New Book Explores The Truth Behind The Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming

This is from a larger collection of articles, comments, and observations here... This sounds like a good book, and I'd like to hear more, read more.
Peter



A New Book On The Myth of Man-Caused Global Warming And How It Came To Be......
Here is an important new book, worth reading and incorporating into our growing body of knowledge about the myth of man-caused global warming and how it has come to be.Peter

Thursday, March 27, 2008
Must-Read Global-Warming Book [Sterling Burnett]
About a year ago, Canadian environmentalist and journalist Lawrence Solomon began a series of articles in the National Post examining the credentials of and arguments made by scientists and economists labeled “deniers” by various environmentalists, a number of mainstream environmental reporters, and some politicians. Solomon, true to the finest tenets of his profession, sought the truth concerning whether there was in fact a consensus on the headline-grabbing issue of global warming, or whether in fact any “real” scientists actually dissented from the Al Gore/UN line that global warming is happening, is largely caused by humans, and threatens all manner of catastrophies.

As many people — policy wonks and fellow travelers — on this blog are well aware, dissenting scientists are not in fact rare: There are serious scholars whose views should, but too often do not, inform the debate.Solomon’s columns were important because they brought this message to a wider audience. As Solomon’s knowledge grew, he found that the genre limits of newspaper writing precluded an adequately in-depth exploration of these skeptical scientists’ important observations. Accordingly, selecting some of the scientists discussed in his columns, Solomon has written a book: The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**and those who are too fearful to do so.

As a jacket blurb puts it, “What he found shocked him. Solomon discovered that on every “headline” global warming issue, not only were there serious scientists who dissented, consistently the dissenters were by far the more accomplished and eminent scientists.”

This book does not attempt to settle the science, or show that humans are or are not responsible for the present warming trend, or settle what we can expect the future harms/benefits of continued warming (or cooling) might be. Rather, the genius of the book is that it shows in a manner accessible to a lay audience that uncertainties concerning each important facet of the “consensus” view on warming abound, and that the dissenting views are at least as plausible (and often more compelling) than the IPCC/Gore camps.

The Deniers, examines what should be the active debates concerning the plausibility of the argument that human CO2 emissions (or CO2 per se) is a driver for climate change, what role the sun may play in warming, what role the present warming trend (and human activities) play in hurricane and tropical/parasitic disease patterns, and the reliability of the climate models, among other issues.

In addition, Solomon notes the harsh treatment that many scientists have endured simply because they followed the scientific method, the evidence from their research, and their own consciences, all of which led them to the conclusion that this or that facet of the global-warming consensus view was woefully incomplete or flat-out wrong.

This treatment has had the effect intended by global warming scaremongers — to shut down promising areas of research and to silence credible critics. As I put it in an earlier column: The term skeptic has historically been a badge of honor proudly worn by scientists as indicating their commitment to the idea that in the pursuit of truth, nothing is beyond question, every bit of knowledge is open to improvement and/or refutation as new evidence or better theories emerge.

However, in the topsy-turvy field of climate science, “skeptic” is a term of opprobrium and to be labeled a skeptic is to be dismissed as a hack. Being a skeptic concerning global warming today is akin to being a heretic in the Middle Ages — you may not be literally burned at the stake, but your reputation will be put to flames. In response, many scientists whose research calls into question one or more of the fundamental tenets of global warming orthodoxy, have learned to couch their conclusions carefully. They argue, for instance, that while their research does not match up with this or that point in global warming theory, or would seem to undermine this or that conclusion, they are not denying that humans are causing global warming and they cannot account for the discrepancy between their work and the theory’s predictions.

These scientists have learned the hard lesson that when reality and the theory conflict, for professional reasons, they’d better cling to the theory: shades of Galileo recanting his theory that the earth revolves around the sun under pressure from the Inquisition. Though there are many good books on global warming, The Deniers is among the most effective in showing how science is being fundamentally undermined in the current politicized atmosphere of climate research. In addition, like no other book or paper I know, it provides a concise but thorough overview of the myriad weaknesses of the consensus view, the quality and substance of the criticisms of that view, and the stellar qualifications of those scientists labeled derisively as “deniers.”

