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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PPV says:
June 9, 2010 at 1:29 am
Two can play that game. I have taken down a record of your your post so that when I join the class action climate change litigation against big oil [BP (assuming it is not already bankrupt), Shell, Exxon et al…] I can add your name to the list as someone that deliberately stood in the way of global action to stop AGW.
Unlike you –I am pretty sure we have a good case.
MJK
This won’t be news to the Virginia AG -I hear he always had a good BS detector.
Pointman
Ken Hall says:
June 9, 2010 at 2:15 am
“Climatologists would tell this lawyer to stick to law and leave the science to the scientists.”
Except that the scientists are not sticking to the science. That is what the paper aims to show, and does a good job of (despite what might be some nits someone could pick here and there). It is an interesting approach. Basically, what we have here is what the major science press — Nature, Science, Scientific American — should be commissioning and publishing: a review article that actually does review the evidence, pro and con, rather than engage in special pleading, which is what the IPCC’s “review” of the evidence does.
The paper succeeds in what it sets out to do. It shows that if any of the scientists who are advocating the IPCC/AGW party line were to submit themselves to cross-examination in the real world advocacy setting of a courtroom, a good lawyer would tear them to shreds. Now we — we who have been following this for a while — already know this. We know it because on the few occasions that the AGW claim has been “debated” it keeps losing the debates.
Ultimately, the
“Climatologists would tell this lawyer to stick to law and leave the science to the scientists.”
remark is an appeal to authority, the very thing science is supposed to stand against. And one thing a good lawyer knows how to do is question authority. It is what they are trained to do. I say this not as a lawyer, but as one who has been on the receiving end of being cross-examined by lawyers numerous times. Not all of them are good at it — cross-examining witnesses on highly technical matters. But when they are, it makes for good fun. And it serves a purpose, of seeing just what will hold up to scrutiny, and what will not. As far as the AGW claim goes, we need more of this, not less.
Phil Clarke’s angry criticism on Johnston writing “in the IPCC’s 2007 AR there is no hockey stick graph” seems very childish: in contrast to TAR with graphs displaying the single hockey stick, 4AR has no such figure(s). The link given by Clarke points to the well known and often cited example of how the hockey stick was buried (drowned?) in a multitude of other temperature reconstructions. If its significance had remained untouched, it would not have had this fate!
I can only recommend to read the Johnston paper in extenso, it’s time well spent.
@Fred June 8, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Something I posted elsewhere about dying belief systems
***************************************
There’s a deluge of climategate stories out and I thought this would put them into some sort of context. It’s a bit longish but what the hell.
If you’re tracking the development of the Climategate story as closely as I am, it’s important to recognize that what we’re actually looking at here is the collapse of a belief system. The progress and pathology of this phenomenon has been documented and reliably understood for some time. I say reliably understood because it did not originate from Freud, Jung, the Id, the Ego (super or otherwise) or any other school of psyco-babble psychology fashionable at the time. Don’t get me wrong, Psychology is a very useful tool but too many psycholigists don’t seem to know which end to hold it by.
If you’re a climate scientist, look away now. It came from something called the scientific method. A phenomenon was observed several times. Certain recurring patterns were noticed. A hypothesis was put forward. It was checked against the previous studies to see it accurately reflected the results already known. In the main it did but where it diverged, amendments were made to the hypothesis so it would reflect the real world. Note, the hypothesis was changed not the data. The next step was to see if it could accurately describe what would happen when the phenomenon next occurred. When this was done, where it diverged, the hypothesis was amended and again rechecked against the historical data. It went around this loop until it was thought robust enough to be advanced as a theory. This was done by submitting it for peer review and publication. The peer reviewers (are you guys still looking away?) were not cronies of the authors. After some debate, it got through and a theory was born. But it would never and could never be anything more than a theory. A theory stays a theory until ONE person proves it wrong or it is supplanted by a better one. The ptolemaic theory accurately predicted the moon, seasons and planetary movements among many things but it had a central flaw. The Earth moved around the Sun, not the other way. And that’s why, when it comes to theories, the science is never “settled”.
This is what’s ahead for the true believers. There are five stages to it though there may be multi-stage iterations within the five and the interior stages may overlap or sometimes be out of sequence. People also go through them at different rates.
1) Denial – A total refusal to see, believe or accept what has happened.
2) Anger – Blaming someone else, oneself, everyone else or anything else for what has happened. The deeper the belief, the more vehement this stage is.
3) Bargaining – Believing that you can still do some trading to keep all, something or at least a shred of the collapsing structure. eg concessions, scapegoats, prayer.
4) Depression – It can’t be stopped. Apathy, depression, tiredness, feeling unfairly punished.
5) Acceptance – Utter Calm. It’s all over. Death.
Sad to say, the original studies were done on terminally ill patients and then extended over into work on belief systems, deprogramming and other areas.
This is the shape of the pathology you’re going to see in the coming months. I’ll flag up some examples as they occur in posts. It’s fun – try it yourself.
Pointman.
Once the lawyers start showing an interest then you just know that something big is coming.
Lawyers are like sharks and when they smell class action lawsuits and lying cheating mega corporations that have been cashing in on grotesque subsidies and government bodies syphoning off public funds to spread to supplicant/arms length sub divisions then the lawyer class will know that their meal ticket has been stamped for years to come.
Its hard to grasp the scale and the huge opportunities just there for the taking by a class of people trained to spot weakness and are motivated to exploit that weakness.
Make no mistake, the lawyers can see just how exposed to lawsuits the eco/green bandwaggon has become, they have built their houses on sand, they became so engrossed in the endless free money gravytrain that they took no notice of how precarious their situation had become.
When the feeding frenzy starts a great many people will either try to trun states evidence or run off to a place with no extradition, this is going to get messy..hoooraaay.
