POTENTIAL TRUMP SCIENCE ADVISER SAYS CLIMATE CHANGE IS GREAT
The rumored frontrunner for the same position for the Trump administration is William Happer, a physicist from Princeton. Happer’s academic science credentials are solid, but he’s earned a reputation as a climate-change skeptic, with good reason. He recently told the Guardian, “There’s a whole area of climate so-called science that is really more like a cult. It’s like Hare Krishna or something like that. They’re glassy-eyed and they chant. It will potentially harm the image of all science.”
The Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Broadly, Happer isn’t a climate denialist per se, rather he’s a climate change enthusiast, firmly believing that further elevated CO2 levels would be beneficial for humanity. He also professes to care deeply about the scientific method. So, in this spirit, I’ll challenge these assumptions with a mind open to his viewpoint.
Happer told ProPublica earlier this month that historical predictions had overestimated the climate change that we observe today: “What’s not only shaky but almost certainly wrong is the predicted warming,” he said. “In 1988, you could look at the predictions of warming that we would have today and we’re way below anything Hansen predicted at that time.”…
Bye, Bye Holdren, Hello Happer!? Trump May Pick Prominent Climate Skeptic As His Science Czar
President-elect Donald Trump met with a Princeton University physicist and skeptic of man-made global warming who observers believe could be the next White House science czar.
Trump met with Dr. Will Happer in New York City Friday. Happer didn’t take any questions entering or leaving Trump Tower last week, so it’s hard to say what the meetings were about. Trump has yet to fill key energy and science roles in his administration.
Happer served as the director of the Office of Energy Research at the Energy Department under former President George H.W. Bush. Trump could ask Happer to head the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy or even sit on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Trump has already taken heat from environmentalists for appointing “climate deniers” to his cabinet, but skeptics of man-made global warming were delighted to hear of the meeting.
Fact check: White House says global warming is making billions sick
…Fed Study: ‘Climate change’ threatens hearts, lungs but also brains
Climate change can be expected to boost the number of annual premature deaths from heat waves in coming decades and to increase mental health problems from extreme weather like hurricanes and floods, a US study suggests.
“I don’t know that we’ve seen something like this before, where we have a force that has such a multitude of effects,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told reporters at the White House about the study.
“There’s not one single source that we can target with climate change, there are multiple paths that we have to address.”…
Judge May Sanction White House Office of Science Over Bogus Climate Video
Judge May Sanction White House Office of Science Over Bogus Climate Video
http://lidblog.com/judge-may-sanction-white-house-office-of-science-over-bogus-climate-video/
Editor’s Note: Last week we published an article which reported that U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) had turn over to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) the documents behind a video the OSTP produced at taxpayer expense. The video included as true claims that the polar vortex was a result of global warming which had already been rejected as false in peer reviewed journals. CEI sent OSTP the journal studies and asked for a retraction. When the OSTP rejected their retraction request, CEI filed a Freedom of Information Act suit to learn how the White House agency came up with their bogus information. Now to follow up that story… apparently the OSTP tried to hide some of the information and the Judge was not pleased. The story below is reproduced from the CEI site. Written by Hans Bader Judges don’t like it when someone makes a claim that turns out not to be true in order to get a lawsuit dismissed, such as by claiming records don’t exist when they do. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) failed to disclose the existence of some records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request until after a federal judge had already ruled in the case. When the judge found out, he issued an Order to Show Cause yesterday asking OSTP to explain why the Court should not impose sanctions on it, or permit discovery against it. CEI had sought drafts of OSTP’s letter denying CEI’s request for correction of inaccurate claims that global warming causes winter cold spells (which violated the Information Quality Act, according to CEI). When OSTP did not produce them, CEI brought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2014 seeking the drafts. OSTP claimed in its first brief in January 2015 that it properly withheld such drafts as privileged, since they had not been shared with people outside the agency, which would waive any privilege. Then, in March 2015, it admitted this claim was inaccurate, conceding in its reply brief that one draft had been shared with a person outside the agency (Rutgers Professor Jennifer Francis). But it claimed that this was the only example of a draft shared with someone outside the agency, and that even this draft …
