and see: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’

The shock to you Mr. Rudd is that even the mainstream media is not abandoning man-made climate fears. See: Losing Their Religion: 2009 officially declared year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears

Rudd Claim: “The clock is ticking for the planet, but the climate change skeptics simply do not care.

Climate Depot Response: What clock is “ticking?” The one the UN warned of a ten year tipping point in 1989? See: U.N. Warning of 10-Year ‘Climate Tipping Point’ Began in 1989

In addition, NASA’s James Hansen and former Vice President Al Gore started their comical “tipping point” clocks a few years ago, while Prince Charles claimed a 96-month tipping point in July 2009! Even more absurd, the UN chief further shortened the “tipping point,” warning of ‘incalculable’ suffering without climate deal in December 2009! The question looms: Would you buy a used car from a salesman using such low-brow tactics, let alone, buy into man-made climate fear claims? Mr. Rudd, you must believe the public to be nothing more than a bunch of rubes if you want them to believe your climate tripe. See: MIT Climate Scientist Richard Lindzen: ‘Ordinary people see through man-made climate fears — but educated people are very vulnerable’ – July 6, 2009

Rudd Claim: “The vested interests at work are simply too great.”

Climate Depot Response: What “vested interests?” You are not claiming that skeptics have some sort of funding that is in any way comparable to the tens of billions spent promoting climate fears, are you? See: Gore’s path to become the first ‘Carbon Billionaire’ and see: The Global Warming Science Machine: $79 Billion and Counting

Rudd Claim: Skeptics “are a political attempt to subvert what is now a longstanding scientific consensus…”

Climate Depot Response: “Longstanding scientific consensus?” Surely you jest. Man-made global warming fears did not come in widespread vogue until the late 1980’s. In case you missed it, many of today’s warmers were promoting global cooling as late as 1970’s. See: Climate Depot’s Factsheet on 1970s Coming ‘Ice Age’ Claims: ‘Fears of a coming ice age, showed up in peer-reviewed literature, at scientific conferences, by prominent scientists and throughout the media’ The man-made global warming hypothesis is now failing in the scientific community. See: UK Astrophysicist: ‘The notion that CO2 warms world has come to a dead end’: They are trying to ‘prop up a ’scientific theory’ that has run out of so called facts’ and see: UN IPCC Scientist Declares ‘A Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism’ and see: New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming — As Skeptics!

South African UN Scientist Dr. Will Alexander wrote in March 2009, “’The whole climate change issue is about to fall apart…Heads will roll!” UK scientist Dr. David Bellamy once believed man-made climate fears, but has since reversed his views and become a skeptic. “The ­science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science, Bellamy said in November 2008.

The news is so grim for man-made climate fear activists that they are already looking for the next environmental scare to hype! See: AGW RIP? Is It Time for Next Eco-Scare Already? Gore’s producer Laure David touts plastic crisis: ‘Plastic waste is in some ways more alarming for us humans than global warming’ – July 31, 2009 & UK Green Party: ‘There exists a more serious crisis than the ‘CO2 crisis’: the oxygen levels are dropping and the human activity has decreased them by 1/3 or ½’

Rudd Claim: The consensus is supported by “4000 scientists appointed by governments from virtually every country in the world.”

Climate Depot Response: Why not make up higher numbers? Why not just claim 50,000 UN scientists support the “consensus?” What silliness.

Reality Check: 2009 U.S. Senate Minority Report of dissenting scientists has pushed the total to over 700 skeptical international scientists – a dramatic increase from the original 650 scientists featured in the initial December 11, 2008 release. The 59 additional scientists added to the 255-page Senate Minority report since the initial release 13 ½ weeks ago represents an average of over four skeptical scientists a week. The over 700 dissenting scientists are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. Update: Numbers Racket: Rudd blunders in claiming ‘4000′ UN scientists: Reality Check: Only 60 UN experts ‘explicitly supported the claim made by the IPCC that global warming represents a threat to the planet’ – Nov. 6, 2009

Here is a very small sampling of what current and former UN scientists have to say about the UN and its scientific methods.

“Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”

- UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists.”

- Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

“Temperature measurements show that the [climate model-predicted mid-troposphere] hot zone is non-existent. This is more than sufficient to invalidate global climate models and projections made with them!”

