{"id":7573,"date":"2012-11-26T02:00:55","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ietransfer.wpengine.com\/?p=7573"},"modified":"2012-11-26T02:00:55","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T10:00:55","slug":"is-bad-science-a-punishable-offense-if-so-are-exxons-scientists-liable-for-hurricane-sandys-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/articles\/is-bad-science-a-punishable-offense-if-so-are-exxons-scientists-liable-for-hurricane-sandys-damage\/","title":{"rendered":"Is bad science a punishable offense? If so, are Exxon&#8217;s &#8220;scientists&#8221; liable for Hurricane Sandy&#8217;s damage?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-7604\" title=\"Hurricane Sandy Damage\" src=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/files\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>When citizens of the Italian town of L&#8217;Aquila started noticing that the semi-regular tremors along the fault line on which they lived had started becoming a little more regular and a little more intense, many became nervous about the possibility of a cataclysmic event. Seven seismologists from the Italian civil protection agency evaluated the data and declared that a large quake was &#8220;unlikely&#8221;. Just a week later, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2012\/10\/22\/scientists-found-guilty-in-l-aquila-earthquake-trial.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a 6.3 magnitude quake rocked the city<\/a> center, killing over 300 people and destroying L&#8217;Aquila and severely damaging neighboring towns.<\/p>\n<p>Seismologic science is much like any other predictive science. It&#8217;s based on data, but predictions can never be 100% accurate. Regardless, a criminal court in Italy convicted the seven scientists to 6 years in prison and ordered them to pay fines amounting to $10 million each. The charges were multiple counts of manslaughter and abetting grave injury for &#8220;providing an assessment of the risks that was incomplete, inept, unsuitable, and criminally mistaken&#8221;, according to the official sentence.<\/p>\n<p>Put aside, for a moment, whether or not the seismologists could have done their job better in warning the town&#8217;s residents. The key takeaway is that the scientists provided an opinion that met with a stark contrary reality, and were punished, severely, for it.<\/p>\n<p>So when <a href=\"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/2012\/02\/01\/wsj-non-climate-science-propaganda-eviscerated-by-climate-science-facts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">16 scientists signed an Op-Ed in the conservative Wall Street Journal<\/a> saying that we should not worry about climate change, are those scientists liable for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/11\/01\/hurricane-sandy-economic-damage_n_2057850.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$50 billion in damages caused by Hurricane Sandy<\/a>? These scientists were largely funded by the fossil fuel industry (many are not even climate scientists: one&#8217;s a physician, one&#8217;s a retired airplane designer, one&#8217;s a former Republican politician, and one is a retired electrical engineer). Further, the normally conservative International Energy Agency released an estimate that it would take <a href=\"http:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/2009\/11\/13\/every-year-of-delaying-legislation-on-climate-change-adds-500-billion-a-year-says-iea\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$10 trillion in investment in renewable energy<\/a> before 2030 to avert catastrophic climate change, and that every year of delay adds an extra $500 billion to that figure. <a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/2012\/09\/04\/how-is-coal-power-so-cheap-hint-its-because-youre-subsidizing-it\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hidden costs are adding up<\/a>, and further delay only makes the situation worse. With Fox News and the Wall Street Journal slowing action on climate change with propaganda (by <a href=\"http:\/\/cleantechnica.com\/2012\/09\/29\/guess-what-93-of-fox-news-wall-st-journal-reporting-on-global-warming-just-plain-wrong\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">inaccurately reporting climate science 93% and 81% of the time<\/a>, respectively), could those media outlets also be liable both criminally and civilly?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/gallery-142054p1.html?cr=00&amp;pl=edit-00\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SVLuma<\/a> \/ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/?cr=00&amp;pl=edit-00\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When citizens of the Italian town of L&#8217;Aquila started noticing that the semi-regular tremors along the fault line on which they lived had started becoming a little more regular and a little more intense, many became nervous about the possibility of a cataclysmic event. Seven seismologists from the Italian civil protection agency evaluated the data [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":7604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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!important}}\n\";s:2:\"js\";s:0:\"\";s:18:\"current_block_list\";a:2:{i:0;s:14:\"core\/paragraph\";i:1;s:10:\"core\/image\";}s:8:\"uag_flag\";b:0;s:11:\"uag_version\";i:1713657651;s:6:\"gfonts\";a:0:{}s:10:\"gfonts_url\";s:0:\"\";s:12:\"gfonts_files\";a:0:{}s:14:\"uag_faq_layout\";b:0;}"],"rank_math_news_sitemap_robots":["index"],"rank_math_robots":["a:1:{i:0;s:5:\"index\";}"],"rank_math_internal_links_processed":["1"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-7573.css"]},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg",1000,667,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg",768,512,false],"large":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg",1000,667,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg",1000,667,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg",1000,667,false],"adace-sponsor":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg",72,48,false],"adace-sponsor-2x":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Hurricane-Sandy-Damage.jpg",144,96,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Scott Cooney","author_link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/author\/scottcooney\/"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"When citizens of the Italian town of L&#8217;Aquila started noticing that the semi-regular tremors along the fault line on which they lived had started becoming a little more regular and a little more intense, many became nervous about the possibility of a cataclysmic event. Seven seismologists from the Italian civil protection agency evaluated the data&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7573"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=7573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}