From Lawrence Solomon at the Financial Post:
A cross examination of global warming science conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law and Economics has concluded that virtually every claim advanced by global warming proponents fail to stand up to scrutiny.
He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”
The cross-examination, carried out by Jason Scott Johnston, Professor and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, found that “on virtually every major issue in climate change science, the [reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other summarizing work by leading climate establishment scientists have adopted various rhetorical strategies that seem to systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties or even disagreements.”
Professor Johnson, who expressed surprise that the case for global warming was so weak, systematically examined the claims made in IPCC publications and other similar work by leading climate establishment scientists and compared them with what is found in the peer-edited climate science literature. He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”
Financial Post
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe the author of The Deniers.
The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-made global warming, can be found here:
Global Warming Advocacy Science: A Cross Examination
U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 10-08
University of Pennsylvania – Law School
Date Posted: May 22, 2010
Last Revised: May 24, 2010
Working Paper Series
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Alexander K says:
June 9, 2010 at 1:38 am
“I have noticed that I have never lived anywhere in the UK or New Zealand where the official max temp promulgated by the Met Service or NIWA has been reached on a regular basis.”
Likewise the official daily min temps promulgated by the same Weather Experts are nearly always higher than actual.
Thank you Professor Johnston for writing your cross examination in a way that can be quite easily understood by laypeople. This link needs to be promulgated.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/06/06/legal-verdict-manmade-global-warming-science-doesn’t-withstand-scrutiny/
Ken Hall says:
June 9, 2010 at 2:15 am
“Climateologists would tell this lawyer to stick to law and leave the science to the scientists.”
Good prediction. I’m sure establishment climate scientists will say exactly that.
Here’s your ad hom
Lawyers are now doing climate science???
And you trust this man because he is a lawyer??? When did we start trusting lawyers?
This looks like an interesting paper (which I’ve downloaded) and I look forward to reading it.
Although I’m not a lawyer, I am a certified auditor and regularly deal with matters of federal regulatory law.
The case for CAGW is one that would never pass audit. There are too many open questions, too much flimsy “evidence”, too much bluster and evasion, and in sum the CAGW assertions just do not stand up to even cursory examination.
It is nice to receive support in ones opinions! Again I look to the reasons for those paid by the taxpayer for supporting this transparent scam, I find some incomptance but mostly personal gain, what do we call anyone who wants to destroy our civilisation and substitute theirs and impose it upon us? I would suggest treason, and all guilty need to be terminated from their employment and given hefty sentences served as house arrest, without internet access and no golden handshakes or pensions, they are utter disgraces and have to be treated as such, being criminals all memberships of professional bodies should be forfeit.
Based upon a review of several but not all sections, it looks like Johnston has produced a thorough summary and shows an excellent grasp of the key scientific issues and highlights and criticizes the unscientific approach of the AGW advocates.
I did notice that he may have been mislead by one of the IPCC slights of hand on page 59:
“It might seem that whatever might be the explanation for the apparent long-term impact of solar variation on climate, the IPCC stood on unassailable ground in concluding in its 2007 AR that solar variation had the effect of cooling the planet since 1980, so that solar variation could not possibly account for warming since then. There is certainly evidence for the IPCC’s conclusion.”
If I recall correctly, the IPCC was usually careful to say that ‘natural variation” not solar had the effect of the cooling the planet since 1980. The IPCC lumped volcanic and solar forcing together. Solar activity was still unusually high through the end of the century. Similarly the IPCC statements about anthropogenic forcings being responsible for the warming, usually lumped together GHGs and aerosols. This always struck me as a very deceptive and non-committal way to claim very likely (90% confidence) that most of the warming was anthropogenic, while the media and policymakers to assume that means CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. This bundling avoids comparing GHGs directly with the competing solar hypothesis, and covers the IPCCs backside in case the steep rise in temperatures in the 80s and 90s is actually a natural or anthropogenic reduction in aerosols (global brightening) unmasking a sun that had been at an unusually high level of activity for half a century per Solanki (Nature 2005). Since solar activity did not change much in the latter 20th century, the issue of whether the warming would be attributed to solar or to aerosol forcing is problematic. The rapid rise in temperature would be explained by the aerosol forcing. However, if we accept that the temperatures were unusually warm, the warmest since the Medieval Warm Period, then the question becomes, not why the rise was rapid but why an unusually high temperature resulted. There is no indication that the aerosol levels are unusual. Shares of attribution would be apportioned to the unusually high level of solar activity and the unusually high GHGs.