- UN IPCC Scientist Dr. Steven M. Japar, a PhD atmospheric chemist who was part of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second (1995) and Third (2001) Assessment Reports, and has authored 83 peer-reviewed publications and in the areas of climate change, atmospheric chemistry, air pollutions and vehicle emissions.

“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007.

- Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.”

- Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

“The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil… I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science.”

- South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.

“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.”

- Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

Rudd Claim: Skeptic “attempt to twist the agreed science in the direction of a predetermined political agenda to kill climate change action.”

Climate Depot Response: Very interesting choice of words – “agreed science” The “science” of man-made global warming fears is literally the best science politics can manufacture. See New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming — As Skeptics! The problem, Mr. Rudd, is that your view of “agreed science” is collapsing in real world data, peer-reviewed studies and a growing number of dissenting scientists. See: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’

Rudd Claim: “It reminds me of the efforts of the smoking lobby decades ago as they tried for years to politically subvert by so-called scientific means that there was any link between smoking and lung cancer.”

Climate Depot Response: Great analogy Mr. Rudd! Climate Depot agrees, the smoking analogy is very apt. But alas, it is the promoters of man-made climate fears that are mimicking the tobacco lobbyists actions. See: Climate Fear Promoters mimic tobacco industry tactics Excerpt: This [current climate fear promoting] strategy provides a positive “pro-science” public stance that masks the ignominious activity of institutional and professional persecution of numerous scientists whose honest work casts legitimate doubt upon the more alarmist projections of the supposed “consensus.” Like the tobacco industry, this campaign has: “Manufactured uncertainty and fear by stridently proclaiming certainty and consensus based on dubious and uncertain modeled results predicting disastrous consequences of a warmer climate.”

Rudd Claim: “What absolute political cowardice” [on the part of skeptics].

Climate Depot Response: Cowardice? Scientists have literally risked their careers to go against today’s politically motivated “consensus.” On the contrary, skeptics are courageous to wage a battle against the “agree science” you take as a matter of faith. See: EPA further muzzles global warming skeptic Dr. Alan Carlin – August 25, 2009 & Other climate fear promoters are using threats and intimidation to silence the climate debate. See: ‘Execute’ Skeptics! Shock Call To Action: ‘At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers’ — ‘Shouldn’t we start punishing them now?’ – June 3, 2009

Rudd Claim: “What an absolute failure of logic [by skeptics].”

Climate Depot Response: Logic? Let’s review Mr. Rudd. You are lamenting the fact that skeptics are opposed to a “scientifically meaningless” climate “solution” process that could condemn the estimated 1.6 billion energy impoverished people in the developing world to a continued nasty brutish and short existence based on collapsing scientific claims. See: India: ‘It is morally wrong for us to reduce emissions when 40% of Indians do not have access to electricity’ Skeptics promote a vibrant energy policy that promotes development and expands energy around the globe. The sooner we can eliminate the UN from climate and energy policy, the better off energy distribution and the developing world’s poor will become. The world needs energy initiatives, not anti-energy initiatives, and as we go forward, the less the United Nations has to do with climate and energy, the better. The only people “pitching a do-nothing approach to climate change” are the UN and the U.S. Congress. Why else would the Kyoto Protocol not even have a measurable impact on global temps (assuming they were correct on the science ) and it was fully enacted?

It is the U.S. Congress and the “scientifically meaningless” Waxman-Markey bill that even Obama’s EPA admits will not have a measurable impact on global Co2 levels, let alone any measurable or detectable impact on global temperatures. The man-made climate fear promoters have been “pitching a do-nothing approach to climate change…” since the movement’s launch in 1988 by consistently promoting purely symbolic “solutions” to global warming. Mr. Rudd, you claim that carbon trading and UN treaties are some sort of an “insurance” policy against global warming. But a simple question to ask is: Would you purchase fire insurance on your home that had a huge up front premium for virtually no payout if you home burned down? If you answered YES to such an “insurance” policy, then Congress and the UN has a deal for you with their cap-and-trade and climate legislation.

If we did actually face a man-made climate catastrophe and the “solutions” of the UN and Congress were our only hope, we would all be DOOMED!

