Climate and environmental science are among the most wishy-washy of all the sciences. Due to an inability to prove many of its more outrageous claims with physical evidence, it has relied on the qualification of ‘peer review’, consensus, and the wholly unsuitable standard of computer modelling.

‘Peer-reviewed’ is not interchangeable with ‘established fact’ or ‘beyond question’. It used to be an acknowledgement that others in the profession had read a scientist’s work and generally agreed that its reasoning looked sound and its assumptions ostensibly correct. Peer review offers no guarantee that the claims were submitted to rigorous testing or that the workmanship of the author was sound.

It serves to remember that the greatest missteps in scientific history were ‘peer reviewed’ and upheld by a consensus of the powerful[.]