The Trump Administration on climate change

[John Williams]

It is not a surprise that the Trump Administration wants to cut climate-related regulations; Lee Zeldin has bragged about it.  One obstacle to this is a 2009 “finding” that human-caused climate change endangers human health, which provides the legal basis for regulations, such as mileage requirements for cars, that they find objectionable.  Without that finding, the regulations would be null and void.  So, as suggested by the authors of Project 2025, the EPA wants to revisit and withdraw that finding, and commissioned a report by five ‘contrarian’ climate scientists to provide the basis for so doing.  That report is now out for comments.

The response from serious climate scientists has been swift and brutal.  85 of them wrote a detailed critique.  It is longer than a normal person would want to read, but they also issued a summary press release.  Here a comment by one of the organizers:

“This report makes a mockery of science. It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias. This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community.” - Dr. Andrew Dessler

 

This post is dedicated to David and Jane, our local climate change warriors.