Frozen in Time
Apr 08, 2016
Continued Attack On The US Constitution

Steve Goddard, Real Science

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

The White House continues their attack on free speech, claiming that their abuse of power is for the public good.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today denounced a subpoena from Attorney General Claude E. Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands that attempts to unearth a decade of the organization’s materials and work on climate change policy. This is the latest effort in an intimidation campaign to criminalize speech and research on the climate debate, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and former Vice President Al Gore.

“CEI will vigorously fight to quash this subpoena. It is an affront to our First Amendment rights of free speech and association for Attorney General Walker to bring such intimidating demands against a nonprofit group,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. “If Walker and his allies succeed, the real victims will be all Americans, whose access to affordable energy will be hit by one costly regulation after another, while scientific and policy debates are wiped out one subpoena at a time.”

The subpoena requests a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information. It demands that CEI produce these materials from 20 years ago, from 1997-2007, by April 30, 2016.

On March 30, 2016, Attorney General Schneiderman, former Vice President Al Gore, and attorneys general from Massachusetts, Virginia, Connecticut, Maryland, Vermont, as well as Attorney General Walker, held a press conference in New York City to announce “an unprecedented coalition of top law enforcement officials committed to aggressively protecting and building upon the recent progress the United States has made in combating climate change.” Schneiderman said that the group, calling itself “AGs United for Clean Power,” will address climate change by threatening criminal investigations and charges against companies, policy organizations, scientists, and others who disagree with its members’ climate policy agenda.

CEI Fights Subpoena to Silence Debate on Climate Change | Competitive Enterprise Institute

I meet with CEI almost every month in DC to discuss ways of ending government climate fraud.  Their only interest is getting legitimate science into the policy debate. I have never seen anything but integrity on display from their staff.

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution was written specifically to prohibit this sort of abuse of power. It was a response the British general warrant.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There is no probable cause against CEI, or any sort of cause at all. It is an attempt by the White House to harass dissidents into submission to White House tyranny.

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Yes, Let’s Prosecute Climate-Change Fraud - and Start with the Scaremongers

By David French April 8, 2016 4:00 AM

If propounding pseudoscience in pursuit of self-serving goals is a crime, here are some hardened offenders. The attorneys general of New York and California are on the warpath. They’re fed up with dissent over the science and politics of global warming, and they’re ready to investigate the liars. California’s Kamala Harris and New York’s Eric Schneiderman have Exxon in their sights, and they’re trying to pry open the books to see whether the corporation properly warned shareholders “about the risk to its business from climate change.” Not to be outdone, Attorney General Loretta Lynch revealed that the federal Department of Justice has “discussed” the possibility of civil suits against the fossil-fuel industry. The smell of litigation is in the air.

See more here.

Perspective on the Claimed Changes
Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

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The claimed consensus on the global temperatures among the surface station data bases occurs because there is over 97% overlap of data - with the data gathered by and originating from NOAA. Well over half of the change over time is due to adjustments - the data is no longer data but a hybrid of data and models (that adjustment is based on modeler assumptions). But even if the data were right if you use a reasonable scale it looks less impressive.

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Consider that we are talking tenths of a degree - the range in your car from front to back and in my office here from one side to the other may be 5 degrees or more. If you consider the normal diurnal range is 30F in these latitudes and the range of warmest month to coldest month is 50F or so and the range of extremes for most cities is more like 120F, the idea that we need to live in the dark or give up our conveniences given the minute change to save humanity is total nonsense.

This ‘perspective’ chart plots the Hadley data on a scale that compares it to the diurnal, seasonal and extreme variance.

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We with a large team of scientists and economists and lawyers recently published a detailed scientific brief to the courts battling bad science.  It was the 5th such brief the last 5 years.








Apr 04, 2016
Alarmist Sea Level Data May Raise Flood Insurance

By Larry Bell

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which provides unrealistically cheap flood insurance to high-risk property owners is experiencing a disaster of its own making - a balance sheet that is $24 billion under water.

The planned bailout solution will remap flood zones based upon hypothetical sea level rise projections to spread premiums rather than penalize high-risk flood-prone development.

A Biggert-Waters bill passed in 2012 was intended to get FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) out of the red by mandating that the agency establish more realistic pricing in keeping with about double the “actuarial” rates charged by private companies.

