On June 25th the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released a draft copy of the suppressed EPA report by EPA employee Alan Carlin critical of the EPA’s position on Carbon Dioxide saying:
The released report is a draft version, prepared under EPA’s unusually short internal review schedule, and thus may contain inaccuracies which were corrected in the final report.
While we hoped that EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its Administrator has been talking transparency since she took office. So we are releasing a draft version of the report ourselves, today,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.
CEI notes that: Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.
I’m pleased to say that we have the final report exclusively available here, courtesy of our verified contact at the EPA, who shall remain anonymous. For some background on this contact, developed with the help of Tom Fuller at the San Francisco Environmental Policy Examiner, please read the WUWT story below. The download link is also below.
Source inside EPA confirms claims of science being ignored, suppressed, by top EPA management
The title page of the final report from Alan Carlin of the EPA reads:
Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act
By Alan Carlin
NCEE/OPEI
Based on TSD Draft of March 9, 2009
March 16, 2009
Alan prepared an update to this document which is on page 3, I’m reproducing it here for our readers:
Important Note on the Origins of These Comments
These comments were prepared during the week of March 9-16, 2009 and are based on the March 9 version of the draft EPA Technical Support document for the endangerment analysis for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act. On March 17, the Director of the National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE) in the EPA Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation communicated his decision not to forward these comments along the chain-of-command that would have resulted in their transmission to the Office of Air and Radiation, the authors of the draft TSD.
These comments (dated March 16) represent the last version prepared prior to the close of the internal EPA comment period as modified on June 27 to correct some of the non-substantive problems that could not be corrected at the time. No substantive change has been made from the version actually submitted on March 16. The following example illustrates the type of changes made on June 27. Prior to March 16 the draft comments were prepared as draft comments by NCEE with Alan Carlin and John Davidson listed as authors. In response to internal NCEE comments this was changed on March 16 to single author comments with assistance acknowledged by John Davidson. There was insufficient time, however, because of deadlines imposed by the Office of Air and Radiation, to make the corresponding change in the use of the word “we” to “I” implicit in the change in listed authorship. This change has been made in this version.
It is very important that readers of these comments understand that these comments were prepared under severe time constraints. The actual time available was approximately 4-5 working days. It was therefore impossible to observe normal scholarly standards or even to carefully proofread the comments. As a result there are undoubtedly numerous unresolved inconsistencies and other problems that would normally have been resolved with more normal deadlines. No effort has been made to resolve any possible substantive issues; only a few of the more evident non-substantive ones have been resolved in this version.
It should be noted, of course, that these comments represent the views of the author and not those of the US Environmental Protection Agency or the NCEE.
Alan Carlin
June 27, 2009
UPDATE: Before downloading, please read the paragraph above from Alan Carlin to get some perspective. Certainly, this document is not perfect. How could it be? The EPA gave an internal comment period of 1 week on the most far reaching “finding” the agency has ever dealt with. This short window was unprecedented. So ask yourself, could you produce a paper like this, covering many disciplines outside of your own, that is “perfect” on 5 working days notice?
The EPA’s procedure here is the culprit.
Download the final report from Alan Carlin here, link: Endangerment comments v7b1 (PDF 4MB)
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Jeff Id
The only thing preventing me from being a denier at this point is I don’t believe anyone knows the truth.
I, too, do not know the truth, but I can discover a lie.
Leif Svalgaard (08:58:56) :
smallz79 (08:24:10) :
Exactly that is the point. “Skeptic” are in search of the Truth
“A philosophical skeptic does not claim that truth is impossible (which would be a truth claim). The label is commonly used to describe other philosophies which appear similar to philosophical skepticism, such as “academic” skepticism, an ancient variant of Platonism that claimed knowledge of truth was impossible.”
So a skeptic believes that one cannot know the truth. In more ordinary usage skepticism is the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain. So there is not much to search for. Perhaps the word ’skeptic’ is not good for characterizing your position. It looks to me more like a label for disbelieving somebody else’s opinion or theory
Point taken, but I was not trying to be philosophical. I was merely pointing out that there is more at work than CO2 and a computer model….
