Guest essay by Roger E. Sowell, Esq. reposted with permission from Sowell’s Law Blog
In the past month, several articles appeared calling for the jailing of those who provide financial support for research into climate science with an objective of proving that man-made climate change does not exist. An overview is provided at WattsUpWithThat (see link). Responses to the call for jailing are numerous.
The background on this is that three sides exist in the climate change argument: one, the warmists, those who fervently believe that man’s activities by
burning fossil fuels will drive up the Earth’s temperature and cause all manner of horrible happenings; two, the skeptics, those who understand that the science simply does not support the warmists’ view, that any increase in global temperature is related to natural cycles but not to man’s fossil fuel consumption; and three, lukewarmers, those whose views fall in between the warmists and the skeptics. Disclosure: my own view after long and careful study and based on engineering, science, and mathematics, is that of a confirmed skeptic with a full understanding that carbon dioxide, CO2, does indeed absorb and emit thermal radiant energy.
My previous articles on SLB outline my views. (see My Journey, Warmists are Wrong, Chemical Engineer Takes on Warming, Cold Winters, Climate Science is Not Settled, and others). The leading climate scientists whose views most close approximate my own include Dr. S. Fred Singer of University of Virginia, and Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, who stated that “The claims that the earth has been warming, that there is a greenhouse effect, and that man’s activities have contributed to warming, are trivially true and essentially meaningless in terms of alarm.”
The basis for the jailing of skeptics is that many, perhaps millions, of human deaths will occur inevitably if drastic action is not taken immediately to prevent additional fossil fuel use. By fossil fuel use, what is meant is the burning of coal and natural gas in power plants and process plants, plus burning petroleum products as transportation and heating fuel. The supposed legal theory is that a person can be found criminally negligent if his (or her) actions cause serious harm or death to another. In this particular case, the assertion is that those who promote research into climate change to show that no alarm is justified will cause the death of millions of people due to events such as ice caps melting, subsequent sealevel rise and coastal inundation, droughts, and heat waves. It is criminal negligence, they assert, to try to prevent the alarm from being sounded when the consequences are so dire.
With that as background, it is necessary to examine the legal requirements of a criminal negligence case. There are two possible crimes, first is Involuntary Manslaughter with criminal negligence as an element, the second is Voluntary Manslaughter. Under existing California law, the following must be proven.
Involuntary Manslaughter
To prove that the defendant is guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter, the State must prove that:
1. The defendant committed a lawful act in an unlawful manner;
2. The defendant committed the act with criminal negligence; and
3. The defendant’s acts caused the death of another person.
Criminal negligence involves more than ordinary carelessness, inattention, or mistake in judgment. A person acts with criminal negligence when:
1. He or she acts in a reckless way that creates a high risk of death or great bodily injury; and
2. A reasonable person would have known that acting in that way would create such a risk.
In other words, a person acts with criminal negligence when the way he or she acts is so different from the way an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation that his or her act amounts to disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act.
With the legal rules for Involuntary Manslaughter set forth, it is possible to examine the claim that it is criminal negligence to support research into climate change to show no reason for alarm exists.
First, was there a lawful act? The answer must be yes, conducting research into climate change is lawful.
Next, was the research done in an unlawful manner, meaning with criminal negligence? To prove criminal negligence, two things must be proven: the acts were performed in a reckless way that creates a high risk of death or great bodily injury; and those acts caused the death of another person.
The act of conducting climate research from a skeptic view might be held to be performed recklessly and to create a risk of death or great bodily injury, but only if the research chose only data that confirmed the pre-conceived conclusion, or improper analyses were performed, or unwarranted conclusions were drawn from the data and analysis, or some combination of all the above. It is notable that the peer-review process exists to eliminate, or at least minimize, such research techniques because they lead to bad science and poor policy decisions when those policy decisions are informed by the bad science. The trial attorneys would identify and present evidence to show what the skeptic climate research used as data, the analysis techniques, and the conclusions. It seems more likely that the skeptics have an excellent claim to performing good science, with the many hundreds of peer-reviewed publications that support the claim of no alarm is justified. Indeed, the NIPCC reports show exactly such skeptical publications.
Third and finally, the research must have caused the death of another person, but in this case, as discussed below in Voluntary Manslaughter, linking any human deaths to research into climate change is extremely unlikely. Even though the concentration of carbon dioxide continues to increase in the atmosphere, severe weather events are declining in number and intensity.
