From the UK Guardian of all places:
Judge in environmental activist's trial says climate change is matter of debate
A Washington state judge has sparked outrage for remarks questioning the existence of climate change and the role of humans in global warming.
During the high-profile trial of Ken Ward, a climate activist facing 30 years in prison for shutting down an oil pipeline, Judge Michael E Rickert said: “I don’t know what everybody’s beliefs are on [climate change], but I know that there’s tremendous controversy over the fact whether it even exists. And even if people believe that it does or it doesn’t, the extent of what we’re doing to ourselves and our climate and our planet, there’s great controversy over that.”
The Skagit County judge made the comments on 24 January while addressing Ward’s request to present a “necessity defense” in court, meaning he would argue that the grave threat of climate change justified civil disobedience.
Bad move on Ward's part - the "necessity defense" can be invoked if doing an action will prevent a certain loss of life or property. It does not apply to something that is up for debate. Yes, the temperatures have been getting warmer over time (except for the last 19 years - the warming has stalled). The idea that human action has caused this warming is not proven. We are situated right between one ice age and the next one - some measure of warming is very natural. What concerns me is that the sun is incredibly quiet and we could be headed for another 30-50 year cycle of colder than normal temperatures.
Ward's comment:
“I thought it was shocking and deeply worrisome for my case,” said Ward, 60, of Corbett, Oregon, who temporarily shut off the safety valve of the TransMountain pipeline in Skagit County. “We are in the late stages of global collapse, and to have someone who is presumably as knowledgeable and aware as a judge should be blithely dismissing the biggest problem facing the world is chilling.”
Talk about clueless ninny. We are nowhere near any kind of collapse except when you examine some of the more apocalyptic computer models. These models posit positive regulatory feedback regarding water vapor and temperature. Suffice to say, this model has been thoroughly debunked and sent packing. If it gets too warm, we have rain and thunder storms to cool things off. The regulatory feedback is negative
A perfect example of punching back twice as hard. These ninnies are disrupting people's lives and they need to be taught that actions have consequences. The data that they are basing their actions on is highly flawed - classic case of argumentum ad verecundiam - a logical fallacy.
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