So the only remaining realistic possibility for implementation of carbon emission controls is probably through actions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. On June 10 the Senate failed by a vote of 47/53 to disapprove the EPA Endangerment Finding of late 2009. It is possible, however, that a two year delay in EPA action will be approved by Congress later this year in accordance with a proposal by Senator Jay Rockefeller. But if this or other ways can be found to halt EPA’s efforts the remaining major risk of global “climate control” would be effectively ended in the US.

This development yesterday is likely to sooner or later result in the end of world support for such approaches if a way is found to end EPA’s threatened regulations. Those countries that choose to continue major governmental efforts to reduce carbon emissions will soon find themselves at a competitive disadvantage to those that do not. Few countries are likely to be willing to take such risks with their economies for very long.

This argument is weak to say the least. Conversion to his particular favored energy sources would take many years and prove exceedingly expensive, as the experiences of Spain, Denmark, and Germany with wind/solar energy illustrate. These favored sources each have their own environmental problems. In the meantime fossil fuel use will have to be expanded substantially to meet public and industry demand since the only way to prevent this would be to have a permanent and deepening recession. Finally, it does not really matter whether the proposed conversion starts now (as he said he wants) or many years from now since the alleged reduced risk of oil spills would not be realized for many years, if ever.

Realistic Alternatives to Reduce Dependence on Oil

If the purpose is to reduce major offshore oil spills, the obvious way to do that other than effective regulation (which the Obama Administration has clearly not done) is to prohibit specified types of “risky” offshore drilling until it can be made safe and encourage (not require) and at least not prohibit the development and use of other economical energy sources that will not lead to major offshore oil spills. Such oil-substitutes exist in abundance in the United States, and include land-based heavy oil and oil sands and oil shale and the conversion of coal to oil (for which technology has long existed). It may also prove economical to convert more large vehicle fleets to natural gas, given its falling price. All of these could be accomplished within a few years and with comparatively little cost to US energy users and would actually reduce our dependence on conventional oil and therefore reduce the demand for risky offshore drilling.

The President’s vague call for a change to “clean” energy and praise for the House cap and trade/tax bill as a way to avoid future major offshore oil spills is little more than pie-in-the-sky intended to promote his real aim, which still appears to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is illustrated by his proposal recently to substantially expand off-shore oil drilling apparently as a way to buy votes for cap and trade/tax. Somehow the environmental risks of expanding off-shore drilling did not play any significant role when it came to promoting cap and trade/tax just a few months ago.

Unfortunately, his appeal tonight may result in passage of laws that provide preferences for his favored “clean” fuel sources. Since both coal and oil are currently out of favor, that presumably means solar, wind, and possibly (although he did not specify last night) nuclear. Each of these sources have their own environmental problems and share the common problem of being very expensive. Their use will inevitably lead to much higher energy prices. These problems will not go away by giving them national preferences. Preferences will primarily result in increased energy costs for industry and consumers and increasing non-competitiveness of the US economy in world markets.

Federal Preferences for Particular Energy Sources Would Be a Huge Waste of Resources Needed Elsewhere

So although preferences may be politically “popular,” they are nothing more than gigantic wastes of money which the United States needs for other much more useful purposes. Preferences will not make the technology develop significantly faster and will result in fewer, not more jobs, as shown by studies of the Spanish and Danish experiences with wind/solar energy. Other than providing a few limited incentives for economical alternative sources to oil such as described above, the best course of action for Congress is to keep the Federal Government out of the choice of energy sources (as described in an earlier post), and limit its involvement to effective regulaton of existing health, safety, and environmental laws. Increased concentration on this last but legitimate role for government should more than occupy the Government’s limited resources over the next few years.

This state of affairs is scheduled for its first real Congressional test on Thursday, June 10, when the Senate is scheduled to vote on the Murkowski Disapproval Resolution (S.J.Res.26), which uses the Congressional Review Act to dispprove the Endangerment Finding. Although further Congressional action would be needed to make the disapproval effective, its approval by the Senate would be a major first step towards this end. As of June 7 the vote was expected to be very close. Those who believe as I do that it is very important to prevent EPA from unilaterally vastly expanding its authority over the economy without approval by Congress can best influence the outcome of the vote by contacting their senators on June 8 or 9 and urging them to vote yes on S.J.Res.26.

