Judicial limits on glyphosate and climate ‘jackpot justice’ litigation

Narrowly defined decision provides guidance on ‘evidence’ for alleged cause of harm

By Paul Driessen

Although the US Supreme Court frequently overrules it, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering California, eight other western states and two US territories) deserves applause for its recent Engilis v. Monsanto decision.

The court affirmed a district court’s exclusion of “expert testimony” claiming a plaintiff’s exposure to the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup caused his blood cancer (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). The court upheld summary judgment in favor of product manufacturer Monsanto (now owned by Bayer).

It was an important victory amid numerous lawsuits against the company for allegedly knowing this chemical is carcinogenic but failing to warn consumers. In fact, by 2020, mass tort litigation firms had lined up over 22,000 “corporate victims,” and San Francisco area juries had awarded several plaintiffs $78 million to $1 billion per person in compensatory and punitive damages!

One firm’s website even claimed the requisite exposure to Roundup could involve simply “living near a farm where the potentially dangerous herbicide is used.” The victim could thereby be afflicted with lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Parkinson disease, multiple sclerosis, lung, brain or thyroid cancer, heart disease or six other diseases. This is the warzone Monsanto had been dragged into.

The awards were subsequently reduced to “mere” tens of millions. However, faced with seemingly endless litigation, clever lawyers, and sympathetic jurors with limited grasp of science or medicine, in 2020 Bayer-Monsanto paid nearly $11 billion to a half-dozen law firms to settle most of the lawsuits.

It’s hardly surprising Monsanto settled and took glyphosate out of its US home lawn and garden Roundup formulation. But firms and plaintiffs not part of the settlement are still suing.

Peter and Cathy Engilis were among them. Unfortunately for them, their lawyers relied on the testimony of a board-certified oncologist who reviewed various possible causes of Mr. Engilis’s cancer, ruled out obesity as a contributing factor, and concluded that glyphosate was the most likely cause.

His testimony was the only evidence plaintiffs presented. The district court excluded it as unreliable, since the expert had failed to employ a scientific analysis to rule out obesity as a cause.

The Ninth Circuit agreed, ruling that an expert’s conclusions or opinions are not enough. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 72, experts must provide scientifically sound reasons for ruling out alternative causes and do so by a preponderance of actual evidence. Conclusory assertions are insufficient, unless supported by facts, data or studies, not merely knowledge or experience.

The US Supreme Court underscored these points in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. Plaintiffs must prove the scientific evidence presented is relevant and reliable, the Court said. It must have been tested and peer-reviewed against prevailing standards; be accepted in the applicable scientific community; and show more than just circumstantial links between an injury and alleged cause.

Experts must also show how they reached their conclusions and point to objective sources that demonstrate they followed scientific methods practiced by at least a recognized minority in their field.

This is basic common sense and something law students learn in Evidence 101. As I argued in a medical journal article, it is especially vital in glyphosate litigation – and other complex, emotionalized cases, including lawsuits alleging damages from climate and weather events supposedly caused by fossil fuel production, refining, or use in transportation or manufacturing.

The jackpot justice Roundup cases rely on so much speculative “evidence” that they should all be dismissed, based on Daubert, Engilis, common sense, and the endless list of carcinogens we encounter during our lifetimes.

Glyphosate was introduced in 1974, is licensed in 130 countries, and is used every year by millions of homeowners, gardeners and farmers to control weeds. Studies and reviews by the US Environmental Protection Agency, European Food Safety Authority, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Health Canada and dozens of other experts have found it safe and non-carcinogenic.

The US Agricultural Health Study has followed some 52,000 licensed private pesticide applicators (mostly farmers) and more than 32,000 of their spouses for nearly three decades. More than 80% of these test subjects used glyphosate. The study has found no glyphosate-cancer link.

Only one agency, the France-based International Agency for Cancer Research, says otherwise. In 2015, IARC ruled that glyphosate is a “probable” human carcinogen – based primarily on two mice studies, which multiple investigators said manipulated data while ignoring studies that contradicted IARC’s preferred conclusion.

Instead of doing research, IARC classifies chemicals as definitely, probably or possibly carcinogenic based on reviews of other organizations’ research – and by applying “exposure” or “hazard” tests that many epidemiologists view as antiquated and of limited value. Those tests use laboratory animals to determine whether a chemical might cause cancer, even if only at extremely high levels that no animal or human would be exposed to in the real world.  

Indeed, epidemiologists and toxicity experts say some chemicals may cause cancer or other serious health problems at extremely high doses but be harmless at levels encountered in our daily lives. Others may be harmful at high doses but beneficial or essential at low or very low doses.

IARC’s Group 1 carcinogens (“definitely carcinogenic”) include 120 chemicals, substances and industrial processes: plutonium, sunlight, aflatoxin, asbestos, cadmium, tobacco, welding, processed meats and more.

Group 2A (“probably carcinogenic”) lists 80+ chemicals, substances and processes, including glyphosate, dieldrin, malathion, acetaldehyde in bread, anabolic steroids, emissions from high-temperature food frying, red meat, drinking “very hot” beverages and working as a hairdresser.

Group 2B “possibly carcinogenic” materials and processes show “limited evidence” of carcinogenicity but includes diesel fuel, pickled vegetables, carpentry work, caffeic acid in coffee, nutritious foods like apples and broccoli, and over 300 other substances and occupations.