Derek B says:
June 8, 2010 at 9:34 pm
The analysis makes much of the fact that daily max surface air temperatures are more representative of average temperature through the troposphere than the daily min temperatures are. This strikes me as totally irrelevant. If we choose to define the mean surface temperature as the average of the max and min, that is likely reasonable for several of the purposes to which it will be put: comparing with tree-ring data; comparing with ice core proxies; glacial/icecap melt; maybe even sea warming. The difference in mixing does have to be considered when trying to figure out where all the extra heat (as implied by the satellite measurements) is going. And I’m sure it is.
Extra heat? WHAT EXTRA HEAT?
I’m here in the Pacific Northwest and the only ‘extra heat’ I’m getting are the raised taxes on things for which I need to live!!!
Five times this month —JUNE— I’ve had to kick-in the pellet stove to stay decently warm.
HEAT you say? WHERE is the EXTRA HEAT?!?!?!
Interesting however, I really do believe that our “leaders” have made their decision. The fix is in, it’s called energy independence, or to use another word, tax.
In Australia, support for KRudd747 the climate change crusader, is plumetting so fast he’ll be knocked off his PM perch in the blink of an eye in this years election. The only alternative in the ALP is Julia Gillard, who speaks to people like they’re still in kindergarten, and very condescending too. Looking forward to my prdiction that KRudd747 will be a one-hit-wonder coming true.
I really wish the Australian MSM would pick up on some of these stories, but I guess their are too deep into the scare mongering program.
I just love the discovery process–NOTHING is immune from subpoena. Since most politicians just happen to be lawyers, this is language they understand, along with the ramifications of being found sideways with respect to legal argument; they’ll be fleeing AGW like roadrunners. I’m also expecting hordes of trial lawyers chasing huge legal fees as they take down AGW “climatologists”and their falacious theories. Fun times, indeed!
According to Clause 2 of the IPCC’s original, 1988 Governing Principles, “[t]he
role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis
the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the
scientific basis of human-induced climate change…”
So there is real doubt about whether all causes of global warming were looked at in equal detail. IPCC never had a mission to study all causes of global warming. It would appear to me that they pre-selected or cherry picked “human -induced climate change “as the prime cause and then studied it only in detail. It seems to me that they have arrived human induced warming as the prime cause not by looking in equal detail at all causes of global warming and then selecting human induced warming based on equal assessment of all causes.
As Lawrence stated,
“He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”
Ken Hall says: June 9, 2010 at 2:15 am
“Climateologists would tell this lawyer to stick to law and leave the science to the scientists.”
…and ballistics to Physicists, and fiber chemistry to Chemists, and DNA to Biologists, and forensic accounting to Accountants, and Fingerprints to printers, and…
Layers understand evidence and contradiction; and have the ability to read and understand; and a firm grasp of their language; and the ability to communicate effectively.
If only climate scientologists were as adept .
If the President of the United States of America finds time to go to school and learn to understand the basics (reading, righting, rithmitic, ) he might decide to really ‘kick – ass’ but for now BP is paying all the bills ( are the American suppliers and operators of the faulty equipment going to get a mention ? ) the blowout is not a disaster, it may affect a miniscule % of the worlds population ( be it birds, fish or politicians, ) but the global warming virus will affect us all, who is going to ‘clean up ‘ after the political climate change ?
Hundreds of trillions of dollars will be (and is being) spent on the climate band wagon, by politicians and people with green teeth.
BP is in a heads down ass up mode, unfortunately some big mouth ignorant politicians see the ass and think it is their to kick.
Americans are getting a real Democratic “ass-kicking”
Another key conclusion of Professor Johnson was – fix the temperature data sets.
“Hence perhaps the central policy implication of the cross-examination conducted above is a very concrete and yet perhaps surprising one:
public funding for climate science should be concentrated on the development of better,
standardized observational datasets that achieve close to universal acceptance as valid
and reliable. We should not be using public money to pay for faster and faster computers
so that increasingly fine-grained climate models can be subjected to ever larger numbers
of simulations until we have got the data to test whether the predictions of existing
models are confirmed (or not disconfirmed) by the evidence.”
If climate science does not hold up, then why not all science?
Results have been maniuplated there as well and taught as unbreakable laws.
Our planets science had two roads to take for the understanding of how climate and this planet works.
Unfortunately, we took the easy road that is filled with theories and individualizing science into many categories that do not interact but work nicely in a lab. Trying to put this science into a timeline and it totally falls apart.
