PRESS RELEASE
October 17, 2017
Electricity Consumers Fully Support Scientists’ Letter to EPA Calling for Immediate Reopening of its GHG Endangerment Finding
Key Points:
- This Letter from over 60 highly credentialed scientists states that: “We the undersigned are individuals who have technical skills and knowledge relevant to climate science and the GHG Endangerment Finding. We each are convinced that the 2009 GHG Endangerment Finding is fundamentally flawed and that an honest, unbiased reconsideration is in order.”
- The letter states further that: “If such a reconsideration is granted, each of us will assist in a new Endangerment Finding assessment that is carried out in a fashion that is legally consistent with the relevant statute and case law. We see this as a very urgent matter – – – – “
- The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council fully endorses the recommendations of these scientists because recent research has definitively validated that: once certain natural factor (i.e., solar, volcanic and oceanic/ENSO activity) impacts on temperature data are accounted for, there is no “natural factor adjusted” warming remaining to be attributed to rising atmospheric CO2 levels. That is, these natural factor impacts fully explain the trends in all relevant temperature data sets over the last 50 or more years. At this point, there is no statistically valid proof that past increases in atmospheric CO2concentrations have caused what have been officially reported as rising, or even record setting, global average surface temperatures (GAST.)
- Moreover, additional allnew, research findings demonstrate that adjustments by government agencies to the GAST record render that record totally inconsistent with published credible temperature data sets and useless for any policy purpose.
- These new results conclusively invalidate the claims based on GAST data of “record warming” in recent years, and thereby also invalidate the so-called “lines of evidence” on which EPA claimed to base its 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding.
- If the Endangerment Finding is not vacated, whether the current administration likes it or not, it is certain that electric utility, automotive and many other industries will face ongoing EPA CO2regulation.
- This scientifically illiterate regulation will raise U.S. energy prices thereby reducing economic growth and jobs as well as our National Security.
- The Electricity Consumers Council therefore, based on this new scientific evidence, must insist that the EPA grant the “very urgent” request of these scientists“that an honest, unbiased reconsideration is in order.”
Finally, we know that many more scientists would have been pleased to sign this letter if they had only known about it. Scientists may ask to have their name added by simply sending their info to THSResearch@aol.com.
Full Letter with signatories at link below:
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/letter-to-pruitt-signed-final-101617.pdf
October 16, 2017
The Honorable Scott Pruitt
Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460
Dear Administrator Pruitt:
You have pending before you two science-based petitions for reconsideration of the 2009
Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases, one filed by the Concerned Household Electricity
Consumers Council, and one filed jointly by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Science
and Environmental Policy Project.
We the undersigned are individuals who have technical skills and knowledge relevant to climate
science and the GHG Endangerment Finding. We each are convinced that the 2009 GHG
Endangerment Finding is fundamentally flawed and that an honest, unbiased reconsideration is
in order.
If such a reconsideration is granted, each of us will assist in a new Endangerment Finding
assessment that is carried out in a fashion that is legally consistent with the relevant statute and
case law.
We see this as a very urgent matter and therefore, request that you send your response to one of
the signers who is also associated with a petitioner, SEPP.
Thank you,
Kenneth Haapala, President
Science and Environmental Policy Project
P.O. Box 1126
Springfield, VA 22151
Man made climate change is REAL, it just has NOTHING to do with “greenhouse” gasses
Google “Climate Change Deciphered ” for the facts.
I don’t believe SO2 is as much of a control knob as you believe, however it seems reasonable that its reduction has had a far greater warming effect, by an order of magnitude, than CO2 might have.
Bruce Cobb:
You need to study my referenced essay.
Temperature changes since circa 1975 can be precisely (within .02 deg. C, or less) predicted/projected based solely upon the amount of reduction in SO2 aerosol emissions..
It strikes me that many of the signatories on the petition, like many of the commenters here on WUWT, are retired. Is it that being retired allows one more time to be an activist? Or is it that we have less concern about retribution from our employers? Or, does it have something to do with wisdom gained with the years? Or, does it say something about how education has changed through the decades? Or are all of the above factors in the participation of retiree?
I suspect it has more to do with no longer having to worry about protecting your career.
It doesn’t take much wisdom to see through this nonsense.
Those born closer to the theoretical year of total computer dependance are more willing to accept non-reality output from software.
“If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.”
– Pierre Gallois
I suspect all of the above. Furthermore, I would happenstance a guess that most of us are from the ‘hard’ and factual sciences like engineering, or physics and chemistry etc. Or retired farmers/ranchers and self employed business people who have plenty of observation and common sense under their belt. I notice a big difference in comments from a Monday to Friday early morning/day view point than weekends possibly confirming a large retired viewership here on weekdays. Of course, WUWT is now a global presence so I may be out by a day…especially from OZ and NZ in the overnight time slots. But there is certainly a wealth of information and wisdom here and I enjoy reading and commenting here.
