Bishop Hill Hans Verolme: your taxes at work
Nov 30, 2011 Greens Hans Verolme, a Dutch national, was recruited into the UK's diplomatic service in 2000, having previously worked for a Dutch environmental group called Ecooperation.
Verolme appears several times in the CG2.0 emails. The first exchange is in #0277, the thread beginning in May 2003. Cathy Johnson, an official from Defra, contacts Verolme and passes on a document written by the Hadley Centre's Peter Stott. This is a critique of the Soon and Baliunas paper and apparently includes some questions that can be asked of Soon.
The circumstances are at this point somewhat unclear. It is probable that the email was solicited by Verolme, but we do not see this earlier message, but we do not know the reason. Later in the same thread, however, we discover that Stott's briefing was prepared for a press conference at the Marshall Institute for Soon and Baliunas. The thread includes Verolme's report of the occasion; it appears that the briefing was useful, and we learn also that Stott in fact had a co-author:
Thank you, in particular to Peter Stott at the Hadley Centre and Phil Jones at U. East Anglia, for the excellent speaking points for the briefing by Dr. Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics organized by the climate sceptic Marshall Insitute. The event went well, if maybe not the way the organizers and their sponsor, Senator George Allan (R-Virginia), had expected.
The report of the conference is interesting and well worth a read. Verolme closes as follows:
The meeting disbanded in a somewhat disorganized manner. Mission accomplished.
I had no idea that the work of a public servant might include trying to sabotage scientists' press conferences. You live and learn.
However, this was not the only lesson I learned from Verolme's message about the duties of public servants. This was certainly not the way I had imagined they worked:
Jeff Nesmith of the Cox Newspapers group is working on a piece exposing the sceptics. We agreed to speak.
I had no idea that keeping data under wraps was what taxpayers were paying for either:
Bill O'Keefe [the president of the Marshall Institute] was eager to gain access to further recent instrumental temperature data we hold. Would you consider his request for data knowing they will likely be spun?
There is also some discussion of Rep. Boehlert, who is, we learn, "an ally and an expert politician".
A few days later there are some further exchanges between a group including Verolme, Mike Hulme, H-J Schellnhuber, Martin Parry and officials at Defra and the Met Office. This again relates to an attempt by Verolme to get rebuttals to arguments being advanced by sceptics.
Subject: RE: Questions to ask Soon and Balianus
While causing trouble. Can you all give an authoritative view in response to the following quote?:
"It's false," said Jerry Taylor, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. "There is absolutely no evidence that extreme weather events are on the increase. None. The argument that more and more dollar damages accrue is a reflection of the greater amount of wealth we've created."
This in response to the latest Worldwatch Institute report Vital Signs 2003 (see below). How does that stack up relative to Munich and Swiss Re. views? Is there research on increased intensity and frequency of 'extreme events'?
In this case Hulme seems to provide the requested arguments, which can be read at the top of the thread.
A few months later there is a second email thread (#1595) involving Verolme. On this occasion, we learn that he is concerned about the Senate hearings on the Hockey Stick (not to be confused with the House hearings involving McIntyre two years later). As Verolme tells his contacts in Defra and the Met Office (my emphasis):
Today the Senate will hold a hearing on the never-ending story of the hockey stick. Michael Mann and Willie Soon are slated to testify...In case you were not aware, the Senate Environment Cie. chair, Inhofe, is aligned with the sceptics. But don't despair, your recent debunking of the Soon and Baliunas paper for the Marshall Institute has found its way to sympathetic Senate staff, stripped of its origins. Senators Jeffords and Clinton will hold their feet to the fire.
And this is not the end of Verolme's tireless efforts:
Peter's paper in GRL has also been provided to the NY Times science editor. I suggested he review it in the context of last week's science strategy release and this week's Earth Observation Summit. Let's see.
If the idea of a British civil servant sending anonymised briefings to Democrat staffers in the Senate is not strange enough, the idea of him giving science briefings to the science editor of the New York Times is rather odd too. I wonder who it was in those days?
There are other exchanges involving Verolme in the emails, but nothing quite so interesting I think.
Verolme left the service of the British taxpayer in 2004, taking up the position of head of climate change at WWF.
