By Sterling Burnett
The left-wing media’s rumor mill has been rumbling in recent weeks like an upset stomach in need of an antacid at the thought President Donald Trump will soon form a Presidential Commission on Climate Security (PCCS) to objectively examine the science behind the oft-repeated claim humans are causing dangerous climate change.
A PCCS is long overdue, and award winning physicist William Happer, Ph.D., the administration’s senior director of the National Security Council office for emerging technologies, is the perfect person to run it.
Such a committee should have been formed before 1992 when President George Herbert Walker Bush brought the United States into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Bush put the cart before the horse, agreeing to the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) despite the fact no comprehensive assessment of the state of climate science had been undertaken.
The IPCC was not charged with examining the causes and consequences of climate change, but rather it was directed from the start to limit its enquiries into the “human causes” of change.
One can’t understand a problem if one is directed to study only one aspect of it. It’s like the parable of the blind men and the elephant—if all the blind men had only been allowed to touch the trunk.
Since then many scientists advanced their careers and raked in big government research grants by towing the party line that humans were causing dangerous climate change and we needed a government takeover of the economy, something like the Green New Deal, to fix it. Time and again, data has been manipulated or altered, and research questioning whether humans are causing dangerous climate change has been suppressed or ignored, to make the facts conform to the theory.
Happer at the Helm
Before joining Trump’s National Security Council, Happer had a distinguished career in academia and in government service. He was the Cyrus Fogg Brackett professor of physics at Princeton University, served as the director of the Office of Energy Research at the U.S. Department of Energy, is a fellow the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
With Happer at the helm, the PCCS will assemble a group of qualified scientists to examine and debate the causes of current climate change, and its purported impacts on national security, agriculture, sea level, and extreme weather.
Happer has written previously on two critical aspects on climate change science: the need for quality data, and a fair examination of the potential benefits of increased carbon dioxide.
In 2015, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rushed into publication research announcing “the observational evidence related to a ‘hiatus’ in recent global surface warming” did not “support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature.” This claim conflicted with every extant temperature data base, and the findings of many organizations worldwide, including the IPCC, that there had been a lengthy hiatus in global warming.
Along with more than 300 other scientists, Happer objected, noting in an article in Environment & Climate News that in the rush to get their findings published in time to influence the then forthcoming Paris Climate Agreement negotiations, NOAA’s researchers had violated the 2001 Data Quality Act (DQA).
In response, Happer and more than 300 experts signed a letter to the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology criticizing NOAA’s actions and stressing the need for climate research to comply with DQA requirements.
Beneficial Carbon Dioxide
Aside from his strong stand on behalf of scientific transparency, the liberal media has been hyperventilating over Happer’s previous statements on climate change, which he explored in an interview I conducted with him in 2015 for Environment & Climate News:
Doubling the carbon dioxide concentration will probably cause a warming of around 1 degree Celsius. … A warming of 1-2 degrees Celsius will be beneficial in itself by lengthening growing seasons and cutting winter heating bills. … The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “most likely” warming estimate if carbon dioxide is doubled [is] 3 degrees Celsius[, which] is almost certainly much too large.
In addition to the direct beneficial effects of modest warming, there will be a huge benefit to agriculture from more carbon dioxide. By the standards of geological history, … , we have been in a carbon dioxide famine over the past tens of millions of years, with low concentrations of several hundred ppm. More carbon dioxide will increase crop yields, make plants more tolerant to droughts, and will shrink deserts. Yet, we keep hearing about “carbon pollution.” Carbon dioxide is beneficial, not a pollutant.
Thousands of experiments, the actions of greenhouse operators worldwide, and the fact the earth has been greening and crop yields continue to set records year after year, all confirm Happer’s assertions on the agricultural benefits of higher carbon dioxide and a modest warming.
From the perspective of climate alarmists and the print and broadcast media that has adopted their cause, Trump’s big sin in forming the PCCS is to question the claim climate science is settled. And Happer’s big sin is to defend the need for high quality data and to point out a modestly warmer world and increased carbon dioxide will bring benefits as well as costs.