The evidence offered for dangerous agw doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny to legal scrutiny to historical scrutiny. Common sense also tells us it’s a nonsense?
@Andrew30 June 8, 2010 at 11:39 pm
Careers were made with the rise of AGW. Careers will be made on its fall. The Professor’s timing is very good.
Pointman
It looks like the greenie weenies will lawyer up and use our money.
Yesterday’s statement from Lisa Jackson was that we don’t care to save and protect our children.
If they say a lawyer can’t know, then they need to use data to support their assertion that a lawyer can’t know.
Obama will issue 50 million to bolster up advertising and pr services. It is our money he is borrowing from China using our signature.
Sorry to come back to the snake issue, but the BBC website says:- “The year when many of the snake declines began – 1998 – raises the question of whether climatic factors might be involved, as very strong El Nino conditions contributed to making it the hottest year recorded in modern times.”
As has been mentioned, there is no reference to CAGW, just the very strong El Nino conditions. I truly hope that this is a positive change in the BBC.
And as for the Met Office predictions of how climate change might affect us, I too am grappling with the whole gamut of differing scenarios (talk about hedging your bets) but it is frustrating that this is what our local council has to take on board and try to “prepare local people and businesses” for. It could be a flood (but I guess that’s nothing to do with building on floodplains) or it could be a drought (heaven forbid, we might have another hosepipe ban) and so it goes on. Give me strength!!
But was it peer reviewed?
/sarc off (duh)
Hey, I thought this blog never allowed the phrase The Deniers, even when it is the title of a book written by the author of the article that begins the thread:
[Reply: When ‘deniers,’ ‘denialists,’ etc. is used as a pejorative the post is snipped or deleted. ~dbs, mod.]
Okay, let’s see, he’s a contrarian, a denialist, and/or is paid by big oil.
If one claims to have more authority and superiority by reason of certain science degree, have them explain the scientific method.
Then have for example Hansen or Mann explain why they do not want to apply the scientific method.
Any lawyer can ask any question. They charge several hundred dollars an hour to ask questions. Any scientist can answer questions. Some times the answer is I do not know. The problem I see is they avoid questions. Because they don’t have answers or because the answers clash with reality.
899 says:
June 9, 2010 at 4:16 am
HEAT you say? WHERE is the EXTRA HEAT?!?!?!
Gone to outer space, unfortunately. But don’t tell the Warmists that. It’s so much fun to see them “look” for it.
Jimmy Mac says:
June 9, 2010 at 1:05 am
Jimmy, wonderful posting. You might have hit it right on the head.
Thank you.
“Pete Hayes says:
June 9, 2010 at 5:14 am
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!”
He’s from University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Mike Mann is at State Penn in State College PA.
That’s suppossed to be “Penn State”….not State Penn in my previous post…(although is that a Freudian slip on my part?)
Pascvaks says:
June 9, 2010 at 5:13 am
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’.
Yep….with the governement it’s always about money and the “power-grab”. Climate crisis sets the stage to garner more power. Look what Rahm Emanuel said about a crisis: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. “……like tax the air, or energy, etc.
Van Grungy says:
June 8, 2010 at 9:38 pm
I can just hear the wails now…
“But he’s not a Climaneuralscrambolologist!”
____________________________________________________________________
AHHhhaaa Yes , but he is something better. Jason Scott Johnston is a Professor and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
All you have to do is show ENSO graphs compared with temperature anomaly graphs to anyone, regardless of political view. The naturalists will say, “Gee the oceans have quite a bit to do with land temperatures!” The anthropogenic warmers will say, “The greenhouse affect is warming the oceans!” In fact, they have said that. They just can’t find the warming that should be there and have said, oh so scientifically, that it is hiding. As soon as they go there, you have em licked. That is an incredibly easy mathematical with proof argument to refute. If I were the lawyer, at this point in time, after refuting the silly child-like hide and seek notion that re-radiation of longwave infrared caused by anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases is “heating the/hiding in the” oceans to a degree significant to heat the land, I would sit down after moving for a summary judgment.
Hit send too soon. Should have said, “…to a degree significant enough to explain the recent increased land temperatures, …”.
” sphaerica says:
June 9, 2010 at 5:41 am
[…]
This entire approach to the AGW argument is appalling. It’s another parlor trick, and it’s shameful.”
Instead of trying to understand what Johnston has to say you are attacking his approach. Thank you, this says a lot about the strength of your argument.
Let me make things clear to some of you. AGW was never about saving the planet & resources for the yoof of today & our grandchildren. Marxist Socialism was failing around the globe. The MS ideological goal was alwasy for Global Government, presumeably on the maxim that if we’re all going to die lets all die broke, except the rich of course, & the best socialists are the rich ones naturally enough! So when you can’t convince people of a political ideology, i.e. Marxist Socialism, the next best thing is to ignore it & invent a problem caused by free-enterprise capitalism, namely Global Warming! (Don’t forget that the Ozone hole failed to achieve anything, but it’s always good to have something in reserve, like ocean acidification, etc). Who in their right minds, frightened, scared, terrified even, about destroying the planet for our childrens’ childrens’ childrens’ children, guilt is a powerfuul weapon/tool as is the human mind in the right hands! Ask the Lenins/Stalinists/Hitlers of this world. Curiously enough our (UK) glorious (& wealthy) deputy leader is being as upright as ever by having his wife (a wealthy lawyer – I’ve known a broke one) to join the board of a Spanish infrastructure group as an advisor, who just happen to specialise in………………wind farm technology! No conflict of interests there then, I am pleased to say. I understand why Dr Richard North frequently asks the question ” & the reason we don’t all rise up & slaughter them all is…….?”
Apologies, my bile got the better of me. That should have read “I have NEVER known a broke one” referring to lawyers.