The Honest Broker

The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics
by Roger Peilke Jr., (2007, Cambridge University Press)

Pielke believes global warming is a problem that requires a response. As readers of his blog know, he's a moderate, pragmatic, sane voice who frequently disses extremism and foolishness on all sides of the global warming debate.

This book was no doubt partly written to serve as a textbook in Prof. Pielke's classes, so it isn't always the most entertaining of reads. But there's lots of thought-provoking stuff here about how scientists, the media, and the public might think about science when partisan politics become a major consideration.

Pielke argues that an "honest broker" scientist is one who presents a variety of options to the public, who expands our range of choices - rather than advocating a single course of action.

Below is a quick-and-dirty list of some thought-provoking lines/quotes. Page numbers refer to the US paperback edition:

• "we are often very certain and very wrong" p. 23
• "The scientific enterprise is diverse enough to offer information that can be used to support a diversity of perspectives on just about any subject" p. 89
• "entrenched interests need not produce 'junk science' when they have a wide selection of credentialed scientists to choose from in support of their positions" p. 62
• "one might develop numerous equally plausible theories" p. 69
  
• "information by itself does not compel a particular decision" p. 54
• "Battles take place over whether science is sound or junk instead of debating the value or practicality of specific policy alternatives." p. 126
  
• "A decision may have unexpected consequences, including the opposite of those desired" p. 65
• "there is considerable randomness or chance in the world" p. 75
  
• "Science in the service of common interests is threatened as scientists and policy-makers have come to see science mainly as a servant of interest group politics." p. 10
  
• "For some scientists stealth issue advocacy is politically desirable because it allows for a simultaneous claim of being above the fray, invoking the historical authority of science, while working to restrict the scope of choice." p. 7
• "If a debate is really about science, then surely it can take place on the pages of seldom-read peer-reviewed journals. But if the debate is about more than science, then it would likely spill over into the media, the internet, and legislative chambers." pp. 88-89
• "One reason for the high esteem in which science is held is its independence from overt political influence." p. 93
• "If the public or policy-makers begin to believe that scientific findings are simply an extension of a scientist's political beliefs, then scientific information will play an increasingly diminishing role in policy-making" p. 95
• "deciding a course of action and then finding information to support it is common across the political spectrum" p. 110
• "In many instances science has become little more than a mechanism for marketing competing political agendas, and scientists have become leading members of the advertising campaigns." p. 117
• "That some scientists engage in political activities is neither new nor problematic; they are after all citizens. A problem exists when...scientists implicitly or explicitly equate scientific arguments with political arguments" p. 120
• "science alone cannot determine who wins and who loses in political battles" p. 121
• "science cannot tell us what to do. Deciding what to do occurs through a political process of bargaining, negotiation, and compromise." p. 137
• "Science has exceedingly little capacity to reconcile differences in values." p. 137
• "For the protection of science..we desperately need organizations and individuals who are willing to expand the range of options available to policy-makers by serving as Honest Brokers of Policy Alternatives" p. 141

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An Appeal to Reason

An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming
by Nigel Lawson (2008, Overlook Duckworth publishers)

A concise, 100-page overview of the good reasons to be skeptical of the hype associated with global warming. The world might be a more sensible and informed place if journalists, politicians, and educators spent a few hours with this slim volume.

Adding this work to student reading lists would be a quick, inexpensive (US retail price: $20) way of ensuring that young people hear more than one perspective. (Isn't that what education is supposed to be about - an exploration of a range of ideas, the expansion of young minds beyond the confines of conventional wisdom?)