This post explores why EPA plays a pivotal role in the worldwide climate change controversy, what should be done about it, and what longer term reforms are needed to prevent similar attempts to subvert public policy on the basis of bad science. This topic is crucial to understanding the current status of the climate change battle.

Why EPA Is Pivotal

The larger world climate change battle now hinges largely on the fate of the efforts by the US EPA to control some greenhouse gases. The rest of world will not commit economic suicide by agreeing to major greenhouse gas emission cuts unless the US does. On the other hand, the Senate will not approve Cap and Tax; so it all hinges on EPA. If EPA is stopped in its determination to impose carbon rationing, the effort to roll back the industrial revolution can and will be stopped since it is the last real possibility that the US might join some other developed countries in the effort. If EPA is not stopped, the world may well witness an attempt to impose the current green agenda. The Obama Administration will apparently ride the Supreme Court decision until its dying days, regardless of the resulting political damage, which may be severe.

In addition to the continuing importance of halting the implementation of the GHG control schemes, the time has come to start defining what policy and administrative changes might be advisable. What I propose is a series of longer-term reforms needed to decrease the chances that bad regulations based on bad science such as those now being proposed for controlling GHGs will be repeated in the future in the US in other regulatory areas. These include the following in the case of EPA:

* Insulate EPA from political control
* Require that EPA MUST carry out independent analyses and not use any other assessments
* Remove financial incentives for EPA managers to follow the Administration
* Periodically review and reassess major EPA regulations not already subject to review requirement
* Require that EPA use the scientific method in judging the merits of scientific hypotheses.

The following reforms would also appear desirable with regard to other agencies:

* End the new National Climate Service
* Split responsibility for climatic data gathering and climatic data interpretation.
* Get the Federal Government and state legislatures out of energy choice decisions; limit role to strictly R&D and conventional pollution control; no subsidies/taxes/preferences unless justified to bring prices into line with full social costs; so no renewable portfolio standards (RPSs)
* Rethink how Federal R&D decisions are made so that there is broad diversity of hypotheses researched and the process cannot be captured by groups advocating a single hypothesis in the future
* End all US funding of UN climate change efforts and aid to less developed countries based on climate change criteria.

I maintain, on the contrary, that the important characteristic should be how well the hypotheses proposed by the UN IPCC corresponds with real world evidence. It is only this crucial correspondence that determines the scientific validity of a hypothesis, not how many or how distinguished the reviewers may be who agree with the relevant hypotheses. This should be evident since any widely held scientific view (such as that the Earth is flat some centuries ago) would have easily qualified as valid science using a peer review standard since the supporters could easily have gotten a large number of favorable reviews of their hypotheses. This is what has happened in the case of the AGW hypothesis. There are enough global warming supporters among climate scientists so that with a little careful selection favorable peer reviews can be obtained for any desired warmist hypothesis. Hence such views can pass the peer review standard whether a hypothesis really stands up to comparisons with real world data or not.

For example, the EPA claims in Response 1-12 to the public comments on the EPA proposed endangerment finding that the 880 page NIPCC report stands in sharp contrast to the IPCC and related reports:

“The [NIPCC] organization does not appear to have established any procedures for author selection and provides no evidence that a transparent and open public or expert review was conducted. Thus, the NIPCC’s approach stands in sharp contrast to the clear, transparent, and open procedures of the IPCC, CCSP, USGCRP, and NRC.”

So although there is some discussion of the arguments raised by the NIPCC report, no real effort appears to have been made to consider using the NIPCC report at least in part on the basis of whether the report had “adequate” peer-review guidelines. According to the EPA, only the IPCC and similar reports including such peer review meet EPA’s “exacting” review standards. How accurate or how closely the NIPCC and other skeptic reports correspond with real world evidence appears not to be of any real importance to the EPA–just how comprehensive the stated review process was supposed to be. Yet when deviations from these standards are detailed EPA maintains that the IPCC conclusions would not have been materially affected rather than admitting that their expressed confidence in the UN procedures was misplaced. This is also an argument that the substantive scientific merits of the non-IPCC assessments do matter, but only when the procedural aspects have not been comprehensively implemented. The reverse should be the case.

The Purposes of Peer Review

The basis for the underlying argument is what is fundamental to the scientific method: Correspondence with real world data or procedural review requirements. In examining this issue it is useful to recall the history of scientific peer review. It was basically introduced so as to decide which papers submitted to printed journals should be included and whether there might be improvements that could be made in those selected, primarily for the purpose of saving then precious journal space. This may have actually been useful in the days when journals were of limited size based on the printing and mailing costs.

