The Enemies of the West Have Been Enjoying the Spectacle of Its Suicide March That Began with the Endangerment Finding

The CO2 Coalition has put together another comment on the proposed repeal of the EPA Endangerment Finding. It is authored by Richard Lindzen, Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and William Happer, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Princeton University. It 43 pages of facts explaining exactly why the Endangerment Finding was a exercise in junk science and may be found here.

The introduction, a perfect example of the junk science involved in the original finding, and the fundamental conclusion follow:

The EPA Endangerment Finding is:

“[T]he Administrator finds that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare. Specifically, the Administrator is defining the “air pollution” referred to in CAA section 202(a) to be the mix of six long-lived and directly-emitted greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).”

“The Administrator has considered how elevated concentrations of the well-mixed greenhouse gases and associated climate change affect public health by evaluating the risks associated with changes in air quality, increases in temperatures, changes in extreme weather events, increases in food- and water- borne pathogens, and changes in aeroallergens.” 74 FR 66,497.

At the outset it is important to understand that carbon dioxide has two relevant properties, as a creator of food and oxygen, and as a greenhouse gas (GHG).

As to food and oxygen, carbon dioxide is essential to nearly all life on earth by creating food and oxygen by photosynthesis. Further, it creates more food as its level in the atmosphere increases. For example, doubling carbon dioxide from today’s approximately 420 ppm to 840 ppm would increase the amount of food available to people worldwide by roughly 40%, and doing so would have a negligible effect on temperature.

As to carbon dioxide as a GHG, the Endangerment Finding is premised on the Net Zero Theory that carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions must be reduced to Net Zero and the use of fossil fuels must be eliminated by 2050 to avoid catastrophic global warming and more extreme weather.

A key premise the EPA has asserted is, “The increased concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere and the resulting warming have led to more frequent and more intense heat waves and extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and retreating snow and ice.”

Further, a foundational premise of everything the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does is that the “evidence is clear that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change,” where “main driver means responsible for more than 50% of the change.”

We demonstrate that the scientific underpinnings of the Endangerment Finding and of both the EPA and IPCC premises are fatally flawed science, for two key separate and combined reasons:

First, both fail to consider contradictory science, including

• the physics that demonstrates increasing carbon dioxide and other GHGs can only cause negligible warming and cannot, have not and will not cause catastrophic warming

• as a result, increasing GHGs cannot cause increased extreme weather

• that doubling carbon dioxide from today’s level will have a trivial effect on temperature but increase the world’s food supply by 40%

• that eliminating carbon dioxide and fossil fuels will have disastrous effects for Americans, America, the poor and people worldwide.

Second, both are not based on science, and are based on unscientific evidence.

Thus, there is no scientific basis for the Endangerment Finding that GHGs will endanger the public health and, furthermore, it endangers the public health and welfare itself. Accordingly, it should be repealed ASAP.

Frankly, we also demonstrate the Endangerment Finding is a classic example of what Peter Drucker described as government subordinating science to “value-judgments that are the reverse of, and largely incompatible with, any criteria one could possibly call scientific.”

Further, our opinion is that science requires urgent action to repeal the Endangerment Finding and other government actions based on it because they are policies that will destroy western economies, impoverish the working middle class, condemn billions of the world’s poorest to continued poverty and increased starvation, leave our children despairing over the alleged absence of a future, and will enrich the enemies of the West who are enjoying the spectacle of our suicide march…

The USGCRP and earlier CCSP provided 17 papers the Endangerment Finding relied on (TSD 6) and since 2009 has provided various National Climate Assessments (NCAs).

None of the 17 seemed relevant to rebutting the physics we demonstrated that increasing GHGs cannot cause catastrophic warming and extreme weather earlier in this comment.

However, USGCRP is not a reliable source of scientific knowledge, demonstrated next.

Shockingly, the USGCRP in several assessments fabricated, falsified and omitted contradictory data on heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and sea levels that in science means that none of their assessments should ever be used as scientific knowledge.

For example, the USGCRP’s Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) includes a chart stating, “Record Warm Daily Temperatures Are Occurring More Often.

Prof. Koonin calls out this chart, and we agree, as “shockingly misleading.”

Note the chart does not actually show “daily temperatures.” Instead, it shows a “ratio” of daily record highs to lows—a number designed to create the impression that record-setting high temperatures are getting much more frequent.

Prof. Koonin explained: “I suspect that most readers were shocked by that figure, as I was when I first saw it. Who wouldn’t be? An attention grabbing title (”record warm daily temperatures are occurring more often”) backed up by data with a hockey-stick shape veering sharply upward in recent years (and, in the original, years with more ‘highs’ portrayed in alarming scarlet). It sure looks like temperatures are going through the roof.

He looked deeper and found daily temperature data buried on page 190 that totally contradicted the chart:

The spiked lines are yearly values. The dark line is the daily average temperatures over the last 120 years. This chart shows that:

• The hottest temperatures occurred during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

• Today the average warm temperature is about the same as it was in 1900.

• Warm temperatures are not occurring more often.

• He asked, as we do:

“How could a report that proclaims itself ‘designed to be an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change’ so mischaracterize the data? After all, the [USGCRP] CSSR was subject to multiple reviews, including one by an expert panel convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM).”

Thus, the USGCRP report’s ratio chart “Record Warm Daily Temperatures Are Occurring More Often” is what is called a “fabrication” in science. Frankly, it is appalling that the thirteen federal agencies that make up the USGCRP and that the National Academy of Sciences that convened the review would publish such a false and fabricated climate assessment…

[T]here is no scientific basis for the Endangerment Finding that GHGs will endanger the public health and welfare. Furthermore, it endangers the public health and welfare itself.

Accordingly, it should be repealed ASAP.

Finally, we repeat urgent action to repeal the Endangerment Finding and other government actions based on is required because they are policies that will destroy western economies, impoverish the working middle class, condemn billions of the world’s poorest to continued poverty and increased starvation, leave our children despairing over the alleged absence of a future, and will enrich the enemies of the West who are enjoying the spectacle of our suicide march.

#EPA #CO2Coalition #Happer #Lindzen #Comment #EndangermentFinding