Environment & Energy

hatrack

(63,398 posts) Fri Aug 15, 2025, 07:46 AM Aug 15

National Academy Organizes Rapid Response To Trump's "Scientific" Hackfest Downplaying Climate Threat

Veteran climate scientists are organizing a coordinated public comment to a US Department of Energy (DOE) report that cast doubt on the scientific consensus on the climate crisis. The report, published late last month, claimed concerns about planet-warming fossil fuels are overblown, sparking widespread concern from scientists who said it was full of climate misinformation; it was an attempt to support a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to undo the “endangerment finding”, which forms the legal basis of virtually all US climate regulations.

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The response comes as part of a broader wave of experts’ attempts to uphold established climate science as the Trump administration promotes contrarian and unproven viewpoints. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Nasem), the country’s top group of scientific advisers, has launched a “fast-track” review of the latest evidence on how greenhouse gases threaten human health and wellbeing – a move announced following the proposed endangerment-finding rollback.

Nasem, which advises the EPA and other federal agencies, plans to release their findings in September, in time to inform the EPA’s decision on the endangerment finding. The initiative will be self-funded by the organization – a highly unusual practice from the congressionally chartered group, which usually responds to federal bodies’ calls for advice.

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Trump administration efforts to block access to data have also inspired pushback. This month, the president ousted the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after baselessly saying the data it publishes is “rigged”. In earlier weeks, federal officials have also deleted key climate data and reports such as the national climate assessments and the US Global Change Research Program from government websites. The administration has changed 70% more of the information on official environmental websites during its first 100 days than the first Trump administration did, according to a report the research group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative published last week.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/13/climate-science-trump-administration

6 replies

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National Academy Organizes Rapid Response To Trump's "Scientific" Hackfest Downplaying Climate Threat (Original Post) hatrack Aug 15 OP

Just for fun... -misanthroptimist Aug 15 #1

It's the same five fucking people who've been shit on the shoes of science for 40 years . . . hatrack Aug 15 #2

National Academies Launch Fast-Track Review of Latest Evidence for Whether Greenhouse Gas Emissions Endanger Public ... OKIsItJustMe Aug 15 #3

Statement: Federal Leaders Should Respect and Safeguard the Integrity of Data from Government Statistical Agencies OKIsItJustMe Aug 15 #4

Retrospective: Building the Foundation of Climate Science OKIsItJustMe Aug 15 #5

Advancing Climate Assessments: 50 Years of Progress and Impact OKIsItJustMe Aug 15 #6

-misanthroptimist

(1,428 posts)

1. Just for fun...

Reply to hatrack (Original post)

Fri Aug 15, 2025, 08:49 AM

Aug 15

...I am going to see what nonsense and misdirection I can find.

For starters, I immediately recognize four hacks: Christy, Spencer, Curry, and McKitrick. Can't wait to see if they blame the Sun, or a communist conspiracy, or just exaggerate the uncertainties or whether they come up with new novel arguments to tell us we shouldn't believe the readily measurable and observable. (Uncertainties is how you know what you are reading is science. Philosophy is where the certainties live.)

Climate change is real, and it deserves attention. But it is not the greatest threat facing humanity. That distinction belongs to global energy poverty.

Ah, an unsupported assertion that changes the subject -right in the Forward. Not looking promising, DOE.

Elevated concentrations of CO2 directly enhance plant growth, globally contributing to “greening” the planet and increasing agricultural productivity [Section 2.1, Chapter 9]. They also make the oceans less alkaline (lower the pH). That is possibly detrimental to coral reefs, although the recent rebound of the Great Barrier Reef suggests otherwise [Section 2.2]

CO2 *can* enhance plant growth...but that requires the other factors such as water, sunlight, etc. to stay roughly the same. Of course, CC is increasing extreme weather event frequency and intensity. Floods, droughts, and other such weather events can negate any advantage from higher CO2. There is also the issue of the quality of the plants...but there are better people than me to speak to that.

Also note that they use "They also make the oceans less alkaline" rather than the shorter "acidify."

Carbon dioxide also acts as a greenhouse gas, exerting a warming influence on climate and weather [Section 3.1]. Climate change projections require scenarios of future emissions. There is evidence that scenarios widely-used in the impacts literature have overstated observed and likely future emission trends [Section 3.1].

There it is! It's a conspiracy! They have a paper by a guy. The fact that it disagrees with all the other papers and evidence is irrelevant...to them. They provide no evidence of any conspiracy or any "silencing of other opinions." Instead, they rely on the fact that most people don't know that IPCC reports are consensus reports. (Which is why they frequently understate the problems, imo.) So, the alleged suppression is nothing more than their ideas being rejected. The same thing happens in these reports to those hype CC effects.