Rudd Claim: Skeptics “are too dangerous to be ignored”

Climate Depot Response: Fully agree with you Mr. Rudd. Scientific truth, reality based economics are always “dangerous” to climate charlatans peddling their wares of a coming climate catastrophe. It used to be those who stood on street corners warning of the end times were thought of as nutcases, now those same views are held by world leaders. It is sad to see “climate astrology” replace actual science. See: Obama’s ‘Climate Astrologer’: Energy Sec. Chu claims he knows ‘what the future will be 100 years from now’: ‘Shouldn’t Chu be touting these scary predictions of the year 2100 on a boardwalk with a full deck of Tarot Cards? Sadly Mr. Rudd, it is you and your fellow climate alarm promoters that are touting faith based science.

Rudd Claim: “The danger skeptics pose is this – by collapsing political momentum towards national and global action on climate change, they collapse global political will to act at all. They are the stick that gets stuck in the wheel, that despite its size may yet bring the train to a complete stop.”

Climate Depot Response: We plead guilty Mr. Rudd! Our goal is simple: To bring the train to a complete stop. You did figure us out correctly on that point.

Rudd Claim: “Skeptics are well resourced and well represented by political conservatives in many, many countries.”

Climate Depot Response: Wrong again, Mr. Rudd. Politically left scientists and environmental activists are now dissenting from climate fears in growing numbers. See: Politically Left Scientists Now Rejecting Climate Fears – Jan. 2009

Rudd Claim: “This brigade of do-nothing climate change skeptics are dangerous because if they succeed, then it is all of us who will suffer.”

Climate Depot Response: Yes, scientific truth, economic reality and political realism are always “dangerous” to politically and ideologically motivated climate fear promoters. As for “suffering” from failure to “act”, please explain how UN treaties and carbon trading “save the planet?” Even the Washington Post understands climate reality. See: Wash. Post’s Moment of Clarity: ‘Carbon emissions will not be reduced by international bureaucrats sitting in a room and signing a piece of paper’ – July 14, 2009

Rudd Claim: “Their aim is not to convince every person on earth of the follies of acting on climate change. Their aim is to erode just enough of the political will that action becomes impossible.”

Climate Depot Response: Actually Mr. Rudd, the more messrs Gore, Kerry, Brown, Obama, and yourself speak, the more the public grows skeptical. So you and your colleagues have been a huge help in helping to spread skepticism and expand opposition to silly and economically destructive global climate treaties.

Rudd Claim: “If Copenhagen does not deliver the outcome we so urgently need, no individual climate change skeptic will be responsible, but each of them will have played their part.”

Climate Depot Response: Goody! Let us hope Copenhagen does not deliver! For the sake of the planet and its inhabitants. Skeptics will proudly celebrate the collapse of Copenhagen and do so knowing our children and grandchildren will be better off. Yes, our children and grandchildren will be much better off without a UN body that uses used-car salesman tactics dictating meaningless climate “action.”

Rudd Claim: “In this debate the climate change skeptics have erected an intellectual house of cards based on one simple premise: that the cost of not acting is nothing.”

Climate Depot Response: Actually, you have your logic reversed Mr. Rudd. The cost of doing “something” as defined by the U.S. Congress and the UN achieves “nothing” in results. It is all economic pain for no climate gain. At best under UN climate treaties, the world accomplishes “nothing” as far as climate goes, but we risk a neo-colonialism of Western nations imposing regulations on impoverished developing nations that can only be called immoral. See: Flashback 2002: U.S. Environmentalist Laments Introduction of Electricity in Africa; Flashback 2002: Jerry Brown says ‘it’s not viable’ for poverty stricken developing world to emulate prosperity of U.S.’ Ugandan Activist: ‘African life span is lower than it was in U.S. and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans told we shouldn’t develop’ because wealthy Western nations are ‘worried about global warming’: Excerpt: ‘Telling Africans they can’t have electricity and economic development – is immoral’; Flashback 2003: S. African Activist: Poor countries should just say: ‘Go to hell’ to Wealthy Western Nations: ‘If you don’t want us to fill in our wetlands, then you bomb your big cities like Washington, a third of Holland and Rotterdam and so on, and restore them to being swamps’; Flashback 2002: UN Earth Summit’s Failure Called ‘Good Thing’ For Poor Nations: Excerpt: The first world became rich without the IMFs and World Banks, and the less of them that are around, the more likely the Third World is to do the same.”; It is a moral issue! – ‘People cannot cook’…Chad’s Global Warming Inspired Ban on Charcoal leads to ‘Desperate’ Families! – January 16, 2009