Peer review subsequently served an added purpose–to provide a basis for discriminating between the output of various authors/professors and thus providing a basis for conferring academic tenure on some but not on others. The second purpose is still a rationale argument for using peer review, but the first purpose is technologically obsolete since Web publication of added papers is very low cost and may be almost free. Use of Web-based journals has the added advantage that they are normally free to all users rather than limited to the select few who can afford often very expensive subscriptions. And peer review of papers for journal publication has many very important disadvantages, of which the most important is that it often prevents publication of non-conventional ideas that may have great merit. This appears to have been too often the case with regard to the consideration of skeptic contributions to climate science in recent years.

So the extension of journal-based peer review to determining the scientific merit of competing hypotheses is a very important policy issue since it may lead to reducing the importance of comparisons of competing scientific hypotheses against real world data. This is exactly what appears to have happened in the case of the AGW hypothesis of global warming. In fact, warmists have widely cited better peer review as an important reason to support their hypothesis; according to the Climategate emails, leading warmist scientists actively conspired to prevent skeptic-oriented papers from being published in major climate-related journals.

The Fundamental Issue: How Should Scientific Hypotheses Be Judged?

All this highlights the fundamental issue of whether scientific hypotheses should be judged on the basis of whether they have appeared in peer-reviewed journal publications or on the basis of correspondence with observed real world data. I believe very strongly that it is the latter rather than the former that should be used. One important reason is that peer-review is subject to the same “group think” that science should seek to avoid in order to be objective and useful. And that is exactly what has happened in the case of the AGW hypothesis. Despite the absense of any relevant real world data comparisons to support their case, warmists try to use the widespread support (the so-called “consensus”) among sympathetic scientists for their hypothesis to argue that it should be accepted. Obviously if this was the standard, we would still believe that the Earth was flat and that the Earth was the center of the universe, to mention just two widely supported hypotheses disproved by their lack of correspondence with real world data.

It is very unfortunate and may even prove disastrous that EPA and other environmental regulatory institutions appear to have made peer review procedures of much more importance than correspondence with real world data. Scientific assessments need to determine the correspondence between hypotheses on the basis of real world data, not relative “peer review” procedures. This needs to be corrected before immense damage is done to our crucial criteria for judging scientific hypotheses and to our economy as a result of using faulty science for public policy purposes.

One notable aspect of Phil Jones’ responses to the BBC (see BBC news article and Q&As) was the fact that the BBC actually asked some probing questions and Jones actually answered them. But of more significance was that although he was willing to admit some of the more obvious unresolved questions concerning the AGW/warmist position (such as whether the 1975-98 warming is unprecedented, whether global temperatures have been declining recently, and whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer), he remains unwilling to take a broader and more objective view of climate science despite having had ample time to contemplate all that has transpired. In this his views may be representative of many of the committed warmists central to the preparation of the IPCC reports but certainly is not the objective viewpoint that EPA and others should insist on in making multi-trillion dollar regulatory decisions. In particular:

(1) Jones admits that the 1975-98 warming as measured by HadCRUT is similar to earlier warming periods. This is obvious but it is significant that someone so close to the IPCC is willing to admit it given that warmists have so strongly emphasized how unprecedented warming was during this period. He is anxious to point out, however, the extremely recent increase in satellite-measured temperatures, but is unwilling to also consider the implications of the 1978-97 satellite temperature data. This strongly suggests that the global temperature changes prior to 1998 may have been due to natural oscillations related to El Nino (see here). This is a one-sided rather than the objective approach that is more likely to lead to good science and balanced conclusions.
(2) Jones appears to be unable or unwilling to think outside of the framework of the IPCC view of what influences climate. His view that the warming must be man-made unless solar or volcanic forcing can be shown ignores all the research on the indirect effects of solar variability (such as the Svensmark hypothesis) as discussed in Section 2.5 of my Comments and the effects of oceanic climate oscillations (such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) discussed in Section 2.4.
(3) Jones still appears to see nothing wrong with splicing instrumental data on to tree-ring data without extreme care to alert readers to this. This is extraordinary, even if some group asked him to do it, since this does not allow readers to reach reasonable conclusions as to the usefulness of the tree ring data (and hence the claims made on the basis of it), which is so inconsistent with recent instrumental data.

