EPA: March 1,
2012

EPA has lost its
way on warming

EPA’s carbon dioxide rules
endanger human health and welfare
Craig Rucker

Legal challenges by states and industry groups over the Environmental
Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases could and should be decided in the challengers’ favor.
Whether that will happen in this highly politicized, semi-scientific
matter of “dangerous manmade global warming and climate change” remains to
be seen. Regardless of what the DC Court of Appeals decides, the case will
almost assuredly return to the Supreme Court, where the outcome is equally
uncertain.

In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court said EPA had the
authority (but not the obligation) to regulate CO2 under the
Clean Air Act’s “capacious definition of air pollutant.” EPA could do so,
the court ruled, if its administrator concluded that GHG emissions “may
reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” In other
words, the administrator’s opinion was not sufficient. The agency must
conduct a scientific study and make a convincing scientific case for
taking action.

Not surprisingly, Administrator Lisa Jackson decided that CO2 does
endanger public health and welfare, and signaled her intention to regulate
these emissions. However, there are serious problems with this.

First, EPA conducted no original research of its own. Relying on work
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other agencies, it
merely selected existing studies and reports that supported its
predetermined outcome – and ignored numerous studies that contradicted its
decision.

Second, scientific opinion is sharply divided on the extent to which
these gases might contribute to climate change. EPA chose to disregard
this inconvenient truth – and continue the shoddy practice begun by the
IPCC and alarmist climate scientists of refusing to discuss or debate the
validity of computer models, assertions of imminent disaster, and evidence
for and against the catastrophic AGW hypothesis.

Third, carbon dioxide simply is not a “pollutant” within the meaning of
the Clean Air act. It is not an agent that fouls or contaminates the air,
making it harmful to human health. In fact, CO2 is a natural component of
Earth’s atmosphere and a key ingredient in photosynthesis. Without carbon
dioxide all life on Earth would cease to exist.

Fourth, both the 2007 Supreme Court decision and the IPCC studies
relied on by EPA predate the Climategate emails and other scandals that
have revealed how contrived, questionable and perhaps even fraudulent
global warming disaster “science” actually is. Had those documents
surfaced prior to its 2007 deliberations, the Court’s decision might well
have been very different.

Fifth, allowing EPA to impose its CO2/GHG regulatory regime would
effectively put the agency in charge of every aspect of Americans’ energy
use, economic activities and lives. EPA’s unprecedented and exorbitantly
expensive rules will severely and adversely affect hydrocarbon use, energy
prices, food production, manufacturing, transportation, jobs, home and
office heating and cooling, hospital and school operations – and thus
human health and welfare.

Finally, and most absurd of all, even eliminating every source of
carbon dioxide in the USA – electricity generation, vehicles, industries,
humans and animals – would do nothing to reduce other emission sources
worldwide. While US carbon dioxide emissions are declining, those sources
continue to raise atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Thus, despite their
devastating impacts on America’s economy and living standards, EPA’s rules
would do virtually nothing to forestall the harms that its pseudo-science
predicts.
Into this legal, scientific and regulatory cesspool now comes
yet another element, which may yet go down as a key turning point in the
debate – more important even than Climategate: Peter Gleick’s February 14
transmission of several stolen documents and a forged memorandum to 15
environmental activists in the United States and possibly abroad.

The stolen documents were taken from The Heartland Institute, a
Chicago-based think tank that has received increasing attention for
challenging IPCC and EPA global warming doom and gloom dogma,
misinformation and propaganda. (Among the documents stolen were lists of
HI donors and its entire 2012 budget.) The left and its mainstream media
lapdogs had a field day with the information, but focused almost
exclusively on the forged memo, which purported to reveal Heartland’s
secret “climate strategy” – to make school children, citizens and
legislators better informed about actual climate science.

Six days later Gleick, president and co-founder of the Pacific
Institute, confessed to the crime. Virtually everyone now agrees the memo
is a poor forgery, probably written by Gleick, although he still denies
having done so.

Gleick is a prominent member of the global warming clique. His
take-down is big news, and one reason this scandal could overshadow
Climategate in its impact on global warming debates. Despite all the Sturm
und Drang caused by Climategate, no one really paid a price for the gross
misbehavior revealed by the leaked emails – even though the actions were
funded with taxpayer money and used to promote bogus science, harmful
public policies, and massive changes in energy use and living
standards.

Gleick has been forced to step down from several positions, including
as president of the Pacific Institute, and will likely face civil and
criminal charges. His is likely to be only the first scalp that global
warming “realists” collect from this incident. Heartland has indicated it
will also go after Gleick’s accomplices in major environmental
organizations and even in the drive-by media.

The criminal and civil cases will drag out for years, and discovery
could uncover even more misbehavior in the alarmist camp than did
Climategate. Heartland may also face discovery, but the stolen documents
suggest that it has little or nothing to hide.

Why did Gleick target Heartland? As HI president Joseph Bast wrote to
climate scientist Judith Curry in a message posted on her blog, Climate
Etc: “I suspect he targeted us because we have done so much to document
and rebut the assumptions and exaggerations of the global warming
alarmists.” He then mentioned Heartland’s monthly publication, Environment
& Climate News, its persuasive multi-volume response to the IPCC,
Climate Change Reconsidered, and its six international climate
conferences. (See http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/24/why-target-heartland)

Climategate caught the global warming establishment off-guard, but it
soon regained its footing, aided immensely by the billions of dollars that
governments are pouring into the “climate crisis” industry. Fakegate is
rocking their world again, revealing the alarmists’ increasing desperation
that the debate they don’t want to have will cost them their credibility,
prestige, power and funding. This time, Fakegate may sweep some of them
off their feet.

Who knew what Gleick was up to, and when did they know it? Who was
Gleick trying to impress by this theft and forgery, and what did he and
his accomplices seek to gain?

In the digital era, every email and every PDF document leaves a digital
trail. There will be no cover up this time, no white-wash investigations
by friendly IPCC and university colleagues. The perpetrator can’t take the
Fifth Amendment in a civil suit, and the prospect of time in jail has been
known to loosen lips. The whole global warming cabal is wondering when the
next shoe will drop, and drop it shall.
The truth will finally come
out, and the world will be better for it.

_______
Craig Rucker is a co-founder of the Committee For
A Constructive Tomorrow and serves as its executive
director.

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