Sorry, I ran out of patience when I saw Roger Pielke cited. Folks, this is just the same small group of flat-earthers that have been around for 20 years or more -with a couple of new names added.

I'll try and get back to this later. It's fun, but a bit irritating and tiring. I wish they would come up with some new tricks.

hatrack

(63,398 posts)

2. It's the same five fucking people who've been shit on the shoes of science for 40 years . . .

Reply to -misanthroptimist (Reply #1)

Fri Aug 15, 2025, 09:25 AM

Aug 15

Among other remnants, the good news is that Richard Lindzen is 85 and retired more than a decade ago, and Fred Singer is dead.

As for the authors of this particular product:

Spencer believes in the pseudoscience of intelligent design which was criticized by Phil Plait, in Slate as advocating "warmed-over creationism".[34] Spencer's views on the matter were used as an example in an exploration by the Christian Science Monitor as a possible connection between climate change denial and creationism.[35]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(meteorologist)

McKitrick gained his doctorate in economics in 1996[2] from the University of British Columbia, and in the same year was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph, Ontario. In 2001 he received an associate professorship and has been a full professor since December 2008. He has also been a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute since 2002. He is a member of the academic advisory board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_McKitrick

A devout Baptist, Christy believes that "the use of carbon-based energy" is "needed to lengthen and enhance the quality of human life", which is the "moral imperative." He has argued that efforts to limit greenhouse pollution are "trying to control how others live".[10][11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Christy

Curry's position on climate change was much criticized by climate scientists,[17][15] and she became known as a contrarian scientist.[3][22][23] A 2013 Media Matters for America study found that Curry was among the "climate doubters" most frequently quoted by the press as spreading public doubts about climate science. Going against the vast majority view of climate scientists, she had suggested to newspapers that most of the recent global warming was not human-caused, and had hinted that IPCC scientists are motivated by "funding" even though they are not paid for their contributions.[24] She consistently presents her view that climate science has much larger uncertainties than those shown by mainstream studies, though she has not shown any previously unconsidered cause for such uncertainty.[25] A 2019 article in Human Ecology Review described her position as a form of climate denialism, criticizing her downplaying of potential future climate change effects and emphasis on the costs of addressing climate change.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry

Pielke's the only one who even begins to approach scientific respectability.

Although he had stated that carbon dioxide is not the predominant forcing of global warming, Pielke said in 2007 that he was not a "sceptical scientist" about climate change:[2][3]

As I have summarized on the Climate Science weblog, humans activities do significantly alter the heat content of the climate system, although, based on the latest understanding, the radiative effect of CO2 has contributed, at most, only about 28% to the human-caused warming up to the present. The other 72% is still a result of human activities!

Pielke has criticized the IPCC, claiming they are over-simplifying the science involved, not properly communicating uncertainties in models, and being too focused on CO2 while neglecting other climate forcing effects.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke

OKIsItJustMe

(21,641 posts)

3. National Academies Launch Fast-Track Review of Latest Evidence for Whether Greenhouse Gas Emissions Endanger Public ...

Reply to hatrack (Original post)

Fri Aug 15, 2025, 07:54 PM

Aug 15

https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2025/08/national-academies-launch-fast-track-review-of-latest-evidence-for-whether-greenhouse-gas-emissions-endanger-public-health-and-welfare

National Academies Launch Fast-Track Review of Latest Evidence for Whether Greenhouse Gas Emissions Endanger Public Health and Welfare

News Release | August 7, 2025
WASHINGTON — A new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study will review the latest scientific evidence on whether greenhouse gas emissions are reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare in the U.S.

The committee conducting the study will focus on evidence gathered by the scientific community since 2009 — when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first declared greenhouse gas emissions a danger to public health. Any conclusions in the committee’s report will describe supporting evidence, the level of confidence in a conclusion, and areas of disagreement or unknowns.

The EPA recently announced that it intends to rescind its “endangerment finding,” a statement issued by the agency in 2009 that found that greenhouse gas emissions do pose risks to public health and welfare. The National Academies study will be completed and publicly released in September, in time to inform EPA’s decision process.

“It is critical that federal policymaking is informed by the best available scientific evidence,” said Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences. “Decades of climate research and data have yielded expanded understanding of how greenhouse gases affect the climate. We are undertaking this fresh examination of the latest climate science in order to provide the most up-to-date assessment to policymakers and the public.”

