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The Climate Change Thread

Seems like a natural entry for this climate change thread. I think it’s actually an even more natural entry in the New Dark Age thread. The administration’s climate report is 100% pseudoscience. Based on debunked claims. A report that demonstrates this administration is an enemy of human knowledge. And that’s 100% “dark ages” stuff. This is on the level of “Trump says the world really is flat, and his latest EO instructs all new maps to reflect this”.

But, here it is in the climate thread….


A new Trump administration report which attempts to justify a mass rollback of environmental regulations is chock-full of climate misinformation, experts say.

On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposal to undo the 2009 “endangerment finding”, which allows the agency to limit planet-heating pollution from cars and trucks, power plants and other industrial sources. Hours later, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a 150-page report defending the proposal, claiming scientific concern about the climate crisis is overblown.

Climate change is a challenge – not a catastrophe,” wrote the energy secretary, Chris Wright, in the report’s introduction.

The esteemed climate scientist Michael Mann said the report was akin to the result he would expect “if you took a chatbot and you trained it on the top 10 fossil fuel industry-funded climate denier websites”.

The energy department published the report hours after the EPA announced a plan to roll back 2009’s “endangerment finding”, a seminal ruling that provided the legal basis for the agency to regulate climate-heating pollution under the Clean Air Act. If finalized, the move would topple virtually all US climate regulation.

In a Fox News interview, Wright claimed the report pushed back on the “cancel culture Orwellian squelching of science”. But Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University and expert in climate misinformation, said its true purpose was to “justify what is a scientifically unjustifiable failure to regulate fossil fuels”.

“Science is the basis for climate regulation, so now they are trying to replace legitimate science with pseudoscience,” she said…..

……Mainstream climate scientists, however, condemned the findings as distorted and inaccurate. “This is a report written by a couple of scientists who are outliers in their arguments for climate change,” said Natalie Mahowald, a climate scientist at Cornell University. “This document does in no way depreciate the value of previous assessments, but rather just cherrypicks the literature to pretend to create a new review.”

Mahowald said the lack of peer review meant it was “obviously not as robust” as the IPCC report or the US government’s periodic national climate assessment, which the Trump administration recently took offline. The latest national climate assessment, compiled by a dozen government agencies and outside scientists in 2023, concluded that the “effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States”

“If almost any other group of scientists had been chosen, the report would have been dramatically different,” Andrew Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A&M University, said of the new report. “The only way to get this report was to pick these authors.”

Hausfather agreed that the authors’ work “might represent their views but is not consistent with the broader scientific literature on climate change”. He was among the scientists whose work the authors cited.

The new paper includes a chart from a 2019 report which he led, claiming it demonstrates how climate models “consistently overestimated observations” of atmospheric carbon. But Hausfather’s research actually showed that climate models have performed well.

“They appear to have discarded the whole paper as not fitting their narrative, and instead picked a single figure that was in the supplementary materials to cast doubt on models when the whole paper actually confirmed how well they have performed in the years after they were published,” he said. The energy department did not respond to a request for comment about Hausfather’s concerns.

That approach to research seems to underpin the entire paper, said Hausfather, who is also the climate research lead at tech company Stripe.

“This is a general theme in the report; they cherrypick data points that suit their narrative and exclude the vast majority of the scientific literature that does not,” he said.

(THIS: the administrations climate report should be titled: “In Defense of Carbon Dioxide”):

“The report they produced should be thought of as a law brief from attorneys defending their client, carbon dioxide,” Dessler said. “Their goal is not to weigh the evidence fairly but to build the strongest possible case for CO2’s innocence.”

The lack of peer review in the administration’s report led to conclusions that deviated, sometimes wildly, from the scientific literature. Many of its claims are based on long-debunked research long promoted by climate deniers, said Mann.

“It is shop worn, decades-old, discredited climate denier talking points, dressed up in the clothing of some sensible new set of revelations,” he said. “What’s different is that it has the imprimatur of the EPA and the federal government now.”

The report, for instance claims that warming trends have been overstated, despite evidence to the contrary. It was published as extreme heat is affecting millions of Americans.

“They’re literally trying to tell us not to believe what we see with our own two eyes … and instead buy into their denialist framing that rejects not just the science, but what is plainly evident if you look out your window,” said Mann.

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All part of Project 2025, as described in this paper. I personally doubt we will avoid the worst effects of a warming planet, but Project 2025, and Trump’s climate report are an effort to help ensure the Earth will be less hospitable to human life as the 21st century unfolds.

 
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The White House has instructed NASA employees to terminate two major, climate change-focused satellite missions.

As NPR reports, Trump officials reached out to the space agency to draw up plans for terminating the two missions, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatories. They've been collecting widely-used data, providing both oil and gas companies and farmers with detailed information about the distribution of carbon dioxide and how it can affect crop health.

One is attached to the International Space Station, and the other is collecting data as a stand-alone satellite. The latter would meet its permanent demise after burning up in the atmosphere if the mission were to be terminated.

We can only speculate as to why the Trump administration wants to end the missions. But considering president Donald Trump's staunch climate change denial and his administration's efforts to deal the agency's science directorate a potentially existential blow, it's not difficult to speculate.

Worse yet, the two observatories had been expected to function for many more years, scientists working on them told NPR. A 2023 review by NASA concluded that the data they'd been providing had been "of exceptionally high quality."

The observatories provide detailed carbon dioxide measurements across various locations, allowing scientists to get a detailed glimpse of how human activity is affecting greenhouse gas emissions.

Former NASA employee David Crisp, who worked on the Orbiting Carbon Observatories' instruments, told NPR that current staffers reached out to him.

They were asking me very sharp questions," he said. "The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan."