Poor Kenyans rebel as UK grocery store’s “carbon friendly” policies may stop food exports; India: ‘It is morally wrong for us to reduce emissions when 40% of Indians do not have access to electricity’

Report: ‘Green, UN, rich nation and African elites impose deadly anti-development colonialism’ – June 8, 2009; Greenpeace Leader: There is urgent need for the suppression of economic growth in U.S…’Lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model’ – August 20, 2009; Flashback 2002: Average American Lifestyle Called “Total Bull—t” by Environmentalist – Excerpt: ‘If anyone in a developing country looks to the U.S. and wants a lifestyle like the average American–it’s total bull—t!’; Flashback 2000: Actor Chevy Chase Says ‘Socialism Works’ — ‘Cuba might prove that’; Black clergymen protest Robert Redford ‘link his environmentalism to racism’; Obama Advisor Warren Buffett ‘repeats criticism of cap and trade, saying it would be a huge, regressive tax’

Rudd Claim: “Skeptics claim that the cost of not acting is nothing.”

Climate Depot Response: Wrong again. Skeptics claim that RESULT of “acting” is nothing in terms of climate results.

Rudd Claim: “Their skepticism is in fact radical in its riskiness and recklessness. By deliberately undermining and eroding the capacity to achieve both domestic and international action on climate change the skeptics are attempting to force the world to take the single most reckless bet in our long history.”

Climate Depot Response: Mr. Rudd, you repeat yourself ad nauseum. There is no “reckless” bet. The way forward is already happening. Improving technologies, expanding energy and growing economies in the developing world will improve the global environment more than any UN treaty or domestic carbon trading ever conceivably could.

Rudd Claim: “Skeptics are doing so in the total absence of any genuine body of evidence.”

Climate Depot Response: Oh please Mr. Rudd. Here is but a sampling of the latest scientific studies and real world data that are challenging your politically motivated science views. See: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’

Rudd Claim: “The logic of these skeptics belongs in a casino, not a science lab, and not in the ranks of any responsible government…their prescription for inaction has all the legitimacy of a roulette wheel.”

Climate Depot Response: The casino analogy is apt. People are being told that we must enact a new UN climate treaty or face certain doom. The problem is the casino is run by the UN and it is loaded with corruption. (See: Internal Report Says U.N. Climate Agency Rife With Bad Practices – Fox News – December 4, 2008 )The UN casino pit bosses are offering a sucker bet. Put all your money on a “climate treaty” or “carbon trading” and you will be allowed to live. Don’t do it and you will face bodily harm and loss of property. It’s an offer you can’t refuse. See: La Cosa Climate: Commerce Sec. Warns: Americans Need ‘To Pay’ Or Face Mother Nature’s Wrath — Pay up or face ‘floods, droughts and rising sea levels’: An offer you can’t refuse — Pay up or world faces a ‘catastrophe’

Congressional Weather-Makers: ‘Climate Astrologer’ Boxer warns of ‘droughts, floods, fires, loss of species’ — if Senate fails to pass climate bill

What UN casino is not telling patrons is that the “climate treaty” bet is nothing more than pure symbolism that could harm the poorest of residents. People are wising up, gambling with the UN is not a winning bet.

Rudd Claim: “You are betting our jobs, our houses, our farms, our reefs, our economy and our future on an intuition – on a gut feeling; on a political prejudice you have about science…You’ve got to know when to fold ‘em – and for the skeptics, that time has come.

Climate Depot Response: Aha, yes, the time to fold has arrived. Here is a very small sampling of the current reality you want to deny Mr. Rudd: See: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’ and ‘Dramatic acceleration of developments against the claims of a so-called ‘consensus.’

UN Fears (More) Global Cooling Commeth! IPCC Scientist Warns UN: We may be about to enter ‘one or even 2 decades during which temps cool’

‘Sun Sleeps’: Danish Scientist declares ‘global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning…enjoy global warming while it lasts’

Prominent Russian Scientist: ‘We should fear a deep temperature drop — not catastrophic global warming’ : ‘Warming had a natural origin…CO2 is ‘not guilty’

Poll: 18% of Swedes under 30 believe US govt behind 9/11 attacks, with another 31% doubting official story

Many young Swedes doubt al-Qaida 9/11 guilt

thelocal.se | Nov 1, 2009

Almost one in five Swedes aged under 30 think that George W Bush’s US government lay behind the attacks on September 11th 2001, according to a new survey by Novus Opinion.

