Global warming claims fail legal scrutiny

9 June, 2010 by

Legal analysis

A law professor from the University of Pennsylvania has dissected the global warming consensus and found it to be an empty shell, as Lawrence Solomon reports:

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.”

The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-made global warming, can be found here.

Doesn’t tell me anything we haven’t suspected all along…

Read it here. (h/t WUWT)

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Ban Ki-moon: no deal in Copenhagen

5 November, 2009 by

Even the UN is conceding that there is not a hope of a binding agreement in Copenhagen:

A LEGALLY binding agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions is no longer a realistic goal for next month’s Copenhagen summit on climate change, the UN Secretary-General says.

According to Ban Ki-moon, an agreement will not be signed next month, and the most likely outcome is voluntary reduction targets, which countries could announce but then ignore.

Several key countries were not ready to sign up to binding targets [including the US – Ed] and the best the world could hope for from the summit would be “political commitments“, Mr Ban said yesterday.

If political commitments is all that can be expected, please tell me again why Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong are pushing for binding emissions reductions when the rest of the world will be waiting to see what happens? But Mr Moon(bat) at least uses the opportunity to talk yet more nonsense about the climate:

Mr Ban suggested the target for limiting the global temperature increase to 2C above pre-industrial levels might have to be adjusted because it could still result in sea-level rises inundating many small islands.

“These small-island developing countries say it should be a maximum of 1.5C. For them, it’s a matter of life and death.”

Uh oh, here we go. Should have seen this coming. 2C isn’t enough anymore, we’re down to 1.5C. Next week it’ll be 1C, then zero … well you see where we’re going here. In any case, tell me again why reducing the target to 1.5C will stop islands sinking because of tectonic influences?

Read it here.

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Fairfax Fantasy: Kilimanjaro glaciers shrinking due to global warming

3 November, 2009 by

Like a bad penny, this story just keeps cropping up. It started in Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and has been repeated thousands of time since. Trouble is, it’s just not true:

The snows capping Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest peak, are shrinking rapidly and could vanish altogether in 20 years, most likely due to global warming, a US study says. [“Most likely”? Or should that be “most conveniently”? – Ed]

The ice sheet that capped Kilimanjaro in 1912 was 85 per cent smaller by 2007, and since 2000 the existing ice sheet has shrunk by 26 per cent, the paleoclimatologists said.

The findings point to the rise in global temperatures as the most likely cause of the ice loss. Changes in cloudiness and precipitation may have also played a smaller, less important role, especially in recent decades, they added. [Yeah, of course, it would be less important now, especially since we have an AGW agenda to plug – Ed]

The reality is that the peak of Kilimanjaro has remained below freezing, and that temperatures have not risen in 30 years. Whatever is causing the retreat of glaciers on Kilimanjaro, it ain’t “global warming”. But as usual, don’t let that get in the way of a good story.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Anthony Watts sets the record straight: It’s evapotranspiration, stupid

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