Questions for Climate Change Believers

Subtitle:  Is Global Warming Just BS (Bad Science)?

If I were to attend a conference or even a dinner meeting with a featured speaker who made the presumption that man-made global warming is real, is cause for alarm, and is due to humanity's use of fossil fuels that produce CO2 into the atmosphere, I would have some questions for the speaker. 

As background, SLB has many articles on the subject of man-made global warming, and the science behind the belief that it is a problem.   Three of the most-read articles are linked below:


- A lengthy article on my journey from being a believer in man-made global warming to my conversion to a rational skeptic  see link

- The transcript of my 2012 public speech on why climate warmists are wrong, and deep global cooling is coming, see link

- And, a chemical engineer uses principles of process control to rebut the concept of CO2 causing global warming  see link


In no particular order, the questions I would ask include: 

Is it true that...

...A 1 percent change in cloud cover has more effect on solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface than all CO2 increase since 1950?

… The greenhouse gas warming effect of man-made CO2 is “trivially true but numerically insignificant,” a quote from Professor Richard Lindzen, of MIT?

… the long-term record shows that CO2 increases approximately 800 years after a global temperature increase?

...Warmer sea  surface temperatures are due to fewer hurricanes?

... Areas with Low population had no warming in 20th century?

...Sea level rise is the same on average as the deposition rate of ocean sediment?

... Arctic ice began shrinking when coal soot deposits increased?

... Arctic ice above Russia began shrinking as volcanic activity occurred on the Arctic seafloor?

...Arctic ice has stabilized since 2007?

....Antarctic ice breaks away right above the volcanic zone?

...Greenland’s ancient settlements are now buried in ice?

...Earth cooled as Little Ice Age started in year 1300 AD and lasted 550 years?

...Earth warmed as Little Ice Age ended in 1850 with zero help from humans? 

...The three cold winters of 1977-78-79 and the warm El Nino year 1998 created the illusion of global warming in the final 25 years of the 20th century?  (reference the graph below of Abilene, Texas, showing the cold winters before 1980 and the El Nino before 2000)

...Earth entered glaciation periods when CO2 was far higher than today?

...Coral reefs survived several hot ocean eras and ice ages?

… Many areas show a cooling trend, interrupted by slight warming due to El Nino events?

… A change in 50 years from 300 to 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is the same as having a small house 1250 square feet with 8 foot ceilings that has 3 beach balls inside initially, 15 inch diameter, and after 50 years adding just one more beach ball?   Such a house has 10,000 cubic feet volume, and each beach ball has almost exactly 1 cubic foot volume. 


In addition, I would ask the presenter what he has to say about a few books on Global warming, including: 

"The Neglected Sun: Why the Sun Precludes Climate Catastrophe," 
by Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Luning (2015)

"Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years," by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery (2007)

"A Disgrace To The Profession," by Mark Steyn (2015)

"Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming: The NIPCC Report on Scientific Consensus," by Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, et al. (2016) and

"Polar Bears In The Hot Tub," by Arthur Krugler (2018).

(note: updated to add authors' names and year of publication to book titles)

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Houston, Texas
copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

Why Claim of 97 Percent Scientists is Wrong

Subtitle:  Consensus Does Not Make Wrong Science Right

The claim is often made, and by a great many people who don't know any better, that the science is settled because there is a 97 percent consensus among the scientists.   The "science" at issue here is global warming due to increasing amounts of man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.    The point appears to be that scientists looked into the global warming problem, carefully measured the available records, and published their findings over many years; those findings show (they say) that man's activities are definitely warming the globe's climate.  Finally, the climate scientists sounded the alarm, saying drastic measures must be taken right away to avert an impending catastrophe of melting polar ice caps and glaciers, rising seas, inundated shorelines, millions of displaced people, and a host of other calamities.   

Then, along came a group of skeptics who claimed that the science is not settled, there are serious problems with the way the scientists obtained the data, altered the data, falsified or made up data, analyzed the data, and wrote down conclusions that ignore contrary data.   

A poll was then taken, "how many of you scientists believe that global warming is happening?"  and supposedly 97 percent of the respondents agreed that it is.  

Those who believe the 97 percent number often draw the analogy to a sick person who sees a doctor.  If 97 percent of all the doctors tell you that you have an illness and need their treatment to be cured, would you believe them?   Would you take the chance that the other 3 percent are right, and go on your merry way? 

