“The Trump administration has taken action on some of the think tank’s top priorities, like announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, approving the Keystone XL pipeline, moving toward axing President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and proposing to dramatically scale back climate change research across the government…. And Heartland isn’t done yet. It’s asking for plenty more.”
Joe Bast is a winner–and he has taken retirement after countless days, nights, weekends, and holidays fighting against the statist mainstream. As I wrote earlier this year at MasterResource.
JOSEPH BAST: Where would the contra-IPCC movement be without the founder and head of the Heartland Institute, whose many conferences have given hope and solace to the critics of the fake consensus of climate alarm and forced energy transformation? Joe Bast went where fellow libertarians feared to tread, and it appears that (via his Jay Lehr) he captured the attention of the 45th and current President of the United States (priceless!).…
“The spat in Bonn highlights what many opponents of the Paris Agreement believed: the global climate crusade is really about redistributing global wealth.”
“Expect European governments to announce revised carbon reduction targets, as their inability to reach their 2020 targets becomes clear. Kicking the ball down the road and focusing on the new goals makes it easier to avoid explaining why earlier targets were missed. Next year will likely usher in an era of environmental mea culpas from Europe.”
Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, reported that the organization’s members’ carbon emissions increased last year by 1.8% compared to 2016.
The performance of the individual countries was mixed. Among the five countries accounting for 10% or more of total EU emissions, three were up significantly, one was essentially flat, and one was down materially.…
“Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science (STRS) will improve, not harm, the EPA’s mission to protect Americans from real environmental risks. It will also reduce the risks caused by unjustified but costly regulations. It should be adopted.”
What would you say if a major government agency imposed regulations on the basis of “scientific studies” that couldn’t be tested because their authors wouldn’t make the data, methods, and computer codes available?
“Sure, and I’ve got a bridge to sell you down in the Everglades!”
That’d be about the right response. Followed by, “Nothing doing, buster! We taxpayers pay for the research, and the agency burdens us based on it, you’d jolly well better make it public. Period.”
And you’d be absolutely right.
Background
For decades, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has built new regulations on studies whose authors refuse to grant access to their data, computer code, and methodology.…