Something bizarre happened Wednesday after the U.S. District Court for the District Northern California held a “tutorial” hearing on global warming science.
Chevron agreed with the latest scientific assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC), which was released in 2013 and 2014, the oil company’s lawyer said.
California cities, environmentalists and some scientists argued Chevron’s use of the IPCC’s latest assessment was misleading since it was outdated. Effectively, those seeking to punish oil companies are throwing aside the oft-touted “consensus” on climate science.
The irony was not lost on University of Colorado Professor Roger Pielke, Jr., who published peer-reviewed studies on climate science and policies.
This tweet indicates how much the climate debate has changed.
An oil company is invoking the IPCC consensus as their opponents, environmental activists (including some climate scientists), deny the IPCC consensus.
Bizzaro world!⬇ https://t.co/M8lbeZHlQi— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) March 21, 2018
San Francisco and Oakland filed suit against five oil companies, including Chevron, over the alleged damages man-made global warming caused. Chevron was the only defendant that chose to participate in the climate science hearing, but the oil company surprised plaintiffs by not challenging the “consensus” IPCC assessment.
That ruffled the feathers of some scientists and environmentalists, who immediately went on the offensive against Chevron, accusing the company of using the IPCC to discredit climate policies.
“Chevron’s lawyer plucked his strategy right from the climate-denier playbook,” environmental group the Center for Biological Diversity climate scientist Shaye Wolf told Earther.
Apparently, the “climate-denier playbook” includes citing the IPCC. Chevron agreed with the IPCC’s scientific assessment, while the company did not agree with policy proposals the international body suggests, the oil entity argued.
“He overemphasized and inflated narrow areas of uncertainty about global warming’s impacts. And he bobbed and weaved his way out of acknowledging the role of fossil fuels,” Wolf said.
Climate scientists Kate Marvel of NASA and Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech went on to argue the IPCC’s 2013 report was outdated and scientific studies in the years since have painted a more alarming picture of man-made warming.
“The most recent IPCC report came out in 2013, but the climate model simulations used in that report stopped in 2005,” Marvel told Earther.
“By ‘stopped,’ I mean they relied on observational data (greenhouse gases, aerosols, volcanic dust, solar fluctuations) only up to that point,” she said. “Everything going forward was a projection, using our best guesses of what emissions would look like.”
“The IPCC report is the gold standard of climate science assessment, but it falls short in three important and relevant ways that would lead me, as a scientist, to advise expanding the literature used in this case if one wanted to obtain the most comprehensive and up-to-date perspective on the state of climate science,” Hayhoe echoed.
In another instance, University of California professor Gary Griggs argued Chevron’s presenting of IPCC sea level rise projections were outdated. Griggs, a coastal geography expert, was brought in by trial lawyers representing San Francisco and Oakland.
Lawyers and scientists for California cities getting agitated as @chevron lawyer shows judge how climate models have always exaggerated temp increase #climatechange trial @climatedepot @steynonline
— Phelim McAleer (@PhelimMcAleer) March 21, 2018
Chevron also presented the court with charts showing climate models tended to overestimate man-made warming. Chevron was misleading by presenting outdated graphs comparing models and temperature observations, some climate scientists argued.
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To the Global Warming/Climate Change nuts the only climate science they will allow comes from Al Bore,Leonardo DiCaprio and Bill Nye and the crazy crack-pots and their Cherry Blomsom theory
“The IPCC’s latest assessment was misleading since it was outdated. Effectively, those seeking to punish oil companies are throwing aside the oft-touted “consensus” on climate science.”
Wait… Wasn’t the Science Settled?
The environmentalists are accusing Chevron of using outdated information on extreme weather events. However, the Fifth Assessment Report is the latest from the IPCC. In addition, many other studies show that extreme weather events are not increasing, which is the only basis of these law suits. The notion that extreme weather events are increasing was made up by the environments, news media, and politicians to support their cause. It is totally without data.
The environments said, “Chevron was misleading by presenting outdated graphs comparing models and temperature observations, some climate scientists argued.” There has never been a period of time when climate models matched the real world. In fact, the newer data shows increasing deviation. The only new data that supports climate change is that which has been altered.
In filing these suits I’m sure the cities and environmentalist assumed that the “settled science” would stand unchallenged.
I think the whole point is how on earth would an oil company know of the effects of CO2, 20 years ago, that leading experts 10 years later got spectacularly wrong. They obviously hired to wrong scientists to study climate change.
Even the IPCC acknowledges the reports are non conclusive which is no surprise at all . How could they possibly be anything else ?
Scientists don’t profess to thoroughly understand the overlapping effects of e natural variables that shape the earth’s climate . Sun spot activity , cloud cover and volcanos to name a few are singularly and collectively in a constant state of flux. The portion of a human generated trace gas (CO2 ) is so miniscule as to be almost irrelevant . Earth has experienced far higher levels of CO2 and flourished as a result . Why do the ECO – Anarchists
have a problem with a greening planet ? When did they know
that by frivolously trying to eliminate human sources of CO2
they would undermine the highest quality in life as a direct result of the use of fossil fuels ?