Below is a quick-and-dirty list of some great lines/quotes. Page numbers refer to the US/Canadian hardcover edition:

• "the only practical effect of the Kyoto process has been to create what is fast becoming one of the biggest scams on the planet" p. 77
• "doing nothing is better than doing something stupid" p.95
• "to describe the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as pollution is as absurd as it would be to describe the clouds as pollution" p. 11
• "It is time to take a cool look at global warming." p. 1
• "I am not a scientist. But then neither are the vast majority of those who pronounce on the matter with far greater certainty than I shall do here." p. 1
• "science is only part of the story. Even if the climate scientists can tell us what is happening and why, they cannot tell us what governments should be doing about it." p. 2
• "scientific truth is not established by counting heads" p. 5
• "While peer review may be a useful process, all it means is that the author's peers consider that the paper which advances the hypothesis is worthy of publication in the journal to which it has been submitted." p. 6
• "It is not immediately apparent what real-world evidence could shake the faith of the true believers and overturn the conventional global warming wisdom" p. 6
• "in a number of important aspects, the IPCC's processes have become seriously flawed" p. 12
• "There is something inherently absurd about the conceit that we can have any useful idea of what the world will be like in a hundred years time" p 23
• "you start with the uncertainties of long-range weather forecasting, add to these the uncertainties of long-range economic forecasting, plus the uncertainties of long-range population forecasting, feed them all into a powerful computer and supposedly arrive at a sound basis for serious...long term policy decisions" p. 24
• "is it really plausible that there is an ideal average world temperature, which by some happy chance has recently been visited on us, from which small departures in either direction would spell disaster?" p. 27
• "The IPCC Report claims to take into account both costs and benefits, yet it devotes large amounts of space to the costs and almost none to the benefits. It is difficult not to sense a lack of even-handedness, leading to a bias in the overall assessment."
• "natural disasters such as hurricanes, monsoons, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, and even pandemics (the vogue word for what used to be known as plagues), have always occurred, and no doubt always will; to attribute them to global warming is not science but political propaganda." p. 37
• "I suspect there are few people...who regard the huge improvement in living standards, including a substantial reduction in infant mortality and a substantial rise in life expectancy, that cheap, carbon-based energy has made possible, as an unwelcome turn of events." p. 45
• "The idea that anything sensible can said about the likely state of the world thousands of years ahead, still less that we can make rational policy decisions on that basis, is mind-boggling." p. 52
• "stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations is not the same as stabilizing the global temperature" p. 65
• "Feelgood measures in the western world, from driving a hybrid car to the abolition of plastic bags, to not leaving our television sets on standby, are trivial to the point of irrelevance in this context" pp. 65-66
• "there still remains the political problem of the widespread public hostility to nuclear power, which is as often as not fomented by those who profess the greatest concern about man-made global warming" p. 70
• "The African peasant, desperately seeking to replace his renewable [animal] dung with an electricity supply, may not be amused to be told that, if...it is produced by a carbon-fired power station, the electricity generated is dirty...and should be discouraged." p. 71
• "We care about the welfare of our children and grandchildren, but we do not normally lose sleep over the welfare of our grandchildren's putative grandchildren, nor make financial provision for them." p. 85
• "Without risk-taking there is no human progress...to take policy decisions on the basis...of the worst possible case, is not rational precaution, but irrational alarmism." p. 88
• "Reliable prediction is impossible." p. 91
• "the issues surrounding global warming are so often discussed in terms of belief rather than reason" p. 101
• "Throughout the ages, something deep in man's psyche has made him receptive to apocalyptic warnings: 'the end of the world is nigh'. And almost all of us are imbued with a sense of guilt and a sense of sin." p. 102
• "We appear to have entered a new age of unreason...It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet." p. 106

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The Age of Regret

The Age of Stupid premieres in New York city this evening. Celebrities of various descriptions will be on hand. The film, while described by some as a documentary, is a fictional tale set in the future. Its premise is that the present crop of voters and politicians are too dumb and self-absorbed to do the right thing about the alleged threats posed by global warming. Ergo, some years later, bad things happen on planet Earth. People from the future appear in the film pointing accusing fingers back at our generation.

Admittedly, this is an interesting thought experiment. But more than one scenario may be explored in this manner.