There are continual references to the “San Francisco Examiner.” I can’t find Tom Fuller in the SF Examiner I read here in San Francisco.
What’s with this “denier” word? Has it ever been used about anything except the Holocaust? Do AGW folk think it is even close to semantically appropriate to use?
If “denier” is a proper term, they could answer this in a heartbeat:
http://thereisnoevidence.com/
Nick Palmer
Where did you get the data / evidence that there would be a viloent transition from current CO² climate to a different one?
In order for that to be true you must be certain that CO² affects the climate today and that there would be a sudden transition to 1000ppm in the future.
Without going into details, in order to double the current concentration in the atmosphere will take many years at current rate. To treble it many more and current science suggest that it might contribute 0.30-1.0 °C over 100 years depending on other factors such as PDO, AMO, The sun, etc. Even over a month we see larger anomolies than 0.3°C and the planet continues without major damage.
Has denier ever been used in any context other than Holocaust denial? Do AGW
proponents think this is even close to semantically appropriate?
If it was appropriate, they could easily answer:
http://thereisnoevidence.com/
But they cannot.
Ron de Haan (04:57:33) :
“We were doing pretty well until Government screwed up our financial system”
“We can very well do without the “Change” introduced by a President who falsifies science and bends the rules”
You mean the previous president and government was more true to science (what a joke!) and the financial system was all nice and dandy under Bush and the banks are not the primary culprits for the financial crisis? Are you kidding? Please Ron, go to another blog to vent your reactionary political views.
Don E (10:06:34) :
Thomas Fuller is from San Francisco and posts on examiner.com.
His home page URL is: http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner
His home page lists his recent posts on the topic.
NOTE FOR WUWT MODERATORS
This post is not from Maurice Garoutte, as indicated by the email and website.
gsarah6151@gmail.com
http://www.allaboutfun.info (DON’T VISIT THIS)
This looks like a new ploy with spambots to scan for recent post names, then substitute the name on the next post, with redirection to websites.
Moderators, be on the lookout for this garbage. – Anthony
Leif Svalgaard (07:24:24) :
Leif Svalgaard (00:15:46) :
The issue is that the time for comments internally was a week or less, not nearly enough time for a fully fact checked commentary, and this was apparently the only rebuttal. EPA ran turbo mode on this with no cares. Look at the bigger picture, not the details. – Anthony
If you don’t have time to get the details right, the proper thing is to omit the details.
REPLY: You’re assuming he knew it was wrong. As a solar physics expert, you know immediately what the status is of several datasets that you deal with. 99.99999% of the rest of the world does not.
1) If he believed it was important then from the initial writing on 16th March 2009 he had 3 months to correct it and would surely have worked on it in his own time? Most of the data is from sceptical blogs including this. TSI has been discussed often here. Leif has given references to the corrected TSI plot.
2) quoting from sceptical science blogs must surely weaken any arguement. It’s lucky for instance he did not pick up on the initial headline on WUWT concerning CO2 freezing out of the atmosphere (how many pages did it take before most beleived the obvious?)!!!
e.g.
Source: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ipccchart.jpg; part of article by Marlo Lewis on Planet Gore at http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTYwMjRiZjJhMmUxYWE2MmQ0NDZhOGM0M2Q3ZWUzMmE ; as reproduced on icecap.us on August 14, 2008.
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.html#UAH%20MSU
5. Watts blog
10. From http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.gif
3) and a real blooper is his reference to:
Figure 2-11: Galactic Cosmic Rays & Temperatures: Last 1100 yrs
where he compares comic rays with temperature from multiproxies which have been discredited in the sceptic view
And similarly with:
Figure 2-12: Temperature Reconstruction for the Central Alps over Last Two Millennia, Obtained from O-18 Composition of Speleothem from Spannagel Cave,
Again this data is often called into question if used to support AGW reconstructions.
4) and just so much on TSI and temperature.
If TSI had a significant affect on temperature or on an amplifier affecting temperature then it would show up as a 11year peak when doing FFTs of temperature record:
http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/84/hadcrutnhshlsgiscetssna.jpg
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/1127/ffts.jpg
There is no significant 11 year cycle. There is no significant 22 year cycle Longer cycles cannot be sensibly extracted because of insufficiently long records (22years is not too hot either!)
