The founder of the Weather Channel wants to sue Al Gore for fraud, hoping a legal debate will settle the global-warming debate once and for all.
John Coleman, who founded the cable network in 1982, suggests suing for fraud proponents of global warming, including Al Gore, and companies that sell carbon credits.
“Is he committing financial fraud? That is the question,” Coleman said.
That may be a question, but I assure you, it’s not the question.
“Since we can’t get a debate, I thought perhaps if we had a legal challenge and went into a court of law, where it was our scientists and their scientists, and all the legal proceedings with the discovery and all their documents from both sides and scientific testimony from both sides, we could finally get a good solid debate on the issue,” Coleman said. “I’m confident that the advocates of ‘no significant effect from carbon dioxide’ would win the case.”
I can only imagine the jury selection battle for this one. I’m not a lawyer, but I wonder: is “has more than a 4th-grade education” legitimate grounds to exclude a juror?
If not, can I be on the jury?
Thanks to our friend Greg Greene for calling this to our attention.
Categories: Environment/Nature
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
I like the tinfoil hat – nice touch.
I guess he wanted to dress his best for FOX.
“Think…it ain’t illegal yet…” Why is it the global warmists are so afraid to debate this issue? If John Coleman is so crazy then why not debate him and prove it?
Nice foil hat.. New Fashion.. 🙂
I will be paying more for gasoline, because the politicians were misled.
Both Al Gore and the head of the IPCC are responsible for the Carbon Tax.
Perhaps not criminally, but financially.
The evidence is mounting that the warming stopped in 1998.
Argos indicates ocean temperatures are not increasing.
Grace indicates ocean levels are not rising.
Predictions from Solar Cycle indicate cooling trend.
Hit and run accident, allowing the victim to suffer ?
Global class action suit is required !
Franko: Thanks for stopping by. But you left out the part where the moon landing was filmed on a sound stage in Arizona, and we also need to know what you think about Roswell.
Franco – your data on Argo is correct, your data on Grace is wrong, and the solar trend you mention dates back decades, yet the climate has been heating up for at least that long.
31,000(thirty-one thousand) scientists took the time to read and review the FACTS and agree with your so-called ding bat. They even put their names to paper.
How many scientists has the UN assembled ? under 4,000.
So,IF this is science,why no debate ?
all gloBULL warming amount$ to is a universal tax scam on us all.
The petition you refer to is worthless. 31,000 people with science undergraduate degrees signed. I’m an electrical engineer with an MS but no climate training beyond what I’ve taught myself, and I can assure you that I’m not a scientist by any commonly accepted professional standard thereof. And neither are probably 95% of the names on that list.
To put it another way, by the definition used for that petition, the OECD says that the U.S. alone graduated about 765,000 science graduates in 2005. The U.S. Department of Education says that U.S. colleges graduated 677,000 natural science and engineering students in 2005 alone. In other words, those 31,000 names represent 4.5% of of all “scientists” graduated in a single year. Even more damning is that, in the years since 1970 that the U.S. Dept. of Ed started tracking data in 1970, and using a piecewise linear trend to estimate the number of grads in the years that the DoEd didn’t take data, I calculate about 8.55 million natural science and engineering graduates since 1970 (and, if you choose to include social and behavioral scientists in that, it goes up to 15.97 million). So, assuming that they represent the number of living “scientists” according to that petition’s criteria, 31,000 represents 0.4% of all natural scientists and engineers, or 0.2% of natural, social, behavioral, and engineering “scientists”.
In contrast, those 4,000 IPCC names represent something 80% of all professional climatologists, paleoclimatologists, and natural scientists whose specialties relate directly to climate.
That would be 200-400x more, on a percentage basis, and infinitely more on an expertise basis.
If you want to debate something, fine. Choose a specific concerns (and there are some) with climate science to educate yourself about, much as some of the best critical websites out there do. But don’t try a numbers game using meaningless petitions, signifying nothing. You simply can’t win that way.
You know, it really is a scam. Man-Made global warming is a hoax, how can 50000 scientist be wrong?
How can AL Gore continue to make MILLIONS and even increase the energy used at his mansion, while I have to ride my bike and sweat my ass off in my house?
F&^K him, and dont drink the kool-aid!
lol
Brian
I see you are laboring under the same delusions about the IPCC and the Oregon Petition Project that most global warming alarmist are. You can hardly be blamed, the general public is never fed anything but alarmist views on global warming.
Let me educate you a little.
The Oregon Petition Project (OPP) has been signed by 31,000 people. You are correct in that they probably would not all be considered scientist, however 8000 of them do have a PhD. Having a PhD arguably would constitute being a Scientist. They are not all climate scientist, although many of them are. Admittedly I don’t know how many.
