Legal analysis

It’s always interesting for me when a lawyer, trained and experienced in separating fact from fiction, turns his attention to climate science.

Put the kind of sloppy generalisations, blatant political interference, fudged data and concealed evidence that underpins the entire climate “Consensus” in front of a court of law and it would be demolished in seconds. Unfortunately, I cannot see a way of ensuring that could happen. The next best thing is to get a lawyer’s perspective, and that’s what we have here:

A review of the peer-edited literature reveals a systematic tendency of the climate establishment to engage in a variety of stylized rhetorical techniques that seem to oversell what is actually known about climate change while concealing fundamental uncertainties and open questions regarding many of the key processes involved in climate change. Fundamental open questions include not only the size but the direction of feedback effects that are responsible for the bulk of the temperature increase predicted to result from atmospheric greenhouse gas increases: while climate models all presume that such feedback effects are on balance strongly positive, more and more peer-edited scientific papers seem to suggest that feedback effects may be small or even negative.

The cross-examination conducted in this paper reveals many additional areas where the peer-edited literature seems to conflict with the picture painted by establishment climate science, ranging from the magnitude of 20th century surface temperature increases and their relation to past temperatures; the possibility that inherent variability in the earth’s non-linear climate system, and not increases in CO2, may explain observed late 20th century warming; the ability of climate models to actually explain past temperatures; and, finally, substantial doubt about the methodological validity of models used to make highly publicized predictions of global warming impacts such as species loss.

Insofar as establishment climate science has glossed over and minimized such fundamental questions and uncertainties in climate science, it has created widespread misimpressions that have serious consequences for optimal policy design.

Read it here. (h/t Hockey Schtick)

Yet more climate regulation?

Ask a law firm to advise the government on anything, and the answer will invariably be: we need more laws, which inevitably means more lawyers.

And so it is with the latest announcement from the Department of Climate Change, which has released a report from law firm Maddocks on the “threats” to infrastructure from “climate change”, as The Australian reports:

LAWS governing key infrastructure assets such as airports, ports, roads, buildings and the electricity network should be tightened to cope with potential catastrophic events caused by climate change.

A report to be released by the federal government today warns that risks to the nation’s infrastructure “cannot be overstated” and intrusive regulations may be justified where key assets are vulnerable to catastrophic weather events.

The review was prompted by CSIRO predictions that the nation will suffer longer dry spells interspersed with increases in the intensity of wet spells.

More days of higher fire danger are predicted and forecast sea level rises will make coastal communities more vulnerable to storm surges.

The report by Maddocks Solicitors says liability laws could be used in the transport industry as “motivation” for the industry to adapt to climate change.

Rules governing airport master plans could be changed to take into account potential climate change events and the nation’s building codes altered to take into account extreme events.

The report says existing assets are more vulnerable than new infrastructure and governments may have to consider “retreat” strategies.

“This will require consideration of property rights, constitutional provisions, insurance, risk sharing, government funding and new regulatory provisions,” the report says.

The report also calls for the government to examine setting up a new national body to co-ordinate regulations aimed at climate change adaptation, with representatives from federal,state and local government. (source)

This proposal appears to have the potential to open the floodgates to yet more control and interference from government concerning areas of our lives in which government has no place, all justified by the overarching imperative to “tackle climate change”.

“Intrusive regulations may be justified”? An excuse for draconian legislation.

“Liability laws” used as “motivation”? Sounds more like a threat – in other words, widening the scope of liability to include losses suffered by third parties arising from an organisation’s failure to implement the government-decreed climate risk mitigation strategies.

“A consideration of property rights”? Using the planning regulatory regime to force property owners to take certain actions (or face the consequences).

“Retreat” strategies? Ordering people to leave property where some bureaucrat says so, for example due to projected sea level rise.

And the phrase “New regulatory provisions” to a government addicted to regulation (like Labor) is akin to giving Dracula the keys to the blood bank.

Not to mention the millions of dollars wasted annually on yet another “national body” on climate change.

So not only will our economy be slugged with a carbon tax which will achieve nothing, it will also, if the recommendations of this report are implemented, be hamstrung with miles and miles of additional climate-based red tape and bureaucracy, forcing businesses to prepare for events predicted by the cracked crystal ball of notoriously unreliable climate models.

See the Department of Climate Change page here, and the full report (170+ pages) is here (PDF).