Several comments here have pointed out flaws in Dr. Carlin’s report as justification for the EPA to not officially consider it in the comment process. I believe that the more flaws in the report the more reason the EPA had to put it on the record.
The central point in the suppressed report was that the EPA should validate the science internally not rely on the IPCC. His most telling point was that the EPA will be in court, and will then have to defend the science as if they owned it.
If the report is indeed so flawed, the EPA could have left it on the record and refuted it point by point as evidence in future lawsuits that the scientific process prevailed. Now the record will show that politicians and policy prevail.
Bring on the court cases. Put the scientists and policy makers under oath and let’s see what they say when contemplating a few years in orange jump suits.
bill (10:55:45) :
1) If he believed it was important then from the initial writing on 16th March 2009 he had 3 months to correct it and would surely have worked on it in his own time? Most of the data is from sceptical blogs including this. TSI has been discussed often here. Leif has given references to the corrected TSI plot.
He is lucky that the EPA censored him; that gives him a grievance and we can all denigrate our big bad government. but suppose the EPA had done their homework and called Carlin on his use of the obsolete Hoyt-Schatten TSI, then they could have discredited him instead of censored him and the report would have have a lot smaller effect, perhaps even none. If you want to fight the good fight get the facts and the details right every time, or else you lose.
To Tom Fuller: I could not verify this comment on your site.
Michael Crichton put the current situation concerning climate alarmists in perspective in a 2003 speech he made at Cal Tech:
“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
The alarmists have managed to reverse the scientific process. Their AGW hypothesis is presented as fact based upon model simulations and their expert opinions. They are enabled by the main stream media and politicians who repress discussion and debate. Scientific consensus is used to obscure the lack of supporting empirical data and experimental research to support of the AGW hypothesis.
We are dealing with scoundrels who stand to make trillions of dollars in the course of replacing sovereign nations with trans-national global socialist governance over which they will preside.
I never believe even one thing I hear when it comes to science. I don’t even believe my own data. I fault the author, not EPA, for including TSI theories that have been revised. It once again demonstrates the risk of succumbing to bias often seen in the notion that the Sun must have something to do with temperature variation because golly gee, it is colder at night than during the day. It is nothing more than seat of the pants and arm chair logic and bypasses good scientific rebuttal. In the old days, anecdotal evidence led to flat earth and firmament ideas. In our day, it leads to the Sun being a highly variable energy source.
It is ALWAYS advisable to disbelieve what you see, read, and believe and instead subject it to the null hypothesis till demonstrated otherwise. The author failed this basic scientific premise, as do AGW’s. How do his hastily made statements make him better than the other side of the EPA debate? They do not. He did not further the cause of natural variability. In fact, he may have harmed it. There are many who do.
Alan Carlin, the primary author of the 98-page EPA report, told CBSNews.com in a telephone interview on Friday that his boss, McGartland, was being pressured himself. “It was his view that he either lost his job or he got me working on something else,” Carlin said. “That was obviously coming from higher levels.”
I hope McGartland has collected his own set of emails.
I suspect he does, and may even be Mr. Anonymous.
Deep Climate (01:09:59) :
Recent research from another team at same university and external coauthors shows that Greenland surface energy mass balance is positive and 63% higher than believed, that means it is accumulating mass, rather than melting
http://tr.im/pDnk
Again, where is the scientific criticism of the “facts and details” in the endangerment finding?
People are far too quick to cast stones at the lone voice in the EPA calling for a balanced asssessment. I call that a “chicken pecking party”.
If those who are so desirous of scientific rigor refuse to condemn the a-scientific endangerment finding, then I believe their own scientific integrity is questionable.
Leif: “suppose the EPA had done their homework and called Carlin on his use of the obsolete Hoyt-Schatten TSI, then they could have discredited him instead of censored him and the report would have have a lot smaller effect, perhaps even none. If you want to fight the good fight get the facts and the details right every time, or else you lose.”