In Australia for 10-years+some not one scientist or academic who is an overt AGW sceptic has been hired in any Government or academic position directly or indirectly related to weather or climate or environment.
All departments and institutions and fully controlled by left-leaning heads.
Money is only available for pro AGW research and tenured positions.
Not one study or research program has been funded to critically check any AGW theory or data.
Any scientist that harbours AGW doubts does so in complete secrecy and fear.
Not one right-leaning graduate enters the field as they all know the consequences.
Which will lead to CAGW-theory’s own destruction. Without intellectual vigor, all falsehoods die.
Only those properly anointed by the existing cabal are entitled to call themselves “climate scientists”.
Pat Michaels completely convinced me that step 1 in bringing sanity to the debate is to reopen the CO2 endangerment finding. With that still in place you face a serious impediment to any progress on taking a realistic approach to the so called dangers of climate change.
All of the above comments really point to the necessity of a Red Team.
Key words: VERY URGENT!!
A re-evaluation of the ‘science’ behind the Endangerment Finding is exactly the right thing to do!
I sincerely hope this effort gains traction and ultimately nullifies the ‘Endangerment Finding’ with irrefutable data and analyses.
Oh Happy Days!!!
Reopening the Endangerment Finding is a great idea so long as the EPA is comfortable with flying in the face of the “consensus”. Has the scientific debate reached the point where the scientific community would support a new Finding? I don’t mean a new consensus, but enough respect of the skeptical view that such a contrary finding would be viewed as a credible scientific effort and not just a crank kneejerk attack on the establishment that has characterized so much of Trumpism.
Let me put it another way. Leaving the Paris Accord can be justified on several grounds, without getting into consensus science or without even being critical of it. With the Endangerment Finding, there’s no reversing it without a rejection of the IPCC and its legions of scientific supporters. This may be a fight that the Trump Administration may not want to take on directly.
A more savvy finding in my view, and a more honest one, would be for the EPA to overturn the Finding on the basis of there being not enough scientific evidence to support an endangerment finding. This would eliminate the existing Endangerment Finding and would satisfy the Supreme Court ruling. It could also be the basis of a coherent public policy on the climate issue.
1. The “consensus” you refer to is a myth propped up by only a very flimsy piece of balsa wood of a “study” and soundly refuted dozens of scholarly articles: in http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/12/97-articles-refuting-97-consensus.html .
And here are some more articles — soundly refuting AGW:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
2. Yes! Excellent idea — EPA should revisit the ultra vires, without sound basis in bona fide science, “endangerment” finding immediately.
I think it may be difficult to use the Ultra Vires argument when it was SCOTUS who found that CO2 was carbon pollution. We need to prove that the information used in 2007 was insufficient to find the conclusion definitively in favour of CO2 causing problems to the climate that was dangerous to present and future generations. Perhaps that could be an angle of attack is to question the evidence given in 2007, since we now have 10 more years of data showing no statistical warming, i.e. The Pause. I am with you Janice, but I think it is tied up in legal knots.
The EPA clearly enacted the Endangerment Finding with authority and direction by the court and government to do so after SCOTUS ruled that CO2 and 5 other trace GHG’s were ‘carbon pollution’. (2007 Decision by SCOTUS and 2009 Decision by EPA for Endangerment Finding). That someone now could accuse the EPA of exceeding its authority in making their decision as Ultra Vires, could not stand because the EPA only regurgitated what the Court already ruled about CO2 being ‘carbon pollution’. The one thing that Obama did understand was how to tie something up in a knot that would be very difficult to untie.
While the same baloney we debate here every day with alarmists was used to convince SCOTUS to accept the notion of ‘carbon pollution’, that doesn’t reverse the courts 2007 decision. Skeptics are still the minority view point, at least as far as the majority of the scientific, political and media thinks. The skeptic argument is much more refined now compared to 10 years ago with the assistance of information sites like WUWT which only started this blog in 2006. Evidence is gathering with time that the sensitivity of CO2 as a warming agent is probably less than the benefits that CO2 supplies the planet overall, as in slightly higher more stable temperatures and beneficial for all vegetation and life on Earth. The tides are turning, and I have no doubt that all this will be over turned some day, and future generations will say, what were they thinking? Somedays I hope I live another 30 years, just so as I will know how this all turned out and what the weather/climate/ice did until 2047.
Take good care of yourself, Earthling2. I’m shooting for 99 at the end of the 30-year period.
Ahem, didn’t these scientists get the memo . The science fiction is settled .
The audacity to challenge two non scientists Al (Ice free Arctic ) Gore
and Uncle Billy the comedian mechanical engineer .
Don’t you get the feeling the adults have re-entered the room and they aren’t to inclined to take crap any longer . It’s about time the damage from the worlds largest scam was reversed .
Don’t leave town climate charlatans .
It’s about time someone stood up for the other side of the debate!