Guest post by David Middleton
EPA chief Scott Pruitt, speaking on CNBC Thursday morning, made one of his strongest statements yet rejecting the science of human-caused climate change.
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” Pruitt said on the program “Squawk Box.”
“But we don’t know that yet,” he continued. “We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”
Pruitt’s statements fly in the face of the international scientific consensus on climate change — which has concluded that it is “extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” They also contradict the very website of the agency that Pruitt heads.
The EPA’s “Climate Change” website states the following:
Recent climate changes, however, cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Research indicates that natural causes do not explain most observed warming, especially warming since the mid-20thcentury. Rather, it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming.
Pruitt spoke with CNBC even as there is growing anticipation that the Trump administration will soon move to begin a rollback of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, an EPA policy capping emissions from electricity generating stations, such as coal-fired power plants.
[…]
“On Climate Change, Pruitt Contradicts EPA’s Own Website”… No schist, Sherlock.
Mr. Pruitt has been on the job for about three weeks. To my knowledge, he is the only Trump appointee in the EPA so far. Why is Chris Mooney shocked that Mr. Pruitt hasn’t had time to revise every bit of nonsense on EPA websites? He’s the EPA Administrator. He has a job to do, running the EPA. Erasing 8 years of propaganda from EPA websites is probably not at the top of his “to do” list. But, thanks to English major and former AGU board member, Chris Mooney, Mr. Pruitt knows which bit of propaganda the IT folks should tackle first.
Why would The Washington Post even think this is a newsworthy item? If I didn’t think The Washington Post was a reputable newspaper, I would call this “fake news.” As usual, any and all, sarcasm was purely intentional.
“rejecting the science” is the key phrase there.
and the only lack of consensus is amongst those mad, stupid or paid for, not among scientists.
Having a slow start to Friday at Barclays Griff?
It is a slow day, waiting for stuff.
I still don’t work for Barclays.
“Griff March 10, 2017 at 8:22 am
I still don’t work for Barclays.”
We all know this, we also know that you post from a corporate IP, which the owner resolves to Barclays, unless you are spoofing. I don’t think you are that smart TBH.
Apart from the first sentence, this is a bald-faced lie:
“Research” indicates that the current understanding of natural causes cannot explain all of the warming. All efforts to model the impact of human activities have failed miserably. So, at this point, all that can honestly be said is this:
David Middleton:
Yes, as you say, it is a “bald-faced lie”, but it is a worse lie than you state.
The lie is an example of using the logical fallacy of ‘argument from ignorance’. This isn’t new. In the Middle Ages experts said, “We don’t know what causes crops to fail: it must be witches: we must eliminate them.” Now, experts say, “We don’t know what causes global climate change: it must be emissions from human activity: we must eliminate them.” Of course, they phrase it differently saying they can’t match historical climate change with known climate mechanisms unless an effect of human activities is included. But evidence for an effect of human activities is no more than the evidence for an effect of witches.
Richard
Ultimately it is argumentum ad ignoratum.
Griff:
You say;
Science? What science?
And
Consensus? What consensus?
It seems that in hope of onlookers not having read all the thread, you trolls keep posting points that are already refuted in the thread. OK. I will answer you by again copying a post I have presented to two other trolls earlier in the thread here and here.
Richard
tony mcleod:
I don’t know what you mean by “truth” so let me provide you with some indisputable facts.
1.
There is no evidence that human activities are having any discernible effect on global climate: no evidence, none, zilch, nada.
2.
In the 1990s Ben Santer pretended to have found some such evidence
(ref. Santer B, et al. “A Search For Human Influences On The Thermal Structure Of The Atmosphere”, Nature Vol.382, 4 July 1996, p.39-46)
3.
but that was soon revealed to be an artifact of Santer’s improper data selection
(ref. Michaels P & Knappenberger P Nature Vol.384, 12 Dec 1996
4.
and the apparent and temporary effect Santer had selected was a result of observed volcanic and ENSO effects
(ref. Weber GR Nature Vol.384, 12 Dec 1996).
