Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Washington Post, Climate Skeptic Will Happer will be part of a team President Trump is assembling a White House committee to scrutinise wild climate change claims being presented by government agencies.
White House prepares to scrutinize intelligence agencies’ finding that climate change threatens national security
By Juliet Eilperin and Missy Ryan
The White House is working to assemble a panel to assess whether climate change poses a national security threat, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, a conclusion that federal intelligence agencies have affirmed several times since President Trump took office.
The proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security, which would be established by executive order, is being spearheaded by William Happer, a National Security Council senior director. Happer, an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University, has said that carbon emissions linked to climate change should be viewed as an asset rather than a pollutant.
…
In late November, Trump dismissed a government report finding that global warming is intensifying and poses a major threat the U.S. economy, saying, “I don’t see it.” Last month, his nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, acting administrator Andrew Wheeler, testified that he did not see climate change as one of the world’s pressing challenges.
According to the NSC discussion paper, the order would create a federal advisory committee “to advise the President on scientific understanding of today’s climate, how the climate might change in the future under natural and human influences, and how a changing climate could affect the security of the United States.”
…
Read more (paywalled): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/20/white-house-climate-change-national-security-panel
I saw Will Happer speak when I attended a Heartland conference. My guess is when this new committee becomes official, government employees who have made dodgy climate claims about national security in government reports will have a lot of questions to answer.
Actions have consequences.
This is good news!
PaulH – This is good news!
Yes it is, looks like a winner to me.
No, PaulH, this is terrible news. The news is, as we have known for some time, our Intelligence Agencies have been cooking the climate books for political reasons, as have other Federal Agencies.
Dr. Happer is going to expose that and further erode national confidence in or governmental organs. A sad, but necessary task.
The citizenry should never have much if any confidence in the government organ. Further erosion of confidence can be seen as a good thing if those who’s confidence that is being eroded are those who’s confidence is excessive.
Correct. Any reasonably intelligent person should have completely lost confidence in goobermint orgs long ago.
I have tried to find any reasonably intelligent person to our government many many years.
We have election this spring. I keep on searching…
The problem is that the more people distrust government, the more likely they are to vote for more government.
“All we need to do is get our guys in office and everything will get better!”
But there’s so little time left in Trump’s term. If he’s not reelected, this panel will have barely gotten going before it will be summarily quashed.
Have you seen the nut jobs running for the Democratic ticket? As long as the Democrats continue with their message of resist Trump, raise taxes, resist Trump, put people out of work, resist Trump, close down businesses…, they’re going to lose. As of now, Trump is on his way to a second term.
Unless demographics in the swing states works against him.
Since 2016 those demographics have not been working in his favour, and it requires surprisingly few votes in key marginals to make a significant impact on outcome.
Just saying.
Example: felons can now vote in Florida.
How many net Democrat votes did that just add in a state won by a point?
In all probability, most of them were already voting.
“As of now, Trump is on his way to a second term.”
I think that’s right. Trump is still holding his base together. I saw a poll the other day that said 85 percent of Republicans supported Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the southern border.
Trump still has his base which amounted to about 63 million voters in 2016. So he is holding those numbers together at the present, and in addition his approval ratings have climbed steadily (up to 52 percent approval in the Rasmusen poll), and his ratings with both the Black Community and the Hispanic Community have increase from about 15 percent approval in 2016 to about 40 percent approval now. That has to be worth millions of additional votes.
So Trump is headed in the right direction for reelection. And all this despite the most energetic attacks the Left can make against Trump, constantly calling him a rasicst, homophobe, zenophobe, and every other name in the book. Every day. All day long.
I sure wouldn’t bet money on what happens.
Reagan had a legacy that the Democrats couldn’t undo. It is quite possible that The Donald will have enduring effects even if he is not elected.
Until I figure out how to repair my crystal ball, I won’t bet money on what happens either.
Apply for a grant.
The repair is needed because the science is settled, and we need to prognosticate.
The repair will be expensive, because the repairer is in Hawaii, and will necessitate a fortnight-long stay.
The repair needs to be supervised, and so you will need assistants – spouses and siblings, as well as children and grandchildren often perform these roles.
Regular reports will be written; I believe they still sell postcards in Hawaii.
