As planet-warming gases reach levels not previously seen in human history, the Trump administration’s bid to restrict how federal scientists conduct the next National Climate Assessment risks delaying urgent action required to curb emissions and climate change. But the administration effort could also backfire, becoming yet another loss for a president whose deregulatory efforts struggle to meet basic legal standards while hardening the resolve of career government researchers trying to uphold the scientific method.
Last fall, the White House released the second volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a 13-agency analysis of peer-reviewed climate science required by Congress at least every four years. The release cast a shadow over President Donald Trump’s historic assault on environmental regulations and buttressed the United Nations’ dire and widely reported warnings released a month earlier. The National Climate Assessment projected disease, death and destruction due to extreme weather, sea level rise and disruptions to ecological systems. It was no surprise when the Trump administration published the report on Black Friday, the shopping bonanza following Thanksgiving, in what many interpreted as a cynical ploy to bury the report.
Now environmental advocates are questioning officials’ suggestion that the White House might change the methodology of the next report in response to scrutiny the administration didn’t expect to receive over the last one. Admitting he hadn’t yet read the full assessment, Andrew Wheeler, then the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, accused the 300 scientists who authored the National Climate Assessment of political bias and vowed to “take a look at the modeling” to ensure “more realistic projections.” To view the full article visit the HuffPost.