As a feminist, former journalist, photographer, and civil liberties advocate I believe in freedom of expression. I believe in questioning authority. I believe voters are entitled to decide who makes the laws that govern our lives - and that we're also entitled to influence what those laws say. In short, I believe in freedom and democracy. Lots of other people have believed so fervently in these things that they've sacrificed their very lives to ensure liberty for the rest of us.

But principles like free speech are not valued highly by many global warming activists. Some of them say that merely asking questions is "immoral". Others believe that elected officials who don't promote their specific agenda should be jailed.

All sorts of intrusive, privacy-invading measures are being proposed in the name of saving the planet. All kinds of authoritarian ideas are being floated in the name of avoiding a highly speculative future catastrophe. (It's worth remembering that, in 1970, the media warned we'd all be wearing gas masks outdoors by 1980 due to air pollution. Environmental experts were wrong about that - and a great many other things in recent decades.)

So here's my thought experiment. Let's call it The Age of Regret. What shall I say to my grandchildren when they ask me why I let freedom slip away? When they ask why I did nothing as every facet of daily life became assessed, inspected, and tightly regulated by eco authorities.

How shall I explain that I took the word of Al Gore that dramatic changes in ordinary people's lives were necessary even though Mr. Gore himself continues to fly around in a private jet and continues to live in a 20-room mansion that consumes several times more energy than the typical American home?

What shall I say to a granddaughter who isn't permitted to study abroad because she doesn't have enough carbon rations? How shall I explain to my grandson that I have to miss his birthday party because the rules say I'm entitled to only four hour-long drives a month and I've used all of mine helping to care for a dying friend?

How shall I defend myself against accusations that, year after year, I said little while environmentally-driven policies became harsher, while ordinary folks' personal freedoms were steadily eroded, and while ever more decision-making power became concentrated in international bodies that any one country's citizens had faint hope of influencing?

The future is not yet written. But let's be clear: there's more than one nightmare scenario to be frightened of.

[an unflattering review of The Age of Stupid appears here]

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Predicting the Future: Zero Visibility Possible

Yesterday I began collecting examples of the outrageous hyperbole that now dominates the topic of global warming in the popular media.

What strikes me most is the tone of certainty with which people are making pronouncements. These folks sound as though they have access to a crystal ball whose reliability has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They know what the future holds. They know how a fundamentally unpredictable system such as Earth's climate is going to behave if we fail to reduce C02 emissions. They know the results will be catastrophic. They know, well before it has transpired, that humanity will have a last chance to avert disaster. They know, before future generations are even born, that those generations will be powerless to affect their own fates.

Right. And if the fortune teller down the street could actually predict the future, she'd buy a lottery ticket, collect her winnings, and abandon her tacky storefront.

Far too much of what is being published about global warming is utter nonsense. It's a waste of readers' time. The media needs to get a grip. Wild-eyed, apocalyptic predictions about the future are not news. They amount to overwrought speculation - nothing more.

So here's the list I compiled yesterday, as I worked my way through a few days' backlog of reading:

“We are rapidly losing time and options to save ourselves from the worst effects of catastrophic climate change.”- Canadian politician, Bruce Hyer

"If we have a catastrophic failure to reach an agreement...at the end of that process there will be full climactic destabilization." - Tim Flannery, Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council

"To maximise our chances of preventing runaway climate change...we need a binding international treaty and the last chance we have to get that within the timescale of the physics of the planet is the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December." - Franny Armstrong, UK filmmaker

"Two degrees is where we trigger runaway climate change: two leads to three, three to four, four to five, five to six … by which time it’s about over for life on earth. In other words, our elected leaders are giving us -- at best -- a coin-flip chance of avoiding catastrophe." - Franny Armstrong, UK filmmaker

"The people who came before us didn’t know about climate change and the ones who come after will be powerless to stop it." - Franny Armstrong, UK filmmaker