IARC carcinogen claims seem to be such outliers, so beneath scientific norms, so tainted by conflicts of interest and misconduct, so unrelated to actual risks, so deceptive and even fraudulent – that they should never be admitted as evidence in any glyphosate trial. But from a jackpot justice plaintiff or lawyer perspective, they are central to nearly every case.

Roundup carcinogen allegations should also be excluded from evidence and testimony because it is impossible to differentiate alleged effects of glyphosate from those of countless other chemicals, substances, occupations and industrial processes plaintiffs may have been exposed to or engaged in over the course of their lives. The lists presented above represent a tiny sample.

The same principles apply to climate lawsuits in state and international courts.

The lawsuits involve computer models with zero predictive capability; conclusory assertions devoid of actual supportive evidence; and refusal to recognize Earth’s tumultuous climate history, powerful natural forces that caused momentous climate changes long before the fossil fuel era, written records and data over the past 200 years showing no unprecedented changes or trends in climate or weather, and an inability to separate natural from alleged human causes.

Evidence Rule 72, the Daubert and Engilis decisions, and basic scientific principles demand summary judgments in favor of fossil fuel producers every single time.

Paul Driessen, JD is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change and pesticides.

Scientists Lying about Science IV

Some real solutions to this catastrophic societal problem 

John Droz Aug 22, 2025 @ Critical Thinking About Select Societal Issues 

This is Part 4 of the discussion of the corrupting influence that the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) has on America. See Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3. This discussion will be the crucial wrap-up: what can be done to fix this mess. 

Some Sample Consequences of NAS Substituting Political Science for Real Science

a) 40+ Million US children have been miseducated regarding Science due to the woefully inadequate NGSS. (See here.) The resulting negative influence of these victimized lemmings on America is incalculable.

b) 600,000± Americans unnecessarily died due to unscientific COVID-19 policies. Instead of being a bastion of credible medical assistance, NAS was (and still is) a contributor of misinformation, so much of this is on them.

c) NAS has been the instigator of (or supported) essentially every major attack on Real Science (climate, energy policies, medical policies, etc.) that we have experienced in America. Why have we tolerated this for so long?

d) Due to the poor example set by NAS, many scientists have been led to believe that the standards of Real Science are arbitrary and relative. As a result, widespread dishonesty, plagiarism, incompetence, etc., infects the field. Here is a sample list. The societal consequences of this are enormous. 

A Powerful Solution for this Catastrophe

The reflexive response from most people would likely be: “Get rid of NAS!” But we are Critical Thinkers, and even rudimentary thinking would reveal that eliminating NAS would be an inferior option. Why?

Because dumping the NAS would do nothing to address the horrific harm caused by it in the past (e.g., the NGSS). Also, because properly reforming the NAS could result in a powerful positive force for societal good.

Ironically, the NAS situation is very similar to the Department of Education (DOEd) matter. There, also, properly fixing DOEd would be at least a hundred times better than getting rid of it (see here).

What leverage do we have to reform this severely degraded organization? A BIGGIE, as 85%± of NAS funding comes from federal agencies! Since the highly politicized NAS has lost its way, it is an ideal DOGE target.

There have already been some articles about NAS downsizing due to government cuts. However, those are cuts to other agencies that would have paid NAS to do studies. Here is NAS’s response to that situation. Note that there is not a word about NAS getting back to Real Science!

The choice given to NAS would be very simple: completely reform per our outline (below), or forgo all taxpayer funding. They will have little choice.

What Does NAS Need To Do to Genuinely Reform? 

1 - Revise their Mission Statement to specifically focus on Real Science. Carefully define Real Science so there is no misunderstanding that it is significantly different from political science. This will include unequivocal commitments to Critical Thinking and the traditional Scientific Method.

2 - Publicly and unequivocally disavow all ideology that politicizes or is otherwise at odds with Real Science (e.g., equity does not supersede merit).

3 - Currently, there is no official way of disbarring or defrocking scientists who have lost their way regarding their field of Science. To fill this gap, NAS will develop and implement a rating system for US scientists, indicating their prior adherence to the well-defined standards of Real Science (e.g., A+, A, A-, B+, etc.). Then widely publicize this.

4 - Establish a new team of real scientists (A-Grade) and completely revise the NGSS to be NGSS+. The NGSS+ focus will be on teaching Critical Thinking and aggressively supporting the traditional Scientific Method. NGSS+ will resolve all ten of the NGSS problems identified here. Lastly, NGSS+ will explain all of these 30 misconceptions about Real Science to K-12 students.

5 - Using A-Grade scientists: a) rewrite and republish “Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science”, b) publish a Report on what Real Science consists of (like this), c) publish a Real Science Report on Climate (like this), d) publish a Real Science Report on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 fiasco (like this), e) publish a Real Science Report on what needs to be done to get US Higher education back on track (like this), and f) research an publish suggested solutions to the failed “peer-review” system.

6 - Thoroughly review every major Report they have published over the last 20 years. They should be: a) withdrawn, b) revised, or c) reaffirmed (rare).

What Can You Do? 

— Make some constructive comments below.

— Pass this commentary on to EVERYONE you know.

— Please help make a connection with someone connected with DOGE or President Trump, and alert them to this commentary. Let me know.

— Correspond with your federal legislators, bringing this exceptionally important matter to their attention.

---

Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

My commentaries are my opinion about the material discussed therein, based on the information I have. If any readers have different information, please share it. If it is credible, I will be glad to reconsider my position.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from climate to COVID, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2025 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?

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Democrats Love Citing This One Climate Change Study. Turns Out It’s All Bogus.