Hope this helps.
Auto
We will see based on voter fraud…
It’ll be another Electoral College election. California, New York and Illinois will go for the Democrat. It’ll take the rest of the nation to offset their votes (legit or otherwise).
+1 but it will take more than just those three states.
Paul S – We will see based on voter fraud…
Wisconsin turned the corner in 2016 and went for a Republican for the first time since 1984. Why? Voter ID that’s why. Besides a wall on our southern border, voter ID is the other thing that Democrats vehemently oppose. It’s all about power and votes.
You are a little behind the times, the governor of Wisconsin is a Democrat who was elected in 2018. Were not the same Voter ID laws in place during that election?
Phil, Steve was referring to Presidential elections, there were no presidential elections in 2018. Presidential year elections and non-presidential year elections don’t always draw the same people to the polls as the issues tend to be more local for the later elections then for the former.
Yes the Republican voter fraud is being uncovered, the North Carolina 9th district is particularly egregious.
Republican voter fraud! How scary! Rampant Florida voter fraud certainly had to be caused by Republicans I imagine.
And the million illegals nationwide voted Republican too, I imagine….
That’s an improvement, not too long ago he was arguing that voter fraud was just a figment of the imagination.
Now we just have to get him to recognize the Democrats long history of expertise in this area.
Now that the Republicans are implicated, let’s start nationwide voter fraud checks.
Top of the list: Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Austin, NYC, and continue down the list of major cities. And in parallel, all of Los Angeles county and surrounding counties.
Good idea, curly! 🙂
He’ll get a good majority in 2020. Dems should have had a retrospective on what went wrong and sought to right the ship. They chose to double down on their bad policies and to try to overturn the election result. The House will switch back to Republican too. All the the new women dems in the house apparently arent bringing anything new (new to the dems, that is))to the table. America isnt going to go for the extreme left and African Americans and Hispanics are enjoying big growth in employment. Trump is a shoo-in.
It’s far too early to make a reasonable prediction about next year’s election.
Trump is deeply, irrationally unpopular in many areas of the country. The mask is just about completely off the media as far as their being agents for socialist revolution is concerned. That makes the calculation tricky.
Thirty years ago, Dems locking arms with big media to openly push socialism would be a slam dunk for conservatives. After 30 years of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama centrist government (ok 28 yrs), and a significant fraction of the population with no memory of the Cold War failures of socialism or the positive aspects of Reagan policies, we face a situation where potentially over half of the electorate is hostile to conservative limited government, and unpersuadable because they only listen to now-openly-socialist news media.
Socialism has been rehabilitated through historical ignorance. It’s no longer the case that we can say “that’s socialism” and automatically win the day if people believe the assertion. We do have Venezuela as an asset, but I am not sanguine about the prospects of a Trump re-election.
Much depends on how Trump approaches the climate change question, and whether the economy stays strong. We can have hope because so far Trump has been true to the vast majority of his campaign promises, that he’s not going to flip flop on climate change, but that doesn’t mean that he can be persuasive on the topic. The winning formula is probably to hammer home the negative impacts of GND on our strong economy. That depends for success on there being an undeniably strong economy in October 2020. We can’t predict that twenty months out.
“Trump is deeply, irrationally unpopular in many areas of the country.”
That’s correct, but we don’t really know how many people we are talking about here. It might not be enough to hurt his reelection chances.
I heard a pundit on MSNBC say the other day that Trump’s supporters only represented 37 to 40 percent of voters. I don’t know if that number is accurate or not, but what I do know is that the Liberals think they represent everyone else, the other 63 percent.
I think the numbers are probably something like 40 percent for the right and left and 20 percent in the middle.
I love how the Liberals presume to speak for everyone. They say, “Americans want this” and “Americans don’t like that” as if they speak for all Americans.
What they are really saying is, “Socialists want this” and “Socialists don’t like that”. They only speak for the socialists but presume to speak for all. It’s part of the arrogance of being an uppity Liberal.
So the next time you hear Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Shumer haranguing the president for not having “American” values, just substitute the word “Socialist” for “American” and then you will have the proper context.