"...which gives us, at best, only a 50/50 chance of avoiding runaway global warming....CO2 levels must be reduced to below 350 parts per million to avoid climate catastrophe...required to avert catastrophic climate impacts..." - Amy Atwood, Center for Biological Diversity

"I write about the human migrations that will result from future environmental collapse of our continent in my forthcoming book, North American Ark, but most people, I believe, already share a vague sense of some overwhelming danger...My main point is that climate change is very real and is already causing disastrous, irreversible and extensive environmental change right here in North America." - Giles Slade, author

"A deal is not just desirable, but an imperative...on a par with the fight against terrorism...the effects on the planet could be catastrophic. Worse still, there is a sharply increased risk they will create vicious cycles that cause runaway climate change..." - David Miliband, UK Secretary of State

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[hat tip to a gent named Tom Nelson, who collects these stories from far and wide and shares them here]

Did IQs Drop Sharply?

Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?! sound bite Aliens sound bites

There's a scene in Aliens, James Cameron's masterpiece, in which the protagonist loses her temper and asks a roomful of people: "Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?"

There are days when I feel similarly exasperated. It's as though a broad swath of otherwise sensible people have taken leave of their senses. According to this week's New Yorker: "humanity is in the process of bringing about an ecological catastrophe of unparalleled scope and significance." Meanwhile, Time magazine declares that: "the science is clear...we're boiling the planet."

Pardon me? When leading publications in countries blessed with free speech can't be counted on to approach important issues with reasonable doubt, they risk losing the trust of their readers.

We're talking here about that highly unreliable pastime known as "predicting the future." The gypsy with her beads and crooked fingers can't foresee the future - and neither can a roomful of computer-assisted climate scientists. Rather than living the obscure life associated with most research, these guys have convinced themselves they're superheroes saving the planet. Evidently they've gone a long way to convincing the rest of us of that, too.

But we all know there aren't any crystal balls. It doesn't matter how impressive their computer is - no one can predict the future. Science can't reliably tell us what the weather will be like next week. Yet these guys claim to know, within a few degrees, how hot it's going to be 100 years from now?

A lot of things can happen between now and then. Fifteen years ago Google didn't exist. Ten years ago no one had ever heard of an iPod. Lots of unexpected things occur in our fast-paced universe. And human ingenuity has always been about pulling rabbits out of hats.

In the early 1970s, temperatures were cooler than normal and scientists warned of an impending ice age. The minor warming trend that followed during the 80s and 90s appears to have halted several years ago. For anyone - never mind Nobel-prize-winning US Energy Secretary Steven Chu - to have anything to do with a magazine article that claims we're currently boiling the planet is a disgrace.

As a counterpoint to Chu, let me introduce you to Burt Rutan. This gentleman's place in the history books is secure. He's been inducted into six Halls of Fame, set world records, and been honored at home and abroad. He's an aerospace engineer who has accomplished things no one else on Earth has [more here]. In his world, he has to be very certain of his data - because when his math is wrong, things explode and people die.

Rutan knows how to analyze data. He's spent decades honing his skills, learning all the ways to differentiate reliable numbers from dodgy ones. Now he's turned his attention to the theory of global warming. He's looked at the graphs and charts, he's assessed the claims of the small army of scientists whose jobs and reputations have become entwined with ringing the alarm bell about global warming.

And he has rejected their analysis. He thinks their data is cow dung and alleges deception, presentation fraud, and manipulation of the numbers. He's invited NASA's activist scientist, James Hansen, to sue him so that the truth of these matters might be explored in a court of law - a context in which concepts like a fair trial and equal time still have meaning.

Rutan has delivered 40-minutes worth of this sort of commentary twice, publicly, in front of audiences at the end of July. And here it is, the end of August, yet publications like Time magazine and the New Yorker seem to think it isn't worth mentioning.