All the panic and hyperbolic gnashing of teeth concerning the PSSC in recent weeks comes down to this: Neither good science nor sound policy can be advanced without an unbiased examination and debate of the facts. This is the cornerstone of scientific discovery. So get to work Dr. Happer, and thank you for your service.
Originally published in The Epoch Times
Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. (hburnett@heartland.org) is a senior fellow on energy and the environment at The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“In 2015, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rushed into publication research announcing “the observational evidence related to a ‘hiatus’ in recent global surface warming” did not “support the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature.” This claim conflicted with every extant temperature data base, and the findings of many organizations worldwide, including the IPCC, that there had been a lengthy hiatus in global warming.
Along with more than 300 other scientists, Happer objected, noting in an article in Environment & Climate News that in the rush to get their findings published in time to influence the then forthcoming Paris Climate Agreement negotiations, NOAA’s researchers had violated the 2001 Data Quality Act (DQA).”
factually wrong.
“his claim conflicted with every extant temperature data base, and the findings of many organizations worldwide, including the IPCC, that there had been a lengthy hiatus in global warming.”
Nope.
Further
https://www.mitre.org/publications/technical-papers/assessment-of-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration
Relevant parts
“On June 26, 2015, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) published a manuscript in Science Magazine, “Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the
Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus,” addressing the perceived decrease in the upward trend
of global surface temperatures. Based on a revised interpretation of the observational data for the
ocean, Karl, et al. (2015) (hereafter referred to as “the Karl Study”) concluded that “the rate of
warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th
century.” The paper was critiqued in a February 2017 blog posting written by former NOAA
employee, Dr. John Bates.
The Department of Commerce (DOC) engaged MITRE as an independent not-for-profit entity to
objectively assess the processes used to develop and publish the Karl Study. MITRE, which
operates federally funded research and development centers, has a 60-year history of leveraging
independent expertise in science and systems engineering to inform government decision
making. MITRE assembled a team of leading scientists from prestigious institutions to
collaborate with MITRE personnel to provide an objective analysis of all available information
relevant to this assessment. The teaming between MITRE and the assembled scientists will be
referred to as “the MITRE Committee.”
This report addresses the following tasks in the MITRE Statement of Work from the DOC:
• Task A: Assess NOAA’s scientific review process for assurance of unbiased decision
making when completing and publishing the Karl Study
• Task B: Assess the merits to Dr. John Bates’ complaints regarding the data and
conclusions made in the Karl Study
To perform Task B, the MITRE Committee examined the questions, criticisms, and concerns
regarding the Karl Study that were raised by Bates in a blog post dated February 4, 2017.
The MITRE Committee was also tasked with examining the adequacy of the following protocols
and whether they were followed adequately in the Karl Study:
• Procedures in place at NOAA to ensure the scientific integrity of work by its staff
• Mechanisms for internal review of manuscripts projected for external release
• Procedures for the classification of papers judged as “policy relevant” requiring either
appropriate disclaimers or stringent NOAA internal peer reviews
• Methods for selecting and applying the data used in the Karl Study
• Procedures to distinguish between the treatment and use of data developed for immediate
scientific release and data destined for inclusion in more-permanent archives
Sections 2 and 3 of this report are devoted to the MITRE Committee’s analysis and findings
regarding Tasks A and B and the additional assessment topics above tasked by the DOC.
Section 4 summarizes the MITRE Committee’s findings. The MITRE Committee was tasked to
provide recommendations, as appropriate, for changes in existing NOAA policies and procedures
to address its findings. Section 5 provides the MITRE Committee’s recommendations.”
“Information Quality Act Applicability
Federal (OMB) directives on information quality, stemming from the 2001 Information Quality
Act (IQA)12
, are the basis of the NOAA Information Quality Guidelines [14] dated October 30,
2014. These NOAA guidelines are complete and comprehensive. The NOAA guidelines repeat
the definitions of terms from the OMB Information Quality Guidelines [15], such as quality,
utility, objectivity, integrity, dissemination, influential, scientific information, scientific
assessment, reproducibility, and transparency.
