The "Climategate" emails reveal organized efforts to subvert transparency laws and keep the public misinformed about the state of climate science, which influences trillion-dollar policy decisions and critical issues of energy sovereignty and security.
Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed, says these revelations may prompt courts to refuse to take judicial notice of any claims attributed to the IPCC.
“The cumulative and inescapable message is that those at the highest levels of 'climate science' admit -- in their own words, in full context, desperate spin to the contrary notwithstanding -- that they cannot make their case, and the lengths to which they are willing to go in the face of this,” Horner said. “Clearly, this is not helpful to the argument that the science is reliable.”
Horner emphasizes that the science must now be debated before proceeding, which doesn’t bode well for plaintiffs and the legal strategy of the alarmist industry in general.
“Bureaucrats in the U.S. have to defend their case to the courts after acting, but are granted an unusual standard of deference,” he says. “Plaintiffs, however -- in, for example the absurd series of 'nuisance' litigation proceeding through the courts -- must make their case, were counting on de facto or de jure judicial notice that the science is sound, and now have a lot of explaining to do. And they will be no more able to do it successfully than the alarmists outed in Climategate are shown to be able.”
Global warming litigation is already underway and likely to continue, but the burden of proof has shifted.
“The greens already plan to file early and often,” Horner observes. “What this does is embolden defendants, lawmakers, and even judges. It certainly will play a role in our upcoming litigation against NASA and some agencies.”
In November, CEI filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for refusing to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. According to the CEI notices, “The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding 'Climategate' scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies."
