The people prosecuting the case for global warming are withholding evidence.
They know that temperatures are rising much slower than they forecast – “where the heck is global warming.” Hansen knows that the highway outside his office isn’t underwater.
They know that Antarctic sea ice is growing. They know that winters have seen a dramatic decline in temperature over the last decade. They know that sea level is barely rising, if at all. They know that the last decade has seen record winter snowfall. They know that there has not been an increase in hurricanes or tornadoes. They know that the hottest/driest years were in the 1930s. They know that sea level has been rising and glaciers melting for thousands of years.
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s “Dust Bowl” that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
-James Hansen
The logic being used is that the disasters will happen later in a non-linear fashion, so it is OK to be less than forthcoming now. That way of thinking is both unethical and foolish. At what point do they admit to themselves that they were wrong? Will a harsh La Niña winter do the trick?
Here in Fort Collins we just recalled two former prosecutors (now judges) who withheld evidence in a murder case which sent an innocent teenager to jail for a decade. They were sure he was guilty.
In the case of global warming, the jury (the citizenry of the world) will make the right choice. We don’t need a bunch of arrogant academics making decisions about what information we deserve to hear. If they don’t release the information, there is an army of volunteer bloggers who will. They are fighting a battle against the public which they can not and will not win.