If you saw the movie, "Who Killed the Electric Car?", then you might understand this question. The similarities are many. In fact, I might suggest that it was the same people.

The electric car was eminently successful. It's destiny so certain that it is even now being resurrected. It would seem that the ham-handed 'killers' of the electric car have left their signature all over our society. Most alternate energy initiatives in the US have met resistance and lack of support from politicians and even engineers. Both bought and paid for. But by whom?

Sen. Inyoue suggests that it is a hoax by climate scientists. Michael Creighton writes a scenario to this effect which is cited by politicians (and at least one scientist) as the truth (albeit written as fiction). It seems to me that this illustrates a complete lack of understanding of 'science' by all of these people. Also probably indicating a personal interest, causing either a monetary or a faith-based bias.

Let me examine the 'sham' conspiracy, and then suggest a more likely 'real' conspiracy. First, one must understand that 'science' is just a process, a way of thinking that seeks the 'truth'. The truth is defined as any hypothesis that is supported by observations, sometimes abbreviated as reality. Scientists know that eventually, the observations will be made that establish or demolish any hypothesis. The truth can change. Every scientist wants his/her hypothesis to be on the positive side of the observations. Then they are 'right'. For the time being.

If it is a 'good' hypothesis (i.e. logical, based on observations), then it might be assumed to be 'true' by many as it is widely used for practical purposes (where it produces practical, observable results) and might even be called a 'law'. Sometimes such laws survive for decades before a counter example comes up and the 'law' must be changed. This has had one bad consequence --- the successful assumed 'law' becomes believed as real = "truth". Sometimes it takes a long time to get observations to establish relative 'truth' and charlatans were thus encouraged to hypothesize unsupported (even faith-based) explanations in the fairly secure assumption that they won't be disproved in their lifetime.

Presently, a scientist often must assume that the observations will come in during their lifetime. Thus, they want to be on the side of observational truth. They do the best they can to deduce the truth - their reputations and their careers depend on it. The best scientists are those remembered for deducing truths that have been verified by observations (e.g. Einstein, Galileo, Wegener, climate warming guy). The wrong are forgotten, mercifully ignored. This has led some scientists to put forth many theories in the knowledge that if one is right, the others will be forgotten (this happened even to da Vinci in his correct linear velocity for the vortex phenomena - he tried this relation incorrectly for other, nonlinear phenomena). Science publishing and funding grants are designed so that peers decide if the scientist's proposal is likely to be correct or not. No one wants to waste time with a bad hypothesis. The importance of a good record is clear. The process is not perfect, and several correct hypotheses have been rejected for too long by the establishment scientists. They too are human and invested in the status quo. But the process of science runs against this inertia. Good science in the form of observations will out and we all want to be originators or early supporters of it. Bad science is characterized by obfuscation, bias and/or irrational faith in unsupported isms, and we all detest it.

So a conspiracy by scientists on global warming (or just global change) doesn't make sense on the basis of motivation. Increased funding is actually a counter motivation ("we cannot be certain yet of global warming", just means more money to climate scientists to study it!). In any event, the money (Average top scientist makes about $100,000/yr) is relatively small.

Here's another possible conspiracy, by the people who really stand to gain by it. These people, who derive their riches and power largely from control of the energy supply, sat down in the late '70s and observed that when the gas price got to $5/gal, it would be profitable to gasify the US enormous coal assets, and Canada's huge oil sand deposits, providing gas for cars ad nausea --- at least for another 50-100 years. They would be comfortably in charge of energy supplies for their, and possibly their children's life times. And the money is huge (Average top oil men make about $100,000,000/yr. They are listed in the top 50 richest people/families.).

There was one fly in the ointment. If the global warming hypothesis was correct, burning gas in internal combustion engines would become unfashionable. Their conclusion was that this hypothesis must be shot down. They have successfully done this for 35 years. The details are very extensive, I'll just list a few and expect many more to emerge.

I am a PhD in geophysicalfluiddynamics; a professor in atmospheric sciences, author of a couple of applied math texts on atmospheric fluid flow. In mid-career, I was exposed to the unique new sets of observations being produced by earth satellites. This was exciting new stuff that promised new observations for verification/denial of existing hypotheses and grounds for new hypotheses. So I became a satellite data analysist, a curve-fitter of data versus time or space. Since the time of the oilmen's meeting, data from satellites has been pouring in. Old hypotheses for geophysics have been verified or disproved, new ones have arisen. One hypothesis that survived is that of global warming. Several pieces of data addressed this idea; from the basic global temperature trend, although short (shorter that originally thought to be adequate for seeing global climate change, but turning out to be frighteningly long enough); and the improved data with which to tune the numerical mathematical models that calculate predicted climatic states to the simple observations of huge ice sheets breaking off from Antarctica and the disappearance of Arctic pack ice. As the data got better and as the models got better they both predicted global warming as a serious problem. The conspirators needed to stop this flow of observations. This was done by basically destroying NASA's Earth Science branch.

I suspected this conspiracy existed in 2000, but finally suggested it only after I attended two successive meetings on the two NASA and NOAA satellite sensor teams in 2006. Both sensors infer the wind fields around the globe. The first concerned the laser wind sounder, providing Doppler winds between the satellite and the earth's surface. It has never been launched although most theory and all model tests suggest that this data would greatly improve both weather and climate models. It has been postponed in the most ad hoc manner, diverting funds to gulf wars and earmarks for a sham private Doppler lidar. It was obvious to this working group that our government would rather engage in the (unscientific) adventure of a man on Mars rather than improve our knowledge of climate on earth.(The Europeans have a Doppler lidar due to be launched in a couple of years. The anti-GW conspirators haven't reached the European governments, yet.)

The second science working group concerned a scatterometer, a successful instrument, flown several times since 1978 by the US and Europe and unsuccessfully twice by Japan. The last such US satellite, Quikscat, launched in 1999, still produces data years after its projected life time. The data is extraordinarily productive. Although it yields mainly surface winds over the oceans, this has proven to be sufficient to significantly improve weather forecasts. It can improve hurricane analyses by 20%. The long record is our best attempt at recording 'climate' and how it is changing. Despite its success, there are no scatterometers planned in the future by the US. (The Europeans have launched one this year.)

WindSat, a cheap version of a surface wind vector measurement, was arbitrarily chosen to be flown on a NOAA satellite. After an extraordinary delay after a successful launching, a short period of realistic data were released. At the 2006 group meeting, it was announced that WindSat had been 'discontinued'. I don't know if it was dumped because it was successful, giving us a wind measurement, or whether the entire project was a red herring to drain funds from a scatterometer.

I first suggested this conspiracy as fiction in a novel ("The Tree or the Panzaic Plea"), then as a 'far-out' idea to the working groups. Since then so many things have fit, and so much positive feedback has arisen, that I'm beginning to believe it is true. One of the most believable aspects involves the decision from the '70s energy moguls to also fight all alternate energy solutions. Specifics have evidently involved taking over the Republican Party and invoking 'faith' based illogic. This coup was successful in 1980 when Reagan immediately removed the solar panels on the white house installed by Carter, and subsequently eliminated all subsidies to alternate energies. This alone set the US back 20-years.Two more decades of control and trillions of dollars more to the conspirators. With the advent of George W. Bush as president, and the right-wing Republican majorities in the house, senate, executive and judicial branches, the conspirators have clearly accomplished their goal.