Powerful forces at the United Nations, in national governments and inside the scientific community make life very difficult for scientists disputing the conventional wisdom on climate change, both personally and professionally, even though the real science is on the side of the skeptics.
That’s the assertion of Dr. Tim Ball, a former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg. He is also the author of “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science.” In the first part of our coverage on this story, Ball detailed how the modern climate change movement finds its roots in the Malthusian notion that the population must be lowered to avoid running out of food and other resources. He says that theory led to the demonizing of industrialized nations and, in turn, fossil fuels and carbon dioxide in particular.
He also explained how Maurice Strong used his position as head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to set a political agenda towards purportedly backed up by the latest in climate science. Ball also says the UN then collaborated with the World Meteorological Organization to present the IPCC findings as settled science and shame or deny funding to any scientists who disagreed with their conclusions.
For scientists bold enough to speak out anyway, finding any interest from scientists or the media in hearing opposing viewpoints proved very difficult.
“It made the counter-argument almost impossible because one of the things they started is that they defeated the scientific method. Scientists create hypotheses and the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis was that humans are producing more CO2. If you increase CO2 in the atmosphere the temperature will go up and therefore we can predict runaway global warming because humans are going to keep expanding their industries,” said Ball.
“What would normally happen with a hypothesis is that other scientists would challenge that and those other scientists would challenge it as skeptics because all scientists are skeptics or should be,” said Ball, who says the climate change activists turned that natural, professional skepticism into a public buzzword that branded Ball and others as part of an ideological fringe.
“We were marginalized in blocking the scientific method. And then, of course, we were marginalized because of public relations attacks based on who was funding us or what our agenda was,” he said.
Ball says while few scientists are willing to publicly denounce the conclusions of the IPCC, many agree that the science is faulty.
“I even had (Canadian) scientists say to me, ‘Look, I’m a socialist and if I say I agree with you, then I’m immediately branded a conservative and I don’t want that to happen to me.’ I’ve also had a lot of scientists say, ‘I’ve watched what you’ve gone through with lawsuits and everything else. I’m keeping my mouth shut.’ So the intimidation factor has just been tremendous,” said Ball.
One of the most publicly compelling arguments on the conventional side of this debate, however, is there is near unanimous consensus that climate change is real and human activity is playing a major role in an increasingly volatile climate. Ball believes the real breakdown is closer to 50-50, but he says that whole argument is meaningless.
“I’m not in favor of these surveys and the consensus argument. As soon as they started using that, that proved to me this was political because consensus has no place in science. As Einstein said, ‘I can have a hundred things that prove me right and only one thing to prove me wrong and that’s the end of it,'” said Ball.
In addition to describing what he considers the long-term corruption of science, Ball also spends time in his book explaining what the full climate science record does tell us.
“The reality is the major change of climate change is the sun. They pretend to eliminate the sun but they only look at one portion of the sun, that is the electromagnetic radiation. There are many changes in the sun that cause climate change, such as the changing orbit, the changing tilt and the effect of the sun’s magnetic field upon cosmic radiation coming into the earth, which then creates low clouds, which effects temperature. None of that is included in their IPCC reports,” said Ball.
“I think it’s important that if you’re going to say they’re wrong then you have to provide an explanation that covers what they’re doing or what they’re ignoring,” said Ball, noting that the IPCC shows no interest in investigating ideas for the changing climate other than rising levels of carbon dioxide.
This fight over climate science comes at a heavy price for those in disagreement with the IPCC and its allies. Ball is no different. He says the response to his outspoken opposition is taking a heavy toll.
“I’ve often thought if I had to do it again I wouldn’t do it. Until you have experienced, like some are having with the IRS attacking them in the U.S. You cannot relate to other people exactly what it’s like when you are sitting in your little condo and you’ve spent all of your savings on legal fees. And (when there’s) a knock on the door at four o’clock on a Friday and your wife starts crying because she’s afraid it’s the sheriff delivering a legal summons. People have no idea what that’s like. I’m not sure that I would do it again. I’m almost at the point where if the world wants to be fooled, let it be fooled. I’m not going to fight for it again,” said Ball.
“That’s why a lot of scientists said to me, ‘We’re not prepared to go through what you’ve gone through.’ I sort of sympathize with that, but like Edmund Burke said, evil triumphs when good people stand idly by. That’s really the challenge in an open democracy like you have in the United States with free speech,” said Ball.