The crime of Involuntary Manslaughter, by criminal negligence, would very likely not be provable beyond a reasonable doubt. First, there are no deaths that can be causally linked to such research, and second, the research has not been conducted in a reckless manner designed to create a risk of serious bodily harm or death.
Voluntary Manslaughter
In California, Voluntary Manslaughter has the following elements that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, for a conviction to be had.
1. The defendant intentionally committed an act that caused the death of another person;
2. The natural consequences of the act were dangerous to human life;
3. At the time he acted, he knew the act was dangerous to human life; and
4. He deliberately acted with conscious disregard for human life.
Causation
In California, an act or omission causes injury or death if the injury or death is the direct, natural, and probable consequence of the act or omission, and the injury or death would not have happened without the act or omission. A natural and probable consequence is one that a reasonable person would know is likely to happen if nothing unusual intervenes. In deciding whether a consequence is natural and probable, the jury is to consider all the circumstances established by the evidence. There may be more than one cause of injury or death. An act or omission causes injury or death only if it is a substantial factor in causing the injury or death. A substantial factor is more than a trivial or remote factor. However, it does not have to be the only factor that causes the injury or death.
See: California Pen. Code § 192(a); People v. Rios (2000) 23 Cal.4th 450, 463, 469 [97 Cal.Rptr.2d 512, 2 P.3d 1066].
With the legal rules above set forth, it is possible to examine the claim that it is criminal negligence to support research into climate change to show no reason for alarm exists.
First, did defendant, who supported climate research to show no reason for alarm exists, intentionally commit an act that caused injury or death to another person?
It must be determined if there were any deaths. If no deaths exist, then there is no need to examine any of the additional elements. At this writing, first quarter of 2014, there appear to be no human deaths that are attributable to man-made climate change. However, a World Health Organization study from 2009 concluded that 140,000 human deaths per year are attributable to increased warming since the 1970s. The events that caused the deaths are rather vague, but it appears the WHO claims events such as floods, severe storms, and a 2003 heat wave in Europe. Yet, the same organization admits that measuring the health effects of climate change can only be very approximate. WHO also states that there are benefits to human life from warming, as fewer deaths occur that can be attributed to cold weather. see link
Allowing for the WHO estimate to be true, that is, 140,000 deaths occurred each year from various weather events, the question to be answered is then, is there a causal link between the severe weather events and the almost trivial increase in global temperatures? A jury would be presented with expert testimony on the subject, most likely that no credible scientist holds the view that there is any link between the trivial amount of warming and weather events. In fact, almost every form of weather event can be shown to be either decreasing, such as tropical storms or hurricanes, or to be no worse today than those that occurred in the past. Droughts, floods, heat waves, all have been much worse in the past compared to today.
From the definition of Causation above, “an act or omission causes injury or death if the injury or death is the direct, natural, and probable consequence of the act or omission, and the injury or death would not have happened without the act or omission.”
Two questions then must be asked, first, were the 140,000 weather-related deaths the direct, natural, and probable consequence of research into climate change to show that no cause for alarm exists? And, second, would the 140,000 weather-related deaths have happened without research into climate change to show that no cause for alarm exists?
To answer the first question, on deaths being the direct, natural, and probable consequence of climate research, it must be established whether those who died did so because they had no idea that the weather events would be more severe, more intense, and more deadly. If the only word issuing from the climate researchers was that there is no cause for alarm, that proposition might be true. However, the alarmists from above have for many years clogged the media, the airways, and the internet blogs, with dire predictions of doom. The fact is, and this would be introduced in a trial, that warmists claim almost a consensus exists that global warming is not only real, but man’s fossil fuel consumption is the cause. That alleged consensus is found in print, in broadcasts, and electronically on the internet. It is unlikely that a jury would concluded that any weather-related deaths were the result of skeptical climate research. The fact that, for example, hurricanes have decreased in intensity and number over the past 40 years is not debatable, it is a fact. Similarly for tornadoes, droughts, and heat waves. see link and “Global Hurricane Frequency”
From the causation definition, the jury is to consider all the circumstances established by the evidence. This means that the conclusions by the leading warmists, the IPCC, must be considered. The IPCC admits that there is no conclusive evidence to link severe weather events with global warming. Indeed, it would be hard to conclude otherwise, with the hard evidence that hurricanes are less frequent and less intense, and all the other severe weather simply not matching known events from earlier years. The key evidence on this is the warmists’ admission that events that occurred before 1970 were not related at all to man’s fossil fuel consumption; instead, they were entirely of natural causes. Thus, all heat waves such as the long and strong heat wave of the 1930s, all droughts including the severe drought of the 1950s, and the many strong hurricanes pre-1970 all were natural occurrences.
