UPDATE: Watch the proceedings live Weds morning US time
Donald Trump nominated the man who is the expert at running lawsuits against the EPA to run it. Naturally this threatens a lot of sacred totems, not to mention a very big trough. Protests are raging. In reply, people are speaking up in support of Pruitt.
Those who think his nomination should be opposed are confused saying that “Mr. Pruitt’s backers tout it as a virtue that he has sued the EPA. … In every instance, Mr. Pruitt has joined forces with polluting industries seeking to avoid clean up responsibilities.”
The EPA is so lost, it doesn’t know what real pollution is anymore. Opposing the EPA is what any good environmentalist would do.
The EPA is so lost, it doesn’t know what real pollution is anymore. Opposing the EPA is what any good environmentalist would do.
The religious mission against plant fertilizer in the hope of holding back the tide by half a millimeter in 2100 is noxious, damaging, dangerous in so many ways. It deprives the poor of cheap energy, good jobs, and warm houses. It hurts the environment because it makes the EPA, the US, so much less effective at solving real environmental problems. The pogrom against carbon (we are carbon life forms) is anti-science, eating away at the core tenets of the scientific method, and teaching a whole generation nonsense. The CO2 fixation is over-riding every other environmental issue because the EPA makes it so. The toxic effect the EPA has on the broader community, the economy, on science and on education makes this more important than any single environmental issue today.
The EPA has run so far off the rails that only someone who has opposed it could possibly fix it. Trump can’t defeat the madness on his own. The nomination hearing is Wednesday morning US time. And Dr Nan Hayworth is collecting messages and names in support. If you want to add your name and thoughts below in comments or email them to me, I will forward them to her. Thank you. And if you think that international names don’t count, remember that science is bigger than any one country, and if Obama can threaten the Brits on Brexit, why can’t Brits help explain what science is (and what pollution is) to Congress.
Here’s one from Professor J. Scott Armstrong:
Dear Dr. Hayworth, January 15, 2017
Following up on your correspondence with Willie Soon, I strongly agree with the policies favored by Scott Pruitt.I have spent over 50 years as a forecaster and, over the past decade, have had the pleasure of working with Willie Soon, who I view as one of the leading climate scientists in the world. Along with Kesten Green, I am a Director of the primary website dealing with forecasting methods, author of Long-Range Forecasting, and of a handbook on forecasting methods, “Principles of Forecasting.”Our studies have produced what we claim to be the only evidence-based forecasts of long-term global mean temperatures: there is no evidence that long-term warming is occurring.I proposed a ten-year bet with Al Gore on this issue in order to increase interest in testing predictive validity. (Ten years is not sufficient time to assess long-term trends and I expected to have only a 2/3 chance of winning, given natural variability). Mr. Gore refused to take the bet, so Kesten Green has been posting what would have happened had he done so on theclimatebet.com. Year nine just ended.We have been unable to find scientific forecasts showing that that warming would be harmful. I testified before Senator Boxer’s committee on this matter with respect to polar bears. My testimony was based on this paper.We have been unable to find any scientific forecast that there are cost-effective ways to affect global temperatures, up or down.
Here is a short summary of the above studies on climate change.
Kesten Green and I have recently founded the Iron Law of Regulation website. This states that “There is no form of market failure, however egregious, which is not eventually made worse by the political interventions intended to fix it.” We started the site with an attempt to get evidence about regulations that have been useful and thus to help design new regulations. No one has been able to produce scientific evidence about regulations that have violated the aforementioned Iron Law (i.e., to have actually improved human welfare, not to mention the preservation of individual liberties).
Kesten Green and I are currently involved with a paper called “Guidelines for Science.” In it, we document that much research currently published in academic journals violates the basic scientific principle of objectivity: We call this “advocacy research.” It allows researchers to announce their hypotheses and then to provide only the research that supports their hypotheses. This is the method used in the research papers that support the “global warming hypothesis.” This is not science and scientists have warned of this non-scientific approach for centuries. We have developed a checklist that can enable clients to evaluate whether a paper complies with scientific principles; it can be completed by intelligent adults, regardless of background, in less than an hour and we find good inter-rater reliability. The latest working paper, version #378, is attached.
I look forward to a favorable outcome for your hearings and would be willing to help in any way that I can.
Best,
Scott
J. Scott Armstrong, Professor
The Wharton School, JMHH 747
U. of Pennsylvania, Phila., PA 19104
Home Phone 610-622-6480
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