By Mairead Elordi, Aug 15, 2025 

Democrats often tout a study that predicts the global economy will crash this century thanks to climate change. It turns out the study is bogus, according to a new analysis. The paper, published in the journal Nature last year, claimed that global gross domestic product will plummet by 62% by 2100 compared to where it would be without climate change. About 19% of the global economy will be lost in the next 25 years, the study claimed.

The dire predictions were three times higher than previous estimates, causing alarm over the possibility that climate change could destroy the global economy within people’s lifetimes.  Democrats pounced on the study’s terrifying warnings..........The flawed study was the second most cited climate paper in 2024 by news outlets and on social media, according to one analysis........... To Read More....

Comment Submitted On EPA Proposal To Revoke Biden-Era Power Plant Regulations

August 06, 2025/ Francis Menton,  36 Comments @ Manhattan Contrarian

After a few decades in the wilderness, it looks like the skeptics are now suddenly prevailing in the climate wars. I have long said that this would inevitably happen, and that it was only a question of time, because the laws of physics and economics would inevitably prevail. But what I didn’t know was how much time it would take — perhaps a few years, or maybe many decades. It’s much like North Korea. Their non-functioning communist system will inevitably collapse — but when?

Much credit for the sudden reversal in the climate struggles goes to President Trump. But it is also true that the climate scam was always a house of cards, subject to falling as soon as a critical mass of people started testing its foundations.

And I don’t mean to suggest that the climate wars are totally over. Too many people have been making too big a living off the scam, and have far too much invested to give up easily. And so I continue, along with dedicated colleagues, to do my part to help get this beast killed deader than dead.

On Monday this week (August 4), two colleagues and I filed a comment on EPA’s proposal to revoke the Biden-era regulations that sought to force the closure of all fossil-fuel-based power plants. Here is EPA’s June 11 announcement of its intention to revoke the Biden-era regulation. And here is a link to our August 4 comment.

A little background for those new to this battle. Since the inception of electricity delivered from a grid, the majority of the energy has come from combustion of fossil fuels, mostly natural gas and coal. For a recent data point, in 2023, approximately 60% of U.S. electricity came from those two sources.

However, the Obama administration got the idea that they should force all the fossil fuel power plants to close, supposedly to be replaced with fantasy generation from wind and sun. In 2014 the Obama EPA put forth a proposed regulation called the “Clean Power Plan,” intended to force the closure of all the fossil fuel power plants. The mechanism would be via setting limits on allowable “greenhouse gas” emissions from the plants, which limits would gradually decrease until no fossil-fuel-based power plants could comply, by some time in the late 2030s. The CPP became a final regulation in August 2015.

Then the first Trump administration took control, and in 2018 proposed rescinding the CPP in favor of an Obama-lite alternative that would not end electricity from fossil fuels. On the last day of Trump’s first term (January 19, 2021), the D.C. Circuit struck down the Trump alternative to the CPP. That set the stage for an appeal to the Supreme Court, leading to the landmark decision in West Virginia v. EPA in 2022. In that decision, the Supreme Court said that the attempt by EPA in the CPP to transform the nation’s entire electricity generation system went beyond the powers it had been granted by Congress in the Clean Air Act.

The Biden EPA then went back to the drawing board, and on April 25, 2024 came up with an alternative with the pithy title “New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New, Modified, and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.” This one was a completely delusional effort to impose wildly uneconomic carbon capture regime on fossil fuel generation of electricity. In this post on May 1, 2024, I characterized this latest Biden rule as a “war on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” This is the rule that the Trump EPA now proposes to revoke.

This time around, per the June 11 EPA announcement, the second Trump administration is not proposing some Biden-lite regulation to attempt to appease the climate gods. It’s just a full-out repeal. Good riddance.

Our comment is some 33 pages long, plus two short appendices, and includes several arguments supporting the position of the current Trump/Zeldin EPA. In this post I want to describe one of our arguments, which is one that EPA has not utilized in its own documentation.

The Obama and Biden EPAs based their case for regulation (and elimination) of fossil fuel based electricity generation on what they called three “lines of evidence,” only one of which was actually “evidence” in the sense of the scientific method. That one is the Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST) record, maintained by agencies within the purview of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the Department of Commerce. (The other two “lines of evidence” were not evidence at all. They were: the various climate models predicting rapidly rising temperatures, and the supposed “basic understanding” of how the climate system works.)

So they only had one “line of evidence” that was actually evidence. And then they introduced into that one collection of evidence large amounts of purported data that they essentially fabricated to support the desired narrative. In particular, for most of the time period of the GAST data, and for approximately 40% of the earth’s surface (the Southern Hemisphere oceans) they had no data at all. So they made it up.

From the Comment, page 8:

[P]rior to the year 2000 the Southern Hemisphere is 80.9% ocean,2 and prior to the year 2000 there was virtually no credible monthly ocean surface temperature data whatsoever for this massive area.3 This fact alone means that until 2000, the surface temperature record had virtually no data whatsoever for over 40% (50%*0.809) of the planet. But the situation is even worse than that because for much of the quoted surface temperature record since about 1850, there are virtuallyno credible monthly surface temperature data outside of North America and Europe.

In other words, an “average” surface temperature has been calculated with 40% of the data missing and filled in by people with a strong interest in creating data to fit their narrative. Nobody really knows what the “average” surface temperature of the world was for most of the time of this data series. We really have no way of knowing that recent temperatures are warmer than temperatures from the earlier years of this record. From our Comment:

Proof that the Global Average Surface Temperature data are fabricated invalidates any claim of record setting temperatures [in recent years].

