[Stoves] Climate Change Disappear from USEPA website

Sun May 7 23:50:01 CDT 2017

This is a grossly misleading subject line, Darpan.

The Washington Post headline only claims that "
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/04/the-epa-is-reviewing-its-climate-change-website-these-scientists-say-it-was-already-accurate/>The
EPA climate website taken down for review was accurate, scientists say".
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/04/the-epa-is-reviewing-its-climate-change-website-these-scientists-say-it-was-already-accurate/>

That's an allegation by some scientists. The review will probably confirm
that the scientific information provided was accurate. Or that it was
accurate but incomplete, or but accurate, complete, and still misleading as
to policy implications.

Review of science need not be limited to scientists. Not when there are
economic and political implications and scientists take sides. (In the
Supreme Court litigation on GHG regulations, scientists took both sides. )

>From what I remember of the EPA website, all the scientific information
there was secondary or tertiary, and can be obtained at many other places.
I have my doubts about whether EPA, a regulatory - and hence, a political -
agency should have anything to do with climate change in the first place.
Its "Endangerment Finding" and "Social Cost of Carbon" are sterling
examples of politics, not science.

Science thrives on reviews and re-reviews. I remember back in 2001, George
W. Bush White House asked for a review by the National Academy of Sciences,
in particular, "Is IPCC process politicized?

Such gross stupidity. Asking scientists, "Are you political tools?" got the
answer the White House deserved, "No, IPCC process is not politicized".

In fact, the review (about 20 pages) was a masterpiece of political
writing,with wonderful hedging and acknowledging of uncertainties, if not
disputes among scientists. (Such disputes are avoided by simply not
acknowledging them. So what is not written in reviews can be as important
as, or more important than, what is written.)

Same with newspaper stories. Here, Calderia says"he’s never heard of any
climate scientist objecting to any information on the website. "

So what? Scott Pruitt as a lawyer wants a review; it's his obligation and
prerogative.

The reporters mention the archived EPA website claiming "“humans are
largely responsible for recent climate change” but that Scott Pruit "has
publicly stated that he does not agree that human activity is a “primary
contributor” to current climate change."

By IPCC definition, climate change is a multi-decadal phenomenon, and
manifests itself in many ways, GMST average over multiple decades being one
such.

EPA - or IPCC, for that matter - does not have a point measure for "recent"
or "current" climate change. IPCC 2014 said that GMST increase since 2000
was not statistically significant. On the other hand, CO2 concentration in
the atmosphere keeps on increasing and we have had both extreme temperature
highs and other weather events.

Just how much of the computed 0.8 C average decadal GMST increase is
attributable to manmade activities? There is no number, just the mantra
"largely responsible for."

And remember, as in the case of PM2.5 emission rates from cookstoves and
purported health risks, i) emissions do not mean damage, ii)
attributability is not causality, and iii) the attributable is not
necessarily preventable.

Washington Post went opinion-shopping to market its biases. Huber's
complaints are ridiculous; people have to protect their health not
according to EPA's promulgations on climate change but by all other

Oh, well. Climate change is a political phenomenon. I will be happy if
"Social Cost of Carbon" is declared to be zero. I can compute it so for a
few million dollars. Just like EPA scientists and contractors did for their
numbers.

EPA is singularly responsible for intellectual confusion about the extent
of damage, attributability, and preventability. A review of EPA's climate
and stove operations was long overdue.

While Trump unleashes a nuclear winter.

Nikhil

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(India +91) 909 995 2080
*Skype: nikhildesai888*

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 7 May 2017 03:02:33 +0530
From: Darpan Das <darpandasiitb at gmail.com>
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
        <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: [Stoves] Climate Change Disappear from USEPA website
Message-ID:
        <CAGcGVkHTHwXFeDxkS6yWvZyQos6cfzCqnJD0CSX-+BvL8fh6wg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Article from Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/
wp/2017/05/04/the-epa-is-reviewing-its-climate-change-
website-these-scientists-say-it-was-already-accurate/?utm_term=.356e8311389a

Regards
Darpan
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