It must be concluded, then, that element 1 from above is not true; it cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if defendant intentionally performed skeptical climate science research, that research could not have caused the death of another person.
In a criminal trial, the accused is acquitted if any element is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the defense attorney cannot know which, if any, of the elements will be found not proven to that standard, so he continues on to the other elements. One never knows what a jury will decide until the verdict is read.
Moving then to the second element, the State must prove that the natural consequences of the act were dangerous to human life. As above, the act is skeptical climate research. What are the natural consequences of skeptical climate research? As time has shown, skeptical climate research has produced many hundreds of peer-reviewed and published scholarly papers that show there is no cause for alarm due to man’s fossil fuel consumption. Also, since there is no causal link between such research and human deaths, there can be no danger to human life. The element, too, must fail in the State’s case. (see link) (and this link to hundreds of peer-reviewed skeptical papers)
The third element of Voluntary Manslaughter is: at the time he acted, he knew the act was dangerous to human life. Again, the act is performing skeptical climate research. The jury would be told that the results of the skeptical climate research is that there is no danger. The reasons for that conclusion would be explained in great detail, with large and colorful graphs and visual displays to emphasize each point. The defendant, who performed the skeptical climate research, would know quite the opposite: he would know that there was no danger to human life. Element three then would also fail in the State’s case.
Finally, the fourth element is: he deliberately acted with conscious disregard for human life. On this point, the State must prove that defendant performed his skeptical climate research knowing that human life would be at stake, and consciously disregarded that threat to life. Quite the contrary exists, however. Skeptical research has shown that there is no cause for alarm, for the reasons outlined above.
The inevitable conclusion, then, would be a verdict of Not Guilty on a charge of voluntary manslaughter for those who perform skeptical climate research. Each of the four required elements is found in the negative, that is, the State cannot prove the element exists beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is interesting, however, that those who seek an arrest and conviction for criminal negligence, or voluntary manslaughter, want the crime to be charged before the victims are dead. The usual cry from the alarmists uses the future tense, as polar ice caps WILL melt, and sea levels WILL rise. Or, more often, the conditional form is used, saying sea levels COULD rise by 20 feet in 100 years.
There are some crimes where a conviction may be obtained without a death, such as attempted murder, but there is no crime in California of conspiracy to commit murder ( People v. Iniguez (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 75). There is also a crime of attempted voluntary manslaughter, but it requires the fact of heat of passion that does not arise in the climate research context (People v. Van Ronk (1985) 171 Cal.App.3d 818).
Conclusion:
The facts related to the conduct of climate research that results in a conclusion of no alarm is warranted do not yield a conviction on a charge of voluntary manslaughter, or criminal negligence as described above. The facts show that, even if some people have died from violent weather events, those weather events are in no way connected with man-made global warming that results from the consumption of fossil fuels. The clear evidence shows that hundreds of peer-reviewed scholarly papers have been published that show there is no reason for concern, indeed, the leading body of warmist scientists also conclude there is no link between global warming and severe weather. For a criminal conviction, each element of a crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, each element of the charge would be shown to be discredited, not proven at all. The exception is that a lawful act, climate research, was committed, however, that act was performed in a lawful manner.
The above is written to provide an overview of a general area of the law, and is not intended, nor is it to be relied on, as legal advice for a particular set of facts. Specific legal advice is available from Mr. Sowell and anyone who seeks such advice is encouraged to contact Mr. Sowell.
Re bio-fuels, as several have asked about.
I own a flex-fuel car that can run on E85 or premium gasoline. E85 is 85 percent ethanol, the balance gasoline and perhaps a bit of butane for RVP. (Reid Vapor Pressure, for those who aren’t familiar with the term). I have never run the car on E85, nor will I simply as a matter of principle.
I make speeches, as many of you know, and in some of those I discuss ethanol from corn and the US ethanol mandate. I tell the audience that “mandating corn-based ethanol is one of the dumbest things our government has ever done and should be repealed as soon as possible.”.
see my Peak Oil speech at http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/speech-on-peak-oil-and-us-energy-policy.html
I wrote at length on the wisdom of making ethanol from corn on my blog, SLB.
see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/ab-32-and-low-carbon-fuel-standard.html
plus several other articles that contain the search term “ethanol”
Even leaving aside the CO2 in the atmosphere issue, there is no net energy gain from producing ethanol from corn. Even the US EPA and California’s Air Resources Board agree with that statement. On that basis alone, we should not mandate ethanol from corn.