Reader Comments (30)
interesting how verolme represented China and the US here. the British Embassy in DC bit is fascinating too:
[Sgir-news] UPI-FIIA INVITATION: The Major Emitters - Positions for Copenhagen, 1 December
Wed Nov 18 02:08:28 CST 2009
The Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar:
The Major Emitters - Positions for Copenhagen
on Tuesday 1 December at 13:00-15:30
at the Auditorium of the Annex Building of the Parliament, Arkadiankatu 3
Opening remarks and chair:
Mr. Jukka Uosukainen, Director, Unit of International and EU Affairs, Ministry of Environment, Finland
The Major Emitters panel:
China: Mr. Hans Verolme, Senior Strategic Climate Adviser...
United States: Mr. Hans Verolme, Senior Strategic Climate Adviser
Hans Verolme has 20 years of experience in climate change and development policy. Most recently he has served as US and Global Director of WWF's climate and energy program. He has held for five years the post of senior adviser to the British Embassy in Washington, DC, and has also worked and lived around the world, including the USA , India and Kenya. Since 2008, Hans advises several organisations active in the international climate change arena on both sides of the Atlantic.
http://list.sgir.eu/pipermail/sgir-news_list.sgir.eu/2009-November/000176.html
'Verolme left the service of the British taxpayer in 2004, taking up the position of head of climate change at WWF.' but I will bet they keep their contacts there so they can always 'advice ' to the benefit of WWF .
Efforts to discredit any science that doesn't breed alarm are clearly well-coordinated. And well-resourced, courtesy of the taxpayer.
I've always been loathe to use the word 'conspiracy' but the harder one looks, the more inescapable it seems. At the very least we have a worldwide network of like-minded people, who have gotten themselves into influential positions and are able to dip into the taxpayer's pocket for funding, working together to suppress any evidence that runs counter to their views.
And then look into the mainstream media and all one sees are further attempts to pretend all of this doesn't exist or is 'out of context'.
PDF: PR China and the USA in Copenhagen
Hans JH Verolme
for the Finnish Institute of International Affairs
1 December 2009
http://www.fiia.fi/assets/events/HansVerolme.pdf
5 April 2011: Climate Equity Org: UNFCCC Talks in Bangkok: Lack of Political Courage Dampens Spirits
ClimatEquity talked with Hans Verolme, an advisor to many of the civil society organizations organized in Climate Action Network International, who is participating in the Bangkok negotiations this week...
http://climatequity.org/2011/04/05/unfccc-talks-in-bangkok-lack-of-political-courage-dampens-spirits/#more-380
While looking through the emails for discussion about Soon Baliunas 2003, I came across this gem from mike (mann):
http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/0031.txt
Heinrich Boll Stiftung: Durban: A Signpost Toward a Safe Climate Future?
Hans JH Verolme, founder and principal, Climate Advisers Network
Berlin, October 2011
Introductory Note 17
Durban: A Signpost Toward a Safe Climate Future? 19
Hans JH Verolme, Founder and Principal, Climate Advisers Network
Pathways and Partnerships for Progress for Durban and Beyond 37
Farhana Yamin, Visiting Lecturer, University College London,
also works for Children’s Investment Fund Foundation
http://www.boell.de/downloads/oekologie/A_Future_for_International_Climate_Politics_-_Durban_and_Beyond.pdf
Heinrich Boll Stiftung
http://www.boell.org/
The Children's Investment Fund Foundation
It was founded in 2002 by hedge fund manager Chris Hohn and his wife Jamie Cooper-Hohn.
It is a registered charity in England & Wales and in 2006–7 had a gross income of £324 million, making it one of the 30 largest charities in the UK..
It receives its funding as an annual donation representing 1/2 of 1% of assets from TCI FM (The Children's Investment Fund Management) which manages the London‐based hedge fund The Children's Investment Fund founded by Chris Hohn in 2003. His wife manages the charitable organization...
On the 18 December 2008, the William J. Clinton Foundation released a list of all contributors for presumably the 2008 year. It included The Children's Investment Fund Foundation, which gave greater than US$25 million. It was not a contributor for 2009.
The fund is also a top institutional holder of Lockheed Martin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children's_Investment_Fund_Foundation
July 2008: Independent: Jeremy Warner: Hohn's charity reinvests bulk of £800m back in his own fund
Activist investor's children's foundation has so far made disbursements of less than 5% of its value
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/hohns-charity-reinvests-bulk-of-163800m-back-in-his-own-fund-862070.html
And a snapshot of the media coverage around Soon Baliunas from 2003, this from Revkin in the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/science/politics-reasserts-itself-in-the-debate-over-climate-change-and-its-hazards.html?scp=1&sq=baliunas&st=cse&pagewanted=1
If you read the whole article it's striking how much is made of the supposed political and industry connections between off-message climate scientists and the apparent contrast with their disinterested colleagues in the "broadening scientific consensus on global warming."