5.
Since then, research conducted world-wide at a cost of more than $3 billion per year has searched for evidence of a discernible human influence on global climate.
6.
The decades-long search for evidence of a discernible human influence on global climate has failed to find any.
7.
A finding of a discernible human influence on global climate would be rewarded by at least two Nobel Prizes (Physics and Peace).
8.
If Mr Pruiit were to constrain EPA expenditure on the search for a discernible human influence on global climate then that would reduce the waste of money that is the cost of the search.
Please say if you want any additional pertinent truth.
Richard
I’d like then to see the scientific papers you have which provide the proof that all you say is true.. or even set out the evidence for what you’ve written.
Warming is warming is warming. There is no factual attributable evidence as to the cause in the temperature data. Natural and man made warming does not have distinguishing markers that sensors can detect. We have only correlations which as you know cannot by themselves determine cause and effect. Therefor everything you read regarding anthropogenic warming is more often than not speculation, occasionally conjecture, and very rarely theoretical.
More importantly, it is supposed to be warm as we are in an interstadial period. The null hypothesis must continue to rule if we are to abide by classical research methods.
Griff:
You have again made the mistake of trying to think.
Firstly, science is about evidence so there cannot be a scientific paper about absence of evidence. However, you would prove my Point 1 wrong by citing any one unrefuted piece of evidence that human activities are having any discernible effect on global climate.
Secondly, I gave you the references to the scientific papers that prove my points 2,3 and 4. Do your own homework.
Thirdly, my Point 5 is conservative when it says worldwide annual expenditure climate research has been $3 billion since the mid-1990s. A google will soon demonstrate this to you. As a start, this paper lists US annual expenditure alone at much more than $2 billion
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/how_can_climate_scientists_spend_so_much_money.pdf
My Point 6, 7 and 8 follow from my Points 1 to 5.
I have now explained that I gave you all the information you need to discern that my Points 1 to 8 are each and all irrefutably true. You now need to apologise for suggesting that I did not.
Richard
Griff – Watch out, or I may slip up and strike you – one of my faults – I tend to thrust my fist into the nasal passages of those whom the moderators cannot block!
My final contribution – albeit somewhat violent – to the anti-Grief pro-geology string….
Michael. You seem to assume that the moderators want to block Griff. I am sure they could. Threatening violence is not really adding much to the debate. I have seen that some are banned for doing that.
I think Michael was engaging in geo-punditry
Oh yes, I think I see it. Slip, faults, thrusts. The humor eluded me, but I guess in the spirit of bad puns we must let some things go.
Ahhh, Griffie. The “science” as reflected in those bunk IPCC climate models?
Have you apologised to Doctor Crockford for repeatedly lying about her professional qualifications and asserting that she is a liar in the pay of Big Oil, you mendacious, misogynist little paid Renewables propagandist?
Do you feel no shame whatsoever advocating policies that kill not only the endangered bird, bat and even marine species but tens of thousands of the sick and elderly every winter to inflate the bank accounts of filth like Al Gore and “Sir” Reg Sheffield?
No, I don’t suppose you and your sort do, so long as you can make a few quid out of it…
That brief statement of Pruitt, contains a quiet assurance that the trolls and their paymasters are going down. So geologic puns can be excused. We are lucky, having rock’n roll too, and a lighter heart at last.
Yahoo news attempting science lol, near the end they say when CO2 enters the ocean it heats up the ocean and the water expands, making our beaches smaller. Shame on Pruitt for denying science.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/epa-chief-wrong-not-believe-223003662.html
Exact quote before they delete it … not even bothering on other whoppers in the article … “CO2 is also a contributor to sea level rise because as CO2 enters the ocean, it warms up the water and the water expands, and when it expands it has to go somewhere meaning the ocean will get bigger and our beaches will get smaller.”
