After being stymied in Congress and  state legislatures, climate alarmists have been increasingly forced to take their cases to the courts and justify their claims with dubious “research.”

“The times they are a-changing,” in particular in the context of “climate” policies and initiatives. And they are not changing favorably for the ideological opponents of fossil fuels, that is, the climate alarmism industry. It now is being forced increasingly to pursue its goals in the courts, which are the least democratic branch of government.

For an ongoing illustration of this reality, look no further than the ongoing case of County of Multnomah v ExxonMobil Corporation et. al., in which Multnomah County, Oregon, has accused a long list of fossil energy producers of responsibility for the 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and for a number of (asserted) heat-related deaths.

That this allegation is preposterous is not the focus here; suffice it to point out that application of the US Environmental Protection Agency climate model shows that the global temperature effect of greenhouse gas emissions from all US natural gas and petroleum systems is about 0.009°C. That impact is not detectable given the normal variability — about 0.1°C — of the surface temperature record.

Instead, let us focus on the disingenuous use of “research” by Roger Worthington, the plaintiff attorney in that case. Worthington introduced as evidence two studies published in Nature while failing to disclose to the court that he had helped to finance this research, suggesting that he may have been able to influence the published analysis and conclusions. Moreover, Worthington retained an expert,........

© The National Interest