This book should be read by anyone who seriously wants to understand where and why substantive debate remains concerning climate change and why there is so much vitriol surrounding what until recently was a relatively quiet, unheralded, or unnoticed (except by its practitioners) field of science. If a person could read only one book this year on climate change, this is the one I’d pick.

The Minor "Greenhouse Gases" CO2 and CH4 Not The Cause Of Global Warming

This study clearly shows that the "greenhouse gases" carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) do not cause significant global warming or climate change. They did not do so in the past and can not reasonably be considered to be doing so now.
Peter


Preprint in press for Physical Geography (July 4, 2007)
Quantitative implications of the secondary role of carbon dioxide climate forcing in the past glacial-interglacial cycles for the likely future climatic impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcings
Willie Soon (wsoon@cfa.harvard.edu)
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Abstract: A review of the recent refereed literature fails to confirm quantitatively that
carbon dioxide (CO2) radiative forcing was the prime mover in the changes in
temperature, ice-sheet volume, and related climatic variables in the glacial and
interglacial periods of the past 650,000 years, even under the “fast response” framework
where the convenient if artificial distinction between forcing and feedback is assumed.
Atmospheric CO2 variations generally follow changes in temperature and other climatic
variables rather than preceding them. Likewise, there is no confirmation of the often posited
significant supporting role of methane (CH4) forcing, which – despite its faster
atmospheric response time – is simply too small, amounting to less than 0.2 W/m2 from a
change of 400 ppb. We cannot quantitatively validate the numerous qualitative
suggestions that the CO2 and CH4 forcings that occurred in response to the Milankovich
orbital cycles accounted for more than half of the amplitude of the changes in the
glacial/interglacial cycles of global temperature, sea level, and ice volume.

Consequently, we infer that natural climatic variability – notably the persistence of insolation forcing at key seasons and geographical locations, taken with closely-related thermal, hydrological, and cryospheric changes (such as the water vapor, cloud, and ice-albedo feedbacks) –suffices in se to explain the proxy-derived, global and regional, climatic and
environmental phase-transitions in the paleoclimate. If so, it may be appropriate to place
anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions in context by separating their medium-term
climatic impacts from those of a host of natural forcings and feedbacks that may, as in
paleoclimatological times, prove just as significant.

1. A rare but incomplete consensus on the relationship between CO2 concentration, temperature, and ice-sheet volume
One of the most notable, but somewhat surprising, consensus conclusions from ice-core
drilling projects and researches at both poles (see e.g., Fischer et al. 2006; Masson-
Delmotte et al. 2006) is the fact that the deduced isotopic temperatures lead other climatic responses, including especially the atmospheric levels of minor greenhouse gases like CO2 and CH4. Fischer et al. (1999) first reported that atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by 80 to 100 ppm 600± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations (or glacial terminations) in Antarctica and that relatively high CO2 levels
can be sustained for thousand of years during glacial inception scenarios when the
Antarctic temperature has dropped significantly. Later, Monnin et al. (2001) and Caillon
et al. (2003) offered clear evidence that temperature change drove atmospheric CO2
responses during more-accurately dated periods near glacial terminations I (at about 18
kyr before present, BP) and III (at about 240 kyr BP), respectively.

(Continued here:)

Global Warming, Population Growth And Temperature Data.....No Correlation

Global warming: What does the data tell us?
Authors: E. X. Alban, B. Hoeneisen
(Submitted on 23 Oct 2002)
Abstract: We analyze global surface temperature data obtained at 13472 weather stations from the year 1702 to 1990. The mean annual temperature of a station fluctuates from year to year by typically +-0.6oC (one standard deviation). Superimposed on this fluctuation is a linear increase of the temperature by typically 0.40oC per century ever since reliable data is available, i.e. since 1702. The world population has doubled from 1952 to 1990, yet we see no statistically significant acceleration of global warming in this period. We conclude that the effect of humankind on global warming up to 1990 is 0.0 +- 0.1oC.
Comments:
9 pages, 12 figures
Subjects:
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph)
Report number:
USFQ-30-2002
Cite as:
arXiv:physics/0210095v1 [physics.ao-ph]