This argument is easily understood and essentially irrefutable. Trump and EPA would be well-advised to use it in some form in their messaging.

Well, needless to say, lots of environmentalists are also filing comments, and most of them are outraged at the idea that fossil fuels are going to be around for the long term for electricity generation. If you want to review some of their comments, you can go to this link. But do any of them have an answer to the problem that we don’t even know that average temperatures in the most recent year are higher than they were 75 or 100 or 125 years ago? I invite readers to review the comments and see if they can find the answer to that conundrum.

Thousands of Scientists Contest the Climate Scare

By Tom Harris

 

Apollo 17 Astronaut Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt addresses an audience of climate realists at the fourth International Climate Change Conference held in Chicago in 2010. Image used with permission of The Heartland Institute.

Climate change science is “settled,” we are told by activists, politicians, media and official science bodies. It is our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that is supposedly causing a climate crisis and we must take action to prevent dangerous global warming. Allegedly, only a handful of unqualified naysayers contest this conclusion.

Besides the absurdity of the notion that humanity, at this stage in our development, could hope to "control climate change" of planet Earth, observant readers will ask: how does anyone know that there is a consensus among climate scientists that our CO₂ emissions are driving global climate, let alone that they are causing a crisis? After all, the climate had been changing for billions of years before we arrived on the scene. Are all the ancient natural climate drivers suddenly being eclipsed by human CO₂ emissions?

No one knows for sure, although much recent research suggests it is highly improbable. It is also true that no one knows, or even currently can know, what the so-called "consensus" is in the world climate science community about whether our CO₂ emissions are causing a climate crisis.

This is because there is not known to have been a conclusive worldwide poll about the topic among the thousands of scientists from the vast array of disciplines related to understanding the causes of global climate change. In “Debunking the Climate Change Consensus,” Part 1 of this series, I demonstrated how none of the open letters and declarations from scientists and scientific organizations about climate change that NASA cites to show the supposed consensus actually address the most important question of all, namely, “Are greenhouse gas emissions from human activities causing climate change so dangerous that it is worth spending trillions of dollars to try to stop?”

And, of course, scientific theories are never proven by a show of hands anyway, no matter how scientifically esteemed those expressing their views are. If it were otherwise, the Earth would still be considered flat and space travel impossible.

And then there is the problem of national and international science bodies endorsing the global warming theory without the known support of a majority of their membership. For example, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) and a leading Canadian energy expert, “Archie” Robinson of Deep River, Ontario, explained what happened with a Royal Society (the world's oldest scientific organisation) climate initiative supporting the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report:

“the president of the Royal Society of London … drafted a resolution in favour and circulated it to other academies of science inviting co-signing. … The president of the RSC, not a member of the [RSC’s] Academy of Science, received the invitation. He considered it consistent with the position of the great majority of scientists, as repeatedly but erroneously claimed by Kyoto proponents, and so signed it. The resolution was not referred to the Academy of Science for comment, not even to its council or president.”

A similar episode happened in the United States and Russia concerning the Royal Society effort and a survey of pronouncements from other science bodies reveals that they are usually just the opinions of the groups’ executives or committees specifically appointed by the executive. The rank-and-file scientist members are rarely consulted at all. 

Lord Robert May, former president of the Royal Society, said:

"On one hand, you have the entire scientific community [supporting the climate alarm] and on the other you have a handful of people, half of them crackpots."

But Lord May was completely mistaken. See The Myth of the Climate Change ’97%’ - The Heartland Institute. Not only is there no known broad agreement in the "entire scientific community" about the causes of climate change (and it only matters what climate experts think, not all scientists), but literally thousands of scientifically-qualified individuals have endorsed open letters and other declarations opposing, either directly or indirectly, the CO₂/dangerous global warming hypothesis. Consider the following open letters, declarations and other documents, some linked to the documents and endorser lists, starting with the most recent:

 

2020 - present: World Climate Declaration: Organized by CLINTEL (Climate Intelligence), this declaration, signed by at least 1,983 endorsers, states that "there is no climate emergency" and calls for more balanced climate policies.

2022: No Consensus on Climate Crisis, Scientist Survey Finds - The Heartland Institute

2019: The European Climate Declaration - Oslo: This declaration, signed by hundreds of individuals, stated that there is "no climate emergency" and also called for a more balanced approach to climate policy.

2018: Climate Scientists' Register | ICSC - Canada, signed by 143 scientists from 22 countries who have studied the causes of climate change and agree with the following statement: “We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming."

2016: The Australian Climate Declaration: A group of scientists and professionals in Australia signed this declaration questioning the evidence for human-driven climate change.

2010: Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) letter to the U.S. EPA--signed by 35 climate and related experts supporting challenges by the US Chamber of Commerce and three states which question the basis for the 2009 "Endangerment Finding" under the Clean Air Act.