The TV4 programme Kalla Fakta, which commissioned the survey, will on Sunday address the subject of the Truth Movement, an international group which espouses the conspiracy theory that the terror network al-Qaida was not behind the September 11th attacks.

The movement, also known as the “September 11th research community” argues that it was in fact the US government that staged the attacks, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, in order to legitimize the war on terrorism.

The Novus poll indicates that a significant number of young Swedes are persuaded by the logic of the argument.

Of the 1,000 Swedes surveyed in an internet panel, 70 percent responded that al-Qaida were behind the attacks, while seven percent did not think so.

Among those under-30 only 58 percent believed responsibility lay with al-Qaida, while 15 percent did not.

When asked whether the US government orchestrated the attacks, eight percent supported the theory while 64 percent rejected it.

However among the under-30s there was once again more scepticism: 51 percent rejected the conspiracy theory while 18 percent believed that the US government, led at the time by President George W Bush, had a role in the attacks.

As many as 31 percent of the young people interviewed in the survey responded that they did not know what to believe.

Zero tolerance for GM foods in Europe

For Europeans, genetic engineering of plant life is ‘sinful’

thehindubusinessline.com | Nov 2, 2009

by Mohan Murti

Food is to European culture what free speech is to American culture. There may not always be a good scientific reason for concern, but to consider eating something that has resulted from some laboratory manoeuvring is felt by many Europeans as a kind of refutation of the true self.

Whether judiciously or not, most Europeans are frightened to death of genetically modified food. And, this is not entirely a matter of Europeans’ falling victim to protectionist propaganda or frenzy. Trying to force genetically modified food down European throats is the surest way to guarantee that they swallow neither the potatoes nor a lot of the tactics to dump GM foods.

More than ever today, Europeans are talking about where their food comes from. Food scares push people towards farmers’ markets and more home-cooked fare made with fresh ingredients.

The Atharva Veda 12:1:62, says

O Mother Earth,

Let thy bosom be free

From sickness and decay

May we through long life

Be active and vigilant

And serve thee with devotion

In most of Europe, this Atharva Veda concept of manipulation-free, local-food movement has been gaining momentum in recent years.

Right Decision

Europeans applaud the recent Indian Government’s pronouncement to postpone its decision on the approval of genetically modified Bt aubergines. There are compelling reasons, Europeans feel, why India cannot afford to ignore the environmental and health risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

In Europe, regulations are being imposed in the Parliament, individual European nations, and some stores themselves have all imposed restrictions on GM foods.

There is virtually no market for GM foods in Europe as consumers and farmers have overwhelmingly rejected them. EU labelling and traceability regulations also give consumers better information to decide.

Several European retailers have a policy of not selling, under their own brand name, any product requiring a GM label in their markets. Most have put this policy in place years ago, and all have quality-control tests and audit systems to exclude GM ingredients. Countries that have planted GM crops on a large scale have seen their exports to Europe crash.

European Scenario

European farmers are rejecting GM crops and turning to ecological farming. They do not want to be at the mercy of bullying multinationals which are threatening to take control of food.

Most of the 27 EU nations are opposed to GMOs because of risks to the environment and the kind of cross-pollination, of which the Spanish farmers and others have complained. They have been calling for the EU’s agreement on authorising such crops, and the evaluation methods used by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to be beefed up, notably to put more emphasis on the risks of cross-pollination.

Only a handful of GMOs have been approved for cultivation in the EU; of them, only Monsanto’s MON810 maize, approved in 1998, is so far being grown.

The MON810 case has become a source of transatlantic friction. The US has warned Europe against using environmental issues as an excuse for protectionism.

In Germany, the federal states are responsible for official food surveillance. Each of the 16 states has established at least one laboratory for analysing foods for their content of GMOs and, thereby, for their compliance with labelling regulations. Each year, thousands of foods are tested.

The individual results vary from state to state and year to year, but there is a clear trend.

Foods derived from unauthorised GM crops are usually picked up by the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and turned back at the borders. This system prevents unauthorised products from reaching the European market.

GMO-free label

Since May 2008, it has been possible in Germany to apply the label “without gene technology” to food products. Its primary application is in the identification of foods such as milk or meat, derived from animals for which no genetically modified plants such as maize or soy were used in feed.