The publicized goal of the AGW alarmists/warmists and the European Union is to prevent more than a 2^oC increase in global temperatures above preindustrial levels by reducing GHG emissions. They appear to have made a number of critical assumptions in order to arrive at this goal and their approach to achieving it, including the following:

(1) Significant global warming is taking place and will take place in the future.
(2) This warming is primarily due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere.
(3) These increasing GHG levels are primarily due to human activity in releasing GHGs.
(4) It Is Realistic to Rapidly and Drastically Reduce Emissions of GHGs.
(5) A United Nations consensus can be reached on a new global treaty to reduce GHG emissions.
(6) But to obtain a consensus it would desirable and feasible for developed countries to pay large amounts to the developing countries.
(7) If a consensus should be reached, each country would actually implement whatever it may agree to.
(8) These actually implemented reductions would reduce global warming sufficiently so as to avoid a 2^oC increase in global temperatures.

Each of these assumptions appears to be essential for the overall warmist narrative if they are to make a well-rounded case that their solution might have credibility. The first three are related to the IPCC science conclusions and therefore the EPA endangerment finding. The remainder, however, are not really discussed in the EPA endangerment finding since they involve potential regulatory action. But they may be relevant to future EPA rulemaking and are very relevant to the real world viability of the warmist narrative as a whole.

(1) There Will Be Significant Warming

It appears clear that there has been significant warming since the end of the Little Ice Age and in the 1930s (well before any significant impact of fossil fuel use is likely). There also was some modest warming in 1998, which shows no apparent relation to changes in CO2 levels. Otherwise it is difficult to make the case for significant warming in the last 70 years.

There is increasing evidence that the alleged warming in the 1980s and early 1990s may be more the result of the urban heat island effect and attempts to manipulate the ground-based station data than it is of actual temperature increases. The satellite temperature data (which started in 1978) shows an increase only in 1998 leaving aside periodic oscillations probably related to ENSO. See here and here for a more detailed discussion.

Now as to the future, the principal argument advanced for higher temperatures is that a number of computer models used by the UN IPCC, which have all used similar assumptions, all show increases for the remainder of this century. But these models reflect the assumptions used in constructing them rather than having any actual predictive power (see Section 1.7 of my Comments). If this first assumption is incorrect the later assumptions should make little difference since there will be no alleged problem to solve. I give this assumption a chance of being correct a generous 2 out of 10 or 20% because of our limited understanding of climate despite the lack of any real evidence for the warmist view.

(2) Alleged Warming Primarily Due to Rising GHG Levels

There is very little empirical evidence for rising GHG levels as the primary cause for global warming. Ice core data suggests that CO₂ levels follow temperatures rather than the other way around. In fact, the all-important scientific tests of this hypothesis show that increases in GHG levels are not a significant cause of warming, as discussed here. A new study suggests the same thing. There is even a theoretical hypothesis by Miskolczi that argues that the Earth simply reduces atmospheric water vapor (a more important greenhouse gas) to offset higher GHG levels. If correct (and it at least has a real world empirical basis, unlike the AGW hypothesis), this means that increases in GHG levels would have no effect on global temperatures! So it seems reasonable to give this assumption a 1 out of 10.

(3) Rising Atmospheric GHG Levels Primarily Due to Human Releases of GHGs

There is little doubt that atmospheric GHG levels are increasing, but whether human-caused emissions are the primary cause is doubtful but more uncertain than assumption (1). Rather, the increasing GHG levels may be primarily due to increasing ocean temperatures over hundreds of years since water cannot absorb as much CO₂ at higher temperatures. This appears to be a major scientific uncertainty, so I propose to assign this assumption a 3 out of 10.

(4) It Is Realistic to Rapidly and Drastically Reduce Emissions of GHGs

Warmists assume that GHG emission reductions are the solution to (1), (2), and (3), but this is far from obvious. They generally propose reductions in CO2 emissions of about 80% by 2050, often compared to 1990. Taking account of population growth and increases in energy use since 1990, the reductions “needed” per person would be almost 90% (see p. 721 here). Given the rapid spread of new energy using technology such as computers, server farms, and cell phones, this appears more than unlikely.