Global warming: What does the data tell us?
E. X. Alb´an and B. Hoeneisen
Universidad San Francisco de Quito
19 February 2002
Abstract
We analyze global surface temperature data obtained at 13472 weather
stations from the year 1702 to 1990. The mean annual temperature of
a station fluctuates from year to year by typically  ±0.6oC (one standard
deviation). Superimposed on this fluctuation is a linear increase
of the temperature by typically  0.40±0.01oC per century ever since
reliable data is available, i.e. since 1702 (errors are statistical only,
one standard deviation). The world population has doubled from 1952
to 1990, yet we see no statistically significant acceleration of global
warming in this period. We conclude that the effect of humankind
on global warming up to 1990 is 0.0 ± 0.1oC. Therefore, contrary to
popular belief, the data support the view that human activity has had
no significant effect on global warming up to the year 1990 covered by
this study.

The Physics Case Against CO2 Caused Global Warming

10. arXiv:0707.1161 [pdf, other]
Title: Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Authors: Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner
Comments: 114 pages, 32 figures, 13 tables (some typos corrected)
Subjects: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph)

Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Authors: Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner
(Submitted on 8 Jul 2007 (v1), last revised 11 Sep 2007 (this version, v3))
Abstract: The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation.

In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

The End Of The Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming Is Nigh....(Near)......

It is apparent that people on both sides of the big pond are becoming aware of the great global warming scam....praise the instant communication powers of the Internet.....thank Al Gore for inventing the Internet!
Peter



The mammoth global warming scam
Tuesday, 11th March 2008
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More evidence from the International Conference on Climate change last month which produced the Manhattan Declaration (see post below) of the way in which scientists who are sceptical about man-made global warming find their work is suppressed. A detailed piece on the website of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works reports:

During the conference, scientists revealed the lack of tolerance science journals and institutions have exhibited for skeptical climate views.

‘We [fellow skeptical scientists] talked mostly of work and upcoming papers and went through the standard ritual of griping about journal editors and the ridiculous hoops we sometimes have to jump through to get papers published. But some of the guys had absolute horror stories of what happened to them when they tried getting papers published that explored non-‘consensus’ views. Really outrageous and unethical behavior on the parts of some editors. I was shocked,’ wrote conference participant Dr. William M. Briggs, a climate statistician who serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review, on his blog on March 4. (LINK)

Prominent Hungarian Physicist Dr. Miklós Zágoni, a former global warming activist who recently reversed his views about man-made climate fears and is now a skeptic, presented scientific findings at the conference refuting rising CO2 fears. Zágoni’s scientific mentor Hungarian scientist, Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist, resigned from his post working with NASA because he was disgusted with the agency’s lack of scientific freedom. Miskolczi, who also presented his peer-reviewed findings at the conference, said he wanted to release his new research that showed "runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations," but he claims NASA refused to allow him. ‘Unfortunately, my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results,” Miskolczi said according to a March 6 Daily Tech article. (LINK) [Note: Clarification from original posting. Miskolczi worked with NASA, not Zágoni.]

Meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo, the first Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel and former chairman of the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecasting, noted that many of his scientific colleagues did not attend the conference because they “feared their attendance might affect their employment.” D’Aleo described the fear of retribution many skeptics face as a “sad state of affairs.” But D’Aleo noted that he believes there is ‘very likely a silent majority of scientists in climatology, meteorology, and allied sciences who do not endorse what is said to be the ‘consensus’ position.’

Other scientists have echoed these claims. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, asserted in December 2007 that skeptics have a much harder time publishing in peer-reviewed literature. ‘Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,’ Paldor, who was not in attendance at the New York conference, wrote in December.