Now, let me talk a bit about your 4000 scientist that signed the latest IPCC report.
Fact: The physical science section of the IPCC’s most recent report was written by 51 named authors and subsequently edited by politicians of various governments. The other scientists engaged in the process were involved as “reviewers†and many of these have made clear their disagreement with important aspects of the IPCC report.
I suggest you do some research on subjects such as “dissent within the IPCC†and similar topics. You will be surprised.
Sincerely
Jamie Fagan
Partly true, but also partly false. You’re right that there were a much smaller number of authors than 4000, but the physical section (AR4 WG1 report) was not edited by any politician or government. You’re confusing the summary report (which is a political, consensus document) for the scientific report.
As for having a PhD, how does having a PhD in electrical engineering make someone a practicing scientist? It makes that EE a highly skilled and very knowledgeable individual in electrical engineering, but does not grant any particular expertise with which to judge the scientific merit, or lack thereof, of global heating. What particular expertise does having a medical degree, or a mechanical engineering degree (even a PhD), give someone to qualify as a “scientist” with enough knowledge and background to form a sufficiently educated opinion to feel justified in signing a petition as if they know?
My problem isn’t that these people signed the petition, it’s that people like yourself are misrepresenting what it is and what it means. As I said above, it’s meaningless. Even if I were to accept your argument that having a PhD was enough to qualify as a scientist, 29% of the signatories are PhDs. Since 1970, the U.S. has graduated 128,633 PhDs in physics, chemistry, geology, and the earth sciences. 9,021 would be 7% of that total, and that’s making the nearly impossible assumption that all of the OISM’s PhDs are physical scientists. A more likely but still wildly optimistic scenario is that all areas have roughly the same percentage of PhDs, 29%. Since there are only 13,599 physical science graduates out of the 31,000+ names, 29% of the physical science graduates is 3,948 PhDs, or just over 3% of the total number of physical science graduates since 1970.
It’s one thing for a climate scientist to have disagreements with the IPCC over one or more specific conclusions. It’s entirely something else for non-climate scientists to claim that they know better than the experts. I’ll put your 3% of PhDs who might be qualified to have an educated opinion against my 80% of experts who occasionally disagree on the arcana of global heating any day.
If you’re interested in reading up about the science of global heating rather than the opinions, I recommend my post Anti-global heating claims – a reasonably thorough debunking. Especially the actual papers (which are linked) that the IPCC used in their scientific document.
Thank you for educating me. I assume my PhD will arrive by mail any day now?
Brian
Instead of debating the merits of the IPCC or the scientific points of global warming I’m going to appeal to your reasoning. You’re never going to convince me and I’m never going to convince you as there are millions links on the internet to both sides of this issue.
Since my college days in the mid 80s I’ve been a die hard environmentalist, reading anything and everything I could get my hands on. It became somewhat of an obsession with me. I’ve read most of the books written by Paul Ehrlich, Lester Brown, Al Gore and many more I can no longer remember. I’ve also been pretty much a liberal Democrat my whole life. That’s why it bothers me so much being on the conservative or republican side of this debate. Why did it become such a political issue? It shouldn’t be. It should be a scientific issue but it has become one of the most politically charged issues of the day.
About two years ago I picked up a Michael Crichton book, “State of Fearâ€. I’ve always been a great fan of his. I was appalled when it turned out to be anti-global warming. It was not a very good book but I read it through to the foot notes in the back where he had a list of references with names of books and URL’s where he got is data. Being mildly curious (after all Michael Crichton is renowned for his in-depth research) I checked out a few of his internet references and was shocked. The more I checked the more shocked I became. Next I ordered some of the books on his reference list.
It is now two years later and I’ve done a complete 180. I am now a skeptic. It’s not that I want to be, it’s just that the preponderance of evidence that I’ve been able to uncover leaves no doubt which side of this issue I’m on.
There is no doubt that humans are having an impact on the climate. What I am skeptical about is the amount of impact we are having. I also have an issue with the media driven hysteria surrounding this issue. This hysteria has caused worry and despair around the world. When people are desperate and hysterical they make very bad decisions. These decisions are going to affect every human on earth an unprecedented level, especially the most vulnerable among us, the billions of people living in poverty. These people could be saved at a very, very small fraction of the cost we are proposing to spend on GW.
I ask that you do one thing: Open your mind and read what the other side has to say without your blinders on. People sometimes get so entrenched in their beliefs they refuse to see the truth even when it’s right in front of them.
