Friday, May 11, 2018

Trump and All Moronic Science Deniers Strike Again: Probably Failed Science Classes

Greenhouse Gas effect on the Perito Moreno Glacier
(The Reality - Facts)

What Kellyanne Conway would call Alternative Reality/Facts
(Right Mr. Pruitt, et al)

The Trump administration (mostly science deniers) strike again – now on the question climate change science and the greenhouse gas effect that was used by the Obama administration as the basis for environmental regulations.
This update of the following in the below introduction:
Washington (AFP) - A NASA program that cost $10 million per year to track carbon and methane, key greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, has been cancelled, a NASA spokesman said.

The end of the program -- called the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) — which tracked sources and sinks for carbon and made high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon was first reported by the Journal Science adding in part: “Now, President Trump has quietly killed the CMS in a broad attack on climate science mounted by the White House.” 

The journal concluded that NASA “declined to provide a reason for the cancellation beyond 'budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget,” and it quoted NASA spokesman Steve Cole as saying “… there was no mention of the CMS in a budget deal signed in March, which allowed the administration's move to take effect.

This story continues at the AFP link above.

My 2 Cents: This summary says it best: According to Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts, the CMS cuts jeopardize efforts to verify the emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate deal, and she added: “If we cannot measure emissions reductions, we cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement, and canceling the CMS is a grave mistake.”

This is truly a lousy move and grow mistake by Trump and it underscores the stupidity of those GOP “science deniers” like him and so many others. To deny science is to deny reality and our future in this critical area. Shame on them.

Closing observation:

The Trump administration still has not yet appointed nor filled second-tier EPA assistant administrators to run the different and various policy divisions. Scott Pruitt who now runs the EPA hates the EPA and has for years.
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Related to this subject follows – FYI:

The EPA (history here) will launch public debates between scientists on climate research, known as red-team, blue-team exercises. This is the GOP’s challenge to long-standing scientific consensus on human-caused climate change (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions and from here a very interesting site).
Rightwing (mostly GOP-funded) advocates who have petitioned the EPA to reverse the “greenhouse gases” scientific finding underlying EPA regulations governing those emissions see this debate proposal to scrutinize mainstream climate science as a first step in that direction to in fact overturn “greenhouse gases” policy regulated by Obama that every GOPer on the planet hates and disputes as scientific fact and harsh dislike of “anything Obama.”
BACKGROUND NOTE: In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had authority under the federal Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases from cars if the agency determined they endangered human health.
Environmental groups are confident that Pruitt will not be successful if he tries to undo the endangerment finding because they expect the courts will side with the scientific consensus that human beings cause climate change.
Pruitt and the EPA would need to build up a new case that shows carbon dioxide is innocuous and counter the volumes of scientific research that support the finding.
David Doniger, climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council says point blank: “If EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (one view LA Times) has any grasp of scientific and legal reality, he would realize that it's a fool's errand to reverse the endangerment determination, and this (he hopes) could be a way for him to keep the right-wing fringe groups occupied and also accomplish the goal of further confusing the public debate.”
Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned on this most-critical issue.

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