And we will get dumber. I’m just amused by the liberal brain, and its ability to be like a child and creatively make up bs stories.
So that’s why my beer gets warm so fast. Gee, maybe Bill Nye should do a video.
It’s just Yahoo. Use this time to be a better, more informed person and find some better sources for information in the information age.
I got a screenshot. The entire article is an amazingly ignorant exercise in serial logical fallacies… but that particular passage is truly moronic.
I have to agree that that is a very bad piece of writing.
I have been wondering how all the science magazines and news folks are going to handle the explanation that they will owe their readers and viewers someday. My guess it will be an Emily Litella moment like this link.
https://youtu.be/OjYoNL4g5Vg
Notice the WaPo’s new banner? “Democracy Dies In Darkness” – well, then where were they the last 8 years if they’re supposedly so concerned about it? Apparently weaponizing the IRS against political dissent isn’t as important as keeping the EPA’s website up-to-date.
8 years ago liberty died, as it always does… “to thunderous applause.”
The new head of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called into question that agency’s legal right to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, a signature effort by the Obama administration.
In a speech Thursday to a room full of energy executives in Houston for CERAweek by IHS Markit, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said there is a “fundamental question” about whether Congress gave the agency the authority to “deal with the Co2 issue.”
“It’s a question that needs to be asked and answered,” Mr. Pruitt said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/epa-head-says-agency-to-take-more-cues-from-states-1489081073
@seaice wrote “Scott Pruitt as leader can presumably have great influence on what EPA focuses on. That is OK. What he should not do is ” revise every bit of nonsense on EPA websites”
Really – so he should SUPPORT nonsense?
MikeG. I am not really arguing here about what Pruitt should do in guiding the work of the EPA in the future. I am arguing about whether he should go about removing stuff that they have already done. Allowing political appointees to remove what they think is nonsense is a very dangerous path to take.
So if he decide that the EPA should no longer be involved in climate change then I might think it foolish and misguided, but not authoritarian. If he removes conclusions from the websites based on previous work that was done before he was appointed just because he does not like the conclusions, then that is authoritarian and dangerous.
Here’s what I posted in response to a comment which happened to use the word “gravity” .
Is this just posted randomly?
Sorry , I didn’t think to mention I posted it among the 5600 comments in the Washington Post article itself ,
Bob, Oh yes, I see the point of it now with that information.
For me the following is the most important points are: So what if climate is changing? Why should the EPA intervene? Was it the purpose of the Clean Air Act to control climate?
In my opinon, Congress needs to amend the Act to clarify that it is not the job of the EPA to control climate, even if it were possible to do so. And Congress needs to limit the power of the EPA to declare a pollutant any substance whatsoever for any reason the administrator deems politically correct.
Mr Pruitt seems to know more than his detractors what the IPCC scientist have actually said:
“For most economic sectors, the impacts of drivers such as changes in population, age structure, income, technology, relative prices, lifestyle, regulation, and governance are projected to be large relative to the impacts of climate change (medium evidence, high agreement).”
Precis: For most economic sectors, the impacts of [other] drivers … are projected to be large relative to the impacts of climate change….
IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CUP, 2014. Page 19.
Frederick:
Could not agree more. Well said.
It is also true that the suggested mitigations, such as a carbon tax, are very small compared to the rest of the economy. So there is no mis-match between the proposed solutions and the problem.
Sounds like the Washington Post made a good case for firing the person at EPA who is charged with maintaining the website.
@David Middleton March 10, 2017 at 3:08 am [Sorry, but the reply string up above was getting out of order – so posted here] You said, in response to my point about CO2 lagging T, but that MM CO2 seems to lead T:
OK. For a duffer like me, how can that be? Is it something to do with the different isotopes of C? If so, this sounds like CO2 has had as bad a press as [white] asbestos.
CO2 is actually a so-called greenhouse gas. It retards radiative cooling. All other things held equal, the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere will raise the ambient temperature a little bit. All of the observation-based evidence indicate that the transient climate response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is only 0.5 to 2.0 C.
