By Paul Roberts / For The Herald
In “Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hanna Arendt (1951) writes: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
The Trump administration’s war on science and data — the full range, including climate, health and economics — is about creating doubt and distorting facts and reality. They view climate science as a religion one can choose to accept or reject. This is not only wrong, it’s dangerous and damaging to the environment and economy.
Announcing the proposed repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 endangerment finding that greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health, Administrator Lee Zeldin said: “We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said: “Climate alarmism has reduced freedom, prosperity and national security.”
The proposal to repeal the endangerment finding is based on a report calling the threat of climate change overblown. According to the New York Times, the report was written by five scientists handpicked by Wright. They all reject the global scientific consensus that burning oil, gas and coal is dangerously heating the planet. Their report lacks peer review, and flies in the face of thousands of peer-reviewed studies gathered over 70 years from around the world.
If these five cherry-picked scientists were pilots, you would not choose to fly with them. If they were doctors you would not want them performing your surgery.
“Their goal was to muddy the waters, to put out a plausible-sounding argument that people can use in the public debate to make it sound like we don’t know whether climate change is bad or not,” said Andrew Dressler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University.
The administration’s views were crafted in Project 2025. It includes a pledge to “end the war on fossil fuels, by nixing policies designed to limit climate change.” The climate section was written by Mandy Gunasekara, a former EPA chief of staff in the first Trump administration. In an NPR interview Gunasekara said that climate data ”suggest a mild and manageable climate change in the future.”
The administration is following the oil and gas industry’s public relations play book. As early as 1968, the industries’ own scientists warned of the damage their products would cause to the environment, yet they chose to cover it up using the same tactics as the tobacco industry, conducting a multi-million dollar propaganda and disinformation campaign to undermine climate science. (See Eco-nomics, Jan. 18, The Herald).
Modern climate science dates back to the 1950s. The overwhelming consensus is the planet is warming as a result of humans burning fossil fuels and releasing GHG emissions. The result is climate change, warming the atmosphere and oceans, harming human health and life on the planet.
Since 1988 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has coordinated extensive peer-reviewed research with 195 member states. Every nation that has an academy of science has reached the same conclusions. In the U.S., the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine concluded: “The evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gas is beyond scientific dispute.”
In 2015 the Paris Agreement was signed by 195 parties, accepting the scientific consensus on climate change and agreeing to reduce GHG emissions.
The war on science is a hammer in the hands of autocrats to smash trust, distort reality, create deception and revise history. Cherry-picking the scientists who then cherry-pick the data is a means to accomplish political objectives, promote fossil fuels and discourage clean energy. The consequences are real harm to the environment and the economy.
Pseudo science will not change planetary physics. A warming climate will increase the frequency, intensity and cost of extreme heat events, wildfires, storms, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
Climate science is not a choice. Economic policies are. Renewable energy is now the cheapest source of new energy. China is aggressively pursuing future dominance in clean energy, investing huge amounts in solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicle technologies. Europe is moving in the same direction.
The U.S. now stands alone, moving backward, promoting oil, gas and coal. We are betting on the wrong horse, investing in buggy-whips. It is not a future we should choose.
Paul Roberts is retired and lives in Everett. His career spans five decades in infrastructure, economics and environmental policy including former Chair of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency Board and advising Washington cities on climate change.
Eco-nomics
“Eco-nomics” is a series of articles exploring issues at the intersection of climate change and economics. Climate change (global warming) is caused by greenhouse gas emissions — carbon dioxide and methane chiefly — generated by human activities, primarily burning fossil fuels and agricultural practices. Global warming poses an existential threat to the planet. Successfully responding to this threat requires urgent actions — clear plans and actionable strategies — to rapidly reduce GHG emissions and adapt to climate-influenced events.
The Eco-nomics series focuses on mitigation and adaptation strategies viewed through the twin perspectives of science and economics. Find links to the series thus far at tinyurl.com/HeraldEco-nomics.
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