Tom Harris presentation of the Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science Award to Dr. Tim Ball – International Climate Change Conference-13, Washington, DC, July 2019

Guest Memorial by Allan MacRae

Tom Harris, Executive Director, International Climate Science Coalition:

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,

Winston Churchill said, “You’ve got enemies? Good. That must mean that you stood up for something, sometime in your life.” 

The winner of the Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science Award, Dr. Tim Ball, has certainly stood up for many things in his life. And, he has done this under some of the most challenging conditions you can imagine:

• He’s done it in front of lawyers in terrible court cases
• He’s done it in front of aggressive and ignorant politicians in government hearings 
• He’s done it [on] radio and TV
• He’s done it in thousands of presentations all over the world. 

When I think of Dr. Ball, I think of one word in particular, and that is “courage.” He’s one of the bravest people I have ever known.

Yet, Dr. Ball retains his sense of humour. Earlier this week, he laughed to tell me a story about when he spoke to a grade four class. The teacher announced that he was a climatologist and one of the students quickly put up his hand and said, “How many mountains have you climbed, anyway?” 

Well, Dr. Ball may not be a professional mountain climber, but he has certainly overcome huge obstacles to get out the word on climate change reality. And get the word out he does indeed! A Google search of Tim Ball and “climate change” yields over 66,000 results. And, if you search for his name and the word “denier,” you come up with over 18,000 results. 

Of course, Tim is the exact opposite of a denier. He says that climate changes all the time. But activists do their absolute best to smear him in every way possible. And, they have really had good reason to fear him because he not only does good science, but he sways public opinion. And he does this because he cuts right to the chase and explains science in a way that any intelligent layperson can understand. 

During the day after one of Tim’s pieces was published on the Drudge Report, he received 1,000 e-mails approximately from the public, 90% of which were supportive. And, believe it or not, he answered over 500 of these e-mails personally. The amount of work he does is quite incredible. One thing that really stands out in my mind was his contribution to the Climate Change Reconsidered reports. You see, one thing Tim does, and I think you’ll see it in this video, is he puts the pieces together in a way so we can understand who did it, what they did it and why they did it and, in particular, I alert you to his book, Human-caused global warming, the biggest deception in history – the why, what, where, when and how it was achieved. So that’s a book that I certainly encourage people to look at.

Tim grew up near Stonehenge in England. And indeed, Stonehenge influenced his world-view right from the start about the relationship between humans and nature. When asked about his religion, Dr. Ball says, “Druid.” 

Tim’s awareness of the world was enhanced by his years flying anti-submarine over the Atlantic and also in his time at search and rescue in Western Canada. It was during this period that he became aware of how bad weather forecasting really was and how little data actually existed across the world, how few weather stations there really were.

Tim actually went back to university to study why the weather forecasting was so bad. This led him to meet and learn from people like Hubert Lamb that there simply was not enough data. It led Tim to produce a long-term record to accommodate some of the short and medium-term cycles. You see, Tim Ball is a fan of Sherlock Holmes who warned this, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” 

And of course, that’s exactly what happening in the climate change debate.

Tim Ball completed a climatology doctorate from the University of London. He then worked as a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg where he won many outstanding teaching awards. And this is one of his greatest contributions. He was very valuable to the many groups he worked with and it’s because of his extraordinary teaching skills. 

I often thought that ‘Ball’ was the right last name for Tim. Because, think of it: the harder you throw a ball against a wall, the harder it comes back. Tim obviously followed another Churchill idiom that,

“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack.” 

Dr. Ball has certainly given the climate scare a tremendous wack. For that, as well as his friendship, as well as his superb skills and patience in explaining climate science, I express my gratitude. While he can’t be here in person, I have the honor of introducing a video from Tim Ball, the award winner for tonight.