…

OKIsItJustMe

(21,641 posts)

4. Statement: Federal Leaders Should Respect and Safeguard the Integrity of Data from Government Statistical Agencies

Reply to hatrack (Original post)

Fri Aug 15, 2025, 07:58 PM

Aug 15

https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2025/08/federal-leaders-should-respect-and-safeguard-the-integrity-of-data-from-government-statistical-agencies

Federal Leaders Should Respect and Safeguard the Integrity of Data from Government Statistical Agencies
Statement | August 8, 2025

Federal statistics are vital to public policy and essential to the nation’s economic well-being. Businesses, investors, and governments at all levels rely on trustworthy data to assess conditions, allocate resources, and make plans. The ability of federal statistical agencies to produce objective and credible information — free from political or other undue influence — is critical to effective decision-making, as well as to public trust in government.

For over 50 years, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on National Statistics has evaluated and guided federal statistical programs and methods across administrations of both parties. Since 1992, it has issued a regularly updated report articulating the core principles and practices that enable statistical agencies to fulfill their mission with integrity and efficacy. Among those principles is that statistical agencies must execute their missions without being subject to pressures to advance any political or personal agenda.

We urge federal leaders to respect and safeguard the integrity and objectivity of our federal statistical agencies and the information they produce, and to uphold the professional standards and statutory protections that allow these agencies to serve the nation effectively, impartially, and in the public interest.

Marcia McNutt
President, National Academy of Sciences

Victor J. Dzau
President, National Academy of Medicine

OKIsItJustMe

(21,641 posts)

5. Retrospective: Building the Foundation of Climate Science

Reply to hatrack (Original post)

Fri Aug 15, 2025, 08:06 PM

Aug 15

https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2025/04/building-the-foundation-of-climate-science

Building the Foundation of Climate Science
Program News | April 14, 2025
As we celebrate Earth Month, we are kicking off a series of retrospectives on National Academies’ reports and activities related to climate science.

The National Academies took on the complex challenge of understanding our changing climate decades ago and continue to build on that foundation today. Our expansive portfolio includes work on modeling and other tools to study climate, how to address emissions and lessen impacts, and the human dimension of climate change. To begin, an essential part of that work was the foundational understanding of if, why, and how the Earth’s climate is changing.

In the 1970s, the idea that human activities associated with burning fossil fuels could introduce enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to change the global climate was still largely theoretical. Observations of CO₂ from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii had been collected for just two decades, providing early evidence that atmospheric greenhouse gases were increasing, but temperature records going back to the 1880s did not yet indicate any definitive trend. The first climate models were being developed by scientists interested in applying relatively new computational capabilities to improve understanding of how the climate system works. These models were cutting edge at the time, but quite primitive compared to today’s models –the models had a simplified representation of the Earth system and had not been widely validated by observations.

The first landmark National Academies climate report, Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment, was published in 1979. Often simply called the “Charney Report,” after the chair Jule Charney, it was authored by a group of scientists who gathered at Woods Hole. Drawing on the initial evidence, they developed the first estimates of how much warming might be expected from a doubling of CO₂ in the atmosphere, a quantity now referred to as the equilibrium climate sensitivity. This report continues to be celebrated as the first assessment of what is known about climate change.

The scientist leading development of one of the climate models featured in the Charney Report, Dr. Suki Manabe, reflected when receiving his Nobel Prize, “I did these experiments out of pure scientific curiosity. I never realized that it would become a problem of such wide-ranging concern for all of human society.”

…

OKIsItJustMe

(21,641 posts)

6. Advancing Climate Assessments: 50 Years of Progress and Impact

Reply to hatrack (Original post)

Fri Aug 15, 2025, 08:10 PM

Aug 15

https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2025/08/advancing-climate-assessments-50-years-of-progress-and-impact

Advancing Climate Assessments: 50 Years of Progress and Impact
Program News | August 4, 2025
By Amanda Purcell

The second in a series of retrospectives on National Academies’ reports and activities related to climate science.

As our understanding of climate change grew over the last 50 years, efforts to communicate what is known and the implications for decision making have emerged and evolved hand-in-hand. Climate assessments—conducted by governments, international bodies, and non-governmental organizations—are critical processes for bringing the scientific community together with those who use their findings to produce trusted decision-relevant information.

The National Academies have played pivotal roles in advancing climate assessments. Many of the reports featured in our first retrospective dating back to the 1970s and 1980s could be considered assessments, in that they brought together leading experts to review the literature and summarize what was known in a manner that could inform policy and other decisions. These early reports helped demonstrate the value of regular updates on the state of the science, especially for a rapidly-evolving field that integrates many kinds of knowledge.

Before long, both the international community and the United States initiated major climate assessment efforts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 and has worked with the international community to produce six assessment reports. Two years later, the U.S. Congress passed the US Global Change Research Act, which calls for a scientific assessment focused on domestic impacts and trends, 25 and 100 years out.

As these assessment processes, along with similar efforts conducted by some states and cities, became more established, the role of the National Academies shifted to providing a detailed technical review of the draft assessment reports and offering advice on how to improve the assessment processes.

…

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