On September First, a group of twenty scientists published a letter saying that Climate Deniers should be prosecuted under the RICO statutes. The letter has subsequently been taken down but an archived copy of it can be found here (PDF). People started looking into the scientists who signed this document and it seems that they were engaged in a wee bit of financial fraud.
For the story leading up to today visit here, here, here, here and here.
From Anthony at Watts Up WIth That:
Jagdish Shukla’s #RICO20 blunder may have opened the ‘largest science scandal in US history’
Yesterday, Shukla and GMU got notice that they have piqued the interest of a congressional committee, and via a written notice are required to preserve documents for an impending Congressional investigation and to provide proof that all employees of IGES/COLA have been notified that they are aware they can’t destroy documents. As we follow the unraveling behind the scenes and new FOIA documentation, rumors of some aberrant behavior in the past have begun to surface from former colleagues that suggest we might be dealing with the same sort of ego induced blindness that led to the downfall of IPCC chairman Rajenda Pachauri. The combination of information WUWT is being given behind the scenes suggests to me that this episode is going to get far worse for Shukla and GMU before it gets better.
At issue is at least 63.5 million dollars from the National Science Foundation, and where it went, whether it was used for the purpose intended, and who benefited from that money. The problem at hand seems to be that there may have been more than a little “double dipping” going on with that grant money as Steve McIntyre pointed out in Shukla’s Gold.
And the upshot of this - follow the money:
There’s apparently an $800,000 annual salary and an organization full of Shukla family members that has produced next to no results for the millions received. Even NSF on their own web page acknowledges that only one paper has been produced out of a 4.2 million dollar grant.
Just think of what climate skeptics could do with money like that if we actually got it rather than the purported proverbial “big oil check” we are so often accused of getting?
In addition to the Federal law related to NSF grants, the other real teeth of the matter here is the law governing state employees: state employees may not be compensated by another employer for work that falls under their state employee remit. In this case that would include scientific research by a Professor (a state employee) i.e. Shukla himself.
One could not ask for a more perfect example of the Streisand Effect. And yes, I am also still waiting for my big oil check.
Be sure to read the 240+ comments - some wonderful stuff in there.
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