\n<\/p>\n
Veteran climate scientists are organizing a coordinated public comment to a US Department of Energy (DOE) report which cast doubt on the scientific consensus on the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
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 came as an attempt to support a proposal from the the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to undo the \u201cendangerment finding\u201d, which forms the legal basis of virtually all US climate regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cA public comment from experts can be useful because it injects expert analysis into a decision-making process that might otherwise be dominated by political, economic, or ideological considerations,\u201d said Andrew Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A&M University who is organizing the response to the report. \u201cExperts can identify technical errors, highlight overlooked data, and clarify uncertainties in ways that improve the accuracy and robustness of the final policy or report.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response comes as part of a broader wave of experts\u2019 attempts to uphold established climate science as the Trump administration promotes contrarian and unproven viewpoints.<\/p>\n
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), the country\u2019s top group of scientific advisers, has launched a \u201cfast-track\u201d review of the latest evidence on how greenhouse gases threaten human health and wellbeing \u2013 a move announced following the proposed endangerment finding rollback.<\/p>\n
NASEM, which advises the EPA and other federal agencies, plans to release their findings in September, in time to inform the EPA\u2019s decision on the endangerment finding. The initiative will be self-funded by the organization \u2013 a highly unusual practice from the congressionally chartered group, which usually responds to federal bodies\u2019 calls for advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is critical that federal policymaking is informed by the best available scientific evidence,\u201d said Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, in a statement.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cRIGGED\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In light of these actions, research organizations such as the Public Environmental Data Project and Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative have worked to safeguard and publicize data that the federal government is hiding from the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cAttacks on science are dangerous because they erode one of society\u2019s most effective tools for understanding the world and making decisions in the public interest,\u201d said Dessler. \u201cWhen political or ideological forces undermine scientific institutions or discredit experts, they weaken our ability to harness this powerful tool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked for comment about the NASEM review, an EPA spokesperson repeated a comment offered earlier this month: \u201cCongress never explicitly gave EPA authority to impose greenhouse gas regulations for cars and trucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to set emission standards for cars if the EPA administrator determines that their emissions endanger public health or welfare. That includes greenhouse gas emissions, due to the endangerment finding.<\/p>\n
Asked for comment on the DOE report supporting the EPA\u2019s position, Department of Energy spokesperson Ben Dietderich also repeated an earlier comment. \u201cThis report critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence \u2013 not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous Presidential administrations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The UN and the US have regularly convened top scientists to produce scientific climate reports, which warn that urgent action to curb emissions is needed.<\/p>\n
Dietderich also said officials \u201clook forward to engaging with substantive comments\u201d on the report.<\/p>\n
However, \u201cthe real question is whether they\u2019ll listen to us,\u201d said Dessler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Veteran climate scientists are organizing a coordinated public comment to a US Department of Energy (DOE) report which 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[794,186,9107,4747,320,9108,150,1092,516,9109,81,6615],"class_list":{"0":"post-15556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-climate","10":"tag-credible","11":"tag-doubt","12":"tag-experts","13":"tag-findings","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-push","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-spreads","18":"tag-trump","19":"tag-uphold"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}