One of 20 Scientists Who Signed RICO Proposal Insists ‘No one is trying to throw anyone in jail’
http://mason.gmu.edu/~bklinger/rico.html
George Mason University’s Barry A. Klinger:
Do we think that climate change is settled science? Should climate contrarians have free speech?
First question: no. Second question: yes.
I think there are many open questions regarding global warming. See A Skeptics Guide to Global Warming for a discussion of “settled science.” In general, scientists, policy experts, and interested citizens should be free to say whatever they want, even if they disagree with me and even if they disagree with most scientists in their field.
A RICO suit like the one we propose would be very narrowly focussed on whether companies were engaged in fraud in order to continue selling a product which threatens to do harm. I’m not a legal expert, but I think that anyone not selling a product or service can not be punished for fraud, so the vast majority of people opining on climate are not even theoretically threatened by such a case. Even for an oil company, the standard for finding fraud is quite high. According to the RICO judgement against the tobacco companies:
Generally, a plaintiff must prove five elements by “clear and convincing evidence” to prevail on a fraud claim. See e.g., Armstrong v Accrediting Council Continuing Educ. & Training, Inc., 961 F. Supp. 305, 309 (D.D.C. 1997). They are: (1) a false representation, (2) in reference to a material fact, (3) made with the knowledge of its falsity, (4) with the intent to deceive, and (5) on which action is taken in reliance upon the representation. ( p. 1564)
What do we want to do to climate contrarians?
No one is trying to throw anyone in jail. If I understand the case correctly, the final outcome of the judgement against tobacco companies was to order them to stop denying known harms of smoking and to publicize the falsity of their fraudulent statements. I expect that a case against fossil fuel companies, if it ever did prove fraud, would result in a similar judgement.…
Arrest Those Climate Skeptics!
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/09/arrest-those-climate-skeptics.php…
Claim: ‘Jeb Bush’s Marijuana Use Pales Compared To The Threat His Own Kids Face From Climate Change’
While both Jeb’s supporters and his mother will certainly give him a pass for a youthful indiscretion, voters in the fall of 2016 will not be so forgiving if he and the other Republican candidates continually downplay what the overwhelming majority of climate scientists say is an ever-present danger: global warming.…
Pope Francis arrives in Havana: Castro praises Pope for his efforts to safeguard the planet from climate change and address global inequality
OMG I’m Going To Jail! Climate Gurus Want Obama To Throw Skeptics In The Pokey
OMG I’m Going To Jail! Climate Gurus Want Obama To Throw Skeptics In The Pokey
OMG I’m Going To Jail! I hope they don’t put me in a cell next to Hillary Clinton. In a letter to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren, UN IPCC Lead Author Kevin Trenberth and 19 other climate: scientists asked President Obama to have the thought police put climate skeptics in the pokey. “We appreciate that you are making aggressive and imaginative use of the limited tools available to you in the face of a recalcitrant Congress. One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change. We strongly endorse Senator Whitehouse’s call for a RICO investigation.” No really, this is not a joke–Senator Whitehouse who never met a freedom he didn’t want to take away and 20 of his climate friends want the thought police to charge climate skeptics using the exact same RICO statute that sent John Gotti to jail for life. Now granted I was in Sparks Restaurant the same day that Paulie Castellano got whacked, but I was there for lunch, Paulie took a bullet dinner time when I was on the subway heading home. This isn’t the first UN-American act by a member of congress who drank the climate change Kool-aid. Back in March the National Journal covered the case of a crazy Democratic Party congressman from Arizona who wanted to look at the mail of university professors who didn’t buy the climate change hypothesis. A prominent Democrat probing outside funding for seven university professors who stake out skeptical or controversial positions on climate change said his request for their correspondence with funders and others was an “overreach.” But Rep. Raul Grijalva is also strongly defending his search for ties between fossil-fuel interests and climate research against charges that it’s a “witch hunt,” arguing that the thrust of the inquiry is aimed at providing important disclosures. The Arizona Democrat sent letters last week to seven universities seeking information on the sources and amounts of external funding for research, consulting, travel, and more. The letters also broadly asked for “communication” regarding the funding, and communication related to …
Warmist defends RICO Plan to ‘prosecute climate deniers’: ‘As climate impacts continue to become clearer…[deniers] may some time soon prefer a safe jail cell to the torches and pitchforks that are coming their way’
http://climatecrocks.com/2015/09/19/scientists-letter-asks-obama-to-prosecute-climate-deniers/…
Global warming and climate change: Separating truth from fiction
We also live with the fallacy that humankind has the power to fix any global warming problem. This is in the light of the success the world had in limiting chlorofluorocarbons in refrigerants and aerosols, in eliminating the hole in the ozone layer back in the 1980s. This belief that we as humans can control the environment is arrogance in the extreme.
The proponents of global warming would have the world belief that it controls its own destiny in terms of being able to control the environment. Is this living in true reality?
When we connect morality with truth, inquisitions, purges, and clampdowns on the unbelievers usually occur. This is where some global warming proponents can take us back to the ‘dark ages’ of science and understanding, to where the earth was once flat.…
Already 23 Papers Supporting Sun As Major Climate Factor In 2015 …Burgeoning Evidence No Longer Dismissible!
Already 23 Papers Supporting Sun As Major Climate Factor In 2015 …Burgeoning Evidence No Longer Dismissible!
What’s new on solar energy? Overview of the latest papers on complex topic of sun/climate By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt (Translated, edited by P Gosselin) More than three years ago (February 2012) our book Die kalte Sonne (see right) made its debut. In it we described a vast variety of scientific results underpinning the significant impacts of solar activity fluctuations on climate. Leading climate scientists suddenly saw their CO2-dominant view threatened and so they launched an all out onslaught against the solar theories.For one or two of these IPCC-climate warriors the overreaction has since then perhaps even become a bit embarrassing. Over the past years it has become increasingly clear that the role of the sun on climate has long been underestimated. Recent studies show this, and we will point these out at this blog in the days ahead.What’s new on the subject of the sun?In the search for literature the first place to start is at the “Club de Soleil“ website operated by climate scientist Maarten Blaauw of Queen’s University of Belfast. So far in 2015 Blaauw has presented 23 papers – in just the first 8 months alone, and there’s still one third of the year to go. The most recent are two summary papers by David Douglas and Robert Knox appearing in the April 2015 Physics Letters A. The authors found a clear solar signal in ocean temperatures: Part 1: The Sun is the climate pacemaker I. Equatorial Pacific Ocean temperatures Equatorial Pacific Ocean temperature time series data contain segments showing both a phase-locked annual signal and a phase-locked signal of period two years or three years, both locked to the annual solar cycle. Three such segments are observed between 1990 and 2014. It is asserted that these are caused by a solar forcing at a frequency of 1.0 cycle/yr. These periodic features are also found in global climate data (following paper). The analysis makes use of a twelve-month filter that cleanly separates seasonal effects from data. This is found to be significant for understanding the El Niño/La Niña phenomenon. Part 2: The Sun is the climate pacemaker II. Global ocean temperatures In part I, equatorial Pacific Ocean temperature index SST3.4 was found to have segments during 1990–2014 showing a phase-locked annual signal and phase-locked signals of …