The NOAA Information Quality Guidelines also reference the OMB Information Quality
Bulletin for Peer Review [16] and identify the need for more stringent peer review of
publications that are in influential categories (i.e., influential scientific information [ISI] and
highly influential scientific assessments [HISA]) as defined in the OMB bulletin. However, the
OMB guidelines make a specific exemption for scientific research published by agency
scientists:
By contrast, an agency does not “initiate” the dissemination of information when
a Federally employed scientist or Federal grantee or contractor publishes and
communicates his or her research findings in the same manner as his or her
academic colleagues, even if the Federal agency retains ownership or other
intellectual property rights because the Federal government paid for the
research. To avoid confusion regarding whether the agency agrees with the
information (and is therefore disseminating it through the employee or grantee),
the researcher should include an appropriate disclaimer in the publication or
speech to the effect that the ‘‘views are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the
view’’ of the agency. [15]
The NOAA Framework for Internal Review and Approval [17] dated April 4, 2013, which was
in effect when the Karl Study was conducted and published, did not reference the OMB Peer
Review Bulletin and did not mention ISI and HISA categories of publications.
However, the internal NOAA review of the Karl Study was conducted under the abovementioned exemption in the OMB Bulletin for Peer Review. Email exchanges among MITRE,
Patricia Geets Hathaway of the NOAA Scientific Integrity Office, and Tom Gleason of the
NOAA Office of General Counsel confirmed that this exemption to the OMB review procedures
is normally applied to internal reviews of papers to be submitted to peer-reviewed scientific
journals.”
‘Under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Guidelines [16] and the
2013 NOAA and Department of Commerce procedure documents for internal
review and approval of fundamental research communications (FRCs) [17],
research submitted for outside peer review may be exempt from the agency
review requirements of the Information Quality Act (IQA) if certain requirements
are met. Because the authors published the Karl Study in Science Magazine, and
not through NOAA, the OMB exemption was applied. However, the MITRE
Committee determined that the 2013 NOAA guidelines were ambiguous and not
clear on when the more stringent agency IQA review requirements should apply.
In 2016, NOAA updated the Framework for Internal Review and Approval to
reference the OMB exemption. While this new language is an improvement over
the 2013 NOAA guidance, it should be written more clearly and presented more
prominently in the guidance (see Finding #2 in Section 4).”
The biggest maistake they made?
‘Because the NOAA officials knew in advance of publication that the paper would
be influential, impactful, and controversial, the authors of the Karl Study should
have included a disclaimer in the paper to indicate that the views expressed in the
paper represented the opinions of the authors and, as indicated with the guideline
suggested in the NOAA Framework for Internal Review and Approval [17], that it
“did not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or the Department of Commerce.”
(see Finding #3 in Section 4).”
Bates blew the whistle however:
” The MITRE Committee believes the authors should have included this disclaimer in the paper,
particularly projecting the publicity that the paper was likely to receive as a function of
challenging the “hiatus” hypothesis. With appropriate foresight, this reaction should have been anticipated by Dr. Karl and Dr. Bates, and indeed was anticipated in Bates’ approval of the paper
(see Section 3.1). As the NOAA Approving Officer, Bates could have requested that the
disclaimer be applied before his approval of the paper, but he did not.”
‘The MITRE Committee learned that the internal review, later criticized by Bates, was conducted
and approved under his own authority. The MITRE Committee found no evidence that Bates
ever mentioned this fact in his blog, email, or anywhere else in his discussion of the matter in
public.”
Well, at first, Mr. Mosher, I wanted to thank you for posting more than your usual drive-by disagreement, but upon reading your response more thoroughly, I must conclude you only provided (apparently) copy and pastes of paragraphs where you only read the headline. The gist of your response seems to be that, MITRE (an entity that makes its living off government contracts, so possibly guilty of conflict-of-interest) found only that Dr Karl got off on a technicality. You published nothing to support Dr. Karl’s abuse of the data.