The criteria are stricter for other foodstuffs: Neither the application of additives obtained through genetic modification nor the accidental admixture of genetically modified plants is allowed.

The standardised logo is making it easier for consumers to choose food products without gene technology in an informed manner.

No more soy shipments are reaching European shores from the US. After several ships were turned away due to traces of Bt maize MON88017 and MIR604 being found in the cargo, all importers are shying away from the risk of such imports.

Europeans are convinced that contamination of the food-chain with GM ingredients and GMOs would create serious and possibly irreversible economic impacts on farmers.

The resulting economic losses — together with patent infringement lawsuits by the biotechnology companies — are likely to lead to a veritable Pandora’s box of legal actions.

Genie in the Bottle

For Europeans, genetic engineering of plant life is ‘sinful’

Europeans believe that the science of genetic engineering is unpredictable and that this ‘Golden Goose’ of industry is laying some stale, mouldy, rotten eggs.

The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany.

Rock rages against the torture machine

The list of music used included death metal band Deicide’s F..k Your God

Air Force lieutenant colonel Dan Kuehl, who teaches psychological operations to the US military, invoked the Old Testament use of loud music. “Joshua’s army used horns to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Jericho.”

The Australian | Oct 24, 2009

by Tim Reid

A COALITION of musicians including Pearl Jam and REM. has backed a formal demand to be told if their songs have been used to torture detainees in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq.

Many former prisoners have claimed they were blasted with excruciatingly loud music for months on end – a tactic banned under the UN Convention Against Torture but not yet from the US Army Field Manual.

The musicians spoke out yesterday as a Freedom of Information request was lodged by the US campaign group No More Guantanamos, a legal move backed by the British human rights group Reprieve, which has been campaigning against “music torture” for more than a year.

According to evidence gained by human rights organisations, the list of music used included songs ranging from death metal band Deicide’s F..k Your God, Sesame Street tunes, and the song most frequently blasted at inmates, I Love You by the children’s TV character Barney the Purple Dinosaur.

Former detainees have said the tactic was one of the worst and most painful used against them. The National Security Archive, a freedom of information organisation helping the musicians, said the playlist also featured cuts from AC/DC, Britney Spears, the Bee Gees, and Marilyn Manson.

Archive executive director Thomas Blanton said: “At Guantanamo the US government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture. The musicians and the public have the right to know how an expression of popular culture was transformed into an interrogation technique.”

Tom Morello, guitarist with the band Rage Against the Machine – whose song Killing in the Name of was also used – said: “The fact that music I helped create was used as a tactic against humanity sickens me.”

The musicians’ campaign comes as the Obama administration has been forced to concede that the President’s pledge to shut Guantanamo by January will fail. His bold promise to close the prison within a year of coming to office has run into myriad political and logistical problems, including fierce opposition at home to the transportation of detainees to US prisons and a reluctance by Western allies to receive many of the remaining inmates. Congress is refusing to fund the closure of the facility, which still holds about 220 prisoners.

After the September 11 attacks and the war on terror it appears the use of loud music first became common inside Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, scene of the infamous inmate abuse photographs.

Haj Ali, the hooded man in one of the most notorious pictures, told of being stripped and forced to listen to a looped version of David Gray’s Babylon at a volume so loud that he said he thought his head “would explode”. Metallica’s Enter Sandman was often used in Guantanamo Bay, while Queen’s We Are the Champions was a favourite among US guards at Camp Cropper in Iraq. One Iraqi talked of being taken to an unidentified location and blasted with music in a building referred to as “the disco”.

In one case interrogators allegedly played music to “stress” Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a citizen of Mauritania, who has been at Guantanamo for more than seven years, because he believed music was forbidden.

Slahi said he was questioned over a 10-day period in July 2003 by an interrogator called “Mr X” while being “exposed to variable lighting patterns” and repeated playing of a song called Let the Bodies Hit the Floor by the band Drowning Pool.

Last year, retired US air force lieutenant colonel Dan Kuehl, who teaches psychological operations to the US military, invoked the Old Testament use of loud music. “Joshua’s army used horns to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Jericho,” he told the St Petersburg Times in Florida. “His men might not have been able to break down literal walls with their trumpets but the noise eroded the enemy’s courage.”

In Germany, A Better H1N1 Vaccine For Politicians?

