The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XXXIII

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  • The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the fraud by which our government alters existing U.S. and worldwide temperature data in order to enhance an apparent warming trend, and thereby support a narrative of supposedly dangerous global warming.

  • This is Part XXXIII of this series, which goes back to July 2013. A composite link to all 32 prior posts in this series can be found here.

  • As has been widely reported and discussed, the arrival of the new Trump 2.0 presidency is bringing disruption and change to many areas of a previously complacent federal bureaucracy.

  • One of the areas where disruption appears to be hitting is an agency called NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is a part of the Department of Commerce. NOAA is the place where the world and U.S. temperature data are collected and compiled — and altered.

  • Will the new disruption shed some light upon the systematic alterations of our temperature data?

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Another Candidate For The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time?

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  • I have written a long series of posts, now 32 in number, titled “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time.” Go to this link if you want to read some or all of those posts.

  • The fraud in question in those posts is the intentional alteration of pre-existing temperature (or, in one case, sea level) records to create a narrative of dangerous climate change that, without the alterations, lacks support in the raw data. In the most recent post in this series, number 32, I remarked, “No other scientific fraud in world history comes close to this one in scope or significance.”

  • The climate-data-alteration fraud is hugely significant because the altered data provide the fundamental support for the ongoing multi-trillion-dollar effort of the Left to transform the world energy system, and ultimately the entire world economy. As the least expensive and most reliable forms of energy production get restricted, billions of people stand to see their lives impoverished to the extent of tens of thousands of dollars per year each. Is it remotely possible for any other fraud to come anywhere close to this one in significance?

  • As unlikely as it may seem, now along comes a second plausible candidate for the title.

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The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XXXII (Sea Level Rise Edition)

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The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XXXII (Sea Level Rise Edition)

  • The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the fraud by which government functionaries alter data collected and previously reported in official data bases in order to support a narrative of impending catastrophic global warming. No other scientific fraud in world history comes close to this one in scope or significance.

  • The prior 31 posts in this series have all concerned alteration of one particular sort of data, namely temperature records.

  • But why should we really care that the earth’s atmosphere is getting a little warmer? The UN has supposedly set some kind of Maginot Line at a 1.5 deg C temperature increase from 20th century levels — an amount so small that you can barely feel it when it occurs each day. The 1.5 deg mark is just not that all that scary. So the bureaucrats need a Plan B to scare the bejeezus out of the people. Plan B is sea level rise.

  • So don’t be surprised to learn that the sea level data, produced by NASA, have recently been altered — and of course, in a way to enhance the global warming scare narrative.

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Trial Of Mann v. Steyn, Part V: Jury Instructions And Closing Argument

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  • As I write this on the afternoon of Thursday February 8, the jury is deliberating in the Mann v. Steyn case. They could come back at any time, so I’ll try to write this quickly in order that the post is not obsolete already when it is posted.

  • The last day of trial, yesterday, was devoted to jury instructions and closing arguments. Unfortunately, I had to miss the opening argument from Mann’s counsel John Williams. But I was then able to listen to almost the entire argument of Simberg’s counsel Victoria Weatherford, the entire argument by Mark Steyn on his own behalf, and the entire final rebuttal from Mr. Williams.

  • My overall comment on the closings of Ms. Weatherford and Mr. Steyn is that they were straightforward reviews of the evidence, or lack thereof, as it applied to each element of the claims, as those had been outlined by the judge in the jury instructions. Because Mann had presented little to know relevant evidence, the closings were quite devastating. Ms. Weatherford’s approach was more an item-by-item review of how plaintiff had failed to prove each element, while Steyn focused more on a few particularly noteworthy issues; but both were well within norms for this type of argument.

  • By contrast, Williams’s rebuttal was almost entirely off point and/or improper. He drew repeated (and correct) objections, several of them sustained, ultimately forcing the judge to re-read to the jury the entire instruction as to the elements and burdens of proof for defamation in order to correct an incorrect statement of the law made by Mr. Williams.

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Trial Of Mann v. Steyn, Part IV: The Defense Case

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  • The trial of Michael Mann versus Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg is nearing its conclusion in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

  • The last two days, Monday and Tuesday, have seen the presentation of the guts of the defense case. These were the main witnesses:

  • Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, authors of a series of papers in the early 2000s that dissected Mann’s work and discovered several serious flaws;

  • two members of the Penn State “Inquiry” Committee, that investigated Mann after the release of the ClimateGate emails in late 2009, and made no adverse finding against Mann (Mann has claimed that he was “exonerated”);

  • and Eugene Wahl, a climate scientist and collaborator of Mann who had deleted certain emails that were subject to FOIA requests after Mann forwarded him a request to do so.

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Trial Of Mann v. Steyn, Part III: More On Damages; Simberg And Steyn's First Witness

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  • Readers seem to be enjoying my posts on the Mann v. Steyn trial, so I’m going to continue with one more today.

  • Meanwhile, the court does not hold trials on Fridays, so the proceeding has recessed for the weekend, to resume Monday morning.

  • It’s likely that the trial will get very interesting next week, as the defendants present the heart of their case and as things wrap up. In the interim, I’ll provide some comments on the events yesterday, which was the 11th day of the trial.

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