The best book I’ve found is “Cool It†by Bjorn Lomborg. He is a firm believer in AGW but he exposes the political agenda and the media scaremongering. He also points out that spending an enormous amount of money to battle CO2 does virtually nothing and as pointed out above it could be spent in much better ways. I also found interesting in his book and makes absolutely sense is that developing nations will only start to care about their environment when they reach a certain economic level of security as we in the developed nations did. How can somehow care about his carbon footprint while he’s trying to find food to feed his starving children? Think about it
Jaimie said:
Wait a second – the entire debate is over the scientific points of global heating. You’ve essentially said that the science doesn’t matter, Jaimie, and that’s bullshit.
I can appreciate your change of heart on this – over the course of the last year, I’ve morphed from a hard-core global heating “true believer” to a much more nuanced position, but reading the actual scientific papers has thus far not convinced me that the basic position – that human beings are the dominant force driving global heating and that we have to do something about it ASAP – is wrong.
I was asked once by another commenter on another post what it would take to convince me that I was wrong. It took me months of off-and-on thinking about that to come up with a good answer, but my answer was essentially this: it would take the preponderance of scientific evidence as researched and analyzed by experts in the associated fields transitioning from supporting global heating to opposing it. In other words, it will take hard scientific evidence, not just the occasional hole in our understanding of how climate works or a new bit of information that needs another five years of research to really understand.
That’s why I do the Weekly Carboholics every Wednesday – it forces me to keep up to date on the state of the art regarding the latest research, technology, and politics. In the process of encapsulating that information for readers, it forces me to learn and deeply understand what I’m writing about, and in the process I not only raise concerns with the data if there are concerns, but I also explain to my readers not just what happened, but why it matters.
Logic isn’t enough. Whether human influence is dominating and radically changing the Earth’s climate is fundamentally a scientific question, not a logical one. Whether the changes are costly is an economic question, and nearly every question of economics is fundamentally a moral question.
I’ve read a number of criticisms of Lomborg’s economic analyses that he presented in “Cool It”, and I’ve read a number of criticisms of the Stern Report’s economic analyses as well, and they all pretty much boil down to something called the discount rate, or the amount that the value of future goods and services are devalued for the present. Stern’s conclusions assume one discount rate (a low one, IIRC) that places high monetary value on future economic production – Lomborg’s conclusions assume a discount rate that places low monetary value on future economic production. And there is, so far as I can tell, absolutely no agreement among professional economists which discount rate is correct, even among Nobel prize winners.
What that means, though, isn’t that Lomborg is wrong, Stern is right, or vice versa – it means that which of them is right is a moral decision, not a scientific one. If you value the future well being more than present, you’ll agree with Stern’s assumption. If you think that your own economic well being (or your existing children’s well being more than your merely hypothetical grand children’s) is more important than the future’s, you’ll agree with Lomborg’s assumption.
You’ve implored me to read the other side – I do, and I will continue to do so. Or rather, I read the scientific and economic claims of the other side. It’s not possible to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your own argument without understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents, and it’s not possible for me to effectively and honestly counter the myths without understanding the science (or lack thereof, or misunderstanding of, in many cases) that those myths are based upon.
I’d like to ask you to do something as well – continue reading and commenting on my work here at S&R. I believe you’ll find that I’m not nearly as close-minded as you seem to think, and maybe, if your own mind still remains open to further convincing, you’ll come to at least understand why, even with all the holes in the science, I’m convinced that your position is wrong.
I believe that there’s a difference between a global heating skeptic and a denier – a skeptic focuses on the holes in the swiss cheese of climate science instead of the cheese itself, while a denier denies the existence of the cheese or pretends that it doesn’t matter. Skeptics are worthy of respect even in disagreement, while deniers are worthy only of derision and ridicule.
Your comment that I’ll never convince you implies that your more a denier than a skeptic – if you stick around long enough, maybe you can convince me otherwise.
Brian
I knew that my suggestion of “not debating the science†would get a rise as it probably should. But think about it, there are hundreds if not thousands of fine points to the science of global warming or heating as you call it. I’ve debated some of the points with other people before and it usually either turns into some type of a yelling match or character assassination match. Much like calling the founder of the weather channel a “dingbat†and putting a foil hat on him. I’ll bet not many people that frequent this blog have bothered to listen to what John Coleman has to say.
Not all of the time but most of the time when I read an article that is supposed to be “Debunking†a climate skeptic there is no discussion of the science, generally the article either attempts to destroy the character of the skeptic or align the skeptic with Big Oil. Both of these tactics are becoming very tiresome and will not keep working forever.
OK, let’s debate.
