By James Taylor
Sixteen poseurs walk into a singles bar and pretend to be top-notch climate scientists. When their would-be paramours discover their false claims, the would-be paramours get up and leave. This should be the response of policymakers and the public to an unsolicited attempt by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) to become part of The Resistance and scuttle the Trump administration’s review of an Obama administration finding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and welfare.
When the Trump administration announced it proposed to rescind an Obama EPA finding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and welfare, the NAS sprang into action despite no formal request to do so. On September 17, just six weeks after the Trump administration announcement, NAS presented a “study” it claims to have conducted in such a short time. The study, not surprisingly, asserts that Obama was right and Trump is wrong.
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There are many ways in which the NAS study lacks credibility and seriousness. There is no precedent for NAS to, unsolicited, insert itself into a particular public policy determination. There is no precedent for NAS to complete a comprehensive scientific study in just six weeks. There was also no attempt by the NAS bureaucracy to reach out and include participation from people on all sides of the climate change debate.
Most importantly, however, the study’s authors lack scientific integrity and objectivity.
The chair of the 16-person group in charge of the study has no apparent climate science expertise. She is a college administrator and a biologist who mostly writes about obesity and vaccines.
Of the other 15 authors, only three have a background with significant climate science expertise. Each of those three has already staked positions asserting that climate change is an existential crisis.
Most of the non-climate-science appointees have also previously staked positions asserting that climate change is a serious problem.
How do you produce an objective scientific study when you only select authors who have already chosen a particular dog in the fight?
Two of the authors received appointments in the Obama administration. None appears to have received appointments from Republican administrations.
Sound scientific analysis requires scientific expertise and objective scientists. By any objective measure, the NAS panel is severely lacking in climate science knowledge and is incredibly biased.
This is what happens when the NAS bureaucracy views itself as part of The Resistance.
James Taylor ([email protected]) is President of The Heartland Institute.
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