In reality, most experience to date has been that in political jurisdictions where the most serious energy efficiency efforts have been made, the “best” that has been achieved is that GHG emissions have been held steady because the emissions reductions have been balanced out by increases brought about by demand for increased uses by increasing urban populations (for added discussion of all this see pp. 721-5 here). Finally, analysis (see, for example, here and here) suggests that various geoengineering solutions such as stratospheric solar radiation management would much more reliably achieve cooling at a small fraction of the huge costs of reducing GHG emissions. So I’ll give this assumption a generous 1 in 10 chance of being correct.

(5) A New Binding International Treaty Can Be Reached to Reduce GHG Emissions

Since even countries with large emissions could theoretically have only a small effect on global emissions and emissions reductions by one country would disadvantage it economically compared to those that do not reduce them, the only way to reduce emissions (assuming that this could actually be done) effectively would be for most large emitting countries to enter into a binding treaty to reduce emissions. This may require the intervention of a world body such as the United Nations. But the Copenhagen Conference and those leading up to it strongly suggest that a new UN consensus would be very difficult to reach, at best. The UN did earlier reach consensuses on both the UNFCCC and on the Kyoto Protocol to it, but there has been no evidence that a new consensus agreement is even possible. So I’ll give this assumption a very generous 1 out of 10.

(6) Funding Can Be Found to “Buy” Support/”Reimburse” Less Developed Countries

Assuming that a new consensus could be reached, it is very likely that it would include large payments from developed to developing countries. Many less developed countries have suggested that they would be willing to concur on a new accord only if the developed countries pay them quite large sums presumably for the expenses they might incur for reducing emissions and/or the damages they may have incurred by the higher temperatures allegedly resulting from GHG emissions from the developed countries.

The principal problem is that even if developed countries should agree philosophically with this position, they must find the funding for these payments. This may not be very popular with voters in developed countries; it is certainly not in the United States. Indications so far are that most of the money so far promised may come from existing foreign aid budgets, which means that total foreign aid would probably change very little, which is consistent with the idea that the voters in developed countries are unlikely to approve significantly higher foreign aid levels. The leading proposal considered at the Copenhagen Climate Conference was that the funds would be allocated by the UN, which may not reassure voters in developed countries who would have to foot the bill. So I’ll give this assumption a generous 1 in 10.

(7) Most Major Emitters Would Actually Carry Out Whatever GHG Reductions They Might Agree to

Voluntary international agreements do not have a very good record of actually being implemented. Witness the Kellogg-Briand Treaty renouncing war as an instrument of national policy in 1928, or more to the point, the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997. Neither one was/is being implemented in any serious way (see pp. 725-6 here). But without effective implementation there will certainly be little reduction in GHG emissions, and, even if the above assumptions should be correct, in global temperatures. So give this assumption a generous 1 in 10.

(8) Proposed Actual Reductions in GHG Emissions Would Achieve the 2^oC Goal

Besides the ability to predict climate decades in advance, this assumption assumes that we know the so-called climate sensitivity factor, which relates changes in temperature to a doubling of CO₂ levels. Unfortunately this is one of the most controversial issues in climate science and is not known with even moderate confidence. Hence any claims that a given change in emissions will result in a particular increase in temperatures cannot be ascertained. Thus it is not possible to know what change in global temperatures might result from any given change in GHG emissions. Finally, it can be shown (pages 712-6) that if the IPCC assumptions and data were all correct that the 2^oC goal could not be achieved using this approach. So I give this assumption a 1 in 10 probability.

Taken together, the odds that all eight of these crucial warmist assumptions would prove to be correct appears to be close to zero. There is no rational expectation that assumption (8), their ultimate objective, would actually be achieved if the world actually tried to implement the warmist narrative. The last five assumptions are particularly indefensible, but are receiving less attention than the first three. This post explains why each of these critical assumptions are very dubious and why the assumption that taken together they are all correct is not reasonable.

Despite the dismal prospects that all these assumptions are correct, many prominent politicians (including the Obama Administration), US mainstream media, and academics continue to pursue the warmist narrative. Even if the prospects for each assumption were magically doubled, it remains unclear why rational people would support more than one of the warmist assumptions and particularly the overall narrative.

The Obama Administration decided in its first month in office to try to use the authority given to EPA by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts vs. EPA to regulate the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) under the Clean Air Act. Instead of conducting its own independent analysis of the science, as I had strongly recommended and as it has traditionally done, however, EPA decided to basically use the summary reports issued by the United Nations under its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and reports based primarily on these reports by the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). They claim that these reports represent a comprehensive analysis of the science and that there was no need to conduct its own analysis given the “rigorous” guidelines issued by these organizations.

