Debate at the IPCC's 'Bali High' global warming talk-fest is being kept down by having dissenters kept out (a process all too familiar to observers of the Electoral Finance Bill, and of the methodology by which the IPCC's "consensus" is produced). Newspapers opposing the party line have been refused press credentials, and distinguished scientists from Africa, Australia, India, New Zealand, the UK and the US have been barred from presenting at panel discussions, side events, and exhibits, and also denied press credentials. Story here:

The scientists, citing pivotal evidence on climate change published in peer-reviewed journals, have expressed their opposition to the UN's alarmist theory of anthropogenic global warming. As the debate on man-made global warming has been heating up, the UN has tried to freeze out the scientists and new evidence, summarily dismissing them with the claim "the science is settled."

James M. Taylor, senior fellow for The Heartland Institute explained, "It is not surprising the UN has completely rejected dissenting voices. They have been doing this for years. The censorship of scientists is necessary to promote their political agenda. After the science reversed on the alarmist crowd, they claimed 'the debate is over' to serve their wealth redistribution agenda."

"Dr. Gray is the last person the politicized UN wants speaking," Taylor noted. "He single-handedly debunks the entire alarmist theory. And there are more than 600 Dr. Grays trying to be the voice of reason and science. All are being censored."

As the Clark Government and their allies in the Greens have realised here in NZ, muzzling dissenters is certainly one way to achieve "consensus." But do please remember this banning of dissent when (if all goes accroding to plan) the release of the clearly predetermined 'Bali Mandate' is released, accompanied by backslapping, agreement, unanimity and "consensus."

UPDATE 1: The IPCC is guilty of "Dishonest political tampering with the science on global warming," says "Nobel Prize co-winner" Christopher Monckton.

UPDATE 2: Global warming isn't just poor science -- it's not just full of dishonest political tampering -- it's not just the case that the "anthropogenic" part of anthropogenic global warming is still unproven, and the "warming" part hasn't been true since 1998 -- that man's carbon emissions being responsible for planetary collapse are still unproven -- but there's a very good reason as Roy Cordato points out at the Mises Blog that "global warming is the holy grail for socialists," and it's of the utmost importance for freedom-lovers to understand it:

It makes market failure completely ubiquitous. Everything we do emits CO2, causes global warming and is therefore evidence of market failure. Global warming raises market failure from a special case to a reason to regulate/tax every aspect of life." This is why the GW movement is certainly the greatest threat to liberty in my lifetime..

UPDATE 3: Canada Free Press has several stories updating readers with ICSC happenings in Bali, and seems to be updating the page regularly. Bookmark: Skeptical Scientists Urge World To 'Have the Courage to Do Nothing' At UN Conference - CANADA FREE PRESS. Here's some recent highlights:

** Christopher Monckton ... had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday. "Climate change is a non problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants. The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money..."

** IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants. "There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any affect whatsoever on the climate." If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails. It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics."

** David Evans [a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies. (LINK) ] said, "We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming." We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years." [Evans authored a November 28 2007 paper 'Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming.' (LINK) ] Evans touted a new peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists appearing in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society which found "warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence." (LINK) "Most of the people here have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction."

** New Zealander Bryan Leyland warned participants that all the UN promoted discussions of "carbon trading" should be viewed with suspicion. "We should probably ask why we have 10,000 people here [in Bali] in a futile attempt to 'solve' a [climate] problem that probably does not exist."

** ICSC convener Owen McShane said that a UN promoted global approach to economics would mean financial ruin for many nations. "Having the same set of rules apply to everybody will blow some economies apart totally while others will be unscathed and I wouldn't be surprised if the ones who remain unscathed are the ones who write the rules."

** Professor Dr. William Alexander, emeritus of the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, warned poor nations and their residents that the UN policies could mean more poverty and thus more death. "My message is specifically for the poor people of Africa. And there is nothing happening at this conference that can help them one little bit but there is the potential that they could be damaged," Alexander said. (LINK)