I may have more critique later, but right now I have an appointment to keep.
Yeah, a cut-n-paste. His drive-by hit and run posts are more informative.
So, they got around the data quality requirements basically because: 1) the paper was going into slam dunk pal review which has been par for the course of this whole climate play and 2) it actually was necessarily the views of NOAA.
Do you also feel that the 8 enquiries investigating the UEA scientists and colleagues such as Michael Man that came out of climategate were NOT whitewashes? Same principle. Actually one review by Wegman the statistician was sidetracked by accusations of plagiarism, not a robust defence of the points made by Wegman. And this is good enough?
He isn’t, due to his track record of payments from fossil fuel (coal) firms.
He is not independent.
https://www.desmogblog.com/william-happer
Griff, that’s weird.
Are you suggesting that solar PV promoters should not sit on the panel because they have been funded since the mid-eighties by Shell and BP? Of course you are.
No one who ever worked is “independent” according to your definition.
Worse, Desmogblog is so biased it is unworthy of citation for anything. The fact that an opinion is tolerated there is partial proof that it should not be believed without checking it against multiple other sources.
You will have to learn that calumniating is not a form of personal assessment. As a source of balanced viewpoints, Desmogblog fails the test of fairness. Similarly RealClimate stumbles repeatedly.
The point of creating this new body is to overcome these biases and to avoid the very sort of back-biting you just repeated. Everlasting sovereignty is achieved by having a pure, kindly and radiant heart.
None of the climate scientists are “independent” by that standard, since all of them depend on government grants to fund their lifestyles.
I was recently looking at a “Phylogenetic Tree of Dominant Hydrocarbon Degrading Microorgansisms” published in the September, 2016 issue of Oceanography. A whole page in very small print divided up into “Gaseous alkanes, n-alkanes, aromatics, PAHs, Crude Oil, etc.
Poor molecules don’t have a chance. A super-exponential increase in types known since biodegradation was discovered long before hydrocarbons were so toxic.
griff, for once, why don’t you tackle the science instead of attacking the man.
Unless of course you want to admit that you can’t refute his science.
All current and future government funding should be dependent upon the accessible release of all data and a script that produces the graphs/tables that are used to publish a paper.
No data, no funding.
You could even offer an amnesty, no more funding unless all of your past papers have their data and scripts released within 3 months from now.
Institutions could be judged and listed within a league table of offenders. Institutions that have data/scripts outstanding, receive no further project funding or block grants.
Simples.
No Data No Funding, so simple so obvious. Bring it on.
In the Netherlands, the government has gone crazy, they want to close all houses from natural gas in 30 years and only generate solar energy on wind panels and wind turbines, this will cost billions, hopefully Trump and Happer can change their minds here.
One day, down the road, there is going to be some pretty interesting reading of emails between all the Alarmists, during and after the announcement of the PCCS with Will Happer at the lead.
Hope I am around to read them!
Good Lord, marxist-loons have been appointed to these commissions for half a century now, but if ONE rational person is nominated, they lose their already lost minds.
Happer won’t have any difficulty slapping down NOAA’s ridiculous assertion that the 1980-2000 temperature trend continued unabated through 2018. It did not.
I expect to see Happer’s professionally crafted rebuttal (hopefully soon) here on WUWT…but I don’t expect the general public to hear much if anything about it.
Then I’d like to see the NOAA fraudsters dismissed for their fraudulent report….but I NEED to see them dismissed or fired for incompetence at least. Government Sponsered Fake Science needs some push back from somewhere…but with (apparently) 95% of scientists feeding at the trough that will continue to be a tough battle…even with Happer working to disseminate the truth.
I’d like to see climate research funding reformed. So that there are 2 bodies. One to fund climate science and another to fund climate modeling; with science getting 90% of climate research funds and modeling 10%, or less.
I think climate alarmism is a consequence of employing so many modelers who put no brakes on speculation and have little real relationship to science. I, further, suspect that journals reward the most innovative modelers by publishing the most “newsworthy” model articles.