There aren't any guarantees that Rutan is right. Since no one is infallible, it's possible he's wrong. But since he's one of our brightest lights, shouldn't we at least listen to what he has to say? If he's telling us that global warming is a bunch of hooey and that our only real extinction threat involves asteroids shouldn't we consider this possibility?

Since the mainstream media have decided, en masse, that his views aren't newsorthy, here's a link to his 33-slide PowerPoint presentation. It's also available as a PDF, with each slide followed by a page of speaking notes. (For a quick hit, see my earlier blog post here.)

A video was reportedly made of his talk. As soon as it becomes available, I'll post it here.

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How Much Is a Bird's Life Worth? (Part 1)

ExxonMobil, long considered an uber villain by environmentalists, recently agreed to pay $600,000 in fines. Its crime? Over a five-year period, 85 migratory birds (17 per year) died after landing in Exxon wastewater facilities across five US states.

CNN says the birds died after they ingested or became coated with hydrocarbons. These included a hawk, ducks, owls and other species. None are considered endangered but at least some are classified as "protected."

Exxon's fine works out to $7,059 per bird. In an effort to save the lives of less than two dozen such birds a year the company has apparently already spent $2.5 million covering and draining the bodies of wastewater and "will spend quite a bit more to implement the environmental compliance plan."

Acting Assistant Attorney General John Cruden says this case represents "a great win for the environment." Members of the public who left comments on CNN's website appear to agree. Observed one: "Seems like such a small amount of money for loss of animal life. Exxon always seems to get away with careless destruction of wildlife."

A person named Clayton concurred that the fine was too small. Another implied that additional prosecutions were necessary "to stave off the decline in numbers of much of our wildlife."

One wonders then, how Mr. Cruden and his employer, the US Department of Justice, feel about the worldwide push to increase the use of wind power? Because if 17 bird deaths annually are worthy of legal prosecution and multi-million-dollar remediation, it's difficult to imagine how windmill companies are going to stave off bankruptcy.

Bats, after all, aren't mere birds - they're warm-blooded mammals. And it turns out that windmills alter air pressure in a way that causes the lungs of bats to explode. Researchers studying the issue apparently had little difficulty locating 188 dead bats from wind farms located solely in one part of one Canadian province.

According to a press release from the university with which the researchers are associated:

"The majority of bats killed at wind turbines are the migratory bats that roost in trees, including hoary bats, eastern red bats, and silver-haired bats. While little is known about their population sizes...their deaths could have far-reaching consequences. Bats typically live for many years, in some cases reaching ages of 30 or more. Most also have just one or two pups at a time, and not necessarily every year...All three species of migratory bats killed by wind turbines fly at night, eating thousands of insects—including many crop pests—per day as they go. Therefore, bat losses in one area could have very real effects on ecosystems miles away, along the bats' migration routes."

A summary of the bat research paper begins with the observation that the danger windmills pose to birds has been known for decades. A different study suggests that for every three bats that lose their lives due to wind turbines, an additional two birds are killed.

A 2004 California Energy Commission study estimated that as many as 4,720 birds from 40 different species - "including as many as 1,300 protected raptors" - are killed each year by a single wind farm. The Audubon Society says that more than 100 of those birds are golden eagles.

In fairness, this particular California wind farm is said to be unusually deadly, but 4,700 birds a year!

So tell me again why Exxon has been put through the wringer for causing the deaths of 17 birds at the exact same time that wind turbines are massacring them by the thousands?

Either every bird killed by the energy industry should result in a $7k fine - or none should.

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Aerospace Pioneer Dismisses Global Warming

In some circles, aerospace engineer Burt Rutan is a demi-god. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He has been inducted into six different halls of fame - including the International Aerospace Hall of Fame and the US National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Rutan has received the Heinlein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aerospace, a Presidential Citizens Medal, and has been honored by British and French aeronautical bodies.

