Although it is not uncommon for scientists to agree, many authors of the journal think that what the DOE has produced is not science at all. “Trying to get around, get around, undermine decades of government work with the best scientists in the country to generate definitive climate sciences to use in the development of policies – this is what is different here,” said Kim Cobb, professor of land, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown University and director of the Brown Institute for the Environment and Society. COBB co-wrote two sections of the review.
As part of the second administration of President Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it reconsidant to the conclusion of 2009 endangering which allows the agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In its proposal to cancel the conclusion, the EPA cited the DEE climate report as one of the many who led the agency to develop “serious concerns” on the way the United States regulates greenhouse gases.
“It is really important to defend the integrity of [climate science] When it matters most, “said Cobb.” And it can very well be when it counted the most. “”
Roger Pielke Jr., analyst in scientific policy and principal researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, which is quoted in the DEE report, does not believe that the push to cancel the conclusion of endangerment will be summed up in this report. In its opinion, the arguments of the administration are mostly legal and not scientific. “I think that given the composition of the Supreme Court, the conclusion of endangerment could be in danger. But it will not be because of science,” he said.
But while more and more communities are attacking the benefits of hurricanes, forest fires, floods and other natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, COBB fears that the federal government will be turned away from the best tool it has to help people through the United States adapt to a warming planet.
“Science is a tool for prosperity and security,” she said. “And when you turn your back in general – it will not only be the science of climate, it will be many other aspects of science and technology that will be abandoned – which will have serious costs.”
This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.