In this way, EPA both expedited its task by using “ready made” external reports, and avoided any real discussion of the many scientific uncertainties surrounding climate change. The net result of EPA’s action thus far on climate change has been to avoid a vote by any legislative body as well as an independent analysis of the science. So no pesky legislators or skeptical scientists to placate. An explanation given by the Obama Administration was that they would prefer that GHGs be regulated under “cap and trade” legislation, but that perhaps the threat of administrative regulation would spur Congressional action. Since there has not been and is unlikely to be any major legislative action on cap and trade over the next few years due to strong opposition in the Senate, the US response to climate change is likely to largely come down to the actions that EPA takes.

US Public May Resent Such EPA Efforts

It has been my view that the American public would resent attempts by EPA to unilaterally impose regulations that would have the effect of greatly increasing the costs of energy use or imposing other constraints on energy-related activities without a new legislative mandate for this purpose, particularly without meticulous and truly independent EPA review of the science rather than depending on UN science. There is increasing evidence that the UN reports relied on by EPA are at best questionable in some of their major conclusions and may even be fraudulent in important aspects. But EPA has had such apparent faith in the UN science that they proceeded without carefully checking either the plausibility of the science or even its honesty.

Whether EPA’s decision was based on expediency or as an end run around the normal bureaucratic process is not known, but both motivations appear plausible. As a result of recent disclosures of the Climategate Emails (for a detailed analysis see here) and computer files it is now evident that not only are important parts of the science questionable but those who were primarily responsible for it may have been less than professional in their conduct and quite possibly engaged in scientific fraud. This was actually known prior to the release of the final EPA endangerment decision on December 7, 2009, but did not stop their finding on endangerment, perhaps out of the belief that this would somehow “save” the ill-fated UN Copenhagen conference. This finding became effective a week ago on January 14, so this seems an appropriate time to review the overall situation.

EPA’s Basic Argument Is that the UN Has Already Considered All Viewpoints

A review of EPA’s responses to public comments to the endangerment finding that their basic argument (see response 1-2) is that by using IPCC and other reports largely based on it that they have by proxy considered all relevant viewpoints. Generally speaking, any other ideas proposed by commenters that were inconsistent with the UN viewpoints were downplayed using various UN-based arguments and then rejected. They justified doing this primarily on the basis of the guidelines stated to have been used by the IPCC (see Appendix A of the EPA responses) and others in reviewing their reports. The very comprehensive 888 page skeptic NIPCC report was dismissed (see response 1-12) primarily on the basis that it does not detail an elaborate review process that had been followed. In other words, EPA appears to believe that stated procedure is more important than scientific substance.

Nowhere that I have found does it say how EPA verified that the UN reports were not biased and actually did consider all relevant viewpoints, or even that they tried to do so. Apparently the UN guidelines were sufficient in EPA’s view. But what if the UN guidelines were not carefully implemented and certain viewpoints were excluded, either by accident or perhaps even on purpose, as suggested by some of the Climategate Emails and the alleged disappearing Himalayan glaciers? What did EPA do to verify that this did not happen? Since the ultimate costs of EPA’s actions could run into many trillions of dollars, it is really important to be certain as to the science, something which EPA has not demonstrated.

The answer is that EPA did not do much if any verification in their headlong rush to respond to the new Administration or even under an earlier abortive effort during the Bush Administration. They were and are convinced that the UN science is reliable despite the many questions raised by skeptics. They accepted the assertions of the UN and other groups that their procedures were carefully implemented. But maybe these groups had conflicts of interest not covered, of course, by EPA ethics rules? And we are beginning to see evidence that less than careful implementation of these guidelines is a major problem with at least the IPCC reports, on which all the others are largely based. See, for example, the Climategate Emails, the Himalayan glacier problem referenced above and analyzed in terms of its implications for IPCC procedures here, the references here, Steve McIntyre’s analysis of some instances where the reports EPA relied on do not meet EPA’s requirements for such reports, and Chip Knappenberger’s summary of some of the instances where the IPCC did not follow its own procedures, to mention just a few.

But the UN Appears Not to Have Really Considered all Viewpoints, Particularly Those Held by Skeptics

Even before Climategate there were many indications that the IPCC might be less than objective in its reports. Consider, for example, the resignation letter by Chris Landsea from the preparation of the AR4 IPCC report which concluded that: “I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.” After Climategate there can be little remaining doubt that Landsea was correct.