In 2004, SpaceShipOne, designed by Rutan, was the first privately-funded craft to enter space and return (twice within a 2-week period). In 1986, his Voyager craft became the first airplane to fly around the globe without stopping or refueling.

Recently Rutan delivered a talk to Experimental Aircraft Association audiences in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in which he dismissed climate change as a serious concern. (His 33-slide PowerPoint deck from that talk is also available as a PDF.)

Rutan isn't a climate scientist. But he has spent decades honing his ability to analyze and interpret disparate kinds of data. His rule of thumb: "The more complex or uncertain the data, the more judgment is needed...and the more susceptible the conclusions are to bias."

After examining the alleged evidence supporting global warming theory - much of it associated with NASA's James Hansen - Rutan declares it bunk. Below is slide #8 (p. 15 in the PDF) from his talk:

The words appearing on some of Rutan's slides are harsh: deception, presentation fraud, data manipulation. He accuses the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of weighting one group of data 390 times more than another in order to transform "falling temperatures" into "rising temperatures" in the graphs it has presented to world leaders and the public.

Rutan's assessment of journalists is equally uncomplimentary: "The media does not investigate. They just listen to the alarmists and then report that global warming is 'worse than the UN predictions.'"

Rutan points out that periods of slight warming - of the sort that occurred between 1975 and 1998 - aren't unusual. The years 1860-1880 and 1910-1940 experienced similar warming, he says. He devotes four slides (26-29) to the theme of "show me the data" - in which he concludes that numerous claims of impending climate-related disasters aren't supported by the evidence.

Because the climate has always changed and will always continue to do so, he calls climate change "the world's safest bet" and declares it "silly" to consider it a crisis. He's also adamant that "consensus has nothing to do with science and science has nothing to do with consensus."

It's hardly surprising, therefore, that Rutan rejects the US cap-and-trade legislation currently under consideration. In his view, these measures are "naive, non-scientific, irrelevant, hopeless and oxymoronic."

If the US government "really wants to protect citizens from a possible planet catastrophe," he concludes, it should fund research into systems that can defend against asteroid strikes. This is, he says "the only real extinction threat the planet has ever had and the only one in which Man can indeed use his intelligence and sweat to successfully defeat."

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[read another account here] [another appears here]

George Carlin on Saving the Planet

In addition to making us laugh, comedians serve a useful social purpose. They often say things we feel we aren't able to. In our professional (and social) lives, we frequently avoid topics that are politically sensitive or emotionally charged, since few of us enjoy confrontation. But difficult topics often benefit from a fresh, fearless perspective.

In this 7-minute clip, the late great Carlin is unkind to environmentalists, but his larger point is impressively well-informed. When he discusses the various forces with which planet Earth has contended over its 4.5-billion lifespan he isn't making any of this up. It's all true.

"The planet has been through a lot worse than us; been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate techtonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages - and we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference?"

We humans have a nasty habit of believing that everything is about us. Not only are we the reason everything bad happens, but we actually imagine we're in a position to influence natural forces that were set into motion long before we arrived. One day the entire theory of human-caused global warming may be viewed as a textbook case of this navel-gazing, human-centric approach to the universe.

Carlin is right. As a species, we're capable of supreme arrogance. That we're obsessing about saving the planet when so much of humanity still lacks clean drinking water and enough food may qualify as "the greatest arrogance of all."

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This Is Not Fair Play

NOconsensus.org has posted the first of a planned series of 2-minute global warming videos. This one is titled: This Is Not Fair Play:



The full text of the film is as follows:

Most of us believe in ideas like "fair play" and "equal time". We know it would be unjust to convict someone of a crime without first giving them a chance to explain their side of the story.

But where global warming is concerned, many of us have forgotten fair play. We watched the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, and allowed ourselves to be persuaded that this politician-on-a-crusade was telling us nothing but the unvarnished truth.

Mr. Gore told us that human-produced carbon dioxide is harmful. He told us carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming. His arguments seemed convincing and so did his graphics.