@ur momisugly David L. Hagen March 31, 2014 at 10:13 am
Regarding Bjorn Lomborg, I don’t agree with many of his views. He is dead wrong on wind subsidies, especially in his economic analysis. The subsidy to build the windturbines should not be credited against the project all in one year, but spread over the life of the project. There are other issues, but those can be deferred for later.
Steve from Rockwood says:
March 31, 2014 at 4:53 pm…
I agree.
@ur momisugly dbstealey,
“Mr. Sowell lives in a rational world.”
Thank you. As do you, also.
Paul in Sweden says:
March 31, 2014 at 5:02 pm
In addition to my usual disclaimer (I am not an attorney) I can now add — for the benefit of anyone unable to deduce it from the foregoing — that I am not an Italian attorney.
This result seems completely screwy to me. You hold professionals responsible based on the state of knowledge in their discipline. Nobody should be legally required to be a seer. My understanding of geology as it relates to earthquakes (which is about on par with my knowledge of Italian law) is that accurate prediction is not possible with any useful degree of precision.
Contrast this with the case of Captain Francesco Schettino, master of the Costa Concordia. Long established maritime law holds the master of a vessel underway responsible for (1) taking due care for the safety of the vessel and all persons on board in normal conditions, and (2) maintaining command of the vessel and crew in circumstances which require an evacuation of the vessel. Captain Schettino by all appearances failed in both duties and therefore is quite properly facing manslaughter charges. Discharging his duties as expected did not require super-human abilities or devotion “above and beyond” what woudl be expected of any professional in his position. In calm seas with modern navigation gear and no mechanical malfunctions, running aground in a well-surveyed waterway is inexcusable.
Predicting future climate is simply not in the same state of the art as commanding a modern cruise ship, and people who venture into that activity cannot be held to the same standards. That some of them claim certainty is merely a manifestation of their arrogance, until they can find an insurer to write them an Accidents & Omissions policy for any damages incurred in following their advice. Good luck with that; you probably can’t find anyone who will offer A&O coverage for meteorologists predicting weather 3 days out, which we can do reasonably well.
I hope you’re right. In the USA, the Warmists have not only the ear of the President, his Secretary of State, but all of his advisors, apparently all of the (so-called) Democratic Party, not to mention the upper levels of the learned Academies and of the Colleges and Universities. They also have the mainstream media to trumpet their persistent Alarmism and the apparently meaningless rallying cry, “Climate Change is real!”—which, is intended to signify that the Gospel of Global Warming is inviolate and no heresy (“d*nial”) shall be brooked.
We are not, suffice it to say, that far away from the time when killing by fire, drowning, and weight of stones, of agents (witches, sorcerers) believed to be responsible for many of the ills that beset mankind, not least of which was the weather (or Climate Change), was not only countenanced but encouraged by the Authorities. And why not, since the consensus was well-understand by the savants of the time? As in fact it is now. Of course, the modern State has many more means of dealing with heretics and those it perceives as pernicious to the common good. . .
/Mr Lynn
Correction: “since the consensus was well-understand. . .” should be “since the consensus was well-understood. . .” /Mr L
It is nice that a legal eagle wrote this, but didn’t we all know this anyway. In Australia, we have a defense …’of’ … show just cause’. In other words, ‘you are making up the whole lot’.
interesting to say the least.
I wonder how the alarmists would fair knowing that they intentionally lied about the MMGW and CO2 output to gain control over people which could lead to the deaths of millions. Noting that the act of cutting off fossil fuels removed heat from homes, power from all people, caused farms to fold and food manufacturing to falter and medical products from manufacture and use. Their acts are deliberate and with knowledge to obtain personal gain.
Hmmmmmm Seems to meet all of the original posts criteria and warmists want to jail those who disagree with the position..
@ur momisugly Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
March 31, 2014 at 6:03 pm
While I certainly do not endorse the jailing of scientists for their pronouncements; I think that Climastrologists & Members of the Church of Global Warning that are seeking to prosecute Global Warming Realists and actual Climate Scientists should consider their own culpability when held to the same absurd standards & liability they are seeking.