What do you think about the news I’ve been reading that global surface Temps have pretty much been flat since 98 and that the winter of 07/08 pretty much wiped out any warming trend that may have occurred since the mid 80’s? Also, did you hear a few months back that a prominent German climate model has predicted that global warming will take a 10 years break?
At this point I’m not going to provide and links. I just want to hear your gut opinion and will provide some links later. Besides I don’t have the time right now. I’ve got a day job.
Brian
Was it something I said? You had asked me to stick around. I’m still here. Maybe you didn’t think my post was worthy of a response. I’m going to try again.
Go ahead and google the search phase “IPCC acknowledges temperatures have plateaued†without the quotation marks. You’ll get over 2000 hits for this very specific and targeted search. Granted, the starting date, 1998 was a very hot year but the fact remains that temperatures have flattened. In other words there has been no discernable rise in temps as predicted by global warming computer models and GW scientists. It’s simply not happening. To add insult to injury 2007 was the coldest year in …..fill in the blank. Depending on your source it was the coldest in decades or centuries. This is very easy to verify on the internet so I’m not going to post a bunch of links as everybody know it anyway. 2008 is gearing up to be another cold one as well.
This is the kind of information that you don’t hear about in mainstream media. They refuse to talk about the inconvenient fact that world is not getting warmer.
On the other hand if 2007 would have turned out to be the hottest year since 1998 as reported by the following news sources:
Reuters
AP & Foxnews
IHT
BBC
MSNBC
CBS
USA Today
The New York Times
The New York Sun
The Washington post
National Geographic
CBC
The Guardian
Discovery Channel
Science Daily
then the above media would never have stopped talking about it. As it stands they won’t admit they were wrong and most will only grudgingly say anything about the cold weather of late as it is very inconvenient indeed, more so for some.
You’ll probably come back with “El Nino this or El Nina that†and it’s probably true that they are playing some part in the current cooling but doesn’t that say anything about the computer models and their ability to predict future temps? More importantly doesn’t it say something about how easily the warming effect of CO2 can be nullified?
I can totally understand why this must really irritate global warmists. They see this as only a minor short term condition and that global warming will continue sooner or later. But how long does the cooling have to go on before they will admit that maybe their computer models and their predictions may not be right.
The use of the term “Climate Change†instead of “global warming†is very provocative to me. If I’m reading this correctly the AGW alarmists are positioning themselves for any eventuality, specifically global cooling. By calling it Climate Change they will be able to blame global cooling on CO2 as well. They will be able to blame ANY change at all on CO2. That is very convenient.
My apologies, Jaime – I’m not the original poster and I didn’t see your response to my last comment until I saw your second one. I’ll work up a response this week sometime – as you, I have a day job and am getting ready for blogging on the DNC next week.
Out of curiosity, are there any models out there that predict instability in temperature patterns rather than just warming? Several years ago, Dr. Slammy threw out a bunch of predictions for the next decade or so on Lullabypit (I can’t remember how far out he went) and global warming was one of them. My gut feeling, at the time, was that rather than warming, we’d have destabilization. Kick a system hard enough and you get all kinds of noise and data swings.
And Jamie, Bri has a day job, too. If you really want him to take you seriously, put in those links. He generally links every think he says in his primary posts back to an original source. Right now, I don’t know if you’re pulling all this out of your ass or citing the National Enquirer…although, they occasionally seem to get things right, too….
“Fact: The physical science section of the IPCC’s most recent report was written by 51 named authors and subsequently edited by politicians of various governments. – Partly true, but also partly false. You’re right that there were a much smaller number of authors than 4000, but the physical section (AR4 WG1 report) was not edited by any politician or government…”
Who cares how many people signed what? Science is about right and wrong, not who can be persuaded to vote for who. And many of the ‘climate scientists’ seem to know less science than an arts graduate.
Let me tell you a story. The hockey stick has been pushed by Mann and the IPCC. It formas the whole basis for the claim that Global Warming is unnatural. You would think it was settled science. And yet Dr Ian Jolliffe, the world authority on the stats used to create it, has called it ‘dubious’ and said that the idea that he supports it ‘is just plain wrong’. The hockey stick is now dead.
And yet, Mann is a climate scientist. According to you, one of the people who know what they are doing?
Mann’s hockey stick is not dead. The original one had a number of problems that Mann has corrected. Now, I understand that there are some issues with the new one as well, but nonetheless it’s a whole lot better than the original – and the conclusion is pretty much the same.
Mann’s hockey stick isn’t the only game in town, BTW. There’s a LOT of other data out there that supports the anthropogenic global warming conclusion. Mann wasn’t even the start of it. Scientists have been suspecting humanity was heating the Earth (and modeling the likely changes) since the 1970s.
I blogged on it in one of my Carboholics, BTW.