THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 165, June 26, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PRECEDENT SUPPORTS CLIMATE SKEPTICS
By Dennis T. Avery
LEGAL PRECEDENT VERSUS ENVIRONMENTALIST CLAIMS OF MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING & CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE
CHANGE: IMPORTANT JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS FOR REJECTING GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM CREATED BY A
DECISION OF THE MONTANA STATE SUPREME COURT -- THE COURT'S DENIAL OF A PETITION INITIATED BY
ENVIRONMENTALISTS DEMANDING STATE REGULATIONS TO CURB GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS -- THE COURT'S
ACCEPTANCE OF THE OPPOSING MOTION TO INTERVENE, WHICH IS BASED ON "TWO KEY SCIENTIFIC EXHIBITS," REPORTS
COUNTERING THE ALARMIST CLAIMS OF THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS -- SIGNIFICANCE: THE TWO SKEPTICAL REPORTS
NOW BECOME LEGAL PRECENENTS THAT CAN, & ALMOST CERTAINLY WILL, BE CITED IN FUTURE COURT CASES. THE
RULING OF THE MONTANA HIGH COURT FORCES FUTURE LITIGANTS TO PRESENT IN THE LOWER COURTS FACTUAL
EVIDENCE PROVING THE CREDIBILITY & VALIDITY OF THEIR SOCALLED CLIMATE "SCIENCE."
FULL STORY:
The skeptics of man-made global warming have now created an important legal precedent for rejecting man-made global
warming alarmism. Last week, the Montana State Supreme Court denied a petition demanding state regulations to curb
greenhouse gas emissions.
The Montana high court said its role was to deal with questions of law — and a Motion to Intervene had shown there
were many serious, unresolved questions of fact behind recent global warming. The State Supreme Court said these
questions of fact would have to be examined by lower courts.
The Motion to Intervene was based on “two key scientific exhibits,” according to its author, Dr. Ed X. Berry, a member
of the American Meteorological Society. He said the first key exhibit is a 321-page report on “more than 1000 scientists”
who have publicly dissented from claims of man-made global warming — and from the socalled “scientific consensus.”
That report was the work of Marc Marano at Climate Depot, a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.
The second key piece of evidence is the 900-page Global Warming Reconsidered: The Report of the
Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change. The report pulls together, point-by-point, peer-reviewed
evidence, which the United Nations IPCC had rejected or ignored — and that countered the claims of the alarmists. The
massive document was assembled by Dr. S. Fred Singer of the Science in Public Policy Project, and Dr. Craig Idso of the
Center for CO2 Science.
The two skeptical reports now become legal precedents that can, and almost certainly will, be cited in future court cases.
Our Children’s Trust, an attorney-driven spinoff of The Earth Island Institute, had filed a petition in May, 2011, claiming
that a “scientific consensus exists that increasing emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the Earth’s climate.” Our
Children’s Trust attorneys demanded that the atmosphere be immediately designated as a public trust deserving special
protection. Similar lawsuits and regulatory petitions were filed across the country last month by attorneys “representing
youth nationwide,” said the Associated Press.
The Montana ruling forces future litigants to first prove the credibility of their global warming science. The
Environmental Protection Agency recently declared that man-made global warming has been “proven” by unconvincing
reports and computer models used by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The non-warming of the
past 13 years and the charges of manipulation of data raise serious doubts about both.
I take a small amount of pride that, in 2007, I published the first list of more than 500 scientists whose own research had
documented the long, moderate natural climate cycle that has delivered seven global warmings in the past 9,000 years.
Those scientists had already been cited in Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years, the book I co-wrote
with Dr. Singer.
In 2009, Dr. Brice Bosnich wrote, “After reading Climate Change Reconsidered, one is left wondering how such a
poorly supported scientific theory could have such political traction.” Bosnich is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the
University of Chicago.
The new legal precedents will become increasingly vital as courtrooms become the major battleground over “blame” for
the earth’s present temperatures. The alarmists continue to claim we will all soon be parboiled, despite the recent
step-change in our weather and a new prediction from the U.S. National Solar Observatory that a quiet sun will bring
declining temperatures through the next several decades.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental economist. He was
formerly a senior analyst for the U.S, Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global
Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years. Readers may write to him at PO Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421, send him
email at cgfi@hughes.net., or comment at www.cgfi.org.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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