What penalties, liabilities & charges would those individuals, institutions and NGOs that with great certainty and the full endorsement of Climate ‘Science’ caused a lack of preparedness in the UK this past season. The population was assured that drier than normal conditions would be hard felt. When will the flood water recede? What is the dollar cost for the lack of warning? What if the extreme policies now being endorsed by protectors of the Church of Global Warming had the their criminal penalties be applied to them equally for the waste of taxpayer funds in Australia on costly and useless offshore desalination facilities because the government was told that reservoirs & dams were not necessary as prolonged drought is what Climate ‘Science’ concluded with great confidence? What happens when cost benefit analysis is done & it is realized that CO2 is not reduced via the Church’s policies? We can go on and on with the waste of public funds, false alarms & constant Climate ‘Science’ predictions that are the antithesis of observed reality but seem to be solely based on the dogma of their Global Warming Church. Will their be a reckoning?
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
March 31, 2014 at 6:03 pm
—————————————–
Alan, the Italian court did not find the seismologists guilty for failing to predict the earthquake. They were found guilty for not providing the proper risk assessment that would allow people to decide if they needed to take more precautions. As the meeting went, the politician responsible for risk assessment told people to go home and drink a nice glass of wine.
I believe the judge made the correct decision. The case had nothing to do with seismology or earthquake prediction. It was based entirely on how scientists, who are tasked with the responsibility to inform the public, perform. When they do this they bear responsibility for their actions. If the scientists had been blunt and laid out the obvious risks then perhaps less people would have died as a result of taking more serious measures against a possible earthquake.
If you read the many reactions to this decision you will see that many scientists who interact with the public are genuinely concerned. Could this decision also put them at risk when they deal with the public? The answer of course is yes. If you mislead the public you will pay a price.
But the take away here is that they weren’t convicted for failing to predict an earthquake.
People might be confused because the case deals with an unpredictable earthquake. So take a different example. Let’s say there is a meeting that discusses drinking water contamination in local water wells. The geologists and politicians who chair the meeting present a lot of technical data. They state the contamination can be poisonous but that the risk of migration to local wells is low. The take away with the crowd is that you don’t have to worry about your water. A few days later, four people are dead from tainted water. The geologists indicated that the contamination could be harmful if swallowed but the locals were left with a feeling there was nothing to worry about at the meeting. Do the geologists and politicians bear any responsibility for the deaths?
If they come for me, I’ll give them a reason to jail me.
BIG TIME.
Revolution anyone?
The US is ripe for it and getting riper.
Steve from Rockwood says:
I do feel that if scientists step out into the public they should be held accountable for their actions… It saw that the best interests of the people had not been met by people who had been hired by the government for that very reason. The court made the government responsible for its actions.
Well, no. The government didn’t get sentenced to prison. The government had the responsibility to oversee it’s employees and retainers. It didn’t bother, and it was never held responsible.
Instead, the government itself prosecuted scientists for not being able to fortell the future. Because if the scientists had been able to predict the future, they would not be in an Italian penitentiary right now. The government found it’s scapegoat. Case closed.
Sorry, Steve, but that was a plain miscarriage of justice.
The point is clear: if the gov’t or anyone else can blame scientists for “climate change”, it has turned into a witch doctor situation. And the government, being bigger and invincible WRT individual scientists, has the bigger juju. So the witch doctors win…
…and we’re headed back to the Dark Ages again.
There is no question, in my mind at least, that the alarmists have committed criminal acts: obtaining money on false pretenses (the entirety of the so-called “research” grants for global warming); perjuring themselves in testimony in court and before Congress; seizing real property on false pretenses (EPA and other agencies falsely declaring wetlands, endangered species reserves, etc.). Plus they bear direct responsibility for advocating and enforcing policies that have already resulted in millions of needless deaths from starvation and cold (while hypocritically, and without any basis in fact whatsoever, accusing skeptics of setting the stage for millions of deaths from global warming).
Names can be quite easily named with regard to many of the individuals responsible for these criminal acts. Quite a few officials will be on this list.
dbstealey says:
March 31, 2014 at 7:22 pm
[…]
Well, no. The government didn’t get sentenced to prison. The government had the responsibility to oversee it’s employees and retainers. It didn’t bother, and it was never held responsible.
———————-
It’s not possible to send the government to prison. However, it is possible to send a government employee to prison. This is what happened here. Not only were 6 scientists convicted but the politician who oversaw the meeting was also convicted.
In Canada if you want to practice geoscience you must be a professional geoscientist. In Ontario it is APGO.
