National Academies of Ambulance Chasing Delivers for Trial Lawyers

Several CO₂ Coalition team members tuned into the National Academies of Sciences webinar last week hoping for a respectable assessment of extreme weather attribution. Instead, we witnessed the presentation of a 253-page report carefully constructed to reinforce the shopworn narrative that humans are causing a climate crisis.

The hour-long event remained largely superficial. The main takeaways? The committee had done “a great job” that was a major improvement over the 2016 report, and — unsurprisingly — the field of climate research now needs significantly more funding and more modeling.

There was no serious examination of whether human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) are driving meaningful changes in the frequency or severity of extreme weather. The report simply assumes this connection from the start and builds on top of it.

The webinar ignored the recent decline in hurricane numbers and intensity. It made no mention of the far more extreme heat and weather of the 1930s. Historical context was almost entirely absent.

Committee Chair James W. Hurrell noted that the study had been funded in part by the Bezos Earth Fund and other groups aligned with the popular notion of climate doom, while assuring listeners these funders had no influence on the conclusions.