Search CG 2.0 for "Chris Miller" to see emails flowing between a Jim Jeffords staffer and the Team scientists. Chris Miller later became Harry Reid's staffer.
Hmmm ... Schellnhuber, Verolme, and Oppenheimer [see Donna's TDT] ... It would seem that, just as the IPCC has reinvented Monopoly, this triumphant trio has reinvented Musical [climate] Chairs.
Perhaps they should open up a retail chain: ClimateGameChangers 'R Us. I can't imagine that we would see any Bridge games for sale (that would require calling a spade a spade); although Trivial Pursuit holds considerable potential for them.
Mind you, I think what we're seeing at the moment is the Domino (theory) game in action, and in which the Dominoes are falling, well, faster than anyone might have thought.
"Verolme left the service of the British taxpayer in 2004, taking up the position of head of climate change at WWF."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_oyemr9n2A
Says it all!
Oops! Listen
At http://www.yatedo.com/ you can read that he studied for Geography teacher and ended up as .....Global director climate change.
Ambitions, ambitions.....
Hans Verolme WWF, British Embassy... - Global director climate change, senior advisor...
General Summary
Locality : Berlin et région, Allemagne
Professional Experience
2004 - 2008 Global director climate change - WWF
Gestion des associations et fondations 2000 - 2004
senior advisor environment & energy - British Embassy Washington
Administration publique; 51-200 employés; Relations avec le gouvernement
1995 - 1997 beleidsadviseur - Ecooperation
Gestion des associations et fondations 2008
senior strategic consultant - Climate Advisers Network
Affaires étrangères
Educational Background
1987 - 1990 Drs. (MSc) human geography - Universiteit van Amsterdam
1982 - 1987 2e graad NLO aardrijkskunde, maatschappijleer - Lerarenopleiding ZWN Delft
I've often thought these climate wallahs were nothing more than geographers with attitude. I don't know whats the matter with them. The transformation started even when I was at school. Geography teachers were generally just good chaps who wanted to fill up the time between rugby games in a moderately useful way, and what could be more worthy than impressing on the minds of 13 year olds that steel comes from Sheffield and ducks come from Bombay? Then these radical creeps started turning up, droning on about the 'Green Revolution', introducing equations and graphs and other bits of cod-mathematical bosh that most of us were taking refuge in geography just in order to avoid. Re-naming obvious phenomena with fancy sciencey sounding titles was another speciality: somethuing as eternal as onshore breezes got turned into 'adiabatic cooling' etc etc. What balls it all was. And the last 40 years have seen things get worse, so that now these half-educated half wits like Jones have the cheek to tell us that we're all destroying the world and now we 've got to stop and do things their way instead. The impudence, arising from ignorance, is staggering enough. What defies comprehension is how this balls got the ear of government, worldwide.
how this balls got the ear of government, worldwide........ which is why I'm looking forward to Climate 3.0. Will it explain that in terms of one of the popular conspiracy theories, world government etc, or is it going to be more prosaic, necessarily financially failing social democratic governments suddenly seeing the prospect of 'new money' and lots of it to boot? There must be a reason why so many different entities are unanimously boosting palpable nonsense.
Like Gixxer, I hate conspiracy theories, so prefer to believe it's just the latter.
It is gradually dawning on me just how naive I have been ......... Shocking.
Another example of the vulnerability of our system of government. The batty baroness was an earlier one, and now a dastardly dutchman makes a belated appearance into the light. I blame their parents myself, but someone in government hired these people as adults and must share some of the responsibility for them.
Hans Verolme as a UK civil servant had clearly broken the civil service code of conduct, which states;
This is his current CV;
How many more eco-militants are working at the heart of UK government?
How was a foreign national recruited by the Foreign Office, someone with known associations with evironmental groups and who has clearly acted on the behalf of such groups for his own future benefit?
I have just found this article buried in the lower pages of the Daily Wail (sic) website written by the extreme warmist journalist Michael Hanlon. I have just posted a comment on there but as I did there were no others. Was it because nobody agreed with Hanlon? Who knows?
http://hanlonblog.dailymail.co.uk/2011/11/climategate-rip.html
Mac
The days of FO diplomats in the mould of Harold Nicholson- Balliol classics type- are gone. Many years ago after moving house, my wife and I invited our new neighbour (one such retired gentleman diplomat and his wife) round for dinner to introduce ourselves- charming old couple - been in embassies all over the world, but something was clearly distressing them. We realised afterwards what it was. We had served soup to start, but, not possessing soup spoons at the time, had laid only plain dessert spoons.
