By David Wojick
You would think the National Academy of Sciences understands science, but you would be wrong. Their President just approved a report the conclusion of which is scientifically impossible!
The report is jointly from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine or NASEM. Titled “Effects of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions on U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare” this squirrelly tome is a formal comment on EPA’s proposed repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. It is also a reply to the Energy Department’s recent report supporting this repeal. In both reports the focus is the adverse effects, if any, of our CO2 emissions.
The NASEM report’s preposterous conclusion is most clearly stated in the last paragraph of its lengthy Summary, to wit: “In summary, the committee concludes that the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is BEYOND SCIENTIFIC DISPUTE.” (Emphasis added)
Beyond scientific dispute? This fundamental claim is wildly false on two levels to the point of absurdity.
First of all it is a basic principle that nothing is ever beyond dispute in science. In fact many of the greatest advances involved challenging then overthrowing widely held beliefs. That is what made them great.
Second a belief cannot be beyond dispute if it is disputed and the alarmist claims made in the NASEM report are not just disputed, they are widely disputed. In some cases such as wildfires and floods there is a huge amount of written dispute.
In other cases the NASEM claims are based on single study speculation which is simply widely dismissed as silly. Here are some amusing examples: “….health impacts of climate change, including on mental health, nutrition, immune health, antimicrobial resistance, kidney disease, and negative pregnancy-related outcomes.”
I leave it to others to dispute the specific claims in this report. Skeptics publish amusing long lists of all the bad things speculated by climate alarmists. This report is just such a list so it will not be hard to dispute these specific claims.
It is worth noting that CFACT filed comments with NASEM when this report was proposed specifically pointing to the widespread debate on this topic. See those comments here.
The deeper issue is that this absurd report certifies that the National Academies can no longer be trusted to advise the Federal Government which was their original mission. The report gives this statement of mission:
“The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by an Act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private, nongovernmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to bring the practices of engineering to advising the nation. The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) was established in1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to advise the nation on medical and health issues. The three Academies work together as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide independent, OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS AND ADVICE to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions.” (Emphasis added)
Clearly NASEM is no longer fit for purpose. Ideally Congress should revoke its charter. At the least the President should issue an executive order instructing the federal agencies not to use NASEM. It has long been standard practice for agencies launching new programs to run them by NASEM for approval. This practice should stop.
Mind you this would not kill NASEM as I think they already get more funding from left wing foundations than from the Federal Government. What it would do is make clear that NASEM has become a left wing NGO that cannot be trusted to objectively analyze policy issues.
Give us more tax money-
Former world leaders call for fossil fuel taxes to fund global climate action
Not exactly groundbreaking stuff when you think about it. That sentence you quote….
In summary, the committee concludes that the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is BEYOND SCIENTIFIC DISPUTE.”
Well, I could summarise that in just four words: The science is settled. You could stretch that to seven by adding: so, shut up. You could make that nine with a well placed expletive. But isn’t that the gist of it?
All of the so called scientific establishments have been run primarily by politicians since their inception.
The reason for this is simple, those who can do, those who can’t seek power to justify their egos.
Two more “government agencies” spewing the same lies, just different names attached.
The National Academy of Sciences beclowns itself again. I dub thee the National Academy of Deniers (NAD). We cheer on your esteemed efforts at pseudoscience: “Go NADs!”
Another organization that clearly needs not one more penny of taxpayer money.
ZERO THEIR BUDGET!
“In fact many of the greatest advances involved challenging then overthrowing widely held beliefs.”
List some.
All government science is rife with incompetence & corruption as Ike warned:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of scientific-technological elite.” Dwight Eisenhower
Perhaps it should be renamed National Academy of Seances?
As an engineer for 30 years and someone who likes to look up facts and references online I had bever heard of The National Academy of Engineering.
Generally, a decision has to be made early in bachelor’s degree engineering education – do I invest in learning for its own sake and get a math/physics PhD, or do I run off and make middle class income running someone else’s software with just a bachelors or masters? For the master’s option, usually the determining factors were “how is the job market on my graduation date” and “how much does a masters add to net career salary minus education cost, and when is the projected breakeven point?”
My point is, I’m surprised that the scientists would allow engineers to have an academy. We dumbly work at converting elegant learning into ugly practical products and ask childish questions like “so what?”.