And another thing about Trump being unpopular on the Left. Just as the Fake News drives the hatred of Trump on the Left, the Fake News also gets the Right angry, too. Angry at the Lying Leftwing News Media and at the Democrat Party, and how they have thrown every obstacle they can think of in Trump’s way, and just as Leftwing anger might spur some extra votes come the 2020 election, anger will also spur some extra votes on the Right.
The areas where Trump is “deeply, irrationally” unpopular were never going to vote Republican anyway.
That’s one thing I’m counting on – it’s not like he has LOST New York and California.
That is why the Leftist want to do away with the EC … so that all of their extra votes can influence other parts of the country. As it stands now, all those extra leftist votes in Cali and NY only impact CA and NY EC votes.
Trump argued on Fox that he thought that a popular vote was a better option.
So what? Unlike Democrats, Republicans don’t deify their presidents.
Phil ….. so, Trump confirms that he can make a mistake just like every leftist on earth!
The EC is the single most ingenious creation of the founding fathers. It is the only mechanism that prevents mob rule (the Democrats call it democracy) and prevents a ruling class (Leftist Elitist Tyrants) from highjacking the country. If the political class ever succeed in replacing the EC, the US will be the next Venezuela within 4 years.
Yes, that’s true. And certain states are never going to vote for any of the clown car participants in the Democrat primary.
Nothing Trump does or doesn’t do is likely to matter in California, Texas, New York, or Utah. But the problem is that Trump has to win all of the traditional swing states like Florida and Ohio, if he does not hold onto the three surprise states that he won in 2016 (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin).
I can’t see him pulling it off without a continued very strong economy and/or a left-leaning independent candidate in the race. Too many unknowns to make a prediction at this point.
“it’s not like he has LOST New York and California.”
Trump ought to remove the wall on California’s southern border and funnel all the illegal aliens coming up through Mexico into California. That way, California can pay for all of their social needs, and their illegal socialist votes (after all, they come from socialist countries and are seeking welfare payments from the U.S. taxpayers) won’t make a difference in the presidential election since they will be voting in California.
I’ll have to send this idea to the White House.
Democrat electoral fraud, eg motor voter registration, ballot harvesting and other corrupt practices borrowed from Mexico’s PRI, is spreading from CA to other states. OR Dems want to lower the voting age to 16, inspired by Nicaraguan Communists.
Ballot harvesting enabled Sinema to “beat” McSally in AZ, just as it overturned the election of a half dozen or more GOP members of Congress in CA.
Gotta win in 2020. TBH it will take another twelve years to clean up the mess.
From here in oz I’m seeing the same signs as I did during the campaign for Trump with one exception, jobs , more people are employed and your economy is going gang busters .
Trump will win a second term I’m just waiting to see the odds before making a bet .
No, actions no longer seem to have any consequences.
Nothing will happen except for more teeth gnashing and snarling by progressives and the so-called press.
I wish government employees were held accountable for their actions – but we are a nation caught up in sensitivity and correctness, oh and investigations to stop anything from working. Thank goodness we went to the moon when NASA was still competent.
Our government is no more capable of understanding the (non-)issues of CO2-driven climate change then an ant is capable of understanding photosynthesis. If a shadow suddenly blocks the blade of grass the ant is using, “quick, stop piling up sand as it is causing global dimming!” The ants then run around in circles screaming…
Except
https://www.google.com/search?q=ants+explore+environment+mark+path&oq=ants+explore+environment+mark+path&aqs=chrome.
Good one Robert of Texas!
Cheers
Mike
Pretty amazing what happens when adults are in charge…
The MSM is having a meltdown over this appointment… not really surprising I guess. They meltdown anytime something happens that is outside or against “The Message”, that they can’t ignore or poo poo.
I don’t really see any independent the never Trumpers can run that will hurt Trump enough to make him lose. No outside source can drive a wedge between the POTUS and his base. Only he can lose it. The never Trumpers have been exposed as being anything but conservative and will never have the power to effect events outside of the beltway they once did and thus are from here forward relegated to the role of the token fake “conservative” on the talking head panels of the leftist media.
The sheer lunacy of the democrats has been on display for all to see. Their candidates compete to see who can say and propose the looniest leftist things or can’t go a day without displaying their bigotry.
