This week EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt banned the use of “secret science” in EPA regulatory decision making. The Washington Post immediately cried foul, of course, by arguing that this would mean that important evidence would be ignored. I argue, on the contrary, that it is very important that only evidence that is confirmed by the scientific method should ever be used. One of the requirements of the method is that the evidence be reproducible by others who were not the authors of the evidence. If it cannot be reproduced, the scientific method is of little use because it cannot be applied. And if not confirmed by the scientific method, the evidence is not science.
Administrator Pruitt has now banned one of many types of evidence that is not in accord with the scientific method. What the supporters of the use of “secret science” are doing is asking others to trust the authors of the evidence that will be ignored under Pruitt’s decision. But what if those producing the “evidence” are cheating or have made a mistake? EPA’s regulations must be based on the best possible scientific evidence. Allowing the possibility that the producers have deliberately or accidentally depended on “secret science” is simply unacceptable.
This Is Not First Time that EPA Has Regulated but Ignored the Scientific Method
The history of EPA regulation suggests that the problem has not been too little regulation but rather too much. For example, the early prohibition on the use of DDT ignored all of the scientific evidence and was a disaster because it indirectly led to the death of many millions of people from malaria in other countries.
EPA’s attempt to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide would also be a disaster if the Trump Administration allows the Obama regulations to be implemented since CO2 is not a pollutant, does not have a significant effect on global temperatures, and would have had huge adverse effects on the economy, on plants, and on poor people for no purpose. And EPA’s climate regulations may still be put into effect if the EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding is not repealed. EPA did little more than copy out parts of the United Nations’ climate reports and did not carefully analyze what the UN had done.
Unfortunately, some important evidence with regard to the basic climate alarmist hypothesis was used by the Obama EPA and has been shown to be inconsistent with the scientific method. As a result of climate alarmism, the world is spending about $1.5 trillion dollars per year on the basis of faulty scientific evidence.
The immediate issue that gave rise to the “secret science” issue is the regulation of fine particulates, since EPA was unable or unwilling to release the key data on which fine particulates were regulated.
By ending the use of “secret science,” Pruitt is taking a major step towards making Agency science conform to the scientific method, the basis of all science. There is much more to do, but this is a good first step. EPA needs to be forced to use only scientific evidence consistent with the scientific method in rule making.
I hope that EPA will quickly proceed with further requirements that will make sure that evidence used in rule making is fully in accordance with the scientific method. If applied to the climate issue, there is no doubt that would mean the end of the Obama EPA’s attempt to implement climate alarmism in the US and hopefully the EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding.
The President appears finally to have beefed up his legal team versus the Russian collusion farce. The mueller investigation has an illegitimate origin of Hillary sponsored smears, makes less sense than climate change. Rudy G is just the rough customer to demand prosecution of Comey, McCabe, ohr and other rascals. His audition for attorney general.
It would be great If Rambo Stallone would take over security for Pruitt. Chuck Norris Could help out too.
Photosynthesis begets greenery. So greenery itself is deemed endangering? How can this begin to make sense?
If all life on the planet is derived from photosynthesis, and CO2 levels are extremely low, how could anyone regard them as dangerously high? CO2 gas is preciously valuable. We depend on what little we have and have no reason to fear an uptick.
What kind of people would deem photosynthesis endangering? it is the source of sustenance and of the elixir of oxygen, both.
It is extraordinarily daft to deem photosynthesis endangering to the planet, as al gore effectively has. Save the earth from photosynthesis?
Wow. How crazy is it for the Greens to attack greenery? Ring-leaders Gore, Merkel, and Obama are anti-environmentalists.
This helps indicate the profundity of the challenge faced by Pruitt. Avowed environmentalists have persuaded themselves that greenery itself is endangering. This thought is much worse than secret science, despicable though it is. Environmentalism gone mad is an apt title when a precious trace gas is deemed endangering.
How can EPA find that photosynthesis is endangering?
Phoyosynthesis produces edible plants and thereby enables a food web of life. It also provides oxygen for humans and other animals to breathe.
Without photosynthesis, little or no life could survive on Earth.
Doc Carlin thinks it is Mad to brand CO2 as endangering. He is right. This is laugh out loud daffy. Anyone who believes carbon dioxide is endangering should take a good long look at the fool in their mirror.
The USaepa has been poorly run for decades. Science has been abused again and again in order to serve the Fake News media and a lefty anti-business agenda., Democratic politicians feed parasitically on the private sector, with taxes and job killing regulations that often do not actually provide genuine health benefits.
Trump and Pruitt understand this economic problem. Their cure is to repeal illegally conceived harmful Eco regulations for phony rationales like climate. Try to introduce critical thinking within external science boards. Be explicit about assumptions within regulations. Halt regulatory reliance on secret science studies that hide raw data.
Clearly the President does not choose to practice Pareto optimality. He is willing to say No. No, he does not accept the nuclear weapon programs of North Korea and Iran. no, he does not accept the federal government hobbling the US private sector, as it has for decades. No, he does not accept the Eco scams of al gore, cheating Obama, and Angela Merkel. No he does not accept nations hiding behind NATO and letting their militaries rot. No he does not passively accept illegals stealing jobs from the working poor. Etc etc etc.
Therefore it seems plausible Mr Pruitt will get around to convening public debates about climate to have grounds to repeal the endangerment finding. Pruitt is hard working and determined. Most serious minded administrator ever. Puts Americans first, not the unionized bureaucracy and left wing psuedo science.
The idea USEPA regulations should continue to be predicated on non transparent work by unaccountable environmental scientists is absurd. Thanks for discouraging that Scott Pruitt!
Another improvement by Pruitt was to add a few scientists to EPA advisory boards who are financially independent of the institution and its unionized lefty workers. Unions need environmental problems to justify themselves. Self serving Eco unions are fundamentally incompatible with honest science.
One way to introduce better science is to admit CO2 causing warming is just a hypothesis. Is there persuasive evidence of generalized warming at all? No.
Why would very low levels of cO2 even cause warming? is the idea that a blanket of co2 could hold heat in the Biosphere? Actually CO2 enables life on earth via photosynthesis.
A lot of environmental scientific measures must be observational and are not taken within the context of a controlled experiment. Observational values will thus be somewhat variable. A fair independent test of observational values is they be generally suuportive, rather than precisely replicated.
Looking forward to seeing the administration shake up the status quo of California bullying automakers and drivers. let them do this pursuant to State laws and not via Delegated Federal laws. Withdrawing federal authorities specially delegated to California Is compatible with president Trump supporting auto firms that build cars inside the USA. Let’s reduce federal harassment of American firms.
If it is “SECRET SCIENCE” then it is not actually science but rather guess work done by some genie with a crystal ball out a carnival van with a traveling circus, just like the Washington Post is now days !
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