Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism. – Mary McCarthy

Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball

The Daily Mail headline says, “Canada bans government meteorologists from talking about climate change.” It implies government censorship, but is actually another part of the political battle over global warming. It is reminiscent of James Hansen’s false claim that the Bush White House was muzzling him. John Theon, his NASA boss at the time, says in a US Senate Report it was untrue. There is always a story behind a headline and it is rarely what the media report or imply. This Canadian story forewarns of the problems of controlling bureaucracy.

The Obama administration used the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) and Administrative Law to bypass the checks and balances of the people (Congress). By losing the lawsuit brought against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the State of Massachusetts that said the EPA were not fulfilling their role of protecting the people from “harmful substances”, they triggered arbitration by SCOTUS. EPA now imposes Obama’s political ambitions through the bureaucracy. The question is how do you control a bureaucracy? The simple answer, as the US Founding Fathers intended, was cut off funding, but like all things political it’s easier said than done.

Establishing Bureaucratic Political Control.

Maurice Strong took ideas from his involvement with the Club of Rome and transformed them into a bureaucratic structure. He created the United Nations Environment Programme within which was formulated Agenda 21, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). One article summarized his abilities as follows.

“Maurice Strong has demonstrated an uncanny ability to manipulate people, institutions, governments, and events to achieve the outcome he desires.”

He knew control of politicians from a multitude of nations was almost impossible so he worked through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to control the bureaucrats in every national weather agency. As the article summarizes,

Strong prefers to operate in the background. He, perhaps more than any other single person, is responsible for the development of a global agenda now being implemented throughout the world.

He knew that if you control the weather bureaucrats you control the politicians on matters of weather and climate. What politicians don’t know is that, like the Environment Canada (EC) protesters they are mostly meteorologists and know little about climate.

Bureaucratic Political Shenanigans, Canadian Style.

Environment Canada, the agency where “meteorologists” say they are being muzzled, was involved in the entire IPCC debacle from the start. Strong used his personal friendship with Canadian Prime Ministers, especially Paul Martin Jr., who Strong hired to an important job in a major corporation when he was a young man. Gordon McBean, the second highest bureaucrat at Environment Canada (Assistant Deputy Minister) chaired the first meeting to form the IPCC in Villach Austria in 1985.

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Disclaimer: I wrote an article on McBean and the activities at EC and received my first lawsuit from the same lawyer who handled the Weaver and Mann lawsuits. I chose to withdraw that article because I could not afford to fight. I later wrote another article on McBean, but much had now been disclosed.

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Ironically, most disclosure came from within EC. Their failures were so egregious that the public protested vociferously and they were forced to take action. Typically, as with all climate fiascos, it appears they attempted to cover up or justify what was going on. They commissioned an internal study and report titled “Action Plan for Climate Science Research at Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC)” prepared by a group called The Impact Group. This was obtained by Canada’s Access to Information (ATI) provision. Ken Green wrote an article in the National Post on December 12, 2003 identifying some of the issues. Here is the major conclusion of the Impact Report that shows why they did not want it disclosed.

Elements of an “Action Plan for Climate Science Research at MSC” (obtained through an Access to Information request) indicate that Canada’s climate change science program is being driven by a predetermined political agenda with a clear disregard of scientific needs. The Impact Group observes for example, that Canada collects “less climate science data per-square-kilometer of any other major country.” It observes that “the archiving of climate data is so highly fragmented that it is difficult to find out what datasets are available, let alone how to access them.”

Yet the report shows that our resources are not being directed to remedy those information gaps. Rather, our climate resources are being directed toward finding ways to “mitigate” climate change before it’s even adequately measured. The Impact Group also points out that we are only just beginning “to unravel the complexity of the physical, chemical, and biological interactions that determine climate” and suggests that the manmade component of climate change is still to be discerned. Coming from a contractor to Environment Canada, that’s a pretty sharp divergence from the claims by Environment Minister David Anderson that the science of climate change is “solid” and “settled.”

McBean was a major participant in the singular and devastating direction EC took. He practiced his political view of environmental issues and particularly global warming expressed in a speech to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1995.

As the Canadian government web page noted at the time;

Environment Canada is a strong supporter of, and an active participant in, the IPCC. Dr. John Stone (Environment Canada, retired), holds a position on the Bureau and Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Art Jaques, Director, Greenhouse Gas Division, Environment Canada, is a member of the Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. As well, over 30 Canadian scientists from government, universities and the private sector are participating as authors and editors for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

John Stone’s position is critical as the liaison between the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) group directed by McBean and the IPCC. The ACIA Reports are almost the sole source for Arctic coverage in the 2007 IPCC Report.