Mac: "How many more eco-militants are working at the heart of UK government?"
How about Kate Hampton, Executive Director for Climate Change at the Children's Investment Fund Foundation:
Formerly Head of Policy at Lord Oxburgh's Climate Change Capital,
(http://www.climatechangecapital.com/about-us/people/lord-ronald-oxburgh.aspx), former Senior Policy Advisor for the UK’s G8 and EU Presidencies in 2005 and as a Sherpa to the EU High Level Group on Competitiveness, Energy and Environment in 2007. Currently a member of the European Commission’s Advisory Group on Energy. Previously, Head of the Climate Change Campaign for Friends of the Earth International and Convenor of the Green Globe Network, an advisory group to (and funded by) the UK Foreign Office.
Ever heard of E3G?
E3G is a quasi-governmental organization in the UK, with constant interchange of staff between government and E3G. In the last couple of years staff numbers have mushroomed with the addition of young graduates plucked from the Universities AGW assembly line and transfers from NGO’s. It is unashamedly a proxy for the UK government in pushing policy on coercing the UK into “Low Carbon Energy”. It boasts of being “funded by foundations, governments and NGOs.”, including Defra, DfID.
Founding Director & Chief Executive Nick Mabey was a senior policy adviser to Tony Blair, and former Head of Sustainable Development in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) Environment Policy department. Before he joined government, Mabey was Head of Economics and Development at WWF-UK
Founding Director John Ashton was appointed as Special Representative for Climate Change to UK Foreign Secretary under the Labour Government and is still there. His most recent offering, re Durban, is here: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/johnashton/johnashton.aspx. He is on secondment to the government from E3G, where he had previously been Chief Executive since its inception. He worked for Chris Patten when Patten was Governor of Hong Kong and supervising the hand-over to China. Visiting Professor at Imperial College London, Member of the Green College Centre for Environmental Policy and Understanding, (set up by Crispin Tickell). Is an advisory board member of the Tyndall Centre, formerly committee member of Climate Care, (bought by JP Morgan in 2008, sells carbon offsets) and former advisory board member at Climate Change Capital, (Oxburgh).
Tom Burke is a Founding Director of E3G, and Special Advisor to three Secretaries of State for the Environment from 1991-97 after serving as Director of the Green Alliance from 1982-91. Formerly Executive Director of Friends of the Earth and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Environmental Bureau 1988-91.
Shane Tomlinson is E3G’s Director of Development, prior to which he worked in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in the Cabinet Office.
Matt Findlay joined E3G in February 2008 on secondment from the FCO, he no longer appears, so must have re-joined the FCO.
Monica Araya, Senior Policy Advisor, has worked for the Costa Rican government, Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) and Lord Oxburgh’s Climate Change Capital, a London fund manager that has invested more than $1 billion in greenhouse gas credits
Pelin Zorlu, Policy Advisor, formerly worked as a research assistant at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London on forest governance and poverty reduction, and Action for a Global Climate Community based in London. She also worked briefly at the European Commission (DG Environment)
Kavita Ahluwalia, Project Coordinator (Power Sector), Prior to joining E3G’s Brussels office, Kavita was a Policy Assistant to Avril Doyle MEP in the European Parliament. She assisted Doyle in her work as Rapporteur for the EU Emissions Trading Directive review and followed the work of the Parliament’s Environment Committee. Kavita has also worked as an intern and contractual agent in the Climate Directorate of DG Environment at the European Commission
Jonathan Gaventa, Senior Policy Advisor, focusing on decarbonising the EU power sector, formerly worked as a Sustainable Development Policy Officer for the Greater London Authority, where he coordinated the London Sustainable Development Commission’s work on sustainable consumption and production.
Ingrid Holmes, Programme Leader - Low Carbon Finance, working on the development of a green infrastructure bank and complementary financial instruments including green bonds. Member of the Green Investment Bank Commission working group.
Before joining E3G she worked for Climate Change Capital, has also worked for the Science Policy Unit in DEFRA, as a Scientific Advisor on energy and environment in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, and was Head of Policy at the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
Ed Matthew, Programme Director – Transform UK, led the Economics Team at Friends of the Earth, for four years, specialising in climate economics. Successfully campaigned for the introduction of Carbon Budgets within the Climate Change Act, the inclusion of Feed in Tariffs and the Renewable Heat Incentive within the Energy Act 2008.