2008– 2019 - The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) Reports: While not a single letter, these reports are often cited by realists as counterpoints to the IPCC's findings. Here are the NIPCC reports in which thousands of peer-reviewed papers are cited casting doubt on the climate catastrophe hypothesis:

·         Fossil Fuels (2019)

o   Summary of CCR II: Fossil Fuels

o   Full Text of CCR II: Fossil Fuels

·         Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming (2016)

o   Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming

·         Biological Impacts (2014)

o   Summary of CCR II: Biological Impacts

o   Full Text of CCR II: Biological Impacts

·         Physical Science (2013)

o   Summary of CCR II: Physical Science

o   Full Text of CCR II: Physical Science

·         Interim Report (2011)

o   Summary of CCR: Interim Report

o   Full Text of CCR: Interim Report

·         NIPCC Report (2009)

o   Summary of Climate Change Reconsidered

o   Full Text of Climate Change Reconsidered

• Science and Environmental Policy Project SEPP/Heartland document Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate (2008) Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the NIPCC 
• 2009: Cato Institute newspaper ad campaign letter (right); 115 scientist signers. (Editor's Note:  That list is a picture which I cannot reproduce. RK) The letter focused on skepticism about the urgency of climate action and questioned the reliability of climate models and predictions. It was published as an open letter in major newspapers to influence public opinion and policy discussions on climate change.
• 2009: Copenhagen Climate Challenge which listed 166 experts well qualified in climate science plus some in 'other related disciplines'. Sent during the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, this letter emphasized doubts about the science underpinning human-caused climate change.
• 2009: Open Letter to the Council of the American Physical Society—signed by 61 experts, expressed skepticism about the supposed scientific consensus on climate change. The letter called for APS to change its official statement on climate change, arguing that it overstated the certainty of human impact on global warming. The signatories advocated for a more open and balanced discussion on climate change, emphasizing the need for scientific rigor and debate.
• 2009: The Cornwall Alliance's Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming : Rooted in religious perspectives, this declaration expressed skepticism about catastrophic climate change and emphasized stewardship of the Earth.
• 2008: THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE , 1,497 endorsers, over half of them well qualified in science and technology and 206 of them climate science specialists or scientists in very closely related fields. Released after The Heartland Institute’s climate realists' conference in New York City, it argued against the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• 2007:  Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (the "2007 Bali open letter"), 100 scientist signers, criticized the IPCC's conclusions and called for a reassessment of climate science. Then UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon never acknowledged receipt of either the 2007 Bali open letter, or the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Challenge but mail tracking showed he did receive it.
• 2007: " Independent Summary for Policymakers" questioning the UN IPCC's 4^th Assessment report (2007) AR4 and contesting many of its conclusions, organized by the Fraser Institute in Canada: list of 10 authors and reviewed by over 50 scientists worldwide.
•  2007: Letter to the American Physical Society: A group of physicists sent this open letter criticizing the society's stance on climate change and asking for a reconsideration.
• 2006:  Open Kyoto to Debate - An open letter to Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, from 60 climate experts, challenging the scientific basis for climate policies.
•  2003:  Protocol lacks 'credible science' - Open letter to Canadian PM Paul Martin, 46 leading scientists endorsed this, challenging the scientific basis for climate policies. 
• Open letter to Canadian PM Jean Chretien , 30 scientist signers , challenging the scientific basis for climate policies.
•  1997:  Global Warming Petition Project  - organized through the  Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine , starting in 1997. That document now claims some 31,487 U.S. scientists and technically qualified signers, 9,029 with PhDs.  see breakdown. Scientists, in this case physicist Dr. Edward Teller, signed the statement as follows.
• 1995: Leipzig Declaration on Climate Change, 80 scientist signers plus 25 TV meteorologists. This declaration questioned the scientific consensus on climate change and opposed the Kyoto Protocol.
• 1992: SEPP Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming, 47 signers. The signatories expressed skepticism about the certainty of anthropogenic global warming and opposed environmental regulations based on "highly uncertain scientific theories."
•  1992: The Heidelberg Appeal: Presented at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, this appeal questioned the urgency of environmental policies based on what the signatories considered uncertain science.

No list like the above would be complete without including reference to the 15 massive

International Conferences on Climate Change put on by The Heartland Institute across the world from 2008 to 2023. Hundreds of climate realist scientists, economists, engineers and policy experts spoke at these meetings, easily the most important climate events ever held.

So how many of these did you see reported in mainstream media? Any? And that is the problem faced by climate skeptics—most mainstream media do not report on these declarations, and, on the rare occasion when they do, dismiss them as endorsed by unqualified 'outliers' from the scientific community. Consequently, even though these open letters and other documents are signed by some of the absolute leaders in the world in understanding the causes of climate change, the majority of the public knows little about these lists, freeing government to proceed as if they didn't even exist.

So, the next time someone tells you that only a few unqualified scientists in unrelated fields disagree with the politically-correct view on the causes and consequences of climate change, send them the above list and ask, “Really? How about these?”

Tom Harris is Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition – Canada.

The Scourge -- Or Not -- Of "Ultraprocessed Foods"

January 14, 2025 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian 

 “Ultraprocessed foods.” That sounds really bad. In fact, not just really bad, but really, really bad. Bad on a level with, maybe, “assault rifles” or “cis-heteronormativity.” Definitely, with a condemnatory name like that, “ultraprocessed foods” would be something that no sensible person would ever eat, or at least certainly not in large quantities.

The term “ultraprocessed foods” has been in usage for a while, but the frequency seems to have exploded everywhere in the past few months. Perhaps that has resulted from the naming of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has made a thing about proclaiming a health crisis in the U.S., which he asserts is substantially brought about by our “broken food system.” On November 15 — just after President-elect Trump tapped Kennedy to lead HHS in the new administration — The New York Times had a piece outlining Kennedy’s critiques of the “food system.” Number one on the list of Kennedy’s critiques identified by the NYT was “ultraprocessed food.”