The strategy was to discourage homeowners and developers from rebuilding in active flood zones, in part due to cut-rate incentives afforded in about one-fifth of FEMA policies.

So in 2013 FEMA did exactly that, phasing in higher premiums which were often thousands of dollars higher - most particularly for second homes and properties which have subsequently changed hands.

This led to a different sort of FEMA disaster as disgruntled property owners flooded their congressional representatives with angry calls.

That tidal wave of protests led to an emphasis upon Plan B.

Buried in the 63 pages of the Biggert-Waters bill was a provision requiring that a sea level rise (SLR) component be added to future coastal and flood maps to reassess flood zone designations and risk categories.

Whereas these maps were previously based upon the last 100 years of historic data, they were now to be adjusted by a national committee called the Technical Mapping Advisory Council (TMAC) which would determine which data sources should be used.

Last October TMAC made their official recommendations - and that’s where it gets into hot water. A key source will be the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and its SLR data will be heavily based upon wildly speculative global warming scenarios.

NOAA recently released a report that downwardly adjusted previous ocean temperature records in order to make global changes between 1998 and 2012 appear much warmer.

This was accomplished by throwing out global-coverage satellite-sensed sea surface measurements taken since the late 1970s - the best data available - and upwardly adjusting spotty and unreliable hit-and-miss temperature readings taken from oceangoing vessels.

NOAA’s “corrections” to suggest warming between a huge 1998 El Nino another big one last year contradict data provided by a large integrated network of Argo ocean buoys operated by the British Oceanographic Data Center in combination with satellite-enhanced data which reveal no statistically significant warming.

House Science Committee Chairman Smith has expressed strong suspicion that the real purpose of NOAA’s report was to push President Obama’s political agenda.

In 2012 NOAA projected “with very high confidence” (greater than 90 percent chance) that the global mean sea level will rise at a huge possible range of at least 8 inches and no more than 6.6 feet by 2100.

The lowest scenario is based upon historic rates, with the highest assuming a maximum plausible contribution of ice sheet loss and glacial melting due to ocean warming.

Bear in mind that sea levels have been steadily rising in at the rate of about 4-8 inches per century over the past 150 years, with no significant acceleration over the past half-century.

Even according to the latest of all unfailingly alarmist U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, “It is likely that GMSL [Global Mean Sea Level] rose between 1920 and 1950 at a rate comparable to that observed between 1993 and 2010.”

Also consider that while the world’s mean surface temperatures have also been gradually rising in fits and starts over the past 100 years, they have been flat between the two major El Nino’s over the past 18 years despite rising atmospheric CO2 levels.

Warren Buffet whose Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. is the largest shareholder in Munich Re, the world’s biggest re-insurance company, summed up the situation in his 2015 annual report: “Up to now, climate change has not produced more frequent nor more costly hurricanes nor other weather-related events covered by insurance.  As a consequence, U.S. super-cat rates have fallen steadily in recent years, which is why we have backed away from that business. “

“If super-cats became costlier and more frequent, the likely - though far from certain - effect on Berkshire’s insurance business would be to make it larger and more profitable.”

Buffet then offered some good advice: “As a citizen, you may understandably find climate change keeping you up at nights. As a homeowner in a low-lying area, you may wish to consider moving.

“But when you are thinking only as a shareholder of a major insurer, climate change should not be on your list of worries.”

As for many thousands of FEMA National Flood Insurance Program subscribers, worry more about a rising tide of climate alarm that will influence premiums.

Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) and the graduate program in space architecture. He is the author of “Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom"(2015) and “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax” (2012)

Mar 29, 2016
The Devastating Impact Of Germany’s Green Energy Transition

Green Europe Lets Its Poor Freeze To Death

No Tricks Zone, 29 March 2016 Pierre Gosselin

The poor are the real victims of Europe’s green energy drive: tens of thousands of deaths every year, millions losing their power.

The latest story on “green energy” here at the German online FOCUS magazine website actually shocked me.

Europe’s energy policy is, under the bottom line, costing the lives of tens of thousands of citizens - all at the holy altar of “climate protection”.

