The End of Climate Denial?
We learned last year that mayors of coastal cities San Francisco and Oakland, CA are suing the oil companies for lying about their role in causing climate change, and the resultant rise in sea levels that are forcing their cities to spend millions of dollars on sea walls and other devices to prevent flooding.
What we just learned last week, however, is that denying the existence of human-caused climate change has ceased to be a credible position. This is one of the outcroppings of a five-hour climate tutorial held in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
From this article in Yahoo News:
Although both sides presented the science that would seem to most help their cases, it was clear that the age of discrediting climate science in general is over. Faced with media investigations, fraud probes, and at least a dozen climate liability suits from coastal cities facing large bills as they attempt to adapt to climate change-induced sea level rise, fossil fuel companies have been forced to move away from the position that climate science is invalid or that human-caused emissions don’t contribute to climate change. Instead, they’re focused on emphasizing a history of uncertainty in climate science, downplaying the severity of climate change and minimizing their role in it. In this California case, the oil companies are being accused of promoting doubt about climate science, which has delayed regulatory action and left coastal cities to deal with eroding coastlines, property loss and infrastructure damage.
Needless to say, this isn’t going to be decided in the next few weeks, nor, probably, in the next few years. It will, however, like so many other things in today’s world of deceit, chicanery and greed, be an extremely interesting thing to see unfold.
Craig,
Anywhere else but the uber-litigious USA, these cases would be dismissed before going to trial as the grounds are just specious and not within a court’s remit.
Legislatures, not courts are the places to fight political battles. Think about that the next time you fill your mower, or your car’s gas tank. Think about it as you type on your computer or when you see an fire tender race by on a mission to save lives and property.
If the oil industry is the sloe cause of climate change, then we are all complicit and guilty, (and remain so, unless you’re Amish).
This sort of blame game is pointless and a waste of resources.
I’ve never seen the relevance of the fact that we all use oil products. Nobody’s saying that the oil companies did anything bad or wrong is selling us petroleum-based products. Everyone would have been fine on all this stuff had it not been for the lies and disinformation campaigns.
But given this deceit, I won’t be at all surprised if they lose some of these above-mentioned suits re: sea-level rise, as well as defrauding investors by deliberately offering misleading information and withholding data re: stock valuations. That’s a huge deal over here. Ruin the environment? Bad PR. Lie to investors? Go to prison.
Craig,
You seem to have a very unusual idea of criminal law ! It’s not actually an offense to engender bad public relations (well, not yet anyway).
“Lie to investors ?” Even that requires proving a loss as a result of false information. Since “investors” can sell their shares at anytime (and profitably) where’s the loss ?
Let’s just suppose you’re right, you were misinformed by your oil provider. Alright when did you become aware of the climate and environmental ramification of oil usage ? By your own admission it was at least one or two decades ago, but you have continued using oil products since then and the current investors are quite happy to invest despite law suits and massive anti-oil industry campaigns.
What would have been different, what remedy do you want a Court to order ?
Even if a Court found the oil companies liable, what do you want ? Stop selling oil products? Increase the price of oil ? (I can see that being popular)
You see Craig, no ones going to gaol for not sharing your angst or confused sense of punishment.
One of the first things you learn in maritime navigation, coastline are constantly changing as do currents and tides, these naturally occurring factors are very difficult to assess, let alone attribute the cause.
The lack of evidence establishing the volume of the oceans, or whether any increase has occurred doesn’t help resolve the uncertainty. Lots of theories, but no real empirical proof.
Craig,
I recently had the privilege of sitting next to several attorneys retained by the US government in the case brought by Dr James Hansen in Juliana, et al. v. United States of America. During the discussions to while away the long fight, I was curious to listen to the views of litigators in the most litigious nation in the world.
Later, I mused of the scientific reasoning behind the theories surrounding sea level rises.
I got so intrigued I asked my research team to prepare an analysis or precis(for dummy’s !) on the methodology behind scientific modelling supporting predictions of sea level changes.
I’m astonished to discover the basic assumptions are at best, deeply flawed. All the available studies assume the ocean floor to be static and unchanging. There appears to be little or no research on the actual volume of water in the worlds oceans (and lakes) at any one time or indeed any accurate record of volume at all. (mostly just guesswork).
Basically, most of theories are supported by the propositions:
1) The earth’s atmosphere is warming,therefore polar ice caps and other frozen water will melt, increasing the volume of the oceans thereby creating ocean levels to rise and flood huge areas of land.
2) This hypothesis is supported by tidal measurement of certain island coastlines.
3) Satellite images of melting land-based ice sheets and heating up ocean water will cause ocean volume to expand over existing land area.
All sounds very logical, until you start to look at the methodology.
1) All the models assume the sea floor is a constant never changing factor.
2) Islands do not increase or decrease in size naturally.
3) Water behaves the same in the atmosphere as in laboratory conditions.
Now, I’m not a scientist, but I would imagine these are questions I would certainly ask if I were attempting to analyze relevant factors to calculate sea level rise.
! )I would start by calculating the volume of the oceans and lakes. If that isn’t known, surely everything must be just guesstimates.
2) Islands rise and fall, especially in the Pacific for complicated, but perfectly natural reasons.
2) The sea floor is not fixed, but in a constant state of flux. It may be the weight of additional water may possibly depress the sea floor, increasing land area !
3) Warmer water may increase water evaporation and be absorbed by deserts etc or simply a more humid climate.
These a just a few questions, others relate to how changes in currents and winds, gravitational factors etc affect the ocean floor causing land rises and depressions. Such factors would render measurements inaccurate.
Even the installation and calibration of scientific instruments and interpretations of data gathered can be controversial.
The very expensive SEAFRAME sea-level study on 12 Pacific islands is the most comprehensive study of sea level and local climate ever carried out in that region. Sea level records obtained have all been assessed by official reports as indicating positive trends in sea level over all 12 Pacific Islands involved since the study began in 1993 until the latest report in June 2010.
In almost all cases the positive upward trends depend almost exclusively on the depression of the ocean in 1997 and 1998 caused by two tropical cyclones. If these and other similar disturbances are ignored, almost all of the islands have shown negligible change in sea level from 1993 to 2010, particularly after the installation of GPS leveling equipment in 2000.
One of the big problems with measuring sea-levels is that everything is in motion. Tides shift, sand moves, and even the bedrock can subside. Seaframe stations are regularly checked to compensate for all these changes, but are still at best only indicative.
Obviously, there is a great deal more work to be done before any conclusion can be drawn that’s not just speculation.