Time | Oct 27, 2009

By Tristana Moore / Berlin

Critics are calling it a two-tier health system — one for the politically well-connected, another for the hoi polloi. As Germany launched its mass vaccination program against the H1N1 flu virus on Monday, the government found itself fending off accusations of favoritism by offering one vaccine believed to have fewer side effects to civil servants, politicians and soldiers, and another potentially riskier vaccine to everyone else. The government had hoped that Germans would rush to health clinics to receive vaccinations against the rapidly spreading disease, but the rising anger over the different doses may now cause many people to shy away.

Amid growing fears over a possible global flu pandemic, the German government prepared for its mass vaccination campaign earlier this year by ordering 50 million doses of the Pandemrix vaccine, which would be enough for a double dose for 25 million people, around a third of the population. The vaccine, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, contains an immune-enhancing chemical compound, known as an adjuvant, whose side effects are not yet entirely known. Then, after a report was leaked to the German media last week, the Interior Ministry confirmed that it had ordered a different vaccine, Celvapan, for government officials and the military. Celvapan, which is made by the U.S. pharmaceutical giant Baxter, does not contain an adjuvant and is believed to have fewer side effects than Pandemrix. (See how not to get the H1N1 flu.)

Anger at the news was widespread in Germany. “If mass vaccination is considered to be necessary, then everyone should be treated the same way,” says Birgitt Bender, the health spokeswoman for the Green Party. Ulrike Mascher, head of the VdK social welfare association, said giving government officials a different vaccine from the rest of the population sent the “wrong signal” and gave many people “the impression that they are second-class patients.” A story on the front page of the mass-circulation Bild newspaper accused the government of giving “second-class medicine” to regular Germans.

Doctors and medical experts are divided over the safety of Pandemrix. While some say it’s the best vaccine available, others have serious misgivings about it. “The Pandemrix vaccine can’t be recommended for pregnant women or young children because it has an increased risk of side effects. Pandemrix has an adjuvant which hasn’t been tested sufficiently up until now,” Alexander Kekulé, a virologist at the University of Halle, tells TIME. “Celvapan is a whole virus vaccine, which has fewer side effects than Pandemrix, but it leads more often to fever or local swelling when compared with the normal seasonal flu vaccine,” he adds. Although Kekulé called the government’s handling of the vaccination program a “scandal,” he said government officials and soldiers are not necessarily getting a better deal with Celvapan. “Neither Celvapan nor Pandemrix are ideal,” he says. (See what you need to know about the H1N1 vaccine.)

The Interior Ministry hit back at suggestions of preferential treatment, saying that it had ordered around 200,000 doses of the Celvapan vaccine from Baxter before the differences between the two vaccines were documented, and the government was bound by the terms of its contract. The government also points out that both Pandemrix and Celvapan have been approved by the European Union, and that other countries such as Britain and Sweden are using the Pandemrix vaccine. In an attempt to put a lid on the simmering controversy, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Ulrich Wilhelm, said that the German leader would consult with her doctor in the next few days and if she decided to receive a jab, it would be Pandemrix. (See pictures of thermal scanners hunting for swine flu.)

At least 26,000 people have been infected with swine flu in Germany, resulting in three deaths. Although the majority of patients have experienced only mild flu-like symptoms, a steady increase in the number of cases of H1N1 in recent months has raised alarm across the nation. In its latest report, the Robert Koch Institute, the federal agency for infectious diseases, said that new cases in Germany have jumped to around 1,600 each week, double the 700-800 weekly cases reported in early autumn. With the onset of winter, when seasonal flu infections typically peak, many experts are concerned that H1N1 infections will spike dramatically. Klaus Osterrieder, a virologist at the Free University of Berlin, now fears that with the worries over the possible risks associated with Pandemrix, many people will avoid getting a vaccine altogether. According to a survey conducted on Oct. 23 by the Emnid Institute, only 13% of Germans said they wanted to receive a swine flu vaccine this winter. (Read “Child-Care Centers and Parents Brace for Flu Season.”)

“The public debate is bad because it raises questions about the whole vaccination program,” Osterrieder says. If the government doesn’t find some way to remedy the current public relations disaster and clear up the confusion over the different swine flu vaccines, it could be faced with an even greater emergency if the country’s hospital wards start overflowing with flu patients in the coming months.