The title of the FOCUS article:  “The grand electricity lie: Why electricity is becoming a luxury”

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One of the sickest things about Europe and its disconnected leaders is that often a full-scale disaster first needs to happen before policy gets corrected. Often the scale of the death and devastation becomes known only after the clean-up crews have come in and sifted through the rubble.

FOCUS now cites a documentary film which is set to be broadcast this evening on European television station ARTE.

The documentary presents how Europe’s electricity prices are spiraling out of control, and horrible consequences this is having on the continent’s citizens.

The situation, we are discovering, is far more disturbing than even the earlier worst case scenarios every imagined.

FOCUS reports:

In 2014 in Europe there were about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills - the so-called energy poverty currently impacts about ten percent of all Europeans.  In the past 8 years the price of electricity in Europe has climbed by an average of 42 percent.

7 million German households in energy poverty

FOCUS writes that the poor are the real victims of “socialist” Europe’s clean energy drive.

In Bulgaria people see half of their income gobbled up by energy costs alone. In Spain 28 percent of the citizens live in “energy poverty”.

In Germany, FOCUS writes, 7 million households are considered to be living in “energy poverty”.

The consequences of energy poverty are profound: tens of thousands of deaths every year, millions losing their power.

Full post

The fact that Germany is a world leader in green power is by now familiar. Much less familiar is the price the country is paying for it, not just in cold hard cash, but in growing losses and dislocations across the entire economy. The losers include once-stalwart utility giants like E.ON and RWE that are struggling with rising debt and falling shares. Manufacturing companies, from chemicals maker BASF to carbon fiber producer SGL Carbon, have shifted investments abroad, where energy costs are often a fraction of Germany’s. Losers include laid-off workers in these industries, but also millions of ordinary consumers. Their utility bills have skyrocketed, largely driven by subsidies for eco-friendly fuels. Germany’s “green” revolution has a dark shadow. --Gilbert Kreijger, Stefan Theil and Allison Williams, Handelsblatt, 24 March 2016

European global warming policies are hurting the continent’s poor, according to a Manhattan Institute study published Thursday. Europe has tried to fight global warming with cap-and-trade schemes and lucrative financial support to green power since 2005. Though well-meaning, the continent’s environmental efforts have only made life harder for Europe’s poor. Between 2005 and 2014, residential electricity rates on the continent increased by 63 percent according to the study.  European-style global warming policies hurt the poor 1.4 to 4 times more than they hurt the rich, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. --Andrew Follett, The Daily Caller, 25 March 2016

Since 2005, members of the European Union have aggressively pushed policies aimed at addressing climate change. Those policies are primarily designed to decrease carbon-dioxide emissions and increase the use of renewable energy. At the same time, several European countries are restricting the production of natural gas and, in the case of Germany, aiming to phase out nuclear energy. These policies have resulted in dramatic increases in electricity costs for residential and industrial consumers. Although the E.U. has seen a reduction in its carbon-dioxide emissions since 2005, those reductions pale in comparison with increases in the developing world. The observable results from Europe thus offer a cautionary tale to policymakers in the United States who seek to tackle climate change via government mandate. --Robert Bryce, Manhattan Institute24 March 2016

Steel giant Tata is holding a board meeting in India which could decide the fate of thousands of UK workers. In January, Tata said it planned to cut more than a thousand jobs at its UK plants - with 750 due to be lost at Port Talbot in south Wales. Unless the board meeting in Mumbai agrees to this turnaround plan, the future of the plant could be in doubt. The UK steel industry has been hit by a combination of factors that have hit its competitiveness. These factors include relatively high energy prices, the extra cost of climate change policies, and competition from China. --BBC News, 29 March 2016

See Winters not Summers cause Excess Mortality here

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The administration, the environmentalists and Hollywood are pushing us to become a European like nation. The poor will suffer here too!

Mar 25, 2016
New AMS members survey on climate change

by Judith Curry

The American Meteorological Society has issued a draft report on the results from a survey of the views of their membership on climate change.

Their report on the initial findings is found [here].  Excerpts from the Summary:

This report provides initial findings from the national survey of American Meteorological Society (AMS) member views on climate change conducted by George Mason University and AMS, with National Science Foundation funding.

Our survey was administered via email between January 6 and January 31, 2016. After making an initial request to participate, we sent up to five additional requests/reminders to participate to those people who had not yet completed a survey. A total of 4,092 AMS members participated, with participants coming from the United States and internationally. The participation rate in the survey was 53.3%.

