Herewith the latest commentary re the upcoming trial of the century. In The Washington Post, law professor Jonathan Adler returns to the case for the first time in some months with a column called "Mann v Steyn - Steyn Goes His Own Way":
First, Steyn is again represented by legal counsel. That's good for him. But he has also decided to go his own way due to strategic differences with the other defendants. Whereas NR and the others would like to see Mann's suit dismissed, Steyn has decided to forgo procedural wrangling and would like a full trial on the merits as soon as possible.
Do scroll down for the comments about how I'm too "unlikeable" and "comedic" to appeal to a DC jury. Hey, and don't forget "foreign". No wonder those Taliban guys decided to skip the trial and hightail it to Qatar.
In Canada's Sun newspapers, my old friend Ezra Levant considers Michael E Mann and his fellow warm-monger and serial litigant Andrew Weaver:
These lawsuits are not really about a particular column in a newspaper or magazine. They're about two big bullies – Weaver and Mann – who love to attack their enemies at will, not being man enough to take criticism themselves. Not being scholarly enough to engage in debate. Not being big boys enough to ignore the odd insult.
It's about silencing of critics. Which is the best these eco-extremists have got.
In fairness to Mann and the other Warmanos, silencing critics is pretty much their standard operating procedure. In my own recent update on the case, I mentioned en passant:
We're supposed to ignore this nigh-on-two-decade warming "pause" because the "97 per cent scientific consensus" tell us to. But, as Richard Tol's new paper argues, that 97 per cent consensus is no more real than the rampant global warming. In fact, there's so little consensus that the only consensus the Geological Society of Australia can agree on is a press release saying there's no consensus...
All of which happens to be true. Nevertheless, Jason Quick of Papillion, Nebraska didn't care for the cut of my jib:
In your blog post of 7 June, you cite Richard Tol's recent paper, covered at Watts Up With That to buttress your claim that there is no consensus among climate scientists on climate change.
However, the very text cited in that page contains the following line from Dr Tol:
'There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.'
In short, Tol AGREES with the idea at issue - namely, that an overwhelming number of those in climate science and related fields accept global warming as real and occurring. In short, he seems to agree with climate-change.
Dr Tol's entire campaign against the Cook paper seems to have been one based on his dislike of Cook's methodology and his perception of a lack of transparency on Cook's part regarding data collection and tabulation.
Dr Tol is also on-record in other fora saying the same thing - to wit:
'Published papers that seek to test what caused the climate change over the last century and half, almost unanimously find that humans played a dominant role.
'Funny enough, Cook et al. failed to establish the obvious.'
Also, consider the fact that other studies have concluded similar things to Cook et al: Oreskes, 2004.
In closing, I have a couple suggestions:
1) It seems like it'd be a good idea to read the things you link to in support of an argument.
2) It also seems like it'd be a good idea to drop the "there's no consensus" argument, because there really is. It's bad enough that your argument essentially consists of wholesale slander of scientists as liars, but employing a blatant falsehood not even supported by your "sources" is downright dumb and self-defeating.
Jason Quick
Papillion, Nebraska
First of all, I link to all kinds of things - stuff I agree with, stuff I think is absolute codswallopping balderdash, and stuff that falls somewhere in between. Every reader is free to click on the link and decide where on that spectrum he personally falls.
You'll notice, for example, that we frequently link to both Michael E Mann's Twitter feed and Facebook page so that readers can judge for themselves the merit of his arguments. Whereas Dr Mann never links to those who disagree with him - I'm referring not merely to myself but to fellow scientists such as Judith Curry. He attacks plenty of people but without linking. That's one reason why he won't share a stage with anyone who disagrees even mildly with him: a man too insecure and cowardly to share a link is not a man who would acquit himself well in any kind of debate, or on the witness stand. I take a different view. I have no fear of people clicking the link and seeing for themselves.
In this case, however, you misrepresent both me and Dr Tol. I never said "there's no consensus", except with respect to the Geological Society of Australia, where there is, indeed, no consensus. I referred to "the 97 per cent consensus" - twice. Because that's what's being claimed. Not a majority consensus - not 53 per cent, not 64 per cent, not 76 per cent, not 89 per cent, not 94 per cent, but 97 per cent. A number that has been hammered on relentlessly since this guy Cook purported to have "proved" it: Google "climate 97 per cent" and you'll get 22,900,000 hits. It isn't enough for you guys that there's a consensus; there has to be an all-but-unanimous election-night-in-Pyongyang consensus.
That's false. No such consensus exists.
Nor does Richard Tol merely have, as you claim, a few statistician's quibbles with Cook's methodology. The other link I included in my piece was to Dr Tol's own website, where, after remarks about "weird patterns in the data that cannot be explained by chance alone" and other technical criticisms, he puts the "97 per cent" in context:
Climate policy is for the long haul. We need a broad consensus, maintained over decades, to decarbonize the economy. We need sober, non-partisan research. We need open discussion about the pros and cons of all options for climate policy.
