Comment on EPA's stonewalling the global warming report

June 26, 12:51 PMSF Environmental Policy ExaminerThomas Fuller

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The EPA and its treatment of analyst Alan Carlin is still breaking news on the global warming front. But, after two days of playing intrepid reporter (reminds me of my youth), I will return to what I'm being paid for, which is commentary. So here I begin to commentate. See here and here for previous reports. Update: I also continue the discussion here.

After talking to the various principals involved in the EPA's decision not to review Alan Carlin's report challenging the science of global warming, after reading what other media outlets reported, after seeing comments on this site, Watt's Up With That, RealClimate and other blogs and webzines, I have some strong impressions.

First and foremost is that those seeking to advance an activist solution to climate change, or what Carlin called 'warmists,' exhibit a tone deafness that I didn't think possible in this multi-media interconnected age. Now, this has nothing to do with the science, I realise, but in terms of enacting policy that furthers your position, it's pretty key.

Second, the entrenched position of these 'warmists' as exhibited, for example, at RealClimate, has really left them in a defensive position. They literally cannot react to new facts unless they fall neatly into the categories defined by their previous pronouncements, and it seems to have them at a serious disadvantage right now, as they have not been able to respond in a reasonable manner to new research results.

This is a really unfortunate occurrence, because the science is not settled, no matter how often the 'warmists' claim it is. And although right now it is the skeptics making the case that the science is not settled with the clear implication that this means the 'warmists' are wrong, it worries me almost as much because it also means the 'warmists' might be right.

Alan Carlin wrote a 100 page report in 4 days that captured some of the questions that still need to be answered before we should even consider the drastic actions that his agency may be legally forced to take if CO2 must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. He wrote reasonably and referenced peer-reviewed publications, and his point was just that these questions need to be answered. The response from the 'warmist' community has been unedifying, to say the least, questioning his background, capabilities and motives. All for asking questions.

The skeptics, on the other hand, seem to be divided into two groups, Republicans who see a conspiratorial socialist lurking under every rock and those who are trying to use the scientific method to probe the hypotheses underlying current climate change. It's pretty easy to distinguish between the two groups, and the rational skeptics make many cogent points about the science, the discussion of the science and its influence on policy decisions and mechanisms.

I have to say I respond more warmly to what I see in the rational skeptic community. I like them more, quite frankly. Sadly, this does not mean they are correct. But they know that--what they want is to reopen the discussion. Since the 'warmist' position seems to be that the discussion cannot be reopened at all costs, it leads to an impasse where the 'warmists' tend to look truculent and arrogant, while the skeptics look reasonable and rational. Which could end up very wrongly deciding the politics of this issue instead of the science.