Excerpts from The LA Times story:
U.S. Chamber of Commerce seeks trial on global warming
By Jim Tankersley
August 25, 2009
Reporting from Washington
The nation’s largest business lobby wants to put the science of global warming on trial.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.
Chamber officials say it would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” — complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.
“It would be evolution versus creationism,” said William Kovacs, the chamber’s senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. “It would be the science of climate change on trial.”
The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court.
The EPA is having none of it, calling a hearing a “waste of time” and saying that a threatened lawsuit by the chamber would be “frivolous.”
EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said the agency based its proposed finding that global warming is a danger to public health “on the soundest peer-reviewed science available, which overwhelmingly indicates that climate change presents a threat to human health and welfare.”
…
The chamber proposal “brings to mind for me the Salem witch trials, based on myth,” said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist for the environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists. “In this case, it would be ignoring decades of publicly accessible evidence.”
…
The proposed finding has drawn more than 300,000 public comments. Many of them question scientists’ projections that rising temperatures will lead to increased mortality rates, harmful pollution and extreme weather events such as hurricanes.
In light of those comments, the chamber will tell the EPA in a filing today that a trial-style public hearing, which is allowed under the law but nearly unprecedented on this scale, is the only way to “make a fully informed, transparent decision with scientific integrity based on the actual record of the science.”
Read the complete LA Times story here
Website of the US Chamber of Commerce here
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This will be fun if they can carry it off.
What was the film staring Billy Connelly, was it “The Man Who Sued God” becuase his insurance company would not pay out for a lightening strike, an “act of God”?
So AGW-believers and AGW-sceptics have to prove their case? Awesome!
Flush the beggars out
Love to see it but surely they will just bounce it off the Supreme court.
I believe “The Man Who Sued God” was about a storm wrecking Billy’s character’s boat rather than a lightning strike. Fun movie though.
Oh good grief. Putting “global warming” on trial. What are they going to do, sentence it to a time out until we need it?
I find it a rather moronic idea, personally, but hey, I suppose those government workers need to do something to justify their paycheck. There certainly is a lot less “commerce” going on these days and they could probably use the work.
OOPS, my apologies, I thought it was DEPARTMENT of Commerce, not Chamber of Commerce. Chamber of Commerce can do whatever it wants to.
“…on the soundest peer-reviewed science available, …”
An example of which being Mann’s ‘hockey stick’…
Now this could fun.
I’d pay good money to see Hansen and algore pounded into the dirt.
The EPA only has to use delaying tactics – once Copenhagen is out of the way, science and evidence won’t matter anymore.
Brendan Gilfillan is correct when he says that “climate change presents a threat to human health and welfare.” Unfortunately for him, it’s not global warming that is the threat, it’s global cooling. We all know warming is good and cooling is bad. We all know CO2 is good for plant life and thus all animal life.
Excellent news, because ‘supported by an overwhelming consensus of scientists’, and ‘ignoring decades of publicly accessible evidence’ are claims without substance.
In reality, the science behind AGW is weak, the historical data upon which the claimed warming is based has errors and uncertainties considerably larger than the supposed warming, and the projections of the climate models are just computer processed guesswork.
Didn’t help with DDT did it? The judge ruled in favour of DDT – the science being totally sound. But what did the EPA do? Banned DDT and how many people died and still die as a consequence.
All The President’s Men
Who picks who is the judge?
Anybody assuming this could be “good news” is assuming that
(1) the judge and trial (method of presenting evidence) are honest and
(2) “truth” matters to the ecotheists who have adopted anti-industrial/anti-capitalism as their religion of choice.
Anything less than a full blown trial, (with methodologies, data acquisition, data analysis, data interpretation, computer code, interpretations, conclusions, hypothesis and summaries laid out on the table and this data from both sides of the camp, needs to be investigated thoroughly), would be a crime against HUMANITY.
Regards
Polygirl
I have suggested this before in the UK in the form of a trial under the auspices of the Royal Society but neither they nor the Met office want to play ball. The BBC is also not interested. Trying to arrange any sort of high level public debate with experts from either side- whether for science or entertainment- is highly problematic. Good luck to the US chamber of Commerce.
Tonyb
“Robert A Cook PE (00:47:35) :
Who picks who is the judge?
Anybody assuming this could be “good news” is assuming that
(1) the judge and trial (method of presenting evidence) are honest and
(2) “truth” matters to the ecotheists who have adopted anti-industrial/anti-capitalism as their religion of choice.”
I was thinking this too, and similarly the DDT banning, wouldn’t be corrupted or biased at all would it? Copenhagen is in November/December so I reckon there will be a bit of a chill in the NH and here in the SH will be an normal to below normal Spring/Summer, probbaly, like the start of last Spring/Summer, on the cool side.
Yes, yes, yes. This is the way to go. Put it on TV live like the OJ Trial. Blog it. Stream it. Make it big news. Subpoena all those tax payer funded data sets, proxies and opaque methodologies that .govs won’t release. Put Hansen, Mann, Jones and the rest of The Team in the dock under oath. Do the same with the skeptics. Total transparency. They want a consensus? End the debate? Time to act is now? Trillions of dollars in higher taxes? Let’s take it to court.
May the best evidence carry the day!
A friend of mine once hit a moose while driving home in the fog. When he came to, the sheriff and game warden were there, and cleared him to go home. He asked them for help putting the moose in the bed of his truck to take home. The warden said, “The moose herd is the property of the state.”
“Is that so?” my friend replied. He then proceeded to sue the state of New Hampshire for letting its “herd” loose on the state highways without an orange reflective belt, no flashing wide load lights, and not in a clearly designated moose crossing with appropriate signage and lighting. He won and got a new pickup truck.
The state legislature then voted the next year to allow people to keep their roadkill.
Sometimes you have to hit the bureaucrats over the head with a lawsuit to make your point.
If you read the tone of this you will realize that we will not have to worry about these guys ever getting anywhere with AGW. I cannot believe they have been employed at any University if this is the case
http://deepclimate.org/2009/08/14/complaint-to-the-australian-broadcasting-company-regarding-plimer/
Rubs hands in gleeful anticipation. Can I have a ringside seat?
…And we see the climate industry expand.
Bad idea.
A lawyer is no better at deciding a scientific hypothesis than a Pope or a King is. Or a Queen.
Who is going to appoint the judge ?
IANAL but the IPCC would undoubtedly come up in the case. Wouldn’t CRU data in the AR4 be subject to discovery?
The entire global warming industry can only keep going if all the politicians, junk scientists, and “useful idiots” such as the BBC, The Guardian, etc. are never exposed to anyone who knows the truth.
It’s all about who is hogging the microphone, and who’s interests are being served, and has absolutely nothing to do with real climate science.