Dr. Benny Peiser, a long time and informed observer of the climate change scene, expressed it very clearly a few days ago as follows: “The IPCC review process has been shown on numerous occasions to lack transparency and due diligence. Its work is controlled by a tightly knit group of individuals who are completely convinced that they are right. As a result, conflicting data and evidence, even if published in peer reviewed journals, are regularly ignored, while exaggerated claims, even if contentious or not peer-reviewed, are often highlighted in IPCC reports. Not surprisingly, the IPCC has lost a lot of credibility in recent years. It is also losing the trust of more and more governments who are no longer following their advice – as the Copenhagen summit showed.”

Surely even if it used the UN science it was incumbent on EPA to carefully check whether the elaborate guidelines of the IPCC and CCSP were carefully and faithfully implemented. But it appears that they could not find time for this or perhaps more likely, did not want to, even after Climategate.

So EPA Apparently Intends to Proceed Unless Stopped by Congress or the Courts

Yet it appears to be the intention of EPA to regulate GHG emissions in the United States on the basis of this UN science, presumably as soon as they are able to finish the paperwork and observe some of the bureaucratic requirements. In these circumstances, only Congress and the courts have the authority to prevent this from happening, but would have to take one of several actions to bring this about. So far Congress has not chosen to do so, and it will take some time to see whether or not the courts may decide to block the implementation of various EPA regulations. I see no indication to date that EPA plans to back off its announced determination to impose its regulations without any serious independent analysis as to whether they are needed or would actually promote the purposes of the Clean Air Act. Whether Americans will be happy buying smaller, lighter-weight, less crash-worthy vehicles or paying more for energy remains to be seen. But they will not be given any real choice in the matter on the basis that EPA believes the UN science without the bother of careful, extensive, and particularly independent review. In other words the UN knows best and EPA must implement what they recommend as rapidly and with as little examination as possible.

But from a larger viewpoint, the Obama who was going to find a way to resolve partisan bickering in Washington has now embarked on a major escalation of the conflict by using the power he holds over Executive Branch agencies to fight its enemies in Congress over the issue of global warming. Although EPA has always been organizationally an arm of the Administration in power, it has until this Administration been able to largely maintain the appearance if not the reality of being science based. That is now much harder to maintain.

Originally the rumor was that the purpose of the endangerment finding would be to pressure Congress into approving a cap and trade bill. But by now it appears fairly clear that the Administration will not be able to gather the needed votes in the Senate to pass the bill at least this year and probably even next year either with or without an endangerment finding. So there would seem to be little reason to push the endangerment finding now unless they intended to attempt to use it as the basis for negotiating at COP15.

Some Major Political Risks

This EPA endangerment approach carries some major risks for the Administration, however. The first risk is that EPA’s apparently politically motivated endangerment finding may be overturned in the now inevitable court reviews.

The second risk is that when implementing greenhouse gas regulations should be announced and certainly when they should ever be implemented the full responsibility will obviously fall onto the Administration rather than being shared between the Administration and Congress, which is what would occur if Congress ever adopted a cap and trade bill. So if many constituents end up being unhappy with the resulting regulations and particularly the greatly increased energy costs and decreased employment that will result it will be obvious who was responsible. And there may well be some unhappy constituents.

A third risk is that they will not be able to contain EPA’s actions since the law clearly specifies that much smaller sources are subject to regulation than they now contemplate, and legal action may force EPA to regulate smaller sources whether it wants to or not.

A fourth risk is that the added uncertainties created by the finding and the added costs in terms of higher energy prices and reduced employment will further weaken the Administration’s claims to be primarily interested in combatting the recession, the issue currently most on the mind of voters.

