Who will be found at fault for the AGW scam?

Alan Caruba in the conservative Public Forum asks a pertinent question: Will Warmists Face Justice for their Deceptions?

Firstly, although I agree with the thrust of his article, Mr Caruba exaggerates and it is important that sceptics ‘police their own’ and don’t look the other way about exaggerations for the cause, the way warmists do.

Mr Caruba says:

“C02 plays no role in climate change” – is not what most sceptical scientists say and is baseless. CO2 does warm the planet but probably by minor amount.

“Surely the people behind the scheme knew this. The IPCC charged a small clique of climate scientists to come up with “proof” that global warming was happening.” – I don’t know what people knew, and I don’t know that the IPCC actively conspired for the result, but they certainly chose or allowed to self-select and group of politicians and scientists whose own bias would guarantee the desired outcome.

“It turns out that in 2010 alone he [Dr Hansen] received “between 236,000 and $1,232.500 in outside income”!” – Receiving inside or outside income does not in itself discredit his research, it is a distracting argument in the debate. However, the fact that “The agency had resisted disclosing this information for years” is relevant information, suggesting corruption of academic process.

“Joanne Nova of the Science and Public Policy Institute…” – Joanne is an Australian freelance science writer and not ‘of’ PPI to my knowledge.

“For deception on that scale, one might think they will be punished at some point, but it will likely be years more before those responsible for the global warming fraud will stand before the bar of justice, if ever” - Good question!

Regarding this, yet premature question, I believe NO. No one will ever be prosecuted for this fraud.

Why? Because:

The research scientists who constructed the models and published papers always disclosed that they were only models, which are imperfect and results are merely scenarios, not projections. Their conclusions about dangers are always qualified by ‘may’ or ‘might’ or ‘could’.

The activist scientists and scientific bodies who recommend policies to government always have disclaimers that they are based on uncertain models and take no responsibility. Here is a handy disclaimer example from Australian CSIRO:

This report relates to climate simulations based on computer modelling. Models involve simplifications of real physical processes that are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by CSIRO or the clients (the Northern Territory Department of Lands, Planning and Environment; Queensland Department of Primary Industries; Department of Natural Resources; and the Western Australian Department of Environmental Protection) for the accuracy of forecasts or predictions inferred from this report or for any person’s interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance of this report. http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/environment/greenhouse/ccfinal.html#Important%20Disclaimer

The government policymakers will say that they acted in good faith on the recommendation of a consensus of scientific bodies and advisors and on the well established precautionary principle, now enshrined in environmental law. They will back themselves by claims that clean energy was desirable in any case.

The profiteering industry will say they acted entirely properly in response to government policies and incentives, and they will be right.

The media will say that they merely reported with emphasis what respected scientists told them and devalued non-establishment scientists; anyway reports always include those qualifier weasel words ‘may’ or ‘might’ or ‘could’, and thus headlines are not untrue.

The community promoters of Action on Climate will rightly point to all the above agencies for the justification for their alarm.

The Greens will simply never concede that man is not destroying the environment with industrialisation in some way or another, so will never concede this movement was wrong.

So, who is to be found at fault?

NOBODY.

It is a perfect scam.

In reality, the error in the above chain lies at the step where the Government policymakers accepted, without verification, the scientist’s preferred public response policy. The governments allowed climate scientists to essentially dictate the public response policy – to drastically cut CO2 emissions, which should not the decision of scientists but of democratically elected politicians in consultation with the public, who will be the ones impacted.

Where public safety is at risk, the Government must not allow elite narrow minded scientists and ideological action groups to formulate policy, especially a self serving one,  and must instead audit and independently verify the integrity of the scientific data and resulting advice being given, just as it does with the medical, aviation and other critical industries. The government must also take into consideration the wider social and economic effects from independent bodies.  But because climate industry is so young and the danger appeared so urgent, such appropriate quality and safety processes were not established for this industry.

Unfortunately, the only punishment for government error is for the public to vote them out of office  – hardly a fitting recourse for a global scam of this size, especially as they will, of course, again get back into office in a few years.

The only areas where fault and punishment can be attributed is where required processes were corrupted or bypassed. One example is the US EPA failing to evaluate the science according to their own processes, as found by their own review body. In the case of Solyndra, if improper business / government events took place, but these will all be prosecuted, but will all be relatively minor transgressions, notwithstanding that they cost billions of dollars.