The CO2/temperature relationship in the Antarctic ice cores is due to the fact that cold water can hold more CO2 in solution than warm water and changes in the biosphere during glacial/ interglacial stages.
Probably a bit late in the day for a reply but, whatever happened to the 800 year lag? If additional CO2 warms ambient, and if warming causes more CO2, and more CO2 causes warming……? That seems at odds with the arguments I’ve listened to (from the sceptic side). That would indicate a positive feedback – and must imply that there is some negative modifier to prevent runaway warming (sequestration in the oceans?).
The 800-yr lag is beteen delta-T and delta-CO2 in the ice cores. Interglacial warming caused the oceans to release CO2. It takes more time to warm oceans than it doe to warm air.
@ur momisugly David Middleton March 10, 2017 at 3:01 pm I don’t find fault with your specific comments, neither this one referenced nor the one you made above, but let me see if I’m understanding what you’re saying… So CO2 generated by human activities goes directly toward raising the atmospheric CO2 levels, but natural increases of CO2, in particular outgassing from the oceans, exhibits the 80-800 year time-lag with respect to temperature changes talked about in multiple places, but was not only ignored but deliberately eliminated by shifting the timescales in the Al Gore self-adulation “documentary” An Inconvenient Truth. I will accept your explanation as fact, I’m fine with it. What bothers me is the Earth will never warm due to the atmosphere, regardless of what happens in it, because the Earth’s greatest heat sink, and therefore controller of the Earth’s overall temperature, is the oceans. A couple of days ago in this article https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/18/stokes-and-the-somehow-theory-of-ocean-heat/ I think I gleaned the nugget that overall, the average Surface Air Temperature is lower than the Sea Surface Temperature. Thus, as I learned in my very first day of Heat Transfer class, heat can move only from a higher temperature to a lower temperature, never from a lower temperature to a higher temperature, so the atmosphere cannot warm the oceans. So it follows that the temperature of our atmosphere must follow the temperature of the ocean, the ocean will never follow the temperature of the atmosphere. Therefore, it matters not the source of the CO2 or even the level of the CO2, there is no overall global warming as a result. I will admit to making intuitive leaps from time to time, but let me repeat Harry Passfield’s query, could you please explain?
Cyrus,
The lag in the ice cores is due to CO2 lagging behind temperatures. The natural CO2 contributes to warming the same was anthropogenic CO2 does.
Warming eventually causes CO2 to rise, cooling eventually causes it to fall. The lag in most of the ice cores is about 800 years. However, most of the Antarctic ice cores are of very low resolution regarding atmospheric gases. The high resolution DE08 ice core, indicates that CO2 could have fallen in the 1940’s and 1950’s due to cooling, despite rising emissions. This would have been nearly simultaneous.
Without the so-called greenhouse effect, the average surface temperature would be about 30 C cooler than is is. There is little, if any, lag in the CO2-driven warming.
CO2, natural and man-made, is responsible for about 10% of the so-called greenhouse effect. Mankind is responsible for 3-6% of the CO2 sources to the atmosphere.
So, humans are responsible for a indeterminate percentage of the warming that occured over the past 50-150 years. Since all of the observation-based estimates of climate sensitivity indicate that the climate is relatively insensitive to CO2 changes.
No intelligent person denies climate change. The new EPA chief is taking flack for rightfully questioning the climate change alarmists blaming man while they ignore and deny the most powerful naturally occurring climate forcing event… the 100,000 year glacial cycle. How can they call themselves scientists when they ignore over 1 million years of science?
I realize they are unable to do it, but global warming scientists need to put at least SOME effort into deciphering the math that would comprehend the reactions of the 100,000 year glacial cycle that seems to be mitigating the introduction of man caused greenhouse gasses.