From this post, and in particular if you follow the links, you will find a wealth of other information which illuminates the mind-blowing scale of the global warming scam and how it has been perpetrated — for example, that proponents of MMGW have been funded over the past decade to the tune of $50 BILLION whereas the sceptics have received a meagre $19 MILLION. In other words, MMGW is a giant cash cow for scientific researchers, while those who refuse to latch onto the poisoned udder find they risk professional suicide. Even so, the number of scientists now ‘coming out’ to declare that MMGW is a monumental fraud is growing by the day.

In such nations as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, Argentina, New Zealand, Portugal, and France, groups of scientists have recently spoken out to oppose and debunk man-made climate fears… Atmospheric Physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, also announced his skepticism on February 18, 2008. “Sorry folks, but we're not exactly buying into the Global Hysteria just yet. We know a great deal about atmospheric physics, and from the onset, many of the claims were just plain fishy,” Peden wrote. (LINK)

In January 2008, environmental scientist professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder and director of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, announced publicly that he considered CO2 related climate fears to be ‘dangerous nonsense.’ Domingos, who retired in 2006, has more than 150 published articles in the research fields of Thermodynamics, Numerical Methods in Fluid Mechanics and Meteorological Forecast. ‘There are measurable climate changes but there is also an enormous manipulation in reducing everything to CO2 and equivalents. The main gas producing the green house effect is water vapor. The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning,’ Domingos said…

In addition, at least one scientist publicly pondered reconsidering his view of man-made climate fears after Senate report of 400 scientists was released in December. ‘It (the Senate 400 scientists report) got me thinking: I'm an environmental scientist, but I've never had time to review the “evidence” for the anthropogenic causes of global warming,’ wrote environmental scientist Professor Rami Zurayk of the American University in Beirut on December 27, 2007. (LINK) ‘When I said, in my opening speech for the launch of UNEP's (United Nations Environment Program) Global Environment Outlook-4 in Beirut: “There is now irrevocable evidence that climate change is taking place...” I was reading from a statement prepared by UNEP. Faith-based science it may be, but who has time to review all the evidence? I'll continue to act on the basis of anthropogenic climate change, but I really need to put some more time into this,’ Zurayk wrote.

Oh dear. How many once-stellar scientific reputations are about to come crashing down over this? Let’s start with the Royal Society and work steadily downwards…

Can We Return To Global Climate Sanity?

I do not believe we can rest until we see and understand the complete picture regarding global warming and climate change. The issue involves more than some mysterious hypothetical computer climate models and esoteric physics related to the behavior of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). As pointed out in the following article, this issue involves everyone on Earth and includes experts in climatology, meteorology, economics, geology, energy, engineering.....and of course it involves politics. We all need to learn all we can.
Peter


An Extraordinary Event: Global Climate Sanity
Alan Caruba
For the last two days, March 2-4, I and about five hundred other people attended the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, including some of the world’s leading authorities on climatology, meteorology, economics, energy, and other fields of knowledge.It was an extraordinary event, held in New York and sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank that has been among those leading the effort to educate and inform the public about the mountain of lies that have led them to believe that the Earth is experiencing a huge increase in heat, a "global warming," that is allegedly the direct result of human activities, primarily from the use of energy that includes coal, natural gas, and oil.

The conference message is simplicity itself: There is no “consensus” on global warming. The science is not “settled.” Indeed, this conference marks a highpoint in the effort to rescue the planet from people who regard their fellow human beings as a cancer afflicting the Earth.This hoax, generated out of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, actually included some IPCC members who have labored long and hard to dispute the IPCC reports on the basis of real science, not the spurious claims based largely on flawed and even deliberately false computer models.

In breakfasts, luncheons, and dinners, some of these now-famed global warming “dissenters” and “deniers” presented talks complete with Power Point presentations filled with statistics and charts that disputed the alleged facts of the IPCC. These presentations were then augmented by a series of panels on paleoclimatology, climatology, the impacts of the global warming hoax, its affect on the economics of both developed and developing nations, and how it twists the politics of our nation and others.