After reading this, I thought it might be time for me to get on top of what this “ultraprocessed food” stuff might be. Is this something that you need to really be concerned about, or is it just another one of the usual scare tactics of the left to try to take more control of your life? The answer, as will not surprise you, is the latter.

Fortunately, I went into this investigation comfortable in the knowledge that this “ultraprocessed foods” thing had little or nothing to do with me. I only eat the healthiest of the healthy. For example, yesterday for dinner for Mrs. MC and myself, I went to the store and bought a fresh salmon filet, some new potatoes, and a head of broccoli — the freshest of possible “whole” foods. I sautéed the salmon in a pan, and for the potatoes and broccoli, I mixed them in a bowl with just some oil and salt and roasted them in the oven. Delicious! And also, the farthest thing possible from “ultraprocessed food.” Or so you might think.

And then, to begin my research, I followed a link in The New York Times piece cited above, and came to this April 21, 2023 article in Nature Communications, one of the many affiliate publications of the premier British science journal Nature. Or maybe I should put the word “science” there in scare quotes, because Nature has so thoroughly disgraced itself by falling for and propagating the climate scam, let alone who knows what other pseudoscience. But for whatever residual level of credibility they may have left, I was still surprised to learn that the article claimed that some 73% of the U.S. food supply is “ultraprocessed.” How is such a high level even possible? This seemingly very precise figure had supposedly been determined by a new “machine learning algorithm”:

Here we introduce a machine learning algorithm that accurately predicts the degree of processing for any food, indicating that over 73% of the US food supply is ultra-processed.

And how about this to scare you:

We show that the increased reliance of an individual’s diet on ultra-processed food correlates with higher risk of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, angina, elevated blood pressure and biological age, and reduces the bio-availability of vitamins.

Here is another piece from Harvard Health Publishing, June 17, 2024, with the title “Ultra-processed foods? Just say no.” The thesis, based on “new research,” is that consumption of “ultraprocessed foods” increases the risk of cognitive impairment and strokes:

[I]f you . . . eat some ultra-processed foods, is that bad for your brain health? A new study appears to deliver resounding yes: eating ultra-processed foods is linked to a greater risk of cognitive impairment and strokes.

Both of these pieces give examples of things that are said to fall in the “ultraprocessed” category — things like Twinkies and non-diet cola — but no precise or comprehensive definition. Surely nobody has a diet consisting of 73% Twinkies and non-diet cola, or of anything comparable. They must be sweeping lots of other things into the definition. But what? How are we supposed to avoid these things without a comprehensive definition?

At this point, before I might find myself prematurely in the grave, I decided it was time for some of my own research. For my first subject of inquiry I picked potato chips. “Ultraprocessed” or not? Remarkably, I find some debate in the literature about whether potato chips are “ultraprocessed” versus merely “processed.” But plenty of articles call them “ultraprocessed,” for example this piece from Canada’s Global News, October 12, 2023 (“From pop to potato chips, report finds ultra-processed food can be addictive. . . . Ultra-processed foods like sugary drinks, potato chips and ready meals can cause withdrawal symptoms similar to people trying to quit smoking. . . .”).

There was a reason I looked up potato chips first. On a bag of potato chips, the ingredients are listed as: potatoes, oil, salt. Those are the exact same ingredients as in the potato dish in my super-healthy meal last night. Could I really have been eating “ultraprocessed food”? I’m now starting to understand how 73% of an American diet can be “ultraprocessed.”

Let me try three more common items that have been promoted to me for decades as the quintessential super-healthy foods: whole grain breakfast cereal, Greek yogurt, and whole wheat bread. I find all three of those considered together in this July 6, 2022 piece from a source called Very Well Health. Surprise:

Whole grain breakfast cereal, Greek yogurt, and 100% whole wheat bread have more in common than being part of a “balanced breakfast”—they can all be classified as “ultra-processed” foods. . . . Some estimates have found that up to 73% of the American food supply is ultra-processed foods. However, experts don’t agree on what to do about ultra-processed foods—or even how to classify them.

So, if whole grain breakfast cereal, Greek yogurt, and whole wheat bread are “ultraprocessed foods,” are they part of the cause of “higher risk of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, angina, elevated blood pressure and biological age” that Nature attributes to “ultraprocessed foods”? Are they part of the cause of “greater risk of cognitive impairment and strokes” that Harvard Medical School attributes to “ultraprocessed foods.” If they are not, then how do we tell which of the “ultraprocessed foods” are the ones that must be avoided and which not?

The Very Well Health piece, in contrast to the pieces from far more “prestigious” sources like Nature and Harvard Medical School, is actually relatively informative on this subject. The piece provides some history, which I will spare you, of how the “ultraprocessed foods” characterization got started and developed. A fair summary is that it is a part of the overall UN effort to smear the West and the productive countries and companies of the world.

I’m certainly not recommending a diet consisting of nothing but Twinkies and non-diet cola. However, I’ve done plenty of research to conclude that the category of “ultraprocessed foods” is completely meaningless as a guide to trying to figure out how to eat a reasonably healthy diet. The pseudo-category of “ultraprocessed foods” includes plenty of things that are very healthy, plenty of things that are fine in moderation, and plenty of things to (mostly) avoid — and no assistance in distinguishing which ones are which. Institutions like Nature and Harvard Medical School that purport to reach epidemiological conclusions based on this pseudo-category only demonstrate their own incompetence.

As to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — if there is one Trump cabinet pick whom I would be happy to see not confirmed, he would be it.

