Scientists Issue Scathing Rebuke Of EPA's 'False Narrative' On Climate Change
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin
Nearly a hundred climate scientists penned a letter to the Department of Energy urging officials to reconsider an alarming new report that veers away from climate change findings. In a comprehensive review released on Tuesday, 85 scientists collectively said that Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin seem to be leaning on confirmation bias to justify their ongoing efforts to dismantle the EPA.
The EPA report, scientists said, “undermines” previous scientific studies on climate change and creates a “false narrative” that “downplays the scale of recent atmospheric changes and the degree to which those changes are attributable to human activities.The report unjustifiably downplays human impact on warming,” the reviewt added.
Speaking to Inside Climate News, Texas A&M Professor Andrew Dessler said that Zeldin and Wright’s report “makes a mockery of science.”
“It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias,” he added.
Of course, a report claiming that climate change and greenhouse gases are actually not a big deal would fit in really well with Zeldin and Wright’s agenda. In recent months, Zeldin has not only slashed the EPA workforce into a fraction of what it used to be, but he also wants the employees left to stop enforcing pollution limits on power plants and, even, to stop collecting data on greenhouse gases altogether. Zeldin also announced that the EPA would no longer consider greenhouse gases a danger to public health.
“The proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,” he said during a press conference, adding that the change would get rid of emission limits on vehicles.
Then again, as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum pushes ahead by expanding coal mines and allowing more oil leases, removing the science that would raise alarms would make sense. While the administration works to dismantle years of effort to reel in pollution that—according to scientific findings—is negatively impacting the environment, they’re also working overtime to stifle science.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
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