Politics, religion and faith in our leaders that they will follow the right path have just corrupted the area of science worse.
Funny thing is we are really creating “educated idiots” in the area of science!
Ref – Dick H. Ahles says:
June 8, 2010 at 9:26 pm
“This is not a surprising conclusion for the WUWT-readers. The Question is: why so many politicians still don’t believe “there is no climate crisis!”? It’s something social and psychological!”
_____________________________
It’s ‘monitary’.
Prof! Where have you been! Is this the same Pen State? Wow, bet your lunch breaks from tommorrow are going to be interesting! I would suggest a sound recording device!
As a Brit it is not really my concern (and I await the put downs on other forums with glee) but how about looking at the EPA and asking how legal their “democratic”/scientific actions are?
I would truly like to know your opinion on the EPA actions.
I honestly think that a lot of us have been waiting for the lawyers for some time!
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
“HE’S A LAWYER, HE IS NOT A SCIENTIST!! … I have now put forth the expected argument(s) of the (C)AGW proponents in advance”
To which the obvious answer is: neither are the climate “establishment”.
The American legal system, along with most systems of justice in western civilization, are adversarial. This means that one party takes each side, they follow the same rules, and they are refereed, and the case is judged, by an impartial party.
For anyone to present a “cross examination” like this is horribly disingenuous, because it gives the pretense of a fair legal proceeding, while in fact offering no voice to the “other side.” And before anyone says it, no, merely quoting the other side, without opportunity for objection, clarification, or rebuttal is not “giving them a voice.”
This entire approach to the AGW argument is appalling. It’s another parlor trick, and it’s shameful.
Here are three other key points that Professor Johnson makes in three separate quotes:
“The problem is not the global warming advocacy science is wrong – something that in
any event I lack the expertise to determine – but that by overselling models and evidence,
global warming advocacy science has created some very serious misimpressions among
many people about what is known and understood about global climate, and has directed
media and policy attention solely to greenhouse gas emissions as the sole cause of
climate change”
“Rather than laying out contrasting positions that one finds in the
literature, the IPCC and other leading establishment climate scientists either simply
ignore or tersely dismiss scientific work that disputes or casts doubt upon the
assumptions underlying or projections made by climate models and establishment climate
science more generally.”
“The\rhetorical strategy that has come to dominate establishment climate science is not
designed to promote such fine-grained understanding; it is designed instead to convince
the public of what some, but by no means all, climate scientists have come to believe by
conveying a very scary and also very simple picture of the state of the science. “
In reply to Geoff Sherrington; in common with Eireland, there are no snakes in NZ and never have been, although the Irish insist that St Patrick rid Eireland of theirs. Our Border Protection agencies take damn fine care that the few discovered arriving are dealt with in very short order.
And in reply to James Allison; sorry, didn’t mention that forecast min temps tend to stay above forecasts.
OT again; I was interested to discover some time ago that Robert Louis Stevenson’s father invented the Stevenson Screen. As the Stevenson family were probably the world’s most prolific lighthouse builders, were they also building meterological equipment to equip their lighthouses?
I’ve followed global warming for a good 15 years.
I’ve seen the lies, watched them break the law, watched none of their predictions come true, witnessed the attacks and their admission to lies and faking data………
I don’t believe any part of global warming now.
To me the problem with AGW science is that they have it backwards.
The scientific method is to form a hypothesis and try to DISPROVE IT !
The post scientific method is to form a hypothesis and TRY TO PROVE IT !
Big difference.
The former method works, the latter doesn’t.
Interesting cross-examination in which the ‘witness’ is not allowed to talk..
This legal analysis of AGW theory is instructive because it is precisely what will occur upon upcoming court review of EPA’s co2 public endangerment findings which are based largely on IPCC studies. EPA’s findings can easily be found ‘arbitrary and/or capricious’ by the exact type of analysis applied by Johnson here. Furthermore, EPA’s endangerment findings which extrapolate health threats beyond IPCC’s reports, are even more susceptible to legal analysis due to their inherently conjectural nature. The US court systems handle highly technical issues every day. Nothing new here. When necessary , the use of techy-eggheads to battle over obtuse technical facts is common
practice. AGW theorists have no court approved exemption from cross examination of their problematical concepts. This is just the beginning. Have fun!
Jason Scott Johnston – Obviously working for big oil. I wish there was a SCARIER font to use for ‘big oil’. It would seem more dramatic…and scarier. (sarc off)