The London Times reports that the head of the IPCC knew that claims in the IPCC report about Himalayan glaciers melting were false before the December 2009 Copenhagen Global Warming Summit:
The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.
Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.
The IPCC’s report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions.
Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.”
Asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at Copenhagen, he said: “That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit. It wasn’t in the public sphere.”
However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error. He said that Dr Pachauri had replied: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”
The Himalayan glaciers are so thick and at such high altitude that most glaciologists believe they would take several hundred years to melt at the present rate. Some are growing and many show little sign of change.
Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as “voodoo science”.
Meanwhile, the British government has ruled that climate scientists have broken the law by not complying with Freedom of Information Act laws:
Finally, Osama bin Laden has become the latest convert to global warming. The Associated Press reports (via Minnesotans for Global Warming):
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt.
He says the world should “stop consuming American products” and “refrain from using the dollar,” according to a transcript on Al-Jazeera’s Web site.
Living in a cave, bin Laden apparently has not heard about Climategate and the latest revelations on false claims made by global warming scientists.
Seeking to broaden his appeal, it is only a matter of time until bin Laden advocates for terrorists to go green and use non-carbon emitting bombs.
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Iran will be a pivotal place in the struggle between Jihadism and free societies. During 2010, Iran will likely become a nuclear power led by a president with the declared goal of destroying Israel. The Obama administration is unlikely to use force to stop this dangerous development. Israel may act, but it is not clear whether it will be able to neutralize the threat of a nuclear Iran by itself.
The resistance movement has stepped up protests in the last weeks of December after the death Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, once the designated successor to Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian Islamic Republic and, more recently, the leading religious leader opposing the regime. Earlier this week, the Iranian dictators killed a nephew of Mousavi, further escalating tension.
The US economy appears to be headed toward a recovery despite unprecedented, heavy-handed control exerted by the Obama administration over more and more areas of economic activity.
The Jihadist terrorist attacks at Ft. Hood and on a plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day have shown how utterly clueless Obama and his advisors are. They treat these acts as isolated criminal incidents despite clear evidence that they are part of a continued international Jihadist movement.
The Tea Party movement started early in 2009 in opposition to unprecedented spending in Washington and all the initiatives to control more of the American economy. The likely passage of Obamacare practically guarantees, that Democrats will sustain heavy losses in the November 2010 Congressional elections. 
While it is hard to see how passage of some form of Obamacare can be avoided, Democrats are sharply divided on issues like the public option and taxpayer funding of abortions. The left wing of the party opposes current legislation that has provisions required to keep the support of more “moderate” Democrats. Will this coalition between Democratic factions hold and how bad will the final legislation be?
The US involvement in Iraq is winding down. Will the Iraqi government be able to avoid a return to the violence of a couple of years ago? 
The changes for drastic imposition of new regulations controlling carbon-based energy has fizzled after the Climategate scandal and the failed Copenhagen summit.