The total bias and immorality of the legacy media is undeniable. They remind me of a mindless mob as they rush from one false story to another hell bent on destroying the POTUS, anyone that may support him, or even a kid wearing a MAGA hat. Often based on no more than the blathering of idiots on social media. And the Democrats jump right on in an instant until the allegations are demonstrated to be obviously false and then suddenly they “need more information” before they can make a judgment.
These people are so desperate, so hateful, so intolerant, that their derangement is expressed in one form or another nearly every single day of every news cycle for anyone paying even a little attention to see. I don’t think that even most of the millennials could have missed at least some of it.
I have no crystal ball either but I can’t see a pathway for the legacy media to ever regain the influence they once had on politics and national opinion and THAT is a stake in the heart of the democrats especially when it comes to national elections in the long run. And BTW it will also be a stake in the heart of the Climate Change meme.
The great man President Trump has one thing he needs to do something about before 2020: US healthcare insurance arrangements. That issue apparently was behind the mid term results. He needs to keep his eye on it and get the houses together and do a deal. Maybe immigration reform for healthcare reform. Or something like that. I dunno, I’m an outsider. Just a thought.
“The great man President Trump has one thing he needs to do something about before 2020: US healthcare insurance arrangements.”
Trump has been doing things to improve healthcare and make it less expensive throught several Executive Orders he has issued. One allows groups of people to negotiate insurace costs with any insurance company in the U.S., with injects competition into the mix that will lower prices. Good results are already happening. Prior to Trump’s executive order, people could only negotiate with insurance companies located in their particular state and no other. Since most states only have one or two insurance companies in residence, there is not much if any competition to lower prices.
Trump has also done an executive order requiring transparency of medical prices so that people can compare prices for drugs and medical procedures from around the country. This will have the effect of inserting competition into the market.
Drug commercials will be coming out shortly quoting the prices for their drugs.
If Trump had a cooperative Congress, he could get the whole Healthcare System straightened out. Of course, he has a very uncooperative Congress at the moment. But that could change come the 2020 elections.
Good results are already happening. Prior to Trump’s executive order, people could only negotiate with insurance companies located in their particular state and no other. Since most states only have one or two insurance companies in residence, there is not much if any competition to lower prices.
Not true, competition across statelines was allowed in Obamacare but the states and companies didn’t want to do it. It allows states to create ‘health care choice compacts’ permitting insurers to sell policies to consumers in any state participating in the compact.
Try reading up on the many issues with these so called compacts.
Yet another layer of government bureaucracy is not needed to allow cross state insurance. All that’s needed is to eliminate the laws that prevent it.
Not true, competition across statelines was allowed in Obamacare but the states and companies didn’t want to do it.
I would argue it isn’t that simple. The provision you mention for selling plans across state lines is an empty (i.e., meaningless) provision for at least two reasons:
1) In one of many efficiency failures of the Obama administration with regard to the ACA, HHS never implemented a rules framework that would allow insurers and states to build the partnerships provided for in the provision.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/300711-insurers-arent-interested-in-selling-obamacare-across-state-lines
The above article also touches on the second point below:
2) Rather than a market based approach to selling policies across state lines that would benefit consumers and insurers alike, the provision only provides for a “business as usual under the ACA” approach. The best insurers could hope for (or so it seems to me) is a revenue neutral ROI for the additional work required to sell and maintain said plans. The worst case scenario (and probably the most likely) is a revenue negative ROI on their investment.
This paper specifically argues against the market-based approach to selling across state lines in favor of the ACA approach. The main premise being:
“Policies that would increase segmentation of health care risks, such as sales across state lines outside the regulatory floor the ACA provides, could adversely affect those without access to employer-sponsored insurance and those who have health problems. Sales across state lines would reduce premiums for those who are healthy at a given time while increasing premiums and reducing access to coverage for those with current or past health problems. Insurers would also be reluctant to offer comprehensive insurance policies in the nongroup market. The approach seriously underestimates the value of access to adequate, affordable coverage over time as individuals’ health care needs change.”
https://www.urban.org/research/publication/sales-insurance-across-state-lines-aca-protections-and-substantial-risks-eliminating-them
To translate the above, insurers can’t be allowed offer health insurance plans across state lines that their customers might wish to purchase, thereby giving them a competitive edge and thereby furthering the profit motive. Instead they’re forced to sell plans that at best likely won’t make them any money while doing more work to maintain those plans.