The list of members of the NASEM review panel is entirely climate change activists with deep involvement in the scam. There are no credentialed engineers, no qualified statisticians, no uninvolved objective meteorologists, physicists, geologists or astrophysicists.
Not one of the panel members could possibly agree with the conclusions of the DOE report without be kicked out of the club, losing their job and/or funding and being accused of selling out to big oil. The entire exercise was nothing more that pitifully transparent joke.
St. Greta of Thunberg: Update
Greta Thunberg and the members of her freedom flotilla have been blasted by Abba on repeat after radios on board the vessels were hijacked.
The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), which believes the incident to be the work of an Israeli attack, were subjected to hours of relentless playing of ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ by the Swedish pop band
https://www.gbnews.com/news/world/greta-thunberg-flotilla-hijacked-radios-blast-abba-gaza
There’s nothing like a bit of Eurovision!
The sign says the NAS was incorporated in 1863. This status provides certain legal protections and benefits, such as limited liability for the owners regarding the company’s debts and obligations.
Who are the owners? Because they have limited liability, the recourse is laughter and sarcasm.
DuckDuckGo’s “Search Assist” offers several journals the publish things such as NAS’s work: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The American Bystander, and The Hard Times. {I am not familiar with this literature.}
All of these professional organizations’ leaderships were taken over by Marxists, while all the professional people they represent were too busy to become involved in the management of the organizations. Might be a good idea for industry to allow service on a professional board to be paid at the salary the individual would make in industry for a short period of time, like a year or two. In the long run, it would benefit everyone to keep these boards in the hands of real productive professionals rather than ideologues.
Philosophically, nothing in science is ever beyond dispute. Practically, a lot of things in science are beyond dispute. Plate tectonic theory, general relativity, evolutionary theory, the germ theory of disease, all of these things are beyond dispute for all practical purposes. The weight of evidence in their favor is simply too great that anything less than a complete overturning of the entire existing body of scientific knowledge about the known universe is going to substantively challenge them.
That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to question those ideas, it means you shouldn’t give a lot of weight to the people insisting that they’ve singlehandedly refuted them.
Finally someone had the balls and the platform to tell the Western world they were naked. I believe this will have a definite impact no matter how hard the Marxists try to minimize it.
Why do “we” (not me) keep calling them left wing, as if they have some nicey nicey beliefs. They’re frauds, parasites, phony witch doctors.
Michael Mann is in this bogus Academy, which says it all ….
Is this the same NAS that inducted Michael E Mann into its academy last year?
I only ask, to gain some sort of perspective on just how out of sync with the principles of science they are.
You can pretty much write off all of the papers issued by any major US association if they discuss a topic that the Left has a vested interest in. Look at the AMA and their total refusal to even allow meaningful trials by physicians of Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin for the treatment of Covid. Also their refusal to address the dangers of sex changing hormone treatments given to children too young to make rational choices is abhorrent I did not hear any Pediatric or Psychiatric .association denouncing this practice either.
Very nice. I see no reason to keep these organizations. Get rid of them. If we determine that there is a need for some form of them we would be better off creating an outfit specifically intended for that need. The take away here is that these guys are distracting us from the main issue. Can added CO2 cause catastrophic global warming? The answer is no they know the answer is no but are unwilling to debate it as long as the idea can be used to gain more power and control. Get rid of them.
“the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is BEYOND SCIENTIFIC DISPUTE”
This is probably one of the most idiotic sentences ever written !
Firstly, there is no “current” harm from any release of CO2. The use of fossil fuels has increased the human life span , probably even doubled it. The whole of modern civilisation exists because of fossil fuels.
Secondly.. the future? A real Nostra-dumbass moment.
This coming from a so called “Science Academy” really make you wonder about the sanity and IQ of those producing such a garbage statement.
Science by consensus? Adding CO2 to air doesn’t make it hotter, delusional committee dreams notwithstanding.
“Second a belief cannot be beyond dispute if it is disputed”
nailed it!
Nothing is beyond scientific dispute. More than a hundred years since Einstein proposed his theory of relativity, scientists are still testing it. More commonly, paradigms reign for several decades, and then improvements are made that pulls the rug out from under what seemed like an idea that was beyond scientific dispute, as plate tectonics replaced the geosynclinal theory.