National Academy of Sciences Reviews Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has released a review concerning the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) claims about the dangers of greenhouse gases. Many might have seen this result coming.
The NAS’s report not only reaffirms the EPA’s 2009 findings but also suggests that the evidence regarding harmful greenhouse gas emissions has actually intensified since then. So, how did they arrive at this conclusion?
The Trump administration put forth the idea to revoke the findings on August 1st, and the NAS announced its review just a week later, on August 7th. It’s worth noting what NAS President Marcia McNutt had to say regarding the community’s outcry for addressing the climate crisis back in April 2020: “Y’all have that backwards. The Charter states that the government is asking the academies to conduct research.”
On August 7th, a public deadline for submitting comments was set for August 27th. However, it appears that the NAS committee engaged in meetings a few weeks prior to the public comment period. These initial discussions took place on August 20th, followed by more on August 25th-26th, and then again from September 1st-5th, leading to a final meeting on September 12th.
This led the climate watchdog group, CO2 Coalition, to point out that all committee members had been flagged. They submitted objections before the September 11th deadline, only to find that the committee had already concluded its sessions in private.
The CO2 Coalition includes several NAS members, and their concerns seem to have been overlooked. Just days after the comment period closed, the final report from the initial committee was released.
The committee’s secretive meetings spanned ten days, but despite being tasked with reviewing extensive climate research, they only cited 573 studies within the 137-page report. This number, while appearing significant, actually represents a tiny fraction of the climate studies published since 2009. Moreover, expecting a committee of 15 members to adequately review this volume of research in just ten business days seems a bit questionable.
The tone and quality of the report can be sensed right from its preface. It mentions recent climate disasters and severe weather patterns as the backdrop against which the committee conducted its work. However, it strangely fails to attribute these events directly to emissions or global warming, pointing out that similar conditions occurred decades earlier.
While a full critique of the NAS report would require more space than available here, one glaring issue stands out. The report states that heat waves have increased since the 1960s, but it notably omits another graph that indicates a significant decline in heatwaves beginning from the 1930s.
From its process to its content, the NAS’s report seems flawed. It’s hard to shake the impression that its aim is to hinder Trump’s energy policies. While this report focuses solely on the fossil fuel aspect of those policies, one might suspect a similar lack of integrity towards issues concerning nuclear energy as well.
Considering that about two-thirds of NAS’s funding comes from the federal government, it raises questions about its accountability. Perhaps it’s time for President Trump to reconsider this funding and allow the NAS to choose between credible science and questionable methodologies.