Liz Gallagher, Senior Policy Advisor, development of climate finance to leverage private capital into low carbon development. Advice to NGO's and some EU governments on securing public funding. Formerly with catholic development agency, CAFOD, as Head of Climate Finance Policy working with UK Government, EU and G20 countries on sources, scale and governance of public finance for development. Whilst at CAFOD, she co-chaired Climate Action Network’s international lobbying and policy group on climate finance at the UNFCCC negotiations.
Susan Davies, Senior Researcher, has worked for the Forestry Commission, Defra and on the Quality of Life policy review for the Conservative Party. Former banker.
Finally, Jennifer Morgan, former WWF Climate Director, (http://www.academia-engelberg.ch/jennifer_morgan_en.php5). In 2007, Morgan served as Senior Advisor to Merkel's Chief Climate Advisor, the said Dr. Schellnhuber and in 2008 advised Tony Blair in his Breaking the Climate Deadlock project. After a spell at E3G, she is now at the World Resources Institute, where Al Gore is a director.
http://www.e3g.org/about/news-articles/jennifer-morgan-moves-to-the-world-resources-institute/
Re: Dec 1, 2011 at 10:20 AM | thespecialone
Thanks for the link - I too have left a comment -
"So... just as the emails are rolled back to reveal Defra employees scurrying around desperately trying to brief US politicians on burying a paper by real scientists Soon and Baliunas that called into question Mann's now infamous 'Hockey Stick', Mann et Al's paper in response that supposedly 'discredited' the S&B paper but did indeed include truncated data that 'hid the decline' else would have proved Soon and Baliunas to have been correct, the BBCs climate coverage in it's own words "objective and impartial (ho ho) as we are at the BBC" we now have the climate whores who continue their claims there is 'nothing to see here' !!!
Ho ho, indeed, I and much of the blogosphere on this subject beg to differ - these emails are proving extremely interesting particularly so as we now have the MSM doing their best to bury their collective heads in the sand!!!"
I certainly believe this tranche of emails has brought out more of the political context in which the so-called climate 'science' flourished. I have no doubt that Climategate 3 could easily expand on this and reveal yet more political interference/guidance behind the scenes.
I can't help thinking that whenever the CAGW crowd expend so much time and effort and spout so much vitriol, both internally in the emails and externally in public denouncements such as that of Soon & Baliunas 2003 that maybe one should look more closely at such papers as there is a strong likelihood of them actually being much closer to the "Inconvenient Truth". Otherwise, why try an bad mouth and suppress such papers? Generally in science poor papers simply don't get cited.
No wait, look - there's a witch! Over there! Heretic! Burn them before they spread their fossil fuel sponsored evil doctrines.
The more I read of the emails the more it sounds like the Spanish Inquisition. A gratuitous reference to Monty Python springs to mind at that point, of course.
the dutch..pffrt..
mother has baked little fishies , hurry.
To Bill at 8:31 AM, 12/1 (Thu): "Sea breezes as adiabiatic cooling"-- love it. More, please!
@thespecialone: Thanks for the link to the Daily Mail. I have also left a comment there:
It is clear that his progress through the ranks was facilitated by the then Labour government, rather like the baroness who claimed the credit for the Climate Change Act. Add in the tens of millions of taxpayers money deployed to various organisations from the green movement to TUs for CAGW propaganda, favourable BBC coverage, and not forgetting GLOBE and it is not surprising that a gullible public has been well and truly brainwashed. As a side note, I have been unable to locate the current GLOBE UK website that names the parliamentarians currently serving on its board. I am wondering if they have pulled it.
Knowing the names to search is producing a rich harvets.
@thespecialone: FWIW Michael Hanlon - who is the sole arbiter of what comments he allows - has not updated his comments since 12:02 pm. Some chance that you and I, and others, will get a look in. There are none so blind as they who will not see.
Look at this:
"Senior advisor environment & energy British Embassy Washington
May 2000 – November 2004 (4 years 7 months)
Beleidsadviseur Ecooperation
1995 – 1997 (2 years)"
Presumably he got his first job straight after university, and with just two years experience he becomes a SENIOR adviser to the UKs Washington embassy. Probably the most importan diplomatic post the UK has. His expertise on US related climate matters is unclear.
The ease with which activists hop from one well paying position to the next is staggering.
Are these positions ever published in the press to attract the most talented and best qualified? Who provides references?
The situation is reminiscent of the ease the likes of Blunt, Philby and McLean got jobs in other British services on the 30s and 40s.
The question bears repeating. The people who work for the UK government, are they bound by the Official Secrets Acts? If so, how long does the obligation of non disclosure last?