Green spoke to the exclusion of Canadian skeptics that the Report confirms.

Skeptics of catastrophic climate change theory such as myself have long complained that the way governmental agencies conduct science is badly politicized. We have also complained about a lack of consultation – although some of the most reputable climate scientists in the world work in Canada, they have rarely been consulted or asked to advise the government on the science of climate change.

In 2006, 60 prominent Canadian climate and related experts wrote a letter to Prime Minister Harper asking for an open debate on global warming. It began,

As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government’s climate-change plans.

McBean orchestrated a response letter with another IPCC member, computer modeler Andrew Weaver (Disclaimer: Also with a lawsuit against me). They got 90 signatures, but most were Environment Canada, Government employees or people benefiting from government largess. It’s another form of “the debate is over”.

McBean spent his career promoting these views and it appears they effectively destroyed the Canadian Weather Service while wasting billions of dollars. Other EC employees were more involved. As Donna Laframboise wrote,

The relationship between one country’s climate modelers and the IPCC illustrates this point. George Boer is considered the architect of Canada’s climate modeling efforts. As an employee of Environment Canada, he has spent much of his career attempting to convince the powers-that-be that climate models are a legitimate use of public money.”

They are not well spent. Canada’s Auditor General identified $6.36 billion “climate change funding announcements between 1997 and 2005”, but at what price? Apparently most went to people and programs that agreed with the government position. It left other legislated requirements incomplete. In a December 13, 2011 story Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Scott Vaughan reported:

Environment Canada has failed to implement a strategic plan to improve its internal scientific research in areas ranging from managing air and water pollution to toxic chemicals.

Billions are spent on useless computers and climate change while not dealing with real problems. They’re not alone, it’s happening in national weather agencies round the world.

To cover these wastes EC took money from other programs that now make chances of any science virtually impossible. There are fewer weather stations in Canada now than in 1960, and many were replaced with unreliable Automatic Weather Observing Stations (AWOS). Important activities and data collection practices were abandoned. When I chaired the Assiniboine River Management Advisory Board (ARMAB) in Manitoba the worst flood on record occurred. We asked Water Resources why they anticipate the event. They said they had no data on the amount of water in the snow in the valley. We learned EC had canceled flights that used special radar to determine water content. Savings as I recall were $26,000. The cost of unexpected flood damage was $7 million to one level of government alone. Loss of weather data means long continuous records, essential to any climate studies, will fail. This data cannot be replaced or replicated.

Another egregious example of EC’s failure was cancellation of their financial support for a joint program with the National Museum of Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. Run under the auspices of the National Museum of Natural Sciences it was titled “Climatic Change in Canada During the Past 20,000 years.” This program brought together a multitude of experts in all different aspects of climate and climate reconstruction and produced volumes of collected papers, published in Syllogeus by the museum that put Canada in the forefront of climate research and reconstruction. To my knowledge none of these experts was called to testify before Parliamentary hearings on Kyoto or were appointed to the IPCC. EC deliberately excluded Canadian climate experts – something that continues to this day. Climate change became political and unaccountable because bureaucrats at Environment Canada controlled it.

But McBean wasn’t done. He also established his post-bureaucratic career and control of climate funding before retiring by using $61 million of taxpayer money to set up the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS). “Canada’s main funding body for university-based research on climate, atmospheric and related oceanic work.” He took over as Chair shortly after he retired. CFCAS did what EC did, that is essentially only fund people who agreed with their political position. As Wikipedia notes, “The foundation has invested over $117 million in university-based research related to climate and atmospheric sciences.” Most of this is taxpayer’s money, although there may be some Insurance company money because McBean is Director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. Terence Corcoran wrote in the 23 January 2013 National Post,

“At the Insurance Bureau of Canada, one of its mottos is: “Prepare for Severe Weather.” Meanwhile, the policy director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction is Gordon McBean, a veteran climate alarmist who formerly headed a climate think-tank until its government funding was cut.”

Government Trying To Control Bureaucrats.

In response to the political activities of climate bureaucrats the current Canadian government has gradually re-assigned people and reduced funding to EC and CFCAS. They are doing what they can within the restrictions of union contracts, legislation and public propaganda by those affected.

What is happening in Canada is politicians elected by the people reining in bureaucrats. They and by extension those they fund respond politically by going to the media and claiming they are being muzzled and it is the death knell of climate science.

Maurice Strong set up the IPCC through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) because he knew it give the IPCC control of every weather office in every nation and thereby most of the politicians. Even those who dare to challenge find it almost impossible to redress even if elected to do so. It’s as basic as Boyd-Orr explained, “If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches they will take sandwiches” especially if they don’t understand or have been deceived about the facts.

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