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Friday, September 12, 2008

JAMES HANSEN'S PERJURY

James Nansen was the principle defence witness here & he has put what he said here It runs to 14 pages & mostly consists of treating the Catastrophic Warming Theory as true rather than a theory with no actual supporting evidence. Beyond that there is a fair bit of being economical with the numbers, giving the impression of things without actually saying so. For example "Present rates of sea level rise and species extinction are already rapid compared to rates of change in recent millennia". Nobody knows what the rate of species extinction is because nobody knows how many there are & the rate of sea level rise may have as much as doubled from the 6" a century it has been for the last 10,000 years, or it may not since the margin of error is greater than the measurement. Since "rapid" is a subjective term it cannot be said without question that Hansen was lying on that.

On the other hand he said:

"....Sea level is now increasing at a rate of about 3 cm per decade or about
one-third of a meter per century..."

"....What has changed recently is the steady global warming, at a rate of about 0.2°C per decade" in fact it has declined since 1998 & is now back to where it was when Hansen first predicted 0.5 per decade 20 years ago

"business as usual [ie warming at this rate] would lead to a great increase of extinctions and the possibility of ecosystem collapse" there is no evidence whatsoever of this

"These summary facts were known by the UK government, by the utility EON, by the
fossil fuel industry, and by the defendants at the time of their actions in 2007:
(1) Tipping Points: the climate system is dangerously close to tipping points that could have disastrous consequences for young people, life and property, and general well-being on the planet" It is not "known" & it is not true. Temperatures are lower than in the Medieval warm period, in turn lower than the Late Roman warming, in turn lower than 5,000 BC. None of these had the promised "disastrous effects" though the Sahara was lush 5,000 years ago.


These are all lies told under oath in court. They are lies which could have been easily refuted had the "prosecution" made the attempt. A fair trial is only possible if the prosecution & defendant are on different sides. Somehow I doubt if the authorities will show the zeal in prosecuting perjury here as in the Tommy Sheriden case.

Comments:
Wearing my (retired) lawyer's hat (or do I mean wig?), perjury requires something to have been said which is both (i) material to the case and (ii) either known or believed by the witness to be untrue. If he believes it to be true, even though his belief is irrational, he is not guilty of perjury.

In any event, why make Dr Hansen a martyr in the eyes of the eco-nutters? They won't accept he is wrong no matter how strong the evidence, just as sad old lefties still believe in socialist economics despite it having failed miserably every time it has been implemented.
 
I accept that & I would not wish anybody to be imprisoned for claiming global warming, however unproven the theory, even though Hansen himself has called for people to be arrested for scepticism. The points I specified here are particular matters of fact. For example it is a fact that we are not currently experiencing & do not have a long trend of experienceing a 0.2 C rise per decade. He may theorise that temperature will rise, or that it may fall, or turn sideways but this was a deliberate lie
 
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