Funding for this research was provided by NSF Award # DRL-1422431.

Views on climate change:

* Nearly all AMS members (96%) think climate change as defined by AMS is happening, with almost 9 out of 10 (89%) stating that they are either ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ sure it is happening. Only 1% think climate change is not happening, and 3% say they don’t know.

* A large majority of AMS members indicated that human activity is causing at least a portion of the changes in the climate over the past 50 years. Specifically: 29% think the change is largely or entirely due to human activity (i.e., 81 to 100%); 38% think most of the change is caused by human activity (i.e., 61 to 80%); 14% think the change is caused more or less equally by human activity and natural events; and 7% think the change is caused mostly by natural events. Conversely, 5% think the change is caused largely or entirely by natural events, 6% say they don’t know, and 1% think climate change isn’t happening.

* AMS members have diverse views on the extent to which additional climate change can be averted over the next 50 years, if mitigation measures are taken worldwide. Only 18% think a large amount or almost all additional climate change can be averted, while many more think a moderate (42%) or a small (25%) amount of additional climate change can be averted. Only 9% think almost no additional climate change can be averted, and 6% say they don’t know.

* AMS members also hold diverse views about the extent to which harm - to people’s health, agriculture, fresh water supplies, transportation systems, and homes and other buildings - can be prevented over the next 50 years. About one quarter to one third (22% to 37%) think a large amount or almost all of the harm to these things can be prevented, while approximately another one third (30% to 43%) think a moderate amount of harm can be prevented, and about one quarter (17% to 28%) think only a small amount or none of the harm can be prevented. About one in ten (7 to 10%) don’t know, and about one in twenty (3 to 5%) don’t think there will be any harm from climate change in the next 50 years.

* Nearly one in five AMS members (17%) say their opinion about climate change has changed in the past five years. Of those, the large majority (87%) say they now feel more convinced that climate change is happening, most commonly because of one or more of the following reasons: new peer-reviewed climate science (66%); the scientific community becoming more certain (48%); having personally seen evidence of climate change (46%); or one or more climate scientists who influenced them (30%).

Views on local impacts of climate change:

* Nearly three out of every four AMS members (74%) think the local climate in their area has changed in the past 50 years as a result of climate change, while one in ten (11%) think it hasn’t, and a nearly one in six say they don’t know (15%).

*Seven out of ten AMS members who think their local climate has changed say the impacts have been primarily harmful (36%) or approximately equally mixed between harmful and beneficial (36%). One out of five (21%) AMS members say they don’t know.

* Almost eight in ten AMS members (78%) think the local climate in their area will change over the next 50 years. About half (47%) of these respondents say the impacts will be primarily harmful, while 29% say the impacts will be equally mixed between beneficial and harmful. One in five are not sure how climate change will impact their local area.A diverse group of AMS members participated in the survey:

* Approximately eight in ten respondents are men (81%) and one in five are women (18%). Respondents range in age from 18 to 29 (6%) to 70+ (11%), with a modal age category of 50 to 59 (25%).

* Most respondents hold a BS (32%), MS (30%) or Ph.D (33%) in meteorology/ atmospheric science. Other commonly reported degrees are BS (17%), MS (10%), or Ph.D (12%) degrees in another STEM field.

* More than one in three (37%) AMS members who participated in this survey consider themselves ‘expert’ in climate science.

JC reflection

The key issue is what % of AMS members agree with the IPCC conclusion on attribution (extremely likely that more than half...).  According to these numbers, 67% think that humans are causing at least 61% of the warming.  For comparison, the previous AMS survey found 52% thought the warming was ‘mostly’ attributed to humans.  It is not clear from the survey how strong these convictions are, in terms of ‘extremely likely’, etc. We’ll see if their final report includes further insights.

While this is not one of the better constructed surveys on this issue, I regard the AMS membership as an extremely important one to survey on this issue. While Ph.D.s comprised only about a third of the respondents, I regard B.S. and M.S. meteorologists as more qualified to judge on the issue of attribution than are many ‘climate’ scientists included in such surveys that have Ph.D.s in ecology, economics, health impacts, etc.