I with you 100% that every attempt should be made to get things right but the story here is that the EPA relegated such little time to considering the matter — and a very important, far-reaching matter, no less — that they didn’t even have enough time for proper rebuttal; dismissed Carlin’s comment out-of-hand; and chose to censor his statements instead. The only impression one gets is that the EPA would have ignored him regardless of merit. IOW: damn the facts~ Full speed ahead!
Mark, Mark, Mark … open your eyes dude! Obama IS A HUGE PART OF THE PROBLEM
Obama has become a central point and driver of this corruption! I don’t care if you like or dislike Obama, the FACT is, he is as corrupt as any of them, and more corrupt than most of them! You are NEVER going to get the necessary reforms with Obama at the helm! In fact, it is only going to get worse, much worse! (ie: Health Care, Amnesty, Stimulus II, etc…)
Get a clue dude, Obama is NOT the answer, Obama is one of the problems!
As a follow-up to that University of Illinois FACE Study:
With 550 ppm CO2, Bean yield was UP 13%, and Corn was UP 26%.
http://soyface.illinois.edu/results/AAAS%202004%20poster%20Leakey.pdf
Oh, and they needed less water, and food quality was unchanged.
I can’t believe this has gone “unremarked-upon.”
DAV (11:55:21) :
The only impression one gets is that the EPA would have ignored him regardless of merit.
Lucky him that they did, better to be censored than to be shown wrong.
It seems obvious that they have decided to ignore the report, for the sake of political goals. I am often left wondering what their real goals are, then.
In Prague President Obama gave a speech about the severe danger to the world of nuclear weapons, the legacy from the Cold War, and talked about stopping nuclear proliferation, and stopping the production of weapons grade material, and proceeding with disarmament. In the next breath he adds, “We must harness the power of nuclear energy on behalf of our efforts to combat climate change”. And in the next breath he talks about North Korea testing a missile, and proceeds to talk about Iran’s nuclear programme.
I like Sci-fi so let me add this: recently they remade The Day The Earth Stood Still, except they substituted the environment for nuclear war. It was a terrible terrible film, I’m glad I never went to see it. But it did remind me, why would they the new plot need to focus on the environment when nuclear weapons are today as much a threat as ever, and are probably the greatest threat we presently face?
There is an elephant in the room, but it is something wearing a costume?
Woe, woe, there Nick.
You are telling me, that at a current rate of Anthropogenic addition of CO2 to the atmosphere, currently at approximately 3-4ppm per century, that because of that “human” contribution, we are heading to a high CO2 environment?
WOW! What is it you are smoking over there?
People, I cannot emphasis this enough, it seems to continuously get lost. We are talking about 3-4ppm of “human” contributions of CO2 per century!!! Meanwhile, “natural” contributions are more than 100ppm per century!
WUWT? … Am I the only being on this planet anymore that recognizes this? This seems to have been completely forgotten about. We see graphs of how CO2 has risen some 100pmm in the past 100yrs., but COMPLETELY forget about the FACT that “human” contribution is at best, 3ppm of that. My god people, have you that short of attention span?
You could completely stop ALL human CO2 production world wide this very second, and you could not even accurately measure the difference in 100 years. YOU SIMPLY COULD NOT EVEN DISTINGUISH THAT HUMANS QUIT PRODUCING CO2!!
Sheeesh…. this CO2 crap is such a farce! … my god, lets beat this stupid CO2 horse into anti-matter. I just cannot comprehend the stupidity in all this.
Patagon,
Did you read the actual abstract? It doesn’t support your conclusion: that Greenland “is accumulating mass, rather than melting”. That’s not how global warming works. Rather, snow accumulates at the centre and the ice pack melts at the edges.
“The surface mass balance trend over the full 1958–2007 period reveals the classic pattern expected in a warming climate, with increased snowfall in the interior and enhanced runoff from the marginal ablation zone. In the period 1990–2007, total runoff increased significantly, 3% per year. The absolute increase in runoff is especially pronounced in the southeast, where several outlet glaciers have recently accelerated.” [Emphasis added]
Nice try, though.
It is time for a Freedom of Information Act request at the EPA to gather even more of the inconvenient information which EPA would rather not have us see. This administration put a premium on transparency, let’s have a look.