Bad Science and AB 32

There was quite a news story yesterday in the climate change arena, that is, a large number of computer files were copied from a British university (University of East Anglia) and published on the internet. These files contain emails, pdfs, and some computer code that, by this time, are distributed widely across the internet. The content is damaging, to say the least, and possibly incriminating as it appears several statutes may have been violated. The files are now on a website with an easy-to-use search engine here.

There are profound implications for climate change prevention laws. If, as it appears, the science has been adjusted by a few people with complete control of the data to show a warming where there either is none, or a very slight increase in temperatures, then those states and countries with laws to reduce CO2 must seriously re-think their position. There are many reasons to doubt the veracity of the CO2-is-causing-warming position, as I have written on. Not the least of these is that the fundamentals of process control require that CO2 is not causing any climate change, warmer or colder. Another is that the temperature record was manipulated to show warming, by selective additions and deletions of temperature measuring stations.

In the case of California's law, AB 32, or Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, several observations can be made. First, the rationale for passing AB 32 has been suspect all along, but now is confirmed that there was no cause for alarm and no reason to have such a law. The seas are not rising any faster than in the past, indeed, they have stopped their rise and are falling offshore California (note the decline since 2003 to date; this is for offshore San Francisco). Heat waves are not occurring with greater intensity and frequency, in fact, there have been fewer and fewer. Polar ice caps are not disappearing, but are within the normal range and in fact are increasing for the past few years. Jobs created by green industries in California are not appearing, in fact, many industries and companies either have already shut their doors, or stated they will shut them rather than comply with the onerous burdens imposed by AB 32.

The unemployment rate in California is 12.5 percent, the highest since the 1940s, which should be much lower if green policies created jobs. California is already one of the greenest states in the USA, with high-efficiency appliances required for many decades, low electricity consumption per capita, high percentage of non-CO2 emitting electric power generation (13 percent of total power sold in the state as of January 2009 was from solar, wind, geothermal, etc), and others. Given all the green-ness in California, where are the jobs?

If the science behind reducing CO2 as a means of slowing or reversing global warming were sound, rather than made up, it would be plausible to have a law such as AB 32. But the science is unmasked, is now exposed, and is shown to be Bad Science. Accordingly, AB 32 must be repealed. A law based on bad science is a bad law. California has enough troubles without AB 32 (huge and chronic budget deficits measured in the tens of billions, exorbitant taxes, onerous environmental laws, high minimum wage law and living wage law, very high workers' compensation taxes, broken education system, inadequate water supplies, gross contamination of existing water supplies, polluted bays and beaches, overflowing jails and prisons, to name just a few).

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.