Crisp said it "makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data," pointing out it costs only $15 million per year to maintain both observatories, a tiny fraction of the agency's $25.4 billion budget.

Other scientists who've used data from the missions have also been asked questions related to terminating the missions.

The two observatories are only two of dozens of space missions facing existential threats in the form of the Trump administration's proposed 2026 fiscal year budget. Countless scientists have been outraged by the proposal, arguing it could precipitate an end to the United States' leadership in space.
 
Microplastics are a huge enviornmental problem. For everything living. So much microplastic in our own brains can’t be good….


 
OK, back to facts….So much unambiguous evidence of rapidly warming oceans, yet we still have ignorant nitwits, especially among Trump supporters, carrying on about how we are not seeing what we are seeing. Led by Trump of course: “climate change is a hoax”. That’s like saying the sun rises in the west, and passing a law declaring the sun will no longer rise in the East. There is no denying global warming, caused by humans, at this stage of the game. And since it’s happening, and it’s harmful to humans(not to mention all life on Earth), Trump is truly guilty of “crimes against humanity” in adopting his falsehoods, and insisting his Big Lie of “global warming is a hoax” will be our official position.

We need to remember something. It’s not mentioned often, what with all the other daily outrages, but it’s a truly important point to make, since it establishes the most accurate assessment of what Trump represents this. It’s impirtant to realize this:

DONALD TRUMP IS THE ENEMY OF ALL LIFE ON EARTH. It’s that simple, that fundamental. He is clearly not only the worst president in our nation’s history, he is truly one of the most EVIL men alive today. Future generations will universally recognize this fact.

Donald Trump puts fossil fuel industry profits above life on Earth. Profits supersede human health, human survival, the survival of many forms of life, all our fellow travelers on this precious planet. That is EVIL. It ain’t over yet, this national nightmare, but make no mistake: history will remember Trump as one of the most evil human beings alive in our era, doing damage that all future generations will recognize as EVIL, even as misguided and delusional fanboys of Trump demonstrate how easy it is for humans to be stupid, because their weak minds see only what they want to see…..


In 2023, the world’s oceans endured the most extreme and prolonged marine heatwaves in recorded history, with some lasting over 500 days and covering nearly the entire globe.

These unprecedented temperature spikes devastated coral reefs, disrupted marine food chains, and threatened global fisheries.

Unprecedented Ocean Heat in 2023​

The marine heatwaves (MHWs) that swept across the globe in 2023 were unlike anything seen before in terms of strength, persistence, and size, according to a new scientific analysis. Researchers have identified the regional factors behind these extraordinary events and linked them to broader shifts in Earth’s climate system. Their work also raises concerns that the planet may be edging toward a climate tipping point. MHWs are extended periods when ocean temperatures soar far above normal levels.

Such episodes can cause serious harm to ocean life, triggering widespread coral bleaching and large-scale die-offs. They also threaten economies by disrupting fishing and aquaculture. Experts widely agree that human-driven climate change is causing both the frequency and severity of MHWs to rise sharply.

A Global Wave of Extremes​

In 2023, vast stretches of the North Atlantic, Tropical Pacific, South Pacific, and North Pacific were gripped by extreme MHWs. While the impacts were clear, the precise causes behind the timing, duration, and strengthening of these widespread events have not been fully understood.

To investigate, Tianyun Dong and colleagues conducted a detailed global study using a combination of satellite data and ocean reanalysis, including high-resolution information from the ECCO2 (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean-Phase II) project.


 
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Scientists recognize the crimes being committed by Trump….Imagine thinking Trump somehow knows more than climate scientists? This is a totalitarian attempting to rewrite history. Just as he has done with our political history over the past 10 years, twisted into a number of Orwellian fascist Big Lies, so he is doing the same with climate science. Rewriting past climate reports to reflect his political preferences over good science! This is why he is guilty of crimes against humanity when he ignores a warming planet……


The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, is facing growing criticism from scientists who say their “worst fears” were realized when Wright revealed that the Trump administration would “update” the US’s premier climate crisis reports.

Wright, a former oil and gas executive, told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins earlier this week that the administration was reviewing national climate assessment reports published by past governments.

Produced by scientists and peer-reviewed, there have been five national climate assessment (NCA) reports since 2000 and they are considered the gold standard report of global heating and its impacts on human health, agriculture, water supplies and air pollution.

“We’re reviewing them, and we will come out with updated reports on those and with comments on those reports,” said Wright, who is one of the main supporters of the administration’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda to boost fossil fuels, which are the primary cause of the climate crisis.


Make no mistake. These actions are criminal. Undermining good, solid science to promote policy that represents encouraging harm to future generations from global warming is a crime. Against the human race. Against all life on Earth.


Esteemed climate scientist Michael Mann said the report was akin to the result he would expect “if you took a chat bot and you trained it on the top 10 fossil fuel industry-funded climate denier websites.”

The Energy Department published the report hours after the EPA announced a plan to roll back the “endangerment finding,” a seminal ruling that provided the legal basis for the agency to regulate climate-heating pollution under the Clean Air Act. If finalized, the move would topple virtually all US climate regulation.

In a Fox News interview, Wright claimed the report pushes back on the “cancel culture Orwellian squelching of science.” But Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University and expert in climate misinformation, said its true purpose is to “justify what is a scientifically unjustifiable failure to regulate fossil fuels.”

“Science is the basis for climate regulation, so now they are trying to replace legitimate science with pseudoscience,” she said.
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Individuals who undermine good science this way are themselves supporting crimes against the human race, and all life on Earth. And they proudly showcase their ignorance, be they trolls, or be they manipulative fascists.
 
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