Note that the people doing the prosecution haven’t presented any evidence of “promulgation of assertions that global warming isn’t real in order to gain an unfair competitive advantage in a marketplace” beyond the fact that the people in question are asserting that global warming isn’t real.
Are there in fact any such prosecutions yet? (I don’t think there are, but maybe there are and I missed them.)
Does it matter if they believe it is in fact not real, does it matter if they have evidence?
Yes, because the proposed prosecutions are under laws that require deliberate falsehood. I think there may be some scope for claiming not “they said X and knew it was false” but merely “they said X despite knowing it might well be false, and didn’t know it was false only because they deliberately didn’t check” (i.e., X was bullshit rather than lies). But I’m pretty sure that “I looked carefully at the available evidence and honestly came to the conclusion that X” is, in principle, a valid defence in such cases.
Thus it is clear that (2) is little more than a fairly transparent excuse to do (1).
This must be some new meaning of the word “clear” of which I was not previously aware. Suppose we stipulate that you’re right that in such prosecutions it wouldn’t matter whether the accused sincerely believed that global warming is unreal (or very slight, or beneficial, or whatever); and suppose we stipulate that the people proposing such prosecutions have presented no evidence of misconduct besides asserting that global warming isn’t real. How would that make it clear that #2 is a transparent excuse for #1? In particular, how would you distinguish it from a different conspiracy theory: that actually they couldn’t care less who believes what about global warming, and what they actually want to do is stick it to the fossil fuel companies?
(For the avoidance of doubt, I do not agree that in such prosecutions it wouldn’t matter what the accused believed; I don’t know what evidence the people proposing them have offered, but the time when they actually need to offer such evidence is when actually prosecuting; and I don’t actually think that different conspiracy theory is terribly likely.)
Given that gjm has just demonstrated that (3) is false
Are there in fact any such prosecutions yet? (I don’t think there are, but maybe there are and I missed them.)
Yes, because the proposed prosecutions are under laws that require deliberate falsehood. I think there may be some scope for claiming not “they said X and knew it was false” but merely “they said X despite knowing it might well be false, and didn’t know it was false only because they deliberately didn’t check” (i.e., X was bullshit rather than lies). But I’m pretty sure that “I looked carefully at the available evidence and honestly came to the conclusion that X” is, in principle, a valid defence in such cases.
This must be some new meaning of the word “clear” of which I was not previously aware. Suppose we stipulate that you’re right that in such prosecutions it wouldn’t matter whether the accused sincerely believed that global warming is unreal (or very slight, or beneficial, or whatever); and suppose we stipulate that the people proposing such prosecutions have presented no evidence of misconduct besides asserting that global warming isn’t real. How would that make it clear that #2 is a transparent excuse for #1? In particular, how would you distinguish it from a different conspiracy theory: that actually they couldn’t care less who believes what about global warming, and what they actually want to do is stick it to the fossil fuel companies?
(For the avoidance of doubt, I do not agree that in such prosecutions it wouldn’t matter what the accused believed; I don’t know what evidence the people proposing them have offered, but the time when they actually need to offer such evidence is when actually prosecuting; and I don’t actually think that different conspiracy theory is terribly likely.)
Er, no.