Category: Global Warming

(p. A17) The Climate Inquisition began with Michael Mann’s 2012 lawsuit against critics of his “hockey stick” research–a holy text to climate alarmists. The suggestion that Prof. Mann’s famous diagram showing rapid recent warming was an artifact of his statistical methods, rather than an accurate representation of historical reality, was too much for the Penn State climatologist and his acolytes to bear.
Among their targets (and our client in his lawsuit) was the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank prominent for its skeptical viewpoint in climate-policy debates. Mr. Mann’s lawsuit seeks to put it, along with National Review magazine, out of business. Four years on, the courts are still pondering the First Amendment values at stake. In the meantime, the lawsuit has had its intended effect, fostering legal uncertainty that chills speech challenging the “consensus” view.
. . .
That is why we are establishing the Free Speech in Science Project to defend the kind of open inquiry and debate that are central to scientific advancement and understanding. The project will fund legal advice and defense to those who need it, while executing an offense to turn the tables on abusive officials. Scientists, policy organizations and others should not have to fear that they will be the next victims of the Climate Inquisition–that they may face punishment and personal ruin for engaging in research and advocating their views.
The principle of the First Amendment, the Supreme Court recognized in Dennis v. United States (1951), is that “speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.” For that principle to prevail–in something less than the 350 years it took for the Catholic Church to acknowledge its mistake in persecuting Galileo–the inquisition of those breaking from the climate “consensus” must be stopped.

For the full commentary, see:
DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. and ANDREW M. GROSSMAN. “Punishing Climate-Change Skeptics; Some in Washington want to unleash government to harass heretics who don’t accept the ‘consensus.'” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., March 24, 2016): A17.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 23, 2016.)

The “super-cat” insurance referred to below by Warren Buffett is the part of the reinsurance business that insures other insurance companies against the occurrence of very large (super) catastrophes (cat).

(p. A9) Up to now, climate change has not produced more frequent nor more costly hurricanes nor other weather-related events covered by insurance. As a consequence, U.S. super-cat rates have fallen steadily in recent years, which is why we have backed away from that business. If super-cats become costlier and more frequent, the likely–though far from certain–effect on Berkshire’s insurance business would be to make it larger and more profitable.

As a citizen, you may understandably find climate change keeping you up nights. As a homeowner in a low-lying area, you may wish to consider moving. But when you are thinking only as a shareholder of a major insurer, climate change should not be on your list of worries.

Source of quote from Warren Buffett’s annual shareholder letter:
“Notable & Quotable: Warren Buffett on Climate.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 1, 2016): A9.
(Note: the online version of the quotes from Buffett has the date Feb. 29, 2016.)

Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway stockholders can be found at:
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2015ar/2015ar.pdf

(p. A1) Many researchers have argued that a rise in the planet’s average global air temperature of two degrees or more above preindustrial levels would usher in catastrophic climate change. But many others, while convinced the planet is warming, say two degrees is a somewhat arbitrary threshold based on tenuous research, and therefore an impractical spur to policy action.
“It emerged from a political agenda, not a scientific analysis,” said Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London. “It’s not a sensible, rational target because the models give you a range of possibilities, not a single answer.”
Policy makers tend to assume the two-degree target expresses a solid scientific view, but it doesn’t. The exhaustive reports published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are considered to be the most comprehensive analysis of the science of global warming. Yet the two-degree limit isn’t mentioned in a single IPCC report.
. . .
(p. A12) William Nordhaus, a professor of economics at Yale University, appears to have been the first to mention the two-degree figure in a paper published in 1977. But rather than making a robust scientific calculation based on the physics of climate change, his paper argued that a rise of two or more degrees would put the earth’s climate outside the observable range of temperature over the last several hundred thousand years.
. . .
In October 2014, David Victor, a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego, and Charles Kennel, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., wrote a sharp critique of the two-degree benchmark in the journal Nature.
They argued that the yardstick was scientifically weak because it captured only a tiny portion of the planet’s climate profile. More than 93% of the extra heat, they noted, ends up in the ocean and not in the atmosphere.

For the full story, see:
GAUTAM NAIK. “Scientists Dispute 2-Degree Model Guiding Climate Talks.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Nov. 30, 2015): A1 & A12.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 29, 2015, and has the title “Scientists Dispute 2-Degree Model Guiding Climate Talks.”)

The Victor and Kennel critique mentioned above, is:
Victor, David G., and Charles F. Kennel. “Climate Policy: Ditch the 2 °C Warming Goal.” Nature 514, no. 7520 (Oct. 2, 2014): 30-31.