Some Additional Risks from the International Negotiations Needed to Insure a Worldwide Effort

But there are other risks as well. Suppose the COP15 meeting is unable to reach any agreement that the Administration can sell domestically? Or suppose that there is agreement on a new climate protocol and it comes into force but only a few countries actually live up to what they have agreed to, as has been the case for the Kyoto Protocol, so that what little effect reductions in CO2 may have on global temperatures is lost in the increased emissions of those countries that do not take promised reductions seriously. Or suppose that the developing world says that they will only support a new treaty if the developed world pays the bill, as they have so far done? Is the Administration willing to support a massive foreign aid bill providing funds to the UN, or one of its agencies such as the World Bank, to disperse as they may decide in the middle of the most serious recession of the postwar era to meet these demands by the developing world? Suppose the Russians will agree to a new treaty only if their credits resulting from the collapse of Soviet era manufacturing are honored in a new protocol, meaning that they would face very limited requirements? So the Administration seems to be gambling not only that Americans will not rebel against the potential EPA restrictions but that it can push through a massive UN-administered foreign aid program. And then there is the problem of how to get any possible new protocol through the Senate, which this time would require 67 votes rather than 60 needed for cap and trade. All this seems to me to be quite a gamble.

And just to make things worse from the Administration’s viewpoint, it is not only now clear that key parts of the global warmists’/UN science is scientifically incorrect (see my March Comments and my more recent blog post); it is now also clear how it is that their science came to be the way it is since we now have some of the actual programs used to bring this about as well as some of the Email and programming comments of some of those working to bring this about. Even Mother Nature is not cooperating with very cold, wintry weather sweeping the United States this week.

As a result of this EPA decision, EPA’s fortunes in regulating GHGs are directly tied to the fate of the IPCC reports. Although it is hard to argue that any one CRU Email or computer file notation proves the IPCC conclusions wrong, taken as a whole they do strongly suggest two conclusions: First, the CRU and many of its associates (and Email recipients) elsewhere (henceforth CRU et al.), are very tightly tied to the IPCC both in influence and belief and do not appear to be paragons of scientific objectivity and ethics. Second, their data handling leaves something to be desired in terms of data retention, database documentation, and questionable data manipulation.

CRU et al’s Lack of Scientific Objectivity

It seems clear to me that if a group (such as EPA) wanted to get an objective scientific judgment on climate change science, CRU et al., and therefore the IPCC, might be the last place that they would want to rely on. Each “trick” CRU et al used to torture the data they had to yield what appears to be their desired conclusions may have fooled a few more readers into thinking that their basic arguments were valid, but has to decrease the overall assessment of their objectivity. Attempts to manipulate peer reviews and journal acceptances are not acceptable scientific activities. Withholding key scientific data can only make one question their dedication to scientific principles. Hiding their alleged destruction of the basic temperature data that would allow reconstruction of what they have done is almost as bad as discarding such critical data in the first place. Using data that cannot be reproduced is not very useful scientifically or from a regulatory viewpoint.

Yet despite these now evident problems with the CRU et al’s data and research, EPA is now stuck with the IPCC reports, and therefore the closely associated CRU et al’s data and research has become central to its attempts to regulate GHGs. Given that it currently appears unlikely that the Senate will agree to anything resembling the current cap and trade bill, this EPA decision may well greatly decrease the chances that the US will in the end implement serious regulation of GHGs since EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act must survive judicial review of any regulatons that EPA may promulgate.

Need for New Approach

If EPA wants to pursue the regulation of GHGs despite the weak scientific basis for it, there is an evident need for a whole new approach based on truly independent and careful review of the problem using the highest standards of scientific intergrity which does not rely on what appears to be biased research and sloppy data from CRU et al. Although I did not know of the recent revelations concerning CRU et al last March, my Comments strongly called for such a reappraisal. This problem will not go away and may even get worse if we should learn more about the CRU et al’s work. There exists a possibility that EPA’s current approach might succeed by some judicial fluke, but the chances seem to be decreasing with each new revelation concerning the CRU et al.

Presumably one of the reasons that EPA decided to rely on the IPCC and indirectly on the CRU is that the Obama Administration may have felt some urgency to move rapidly on global warming control. Given the downtrend in global temperatures over the past 11 years and the likelihood that this will continue for some time (see Section 2.4 of my Comments) because of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), there would appear to be ample time to start over and do it carefully and thoroughly this time with full input by everyone that may be interested.

Basic Problem Remains

Despite the uproar concerning CRU et al’s data and research, the basic problem remains that the UN hypothesis that increases in GHGs/CO2 will result in significant increases in global temperatures has not been confirmed by comparisons with real world data. Unless it is, attempts to decrease GHG/CO2 emissions in order to significantly change global temperatures are very likely to fail. This is the primary question that EPA and climate scientists need to address before any control efforts are undertaken. Happily we appear to have the time to do so, and to do so objectively using reproducible data.