The ethics exam has a high percentage of legal questions. Interestingly government employees and university professors are not required to be registered professional geoscientists and yet they are often tasked with explaining risk to the public. To the credit of many government/university scientists they obtain the qualifications anyway (often as a P.Eng. or P.Geo. or both).
I suspect the scientists in Italy had no idea the people who showed up to the meeting were there to get information on their safety. They left reassured that everything would be fine, even though there had been several tremors leading up to the major earthquake. The meeting could have gone very differently with information on those living in stone structures or older buildings, what to do if you feel a tremor and so on.
My final 2 cents on the matter…
I’m sure lawyers and the courts would love to spend years and millions of dollars in debating this question. What a pointless and unproductive waste that would be.
Paul in Sweden says:
March 31, 2014 at 6:32 pm
All good questions. But I still object to the criminalization of error, just as I object to the deification of augery. The proper response to politicians consistently and flagrantly wasting public resources is to replace them, rather than try to criminalize those who gave bad advice in a discipline dominated by uncertainty.
Human knowledge will always be limited; some things we simply do not know and perhaps will never know. It is arrogance to assume every question can be definitively resolved, and it is cowardly to cave in to self-proclaimed experts who claim certainty without putting them to the most rigorous test. Climate science, as manifested in the consensus manifesto, simply does not have a credible track record and should not be accepted as the sole basis for major decisions.
In my opinion (I am a physicist) the greatest invention of mankind is still “Due Process” that was the work of lawyers.
Sadly, Roger Sowell wants to undo the greatest achievement of his peers.
gallopingcamel says:
March 31, 2014 at 9:03 pm
How on earth do you come up with that conclusion? Roger is attempting to explain the current prevailing California law concerning the crime of manslaughter to an audience of non-lawyers, and how that would apply to attempts to prosecute those who deny the “consensus” view of CAGW. Nothing in what he wrote is advocacy one way or the other.
@ur momisugly Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7,
Thanks for that. I’m a bit puzzled how a physicist (gallopingcamel) would know very much about Due Process, and even more puzzled how what I wrote brings Due Process into play. I suspect that what I understand as Due Process is not what gallopingcamel thinks it is. And, you are correct, I did try to explain what would be the likely outcome, if skeptics were to be tried as criminals under the charge of criminal negligence, in California. They would most likely be acquitted.
Mr Sowell, in which court would this be held in? In Australia if a person is charged in a magistrates court we have a defense retort ‘Show just cause’ particularly if it is a trivial accusation.
If we applied the conviction of John Demianiuk aka NOT Ivan the Terrible on 27,000 counts of “accessory to murder” for being the lowest functionary (Ukrainian POW/guard in a German concentration camp) as case law, then the entire adult population (during the respective periods) of the USA would be accessories to murder for the invasions of Vietnam, Cuba, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, among sundry other War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (most notably the denial of medicine and food to the children of Iraq after the first Gulf War).
But not to worry, when the Chinese in their unbridled hubris manage to pollute the entire globe with radioactive material, all the lawyers in the world won’t make a bit of difference to the survivors. The Chinese survivors will likely resurrect the death of a thousand cuts for the politicians, engineers, and military leaders who created the disaster, and everyone will then get on with trying to prove they can survive radiation as well as the cockroaches.
pottereaton : “And what will people like Mann, Jones, and Trenberth say? “I’m sorry. We were wrong.”“. No chance. Those guys are never ever going to say they were wrong. I have no idea what they will say – I simply can’t imagine anything that they could say – but time and time again people like these come up with barefaced lies and/or weasel words that get them off the hook. It’s a highly skilful art form, shared with dictators, crime bosses, psychopaths and others, and the amazing thing about it is that they all know exactly how to do it yet there is no school, university or any other course that teaches it.
The real criminals are the IPCC and their moronic followers. Yes, climate change is a disaster that has already killed thousands of people. But it’s nothing to do with the climate, quite the opposite. This disaster is truly man-made (or should we say Mann-made). It is causing massive fuel and energy poverty (e.g. bio fuels) and, bizarrely, it is increasing the pressure on the tropical rain forests, again through bio fuels. Every time a pensioner who is unable to pay for necessary heating dies it’s yet another crime committed by these people.
Chris
Roger,
E85 is 15% ethanol.
Good article. Mann should be very concerned with regards to charging one with a crime for creating misleading research results. Many of the “team” are equally culpable.
We live in interesting times.