One final comment.  I did not respond to the survey, because I did not receive the email soliciting my response (some snafu over renewing my membership b/c of an expired credit card).  Peter Webster did receive the survey and showed it to me.  I have to say my first reaction to the survey would have been not to respond; the lead author on this is Edward Maibach, of the RICO 20 - second signatory after Shukla (I wonder if other AMS members reacted in this way).  My concerns with the George Mason group being in charge of this is that they are on record as advocates on this issue.  From my perspective, the selection of questions was not as meaningful as it could have been (e.g. better questions were asked in the Netherlands survey).

See Anthony Watts and Roy Spencer takes on the survey here.

Two colleagues I know locally also got this survey, and they didn’t send it in because they didn’t believe their opinion or identity would actually be protected. Given that the operator of the survey, George Mason University is a hotbed of calls for prosecution and jailing of “deniers”, and that Edward Maibach is one of the people who signed the letter to the Whitehouse and who operated this particular AMS survey, I can’t say that I blame them. I wouldn’t have sent it in either when the man asking the questions might flag you for criminal prosecution for having an opinion he doesn’t like.

ICECAP NOTE: We too are concerned that the AMS continues to work with the eco advocacy enviros at GMU especially Fast Eddie Maibach. In the last survey, I did not receive a survey and I contacted a dozen other AMS members who I know are skeptical and only 1 received a survey and did not respond. 

Mar 08, 2016
No traction for climate change; Study Shows How Climate Science Could Be All Wrong

Thomas Pyle

Tom Steyer’s priorities are at odds with America

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To be fair, Mr. Steyer does appear to hold sway over the Democratic presidential candidates. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have, at Mr. Steyer’s insistence, pledged to achieve at least 50 percent “clean” energy by 2030. Mr. Steyer, who has yet to throw his support behind a candidate, appears to be dangling his wealth and endorsement over the Democratic candidates to cajole them to do even more.

Just days before the New Hampshire primary, Mrs. Clinton was asked if she would support banning the extraction of natural gas, oil, and coal on public lands. “Yeah, that’s a done deal,” was her reply. Clarifying her position to another activist, she said, “No future extraction. I agree with that. “Similarly, Mr. Sanders has co-sponsored legislation in the Senate that would block the development of these resources on federal lands. According to a recent study commissioned by the Institute for Energy Research, of which I am president, these “keep it in the ground” proposals would forgo millions of jobs, trillions of dollars in higher wages, and $20.7 trillion in economic activity.

Fortunately, on the whole, Mr. Steyer’s campaign to restrict affordable and reliable energy isn’t getting many converts. Mr. Steyer spent $73.7 million of his own money in a failed effort to make climate change a major issue in the 2014 elections. He wasted millions of dollars on ads that often didn’t even address climate change and whose truthfulness was disputed by fact-checking organizations like Poltifact and Factcheck.org. After his nearly yearlong campaign, climate change actually dropped as a priority among voters, ending up near the bottom of their list of concerns.

Mr. Steyer shouldn’t be entirely surprised if presidential hopefuls aren’t jumping through his hoops with enthusiasm. In a recent Gallup poll of the most important problems facing the United States, climate change was not even listed. The broader “Environment/Pollution” was in 18th place as a concern of just 2 percent of the respondents. The political reality is that candidates must attract the mainstream electorate, who prioritize the economy, jobs and poverty - issues that are in direct conflict with Mr. Steyer’s goals.

Mr. Steyer’s own state of California is ripe with examples of his agenda clashing with the people’s needs. Due in part to regulations that require non-hydroelectric renewables to represent 33 percent of the state’s electricity supply by 2020, residential electricity bills are nearly 40 percent higher than the national average and the ninth highest in the nation. Nevertheless, last year, Mr. Steyer testified in favor of legislation that would have bumped the current 33 percent renewables target up to 50 percent by 2030.

Mr. Steyer also supports California’s cap-and-trade program, which could raise gasoline prices by anywhere from 16 cents to 76 cents per gallon. Meanwhile, he’s pushing a ballot measure that would impose a 10 percent tax on oil extraction. This tax would, of course, raise gasoline prices for the state’s motorists, who already pay a 59 cents per gallon gas tax - one of the nation’s highest and about 11 cents more than the national average. Even without new taxes, California already has some of the highest gasoline prices in the country.