What made this event so extraordinary was that it is, to my knowledge, the first time since the global warming hoax was perpetrated back in the 1980s (it had been preceded by a campaign in the 1970s asserting – correctly – that we are closer to the next ice age) that such a gathering has occurred. It has taken three decades to bring together these experts and the reason why is fairly simple. The forces behind the global warming hoax, the environmental organizations, have been heavily funded by foundations and, as in the United States, by billions of government dollars directed to research on the climate. These groups have garnered more money from membership and the sales of all manner of books, publications, DVDs and other items. Still others have made their money by suing the government and having their legal fees reimbursed along with any other rewards.

The “stars” of the conference were men with impeccable credentials, but largely unknown to the general public because the media has been enthralled the global warming hoaxers, either deliberately or by virtue of being disinterested in the actual science involved. Too many have failed their commitment to journalism’s high standards and they have failed a public that depends on them to explain these complex issues.

For decades, the headlines have heralded all manner of crisis to the point of absurdity whereby now blizzards are attributed to warming tends. This passed year has seen significant and unusual blizzard conditions worldwide and this too, the public has been told, results from a dramatic warming that is not occurring. For me, there was the particular pleasure of actually meeting many of those who have been on the front lines of disputing the hoax, but our work is far from finished.

Much damage is being done to America by legislation based on the global warming lies, particularly as regards their impact on the provision of the energy this nation requires to be competitive in the global marketplace and to sustain our lifestyle. Our political candidates all subscribe to the global warming hoax. The leaders in the Senate and House all advocate it as well. The result is legislation that forces the nation to literally burn its food crops – notably corn – in order to turn it into an efficient fuel additive, ethanol. This in turn is forcing up the cost of food. It is legislation that does not permit for the exploration and extraction of energy reserves such as oil and natural gas along 85% of our nation’s continental shelf, nor in Alaska where billions of barrels of oil remain untapped.

It is legislation that grants huge subsidies – a form of hidden tax – to wind and solar energy, the two most inefficient and unreliable forms of energy. It is legislation that bans the future use of incandescent light bulbs.In short, America is gripped by a form of life-threatening insanity perpetrated by the Greens and legislated by politicians who haven’t a clue about the ways they are wrecking our economy in the name of global warming. So this extraordinary conference, drawing men and women from as far away as Australia, New Zealand, China, the United Kingdom and Europe, may well be the last best hope to turn away from a future that will be marked by the undermining of America’s and Europe’s economies.

© Alan Caruba, March 2008

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What Is The Issue Of Global Warming Really About? Climatology? No. It Is About FREEDOM

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic speaks on the efforts to control global warming and the dangers they pose to freedom. He is a man who is highly qualified to make these observations. He has more to say on the subject. Science? No. Politics and ideology? Yes, very much so.
Peter


Fighting Words
After two days of toiling through an ocean of charts, graphs and complicated mathematical equations, attendees of the Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in Manhattan were provided a starker, significantly less esoteric warning from the president of the Czech Republic over breakfast Tuesday morning. "It is not about climatology," the recently re-elected, Mises and Hayek-quoting Vaclav Klaus intoned darkly. "It is about freedom."

As the sole head of state willing to stand before the self-congratulatory United Nations Climate Change Conference last September and loudly register his dissent from the international groupthink on anthropogenic (i.e. manmade) global warming, Klaus was already a highly-regarded hero in these skeptic quarters. His speech this week, however, went far beyond his UN confrontation in terms of both its relentless defiance -- try to imagine a more scathing indictment of messianic environmentalists than Klaus's description of them as "imprisoned in the Malthusian tenets and in their own megalomaniac ambitions" -- and the Czech president's willingness to draw explicit comparisons between modern environmentalism and communism:

If I am not wrong I am the only speaker from a former communist country and I have to use this as a comparative -- paradoxically -- advantage. Each one of us has his or her experiences, prejudices and preferences. The ones that I have are, quite inevitably, connected with the fact that I have spent most of my life under the communist regime. A week ago I gave a speech at an official gathering at the Prague Castle commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1948 communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the arguments of my speech there...went as follows: "Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical.