This article addresses the 97 percent of the doctors argument.   Disclosure:  I am fully aware that the climate science has serious flaws, with data included in the databases that should never have been included, with data that has been adjusted over and over and over yet again, with contrary data that shows no warming occurring is ignored, and many other problems as described below.  As a chemical engineer with 40 years (and counting) of world-wide experience both in operating companies and as a consultant, I have a great deal of knowledge and experience in data acquisition and analysis.  Chemical engineers do not have the luxury of using bad data, of falsifying data, of selecting only the data that proves our agenda.  We design, build, and operate the toxic, hazardous, flammable and explosive chemical plants and refineries.  If we use bad data, people die.  It is that simple.  

Here then, are some points against believing the 97 percent.

1.  The 97 percent publish in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.   Peer review, alone, does not guarantee scientific accuracy.  The sheer number of scientific findings that are wrong, are retracted, are shown to be false by subsequent studies shows that peer review and publication is no guarantee.   Indeed, there are hundreds upon hundreds of published, peer-reviewed articles that refute the claim of man-made global warming.  

2.   If the 97 percent of doctors kept revising their diagnosis every time you make a visit, would you feel confident in their conclusions?  The false-alarmists of climate science do exactly that, every few years re-adjust their findings and pronounce them as reliable, certain, and believable.  Then change it all again a few years later.  

3.  If you learned that the 97 percent of doctors will lose their jobs, lose their incomes if they don't diagnose you with the illness, would you feel confident?  That is precisely the situation with false-alarmist scientists, with great pressure to publish only the results that agree with the doctrine. 

4.  If you learned that the international governing medical association that is assigned to study the illness is biased toward one, and only one cause, would you feel confident?  That is also exactly what the false-alarmist scientists have, the IPCC that is assigned to study man-made global warming.  Not if there is any warming (or cooling), not what might possibly be causing climate change, but only the man-made aspect of warming.   

5.  If you learned that it is impossible to conduct more studies, instead the 97 percent doctors accept the corrupted data from the past, would you feel confident?  That is exactly the situation, with temperature data from the past (it's impossible to go back and measure it again).  Much of the past data is biased, impacted by buildings and parking lots, and is clearly wrong.  But, the scientists adjust it to what they want it to be and use it anyway. 

6.   If you learned that the 97 percent doctors realized the past data is corrupted, then started a new research program with modern instruments to accurately collect data on the illness, would you feel confident?  Especially if you learned that the new experiments will not yield valid results for approximately 100 years?  That is precisely where climate science is today, with the establishment 10 years ago (more or less) of the US Climate Reference Network, USCRN, where temperatures are taken in hundreds of pristine locations across the US.   see link to "US In A Cooling Trend - Winters Much Colder"   and see link to USCRN Overview

7.  If you learned that the 97 percent doctors rely on truly awful data, with missing data simply made up, with known false data used to adjust good data so that it is virtually all bad data, would you feel confident? 

8.   If you learned that the 97 percent doctors have a predictive tool, and they predict future illness in their patients; but none of the patients show any symptoms, would you feel confident?   That is exactly where false-alarmist scientists are, having a multitude of predictive models that do not agree at all with actual measured temperatures.   see link to Dr. John Christy's testimony of 2 February, 2016, before Congress, Figure 1. . 

9.  If you learned the 97 percent number is false, that it is more like 2 percent, would you feel confident?  

10.  If you learned that the cure recommended by the 97 percent doctors will bankrupt you and all your descendants, would you feel confident?  

11.  Especially when you learn that the proposed cure will do absolutely nothing to treat or cure your symptoms, even if they eventually do manifest?

12.  And finally, if you learned that the illness the 97 percent doctors diagnosed cannot possibly be true because it violates fundamental laws of science and engineering, would you feel confident?  see link to "Chemical Engineer Takes On Global Warming"

Given all the above, twelve issues in all, how confident would a patient be in accepting the diagnosis from those 97 percent doctors?  Instead, would you as the patient be headed to report medical malpractice?

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyright (c) 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

Are Climate Skeptics Legally Liable for Criminal Negligence

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

Attorney arguing his case

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. 

Update 4/21/2014:  A companion piece on criminal and civil liability related to Free Speech may be found at this link.  -- end update

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.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq. 

Marina del Rey, California