A Safe Bet: Politicized Consensus "Science" Is Wrong

December 04, 2024/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

 Today has been a good day for the incipient unraveling of a couple of major categories of the fake “consensus” orthodox science that have plagued us for the past few years.

One such category is transgenderism, where activists seek the provision of “gender affirming care” to any young person claiming to suffer from “gender dysphoria.” This morning the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case called United States v. Skrmetti, where the Court is asked to rule that Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for teens claiming to be “transgender” violates their constitutional rights. A second such category is the Coronavirus pandemic, including its origins and what policies were appropriate to address it. On that subject, also today, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic issued its rather damning Report titled “The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward.”

The subjects of teenagers claiming to be “transgender,” and of the origins and appropriate policy responses to the Coronavirus pandemic, have been two areas where loud claques of activists, claiming the mantle of “science,” have worked overtime to impose their agendas and to silence critics, by force if necessary. Of course, they have sought the support of a friendly government; and, needless to say, the Biden Administration has been all in on the wrong side of both of these subjects. The Biden-led government has, among many other things, provided vast funding to the agencies promulgating the orthodox positions, issued regulations to hamstring any opposition, used its megaphone to characterize dissenters as crazy or “fringe,” organized a censorship complex to silence critics, and taken the side of the orthodoxy in various court cases.

But as luck would have it, none of this is working. The fundamental problem is that the “consensus” orthodox science lacks evidentiary support. It would be a safe bet in just about any case to wager that consensus orthodox science is wrong. Science that doesn’t take account of all available evidence and of reasonable criticisms has almost no chance of being right. Someday, perhaps those lessons will be learned in the biggest arena of all for consensus orthodox science, that of energy and “climate change.”

Transgenderism: United States v. Skrmetti

In 2023 Tennessee banned various gender treatments for minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. A group of Tennessee teens challenged the ban (one of them is only 12 years old). The District Court initially granted a preliminary injunction for the plaintiffs, preventing enforcement of Tennessee’s ban pending trial on the merits; but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the preliminary injunction in a 2-1 ruling. Despite the pre-discovery state of the case, the Biden Administration sought Supreme Court review.

An op-ed in the Wall Sreet Journal on Monday by a guy named Steve Marshall outlines the government’s position and the problems with it. (Marshall is Attorney General of Alabama, and involved in a parallel case.) As Marshall outlines the situation, the government’s position is that the case is ripe for consideration pre-discovery because the relevant “facts” are already known. The linchpin of those “facts” is that the treatments in question are “medically necessary,” which we allegedly know because the relevant professional organization, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has issued Standards of Care so stating.

They [the government’s lawyers] rely on the so-called Standards of Care from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, to assure the justices that “overwhelming evidence establishes” the wisdom of medically “transitioning” minors diagnosed with “gender dysphoria”—stress caused by the feeling of being the wrong sex—through hormones and surgery.

But in the Alabama case, Marshall has had discovery, which has enabled him to put together a demonstration that the WPATH Standards were based on the intentional ignoring of adverse evidence. The WPATH advocates ignored adverse evidence in order to engineer their Standards to be a more effective litigation weapon for their position. Excerpt:

One way to make the guidelines a more effective litigation weapon was by not looking for evidence. Some authors of the WPATH standards reported that they avoided conducting systematic evidence reviews of the safety and efficacy of transition treatments because of “concerns, echoed by the social justice lawyers we spoke with,” that “evidence-based review reveals little or no evidence and puts us in an untenable position in terms of affecting policy or winning lawsuits.” In other words, to get courts to defer to “evidence-based” guidelines, WPATH obscured the lack of evidence supporting them.

As time passes, the evidence is accumulating of the harmful and permanent effects of what is called “gender affirming care” on the minors on which it is practiced. Because of the procedural status of the case, only a limited amount of such evidence is getting presented to the Supreme Court. But see, for example, this amicus brief from something called Partners for Ethical Care, which collects some evidence from Europe.

Reports from today’s argument indicate that the Supreme Court is likely to affirm and send the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. In that forum, there is likely to be considerable discovery about the true state of the evidence.

Coronavirus origins and responses

The House Select Committee Report is very lengthy, and has no useful introduction or executive summary. However, it is chock full of information eviscerating the fake consensus science that has been the hallmark of the pandemic and response since the outset. A few key examples follow:

Origin of the virus:

(From page 1) Four years after the onset of the worst pandemic in 100 years, the weight of the evidence increasingly supports the lab leak hypothesis. Since the Select Subcommittee commenced its work in February 2023, more and more senior intelligence officials, politicians, science editors, and scientists increasingly have endorsed the hypothesis that COVID-191 emerged as the result of a laboratory or research related accident.

And a particularly critical piece of evidence:

Mr. Wade astutely noted that “SARS2 possesses a furin cleavage site, found in none of the other 871 known members of its viral family, so it cannot have gained such a site through the ordinary evolutionary swaps of genetic material within a family.”

Six foot social distancing rule — there was a complete lack of evidence to support it:

(From page 198-99) FINDING: There Was No Quantitative Scientific Support for Six Feet of Social Distancing. Six feet of social distancing was a phrase and rule known by every single American during the pandemic. Amazingly, social distancing guidance was not revised until August 2022. Even though it was CDC guidance and not a mandate, it was forcefully implemented by state and local governments and caused lots of strife amongst Americans.766 Social distancing requirements were largely responsible for closing businesses, heightening a sense in loss of community, and were part of the reasoning schools could not reopen for so long.

