OMB Memo Criticizes EPA CO2 Ruling
Auto industry supporters claim the EPA’s new dominion over CO2 regulations could be disastrous for the troubled industry. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) agrees. Well, they did. A freshly leaked Bush-era memo reveals the agency had a major beef or two with the EPA’s recent ruling that carbon dioxide is—and should be regulated as—a pollutant. According to John Broder of the NYT, the document concludes that the EPA’s CO2 ruling “was not based on a systematic analysis of costs and benefits and fell short of scientific rigor on a number of issues.” Complaints with the ruling range from insufficient proof of C02’s harmful environmental effects to the negative economic impacts of C02 regulation (there’s your auto angle again).
Under fire from Republicans who allege that the EPA ruling put politics over science, OMB director Peter Orszag tells Politico that the finding was “carefully rooted in both law and science.” “These collected comments were not necessarily internally consistent, since they came from multiple sources, and they do not necessarily represent the views of either OMB or the administration,” says Orszag. “In general, passing along these types of comments to an agency proposing a finding often helps to improve the quality of the notice.” In other words, this is not your smoking gun.
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@psarhjinian : May 14th, 2009 at 11:16 am @Pch101 : May 14th, 2009 at 11:27 am Thank you for your non-abusive replies. @psarhjinian : I don't think the majority of skeptics are trying to invalidate the whole concept, from what I've read so far they are trying to point out problems with the models used and errors in the results. @Pch101 : I appreciate your opinion. I agree that Climate change is not particularly controversial within the scientific community, I think scientists proved long ago that our climate does change, for example at one time New York was under a mile of ice and the Sahara desert was once a lush jungle. I don't disagree that it's possible that some work is biased by different industries but the same can be said for proponents of CO2 based AGW. The UN and several other experts stand to lose a lot if they are shown to be wrong. Would it not be better to have all sides of the story? It's entirely possible there is some truth in the IPCC study but after 4 or 5 series of reviews people are still finding flaws in the research which suggests to me that the work needs to be reexamined before governments go making decisions based on it.
Since my "inflammatory" post got removed, I'll just comment briefly on the strategy of deniers. - from what I’ve read so far they are trying to point out problems with the models used and errors in the results. The reports referred to are fake ones. This is because most people do not have the background to evaluate the material, thus the primary deniers are take advantage of people's ignorance. Just like with evolution, they are asking for equal time for demonstrably false material. Judge for yourselves the reaction this sort of despicable behavior deserves. - It’s entirely possible there is some truth in the IPCC study but after 4 or 5 series of reviews people are still finding flaws in the research which suggests to me that the work needs to be reexamined before governments go making decisions based on it. Notice the repetition of assertions that someone (me I this case) have already offered to disprove, without any binding interest in the truth. The general idea is if one fake claim is refuted, they bring up another one and so on, which is why binding deniers to specific claims is important. It's clear the best deniers can offer is an "opinion", ones that are clearly and easily refuted, in hopes that the repetition and sheer volume of garbage will sway readers more than evidence.
As for monckton's supposed "mathematical" proof, it's quite littered with deliberate errors. This one major numerical error: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/moncktons_triple_counting.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink But in a brief scan there's an even more idiotic one. Here's what he claims as a primary finding: The IPCC overstates the value of the base climate sensitivity parameter for a similar reason. Indeed, its methodology would in effect repeal the fundamental equation of radiative transfer (Eqn. 18), yielding the impossible result that at every level of the atmosphere ever-smaller forcings would induce ever-greater temperature increases, even in the absence of any temperature feedbacks. What is Equation 18? Its Stefan-Boltzmann black body equation, which is transfer through a vacuum, which is not quite what an atmosphere is. It's terribly revealing of his ignorance since even looking up "the fundamental equation of radioactive transfer" on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_transfer) would reveal what is used for basic atmospheric calcs. As for more fake reports from the same author: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/ -- So, I think it's pretty clear that the guy's an idiot, AND a pathological liar, and that is best evidence the AGW deniers can come up with.