Tom Miller of AEI commented as follows (link above): “It’s like a fake-out, and it’s not even a very convincing fake-out . . . [a]ll that’s saying is, you get to do something different as long as you do the same thing you’re doing before”
I agree that actually implementing compacts is far from simple. The key point is that the rules regarding health care are a state’s responsibility and states are very reluctant to surrender their authority. States have widely differing regulations and that is what causes the problem. I think it’s unlikely that the president would get away with an executive order that overrode the states rights in this area regardless of which party he and the states represent.
States have widely differing regulations and that is what causes the problem.
States do have different regulatory environments, yes, but it cannot be true that these are the sole problem. In fact, these issues could be worked out between states and insurers, if they so desire.
The fundamental issue at hand is that HHS never codified the ACA rules regarding the compacts, so that leaves states and insurers in a potential mess. Even if the two are able to form a compact, they can’t possibly know whether the compact will remain valid over time.
That is why President Trump is correct in allowing individuals to contact insurers on their own. Government regulation of voluntary commerce always leads to shortages and higher prices.
In fact, these issues could be worked out between states and insurers, if they so desire.
As I recall at the time there really wasn’t much interesting them doing so. Clearly it’s possible since we can do so with respect to Medicare.
Fascinating how state laws forbidding the buying of health insurance from an out of state provider becomes:
The insurance companies have no interest in providing out of state insurance.
syscomputing detailed some of the problems with these compacts, yet you just dismiss that as details.
As I recall at the time there really wasn’t much interesting them doing so.
Right, and there really still isn’t. But is it any wonder there wasn’t any interest then or now in working toward compacts without knowing the rules regarding them?
Surely you’ll agree that from a business perspective, insurers and states need to know what the rules are in order to maintain stability and consistency when dealing with customers within the compact contracts? Otherwise, chaos ensues and everyone loses, as we saw with health care premiums skyrocketing after the implementation of the ACA.
Right, and there really still isn’t. But is it any wonder there wasn’t any interest then or now in working toward compacts without knowing the rules regarding them?
It was bit of a chicken and egg situation, normally the feds, the states and the industry would work together but the lack of interest meant that it didn’t get off the ground.
It was bit of a chicken and egg situation, normally the feds, the states and the industry would work together but the lack of interest meant that it didn’t get off the ground.
No, it wasn’t a matter of chickens or eggs. It is the elephant in the room in the form of a lack of governing rules from HHS that prevents the compact provision from being utilized. That’s the first problem and the main hurdle. The next is you can’t make any money from it.
No business, ever, at any time, anywhere, for any reason, would begin to contract with customers in an environment where the business rules were unknown. That would be stupid and irresponsible.
“I don’t really see any independent the never Trumpers can run that will hurt Trump enough to make him lose. No outside source can drive a wedge between the POTUS and his base. Only he can lose it.”
I agree with that.
Trump has produced and he has produced things conservatives like very much. None of his potential Republican opponents would even come close. They can’t hit him on his performance so they will attack him on his supposed lack of morals, or call him a rascist, like the Democrats do. You see how far that got the Democrats. Not far at all.
Now Trump is going out and campaigning against the discrimination and violence going on against Gays around the world. Does this mean Trump is not a homophobe? The poor Democrats are losing another issue to Trump. They’ll probably still call him a homphobe, they’ll just say this effort is a smokescreen to hide how he really feels about Gays. You can’t win with deliberate liars.
I suggested that Angus Taylor, our Minister for Energy, inaugurate a similar Committee, composed of equal numbers of eminent scientists from the sceptic and alarmist sides, to advise him on the current state of ‘climate science’ and what the state of play is on the arguments for and against ‘unnatural’ global warming. No action – probably my letter never got to him and was dismissed by staff as a ‘denier’ letter which should never be seen by the Minister.
Now the POTUS has done what I suggested to Angus. Good on him!
I love the fact that Bill Clinton once called CO2 ‘plant food’, but only once.
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He did not even understand baby food. Geoff
Heresy!
Burn the warlock! And the witch!