Higher energy costs have created a serious problem in California. According to a report by the Manhattan Institute, one million California households live in energy poverty, which is defined as a household in which 10 percent or more of the residents’ income is spent on household energy costs (excluding gasoline and other transportation-related costs). Higher energy costs leave these families with less money to spend on other necessities like groceries or proper healthcare.

Candidates seeking the presidential nomination - particularly in the Democratic camp - can’t square their rhetoric with their policies. They claim to help the poor, but they support energy policies that will make it harder for low-income families to make ends meet. Meanwhile, poll after poll shows Americans are more concerned about growing the economy and creating jobs than sacrificing their economic futures at the altar of Tom Steyer’s climate agenda.

* Thomas J. Pyle is the President of the American Energy Alliance.

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See Chuck Wiese’s very rigorous proof that a warming arctic can’t cause increased severe weather and temperature extremes here.

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CAPITAL HILL IBD

A New Study Shows How Climate Science Could Be All Wrong

By John Merline

What could the theory of “ego depletion” possibly have to do with global warming?

Ego depletion is the idea in psychology that humans have a limited amount of willpower that can be depleted. It’s been largely accepted as true for almost two decades, after two psychologists devised an experiment in self-control that involved fresh-baked cookies and radishes.

One group of test subjects were told they could only eat the radishes, another could eat the cookies. Then they were given an unsolvable puzzle to solve. The researchers found that radish eaters gave up on the puzzle more quickly than the cookie eaters. The conclusion was that the radish eaters had used up their willpower trying not to eat the cookies.

Daniel Engber, writing in Slate, notes that the study has been cited more than 3,000 times, and that in the years after it appeared, its findings “have been borne out again and again in empirical studies. The effect has been recreated in hundreds of different ways, and the underlying concept has been verified via meta-analysis. It’s not some crazy new idea, wobbling on a pile of flimsy data; it’s a sturdy edifice of knowledge, built over many years from solid bricks.”

But, he says, it “could be completely bogus.”

A “massive effort” to recreate “the main effect underlying this work” using 2,000 subjects in two-dozen different labs on several continents found ... nothing.

The study, due to be published next month in Perspectives on Psychological Science, “means an entire field of study - and significant portions of certain scientists’ careers - could be resting on a false premise.”

Engber laments that “If something this well-established could fall apart, then what’s next? That’s not just worrying. It’s terrifying.”

Actually, it’s science.

As Thomas Kuhn explained in his 1962 book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” this kind of event is typical in the course of scientific progress.

A “paradigm” takes hold in the scientific community based on early research, which subsequent studies appear to confirm, but which can later collapse as findings that don’t fit the paradigm start to accumulate. Kuhn found several such “paradigm shifts” in history.

The ego depletion findings also come as scientists are starting to realize that much, if not most, of what gets published is essentially bogus because it can’t be reproduced by subsequent studies.

“By some estimates,” notes an article in Quartz, “at least 51% - and as much as 89% - of published papers are based on studies and experiments showing results that cannot be reproduced.”

The Quartz article says one reason is a bias in scientific journals to produce “exciting studies that show strong results.”

“Studies that show strong, positive results get published, while similar studies that come up with no significant effects sit at the bottom of researchers’ drawers.”

So what does any of this have to do with global warming?

Democrats routinely accuse Republicans of being “anti-science” because they tend to be skeptical about claims made by climate scientists - whether it’s about how much man has contributed to global warming, how much warming has actually taken place, or scary predictions of future environmental catastrophes.

There’s a scientific consensus, we’re told, and anyone who doesn’t toe the line is “denier.”

Yet even as deniers get chastised, evidence continues to emerge that pokes holes in some of the basic tenets of climate change.

Evidence such as the fact that actual temperature trends don’t match what climate change computer models say should have happened since the industrial age. Or that satellite measurements haven’t shown warming for two decades. Or that past predictions of more extreme weather have failed to come true.

It is certainly possible then, that today’s climate change paradigm - and all the fear and loathing about CO2 emissions - could one day end up looking as quaint as Ptolemy’s theory of the solar system or Galen’s theory of anatomy.

It’s possible. And anyone who believes in science has to admit that.

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