On Trump and Government Scientists

In Another Trump environmental outrage that was under the radar, the New Jersey Star-Ledger blasted the Trump Administration’s new policy on the hiring of scientists for the federal Environmental Protection Agency:

Even before he pulled the plug on the Paris Climate accord, there was an equally chilling assault on science waged by President Trump.

It was orchestrated by Scott Pruitt, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency who recently decided that the agency responsible for protecting the environment and human health should be recast as a steward for the fossil fuel and chemical industries.

Accordingly, Pruitt fired some scientists who were not on board with this new mission.

The Board of Scientific Counselors is an 18-member panel that is tasked with meeting once a year to review the EPA's research and development efforts related to tracking global warming - no use for that - and protecting air and water purity.

But nine of them were sacked by Pruitt, leaving 13 of the 18 seats vacant, and his plan is to replace them with scientists from the private sector who oppose government regulation of those industries.

My emphasis. Translated, this means that only “scientists” that promote the Left’s climate catastrophism dogma are welcome at the EPA. Those who differ with, dissent from, or oppose the climate catastrophist agenda are “climate deniers” or industry shills and not to be considered.

I left these comments:

Industry scientists may be biased? Fair enough. But why should we assume that the integrity of the fired scientists is beyond dispute? Scientists can just as easily be biased against business and free enterprise. Government policy should not be shaped by them, either. Statists always recoil whenever anyone considers unregulating, as if regulations are good, simply because they are government regulations. But what if the motive is anti-business or anti-prosperity?

That said, pollution is one thing. Climate change is something entirely different. Climate science has become the God of the Left’s environmentalist religion. Environmentalism is based on the faith-based notion that nature is inherently “pristine” and any human action that upsets some precarious and perfect “balance of nature” is by that very fact immoral and catastrophic. There is no evidence of that. Nature is tumultuous and resilient. Furthermore, nature is brutal, not pristine, to humans. That’s why humans must alter the environment through science, productive work, and technology in order to live and prosper. Thus, environmentalism is anti-humanist and immoral for putting “pristine balance of nature” above human well being. Merged with Leftist socialism, you have a perfect storm of tyranny: Humans are changing the climate. Therefore, by that very fact of change, human activity must be shackled and controlled by a supreme central authority, which of course—like the eugenicists of a century ago—has the unassailable stamp of approval of science behind it.

But science is not an authority. It is meant to inform with knowledge, and always be open to challenge and dissent. Here, the dishonesty as a tool of the Left is on display. For proof, consider this Star-Ledger statement: “His EPA puppet suggested that global warming is not related to human activity, despite 97 percent of scientific studies affirming that link.” I watched Pruitt’s press conference after Trump’s Paris withdrawal speech. Pruitt clearly stated his position: The climate is warming, and humans play a role. How much of a role is inconclusive.

Pruitt’s position is consistent with the much-exploited 97% consensus. It’s a broad, essentially meaningless consensus as it applies to government climate policies. That’s why Pruitt soberly stated that these facts do not automatically indicate any particular policies that must be adopted.

The general consensus doesn’t tell you whether drastic statist action to radically alter human economic activity is the way to go, or if free market pro-growth policies that enable humans to adapt and grow prosperous are the better way to go. Ronald Bailey, in his book The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty First Century,” analyzes many studies that indicate that it is much less costly and much better suited to human flourishing to adapt to climate change than to drastically alter the economy to try to slow down the warming. Progress would in turn make it much easier to develop and deploy the innovative technologies that would be needed should climate change become a serious problem down the road.

Climate change is real. Climate catastrophism is pure speculation, not scientifically demonstrated. But pro-humanist, pro-free market, pro-prosperity solutions are anathema to the Left. Hence the smear mongering, wild exaggerations, and blind dismissal of dissenters. The Left favors drastic action, like the “Clean Power Plan,” which is worse than Germany’s catastrophic “clean energy” scheme that brought energy poverty to so many Germans and now has Germany building new clean coal plants to compensate, while saddling the country with a $100 billion “green energy” boondoggle.This is the same Clean Power Plan under which the state AGs for Clean Power are trying, in true fascist fashion, to throw “climate dissenters” into prison.

Science is invoked by environmentalist statists like religionists invoke God—as a Final Authority to end debate, silence dissenters, and as a tool to push an anti capitalist (i.e. anti-freedom) transition to socialist statism by means of energy industry controls. It’s a breath of fresh air to finally see the statist narrative of the climate change theocrats challenged. Kudos to Trump on his Paris Accord withdrawal.

Related Reading:

‘Climate Denier’: The Leitmotif of the Climate Propagandist

Who is the Real ‘Science Denier’?

Politics, Science, and National Unity

Anti-Concept ‘Science Denier’ Exposes Climate Witch Doctors’ Fear of Rational Counter-Argumentation

America’s ‘Science Problem,’ America’s Ideology Problem

What Word Comes to Mind from the New Government Climate Report? Nonobjective

Still Peddling the “97%” Myth