Science needs to stop ignoring this the most powerful naturally occurring climate forcing event. Science predicts the effect of the greenhouse gasses on the average earth temperature while ignoring, necessarily, how the complex 100,000 year glacial cycle will react.
There is obviously something that is causing the climate change predictions to fail. Based primarily upon the reaction to CO2 doubling recently from 200ppm to 400ppm, if the average earth temperature were controlled by the greenhouse gas increases, all their predictions would have come true. IT DID NOT HAPPEN!
Instead the average earth temperature remains several degrees COOLER than the highs of the past 400,000 years of glacial cycles, following the pattern of climate change of every glacial cycle as shown by the peer reviewed data from the Dome Fugi ice core samples, in the graph on the U.S. Government’s NOAA web site. (Link below).
About 5 million years ago, scientists agree that the glacial cycle over powered the orbital cycle (which was mathematically predictable) as the most powerful naturally occurring climate forcing event. They also are in agreement that they do not have the ability to quantify the causes of that change, let alone be able to mathematically, scientifically predict its reaction to the man caused introduction of green house gasses.
So why do they wonder why their predictions miss the mark? But as the Dome Fugi highs of the past 400,000 years suggest, and the UN IPCC FINALLY agrees by their statement recently: that it has been proven that the average earth temperature will rise at least another 2 degrees… The average earth temperature continues to follow the past 400,000 years of glacial cycles.
Even at the extremely rapid parabolic rate of increase in temperature over the past 100 years or so, which falls in line with the peer reviewed Dome Fugi analysis (replicated by the Vladivostok ice core analysis)… it will take several hundred years to exceed the past highs. Additionally scientists have pointed out the pattern of extremes of colder lows and warmer highs exhibited in the 400,000 year analysis. Thus it is highly likely that the UN prediction that the temperature will rise at least another 2 degrees is finally a prediction I can believe in.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Interglacial%20Cycles
Heh. I hope Pruitt has a taster if he’s eating lunch in his office.
The actual question asked of the EPA Head was
“Do you believe that it’s been proven that carbon dioxide is THE primary control knob for climate?”
His answer to this question was completely correct. He was not asked about anthropogenic causes; he was not asked whether it was a primary contributor to global warming; and he wasn’t contradicting 99.9 percent of climate scientists. Anyone who understood the question that was actually put to him, would know that all scientists agree with Mr. Pruitt. I could name hundreds of “control knobs” (whatever that is) for climate, and carbon dioxide would be way down the list. Maybe tops on the list would be the sun and how the earth wobbles its way around it.
The New York Times completely misstated and misunderstood the question, followed by a harsh criticism of Mr. Pruitt’s answer. As of this moment 1275 mostly idiotic comments appear on their website bashing the EPA administrator for being some kind of dunce. The real dunce was the NY Times reporter, Coral Davenport who failed to understand both the question and the answer.
This is what Mr. Davenport reported in the NYTimes.
“Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Thursday that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming, a statement at odds with the established scientific consensus on climate change.”
See the difference? It isn’t even subtle. Amazing.
Well, in Davenport’s defense, it probably wasn’t REALLY a failure to understand the question, so much as an effort to deliberately misrepresent it.
If that qualifies as a ‘defense’.
I think they hear what they want to hear.
My apology to Coral Davenport. She’s of the female persuasion.
Dr. Judith Curry has a great write up at Climate Etc on Pruitt’s statement.
The bottom line is she agrees with his comments and notes that the liberal climate alarmists no longer control the debate on this topic. God bless America!
No one can tell how much “climate change” is due to human causes because they have absolutely no clue how much is due to natural variations. Why don’t they try to establish a base line of natural variations first? That was only a rhetorical question. We all know the reason: because if most is caused by natural variations there would be no opportunity to control all human behavior under a tyrannical global government.
There’s also the fact that high resolution climate observations only date back 40 to 150 years, depending on how you define high resolution.
The article’s title is correct. The rock sample illustrated in the image of Sherlock Holmes is banded gneiss, not schist.
No schist.