Masking — again, there was never any scientific basis to support it:

(From page 204) Ultimately, a systematic review carried out by Cochrane Collaboration—one of the most highly regarded methodologies in evidence-based healthcare—found that the pooled randomized control trials they analyzed “did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks” and that “[t]here were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.”782 These results appear to directly contradict public health agencies’ and local governments’ support for broadly requiring masking throughout much of the pandemic.

There is lots and lots of useful information here on everything from government misinformation, to the vaccines, to natural immunity, and much more — essentially all of it unfavorable to the bureaucratic response and to consensus orthodox science. Will they ever learn? Unlikely. That’s why empowered bureaucrats are such a negative force.

The Climate Cult Reacts As Its Political Position Begins To Slip

May 05, 2024 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

For two decades and more, the political position of the climate alarm cult in the U.S. and Europe has only seemed to strengthen with time. In the U.S., the Obama and Biden Administrations have both pushed huge regulatory initiatives to restrict use of fossil fuels (with only some modest roll-backs during Trump’s four years); some of the most sweeping restrictions got pushed through just a week ago. Meanwhile, blue states like California and New York have enacted ever-more-extreme restrictions by statute. In Europe, there has been a near all-party political consensus in favor of the “net zero” agenda, notably including even the mainstream conservative parties in the largest countries like the UK and Germany.

I have long said that sooner or later a combination of physical reality and cost would stop the “net zero” juggernaut in its tracks. Indeed, that has begun to happen, particularly in Europe. Elections for the European Parliament are coming up in about a month, with climate skeptic candidates and parties looking to score substantial gains.

So how is the left reacting? So far, the official talking point seems to be to belittle the resistance to fossil fuel restrictions as some kind of scheme of the “far right.” The “far right,” we are told, are those nefarious people who dare to stand up for maintaining the living standards of the working stiffs against those who would impoverish us all in the quixotic drive to reduce carbon emissions. Somehow, seemingly independent news organization put out articles using the exact same words and phrases. Here are a couple of recent examples.

In the Washington Post on May 1, the headline is “How car bans and heat pump rules drive voters to the far right.” Subheadline:  “Studies show that as energy prices rise, so do right-wing movements against green policies.” Excerpt:

A . . . backlash is happening all over Europe, as far-right parties position themselves in opposition to green policies. In Germany, a law that would have required homeowners to install heat pumps galvanized the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, giving it a boost. Farmers have rolled tractors into Paris to protest E.U. agricultural rules, and drivers in Italy and Britain have protested attempts to ban gas-guzzling cars from city centers. . . .

Th[e] resurgence of the right could slow down the green transition in Europe, . . . as climate policies increasingly touch citizens’ lives. . . . “This has really expanded the coalition of the far right,” said Erik Voeten, a professor of geopolitics at Georgetown University and the author of the new study on the Netherlands.

The Post’s writer, Shannon Osaka, seems genuinely surprised that the common people of Europe would place any value on maintaining their standard of living:

[C]hanges to driving, home heating and farming are beginning to affect individual Europeans — sparking criticism and anger. “What’s happening as we accelerate the pace of the transition is we’re now starting to get into sectors that inevitably touch on people’s lives,” said Luke Shore, strategy director for Project Tempo, a nonprofit research organization that is assessing how climate policies affect voting patterns in Europe. “We’ve reached the point at which it’s becoming personal — and for that reason, it’s also becoming more political.” The problem, researchers say, occurs when individual consumers feel that the cost of the energy transition is being borne on their shoulders — rather than on governments and corporations.

Who could ever have guessed that this might happen? As an example of crazy “far right” lunacy, the Post cites this line from the manifesto of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands:

“Energy is a basic need, but climate madness has turned it into a very expensive luxury item.”

I mean, how could you get any more extreme “far right” than that?

In a very similar vein, we have a piece from the Guardian on April 30, with the headline, “How climate policies are becoming focus for far-right attacks in Germany.” Again, the gist is that this is just coming from extremists that you don’t need to pay any attention to. Excerpt:

At the marches held in Görlitz, a stronghold of the far right on the Polish border, and other towns across Germany every Monday night, supporters of [the Alternative for Germany and Free Saxony] parties vent their fury at immigration, coronavirus restrictions and military aid to Ukraine. But one group bears the brunt of the blame. “The Greens are our main enemy,” said Jankus, describing the AfD as a party of freedom and the Greens as a party of bans. “We don’t want to tell people how to heat their homes. We don’t want to tell people what kind of engine should be in their car.”

Freedom — there’s a really lunatic “far right” idea. Rather than trying to explain to the readers why there is something wrong with support of “freedom,” the Guardian instead veers off into characterizing these “far right” demonstrators as really, really bad people:

[Green] party speaker Carolin Renner said she and her colleagues had had death threats screamed in their faces, white-pride stickers stuck to their door and a daily barrage of hateful comments posted on their social media channels. Shortly before Christmas, protesters dumped horse manure in front of the Greens’ office in nearby Zittau.

Despite the characterizations, the article contains no actual example of anything described as a “death threat” or a “hateful comment.” We’ll just have to take the word of the Green Party spokesperson.

Well, the European elections are just about a month away at this point. The climate skeptic parties are expected to make some noticeable gains. However, the actual mandatory requirements for most people to ditch the gas-powered car for an electric one, or to buy a heat pump to heat their home, have not yet kicked in. When that happens, perhaps we will see a real political tornado.