But when Happer points out this simple fact, he’s called a “denialist”.
Except that burning them would release more diabolical plant food.
Carbon capture?
Expensive, but under the circumstances, possibly worth considering?
https://reddogreport.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/video-bill-clinton-disagrees-with-al-gore-carbon-dioxide-is-plant-food-not-a-toxin/
Of course, before a different audience, he’d have said something completely different.
Get Freeman Dyson, of ‘grow giant trees’ and ‘when glaciers grow in Tennessee’ fame on the panel too. He’s got liberal credibility.
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Give echinococci the vote too. The fishes all thank you.
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The two journalists reporting on the science issue of atmospheric CO2 and global warming, Ms. Eilperin has a college degree in politics and Ms. Ryan a degree in English and Public Policy, they review for us their assessment of whether or not CO2 emissions are an existential threat to mankind now and in the future. Their article pre-empts that of the review of the convened scientific panel to be led by William Happer.
In a field of such great uncertainty as climate change, whereby costly public policies are to be undertaken on the basis of unvalidated computer models, wouldn’t you think more fleshing out of the issue is necessary instead of head-long following the lemmings in front of you?
I’m not comfortable with the name ‘Climate Security.’ Has a Lefty ring to it.
Of course, Trump could be trolling the Left with the name. He’s real good at that.
I hope when this group defines their objective they also define “climate” and “climate change” and rigorously stick to them as they develop their report. I think there is so much difference in understanding of what climate is and what climate change means that most conversations or discussions leave many misunderstandings and wrong conclusions.
“Climate” has a definition already. Though it’s true that most conversations show people don’t even know what ‘climate’ means.
And, of course, ‘climate change’ has no meaning whatsoever.
Happer’s advancement is a practical step.
The highly-agitated phase of the climate promotion as well as the overall ambition of the Left could be close to exhausting itself and collapsing.
There are historical examples.
The title of my article on the subject is “Ending Action: Financial and Political”
This site picked it up, but put in their own headline:
https://canadafreepress.com/members/1/BobHoye/1151
Great work Bob!
In the words of Monty Burns; Excellent!
William Happer and Stefan Molyneux; old but good:
Will Happer is a brilliant physicist and intelligent climate skeptic. A great choice for the job!
Best news I’ve seen in months!
Great. Better late than never but considering the importance of “climate change” with the populace it’s probably fantastic that it was addressed at all.
I wish they would all just say man made climate change is real….
…and then make China and India stop it
Let’s hope that this is true !!
Trump is very clever. He knows that timing is everything, and that the Dems have made it clear that they will make climate change a major issue this election cycle. His Committee will not only address previous reports, but also supply all Repub candidates with the arguments and facts (and background understanding) about climate issues. The press will have to cover the debates, and our message will no longer be ignored. The energy debate will be incorporated into the climate debate. Nothing but good news here.
Good points.
You can’t reason with people so deranged that they believe or declare that cow farts are an “existential threat”. You can only defeat them.
This committee will be a disaster for the bureaucrats pushing C.A.G.W.
Simply by calling them, before the committee, to explain their claims and forcing them to define their terms,will destroy the narrative.
The Cult of Calamitous Climate was created by the bureaus and this is the proper way to expose policy based evidence manufacturing.
Lots of “experts” are going to be blaming their “scientific advisors” and boasting of their personal scientific ignorance…”Not my fault,the committee agreed”.
A line I’ve been using is:
Nihilism will be imposed until it is widely seen not to work.
Widely seen by the few million survivors of Kant’s omni-destruction known as nihilism. Better to stop it now.
The End is nihilism? 😄
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet 🙂
This will be interesting.
AOC will have her committee which half the Democrats want to kill anyway because she’s eclipsing their stars and they want to get her under control, and Trump will have his committee supposedly investigating government employees but perfectly positioned to rebut any claims coming out of AOC’s committee.
Gotta love Washington politics…
I hope Judith Curry will be appointed to the committee. She has said she would be willing to serve in an advisory role, not in an executive one.
I second this emotion. None better for the big(gest) picture.
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Seeing Will Happer and the committee asking government employees searching questions on outrageous claims about the effects of CO2 and climate on national security which have been put into government reports would be very refreshing to see.