But the discussion was cut short. Because we couldn't return to the movie theatre the next day to hear the other side of the story, many of us don't realize that the entire theory of global warming may be nothing more than a tempest in a teacup.

Because we've listened only to the Al Gore side of this debate, we don't know that farmers add C02 to their greenhouses - because an increase in carbon dioxide means larger, stronger crops. Nor have we paid attention to the dissenting scientists who say there's no evidence that the tiny amount of C02 in our atmosphere is harmful to humans, animals, or the environment.

In other words, we haven't bothered with a fair trial. We listened only to prosecutor Al Gore and then made up our minds. We didn't give the defense lawyer a chance to speak. We offered her no opportunity to cross-examine Al Gore's arguments, or to point out their weaknesses.

This is not "fair play."

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See video number two, On Saying the Debate is Over

Global Warming and "My Cousin Vinny"

Recently the American Bar Association Journal ranked the 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny third among the 25 greatest legal movies ever made. According to the journal, the film contains cinema's "best-ever introduction to the rules of criminal procedure."

I've long admired the movie for a different reason. It does a stellar job of demonstrating the danger of listening to only one point-of-view.

Early on, at the probable cause hearing, the unprepared and inexperienced defense lawyer Vincent Gambini (played by Joe Pesci) fails to challenge the prosecution's version of events. He cross-examines no witnesses. He offers no alternative explanation.

As a result, the case against the two accused appears damning. They are young, male, and from out of state. Moreover, three eye-witnesses who have no reason to lie insist they murdered a convenience store clerk.

At the trial, however, a different picture emerges. With a little probing, the defense lawyer establishes that one of the witnesses is profoundly mistaken about the timing of events. The second witness, as it happens, had his view obstructed by trees and a dirty window. The third suffers from impaired vision.

Before long, the apparently open-and-shut case against the young men evaporates. Arguments that first appear convincing to the jury are soon discredited.

Which brings me to global warming. Millions of people who watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth are stuck back at the probable cause hearing. They've heard that human-generated carbon dioxide causes global warming. They've heard that global warming will lead to all sorts of disasters. But they haven't moved beyond that stage.

Prosecutor Gore presented only one side of the issue. Audiences who watched An Inconvenient Truth didn't return to the movie theatre the next day for Part Two – in which someone else played the role of a defense lawyer by probing, questioning, and cross-examining Mr. Gore's case. Viewers weren't invited to consider alternative explanations – such as the belief that normal, natural climate cycles are associated with temperature variations in both directions.

Much of the mainstream media, not to mention the Nobel prize committee, apparently stopped paying attention after the probable cause hearing, as well. Ditto for the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That body has never examined competing theories with equal amounts of attention, energy, or rigor. Rather, it has pursued one idea relentlessly – that human-generated carbon dioxide causes global warming.

All in all, this is a distressing state of affairs. Even when a prosecutor and a defense lawyer are given equal time to present alternative theories, the justice system sometimes fails. Innocent people are wrongly convicted.

In the case of global warming, we haven't even bothered with a fair trial. We've just taken the one-sided version of events supplied by folks like Al Gore and declared it to be gospel.

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Vincent Gambini to his nephew, who's accused of murder:

"The DA's gotta build a case. Building a case is like building a house. Each piece of evidence is just another building block. He wants to make a brick bunker of a building. He wants to use serious, olid-looking bricks like these. Right? Let me show you something...[taking out a deck of cards]

His whole case is an illusion, a magic trick sound bite My Cousin Vinny sound bites

He's gonna show you the bricks. He'll show you they've got straight sides. He'll show you how they've got the right shape. He'll show them to you in a very special way so that they appear to have everything a brick should have. But there's one thing he's not gonna show you. When you look at the bricks at the right angle, they're as thin as this playing card. His whole case is an illusion, a magic trick."

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>> This is not fair play
>> On saying the debate is over