Instead, Cook and friends tried to shut down the debate, but their incompetence and secrecy only served as fuel on the flames of an already polarized debate.
In other words, the marketing of this fake "97 per cent" is emblematic of what's gone wrong in the broader climate debate.
But, as I said, you not only misrepresent Dr Tol, you misrepresent me. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago:
Like Steve McIntyre, I'm not terribly bothered about the "97 per cent consensus" thing myself. Aside from the climate of fear Mann & his fellow Warmanos have ushered in, there seems to be a fair element of genuine groupthink at work.
So I don't doubt that there is some kind of "consensus" out there. But click on that Steve McIntyre link, and read what he says:
For the record, the 97% consensus thing is not an issue that has particularly bothered me. Although this topic has been a sore point at some blogs, I've always presumed that the views of IPCC and various national academies represented a form of consensus among the climate science community. However, I doubt that the consensus endorsing the proposition that 2 deg C is "dangerous" is as unanimous as the consensus endorsing the propositions that temperatures are currently warmer than the 19th century and that CO2 has a direct impact on temperature – a proposition uncontested by Lindzen, Christy or Spencer.
So what is the consensus community actually consenting to? There is certainly no "97 per cent consensus" on anything actionable. Indeed, it's not even clear to me that you, as a card-carrying member of the 97 per cent, actually know what consensus you've signed on to. You quote Dr Tol - "the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans" - and then say:
In short, Tol AGREES with the idea at issue - namely, that an overwhelming number of those in climate science and related fields accept global warming as real and occurring. In short, he seems to agree with climate-change.
Like a frog-prince Fred Astaire, you've artfully glided across a trio of separate lily pads: "climate change is caused by humans"; "global warming as real and occurring", and finally simple "climate-change". These are three different things:
"Climate change" is a vague, amorphous catch-all going nowhere with the public.
Actual "global warming" was "real and occurring" in the late 20th century, but not so much now, in defiance of all those climate models.
Which brings us to the third-category: "human-caused" global warming. There is a consensus that man was responsible for at least some of the global warming before it ground to a halt. But what proportion exactly? Judith Curry:
I think it is important to include the 'A' [anthropogenic] when we are talking about that unknown fraction of warming since 1950 that can be attributed to humans. If you leave out the 'A', people are misled into thinking that all warming for the past 1000 years is caused by humans (the 'hockey stick' argument).
She's right. Mann's "hockey stick" shows that there was no such thing as "global warming" until the Industrial Revolution took off bigtime. So, in Mann's science, 100 per cent of "global warming" is anthropogenic. In that case, where did it all go in the 21st century? See Tony Allwright's graph above: China and India industrialized in double-quick time, and it made no difference. One obvious explanation is that there is a non-anthropogenic element in play, something called "natural climate variability".
But Mann and the other Warmanos can't admit to that. Because the important and influential part of Mann's hockey stick is not the blade (as Steve McIntyre says, very few people dispute that it's warmer now than 200 years ago) but the shaft. In abolishing the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, Dr Mann wound up abolishing the very concept of "natural climate variability". To the point where all his rube celebrity pals believe there was a millennium-long stable climate until industrial, consumerist humans came along and broiled the planet.
They believe that because that's what the hockey stick told them.
You won't find 97 per cent of scientists willing to sign on to that. Most of them understand that Mann's stick was crude cartoon science that peddled a simple-minded plot something as complex as global climate was never likely to live up to.
As to your closing comments, that my "argument essentially consists of wholesale slander of scientists as liars", actually I'm getting on rather well with all kinds of scientists around the world, as you'll see when I call my witnesses in court. The only one I regularly call a liar is Dr Fraudpants himself, Michael E Mann. Because he is a liar.
He lied on an industrial scale about being a Nobel Laureate.
He lied about having been investigated and exonerated by the British Government and by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
He told the DC Superior Court that he had been exonerated by Lord Oxburgh's inquiry for the University of East Anglia (see page 19), but he told readers of his whiny self-serving book that his "own work did not fall within the remit of [Oxburgh's] committee, and the hockey stick was not mentioned in [Oxburgh's] report" (see page 235). So he's either lying to the judge or lying to his sap readers.
And that's before we even get to his science, where IPCC colleagues refer to Mann's "misrepresentations", and where fellow members of that 97 per cent consensus call his work "scanty", "sloppy" and "sh*tty".
I don't know whether 97 per cent of scientists think Mann's "scanty", "sloppy" and "sh*tty", but it's getting up there. And that's what we'll demonstrate in court.
~After a year and three-quarters in the toxic dungheap of DC justice, I'm bored with the proceduralist folderol that so fascinates the law professors. So we're interviewing witnesses, preparing to depose Mann, and preparing for court. It's not a light undertaking, in terms of either time or money, and, if you've a spare thruppence-ha'penny or more, I hope you'll consider supporting this campaign by buying a showtune or two, my free-speech book, one of the many items in our exclusive Steyn vs the Stick range of courtroom merchandise, or a SteynOnline gift certificate.