Letters to the Editor: Criticism of climate scientist activism is Big Oil nonsense
This week, I have been asked to serve as a member of my state’s delegation to the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference in Paris. I have received a request from a representative of BNG Energy, a corporation based in Texas, that their employees attend this conference. It is our responsibility to inform the public of the realities of climate change and the urgent need to reduce our carbon emissions, the company’s stated goal in attending the conference.
One of my duties was to represent the state of Texas at the conference. Because I am an environmental attorney, I wanted to make sure that my participation would not interfere with my duties, not to mention my ability to represent my clients. It is important to recognize that my presence at this conference could only be beneficial if it were presented as a neutral observer, free of partisan or commercial bias.
For this reason, I respectfully request that the State of Texas delegation chairmen not invite BNG Energy to attend or speak at the conference. I have taken the time to review and analyze their record over six years and find nothing with which I could disagree or question their veracity.
My request is not at all unusual. It has become a familiar refrain over the last several years in which the voices of dissent have been drowned out by the voices of those who profit by the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change.
I have learned that it is no longer acceptable to question the validity of scientists who challenge the consensus and their peers — who have been recognized internationally for their accomplishments — on a matter of science. It is no longer acceptable to question the climate scientists’ “objective” data, their ability to replicate or replicate data from other climate models, or their ability to replicate other climate observations. It is no longer acceptable, for example, to question the methodology used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the findings and conclusions of individual climate scientist findings. It is no longer acceptable to question the validity of scientific studies conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Observation Network, the National Assessment of the United States Climate Impacts report, or the National Academy of Sciences Report on Climate Change in America.
Instead, these climate scientists, the United Nations’ Bureau of Meteorology, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Assessment of the United States