Judge Orders White House To Stop Hiding Its Bogus Global Warming ‘Proof’
Judge Orders White House To Stop Hiding Its Bogus Global Warming ‘Proof’
http://lidblog.com/judge-orders-white-house-to-stop-hiding-its-bogus-global-warming-proof/
Guest Post Hans Bader On January 8, 2014, the White House posted a controversial video claiming that global warming causes more severe winter cold. Called “The Polar Vortex Explained in 2 Minutes,” it featured the director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), , claiming that a “growing body of evidence” showed that the “extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States” at the time was “a pattern that we can expect to see with increasing frequency as global warming continues.” [Editors Note:Holdren also believes Trees should be given standing to sue in courts] This claim was questioned by many scientists and commentators. (See, e.g., Jason Samenow, Scientists: Don’t make “extreme cold” centerpiece of global warming argument, Washington Post, Feb. 20, 2014 (linking to objection by five well-known climate scientists in the Feb. 14, 2014 issue of Science magazine); Patrick J. Michaels, Hot Air About Cold Air, Jan. 16, 2014 (former state climatologist of Virginia rejected Holdren’s claim)) In April 2014, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sent a request for correction of this statement under the federal Information Quality Act, citing peer-reviewed scientific articles debunking it. In June 2014, OSTP rejected this request, claiming that Holdren’s statement was his “personal opinion,” not the agency’s position, and that it thus did not constitute “information” subject to the Information Quality Act, which excludes “subjective opinions” from its reach. In response, CEI filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents related to the video, its production at taxpayer expense, and OSTP’s rejection of its correction request. Despite having earlier claimed that the video was just Holdren’s personal opinion, not the agency’s, OSTP withheld portions of emails about it as privileged “agency records.” It also refused to produce drafts of its letter rejecting CEI’s request for correction. It withheld two drafts even though they had been shared with an outside professor (and initially even concealed their very existence), and sharing a document with someone outside an agency usually waives any privilege to keep it secret. After OSTP persisted in keeping these records secret, CEI sued it in federal court in October 2014. This is one of many FOIA lawsuits against the Obama administration, which former New York Times editor Jill Abramson said is the most secretive ever. The Huffington Post says that the “White …
Obama’s Science Czar: ‘Man Made’ Climate Change Endangering Shrimp, Lobsters, Crabs
According to Holdren, the “pace and pattern of the changes in climate” that have occurred since the industrial revolution match with “great fidelity” what climate science told us would result from the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.
“Clear beyond reasonable doubt is that the ongoing human-caused changes in climate are already causing harm to life, property, economics and ecosystems including more extremely hot days and longer and stronger heat waves often accompanied by worse smog,” Holdren said.
“Longer allergy seasons, a larger fraction of total precipitation coming in extreme downpours resulting in floods and mudslides, an increase in the power of the strongest tropical storms, shoreline erosion and aggravation, coastal flooding by sea levels rising, longer and more intense droughts in regions prone to drought, a longer wildfire season and larger areas burned in regions prone to that and major impacts on ecosystem dynamics, including the factors governing pest outbreaks and geographic ranges of tropical diseases,” he added.…
Top WH Science Adviser Holdren: ‘Cars, Trucks and Planes’ Must ‘Run on Electricity, Biofuels and Hydrogen’ by 2050
…NOAA: Too Soon To Blame Global Warming For ‘Polar Vortex’
…WH science advisor John Holdren: ‘Less energy can mean more employment.’
Idiotic claim from WH science advisor John Holdren: ‘Finally, less energy can mean more employment.’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/04/the-magical-power-of-the-kilowatt-hour
The Magical Power of the Kilowatt-Hour Guest essay by Tom Scott The typical follower of this blog is likely more knowledgeable in math and the sciences than the average reader, so many of you will find the following quite obvious on an intellectual level, but the facts below may still stimulate a new awareness of […]
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