Climate scientists are declaring victory after the Trump administration dissolved a working group of five well-known climate contrarians that authored a recent federal report questioning the severity of climate change and even portraying it as probably helpful.
A letter dated September 3 from Energy Sec. Chris Wright confirming the dissolution of the group was despatched to the 5 researchers — John Christy and Roy Spencer, each on the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Steven E. Koonin of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Georgia Tech professor emeritus Judith Curry and Canadian economist Ross McKitrick.
The group’s finish might be traced to a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists alleging the group’s formation violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act in a number of methods, primarily by failing to reveal the group’s formation “until months after it began working,” and by selecting members of a federal authorities working group to intentionally characterize a one-sided argument.
Though the group has been disbanded, DOE won’t withdraw the report it authored, which sparked resistance throughout the climate science group and stirred a coordinated response through the required public-comment interval.
“DOE determined that the draft report and the public comments it solicited achieved the purpose of the CWG, namely to catalyze broader discussion about the certainties and uncertainties of current climate science,” a DOE spokesperson stated. “We will continue to engage in the debate in favor of a more science-based and less ideological conversation around climate science.”
Curry wrote in a personal blog post on September 2 that the group’s actions had been “currently on hold” as a result of lawsuit. Wright notified the researchers of the dissolution a day later.
“Having collided with so many orthodoxies, I’m confident that we’ve excited the much-needed debate in this area and can dissolve the Climate Working Group,” Wright wrote his letter. “It is unsurprising that we are now facing yet another effort to declare the science ‘settled’ and to shut down this debate.”
Wright handpicked the researchers earlier this 12 months to put in writing the controversial report questioning the scientific consensus on the severity and impacts of climate change. A draft of the report was launched in July as proof for the administration’s proposal to repeal a 2009 scientific discovering that human-caused climate change endangers human well being and security.
“The agency considered a variety of sources and information in assessing whether the predictions made, and assumptions used, in the 2009 Endangerment Finding are accurate,” an EPA spokesperson stated in a press release to NCS. “EPA’s proposal is legal in nature.”
The report generated concerted pushback from the scientific group. More than 100 climate scientists – lots of whom coordinated their efforts – submitted over 400 pages in public feedback to the Energy Department final week.
Andrew Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A&M University who helped arrange the general public feedback to push again in opposition to the report, instructed NCS he believes the Energy Department and the previous working group had been ill-equipped to answer the deluge of feedback they acquired.
“My interpretation is they’re waving the white flag,” Dessler stated. “How do five people respond to thousands of comments? They don’t have the arguments or the knowledge in a lot of areas. Any attempt to respond would have revealed how unscientific the report actually was.”
The Trump administration promoted the Energy Department report on the identical time it deleted all earlier congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment stories from authorities web sites and fired the scientists engaged on the subsequent iteration of the report. In an NCS interview last month, Wright stated the Trump administration was additionally updating beforehand revealed National Climate Assessments, which drew alarm from climate scientists.
In his letter, Wright stated the report and the “resulting debate it invited exceeded my expectations.”
“The discourse around this issue will benefit from your work and the public comment process; both create long overdue space for a variety of scientific viewpoints,” Wright wrote.
Curry instructed NCS in an e-mail that whereas the group has been disbanded, it’s “still working independently,” and plans to “issue a revised report and respond to any serious comments.”
Dessler stated the dissolution is a big blow to the years-long need of climate contrarians to have a sham “red-team, blue team” debate on the deserves of climate science, one thing former group member Koonin suggested in an interview with E&E News would occur sooner or later.
Dessler stated he believed the working group’s dissolution means there can be no such debate, nor an official level by level rebuttal from the Trump administration.
“My sense is this is a disaster for them; they honestly believed they had good arguments,” Dessler added.