The attractive, pathetic, at first noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice man and his freedom in order to make this idea a reality." What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its current strongest version, climate alarmism.These are, as they say, fighting words.

AFTER I'D RUN A GAUNTLET of polite-yet-stoic Secret Service agents and persevered through a scheduling snafu or four, Vaclav Klaus kindly granted TAS a short interview (in English!) in a suite at the Times Square Marriott. At turns animated and sternly reserved, Klaus carries himself with remarkable poise and exudes a passion for principled policy that is impressive when one considers he's been fighting political battles since 1989. It does not take long to get the impression this is a man who does not suffer fools gladly. "I was in Iceland a year or two ago and I enjoyed very much the words of the Prime Minister who said, 'Vaclav Klaus is very often politically incorrect, but he's usually correct politically,'" Klaus chuckled. "I like this playing with words, which is for me motivation to continue."

What's more, contrary to the blustery outrage in the international press over his crashing of the United Nations apocalypse party, the president's views may not be quite so far out as his colleagues would have their constituencies believe. Shades of Obama's NAFTA kerfuffle, Klaus insisted he was far from shunned during the three days of General Assembly receptions, meals, and cocktail parties following his speech."The funny [part of the] story is that many of them told me, 'Thank you very much for what you were saying. My views are similar,'" Klaus recalled. "So I say, 'Then why don't you say the same?'" The president pushed his voice up a couple registers before mimicking their response: "'Oh, it is impossible and it needs courage.' And so on."

Klaus shook his head, as if he were a competitive captain of a football team spoiling for a fight on game day, only to be hindered by the bunch of scared-of-their-own-shadow wimps the coach has inexplicably recruited. I asked Klaus if it was frustrating for him, as a trained economist -- he's held academic posts at the Forecasting Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Prague School of Economics -- to operate in a political world populated with those who so frequently behave as if they are allergic to facts and basic statistics?

"It's not frustrating if you believe it is your task to fight all forms of irrationalities and to fight the political correctness approach which is killing any serious discussion," Klaus shot back, not without some heat. Far from being a detriment to political careers, this former Minister of Finance said he believed the social and economic sciences had more to offer realist politics than many currently concede and frets global warming skeptics may be focusing too much on science alone. "Regulation, centralization versus decentralization -- that for me is something that is not just about freedom in a political sense, but another layer, another dimension of the discussion," Klaus explained.

This is a matter of philosophical consistency for Klaus, who has expressed serious misgivings about centralized power of the European Union as well."When I [talk about] the standard social science and the standard economic approach, it's not just saying you must be a libertarian to stress and promote freedom," he continued. "The standard social science and economic approach will tell you something about the irrationalities of centralization, the irrationalities of over-regulation, the irrationality of the bureaucratization of our lives. This is something I don't hear quite often enough."

Is it any wonder the Competitive Enterprise Institute is honoring Klaus at its upcoming annual dinner? Our time was almost up, but in light of our discussion of the "irrationalities of centralization," I couldn't help but ask the president for his thoughts on the recent election in Russia -- a country he has maintained friendly ties with."I must say the Russian elections are not the same elections as in the United States of America or in the Czech Republic," Klaus answered with slow and deliberate care. "So in this respect we both wouldn't be happy to have such elections. But on the other hand, when I look at it in a historical perspective and compare it with the past in Russia, when I compare it with much of Asia, in this respect, these elections were relatively okay. I would not have a highbrow negativistic approach which is quite popular in some circles."

Before I could follow up I noticed Klaus's ceaselessly amiable scheduler leaning into my line of vision across the room. When he was certain I saw him he shot me a half plaintive, half apologetic look. Time to wrap it up. Klaus gave a little single nod of the head, a one-pump handshake, thanked me for the interview and then was on to another. Queries about missile defense, Putin's successor and the U.S. presidential election would have to wait. It was a shame, really: I've met state legislators less candid than this head of state. This isn't the kind of thing the EU exports, is it?

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