Climate chaos claims
continue causing consternation
By Paul Driessen
web posted April 2, 2018
Anyone who thought “manmade climate
cataclysm�? rhetoric
couldn’t possibly exceed Obama era levels should read the
complaint filed in the “public nuisance�? lawsuit that’s being
argued before
Federal District Court Judge William
Alsup in a California courtroom: Oakland v BP and other oil
companies.
The allegations read at times like they were
written by a
Monty Python comedy team and a couple of first year law students.
Defendant
companies “conspired�? to produce dangerous fuels, the complaint
asserts, and
“followed the Big Tobacco playbook�? to promote their use, while paying
“denialist front groups�? to question “established�? climate science,
“downplay�?
the “unprecedented�? risks of manmade global warming, and launch
“unfounded
attacks on the integrity�? of leading “consensus�? scientists.
“People of color�? and other “socially
vulnerable�?
individuals will be most severely affected, it continues. (They’ll be
far more
severely impacted by climate policies that drive up energy and food
prices.)
Oakland’s lawyers excoriate astrophysicist
Wei Hock “Willie�?
Soon for committing the unpardonable sin of suggesting the sun
might have
something to do with climate change. They couldn’t even get his PhD
degree
right. They call him an “aerospace engineer,�? and claim he personally
received
$1.2 million that was actually paid to Harvard University (as multiple,
easily
accessible documents
make clear).
They don’t even mention the billions of taxpayer dollars that
have been
divvied up year after year among researchers and activists who promote
alarmist
views on global warming and renewable energy.
Oakland and its
fellow litigants expect the court to accept their claims at face
value, as
“established�? science, with no need to present real-world evidence to
support
them. They particularly emphasize rising seas and the resulting
“imminent
threat of catastrophic storm surges�? that are “projected�? by computer
models
that assume carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is now the primary or sole
driver
of climate change, replacing the sun, cosmic rays, ocean currents and
other
powerful natural forces that did so “previously.�?
In suing the five major oil companies, they
ignore the fact
that the companies burn very few of the hydrocarbon fuels they produce.
It is
the plaintiff city governments and their constituents who have
happily
burned oil and natural gas for over a century, to fuel their cars,
heat, cool,
light and electrify their offices and homes, and make their industries,
communications, health and living standards possible.
In the process, it is they who have
generated the plant-fertilizing
CO2 that is allegedly
causing the unprecedented global warming, melting ice caps and rising
seas.
Hydrocarbons also fuel essential backup electricity generators for
California’s
wind and solar facilities – and provide raw materials for fabrics,
plastics,
paints, pharmaceuticals and countless other products the litigants use
every
day.
Equally problematical for the plaintiffs,
the “established,
consensus�? science asserted throughout their complaint and courtroom
presentations is increasingly uncertain and hotly debated. As Heartland
Institute scholar Joe
Bast points out, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
now
expresses numerous doubts and uncertainties about rates
of sea level rise, the role of CO2, the cause and duration of a
global
warming “pause�? that has now lasted
some 23 years. Indeed, the temperature spike caused by the 2015-16
El Niño
has now almost disappeared, as the oceans and atmosphere continue to
cool once
again.
The oil companies decided not to present
much climate
science in the courtroom. However, expert materials prepared by
Christopher
Monckton, Will Happer, Richard Lindzen and colleagues addressed
questions about equilibrium
climate sensitivity and related issues in amicus curiae
filings for
the court.
Oakland’s claim that the oil companies
“conspired�? to hide
and misrepresent “the science�? on global warming and climate change is
on thin
ice. Some reports say Judge Alsup dismissed the claim or ruled that
plaintiffs
failed to demonstrate that there was a conspiracy. In any event, a
decision on
the merits will eventually be made, the losing party will appeal, and
the case
will likely end up in the US Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, climate chaos claims continue
causing
consternation in some circles. Too much money, power, prestige, control
and
wealth redistribution is at stake for anything else to happen.
Indeed, many in the $1.5-trillion-a-year Climate
Industrial Complex are determined to use this issue (and equally
malleable
“sustainability�?
mantras) to replace free enterprise capitalism with totalitarian
one-world
governance; fossil fuel and nuclear power (the source of 85% of US and
global
energy) with expensive, land-intensive wind, solar and biofuel energy;
and the hopes
and dreams of poor people everywhere with policies that permit
their living
standards to improve only minimally, at the margins.
Actually, climate chaos hype-potheses now
blame not just
carbon dioxide and methane for runaway global warming, but also asthma
inhalers and meat diets. The results aren’t just rising seas,
warmer and
colder weather, wetter and drier seasons, forest
fires, nonexistent mass extinctions and the other oft-cited
pseudo-cataclysms. They also include shrinking
animals, a worse
opioid crisis, and the endless litany of often amusing afflictions
and
disasters chronicled in The
Warmlist and its video
counterpart.
The “solution�? isn’t just keeping fossil
fuels in the
ground. It also includes accepting profound
lifestyle changes and dining on climate
friendly insects (not ruling elites; just the rest of us).
And the real effects of manmade climate
cataclysm fears are
not just soaring prices for less available, less reliable,
grid-destabilizing
“green�? electricity. They also include having to rescue
adventurers who try to sail, snowmobile or trek across supposedly
melting
Arctic and Antarctic ice packs – only to become stranded and
frostbitten or
have their ships trapped in rapidly freezing ice.
So, what should climate disaster stalwarts
do, when
temperatures and sea levels refuse to cooperate with Al
Gore speeches and computer model “projections�? and “scenarios�?? Or
when
forecasts of more hurricanes are followed by a record 12-year absence
of any
Category 3-5 storms hitting the US mainland?
One strategy is refusing to debate anyone
who challenges the
dire hypotheses, data or conclusions. Another involves “homogenizing,�?
“correcting�? and manipulating original data, to make Dust Bowl era
temperatures
less warm – and this year’s long and bitterly cold winter not nearly so
frigid,
by adjusting
records from local temperature stations by as much as 3.1 degrees
Fahrenheit (1.7 Celsius).
As to the numerous articles and studies
published on WattsUpWithThat.com,
DrRoySpencer.com, ClimateDepot.com,
ClimateChangeReconsidered.org
and other sites that focus on evidence-based climate studies and
research, and
challenge assertions like those relied on in the Oakland complaint –
the
increasingly preferred strategy is to employ algorithms and other
tactics that
relegate their work to the bottom of search engine results. Long lists
of
alarmist claims, articles and perspectives appear first, unless a
student or
other researcher enters very specific search terms. Even the major shortcomings
of wind power are hard to find, if you don’t know precisely what
you are
looking for.
Google, Facebook, You Tube and other search,
information and
social media sites appear determined to be the arbiters
of what information, facts and realities we can access, what our
children
can learn. They help stigmatize and bully
scientists whose research or views do not hew to accepted liberal
perspectives, and have even enlisted corporate advertisers into policing
the speech of political opponents.
All this from the champions of free
speech, tolerance,
diversity and inclusion. Just bear in mind:
The issue is not whether our planet is
warming, or whether
climate and weather are changing. The issue is what is causing those
fluctuations, how much is due to fossil fuels versus to natural forces,
and
whether any coming changes will be as catastrophic as natural forces
have
caused multiple times in the past. (Imagine what would happen to
cities, farms
and humanity if we had another Pleistocene ice age.)
All of this once again underscores why
America and the world
need “Red Team�? climate science exercises, more evidence-based climate
education, and a reversal of the Obama EPA’s unsupported finding
that
carbon dioxide emissions somehow endanger human health and welfare. 
Paul
Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive
Tomorrow
(www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on
energy and environmental policy.